WHAT is your object in giving these tracts away"? said a respectable farmer's wife in a puzzled tone to me one market day.
I told her that those tracts were to call attention to what vitally concerns each one of us, the salvation of our souls and how we must be saved.
Still she looked puzzled. It seemed strange to her that anyone should so lower herself in the eyes of others for such an object.
It is possible that when she got home, she would read the tract given to her, and from it would hear for the first time, that Christ had died for her a sinner, and would turn to Him, and trust Him as her Savior. Then with a sense of her own eternal security and happiness, her heart would go out in pity to those who "heedless of their souls immortal" are hastening on to a lost eternity, and her longing cry for them would be—
"Oh! won't somebody tell them;
Tell them of Calvary's tree,
Tell them the story of Jesus,
What a great Savior is He"?
If this had been the blessed result of her reading that gospel booklet, it would itself be the answer to her question, "What is your object in giving these tracts away?”
Alas! how terrible is the ignorance and indifference as to what determines whether our eternity, our forever and forever, will be spent in the joys of heaven, or in hell, where there is "weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
Ask the first six thoughtful people you meet how they must be saved and the answers of at least five out of the six will prove them to be as ignorant as if they were living in a heathen land. They will say, "By doing the best I can." "By leading a good life." "By strict attention to religious duties," "By praying every day for the forgiveness of my sins." "By liberal charities and good deeds," etc.
Now God's verdict on these things as means of gaining salvation is that it is "not of works, lest any man should boast." (Eph. 2:99Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:9)). We are saved by what Christ has done for us, not by what we try to do for Him.
God's Word shows us that "God so loved the world" that He gave His Son to die and shed His blood to atone for our sins, and on the ground of His perfect atonement, (not by our merits or good deeds) God freely forgives everyone who turns to Him.
As sinners who have turned to God we must appropriate for ourselves the forgiveness He offers us in virtue of Christ's atoning death for us.
“He died to save sinners. I am a sinner, and therefore He died to save me," said one to herself as she thus made it her own.
If any have to face an eternity of unutterable woe through not having known, and therefore not having availed themselves of the full free salvation Christ died to bring them, they can only say, "We are lost because we did not think it worth our while to look into God's Word to see how we might be saved.”
F. A.