MANY a time when I was a boy I have helped to wash a flock of sheep in just about the way the picture shows. We would drive the bleating flock to the creek and into a pen made on the bank, then catch them one by one and throw them into the water to the washers. When well washed they were let out in another place.
Do you see those nice sheep out under the trees? They have been washed. Do you see the one in the water trying to get back into the pen? A boy with a stick keeps him out. He has been washed or will be, and must go the other way, past the man with the long pole, to his own company. Do you see what all this means? You must be washed too, and then, though your sins were red like crimson they shall be as wool.
Though like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Nothing can do this for you but the blood of Jesus. Now children, when Jesus washes you, don’t be like that sheep trying to get back into the pen! Don’t try to find your company and pleasures among those who are not washed. I’d rather be like that one which seems hardly able to get up the bank. She is wet and heavy, but she is washed, and will soon be at rest in that clean and happy company.
ML 07/16/1916