OUR Sunday afternoon meeting in a Gospel tent in Jamaica had come to a close, when a lady came to me desiring an interview. “I do not at all like what you are doing in this town,” she said.
“Oh! what is it that you object to, madam?” I inquired, “Well, you are making people believe and say that they are saved, and I do not believe that any one can know that they are saved this side of death.”
“Ah! I see. You are not saved, then?” I replied.
“Well, I am a constant attendant at church, and never miss the sacrament. I also help in Sunday school; but I should think it great presumption to say that I was saved.”
“I should not call it presumption to say that at all, but, alas! you are not saved, for you are resting on an entirely wrong foundation, and if you die on the seat where you are sitting you would most surely be lost.”
The lady did not like my answer, and indignantly left the tent without another word.
The friend who had brought her to the meeting was distressed at this, but I said, “Do not trouble about it, we shall hear of this lady again, for there are often three stages in the course of the salvation of a soul: they are madness, sadness and gladness.
She has reached the first stage, for she is very angry at the plain way in which I have spoken to her.”
I was not mistaken in my surmise, for while at breakfast the following morning I received a penciled note from the lady asking if I would call and see her as soon as I could.
I went at once and was greeted by the words, “I did not like what you said to me in the tent yesterday.”
“Probably not,” I replied, “but what I said was true, was it not?”
She had to confess that it was. It had been a rude awakening, she said, but what must she do now?
She had reached the second stage now and was filled with sadness at the thought of her lost condition before God.
I talked to her for some time of the way of salvation, of the great mercy of God to lost and guilty sinners, but all failed to remove the sadness that filled her heart. Rising to go, I said, “Mrs. W—, I must go, but will leave with you just three words. I will not tell you Who said them, or when He said them, or why He said them, I want you to find out those three things for yourself. The words are, ‘It is finished.’ Good-morning.”
I met her the next day and saw, even before speaking to her, that those three glorious words had done their work. She had found out the meaning of them and Who it was who had uttered them, and she had reached the third stage in the history of her soul’s blessing.
“ ‘It is finished,’ I can see it all very clearly now,” she said.
That lady had decided to seek admission into the Roman Catholic Church that very week, in order to find there the peace for which she had been longing. Needless to say that her intention in this direction was not carried out, for she had found in the finished work of Christ that which had given her the priceless blessing of salvation.
She is now with the Saviour who shed His blood to redeem her, for she was crushed beneath the ruins of the great Kingston earthquake. It was a sudden exit for her, but it was an equally sudden entrance into the presence of her blessed Lord.
I wonder if you, my reader, have passed through these three stages. It is not pleasant to be told the truth as to our sinfulness and need, it may make us angry even, but it is most needful, for we could never appreciate God’s matchless grace, by which He freely saves the lost, if we did not realize our need of it. As this need dawns upon our souls we are sobered and saddened by it; but oh how great the joy of seeing that all the work was finished long ago by God’s own Son, and that simple trust in Him secures the blessing for us without any work or price on our part.
“Oh, I am so happy in Jesus,
From sin and from judgment set free;
So happy that He is my Saviour,
So happy that Jesus loves me!”
J. T. M.