Individual Salvation by A. S. Booth

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 27, 1916

Individual Salvation

By A. S. Booth

A. S. BOOTH

We lose much in our Christian experience by not considering the promises of God from the individual standpoint. The Good Shepherd was willing to go after the one lost sheep. If the promises of God mean anything to us, we should certainly appropriate and prove them for ourselves.

Suppose a man die and leave a large amount of money to the inhabitants of the world. It would not interest us very much. But suppose word came that it was left to us individually. I am sure we should become much more interested.

So it is with the promises and blessings of God. When we consider that Christ was willing to endure the great trial of affliction that came to him while in the flesh, and eventually to die that we might have life individually, God’s promises mean much more to us.

There is but one thing that will separate us from the blessings which heaven is so willing to bestow upon us, and that is unconfessed sin. The Lord can forgive only the sins that are confessed. Said David, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”

The earnest consecration of self that should be manifest by the people of God is expressed in Zech. 12:9-14: “It shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of

grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born. “. . . And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.”

The closest relationship that can possibly exist between the members of the human family is that between man and wife. The foregoing text reveals an individual mourning. The wife goes apart by herself, and there entreats God for forgiveness. The husband is also seeking the Lord. The various families of the house of Israel at their family altars are crying out to God. The whole house of God mourns.

The mourning brought to view in this text is that of the broken and contrite in heart. They mourn “as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.”

We see parents bring their first-born into the world. The wife risks her life in order so to do. The husband risks losing his wife. The child grows. Soon it manifests intelligence, and begins to recognize things. Then the parents are made glad to hear their babe lisp the words “papa” and “mamma.” But along comes the cruel reaper Death, and the child dies. We see the parents in the quiet of their home bowed by the deathbed of their first-born. Think you that they mourn in earnest?

What is it that will cause the whole house of Israel thus to mourn? Ah! said the Lord, “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced.” It is a mistake to charge the death of Christ simply to the Jews. It was sin that caused the sacrifice of the Son of God. In order that we may see the exceeding terribleness of sin, and learn to hate it as we should, we should recognize that it was just as much our individual sin that caused the death of the Master, as the sin of any number of other persons.

Suppose that every time we sinned, we had to do as the Romans did — place a crown of thorns on the Master’s brow, nail him to the cross, or with a spear pierce his side. If we loved the Lord very much, do you not think that after we had put him to death a number of times, we should begin to hate sin so that we would determine to stop sinning? The person who fully realizes that it was his or her sin that helped to cause the Lord so much suffering, will be better prepared to help fulfil Zechariah 12.

Sin is a terrible thing. It is responsible for all the discord, misunderstanding, and suffering that has existed in the universe of God. Sin caused the death of Christ, made devils of some of the angels, drove Adam and Eve from the garden, and has swept many of the human family down to perdition. Sin causes us to grow old, makes the eye grow dim, the step infirm and faltering; it makes the hand nerveless and unsteady, clouds the brow, and weakens the heart. Sin is the cause of all the broken hearts, funeral trains, and graves in the land. All the misery and suffering, all the pain and agony, every woe and pang and heartache may be spelled with the three letters — s-i-n. You cannot say “sin” without hearing the hiss of the serpent. Thank God for the forgiveness of sin. May we learn to hate and turn from it, that eventually we may be saved with an eternal salvation.

*Salt Lake City, Utah.