Malachi faced an indolent and insolent generation who met his condemnation of sin with an oft-repeated “Wherein?” They were saying, in effect: “We’re not such bad people. You’re scolding us.” But there was a faithful remnant, a nucleus that feared the Lord. Every Sunday morning we have both groups in the congregation: the “Where-inners” – morning glories who bloom at 11 A.M. and fold up for the rest of the week – and the remnant. Our only hope lies in recruiting the remnant into an effective Gideon’s Band.
Devotion of the Day
I WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU
In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.
John 14:2
Here is a blessed little word often overlooked: “If it were not so, I would have told you.” Jesus not only affirms positively the glorious fact of our heavenly home, He makes it doubly sure by a negative: “If it were not so, I would have told you.”
Countless multitudes have wondered whether there is a home beyond. Here is One who came from there and knows. We can take His word for it. He affirms it. And, furthermore, He assures us that if there were no such place He would have told us. He would not leave us in the dark. If death ends all He would have said so. But He died and returned to prove that the best is yet to come. And why do we wonder and hope, when we can know about our future dwelling-place? He would have let us know if there were no such abode. And He did let us know that there is!
I am not left merely to guess about it and hope for the best. I have a double guarantee: “There are many mansions: if there were not, I would have told you.”