Johnny came to Sunday school when he was just a little lad about the age of some of the boys in our picture. He sat in his class from week to week, but like many of the other boys, he paid little attention to the old, old story of Jesus and His love. I suppose he thought he was too young to be saved just then, because he wanted to have a good time. The devil told him that if he accepted the Lord Jesus as his Saviour he would have to give up some of the sins which, sad to say, he loved.
However, his faithful Sunday school teacher impressed upon the boys from week to week the simplicity of God’s great salvation. He told them that they were lost and that their sins would finally sink them down into hell, if they died unsaved. He also told how the Lord Jesus died on the cross to cleanse them from all their sins. They could never put away one sin themselves, but He finished the work, so that all they needed to do was to believe in what He had done to save them. When they did this, receiving Him by faith into their hearts, they would be saved. One of his favorite verses was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Acts 16:3131And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31). They often sang that well-known children’s hymn too,
“Tell it again! Tell it again!
Salvation’s story repeat o’er and o’er,
Till none can say of the children of men,
‘Nobody ever has told me before.’”
Johnny did not forget that wonderful verse telling him just to believe and be saved, nor the little hymn, but soon he thought he was too old to go to Sunday school, and he wandered out into the world to have his “good time.” It wasn’t long until he was married and his wife wanted the same kind of “good time” he wanted. She did not know the Lord Jesus as her Saviour, nor did he, and so when trouble came into the home they had no one to whom they could turn. His wife ran away and left him a poor, disappointed, unhappy man. He found that the pleasures of sin were only for a season, as the Scripture says, and that the world could never satisfy the longings of his heart. One day as he sat alone, thinking of all that had taken place, his mind traveled back to the time, over twenty years before, when he had sat in the Sunday school class and heard God’s wonderful way of salvation. The words “only believe” seemed to ring in his ears, and then the words of the hymn seemed to come with it. All he could remember of the hymn was, “Say it again,” and God by His Spirit pressed these words home upon his soul. Then and there he knelt down and owned to God the sinfulness of his life, and told the Lord Jesus that he would believe on Him as his own personal Saviour. That moment a peace and joy he had not known before, filled his soul and he knew he was saved.
Not long after his old Sunday school teacher received a phone call from him telling the good news, and how his heart rejoiced. His labor had not been in vain in the Lord and the good seed sown in that boy’s heart had at last borne fruit.
May this little incident be an encouragement to any Sunday school teacher who reads it, to go on faithfully serving the Lord. And may it be a word to anyone who has long since left off the reading of God’s Word and prayer. Turn to the Lord NOW before it is too late. Accept Him as your own personal Saviour today, and you too will “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:11Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1).
ML 07/15/1956