To my mind, and with this thought I will finish, there is the ring of heavenly music in this message: “Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.” I suppose you never heard a man, who had found a treasure, cry out to let everyone know what he had found. Perhaps he would not mention it to anyone but his wife; when he wished to make her heart glad by sharing the fortune with her, he said to her, “I have found a treasure.” But you may have heard a mother say, when her child had been lost in a wood, mayhap, and had Been sought for by many, when at last she has discovered him, “I have found my boy.” Oh, it is wonderful, the joy of a mother’s heart when she has found her child! But to me, there is the sound of bells, there is the music of a marriage peal in this verse, as God, looking on a sinner slipping down to hell, says, “Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.” Almighty love seems to sing out with all her might; and rocks, hills, and valleys suffice not to repeat the echo of the strain, “I have found, I have found, I have found a ransom.” This is God’s “Eureka!” “I have found a ransom. I did not look for a ransom among the angels, for I knew they were too weak to furnish it. I looked not for it among the sons of men, for I knew it was not to be found there, they were too fallen and guilty. The sea said, ‘It is not in me.’ All creation cried, ‘It is not in me.’ But I looked on my Well-beloved, and I heard him say, ‘Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.’ I saw him descend to earth, and hide himself in an infant’s form; I saw him toiling on in holy servitude to my perfect law; I saw him give his hands to the nails and his side to the spear; I heard him cry, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ I bowed the ear of my glory, and I drank in his conquering cry, ‘It is finished,’ and then I, the Infinite, the Eternal, the Ever-blessed, the Just, the Gracious, said, ‘I have found a ransom.’” Thus, the Lord rejoices over you and over me with singing as he cries, “I have found a ransom.” How greatly did he rejoice over the finished work of his well-beloved Son! Wherefore, sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth, for the Lord himself delighteth in the message he delivers to us, “I have found a ransom.”
Now, dear hearts, if God has found a ransom, and speaks thus joyously about it, I do pray you to accept it. “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.” Receive Christ, and you have the proof that God has received you. Only take him, you have nothing else to do; put out that empty hand of yours, black though it be, and receive in it the pearl of great price, even the Christ of God himself. Receive him, accept him, believe him, trust him; that is all you have to do. Oh, will you not trust him? Can you doubt him? If God takes upon himself our nature, and in that nature dies, I can not only trust him with my soul, but if I had all your souls within my body, and all the souls of the millions of London all gathered beneath this breast, and if I had besides that the souls of all the sinners who have ever lived all compressed within this one frame, I could believe that the dying Christ could blot out all that mass of sin. I do believe it, and so confide in him; will not you? Verily, if ye will not believe, neither shall ye be established; but he that believeth shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end. May God add his own blessing, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
