Jesus Only, Matthew 17:8

There are others here who are not yet believers in Jesus, and our desire
is that this may happen to them, that they may see “Jesus only.” “Oh,”
saith one, “Sir, I want to see my sins. My heart is very hard, and very
proud; I want to see my sins.” Friend, I also desire that you should, but I
desire that you may see them not on yourself, but on Jesus only. No
sight of sin ever brings such true humiliation of spirit as when the soul
sees its sins laid on the Saviour. Sinner, I know you have thought of sins
as lying on yourself, and you have been trying to feel their weight, but
there is a happier and better view still. Sin was laid on Jesus, and it made
him to be covered with a bloody sweat; it nailed him to the cross; it
made him cry, “Lama Sabachthani;” it bowed him into the dust of death.
Why, friend, if you see sin on Jesus you will hate it, you will bemoan it,
you will abhor it. You need not look evermore to sin as burdening
yourself, see Jesus only, and the best kind of repentance will follow.
“Ah, but,” saith another, “I want to feel my need of Christ more.” You
will see your need all the better if you look at Jesus only. Many a time
an appetite for a thing is created by the sight of it. Why, there are some
of us who can hardly be trusted in a bookseller’s shop, because though
we might have done very well at home without a certain volume, we no
sooner see it than we are in urgent need of it. So often is it with some of
you about other matters, so that it becomes most dangerous to let you
see, because you want as soon as you see. A sight of Jesus, of what he is
to sinners, of what he makes sinners, of what he is in himself, will more
tend to make you feel your need of him than all your poring over your
poor miserable self. You will get no further there, look to “Jesus only.”
“Ay,” saith another, “but I want to read my title clear, I want to know
that I have an interest in Jesus.” you will best read your interest in
Christ, by looking at him. If I want to know whether a certain estate is
mine, do I look into my own heart to see if I have a right to it? But I
look into the archives of the estate, I search testaments and covenants.
Now, Christ Jesus is God’s covenant with the people, a leader and
commander to the people. To-day, I personally can read my title clear to
heaven, and shall I tell you how I read it? Not because I feel all I wish to
feel, nor because I am what I hope I yet shall be, but I read in the word
that “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” I am a sinner,
even the devil cannot tell me I am not. O precious Saviour, then thou
hast come to save such as I am. Then I see it written again, “He that
believeth and is baptized, shall be saved.” I have believed, and have
been baptized; I know I trust alone in Jesus, and that is believing. As
surely then as there is a God in heaven I shall be in heaven one day. It
must be so, because unless God be a liar, he that believeth must be
saved. You see it is not by looking within, it is by looking to Jesus only
that you perceive at last your name graven on his hands. I wish to have
Christ’s name written on my heart, but if I want assurance, I have to look
at his heart till I see my name written there. O turn your eye away from
your sin and your emptiness to his righteousness and his fullness. See
the sweat drops bloody as they fall in Gethsemane, see his heart pierced
and pouring out blood and water for the sins of men upon Calvary!
There is life in a look at him! O look to him, and though it be Jesus only,
though Moses should condemn you, and Elias should alarm you, yet
“Jesus only” shall be enough to comfort and enough to save you. May
God grant us grace every one of us to take for our motto in life, for our
hope in death, and for our joy in eternity, “Jesus only.” May God bless
you for the sake of “Jesus only.” Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”