IT was in a large iron room in the 'southwest of London that I first saw, in front of a crowded audience, an aged woman, between ninety and one hundred years of age.
She lived at a considerable distance from the iron room, and was seen one day sitting outside her little house, enjoying the warm sun and refreshing air of an early spring afternoon.
The young person who saw her sitting outside her cottage invited her to come to some special gospel meetings, which were then being held in the iron room. My aged friend told her that she was too old and too feeble to walk so far, when my young friend, though possessed but of very limited means, immediately offered to pay the expenses of a cab fare there and back again, which she did the next and two following Lord's-day evenings.
I did not speak to her myself until the third time of her coming to the meetings. I had been preaching that evening from the last words of Jesus on the cross before He died, which were, "IT IS FINISHED." She remained behind with some others after the preaching was over, to have personal conversation with me about her soul. I found her in deep distress about her many years of sin, though she bad led a very moral life. She told me that she had been a nurse; but that whenever she had an opportunity she went to "church” that she was kind to her neighbors, paid her debts, did not owe anybody anything, read her Bible, and said her prayers. "But," she added, " God has undeceived me, and shown me I have been all wrong all these years, and that instead of accepting JESUS for my Saviour, I have been making a Saviour of my good works. Oh, pray for me!”
Seeing that she was looking from herself and her doings to me and my prayers, I replied, " No; I shall not pray for you, nor ask you to pray for yourself. JESUS said, It is finished,' and His finished work is so perfect that it does not need the weight of either your prayers or mine. You must therefore trust His finished work for salvation, or neglect it, and be damned forever.”
God at once caused her to see the force and truth of what I had just spoken, and removed' her last false prop from under her, when, with all the simplicity of a little, helpless child, she trusted the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and cried out with a loud voice, "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.”
She lived some four or five years after this, and was frequently visited by aged and experienced, and by young, earnest Christians, and by myself, and we none of us ever doubted, but had many proofs of the genuineness and reality of the work of God in her soul. What hath God wrought! To Him be all the praise.
And now, should this little narrative meet the eyes of any who are making a Saviour of their good works, be warned by it to look away at once to Him who did all the work of the sinner's salvation on the cross. Are you, like some of old, saying, “What shall we do that we might work the works of God?
Then listen, and bow to the answer, “Jesus answered and said unto them, THIS is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent "(John 6:28, 2928Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. (John 6:28‑29)). "Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4:4, 54Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. 5But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. (Romans 4:4‑5)).
If ever you are saved at all, it must be without works, so that God may be able to say of you, " By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast " (Eph. 2:8, 98For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8‑9)). Works will flow fast enough after we are really saved by grace, and know it; but all the way home to glory we shall be led adoringly and gladly to say, " Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life " (Titus 3:5-75Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; 6Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; 7That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:5‑7)).