Gems for the Week
March 13 - 18
"And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, and cast out the wheat into the sea." (Acts 27:38)
Strange that having eaten nothing for 14 days, those on board did not seem to value the life giving food they were finally able to enjoy. Stranger still that once filled they would so quickly throw overboard the very thing needed to preserve their life. How swiftly we too - after the precious Word of God has satisfied and helped us through some trial - can lose our taste of its life-giving riches.
Having freshly received the sense of God's wonderful forgiveness, do not thoughtlessly throw out all the rich and boundless truth (wheat) found in its pages. It is possible that even a newly restored soul can quickly lose the appetite for and sense of need of the Bible. (The Journey of Life)
N.J. Hiebert # 2550
"Why do ye such things? for I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. No, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: ye make the Lord's people to transgress. If one man sin against another, God will judge him; but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall intreat for him?" (1 Samuel 2:23-25)
You ask, What was this man of God (Eli, the high priest) lacking? Just this: He judged the evil, but he did not separate himself from it. It is a sad and humiliating thing to state: this is the situation of the majority of God's children in Christendom. Their bonds, their relationships, their affections, and their customs to which they are more attached than to the Lord's glory prevent them from recognizing that one is liable for an evil which one judges but from which one does not separate oneself. (H.L. Rossier - 1 Samuel)
N.J. Hiebert # 2551
"The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore." (Psalm 121:8)
The soul that looks to the Lord for his help can count upon the unfailing care of the Lord in all circumstances. "Going" and "coming" speak of the changing circumstances that mark a world of unrest. The Lord could say to His disciples, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a little. For those coming and those going were many, and they had not leisure even to eat" (Mark 6:31). In His compassionate care the Lord will give us times of rest apart from the busy world; but, down here it will only be "Rest a little" - words that indicate we must be again in movement. For the eternal rest we must look on: "There remaineth . . . a rest to the people of God." Of the one that enters into that blessed rest we read, "He shall go no more out" (Revelation 3:12). In the meantime, in all the busy round of a life of toil in a world of need, the one that looks to the Lord for his help can count on the Lord to keep him in every circumstance. (H. Smith)
N.J. Hiebert # 2552
"The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. (Psalm 121: 8)
In heavenly love abiding, / No change my heart shall fear;
And safe is such confiding, / For nothing changes here;
The storm may roar without me, / My heart may low be laid,
But God is round about me, / And can I be dismayed?
Wherever He may guide me, / No want shall turn me back;
My Shepherd is beside me, / And nothing can I lack;
His wisdom ever waketh, / His sight is never dim;
He knows the way He taketh, / And I will walk with Him.
Green pastures are before me, / Which yet I have not seen;
Bright skies will soon be o'er me, / Where the dark clouds have been:
My hope I cannot measure, / My path to life is free,
My Savior has my treasure, / And He will walk with me.
N.J. Hiebert # 2553
"Draw me, we will run after thee." (Song of Solomon 1:4)
The more we know of Christ, the more shall we desire to know of Him. The nearer we are to Him, the more shall we desire to be drawn nearer still. As Paul says, "That I may know Him," yet none on earth knew Him so well. And, again, "That I may win Christ," yet never was saint more sure of his prize than Paul. He could say in truth, though a prisoner in Rome, and in want, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." What rich experience - what quiet confidence - what boundless joy, shines in his letter to the Philippians! (Andrew Miller)
N.J. Hiebert # 2554
"Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth." (Revelation 3:10)
If believers settle down in the world, mind earthly things, become "dwellers on earth" - using this phrase in its moral sense - Satan will let them alone; but the moment wrought upon by the Spirit of God . . . they go forth in living testimony, the adversary will seek to turn them aside by any art or device which is likely to accomplish his purpose. (Edward Dennett)
N.J. Hiebert # 2555
