But if you were to die to-night where would you go to? Said I to him. “To heaven I hope?” was his reply. “but why do you hope to go there? Many won’t. In what do you differ from others, that entitles you to that hope?”
“Well, I do all I can that’s good, and I try to live the best that I can, and I believe in God, and I hope I’ll go to heaven when I die.”
“Yes, all very good; but you know the devils believe and tremble, and they are none the better for it.”
“True” he said, rather staggered at the idea, and struck with the possibility of his ground not being altogether as firm as he had thought it was. “But” he added, after a little pause, “The devils believe and tremble; they do not believe and serve.”
“Well, and do you believe and serve?”
“I do.”
“You serve God? How long have you served God?”
“Oh, this long time.”
“How long?”
“These many years now.”
“How many?”
“oh! A good many-perhaps a dozen or thirteen.”
“But have you been converted?”
“Well, I can’t say as to that, exactly, but I have served God now these many years; that I’m sure of.”
“But Judas Iscariot served Him also. The Lord Jesus chose him as an apostle; and sent him out to preach the gospel, and to cure diseases, and do many similar things along with the other apostles; and we know that he was a traitor after all, and has gone to hell.”
“Oh! I hope not. I hope no person has gone there, nor ever will go there. That’s an awful place, and it’s an awful thing to say to anyone. I would not say that of anyone. I hope God is too good to send anyone there. Oh! No; I wouldn’t say that of anyone. “
“But do you believe there is such a place as ‘everlasting burnings?’”
After a pause he replied thoughtfully, “Yes, I do; for the Book says it; and if I did not believe in ‘everlasting fire,’ I could not believe in ‘everlasting life,’ for it is the same Book that tells me of the one that tells me of the other also. I must believe it.”
“Well, and if you had your deserts, which would be your proper portion, eternal life or eternal judgement?”
“Eternal judgment; I know that, if I had my deserts, for there is not a wickeder living man in the town than I have been.”
“And how then are you to escape it, if you deserve it? How do you expect to get to heaven?”
“Well, I just do the best I can, and pray to God, and believe, and hope He will have mercy on me when I die, and overlook my sins.”
“That He won’t, He couldn’t do it,” I replied. Looking at me with a mixture of amazement, curiosity, and contempt at my ignorance, he replied in a most cynical tone, “Then there’s no salvation for me.”
“No,” I calmly said, “not in that way.”
“Then how am it to get it?” Let me hear your way?”
“Now, “ I said, “look here; suppose you owed a bill, say £10, at a place of business, and you could not pay it. And suppose there were different partners in the firm; we will call them for example, Mr William and Mr Henry, etc. Now, if you went in one day to make known your poverty, and found Mr William making up the books, and he said to you, ‘Well, Joe, I know you are a poor man, and cannot pay the money; I will overlook your account in the book, and not charge you with it.’ Would that not make you very happy? Would you not come away in great peace, and tell the wife that it was all right now that Mr William had overlooked your account, and you need not pay the money?”
“I would, to be sure.”
“Now, suppose next day you meet one of the other partners, Mr Henry, say, and he said, ‘Joe, you owe us £10’; you would say,
“Yes, but Mr William has overlooked the account, and I haven’t to pay it.”
“Oh! But,” says Mr Henry, “Mr Williams has not power to do such a thing; he is but one of the firm, and the firm demands it, so get ready to pay or go to prison, where would your peace be then?”
“I confess it would be gone in a moment.”
“To be sure it would. But suppose, instead of that, Mr Williams had said, ‘Joe, you are poor and cannot pay; I will pay for you,’ and he put his hand into his pocket, and pulled out £10, and popped it into the till for you, and said, ‘There, Joe, the money is paid; I will give you a receipt, and put paid to your name in the book’; would you then be afraid to meet the rest of the firm, with the receipt in your pocket?”
“No. I would not.”
“Well now, Joe, God could not overlook your sin. His righteousness demanded the payment of the debt; but what justice demanded grace provided; and in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, God has shown how ‘He might be just, and the Justifier of him that believeth on Jesus.’ The cross is not the overlooking, but the settlement of sin. The debt is paid, and
‘being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.’”
“Bold shall I stand on that great day,
For who aught to my soul shall lay;
While by Thy blood absolved I am
From sin’s tremendous curse and fear.”
Thus I went on to tell him the story of the Cross, and as I looked up, I saw his hand stealing over the bed to get a handkerchief to wipe away the big teardrops that were rolling down his cheeks, as he was trying to stifle his emotion. Perceiving that I had noticed him, he said in a broken voice,
“You must really excuse me, sir, for I cannot help it; but there’s something in that that touches me. I haven’t grit (wept) any this many long year, for my heart is as hard as stone, but somehow this touches me, and I cannot help it.”
And then he fairly broke out,
“I see it all; well, was I blind, but the cross settled it, and it is not overlooked but settled. I thank God, I thank Christ, I thank you sir. Oh! But there are many blind who do not see the way, and those that teach them are as blind themselves. No-one ever told me that before, and I never heard it. Oh! I am thankful that I lived till today, for if I had died yesterday I would have been lost, for I was on the wrong road, and many hundreds beside me, but now I see that the Cross has settled it all. Thank God! Thank God! I’m not afraid to die now,” and he sobbed right out.
His joy was so manifest and abiding that one of my daughters called him “Joyful Joe,” and the name stuck.
Reader, are you joyful, knowing that the Cross has settled all the claims of justice, and that all that is left for you to do is to “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”? Acts 16:31
Taken from The Journey and it's End page 68
