Lisele. "Till this moment I did not
understand it. I thought that it must be a very difficult thing to
serve Jehovah, and that those who had done anything to offend Him were
to toil and work to the end of their days, and even then have very
little chance of being received into favour."

"Satan tries to persuade man that such is the case, that he may turn his
eyes away from the all-sufficient atonement made by Christ on Calvary,
and prevent him from trusting to that, and that alone," said my mother.
"Satan hates the atonement, because it is that which destroys his power,
and he cares nothing when people try to be good, and try to please God,
trusting to themselves, provided they have no faith in the atoning
sacrifice of Christ, in the all-cleansing power of His blood," observed
my mother. "If you will reflect, my dear girl, on the fact that God
made us and gives us all the blessings we enjoy, and that consequently
we owe Him everything, you will see that nothing we do can make amends
to Him for the sins we have committed, because if we were to devote
every moment of our lives to His service we should only be doing our
duty. Then again, a sin which has been committed cannot be undone; so
it is written against us in the great book prepared for the day of
judgment. God is so pure and holy that even the heavens are not clean
in His sight, and He is so just that He cannot forgive sin; we only mock
Him when we ask Him to forgive us our sins, if we plead our own merits,
because, as I have shown you, we cannot possibly have any merits to
plead--all our merits are but as filthy rags, they cannot cover up our
vileness and sinfulness. But then Jehovah is all merciful as well as
just, and He has, therefore, formed that blessed plan of salvation, the
gospel plan, just suited to our wants, by which we can take advantage of
the all perfect merits of Jesus Christ, and make them our own--our
vileness being covered up by His righteousness, our nakedness clothed
with His pure and spotless robes, so that Jehovah does not see our sins;
they are put away as far as the east is from the west; they are blotted
out of the great book of remembrance. This is done immediately the
sinner trusts in the Saviour. It is not _to be done_. All the work
_was_ done on Calvary, when Jesus cried, `It is finished!' All that God
requires is that the sinner should take advantage of that work finished
by Jesus, by trusting to Him alone, thus becoming comp