Never Let Go | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 30, 1882

Never Let Go.

A son of pious parents grew up to be wild and wayward and wicked. One of the unanswerable arguments in support of the doctrine of the inherent depravity of human nature is to be found in the fact that, in spite of precept and promise, exhortation and example, even children so frequently swing off into reckless and ruinous courses of sin.

The boy we refer to furnishes a sad illustration of the truth of this general principle.

The father admonished him faithfully and sternly, while the mother prayed for him constantly and tenderly. But the admonitions were unheeded, and the prayers unanswered; for the boy’s brow was brass, his heart was flint, and his steps fast tended to the mouth of the pit.

Becoming at length not only debauched in habit, but defiant in spirit, the father lost all patience, and forbade him the house; but the mother with a changeless and quenchless love such as only beats in a mother’s heart, followed him up, and followed him ever, assuring him that, however low he might be fallen, there was one that would never cease to love him, and to pray for him.

At length her patient solicitude seemed likely to be rewarded; for the dissipated son, roused to desperate struggle by the consciousness of degradation, shook off his shackles and reformed his life.

At the mother’s entreaty the father relented and the prodigal was not only restored to the family circle, but was set up in business by funds which his father furnished, and for awhile was exemplary in his habits and successful in his undertakings.

But little by little his steps grew unsteady, his hours irregular, his associates doubtful, and his business involved.

The father protested, scolded, and stormed, until the dissipated and exasperated son flung himself out into the world again to wander up and down a homeless, hopeless vagabond—a tramp. He lived on the refuse of the cook-shops, and slept in hay-ricks and station houses.

He seemed abandoned of God and of man. But there was one human being that cared for him, wept over him, prayed for him, and desperately clung to God and her boy.

And when the father would say:—

"It’s no use to worry about John; we have tried to do our duty by him, but he is utterly incorrigible, and there is no power on earth that can save him;" she would tearfully and hopefully reply: "I know it, but there is One in Heaven who can save him, and I will never let go of my Father in Heaven, or my child upon earth."

And that child was saved. Saved at last, after long years of weary waiting. Saved so as by fire. And saved instrumentally as he gratefully declared, through the prayers and patience of that faithful mother, who was determined, "never to let him go."

Now, this has a lesson, not for parents only, but for Sabbath-school teachers, and for Christian workers in every possible relation of life. Never give up anybody that God puts in your way and lays upon your heart. Never let go a boy, no matter how sorely he may try your patience by the apparently incorrigible habits of wickedness. His case may seem desperate; but who can tell whether God may be gracious to you that the child may live? We have seen, time and again, so many brands plucked from the burning—so many seemingly hopeless cases snatched from the very mouth of the pit—that we have learned not to despair of anybody who is not absolutely dead or damned.

Cases become hopeless, simply because we cease to hope. If we believed in the possibility of saving them, then they might be saved: for "all things are possible to him that believeth."

There is a sad significance in that word "abandoned,"—an "abandoned" man, an "abandoned" woman—and they go to utter ruin just because they are abandoned.

In conclusion, then, we wish to urge with all the emphasis we can command—never eject a boy from your Sabbath-school; never drive him out into the rayless night.

If one teacher cannot manage him, give him to another. Compass him with prayers and sympathies. Let him never suspect that you have lost hope of him; and for the Lord’s sake, and his own, never let go while life lasts.—Baptist Teacher.