SOVEREIGN GRACE
by D.L. Moody
GOSPEL DIALOGUES.
IV.-MR. MOODY AND PASTOR MONOD
SALVATION.
(128) MR. MOODY–What is the first step
towards salvation ?
Pastor Monod–We find the answer in the history of the Prodigal Son. If we look for
the first symptom of his getting back into the right path we shall discover it in these
words: "When he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began
to be in want......... And when he came to himself, he said..... I will arise and
go to my father." The first step towards salvation is to come to one's self–a
long journey sometimes. Then, coming to himself, the sinner feels a sense of need, whatever
the need may be. To the Prodigal Son, it was hunger. In many cases, commonly,
indeed, it is a need of forgiveness; but that is not always the beginning. It may be
simply a need of strength; or it may be a need of comfort. Others, again, chiefly feel a
need of love; well, God answers that. No matter by what door you come, provided you do
come. I remember a French friend, now gone to his rest, who told me of his conversions
very striking one. He said to me, "No, I cannot say I had a very strong sense of sin.
I just felt happy in the love of God. God did to me as a mother will sometimes do to (129) her child when be has overslept himself: He woke me
with a kiss."
Mr. M–Is it present salvation? Can any one be saved here tonight ?
Pastor M.–I cannot see how it can be salvation at all, if it is not present
salvation. If a drowning man is not being saved now, I do not see in what sense he
is being saved. What says the Apostle ? "Ye are saved by grace, through
faith." In one sense, of course, our salvation has been accomplished in the past;
Christ has done it all, and we have but to receive it, In another sense, our salvation, in
its fulness, is still future, and "is nearer now than when we believed." Yet it
is also true that we are saved now; just as a drowning man is saved now, although
he may not yet have put on dry clothes, or feel perfectly comfortable.
Mr. M.–Does Faith or Repentance come first?
Pastor M.–In the Gospel of Mark we read: "After that John was put in prison
Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying: The time
is fulfilled; and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the Gospel."
The Apostle Paul said to the elders of Ephesus: "I kept back nothing that was
profitable unto you; but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to
house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God and
faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ." Both repentance and faith are needful; and
they. are inseparable. It, however. we must name them in succession, repentance comes
first.
An illustration may make this plain. What is Repentance? (130)
It is not a feeling at all; it is an act. Repentance means turning round. Conversion
and repentance are two translations of the same word. Well, suppose you do turn
away from your sin; that is not enough: you must look to Christ as your Saviour. The
unconverted sinner turns his back upon the Lord -. what must he do in order to look to
Christ and to believe in Him? He must turn round. If he does not turn round he cannot see
the Saviour; and if he does see the Saviour, it is evident that he has turned round. Which
of the two acts comes first? The turning round, of course. That at once puts him into
position to look away from his sin to his Saviour. I cannot hold on to my sin at the same
time that I am looking to Christ. Nor am I able to forsake my sin except by looking to
Christ. But I turn to Him, Who is ready to forgive the sin which I am willing to forsake.
Repentance puts me in the right position for believing; and I might add that believing is,
in its turn, a most powerful means of repentance; indeed, the bitterest tears of
repentance flow after we have believed in the love of Christ.
When I was pastor of a French Canadian church, the elders of the church asked a poor
old woman who could not even read, "What have we to do in order to be saved?"
She answered, timidly: "Why, but it seems to me that if one has got a good repentance
in our Lord Jesus Christ one is saved." I had never heard the expression before, and
thought it a very striking one; it seemed to settle the vexed question about repenting and
believing: what she experienced, you see, was a good repentance in our Lord Jesus Christ.
(131) Mr. M.–What is it to "believe
?"
Pastor M.–The commonest things are the most difficult to define. Suppose Mr. Moody
asked me, What is life? or, What is love? It would not be easy to give an
answer. What is it to believe? Well, to believe a person, is to consider that person as
truthful. To believe a thing, is to consider that thing ;is true.
If you believe me, then, you take it for granted that any promise I make you will be
fulfilled. If you believe that a bank note which is offered you is genuine, you reckon it
as worth $5, or $10, or $50, though it is but a piece of paper. If you have the slightest
doubt about its genuineness, then you dare not count it is so much money. If you feel
certain that. it is forged, you take no account of it at all. In the two latter
cases you decline to accept it. The proof of the trusting is in the taking.
Mr. M.–Many think they must wait God's time in order to be saved. What is God's
time?
Pastor M.–It seems to me that we have given the answer with our own lips
this very day, We have been singing–
While Jesus whispers to you, come, sinner, come!
While we are praying for you, come, sinner, come!
Now is the time to own Him, come, sinner, come!
Now is the time to know Him, come, sinner come!"
And again:
One there is who loves thee, oh, receive Him now!
He has waited all the day–why waitest thou ?
But we have better than hymns; we have the Word of God. There we are told very
definitely what the (132) time is. He
saith, "I
have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I
succored, thee ; behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of
salvation." We may think that we are waiting; but it is God who is waiting for
us all the while. When we do decide, of course we have a right to say: Now is God’s
time to receive me. But we ought to have decided long before. How would it do to
tell an undutiful son that he should return to his father some day; or by and by. or
tomorrow ? His plain duty is to return now.
