I suppose you have often heard of little girls putting their dollies
to bed. Well, here is a story of a full-grown woman by the name of
Michal who put her little god to bed.
We read this strange story in the Bible and we will find it written
in 1 Samuel 19:13. "And Michal took the image, and laid it in the
bed, and put a pillow of goats' hair for his bolster, and covered it
with the clothes." But who was this Michal who put her god to bed?
She was the wife of King David, and you would have thought she had
thrown her idols all away long ago, but she did not do this but
continued to put one god to bed long after she had become the wife of
a king who believed only in the one true and living God. I suppose
she often sang with David her husband, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I
shall not want," and often with her husband had repeated, "God is our
Refuge and our Strength," but with all this she nevertheless put her
idol to bed and motherlike, she found herself down on her knees
placing the bolster under the head of her idol and carefully covering
it with clothes just as mother tenderly tucks in her little baby boy
for the night.
Well, after all, I guess she was just like the most of us, she openly
confessed her belief in the true God, but on the side had a darling
idol or two.
Let us examine ourselves and see if we are putting idols to bed also.
Secure three images of Buddha. They can easily be purchased in the
shops as they are now sold for incense-holders. The first idol we
will label "Irreverence." I am afraid that most all of us have this
idol in our possession. We pray to God on Sunday, and then the rest
of the week we live any old way. Sometimes when we are in church we
whisper, talk, and run about during the service, or look about the
room during prayertime, and pay but little attention to the minister
who is speaking to us for God. We often pay more attention to our
earthly friends than we do to God who is our Chief Friend. All this
is a display of Irreverence. Do not let us do this, but put this idol
out of our life, and worship the true God only. The best way to
cultivate reverence is to go to God's house and learn how to worship
him. The music, the message, and the holy surroundings of the place
of prayer all make it easy for us to be reverent.
Oliver Wendell Holmes said he had a tender little plant in his heart
which he called "Reverence," which he needed to water once a week to
keep it fresh and fragrant, so he went to church to water that plant;
there he came under the showers of blessing which God sends to his
people who are reverent and worship him. Reverence grows fast when we
go to church. After you have said this, put the idol in an old bag
which you have made to hold cast-off things.
The second idol we will label "SELFISHNESS." When we put ourselves
first and are self-willed and always want our own way, then we are
putting the idol of "selfishness" to bed. This idol is like the white
ant of Africa which is a secret destroyer. It feeds on wood.
A man built himself a house on a piece of land that he thought was a
safe place, and after it was finished all the people said it was a
thing of beauty. But suddenly one day it fell with a great crash. Now
look over the wrecked timber, and you will discover that the inside
of the timbers had been eaten clean away. This ant is no respecter of
things. It eats books, furniture, trunks, chairs, dolls, and toys, or
anything.
Selfishness is like this ant. It secretly eats away the heart of
love, and we are dead to the appeal of the world for sympathy. No boy
or girl can love himself or herself above all others without dying
inside. Like the African ant, selfishness destroys from within, it
kills the heart.
Bishop Butler, one of the most learned men, said, "Be more afraid of
thyself than of the world." Be afraid of the idol of selfishness, it
is yourself at your worst. Put it away, _not_ to bed.
A poor little girl in the slums of London one cold snowy night said
to her little brother who was shivering with the cold by her side,
"Come closer to me, dear little brother, come under my shawl, it will
stretch and cover us both." She never knew anything of the idol of
selfishness, no one ever does who stretches the shawl for two. Put
this idol in the old rag-bag and put it out of sight.
The third idol we will label "Hatred." We worship this idol when we
say to another, "I hate you," and then add all sorts of evil words
designed to hurt and kill, and so often we seem glad to believe all
the evil said about our enemies, and so worship this idol with glad
hearts. Often we get some foreign substance in our eye, and we cannot
see except with a blurred vision. We do not see things as they really
are. Thus "hate" often blurs our sight, and we cannot see straight.
"Hate" is a foreign substance in the mind's eye and we cannot see
people as they are.
John Hus the Reformer was bound to the stake to be burned to death
because of his faith in Jesus. A poor old peasant woman came up with
a piece of wood to add to the fire which was to burn the martyr to
death, and when it was flung on the pile, she seemed to be happy and
contented. John Hus said to her, "Have I ever harmed you or yours
that you are so bitter against me?" "Never," she replied, "but you
are a heretic, and wood is scarce, and it looks like a hard winter,
but I am glad to do my part to rid the world of such an accursed
heretic." John Hus reached out his hand and drew the fagot close to
his side and said, "With my heart I forgive you," for John was a
Christian. She was a heathen putting her idol of "hate" to bed. She
was so blind with hate that she did not know a saint when she saw
one.
Be like Jesus who loved all men. A brother of mine when he was
converted said, "I feel like kissing everybody." He had put the idol
of hate in the rag-bag and, like Jesus, loved everybody. Should you
not go and do likewise?
If this lesson is given to small children secure a doll's bed, and
have the idols all put to bed before the children assemble. Place
this bed on the table or any place where it can be seen by all. Take
them out of bed one by one, and give the lesson, and then say, "Shall
I put them back to bed or in the rag-bag?"
After this tell them we are all to love God and not idols. Tell them
the true God never goes to bed, and neither slumbers nor sleeps, but
watches over us to see if there is not some good thing he can do for
us the next day. His Son looks on and says, "Suffer the little ones
to come unto me." Let's go.
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