ONE summer’s day, a friend of ours was resting for a few minutes in a wood, through which runs a shady path. As he was looking towards the stile at the end of the path, an aged man, with staff in hand, and having a basket on his shoulder, drew near, and with a sigh of relief laid his burden upon the stile, and then rested himself against it.
The aged man, his load, and his rest, spoke a gospel parable to our friend, who was not slow in availing himself of the occasion offered by it, when in a few minutes the burden bearer stood wearily before him ready for a chat. The old man stopped, and spoke of the heat, when our friend said to him, “You have a heavy load today.”
“Not like it was the last three Mondays,” said the old man. “I thought I could never get along under it,” and as he spoke he leaned upon his stick.
“Well now, my friend, this basket on your shoulder and your weariness is quite a picture of a sinner weary and heavy laden with the burden of his sins. How about the burden of your sins? Is it on you still, or has God taken it off you?”
The hesitation of the old man evidenced that he was not fully assured his burden was gone, so our friend continued―
“Suppose now, I take the basket and put it upon my shoulder, and carry it for you up the hill, where then would your load be? The burden cannot be on two backs, you know.”
“I know your meaning,” said the old man. “Sometimes my sins weigh heavy on me; sometimes I don’t feel them so much.”
“Like the basket today, and like it was on the three Mondays you have spoken of; but whatever you feel your sins to be, they are either on you or off you. They cannot have been borne by Christ and be on you also; whatever the sense of your sins may be, the sins themselves are off you or on you. If you are one of God’s people, your sins are not on you; they were laid on Christ, and are gone. The basket cannot be on your shoulder and on mine at the same time. Don’t you know how it is written: ‘The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all’?”
“I have read that fifty-third chapter of Isaiah often and often,” said the old man, thoughtfully, “and I have been down on my knees and have thanked the Lord for dying to wash my sins away many a time.”
“But have you ever been down on your knees and thanked Him for having really taken the burden away? Not only for having died in order to take your sins away, but for having taken them because He has died?”
“I believe He died to put my sins away,” replied the old man.
“But has He done it?” said our friend― “that is the question.”
“Well, that is more than I can say,” was the answer.
“You go down on your knees and thank Him for having died in order to wash away your sins, and yet you cannot say He has washed them away! What think you the people of the “House” would say if, after you had brought away the linen to have it washed, you took it back dirty?”
“Why, they would say it wasn’t clean, surely.”
“To be sure; and is it not written, ‘The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin’?” Do you think He leaves a spot where He has washed? His blood cleanses whiter than snow. By His blood we are made fit for God―more, the Father has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. His work is perfect.”
The old man could not rest with a child’s simplicity on the word of God; he was looking into himself for the evidence of salvation, instead of believing God’s word, and praising Him.
“Come now,” said our friend, “praise God the Father for the blood of His Son, and for what that blood has done.”
“It must come straight from the heart,” the old man said. “I could say it to you with my lips, but it must come from the heart.” And thus the conversation ended.
Our friend made inquiries, and found, as he supposed, that the old man was, indeed a christian, and had been one for some years; but he was one of the many Christians who lack confidence in God. He searched out a day or two after, and finding him working in his cottage garden, he greeted him with, “How is it now with yet and the load of your sins?”
“I have faith to believe I think He has taken it away,” was the cautious reply.
“That is like a good straight road with the turnpike gate shut across it. Come, let us do away with the gate.”
“I see what you mean―you don’t like the ‘I think.’”
“No, it is the ‘i’ in the ‘think’ I don’t, like; but make the ‘i’ into an ‘a’ and say, ‘thank’ instead of ‘think,’ and see what a difference it is―faith to believe and thank Him He has taken it away.”
With a pleasant smile the aged man said, “It is I, it is self―that is in the way. I will drop the ‘think’ out and stick to it, I have faith to believe He has taken the load away.”
After a little cheering talk, our friend parted from the old man; and we, too, may leave him, thanking God for the wondrous salvation He has wrought for us helpless and undone sinners.
Sin is a reality, and our individual sense of sin is a reality, but sin and our sense of sin are widely different. Thousands have their sins upon them, but have hardly any sense of their sins, yet the wrath of God abideth on them. Many a believer is weighted under the sense of his sins, but his sins are all really gone from the sight of the holy God. God hath laid on the holy One, the blessed Lamb of God, the iniquity of us all; this is a wondrous reality for all saints, and it is our joyful privilege not to think whether our sins are borne or not, but to thank God and His Son for the cross. Reader, how do you read the Scripture? “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows... the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Do you thank Him or do you think about it? May God turn your thinks into thanks.