Four Little Words

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 28, 1868

Four Little Words.

THE JEWS, in former times, wrote texts of Scripture on parchment, and tied them on their foreheads and round their arms. This was done, they said, that they might have the word of God always before them, to keep them from trouble and sin. Some Jews do the same thing now.

We wish the children would have four words of Scripture written on their hearts, which, with the blessing of God, will truly preserve them from sin and danger. If you listen to a short story you will learn what they are.

My father lived in a cottage. As he was a poor man, with a large family, and but little money, it was only a humble home that he could call his own. In the garden a few roses and pinks were to be seen in their season; the rest of the ground was used for potatoes, cabbages, and other useful things for the family.

One day my father's master gave him a few strawberry plants. These were placed in the best part of the garden, and attended to with great care. In due time there were signs of fruit. “The plants promise very well,” said my father; “I think they will bear this year.”

Jane, my eldest sister, had been for a long time in bad health, and my father said that he wished all the strawberries to be kept for her. She could take very little food, and he was glad to get any thing to which she took a fancy, if he could find the money to buy it.

As the strawberries would cost nothing, and as we all knew they would please my sister, we agreed that we would not taste a single one—all should be saved for her.

As often as I came home from the fields in the evening, I went to see how the strawberries were getting on, and often looked at them with a longing desire to taste them. At last they were just ripe, and father said that in about two days they would be fit to be gathered, and that he was sure there would be enough to fill a saucer.

Early in the morning of the day when the fruit was to be picked, I got up before the rest of the family were awake, and the wicked thought came into my mind that I would go slyly into the garden and taste them. “A few will not be missed,” said I to myself. Slowly and softly I passed down stairs, and opening the garden door, I stood by the side of the strawberries. Oh, how fresh and nice they looked, so early in the morning! There were, I was sure, twenty that were quite ripe. How many could I take without their being missed? Perhaps two, or five. As I gazed upon them, my sinful desires grew until I was ready to take at least half of them.

I looked up at the window of the room where my parents slept, and then at the little room where dear Jane lay; there was no one to be seen. So, stooping down, my fingers were in a moment on one of the largest and ripest, when the thought darted into my mind, “Suppose they should be missed, and I am asked if I took them, what could I say?”

I quickly rose up, and was about to return into the house, when my evil heart said, “Oh, your father will not suspect that you were the thief; he will think that some strange boy got over the palings, at night, and stole the fruit.”

This bad thought made me bold, and I went back to the strawberry bed. Again I fixed my eyes on the windows and looked around me. There was no one moving. All was quite silent, except the twitter of sparrows on the cottage thatch, and the song of the lark as it flew upward to the sky. My hands once more touched the fruit, when these four little words darted into my mind—“THOU GOD SEEST ME.”

These words saved me from the sin I was about to commit. It was almost as though I had heard them spoken aloud. “My father does not see me; but God does; his eye is upon me now.” I sprang up on my feet, and got back into my room without any one in the family having seen me.

In about an hour after this time, I saw my father go into the garden to gather the strawberries. He took all that were quite ripe; and when dear Jane came down stairs, they were placed before her in a pink saucer. When she saw them, a sweet smile came over her pale face. My father looked happy; Polly, my youngest sister, looked happy; we were all happy, as we saw how they pleased her, and refreshed her parched lips. Then how glad I was that I had not taken them, and that my hands had been kept from stealing. Yes, it was that thought, “Thou God seest me,” that held me back from doing wrong in the hour of danger.

“Where are those words to be found?” I said. “Are they the text of a sermon I have heard, or a part of a Sunday School lesson I have learned?” I was almost sure that they were in the Bible; and I made up my mind to find them.

That day I had to look after farmer Dobson's sheep, and I asked my sister Jane to lend me her Bible to take with me to the field, so that while the sheep were feeding, I might sit down and seek for these four little words.

And do you know where I found them? They were in the sixteenth chapter of the book of Genesis, in an account of Hagar, who fled from her mistress into a desert place. As she sat by the side of a well, the angel of the Lord met her, and told her to go back to her mistress. Then she called the name of the angel who spake to her, “THOU GOD SEEST ME.” She was out of the path of duty, and these words kept her, as they did me, from going further in the way that was wrong and full of danger.

At night when we all met at family prayer, my father read a chapter from the New Testament. There was one part of it which was about a good man, Nathanael, to whom Jesus said that he had seen him under a fig-tree. Now, the good man who, perhaps, had been praying under the shady branches, knew that he had been quite alone: and when he heard what Jesus said, he cried out, “Master, thou art the Son of God.”

After my father had read the chapter, he said to us, “Do not forget, dear children, that God our Saviour sees you always. This is a sad thought to the sinner; but not so to those who love Jesus. If we have gone to him in faith for the pardon of our sins, and if the grace of the Holy Spirit has changed our hearts, leading us to repent of sin, and to keep his holy law, it is a thought full of comfort. He sees us in all our times of trouble and danger; and we know that he looks upon us in love, and will not forsake those who trust in him. Let the words, ‘Thou God, seest me,’ cheer you in duty, encourage you in prayer, and keep you from sin.”

Now, it did seem very strange to me that my father should use these words. It, however, served to fix them more deeply in my mind; and many a time since then, the thought of the all-seeing eye of God has kept me from the road that leads to death.

Will you, reader, think of them also? God always sees you. All things past, present, and to come—everything that has been, and now is, and that shall be,—are seen by him at once. All that are in Heaven, and all that are on the earth, are beneath his eye. Some think that if they can get out of the sight of men, they may sin as they please; but there is no place where they can hide themselves from God. The broad daylight and the dark night are alike to him. In the deep forests, and in the caves and mines of the earth, God is there. He sees all that can be seen; he knows all that can be known. “Can any hide himself in secret places, that I shall not see him? saith the Lord.” Jer. xxiii, 24. “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Heb. iv, 13.

Would you, then, resist evil and overcome sin—would you do what is right and find comfort when you go to the house of God, or kneel down to pray at home? Ask of the Holy Spirit to apply these four little words to your heart—“THOU GOD SEEST ME.”