What a dreadful thing it is for little children to have their dear mother taken from them by death! How can we give them any comfort?
Dear little Barbara had lost her mother and she was so lonely and unhappy. Barbara’s Aunt Elsie was a happy Christian, and she and Barbara were the very best of friends. Not long after Barbara’s mother had died, her aunt came to stay with her, and she was so glad. She loved to sit beside Aunt Elsie and hear Bible stories, and she asked dozens of questions. And of course she wanted to know why mother had gone, and where she had gone, and would they ever see each other again.
Aunt Elsie opened her Bible and began to read from 1 Thess. 4, verse 13. She explained to her niece that the Lord Jesus was going to come down to the clouds some day, and give a shout which would raise from their graves all those who had died trusting in the Lord Jesus, and would catch away out of this world all whose sins have been washed away. “And so, Barbara dear, if you belong to the Lord Jesus, you will surely see your dear mother again, for she died trusting in Jesus as her Saviour.”
“But I don’t understand,” said Barbara thoughtfully, “how we could suddenly get up to those clouds. Will we have wings?”
“No, dear, it will be done simply by the Lord’s own great power.”
Barbara’s uncle heard of her trouble, and so he said to her, “You come to me tomorrow with a plate full of pins and needles, and I will try to make it plain to you.”
Barbara got a plate and put in a handful of pins and needles, and then could hardly wait to see Uncle again to see what he was going to do. In the meantime, Uncle had bought a strong magnet in the hardware store, and when he came home, he found Barbara anxiously waiting for him.
Soon he took the wonderful magnet out of his pocket, and asked Barbara what it was. She had never seen one, and couldn’t tell him. She looked at it carefully and felt it, but said it just looked like a piece of old iron.
“Now watch,” said Uncle, “while I pass this magnet of mine over your plate of pins and needles.”
Then a strange thing happened. As the magnet came close, the needles were all drawn up to meet it, while the pins (which were then made of brass) stayed right where they were. Barbara was so surprised and puzzled. “What made those needles go up, and why did the pins stay behind?”
“There is power in this magnet,” he said, “to attract steel or iron, but the pins are not made of steel, and so are not drawn by this magnet. And this, dear Barbara, is something like what will happen when the Lord Jesus comes. He will draw out of world this all those whom He has redeemed with His precious blood, but the others will he left behind.”
To which class do you belong? Are you one of the Lord Jesus’ own saved ones who will be caught up when He comes with the shout? Or will you he left behind?
ML 07/22/1951