During the American Civil War, a farmer in New York was drafted for the Union Army. Selective Service was not what it is today. His wife had died and he was the sole support of his young children. But then an unmarried man in the town who had no dependents came to his home and offered to go to war in his place.
For the sake of his children, the farmer accepted the offer. The generous friend marched off to battle, and in the first engagement he was shot and killed.
When the farmer heard what had happened, he went to the scene of the battle and brought back the body. He buried his friend in the village churchyeard, and had these words engraved on the headstone: HE DIED FOR ME.
The Bible relates that to us. Paul said of Christ: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Think about this today.
Tags: Civil War, death, substitute
Cliff Barrows, one of the big three that made up the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, once told of the time his two young children did something wrong. Although they were gently warned, they repeated the offense and needed to be disciplined. Cliff’s tender heart was pained at the thought of having to punish the ones he loved. So, he called Bobbie and Bettie into his room, removed his belt and shirt, and with bare back he knelt by his bed. He told each child to whip him 10 times. Oh, how they cried! But the penalty had to be paid. The children sobbed as they lashed their daddy’s back. Then Cliff hugged and kissed them, and they prayed together. “It hurt,” he recalled, “but I never had to spank them again.”
That story illustrates what Paul meant when he wrote, “God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
Have you ever paid the price for someone else’s wrong? Tell us about that.
Tags: children, penalty, substitute
Years ago I ordered a plant from a mail order seed catalog. At the bottom of the printed form there was the statement: “If we do not have the article you ordered in stock, may we substitute?” The variety wasn’t essential, so I marked ‘Yes’.
When my order arrived, it included something that was worth double the price of the article I had requested, plus several other items. The company explained, “We are sorry we do not have the article in stock which you ordered. We are sending you something better at our expense.”
The neat thing about prayer is that God sometimes substitutes something even better than that which we requested. He is always watching out for our good, and sometimes says ‘No’ for our own good, with a soon coming much better substitute.
Tags: better, prayer, substitute
H. A. Ironside, the great California preacher of the early 1900s, once told this story: “One morning I was startled to see an old ewe loping across the road, followed by the strangest looking lamb I had ever seen. It had six legs, and the last two were hanging useless as though paralyzed.
“The ewe’s own lamb had died, and this sex-legged lamb was an orphan that needed a mother’s care. But at first the bereft ewe refused to have anything to do with the orphan. So the herders took the fleece from the lamb that had died and placed it over the living lamb. Thus covered, the lamb was brought again to the ewe. This time she seemed thoroughly satisfied and adopted it as her own.”
He concluded, “This is a beautiful picture of the grace of God to sinners. We are all outcasts and have no claim on His love. But God’s own Son, ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29), has died for us, and now we who believe are dressed in the righteousness of the Lamb who died.”
Think about what this means to you today.
Tags: acceptance, lamb, substitute