This makes no difference to the covenant of grace. Babes in their long-clothes, if they are heirs, have quite as sure a right to their inheritance as have those who are of full age. One is as legally protected as one-and-twenty. The children cannot yet take full possession by reason of their tender years; but the law defies a rogue to rob even an infant heir of his lawful patrimony. Enjoy you, therefore, O you little ones, the infinite wealth of the covenant, and doubt not your right and title in Christ Jesus!
However little you may be this makes no difference to God’s love to you. Ask yourselves, do you love that full-grown son of yours of twenty-five so much that you have the less love left for your chubby little boy at home of two or three? Bless his little heart! when he climbs your knee to-day and asks whether you have a kiss for him, will you answer “No Johnny, I cannot love you, for you are so little that I give all my love to your older brother, because he knows so much more than you do and can be so useful to me”? Oh no; you love the last one perhaps better than any of them: certainly not less. They say that if there be a child in the family who is a little weak, the mother always loves it most. It is so with our God; he is most tender and most gracious to the weakest and least known. Our Shepherd carrieth the lambs in his bosom and doth gently lead those that are with young: wherefore be not cast down because of your conscious inferiority, but admire the condescending grace of God.
If you feel that you are more brutish than anybody else, yet believe in God up to the hilt; believe in him and trust him with all your heart, and then feel all the more gratitude that he should have loved such a worthless one as you are. Feel all the more content with that free, rich, sovereign grace which has chosen you and ordained you to eternal life. Glorify God-by your very weakness. Glory in your infirmity, because the power of Christ doth rest upon you. Be all the more trustful in God since you have nothing in yourself to rely upon. Say, “The great ones may run alone, but I am a babe, and I must be carried in my Father’s arms; therefore I will have the greater faith to match my greater need.”
Our deep sense of folly and weakness should also keep us humble before the Lord. Where is room for boasting? What have we to glory in? We owe all to mercy, and to mercy shall be all the praise!
Lastly, be more tender to others who like yourself are feeble. It is wonderful how gracious little ones care for other little ones, sympathize with them, pray for them, and comfort them. I believe that the saying is strictly true, that “the poor help the poor”; and I know it is so among the spiritually poor. High and mighty ones cannot help downcast saints: only those who have been afflicted can console the afflicted. In the East, among the Bedouins, in a shepherd’s family, the little children, as soon as they can walk, learn to keep the lambs. You see, the little boy who can only go slowly can lead the little lambs admirably, for he and they go well together. The big father would have taken long strides and so have tired the little lambs; but his little son can only go at a slow pace, and that pace suits the lambs. The weak lambs are pleased with their little shepherd who is a lamb like themselves: he is fond of the lambs, and the lambs feel at home with him. So dear friends, if the Lord permits you to be among the little ones, look after the little ones; and whereas some would have to bend their backs too much to look after the lowly, you are on their level and will naturally care for their state. Thus will you find your sphere of usefulness, and in it you will earn to yourselves a good degree. Though like Agur you feel more brutish than any man, you will so live that nobody would have thought so if you had not told them; and few will believe it when you do tell them. To God alone be glory. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
