A dairy farm is a busy place. The cows have to be milked each morning and each evening every day of the week. And even if the farmer has to go away for a few days, somebody still has to milk the cows twice a day. If a farmer doesn’t have a son to work with him, he often hires another man to help him with chores.
It usually takes several hours to do the chores each morning and each evening. Not only are the cows milked, they are also given special feed at that time. Then there is the cleanup afterward. All the milking equipment must be carefully cleaned and put away. Then the floors have to be swept. So a dairy farmer spends lots of time in the dairy barn, besides time in his workshop where he repairs his machinery and time out at the silo where he feeds his other cattle twice a day.
Mr. Beckley was one of these busy dairy farmers. It seemed as though every time an important phone call came for him he was out in the barn or workshop. One day he read an article about a farmer who bought a cordless telephone and carried it with him wherever he happened to be on the farmstead when he was expecting a phone call. Mr. Beckley thought that sounded like a good idea. He decided he’d keep his eyes open for one on sale sometime.
Several weeks later he went to an auction at a hardware store. Sure enough, they were selling a cordless telephone. It was a new phone, but it didn’t work. He was told its battery wouldn’t take a charge. But for $10 he decided to take it home and maybe he or one of his sons could fix it.
When he got the telephone home he and his oldest son, Todd, took it apart and discovered it had a broken wire. That was easy enough to fix. Todd got out the soldering iron and soldered the wire back together again. The phone took the charge... but they discovered it still wouldn’t work. Something else was wrong.
Have you ever wished you could “repair” some of the broken parts of your life? Sometimes we wish we could take back something we’ve said that wasn’t true. Or maybe it was a mean trick we pulled on somebody we didn’t like. These things have a way of bothering us, and we wish we hadn’t done them. Sin never makes us happy. We might look happy on the outside, but sin only makes us unhappy, deep inside where nobody but God can see. Admitting we told a lie or saying we’re sorry doesn’t erase the sin (although both are right to do). God still sees it as sin, and no matter how much “repair” work we try, it won’t work. We still have those sins on our record with God.
Mr. Beckley and Todd checked over the telephone parts again to make sure nothing else was broken. Everything looked okay, so they put it all back together again. But the phone still wouldn’t work. It was then that Todd discovered a tiny little switch below the earpiece. When he switched it on, the phone worked beautifully. That was the answer! They can talk from the workshop or barn now and Mr. Beckley doesn’t miss his important telephone calls. It has saved them time and steps ever since.
We can’t do anything to “repair” our sin problem, but God has the answer for it. He tells us in the Bible “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” 1 Timothy 1:1515This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:15). All you and I have to do now is accept for ourselves that Christ Jesus died on the cross for our sins. His blood shed on the cross has the power to wash away every one of our sins so that we are clean in God’s sight. That’s all we have to do. Mr. Beckley’s telephone would never have worked no matter how many parts they replaced or repaired. That little switch had to be turned on. And no matter how hard we try or how much we do, we can’t do anything about our sins. God has the only answer through His Son Christ Jesus. It’s the only way that works. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.” Titus 3:55Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5).
ML-11/30/1986