Here is a raw turnip, covered with a little garden earth. Would you like a bite?
“Oh no, thank you, not for me!”
Don’t you like raw turnips? There was a man once who was very happy when he found a raw turnip in a field. He ate it right away, just like an apple. But that man had had nothing to eat for three days’ and very little before that, and he liked that turnip because he had nothing better.
Have you something better? Very likely. And if we had found that poor man, I hope you and I would have offered him better food, and Pm sure he would not be long throwing away his dusty turnip. Suppose you had said, “Here are some apples and oranges.” Wouldn’t he be glad?
Now, my friend, if you are unsaved, we Christians have something far better to tell you about today (ban just apples and oranges. You are, no doubt, feeding on the pleasures of this world and you love them because you have nothing better. But we have something so much better, and if you will just receive it from the Lord, those earthly pleasures will drop from your hands as the raw turnip from the hungry man.
What is that “something better?” Jesus. The Lord Jesus, our precious Saviour. Oh it is wonderful, the first glad joy of knowing that He bore your sins when He died on Calvary’s cross—and that He has set you free to wait until He comes for you. And it is blessed to live for Him and with Him day by day, as the One who knows your sorrows and lives in glory for you. Yes, and the best is yet to come, with Him forever in heaven.
If you feed upon this food, dear friend, you will never pick up the old turnip again. The old earthly pleasures may do for poor hungry souls who have never tasted the Saviour’s love, but they will never satisfy those who have found that “something far better” which is found alone in Jesus.
ML 07/01/1951