My friend and I were preaching at O—, in Canada, where a very blessed work of God in the conversion of souls had been done some little time before our arrival, through the instrumentality of several of God's servants.
Nine months had elapsed since their departure, when, through God's grace, we found ourselves preaching night after night, God's present and eternal salvation for lost sinners, through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, to numbers who attended the meetings.
In the coming glory it will be joy to meet many precious souls who during that happy season received Christ as their own Savior!
But the circumstance more especially on my heart to relate just now, is the case of a dear woman who was brought to a knowledge of Christ at this time.
It so happens that nearly every person really seeking to be saved has some difficulties to be settled before getting peace with God. Many and varied are the obstacles that Satan puts in the way of an anxious soul, to darken and obscure God’s full and free message of Love, "lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, Who is the image of God, should shine unto them"; but it frequently happens that what is the difficulty of one is the difficulty of others; and as you, my reader, may be troubled as Mrs. S—(the person alluded to) was, it may be that God will graciously deign to help you by the same means as He helped her, so I will briefly relate her case.
As the people were assembling for the preaching one evening, my friend and I observed a very sickly, dying-looking young woman being borne into the hall by two men. They placed her in a half-recumbent position in a corner seat, propped her up with pillows, covered her with shawls and blankets, and then sitting down themselves left her to recover herself as much as possible, before the meeting began, from the fatigue occasioned by the journey she had taken. The night was piercingly cold, the thermometer stood several degrees below zero, and she had come some miles in a sleigh through the snow.
My friend, who was about to preach, said to me in a whisper, "There's an anxious soul, and no mistake! Let us ask the Lord to convert her to Himself to-night," or words to this effect.
Our hearts went up in silent prayer to the Lord to reveal Himself to her if she were still unsaved, for it was clear she had but a short time to live.
The meeting commenced, and my friend spoke. Towards the end of his address he took up some of the general difficulties that souls seeking peace are found frequently to labor under, endeavoring in each case to remove the difficulty by passages from the Word of God. Towards the close he said something to the following effect:-
“There is another difficulty to which I should like to allude before I close. There are some who imagine that God requires people to love Him in order to be saved. They look into their hearts, and find there, not one particle of love to God, but just the opposite—preferring the world, or the merest trifling pleasure, or vanity, to God. They pray to Him perhaps to soften their hard hearts, they try to leave off their gross sins, attend their ‘place of worship’ more regularly, take more advantage of the 'ordinances of religion,' and the ‘means of grace’ (as people speak), read the Bible oftener, and so forth: but alas after all these well-meant efforts they find they do not love God one bit better than they did before.
“Now, I wonder," continued the preacher, "can there be any person in this hall to-night who is kept from peace with God by supposing that God requires sinners to love Him before He would accept them. If so you are deluded, you are deceived. GOD DOES NOT REQUIRE SINNERS TO LOVE HIM BEFORE HE ACCEPTS AND SAVES THEM. See what God says in 1 John 4:1010Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10), 'HEREIN IS LOVE, NOT THAT WE LOVED GOD, BUT THAT HE LOVED US AND GAVE HIS SON TO BE THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS.' All our notions must be subjected to the test of the Word of God; ‘To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.’ Isa. 8:2020To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isaiah 8:20). Now when we bring this not uncommon idea to the test of the Word of God we find it to be the very reverse of the truth; indeed, it is fatal error, for we read in Rom. 8:77Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. (Romans 8:7), ‘The carnal mind is enmity against God.’ How could man's heart, which in its very essence is enmity against God, be supposed to be able to love God? If we had to wait until we were able to love God in order to be saved, then indeed we should never be saved at all.
"Ah! it has ever been Satan's great aim and delight to reverse the Word of God, in order to entrap and ensnare poor souls into everlasting perdition. The first thing we read of the Serpent, is a flat contradiction given to the Word of the Lord God, in the garden of Eden. No sooner had God said, In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,' than Satan says, ‘Thou shalt NOT surely die.’ He denied then the Righteousness of God which assigned Death as the punishment of sin; and now he adds to it a denial of the Love of God to the Sinner. Let us insist upon the blessed truth of God then, ‘Herein is love, NOT THAT WE LOVED GOD, BUT THAT HE LOVED US!’
"God loves you, poor sinner, even though you are an enemy (see Rom. 5:1010For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. (Romans 5:10), also Col. 1:2121And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled (Colossians 1:21)), so come just as you are, without a particle of Love to God. It is quite certain that you ought to love God, but it is as certain that you don't, and cannot; and just as certain is it too, blessed be God, that He will accept you without any love to Him, that He will FORGIVE you, and that He will SAVE you, for, as the end of the verse says, ‘He gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’
“Then, when you know you are forgiven and saved, on the simple authority of His Word, you will understand the force and beauty of the nineteenth verse, ‘We love Him, BECAUSE He FIRST loved us.’ If your idea were correct, then, it would read: 'He loves us, because we first loved Him.' But this is the reverse of what God says; so may your soul bow at once and forever to the blessed truth, and believe that God will accept you as you are, without any love to Him, and when you believe in His love to you, you will find that the inevitable and happy result is that you will love Him ‘because He first, loved’ you.”
