A RETIRED farmer once related the following account of how the Lord brought him to repent of his sins and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour. When he was a boy his father gave him a pig of his own to care for. So he fixed a warm place for his pig in winter, lining the shed well with straw in the inside.
On Sunday mornings someone had to stay at home while the family went to church. On this particular morning George, the subject of our story, took his turn at staying home while the rest went to divine service. When time began to seem long, he went to the pen of his pet pig and began to amuse himself by playing with matches amidst the straw in the shed. He would light a little straw and then put the fire out. This he did several times, letting the fire get bigger each time before putting it out. Finally, the fire in the straw got so big it was beyond his control and the whole shed was soon in flames and the other farm buildings in danger also.
However, the Lord was mercifully watching over it all and caused a neighbor to notice the puffs of smoke coming out of the pig-sty. This attracted his attention and caused him to go over and see what was making this smoke. When the shed began to burst into flames, he was almost there and soon had the fire put out.
Just then George’s father and mother came home from church and learned all about what had happened. George expected a severe punishment, but all his father did was to send him up to his room and tell him to stay there and think about his sins.
And indeed he did think about his sins. He was very much frightened by all that had happened, and more so still by what might have happened through his sinfulness. In the quiet of his room, the Holy Spirit deeply convicted him of sin and broke him down in repentance before God. He now truly realized what he had often been told, that he was a lost sinner on the way to destruction. What had just happened proved it. He might have been entrapped in the flames and been burned to death! Where would his soul have been then? He was not ready for heaven, nor at peace with God; this he knew right well.
While thus convicted of his sins, the Holy Spirit brought before him the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Saviour for poor, lost sinners. He had often heard this before, too, but now he really saw by faith the reality of the Lord Jesus dying on the cross for his sins. Scriptures came with force to his mind. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31), was the promise of God. By faith he believed it, accepted the Lord there and then as his Saviour, and found forgiveness of sins and peace with God.
Though the Lord used this instance of George playing with fire for his conversion and eternal blessing, we may also gather from it some important, warning lessons. George playing with fire is a picture of men and women who are playing with sin and think it is harmless.
Fire is an awful thing to play with; it soon gets beyond one’s control and does great damage. One cannot play with fire and not get into trouble. “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burnt?” asks the Word of God, in Proverbs 6:27.
Now, dear friends, playing with sin is just like playing with fire. A little sin played with may lead to a great flame of sins entirely beyond your control and to the eternal loss of your precious soul. Sin is deceitful; its pleasures for a season, or for the passing moment, lure one on to bigger sins with the deceiving expectation of greater pleasures. But alas, it is only greater misery and greater loss that results. For truly, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), and “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15). And also, “Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me” (Rom. 7:11). So the Apostle Paul experienced. And the Wise Man declares, “The way of transgressors is hard” (Prov. 13:15).
Satan tempts many to think that they can play with little sins and stop there. George thought that he could keep the fire under his control, but he soon found that he was helpless. So it will be with you, dear reader, if you trifle with sin; it will soon be beyond your control and lead you on farther than you wish. You will find yourself in bondage to sin and Satan, and led on helplessly by him to destruction.
It was another, a neighbor, who came to George’s help and put the fire out. Just so, it is only Another, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who has come down from heaven to be man’s neighbor, that can deliver you, dear friends, from the power and destruction of sin. He has endured all the fire of God’s wrath against sin at the cross. You are a sinner, and already caught in sin’s deceiving net, but Jesus suffered on the cross for you, that you might be delivered from sin. If you will repent of your sins, and accept Him as your personal Saviour, He will save you from sin and its eternal punishment. Won’t you receive Him now by faith in your heart? R. K. C.