With all the wonderful discoveries today, we still have problems. The biggest problem in each of our lives is that we have done wrong things. We know they are wrong, and God tells us they are sins. “All have sinned” (Romans 3:23). And more than that, we must meet God about our sins. He has provided an answer to our sin problem, if you and I are willing to say “yes” to His answer.
First, we will tell you a story of a problem that King Solomon faced in Bible times, and nobody could find an answer to settle it.
There were two mothers living together, and each of them had a brand new baby boy. Each mother took her baby in her own bed with her, to nurse her baby and keep him warm.
During the night, one mother rolled over in her sleep, and when she woke up, her baby was dead! Oh, no! What could she do? A wrong thought came into her mind, and she slipped quietly out of bed and exchanged her dead baby for the other mother’s living baby. She carefully laid the dead baby beside the sleeping mother.
When the sleeping mother awoke to nurse her baby, you know what she found—the dead baby! Her heart was broken. But wait a minute ... she saw that it wasn’t her baby! Then she realized that the other mother had stolen her living baby and put the dead baby in her bed.
They argued about it, but the lying mother would not admit what she had done. She insisted, The living baby is mine and the dead one is yours!
They took the problem straight to King Solomon. He would know how to solve this problem, because God had given him wisdom.
When you and I have problems, we can’t go to King Solomon for answers, but we can go to a much higher authority than that! We can go to our God. He not only knows the problem, but He also knows the answer!
Wise King Solomon repeated the exact words the two mothers had said to him. Then he said, Bring me a sword. He had decided what to do: Cut the living baby in two and give each mother one half.
NO! NO! Don’t kill him! cried the real mother.
But the wrong mother knew that the baby was not hers, and why should she care? Divide him, she said.
Then King Solomon had his answer, and so did everybody else who heard it. He knew that the love in the real mother’s heart was too big to keep silent. Give her the living child, he said. She is the real mother!
Did you notice that the wrong mother showed up her own guilt? And everybody else saw that she was guilty too.
When you stand before God, you won’t need to say anything. God’s record of your sins will be plain enough for you and the angels and everybody else to see. And since He loves you, how can He spare you? An impossible problem, isn’t it?
But wait a minute! We’ll tell you what God did. He saw this problem long before you did, and He saw that there was only one answer. He did the hardest thing anybody ever did. He sent His own beloved Son to die for you. There was no other way. If God didn’t love you, He never would have done such a thing. And if you could save yourself and wipe out the record of your own sins, He never would have sent Jesus to suffer that terrible death for sinners.
Jesus didn’t die by the slash of a sword. The story is too long to tell you, but the hardest part for Jesus was not being nailed to the cross. The hardest part was the judgment of God against sin that Jesus bore in those three hours of darkness. This is God’s answer to the problem of your sins. It was God Himself who gave His Son to be your Saviour.
Boys and girls, you are not like a brand new baby; you are old enough to make a choice. Will you have Jesus as your Saviour?
“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
You may read this story for yourself in 1 Kings 3:16-28.
MEMORY VERSE: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4
ML-06/01/2014