One day when I was a boy, my uncle invited me, with some other young frineds, to have tea and spend the evening at his home. During the evening, we were asked to have some fruit and figs—nothing was a greater treat to me. Well, we were enjoying these good things, and somone said,
“I should not be much surprised if the dust on these figs is alive with insects.”
This seemed to me impossible, as I had never heard of anything of the kind on figs before. I knew that rotten and bad meat had insects, also, stagnant water, too; but figs—the nicest of all things to my taste—could not, I thought, be like this.
“Let us see,” said my uncle; and he brought his microscope from the next room, and soon had it adjusted on the table. He then took some dust from a fig and put it on a slip of glass, and after looking at it, said,
“Come, and look for yourselves.”
I ran to the table and looked through the tube; and to my surprise, saw two or three insects that looked like tiny fat pigs. They seemed to be turning it over, and eating the best of the food. Seeing us look so disappointed when we found, that the sweet figs had such insects crawling over them, my uncle said,
“Why, what has the glass done?”
We knew that the glass had done nothing, except to open our eyes to the actual state and condition of the figs. My uncle said,
“Surely, it is better to know the truth than be deceived, though I fear by your looks that you wish you had not seen the insects, so that you might enjoy the figs more.”
I have never forgotten that evening, or the microscope, and what it taught us, and I sometimes think whether the Bible is not a kind of microscope for us now, because it shows us the truth about everything; it reveals the true state of our hearts, and the true state in the world in which we live.
One of the things that the Bible tells us, is, that by nature, our hearts are deceitful abouve all things and desperately wicked. This is very unwelcome knowledge, but how much better it is to know our trhu state, than to think we are all right and pleasing, to God.
Then it tells us the other side of it; how we may be cleansed from all our sins and evil ways; how we may be made fit for heaven and the presence of God, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
ML 04/26/1942