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.