Salvation to the Uttermost
“This is the rest -wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing” —
ts able also to safac tijcm unto tfjc uttermost.” — Heb. vii. 25.
Sal&ati0it to tlje
mttmnost.
What, to many, would all the other “threescore and ten palm-trees” avail, if they
had not this one to rush to for shelter? The pressing, urgent question with thousand thousand anxious souls — overwhelmed with the weight of aggravated transgression, is this, “Can the God-Man-Redeemer be a Saviour for tisl A shelter for others, can these Palms afford sure refuge for the guiltiest?” It is the old controversy that Satan has with not a few, whom he first goads on to presumption, and then, when entangled in his meshes, he seeks to drive to despair. Many such has that implacable warder shut up in the deepest dungeons of “Doubting Castle” — gloomy cells, where the sunlight is forbidden to enter — and rung over them the knell of extinguished hope. The crushing thought of personal unworthiness — the memories of guilty bygone years, rise up before them like avenging angels. What! this Saviour and this salvation for me, — it cannot be! I have plunged madly into sin; — not, like others, because I have never been warned — never counselled; — never known the tenderness of a mother’s prayers, nor the sanctity of a father’s entreaties, nor the privileges of a hallowed home. I have been oblivious of all these. Even now, I seem to listen (though in years long gone by), to voices which I have lived basely to scorn — to counsels I have trampled on; — the retrospect all the sadder by the reflection that the lips which spake them are hushed in the grave, — and the arms that of old fondled me, as on Sabbath night I knelt by the loved knee, are mouldering in the tomb! What! Christ receive me with all that diary of a misspent, godless, defiant life unveiled to His omniscient eye! — deeds of depravity — outbursts of fiery passion — malignant purposes of revenge; my own bark foundered — and worse it may be than this, miserable wrecks, for which I am guiltily responsible, strewing the shores. Mine is not, as it is with many, a mere upper layer of iniquity; but it is deposit on deposit — strata piled on strata — the mournful consolidation of a life of sin. Ten thousand echoes ring “lost!” along the dreary corridors of the past. “Surely my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God.” There may be room and welcome for every weary traveller at Elim and its grove, except for me!
Nay, not so. Aggravated as your case is, it is never hopeless; you cannot hear your spiritual death-knell tolled, so long as you can read the golden letters which head this meditation — “Able to save unto the uttermost.” You may have been to the uttermost a sinner: you may have gone the sickening round of all life’s follies — run riot of its whole enchanted circle: O Israel, thou mayest have destroyed thyself: there may be not one redeeming feature in thy case — not one apparent gleaning left for the grape-gatherer: thou mayest be a stript, defenceless, degenerate vine — fit only for the axe and the cumberer’s doom. But hearken to the words of God — “In Me is thy help:’ “I know the thoughts which I think towards you — thoughts of peace and not of evil!”
It is told of Bilney, by the Historian of the Reformation, that on obtaining Erasmus’ translation of the Greek Testament, he hurried away with it and shut himself up in his room in Cambridge. On opening its pages, his eye caught the words — “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” He laid down the book, and meditated on the astonishing declaration. “What! St. Paul ‘the chief of sinners,’ and yet St. Paul is sure of being saved! “He read the verse again and again, exclaiming,” Oh assertion of St. Paul, how sweet art thou to my %oyV’ — {nAubisny.)
Downcast Pilgrim, in the dreariest of moral deserts! if, with true and sincere penitence of heart, you plead for pardon, “with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption “(Ps. cxxx. 7), What a wondrous utterance is that — a lustrous jewel sparkling in a dark setting — found in the iSth verse of the opening chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy! One would have supposed, after the awful indictment contained in the preceding verses, that any hope of forgiveness must be closed against the rebellious race — “The people laden with iniquity.” But, all at once, the tolling of the funereal bell ceases; and the joyful chime that has borne hope and comfort in many an hour of spiritual desolation falls upon the ear — “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Or, take another declaration of similar import: “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions, for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” “I — even I ‘’ — the very Being thou hast most deeply injured — whose Spirit thou hast grieved; — I, the Almighty Creditor, am ready to grant and sign a full discharge — “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in nowise cast out.” The Stronger than the strong man armed sounds the silver trumpet of jubilee, “He hath sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound:” and blessed have been the millions who have heard that joyful sound! “How useless it is,” says an earnest thinker lately lost to the world, and who knew from deepfelt experience the truth of his own words — “How useless it is to tell the desponding, or those distressed by consciousness of guilt, of any remedy but a Saviour’s blood. It is here that the true test and proof of the Gospel lies. It is light to the blind, strength to the weary, and consolation for the broken-hearted.”
“All in weakness, all in sorrow,
Saviour God! I Thee implore;
Lifting up the sad petition
Thou hast often heard before,
In the former days of darkness,
In despairing times of yore.
“For a present help in trouble,
Thou hast never ceased to be;
Since, at first, a weeping sinner
Fell before Thee trustingly;
And Thy voice is ever sounding,
Come, ye weary ones, to Me!”
“for I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR UNRIGHTEOUSNESS,
AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR INIQUITIES
WILL I REMEMBER NO MORE.”