Ruth was disobeying her father and mother! With one arm holding dolly tightly, and with the other clinging to a post she was balancing on a log at the very edge of a steep, dangerous bank that dropped almost straight down to the neighbor's house below.
Many times she had been warned not to go near the edge of the bank, for Ruth was just a very little girl, not quite three years old.
But, oh! It was so much fun to feel that she was so high up, to watch the neighbor children playing down below, and to even watch their big collie dog that barked so loudly in his excitement over the children's play. Some of the bigger children sometimes walked along the log where she stood, without holding on to the posts to show admiration!
Ruth knew that it was wrong to disobey, and when mother happened to open the kitchen door to look outside she ran quickly away from the dangerous log. But it was hard to remember, and soon she was back to the bank again.
Suddenly someone was calling, “Come quickly! Your little girl has fallen over the bank!”
How frightened mother and father were as they ran to their little girl, for they could think of so many ways in which she might have been hurt. Tenderly father carried little sobbing Ruth into the house. Carefully they looked over her little body to see where she might be bruised or cut, but nowhere could they find even one bad scratch! How they thanked the Lord Jesus for caring for her!
Ruth was very quiet that evening. Her eyes were big and serious as she shook her head, yes, when father asked if she was sorry that she had been naughty.
Did you know, boys and girls, that the very first sin was a sin of disobedience? Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and the Bible speaks of it as their “fall.” Their punishment was death.
Have you ever disobeyed mother, or father, or teacher? I'm afraid we must all say yes, and if so, then we have disobeyed God, and we too must be punished with death unless we receive the Lord Jesus as our Savior from sin. We deserve to be punished, but listen to what God says that the Lord Jesus has done for us, Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)).