DAWN VOLUMES 13 & 14
CONTENTS
1 ON THE BRINK OF APOSTASY + 1
* 2 THE PRIZE OF OUR CALLING + 2
* 3 A NEARING CRISIS IN HEAVEN AND EARTH + 4
4 ABUNDANT ENTRANCE
5 OUR REACTION TO THE WORD OF GOD + 1
* 6 THE NEXT ACT IN THE DRAMA + 4
* 7 THE COMING
8 THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD
9 TWO COMING PROPHETS + 1
10 THE TRANSFIGURATION AND THE KINGDOM
11 RICHES AND THE KINGDOM + 2
12 SECTS + 2
13 THE MAN OF THE WORLD + 5
14 LAWLESSNESS + 2
** 15 THE CHURCH AND THE TRIBULATION + 3
16 THE DISCERNMENT OF SPIRITS
17 BAPTISM AND THE FLOOD + 1
18 SALVATION FORTY-FIVE CENTURIES AGO +1
19 THE SEED AND THE SERPENT
20 COMING EMPEROR WORSHIP + 1
* 21 JUDGMENT PROPHECIES
* 22 THE CHURCH’S DANGER + 2
23 DIVINE
24 LIFE AFTER THE FLESH
* 25 THE DAY OF THE LORD + 1
26 WHY NOT BE JUST A CHRISTIAN?
27 ALL DECEIT + 1
* 28 AN APPEAL TO PENTECOSTALISTS
* 29 THE SILENCE OF THE SISTERS
30 THE HAND ON THE PLOW + 2
31 TWETHY CENTURY JUDGMENTS
* 32 THE KINGDOM A REWARD + 4
33 THE
* 34
35 THE TRUTH OF PURGATORY + 2
* 36 THE TEST OF THE INSPIRED
37 ARMAGEDDON + 2
38 THE COMING JUDGMENT OF SAINTS + 1
39 CASTING ANXIETY ON GOD
40 EVANGELISM IN THE LAST DAYS
41 THE AIM OF THE UNIVERSE + 1
** 42 DANGERS IN LEADERSHIP + 1
43 A CHURCH ON FIRE + 2
44 THE UNIQUE MAN + 1
45 CRIME AND CHRIST + 1
46 THE OPEN DOOR
47 SECERDOTALISM AND THE EATH-BED
48 BISHOP R. C. RYLE ON THE CHURCH + 1
49 NERO REDIVIVUS
50 SOME OBJECTIONS TO GRADED RAPTURE + 3
** 51 LOVE AND MARTYRDOM + 5
52 SOULS GIVEN TO CHRIST + 1
53 NO. 22869 + 1
54 SOWING TO THE FLESH + 3
55 FAITH IN CHRISTIAN
* * * * * * *
1
ON THE BRINK OF APOSTASY + 1
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
The
Christian Faith is embodied, wholly and solely, in a few vital facts; concrete
facts, which either happened, or did not happen: if they happened, the whole
Christian Faith is true; if they did not happen, the Christian Faith is a pious
fraud.* These events, expressed in words,
become the Christian Creed. The facts are few but stupendous:- the Virgin
Birth; the consequent Incarnation, the Son of God embodied in flesh; the
Atonement, a sacrifice on the Cross for the sin of humanity; and the
Resurrection, the spirit, soul, and body of the Lord leaving an abandoned tomb.
The facts save, not faith, which merely
appropriates the facts. “If Christ hath not been raised, YOUR FAITH IS VAIN”; for faith in a falsehood is
worthless; “ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor. 15: 17). The facts alone save; though the facts become effective only
through our faith. Granted the facts, and the whole Bible follows as surely as
sunshine follows sunrise.
* The Apostle John strongly stresses
this point. “That which we have heard, that which we
have seen
with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, declare we unto
you” (1 John 1: 1).
APOSTASY
Therefore apostasy - the abandonment
of the Christian Faith - is a denial of these few basic facts; and since the
facts save, and without the facts there is no salvation, to clothe denial in all
the Christian phraseology in the world is merely wrapping a corpse. And it is
obvious what form the denial must take. Since the facts occurred nineteen
centuries ago, it is only through the records of these facts, purposely given to us by God, that we know
and believe: all Christianity, therefore, disappears with the Gospel records.
The scholar out of whom sprang the destructive criticism of the nineteenth
century embodied in his own career its logical history. Wellhousen exchanged a
professorship of theology for a professorship of history because he had
abandoned the Christian faith.
THE CHURCHES
Now what we are confronting to-day, within the Churches, is a
mass-denial of these facts by an unknown proportion, but a proportion
ceaselessly expanding, of ministers and people. Professor Bethune Baker, when Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity
at
PUBLIC DENIAL
Now we take but a handful out of the masses of denial of the
Christian facts which fills so-called Christian literature to-day. “The Virgin Birth,” says Bishop Gore (New Commentary,
p. 315), “was certainly not part of the original Apostolic message.”
* Dr. H.
D. A. Major, the Principal of Ridley Hall, Oxford, says (English Rationalism, p. 129):- “All those whose
conception of the moral and spiritual supremacy of Jesus is not based upon His
being Virgin-born can accept the conclusion of the critics that the Virgin
Birth a myth without being in the least affected in their hold on the Christian
Faith.” The Encyclopardia Biblica says (art., ‘Gospels’):- “In
the person of Jesus we have to do with a completely human being, and the divine
is to be sought in him only in the form in which it is capable of being found
in a man.” So Dr. Sherwood Eddy, who conducts vast
campaigns on these modern lines, says:- “Such
controversial matters as the virgin birth, blood atonement, bodily
resurrection, can be well dispensed with. They may he believed in or
discredited individually, and no difference.” It is no wonder that
the Christian Register sums it up thus:- “The one
hundredth anniversary in 1933 of the birth of Robert G. Ingersoll is of interest to religious liberals. In his
rejection of many specific elements of the Christian tradition including a hell
of terror, a cruel and vengeful God, the inerrancy of the Bible as a divine revelation,
and the virgin birth, Ingersoll was doing exactly the
thing that has consumed much of the time and energy of liberal ministers during
the past century.” In the nature of the case, the new doubt is
only the old infidelity: it can never be anything else.**
* Matthew was an Apostle, was he not? (Luke 6: 15);
and he carefully records (Matt. 1: 18) the virgin birth. It is random writing of
this kind that makes so much of the ‘higher
criticism’ worthless.
** The writer will never forget with what amazed bewilderment, as
an undergraduate in the hall of the Cambridge Union, he read a letter in the Times from Dr. Driver, then the doyen of the Critics, frankly acknowledging that there is no external
evidence whatever on which the Higher Criticism rests, but that it is solely a
dissection of the documents as they stand. In other words, it is purely an
evolution of the heart of unbelief.
A SHELL
So what we are now confronting is an
enormous shell largely emptied - though not altogether so - of its kernel; and
a shell which, under pressure, can only burst. What Dr. Pusey said in his
day is incomparably truer at this moment:- “There are afloat hundreds of
‘Christianities.’ You have Christianity without Judaism,
Christianity without facts, Christianity without doctrines, Christianity
without anything supernatural, Christianity which shall only be an
‘idea,’ Christianity with fallible apostles, fallible prophets
(alas, that one must give utterance to the blasphemy!), a fallible Christ.”
No man will be a martyr for a fancy. But this very denial of the Bible is its
fresh and final proof. For it says:- “ In the last days perilous times shall come,” for men shall form “a form
of godliness, but having denied the power thereof” (2 Tim. 3: 5) - a feeble and empty crust; and when the Day of Terror
bursts, the gigantic shell, already
crumbling, crashes under the shock of judgment.*
* The 40,000,000
SPIRITUAL PARALYSIS
So, already, internal death-rot is paralyzing the Church and
alienating the world. Dr. J. D. Jones sums up the
situation thus:- “The great mass of the people
seem to be drifting away from religion; the habit of worship seems to be
falling into disuse; the Sabbath is rapidly ceasing to be a day of rest, and
seventy-five per cent. of the manhood of the nation is clean outside the church.”
To take but a single example: - in the last twenty-five years Free Church
Sunday scholars have decreased from 1,744,725 to 1,323,406, which means a total disappearance of all
Nonconformist Sunday schools in sixty years; and the decline in church
membership is such that in seventy years there will not be a Nonconformist
church in England. And despair ultimately overwhelms those who, having known
Christ, abandon Him. Renan, a
Catholic priest who became an apostate, opened his unbelief in radiant
optimism. “We proclaim the right of reason,”
he wrote, “to reform society by rational
science, and the theoretic knowledge of that which is. It is no exaggeration to
say that science contains the future of humanity, and that it alone can say the
last word on human destiny and teach mankind how to reach his goal.”
But thirty years after he wrote as a disillusioned man. “It seems possible that a collapse of supernatural belief
will be followed by the collapse of moral conviction, and that the moment when
humanity sees the reality of things will mark a real moral decline. We are
living,” he concluded sadly, “on
the perfume of an empty vase.” The first apostate of the New
Testament is also its first suicide.
THE SCRIPTURES
Therefore the harbour into which we are all driven by the very
fury of the modern storm is as inevitable as it is golden. It is marvellously
illustrated in Strindberg, a close
colleague and fellow-thinker of Nietzsche,
perhaps the most devilish mind of the nineteenth century, who died in an
asylum, either a lunatic or devil-possessed. A change passed over Strindberg in
his later years, during which he left behind the bitterness and restlessness of
his early days. “I have been like a sailor,”
he wrote, “who set out to discover a new
spiritual home; and every time I thought I had come to an unknown island, I
found, on looking closer, that it was our old Bible and the New Testament.
There is nothing higher than the old wisdom.” He died with the New
Testament clasped between his folded hands. In the words of Gladstone:- “If I am asked what is the remedy for the deeper sorrows of
the human heart - what a man should chiefly look to in progress through life as
the power that is to sustain him under trials, and enable him manfully to
confront his afflictions - I must point to something which in a well‑known
hymn is called ‘The old, old story,’ told in an old, old Book, and
taught with an old, old teaching, which is the greatest and best gift ever
given to man.” For we can say with Isaac Watts, and the Church of all ages:-
Proclaim salvation from the Lord
For wretched, dying men;
His hand has writ the sacred word
With an immortal pen.
Engraved as in eternal brass,
The mighty promise shines;
Nor can the powers of darkness rase
Those everlasting lines.
His every word of grace is strong
As that which builds the skies;
The Voice that rolls the stars along
Speaks all the promises.
-------
All knowledge that begins not and ends not with the glory God
is but a giddy, but a vertiginous circle, but an elaborate and exquisite
ignorance. - JOHN DONNE.
* * *
2
THE PRIZE OF OUR CALLING + 2
By ROBERT GOVETT.
“If by
any means I might attain to the
resurrection from among the dead” (Phil. 3: 11).*
* The expression is peculiar, and may be
rendered, “the select resurrection
from among the dead.”
It is
evident at a glance, that the resurrection which the apostle so earnestly
sought, was not the general resurrection. The wicked shall partake of that,
whether they desire it or no. Paul then could not express any doubts of his
attaining to that, or speak of it as an object of hope. It remains then, that
it be a peculiar resurrection: the resurrection of reward, obtained by the just, while the wicked remain in
their graves. Such a resurrection we see in close connection with the [millennial]
Behold then the new hope, which the knowledge of Jesus as the
Messiah set before the eyes of the enlightened apostle! The Anointed One is to
have companions in the - [His promised (Psa.
2:
8;
cf. Isa. 40: 5; Hab. 2: 14,
R.V.) and soon coming] - ‘glory’:
Heb. 1: 9; 3: 14. Paul’s being already righteous by faith in the
lord’s Anointed, entitled him to be a runner for the prize. None can be
admitted as a candidate for reward, but he who is already accepted by grace in
the Beloved. But faith had brought Paul to the starting-post, and thenceforward
his life was to be a pressing on for the crown.
The expression - “If by any means might attain” - implies, (1) the extreme eagerness of the apostle; (2) his sense of the value of the end he aimed at; and (3) the perception of the need of
exertion, in order to realize the object of his pursuit.
Suffering, and the martyr’s death, were as nothing to
this divinely-enlightened mind, might he but attain “the first
resurrection”, the kingdom of the thousand years: Rev. 20: 4. The hope, then, which spurred on the
great apostle through every difficulty and danger, is now before us! Believer,
seek to obtain that prize with like earnestness! It is the hope of our calling!
The zeal and endeavours of the apostle, conjoined with the
implied possibility of loss, prove the solemn truth, that some of the justified - [by faith alone] - will not attain to it. All the justified [‘by faith’] will receive ‘eternal life’, but not all will partake of the antepast of the millennium. For if diligence, earnestness, and careful heed to our
words and deeds be necessary to obtain that reward, then the lukewarm and careless,
the worldly, covetous, pleasure-loving, inconsistent [regenerate] Christian[s] will not receive it. In the chapters
which are to follow, the reader will see further and distincter proofs of this
startling proposition.
We have now reached a position very different to that occupied
at first. Before,
it was justification, as the gift of God without works, possessed already
by the simple believer in the merits of another. Here, it is works, effort, suffering,
with a view to win something not ours as yet. justification was Paul’s at
once on faith. The work of Jesus was perfect. He could not for a moment think
of adding anything to the perfection of Christ. The prize, then, of the text is
something quite distinct from eternal life. It is opened to faith in Messiah;
it is intimately connected with His second coming. It is His promised kingdom. Faith brings at once eternal life. But, to
one rightly instructed, faith is only the beginning of a life-long effort to
attain the abundant entrance into the
12. “Not
that I have already received,
or am already perfected; but I press forward, if
indeed I may lay hold of that, for which I was
also laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13. Brethren, I do not reckon myself to have laid hold of it; but one thing I do,
forgetting, on the one hand, the things behind, but
stretching forth (on the other) after those in front, I press
forward to the goal, for the prize of the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
The lesson for the Christian herein is close and solemn. So
high were Paul’s ideas of the requisites demanded of those who shall be
privileged with entrance into that kingdom, that, in spite of all he had said,
written, done, and suffered for the cause of Christ, he did not feel secure of
his hope. And at that point of his course was he when he thus wrote? He had
passed through the varied labours and endurances mentioned in the Acts of the
Apostles: and was now a prisoner at
But this uncertainty had the right effect upon his mind and
conduct. It but made him the more diligent. He represents himself as a racer, before whom a goal is set,
the attaining of which would secure him the prize.
But not only was this Paul’s desire, but it was the
legitimate and authentic one. It was with a view to his attaining this that
Christ had laid hold of him. He was once wandering far from God. He had opposed
himself to the knowledge of Christ. He had set himself to pluck up the faith by
the roots. But, in the full enmity and aversion of his heart and of his way,
Christ met and arrested him. Such was the fulness of divine grace! But the Lord
then set him upon running a race for a prize. Behold the new principle of reward according to works! But was this Jesus’ desire and
design in Paul’s case alone? By no means. All [regenerate] believers are the " brethren”
of the apostle in this respect, as he plainly declares afterwards. The prize,
then, which Jesus proposes to the believer, and which He urges him to seek as
the end of his conversion fully attained
- is, the being a participator in the millennial reign of the
Messiah.
The pursuit of this grand reward was His single object. “This
one thing I do.” Great excellence is to be attained only by directing our entire energies
to a single object. Here we have Paul’s. We are mercifully shown the
mainspring, which moved his heart, and feet, and tongue. This one object
swallowed up all others, and made him ever zealous, ever advancing, in the
knowledge and love of Christ; ever diligent in service, ever consistent with
himself. Behold the motive which led him perpetually to brave the perils of a
life devoted to preaching the Gospel! Let not then such a discovery be made to
us in vain. Let us take Paul’s object - the object designed by the Lord
Jesus to fill our hearts as believers; and it cannot but quicken our steps in
his ways.
Instead of falling back upon deeds of boldness, and on success
already achieved, he forgot the past. Far from reposing on his laurels, he
regarded not the things behind. He accounted nothing done, while aught remained
to be accomplished. He was pressing onward still. The eager racer tarries not
to see how much of the course is accomplished, but his eye is on the goal
before him. Till that is reached, he will not pause. Though he bore the scars
of many a well-fought field, he would not, if released from his present
imprisonment, rest himself as a discharged veteran, from whom no more could be
expected. No; he purposes still to go on, spreading the Gospel of the grace of
God, a partaker of its afflictions then, that he might be a partaker of the [millennial] glory of the Saviour hereafter. He was
released; according to the hope he expresses in the epistle before us. He
exerted himself anew, and was again arrested. We hear his last words in the
second epistle to Timothy. But then he says, that he now felt sure of the prize. The goal was
just won. He was about to yield up life itself in martyrdom for Christ; and he
expresses his conviction at length, that Christ, when He should sit as the righteous Judge, would award him
the object of his so constant and persevering effort. “I am
now ready to be offered, and the time of my
departure is at hand. I have fought the good
fight; I have finished the course; I have kept the faith;
henceforth, there is laid up for me the crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall
give me in that day, but not to me only, but unto them also which have loved His appearing:”
2 Tim. 4: 6-8.
To be partakers then in the millennial
[*NOTE. The Greek word ‘aionios’
translated ‘eternal’ above, should be understood, as ‘age-lasting life’ or ‘life for the age’ in this context of a
regenerate believer’s works. See also Heb. 5: 9, R.V. Our ‘eternal life’ is not something we
‘hope’ for - it is a certainty
and ‘free gift’ (Rom. 6: 23,
R.V.) for all those initially saved by God’s grace through faith in
our Lord Jesus Christ.]
15. “Let
us then, as many as are adult,* be thus minded; and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this to you.”
From the above sentiment it is apparent that the hope before
us is to fill the heart of believers generally. It was not Paul alone that was
laid hold on by Christ in order to pursue this The exhortation is addressed to
every one who is spiritually adult, to keep this hope before him. For, by
“the perfect” of our translation, are meant, “the adult in Christ.” Paul had said just before,
that he did not think himself “perfected.” When then he here speaks of himself and others as “perfect,” it is in another sense, and one not
unfrequently found in the New Testament: Heb. 5. The youthful believer is occupied generally
with the truths that concern his own justification and acceptance with God. But
when these are clearly seen and firmly held, our position in regard to the
coming [millennial] kingdom, and the need of diligence to
obtain the ‘prize’, ought
deeply to engage our attention.
-------
OBEDIENCE
Years ago a lady came into my office
dressed in Salvation Army costume. She had one of those faces that are lit up
with glory from the inside. After we had finished with legal business, I said
to her, “Now tell be how you were saved?”
She said: “It’s a sad story. I was brought
up by a father who was given to drinking. I used to sit by his side while he
drank his spirits, and he would open by little mouth and dipping a tiny piece
of sugar in the spirit would put it in my mouth. Before I was of age I was a
hopeless drunkard, I lived upon the streets in shame, and I do not suppose there
could have been a more wretched creature on God’s earth. I had delirium
tremens; until some dear sister in Christ pointed me to the Saviour. I
came to Him and He delivered me.” She added, “It is like a horrible nightmare from which I have awakened.
I can hardly believe that I am the same person.” So I said to
her:- “You
must have had a terribly corrupt mind after that life of shame; tell me, will you, how you were delivered from it all after you were reconciled to God.”
She replied, “I will tell you in a word,”
I shall never forget how she said that word - “prompt obedience. God gave me
light, and I walked in it and I was
freed.” - GEORGE
GOODMAN.
-------
SOULS
One evening the missionary at the
Ragged Schools in
* * *
3
THE NEARING CRISIS IN
HEAVEN AND EARTH + 4
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
A tense,
extraordinarily pregnant crisis, involving the vastest issues, balances two
hostile forces in the unseen. Jerusalem - a ‘woman’, in the Apocalypse, always symbolizes
a city - sums up God’s redeemed of all dispensations, for one City has
been the mother of them all, from Melchizedek to Christ: twelve stars - the
Patriarchs - around her head, the moon - the Law - under her feet, and the sun
- Christ, clothing her; and she is on the brink of giving birth. Watching her
with concentrated venom is a Serpent, a red Dragon, for he is responsible for
the blood of all the martyrs; and his passionate concentration is on the
destruction of the ‘child’
about to be born. It seems exceedingly probable that this is the exact
situation at the present moment, though no man living can tell how prolonged
the period may be during which Satan watches in intense anxiety.
THE CHRISTIAN ESCAPE
Suddenly the Child is born. That this
‘child’ is a body of saints is obvious from the words in which (verse 11) the Angels describe it:- “they overcame
him by the blood of the Lamb”;* and the birth, like our Lord’s
(Heb. 1: 5), is a birth out of the tomb. It is a rapture* in
which these saints are caught up to God and His Throne. The holy angels hail
with joy their arrival in Heaven: the evil angels draw the sword for the first
and last time to prevent it. They are very definitely and sharply defined as
fellow-kings with our Lord in His coming Reign, for it is “a man
child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of
iron”; and
they are ‘overcomers’ - “they
overcame him,” thus falling exactly
under our Lord’s words to Thyatira (Rev. 2: 26) - “He that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron.”
* The fact that the ‘birth’ ushers in the final three and a half
years of Satan’s activity alone makes it impossible that the ‘child’ is Christ. Christ, unlike this Child, was
the first-born of His mother, nor did evil angels dispute His ascent, only His
exit from the tomb (Col. 2: 15).
[* See also Luke 21: 34-36; cf. Rev. 3: 10, R.V.)]
THE
This sudden ascent of overcomers
precipitates an immediate war in heaven, a desperate conflict between the
angelic powers. Satan disputes the ascent; his supplanters, who will supplant
him both in heavenly standing and in power over the nations on earth, he stakes
all to block; and the fierce struggle of the Satanic hosts with the holy angels
involves his final fall. But he is not yet cast into the
THE JEWISH ESCAPE
So now the Great Tribulation opens, and the second great
escape, the escape into the wilderness, occurs. Satan, “having great wrath, knowing that
he hath but a short time” - therefore he believes God’s prophecies, for in no other way
could he know the brevity of the time left him: “the demons also believe and shudder” (Jas. 2: 19) - first concentrates on that with
which the world is already seething - the attempted extermination of the Jew.
The Woman - the godly in Jerusalem - obeying the word of Christ, “When ye
see the abomination of desolation” - Antichrist’s image - “standing
in the holy place” - set up in the Temple precincts - “let them that are in
Judea flee unto the mountains” (Matt. 24: 15) - is in instant flight. Any Israelite
who breaks the condition of the
earthly escape - immediate flight - is doomed; but the armies sent in pursuit
of the Woman the earth - as, millenniums before, the Red Sea - opens and
engulfs; and in the desert, earth’s only spot of safety because of its
very famine of all food, God’s earthly saints are again fed by manna or
equivalent food from Heaven.
REMNANTS
After both escapes are accomplished, so far from earth now
being emptied of the godly, the enraged Dragon concentrates on both the groups
who broke the conditions of escape,
and so failed to disappear. “The dragon made war with THE REMNANTS of her seed” - ‘remnants,’ that is, sections identical
with those escaped, but who are left; and there are two of these remnants - “(1) which keep the commandments of God,
and (2)
which hold the testimony of Jesus.” Keepers of ‘the commandments of God’, the Law, are a definition of
Israel: they who hold - that is, those in whose keeping is - ‘the
testimony of Jesus’* is a description impossible of any
but a - [company ‘left’
(1 Thess. 4:
15, R.V.) of the regenerate] - Christian; it has been a definition of
Christians for nineteen centuries; it is the only name given to Christians
throughout the eighteen prophetic chapters of the Apocalypse, and describes
even the Apostle John himself (Rev. 1: 9). The Dragon impales these two groups on his Ten Horns - that
is, he persecutes them by means of the Ten Dictators who are masters of
earth’s chief nations; ** and as the
Divine plan is a prior escape, God withdraws protection from those that are
‘left’, who flouted His design.
Two-thirds of
* Illuminating extracts from
commentators on this phrase will be found in DAWN, Vol. 3. p. 101.
** Apparently the Ten Dictators (or the
majority of them) at first collaborate with the Roman Beast in support of the
Harlot, so that she can and does become drunk
with the blood of the saints; but on Satan’s descent, and manipulated by
him, what has happened in Spain in the last five years - the destruction of
more than 1,000 Catholic churches - becomes universal, and includes every
Christian group. We can readily imagine how the great apostasy from the
Christian Faith now occurs.
HINDRANCES TO ESCAPE
Now since it is probable that the birth of the Child may occur
at any moment, it is wise that we should keep in our minds, as vivid as
lightning, the hindrances that block the way to escape; because, that the
Israelite is godly, or that the believer is regenerate, will deliver neither
from the consequences of disobedience. (1)
The hour coming “is to come upon the whole inhabited earth”
(Rev.
3: 10), our Lord says, and therefore the
only possible earthly escape is the Wilderness, the uninhabited earth; and the flight is to be so
instantaneous - if a Jew in the field has left his cloak in house, he has no
time (the Lord says) to fetch it (Matt. 24: 18)
- that disobedience in rapidity
forfeits escape. So to the Church our Lord’s words - for both critical
commands from the Son of God to each group - could not be more explicit:- “Watch ye
and pray always that ye may be accounted
worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21: 36). The escape of God’s earthly
people is physical, and therefore turns on instantaneousness of flight; but the
escape of His heavenly people is moral
- passive and static: [see Greek ...], to be set before the Son of Man - and therefore
turns on prayerful vigilance: and failure to watch and pray will be as fatal to
the one as failure in instant flight will be to the other.*
* It is pregnant with meaning that
neither the rapt nor the left are said to be the Church: for those who ascend
are not the Church, but a section of it; and those who remain
are not the Church, for church-standing ceases with the arrival of the Day of
the Lord. Thus it is unscriptural to say either that the Church escapes the
Tribulation, or that the Church passes through it: the Church does neither; and therefore no ‘church’ is named throughout the prophetic
portion of the Apocalypse.
CONDITIONS OF RAPTURE
So we are shown, by Heaven itself, the exceedingly high
standard of the upward escape. (1)
They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb: not only the fundamental
cleansing in salvation, but a constant confession and abandonment of known sin
which re-invokes the Blood. “They washed their
robes” -
their own conduct: Christ’s robe, the robe of imputed righteousness,
needs no cleansing - “and made them white in the blood of the Lamb: therefore are they before the throne” (Rev. 7: 14). (2) “Because of the word of their testimony.” The truths of God they stand for are
the platform on which they ascend: an abandoned testimony is a collapsed
platform. Or, to borrow Paul’s figure, the ‘blood’ is the foundation, and the
‘testimony’ is the superstructure of gold,
silver, costly stones which they erect upon it. (3) “And they loved not their life even unto death.” It does not say that they are
all martyrs; but they were, to a man, ready to be martyred: they never compromised, even to save
their life. What a standard! Yet it is a standard perfectly possible for every
one of us to achieve.
THE UNRAPT
That what remains on earth is a ‘remnant’ - the rest, the remainder - from those
who have gone is proof wholly decisive that it is [regenerate] Christians who remain; but if any reader still doubts
it, let him ponder a recent revival scene (World Dominion, Oct., 1936) on the Congo; and let him
ask himself - Were these Christians that were ‘revived’?
and if so, how does their pre-revival condition fit Heaven’s description
(verse 11)
of the rapt? “Judgment began at the house of God. Christians were awakened to a deep distress for
sin. Sometimes the revelation was so overwhelming that people under conviction
cried out in anguish, and trembled, or even fell to the ground. It was the sham
and secrecy of Church members in former times that determined the early
character of the revival, for it came naturally to be felt that men who had
preached and taught in Christ’s name while cluttered up with all manner
of sin must make public confession. In the eyes of the heathen, all that had
veiled the face of Christ must openly be renounced. For weeks and weeks there
was a constant stream of men waiting their turn to make public avowal of the
sins that had besmirched their lives and betrayed Christ’s cause. Time
fails to tell even a fraction of the stories that broken-hearted men and women
poured into our ears during these amazing weeks when judgment had begun at the
house of God. Through a valley of humiliation like this all our leading men
passed save one.”*
* Both ‘remnants’
are purged as is the Israelitish:- “I will bring
the third part through the fire, and will refine
them” (Zech. 13: 9). Both were warned to remember
If Christ had come a week before the revival, would these have been rapt? and
if so, what becomes of Heaven’s summary of their life and
character before removal? and will anyone say that no such [regenerate] believers will be on earth when the
Lord does come? Let it be carefully
pondered that this is no mere detail of a disputed prophecy, but a fearful
practical urgency for us all; for all will agree that if rapture turns on fidelity, he who
influences others to believe that escape is safe for an un-sanctified life not
only makes a most painful blunder for himself, but, in a moment of intensest
crisis, does a grave disservice to the whole church of God.
-------
AN ADVENT AT THE DOORS
“For yourselves know perfectly
that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. Therefore let us not sleep as do others; but let us watch and be sober.” This watching takes for granted the
suddenness and uncertainty of the Lord’s appearing. Scripture does not
say that the Lord must come in
my day; but it says, the Lord may come in my day. This ‘may come’ is the secret of a watching spirit.
Without it we cannot watch. We may love, and hope, and wait, but we cannot
watch. Our lamps are always to be trimmed. Why? Not merely because the
Bridegroom is to come, but because we
know not how soon He may come. Our loins are always to be girt up. Why? Not
simply because we know there is to be a coming, but because we know not when that event is to be. I do not know how it may be with
others, but I feel that when I can say the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, I have got a weapon in my hand of no
common edge and temper. To be able to announce that the Lord will come is much
but to be able to say without the reservation of an interval The Lord is at hand, is greatly more.- HORATIO
BONAR, D.D.
-------
MORE THAN CONQUEROR
Frank Curtis was, physically, a wreck; blind, ulcerated, and
with an affection of his throat which caused difficulty in breathing. When he
first came to us his life’s maxim was
BLANDINA
(These lines were
written the day before their author died October 23, 1936, and were found under his pillow after his
death. Suffering acute hart-spasms the day before, he said he had never known
greater joy. Blandina, when tossed and gored by bulls in her martyrdom, asked
when the tortures were to begin.)
Blandina - slave and saint- upon the
sand
Of the arena all unconscious lay,
Death-gored; then woke, “I do not understand -
I thought I was to have
been gored to-day!
O what a heavenly dream” she said - and died.
And found her martyr-crown already
won,
And joy, once dreamt of here, in
heaven begun -
For ever in the
- J. A. RAMSAY.
-------
WATCHFULNESS
The abundant entrance is by Peter attached to the fruitful state: by our Lord to the watchful state: Matt. 24 & 25. Both present the same thing from
different points of view. Peter is an example, both of the fall, and of the
entrance. 1. He was one of the three
chosen to behold the scene on the Mount of Transfiguration. 2. He fell through unwatchfulness at
the hall of Caiaphas. His fall there, and subsequent forgiveness, and future
admission to the [millennial] kingdom, is a powerful antidote against despair for
those believers who are conscious of having foully fallen. It is intended so to
be. Still, the entrance at last is for those “counted worthy” of that age of
glory and of the first resurrection: Luke 20: 35; 21: 36; 2 Thess. 1: 5; Rev. 3: 4, 11.
-
ROBERT GOVETT
* * *
4
ABUNDANT ENTRANCE
By ROBERT GOVETT.
“And for
this very reason, throwing into it 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
love” (2 Peter 1:
5).
The
reason for diligence here mentioned is the gracious preparative means which God
has provided. ‘As he has done so much, do you
sympathize with his mind by holy diligence. That you may escape the evil of the
world, and grow in grace, is God’s design. With this end also set before
your view, tend towards it. You have faith, and are justified by the
righteousness of another. But faith is sanctifying as well as justifying. It is designed to introduce into the soul all other graces.’
In the verses which follow, the sacred writer confirms the
necessity of these tempers by exhibiting their present benefit to the
possessor, and their bearing on the admission to the kingdom. The same truth is
further sustained by a view of the ill consequences where they are wanting.
“For if
these things be in you and abound,
they constitute you neither idle nor
unfruitful under* the knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ.”
* Literally, “unto.” [See Greek...]
Advance in these graces is the proof that you are not idle as
servants, nor unfruitful as land. The knowledge of Jesus is practical, and is
designed so to be. In answer to the deposit committed, a return from man is
required. Thus the faithful servants of the talents trade with what is
committed, and enter at length into the joy of their Lord. Thus Paul compares
the Christian, as we have seen, to land, from which, in answer to the heavenly
gifts of rain and sunshine, and the earthly cultivation of the husbandman,
fruits are expected: Heb. 6. This activity and fruitfulness are to be yielded to the
perception of what the Lord Jesus is, and what are his demands on us, as our
Redeemer, Intercessor, Teacher, and Lord.
“For he
to whom these things belong not is blind,
short-sighted,
having forgotten the
cleansing away of his former sins.”
The believer who abides content with the knowledge and grace
which he obtained at the first, is now compared with the advancing Christian.
He who is not adding to his knowledge and grace is dull of comprehension and
vision in things spiritual, whether in the future or the past. He is regardless
of prophecy. He has forgotten the forgiveness of sins vouchsafed at his first
entrance on the faith, of which immersion and its total cleansing is a type.
Hence, in our day, so many are ever questioning whether they
are the children of God or no. That the person spoken of is a believer, is
certain, from his having received entire forgiveness at the commencement of his
career. The progressing Christian is a student of prophecy. His eye is on the
end of these things; on the crown and the kingdom which the Father has
prepared. He sees that the cleansing from sin is not the end of the Christian
course, but only its starting point. Obedience has present advantages which the
careless, sensual impatient, selfish, or worldly saint cannot enjoy. In the
state here depicted, behold the consequence of that principle of God’s
dealings, which our Saviour so often announced. “He
that hath, to him shall be given; but he that hath not, from him
shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have.”
“Wherefore,
brethren, give the more diligence to make sure
your calling and election; for if ye do
these things ye shall never
stumble. For thus the entrance into the eternal kingdom of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ shall be richly added to you.”
The saint is here instructed to be diligent, because his
calling and election depend on it. But how can this be true?
1. Is not the election to eternal
life already fixed? Was it
not decided before the foundation of the world? Yes. Was it not of God’s
sovereignty, before the doing of aught, good or evil, on our part? Yes.
2. It is of calling and election, then,
to something else that the apostle is here speaking. What that is, has been
often before made apparent. It is expressed by the apostle himself, a little
lower down. He is speaking in reference to the
To this kingdom believers have a call. “Walk
worthy of God, who calleth, * you unto his kingdom and glory:”
1 Thess.
2:
12. The choice by Christ of some for this
kingdom, is seen in the three taken up into the Mount of Transfiguration. This
choice is “according to works”. Believers are the more called to
diligence concerning this, by a consideration of the future results of such
diligence. Our election to the - [coming of the Messiah’s] - kingdom depends upon it. A sense of
self-interest, then, is to quicken our steps.
* [See Greek ...] Our translators
here, as in many other places, have followed the Vulgate - Qui vocavit.
Thus their calling and election would be made “sure”.
1. It would be made sure before God. This is another
view of the same point which the apostle treated of in Hebrew 6. God will, at length, set among the seed of Abraham, to whom he has bound
himself by oath, those who are thus diligent.
2. It would be made sure to themselves. They would, by
holy conduct, at length attain to confident assurance of admission to the
kingdom. This answers to the full assurance of hope, which the apostle in the Hebrews also speaks of, as the result of
diligence. The assurance in our breasts is, when genuine, the reflex of the
determination on God’s part. Our confidence, then, in regard of this
should be a progressive thing, increasing with our spiritual growth.
Two beneficial results of this diligence are then stated as
motives thereto.
1. “For if ye do these things ye
shall never stumble.” Stability in our Christian course is the promised result of
advancement in grace. Not a few Christians, and those of long standing in the
faith, do stumble and fall foully. Their fall resounds far and wide. The
ungodly triumph. The cause of Christ sustains a serious blow. Those, then, who
so fall, are not the advancing Christians here spoken of. They had been for
some time declining in knowledge and grace. At length came the temptation which
tripped their feet. After some time ceasing to ply the oar, the boat was dashed
by the current against the shore.
The believer’s every fall, though it may not exclude
positively and absolutely from the kingdom, renders his entrance un-certain. It is just the contrary to the
rendering it sure. The one who has
so fallen may recover himself, and be roused to extra diligence for the future.
But repeated falls must strongly tend to exclude finally from the promised
glory. Hence Paul says of himself, “The Lord shall deliver
me from every evil work, and preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom.”
2. But a second benefit accrues. “For
thus shall be richly added to you the entrance into the everlasting kingdom if
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” The force of a preceding word is missed by the English
reader, in consequence of our translators giving to the same Greek word two
renderings in English. “Add to your faith virtue.” “So the entrance shall be richly added to you.” To diligence God will furnish “the abundant entrance
into the everlasting kingdom” of Christ. Christ has two kingdoms;
the temporary one of the thousand years, and the eternal one. The temporary one
is the porch into the eternal one. All [regenerate] believers will obtain an entrance into the eternal
one. But to obtain a part in the temporary, is to have the rich or abundant entrance into
the eternal. Now those who never stumble in the race shall be chosen into the
kingdom of the thousand years, and thus obtain the abundant entrance into the
final kingdom. This will be missed by those who only enter on the kingdom in
its everlasting state.
“Wherefore
I will always be ready* to remind you of these things, though ye know them, and are established in
the present truth. But I esteem it right,
as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you
up by putting you in
remembrance. Knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle is speedy,
As also our Lord Jesus
Christ manifested to me. But I give diligence, that ye
may have it
(in your power)
even always to make mention of these things after my
decease.”
* Tischendorf and Lachmann adopt the
more difficult reading ... , which I
suppose to be the true one. The Vulgate has, Incipiam.
So important is this point, that the apostle, as long as he
lived, would not cease to insist on it. Though those to whom he addressed
himself knew the truth here enforced, and held it as of primary moment, Peter
would still be careful to repeat it. Truths known need exhortation to keep them
before us. But especially is this true of the importance of good works, and
their connection with our rapture into millennial glory. Now if they required a frequent reminding of it
who were established in it, how much more do we to whom it is a new thing? When
so many truths of deepest import have slipped away from the churches of Christ,
how should they be otherwise than feeble? How should Christians be especially
holy, when God’s spurs to holiness are forgotten?
* * *
5
OUR REACTION TO THE
WORD OF GOD + 1
The
parable of the Sower is in such exact accord with facts of life that a
Christian teacher, if he had to summarize in terms of agriculture what he has
seen throughout decades of teaching, would have to invent the parable to
express the facts. This is the very first of our Lord’s parables; it is
one of the few the literal interpretation of which is given us by the Saviour
Himself; and so simple, so obvious, so convincing is it that Jesus says, - “Know ye
not [do ye not
understand] this
parable? and how shall ye know all the parables?” (Mark 4: 13). And the truth of it can be put with
extreme simplicity:- motives, sown in the heart, create action; and divine
motives create a divine life.
Now the first immense truth that we
get is that there is a pre-established harmony between Scripture and the human
heart. “The seed,” our Lord says, “is THE WORD OF GOD” (Luke 8: 11).* Where in the totally distinct parable
of the Tares, the seeds are ‘the children of the Kingdom’, our Lord, as the sole regenerator,
says (Matt. 13: 37):-
“He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;” but where it is solely the distributing
of the Word of God, and the reaction of the human mind to the Scripture, this
is nowhere stated: the sower can be an evangelist, or pastor, or teacher, or
colporteur; or a worker in the Sunday School or on the street or in the home. “Paul
planted,” he says, “and Apollos
watered.” The whole and sole emphasis is on the seed. The Seed is
the Word of God, and the Word of God only: all error, therefore, which the
human sower may plant, all seed not the Word
of God verbally or in substance, is here completely ignored: the parable is
solely the reaction of all minds to the Holy Scriptures, whether those
Scriptures be heard or read “The field is the world”; and revealed truth is designed for
all men, and is to be sent and offered to all.
* The Word of God is defined in Matthew
(13:
19)
as ‘the word of the kingdom’; for
the kingdom in mystery, the Church, and the kingdom in manifestation, our
Lord’s Advent and Reign, together compose ‘the
whole counsel of God,’ involving and embodying all revelation, but
especially the seed sent forth since Pentecost.
Four groups, and four only - four is the world-number - cover
the whole of humanity; and the first is soil which rejects the seed in toto; the hard, trampled, exposed pathway on which some of
the seed falls, and since no seed germinates in it, it is all Scripture-hearers
or Scripture-readers that are lost. “Those by the wayside are they
that have heard” the Word of God has reached them: “then cometh the devil and
taketh away the word from their heart, THAT THEY MAY NOT BELIEVE AND BE SAVED”
(Luke 8: 12). No revealed truth whatever enters
such hearts: therefore no saving truth: therefore all such souls are lost. So
we are left with a second tremendous truth:- that man’s heart, without
the Holy Scriptures, is - Godward - perfectly barren.
The next two groups cover a vast section of those who hear the
truth and believe it; living plants, made alive by the germinated seed; yet, in
the harvest, both these groups are found without fruit. The first reads like a
photograph. “They that have been sown upon the rocky places, when they have heard the word, straightway receive it with joy; and they
have no root in themselves, but endure for a
while; then, when
tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway THEY
STUMBLE” (Mark 4: 16). The particular truth, or truths, has
never ‘taken root’. They have not
root in themselves; that is, the defect is in them: either they never mastered the
truths they have now abandoned - there was no depth of conviction; or else their
own characters are feeble and volatile, and what they once grasped with joy
they now relax in gloom. Their root is in a favourable environment, not in
themselves; in excitement, in Christian encouragement, in prosperity. Paul
sketches similar characters:- “Tossed to and fro and carried about with
every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men” - the jugglery of controversial
conjurors - “in craftiness, after the wiles
of error” (Eph. 4: 14). Probably tens of thousands of believers to-day (including
Modernists, though by no means Modernists alone) can say with a church member
known to the writer:- “I have lost all my
beliefs except belief in my Saviour” : all the lovely early bloom,
in its joyous springtime, had - as the Saviour says - ‘withered’.* And the reason is given. “When tribulation” - the word derives from the ‘threshing-roller,’ the ‘sifting’ of wheat (Luke 22: 31) - “or
persecution ariseth because of the word” - the unpopularity, or even danger, of the truth- “straightway
he stumbleth” (Matt. 13: 21). The stumbler in the race is the runner who loses the prize. Obedience is always costly, and the greater the obedience the greater
the cost. So it is the warning of Hebrews (2: 1):- “Therefore
we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard, lest haply we drift away from them.”
* Professor William James, quoting the letter of a
correspondent, gives (in his Varieties of
Religious Experience) an
example that could be indefinitely multiplied. His correspondent describes how
a living faith which had been a tower of strength and a well of life to him,
gradually left him. “A blank was there,” he writes, “instead of
it. I couldn’t find anything. Now, at the age of nearly fifty, my power
of getting into connection with it has entirely left me; and I have to confess
that a great help has gone out of my life. Life has become curiously dead and
indifferent.” All apostates fall under this heading, whether temporary
like Peter, or permanent like Judas.
The third group is no less intensely
realistic. “They that are sown among the thorns are they that have heard
the word, and the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in” - after the Word has sprung with
lovely promise - “choke the word” - the old convictions survive, but become inoperative
: Wickliffe translates it, “strangle
it” - “and it becometh unfruitful”
(Mark 4: 19). It becometh unfruitful, for in the early stages there was fruit:
absorbing anxieties, or else worldly success, or else the passion for other
things - and there are a thousand such - than the coming of the King and the
Kingdom, bring it about that the grain never riperns
The second group were fruitless through external difficulties - unpopularity,
ostracism, even danger to life: the third group, through internal passions -
anxiety, covetousness and countless other lusts.* In
the words of Havelock, when
criticized for his religious convictions:- “I
humbly trust I shall not change my opinions and practice, though it rains garters
and coronets as the reward of apostasy.” It is the warning of
John:- “Look to yourselves, that ye
lose not the things which ye have wrought,” - the lovely fruits of springtime - “but
that ye receive a full reward”
(2 John 8).
* “The
love of money is the root” -
here is one thorn-root - “of all kinds of
evil, which some reaching after have been led
astray from the faith and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Tim.
6:
10)
- here are the thorns.
Whether or not we may press the numerical proportions given in
the Parable it is impossible to say; but it is at least very suggestive that,
in our Lord’s statement, only one in every four who hears, and only one
in every three who believes, bears fruit. Christian fruit - another enormous lesson
of the parable - is simply Scripture reproduced in life. “That in
the good ground, these are such as in an honest
and good heart, having heard the word, hold it fast” - the Greek word implies so holding a thing that it
does not run away from us: truth can be slippery - “and BRING FORTH FRUIT with patience”
(Luke 8:
15). If we do not grasp the truth, and
retain it, it passes: but truth retained in unencumbered soil, infallibly
fruits. “These neither misconceive the true
genius and character of the Gospel calling, as a scheme of discipline and
probation, by which virtue is to be made perfect through suffering, like
converts of the second class: nor shrink from its personal duties, and give it
a secondary place in their thoughts and affections, like those of the third:
but are ready to endure all things, even the loss of life; and ready to
sacrifice all things, even themselves, their dearest appetites and passions”
(Greswell).
So now we see in all its clearness, the priceless facts which
our Lord unfolds. (1) The reaction
of the soil to the seed is a perfect revelation of the soil: no test for
analyzing character is more subtle or more searching than our reaction to the
Word of God. It is only the burning conviction that creates the glowing life. (2) “The
seed is received as each man has ears to hear” (Alford). The only seed is the Word of
God; and each seed - that is, each Scriptural truth - bears its own fruit,
fruit which is impossible if that particular truth is not planted in the mind.
A seed may be more, or less, vigorous, and therefore more, or less, fruitful -
that is, a truth, equally accepted by different believers, may have widely
different effects; but also, as covering the whole ground, the fewer seeds
accepted, the narrower the harvest. It is the amount of truth we absorb, and
the amount of truth we retain, that decides our harvest. Simple, saving truth
produces simple, elementary salvation; but God’s Word is a vast mass of
sixty-six books, and each truth produces a fruitfulness of its own. Therefore (3) the glorious fact stands forth that,
as that life will be fullest of fruit whose heart is fullest of Scripture -
Scripture first studied, then believed, then practised - so complete
fruitfulness is made possible for every believer - a hundredfold, not thirtyfold - by complete obedience to all Scripture. All of
us can become ‘living epistles’.
So we reach the vital point. What controls our reception of
the seed? The Lord says nothing of subtlety of intellect, or depth of learning:
for appropriating divine truth the decisive qualities are not mental at all,
but moral. “Such as in HONEST AND
GOOD HEART hold it fast” (Luke 8: 15). “It is a description,”
says Greswell,
“familiar to classical readers as the received
formula among the Greeks for moral excellence.” The first quality,
‘honesty,’ means straight vision, and
immediate acceptance of unpalatable truth, a refusal to have any axe to
grind, perfect openness; our Saviour’s ‘single eye’ which is consequently ‘full of light’. The second quality, ‘goodness’, is a heart bent on all that
is right and divine. “The expression an ‘honest and good heart’ conveys to us the idea of
ingenuousness, nobleness of purpose, united with goodness” (Alford). Our character and life are ultimately the sole evidence of
a good and honest heart; and the highest holiness is the closest incarnation of
the Book. Therefore the golden words of President
Woodrow Wilson to all sowers:- “Give men the Bible unadulterated, pure, unaltered,
un-cheapened, and then see it work its wholesome work through the whole nature.
It forms a part of the warp and woof of a man’s life.” For
the soil does not change the seed, except to develop it; but the seed does the
miracle - it turns dust into fruit.
-------
SPIRITUALISM IN
A few weeks ago occurred the forty-fourth annual Convention of
the National Spiritualist Association, which counts 500 churches and 40,000 of
the 200,000 believers in spiritism in
Organized in 1893, the Association has been the most active
force in Spiritualism in the country. Its competitor is the International
General Assembly of Spiritualists, an offshoot of the Association, which claims
200 churches.
* * *
6
THE NEXT ACT IN THE DRAMA* + 4
[* The following is a preview of what we
read in Holy Scripture will soon appear!]
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
It is
remarkable that even unconverted men - His words are addressed to ‘the multitudes’ - our Lord reproaches for
their inability to read the signs of the times. “When ye see a cloud
rising in the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower: ye
know how to interpret the face of the earth and the heaven; but how is it that ye know not how to interpret” - to analyze so as to forecast - “this
time?” (Luke 12: 54) - the signals of your own epoch. A lurid sunset, a stormy
morrow: what is our horizon and the forecast our Lord thus justifies us in
making, as the sun of our age goes down?
DICTATORS
One huge storm-cloud - probably the greatest now on the
horizon - blackens the heavens. We are confronted with a startling revolution
in the great powers of the world; a world-revolution which has produced
autocrats who correspond, in a manner never yet known in history, with the
autocrats revealed in the Apocalypse immediately before Antichrist. The Apostle
describes them thus:- “Ten kings, which have received
no kingdom as yet but [who] receive
authority as kings”
(Rev. 17: 12). The Dictators who have suddenly
sprung upon the horizon - [today in 2024] - exactly fit the description: no monarchs could have
greater power; yet not one of them is crowned. In 1917, Stalin; in 1922, Mussolini;
in 1925, Kemal;
in 1926, Pilsudski*; in 1933, Hitler and Schuschnigg;
in 1936, Metaxas
and Franco. No man is yet authorized
by God to say that these two groups of Dictators - the Apocalyptic and the
modern - are one and the same, but circumstances may prove it at any moment.
Taken in conjunction with the other portents of a rapidly dying age, it is
difficult to resist the conclusion that they are.
* Stalin’s succession to Lenin
proves that the death of a modern dictator - as Pilsudski
- is not necessarily the collapse of the dictatorship.
DESPOTS
The Apocalyptic dictatorships are mentally one; so also are
the modern totalitarian States: “they have
one mind” - one philosophy, one
mentality, one outlook. In the words of Mr.
Christopher Dawson (Religion and the
Modern State, pp. 106,
129):- “The modern State aspires more and more
to govern the life of the individual, to mould his thought by education and
propaganda, and to make him the obedient instrument of its will. The old
individualist ideal of the State as a policeman whose business it is to clear
the field for individual initiative is a thing of the past. The State of the
future will not be a policeman, but an all-powerful, omnipotent, human god -
and a very jealous god at that. We see one form of this ideal in
* That which creates modern dictatorship
can spring up like lightning. “The sudden rise
of ‘Rex’ in
TYRANNY
The Apocalypse implies that the power lodged in the Crownless
Kings is pure despotism; for when the last crisis comes, “they give” - apparently
without any authorization but their own - “their power and authority unto
the beast.”
This absolute despotism is a mark of all. “The fundamental resemblance of
the Russian, Italian, and German systems emerges in practice, and all three
turn out to be party dictatorships which, having invested their own authority
with absolute and unchallengeable political, moral, and religious sanction,
have enormous and unprecedented arbitrary and tyrannical power. All three are
fundamentally and implacably hostile to that individual freedom without which
Western civilization, as we understand it, is inconceivable” (Manchester Guardian, weekly ed., Aug. 14, 1936). The Ten Autocrats act alone. Mr. O. W. Reigel
(Mobilizing for Chaos. p. 167) sums it up thus:- “The
world is moving rapidly into an era of universal obstruction of the free flow
of information and opinion. In the name of Nationalism freedom of speech and the
press has already been denied to nine-tenths of the world’s population.”
A LEAGUE
But the Apocalypse reveals them as a league. acting together.
In Lord Allenby’s words:- “Man has become a world-citizen”; and the
Apocalypse discloses exactly that League of Nations toward which the world
strains, yet the attainment of which will not be the present League’s
original ideal. “They have one mind”:
it is an international league: it is a world-unanimity which is everywhere
assumed at this moment as the only possible basis of peace. A few months ago
the League of Nations Secretariat moved into its magnificent new home at
A WORLD-STATE
So the Apocalyptic Kings accomplish the very solution of the
world-problem which is inevitable.* Mr.
H. G. Wells (The American Magazine, Aug., 1934) says:- “A world-state is in the making. A time is coming when we
will say ‘to the devil with parties and nations’. They do not meet
the needs and aims of this new humanity, with its preposterously enlarged
powers and scope. For it becomes plainer every day that human affairs must fall
into irremediable disorder and disaster if an adequate new modus vivendi is not achieved.” And if
these be the Apocalyptic Dictators, the new world-order is to be produced by
criminals committing all power to a super-criminal. Mr. George Seldes says (Sawdust Casar; p.
16):- “Lenin, Kemal, Pilsudski, in fact most of the modern dictators, have a
long police record; but with Mussolini almost every year is marked by a deed of
violence.” His chief rival is Stalin. Mr. John Gunther
writes (Inner Europe, p. 435):- “Both Hitler and Mussolini have seen the inside of jails; but
Stalin was much more real a jailbird.” Criminals, endowed with
colossal power, will create the new world-state.
* If the Ten Toes of Daniel
(2:
42)
are identical with the Ten Kings of the Apocalypse, the latter will probably be
within the old Roman Empire; but, qualifying this, we must remember that all
the Four Empires, including the Roman, were universal de jure (Dan. 2: 38, 6: 25; Luke 2: 1. etc.) though not de facto; and it is
certain that the Roman Antichrist’s rule will be universal (Rev. 13: 3).
“An immense body of opinion in
COLLECTIVE SECURITY
The Apocalypse extraordinarily stresses the unanimity of the
Dictators; three times it is named; and since sin is usually violently disruptive,
and men dissolve in passions of hate and bloodshed, it is carefully pointed out
that this unanimity is God-created:- “for God did put into their
hearts TO COME TO ONE MIND.” Circumstances are compelling exactly
that. For not only are the modem Dictators of one mental type - absolute,
merciless, godless - but their conception of a totalitarian State must, in
logic, end at last in a totalitarian World. The ideal of all opposition stamped
out, all thought State-bom and State-controlled, all
religion centred in the State, is an ideal as applicable to a World-State as to
an individual community; and when it is realized that, the world being what it
is, in no other way can ‘collective security’
be produced, the Ten Autocrats, already morally and fundamentally one, hand
over their combined authority to the Dictator in Rome, so producing the
world-state at last. In a jungle of wild beasts there is no solution of the
war-problem except the enthronement of one Beast as absolute over all.
WAR ON CHRIST
The moral foundations of the Dictatorships already reveal that
their goal is one with the Apocalyptic Dictators:- “These shall war against the
Lamb.” The Times (April
3, 1936) has this remarkable unveiling of the immoral foundations of the coming
world-state:- “The tendency to exalt the
State which has been so marked on the Continent since the War, and the
accompanying tendency to personify the State in a dictator, have naturally
brought back into vogue the study of Machiavelli’s, Prince is the prototype of all such dictators.
It is significant that Mussolini as a young man made a deep study of Machiavelli’s Prince, which might be called the
statesman’s vade mecum, and that again to quote the Duce’s words, Machiavelli’s doctrine ‘is
more living to-day than it was four centuries ago.’ ‘If all rulers
were good,’ writes Machiavelli, ‘you ought to keep your word; but
since they are dishonest, and do not keep faith with you, you in return need
not keep faith with them.’ It is not only significant, but very ominous,
that this doctrine is being so widely preached in the
THE ADVENT
Is the completion of the Ten Dictators, and their joint action
in re-creating the
* A
Communist dictatorship in
-------
THE WEEK OF PRAYER
“The response to the invitation
to observe the forthcoming week of prayer,” Mr. Martyn Gooch writes,
“is exceeding all expectations.” On
Sunday, January 3rd, at 4 p.m., in the National programme, Dr. J. H.
Oldham will broadcast on behalf of the World’s Evangelical Alliance a
talk on the subject of the Universal Week of Prayer. Nothing is so important
for Christian unity as united prayer in a spirit which transcends divisions and
denominational barriers. The Week of Prayer is ecumenical in its outlook, and
inter-racial in its fellowship; the prayer topics, translated into one hundred
or more languages and dialects, are used by Chinese, Indians, Africans,
Abyssinians, Arabs, Persians, and others; and it is one of the steps towards
the unity of the body of Christ for which He prayed. One object of prayer (for
England) may well be the blocking of such blasphemous films as one just
authorized by the authorities, in which a negro film actor impersonates “de Lawd God Jehoyah,”
representing Him as a kindly old coloured pastor who smokes cigars while He
inspects Noah’s Ark and talks to the angel Gabriel.
-------
PRAYER THAT PREVAILS
Seek entirely to depend
on God for everything. Put
yourself and your work into His hands. When thinking of any new undertaking,
ask, “Is this agreeable to th, mind of God? Is
it for His glory?” If
it is not for His glory, it is not for your good, and you must have nothing to
do with it. Mind that! Having settled that a certain course is for the glory of
God, begin it in His name, and continue it to the end. Undertake it in prayer
and faith, and never give up! Pray, pray, pray! Do not regard iniquity in your
heart. If you do, the Lord will not hear you. Keep that before you always. Then
trust in God. Depend only on God. Wait on Him. Believe on Him. Expect
great things from Him. Faint
not if the blessing tarries. Pray, pray, pray! And, above all, rely only on the
merits of our ever-adorable Lord and Saviour, that, according to His infinite
merits, and not your own, the prayers you offer and the work you do will be
accepted. - GEORGE MULLER.
WEALTH IN
Look at the wealth of Christians in
-------
THE VOICE OF THE REFORMERS*
* It is significant that Dr.
Niemoller, who is fighting a noble fight in
I must confess that
no brighter hopes, with a prospect of early fulfilment, can be discerned at the
present time. On the contrary, new signs of misfortune are visible in every direction
as we look around us, so that the future seems to hold nothing except the
complete downfall of the Church. But one thought, none the less, uplifts my
heart and gives me new courage. I say to myself : Since God has begun this
wonderful reformation of His Church, He never ment to awaken empty hopes, which
would soon be swept away. Far rather will He protect and establish the work He
has begun, not only in defiance of Satan, but also in spite of the human malice
which sets itself in opposition to His will. - JOHN CALVIN.
If I were to live a hundred years longer, and if by
God’s grace I had subdued not only the former and present tempests and
bands of foes, but also had strength to overcome all that should rise against
us in the future - I see clearly, none the less, that no rest will be allowed
to our posterity, because the devil lives and rules. Therefore, I pray for a
peaceful death, and desire to linger on earth no longer. You, our descendants,
must also pray with all your might, and be diligent in the business of
God’s Word. Keep alight the humble lamp of God. Be armed and well
equipped, like those who must expect that at any moment the devil will drive in
a pane or a window of your house, break open the door or the roof, if only he
may extinguish that light! Therefore, watch and be sober. He sleeps not and
takes no rest, nor will he die until the last day. I and thou must die, and
when we are gone, he will remain just the same that he has always been, and he
cannot cease his assaults. May Christ our dear Lord, Who has bruised the
serpent’s head, come and deliver us at last from his attacks. Amen. - MARTIN LUTHER.
* * *
7
THE COMING
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
Christian
truth now flashes like forked lightnings in the blackest thunder-clouds; and no
truth is more terrible, a truth urgently needed to be known, than the battle of
coming miracle just below the horizon. For under identical circumstances God
acts identically; every dispensation, man-ruined, closes in miracle; and the
final crisis, which we are rapidly approaching, will be a death-grapple of
rival miraculous powers: a truth which, it is safe to say, is almost totally
unknown to the
SATAN’S DESCENT
The battle opens with the presence on earth, for this express
purpose, of the two great protagonists of the universe; and they first pass
each other in the air. “There is one that restraineth now” - the sole personal curb on
lawlessness is the Holy Ghost - “until he be taken
out of the way”* (2
Thess. 2: 7): simultaneously, Satan is “cast down to the earth, and his angels with him” (Rev. 12: 9). Therefore the Spirit’s
restraint in grace being removed, all Hell’s miraculous powers burst
upward. “In the last days grievous times shall come. For like as
Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses [that is, miraculously:
Exod. 7: 11], SO DO THESE also withstand
the truth. But they shall proceed no further:
for their folly shall be evident unto all men, as theirs
[‘Jannes’ and ‘Jambres’] also came to
be” (2 Tim. 3: 1, 8) - that is, by the counter-working of mightier miracle. If the
false Christs work ‘great’ miracles,
and yet are conquered by greater, the miraculous gifts must
return - [to God’s chosen believers] -with a fulness and a power never known before.
* The Greek is, literally, “become out of the midst”. That is, the
Spirit’s ascent is the exact reverse of His descent: He who is ‘in the midst’ is suddenly absent; not ‘taken’, but self-removed.
