MARY had been brought to a sense of her need of salvation, but remained for a time without finding rest for her troubled, wearied soul.
One day she was visited, as she had been many times before, by an earnest Christian who sought once again to point her to Christ as an all-sufficient Saviour. The following conversation, which is given in the preacher's own words, will show that at last his labor was rewarded.
"Now, Mary, let us just read one verse, and see what God's Book says about sin, and the putting away of sin." I then read the words, so well known,
"All we like sheep have gone astray." Looking up, I said, "You know that's true of you, don't you, just as I know it's true of me?"
"Yes, yes," she replied; "the Lord knows I have done nothing else but go astray all my life."
"Then it goes on to say," I remarked,
" 'We have turned every one to his own way.' That is, we have not all sinned in the same way, but we have all disregarded God's way and God's will, and have lived to ourselves, shutting God out of our heart and out of our life."
"That's just been my life. God has been shut out, and now He's shutting me out. I tell you, it's no use for you to talk to me about mercy. Mercy ain't for such as me."
I waited a few moments; then I said, "But we hive only read two parts of the verse; let us read the other part. Two parts we know are true; surely the other part must also be true! Now this is the other:
`And the Lord bath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.' " I read the words slowly, and she was perfectly still for a minute or more, then, with a look of eager interest, she said, "Read that again."
I read the words again. There were some gleams of brightness quite perceptible on her features, and after a little pause she begged me to read the words once more. Then she inquired,
"Does it say 'of us all'?"
"Yes," I replied; "and that must mean you and me." She said, with emphasis and with intense joy,
"O, I see it, I see it! The blessed Saviour has borne it all. He is my Saviour, then! O, what mercy! what mercy!"
She now rejoiced in Christ, her soul rested on the word of Him who "cannot lie," and who "cannot deny Himself." If He had spoken, she had but to believe, although the news seemed to her, as it does to multitudes, "too good to be true."
We have but to take a right position to find that God's grace abounds over all our sin, and that though our iniquity has been great, yet His goodness far exceeds it all.
There are many souls around us in Mary's condition. They know that they are sinners, and feel that they are not ready to die; and while hoping that God may have mercy upon them at the last (for they have a sense that there is goodness in His heart even for such as they are), they have no true rest nor peace. To such the blessed gospel, in its simplicity and fulness, is indeed like "cold waters to a thirsty soul;" when they learn that God Himself is for them, and that He has shown them His love in giving His own Son to die for them while they were yet sinners, and has proved His satisfaction with the work which Christ has wrought, by raising Him from the dead.
Not only is there the work of Christ to provide salvation for us; but God Himself sends by His word in the Scriptures the blessed tidings for our assurance, that by Christ "all that believe are justified from all things."
Messages of God’s Love 3/27/1932