A Faithful
Friend-
There was once a
farmer who had a dog that had been very useful to him. But
the dog was getting old, and sad to relate, his ungrateful
master made up his mind to get rid of him by drowning him.
So one day he took the dog with him to a large stream near
his farm, and getting into a boat, rowed out to the deepest
part of the river. He had brought along a heavy stone which
he had tied to a cord and this he fastened around the dog’s
neck. Then he threw him into the water. The poor dog sank,
but the cord broke, and as he rose to the surface with a
whine he tried to get into the boat again. Unmoved, his
pitiless master pushed him off a number of times with an
oar.
At last the heartless
man stood up in the boat with the oar in his hands,
intending to strike the dog a blow that would send him to
the bottom. However in the attempt, he lost his balance, and
fell into the water himself. He could not swim and would
have drowned, but when the noble dog saw his master
struggling in the water, in spite of the cruel treatment he
had just received from him, he swam up to him, caught hold
of his clothes, and brought him safe to land.
Cruel, heartless
wretch! we exclaim, to treat the noble dog so; he deserved
himself to drown. at any rate we surely hope he had a change
of heart and well repaid his faithful friend for his
devotion by showering him with kindness for the rest of his
days.
But stop a minute, my
dear friend; and consider if you yourself have not been
guilty of a far worse breach of the laws of kindness and
uprightness. Let us go back nineteen hundred years ago to
the time when Jesus the Son of God came into this world.
Though He was God Himself, the truth and the light, yet in
His hands He brought nothing but love and blessing for poor
ruined man. He went about doing good- healing the sick,
giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, feeding the
hungry, and bringing joy to the weary and sad. And yet what
did man do with Him? They cried out "Away with Him," and
nailed Him on a cross of wood. O the wretchedness, the
enmity of man’s heart. But that is your heart, and mine,
too. The Bible says, "The heart is deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jeremiah
17:9 We will take His blessing from His hands one minute,
but will get rid of Him the next if His will crosses the
path of our own.
But now let us look at
that blessed Man on the center cross, and see the heart of
God told out. Not a word of scorn or resentment, not a
finger raised in opposition; "He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb." It
is all love going out to a world of guilty sinners.
O lovely attitude! He stands
With open heart and outstretched
hands;
O matchless kindness! and He shows
His matchless kindness to His foes.
Then we may hear Him
pray, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
Though the cross was
the place where men sought to get rid of Him, in His death
it became the place where His saving grace flows out to all
who come in repentance, confessing their sins, and own Him
as their Saviour and Lord.
The faithful dog of
our story turned around and saved his masters life, but
Jesus saves not for time only but for all eternity; He gives
eternal life to "Whosoever will believe."
Dear reader, if you do
not yet know this blessed Saviour, we urge you to come to
Him now, while it is the day of His grace. Soon He will come
in judgment on this world, when "His anger shall burn as an
oven," and where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear in
that terrible day?
"God sent His only
begotten Son into the world, that we might live through
Him!"
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