The Traveller's Guide

[Frances]

I have recently come across a small book called

The Traveller’s Guide (Soldier’s Pocket edition – 6d in 1918) Publishers Butler and Tanner, Frome and London

- and will gradually post the chapters


“If you have a wife, mother or friend left at home in England – send two penny stamps – with the exact address, to the publishers and they will pack and post this book to them free.

1- A certain lord kept a fool or jester in his house, as great men did in olden times for their amusement. This lord gave a staff to his fool, and told him to keep it until he met with a greater fool than himself, in which case he was to give the greater fool the staff. Some years later the lord fell very ill and told his fool he was going on a very long journey from which he would not return. The fool asked what provisions had been made for where his master was going. “None at all” was the reply. “You are going away for ever and have made no provision before your departure?” said the astonished fool “here, take my staff, for I am not guilty of any such folly as that.”

[Frances]

2 – Special Railway Carriage

While standing one day on the platform of the Aberdeen Station, I observed a carriage with a label intimating that it ran all the way from Aberdeen to London. The doors of it were open, a few individuals threw in their travelling rugs and prepared for the journey. Having bought tickets and satisfied themselves that they were in the right carriage, they felt the utmost confidence, nor did any of them enquire if they were in the right carriage, nor did anyone refuse to enter because the carriage provided only a limited number of seats. There might be 80,000 inhabitants in and around Aberdeen, but no one thought it absurd to provide accommodation for only about twenty persons as the carriage is sufficient for those who want to go each day.
God has made provision of a similar kind. He has provided a train of Grace to carry this lost world’s inhabitants to heaven, but only for as many as are willing to avail themselves of His Gracious provision. All who will may come, and through justification by faith alone, may seat themselves in a carriage marked ‘From Guilt to Glory’. Just as the railway company carry all who comply with their printed regulations, irrespective of moral character, so if you come to the station of Grace, at the advertised time – which is NOW – you will find the train of Salvation ready; and the only regulation you must comply with is that you must consent to let the Lord Jesus Christ pay for your seat, seeing that you have no means of paying for yourself.

[Frances]

3 – Two Things Necessary for Salvation.

The reason Christianity has not made more rapid advance, is because people are asked to believe too many things. One half the things a man is expected to believe in order to reach heaven have no more to do with his Salvation than the question ‘How many volcanoes are there on the moon?’ or ‘How far apart from each other are the rings of Saturn?’ I believe 10,000 things, but none of them have anything to do with my Salvation, except these two – that I am a Sinner and that Christ came to save me.
Musicians tell us that the octave consists of five tonnes and to semi-tones, and all the Handels and Haydens and Mozarts and Wagners and Schumanns of all ages must do their work within those five tonnes and two semi-tonnes. So I have to tell you that all the theology that will be of practical use in our world is made out of the facts of human sinfulness and Divine atonement. Within that octave swing the Christmas chant above Bethlehem, and the Allelujah of all the choirs that sing His praises in heaven.

[Frances]

4 – 1st, 2nd, 3rd Class

A traveller can, according to his means, travel with comfort and speed by purchasing a ticket; and he may often have the choice of routes by which to reach his destination. But in the great journey of life it is not so; there is no choice of class or route; only one way, one price! This is made very clear and plain in God’s great Guide-book for eternal Life.

Our Lord Jesus says “I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be Saved.” It is not one class for the rich and another for the poor, but all are equal; Christ says to all “I am the Way.” Each sinner is redeemed only with the precious blood of Christ. No silver, no gold, no good works, can buy a priceless soul from perdition. Christ alone, by virtue of His atonement for Sin can say “I give eternal Life”; “he that believeth on Me hath everlasting Life.”

A traveller by train only has to present the price for his ticket, board the train and stay on it to his destination. In the journey to heaven, Christ has already paid for your ticket, you only have to accept it as a free Gift from God, and continue with Him, and His Salvation is perfectly secure.

[Frances]

5 – All the Rocks

A sailor was once asked if he knew all the rocks along the coast. “No” he replied “it is not necessary to know all the rocks, only to know the safe channel to the harbour.”

In a similar way those negotiating the seas of Life only need to keep away from the rocks to arrive in the harbour of heaven.

[Frances]

6 – Halt! About Face

“What is this conversion you talk so much about, and say people must have?” asked an officer one day of a private who was an earnest, active Christian.

