1 Thessalonians 5

Children Of Light

Ye are all the children of light. 1 Thessalonians 5:5 (AV).

Last winter I played a round game with a company of young people. In it the question was asked, “What does a certain word suggest to you?” (The word was mentioned.)

Now, when a minister chooses a text for a children's sermon, the first thing he does is to ask himself, “What do the words suggest?” If he thinks of the text I have given you a great many things will probably occur to him.

Let me tell you some of them. He will remember the daisy. Modest though that little flower be, it will persist in making its voice heard. It will keep saying, “I am child of light.” Boys and girls hardly ever think of the daisy as being beautiful: if they do pluck a bunch of them, is it not just to put a needle through the heart of them and make a daisy chain, or to throw them at each other for fun? Yet, how much we owe to that wee crimson tipped flower for making our fields beautiful. Its name is really a shortened form of “day's eye.” It was called the “day's eye” because it was so sensitive to light and darkness. I don't know if you have ever noticed that the daisy shows its face only in the sunlight; when clouds are over the sun it shuts itself up. If you went into a daisied field at night you would find all the little blossoms closed as tightly as possible. The daisy is certainly a child of light.

And the minister will hear the bird's song. His thoughts will perhaps go back to an early morning on a hillside after he had been camping out all night. He will hear the grouse beginning to talk to each other, and the mountain stream lilting its “bonnie havers” oh so sweetly, for the day is new and bright with the rising sun. Even in his days in the city, it has surprised him to discover that the summer sun is never dull enough to silence the blackbird and the thrush in his own garden. In spring he wakens up to a regular chorus. Then his thoughts will go higher; he will think of days when the world was young, “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” At last he will come back to everyday life, and to the boys and girls he knows. For a boy who is straight, who has no dark corners, is a child of light. He has nothing to hide, nothing to make him afraid of being found out. His whole nature is so full of light, that it is impossible to surprise him or take him at a disadvantage.

Let me tell you of two children of light. Once the keeper of a lighthouse fell ill when he was cleaning the lantern. By lighting-up time he was dying. His wife took his place and lit up, but had to come hurrying back to his bedside. Presently one of the children ran to her and said, “Mother, the lantern is not turning.” The father had not had time to wind up and set the heavy machinery which made the light revolve. It could not be left stationary lest it might be mistaken for another light. It had to be turned by hand, and the mother could not leave the dying father. What do you think those children of ten and seven years old did? They went up the long stair, and all the night they worked at the heavy levers of the hand turning- gear and kept the light revolving. It guided the ships homeward and pointed the way to those that were outward bound. And the captains saw it and blessed it. And the great ships and little ships passed; and none of all the company knew that the light which shone so clearly was kept going by two pairs of brave little arms and two brave little aching hearts whose mother was weeping and whose father was dying. They themselves knew they were children of the light, and, however sad they might be, they felt they must keep the light going.

Boys and girls, don't you want to be like them? They were brave they were little heroes. Think what the turning of that lighthouse lamp meant on that stormy night. You will be worthy of the name “children of the light,” when you keep your faces open to the great Sun, Jesus Christ. You can do that in your prayers and at your play. You can do it at your work. Hide nothing from your

Heavenly Father. Once a little boy who had heard his mother speak of Jesus Christ said, “I think ‘ Christ ' is a beautiful word, it shines like a light in a dark place.” He spoke the truth without knowing it.