December 14

"Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations."—Jeremiah 36:2.

IN the Word of God there is sternness as well as mercy. I should be glad of it.

It tells me of the perfection of His character. God is Love, yet not a love with which it is safe to trifle, not a love which is oblivious of moral distinctions, not a love which is so easy-going that it never flashes forth against wrong. I have to do with a King ineffably just, stainlessly pure, immaculately holy. If He is to be mine, if I am to be His, I shall enter His family by a door which admits body and soul, but not body and soul and sin.

It tells me of the righteousness of His government. Often I am perplexed as I look abroad. I travel back into history, and its pages speak many a time of the triumph of evil. I cast my gaze over the world, and I see truth on the scaffold. But God reigns, and iniquity cannot always prosper. And am I prepared to welcome His sceptre of equity, and to love Him for the severities of His discipline?

It tells me of the urgency of His claims. I cannot afford to take liberties with One like this. I ought not to cling to self and sin for one day more. If there is an ensnaring companionship, if there is an unworthy habit, if there is a neglected duty, if there is an unforsaken lust, I should seek it out, I should crucify it. My God desires truth in the inward parts, and He desires it now.

It is well that His Word should depict His hatreds no less than His loves.