W K Tweedie
Mark 16:15. Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
Who would limit the good news from God to man? Who would circumscribe the outflowing of divine love? Who would monopolise the antidote to misery? Who would fence round the fountain opened for sin? Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free, all need the healing power; and let them enjoy it freely as the wind or the sunlight of heaven. Man may fetter what Jehovah makes free. Man may limit to a caste, a tribe, a sect, what the only wise God commanded to be spread wherever there are sinners to be saved, or sorrows to be soothed; but that is because man is prone to oppose the mandate of his God.
Come then, my soul, and freely rejoice in what your God so freely offers. Beware lest you place limits where God places none; you will only mar your peace by marring God’s gospel. True, many are called, while few find the narrow way; but that is because people will not come to Christ that they may have life. Come then to the fountain, and there rejoice in the loving-kindness of the Lord. And while you draw nigh, be encouraged by the thought that, as the Saviour was condemned on the believer’s behalf, they that believe need fear no evil, for the Holy One cannot condemn both the sinner and the Substitute. He cannot exact payment of the same debt twice; that is the impregnable principle on which the hopes of the believer repose.
Every form of human religion is founded on some fiction – Romanism, Islam, Hinduism. All that man has invented is built upon something in man: his sufferings, his righteousness, his prayers. The Saviour alone has based His religion on the justice of God, and there the soul is safe, for the very holiness and truth of Jehovah are now on his side. And on his side for what? Perhaps to allure man into the wilderness. But why? Is it to destroy him, as natural conscience is prone to suggest? No, it is to speak words to our heart
1Taken, with editing, from Tweedie’s volume, Glad Tidings of the Gospel of Peace.
– to give us vineyards from the very wilderness, and make even the valley of Achor a door of hope.