Then you say, "If it is not by working in earnest, how am I to be
saved?" I will tell you; Scripture will tell you--that is better. Take
the illustration Christ used to Nicodemus; you could not have a
better. He took him to the remedy: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life"
(John iii. 14, 15). Now there is the remedy. How am I to be saved? By
looking to Christ; just by looking. It's very cheap, isn't it? Very
simple, isn't it? Just look away to the Lamb of God now and be saved.
What says the great wilderness preacher? "Behold the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world." You might say the whole plan
of salvation is in two words--Giving; Receiving. God gives; I receive.
I remember, after one of the terrible battles in the American Civil
War--I was in the army, tending soldiers--and I had just laid down one
night, past midnight, to get a little rest, when a man came and told
me that a wounded soldier wanted to see me. I went to the dying man.
He said, "I wish you to help me to die." I said, "I would help you to
die if I could. I would take you on my shoulders and carry you into
the kingdom of God if I could; but I cannot. I can tell you of One who
can." And I told him of Christ being willing to save him; and how
Christ left heaven and came into the world to seek and to save that
which was lost. I just quoted promise after promise, but all was dark,
and it almost seemed as if the shades of eternal death were gathering
around his soul. I could not leave him, and at last I thought of this
third chapter of John, and I said to him, "Look here, I am going to
read to you now a conversation that Christ had with a man that went to
Him when he was in your state of mind, and inquired what he was to do
to be saved." I just read that conversation to the dying man, and he
lay there with his eves rivetted upon me, and every word seemed to be
going home to his heart, which was open to receive the truth. When I
came to the verse where it says, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal
life"--the dying man cried, "Stop, sir. Is that there?" "Yes, it is
all here." Then he said, "Won't you please read it to me again?" I
read it the second time. The dying man brought his hands together, and
he said, "Bless God for that. Won't you please read it to me again?" I
read through the whole chapter, but long before the end of it he had
closed his eyes. He seemed to lose all interest in the rest of the
chapter, and when I got through it his arms were folded on his breast,
he had a sweet smile on his face; remorse and despair had fled away.
His lips were quivering, and I leant over him, and heard him faintly
whisper from his dying lips, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." He opened
his eyes, and fixed his calm, deathly look on me, and he said, "Oh,
that is enough; that is all I want"; and in a few hours he pillowed
his dying head upon the truth of those two verses, and rode away on
one of the Saviour's chariots, and took his seat in the kingdom of
God.
Oh, sinner, you can be saved now if you will! Look and live. May God
help every lost one here to look on the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world.