“Sir,” was the reply “it is when the Captain of our Salvation cries ‘Halt. About face’. Conversion is more than theory, or head-knowledge, or talk. It strikes deeper than the skin; it influences the heart. A reformed man is not a converted man. Conversion is not a beginning to amend or trying to be better, but is a great cure done at once..

Conversion is a turning around, being something I was not before. It is having a new motive power, new hopes, desires, relationships, going a new road, sailing to another port, having a new owner, being under fresh orders. A truly converted person will say: I was blind, now I see; I was lame now I walk: I was dumb, now I speak.

[Frances]

7 – Spurning the Remedy

A man said to me not long ago, “Do you think there is any justice in my being condemned because a man sinned 6,000 years ago?” Now let me say, there will be no one lost on account of Adam’s Sin. But I hear someone say “That’s a contradiction. You have said we should be, but now you tell me we shall not be.”
Let me see if I can illustrate it. Suppose I am dying of some terrible disease, and I am given up by the physicians, who say I must die. But there comes a man whom I have known for years, and he says “You are dying, but there is a remedy. Twenty years ago I was as far gone as you are yourself, but I took this medicine and it cured me. It will cost you nothing for the medicine, just take it and you will get well.” But I do not take it, even though I have every reason to believe the man is speaking the truth.
To be sure I shall die, but that is not the reason why I die; it is because I spurn the remedy. If anyone dies eternally it will not be God’s fault, but because they have despised the remedy. They will not be lost because they are Sinners, but because they rejected the Saviour.

[Frances]

8 – Past Redemption Point

The channel waters flowed broad and deep, uncleft in their entire breadth by any human arm. Fired with ambition to do what none had done before, and conscious of muscular power, the celebrated swimmer Webb swam those twenty-five miles, and set foot on the coast of France. Oft in the water, and always unscathed, he seemed to think he bore a charmed life; and looking at the boiling current of Niagara, determined to risk his life for fame – fame that never yet satisfied any yearning human heart. For the last time, though he knew it not, he dressed in his familiar swimming garments, and took the fatal leap into the angry, whirling torrent, rising from his dive as usual to float and strike out, but the eddying waters had him as a straw in their giant grasp and hurled him powerless into the vortex he had so madly braved; lost in sight of thousands standing in safety round him with no power to help him. On the shore of that great river is a rock called ‘Past redemption Point’. A little cape jutting into the water, unnoticed by travellers, but beyond it no human being has ever been known to be saved. On one side of life is hope and salvation; on the other death, despair, damnation just a little way apart.
In the ever flowing stream of life we are daily drawing nearer the point whence no traveller returns; and you know not how soon you may drift, half dreaming, past Redemption Point. That whisper in the heart today of a text learned by a mother’s knee; that wonderful preservation in a moment of intense danger; that day you stood by and open grave and looked into it’s unfathomed mysteries; that illness that drew you so near the Kingdom of God, yet not inside – who shall say when the Voice shall plead with you for the last time? God says “My Spirit shall not always strive with men”.

[Frances]

9 - My Passport to Glory

When, in the dark of the midnight train, the conductor’s lamp is seen glimmering from carriage to carriage, does he hold it to your face to learn who you are, in order to be satisfied of your right to proceed? No, he lets it’s light fall on the ticket you hold out to him and if that is right, it matters not who or what you are.

Christ and Christ alone is our passport to Glory. Unworthy? Most assuredly you are; and if you live to be outwardly the veriest saint, you will be unworthy still. God has chosen to Save you. It is not a question of what you deserve, but what Christ deserves. It makes all the difference when, instead of putting our own value on the Work of Christ, and accepting it as merely as meeting our need, we learn God’s estimate of that Work.

[Frances]

10 – Warranted to Remove all Stains

As I opened my door one morning I found a hand bill advertising a wondrous preparation for the removal of all stains in cloth – “sure to do it – never known to fail”. I read it and thought of other stains more foul – stains that had stuck into the textures of life, and left a sorry mark upon soul and character – guilty stains. No one is without some of these. What effort is made to keep them out of sight, to cover them up. But the spots stick; they remain. Much management may keep them out of other’s sight, so that the garment of life is made to look tolerably respectable; but alas, they bring discomfort and terror. One’s very effort to conceal them directs attention to them.
Now what a sale might be made of some mixture that would ‘take out the stains of sin’. What a market it would find. Is there anything that will do it? Yes, a fountain and ‘Sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains’. It is close at hand; always accessible. There are none so poor but may wash and be clean. It is ‘the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses from all Sin.’ Soul stained, sin defiled – will you try it? (read Revelations 1:5)

[Frances]

11 – Are You Waiting?

