One day when I was a little boy my father brought me a strange looking present. It was a piece of metal shaped like a small horseshoe. Very soon we found. that it was not an ordinary piece of metal, but could do some wonderful things. It could pick up needles and nails and screws! What was it? A magnet.
After we had played with it for a while, father got some needles and pins and spread them out on the table. Then he held the magnet over the top of them, and a strange thing happened. All the needles jumped up to meet de magnet, and all the pins were left behind. Can you tell me why this was?
Oh, you say, the needles were steel, and the pins were brass or tin. Yes, that was just it. Although they looked ate same color outside, the inside was not the right material to be attracted by the magnet.
Now you know that the Lord Jesus is coming someday very soon to call out of this world all those that belong to Himself. All those who have been born again and have a clean heart will go up to meet Him in the air.
One day a group of children joined in singing,
“We know there’s a bright, and a glorious home,
Away in the heavens high,
Where all the redeemed shall with Jesus dwell;
But will you be there and I?”
I said to one little girl in the group, “Will you he there, Florence?” “Oh, yes,” she said, “I’ve always been a good girl. I’ll be there.” She looked all right outside, and she was always at Sunday school too, but she was not right inside, for she was trusting to herself instead of to Jesus.
And now, dear reader, which are you —a “pin” or a “needle?” I mean by that, will you be caught up to be forever with the Lord Jesus when he comes for His own? If you have taken Jesus as your Saviour and have been horn again, you will be there. But although you may try so hard to be good, and to act like a Christian, this will only make your outside clean but it will never make you ready to be with Jesus.
ML 10/22/1950