THE DAWN MAGAZNE
VOLUMES 15 & 16
(1938-39 & 1940)
Edited by D. M. PANTON, B.A.
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SELECTED CONTENTS
[FROM VOLUME 15]
1 THE SECRET COMING DEFENDED + 1
* 2 WATCH + 1
3 THE PHILADELPHIAN PROMISE + 1
* 4 A COMMISSION ON
5 THE MODEL MARTYRDOM
6 THE DIVINE OIL AND ITS COMING OUTPOUR
+1
* 7 A BELIEVERS SIN + 1
* 8 ESCAPE FOR THY LIFE + 1
9 REASONS FOR LOVING HIS APPEARING
* 10 ASCENSION + 1
11 WATCHERS FOR THE RETURN + 2
* 12 FINDING THE BRIDE OF CHRIST
13 ROBES OF THE HIGH PRIEST + 2
14 FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD
15 POSSIBLE WORLD EMPEROR + 2
* 16 WILL ALL BELIEVERS SHARE THE FIRST
RESURRECTION + 1
* 17 THE SERVANT WITH THE SINGLE TALENT + 1
* 18 OBEDIENCE TO THE WORD OF GOD + 2
* 19 THE BAPTISM OF THE SPIRIT + 2
20 THE KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD
21 OUR IDEAL OUTLOOK + 3
* 22 A LETTER ANSWERED + 4
23 THE RESURRECTION OF
** 24 HEALING BY EVIL SPIRITS + 4
25 THE SUCCESS OF FAILURE +1
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1
THE SECRET COMING DEFENDED + 1
By ALBERT C. TILNEY, B.A.
The Approaching Advent of Christ by Mr. Alexander Reese is proving a challenge
- let us hope also a corrective - of extreme and exclusive views. Mr. Reese
presents an amazing array of authorities, translations and scriptures. He is
energetic, full and, as far as his school can well expect ever to be, final. And we are grateful to him. For he
effectively disposes of a number of fallacies. He satisfies us that Matthew’s
Gospel (apart from portions of the Olivet Discourse) is almost entirely Christian; that the Holy Spirit’s
correspondence with the Church is not confined to the ‘Prison
Epistles’; that the [Millennial] Kingdom is to be literal and that the saints are to
reign on the earth (as well as over it); that the Elders of Rev.
5.
are not part of the Church (even though their angelic positions may one day be
occupied by members of the Church); that the ‘moment’
and ‘twinkling of an eye’ refer not to the time
taken by the Rapture, but by the change (although this may not be at the same moment
for everyone); and also that the Rapture, or rather the Rapture, is not a scriptural expression (nor even a scriptural
idea). On the contrary, he shows that the ‘one taken’
is not taken to judgment, but that one (believer) is “taken
into safety, and one is left to his fate” p. 125, (i.e. as savourless
salt trampled underfoot in Tribulation).
The Author of The Approaching Advent is a vigorous opponent of a secret and
pre-Tribulation Coming of the Lord, which he considers an erroneous novelty
propagated one hundred years ago by J. N.
Darby. But it is wise to remember that whatever can be legitimately deduced
from the Word was already there awaiting discovery. So the ‘Bush’ passage, the Lord shows us, more than implies
that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still alive - [in the Underworld of disembodied souls
in ‘Sheol’ / ‘Hades’]* -
even though the Sadducees had overlooked the point. Similarly, Justification by
Faith was actually explicit in the sacred text long before Luther’s alleged
importation of it; and what for ages was held to be a general resurrection was
a century or so ago rediscovered as being twofold, with an interval of a
thousand years between the first and second parts. And the fulfilment of even
consecutive phrases of prophecy may be likewise separated by a millennium and
more. This again our Lord Himself showed (Isa. 61: 2 with Luke 4: 19-21). Hence juxtaposition of scriptures
is no proof of concurrence of
events. We must make as sure of our sequences and intervals here as in the
outer world where seeming proximity does not always mean actual nearness; for
mountain ranges and horizons that appear to touch may conceal the wide plains
and deep valleys that lie between. Again, what look like single stars may, on
closer observation and analysis, prove binary, or indeed a cluster. Do even the
two Comings of the Lord look distinct and distant in the Old Testament taken by
itself?
[* See
Gen. 37: 35;
Sam.
28:
11,
12,
14,
15;
cf. Luke 16:
23, 30-31; Acts 2:
34ff.
John.
3: 13; 14:
2, 3; Tim.
2: 16-18, R.V.)]
God’s Word, no less than His works, is complex, if not
complicated. It can be compared to (not one but) a series of jigsaw puzzles or
chronometers, and all the parts must be fitted together, with none to spare,
and so that the whole will work. But alas! it may fairly be said that, given a
believer’s denomination, one can foretell what parts of that Word he will leave
out. And rich and unsubmissive men and
women will ignore passages specially written for their profit. We need
every word, and every word needs close examination. Without all the evidence
true judgment is impossible, and insistence upon careful discrimination - not
missing a hair - is scripturally commendable. To ignore real
distinctions is as bad as making false ones.
Revealing a dualistic universe, the Bible is above all a
dualistic book, dealing with God and Satan, good and evil, heaven and hell. It
tells of two bodies of Saints or Elect (some Jews and Christians are both so
described); of two Tribulations
(chronic and acute, for both these bodies of people); of two justifications (by Faith
and Works, as Paul and James equally
declare of Abraham); and of three judgments (for the
Mr. Reese seems to reject along with ultradispensationalism,
each and all of these distinctions; to him one baby is like another, and he
throws it out with the bath [water]. Is he then cautious enough to be careful? considerate enough to be
charitable? discerning enough to be clear? His authorities (scarcely necessary
if blind children can really see these identifications) do not always appear to
be experts in the highly specialized field of sectional prophetic research in
question. He himself not only rather
minimizes and mocks at rapture but, more, he actually inserts his own
belittling comment into his quotation.* And his pre-war denial of the revival of the Roman
Empire he leaves unrevised even in 1936. But what is intolerable in a historian
(past or future) is such a reckless disregard for time as can permit a phrase like
“at the millennium”! Even “at the beginning of the millennium” leaves room for
the forty or fifty years’ interval he so vehemently rejects. No! to prove his
case (that the Church as a whole is in the Tribulation), our author - he
modestly disclaims being either scholar or theologian - must show that the Day
of the Lord lasts only twenty-four hours, that the judgments begin at its
dawning, that the Church is an indivisible unity, that no part of it is removed
till after that dawning, and that the whole Church is in the midst of the
judgments in time and place. But the day is long, and the Church is divided -
in time and place, in character and judgment.
* His “Oh! the elevator!” (p.
90) is cruelly reminiscent of “Go up, thou bald head!” But was not Elisha taught to say, “Oh! the chariot”? in
any case it is not to say, “Christendom is like unto a
man invited to go up”.
Now in studying this great and important subject we should
obviously start with the fuller and clearer revelation of the New Testament. It
is hardly intelligent and adequate to take the briefer and dimmer
communications of the Old, and use them as the criterion, gauge and yardstick
of the New. But in any case why (apart from misplaced faith in an authority)
begin with Isaiah 26: 19, which text alone Mr. Reese declares sufficient evidence for
a verdict in his favour? Surely since we are concerned with rapture (and we are
told, p. 34, “wheresoever the resurrection is, there
will the Rapture be also”), we ought at any rate to go back to Elijah
and to Enoch. The man who walked with God - a type of the Christian escape as
was Noah of the Jewish - is seen removed out of the earth (saved from and not
merely saved through) before the coming of the Tribulation Flood. And even Noah
(Mr. Reese forgets) was safely hidden in the
* Why do our good Brethren friends, who
love the Word, not advertise and recommend Young’s Analytical Concordance, which
gives us the Spirit’s distinct words?
For the “Coming”
of the Lord is not a childishly simple affair. On the contrary, it is
complicated, full, busy, many-sided, and it cannot and will not be over in a
moment. Whether technically or popularly viewed, the Coming necessarily
consists of these several obvious serial items: departure (from heaven),
journeying or movement (downwards), arrival (in the air, which begins the ‘coming’ proper), then the VISIT or STAY, which is the real purpose of the journey, and is the actual
or full COMING, more so than is any
other part. This coming, visit, or stay, has for the time being no further
downward motion; it pauses, met by the upward motion of the ascending raptured
ones. It is therefore a rest or staying still, a being alongside, a being in
one another’s company, a being brought face to face, a meeting, a PRESENCE TOGETHER. And it is precisely
the signification of the Greek word PAROUSIA
(Cf.
PARAllel, Essence), unhappily rendered ‘coming’ in the Authorized Version, but ‘presence’ (margin, Parousia) in the Revised
Version. It is first and foremost the Lord’s MEETING or BEING WITH
His people in the air. And while coming down to the air the Lord is on His
interrupted way to earth and authority in like manner to His going up. Now
though the Saviour’s journey to the air will need no time at all (being swifter
than angels and light), by the nature of the case - the purpose of the meeting,
and the very meaning of the term - the actual Presence will need time, and very
considerable time, for there is much and varied business to be done with which
neither Mr. Reese nor Mr. Darby seems concerned.
So Parousia is of necessity a time-word. For the Lord’s STAY IN THE AIR to judge His people (“Judgment must begin at the
house of God” - whose
house conditionally are we: 1 Pet. 4: 17; Heb. 3: 6) has a beginning, a duration, and an end, before His public
descent to earth. And its beginning or first part is private: that is, secret;
while its latter part or end is public: that is, manifest and glorious. The
first part is beclouded and thief-like; the second part, out of clouds, is like
lightning, and glorious. So Mr. Darby is right, and Mr. Reese also, here in
part. But if the one is wrong with regard to the end of the Parousia, the other
is as certainly in error as regards its beginning. And both errors arise from
mistaken views of an indivisible and unreprovable Church. Neither allows the
time necessary for the individual judgment to begin first in camera at the
house of God. Mr. Darby ignores the judgment. Mr. Reese (p. 76) allows the judgment, but ignores the time and place for it. Resurrection and rapture, be
it noted, are but the joint means of
conveyance to the Throne-room of the Divine Presence. This is in the clouds
(Ps. 97: 2; 1 Thess. 4: 17), that is, it is the
Mr. Reese (like Mr. Roland Bingham*
still more recently) gives us back Matthew’s parables and prophecies, as well
as the Sermon on the Mount. These are
all Christian. They shake and wake
us out of complacency and self-satisfaction. They are searching,
challenging, stimulating, revealing personal
responsibility for our condition and approval at the Judgment-Seat of Christ.
Some leaders, concentrating exclusively on the future glories and graces of the
Church, have forgotten present actualities in the contemplation of the ultimate
ideal. They have overlooked the fact that even ‘Ephesians’ (grand,
discriminating and severe) can be summed up as (not what we are, but) what we SROULD BE in the light of what we
were and shall be. As a matter of actual experience, the Church is at
present in ruins - very imperfect, disunited, unready, unwatchful, unbelieving
even, though we rejoice to think of so many lovely individuals and assemblies
we personally know. And to say this former thing is surely far more scriptural
and charitable than to call those we will not unite with mere professors, which
is often tantamount to saying that those who differ from us are not part of the
Church at all. We must abandon the term ‘professing
Church’. It is false to the Word content with a threefold division of
mankind (1 Cor. 10: 32). It is a
Pharisaical invention, a refuge of lies, robbing God of His holiness, the Church of solemn warnings. We must
abandon too, the erroneous phrase “all of grace” (ctr.
* “Matthew the
Publican: His Gospel”, but he trips at the same point of the Secret
Presence.
The first stage of the Coming (to the air) will be thief-like,
i.e. secret, concealed in clouds. Some [regenerate] Christians will be ignorant and unaware of it (Rev.
3: 3), and therefore left behind as
unwatchful, though caught up later. For we MUST
ALL appear - be made manifest - before the Bema of Christ. This will be in
the clouds, characteristic of the Pavilion and Throne of God (Ex. 14: 19; Ps.
18: 11; 97: 2; Rev.
1: 7a). The individual judgment of billions
of believers will take a considerable time, as will also the establishment and
development of the reign of Anti-Christ on the earth. God is not in a hurry.
His “quick
coming” already has
lasted 1,900 years, though no longer than a life-time for any one of us. God’s
microscopically examined day is equal to 1,000 years with us.
The Lord’s invisible coming to the air could begin to-night, but He will almost certainly
remain there the 40 days of harvest. There was a corresponding probationary
period between the Ascension in A.D. 30 and the Jerusalem-Siege Tribulation a
generation later. Rev. 10: 7 shows that the last trump will occupy a period: “days when the seventh angel shall begin to sound”; and the trumpet of the Lord (1 Thess. 4.) will be heard only by those keeping awake and listening for
it. Some Christians (like Peter during cock-crow) will sleep through it, i.e.
through all but its last sounding, and in any case, no worldling will hear it.
It will be audible but not public.
In clouds concealed, there will be the private appearances of
the Lord to His own alone: this will be the Epiphany of the Lord IN the Parousia. The Bema sessions
over, the clouds specially included in its provisions; the fowl and the cattle
- every living creature of all flesh - share the blessings of the divine
clemency. Even so it is impossible to doubt that when the restitution of man
takes place, the restitution of the earth and its occupants will speedily and
immediately follow. The day of the perdition of the wicked, as one Apostle
tells us (2 Pet. 3: 7), will let loose the last lustral fires, even as another
Apostle here represents all creation here waiting for its final redemption and
glorification, as an event strictly and historically contemporaneous with the
glorification of the elect of God.
Therefore all that animals suffer at the hands of man - all that they suffer from
one another, all their exhibitions of wanton cruelty, their deep-seated
aversions and connatural hostilities;- all, again, that nature suffers from the hand of man, the
poisoned vegetation round peopled cities, the blazing prairie, the desolated
forest, - all that it suffers from the wildness or churlishness of the
elements, - all tend to swell that mighty cry of suffering and travail that is
now ever sounding in the ears of God - all serve to call forth the deep longing
of the hour when the apocalyptic vision of the Apostle shall be a mighty and
living reality. Let us not fear to say that the efficacy of the blood of our
Lord and Master is limitless in its applications, that it knows no bounds in
space, as it knows no bounds in time, and that the issues of His atonement for
us, in different measures and degrees, extend unto all things, - that the odour
of that sweet-smelling savour fills every court and every chamber of the
universal temple of God.
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A MISSIONARY CRY
By R.
A. JAFFRAY
A hundred thousand souls a day
Are passing one by one away
In Christless guilt and gloom;
Without one ray of hope or light,
With future dark as endless night,
They’re passing to their doom.
The Master’s coming draweth near,
The Son of Man will soon appear,
His Kingdom is at hand;
But ere that glorious day can be,
This Gospel of the Kingdom we
Must preach in every land.
O let us then His coming haste,
O let us end this awful waste
Of souls that never die.
A thousand million still are lost,
A Saviour’s blood has paid the cost,
O hear their dying cry,
They’re passing, passing fast, away,
A hundred thousand souls a day,
In Christless guilt and gloom.
O Church of Christ, what wilt thou
say,
When in the awful judgment day
They charge thee with their doom?
This missionary hymn is one of Dr. Simpson’s earliest
missionary hymns, published, indeed, as early as 1890. Some of us can never
forget the first time we heard these words, “A hundred
thousand souls a day are passing one by one away in Christless guilt and gloom,
without one ray of hope or light, with future dark as endless night, they’re
passing to their doom.” The writer was a young man full of life and zeal, but when these words fell on his
ears, and sank down into his heart
he was bowed very low before God. He can well remember when, as, a student in the Bible School, in New York,
before the Bible School moved to Nyack, in the noonday missionary
prayer-meeting, we used to sing softly this missionary hymn until our hearts
were moved and the tears flowed freely.
The first stanza of this missionary hymn points to the very
foundation of all sound missionary enterprise. Too often, it is feared, the
foundation truth of the lost condition of the heathen is either frankly
disbelieved, or, at least, ignored. Sentimental sympathy and patronizing pity
for the temporary miseries that are the result of heathen superstitions, and a
desire to meet such by social reform, movements, do not touch the fundamental
principle of the soul’s need of eternal Salvation. It is only when we realize
that “A thousand millions are still lost” and
that they are “in Christless guilt and gloom, without
a ray of hope or light, with future dark as endless night”, that we will
truly consecrate all we have to a life of missionary service.
Dr. Simpson emphasizes the real main-spring of true missionary
work, the hope of the Lord’s speedy return. “The Master’s
coming draweth near, the Son of Man will soon appear, His Kingdom is at hand.
But ere that glorious day can be, this Gospel of the Kingdom, we must preach in
every land.” How true it is that only people who know that they are
saved through the atoning blood of the Lord Jesus, who are fully yielded, and
filled with the Holy Spirit, and know how to trust Him for body and soul, and
are waiting and watching for the coming again of the Lord, can truly be
possessed of this all-consuming missionary vision. If ever the lost tribes of
earth are to be reached with the witness of the Gospel, we believe it must be
accomplished by men and women who know by experience the power of this full
Gospel, and the love of His appearing. In the last analysis the Lord is depending
upon such to complete this unfinished task, to lay everything else aside, and
make this the only worth-while object in life. Let us never get away from this,
“They are passing, passing fast away, a hundred
thousand souls a day in Christless guilt and gloom.” In the life of a
true missionary this sound of the
* *
*
2
WATCH + 3
The ark
of the Parousia, invisible, and silently moored in the heavens; a world so
absorbed in the things of sense as to prove it wholly incredulous of a coming
judgment; a sudden closing of the ark on certain rapt persons, followed by a
judgement-flood so universal that this - [Pre-tribulation and select] -
rapture out of the inhabited earth is the sole heavenly escape:- “As were the days of
Noah, so shall be the Parousia of the Son of man: one is taken, and one is left. Watch
therefore” (Matt. 24: 37). It is a rapture of heavenly escape.
A woman mill-hand in Scripture stands for the extreme social
contrast to royalty (Ex. 11: 5):
the
rapt will be amongst the humble of the earth; and all who would now rise in the social scale are proving themselves
fools in the sight of God (Is. 2: 12; Luke 16: 15). Shut in above the storms of wrath until the seventh (the millennial)
month, and liberated on the 17th of Nisan, the resurrection day, they issue
forth at last to rule a world washed clean by the storms of judgement.
Who then are the unrapt?* Of
these two closely associated souls - “one is taken, and one is left” - is the one left an unbeliever? This is impossible;
because -
* With the view that the taken are taken to judgment, and the
left are left to glory, it is needless to say more at present than that it is
built on a single (not unnatural) misconception. For the word ‘took’ [see
Greek ...] in the case of the Antediluvians - “took them all away” - means ‘to
arrest’, ‘to take to destruction’;
whereas when “one is taken and one is left”, the word [see Greek...] means ‘to take as a companion’. It is a rapture of honour: it is the word
used when our Lord selects three
only out of the Twelve for watchfulness
against the great tribulation of
(1) It is the natural inference from our
Lord’s words that it is the unwatchfulness of the one left, and his
unwatchfulness only, that has prevented his rapture. “One is taken,
and one is left. Watch
therefore.” For watchfulness implies a heart already awakened by
grace: we do not tell the dead to watch. “Watch therefore: for ye know not on what day your Lord” - the Lord of both the taken and the left - “cometh.”
(2) None but disciples were present, and in Luke 17: 22, 34 our Lord says - “I say unto you, Watch ye”; so Paul, after the warning - “let us watch and be sober” - adds - “whether we wake (keep awake, are alert, wakeful,
watchful: the word is so used throughout the context) or sleep, we shall -
as all being believers - live together with Him” (1 Thess. 5: 10). The sole distinction stated by Jesus
is a distinction of watchfulness; therefore both are [regenerate] believers; for between the believer
and the unbeliever yawns an infinitely wider gulf. He says not, “Be saved therefore.”
(3) Our Lord directly forbids the unbeliever
to watch. To unregenerate Pharisees, inquiring the date of the Advent, He
says:- “The
Kingdom of God cometh not with observation (with watching); for lo, the Kingdom
of God” - so far
as you, unregenerate souls, are concerned - “is within you” (Luke 17: 20) - it is an internal matter; for “except a man
be begotten from above, he cannot
see the Kingdom of God” (John 3: 3). For the unbeliever to watch for the
Advent is to watch for his own fearful judgment.
(4) Would an
unbeliever watch for Christ’s return, if told to do so? To be caught away to
Him would be, even more than death, a disgust and a terror, for it would be an
immediate transition to the throne of judgment. No soul can watch for Christ until
it loves [and obeys] Christ; and even of those who love Him, ‘few’* love His appearing.
[* For many are called,
but only few will be chosen!]
(5) Three passages are here (Matt. 24:
37-51) knit closely together - the
unwatchful disciple, the robbed householder, and the unfaithful steward:
obviously they are all warnings pointed
at one target: if, then, they are warnings for worldlings, for hypocrites,
for empty professors, why does our Lord not say so? He drops no hint to that effect: none but true [regenerate] disciples, so far as can be seen in the
narrative, fill His vision. If the left disciple, the robbed householder, and
the unfaithful steward are all unregenerate souls, then these commands are not for Christ’s disciples at all. Why, then, does
our Lord speak them to [His redeemed] disciples only, and why does He not tell them to pass
them on to the world, whom alone they
concern?
(6) Had these warnings been for the
world, Christ’s words to His own must have been profoundly different: instead
of rousing his disciples by exhortations to watchfulness, He would have
comforted them with explicit assurances that, since rapture rests on sovereign,
electing grace alone, whatever their conduct at the moment of the Advent, their
rapture is sure - an utterance that never falls from His lips.
(7) An overwhelming proof still remains. Can a [regenerate] believer be unwatchful? If so, he instantly falls under the
penalty involved, and if unwatchful at the moment of the Advent, he must be
left. Were the Apostles watchful at
The matter is infinitely grave for us, now in the last hour. For precisely as, in the actual moment of
rapture, Satan will physically dispute the ascent of his supplanters (Rev.
12: 5, 7) so now, spiritually, his supreme aim is
so to dissipate watchfulness as to prevent rapture through unripeness: and all teaching that thus lulls the
Church assists his aim - however sincere its motive, or pardonable its error. Therefore let us
heed our Lord’s solemn call to all His own all down the ages, a call never more
urgent than now:- “What I say unto you [apostles] I say unto all [disciples],
WATCH” (Mark 23: 37).
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DEMONISM
Satanic pressure, such as will one day
effectually sweep the earth (Rev. 20: 8), seems, to some degree, already here,
producing a mass hypnotism. A British Officer, in a book written while a
prisoner in
SATANISM
Mrs. Spencer Johnson sums up a recent
stay in
AN EPITAPH
On a tombstone in
Bold infidelity, turn pale and die!
Beneath this stone
Four sleeping infants lie:
Say, are they lost or saved?
If death’s by sin,
They sinn’d,
for they are here;
If heaven’s by works,
In heaven they can’t appear.
Ah, Reason, how depraved!
Revere the Bible’s sacred page -
The knot’s untied:
They died, for Adam sinn’d,
They live, for Jesus died.
* *
*
3
THE PHILADELPHIAN PROMISE +1
By STANFORD CHAMBERS
To
The Promise. “The hour of trial” was ahead, but the Philadelphian
Angel was to be kept from it. Not saved through it, but kept from it. The three
Hebrew children were saved through the fiery furnace and came out of it; they
were not kept from it. Daniel and the lions’ den, likewise; but this is better
still.
The Condition. “Because thou
didst keep the word of my patience.” The entire word of Christ is the story of His patience and “longsuffering
toward us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance.” Moreover, “the word of” His “patience” had produced patience in these saints. They possessed
that steadfastness in which they were keeping His word.
Keeping the word is
more than holding it in the profession of faith, more than holding it in
the memory. Displaying the Bible on the centre table does not meet the
condition of the promise. The word is to be proclaimed, but neither hearing
only, nor professing only, nor preaching only, nor, indeed, all these combined
can meet the requirement. When Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my
commandments,” the meaning of “keep” is clear. The keeping in this passage is the same.
“That Hour”. 1. It is “the hour of trial”, with emphasis ,on “the”. 2. It is the hour of “trial”, with emphasis on “trial”, for it is “to try them
that dwell upon the earth”. 3. It is to be world-wide “upon the whole world”. 4. It is yet future; “to come upon
the whole world”. Trials there were in plenty, and
temptations, too, but John is writing of “that hour which is to come upon the
whole world”.
Nothing has since occurred in history filling out this picture. Some thought
the World War was going to meet the requirement, but bad as it was it fell
short. “That hour” is yet future. 5. The Philadelphian type of saints
will escape. “I will also keep thee from the hour of trial.” “Because thou didst keep the word.” Those who keep His word are of the
Philadelphian type of saints. The church that is true to His word is a church
of the Philadelphian type, and can lay claim to this same promise. Praise God!
this is a promise not to be relegated to the realm of ancient history, nor
indeed to be regarded as impractical in these days, but to be cherished as
among His most “precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of his divine
nature.”
Indifference toward such a promise is disallowed, and where it exists it is to
be repented of. Those who are disposed to keep His word are entitled to the
stimulus and stay of such a promise. 6. The earth-dwellers shall in no wise escape. It is “to try them
that dwell upon the earth”. This will include many a church member, who has lost or
never possessed the pilgrim character. Those who “keep the word of” His “patience” are not earth-dwellers, but sojourners.
7.
The method of escape is found in such a passage as 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17. It is often called the rapture, and properly so, from the
expression “caught up”, which rapture means. To pray as Jesus admonished, “that ye may
prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass” (Luke 21: 36) is to pray for a part in the rapture
and so “to stand before the Son of man”. And the rapture awaits nothing that is foretold. The rapture, as
already seen in Rev. 3: 10 in connection with 1 Thess. 4: 17, is the method of escape from the tribulation. - Word and Work.
