I AM going to tell you of a little boy called Harry. He is just about five years old, so, you see, he is still quite a little boy. Harry and his parents do not live in England, but in a country very far away—in Ceylon. Harry’s parents went there to tell the porn heathen of God’s great love in giving His Son to die, and of the love of God’s Son in laying down His life that we might not perish, but live forever with Him. Do you want to know who the heathen are? They are people who have grown up from being little children like you to be big people like your father and mother without ever once having heard of God, or of heaven, or hell—without ever having heard one word about the Lord Jesus loving sinners and giving Himself for them. Oh, my dear children, think how sad this is! How different it is with you who are taught Scripture carefully every day! I trust many of you, young as you are, have learned to know the Lord Jesus as your own Saviour. It should make us value His Word very much when we hear of people like those amongst whom little Harry lives in Ceylon, who do not even know that there is such a book as the Word of God.
Harry’s mother teaches her little son day by day a text out of the Bible, and bids him tell the Lord Jesus in prayer all his little joys or troubles. One day she told him God made his little body, and took care of it every day, and kept his little heart beating. In the evening, when Harry was thanking God for all the mercies He had given him, he said, “O God, I thank Thee for keeping my little heart patting!” Another day Harry’s mother sought to show him the difference between his soul and his body. She told him that his little body might die and be put into the ground, but his soul would never die. Harry, who only thought of death as going to be with Christ, with a half-reproachful look, said, “No, mother, Lord Jesus won’t never let Harry be put into the ground: He is coming to fetch me to the sky.” Should Harry grow up to be a man I feel sure he will tell a great many people of the love of the Lord Jesus which he has already found so precious, though he is but a very little child.
And now, dear children, do you love the Lord Jesus? He loves sinners very much—even more than your father and mother love you. One proof that He loves sinners is that He asks us to trust Him. Oh! think of this!
How wonderful it is! To save, my child, He died the dreadful death of the cross. They nailed His hands to a cross of wood. When He was thirsty, it was not nice cool water, but vinegar they gave Him to drink. They did not feel sorry for Him when He was in dreadful suffering hanging on that cross—no, they only Mocked Him. They hated Him without cause. He was the only One ever on this earth that this could be said of, for we are often naughty, and do and say what we should not, and so there is cause for people to dislike us. But there was none in Him, for He was spotless and holy—the Lamb of God who never could do, or think, or say, anything but what pleased His Father.
And, far more dreadful than those sufferings which the blessed Jesus endured from the hands of cruel man, were those sufferings which He bore from the hand of God. For God made Him to be sin for us, and God laid our sins upon Him, and then God forsook Him. Yet there was no other way whereby we could be saved.
And so He, the sinless One, died for us sinners. And when the Lord Jesus had given up His Spirit into His Father’s hands two men, who loved Him very much, came and took down His precious body from the dreadful cross where He had suffered so much.
One of them brought spices to put on His body to preserve it. I do not think he expected our Lord to rise again. But the other, whose name was Joseph, looked for the kingdom of God, and he only brought a clean linen cloth, in which he wrapped the body of the Lord Jesus, and laid it in a tomb in a garden, and put a great stone to the door of that grave to prevent anyone looking in, or taking away the body.
What an awful day it was when the Lord Jesus, the Prince of Life, lay dead in that grave! But death could not keep Him there. As He laid down His life of Himself, so He took it again, and after a little time He ascended to heaven, to His Father’s right hand, and before He went He promised soon to come back again to take every one who loves Him to live with Him forever. Oh! how happy it will be then!
R. B.