He is a Sinner, Sir

While staying at Croydon, I spoke one day to a few children, who bad just come from school, and were at play in front of their cottage homes.

I told them of the Lord Jesus Christ, who left His own bright glory, and came into the world to save sinners; and then asked how many of them were sinners.

A little girl who was standing close to me, at once left her place, and pushing her way to the outside of the little ring around me, laid her hand on a boy’s shoulder and said, “He is a sinner, sir.”

“Yes,” I replied, “and you, my dear child, are a sinner, as well as the little boy—for the Holy God who knows all of us, and all about us, says: “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.” And “there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

This child of whom I have told you, thought there was a difference between the little boy and herself; she thought that he was a sinner, but that she was better than he, and not a sinner at all.

And perhaps my little reader is like this little girl; perhaps you, too, think that while there are a great many bad people in the world, yet you are very different, and not sinful in God’s sight. I want you, then, to open your Bible and read those verses of which I told the little children at Croydon, Romans 3:12, 22, 23; and then turn to 1 Timothy 1:15, for there you will find the good news “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

But the “good news” from God tells those who believe that “the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). And with our sins all gone we are made fit to be in heaven, and can thank God as our Father for making us fit (Col. 1:12). And now we can serve the One who never takes His eyes off us, and who loves “His own” with an everlasting love.

I.Fleming

Scattered Seed 1928, p. 28