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THE ATONEMENT
Two ministers (for this incident we can vouch) were once
discussing the Atonement. One vainly endeavoured to persuade the other that the
Atonement was vicarious. After some days they met again, and the minister who
held the death of Christ to be substitutionary asked if his friend had received
any fresh light since their conversation. “Oh, yes,”
he replied; “it is now all quite plain.” “How so?”
his friend asked. “Well,” he answered, “after our conversation I returned to my bedroom, locked the
door, and until two in the morning I poured out my heart to God that he would
show me the truth on the matter. Then I slept. In my sleep I thought I was
descending by a sharp zig-zag path into a valley. The
valley was full of darkness; beyond the darkness was a range of mountains; and
beyond the mountains was a lovely dawn. But before I could reach the dawn I had
to pass through the valley. As I descended I was amazed to see that the whole
floor of the valley was covered with creeping, crawling, slimy reptiles. On
approaching them nearer I discovered that these reptiles were sins of my own -
sins of childhood, of boyhood, of young manhood, of maturity; and on looking at
myself I found I was myself covered from head to foot with these reptiles. I
then heard a voice behind me, which I knew to be the voice of the Lord Jesus. I
turned trembling to meet Him. He said to me. - ‘Art thou afraid to meet thy
Lord?’ and as He spoke I observed, with a shudder, that He was covered from head to foot with the crawling reptiles of the
valley. Then I looked at myself; and lo, there was not a reptile left upon me!
In amazement I cried:- ‘What does it all mean, Lord?’ And He answered:- ‘This: He ascended; what is it but that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth?’ (Eph. 4: 9). I then
passed safely through the dark valley into the glory that lay beyond: I now know what the
Atonement means.”
* *
*
4
A COMMISSION ON
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
Four to five thousand years ago a Commission - not a Royal
Commission, but a Divine Commission - was appointed to enquire into
ESCHOL
Now the first result is concrete proof, already amongst us, of
the wonder of the coming Kingdom. As land-birds of lovely plumage greeted
Columbus before his eyes caught any glimpse of the New World, so the Spies
brought back pomegranates and figs, and the huge Eschol grapes, saying, “Surely the
land floweth with milk and honey, and this is the
fruit of it” (Num. 13: 27). On this fundamental fact the entire Commission are as one.
Already, here in the Wilderness, rare and beautiful things, which will be a
commonplace in the coming [Millennial] Kingdom, redeem our earth from being a
mere desert; and these samples have all been brought, all down the Christian
ages by ‘the messengers of Joshua’ [Jesus]*.
He that redeems one soul to Christ (someone has said) relieves more misery and
confers more blessedness than all the reformers and philanthropists of the
world; and this spiritual Kingdom tells but
faintly what earth will be in the literal Kingdom, when all mankind is
regenerate. Our Eschol clusters are here:- “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance”
(Gal. 5: 22); and, in addition, the Apostolic
Church showed another commonplace of the Kingdom - golden miracles, “powers of the
age to come” (Heb. 6: 5). When the Church disappears, this
world will be a pure desert.
* A parallel but much later Commission sent to the City of the
Curse just before its destruction - a lovely forecast of Gospel messengers sent
over the world immediately before the Day of Wrath - are called by James (2: 25)
‘messengers of Joshua’, and Joshua, in type as
well as in name, is Jesus.
THE MAJORITY REPORT
But now the Commission submits a ‘majority
report’. While all the Twelve are agreed on the excellence of the
country, and its soil, and fruit, and that the future Kingdom is exactly as God
said it would be, nevertheless an enormous cleavage now splits the Commission.
The Majority Report runs thus:- “Howbeit the people that dwell in the
land are strong, and the cities are fenced, and very great; and moreover
we saw the children of Anak there, and we were
in our own sight as grasshoppers.” And when Caleb “stilled the people”, and implored them to advance, the
Ten put their report beyond all doubt, making all Jehovah’s promises to give
them the Land worthless:- “We are not able to go up against the people,
for they are stronger than we.” Thus the Majority Report amounted to
this:- The Kingdom is what we believed it to be, literal, golden, blessed; but
not only is it no mere gift easily and at once enjoyed, into which we merely
walk with the passing years, but, in our judgment, the standard for entrance is
impossible, and the difficulties insuperable. The Majority Report never even once names God.
THE MINORITY REPORT
But two of the Commission, Caleb and
Joshua, now present a ‘minority report’; and
the narrative centres everything in Caleb - ‘one who
attacks’; that is, the overcomer.
Both these men were men of burning conviction: both had mastered the facts of
the coming Kingdom: both were certain that all
THE REACTION
Abject defeatism now appears as the reaction of the People of
God. If we refuse to put a [divine] truth into action, there is immediate danger of its
slipping from our grasp; and much
more truth with it: and we may even
end by bitterly opposing it. Without actually becoming apostates by going back into
* Nor can the Reformation be altogether
freed from a share in the Majority Report. In the terrible words of Luther:- “The
Book of the Revelation contains nothing but images and visions, such as are found
nowhere else in the Bible, and notwithstanding their obscurity, the author has
the audacity to add to them threats and promises.”
JUDGMENT
The consequences are unutterably momentous. The master-crisis
in our life comes but once;
[* See
also Psalm. 2: 8; cf. Matthew
6:
10,
Luke 11: 11: 2 and James 2: 5, R.V.]
ANOTHER SPIRIT
So now the Most High Himself selects and describes the Overcomer. “But my
servant Caleb, because he had another spirit
with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I
bring into the land.” The essence of Caleb’s ‘other spirit’ was
that God’s standard of - [his personal righteousness (Matt. 5: 20)
and] -
achievement must
be right, and that
the wise man simply concentrates on mastering the difficulties. Every curse,
rightly met, wins a beatitude: every renunciation swells the glory: every
victory won means a hardier veteran: every - [obedient and]* - faithful day brings us twenty-four
hours nearer a glory no eye can measure and no heart conceive. So also Caleb’s
spirit was one of utter obedience. “He hath followed me fully”; literally, “he hath
fulfilled to walk behind me”: that is, following with
unswerving fidelity, he, like Enoch, “walked with God.”**
[* See Acts 5: 32, R.V. (margin”: - “And we,” said Peter, “are witnesses
(in him) of those things;
and so is the
Holy Ghost, whom God hath given TO THOSE WHO OBEY HIM.”]
** Enoch is the embodiment of - [a select] - rapture, as Caleb is the embodiment
of - [a select resurrection, for] - entrance into the Kingdom; and both the rapture of Enoch (Heb. 11: 5)
and the entrance of Caleb are based foursquare, not on their regeneration, but on their walk with God after their
regeneration.
OVERCOMING
So we confront Caleb’s counsel recorded for our learning and
imitation three thousand years ago. “LET US GO UP AT ONCE, AND POSSESS IT; FOR WE ARE WELL ABLE TO OVERCOME IT.” Caleb and Joshua can be, ought to be,
and (by God’s grace) shall be “figures* of us”. So the Apostle, after an exhaustive parallel between
[* A better rendering of the Greek text reads:- “These things were made TYPES
FOR US, in order that we might not be
cravers after Evil things , even as they craved.” (1 Cor.
10: 6).]
** Joshua, throughout, is rather the type
of our Lord Himself, who leads all
other overcomers into the Land: “as I
also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne” (Rev. 3: 21).
THE KINGDOM
The first resurrection, the crown, the [Millennial]*
Kingdom - what a stupendous prize! It is admirably expressed by Bishop Handley Moule in his paraphrase of Phil. 3: 12, which is equally a
paraphrase of the life and character of Caleb:- “Not
as though I had already received the crown of accomplished glory, or had been
already perfected with the perfection which shall be. No, I am pressing on, as
on the racer’s course; if indeed, if as a fact, in blessed finality, I may
seize that promised crown with a view to which I was actually seized by Christ
Jesus, when in His mercy He laid violent hands upon me, to pluck me from ruin,
and to constrain me into His salvation, and His service. Yes, ‘I press on,’ to ‘seize’ that crown,** with the animating thought
that it was on purpose that I might seize it that the Lord seized me; and that
so every stage in the upward and onward course of faith runs straight in the
line of His will, whose mighty, gracious grasp is on me as I go.”*
* Mr. C.
H. Mackintosh rightly says (Numbers,
p. 227):- “We must continually recur, as we pass
along through these wilderness scenes, to those words which tell us that
‘all these things happened unto Israel for ensamples,
and were written for our admonition,’” Yet the
whole warning is made absolutely valueless; for even the grossest backsliders
and also the total deniers of Advent prophecy - typically, the whole of Israel,
including even the Ten Spies - current prophetical teaching makes to enter the
Kingdom, and to reign.
[** NOTE: Always keep in mind that all
Scripture teaches us that our
Lord Jesus has TWO KINGDOMS - His MILLENNIAL (Psa. 2: 8; Rev. 20: 4; Cf. Lk. 22: 28-30,
R.V.); and consequently God’s
-------
THE MINORITY REPORT OF THE EARLY CHURCH
CLEMENT of
IGNATIUS of
POLYCARP of
JUSTIN MARTYR (A.D. 150):- “They are destitute of just reason who do not understand that which is
clear from all the Scriptures, that two comings of Christ are announced.”
IRENAEUS (A.D. 180):- “The Lord shall come from Heaven in the clouds, with the glory of His
Father, casting antichrist and them that obey him into the lake of fire, but
bringing to the just the times of the Kingdom.”
-------
CALEB
1. His Counsel. - “Let us go up at once and possess it.” Num. 13: 30:
cp. Heb. 6: 1, 12: 1.
2. His Confidence. - “We are well able to overcome.” Ch. 13: 30: cp. Luke 10: 19; Rom. 8: 37; Phil. 4: 13, etc.
3. His Caution. - “Only rebel not against the
Lord.” Ch. 14: 9.
4. His Courage. - “Fear them not.” “They are
bread for us; their defence is departed from
them.” Ch. 14: 9. cp. Deut. 33: 27.
5. His Comfort. - “The Lord is with us.” Ch. 14: 9; cp. Exo. 33;
Judges 6: 16;
2 Chron. 20:
17;
32:
8;
Isa. 51: 10; Matt. 27: 20, etc.
6. His Consecration. - “He ... followed ... fully.”
Ch. 14: 24:
cp. “wholly”, Joshua 14: 8, 9; cp. Psa. 23: 6; Phil.
3: 12, 13, 14.
7. His Conquest. - “And Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak.” Joshua 15: 14: cp. Heb. 11: 33; 1 John 4: 4; 5: 4; Rev. 12: 11.
Others saw the Giants, Caleb saw the
Lord;
They were sore disheartened, he
believed God’s Word:
If we are half-hearted, we shall lose
God’s best!
They who follow wholly are the wholly
blest.
-------
THE KINGDOM
The “prize”
is not heaven, which is ours by the gift of God; but it is the reward granted to exceptional holiness
and earnestness of life. We must distinguish between grace that gives the title
to heaven, and the reward of grace according to our works as believers. The
fact that we reach heaven will be
of grace, but our place in heaven will be proportionate to our faithful use of
the grace given. It is possible to be content with a low standard of Christian
living without growing in grace and holiness. The soul may be saved though the
life be lost. Consequently, the Epistles are full of earnest exhortations and
appeals to Christians to press forward to the highest possible attainments in
holiness and good work.
Notice the various crowns. The Crown of Righteousness, Crown of Life, Crown of
joy, all implying the ‘rewards’
of faithfulness. It was to this that the
Apostle undoubtedly referred in the passage before us.
-
* *
*
5
THE MODEL MARTYRDOM
The
first Christian martyrdom ever to occur, and the only one ever recorded in
detail, is put on record with such a fulness, and such a richness of
instruction on how (if called to do so) we are to offer our life for Christ, as
to make it the model martyrdom of all time. And the very name of the martyr
pours a searchlight on the record. ‘Stephen’ -
of whom we know practically nothing except his martyrdom - means ‘crown’, or ‘crowned’;
and the word means not a crown that is inherited, but a crown that is won: it
thus singularly embodies our Lord’s assurance to every martyr down all the
ages:- “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give
thee THE CROWN OF LIFE” (Rev. 2: 10).*
* “Religious
persecution began with Christianity. This is a simple fact of history. Strange
as it may seem, there is no record in earlier times, amid all the cruelty and
reckless disregard of the sacredness of human life, which sullied the annals of
the old world, of suffering and death deliberately inflicted on account of
religious opinions. Martyrdom, in the strict sense of that word, was an unknown
thing when Stephen stood up before the council” (Bishop Woodford).
At once we are confronted with the kind of man that makes a
martyr. “Stephen, full of faith and of
the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6:
5). “Stones are
not thrown”, says
the proverb, “except at a fruit-laden tree.” No other man in the Bible has this
particular description - “full of faith”: that is, a man of passionate
conviction; with so complete a faith in his facts that he can face death
fearlessly. “His obligations to the Throne of Mercy
are so great, his deliverance so gracious, his hope so animating, his
responsibilities so awful, that one master-feeling holds his mind - a desire to
walk worthy of God, who hath called him to His Kingdom and glory” (R. P.
Buddicom, M.A.). So also he is defined as “full of grace” - God’s favour permeating tone,
words, thought, bearing - “and power” - the impress of character on action; and all is
summed up in a phrase twice repeated, “full of the Holy Ghost” - to a degree, alas, impossible to
us, for he “wrought great wonders and signs”.
But a still intenser flash of light shows us exactly on what,
and on what alone, a martyr’s faith is to rest. Stephen’s defence before the
Sanhedrim, the fullest record of a single address in the New Testament, is
solely Scripture so expounded as to meet the charges against him; an appeal to
documents (in this case) acknowledged as divine by his opponents; and the
documents which, in any case, are the sole seat of authority. The model martyr
is no fanatic, rushing on death; but a balanced mind, an informed judgment,
passionately Scriptural: the martyr is a man whose life-interests are bound up with
the truth. It is for Scripture that he dies.
Two fundamentally different groups of persecutors appear all
down the ages, and we do well to master the fact. The first group is utterly
unprincipled. When the Sword of the Spirit proves unanswerable, and the truth
irrefutable, the defeated disputant takes up the weapons of force and fraud:- “they seized
him, and set up false witnesses”. A twisted, distorted charge -
exactly similar to our Lord’s alleged threat to destroy the
But there is another group with whom a
martyr sometimes has to do. “The witnesses laid down their garments at the feet
of a young man named Saul; and Saul was consenting
unto his death”.
There are deeply religious men who confound us, sincerely, with the Tares, and,
contrary to the command of Christ, pluck up the Tares in order (as they
imagine) to save the Wheat. A 350-year-old letter has just come to light and been
published for the first time. It is dated August 28, 1572, and addressed to the
Presidents and Chancellors of the King at
Now before the martyr has uttered a word, and before
Theophilus, significantly the son-in-law of Caiaphas, has even challenged the
prisoner, an extraordinary fact emerges. After the bribed witnesses have been heard,
and the fictitious charges formulated, all eyes are turned on the prisoner in
the dock; and “all that sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw
his face as it had been the face of an angel.” God’s eagles soar highest in the
storm, and His stars are brightest at midnight. The perfected saint and an
angel are brothers. But why exactly did his face at this moment shine? The
shining face, a face radiant in the act of dying, is spoken alone of Stephen in
the New Testament, presumably because the martyr alone is sure of - [his inheritance in] - the Kingdom. Death, for us ordinary Christians, can have deep shadows, for
our heart trembles over our life’s record: the martyr, on the contrary, knows
that the ‘Prize’ is within his grasp. “He that
loseth his life for my sake,” our Lord says (Matt. 10: 39), “shall find it,” that is, in ‘the
first resurrection’. “And I saw
thrones; and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus,
and they lived [rose from
the dead] AND REIGNED WITH
CHRIST A THOUSAND YEARS” (Rev. 20: 4). But the glory does not save the martyr. Men saw the face as
of an angel, and crashed out the glory with the stones. The world would kill God if it could.
A very precious revelation follows. In
that vast crowd there was not one friendly face, so God - allowing no burden to
be greater than we can bear - opens Heaven, and shows Stephen the only Face
that matters, in radiant sympathy. “He looked up steadfastly into heaven, and
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing
on the right hand of God.” The help may not always be thus miraculous. When
John Huss of
It is extraordinary proof that this is the model martyrdom,
that on the dying lips are two of the very utterances that closed
* Here is decisive proof that the
strongest language, in controversy, may be in perfect keeping with the mind of
God.
-------
DEATH
Stephen goes to his death with the
face of an angel: how does a Voltaire go to his? The Christian physician who
attended him wrote as follows:- “When I compare the
death of a righteous man, which is like the close of a beautiful day, with that
of Voltaire, I see the difference between bright, serene weather and a black
thunderstorm. It was my lot that this man should die under my hands. Often did
I tell him the truth. ‘Yes, my friend,’ he would often say to me, ‘you are the only one who has given me good advice. Had I but followed it
I should not be in the horrible condition in which I now am. I have swallowed
nothing but smoke. I have intoxicated myself with the incense that turned my
head. You can do nothing for me. Send me a mad doctor! Have compassion on me -
I am mad!’ I cannot think of it without
shuddering. As soon as he saw that all the means he had employed to increase
his strength, had just the opposite effect, death was constantly before his
eyes. From this moment, madness took possession of his soul. He expired under
the torments of the furies.”
THE FACE
In a small township in the
* *
*
6
THE DIVINE OIL AND ITS
COMING OUTPOUR + 1
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
Our
Church Age, now rapidly closing, is separated from the Age of Antichrist by
three and a half years - the first three and a half years of the final seven;
an intervening, indeterminate epoch - a ‘no man’s land’
- neither pure grace nor pure judgment, which is dominated by the two mightiest
Prophets the world has ever known. The Church Age had its Pentecost. “And suddenly
there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues” (Acts 2:
2). So the intervening epoch, after the
Church Age but before the Reign of Antichrist, has an identical descent of the
Spirit. “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (Joel 2: 28). Linking the two
together, Peter says - “This is that”
(Acts 2: 16): that is, they are identical in nature, but differ only in date. And it
is exceedingly thrilling that one chapter in Zechariah presents the whole
drama, probably only a few years ahead,
which will leave us - whatever people of
God are on earth - no longer void of miracle and
power.
THE LAMPSTAND
In the background rises, massive and alone, one divine object:- “A LAMPSTAND ALL OF GOLD” (Zech. 4: 2). It is the one object that fills the
Day of Grace, the catholic Church of Christ: not, as when judgment dawns in the
Apocalypse, seven isolated lampstands, individual churches being judged for
their works; but one massive golden Lampstand - the universal Church in its
indivisible unity. A “bowl upon the top of it” feeds the seven lamps through seven
pipes: that is, the Holy Spirit of God, having descended upon the Church at
Pentecost, remains upon it as a bowl of sacred oil, feeding all the flames
throughout the earth, which, together, are “the light of the world ”. “For in one
Spirit were we all baptized into one body, and
were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12: 12).
A GOLDEN LAMPSTAND
The one solid golden Lampstand here stands on the brink of the
world’s chaos. The words of The Evangelical
Christian, of
TWO OLIVE TREES
But now in the immediate foreground rises a completely new
object; the equally God-endowed embodiment of the Holy Spirit, but in a new
age:- “TWO OLIVE
TREES”, on either side of the bowl. The New Testament leaves us in
no doubt at all who and what these are. “My two witnesses” God says in the Revelation, “shall prophesy” three and a half years: “these are the two
olive trees standing before the Lord of the earth” (Rev. 11: 4). That they are standing before the
Lord of the whole earth when Zechariah wrote, long after the rapture of Elijah,
is alone sufficient to reveal who the two Witnesses are - namely, the only two
men thus standing, then or now, before God, Enoch* and Elijah, both rapt into the presence of God in Heaven. These are the
second reservoir of oil. One olive tree can contain not less than a thousand
pounds of oil: so Oil-filled are these two Sons of Oil that “they have the power to shut the heaven, and power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the
earth with every plague” (Rev. 11: 6) - incomparably mightier miracles than any ever shown by any
[other] Prophets in the world’s history.
[* NOTE: There are numerous Scriptural
evidences which indicate that MOSES
will be chosen by God to accompany Elijah during this time! Here are a few
selected obvious reasons:- (1) MOSES, not Enoch, was God’s chosen
Prophet with “power
over the waters to turn them into blood, and
to smite the earth with every plague”?
(2) MOSES accompanied Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration. (3) God gave MOSES “the law and the commandment,
... that thou
mayest teach them” [
THE HOLY SPIRIT
The perplexed Prophet then challenges the Angel:- “What are
these?” And the Angel
reveals what we might have guessed:- “This is the word of the Lord” - what you
have seen embodies, in pictorial vision, what God is teaching namely, - “Not by
might, nor by power, BUT BY MY SPIRIT
saith the Lord of hosts.” The Bowl of Oil, which did not appear on the
Lampstand in the Temple, and which here both lights the Lamps and feeds the
flame, is the Holy Spirit as God’s omnipotence, working everything in and
through the Church in the Day of Grace; and, across the frontier in the new
age, the two mightiest Prophets in the history of the world contain and outpour
the power of God - again the Holy Spirit - no longer in grace, but in judgment.* So the whole drama, the Angel says, is
to reveal the Holy Ghost as the dynamic of all good. An infidel, a Communist
marked down by the police, entered a Salvation Army meeting in
* The idea that the Olive Trees pour their oil into the
Lampstand has no foundation in the passage, and would mean that the whole
Church is on earth with Enoch and Elijah throughout their three and a half
years - when, as a matter of fact, church-standing will be gone. All that the
passage states (see R.V.) is that the Olive Trees pour forth oil spontaneously.
THE KINGDOM
So therefore we are now shown the ultimate destruction of
colossal difficulties. “Who art thou, O great mountain? before
Zerubbabel” - a type of Christ - “thou shalt
become a plain”: literally, “into a plain!”
be wiped out! A mountain, in Scripture
symbolism, is a kingdom
or world-dominion and so mighty is the
SMALL THINGS
One immensely practical consequence of the vision is slipt in
before its final phases. Jehovah says, almost in contempt:- “For who hath
despised the day of small things?” It is Jehovah’s word, not the Angel’s: who - He implies - can
be so foolish as to despise things only because they are small? It is immensely
practical for us, as it is meant to be. What the Church must experience before
the Sons of Oil appear are ‘small things’:- falling membership, freezing love, dwindling funds,
dying faith: therefore the temptation to depression and despair will be
overwhelming. But God’s dynamic can be stored in pebbles. If Angels in heaven,
remotely distant, rejoice over a single sinner saved - even a dying tramp - ‘small things’ need never discourage us: all the
enormous future lies, in germ, in what we are witnessing and what we are doing.
Our brief moment gives birth to an eternity: our dwarf is the parent of a
giant: our every acorn holds an oak. If twelve men, so endued with the first
outpour, turned the world upside down, what may not another handful of men do,
again so endued?
THE SEVEN EYES
For the vision now shows how a triumphant future is assured. “For they
shall rejoice, even these seven, which are the eyes of the Lord; they run to and fro through the whole earth.” As Jehovah had already said (3: 9):- “Upon
one stone” - the
Head Stone of the Corner - “are seven eyes”. The
Apocalypse gives the clue. “I saw a Lamb standing, having
seven eyes, WHICH ARE THE SEVEN
SPIRITS OF GOD, SENT FORTH INTO ALL THE EARTH” (Rev. 5: 6). The Plummet in Zerubbabel’s hand is
watched by the Seven Eyes: the Kingdom is prepared in the years immediately
preceding the Advent, and the work is watched with joy by the Holy Ghost sent
forth into the whole earth. “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, before the great and terrible
day of the Lord come” (Joel 2: 28, Acts 2: 17).* So the whole drama is solved. The Oil
in the Bowl flanked on either side by the Oil in the Olives is the Divine
Spirit, the sole Operator in both dispensations. “There are diversities of gifts,
but the same Spirit; and
there are diversities of ministrations, but the
same Lord; and there are diversities of working, but the same God, who worketh
all things in all” (1 Cor. 12: 4).
* Since the Spirit is now on earth, He
cannot be poured out again from Heaven, and “sent into
all the earth”, until He has first re-ascended; so therefore the second
‘pentecost’ can occur
only after “One that restraineth now” (2 Thess. 2: 7),
has, with the watchful, disappeared. Therefore all alleged outpourings in between
- Montanism, Irvingism, Pentecostalism - are not outpourings of the Holy Ghost; and all ‘apostles’, uncreated by either divine affusion, are ‘false apostles’.
THE OUT-POUR
And now comes the crowning revelation. When and how will this second divine flood come?
Zechariah’s bewilderment had prompted him to ask for light four times (vers. 4, 5, 11, 12): the way he puts his fifth and last question reveals our
answer. “What be these two other branches, THAT EMPTY THE GOLDEN OIL OUT OF THEMSELVES?”
“These are the two sons of oil”, the Angel replies: that is, these
are the two fountains which in that day will supply oil from God himself: in
other words, Enoch [Moses] and Elijah will restore the miraculous gifts. It was said of Elijah - “He shall
restore all things” (Matt. 17: 11); and since only that can be ‘restored’
which has been ‘lost’ and the principal loss
the earth has suffered in our Age is the loss of
miraculous orders and gifts, Elijah must restore them; he who alone
of mankind has brought down fire from heaven, and has prayed down floods after
prolonged drought, on his second appearance on earth brings down the second
Pentecost. They “empty the golden oil out of
themselves”* This accounts
for the millions of the redeemed on
the right hand of the judge: this accounts for the martyr throng rapt into
heaven just before Satan descends (Rev. 12: 11): this accounts (in a sense) for a Lake of Fire a thousand
years earlier than for the rest of the lost, for it reveals God on the earth,
and therefore humanity knowingly hurling itself at Him.
* The Oil pours from their hands. After
the downpour at Pentecost, it was by the laying on of an Apostle’s hands that
the Holy Ghost was given (Acts 8: 18), with consequent miraculous gifts. Since
‘apostles’ (in the plural) are to be ‘crucified’ (Matt. 23: 34 compared with Luke 11: 49), and only Peter suffered
crucifixion among the early Apostles, it would seem that Apostles - who were an
order, not a select number (1 Cor. 12:
28) -
will re-appear at the end.
Crucifixion has occurred in the Spanish War.
