“I AM as coarse a man as ever stepped in shoe-leather,” said one to whom we were presenting the gospel and pressing the necessity for instant decision.” Not so bad as one whom we are told was the chief of sinners,” we replied; “and although you were, it is the like of you that Jesus takes a special delight in saving. He wants coarse ores! Bad ones!! Will you accept Him tonight?”
D―knew the gospel well enough, and although we would have naturally thought that he would be the last to bow to it, he got blessing that night.
Like many another, he was afraid of the second step before he took the first. He thought, if he confessed Christ, he could never hold out against the taunts and jeers of his fellows.
Perhaps our reader is such an one, and would like to decide for Christ, yet is afraid of the consequences. “What will friends think or say?” Satan whispers. Beware! do not let your never-dying soul be damned through Satan’s lies, or the thoughts and sayings of friends. Accept Christ. Trust Him. He is able to keep as well as to save, as D―has found.
Standing on a country road, the claims of Christ were put before him, and he bowed to them. “Yes, I will accept Christ now,” he said, and that moment he passed out of death into life (John 5:24).
We left him, and homo he went to tell and show what great things the Lord had done for him.
To one who spoke to him the following Lord’s Day at a meeting, he said, “I would not have Leen here had there not been a great change in me.”
He went on, and amid persecution from his fellow-workmen he still stands for Jesus, rejoicing in His love, and says, “It’s grand to live for the Lord.”
Dear friend, you have not tasted the joys of heaven if you are a stranger to the love of Jesus.
D — tasted the joys of the world, and said they could not satisfy; and the writer can corroborate that statement:
“I tried the broken cisterns, Lord,
But ah! the waters failed;
E’en as I stooped to drink, they fled,
And mocked me as I wailed.
Now none but Christ can satisfy,
None other name for me;
There’s love and light and lasting joy,
Lord Jesus, found in Thee.”
You may be drinking at the streams of earthly pleasure, and miss the well of water offered to you in the gospel; and if you had yourself la eternity without a drop of water to cool your parched tongue, you will have no one to blame but yourself.
Hurry, now! Perhaps the door of mercy may be turning on its hinges; this very moment press in, ere it be too late. Woe, eternal woe, will be the portion of those found outside the door of heaven. That portion need not be yours. Jesus took the sinner’s place that we might share the glories of His Father’s house. Trust Him now. Tomorrow may never be. Trust the loving Saviour now. Believe on His blessed name, and you will find One who will stand by you in time and eternity. R. P.