GOD IS LOVE
Lo! the heavens are breaking,
Pure and bright above;
Light and life awaking,
Murmur, "God is love."
Music now is ringing,
Through the leafy grove.
Feathered songsters, singing.
Warble, "God is love."
Wake, my heart, and springing.
Spread thy wings above;
Soaring still, and singing, -
Singing, "God is love."
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
God Is Love
The Life-Clock
THE LIFE-CLOCK
There is a little mystic clock,
No human eye hath seen,
That beateth on, - and beateth on, -
From morning until e'en.
And when the soul is wrapped in sleep,
All silent and alone.
It ticks and ticks the livelong night,
And never runneth down.
Oh! wondrous is that work of art,
Which knells the passing hour;
But art ne'er formed, nor mind conceived,
The life-clock's magic power.
Not set in gold, nor decked with gems,
By wealth and pride possessed;
But rich or poor, or high or low,
Each bears it in his breast.
Such is the clock that measures life, -
Of flesh and spirit blended, -
And thus 'twill run within the breast,
Till that strange life is ended.
The Wings of the Sun
"But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With
healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed
calves." Malachi 4:2
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| Jesus Is Light of The World. |
Have you ever heard about the wings of the sun? You know about the wings of a bird, and the wings of a house, and the wings of an army, but perhaps you do not know about the wings of the sun. If you will look up at the sun you will see bright beams of light extending out from the side of the sun, just as the wings of a house extend from the side of the house. These are the wings of the sun. We call them sunbeams. The prophet says that there is healing in the sunbeams, just as there is in the medicine that the doctor leaves us when we are sick. People are just beginning to know what a wonderful healer the sunshine is for those who are ill.
If you take a plant and put it down in the cellar where there is no light and leave it there for a few days, that plant will become sick and die. It must have the sunshine if it is to live and grow, and it is the same way with people.
Most of the hospitals have a great room where the sun can shine all day, and there the people are taken who are getting well, so that the sun can shine on them and help them in their recovery.
A doctor in one of the hospitals said not very long ago, "There are some rooms here where people seem to get well sooner than in others, and they are always the rooms where the sun shines the most." This is what the prophet meant when he said that the sun has healing in its wings.
But he was really telling us about Jesus. He calls Him the Sun of Righteousness and says that there is healing in His wings, just as there is in the great sun that shines up there in the sky.
There are some sicknesses that only Jesus can heal. You know there are diseases of the body, and there are diseases of the mind, and there are diseases of the soul. Sin is the great sickness of the soul. We are all troubled with this disease, and there is no cure in the world for it but Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness.
Suppose one of you were sick, and were to go to your doctor and he were to say to you, "What you want is sunlight. Just stay out in the sun and air all that you can and you will be well." Wouldn't you go out into the sunlight? Of course you would.
Now God, the great doctor of the soul, comes to us and says, ''Your soul is sick. It is sin that ails you. What you need is the sunlight of Jesus. If you will come into that sunlight you will be well."
There was once a man named Peter. He was a rough, cursing fellow who had not led a very good life.
Doctors tell us that disease germs grow best in the dark. If you want to kill bad germs, open the windows and let the sunshine come in. This man Peter had been living in the darkness, and the germs of sin and evil had grown in his life till he was a great sinner. But one day Jesus passed along and called Peter to follow Him. He went, and the sunlight of Jesus destroyed the evil, and made him well so that he became one of the greatest saints of all time.
There was another man named Saul. He went everywhere, trying to do all the evil that he could, till one day, as he was on the way to a city called Damascus, there began to shine upon him a light from heaven. It shone right down into his wicked soul, as the sun shines into the face of the sick man in the hospital, and he began to be a better man, and this man Saul became the great Apostle Paul.
When I was a small boy I used to go out in the summer and pick blackberries. There was a clump of blackberry bushes back of the barn, and they were the biggest and finest berries around anywhere. It didn't take long to fill a little pail full of them. But when I tasted one they were sour and bitter. The trouble was that there were some big trees there, that kept the sun from shining on those blackberry vines, and the fruit was always sour. But one year men came and cut down the trees and then the berries became sweet and good.
That is the reason so many lives are bitter and sour and sinful. There is something that is keeping the sun from shining on them, the Sun of Righteousness.
