THE Holy Spirit—the Spirit of grace had been working and the boy was troubled as to the judgment he knew he deserved, and as to the eternity towards which he was going.
Why am I not saved? Is there not a Saviour? Yes!
Why then am I unsaved? What is the matter with me? Would not Jesus save me? Yes! He would. I'm a fool: I have attended to everything first and foremost, but neglected the most important of all. What a fool I am and have been! Did He not come to seek and to save the lost? Well; I'm a poor, lost boy!
Such were his musings. The awakening to a sense of his soul's need had come about through the illness of his brother.
He had thought his brother might die, and then asked himself how it would be with him if he were to die. He could but answer, "I should go to hell and he lost forever."
A few days passed, and he was to be found taking a short cut across a hill. There flashed into his mind the thought,
"Why should I not be saved here and now?
Down on to his knees among the grass, the boy bowed and cried to God for mercy. But he found no rest at first.
"I am surely lost; 1 can do nothing," he said to himself.
Then it was, when he reached the sense of his utter helplessness that a Scripture came to his memory which was to prove the means of help. It was this,
"If ye seek Me, let these go their way."
He recalled how the Lord stood forward when His enemies came to the garden of Gethsemane, and said those words to them. He would give Himself up, but on condition that His disciples were allowed to leave unhurt. And His power had been shown but a little before in that they had fallen backward to the ground at His word, so that they feared Him, and were glad to allow His loved ones to escape if He would yield Himself up to their will.
"Instantly I comprehended what SUBSTITUTION meant."
The work was done, Christ died for my sins eighteen hundred years ago, and the way of God to me was opened up, and so was my way to God. I closed with Christ there and then as my own personal Saviour. I trusted Him. I received Him. I rested on Him. The glorious truth flashed before me,
"Christ died for my sins." That is how I was saved.
Messages of God’s Love 8/19/1934