THE FAMILY ALTAR

June 1.

"But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you

from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from

the Father, He shall testify of Me." John 15:26.

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again: The eternal years

of God are hers." That is preeminently the case with the saving

truth of Christ's Gospel. Ever since the apostles began to preach

it from the first day of Pentecost, it has met with the fiercest

opposition and even bloody persecution. But all attacks made upon

it by foes from without or heretics within the Church have not

succeeded in destroying it. Victoriously has it withstood all the

assaults of twenty hostile centuries, and it still shines on the world

to-day in all its pristine power and beauty. Why? Because the

Spirit that testifies it to the hearts of men is God's own Spirit

of Truth. As indestructible as is God Himself, so indestructible

is the saving Gospel of Christ witnessed by the Holy Spirit. We

need not fear for it. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the

Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ shall never pass away. He is

with it unto the end of the world. But the great question for

us is: Has the Holy Spirit come into our hearts with His saving

Gospel and made us firm believers in Christ as our personal Savior?

Everything depends for us on that question : our pardon with God,

our peace of conscience, our eternal life and happiness. We can

all find the saving truth in Christ, now that the ascended Savior

has sent the Holy Spirit into the world with the Gospel. All we

need to do is to open our ears and hearts to it, and the Holy Spirit

will begin, and continue, and finish His enlightening, sanctifying,

and saving work in us also, make and keep us believing disciples

of Christ, children of God, heirs of eternal life.

DAILY READINGS IN THE LIFE OF CHRIST - J.R. Miller 

June 1. Waverers

"What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A reed shaken with the wind?" Luke 7:24 

The picture is of a man wavering and unstable, easily swayed and bent from uprightness. That is what a good many men are. A reed grows in soft mud by the water's edge. Then it is so frail and delicate that every breeze bends it and shakes it. Jesus did not intimate that John was a man of that stamp — but meant just the reverse. John was not like a reed swayed by the wind. He was a man whom nothing could bend or sway. Rather than preach soft words to please Herod, and keep quiet about sins that the king was committing — John charged home the sins without flinching — losing his head at last as the reward for his faithfulness.

Yet there are some people who are like wavering reeds. Instead of being rooted in Christ, their roots go down into the soft mud of this world, and of course they are easily torn up. Then they have no fixed principles to hold them upright and make them true and strong; and they are bent by every wind, and moved and swayed by every influence of fear or favor. The boy that cannot say 'no' when other boys tease him to smoke, or drink, or do a wrong or mean thing — is a reed swayed by the wind. The girl who is influenced by frivolities and worldly pleasure, and drawn away from Christ and from a beautiful life, is likewise a reed bent and swayed by the wind.

These reeds are growing everywhere, and the wind shakes them every time it blows. Who wants to be a reed? Who would not rather be like the oak-growing in soil as solid as a rock, which no storm bends or even causes to tremble?

There is one apparent advantage in being like a reed — one seems to escape persecution. John would hardly have met the fate he did meet — if he had been easily shaken. People who are like reeds, do not often lose their heads on the martyr's block. But they are in danger of losing their souls — and that certainly is worse!