THE HOLY SPIRIT
So, correspondingly, a fresh descent of the Holy Ghost on to
the earth is foretold. “And I saw in the midst of the throne a Lamb standing having seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, WHICH ARE SENT
FORTH INTO ALL THE EARTH” (Rev. 5: 6). This sevenfold unction - an identity
even more than an unction - Isaiah (11: 2) reveals:- “The Spiri of Jehovah shall rest upon him
[the Messiah]; the spirit of (1) wisdom and (2) understanding, the spirit
of (3) counsel and (4) might, the spirit of
(5) knowledge and the (6) fear of the Lord, and
shall make him of (7) quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.” This second descent of the Holy Ghost
is not to the Church, or to
FALSE CERISTS
Now the consequence of Satan’s descent and unprecedented
opportunity, an opportunity God-allowed, in working real and great miracles of
evil we have not yet seen. “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, AND SHALL SHOW GREAT SIGNS AND WONDERS;
so as to lead astray, if
possible, even the elect” * (Matt. 24: 24). The deceit, our Lord says, will be overwhelming. And the
Satanic power is supreme in the two leaders of Hell, the Antichrist and the
False Prophet: for the Antichrist displays “all power and signs and wonders [wrought on behalf] of falsehood” (2 Thess. 2: 9); and the False Prophet “doeth great signs, that he should even make fire to come down out of heaven upon
the earth in the sight of men” (Rev. 13: 13). These miracles are the foundation of
the worship of Antichrist; for the False Prophet “deceiveth them that
dwell on the earth by reason of the signs which it was given him to do”.
* The Authorized Version seems to make our Lord imply
that such seduction was absolutely impossible. The translation ought to run, as
in the Revised Version, ‘so as to lead astray,
if possible, even the
elect’, signifying the difficulty, not the impossibility,
of drawing them away from the truth. - The Pulpit
Commentary.
THE TWO WITNESSES
But the descent of the Holy Spirit to earth produces a
corresponding outburst of divine miracle. “I will pour forth my Spirit
upon all flesh” - all, that is, without distinction,
not all without exception: some of every class and race - “and
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Joel 2:
28). So our Lord quotes the promise - “I will
send unto them prophets and apostles” (Luke 11: 49), and adds, - “some of
them ye shall kill and crucify” (Matt. 23:
34); and since only Peter, so far as we
know, was crucified among the original twelve, it appears that these are
Apostles yet to arise. Crucifixion has occurred both in the Great War and in
the Spanish civil war. But the divinely miraculous at the end centres mainly in
two Prophets,* who “have the power to shut the heaven, that it rain not during the days of their prophecy; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, AND TO SMITE THE
EARTH WITH EVERY PLAGUE, as often as they
shall desire” (Rev. 11: 6). They also preserve their own lives
by a miracle (verse 5) perfectly unique in the history of
mankind, without which they would not survive a day: lightning, from their own
persons, kills anyone who even plots their assassination.
* For proofs that they are Enoch and Elijah, - [or
possibly Moses (see Exodus 7:
1; 8: 1; 9: 10: 1, 12, 21; 11: 1, etc.etc.); as other prophetic students believe]-
see DAWN, vol. iv, p. 437.
ANTICHRIST’S RESURRECTION
But one over-mastering Satanic miracle blackens the whole
horizon. “And I saw one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto
death; AND
HIS DEATH-STROKE WAS HEALED: and the whole
earth wondered” - in consequence -
“after the beast” (Rev. 13: 3);
“and all that dwell on the earth shall worship
him, every one whose name hath not been written
in the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev. 13: 3, 8). It is impossible to conceive of a
miracle more overwhelming, more convincing to the whole world, than the
Antichrist’s assassination, followed by complete and public restoration:
the passionate faith that follows is the foretold ‘energy of delusion’ a judicial nemesis from God,
which involves the whole world in worship of the Roman Emperor.
RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION
But a divine miracle, surpassing even Antichrist’s
resurrection together with his mastery - for since he is immortal, as risen from - [the lowest ‘Hades’ (Luke 16: 23, R.V.) of] - the dead, their lightnings fall upon
him harmless - of the two greatest
Prophets God has ever sent, whom he murders with his own hands, now bursts upon
the world. While “they that dwell on the earth rejoice over” the two dead witnesses - a wonderful
forecast of telegraphy and television: the whole world rejoices in what has
occurred in Palestine only one to three days before - the two corpses on the
streets of Jerusalem “stood upon their feet ; and
they went up into heaven in the cloud, AND THEIR ENEMIES BEHELD THEM”. The drama is so incomparably divine,
and so portentous for the murderers, that “great fear” - panic - “fell upon” the watchers; and when the ascension is followed
instantly by an earthquake that rocks
THE ADVENT
A dread pause - the forty-two months - now follows, so
critical that it is named four times, a pause in which the world, having had
proof on the grand scale that God is God, has a last opportunity to repent. On
the contrary, so far from repenting, the damning mark of the Beast’s worship
is made universal. So deliberate a challenge to the Deity, backed even by
lightnings from Heaven, forces the hand of Omnipotence and compels the final
vindication of the Godhead. An Angel, “with a great chain in his hand”
(Rev. 20: 1), binds and casts Satan into the
Abyss; “and it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that
I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit” - all hell - “to pass
out of the land [earth]” (Zech.
13: 2). So the personal challenger of Christ
is reserved for the personal handling of the Omnipotent Lord. “The
Lawless One, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with
the breath of his mouth, and bring to nought [paralyse] by the manifestation [the lightnings] of his presence” (2 Thess. 2: 8), is cast, with the False Prophet, into
the ‘
-------
THE BOOK OF THE CHURCH
Twenty-nine years ago, with the Holy
Spirit as my Guide, I entered at the portico of Genesis, walked down the
corridor of the Old Testament art-galleries, where pictures of Noah, Abraham,
Moses, Joseph, Isaac, Jacob and Daniel hang on the wall. I passed into the
music room of the Psalms, where the Spirit sweeps the keyboard
of nature until it seems that every reed and pipe in God’s great organ
responds to the harp of David the sweet singer of
I entered the chamber of Ecclesiastes,
where the voice of the preacher is heard, and into the conservatory of Sharon
and the lily of the valley, where sweet spices filled and perfumed my life.
I entered the business office of Proverbs
and on into the observatory of the Prophets where I saw telescopes of various
sizes pointing to far-off events, concentrating on the bright and morning Star
which was to rise above the moonlit hills of Judea for our salvation and
redemption.
I entered the audience room of the
King of kings, catching a vision written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Thence into the corresponding room with Paul, Peter, James and John writing
their Epistles.
I stepped into the throne room of Revelation
where tower the glittering peaks, where sits the King of kings upon His throne
of glory with the healing of the nations in His hand, and I cried out:-
All hail the power of Jesus’
Name,
Let angels prostrate fall
Bring forth the royal diadem
And crown Him Lord of All.
- WILLIAM SUNDAY, D.D.
* * *
8
THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD
Into his
strongest and most persistent appeal for Christian unity Paul suddenly
interjects a command, equally his strongest and most persistent, exactly to the
opposite effect - separation. The inserted command has no connection whatever
with the context before or after. Our catholicity, all-embracing, comprehensive
of the whole Church of God, stands, all unconsciously, at the edge of a
precipice: if we embrace more than the
Church, we ruin it; and so a Divine warning is given that could not be more
effectively placed. In the words of Dean
Stanley:- “It is a severe warning suddenly
introduced into a strain of affectionate entreaty, a strong injunction to
separation, in the midst of exhortation to union even with the offender who had
been guilty of the very sins which he here denounces.”
Paul’s opening statement, driving a furrow deep and hard
and black between the Church and the world, instantly makes all clear: it is,
under no circumstances, believers from whom we are to separate. “Be not
unequally yoked” - that is, the yoking of a clean animal with an unclean - “WITH UN-BELIEVERS” (2 Cor. 6: 14). Christian workers, Paul declares, are
his ‘true yokefellows’
(Phil. 4: 3), rightly yoked together: believers are so one in life, so identical in a new nature, as to be (in
God’s design) inseparable. Separation from fellow-believers, even when
deeply erroneous or unsanctified - Paul names some who actually denied our -
[select and future] resurrection (1 Cor. 15: 12),
and others so low in their standard of life as to be ‘carnal’, ‘walking as men’ (1 Cor. 3: 3)
and yet he gathers them all, together with the holiest believers, into the
catholic whole of “my beloved brethren” (1 Cor. 15: 58) - is the sin of schism, the ‘factions,
divisions,
parties’
which exclude from the Kingdom of
God (Gal.
5: 21). So any group of believers which
enforces its errors - [i.e., false
prophecies] - or corruptions as terms of
communion, or demands more than the vitals which constitute discipleship, is the
schismatic; and the guilt of schism attaches to all who make communion with
their tenets (short of the saving truths of the Gospel) indispensable to
communion with themselves.* Separation from believers guilty of the six excommunicating sins (1 Cor. 5: 11) is our sole exception;**
and even so, we are sundered from our offending brother by no impassable or
eternal gulf. The ‘church’ has only one divine definition:- it is
the ‘called out’ in their entirety.
* Nothing in this section should be
used, as it often is, to justify or require a separation from those portions of
the visible church in which some degree of corruption is found to prevail. Paul
would never have sanctioned any separation but that which was involuntary; as,
for example, when a church exacts as a term of membership something in faith or
practice which cannot be yielded with a good and enlightened conscience. In
this latter case, whatever guilt there is belongs to the portion of the church
which made such a term of communion (3 John 10). - LANGE.
** It appears (Matt. 18: 17) that, in personal offences, the offending
brother who flouts arbitration, and even disregards the considered judgment of
the whole assembly on his sin, is also to be separated from, and equally
regarded (until repentant) as the Gentile
and the publican.
But every truth has its peril: so in the midst of these two
Letters unsurpassed in catholic affection, and which hold the supremest word on
Love ever written, Paul plants an antitoxin. He probes home a danger - namely,
our absorbing the world in our embrace of the Church - with five challenging
questions that reveal the bridgeless gulf God has set between the Church and
the world. On the one hand is righteousness; on the other, lawlessness: on the
one hand, light; on the other, darkness: on the one hand, Christ; on the other,
Satan: on the one hand, a believer; on the other, an unbeliever: on the one
hand, a
So we see what an uncompromising, what a unique thing, the
So we behold our second exodus, in a divine command which we
dare not set aside. The peril of the Church is exactly that which wrecked
So we now come in sight of what is actually commanded:- “TOUCH NO UNCLEAN THING.” Touch the smallest germs, and you can
contract the greatest diseases. What is forbidden is the close contact of the
handclasp, a yoking together in working for one and the same end. Marriage - who can number the ruined discipleships through
marriage with an unbeliever? friendship - if two streams
mingle, one muddy and one clear, the muddy does not become clear, but the clear
becomes muddy: politics -
the attempt to reform the nations, not to regenerate them, only cloaks the
Wrath to Come: religious fellowship - as in the
‘congress of faiths’ when idolators
sit on the platform with Christians: business - commercial partnership, other than mere employment, or such
doubtful alliances as employers’ federations and trade unions: a State Church - an impossible
wedding of law and grace: pleasure - balls, dances, theatres, cinemas, football-pools,
race-courses: all these agreements are definitely with ‘the world’; and it is impossible to mix
darkness and light so as to produce anything but twilight. In the wise word of Augustine:- “He who allows himself everything that is permitted is very
near to that which is forbidden.” If there is any uncertainty, we
must give God the benefit of the doubt. “‘Touch no unclean thing’: not this or that particular pollution, but all” (Dean Stanley).
It is not a little startling that the golden promise which
follows is made conditional on our obedience. “Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you, and will be to you a Father, and ye shall be to me sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” Our standing is in simple
faith; but our walk with God - “I will dwell
in them, and walk in them” -
alliance with the world totally destroys. The Apostle John says likewise:- “If we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, we [God and our souls] have fellowship one with
another” (1 John 1: 7). Our absorption in the world’s
science, the world’s literature, the world’s art, the world’s
politics, the world’s commerce, makes a walk with God impossible. So the
Apostle states the grand conclusion. “Having therefore these promises, beloved” - summed up in a walk with God - “let us
cleanse ourselves from all defilement” - not this or that moral stain, but all impurity - “of
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness” - what a goal!- “in the fear of God” - in an atmosphere of awe under the watching eyes of the Most
High.
An earnest soul-winner in his youth, and a regular worshipper
all his life, but one whom business absorbed, said on his death-bed:- “I am going home to Jesus; I have no doubt about that. His
Blood has cleansed me, and His Word is Yea and Amen, but I have no joy
in looking forward to His judgment seat, for I’ve lost my crown. Others who have lived and suffered for Jesus here, will have a rich reward, but I have lost mine. I loved the world too well, and I’ve spent my strength more to
make money than to serve God. It
cannot be undone, but I warn you not
to do as I have done.”
* * *
9
TWO COMING PROPHETS + 1
BY JOSEPH A. SEISS, D.D.
The
career of the Two Witnesses, though crowded with miracle from beginning to end,
is very brief. When their work is finished they become vanquishable and are
vanquished. “When they shall have completed their testimony, the Beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war
with them, and overcome them, and kill them” (Rev. 11: 7). Whether in consequence of a
withdrawal of their power of self-defence and the gradual wasting of their
heavenly vigour, like the fading of the celestial halo from the face of Moses,
or by an enlarged licence to hell to act out its murderous malignity, the
potencies of the underworld eventually seize them and put them to death.
And there, in the broad place of
public concourse, the dead bodies of these witnesses are exposed. “And
certain ones from among the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations behold
their corpses three days and a half, and
suffer not their corpses to be put into a sepulchre.” This is so
intense an outrage upon common decency and humanity, that it is full of
significance here. Even to the worst of criminals the law awarded burial on the
same day as their execution (Deut. 21: 22, 23); but all law and right feeling is set at defiance with
regard to these prophets of God. The exposure of their dead bodies tells of a
most extraordinary malignity and spite, and attests the extraordinary potency
and effectiveness of the objects of it.
Great joy is experienced over their
death. “They that dwell in the land rejoice upon them, and make merry, and
shall send gifts one to another.” Now that the two mighty Witnesses are dead, they dismiss all further
fear, consider their greatest trouble at an end, and send presents and
congratulations to each other, as upon some grand jubilee. Three days and a
half the holy prophets lie in death, their corpses a public spectacle, their
killing celebrated as a general benefaction. The days are literal days, not years. Corpses could
not endure to be thus exposed for three and a half years. Three years and a half they
prophesied, and three days and a half they lie under the power of death. It was
long enough to prove the reality of their
death, of which the representatives of the nations were so anxious to be
perfectly assured.
But they do not remain dead. “After the three days
and a half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet.” The
extraordinariness of the death and resurrection harmonizes well with the
extraordinariness of the history of Enoch and Elijah throughout. Of old, they
left the world as no other mortal ever did, and here they are resurrected in a
band by themselves, and under circumstances quite differing from all other
resurrections. Whilst their exposed corpses were being watched and guarded by
men overjoyed at their destruction, those lifeless frames took vitality again.
The spirit of life from God re-entered them, and they arose from their
prostration, and stood upright, gazing round upon the terrified people who
beheld them, and flashing a fresh and still deeper alarm into the guilty souls
lately so joyous over their death.
Now that organized and Satanic war, and
veritable killing, and the baseness of the most malignant insults after the
killing, had been perpetrated, what was to be apprehended from this their
sudden resurrection? These holy messengers had completed their work on earth,
and Jesus Himself was now to be their avenger. No more devouring fire issues
from their mouths, and no further plagues do they inflict. By the power of God
life is restored to them, even a higher, more glorious, more indestructible
life than that which was given them in their marvellous translation. They rise
and stand upon their feet. Their enemies behold them. The reality of their
resurrection is as manifest as was the reality of their death. The fiendish joy
of the enemy is suddenly turned into overwhelming terror. Guilty consciences
are now the prophets that torment the people. The Witnesses prophesy no more.
They only stand up, and other fires seize their adversaries’ souls.
Heaven immediately recalls them. They stood by Christ in their
testimony, faithful unto death; and Christ now rewards their fidelity, receives
them to Himself, and crowns them among His heavenly princes. “They
heard a great voice out of heaven saying to them, Come up hither. And they
went up into the heaven in the cloud, and
their enemies beheld them.” People who would not believe in the
resurrection and ascension of Christ for their hope and consolation, are now
compelled to witness the
resurrection and ascension of His last Witnesses, to their horror and dismay.
The record is literal. As well might we think to do away with the literal
reality of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ Himself, as with
the literal reality of the death, resurrection, and ascension of these Two
Witnesses. Against their wishes and theories, many have been compelled to admit
the inevitable literalness of “the first resurrection” in [Revelation] chapter 20;
but much more clear, circumstantial, and certain is the literalness of the
account of these Witnesses and their marvellous end.
When Jesus ascended, and His friends stood gazing after Him in
tearful wonder and adoration, holy angels lingered by with words of promise and
comfort. Here there is another gazing into heaven, as His prophets go up. But
the gazers now are His murderous foes. Marvels follow here also; but they are
marvels of judgment. Not loving angels with words of consolation, but
executioners of divine vengeance with signs of doom show their presence. “In that
hour there happened a great earthquake.” It is a literal
earthquake, for it overthrows buildings and kills men. “The tenth of the city fell, and
there were killed by the earthquake seven thousand names of men.” Earthquakes
attended the death and resurrection of Jesus also, but we read of no deaths
occasioned by them. Those were days of mercy and promise; these are days of
judgment. A tenth part of the city is thrown into ruins, and seven thousand men
are enumerated as killed by this earthquake.
We may well suppose that such a cluster of stunning marvels
would not be without effect, even upon the hardened wretches of those evil
times. Amazement, conviction, terror, strike in upon their guilty souls, and
for the moment they acknowledge the hand of God, and seem ready to repent. “The
remainder”, that is, those not destroyed
with the seven thousand, “became terrified and gave glory to God.” To
see those dreaded Witnesses come to life again, and go up in triumph to the
sky, and, in the same hour, one house in every ten of the city fallen, seven
thousand men of name killed by the disaster, and the world itself rocking as if
in the throes of dissolution, was more than even their indurated hearts could
bear. Against their will they are forced to the confession that God’s
almighty power is in it.
-------
THE TIME IS SHORTENED
“Our
life is long.” Not so, wise Angels say
Who watch us waste it, trembling while
they weigh
Against eternity one squandered day.
“Our
life is long.” Christ’s word sounds different:
“Night
cometh: no more work when day is spent.”
Repent and work to-day, work and
repent.
Lord, make us like Thyself: for thirty
three
Slow years of toil seem’d not
too hard for Thee,
That where Thou art, there Thy Beloved
might be.
Lord, make us like Thy Host, who day
nor night
Rest not from adoration, their
delight,
Crying, “Holy, Holy,
Holy!” in the height.
* * *
10
THE TRANSFIGURATION AND THE KINGDOM
By ROBERT GOVETT.
Matt. 16:
25. “For whosoever would (shall wish to) save his life (soul) shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his
life for my sake shall find it.” In this alternative, the wish of man, which runs
counter to that of God, appears. Man naturally desires to save his life.* But if the cause of God demands its
surrender, to withhold it is to lose it for the kingdom. It may be spared as regards the
present time. But such a prolongation of life would be a sowing to the flesh,
which would entail a reaping of corruption in the day of the Lord. Now that a
better life in resurrection has been revealed in the Son, and the way to it
declared, God and Christ would have our eyes directed to that, as that which is
“really life.” ** How gracious was it, that Peter,
though thus severely rebuked, was one of the three taken to behold the
miniature kingdom! How comforting to find that the apostle, thus weak at first,
was strengthened to endure the most dread death of crucifixion to the glory of
God!
* Two Greek words are rendered “life” by our translators - [see Greek ...] and [ ...].
The latter does not properly signify “life”;
and it had been better to have naturalized the Scripture philosophy of man
among us by translating it always “soul”.
Then the word “spirit” would always
have been used to describe the spiritual and immortal part of man, where we now
speak of the “soul”. The mischief of
this rendering is apparent in the next verse.
** This is the true reading in 1 Tim. 6: 19.
The rich saints are to give liberally, that they may lay hold of what is really
life: [Greek ...]
“But whosoever will lose his
life (soul) for
my sake shall find it.” Our Lord does not insert the word “wish” in this alternative. Many have been
martyrs for the truth, who trembled at the thoughts of their own weakness, and
would gladly have been spared. They had no wish to lose their life. But when the voice of God,
expressed in the circumstances in which they were placed, demanded it, they
made the surrender. Paul, indeed, desired the
fellowship of Jesus’ sufferings, even to the being conformed unto his
death, as the pathway to the first resurrection. But this is not the high
standing of many.
Jesus’ death and resurrection show how life lost is
found in resurrection. His victory over Hades is to be theirs who so follow
him. The finding of the soul is seen in Rev. 20: 4. “I saw the souls
of those beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God and they lived and reigned with the Christ a thousand years.” But this resurrection is peculiar. “The
rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years were finished.”
The life of the thousand years is gain. It is something over
and above what is enjoyed by those who saved life in this world. If we think
all our substance well spent to save life in the present world, much more
prudent is it to give up present life to obtain the life of the thousand years.
How much greater its duration, more certain, and more felicitous!
Here we have the secret of the joyful suffering of the martyrs
of the earliest age of the church. They saw that a peculiar joy was connected with such endurance. Some rushed
into death uncalled, that they might attain it. It is not in human nature to
desire suffering for its own sake. But this motive overpowered dread. ‘If all are to be alike in the day of Christ, I should prefer
to go through life quietly, without reproach, and without being called to give
up any of the comforts or enjoyments of life. But if such is not the way to the
kingdom, but the way to lose it, faith will enable me to overcome nature.’
So important is the sentiment of the verse before us, that it
is often repeated in the New Testament. “He that loveth his life
(soul) shall lose it,
and he that hateth his life (soul) in this world shall keep
it unto life eternal:” John 12: 25. The context, in this case also, points us to Jesus’
surrender of life.
Thus we have in this passage - first, the resurrection generally, as the result of faith in Christ. But
then follows the resurrection of reward, as
the
result of conduct or of suffering.
28. “Verily
I say unto you, there are some standing here,
who shall not taste of death till they see the Son of
Man coming in his kingdom.”
There were some before the Lord who would see a vision of the
kingdom without death. In this they were representatives of disciples, who
would in like manner behold the kingdom itself, without suffering death. For “we
shall not all sleep”.
“We who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them
[the sleepers] in clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”
That the Transfiguration was the fulfilment of this promise of
the Saviour, seems certain. It follows immediately after the promise, in the
three first Gospels. The fourth gives neither the promise nor the
Transfiguration. The ancients so understood it. “Some” of
those alive should see it. Accordingly, only three of the twelve saw it. All the apostles beheld the gospel fully come, and
themselves preached it. But if the Transfiguration fulfilled it, then our
Lord’s “coming in his kingdom” is a personal, and a pre-millennial coming; for it
is in order to administer the kingdom that he comes. It is a visible,
supernatural appearing in brightness, wholly unlike any ‘providential and spiritual coming’, as some
speak. It is to be no proclamation of mercy to sinners; but the time of
enjoyment or loss to requited saints. There was no preaching to the ungodly on
the mount of Transfiguration: none
but saints were there.
Matt. 17: 1. “And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and Jacob (James), and John his brother, and
bringeth them up into a lofty mountain apart. 2. And
was transfigured before them: and his face shone
as the sun, but his raiment became white as the light.”
The Transfiguration is thus expressly set forth as an outline of the future
Saints of the Law, of the prophets, and of the Church will be
united in enjoyment of the
10. “And
his disciples asked him, saying, ‘Why, then, do the scribes say that Elias must first come?’ 11. But Jesus answered and said to them. ‘Elias, indeed, is first coming, and shall
restore all things. 12. But I say unto you,
that Elias is already come, and they recognized him not, but
did to him whatever they pleased: so also the
Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.’ 13. Then understood the disciples that he spoke to them of John
the Baptist.”
The question of the apostles was natural, and very important,
both to them and to us. The scribes taught that Elijah must precede the coming
of Messiah to reign. Was this true? What they had seen had made them think that
the expounders of the prophets were mistaken. If it were - and they seemed to
have the authority of Malachi in their favour - how was it consistent with what
they had just seen? If Jesus were the Christ, how was it that Elijah had only
appeared so long after Messiah’s
advent? They expected Elijah to stay and open his commission. How was it that
he had departed? They fasten this question on the previous scene, by the very
natural word “then”, or “therefore”. Or shall we say that it rests upon the Saviour’s
previous prohibition? ‘If Elijah’s coming
is not to be spoken of, why do the scribes speak of his preceding
Messiah’s advent?’
The reply of our Lord will repay study. To those who only wish
to know the mind of God, it is plain enough.
“Elias, indeed, is first coming.” Jesus takes up
as attested by the disciples, the scribes’ words, and confirms them as
true. Yes! they were right in teaching that Jehovah would send Israel Elijah
the prophet, before the great and terrible day of the Lord should come. The
apostles held that the Elijah seen by the fathers should come. This confirmed
it. Malachi describes the effect of his coming to be, his “turning
the heart of the fathers to the children, and
the heart of the children to the fathers”. Jesus speaks of it as his “restoring
all things”. The scribes were right then in their literal interpretation of the prophet’s words.
But if so, the apostles’ original difficulty pressed
them still in all its force. Jesus hastens to remove it. Elijah had already
come, and been put to death
by
If any will contend that only one Elias was meant by our Lord,
and that John was the only person that was intended, we must repel the
assertion by John’s own solemn word to the deputation sent to inquire who
he was. “ART THOU ELIAS?
AND HE SAITH,
I AM NOT:”
John 1. Besides, if John the Baptist alone
be meant, then must he rise from the dead to “restore all things”, ere Messiah appear. For Jesus after
John’s death declared that Elias had yet to come. But those who contend
that John Baptist alone is Elijah, will as little relish this conclusion, as
that the Tishbite should appear.
* * *
11
RICHES AND THE KINGDOM +2
By ROBERT GOVETT
“Again I
say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter
into the
The eye
of a needle is the smallest of the holes made by human art, with the design of
passing something through them. The camel is the tallest and largest of the beasts
common in the Saviour’s country. His tall body and long neck render such
a creature a thousand times too large to pass through so narrow an aperture.
But the entrance to the kingdom answers to the minute needle’s eye. God
has made the opening so narrow of set purpose. It is rigid too, like steel,
admitting of no enlargement by elasticity. The rich man answers to the camel.
He is too great every way; even if he be not tall in pride, and bulky in self
indulgence.
The gate of entrance to the kingdom being then so small, and
so rigid in its material, the only way of traversing it must be by the
diminution of the animal. It is to this point that our Lord’s words tend.
By stripping himself of his greatness the young man (verse 22) would have so diminished himself, as to be capable of entering at the
narrow gate.* And had he
followed Jesus as the way, he would hereafter have entered the kingdom and
obtained the riches of it beside. Thus Jesus’ command proceeded really
from his goodness towards himself, as well as towards the poor whom the
ruler’s riches would benefit. It was the benevolent counsel of a friend;
not the Judicial process of a judge desiring to convict him of sin. The force
of the Saviour’s observation upon his turning away is - “This young man will retain his riches. But the entrance into
the kingdom is too small for such. It is for
the poor.”
* To the same effect Jesus in the Sermon
on the Mount, speaks of the smallness of the gate, and the narrowness of the
way. But there the Saviour describes the gate as the entrance into “life”. The one great subject of the
Sermon on the Mount is “the kingdom,”
or the millennial reign. And “life”
is an expression used of the kingdom also. Mark 9: 43, 47. In verses 43, and 45 that is predicated of “life”, which in verse 47 is spoken of the
“
Let us now consider the principles of exclusion, which in the
just judgment of God would apply to the rich believer.
1. The kingdom is the time of “consolation”; of compensation for annoyances,
sufferings, losses, sustained for Christ’s sake. Hence the Saviour lifts
up a woe to the rich, as excluded by the operation of this rule. Addressing
disciples, he says; “Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the
2. To retain riches is a hindrance, as
the young man found, to present following of Christ. Attention to his property
would keep his feet and heart elsewhere. And he who would preserve his wealth
now, must more or less take the attitude of justice and of law, rather than of
goodness and of the Gospel. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Hence, with the treasure upon earth,
the heart will tend towards it.
3. The kingdom is for the self-denying: riches tend strongly to
self-indulgence. They can gratify the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye,
and the pride of life. And seldom is temptation, so perpetually alluring the
heart, steadily resisted. Hence, the expenditure of wealth will, in most cases,
shut out of the kingdom.
4. It tends to foster pride, and the
desire to be ministered unto by others: whereas the way into the kingdom is by lowliness and patient service.
5. Wealth is an enemy to faith in God.
The Saviour (in the parallel place in Mark)
teaches, that having riches, and trusting
in them, are almost always found in union. “The rich man’s wealth is
his strong city; and as an high wall in his own
conceit,” Prov. 18: 11.
6. Riches are noted as a great means of
preventing the spiritual effects of the good news of the kingdom. “The
care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word
and he becometh unfruitful,” Matt.
13: 22.
The mere possession of riches, then, is a strong and all but
insuperable barrier to entrance into the millennial glory. And it is
quite a perverting of our Lord’s words, and destruction of their
practical bearing, to make them turn upon a positively sinful state of heart in the possessor of
them. He who can enter into the kingdom only with greater difficulty than the
camel shall thread the needle’s eye, is simply the rich person. Hence Barnes’s comment is unfounded. He
says - “‘A rich man.’ This means rather one who loves his riches, and makes an idol
of them, or one who supremely desires to be rich.” No;
the difficulty stated by the Saviour attaches to the simple possession of riches. As rich and not covetous, the entrance
was difficult;
as covetous, whether rich or
not, it was impossible.
There is then a choice of two paths proposed to the rich believer,
who desires to obtain the
1. He may give up all; distributing to
the poor: as is here recommended, or commanded.
2. He may retain all; determining to
make the best of his way through the difficulty. This, as the Saviour knew,
would be the ordinary choice; even where the difficulty which riches raise
against the future entrance into millennial glory is perceived. The less
hazardous path would indeed be to surrender wealth, and to receive instead the
promised treasure in heaven. Thus glory would be brought to Christ, and
faith’s testimony to the men of the world be the strongest.
But ordinarily, as the Lord knew, this would not be done.
Therefore, to meet the common case of the believer’s retaining his
riches, the Spirit by Paul gives the following directions. “Charge
them that are rich in this age, that they be not
high-minded, nor trust in the uncertainty of
riches, but in the living God, who affordeth us all things richly
to enjoy: * that they do good, that they
be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, treasuring
up for themselves a good foundation for the future, that they may lay hold of that which is really life,”
** 1 Tim. 6: 17. Here five different expressions are used to express the
readiness which the rich believer should exhibit, in giving away of his
abundance. If he will not give away the principal, he should give away his
income liberally.
* I suppose this to mean that the things
of the world are given to be used in opposition to the Gnostic sentiment,
combated in this epistle, that some creatures were evil, and not to be touched
by the intelligent and holy, 1 Tim. 4: 1.
** So read the critical editions.
-------
THE TRUTH
Great truths are greatly won; not
found by chance,
Nor wafted on the breath of summer
dream;
But grasp’d
in the great struggle of the soul,
Hard buffeting eith
adverse wind and stream,
Wrung from the troubled spirit, in
hard hours
Of weakness, solitude, perchance of
pain:
Truth springs like the harvest from a
well plough’d field;
And the soul feels it has not wept in
vain.
- HORATIUS BONAR, D.D.
-------
WEALTH
Some of the moderns who have known
wealth best have prized it least. Andrew
Carnegie, who gave away £66,000,000, or 90 per cebt.
Of his wealth, once said to T. P. O’Connor
as they walked together in his castle grounds at Skibo:-
“I am not really to be envied. I am sixty years
old, and I cannot digest. I would give you
all my millions if you could give me your wealth and health.”
Mr. J. D. Rockefeller, who died last
month, - [Presumably May, 1937 - the month before this article was
published.] - after amassing the greatest fortune
ever made, gave away £150,000,000, and remarked:- “The poorest man I know of is the man who has nothing but
money.” The only wise giving is investment for Christ. Mr. R. G. Le Tourneau,
at the head of a firm whose capital is £3,600,000, says:- “If it is true - and I believe it - that God gave His Son to die for us that
we might live with Him in eternity, then I ought to give twenty-four hours of
the day for the telling forth of that marvellous message. We should make every
moment count for eternity. If we Christians believe what we say we believe, we
will give everything we possess into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
A majority interest in his fortune amounting to £2,400,000 he has turned
into a trust for Christian work, with the stipulation that not a penny shall
return to him or his wife.
* * *
12
SECTS + 2
It may
sometimes be divine to disagree. Endowed with the freedom of will and intellect by the Creator, it
is almost inevitable that human beings, under different environment,
circumstance, education and experience should see matters in different lights.
And so there is disagreement. Such disagreement is inevitable in religion.
Faith in God must be received with conviction, and in itself creates a body of
convictions. These convictions must be declared. One cannot and must not be a
secret disciple. For a great body of men always to walk together in perfect
harmony either means that they sacrifice personal convictions for a false peace
or they are cowards at heart. In truth, to disagree often produces clarification
of great questions and prevents stagnation of the mind. But how shall we
disagree?
One of the leaders in prayer at a recent General Conference of
the
* * * * *
There
are little diamonds, or little bits of diamond dust, genuine indeed, but of no
further use than to polish the larger diamonds. It is often very difficult to see
why the strong, the bold, the uncompromising follower of Christ should be
hampered and hindered by such associations, but they will be found at last to
be God’s most valuable purifying agencies, and we shall find them our
greatest blessings. We are not to reject them and try to get away from them.
God has a place for them in His Church. We are not to try to get up an elite
company of congenial, pleasant Christian associates, in every way desirable,
but we are to accept all the conditions which God has mingled in this world,
and to receive them in His name, counting it as the highest proof of His
confidence in us, that He entrusts them to our spiritual care and fellowship.
The most profitable church in which one’s lot can be cast, and the very best school in which our character can be
developed, is just such a combination of various elements and even trying
surroundings. - A. B. SIMPSON, D.D.
* * * * *
Paul
condemns schism and divisions as works of the flesh (1 Cor. 3: 3),
and he exhorts the Corinthians to be perfectly joined together in one mind (1 Cor. 1: 10), and teaches that there should be no
schism in the body (1 Cor. 12: 25), and
that no spiritual gifts are of any profit without Love (1 Cor. 13: 1-3). He allows no one to separate himself from, or to make schism in, a
Church, on the plea of defects in
it.
If indeed a Church, in her teaching and practice, not only
adulterates truth with falsehood, and corrupts what is holy with what is
idolatrous, but also enforces her errors and corruptions on others as terms of communion with her, and
thus makes it impossible to communicate with her in what she has that is true
and holy, without communicating also with what is erroneous and idolatrous; if
she excommunicates all who do not and
cannot communicate with her in her errors and corruptions, then a schism there
is, and must be; and a sin there is, and a grievous sin. For wherever schism
is, there is sin. But the guilt of the schism rests with her, who makes
communion in her sins to be essential and indispensable to communion with herself. - BISHOP WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
The
Christian groups, organized in complete separation from one another, base that
separation on various grounds:- the Episcopal Churches and the Presbyterians,
largely on modes of church government; the Baptists, on a rite; the
Congregationalists, on the independence of the local assembly; the Methodists,
on a traditional organization; the Brethren, on a mode of worship; and the
Quakers and the Salvation Army, largely on methods of service, and on a
negation of rites. The problem raised by true catholicity is not whether the
isolating doctrine or practice - without which membership in the local assembly
is forbidden - is right or wrong, but whether that doctrine or practice - true
or false - can be made a ground of separation with the approval of God.
Believers everywhere would do well to ponder the fact that “factions, divisions,
parties” * are set (Gal. 5: 20) in a black
catalogue of sins which will forfeit the [Millennial] Kingdom. “OF THE WHICH I FOREWARN YOU [believers], EVEN AS I DID FOREWARN YOU, THAT THEY
WHICH PRACTISE SUCH THINGS [whether [regenerate] believers or unbelievers] SHALL NOT INHERIT
THE
* The Revised Version corrects
a translation of [the Greek words ...], so misleading - “strife,
seditions, heresies” - as almost to suggest [the
Greek word ...] has in the Authorized translators.
‘Heresy’
in the sense of ‘error’, a Roman Catholic version of - [the Greek word ...] - which has unfortunately become
absorbed in current phraseology, is not
the meaning of the word the Apostle uses. Liddell
and Scott - “a sect, a school of philosophy”:
the Oxford Dictionary - “In the sense of
the Greek, a school of thought, a sect.”
-------
A MAN OF GOD
A VOICE
CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS. A Memoir of H. C.
Morton.
By Elizabeth Morton and Douglas
Dewar, F.Z.S., 5/-. Thynne and CO., 28,
The
cause of God now calls for men of steel; and a foundation fact that needs to be
thoroughly mastered is that to leave ‘churches’
which no longer officially hold the Christian fundamentals is not leaving the
Church at all: it is merely abandoning an apostasy - a taking to the lifeboat
from a rapidly sinking wreck.
Dr. Morton was such a man of steel. This book, which contains
much of his own writing, incidentally reveals a fact (p. 48) of which we
ourselves were ignorant, so appalling as to be most difficult to believe. The
Second Congress of the Fellowship of Faiths, which was welcomed to a service in
St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1936, included representatives, not only from
such Atheist bodies as the Freethinkers’ Ingersoll Society, but the Methodist Organization, the Congregational Union,
the Modern Churchmen’s Union, the S.P.G., the S.P.C.K., the Student
Christian Movement, and the Y.M.C.A. Christian alliance with the pagan faiths
created Gnosticism, and a revived Gnosticism (1 Tim. 4: 1, 3) is to create the Apostasy.
At the First Congress held in
-------
EMPEROR WORSHIP
An article both startling and ominous
appeared in the Times (May 13, 1937) the day
after the Coronation. Such sentences as these are dangerously near
emperor-worship in fundamental attitude, though doubtless unconsciously so,
“George
VI, anointed, crowned, and enthroned, is
became a sacramental, even a sacrificial, man, in one sense set apart from his
fellows, but in a far deeper and more ancient sense made one with them as never
before. For in the last resort that which most surely commands human allegiance
is not an abstraction but a man. This is the truth upon which the Christian
faith is built; and in the Coronation, where the King becomes the Lord’s
anointed, Christus Domini,
its two expressions, religious and secular, are visibly fused into one. Not
decaying superstition, but living humanism, demands that monarchy shall be
Divine.” Even of Kings of Israel, with a measure of Theocracy in
the background, no such language would have been permissible; and now,
concerning purely Gentile monarchs, it is merely a substratum of emperor-worship.
An ‘ordinance of God’ (
* * *
13
THE MAN OF THE WORLD + 5
The man
of the world - that is, the man
whose whole horizon is bounded by the world, and whose heart lives in and for this world alone - our Lord has
photographed, with his ultimate destiny. It is a rich man whose wealth is
God’s gift from a fruitful earth: his expanding riches the man hoards
without a thought of eternity. with only a few hours’ notice, he is dead:
in a moment, all he lived for he has lost for ever. It is the picture of untold
millions.
Now it is of the deepest significance, and unutterably solemn,
that our Lord’s picture is that of an honest, industrious, enterprising
man, whose wealth springs from rich and wisely cultivated land. “The
ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully” (Luke 12:
16). Nothing whatever of a criminal
nature is laid to his charge: no bogus companies, no fraudulent shares, no
defrauded workmen, no sinister practices shadow this plutocrat, a man of the
world at his best: all is the fruit of a bountiful Providence enriching lawful
industry. And the picture is all the more emphatic, more intensely actual, in
that it is the “the ground” which brought
forth plentifully: for whether in gold and silver; or in orchards and harvests;
or in fuel and petrol or in landed estates and city sites, it is the ground
which is the ultimate source of all legitimate human wealth.
At once we are confronted with that complete blank, that
absolute silence, which is the outstanding characteristic of the man of the
world:- there is no sense whatever of God; he may, or may not, be an atheist,
but in any case God, for him, is completely negligible. That is, worldliness is
ungodliness. Six times he names himself, never once God; “my fruits, my barns, my corn, my goods.” God’s answer to the Israelite
who has buried his faith and become a man of the world could not be more apt. “She
[Jerusalem] did not know
that I gave her the corn, and the wine, and the oil, and multiplied
unto her silver and gold: therefore will I take
back my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in
the season thereof, and will pluck away my wood
and my flax” (Hos. 2: 8).
Now the very heart of the problem of
wealth, out of which the entire creed of modern Communism has been born, is
laid bare in this rich man embarrassed by his wealth. “He
reasoned within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I
have not where to bestow my fruits?” In this world of fearful want and agonizing poverty he
has nowhere to bestow his goods: are there, then, no struggling widows in
* Canon Peter Green tells of an American millionaire who said just before his death:- “I go to the office before any of the staff except the clerk
who unlocks. I leave later than any except the one who locks up. I have no
pleasure in life except to make money, and I have no use for it when I have
made it except to use it to make more. And when I die not a soul will be sorry.”
He died without a friend in the world.
The whole aim of the worldly man’s soul is revealed in
his decision, when, his fortune now made, he is able to retire, which is
exactly the position the vast majority of mankind long for. “I will
say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods
laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry.”
He has no conception
whatever of eternity: he has no higher ideal for his soul than worldly comfort,
rich food, amusement: he does not know that his soul can no more be satisfied
with these than his bodily hunger can be fed with a diamond, or his bodily
thirst with a pearl. The highest percentage of suicides is not in the slums,
nor among the crippled or blind or diseased, but among the well-to-do. The Bishop of Athabasca
stated recently that fifty-three millionaires committed suicide last year. And
the rich man’s decision involves, necessarily, a careful exclusion of all
that really matters. If banquets, and balls, and bridge parties, and theatres,
and cinemas are to absorb life, the door must be locked on every conviction of
sin, every devotion to Heaven, every appeal of Christ, every thought of death,
every summons to meet an offended God. In building his bigger barns he is
erecting a mausoleum for his soul. A man (as Augustine says) is apt to eat on earth what he can only digest in
Hell.
Now God’s estimate of the man bursts on us like a
thunder-bolt:- “But God said unto him, THOU FOOL.” This summary, coming from the God who
made man, and a summary endorsed by the Saviour Himself, is very awful. It is most startling. The epitaph on a man of the
world, whose complete absorption in making
money was clean and honourable, would be likely to be this:- “Here lies a noble citizen, respected by all who knew him,
and mourned by the whole neighbourhood:” God’s epitaph is - Thou fool. It was a custom in the old Roman law
courts to offer an alleged idiot the choice between an apple and a nugget of
gold: if he chose the apple, he was proved to be an idiot. So it will be found
at the bar of God that millions of men are prudent and far-seeing and wise for
time who are literally irredeemable fools for eternity. “The
prosperity of fools,” says Solomon, “shall
destroy them” (Prov. 1: 32). It is impossible for a man who is
hoarding no riches in the world he is hastening to, and who treasures everything in the world he is hastening from, to
escape the definition of ‘a fool.’
So the Most High now takes action. “This
night shall thy soul be
required of thee:” this night “they require of thee” - God’s
summoning angels, Heaven’s police - “thy soul”. With the extraordinary accuracy of
Scripture, the vast majority of deaths occur between eleven and three at night:
but here it is this night; not to-morrow night, nor the next night, nor the
night after, but to-night. The
gigantic miscalculation that every man of the world makes is to assume that
to-morrow is his; whereas there is not a soul living, of whatever age, who can
count on a single night. How unutterably solemn:- the soul one moment feasting,
pampered, merry; the next moment summoned, arrested, judged. “For
what is the hope of the godless, though he get
him gain, when God taketh away his soul?”
(Job 27: 8).
A characteristically modern example of wealth may be given.
Fifty years ago Mr. Randolph Hearst
first appeared on an American newspaper. To-day Mr. Hearst owns twenty-five
daily newspapers with a net daily paid circulation of 5,196,532 copies. He owns
seventeen Sunday papers with a total circulation of 6,735,277 copies. He owns
thirteen general magazines and trade journals with a total of 12,560,075
subscribers. The Hearst real estate holdings include at least two million
acres, part of it great ranches and country estates, the remainder city
property, with a present total valuation of at least £11,200,000. The
comment of the Christian Century is
this:- “What does it all mean to Mr. Hearst
himself? By his most stringent orders, one word is never spoken in his
presence. That is the word ‘death’.”
God Himself now challenges the man of the world. “The
things which thou hast prepared, whose shall
they be?” Alexander the Great, after conquering
the known world, ordered that, when his corpse was embalmed, his hands should
be left exposed; “for,” he said,
“I want all men to know that I left the world
with empty hands.” But no man who has ever lived has ever gone out
with any but empty hands. Among the remains of
But the Lord’s summary hints a golden dawn possible to
us all. “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not RICH TOWARD
GOD.”
For the extraordinary thing is that it is possible not only for the ‘honourable’ man of the world, but even for the
worst criminal, to become ‘rich toward God’. First, fundamental wealth:- “the
free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6: 23): Heaven mine by gift, and Hell gone
for ever: what wealth! But there is, above and beyond eternal life, literal
wealth on the other side of the grave. There is (2) wealth from character: -
“Did not
God choose them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom?” (Jas. 2: 5). Also (3) wealth from service:- “Lord,
thy pound hath made ten pounds more: have thou authority over ten cities” (Luke 19: 16). And again (4) wealth by investment:- “Sell
that ye have, and give alms; make for yourselves purses which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens” (Luke 12: 33): for “he that hath pity upon
the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and his good deed
will he pay him again” (Prov. 19: 17). And also (5) wealth by sacrifice:- “Every
one that hath left houses or lands for my name’s sake shall receive a
hundredfold” (Matt. 19: 29) - that is, a hundredfold of the capital, or 10,000 per cent.
God wishes us to achieve
unimaginable wealth,
and to perfect our character in the achievement.
-------
SIN AS WITNESS
Felix trembled under the Gospel, but
also hoped to be bribed into its acceptance and liberation of its evangelist (Acts 24: 26).
A rich man usurped a poor man’s house in
-------
JUDGMENT
Coming judgment is a certainty wholly
apart from revelation. A murderer (for example) may be guilty of six murders,
but the most that human law can inflict is the penalty for one: therefore,
either he should suffer no punishment at all, even though he is a murderer; or
else - if righteousness rules the universe - he must receive his due for the
other five murders in the life to come. Facts being what they are, Hell is a
certainty for reason.
DANGER
Even the man of the world can see
Judgment approaching here and now.
-------
JUDGING
Lord Justice Darling wrote these lines
after his retirement in 1923:-
Long worn, now cast aside; red robe, lie there:
Mantle and stole lay
by, and cap of doom
Bereft, alone, I wear no ermine more;
Nor judge - yet one Assize
I, fearful, must attend.
-------
SANCTIFICATION
For the Christian there is- A Day of
Judgment, 1
John 4: 17; a Judge, 2 Tim. 1: 8; a Judgment-seat, Rom. 14: 10; 2 Cor. 5: 10; and a
Judgment, 1
Pet.
4:
17. - C. S.
UTTING.
* * *
14
LAWLESSNESS + 2
Our
Versions have unconsciously concealed a pungent truth by translating the Greek ‘lawlessness’ by ‘iniquity’. Our Lord foretold that, at the end, “because
lawlessness
shall be multiplied, the love of the
many shall wax cold” (Matt. 29: 12); and it is most significant exactly whom He finds earth
filled with on His return, for “His angels shall gather out of his kingdom
all them that work lawlessness” (Matt. 13: 41). So Peter also, pressing the urgency of
the coming, says:- “Beware lest, being carried
away by the error of the lawless, ye fall from
your own stedfastness” (2 Pet. 3: 17).
Paul, even in his day, could say:- “The
mystery of lawlessness doth
already work: only there is one that restraineth
now” - the
Holy Spirit - “until he be taken out of the way; and then shall be revealed the LAWLESS ONE” (2 Thess. 2: 7). Lawlessness is not necessarily anarchy: it is a deep
antagonism and overthrow of recognized law, both divine and human; it is a re-imposition of
law, but lawless law - a reign of
force, in the place of law; it culminates in a man of gigantic power who will
embody in himself all law, that is, lawlessness; and it is preceded by a
weakening of all authority - parental, moral, divine. And this lawlessness,
Paul says, already latent and working underground in his day, strove to break
forth, but dared not; throughout our day of grace it seethes underneath the
surface, working as a secret ‘mystery’
in the bowels of society.
The growing restlessness of this secret force has long been
obvious. More than seventy years ago Dean
Vaughan said:- “The reign of lawlessness is
begun, though a few years, or a few tens of years, may yet intervene before the
actual unveiling of the Lawless One.” A quarter of a century ago Dr. Davidson, Archbishop of
But the process has now enormously quickened. In leading
nations of the world - such as
The saner intellect of the world, wholly apart from religion,
is dumbfounded. (1) The politicians
are deeply alarmed. “The breaking of treaties,”
says a leading journal of the world, the
Nevertheless, the extraordinary acquiescence of the ‘intellectuals’ is pilloried in a remarkable
indictment by Herr Bronislaw
Huberman (Manchester Guardian, weekly ed., Mar. 13, 1936). He says:-
“Countless people have been thrown into gaols
and concentration camps, exiled, killed, and driven to suicide. Catholic and
Protestant ministers, Jews, Democrats, Socialists, Communists, army generals
became the victims of a like fate. It is a horrifying drama which an astonished
world is invited to witness; German spiritual leaders with world citizenship
who until but yesterday represented German conscience and German genius, men
called to lead their nation by their precept and example, seemed incapable from
the beginning of any other reaction to this assault upon the most sacred
possessions of mankind than to coquet, co-operate, and condone. And when, to
cap it all, demagogical usurpation and ignorance rob them of their innermost
conceptions from their own spiritual workshop, in order thereby to disguise the
embodiment of terror, cowardice, immorality, falsification of history in a
mantle of freedom, heroism, ethics, science, and mysticism, the German
intellectuals reach the pinnacle of their treachery: they remain silent.
Germany, you people of poets and thinkers, the whole world, not only the world
of your enemies, but the world of your friends, waits in amazed anxiety for
your word of liberation.”
-------
THE KINGDOM
1.
THE SUPREMACY OF THE DIVINE RULE SHALL
BE UNIVERSALLY ESTABLISHED. Rev. 11: 15.
2. THE DIFFUSION FF DIVINE TRUTH SHALL
BE UNIVERSAL. Isa. 11: 9.
3. THE PRINCIPLES OF THAT GOVERNMENT SUALL
PERMEATE
NATIONAL LIFE, LITERATURE, AND INSTITUTIONS. Matt. 13: 43.
4. UNDER THIS GRACIOUS RULE NATIONAL
ANIMOSITIES SHALL BE AMELIORATED. Isa. 2: 4.
5. CONFLICTING AND ANTAGONISTIC FORCES
SHALL BE HARMONIZED. Isa. 65: 25.
6. HUMAN LIFE SHALL BE BEAUTIFIED,
ADORNED, AND BRIGHTENED. Isa. 35: 1.
7. TO THE BENEFICENT SWAY OF THE REDEEMER
SHALL BE HANDED
OVER THE OUTLYING AND OUTCAST NATIONS OF THE EARTH. Ps. 2: 8.
8. THIS REIGN SHALL BE CHARACTERIZED BY
THE MOST BLESSED CONDITIONS. Isa. 11: 4.
R. GREEN.
-------
AIR WAR
During recent Soviet military manoeuvres, 11,200 troops were
safely landed by transport planes behind the lines of a hypothetical enemy. Of
this number 3,000 descended by parachute, while the planes brought down 1,000
soldiers every 16 minutes. The troops landed were equipped with automatic
rifles and light machine guns. Eighty
years ago Tennyson wrote:-
For I dipt into the future, far as
human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world and all
the wonder that would be:
Heard the heavens fill with shouting,
and there rain’d a ghastly dew
From the nations’ airy navies
grappling in the central blue.
* * *
15
THE CHURCH AND THE TRIBULATION + 3
BY ROBERT GOVETT*
[* From Dawn Vol. 14. 1937-38, and
continued in Vol. 15]
The
writer has heard and read a good deal about ‘the
rapture of the Church’, but he never yet saw the passage of
Scripture which speaks of it. He admits with thankfulness the glorious place
which God has given to believers of this dispensation. But he has never yet
beheld the passage which states that all the members of Christ will at one time
be rapt to Christ; and that this is one of the privileges attached to simple
saving faith in Christ. Let us then look into the matter.
First of all, neither of the two Epistles which speak of
‘the Church’ mention the rapture.
1. Paul in Ephesians tells us of
God’s gracious counsels toward the Church, the body of the Risen Head. He
does not name the rapture. That silence then gives us to understand, that the
rapture is not one of the privileges attached to this wonderful calling.
‘Oh, but the reason why it is not named is
because we are there considered as being already in the heavenly places with
Christ:’ Eph. 2: 6. Could not the Holy Spirit, when telling us
of God’s counsel concerning the fulness of times (1: 10) have thrown in a clause,
stating that by the one all-inclusive rapture saints would enter it? Was there
no other way in which the All-wise God could show us, in the same epistle, both privileges, if
they were really attached to simple faith?
2. There is no notice given in the
Colossians that the rapture is one of the privileges belonging to simple faith
in Christ. ‘How can you say so? when it is
written there - “When Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in
glory:” Col. 3: 4. Now in order that the saints may
appear on high with Christ He must have, previously come for them. Moreover God
has already
translated believers into the
kingdom of the Son of His love: 1: 13.’ It is true, that all believers are
translated as soon as they believe, into the kingdom in mystery, during the present time of
grace. But the rapture takes
place in another day of an
opposite character; in the day of justice, when each is to be rewarded according to his works: Matt. 12: 18-26; 2 Thess.
1: 5; 1 John 4: 17.
Of which more by and by. And the question is, Will all believers enter the
kingdom in manifestation?
Next, the Epistle to the Colossians has some strong warnings
of possible loss to the believer arising from disobedience. Let us look at
them. The apostle tells us of believers already reconciled to God through the
death of His Son, and of their presentation, “holy and unblameable and
irreprovable in His sight, IF AT LEAST ye (1) continue in the
faith grounded and settled, (2)
and be not
moved away from the hope of the Gospel which ye have heard:” 1: 22, 23. Now, are all believers grounded and
settled in the faith? Have none been moved away from the hope of the Gospel? Do
not many refuse the personal coming of Christ at any moment, and look rather
for death as their hope?
Again, after presenting to the believer the glory of the
Mystery of God and the necessity of our cleaving to Christ as Head, what says
He? “Beware lest any man spoil (rob) you through Philosophy and
vain deceit, after the
tradition of men, after the rudiments of the
world, and not after Christ:” 2: 8. Are there no Christians led away from
simplicity in Christ to philosophy and the traditions of men? These then will
suffer loss as it regards the Christian’s reward and hopes. The believer
is to remember his completeness in Christ, with whom he was “buried in
baptism, wherein also he
rose again, by faith in the
operation of God, who raised him from
the dead:” 2: 12. Here again is another opening for loss. How few believers
have been immersed after their faith in Christ slain, buried, and raised again!
And if Moses, God’s commissioned deliverer of
But inspired warning to disciples steps in again. “Let none
beguile you of your reward in a voluntary (affected) humility and
worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he
hath not seen, vainly puffed up by the mind of
his flesh, and not holding the Head, out of which all the body, by
joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God. IF, therefore, ye died with the
Christ,” why
listen to the commands of men, as if still alive in the world? They may have a
show of wisdom, but as being to the satisfaction of the flesh, are not to be
honoured by any Christian. “If, therefore, ye rose with
the Christ, seek the things which are above.” Set your affection there, and not on
things of earth. For you died, and your true life is on high with Christ. And
when He shall be manifested, then shall you too be: 2: 18; 3: 4.
Here then is another opening of responsibility, at which
disobedience may come in. Nay, all these warnings discover to us points at
which many believers have actually gone astray. Hence they will not partake of the privileges
attached to obedience. And this promised manifestation with Christ is presented
in the hortatory part of the Epistle, under three ‘ifs’. Moreover, the Epistle
witnesses of certain sins on which the wrath of God is coming,* and into which many believers have
fallen. It also assures us that while the obedient will receive the reward of
the inheritance, yet that the wrong-doer, believer though he may be, shall
receive for the wrong he has done; and God is, in that day of justice, no
respecter of faces: 3: 22; 4: 1. According to deeds He will render to each, whether elect, or non-elect. While then
all Christ’s people are to be presented before Him “at His
Presence”,
yet that does not decide the question, whether all believers will be rapt
together. For “the Presence” of Christ ([Greek ...]) covers a
considerable space of time, during which the Antichrist is manifested, and the
Day of Great Trouble takes place. So that, during that time more raptures than
one may take effect.
We come then to the passages which speak of rapture.
1. 1 Thess. 4.
2. 2 Thess. 2.
3. Matt. 24. & 25.
4.
And the passages in Revelation: Rev. 3: 3, 10; 11: 12; 12. & 14.
1. Let us look then at 1 Thess. 4: 13 - 5: 8.
“But I would not have you to be
ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as
others which have no hope. For if we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them
also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the
Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For
the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God:
and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we
which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
“But of the times and the
seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For
yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the
night. For when they shall say. Peace and safety; then sudden
destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a
woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that
that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are
all the children of light, and the children of
the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let
us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the
breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.”
Now does this passage give us the rapture of the whole Church,
as the result of grace to men possessed of faith? Nothing of the kind! It answers the question which
was then troubling the Thessalonian
Christians - Whether death and
burial were not effectual hindrances
to enjoying a place in the millennial
May we now regard all modern Christians as occupying the same
spiritual level with the Thessalonian Christians? Far from it! The Spirit of
God praises their “work of faith, labour of love,
and patience of the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
3. Could Christ
praise all believers thus? The Thessalonian Christians had “turned to
God from idols, to serve the living
and the true God, and to wait for his
Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even
Jesus our deliverer from the coming wrath:” 1: 9, 10. Now, are all converted persons
serving God? Are they all waiting for God’s Son from heaven? Are there
not many who have turned away from the hope of Christ’s coming to idols,
who will in consequence be left in the coming day of wrath? Are there not
converted men among the Ritualists who worship the bread and wine, the Virgin,
and the saints?
The world will be overtaken by the day of wrath ere they
expect it. The Thessalonians would not, because they were awake to God’s
invitation to his kingdom and glory: 2: 12. But most Christians are not aware of what
the hope of their calling is, and are not seeking it. The majority of believers
are spiritually asleep, like
2. What says the Second Epistle?
“Now we beseech you, brethren, by the presence of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering
together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken
from your intelligence ... as that the day of
the Lord has set in,” 2 Thess. 2: 1, 2. See the critical editions.
Here is rapture of saints, but not of “the
Church” as a
body. Is the Church in general in the state of grace here depicted? “We are
bound to thank God always for you brethren, as
it is meet because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all toward each other
aboundeth:” 1: 3. These then were watchful saints, whom
God was about “to count worthy of the kingdom”,
since they not only believed in it, but suffered for it, 5.
They had been troubled by means of false testimony from three
different quarters, to the effect that that great and terrible period - “the Day
of the Lord” had already set in. And, if so, they were called to hide and to howl: Isa. 2: 13. But no! This time of the
Church’s recognition by God is the day of God’s embassy of grace;
and the day of justice cannot come without the watchful saints being caught
away to the secret presence of Christ. The indignation of God cannot descend on
the sinners of earth, till its sin has come to the height, and the False
Christ, sweeping all the wicked into Satan’s net, has appeared in his
power.
But the Apostle does not say that none of the believers of the
Church can be in that day. The contrary possibility was implied in the former
epistle. It is implied here. While watchful saints, such as the Thessalonian Christians and Paul, who joins
himself with them, would not be left on earth, he intimates the possibility of
the unwatchful being left to that day. The opening for this appears in the word
“soon”. He does not say, ‘that no evidence ought to prevail on the Christian to
believe, that the dread day of God has begun; because none of the Church will
be caught in that day.’ He only gives them indications of the
evidence which should convince any believers so left, that the day had begun.
They were not soon to be frightened
out of their wits, as if the day had begun.
Before the wrath of the day be poured out, the waiters for
Christ will be caught up to Him. Therefore, until a rapture of saints has taken
place, we may be sure that the day of grace is lasting still. But as soon as
the sudden disappearance of the watchful saints has taken place, all believers
left on earth may know that the Christ is secretly present, and the day of woe
has set in. The removal of the watchful and prayerful ones will hasten on the
full iniquity of earth. The Holy Spirit returns on high; He who now hinders the
spirit of lawlessness will have departed. And with the removal of “the
light of the world”, the world plunges into its deepest darkness. By the removal
of the salt of the earth, the earth sinks into its deepest corruption. The
careless and lukewarm believer, as the salt that has lost its taste, no longer
retains his place, but is cast out and trodden underfoot: Matt. 5: 13, 14. Speedily will come the
rejection by whole nations of the name of Christian, and out of that open
wickedness and lawlessness springs the Lawless One, whom Christ at last ‘paralyses by the manifestation of his presence’, which had so long taken place over
earth in secret.
Let us now look at the evidence derived from our Lord’s
prophetic parable: Matt. 24: 36-42. “The Days of
Noah.”
“But of that day and hour
knoweth none, no, not the angels of the heavens, but my
Father only.