-------
IMPOTENT SPIRITS
Suddenly and quite unaccountably the witch doctors ceased to
trouble Soxi. The brother of the chief, who had been
the chief agent in trying to bewitch Soxi, was
questioned. “Mesene,”
he replied reverently. “It’s the truth. Ngana Nzambi is the only God and
our witch doctors have no power at all against Him. We have proved it and all
our chiefs and all our witch doctors know it at last. My brother (Chief Xa-Muteba) sent a distance of four days’ march to bring
doctor 66, a witch doctor whose fame you all know and one who never fails. We
paid him $90.00 (Portuguese money) to come and he was to have a cow when Soxi was dead. He came with all the paraphernalia he had
and when he had put the evil spell on the mission, all of us were afraid to
come near it for it might kill any of us. We waited. Nothing happened at all.
Then one night we came, the medicine man and I, to see that he died that night
in his bed. When he reached his house, imagine our horror to see a white Man
walking back and forth past his door. Who could it be? Canzamba (the pastor) isn’t
white. Is it the Portuguese officer (the only white man within thirty miles)
guarding the mission at night? Impossible! We waited some time, then crept closer.
It was the biggest white Man we have ever seen and He shone as one who carries
a lantern. Back and forth He walked until we fled in terror to tell our people
that it was no use. Since then, no one has dared speak a word against any of
the people of God. We cannot fight God and will never try it again. We made the
doctor give us back our money since he was powerless and four days after he got
home he took sick and died.”
And Soxi? He
is without question the most joyous Christian I have ever known and the
simplicity of his faith puts me to shame - J. C.
WENGATZ.
* *
*
7
A BELIEVER’S SIN + 1
All
evangelical believers are agreed that only a changed life can prove a changed
heart; that without a new character and a new conduct, openly shown, there has
been no second birth. “My little children, let no man
lead you astray: he that doeth righteousness is righteous” (1 John 3: 7) - the imparted righteousness proves his possession of
the imputed righteousness. The Apostle John puts it, both positively and
negatively, with extreme clearness. “Ye know that every one that doeth
righteousness is BORN
of GOD”
(1 John 2: 29). Such a one may be overcome by
temptation, and fall into gross sin; nevertheless the bent of his mind, the
current of his fife, is Godward: as a stream can flow only if there be a
fountain, and the rush of the current alone proves that there is a fountain, so
a godly life can only issue from the Divine nature implanted; and invariably it
does thus flow out of
the new birth. “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil:
whosoever doeth not righteousness is
not of God” (1 John 3: 10). Or as our Lord expresses it:- “Do men gather grapes of thorns,
or figs of thistles? Therefore
by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7: 16).
But now the exceedingly important and exceedingly practical
question arises as to the degree to which a believer can sin, and his consequent fate. And here
the
Now there are two examples recorded in Scripture - to name no
others - so peculiarly plain and decisive as to be utterly unanswerable; and
they prove both groups wrong: for, as is so often the case in Scripture
exposition, they prove that the truth lies in a golden mean. These two cases
establish - against the Calvinist -
that the converted can so sin; and - against the Arminian - that the converted man so sinning is not thereby eternally
lost, however fearful may be the punishment which he incurs. Or, to put it in
another way: - the truth is that a child of God can suffer a far severer
judgment than the Calvinist dreams, while his bedrock security is unforfeitable
- which the Arminian denies; and these two facts cover, and reconcile, all the
Scriptures.
The first case is the model of all excommunication. “Ye being
gathered together, to deliver such a one” - for it applies to all who sin
according to the list given - “unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh” (1 Cor. 5: 5). The sin in this case - incest - is a
form of immorality so revolting that it was almost unknown even among the
heathen; as Paul himself says, - “such fornication as is not even among the
Gentiles”: and the
penalty - “the destruction of the flesh” - assumes that the sin continues
until death. So here is the grossest sin, found in a [regenerate] member of the Church, and handled by
Paul himself on the ground that the man is
a member: “do not ye judge them that are within, whereas them that are without God judgeth? Put away the wicked man from among yourselves”. That the
incestuous brother was a [regenerate] believer is proved decisively by the fact - which we learn from the second
Epistle (7: 9-12) - that he confessed and abandoned his sin, and was never put
out of fellowship at all. Otherwise the dread sentence must have fallen. We all
shrink inexpressibly from the surgeon’s knife falling on one whom we love:
nevertheless if it cuts out a cancer, and so saves his life, we let the knife
fall.
Paul's own summary of the sentence now
enables us to apply this critical case to the two sets of doctrines prevalent
in the
* “We have
every reason to believe that Satan is still employed in God’s hands for this
very work of discipline or destruction. The ruin, thus wrought in the outer
man, is not to be an utter and final one” (Lange).
** “The
punishment, though it be the withdrawing of one instrument of Grace, is itself
another, and therefore purposely chosen and allowed in exchange for the former,
because it is looked on as the more probable to produce the effect” (Bishop Wordsworth).
The second case - for we are dealing with but two - is mental
sin rather than moral, and not one sin but
wrong conduct throughout the entire discipleship. “The fire itself shall prove
each [believer’s] work, of what sort
it is. If any [believer’s] work shall be burned, he shall
suffer, loss” (1 Cor.
3: 15): that is, he escapes down a blazing
corridor, and out through the collapsing doorway, of the building he has spent
his whole discipleship in erecting. Dean
Stanley’s paraphrase brings home the truth vividly:- “The nature of every one’s work or superstructure shall
sooner or later be known; for the Great Day of the Lord is at hand, which shall
dawn in a flood of fire. The house of gold and silver shall be lit up by its
dazzling brilliancy; but the house of wood and thatch shall be burnt up; and
the builder whose house is consumed will lose his reward, having nothing to
show.” Our Lord expresses the identical truth as applied to conduct.* “Every one that heareth these words of mine” - the Sermon on the Mount - “and doeth
them not, [builds] his house upon the sand” - it is the building of a lifetime - “and the
floods came and smote upon that house, and it
fell; and great was the fall thereof” (Matt. 7: 26). The whole structure crashes.
* The context in Corinthians lays special
emphasis on Christian teachers and how they build; and it is exceedingly solemn
to learn - though it fits in exactly with the facts around us - that while such
can hold vitally, and teach, the fundamental truths, they can so add what is
unscriptural in all the rest of their teaching as to have their entire creed -
apart from the fundamentals - swept away
in the judgment.
Now this case also is extraordinarily convincing. For it is no
isolated sin which the believer here commits, however gross; but the Holy
Spirit here assumes a [regenerate] child of God who, after a lifetime of discipleship, has nothing to show:
his entire superstructure, though truly built on the foundation of Christ, is
destroyed as worthless by the consuming fire. Yet what is the summary? “HE HIMSELF SHALL BE
SAVED, yet so as through fire”: [See the Greek ...], through the
midst of the fire (Stanley).* To quote Dean Stanley again:- “He himself, as having built on the true foundation, will be
saved, yet he will come out singed and scorched as by an escape out of a
burning ruin: his personal faith saves himself from [eternal] destruction, but it is at the cost of seeing his work
destroyed and his labour lost- like a merchant who escapes from shipwreck, but
at the cost of his property.” He is saved for Christ’s sake, his labour
is lost for his own. So again both current views are proved erroneous. A
discipleship entirely worthless - from the viewpoint of the [Lord’s] Judgment-Seat - is not, by itself,
decisive that the man was never regenerated; on the contrary, here he is saved:
so, equally, a regenerate man’s complete
miscarriage in theology and conduct,
for a lifetime, does not prove him lost - “he himself shall be
saved”. Therefore the
very refusal of this truth so common among evangelicals of both groups,
together with all that is built upon that refusal in erroneous theology and - [disobedient, unfaithful, unsanctified] - conduct, must itself be a blaze of straw before the - [soon coming] - Judgment Seat.**
* “He himself,
as contrasted with his reward and with his work: he will be snatched as a brand
from the burning saving nothing but his bare life” (Lange).
** Thus the doctrine of reward is made
inescapably clear. Reward rests in no degree whatever on the fact that we are
on the Foundation, but results solely from what our own hands have wrought
(through grace) after being saved. So also it would be impossible to make [initial] salvation by faith plainer. For,
according to the picture, apart from the foundation already laid, and actually
beneath us, no God-acknowledged superstructure can exist - that is, no works
are accepted before conversion: on the other hand, works wrought for a lifetime
on the foundation by a saved soul can be completely burnt up, and yet that soul
saved. Works therefore, before or after faith, are
divorced for ever from all salvation.
It is exceedingly remarkable that the Apostle who instructs us
most clearly that a man’s active righteousness is the only proof that he is fundamentally righteous is the
very Apostle who invokes us to the highest, on the ground that our whole
workmanship may be lost. “Look to yourselves, that ye
lose not the things that ye have wrought, but that ye receive A FULL REWARD” (2 John 8). False materials, spiritual collapse, unabandoned sin * - and the building, it may be after
fifty years, crashes: on the other hand, by facing at once the darkest
Scriptures, and squaring our lives to their demands, we adopt Napoleon’s master
principle, - “I
ALWAYS MASTER THE WORST FIRST, AND THEN I KNOW THAT I HAVE MASTERED ALL THAT IS
LESS THAN THE WORST.”
* Believers are even warned against
committing murder (1 Pet. 4: 15) and while it is probable that some
Inquisitors have been regenerate men, it is certain that Calvin shared in the killing of Servetus. In the Day of Grace, killing on the principle of religion (Stephen says) is murder. Acts 7: 52.
-------
EXCOMMUNICATION
There is but one passage enforcing excommunication in the
Gospels (Matt. 18: 17), and but one in the Epistles (1 Cor. 5: 5); and the sins for excommunication
are solely moral - refusal to hear the Church in the Gospels, and named sins
which are moral (not doctrinal) offences in the Epistles. 2 John 10 refers to unbelievers; and in 2 Tim. 2: 20, ‘these’, from which we are to cleanse ourselves, are spiritual
defilements named in the context, not personal defilers. - Ed. [D. M. Panton.]
*
* *
The scandal of crimes committed in the Church is greater than
those committed in the world; and by excommunication many an offender, who
would otherwise continue in sin, and have part with the devil, is saved; by it
the Church evinces its abhorrence of evil, and shuns disgrace; by it she keeps
from participating in others’ sins, which, through connivance, would involve
her whole people in guilt and punishment; and finally, by it she prevents the
spread of iniquity. - STARKE.
*
* *
The power of excommunication must be exercised - 1. IN
THE NAME OF CHRIST. According to His command and direction. 2. BY THE CHURCH. With its knowledge and
consent. 3. IN THE APOSTOLIC SPIRIT. With
zeal for God’s honour and love for the offender. 4. WITH THE POWER OF CHRIST.
With His authority. 5. FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FLESH. Its
sinful tendencies. 6. THAT THE SPIRIT MAY BE SAVED. By
repentance and reformation. - J. LYTH, D.D.
*
* * *
*
Church discipline is a cause of Church sorrow. Once a brother
greatly beloved, perhaps - and now? And it is a grief tending to
self-examination on the part of those still in fellowship. (1) Possibly the lapsed one was not
cared for as he should have been. (2)
The evil was not checked, perhaps, when it was in the bud. There may have been
opportunities to save from actual and open transgression. (3) The evil may have been fostered, indirectly, by too light an
estimate of its heinousness. (4) The
offender may have been led away by the careless living of some in the Church.
If we have in any way helped a brother to fall, how keen should be our regret!
- E. HURNDALL,
M.A.
* *
*
8
ESCAPE FOR THY LIFE + 1
By D. M.
PANTON, B.A.
Blazing beacon‑lights God has set in history for the
warning of succeeding generations; and the extreme gravity of these divine
parallels is that they will be proved to be parallel in fact - the warning is a
prophecy: what happened before, repeats itself. So our Lord, when picturing the
mocking lawlessness of the last days, and of the rapture in which one is taken
and one is left, says:- “As it came to pass in the days of Lot, AFTER THE SAME
MANNER”- that is, it is more than a warning, it is a parallel - “shall it be in
the day that the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 27: 28). And what makes it of overwhelming
importance to the Church is that, in this parallel, one point, and one point
alone, the Lord singles out for extraordinary emphasis:- “REMEMBER LOT’S WIFE” (Luke 17: 32); and the nearer we approach the
fulfilling of the parallel, the more vital, the more urgent, becomes this point
on which our Lord casts the whole emphasis.
SODOMY
* It is extraordinarily significant that
the coming Antichrist, Nero, among
his countless other sins practised Sodomy.
SEPARATION
But immediately a most blessed
revelation is given by the Jehovah Angel to
MOCKERY
Now the drama begins. The reaction of
ANGELS
A fresh, vivid touch is now given to the parallel. How are the
godly to be removed? By angels. “And when the morning arose” - the dawn of the new day - “the angels hastened
LINGERING
There is probably a wealth of meaning for us all, at this
juncture, in
LOOKING BACK
Now we reach the sole point which our Saviour singles out for
emphasis. All the godly in Sodom, believing the imminent judgment, and obeying
the command of the Angels, escape, and have no share whatever in Sodom’s
eternal doom: nevertheless Lot’s wife
- in graciousness to her, our Lord, and the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament,
omit her name - pictures forth for ever a
section of the People of God. “His Wife looked back from behind him”: that is, she slipt behind him, and
then looked back. Our command is identical with that given to her:- “Let thine
eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look
straight before thee” (Prov. 4: 25); or as our Lord expresses it - “Lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, for where thy
treasure is, there will thy
heart be also” (Matt. 6: 20).
A PILLAR OF SALT
The judgment of God can be like lightning. “And she
became” -
literally, “she was”, that is, in a flash - “a pillar of salt”. Judgment is abroad, and she has
partially escaped: nevertheless she incurs a unique judgment, a judgment that
has nothing whatever to do with the fire and brimstone of
REMEMBER
So our Lord casts all on the only
person of the Old Testament He ever singled out for emphasis, and turning away
from the multitude whom He had been
addressing, he said unto the
disciples, “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17: 22).* In
other words, her peril is ours : God turned her
to salt, not only as a punishment to her but as a warning to us, and our Lord,
localizing the warning on the Church,
says, “Remember”, for she is the one person in the
whole scene we are likely to forget.** What then are
we to remember? What she was,*** what she did,
and what she experienced. Lot’s wife was in living communion with the only
godly people of that age; she believed in prophecy, and acted on it; she
abandoned all in Sodom, at the command of God; she completely escaped its doom;
she had run well, and was in the last lap: nevertheless, though chosen, out of
the whole city, as one of only four to be delivered, and one who had actually
seen judgment beginning in the blind Sodomites groping for the door, she yet is overtaken by judgment. Our lesson is contained in
an army command of the Great War. On the eve of the critical battle on the
* The command is set exactly between the flight of the
godly Israelite to the mountains, and the sudden disappearance of a believer in
the ordinary tasks of life: that is,
** Probably that little group of godly
refugees would have been profoundly indignant had they been warned that after
they had been actually delivered by angels they might be smitten to salt:
exactly so the Church to-day; but it happened.
*** Calvin might
safely have expressed it with more certainty:- “Although
it is not lawful to affirm anything respecting her eternal salvation, it is
nevertheless probable that God, having inflicted temporal punishment, spared
her soul; inasmuch as He often chastises His own people in the flesh, that
their soul may be saved from eternal destruction.” On Lot seeming, to
the citizens of
Nevertheless, there are last that shall be first. In the
trenches before Sebastopol, when the hospital staff were going round with
stretchers to take up the killed and wounded, one of them said, “Here’s a dead ’un,” and was about to pass on, when a
feeble voice was heard:- “No, lift me up. I’m worth
many a dead one. Give me air.” This all but defunct youth became one of
-------
Remember
’Midst allurements, folly forlorn:
Eternity’s in the balance,
Measuring Time with scorn.
Look not e’en
behind you
O’er all the grassy plain:
The judgment fires are falling,
Swallowing
* *
*
9
REASONS FOR LOVING HIS APPEARING
By F. W.
FARR, D.D.
We
should love it because of the large space it occupies in Scripture, and because
God loves it. If frequency of mention any measure of importance, this truth is
of supreme value, for no other is mentioned so frequently or stressed so
earnestly. Baptism is mentioned nineteen times in seven epistles and is not
once named in fourteen out of twenty-one epistles. The Lord’s Supper is
mentioned less than half a dozen times in the entire New Testament. In twenty
out of twenty-one epistles it is not alluded to at all. The Lord’s Second
Coming is spoken of 318 times in the New Testament. One verse out of
twenty-five is devoted to it. We should be concerned with what God says rather
than what man thinks, and God must think a great deal of this truth, else He
would not have so much to say about it in the Word.
BECAUSE OF ITS PURIFYING
AND TRANSFORMING POWER
We ought to love the Second Coming of Christ because this
truth purifies and transforms the life as nothing else does. “Every one
that hath this hope set on him, purifieth
himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3: 3,
R.V.; Matt. 22: 1-14). There is scarcely a practical duty in
daily life, to which an exhortation may not be found somewhere in Scripture,
reinforced by association with the Second Advent. (Isa. 66;
Malachi 3;
Dan.
12.)
“Be patient, therefore,
brethren, unto the
coming of the Lord” (Jas. 5: 7). “Let your
moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at
hand” (Phil. 4: 5).
“Be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ”
(Phil. 1: 10). Many a one who has been a professing
Christian and Church member for years has borne witness to the fact that the
acceptance of the Advent doctrine and its results in daily life were equal to a
second conversion. The effect upon the life is revolutionary. Doubtful
practices long indulged have been given up; burdensome weights have been laid
aside; besetting sins have been overcome, and more fruitful service has been
enjoyed.
BECAUSE IT IS A SAFEGUARD AGAINST ERROR
Ephes. 6: 10-18; Isa. 52: 6-12; Matt. 7: 13-15; Luke 13:
23-28; Rom.
1: 16-32; Isa. 66: 1-5.
Another reason for loving the Advent is found in the fact that
the doctrine provides a potent safeguard against error in all its forms. Many
deadly and God-dishonouring errors are being taught on every hand. The people
who cherish the hope of the Lord’s return, however, are not often deceived or
easily ensnared, because they are constantly reading and studying their Bibles.
They verify what they hear by the Word, rejecting what does not conform to its
teaching. (Isa. 8: 19, 20;
John 5: 39; Matt.
22: 29.) Any preacher or teacher, who holds or
testifies to the doctrine of the Lord’s coming, is usually sound on all other
doctrines of historic orthodoxy. It is equally significant that no liberalist,
destructive critic, or adherent of the new theology accepts it. All these
deride it as a mark of hopeless obscurantism. (Ezek. 20: 49; 2 Pet. 3: 3, 4.)
BECAUSE IT IS AN UNPOPULAR DOCTRINE
(Isa. 5: 19; Jer. 14: 13-19; Ps. 2: 1-3.)
The unpopularity of the doctrine furnishes another reason why
it should be held in high esteem. Matthew 21: 33-44; Luke 19: 10-27. Our Saviour was condemned and
crucified upon His Advent testimony. “The high priest answered and said
unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.
Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you,
Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken
blasphemy; what further need have we of
witnesses?” (Matt. 26: 63-65). Satan hates this truth especially because he knows that when
the Lord Jesus comes, the pit opens for him. He, therefore, does all he can to
discredit it and bring it into disrepute.
BECAUSE THE HOLY SPIRIT LOVES IT AND PRAYS FOR IT
Another cause for loving the Second Coming is found in the
fact that the Holy Spirit loves it and prays for it. “The Spirit
and the bride say, Come” (Rev. 22: 17; Psa. 24: 7 and 53: 6). The commentators tell us that this first call is the united
cry of the Holy Spirit and the Church to an absent Christ. In the latter part
of the verse the appeal is made to the unsaved. The Holy Spirit desires the
return of the Saviour, not because He is inadequate to accomplish His appointed
work in the present age, but because at the Second Coming He can inaugurate His
world-wide work and be poured out upon all flesh (Joel 2: 28). Every believer should, therefore, repeat and respond “Amen” to every prayer of the Spirit, and
especially that with which the canon of Scripture closes: “Even so,
come, Lord Jesus”
(Rev. 22: 20).
BECAUSE THEN REWARDS AND
CROWNS WILL BE GIVEN
Isa. 40: 1-10; Matt. 25. ; 1 Cor. 3: 9-16; Rev. 22: 12-21. Another fact that invests the Second
Advent with peculiar interest and awakens the liveliest expectations concerning
it, is that when the Lord Jesus comes, rewards of service are given and crowns
conferred. (Eph. 2: 8, 9; John 5: 24). It is one thing to be saved; it is another thing to be
crowned. A crown is the symbol of reward. We are saved by faith through grace.
We are crowned on the basis of service.
BECAUSE THE CURSE WILL BE REMOVED
Hosea 6: 1-3; Rev. 22: 3-21. When the Lord Jesus comes, creation
is to be delivered from its age-long curse. When man fell, God said, “Cursed is the
ground for thy sake ... thorns also and thistles
shall it bring forth to thee” (Gen. 3: 17, 18). On account of sin, “the whole creation groaneth and
travaileth in pain together until now” (Rom. 8: 18-23). The sounds of nature, the cries of
animals, the songs of the birds are all pitched in a minor key. Earth and sea
and sky are full of fierce pursuit and cruel capture, of breathless escape and
haunting fear. The miserere of nature will
become a jubilate. “Instead of the thorn shall
come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier
shall come up the myrtle tree” (Isa. 55: 13). Even the law of the jungle shall be
changed, for “the lion shall eat straw like the ox” (Isa. 11: 7).
BECAUSE OUR LORD,
THE KING OF KINGS, WILL THEN
SHARE HIS THRONE WITH
THE OVERCOMERS
Dan. 7: 13-27; Rev. 19: 9-16; 20: 6.
The Second Coming of Christ means His coronation upon the earth where He
was rejected and crucified. Before His birth the angel assured His mother that “the Lord God
shall give unto him the throne of his father David ... and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1: 32, 33; Isa. 9: 2, 6, 7; Zech. 14: 4-9). This promise still awaits fulfilment.
BECAUSE IT IS THE TIME OF RESURRECTION AND
Job 19: 25-27; Ps. 16: 9; 50: 3-5; Isa. 26: 19; 27: 13; Daniel 12: 1-3. Resurrection is the antidote of death. “Then shall be
brought to pass the saying that is written, Death
is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15: 54). We believe in the resurrection of the
body because the body is all that goes into the grave. The spirit returns to
God who gave it (1 Thess. 4: 13-18; 5: 1-23). Death is not a friend, but an enemy, even “the last
enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15: 26). This hope brings comfort to the
mourner and, makes the separation which death brings endurable. A glad reunion
is close at hand beyond which we shall never say, good-bye (Phil. 3). “Blessed and holy is he that hath part
in the first resurrection” (Rev. 20: 5, 6). Matt. 7: 20-27; Ps. 126: 1; John 14: 6; 10: 1, 9, 27-30.
BECAUSE IT BRINGS THE TRANSLATION
AND CONSUMMATION OF REDEMPTION
Matt. 25: 1-13; John 18: 36; 14: 1-3; Luke 17: 20-36; John 17: 24. Man is a compound being, compose of
spirit, soul, and body. Sin has affected all. (Matt. 18: 1-7, 11; John 3: 3-5, 16, 36; 1: 12, 33; 14: 15-26; Acts 2: 38, 39; Isa. 53: 1-12; 52: 1-3; Zeph. 1: 7, 8; Isa. 59: 6; 30: 18; Titus 2: 11-15; Acts 15: 4-18; Rev. 7: 1-7.) Redemption is God’s reconstructive process. (Isa. 61: 10; Ps. 16: 5-11.) The spirit is purified, the mind clarified, the body
glorified. This is full salvation. (Isa. 45: 21-25; Jer. 23: 5, 6;
This is “the prize of the high calling
of God in Christ Jesus”, for which we are to live and work and pray.
-------
LONELINESS
Lord Jesus, Thou didst walk alone
Where Heaven and earth in Thee did
meet:
Alone amidst the multitude,
Men light seemed darken’d
by defeat.
No heart-break, leaving us as dead,
But wounded once Thy heart divine;
Real loneliness, out-weighing all,
Was Thine on earth, was always Thine.
Thy close companions, striving hard,
Walk’d with Thee but a little way
They sadden’d
Thee by their desires‑
Ambition’s hand their course did stay
Thy soul, Thy human soul, was starved
By lack of love alike Thine own :
Lord when we rise to Heaven and Thee,
Make Thou our chasten’d
love Thy throne!
- RICKETTS WAYTE.
* *
*
10
ASCENSION + 1
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
No
clause in the Apostles’ Creed - except one, “He descended into hell [‘Hades’]”* - has been more doubted or disbelieved than the c1ause which
expresses our Lord’s bodily return to God, “He ascended into heaven.” The Commission on Doctrine disposes
of it thus:- “Whatever may have been the nature of the
event underlying those narratives, and whatever its relation to the
Resurrection, its physical features are to be interpreted symbolically, since
they are closely related to the conception of heaven as a place locally fixed
beyond the sky.” A ‘symbolic’ ascension is an ascension that
never bodily occurred. But this is exactly one purpose of the
Ascension; - to prove forever human entry, in the person of Christ,
into heaven, to be welcomed, as men, to the Father’s home; and it is apt, if
nothing more, that it is Luke, “the beloved physican”, who is the sole recorder (in his
Gospel, and in the Acts) of the bodily passing of the Lord from earth to heaven. The only
medically trained eye among the Apostles, an expert on the powers and
limitations of the human body, is the sole full recorder as he watches, as it
were pen in hand, a - [resurrected and immortal] - body passing up into - [the highest] heaven.
[* NOTE: There is
nothing more misleading, by the use of the word “Hell”
in the King James Translation (1611), of the Holy Scriptures! “Sheol” O.T./ ‘Hades”
Septuagint & R.V.N.T. is the location of the souls - not the bodies- of where the dead
are being held (“in the heart of the earth” Matt. 12: 40)
- until
the time when our Lord Jesus will return
to
earth, to Resurrect the ‘holy’ dead. See Gen. 37: 35; Psa. 16: 10;
Lk. 16: 23, 31;
Cf.
Acts 2: 34;
John 3: 13;
John 14: 2-3; Acts 7: 5; 2 Tim. 2: 18; Heb. 11: 35b; Rev. 20: 4, 13, in the Revised Version
translation.]
