It was in the first year of the Civil War that a widowed mother in a Kentucky town gave up her only son to her country. So great was her love for the Union that she said to him: “Go, my son; though you are my only child, my joy and support, I give you freely.” That was a great sacrifice.
Just before the regiment started for the camp at the front, it was drawn up in line, and friends gathered to bid a parting “good-by.” That widowed mother stood by her son, her arms about him, all her deep mother-love looking out of her eyes up into his face. Then as the bugle sounded, “Prepare to mount,” she clung to him with a closer embrace, but in another moment the second bugle sounded, “Mount.” The boy gently unclasped his mother’s arms from about his neck, and sprang to his saddle; but the mother fell at his feet in a swoon. Ah! It was costing her sore to part with her only son.
But, said a friend of the young man in our story, could that mother have foreseen what I saw a few days afterwards — the only son smitten down by the fragment of a burst shell and the battle surging back and forth over the spot where he fell; and could she have seen her boy, torn, dead, and buried in a nameless grave — I doubt if she could or would have given her only son. The cost would have been too great.
But when God gave His own Son He knew what was to be the result. He knew that from His birth to the Cross He would be set upon by Satan, that the very people He came to save would never rest until they had hanged Him on the Cross. He foresaw those hours of agony in the garden where He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. He foresaw the trial before Pilate, the shameful buffeting, and the Roman lash laid over His back. He foresaw the cross, with the nails through His hands and feet, the pierced side, the thorn-crowned brow, and most of all His awful sufferings during those three hours of darkness when making atonement. He knew of that bitter hour when His Son would die for sinners.
Think you not that it cost the Father something to hear His well-beloved Son to cry out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” And why did God forsake His Son when He was doing His will? Why? Because He was dying under the curse of the law, in the place of sinners, and so must suffer for their sins, though He knew no sin. And God could not draw near to help. When I think of all this, and that His blood was shed for the redemption of my sins, I say truly, it was wonderful love to me.
The Son of God did all this for thee. How great was His love to sinners! Alas, that sinners should scorn and despise Him. No wonder that the wicked are turned into hell with the nations that forget God, for where else could they go who have no place in their hearts for His dear love and redemption? Does it not speak to your heart? Have you trusted in the blood? Have you life through His death?
ML 10/08/1961