“But as the days of Noah were,
1. “So shall be also THE PRESENCE of the Son of Man.
“For as in the days that were
before the Flood, they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
2. “Until the day that Noah entered
into the ark,
“And they understood (it) not.
3. “Until the Flood came, and took away all.
“So shall be also THE PRESENCE of the Son of Man.
4. “Then two shall be in the field;
one is taken, and one is
left. Two (women) grinding at the mill; one is taken, and one is left.”
How are we to understand this parable? On two accordant principles. 1. This is THE PRESENCE
parable. 2. It is to be interpreted
by the HISTORY OF NOAH.
The points of resemblance between the days of Noah, and the
times yet future, as declared in the parable, are these - (1) The time of God’s patience, in which we stand. (2) Judgment is threatened now, as it was by Noah then. (3) Mercy was promised to some before
the judgment, and the instrument of that mercy was the ark. (4) Till judgment came, men expressed
their unbelief by a life after the flesh. So it is now, and will be
increasingly so. (5) The sign given
of God was ‘Noah’s entry into the ark’.
That was a sign to the world, of wrath at the doors. (6) It was God’s last call to men to repent. But it was not
understood, and passed unheeded, till judgment overwhelmed the unbelievers. (7) Then came destroying wrath on the
world. (8) The answering sign then
that is to be given - what is it? The taking
and leaving!
1. But how are we to expound these?
Some say that it is the Jewish or earthly deliverance, that is here described. The taken are
those cut off by judgment; the left are those who survive the judgments, and
people the millennial earth.
2. To me it is certain that the heavenly escape is before us; that which is
designed for the
How shall the matter be decided?
1. The general subject of the prophecy
on Olivet is our Lord’s coming in reference to his two peoples: (1)
2. The Jewish deliverance is described in the first
half of the prophecy. They are to escape by great activity. The sign once
given, they are to flee without looking back: 16-18. In the parable there is no
activity on the part of the escaping. “One is taken, one is left.” Both are passive. This then is not the Jewish, but the heavenly rescue.
3. Next, the word which describes the
taking* does not
mean destroying. The reader must distinguish between two very different words
used in this parable. The one signifies “to take
as a companion”. That
is the word employed concerning the one taken.** The other signifies “to take away, to destroy”*** “The flood came, and took
away them all”. This is paralleled in Luke 17: 27, 29, by the usual word for “destroy”.
“One is taken”, then, describes the favourable
alternative. He is “taken as a
companion”+. This is the
usual sense of the word. So Abraham “took with him” to
the Mount “two of his young men and Isaac his
son”: Gen. 22: 3. (2,)
So Joseph took five of his
brethren to the royal presence of Pharaoh: Gen. 47: 2. It is the same word which in the New
Testament our Lord employs concerning his reception of his people. “I will come again and receive you to myself”: John
14: 3. For some other passages the reader
may consult Acts
12:
25;
15:
37, 38;
Gal. 2: 1;
where there is an added preposition, which points out companionship still more
definitely.++ Moreover, the matter is to be
expounded by the history of Noah. Now, in Noah’s day the distinction of
Jew and Gentile did not exist. The flood overswept the whole earth, and the
witness of coming judgment embraced the whole earth. The Saviour’s title
here is not Jewish. He calls Himself “Son of man”. That is the title which he takes when
He puts away his Jewish title: Matt. 16: 20, 27, 28. It is one which describes Him as acting
upon the whole earth.
[Three different Greek words ...
are indicated above. There is a note at ++] :-
++ Two passages have been cited as exceptions to this
sense: Matt. 27: 27;
and John 19: 6.
Here wicked men took the Lord as their companion. But the question is easily
decided by asking, Who takes here? It is the Lord of
“the Presence”, even as Noah was the
taker of old.
4. Watchfulness against an expert thief
is not an attitude given to Israelites; as it is here: 5: 42. They are men of sight, not of faith. They are to flee when they SEE
the idol lifted up on the temple. They are to see the Son of man coming
in the clouds: Matt. 24: 15, 30.
5. The scene is to be expounded by the
days of Noah. Was there any taking and leaving then? Yes! “Of
every living thing of all flesh, two of every
sort shalt
thou bring into the ark,
to keep them alive with thee. They shall be
male and female; of fowls after their sort,
and of cattle after their kind, and of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind,
two of every sort shall come unto thee to keep them alive:” Gen. 6: 19, 20.
6. The taking then was by Noah, and in mercy. So was it also in the days of
The taking here is to be expounded by Noah’s day. Who
took? Noah! Who will take then? Christ! into whose “Presence”
the saint is to be ushered. In the old-world escape, Noah and his family had to
enter the refuge on their feet. For the ark was then on earth. But now the ark
of our Noah is “the Presence” in the air. And into that our powers of natural progression
will not enable us to climb. Therefore, the words describing the
believer’s entry on the Presence of Christ are passive. ‘Watch,
therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these
things that shall come to pass, and “to be set before the Son of man”: (Greek) Luke 21: 36. “Then we
which are alive and remain shall be caught away together with them in clouds, to meet the Lord in the air”: Thess. 4: 17.
“Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God
took him:” Gen. 5: 24.
7. The taking in Noah’s day has two
aspects, according as we look
at it as affecting the taken, or the left. (1) To the taken, it was an escape from wrath. (2)
To those left, it was a sign.
Observe, our Lord is referring, not to Noah’s entry on
the new earth after the Flood was past, but to his entering into the ark, in
the days previous to the Flood; and to the destruction wrought by the Flood on
those outside the refuge of the ark. Those left where they were, perished.
Those who perished were those who remained where they were, and who were not
transferred to the new sphere of safety. Those left outside were the taken
away by judgment. So the
saved are the taken to Christ’s Presence.
8.
Whither were the rescued taken?
To the ark. For what purpose? To be kept alive. They were led out of the place
of sin, on which woe was coming, into the place of mercy. The left outside the
ark on earth were left to the flood. There was then a needed transfer from the scene of trouble to the scene
of peace. Noah and his saved ones abandoned their previous place to enter on
the provided refuge. It is so here. The words, “The one was taken,” denote the needed transfer out of the
world, which lies under sin and death, into the Presence on high. “He that
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of
the Almighty”: Ps. 91: 1-4. All others perished in the flood: Gen. 7: 23. “Thou shalt
bring into the ark to keep them alive with thee.” The taking then, as viewed in the
light of Christ’s choice of his companions to enter the Presence, is one
of honour. Hence the leaving is comparative dishonour. Viewed as the act of Christ coming as
the thief (5:
43),
it has the same signification. The expert thief discriminates between the more
and the less valuable article, and while he takes the one, he leaves the other.
9. Now, as he who was left outside the
ark, was left to the terrors of the flood, so it is here. The one left must pass through the Great Tribulation,
which answers to the flood of old. The feasters and the marrying ones are left
outside the refuge, to pass through the day of trouble; and the left one is
left to the same time, and in the place of danger and dismay.
10. What was the time of that taking and that escape? “In the days that
were before the Flood.” So it is to be in the days that are
coming. The taking is the sign of the coming judgment, and so cannot be the effect of the
judgment already come. It is the deliverance out of the woe by Jesus. Now, as
we are taught to pray, that we may be “accounted worthy” of this escape, so Paul comforts the
watchful believer with the assurance of it. The Presence of Christ shall gather him to Himself, and so he shall not be
in the tempest of that evil day. “Now we beseech you brethren, by the
Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and our gathering together to him, that
ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled ... as if the Day of the Lord
(great and terrible) had set in 2 Thess. 2: 1.
11. Let us now regard the taking and the
leaving as THE SIGN.
The entry of Noah and his family into the ark, conveying
thither the furniture and crockery of their house, was a sign to the world. It
said: ‘The hundred and twenty years of
God’s promised patience are over. The clock of God is striking, judgment
is at the door!’
12. A sign was needed in order to show where our day of mercy
ends, and “the days of vengeance” begin. The removal of the watchful of
the Church tells men that the Church’s standing and testimony are then by
God removed. The Church is the witness of God’s mercy; of the acceptable
time; of the day of salvation: 2 Cor. 5.
13. The sign in Noah’s day was a
disappearance of the favoured ones
in the ark. It is so in the coming day. The taken is caught away to the
Presence in the twinkling of an eye, and is no more seen. “He was
not found, for God took him”:
Gen. 5: 24.
14. The sign to the world in
Noah’s day was a miraculous one. That birds, beasts, reptiles, the wild and tame of every
sort, should come, and in the prescribed numbers, trooping to the one refuge of
the ark, was a miracle. The taking here is miraculous also. It is the
Lord’s lifting up to himself his people out of earth into heaven. In Luke 17.
another feature of the wonder is given. From within the locked house and the
barred chamber of midnight, one shall be stolen away; so that, in the morning,
of two in the same bed only one shall be found. Walls, doors, and roof remain
as they were, but this Master-thief has abstracted one of them: Luke 17: 34.
15. It is a sign to
16. It is a sign also to the
unbelievers of the world. It
calls to them to cease marrying and feasting, to be upon their knees in
sackcloth and ashes; for the day of judgment on the living is come. But the men
of the old world disregarded the sign given. They were so enwrapped in the
things of time as to be insensible to this call of the Most High. They had
refused the testimony of wrath coming, and were blind to the meaning of its sign.
It will be thus, when this marvellous sign shall be given. Faith will see in
the sudden disappearance of the Lord’s diligent seekers the reward which
God gave of old. Faith will interpret it of the Lord’s hand of power. But
the men of unbelief will see in it only the fraud of men, and will ridicule the
idea of a miracle. For nothing is seen. And they will lay themselves to slumber afresh, with ‘Peace
and Safety’
on their lips, till judgment not to be escaped, swallows them up!
17. On the opposite view, the taking and
the leaving are only the result of judgment in men’s destruction, and
therefore no sign at all. All are involved in the same tempest, and who is to
be cut off and who is to be spared can only be known when the wrath is past.
18. Look also at the significance of the
two in the light of Noah’s day. “Of every living thing of
all flesh, two of every
sort shalt though bring into the ark, to keep
them alive with thee. They shall be male
and female.” “There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male
and the female, as God commanded Noah ... They went in unto
Noah into the ark two
and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded
him, and the Lord shut him in:” Gen. 6: 19;
7: 9, 15.
Accordingly we have “the two” prominent here, and the male and the female are set side by side. “Then
shall TWO (men) be in the field: one is taken and one is left. Two (women) grinding at the mill: one is taken, and one is left.” Noah took only a selection from the
animals, and those left outside the ark
were cut off.
The same prominence is given to the two in the rapture of Elijah. The two cross
the
19. The two are quite distinct from the
world in its feasting and marrying. They are of the poor, working in the sweat
of their brow. And such are those whom in general God has chosen to His Kingdom
and glory: Luke
6:
20. They are the few, in comparison of earth’s many rioters.
And it was the few (that is, eight souls) that were saved in the ark.
20. What shall we
say is the spiritual character of the two? Are they to be distinguished thus? ‘The
taken is a believer; the left one is an unbeliever.’ No both
are believers. This is proved
by the closing words of the parable, “Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord is coming.” This gives us the certain key to the
interpretation. It is not the Lord in his sovereignty dealing with some in his
good pleasure. Then the lesson would have been to bow with submission to Him
who is not bound to render a reason of his dealings to any. But no! ’tis the
day of rewarding each according to his obedience to Christ. And so it is
intimated, that the reason of the difference is, that the one is watchful, the
other is not. Now, if they thus differ, both are believers. The same follows from the words, “Your
Lord is coming.” The Presence is the Presence of Christ “the
Master” of both; that is, both are his servants. Else the
appropriate call to the one left had been to bid him turn to God. But the cry,
“Watch”, supposes the possession of life in both. They differ as the “ready” from the unready. Here again we tread
on certain ground. That is the feature of the accepted of that day. “Therefore
be ye also ready:” 44. “They that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door
was shut. Afterwards came also the other virgins.” Here is again the entry
into the Presence of those rapt to
Christ, and the left are the foolish, who
are kept outside. But the
distinction of “ready” and “unready” is not a radical difference, like that
between the renewed and the ungodly. It is a circumstantial difference only;
such as obtains between two believers, the one of whom accepts all
Christ’s truth, the other does not.
21. It has been proved, then, by many
arguments, that the taking is the favourable alternative. The parable refers
all to the Saviour’s coming and presence; and to be taken to that is
honour and blessing. The being left, then, is dishonour and trouble. What in
Noah’s day came after the entry of the favoured ones into the ark? The
Flood! The left one, then, if left for that which answers to the Flood, the
period of the Great Tribulation to come.
Accordingly the parable which next follows, of the robbed
householder, unfolds to us the case of the left one. He is dishonoured, for his
Lord in choosing his companion has passed by himself. He has lost the hope
given in prophecy. He has not “watched and prayed always”; and as the consequence he cannot now
escape the troubles coming on the world while his companion has been set before
the Son of man with joy: Luke 21: 36. Had he been watchful, his
house would not have been broken into. He differs from the favoured householder
in having slept when he should have kept awake; and the issue is his being left
amidst the increasing and out-bursting sinfulness of men, and the last judgments
of God. The article left by the intelligent thief is always less valuable than
the one taken. And Christ is here the thief: 43.
22. The same truth comes out in a view
of the Steward: 5: 45-51. That is not a Jewish parable. For God is
not now owning
23. This view of the taking and leaving
is so greatly confirmed by three incidents of our Lord’s life, which I
call ‘the Three Companionships’,
that in justice to the argument I must exhibit them. They are all - so
important does the Holy Spirit consider them - narrated by the three first
Gospels, and in each of the three incidents occurs the Greek word here used.*
* [See the word ... shown in Greek.]
1. THE FIRST COMPANIONSHIP: Mark 5.; Matt. 9.; Luke 8. Jesus has called a publican to be an
apostle, and the men of the old covenant are stumbled at the Saviour’s
eating with sinners, a grace suited only to the new dispensation. He is advised
to give to His disciples orders to fast, as did the law and its followers. The
Saviour refuses. The time was not suitable. Moreover, His doctrine was not a
clearing of the law from the misapprehensions of its teachers; He brought an
entirely new doctrine. And any attempt to mingle the new truths with the old
rites would only bring destruction upon both.
Two incidents, then, at once occur to illustrate to us that
the Saviour is ruler alike of the old things and the new. 1. He is asked to go and raise the dead; and He leaves the house of
the feast, in order to effect this purpose. 2. On the way, one unclean in the sight of the law, and unable to
obtain a cure, touches the hem of our Lord’s robe and is healed at once.
This is typical. Unrighteous
Jesus then moves onward to the house
of Jairus. But He allows neither the healed woman, nor any of the spectators to
enter the house. He
takes as His companions into the scene of resurrection only three
even of the apostles - “Peter, James, and John.” He next tests
the faith of those within the house. This, which they are lamenting as death,
is, in the presence of the Lord, only sleep. They laugh Him to scorn. And
He Puts them all out of the house.
He enters then into the chamber of the dead, and at His word and touch, she
arises. The woman is unclean for twelve years. The girl raised from the dead is twelve years of age. The Church began to enter on
life, when
In this instance both the taken and the left are believers the
three taken are the honoured disciples. The nine left outside are dishonoured.
And the Saviour requires this first of the resurrections to be kept a secret.
2. THE SECOND COMPANIONSHIP: Matt. 16. & 17.
Accordingly, on the seventh day after, He chooses Peter, James, and
John, as His companions, and “takes them up * into an high mountain apart” by night. Here is then a type of the
rapture. But it is not a taking of all the disciples. Not all even of the apostles are
taken, nor the major part of
them. The three favoured ones behold Jesus in His glory, and two others in
glorified bodies also; one, representing the dead raised (Moses); the other, those who shall be caught up without death to
His presence (Elijah).
*[See the
Greek word...], used by all three Gospels. Also [the word...] Matt. 17: 1.
What became of the nine apostles? They were left at the foot of the Mount till the next
day. They are powerless against a demoniac brought to them. Cavillers are there
taunting them with their want of power, when Jesus descends. He comes with a
word of strong rebuke in His mouth. - “O faithless and perverse generation! How long shall I be with you? How
long shall I suffer you?” Thus the nine apostles are addressed, as among the rest. At
all events, our Lord does not discriminate them.
Here again, both the taken and the left are believers. The taken are the honoured; the left,
the dishonoured ones. The left are found below in circumstances which typify
the time of unbelief and of trouble.
3. THE THIRD
COMPANIONSHIP, OR
The Saviour enters the garden, and bids the disciples to watch
and pray, that they might be kept out of temptation. He then takes as His
companions the same favoured three, Peter, James, and John, tells them of the
awful weight and anguish which are oppressing His soul, and bids them to stay
there apart from the remaining
eight, and watch with Him. He goes alone, and earnestly beseeches, that, if
possible, His Father would remove the bitter cup.
He comes back to the disciples, and finds them asleep. He
wakes them, and addresses a word of rebuke, especially to Peter - ‘So You could not watch a single hour with me!’ “Watch,
and pray, that ye enter
not into temptation.”
He departs again and prays the same prayer. Returning the
second time He finds them asleep once more. “And He left them and departed.”
There is a brief interval, during which He prays the third
time. Returning again, and finding them once more asleep, He assures them that
there was now no escape. The hurricane was upon them! While He yet was
speaking, Judas and his band came. Peter for a moment resists with the sword,
and is rebuked. “Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled.” Peter, venturing in to the assembly
of the Saviour’s foes, is drawn into denying his Master with oaths and
curses!
Can any, in view of “the days of Noah”, mistake the bearing and lesson of
this incident? Here Jesus by facts the most striking confirms His
solemn warnings to believers: Mark 13: 33-37.
“Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know
not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a
man taking a far journey, who left his house,
and gave authority to his servants, and to every
man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye
know not when the master of the house cometh, at
even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in
the morning: Lest
coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.”
In these words we see what will be the result to the
unwatchful disciple. He who is seen on the former occasions as light scattering
the darkness, and as Life undoing death, is in the garden left to endure (while
innocent) the burthen of sin. There Light is wrapt in darkness, and Life is pressed almost to
the gates of death.
The hour of the Saviour’s foes, and of Satan’s
power of darkness will once again be upon the sleepers, ere they are aware, and
in the storm the left ones will fall, as did Peter and the others. The three
privileged to be in the former two scenes of power and glory, were then left to
the day of trial. It is not with impunity, that any disciple, however favoured,
can disregard any command of the Master. Something more than the simple faith
which avails for salvation is required to escape this tempest. And the
watchfulness which our Lord calls for is not possessed by the great majority of
believers; while some leaders in His Church are defeating by their teaching
this special injunction of our Lord.
Let us now examine some of the testimony of the BOOK OF REVFLATION
to the same truth.
In the phrase, then, ‘the
Rapture of the Church’, two fallacies lie couched.
(1) It is assumed
that there is to be a rapture of the Church, as the Church. It is not so. The
rapture of reward takes effect on the watchful of the Church; the
unwatchful being left to the Day of Trouble.
(2) The second
assumption is, that only one rapture is to take place. Now
the Book of Revelation
will show seven raptures or at
all events, there are seven distinct notices of rapture though it may be, that
two or more notices may refer to the same rapture.
‘In the Apocalypse
the Church is not seen after chapter 3.’
True! But it does not therefore follow that all the Church are
rapt at once, in grace. Nor does it follow that the twenty-four elders are the
Church.
After chapter 3, the Church has lost its standing as
God’s witness on earth. For the Church bears witness to the day of
God’s mercy: 2 Cor. 5: 18; 6: 12.
Its standing is lost, as soon as the day of judgment begins, and this is the
force of 2
Thess. 2. The testimony had gone forth at
Thessalonica, that the day of judgment had set in. Paul denies it, and
denounces the falsehood. Else we ought not to be rejoicing in God, but to be
hiding and howling: Isa. 2., 13: 6; Jer.
4: 6-10. The Apostle could not deny that to be in
the terrible day of wrath was woe; but he is able to comfort us with the
assurance that till the watchful of the Church are carried above, the day with
its sins and its punishments cannot come. With Rev. 4. the throne of judgment is
set, and the day of grace and of the Church is past.
When the ready ones of the churches are stolen away from on
earth, the great body of believers, lukewarm and careless, will be left; and
while the kernel has been scooped out, the shell looks much as it was. So,
after Christ had reduced the temple of the Lord to be only
The Apocalypse gives us the government of God in relation to
heaven, Hades, and earth. It views every thing in the light of the coming day
of the Lord. The Saviour in the first vision is not presented as the Lord of
grace, but as the Risen High Priest of the heavenly places; with eyes of fire,
feet of brass (Mic. 4: 13), and sword of double edge.
CHAPTERS 2, 3
The book of Revelation is
divided by our Lord into three parts: 1: 19. The first consists of the vision of
Christ, the stars, and the lamps. Then come “the
things that are”, or the churches in their varied states, during
the time that God is pleased to recognize them. Then comes the prophetic
portion, “the things which are about to be after these things”. (Greek.)
The seven churches are all assemblies of believers. No others
are God’s assembly. No others are lights on high. It is not ‘the
State establishments are
The Church, in view of the coming day, is not one. Paul discovers it to us as one; for he
is the witness of its standing in the day of grace. But in view of Christ’s demands on believers as the
answer to privileges given, the Church is divided into seven contemporaneous portions. And the spiritual response to
Christ’s claims given by each Church is different from that given by any
other Church. Responsibility is not one, but diverse and local.
Let us now look at the four last of the seven churches. For in
these the readiness or unreadiness for Christ's appearing comes into view.
THYATIRA
This Church, like all the others, is divided into overcoming
believers and believers overcome. The promises are made to the conquerors, and
the things promised are exclusive of all those who do not fulfil the conditions
supposed in them. The promises belong to the Government of God as “the
Righteous Judge”.
In this Church, amidst much that the Saviour could approve,
the wife of the apostle (or chief pastor) was a grievous offender.* She was not only evil herself, but by
false doctrine and alluring arts she led Christ’s servants (believers only are Christ’s
servants) back into heathenism and its corruption. Now, while the Spirit
promises to those ‘who turn from idols to serve the living God, and to wait for His Son from heaven’ that they shall escape the wrath
coming on the living world, this of course does not include those believers
who, as in this case, turned from Christ to idols: 1 Thess.
1:
9.
If any are of the world’s works and on the world’s level in that
day, when God in government is not regarding faces, they will be treated as the
world; and left amidst the judgments which are to overtake it, after the
watchful of the churches have been caught away: 1 Thess. 5.
* That this is the true reading is
clear. (1) What power had the angel
(or the church, if you will) over a “woman”
merely? (2) The documentary evidence
for the reading is good. (3) The
probability arising from the later doctrines current in patristic times, was
that the obnoxious “thy” would be removed. (4) It is the more difficult reading.
Accordingly our Lord threatens judgment on her, her paramours,
and her children. He alludes to Jehu’s vengeance on Jezebel and her sons.
To this refer his eyes on fire with indignation. And, as Jehu trod Jezebel
underfoot after she was cast down, so the Saviour significantly speaks of his
feet of brass.
“I will cast her into a bed,
and them that commit adultery with her into
great tribulation”. Here then some of Christ’s
servants of the Church will be cast into great tribulation sent in displeasure.
Much more then, may some of Christ’s people in the Church, less grossly
offending, be left in great
tribulation, if they be found after such warning impenitent, as Jezebel was.*
* This comes to its height in
‘Ah, but no time is specified,
as that in which the Great Tribulation here threatened shall take place.’
Therefore it leaves all times that suit the Lord open. The woe must be fulfilled some day it may be fulfilled any day. And there is no
time so suited as that when the throne of judgment (chap. 4.) is set, and the day of
patience is over. Here then our proposition is proved. Some of the Church will be offenders in like sort in the latter
day, and retribution will be dealt out to them as here foretold; that is, they
will have to pass through the Great Tribulation, which is the consequence of
the erection of God’s throne of judgment.
How clearly this is the result of the great principle
announced by our Lord’s own lips in 5: 23. “All the
churches shall know that I am the searcher of reins and hearts, and I WILL GIVE TO
EACII OF YOU ACCORDING TO YOUR WORKS.” As the conduct of each [regenerate] believer of the Church deserves,
Christ will measure to him. If so, then, believers who have fallen to the
world’s level will be treated as of the world.
The Saviour goes on to notice that not all the Church in Thyatira
had thus fallen. Hence he discriminates, “To you I say, the rest in Thyatira.” “I will put upon you no other
burden; but What ye have already, hold fast till I open” *
* I read [the Greek word ...]. (1)
It is well supported, and is (2) the
more difficult reading.
That is, while some would find the ark door shut, to others it
would be open, and their escape of the day of trouble secure.
The reference, “till I open”,
is probably to the scene of Jehu’s anointing. He is God’s avenger. To him is sent a messenger prophet
with a box of oil, which he was to pour on his head. “Thus
saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over
Jesus is seen fulfilling this word, as soon as the churches
are dismantled, and the throne of judgment is set: 4: 1, 2. “After these
things, I saw, and
behold, a door was opened in heaven, and
(there was) the first voice which I heard as it were of
a trumpet talking with me [Christ, 1: 10]) saying, Come up hither, and I will show thee the things which must take place after
these things.” “Immediately I became
in the spirit, and behold a throne was being set in the heaven, and upon the throne a sitter.” This throne is like
To reign with Christ in his millennial day is a promise to the
obedient and victorious ones of the churches. “He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations.”
Jesus as Son of God addresses with solemn words this leader of
the Church in
So Moses and Joshua arrived over the camp quite unexpectedly,
and saw the feast, the idol, and the dancing; and judgment encircled both Aaron
and the seventy elders who had left their lofty place against orders (Ex. 24: 14), as well as the multitude in general (Ex. 32: 17-29).
Were apostles in the trouble that began in
But this Church also has a remnant. “Thou
hast a few names in
Here is a chief pastor and a Church without rebuke. Jesus
presents himself to them as possessed of all the treasures of David, for He
holds the key of them. It is His to open and none can shut; to shut, and none
can open. It is He who opens the door into heaven, at which John enters, while
the throne of judgment is being placed on high. If any then be taken up by
Christ, Satan cannot hinder. And if Christ leave any, he cannot enter. “Because
thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also
will keep thee out of the hour of the temptation that is about to come on the
whole habitable earth, to try the dwellers upon
the earth.”
Behold then a special reward annexed
by our Lord to a special excellence. The
angel had kept ‘the word of Christ’s
patience’. This may be taken either as signifying ‘the doctrine of Christ’s awaiting his kingdom’,
or (2) ‘the doctrine of the Christian’s patiently waiting for
Christ’s coming and kingdom’. Either way, the sense is
nearly the same. Now, are all Christians keeping this word of Christ’s
patience? Do all teach or own Christ’s kingship as “Son of David?” The large majority of believers (not “mere
professors”) do not accept this truth. How then can anyone,
instructed in the Scripture, assume so quietly: Therefore the Church will not be in the Great Tribulation? It is
a special promise to some believers.
Some Christians openly profess themselves “citizens of earth”, instead of being “pilgrims
and strangers”. As then the promise embraces the latter, the former are excluded. The
hour of temptation will seize upon those who are morally and spiritually “dwellers
upon the earth”. The escaping by rapture that Day of
Trouble then is not a matter of grace, but the result of a being
“accounted worthy to escape:” Luke 21:
36,
2 Thess.
1:
5,
11.
It is fulfilled by being rapt to heaven.
No better portion of the Church, no remnant appears here. It
is only, ‘If any one hear My voice’. Nevertheless
the Lord ceases not to love them, and therefore rebukes, (19) and will chasten them, by
leaving them to the fierce persecution of the coming day.
THE THRONE AND ELDERS. CHAPTERS
4. & 5.
As soon as sentence is passed on
The throne of God here is the throne of government, and
therefore of justice, which awards to each his place according to works. The
kingdom is given to Christ as the worthy One, and to His disciples, if
accounted worthy: Rev. 5: 9; Luke 20: 35; 2 Thess. 1: 5, 11; Rev. 3: 4; 1 Thess. 2: 12.
The resurrection and entry of any one into the kingdom of the
Christ is not granted to any as a [regenerate] ‘believer’ simply,
but as ‘righteous’ or a ‘saint’: Matt. 10: 41. The resurrection is “the
resurrection of the just”, or
of “the righteous”: Luke 14:
14. The kingdom is that of ‘the
saints’: Dan.
7.;
1 Cor. 6: 2-11; Matt. 5: 6, 20; 6: 33; 13: 43, 49;
25:
37,
46; 1 Pet.
4:
18; Heb.
12:
14.
The day is that of “the manifestation of
God’s righteous judgment”:
The elders and living creatures first celebrate the worthiness
of God as Creator, and then the worthiness of Christ.
Who are the elders? Some say ‘the
Church.’ What is the evidence for it? The interpolated ‘us’ in 5: 9. But critics are now satisfied that we
should read: “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and
redeemedst [us] to God by thy blood
(some) out of every kindred and tongue, and people, and nation,
and madest them to our God kings and priests, and they shall
reign over the earth.” Now, if that be the true reading, the ‘us’ must be rejected, not only as unnecessary
and as having the air of a gloss; but as making one party to be redeemed by blood, and another party to reap the fruits of it in their
kingly and priestly dignity.
No other evidence is adduced in proof that the elders are the
Church. But there is plenty of evidence against it. (1) Their number ‘twenty-four’.
The Church’s numbers are ‘one’,
and ‘seven’. How do you make out the
twenty-four? (2) They praise God
for
creation:
is that the Church’s calling? 4: 11.
(3) They appear enthroned and
crowned, before Christ is seen as the Lamb. (4) They never give Christ the glory of their salvation and their
exalted station. (5) They speak of
those redeemed by the blood of Christ as about to supplant them as God’s
kings, and priests. Will the Church ever be so superseded? (6) They never appear when the accepted
ones of the Church reign with Christ: 20: 4-6. (7)
They do not make their appearance in the eternal state.
Who are they then? The chiefs of the angels. And they, exhibit
the beauty of our Lord’s words: “Thy will be done in earth as it
is in heaven.” They confess their own unworthiness to reign in the presence of the slain
Lamb. They retire without a murmur, and leave their dignities to Him and them.
The settling of this point is of much moment; for if you place the Church where
it is not, you have to deny evidence of its existence, and to displace it,
where it does really appear.
THE GREAT MULTITUDE. 7: 9-17
Here are the results of the Second Rapture. Peter at Pentecost
cites the signs which are to precede the great and terrible day of the Lord: Acts 2: 19-21.
Until they have come, it is the time of the proclamation of forgiveness of
sins, and present salvation may go on. But in the sixth seal we have the “wonders
in heaven above, and signs on the earth beneath”. The sun is turned into darkness, and
the moon into blood as Peter speaks.
The elect out of
Then we have the Great Multitude gathered out of all the
nations. Who are they? Accepted ones of the
It is, however, perfectly clear that the Great Multitude is in
heaven.
1. Else they could not be “in
front of the throne and of the Lamb.” Wherever this phrase is used, the
things or persons so described are in heaven. (1) Grace and peace ... “from the seven Spirits which are before
the throne” 1: 4; 4: 5. Is not the Holy Spirit hereby shown to be in heaven? (2) “Before the throne is a sea of
glass”: 4: 6. That is a part of the temple of heaven. (3) The elders worship “before the throne”: verse 10. Are not they in
heaven? Mr. D. supposes they are. They are ‘the rapt Church then
found in heaven.’ If so, then, this multitude also are in
heaven.
The temple is in heaven. The throne is the centre of the
temple. They stand in front of the throne. Was
2. This Great Multitude are the priests
risen from the dead. For they “serve God day and night in His temple”:
verse 15.
Now the flesh could not
sustain such continuous service.
3. Moreover, the temple in which they
minister is in heaven. “A door is opened in heaven”: 4: 1. John ascends, and is within the
temple, and beholds in its centre the throne. See also 11: 19; 14: 15: 5; 16: 17.
‘But I saw no temple’
says John.
No, not in the final state and place, the City of
4. Some, if not all of them, are of the
Church. They know the Father and the Son, before whom they stand. This is
characteristic of the Church: 1 John.
They celebrate the praises of the Father and the Son,
ascribing to them their salvation. Salvation and the kingdom are now come to
heaven.
5. As possessed of white robes, they
are justified. The Church is washed, as they are, from sins, in the blood of
the Lamb. White robes, to be procured by Christ, were needed by
These then whom Christ robes in white, and leads, are of the
Church: verse
17; 3:
4,
5.
The knowledge of the blood of the Lamb is characteristic of the Church.
6. The expression,
“the blood of the Lamb”, is only found in this book in
connection with the Church: 1: 5; 5: 9; 7: 14; 12: 11; 22: 14. *
* I adopt the preferable reading:
“Blessed are they that wash their robes.”
‘But
these have all come out of ‘the Great Tribulation’.
And the Great Multitude (some may say) are saints risen and in
heaven before the last seal is broken. Now the Great Tribulation does not begin
till the first of the woe-trumpets - the fifth: 8: 13. ‘How can these have come out of Great Tribulation’
There are two Great Tribulations. For Abraham has seeds . (1)
the seed as the sand of earth, and (2) the seed as the stars of the heaven: Gen. 22: 17. And God owns the two seeds as His two
people. Their history, founded on God’s principles of grace and
government, is similar in respect of both, and is presented to us in the
covenant of faith made with Abraham and ratified to Christ: Gen. 15: 5, 6,
18; Gal. 3: 17. “Know of a surety, that thy seed shall be a
stranger in a land that is not theirs and shall serve them and they shall
afflict them.” These words may apply to Abraham’s heavenly seed,
fixed in glory like the stars. While away from their land they are troubled by
the seed of the serpent. The time of the Church is throughout one of
persecution and trouble: John 16: 33; Acts 14: 22; Col. 1: 24; 2 Tim. 3: 12. This, its characteristic,
appears in the Lord’s epistle.None of the
Churches are exempt from trouble, but those who have left their standing and
are under rebuke by Christ. Two persons are named in the seven epistles as
martyrs. All the occurrences of the word “tribulation”
in Revelation refer to the Church: 1: 9; 2: 9, 10, 22.
The trouble of Abraham’s fleshly seed was to last but
four hundred years. The trouble of the heavenly seed has lasted near two
thousand, and with far greater severity than that endured by
The history of their deliverance is like that of
The Church has already in baptism passed through the
The throne of Rev. 4., in relation to the Great Multitude, is
Sinai, or the Mount of God. It is also the tabernacle completed, and opened by
the Moses of the better covenant. He is designated as “the
Lamb”. For
it is His blood, the blood of the true Passover, which has brought them near.
This Lamb of God once slain and bearing the marks thereof is the deliverer out
of Egypt; for He is risen, and in resurrection is become the new Moses and
Aaron, the leader and high priest of the better people.
Rev. 7: 9, gives “the third day” in the morning: (Ex. 19: 16), for with the Lord a
thousand years is as one day and the Great Multitude are sanctified by the
better Moses. They have washed their robes, not in water, but in the blood of
the Lamb. Thus the commands of the Passover in
The Great Multitude are also like
They once felt these troubles while on earth, as Paul
testifies: 1
Cor. 4: 11; 2 Cor. 11.
Some were even put to death by burning. These troubles likewise befall those
left on the earth through the judgments sent by the Lord.
This Great Assembly was also typed by “the
Great Multitude” described by John and the three first Gospels who went up with our Lord to
the temple, at His last visit to
That glad throng of yore bore fronds of palm trees, for there
was in it some of the joy of Tabernacles, a token of the “rest
that remaineth for the people of God”, as shown in the resurrection of the
saint, Lazarus. But it was primarily the procession attending Christ as the
Lamb of the Passover, and its setting apart for sacrifice, on the tenth day,
before its offering on the fourteenth. At that entry into the temple they
washed not their robes, but strewed them, such as they were, before the
Saviour’s presence as the King. He had then to hunger, thirst, and weep,
that we and they might be freed from these troubles.
Jesus led that multitude to the temple; but it was garrisoned
by Pharisees, elders, and chief priests, who scowled at the intruding crowd and
their leader. But now all is changed; the twenty-four elders of heaven lift up their voices in praise of the
Lamb, and the angels add their attestations, as did the children of old in the
temple.
On that occasion, certain Greeks wished to see Jesus, and the
notice of their inquiry was borne to our Lord. He thereupon utters His
comparison of Himself to a grain of wheat which must die and be buried, ere it
can multiply itself. Behold, then, in this vast assembly of the redeemed out of
every nation, the proofs of the Saviour’s foresight, the merits of His
blood, the reproductive power of His death and resurrection.
3. The next rapture is that of the two
martyred prophets: Rev. 11. Their spirit is that of the law, while
their history is like Christ’s. For three years and a half they work
miracles, overcoming the enmity which arises against them by slaying their
foes. At length they are encountered by one who rises from among the dead; and
he prevails against them, when the power of mortal men availed not. Joy bursts
forth at their death. They are not allowed burial, but their corpses lie in the
street of the city that slew their Lord and ours. For three days and a half
they thus lie, till corruption has set in on their ghastly, pale, bruised,
discoloured bodies. Then the Spirit of life from God enters them, and they
stand up, to the amazement and dismay of those that rejoice over their death.
But ere the breathless pause of surprise which chills their persecutors is
past, they are called up to the heaven, and like their Lord ascend thither in
the cloud. As an earthquake attended the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, so
does it wait on their arising. But the latter earthquake, unlike that at the
Saviour’s coming forth of the tomb, is the swift messenger of death to
millions. Seven thousand of the first-born of the Gentiles, and of the city
spiritually called
If their resurrection be like that of our Lord in another
point of view, “many bodies of saints” will arise with them, and probably
ascend with them too.
THE MAN-CHILD.
Rev.
12.
We come next to the vision which extends from chapter 12.
to 14.
inclusive. It opens with a “great sign in the heaven”. We have before us the carrying out
of the scene in Eden - the Woman and the Serpent. The time when the
Woman’s Seed will bruise the Serpent’s head, is come.
The apostle sees a Woman “clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and
upon her head a crown of twelve stars”.
Who is this Woman?
Not the Church. That was set aside before the prophetic part
of the book began. The Church is a chaste virgin: 2 Cor. 11: 2, 3. This is a wife with several sons.
(1) It is a mystic
Woman, a city. There are two others, of like quality in this book. (2)
This Woman is
1. She is “clothed
with the sun”. For Christ is her righteousness. And
(To be continued in Volume 15)
-------
THE SHOCK OF PROPHECY
The
voice which urges men to flee from the wrath to come is the voice of Love. On the Cairngorm Hills in 1917 two climbers
nearly perished. With bleeding fingers they dug themselves out of the hut in
which they had sheltered, and staggered silently through wreaths of snow that
sometimes were breast deep. They succeeded in advancing two miles in three
hours. “Then my compan,” one of
them writes, “seized my arm and said, hoarsely,
and thickly, like a drunken man, ‘What about a snooze: I’m done.’ The temptation was terrible, for rest seemed like
heaven; but it was death himself who stood near, and I felt his wings. I
struggled with my friend, but he lay down in spite of me. there was only one
thing to do, and I did it. I struck him on the face with my iron-shod
boot.” That blow
produced its designed effect: they staggered at last into the warmth of the
nearest cottage. God sometimes smites us
sorelyon the face, to rouse us from the sleep of death.
- ALEXANDER STEWART, D.D.
-------
SPEAK NO WOUNDING WORD
Speak no wounding word!
Life holds so many a grievous thing;
So many dearest joys take wing;
They leave Earth’s shore who loved us best;
The heart grows faint within the breast.
Ah, speak no wounding word!
Speak no wounding word!
Life holds as many petty ills
As there are pebbles in the rills.
Oft, faint to sigh, we needs must smile;
Weary, go yet antiher mile:
Ah, speak no wounding word!
Speak no wounding word!
Haunting, hurt eyes in death may close
Before thine own. O woe of woes
The speech unkind to call to mind,
- With unavailing weeping blind!
Ah, speak no wounding word!
- LETTICE KING.
-------
“Let no man think error in doctrine a slight practical evil.
No road to perdition has ever been more thronged than that of false doctrine.
Erroe is a shield over the conscience, and a bandage over the eyes.”
-
C. HODGE, D.D.
* * *
16
THE DISCERNMENT OF SPIRITS
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
It is
vital to the modern situation to grasp the fact that an evil spirit can fall on
a Christian, on a truly regenerate man or woman. This has reached us from a
godly and experienced missionary:- “On the first
day of classes a dear Christian woman in this
DISCERNMENT
A single such fact establishes once
for all the fearful truth that an evil spirit can fall on a regenerate person;
and while a grossly evil demon
(as in this case) has merely to be fought, not unmasked, it is obvious that a
subtle, seductive spirit, which deceives by simulating all good, can equally
fall on a child of God. Paul names such spirits (2 Cor. 11: 13):-
“false apostles,
deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into
apostles of Christ: and no marvel;
for even Satan fashioneth himself into AN ANGEL OF LIGHT.” Deception is far more dangerous than
open attack. An evil spirit whom Paul cast out gave unqualified support to the
Gospel:- “These men are servants of the Most High God, which proclaim unto you the way of salvation” (Acts 16: 17). So constant is the peril even within
the
THE INSPIRED
But now we are confronted with the
tremendous fact which constitutes a danger no less tremendous, namely, that,
devoid as we are of miraculous gifts, we have no ‘discernings of spirits’ to safeguard us:
correspondingly precious, therefore, are two divinely given discriminations for
analyzing visitors from the unseen world. Since it is not merely gross, crude
demonism with which we have to do, we must also learn how to unmask spirits of
the utmost subtilty; and therefore the Scripture says:- “Beloved,
believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they
be of God” (1 John 4: 1). Paul in giving one first, carefully lays down the limits of
those to be so tested. “Now concerning THE INSPIRED,* brethren, I would not have you ignorant” (1 Cor. 12: 1). For he reveals the danger. The Greeks and the Romans
conceived of ‘divine’ spirits,
gods, who communicated: Theosophy has its ‘mahatmas’,
sages from the other world: modern Spiritualism has its ‘saints’ who, supposed to be dead men, entrance
the medium. All such are ‘seductive’
spirits. “Ye know that when ye were Gentiles ye
were led away” - led about, led at will, blindly
transported hither and thither (Alford)
- “unto those dumb idols, howsoever” - for Satanic deceptions assume
countless forms - “ye might be led.” Similarly our Lord warns us of ‘false
prophets’,
who come ‘in sheep’s clothing’ - that is, in all apparent Christian
life and doctrine - “but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
* That [ ...
Greek] is masculine seems obvious from the context: “no man saith” implies that the gifted are in
question, not the gifts, and that it is a discrimination of persons and not of
gifts. Impersonal gifts can neither confess Christ Lord nor pronounce Him
anathema. “Most modern critics decide for this sense” (Godet).
THE FIRST TEST
So Paul now discloses an explicit test for a man or a woman
who is manifestly inspired, or on whom a spirit has fallen, and a test for such
alone. “Wherefore” - because you have hitherto been ignorant of spirit
deceptions - “I give you to understand” - as a new revelation - “that no
man speaking in the Spirit of God”* - that is, no man on whom the Holy
Ghost has miraculously fallen - “saith, Jesus is anathema;** and no man” - that is, no inspired man - “can say,
JESUS IS LORD,
but in the Holy Spirit.” In the application of the test,
therefore, two conditions are vital:- (1)
proofs of supernatural working, such as ‘tongues,’ must be present, for the test is
strictly confined to the ‘inspired’; and (2) beyond everything it is vital that the exact words, and no
other, be insisted on - namely, Jesus is Lord.
* “ ‘In the Spirit’: the phrase is a
Hebrew one to describe inspiration”. (Dean Farrar).
** Ophites, or serpent-worshippers - Origen tells us - made it a condition
of fellowship (before the end of the first century) that the candidate ‘curse Jesus’.
THE SECOND TEST
It is the Apostle John who gives the second test; and this
test is not confined to the inspired, but is priceless as a discrimination even
for visiting angels; “for even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light,” and an ‘angel of light’ may appear to us who in fact
is an angel of darkness. “Beloved, prove” - challenge, analyze, discriminate - “THE SPIRITS, whether they are of God”; for a visitor from the unseen might be from God. Once again the test turns solely on Christ. “Hereby know ye [recognize ye] the Spirit of God”
- for He submits to His own test, and is on earth to proclaim this very truth
that the Messiah has come to earth in flesh: “every
spirit which confesseth” - that is, responds to the ‘proof’ to which he is put - “that JESUS CHRIST IS COME IN THE FLESH
is of God; and every spirit which confesseth not
Jesus [thus] is not of God” (1 John 4: 2). It is of supreme importance to keep
all the time to the fore that both these
tests are in no sense whatever tests for the person whom the spirit controls:
and therefore, as was our Lord’s constant habit, the possessing
spirit is to be addressed directly, to the complete
ignoring of the person he controls.
AN ENGLISH CASE
Some recent cases will show the obstinate refusal of evil
spirits to meet the test.* Dr. William. McAlpine,
a medical man, says (Prophetic News, Oct. 11935: “One day, at eight o’clock in the morning, I was called
to see a brilliant University girl of twenty-eight. I knew her well. She had a
fine appearance. When I arrived her father took me up to her room where she was
lying, as white as death, with her hands together. She said. ‘Doctor, have you
come at last to save me?’ I leaned
against the bedroom door, and looked at her. Remembering John, first epistle, chapter 4, verses 1-4, I applied the test for the spirits, the confession that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. She cried out, ‘Doctor, they
won’t let me say it!’ The
demon in possession said, ‘Dr. William McAlpine, you kneel before me!’ My reply was,
‘By the blood of Christ and the victory of
* It is a mystery to us why the tests
should be put to spirits who have already revealed themselves as cruel and
savage demons; but these cases will at least illustrate the obstinate refusal
of evil spirits to meet the challenge.
AN AMERICAN CASE
Dr. Louis
R. Patmont records (Defender, October 1935) another case. “In the fall of 1934 the writer was in a Bible Conference in
the city of
A CHINESE CASE
Mr. Ernest
Weller, from Lansdowne Hall, reports, in January this year, a graphic case
from
UNTESTED SPIRITS
Thus these two explicitly commanded tests reveal a body of
errors of a most dangerous kind. Such errors are these:- Since I am a believer,
no evil spirit can fall on me; if I ask the miraculous, prayer and prayer alone
is sufficient to that what I shall receive is from God the upholding of Gospel and other truths proves the
supernatural to be from God; if the gifted person is holy, his miraculous gift
is divine; other tests without these two are sufficient:- all these assumptions are directly negatived by Scripture and have
misled thousands down all the Christian ages. No authenticated case of
response to these tests, with Public references and proofs, has yet been given
to the Church of Christ.* “We state the grave fact,” says a collective utterance of German pastors
(1908), that in the late Tongues movement in Cassel and other places, well-known Christians have got a
gift of prophecy and tongues that was not from the Holy Ghost. We must say
that we missed in a highly deplorable measure the trying of the spirits, as the Word of God orders,
and we confess this deficiency as guilt and blame falling on us, as on wide
spheres of the Christian Church.”
SEDUCTIVE SPIRITS
For it cannot be repeated too often that the great departure
from the Faith which is coming is to be created by [regenerate] Christians “giving heed to seducing spirits,
and doctrines of demons speaking hypocritically” (1 Tim. 4: 1). One vast demonic, movement,
Montanism, which entrapped even Tertullian, he thus describes in its origin :-
“There is at present a sister amongst us who has
obtained the gift of revelations, which she receives in the congregation by
ecstasy in the Spirit, and who has converse with angels, sometimes even with
the Lord.” So it is to-day. “It
is of the last importance,” in the words of Mr. G. H. Pember, “that the full meaning of this declaration (1 Cor. 12: 1-3) should be understood by the believers of our days. For again
demoniacal manifestations are multiplying among us, and that with a subtlety sufficient to deceive anyone who neglects to
apply the prescribed tests.” So also the apparitions at
Modern Tongues movements accept their miraculous as
self-proved as Divine because supernatural - in which case John should have
said, Believe every spirit which reveals itself supernaturally:
ultra-dispensationalism regards all miracle as now so foreign to the Church as
to be self-proved as demonic - in which case John should have said, Believe no spirit: what the Scripture does say
is, “Believe NOT
FVERY spirit,” but discriminate among them by the provided
test.
* * *
17
BAPTISM AND THE FLOOD + 1
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
Baptism
is enshrined for ever in the gigantic catastrophe of the Flood, incomparably
the greatest physical disaster the world has ever seen. The Holy Spirit selects
this startlingly vivid and enormous setting - a drowned world‑in which to
plant God’s ritual for ever. “Few, that is, eight souls were saved through water,
which also after a true likeness doth now save you, EVEN BAPTISM.”
THE DELAY
A pregnant sentence illuminates the
whole background of the ritual. “The long-suffering of God WAITED” - in a hundred and twenty
years’ postponement of judgment - “in the days of Noah”
(1 Pet. 3: 20). God had made a private communication to the Patriarch:- “The end
of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is
filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth” (Gen. 6: 13). The parallel to-day is appalling.
The whole world is now under sentence of death: entire humanity is to be
engulfed: the saved are to be ‘few’
- in figure, eight souls against the untold millions of the pre-Flood world;
for it is a ‘true likeness,’ that is, an exact type. Meanwhile God
waits. As before the
Flood, so now, He waits for a repentance which never comes. Longsuffering
withholds judgment up to the point where further longsuffering would itself be
sin; and if the Ark is not entered, the delay is only measuring, with
omniscient accuracy, a world’s guilt to which every day adds its damning
quota. But the awful truth is balanced by another: it is a matter of
unutterable thankfulness that the blue heavens cannot over-arch for ever such a
mass of wickedness, nor the sun shine on such crimes; beyond lies the glorious [Millennial]
SALVATION
Something almost equally sobering now opens on our view. Only the few are saved. The salvation
which God offered then and which He offers now is embodied, in picture, in one
of His great rituals. “Wherein” - the ark - “few, that is,
eight souls,
were saved through water: which after a true likeness doth now save you, even baptism.” The Christian baptistry thus pictures the Flood; and so
vivid is the picture that, had the saved not come through the Flood, they would have been drowned; exactly as, in
baptism, if the baptized were kept under the water, and did not merely pass through it,
they would be drowned also. For the water is the judgment of God; descending
and ascending floods involving the world in a total immersion; and all flesh
was buried as incurable.
“ALL FLESH
DIED” (Gen. 7:
19): so the
baptized man is laid under the water as a corpse; and he survived only because
he is lifted: he lives solely because other hands
come between him and death. Those eight souls speak to us forty-five centuries
later. Since the few are saved, let us never fear being among the few: few even
of the few - our Saviour says one in ten (Luke 19: 16) - reach the highest: isolation, ostracism can be
hall-marks of Heaven. “Prefer, if you please,”
says an old Father of the Church, “the multitude
drowned by the Flood; but allow me to enter the
THE
So now we behold the
LUSTRATION
The Apostle next carefully defines what baptism is not, and the type fulfils the definition
exquisitely. Baptism, he says, “is not the
putting away of the filth of the flesh.” Baptism, it is true, is a
pictured bath: “arise, and be baptized,
and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22: 16). But, since it is a pictured washing
away of sins, it is no ordinary bath; nor is it a ceremonial washing, such as the lustrations under the Law,
which are called ‘baptisms’ (Mark 7: 4); nor is it an ablution from the ‘filth
of the flesh’ in a higher sense - a baptismal regeneration of the ‘old man.’ Why? Because the type is decisive.
The deadliest enemy of those saved in the
* Dean Alford’s contention that
“the waters saved them, becoming to them a means
of floating their ark,” is overthrown as explicitly by the picture
as by the type; for it was the ark, and not the lifting billows, which was “the saving
of his house” (Heb. 11: 7). No one can get into the
OUR CATECHISM
So the Apostle now discloses the only definition of baptism
ever given by inspiration. Baptism, he says, is “the answer” - the question and reply, the
catechism, the successful examination - “of a good conscience toward God”: a good conscience Godward, not
manward; a conscience which God sees to be good, and not only the examiner for
baptism.* The Scripture leaves us in no shadow
of doubt what ‘a good conscience’ is. “How much more shall the blood of Christ purge
your conscience” (Heb. 9: 13): “let
us draw near, having our hearts sprinkled”
- blood-sprinkled - “from an
evil conscience” (Heb.
10: 22). If there be no
purged conscience, there is no baptism; for this is baptism, the Spirit says - “Baptism
is
the answer of a good conscience toward God.”
Baptism is the
combination of an inner fact and an outward act, and of the two the inner fact
is the one vital: baptism saves, because it is the saved who are baptized, and
it is a completion, by outward confession (
* The ‘answer’
(Greek ...), the asking or questioning of conscience, which comprises likewise
its answer; for the word intends the whole correspondence of the conscience
with God. It possibly alludes to the questions and answers used in baptism; but
it further expresses the inward questioning and answering which is transacted
within, betwixt the soul and itself, and the soul and God. - ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON, The First Epistle
of Peter, p. 251.
** Christian life properly began with baptism, for baptism
was the convert’s confession before men, the soldier’s oath which
enlisted him in the service of Christ. The rite was very simple, as described
by Justin in the second century.
After more or less instruction, the candidate declared ‘his belief in our teachings, and his willingness to live
accordingly.’ He was then taken to a place ‘where there was water’. Here he made his formal
confession, and here he was baptized by immersion in the name of the Trinity.
After this he was taken to the meeting and received by the brethren. We have
decisive evidence that infant baptism is no direct institution either of the
Lord Himself or of His apostles. There is no trace of it in the New Testament.
Immersion was the rule. - H. M. GWATKIN,
Professor of Ecclesiastical History.
BURIAL
So the type reveals that baptism is a burial in the flood of
wrath: the proportions of the Ark are the proportions a man, that is, of a
coffin; six times as long as it was broad, and ten times as long as it was
high. No sooner was the
Thus baptism, even apart from its being commanded, becomes
binding on all the saved; for in both its Divine types, salvation and baptism
are pictured as one: the Ark passing _through the Flood to Ararat, and Israel,
blood-cleansed before stepping into the Red Sea, “all baptized in the
cloud and in sea” (1 Cor. 10: 2).* The
entire people of God, in both cases are assumed as passing through the waters;
and both waters are explicitly stated, by the Holy Spirit, to picture baptism;
and both are a total immersion in dangerous, death-dealing floods.
* That they were
baptized in the cloud as well as in the sea - the clouds panning from wall to
wall of water - reveals baptism once again as a gigantic coffin for the whole
people of God.
Experience exquisitely confirms baptism, so administered, as
of God. Here are some testimonies the writer has himself received “Last night I was smitten to the dust. Of course I shall obey
Him in baptism! There is nothing else to do. I do so gladly, humbly,
thankfully, gratefully.” - “Sunday
night was far more beautiful even than I had thought: I saw no one - the Master
was there.” - “I shall never forget
how I realized the preciousness of Christ after I obeyed Him.”
“It has brought greater joy into my life, and it
has given me a stronger passion for service. ‘To obey is better than sacrifice.’ The blessedness that has been mine since my baptism
is more than words can express.” - “I
was just trembling in every limb - but when the time came to step into the
water, it was just as if He held my hand, and led me. Never in my whole life
has He been so near: I cannot tell you all that it meant to me, as I
laid my whole life at His feet.” - “Each moment of this evening last
week comes to my mind tonight; so overpoweringly, that I was forced to my knees
in an ecstasy of joy. What hath God wrought!”
-------
Great differences exist among saints on many important
subjects as baptism, the subjects and the mode of it; ministry, and the manner
of its exercise; association with others in worship and service. Yet few would
venture to deny that on all sides of such questions are to be found many godly persons
who hold the truth of the gospel in its great fundamentals, and whose personal
character and righteous. To regard these as ‘wicked persons,’ and
to treat them as such, refusing them such fellowship as we can offer in our
assemblies (with the worldling and the excommunicated) is worse than
uncharitable, it is a denial of the authority of the Lord, who claims the
reception to His glory of those whom He has received. - J. R.
* * *
18
SALVATION FORTY-FIVE CENTURIES AGO + 1
It is well to grasp
thoroughly that, since God is the same God in all ages, His processes of
redemption are identical; so that one redemption is but the picture of another,
though there be forty-five centuries between; and this identity of salvation in
all ages Scripture unfolds in the Flood as a carefully planned prototype of the
Gospel. Universal destruction, with the
escape of a few in the ark, is ‘A TRUE
LIKENESS,’ an
exact picture, the Apostle says (1 Pet. 3: 21), of what we see happening around us to-day, in days fast closing down as the last seven days before the Flood.
One figure, and one figure alone, dominates the entire crisis
of the drowning of a world. “Is not this the carpenter?” (Mark 6: 3). While doubtless Noah’s sons, and probably then carpenters
also, helped in the construction of the Ark, it is attributed in Scripture -
and all silences in Scripture are significant - to Noah alone; for it pictures
the sole refuge against the coming wrath in the work of Christ. “By the
obedience of THE ONE shall the many
be made
righteous” (Rom. 5: 19). And the name of Noah is beautifully significant. ‘Noah’ means ‘rest’
the ‘comforter’; at his birth his
father said:- “This same shall comfort us” (Gen. 5: 29): so Jesus says, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11: 28) - for He gives
us Himself; and when the Holy Spirit was given, the Lord Himself describes Him
as ‘another Comforter’, for the Lord Himself was the
first.
Now we see the
structure itself. Noah had to proceed with a most careful construction by exact
measurements, and measurements given from heaven: “to a
cubit,” God
said, “thou shalt finish it” (Gen. 6: 16). So our Lord, “born of
a woman,”
was “born under the law” (Gal.
4:
4): Jesus had no choice of principles on
which to build His life, no alternative pattern of conduct: God’s law,
written in summary on tables of stone, could alone construct human salvation.
Moreover, the
No less eloquent are the two materials of which the Ark was
made - gopher wood, and pitch; and it is wonderful that both words mean to
‘cover’; for the Ark was a shelter,
a covering, from deadly judgment. “Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are COVERED” (
The pitch was now applied: “thou shalt pitch it within and
without with pitch” (Gen. 6: 14). As the
I hear the words
of love,
I gaze upon the blood,
I see the mighty sacrifice,
And I have PEACE WITH GOD.
The blood outside - salvation; for it is that pitch which kept
the water out: the blood within - assurance; for that is the only pitch they
could see, and they saw it. So
the
So now we see salvation exactly pictured. All the saved, and
only the saved, are inside the
* Representatives of all the animal creation - the [See
the Greek word ...] that groans - also entered the Ark, not (as the human) by invitation, but
by the compulsion of Divine grace, for the section of ‘creation’ which fell involuntarily is saved
involuntarily (Rom. 8: 20).
Now the judgment bursts; and it is appalling, as we remember
the double fact - one, that this is the wrath which fell on Calvary; and two,
that this is the wrath that is - [prophesised and soon] - coming: and either I must accept
the one, or experience the other. Every plank and bolt is put to the severest
strain ship ever knew, caught, as the
-------
OVERCOMERS
The harvest is composed of those for whom Christ has come, the firstfruits are those in whom and through whom He has overcome, as well as having overcome for them.
The Apostle Paul had no doubt about his place in the main
body, for his testimony is clear, “I know Whom I have believed and
am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him
against that day” (2 Tim. 1: 12). When however, he was writing to the Philippians (3.)
he told them that there was one thing he was seeking above all else, “the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus,” that he might by any means attain to the out-resurrection from among the dead.
He was sure of having a place in the general harvest, but not sure, as yet, of
being one of the first-fruits as an overcomer.
If Peter, James, John, and Andrew needed the warnings given
them by our Lord to “Take heed” to “watch and pray” (Mark 13: 3, 5, 9, 23, 33), and “be ye also ready”
(Matt. 24: 44), it is clear that something more is
wanted of us - [who are regenerate] - than faith in Christ for - [initial and
‘eternal’] - salvation if we would be ripe
enough for the firstfruits. The teaching that everyone who believes is ready
for the Coming of the Lord is a deadly
narcotic. No wonder the Church is asleep!
If, on the other hand, we see that, being saved, there is yet a ‘prize’ to be won which is worth the counting of all else as refuse, then we find in it a
powerful stimulant to a holy and
victorious life in union with our coming
Lord.*
- A. CHAMPION.
[* NOTE: Bold type and emphasis throughout are mine.]
* * *
19
THE SEED AND THE SERPENT
By D. M.
PANTON, B.A.
Embedded
in the first curse that ever fell is the first gospel word ever uttered. It is
amazing to observe that even before the Curse falls on Adam and Eve, the
Saviour dawns on the horizon, and God Himself goes forth to find the lost
sheep. The fatal fact - sin - has entered the world; yet, actually wrapped up
in the curse that immediately falls on it, is the Messiah who is to be “made a curse for us”
(Gal.
