During the noon hour, a preacher of the gospel had gone down into a coal mine to tell the miners of the good news of salvation which comes through Jesus Christ. After telling them the simple story of God's love to sinners and God's remedy for their sins in His offer of a full and free salvation, their lunch break was over. As the men went back to work, the preacher came back to the elevator shaft to ride up to the top. Meeting the foreman, he asked him what he thought of God's way of salvation.
The foreman replied, "Oh, it's too cheap! I can't believe in a religion like that!"
Without commenting on his remark, the preacher asked, "How do you get out of this place?"
"Just get into the elevator cage and ride to the top" was the foreman's reply.
"Does it take long to get to the top?"
"No...only a few seconds!"
"That certainly sounds pretty easy and simple. But don't I need to help raise myself?" asked the preacher.
"Of course not!" replied the foreman. "All you have to do is get in the elevator cage, and it carries you to the top."
"Tell me about the company who opened the shaft and worked out all the details. Was there much planning, labor and expense to make it all work?"
"Oh yes, there was much calculating before they actually began sinking the shaft. The shaft is eighteen hundred feet deep, and it was completed at great cost to the company who owns the mine. It is our only way out, and without it we couldn't get to the surface," the foreman explained.
"That's exactly my point!" said the preacher. "When God's Word tells us that anyone who believes on the Son of God has everlasting life, you say, 'Too cheap!' You forget that God's work to bring you and others out of the pit of destruction and death was planned in divine detail and accomplished at a great expense. The cost was the suffering and death of His beloved Son on the cross! Now all that's left for you to do is believe."
You are "not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold...but with the precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19).
"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
People talk about God helping them with their salvation; they say, "If I do my part, God will do His." They disregard the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ by Himself removed our sins and that their part is only to believe and accept what He has already done—all they have to do is "step into the elevator cage!"
"Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24).
"By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
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