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People who found Jesus
THE SEA sparkled and the birds sang sweetly one
beautiful morning after a fearful storm. On shore a lady and a sailor stood
beholding a ship, the wreckage of which showed the strength of the storm. After
lamenting any loss of life that may have occurred, the sailor asked, "Do
you know the Savior?" The lady then asked him how long he had known the
Savior, for all was well with her soul.
He replied, "It’s nigh on to five years.
... Never will I forget it, for two died for me."
"Two?" she questioned.
"Yes, ma’am, two. My Savior died for me
eighteen hundred years ago on Calvary’s cross, and my mate died for me just
five years ago, and that brought me to my Savior."
Then he told of the shipwreck when his mate died
in his stead. In a terrible storm the vessel was driven on a rock. Signals of
distress brought out a lifeboat from the shore. It hardly seemed possible for it
to reach them, but it did. The women and children were first taken ashore.
Then the sailors knew that some of them must die,
for the ship would surely sink before the lifeboat could reach them the fourth
time. So they drew lots to know who should go and who should stay.
"My lot was to stay in the sinking ship.
What a horror of darkness came over me! ‘Doomed to die and be damned,’ I
muttered to myself, and all the sins of my life came before me. Still I made no
outward sign, but, oh, ma’am, between my soul and God it was awful! I had a
mate who loved the Lord. Often he had spoken to me of my soul’s welfare, and I
had laughed and told him I meant to enjoy life. Though he stood by my side, I
could not even ask him to pray for me.
I wondered why he did not speak to me of the
Savior. I understood it afterward. His face, when I once caught a glimpse of it,
was calm and peaceful and lighted up with a strange light. I thought bitterly,
‘It is well for him to smile; his lot is to go into the lifeboat, to be saved.’
Dear old Jim, how could I ever have so mistaken you?
"Well, ma’am, the lifeboat neared us
again. One by one the men whose lot it was to go, got in. It was Jim’s turn,
but instead of going into the lifeboat, he pushed me forward, ‘Go you in the
lifeboat in my place, Tom,’ he said, ‘and meet me in heaven, man! You mustn’t
die and be damned! It is all right for me.’
I would not have let him do it, but I was carried
forward. The next one, eager to come, pressed me on. Jim knew it would be like
that, so he had never told me what he was going to do. A few seconds, and I was
in the lifeboat. We had barely cleared the ship when she went down, and Jim,
dear old Jim, with her. But, madam, he died for me!"
As the ship went down, Tom said in his heart,
"If I get safely to land, Jim shall not have died in vain. Please, God, I
will meet him in heaven! Jim’s God must be worth knowing, when Jim died for me
that I might get another chance of knowing Him."
It did not take long for him to find the Savior,
but at first he did not know how to begin. He was continually seeing Jim go down
with the sinking ship with the quiet smile of peace on his face, day and night
awake and asleep. At the beginning he seemed to think more of Jim than of the
Lord.
Then he bought a Bible, for Jim had loved it so.
But before he began to read it, he offered up a little prayer, telling the Lord
how ignorant he was about the way to heaven, and asking Him to show him how to
get there. Then he began reading the New Testament, but after reading several
chapters he became discouraged, for every line seemed to condemn him.
So he said to himself, "It’s no use, Tom.
There is no chance for you. You have been too bad." But as he closed his
Bible, suddenly Jim’s last words came to him with power: "Meet me in
heaven, man!" So he opened the Bible again and kept on reading it in all
his spare moments. Then he told how he found the Savior:
"At last I came to that part about the two
thieves, and the Lord saving the one; and I thought, ‘Here is a man almost as
bad as I am.’ So I dropped my Bible and fell down on my knees and said, ‘Lord,
I am as bad as that thief. Will You save me just like You did him?’ My Bible
had dropped down open, and as I opened my eyes after praying this, they fell on
these words: ‘Verily I say unto thee shall thou be with Me in Paradise.’ I
took them as my answer. So I went down on my knees again and thanked Him. Of
course I was very ignorant, but bit by bit I saw the way of salvation-how Jesus
had died instead of me and taken away all my sins by His precious blood."
There are many who feel much like the sailor:
that they are too wicked to be forgiven. They behold their sins, but not the
Savior. Let them behold Jesus as He breathes out His spirit into the hands of
His Father. "Father," He cries, "into Thy hands I commend My
spirit." Luke 23:46. The mighty God, who rules the universe, was still His
Father, even at the very moment of death. Does not that fact ensure Christ’s
power to save and reward to the uttermost the worst of sinners who turns to Him
for salvation like the thief on the cross?
