“DO come to the Children’s Service this morning; each day you keep putting it off, and there will not be many more,” said a lady to a group of children on the seashore, who each time she had asked them, decided to “see about it,” which she knew now in their case meant staying away.
“Well, you see this is the holidays, and we want to enjoy ourselves at the sea, it’s just what we’ve come for,” one of them answered.
“Come, then, today, to please me, and I prophesy that tomorrow you will go for your own pleasure and enjoyment.”
The lady was right, day after day they at tended, and after hearing of the children’s Saviour, and His tender love, one of the boys said, “He had no idea religion was like that, and that Jesus had said so much about children.” He “wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth.”
Such a bare attic, holes in the floor, roof, and window, and very cold felt the wind as it blew on an old man lying on a bed in the corner. Near him stood a Bible-woman, softly repeating some precious Scripture promises to the dying man. Slowly he joined his hands, and said, “Oh! Lord Jesus, Thou hast for long years been very good to Thy sinful servant, but Thou art better than ever now, and I do thank Thee for these loving messages, they seem almost too good to be true.” He, too, “wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth.”
A little heart was very sad; the Holy Spirit had shown Nellie that she was a sinner, and she longed to know how to be saved. Her friends said she was too young to understand about such things, so alone Nellie read her Bible, and God soon showed her that “those that seek Him early shall find Him”; for she saw that He did not think her too young to come to Him, and as she read more and more, she “wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth.”
Have you ever listened to those “gracious words?” Do you say to Him as little Samuel did, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth?” If you do, I am sure you, too, wonder at His graciousness. Instead of upbraiding for all the time we have refused His love, He took us and He “laid us on His shoulders rejoicing,” and “He calls His own sheep by name”; what can we do but wonder, and thankfully answer, “Thy love to me was wonderful”?
But if you have not cared to hear what He says, not even wished to read His “gracious words,” I am not surprised you do not understand all this, and think it “just a pretty idea,” and “nice enough for some quiet, good little children.” No, no; His words “are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:6363It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63)); and the more you study them, the more you will wonder, but never till you hear those “gracious words” spoken just to you, can you really understand what they are; then you will say, “I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it, and, behold, the half was not told me.” (1 Kings 10:77Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came, and mine eyes had seen it: and, behold, the half was not told me: thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard. (1 Kings 10:7)). When will you come? Shall it be today?