The twenty-four first-grade children were tired and restless. When time came for physical education their teacher joined with them for the few minutes’ break out-of-doors. It was a happy and peaceful time, until someone noticed a little intruder-a small, very small, snake.
The little snake didn’t look dangerous-not the least little bit. This was no great white shark out in the ocean, no fifteen-foot alligator with gaping jaws hiding in a swamp. This was only a tiny snake wriggling in the grass on the schoolyard.
But the teacher needed only one look to hurriedly try to form the children into a line and get them inside the school. “Don’t touch the snake,” she kept saying. “Don’t touch it!”
Six-year-old R.J. couldn’t resist. The snake was pretty, and it coiled up so neatly and made such a little buzzing sound-no, he just had to touch it. Pain, sudden and sharp, shot through the little boy’s right index finger. Soon, screaming with pain, R.J. was rushed to a hospital and into intensive care, where doctors and nurses could battle to save his rapidly swelling hand-or perhaps even his life.
The little snake was only six to eight inches long, but the poison it carried is more potent than that of the diamondback rattlesnake which can grow to as much as eight feet long. No one would think of touching him! The little pygmy didn’t look as dangerous as his big cousin, but both rattlesnakes share the same nature-and equally deadly poison.
It is the same with sin: Large or small, sin is SIN. Almost everyone would agree that murder and stealing are sins, but so-called “little sins”? Yes, they are sins too; they are all part of the whole. And the big, unforgivable sin is the rejection of His Son, Jesus Christ. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” God’s good news has been offered to humanity for hundreds-no, thousands of years-and yet people still are saying in effect, “We will not have this Man to rule over us.”
And there is something thought of as a “little sin,” but, like the pygmy rattler, it is just as deadly. One can say, “Yes, I believe-it’s all true-someday I will accept Christ-but not just yet!”
Oh, don’t be a rejecter-don’t be a neglecter. The results will be fatal in either case!
The Lord Jesus has invited every sinner to “come”; it will not be His fault if we fail to accept the great offer and lose our everlasting souls.