Jaus' Notebook

“Then he took  him by the  hand, and led  him into  a very large  parlor that  was full  of dust, because never swept; the which after he had reviewed it a little while, the Interpreter called for  a  man  to sweep. Now,  when  he  began  to  sweep,  the  dust  began  so  abundantly  to  fly about, that  Christian  had  almost  therewith  been  choked.  Then  said  the  Interpreter  to  a damsel that stood by, “Bring hither water, and sprinkle the room;” the which when she had done, it was swept and cleansed with pleasure. Christian: Then said Christian, What means this? Interpreter: The Interpreter answered, This parlor is the heart of a man that was never sanctified by the sweet grace of the Gospel. The dust is his original sin, and inward corruptions,  that  have defiled the  whole man. He that...

An eminent Christian worker tells of his mother who was a very anxious and troubled Christian. He would talk with her by the hour trying to convince her of the sinfulness of fretting, but to no avail. She was like the old lady who once said she had suffered so much, especially from the troubles that never came. But one morning the mother came down to breakfast wreathed in smiles. He asked her what had happened, and she told him that in the night she had a dream.  She was walking along a highway with a great crowd of people who seemed so tired and burdened. They were nearly all carrying little black bundles, and she noticed that there were numerous repulsive looking beings which she thought were demons dropping these black bundles for the people to pick up and carry. Like the rest, she too had her needless load, and was weighed down with the devil's bundles. Looking up, after a while, she saw a Man with a bright and loving face, passing hither and thither through the crowd, and...

There's a vast encyclopedia of loving knowledge in the silence of God--in what He does NOT say. For example, when He warned our first parents in Eden not to join the fallen Lucifer's rebellion against God's principle of love, He told them not to eat of the fruit of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Note what God did NOT say: He did not say, "In the day thou eatest thereof I will surely kill you." No; He said, "thou shalt surely die." "Well," says someone, "that means He will kill them, for didn't He destroy almost the entire human race in the Flood of Noah?" Yes, He did. "And didn't He destroy almost the entire population of Sodom and Gomorrah?" Yes, He did. But ... look again: Note what John 3:16 does NOT say. It does not say, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, who will torture anyone who does not believe in Him." Again there is a holy silence. The text say...