Now, Reggie, you must not throw your ball toward people’s houses, and mind what I say,” Reggie said he would.
A day or two after this he went out for a walk with his mother, and on the way home he said, “Please, mother, don’t go up that way; we can go the other way.”
“But why, Reggie, don’t you want go home this way?”
“Well, mother, I don’t like; please do come the other way.” On returning to the house, someone was there waiting to see Reggie’s mother.
“Please, ma’am,” she said, “your little boy threw a ball and broke our window, and I came to get paid for it.”
Poor Reggie might say he would not do it again. He might even cry with true sorrow for what he had done. But there was the woman, and she waited to be paid for the broken window. Tears and repentance could not pay for a broken window. Reggie could not satisfy the woman’s demands, for he had nothing to pay her with. So his mother, because she loved her boy, paid the debt for him.
Perhaps my young friends have not broken a window, but, far worse, you have all broken God’s law—you have all sinned. Tears and prayers, and promises to do better, cannot make amends for your sin.
Poor Reggie’s tears and prayers could not mend or pay for the broken window, so someone else had to pay instead of him. just so Jesus Christ, because He loved us, came to earth, and with His precious blood paid the debt of sin for us; and now, if we believe in Jesus, God will save us, and own us as His own dear children. So long as Reggie’s debt was not paid, he was afraid to meet the woman.
Are you afraid to meet God? Then it is because your sins are not forgiven, because you haven’t truly believed in Jesus.
ML 05/26/1940