WHAT SHALL I DO TO BE SAVED?
By Sol
AMID the civil commotions about saving the Union, or saving the cause of freedom, is there no awakened sinner crying out, “What shall I do to be saved from the wrath to come?” 1. Remember, my anxious friend! in the first place, that simply to feel anxious is not enough. You may have great depth and intensity of feeling; it may sometimes amount to agony. If that feeling is the legitimate contrition of a conscience awakened to the enormity of sin, then thank God for it. But do not be content with mere feeling. Tears never yet saved a soul. Your Bible does not say, weep and be saved. It says, believe and be saved. Faith is better than feeling. Even faith in the abstract is not enough; without “works,” without action, faith is dead. “The devils believe and tremble.” The devils believe, but do not obey God, or love God. You must obey as well as believe. Begin, then, to practice on your first promptings of duty. Try to walk; if not able to walk, then creep; but do not lie still, vainly longing to be a Christian, without trying to be a Christian. Do not wait for more emotion. Act out your present feelings. Begin to discharge duty from principle and with a purpose to please Christ. We will not dictate what it shall be; but let us ask a suggestive question or two. Have you ever prayed with your family? Or if you have no family, have you ever prayed with your room mate? Try it. No matter if there is some staring, or even some smiling. People sometimes smile to keep from crying. You need to pray where your prayer will do yourself good at the same time that it does others good. Have you an intimate friend or kinsman that is living without God? Then take him by the hand and invite him to Christ. Helping others you will help yourself. And it is well to begin practicing the generosities of the Gospel at once. Christ will rejoice in the honor you bring to him by trying to lead a sinner unto him. Do you owe an old debt, that was outlawed long ago? Then go, and astonish your quondam creditor by paying it up in full. Let him see that you are beginning to practice that divine code which says, “Owe no man anything—but love.” In some way, and in every possible way, crystallize your religious feelings into religious acts. You never will be saved by works; but let us tell you most solemnly that you never will be saved without works. You must “keep the commandments,” or the love of Christ cannot be within you. 2. Do not ask God to save you precisely as he has saved some others of whom you have read or heard. Do not judge your feelings by theirs. Judge yourself by the Bible, and do not say, “Why am I not wrought upon just as my friend A—— was?” “Why do I not get those views of Christ which Mr. B—— has?” God is a sovereign, and will save you in his own way—not in yours. He no more requires you to pass through the same experience with A—— and B——, than he requires you to look like them or to dress like them. His commandment is—repent and believe on Christ. Are you honestly and prayerfully struggling to do that? Then you are beginning to have a spiritual experience of your own; and one of its beauties will be that it resembles exactly no other human experience under the sun. Oh, how rich God is! He does not need to copy himself. He loveth to please his own sovereign skill. Some hearts he opens with the gentlest touch of love; others he pryeth open with the heavy bar of arousing judgments. Some sinners are sweetly and quietly won to Christ; others are driven to him through the hail-storm of threatenings and the thunderings of an upbraiding conscience. Spurgeon pithily remarks, “When the lofty palm of Zeilan puts forth its flower, the sheath bursts with a report which echoes through the forest; but thousands of other plants of equal beauty open in the morning, and the very dewdrops hear no sound; so many souls blossom into grace and the world hears neither whirlwind nor moral hurricane.” 3. Let me entreat you not to be discouraged if your searchings after the Saviour do not bring an immediate assurance of pardon and of peace. Christ parried the Syrophenician woman’s entreaties in order to test the sincerity of her faith. If a heart’s happy hope were gained too easy, it might be valued too lightly. Give not up, my friend! if every hour were required to be spent in search for Jesus until your dying day. But no such protracted experience need be yours. I fear that you do not grasp the full meaning of God’s permission to come “with boldness” to the throne of grace. Ask what you want, and all you want. You are not a stranger at the door of the Great King. The King’s Son is ready himself to take in your petition, and intercede with his Almighty Father for you, and to press your suit. Despair never saved a sinner yet. We are “saved by hope.” You lose everything by discouragement and retreat. You gain everything by pressing on. Suppose that Columbus, when within a few leagues of the West Indies, had yielded to despair, and sailed homewards. It was the last league sailed over that gave immortality to him, and a new continent to civilization. So it will be the last decisive step of surrendering your whole soul to Christ that unlocks to you the eternal glories of the heavenly inheritance. I will not insult you by hinting even that you are not to be deterred by fear of ridicule. Only a fool is thus pushed back by a straw. He who is more afraid of the empty laugh of a trifler than he is of the indignant frown of a holy God, surely deserves to be cast off for ever. There is but one way to manage the nettle of ridicule; touch it timidly and it shall prick thee, but grasp it with a firm hand and it crushes into a handful of down. Those who laugh at you to-day will love you to-morrow, when they see you are too earnest to be trifled with. 4. Our last brief counsel is to cherish the Holy Spirit. He may be visiting you for the last time. His agency is indispensable. If he leaves you, you are lost. You need him to conquer your stubborn will, to change your affections from hatred to love of God, and to purify the heart. He may be easily grieved. Quench not the Spirit. Lay down this paper, inquiring friend, and betake yourself to prayer. Delay not an hour.116On the delay of an hour—so insulting to the waiting Savior—hangs guilt enough to sink a soul. Life and death are set before you. Nothing is more certain than the uncertainty of human life. To-morrow you may be wrapped in your shroud. What thou doest, do quickly.—Sol.