THE PHYSICAL FACT
Let us ponder for a moment the physical fact. The whole drama
of the ascension was slow, gentle, natural. No horses and chariots of fire, no
violent whirlwind or blaze of glory, which might have distracted attention or
suggested illusion: The Apostles could and did view it calmly, steadily,
actually, and so were able to describe it to others exactly as they saw it. Our
Lord had deliberately led the disciples to the summit of Olivet that they might
see Him visibly ascend. “As they were looking, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight” (Acts 1: 9). The supreme facts of our Lord’s life
were all open, certain, sure. The crucifixion was public, the burial was
public, the appearances after the [His] resurrection were public, and as
public as all the rest was the ascension.
“THEY WERE LOOKING STEDFASTLY INTO HEAVEN AS HE WENT.” While all eyes were calmly,
attentively, lovingly turned towards Jesus as He speaks, He was slowly carried
up into Heaven. No eyes saw Enoch go; Elijah went up in fire, seen by only one:
the calm, quiet, convincing gaze of eleven sober men watched the Lord upward.
They saw Him go. No fact
could be more sober or simple or real. As the Body had been physically handled
in the Upper Room, so it went up, physically visible, until a cloud came
between; as literal as the cloud, so literal was the body - no cloud could hide
a spirit,
for a spirit is in any case invisible; and up to the moment that they last
saw Him in front of the cloud, it was the actual Lord who had just talked and
walked with them.
A VITAL TRUTH
Let us now see what we have to face if the ascension did not
occur as reported in the Scriptures. If the ascension did not happen, what did?
The Lord had risen; the tomb - [where His body lay, for ‘three days and three nights’ without corruption] - was empty; He had talked and eaten with more than five hundred people; He had been handled by reverent unbelief:- how then
did He leave the earth? If He left it by death, - the whole - [doctrine
/ teaching of what most people believe today of the] - resurrection thus becoming meaningless, - if He
wasted away with disease, fell once again into the grave, and was laid to rest
by those who have since died for love of Him, how is it that there is not even the whisper of a tradition
how and where He died? And how is it that not a single person, who knew, has
ever revealed the fact? We have the tomb of Abraham, in
[* It was stated, (contrary to some
statements at a ‘Zoom’ meeting), that all
Old Testament saints ascended into God’s presence in Heaven at
the same time as our Lord Jesus’ Ascension! Statements like this, (by either ignoring the context and reading
into a text something which is not there), would make one wonder if
the speaker (known as a regenerate believer by myself and others listening) -
is reading and studying statements of known and recorded facts - from the
pages of the same ‘Holy Bible’!
We must ask God to forgive us
- who think and act as if we know it all - for our ignorance of His
Word, and for the Holy Spirit to
give us
more understanding, and a correct interpretation of what He has written! - namely a ‘First-Mentioned Principle’ - which was
recorded thousand of years ago in Gen. 37: 35, R.V.: and which was established by our
Lord’s teaching in Luke 16: 23, 31: and we can find several other
subsequent statements - all of which must occur before the event recorded
in Rev. 20: 13, 14,
R.V. Let us ask for His grace to see and fully understand much more!]
THE ASCENSION FORETOLD
So now we see that the departure of the human Christ into
Heaven is only part, but a vital part, of the immense drama of redemption. For
our Lord Himself had plainly foretold it. “What then if ye should behold
the Son of Man ascending where
he was before?” (John 6: 62). “I go unto him
that sent me: ye shall seek me” - as Elijah’s disciples sought him,
after his ascension - “and shall not find me” as they did not find him; “and where I
am, ye cannot come” (John 7:
33). Why not? Peter answers:- “Whom the
heaven must receive until the
times of the restoration of all things” (Acts 3: 21). No one can yet follow Him there. But
why must the heaven receive Him? Because even
the Old Testament had stated it. “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast received gifts for men”
(Ps. 68:
18). So Paul summarizes the whole drama. “He that descended is the same also that ASCENDED FAR ABOVE ALL THE HEAVENS”
(Eph.
4: 10)
“a great high priest, who
hath passed
through the heavens, Jesus the Son of
God” (Heb. 4: 14). So the Ascension is a mighty seal set
on the Incarnation. The Lord Jesus moved up from off this earthly globe, and
passed into the real, sure, abiding portion of the universe ; we are divided
from that great world only by a cloud; and up to the edge of the cloud
human eyes followed the Lord, now as literally and as actually on the other
side as ever He was on this. That we saw a friend embark at Southampton, that
we have heard from him since by American mail, and that he has been seen in
America by those who know him, is all the evidence we ever have of a friend’s
existence on another continent and we have it all of Christ.*
* The Seven Letters to the Churches are
seven dictated letters from the heavenly world, addressed to all Churches,
which have been actually delivered.
THE BLOOD
For us, saved sinners, the Ascension has one peculiarly
valuable revelation. What deep significance for us lies behind our Lord’s mounting back above the clouds? This. The High Priest, on entering the Holy of holies, was
required to enter with blood, and to deposit it in the Sanctuary, so covering
THE RETURN
So therefore the Ascension is directly and crowningly
identified with the closing act of the whole drama. The attendant Angels press
this fact on the gazing Apostles:- “This Jesus, which was received up from you into heaven, shall so COME IN LIKE
MANNER as ye beheld him going into heaven.” He went up bodily, visibly, gradually
- He will return bodily, visibly, gradually: He went up with human eyes
fastened on Him - returning, every eye shall see Him: He disappeared into a cloud - He
reappears out of a cloud: He
comes back the identical Jesus who went up. And so what the Apostles watched
was actually the first [and select] * rapture. In the great type of the
removal of the Church from earth, one lonely sheaf, out of the whole harvest to
follow, was carried into the Holy of Holies:** so the Lord “was carried up into heaven” (Luke 24: 51), that is, by angel hands; He was rapt
into the Holiest. “A cloud received him out of their sight”, and He will be behind a cloud, on
returning: so “we shall be caught up in the clouds” to
meet him (1 Thess. 4: 17); and we too, like the First Sheaf,
disappearing behind clouds, shall be with Him behind the clouds. “Each in his own order” - rank or group “Christ the firstfruits; then they that are Christ’s, in his parousia”
(1 Cor. 15: 23)*** - in [selective] raptures corresponding to harvest ripeness, but all
ascended while the Parousia lasts.
[* See Luke 21: 34-35; cf., Rev. 3: 10.]
** Lev. 23: 10, 11: a ‘sheaf’,
not a ‘grain’: it is probable that our Lord was
accompanied by those who had broken out of the tombs after His resurrection (Matt. 27: 52). [NOTE: Compare
this, with the exceptional God-given event in 1 Sam. 28: 7-19; 31:
2-6,
R.V.)].
*** [See also Acts 4: 2; “...being grieved
because they TAUGHT the PEOPLE, and
announced THAT RESURRECTION out
of dead ones” (Greek).]
-------
THE TRUTH OF GENESIS
The Bishops’ report gives up as “mythological”
the very chapters of Genesis which Huxley and Haeckel, and now Sir
Oliver Lodge and Sir James Jeans, accept as largely accurate. At the same time
the Bishops accept as true that theory of Evolution which Sir William Bateson and Faiffield Osborn,
Huxley’s famous pupil, decry as “a myth and a bogey”
(Man Rises to Parnassus, p. 74: Princeton). Even
Sir Oliver Lodge warns us that the new theory of matter “may yet cut at the root of the objective character of
Evolution” (Modern Scientific Ideas: Discontinuity, pp.
19 sq.; Benn, 1927). It was a German, Wolf,
who, in the year 1795, threw out the impossible theory of Homer’s epic as a
compilation of strata belonging to
three ages. Another German, Vater, applied the same theory of three strata to the composition of the book of Genesis,
J, E and P, of a date some two thousand years later than the events recorded.
Professor J. B. Bury demolished the three strata of Homer, which he had at first accepted. And Professor Sayce
first demolished the three strata of Genesis
by producing in Babylonian a single document contemporaneous with
the event but presenting precisely the very difficulties which had created the
theory of a later date and three strata! Indeed, owing to the recovery of Assyrian and Egyptian monuments
almost contemporaneous with the books of the Bible, the following books are
restored to their traditional dates Genesis (Maspero,
Langdon, Pinches); Exodus (Yahuda) Joshua
and Judges
(Garstang); Daniel (Dougherty, converting Sayce, R. D.
Dickson and in part the International
Critical Commentary). All
these books lie before me as I write, and most of the authors have been in
correspondence with me over my articles written on these subjects. - A.
H. T. CLARKE.
* *
*
11
WATCHERS FOR THE RETURN + 2
By W. E. WOODHAMS DENHAM, D.D.
This same Jesus shall so come. And they
worshipped him,
and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
blessing God”
(Luke 24:
52).
The
immediate successors of the Apostles gave unerring testimony to this glorious
truth, among whom were the following:- Papias
of Hierapolis, Phrygia;
Hermas; Polycarp; Clement; Ignatius; Justin; Ireneus; Tertullian; Lactantins;
Justin Martyr; Cyprian; Hippolytus; Apollinarius; Methodius; Nepos;
and Melito
- whose works have come down to us. There was soon to be a departure from the
pure faith in Origen (A.D. 185-253),
who was unsafe as a teacher, and, although a man of brilliant talents, unsound
as a theologian. “He taught that magic was a true and
lawful science and that the Scriptures in their literal sense were worthless.”
During the Middle Ages the doctrine was obscured by a corrupt
and worldly Church, although the flame of hope was kept alight by the Waldenses
and Paulicians. They held the imminency of our Lord’s Return as the primitive
Church. At the Reformation the doctrine was revived. Calvin wrote: “Moreover, it must be held
as a first principle that, ever since the appearing of Christ, there is nothing
left to the faithful, but with wakeful minds to be always ready, intent on His
Second Advent.” Latimer: “I believe the Lord may come in my day, old as I am.” Knox: “We know
that He shall return, and that with expedition.” Luther: “I ardently hope that amidst these
internal dissensions on earth, Jesus Christ will hasten the day of His Coming.”
Melancthon held the same views.
In the seventeenth century we find such men as Mede, Twiss, Usher, Milton, Taylor, Rutherford, Bunyan, Matthew Henry, holding the same views. In the eighteenth century Sir Isaac Newton, Bengel, Doddridge,
Watts, Hall, Fletcher, Toplady, Cowper, Coke and Wesley, who wrote, “Oh, do not set Him a
time; expect Him every hour. Now He is nigh, even at the door.” George Whitefield, “Let that cry ‘behold the
bridegroom cometh’ be continually sounding in
your ears, and begin now to live as though you were assured this night you were
to go forth to meet Him.” He wrote the hymn, “Lo,
He comes with clouds descending.”
Coming to our own times, among the scholars and spiritual and
intellectual giants of Evangelicalism, the following were believers and
teachers of the Second Advent:- Baumgarten, Hahn,
Delitzsch, Hofman, Oehler, Kurtz, Auberlen, Ebharb, Christlieb, Luthardt, Van Osterzee, Godet,
Gaussen, Christinini, Nlolck, Volck, Knock, Chalmers, Irving, Begg, Wood, Faussett, Elliott, Alford, Ellicott, Tregelles, Maitlands,
Bonar, Spurgeon - and hosts of others down to the testimony of those who
proclaim the glorious truth to multitudes all over the world.
Not only is there this volume of personal witness, but the
Confessions and Creeds are confirmatory of all that the Scriptures declare on
this important theme. The Westminster
Confession of Faith affirms it in chapter 33. sec. 13. The Savoy Confession of Faith is the same. The Baptist Confession of 1660, and the Book of Common Prayer of the National Church is in harmony with the
clear teaching of the Bible. - The Morning Star.
*
* * *
*
2
By FRED H.
LILLARD
Mosheim, with the weight of scholarship,
states:- “The prevailing opinion that Christ was to
come and reign a thousand years among men before the final dissolution of the
world, had met with no opposition previous to the time of Origen.” Vol.
I. p. 89.
Dean Alford says:- “Those
who lived next to the apostles, and the whole church for three hundred years,
understood them [the thousand years] in the plain
literal sense; and it is a strange sight in these days to see expositors who
are among the first in reverence of antiquity, complacently casting aside the
most cogent instance of unanimity which primitive antiquity presents. As
regards the text itself, Rev. 20: 5, no legitimate
treatment of it will extort what is known as the spiritual interpretation now
in fashion. If, in a passage where two resurrections are mentioned, where certain souls lived at the first, and the rest of the dead lived
not until the end of a
specified period after that first, if in such a passage, the first
resurrection, may be understood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the
second means literal rising from the grave, then there is an end of all
significance of language and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to anything. If the first resurrection is
spiritual, then so is the second.”
Multitudes of authentic authorities can be quoted to support
the assertion of Gibbon that “the ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was
carefully inculcated by a succession of fathers from Justin Martyr and Ireneus, who conversed with the immediate disciples of the
apostles. Down to the beginning of the fourth century, the belief was universal
and undisputed.”
Tregelles, the dean of reverent collators and
textual critics, in translating Dan. 12: 2, follows the unanimity of Jewish commentators - with which
agrees Jamieson, Fausset and Brown - in distinguishing between the first and second
resurrections. “And many from among the sleepers of the dust of the earth shall awake, these [the former] shall be unto everlasting life; but those [the latter, who
do not arise at the first] shall be unto shame.” - The American Baptist.
-------
PAIN
Pain makes progress possible.
Pain develops character. Someone has said: “It is better to be a man in pain than a pig in ecstasy, for
the latter means only an emptied trough, the former may enter into the fullness
of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ!” Pleasure is not the highest education
in life, for while a course of unbroken prosperity and pleasure tends to harden
the heart and contract the sympathies, sorrow teaches us to sympathise with
others. David said: “Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.” Suffering enlarges our natures. We
cannot fully sympathise with sufferers unless we ourselves have suffered. A
judge once had himself put in the stocks for half an hour that he might know
what it was like. Some days later a lawyer complained of the light sentence he
had imposed on a noted criminal. “Were you ever in the stocks?” asked the
judge. “Certainly not,” said the lawyer. “Well, I have been, and I know what it is.” Sufferings make us think of others and
learn to bear one another’s burdens and so to fulfil the law of Christ. A
world of human beings without pain would be a tragedy, for every man would be
independent of his fellow men and still more independent of his God.
-------
PRACTICAL HOLINESS
A holy life is made up of a multitude of small things. It is
the little things of the hour, and not the great things of the age, that fill
up a life like that of Paul and John, like that of Rutherford, or Brainerd, or
Martyn. Little words, not eloquent speeches or sermons; little deeds, not
miracles or battles, nor one great heroic effort or martyrdom, that make up the
true Christian life. The little constant sunbeam, not the lightning; the waters
of Siloam. “that go softly” in their meek
mission of refreshment, not “the waters of the rivers
great and many”. rushing down in torrent noise and force; are the true
symbols of a holy life. The avoidance of little evils, little sins, little
inconsistencies, little weaknesses, little follies, little indiscretions and imprudences, little foibles, little indulgences of self and
of the flesh, little acts of indolence or indecision, or slovenliness or
cowardice, little equivocations or aberrations from high integrity, little bits
of covetousness or penuriousness, little exhibitions of worldliness or gaiety,
little indifferences to the feelings or wishes of others, little outbreaks of
temper, or crossness, or selfishness or vanity - the avoidance of little things
as these goes far to make up at least the negative beauty of a holy life. - HORATIUS BONAR, D.D.
* *
*
12
FINDING THE BRIDE OF CHRIST
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
The Old
Testament is described by Paul as full of ‘types and shadows’ of New Testament realities; and it
seems hardly probable that the Holy Spirit would occupy a lengthy chapter of Genesis with elaborate details of a family marriage, if it were not a lovely symbol
- as it is - of the great Marriage of Eternity expressed for ever in the words,
- “The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king that made a marriage for his son” (Matt. 22: 2). So we find it set in the suited
background. Genesis
22. is Isaac, the son of Abraham, offered up as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah, and - the Holy Spirit
says in Hebrews
(11:
19)
- received back in resurrection: so
now, after Calvary, the risen Son - [of God] - is to have a Bride;
and [Genesis] chapter 24.
is not only a wonderful revelation of divine guidance, but an extraordinarily
exact photograph of that seeking and finding of Christ’s Bride which has
been going on for two thousand years.
THE BRIDE
Far away from Abraham and Isaac [typical of God] - the Father and the Son - is the distant Bride. The Mystical
Christ is hidden among all nations, and veiled - like Eastern women - amongst
all classes and ages; and the Servant - [Typical of the Holy Spirit] - who is sent out to seek her has to
have the assurance of supernatural guidance, as he travels out into unknown
lands. “And Abraham said unto him, He
shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt
take a wife for my son from thence” (Gen. 24: 7). Long before the discovery and call
of Rebekah, Abraham administers an oath that a bride shall be
chosen - [out from amongst other family members (24:
15)] - and brought to his son: even so, God has chosen us
“before
the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1: 4); and John the Baptist, seeing Christ, instantly identifies Isaac - “He that hath the bride is the bridegroom” (John 3:
29).
THE SERVANT
Now we get a typical photograph of the soul-winner. The
entrusted embassy is given to a nameless servant; throughout the whole chapter
he is never once named: a nameless servant because it can be any servant, and therefore it can be every - [qualified and willing] - servant. “I have found,” says the Bishop of Dornokal, “that the simple witness of an untrained and unpaid lay person carries far more conviction to a
heathen than the sermon of a Bishop.” Yet when we learn the name (Gen. 15: 2) it is equally suggestive: - Eliezer, ‘one whom God helps’.
Throughout the whole winning of the Bride, while he is never named, invariably
throughout he is helped. Being drawn in a carriage up a hill towards home,
Mr. Spurgeon noticed a man lighting the lamps. One by one the lights were
kindled, until the man reached the summit and disappeared. “Thus,” said Mr. Spurgeon, “would
I have my life to be; lighting lamps up the hill of life; that when presently I
disappear into the eternity beyond, I may leave others to be lights in this
poor dark world, and to shine for God.” Nevertheless, the name Eliezer has blazed for three thousand
years: so “they
that turn many to righteousness” shall shine “as the stars for ever and ever”. How blessed that every one of us can be Eliezer! A rescued
Indian girl once said:- “Last night I thought I was
going to heaven, and 1 was so glad to go. But I was suddenly sorry. I thought
all the angels would look at me, and there would be tears in their eyes,
because I had loved our Lord Jesus so long, and I had not brought one to Him.”
So long then meant a year and nine months, and she had, though she did not know
it, brought at least one to Him.
IDENTIFICATION
But Eliezer is now troubled by the thought - as we all are -
what if we fail to win the Bride,
what if our wedding invitation meets with no response? Very beautifully Abraham
replies:- “If the woman be not willing to follow thee, then thou shalt be clear from this my oath.” Do your part, and God will do His; you
cannot convert, all you can do is to carry the message; and if you have done
all that is possible to you, no blame attaches for an undiscovered Bride. So
Eliezer asks for explicit guidance in the identification of the
Bride. He says:- “O Lord, send me,
I pray thee, good speed this day.” Then he suggests an identification
proof. “Let it
come to pass that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink, and she
shall say, Drink: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac.” Let me know her by her instant
response.
“It has been my privilege,”
says Hudson Taylor, “to know many Christians - I am speaking within bounds when I
say a hundred - who have accepted Jesus Christ the first time they ever heard
of Him.” “And it came to pass, before he
had done speaking” - before he had finished his prayer - “that, behold, Rebekah came out.”
Her delightful hospitality at once makes Eliezer certain that he has
found the Bride.
“And the man bowed his head, and worshipped the Lord, and
said, The Lord hath led me in the way.”
RESPONSE
So now we have the crucial test. The Servant reveals the
Father and the Son, in the first speech recorded in the Bible; and lo, the soul
that responds is the Bride.
She reveals herself. No conceivable test could be better. Eliezer does not ask
for some magical sign, such as her stumbling as she approaches him, or the
alighting of a bird on the shoulder of the selected maid: he asks, as a sign, a responding heart, that will thus reveal God as the Worker
already there. And the immediate response proves him correct. After he has
explained the whole matter to Laban - the wealthy Father, the sole Son and heir,
the wanted Bride - Rebekah’s family, having heard all, ask her:- “Wilt thou go with this man? And
she said, I will go.” The Bride consists of all who respond to the call. The testimony
of the Servant has so sunk into her heart that she is willing to leave all and join Isaac for ever. “As many as were ORDAINED TO ETERNAL* LIFE believed”
(Acts 13:
48). There are some wonderful Eliezers in the world. An aged Christian now alive in the
United States, 79 years old, in the last 60 years has handed from door to door
500,000 Gospel tracts, in 42 States of the Union, and hopes to finish the last
6 States before he dies.
[* NOTE: Here, ‘aionian’ should be translated:- “... and as many as were having been disposed for life age-lasting, believed.”
(Lit. Greek). don’t have to be ‘willing to
leave all’ for “the free gift of God
is eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (
ENDOWMENT
Eliezer now brings forth a ring of gold, and bracelets of
gold; and he clasps them on her hands as the betrothed of Isaac: so immediately,
in the Upper Room, the moment the Bride had appeared, the disciples were “enriched with all utterance”, with the jewels of
miracle and inspiration placed on the neck of the Bride. Jesus never sought his
Bride for the portion she could bring Him - so far as we know, Rebekah left her
home penniless: nay, Christ’s Bride owed ten thousand talents, and her Lord had
first to pay her debt: He sought her because He loved her; and He endows her with all His goods - “the
unsearchable riches of Christ.”
TEN DAYS
All this time Rebekah has accepted a Bridegroom whom she has
never seen; but she had believed the report, and what she heard of Him was
enough for her heart - “whom, not having seen, ye love” (1 Pet. 1: 8); and ten days intervene before she starts to meet him. Ten is always the number of responsibility: ten commandments
to be obeyed; ten talents to be used; ten virgins commanded to watch; ten
lepers responsible to confess. So now the whole epoch intervenes of Christian responsibility, during which,
by a thousand methods, that is being prepared which must come at long last - “a glorious church,
not having spot
or wrinkle or any such thing” (Eph. 5: 27).*
* The Bride, in her Millennial aspect, provides her
own trousseau - “for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (Rev. 19: 8); but in her Eternal aspect she is all the saved, in this dispensation - “they which are
written in the Lamb’s book of life”
(Rev. 21:
27);
and in either case suffering -
voluntary or else penal - fits the Bride
for the Bridegroom. In the words of Mrs.
Sarah F. Moore:- “John, the seer of
THE MARRIAGE
So at last the wedding takes place. As the evening shadows
fall - as the sun of our dispensation is sinking - Isaac comes forth into the
field - “the field is the world”, and the pavilion of cloud where Christ and the Church
meet is part of this earth; and he takes her into his mother’s tent - the
DECISION
How unutterably solemn this makes our hearing of the Gospel!
God’s servant - it matters not who he is, he is nameless - presses, as a
God-entrusted suitor, for instant decision. He who takes the Bridegroom’s name
- and becomes a ‘Christian’ by that fact - proclaims the wedlock: he disengages
himself from all rival suitors - the world, the flesh, the devil - and engages
himself to Christ for time and eternity. On the other hand, absence of response
is fatal: a soul not the Bride could have the greatest evangelist plead with
him or her for a thousand years, with no result: that soul is not the Bride.
Tersteegen voices the heart of the Bride:-
There made
ready are the mansions
Glorious,
bright, and fair;
But the Bride, the Father gave Him,
Still is wanting there.
Who is this that comes to meet me
On the desert way,
As the Morning Star foretelling
God’s unclouded day?
He it is
who came to win me
On a cross
of shame,
In His glory I shall know Him
Evermore the same.
He who in His hour of sorrow
Bore the cross alone;
I, who through the lonely desert
Trod where He had gone:-
He and I in
that bright glory
One great
joy shall share -
Mine, to be for ever with Him,
His, that I am there.
* *
*
13
The ROBES OF THE HIGH PRIEST + 2
God
delights in the Types. He took three days to give the Decalogue; He took six days to create the worlds; but He
took thirty days to give the
ordinances in Leviticus (Exod. 40: 17 compared with Num. 1: 1), ordinances to which the New
Testament refers forty times: for not in law, nor in creation, but in grace is
the supreme pleasure of God. And the reason of this is clear. The things of the
Law, says Paul, “are a shadow of the things to come; but the body” - the substance which casts the shadow - “is Christ’s” (Col. 2: 17). The Old Testament not only “died with
Christ upon its lips”, it also lived with Christ upon its heart; and as the shadow of our earth,
passing across the face of another planet, will tell astronomers unknown
secrets about our earth,
so each type, a shadow, reveals in God’s beloved Son, the Body which casts
the shadow, details otherwise unknown. The Types are the letters which, in our
childish hands, always spell “Christ”,
and ever with new and lovelier meaning.
Much of God’s truth sinks into the soul through the eye: so
the details in the Types are not fanciful, but instructive , for whatever the Holy Spirit touches
instantly becomes significant; and even colours
and numbers, in His hands, “utter forth glory”. Take an example of numbering. Four
are the colours of the Temple tapestry; four, the ingredients of its incense;
four, the spices of its anointing oil; the priestly garments are four; and the
High Priest’s additional garments, four more; for four is the earthly number - four
elements, four winds, four divisions of mankind, four heads of the animal
creation, etc. - and worship in the Temple was thus revealed as the perfection
of earthly worship. Take an
example in colouring. God’s judgment throne is white (Rev. 20:
11), for it is a throne of
righteousness; the Form upon it is of Fire-colour (Rev. 4: 3), for it is a judgment throne: it is
circled with an emerald bow (Rev. 4: 3), for in the midst of wrath God remembers mercy: and its
foundation is sapphire (Exod.
24:
10), for the Lord has established His
throne in the heavens.
We turn to the robes of the High
Priest (Exod. 29: 5; Lev. 8: 7). That a deep significance lies in these robes is obvious
because the High Priest alone in all Israel, alone in all the world, was
clothed magnificently by Divine command.* God Himself ordered, and designed, his robes, and designed
them for glory and for beauty. Why? Because Christ, of whom the High Priest was
a type (Heb. 7: 28), alone among the sons of men was clothed with a magnificent
righteousness. The High Priest’s robes show what God thinks of Christ: the robes are of God’s designing, and
of Christ’s wearing, and delineate the righteousness of the God-man. “Her priests also will I clothe with righteousness”
(Ps.
