NB—‘No Credit Given’
Everyone born into this world is naturally an UNBELIEVER. I once saw a placard hanging in a shop with the words on it which stand at the head of these lines. It was a solemn commentary on man’s true state of mind towards God. But it was not merely the shop-keeper’s way of conducting his business. It is the language of every unconverted man to God—his mode of conducting the business of his immortal soul! Will it pay?
Unbeliever! God has visited your world—your town—your street—your house—yes, your heart, and this is the reception that He has met with from you. Placarded outside your door, and within deeply engraven on your heart, are those defiant words from you to Him—NB—‘NO CREDIT GIVEN’.
That placard in the shop looked like an insult to every honest customer who entered it. It seemed to proclaim that the owner treated them all as rogues, and unworthy of confidence. Make the best you can of it, they were, at least, unworthy of trust in his eye.
God has come into the world, and this is how you have treated Him. Think of it, my friend, and don’t try to dismiss it because it is an ugly thought for you. It is. But if ugly, it is the truth. If you are not at this moment a believer, the placard still hangs there, the words (unspoken, perhaps), are nevertheless the language of your heart. He reads them. To God you have never ANYTHING ELSE.
Alas for you, my friend! You will soon be a suppliant at another ‘house of business’. You will soon, it may be very soon, pass away from this scene wherein you still are an indifferent unbeliever of God. “He that believeth not [ie, gives not credit] … hath made him a liar”, 1 John 5: 10.
I tell you that you will read again, and then as a rejected suppliant, these awful words which have until now been the language of your heart, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”, Gal 6: 7. Are you ready for this? Are you prepared to hear from the lips of the blessed God Himself, as you present yourself before Him, ‘NO CREDIT GIVEN’?
Oh the awful sorrow of that word to you! Oh the awful turning away, to enter the ‘GREAT FOREVER’ under the eternal frown of God! the company of “the fearful and the UNBELIEVING” (Rev 21: 8), the neglecters and the despisers! Oh, take that awful placard down! “Believe” in your heart—and let the words ‘No credit given’ as to God, no longer be, as they have till now been, the true description of your case. Amen.
From Tidings of Life and Peace—vol 8, 1896
