PREACHER had gone down into a coalmine to tell the miners of the Savior in the noon hour. After hearing the simple story of God's love to lost sinners, a full, free salvation offered, the time came for the men to resume work, and the preacher came back to the shaft to ascend to the world again. Meeting the foreman he asked him what he thought of God's way of salvation?
The man replied, "Oh, it's too cheap. I can't believe in such a salvation as that.”
Without an immediate answer to his remark, the preacher asked, "How do you get out of this place?”
“Simply by getting into the cage," was the reply.
“Does it take long to get to the top?”
“Oh, no; only a few seconds.”
“Well, certainly, that is very easy and simple. But do you not need to help raise yourself?”
“Of course not," said the miner; "you have nothing to do but get into the cage.”
“But what of the people who sunk the shaft and perfected all this arrangement? Was there much labor or expense about it?”
“Indeed, yes; that was a laborious and expensive work. The shaft is 1,800 ft. deep, and was sunk at great cost to the proprietor; but without it we should never get to the surface.”
“just so; and when God's word says, ' He that believeth on the Son bath everlasting life,' you say, Too cheap,' forgetting that God's work to bring you out of the pit of destruction and sin was accomplished at a vast cost, the price being the death of His Son.”
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:14.) A. D.