Let us go back again for a moment over the ground we have already
travelled. We are in debt, with nothing to pay; but Christ has taken the
long account, and has crossed it through and through. We are in bondage,
with no power to set ourselves free; but Christ has come to rend the
iron chain and proclaim deliverance to the captives. We are wrong, wrong
within, wrong at the core; but again He is equal to our need, for
concerning Him it is written that He shall take away not only the "sins"
but the "sin" of the world. Is anything too hard for Him? Just as a
lover of pictures will sometimes discover a portrait, the work of an old
master, marred and disfigured by the dirt and neglect of years, and will
patiently cleanse and retouch it, till the lips seem to speak again, and
the old light shines in the eyes, and all its hidden glory is revealed
once more, so does Christ bring out the Divine image, hidden but never
lost, in the sinful souls of men. And all this He can do for all men;
for Christ knows no hopeless ones.
One of the saddest sights in a great city is its hospital for
incurables. Who can think but with a pang of pity and of pain of
these--old men and little children joined in one sad fellowship--for
whom the physician's skill has done its best and failed, for whom now
nothing remains save to suffer and to die? But in the world's great
hospital of ailing souls, where every day the Good Physician walks,
there is no incurable ward. He lays His hands on the sick, and they are
healed; He touches the eyes of the blind, and they see; unto the leper
as white as snow his flesh comes again as the flesh of a little child;
even souls that are dead through their trespasses and sins He restores
to life. But never, never does He turn away from any, saying, "Thou art
too far gone; there is nothing that I can do for thee." "I spake to Thy
disciples," cried the father of the child which had a dumb spirit, "I
spake to Thy disciples that they should cast it out; and they were not
able." "Bring him unto Me," said Jesus. Then He rebuked the unclean
spirit, saying unto him, "Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I command thee,
come out of him and enter no more into him." Verily, with authority He
commandeth even the unclean spirits and they obey Him.
Therefore let us despair of no man; therefore let no man despair of
himself. If we will, we can; we can, because Christ will. "I was
before," says St. Paul, "a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious;
howbeit I obtained mercy." "I am a wretched captive of sin," cries
Samuel Rutherford, "yet my Lord can hew heaven out of worse timber."
There is no unpardonable sin--none, at least, save the sin of refusing
the pardon which avails for all sin. "'Mine iniquity is greater than can
be forgiven.'[37] No, Cain, thou errest; God's mercy is far greater,
couldst thou ask mercy. Men cannot be more sinful than God is merciful
if, with penitent hearts, they will call upon Him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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