A PREACHER when before an audience was reading a hymn beginning, “Oh! to be nothing, nothing.”
When he came to the end of the line he suddenly stopped, and said, “This is mere sentiment,” and drawing himself up, exclaimed— “Oh! to be something, something!”
These words no doubt found or stirred an echo in many of his hearers, for to wish to be “something” is natural to man as he is. He cannot afford to be nothing in a world like this, nor stoop to be saved on such a ground. Who has not desired to obtain a name in this world, to be elevated and distinguished in it in some way or other, and to acquire its riches, honors, glory and power? to be “something, something!”? Yet what is this something worth, even if attained, if it shuts out the soul from God for time and for eternity? It is the despised, the nothings, and the nobodies, who are fit subjects for the grace of God. “Base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are; that no flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Cor. 1:28, 2928And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29That no flesh should glory in his presence. (1 Corinthians 1:28‑29)).
An aged servant of Christ was sitting next a young man one day, the bent and purpose of whose mind he readily discerned, and knowing the danger he was in, he just put his hand on his knee, and said to him, “Here is one who means to try what a good slice of the world can do for him before he turns to Christ.”
This too finds an echo in the heart of man, and this “good slice of the world” is to both young and old what deludes and entices them, and they will barter their soul’s salvation for it. God, who alone can estimate the soul’s value, and what the world is, has summed it all up, and puts the solemn question direct to every conscience: “What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? and what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
When this is in question, there is ever the ready excuse that business and present things must be attended to. Convictions are stifled, and the soul’s salvation is put off to a more convenient season. The gentle entreating hand of grace is thrust aside, for men are “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.”
The danger for such is, and it is great, lest the voice of conscience being unheeded they should be content to go on without God, and become at last submerged by the rising waves of infidelity, which are advancing rapidly and are spreading far and wide, and which they would shrink from now.
How terrible the thought that the love of God which Christ came to make known, that the redemption which He died to accomplish, and the salvation so freely offered, should be set aside for what is deemed present advantage, and that the world, which is but a land of famine for the soul, should carry the day!
“Room for pleasures, room for business;
But for Christ the crucified —
Not a place that He can enter,
In the heart for which He died.”
Do not trifle with the grace of God, but be wise in time; and may real conviction be wrought in your soul, as it was in the young man who was intent on trying what “a good slice of the world” could do for him before he turned to Christ. It was a word fitly spoken to him, and brought him into the light, discovering himself to himself; and the result was that he was brought to God. May it work a like conviction in any one to whom such a state may apply, and may you too turn to God as he did, — “to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven.”
Seek not to be “something, something.” “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.”
Now, in this day of His grace, He is found of all that seek Him. He left the glory above to come down here, not to build men up in themselves, or that they might make themselves a name in this world; but to seek and to save that which was lost, to save them from hell, and to save them for heaven and eternal glory.
Is there a soul whose eyes have been opened to what this world is, and — weary with its sin and strife and confusion, weary of its ways and principles, and of its spirit which hastes to be rich — who would find something beyond and above all its hollowness and unreality — one who is seeking to know God? The Saviour is seeking you, speaking peace to you, — the peace which He has made “through the blood of His cross.” Oh! trust Him, that you may know the rest and joy of an abiding place in the love and favor of God, as an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ.
Could a “good slice of the world,” or to be something in it, weigh with this, — with a conscience cleansed by the blood of Christ, and the certainty, which faith in the Word of God gives, of being with Him in heaven forever?
Is there anything in this wide world to be put for a moment in comparison with a mind at perfect peace with God — with knowing Christ and following Him? Away be the thought. He alone is worthy. All that man seeks after, the Lord Jesus is alone worthy to receive. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.”
May you be found among this redeemed company who own and bow before the worthiness of the Lamb that was slain, and who worship Him that liveth forever and ever.
“Were the whole world mine own,
With all its varied store,
And Thou, Lord Jesus, wert unknown,
I still were poor.”
M. V.