There are those who long to meet their faithful
loved ones in heaven at last, but know not the way. But as they persevere in
their search to know the way, the dear Savior, with infinite tenderness of
compassion, opens up the way before them and encourages them to put their
trembling hand in His and let Him lead them all the way to the Paradise above.
They may have been deeply sunk in sin, but as they turn to Him like the dying
thief and grasp His wonderful promise that they will be with Him in His
matchless kingdom, the peace of Heaven enters their hearts, a new and holy life
is begun in them, and they go forward with rejoicing in the faithful service of
their Lord and Savior. =^..^=
JESUS calls to us to come to Him just as we are, no matter what our sins are or
how great they
may be, or how heavy may be the burden we carry because of them. His great
appeal is, “Come unto Me,
all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke
upon you, and learn of Me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls.”
Matthew 11:28,29.
Many take
their own way in trying to be saved: Some simply try to be good; others try to
live like Christians; and still
others try to reach heaven by their good works or great efforts. All these
imitations fail. They will not lead
us to Jesus, nor will they lead us to heaven.
When we at last respond to Christ’s tender invitation to come to Him, He lifts
from us our heavy
burdens and lets us go free. Our sins are taken from us, and our souls’ needs
are richly supplied, so that we
may live happy and victorious Christian lives. For all this we have the promise,
“My God shall supply all
your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19.
When we come to Jesus just
as we are, we come to Him just as He is. We are finite. He is infinite. He makes
all the changes necessary
to transform us into true followers of Him.
Charlotte Elliott longed to come to Christ, but knew not how. So she went
to a saintly man well along
in years and asked him the way. He said, “It is very simple. You have but simply
to come to Jesus.”
Then
she said, “But I am a very great sinner. Will He take me just as I am?”
“Yes,”
he answered, “He will take
you just as you are, and no other way.” So she made up her mind to go to Jesus
just as she was, and said to
him, “If He will take me just as I am, then I will come.”
So she went home and tried to come to Jesus in the simplest way she could. Then
taking pen and
paper and putting her thoughts into poetry, she wrote down her simple yet
complete and touching way of
coming to Jesus. Here is part of what she wrote:
“Just as I am, without one plea
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bids me come to Thee.
0 Lamb of God, I come, I come.
“Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
0 Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
Later these words were set to most appropriate music by a leading composer,
William B.
Bradbury, and they have helped many people to come to Jesus.
Then there is the story of a drunkard. He had fallen so low
that his family had
disowned him, and even his wife had cast him off. One night, footsore and
penniless, he stumbled into the
Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago. Someone was singing “There’s a Wideness in
God’s Mercy.”
"It just
broke me all up", he said, but he didn’t surrender. After the meeting he found
his way to the home where his
wife lived with her father. He threw himself down in the yard, hoping that in
the morning he might catch a
glimpse of his little boy, whom he was no longer allowed to visit.
As the
morning began to dawn, the song
was still ringing in his ears. He afterward said, “Instead of creeping up to the
window, I just crept up to the
feet of Jesus! He just put His arms around my neck and loved me! And when
the sun rose, I was a new
man!”
Many others are deep down in sin like this dear man, who will be saved only by
the pitying love
of Jesus, so well described in Charlotte Elliott’s song:
“Just as I am, Thy love I own
Has broken every barrier down;
Now to be Yours, and Yours alone,
0 Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
So if you have not yet found Jesus, and are sinking in sin for the want of His
compassionate love,
you, too, may come just now, just as you are. Won’t you do it? And then your own
soul’s needs will be
fully supplied by Him, and you, too, will be forgiven and cleansed and made
happy in Him. And all the
way to heaven He will walk close by your side, helping you over the hard places,
strengthening you, caring
for you, comforting you, till at last you reach the Father’s house in heaven on
high.
“Ring the bells of heaven! There is joy today
For a soul, returning from the
wild;
See! The Father meets him out upon the way,
Welcoming His weary, wandering
child.
“Ring the bells of heaven! There is joy today,
For the wanderer now is
reconciled;
Yes, a soul is rescued from his sinful way
And is born anew, a ransomed child.”
WILLIAM O. CUSHING
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