Memory Verse: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Luke 5:32
There was living in a village in China a terrible villain. So severely had he been punished for his evil doings, that he had lost his eyesight. But blinding a man does not make him see the error of his ways. The law cannot cure a man morally or spiritually: it is too cold a process to melt.
Law and terrors do but harden all the while they work alone. But a sense of blood-bought pardon, this will melt a heart of stone.
The sightless Chinaman became a blind beggar, threatening his neighbors and doing all sorts of violent deeds. Once he entered into an oil shop and demanded money. When it was not forthcoming, he struck out right and left with his heavy stick, breaking the pots of oil and spilling it in all directions. Getting hold of some of the broken pieces of crockery, he cut himself and then went to the magistrate to complain of ill treatment. The store keeper was fined $100. for the supposed assault.
In addition to this, the blind man was a great opium smoker, and knew the power of the evil habit. But can you hush the thunder, stay the rising tide, or reverse the downflow of Niagara? Then may a sinner by his own power cease to sin. Or in Scripture language, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.” Jeremiah 13:23.
An old lady got this sinner to the medical mission hospital. There he found that Christ died for sinners as bad as he, and that God was able to save to the uttermost all who came to Him through Jesus. He came, and was at once made a new creature in Christ Jesus.
It is a sin to limit the holy One of Israel (Psalm 78:41), in this day of grace, “for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:3, 4.
After the change, it was the blind man’s great delight to sit in the waiting room of the hospital and point to himself. All knew what he had been: they now saw what he was. Having been so bad, he was a good example of what God could do — the sun had melted the icicle. None are too bad to be saved; though we fear many may be too good.
Three things make it possible for the worst to be saved: 1) the infinite value of the blood of Christ; 2) the almighty power of His arm, and 3) the unbounded love of His heart.
ML-04/24/1977