Gems for the Week
August 9
". . . receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account ." (Philemon 17,18)
It doesn't make any difference what our past has been, if the grace of God comes into our lives, all the privileges that belong to any children of God lie before us. We can appropriate them. Don't be discouraged by thinking how bad you have been. Onesimus certainly had a bad name. Probably they said some very harsh things about him where he came from, but here the Spirit of God is pleased to record, "Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother." (Colossians 4:9) His name means "profitable."
He certainly had not lived up to his name in the early part of his life. He had been unprofitable. He had been a liability to his master (Philemon). Now he goes back - no longer unprofitable, but profitable. I wonder how the Lord would write you up - as profitable, or unprofitable? In one sense we are all unprofitable servants, but we want to distinguish between things that differ. That doesn't mean that we are to slump down, fold our hands, and say, "I am an unprofitable servant," and stay still. That scripture does not mean that we should not have an earnest desire that we might be enabled to do something to please the Lord, something that He can own as for Himself. (From an address by C.H. Brown)
N.J. Hiebert # 3426
August 10
"In the beginning God, created the heaven and the earth."
(Genesis 1:1)
The mind of man cannot conceive of anything in existence that has not had a maker - such a thing would be unthinkable. There must be a cause for every effect. I ask, Who made that table? You reply, the carpenter. Then I asked, who made the carpenter? Somebody must have made him; and so you get back to the first original cause, and that is GOD. Hence the first of Genesis opens, sublime in its grandeur and simplicity - "In the beginning God." This commends itself to every man's reason; he knows there must be a God. Yet no uninspired man would have written that first chapter of Genesis as it stands.
What gropings in the dark have we in the philosophy of the ancients, and the scientific hypotheses of moderns! What voluminous treatises on cosmogony (theory of creation)! What changing theories as fresh light breaks in exposing the fallacy of earlier conclusions!
But God's Word never changes. Though not intended as a handbook of science, it nevertheless alludes to scientific subjects, and in a miraculous manner is always right. Take such a chapter as Genesis 1, written between three and four thousand years ago, at a time when the science of geology was unknown, treating of a vast subject, the creation, and doing so in the briefest manner possible, yet invariably correct - how could this be accounted for apart from inspiration? (A.H. Barry)
N.J. Hiebert # 3427
