Some years ago, a preacher in Scotland was ministering at a gospel meeting. At the end of the service a young woman came up to him and said, “Please help me to understand. I believe in Jesus and have done so since I was a child but I don’t feel saved.”
‘ The preacher and the young lady talked for a while and then he said, ‘Dear lady, you seem to believe about Jesus, but you do not believe on Him?
“What do you mean?”
To answer that, let me ask a question. “Have you accepted Him as your own personal saviour? In other words, have you trusted Him as your personal sin bearer? You say you have always believed that He is the saviour of sinners, but have you accepted Him as your own personal saviour?
“Well, that is a good question” she replied, “I sometimes feel like I have but I have sin in me so how can I be sure of being saved?”
The preacher responded by saying, “Let’s go back to the cross and look at this. How many people were crucified at Calvary?”
“Three. 2 Thieves and Jesus” the young lady quickly replied.
“Were both thieves equally bad?”
“Yes, they both suffered justly.”
“Did both thieves die in the same way?”
“No”
“What or who made the difference?”
“Jesus”
“Yes indeed! One thief trusted on Christ and the other didn’t. But let’s look at this, the one thief who didn’t trust Christ, had he sin on him?’
“Yes, he was a thief and maybe even a murderer and was responsible for his sins. His sins were on him.”
“That’s a fact. And Christ, had He sin in Him?’
The girl thought and answered, “No, He couldn’t have. He was holy and harmless.”
“So, when He died, did Jesus have sin on him?” inquired the preacher.
The girl replied “Yes, it says so in Isaiah 53:6”
“His own sins?”
“No, He was sinless.”
Then the preacher asked, “The thief who looked to Jesus, had he still got sin in him even after he looked to Jesus.”
“Yes.”
“Had he sin on him?
No! Jesus bore it.
Then the preacher said, “The cross divides the world. We are all sinners. There are really only two types of people in this world. On one side are the saved sinners on the other the unsaved sinners. On the one side are those who have sin in them but no sin on them because Jesus has taken it away (John 1:19). On the other side are those who have both sin on them and in them. All the people alive today will someday die. But no one ever died and no one will ever die without sin in them. The name of every man when he dies is ‘sinner.’ There were two thieves at the cross, but one died a saved thief and the other an unsaved thief.”
Indeed, all of us will die. One group of us will die as saved sinners and the others will die as unsaved sinners. One group will die with sin on them the other will die with no sin on them.”
The preacher urged her to look to Christ, to trust Christ and His word. He urged her to be satisfied with Christ’s death in place of her own.
That night the young lady trusted on and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. From her heart she was then able to sing,
" My sins were borne by Jesus, The Substitute from God; He took them all, and freed me From sin's accursed load.
My guilt was borne by Jesus, Who washed the crimson stains White in His blood most precious, Till not a spot remains.”
And that’s the Gospel Truth!