SELDOM does a soul acknowledge with absolute conviction the certain end of a life of sin. Usually there is some hope of heaven; often enough, alas! a groundless hope, founded on something else besides the finished work and the atoning merits of the blood of the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.
But with all seriousness, and, at times, with an almost tragic manner, a sad life-story was told to me; a life-story I dare not pen, ending with these awful words, “I’m going down to hell!”
There was no thought of making a confession to me of her sins; it would have been useless if there had been such a thing in her mind, as absolution is with no man on earth (and with Christ only in heaven); but spontaneously, strangely, and suddenly as an accident occurs, was this life-history narrated.
I looked her in the face.
“It is perfectly true,” I assented with earnestness, “you are going down to hell. You know it. There is but one end to a life of sin if unforgiven. Yet to you, vile as you confess yourself to be, there is forgiveness offered. The same Saviour Who went to Sychar’s well to meet such a one as yourself, and Who saved her, would save you. He has died for sinners. His precious blood can cleanse you from all sin. He will receive you now, and He alone can save you from judgment. You need not go to hell!”
My reply was evidently unexpected, and, taken aback, she replied―
“Ah! I know that Christ can save.”
She had heard of Him and His love, and I wondered if she realized the doom she anticipated. I endeavored to bring her to see how great is the salvation offered, and the wondrous love of the Saviour in giving His life that “whosoever believeth” may be saved.
Alas! it was all too evident that the misery of sin was accepted without repentance. Yet it was sweet to declare the love of God and the wondrous grace of His beloved Son, however it may have been taken and who can tell—but that the word of peace and pardon may have sunk into that poor withered heart?
To all appearance she went forth again, wandering away from God, like a wandering star, and, if still without repentance, unto the blackness of darkness forever, a lost soul. Lost from God. “Going to hell!” How solemn, yet bow real her words sounded!
Cain had gone that way, out of the presence of God, out into the land of wandering, as the name implies, the land of Nod. And all mankind, like him, have gone astray, turned “to his own way.” Yes, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (see Rom. 3 and Is. 53)
Yet to His wandering creatures the blessed God has sent forth His Son to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 9:1010And the apostles, when they were returned, told him all that they had done. And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida. (Luke 9:10)). How great His love as expressed in Jesus, the Son of Man, Who revealed the heart of God, and made a way back to God for us by bearing the judgment of sin, suffering for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
How great the rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repented; over one who believes the love that God has shown in the gift of His Son to die for sinners!
Dear reader, are you aware of God’s love to you? Are you lost or found?
Are you, like the poor woman who confessed, she was going down to hell, wandering aimlessly on the broad road that leads to destruction?
Read that wonderful account of divine grace in Luke 15. How the shepherd rejoices over the found sheep, the woman over the found silver, the father over the found son.
What a picture! God the Son, God the Spirit, and God the Father, rejoicing over the repentant, recovered wanderer. What caused die prodigal to come back to his father? It was his father’s goodness and mercy.
“Return, O wanderer, to thy home,
’Tis madness to delay;
There are no pardons in the tomb,
And brief is mercy’s stay.”