“Write a text in my album, S—”
The corporal took the proffered book, and remained silent for a few moments; then, with the smile that those who knew him will long remember, he said, “I will give you the text that was the means of my conversion. And shall I tell you how I read it?”
“Do!” And the corporal wrote: —
“My CONVERSION, 8TH MARCH, 1910.
“Read by me thus: ‘That if I confess with my mouth Jesus (which means Saviour) as Lord (One in authority), and believe in my heart that God has raised Him from the dead (as He died for me), and that He is at God’s right hand having thus conquered death, I AM SAVED.’ And I praised God; and have been looking up to Him ever since.
S. J. D.”
Such was the corporal’s account of the most momentous event of his life, when as a lad of seventeen he was converted turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, and made a new creaturo. Has my reader been converted? Perhaps he sneers at the very idea, and considers it, as a clergyman’s daughter wrote the other day, “only chapel talk” a polite way of expressing “cant”; or perhaps, while owning there is such an experience in some people’s lives, thinking it is one which personally he cannot need and so will never have.
But listen! The words are those of Him Who spake “as never man spake” of Him Who is “God over all, blessed forever” “Verily, I say unto you, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:33And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3)). Make no mistake, “Ye must be born again.”
Then how? Simply as the corporal was, by accepting the word of God as to the work of Christ. By resting on God’s word; by believing His testimony as to His Son. He has declared that the earth-rejected, crucified Man, cast out and disowned, spit upon and set at naught, is “Lord and Christ”; that to Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess His Lordship. To do so now is salvation, for He is Jesus Jehovah a Saviour. He has made atonement for sin. He has glorified God respecting that which had dis. honored Him. His righteousness, His holiness have been vindicated in the cross of Christ where God made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin. And because all that Justice could demand has been fully met, God has raised Him from the dead, and given Him glory. And He calls on you to believe it not with the mere assent of the intellect, but with the homage of the heart to own this One “my Lord, and my God.” Thus shall you know, as the corporal knew, “I am saved.”
~~~
He sat in the messroom, his little well-worn Bible open on the table before him, and absorbed in the beauties he found there, was oblivious to all going on around. Suddenly a voice behind him exclaimed, “Well! I have been in the Army a whole year, and this is the first time I have seen a Bible on a barrack-room table!” The corporal turned, to find a man who that very morning had been placed in the same hut with himself; and a few moments only sufficed for him to discover that the newcomer was a fellow-partaker with him of the joy that belongs alone to those who are “children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Very precious to both was the intercourse that followed, as they spoke together of the Saviour they both knew and loved.
“I will give you the verse I had all the time I was in France,” said the corporal; “I simply lived on it right through. Here it is: Psalm 33:18-1918Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy; 19To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. (Psalm 33:18‑19) see, I have marked it ‘Behold the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy: to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.’ I knew the Lord’s eye was on me, and He would protect me; and so He did.” And then he told wonderful instances of the way that delivering Eye had discovered its watchful care over him.
My reader, God’s eye is upon you. How does the thought affect you? Are you one of those who “fear Him, and hope in His mercy?” He will, He can alone show you mercy through the Lord Jesus Christ; there is no mercy apart from Him; and there is no mercy, through all eternity, for those who reject Him here!
~~~
It is August 21st, 1918, and “somewhere in France” the corporal is writing a letter. “Many thanks for yours received when in the line. ‘The Gospel Gleanings’ came at the same time... I am pleased to say that I have heard of one accepting Christ through them. I have been reading Psalm 17. The last verse is our future hope, our goal, to which we are striving, and soon we shell reach there to receive the prize.”
And what is that “last verse”? “As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.”
Twelve days passed, and very early on September 2nd, the corporal’s company was ordered into action. As they advanced they were fired at by a concealed sniper, and the corporal fell with others. “He was getting his men out of danger and not thinking of himself,” was the testimony of one near enough to him to be struck by the same bullet. In two minutes the stretcher bearers were at his side, but the corporal was not there. His ransomed spirit was already “beholding His Face in righteousness”; “absent from the body, present with the Lord.”
Yes—in righteousness—righteousness to the Lord Jesus and His finished work—righteousness of God which is “upon all them that believe,” and “unto all” (Rom. 3:2222Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: (Romans 3:22)). Unto you, dear reader, if you will but give up all your own, and submit to God’s, righteousness which is by faith of Jesus Christ. God is “just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.”
“No one leaves this world fit for the presence of God,” declared a lady to the writer as they spoke of the corporal’s death. His last text belies it. None can see God’s face except in righteousness. . . but those who believe are (2 Cor. 5:2020Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:20)) “the righteousness of God in Him” (Christ); and can, already give thanks unto the Father “which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:1212Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: (Colossians 1:12)).
And so the corporal sleeps in one of the crowded cemeteries on the then battle-front, until the voice of the Saviour Whom he had known for eight and a half years, shall awaken him. Then that ransomed body shall rise, not “in weakness,” as sown, but raised in glory, in the likeness of Him Who is coming as Saviour to deliver it from the power of the grave.
Saved by grace, through faith, and knowing it when he rested on God’s testimony to the work of Christ; saved daily, during those long years, from dangers moral, physical, spiritual, by the life of Him Who had died for him; and saved altogether, spirit, soul and body when that Saviour returns for His own. Such is the story told by the corporal’s three texts. Reader, is it yours?
T.