Let me say that God accuses us and condemns us one by one that He may save us one by one. The meaning of Nathan's sharp sentence was speedily disclosed when the broken-down king exclaimed, I have sinned against the Lord,' and when, with laconic force as great as that which barbed the condemnation, the prophet stanched the wound with the brief words, And the Lord hath made to pass the iniquity of thy sin.' The intention of the accusation is the extension of the mercy and forgiveness. God, as the Apostle puts it, hath concluded all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.'
And now, mark, for the carrying out of that divine purpose in regard to us, and for our possession of the proffered mercy, the same individualizing and isolating process is needful as was needful for the conviction of the sin. God desires to save the world, but God can only save men one at a time. There must be an individual access to Him for the reception of forgiveness, as there must be in regard to the conviction of sin, just as if He and I were the only two beings in the whole universe. There is no wholesale entrance into God's Church or into God's kingdom. God's mercy is not given to crowds, except as composed of individuals who have individually received it. There must be the personal act of faith; there must be my solitary coming to Him. As the old mystics used to define prayer, so I might define the whole process by which men are saved from their sins, the flight of the lonely soul to the lonely God.' My brother, it is not enough for you to say, We have sinned'; say, I have sinned.' It is not enough that from a gathered congregation there should go up the united litany, Lord, have mercy upon us! Christ, have mercy upon us! Lord, have mercy upon us!' You must make the prayer your own: Lord, have mercy upon me!' It is not enough that you should believe, as I suppose most of you fancy that you believe, that Christ has died for the sins of the whole world. That belief will give you no share in His forgiveness. You must come to closer grips with Him than that; and you must be able to say, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.' Let us have no running away into the crowd. Come out, and stand by yourselves, and for yourselves stretch out your own hand, and take Christ for yourselves.
A man may die of starvation in a granary. You may be lost in the midst of this abundance which Christ has provided for you. And the difference between really possessing salvation and not possessing it, lies very largely in the difference between saying us' and' me.' Thou art the man' in regard to the general accusation of sin; Thou art the man' in regard to the solemn law which proclaims that the soul that sinneth it shall die'; and, blessed be God,' Thou art the man' in regard to the great promise that says, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.' Christ gives you a blank cheque in His word: Whoso cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.' Write thine own name in, and by thy personal faith in the Lamb of God that died for thee, thy sins shall pass away; and all the fulness of God shah be thy very own for ever. If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself, and if thou scornest, thou alone shall bear it.'
