Part 2.
THE four ways God takes to reach man’s soul are very interesting.
First, “God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not” (vs. 14), The voice of God has been heard by you. He has spoken, and you have not heeded. Perhaps twice this very week you have heard the voice of God through His Word. Tell me, are you converted yet? Have you come to Jesus yet? No, you have not! You are then still unsaved. You have heard the word of God, but you have not perceived it; you have let it go by you unheeded.
Some of us, who know the Lord, can look back and remember how many times He spoke to us and we did not listen. We were engulfed by the whirlpool of gaiety and pleasure, and His word was nothing to us, His voice was not perceived. But has He given you up, given up His pursuit of your soul? No; and if His voice has been till now unheeded and uncared for, let me urge you to come to Jesus now: listen to His voice this hour, I beseech you.
Though you may have fortune, favor, yea, everything that the world can place at your feet, you know that anything this world can give cannot fill your heart. Your heart is empty still, if you have not Christ! You are unblessed still, if you have not Christ! You are unsaved still, if you have not Christ! You are lost, lost, if you have not Christ! You do not like the word “lost”? But it is true. Does it sound harsh? God says it. There is no middle ground; the word of God fixes you either still among the lost, still among the dead, still among the unsaved, without Christ; or found, alive, saved, having Christ. “This my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found,” says the Father (Luke 15:2424For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. (Luke 15:24)). Do not turn and seek to apply this to your neighbor. It is, you I am talking to. You. I want your soul, just now, for Christ.
You may say, “Why are you so much in earnest, why are you so anxious?” I will tell you. I am persuaded of the reality of heaven and its blessedness; I am persuaded of the reality of hell and its torments; I am persuaded of the reality of the salvation of God, ―and can I be anything else but earnest, very much in earnest? I beg of you, awake! I entreat you by the terrors of a coming judgment-day. I entreat you by the light of an open heaven. I entreat you by the darkness of that gloomy scene the portals of hell disclose. I implore you where you are just now, affectionately implore you, entreat you―pause, consider, rush not headlong into that terrible abyss. Hear, hear the word of God, once, twice spoken to you! Will you turn your back on His love? Will you turn a deaf ear to His voice, that voice that speaks as never man spake?
Secondly, But God has another way: “In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumbering upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man” (vers. 15-17). When the eyes are heavy with slumber, God goes to the slumbering one, and awakens his soul by a dream. I could tell you of many a one who thus has been met by God. It may be that you can remember some terrible dream, something that caused you to awake trembling and affrighted. But tell me, did you heed the warning voice? did you turn to God with the morning light, or are you still unheeding? Further, will you still go on despising, rejecting?
Thirdly, There is another way God has of pursuing a soul: “He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword” (vs. 18), i.e., He preserves from sudden danger. Well do I remember, when I was a boy of sixteen, a brother of mine fired at and shot a partridge. The bird, wounded mortally, flew awhile and then fell into the water. “Fetch it,” he said, and I plunged into the sea, and swam a long-distance sea-ward to secure it. The bird was not worth sixpence, but I risked my life, risked my soul, to get it. Only the mercy of God brought me to shore; a few more yards, and I must have sunk; for I was quite exhausted, the distance was long, and the tide strong against me. But He spared me, that He might save me. He has saved me now. Perhaps you can remember a time when He thus delivered you from some sudden peril. He spared your life to save your soul; but tell me, is it saved? Not yet? Then see, He has another way of reaching your trifling and careless heart.
Fourth, “He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain: so that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat. His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out. Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers” (vers. 19-22). This is a way God constantly takes to awaken a soul. One is laid on a sick bed; perhaps a careful physician has done all that human skill can do, and tender relatives have watched around that couch, and lavished every loving care upon the sufferer; but the case seems hopeless, and the soul is trembling on the very threshold of eternity, God steps in. “I must have that soul,” He says; “I will bless the means, I will bring back that one from the very gates of hell.”
Can you remember some such time in your history, when your life hung as by a thread, and perhaps you remember that you were very peaceful then, quite calm in the view of death, not afraid to meet it, whereas you say you do not feel that calm and peacefulness now? Ah! Satan knows well enough how to give a soothing draft to a dying sinner. Perhaps he told you, you had never done anything in your life that was much amiss, that you were as good as your neighbors, and God was very merciful. But tell me, was your soul washed then in the blood of Jesus? Was the ground of your peace, that He had met death and Satan for you? Or were you just deluded by Satan? He knows how to administer an anodyne to a dying soul—how to make a deathbed easy. Think you his power is not exerted then?
Friend, have you never heard that word of God, “The wicked have no bands in their death”? Go down on your knees and thank God you did not die then. I can very well remember the time when I was thus laid low. Had you that peace, you ask? Had you that balmy feeling? No! not I! I knew the truth too well. I knew I was lost! yes, lost! I knew that if I died, I should be lost forever; and my cry was, “Lord, spare me, and I will serve Thee.”