132: 16).
* The priests also had garments “for
glory and for beauty” (Ex. 28: 40), but not the magnificent robes peculiar
to the High Priest.
The robes were made, not of silk, or wool, but of linen, the product of a plant out of the
ground. “They shall be clothed with linen
garments; and no wool shall come upon
them, whiles they minister in the gates of the
inner court” (Ezek. 44: 17). Linen is the oldest textile fabric in the world; it is found
in pre-historic human remains; it wrapt the mummies of
The White Robe (or “coat”) was the tunic worn next the flesh. It is, if I mistake not, the
righteousness of the Son of man. This is beautifully revealed in details. (1) It was a hidden garment. It fell from the neck to the ankles (so Josephus), but was completely covered
by the Blue Robe, which also fell the full length of the figure. So our Lord’s
spotless human character was seen by few: to myriads of eyes He was a deceiver,
a breaker of the Law, a demoniac, or a blasphemer. By the magnificent robes themselves the White Robe
was concealed. What does this mean? It was His assertions of Godhead, to the
Jew, and confessions of royalty, to the Gentile - true assertions and
confessions of fact - which blotted the White Robe from the eyes of both the
Israelite and the Roman. (2) It was
a full garment, for the righteousness of Christ covers the whole man; it was a white robe, for it was
the spotless purity of the Holy One of God: it was the inner garment, for
what God alone could see in Christ - “the hidden man of the heart” - was white as light. He had to be a
spotless priest to the eye of God before He could be a glorious Priest to the
eye of man. “For such a high priest became us, holy,
guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Heb. 7: 26). (3)
A white robe, though not this White Robe of embroidered beauty, was the only
one worn when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of
Atonement.* For all the garments depict Christ's
righteousness: but the active righteousness of His life disappears when, on
Calvary, He presents Himself without spot, and so without colour, to God, in
passive righteousness, a guiltless Man for guilty men. The purple robe and the
scarlet robe in the judgment halls; the seamless robe, seamless, thus
corresponding with the Blue Robe; the crown of thorns - the only gold earth
ever gave her Lord - all are put off ere He makes atonement and at last, in the
grave, the apostles find the High Priest’s “linen clothes
lying”.
* But the embroidery itself, - “woven in
chequer work” (Ex. 28: 39), which was confined to this Robe, seems
indicative of the imprint of the nails, much as the pitch in the Ark cemented,
as with blood, that massive structure of righteousness. It is the skin of the
Sacrifice, with which, as of old (Gen. 3: 21), God clothes the fallen.
Worn over the White is the Blue Robe, or robe of the ephod. It
was made “all of blue”. * This appears to be the righteousness
of the Son of God. For blue is the colour of the heavens beyond all clouds,
where God is; and, in the heavens, Ezekiel saw a throne “as the
appearance of a sapphire” (Ezek. 1: 26). So Christ came out of the blue, from God, and went back into
the blue, to God, and, throughout His earthly life, He was “the Son of
man, which is in heaven” (John 3:
13). Wherever Christ went He carried a
bit of heaven, an atmosphere of God: over the robe of the humanity fell the
exactly conterminous robe of the Deity. (1)
It was seamless, falling, as a whole, over the head upon the shoulders. “As through
one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one righteousness,”** - no patchwork quilt, but a seamless robe - “the free gift
came unto all men to justification of life” (Rom. 5: 18). (2) It was forbidden to be rent. The moment Caiaphas rent his robe,
the high priesthood passed from Aaron’s sons: our Lord’s seamless robe was
never rent, for His priesthood is eternal. “He, because He abideth for ever, hath His priesthood unchangeable” (Heb. 7: 24). (3) From the
fringe of the Blue Robe hung alternate bells and pomegranates. Bells -
confession; “the faithful and true Witness”:
pomegranates - fruitfulness; “Who went about doing good”: “sound and fruit,
and as much fruit as sound.” But why on the Blue Robe?
Because the White Robe is faultlessness rather than fruitfulness, and the Blue Robe is fruitfulness rather than
faultlessness: the White Robe is the negative perfection of spotlessness,
rather than the positive perfection of heavenly activities: the White Robe is
the passive righteousness of suffering the Law unto death, rather than the
active righteousness of keeping the Law unto life. Both were necessary for the
salvation of men. For the saved have “obtained a like precious faith in the
righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1: 1),- who combines, in Himself, the
perfect righteousness of a man, and the perfect righteousness of God.
* The flax bears a bright blue flower.
** [See Greek ...]
The outermost garment is the Many-coloured Robe (or “ephod”). It was made of gold, of blue, and purple,
scarlet, and fine twined linen.* A ray of light,
on its departure from the sun, is white: as it travels through the blue, it strikes upon
the world, and so breaks up into many colours. So our Lord,
the light of the world, coming a white ray from God, and descending through the
blue, had His life, by contact with earth, broken up into gold - glory, blue -
heavenly-mindedness, purple - royalty, scarlet - blood-shedding, and white -
holiness. He takes human relationships, and reveals latent excellencies: gold -
God come into the world; blue - the Man whose mind was always in Heaven; purple
- the Heir of the most sacred royalty in the world; scarlet - the Lamb for the
sins of the world; white - the Holy One whom the tomb could not hold. So, in
the transfiguration, when Christ goes up into a “high mountain apart”, back, as it were, through the blue, “His garments became white as the light”
(Matt. 17: 2): the Light of the world became, once again, the white Ray from the
throne of God.**
* Samuel the prophet (1 Sam. 2: 18),
David the king (2
Sam. 6: 14),
and Aaron the priest, all wore the ephod: our Lord combined the three offices
in His own Person.
** The “cunningly
woven” girdle, of the same blending of colours and cut from the same
piece (Ex.
27: 8),
was the fourth and last garment peculiar to the High Priest: “righteousness shall be
the girdle
of His loins” (Isa. 11: 5).
With “cunning workmanship”, the wisdom of the Holy Ghost, the
gold - the Godhead - was wrought into every colour: through and through our
Lord’s character, and through and through the holy life, gleamed and glistened
the Divine. “And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work
it in the blue, and in the purple, and in the
scarlet, and in the fine linen.” Take the Blue. Storm-tossed upon the
lake, He sleeps; “and He awoke ... and said unto
the sea, Peace, be
still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (Mark 4: 39). A tired human mind, asleep; a roused
mind that can at once control the world: how cunningly the Gold is wrought into
the Blue! Take the Purple. Wise men come out of the East to worship, asking, “Where is He
that is born king?” for our Lord, in a sense, was
born in the Purple; “and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went
before them, till it came and stood over where
the young child was” (Matt. 2: 9). A helpless, tender infant, in a manger; God’s star-crowned
king: how cunningly the Gold is wrought into the Purple! Take the Scarlet.
Across Kidron, with weapons and torches, came Judas and his band;
“when
therefore He said unto them, I am,
they went backward, and
fell to the ground” (John 18: 6). A harmless, sword-less Lamb for sacrifice; a cohort prostrate
at a Name: how cunningly the Gold is wrought into the Scarlet! Take the Linen.
A Body is laid, limp and dead, upon the rock. In three days the linen swathes
have sunk empty, as the Divine Form has passed - [through them] - up and out: how cunningly is the Gold wrought into
the fine twined Linen! So the righteousness of Jesus was threaded with the
Divine: the righteousness of the Man was shot through and through with the
righteousness of God.
The White Robe-atonement, the obedient Lamb
offered without spot: the Blue Robe-ascension,
the Son of God returning whence He came, where, as it were, we can overhear the
tinkling of the bells of the interceding Priest; the Many-coloured Robe - glory, the King of kings, coming back
crowned with many crowns. These robes - one righteousness - God offers to all:
conversion is Christ putting on the robes of His glory in the eyes of the soul,
as He then transfers them to the shoulders of faith. For “the
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus
Christ” is
“unto
all” - as a
universal offer - “and upon all them that believe” (Rom. 3: 22) - a garment woven of God, and let
fall out of the heavens upon the shoulders of faith. He is “the Lord our righteousness:” “drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies
pour down righteousness [the incarnate Son of God]: let the earth open, that they may bring forth
salvation, and let her cause righteousness to
spring up together [the risen Son of Man]; I the Lord have created it” (Isa. 45: 8). It is the salvation of the soul. “I will
greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be
joyful in my God; FOR HE HATH CLOTHED ME WITH THE GARMENTS OF SALVATION,
HE HATH COVERED
ME WITH THE ROBE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Isa.
61: 10).
O Saviour, I am Thine
By every right
Which can be ever claim’d
Of love or might.
Saviour! the Law Divine
Thou didst fulfil
By holy act, and meek
Submissive will.
O Saviour, leave me not,
Or else I stray
Back to the sordid sins,
The weary way.
Saviour! my only pledge
Is Thy dear love,
Which, shrined within my heart,
Shall rich life prove.
My hope is all in Thee,
Thy promise sure:
I am Thine own to-day
And evermore.
-
W. GRAHAM.
-------
PERFECT PEACE
The bursting of the
SERVICE
When Martin Luther
set out on the work which shook the world his friend Myconius expressed sympathy. “But,”
he said, “I can best help where I am. I will remain
and pray while you toil.” Myconius prayed day by day, but as he prayed
he began to feel uncomfortable. One night he had a dream. He thought the
Saviour Himself approached and showed him His hands and feet. He saw the
fountain in which he had been cleansed from sin. Then looking earnestly into
his eyes the Saviour said, “Follow me.” The Lord took him to a lofty mountain and pointed
eastward. Looking in that direction Myconius saw a plain stretching away to the
horizon. It was dotted with white sheep - thousands and thousands of them. One
man was trying to shepherd them all. The man was Luther. The Saviour pointed westward. Myconius saw a great field of standing corn. One reaper was trying
to harvest it all. The lonely labourer was spent and exhausted, but still he
persisted in his task. Myconius
recognized in the solitary reaper his old friend Luther. “It is not enough,” said
Myconius when he awakened, “that I should pray.
The sheep must be shepherded; the fields must be reaped. Here
am I; send me.”
* *
*
14
FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD + 1
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
A
precaution against coming persecution is the first, so far as we know, that has
been made in Anglo-Saxondom. The General Assembly of
the Presbyterian Church in the
FELLOWSHIP
But this precaution first of all needs clarifying. “If we walk in
the light, we have fellowship one with another.” Who have fellowship one with another? Fellowship among Christians is a deep
delight, and can be most blessed; but, while the verse can mean this, the grammar points to a
fellowship infinitely more wonderful: “we have
fellowship one with another” - GOD AND MY SOUL.* It is blessedly true that in the last
days believers who walk in the light will have earth’s richest fellowship one with another. Dr. Candlish thus defines this
fellowship:- “We see all things in the same light: we
therefore cannot but understand one another and agree with one another; and
sympathize with one another and co-operate with one another.” But such
believers, walking in the light, will grow rarer; and the fellowship of
believers who walk in the darkness is a fellowship that heads straight into
chaos. The inner strife, we are told, has shattered the Confessional Church of
Germany, and sundered friendships even under the same roof. The fellowship here
is that of which John has just spoken (ver. 3):- “Our fellowship
is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus
Christ.”
* “Some
understand the ‘one another’ of the saints. That is a good sense. But the
contrast with the previous verse points to the meaning being fellowship with
God “ (Govett). “It is not our mutual fellowship as believers that is meant.
The introduction of that idea is irrelevant and breaks the sense. It is our
joint fellowship with God, and He with us, that alone is the purpose here”
(R. S. Candlish,
D.D.). “Were the fellowship spoken of that between Christians, the pronoun
‘His’ would be inappropriate” (A. B.. Bruce, D.D.).
A WALK
Now therefore there rises on our vision a truth of
incalculable importance:- “IF we walk in the light”, God and we shall have fellowship one with another. It
is our walk, not our standing, that determines this issue: the conscious daily
fellowship with our heavenly Father is not merely the consciousness that we are
saved, the assurance of salvation: on the contrary, it is a fruit only of
an active walk in the light in which God lives. All who
believe are in the light;
but now comes the command - “Ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord: walk as children of light” (Eph. 5: 8); for it is our walking in the light,
and that walk alone, which produces the fellowship. So John’s earlier negative
emphasizes the truth. “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in the darkness, we
lie, and do not the truth”: that is, walking in the light is not believing the truth, or
even teaching the truth, but doing the truth: it is living God’s light. As our Lord expresses it:- “He that followeth me” - not he that merely believeth on me
- “shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life” - the blaze of God (John 8: 12); and again, - “If a man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father
will love him, and we will come unto
him, and MAKE OUR ABODE WITH HIM” (John 14: 23).
WALKING IN DARKNESS
It is critically necessary to remember that we [regenerate] believers
can “walk in darkness”. In the words of Mr. R.
H. Boll:- “It is the commonest notion that light once enjoyed remains
forever. We think we can never lose
it, we can never forget truth once learned. The fact is that nothing vanishes
more quickly. Light once received must be jealously guarded and treasured. Play fast-and-loose
with your convictions and presently you will have lost them, you will not know
how. You even come to wonder why you ever held them. It is not only by memory
that truth is held, but with the heart. Not by contrary teaching, not by infidel-attacks,
but by a gradual fading of the sense of its importance and authority does the
precious truth depart from the disobedient soul. The infidel’s argument may
come in at the last to give it a finishing stroke, or it may not. At any rate
the light will have vanished. The only way truth can be kept is by the use of it, by walking in it. ‘Walk while you have the light that darkness overtake you not,’ said the Saviour; ‘and he that walketh in the
darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the light believe on the light that ye may
become sons of light’ (John 12: 35, 36).” *
* “Strict
walking is much despised in these days, but rest assured, dear reader, it is
both the safest and the happiest. He who yields a point or two to the world is
in fearful peril; he who eats the grapes of
LIGHT
What then is the light? “If we walk in THE LIGHT, as he is in the light, we shall have fellowship one with another.” Light is a very wonderful thing. “The characteristics of light are, on the one hand,
clearness, openness, transparency; and on the other hand, inviolability - its
taking no impression from anything it comes in contact with, but retaining and
preserving its own pure nature, unmodified, unmingled, unsoiled, unsullied;
everywhere and evermore the same” (Candlish). It is a lovely and
exact picture of God’s truth revealed in the Scriptures. “The fruit of the
light,” as Paul puts it - that is, the walk which is according to the light - “is in all
goodness and righteousness and truth” (Eph. 5: 9).
THE WALK
Therefore we have the vivid picture of what, and what alone,
produces fellowship with God. A man who is walking is visible to all around:
his walk is all the world sees of him: the world cannot read his heart, but it
watches his steps, his gait, his whole carriage. We are to walk in the light,
as God is in the light: the light, in which God is, is His own pure truth, His
holy nature; and we are to walk in that. The
CLEANSING
There is here a further lovely revelation. Enclosed within the
fellowship is the solution of the sin problem of the soul walking with God. “And the blood
of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” The [regenerate] believer who walks in semi-darkness, in twilight, can
have an untroubled conscience, for he is blind, as a man is who is walking in
the dark: a believer walking in the light, on the contrary, has to face the
terrible disclosures of the light; and so, whenever necessary, obeys the command of the passage - “If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and righteous to
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (1 John 1: 9). It is to [disobedient] believers that John says:- “He that walketh in the darkness
knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness
hath blinded his eyes” (1 John 2: 11). Thus known sin disappears from the soul that walks with God; and
the unconscious sin of the old fallen nature is under the Blood of the
Atonement. “When I fall, I shall arise,” cries the Prophet “he will bring me
forth to the light” (Mic. 7: 8, 9).
THE FELLOWSHIP
So here is the masterly precaution against whatever the future
may hold, and a precaution which it is open to every one of us to possess. What
a fellowship! “If we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, we have fellowship ONE WITH ANOTHER.” When Enoch walked with God, he did
not walk before, or after, God; far more wonderful, both walked together: so when God and a human soul have ‘fellowship
one with another’,
it is not only that we love and enjoy His fellowship, but that He loves and enjoys ours; He is
conscious of it, and desires it. Fellowship has been expressed thus:- “We are one in our deepest sympathies, in our most stedfast
principles, in our most important aims, and in our highest aspirations; we are
one in character, in service, and in destiny: hence our fellowship is genuine,
vital and blessed.” It is a fellowship of light that only becomes closer
and brighter beyond. “It is not darkness I am going to,”
Charles Kingsley said when dying, “for God is light.” And the worst possible persecution
- [for His sake, and the truth of His Word of truth] - only perfects the fellowship. To a
martyr who was being crucified his executioners said, ironically:- “We do this to bring you nearer to your God”; and he
replied: - “You are doing it more successfully than
you know!” So to-day’s fellowship ends in the fellowship of
the - [promised, and soon coming, millennial]* - ‘glory’. For our Lord says:- “Thou hast a
few names in
[* See also Psalm 2: 7b, 8; Habakkuk 2: 14; Joel 3: 17, 18, 21; Isa. 11: 9, 10; Jeremiah 23: 5, 6; Cf. Matthew 25: 31-34; Mark 13: 26; Luke 22: 28-30; John 12: 28; Hebrews 2: 9-11; 1 Peter 1: 11;
4:
13,
14;
5: 1.
- All in the Revised Version.]
-------
The chief danger in the twentieth century will be religion
without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without
repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and Heaven
without hell. - GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH.
* *
*
15
A POSSIBLE WORLD EMPEROR +2
A Seventh Roman Emperor - who,
assassinated and re-incarnated with the spirit of Nero, becomes the Antichrist
(Rev. 17: 11)
- is due to appear before the Great Tribulation. Whether or not Mussolini (who
is 55 years of age) is he, a problem only the future can solve, it is certain
that the conditions of the Seventh Emperor’s arrival are rapidly maturing, and
they extraordinarily coincide with the characteristics of the Duce. The following paragraphs illustrate the Scripture
prophecies:- (1) an Emperor who will
destroy the Papacy after supporting it for years; (2) a low-born Man who will dominate the world; (3) an absolute Autocrat; (4) the Emperor of a restored Roman
Empire; and (5) a Dictator of
complete lawlessness. - Ed. [D.M. Panton.]
1. AN ENEMY OF THE PAPACY
Very few
people to this day know that Mussolini is the author of a book called Giovanni
Hus, II Veridico, or “John Hus, The Truth Teller”. It is a biography of the
Czech reformer and martyr and incidentally a pitiless analysis and indictment
of Popery in all its aspects. It had taken four years - with interruptions - to
write the volume. Mussolini began it in the “Royal and
Imperial” jail at
At first the Pope received his advances with suspicion
amounting to incredulity. The
The O.R.V.A. or Secret Fascist Police and the
Inquisition began a long and systematic search for copies of the book.
Eventually a dozen or more were found, sent to the Palazzo Chigi
and in the presence of the author consigned to the flames. Small wonder
therefore, when the official and orthodox biographer of Mussolini, Signora Margherita G. Sarfatti, the most accomplished writer of her sex in Italy,
remarks confidently that the book was “introvabile”, i.e., “undiscoverable”. (Dux, page
110. 1926 edition.) In this one conclusion the distinguished lady was mistaken.
As a matter of fact several copies are still in existence. - JOHN BOND, The Churchman;s Magazine, Aug., 1938.
2. AN AUTOCRAT
Lenin upbraided the Italian Communists with having lost their
chance when they allowed such a man to leave their ranks. “It is a great misfortune that Mussolini is lost to us,”
he wrote. “He is a strong man who will lead to victory
his party. You have thrown away the card which wins the trick.” Lord Rothermere
writes:- “There can be no doubt as to the verdict of
future generations on his achievement. He is the greatest figure of our age.
Mussolini will probably dominate the history of the twentieth century as
Napoleon dominated that of the early nineteenth.” The Dictator’s
bodyguard is composed of 300 picked policemen who must appear at ease in dinner
clothes, workmen’s overalls or sport costumes and follow him everywhere. They
cost the Government £52,000 a year. At special ceremonies, his special
bodyguard of 100 Black Musketeers, who wear silver daggers and silver skulls on
their faces, appear. As far back as Nov., 1935, the Diplomatic Correspondent of
the Manchester Guardian said:- “The King of
3. FASCISM
Fascism, the creation of Mussolini, is the incarnation of
tyranny. Mussolini says (Times, Oct., 7, 1937):- “We are experiencing a change of epoch, a total break-up of
political and social ideologies. The democracies are done for. The era of
strong individuality, of the dominating personality, is being proved by the
course of events. Democracies - they are like sand, like shifting sand. Our
State-political ideal is rock-granite peaks.” So again (Times, Sept.
16, 1937). “The struggle develops from now onwards
over a world-wide field. Fascism is on the agenda in all countries, feared in
this country, hated implacably in that, and elsewhere invoked with ardour. The
phrase ‘Fascism is not an article for export’ is not mine. To-day I affirm that
Fascism as an idea, a doctrine, a realization, is universal.” And it is
to be embodied in Italian dominion. “Destiny,”
he says (Times, Oct. 26, 1932), “is in our hands, and it
will be the masterpiece of our invincible will. In all countries one notices
signs of uncertainty and uneasiness. Even people of old civilizations seem to
be proceeding without guidance. Here in
4. THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Therefore Mussolini’s passion is to re-create the
LAWLESSNESS
Most deeply significant of all is the lawlessness of
Mussolini, whether or not he be ‘the Lawless One’.
Not only does he profess an open and avowed Machiavellianism, a synonym for
deliberate deceit, but his printed
statements, contrasted, prove him subject to no kind of law whatever. (1) On Mar. 3, 1928 he said:- “Fascism is not an article for export.” On Oct. 27, -
1930 he said:- “The phrase ‘Fascism is not an article
for export’ is not mine. It is too banal for me.” (See the Times, Feb. 9, 1938). (2) In Jan., 1913 he said:- “Imagine an
*
* *
World peace only after world conquest - Pax
Romana - is the ideal of modern autocracy. Herr Hitler says in his Mein Kampf:- “The ideas
of pacificism and humanity may be quite good after the Supreme Race has
conquered and subdued the world in such a measure as makes him its exclusive
master.” Of Mussolini’s hypnotism M.
Motta, the Swiss President, is the latest victim.
He says (Manchester Guardian, Oct. 14, 1938, weekly ed.):- “I salute with human veneration the great leader, who,
accepting at once the invitation to cross the Alps and to join men whose minds
were still perplexed, thanks to the marvellous intuition of his intelligence
and thanks to the sovereign power of his will, has won for himself the most
exalted claims to indelible merit which only shortsighted
fanatics with confused minds would still dare to contest.” Every day we
draw nearer to the tremendous words:- “WHO IS LIKE UNTO THE BEAST? AND, WHO IS ABLE TO MAKE WAR
WIT1I HIM?” (Rev. 13: 4)
-------
KEEP THYSELF PURE
By
EDITH GOREHAM CLARKE
A vacuum flask is a very simple contrivance, but it retains
hot liquid for many hours, even in cold surroundings. Why? Because there is no
“conducting” - there is an isolation from the
influences that would cool. Hot water may remain in a freezing room, and still
retain its heat.
What a picture of our beloved Lord! He was the Perfect One,
Holy, Harmless, Undefiled, and Separate from sinners. Nothing could change His
personal perfection. My vacuum flask loses a little of its heat by the time six
hours are expired, and more in winter than in the summer. Why? Because the
separation is not perfect.
In writing to Timothy, Paul gives him a command which we would
do well to take to ourselves. It is found in [1 Timothy] chapter 5., verse 22, “Keep thyself
pure.” Only three
words, yet how full they are of significance! Purity can only spring from a
life hid with Christ, Who said, “Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they” - only they, mark you! - “shall see God” (Matt. 5: 8).
In the animal kingdom there is a little animal called the
ermine, whose fur is famed for its perfect whiteness. This little animal makes
it the chief business of its life to keep itself clean. The instinct for
cleanliness and purity is so strong that it will suffer itself to be captured
and put to death rather than soil its feet or its beautiful coat of fur. Those
who hunt the ermine, knowing this, after they have found an ermine’s lair, will
smear with slime and filth every avenue of escape, knowing that it will yield
itself to death rather than suffer defilement. Oh, that we who belong to the
Spotless Saviour, would copy this little animal!
“Keep thyself
pure.” In the
East, among the coal mines, there grows and blossoms a flower of exquisite
whiteness, which seems almost a miracle, for at times the air is beclouded with
smuts and coal dust - but the pure-white flower sheds the grime and dust of its
surroundings, so that no stain remains. The secret is that the petals are
covered with a coat of wax to which the black dust will not adhere. So the
heart which has been washed white and pure in the precious blood of Jesus
Christ is kept pure by the Holy Spirit, if He is allowed full sway in that
heart and life. Only He can create and keep purity of heart in a human being.
Hence the command in Ephesians 5: 18, “Be filled with the Spirit.” It is a continuous process. The blood
of Jesus cleanses, and the Spirit keeps that which has been cleansed, pure.
-------
A STATESMAN’S PRAYER IN
NATIONAL CRISIS
In the crisis of the American War, Abraham Lincoln says:- “When Lee crossed the Potomac and entered
As President he remembered to return thanksgiving and issued
the following proclamation:- “It has pleased Almighty
God to hearken to the supplication and prayers of an afflicted people, and to
vouchsafe to the Army and Navy of the United States victories on land and on
sea so signal and so effective as to furnish reasonable grounds for augmented
confidence that the union of these States will be maintained, their
Constitution preserved, and their peace and prosperity permanently restored.
But these victories have been accorded not without sacrifice of life, limb,
health, and liberty, incurred by brave, loyal, and patriotic citizens. Domestic
affliction in every part of the country follows in the train of these fearful
bereavements. It is meet and right to recognize and confess the presence of the
Almighty Father and the power of His hand in these triumphs.”
* * *
16
WILL ALL BELIEVERS SHARE
THE FIRST RESURRECTION + 1
By A.
