Christ's Atonement
A young English woman married a man in government service. Her husband was a light-hearted young man who smoked, drank, and gambled. As the years went on, he was promoted in service and had large responsibilities, but he became a hardened gambler and drinker.
As her husband went deeper into sin, she, through anxiety on his account, became deeply anxious about her soul, and as a lost, guilty sinner cast herself and all her burdens on the Saviour and became a new creature in Christ, with one burdened desire-to bring her husband to Christ. For 13 years she prayed with never failing faith that the Lord would convert him. Every Sunday she would ask him to accompany her to services, and he as often refused. He would sometimes say that if she would go with him to some worldly place that he would go to church with her 40 times. Her invariable reply was, "As much as I long to have you with me, I could not bring reproach on my Saviour by going where He could not be."
On the Sunday before Christmas she repeated her invitation, when he laughingly said, "You have not converted me yet, old woman." She immediately threw her arms around his neck, and said, "No, and I never can; but the Lord Jesus Christ can convert you, George." From that time he became very uneasy, but more determined to resist his wife's entreaties.
On Christmas Eve he went with some of his companions to a dinner. After the dinner, he went home to take his usual Christmas gifts to his wife and children. When he was distributing them he found that for the first time since he was married he had forgotten a gift for his wife. He was utterly at a loss to account for this and said to her, "I've never forgotten you before; now you may ask what you like, and I will give it to you." She quietly and earnestly said, "Come with me to the meeting tonight-that will be my gift."
"Oh, no," he said, "I cannot do that; ask for some gift." But she was firm and reminded him of his promise. When the time came for his wife to go to the meeting, she waited for him.
The children asked, "Do you think father will go with us?"
"Yes," she said, "your father never broke a promise to me." He had returned, and overhearing this remark, it made him feel very uneasy. When they started he went with them, to the great joy of his wife. At the church door he turned and left them, intending to go back to his companions and cards, but something compelled him to return to his home.
There were pictures hanging on the walls, and his eyes fell on a representation of Christ on the cross. It attracted him, and smote him to the heart. The words which his devoted wife had so often read in his hearing came afresh to his memory: "He was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him . . . But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." (Isa. 53:3-5). The past, with a wasted life, and the future with an awful eternity rolled in like billows over his soul. Here in this One who was despised, rejected, wounded and bruised, appeared the only hope of true peace now, and true joy hereafter.
He looked and looked, until it seemed to him as if it were Christ Himself hanging on the cross, and He said to him, "I died for you."
"For me, Lord ?" the wondering man replied, and then and there, in agony of soul, he called on the Saviour to save him and to put away from him forever the taste for liquor and the desire for all sin. Like "the chief of sinners" he "fell to the earth" (Acts 9:4), and upon his knees in his own house, with no one near but God, he acknowledged his "manifold transgressions and mighty sins" (Amos 5:12), and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour. He believed on Him, "who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification" (Rom 4:25), and rose from his knees a free man, with Christ as his Saviour and his mighty Deliverer.
That very night he wrote checks paying off all his gambling debts and ceased playing cards. He never tasted liquor again, and he who had smoked 20 cigars a day never smoked another. His deliverance was complete. The gospel demonstrated itself in his life.
On that memorable Christmas Eve, the occasion of his new birth, he went to his old companions and told them what the Lord Jesus had done for him. They thought he was joking, and laughed at him. They tempted him to their utmost to drink with them, and when he was firm, they emptied their glasses over him and he walked out wet with the liquor. Then they followed him home with offensive songs and jeers.
Surely if God can save a drinking, swearing, smoking, gambling sinner of the deepest dye, and make him a "new creature" in Christ, He can save anyone, even you. Burdened, weary, sin sick soul, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.'' (John 1:29). Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and obtain eternal life. God is able to save the worst sinner, and He is both able and willing to save you. -Selected
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