3:
13). The first time the Gospel is ever
preached it is preached by God: the first time prophecy opens its mouth it is
to utter Christ: the first of all sinners hears that she is to give birth to
the Saviour of all sinners. It is most wonderful that it is actually the
serpent’s malice, plunging mankind into sin, which suddenly reveals that
God is love, and immediately brings
THE SERPENT
There is no doubt of the Person behind the serpent in the
Garden of Eden. Something moral, something implying a hidden enemy, someone in the
background, the Most High addresses. “I will put enmity between thee and
the woman” (Gen. 3: 15). If demons could - and did - enter swine, Satan can enter a
snake; and that the serpent spoke proved that a spirit was in the snake; and what he said proved
it an evil spirit. The
Apocalypse makes the identity certain. “And the great dragon was cast
down, the old serpent” - that is, the serpent of Eden - “he that
is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of
the whole world” (Rev. 12: 9). And our Lord’s words are an amazing revelation of
Satan’s character. “He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he
speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the
father thereof” (John 8: 44). So the drama reveals the original distinction between Satan
and man: man fell from evil without; Satan fell from evil within: he had no tempter.
OUR ENEMY
The Most High begins by revealing, for the first time in the
history of the world, a saved soul. He is about to regenerate Eve. We know that
this is so because, so far from the Seed of the Serpent - evil men - being at
enmity with Satan, they are led by him (Scripture says) “captive
at his will”. But here God says:- “I will put enmity between thee” - Satan - “and the
woman” - she
herself, and all the redeemed for whom she stands. The deadliest of all evils
is friendship with Satan; and God now unfolds His marvellous coming work of
making heaven in human souls. God sunders the alliance between the regenerate
and the Serpent for ever. Into the regenerate heart He puts a deathless hate of
sin: He has ranged us up for ever against Hell and all its works: He has
divorced us for all eternity from the creeping, crawling abominations of Satan:
He has put within us an undying struggle against ‘the seed of the serpent’
in
us. We are for
ever on the side of goodness and righteousness and truth.
THE SEED
But the sudden outburst of enmity concentrates on a single
seed of the Woman. Paul reveals that where the word ‘seed’ is used in the singular, with
no qualification to prove it plural, there a single individual is intended, and
that individual Christ. “He saith not, and to seeds,
as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed,
WHICH IS CHRIST”
(Gal. 3: 16).
“And I will put enmity between her seed” - Christ - “and thy
seed.” To a
mass of men our Lord said:- “Ye are of your father the devil”; and the enmity foretold in Eden He
here carefully marks - “They have both seen and hated both me and my Father”
(John 15: 24). A subtle profundity makes most
wonderful this first of all prophecies. It plainly states the Incarnation, for
the Woman’s seed must be “made of
a woman” (Gal. 4: 4), as Christ was; and it implies the Virgin Birth, for it is
the woman’s seed. “That which is conceived
in her,”
said an Angel to Joseph, “is of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 1: 20). This, and this alone, accounts for the fact that the
opposition between Hell and mankind is lodged, not in Adam, but in Eve; for
Hell is to be for ever defeated, not by Adam’s seed but by Eve’s -
which is Christ.
THE DUEL
So the deadly duel concentrates on two alone. “It” - not the Woman, but the Seed - “shall
bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” - not the Woman’s heel, but the
Seed’s heel. It is not the Woman’s heel that is to be bruised but
the heel of her seed; and both bruisings are mortal: for a snake’s bite
is fatal; and a snake’s head, which it is always most careful to guard,
is its vital point - a crushed head in a snake is fatal. The picture is that of
a man stamping on a snake; and the moment before he crushes its head, it plants
fangs in his heel. It was Satan entering Judas
which produced
THE BRUISED HEEL
So the words which are a marvellous forecast of
THE BRUISED HEAD
Thus a deadly wound was inflicted on Satan on the Cross, and
from that moment our victory over Hell is secure; but its open fulfilment is
not yet.* “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Rom. 16: 20). This open accomplishment of his doom
is reserved for our Lord’s return. “And I saw an angel coming down
out of heaven, having the keys of the abyss,
and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the
devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand
years, and cast him into the abyss”
(Rev.
20: 1). From that moment, and throughout the
eternal ages, Satan is “under the heel” of the redeemed of all ages; and most manifestly so
when “the devil was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone”
(Rev. 20: 10).
* How appallingly significant is the
fact that millions of people in
THE BRUISING
So the object of the bruising of the Head is obvious - its
paralysis and ultimate destruction; but what was the object of the bruising of
the Heel? Three thousand years later, and still seven centuries before the
event itself, God’s prophet makes the bruising as clear as it could be
made. “It pleased the Lord to bruise him, when thou shalt make
his soul an offering sin: he was wounded for our transgressions, HE WAS BRUISED FOR
OUR INIQUITIES” (Isa. 53: 10). The bruising was incurred solely on
behalf of others; and it is the glory of the Lamb of God for ever - “I saw a
Lamb as
it had been slain” (Rev. 5: 6).
And the
torrents of His Passion deep and fierce above Him roll;
And the rivers of transgression
overwhelm His Human Soul;
Sins
unknown, sins unimagined, sins by day, and sins by night,
Sins of blackest outer darkness press upon
His purest sight;
Sins, since o’er the Eastern
Portal first the Cherub waved his sword,
To the last that shall be written ere
the coming of the Lord.
* * *
20
COMING EMPEROR-WORSHIP + 1
ALL THAT DWELL ON THE EARTH SHALL WORSHIP THE BEAST (Rev. 13: 8)
Nationalism,
in its extreme form, is simply a colossal ego: it is a nation’s
selfishness pooled, and all a man’s interests subordinated to the
nation’s, because it is his nation;
and he is inspired - as Fascists proudly call it - by sacro egoismo, a holy
selfishness. And this ego, when indefinitely cultivated, falls at last under
the very temptation with which Satan first confronted man - “Ye
shall be as God” (Gen. 3: 5) - as Elohim.* The pooled
citizenship - that is, the State - becomes God; and therefore the Emperor, as
the visible embodiment of the nation, is to be worshipped. In the words of the Quarterly Review (April, 1936):- “The danger of a mystique nationale is that it almost inevitably implies a representative figure around which
to crystallize.”
* In the mystery-religions generally the end aimed at was the
deification of the initiate. The worshipper became the god. “I am thou and thou art I,” we find in a
mystery-prayer; and in another the initiation sought is granted “that he may be thou and thou he.” Dr. Kennedy
quotes from Eckhart, as an illustration of the same
phenomenon in later mysticism, “If I am to know
God directly, I must become completely He and He I ; so that this He and this I are one!.”
The notorious example was the Fourth Empire at its climax.
Says a Roman historian:- “Every stage of life,
both men and women, every rank and condition, rendered the Emperor divine
honours; a temple was erected to him, with priests and high priests, and all
those other institutes which antiquity has decreed for worship.”
But it is well to bear in mind that
emperor-worship has never left the world. The present Emperor of Japan is the
head of one of the five families, which like the Imperial Family, claim divine
descent. “Emperor-worship was adopted in
Modern dictatorships are heading straight for the same goal.
“All power corrupts,” Lord Acton remarks, “but absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The
deification of the State involves the deification of the dictator or emperor.
“If,” says Mr. W. R. Forrester, “for a monarch
to be able to say L’Etat c’est moi, it is a thousand times worse for a
despot to claim L’Elat c’est Dieu. He
will then be able to exert in his own person the functions of prophet, priest
and king. It seems that
The infallibility of the Head of the State is part of the Nazi
creed. General Goring says:- “Just as the Roman
Catholic considers the Pope infallible in all matters concerning religion and
morals, so do we National Socialists believe with the same inner conviction
that for us the Leader is in all political and other matters concerning the
national and social interests of the people simply infallible. It is not the
sum of all his virtues: it is something mystical, inexpressible, almost
incomprehensible, which this unique man possesses.” On children
under 14 the German Faith Movement imposes these prayers before and after meals
(Times, May 15, 1936)
BEFORE
Fuhrer, my Fuhrer, given me by God,
Guard and preserve my life for long
days to come,
You have rescued
I thank you to-day for my daily bread.
Stay with me, forsake me not,
Fuhrer, my Fuhrer, my faith and my
light,
Heil, my Fulirer!
AFTER
Thanks to you for this food,
Guardian of Youth, guardian of the old
I know you have cares, but you do not mind.
I am with you by night and by light.
Put your head on my lap,
You are safe, my Fuhrer, for you are
great.
Heil, my Fuhrer!
There are German churches in which portraits of Hitler placed
on the altar; and only now has the
* It is awful to learn the moral foundations of the
dictatorships. “The Nazi party,”
says Mr. John Gunther
(Inside Europe, p. 74) , “had always been split on the homosexual issue”;
in other words, the creators of the latest dictatorship are uncertain about
Sodomy.
All this means the inevitable return
of the problem for the Church which was acute under the Roman Emperors. At
present the crisis grows sharper in
The problem draws nearer home. Professor Nathaniel Micklem foreshadows
the reasonings we are certain to hear. “In the
first great persecution of the Christian Church,” he says (British Weekly, July 23, 1936), “under the Emperor Decius
an enormous percentage of the Christian Church ‘lapsed’ by refusing
persecution and martyrdom. We look back upon them with no small contempt, but
how many of us in similar circumstances would not be found with them? The
Christians were required, for instance, to offer a pinch of incense to the
emperor; the faithful refused and
suffered torture and often martyrdom. Were I asked to offer a pinch of
incense to the emperor, this is how I should argue with myself, or the devil
would argue with me: ‘A pinch of incense to the emperor? Well, why not?
No one believes that the Emperor is really a god; that is not what the rite
means; it is simply an acknowledgment of my loyalty to the State; no one will
understand more by it than that, and, after all, have I not learned in the
Gospel that the powers that be are ordained of God? Why should I not bow to the
name of Confucius or take off my
hat to the Bank of England, if required by law to do so? To the king, to the
State, to the great ones of the earth I owe reverence and worship - not the
reverence and worship I owe to God, of course; I owe doulia, as the Romans say, not latria. What is the difference between
offering a pinch of incense, which I am now required to do, or swearing
allegiance to the emperor, which I should do without scruple and as part of my
obedience to God? If people are going to misunderstand my action, and think
that I mean more by it than they do, well, that is no concern of mine. Christ,
at least will never misunderstand.’ The power of such arguments would
become gigantic in the presence of the mob.”
But it is from the ancient home of Emperor-worship, the Roman
Empire resurrected - Roma Dea embodied in a God- emperor - that the
crowning idolatry of all the ages, allied at the end with the worship of Satan,
will flood the world: “they worshipped the
dragon, because he gave his authority unto the beast”
- Satan is accepted as divine because he
also enthrones the object of this passionate mass-idolatry - “and they worshipped the beast”
(Rev.
13: 4). The foundations are already laid.
“Our formula,” says Signor
Mussolini, is this: “Everything in the State,
nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” That is,
the State is divinity. And Mussolini is the fundamental atheist. “The multitudes,” he has said (George Seldes’ Sawdust Casar, p. 388), “desert
the Churches where from generation to generation they betook themselves to pray
to God - that monstrous product of human ignorance.” And we shudder at the first symptoms in
*
What will happen to the Church of Rome, Barcelona just now exactly elucidates,
when her foes will (1) “eat her flesh” and (2) “burn her utterly with fire”
(Rev. 17: 16);
for (1) 400 priests have been killed
in the city and (2) between 80 and
90 churches burned. So the slaughter in
-------
ENDANGERED LOVE
By
E. S. GERIG
“Because iniquity shall abound, the love of
many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24: 12). The waning of love; the dying out of the
fire of a holy passion for the Lord Himself and for those for whom He gave His
life; the loss of that holy enthusiasm in his service and devotion - not that
fleshly enthusiasm that shouts and rejoices when the crowd is coming, or works
zealously when the brass band is playing and the grandstand is filled with admirers
- no! no! but that enthusiasm that works with a quiet, untiring, unassuming
earnestness and steadiness when it must plod on alone unheard and unnoticed
except by the Lord - that enthusiasm that is born not of outward encouragement,
nor the applause of men, nor by what men call success, nor by the unholy desire
for praise, but that which is born of an inward urge implanted by the Holy
Ghost, the overflow of the passion of Christ; the waning of this
love, said Jesus, will be one of the ear-marks of the end-time.
The other characteristics of the last days are easily
noticeable, but this loss of love is far more subtle and less easily detected.
We may be thoroughly orthodox and have a contempt for heresy and heterodoxy and
yet be guilty of a loveless heart. The
other features have to do largely with the world and apostate Christendom, but this one has to do with the saints of God.
This is the blighting sin which our Lord so strongly condemned in the
The waning of this love, said our Lord, would characterize the end-time. And
why? “Because iniquity
shall abound.” So profuse will be the growth of evil, so completely will the spirit of
evil pervade every realm of activity and relationship, and so subtle will be
the injection of evil into the realm of righteousness, that many of God’s
saints will become infected with the spirit of evil, and subtle and gradual
compromise will result in the “waxing cold” of the love of the
heart for Christ. This condition is self-evident to-day. There has been such a
subtle satanic admixture of
religion, secularism, worldliness, and sensationalism in the realm of religion,
business, commerce, stage and screen, that many a dear Christian has become
entrapped and the strength of love is being sapped from the heart and life.
Even in the realm of orthodoxy too often a carnal contention for the faith has
taken the place of a passionate personal passion for Christ and His truth. A
cols orthodoxy can contend eloquently for the faith. But it is a heart
passionately in love with Christ that loves souls into His kingdom. To
“contend for the faith” is a God-given command not to be disobeyed.
But to “hold forth the form of sound works in faith and LOVE” is
the counterpart and complement.
Look about you and analyze carefully the spiritual condition
to-day and you stand face to face with this sad remark of the end of this age.
“The love of many shall wax cold” is sadly true too generally. How
often have I had to bow mu head in shame and confess
that my love was waning! How often have I prayed that this subtle ear-mark of
the end of this dispensation may not be true of my own heart! Let us ask God for a keen spiritual discernment
that will enable us to understand and detect the slightest waning of His love
in our hearts.. Let us wait upon Him repeatedly for a fresh infilling of the
Holy Ghost until “the fruit of the Spirit - love”will
burn and blaze in all its holy passion in our hearts, - Christ
Life.
* * *
21
JUDGMENT PROPHECIES + 3
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
Jeremiah
is becoming extraordinarily alive. All faithfulness to-day is heading up into lonely witnesses, confronted by the frown of
both the religious and the civil power;
and all opposition to God is heading up into a union of priest and prophet and
prince and people, united on the one
point of the suppression
of the [foretold] prophesied judgments.
[* NOTE: The emphasis (in the above
paragraph only) in BOLD type and highlighting
are mine.]
THE COMMAND
Now the command to Jeremiah (26: 2) is exactly ours. “Speak all the words that I
command thee to speak unto them; KEEP NOT BACK A WORD.” God had committed into the hands of
Jeremiah, exactly as He has committed into ours, explicit warnings of coming
judgment both on the People of God and in the world, coupled with the clearest
statement of amnesty, of stay of execution, on repentance and an amended life;
and the situation is so critical, so many millions of destinies are hanging in
the balance, so inexorable is the welding together of sin and judgment for
every human soul, that there is peril in the alteration - much more in the
suppression - of a single word. “Keep not back a word!” To soften severity may be to lose the
repentance. Jeremiah was to yield neither to affection nor to fear; he was to
soften no expression, alter none, put no smooth word for a rough one; change no
accent, diminish no emphasis, mutilate no figure: the thing we are handling is
Divine, and must be discharged whole in the hearing of men.
THE CONTROVERSY
The modernity of Jeremiah’s controversy is startling. At
a vast gathering in the
THE DEFENCE
Jeremiah’s defence is our model. A summary will reveal
its beauty. He repeats every word that he has said: he asserts that every word
which he had passed on is the word of God, verbally, infallibly inspired: he
stresses, with tender emphasis, that God’s object was their good, and
their salvation: he appeals to them to hear and live: he shows that all
judgment prophecy can be cancelled by repentance, and is uttered mainly in
order that it may never come to pass: he unfalteringly maintains that the
spiritual consecration of God’s people is not inalienable, and that
God’s people can become, and are becoming, apostate: he submits to their
God-ordained authority over his own life, and tells them they may do what they
choose with him - but warns them of the peril of blood-guiltiness. It is an
exquisite model for ourselves. Few things in the world are so safeguarding as
having to stand for unpopular truth: it not only tends to kill pride, but the
consequent isolation shuts up the soul to the unseen, and casts us wholly on
God. Jeremiah’s task seems, on the whole, to have been (manward) a fairly
complete failure.
THE DENIAL
The Roll of Jeremiah is the first book of the Bible of which,
as such, we have any record; and in it we have a disclosure of the
Bible’s ultimate fate among men. Nothing tests like the truth; it touches
us on the raw; and then one of two things happens - either we get rid of the
sin, or else we get rid of the truth. “When Jehudi had read three or
four leaves, the King [Jehoiakim] cut it with
the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was
in the brazier, until all the roll was consumed”
(Jer. 36: 23). “I
once saw a man in a railway carriage,” says Dr. G. F. Pentecost, “to whom a leaf of the
New Testament had been given, crumple it up in his hand, fling it on the floor,
spit on it, and grind it under his heel.” Countless millions do
this intellectually. A leading religious journal (Christian
World, May 14, 1936)
says:- “The ‘Advent’ view of
prophecy is entirely discredited. The people who tell you that God will show
His terrible judgments and that there will be a fearful cataclysm’ are at
the mercy of an obsolete conception of what history is. The cataclysmic view of
history has long since been abandoned. For the most part prophecy was not
fulfilled and cannot now be fulfilled. Prophecy has proved to be an illusion.”
Thus the whole of the prophecies, foretelling the judgments coming upon both
Church and world, are cast bodily into the burning brazier.
THE DESTRUCTION
Now it is revealed why to destroy the Sacred Canon is to sign
our own death-warrant. The peril is so dread that the Holy Spirit at once
adds:- “And they were not afraid, nor
rent their garments.” What is the peril of destroying the
Book? The announcement of doom had this marvellous quality, that it carried a
pardon in the heart of it (36: 3):-
“that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.” Prophecies of evil are given to
falsify themselves: Hell is revealed in order that none may enter: prophecy is
not a diagnosis of certain death, but an antitoxin to cure the dying.
All that God has to do to consummate the world’s ruin is to be silent,
and to suffer the noiseless and automatic approach of the penalties of
iniquity. But the roll of judgment is issued by a God of love; and coming wrath
is announced in order that it may never fall; the most fearful prophecies are
sent to save.
PROPHETIC CHARACTER
An exquisite and exceedingly critical lesson for us lies in
the character of Jeremiah. Such a work, one would have imagined, required a man
of iron, unbending, unemotional, unsympathetic: it is wonderfully encouraging
to the most timid among us that God’s choice was utterly different. By
nature Jeremiah’s was a mild and timid disposition, that shrank
inexpressibly from being a prophet of woe. “Woe is me, my mother,” he cries, “that thou hast borne me a man of strife and
a man of contention to the whole earth!” (Jer. 15: 10). The ro1e of censor to the People of
God pained him deeply and his sympathy was so intense that he felt their sins
and sufferings as his own. “Oh, that my
head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of
tears, that I might weep day and night for the
slain of the daughter of my people!” (Jer. 9: 18). The utter pessimist, the man of the
black outlook, the constant prophet of judgment which the very word
‘Jeremiah’ has come to mean is the man who - more than any Old
Testament prophet - embodies the New Covenant of Grace.
-------
THE HEAVENLY VISION
If I had not been disobedient to my heavenly vision all these
years ago I should perhaps have less heaviness of spirit to-day, although God
had indeed been gracious to me. I am making a slow pilgrimage to the grave,
passing many hours in silence and solitude, thinking of the days that are gone
and what might have been if ---. I put the question to myself over and over
again, would I not have been a better
and happier man as well as a more faithful servant if I had not failed my Master as I did so
shamefully, so inexcusably? And yet, no
sooner do I say so to myself than I begin to realize, not for the first time by
many, that goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life. God has
spared me the worst of my might-have-beens; for you know as well as I how near
my earthly day came to ending in the blackest black of nights had not the Most High restrained me and the
hand of my Saviour plucked me from the verge of perdition. I remember it
well; it seems but yesterday. Thank God, I do fervently thank God, for what I have been saved from though the
going has been hard ever since the day of my fall from grace. Perhaps I do
ill to dwell in any degree amid the shadows of the past. Rather ought I to
rejoice that they are lifting from my soul forever. - From an
actual letter.
-------
THE LIFE
This story is told of a Christian teacher in a government
school in the Orient. He was employed with the understanding that during school
hours he should not utter a word on the subject of Christianity. This contract
was faithfully kept. He lived before his students the Christ life, but never
was a word spoken to them about Jesus. So blameless was his example, so
spotless was his character, so Christlike was his spirit shown before these
students that without his knowledge forty of the students met in a grove and
signed a covenant to abandon idolatry.
- The Watchman-Examiner.
-------
A Preacher’s Qualifications*
[* NOTE: the following is not in D. M. PANTON’s
‘Dawn
Magazine’]
The other day, a member, of the
“Pastoral,
Relations Committee” in a certain Church read a letter
purporting to come from an application for a vacancy.
“I have many qualifications.
I’ve been a preacher with much success, and also had some success as a
writer. Some say I’m a good organiser. I’ve been a leader most
places I’ve been.
“I am over 50 years of age. I
have never preached in one place more than three years. In some places I have
left town after my work has caused riots
and disturbances.
“I must admit I have been in gaol three or four times,
but not because of any real wrong doing on my part.
“My health is not too good, though I
still get a great deal done.
“The Churches I have preached
in have been small, though located
in several large cities.
“I’ve not got along too well with religious
leaders in towns where I have preached. In fact, some have threatened me and even attacked me physically.
“I am not too good at keeping records. I have even been known to forget whom I have baptised.
“However, if you can use me,
I shall do my
best for you.”
The committee member looked over his fellows and said: “Well, what do you think? Shall we invite him as our minister?”
The others looked aghast. Invite an unhealthy, trouble-making,
absent-minded ex-gaolbird? Was the
man crazy? Who was this applicant, anyway? Who would have the colossal nerve?
“Oh,”
said the man who had read the letter, “It’s
just signed,
‘Apostle
Paul.’”
* * *
22
THE CHURCH’S DANGER + 2
The
Now the silence of Scripture concerning Hananiah’s exact
spiritual standing most helpfully shelters very diverse optimists under his
cloak. He is five times called a ‘prophet’ by the Scripture itself; and Jeremiah’s words
concerning him certainly seem to imply that he was a genuine prophet - “The
prophets that have been before me and before thee;” and his national acceptance as a
prophet Jeremiah never challenges. It may be that, like so many to-day, Hananiah
Absorbed himself exclusively in Scriptures that seem to state limitless
privilege, such as that which Balaam uttered (Num. 23: 21) - “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath
he seen perverseness in Israel.” Or, perhaps more probably, like a modern Pentecostalist, it may have been
a demonic seizure which he sincerely mistook for a Divine inspiration, and
which he had not been careful - challenged, as he was, by the startling
prophecies of Jeremiah - to sift and test. In any case, Hananiah is the
embodiment of all who “lean upon the Lord, and say,
Is not the Lord among us? none evil
can come upon us” (Mic. 3: 11).*
* Hananiah really doubted the divine inspiration of
Jeremiah’s warnings, as the modern Hananiah doubts (or avoids) the still
graver warnings of the New Testament, surely their fundamental rightness, their
essential justice, their total independence of human wishes, ought to carry
overwhelming conviction of the divine origin of both.
So now we face the sharp clash of prophecies over the
respective
Now Jeremiah gives the answer of God that runs through all the
ages, and is our model. “Amen: the Lord do so: the Lord perform
thy words which thou hast prophesied, to bring
again the vessels of the Lord’s
house.”
Fundamental privilege abides; and its assertion, in main and in foundation, is
right concerning both
A symbolic action follows, in which Hananiah, instead of being
startled by the blank contradiction, and bowing to the Word of God, resorts to
violence, so forecasting persecution. He steps forward and snatches the Yoke
Jeremiah was wearing as a symbol of the coming judgment, and breaking it,
blankly denies the Seventy Years captivity of the People of God:- “Thus
saith the Lord, Even so will I break the yoke of
Nebuchadnezzar within two full years from off the neck of all the nations
“ (verse
11). But the
danger for the People of God in such a negativing of Divine prophecies now
leaps to light: denial of judgment only deepens it. After Jeremiah had slipped
quietly away, God says to him:- “Tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord: Thou hast broken the bars of wood; but thou shalt make in their stead bars of iron.”
So also the extreme personal danger of leading others astray
by contradicting God’s Word on coming judgment on both Church and world
is embodied for all time in Hananiah. “Hear now, Hananiah,” Jeremiah says, sent expressly by
Jehovah to the facile optimist - (Jeremiah himself had sought no vengeance
whatever upon Hananiah):- “thou makest this people to trust in a lie: therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will send thee away from off the
face of the earth: this year thou shalt die,
because thou hast spoken rebellion against the Lord.” In two years, Hananiah said, Jehovah
would deliver all: in two months he was dead.*
* It is the refusal of the believer’s judgment which gives
the Arminian believer his whole
standing: for if the penal consequences with which the sinning servant of God
is threatened are not (as we believe) temporary, they are eternal: they are
concrete and real in either case, and Hananiah’s role of denial is as
dangerous as it is disloyal.
This vital disclosure is crowned for us by the fact that the
chief revelation of our own
-------
JUDGMENT INEVITABLE
Strange as it may appear, the very imperfection in the execution of justice seems to be the
strongest possible proof that, in the next world, vengeance will be fulfilled
to the uttermost. For observe, if we found that every man in this life received
just what he deserved, and every evil work always brought swift punishment
along with it, what should we naturally conclude? There is no future punishment
in store: I see nothing wanting; every man has already received the reward of
his works; everything is already complete, and, therefore, there is nothing to
be done in the next world. Or if, on the other hand, there were no punishment
visited upon sin at all in the world, we might be inclined to say, “Trush, God hath
forgotten;”
He never interferes amongst us; we have no proof of His hatred of sin, or of
His determination to punish it; He is gone away far from us, and has left us to
follow our own wills and imaginations. So that if sentence were either perfectly executed upon
earth, or not executed at all we might have
some reason for saying that there was a chance of none in a future world. But
now it is imperfectly executed;
just so much done, as to say,
“You are
watched - my eye is upon you; I neither slumber nor sleep; and my vengeance
slumbereth not.” And yet there is so little done, that a man has to look into eternity
for the accomplishment. - WOLFE.
-------
Nothing moves the people like the
terrific. They must have hell-fire flashes before their faces or they will not
move. Last night I preached a sermon on Christ weeping over sinners and only
one came forward. - GENERAL WILLIAM
BOOTH.
My warnings of eternal punishment have stripped me of friends
many times.- LIONEL FLETCHER.
* * *
23
DIVINE
OF ESTHER + 1
By ALEXANDER CARSON,
LL.D.
The
Christian is warranted to refer to his God the most trifling as well as the
most momentous occurrences of everyday life. He ought to see God in everything.
Our God breathes in the air, flows in the sea, shines in the sun, and lives in
all life. “In Him we live, and move and
have our being.” It has ever been the labour of philosophers to banish God from his works,
and to carry on the system of the universe without Him. From the Book of Esther
the believer may learn to place unbounded confidence in the care of his God in
the utmost danger; and to look to the Lord of Omnipotence for deliverance, when
there is no apparent means of escape. Jehovah has, indeed, established general
laws in the government of the world, yet in such a manner that He is the
immediate Author of every particular event.
In the history of the deliverance of the Jews through the
exaltation of Esther, we have the whole history of the world in miniature. The
Book of Esther is the history of
The Providence of God brings his people into danger, not
because he is unable to ward off even the appearance of it, but that he may
glorify himself in their deliverance, and exercise their graces.
The Christian has nothing to fear in any country. If he is
called to suffer, it will be for God’s glory and his own unspeakable
advantage. If God has no purpose to serve by the sufferings of his people, he
can, under the most despotic governments, procure them rest. Jesus rules in the
midst of His enemies, and is master of the resolves of despots. He restrains
their wrath or makes it praise Him. If He chooses He can give His people power
even with the most capricious tyrants. They are as safe in the provinces of the
Empire of Ahasuerus as in the dominions of
Christians! see here (Esther 4: 15-17; 5: 1-3) the security of God’s people in doing duty - see the
encouragement to confidence in His protection. From this learn the importance
of humbling thyself before thy God in the hour of trial. See the duty of
fasting and prayer in the time of trouble and of danger: see the resource of
God’s people in the time of their calamity. If we need the protection of men, let
us first ask it from God. If we prevail with Him, the power of the most mighty
and of the most wicked must minister to our relief. How often do Christians
look first to the means of deliverance! How often do they try every resource
before they go to God with a simple and confident reliance on Him! How is their
unbelief rebuked here! What encouragement does this hold out to confidence in
God in the utmost danger! Only let us believe, and all things are possible.
Esther’s delay in preferring her request is another
providential circumstance. Had she at that time declared her request, Haman
would not have had an opportunity of performing his part in the drama. This man
of glory and of guilt must be allowed another scene on the stage of time to
exhibit his character in all its bearings, and to show the disappointment and
misery of the enemies of God. His vanity is not yet at the highest pitch; he
must be brought to the pinnacle of vain-glory. He must be made to minister to
the man of God whom he sought to destroy. Then shall he fall never more to rise
at all; he must prepare a gallows for Mordecai, but he must himself be hanged
thereon. Thus it shall be with the proud and prosperous wicked. Though they may
not, like Haman, meet a retribution
in this world, their honour will be succeeded with everlasting shame and
misery. How vain is earthly glory! How irrational are the struggles of
statesmen and courtiers for the giddy height of power! While Haman’s
happiness appears to the beholder to be complete, his own bad passions make him
miserable. In all his glory he confessed miserable, on account of the
disrespect of an insolent few (ch. 5: 13).
Man at enmity with God cannot be happy. The curse denounced against sin has
entwined itself with all human enjoyments.
In this history of wonderful interposition, there is nothing
more wonderful than the process that led to the exaltation of Mordecai. Why was
the greatest service that could be rendered to man overlooked till it was
entirely forgotten? Are absolute monarchs wont to disregard the saviours of
their lives? shall such profusion of royal bounty be showered on the head of
Haman, while Mordecai remains unrewarded? What can account for this strange
conduct? One thing can account for it, and nothing but this can be alleged as a
sufficient cause - the thing was overruled by
At the critical moment of the king’s enquiries about
Mordecai, Haman had come into the outer court, to solicit for his immediate
execution. Mark the Lord of Providence in every step! Had not the king been
kept from sleep - had not the book of records been called for his amusement -
had not the account of the conspiracy turned up to the reader - Mordecai would
now have been given into the hand of
his enemy. Mark the Providence of God, also, in having Haman at hand, that by
his mouth the honours of Mordecai might be awarded, and that by his
instrumentality they might be conferred. Why did the king think of referring
the reward of Mordecai to another? Why did he not himself determine the
dignities to be conferred on his preserver? Or, if he refers to another, why
does he not immediately leave the matter to those now about him? Why does he
ask, who is in the court? Why was Haman there at this moment? Why was he the
only one that waited so early on the king? Why did Ahasuerus put the question
in such a manner as to conceal the object of the royal favour? Why does the
king, instead of plainly naming Mordecai, use the periphrasis “the man
whom the king delights to honour”? Why did this form of the question allow Haman to
suppose that he was himself the happy man for whom the honours were intended?
At this time the king knew nothing of the designs of Haman, and had no design
to ensnare him. Every circumstance here is wonderfully providential. From this
we see that God can make the greatest enemies of his people the means of
advancing their interests. Whom then ought the Christian to fear but God?
Behold the retributive justice of God in the death of Haman! One of the
chamberlains, who probably had seen it when he called him to the feast,
mentioned the gallows that Haman had prepared in his house, to hang Mordecai.
The king said, “Hang him thereon.”
This history, that has been thought by some unworthy of a
place among the inspired writings, discovers when attentively considered the
most surprising series of events, brought about without a miracle, that ever
was exhibited to the human mind. Among the most admired works of genius, of all
ages and countries, we will not find that the invention of man has been able to
form a story, and connect a series of surprising events like this true history.
Homer and Virgil, and Milton, and all the writers of epic poetry, have been
obliged to use supernatural agency upon all critical occasions. To interest
their readers they must depart from the ordinary course of nature, .and employ
means that never really existed. Gods and demons and muses are so necessary to
the poet that they still leave their impression on the phraseology of poetry.
If you prevent him from invoking the inspirations of his muse, from conversing
with Apollo and the Nine, from mounting to the top of
This book, then, whose inspiration has
lately been called into question by ignorance speaking from the chair of
learning, commends its claims to us in the most convincing manner by its own
internal evidence. No human pen could have produced it. The characteristic
feature which I pointed out proves it to be a child of God. Had man been its
author it would have been crowded with miracles. I challenge the world to
produce anything resembling it in this point, from the writings of uninspired
men. There is another feature in this history that proves it to be of heavenly
birth. There is no instance in
which it gratifies mere curiosity. While it informs
us of facts, it informs us no further than they contribute to the design of the
Holy Spirit, and are important for instruction. In this feature it shows its
resemblance to the teaching of our Lord, and to the writings of the Apostles.
So far from gratifying idle curiosity our Lord declined compliance with respect
to some points in which human wisdom would think it important to be informed.
His communications manifest a striking reserve; and even when pressed, he could
not be induced to reply to any curious questions. In the writings of the
Evangelists and the Apostles, how often do we wish that they had been a little
more communicative! And, assuredly, had they spoken from their own wisdom, they
would have made a larger Bible.
In ascertaining whether the Book of Esther, among other books,
is inspired, we have to enquire, was it in the collection called Scripture in
the days of our Lord? If it was, its inspiration is beyond dispute. Jesus
Christ recognized the Jewish Scripture as the Word of God. As in rejecting the
inspiration of this book, some modern theologians disclaim a first principle
entitled to the most confident reception, so they admit some first principles
that are mere figments of the imagination. Why is the Book of Esther denied as
a book of Scripture? Because it has not the name of God in its whole compass.
Here it is taken as a first principle, that no book can be inspired that does
not contain the name of God. But where have they got this axiom? It is not
self-evident, nor asserted by any portion of scripture, and is therefore
entitled to no respect. Whether a book may be inspired, though the name of God
is not mentioned in it, depends not on any self-evident first principles, but
on matter of fact. And matter of fact determines in this instance, that a book
may be inspired though it does not express the name of God.
But if God is not expressly named in this book, He is most
evidently referred to by periphrasis, and the strongest confidence in Him is
manifested by Mordecai. The faith of that illustrious servant of God is among
the most distinguished examples of faith that the Scriptures afford. See ch. 4: 13, 14:- “From
another place.” Can there be any doubt as to the place from which he expected
deliverance? Is not this an obvious reference to God? Is it not from the
retributive justice of God that he threatens destruction to Esther and her
father’s house, should she decline the intercession through unbelief?
Esther also manifests confidence in God, and a resolution to die for His
people, if that should be the result of her application in their favour. The
power of Jehovah and the love of his people are strongly manifested in the
conduct of these two illustrious Israelites. If God is not mentioned by name, He is seen in all their conduct. This book, then, that exhibits the
Providence of God, is composed in a manner suited to its subject. God is
everywhere seen in it, though He is not named; just so God is every moment
manifesting Himself in the works of His Providence, though He works unseen to
all but the eye of faith.
But not only is the objection invalid, but every one of the
same class is utterly unworthy of respect. A book may disprove its divine
origin by what it contains, but in no case by what it does not contain
: we may as well say that God would
not make the sun or the moon, without writing His name on it, as that he could
not inspire a book that did not contain His name. And one most conspicuous
advantage afforded to the Christian by this book is, that it gives him a
commentary to all the events recorded in history, with respect to the rise and
fall of empires, the prosperity and adversity of nations, the progress and
persecution of the
-------
EMPTIED
I have no further gift, O Saviour
Lord,
At Thy scarr’d
feet to lay, my love to prove;
Thou hast already commandeer’d
control
Of all the earthly functions of my
love:
The earth-grave has absorbed my
fairest, best,
And now my chief desire is but to be
An empty chalice by Thy love possess’d,
Perchance to win Thy smile eternally.
Oh make Thyself the One Supreme, the
All,
That Thou intendest when I first drew
breath;
And - if the prospect may my lot
befall -
Live in me, till Thy life shall
conquer death.
H.
H. BROWNLOW.
* * *
24
LIFE AFTER THE FLESH
By ROBERT GOVETT
Romans 8: 12. “So
therefore, brethren, we are debtors,
not to the flesh, to live
according to the flesh.”
The present
words are addressed expressly to [regenerate] believers. “Brethren, we are debtors.” We are “debtors” here rises the question of our duty, not our passive
privilege; and of each saint’s conduct, as under that
obligation. Here too difference between one individual saint and another
enters. And accordingly, promise and threat, as the results of the performance or
neglect of that duty, follow in the next verse. We are free from debt to the
law, and the apostle warns him who would make himself a debtor to it, that he
is fallen from Christ, and the benefits of grace: Galatains 5. We are under claims from the new
nature, not from the old.
We are under no obligation to the flesh, for, as it regards
God, the flesh has brought in judgment from him, and enmity against him. And,
as it regards ourselves, it has entailed on us death.
Besides, as God’s design towards us is that we should be
performers of the good deeds demanded by the law, and the flesh cannot render
them, it follows that whether in view of our duty, or its rewards, the
obligation lies on us not to live to the old nature, but to the new, which
alone can please God.
13. “For
if ye live according to the flesh, ye are about to die;* but if ye through the Spirit put to death the deeds of the
body, ye
shall live.”
* [R. Govett’s translation from the
Greek text ...]
“About to die!” What!
as a consequence of conduct to believers, justified by faith, and possessing eternal life in
Jesus Christ by deed of gift? Death to those elect ones, on whose behalf the
apostle, in this very chapter, lifts up his bold and sublime defiance of every
creature? DEATH because of their own conduct, to those who have all
Christ’s merits imputed, and whose spirits are already “life,
because of righteousness?”
Yes! even so. “Wherefore, brethren,
we are debtors.” “If ye live after the
flesh, ye are about to die.” Is not the other part of the verse
spoken of - [regenerate, not nominal] - believers? “If ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds
of the body, ye shall live.” Can this apply to any but the
regenerate? Why not, then, the first part of the verse? There is no hint of a
change in the parties addressed. “We know, that what things
soever the law saith, it saith to those that are
under the law:” and so, whatever the epistles say, they say to saints. But the present
verse is beside expressly asserted of saints.
At this point commentators have broken off from the obvious
bearing of the words. They have assumed that no saint can walk after the flesh
- an assumption manifestly untrue, contradicted by a thousand conspicuous facts
in our own, and every other day. Thousands of truly converted men have been and
are living as warriors, are employed in taking and giving oaths, in
administering justice instead of being the children of mercy, surrounded by
every luxury, treasuring up the riches of the world, and mixed up with the
world in its traditions and its glory.
Commentators explain the first part of the verse as applying
to the ungodly, the last as
referring to saints. In consequence
they take “die” in its strongest sense, as the eternal death threatened to
the sinner; and life as the eternal life promised to the [regenerate] believer. Of which take Haldane and Barnes as examples. “If you live agreeably to your carnal nature, without
Christ and faith in him, and according to the corrupt principles
that belong to man in the state in which he is born, ‘ye shall die’. Ye shall suffer all the misery that throughout eternity
shall be the portion of the wicked, which is called death, as death is the
greatest evil in this world.” Haldane. “If you live to indulge
your carnal propensities, you will sink to eternal death,” chap.
7: 23. “Either your sins must die, or you must. If
they are suffered to live, you will die. If they are put to death, you will be saved. No man can be saved
in his sins.” Barnes. That the other
clause is made to refer to believers, take Matthew
Henry and Scott as witnesses.
“Ye shall live. Live and be happy to eternity.”
Matthew
Henry. “Their spiritual
life will abound till perfected in eternal happiness.” Scott.
But if so, a further difficulty arises. Either eternal life is
the recompense of mortification, or a sense is given to the word “live” which does not belong to it,
making it to intend degree of spiritual enjoyment.
But how can the words be understood, if applied to [regenerate] believers? This is the very
interesting question, which I proceed to unfold.
1. First, it does not signify the eternal death threatened to
the wicked. The saint’s being a member of Christ excludes that dread
consequence. And the question at issue in this place is not justification [by
faith] or condemnation. That was decided to
be settled at the very first verse of the chapter. It was promised to each [regenerate] believer that he should be raised to
life in consequence of the Spirit’s indwelling.*
* There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus (
2. Nor does it signify that the soul
shall endure present spiritual death, such as is the
state of the unregenerate : 5: 6. For the renewed
soul is “life, because of
righteousness.” And the threat is of a future death. “Ye are about to die.”
3. Nor is it the common death of men. For that is
endured by the saints who have
walked after the Spirit as well as by those who walk according to the flesh. “The
body is dead, because of sin,” in both classes of - [(1) obedient and (2) disobedient regenerate] believers.
The death and the life here spoken of refer to the body, as it
regards the - [saint’s future and select] - resurrection. God shall “make alive even your mortal
bodies:” [Rom.] 8: 11. We shall be “joint heirs of Christ if we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified
with him” [Rom.] 8: 17. “The glory which is about to be
revealed unto us” [Rom.] 8: 18. “The creature also shall be set
free from the bondage of corruption
into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God:
verse 21.
“We are expecting [‘waiting for’ R.V.] adoption, the redemption of the body,” verse 23. Both before and after this verse, then, the - [select (Phil. 3: 11;
cf.
Luke 20: 35,
R.V.)] - resurrection, and the time of
Jesus’ appearing, are before the apostle’s eye.
What else, then, have we, than the doctrine of “the
first resurrection” as the glory to be given to some? “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first
resurrection; over such the second death hath no
power, but they shall be priests of God and of
Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand
years” Rev. 20: 6. This at once gives its full force to the word as addressed to saints. “If ye
live according to the flesh, ye are about to die.” The mere falling
asleep at the close of this life is in itself nothing. That sleep will be
broken, for all those accounted worthy, in an instant,
at the Lord’s descent. But if you live to the flesh, its native tendency
to death will be seen in your being left under the bondage of
corruption a thousand years. “The rest of the dead lived
not till the thousand years were finished:”* [Rev.
20:
verse] 5.
Till Jesus appears, the great difference between sleep and death will not be seen. “The
body is dead:” but this is a future death, to be felt keenly, because others will then
live. “Ye are about to die.” This implies a
death posterior to that assumed by the apostle’s statement in verse 10. It is confirmed too by the answering explanation of the close of the verse,
and by the like passage in the Epistle to the Galatians: Gal.
6: 8.
* [ The Greek ... ] is read by the critical authorities
This loss is made
dependent on conduct. “If ye live according to the flesh.” Though the [regenerate] believer is not in the flesh to his [eternal] condemnation, the flesh is in him for his trial. He is in the Spirit, and
thus able to please God. But he may not actually do so. He
may habitually give the reins to the old nature. Hence an “if,”
and a penalty, are suspended over him. God would have the regenerate fulfil the
righteous conduct required by the law. But they may, instead, act so as not to
serve God; they may even bring disgrace on the cause of Christ before the
world. And shall such conduct be unnoticed and unpunished? It shall not! Even
the new law of liberty, the edict of the kingdom forbids the entry of such. “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees, ye - [‘disciples’
verse 1] - “shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven:”
Matt. 5: 20.
“Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the
kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father
which is in heaven:” Matt. 7: 21.
“Ye shall live.” Here the same reasoning applies as to the former case. What
life is promised?
1. Not eternal life. That is a ‘gift’ [Rom. 6: 23] through Jesus Christ.
2. Not present spiritual life. That is already enjoyed. “The
mind of the Spirit is life and peace.”
3. It is, then, life in resurrection, to be obtained
at its earliest exhibition,
at “the resurrection of the just.” In those who walk after the Spirit,
only the body is dead. It is then, that the life promised is to be understood.
Life is to be granted, as the recompense of a successful
struggle against the dictates of the flesh. Now this contention ends
not with death, or with the coming of the Lord. Thus, again, the life spoken of
is shown to be in resurrection.
In short, while resurrection to life is a certain inheritance
on grounds common to all believers, the time of the deliverance from corruption turns on our living, either to
that part of us which is alive to God, or to that which is judicially
sentenced.
16. “The Spirit itself witnesses together with our spirit that we
are children of God. 17. But if children,
then heirs: heirs indeed
of God; but joint
heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.”
If we be children of God, then, as
earthly sons inherit the property of their fathers, so shall we the possessions
of our Heavenly Father. “If children, then heirs.” But the next words intimate two heritages, one possessed by
all; the other, by some alone. All are heirs of God, but not all joint heirs with Christ. For a condition is inserted which is not
fulfilled in all. Not all suffer with Christ. Many die as soon as they
believe. Many will not surrender what, as they see, their duty to him requires.
And Paul in another place speaks of “fellowship” with Christ in “his sufferings,” and even “being
made like him in his death, if by any means I
might attain to the resurrection [out] from among the
dead:” Phil. 3: 10, 11. So again, “I saw the souls of them that were
beheaded for the witness Jesus and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the Beast, neither his image ... and they lived and reigned with
Christ a thousand years:”
Rev. 20: 4.
Joint suffering is to be recompensed with joint glorification,
and joint reigning. As saith another passage, “If we be dead with him,
we shall also live with him. If we suffer with him, we shall
also reign with him:” 2 Tim. 2: 12.
But a little further on in the chapter we are now considering,
glorification is spoken of as the portion of all the predestined sons of God. “For whom he did foreknow, he
did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be
the first-born among many brethren. Moreover
whom he did predestinate, them also he called; and
whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he
also glorified.”
As, then, there is a glorification destined for all
the elect, and a glorification for some, under a condition not fulfilled in all, it is evident
that there are two times of glorification. There is (1) the millennial glory, or the time of glorification with Jesus as
the Christ: Rev. 20: 4. (2) There is also
the eternal glorification after this, designed for all the elect members of
Christ.
May we take heed to these things, beloved.
* * *
25
THE DAY OF THE LORD
The
world’s most careful thinkers, and statesmen the most deeply versed in
the working of States, are filled with dread at this moment that civilization
is about to crash. Prime Ministers of England, than whom no better judges of
statecraft could be found, have expressed the dread. Stanley Baldwin says:- “I have never
disguised my own conviction that another
war will be the end of the civilization we know.” Mr. Ramsay Macdonald says:- “If the Church of Christ throughout Europe and America allow
this to happen they had better close their doors; for the next war, if ever it
comes, will
be a war on civilization itself.” Mr. Lloyd George says:-
“It seems to me that the world is heading for a great catastrophe. If the
Now God, who alone knows the end from the beginning, and whose
own future action is involved - future action which is known only to Himself -
emphasizes the same fact. It is the near approach of the coming collapse, with
its infallible symptoms of dissolution, which makes it so evident, and evident
even to men who never consult God; but it has been pictured in God’s Word
for thousands of years. All the Scriptures are burdened with one coming Day, a
day which they place long after the First Coming of Christ, and which is a dissolution of civilization: ‘that
day’; ‘the great day’;
‘the last day’; ‘the Day of the Lord’. As Zephaniah (1: 14) cries:- “The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord.”
Now the double secret of the Day, cause and effect combining
to produce it, is extraordinarily convincing. What the statesmen see, and
dread, is such a growing ferment of
lawlessness, such a dissolution of
high-principled integrity, human
passion and hate and greed and crime so rotting the very fabric of social life,
that civilization breaks down, and all
ordered civil life crashes: God sees
exactly the same thing; and as the Most High,
ultimately, is alone responsible for the order of the universe, He is at last
compelled to intervene, for He sees what is coming. Suddenly and miraculously,
after a silence and apparent absence of two thousand years, the Most High
reappears to handle a race sunk in crime, and a world plunged in open
rebellion; and as the Person responsible for order and righteousness, He has to
handle the situation exactly as would the Governors of Dartmoor if confronted
with a violent revolt of the convicts.
Therefore there are four outstanding characteristics of the
Day of the Lord; and a supreme one is the fact that, so cumulative in its
horror will that day be, as God sees and knows it, that God Himself, again and
again, counsels fear. “HOWL YE; for the
day of the Lord is at hand;
as destruction
from the Almighty shall it come. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel,
with wrath and fierce anger” (Isa. 13: 6, 9). For it will be the wrath of God let
loose, after longsuffering has dammed back that wrath, with huge blocking
power, for six thousand years. So Zephaniah
(1: 15) says:- “That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness; and I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord, and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as dung.”
The second outstanding characteristic, which ought to make a
wise man fear, is that there is no
escape. The Day of the Lord, encircling the globe, will exempt no nation,
and will be absolutely universal. “Behold,” God cries through Isaiah (13: 11), “the day of
the Lord cometh, and I will punish THE WORLD for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity.” So our Lord says to the Philadelphian Angel (Rev. 3: 10):- “Because
thou didst keep the word of my patience, I also
will keep thee from the hour of trial, that hour
which is to come upon THE WHOLE WORLD,
to try them that dwell upon the earth.” None can resist the omnipotence of the
Judge: none can elude His omniscient scrutiny: none can evade the weight of His
sentence. “The day of the Lord,” cries Joel (2: 11),
“is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?” So Paul says (1 Thess. 5: 3):- “They
shall in no wise escape.”
Another unique characteristic of the Day will be its miracle. All the signal judgments
with which God has ever visited nations or individuals are but harbingers and
symptoms of coming catastrophes more
intense and terrible than the world has
ever seen. “And I will show wonders in the heavens and the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun
shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into
blood, before” - even before - “the
great and terrible day of the Lord come” (Joel 2: 30). The plagues of it will be so
universal and miraculous as to be inescapable; for God’s judgment
Prophets “have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague” (Rev.
11: 6). The effect is shown in a photograph
taken by the Divine camera two to three thousand years beforehand. “Therefore
shall all hands be feeble, and every heart of
man shall melt; pangs and sorrows shall take
hold of them; they shall be amazed one at
another; their faces shall be faces of flame”
(Isa. 13: 7).
The last and most dangerous characteristic of the Day of the the Lord is its
suddenness; a suddenness which is startlingly linked with an international
passion of the present moment. In the
So, therefore, we learn that the forecasts of statesmen are
only a dim premonition of rapidly approaching collapse; and that God has
revealed, perfectly explicitly, much more than that - namely, that the world is
not moving blindly, without aim or goal, but marches irresistibly towards a set
purpose and a sudden judgment. It is a cardinal error in life to be so upset by
the emotion of a coming fact - the thought, for example, that it is too awful
to be believed - as to refuse to look the fact in the face, and to neglect the
only thing that really matters - a calm, careful, thorough preparation for the
thing that is coming. There is only one Word that fits the facts - John the
Baptist’s:- “Who hath warned YOU TO FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME?”
But we must also guard against an unintelligent fear. Since
the Day of the Lord is the broad, black belt of judgments lying between Grace
and the Kingdom, the ‘no man’s land’
of the ‘junctions of the dispensations’
(1 Cor. 10: 11), it can be recognized, when it arrives, by two concrete
facts. It is open wrath on the Lawless
One, and on the general apostasy from Christianity,
and so is synchronous with the disclosure of Antichrist: therefore Paul says, “be not
quickly shaken from your mind as that the day of the Lord* is now present
[has set in]; for it will not be except (1) “the
falling away come first, and (2)
the man of sin be revealed”
(2 Thess. 2: 2). So also huge miracles must appear (Acts 2: 20) in the heavens before the Day of the
Lord can come. For it is the dawn of judgment, and every soul is involved.
Judgment begins at the
* See Revised Version. The
manuscript authorities are decisive.
-------
ARE WE EATING OUR MORSEL
ALONE?
If I have eaten my morsel alone
The Patriarch spoke in scorn;
What would He think of the Church,
were He shown
Heathendom, huge, forlorn,
Godless, Christless, with soul unfed,
While the Church’s ailment is
fulness of bread,
Eating her morsel alone?
I am debtor alike to the Jew and the
Greek,
The mighty Apostle cried;
Traversing continents, souls to seek,
For the love of the Crucified.
Centuries, centuries since have fled;
Millions are famishing, we have bread,
But we eat our morsel alone!
Ever of them who have largest dower
Shall He ever require the more,
Ours is affluence, knowledge, power,
Ocean from shore to shore;
And East and West in our ears have
said,
Give us, give us your living Bread,
Yet we eat our morsel alone!
Freely as ye have received, so give,
He bade, Who hath given us all.
How shall the soul in us longer live,
Deaf to their starving call,
For whom the blood of the Lord was
shed,
And His body broken to give them Bread
If we eat our morsel alone ?
-THE BISHOP OF
* * *
26
WHY NOT BE JUST A CHRISTIAN?
By R.
H. BOLL
In these days of many sects and conflicting teachings it is a
great advantage to be simply a Christian, and nothing more than a child of God,
a follower of Jesus Christ. “But,”
you ask, “is such a thing possible under the
religious circumstances of our day? How is the average man ever to find his way
where so many paths cross one another, and each one seems as good as the rest?
where so many guides shout, ‘Come this way!’ ‘Go that
way!’ and ‘Lo here’ and ‘Lo there!’”
It does indeed seem impossible; and many who would be glad to be on the right
ground before God have despaired of the undertaking.
Some have concluded that none are right and have settled down
in indifference. Some think that all are right, and drift on, compromising and
without convictions. Some, weary of the problem, have found a false rest in
trusting in an ‘infallible church,’
or some ‘infallible’ man who
settles all questions by his simple dictum. Another says, “I go to hear them all, and when I find the right one I will
accept it.” That latter way seems fair to the average man. But
what an impossible task it would be to investigate all the creeds and
doctrines! Time would fail, and head and heart be confused and bewildered if
anyone should seriously attempt it. It usually terminates in the man’s
accepting the first thing he happens to meet that seems good and plausible.
Barring the case of many who lack the interest and sense of need to make any
personal independent search after truth, it is the general way, for a man
religiously inclined, to take up the first view that strikes and pleases him,
or to fall in with any sect or denomination with which he has happened to have
been thrown in contact. Having identified himself with the said view or sect,
he considers himself thenceforth bound to loyalty to that party. and is
henceforth set for its defence, and super-sensitive to any criticism of it.
That road leads nowhere but to ‘confusion worse confounded’. In the first place
it is an impossible task. Neither you nor I are capacitated to enter into the
merits of each creed and system, and discern the false from the true. In fact
such an undertaking would pre-suppose on our part the very thing we have not
got, and for which we are searching: the knowledge of the truth. Not until we
know what the truth really is would we be able to pass on the relative value of
the creeds, etc. Nor could we trust our inclinations or our tastes to guide us
aright. There has never been an error that has not been dressed up attractively
in the garb of logic and plausibility; nor has there ever been a falsehood
propagated but it had its point of appeal. If then we start out in our search
to find among the doctrines promulgated one that seems plausible and meets our
taste and appeals to us, we shall certainly fall victim to some error.
Instead of trying to examine and decide upon any or all
beliefs and teachings extant, there is a shorter and better way. That way can
be summed up in one word:- CHRIST. “Come
unto ME AND LEARN OF ME”
(Matt. 11: 28,
29). There is an instant relief in the
very thought. We can set aside the whole troublesome tangle of religious
beliefs and go straight to Him who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”
(John 14:
6). He alone is right and true, and
everyone who would be his disciple must come directly to him and learn of him.
But after the first flash of light and hope such a thought would bring, there
rises a misgiving. “Do you suppose that I could
understand, that I could find the one, true way by taking the matter up
personally with the Lord, through His word? Have not others done so and failed?
Is there not vast room for differences and misapprehensions? Where so many good
people have erred and strayed can I hope for better success? I am not learned:
where the scholars and doctors differ, how can I know I am right?”
But the difficulty is not so great as it appears. In the first
place it is not a matter of scholarship, or of man’s wisdom and ability,
but a question of attitude and of trust: of trust, in that we cannot afford,
like Peter, to look at the winds and waves of difficulty (Matt. 14), but we must rely on the goodness and faithfulness of the
Lord that calls us, He who will let no true soul perish in its search of Him
and His ways; and it is a question of attitude, because it is not to the wise
and prudent that God shows His ways (Matt. 11: 25; 1 Cor. 1: 26,
etc.), but to the poor in spirit, the humble, the hungering and thirsting after
righteousness; to those who will to do His will, to the ‘sheep’ who hear His voice (Matt. 5: 3-6; 7: 17; 10: 4, 27). It was in the same breath in which Jesus stated
this, that He invited the weary and heavy laden to come to Him that He might
give them rest; and to assume His yoke and to learn of Him (Matt. 11: 25-39). This then is the one great step for every man who would
find the way: Commit your life with all its hope and prospect to the Lord
Jesus, and address yourself to learn from Him. There is a sphere in which
scholarship is helpful; and I do not say that men may not help one another; but
the only true help a man can after all render his fellow-man is to point him to
the word of the Lord that there he may find and see for himself what is the
will of God in Christ Jesus to us-ward.
So true unity would come. It has been feared all along that if
every man should go to the Word of God for himself independently, confusion and
division would result. Not so. The divisions come by departing from the word,
by adding to it, taking from it, setting up men’s one-sided views for
standards. And, above all, the divisions are kept alive because the vast
majority of professed believers blindly follow their religious leaders, and
have almost all their religious knowledge at second hand. But those who, with
open, desirous hearts come directly to Jesus for light, obtain such a view of
truth, such a mutual consideration, and such a free scope for growth that
having become one in Christ they will tend more and more to be one with one
another.
Every theory, every system, every sect has some truth. But the Christian has all, has a right to all, and access
to all. If any sect in the world holds any portion of truth, the Christian has
the greater right to accept and proclaim it. He does not need to join the [denominational] sect in question to get what truth it
may happen to have. He does not even need to sift through the chaff of those human theories. In Christ he
has all beforehand. It is his good and pleasant task to explore the rich mine
of truth. Jesus Christ, “in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden”
(Col. 2: 3). At the same time he does not say,
“I am right,” in the sense that he
knows all about everything; but he says, “the
Bible is right: Christ is right.” He holds his mind open. Every
day he comes to the truth revealed to get juster ideas of what he learned
before and to learn more. He has no ‘axe to
grind’; no position to force: nothing to ‘harmonize’ or to ‘explain away’; no theories to promulgate; no human creed to
defend. The truth makes him free. He calls no man ‘Rabbi’, no man ‘Father’
upon the earth: One is his Teacher and Master, even Christ; and One is his
Father: God (Matt. 23: 8-10). No man may bring him into that bondage of human theory and
creed which is to-day so gravely affecting the religious world.
A minister of a certain denomination once said to one of these
simple Christians, “I should like to have a talk
with you - I think I could make a ‑‑
ist out of you.” “How would you go
about it?” asked the Christian. “Why, I would show you where you are wrong,”
answered the preacher. “But that would not make me a ‑‑ist. It would just make me a better Christian,”
he replied. These simple children of God come to the Bible with new, fresh
minds, divested of all human preconceptions as far as they can know, with open
hearts, to drink in the teaching of the Lord. They strive to give Him a clean
tablet to write on, not one already scrawled over with opinions of their own or
other men’s. When we commit ourselves to a human teacher and leader, we
lose the voice of the one true ‘Rabbi’ above. And the prepossession resulting may easily be
fatal. It puts coloured glasses before the seeker’s eyes, and insinuates
basic notions and opinions which ever after he reads into the text of the
Bible, and which he thinks thenceforth he sees standing out on every page,
although they exist only in his mind. It is needless to say that a man who has
any regard and desire for just pure, unbiassed truth
will not allow his judgment to be affected beforehand by putting himself under
the influence and dominance of some man’s plausible theories. “And this
I say lest any man should beguile you with enticing words,” says [the apostle] Paul. “As ye have therefore
received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye
in Him; rooted and builded up in Him and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding in
thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy or vain deceit,
after the
tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ.
For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily. And ye
are complete in Him” (Col. 2: 4-10).
*
[* NOTE: All BOLD type in the above paragraph is mine.]
Now if it were only a matter of preference and taste as to
what a man should religiously believe and be, no man would need to be greatly
troubled over this question. One could adopt whatever belief he liked best and
follow it sincerely and the outcome would be safe. But “there
is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the
end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14: 12). “It is not in man that walketh
to direct his steps”: (Jer. 10: 23). Most people think that any course honestly pursued will lead
to [God’s promised] glory; which is but another that man’s ideas of religious things are
usually wrong. But the Lord Jesus says:- “Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth
them,” (not what priests or doctors commanded), “I will
liken him unto a wise man, who built his house
upon a rock.” And vice versa, “Everyone that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them
not shall be likened unto a foolish man, who
built his house upon the sand” (Matt. 7: 21-27). It is not by what some man said you
ought to do, nor by any human teaching or theory (no matter how correct it
seem, and how perfectly it “fits in”)
that we shall be measured “in that day”, but by what Christ has said. “The
word that I have spoken, the same shall judge
him in the last day” (John 12: 48). He that rejects the word of Christ to-day - [in 2024] - does so at terrible loss and infinite peril.
