THERE is something very remarkable in the way in which the same truth, listened to in the same place and at the same time, affects different individuals.
A number of years ago it was my privilege to preach the gospel of God's grace to a congregation twelve times larger than the one the Lord Jesus preached to at the well of Sychar. Of these five-twelfths had already become recipients of that grace, and the remainder as yet were in nature's darkness. The address ended, my little congregation began to speak one to another, after the manner usual at such cottage meetings, when suddenly one of them, a girl about eighteen years old, with whom I had had a good deal of previous conversation, came up to where I was standing, and holding out her hand, asked me with much animation to thank God for her, for He had that night saved her soul. She had with much simplicity believed the glad tidings to which she had just listened, and so had turned to God.
After talking a little to her, my attention was directed to a young man, with whom I had also had much previous conversation, and who was standing near us, apparently wrapped in deep thought, and so walking up to him I said, “Now, L—, how is it with you? Have you too accepted Christ? “He bowed his head, and gravely gave me to understand he had. Two souls out of seven brought to the Lord! I felt very happy.
But the tale was not yet complete. Next morning I was on my way to visit the girl, when I saw her father plowing, and he, leaving his plow in the furrow, came to the fence and told me, that having stayed at home to look after the little ones, so that his wife might be able to go to the meeting, he had gone early to bed and fallen asleep, when his wife came into the room, and awakening him out of his sleep, told him—what she had not had the courage to tell to me—that she also was saved. There was great joy in that house, and far greater joy in heaven, for there they could more thoroughly appreciate the value of the truth, that in one night three souls had passed from death unto life.
But what of the remaining four unconverted ones? The youngest sister was present also at the meeting where her mother and sister were brought to God. How did the truth to which they had all listened affect her? So far as I could learn, just as much as it might have affected her had she been a marble statue instead of a being of flesh and blood. And the other three, what of them? Two of them went away mocking at the solemn truths to which they had just listened, while as for the other I learned nothing.
Now why is this? How does it happen that the same truth spoken by the same preacher, listened to in the same place and at the same time, should produce such different results? Why should it become the savor of life unto life unto one, and of death unto death unto another, and that too in the same family? Had God anything to do with this? Of course He had. "Salvation is of the Lord.” Had Satan anything to do with it? Certainly. “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." Then it was God who opened the eyes of the three, and the god of this world who blinded the minds of the four. But what of these seven persons? Are we to understand that they were mere puppets, to be acted upon by a power outside themselves, whether for good or evil? Surely not. They were intelligent and responsible beings, to whom a message from God had that evening been delivered by one of His servants, and that message was nothing more than "the old old story of Jesus and His love," and amounted simply to this, that Christ had died for sinners, that all who believed on Him would be saved, while none but He could save them. The whole of them ought to have believed that message, but only three of them did, consequently the three were saved then find there, and the four left the place unsaved, and will remain unsaved until they accept the message.
But how did the god of this world manage to blind the minds of these four people? Very simply. God in His gospel pointed them to Christ, and said, Look unto Him, and be saved; look unto Him, and eternal life is yours; look unto Him, and heaven is your home. What particular object Satan set before them on that eventful night, I know not; but this I feel assured of, he got them to look elsewhere. What he ever aims at—and alas! with fearful success—is to prevent the light of the glorious gospel of Christ from shining into the heart. Only keep out that, and his end is accomplished, for there is none other name given among men whereby we can be saved but the name of Jesus. Satan is not afraid of religion; it is Christ he fears. Religion without Christ is one of his favorite and most successful instrumentalities for ruining souls. I scarcely think, however, that it was religion that he made use of on the occasion now referred. I rather think it must have been the world pure and simple, because three-fourths of the unsaved ones were young. And this is his favorite wile. When Christ is preached he sets the world, with all its glare and glitter, before the heart, and thus draws it away. The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, prays that the eyes of their heart might be enlightened (chap. 1:18, Revised Version); but what the god of this age aims at, is to darken the eyes of the heart. A penny put close to the eye will hide the sun, although a penny is a very small object, and the sun a very large one; so the world put before the heart prevents the sinner seeing Christ.
And now comes the question, Which of the two should men listen to, God or the devil? God says that true and permanent happiness is not to be found apart from Christ; the devil teaches that it may be found in the world. Reader, which do you believe? The God who cannot lie, or he who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning? H. M.