AN APPLE IN A BOTTLE
Posted by wagardner - 18/02/08 at 03:02:44 pm
by Charles Spurgeon
”I remember well, in my early days, seeing upon my grandmother’s mantel shelf an apple contained in a phial. This was a great wonder to me, and I tried to investigate it. My question was, “How came the apple to get inside so small a bottle?” The apple was quite as big round as the phial; by what means was it placed within it? Though it was treason to touch the treasures on the mantel-piece, I took down the bottle, and convinced my youthful mind that the apple never passed through its neck; and by means of an attempt to unscrew the bottom, I became equally certain that the apple did not enter from below. I held to the notion that by some occult means the bottle had been made in two pieces, and afterwards united in so careful a manner that no trace of the join remained. I was hardly satisfied with the theory, but as no philosopher was at hand to suggest any other hypothesis, I let the matter rest. One day, the next summer, I chanced to see upon a bough another phial, the first cousin of my old friend, within which was growing a little apple which had been passed through the neck of the bottle while it was extremely small. “Nature well known, no prodigies remain.”
The grand secret was out. I did not cry, “Eureka! Eureka!” but I might have done so if I had then been versed in the Greek tongue. This discovery of my juvenile days shall serve for an illustration at the present moment. Let us get the apples into the bottle while they are little: which, being translated, signifies, let us bring the young ones into the house of God, by means of the Sabbath-school, in the hope that, in after days, they will love the place where His honor dwelleth, and there seek and find eternal life. By our making the Sabbath dreary, many young minds may be prejudiced against religion: we would do the reverse. Sermons should not be so long and dull as to weary the young folk, or mischief will come of them; but with interesting preaching to secure attention, and loving teachers to press home the truth upon the youthful heart, we shall not have to complain of the next generation, that they have “forgotten their restingplaces.””
Lessons we can learn from this note in Spurgeon’s autobiography!
1. We must build strong children’s ministries! We have to get them while they are small and get them in Sunday School and church.
2. We must make sure we get the Bible into them as much as possible
3. We must make sure that our lessons and messages as we teach and preach are anything but boring! This is no new idea that the new “not like your grandmother’s church” people!
4. We want to have loving teachers that can deal with these children so your ministry in Sunday School and Children’s Church is a very important ministry. Thank you Vision Baptist Church workers for all you do!
No Comments yet »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Powered by WordPress with GimpStyle Theme design by Horacio Bella.
Entries and comments feeds.
Valid XHTML and CSS.