Ecclesiastes 7:27

Count ing One By Οne

Counting one by one. Ecclesiastes 7:27 (AV).

That is one of the first things we learn to do, isn't it? While we are little more than babies, before we know our alphabet or can read tiny words, we begin to count one by one. “One, two, three, four, five,” we say, and feel very proud when we can count up to ten or twenty. And then, when we go to school, one of the first things we learn to do is to count one by one. We have to count colored balls or beads, or little round colored chalk marks on the blackboard, and we have to learn the difference between two and three and between four and five. We can't get a bit farther on, we can't do addition, or subtraction, or multiplication until we first learn to count one by one.

Now I expect you are all fond of counting one by one. You are making a collection of postcards or postage stamps, and every now and again you take out your album and count over the contents one by one. Or you are saving up your money to buy something special, and you take them out frequently and count them over one by one and calculate how many more you will require to reach the desired sum. Or holiday time is approaching, and over your bed you have a calendar, and every night you tick off one day one day less to the holidays! You are still counting one by one.

And do you know that mother counts one by one too? What do you suppose she counts? Not her pleasures, not her treasures, just her boys and girls. If one of you were missing she would be very, very sad, and not all the others put together would make up for the loss of that one.

I was reading a story lately about a census that was taken in New York. You know what a census is, don't you? It is a numbering of the people. Well, one man had to take the census in a crowded district on the east side of the city. He came to a tenement where there were a great many children, and he found a woman there bending over a wash-tub. “Madam,” said he, “I am the census-taker. How many children have you?” “Well, lemme see,” said the washerwoman, “there's Mary, and Ella, and Delia, and Susie, and Emma, and Tommy, and Albert, and Eddie, and Charlie, and Frank, and” By this time the man was getting a little impatient, so he interrupted, “If you could just give me the number,” said he. “Number!” exclaimed the woman, “I want you to understand that we ain't got to numbering 'em yet! We ain't run out o' names!”

Do you see it? It would be an insult to call you by a number. Father and mother have given you a name, and your name means you and all that stands for you. They count you one by one, and you won't do instead of Mary or George, and Mary or George won't do instead of you. You each stand for yourself. You are each precious in their eyes. You count for something very wonderful and valuable.

And God counts us one by one too. Out of all the hundreds of millions of people on the earth He knows you and loves you and cares for you as if you were the only one. In a sense you are the only one.

Away in Africa there is a strange tribe of natives. It is said that they never count: they have no math. A gentleman once asked one of the tribe how many oxen he had, and the man replied that he didn't know. “Then,” said the gentleman, “how do you know if one is missing?” What do you think the man replied? “Not because the number would be less” he said, “but because of a face I should miss.”

Will your face be missing at the end of the day when the grand roll of God's children is read? It will matter infinitely to God if it is.