Cyril can’t get out! He’s down in the barrel, but the sides reach up too high, and he can’t get out.
This little boy reminds me of a mouse that was caught like that. Shall I tell you about it?
I had a metal wastepaper basket in my room. Somehow I left a few crumbs in it one evening, and the next morning, sure enough, there was a mouse in my basket. I heard him as soon as I came in. He scratched and scurried around, but the sides were straight up, and slippery. He didn’t like my basket and he didn’t like me, but he couldn’t get out.
Isn’t that like the little boy in our picture, and isn’t that just like a poor lost sinner? Yes, dear unsaved one, you have been nibbling Satan’s bait; you have sinned and you know it: and now you are caught in his trap. You are a sinner—a poor helpless sinner—doomed to die. You may scurry the whole world around, but you are doomed to die, and you know it. “Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Romans 5:1212Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (Romans 5:12).
Would you like to hear what happened to my poor little mouse? There was a doctor’s office near my room, so I just took basket and mouse to him, and he gave it a pretty strong smell of chloroform, and that was the end of that. My mouse was a nuisance; he nibbled and spoiled my good food whenever he could get it, and I was glad to be rid of him.
Isn’t it a good thing, a very good thing, that God doesn’t regard poor sinners like that, for death would not be the end of us. True enough, we have spoiled and damaged the beautiful earth He created, we have quarreled and fought and blasphemed His name. When He looks down from His glorious heaven, and sees us scurrying around His earth He could sweep us all off in a moment. Why doesn’t He?
Ah, poor sinner, it is almost too good to be true. God became a Man in the Person of the Lord Jesus, and walked this sin-stained earth among other men. But He was holy and sinless, yet He died a cruel death of suffering and shame. Now He is a risen and gloried Man in heaven, wanting to save a poor sinner like you, and give you a home in heaven. Yes, it is true God is beseeching you to be reconciled to Him. He can do it righteously too, because the Lord Jesus has borne the load of the sinner’s guilt on Calvary.
That is why God does not sweep us all off His earth. He will one day cleanse this whole earth by judgment, but today He waits. Will you come? Poor doomed sinner, how can you stay away any longer?
ML 08/02/1953