“That man who overtook you was Moses, he spareth none, neither knoweth he how to show mercy to those that transgress his Law.”

Christian from Pilgrim’s Progress

Every preacher has their favorite illustrations to help explain deep truths. A good story or metaphor can do more for understanding than a complex argument that uses inductive logic, or intricately defines multi-syllable words and theological systematic theories could ever dream of doing.

For me personally, there is one illustration that I love to use that helps explain one of the most troubling issues in the Christian walk: How do you actually live free under grace? As one writer states the problem, “Robust salvation will only occur when you come to the point of understanding where you see that sanctification makes no contribution whatsoever to justification.” I agree totally with this proposition, but for most readers, there is no life in this statement, it lands on the heart as cold as a dead fish does on a concrete sidewalk.

So here is a true story that has always stirred my heart while at the same time clarifying what grace filled salvation means.

A lonely woman out of desperation got married. She knew she was getting older, she wanted to have a family, and so she settled. She married a man from her town that had a good job, owned his own house, and he wasn’t half-bad looking. The only problem is that he was an angry man. Simmering fury lay just underneath the surface and if he did not get what he wanted when he wanted it he would blow his stack, often throwing things and threatening physical violence toward his wife. He was a miserable man.

Because she was compliant by nature she spent much of her time trying to keep him happy. When he would leave for work he left her a list of things he wanted to be done in the house that day. And by golly, she better do them or the grizzly bear would growl and rage. His list usually consisted of the same “Chores” (with a capital ‘C’); cleaning the floors, vacuuming the rugs, polishing the furniture, ironing the clothes, making a tasty dinner, and having paper and slippers waiting.

Every day it was the same thing. Every night trying to keep him satisfied, especially in bed, was getting harder and harder. Thorns of bitterness with deep roots were growing in her heart, her man was mean and she started to hate him. One dark night, his anger finally caught up to him. He had a massive heart attack and died. While the woman was publically mourning she was privately rejoicing.

The bear was dead and she was free.

To occupy her time she got a job at a local business. She was not looking for love because she realized there are worse things than loneliness, like living with an angry man. So she learned to be content in her singleness.

One day, her boss, who was just a few years older than she, stopped at her desk and wondered what she was doing for lunch. They went to a local restaurant and she rather enjoyed his conversation. Thinking nothing of it – it was only lunch after all – she didn’t expect it to go further than a friendship. A week later the boss asked her out to dinner, “on a date.” A date?

She agreed but was a bit nervous. Never again did she want to get embroiled in a miserable relationship, and even considering re-marriage was out of the question. She told herself to protect her heart. When her boss came to pick her up she was wearing a simple dress and bought an inexpensive pair of new shoes to match. He pulled up, the car was washed, and he looked…dare she say it…quite attractive. “Watch it, don’t fall for him!”

They had a great time; the restaurant was on the top floor of a high-priced luxury hotel, the atmosphere was romantic, jazz was playing in the background, and he reserved a private window seat where they could look over the lights on the city. It was a great night. When he dropped her off he turned and said, “By the way, you looked beautiful tonight.”

She blushed, and turning toward her house she couldn’t believe the words he said, “She looked beautiful.” She was not sure she ever heard those words the whole time she was married. After she closed the door, she peeked out the window watching him drive away. “Watch it, don’t fall for him!’

The next week she had lunch with him twice, they went on another weekend date, and each outing he complimented her in ways she never heard before. She didn’t believe it, she didn’t want to believe it. A week turned into a month, a month to six. He kept asking, she kept accepting. And then he got on his knee as they were strolling through a local park…

“Will you marry me?”

She looked deep into his eyes, they were not the angry eyes of her previous husband. This man had kind eyes. Her heart was soaring, so she said, “Yes.” The ring slipped easily on her finger, and two months later, the gold band slipped on easily too. The honeymoon was great, and she moved into a new house with her new husband.

For the first few weeks her husband was the picture of kindness. They would even go back to the restaurant sitting in the same spot looking over the city. He said she looked beautiful again. His kindness didn’t stop. And he never got angry.

One day while her new husband was at work, she decided to clean the house. As she was polishing an old desk they brought from her old house, she opened the drawer and out floated an old piece of paper. It was a list of chores from her old husband. Instantly she froze, in her mind, she could see the cold angry eyes of her first husband, they were accusing, judging, condemning. She even heard his voice, “You rotten lazy woman, get to work!’

As she sat on the floor, she looked closely at the list. Never once did her new husband demand that she do any of those things, never once! But she did them for him anyway, in fact, she loved to do them, and she did even more things for him than that were on the list. They were no longer chores, they were acts of love. That night when her husband came home she asked him, “Honey, do I do enough around here? Am I carrying my weight in this marriage?”

“What do you mean?”

“Am I good enough for you?” She dropped her head and sobbing into her hands she dreaded his response. Gently lifting her chin and wiping a tear off her cheek he said, “Now listen to me, I am not your first husband. I have chosen you because I love you. I want you. You are my wife and that is enough.” Hugging her tight he whispered in her ear, “You owe me nothing. All I have is yours, and my love for you will never change.”

The first husband’s name is “Law” “Religion” or “Adam”, the second is “Grace”, “Relationship” or “Jesus”. Listen to what Sinclair Ferguson writes, “Many of us have been permanently marred by that first husband, the despondency that we can never be attractive to our new husband Jesus Christ, our sliding back into nightmares about our previous ‘abusive relationship’ – conspires to bring a sense of condemnation. That, in turn, becomes a creeping paralysis in our relationship to the Lord and brings with it a loss of our sense of pardon. We are guilty, failures, ashamed. We must do better to get back into his graces. But we keep failing. We cry to the law to show some mercy; but bare law contains no mercy. It is powerless to pardon…our only hope is to have a clear sight of the nail scars in the hands of Jesus Christ, our second husband.”

Now listen to this…

“The abused bride must drink in her new husband’s love and fix her eyes on him.”

I have a feeling many of you reading feel like the woman who asks, “Am I good enough for you?” Jesus gently shows you his nail pierced hand and asks you, “Am I enough for you?”

He is for me!