IT is a happy thing when guilt and grace meet one another; when a guilty sinner meets a gracious Saviour. The sure result is blessing. It is as true that He is gracious as that we are guilty, ―guilty by practice and sinful by nature, ―but true, likewise, that grace, on His part, answers to guilt on ours, as the healing balm the disease it cures. Grace balances and outweighs the guilt, and finds its delight in taking by surprise the soul that is trembling on account of sin, and fearing the blow of offended justice.
But the great thing is to feel your guilt―deeply―truly―adequately!
Of what possible value is the balm to him who feels not his disorder? The full soul loathes the honeycomb, and the proud heart despises salvation. The sick stomach rejects the food that fattens the healthy.
Have you felt your disorder? have you discovered that sin has thrown you into mortal sickness, from which neither yourself nor any other soul-doctor can possibly cure you?
A grand discovery that, if made in time! Appalling, if only made in eternity. Now, a balm is found; then, none! Now, a Saviour; then, a hopeless endless doom! Now, grace; then, a state of fixed and unalterable woe!
Make that discovery now! Let the light of the Word of God shine into your soul, and reveal to you, friend, the fact of your state. Instead of being pure, your heart is “deceitful,”―not good, but “desperately wicked.” Instead of your works being right, they are either “bad” or “dead,”―morally bad and religiously dead; so that, in fact, you are but a sinner at best, ―what at worst?
The truth is, friend, you are guilty, ―and guilty before God; guilty, of sins innumerable, and responsible for every one of them! Terrible! Now, I was thinking the other morning what a wonderful and suited Saviour we find in the blessed Lord Jesus, how full of grace He was, and how full of grace He is still. What He was, He is! We can sit at His feet, and learn the stories of His grace when He trod the earth all weary and alone; we can place ourselves beside His cross, and witness the thief being wrenched from the lion’s grip, and taken by Jesus to paradise; and we can go outside Damascus, and see converted, in his career of unparalleled evil, Saul of Tarsus, the chief sinner.
We enter the house of Simon the Pharisee, and look on his costly entertainment. We can detect the smile of self-satisfaction as he prides himself on having the Master for a guest. His house and his board are thrown open to the Teacher. All proper, but that smile suddenly gives place to the frown of disdain, as he beholds the hand of grace held out to forgive a woman of the city who was a sinner, who had, forsooth, defiled by her presence the sanctity of his self-righteous threshold! But this sinner―this notorious sinner―had for her Master what Simon had not. What confession of sin had Simon, what sense of his condition? None. She brought no beast of the forest nor cattle of the hill, no fowl of the mountain nor wild beast of the field, no costly oblation to cover the altar; but she came with tears, and sorrow, guilt, and sin, to call upon Him in this the day of her trouble, her repentance, and her salvation. She came with her enormous debt of five hundred pence, in the confession that she had nothing, absolutely nothing, to pay, thus placing herself at the mercy of her Creditor. And how did He act? Justice could fairly demand the punishment of this insolvent, but, when she had nothing to pay, He frankly forgave her. He was at liberty to do so His frank forgiveness answered the flood of her tears. His grace outweighed her guilt. Happy meeting!
Oh! that souls would but learn the relation between guilt on their part and grace on Christ’s.
And so this poor woman passed away from Simon’s house, her ear charmed by the Master’s triple announcement: “Thy sins are forgiven;” “Thy faith hath saved thee;” “Go in peace.”
He―the lowly Man of Sorrows―who yet had power on earth to forgive sins, displayed His saving grace to her.
Nor less, indeed, when on the cross. At His side hung the thief. He, too, feeling his guilt, gave expression to his repentance by rebuking his fellow. The fear of God had taken possession of his soul, he judged himself guilty; he turned to the Lord, he was met by perfect grace, ―this blasphemous thief! ―and was accordingly welcomed to paradise that very day.
You know the story! But what an illustration it is of the matchless grace of the blessed Lord! Grace changed the debtor’s prison to liberty, and now, grace changes the thief’s hell to heaven; grace made the infinite difference in both cases.
Again, outside Damascus the proud persecutor of Christ’s people lies blinded by a ray from the glory, whence, too, he hears a voice convicting him of sin, ―yes, sin the darkest, deepest, that man had yet committed. There lay this religious bigot, wedded, as he had been, to a system, divinely founded indeed, but having now only the shell, the external form, the lifeless carcass, and, yet, only the more formally zealous, so as to compensate for the loss of power, ―there lay the champion of Judaism listening, perforce, to a voice from heaven, which called him by name and detailed his guilt. Bewildered, he replied, “Who art thou, Lord?” And he was answered by lips of love, saying, “I am Jesus,”―lips that framed the word of balm and of salvation to meet the need of this guilty one. “I am the Saviour, though now in glory, ―unchanged and unchanging, ―my name is Jesus.” All well. Perfectly intelligible. Guilt met by grace, and so Paul can say, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:1515This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15)). He understood the plan that love devised, the work that Christ accomplished, and the salvation that grace presented. And so Christ is in glory what He was on Calvary, and on Calvary what He was on earth, and vice versa.
If you know what He was, you know what He is.
Do you know Him? If not, “acquaint thyself now with him, and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto thee” (Job 22:2121Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee. (Job 22:21)). It is just because people don’t know Him that they distrust Him, and remain in sin, guilt, misery, and eventually find themselves excluded from Him forever, where grace can never come, nor the rays of mercy shine.
Be wise, dear reader, and “acquaint now thyself with him.” J. W. S.