G. TILNEY, B.A.
The
parable of Harvest - God’s great Resurrection Work - runs through nature,
through life and through the Word. For “The harvest is the end of the age”, and “Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap; be
not deceived” (by
anyone saying it is not true, or not true of Christians, whom the apostle was
addressing). Now harvest, we learn from the Word (Lev. 23.), consists of first-fruits;
then of the general harvest (which itself is sectional, being of considerable -
even ,40 days’ - duration); lastly, of the corners of the field. Hence we read
of “all the days of Harvest” (Joshua 3: 15; 5: 10-12; Ruth 1: 22; 2: 21,
23). Without question, therefore, harvest
is a period, a serial process, and it is a time-word. Without question, too,
harvest is a picture of resurrection and rapture, the catching up to the
heavenly floor or garner. Indeed, the very word for “rise” (in resurrection) is from the same
root as the word for “standing corn” (in harvest), and in John 12: 24 our Lord shows Himself as
the Corn of Wheat raised to the top of the stem, and crowned with the rejoicing
“much fruit” of the many sons He brings from
prison-darkness to liberty and glory (Heb. 2: 10; 2 Cor. 1: 14; Phil. 4: 1; 1 Thess.
2: 19).
From the First Fruits comes the thought, picture and name of the First Resurrection,
which is seen thus to be not only a time-word, but a quality-word,
suggesting vigour, ambition, victory and earlier enjoyment. Christ is the First
Fruits already; therefore the firstfruit resurrection is not a unit, even though it is a unity that includes
the first resurrection of some or many of His saints (Matt. 27: 52-53) raised 1900 years ago. Christ is (in His, the First
Resurrection) the First Begotten (Heb. 1: 6, 9), the First Born among many brethren (Rom. 8: 29; Col.
1: 18; Rev. 1: 5), and the First Fruits of them that
slept (1 Cor. 15: 20, 23). The selective blessedness and holiness of the First
Resurrection - out from among the dead, leaving dead behind in Hades - (Rev.
14: 3-5; 20: 6) are indicated in Acts 3: 26; Heb. 1: 9, and Rom. 1: 4, as well as Luke 14: 14; and 1 Cor. 15: 23 teaches us that “in Christ
shall all be made alive”, but every (= each)
man in his own order. Christ
the first fruits afterwards they that are Christ’s (not “at His coming” but, “during His Parousia
- Presence” (as
the Greek shows). That is, each
man (belonging to Christ) will be raised in his own order - class, company, batch - at various periods
during the Lord’s stay in the air, in the interval
between His secret thieflike coming in the clouds and His glorious appearance
like lightning, during which period (the period of harvesting to the garner or
floor, to be winnowed or purged (Luke 3: 17; Matt. 13: 30; 3: 12) the judgment of believers (Rom. 14: 10; 2 Cor. 5: 10) will take place. And the Church will
be judged before either
Resurrection, then, like reaping, is clearly sectional and
serial, for it is not merely wheat that is reaped, but ripe wheat (Mark 4: 29, margin; Rev. 14: 18). Besides, even firstfruits themselves are not
all ripe at the same time in the case of different fruits (barley, wheat
or “some other grain”, 1 Cor. 15: 37; cf. Neh. 10:
35). Only ripe grain is reaped, and it
is reaped in the order of
ripeness - as soon as it ripens, not before, and it does not all ripen at once. Hence it will not all be
reaped at once. In Christ personally and the saints of Matthew 27: 52-53 the First Resurrection, therefore, - [in
both principle
ant type
(1 Sam. 28: 11, 14, 15;
cf. John 3: 13, R.V.)] - has already begun, with an interval
of 1900 before the next batch. He is the Firstfruits without leaven, as His people are the Firstfruits with
leaven in the wave-offering. (Lev. 6: 17; 7: 13; 23: 10, 17). You will agree that the firstfruits of barley are reaped before the firstfruits of
wheat (Ruth 2.). This explains how there can be “a first before a
first”,
or, if you prefer, “the first of the
firstfruits” (Exod. 23: 19). It is a question of comparison, of
relativity. The north of
Merit (or worthiness), it must be maintained in the teeth of all denial, is a definite condition and qualification
for the First Resurrection: “They which shall be
accounted
worthy to obtain ... the resurrection
from among the dead”, our Lord says (Luke 20: 35) “cannot die any
more.” Others can.
For while it is “appointed
unto man once to die,” some will die a second time; though over others “the second
death hath no power” (Rev. 20: 6). These are overcomers who will “not be hurt
of the second death” (Rev. 2: 11). Priests of God and of Christ, they “shall reign with him a thousand years” (Rev. 20: 6), not instead of eternally, but
millennially before eternity proper begins. Others - proud, indulgent, cowardly
- are judged unworthy of Christ and of aeonian
life. Now we know from several epistles that some [regenerate] believers will be excluded from this ‘
For it is both a time-word and a quality-word. And being a
quality-resurrection it carries with it an extra of time, because renewed time
(that is, life) is resurrection, or, rather, resurrection is restoration of
time - for “in the Resurrection” means in the “Regeneration” or “Restitution” - by living again on the part of
those who were dead. But “the rest of the dead (saved and unsaved) lived not again until the
1,000 years were ended” (Rev.
20: 5). Which instructs us that resurrection properly
speaking is not only an act but a
state, not a point of time, but a period, a place, a realm - “IN (i.e.
not at but during)
the Resurrection” - wicked and slothful servants being raised merely for the purpose of
judgment, and then temporarily dismissed to darkness and remorse in the ‘Hades’ they were summoned from;* but to be in the first (class)
resurrection means to have the continuous and permanent enjoyment of life and
bliss before others. Hence, not all are raised at once, nor do all at once
enjoy resurrection life. For even after the 1,000 Years two groups of dead are
raised, one group of unsaved from the department of the underworld called “death”, another group of saved from the
department of the underworld called “hades” (mistakenly rendered “hell” in Rev. 20: 13, [A.V.]). Resuscitation (or mere rising of the dead to appear
before the Lord) is not really resurrection
at all, any more than was the case with Samuel at Endor. For sooner or
later, all the dead (good and bad) will be raised, passively, without
exception, but only the ‘holy’
are qualified to inherit as first-born sons the blissful prior estate of the
First Resurrection.
[* NOTE: “And inasmuch as it is appointed unto
men once to die, and AFTER this”
- (i.e., after the time of Death -
and not when ‘summoned from’ ‘Hades’ to be judged) - “cometh
judgment” (Hebrews 9: 27, R.V.). Therefore, the theory
of ‘Slothful servants being raised merely for the
purpose of judgment’ is both out of the question, and unscriptural!
There cannot be a mixture of mortal and immortal disembodied
souls in ‘Sheol’ / ‘Hades’!
Neither can there be any return to the Underworld of the Dead after Resurrection to immortality!
Revelation
11: 7 and Numbers 16: 30,
R.V. are shown as Scriptural proof: and if this be made known, by the Holy
Spirit, and fully understood by Christians, there would be little doubt or
difficulty in believing Moses - not Enoch - will be God’s choice (and
for several very good reasons) to accompany Elijah: for both, after they “have finished
their testimony, the beast that cometh out of
the abyss shall make war with them, and KILL them” ... “And
after the three days and a half, the breath of
life from God entered into them, and they stood
upon their feet ... And they went up into heaven
in the cloud...” (Rev. 11: 7, 11, 12, R.V.)]
Not all believers (it must be admitted) are equal in God’s
sight, for He has favoured ones according to their devotedness to Him, and He
rewards them with more of Himself, and with more time with Himself, by their being brought to Him like Enoch
and Elijah before others. Hence the
144,000 Firstfruits (Rev. 14: 4), ripe earlier - guileless virgins - are reaped earlier than
others, though doubtless all Christians ideally, as fulfilling God’s purpose of
fruit bearing (John 15: 16), should have been firstfruits of His creatures (Jas.
1: 18). Alas, that the reality falls short
of the ideal!
The First Resurrection is therefore described in several other
terms which make clear its character of competitiveness and exclusiveness,
superiority and priority. As we have seen, it is (a prize or reward, Phil. 3: 11,
14) for the “blessed and Holy” who are to begin reigning 1,000
years before those who have only the gift of eternal life - bare - [i.e., the initial and ‘grace’
(Eph.
2: 8, 9,
R.V.)] -
salvation, as we say. For it, believers will have to be qualified or accounted
worthy. It is a selective resurrection “from among the dead”, leaving dead believers behind, as is
proved by the fact that even Paul strove “if by any means he might attain unto
it” (Phil. 3: 11-12). It is a blessed resurrection of the just (or righteous or holy)
with its recompense to the unselfseeking and generous (Luke 14: 14). And it is also called a “better” resurrection,
costing torture and life itself (Heb. 11: 35) - a better resurrection that had to be
obtained, or that the martyrs strove to obtain; it was a resurrection “better” because “prior”
by
1,000 years to the general resurrection. It is the First Resurrection, with its
qualifications and conditions. What is said of it, therefore, in its various
contexts and under its various names is also said of the Kingdom of Heaven, the
prize or reward or wages which we have to earn and seek first of all (Matt. 6: 33; 5: 20). Hence it is by our Lord bracketed with the coming Kingdom of
glory in the next age, to which, indeed, it introduces. “They that
shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection from among the dead” (Luke 20:
35).
It is a resurrection of martyrs chronic and acute, who have
died the martyr’s death or lived the martyr’s life of self-denial and
world-renunciation, losing this life and age in order to find or gain the next
in the Regeneration - the “shall find it” (of Matt. 16: 25; 19: 27-30, etc.) being not a direct future
tense but an extra adverb meaning “about to”
(live), which thus refer almost exclusively to the age to come as being the
next item on the Divine programme (Rom. 8: 13; Gal. 6: 8).
Finally, to end where we began, God is not in a hurry and His
methods are not as simple as we might like. “All the days of harvest” are 40 days, a characteristically
probationary period throughout the Word. One day beneath the microscope of the
Lord’s omniscience is as 1,000 years; and while the saints are changed - the
dead “in a moment,” the living “in the twinkling of an eye” (though not necessarily all in the
same moment) - the Resurrection period may well last 40 years, and prove to be
the first hour of the day of God (John 5: 25, 28). In any case, plurality of rapture (and of resurrection -
for dead and living believers will be “caught up together”) is indicated not only by the universal Scripture harvest-parable, the one
taken first, the other later (Matt. 24: 40-42, linked with the “all” of 2 Cor. 5: 10), by the gradual returns from the Captivity (“Captivity led captive” being a notable figure of death and
resurrection), and by the Lord’s 10 separate presencings
during the 40 Days before His ascension detailing the “like manner” of Acts 1: 11), but also by the actual plural resurrections and raptures of the Apocalypse itself.
-------
FROM AMONG THE DEAD
Each of these examples is an ex anastasis, while in Philippians (3: 11) it is an exanastasis. The space after the x is the only difference, and this
is not in the original.
Acts 26: 23.
If He, the first of a resurrection
from among the dead.
Heb.
11: 35.
Women obtained their dead by resurrection.
The same sense is conveyed when the connective ek,
OUT, follows the word, as in
these passages:-
Luke 20: 35.
Those deemed worthy to attain to that age and the
resurrection from among the dead.
Acts. 4:
2.
Announcing in Jesus the resurrection
from among the dead.
1 Pet. 1: 3. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead.
* * *
17
THE SERVANT WITH A SINGLE TALENT + 1
By
D. M.
PANTON, B.A.
Our
Lord, in the great forecast of His return, immediately follows the parable of
the Virgins with the parable of the Talents: that is, the command, ‘Watch!’ is immediately balanced and reinforced by the
command, ‘Work!’ And He expresses it by a word -
‘talents’, for investment - which has entered
into our language, to express our powers and faculties and opportunities; so
that it does not mean with us a sum of money (about £80), but whatever God has
given us that is usable for Him.* Time is a talent; intellectual power is a talent; moral depth is a talent;
influence is a talent; opportunity is a talent. And, most surprisingly, our
Lord concentrates on a single peril:- namely, the danger of the believer who,
being sharply restricted in outlook and opportunity, is doing simply nothing at
all: one who is a [regenerate] believer, and who acknowledges having been entrusted
with his Lord’s goods; who is guilty of no gross sin whatever; whose life is
thoroughly decent and respectable: yet one who incurs the startling sentence
from Christ Himself - “Thou wicked and slothful servant”. ** His
emphasis reveals that He regards carelessness, indolence, sloth in the ordinary
member in the pew as one of the greatest dangers in the
* “The talents
must represent first and chiefly spiritual gifts, such as those first granted on
the Day of Pentecost; but, secondarily, the talents must signify all the good
gifts of God - health, time, intellectual powers, earthly riches, station,
influence” (B. C.
Caffin, M.A.).
** That a saved soul can be pronounced
‘wicked’ is proved by a word of Paul. “Put away from yourselves that wicked
person:” why ? “that his spirit may be SAVED in the day of the Lord Jesus”
(1 Cor. 5: 5, 13).
SERVANTS
It is critical to our Lord’s intent in the parable that we
ascertain, with vision straight and pure, who are the servants. The Lord could
not make it clearer. “He called His OWN
servants, and delivered unto them his goods”
(Matt. 25:
14). Commentators, however they may shrink
from the conclusion, state the fact freely and strongly. So GRESWELL:- “His
proper and peculiar servants.” STIER:-
“The servants, whom he calls with the evangelical
calling into His Kingdom and service, are thereby already pre-supposed to be
His own servants, i.e., who have become His in
faith.” So the Pulpit Commentary:-
“The parable relates primarily to the Apostles, to
whom it was spoken; then to the Ministers of God’s Holy Word; and then to all
Christians, for all belong to Christ, being bought with His blood, and all have
work to do for Him. It is a figure of all Christians, members of Christ, doing
Him service as their Master.” ALFORD:-
“Like the parable of the Ten Virgins immediately
preceding, this parable is concerned with Christians, and not the world at
large.” In the parallel Parable of the Pounds our Lord distinguishes sharply
between the ‘servants’, and the ‘citizens’ who “would not that I should reign over
them” (Luke
19:
27).
HIS OWN SERVANTS
But our Lord’s teaching is so grave, and so intensely
unpopular, that it is well to establish the truth with additional proof. (1) No ‘servant’
of God or of Christ is known to the New Testament except the regenerate: even the Apostles are so described:- “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1: 1); “Jude,
a servant of Jesus Christ” (Jude 1.); “Peter, a servant of Jesus
Christ” (2
Pet. 1: 1). It is plain, from their own language,
that they were not servants before their conversion, and that only by their
conversion were they made so. Once ‘servants of sin’ (Rom. 6: 20), we are now ‘under law to
Christ’ (1
Cor. 9: 21). (2) Our Lord, at
His ascension, commits to them His ‘goods’ - the investment of all that He has of value on [this] earth between the two Advents: it
needs no argument to prove that to no [unregenerate] unbeliever is any such trust ever committed: that is,
all three are regenerate men. (3) If
the first two servants are regenerate, and the third is not, the parable knows
of no regenerate man who is ever unfaithful to his trust - a reductio, ad
absurdum contrary to both
Scripture and fact; and so far from our Lord’s aim being attained, there is no
warning to a [genuine] child of God at all. Again (4) if the third servant is a lost soul, and the ‘outer
darkness’ is
eternal destruction, then salvation by works is established; for his whole condemnation
rests on his not having multiplied his talent, and on that alone. Finally (5) all three servants are judged
together, on one spot and at one time, proving it to be the Judgment Seat of
Christ: unbelievers are not judged until the Great White Throne, a thousand
years later. This judgment is when “the lord of those servants cometh”. Thus the facts of the case are
patent: so far from there being an ‘empty professor’,
a hypocrite, an unregenerate man among them, all three servants are entrusted
with all that Christ values on earth between the two Advents - the third
servant as really as the second or the first.
THE TALENTS
So now the principle of our Lord’s commission is revealed. He
commits to us all a work exactly proportioned to our ability, and so exactly
fitted to our accomplishment. “Unto one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one;
to each according to his several ability.” No servant is
without a talent; every servant has the opportunity to increase his Lord’s
goods; no servant is pressed beyond his powers; each is to do the precise thing
he is sent into the world to do. “The endowment of a
Christian is a summons to work for his Lord: Christ bestows on us His goods,
not that they may be buried, wasted, appropriated to self, or imagined our own,
but that we may faithfully trade with them” (Lange), “TRADE YE herewith till I come”
(Luke 19:
13). And we can obtain fulness of grace
exactly fitting the work. As Paul says:- “I laboured more abundantly than they
all: yet not I, but
the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor. 15:
10).
THE RECKONING
Now it is in the very nature of a trust that a reckoning-day
must come, when a report on how the trust has been exercised has to be
rendered: our account must correspond to our receipts. “Now after a
long time” - one
of the rare hints of the two thousand years between the Advents - “the lord of
those servants cometh, and maketh a reckoning
with them”. Two of
the servants advance with joy, each having doubled his trust; and both - quite
irrespective of the amount handled - receive an identical praise. “Well done, good and
faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a
few things, I
will set thee over many things: enter thou
into the joy of thy lord.” The identical sentence reveals that every servant will receive it who doubles his trust, even if the trust is only a single talent.
So of the redeemed dead we read - “And their works follow with them”
(Rev. 14:
13): that is. their multiplied talents
accompany them to the [Lord’s] Judgment Seat, and ennoble them. “From slaves the faithful servants become princes: they
achieve the crown (2 Tim. 4: 8); the throne (Rev. 3: 21); the kingdom (Matt. 25: 34)” (J.
A. Macdonald). *
* “The retributive inquiry answers in
all respects to the Scriptural idea of the nature and proceedings of the final
judgment of Christians” (Greswell).
THE THIRD SERVANT
It is extremely significant, and full of warning, that our
Lord devotes the bulk of the parable to the third, the profitless, servant. Conversion puts in our hands a commission from
Christ; and to be [eternally] saved, while yet we do no work for Him, is to bury the
talent with which conversion entrusted us: it is still ours, and still within
our reach, but utterly valueless. Having dug in the earth, and hidden his
lord’s money, this third servant
concentrates on an attack on the doctrine of a Christian’s responsibility.
He says: “Lord” - he acknowledges Christ as his Lord - “I knew that thou art a hard man” - stern, strict, severe ; exactly as
this truth is regarded by tens of thousands of [regenerate] believers - “and I was afraid”. I am perfectly willing to accept
grace - that is, something for nothing, but I object to the whole principle of
responsibility - that is, the Lord’s
demand that we double all He entrusts to us. The retort is obvious. You
understood the truth, but resented it: it would have been far wiser if, while
resenting it, you had squared your life to it, for you knew it to be the truth. The severer you
regarded your Lord and His words, the more scrupulous you should have been in
squaring your life to what He said. And the truth the servant deprecates proves
true. While the faithful servants share - [i.e., ‘inherit’
(Gal. 5: 12;
cf.
Eph. 5: 21,
R.V.)] - the full blaze of the coming [Millennial] Kingdom,
the slothful servant, expelled
into the outer darkness of the Parousia clouds, and gnashing his teeth over lost opportunities, loses the Kingdom. “To him that
knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is SIN”
(Jas. 4: 17).
INCREASE
Our Lord now characteristically seizes the opportunity to
enunciate a great principle summed up in a single phrase. “For unto
every one that hath shall be given, and he shall
have abundance; but from him that hath not” - he who buries his talent, instead
of using it- “even that which he hath shall be taken away”. Christ wants not only His goods
doubled, but His workers doubled - doubled in intensity, in efficiency, in
influence. As muscles expand and develop with use, as a young sapling grows
stronger as it grows older until it becomes a monarch of the forest, so grace
and gift invested in the opportunities of life never remain the same, but
expand and grow; and the servant himself expands - he not only does more, but he does it better. Moreover, he takes
on the undone work of others. “Take ye away the talent, and give it unto him that hath the ten talents.” One golden fruit of diligent service
is the enlargement of our own powers, and therefore the conferring of a still
greater trust. Here is the whole principle of the - [promised (see Ps. 8: 8; cf. Lk. 4: 43, 44, R.V.)] - Kingdom. The trained servant, grown competent through prolonged
service and a discharged trust, is placed on a throne to
administer the affairs of nations.
ONE TALENT
Therefore let us seize this truth, and be seized by it, that
one talent can lead straight into the coming Kingdom. “If the
readiness is there, it is acceptable according
as a man hath, not according as he hath not”
(2 Cor. 8: 12 [R.V.]). “I am glad,”
said Dr. Talmage, “that the chief work of the
Church is being done by the men of one talent.” The widow, casting in
two mites, gave more than all the wealthy. The one talent can always be
multiplied into two - that is, a gain for Christ of a hundred per cent; it can
produce a percentage equal to the highest. The scale on which we work may be
vastly different; but the quality can all be of the first class, whatever the
scale; and there are men of mean capacities and poor endowments who will be
greatest in the
-------
Who taught you tender Bible tales
Of honey-lands of milk and wine?
Of
Who gave your patient Christ? I say
Who gave your Christian creed?
Yea, Yea,
Who gave your very God to you?
The Jew! the Jew! the hated Jew!
- C. H. MILLER.
* *
*
18
OBEDIENCE TO THE WORD OF GOD + 2
Our
Saviour has shown, in the servant entrusted with only lone talent (Matt.
25: 15),
how a child of God can wreck his discipleship by despising the apparent
insignificance of his trust: the balancing truth - namely, how a servant
endowed with the whole five talents can make an equally deadly shipwreck - is
pictured in one of the most dramatic episodes of all history, stamped all over
with miracle. In the morning, a Man of God calling down miracles from Heaven -
a convulsed Altar, and a King’s hand withered as he stretched it out to arrest
God’s ambassador: in the evening, a carcase on a lonely road with a lion
standing motionless beside it. The King’s hand is withered and healed; the Man
of God’s body is withered - and buried. The Westminster Larger Catechism states the principle:- “Some sins receive their aggravation from the persons
offending; if they be of riper age, greater experience in grace, eminent for
profession, gifts, place, office, and as such are guides to others, and whose
example is likely to be followed by others.”
The Man of God here fills a tremendous drama. Unknown and
unnamed, with no recorded birth, or education or family, living in the far
background of Judah - as suddenly as lightning he appears at Bethel, then the
centre of the apostasy of Israel; backed by nothing but the commission of
Jehovah, and possessing nothing but the bare Word of God. But this he had in
full. He came from
But now we come to one of the searching details of life. One minor command had been given him
by God, a command vital in an age of apostasy. “Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn
again by the same way that thou camest.” All fellowship with idolatrous People of God, so long
as the idolatry continues, has always been forbidden; and exactly identical is
our command, in words as simple and as obvious. “If any man that is named a
brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater” - all God’s people in
Now we reach a peril peculiarly dangerous to the most highly
gifted servant of God, a peril that will beset us in
the last days with ever-growing menace. Bethel was the seat and
stronghold of the apostasy; yet, living there was an old prophet: a prophet so
silent that God had to send a messenger from far-off Judah to speak for Heaven;
one who is named a prophet by the Scriptures, and who himself imparts a
prophecy from Jehovah: who, nevertheless, consciously or unconsciously, invites
the Man of God to disobey his Lord; and when the Man of God refuses, says,- “I also am
a prophet as thou art; and an angel spake unto
me by the word of the Lord, saying, - Bring him
back with thee into thine house that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him.” The command had come from the mouth
of the Lord; the seduction comes from the mouth of the Old Prophet; and a man
claiming the supernatural can be the most plausible and dangerous of all
tempters.
Now therefore we reach the crisis. We see the Man of God’s
face weakening: “so he went back” - a backslider -
“with
him, and did eat bread and drank water.” The physical desire at last outweighs his fidelity to
his Master. This is borne out all
down the ages. Constant experience proves that in pressing Scripture, as plain
and simple as the Man of God’s, tragically often we are not arguing with the
intellect at all, but with desires, prejudices, dislikes against which arguments are powerless; and any believer, who wishes to do so, can
always find abundant reasons for disobedience. As the two men sit at meat,
the Old Prophet, under a sudden seizure from God, sees through the
disobedience, and addresses the man before him as a corpse. “Forasmuch as
thou hast been disobedient unto the mouth of the Lord, thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers.” If it had been an angel that spoke to the Old Prophet, Paul’s
word abides for ever:- “Though we [even the apostles], or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any
other gospel, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA”
(Gal. 1: 8). It is a priceless truth. We must suffer neither our own reasoning or
doubts, nor the subtleties or
authority or ridicule or denial of others, no, nor the claim of
supernatural authority from God, to
challenge for a moment our belief in,
and obedience to, all revealed truth.
Judgment can fall even in the act of
disobedience. While he was eating, the sentence fell.
Now we reach the dread climax. “A lion met him by the way” - found him, after search, as the
word means and is used elsewhere (1 Kings 13: 14, 28) - “and
slew him” -
crushed him: the word is very expressive, for the lion kills with one blow (Themies). The
sanctity of his profession, the
dignity of his office, the splendour
of his past service - none
of these saved him from the just anger of God: the lions guarded
faithful Daniel in his prison; this lion carries out the sentence of judgment.
And the whole scene is so set that the crowds that had seen the Man of God’s
magnificent miracles see this one also: “his carcase cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcase; the lion had not eaten the carcase, nor torn the ass”. It was a studied drama, set by the hand of God. The ass did
not fly from the face of the lion, nor did the lion molest the ass: both stood,
as God’s sentinels, proved so by their completely non-natural attitude. The Man
of God was given over to the lion for the destruction of the flesh, that his
spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
So now the overwhelming lesson of the narrative seeks to write
itself on all our hearts. The higher a
man stands, the deeper is his fall, and to whom much is given, of him
much will be required. It is a far deeper problem than that the Man
of God simply failed in obedience. A man called to the highest possible mission
- to represent Jehovah to an apostate People of God; having nothing and knowing
nothing except the direct words of Deity with which he was entrusted; endowed
with miracles before all
Marvellous is the over-ruling power of God. For the validity
and integrity of his mission; for the honour and holiness of the God whose
delegate he was; for the impartiality of a just Deity with whom is no respect
of persons; and, most convincingly of all, for the very fulfilment of his
mission:- the lion struck. All
So therefore we see the golden summary. As the spirit of
disobedience is the root of all practical iniquity, so instant, utter, minute,
and constant obedience to the Word of God is our sole holiness, and our sole safety. There are greater
commands, and there are lesser; but there is but one thing to do with them all
- and that is to obey. The terrible
mistake that countless millions are making, with large sections of the Church
of Christ amongst them, is that God has changed, and that we are dealing with a
new and different God in the ,New Testament, and to-day: whereas the truth is -
“I the Lord change not”; He is “the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever”. “The Lord is a
jealous God and avengeth; the Lord avengeth and
is full of wrath; the Lord taketh vengeance on
his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his
enemies”(Nahum
1: 2). No warnings in the whole Bible, warnings both to the believer and to the
unbeliever, are so black as our Lord’s.
