MARGIE was a little girl who asked a lot of questions. But she didn’t ask them for mere curiosity’s sake, for she really wanted to know about many things, and it is always good when children are anxious to learn things that are pure and right.
There was one subject that interested Margie especially, and that was the coming of the Lord. She had learned that He was coming soon to take all His people up to heaven; that all who had died trusting in Him would be brought forth from their graves, that those who were living would be changed, and then all believers—men and women and little children would be caught up to meet Him in the air, to be forever with Him. She knew too that all those who did not trust Him as their Saviour would be left behind for judgment.
But what she could not understand was that if all the saved ones would rise to meet Him at His coming, how is it that the unsaved ones would not go up too. When Margie asked a dear Christian friend to elain it to her he thought of a simple way to illustrate this wonderful truth.
He put a number of pins and needles in a dish and covered some of them with a light layer of earth.
The pins were made of brass, the needles were of steel. He then took a strong magnet and brought it close to the earth. What do you think happened? Immediately all the needles—those under the earth and those above — flew upward and became attached to the magnet, held there by unseen power.
The pins of brass remained quietly behind unmoved; there was nothing in them to respond to the power of the magnet.
But what about those who sleep in Jesus in the depths of the ocean. Will they hear the Saviour’s assembling shout? Indeed they will.
One day we watched another Christian put some brass pins and steel needles in a glass bowl with water in it. When he brought his magnet over the water immediately the needles leaped upwards and clustered around the magnet.
And so, dear young friends, the dead in Christ and the living ones shall rise together and go home to be with the Lord Jesus forever. They are not afraid of His coming, rather they look forward to that moment with joy, for He has washed all their sins away in His precious blood and they belong to Him. But how sad to think of many who neglect or refuse His salvation and will be left behind in that day. The dead shall sleep on until they are raised, still in their sins, to be judged eternally at the great white throne.
How is it with you, dear reader? Are you one of the needles, or one of the pins?
ML-04/04/1976