“LOOK, teacher,” said a big boy in my Sunday school class one afternoon, “look what I have had given to me.”
There was a card painted in three colors — black, red, and white. “Yes,” said I, “that’s very nice, and what does it mean?”
He replied: “The black means sin, the red the blood of Christ, and the white when the sins are all put away.” Then he showed me the other side of the card, on which were printed a number of verses relating to each color, and very clearly pointing out the way of salvation.
“Well, John,” I said, “you seem to understand your card very well. In which color are you?”
He answered solemnly, “In the black, teacher, but I don’t mean always to stay there.”
“I’m glad of that, John,” I added, “but when are you going to get into the white?”
“When I’ve left off some of my old sins, teacher,” he replied.
Poor John! How many there are like him, putting off the day of salvation, and trying to make themselves white, or holy, hoping that God may receive them, instead of trusting in the blood of Jesus to put away their sins.
John knew that the red came between the black and the white, and yet Satan was blinding his eyes. There is a well-known verse which says,
“If you tarry ‘til you’re better,
You will never come at all.
Not the righteous;
Sinners, Jesus came to call.”
Dear young friends, learn by John’s mistake. If by dropping your old sins you could make yourself fit for God, the red would be of no value, but we must learn to have God’s thoughts about the blood of Christ. He calls it “the precious blood of Christ.” 1 Pet. 1:1919But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: (1 Peter 1:19).
I’m glad to tell you that John soon after, was able to say he knew he had been “made white” through the precious blood of Christ.
ML-09/11/1966