A GENTLEMAN paid a colporteur the price of fifteen large-type Bibles. Being paid for, they were gifts to be given away to any needy aged persons.
Gifts! I repeat that word, and see in it a gospel illustration. “The gift of God is eternal life” (Rom. 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)). Christ paid for it by dying on the cross. Now God gives it. I receive it without payment or merit. Need and willingness to receive is all God asks.
One of these Bibles was given to a poor old man who could never have purchased one; but he could receive one and say, “Thank you!”
“Bless the dear Lord,” said he, “the print is that beautiful, even my old eyes can see.”
It was large print, and the aged one read it out loud. It was a way he had.
In the next cottage lived an old woman and, as the partition was very thin, she heard her neighbor “talking,” as she thought. She was blind; but her ears were keen.
“What is the matter with him?” she asked her granddaughter.
“Reading, Granny; reading the Bible.”
So Granny put her ear to the wooden partition and heard: “There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto Him, Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God;... Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Listening again, she heard: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. 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.”
This third chapter of the Gospel of John was the old man’s favorite chapter; so that several times his blind neighbor heard these blessed words. God loved the world — the world that was perishing — the world of which she was part.
The old man evidently believed and enjoyed this life; it was something she had not; but she might have it.
Eagerly she listened for further information, nor had she long to wait.
“He’s reading again, Granny,” said the young girl.
It was the old chapter about
“YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN.”
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”
With her ear pressed against the partition, she listened to the last verse: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on Him.”
And it came to pass that through what was thus heard, she, at eighty-seven, was born again, and received God’s gift — everlasting life. Since then both have gone from their cottages to the Father’s house of many mansions.
ML-04/22/1962