Why Be A Christian?

1900

The Well-Known Business Men's Evangelist Answers This Query of The Ram's Horn

By William Phillips Hall

I answer, first, because God commands me to be a Christian. For He "now commandeth all men everywhere to repent." Acts 17:30. To be a Christian means to be obedient to God. To be obedient to God means to do right. If I do right, by becoming a Christian, I am right. For as Faber beautifully writes:

"Right is right, since God is God,
And right the day must win:
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin."

If I am not a Christian, if I fail to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, I am wrong. For "to him that knoweth to do good (or right) and doeth it not, to him it is sin." James 4:17. I am, therefore, a Christian because, it would be wrong for me to be anything but a Christian. As obedience to God's laws in nature is necessary to insure His blessings in the natural world, likewise obedience to His moral law is necessary to insure His blessings in the moral and spiritual world. Positive and continued disobedience to God's laws in the natural world results in natural death. Positive and continued disobedience to His moral and spiritual laws results in moral and spiritual death. All those who are not Christians — all those who have failed to "believe on the name of the Son of God," — are "dead in trespasses and sins." For "he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3:36.

My second answer to the question, "Why be a Christian?" is, because I can become spiritually alive, — "alive unto God," — only by becoming a Christian; and that by being "born again." For "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3. And "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." John 3:6. Becoming a Christian is being born again. When my darling baby boy lay dead in his little coffin; when I looked for the last time on earth down upon that baby form, those golden curls, those wee waxen hands, that sweet infant face upon which the lines of sin never had been traced, and, thank God, never would be, I would have given a prince's ransom to have opened once more, in life, those lovely blue eyes, then closed in their last long sleep; I would have gladly given all the property I then possessed on earth, and mortgaged all that I might possess in the future, to have unsealed once more in life those sweet little lips then sealed in death, — but I did not possess the price that would purchase such a priceless boon. But, after all, I had the blessed consciousness of the fact that as that darling babe was one of God's own, an infant Christian, — "for of such is the kingdom of heaven," — I should be privileged to press that loved boy again to my heart in life, in the better, heavenly country above, because God's dear Son had already paid his ransom from death and the grave, as He also did for every one, — and the price was His own precious blood. So with Charlotte Elliott I sing:

"Just as I am without one plea
but that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid'st me come to Thee,
0 Lamb of God, I come, I come!"

My third answer to your question, "Why be a Christian?" is, that I may be saved from my sins. For "thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins." Matt. 1:21. If I become one of His people, He has promised to save me from my sins; and in meeting the condition I find, from personal experience, that the promise is made good. No sinner lives so low in sin but that the Savior will save him if he will become a Christian. While holding an evangelistic service last spring in one of our eastern towns, I spoke on the text, "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." Prov. 28:30. I illustrated, as best I could, the awful truth of the first part of the text, and then told how God, for Christ's sake, would have mercy on the sinner who forsook his sins and accepted Christ as his Savior. Eleven men then publicly announced their intention of forsaking sin and accepting Christ as their personal Savior.

After the service was dismissed, the leading man of the town, a man whose name is familiar in almost every household in the land, came to me and said: "I know you will be delighted to learn that one of those eleven men who accepted Christ this afternoon was the wickedest man in our town. He not only sold liquor, but committed other crimes of equal magnitude against society. He has just come home after serving a term in states prison, and today gives himself to God." Another friend said: "That man, when he was sentenced to states prison, vowed that when he gat out again he would shoot the man upon whose complaint he was tried and sentenced. When he entered the church this afternoon the man whom he had threatened to kill ushered him to a seat." Several months passed by, then, at the Northfield Christian Workers' Conference, a man of fine appearance held out his hand and said: "I am very glad to see you, Mr. Hall." I did not recognize him at first, he was so changed for the better; but a word from a friend revealed the fact that I held by the hand he who had been "the wickedest man in B — ," but who was now, by the grace of God, a Christian gentleman, a prince of heaven, a son of God!

"He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean;
His blood avails for me."

My fourth, and last, answer to the question, "Why be a Christian?" is, because it pays. My father told me, when I was a little fellow, that he had become a Christian while listening to a sermon on the text, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these (necessary) things shall be added unto you." Matt. 6:33. I remember the narration of this fact very deeply impressed me as a boy, and as the years went by I learned by personal experience the truth of the text. The best paying investment any man can ever make is the investment of himself in Christ.

Several years ago, while conducting an evangelistic campaign in the city of Boston, I preached on the text that had led my father to Christ. I told my hearers that the promise of the Master was as good then as when it was originally given. One of those who listened was a young man who had apparently done his utmost to secure employment, but without success. Raised in a good home in the country, he had come down to the city expecting to better his condition in life, but failing to find employment, and falling in with sinful companions he soon fell into sinful ways, spent his last dollar, and then went shelterless and hungry, and that in the dead of winter. Like a drowning man grasping for a straw, he accepted Christ as his Savior, thus meeting God's condition for the fulfillment of His promise. He was immediately brought into contact with a man who furnished him employment, together with food and clothing for his pressing need, and returned the next day to tell us how God, for Christ's sake, had pardoned all his sins, and fully provided for his temporal necessities as well. Thus in becoming a Christian, I obey God, receive eternal life pardon of, and victory over, my sins, and have the glorious assurance that I have a home in heaven (as well as on earth) where I shall spend eternity with the loved ones to my heart so dear, and with the altogether lovely and incomparable Jesus, my Master and my God. Why should I be anything but a Christian?

—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 10.