I am about to tell you how and when and where God saved me, but the why is still the greatest wonder of my soul. It was the Word of God that finally clinched it for me. God said it. I believed it. And that settled it.
I was born and raised in Forteau, Labrador. I fished with my father from the time I was nine. But, when I got a little older, I thought I’d like to leave home to make money. So, I got a job with a mining company in Quebec, building a private railroad.
I look back at incidences now and shudder at how close I came to ending up in Hell. But God held back and spared my life so that He might save my soul.
On one occasion, I was working with a crane. I had driven it across the river. I followed the procedures for getting the water out by greasing its tracks and rollers. I had just finished when my boss told me they required the machine back on the other side of the river. Halfway across, I could see my supervisor waving his arms at me. I was fuming as I thought he had changed his mind yet again.
He pointed up. About three feet from the crane’s 50-foot boom was a 23,000-volt wire! Just another little roll of the tracks of that huge machine, and I would have been electrocuted. My soul would have been in Hell forever.
There is one weekend I will never forget. A buddy came to me and said, “Newf, let’s go to town for a good time.” We were drinking and by Sunday night I was in a fight with my buddy. I yelled, “You can die!” and I left in the first taxi that came along. It took me to the end of the road. Then I had a brutal 6km walk along the rail tracks in the dark. It was the early hours of the morning when I finally got into my bunk.
The first news that came to me in the morning was that my buddy had been killed! He had been sitting on a case of beer on the railroad track when a train came around the bend. He was ushered into eternity. I couldn’t believe it, especially given my last words said to him in anger.
I went home. I learned that a Gospel Boat had sailed along the coast of Labrador earlier that summer. George Campbell, one of the preachers, had just returned and was having Gospel meetings each evening. I told my buddies that I was going to listen to the message. They were insistent that I shouldn’t go to hear about this “new” religion. But I went.
After that meeting, I was quite stirred up. How dare a man get up and tell you that if you’re not saved and if you don’t have Jesus Christ as your Saviour, you’re going to be in Hell! I was so upset that when I left, I tore the door off the hinges.
I wondered if what he was saying was actually in the Bible. If so then I was wrong, and I was going to be in Hell. I wanted to check it out. I didn’t have a Bible, and you couldn’t buy a Bible in the village where I lived. So, I filled out an order form for the Eaton’s catalogue. Eaton’s commonly provided all kinds of substitutes. You might order a shirt and get a pair of pants. But I often thank God that Eaton’s did not send a substitute! I got a Bible!
As I read the Bible, I found out that what I heard that man preach that evening was true. I had a soul that was going to live forever. If I died the way I was, my soul would be in Hell. With eternity weighing heavily on my mind and deeply bothered, I read, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). I said, “Oh Lord, I’m just a poor sinner, and I’m going to Hell. And I’m a whoever. Lord, save me!”
I saw that evening for the first time that the Lord Jesus Christ bore my sins and my judgment and my Hell. By receiving Him as my own personal Saviour I would never be in Hell.
Perhaps, as you are reading my testimony, many things are going through your own mind. You are recalling experiences in your life when God was at work and seeking to get your attention. Even now, God is reaching out to save you and to give you eternal life. By simply trusting the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, God will do the same for you as He did for me. You can be saved for Heaven and saved from Hell by the precious blood of Christ.
Will you make that choice today and call upon the name of the Lord as Acts 2:21 says? If you do, God says, you will be saved!
Wallace Buckle
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