Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals: 54. A Child for an Answer.
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Home Ideals (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 54. A Child for an Answer.
Other Subjects in this Topic:
A Child for an Answer.
Jesus rescued the babe from out of the corner where he had been thrust, and restored him to his own rightful place in society again. That is, He did it as far as He could. He could do it wholly only as men entered wholly into His thought, and eagerly worked with Him. Jesus found the babe and his mother covered up by rubbish, neglected and enslaved, used and sold as common chattels. And He freed them together to a marvellous extent.
But the task is a continuous one. He must be allowed full sway in the life for the babe's sake. For only so can the babe come to his own. Every bit of sin and ignorance hits and hurts the babe, even though the connection may seem very remote. He absorbs the atmosphere of his surroundings. The freer we are from sin through the Master's blessed grace, and the more He is allowed to come in and sway our lives, the more do our babes come into their birthright. And what will one not do for his babe's sake!
One day Jesus preached a great, illustrated sermon to his own inner circle of disciples. They had been discussing very earnestly among themselves which one was the greatest, each one probably thinking of himself. It seems childish at first flush. Yet the discussion doesn't seem to have stopped yet, entirely, over in our neighbourhood. Mark keenly, Jesus' answer was a child. He quietly called a little child, and set him in the midst of the group, and began talking about the child character.
This was His great simple answer to their ambitious self-seeking. They had gotten completely away from the child-spirit. Their eagerness to get ahead of each other in the kingdom of heaven was painful evidence of how little they knew of the spirit of that kingdom, and how thoroughly they were blocking their own way in. Jesus made the child their teacher; not by anything the child said; only by the speech of his presence.
It was probably quite a young child. He would not seem to take in what the Master was speaking of; though the child always takes in far more than we think. Likely as not Jesus held him on His knee, and kept him interested, as He talked softly and quietly with the men. And the child would look up into His face, or maybe would snug his little head against the Master's bosom. For Jesus and the babes were always great friends and perfectly understood each other. It was a great acted-out parable of how He has been seeking to teach all men.
That has been God's simple plan of teaching men everywhere from the beginning,—setting a child in the midst. He sets a child in our midst that from his young life we may learn the true spirit of life, the unhurt human spirit, the God-spirit. If in His love, He has set a child in the midst of your little circle, treat that child with utmost reverence, for he is God's teacher to you. In him God speaks to you very distinctly and earnestly.