ON visiting A― H―, I found him, as is usual with those suffering from consumption, ill enough, but full of anticipation of ad early recovery. I was quite a stranger to him, but having won my way into his confidence by sympathetic concern for his wearied frame, racked by pain and a ghastly cough, I approached him with a question regarding his eternal prospects. Readily came the reply, “I mean to make a fresh start.”
Reader, if you looked upon a man swimming in dangerous waters, and saw him suddenly fling up his arms, you would be convinced he was drowning; and, although he had a will to reach land, if you heard him say, “I mean to make a fresh start,” you would not be more surprised than, for the moment, I was.
To what an extent the human heart deceive itself this instance is witness, confirming the divine record that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:99The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)).
However, speedily recovering my surprise, I asked, “Have you ever when in robust health made a fresh start?”
“Oh, yes,” said he, “several.”
“And did you not break down in each instance?”
With a painfully feverish reply, that told of mental and, happily, conscious conviction, came the affirmation, “Oh, yes.”
“Well,” I asked, “if so in health, what prospect of success in a dying state?”
“None,” said he, with a look that spoke of dread at his own conclusion.
I then said, “You and God do not agree, for it is recorded, ‘When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly’ (Rom. 5:66For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)). If ‘without strength’ and dying, what ability have you to reach God’s holy heaven? Nay, God’s heaven is bolted to you.”
I shall not readily forget the effect of this reply, nor the display of soul-horror that played on the features of my interesting, and now awakened acquaintance. His rolling eyes then asked more anxiously than words, “What then must I do?”
I said, “God waits to draw back the bolt. He has ability to bring in, in holiness, those who yield to Him.”
Self-confidence, however, dies hard, and again the awful delusion crept over his mind to the effect that he would get well, and go to church; evidently this being his only idea of satisfying the insulted Majesty, and meeting the inexorable claims of Him before whom the seraphim dare not uncover their faces (Isa. 6:1-41In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. 2Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. 3And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. 4And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. (Isaiah 6:1‑4)). Alas! for the want of moral perception on the part of the mass as to the claims on each man, woman, and child of Him who is holy, holy, holy. Reader, what about His claim on you?
Well, to deliver myself from his blood, I had again to tell him plainly he was in a dying state. This was a last resort to arouse him from his spiritual torpor, but, to any acquainted with his disease, the fact was only too evident.
I left him, promising to call the following evening, expressing a hope that a deeper exercise of inquiry and concern would lead to an assurance of faith that would fully free him from the law of sin and death.
A stratagem of Satan utterly failed at this crisis. On calling as promised, A― H―did not desire to see me until the following Wednesday, i.e., three days later. Are you, dear reader, equal to the wiliness of him who is no novice in the arts of seduction? Ask yourself by what sophistry you have been wiled into indecision with regard to that most important of all steps, even the confession of Christ, as Lord, unto present, and eternal salvation (Rom. 10:99That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (Romans 10:9)).
The pleading of a devoted sister was the instrument in God’s hand of defeating Satan’s device; and again I found myself in the presence of A― H―, not at all conscious of what had taken place until a week later. God, who is rich in mercy, had designs of eternal good towards this erring one. It was not that he did not want salvation, but rather that Satan did not want to lose him, hence the procrastination.
When face to face I saw a load of anxiety pressed his soul, and asked, “Do you believe in sudden conversion?” He said, “No.” I replied, “If a man was helplessly and hopelessly involved in debt, for which the judge had sentenced him to be imprisoned, and just as the officer was about to convey him to the cells, a friend paid down the whole of the debt and costs, could any prevent the late bankrupt there and then walking out of court a free man?” He mentally followed me, and said, “No.” Continuing, I said, “You have run up an account against God all your life. You are indebted to Him for every act, word, and thought not done to His glory.”
This brought out the fact that he had been particularly interested in divine things all his life, ―twenty -eight years, ― but at this point he admitted to having come short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:2323For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)) through guiltiness of conduct described in Romans 3:2-182Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. 3For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? 4God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. 5But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) 6God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world? 7For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? 8And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just. 9What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; 10As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 13Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 14Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17And the way of peace have they not known: 18There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:2‑18).
“Now,” I said, “let me show you your friend in 1 Peter 2:21-2421For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: 22Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: 23Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: 24Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:21‑24), and the appropriating principle in Romans 3:24-2624Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Romans 3:24‑26). These scriptures describe the fact of guilt, of guilt expiated, and of exemption from punishment, beside also becoming free consequent on faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Was the debtor free immediately his friend had satisfied the judge?” “Yes,” he replied. “Is the sinner saved as soon as he learns God has been satisfied by His sin-bearing Son, and trusts in His blood?” “Saved,” he answered. “Are you saved?” I then asked. “Saved,” he gladly said, both with voice and countenance; and one seemed to see the veil lifted off that darkened soul in his passage from the domain of darkness into light.
Did the prince of darkness anticipate the loss of another subject that Lord’s Day evening that he enticed him to defer my visit? Verily, it would appear so, for twice twenty-four hours before the time A― H― proposed to see me he was absent from the body, and, I believe, present with the Lord. He died on the Monday.
Reader, let me entreat you, don’t risk such a narrow escape.
G. W. T.