One of the worst bits of luck that ever happened to him, thought the gambler, was when his wife turned religious. She had found the Lord Jesus to be her Saviour and her Friend. Everything was changed. He had had a large room built in his new house for parties, and she was no longer interested in that kind of thing. What could a man such as he do with a wife like that?
He was a gambler; the racetrack drew him as the magnet draws the needle. His wife had not minded going with him and “having a flutter” on her own account in former days, but she had given that up too. He told his friends they could not go on together much longer.
His house was near the track, and the races were on. He hurried home from business at noon, hastily swallowed his lunch, and dashed off to the track in his usual way. And his wife went to her room and knelt before God to pray for her husband. She prayed that he might lose his money, for she thought that was the only way in which he could be cured of the gambling fever.
When he got to the track, he found his friends crowding around the bookmakers to put their money on the horses. They seemed to be backing every horse in the field. Instead of joining them, he stood back and watched them, and involuntarily said to himself, “What a pack of fools,” and then added after a moment’s thought, “and I’m one of them!”
God was answering his wife’s prayer and doing more than she asked, for he there and then lost all interest in the horses and wandered off the track without making a bet, a thoroughly miserable man.
He became a mystery to himself. Why couldn’t he sleep at night? He blamed his wife, and he would get up and drink and storm about the house, swearing, and then return to his bed ashamed of himself and yet more angry because of that which had come into his home to spoil his pleasure.
His wife had made new Christian friends, friends who loved her Saviour and who believed in prayer. She invited some of them to her house one afternoon for an hour of definite and earnest prayer to God that He would break down her husband’s hard will and save his soul. The praying was to continue from three o’clock to four.
He was at his desk in his office, completely ignorant of what was going on at home. At five minutes to four he pushed back from his desk and exclaimed, “I’ve reached the limit. I’m done; something’s got to happen!”
Suddenly in that quiet office a voice, that seemed to him to be perfectly clear, said in his ear and heart, “Are you stronger than God?”
Ah, that was the point! He was fighting against God. He was flinging God’s mercy in His face, thinking that he was stronger than God, and that was the cause of all his misery. Filled with awe, he buried his head in his hands and said, “God forbid that I should pretend to be stronger than He.”
That evening at dinner he was very quiet, but presently he asked his wife, “Does God speak to men today as He used to do?”
“Sometimes,” she replied.
“Then,” he said, “He spoke to me at four o’clock today,” and he broke down utterly. He had reached his limit in a different way from what he thought. He had given up in the fight he had been waging, and something did happen—the greatest and best thing of all. His wife, converted only six weeks herself, told him of her Saviour, of His grace and of His love. She told him how upon the cross of Calvary He had died for sinners such as he was and that His precious blood could wash him clean of sin in God’s sight. It was a simple sermon that she preached to him and from the heart. He saw the way of blessing before God and then and there confessed himself to be a sinner indeed and put his whole confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
I once heard him, in the very room in his house that had been built for partying, telling the story to nearly fifty people. With a face radiant with joy he told them of Christ as a living Saviour, whose blood had cleansed him and whose love had satisfied him. A happy man is that one-time gambler and a happy family is his, for his whole family has believed and received the good news of salvation.
Are you seeking satisfaction in the excitement of a life of pleasure? The end of these things is death, eternal death, for God says, “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)).