“YOU might call at that big house a little way down the road; Miss G — might be induced to go to the Town Hall tonight, as she knows your uncle very well.”
A few Gospel services were being held in this little town, and my informant was under the impression that the old lady in question might possibly forego her late dinner for once, and break through all her hard and fast rules, by going to hear the Word of God preached in an unconsecrated building. A bold step, no doubt, and a rude shock to all her sense of religious propriety; but curiosity, that important factor of the human race, might in this case gain the day. And did we not well know, that many who have entered a Gospel meeting for no other purpose even than to “mock” have remained behind to “pray”?
Yes, dear reader, if you really wish to be lost eternally, and really intend to go down to an everlasting hell, take my advice and never attend a Gospel service. Do not even venture to read a Gospel book. It is dangerous, I assure you! A sentence from the evangelist’s lips, even one word, as I have known on many occasions, has done its work, — God’s work, let me rather say; and the sinner who entered perfectly unconcerned, — just by accident, as he would say, — has left with an arrow fixed in his conscience, which, do what he can, no efforts of his own are able to dislodge. Thank God that He who makes the wound can heal it! But in this blessed process the enemy is turned into a child; for he who possesses a nature which is “enmity against God,” becomes a child of God “by faith in Christ Jesus.”
“The poor have the Gospel preached unto them” is a statement of God’s Word, the truth of which the longer I live becomes more and more apparent to me. It is easy to knock at a poor man’s door, and, having entered in response to the simple “Come in, please, sir,” to plunge at once into the subject of all others the most important to each and all, even if it be the most distasteful. But with the rich it is far otherwise.
However, encouraged by my friend, I determined to make the attempt. Miss G — received me courteously, though with a certain measure of stiffness, which decidedly increased when the object of my visit became known.
Very soon I made the painful discovery that she “cared for none of these things.” A churchgoer she was, a regular communicant too, but interest in Gospel work she had none. To go out for such a purpose at night was out of the question — on a week night, too! Then on Sunday she had her own church, and she did not want any more than that. In fact, the more she spoke the more evident did it become that she was one of those so forcibly described by Him who reads the heart in those withering words, “This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth,... but their heart is far from Me.”
Of whom, think you, were these words spoken? Of the careless, the godless, and the profane? Nay, but of the religious professors, who were attending, in the most scrupulous manner, to every little detail of their empty and Christless worship.
Finding all efforts in that direction hopeless, the conversation turned on the case of a young lady very ill with consumption, and whose death was almost daily expected. Remarking how sad it was to think of a young life being removed so early, and how solemn a thing death was for all, whether old or young, in view of that which comes afterward, — for “it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment,” — I ventured to ask, “Do you think Miss — is prepared for the change?”
Never shall I forget the way Miss G — drew herself up, as she exclaimed, almost shouted, — emphasizing every word, and looking at me with varying expressions of anger, surprise, and contemptuous pity for my ignorance, — “Prepared! Why, — she’s — the — Archdeacon’s — daughter!”
“I don’t see that that has anything to do with it,” said I, “for I am sorry to say that it is quite possible to be an archdeacon and yet not prepared to die. Depend upon it, if you have no better title for heaven than that, you will never get there at all.”
No other title for heaven will suffice than the precious blood of Jesus, shed on Calvary’s cross for guilty, ruined sinners. And unless you, my reader, have come down to the level of being lost and undone you cannot be saved, for only those who are lost can be saved.
Oh, if you are under this awful delusion, that because you have been baptized and confirmed, have taken the sacrament, sung in the choir, taught in the Sunday school, filled some of the offices of the church, preached in the pulpit, or in Christ’s name “done many wonderful works,” that therefore all is well with you for eternity, — may God in His great mercy sweep away this refuge of lies before it is too late, and give you to realize that you are standing before Him in all your sin and need, and to find Christ as your righteousness!
“I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance,” said the precious Saviour to those self-righteous religionists of His day, who found fault, and murmured at Him for having anything to do with “publicans and sinners.”
If you have not found out that you are a lost sinner, you stand no chance of heaven or salvation. None will be lost in eternity but those who will not own that they are lost now. But, thank God, none need be lost, “for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost,” and all that you have to do is to put your trust in Him.
A. H. B.