In this week’s reading we are brought to the close of the interesting discussion between Job and his three friends. They themselves condemned him because of his seeming self-righteousness, but he had no use for their words because he felt that they were condemning him unjustly. Very beautiful indeed are some of these passages in Job. Take for instance a portion of the 26th chapter where God’s greatness and power and wisdom are described. What a grand conception Job had of God’s greatness: “By His Spirit the heavens are garnished; His hand hath pierced the swift serpent. Lo these are but the outskirts of His ways: and how small a whisper do we hear of Him! but the thunder of His power who can understand?” We find no such conception of God’s greatness among heathen writers. Then, too, the 28th chapter is a wonderful panegyric on wisdom. The first part of the chapter speaks of things which man knows more or less about—iron and copper, and silver and gold. These things he can search out; he can cut out channels among the rocks, and the streams that they flow not, but he knows not the place of wisdom. He can neither find it in the sea, nor can he get it for gold. No wealth of the world can equal it. God understands the way thereof, and yet He brings it within reach of man and reveals its secret in that wonderfully simple truth stated over and over again, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”
Our readings in Matthew cover from chapters 18 to 24 inclusive. What a wonderful lesson of forgiveness in chapter 18; of the necessity of humility, that humility shown in the person of Christ, in chapter 19; of His longing for fruit from His own people in chapter 21; of the wonderful teaching which all the wisdom and craft of the Jewish doctors could not gainsay in chapter 22; the fearful words pronounced upon those who had rejected all the light and blessing in chapter 23; the great discourse concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and of His second coming in chapter 24. These are marvelous themes, to which we can not give too careful reading or study.
One of our readers has suggested that our Bible Band members send to the SIGNS just a word stating what passages they have found in the ground they have covered which have helped them most. The editor would like to second this suggestion. It will take no more than a postal card. Send us postal-card testimonies of scriptures which have really helped you and lifted in Christian experience in the ground that we have already covered. How many of our Bible Band that started out in the beginning are continuing and finding blessing all the way? We shall be glad to have some experience meetings in the SIGNS OF THE TIMES a little later in the year. So as we say sometimes in meetings of this kind, let not one wait for another, but let us hear from you, but be short.
