The Way to God and How to Find It, Dwight L. Moody [i read book .txt] 📗

There are men to-day who are in darkness and bondage because they are not willing to turn from their sins and confess them; and I do not know how a man can hope to be forgiven if he is not willing to confess his sins.

Bear in mind that now is the only day of mercy you will ever have. You can repent now, and have the awful record blotted out. God waits to forgive you; He is seeking to bring you to Himself. But I think the Bible teaches clearly that there is no repentance after this life. There are some who tell you of the possibility of repentance in the grave; but I do not find that in Scripture. I have looked my Bible over very carefully, and I cannot find that a man will have another opportunity of being saved.

Why should he ask for any more time? You have time enough to repent now. You can turn from your sins this moment if you will. God says: “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth; wherefore turn, and live ye”  (Ezek. xviii. 32).

Christ said, He “came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Are you a sinner? Then the call to repent is addressed to you. Take your place in the dust at the Saviour’s feet, and acknowledge your guilt. Say, like the publican of old, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” and see how quickly He will pardon and bless you. He will even justify you and reckon you as righteous, by virtue of the righteousness of Him who bore your sins in His own body on the Cross.

There are some perhaps who think themselves righteous; and that, therefore, there is no need for them to repent and believe the Gospel. They are like the Pharisee in the parable, who thanked God that he was not as other men—“extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican;” and who went on to say, “I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all I possess.” What is the judgment about such self-righteous persons? “I tell you this man [the poor, contrite, repenting publican] went down to his house justified rather than the other”  (Luke xviii. 11-14). “There is none righteous; no, not one.” “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”  (Rom. iii. 10, 23). Let no one say he does not need to repent. Let each one take his true place—that of a sinner; then God will lift him up to the place of forgiveness and justification. “Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted”  (Luke xiv. 11).

Wherever God sees true repentance in the heart He meets that soul.

I was in Colorado, preaching the gospel some time ago, and I heard something that touched my heart very much. The governor of the State was passing through the prison, and in one cell he found a boy who had his window full of flowers, that seemed to have been watched with very tender care. The governor looked at the prisoner, and then at the flowers, and asked whose they were, “These are my flowers,” said the poor convict. “Are you fond of flowers?” “Yes, sir.” “How long have you been here?” He told him so many years: he was in for a long sentence. The governor was surprised to find him so fond of the flowers, and he said, “Can you tell me why you like these flowers so much?” With much emotion he replied, “While my mother was alive she thought a good deal of flowers; and when I came here I thought if I had these they would remind me of mother.” The governor was so pleased that he said, “Well, young man, if you think so much of your mother I think you will appreciate your liberty,” and he pardoned him then and there.

When God finds that beautiful flower of true repentance springing up in a man’s heart, then salvation comes to that man.

ASSURANCE OF SALVATION.

“These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may knew that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.”

(1 John v. 13. )

There are two classes who ought not to have Assurance. First: those who are in the Church, but who are not converted, having never been born of the Spirit. Second: those not willing to do God’s will; who are not ready to take the place that God has mapped out for them, but want to fill some other place.

Some one will ask “Have all God’s people Assurance?” No; I think a good many of God’s dear people have no Assurance; but it is the privilege of every child of God to have beyond doubt a knowledge of his own salvation. No man is fit for God’s service who is filled with doubts. If a man is not sure of his own salvation, how can he help any one else into the kingdom of God? If I seem in danger of drowning and do not know whether I shall ever reach the shore, I cannot assist another. I must first get on the solid rock myself; and then I can lend my brother a helping hand. If being myself blind I were to tell another blind man how to get sight, he might reply, “First get healed yourself; and then you can tell me.” I recently met with a young man who was a Christian: but he had not attained to victory over sin. He was in terrible darkness. Such an one is not fit to work for God, because he has besetting sins; and he has not the victory over his doubts, because he has not the victory over his sins.

None will have time or heart to work for God, who are not assured as to their own salvation. They have as much as they can attend to; and being themselves burdened with doubts, they cannot help others to carry their burdens. There is no rest, joy, or peace—no liberty, nor power—where doubts and uncertainty exist.

Now it seems as if there are three wiles of Satan against which we ought to be on our guard. In the first place he moves all his kingdom to keep us away from Christ; then he devotes himself to get us into “Doubting Castle:” but if we have, in spite of him, a clear ringing witness for the Son of God, he will do all he can to blacken our characters and belie our testimony.

Some seem to think that it is presumption not to have doubts; but doubt is very dishonoring to God. If any one were to say that they had known a person for thirty years and yet doubted him, it would not be very creditable; and when we have known God for ten, twenty or thirty years does it not reflect on His veracity to doubt Him.

Could Paul and the early Christians and martyrs have gone through what they did if they had been filled with doubts, and had not known whether they were going to heaven or to perdition after they had been burned at the stake? They must have had Assurance.

Mr. Spurgeon says: “I never heard of a stork that when it met with a fir tree demurred as to its right to build its nest there; and I never heard of a coney yet that questioned whether it had a permit to run into the rock. Why, these creatures would soon perish if they were always doubting and fearing as to whether they had a right to use providential provisions.

“The stork says to himself, ‘Ah, here is a fir tree:’ he consults with his mate, ‘Will this do for the nest in which we may rear our young?’ ‘Aye,’ says she; and they gather the materials, and arrange them. There is never any deliberation, ‘May we build here?’ but they bring their sticks and make their nest.

“The wild goat on the crag does not say, ‘Have I a right here?’ No, he must be somewhere: and there is a crag which exactly suits him; and he springs upon it.

“Yet, though these dumb creatures know the provision of their God, the sinner does not recognize the provision of his Saviour. He quibbles and questions, ‘May I?’ and am ‘I am afraid it is not for me;’ and ‘I think it cannot be meant for me;’ and ‘I am afraid it is too good to be true.’

“And yet nobody ever said to the stork, ‘Whosoever buildeth on this fir tree shall never have his nest pulled down.’ No inspired word has ever said to the coney, ‘Whosoever runs into this rock cleft shall never be driven out of it.’ If it had been so it would make assurance doubly sure.”

“And yet here is Christ provided for sinners, just the sort of a Saviour sinners need; and the encouragement is added, ‘Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out;’ ‘Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’”

Now let us come to the Word. John tells us in his Gospel what Christ did for us on earth. In his Epistle He tells us what He is doing for us in heaven as our Advocate. In his Gospel there are only two chapters in which the word “believe” does not occur. With these two exceptions, every chapter in John is “Believe! Believe!! Believe!!!” He tells us in xx. 31, “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that, believing, ye might have life through His name.” That is the purpose for which he wrote the Gospel—“that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: and that, believing, we might have life through His name”  (John xx. 31).

Turn to 1 John v. 13, he there tells us why he wrote this Epistle: “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.” Notice to whom he writes it “You that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” There are only five short chapters in this first Epistle, and the word “know” occurs over forty times. It is “Know! Know!! KNOW!!!” The Key to it is Know! and all through the Epistle there rings out the refrain—“that we might know that we have eternal life.”

I went twelve hundred miles down the Mississippi in the spring some years ago; and every evening, just as the sun went down, you might have seen men, and sometimes women, riding up to the banks of the river on either side on mules or horses, and sometimes coming on foot, for the purpose of lighting up the Government lights; and all down that mighty river there were landmarks which guided the pilots in their dangerous navigation. Now God has given us lights or landmarks to tell us whether we are His children or not; and what we need to do is to examine the tokens He has given us.

In the third chapter of John’s first Epistle there are five things worth knowing.

In the fifth verse we read the first: “And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin.” Not what I have done, but what HE has done. Has He