WAIT Muriel! Do not come back; stay where you are!" The little girl spoken to was in great danger at the moment, and but for her prompt obedience would very likely have been killed. She, with her sisters and brothers, was walking with a friend through some fields, which were divided from each other by stiles. They had been asked to deliver a message at a farmhouse.
A little way up one field they saw a cow-shed; but as the path leading through the fields was public, they had no thought that there was a vicious bull in it. On hearing the voices of the children it ran out, and lowering its horns appeared to be coming straight to the little girl mentioned above.
She had run on in front of the others, and did not see the bull coming towards her. She got over the next stile, but on seeing her danger then, was about to get back again to the friend who was with her. So, had she not obeyed the command given, she would possibly have been tossed and seriously hurt or killed.
This simple incident is an illustration of the consequences which often result from obedience or disobedience. When we remember the perfect obedience of our Lord Jesus here, when He was a child, He who had made the heavens and the earth, yet would be "subject" unto His parents, does it not show us how
GOD LOVES OBEDIENCE
in children? He has commanded them to obey, and says that
"Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, or whether it be right."
If He looks for them to obey their earthly parents and teachers, how much more does He expect them to obey Him, and listen to what He says to them in His word! He tells them that they can only be saved from eternal death by trusting in Jesus, and His precious blood shed for them that they might be saved—that there is no other Saviour. But how many go on day by day without thinking anything of Him, and perhaps have never really thanked Him for what He has done for them. No one else can save them, no one else could have died for them. God expects and wants them to obey Him by believing what He says of the Lord Jesus.
By one act of disobedience little Muriel might have lost her life, but by one act of obedience she was saved.
By one act of disobedience Adam lost his happiness in the garden of Eden, and brought sin into the world. O, what an awful consequence came of that one act!
But what happiness was brought to poor, disobedient man by the one deed that Jesus the Son of God accomplished when He suffered on the cross for sinners to save them from the second death— which is God's punishment for sin.
It is now that God is, in love, commanding people to repent, and now that He gives them the opportunity to obey Him.
Will you not then, dear children, come now to the Lord Jesus before it is too late to do so? and then you will, through Him, be saved eternally!
Messages of God’s Love 12/16/1928