Some years ago, someone known only to God gave away a small gospel tract with a great message. Our first acquaintance with this gospel tract is when it was found lying on the grass by a muddy road in Kansas. It was put there, by God’s mercy, just for a teenage boy who, because of the recent rain, couldn’t work in the fields.
This barefooted boy, who was too poor to own rubber boots, was walking to town some five miles from his home for a game of pool—which was never played. He noticed the tract, picked it up, and as he walked along was casually reading it. He read how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures: and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures and how one can have, through believing in Him, the knowledge of sins forgiven and a home in heaven for all eternity.
With much concern, he decided to turn around and go back home. He had taught Sunday school in the local church, but here was something he never dreamed of as being in the Bible. The only person at home was an older brother.
After a brief chat with him, he mentioned the concern he had as to whether anyone on earth could know where they would be in eternity. His brother didn’t know either but suggested they get the Bible and see if they could find out. They started reading in the 4th chapter of Romans and came to the 5th verse which reads, “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” Here he told his brother to stop reading, as that was the message he was looking for. It was simply believing in the finished work.
A short time later, a Scotch coal miner from Iowa, who during the summer, spent what he had saved from his winter’s work in gospel work, came to this area in Kansas and had a series of meetings in a schoolhouse. The young boy attended, and one evening on his way out of the meeting he was asked by the preacher if he was saved. He said he didn’t know, but related his experience with the tract and his Bible and how that his only desire was to tell others the story that meant so much to him.
“What you have experienced in your life is called being ‘born again',” the preacher said. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Cor. 5:1717Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17).) He also pointed out to him scriptures that gave the assurance of heaven as his eternal home.
That young fellow was saved soon after that and became an earnest soul-winner, giving away thousands of tracts and witnessing to others of the matchless grace God had shown to him.
’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me Home.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.
ML-05/28/1978