Nevertheless, there remains the call of infinite love. A Roman
girl, of high birth and finished culture, once said:- “No
one shall win my hand unless he gives me proof that he would die for me.”
Years passed away, and one day passing through the streets of
-------
THE TRUTH IN PRISON
[FOR FAITHFULNESS TO THE WORD OF GOD]
These letters from imprisoned pastors in
1
If anyone can prove to me that one
sentence of our Declaration is not in accord with the Holy Scriptures and the
Word of God, I am absolutely ready to sign a statement that I will keep silence
as regards that sentence. But as regards
whatever is in accord with the Word of God, I cannot pledge
myself to keep silence, for by so doing I should be
denying God and His Word, and I
should thereby cease to be an Evangelical preacher and messenger of the Holy
Gospel.
2
Yesterday I received letters - the first time since my arrest.
By far the most precious thing for me were thy greetings. They not only tell me
how thou didst receive the news (I never had the slightest doubt about that!),
but first and foremost they establish the ultimate and deepest union between
us, something that no prison walls can interrupt, much less destroy. Thy first
short postcard I immediately slipped inside my beautiful new Bible - this Bible
with the promise inscribed: “Neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand” - and here it lies! It is most
wonderful to read the Bible at such a time! How alive it suddenly becomes and
how real! It really gives you the impression of having been written specially
for prisoners and for prison. And so it is really - in many aspects and senses!
3
How great a gift to the Christian is this assurance of faith I
can appreciate the better through seeing various inscriptions scratched upon
the walls of my cell, betraying a wholly different attitude on the part of
those who previously had to inhabit it. They convey to one something of the
terrible and agonizing days that have been spent here. Other inscriptions speak
thoughts of revolution and of revenge brooded over by people politically
incensed. How different when one is here
as a Christian! Then one is free
from despondency and despair just as much as from political embitterment and
ideas of revolution and revenge. Instead of all that, one is
allowed to thank God, and to praise Him for being in
the position to suffer for His cause;
and one can pray to God on behalf of those who bring one into such a situation.
4
In many periods of my life I suffered from depression. Nothing
of the kind now. I have had severe pains in my hips and my back caused by the
hard bed. But even during the long nights I have been cheerful and thankful - a
miracle to myself! I can but attribute it to God hearing my own prayers and the
intercession of others - to God’s mercy therefore. I thank everybody from the
bottom of my heart. I know now from
blessed experience what intercession can do. Now, please, do not let us
tire!
5
What better thing can there be for a pastor than to be shut up
for a time just with his Bible and his prayer-book? Never before have
I been able to read so attentively as here, and every
day brings some new treasure. So I cannot complain in any way except
perhaps that there is no singing (because it is prohibited) ; but in this
matter help can be sought according to C. F. Mayer’s prescription: “We sing without voice; with our souls we do the singing, a
loud, resounding Deo Gloria!” Particularly
nice is the way in which my memory comes
to life here. So many happy memories reawaken that this in itself provides
one with the best of company. But the best thing of all is, and remains, the
congregation, with whom my communion cannot be broken. That is how it comes
about that I feel so happy, even here, and as far removed from all sense of
loneliness or even of imprisonment as one could possibly wish for or imagine.
6
About the warrant of arrest, I said to myself silently: “Praise the Lord, Oh, my soul! He has let us know His
glorious righteousness and His judgment. God’s mercy alone stands firm and so
remains unto eternity.” Remember also the murderers and other people who
are imprisoned with us. We all stand beneath the Cross
of Him who “was numbered with
the transgressors,” May God bless thee in all thy ways and
make thee strong.
7
When, three weeks ago, I was living through the first long
Sunday, I read the letters of the New Testament which were
written in prison.
There is
joy and power! It needs, of course, some adaptation to pass from a
life of many-sided activity, with every minute crammed, to this infinite
abundance of time. It is for me and, no less, for my congregation as it is for
my dear friend who wrote me from his prison that he has now exchanged the
office of preaching for that of praying. I love Luther’s word:- “God’s Word and the prayers of Christians sustain the world”
- more than ever now that the
prayers, of these last weeks bind us and
make us one.
8
So once more I write down the word of
Calvin for thee:- “We ought not to think of ourselves
as miserable in a situation which Jesus with his own mouth has
commended to us as blessed” (Matt. 5: 10). I for one am to-day in the mood:-
“My heart leaps and bounds and cannot be sad.”* I know for certain that the
fountain-head of this strength and joy will not dry up, for in prayer the
sluice-gates are open again and again. How is it put in the beautiful Church
prayer? “O Lord, give peace in our time, for there is
none other that fighteth for us but only Thou, O Lord,” But that He is doing so must be sufficient for
us, and how He will do it -
that we will leave to Him.
* A line from a hymn of Paul Gerhaerdt.
-------
GERMAN MARTYRDOM
Torn from loved ones, precious, dear,
Trust in prisons dark and drear,
Tried and tempted, yet they stand,
Victors of the PROMISED
LAND.
In their awful loneliness,
In their pain and deep distress,
Flood with light the gloomy cell,
Whisper to them, - “All is well.”
Make them strong amidst their foes,
Give them sight, beyond their woes,
Glimpses of the
Where, Lord, Thou art [and
shall be]
* throned above.
-
HATTIE K. PAYNE.
[* See Psalms 72.,
97.,
110.
Cf. Psalm 119.]
* *
*
19
THE BAPTISM OF THE SPIRIT + 2
It is
very grave, and deeply symptomatic of the day we are entering, that one of the
best prophetic magazines in
* The incident given is that of two American women in Seattle
who, though ignorant of the Filipino tongue, spoke in that language one in a ‘tongue,’ and the other in its ‘interpretation’ - resulting in nine professed conversions, two of
whom are now missionaries. But the women speaking at all is an explicit
disobedience to the Holy Spirit’s own instructions on the gifts. Immediately
after He has forbidden women to speak in the assembly, He says:- “If any man thinketh himself to be a prophet, or inspired ([see Greek ...]), let him acknowledge” - as one test of the source of his inspiration
- “that the things which I write unto you are the
commandments of the Lord” (1 Cor. 14: 37).
Everything turns on what exactly is
meant by the Baptism of the Spirit; and here the judgment of the
The experience of the
* A cognate expression - to be ‘filled with the Spirit’ - is no less linked with
miracle: those thus ‘filled’ at once spoke with
tongues and prophesied (Acts 2: 4), and edify one another with inspired ([see Greek...]) songs (Eph. 5: 19). Pentecost is named both a baptism (Acts 1:
5)
and a filling (Acts
2: 4).
Now, in face of this narrative, the prevalent views at once
collapse. (1) A single passage is
enough to disprove the contention that this baptism is “Jewish”, and not designed for the Church. “God hath set
some IN THE CHURCH, first apostles, secondly
prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of
healings, helps,
governments, divers kinds of tongues” (1 Cor. 12: 28). (2) One passage is
enough to prove that regeneration and
the baptism are totally distinct. Believers having arisen in
One further claim (4)
to its present Possession remains. More than 200,000 Christians throughout the
world, now speak in ‘tongues’. Apart altogether
from the special tests given by the Spirit of God, to be applied at
every appearance of the supernatural whenever and wherever it occurs
(1 John 5: 1-3; 1 Cor. 11: 3), and to which - so far as we know - no proofs of correct answers have ever been given in the modern supernatural * - one fact is fatal to all claims to any
possession of the miraculous gifts since the Apostles. The ‘miraculous
gifts’ are nine (1 Cor. 12: 8-10): if the gifts have been restored the nine must be here,
including ‘prophecy’ - the correct foretelling of facts or events that
could not have been foreknown by men or demons; and also ‘workings of miracles’ - open acts physically impossible
except to Divine power. Both prophecy and miracles are
totally absent from the modern movements claiming the gifts:
in other words, the ‘gifts’ are not restored.**
It cannot be stated too often or to strongly that both ‘healings’ and ‘speaking in tongues’ are commonplaces in Spiritualistic séances throughout the world, and, taken by themselves,
are no proof whatever of a Divine work.
* It ought to be obvious that one of the
first acts of the Holy Spirit, if when restoring His gifts, would be to point
to His own tests, and to fulfil them. Not a single proved case has been
produced; and it is astounding, that, with scores of thousands of [regenerate] believers speaking in ‘tongues’, no
claim is even made, much less
established, that these tests have
been applied, much less applied successfully, so as to establish Divine miracle. In view of the fact that
the tests will get better known and therefore more challenging, and also that
we are up against subtle and unscrupulous forces in the unseen, we need be very
careful that the proofs of any alleged successful application are clear beyond
all possible doubt.
** Predictions are frequently made
successfully in Spiritualism, but solely of coming events
which, by wider knowledge or by correct inference,
could be known to demons. Absolute foreknowledge belongs to God alone
(Isa. 41: 23).
It is plain therefore that we are
confronting a vast counterfeit of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, in a day when a
subtle supernaturalism is capturing multitudes, and when Satanic miracles on a
great scale (Matt.
24: 24)
are shortly due. We need to keep wide awake to the fact that the Apostasy - the
coming worldwide abandonment of the
Christian Faith - is to be the direct work of consulted spirits. Christians
will “give heed to seducing spirits speaking lies hypocritically”
(1 Tim.
4: 1):
‘seductive’ spirits - that is, spirits who study the person they
approach, so as to know how best to deceive him [/ or her]; and while to those outside the Christian Faith they
naturally pose as the dead, equally naturally the way in which the Scriptural
believer is most likely to be caught is by the demon representing
himself as the Holy Spirit. No more outstanding Spiritualist has
appeared in this century than Sir A. Conan Doyle: yet here is his admission
of seducing, personating spirits. “We have, unhappily,
to deal with absolute cold-blooded lying on the part of wicked or mischievous
intelligences. There is nothing more puzzling than the fact that one may get a
long connected description with every detail given, and that it may prove to be
entirely a ‘concoction’. Of a kin with these false influences are all the Miltons who cannot scan, the Shelleys
who cannot rhyme, and Shakespeares who cannot think,
and all the other impersonations which make our cause ridiculous.” Their
consciences, the Apostle says (1 Tim. 4:
2), are “cauterized as with a hot iron” seared, branded, dead.
One warning, so far as we know never given, is imperative.
Twice the Holy Ghost fell, once on Jews (Acts 2: 2), once on Gentiles (Acts 8: 17): all other transmissions of the miraculous gifts
came, and came solely, by the laid-on hands of an Apostle. “Through the laying
on of the apostles’
hands the Holy Ghost was given” (Acts 8: 18). A tremendous danger therefore lurks in the ‘laying on of
hands’. For
psychic reasons unknown to us, the physical touch facilitates spirit
transmission: therefore, if the one deputed to lay on hands, whether a believer
or an unbeliever, is or has been - consciously or unconsciously - a medium, it
becomes at once possible for a demon to be transmitted; and, in a company of [regenerate] believers ignorant and off their
guard, that spirit will immediately be
acclaimed as the Holy Ghost. As one experienced in exorcism put it to the
writer:- “Never let a
demoniac touch you.” On the same principle, when
the second out-pouring of the Holy Ghost does come, “these two
olive branches” -
the Two Witnesses, doubtless with apostolic
rank for the laying on of hands - “empty the golden oil OUT OF THEMSELVES” (Zech. 4: 12).*
* One essential for apostleship was to have seen the Lord (1 Cor. 9: 1);
and if the Two Witnesses are Enoch - [or Moses] - and Elijah, rapt into the heavenlies, there can be
little doubt that they have both seen
Him and will be personally commissioned by Him.
A second warning is of equal urgency. The type that
foreshadows Pentecost is extraordinarily instructive. At the moment of the
completion of the Temple, when all was ready for the habitation of God, the
Shekinah Glory descended and rested on the Mercy Seat (2 Chron. 7: 1); a miraculous entrance of the
Godhead, which to all appearances was meant to be permanent, and which remained
for for several centuries, until idolatry in the
Temple compelled withdrawal (Ezek. 8: 10). Exactly so, the moment the Church, the Spiritual Temple,
opened in the upper room, the Holy Ghost descended with miraculous flames on
the heads of men and women who immediately spoke in tongues and prophesied; and
for one or two centuries these ‘gifts’, the
proofs of the Spirit’s miraculous presence, continued until, with gross
corruption within the Church, they disappeared. The critical point here is
that, as the Shekinah Glory was a corporate gift to the People of God as such,
never a gift to mere individuals, and was lost through corporate corruption,
nothing but the People of God, as a whole, on its knees, could have recalled
it; even an Anna and a
Simeon were powerless to bring the Shekinah Glory back. * Exactly so, the
baptism of the Spirit, “the baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire”, while it might conceivably be
restored to an entire Church throughout the world on its knees, it can never be restored to isolated
individuals; and so certain is it that there will be no
such kneeling Church - as there was no kneeling Israel for the return of the
Shekinah Glory - that the Second Outpour will occur, as Scripture reveals, only
after there is no recognized Church on earth.
* Robert Govett
told the writer that together with a prayer group for twenty years he prayed
for the miraculous gifts, with no result; and that George Muller told him that he had done the same thing equally
fruitlessly. It is a daring soul to-day who imagines that God has given to him
what He refused to two of the greatest saints of the nineteenth century.
So, finally, the episcopal ‘laying on
of hands’, since it produces no miracle, is not the baptism of the
Spirit*; and since it confers no gifts % the
hands laid on cannot be the hands of apostles**
and there can be no ‘apostolic succession’
except a succession of apostles. To suppose that wicked men, by virtue of their
office, can confer the Holy Ghost verges on blasphemy; and how wicked such ‘apostolic successors’ can be one example from history
will prove. Canon Malcolm MacColl writes:- “Renegade
Christians, professed Jews, and born Mussulmans came to occupy the sees of
Moorish Spain; libertines, who took part in the orgies of Arab courtesans, even
during the solemnities of church festivals; unbelievers who publicly denied a
future life:- wretches who, not satisfied with selling their own souls, sold
their flocks into the bargain. This state of things lasted for centuries, and
the priesthood of
* There has been no proof, so far as we know, of any
transmission of a Spirit, good or bad, by the laying on of episcopal hands
throughout the centuries.
**The laying on of an Apostle’s hands
evoked ‘the manifestation of the Spirit’ (1 Cor. 12: 7) in visible and audible miracle. “Down to the end of the third century these miraculous gifts
of the infant church were continued, although gradually diminishing” (Olshausen).
Pentecostalists frequently stress Mark 16: 17, 18. But probably none will put it to the decisive test, as did
Paul (Acts
28:
5). A ‘holiness’ preacher, named Albert Teester,
attempted it some years ago. He brought a rattlesnake into the meeting. “Twice, as the preacher challenged God to come to his aid,
the snake sank its fangs into the preacher’s upraised arm. Screaming with pain,
he rushed from the church and rolled on the ground. Teester’s
arm swelled to the point of bursting and his tongue became so swollen that it
nearly choked him.” This is no fulfilment of Pentecostal power. “Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and
scorpions, and nothing shall in any wise hurt you” (Luke 10: 19).
-------
NAZISM
These sentences are from a recent document circulated to all
members of the Hitler Youth Movement:- “How did Christ
die? Moaning on the cross. How did Planetta (murderer
of Dollfuss) die? ‘Heil
Hitler! Long live
* * *
Meanwhile Nazi ferocity and its
British reaction have evoked a noble protest (Times, Nov. 17, 1938) from the religious and political
organizations of
* * *
20
THE KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD
By D. M.
PANTON, B.A.
One
utterance, based on the character and power of God, runs through all the ages,
and was never more needed than to-day - only twenty years after the greatest
war the world has ever known, and not three months after an escape, by inches,
from a still greater. It is, so far as earth goes, the summing up of all
prophetic words in one; and it is uttered in the one Book of the Bible that
paints international iniquity the blackest. “THE KINGDOMS OF THIS WORLD ARE BECOME THE KINGDOMS OF OUR
LORD AND OF HIS CHRIST, AND HE SHALL REIGN FOR EVER AND EVER” (Rev. 11: 15).
No visionary kingdom, or
remote rule in far-off worlds: these very nations around us, aptly described in
prophecy as ‘wild beasts’, shall be under the
rule, and devoted to the person, of Christ: universal, complete, and final - [‘for a
thousand years’ (Rev. 20: 2;
cf. 12: 10 ff. R.V.)] - will be God’s transformation of
this old earth. Men around us think that we evangelicals care nothing for
political, social, economic conditions, since we abandon the world in despair:
the truth is that evangelicals who accept prophecy, while now concentrating
solely on regenerating truth, have an
outlook for the world that makes them the most radiant optimists on earth.
Ours is the prayer of nineteen centuries fulfilled at last:- “Thy kingdom come.”
CRISIS
Now the arrival of the Kingdom is set in the most extraordinary conditions. No sooner have the
corpses of the Two Witnesses been raised on the streets of Jerusalem, and been
rapt into Heaven, than there follows the blast of the Seventh Trumpet, and the
burst of Heaven’s triumphant song - at the very moment when earth is abandoned
by God’s mightiest workers. “And there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, The kingdoms of this world are
become” - from this moment onward: the crisis is over and passed
- “the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ”. But could any moment to declare it
be more extraordinary? The Day of Terror is now opening on earth; Satan has
descended, with all his host; Antichrist is about to assume world dominion:
nevertheless that last trumpet
blast, under which the final judgments occur, is, in the deep-taught ears
around the Throne, absolutely decisive. The Tribulation judgments begin at once
that culminate in the Stone, which, descending with smashing force, pounds all
preceding Empires to dust (Dan. 2: 35); and the blast, announcing Hell’s doom, equally announces earth’s Golden Age.
POWER
The wording of the triumphant shout explains exactly how this
is so. “We give thee thanks, O Lord
God, the Almighty, BECAUSE THOU HAST TAKEN THY GREAT POWER,
and didst reign.” Throughout the
four thousand years since the Flood, and supremely in the crucifixion of Christ
and the unresisting grace of a cross-bearing Church, the Most High has so
restrained His power, in profound respect for the free will of man, and in
love’s prolonged appeal, that that power has seemed utterly abrogated and non-existent.
But the long patience of God at last ceases. The Second Advent is the moment
when God resumes power over the world, and never lays it down again: “He shall
reign forever and ever.” Iniquity is so
entrenched, and so impregnably wicked, that nothing but the shattering power of
God can reform a world which Christ’s blood has redeemed: the Kingdom will be
based on power, and on that power alone which is safe to be omnipotent - Divine
power.
WRATH
Very remarkable is the deciding
factor. “And the nations were wroth, and
thy wrath came”:
that is, it is the wrath of man that
kindles the wrath of God. It is exactly what is foretold in the Second Psalm:- “Why do the
nations rage?” why are the nations enraged? “the kings of the earth set themselves
against the Lord, and against his Anointed:
then shall he speak to them IN HIS WRATH” (Ps. 2: 1). By the time the Great Tribulation opens, the Anti-God
crusade, now incipient in all nations, matures; and the coming judgments only
exasperate the nations: mere indifference, scepticism, unbelief passes, and is
replaced by a real belief in God, coupled with open and passionate hate of Him.
But the wrath thus hurled at God kindles the Divine anger, and closes the Day
of Grace. Simultaneously with the anger of the nations, but far transcending
it, is the wrath of God.
JUDGMENT
So the consequences at once emerge and the first is exactly
what we should expect - judgment. “And the time of the dead TO BE JUDGED.” The Seventh Trumpet covers the whole
of the remainder of earth’s history, and therefore all judgment:- the judgment
of the Church in the clouds, the judgment of the living nations on Olivet, and
the judgment of the dead at the great white Throne. “The season of
the dead to be judged”: the time when it is the turn of the dead to have justice done to them; or
else to incur judgment which had not yet been inflicted: in other words, Grace
is over, and Righteousness assumes her reign. Do we realize what it would mean
if judgment never came? It would mean that God is careless of good and evil, or
else is evil Himself; that man is free to break God’s laws, and not only not
suffer, but actually profit, by sin; that therefore all righteous sufferers of
all ages have based their lives on an illusion: that the Bible, since it is
full of this illusion, is false; and that so far from God loving a holy world,
it is immaterial to Him whether the world, or the universe, is good or bad.
Solomon thunders the reverse:- “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every
hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it
be evil” (Ecc. 12: 14).
REWARD
So, inevitably, dawns the day of recompense. “And the time
to give their REWARD to thy servants.” And the reward begins with our Lord.
No sooner is it announced that the nations rage, and that God responds in
wrath, than He says to His Anointed:- “Ask of me, and I will give
thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy
possession” (Ps. 2: 8). Those also rewarded are the Prophets - “ye shall see
all the
Prophets in the Kingdom of
God” (Luke
13: 28); the Saints, the sanctified from all
dispensations, saints by practice (Rom. 16: 2) and not only saints by calling (Rom. 1: 7), and not only slain saints,
martyrs, as many in the Early Church supposed; and the Fearers of God -
probably those saved in response to the Angel’s gospel - “Fear God, for
the hour of his judgment is come” (Rev. 14: 7). The most moving reward for all God’s sufferers is the
vindication of His honour, the
approval of God, the triumph of goodness and right. “The righteous
shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: so
that men shall say, Verily there is a reward for
the righteous, verily there is a God that
judgeth the earth” (Ps. 58: 10). Where the Lord was crucified is where He will reign.
ROYALTY
So here we get remarkable confirmation of the fact that
Christ’s Reigning on earth not only is the season of all reward, but itself is
the reward:- “The time to give the reward ([see Greek ...]) to thy servants”. So
our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount makes the ‘reward’ and the ‘kingdom’
synonymous. “Blessed are they who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdont of heaven;
blessed are ye when men shall persecute you, for great is
your reward in heaven” (Matt. 5: 10, 11): in other words, the persecuted both
have reward and have the Kingdom - that is the reward is the Kingdom.* The Lord Jesus, addressing one Church,
makes it as explicit as words can make it that the Kingdom is a reward, not a
gift of grace. “He that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end “ - thus excluding all backsliders - “to him will I give AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the
vessels of the potter are broken to shivers” (Rev. 2: 26). Those who have mastered self-control by lifelong fidelity are
entrusted with a shattering power for the government of entire peoples.
* To assert that two specific classes
are promised the Kingdom - prophets
(Luke 13: 28)
and martyrs (Rev. 20: 4) - if as a matter of fact all
believers will obtain it, would be as meaningless as it would be misleading. “If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2: 12; Rom. 8: 17),
and prophets and martyrs have been the greatest sufferers in history.
CORRUPTION
The third event of the ‘season’ which the Trumpet blast opens, follows. “And [the time] to DESTROY them that destroy the earth.” It is exact judgment, retribution in kind, for
nothing more closely characterizes the Man of Sin than his destructiveness. “And he shall destroy
wonderfully, and shall prosper and do
his pleasure; and he shall destroy the mighty ones and the holy people”
(Dan.
8: 24).
But, as the word implies,
it is more than destruction, it is corruption; “He shall corrupt the corrupters”: so the rottenness of the grave is invoked on the rottenness
of lawlessness and immorality - rottenness for rottenness. So Isaiah (66: 24) closes his whole prophecy with these
awful words of Jehovah:- “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed
against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.”
HEAVEN
Very beautifully the scene closes with an opened Heaven. And
there was opened the
* At present the awful fact is that
Satan largely controls the nations of the world (Matt. 4: 9), and the day hastens when
the whole earth worships the Dragon (Rev. 13: 4). We hear a rumour that the stones of the
For lo, the days are hastening on
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the Age of Gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendours fling,
And the whole earth send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
* *
*
21
OUR IDEAL OUTLOOK + 3
The
whole world a glorious Empire of our Lord: between us and it a perishing
civilization, and a broad, black belt of coming judgments: what therefore is to
be our outlook? What should be our ideal attitude of mind? An Apostle embodies
it. Paul sits weaving his tent-skins, so easily rent, so perishable; then he
looks at the hands that weave - themselves such fragile tent-skins of the soul;
and then he lifts his eyes, and sees an indestructible mansion of the spirit,
not woven with fingers; a mansion which no human hands ever built, and which no
human hands can ever destroy. “Being therefore always of good courage,” he cries; for here is our ideal
outlook, the outlook God would have us enjoy always: because “he that
wrought us for this very thing” - the change from the mortal to the immortal, from earth to
heaven - “is
God, who gave unto us the earnest of the Spirit”; the earnest, that is, the initial pledge, the part
payment. Our conversion holds in it our immortal glory.
So the Apostle first of all sets us on the foundation of a
fact. We faint not, he says; “for we know” - as a certainty
resting on God’s own statements, a golden assurance confined solely to the
Christian Faith - “that if the earthly house of our tabernacle” - our animal body; a ‘tent’, the most fragile and perishable of
all residences - “be dissolved” - dissolution only, not destruction, awaits our mortal body -
“we have a
building from God, a house not made with
hands, eternal,
in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5: 1). We have it, either on divine assurance, or it is already in the heavens;
from God- not, as this earthly frame, from our mother, but fresh from God in a
new creation; eternal- no fragile, collapsible tent, but (so to speak) a marble
mansion, in the heavens - the new body is nowhere said to be made out of the
dust of the earth, but is an immortal, indissoluble, heaven-born residence of
the soul.
Paul twice stresses our present unideal condition. “For verily
in this we groan: for indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” We groan, not because we are in flesh, but because we are in sinful flesh, with the ‘burden’ that sin consequently has imposed on us -
disease; infirmity; temptation; heart-break; death. Paul himself felt it
sharply. He exclaims:- “O wretched man that I am! who
shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” (Rom. 7: 24).
