PHILIP was just a thin little boy, not more than six years old. His Mother was dead and his father was a thief, a very bad thief who robbed stores and was chased by the police. There were several thieves who worked together, and the worst of them all was little Philip. No one could steal from the corner store without being caught, faster than Philip. His father told him that he was a very clever little boy, but no one ever told him that God saw him, and that he could not get away from God.
November had been a very hard month for the thieves. No money had come in for a long time, and the police followed them so closely that they were almost afraid to move in the daytime. One long cold evening they started out in the pouring rain and walked until poor little Philip was soaked and shivering. It was very late when they crept up into someone’s hay loft and lay down for a few hours’ sleep.
In less than five minutes everyone was snoring; everyone but Philip. His eyes were very wide and bright in the darkness. He was hot and cold, and miserable and thirsty, and no one seemed to care. I’m glad that God was watching him, loving him and caring for him every minute of that long cold night.
Before morning the thieves woke up, for it was safer not to wait until daylight. Father pushed Philip gently with his foot, but Philip was much too sick to care. He tried to stand up when the thieves grew angry, but he could only tumble down on the straw again, and even father saw that it was impossible for him to walk that day. They crept out into the early morning darkness without him.
Not long after that, the rooster crowed loudly and the little lady in the farmhouse lit her fires. She came down the path to the farmyard calling, “Here chick chick, here chick chick.” But suddenly she stopped. There was a strange sound in her barn. Not chickens nor pigs, but the sound of a little boy crying. She found him in a moment, and carried him at once to the cleanest, whitest, softest bed that Philip had ever seen in his life. She gave him water to drink and bathed his hot little hands and face and cared for him with all her heart, but he was too sick to know anything about it. For days he did not know anything and she thought he would die.
But he did not die. The time came when he could sit up and look into the dear lady’s face and ask her hundreds of questions. Sometimes she answered them and sometimes she didn’t but he loved her very much and called her Mother. It was fun to do little things for Mother as he grew stronger, to feed the chickens and pigs, to fill the woodbox and sweep the snow. But the best time of all was in the evening when the work was done, Mother would sit by the fireplace and tell him stories, wonderful stories, such as he had never heard before.
The story he liked best was of a Man named Jesus. Philip heard how they tied His hands and beat Him, and drove big nails right through His hands and feet into the wooden cross. The tears ran down the little boy’s face.
“Why did they do that, Mother? Was He a bad man?”
“No, Philip, He was very good. He fed hungry people and opened blind people’s eyes. He was very good.”
“Then what did He die for, Mother? Why did they do that to Him?”
“They did it because they hated Him. He could have gone right back to Heaven because He really was God, you know, but He chose to die for sinners.”
“What are sinners, Mother?”
“Sinners are bad people who lie and swear and steal.”
Philip’s face grew very red and he did not look up, but he asked, “Is it wrong to steal?”
“Yes, Philip. It’s a sin to steal even once.”
He looked up now and his eyes were full of tears. “Is that what Jesus died for?” he asked. “Then if that’s what Jesus died for, I’m never going to steal again,”
There were many other stories by the fireplace, but that one story he never could forget. All that happy summer, his cheeks grew rosy and his little body grew so tall and plump that you never would have known him for the same thin little Philip who came there nearly a year before. Mother wondered what she would do without her little helper.
To be continued Feb. 15th
Messages of the Love of God 2/8/1948