The Building of a Lighthouse
"You said, ‘No, we will get our help from Egypt. They will give us swift horses for riding into battle.’ But the only swiftness you are going to see is the swiftness of your enemies chasing you! One of them will chase a thousand of you. Five of them will make all of you flee. You will be left like a lonely flagpole on a hill or a tattered banner on a distant mountaintop.” Isaiah 30: 16.17
Isaiah is talking here about a lighthouse. They had lighthouses, or something very like them, in the time of the prophet twenty-five hundred years ago. One of the most famous lighthouses of history was built three hundred years before Jesus came to earth at the mouth of the River Nile, along the Mediterranean Sea. The historians ought to know, and they tell us that this lighthouse was one of the seven wonders of the world, and that it cost over two millions of dollars to build.
In these days we have a great many lighthouses along the coast. They are put there to guide the ships at night. We have two at the entrance to the Virginia capes. You have many of you seen the one at Cape Henry. There are really two there. One was erected over two hundred years ago, during the presidency of General Washington. After it had been used for over a century it was worn out and the government built a new one, which every night sends its great beam of light far out over the waves.
There are many things about lighthouses that remind us of boys and girls.
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| "Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you." Isaiah 60:1 |
First, the foundation must be very strong. It never would do to build the lighthouse on the sand. The first storm that came along would wash the sand out from beneath it and then where would the lighthouse be? It must be built on the rock or on strong piles that will not move.
The Eddystone light, on the coast of England, is one of the most famous in the world. They built three lighthouses and they were all washed away by the storms. And then the engineers came and they went down below the sand and anchored the building to the solid rock, and it has never been shaken.
When we are building our characters it is very important that they should be fastened to the rock. We must be careful about the foundation. Paul said, "Other foundation can no man lay other than that is laid, even Jesus Christ" He is the best foundation that any young man or woman can have for character. If the life is built on Him and anchored to Him there will not be much danger of the character failing when the times of storm and trial come.
Next they are very careful about the kind of material they put into the lighthouses. The big tower at Cape Henry is made of steel, and every piece is riveted carefully to the piece next to it. The whole structure must be of the very best material. If there were one poor piece of steel in it the whole building might fall some night when the wind was blowing a gale along the coast.
Every day we are busy building our characters, and sometimes we are tempted to put in bad habits and easy, lazy ways. If we do, the character we are erecting will never stand the tests of life that are coming.
But there is something else that is even more important. What is the lighthouse for? It is there to give light. There are ships out there on the sea every night in danger of running on the rocks or the shoals. The light is there to show them how to avoid the dangers.
In the same way our characters are being built, not for our own glory or our own pleasure, but to give light to the people that are about us. We are to live so that they will want to do better and be better. If we are selfish, and do not let the light of life shine, they may become bewildered and lost, like the ship along a coast where there is no lighthouse.
There was a man once who was being taken over a lighthouse by the man who kept it. While they were looking at the light the man said to the keeper, "Suppose some night you should forget to light it?" He answered, "Sir, that is impossible. I could not forget it. If there were no light tonight, in a few days I would hear from the North and the South and everywhere, that there were ships that went astray tonight. I dare not forget it."
So we must not forget our lights. Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven."
Rocks and Shoals
"The wicked have set their traps for me, but I will not turn from your commandments." Psalm 119:110
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| A ship tossed in the storm, needs a chart. |
Every ship that sails on the ocean has in the captain's room a chart. You have all seen maps of this state, and you know by looking at the map where every city and river and mountain is. A chart is a map of the ocean. There are dangers down underneath the smooth waters which the captain's eye cannot see. They are all marked carefully on the chart, and if he sails the ship by the chart he will escape them.
Sometimes just a little below the water are great sharp rocks, and if the captain were to forget to look at that map of the sea he would run into one of those hidden rocks and the ship would sink.
There are shoals also for which he must be on the lookout. A shoal is a very shallow place in the sea. If the ship runs on a shoal it sticks fast, and has a hard time to get off, and sometimes is broken to pieces by the waves before they can save it.
On the captain's chart every lighthouse and light-ship and buoy, and every rock and shoal is carefully marked, for the safety of the people who travel on the ships.
Life is very much like a ship, sailing out to sea. We need a chart to point out the safe places and to show us how to avoid the dangers. God has given us a book to be our chart. It is the Bible.
