I REMEMBER an occasion when I was going from door to door with my tracts and books, visiting the sick and finding out the anxious. At the end of a row of houses I thought I heard a wrangling, but a voice said to my knock, “Come in!” There stood a boy, face to face with his father, having an argument about which was the right way to heaven.
The boy said, “I’ll tell the gentleman what we’re talking about. My father says the Church of — is the right way to heaven; and old Mr. Finn says the Church of — is the right way to heaven; and I believe that — Church is the right way to heaven. If I’m right they are wrong; and I’m sure they are wrong, for the only reason Father goes to his church is because he’s paid for cleaning it.”
Just at this moment the door opened behind me, and in came a big soldier who had just come from a parade.
“You are just in time!” I remarked.
“For a good dinner, I hope, your honor,” replied the soldier.
“I hope you may get it,” I said. “This boy says the — Church is the way to heaven. His father contradicts him, and says the Church of is the way to heaven; and our aged friend here says that they’re both wrong, and that the Church of is the only way to heaven. Now what have you to say on the subject?’
“Well, your honor, you don’t have to believe in either of them, for they are all three wrong. If I had a Bible I would show you the right way, and the only way to heaven.”
At once I produced my pocket Bible and handed it to him, and he found the place and read to us: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” John 14:66Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6).
“That is the way to heaven, your honor, and there is no other way in the world. The Lord Jesus Himself is the Way, who shed His blood for sinners, and whoever has Christ in his heart, that man is on the right Way to the Father, and to heaven, sure enough.”
“Where did you learn that?”
“I was taught it in a Sunday school when I was a boy, and I’m going to live and die by it.”
I thanked the Christian soldier, and we four got down on our knees, and thanked the Lord for making the Way so very clear, and inclining us to see it. Come to it, believe in it, and walk in it.
ML-10/01/1972