Mr. M.–So, if these friends go away unsaved, they are adding sin to sin?
Pastor M.–Surely : because unbelief is not a misfortune, it is a sin–the one
sin of which the Holy Ghost is to convince men; "of sin, because they believe not on
Me." We are making God a liar as long as we refuse to receive the record He has
given concerning His Son.
Mr. M.–After they believe, what have they to do ? A good many are afraid to
receive Christ because they think that when they go out tomorrow, they will have the same
temptations as today, and will fall into sin.
Pastor M.–They forgot that if they do believe tonight, then they have got hold of
Christ, and Christ has got hold of them. He says: "Abide in Me, and I in you."
If I believe in Christ I am one with Him "He that is joined unto the Lord is one
spirit." Henceforth I am to draw all my life from Christ, not from myself. "In
me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing," but " the law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus, hath made me free from the law of sin and death."
(133) A Christian workingman, being asked by what
means he kept walking in the paths of obedience, replied: "Well, I came to the
Saviour; He received Me; and I never said, 'good-bye.'"
Mr. M.–Suppose they do fall into sin after they have believed ?
Pastor M.–We should not, and need not, fall into sin , but we may and we do fall
into sin. If we have thus fallen, we are told most distinctly what we should do. "If
any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Have we fallen? Let us return to Christ, and
make a clean breast of it. Let us tell Him all about it; and then let us resume the path
of obedience, resting, not upon our good resolutions, but upon Himself, upon His
blood shed for us, upon His word, upon His love, remembering what is said in the Epistle
of Jude about "Him who is able to keep us from falling."
Will anybody reply, " Oh, ye; it is written that He is able, but not that
He is willing?" What an offense to God! Suppose you are a surgeon, and you
tell a poor man whose arm is broken, " My good fellow, I am able to cure you."
He implores you to do so. "Ah," you add, "but I did not say I was
willing!" Why, if you were not willing, the least you could do would be to let the
man alone. But to go and taunt him by saying that you were able when you were not
willing, would be cruel and heartless. Not one of us "who are evil" would do
such a thing; much less our Father W ho is in heaven. No; when God says that Jesus is (134) "able to save to the uttermost," "
able to keep us from falling," that surely implies that He is willing. Let us then
have full confidence, not leaning upon ourselves or upon these meetings, blessed as they
are, but only upon the faithfulness of God.
Mr. M.–Tell us how we can have a victorious life right along, all the while.
Pastor M.–Well, first of all, is such a life commanded and promised to us ? What
does Christ say? "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." " My grace
is sufficient for thee." What does Paul say? " We are more than conquerors in
Him that loved us." What does John say? "Who is he that overcometh the world,
but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" The victorious life of faith is
summed up in the last verse of Col. 1: "I also labor, striving according to
His working, which worketh in me mightily. "The Apostle was laboring and
striving all the time, but all the energy for that striving and that laboring came
from Christ; it was His working that worked mightily in His servant.
If we are to overcome our enemies, in the first place we must take our right position
in Christ. As it is said in Romans 6.: "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed
unto sin, but alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord." Begin with that. It is not
something to be found at the further end of the Christian life: it is the real, practical,
starting point. Say to yourself : " I am dead to sin, not through any effort of mine,
but through the death of Christ. "One died for all, then were all
dead." Reckon it so. Do not consult your feelings about it. Take it as an
accomplished fact that the (135) death of
Christ stands between the man that you were and the man that you are. But, further, we are
to reckon ourselves as alive unto God. God commands us to make the reckoning; so we
need not shrink from it, or fear that it shall not prove true. Then when a
temptation comes, say to that temptation: "I am alive unto God; I am stronger than
you, O tempter! I stand in the power of the resurrection of Christ. You shall not overcome
me; but by thus trying my faith you shall only make it the stronger." For it is a
glorious fact that every temptation over which we triumph through faith in Christ leaves
us stronger than before. Need I add, alas! that every time we give way we are weakened.
The victory belongs to us. Let us take hold of it and go forth "conquering, and to
conquer." And if there be failing in our faith, with defeat as the consequence, let
us not be discouraged by them-still less reconcile ourselves to them. Let us keep aloft
our only banner-the Cross of Christ. Let us trust the promises of God in Christ,
which are the promises of pardon, of peace, of deliverance, of purity, of power, of joy,
of victory, of plenteous and everlasting redemption.
"Shall I shrink and be afraid?–
‘I will help thee,’ Christ hath said.
Shall I flee before the foe
When His arm can lay him low?
Jesus! Rock of strength divine,
Be my watchword, ‘Christ is mine!’
"Shall I sigh for cisterns here,
When a fountain floweth near?
(136) Shall I carry life's sad weight,
Weeping o'er my lost estate?
Nay! Salvation's might shall shine
In my watchword, ‘Christ is mine!’"
Anna Shipton
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