DO you know what a redeemer is? It is one who helps another out of any trouble, or difficulty, or punishment, by paying the penalty in his stead.
Some little children once had a pet lamb. They had taken care of it since it was very shall. It ran after them, and played with them, and ate from their hands. But one morning, when their lessons were done, and they ran as usual to play with ‘Snowy,’ they saw before the door a large rough-looking boy dragging the little white lamb by a rope around its neck.
“What are you going to do with Snowy?” exclaimed the children, running up to him; “that’s our lamb.”
“It won’t do you much good now you have found her,” said the boy. “Master bought her this morning, and I am going to take her to the slaughter-house.”
“To the slaughter-house! Kill our Snowy! You shan’t do it,” cried Ralph, with crimson cheeks and sparkling eyes, while the other children broke out into loud exclamations, putting their arms around Snowy, and tried to snatch the rope out of the boy’s hand. Just then a gentleman came by, and asked what all that noise was about.
“It is our lamb, sir,” said Ralph, half choked with trying not to cry. “It is stolen from us, and I’m sure he’s going to kill it.”
The butcher explained that it had been sold to him.
“O, nonsense,” said the gentleman. “There, there, children, stop crying; the lamb shan’t be killed this time. Give them the rope. I’ll pay your master what he gave for the lamb.”
The butcher did not like giving up the lamb at all at first, but the gentleman insisted upon his doing so; and paying him out of his own purse, told the children to take charge of the lamb.
How glad those children were then! How they hugged poor Snowy, who had been in so much danger, and thanked the gentleman for his kindness!
Now this was redemption. Poor Snowy could not save herself, and the children, dearly as they loved her, could not save her, for they had not money enough to pay the price. But the gentleman paid the money, and redeemed the little lamb from death, and the children from the sorrow of losing her.
Now, dear children, we have someone who would like to drag us to a worse end than that to which the butcher was taking poor Snowy. It is not to a slaughter-house, but “into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
But we do not need to go there with him, for the Lord Jesus Christ has died for us on the cross; He has borne the punishment that we deserved; He has paid the price for our many sins, and if we accept Him as our own Saviour and Redeemer, we shall be happy to follow Him all the time He leaves us down here, and He will take us to His beautiful home in the glory, to live with Him forever.
‘Dear children, which one are you going to follow, Christ or Satan?
“Choose you this day whom ye will serve.”
ML 08/17/1924