So also the book of Acts shows how and when the message was
preached, and how men accepted it and became Christians and how they became
members of God’s church. That is the teaching we want and need in the
present exigency. We shall find (as in Acts 2: 36-42; 3: 19; 8: 12 and 8: 26-39, etc.) that the gospel was preached, men heard, believed, and
were baptized (Acts 18:
8) and added by the Lord to His church. The Epistles that
follow after the book of Acts contain instructions to Christians.
As to church-relationship - there is but one Church mentioned
in the Scriptures. “There is one body, and one
Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope
of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,
who is over all, and through all, and in all.” To this God will add him as He did those who were being saved
in apostolic days (Acts 2:
17). On any question the word of God will
shed true light, and as much light as is needed. So shall a man stand on a firm
rock, and be responsible directly to God alone, and deal with Him at first hand
through His word, free from all fear and bondage, except the fear of God and
the yoke of Christ, which is easy and light, and he shall find rest for his
soul. This is the exalted privilege and calling of the simple Christian.
* * *
27
ALL DECEIT + 1
It is
simply impossible to stress to the degree it needs stressing the studied deceit
and diabolic camouflage already at the doors:- “ALL DECEIT of
unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2: 10). At the moment we take but two deceptions which ought never
to have deceived, and a summary of the controlled propaganda which will be an
enormous instrument in the production of the ‘all deceit’. The Pinkerton detective agency in
I
No
Scriptural believer needs to be told that the man who denies, deliberately and
publicly, that Jesus is the Son of God is not a Christian, and that to offer
such Christian fellowship is to betray the Faith. Such has rightly been the
attitude of the
“I shall not say, and I never
have said, how much it has done for me. But this I do aver: I found more
spiritual reality and contagion among the Groupers than I had known before. As
a Unitarian with a faculty highly developed for criticism, a characteristic I
had in common with most of my colleagues in the ministry, and hardly less in
the laity, I doubt if religion the past twenty years has been more than
one-tenth the reality which I now feel.
Among our guests was a prominent Jewish editor and
leader. Something beneath and above and beyond any theological concept must
have got him there, for he is interested. The plain fact is, if I may digress
for a moment, the Oxford Group Movement nowhere permits theology to crowd
itself out in front of religion. Theology is a framework, and it is present
though it ought never to be obtrusive anywhere when the business in hand is
spiritual revolution. The human, quickening, radiant and changing power of
religion completely envelops the intellectual structure. Not a joint shows
through. And yet the structure is absolutely necessary, else religion would
‘collapse gelatinously’.
But my theology, while it differs from that of some
of Oxford Group friends, does not separate me spiritually a hair’s
breadth from any one of them. These people believe in God while others waver.
They find in their faith life-changing power. First, they surrender. That is
before all. By meditation, study and prayer in their quiet times they are guided
according to their four absolutes in all of their behaviour. They square up -
that is, make restitution fo - the injuries, wrongs,
sins, they have done, and share their lives with others, not hesitating to tell
the most intimate things out of their past and how they have been changed.
These personal ‘sharing’ testimonies are generally not public
recitations, but are between individuals. They keep alive by changing other
lives; that is, not they, but the Spirit working through them.”
II
The author of this summary of Signor Mussolini, and the
magazine in which it appeared, it is unnecessary to name because our object is
not to criticize individuals, but to put Christians in general on their guard:-
“I have profound respect for, and confidence in,
the present Dictator of Italy. He has given to Protestants a new liberty. His
personal life is upright and honourable. Mussolini believes, rightly, that one
cannot deal with a fever-stricken patient in the same way as one would with a
perfectly healthy person.
What this ‘liberty’ is worth the Times (Jan. 3, 1936) revealed only sixteen
months later:- “The gradual disappearance of
individual enterprise has proved one of the most striking characteristics of
the Fascist regime. Since the outbreak of hostilities in
The essential lawlessness of an
autocrat his life will prove. “In
III
The
diabolic principle underlying the masterly perfection of dictatorial
propaganda, Herr Hitler, in a sentence (p. 200) carefully withheld from the
English edition of Mein Kampf, frankly states:- “To weigh up different rights and wrongs is not the task of
propaganda, which must hammer home its own case to the exclusion of everything
else. Propaganda is not concerned with objective truth nor, in so far as it may
be favourable to the other side, with seeking it out. It is not its task
dispassionately to present truth to the masses with meticulous accuracy, but it
must save its own cause without pause or interruption.”*
* It is astounding to learn that a Dictator who can so write is
warmly applauded by the Christians of Germany, including (we understand) even
the Plymouth Brethren. “Every true Christian [in
The extent and perfection of this
propaganda, which keeps the entire population ignorant of all that on which the
Government wishes their minds a blank, are unprecedented. The Literary Digest (Aug. 22, 1936) sums it
p thus:- “From before the War, control of the press had become a fine
art. The World War witnessed its development into a sharp and cruel instrument
of power. Then Lenin, in 1917, concocted permanent peace-time censorship. A new
system of press control was born. With unprecedented brutality,
pre-revolutionary editors were lashed out of their offices, sent to
But Mussolini showed the world that
But Chancellor Hitler has demonstrated to the world that both
the Russians and the Italians were mere neophytes in shackling a nation’s
press. Combining all the achievements of Soviet and Fascist censorship with the
natural ingenuity and efficiency of the German, Dr. Goebbels
has built up a machine of press control such as the world has never seen
before. In April, 1933, Dr. Goebbels said:- “The press must henceforth be a piano upon which the
Government can play at leisure.”
Lenin’s is a frank confession of the ‘all
deceit’:- “We must be ready for sacrifice
of every kind, and even if need to practise everything possible; ruses and
tricks, illegal methods; be ready to be silent and hide the truth: it is from
the interests of the class war that we deduce our morality.”
Surely we already see the background on which God’s
awful Judgment Prophets (Rev. 11: 3) will arise. “Are we, then entering upon another ‘Dark’ or
‘Iron’ Age,” writes Professor R. B. Mowat in The Hibbert Journal (Oct., 1936), “when the distinction between justice and injustice will be
ignored, when there will be no Law of Nations, and only force will count, the
law of the wolf-pack and of the jungle? It may be so, because society consists
of men and is what they make it. The present age has for years been awaiting
its prophet, and has not found him. Faith in the cause of justice has grown
weak, surrendering to the ‘logic of facts’ - a wholly irrelevant
factor in assessing the eternal values of right wrong.” The Archbishop of Canterbury expresses a
half-truth fearlessly and well (Times, Oct. 12, 1936):- “There is nothing - literally nothing - I think there
is scarcely a thoughtful man who denies it - that can save civilization but the
incoming of the rule of the unseen and eternal
-------
The greatest need of
* * *
28
AN APPEAL TO
PENTECOSTALISTS + [PART 2] THE MODERN GIFT OF TONGUES
AN OPEN LETTER TO A MEMBER
OF THE ELIM FOURSQUARE
By
ALBERT G. TILNEY, B.A.
[PART 1]
Thank
you for so kindly letting me have the three books* by
Pastor Barratt
and Principals Parker and Jeffreys.
I have read them with much interest, and not without profit. For they deal
pretty thoroughly with a most important matter which Christians in general
ignore or are ignorant of. And they deserve to be heard. I trust that they
themselves would listen to friendly yet cautious inquirers who neither charge
them with trickery nor accuse them of being the servants of Satan. I am sure
they are good and sincere men to whom I respond considerably. I am sure, too,
that they have had supernatural experiences, but goodness and sincerity are no
guarantee of infallibility.
* 1. In the
Days of the LatterRain by Thornas Ball Barratt, Revised Edition, 1928,
London, Elim Publishing Co. 2. The Model Christian, setting forth the Fruit of the Spirit of Christ and the Gifts of
the Holy Spirit, by Principal Percy G.
Parker (of the Christian Workers’ Bible Correspondence School),
Victoria Press, Park Crescent, Clapham Park, May, 1933. 3. Pentecostal Rays, the Baptism and Gifts of the Holy
Spirit, by George Jeffreys
(Founder and Leader of the Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance), London, Elim
Publishing Co., Park Crescent, Clapham Park, July, 1933. These are briefly but
respectfully quoted as B, P, J
respectively.
You have told me you are sure I have been born again; but my
sincerity and goodness are no safeguard against my error (in your judgment) in
thinking they may be partly mistaken. As a language master (realizing only too
well how little French or German can be learnt in four or five years), I am
satisfied that to be able to speak overnight any tongue untaught is really a miracle,
and both professionally and spiritually I frankly confess I wish I knew the
secret of it. Personally, I am still after these gifts we are told to covet
earnestly and to desire, with inspired emphasis laid negatively upon tongues
and positively upon prophecy (1 Cor. 12: 31; 14: 1, 5, 39). For they were not called temporary, and were never more
needed than to-day. Moreover, every Apostolic church was thus supernaturally
endowed, and these and other gifts probably lasted at least into the third
century of our era. So far I entirely agree with our authors. But have they
unchallengeably demonstrated that their own supernatural manifestations (which
I neither doubt nor despise) are, in reality, the Pentecostal succession of the
Latter Rain, swelling the grain in the ear just prior to the Harvest which is
the end of the Age?
It is a momentous claim, and demanding the most convincing
proof. And the authors attempt to prove their claim along two main lines:
first, by the alleged similarity to the Apostolic of their present-day
phenomena, linked doubtfully,* at intervals in
this dispensation, with the Montanists, Camisards, and Irvingites (B. p. 77, pp. 60-69, endorsed by P. p. 113 J. pp.
196-200; the last-mentioned acknowledging, p. 181, “In the present-day revival with its signs and wonders we are
continually reminded that this is another outbreak, only on a larger scale, of
the Irvingite movement”); next, by the deduction that since their
fellow-members exhibit the fruit of the Spirit (which we are most happy to
admit), the Gifts they possess must therefore necessarily be the Gifts of the
Holy Spirit. For, they say in effect, good people cannot possibly be under the
power of bad spirits. (B. 96, 106, J. 148-150). You dear
people are undeniably elect, that is, the very kind of people our Lord foretold
would be deceived by Satan in these last days, if it were possible.** But how could Satan deceive the very
elect except by an appearance of most satisfying piety and scripturalness? As
the king and god of this world he is as religious as he is resourceful. Who,
then, can unmask this expert, all-deceiving, counterfeit-christ? who expose
this subtlest, most elusive spirit? Transforming himself into an angel of light
(2 Cor. 11: 14), he is quite capable of doing good
that evil may come, with serpent-wisdom yielding more than pawns to win a
queen. A bad spirit may undetected lurk behind a good man, for where evil is
unsuspected it can exist with impunity.
* Vide Irvingism, and the
Gifts of the Holy Ghost. D. M. Panton.
** Not “if it were
impossible.” If you say you will come to-morrow. “if possible,” that implies a positive
possibility.
Now this implies mixture, which our authors, quoting James 3: 11-12, try to show is
impossible. But the very context, verses 8-10, reveals (like 1 Sam. 10: 10; 18: 10 and. 2 Cor. 6: 14-16) the mixture, not indeed of plants or
waters, but of the deceived or deceitful human tongue, the actual point in
question. B., however, does admit
mixture, though only of the divine and human (pp. 107, 135); in this he seems
followed by P. (p. 161) who
considers that Paul’s injunction to “let the other judge” the prophets (1 Cor. 14: 29) is a proof that even in Apostolic days oracles were of mixed
origin, human and Divine (instead of doubtful, Divine or demonic). The same
writer (pp. 173-182) apparently believes that, as on a gramophone, “many hundreds of sentences” can be at will
repeated in an unlearnt tongue. But J.,
speaking of tongues, is clear (p. 148) that “that
which tens of thousands of believers in our day experience must either be of
Divine or satanic origin, for there are only two sources from which the power
can emanate.”
Let us note that Satan and his spirits can acknowledge Christ,
indirectly preach the Gospel (Acts 16: 17-18), announce the second Advent (2 Thess. 2: 2), and quote Scripture while omitting an essential condition
(Matt. 4: 6).
Then, too, Satan can enter and fill believers, as Peter or Ananias; he can cast
out Satan (Luke 11: 19; Matt. 12: 26); he can bind and so, presumably,
unbind or cure, in addition to healing lunatics (Luke 13: 16); he knows and acknowledges Jesus and Paul, and can expose
false exorcists (Acts 19: 13-18). Hence we cannot always tell him by his badness. On the
contrary, he is an adept at mixing, and thoroughly baits his hook and conceals
himself with a fleece. So he gained admittance among the gifted Corinthians. (2 Cor. 11: 4). The Gibeonites deceived Joshua and the elders, and because,
too, they “asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord” (Josh. 9: 14). They trusted their eyes, their ears,
and their feelings instead of God’s oracular test, far more effective
than our mere praying. Have we to-day a reliable Urim and Thummim (Num. 27: 21) that, neglected, allows deceit and
defeat? It is not enough to say that the Lord is our Shepherd, He will keep us.
True, He is ABLE to keep us from
falling, and He WILL keep us only IN ALL OUR ways. For we are not merely
sheep, surely; we are disciples, students, servants - intelligent and
responsible human beings with definite instructions to
guide us. We neglect them at our peril.
Satan, however, will shrink from exposure, forbidding tests, or suggesting
others that are worse than useless. He will declare they are unnecessary,
irrelevant, even blasphemous. While God aims at self-revelation, Satan aims at self-concealment, avoiding the
light (John 3: 21). And while blasphemy in the early days consisted of
attributing to Satan the works of God, in the latter days blasphemy will
consist of attributing to God the works of Satan. Hence the arch-deceiver will
especially resent and resist the successful application of Divine challenges
framed infallibly to unmask him. But better mistake Jesus for a ghost than a
ghost for Jesus, Who welcomes (Matt. 14: 26; Luke 24: 39) verification.
Now healings that are not mere nervous adjustments possible to
doctors and psychologists, but which include the claim to raise the dead (J. p. 202), need to be incontestably
verified. Are they? Were not our Lord’s cures impossible to physicians,
and immediate, complete, free from convalescence or relapse? Why then does J. (p. 125) assert - “The root meaning of the word ‘healing’ is a
gradual recovery”? Can this be an accommodation? For
neither Young’s Concordance nor Parkhurst’s
Lexicon thus attempts to alter the Scripture record. If healing depended
entirely upon faith, it might be said that the faithful could be independent of
at least spectacles and artificial teeth. Concerning outsiders, however, we
read (J. p. 233) that the evangelist
“lays hands on the sick, regardless of the
particular person’s faith or obedience, and the signs follow,”
though in the Church “outsiders may continually
come to be prayed for and not be healed.” Are then the uncured
faithful always faithless, disobedient? And are outsiders mostly healed abroad,
in distant lands?
What a pity, too, that prophecy is reduced so often from
foretelling to forthtelling! But can real prophecy be
simulated by preaching or by recitation and quotation? “The message is nevertheless from God; that is, if it is
consistent with the general teaching of the Bible” (B. p. 109), and “Anyone who has a natural flow of speech can closely imitate
prophetic utterance” (P.
p. 160). Again we are tempted to suspect accommodation of the higher to the
lower. If we really had a heavenly telephone, could we possibly ring up our
loving Father too often? (1 Sam. 23: 2, 4, 10, 12). Could we bore the One Who numbers the very hairs of our
head? Yet B. (pp. 131-132)
criticizes the mistake of “trying to be guided
in all the affairs of life by that means,” preferring prayer,
common sense, and a decided force of circumstances (if revelation fails), even
in more important matters. Following him, P.
agrees (p. 161) “Neither should the prophetic
gift be sought for individual guidance.” For things are not what
they were “in those early days, when the gift
was still in its virgin purity” (B. p. 132). Must that be a good and perfect gift come from above
that, less than useless, is sometimes harmful? But as a matter of fact, are any
of the ‘prophecies’ really worthy
of a place in an appendix to the Word of God?
Coming now finally to Tongues, we reach at once, perhaps, the
highest and the lowest gift; lowest in Biblical order and easiest to
counterfeit, but high enough to be considered by many a proof of the Baptism of
the Holy Spirit, and, despite Babel, Balaam’s*
ass, and probably Moses, Solomon and others, the only and characteristically
New Testament miracle or sign. In
* The cases of Balaam, Saul, Caiaphas and the corrupt
Corinthians show there is no necessary connection between spirituality and inspiration.
But the chief danger of all seems to me to lie in the very
method of “getting under the power”,
as B calls it. Is all this emptying,
scouring, and abandonment, really Scriptural? Have we a right to resign our
bodies and wills in such a way? And are Christians anywhere in the Epistles
taught to wait or pray for the Spirit? What is to stop a dusky spy from
slipping past a sleeping sentry who even when awake has no password, is
unarmed, forgetting disguises or pretence? (1 Sam. 14:
6-16 and 1 Kings 12: 22). “Spirituality and numbers”,
confidently replies J. (pp. 227, 255
*). B’s equally restless answer is desperate and ominous. “Even if he [Satan] did try to make use of
‘tongues’ when we, in seeking our Pentecost, are under the Blood,
and are abiding by the Word, and have sought Divine protection against the
onslaughts of the enemy, God would be no better than the gods of the heathen,
if He delivered us to the cruel tyranny of our most bitter enemy - the Devil.”
Yet he repeatedly scents danger. “A lying spirit has been at work in some
cases that have appeared” (pp. 172, 156, 154, 127) there have been Satanic counterfeits in this, as in all
religious movements”. P.
echoes (pp. 114, 167) a similar confession of fear. And while B. and J. emphasize the misgivings and opposition of Christian leaders (B. p. 154, J. p. 152) - B.
lamenting that “even Holiness-teachers are
condemning this whole movement as of the Devil” - what they fail
to see is that there may be a cause. For one thing, the logic and assumptions,
particularly of B., are most
unsatisfying. There seem, too, to be actual errors in spite of the bold and
disarming title of FOURSQUARE. In
spite of the claims to supernatural guidance, Foursquare Gospellers seem
divided on British-Israelism, which is not commended to the universal Church;
there are those, too, who cling to the superseded Sabbath and the Law of Moses;
their attitude to women’s public ministry is unscriptural in the light of
1 Corinthians 14: 34, 37, 1 Timothy 2: 12; and the notorious Mrs. Aimde McPherson does not appear to have
been disowned by them.
* “There
can be no danger,” he says, “of any
person receiving an evil spirit if he is seeking the baptism with the Holy
Spirit,” though on page 171 he admits that “the protection of God against the powers of darkness cannot
be claimed even by the child of God if he persists in adding to or taking away
from this pattern” (of the N.T. Church). Is 1 John 4: 1-6
included?
But let us come at last to THE BIBLE TESTS
THEMSELVES, the
oracle and ephod of the Law and Testimony. These are to try the spirits
speaking through the prophets, for “many deceivers are entered into
the world, who confess NOT that Jesus Christ is come (and is coming) IN THE FLESH”; a significant omission in the original ‘revelation’ through the Sunderland Boddy girls (B. p. 1:84), as also in Ferrar Fenton’s daringly erroneous rendering of the crucial Shibboleth of
John’s Epistle. Now an honest man, even when he has successfully made
purchases with suspected banknotes, will surely submit to having any others in
his possession examined by experts, who while not questioning his integrity,
will trust nevertheless only to what the microscope reveals. We know that you
dear friends yourselves would pass the tests of 1
Corinthians 12 and 1 John 4, but we urge you to do what we fear you have never been able to do, viz.,
to get the spirit you have received to confess by its personal positive answers
to God’s own criteria that it is the Spirit of God, under no Divine
embargo of silence as in the Gospels (Mark 1: 34; Luke 4: 41). All other tests are out of place or out-of-date. Our sole,
safe, sure touchstone password and watermark must be the Lord’s HEREBY! We
respectfully but resolutely insist on seeing the heavenly image and
superscription, before we can pay tribute to what J. (p. 226) describes as “the
greatest and most continuous revival since the days of the apostles.”
-------
Out of the realm of the glory light
Into the far-away land of night,
Out from the bliss of worshipful song
Into the pain of hatred and wrong,
Out from the holy rapture above
Into the grief of rejected love,
Out from the life at the
Father’s side
Into the death of the Crucified,
Out of high honour and into shame
The Master willingly, gladly came;
And now since He may not suffer anew,
As the Father sent Him so sendeth He
you!
- H. W. FROST.
* * * * * * *
[PART 2]
THE MODERN GIFT OF TONGUES
The
whole history of the Church warns us against forgetting that very good and
sincere men may set on foot great errors - and thus inflict an injury upon the
cause of Gospel truth of which worse men would not be capable. - BISHOP Mc’ILVAINE.
* * *
Twelve
years ago I recall that I with some friends travelled a 100-minute journey to
our Pentecostal meeting in
* * *
Concerning
the Tongues-movement I would ask these questions:-
1. Have those who profess to speak with
tongues learned to distinguish between the psychical and the spiritual? [i.e.
between animal, emotional excitement and the exaltation which is of the Holy
Spirit.]
2. Are they always careful, before they
give way to the prompting, that an interpreter is present, according to the
apostle's clear injunction (1 Cor. 14: 28)?
3. Have they learned to control their
own spirits and keep silent if three others have spoken (1 Cor. 14: 29)?
4. Do women keep silent?
If people carefully acted upon the apostle’s injunctions
contained in that memorable chapter (1 Cor. 14.) it is my humble opinion that this
movement would cease its divisive, and, in many cases, disastrous work. - F. B. MEYER, D.D.
* * *
An early
summary of Pentecostalism by a sober, godly observer, recorded in the Life of Faith (June 3, 1908) in the movement’s dawn, would be astounding
if there really had been a descent of the Holy Ghost.* He writes:- “False prophecies (proved so by time) have abounded; contrary
‘tongues’ have appeared in the same individuals; demonic
possession, or at least control, came to some most deeply spiritual people,
from which they were only delivered by faith and prayer upon the part of
others; anathemas have been pronounced upon those who questioned, urged caution,
or withstood the work; all other experiences of grace have had no relish for
many unless these were in some way connected with ‘tongues’;
experienced teachers, from whose tongues or pens great blessing had hitherto
come, became ‘back numbers’ in a moment; fanciful, strained, and
the most unreasonable interpretations of the simplest Scriptures were immediately accepted, and without reflection were dogmatically and
insistently preached to others; quiet, retiring, teachable natures, who were
charitable to a fault, were transformed into dogmatic, unteachable, schismatic,
and anathema-believing souls; salvation by grace was buried under the doctrine
that without the ‘sign’ of tongues you will be lost; manifestations
(such as shaking of the body, etc.) were urged and insisted upon - people were
made to feel that they must have these; loud praying, shouting, and screaming
were taught as essential to earnestness; mere noises, some being like the
sounds of animals, passed for tongues; necessary work was laid aside, and
missionary work neglected; responsibility to obligations was forgotten, and
moral sensibilities benumbed, as though the individual was under the effect of
an opiate; impressions and voices displaced the Word and providences in matters
of guidance; messages in tongues were sought, obeyed and placed - practically,
though unconsciously - above the more sure ‘Word of prophecy’;
some, when under this power, beat their hands against the floor till they were
bruised, so much so that mats had to be placed on the floor, while others
pounded their lower limbs till the latter were bruised and blue.”
* Moreover, a ‘descent’
is now impossible, for He is here. A
future descent (Rev. 5: 6)
can obviously only occur after the Spirit’s return to heaven (2 Thess. 2: 7).
* * *
Spiritualism
has every ‘miracle’ of
Pentecostalism, even including its ‘Pentecost’.
“People talk of Pentecost as something mystical,”
says Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “I and my wife have been in an upper room in
Missionaries have been sent into all lands, with assurances,
never fulfilled, that they would speak in the new dialects. “When I was
baptized with the Spirit in Los Angeles,” says Mr. H. G. Garr, a foremost Tongues leader, “I
began speaking in tongues immediately, and a day or two after a young man,
about 25 years of age, came to the meeting and hearing me pray in the unknown
tongue, said I was speaking things he could understand and desired that I
should pray for him. He informed me that I had been speaking in several languages
of
* * *
The
misuse of the tests is peculiarly mischievous. “I went to the Lord very
definitely in prayer,” says a leading Tongues evangelist, Mr.
* * *
On
December 19 and 20, 1907, representatives from all parts of
(1) We confess that God is able to give
the Biblical gifts of the Holy Ghost in our time as well as in the beginning of
the Church.
(2) We state the grave fact that in the
late movement in
(3) We must say that we missed in a
highly deplorable measure the trying the spirits, as the Word of God orders.
(4) We confess this deficiency as guilt
and blame falling on us, as on wide spheres of the Christian Church.
(5) In the deep consciousness of the
necessity to oppose and reject every strange spirit, we warn the people of God
not to be led astray, and advise strongly to keep in holy restraint, watching
and praying before God. - The Christian,
Jan. 9, 1908.
* * *
Nevertheless
we need to guard carefully against an otherwise inevitable reaction. In an
older generation Satan’s effort was to convince that nothing
supernatural, either demonic or divine, had ever occurred, and then, on minds
thus wiped clean of warning, he introduced Spiritualism: now, with the demonic
supernatural multiplying on every hand, he would indoctrinate Scriptural minds against the divine
miraculous. The current view is expressed by Bishop J. C. Ryle:-
“We have no right to expect miracles now. If
miracles were continually in the Church, they would cease to be miracles. We
never see them in the Bible except at some great crisis in history, such as the
deliverance of
* * *
29
THE SILENCE OF SISTERS
It is
not only loyalty to the Word of God, or a consciousness of perils which history
has shown to be far from imaginary, which compels us, at all costs, to enforce
the Scriptures; but a sweeter motive wooes and wins -
“that we may present every [believer] perfect in Christ” (Col. 1: 28), “giving honour unto the woman, as
unto the weaker vessel” (1 Pet. 3: 7) - a sentence which holds in it the whole soul of chivalry; and
no honour is so real or effectual as clearing her pathway, by eliciting her own
glad obedience, into the heart of the coming glory. For an athlete “is not crowned, except he have contended lawfully” (2 Tim. 2: 5): the regulations for women, as also
for men in their sphere, will decide the issue of their coronation:
woman’s obedience is essential to her glory. It is lowliness, not
publicity, which determines, for both sexes, degree of rank (Matt. 20: 26) in the coming Kingdom. And on the
silence of sisters one regulation is outstanding and supreme. “LET THE WOMEN KEEP SILENCE IN THE CHURCHES: FOR IT IS NOT
PERMITTED UNTO THEM TO SPEAK” (1 Cor. 14: 34); a Scripture so clear, so decisive, that
no one doubts what it seems to mean: let us ponder, therefore, the explanations
advanced to prove that it does not mean what it seems to mean - namely, the silence of sisters in the
assemblies of God.
(1) It is said that the word here should
be translated ‘wives’ not ‘women’ and that thus it is a rule for the
married only. But the vast majority of women, as of men, are married: this objection, therefore,
would give but little relief: the rule would still be binding on the vast
majority of womankind. Moreover, if so, it compels the inference that while
godly and mature matrons are enjoined to silence, girls in their teens (as well
as mature unmarried women) may rise and teach the Church; a statement which has
only to be made to be rejected.
(2) It is said that the word means
‘chatter’, and refers only to
thoughtless or flippant interruption. But the word is used twenty-four times in
this very chapter, and never once in the sense of ‘chatter’ or ‘interrupt’ it is used throughout of prophecies
and inspired utterances; and once (ver. 21) of God’s own utterance. The
Greek word exactly corresponds to our English word ‘speak’, covering all utterance, dignified or
undignified. Moreover, the Holy Spirit has already said, - “Let the
women keep silence”: the injunction is
thus wholly unmistakable, for it is affirmed both positively and negatively.*
* “Some
writers in
(3) It is said that this is a restriction
belonging to the Law of Moses, from which the Gospel has freed women. But Paul
says, - “Let them be in subjection, as
also saith the law”; that is, on this point, according to the Apostle, the Law
and the Gospel are identical. Woman’s ministry in synagogue and temple
was wholly unknown and forbidden; though as nothing to that effect is
explicitly recorded in the Mosaic Law, the restriction has actually advanced in definiteness under
the Gospel.
(4) It is said that the regulation was
for Corinthian women, accustomed to loose habits, and educated in a lawless
atmosphere. But the Epistle is addressed (1: 2) “to all who call upon the name of the
Lord in
every place:”; “let the
women keep silence”: and not, in the Church at
(5) It is said that these are rules
confined to the miraculously gifted of the
(6) It is said that Paul elsewhere (1 Cor. 11: 5) allows the woman to pray and prophesy, if covered. Obviously
the gift of prophecy is for both sexes; but there is no New Testament example
of a woman’s public prayer or prophecy:
* Does the regulation cover public prayer also? It would
seem so. This very chapter regulates prayer in the assemblies, - “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prayeth”
(ver. 14): and then the Spirit says,
- “Let the women keep silence.” Is not audible prayer a breach of
silence? and is it not an assumption of some degree of authority in leading an
assembly to the Throne? In 1 Tim. 2: 4, 5, the word for ‘men’ is man inclusive of woman: “God willeth that all men [all human beings] should be saved”; but in ver.
8
it is man as distinct from woman;
“let the males pray everywhere.”
So, moreover, Alford:- “The English Version (A. V.), by omitting the article has
entirely obscured this passage for its English readers, not one in a hundred of
whom ever dreams of a distinction of the
sexes being here intended.” Even questions, which are no
assumption of authority, are (ver. 35) forbidden. Collective
singing (Col. 3: 16)
is commanded.
(7) It is said that God has set His seal
of approval on woman’s ministry, at least in evangelism, by granting
conversions under her words. But nothing that can occur, not even conversions,
can unsay what the Holy Spirit has said: only a rescinding order from the
Spirit Himself, verbally expressed, can authorize disobedience. The kindred
fact that conversions can occur under an unregenerate preacher is no Divine
authorization of an unconverted ministry, but merely demonstrates that the life
is in the Seed, not in the hand that sows it. The Word of God is liable to
convert from any mouth. Moses may strike the rock, “rebelling
against the word of the Lord”, yet the waters flow (Num. 20: 11-24) - for the Holy Spirit will flow
forth to parched lips from the smitten Christ even when disobediently invoked.*
* One purpose of prophecy was the
conviction of unbelievers (1 Cor. 14: 24, 25):
nevertheless prophets, never prophetesses, are here named throughout; and
women, whether prophetesses or not, are enjoined to silence. Whoever believes
sane, catholic-hearted Paul to be guilty of sex-prejudice, a sex-prejudice
which he has embedded deeply in Holy Scripture, not only tramples underfoot the
doctrine of inspiration, but is spiritually incompetent to comprehend the
Apostle.
(8) Finally - (and this exhausts the
objections known to us; objections, we may add, never advanced, so far as we
are aware, by front-rank commentators - it is said that exceptional women have
been raised by God above this rule. The answer is obvious. God is sovereign,
and may make what exceptions to His own rules that He chooses; but we may not make them. And is it certain that there have been any such
exceptions in this dispensation as will stand the searchlight of the
Judgment-Seat of Christ? There is a Deborah in the Old Testament: there is no
Deborah in the New. No female pastor, apostle, ruler, or evangelist - no head
or teacher in any church except Jezebel (Rev. 2: 20)
- is named throughout the New Testament.*
* As a woman may teach other women (Titus 2: 4),
and also all under age (Col. 3: 20), but not men (1 Tim. 2: 12), except in private
conversation (Acts
18: 26),
she may instruct four-fifths of the human race, even - if it so happens - in the Albert Hall.
Very significantly, it is exactly at this juncture that Paul
disappears, to make way for God. “What? was it from you that the word of God went forth? or came it unto you alone?” A universal rule, made by the [Holy] Spirit for all churches is the only
rule for a local church: a local assembly has no power to authorize its women
to speak. For this decree is not an apostle’s judgment, or the collective
wisdom of the Churches, or even the decision of all apostles and prophets: it
is the personal command of the Head of the Church, and therefore is to be enforced
on the consciences of all the saints with the full authority of God. It is an
exceedingly impressive proof of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the
universal Church that such an acknowledgment has always been made.
“This rule,” says Bishop Ellicott, “was carefully maintained in the early Church: its
infringement had a far graver import than might appear on the surface, and, as
we well know, expanded afterwards into very grave evils”; and for
eighteen hundred years the Church Catholic, with hardly a dissentient voice,
enforced this commandment as of the Lord.
But the matter is graver still. The attitude of all inspired persons on this church regulation
infallibly reveals the source of their inspiration. “If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet or inspired, LET
HIM ACKNOWLEDGE” - as a test of the source of his inspiration - “that
they are the commandment of the Lord.” It is most remarkable that the
prophets and the inspired at
Exquisitely does the Apostle sum up the entire relationship of
the sexes. “Howbeit neither is the woman without the man, nor the man
without the man, in the Lord the Christian Faith requires both, two halves of one
whole, in which one is chief, joint-heirs of the grace of life (1 Pet. 3: 7): “for as the woman is of the man [in creation], so also is the man by
the woman [in birth] the woman is the glory of
the man” (1 Cor. 11: 7, 11). So the Holy Ghost is careful to insist with equal emphasis
on two things - the husband’s love, the wife’s obedience (Eph. 5: 24, 25); for where these two are, there is
the perfect home. As a woman herself has put it, tenderly and beautifully:-
Her seat is endless ministry: her
crown
The need and worship of some man whose
love
She o’er her pride and
self-desire folds down
And sets in mastery her own heart
above;
Her sceptre is a little child’s
weak hand;
Her orb, humility; her mantle, prayer;
Her right divine, to be, at Heaven’s
command,
Man’s mother, mate, and
help-meet past compare.
* * *
30
THE HAND ON THE PLOW + 2
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
“The field is the world”
(Matt. 13: 38); and our Lord isolates a single man,
plowing, as a photograph of every Christian disciple in active service in the
wide field of the world. The world is to be plowed with the furrows of God;
every believer starts with his hand on the plow; the furrow is to hold the
seed, and to produce the harvest; and the far-off goal of the plowing is the [millennial] Kingdom. It is a glorious summons to
us all to plow. Our Master is worthy of the very best we can give: the
perishing, dying world is calling for our pity and our help: our uttermost
devoted to God brings the fullest joy, and beyond are the ‘many cities’ of wider service in the coming
Kingdom. The simplest believer of either sex is set to plow somewhere in the
field, and can plow the richest furrow.
THE HAND
Exactly what the hand is which is placed on the plow the
man’s words have already shown. “I will follow thee, Lord” (Luke 9: 61): it is the direct, personal prayer to Christ of a saved soul;
he has believed Jesus to be the Lord; and in that vital prayer he has
acknowledged all that the Lord is - the Son of God demanding our discipleship;
and he has devoted himself simply to following Christ. Instantly he becomes an
engaged plowman in the service of God. A whole world of activity opens before
him; his task is to dig open the soil of the human heart to the Sun of
Righteousness, the Light of the World, and then to plant it with the Word of
God. A straight, rich furrow imagination can see lying between him and the far
horizon: that hand has gripped the highest.
INDECISION
But now some additional words in the man’s prayer reveal
a sudden danger. A plowman’s double duty is to have his hand on the plow
and his gaze fixed on some object ahead by which he can drive a straight
furrow.* “But first suffer me,” this man says, “to bid
farewell to them that are at my house.” Uninflamed
by the red-hot earnestness of Christ, and the terribly imperative nature, the
awful urgency, of the summons to plow for God, he suggests postponing his
service; and hopes that Christ will agree. To “follow Christ”, as this man had not only resolved to
do, but had told the Lord he would do, is as great in
its cost as it is magnificent in its opportunity: it means the severance of old
and strong ties; exposure to hatred and possible violence; a lonely walk.
Therefore the home behind, to which he wishes to bid farewell, is full of
danger. The farewell at home has been, in countless cases, a farewell to Jesus.
* The concentration required a recent competition (Times, Oct. 29, 1937) shows. “All the morning these fields were the centre of interest.
Friends and relations gathered on the headland opposite the plowman of their
choice. Every man worked in grim earnest. He looked to his rean,
to his cop, and, satisfied or not, to his initial entry. One man saw that his
furrows were not packed closely enough, another that his gathering widened
slightly, and another that his slitting might not work out evenly. The face of
the field changed; pale, dry soil gave place to moist red earth. The teams
moved up and down, brasses flashed in the sunlight, steel hames
glittered against the fresh black polish of the collars. Here eight white hocks
were moving in unison, there a pair of white faces showed up across the
reddening field. The rise and fall of the land was emphasized by the curving
line of the furrows.”
THE FACE
So the Lord introduces a new feature
into the photograph: the plowman’s hand is on the plow, but his face is
turned back; and the Lord’s comment on His interviewer’s words is
this:- “No man, having put his hand to
the plow, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.”
Looking back means that
the plowman’s eyes are off the plow; and therefore either that he is not
plowing, or else that he is plowing anyhow - with certain disaster ahead:
ground chopped by a blind plow cannot be sown. Our Lord Himself, in this very
chapter, had extraordinarily illustrated His own words. “When
the days were well nigh come that he should be received up, HE STEDFASTLY SET
HIS FACE to go to
THE BACKWARD LOOK
It is most significant that this man, though looking back,
still has his hand on the plow: it is a disciple still in the active service of
Christ, and to all appearances a devoted servant of God. What does the backward
look mean experimentally? Have we not all felt moments when every fibre of our
being called us to look back? The furrow we are driving is so narrow; the
Christless philosophies of the world are so comforting and wide - ay, and so
remunerative; the ground we plow is so hard and stony; the Christian service is
so solemn, and the refusing of fleshly and worldly desires so stern. But there
can be no martyr’s crown without the martyrdom: we can never win the
‘well done’ unless we unremittingly
do well. “If he” - my ‘righteous one,’ a truly saved soul - “shrink back, my soul hath no
pleasure in him” (Heb. 10: 38). “Not every
one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord” - this man had said, ‘I will follow thee, Lord’ - “shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that DOETH THE WILL” - the flawless furrow - “of my
Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 7: 21).
BUT
One little word which the man uses is charged with infinite
meaning; an ominous, treacherous word, that can undermine the best resolves and
ruin the fairest prospects. “I will follow thee, Lord; but.” I
will follow thee, Lord; but - not yet. I will follow thee, Lord; but - I
will not let anyone know it. I will, follow thee, Lord; but - my employment
will be endangered. I will follow thee, Lord; but - Christians expect me to be
too strict. I will follow thee, Lord; but - I cannot accept the whole Christian
creed. I will follow thee, Lord; but - I cannot obey all thy commands. The dangers lurking in
the backward look Bishop J. C. Ryle has stated in tragic words:
- “I can certainly testify, after sixteen
years’ ministry, that by far the most hopeless deathbeds I have attended
have been those of backsliders. I have seen such persons go out of the world
without hope, on whom every truth and doctrine and argument appeared alike
thrown away. They seemed to have lost the power of feeling, and could only lie
still, and despair.” God will flash upon a soul its magnificent
duty, a privilege that angels must envy: a sermon will pass like a spasm of
thunder over a soul: that soul goes home, it sees the frowns, it hears the
sobs, it listens to the entreaties - and then it turns its back upon the golden
furrow to the - [soon coming, and Christ’s
promised (see Psalm
2:
8 & Psalm 72.) messianic and millennial] - Kingdom. For merely looking back God’s
lightnings turned
THE KINGDOM
Our Lord finally states the consequence of the backward look
for the Christian disciple. “No man, having
put his hand to the plow, and looking back,
IS FIT FOR THE
KINGDOM OF GOD.” The
OUR RESOLVE
It is of the richest significance that the Gospel urgency so
far exceeds any urgency under the Law that our Lord forbids the very thing which
Elijah allows. “Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go”
(1 Kings 19: 20). Ours is rather the golden resolve
of Paul. “One thing I do, forgetting the
things which are behind - with not one backward look - “and
stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto THE PRIZE of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”
(Phil. 3: 13). Bishop
Hannington died a martyr’s death, and all
martyrs will be in the Kingdom (Rev. 20: 4). “How 1 dread my
ordination!” he wrote, in his early years. “I would willingly draw back; but when I am tempted to do so, I hear
ringing in my ears - ‘No man,
having put his hand to the plow, and looking
back, is fit for the
-------
PRAYER
Prayer was a large part of Bishop Asbury’s life. Thus he
began every day:- “Rose this morning with a
determination to fight or die, and spent an hour in earnest prayer.”
Communion with God through prayer was his very life. “Having a day of rest from public exercises, I spent it in
meditation, prayer and reading.” He was always planning to secure
more time for prayer. “I feel determined to use
more private prayer, and may the Lord make me more serious, more watchful, and
more holy.” Wherever he stopped for the night he prayed; wherever
he ate he closed the meal with prayer. At the approach of conference he sought
opportunities of special prayer for Divine guidance. At one time it was his
practice to set apart three hours of every twenty-four for this spiritual
exercise; at another time it was his habit to spend a part of every hour when
awake praying; at still another, ten minutes of every hour. When men mocked
him, his revenge was a prayer that God would bless them. If ever a man sought
to live a life of prayer, it was he. “I am much
employed in the spirit and duty of prayer,” he writes, “but earnestly desire to be so. My desire is that prayer
should mix with every thought, with every wish, with every word and with every
action, that all might ascend as a holy, acceptable sacrifice to God.”
- The Gospel Herald.
-------
GRANITE AND GOLD
Soldiers and stalwarts of the army of
Jesus,
Set to enduring, convicted of the
right,
Severed of conscience, walking the
furnace,
Thwarting the will of a super-man
might.
Soldiers and stalwarts of the army of
Jesus,
Standing to trial of cruelty, frame
Tortured and tempted, bandied and
broken,
Breaking the blood and enveloped in
flame.
Soldiers and stalwarts of the army of
Jesus,
Dying or living, upheld and elate,
Beyond wrath raging, passion,
persuading,
These are the ones of the strait
narrow gate.
Soldiers and stalwarts of the army of
Jesus,
Under the grinding machinery cold,
Weapons laid down - determined
defenders,
Granite, intrepid, tenaciously - gold.
- HAZEL POTTER
* * *
31
TWENTIETH CENTURY JUDGMENTS
By D. M. PANTON,
B.A.
“Thus saith the Lord God: I send my four sore judgments, the
sword, and the famine, and the noisome beasts, and
the pestilence”
(Ezek. 14: 21). Our Lord repeats these, adding earthquakes, for the days
merging into the Great Tribulation:- “Nation shall rise against
nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be great earthquakes, and in divers places famines and pestilences”
(Luke 21: 10, 11) all these, are the beginning of TRAVAIL” (Matt. 24:
8) - the first birth-pangs, preliminary
shudders. According to the man of the world, famine is overcome by transport,
pestilence by disinfection, and war by diplomacy - he is silent on how to
counter earthquake - and it is impossible for God to express His estimate of a
nation’s enormities, or of a world’s sin; whereas the truth is that
behind all physical laws are moral laws - moral laws which are far more
inexorable and eternal than the laws which bind the planets in their orbits, or
the stars to their courses. So for the whole world our Lord reveals that a
moment is coming when, by sickness, by starvation, by war, all on a huge scale,
God will hold forth the red lamp, as indicating a danger-point past which
intercession will be useless. Is that moment arriving? “Though
these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God” (Ezek.
14:
14). It is doubtful if there has yet
dawned on the
FAMINE
God's fourfold judgment opens with FAMINE. “Son of man, when a land sinneth against Me by trespassing grievously” (A.V.) -
exceptional sin calling for exceptional judgment - “I
stretch out Mine hand upon it, and break the
staff of the bread thereof, and send famine upon it,
and cut off from it man and beast” (Ezek. 14: 13). The two great famines of history have occurred in this century
and within six months of each other. Here is a summary from the Times (Dec.
15, 1920) of the Chinese famine:- “The
population now totally destitute in Chihli is
6,000,000; in Shantung, 2,500,000; in Honan,
3,500,000; in Shensi, 1,000,000; in
The Russian Famine was still worse, “apocalyptic,” said the Times (Aug. 5, 1921), “in its awful suggestion of collapse”; “a famine which far exceeds anything of its kind that has
ever been known hitherto in
EARTHQUAKE
In the place of noisome beasts - for during the Great
Tribulation this judgment will take the form of wild beasts from the infernal
regions (Rev. 9.), as well as the wild beasts of the earth (Rev. 6: 8) - our Saviour puts EARTHQUAKES
as the second great judgment act of God. “There shall be famines and earthquakes in divers places (Matt. 24: 7); and there shall
be great earthquakes” (Luke 21: 11). In December, 1920, an earthquake
occurred in China which literally shook the globe - greater than any known in
China since one in the eighteenth century, and another twelve centuries ago (Times, June
4, 1921). The principal shock fell on an area of 15,000 square miles, and vast
landslides engulfed numbers that will never be known, wiping out whole villages
and towns under falling hills. The official Chinese report, issued six months
after, recorded (though probably with exaggeration) a million deaths; and even
foreign computations, which put the number as at least two hundred thousand,
rank this earthquake as the most destructive in the history of the world. The
following is from the journal of a C.I.M. missionary:- “God’s hand may be clearly seen behind the earthquake,
for the trembling of the earth just came in time to smash up a Mohammedan
rebellion. It is said that 10,000 of the Mohammedan troops were swallowed up in
one of the
An aged worker in Kingston, Jamaica,
once said to the writer:- “I have worked in the slums of London, Glasgow, and other
great cities, but I have never known such sin as there is in Kingston; I do not
know how God withholds his judgments.” Within two years of her utterance
WAR
God’s third judgment is WAR. “I
bring a sword upon that land,
and say, Sword, go through the land, so that I
cut off from it man and beast” (Ezek. 14: 17); or, as the Saviour puts it - “Kingdom
shall rise against kingdom.” When the century opened there were forty-one royal dynasties
in the world: in seven short years twenty-four thrones - including the three
greatest land empires in the world - had collapsed and vanished. At the battle
of Waterloo thirty-seven tons of metal were used; on one day alone in the Great
War, and by the British only, eighteen thousand tons were hurled: in the whole
South African War, 2,800 tons were used; by the British alone, in the Great
War, three and a half million tons (Times, Sept.
10, 1919). The figures, out of all proportion to the mere growth of population,
are due to the fact that nations, not armies, now engage, and to the portentous
growth in the science of destruction. And the sword has indeed drunk its fill.
The casualties in the Great War, for
“We are living,”
says the Times (June 30, 1919) “in one of the
immense upheavals of the world. There has been no change comparable to it among
the States of Europe since the downfall of the
* It is a remarkable fulfilment of Ezek. 21: 26:- “Thus saith the Lord God; Remove
the mitre, and take off the crown; exalt that which is low [democracy], and abase that which is high [autocracy]; I will overturn, overturn,
overturn it; until he come whose right it is [to reign], and
I will give it him.”
PESTILENCE
The last of God's four judgments is PESTILENCE: least
observed and most mysterious of all, without warning and in the order of
Scripture - that is, immediately after the Great War - fell one of the greatest
epidemics of history. “I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my
fury upon it in blood” - a human haemorrhage - “to cut
off from it man and beast” (Ezek. 14: 19). In 1918 the medical correspondent of the Times (Dec.
18, 1918) said:- “Six million persons have
perished of influenza and pneumonia during the last twelve weeks. Business has
been interfered with in every country of the world, and enormous losses in
trade have been suffered. This plague is five times more deadly than war; never since the Black Death has
such a plague swept over the face of the world.” It broke out mysteriously in ships two
thousand miles from land, and no country in the world succeeded in eluding its
grip. In
OUR SUMMONS
It crowns the tragedy (though it but confirms the prophetic
page) that a section of the
* * *
32
THE KINGDOM A REWARD + 4
By WILLIAM BURGH
Nearly a century ago the truth on the
believer’s responsibility as controlling his entrance into the coming
Kingdom came afresh to light, once again re-inforcing Tertullian’s remark that the believers of his day prayed for
a share in the First Resurrection. Mr. Burgh, from whose Exposition
of the Revelation (1845) we quote, was a well-known writer on
prophecy. - Ed. [D.M.P.]
-------
I have revised
with care the opinion I gave in earlier lectures that the First Resurrection is
limited to a portion of the redeemed
Church; that while eternal life and inheritance are of faith and free grace,
and common to all believers merely as such, the millennial
crown and the first resurrection are a reward - the
reward of suffering for and with Christ; a special glory and a
special hope over and above the redemption hope and glory, designed to comfort and support believers
under persecution: a need and use which
I have little doubt the Church will before long be called on collectively to
experience, as it is experienced I trust even now, and has been at
all times, by more or less of its members.
I have re-considered this opinion, the more so as I learned that
there were not a few who objected to it;
yet I confess the result has been to confirm me more in it. The crown which
in its bestowment is special as it respects Christ, is also special as it
respects those who shall reign with Him. This glory follows His sufferings:
because He suffered He reigns; and in conformity with this rule, they who shall reign with Him must have suffered
with Him also. “That I may know him,” says the Apostle, “and the
power of his resurrection, and the
fellowship of his sufferings;
being made conformable to his death, if by any means
I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead” (Phil. 3: 10). Of what resurrection does he speak?
Of the general resurrection? No: of that all are partakers. Of a resurrection
common to all believers as such? I ask then, is there no qualification intended
in this passage but faith? What mean the words “If by ANY MEANS I might attain”? What means “the fellowship of his sufferings”? But enough: the prospect of the millennial
crown, I hesitate not to say, was designed to keep the Church faithful in its
relation to the world - designed to keep it a suffering Church, because a
militant Church; a Church conformed to Christ in His cross, because conformed
to Him in His testimony to the truth for which He suffered. “IF we suffer
with him, we shall also reign with him”
(2 Tim. 2: 12).
But is not this to say that the whole Church should reign?
Even so: I do say the whole Church, at least all the elect of this
dispensation, should have reigned. Such, if I may so speak, was the rule; but
it has its exceptions; and these
exceptions have been caused by declension, by compromise, by
unfaithfulness. In vain would we assimilate those between whom God makes a
difference; and a difference He does make between His servants according to
their fidelity. This [accountability] truth has long been suppressed in the Church,
and it is time it should be asserted. In a time of persecution, the
influence of this prospect would be felt in its full force: only happy will the
Church be if it has in that day those who know how to administer to it the
consolation of these promises. We cannot be surprised if the Apostles are found
often designating and describing believers as they ought to be, and not stopping
ever and anon to make the exception which a corrupt and declining state of the
Church should after exhibit. All are indeed called to reign as to suffer: this
is the hope of the Church: but the rule is not without its exceptions owing to
unfaithfulness and not “walking worthy of the vocation”.
So the Lord says to the Philadelphian Angel, “Because
thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also
will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which
shall come upon all the world, to try them that
dwell upon the earth” (Rev. 3: 10). ‘The word of Christ’s
patience’ is invariably used in the New Testament to describe the
patient waiting for the hope of His second advent; and accordingly He
immediately follows up this by the declaration in the next verse, “Behold,
I come quickly”: the great reference of this promise
is to that ‘time of trouble’
which shall precede His second coming.
So also to the Laodicean Angel He says, “Him
that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and
am set down with my Father in his throne” (Rev. 3: 21). His own throne, as distinct from His
Father’s, is the throne of His mediatorial Kingdom, and on this throne
His - [‘accounted worthy’] -
redeemed shall be admitted to sit down with Him: that is, those who “overcome”; for it should not be forgotten that
it is not to the believer merely, as such, that these rewards in the Seven
Epistles are held out. The believer, as such, is indeed saved and possesses
eternal life: but these rewards, it is impossible to deny, imply something more
than - [a believer’s initial and ‘grace’ only] - salvation: and the character which entitles to them (if I may so speak)
is that of “suffering with Christ”, in the prospect of “reigning
with him” hereafter. To those who shall be
privileged then to rise and reign, it will not be the enjoyment of the final
glory of the Church, but of a special ‘glory’
and special ‘hope’ to which they
have ‘attained’ otherwise than in
mere consideration of their being believers and redeemed.
O there is enough in that one expression - “if so
be that we suffer with him” - to make us most anxious, most fearful lest we should come
short, lest we should fail “to apprehend that for which we are
apprehended in Christ Jesus”. May the Lord grant that these warnings may be blessed to us,
and given us in time to heed the warning
seven times repeated in these Epistles:- “HE THAT HATH AN EAR, LET HIM HEAR WHAT THE SPIRIT SAITH TO THE
CHURCHES.”
-------
A DISEASED BRANCH
I met,
week before last, in Chicago, a man who many years ago was sent to me from
SUFFERINGS
Luther Burbank,
the plant wizard and one of the greatest of modern scientists, has an
interesting suggestion, drawn altogether from his own experience in plant
cultivation. He has found that difficulties and obstacles and opposition are
not disintegrating and hurtful factors at all, but quite the opposite, making
for strength and variety and many other things that are excellent. Mr. Burbank
takes the cactus as an example. For thousands of years this plant has had to
endure all kinds of hardships and unfavourable conditions, scorching heat,
searing drought, piercing cold winds and all the parching conditions of the
desert, and yet it has persisted and survived, adjusted itself to changing
conditions and shows a vigorous and quite indestructible life. He tells of
hanging a cactus plant on a tree for four years and having it sprout and grow
vigorously ten days after planting, and of the case of a cactus slip placed on
a shelf four feed from the ground sending roots toward the ground through the
shelf on which it rested. The moral that
-------
THE DIAMONDS OF GRACE
It is rough work that polishes. Look
at the pebbles on the shore. Far inland where some arm of the sea thrusts
itself deep into the bosom of the land, and expanding into a salt loch, lies
girdled by the mountains, sheltered from the storms that agitate the deep, the
pebbles on the beach are rough, not beautiful; angular, not rounded. It is
where long white lines of breakers roar, and the rattling shingle is rolled
about the strand, that its pebbles are rounded and polished. As in nature, as
in the arts, so in grace; it is the rough treatment that gives souls as well as
stones their lustre. The more the diamond is cut the brighter it sparkles; and
in what seems hard dealing their Lord has no end in view but to perfect His
people’s graces. He afflicts not willingly; He sends tribulation to work
patience, so that patience may work experience and experience hope. - Dr.
T. GUTHRIE.
-------
THE EXAMINATION
He will come to judge us. We must all appear before
the judgment-seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done
in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. God will bring every work into judgment. Ah! my brethren, is everything to be
accounted for. Every mercy, every affliction, every deliverance, every moment,
every talent, every season of grace, every sermon and every sentence of truth
in it? Ah! Where shall we flee for help! or where shall we leave our glory! If thou, Lord,
shall mark iniquities, who
can stand? Who can answer for one of a thousand? I tremble to
think what danger we are in of being called to account for what has happened
here; our careless preaching, prayer, communicating, or converse, whereby we
have transformed the feast into three or four days uproar against Jesus, who
gave His life for us. Ah! how can I answer for having a heart so long, and
Christ so little profited by it! Ah! let us even now flee under the cover of
His blood, that then we may give a right answer; it was exacted, and
He answered it. - JOHN BROWN,
1768.
* * *
33
THE
The size
of
* * * * *
There is
to be a competition for space in
The orthodox Jews of Tangier interpret God’s promise for
* * * * *
What about
* * * * *
Just
after the disastrous earthquake in
* * * * *
On the
banks of the rivers of
* * * * *
“Lo,
these shall come from far: and these from the
A colony
of people descended from some Israelitish settlers came to the Western
Borderland of China several hundreds of years before the time of Christ. The
writer* for many years laboured as a
missionary in
* China’s First Missionaries:
Ancient
Israelites, by Rev. T. Torrance, F.R.G.S.
Thynne & Co., Ltd., Whitefriars
Street, Fleet Street.
* * * * *
Is it not a grand fulfilment of prophecy to see to-day - [in
2024] -
how the
* * * * *
The
The Fellows of the
May the Hebrew University of Jerusalem add new lustre to the
enduring fame and immemorial glory of the
In fraternal comradeship with scholars and scientists
throughout the world, may the Hebrew University of Jerusalem advance the
welfare of the human race, and above all, through Knowledge, help forward the
realization of the Psalmist’s praise of all-transcending Wisdom. “The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” - Address of the
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, inaugurated by Lord
Balfour in 1925, now has over 100 academic members on the staff, 100 technical
and administrative assistants and nearly 700 undergraduate students.
-------
Remember that Love must be fed;
It withers and dies in the cold:
Possess it and hold it fast,
For Love is more precious than gold.
Love keeps the heart in its Lord;
Love is the heavenly ray;
Love will continue the song
When the music has died away.
- DORIS GOREHAM.
* * *
34
It is
most wonderful to see the critical and supreme encounter between Christ and the
official heads of God’s chosen people, officials who were acting, with
unchallenged power and authority, on behalf of the only nation in the world
that stood for Jehovah. The nation that possessed the Temple, and the Priests
of Jehovah, and a line of Prophets for centuries, was face to face with One
claiming to fulfil all the prophecies of the Messiah who was to come; and we
see the marvellous encounter, step by step and word for word, as Israel made
official and (for two millenniums) final contact with the Son of God.
First we see the Court before which our Lord was brought. The
Sanhedrin, consisting of seventy leaders of
Now the lawlessness of the trial at once provides a startling
background for the radiant form of Christ. The Law decreed that no trial must
occur before sunrise; the accused must have an advocate, and be allowed
witnesses; and no death-sentence must be passed on the day of trial: here, the
court sat before sunrise; the Accused was given no advocate, and allowed no
witnesses; and the death sentence was passed on the day of trial. No
star-chamber was more lawless.
The heart of the whole scene at once reveals
itself. For the High Priest, after various suborned witnesses had failed to
establish a case, conceives a master-question which, he believes, will compel
the Prisoner to incriminate Himself. It was a question which centred its whole
weight on the heart of the claims of Christ: the High Priest had a perfect
right to put it: it was, in his person, the whole of
But the matter is still more momentous. The High Priest,
deliberately and of set purpose, puts our Lord under oath; which he had a
perfect right to do as the official representative of Jehovah; and no oath was
ever uttered under circumstances so solemn, or on a question of fact so
momentous. So also our Lord, who had been hitherto silent, instantly responds;
and by doing so accepts the alternative of either the truth or perjury. Four
times Jesus had been silent - once earlier before Caiaphas, once before Herod,
and twice before Pilate: now, when it is no longer a matter of false
accusations, but the challenge of the greatest of all truths, He speaks.
Caiaphas says:- “I adjure thee” - I put you under oath - “by the
living God”
- the most solemn conceivable oath - “that thou tell us whether thou
be the Christ, the Son of God” (Matt. 26: 63). The Law said:- “If any
one sin, in that he heareth the voice of
adjuration”
- he is put under oath - “if he
do not utter it” - his witness - “then he shall bear his iniquity” (Lev. 5: 1) - silence is guilt. So the High
Priest, solemnly and officially, forces a confession, under oath, which will
settle the controversy for ever: he directly charges home the fearful question,
“Art thou the Christ, the Son
of the Blessed?”
The answer of the Lord could not be more explicit. “And
Jesus said” - returning Messiah’s official answer to the official
challenge of God’s People, and speaking to the official leaders of
The effect of our Lord’s utterance it is impossible to
exaggerate. “And the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What further need
have we of witnesses? Ye have heard THE BLASPHEMY.” The Jews had plainly asserted (John 10: 33) that in saying He was the Son of God
- “Thou, being a man, makest thyself God”. They now can scarcely trust their
ears that He, so deeply humiliated and already death-sentenced, could make such
an assertion. We little realize the fearful issues at stake. “And
they all condemned him to be worthy of death”, and in passing the death-sentence on
blasphemy, they were acting strictly according to the Law, if blasphemy had
been committed. “He that blasphemeth the name of Jehovah, he shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him”
(Lev. 24: 16). So therefore if our Lord could have
denied Caiaphas’ challenge; or if He could have so softened down the High
Priest’s expressions - “Messiah, the
Son of the Blessed” - that they should not imply Godhead; it would not only have
saved His life to do so, but if He was not God, it was the only truthful, honourable, righteous
answer to give. On the contrary, the sole count on which our Lord was condemned
was nothing witnessed against Him, but His own simple statement of the truth of
His Deity.
So now we face the outstanding consequences in all their
fearful import. (1) The whole scene proves in what sense Caiaphas used the
expression ‘the Son of God’ on his own testimony- he had it carefully in mind when
he put his challenge; and therefore it equally proves in what sense our Lord
also uses the expression, for He is deliberately answering him: both meant Godhead,
or it would not have
been blasphemy. And (2) there is an even more fearful consequence. If our Lord
is not God, He was guilty of blasphemy; but, on the other
hand, it equally follows that if He was not guilty of blasphemy, He is God, and therefore everyone
to-day who either praises Him or disparages Him, but who at the same time deniesHis Deity, is
doing exactly what the Sanhedrin did - charging Him with blasphemy; and, in
consequence - since our Lord spoke the truth - is guilty of actual (though
unintentional) blasphemy himself.