The meeting closed, the people dispersed, and all returned to their respective homes. Next day, a Christian lady, Mrs. B—, drove me in her sleigh into "the bush," to the house of the dear dying one who had appeared in the meeting the night before. The snow was deep in some places, but we soon reached the little wooden "shanty" in which Mrs. S—lived.
Upon entering the little room, she was seen stretched on a couch close up to an American stove which stood in the middle of the room, rendering the heat inside the house almost as extreme as the cold outside. Her face was flushed, her breathing very rapid, consumption doing its deadly work; but her countenance bore a happy contrast to the suffering body, as it beamed and sparkled with joy.
A servant girl, who seemed the only other occupant of the house at the time, invited us to sit down, and taking a chair herself at the foot of the couch, listened with evident interest, if not anxiety, to the conversation with Mrs. S—that ensued.
After a little I asked Mrs. S—whether she had peace with God. "Oh yes!" she replied, as her eyes filled with tears of gratitude and joy, "I found peace last night while that dear gentleman was speaking. I was beginning to think I never should be saved, for when, some months ago, several were here preaching for a long time, I went night after night to the meetings, but came away as often as I went, unsaved! I saw numbers of people that professed to get, and 1 believe did get peace. They said their sins were forgiven, their souls were saved, and that they had eternal life, but it seemed to be not for me; I could never understand it, although people told me it was so simple. Many spoke to me privately besides, but all seemed in vain. The preaching ceased, and the evangelists that were here for so long went away, and I was left still unsaved and miserable. To make matters worse my health was giving way, and has been ever since, and now I am dying! When I had almost despaired of ever being saved, I heard that meetings were again started in the city, and I determined I would go once more, although I knew I was dying.
"My husband said it was madness, that it would kill me to venture out in such extreme cold, or else it would hasten my death. I replied that I had no doubt it would make me worse, but that it was better to lessen my days on earth, than to spend an Eternity in the Lake of Fire!! He yielded to what I said, so they put me in a sleigh, covered me up with blankets, and took me to the meeting; and oh! how I can now thank God that I went, for it was the means of bringing life and peace to my soul!
"I always thought that I had to love God before He would have anything to say to me. I prayed, and labored, and cried, and read my Bible, and did all I could; but I was getting worse and worse every day instead of better, and I could not love God. Oh! now I see my mistake. I was so occupied with trying to work up some love to God out of my hard, wretched heart that I was blinding myself to all His love to me. Oh! that beautiful verse, ‘Herein is love, NOT THAT WE LOVED GOD, BUT THAT HE LOVED US, and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’
"Now I see it all, God loved me all the time I was hating and resisting Him. Jesus died and shed His BLOOD for me; my sins are washed away, and NOW I have REASON TO LOVE GOD: ‘We love Him BECAUSE HE FIRST loved us.’”
It was in language such as this that Mrs. S—with deep emotion related to us how the Lord had revealed Himself to her soul, and shown her that the difficulty was of her own creating and not His. It was joy indeed to see the simplicity with which she had now, after months of unbelief, received the simple story of God's love.
After thanking the God of all grace for revealing Himself to her, Mrs. B—and I bade her farewell, and left the little house and its happy occupant with, it is needless to say, full hearts. I was never to see her again on earth, as not many weeks after, on my return to Europe, a letter came saying her ransomed spirit had passed away to be with Christ forever, where throughout eternity her joy will be to dwell in that "Love of Christ which passeth knowledge," a love from which nothing in Time or Eternity, nothing in Heaven or Earth, or Hell itself shall be able to separate us; for says one whose spirit has now been 1800 years with Christ, "I am persuaded that neither Death, nor Life, nor Angels, nor Principalities, nor Powers, nor things Present, nor things to Come, nor Height, nor Depth, nor ANY OTHER CREATURE shall be able to separate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:38,3938For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38‑39)).
In conclusion, dear reader, let me press upon you once more that "Herein is Love, NOT THAT WE LOVED GOD, BUT THAT HE LOVED US, and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins," and that "We love Him BECAUSE He FIRST LOVED US.”
"LOVE that no tongue can teach,
LOVE that no thought can reach,
NO LOVE LIKE HIS.
God is its blessed Source,
Death ne'er can stop its course,
NOTHING can stay its force,
MATCHLESS IT IS.”
April, 1874. J. C. T.