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Daniel Webster was one of America’s best known statesmen and orators. Many stories have been handed down concerning his career of brilliant speeches and ability to captivate audiences. It is worthy to note that he once said of himself, “If there is anything in my style or thoughts to be commended, the credit is due to my kind parents in instilling into my mind an early love for the Scriptures.”

One time, it is told, he was asked what he regarded as the greatest thought that ever occupied his mind. He replied: “The sense of my individual responsibility to God.”

That man is responsible to God, and must meet Him, the Scriptures plainly testify. This thought is not pleasant to those who are living in their sins and out of relationship to Him, and consequently are not prepared to face the tremendous issues involved. But whether the issues are faced or not, the fact remains: “Each of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12). We all are responsible to God, as the Word of God declares, and we cannot escape our responsibility.

To come to Him now, in the day of grace, by confessing our sinfulness and accepting His Son—Jesus Christ—as our Savior, meets our responsibility on His terms, and bestows upon us His gracious forgiveness, making us one of His children forever. Not to come to Him in this day of grace, being left behind at the coming of Christ for His own (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17), or to die in our sins, forever closes the door of opportunity that God has opened for us in Christ to fulfill our responsibility to Him. To all such He will say in perfect righteousness: “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41).

Another incident in Daniel Webster’s life gives his testimony to the fulfillment of his responsibility by his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. During a summer holiday in a district far away from the Capitol, he went each Sunday to a little country church building. His niece asked him why he went there, when he paid little attention to far abler sermons in Washington.

“In Washington,” he replied, “they preach to Daniel Webster the statesman. But this man has been talking to Daniel Webster, the sinner, and telling him of Jesus.”

Reader, will you allow me to do the same for you? For just a few moments, completely set aside any thoughts you may have about your name or title, your reputation and station in life, your religion or lack of religion, and think of yourself as God sees you in His sight—a sinner in need of the Savior. I should like to tell you of what can meet the desperate need of your soul, bring peace to your conscience and joy to your heart. It is all summed up in the one word that meant so much to Daniel Webster: JESUS!

The great God has thought of you with thoughts of deepest, truest compassion. Your sins made it impossible, however, to take you into favor, for He is holy and hates sin, and is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness.” (Habakkuk 1:13).

But He has found a way to extend His mercy to sinners without compromising His holiness in the least degree. He sent Jesus, His own Son, to come “into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). On the Cross of Calvary, Jesus willingly stood in the sinner’s place to bear the consequences of the sinner’s sins, and to exhaust the judgment righteously due to the sinner. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24). This is what Jesus has done. This is the work that He accomplished when He hung as our Surety on the Cross, and cried, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). He atoned for our sins by His sufferings and death. The judgment due to us fell upon Him, and now God freely pardons and saves the sinner who trusts in Jesus, the resurrected, living Savior.

God is Just, and “the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

“The sinner who believes is free,

Can say, ‘the Savior died for me!’;

Can point to the atoning blood

And say, ‘This made my peace with God!’”

No wonder Daniel Webster, whose greatest thought was his responsibility to God, should, as a confessed sinner love to hear of JESUS!

Reader, this same Jesus longs and waits to receive you and save you from your sins and their dreadful, eternal consequences. He says: “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37). “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

—D.T.J.

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