ONE Saturday, while Daisy was waiting for dinner-time, she strolled off to the meadow, and presently, looking through the hedge, what do you think she saw? As I am afraid it might take you a long time to guess, I will tell you, —She saw a poor little mouse caught in a trap, but quite alive. It looked so hungry that little Daisy nearly cried with pity. Poor little mousie! It was a very cleverly made trap, so easy to get in without being hurt, but poor little mousie could not get out again, —it was a captive.
Daisy was quite unable to let mousie out, and besides, she would have been too frightened to have done so, and it looked so hungry. Now what do you think Daisy did?
No, I do not think you will be able to guess. Well, she picked a blackberry, and dropped it into the trap, and O, how quickly mousie ate it up; and then away ran Daisy home, and fetched some crumbs of bread, and returned to the trap with the crumbs, which were soon greedily eaten up also.
It was now dinner-time, and Daisy, with a heart very sad, had to leave poor mousie to his misfortune.
How this poor little captive reminds us of lots of men, women and children who are captives of a cruel captor, and so helpless in Satan’s trap. This trap of sin is so strong that they cannot get out of Satan’s power. He invites His victims to his chamber of death; he offers them pleasures of sin, and, alas, his victims get overpowered by sin, and like the mouse in the trap, can find no way out, and so if left there, it means left to die.
The man who set the trap never intended the mice should come out again. He put something inside to attract them, and once in they are doomed to die.
Satan, that cruel captor, offers the pleasures of sin to all who are foolish enough to listen to him.
Once, in a lovely garden, he offered the pleasures of sin to a woman named Eve, and she obeyed Satan, and in doing this she disobeyed God and sinned. God had told her that if she disobeyed Him she must die.
Satan knows that the wages of sin is death, and he has made men, women, and children fall into his trap, and he does not intend to set them free. Daisy would gladly have set the little mouse free, but she was unable. Her heart was full of compassion, but she was helpless.
God looks down from heaven, and sees Satan’s captives. He sees their misery, and hears their groans, and His heart is filled with compassion, and He is able to save, and so He sent His beloved Son to destroy the power of Satan, and let his captives free. He comes to just where they are, and says, I have overcome Satan, and there is now a way of escape from death, and the place of death; and instead there is a place in heaven, in My Father’s house of many mansions. Will you come?
“I love them that love Me, and those that seek Me early shall find Me.” What compassion and love God has towards us, and if we just come to Jesus, we are safe for ever, Satan can touch us no more. None can pluck us out of the hand of Jesus, and out of the hand of His Father, because, His Father is greater than all.
Now, dear boys and girls, the Father’s house is filling fast. Soon it will be filled, and the door will be shut for ever. Which place do you prefer, Satan’s, with the pleasures of sin; or the Father’s house? Choose now, while there is room. Yet there is room.
Eternity! where? Eternity, where?
With redeemed ones in glory, or fiends in despair?
Eternity! where? O, Eternity! where?
With one or the other—Eternity! where?
ML 12/18/1927