Dear Children,
We have a fireplace at our house, and we burn about eight cords of firewood in it each winter. Let me tell you the size of a cord of stacked, cut firewood: It is about four feet high, four feet wide, and eight feet long. See if you can picture in your mind eight stacks of firewood that size ... that’s a lot of firewood, isn’t it! But our winters are cold, and we keep cozy and warm with a fire burning in the fireplace.
Now all that firewood is in a big pile outside, and we carry it in and stack it in the barn to keep it dry. That’s a big job. Since I was recovering from an operation, Rylan came over to do the stacking for me. I sure was glad to have his help.
Before Rylan started to work, I warned him that he would probably find snakes in the woodpile. He looked at me with a grin on his face and said, “Yeah, sure, Grampa ... I know your tricks!” Now Rylan is a big boy, seventeen years old and six feet tall, but I asked him anyway, “Are you afraid of snakes?”
He answered, “No, I’m not afraid of snakes.”
I knew he would find some in the woodpile, because they catch bugs, mice and whatever else lives in the woodpile. So Rylan brought out the wheelbarrow and got right to work moving the wood into the barn.
It wasn’t long before I heard a startling, loud yell! I ran out of the barn to see what had happened. Rylan was standing back from the woodpile and staring right at it. I said, “What’s wrong?”
He said, “Look ... look at that big black snake!”
I said, “Where? ... I can’t see a snake.”
So he took my arm and we walked closer to the woodpile. “There it is ... can you see it now?”
I said, “Oh, yes, I see it. Boy, it’s a nice big one, isn’t it!”
Rylan said, “Yes, and I almost grabbed it. I thought it was just a piece of wood ... until it moved!”
Then I said to him, “But you told me that you weren’t afraid of snakes! Why are you afraid of them now? You’ve got gloves on ... go pick it up and get it out of here so we can finish piling the wood.”
He said, “No way, Grampa!” Well, by then the snake had moved over into the next pile of wood anyway, and we couldn’t see it anymore.
Now this snake (or serpent, as God calls them in Genesis 3:11Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? (Genesis 3:1)) probably had been watching Rylan for some time. The devil, or Satan, is watching every move that we make, whether at home, at work, at school or at play. He is setting traps for each one of us, trying his very best to make us sin against God. And you know, children, when we sin, God writes it down in His book. We sometimes sing a song in Sunday school that reminds us:
He sees what we do, and He hears
what we say;
My Lord is watching all the time.
That old serpent, the devil, tries to blind us to sin! Just as Rylan at first could not see that big snake, Satan whispers in our ear, “It’s okay to tell that lie ... no one else will know it.” Or, “It’s okay to say that bad word...no one else will hear it.” Or, “It’s okay to take that ... no one else will see you.”
WRONG! God knows it! God hears it! God sees it! And God writes it in His book! Genesis 16:1313And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me? (Genesis 16:13) says, “Thou God seest me.” Children, don’t ever forget those four words — “Thou God seest me.” Just four words, but they will help each one of us to stay away from sin. And so, because we have sinned, God has made a way to save us from our sins. We find this way in 1 John 1:7: “The blood of Jesus Christ His [God’s] Son cleanseth us from all sin.” There’s another wonderful Bible verse in Acts 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
And now some of you boys and girls are asking, “Grampa, did Rylan see any more snakes?”
Yes he did. I asked him how many he saw before he finished stacking all the wood, and he answered, “Tons of them!” Then he said, “But I never tried to pick up any more of them, because I know what they look like now!”
And so, children, if you know it’s a sin to do something, don’t do it! What are our four words again? That’s right! “Thou God seest me.”
Lots of love to each one of you,
Grampa