Well, can you? Can you buy something that is free? I once heard of a boy who tried to buy something free. He saw a friend making a boat. It was a beautiful little boat carved out of wood. The friend was polishing it smooth with fine sandpaper for days and days. The boy would have liked very much to have that boat, but his friend kept rubbing and polishing and smoothing it. Finally, the friend held the boat out to the boy and said, “You can have it.” The boy was so surprised! Surely the friend wasn’t giving the boat away after having worked so hard on it!
/
“I’ll buy the boat,” the boy said.
“Then you can’t have it. Give it back,” the friend said.
The boy was puzzled, but finally the friend explained that he had worked so hard on the boat that it was worth too much to sell. No amount of money could pay for it. But he was willing to give it to the boy as a gift of love.
So you can’t buy something that is free, can you? In our next story about William Farel, a man was trying, not to buy, but to sell something that was free. After William left the town of the Countess, he went to the town of Orbe. This town, too, was full of idols and false ideas about worshipping God. Just at this same time, a pardon-seller also arrived in Orbe. This man had come to sell pardons for any who had done bad things or even who planned to do them and wished to get a pardon ahead of time. You can see what a wicked thing it was — not only to sell what God says has already been paid for by the death of His Son, but also to encourage people to go ahead and sin!
This pardon-seller walked through the streets of Orbe calling out, “A pardon for every sin, past or future! Buy it now!”
The seller saw a man with a red beard looking at him and felt strangely afraid of this man. The man stepped forward.
“Do you have a pardon,” he said, “for a man who is going to kill his father or mother?”
The seller didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t expected anyone to ask for a pardon for something so terrible! The red-headed man’s eyes now flashed with fire. He jumped upon a stone in the marketplace and in a voice of thunder began to preach to the astonished people of God’s judgment upon sin. He told them how Jesus had suffered and fully paid the price of that judgment and was now offering salvation and pardon without money and without price. Like the little wooden boat, salvation was too costly to sell, for its price was the precious blood of Christ. The man who preached on the stone was, of course, William Farel.
Two men of the town of Orbe were glad to hear this preaching. One was a school teacher named Mark and the other was a workman named Christopher.
But now before we leave our story of the pardon-seller, have you been trying to buy that which God offers free? Have you tried to buy your way to heaven by trying to be good or doing the best you can? God is too rich to sell His salvation and you are too poor to buy it. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-2423For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: (Romans 3:23‑24)).