16 Preaching to dieing woman
16 Preaching to dieing woman Autobigraphy - James H. Oliphant
CHAPTER XVI. A lady who was low with tuberculosis sent me a request to visit her. When I got to her home, I asked her why she had sent for me. She explained that she was near death, that she was a poor sinner, with no hope, and that the thought of being banished from the loving presence of the Savior, and from all that are good, was so distressing to her she felt it was unbearable, and she sent for me to hear me talk, to see if I could find any comfort for her. Her mother requested that I talk to her husband in her presence. He was a lawyer and belonged to the Methodists.
I told him I must talk to his wife from a Primitive Baptist point of view and he said for me to pursue my own course. I then said, let us find the difference between law and gospel. I will first ask, What is law? "It is a telling what we must do, and the penalty if we do not do it." We both agreed on this definition for law. Next we will find what gospel is. We found it to be, "good news," "glad tidings." News is never true conditionally, but is true, even though it is not heard, or not believed when heard; that is, it does not have to be told, or believed, to be true. I said to him I will not preach law to your wife, I will preach gospel to her.
Evidently she dreaded to be banished from the just; her words showed that she loved the good and pure. She loved the just, and these are evidences of grace. I first quoted to her the words "Blessed are the poor in spirit." I asked her husband if this was law or gospel. He said it was gospel and in no degree conditional. I said to her, Does this describe your case? Are you "poor in spirit"? She said, "Yes, I am surely that." Well, you are a "blessed" woman; just as sure as you are poor in spirit you are blessed. The verb is present tense---now blessed. If you know you are poor in spirit, I am sure you are blessed.
Again, I asked her if she was "poor in spirit," and again she answered, "’Yes," while tears filled her eyes and ran down on her cheeks. This text is pure gospel---no law in it, and I applied it to her case. The next text I used was, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." I said to her, "Do you do this? " "Yes," she said. To hunger and thirst for anything is to greatly desire it. Do you greatly desire a perfect righteousness? "Yes, I would give all the world to be righteous." I explained, it does not say blessed are the righteous, but "They that hunger and thirst after righteousness." This is a statement true at all times and in all places, like two and two are four. This is true everywhere. So in all the world we may say, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness." Persons that do this realize they are poor sinners, and unrighteous. They see and feel the need of a perfect righteousness, and that they are unable to produce it. They see the need of the righteousness that "exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees." They discard their own righteousness as of no value, and as "filthy rags," and long for a pure righteousness that fits them for death. Again I said, "Do you hunger and thirst after righteousness?" She said, "Yes, this is a new view of things to me. I have never been happy and full of love and peace, but I am sure I do hunger and thirst after righteousness." Well, you are "blessed" present tense, now blessed. She urged, "But I am unworthy." The text does not say the happy or the worthy, it says, "They which do hunger and thirst after righteousness," and you feel sure you do that. So this text is to you, it is for you. It means that the Lord has already blessed you with the quickening of His spirit, and you are now blessed. You have been born again, and when you come to the trial you will find one there to sustain you in the last trial.
She said, "What must I do." I quoted "To him that worketh not but believeth." To believe is not to work---it is to depend on Him that labored. It is, "simply to the cross I cling." Jesus came to save sinners, not the righteous, but sinners. My sister, you tell me you are a sinner, and a poor sinner; here is your hope. Had He come to save the righteous, then the text would not be to you, but sinners---poor sinners---and such are you. You need a sinner’s friend, and I preach Him to you. When I would stop talking she would urge me to go on. It was a new view of things to her, and she said it was good and comforting to her, but she had "never been happy and made to rejoice." I then told her she certainly felt better and more hopeful than when I came. She said she did. She had thought that Jesus came to save the righteous, the good, and the holy, and I had urged another view. I cited the thief on the cross, and Paul’s case, and Manasseh’s and my own. I told her I needed a sinner’s friend, and not the Savior of the pure and the good, and that I still needed such a Savior. I told her that I regarded her as a Christian, that Christ had died for her, and the work of grace had been done for her, and when death came to her she would be ready to go, and the dear Lord would support her. She enjoyed this way of preaching. She said it was new to her, but it gave her a little hope. I bade her goodbye after some hours talk with her. Within a day or so her mother wrote to me that she was dead, and wanted me to know that she found the help I spoke of, that she was filled with love and hope, and was reconciled to go. She sent me her tenderest regards for my visit to her. This was an interesting time with me, and I remember it as one of the plainest instances and proof that the gospel is to be addressed to those who have hearts prepared to receive it. Wesley applied the words, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden" to everybody. It is clear to me that the words describe the persons addressed, and are not to everybody.
It has been my happy privilege all my life to now and then see one that was burdened with a sense of guilt and sin in my audiences, I love to see them. I love them, and after I have tried to apply the gospel to them, and once and awhile I have seen them rejoice in hope and come to us and tell of the mercy of God. These have been sweet seasons to me. A great many come into our audiences that feel no burden of sin, no "desire for the sincere milk of the word." There is no sweetness to them in the name of Jesus, nor in the gospel. It is thus with all "Till the eyes of their understanding are opened that they may know what is the hope of His calling." Martha said, "If thou hadst been here my brother had not died." We need the "arm of the Lord revealed" in our meetings. Without Him we labor in vain. We may pray the Lord to go with us and be with us, and give us wisdom and skill to preach right, and prepare the people to hear rightly. While the Lord prepared Peter to go to the house of Cornelius, He prepared the house of Cornelius to hear. So we need the help of the Lord to save our poor, little, suffering churches from extinction. If but few attend our solemn feasts, if the masses reject us, we must appeal to God to sustain us. It is trying to see our old members die and not have enough young ones come in to fill the vacant places.