The Prized Treasures

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  “Will the prized treasures of today always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house? . . . .   The “sampler” that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as “tapestry of the Victorian era,” and be almost priceless. The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the “Presents from Ramsgate,” and “Souvenirs of Margate,” that may have escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.” Jerome K. Jerome, “T...

Fire has a way

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We all saw the detestation in Southern California from the wild firesthat came ripping through that area. Hundreds of expensive homes were reduced to piles of smoldering ruins. For many, insurance payments will allow them to replace the structures, but it will not be possible torestore exactly what has been lost. No one can reconstitute the ashes, re-glue the beams, and restore the broken windows making the homes exactly as they once were. Fire has a way of permanently changing things.

It is that very property of fire that Jeremiah uses to describe God's Word. The Prophet quotes God as saying, "'Is not My word like fire?' declares the LORD, 'and like a hammer which shatters a rock?'"(Jeremiah 23:29). The point of this illustration, I think, is to demonstrate that God's Word permanently and completely changes the personwho hears it. As fire chemically changes a house, and a hammer permanently changes a rock, so the Word of God permanently alters the person who hears it.

How has the ministry of the Word changed you?

(from my friend, Dr. John Williamson)

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