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One of the
most heart-moving conversions that I have ever known, I witnessed in my city,
during the holiday period in mid-winter. There reached me the message that a little
Sunday school boy in one of our mission Sunday schools had been accidentally
shot by his little neighbor friend. I hurried to the humble home as fast as I
could go. I found the unconscious little fellow in the hands of two skilful
doctors. Said they, "He will not live. The shot is unto death." I
went back the next day and the boy's father was in the stupor of a terrible
drunk. I went back the next day, and the father was sobering up. He would
walk the floor as tears fell from his face, while he looked on that little
suffering boy, nine or ten years of age. Bending over his boy, he would say,
"My little man is better, and he will soon be well!" The little
face was clouded as he feebly whispered, saying, "No, papa; I will not
get well." And then the father protested, as he said, "You will get
well, and I will be a good man and change my ways!" |
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The little
fellow's face was clouded, and he kept trying to say something, and I reached
for the man to bend over to catch it, and this is what we did catch, after
awhile: "When I am gone, papa, I want you to remember that I loved you,
even if you did get drunk!" That sentence broke the father's heart. He
left that room, unable to tarry any longer. A few minutes later, I found him
lying prone upon his face, there upon the ground, behind the little cottage,
sobbing with brokenness of heart. |
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Said he,
"Sir, after my child loves me like that, oughtn't I to straighten up and
be the right kind of man?" I said, "I have a story ten thousand
times sweeter than that to tell you. God's' only begotten Son loved you well
enough to come down from heaven and die for you, Himself the just, for the
unjust, that He might bring you to God. Won't you yield your wasting, sinful
life to Him, and let Him save you?" |
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Then and
there he made the great surrender. You should slip into one of our prayer
meetings, when the men and women talk about what Christ has done for them,
and one of the most appealing and powerful testimonies you would hear' is the
testimony of this harness workman, as he stands up, with tears on his face,
to tell you that love brought him home when everything else had failed. They
criticized him; they scolded him; they railed at him; they pelted him with
harsh words because he drank. Then a little boy said, "Papa, I love you,
even if you do get drunk," and love won the day when everything else
failed! -- George W. Truett |
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From:
2700-PLUS SERMON ILLUSTRATIONS By Duane V. Maxey |