Alex thought he had borne enough! His mother, with whom he lived, had recently been converted, and she was so happy in knowing the Lord Jesus that she wanted to share the good news with everyone- especially with her son. That was bad enough, but one night when he came home he found a man in the house, an open Bible in his hand, preaching to as many of their friends and neighbors as could squeeze in. It was too much!
Alex tried to stop his mother from permitting gospel meetings in their house. He failed. The meetings went on, and he told his mother he would leave home. This is his story:
“I left home. I could get away from my mother’s roof; I could not get away from my mother’s prayers! For twenty-three years I went deeper and deeper into sin, until through a severe accident I found myself in the hospital at Cardiff.
“There those prayers truly caught up with me! There I got a view of myself, and you may talk of ‘no hell’ if you will, but that sight was ‘hell upon earth’ to me. I saw myself LOST! Not a little lost, not half lost, but LOST! I could see no chance of mercy for me.
“A Christian visitor came to my bedside to read and pray with me, but I said, ‘Go to someone else and read that book. I’m too bad for anything. I’m lost!’ But grace met me, and I found I was not too bad for Christ. It was sinners like me He died for.
“Before the time I speak of in the hospital, I had often tried to ‘make my peace with God.’ After a drunken binge or on coming out of prison, I would make a fresh determination to be different, but down I went again. Now I see that He “made peace by the blood of His cross” (Col. 1:2020And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:20)), and so it is not left for me to make it. How thankful I am for those prayers that followed me for twenty-three years!”
Alex is a testimony to the power of the Word and Spirit of God. When a man realizes that in himself he is utterly lost, he can never rest till, through the work of Another (the Lord Jesus Christ), he is eternally saved.