A young man cried ‘what must I do to be Saved?’ He went to a friend who was a professing Christian and unburdening his mind, eagerly and earnestly besought him to tell how Salvation was to be obtained. His advisor declared that if he patiently waited ‘in God’s own time’ he would get what he was in quest of. Months and months passed on. He waited and waited. His agony of soul increased and grew more intense. At last he called on another friend, this person told him that instead of waiting he should pray earnestly to God for pardon and, in due time, he would obtain it. For years he continued striving and agonising in prayer to God, imploring Him to have Mercy on his soul.

At the end of three years he sought the counsel of another earnest Christian . . having told what his other friends had said and how he had been ‘waiting’ and ‘praying’, this friend pointed him to God’s simple plan of Salvation. He showed that all this time God had been waiting, and beseeching him to be reconciled, that Jesus had already taken his place, died in his stead, satisfied the law and paid his debt. He took God at His Word and rejoiced in the liberty which the Truth (Matt. 11:28) alone can give.

[Frances]

12 – Can be Done while you read this.

There must be a decision arrived at before you can become a Christian, and that can be done while you read this. You have got a question to decide for yourself, which no one can decide for you. ‘Are you safe for eternity?’
I may wish very much to go to Liverpool tonight, but no account of wishing can take me to Liverpool. I must go to the station, buy a ticket, get into the train, and stay there.
And so it is with you about your soul. Wishing will not Save you; you must believe in (trust) Christ as your Saviour, and decide to serve Him. The responsibility rests with yourself. Will you yield to the pleadings of the Holy Spirit and decide for Christ? You have got to do it if you would be Saved. Will you be like Ruth who said ‘Whither thou goest I will go, thy people will be my people and thy God my God’. ? (Ruth 1:16-17)

[Frances]

13 – Why are Men put into Gaol?

Not because of a life of wickedness, but for some wrong act or deed. They broke the law once, and perhaps only for a few minutes; but for that they have to suffer for months or years afterwards. No one can consider it a violation of justice so to punish. Men are punished by God, not because they have led a wicked life, but for one Sin – unbelief in Christ. God does not say ‘he that liveth a good life here shall have eternal life hereafter’; but He plainly shows that a person’s safety or ruin depends on their acceptance or rejection of Christ Jesus’ sacrifice and the atonement He has made. (Romans 6:16)

[Frances]

14 - Stand Where the Fire Has Been

It had been a dry sunny day with a gentle breeze outside the log hut; the small patch of corn in front had just been gathered. As the owners of the land gazed contentedly over the long, waving prairie grass, suddenly a long dark cloud was seen on the horizon, followed immediately by a lurid glare. It was miles and miles away from the little settlement, but none the less horrifying to the inhabitants, who, even if they had never seen it before, knew the prairie was on fire. They knew, that with the direction of the wind, nothing would stop that roaring furnace coming towards them.

Oh that you, dear reader, could see the terror stricken crowd of bear, antelope, buffalo, and every four-footed animal, a terror-stricken crowd realising the value of life in the face of certain death. Does it not remind you of the description of the last day (Revelation 6:15) where it says ‘men hid themselves in the dens and rocks’. If ever you see that scene you will know you are beyond hope; therefore haste now to a Deliverer.

Those who live in the wild prairies know there is only one way of salvation. Thank God there is one way of escape, given to man only – not animals. If the man lights the long grass at his feet which will fly ahead consuming all before it, and walks onto the blackened ground where all has been consumed, he is safe, for the fire has gone over that place once and cannot do so again. This is a poor picture of the terrible fire of God’s wrath. Simple as it may be to light a fire and stand where the fire has been, it is as simple to shelter under the finished work of Christ. God spent the fire of His Judgement on His beloved Son, and now He has pledged present and eternal security to any who will take refuge in the One who bore their sentence of death, on the cross. And yet the responsibility is yours if you neglect this, for there remains but one alternative for you, and that is to take your place in the condemned crowd, hiding in dens and rocks.

[Frances]

15 - Reform is not Life

Mere reformation differs as much from regeneration, as whitewashing an old rotten house differs from taking it down and building a new one in it’s place.