Let me tell you some of the people whom you know who ran on the rocks because they did not watch the chart carefully enough. The first boy in the Bible was named Cain. His was the very first ship that ever put out to sea from a home in this world. But do you know he let his ship run into a rock called " bad temper," and before he knew it he had killed his brother. A great many good ships have been wrecked on that rock. We must look out for it by watching the Bible carefully.
Another was Absalom. He was King David's favorite son. The Bible says, "Honor thy father and thy mother." But Absalom was one of those boys who knew more than anybody else. He wasn't going to bother about that old chart. He knew where to go himself. And one day, crash! He ran into the rock of " disobedience" and that was the end of him. It would never have happened if he had watched the chart.
Over in the New Testament is Ananias. He was a business man. He was so busy making money that he thought that he didn't have time to look at the chart to see where he was going, and all at once he ran into that rock called "lie" and he went down and was never seen again.
But rocks are not the only dangers we have to look out for. There are the shoals. One of the very worst shoals is laziness. I knew a man who had plenty of ability and a fine education. He might have been a great man. He started out well, but he never went far. One day he just stopped working and there he stayed the rest of his life. Do you know what was the trouble ? He ran on the shoal of laziness, and there he stuck fast. If he had read the book of Proverbs, he would have known enough to have steered away from that dangerous shallow place.
There is one more dangerous shoal that I must tell you about. Once there was a man named Demas. He thought it would be a great thing to be a missionary like Paul and love and help other people. He started out like a fine ship going on a long, happy voyage. Then he began to think how much it was going to cost him; all the good things he would have to give up, and the pleasure he would miss if he went with Paul. So he stopped and did not go. He stuck fast on the shoal of selfishness. We must be careful and not be caught on this shoal.
Often a ship is in danger. There is fog on the ocean, or it is near rocks or shoals. At such a time the captain never leaves the pilot-house for a second. He keeps his eye on the chart and the compass every moment. There are many dangerous rocks and shoals which we must avoid. If we will keep near to the Bible and follow its directions, we will not fear what may be before us.
The Lord God Is Like The Sun
"For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless." Psalm 84:11
The Bible tells us that God is like the sun. “The Lord God is a sun.” If you take the Hymnal, and look among the hymns you love you will find the thought repeated, again and again, “Sun of my soul, thou Savior dear,” “As the sun doth daily rise,” “Sun of our life, thy quickening ray,” “Great sun of righteousness, arise.” The sun is so full of light, so bright, so warm, so beautiful, it is little wonder the sun reminds us of God.
How far away the sun is! Once I saw an automobile travel 100 miles an hour. It was out at Indianapolis on the great speedway. No! I was not at the races. I was at the General Assembly. Now, if you can imagine that automobile, not going around in a circle but traveling straight on and on, going day and night, every day, Saturday afternoons and Sundays, going on and on, 100 miles an hour for more than 100 years, it would arrive at last at the sun.
How great is the sun! It would take more than a hundred worlds as big as ours to make one sun. And how great is God. He made the sun and all the stars. There is nothing in the world so great as God. “To whom then will ye liken me, that I should be equal to him? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that he is strong in power, not one is lacking.’’
How bright the sun is! It scatters the night and chases away the darkness. How bright and beautiful God is! In him is light. The sun sends out great flames of light reaching 500,000 miles high, and the light of the sun warms this cold world of ours. They tell us there are “spots” in the sun, great dark spots, thousands of miles across, but there is no shadow of darkness about God.
“Our midnight is Thy smile withdrawn;
Our noontide is Thy gracious dawn;
Our rainbow arch, Thy mercy’s sign;
All, save the clouds of sin, are Thine.”
How near the sun is! We think it is far away, millions of miles away, and yet the sun is here, at our side, shining, among the flowers, in our homes, in the faces of little children, in the eyes of those we love. The sun is so near you can almost hold it in your hand and look at it. We know the sun. We know what it is. We know what is in it. We know there is iron and copper and zinc and soda and magnesia in the sun. How do we know that? Because the sun comes right down and kisses the flowers and the faces of little children, and wise men take a sunbeam and make it tell them it's wonderful secrets. How near God is and how good He is. He comes to us in Jesus, the light of the world, and Jesus tells us all we know about God.
