A dying man lay in dread of what was coming to him. He sent for a Christian friend to talk with him, and comfort him.
“I am in the dark,” he said to this friend. And well he might say so, for he had been a great sinner. “I am in the dark and I am dying. What am I to do?”
“Jesus came to save the lost. Jesus died and rose again to save us. This is our message to lost sinners.”
“But what have I to do?” eagerly asked the dying man.
“Nothing. Christ has done it all.”
The anxious eye was closed for a moment, while he repeated over, very slowly, to himself, “The work that saves is done.” Then, passage after passage was read to him, pointing out the one link that knits the sinner to the sin-bearing work of the Son of God: “He that believeth, is not condemned”; “He that believeth, is justified”; “He that believeth, hath everlasting life.”
“But what am I to believe?”
“It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Again he closed his eyes, while he repeated, three or four times over— “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
“Yes,” added his friend, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” “This is a true saying, and worthy of all acceptation. This is the good news we bring you.”
“I see it,” he said, and the peace of God took possession of his soul. In that peace he died.
ML 12/24/1961