Lord’s Day, Vol. 3 No. 42
(1) When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder – A Young Girl Is Called Home
A poorly clad fourteen-year old girl, Bessie, the child of a drunkard, was sitting on the steps of a broken-down house in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Professor James Black (1856-1938), a Sunday-school teacher, saw her there and asked, “Would you like to go to Sunday school?” She replied, “Yes, I would like to go but…” Black answered, “I understand.”
The next day he sent a parcel of clothing to the young girl, including a dress and new shoes. Bessie attended Sunday school that week and continued faithfully for many weeks thereafter. As president of the Youth Society, Black would call the names of members to mark attendance. They answered the roll call by repeating Scripture texts. He always looked forward to Bessie answering to her name when the roll was called.
But one Sunday, there was no response to Bessie’s name. Thinking perhaps she did not hear her name being called, Black called her name a second time. Still there was no answer.
He soon learned that Bessie had suddenly become ill and doctors held little hope for her. As he went home that day in 1893, the thought came to him that perhaps Bessie may never answer to her name being called again. Professor Black was a pianist and a distinguished poet. Remembering Bessie, words started to flow through his mind about another roll call. He wrote them down, sat at the piano and composed the music. It was all written in about half an hour and he never changed a single word or note of what came to him in those minutes.
In just ten days, Bessie died of pneumonia. The words that Black wrote before she went to answer the great roll call, have spoken to many hearts through the years. It challenges each and everyone of us to be ready when “the roll is called up yonder.”
When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound,
and time shall be no more,
And the morning breaks, eternal,
Bright and fair;
When the saved of earth shall gather
over on the other shore,
And the roll is called up yonder,
I’ll be there.
On that bright and cloudless morning
when the dead in Christ shall rise,
And the glory of His
resurrection share,
When the chosen ones shall gather
To their home beyond the skies.
And the roll is called up yonder,
I’ll be there.
Let us labour for the Master
from the dawn till setting sun,
Let us tell of all His wonderous
love and care;
Then, when all of life is over,
and our work on earth is done,
And the roll is called up yonder,
We’ll be there.
[Extracted and edited from Songs in the Night by Henry Gariepy].
(2) Keeping Your Heart With All Diligence
Proverbs 4:23 says “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
This proverb teaches us to keep our focus in setting our hearts aright with our Lord as first priority. Let our thought-life be sanctified always.
Let the motives and intents of our heart be God-honouring and God-fearing so that the words and actions that flow out of our lives may be a blessing to the people around us, whether they be our family members, friends or anyone we come in contact with.
When we examine the heart, we examine our thought-life. Is our thought-life Christ-centred and God-ward or is it encumbered with entanglements of sin that cripples us, taking away our strength and vitality? Watch and guard your heart.
This phrase “with all diligence” is placed at the beginning of the sentence in the original for emphasis. And a direct translation is “out of all observance”, observe your heart most carefully.
Keeping the heart is more important than ‘keeping’ the other physical parts of our body – like our tongue, our eyes and our feet. For the heart is the seat-centre of our words and actions. By our thoughts we are what we are. Our actions proceed out from our thoughts. Hence the King James translator uses the word “diligence” to show that the ‘keeping’ involves determined effort.
Our Lord Jesus judges us by our thoughts for He is God and He is able to read thoughts. Therefore the question that is asked before us is this, “How is your thought-life?” Is it clean and pure or is it polluted and defiled?
Therefore to determine how well we will succeed in God’s sight, the focus here must be the keeping of our hearts. The word “keep” is in the imperative, a command by God that we are to give due attention. When our hearts are pure, we shall be blessed and see God (Matthew 5:8).
Yours lovingly,
Pr. Lek Aik Wee