I WAS giving away some gospel booklets in the village of B—, in Stirlingshire, and seeing a woman working in her garden I offered her one. She would hardly move from her work to accept the tract, but having taken it she remarked, “It canna’ be worth much, for ye canna’ get as ‘thing for naething.”
What a picture the woman’s words afford of the natural man. He despises grace. He must put a price upon everything, and owns that nothing of value on earth can be got without payment.
Cain would purchase his acceptance with God by the fruits of the cursed earth, and you, my friend, may be seeking to obtain peace with God and eternal life by your own efforts. Is it not so?
Were we to take you on your own ground, and ask you what are you doing to secure your peace with God and your eternal blessedness, what would your reply be?
Some would tell us they say their prayers, they go to church, they contribute to religious objects, they visit the sick, they assist the poor, and do all the good they can, and thus expect to merit eternal life.
Others would boast, of their contributions to benevolent schemes, and their public and private acts to ameliorate the condition of the masses.
We can find untold hundreds and thousands who are seeking by their own efforts to secure their future happiness.
My dear reader, do you belong to this class?
The woman I met in Stirlingshire was one of that larger class, and the majority of persons I meet from day to day belong to it. Human efforts to secure eternal joys are the way of the natural man, but I would like in all earnestness to point you to God’s way of salvation.
Supposing all your life you did all your heart could wish in good works, when should you know that you had secured the forgiveness of your sins, and the present joy flowing from the knowledge of the possession of eternal life?
A straight question demands a direct reply. When will you be able to secure this knowledge and assurance? I know you will say, “Not till I die.” Quite so. The natural man, again, can give no assurance until the future is reached.
But God’s way of salvation is not man’s, and two essentials I must present to my readers.
First, your own utter helpless condition, and inability to work out your own salvation, for it is written, “Not of works lest any man should boast”; or again, as quoted from Psalm 14, we read in Rom. 3:1010As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: (Romans 3:10); “There is none righteous, no, not one.” If it is not of works, how, then, is salvation to be obtained?
This brings us to the second point I would seek to impress, viz., that justification is to be obtained by faith alone. The same Epistle proceeds to say in chapter 4:5: “To him that worketh NOT, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
Again, in the same Epistle and chapter, we read in the 25th verse that Christ “was delivered for our [the believers’] offenses, and raised again for our [the believers’] justification.”
Breaking this statement up into simpler language we e may say, Christ was brought to death by the judgment or punishment of our sins, He was raised again to clear or justify us, who believe in Him.
These two points we would in all tenderness and sincerity press upon our reader: first, your own utter helplessness to do anything to merit eternal life; and, secondly, the complete atonement wrought out by the Lord Jesus Christ by dying for you.
The same Epistle further on once more reverts to the subject when in the loth chapter the writer presses upon the reader his part, and proceeds to say that “the word is nigh thee, even; in, thy mouth, and in thy heart,... that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (Rom. 10:8, 9.)
Thus our simple, intelligent, and rational grounds the apostle impresses the fact by the confession of the Lord Jesus and a true belief in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the believer in Him is saved.
May I in all tenderness press upon my reader the necessity of considering these things in the light of eternity, and to turn from his deadly works and trust the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation, “for the WAGES of sin is death; but the GIFT OF GOD is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 6:2323For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23).)
C. S. R.