When Noah was about to go forth from the ark he sent out two birds, a raven and a dove. The dove returned, but not the raven. The dove found no rest, and no sustenance, evidently, and came back to its haven of rest, the ark. Picture the surface of the earth strewn with the putrefying bodies of beasts which had perished in the flood. The raven, the unclean bird, would not scruple to eat of these. It could, and would, sustain itself on the dead carcases around.
Is not the lesson to be learned from these two birds very simple? A Christian has the nature of both the raven and the dove. That is, he has the old nature of his natural birth from Adam, and the new nature of the new birth which he received when he believed the gospel and was saved.
The human mind demands food. There is an abundant supply to meet this demand. Someone has said, "Tell me what you read, and I'll tell you what are;" and the Scripture well says, as a man "thinketh in his heart, so is he." We might ask ourselves the question:To which of the two natures am I catering? Do we seek that which is wholesome, and pure and good?-that which will build up the new man, the man in Christ? The apostle says, "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" (Phil. 4:8). Is this our mental attitude toward what we see and hear and read, or are we catering to that other nature, the old carrion-feeding nature which gloats over the "corruption that is in the world through lust"?
Are you ministering to the dove, or to the raven in you?-to the new nature, or the old? Scripture searchingly says, "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption," and again, "If ye live after the flesh ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Rom. 8:13). Shall we live after the flesh, and shrivel up in our souls until we are uncertain whether we were ever converted? That is what the Apostle tells us will be the result if we do not have in our faith other qualities which he names, and which make for growth and progress in the new life. His words are, "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity" (2 Peter 1:5-7). To be careless as to those inspired utterances must inevitably result in serious loss in this life, and also a loss, far greater, for eternity, as the apostle warns us in the following verses (8-12).
The Apostle John adds a word along the same lines, saying, "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever" (1 John 2:16,17).
There was a time when the monthly periodicals published among us were found in practically every home. Their cost is well worth the little sacrifice necessary to obtain them, and so we have in hand each month of the
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