A visit to the dentist’s office is not usually a treat. Though the dentist has never really hurt me, I ease gingerly into the chair, and glance around at the many different instruments close at hand, and wish the ordeal were all over.
First he fastened a small white towel around my neck, and tilted the chair back. Next he took a little round mirror on a long handle and checked my teeth. This time it was a front tooth that needed a filling on the back side.
Now, I thought for sure I didn’t like going to the dentist. But do you know, I was in for a treat. While he was drilling he began to talk in short sentences when he was not too busy.
“Say, I think you know those folks that live next door to us on the corner. Haven’t I seen your family going in there occasionally?” With all the contraptions on, I couldn’t even nod my head, though I knew whom he meant.
“The little boy that lives there, the little one, you know, he’s quite a chap. My wife sometimes watches them out the window when they come out to play. It doesn’t take long before there are a lot of neighbor children collected there too. The other day one of the neighbor boys said something he shouldn’t have. Philip spoke right up, ‘Don’t say that. It isn’t pleasing to the Lord.’
“The other boy just laughed at him, but Philip continued more earnestly, ‘You mustn’t talk like that or you can’t play in our yard, because it isn’t pleasing to the Lord Jesus.’ She didn’t hear them say it again either.”
The Lord has left us here to shine as lights in this dark world, and when we let our light shine it may shine much farther than we think. The light shone in the yard that day. It reached the little boy’s heart and conscience. It also shone into the house next door. And now, clear downtown in a dentist’s office, it shone out bright as ever, when a worldly man repeated the incident where several others could hear the testimony of a little boy who loved that blessed One, and could not bear to hear His sacred name used in a way that was not to His honor and glory.
It warmed my heart to hear it. And now that same light shines out to you, warning you too not to despise that name! For God will not hold one guiltless who takes His name in vain. There is a day coming, when at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus alone can bring you salvation, hope, and peace with God. To know Him is to love Him. Don’t turn away from Him. Come to Him now. He will cleanse you from all your sins in His precious blood, and then give you “oil” for your lamp, that you too may be like one of those wise virgins of whom we read in Matthew 25, who were ready when the bridegroom came. The true oil is the Holy Spirit, who indwells every believer. He will enable you to shine as a light in this dark world. Then you too will be ready to meet the Lord Jesus when He returns to claim. His own.
ML 09/23/1956