DO YOU KNOW JESUS?

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 8, 1881

DO YOU KNOW JESUS?

I WAS walking hastily along a crowded street when my steps were suddenly arrested by a voice behind me uttering the words, "Sir, do you know Jesus?" For the time and place it was a strange question. It was high noon, and many were hastening to the Exchange near by. It was in the center of a busy thoroughfare through which hundreds were pressing, each intent upon his own particular errand. In the midst of the temples of Mammon and of the things of his worshipers, I heard the strange, thrilling question, "Sir, do you know Jesus?" Stranger still, when I turned to see the person who uttered the words, I could not fix upon any one of the numbers behind me as the speaker. I did not see, either, to whom it had been spoken. If it had fallen from the clear sky above me it could not have had less of personality about it. The air had borne it to my ear, but from whom I could not discern; and the words so unusual in that place and at that time, seemed to have become doubly strange, that their speaker had so quickly vanished.

I turned away and passed up the street, pondering over the question which I had so mysteriously heard. I thought of the declaration of Jesus, that "to know" him is "life eternal," and then I forgot the strangeness of the query in the sense of its overwhelming importance. I questioned my own soul, "Dost thou know Jesus," the eternal life? I applied it mentally to those who passed me so hurriedly, eager in their pursuit of present good. One I recognized as a shrewd and practical financier. He knew something of the secrets of the banking-house. He understood the vast system of exchanges which spreads over our country like a network. He could fluently discourse upon the crisis and its causes. Did he know Jesus? If not he had missed the highest knowledge. He knew not him in whom infinite treasures of wisdom and grace are found.

I passed on further, and I saw a well-known merchant ascending the steps of the Custom-House. He was an adept in his business, thoroughly versed in all the departments of trade. He knew the value of commodities at a glance, and could predict the turn of markets, and speculate wisely upon the changes in commerce made by the manifold changes of times. He was an oracle in the counting-house and on change. But did he know Jesus? was my thought. In his made at calculations has he ever computed the worth of his soul, or the value of Christ's sacrifice offered for its redemption? Did he know Jesus as his Saviour, and heartily receive him as his sacrifice before God? If not, what was his acquired knowledge but a guide for a few years, to be utterly useless when God should call him to give up his possessions on earth.

Further on, I met another familiar face. It was pale, and an air of abstraction spread over it. The man of science was conning some new problem, or pondering over some novel facts. He knew the laws by which the stars move and the waters flow. He had analyzed and combined until he understood many things in their elements, and the processes by which these elements were united in many different forms. He knew the history of the past and could tell where the mountains had been built up and seas spread out. Did he also know Jesus? That is the great question. Reader, do you know Jesus? Do you know his power to save from sin and the fear of impending judgment? Do you know how free his mercy is? how full his grace? You must know him or perish. You must know him or miss eternal life.—The Presbyterian.