A symbolic action of the highest significance closes the
scene. The High Priest did that which was strictly forbidden to a priest - he
rent his clothes. The command to priests was:- “Neither rend your
clothes, that ye die not, and the Lord
be not wroth with all the congregation” (Lev. 10: 6): that is, it endangered the
death-penalty. The Old Testament symbolism depicted the High Priest’s
robes as a picture of a perfect righteousness under the Law; and to tear up the
robe was to despair of justification under Law, and to confess oneself a lost
sinner. This is exactly what
Caiaphas unconsciously did; and what we all, sooner or later, must do;
for Grace robes where Law makes naked. Our very doubt was blasphemy, and our
righteousness was tattered rags. But this is our salvation. “HE hath clothed me with the
garments of salvation, HE hath covered me with
the robe of righteousness” (Isa. 61: 10).
It is amazing to find
And the iron hand of the Sanhedrin
once more threatens the
-------
MASSES FOR PURGATORY
I doubt
very much that history can yield a worse instance of gross and palpable mockery
both of God and man than the inhuman doctrine of purgatory. Well do I remember
my boyhood days in
* * *
35
THE TRUTH ON PURGATORY + 2
By
D. M.
PANTON, B.A.
The
steady advance of the Roman Church throughout the world, with the ever-growing
challenge of her claims, increasingly compels our mastery of all Scriptures
that impinge on the Roman creed; and not the least important is the truth on
Purgatory, since on this point the Scriptures she quotes need very careful
handling and adjustment if they are not to be allowed to strengthen her
position. Moreover, no doctrine is necessarily false because it is Roman, or we
should have to condemn the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection all
of which are Roman doctrines; and it is only justice to the Church of Rome to
examine her doctrines impartially. All Churches must be proved right or wrong
solely by Scripture.
CHASTISEMENT
Now the fundamental truth on the purging of the Church, a
truth on which all Christians are agreed and on which the Scriptures are
perfectly explicit, is the fact of the chastisement of the believer. The Word
of God could not state it more clearly. “If ye are without chastening,
whereof all [believers] have been made
partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons”
(Heb. 12: 8). That is, our discipline, however
drastic or prolonged, is the proof of our Father’s love, and a sign, not
of the believer’s destruction, but of his ultimate perfection; for “afterward
it yieldeth peaceable fruit of righteousness.” Our Lord, in stating this truth,
introduces the very word from which the Roman doctrine takes its name:- “Every
branch that beareth fruit, he PURGETH
it” - that is, prunes it with a knife- “that it may bear more
fruit” (John 15: 2). And this purging by chastisement can be disease and even
death. “For this cause” - an improper use of the Lord’s Supper - “many among
you are weak and sickly” - diseased and invalided - “and not a few sleep”
(1 Cor. 11: 30) - many actual deaths had been inflicted by the hand of God.
So on the fact of a believer’s chastisement, sometime, somehow,
somewhere, all Christians are necessarily agreed.
THE DATE
The cleavage between Christians now begins: on the mere fact
of chastisement the sole difference of conviction is on the date. Evangelical
theology confines chastisement to this life: the Roman places it mainly between
death and resurrection: the Scriptures reveal it as both in this life and also
(not in Hades but) at the judgment Seat of Christ. One word of God makes it
extraordinarily plain, and at once establishes the truth. “Some
men’s sins are open beforehand, going
before unto judgment; and some men also they follow after” (1 Tim. 5: 24) : that is, judgment, in some cases, overtakes the believer in
this life; in other cases, only at the judgment Seat. “It is
appointed unto men” - all men, whether believers or unbelievers - “once to
die, and after this cometh judgment” (Heb. 9: 27). So the truth is that chastisement is
now, and, when necessary, also hereafter.
CHASTISEMENT NOT CONFINED TO THIS LIFE
It is most remarkable to observe, and a fact almost unknown,
that the current Evangelical view is inherited from
*
Together with an emphasis on the sanctity of believers that hardly corresponds
with fact. Bishop J. C. Ryle thus defines the Church of
the regenerate: “This is the only Church which
possesses true sanctity. Its members are all holy in act, and deed, and
reality, and life, and truth. They are all more or less conformed to the image
of Jesus Christ. No unholy man belongs to this Church.” They are not
merely holy by profession, holy in name, and holy in the judgment of charity;
they are all holy in act, and deed, and reality and life, and truth. They are
all more or less conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. No unholy man belongs
to this church.” It is obvious to anyone who looks about him that
life has little to correspond with this golden band of imaginary saints; it
could only mean - contrary to all Scripture and fact - that only those who have
reached a very high degree of sanctification have ever been regenerated at all,
and that no deathbed has ever held a gross backslider. The words of the Lord as
to what will happen are decisive:- “That servant,
which knew his lord’s will, and made not ready, nor did according
to his will” - for it is no question of standing, but solely of
walk - “shall be beaten with many stripes”
(Luke 12: 47).
And when? “When his lord cometh” (43). It is gloriously true that our standing in Christ is perfect, for it is Christ:
nevertheless he who, concerning his walk, thinks himself sinless has a more
defective vision than the world around that
watches him.
** Isaac Taylor specially names Luke 12: 4, 5 -
a passage of peculiar appeal to martyrs. We may add the testimony of a modern
theologian. Dr. R. J.
Campbell writes:- “From the very earliest
times the Church has always taken a grave view of the state of lapsed
Christians. The penitential discipline of the early Church was so severe in
cases of what was held to be the forfeiture of baptismal grace, that usually
the offender was not readmitted to communion for years or even until earthly
life was ending. This was the reason why so many converts postponed baptism
until the hour of death was drawing near. Constantine the Great, who made
Christianity the religion of the Empire and presided at the Council of Nicaea,
was not himself baptised until he was on his deathbed; like many more, he was
afraid to incur the Penalties attaching to post-baptismal sin. It is to be
feared that we to-day have become too lax in this and other matters.”
JUDGMENT
For the Scripture truth is perfectly clear, and it is no
purgatory in an intermediate state. Our works follow us across the gulf of
death, and are judged, not in Hades, but at the Judgment Seat, in resurrection.
“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from
henceforth: yea, saith
the Spirit, that they may rest from their
labours; for their works follow with them” (Rev. 14: 13). Judgment occurs on resurrection. “For we” - believers, Paul even
includes himself - “must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ;
that each one may receive the things done in the body,
according to what he hath done” - that is, it is
solely a judgment of works - “whether it be good OR BAD” (2 Cor. 5: 10); so that a believer’s unconfessed
and unabandoned sins appear there for chastisement “For he that doeth
wrong” - and Paul says to Corinthian believers, “Ye do
wrong” (1 Cor. 6: 8) - “shall receive again for the
wrong that he hath done; and there is no respect
of persons” (Col. 3: 25) - that is, [regenerate] believers are not exempted because they are [regenerate] believers.* Death, on the
contrary, so far from involving a purgatory, is for all believers a ‘paradise’, - [in the underworld of the dead, within
‘Sheol’
/ ‘Hades’] - the “very far better”
(Phil.
1:
23) of the immediate presence of Christ;
so that the turning of the intermediate
state into a purgatory is a pure fiction.**
* So even for Onesiphorus whom Paul praises warmly, he
nevertheless most significantly prays that he may “find mercy of the Lord in that day” (2 Tim. 1: 18); and to a whole church he
says, “ye are carnal” (1 Cor. 3: 3):
not a few of you, or some of you, but “ye are
[as a whole] carnal” and all carnality,
unabandoned, must receive chastisement.
** It is true (and probably the source of
the confusion) that the lost are already in ‘torment’
in Hades (Luke
16: 23).
OFFICIAL DEFINITION
But the vital error in the doctrine of Purgatory is the
characteristic Roman assumption that our chastisement contributes to our
fundamental salvation. Only twice has the Roman doctrine been officially
defined. “If such as be truly penitent die in
God’s favour before they have satisfied for their sins of commission and
omission by worthy fruits of penance” - that is, before they have
assisted their own atonement - “their souls are
purged after death with purgatorial punishments”(Council of
Ferrara); “and the souls delivered there are
assisted by the suffrages [prayers and devotions] of the Faithful, and especially by the most acceptable
sacrifice of the Mass” (Council of Trent). Purgatory is merely a
part of the Roman scheme whereby a believer supplements Christ’s
righteousness with his own, and by his penal sufferings completes his
fundamental salvation.*
* A modern summary of the Roman doctrine will be found in Purgatory, by Dr. Bernhard Bartinaun: Burns Oates and Washbourne.
DIVINE PURGING
Now we turn to the Scripture truth.
God has provided two Purgings - one by blood, and one by discipline; and the purging by blood (the fundamental purging) must
precede the purging by discipline. According to the law, all things are purged by blood (Heb. 9: 22)
“how much more shall the blood of Christ purge
your conscience from dead works” - the deadly efforts of self-righteousness - “to
serve the living God” (Heb. 9: 14). For Christ has effected the essential and fundamental purging
once for all: “who when He had purged our sins, sat down on the
right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1: 3); and this purging is the sole basis,
and predisposing cause, of all subsequent purging. For only a saved soul can be purged by chastisement. No amount
or degree of suffering can improve into life a soul dead in trespasses and
sins, any more than dead wood can be made to grow fruit by pruning it: chastisement
cannot purge him: he can be purged, but not by chastisement: and God, in the day of grace, is not habitually chastening the wicked at all. For “if ye are without chastening, whereby all [believers] have been made partakers, then
are ye bastards, and not sons”
(Heb. 12: 8). Corrective sufferings are only
granted and effective to those already purged by the sacrificial sufferings of
-------
Apostasy
The Moderator of the American National Congregational Council
has declared for apostasy with appalling frankness. Mr. Roger W. Batso asserts (Christian World, June 17, 1937) that the
German Government is “improving upon historical
Christian faith” by selecting four simple but vital foundations
(Faith, Blood, Sacrifice, and Love) for its noe
national religion, and that the German Government, is, in fact, “purging
the churches of Germany, both Protestand and Roman
Catholic, of articles of faith and principles of practice which have proved
superfluous and injurious for modern life.” He says that American
Congregationalists should strip their Christianity of its superfluous beliefs
and traditions, including the Virgin Birth, the Physical Resurrection, and the
Apostles’ Creed.
-------
The Jew
The words of Olive
Schreiner are terribly true:- “The study of
European history during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson: that
the nations which have received, and in any way deal fairly and mercifully with
the Jew, have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed
him have written out their own curse.” It will be during the final
years of the dispensation, when the Jewish remnant are preaching the ‘message of the Kingdom’*,
that the living nations will have their chief opportunity to befriend and help
the Jew. These final years are the period between the [removal by a select]- Rapture of the watchful believers and
Christ coming to Olivet. - FRANK V.
MILDRED.
[* See Matt. 13: 19, N.I.V.
Cf.
Matt. 5: 20
& Rev. 3: 10]
* * *
36
THE TEST FOR THE INSPIRED + 1
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
One fact
alone is decisive that there are no divine miracles, none of the miraculous
gifts of the
MIRACLES
But now we are met by a grave and most disconcerting
challenge. According to our Lord, ‘great’
Satanic miracles are coming (Matt. 24: 24); and some closer test than that of mere
magnitude will shortly be imperatively required. Moreover, the willingness to
accept anything miraculous as necessarily divine has been, and still remains, a
constant pitfall even to devoted Christians. A stupendous blunder of the Church
of Rome, for example, has been to assume that all miracle within her borders
necessarily comes from God, an assumption which at once establishes as divine -
the moment they are proved to have occurred - speaking or winking images,
apparitions of the Virgin or other dead souls, miraculous healing by contact
with sacred relics, and all the ‘miracles’
of her ‘saints’. And Protestant
Christians are falling into an identical error. The Pentecostalists, because fundamental Christian truth is faithfully
preached among them, assume that the
supernatural tongues and miraculous cures which break out in their midst are
miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, a
second Pentecost. Moreover, the deplorable ignorance of the Church of God
(as a whole) on the facts and phenomena of Spiritualism renders hundreds of
thousands of [regenerate] believers a dangerously easy prey; and the equally
complete ignorance of the God-given tests for the inspired means that, when
suddenly confronted and convinced by the supernatural, they succumb at once.
THE INSPIRED
Now therefore the Apostle Paul, exactly meeting the needs of
the situation, in opening his great passage on the miraculous gifts exceedingly
carefully safeguards the peril. “Now concerning THE INSPIRED, brethren, I would not have you
ignorant” (1 Cor. 12: 1). While it is impossible to know
whether the genitive plural in itself is masculine or neuter,* it is surely obviously masculine -
“concerning inspired men”, not inspired gifts - because only men are spoken
of in the test given - “no man speaking”; and because miraculous gifts, such (for example) as miracles
of healing, cannot verbally pronounce on Christ, and this is the test. A test
is about to be given which will infallibly disclose men who are “speaking in the Spirit.” In the words of Archdeacon Farrar:- “‘In the Spirit’: the
phrase is a Hebrew one to describe inspiration. Among Gentile converts
‘tongues' would be classed with the overmastering influences which they
witnessed in the Sibyls, the Pythian priestesses, and the wild orgiastic
devotees of Eastern cults; and they would not like to call anyone to task for things spoken in a condition which they regarded as wholly supernatural.”
* So that - [the Greek words ...] -
may be either the Spirit-gifted or the Spirit-gifts. In either case, the word
confines the test solely to those under the supernatural power of a spirit, and
while under that power: therefore the mere
fact that the ‘gifted’ when not
under the ‘power’, state that Jesus
is Lord, and belong to Churches where the Lordship of Christ is fully preached,
is no proof whatever of the divinely supernatural being in the assembly. A
demoniac is simply a ‘medium’ who
has passed beyond the power of resistance; a medium is one who has a ‘familiar’ spirit that comes and goes at his
command; a Pentecostalist - like a Montanist or a
Camisard or an Irvingite - is (in many cases) a believer indwelt of the Holy Ghost, but on whom an evil spirit has fallen posing as the Holy Spirit;
and the Spirit-gifted (in the Apostolic Church) was one in whom not only the
Holy Spirit dwelt in regeneration, but on whom He had fallen in the baptism of
the Spirit. All these could, on occasion, be ‘inspired’.
IDOLATRY
So then Paul next reveals that there are two classes of the
inspired. To disclose the necessity of a divine test, he endorse’s
the genuine, but demonic, inspirations of paganism as a warning of our constant
peril - the cataclysmic frenzies that can accompany mediumship. “Ye know
that when ye were Gentiles, ye were led away” - a strong term, denoting being
hurried away by a force which cannot be resisted (
THE PERIL
A concrete example that wonderfully illustrates our peril, and
the peril of all Christians off their guard, though a crude example, is given
by a missionary in Mytho, Indo-China, writing in Prophecy.
He says:- “Some six years ago a group of
Buddhists came into our Mytho chapel, and during the
service kept up a muttering and mumbling in a strange tongue which none of the Annamese present understood. After the service the preacher
asked them what they were saying and also why, and was told that some heavenly
power moved them so to speak. After listening to the Gospel for several months
about two hundred of them professed to accept Christ and said they would put
away this practice (together with other heathen rites). In due time they were
baptized, and for five years they have been attending church and partaking of
the Lord's Supper, but showing a very low grade of spirituality. Questioned
from time to time regarding their practice of speaking in tongues they have
assured us that they had discontinued it, but we have found out that this is
not the truth. The tongues and purely heathen
rites have continued in private meetings, and now they come out openly and
say that since they have read the Bible they know that their speaking in
tongues is a sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and consider their spiritual
condition superior to that of everyone else, including the missionaries. They
are very unspiritual and a great drawback to the churches to which they belong.”
ANATHEMA
So Paul now reveals the touchstone that discriminates the
God-inspired from the Satan-inspired.* Wherefore - because you have been
hitherto in ignorance of the matter (Alford), an ignorance shared by the whole
modern Church - “I give you to understand” - as a fresh and unique revelation - “that no
man speaking
in the Spirit” - that is, no one supernaturally inspired by the Holy
Ghost - “saith, Jesus is anathema.” Such a curse, while it is not so
impossible as it looks, startlingly reveals the inspirations which we may
confront at any moment. Our Lord was anathema, as lifted on a cross (Gal. 3: 13); and Cerinthus, one of the earliest of the Gnostics, actually taught
that when the ‘Christ’ left ‘Jesus’ on the cross, He left Him accursed. So
the Ophites, serpent-worshippers of the first
century, demanded, for fellowship, that the applicant should curse Christ. The
words will never, under any conceivable circumstances, cross lips that are
inspired of God.
* And so at once reveals the ridiculous inadequacy of all
‘tests’ not divinely given, such as
the questions to be put to a spirit as suggested by Jeremy Taylor: “Whence are you? Are
you a good or a bad spirit? Where is your abode? What station do you hold? How
are you regimented in the other world?”
LORD
But, in days of ‘all deceit’,
and in circles where denunciation of Christ would only startle and alarm, the
converse in the test is peculiarly valuable. “And
no man” - that is, no inspired man - “can say” - it is physically impossible for him
to utter the words, under the direct embargo of God - “JESUS is LORD, but
in the Holy Spirit.” Therefore there must be supernatural proof
that a spirit has fallen on him before the test is put. In both aspects
of the test, all centres on ‘Jesus’ not ‘Christ’;
not on the Messiah which was to come, but on the Messiah who has come: the curse and the confession
mouth Hell and Heaven by revealing the relation of each to the Lord Jesus. So
therefore no man, so long as a supernatural power is operating through or upon
him, controlling his organs of utterance, can say, “Jesus is accursed”, if it be the Holy Spirit; and no
man, while under the supernatural handling of a spirit, can say, “Jesus is Lord”, if he is controlled by an evil
spirit.* It is exceedingly remarkable that
throughout no spirit is named except the Holy Ghost: for no good spirit - no
unfallen angel or dead saint - can, or will, fall upon a man, but only the
Divine Spirit; and therefore these last words, uttered by a spirit-controlled
man, reveal the Holy Ghost; the test, when favourable, reveals, and can only
reveal, One Person. “All these [miraculous gifts] worketh the one and the same Spirit” (1 Cor. 12: 11).
* The test in 1 John 4: 3 is the statement of a parallel
fact, but one wrung from the spirit itself. In answer to the writer’s
challenge to the controlling spirit of a leader of the Pentecostalists -
“Did Jesus Christ come in the flesh?”
- a challenge put after he had prayed in ‘tongues’,
the reply was given - “I have always believed
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” The evasion is fatal. It
is not the spirit’s belief, but the statement of the fact, that is the test; and to imagine such an answer as emanating from
the Holy Ghost would be as irreverent as it is ridiculous.
A MISCARRIAGE
One word must be added of the clearest warning. It is a
priori certain, and already the fact, that the elusive foe with whom we
are dealing, to whom the tests are perfectly known, will try to escape them
with all the slipperiness of Hell. It is impossible to overstate one fact. THE TESTS MUST BE ADHERED TO EXACTLY AS THEY ARE GIVEN BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD. Here is a case in point. A
missionary writes:- “About December, 1935, a young man, about 18 or 20 -
a student - was taken ill; and while unconscious spoke a good deal of English,
also another language supposed to be German, though I question if anyone
present was qualified to judge. He said, among other things - “Why do you make so much of my birth and not of my death?”
speaking as if in the person of Christ. A Chinese pastor who visited him became
suspicious, and decided to test the spirit. He asked if he acknowledged Jesus
as Lord. After a pause - I think the question was repeated, but I am not sure -
the answer came, - ‘I acknowledge Him as
Saviour-Lord.’ For some reason, not clearly repeated to me, the
pastor was convinced of the presence of an evil spirit and commanded him to
depart, which he did. I understand that
the young man, when he came to himself, had no recollection of any of his
words. He had made no profession of personal belief in Christ.” Our peril
is obvious. “All deceit of unrighteousness” - that is, every kind of subtle
deception - is that against which we are to be perpetually on our guard.
EVASION
The answer given by this demon is exactly such as deceives an
inexperienced worker:- “I acknowledge Him as Lord.” That is not the test. The test is, not acknowledgement of
the truth, but the statement of the truth itself : not, “I acknowledge Jesus as Lord,” but, “Jesus IS Lord”- a totally different assertion.* Thus the critical importance of this
test (as well as the other test directly for the spirit himself in 1 John 4: 3), in our closing days, it is
manifestly impossible to overstress; and it is equally obvious that the Holy
Spirit, having thus laid down a discrimination for the inspired, the moment He
restores inspiration to the servants of God His first act will be to point to His own test.
* It is very beautiful to note the doctrinal significance which
lies behind the tests. A spirit is required to confess that Christ has come in
the flesh; an inspired man to confess that Jesus is Lord - that is, Jehovah:
because the supreme difficulty felt by the spirit-world is how God could become
man; and the supreme difficulty of the human world is how a man can be God. The
Incarnation for ever sunders Heaven and Hell.
-------
SOME BOOKLETS
THE DYING
THIEF: THE RICH MAN AND
LAZARUS: THE GOOD SAMARITAN. By Wm. Marriott. Walters Brothers, 33-35
In English, French, Italian, and
German, these clear, simple, appealing booklets are specially designed for
Catholics, and are written by one familiar with Continental mentality. Parts of
a series of which 250,000 have been distributed, they are not sold, but
applicants who can are expected to cover cost and carriage.
* * *
37
ARMAGEDDON +1
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
The
* “The
correct reading, ... signifies
JEW-HATE
Now the master-passion of the gathered nations, the whole
driving-force of Armageddon, is hate of the Jew. The cry goes forth (Ps. 83: 4):- “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of
AIR WAR
It is exceedingly significant that the final Judgment Bowl,
under which Armageddon actually occurs (Rev. 16: 17), is emptied out on the air; and in a few hours the aeroplanes
planned for this year alone (1937) - namely 28,500, at a cost of £350,000,000
- could be, and almost certainly will be, over Palestine; beside the 4,000
planes already in France, the 3,700 in Italy, and the 3,000 in Russia.
Moreover,
ANTI-GOD HOSTS
But, partly because of the powers of
Hell behind the vast invasion of
* It is already in
THE SLAUGHTER
The battle is now joined. The muster of the armies of the
world for the extermination of Israel, and so of the Christian Faith, is the
final act that forces the hand of God: the Most High takes up the bitter
challenge of armed mankind, and, since all
judgment is given to the Son, it is the signal for the break-up of the
Parousia, and the descending Christ “and out of his mouth proceedeth
a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the
nations” (Rev. 19: 15).* Mutual slaughter, to some degree,
seems already to have occurred:- “every man’s sword shall
be against his brother” (Ezek. 38: 21); but the main slaughter comes from Christ alone: alone in His
substitutionary sacrifice on Calvary, He is alone in His judicial sacrifice on
Har-Magedon. “I have trodden the wine-press alone, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth” (Isa. 63: 3); and the mode of death seems to be
laceration by the sword from His mouth rather than the paralysis of lightning: “and
there came out blood from the winepress even unto the bridles of the horses, as far as a thousand and six hundred furlongs”
(Rev. 14: 20).**
Then the Beast and the False Prophet, who, as risen [out] from the dead, are immortal, are cast
alive into the ‘Lake of Fire’, which
has then for the first time come into existence; but all the vast gathered armies
“were killed with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, even the sword which came forth out of his mouth”
(Rev. 19: 21).***
* Doubtless all in Armageddon are
already doomed as stamped (Rev. 13: 16) with the Mark of the Beast, since no
others could either enlist or be conscripted.
** Some 200 miles: an extraordinary
forecast of warfare entirely modern. It is the length of the battle-line of
*** Over 10,000,000 men fell in the Great
War; but at Armageddon all are slain at once, and no one survives. A miraculous drying up of the
Euphrates (Rev. 16:
12)
had added the vast armies of
THE SACRIFICE
The details of the Sacrifice now come out with awful
vividness. As the Sacrifice of Calvary has its Supper, in which we feed on the
Body and Blood of that which has been offered, so here: “and I
saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried
with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that
fly in mid heaven, Come and be gathered together
unto the
great supper of God” (Rev. 19: 17). And Jehovah makes
it exceedingly plain. “Speak unto the birds of
every sort, and to every beast of the field.
Assemble
yourselves, and come; gather yourselves
on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of
* “The
princes of the earth” - the kings, presidents, and dictators of
the world - are present, and all apparently perish, at Armageddon.
Nebuchadnezzar, for iniquitous autocracy, fed like beasts (Dan. 4: 33): these, for autocracy more purely
Satanic, feed beasts.
THE BURIAL
The
WATCHFULNESS
A significant aside from our Lord Himself flashes out like
lightning from the blackest clouds, to warn us all that Armageddon is to have a practical reaction on the
Christian. “Behold, I come as a thief.
Blessed is he” - not that merely believes, resting
on privilege alone, but - “that watcheth, and keepeth his
garments” - his wardrobe of active - [not Christ’s imputed] - righteousness, all that men see of him - “lest he
walk naked, and they see his shame”. We are to be ready for the final
moment by being ready at every moment; and for God’s unwatchful servant -
then as now throughout the centuries - the
slothful life, the backslidden
discipleship, holds one certain consequence - public disgrace.*
* The fellow-heirs of the Kingdom who
accompany our Lord - “called and chosen and
faithful” (Rev. 17: 14) are
also said to overcome - “they also shall overcome”
- that is, they are ‘overcomers’;
but they are not said to overcome the armies below. Spiritually they do so, but not physically, any more than do the
Angels who also accompany Christ (Matt. 25: 31).
Finally, the Most High
Himself carefully exposes the awful and irreparable blunder the world
makes. The world judges God to be impotent because His chosen nation,
-------
THE EXTERMINATION OF THE JEW
An Encyclopedia
of Anti-Semitism in six
volumes, each of more than 1,200 pages, is being published in
* * *
38
THE COMING JUDGMENT OF THE SAINTS + 1
By CANON HOWITT
An Address to the Prophetic Bible
Conference,
“Do ye not know
that the saints shall judge the world (1 Cor. 6: 2). “Did ye not know?” It is as though
the Apostle would say, Is it possible that you have forgotten this truth? Is it
possible that you have overlooked the fact there is this wonderful destiny in
store for you, the rulership of the world? What would Paul say, I wonder, if he
came amongst Christians to-day? In that wonderful passage, Rom. 8: 17, Paul speaking by the Spirit, says:- “And if
children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” The saints of God are to be rulers - [upon
this restored
‘ground,’ and glorified ‘earth’ (Gen. 3: 17, Hab. 2: 14)] - with Christ, administrators under Him. of the
affairs of this world by and by. Oh, what a prospect that holds out to us!
Possibly you have heard the story of Queen Victoria, when she was a child. There came a time when her
parents felt that it would be wise for her to know that possibly she might some
day be Queen of England. Her governess, the Countess Lehzen, therefore, was
instructed to make that fact known to her: so she inserted in her history a
list of the Hanoverian kings, at the end of which she wrote the name
Now the question arises, Who will reign? It is a very solemn
question. It should be a most searching question, and I do hope and pray that
God will enable me to impress it upon everyone here, because, beloved, it will
mean so much to you individually if you will only think of it and act upon it.
Who are to reign with Jesus Christ? All the saints? Oh no, by no means. Let us
turn back again to that eighth chapter of Romans, looking now at verse 17: “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God,
and joint-heirs
with Christ: if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also
glorified together.” There will be no glorification, and there will be no ascent
to the throne, there will be no crowning and there will be no kingdom for us, unless we do suffer with Jesus Christ.
The easy modern ideas of the present day are not calculated to bring about such
a wonderful consummation; and Christians to-day are content to take things very
easily. I cannot help thinking, beloved, that we are in the eleventh hour of
the parable that speaks of the labourers of the vineyard. The eleventh hour is
not the usual time for a husbandman to go out and engage labourers; and if it
were not that the work is so tremendously pressing, no husbandman would ever do
such a thing. I believe the Lord is very near, and I believe that He is calling
many whom He never called before into
His service. I believe the reason is the urgency of the time. The Lord
wants us to be sharers in His work; and it will be those who are willing
to share in it and those who are willing to suffer in sharing in it, upon whom this wonderful privilege will be bestowed. It is
quite possible to be saved without reigning with the coming King; but the [future]* salvation that we should desire and
seek after diligently is salvation with
glory. Let us read on:- “It is a faithful saying: for if we be dead with him, we
shall also live with him: if we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us.” Without the suffering there will not
be the reign. No cross, no crown.
[*
See 1 Pet.
1:
3-11,
R.V. Cf.
Isa. 9: 6-7; 12: 1-5, R.V.]
Look at the type given in David. He
was crowned no less than three times. He was first of all anointed king at
For the Apostle compares (1 Cor. 3: 9) our life work to building. He says we
are all builders, building every day of our lives. He tells us that when the
building is completed there will come a great inspection. All our life actions
will he brought under review in the presence of God. I fancy that the fire
which is to try every man’s work is just the presence of God. Our God is
a consuming fire; and when we stand in the light of the Holy One, and that
light searches us through and through, it will reveal the actual character of
everything we have done, thought and said. Everything that is not according to
the will of God will then wither away ; and it will be only that which remains
which will be rewarded, and upon that our positions in the Kingdom
will depend. There are thousands of Christians who are only doing dead works
to-day. Much, very much, I might almost say by far the greater amount, of our
Church work is simply an accumulation of dead works, and it is not producing
the fruitage God wants it to produce. What, then, are the wood, hay and
stubble? They are all dead things. Wood is dead tree, hay is dead grass,
stubble is dead wheat stalks. When Christians are led by the motives of the
world, the flesh, or the devil - for it is quite possible for them to be led by
the devil, just as Peter was - then their life structure is only built of dead
works, and when Jesus comes, all will be exposed, and those works will pass
away. Oh, what a terrible thing it would be to get into glory, and to be found
naked before Him! Saved as by fire, with no reward! But what reward may be ours
to-day if only we will give ourselves whole-heartedly to Jesus Christ, and
begin to live with all our powers for Him.
-------
CONTROVERSY
Dr. Stalker in his
Imago Christi, p. 285, says, - “In the records of our Lord’s life we have pages upon
pages o{ controversy. It may have been far from the work in which He delighted
most to be engaged; but He had to undertake it all through His life, and
especially towards its close. The most eminent of His servants in every age
have had to do the same.” These words are true, yet some of us, it
may be, have had to dissociate ourselves
from those with whom fundamentally we are in the heartiest agreement, because we do not feel that their methods are of God.
To rightly conduct controversy it is necessary first of all to have very clear
convictions of truth, and then to examine the matter in dispute, as far as
possible, from all sides. We need also to, search our own hearts to see that
there is no selfish interest, or desire for self-prominence or advantage of any
kind. In addition there should be an earnest seeking of the grace of humility,
as well as of the mind of Christ in meekness and gentleness. We must likewise
give credit for any good that can be found in our opponent, and be careful not
to impugn motives which only God can rightly determine. - S. J. HENMAX.
* * *
39
CASTING ANXIETY ON GOD
Anxiety
can be one of the most powerful weapons of Satan. It clouds the mind, chills
the heart, and paralyzes the hand. To Melancthon,
harassed with anxieties over the parliament of Charles V at Augsburg, and what it might produce, Luther wrote noble words for a great
crisis:- “Thou art killing self with immoderate
cares; forgetting that the cause is Christ’s, and that as He needs not
thy counsels, so also He will bring it to pass without thy anxieties.”
Anxieties are pressing hard upon the Church of God anxieties concerning our own
spiritual growth; anxieties concerning our service; anxieties concerning the
Church of God; anxieties touching national crisis; international anxieties of
universal armament and world-war. Suicides and lunacies are mounting enormously
throughout a harassed world.
Let us glance at the setting in which we master anxiety.
Behind us is a prostration under the hand of God which is ready for anything
with a view to the great exaltation that is coming - “Humble
yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he
may exalt you in due time”: in front is tremendous battle - “the devil, as a
roaring lion, walks”: therefore, in between, is an utterly unloaded
Christian, who has disembarked his entire anxiety upon God - “CASTING YOUR CARE UPON HIM” (1 Pet. 5: 7). We are to be unloaded, unencumbered,
confronted, as we are, with Hell. In words of the psalm (6: 22) which the Apostle may have had mind:-
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never
suffer the righteous” - that is, those who do so cast their burdens on God - “to be
moved”.
But we need to ponder for a moment
exactly what it is we are to
cast on God. There is a carefulness, a prudent devotion to duty, which God has cast
on us: for example, Paul says - “Be
careful to maintain good works.” As Spurgeon has put it:- “There
is the care to love and serve Him better; the care to understand His word; the
care to preach it; the care to experience
His fellowship; the care to walk with God.” But the word here in
the Greek is totally different: it means fretful
apprehension; a troubled and distracted mind; as the Revised translates it,
anxiety - cares grown to cancers. The French version is, “Unload your care upon God.” We have seen a coal cart unload. The man removes a little iron pin, and
the cart is so balanced on its axles
that, with a slight pressure on the back of the cart, it tips up and the whole
load slides on to the ground, and the horse trots away with a light step. So
are we to discharge our black anxieties upon God.
We are to cast nothing less than all our care upon God not some cares, or only great cares, but all cares.* Many of our anxieties are personal to
ourselves; some relate to others; another very important group concerns our own
future, spiritually: it may be broken health, impoverished circumstances,
business anxieties; our children’s future, in a darkening world; imminent
possibilities of world war; our stand under persecution. It is not, cast away your cares, as the worldling does,
drowning them in dissipation and sin; but cast them on God, in an immense act of glorious faith. Somebody must carry these cares:
myself they can only crush and kill: whereas, if God has lifted off us our
greatest load, fundamental sin - it was laid on Christ on the Cross - is there
any load He cannot lift off us? Dr. F.
B. Meyer puts it beautifully
thus: - “He can smite rocks, and open seas, and
unlock the treasuries of the air, and ransack the stores of the earth. Birds
will bring meat, and fish, coins, if He bids them. He takes up the isles as a
very little thing: how easily, then, your heaviest load.”
* “Not
merely, when the house is on fire, not merely when the beloved wife is dying,
not mereIv when our children are on the brink of the
grave, but in the smallest matters of life, bring everything before God, the little things, the very
little things, what the world calls trifling things - everything - living in holy communion with our
heavenly Father, and with our precious Lord Jesus Christ, all day long”
(GEORGE MULLER).
So now comes the tremendous command. Its extraordinary force
comes out if we simply use another word:- “Throwing all your anxiety upon God.” The anxious believer, convinced of his Heavenly
Father’s all-power, all-wisdom, and all-love, decides to leave all that
gives him concern - and therefore all that makes him anxious - in the merciful
hands that are shaping his whole destiny. We are to forbid ourselves anxiety by
discharging ourselves on His love. “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let
it be afraid” (John 14: 27).
God never would send you the darkness
If He knew you could bear the light;
But you would not cling to His guiding
hand
If the way were always bright;
And you would not learn to walk by
faith,
Could you always walk by sight.
The Apostle Paul, in a strikingly parallel passage, tells us
exactly how we are to cast. “In nothing be anxious; but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God; and the peace of
God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard [garrison] your
hearts and your thoughts” - in which are our anxieties - “in
Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4: 6). Prayer tells God what the care is, and faith gets up,
care-free, and walks away leaving the care on God. So Hezekiah took the threatening letter
from Sennacherib and spread it
before God in the
The Apostle adduces one powerful argument, and one alone, to
convince us of our happy duty. “BECAUSE
HE CARETH.” If God cares for us, it is manifest that, committed to Him, our anxieties
are in the best and safest hands, and infinitely safer than they can ever be in
our own. And the word beautifully changes. “Casting all your anxiety upon
him, because he” - not is anxious, for God cannot be anxious: but -
“careth” - supervises and fosters, in
loving interest. In the ever recurring crisis of the Reformation, Luther would say to Melancthon:- “Let us sing the 46th
Psalm, and
let them do their worst! ‘God is
our refuge and strength; therefore will we not fear, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the seas’.” Our faith is being plunged in fire; and, like the goldsmith,
God’s care is for the gold, not for the fire.
Moreover, the argument to prompt us to lay our burdens on God
is intensely personal. “Because he careth FOR
YOU.”
Our Lord uses the same argument:- “Be not anxious for your life,
what ye shall eat, or
what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on; for your
heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things” (Matt. 6: 25, 32), Christ says it as much to you and to
me as He said it to any, saint of all time: because God cares for me, He will
unload me of my anxiety. How exquisitely God’s individual care is
revealed! “I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are mine” (Ps. 1: 11):-
“the young lions seek their meat from God”
(Ps. 104: 21):
“not one sparrow shall fall on the ground without
your Father: fear not therefore, YE ARE OF MORE
VALUE THAN MANY SPARROWS” (Matt. 10: 29). Two little boys were talking of
Elijah’s ascension. One
said:- “Wouldn’t you be afraid to ride in a chariot of fire?” “No,” said the other, “not if God drove.”
So now we can sum it up. To-day is a slender bridge which will
bear its own load, but it will collapse if we add to-morrow’s. In every
year there are 365 letters from the King, each with its own message - “Bear this for me.” What shall we do with the
letters? Open them a day at a
time. Yesterday’s seal is broken; lay that letter
reverently away: yesterday’s cross is laid down, never to be borne again.
To-morrow’s letter lies on the table; don’t break the seal. For when to-morrow becomes to-day,
there will stand beside us an unseen Figure; and His hand will be on our brow,
and His gaze will be in our eyes; as He says, with a loving smile, “As
your days are, so
shall your strength be.” The golden summary of our life is to
be this: as to the past, a record of gratitude; as to the present, a record of
service; and as to the future, a record of trust.
A member of the church he serves once wrote to the writer:-
“I shall be 28 years old next month, and I have
been deaf nearly 14 years; so for half of my life God gave me hearing, and for
half He has taken it away; but I can truly say that the latter half has been
the happiest of my whole life, for in it God has drawn me to Himself, and I
have been reconciled to Him through Christ our Saviour.” John Bunyan was once in a meeting of
Christian people, and he was full of sadness and terror, when suddenly there
“brake in” upon him, he says, with
great power, and three times, these words - “My grace is sufficient for thee.” “Oh, methought,” he says, “that every word was a mighty word for me; as ‘my’, and ‘grace’ and ‘sufficient’, and
‘for thee’.”
* * *
40
EVANGELISM IN THE LAST DAYS + 1
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
For
evangelism in the last days there is one central fact which dominates all other
facts, and masters them: the unremoved presence of the Holy Spirit in our
midst. The Holy Spirit’s mission, in coming to the earth
at all, was clear and definite:- “and he, when he is come, will convict
the world in respect of sin, and of
righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16: 8) - exactly the purpose of a gospel
mission; and as this is a supreme object of the Spirit’s presence on the
earth, that He is still here is proof positive that, where He wills, this
object will be achieved. Changes that are coming will be vast and critical,
involving revolutionary changes for the people of God on earth; but so long as
the Spirit is here - Godhead on the earth in love - there is no barrier to the conversion
of millions. This is our sheet-anchor, and a fact that masters all other facts.
LONGSUFFERING
A second fact is hardly less in magnitude, and hardly less
potent in its influence on our action. Our Lord’s Return is delayed solely for evangelistic
reasons. “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise”: He is slow, and lingering, but
through no reluctance to come: “but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, BUT THAT ALL SHOULD COME TO REPENTANCE” (2 Pet. 3: 9). So the Apostle sums up our commanded
attitude, in view of this amazing delay of the Advent:- “Wherefore,
beloved, account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation” (verse 14): that is, esteem its actual effect to be salvation; and therefore act on that fact, and on the purpose of
God behind the fact. It is astounding to learn that even in the last days, when
iniquity multiplies on every hand, God is willing, and is put on record as
willing, for the salvation of the whole of mankind:- “that ALL should come to repentance”.
JUDGMENT
A very singular fact next rises on the horizon. The first
great judgment that fell upon the Church was the death-stroke on Ananias and
Sapphira; and the consequence is charged with meaning. “Of the
rest durst no man join himself to them: howbeit,
the people magnified them; and
believers were the more added to the Lord, MULTITUDES” - the sole occurrence of the plural
of this word in the New Testament - “both of men and women”
(Acts 5: 13). Two deaths produced multitudes of
lives; and the tremendous revelation is thus given, on the threshold of the
Church’s history, that judgment on Church sin can be a lightning-flash of
the Gospel on the vision of the world. The world suddenly sees the
righteousness of God in the Church, and therefore the truth of the
Gospel. Judgment will have the same effect on the Church itself. Our Lord
says:- “I will slay her children [Jezebel’s] with death, and all the churches shall know that
I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts,
and I will give unto each one of you according to your works”
(Rev. 2: 23). In the enormous judgments that have
fallen on the Church in Russia, almost totally sacerdotal, and that are falling
on the Church in Germany, largely modernist, and that are yet to fall on the
whole church of God,* the ‘fearful’ of the Lake of Fire - the
cowardly - will not dare join up, but multitudes will.
* A poignant. example is now before us.
A friendless group of some 30,000 Assyrians in Mesopotamia are all that remain
both of the Assyrian Empire and of the
UNISON
One more outstanding fact confronts us in evangelism in the
last (or any) days. Mighty motion in a gathering is a work of the Holy Spirit,
acting on the spot; and He comes where there is unity. At Pentecost, they “all WITH ONE ACCORD continued steadfastly
in prayer”: “they were all
together in one
place” (Acts 1: 14; 2: 1). The type that forecasts the descent of the Holy Ghost is most
wonderfully confirming. “It came to pass, that when the trumpeters and
singers were AS ONE, to make one
sound in praising and
thanking the Lord” - a perfect harmony of soul in the ears of the Lord in
the Sanctuary - “that then the house was filled with a cloud, for
the glory of the Lord filled the house of God” (2 Chron. 5: 14). Mr. Moody, with an incomparable
evangelistic experience, gives a solemn warning:- “There is one thing I have noticed as I have travelled in
different countries; I have never known the Spirit of the Lord to work where
the people were divided * There is one thing we must have if we are to have the Holy
Spirit of God work in our midst, and that is unity.” Where there is painful
division in a church, if the sharply divided cannot make reconciliation, the
best gift they can give to a mission is to be absent.
SOWING
Another act of the Spirit is of great value in balancing our
judgment in evangelistic work; and it should be carefully stated in justice to
an evangelist. God is acting according to a studied plan: where He has souls,
there He saves: we can always sow the seed - and that is our duty and delight -
but God gives, or withholds, the increase: “ministers through whom ye
believed, and to each [minister or evangelist] as the Lord gave [of souls]” (1 Cor. 3: 5). “They
assayed to go into
STARS
One of the very greatest of all texts on soul-winning is set
in this very picture of our dying age. The Great Tribulation, the rising of
saints out of the tomb, the restoration of the Jew, and exactly what we see now
- “they shall run to and fro” (Dan. 12: 4) - intense rapidity over the whole
earth, in sky and land and sea:- in the hearing of it all are set these words:-
“They
that be wise” - the
teachers, wise towards others - “shall shine as the brightness of the firmament” - that is, the sun - “and they that turn many to
righteousness as stars for ever and ever.” And their work is summed up as the divine purpose of
God:- “And at that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone that shall be found written in the book.” The Church’s ‘angels’
are ‘stars’ on the earth in the
present midnight (Rev. 1: 20), as the holy Angels are the ‘morning
stars’ of Heaven (Job 38: 7): soul-winners, stars in grace, will
be stars in glory. They revolve round one centre - Christ; they reflect that Light
alone; they differ in size, pace, and brilliancy; they shine with
unconsciousness of their glory; and they reach a perfect radiance. “THEN SHALL THE RIGHTEOUS SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN
IN THE KINGDOM THEIR FATHER” (Matt. 13: 43).
THE COMMAND
So, therefore, the last book in the
Bible before the final drama begins, Jude, the preface to the Apocalypse -
moreover, in almost its closing verse (22) - enforces the drive of soul-winning at
the end. “On some have mercy, who are in
doubt; and some save, snatching them out of the fire: and on some have mercy with fear: hating
even the garments spotted by the flesh.” Saints in all ages have felt and
obeyed. Bunyan said, “I could not be satisfied unless some fruits did appear of my
work.” Brainerd said,
“I care not how or where I live, or what
hardships I go through, so that I can but gather souls to Christ.”
Matthew Henry wrote, “I would think it
a greater happiness to gain one soul to Christ than mountains of silver and
gold to myself.” Fletcher
of Madeley said to Samuel Bradburn, “If you should live to preach the Gospel forty years, and be
the instrument of saving only one soul, it will be worth all your labours.”
-------
There is
no volume held in such contempt as the Bible, even by some who profess to honour
it. You cannot honour the Bible by binding it, gilding it, protecting it from
dust and injury, walking round it, looking at it; you can honour the Bible in only one way, and that is
by reading it, taking it into the soul, reproducing it in living literature, in
epistles “known and read of all men.” - DR. JOSEPH PARKER.
* * *
41
THE AIM OF THE UNIVERSE + 1
In the
crash of sound that can suddenly flood our hearing from an organ, intricate and
complex harmonies from a hundred pipes controlled by a single hand, we can be,
for a moment, bewildered; until, as we listen, we detect a master-harmony; and
suddenly, it may be, a melody steals into our hearts that we have loved since
childhood’s days. So it is at this moment. As 1937 closed down in what is
very nearly ‘the distress of nations’, and 1938 is
massed in thunders - such thunders as Lord
Robert Cecil. expresses:- “I believe we are
heading straight for one of the greatest disasters that has ever come upon
mankind” - yet, suddenly, out of what is perhaps the most golden
chapter in the Bible, our redeemed ears catch the sweetest recitative of all
the ages:- “ALL THINGS WORK
TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO THEM THAT LOVE GOD” (Rom. 8: 28).
We first glance at the universe which
this sentence reveals. “All things WORK
TOGETHER.” ‘Working’ is not blind and
aimless labour, but power controlled and directed to one end; and working together means a complete
machine - wheel and bar and screw and cog and rod - all working, each in its
place, to produce a finished result. The more the universe is studied, the more
it is found to be what experience tells us it is - a marvellous mass of
intricate and co-operating forces working together perfectly. And behind and in
it all is mind. God spoke the worlds into being; and now “upholdeth
all things by the word of his power”
(Heb. 1: 3). Our Lord said:- “My
Father worketh even until
now, and I” - the Creator - “work”
(John 5: 17). A tiny example will show with what
microscopic care Nature works to an end. “A
party stood on the
* It is hardly necessary to add that, since the Fall, the Curse
has brought in forces of destruction, including death, at once warning us that
it is by no means for all mankind, or even for all sentient beings, that the
universe works for good.
Now there bursts on us the stupendous revelation. “All
things work together FOR GOOD to
them that love God.” Could any revelation be more golden or more wonderful? The
ceaseless working of ‘all things’ - from the silent course of the stars down to the incessant whirl
of molecules in an atom which no microscope yet invented can reveal - would
appal us, if all were working to an unknown end: what a mental revolution to
learn that all things are not only co-ordinated to effect one purpose, but that
that purpose has one supreme object - our good; that infinite love,
co-operating with infinite power, has stamped on all things this single design.
The fall of empires, the rise of dictatorships, the blooded sword of
persecution, death, and resurrection, and even adverse judgments at the
Judgment-Seat, all plot our good;* and do so
wholly apart from ourselves. It is not - “I am
strong enough to vanquish the forces of life” - not one of us is;
nor is it - “I am wise and far-seeing enough to
master the future” - none of us is; nor is it - “I am good enough to change everything into good”
- for we are not it is a force outside myself that is mastering the whole
universe for my good.
* “As many
as I love,” our Lord says (Rev. 3: 19), “I rebuke and chasten”: therefore
the worst that can happen to a believer - and terrible things can and will
befall the saved, if sinning, here and hereafter - are not merely a punishment
(Matt. 5: 26)
but a cure (Heb. 12: 11).
Things can work for good which do not work for the best.
The universality of the statement is its wonder. Nothing is neutral. The passage
itself (verse
35)
records dark threads in the loom:- tribulation, anguish, persecution, famine,
nakedness, peril, the sword. Even a heathen sees what is needed. The atheist Diagoras, after
a voyage, was shown in a temple all the testimonies of those saved from
shipwreck; and the priest asked him:- “Can you
deny the intervention of
But God has also revealed what He alone knew - the purpose
behind all the central control:- “the called according to his purpose”. In the word ‘purpose’ we have the master-key of the
machinery, the mainspring of the entire works; “for whom he foreknew,
them he also fore-ordained”; and the purpose is that they should “be
conformed to THE IMAGE OF HIS SON”. That is, the ‘good’ that is being worked out is a
righteousness and beauty unchallengeable for all eternity. The co-working of
all things is not an automatic, self-producing machine: it is a universe alive
with the single object of a single mind, so to effect an ideal purpose. The
invisible world, with its angelic hosts; the rise and fall of empires; the
peculiar circumstances in which each of us is plunged; our protracted conflicts
with Satan; our joys and sorrows, it may be through eighty years - or in sudden
death; - all are controlled and shaped by the hand of God; and all are so
working the imprint of God’s mind upon soul and life as to stamp upon us
at last the image of our Lord.
So the process is now revealed, and is as astounding as all
the rest. It is the completest map ever drawn, and it is expressed in a single
sentence: as in a lightning flash, we see the procession of the people of God
from eternity to eternity. “For whom he foreknew” - before the foundation of the world
(Eph. 1: 4) - “he also fore-ordained; and
whom he fore-ordained, them he also called; and whom he called, them he
also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” The process is so certain, the working
together is so divine, that the redeemed of the Church to-day have been ‘justified’ nineteen centuries before they
were born; and at this moment, when not a human soul is yet glorified, in
language that only God could use, the thing is so sure that it is done - “them he
also glorified”: in fact, though not yet in act; for God’s facts are done the
moment He frames them in words. Our Lord expresses the same truth. “The
glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them” (John 17: 22). His glory as man he has given us,
and it is so certain to be ours that it is expressed as though we are already
glorified. For we are “confident of this very thing, that he which began a good
work in you will perfect it until the
day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1: 6).
Again, we behold its certainty. It is not, we imagine; or we
conjecture; or even we judge: infinitely happier, “WE KNOW”. Who but God Himself
could have revealed the fact? who but an infallible Oracle, able to analyze all
things and to read the future as easily as the past, could uncover the purpose,
lay bare the process, and reveal the end? So, therefore, we are boundless
optimists: this is the best of all possible worlds for those who love God: the
whole universe is an alchemy to change me into the image of my Lord. “Lo,
all those things” - as Job says - “doth God work, to bring back a man’s soul from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of the living”
(Job 23:
29). A dear old saint who had seen much
trouble and was in dire need, was asked if she ever felt like murmuring. She
replied, “When I do, I just ask the Lord to put
me in the easy chair and keep me quiet.” The visitor, seeing no
easy chair about, asked what she meant. “My easy
chair,” she said, “is Romans 8: 28, ‘All things work together for good’ to them that love God’.”
But. now one vital fact remains. The Greek language usually
emphasizes a word or phrase by its position: so here, the class of whom alone
all this wonder is revealed is isolated by being put first:- “TO THEM THAT LOVE GOD all things work together for good”: to them, and to them only. If God
made all things to work the good of good and bad alike, His government would be
without moral principle, and would actually be in co-operation with wickedness.
Put a fragment of clay on the wheel, and it is instantly ground to dust: put a
diamond on the wheel, and the trial only perfects its beauty. And what a lovely
definition of the saved it is! “They
that love God.” The soul that
hates God is in antagonism to the universe; prolonged life is merely heaping up wrath against the
day of wrath”; if God’s call is refused, the
very Gospel itself becomes “a savour of death unto death”; while the Lake of Fire itself, as
the lazaretto which isolates the leprosy of sin from the rest of the universe,
is one of the all things that work together for the good of them that love God.
Experience confirms the revelation. “I have need,” said D. L. Moody, “to
praise God every day of my life for refusing to answer some of my most earnest
prayers.” And love discerns the truth. In the words of Dr.
F. B. Meyer:- “Love feels that God cannot
afford to let the thread of its life pass from His hands for a single moment.
The fabric of the character cannot for an instant be taken off God’s
looms. The moment when God ceased to hold and work would be the moment of
irreparable wreckage and harm. Everything is one of the turns of the wheel, or
the hand, of the great Potter, who is fashioning rough clay into a vessel for
the royal palace.”
-------
THE COMMISSION ON DOCTRINE
It is as
astounding a portent as the age has yet produced that the Commission on
Doctrine appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, after careful
study over a period of fifteen years, reports that it is impossible to state,
in fundamental terms, that the Christian Faith is at present the belief of the
Church of England. The Times
(Jan. 15, 1938) puts it thus:- “Whether the
Virgin Birth of our Lord is fact or myth, whether or not His tomb was empty on
Easter Day, whether the Gospel miracles should be taken as history or imagery
are among the questions which the commission, owing to the conflict of opinion
among its members, found itself unable to answer.” That is to say,
while a large proportion of its members personally accept the Virgin Birth and the Empty Tomb,* and the Apostles’ Creed remains
in the Prayer Book, the Commission leaves the simple fundamentals of the
Christian Faith an open question, while it unanimously affirms that ‘Christian’ fellowship exists without them. In
other words, Modernism sits at the table, and Apostasy stands on the door-step.
One of our readers writes, not without reason:- “The
awful thing is that there is so little outcry. Surely it is the most dreadful
thing that has happened in this century.”
* While the Commission says that a ‘majority’ of its members accept the Empty Tomb,
it says that ‘many’ accept the
Virgin Birth, a distinction which presumably means that the latter are a
minority of the Commission.
* * *
42
DANGERS IN LEADERSHIP + 1
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
Moses
sums up for us an overwhelming danger, and therefore a priceless warning. The
parallel between Israel in the Wilderness and the Church of God is close,
startling, inspired: “in these things,” Paul says, “they were FIGURES” - [‘EXAMPLES’ R.V. / ‘TYPES’
(Greek)] - OF US” (1 Cor. 10: 6): therefore Moses’ experience
reveals our own danger.* Here were the
chosen People of God - the only people of God in the world; under the Blood;
out of Egypt - the world; definitely self-given-over to God, yet on the verge of apostasy:
exactly so vast sections of
the Church to-day - the only [redeemed] people of God in the world - are turning back, in open
rebellion against those who would lead them into the - [Millennial**] - Kingdom. Therefore in Moses are
vividly pictured, for all time but signally for the last days, the perils of
leadership, and dangers indeed for all of us, as we confront the Church at the
end. - [of this evil ‘age’.]
* “In these things”: it is deeply significant that the things
stressed as especially types of us
are the ten revolts against Jehovah, with a consequent exclusion from the Kingdom under Divine oath.
[** That is, in the ‘kingdom’,
which the Father promised to His only begotten Son, as His future inheritance upon
this restored earth. (See Psa. 2: 8; Rom. 8: 19-22;
cf.
Lk. 23: 28-29; 22: 28-29; Rev. 2: 25-26 R.V.]
FIDELITY
The leadership is genuine and God-endorsed. No words could
more splendidly establish the character and conduct of Moses than the defence
God Himself advances, in his presence, when silencing the criticism of Miriam
and Aaron. “My servant Moses is not so; he
is faithful in all mine house: wherefore then
were ye not afraid to speak against my servant,
against Moses?” (Num. 12: 7). This wonderful tribute from the Divine lips is repeated in
the New Testament (Heb. 3: 2). God’s ‘house’ - both then and now - is the [redeemed] people of God; and while Aaron was a
priest, Miriam a prophetess, Joshua a commander, Moses led in all departments;
and in all he was ‘found faithful’. And for criticizing him on only one point - his marriage - Miriam was smitten by God
with leprosy.
DESPAIR
But now comes a danger that can
overwhelm a perfectly faithful servant of God. The sullen temper of the people,
unchecked by a sudden judgment of fire (Num. 11: 1), now assumes a more dangerous character - formerly refusing to go forward, they now propose to return to Egypt;
and Moses, forgetting that God has made us responsible for our own perfection
and not for the perfection of others, utterly breaks down. He repudiates the
magnificent responsibility God had put upon him, and asks for death. He says to
God:- “Wherefore hast thou evil entreated thy servant, that thou layest the burden of all
this people upon me? Kill me, I pray thee, out of hand”
(Num. 11: 11, 15). It is the very prayer of John Knox. At the end of the Scottish
reformer’s life he lost heart, withdrew from public life, and wrote
despairingly:; “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,
and put an end at Thy good pleasure to this my miserable life, for justice and truth are not to be found
among the sons of men. John Knox, with deliberate mind, to his God.”
THE FACTS
Now to master the danger we must thoroughly understand the
situation. The facts were exactly as Moses stated: it had now dawned on him
that the people whom God had committed to him, to transport whom across the
Wilderness was to have been the joy of his life, would never cross the desert
at all: they behaved (as he says) like a fretful, self-willed infant,
impossible of control. So his heart-cry is:- “Kill me: let me not see my wretchedness!” let me not live to see my complete
and utter failure.*
How justified Moses was in his view of the facts is overwhelmingly revealed by
the far graver action of Jehovah Himself. “The anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote
the people with a very great plague” (Num. 11: 33).
[* God’s answer to this prayer,
will be seen and heard when Moses and Elijah - as His two chosen Witness -
appear on this earth during the Great Tribulation:- Rev. 11: 3-6,
R.V.]
THE DANGER
So then our first danger is clearly defined: the coming days are certain to test our grace to its utmost limit and
may provoke despair. The ablest and holiest leaders can collapse under
their burdens; not having grasped the fact that burdens of responsibility, with
the heart-breaking disappointments they can bring, instead of being a sign that
they “have
not found favour”
with the Lord, can be the highest honour from God. At the moment Moses was asking for death, he little dreamed that forty years of as wonderful a
service as man ever knew lay before him; and he suddenly learns what he had
overlooked - that God is always equal to
every crisis. Jehovah at once meets his fearful pressure by raising up the
Seventy Elders, and endowing them with the Spirit which He had put upon Moses
himself so as to make them competent to share His servant’s burden. God
can easily and at once master our worst crisis. It is most wonderful to remember
that Elijah, who under the juniper asked
for death (1
Kings 19: 4), and Moses who prayed, “Kill me,” are the two men who appear on the
Mount of Transfiguration with Christ.
RECOVERY
Moses now makes a wonderful recovery. He remains faithful; for
he passes on to the people the words of appalling severity in which Jehovah
summed up their character and conduct (Num. 14: 39) - a fidelity that would hardly lessen his unpopularity: but,
while he was faithful to them to their faces, he was no less faithful to them behind
their backs. Suddenly God says to him:- “I will smite them, and will make of thee a nation greater and mightier than they”
(Num.
14:
12.)
What a moment in the history of a man! Alone in the history of
the world (as God intimates to him) a nation might have been wiped out, and
this man’s children have become God’s chosen people. But he loved
and cared for the people who had
rejected him. “Pardon, I pray thee,” he cries, “the
iniquity of this people!” And God hears. He saves the lives of these two millions:
nevertheless judgment immediately falls, in
their exclusion from the Kingdom. “I have pardoned according to
thy word: but surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers”
(Num. 14:
20).*
* So, when
REJECTION
But now emerges our full and final peril at the close of the
dispensation. The rejected [and accountable “...from twenty years old and upward:” (Num. 14: 29,
R.V.)] - generation is now dead, and God has
in view those about to enter Canaan; the black sky of forty years [wandering in the
desert] is breaking, and the glory of the
Kingdom dawning: when Moses, who was to invoke a fresh gush of living water - in symbol, the final outpouring of the
Spirit * - for the first time publicly
denounces the People of God, and that to their face. “Hear
now, ye rebels;
shall we bring you forth water out of this rock?”(Num. 20: 10). Let us carefully remember how
fearful was the test. Two millions of God-favour people were in open revolt,
not only against their God-commissioned leader but against Jehovah Himself,
hurling at Moses bitter invectives, their worldliness reinforced by an open
threat of apostasy. It was not that he took too black a view, for the Most High
took a blacker, and stated the facts in blacker terms (Num. 14: 35). Nevertheless, Moses should have remembered Jehovah’s
rebuke to Miriam, when defending himself:- “Wherefore were ye not afraid to
speak against my servant?”- in this case, my servants. In anger, he expresses open
contempt for a mutinous nation not worth being helped, and so he completely misrepresents Jehovah on the threshold of the Kingdom.* Therefore instantly he shares the
rejection of the dead generation. “Because ye believed not in me, to sanctify
me in the eyes of the children of
* By striking the Rock in temper Moses
marred a beautiful type. For there is not to be a second Calvary to create the
second Pentecost, but only a speaking to the Rock - prayer to Christ - for the final outrush before the [manifested] Kingdom.
[* NOTE: Here is another, of several
reasons, why I believe God will choose Moses
to accompany Elijah in the near
future.
Keep in mind: God will be dealing
primarily with the Jewish Nation during the final seven years of this evil and
apostate ‘Age’.]
