“I NEVER knew until today that I needed another life.” These are the words that fell from the lips of a very religious man who, according to his own confession, had been a regular attendant at the parish church and a communicant for something like forty years. Clearly, he believed that by so doing he was meriting God’s favor and through it would obtain an entrance into heaven at last. And indeed if this had been God’s way of acceptance, this earnest, persevering man must have won God’s favor. But we know that this is not God’s way, so that we need not feel surprised that all his doings sank into nothingness when once the truth as it is in Jesus shone in upon his soul.
It all came about in this way. A young man who had been born again by the word of God, and who had found the Lord Jesus to be the way, the truth, and the life to his own soul, was simply telling to others what he found recorded in God’s word on the subject of life—eternal life—and that this possession was the fruit of God’s great love to us. For “God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.” As the young man pointed out a little of the meaning of our living through Jesus, the dear aged man saw, as he had never seen before, that it was through Christ’s suffering on the cross for our sins that the door of heaven was open for sinful men. Finding himself in God’s presence as one for whom Christ died, everything was now changing in his mind as he heard and believed the truth. He felt—as he had never felt before—what his sins must have been to call for such suffering as Jesus passed through to save his soul and make him fit for God’s presence. Is it any wonder that he began to love Him who, as he now saw, alone could meet his need as His Saviour?
These were the moments in which he was passing out of the darkness of death into the light and life of the Father’s welcome. Now he was a partaker of what he never before felt—another life—born again by the word and Spirit of God, as his remaining days in this world proved. He believed the truth. The light and love of the truth was that which enriched his soul here in time, filling up his future with Christ in glory as his sure and certain hope.
In this little story the reader will see that nothing counts before God but Christ and His work, while a religion without Christ is the most blinding thing that even Satan can use to hinder us as sinners from receiving Christ as Saviour. How blessed to know that by the Son of God coming into this world sin has been atoned for; and by words which only the Son of God could have expressed, a welcome into His own Father’s arms are made known; while from the same blessed Person in glory the words have come down and are ringing in our ears today, “Whosover will, let him come and take of the water of life freely.” Freely, oh, how blessed!
This is a day of good tidings,
Sweeter the news cannot be;
Forth comes the Father embracing
Poor wandering sinners like me.
Jesus as Saviour,
Died for our sins on the tree;
Forth comes the Father embracing
Poor wandering sinners like me.
This is the day for confessing
Sins in the presence of God;
This is the day for receiving
Pardon and peace through the blood.
Bring the best robe says the Father,
Shoes must be put on the feet,
Bring forth the ring with rejoicing,
The Father declares that ‘tis meet.
Those who are homeless and friendless,
Now through the gospel may share
Blessing eternal, unchanging,
Why will men die in despair?
E. T.