THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NESS eral seven years as indicated by Daniel 9, when the Church shall have been translated to meet her Lord in the air, and Israel will be preparing through trial to recognize and receive her rejec- ted Lord.— Gray. v. 8. Not you but God. God does not need our sins to work out His good intentions, but we give Him little other material, and the discovery that through our evil purposes and injurious deeds God has worked out His beneficent will is certainly not calculated to make us think more lightly of our sins or more highly of ourselves.— Dods. While we cannot undo our sin, God often keeps it from undoing us.— Sel. God often overrules our sins for greater good to ourselves and greater blessing to others than might otherwise have been attained. We can never be as we were before we committed it. Always there will be some sadness in our hearts and lives connected with it and springing out of it, but still if we really repent of it and return to God, there may come to us “ meat out of the eater and sweet out of the bitter/’— Taylor. Not that he wished to roll the responsibility of their crime upon God, hut to encourage their confidence.— J. F. & B. Ruler throughout the land. The whole earth was prepared at the hand of God to be a theatre in which to display the glory and goodness of the one who. was “ sep arate from his brethren.”— C. H. M. v. 9. Haste ye to my father; He was not ashamed of his father. Never lose your pride in your parents or your love for them. Share your honors with them and give them, if you can, the pride of seeing you in all your glory.-ari': Taylor. v. 15. Kissed all his brethren. The seal of recognition, reconciliation and salutation.— Lange. I wonder how Joseph must have felt when he came to kiss Simeon, the ring leader in the crimes committed against him, and yet he must have kissed him too.— Luther.
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The world has learned many lessons from experience the last four years concerning food conservation and dis tribution. God taught these same les
sons to Joseph centuries ago. -If we had been closer students to the wisdom that God was to him we need not
GIRLS
have waited for war to teach us many lessons concerning the value of resources of our nations. We can imagine the criticism and opposition that“ Joseph Hoover,” Food Conserva tor of Egypt, had to endure. Accord ing to the record however, Joseph pro ceeded with his usual thoroughness and loyalty to duty. 41:47, 49. The seven years of famine began according to prophecy. Little does Joseph dream that he is to be permitted to minister to his father and brothers in their want. The time comes when they too are compelled to come to him for food. 42:1-8. Chapters 42 to 45 are a won derful story of true repentance on the brothers’ part and real forgiveness on Joseph’s part, and so nearly parallel to the transaction that takes place between the sinner and God that they are well worth study from this angle. Repentance has a two-fold meaning. 1. Sorrow for sin (Ps. 38:18), and' turning from sin (Is. 55:7; Gen. 42: 21-22, 43:6-7.) We may rest assured that as these brothers stood before Joseph and later met their poor old father again they were convicted of and thoroughly sorry that they had ever sold their brother and they could not have been hired nor driven to repeat the crime. One thing that leads to repentance is a realization of need. It is in his knowledge of his great need that the publican cried out “ God be merciful to me a sinner.” It was need that drove Joseph’s brothers down into Egypt to secure grain. It is the truly penitent that God can receive. (Prov. ‘ 28:13; Ps. 32:5.) Forgiveness is a big word and means many different things to many different
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