IT is a wonderful moment in our life’s history when, like Jacob, we get “alone” with God, and listen only to His voice. “In the beginning,” that voice broke the silence of eternity; and the darkness fled at the Divine command, “Let there be light.” All down the stream of time, and in every successive age and dispensation, that same almighty voice rings out its varied messages to man, until the last recorded utterance falls on our listening ears, “Surely I come quickly.”
But the eternal Word, who was, and is, God, “was made flesh, and dwelt along us,” and nineteen centuries ago entered this world which He had created, not only to die for sins, and for sinners, but that men might hear His voice, and live. Do not His own holy lips declare, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin”? “If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not sin; but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.” He alone could say, “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice”; and even His enemies were forced to admit, “Never man spake like this man.”
Blessing, however, both then and now, can only be found as His words are truly believed in the heart ; and all is well when the sinner and the Saviour are in direct touch the one with the other. Thus it was with Nicodemus, who, in his short, but interesting talk with Jesus, discovered for the first time as well the absolute necessity of a new birth as also the equally imperative needs-be for the lifting up of the Son of man. Listening to that voice, the Jewish ruler learnt from the lips of Him who was not only teacher but Saviour, his own utter ruin; and into that hitherto love of God, dark heart divine light was now shining. As the love of God in the gift of His only begotten Son, dawned upon the ruler’s soul, faith accepted the glad message, and Nicodemus was “born again.” Alone with Jesus, he listened, believed, and lived.
Sychar’s well tells its own sweet story of how Jacob’s erring daughter learned her own depravity; not in Samaritan worship (so-called)—still less by her own thoughts or feelings—but just in a quiet talk with that divine Prophet who read her through, as He laid bare the secrets of her wayward life. Not indeed to judge her, but to save.
How rich indeed was His grace! For David’s greater Son had asked of a Samaritan outcast a drink of water, in order that she might ask and He might give, that “living water which springeth up into everlasting life.” Yet all this mystery of love was only fully proved and enjoyed when the woman was alone with Jesus, and far from the busy hum of the city. Listening to that heavenly voice, peace filled her soul as she drank water; and, as the direct result of that living that little talk with God’s Holy One, she swiftly carried the glad tidings of her new found joy to others, in those memorable words “Come, see a man who told me all things that ever I did, is not this the Christ?”
Another scene, equally rich in grace and truth, now opens before us, as we follow the footsteps of the lowly Nazarene. Spending the night upon the mount of Olives in communion with His Father, Jesus rises early in the morning to carry out that Father’s will, and to set at liberty one of Satan’s captives. As He sits in the temple teaching the people, the scribes and Pharisees bring Him a woman taken in the act of sin, which, under the Mosaic law, involved the death of the transgressor. Their one object was to tempt God’s Holy One, that they might be able to accuse Him! But little did those religious hypocrites dream of the utter discomfiture which was so soon to expose their insincerity. Was the guilty one to suffer the judgment of her sin under the law of Moses? or “What sayest thou?” Pressed for an answer, Jesus lifts up Himself; and those heart-searching words ring through the temple, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” The true Light shone in all its exposing power; and the religious hypocrites, who loved darkness rather than light, fled from it, convicted in their conscience, but not converted. As the woman’s accusers went out one by one till all were gone, the way was clear for “mercy to rejoice against judgment,” and the moment had arrived when the sinner and the Saviour were alone. In the stillness of that quiet hour, again that voice is speaking once more, “Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?” “No man, Lord,” was the guilty one’s reply. Grace was about to triumph where sin had abounded; and then in words of holy and tender pity the Saviour spoke to that guilty soul, “Neither do I condemn thee; go sin no more.” Here revealed as light He lays bare the secret as well as the discovered sins. And to know Him now is find Him a Saviour instead of a judge, as He must be hereafter to those who here refuse His grace.
May you, dear reader, get alone with Jesus, and confide yourself to Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost. Which are you saved or lost?
S. T.