I WAS considering the story of Gehazi the other evening, and the sin of untruthfulness, and how one falsehood is sure to lead to another. Gehazi’s sin brought before my mind a little incident, showing how one act of disobedience, as well as one untruth, leads to another.
My mother had given me and my sisters a little bottle each — imitation scent bottle s — but in giving them we were told never to take them to school. But one day I disobeyed her by taking mine. In going to school we had to pass some ponds (or clay pits), which we had also been strictly forbidden to go near. But on this particular day, as we were coming home, some of my school-fellows went down to one of these ponds, and filled some bottles they had with them with water, and now I thought how nice it would be to fill mine. You see, if I had not disobeyed in taking it to school, I should not have been tempted to fill it with water.
Well, down I went, intending to fill it; but, alas I it slipped from my fingers and sank to the bottom! Then I began to think how wrong I had been, and how angry — or rather, grieved — my mother would be at my disobeying her. But fortunately for me, as I then thought, one of the elder girls reached down her hand and drew up my precious little bottle, which you may be sure I was very pleased to see. Then the girls began to say, “Oh, your mother need never know,” and, as I had got my bottle back, I stifled conscience, and said nothing about it.
My sin of disobedience was not found out, but it found me out, for, although I had not told anyone, after I got to bed I could not sleep — for fear of what, do you think? That my mother would find out that I had disobeyed her, and punish me as I deserved? Oh, no; my fear was lest the Lord should come, for I knew I was not prepared to meet Him. Perhaps you wonder why I did not go straight and tell my mother. You see, I had put it off at first, and it is always harder to do right afterward.
But let me ask you, Have you ever done anything wrong? Have you told a lie to hide a fault? Has your sin found you out, and you are in terror lest the Lord should come? See to it that you own to your parents the wrong you have done; but, above all, go to the Lord Jesus now — do not put that off another moment — for how do you know that the next moment will be yours?
For some years after the little incident I have spoken of, I was always going to turn over a new leaf, but never did I get rest. Sometimes when awake in the night I would think, “If the Lord does not come before the morning I will be different; I won’t do this, and I will do that.” But all my good resolutions fell to the ground. And why? Because they were made in my own strength. I did not then know the Lord Jesus as my Saviour. I believed in Him, but not with the heart. I was like a woman to whom I was speaking the other day. She said, “I do believe, and yet I am not saved.”
Ah! she believed with the head then, but about a fortnight after she believed with the heart, and now she knows she is saved, and, as she says, “It’s all through the blood.”
Yes, nothing but the blood of Jesus can cleanse our souls from sin.
A dear old woman told me the other day that when quite a young girl she read a little book, entitled “Names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life,” and she thought, “I hope mine will be written there”; and her name is written there, not by any good works of her own, but simply by the Lord Jesus.
He will receive you, will wash you in His own blood, and make you fit to live with Him forever. You will not be afraid then to go to sleep for fear the Lord should come, and leave you behind. Oh, no; for He will not forget even the smallest child that believes in Him, but will take them, each and all, to be with Himself in glory forever.