Awakened sinners feel that they must do something, but they see, or
think they see, some “lion in the street”—some difficulty in the path
which they have marked out to Christ, which prevents them from finding
the Savior in the pardon of their sins. The chief reason, perhaps, why
every inquirer does not rejoice in a felt sense of God’s pardoning
love, is, that they seek in their own way. They endeavor to arise and
“go to Jesus,” in their own strength. No sinner ever did find Christ,
seeking thus. He must first arrive at the point where he can feel his
own helplessness, before Christ will help him. When he does realize
this helplessness, then God will meet him and give him the new heart.
Would you know, then, what you must do to be saved? The essence of the
whole matter, we think, is this:
1. You must resolve that you will put off the interest of your soul no
longer, but that you will go earnestly about the matter, and seek and
persist in seeking, until your sins are pardoned. 2. You must see your
own helplessness and feel it. 3. Having arrived at this point, humbly
submit to Christ. With the prodigal, let the feelings of the heart be,
“I will arise and go to my Father”—He can help me—I can not help
myself—if he save, well—if not, “I can but perish if I go.”
And, did ever a sinner perish with such feelings? No, thanks to Christ,
not one! Try it, dear sinner, try it.
We clip the above from the _Presbyterian Advocate_, as a specimen of
“the blind leading the blind.” Why is it that when men attempt to
answer Scripture questions, they can not give Scripture answers? When
the Philippian Jailer propounded substantially the above question, the
holy apostle answered him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spoke unto him the word of the
Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour
of the night and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all
his, straightway.” Acts xvi. 30-32. When this pagan officer asked what
he should do, he was not blindly told that he _could do nothing_—that
the first lesson to learn in salvation was that he _could not do
anything_, but he was told what to do, and forthwith did it and was
saved.
When Saul asked the important question, “Lord, what wilt thou have me
to do?” he was by no means told that he could not do anything. But he
was told to “Arise, and go to Damascus, and there it shall be told
thee, all things that are appointed _for thee to do_.” Acts xxii. 9-10;
see verse 16. Would God appoint things for men to do, and say, “Why
tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling
on the name of the Lord,” if he knew they could not do anything?
When three thousand cried out, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”
there was no blind guide to say, “You can do nothing,” but there were
present apostles, under the influence of the infallible Spirit of all
wisdom, who said, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the
name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins.” Acts ii. 38.