Edmund Singer, who lived near Halifax, Nova Scotia, fed and sheered a lost mongrel dog. The dog seemed grateful and hung around his shack for a time. Then he disappeared.
Singer was hurrying home one day a month or so later along an icy side road. A heavy snowstorm had set in-a storm that was merging into a blizzard. The temperature was below zero. Singer was none too warmly dressed. His foot slipped on a sheet of ice, hidden from sight by the fast-falling snow. Down went Singer with a crash breaking his right leg. There he lay, helpless, unable to move.
Few, if any, would pass along that isolated side road during such a blizzard. Singer was in immediate danger of freezing to death.
Then it was that a dark figure appeared, apparently from nowhere through the heavy-falling snow. It was the nameless mongrel dog Singer had befriended. The dog sniffed eagerly at the fallen, helpless man, then dashed off into the storm.
Joe Baron, a lumberman, was plodding along a main road some distance away when a dog sprang out of a swirl of snow. The dog whimpered and tugged at his coat, beside himself with excitement. Joe realized the dog wanted him to come somewhere, and he followed to where Singer lay half dead in a drift. The lumberman lifted the suffering man with much difficulty and helped him to the nearest house.
The mongrel dog capered ahead, barking in gay triumph—the dog had repaid Singer’s kindness by saving him from death.
The dog has been called “man’s best friend,” and what a wonderful example of faithfulness many a dog has proved to be.
But man has a better Friend yet than the faithful creature who follows at his heels or sleeps beside the stove on cold winter nights. That is the Lord Jesus Christ. He has done what no creature ever has or ever could do. He left His home in the glory and came into this cold world of darkness and death to save poor man ready to perish.
We see Him pictured in the Samaritan who found the poor man lying half dead on the side of the road. While others passed him by, the Samaritan bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine. Then he traded places with the man, set him on his own donkey and brought him to an inn, where he provided for his keep until he should come back for him.
How many poor perishing sinners has the Lord Jesus found along the roadsides of this world. He has healed their wounds that sin and Satan have made; He has given them a new life by His Spirit and made their hearts glad.
He has raised them up together and made them sit together in heavenly places, and He has brought them to the company of His own people where they are comforted and cared for until He comes again.
All this the Lord Jesus has done for those who love Him. And much more will He do not only as long as we are in this world but when He has us in His eternal home in the glory.
Oh what a Saviour! Well might we praise and thank Him forever!
ML-01/30/1977