Remember that in all these things which we have been studying together lately, we are learning of God Himself. “All things come of Thee,” said King David, and in all things in nature that we can see, and even in things that we cannot see, like the air and the heat, the laws of God’s own life are written.

“The laws of nature” are the law of God’s life which is in all things controlling everything according to His will of love for all. Therefore “the Book of Nature” is really “the Book of the Law,” the book where God has written for us “the great things of His law,” and in all these things we are studying the law of God.

Read the first Psalm, and you will see that His special blessing is upon the one “whose delight is in the law of the Lord,” and who studies it and thinks of it by day and night. As we see the laws of His life working in all the things that He has made, we shall learn from Him such lessons of practical wisdom that He says of the one who does this: “Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”

Let us then, dear children, as we go on with our study of God’s great works, pray earnestly the Psalmist’s prayer: “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.”

“God is love; His nature, His law, is love;” and so in all these different forms of His life we may learn the lesson of His love. See how plainly this is written for us in what we have been talking about lately, the heat, produced by the sun’s rays, God’s glory which He has “set upon the heavens.”

In the description of love which God has given us in 1 Corinthians, chapter thirteen, we are told that love “seeketh not her own.” Love gives itself out freely wherever there is need.

It is one of “the laws of heat,” called the “conduction” or “diffusion” of heat, that it gives itself out constantly from things of a higher to those of a lower temperature, until there is “equalisation,” an equality of temperature, until they both have exactly the same degree of heat. Last week we spoke of how, when cold water is set upon the fire, the heat from the fire passes into the water, until it has received all that it is possible for it to hold.

If you want to cool anything, you put it in a cool place, or against something cold, or plunge it in cold water. It soon becomes cooler, while the air, the water, or whatever is brought in contact with it becomes warmer. This is because it has parted with some of its heat to warm that which had less.

We sometimes blow upon anything hot when we want it to cool quickly, and we are doing the same thing when we fan ourselves this hot weather in order to keep cool. This sets the air in motion and makes it pass more quickly over us, and as the air is cooler than our bodies, each puff of air carries off some of the heat. For the law of heat is “equality” or having “all things common,” so whatever has any degree of heat must give it out to anything having less with which it is brought in contact.

So the more cool air that passes over us, the more heat our bodies give out. Fanning or blowing does not make the air any cooler, but warmer; it makes whatever is fanned or blown upon cooler, because it gives out its warmth to the air which is colder than itself.

If you take a stone, or any cold object, in your hand, and hold it there a little while, you will find that it gets just as warm as your hand; your body gives out some of its heat to warm that which does not have so much, until there is an equality.

You see how God has written the law of His love even in your very body. If you yield fully to His life which fills you, He will write His law of love in your heart by His Holy Spirit, so that you will be just like Him.

When His Spirit filled the disciples on the day of Pentecost, we are told in the book of Acts that they “had all things common.” “Neither said any man that ought of the things that he had was his own,” but “they distributed to every man according as he had need.”

This shows us what God is, for it was His Spirit resting on them that made them do this. He does not keep His glory to Himself; for Jesus said: “The glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them.” Though everything in all the universe is His. He shares it all with every one of His creatures, and each may take just what he needs.

Here is a lesson of love for each little child to practise every day. All that God gives to you it is His law of love that you should not call it your own, but be ready always to share with those to whom He has given less than you, to give of what you have to every one you meet just according to his need.

Even if you have nothing but a light happy heart, you can give smiles and bright kind words to those who are downcast. If you have strength and health you can help those who are weak. “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.”

The Present Truth – August 3, 1899
E. J. Waggoner

Story in pdf  A Lesson from the Heat