One afternoon mixing home from work I stopped at a neighborhood grocery store to pick up a few items. As I approached the checkout, I noticed some gospel tracts sitting there on the counter.
As my groceries were being checked out I asked the clerk, "Are you a Christian?"
Much to my surprise, she said, "I don't know. I guess I never thought about it!"
I said to her, "With all due respect, if you have to think about it then you probably are not!"
The simple fact is you can be sure. "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." 1 John 5:13.
The clerk's answer was so matter-of-fact, so casual, that it left me with the impression that this most important question in the world didn't matter one way or the other.
In God's Word, the Bible, it says: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:36.
How would you answer that question? Are you a Christian? Think about what your answer to that question is.
"COME! COME! COME "
There was once a man who was persuaded, much against his will, to attend a gospel meeting. Reluctantly he went, and as he went in they were singing the chorus of a hymn: "Come! Come! Come!"
He thought to himself that he had never seen so many fools together in his life before. The idea of all those men standing there singing, "Come! Come! Come!"
When he started home he could not get this little word out of his head; it kept coming back all the time. He stopped in a bar and ordered a drink, thinking to drown it. But he could not; it still kept coming back. Another bar, another drink, but the words kept ringing in his ears: "Come! Come! Come!"
He said to himself, "Now I am the fool for letting this bother me!" After a third bar and a third drink he finally got home.
He went to bed, but could not sleep; it seemed as if the very pillow kept whispering the words: "Come! Come! Come!" He cursed himself for going to the meeting at all.
In the morning he took up a hymnbook, found the little hymn, and read it over. "What nonsense!" he said to himself. "The idea of a grown man being disturbed by that hymn."
He declared he would never go to another of the meetings, but the next night he came again. When he got there, strange to say, they were singing the same hymn. "There is that miserable old hymn again," he said; "why did I ever come?"
Why did he come and come again? He came because God was calling him to "Come," and it was not long before he truly came to the Lord Jesus and learned the meaning of that invitation to "Come."
God is calling you, too, calling you to COME AND HEAR. "Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear, and your soul shall live." Isa. 55:3.
"Incline your ear," God says. You have sometimes seen a man who is a little deaf and cannot catch every word put his hand up to his ear and lean forward. This is the figure that the prophet uses when he says, "Incline your ear."
Man lost spiritual life and communion with his Maker by listening to the voice of the devil instead of the voice of God. We get life again by listening to God. The Word of God gives life. "The words that I speak unto you," says Christ, "they are spirit, and they are life." So what people need is to come and HEAR.
God invites you, too, to COME AND DRINK. Christ says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink."
Thank God for those words: "If any man." That does not mean merely a select few—good people, rich people, respectable people—it takes in all—drunkard, thief, murderer, any man or woman. If you will come and drink at this fountain, Christ says you shall never thirst again. He has promised to quench your thirst.
"If any man thirst." How this world is thirsting for something that will satisfy! Men and women are thirsting for something they do not have. The moment a man turns his back upon God, he begins to thirst; and that thirst will never be quenched until he returns to "the fountain of living waters."
There is a thirst this world can never satisfy; the more we drink of its pleasures, the thirstier we become. We cry out for more and more, and we are all the while being dragged down lower and lower. But there is "a fountain opened... for sin and for uncleanness." Let us press up to it and drink and live.
One more invitation: COME AND REST. The Lord Jesus says, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matt. 11:28.
God does not sell rest. If He did, we would not be rich enough to buy, but we can all take a gift. The gift Jesus wants to give is rest: rest for time, and rest for eternity. Every weary soul may have this rest if he will, but you must come to Christ and get it. Nowhere else can this rest be found.
Come and hear.
Come and drink.
Come and rest.
Come—come—come!