When I was a child, my sister and I had a present of “puppies” given us. One day they disappeared, and we afterwards learned they had been stolen. Passing through the market we saw them exposed for sale, and in order to make sure they should not be carried away from the place, our father bought them for us, and we bore them back in triumph to our home. They were redeemed by a price being paid for them, and ours again on a new ground—Redeemed by price.
In the center of Africa, a slave lad escaped from his cruel master, and was pursued through the woods by Libe the chief, and his men armed with bows and arrows, who were fast gaining ground on the runaway slave. A trader and his caravan came along, and the exhausted slave, seeing the white man, ran for protection toward him. The trader offered a sum of money to Libe to let his captive free, then a quantity of ivory, but the angry chief cried out in rage,
“Nothing but blood will satisfy Libe.”
An arrow from the bow of one of the party grazed the white man’s arm, and drew from it a few drops of blood which fell to the ground. When Libe saw his follower’s arrow had drawn blood, he was afraid, for he knew well it might be required at his hand, and the trader seizing his opportunity, held up his bleeding arm and said,
“Libe wanted blood, he has it, let him go now.”
Glad to escape so easily for the rash deed, the chief with his men retired, leaving the trembling slave clinging to his deliverer’s bleeding arm—Redeemed by blood.
The believing boy or girl, who comes to the Saviour and trusts Him for salvation is redeemed. Redeemed by price, and that price, not silver or gold such as was paid for our lost puppies, but by “the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:1919But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: (1 Peter 1:19)) once shed on the Cross, and accepted by God on the throne.
Then immediately you trust in that precious blood, you will know what it is to be redeemed by power, to be raised up from the depths of sin in which we all by nature lie, and to be brought from “death to life,” from “darkness to light,” and from the power of Satan to God. What a glorious salvation! What a wonderful redemption!
See that you make it your own in the early years of life, and go forth to live for and serve the One who has redeemed you.
ML 01/12/1936