Oliver was wandering up and down the main street of the town on a fine evening. He was a clean-living boy, and didn’t spend his evenings in not, the way some of the others from the shop did. Presently he heard the sound of lusty singing, and noticed a crowd beginning to gather on a nearby street corner. He hurried along and joined the crowd, and soon was listening to an open-air gospel message. Perhaps the reader of this paper has heard street-corner messengers, and has felt it a waste of time to stop and listen. But Oliver felt that it was worth while, and so he stayed and heard the story of God’s love.
At the close of the meeting, the little group sang “Thou wouldest be saved why not tonight?” These words made him think deeply. Oliver had been, brought up carefully and, although he was looked up to as a fine young boy he knew that he was not saved. As he walked homeward, those words kept repeating themselves to him over and over, “Why not tonight?”
As soon as he reached home, he went to his mother and said, “Mother, who is it that you and I are not saved? Mother thought a moment and then said, “But Oliver, you and I have never done very much that is wrong and hope we shall go to heaven when we die.”
But this didn’t suit Oliver. He knew that all needed to be saved, because all have sinned. So he went quietly to his room and started to read his Bible. He hunted for a verse that might give him to know that he was saved, and at last he came to the story of the jailed at Philippi in Acts 16. He read it carefully, and when he came to the jailer question to Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”—he knew he was near his answer, and he read eagerly,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt he saved.”
Then and there he knelt by his bed with the open Bible before him, and he thanked God for the gift of the Lord Jesus. He believed on the Lord Jesus as his own Saviour, and rose up saved and forgiven boy. Happily he hurried to his mother again and told her the good news that all his sins were forgiven and that he was now saved. Have you ever told anyone that? Are your sins forgiven?
“Mother,” he said, “When I am called to meet God, I will tell Him that my only title to be in heaven that the Lord Jesus died for me, and He is my own Saviour.”
The next morning he was still full of the joy of his salvation as he left for work. But that mother never saw Oliver alive again. That very afternoon he met with an accident at work and in a few moments was in eternity.
Oliver didn’t know when he stopped to listen to the gospel message on the street corner that it was his last chance to hear it. And you may be reading this paper quite careless as to whether you are truly saved or not. But it may be your last message! “Thou wouldest he saved, why not tonight?”
ML 02/11/1951