My friend and I were stationed at Ipoh, in Malaya. We had both just finished a course of training and were due for fourteen days’ leave. The only vacancy for us in Singapore was at the Soldier’s Home. When we arrived at the Home, we were shown to our room and the rules were explained. I remember that we were not very much impressed by the rule that fixed the time of curfew at 11 o’clock, but we thought that we could manage to get around that little rule fairly easily if the occasion arose.
Well, the occasion never arose, as on the first day of our leave riots broke out and everyone was confined to quarters. That left us cooped up in a place that seemed to me to be ankle deep in religious tracts, so we decided that we were not going to have anything to do with religion and would keep strictly to ourselves.
Both my friend and I had been away from home for a long time, and we had easily slipped into all the vices and bad habits of the day. There was certainly no fear of God before our eyes. Coming into a Christian atmosphere was a terrific contrast to our way of life, and I was condemned in my heart as to my way of living.
When we left the Home and started back to Ipoh they packed us off with sandwiches. When we came to unwrap them we found that there were tracts in each package. We really resented that! Deep down inside me I somehow knew that the Bible was true, and if the Bible were true then what it said about God was true. Suddenly I had the awful feeling that it was true that there was a God, and if there was a God then there must be a place called hell where God was going to punish the wicked, and so I would go to hell! All this ran through my mind on the way back to camp. Then I remember looking up into the sky and seeing millions of glittering stars, and I reasoned that all those stars didn’t just happen by chance; they must have been created by Someone, and that Creator I felt in my heart was the God of the Bible.
Some woman at the Home had given me a booklet about God, and when I got back to camp I started to read it. For the first time in my life I learned of the gospel of Jesus Christ. What a revolution went on in my mind as I read that wonderful gospel story! I read that God hated sin but He loved the sinner, and He loved him so much that He gave His only, beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to the cruel death of the cross in order to die for sinners. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)). I had always thought that religion was chanting hymns and hearing musty old sermons, but this was a heart-touching story of love and grace that reached out to guilty sinners and offered life and joy simply through believing in a Person. My sick soul grasped at that story of life and hung on as a dying man grasps at the faintest hope of life.
But to think that my many sins could all be forgiven and blotted out of God’s mind forever simply through believing in Jesus Christ was beyond my comprehension. I thought that it was too simple and that God must expect me to do something as well.
There is only one thing to do, I thought. I must start being good! So I stopped smoking, drinking, swearing and other things as well, but this did not help me one bit. I bought a Bible and read it at night when I thought no one was looking. I was afraid that if I took Jesus as my Saviour I would have to live an open Christian life, and then everyone would laugh at me.
I finally understood what I must do: I must simply trust that Jesus bore all my sins and receive Him into my heart as my own personal Saviour—that is, believe that He died for me just as though there were no other person in all the world and then confess Him to my mates.
One night at the evening meal my best friend was talking, and nearly every other word he said was a word of blasphemy against Jesus Christ. It came to me that if anyone used my mother’s name like that, there would be trouble. I wouldn’t stand for it. Yet here I was listening to a man blaspheme the name of the Son of God, the One who had loved me so much that He submitted to the death of the cross for me, and I was so weak and such a coward that I was ashamed to say a word in His defense. I was ashamed to own the name of Jesus.
Utterly disgusted with myself, I prayed to God that He would give me the strength to confess Jesus before my friend. I was trembling and stammering and very much afraid, but Jesus died for me and it was a small thing really to confess Him.
“Look here, Ginger,” I said to my friend, “I believe in God and I believe in Jesus Christ, and I don’t want to hear you use His name like that anymore.” As I said it I believed it in my heart, and the light of God’s salvation streamed in upon my soul. A great peace and joy filled my heart. I WAS SAVED AND I KNEW IT!
Since I trusted Him, He has been to me a Friend, a Friend who never fails. It is worth more than all the riches of the world to be able to pillow my head every night on the calm assurance that I belong to Jesus Christ and that my soul is safe forever in His keeping. Jesus is now the dearest and most precious name I know, and I am not ashamed of Him or His cross.