MANY years since I was traveling in Cornwall from T― to P― It was a hot summer’s day; and, before starting, I had purchased a basket of strawberries to slake my thirst on my journey.
At the outskirts of the town the vehicle stopped, and a lady stepped in. She had barely taken her seat, when, her eye lighting on the strawberries, she ejaculated loudly enough for me to hear, “Oh! dear me, I am so sorry.”
On hearing her exclamation I inquired the cause thereof, when she replied, “Because I omitted to procure some strawberries to take with me to the friend I am going to see, who is sick.”
I immediately said, “Pray, madam, take these,” holding out the strawberries to her.
“I could not deprive you of them,” was her reply.
“I assure you, madam, you are quite welcome to them, if you will accept them,” I answered.
“Oh! no,” she said; “I cannot take them, unless you allow me to pay for them,” at the same time putting her hand in her pocket.
“You must have them for nothing, madam, or not have them at all,” I rejoined.
Still she hesitated; but at length, when I added, “You must have them on my terms, or not at all,” she perceived my purpose was to give, and not to sell; and accordingly thankfully received them.
After they had become her property, I said, “The reluctancy you have shown in receiving those strawberries is just what many a sinner shows towards God in the matter of his soul’s salvation, because he wants to pay God something for it.”
The conversation was here stopped by her having to leave the omnibus.
A few months after the above incident took place, I was again nearing P― by a different route, which necessitated my crossing a river by a ferryboat.
The boatman was a hale old Cornishman, full sixty summers, who said to me on stepping into his boat early in the morning, by way of excusing the use of the pipe which was in his mouth, “Always have a pipe after breakfast, sir”; and immediately added, “Have been a teetotaler for twenty-eight years, sir.”
His countenance confirmed his statement that he was a temperate man.
“Teetotalism is all very well for this life, my friend, but it will not save the soul,” I replied. “So I find, sir,” was his ready answer.
On getting into further conversation I soon discovered that he was in an inquiring state of mind, having been many years previously awakened to a sense of his need of a Saviour. All these years, however, he had never tasted the sweetness of the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins through the precious blood of Christ, nor the blessedness of peace with God. As he was slowly paddling me across the river, I sought to unfold to him the way of salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and illustrated the freeness of eternal life, as God’s gift to the sinner, by the foregoing narrative of the basket of strawberries.
I had no sooner finished than he exclaimed, “Oh, dear me, I see what I have been about these last twenty-one years, like that lady wanting to give God something for His great salvation; but I see that it is all the free gift of His love through our Lord Jesus Christ, I have nothing to do but to take it.” And he then began to rejoice, being filled with joy and peace in believing. (Rom. 15:1313Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. (Romans 15:13).)
Nine years elapsed before I again saw my friend the boatman. When we next met after that long interval of time he expressed his joy in again seeing me, and said, “Oh! sir, I have had the peace of God flowing into my soul ever since you met me in this boat that morning; and besides which He has converted two of my sons, one of whom has gone to the Island of Bermuda to preach Christ.”
Beloved reader, these incidents are related that by their means your eyes may be opened to see that God is a giving God. He “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)). In the midst of a world of guilty, ruined sinners, who had forfeited every claim on His mercy and favor, He was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself not imputing their trespasses unto them, never judging or pronouncing a woe except on those who dared to hinder Him in the blessing of the needy sons and daughters of Adam; or those who, notwithstanding the most unmistakable proof of the divine character of His acts of love, turned away from Him, who alone could save them from their sins.
Man is a sinner by nature, and is consequently lost; is without God and without hope in this world; can do nothing but perish in his sins. This is true of all, whether those on the righteous side of the broad road, or the unrighteous side of it; and, therefore, true of you, dear reader. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3). God saw this the moment man disobeyed Him in the garden of Eden, and fell a prey to the seducing power of Satan. And four thousand years of probation from the first man’s disobedience to the rejection of Christ, and His being taken by wicked hands, and hanged on that shameful cross of Calvary, only demonstrated how thoroughly guilty and ruined he had become.
The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is the solemn proof of this truth, how hopelessly lost and thoroughly bad you are, dear reader, in God’s sight. There is no exception, for all are become guilty, whether it be the privileged Jew under law, or the Gentile without law. Satan is at the bottom of all this mischief. God knows it, but you do not till your eyes are opened by Him who is the Light of this world; and Who here was in the midst of darkness, yet the darkness comprehended not the Light.
Satan’s business is to keep precious souls in ignorance as to their true condition before God; he blinds their eyes lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ should shine upon them; and he does not care how he succeeds, whether by that which is good in itself, as far as this life is concerned, or by that which is grossly evil.
Oh! that you may see, that God has provided a salvation for man worthy of Himself and His glory, the cost of which none, can estimate. He is too rich to sell, salvation, and man is too poor to give anything consistent with the claims of a holy, sin-hating God, or adequate to satisfy His holy demands. The thought of such a thing is monstrous. What! the Creator selling anything to the creature of His hands, to man who has disobeyed Him, and crucified His own dear Son!
No, reader, away with such unworthy thoughts. God has provided a propitiation in the person and finished work of His beloved Son; that is, a way of access into His presence by that one sacrifice for sin, which Jesus became when He offered Himself through the eternal Spirit without spot unto God, so that believing sinners of Adam’s fallen race can now draw near, in the true and honest acknowledgment of what they are, as taught by the blessed Spirit, and receive, as a gift, without money and without price, at the hands of Jesus, the crucified but now risen and glorified Son of Man at God’s right hand, eternal life, forgiveness of sins, and eternal redemption from sin and all its consequences, and deliverance from Satan and all the power of death.
Remember, dear reader, that what Jesus says, has done and gives, has the stamp of eternity on it. This is what He gives now, in time, to those who believe in Him through grace; and to consummate all, in a little while, when He comes the second time, He will give eternal glory with Himself in the Father’s house above, “that Parise,” of which dear Paul Gerhardt speaks—
“Of light, and love, and song,
Where the eye at last beholdeth
What the heart hath loved so long.”
Do not let Satan deceive you. The consequences are tremendous. If this gift of God’s love is despised you will be taken and cast with all neglecters and rejecters into that lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. He blinds men’s eyes to their real state before God. And whatever you may be before men, if yet unsaved in God’s sight, you are a needy, guilty sinner, with a forfeited life inherited from the first man. For “by one-man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Oh! come at once, then, to Jesus, who still sits at God’s right hand to give eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him, even to those who simply look to Him, believe in, His name, hear His voice, and trust in His precious blood which cleanseth us from all sin.
H. P.
WE sing the praise of Him who died,
Of Him who died upon the cross,
The sinner’s Hope, let men deride;
For this we count the world but loss.
Inscribed upon the cross we see,
In shining letters, “God is LOVE”
The Lamb who died upon the tree,
Has brought us mercy from above.
The Cross! it took our guilt away,
It holds the fainting spirit up;
It cheers with hope the gloomy day,
And sweetens every bitter cup.
It makes the coward spirit brave,
And nerves the feeble arm for fight;
It takes its terror from the grave,
And gilds the bed of death with light.
The balm of life, the cure of woe,
The measure and the pledge of love,
The sinner’s refuge here below,
The theme of praise in heaven above.