Here is a little boy who is very deep in thought as he sits on the edge of the sidewalk. He is just a little older than David of whom I wish to tell you today, but David had some deep thoughts too, though his came not while sitting on the sidewalk — but it was while playing with an old organ stool. The old stool was rather the worse for wear. The seat would still spin around but the threads were so worn that it could not be raised or lowered as once it could.
David was only four years old, and somehow that very stool captured his fancy. It fitted into whatever game he chose to play after the other children had gone to school. First it was his milk truck. He drove it slowly about, stopping often to deposit milk bottles at each imaginary doorstep. Next it was a brand new Buick like Uncle Bob’s, and how quietly it could glide along on its smoothly worn glass bearings. Sometimes he lay beneath it, tinkering away in his service station, while other cars waited till he could give them gas.
One day he started it up in a great hurry, and it came zooming into the kitchen with the siren screaming, the little driver spinning his steering wheel furiously to make the corner. Perhaps this was a fire truck on its way to a fire. But no, listen!
“Here comes the ambulance— watch out ‘cause I have to hurry. I have to get my mother ‘cause she fainted. I have to take her to the hospital. She might die.”
And then quite abruptly the little fellow fell silent in thought. His play had brought him unexpectedly face to face with a vivid memory that time would never erase. His mother, busy getting breakfast over with, busy getting little brothers and sisters off to school, had suddenly fainted. The ambulance came to carry her away, never to return. All was so sudden, so unexpected, and now the familiar, quiet life of home was shattered.
The little boy lay over the, stool, only one stubby shoe propelling him slowly, slowly around, like the thoughts that were revolving in his mind.
Wistful eyes looked up. “How do you get up to heaven? Could I climb up there?”
“Your dear mommie wants you to come to heaven and see her again and live there forever, and the Lord Jesus wants you there too, but we can’t climb. Do you know why?”
“Why?”
“Probably big strong people would be the only ones who could get there. I’m not a very good climber, so I wouldn’t be able to get there at all. And if there were wicked people that did not believe in the Lord Jesus, they would try to spoil everything. I’m glad people can’t climb up there, aren’t you?”
“How about an airplane?”
“You’d have to have money to get on an airplane, David, so what would poor people do that didn’t have enough money? And what if the plane should crash, and wouldn’t get there after all? The Lord Jesus has a better way.”
“How is it?”
“There is only one way. The Lord Jesus died on the cross and bore all the punishment for the sins of all who will believe. When the Lord Jesus hung on the cross, a soldier pierced His side and there came out blood and water. ‘The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.’ 1 John 1:77But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (1 John 1:7). There will be no one who has his sins upon him up in heaven—only those who have believed and have been born again can enter there. The Lord Jesus knows each of His own, and will make no mistake about whom He takes up to heaven.”
“When will we go up?”
“When He calls us. First He wants us to work for Him, and tell others about how He can save them too, and then, when the time comes, He will call us. But we do not know what moment that will be.”
“Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep (die), but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” 1 Cor. 15:51, 5251Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51‑52).
ML 12/05/1954