1 Sam. 12:23
Whenever I speak to parents, two fathers come before me. One lived on the Mississippi River. He was a man of great wealth. One day his eldest boy had been carried home unconscious. They did everything that man could do to restore him, but failed. Time passed, and after a terrible suspense he recovered consciousness.
“My son,” the father whispered, “the doctor tells me you are dying.”
“Oh!” said the boy, “you never prayed for me, father; won’t you pray for my lost soul now?”
The father wept. It was true he had never prayed. He was a stranger to God. And in a little while that soul, unprayed for, passed into its dark eternity.
The father has since said that he would give all his wealth if he could call back his boy only to pray for him.
What a contrast is the other father! He, too, had a lovely son, and one day he came home to find him at the gates of death. His wife was weeping, and she said,
“Our boy is dying; he has had a change for the worse. I wish you would go in and see him.”
The father went into the room and placed his hand upon the brow of his dying boy, and could feel the cold, damp sweat was gathering there; the cold, icy hand of death was feeling for the chords of life.
“Do you know, my son, that you are dying?” asked the father.
“Am I? Is this death? Do you really think I am dying?”
“Yes, my son, your end on earth is near.”
“And will I be with Jesus tonight, father?”
“Yes, you will soon be with the Saviour.”
“Father, don’t weep, for when I get there I will go straight to Jesus and tell him that you have been trying all my life to lead me to Him.”
God has given me three children, and ever since I can remember I have directed them to Christ. I would rather they carried this message to Jesus — that I had tried all their life to lead them to Him — than have all the crowns of the earth; I would rather lead them to Jesus than give them the wealth of the world.