RAY had made a catapult, or slingshot, and went out into the fields one day to try it out. Looking around for something to shoot at, he spied a little song sparrow perched high in a tree, singing sweetly and quite unconscious of approaching danger. Ray crept softly under the tree until he stood directly under the little songster. Then he pulled the rubber, which he had loaded with a stone, and struck the poor bird squarely in the breast. Down it came tumbling, and lay dead at the boy’s feet.
Ray had been taught by his godly Christian parents to fear God and His Word, and he remembered instantly that verse: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father... Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.” Matt. 10: 29,31.
Ray felt terribly sorry at the thought of what he had done to one of God’s little creatures. With tears in his eyes, he picked up the dead sparrow, still warm, pressed it to his breast, saying to himself, “Oh if only I could give back the life I took!”
But that was impossible. Only God can give life.
What Ray could not do, God has done in a far more wonderful way for poor dead and dying sinners. We read in Romans 5:12: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
But “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.
“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6:23.
ML-01/10/1971