Poems and Prose

Short Devotional Features

In the Eons of Eternity

The church’s work throughout eternity, too, will be most glorious. The work of the thousand years will be only the beginning. When the world is turned over to the Father at the end of the Millennial age (1 Corinthians 15:24-28), there will be a great future work for Christ and the Church to do. God has not told us the particulars about those "ages to come" beyond the Millennium, but he has given us the great book of the heavens to study. There by the aid of powerful telescopes we see millions of worlds. If God "formed the earth not in vain, but formed it to be inhabited," we may be just as sure that he formed all of these other worlds for a definite purpose. If they are to be inhabited, agencies will be needed for the ordering of these worlds for habitation, and for their later training and instruction.

When Christ and his bride shall have brought the earth and mankind back to perfection, they will have become properly prepared for their work of the everlasting future. Is there anything in the Bible which refers to their future beyond the Millennium? Yes. The apostle says, "That in the ages to come, God might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:7). So we know that a glorious eternity of happiness and blessed service awaits us in the limitless ages beyond the thousand years.

—Harvest Gleanings III, p. 656

Where Shall I Work?

"Father, where shall I work today?"
And my love flowed warm and free.
Then he pointed me toward a tiny spot
And said, "Tend that for me."
I answered quickly, "No, no, not that!
Why no one would ever see,
No matter how well my work was done.
Not that little place for me."

And the word he spoke, it was not stern,
He answered me tenderly:
"Oh, little one, search that heart of thine,
Art thou working for them or me?
Nazareth was a little place,
And so was Galilee."

—Anonymous

Whiter Than Snow

What a beautiful sight it was, this morning, when we looked out, and saw the ground all covered with snow! The trees were all robed in silver; yet it is almost an insult to the snow to compare it to silver, for silver at its brightest is not worthy to be compared with the marvelous splendor that was to be seen wherever the trees appeared adorned with beautiful festoons above the earth which was robed in its pure white mantle. If we had taken a piece of what we call white paper, and laid it down upon the surface of newly-fallen snow, it would have seemed quite begrimed in comparison with the spotless snow.

This morning’s scene at once called the text to my mind: "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." You ... shall not only be washed in his precious blood until you become tolerably clean, but you shall be made white, you shall be "whiter than snow." When we have gazed upon the pure whiteness of the snow before it has become defiled, it has seemed as though there could be nothing whiter. ...

There is a permanence about the whiteness of a blood-washed sinner which there is not about the snow. The snow that fell this morning was much of it anything but white this afternoon. Where the thaw had begun to work, it looked yellow even where no foot of man had trodden upon it; and as for the snow in the streets of London, you know how soon its whiteness disappears. But there is no fear that the whiteness which God gives to a sinner will ever depart from him; the robe of Christ’s righteousness which is cast around him is permanently white.

"This spotless robe the same appearsWhen ruin’d nature sinks in years.No age can change its glorious hue, The robe of Christ is ever new."

—Charles Haddon Spurgeon,The Spurgeon Sermon Collection,
vol. 4, pp. 525, 526

The Joys of Heaven

We know not where those heavenly regions are,
Yet gazing long into yon starlit space,
We think that somewhere in those depths afar
God has his everlasting dwelling-place;
And when the sun at even shows his face
All wreathed in glory ere he sinks to rest,
We see in fancy in the clouds that grace
The clear and tranquil beauty of the west
The famed Hesperides, the islands of the blest.

The joys of Heaven! When musing on the theme,
There comes the thought, that those pursuits which fill
Our leisure hours on earth may, in the scheme
Of things eternal, be continued still,
But with exalted powers and Heavenly skill,
And with the knowledge that whate’er we do
Is in accordance with the Father’s will,
Free from the imperfections which we know
Distort and mar our best achievements here below.

—W. H. Pepworth,excerpt from Poems of the Way, p. 159

Break Forth Into Singing
Isaiah 49:13

There is a beautiful story which tells of song birds being brought over the sea. There were thirty-six thousand, mostly canaries. The sea was very calm when the ship first sailed and the little birds were silent. They kept their little heads under their wings and not a note was heard. But the third day out the sea ship struck a furious gale. The passengers were terrified. Children wept. Then a strange thing happened. As the tempest reached its height the birds began to sing, first one, then another, until all thirty-six thousand were singing as if their little throats would burst.

When the storm rises in its fury,
do we begin to sing?
Should not our song break forth in ten-fold joy
when the tempest begins?

It is morning in my heart!
And I know that for me life begins again,
It is morning in my heart!
It is morning, it is morning in my heart!

Jesus made the gloomy shadows all depart.
Songs of gladness now I sing,
For since Jesus is my King,
It is morning, it is morning in my heart!

Try singing. Singing in the storm!

--Songs of the Nightingale, p. 6