Perhaps you have thus been brought back from the brink of the grave, but are you brought to Jesus? God delights to carry by the lips of someone the message of His love and grace to a soul thus on the very verge of eternity. Thus we read, “If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to chew unto man his uprightness (or duty), then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom” (verses 23, 24). “One among a thousand” perhaps only will speak the word of the Gospel of peace; nine hundred and ninety-nine will pass by your bed with never a word of Jesus, never a message from God for you. But one may bring you that message, “Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.” Ah! this blessed Jesus has opened a doorway. God has found a ransom. God has estimated it. God has provided it, and He sends out the wondrous message, “Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.”
CHRIST is the RANSOM; He is also the Mediator. “He gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 4:66If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. (1 Timothy 4:6)). This is one of the most magnificent statements in all the Word of God; I hardly know anything to equal it. “He gave himself a ransom for all.” The moment your heart believes in Christ, liberty is yours, peace is yours, salvation is yours, blessing is yours, everything is yours. This is the glad tidings that was “to be testified in due time.” Thank God, it is due time still. The due time still runs on, and Christ is still waiting to receive you; not now as a Judge, but as a Saviour. The One who has met the claims of God, is your Friend and Saviour. There He is alive now in heavenly glory for you to trust in; and the moment you trust in Him, you get a present salvation. All God asks of you is to believe in Christ.
“Will there not be works? “you say. Of course there will be works.” Will there not be a change?” you ask. Of course there will be a very mighty change! I have very little belief in conversion where there is not this mighty change, a perfect revolution. Instead of having self for a center, you have Christ for a center; instead of having self to think about, and self to be seeking to please, you have Christ to think about, and Christ to please, and Christ to serve, Christ-who has given Himself a ransom for you.
With regard to works, they come in their right place. When we know Christ, we seek to please Him. We work for Him, not to get life, but because we have got it. “His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: he shall return to the days of his youth: he shall pray unto God, and he will be favorable unto him; and he shall see his face with joy” (verses 25, 26). The soul is new born, prayerful, enjoys God’s favor, and gazes on Him with joy. All fear is gone, and we do not labor to work out our own righteousness, for “he will render unto man his righteousness” (vs. 26). “You cannot justify yourself,” God says, “but now I can justify you, because I have righteously condemned and dealt with your sins in the Person of your blessed substitute on the cross;” and the consequence is, when your soul is brought to God, the blood of Christ washes your sins away, you know you are saved, and your heart is left free to please and serve, and follow Christ.
The knowledge of all this grace produces beautiful results in the way of confession, as the delivered man sings before men of what God has done. Hence we read, “He singeth before men, and saith I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it was not profit unto me; he hath redeemed my soul from going into the pit, and my life shall behold the light” (verses 27:28, Rev. Vers.). What a lovely confession! Have you ever sung this out in the ears of men?
It is scarcely possible, but there may be reading this a soul who has never heard the voice of God speaking before; never heard the Word of God simply preached; never been aroused by a dream; never been preserved from sudden and imminent danger; never been brought back from sickness nigh unto death, from the brink of the grave. If you are such a one, let me say, you have read the Word of God now; you have heard the voice of God; you have seen the Gospel simply presented―and you are responsible now; responsible to take your place before God in simple and honest confession of your guilt to Him, and of His grace to you before men. What a lovely confession, “He had redeemed my soul from going into the pit, and my life shall behold the light.” It is the knowledge of a present and full salvation. If you are looking only to Christ, resting only on Christ, why, it is what His death has secured for you, that you should know the forgiveness of your sins―know what his death has done for you. “God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” There is nothing more to ‘be done, nothing more to be waited for. Christ can do no more, and you can do nothing at all.
When an anxious man asked, “What must I do to be saved?” the answer was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” It is all that God asks from you. Christ has gone up on high in all the perfection of His work for us; and God delights to say, as the fruit and consequence of His death and finished work, “Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.” If He says that in the Old Testament, He says in the New Testament, “Who gave himself a ransom for all.” Oh! what a Saviour! and God would “have all men to be saved.”
I would tell the whole world if I could gather them together to listen to me, that when men’s efforts were utterly useless, when they could do nothing, Christ “gave himself”; and ah! if there is one word that could touch a heart that has never been touched before, it is this, He gave Himself! He gave Himself! And if He gave Himself unsought, unasked, uncalled for, has He not a claim upon your heart? Shall not your heart be Christ’s from this moment? Has He not a claim upon it? I can only say, if I had been undecided up to this very moment, I would decide for Christ now. Oh! had I ten thousand hearts, I would give them all to Christ this moment.
And now, dear reader, if you believe in Jesus, do not be ashamed to own Him; do not be ashamed to confess Him; do not be ashamed to go home and make a stand for Him. He was not ashamed to stand for you, and to be scorned, and derided, and spit upon; He was not ashamed to die between two malefactors for you, and do not you be ashamed to own Him. May God give you henceforth to know rest and peace in Himself, and to boldly confess the worth of His Son. W. T. P. W.