Dan was riding the hay rake. The horses were swishing their tails at the flies and the sun was hot, but Dan was not thinking of these things. As the horses patiently pulled the rake these words were going through his mind, “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”
It was a verse a preacher had carefully gone over with him the night before as he tried to show him God's way of salvation. But somehow they were just words to Dan.
For a long time Dan had wanted to be saved. He knew that his heart was sinful, and that he must be saved before he dared to face God. Night after night when the evening chores were done he would sit at the kitchen table reading his Bible. Then after the others had gone to bed he would kneel and pray, again and again, “O God, save me, save me!”
There had even been times when he was out in the fields that he had knelt between the rows of corn where no one could see him, and with tears had begged God to save him.
But his praying and reading the Bible had brought no peace to his troubled heart. He felt that he still was not saved, and if the Lord Jesus should return for those who were redeemed and ready to meet Him, Dan knew that his folks would go to be with the Lord, but that he would be left behind.
Now as he was driving the horses and lifting the rake it seemed to his heavy heart that the Lord must not care for him or He surely would have heard him and taken away his sins.
Suddenly the words of his memorized verse, I Peter 3:18, seemed to speak to him. “Christ HATH also once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust”——-“For ME——-I'm the unjust one” cried Dan to himself, “and He has already done it!” Then as he thought of the rest of the verse his face began to glow with joy, “that He might bring us (bring me!) to God”!
“I'm saved——-saved!” his happy heart rejoiced, “the Lord Jesus has suffered for my sins. There's nothing to worry about——-it's already done!”
The horses were still swishing their tails at the flies and the day was really the same as it had been before, but it seemed to Dan that now the sun was warm with the smile of God; and that the hard seat on the bumpy hay rake was a holy place, for God had met him right there and had spoken to him through His own precious Word!