Gems for the Week
August 28 - 31
"In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so
I would have told you." (John 14:2)
In the New Testament there are three outstanding illustrations that are used to portray for us the world beyond. It is spoken of as a country (Hebrews 11:16); as a city (Hebrews 11:10); and as a home (John 14:2). There is, however, not anywhere else in the Bible, a view of the heavenly world so clear and so full, and yet so brief and so simple, as is contained in the words of John 14:2.
There are mansions there; mansions - not made with human hands - changeless and eternal. Three things are suggested by the word: permanence, spaciousness, variety. There are many mansions, infinitely large in number, each suited to the inhabitant. It is a house of many mansions: unity presides over all variety. It is a Father's house - a great paternal dwelling-place where brothers and sisters form one family, abiding under His eye and hand.
"Oh think! To step ashore and that shore Heaven;
To breathe new air, and that celestial air;
To feel refreshed and know 'tis immortality.
Oh think! To pass from storm and stress
To one unbroken calm; to wake and find it Glory."
God will be there in His fulness; Christ in His majesty; redeemed humanity in the rapture and radiance of its everlasting bliss. Into that Home all the ransomed from every tribe of the peopled earth, and from every age of the history of man, shall enter, and there abide forever. When visiting a certain home, one was asked to sign his name in the guest-book. Before he did so his hostess drew his attention to these lines, which she had written on the opening page:
"When the great Guest-Book in the house above,
Lies spread before us in the Home of Love,
One record only waits the writer's name:
No record of departure; only 'came'."
In the earthly Eden there was a way out, but not in (Genesis 3:24); in our heavenly dwelling-place there is a way in, but not out (Revelation 3:12). (Henry Durbanville - His last Words - 1954)
N.J. Hiebert # 3079
"With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10:10)
His love broke my heart to make room for Christ, and I know it was love that did it. Till then I never knew either the creature's need of Christ, nor Christ's sufficiency for a broken heart. (G.V. Wigram)
N.J. Hiebert # 3080
"Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry."
(Hebrews 10:37)
In His eternal presence, how shall we feel that all our little sorrows and separations were but little drops by the way, to make us feel that we were not with Him, and when with Him what it is to be there. (J.N. Darby)
N.J. Hiebert # 3081
"And a certain woman said . . . if I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole. (She) fell down before Him (Jesus) and told Him all the truth. And He saidunto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole."
(Mark 5:25-34)
FAITH is a divine plant that only grows out of the soil of a broken will. (Edward Dennett)
N.J. Hiebert # 3082
"Occupy till I come." (Luke 19:13)
I am never really in the spirit of service if I do not remember that Christ is an absent and rejected Lord. I am . . . a servant who has to recognize the sorrowful fact that his Master has been rejected and insulted here. Is it not a tender thought that the very sorrows and insults which have been heaped upon Him here are so many fresh claims on one's affections? (J.G. Bellett)
N.J. Hiebert # 3083
