A Sunday school teacher had been seeking to lead her scholars to the Lord. She had told them how they too might become missionaries at home and bring others to the Saviour. One day the smallest came to her and said: “I asked some children to come with me to Sunday school, but they said their father was an infidel.”
The little girl wanted to know what an infidel was, so her teacher explained that he was one who didn’t believe God nor the Bible. One day, while she was on her way to school, this infidel man was coming out of the post office with his mail in his hand. The child ran up to him, and said, “Why don’t you love Jesus?”
If it had been a man, the infidel would have resented it; but he did not know what to do with the child. With tears in her eyes she asked him again, “Oh! please, tell me, why don’t you love Jesus?” He went on to his office, but he felt as if every letter he opened read, “Why don’t you love Jesus?” He attempted to write, with the same result; every letter seemed to ask him, “Why don’t you love Jesus?” He threw down his pen in despair, and went out of his office, but he could not get rid of the question. It was asked by a still small voice within, and as he walked along it seemed as if the very ground and the very heavens whispered to him, “Why don’t you love Jesus?”
At last he went home, and there it seemed as if his own children asked him the question, so he said to his wife, “I will go to bed early tonight,” thinking to sleep it away.
But when he laid his head on the pillow it seemed as if the pillow whispered it to him. So he got up about midnight, and said, “I can find out where Christ contradicts Himself, and I’ll search it out and prove Him a liar.”
Well, the man got up and turning to the Gospel of John, he read on from the beginning until he came to the words, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (ch. 3:16).
What love! he thought; and at last the old infidel’s heart was stirred. He could find no reason for not loving Jesus. Down he went on his knees and prayed. Earnest were his prayers that went up to God for forgiveness and ere the morning sun flooded the countryside the once hardened heart of that old infidel was melted with the sunshine of God’s love. He saw what a sinner he had been, but he saw too that Jesus had died for such as he. Now peace and love filled his heart.
I challenge any one on the face of the earth to find a reason for not loving Christ. It is only here on earth that men think they have a reason for not doing so. In heaven they cry, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” O sinner friend, if you knew Him you would have no wish to find a reason for not loving Him. He is “the chiefest among ten thousand,” “He is altogether lovely.” S. of Sol. 5: 10,16.
ML 09/29/1968