I saw a tiny leaf torn from the branch on which it grew, blown over the fence, driven to and fro, until at last it found a sheltered corner and lay at rest.
I stood on a country railway station platform waiting for the train, when a sheriff came up leading a young man who was handcuffed. The young man had committed a crime, and was to pay the penalty for his folly. As we stood there, I noticed a tear start from under his eyelid and trickle down his sun burnt face. My heart went out in pity for him; and I thought perhaps he was not always homeless, unloved, unkempt. He was not always friendless, for his mother once caressed her little boy; and if she still lived, she still yearned over him.
A leaf driven to and fro. Job asks the question, "Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro?" Ah, the world would break it; the world will keep a man down when once he is down. Go to the public-houses or the corner of the streets in any city, and you will find numbers of young fellows driven to and fro—no resting place—at the mercy of the wind. Go to the police courts and the prison gates, see the leaves driven to and fro. And what will the world do? Only break them. But put the question to my precious Savior:
"Wilt Thou break a leaf driven to and fro?" Hear the answer:
Are you driven to and fro? There is refuge in Jesus.
You have read how the Pharisees brought to Him a poor woman taken in adultery. She was a leaf driven to and fro, and they wanted to break her; they wanted to stone her; but Jesus, so full of love, rebukes them, and tells the poor trembling soul to go her way and sin no more. Praise Him!
There hung at the Savior's side on a cross at Calvary a dying thief—he had been a leaf driven to and fro—and now man would crush and break him. God had decreed that the soul that sins must die; and men in authority must execute that decree. With his latest breath he asked, as it were, "Wilt Thou break a leaf driven to and fro?" Because the Lord Jesus was Himself bearing the terrible judgment for sin, He could justly come out in mighty love, speak this comforting promise,
"Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise."
Reader, are you a leaf thus driven? Seek refuge from the coming storm in Jesus.
You who are the Lord's and seek to serve Him, step from the home of love and comfort to the edge of the forest of human life. See the tender leaves snatched from their branches and hurled by the whirlwind of folly out into the ocean. of sin and vice. Will you break them? Hear them call. Carry the gospel to them; they are crushed by the tempter; let us seek to bring them to Christ, who came into the world to save sinners.