I DO not know what it was that made the old Yorkshire woman say, “There’s naught so queer as folk,” but I have often said the same thing myself, when I have seen the way in which people have treated the story of God’s great Love. Quite recently I was giving away Gospel booklets in a South London suburb, and I handed one to the proprietor of a prosperous-looking tobacco and sweets store. He greeted me with a smile, but when he read “God so loved the world” on the cover of the tract, he pushed it back into my hand and shouted, “I don’t want it.” “But, I said, “it’s a message of love and friendliness.” “I don’t want it, take it out,” he raged, and he literally danced as though I had dropped a seven-pound weight on his toes. I was sorry I had annoyed him, but very sad that he felt like that at the sight of my text, and I had to say to myself, “Some folk are odd.”
I had another experience. It was on board the fine old Mauretania in mid-Atlantic. The western sky was ablaze with the glory of the setting sun, and shafts of crimson beauty were shot from the horizon across the waves. By my side stood a gentleman, delighted as I was with the splendid picture, and he talked of it as only an artist and an admirer of great sights could talk. I said to him, “Do you know, sir, that the God whose hand painted that glowing sky, loves you and me?” He drew back and looked at me for a moment with a look of anything but pleasure in his eyes, and then without a word, turned on his heel, and went to the other side of the ship, and for the rest of the week he avoided me as though I had the plague. It is a marvelous thing―it is queer, yes, queer is the word for it―that the mention of God’s love should affect a man in that way, and yet we need not be surprised, for it is explained in one sentence in the Bible, “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” Yet John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) remains upon the page of His Word, and is as true today as ever, and what a wonderful declaration of His feelings towards men it is. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” And there is no person, man or woman, rich or poor that may not find room in that “whosoever.”
But the great text is not always rejected, to thousands it has been a savor of life unto life. “It’s the best text in the Bible,” a happy old man said once to me, and I was not surprised that that was what he thought about it, when he went on to tell me that fifty years before it had changed everything for him. It had been used by God’s Holy Spirit to turn him from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, and had made his life worth living when it had promised to be a big failure. He had not heard any words in his long life in which there was so much blessing and sweetness, and it was with reverence and affection that he went over them. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” But, good as it was to hear him repeat these words, and to feel the hearty grip of his hand, which showed that, while he was old in years, he was still young in spirit, they did not affect me so much as when I heard them in very different circumstances.
I had spent the afternoon in the large ward of an Infirmary in a northern city. Every bed in that ward was occupied by a suffering man. I had sat and talked for a few minutes with each of these, and had left them all some books to read, when I came to the last bed in the ward. On it was lying a young fellow, not yet twenty. He looked very wan and ill, and as his eyes were closed, I thought he was sleeping. So I sat down by his side, hoping he might awake before I had to go. Soon he opened his eyes, and looked at me with an inquiring look as much as to say, “Who are you?” I said, “I have been giving the men some Gospel books, but I’m afraid you are too ill to read.” “Yes,” he said, “I am, and the doctor says there is no hope for me, but I am in the Lord’s hands.” Those last words came out so unexpectedly, and with so much feeling that the lump came into my throat, and I could not immediately command my voice. When I managed this, I said, “And in the very best hands you are, my dear, for He has said of all who trust in Him, ‘I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of My hand.’” “Yes,” he answered, “He did say that, and He also said, ‘God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’” And then, exhausted by the effort, he closed his eyes and lay still, and I sat silent and thrilled. Then he began to speak again, as though oblivious of my presence; slowly but with an indescribable sweetness he repeated. “Everlasting life, everlasting life.” I listened for a while to that sacred communion between his ransomed soul and his God; then, giving his hand a gentle squeeze, I withdrew from his side, and the last sound from his lips that I heard was “Everlasting life.” That happened on Friday afternoon, and on the following Tuesday he entered the Glory.
That dying lad had found in John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) what all the gold in the bank of England could not have gained him. Could I have carried to him the highest honors that the King could bestow, or poured out at his side the choicest treasures of the world, and this earthly life, they would have been worse than useless in the Infirmary ward; but John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) had enriched him, and God’s love had put a peace into his heart that the approach of death could not disturb. “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift,” and “Thanks be unto God that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” and thanks be unto God for everlasting life.