A SUFFICIENT SAVIOUR by Mrs. C. H. Goodwin

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 11, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 50.

A SUFFICIENT SAVIOUR.

By Mrs. C. H. Goodwin

WELL, I do declare, that person is enough to wear out the patience of a saint, and I, try as I will, can’t help getting provoked at him.” “I just can’t help saying and doing things on the Sabbath that I know to be sin.” “No; I should not have read that story, or spent that time gossiping with my neighbor. I might have spent it studying God’s Word, or helping that poor blind soul with her work.” “Yes; I confess I should not have spent that nickel for candy, nor the money to feed folks on unwholesome food at the party I gave. Then, too, we are commanded to call the poor, the maimed, etc., when we make a feast.” “Yes; I’ve done all that, and a great many worse things, and have said, time and again, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’ It just seems I might as well give up. I’m a disgrace to the name of Christ. I have tried and tried; but I still fail.”

These and many more similar expressions are the accusings of a sin-stricken conscience, and the utterances of a discouraged soul. Is the Lord’s ear heavy that He can not hear? Is His arm short that He can not save? What is the matter? Where lies the wrong, where the remedy? Does God hold out nothing but repeated sinning? does He say, “O you can’t do any better, it is no use for you to try. You are ‘as good as such a person is, anyway?’” Shall we try to cover up our sins, and hide behind the text, “The spirit indeed is willing, but ‘the flesh is weak’”? Well, if we do, such texts as these, 2 Peter 2:19; 1:4; Rom. 6:16, still confront us, and we must confess that we are not in harmony with God.

Why not take God’s way, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to ‘be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our ‘Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye ‘should obey it in the lusts thereof.” “I can do all things through ‘Christ which strengtheneth me.” O soul, does God mean that?—“Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.”

“Well, but,” says one, “I confessed my sins, and I believed God ‘forgave them for Jesus’ sake; but I don’t feel any different; and when temptation comes, I am no stronger, but yield.” Don’t you believe now that God forgives you?—“Yes.” Well, then, “shall we con-tinue in sin, that grace may abound? God [not your feelings] for ‘bid.” Rom. 6:1, 2. “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead ‘indeed [not perhaps] unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus ‘Christ our Lord.” Feed upon the Word of God; daily consecrate every part of your body to Him; give up, surrender every plan to His direction. Remember that “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” And “if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all ‘men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”

When tempted to say, I can’t, say, Praise God, “I can do all ‘things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” God, the Creator and Upholder of all things, who takes note of the sparrow’s fall and numbers the hairs of our head, has promised that with every temptation He will make a way of escape. He says, “Blessed are they ‘which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be ‘filled.” “Thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His ‘people from their sins.”

He is a risen Saviour, a long-suffering Saviour, a perfect Saviour, and a soon-coming Saviour. When He comes, he that is filthy will be filthy still, and he that is righteous will be righteous still, and every man shall receive according as his works have been. Now Jesus says, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” Let us no longer make out that the sacrifice of God and Christ is incomplete, by saying, “I can’t; it is no use for me to try.” Read Isa. 43:1–3; 1:17–20. Can anything be more full of love than the tender pleading of God with the creatures of His hand? Let us then, in the words of the psalmist, “praise God” (Ps. 106:1, 2,), and “go forward.”

MRS. C. H. GOODWIN.