IN A SUBURB of one of our large American cities stood a little old shed. It was used regularly by a group of newsboys who gathered after school to pack their bags with the daily newspaper. Strange to tell but there was hanging on a wall in the old shed a grimy little text, which read,
“JESUS NEVER FAILS.”
It was probably older than the shed itself. No one seemed to notice it, or knew how it got there. But God used it.
One of the boys was a Jewish lad named Dave. He was much smaller than his companions, and not very strong. One day he failed to turn up to deliver his papers as usual. He had taken sick and had to stay in bed.
It proved to be a long illness from which he never recovered. Occasionally Joe and Barney, two of the older paper boys, would visit Dave.
During one of their visits, Dave whispered to them: “Listen something tells me I am going to-die. You know that ‘Jesus Never Fails’ sign on the wall of the shed? Prose me, that when they put me in the box, you will put that sign in the box with me.” To this they solemnly agreed.
It was not long after this that Dave did die, and Joe and Barney remembered their promise. Tether they visited the home where Dave’s body lay in a little coffin, the cover of which was closed. Hien beneath Joe’s coat vas the text, “Jesus Never Fails."
But how to get the text into “the box” with Dave was another proem, for Dave’s father and mother stood near; and both parents hated Jesus.
But the boys had a plan. Barney asked the parents if they would go with him into the kitchen for a minute to count some money he had collected for Dave along his paper route. Together they followed him out of the room, leaving Joe alone. Quietly he raised the cover of the coffin and taking the text from beneath his coat, laid it reverently on Dave’s frail folded arms. Then quickly lowering the cover again for the last time, he joined the others in the kitchen. Only he and Barney knew what he had done.
So Dave, as he had wished, was buried with the text he secretly loved. Better still, we believe his soul went to be with Jesus who never fails even the smallest, weakest child who believes in Him.
Jesus never fails,
Jesus never fails,
Heaven and earth shall pass away;
But Jesus never fails.
Safe in Christ; safe in Christ!
He’s their glory ever;
None can pluck them from His hand,
They shall perish never.
ML-03/17/1974