“DID you understand what was said tonight in the preaching?” said the writer to a young man one evening after a gospel address in his father’s sitting-room.
“Well, yes, I think I did,” he replied cheerfully; “but what helped me more than even the preaching was what you said to me in the tramcar this afternoon.”
“What was that?”
“It was the remark you made about the ticket.”
Now, in order to explain this remark to the reader, it will be necessary to say that this young man was kind enough not only to meet the writer at the railway station in order to conduct him to his father’s house for tea, but that when they subsequently took their seats in the tramcar he paid for the writer’s ticket as well as his own. Observing what had taken place between him and the conductor, the writer quickly remarked―
“It is knowing what you have done that gives me peace about this journey.”
He left it for the Spirit of God, if it so pleased Him, to apply the humble figure to the soul of his young friend, and this He apparently did.
Now, will you, anxious reader, carefully ponder that remark in connection with the soul-peace you so much long for?
Don’t you see that the transaction which gave the writer peace was entered into and completed between his friend and the Tramcar Company’s representative, and that it was the knowledge of what had been done that set his mind at rest?
If the conductor, representing the Company, had refused the offered coins as spurious, then the person paid for must have prepared himself to meet his own case. But it was not so.
In like manner, if there had not been perfect divine satisfaction in the work of the cross, the sinner must have prepared himself to meet his own liabilities. But the believer knows that God was not only satisfied with that which was there and then accomplished, but that He was eternally glorified by the precious death and finished work of His beloved Son.
It is knowing this as a testimony from God that gives a sinner peace with God― “Who [Christ] was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 4:2525Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. (Romans 4:25); vs. 1).