“Great Sun of Righteousness, arise;
Bless the dark world with heavenly light:
Thy gospel makes the simple wise,
Thy laws are pure, Thy judgments right.”
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| There shall coma a star out of Abraham. Jacob's many sons descended from Abraham. |
The Bible tells us that Abraham' s descendants would number like the stars in Genesis "Then the LORD said to Abram, “Leave your country, your kindred, and your father’s household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.” So Abram departed, as the LORD had directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram (or Abraham) was seventy-five years old when he left Haran." Genesis 12 : 1-4
"Son Shine" Crafts and Activities:
- Be a Good Example
- The Bible is My Light, spinner craft
- God is my light fall Bible craft
- Jesus said "I Am..." the light of the world lighthouse craft for object lesson.
- Light of the World Paper Candle Craft
- "Let it Shine!'' light themed Sunday school crafts
- Let Your Light Shine Oil Lamps
- Clay oil lamp craft
Things to come coloring page...
Description of The Coloring Page: The WOG coloring pages are from India. These have been dedicated to the children of the internet by this ministry. The collection was compiled by Yesudas Solomon in 2020 at www.WordOfGod.in, you may contact them at wordofgod@wordofgod.in to ask about these particular resources. The scripture references about Cain and Abel bring their two very different sacrifices before God's altar
Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.
Color two brothers, two points of view...
Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.
Color Bunches of Dates
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| Dates, fruits and leaf. |
Description of Botanical Coloring Page: Palm is a general name for a whole family of plants, but in Scripture referring to a single species, the tree that produces dates as its fruit. The date-palm still finds suitable conditions for its growth along the shores of the Mediterranean and in the Jordan valley, but in former times it was more widely spread over Israel. Phoenicia was named after this palm (Phoenix-dacty-lifera). Bethany means the house of dates, and other places had names connected with the palm. The date-palm has a long columnar stem, rough with the bases of the old leaves, and terminating in a crown of large pinnate leaves, popularly called branches. The dates are borne in great bunches, springing out from the bases of the leaves. At first the flowers are enclosed in a spathe, which opens to permit the escape of the flowers. The staminate flowers grow on different trees from those bearing the pistils, which become the fruit.
Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg. into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.
Learn about dates in Israel.
Color Saffron Crocus
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| Saffron Crocus. With the pistil and its three-cleft style separate. |
Description of Botanical Coloring Page: Saffron is mentioned only in the Song of Solomon 4:14 as one of the perfume plants of the garden. The saffron is a purple-flowered crocus which blossoms in the autumn, having produced its leaves in the spring. It is a common plant in Israel. The saffron of commerce consists of the yellow stamens and style of the flower, which possess a penetrating aromatic odor; it is used as a flavoring and coloring material in cooking, and is also eaten raw.
Don't forget to drag the png. or jpg. into a Word Document and enlarge the image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can.
Color Rue
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| Rue. With separate flower and fruit. |
Description of Botanical Coloring Page: The Lord rebukes the Pharisees for tithing trifling objects like rue, while neglecting the weighty matters of the law in Luke 11:42. There is a wild rue found in Israel, and the officinal rue was cultivated because of its supposed medicinal properties. The powerful, fetid odor is due to a volatile oil in the leaves. Rue is somewhat shrubby plant, two or three feet high, with much divided leaves and small yellowish flowers.
Don't
forget to drag the png. or jpg. into a Word Document and enlarge the
image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a
question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box
located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon
as I can.
Color the Branches of The Shittah Tree
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| Shittah Tree. With a single flower and pod. |
Description of Botanical Coloring Page: The shittah tree or shittim wood is only mentioned in the prophecy of Isaiah 41:19 in reference to the prosperity of Israel when the desert will be covered with vegetation. The wood was used in the construction and fittings of the Tabernacle. The tree is a species of acacia (A. seyal), growing to the height of fifteen or twenty feet, with angular-twisted branches, elegant feathery leaves, and clusters of small flowers, followed by many curved and tapering pods. The wood is very hard, close-grained, and orange-red in color. It grows in the valleys about the Dead Sea and in the desert southwards. In the R.V. shittah and shittim are rendered acacia.
Don't
forget to drag the png. or jpg. into a Word Document and enlarge the
image as much as possible before printing it folks. If you have a
question about this coloring page, just type into the comment box
located directly below this post and I'll try to get back to you as soon
as I can.
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