I’d like to tell you about a lesson I learned from the dog that belonged to our family. Clarinha was her name, and she was a Dachshund. When she was with us at home, she was very loving and obedient. If a stranger came to the gate, she would bark fiercely, trying to scare them away. She tried to protect us, and she was my doorbell, because I would know when someone was here by her bark.
However, when we went for walks on the road, Clarinha was not very obedient. If I had her on the leash, she would always pull very hard, trying to get away. If I let her off the leash, she would run away as fast as she could and bark at every dog she saw. She acted like she was the “king of the road” and the boss of everybody. She would bark at all the motorcycles passing by. She upset the dogs that she barked at, because most of them were behind gates and couldn’t go after her. She would run off acting like she thought she was the winner. Sometimes we would see a big dog in the road that wanted to meet her. She would bark fiercely at him, and he would run away yelping with his tail between his legs, scared of tiny Clarinha.
I knew that one day she would have to learn her lesson in obedience. I expected that either a motorcycle or a car would hit her, or some bigger dog would pick a fight with her.
One afternoon my three children and I took a walk to the park with Clarinha and Lillie, our other dog. Both dogs were on leashes so they wouldn’t get into danger. I let the dogs loose in the park since it had a fence all around it and the dogs could run free. They played happily together. After some minutes, I looked around for the two dogs. Lillie was there but not Clarinha. Where was she? Then I saw her on the road outside the park! Somebody had opened the gate of safety.
I called, “CLARINHA, COME! CLARINHA, COME!” She looked at me as if to say, “No way; I want to have some fun. I’ll come back later!” And off she ran.
She crossed the road and went to an auto shop where they had two, big Rottweiler dogs behind a fence. One dog got mad at Clarinha and did something he had never done before—he jumped the fence—and then went after her. Clarinha ran as fast as she could back to me, but it was too late. I couldn’t save her as I had my three young children to protect, and I didn’t want this big, angry dog going after them. The big Rottweiler wasn’t afraid of little Clarinha and attacked her, biting her very badly.
We took Clarinha to the animal doctor where he stitched up her wounds and gave her lots of medicine. But Clarinha didn’t heal and died one week later.
Clarinha’s disobedience and wanting to run free finally led to her death. Boys and girls, like Clarinha, you may want to just have fun and not want to obey what God says is necessary to remove your sins. But there will be a day when, just like disobedient Clarinha, it will be too late. There will be no turning back.
The Bible says, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36). Suffering for eternity in hell for your sins will be much worse than the one week of suffering that Clarinha had. If you will come to the Lord Jesus to have your sins washed away, you will live forever with Him in heaven. He loves you very much and is waiting for you. Will you obey Him?
“What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17).
MEMORY VERSE: “What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” 1 Peter 4:17
ML-03/06/2011