See what a poor wretched sinner you are; and then look at the Lamb of God who “taketh away the sin of the world.” He died for the ungodly and the sinner. Say “I will take Him!” And may God help you to lift your eye to the Man on Calvary. And as the Israelites looked upon the serpent and were healed, so may you look and live.
After the battle of Pittsburgh Landing I was in a hospital at Murfreesbro.
In the middle of the night I was aroused and told that a man in one of the wards wanted to see me. I went to him and he called me “chaplain”—I was not the chaplain—and said he wanted me to help him die.
And I said, “I would take you right up in my arms and carry you into the kingdom of God if I could; but I cannot do it: I cannot help you die!”
And he said, “Who can?”
I said, “The Lord Jesus Christ can—He came for that purpose.”
He shook his head, and said, “He cannot save me; I have sinned all my life.”
And I said, “But He came to save sinners.”
I thought of his mother in the north, and I was sure that she was anxious that he should die in peace; so I resolved I would stay with him. I prayed two or three times, and repeated all the promises I could; for it was evident that in a few hours he would be gone. I said I wanted to read him a conversation that Christ had with a man who was anxious about his soul. I turned to the third chapter of John. His eyes were riveted on me; and when I came to the 14th and 15th verses—the passage before us—he caught up the words, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in