“For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one who believes” (Rom. 10:2-4).
I have been a most self-righteous man. For years I groaned, expecting to find peace by regulating my life according to the Scriptures. They proved to be “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). I sought carefully for the commandments of the New Testament, but the more I sought, the more I got into difficulty. I read, “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15), and “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36), and others of the same character, and they terrified me. I read also, “Sell whatever you have, and give to the poor” (Mark 10:21), and then I wished, “Oh that I were only rich, that I might sacrifice all!” Then I found baptism and the Lord’s supper; but after doing all, and living an irreproachable church life, I got no peace. The “rejoice evermore” (1 Thess. 5:16) I read was only a mockery to me. When I was baptized, I expected some mysterious change, but there was none; I wept at the Lord’s table, but there was no peace; I prayed in secret and in public, often so earnestly that others thought me mighty in prayer, but yet there was no peace. “O Lord!” I cried in my agony, “Speak to me and tell me what to do; I will run and do it even at the peril of my life.” But there was no answer. I now visited the sick and spent much time in prayer. I preached too—yes, dear reader, I preached—I pretended to be a bearer of glad tidings, while my own heart writhed in agony. What did I preach? What others had preached to me—“Do your best; be a valiant soldier of Jesus Christ, and then He will save you.” But still I found no peace! In spite of all this supposed duty fulfilled, there was no peace!
One day I called on a sick man, and quickly introduced the subject of religion, as that was my object in calling. “Ah, sir,” he said, “they used to tell me to do my best, and I tried and tried, until I found that there was no best to be reached. When I examined myself, I found that I was still the same poor sinner. Then I watched my instructors to see if I could detect in them what I found in myself, and they failed so visibly to live up to what they taught and professed that I set them all down as hypocrites, and turned infidel. But here, read this.” He passed to me a Testament opened at Romans 3. I had often read it before, but now the declaration, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (3:10) was strangely solemn to me. I read on:“There is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus … whom God hath set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood … that He might be just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus” (3:22-26). As I read, the Holy Spirit opened my blinded heart, and I saw it all. Then and there, in that log cabin, I got what Cornelius got as Peter spoke the wonderful message, “To Him [Jesus] give all the prophets witness, that through His name whoever believes in Him shall receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:43).
I was then two miles from home, and my path lay mostly through fields of corn and tall grass; but all I remember of it that evening is finding myself several times on my knees on the ground, praising God for His love. What shall I do when I get to heaven?
I now had God’s answer to all my difficulties in His precious Word, and there it was all the time, but I was blind to it. Is it not wonderful we should be so intelligent about so many things and yet so stupid about matters so important and so simply and clearly stated in the Word of God?
My heart now turned toward all men, especially to those already dear to me by the ties of nature. It was no more praying and preaching and visiting to perform some worthy thing, it was fishing after souls of men. A friend who was preparing to go into Christian ministry was most of all on my heart. I knew he was just where I was before. I wrote to him and told him that I had been blind but now I saw. I told him of that Man who is called Jesus, of the work that He finished on the cross, and of the wonderful results of apprehending it by faith. He replied that he was “in great distress sometimes, and he did not know whom to believe. One said this, another said that, and all seemed earnest. It was very puzzling.” One day he wrote, “All you tell me is true. I have compared it with the Word. One thing only I cannot understand. You say, ‘It is useless to try to better that which cannot be bettered,’ and add, ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh’ (John 3:6). Surely you do not mean to say we must not strive to improve ourselves.”
I prayed to the Lord that He would guide me in my answer, and thought of the joy of being made the instrument in bringing that dear one to Jesus. I then replied, “Yes, that is just what I meant to say. I meant that it is useless, and even folly, to strive to better what cannot be bettered. ‘You must be born again.’ Your only hope is in what another, even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has done for us. This is humiliating, but there is no other way. ‘He who believes on Him is not condemned; but he who believes not is condemned already!’ (John 3:18). This is the testimony of the whole Scripture.”
A few days later I received his answer:“Give glory to God, my beloved brother. I see! I see! It is Jesus, and Jesus alone. He is now my all. Since yesterday, it seems I understand more than half the Word, which before was all darkness. I received your letter yesterday morning and, as usual, I read it over and over. I read the passages you mentioned, and they were there:I could deny nothing; but I was miserable. I went to my task heartlessly. Toward evening, a gleam of hope reached me. I fell on my knees and prayed, and while there, the whole redemption that is through Christ Jesus was opened up to me. I desired to see and feel it with such force that my heart might leap high for joy, but I got only a deep, solemn, strange peace within. My wonder is, that in view of such a salvation I can remain so calm. I almost tremble lest I should lose such a precious rest.”
Lose such a precious rest! No, never! It cannot be lost, for it rests on a foundation that cannot be moved. It produces feelings—blessed feelings—but feelings are no part of it. What God did for us over 1800 years ago when He “laid on [Jesus] the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6) is what true peace rests upon, and that never can be undone, nor can it ever lose its value. Blessed is the soul who rests there!
“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief … He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows:yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:3-6).