At midnight long ago in a small northern township, we heard a man’s voice calling out at our front gate. Going out to him in the darkness we found that it was a drunken man, enquiring the way to a certain hotel, where he had been living. He had been going the wrong way!
“I’ll go with you and show you the way”.
He was grateful and said: “I generally have the little dog with me and he shows me the way back. Hut he isn’t here tonight I don’t know which way to go. Somehow I’m lost”.
“Perhaps you’re lost in another way too!”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re lost in the way of life, and you can’t find the way to God.”
“Yes! And I know what that way is too. It’s through accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Saviour!”
“Where did you learn that?”
It transpired that this poor drunkard had once attended the same Bible Study circle as the writer, in Sydney years before. A great old minister of the Gospel, Rev. R. B. S. Hammond, used to expound the Word of God there.
How tragic the fall that had brought a man down so far! Yet here in a place so distant, more distant in those days of greater isolation, he was brought face to face with the truths that he had learned from a faithful servant of the Lord, one who incidentally worked much among drunkards and others who were “down”, and whose chief aim was to bring men and women to a personal knowledge of the Saviour. This man had not escaped from the God who loved him and desired to give him life and peace and victorious power. The Shepherd was still following the lost sheep.
A prayer went up for his salvation before we parted that night and his heart was deeply touched and old memories revived. It may not be the drink that afflicts my reader now. A host of other temptations arise in life’s pathway to allure people from the one safe road that leads upward to God and to all that He has prepared for those who love Him.
The poor drunkard’s prescription is the only one that can save us from taking the wrong turns “It is through accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Saviour!”
And what does that mean? Suppose you were very ill and could find no means of a cure. You know of a Doctor who could diagnose your trouble and find a remedy, you send for him and put your case in his hands. You submit to his treatment. You take the medicine he prescribes. You accept him as your own personal physician. His treatment succeeds and you are at length restored to health and strength. To that extent he has become your saviour.
This is just a faint illustration of the One who is often called “The Great Physician”. He can cure that universal malady of sin with all its resultant heartaches. This sin may show itself in a host of ways, but it is the same old enemy of mankind. This heavenly doctor has the one great means of cure. He has died in our place to free us from the penalty of sin, which we could never pay. He has risen from the dead, which we could never do of ourselves, and so He has the power to save us, power to impart to us new life; spiritual life; everlasting life.
He does not give us simply a cure for the ills of life in a detached way. He comes to us, not as a Doctor who has only minutes to spare at our bedside. He comes to stay, to give us His own life; to remain with us all the way; to see us right through!
How could we reject the offer of the Friend who never fails those who trust Him? Even through the poor medium of print, may we introduce you to your Saviour?
Written: W. Arnold Long
Acknowledgement : CHRISTIAN BOOK ROOM
P. O. Box 95413 T.S.T. Kowloon Hong Kong S.A.R.of China
Taken from: “BLAZING THE TRAIL” p.15-17
Photo by: Daphne Bailey