REBELS
Certain words of our Lord cast a lightning-flash on this
judgment of Jehovah, revealing our own peril. Speaking of temper between
Christians, our Lord says:- “Whosoever shall say [to his brother]” - exactly as
Moses was addressing his brethren - “Moreh” - the very word Moses uses, only in
the singular - “shall be in danger of the Gehenna of fire” (Matt. 5: 22).* Whatever
the sins of the People of God, they are His [redeemed] people, loved by Him; and, the Most High is acutely sensitive over all
fundamental attacks on His own. Jehovah had locked the door into the Kingdom;
but he had never revoked the Blood, nor withdrawn the Shekinah Glory from off
the Mercy Seat, nor shattered the Rock that followed them - “and
that rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10: 4). “There
is not a single one of God’s people in whom we cannot find some good
thing, provided only we look for it in the right way” (C.
H. Mackintosh). Therefore Moses
himself now shares the loss of
* Internal reasons are decisive that it
is one believer denouncing another of which our Lord speaks. For (1) the unbeliever is not in danger of
Gehenna, but certain of it, if he
remains in unbelief (Rev. 21: 8); (2)
he incurs Gehenna, not for any single sin, but for a sinful attitude and state
(John 3: 36);
(3) his mere avoidance of this
particular sin cannot deliver him from Gehenna; and (4) if it is one unbeliever addressing another, the one addressed is
a rebel (Col. 1: 21).
It is obviously a ‘brother’ speaking
in anger to a ‘brother’, and the
only ‘brethren’ known to the New
Testament are the regenerate.
** It is needless to note that Moses himself will enter the
Millennial Kingdom, not only as appearing on the Mount of Transfiguration, but
because all Prophets will enter (Luke 13: 28).
All Moses lost was Canaan; but Canaan is the type of that Kingdom towards which
the Church has been travelling for two thousand years, and therefore in
the antitype the loss of
POWER
Nevertheless it is a golden comfort to see the lovely flower
which the Holy Spirit plants on the grave of these gigantic failures in the
Wilderness, failures both in the leaders and the led. Immediately after warning
us not to repeat their mistakes, He says:- “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able”
(1 Cor. 10: 13). It is going to be tremendously difficult to be loyal to the
truth, truth derided and largely abandoned, and yet at the same time to remain
loyal in our love to all the really regenerate: nevertheless these our
difficulties - even the worst - are adjusted to our [God-given] strength; and therefore each of us is capable of the
highest: not one of us but can be “presented faultless with exceeding joy” (Jude 24).
-------
INTERCESSION
A sceptical lawyer in the United
States Congress, who moved in a circle of infidels, was keenly impressed one
day with the consciousness that God - the God whose existence he denied - was
thinking about him, and was displeased with him. Do what he would, he could not
shake off the impression: for more than three months it deepened and
intensified. He returned to his far-off home, where he was about to be
nominated for the governorship of his State; and on returning, he chanced to
discover that his wife and three friends had entered into a compact to pray for
him. His curiosity was at once aroused, but, dissembling it, he asked when they
began to pray; and he was not a little startled to find that it coincided
exactly with the date of that impression of God. He reflected, that if a single
such fact could be established, it would carry the whole Christian system with
it; and in a few days his strong will surrendered, and he became as a little
child in Christ. Intercessory prayer is not only powerful, but sometimes
costly. His wife, in her first prayer for his conversion, was in intense
distress. As she prayed, a quiet voice seemed to say to her, “Will you abide the consequences of his conversion?”
She was startled, but, on reflection, she imagined the voice to be her own
fancy. Twice more, however, the voice returned, with the same question:-
“Will you abide the consequences of his
conversion?” In her agony of soul, she exclaimed, “Lord, I will; if only Thou wilt save him!” Instantly
peace filled her heart, and she knew her prayer was answered. Her surrender was
the introduction to [t]his: poverty entered, with faith, into her home; but both were made wealthy in the pearl of great price.
* * *
43
A CHURCH ON FIRE + 2
By T.
The
conservative type of theology (which stands for whole Bible as the inspired and
authoritative Word of God, and which regards man as fallen in sin and utterly
unable, apart from the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be brought
back into fellowship with God and receive salvation), which has been
consistently preached and taught throughout Korea, has been one of the great
factors in the development of the Korean Church.
The system of Bible Study classes, or
conferences, is carried on throughout the country. Each year, during the
seasons when the farmers are not so busy in their fields, Bible conferences,
lasting from five to ten days, are held where possible in every church,
sometimes twice or more. In cases where it is impossible to hold a conference
in every church, they are held in each circuit or district, and, in addition,
large conferences are held in every mission station, when the people come in
from the entire territory or presbytery. At such times separate conferences are
held for the men and women, and it is not uncommon to hear of gatherings of
from a thousand to fifteen hundred men and a thousand women. In the earlier
days, when each presbytery covered a wider area than it does now, I have seen
present men who had walked over a hundred miles, in a temperature twenty
degrees below zero, over the snow-clad hills, carrying enough rice on their
backs to provide for their meals during the conference. Only five or six years
ago I attended a conference of about 650 men where the dormitory accommodation
was so limited that there was insufficient floor space to permit all to lie
down at night. They took it in turns to sit up and sleep leaning against the
walls while their companions stretched at full length on the hot floors. Last
year the General Assembly statistics showed that 2,330 of these Bible
conferences had been held during the year, with a total enrolment of 178,313 (the total baptized roll is
120,000).
At these conferences the people are divided into separate
classes, according to age and church standing, and given instruction in the
various books and characters of both Old and New Testaments. The daily
programme usually includes the so-called ‘Day-break
Prayer Meetings,’ two hours of study and a devotional period in
the morning, one hour of study in the afternoon and a large public meeting in
the evening. In preparation for the evening meeting the latter part of the
afternoon is often spent in tract distribution and personal work in order to
ensure a large attendance. In this way these meetings are not only a time of
real instruction in spiritual things, but also a time of evangelistic activity
and fervour which has resulted in the conversion of multitudes.
In addition to these, there are the Bible institutes for both
men and women. These form an important work on every mission station.
Short-term courses are given, lasting from one to two months for the men, and
for two-and-a-half months for the women, covering a period of five years. Most
of the books of both Old and New Testaments are studied, as well as such
subjects as Personal Work, Church History, Teaching Methods, and so on. The
total attendance at these institutes, as reported to the General Assembly,
increased from 3,600 in 1935, to 5,500 in 1936, and 1937 will undoubtedly show
another large increase.
Within the last few years there have been very large increases
in the numbers of new converts very nearly all over the country. In spite of
the fact that the theological seminary has just enrolled one of the largest
first-year classes, its supply of fully-trained pastors will not be able to
keep pace with the demand for leaders to care for the new Christians. Last
year, 3,933 were enrolled in the Bible Correspondence Course, and 720 summer
Bible-schools were conducted during the summer months by volunteer teachers.
Most of these teachers were students from our schools, who taught the 55,000
children enrolled. These figures apply to the Presbyterian Church alone.
Another very successful piece of work, which is centred about
the Word of God, is that of the Bible clubs in
The prime necessity of regeneration through the Holy Spirit,
manifesting itself in supernaturally transformed lives, has been insisted upon,
and only after a complete break has been made with heathenism and the practices
of the past are new believers admitted to the Church. The importance of prayer
has been stressed, and the
The example set by the missionaries themselves has undoubtedly
been a great stimulus to the
The growth of self-support has been one of the most
encouraging and helpful features of the work in
From the very beginning the missionaries have always sought to
give the responsibility of governing the church to the Korean brethren, before
the latter asked for it. Relations have in this way always been very harmonious
and happy. In cases where missionaries are moderators of sessions, they have
votes in presbyteries on the same basis as the Korean pastors. The government
of the church is entirely in the hands of the Koreans. No missionary can take
charge of any church unless appointed to it by the presbytery. Missionaries act
on presbytery and General Assembly committees only when so elected and are
always, naturally, greatly outnumbered by the Korean members. We can take
courage and look forward with assurance that God will continue to lead and to
bless The country is open to the Gospel message as never before, and, with the
present increasing rate of progress, it is not impossible that the Church will
double in size during the present decade.
-
World Dominion.
-------
THE CHALENGE OF THE EMPTY CHAIR
I sat on
the little veranda of my mission station, Ammapet, in
One old man came out to greet me and asked me to come out and
sit on his veranda. He disappeared into the hut to bring out, I thought, a mat
for me to sit upon. But to my surprise he reappeared with a good European
chair, and in his hand was a
broken, dirty, paper-covered book. “Six years
ago,” my host began, “a man spent a
week, two weeks, three weeks with me. He went away, and he gave me this chair
as a present. I have been praying ever since that another missionary would come
and live among my people and teach us more about the Jesus of these pages. We
have waited for six years, but you have come. I will get a hut ready for you
for you have come to stay, haven’t you?”
I had to tell him that that was an utter impossibility. I
pointed to the plains 7,000 feet below. “Down
there,” I said, “is my work, the
work of two men.” He came close to me, the tears running down his
old cheeks. “Why,” he said. “I may not be here when you come again.” “Yes, I know,” (I admitted, with a stab of pain
at my heart). Then, solemnly, determinedly, he took the foreign things -
“Pardon me,” he said, “for seeming rudeness, but no man shall sit on this chair
until he can stay and tell us about the Lord Jesus Christ.” That
was ten years ago, and no man has gone!
The challenge of the empty chair upon the Hills of Death -
where is the young man who will go forth to accept it? (This is an incident
that actually occurred. - Ed.)
-------
I AM GLAD I HAD TUBERCULOSIS
By PAUL HUTCHENS
It may
seem strange for me to say that I am glad that I have had tuberculosis, a
disease which I hate and which I even now make every effort to overcome, and
which, but for the intervention of medical science and the grace of God, would
have slain me long ago. Nevertheless I am indebted to this dread disease
through the grace of God for some of the richest blessings possible for a man to
receive. But did I not wish to be healed? A thousand times, Yes. O the anxious
hours I have spent in anticipatory prayer, the pleadings with God, the awful
darkness that swept over me when I realized I must give up my life work, and
that in spite of my efforts and prayers and the prayers of my friends there was
no improvement. I was anointed and prayed for at my request, but still I was
not healed. I tried to claim healing, but grew steadily worse instead.
Someone has said that Satan is the ruler of this world but
that God is the Overruler. I know this: that in my
own case, being laid aside from the public evangelistic ministry has changed
the course of my whole life. It has carved out for me an entirely new channel,
through new territory, in dry and needy places. If I cannot say, sickness has
been a blessing, I most surely can say, it has been a channel of blessing. And
of course, a channel of blessing is a blessing.
I have learned to say, “IF it be Thy will;” I am glad I have; and it is not unbelief to say it. To me it
is the greatest of faith - given by the Father Himself. It implies confidence
in His wisdom and in His love. Knowing what I do now - how marvellously He has
led me; how He has increased my ministry a thousandfold; how rich and sweet His
nearness to me; the deep lessons learned just outside the door of death - I
tremble to think what might have happened if the river of my life had been
allowed to continue in its old channel, which, as I look back upon it now, was
not so much a channel, but an ever-deepening rut.
Through sickness God has taught me the art of intercessory
prayer - “the
greatest unused force in the universe.” It is marvellous to
watch the answers come. Get your whole being saturated with the spirit and
power of prayer. Then you will not be one who occasionally struggles into prayer, but you will continually
struggle in prayer. You will find yourself
breathing a prayer at almost every moment, even when your mind is of necessity
occupied with other things. True praying is wrestling, not with God, but
against Satan and his hosts, against principalities and powers.
One morning last March, after a year
or so of apparent progress towards recovery, I awakened with a haemorrhage.
When it continued for some time, I was truly alarmed. There were recurring
haemorrhages - twelve of them in three weeks’ time, during which period I
did not dare to move, but remained in one position in bed. Throughout those
anxious days and nights the love of life became very precious. Love for my wife
and little girl swelled to proportions never before experienced by me. Then it
was, while I looked aghast at death’s open door. that precious secrets
were whispered to me by the Father - secrets which I pray I may never unlearn.
A triple major operation during the summer in which seven ribs were removed and
the old lung collapsed brought me closer still to God. I could easily write an
entire book telling of blessings that have come to me and have flown through me
to others by way of trouble and sickness. And yet I wonder - Have I yet learned
to say with Paul, “I glory in tribulations also”? I’m afraid I have not- not as
the Lord would have me. I know this that the highway of triumph is often
the low way of tribulation. Handicaps are handy that pass the
censorship of Rom. 8: 28.
If blind Milton
could write Paradise Lost, if John
Bunyan in Bedford jail could write Pilgrim’s
Progress, if Luther imprisoned in Wartburg castle
could translate the entire New Testament into the German language, if Robert Louis Stevenson, tubercular,
suffering with sciatica, one arm in a sling, sentenced to absolute silence and
darkness, could produce The Child’s
Garden of Verses, if
Paul, confined to a Roman prison and chained to a guard twenty-four hours a
day, could still proclaim the gospel - if these men under such mighty handicaps
could and did dare to make progress and history, why should not we? For the
soul there need be no prison walls, no binding chains, no smiting blindness.
There are men who have learned not to bemoan their troubles or to waste them,
but to make slaves of them - men who have learned to use every stumbling stone
as material for building a great life.
- The Christian
Victory Magazine.
* * *
44
THE UNIQUE MAN + 1
The
challenge of Christ is inescapable. One outstanding fact, among many,
completely isolates Him. It is this:- that one Man only in the history of the
world has had explicit details given beforehand of his birth, life and death;
that these details are in public documents given to the public centuries before
he appeared, and that no one challenges, can challenge, that these documents
were widely circulated long before his birth; and that everyone can compare for
himself the actual records of his life with those old documents, and find that
they match one another to a nicety. The challenge of this pure miracle is that
it has happened concerning one Man only in the whole history of the world.
But let us pause for a moment to see how a divine document can
become an accomplished fact. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin once in
Now we take up one of the old documents. The Prophet Isaiah
writes this:- “The Lord himself shall give you a sign: A VIRGIN SHALL CONCEIVE, and
bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel”
(Isa. 7: 14). Now see the
words that God’s Angel spoke to the Virgin Mary:- “The
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power
of the Most High shall overshadow thee:
wherefore also that which is to be born of thee shall be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1: 35); and the Apostle Matthew (1: 22) adds, - “All this came to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord
through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be
with child.” The Lord will grant a ‘sign’ - that is, a miracle: the miracle shall be conception by a virgin:
the birth shall be the birth of God - Immanuel, ‘God
with us.’ There is the document in Isaiah, a book in every Jew’s hands
long centuries before Jesus was born.
But we look again. Where was this to take place? Nothing is more dangerous to false
prophecy than the fastening down of an event to a date or a place. Here is
another document:- “Thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, out of thee shall
come forth one whose goings forth are from everlasting” (Mic. 5: 2). Now what did the Rabbis say? “And
gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, Herod inquired of them where the Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In
Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written,” and then they quote Micah. Now look again. Herod “sent
them to
We turn now to another old document. It is another fragment of
Isaiah, and runs thus:- “The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to
bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty
to the captives, and the opening of the prison
to them that are bound; to proclaim the
acceptable year of the Lord” (Isa. 61: 1). Now the child Jesus had grown to
man’s estate: He is on the banks of the
We turn to another ancient document. It is one of
David’s psalms; and it reveals someone - the someone who is Messiah -
dying an awful death, under very peculiar circumstances. This ancient document
says:- “The assembly of evil-doers have inclosed
me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones; they look and stare upon me” (Ps. 22: 16, [17a]). Now crucifixion in David’s time
was unknown among the Jews: yet the piercing of hands and feet, together with
the partial stripping - ‘telling all the bones’
- obviously means crucifixion: the crucified are pierced only in their hands and feet, and are stripped for exposure. Would a false Messiah have chosen that passage for fulfilment?
But that old document goes into fuller, circumstantial details. Immediately
after the piercing and stripping, it says:- “They part my garments among
them, and upon my vesture do they cast lots.”
Now hear the Apostle
John. “The soldiers therefore, when
they had crucified Jesus” - that is, after piercing His hands and His feet - “took
his garments, and made four parts” - divided them into four portions - “to
every soldier a part; and also the coat” - the tunic or vesture: “now the
coat was without seam, woven from the top
throughout. They said therefore one to another,
Let us not rend it, but cast
lots for it, whose it shall be. These things therefore the soldiers did”
(John 19: 23), as foretold centuries before. Nay,
this old document holds the very crucifixion cry, for the psalm opens with it -
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Ps. 22:
1). So centuries later the Evangelist
writes:- “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27: 46). Not a jot or tittle of the psalm has
miscarried: exactly as in the birth, and in the ministry, so also in the death
- but more so - the ancient document is a photograph of the fact, fulfilled in
flawless detail.
The last old document we select is once more from a psalm, and
runs thus:- “Thou wilt not leave my
soul to Sheol; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One” - the Messiah - “to see
corruption” (Psalm 16: 10). Here, therefore, is a point supremely critical for the
revelation of the Messiah: resurrection from - [‘Sheol’
- the underworld of the disembodied souls
of] - the dead - without the slightest touch of decay [in
His body]: “neither will thou suffer thine
holy One to see corruption” - is the stupendous miracle that is
finally to reveal the Lord. This is simply impossible to a false Messiah. Now
we turn to the Gospel document. “And behold, there was a great earthquake;
for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven,
and came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon
it. His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the watchers did quake, and became as dead men. And
the angel answered, and said unto the women, Fear not ye; He is not here;
for He is risen, even as He said” (Matt. 28: 2). The fact is established with ample
evidence. “He appeared to Cephas; then to
the twelve; then He appeared to above five
hundred brethren at once; then He appeared to
James; then to all the apostles; and last of all He appeared to me also” (1 Cor. 15: 5). A scarred body, yet a germless body, leaving an empty tomb;
living, eating, conversing, ascending; miraculously conceived, divinely
anointed, crucified, incorrupt - the cycle is complete.
It is now possible to sum up with mathematical certainty. In
our hands are the ancient documents, written hundreds of years before Jesus was
born. They are publicly in everybody’s hands. So are the facts of our
Lord’s life recorded in the Gospels. The two can be compared side by
side. The tallying of the Old documents with the new facts is provable by
anyone at any time throughout all eternity. Ours can only be the cry of
Philip:- “WE HAVE FOUND HIM
OF WHOM THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS DID WRITE.” “We have
found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted,
CHRIST”
(John 1: 41).
-------
SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES
The
marvels of the insect world which the French scientist, Jean Henri Fabre, reveals are strangering
than a fairy tale. But their chief worth perhaps is the example and lesson of
the truth-seeker. If a man should go about searching the Scriptures with the
same patience and labour; with the like passion of fact and truth; with just
such an open heart and single eye; with the same careful and thorough
examination and accurate observation; with that same honesty and fairness, just
as free from prejudice and party-blindness as that humble scientist exemplified
in the ascertaining of the truths of nature - surely the Word of God would
yield up its wealth to such a one. Read after Fabre,
and bow your head. Follow his assiduous labours, his prodigious toil, his
steadfast perseverance; his unwillingness to be content with guesses and
appearances (for he must dig down to the bottom at all costs, and get into the
heart of things) - see his sacrifice of time, of comfort, of sleep, of means
(meagre as they often were) in order to attain his purpose; his watching,
waiting, hoping, yearning, wondering; his refusal to accept failure, his loyal
devotion to his task, his unshaken continuance to the end of his quest, and see
what endeavours a true man is capable of! How much more is God’s Word
worthy of such earnest search! - R. H.
BOLL.
* * *
45
CRIME AND CHRIST + 1
1
When I
was brought to prison I scoffed at the idea of belief even when put through the
so-called third degree. I was ignorant foreigner and charged with murder.
Before very long a German young man said to me, “Steve, you had better
get yourself a Bible, you surely need it.” I took his suggestion. My
partner was freed from the very same charge as that against me. I was sentenced
to the electric chair three times and had to wait almost four years in this
terrible situation. But through searching the Scriptures I came to know Christ
as my Saviour. I found a joy I wanted to share and did so as opportunity
presented.
The jail had no chaplain. A coloured man suggested we ask
permission to hold meetings where others could come to hear the Bible read and
pray. Soon I was requested to read for the class and I also distributed the
Scriptures, books and pamphlets obtained from Christian friends. Now the jail
has a library through the W.C.T.U. and also a chaplain.
At last I was sent to state prison instead of the electric
chair. Before I left jail I stood before five hundred men and told them how
foolish I was before and how happy I was after I accepted Christ as my Saviour,
I have laboured with books among the men for twelve years and have had the
privilege of handing all who desired a Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant Bible. I
have seen men accept Christ, and some died happy in spite of the grim
surroundings.
- STEVE FVRKO, Moody Monthly.
2
About
seven years ago I was invited to take a service at
When I inquired as to where we had met, he remarked, “Oh, you wouldn’t know me. I was not introduced to you,
I wasn’t dressed like I am to-night, indeed, I did not have a name that
morning when I heard that sermon, I was just a number. It was in Stillwater
Penitentiary. I sat right down before you about half-way back in that
auditorium, and my heart was filled with hell and with hate. I only had about three
months more to go, and I lived in the thought of returning to this city as soon
as I was free, to get even with three men, and then I would be perfectly
prepared to come back here and ‘burn’ for it all. That was my
attitude towards society as I sat in that Sunday morning service. But while you
spoke of the redemption which we have in Christ Jesus, what it cost God to make
possible our deliverance from the power and guilt of sin, there came a great
change over me. I could not understand myself. I was at the point of tears a
half a dozen times, but you know,” he said, “a fellow wouldn’t dare do any weeping before that
bunch of men, and I was glad when I could get away by myself in the little
cell, and there beside my cot I knelt before the God of my father, and called
upon Him in the Name of Christ to deliver me from the thraldom of sin, and I
know that He did it right there, for oh, the change that came over me was so
great! My heart was now filled, not with hate, but with love for men. I wanted
then to come back to this city not to get even with somebody, but to show my
friends how great a change God can make in a life when we give Him the chance
to do it. I did not know how I would be received here where the people knew so
much about my life of sin, but, do you know, the officials in this church,
where my father was once a worshipper, received me with an open heart and a
glad hand, and they have actually given me something to do in connection with
the Lord’s house here.”
-
DR. P. W. PHILPOTT, The
Evangelical Christian.
3
I am
sitting here in the shadow of the chair for the sins of crime I have committed.
At first I thought it was nonsense to believe on Christ as a Saviour. But later
I found what a great Saviour and Redeemer He is. Through the encouragement of
my mother, and Mrs. Hill, and several other saints, I found Christ. It was on a
Friday in May of this year that one of my companions, James Allen, and Mrs.
Hill were talking to me about Christ. James spoke to me and said you had better
get on this train. You had better get on this train, it will take you clear
through.
The week following I wrote a letter to Rev. Good, my
mother’s preacher, asking him to come at the earliest date possible -
that I was ready to be baptized. When he came I told him how on that Friday
evening I opened my Bible to Acts 2: 38. These were the words that I saw: Repent, believe and be
baptized and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. I said then to
myself, if there is such a God, I want to find him. I got down on my knees and
prayed the best I knew how. I wanted to surprise my mother, but she found out
before I could get baptized. Since that day I have found more happiness and joy
in life than I had ever known in my 22 years of worldly experience. Since I
found God I have tried to encourage my fellowmen to follow Christ. For my part
and if it is God’s will that I go by the way of the Chair, it is well
with my soul. For Christ died on the cross to save sinners, so why should I be
afraid to die in his Holy Name? I will be watching for you and all others who
will accept my Saviour. I hope that these words may bring some poor lost soul
to Christ.
- MERRIL CHANDLER, shortly
before death in the electric chair.
-------
THE AGE OF DECISION
Over a
period of ten years I received reports of 3,200 decisions for Christ from
churches big and little, rich and poor. I tabulated these figures, and found
percentages as to the age of decision. The highest percentage of decisions I
found in the 12-year-old child. In other words, 15 per cent. of the 3,200 came
at about 12 years of age. Seventy per cent. of the 3,200 came to Christ between
the years of 10 and 15. At 19 only 1 per cent. came. At 20 only three-quarters
of 1 per cent. Two and a quarter per cent. came between the years of 21 and 45.
Then the figures take a sudden upswing. Five and a half per cent. of the 3,200
came to Christ between the ages of 45 and 55. These cases are as nearly normal
as can be found. - DR. F.
F. PETERSON.
* * * * *
Dr. Horatius Bonar had 252 in his congregation who
acknowledged Christ as Lord: 138 stood up in testimony that they found the Lord
before reaching the age of twenty; 85 were converted between the ages of twenty
and thirty; 22 between thirty and forty, and 7 beyond the forty age limit.
* * * * *
Dr.
Spencer examined one
thousand persons who professed faith in Christ. 548 were converted under twenty
years of age; 337 before they reached thirty; 86 before forty; 15 before fifty;
5 before sixty; and 1 before seventy.
* * * * *
I
remember so well one night Mr. Moody asked all who were sure they were converted to stand to their feet. He kept them
standing while the ushers gave an estimate of the number who had risen. They
were reported to be between five and six thousand. Then Mr. Moody asked all who
had come to Christ before they were fifteen years of age to sit down. To my
amazement, fully two-thirds of that great throng dropped to their seats. Then
he said, “All who became Christians before you
were twenty, sit down.” Again less than one-half were standing.
Then he requested all who were saved under thirty to sit down, and another
great company took their seats. So it went on, those under forty, under fifty,
and by that time there were perhaps not twenty people still standing. It was
one of the most striking testimonies I have ever seen of the fact that the
great majority of the saved are saved in early youth, and very few indeed ever
turn to God after they have passed the half century. - DR. H. A. IRONSIDE.
* * * * *
Dr. Bedell says:-“In all my ministry I
know of not more than three persons over fifty years of age whom I have heard
ask the question, ‘What shall I do to be saved?’ The great majority
of the saved are saved in youth.”
* * * * *
Old man, the young may die; you must die: young man, every refusal of Christ makes acceptance harder;
and every year added to your age, you enter a year in which fewer are saved. A
minister once recorded the conversions by age in a twenty years’
pastorate. Before the age of thirty, 305; between thirty and forty, 38; between
forty and fifty, 22; between fifty and sixty, 8; between sixty and seventy, 3;
between seventy and eighty, 3; between eighty and ninety, 1. Every year your hope grows fainter, and your case more desperate. It is a solemn
thing to say To-morrow when God says To-day: for man’s To-morrow and
God’s To-day may never meet. The word from the eternal Throne is Now; and man’s choice fixes his own
doom.
* * * * *
“Do you
do any literary work?” asked a neighbour of a mother. “Yes,” she replied, “I am writing two books.” “What are their titles? “ “‘John’ and ‘Mary,’” she
answered. “My business is to write upon the
minds and hearts of my children the lessons that they shall never forget.”
- The Moody Monthly.
REMEMBER NOW
TRY CREATOR IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH, OR EVER THE EVIL DAYS COME, AND THE YEARS DRAW NIGH WHEN THOU SHALT SAY, I HAVE NO PLEASURE
IN THEM - (Ecclesastes 12: 1).
* * *
46
THE OPEN DOOR + 4
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
How
unutterably wonderful it would be if we had a letter put into our own hands
written by the Lord Jesus Christ since He has gone into Heaven, and directly
addressed to ourselves. But this is exactly what we have. Our Lord, by the
words with which He sums up every Letter He writes to the Seven Churches,
charges these Letters home on every believer, everywhere, for all time:- “He that
hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith
to the churches”: what the Spirit saith, not to the Angels, but to the Churches, even long
after the Angels are dead; not merely Letters posted through John to the seven
cities, but sent to ‘the churches’ everywhere, so long as there are churches; Letters spoken by
the Spirit silently, convincingly, with enormous enrichment, to every believer
throughout the world who has an ear that can hear. So these Letters, dictated to John by our Lord
personally in
THE OPENER
In every Letter our Lord purposely fills the whole background,
presenting Himself as the fountain, the dynamo, the hinge of all service; and
to Philadelphia He shows Himself as the One who locks and unlocks with the
omnipotence of God, and with the finality of fate. “He that
is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David; he that
openeth, and none shall shut; and that shutteth, and
none openeth” (Rev. 3: 7). He holds the key of all lands, for the door of service; the
key of all hearts, for the door of hearing; the key of all Scripture, for the
door of holiness: He holds the keys of Death and Hades, for the opening of the
tomb; the key of Heaven’s door - “I saw a door opened in Heaven”
(Rev. 4: 1) - for rapture; the keys of the
Kingdom of God, given subordinately to the Apostles and the Church (Matt. 16: 19),
but retained in the Master-Hands for ever. Wherever there is a door, Christ
holds the key.
A DOOR OPENED
THE DOOR ENTERED
In dealing with the state at the moment of the
DOOR-BLOCKERS
Our Lord next unfolds the important lesson that our honour,
our ultimate vindication, is in His hands alone, and that nothing really
matters but the Judgment-Seat; and so He touches on the invariable
accompaniment of the open door. Paul said:- “A great door and effectual is
opened unto me, and [not ‘but’; an opened door arouses an enraged enemy] there are many adversaries” (1 Cor. 16: 9). So here. “Behold,
I give of the synagogue of Satan” - in the first century the Jews were
among the fiercest persecutors of the Church - “[some] of them which say they are
Jews, and they are not” - for all are not ‘Israel’ who are merely Israel by blood
(Rom. 9: 6) - “behold I will make them to come and worship before thy feet,
and” - for the
Angel’s enemies shall also know that he has won his Lord’s special
love - “know that I have loved thee.” So
our Saviour had promised when on earth. “He that hath my commandments,
and keepeth them, he it
is that loveth me; AND I WILL LOVE HIM” (John 14: 21).
THE DOOR INTO HEAVEN
So now the Lord opens the door of
rapture into heaven. “Because thou didst keep the word of my patience” - the doctrine of the Lord’s prolonged
patience until His enemies are made His footstool - “I also” - I correspondingly - “will
keep thee” - thee, emphatic and prominent (Alford); for rapture is an individual
reward, not a church privilege - “from the hour of trial, that hour which
is to come upon the whole world, to try them that dwell upon the earth”. Second Advent truth, on which our Lord bases
the Angel’s escape, is far from being ‘kept’
by all the [redeemed] children of God. “No religious leader,” is the pathetic cry of
Miss Christabel Pankhurst,
“ever told me that
not by the Labour Movement, nor by the Woman Movement, but by the way He has
Himself provided will God bring peace on earth.” The Angel is not
to be preserved through the
Great Tribulation, for he is to be preserved from its season - “I will keep thee from THE HOUR”; and
moreover, as he is dead it is impossible that he should be kept ‘through’ it; he is to be kept from it, either
by removal, or by death ; and the Lord
thus bases [the select]
rapture four-square on fidelity, not on conversion. Observe the benigna talio of “the
* To believe that all believers are assured of rapture because
the Philadelphian Angel kept the word of Christ’s patience is identical
with believing that all believers are “miserable
and poor and blind and naked” (Rev. 3: 17) because the Laodicean Angel
is so addressed.
THE DOOR TO CORONATION
Once again comes the inevitable warning, even to the Church on
which falls no blame: its crown, even its crown, is in peril. “Hold
fast that which thou hast, THAT NO ONE TAKE THY CROWN”: hold fast your
patience, your stedfast faith, your labour of love; hold fast sound doctrine
and your lowly life and unworldly conversation. It is no small thing to hold
even what we have - “having done all, to stand”; and many of us need to realize that
what we are doing is far more valuable than we know. A small jewel can be a
priceless jewel. So, the Saviour says, “hold fast”; for our crown - not our life - is in
jeopardy: “thy crown” - a crown may be already banked to
our credit but, “that no one take” it - be indifferent, be slothful, be
unfaithful, and our crown passes to
other brows. The
parallel truth, of the transference of opportunity, is openly pronounced at the
Judgment-Seat:- “Take away from him the pound, and
give it unto him that hath the ten pounds” (Luke 19: 24). “LET NO MAN,” as Paul sums it up (Col. 2: 18), “ROB YOU OF YOUR PRIZE.”
THE DOOR INTO THE KINGDOM
So now the last door opens, that door
into the Kingdom through which only the overcomer passes. “He that
overcometh, I will make him a
pillar in the temple of my God, and I will write
upon him the name of my God, and mine own new
name.” Stedfastness
in duty culminates in stedfastness in glory. Satan’s wisdom always lies
in imitating God; and the tattooing of the name of the Antichrist - ‘Nero Caesar’ - in the flesh of every votary is
doubtless a conscious imitation of what Satan knows will be done by God -
foreheads stamped with the name because permeated with the character of the
Most High. So we find the 144,000, a body of rapt firstfruits, “having
his name, and the name of his Father, written on their foreheads”:
“with such a distinction impressed on him, the
conqueror would be recognized and acknowledged by all as entitled to his place
in the New Jerusalem” (Moses
Stuart). So the three golden distinctions - [selective] rapture, coronation, enthronement - our Lord makes dependent on works, because the whole
Letter is governed by its opening statement - “I know thy works” that is, the whole Letter is no statement
of fundamental [and eternal] salvation, but an analysis of our conduct - [as
regenerate believers] - with its consequences; and therefore watchfulness, unfaintingness,
overcoming He explicitly states to be the conditions which
alone create the rewards. A field-marshal’s baton (it
used to be said) slumbers in every common soldier’s knapsack; and when
one of Napoleon’s generals asked him to make him a marshal, Napoleon
replied:- “It is not I who make marshals, it is
victory.”*
* “This
passage is but one of many which set forth the pre-eminence of victorious
saints of this dispensation, in the future aeon of blessedness glory. They are
the firstfruits (Rev. 14: 4); kings in the
Kingdom then established (Rev. 2: 26); pillars in the
heavenly
THE HEARING EAR
Finally, the Lord clenches all home on
the individual heart: “He that hath an ear, let him
hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.” The fact that the Holy Spirit
transmits the words lifts them out of all limits of time and place, and makes
them binding so long as the Spirit, together with the Churches, are on earth.
But our Lord inserts a characteristic and pregnant warning by the use of a
phrase which He always employs (Matt. 11: 15; 13: 9, 43; Mark 4: 9; Rev. 13: 9) for truths of singular importance, disconcerting character,
and rare acceptance:- “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear”. “It is
not hard,” as a Professor said recently at Harvard, “to find the truth: what is hard is not to run away from it
when you have found it.” The Saviour’s implication is that
words will be accepted and lived by only the few in the churches.
Be such, He says: an overcomer’s
church may perish, but he himself can arrive on the summit of
-------
COURAGE
That is the noblest life which plucks victory out of defeat.
An epitaph in Stanton Harold Church, in Leicestershire, runs thus:- “In the year 1653 when all things sacred were throughout the
nation either demolished or profaned, Sir Robert Shirley, Barronet,
founded this church, whose singular praise it
is to have done the best things in the worst times and hoped them in the most
calamitous.”
-------
THE KEYS
From the highest tribunal upon earth there lies an appeal to a
higher - “who openeth, and none shutteth”: it was in faith of this that Huss, when the greatest Council which
Christendom had seen for a thousand years delivered his soul to Satan, did
himself confidently commend it to the Lord Jesus Christ. - ARCHBISHOP TRENCE.
-------
THE CHURCH
It is of some advantage, though but a melancholy one, that the
World Conference for Christian Life
and Work meeting at
-------
CATHOLICITY
It is regrettable that the Baptist Union has reaffirmed baptism
as an indispensable condition of
church membership. Of reunion it says:- “The
majority of our people would probably decline to have anything to do with it,
and, if a scheme of union were attempted, would not come into it, but would retain a separate existence apart from it.”
The Baptist Union also advocates the political portent which is
coming. “the fundamental task of our age, in
the interest of an abiding peace, is the organization of the world as a single
whole. The idea is a world federation whether described as a ‘
* * *
47
SACERDOTALISM AND THE DEATH-BED
For a
soul about to enter eternity, on the threshold of the unknown, Sacerdotalism -
Roman, Greek or Anglican - provides what it regards as certain vital
necessities; and
* “Extreme
Unction”, say the Decrees of the Council of Trent (p. 98), “cleanses away sins, if there be
any still to be expiated, and the remains of sin; and relieves and strengthens
the soul of the sick, by exciting in him great confidence in the divine mercy.”
Now the Holy Spirit has recorded for all time the marvellous
drama of a dying soul, utterly unprepared, and having only a few minutes to
live, and yet, face to face with Christ, in the end perfectly prepared for
eternity. It is one who embodies with singular pungency the sin of all time.
The first sin ever committed, and thus the fountain of all sin, was theft; our Lord was betrayed by a
thief; He was crucified by thieves, who gambled for His clothes at the foot of
the cross; a thief was crucified on His right hand, and another thief on His
left; and, as our Saviour’s words to the dying man show, He died for a thief. This scene is the only
death-bed conversion recorded in the whole Book of God, and it is the inspired
drama for ever of a conversion just in time.
Now the first startling fact is that there is no priest. The
only priests God has ever regarded as such, God-ordained sacerdotal sacrificers
in the
Hold Thou Thy cross before my dying
eyes,
Shine through the gloom and point me
to the skies.
Darkness was beginning to settle over the land, and the
darkness of death was already creeping over the faces on three crosses, and one
of them sees only Jesus. Whether he remembered Isaiah’s prophecy we do
not know, but it was full to the point:- “He poured out his soul unto
death, and was numbered” - for three
crosses had to be provided for three men to be executed - “with
the transgressors; yet HE BARE THE SIN of many, and made
intercession for the transgressors” (Isa. 53:
12). It was probably our Lord’s
intercession for the soldiers, immediately preceding (Luke 23: 34), that opened the
thief’s eyes to Whom it was that was on the neighbouring cross, an
intercession which won his heart; but in Heaven he will discover that it was
our Lord’s wordless intercession that won him.
The second arresting omission is that there is no baptism. The Lord calls for
water, but not to sprinkle it on the brow of the dying man. In the place of a
preparatory sacrament there is a spiritual revolution. The whole scheme of
Sacerdotalism is internal life created by external means - a priest, holy
water, oil in unction; whereas the whole of real salvation is God recreating a soul through His Word gripped
by the mind. Two awful facts have burnt themselves into the thief’s
soul - sin, and the terror of the beyond. When the other malefactor rails on
Christ, he replies:- “Dost thou not even FEAR
GOD, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? and we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds”
(Luke 23: 40.) We perish (he says) as moral
suicides: our sin, and therefore our doom, is our own: O brother-thief, do you
dare sin afresh in the very moment you are to meet your God?
Now dawns the one vital for us all, whether living or dying:-
confession of sin puts us in the right approach to God, but it must be followed by the saving creed created on
The Lord’s reply now adjusts the truth on the future of
the dying saint, and disposes of the Roman Purgatory. He gently sets aside the
exact terms of the prayer, for the coming [Millennial and Messianic] Kingdom
is not part of God’s free gift; but fundamental salvation comes instantly
at a dying cry; and fundamental salvation, while it includes judgment on
discipleship at the Judgment Seat, and possible loss of that Kingdom which was
in the thief’s mind, is an
instantaneous salvation that knows of no Purgatory between death and
resurrection. For every child of God death is what it was to the dying
thief - “This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise”; for it is to “depart and be WITH
CHRIST, for it is very far better”
(Phil. 1: 23): it is the swift, safe transit into
almighty power for ever. The Lord answers the cry in the dying heart, which
had, unconsciously, been un-scripturally expressed; and perfectly reassures the
soul with assurance of undying life
- [after ‘resurrection
from the dead’]. No ‘purging’ of the saved in
‘Paradise’ is ever named; and for a
wicked soul,
So now is disclosed the only ‘extreme unction’ known to the whole Bible*, our High Priest’s ‘absolution’ of a sinner with only a few minutes
to live:- “This day shalt thou be
with me in
* “The priestly and well remunerated rite of
Extreme Unction, the anointing of the dying with consecrated oil, was first
practised, as St. Irenaeus tells us,
by the Gnostic sect of the Marcosians in the second
century but has been exalted by the Church of Rome to the dignity of a
Sacrament. However camouflaged nowadays, its original raison d’etre
was that the lubricated corpse might slip out of the devil’s clutches” (Prof., David Smith, D.D.).
Alas, for one on the right of the
Saviour there are a myriad on the left. He who postpones his conversion till
the death-hour is staking his eternity on the slenderest chance the Bible
records. A dying man has said:- “just when your
body is turned into an engine of torture, and all the power you have must be
mustered to bear it, then you are exhorted to think of your soul!”
But these men, dying not of disease but under a judicial sentence, brought an
unclouded brain to their death-hour, and (as their words show) a wide awake
judgment, and both are actually face to face with Christ: both know exactly how
long they have to live, and both are consciously facing death. But the soul
which has procrastinated for years is likely to procrastinate - or even be utterly
without feeling - still: in the second malefactor there is no fear of God; no
dread of Hell; no repentance for sin; no terror of eternity: he dies with the
word ‘Christ’ upon his lips, yet he dies a
lost soul. Christ says not one word to him, much less does He bring priest or
sacrament to one who was born with iniquity in his heart; who lived with
robbery in his hands; and who dies with blasphemy on his lips.
* * *
48
BISHOP J. C. RYLE ON THE CHURCH + 1
The one
true Church is composed of all believers in the Lord Jesus. It is made up of
all God’s elect - of all converted men and women - of all true
Christians. In whomsoever we can discern the election of God the Father, the
sprinkling of the blood of God the Son, the sanctifying work of God the Spirit,
in that person we see a member of Christ’s true church.
It is a Church of which all the members have the same marks.
They are all born again of the Spirit; they all possess “repentance
toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ”: they all hate sin, and they all love
Christ. They worship differently, and after various fashions; some worship with
a form of prayer, and some with none; some worship kneeling and some standing;
but they all worship with one heart. They are all led by one Spirit; they all
build upon one foundation; they all draw their religion from one single book -
that is the Bible. They are all joined to one great centre - that is Jesus
Christ.
It is a Church which is dependent upon no ministers upon
earth, however much it values those who preach the Gospel to its members. The
life of its members does not hang upon church membership, or baptism, or the
Lord’s Supper - although they highly value these things, when they are to
be had. But it has only one Great Head - one Shepherd, one chief Bishop - and
that is Jesus Christ. He alone, by his Spirit, admits the members of this
Church, though ministers may show the door. Till he opens the door no man on
earth can open it - neither bishops, nor presbyters, nor convocations, nor
synods. Once let a man repent and believe the Gospel, and that moment he
becomes a member of this Church. Like the penitent thief, he may have no
opportunity of being baptized; but he has that which is far better than any
water-baptism - the baptism of the Spirit. He may not be able to receive the
bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper; but he eats Christ’s body and
drinks Christ’s blood by faith every day he lives, and no minister on
earth can prevent him. He may be excommunicated by ordained men, and cut off
from the outward ordinances of the professing Church; but all the ordained men
in the world cannot shut him out of
the true Church.
It is a Church whose existence does not depend on forms,
ceremonies, cathedrals, churches,
chapels, pulpits, fonts, vestments,
organs, endowments, money, kings, governments, magistrates, or any act of
favour whatsoever from the hand of man. It has often lived on and continued
when all these things have been taken from it. It has often been driven into
the wilderness, or into dens and caves of the earth, by those who ought to have
been its friends. Its existence depends on nothing but the presence of Christ
and his Spirit; and they being ever with it, the Church cannot die.
This is the Church to which the Scriptural titles of present
honour, and privilege, and the promises of future glory especially belong; this is the Body of
Christ; this is the flock of Christ; this is the household of faith and the
family of God; this is God’s building, God’s foundation, and the
temple of the Holy Ghost. This is the Church of the firstborn, whose names are
written in Heaven; this is the royal priesthood, the chosen generation, the
peculiar people, the purchased possession, the habitation of God, the light of
the world, the salt and the wheat of the earth; this is the “Holy
Catholic Church” of the Apostles’
Creed; this is the “One Catholic and Apostolic
Church” of the Nicene Creed; this is that Church to which the Lord
Jesus promises “the gates of hell - [i.e., ‘Hades’ LXX - R.V. - R.S.V. -A.S.V., N.I.V. etc.] - shall not prevail against it”, and to which he says, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world [‘age’]” (Matt. 16: 18; 28: 20).
This is the only Church which possesses true unity. Its members are
entirely agreed on all the weightier matters of religion, for they are all
taught by one Spirit. About God, and Christ, and the Spirit, and sin, and their
own hearts, and faith, and repentance, and necessity of holiness, and the value
of the Bible, and the importance of prayer, and the resurrection, and judgment
to come - about all these points they are of one mind. Take three or four of
them, strangers to one another, from the remotest corners of the earth; examine
them separately on these points: you will find them all of one judgment.
This is the only Church which is truly catholic. It is not the
Church of any one nation or people: its members are to be bound in every part
of the world where the Gospel is received and believed. It is not confined
within the limits of any one country, or pent up within the pale of any
particular forms or outward government. In it there is no difference between
Jew and Greek, black man and white,
Episcopalian and Presbyterian - but faith in Christ is all. Its members will be
gathered from north, and south, and east, and west, and will be of every name
and tongue - but all one in Jesus Christ.
This is the only Church which is truly apostolic. It is built,
on the foundation laid by the apostles, and holds the doctrines which they
preached. The two grand objects at which its members aim, are apostolic faith
and apostolic practice; and they consider the man who talks of following the
apostles without possessing these two things to be no better than sounding
brass and a tinkling cymbal.
This is the only Church which is certain to endure unto the
end. Nothing can altogether overthrow and destroy it. Its members may be
persecuted, oppressed, imprisoned, beaten, beheaded, burned; but the true
Church is never altogether extinguished; it rises again from its afflictions;
it lives on through fire and water. When crushed in one land it springs up in
another. The Pharaohs, the Herods, the Neros, the Bloody Marys, have laboured in vain to put down
this Church; they slay their thousands, and then pass away and go to their own
place. The true Church outlives them all, and sees them buried each in his
turn. It is an anvil that has broken many a hammer in this world, and will
break many a hammer still; it is a bush which is often burning, and yet is not
consumed.
This is the only Church of which no one member can perish.
Once enrolled in the lists of this Church, sinners are safe for eternity; they
are never cast away. The election of God the Father, the continual intercession
of God the Son, the daily renewing and sanctifying power of God the Holy Ghost,
surround and fence them in like a garden enclosed. Not one bone of
Christ’s mystical Body shall ever be broken; not one lamb of
Christ’s flock shall ever be plucked out of his hand.
This is the Church which does the work of Christ upon earth.
Its members are a little flock, and few in number compared with the children of
the world: one or two here, and two or three there - a few in this parish, and
a few in that. But these are they who shake the universe; these are they who
change the fortunes of kingdoms by their prayers; these are they who are the
active workers for spreading the knowledge of pure religion and undefiled;
these are the life-blood of a country, the shield, the defence, the stay, and
the support of any nation to which they belong.
This is the Church which shall be truly glorious at the end.
When all earthly glory is passed away then shall this Church be presented
without spot before God the Father’s throne. Thrones, principalities, and
powers upon earth shall come to nothing; dignities, and offices, and endowments
shall all pass away; but the Church of the firstborn shall shine as the stars
at the last, and be presented with joy before the Father’s throne. When
the Lord’s jewels are made up, and the manifestation of the sons of God
takes place, Episcopacy, and Presbyterianism, and Congregationalism will not be
mentioned; one Church only will be named, and that is the Church of the elect.
Reader, this is the true Church to which a man must belong, if
he would be saved. Till you belong to this, you are nothing better than a lost
soul. You may have the form, the husk, the skin, and the shell of religion, but
you have not got the substance and the life. Yes; you may have countless
outward privileges: you may enjoy great light, and knowledge - but if you do
not belong to the Body of Christ, your light and knowledge, and privileges,
will not save your soul. Alas, for the ignorance that prevails on this point!
Men fancy if they join this church or that church, and become communicants, and
go through certain forms, that all must be right with their souls. It is an
utter delusion, it is a gross mistake. All were not
-------
THE TRUTH
Great truths are greatly won: not
found by chance,
Nor wafted on the breath of summer
dream;
But grasp’d
in the great struggle of the soul,
Hard buffeting with adverse wind and
stream,
Wrung from the troubled spirit, in
hard hours
Of weakness, solitude, perchance of
pain:
Truth springs like harvest from a well
plough’d field;
And the soul feels it has not wept in
vain.
- HORATIUS BONAR, D.D.
* * *
49
NERO REDIVIUS
By Professor H. MAURICE RELTON
This extract from the Church of England
Newspaper (July 16 1937) is a wonderful proof that what
the Apocalypse states, and what the
Nero, as we know, died by his own hand in an obscure house on
the outskirts of
Towards the end of the century, when it was no longer probable
that Nero was alive, the expectation of his return was from the underworld. In Book VIII of the Sibylline oracles, he has become a
ghostly, supernatural figure, and is described as a wild monster, leaving
behind him a dark track of blood.
So it is suggested that in this legend of Nero redivivus we may find the
explanation of the “wounded head” of
Rev. 13: 3 and of “the beast that was, and is not, and
shall come” of 17: 11. More and more as the prophecy in 13: 2 proceeds, the head with the wound and the beast himself, Nero redivivus and the Roman
imperium, are identified. In Nero redivivus the writer sees the whole power and horror of the empire
concentrated. The priests of this Caesar-god make every effort to spread the
imperial cult and to force men to offer worship to his image.
A not unlikely interpretation of the number of the Beast, 666,
is that which sees in it the sum of the numbers expressed by the letters of the
name and title of Nero in Hebrew. Irenaeus
records, though he rejects, a varied reading, 616. This is given by dropping
the N in Neron. The whole thing would thus be a
cryptogram for the name and title of the Emperor in Hebrew letters (Neron Kesar.) Taking, then, the
interpretation as both historical and typical, we have in Nero and in Nero
redivivus that which was and
is and is to come. We have the embodiment of the world-spirit persecuting the
Church and a prophecy of its reappearance in history.
We look out upon the world to-day and note an assembling of a
world conference at
Are we witnessing the re-incarnation, in a modern Nero redivivus, of that spirit
of secularism and humanism which inevitably must take an anti-Christian form
once its true character is revealed? Are we in our day and generation to
witness a concentrated mobilization of the powers of secular States against the
Christian Ecclesia? Must Christians once again hide in the catacombs and flee
the cities as a persecuted sect in a hostile world? The problem as it presented
itself to the seer on the island of Patmos was this: What chance had the Church
against this all-devouring and persecuting world-spirit, this great beast
sprawling over the earth and shedding the blood of the saints? If Antichrist
were once embodied in a Nero or a Domitian, the future may yet witness his
incarnation in an even more hideous form.
-------
THE GOSPEL IN WAR
By F.
J. HUEGEL
After
the Armistice, in a quiet
It never crossed my mind to straddle the fence. There were
Jews, Roman Catholics, Mormons, Protestants of every stripe, and what not, but
to talk sweet platitudes about the mercies of God would have been high treason.
I would no more have thought of betraying my Saviour in that fashion than to
have betrayed my country. I preached the same Gospel that had brought peace
into my own disordered life. In every meeting Christ was lifted up and
recommended as the only hope of sin-cursed hearts.
Instead of driving men away from me it had the opposite
effect. Men of all faiths pressed upon me to hear the Word of God. One of my
most devoted co-labourers was a Mormon. I recall how he poured out his heart to
me in gratitude for having led him to a knowledge of Christ. Years before he
had been a Mormon missionary to Germany and had baptized men into the Mormon
faith in the Rhine. He renounced Mormonism and made a true surrender to Christ.
Four great hospitals, with their immeasurable pain, were visited daily. To
distribute chewing gum, cigarettes, and candy? Nay, but to point broken hearts
to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. My own brother, who
was killed at Verdun, was brought to Christ and a deep experience of His grace,
while in the army. To be able to face those awful hours one needed Christ.
* * *
50
SOME OBJECTIONS TO GRADED
RAPTURE + 3
1
Are
there two classes of people in the Church, partial overcomers and full
overcomers? This theory teaches that there are two classes, and attempts to
create within the Church two groups of believers, those who partially live in
sin and those who do not, those who partially overcome and those who fully
overcome. This class of interpreters uses the seven promises to the overcomer
in Rev. 2. [&] 3.,
claiming that the full overcomers will receive rewards and reign with Christ,
and that the partial overcomers are to be finally saved but have no part in
Christ’s reign. - F. J. DAKE.
It is exceedingly interesting to observe how clearly this
objector himself expresses the plurality of raptures. He says: “This Rapture (1 Thess. 4: 13-18) is the first of a series of raptures that will take place
during the First Resurrection. Besides this Rapture there will be the Rapture
of the Manchild (7: 1-3; 12: 5; 14: 1-5), the Rapture of the Great Multitude of Tribulation Saints (6: 9-11; 7: 9-17; 15: 2-4; 20:
4), and the Rapture of the Two Witnesses, (11: 3-13). The teaching of
more than one rapture is not only required and stated in the above passages,
but necessary to make clear what Paul meant when he said, ‘every man in his own order’. (1 Cor.
15: 20-23). The Greek for ‘order’ is “tagma” and occurs only
here. It is used in the Septuagint of a body of soldiers and an army (Num. 2: 2; 2 Sam. 23: 13). It means a company or
body of individuals. In order for every man to be raptured ‘in his own order’ or company there must be
different companies of redeemed people saved and raptured at different periods.”
This admitted plurality of rapture - which is obvious - makes
plurality in Church rapture a very
easy conception, only requiring (what Scripture provides) a simple
discrimination between ‘firstfruits’
and ‘harvest’: that is, not a
distinction in wheat-character, but a distinction in grain-ripeness, with a
consequent differently dated reaping. If reaping is dated by ripeness, the
problem is solved. So it is written:- “When the grain is ripe,
immediately he putteth in the sickle” (Mark 4: 29).
2
Selective
Rapture includes Selective Resurrection. Therefore the 144,000 must consist
chiefly of those who “sleep in Jesus”. But we do not believe that Revelation
14. will bear the interpretation forced into it
as evidence of Selective, Rapture. We think that “the First-fruits” of verse 4 are those who have passed through the
great tribulation unscathed and that they stand with the Lamb on
The answer is obvious. Our Lord states that the ‘wheat’ is sown between the two Advents, and
therefore is solely a symbol of the Church; that the ‘harvest’ is a reaping by angels - angels are never said to carry
Israelites into their refuge in the Wilderness; and, above all, He is Himself
‘firstfruits’ - His rapture, a
rapture of firstfruits, has already occurred. The
figure is conclusive. But other facts are, if possible, even more so. (1) These ‘firstfruits’ are the body-escort of the Lamb “whithersoever he goeth” - therefore throughout the universe, and not only in
Palestine; (2) they are “purchased
from among men” - not from Twelve Tribes alone; (3)
they are “purchased out of the earth” - therefore they are not on the earth; and (4) they are singing (among others) “before the throne” and the Throne throughout the
Apocalypse is on high. It is obviously the heavenly
3
It is true that only Overcomers will be caught up. But, then, every
believer is an Overcomer; see 1 John 5: 5. Unfortunately, this is not what teachers of
partial rapture mean by “an Overcomer”.
Thus you see how utterly the idea of “a group of overcomers” is excluded, because the
Manchild was caught up to God and His throne, to which no man, however
faithful, can ever attain. - G. V. WIGRAM.
It is true that faith overcomes the world, and makes an
overcomer in the Apocalyptic sense; but it is a faith far larger than simple,
saving acceptance of Christ that makes what our Lord calls an ‘overcomer’. In the great chapter that reveals
overcoming faith - Hebrews Eleven - there is not a single example of
merely saving faith, but only of a whole life responding to the whole Word of
God: “through faith they
subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the
mouths of lions” (Heb. 11: 33). Our Lord’s own words show that by an ‘overcomer’ He means vastly more than the
saved:- “He that overcometh, and he
that keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the
nations” (Rev. 2: 26). If all believers are overcomers, all believers throughout all
the churches of the world for nineteen centuries - even including regenerate
souls in the Roman Communion - have “kept Christ’s works unto
the end”;
not excepting the Ephesian Angel to whom the Lord says, - “Remember
how thou hast fallen, and do the first
works” (Rev. 2: 5). Such a conclusion is as remote from the facts as it is from
the Scriptures. It is always a mystery to us where such writers live: it is not
in the Church or in the world known to us. “The
cause of Christ,” says D. L.
Moody, “is paralyzed because of sin - the
sin of believers.”
4
To teach that the church will be raptured by instalments is to
woefully distort the figures which God has given to illustrate this blessed
truth concerning His own - the church. The very thought is grotesque and
repugnant to one’s sense of order and fitness. When the spiritual body is
completed, it will be caught up to meet the beloved bridegroom, one glance from
His blessed eyes changing forever her blackness into comeliness: one flash of
His glory, and every spot and wrinkle cleansed away by the last needed
application of the precious blood of Christ, the Lamb of God. - The Moody Monthly, June, 1925.
It is rarely that this point of view - the magical change of
all believers into perfection at death - is so unblushingly stated. One verse,
alone, is a sufficient answer. Concerning the [regenerate] believer guilty of one of the excommunicating sins, the
Church is directed by the Holy Ghost “to deliver such an one unto Satan
for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of
the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5: 5). The contention that such a gross
backslider was never converted equally with the contention that because of his
sin since conversion he is lost, wrecks on this text; but, equally, radiant
sinlessness at the Coming founders. The believer whose works of wood, hay, and stubble are burnt in
judgment after his
resurrection, is yet himself “saved as through fire” (1 Cor. 3: 15): did “one glance from the
Blessed Eyes change his blackness into comeliness”, before ever he
had even been judged? The Eyes of Fire, watching a church (Rev. 2: 18), have a far graver function. A most startling disillusionment
awaits the believer who imagines that his sins, if unconfessed and unabandoned,
will not come up for judgment because magically annihilated at death.
5
The holders of the “partial
rapture” theory might asked, “To
what degree must one overcome before one may be sure of being caught away when
the Lord comes?” The answer would necessarily be, either a
perfection unto which no believer can attain, thus shutting all out, or an
imperfection which because of its universal presence, would also debar every
believer. Thus the blessedness of the hope of the Christian is stolen away, the
grace of God is made of none effect, the power of God is proven insufficient,
and the purpose of God is hindered in fulfilment, by the teaching of a partial
rapture. The teaching of a partial rapture confuses law with grace, salvation
with rewards, the hope of the Church with the hope of Israel, makes the types
meaningless, denies the utter depravity of the old nature and the full
perfection of the new, exalts the flesh and leads to spiritual pride, brings in
works, and mars the matchless grace of the living God.* - Serving
and Waiting, April, 1932.
* Such intemperance of language is the
danger of us all in controversy, and only defeats the cause it is intended to
promote. This is from a pre-Tribulationist; but the post-Tribulationist can be
no less severe. The very views for which Serving and Waitiwg
contends, Mr. A.
Reese characterizes thus (The Approaching
Advent of Christ, p. 116):- “Theories
that, more than any other factor, not excluding Sacerdotalism, are making the
oral teaching of our Lord of no effect: theories that are blighting Bible study
and Christian fellowship all over the world: theories and traditions that have,
cursed the movement from the beginning.” God guard us from intemperate - [i.e.,
‘lacking moderation in speech’] - judgments.
The writer seems totally unaware of the doctrine of reward, so
simply and openly stated in Scripture, and by no one more so than by our Lord.
The Lord’s ten cities for ten talents, and five cities for five talents,
is alone decisive of graded reward for graded holiness. The very absence of a
revealed standard of holiness for rapture is a most powerful argument in its
favour; for it not only cuts out all possibility of presumption, for so none
can “be sure of being caught away when the Lord
comes”, but it exactly corresponds with the unrevealed date of the
Advent - the one for unceasing sanctity, and the other for unceasing vigilance.
We do well to remember the words of Robert
Murray McCheyne:- “There is a pride of race, and a pride of place, and a pride of face, but worse than all is a pride of grace - spiritual pride.”
‘Grace’ can be so preached as to
make us saints that we are not.
6
The exhortation in Luke 21: 36 is not addressed to the Church nor has it anything to do with the Church. The true
Church will not meet Christ as the Son of Man, but the Church will meet Him as
her Lord. The passage means the faithful Jewish remnant on earth during the
great tribulation, the time of Jacob’s trouble. They are to “watch”; we are to “wait”. By their watching and praying and
their faithful witness bearing they will be accounted worthy to escape the
awful tribulation and finally when Christ comes as King stand before the Son of
Man. The theory of a First Fruit Rapture is unscriptural, confusing, and rests
on a superficial study of prophecy. - Our Hope, Jan., 1931.
But the distress immediately preceding this prayer to escape
is not the wrath on Palestine (verse 23), but “upon the
earth distress of nations,
men fainting for fear” (verse 25); it is no physical escape achieved by
sudden flight, as that which our Lord commands to the Jew (Matt. 24: 16), but a moral escape by being “accounted worthy” through perpetual vigilance and prayer;
and it is not an active escape but a passive - “to be set [passive] before the Son of man”; ‘by angels’,
as Dean Alford supplies. The
supposition that the phrase ‘the Son of Man’ is Jewish is one of the inexplicable slips of
exposition. It ought to be obvious that the Son of God is our Lord’s
divine title, the Son of Man is His human title, and the Son of David is His
Jewish title.
