Gems for the Week
December 17 - 19
"Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by Whose stripes ye were healed." (1 Peter 2:24)
I see in the cross the power which meets everything in me. If I turn to the cross, saying, "How horribly unlike I am to that Christ who died there!" the answer is, it is because you are so that He died there. Was not the death of Christ the perfect expression of God's holiness? All the perfect attributes of God shine out through the cross of Christ. If Satan had got man into a position in which it was impossible for God to bless him, and all was broken up in connection with the first Adam, it was only that it might all drop into the hands of the last Adam (Christ). All was accomplished at the cross. (Gleanings From the Teaching of G.V. Wigram)
N.J. Hiebert # 3190
"Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)
The rest that the Lord Jesus gives freely to all who come to Him is rest of conscience in regard to the sin question. The distressed soul, burdened with a sense of guilt, comes to Him and finds peace when he trusts Him as the great Sin-Bearer. The second rest is rest of heart. Adverse circumstances may rise up to alarm and fill the heart with fear and anxiety, but he who takes Christ's yoke and learns of Him is able to be calm in the midst of the storm. He finds perfect rest as he trusts all to Him who sitteth over the waterfloods and is Lord of all the elements. These two rests are the same as the two aspects of peace presented in the epistles. Rest of conscience is the equivalent of that peace with God which is the portion of all who are justified by faith (Romans 5:1). Rest of soul is the same as that peace of God which passeth all understanding (Philippians 4:6,7), and is enjoyed by all who learn to commit everything to the Lord. (H.A. Ironside - Notes on Matthew)
N.J. Hiebert # 3191
"He hath set the world (eternity) in their heart."
(Ecclesiastes 3:11)
You may cage the eagle in the most spacious of aviaries, but the infinite expanse of the heavens is in his heart, and he will pine for it. You may imprison the little fish in the most beautiful water vessel, but the ocean is in his being and he will yearn for it. You may make the rabbit as comfortable as possible in his little hutch, but at the first opportunity he will, to the dismay of the children, demonstrate that the veld (open country) is in his very nature. Which things are a parable.
Christian men and women have begun to experience the thrill and the throb of a life which is eternal; and they will find deliverance from this sense of inner loneliness, which ever and anon overtakes them as they journey to its native sphere, only by living fellowship with Him Who is its source. Nothing can take the place of this; for it remains abidingly true that God has made us for Himself and that we are restless till we rest in Him. (George Henderson - Heaven's Cure for Earth's Care)
N.J. Hiebert # 3192