The Israelitish escape is the fruit of sudden, intense
muscular effort, the Christian escape of prolonged moral preparation and
prayer. “Ye are the salt of the earth, our
Lord says” (Matt. 5: 13), “ye are
the light of the world”: it will hardly be contended that the Jew, either then or now, is the light of the world: “but if
the salt have lost its savour” - not its nature; it is salt still: literally, if it has
‘become foolish’ - “it is
thenceforth good for nothing” - the gross backslider is not only good for no Christian
purpose, but is the world’s worst stumbling block - “but to
be cast out and trodden underfoot of men.” Exactly this
happens in the [Great] Tribulation.
7
Of late, certain men have confused Christians by teaching what
they term “a partial rapture”. They
claim that on certain ones whose surrendered lives have made them worthy, will
share in this glorious destiny. They say the others who have not reached a
certain standard of spirituality will not share in it. - The Prophetic News, Oct., 1937.
The same issue of the Prophetic News says:- “No
greater book on prophecy has ever been written than Seiss’ Apocalypse.”
We wonder if the critic of partial rapture is aware that Dr. Seiss is one of
“the certain men who confuse Christians.”
Dr. Seiss says (The Apocalypse, p.371):- “Some saints are raised,
translated, and glorified in advance of others: there is in every instance some
‘firstfruits’ before the general harvest. And so we are taught, as Ambrose, Luther, and Kromayer
admit, that particular resurrections and translations occur at intervals
preceding the full completion of the glorified company.”
-------
THE OVERCOMER
“He that overcometh.” It is there in this one or that who
has not allowed the pressure of the world to prevail, who has not let the salt
of a consecrated personality lose its savour, or the light of a steady witness
to Christ grow dim, who has used the God-given talents, be they ten or five, or
even if there were only one, as God would have them used - that the answer to
the message of the risen Christ is given. It is he who has met the buffetings
of the stream, and yet has not let the stream carry him away; he who, with
whatever slips and stumbles, has yet remained faithful in the very little; he
who may seem to himself sometimes to have lost much, yet has never lost heart -
it is he who overcomes, who is a victor. - CANON
J. K. MOZLEY, D.D.
-------
REMOVAL
God is
going to give an exhibition of His power, and suddenly remove, without warning,
those who have believed His Word, and trusted themselves wholly to the Saviour and are walking with
Him daily - His Enochs and Elijahs. - REGINALD
T. NAISH.
-------
WORTHINESS
Our
Lord’s counsel (Luke 21: 36) that we should pray always to be accounted worthy to escape
the [Great] Tribulation, and to be set before Him in His Parousia, a recently
unearthed papyrus* aptly
illustrates. The Christians in a village in
* Dr. Deismann’s Light from the Ancent East.
* * *
51
LOVE AND MARTYRDOM + 5
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
The
smiting of the Shepherd was to be the signal not only of the momentary
scattering of the sheep, but of the birth of persecution down all the Christian
ages. So our Lord, who was sent to the lost sheep of the
House of Israel, and “was moved with compassion because they were distressed and,
scattered as sheep not having a shepherd”
(Matt. 9: 36),
quotes the great prophecy of Zechariah (13: 7)- “Awake,
O sword, against
my shepherd” - on the threshold of Gethsemane; and couples with the
quotation His own absolute prophecy of the coming fall of all the Apostles:- “All ye shall be
offended in me this night” (Matt. 26: 31) - Christian
persecution was born that night.
PERSECUTION
Simultaneously, our Lord, as recorded in Luke, discloses the deeply
buried reason of all persecution, and at once singles out the one character
whose career was to be the Church’s lesson in persecution for all time.
He says:- “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you [apostles]” - and it has been
granted to him - “that he might SIFT YOU AS WHEAT” (Luke 22: 31). Persecution is
deliberately sanctioned by God, in order that Satan, acting as a
winnowing-fan, may so shake the wheat in the sieve as to separate ripe grain
from chaffy grain; and our Lord puts Peter on record as for ever the embodiment
of a sifted soul. A chief apostle; a believer in prophesied calamity;
passionately set on distinguishing himself in the coming crisis; struck by the
storm; a public apostate; a glorious - [forgiven,
restored, and divinely blessed] - martyr.
SELF-CONFIDENCE
First, therefore, Peter embodies for all time the colossal
blunder of self-confidence, in an extraordinary revelation for us all, for we
are all potential Peters. He replies:- “Even if
I must die with thee, yet will I not deny thee”
(Matt. 26: 33).
The Lord says:- “I tell
thee, Peter, the
cock shall not crow this day, until thou shalt THRICE DENY THAT THOU KNOWEST ME”
(Luke 22: 34): before this day has gone, you will
publicly, deliberately, have become a triple apostate. Peter is without
question a sample of myriads of [regenerate] believers down the Christian centuries: no higher
Apostle existed in the morning; a public,
self-confessed apostate before the cock crew.
MARTYRDOM
But
LOVE
Now we get our golden lesson. Our Lord,
embodying in Peter a concrete case for the Church of all time, by his three
piercing, probing questions not only discloses the antidote to the threefold
denial, but reveals that which alone can carry us
through martyrdom. He plugs home this one question - “LOVEST THOU ME?” - three times to find what rank we
give to His love; for all your collapse, Peter, arose from a lack sufficient
love for your Saviour and it is love, and love alone which will carry us
through. “Lovest thou me?” The Lord does not ask, “Simon, how much hast thou wept, or how
bitterly?” or,
“How much hast thou fasted, or afflicted thy soul?” but, what exactly is the depth of your love for your
Lord? The lesson for us is beyond rubies. Not mastery of theology, not a
passion for reward, not a hatred of sin, not evangelistic or missionary
fervour, not love for our fellow-believers - not in these, lovely as they are,
is the root of martyrdom: the master-anchor of the martyred soul is a deep,
personal - [life-giving] - love for Christ.*
* It is extremely valuable that our Lord
Himself has defined who it is that loves Him:- “He that hath my commandments, and
keepeth them, he it is that loveth
me” (John 14: 21).
This discloses the gravity of the teaching that Christ’s commandments, in
the Gospels and the Apocalypse, are ‘Jewish’
and not for us at all.
SUPREME LOVE
The first of our Lord’s three questions is acutely
important. “Lovest thou me MORE THAN THESE?” Do you so love Me
that you can follow Me alone? Can you sacrifice all other love for mine? “He that
loveth father or mother more than me is
not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or
daughter more than me is not worthy of
me” (Matt. 10: 37). Strong men, mature believers, can tremble and grow white
when confronted with a choice between some shibboleth
- [i.e., ‘a catchphrase, tenet
or social trick arbitrarily selected as a test of loyalty to a party,
conformity to a social group, etc.’] - of their group and Scripture -
that is, Christ. So Paul had exactly our Lord’s
experience: of Christ we read - “They all forsook him and fled” (Mark 14: 50); and of Paul, just before his
martyrdom - “All forsook me” (2 Tim. 4: 16). There is not an ecclesiastical group
in the world to-day, whether Roman or Greek or Protestant, to break - or be
broken - from which for conscience’ sake is not one of the sorest trials
a child of God can experience. Simon, lovest thou me more than these,
the nearest and dearest you have on earth?
THE ANSWER
So now we have the deeply sanctified
character emerging out of persecution. What a profoundly different Peter we
behold! Before his fall, it was a proud confidence - “If all shall be
offended in thee, I shall never be offended:” now it is a heart-cry - “Lord,
thou knowest all things” - I cannot hide my heart from Thee
even if I would, and I rely on Thy omniscience rather than on my own feelings -
“Thou knowest that
I love thee.” He is silent on everything now, except his love. Christ can forgive us
sins for which we can never forgive ourselves. The Lord is so perfectly contented
with the answer. He so completely admits the appeal to His
omniscience, that, without the giving assent by a word, He draws the veil from
the only martyrdom ever revealed years, nay, decades, beforehand;* and so deeply has He forgiven Peter,
so dearly does He love him, so thoroughly does He now trust him, that He gives
into his hands the greatest treasure God has on earth, “the flock of God which he purchased with
his own blood.”
* Peter was crucified
in A.D. 64.
FOLLOW ME
So now we reach the final staggering word:-
“FOLLOW ME.” What a religion is ours! Christ lifts
up a cross before Peter’s eyes, and says,
Follow me, and Peter follows him. Who then is
this that gives such commands? A phrase which the Lord
omitted to quote answers:- “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against THE MAN THAT IS MY FELLOW, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 13: 7).*
Peter was right when he said:- “Lord, thou knowest all things”:
for Christ had known that before a cock
crew the apostle would
deny Him thrice: and He knew, thirty years before it happened, Peter’s
martyrdom by an extremely rare death. Follow Me for thirty years more of
golden service: follow Me in the production of letters which shall enrich the
Church for nearly two thousand years: follow Me up the Hill of Golgotha: follow
Me into the only class which, as
such, is distinguished in the [coming millennial] Kingdom (Rev. xx. 4) - the [Christian] martyrs. The love of Christ triumphs
over every conceivable difficulty. Samuel
Rutherford, writing from prison in Aberdeen three centuries ago,
languishing there, persecuted for his faith, ended one of his letters with this
sentence - “Jesus Christ came into my prison
cell last night, and even stone in it glowed like a ruby.”
* “Jewish
commentators themselves have admitted that the word amithi
(‘my fellow’)
implies equality with God; only,
since they own not Him who was God and
Man, they must interpret it of ‘a false claim on the part
of man’, overlooking that it is God Himself who thus speaks of the Shepherd
of His text” (David
Baron).
-------
LOVE
Camest Thou
far, my Beloved,
To seek for Thine own?
From
Heaven’s high wonder and glory
I travell’d alone.
From height
that thine eye ne’er beholdeth,
Past planet
and star,
Down
distances measureless, shining:
Yea, I came
far.
Didst Thou
leave much, O Beloved,
In coming for me?
My Home in
the love of My Father
I gave up
for thee.
For aye
through the song and the music
My heart
heard thy call:
I gave up My freedom, My glory,
Yea, I left
all.
Didst Thou
bear much, my Beloved,
That I
might be free?
The
thorn-crown, the mocking, the scourging,
The death
on the tree;
The wrath of God - ah! this sorrow
That
thought cannot touch -
I died from the stroke of His anger:
Yea, I bore much.
Didst Thou love long, O Beloved,
With heart that sought me?
Long ages e’er worlds were created
My heart yearn’d for thee.
E’er ever the rapturous angels
Fill’d heaven with song,
For thee My heart panted and thirsted:
Yea, I
loved long.
-------
THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE
By JOHN G.
PATON
One of
our chiefs, full of the Christ-kindled desire to seek and to save, sent a
message to an inland chief, that he and four attendants would come on Sabbath
and tell them the Gospel of Jehovah God. The reply came back sternly forbidding
their visit, and threatening with death any Christian that approached their
village. Our chief sent in response a loving message, telling them that Jehovah
had taught the Christians to return good for evil, and that they would come
unarmed to tell them the story of how the Son of God came into the world and
died in order to bless and save His enemies. The heathen chief sent back a stem
and prompt reply once more:- “If you, come, you will be killed.” On Sabbath
morn the Christian chief and his four companions were met
outside the village by the heathen chief, who implored and threatened them once
more. But the former said:- “We come to you without weapons of war! We come only to tell
you about Jesus. We believe that He will protect us to-day.”
As they pressed steadily forward toward the village, spears
began to be thrown at them. Some they evaded, being
all except one dexterous warriors; and others they
literally received with their bare hands, and turned them aside in an
incredible manner. The heathen, apparently thunderstruck at these men thus
approaching them without weapons of war, and not even flinging back their own
spears which they had caught, after having thrown what the old chief called
‘a shower of spears’, desisted from mere surprise. Our Christian
chief called out, as he and his companions drew up in the midst of them on the
village public ground:- “Jehovah thus protects
us. He has given us all your spears! Once we would have thrown them back at you
and killed you. He has changed our dark hearts. He asks you to hear about the
love of God, our Great Father, the only living God.”
The heathen were perfectly overawed. They manifestly looked on
these Christians as protected by some Invisible One.
We lived to see that chief and all his tribe sitting in the
-------
GOOD FOR EVIL
Tribulation is God’s alchemy for
changing lead into gold. Golden was the answer of Sir Thomas More to his judges. When sentenced to death, and asked
if he had anything to say, he replied:- “By
lords, I have but to say that, like as the blessed apostle St. Paul was present
at the death of the martyr Stephen, keeping their clortese
that stoned him, and yet be both now both saints in heaven” - [i.e.
after
their resurrection from the dead. (John 3: 13; cf. 14: 3, 4; Acts 2: 34,ff.; 2 Tim. 2: 18, R.V.] - “and there shall continue friends
forever, so I trust, and shall therefore pray, that though your lordships have
been on earth my judges, yet we may HEREAFTER
meet in heaven together, to our everlasting salvation.”
-------
LOVEST THOU ME MORE THAN THESE?
Late in life John Ruskin fell deeply in love. He wrote Sesame
and Lilies, a book
that has widely influenced young womanhood, to please the girl he loved. That
girl, though loving him tenderly, refused him because of his rejection of
definite Christian truth, and it cost her her life.
She sank under it, and three years after she lay dying. Ruskin begged to be allowed to see her. She sent to ask whether he loved God
better than he loved her; and on his answering ‘no,’
her door was closed against him for ever. Ruskin never
recovered from the blow. But one of his biographers says:-
“The work she might never have done in life was
accomplished through the strength of her sacrifice, His lost love led him at
last to faith in God and the world to come.”
-------
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH
Katar Singh, a Tibetan, was
sentenced by the Lama of Tshingham, to death
by torture for professing his faith in Christ. Sewn up in a heavy wet yak skin,
he was exposed to the heat of the sun. The slow process
of contraction of this death-trap is a most awful
means of torture. At the close of the day the dying
man asked to be allowed to write a parting message. It was as follows:-
I give to
Him, Who gave to me my life, my all, His all to be;
My debt to Him, how can I pay, though
I may live to endless day?
I ask not one, but thousand lives for
Him and His own sacrifice:
Oh, will I then not gladly die for
Jesus’ sake, and ask not why?
This testimony, uttered in a moment of agony, did not go unfruitful, for one of the highest officials in the
Lama’s palace was gripped by the martyr’s cry and confessed Christ
that same night.
* * *
52
SOULS GIVEN TO CHRIST + 1
Never in
our life-time have we needed a more absolute grip on
the central facts of the Faith; and never was it more essential to get back to
bedrock truth on God’s purpose from eternity to save those whom He
intends to save. Falling conversions, and partially failing missions;
collapsing missionary Societies; a hardening of the unbelievers whom we meet;
nearly all the theological colleges of the
Our enormous background is an assertion of the Most High
Himself. God says:- “ALL SOULS* ARE MINE”
(Ezek. 18: 4). God’s
property in souls is not derived, as man’s property is, but original: all
souls are His, not by conveyance from another owner, or by purchase, but by
right of creation: every being who has ever lived on earth into whom God has
breathed an immortal spirit belongs, therefore, to Him in whom we “live and move and have
our being”. Such is the wealth of God! He owns souls
- thinking, free-willed, deathless souls, made in the image of God; He has an
absolute, unquestionable right to them, for He made them out of nothing; and,
in the nature of all property, the awful responsibility is upon God Himself as
to what shall be their eternal destiny.
[* See Psa. 16: 10; cf. Acts 2: 27, 31-34,
R.V.)]
A nearer background, still vast, but confined to the redeemed,
is the background which dominates our Lord’s mind in His prayer to His
Father: the simple fact that the whole
of the redeemed - [‘spirit’,
‘body’ and ‘soul’] - have been made over to Christ for ever. “The men whom thou gavest
me out of the world; thine they were, and thou
gavest them to me”
(John 17: 6):
“I pray for those whom thou hast given
me” (verse 9):
“keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me” (verse 11): “I
kept them which thou hast given me” (verse 12). It is not that they
cease to be the Father’s, “for”, Jesus says (verse 9), “they are thine; and all things
that are mine are thine”: but they are now the peculiar
property of our Lord, given to Him as patients are given to a physician, or as
sheep to a shepherd, or as pupils to a teacher, or as subjects to a king.
Thus all salvation is carried on according to an
eternal purpose and an exact plan of God: divine foreknowledge, never at fault,
foresees and effects according to an exact transference of souls from God to
Christ. “For whom he foreknew, he also
foreordained; and whom he foreordained, them he also called; and whom
he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he
also glorified” (Rom. 8: 29). So sure is the Divine decree that the foreknown are already,
in everlasting fact, the glorified.
So, therefore, on the eve of His
crucifixion the Lord reveals His response to the Father’s gift, and what
the consequence is of a soul being given to Christ. “While I
was with them, I kept them in thy name which
thou hast given me: and I guarded them” - another word: I kept them as with a
military guard - “and not one of them perished; but the son of
perdition”
is lost. They are weak and cannot keep themselves, and so must be kept: they
are jewels bought at enormous cost, therefore worth keeping: they are the
personal possession of our Lord, the wealth which He
most values, and so omnipotently guarded. “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day that I make up my jewels”
(Mal. 3: 17).
Now we reach as stupendous, as reassuring, as purely divine a
prophecy as ever was uttered. “All
that which the Father giveth me” - the neuter, also used elsewhere (John 3: 6; 17: 2) of persons, covers the whole body of
believers - “SHALL COME UNTO ME”:
“all” - without exception; all down the ages, until the last
soul that is given; all the Father giveth me “shall reach me”, shall arrive in the Everlasting
Arms. No gross neglect of ours, however grave may be the
consequences of that neglect to ourselves, can involve the loss of a single
soul; and if we concentrated all our power on stopping them coming, even with
the might of an empire, we could not block one: for it is a secret transaction
between God and the soul; and “all,” Jesus says, “shall come.”* It is possible most seriously to misuse this truth. We
may say that as the elect are certain of eternal life, therefore I can fold my
hands; that God’s work is automatic, and therefore independent of me;
that my own soul need be my only anxiety. A thousand Scriptures must be cancelled if such an attitude is to be assumed. But, on the other hand, the very repose of God enters the
soul which grasps this truth. Conversions may die down; whole
Churches - like the African, the Nestorian, the Asiatic - may be wiped out of
entire countries; the Church itself may grow rotten and corrupt and the shades
of the Great Tribulation be ready to fall:- nevertheless, not one soul will be
wanting which God has given to Jesus Christ, in the Day that He makes up His
jewels.
* This negatives a truly awful fear felt
by some of our evangelical brethren. A woman who lived in the flat above Commissioner Samuel Bringle
heard him preach in a Methodist church and asked if she might come down to his
family prayers. One morning she was late and listened outside the door; the
Commissioner so prayed that the woman was brought to
her Saviour’s feet. He “trembled for days
at the thought of how she might have been lost” if his prayer had
been unloving or vindictive as he mentioned the rift in the Army. But Jesus says that “all shall come.”
But now we suddenly find the reverse truth -
rather, the complementary truth - uttered in the same breath by our Lord; and
in both the utterance of Jehovah and the utterance of Christ a vast gulf yawns
between Law and Grace. Jehovah’s utterance is this:-
“Behold, all souls are mine:
the soul that sinneth, it shall die”
(Ezek. 18: 4): Hell looms up at once over
God’s universal property. But our Lord’s utterance, while it
involves the same truth is worlds asunder:- “All that which the Father
giveth me shall come unto me; and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out:” that is, Heaven rises, at once as possible for the whole world, and not
alone for those given to Christ.
So now two apparently antagonistic, but really
complementary, truths are uttered by our Lord in one breath, and the
wise believer accepts both. Let us balance them for a moment. “Men have now seized one and now the other of these truths,
and have built, upon them in separation logical systems of doctrine which are
but half-truths. The Lord Jesus states them in union. Their reconciliation
transcends human reason, but is within the experience of human life”
(Archdeacon Watkins). Jesus says, on
the one hand:- “No man can come to me, except the Father which sent me draw him: everyone that hath heard from the Father, and hath learned, COMETH UNTO ME” (John 6: 44). All apparent ‘coming’ to Christ, and especially mass conversions,
which is the result of hurricanes of emotion and not the effect of ‘hearing’
the Father, is worthless. On the other hand, Jesus also says:-
“Him that cometh unto me” - not him that is given unto me - “I will
in no wise, cast out;” and His last cry to men is this:- “He that
is athirst, let him come: WHOSOEVER WILL,
let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22: 17).*
* Since “God
willeth that all men should be saved,
and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim.
2:
4),
He gives none to Hell, but suffers those not given to Christ to decide their
own destiny, after a bona fide offer of salvation through the Saviour of an entire world.
Now therefore we are face to face with Christ’s
broadcast. “Him that cometh”: no bodily act is intended, for crowds ‑thronged
and jostled our Lord to whom He said:- “Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life.” The ‘coming’
is a sense of danger, a consciousness of guilt, an apprehension of Hell; and an
enlightened understanding of who Christ is, and what he has done - my Saviour.
“Him that cometh I will in no wise cast out.” Take every
other verse out of the Scriptures, and leave but this, and you have a
foundation of which a world of souls may build their hopes and never be put to
shame” (E. Miller). “Him
that cometh” - that is all rich or poor, free or slave, old or young, moral or depraved
coming at once, or coming after months or years; coming hopefully and running,
or coming anxiously and, carried: all who come reach
Christ. And what is the promise? “I will in no wise” - a double negative: I will never,
never “cast out.” If, then, I am sure of a welcome, why do I
stay away from Jesus? And if I stay away, whose
fault will it be if I am lost? The moment I will to come is the moment I know that I have
been given.*
* “This declaration involves the
doctrine of election: there
are some whom the Father gave to Christ. It involves the doctrine of effectual calling:
these who must and shall come;
however stoutly they may set themselves against it, yet they shall
be brought out of darkness into God’s marvellous light. It teaches
us the
indispensable necessity of faith; for even those who are given to Christ
are not saved except they come to Jesus. Even they must come, for there
is no other way to heaven, but by the door, Christ Jesus. All that the Father
gives to our Redeemer must come to Him, therefore none can come to heaven except they come to Christ. Oh!
the power and majesty which rest in the words ‘shall
come.’ He does not say
they have power to come, nor they may come if they will, but they ‘shall
come.’ The Lord Jesus
doth by His messengers, His Word, and His Spirit, sweetly and graciously compel
men to come in that they may eat of His marriage supper” C. H.
Spurgeon).
-------
THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST GOD
The World Conference of the Godless and Free
Thinkers was called by the General Council of the Godless to meet in
* * * * *
The Society of the Godless in
* * * * *
The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism,
commonly known as the Four A’s, has taken for its slogan, its battle-cry respecting Christianity, the American translation
of Voltaire’s Ecrasez L’Infame- “Kill
the Beast!” It has been estimated that there are
eleven national atheist movements in the
*
* * * *
Atheism is rampant in the University. The majority of students
are practical atheists. This is not an indictment on our part; it is a simple,
straightforward statement of fact. - The Varsity of the
* * * * *
A monument to Judas Iscariot has been
erected in
* * *
53
NO. 22869 +1
By SAMUEL TAYLOR
I had
gone on in sin working for the devil thirty-eight years. Had
spent twenty-three years of that time in jails and prisons. I had heard
judges in the courts pass sentence on me six times; yes, say that I would have
to go to prison for some wrong I had done or sometimes for the wrong someone
else had done. The last time I had sentence passed on me the verdict was that I
must “do” all the rest of my
natural life in the Missouri State Prison at Jefferson City. I had that verdict
read May 11th 1920. Now I was sentenced for
killing a man that I had never seen; and would not or could not have any cause
to kill. I did not have any friends or money - was an
habitual criminal. I knew that I did not ever have a chance to have my liberty
in the outside world again. I knew all hope was gone.
The next few days found me trying to break jail. I failed, they took me and locked me in a cell all alone. They
would not let me out for exercise with the rest of the men; and a few days
passed. Then they came with chains and shackles. They put them on me and
chained me up with eighteen other men and started for the prison. We arrived at
the prison - I could see the old dirty grey walls - up over the outer gate was inscribed, “To you who
enter, leave all hopes behind.” The outer gate opened and we were swallowed up - went into the prison world, a world in
itself, and by itself, where they had rules and laws - if there was any law,
for the outside law did not govern the prison. We had a Jew labour contractor.
A prisoner was sold for so much per day; but they did
not call it the contract system, they called it the “task system”. The Jew contractor required all
the work you could do; and the men were under-fed and weak from
under-nourishment. They were weak and sick and some not physically able to make
the task that was given them and all who did not make the task were sent down
to the punishment cell and punished every night.
Yes, I had left all hopes behind. I was there 90 days and
tried to escape. I got caught and was hung up in the
punishment cell with handcuffs on each wrist. The cell was dark and dirty. I
was kept hanging there from 7 a.m., the time they went to work in the morning, till 9 p.m. Then I was given a
slice of bread and a cup of water. That was what I got every twenty-four hours.
I slept on a board lying on the floor every night. This board had cracks in it
and the cracks were infested with bedbugs and the
place with cockroaches and spiders. They kept me in that place twelve days.
The warden ordered me to wear stripes six months. I kept
thinking and planning on how I might escape. On September 13th,
1921, three other men and myself knocked a guard in
the head, took his guns and tried to escape on a switch engine. The other three
men got shot and I was taken back to the punishment
cell and kept hung up by the wrists twenty-six days; then put in an isolation
cell for six months.
When they let me out, it was the talk that if a man could get
money enough he could buy himself out. Then I started
thinking how I could get the money. I made up my mind to start selling dope. I
hired a guard to bring me in some morphine and I started selling it. It was not
long till I got caught, and they found all the money
that I had saved, and all the drugs I had. I was taken
back to the punishment cell and hung up for eleven days. Then to the isolation
cell for eighteen months.
Now this was a dark, damp, filthy place. I could not receive
my mail. People could not see me. I had nothing to read except what the other
prisoners would smuggle in to me. Yes, I was kept in that place eighteen
months, but while I was in, I had an old friend that would do all he could for
me. Even taking chances on getting himself into trouble. When they let me out,
my health was gone. I was a physical wreck. I knew I did not have long to live
and I did not care.
I was working in one of the old
contract shops and was not able to make the task. I was being sent to
the punishment cell and punished when I could not do the work. I had not
been out long till a stool-pigeon told a lot of lies on me and got me run down
to the punishment cell and hung up again. When I got out
I got a big knife and was going to kill him. A guard took the knife from me, and I was taken back and hung up, again for nine days, and
they put stripes on me, again. A short time after that I got to thinking; I
knew I could not do the work and I could not stand to be
punished from time to time. I thought if I could get the money I could buy out. I will try selling ‘IT’ a different way this time. I will let
agents sell it for me. I hired another guard to bring me in some more drugs and
I started to let my agents have it
to sell. It was not long till I got caught again. Yes, I had forgotten the fact
that I must go to where I kept my wholesale supply to get the drugs for my
agents. When the prison was flooded with drugs again
the warden put informers around to watch every move I made. It was not long
till they had me again and this time they found all my money and drugs and I
was hung up again.
The cells were built back to back and
a corridor between them. They were five tiers above the ground, or above the
isolation cells. My old friend would go to the back of the
cell room building: then go up to the top tier and then go in the corridor to
where he would be over my cell; he would slide down a water pipe to my cell and
pull out the ventilating pipe and put in papers, magazines, smoking tobacco or
anything he was able to get for me. Then I could hear him climb back up
the pipe. Weeks went by, months went by and one day he brought down some
Long years before we were out in
I went to the front of my cell and started looking through the
paper. I found an article which read, “Tommy
Madden, ex-convict and safe blower who was shot in front of the express
company’s safe at Sarcoxie, Mo.; no one will claim his body. His body
will be turned over to the county and buried in the potter’s field.”
Yes, I read this and started to think, why did Tommy spend his life with people
like that? People that would not come and get his dead body
and bury it after he had been shot down trying to make some money to give them
and to spend on them. Why did he do it? While he was alive and had money they were all calling him friend, but now he is
dead and they could not use him any more their friendship ended. I thought, if
I ever get out of prison, I should not want to go around with that kind of
people. I could see my own self in Tommy’s
wasted life. I had not been shot into the eternal hell but I was in a living
hell without friends, without money and without hope. I got to thinking of my
past. I had been guilty of all the crimes against man-made
laws and all the sins against God’s laws.
I realized I had gone to the bottom. I could not go farther
down. I got to thinking of the few things I had not done. I had never read a
Bible; I had never prayed; I had never accepted Christ as my Saviour. When I
was a small boy I had heard that Christ would save
sinners from the very uttermost. I did not know anything about Christ. I had
just heard that, and it looked foolish to me, but I thought I would pray and
see if I could get an answer. I knelt on the floor at the foot of my bunk and
cried out, “Oh God, if there be a God, will You please hear my cry and forgive my sins? I am guilty of
them all; please forgive them and save my soul. If You
will, though I never get out of this prison; but if I only get out of this
dungeon, I will go on the yard and talk with young boys that are in sin, and
learning bad habits from older men. I will tell them and show them how the devil will destroy and ruin them if they keep
working for him. I will ask them to accept You as a
Saviour.” When I got through praying these few
words that I was able to say, and raised up, I felt something in my heart that
I had never felt before. It was a warm feeling. I just felt so good I knew the
Lord had heard my cry and saved my soul. Praise the dear Lord!
As the days passed, I would pray and thank the Lord for saving
me and light started to shine in that old dark damp filthy
cell that had been full of darkness and suffering. It was not long
before the warden came down with that same key and put it in the lock of the
door and said, “Sammey, I’m going to give you another chance.”
I smiled and thanked him. When he put me in, he said I would never have a chance.
But, praise to the Lord, prayer changes things. I went out on the yard and
started to talk to the young boys as I had promised the Lord I would do and
that same feeling that was in my heart, that told me I was saved, kept on
saying, “Go on, go on Sam, some day you are
going to have your life in the outside world again. So you may go and tell
young boys and girls how the devil will ruin them and rob them of their souls.”
I kept on working and praying and then, the 24th
day of November, 1933 a guard brought me a pink slip
of paper on which was written, “Sam Taylor, No.
22869, Discharged.”
I went out into the outside world once more. I was baptized in water December 16th, 1933, but I
received another baptism in April 1934, which was of the Holy Spirit. Praise
the Lord! I started on preaching February 24th, 1934, and up to this
date (December 27th 1935) I have gone to
one hundred and eighty-nine churches; forty-seven of them I have, gone to the
second time. Praise the dear Lord! - The
Gospel Herad.
-------
A little Child, a shining star,
A stable rude, the door ajar;
Yet in that place so crude, forlorn,
The hope of all the
race was born.
A cruel cross, a lonely hill,
O’er
Yet strange, ah, strange! ’twas
Death who died
That day, in Him the Crucified.
* * *
54
SOWING TO THE FLESH + 3
By ROBERT GOVETT
Gal. 5: 19. “Now the
works of the flesh are manifest, which are
[adultery,*] fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness. 20. Idolatry,
witchcraft, enmities,
contentions, emulations,
passionateness, party-strifes, discords, parties. 21. Envies,
murders, drunkenness,
revellings, and the like
to these; of which I give you warning beforehand,
as I also told you before, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”
* This word is
omitted by some critics.
The sons
of the flesh, the unconverted and unjustified Jews, should
surely be excluded from the kingdom. But even those born of the Spirit,
might by their failure in regard of sanctification, fail of the kingdom. This
warning, then, applies to those who were right on the great question of
justification: and so refers to believers of the present day. The kingdom is
for “the saints”,
as the original passage in Daniel declared, 7: 18. This assertion
Jesus and his Apostles had enforced and expanded. None, without a righteousness
superior to that of the Pharisee, shall enter it.* It is for the doers of the
Father’s will. Those who walk after the Spirit enter, and those who live
after the flesh are excluded. In the list of evil works, not all are specified - it is added, “and such like”.
The flesh is doubly
excluded; first, as unjustified, and under the curse. Secondly, as unsanctified, and unfit for the
[* Matt. 5: 20,
R.V.]
The justified, then, though not under the curse of the law, might be found at last so unsanctified, as to be accounted
unworthy to enter the kingdom. But some assume that none who walk after the
flesh can be Christians. Let such, then, bow to the testimony of scripture,
which affirms of some believers, that they were “fleshly”, and “walking as men”:
1 Cor. 3: 1-4. “And I,
brethren, could not
speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto fleshly
ones, as unto babes in Christ” “For ye are yet fleshly; for whereas there are among you envying
and strife, and divisions, are ye not fleshly, and walk as men?” Hence warning is given, that the actors
of such deeds of the flesh shall be shut out of the - [Lord’s
coming millennial (Rev. 20: 4, 5)] - kingdom.
The deeds spoken of are distributed
into four principal heads. 1. Sins
of uncleanness: 2. Then two of a
different kind: 3. Sins against love
in the use of the tongue, and in action: 4.
And then three of a miscellaneous character again.
Those sins, doubtless, are made prominent, against which Galatian churches had
most need to be warned. Paul had before spoken of their biting and devouring
one another; he therefore set before them a list of special offences, arising
from a breach of love - offences of the tongue. Emulation, strife for the
pre-eminence, the desire to be equal with, or in advance of those above us in
station, and the words and actions to which these desires give rise may be approved of men, but are hateful to God. Our Lord
assured the apostles that even they, though
chosen to be chief officers of his church, should be excluded
from the kingdom, if they continued to be guilty of them, as they were at that time: Matt. 18: 3.
These offences would exclude from the kingdom. Will any say
that [regenerate] believers cannot be guilty of them? Will they deny that they are actually
manifested in our own day? that they sprung up by
nature, and need the taming down of the flesh to keep them under? And if believers can be guilty of them, and are actually guilty, will any say that the
warning, of exclusion from the kingdom does not refer to them? If they were not
to apply to them, what means the apostle’s solemn and repeated warning?
Why did he tell them of it at his first preaching? and when writing, renew the
caution? If it referred only to the ungodly, to what purpose was it, so
earnestly to press it on the attention of the renewed?
If the caution be universal, that all doers of the
things described in this list will be excluded from the kingdom: and if it be
certain too, that some saints are guilty of these things, then is it certain
too, that some saints will be excluded from the kingdom.
6: 7. “Be not
deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap.”
There are various kinds of seeds, some useful, some noxious Everyone is sowing seed. God would have all to be assured that our present acts of every day are telling,
with the uncertainty and regularity, upon our future welfare. To look upon the
past as a thing with which we have no concern, is a thing as utterly foolish as
for the farmer to imagine, that he has no manner of concern with the field into
which he has cast his grain. Actions are not forgotten, but
only passed by; as the seed is not lost, but only covered in. It will
appear at the harvest. The results of life await us at the day of God’s
judging the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. The Christian for his acceptance by
God, rests on the merits of Jesus. But, after he is once received of God on
that ground, he is, in an important sense, the architect of his own destiny. He
is sowing his own field. That he is an elect son of God will not prevent his
reaping as he has sown. Thus money given to God is not
lost, it is sown. What is done to Christ, Christ will
requite with good. And so as to quantity. The liberal sower shall meet the
liberal harvest; the niggardly, the poor and scant
return
2 Cor. 9.
8. “For
he that soweth into his own flesh,* shall out of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall out of the Spirit
reap life everlasting.”*
* [Greek ...] Else it might be said, that he who gives to the bodily necessities of
others, comes under this warning.
[* NOTE: The Greek word ‘aionios’, in this context of works,
should be translated “age-lasting”. “...but
the one sowing for the SPIRIT, will
from the SPIRIT reap aionian life.”
Cf.,
Heb. 5: 9:
“...and having been perfected” - {the‘Son’ verse 8}” - “became a
cause of aionian Salvation to all those who OBEY him.”]
There is a way of explaining this verse, which shall remove
all its force and pressure. ‘You may make the
first half of threat, to refer to the unbeliever alone; and the second half of promise, to relate to the justified alone. just so the prophecies used to
be expounded. ‘All the promises belong to the Church; all the threats to the Jews.’ Both modes of exposition are, I suppose, equally unfair. A general
truth is here propounded; and as such, it affects believer and unbeliever
alike. Whoever is embraced by its terms will share in its results, whether of good or evil. The sower to
the flesh or to the Spirit, whoever he may be, is the party pointed out.
But even if this be granted, the weight
of the doctrine may be removed from off the believer by another mode of
treating the passage. Let us then proceed with a common exposition. The meaning
of the verse, it may be said, is as follows:- ‘If the believer acts to the gratification of his fallen
nature, he will receive vanity, vexation, and disappointment. And every one is daily
sowing and daily reaping. Acts
of obedience are increasing our faith: acts of disobedience are increasing the
native force of evil within us.’ Now this is true; but it is not
the meaning of the passage before us.
This comment does not explain the terms used by the apostle,
but is obliged to pervert them in more ways than one.
1.
It makes the term “corruption”, when used of the believer, to
signify ‘vexation, disappointment’.
But the word never has that meaning. Its sense in the present case is clear
enough: “corruption” is here spoken
of as springing out of the flesh or the body. But
corruption as applied to the flesh means putridity, the decomposition of the dead body. So it is used
continually in the New Testament. “The creature itself also shall
be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God.” The apostle in the context is
speaking of the resurrection of the body: Rom. 8: 21. So in that chapter which treats especially of the
saints’ resurrection, the Holy
Spirit says of the flesh - “It is sown in corruption, it is raised in
incorruption”, 1 Cor. 15: 42, 50;
also, Acts 2:
27, 31; 13: 34, 35,
36,
37.
2. Again, this interpretation is
faulty, as changing the tense used by the apostle. The sowing is spoken of in
the comment as a regular and habitual thing going on now. But
the reaping is by the apostle described as future. “He that
soweth [present and
habitual employment] shall reap.” “Then shall he have rejoicing in himself.”
“Each shall bear his own burden.” “Whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap”
“In due season we shall reap.” While the sowing
is in this life, the reaping is in the time to come. And it is because harvest
is put off to a distance, that in the next verse we are directed not to faint,
while expecting the issue.
3. Nor does the threat accurately apply
to the ungodly. The sower to the flesh shall reap “corruption”. Some expound it of eternal punishment and destruction. But “corruption” never has that meaning. We must not force on a word a sense which
it has not elsewhere. If it had been said that he
should reap “death”, the
idea would have been more plausible. But how can
eternal death be threatened to the believer for sowing to the flesh? For it is
certain, as has already been shown, that saints do sow to the flesh. And it is also certain that no saint shall finally be lost.
Both alternatives belong to Saints. Saints cannot only sow to
the flesh occasionally, but so continually, as to take in the sight of God, the
very name of fleshly or “carnal”,
as their description: 1 Cor. 3: 1-4. But such fleshly actions must carry
with them a future recompense, just as truly as holy actions. It is a “sowing”. And
the sowing will have its reaping, whether
for the saint, or for the sinner; whether for good, or for evil.
The threat of God against evil sowing, is, that such shall,
“out of the flesh” - the field which they have tilled - reap a
fruit they will not covet. They will reap “corruption”. What means this? It does not refer to simple death of the body now,
for that is felt by saints whose walk pleases God,
as truly as by the most irregular and careless of believers. It is something which must harmonize with the previous threat
contained in verses
19-21
of the former chapter. There we were cautioned that
the workers after the flesh should, by God’s ordination, “not
inherit the
Thus, too, it falls into perfect harmony with the other part
of the verse - that the sower to the Spirit shall out of the
Spirit reap life eternal. The result of a life to the Spirit is the
contrary of a life to the flesh. The issue of the fleshly life is exclusion
from the kingdom. The result then of the spiritual life, to one who is in
Christ, is the entrance into the kingdom. But why is
it not so stated here? It is said, “shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting”. The reason of
the smaller and inferior issue not being named is, I
suppose, lest it should be imagined that a thousand years was the limit of the
obedient saint’s joy. He receives, as
reward according to his works, an entrance on the life of the thousand years.
But after these are ended, there will be no break in
his enjoyment, but an eternity of life begins for him at the kingdom. “The
Spirit,”
says the apostle, “is life:” Rom. 8: 10. Already, as the gracious gift of God, the soul of the believer is alive. But this is a further and future life, the result of our works, the consequence of a spiritual living to
God. How, then, can it be understood of any other
than life of the body - life
in resurrection? And, as this alternative
intends life in resurrection, so does the close of the verse speak of the
reverse - the failure of the first
resurrection - the being counted unworthy to attain the coming age, and the resurrection from amongst the dead.
As the resurrection of the just is by Jesus promised to a holy beneficence (Luke 14: 14), so may the contrary justly be
awarded to the contrary scheme of life and expenditure.
“But
does not this scheme of yours open the door to sin? Will not its consequence in many be, that they
will reason thus? - ‘We shall have eternal life at all events. We care
little about the kingdom of the thousand years. We shall therefore live after
the flesh, and indulge its lusts to the full.’ Will mere exclusion from
the kingdom suffice to prevent such dread consequences?” Aye, but,
friend, who ever said that there was no further punishment for the guilty
believer than simple exclusion from millennial bliss? There are different
degrees of living after the flesh. There are also different degrees of punishment.
A quiet love of the world in its decent forms, in the case of the uninstructed
saint, may perhaps require at the Lord’s hands no more than simple,
rejection from that scene of joy. But a deliberate choice of the works of the
flesh after the present truth is presented and owned, a shocking and stumbling
of the world by open breaches of morality, would demand far more. There is time
in a thousand years to inflict as much of wrath on the delinquent son as the
Father shall deem necessary. “I say unto you, my friends. ... “I will
forewarn you whom ye shall fear. Fear him,
which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell [‘Gehenna’], yea, I say unto you, Fear him.” “That servant
which knew his lord’s will, and prepared
not himself, neither did according to his will,
shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that
knew not, and did commit things worthy of
stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes:”
Luke
12: 4, 5, 47,
48. This doctrine brings the fear of God,
in all its magnitude and awe, to bear upon the disobedient child of God. And this motive is assigned as designed to perfect holiness.
“Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God:”
2 Cor. 7: 1.
-------
PRAYING HYDE
Soon
after 1910 Sialkot Covention,
John Hyde held a meeting in
I shall never forget the lessons I learned at that time. I had
always claimed exemption from night watches, as I felt too tired at bed-time. Had I ever prayed for the privilege of waiting
upon God in the hours of night? No! This led me to claim that privilege then and there. The pain which had kept me
awake night after night was turned into joy and praise because of this
new ministry which I had suddenly discovered of keeping watch in the night with
the Lord’s ‘Remembrancers’.
At length the pain quite left my chest, sleep returned, but with it the fear came upon me lest I should miss my hours of
communion with God. I prayed, “Lord, wake me
when the hour comes” (see Isa. 50:
4). At first it was a 2a.m. and
afterwards at four with striking regularity. At five every morning I heard a
Mahommedan priest at the Mosque nearby call out for prayers in a ringing,
melodious voice. The thought that I had been up an hour before him filled me
with joy.
But Mr. Hyde grew worse, and the annual
meeting of his
This was the doctor’s stern warning. Hyde was to give up
his life of strain as an intercessor in the Sanctuary, or pay the penalty with
his life. What was to be done? He chose the latter without a moment’s
hesitation. Can I ever forget his radiant face after the doctor had told him
the worst? “They
loved not their lives unto death” (Rev. 12: 11).
-------
REQUISITES FOR A CHURCH OFFICER
Am I
truly converted to
Jesus Christ?
Is my
life wholly consecrated to Him?
Have I experienced the
sanctification of the Holy Spirit?
Do I long to be holy -
because my Father in heaven is holy?
Do I read my Bible
frequently and prayerfully?
Do I pray as
I ought?
Am I thankful and proud to be a Christian?
Am I indulging in any known sin?
Am I truly living by faith?
Do I regard Christian service as a
joy?
Do I regard Christian giving as a
privilege?
Do I really live intimately with Jesus
Christ?
Do I love him and long to serve Him more effectively with all
the passion of my soul?
Do I love men as Christ loved men?
Am I serving as a church officer just because I happen to have been elected? Is it just a duty mechanically performed,
or am I working for him in His Church because of my love for Him? - JOHN B. GOTTS, O.B.E.
-------
THE CHURCHES
Out of
an observation extending across the continent and into 31 states, an intimate
touch with conditions in the churches of all denominations, from rural towns to
metropolitan centres my very definite impression is: that, with certain
exceptions the general congregations are infinitely poorer in spiritual
experience and moral fibre than they were even fifteen years ago. Something has
happened that is widespread in extent and vital in character so
as to leave one with a sense of impending disaster to the present church
organization. This is my diagnosis of the condition:-
The majority of church members have lost their belief in
reverence for, and reading of, the Bible.
Their consciousness of God.
A definite experience of regeneration,
any conscious sense of the guilt of sin.
Their desire for holiness.
Their belief in the reality of hell.
Their attendance upon the preaching
service of the church.
Their vital testimony to a real
experience of Christ.
Their separation from the world.
Their communion with God.
Their fellowship with the saints.
Their belief in immortality.
Their belief that children are lost
without Christ.
Their contact with youth in the
preaching of the Gospel.
Their compassion for the lost.
Their vital interest in missions.
Their Gospel of redemption.
Their habit of and power in praying.
Their place in the respect and
confidence of the community. C. MASSEE, D.D.
* * *
55
FAITH IN CHRISTIAN
By SAMUEL WILKINSON
The first essential in the adoption of
the faith principle is that of
direct “call”. If it be mere slavish copy-work of others such as a George Muller or Hudson Taylor or William Quarrder, or if (still worse) it be adopted because it will
be likely to present a stronger appeal to the Christian public, then it is
almost certainly foredoomed to failure. For it is not given
to all to apply the faith principle to organized Christian and philanthropic
undertakings; and when so given, it is generally a “call” to some one person rather than to a Committee or Association. But with that essential condition granted, what has been
found, in the light of experience, to be a satisfactory application of the
faith principle?
“Ask the Lord and tell His people.” This axiom,
first enunciated by John Wilkinson, is meant to carry
with it the implication that while importunate appeal should be addressed to God alone, nevertheless
God’s people should be kept informed as
opportunity may offer and God guide, as to the work and its needs. If
God’s work, then theirs: the work, that is, not of one leader or group,
but equally of all who love and serve God: requiring that they should be taken
into full confidence concerning it, its progress, its prospects, its projects,
its needs. Such frankness, however, is to be distinguished
from “appeal”: hence only certain avenues should be used to present
the work: first its own periodical, that
being of the nature of an account of stewardship; second, response to
spontaneous invitations to address gatherings or to supply articles for the
Christian press: always refraining from paid public advertisement, from private
requests for money or pulpits and from the employment of deputation
secretaries: but liberating active missionaries from time to time as may
without dislocation of their missionary duties, in order to respond to
invitations to give simple accounts and descriptions of actual missionary work.
Frankness may also include special circulars, if special conditions and special
guidance seem to indicate that form of providing information.
II. - PRECISION
The most careful and clear accounts
and bookkeeping, properly audited, and so conducted as to be capable of
presenting promptly and at any time the exact available balance of all moneys,
whether for general use in the furtherance of the Gospel through the operations
of the Mission abroad and at home, or whether “earmarked”
as designated for particular objects or undertakings.
III. - ECONOMY
The most rigid and watchful economy in the expenditure of all
Mission moneys, both in regard to large undertakings or to petty expenditure,
such as stamps or stationery and the like. Yet, as part of true economy, the
provision of sufficient allowances for missionary workers
which, while calculated on a basis of actual and reasonable need, should
place no member of the staff under the necessity of suffering shortage or
contracting debt.
IV. - CAUTION
The habit of looking ahead to note what obligations are about
to fall due; and the preservation of a minimum balance in hand of about one
month’s normal requirements, so as to be prepared to meet unforeseen or
overhead charges and to make reasonable provision against the involuntary
contraction of debt.
V. - PRAYER AND FAITH HABIT
To make the practice of prayer and faith, in respect of the
funds required, a matter of habit, whether the money in hand may happen to
be in temporary abundance or in temporary insufficiency, i.e. whether above or
below the minimum normal balance required. To cultivate the
spirit and habit of prayer, not only in the leader (though in him the most
directly), but in all the missionary staff and, so far as possible, in all the
circles of supporters and sympathizers: to organize to that end a fellowship of
prayer in order to focus united intercession upon definite needs as they arise, whether financial or other.
VI. - OBEDIENCE
Recognition of the fact that honest faith in God does not
compel mechanical adhesion to lines adopted by others, or indeed to any hard
and fast line, but rather to a readiness of mind to apprehend what God would
have done under particular circumstances and at special times. For instance, should He, to test faith, withhold funds for the
maintenance of the work, His object in so doing might conceivably be either to
call attention to some failure in attitude or conduct, to indicate the
necessity of closing down some branch of .he work not fully in His plan, to
call a halt in the work as a whole in order to give the opportunity of united
and believing prayer, to awaken His people in general to a sense of their full
dependence on Him for supplies, to call forth special Sacrifice of substance or
other reason. Hence the vital thing at all
times and specially at times when faith is tested is to wait on God for special
guidance and to follow it, regardless of the criticism it may possibly provoke
from those who judge only from the outside.
VII. - JUDGMENT
And since human judgment is a Divine
entrustment, not to be ignored but to be utilized side by side with, although
subordinate to, the spirit of dependence on Divine guidance, the line of
conduct indicated as most pleasing to God in the application of the faith-principle
is that of being wise and thoughtful and yet simple and dependent; of being
experienced and level-headed and well-balanced and yet child-1ike and honest;
prepared to judge every situation in all its bearings, to consider all its factors
in their due proportion and yet to be faithful to the principle of dependence
and submission; in a word, to be strong and yet weak, with capacity for
leadership and yet with the characteristic of lowliness.
VIII. - CO-OPERATION
This word implies that while God uses force in the physical sphere,
He uses co-operation in the spiritual and moral spheres. We act for Him, by
Him; He acts in us, through us;
similarly we
co-operate necessarily with one another. Organized Christian work is but a form
of co-operation; in full-time service as regards the actual missionary staff;
in prayer and gift and sympathy and at times counsel, as regards the much wider
circle of supporters, intercessors and sympathizers. And as
we seek to know and to follow the Divine will, so should we also consult from
time to time the minds of fellow believers, remembering that the work, being
first of all the Lord’s, is theirs as much as ours; and that our
leadership of it and full-time participation in it does not make it our concern
alone, but leaves us rather under obligation to inform and consult that large
constituency of God’s people with and for whom we act as fellow-trustees
of the Gospel.
IX. -
Nothing either in conduct or devoted
effort can ever merit God’s response to believing prayer; but that there
are attitudes of heart and forms of effort on which God delights to show
approval is provable from His own Word. To conduct a work in
a manner pleasing to Him involves more than keeping certain set forms of effort
in operation in a machine-like manner; there must be alertness, readiness,
heart-burden, thought, plan concerning the ministry of the Gospel in the needy
field itself and also “quick understanding” (i.e. intuition) of the
doors God is opening, the way He is leading, both in the prosecution of the
work and in the provision of its needs. If Divine guidance be honestly sought, fully apprehended and obediently
followed, it will be found rarely to lead two persons on exactly the same
lines, nor even to lead any one person by precisely the same road on two
occasions. But to all who sincerely seek the mind of the Lord with the full
intention of following it, God’s way will be revealed by token and by
assurance and in respect of every need or problem, whether of method, of men,
of supply, of courage or of removal of obstacles.
X. - RESTFULNESS
The faith life, it has been said, is either easy or impossible;
it is, that is to say, either as natural to walk the path of simple faith as to
breathe; or else it is a fight, a struggle, a state of foreboding and
apprehension, of self-effort and fleshly wisdom, in a word anything but faith
except in name. Real trust is real rest; the deeper the trust, the more perfect
the rest, the fuller the deliverance from anxiety, care, worry, nerve-strain
and “scheming” to get prayer
answered. The waiting time is the greatest faith-test. There is often a long
period between the receiving of assurance and the experiencing of a realized
fact. Patience must have her perfect work; patience, not worry; patience, not
restlessness. “Be careful for nothing (‘Let no anxieties fret you’ :- Way’s translation), but in everything by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto
God” (Phil. 4: 6). - Trusting and Toiling.
* * *
AN EXPOSITION OF JOHN 18: 37
By ROBERT GOVETT,
M.A.
(Continued from p. 14.
John xViii. 37)
Jesus, then, sets Himself forth in a
new light, and that in a way adapted to lead to the salvation of Pilate as the man.
Jesus is The Witness. So Isaiah said
He should be (Isa. 1v. 4), 'Behold, 1 have given Him for a witness to the people, a leader
and commander to the people.' This is a passage taken from the general call of
the prophet to the sons of men, to seek in the Son of God that satisfaction
which can be found alone in Him. There also is, first,
a reference to the millennium in the expression ' the sure mercies of David '‑that is, the restoration of His kingdom
for ever, as God promised. Then comes the notice of the Lord's establishing
Christ as a witness to the nations (Rev. i.
5, 6).
Jesus was ' born ' a king, and with an object before His own mind, as well as
before His Father's. He existed before He was 'born'.
He came into the world, in pursuance of an object given Him of the Father.
The then present work of our Lord was
that of the peaceful, suffering witness, testifying to unpopular truth. This
testimony is carried on still in Christ's
members; by the Spirit given to testify to salvation now, and to the kingdom to
come. This attitude is something quite different from kingly rule and power. It
is 'the word of the kingdom' now; the
power of it comes only when Christ returns (Matt. xiii. ig).
Jesus, then, in v. 37 is stating to Pilate, not the aim of
His kingdom ;
but of His coming the first time in the
flesh. It will be another thing by and by, when He comes ' the second time
' in His kingdom, of which the Transfiguration was a type (Matt. xvi. 13 ; xvii. 9).
' To
bear witness to the truth.' Many in our (Jays profess to
be fond of the truth, and to be seeking it, but to be sceptical of
finding it. Jesus came not to seek it ; but,
as having full
possession of it before He was born, He came to dispense it
to others by His testimony. 'The truth'‑rneans
that it is a
great body and one system; religious truth
concerning God
and man. 'Here was the answer to Pilate‑'What hast thou done ? '
'Every otte that is of the truth heareth My voice.'
Here was the appeal to Pilate that He
might be saved. Jesus' witness was delivered not to
Every one that is of the truth.'
This takes up the figure frequently found
in John, of the truth being to us as a father. 'Begotten 6f God.' The men of the world are born 'flesh of
the flesh' in enmity against God, living in falsehood, and by it turned away
from God and His Son.
'The truth ' is (i) a system of religion not to be discovered by the reason of fallen man; it must be
brought to him from heaven as a testimony complete. (2) It must
be sent from God through the Son of God, who is, as well as testifies, ' the Truth '. (3) For ' the truth ' turns on the person, work, and witness of the
Son. Thus John is carrying out the proof of Jesus' first coming as the
Only‑begotten Son of God, 'full of grace and truth'; in opposition to
Moses, the man of shadows and of Law.
If any, then, refuse Christ, it is
because they belong to the old error, falsity, and enmity of fallen Adam.
Hearts of unbelief cannot know, or by searching find out God. The unrenewed
hate God and the account of Him which is given by
Christ. Nature cannot, however deeply studied, reveal God
as it is necessary for a sinner to know Him. If any, then, after hearing Christ
and His testimony, refuse it, it is because they are still in darkness, and
prefer it to the light.
38. ' Pilate
saith unto Him,‑‑‑What is truth ? " And having said this,
‑ gain went out to the Jews, and saith
to them‑" 1 find no fault in Him.' ' ~e
It is evident, that to Pilate ' truth
' was only a dream, the philosopher's everlasting wrangle, leading to no
serious useful :‑esult.
' He was a Practical
man, that had to deal with life and
realities ; a man of action, to preside in power over a ‑rovince
of the chief of earth's kingdoms. These philosophers
who pretend to truth are all at variance one with another t
Nothing settled, nothing demonstrated Now, it is true that. the evidence of
religious truth is not the same as the evidence, that‑' this is a house '‑and‑'
yonder is a tree '. Yet to those willing to learn, the assurance is as great as
the perceptions of sense.
Truth as presented to us now is no
dream of men, but the. revelation of God; it is
authoritative, marking out the course which is to be pursued and that to be
avoided, as we would attain to His kingdom and glory, and avoid His
displeasure.. The acceptance of the truth of His testimony now is the way to
His kingdom of power hereafter. Present and future happiness are bound up therewith.
Now, as Pilate possessed power, but
not principle, he went ever dismally astray ; led only
by his instincts and his apparent worldly interests; ignorant of the God who
would call him to account. Hence he vacillates ;
staggers to and fro. He will not accept Christ; he will not deny Him. Without
principle firmly held, there can be no firmness of conduct.
To him, therefore, Christ is a
singular spectacle. ' To be resting on a kingdom in
the clouds, and talking about that will‑o'‑the‑wisp
"truth", that no man has ever seized! 1 can now understand how Thou
art rejected by Thine own people!' And so Pilate
despises Christ, and despises His haters also. For him Christ is too high, and
His enemies too low. Not all will accept a Christ offered.
To be a Christian, however, is to have
found the truth incarnate in Christ ; to have the
Spirit of Truth as our teacher, and to read the Word of God as our store of
truth.
What is truth? ' A good question! But it was uttered to, Pilate's
condemnation, for he did not care to wait for an answer; deeply, eternally, has
it affected him. That showed His unbelief in Jesus,
and of religious truth in general. It was 3ust the attitude of most cultivated
Roman and Grecian minds of that day. They saw enough to reject the foolish and
wicked fables of their own religion of idolatry. But
in casting away these, they had nothing better to supply in their place. The
philosophers of
idolatry, and the absurdity and wickedness of
their religious books; while yet they refuse Christ and the Scripture.
Wherever this is the case, the cry
goes up‑'Truth, indeed! There
is no such thing! What one calls truth, another says is falsehood! Nothing is
certain, but that no certainty is to be had! It is all
illusion of the human mind. There is no stable external reality of truth. Man
is the measure of all things.'*
Such persons can have no settled
principles to control or guide them. They drift, as did Pilate, with
circumstances.
But what says God? What says this Gospel?
It speaks of truth as being in its
essence lodged in God. It is discovered to us here as abiding
in two Divine Persons, and testified by them. i.
The first of these is the Son of God, who
came, bringing from above the wondrous revelation of God and man, Himself being
the Light, who by His life, death, resurrection, and word, makes known to us
the Father; and, by contrast, man the fallen (John i.
14; xiv. 6).
2. The Second Person in this case is
'THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
xiv. 17 ; XV,
26 ; xvi. 13). He searches all the truth of God and possesses it. He testifies
to the Son of God, who is 'The Truth' embodied. He turns men from the falsehood
of the devil, and from enmity against God, into love and light.
3. THE SCRIPTURE is the written truth,
put into our hands, zpecially the New Testament (John
i. 17, 18). In that is reasured
the testimony concerning Christ, as our only way to he
truth of God, indited by the wisdom of the Spirit of God.
hese three agree in one. They are the sinner's
way to the iruth (i) about himself ; his utter loss, his deep‑seated
evil, ‑‑‑s blindness, his condemnation, his constant hatred
of God, ~~.,ld eternal suffering of the wrath and justice of God, as
being G
od's eternal sentence against the
everlasting sinner against he Most High ! The Scriptures are the sinner's way
to the ‑7lith, (2) concerning God. How
alone infinite justice can be :"econciled to the unrighteous, how pardon can be dispensed
,o the guilty, and benefits heaped upon the unworthy, through 17hrist.
Hereupon Pilate declares to the Jews,
that their accusation was a false one. He had tested our Lord on the one point
on
0 God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul,' was the final c xDression of doubt.
which alone he had a right to be jealous. ' Was
He one who would by His seditious
principles and practices as a man on earth, give trouble if He had the
opportunity, to Caesar's government? ' Hereupon he was quite satisfied that
Jesus, if left at liberty, would no more disturb the government of Rome over
Israel than He had already done. He had declared that the source of the kingdom
He expected was not human swords. Had
it been so, the occasion which brought Him before Pilate
would have been sure to have manifested His intention to fight. And as for any kingdom established by armies from heaven,
Pilate had no fear about that! Moreover,
in the Saviour's testimony concerning truth, as the especial subject engaging
His sojourn on earth, he beheld in Jesus the harmless dreaming enthusiast, who might safely be left alone to tread as He pleased the ways
in
Thus 'the Lamb of God % who was to
bear the sin of the world, is examined by the Gentile, as well as the Jew ; and
both are constrained to own that it has no blemish. The 'I ' is emphatic. It
sets His testimony in designed contrast to theirs. ' You
accuse Him as the guilty conspirator against Caesar. 1 find
no such fault in Him.' But neither Pilate's witness,
nor that of Judas, checks the men of unbelief.
1 find in Him no fault at all! ' Dismiss the charges against Him then! Put Him within the
castle in safety from His foes, as did the Governor on Paul's behalf. But no! The man who knows not what truth is,
has no certain footing. He scourges the
innocent
(To be continued)
INVESTMENT
It is said a lady
was filling a box for