But now the bedrock fact he has stated reveals an intensely
and characteristically Christian revelation, and one more utter proof of the
divinity of our Faith. “Verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our
habitation which is from heaven: not for
that we would be unclothed.” We groan, not to get rid of a body, but to get a
better; a body in which prayer will not be a weariness, sin will not be an
attraction, disease will not be a possibility, and death will not be the goal. “Not that we
would be unclothed” - becoming bodiless, homeless,
dehumanized ghosts: death is a sentence on sin - it is not normal to the human
that God created: our body, the clothing of the soul, is the most wonderful and
most exquisitely constructed thing on earth, and we rightly love life and
shrink from death. So we observe the double truth which Christianity alone
reveals. Our old body is to be resuscitated, in part; but a new body is also to
descend upon us; and the wonderful new composition is to be our spirit’s
eternal home. As Dean Alford puts
it:- “We are not willing to divest ourselves
[of our fragile tent], but to put on [our
indestructible dwelling] over it.”
So then we get our ideal outlook. “Longing to be clothed upon” - as by an outer or over garment - “with our
habitation which is from heaven”: in this body we groan, earnestly desiring to put on over it our house which
is from heaven (Dean Stanley): so,
in the golden words of Paul, “that what is mortal may be SWALLOWED up of life”. Our hope is not to be buried under the debris of a
collapsing tent, but - with the picture of Enoch and Elijah before us -
transmuted at once, by rapture, into
the holy and heavenly. Centuries before Christ the exact process was revealed
by God Himself to Ezekiel (37: 5):- “Thus saith the
Lord God unto these bones: Behold, I will lay sinews upon you, and
will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with
skin.” So Paul
reveals its inevitability, since (as he says) God had created us for this very
thing: “for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15: 53). Nature gives us a wonderful little
symbol. Deep down in the bowels of the earth is a bit of buried charcoal: by a
process no mortal knows, and which, if discovered, would make a chemist
inconceivably wealthy, it turns to diamond: so the old body, alive or dead, is
our charcoal swallowed up of diamond. “Who shall fashion anew the body of
our humiliation” - this body of our humiliation, not a
substitute; but this body with a
tremendous addition - “that it may be conformed to the body of his glory” (Phil. 3: 21). It is so stupendous a truth, and so
beyond even our imagination, that the Apostle John says:_ “We know not
yet what we shall be, but we know that we shall
be LIKE Him, for we shall see him
as he is” (1 John 3: 2).
But a deeper lesson for our outlook remains to modify and
expand it. Death, natural or violent, may yet intervene between us and the
Lord’s Kingdom; and so Paul exclaims that we are always of good courage;
because, “knowing that, whilst
we are at home in the body, we are absent from
the Lord, we are willing rather to be absent from the body, and
to be at home with the Lord.” Dean
Alford truly says:- “To be at home with the Lord
is all that is revealed to us, and it would seem that it was all that was
revealed to Paul, of the disembodied
state of the blessed.” To the only dying believer to whom He ever
spoke Jesus said:- “This day shalt thou be with me in
JOHN 17: 24
‘With Me’.
No more is told
What more, Lord, couldst Thou tell?
Thou knewest that would satisfy
The heart that knows Thee well.
So also the church has sung for ages:
Here in the body pent,
Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day’s march nearer home.
So then we reach the practical outcome
of our outlook. “Wherefore also we make it our aim” - it is our passionate ambition - “whether at
home or absent, to be well pleasing unto him”: our ambition, whether He find us
alive or in the tomb at His Coming, is to meet with His approval in that day (Alford). All life itself is a wonderful
opportunity of pleasing Christ; and the sole way to please our Lord is living
the Word of God. It is manifest to us all that a heavenly life in the earthly
body is infinitely the best preparation for the heavenly life in the heavenly
body. Melandthon
cried, when dangerously ill, “Let me die!” but Luther replied, “No, we want you, and you
are not to be let off yet: you must stand in the thick of
the battle till the fight changes and victory is ours.”
For, finally, there looms up before the Apostle the
controlling factor in our Christian conduct, and the goal of our entire
outlook. “For we must all be made manifest before the Judgment-seat of
Christ: that each one” - that is, one by one - “may receive”
- the technical word for receiving wages (Alford)
- “the things done in the body,
according to what he hath done, whether it be
good or bad.” That
is, we are now writing our own sentence at the - [Lord’s soon-coming after
the time of Death (Heb. 9: 27, R.V.)] - Judgment-Seat. “The expression Bema is peculiar
to these two passages (Rom. 14: 10), being taken from
the tribunal of the Roman magistrate as the most august representation of
justice which the world then exhibited. The Bema was a lofty seat, raised on an
elevated platform, usually at the end of the Basilica, so that the figure of
the judge could be seen towering above the crowd which thronged the nave of the
building” (Dean Stanley). And
this very passage has already contained the characteristic Scriptural warning. “Longing to be
clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven, if so be that being clothed we shall NOT BE
FOUND NAKED.”
The fine linen, with which the Bride
is clothed at the Bridegroom’s
coming, “is the righteous acts of the saints”
(Rev. 19: 8):
without these ‘righteous acts’ the Bride is - [i.e., would be a] - bare of a trousseau, and therefore “ashamed before him at his coming”
(1 John 2: 28). So our whole outlook closes on the
Bema. Nothing matters but the [future] judgment Seat. What men have thought and said of us [now] will sink into utter nothingness
when we stand,
alone, before the King of Kings.
-------
THE KINGDOM
If we distort the truth, or mix with it what is false, the
truth becomes - really and rightly - incredible: so when the literal Second
Advent, with all its attendant prophecies, is denied by vast sections of the
Christian Church, the consequent doctrine - a Gospel which is to capture a
whole world for God - becomes, in face of the facts, as incredible as it is
false. It was the challenge of Bradlaugh, the great infidel of the nineteenth century:- “God, a God of truth? Why, He promised to Abraham in the most
solemn words, He repented His promise, and He has not kept His word. This Bible
which reveals the attributes of Almighty God, tells us that God condescended to
swear to a puny man that He would establish his kingdom forever, and that his
seed should be as numerous as the sand upon the seashore. That promise was
reiterated and sworn to by God, and I ask, where is that kingdom now? Here? Do
not tell me that it is meant figuratively; do not tell me that it is not
literal. God swore it.” By mere increase of population the world is
growing more heathen by 6,000,000 a year; and in the words of an Anglican
Bishop:- “The earth in this present era is seething
with disorder. There are in
-------
APOSTASY - AND THE WORLD-CRISIS
Are not these evils come
upon us, because God is not among us? - DEUTERONOMY.*
* These powerful lines are based also on the solemn command in Hosea
(4:
17):-
“Ephraim is wedded to idols; let him alone.” - Ed. [D.M.Panton.]
Slowly our dreams dissolve, our
visions fade;
Along the vast horizons of the world
The lamps by some invisible hand are
dimmed,
While darkness gathers. Now on every
side
Is heard a lamentable sound, the cry
Of stricken hearts expectant of a dawn
That never comes. Those sweet
expectancies,
Which once sprang forth like rays of
joyous light
New-issuing from a cloud, have died
away,
To leave no trace. Its future all
unknown,
The world seems caught within a net of
fears,
Despondencies, and doubts. For men
have lost
The confidence long cherished while
they felt
God was their sovran master, moulding
life
To some beneficent aim. Apostasy
Would thrust out God, and, in the
vacant place,
Set grim idolatries, strange leagues,
new creeds
Still to be tried, and, tried, found
lacking still.
And so, in silence, God withdraws
Himself,
And, as the world rejects Him, leaves
that world
To frame its fond illusions. “Ephraim
Is turned aside to idols: let him
alone.”
‘Alone’:
the very word is like a knell,
A sad prophetic warning. Cast adrift
From the great source of Being and of
Truth,
Man - what is he? a shadow and a
shame;
No light within, no grace to hold him
fast
Against the imperious surge of strife
and hate.
Not statesman’s craft, not pact nor
stratagem,
Nor all the proud accomplishments of
time,
Have power to guide our steps. We
falter, reft
Of One that reigns in equity and love.
“Children of
men, return!” (that Voice is heard
Between the solemn pauses in events)
“Return at length, or perish in your
pride.”
For who can stay the menace of the
hour
Save the all-seeing Ruler, whose right
hand
Is stretched, as heretofore, to lead
us safe
Through perilous tracts and valleys
dark with death
To paths of calm? Barren were earth,
indeed,
Disjoined from Him in whose
inscrutable will
We find, at last, the peace that knows
no end.
- E. H. BLAKENEY.
-------
A FUNERAL SERMON *
* A minister in France (E. A. Stocker, Monnetier-Mornex)
wrote this sermon for his own funeral:-
he died on April 2, 1938. - Ed. [D.M. Panton.]
For the last time the opportunity is given me to speak to you,
or more exactly, to have somebody speak to you on my behalf. When these lines
will be read I shall myself be represented in the midst of you by nothing more
than my mortal frame. God is Love. This fact has touched my life and
transformed my will. If when writing these lines, there are in my heart
dispositions of forgiveness, of peace and of loving kindness, I owe it to Jesus
Christ who saves perfectly every penitent sinner. Although I have loved what is
good since my early childhood, evil has also been present with me, and if the intervention of Christ Jesus in my
life had not been deep and lasting, the evil would have banished from my life
all that is good.
Thus seized and led by God I have been able to make men feel
their obligation to turn to Him. And to-day I am addressing you all once more
for the last time, and I say to you: Do not despair of God’s help. Submit yourselves
to the difficulties which attack you, hoping for the kind intervention of God.
Count upon the existence and the love of Christ crucified and risen, and you
will see Him take hold of you, live in you, and express Himself through you.
Love Him!
Surrender your all into God’s hands, and you will know, as I
have known, that God who is love, loves you, yes all of you, because He wants
to glorify Himself in your lives and to unfold there His strength and His
power. Till we meet again, good-bye my beloved-ones, good-bye. I am preceding
you to the land where Christ has prepared dwelling-places for His own. His day of glory will swiftly come and then our sweet meeting again will be flooded by
His glory and the splendour of His presence.
Written in God’s presence at 11.52, August .30th
1937 - The Intercessor.
* *
*
22
A LETTER ANSWERED + 4
By G.
H. RAMSAY
1
How can the sacrifice of God be the slaughter of
the wicked?
I read that the offering was to be WITHOUT BLEMISH. Could
that be said of the wicked people of the earth?
God Himself speaks of the wicked as being His sacrifice - Isa. 34: 1, 6, 8; Zeph. 1: 7, 8 - the word is the identical one used
of the unblemished Lev. sacrifices. Certainly God revealed that for our acceptance before Him an
unblemished sacrifice was required. But the paradox is set forth in Scripture
of an unblemished and accepted sacrifice being represented by a blemished and
unaccepted and cursed serpent. So that even though the unblemished victim was
accepted itself, its death on the other hand, and simultaneously, spoke of
rejection. Christ, who knew no sin, and was unblemished in Himself, was made to
be sin - and cursed - simultaneously with His acceptance.
Though the unblemished Sacrifice was accepted yet the fact
that it died spoke of the total rejection and destruction of all the race of
Adam. So that those who remain in Adam’s race - rejecting Christ’s sacrifice
for them - become themselves the sacrifice. While I am
accepted for Christ’s sake - yet it is not I that am accepted, but Christ for
me. I myself (that is, the old, sinful me) perished under God’s wrath - so that
I must regard myself as having died already in Christ. All those who are not
covered by this arrangement must be God’s sacrifice under wrath and rejected as is my old sinful man. Read 2 Cor. 2: 15, 16, and meditate upon the twofoldness there set forth.
2
I know you prefer to accept 1 Cor. 15: 51, 52.
I have no preferences for one Scripture as against another. My
only care is to accept all Scripture, and not to make one cancel out another. 1 Cor. 15. certainly is God’s word and place must be found for
it, however difficult it may be at first to fit it into other Scriptures. The
same Paul who wrote these words of comfort likewise wrote the words of urgency
in Phil. 3: 11-15. And you will observe the great need
for humble waiting upon God for understanding to be given to us, in His last
words: “If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.” Does that not indicate that he expected resistance to his statements as something hard and unwilling to be
received? (Peter, you remember, says, 2 Pet. 3: 15, 16, that Paul’s writings are hard to be understood.) In any case
God commands us in the next verse, verse 16, not to allow the unity we already
have in simpler matters to be endangered on account of these difficult ones.
3
When the Trumpets sound the wrath of God is being
poured out on all the people who are on the earth; but we who believe on Jesus, of
us Paul says - “For God hath not APPOINTED US
TO WRATH, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
To obtain salvation speaks
not of “eternal salvation”, which we already have, but of deliverance out of this present scene of
sorrow and suffering. And the statement does not say that no Christian shall suffer in the earth
when God judges it. It says we are not appointed thereto, and therefore that we need not so suffer. But how then are we to escape? The same Scripture informs us
Let us not sleep
Let us watch and be sober:
Let us put on the breastplate of faith
and love, and the helmet - the hope of salvation.
And it gives these instructions on the foundation that a day
of wrath is coming as a thief in the night, and we are admonished to escape it.
If you suppose that all Christians will automatically escape it whether they obey these
injunctions or not (and certainly
many, many sleep and do not watch, and head and heart are indeed uncovered by
these pieces of mail) how then does the Lord Himself say to the saints - “if therefore thou shalt not watch I will come on thee as a thief, and thou
shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee”? That is exactly what the Lord says to the wicked. Commingle with the wicked, and the
judgment upon the wicked, here in the earth, will befall you - not the eternal perdition of the wicked.
You know that B. W.
Newton said that “all believers will pass through
the tribulation”. You may not know that George Muller of
Some will be
obedient to that command: some will watch and pray and will escape - if the Lord is true to His word; and He will be.
Furthermore, there is the plain promise of the Lord. “BECAUSE thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will
keep thee out of the hour of temptation which is about to come upon the whole
habitable earth, to try the dwellers upon the
earth” (Rev. 3: 10). Is that not the wrath of God upon
the ungodly to which indeed we are not appointed, but from which, our only way
of escape is by watching and praying? And if there is this escape promised, is not George Muller in error in saying we
shall all pass through? And if the Lord says because you have done so and so, “I will keep thee”,
are you not in error in saying that because you are a [regenerate] believer therefore we shall all be kept?
4
I read - “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Could you honestly rejoice if you believed YOU had to pass through
the tribulation?
I do not read that I must pass through the tribulation: I read
of a way of escape: I am honestly seeking that escape by the prescribed means.
Therefore, though I do not know whether I shall escape (or, with Paul, though “I count not
myself already to have apprehended”), yet I can and do humbly rejoice in
God at all times who has made it abundantly possible for me to do so. And you
fail to counterbalance the command to rejoice with the equal command (1 Peter 1: 17) to fear. “For if ye
call on the Father who, without respect of
persons, judgeth according to every man’s work, pass
the time of your sojourning in fear”; and again, “work out your
own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2: 12). Thus again we see the two-foldness of
Scripture - rejoicing and fearing in the same heart simultaneously.
5
The tribulation is when the fierceness of God’s wrath will be poured out on His enemies.
But “God
does not payment TWICE demand. ONCE
at my bleeding surety’s hand, and
then again at MINE.” How
then can wrath on me take place, now standing in God’s righteousness and
sprinkled by the blood?
Wrath, in the sense of eternal punishment, of course cannot fall on one “now standing in God’s righteousness and sprinkled by the
Blood.” But there is plenty of wrath short of that which may happen to
us and of which we are warned. “Behold the goodness and the severity of God.” Furthermore, God’s enemies are reserved to a wrath beyond the wrath
out-poured at the Tribulation, and which only takes effect at the end of the
Millennium. Saints suffering in the Tribulation wrath could not be said to be paying a second time for their debts
to God, therefore. The Tribulation is not eternal punishment - and it was the tasting of this by the Lord
for us that paid our debts to God. The Tribulation is punishment upon this present world in
preparation for the last age of this present world. Wrath can fall or chastisement upon a saint at any time before eternity
dawns.
6
I don’t serve Him for glory, or prize, or
crown.
Many saints speak so, but, unknown to themselves, their
conduct is not virtuous as they suppose it to be - but is disobedience to an express command of God. And God
traces their disobedience to their immaturity in the things of God. “I press
toward the mark for the prize: let us therefore (there is a command), as many as be perfect (full grown), be thus minded (which implies
that a contrary mind and practice are due to immaturity); and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this to you” (Phil. 3: 15); therefore no contrary mind upon the
matter is sanctioned. And is it not written of the Lord Himself that He “for the joy set before Him endured”. Can we be superior to Him?
-------
Egypt, which for about twenty
centuries has been a subject nation, in 1922 was given self government; and
under her energetic young King Farouk, is making steady advances in nationhood,
and is taking her place among the “trees” (Luke 21: 20) which are beginning to “now shoot
forth”. How vital,
therefore, that all believers should “Watch and pray always, that (they) may be accounted worthy to
escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son
of man.” - The
-------
LOWLY SERVICE
Christ’s approval glorifies the most menial act. There is a
legend of a monk who painted pictures of martyrs and saints; but they were mere
daubs, with no artistic merit and the Abbot let him hang them in his solitary
cell. One day he was so depressed with their worthlessness that he determined
to cast them into the fire.
He raised his eyes within his cell - O
wonder,
There stood a Visitor; thorn-crown’d was He,
And a sweet voice the silence rent
asunder:-
‘I scorn no
work that’s done for love of Me.’
And round the walls the paintings
shone resplendent
With lights and colours to this world
unknown,
A perfect beauty, and a hue transcendent,
That never yet on mortal canvas shone.
-------
THE SINGLE TALENT
I stood one day speaking (a missionary writes) and a little
cripple sat on the front seat. She was so badly deformed that she could not see
over the back of the bench. All the time that I was speaking there was a prayer
in my heart that this stricken little soul would get my message. But I found
that I had wasted my sympathy, for she became a message to me. At the close a
lady came to introduce one of her teachers. She led me to this cripple. She
must have seen the look of surprise on my face, for she said: “Yes, one of my teachers and, moreover, the best one I have;
in fact, she is the greatest spiritual power in this school and has led, more
people to God than any other person in this city.”
I was interested and urged her to go on. She told me how as a
child she had been dropped by careless hands, and her back broken, and how for
many years after she had been a bad-tempered little cripple lashing with the
sharpness of her tongue against her fate and against her environment. But one
day she let Christ into her embittered soul, and all was changed. She felt the
urge to become a teacher. When she was sent to the village to take charge,
there was almost a riot by the villagers, who supposed her crippled body to be
a thing of ill-omen. But the missionary insisted that they try her, promising
that if they did not like her as a teacher, they would take her back. Out of
pity they agreed. When after several years the missionary came to take her away
to a larger school, there was almost a riot again. These villagers insisted
that they had never had such a teacher, for she radiated the love and power of
God. She had taken that poor little crippled body and made it the instrument of
a regnant spirit. The last I saw of her, she was pushing the little bamboo
stool in front of her as she worked her way across the room. That stool was her
crutches, and it was upon that stool that she sat to teach, and it is upon that
stool that she sits each day as Christ crowns her with a crown of life. It is
her throne. The symbol of her infirmity becomes the place of her crowning. - The Gospel Herald.
COURAGE
Let us pray daily for the courage we
shall increasingly need. Bishop Whipple tells of an Indian, who said to the
missionary, - “My hands are full of blood: I have
always been a warrior: can I be a Christian?” The missionary told him of
God’s love, and then, to test him, said, - “May I cut
off your hair?” When the Indian cuts his scalp-lock, it is a sign he will
never go on the war-path again. “Yes,” he said,
“you may; I will throw my old life away.” It
was cut. As he started home, he met some wild Indians, who shouted with
laughter, and cried, - “Yesterday you were a warrior,
to-day you are a squaw.” Stung to the quick, he threw himself on the
floor of his home, and burst into tears. His Christian wife then came, and
putting her arms round his neck, said, - “Yesterday
there was not a man in the world who dared call you a coward. Can’t you be as
brave for Him who died for you as you were to kill Indians?” He sprang
to his feet, and cried, - “I can and I will!”
Bishop Whipple adds:- “I have known many fearless
servants of Christ, but never braver than that man.”
* *
*
23
THE RESURRECTION OF
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
“In
DEATH-DOOMED
God deliberately counters
THE PROBLEM
Jehovah Himself now states the problem. “Son of man,
can these bones live?” Is
RETURN
Now action begins, and it embraces two tremendous changes: - a
preliminary re-creation of the skeletons; and, later, the corpses become really
alive. “Behold an earthquake, and the
bones came together” - a reunited
RESTORATION
The second and complete restoration to the land is
simultaneous with their restoration to God. Two chapters later (Ezek. 39: 27) Jehovah says:- “I will have
mercy upon the whole house of Israel
when I have brought them again from the peoples,
and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, and
am sanctified in them in the sight of
many nations: they shall know that I have gathered them into their own land,
and I will leave none of them any more” among the nations. Our Lord reveals how the
gathering is effected. “Immediately after the
tribulation ... he shall send forth his
angels, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt. 24: 31). This mission of the Angels, since it
is after the Tribulation is after our Lord has alighted on
REGENERATION
So then the second far mightier work still remains to be done,
a restoration of the whole of Jewry to
the
A GREAT ARMY
So now the Valley changes from a
cemetery to a battle-field. “The breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up
upon their feet, AN EXCEEDING GREAT ARMY.” These dried bones, at present strewed
over the earth, plucked bare by wolves and vultures, will one day be the
warriors of Jehovah - apostles and teachers throughout all nations, to “fill the face
of the world with fruit” (Isa. 27: 6). For “thus saith the Lord of Hosts,
In those days ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take
hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying,
We will go with you, for
we have heard that God is with you”
(Zech. 8: 23).
* * *
24
HEALING BY EVIL SPIRITS + 4
One of
the most mysterious utterances in the New Testament is uttered by our Lord
towards the close of the Sermon on the Mount. “Many will say to me in that
day” - therefore
these people appear on the earth at the end, - “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by
thy name” - not in thy name, as standing in Thy stead,
and therefore clothed in Thy power (Mark 16: 17); but by it, as a
magical formula or else as an empty profession - “and by thy name cast out devils,* and by thy name do
many mighty works?” (Matt. 7: 22). In response, our Lord does not challenge the reality of the ‘mighty works’, but He completely exposes a heart
of fundamental unbelief. He will respond:- “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” In other words, they are those of
whom he had just warned His disciples (ver. 15):- “Beware
of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing” - that is, in a
Christian profession - “but inwardly are ravening wolves.”
Exorcism occurs in Witchcraft and Spiritualism: either as
between hostile spirits, or (in Christian countries) as a studied camouflage, a
theatrical performance to insinuate. Christian exorcism, so as to back the
claim of miracles by the name of Christ.
Now one of the acutest problems confronting us is this:- no ‘mighty work’ is more emphasized for proving
miraculous power than the healing of the sick; and one outstanding sect exactly
fits our Lord’s words. Numbering some 2,500 so-called ‘churches’,
Christian Science stresses healing
more than any other tenet, with countless alleged examples to prove its power, while its fundamental creed is totally
unchristian. Its founder, Mrs. Eddy,
was once a Spiritualist medium by profession, and therefore able to work the ‘miracles’ of the séance; while she overturns the whole
Christian Faith in the words, - “His disciples
believed Jesus dead while He was hidden in the sepulchre; whereas He was alive.”* Mrs. Eddy herself showed all the
symptoms of a powerful, demon-possessed medium. “At
times her attacks resembled convulsions. She fell headlong to the floor,
writhing and screaming in apparent agony. Again she dropped as if lifeless, and
lay limp and motionless, until restored.
At other times she became rigid like a cataleptic.” **
* Science and Health, p. 349.
** Miss Milmine’s
Life of Mary Baker Eddy, p. 21. Supernatural
disease is a fact. A missionary writes
from
But our problem is infinitely more difficult. Other groups, fundamentally Christian, also claim
miraculous powers, and to prove the claim incessantly point to their cures.
There are the Roman Catholic cures
at Lourdes; there are Pentecostalists
all over the world, claiming tens of thousands of cures besides these, there
are thoroughly evangelical groups
which, while not claiming miraculous powers, stress ‘divine healing’ as a chief practice and a supernatural
answer to prayer. Here we face a problem infinitely complex; and we may acknowledge
at once the cures that take place, apart from medical treatment, in Christian
circles. Healing in a Christian assembly may be due to psychological causes -
auto-suggestion or (in some diseases) sudden and strong emotion; or to the ‘prayer of faith’, with the anointing of oil; or to an
individual cry, known only to God; or to supernatural powers of
healing present in the assembly. But the one
vital point is this:- that whether
the supernatural healings are from Heaven or Hell can be decided only
by other criteria than the mere fact of miracle.
Now we get a lightning-flash on the whole subject in a
synagogue of
But the revealing fact lies in our
Lord’s diagnosis of the disease. He says:- “This woman
whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years” (Luke 13: 16). So Paul himself experienced “a thorn in
the flesh” which
he describes as “an angel of Satan to buffet me” (2 Cor. 12: 7); and he even gives the reason of the
permitted infliction- “that I should not be
exalted overmuch”. Similarly Satan “smote Job
with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto the crown of his head” (Job 2: 7); but not until he had
received permission from God to do so, and with the
ultimate issue of Job’s complete and golden triumph.
Now this power of Satan
is much greater than we realize. The fact which is the basis of all Witchcraft,
that Satan has even the power of death, the Scripture openly states. Our Lord
came “to bring to nought him that HATH THE POWER OF DEATH, * that is, the devil” (Heb. 2: 14). “The devil,” our Lord Himself says, “was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:
44). One passage both establishes it as a
present fact, and reveals at least one reason of so awful a power being in the
Devil’s hands. Concerning the incestuous brother the command to the Church was “to deliver
such a one unto Satan for the
destruction of the flesh” (1 Cor. 5: 5): that is, Satan
retains the power throughout the history of the Church; but simply as the executioner of God’s judgment.
So after God had said to Satan concerning Job:- “Behold, all that he hath is in thy power,” we read of Job’s sons, - “There came a
great wind from the wilderness, and smote the
four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead” (Job. 1: 12, 19). These examples go far towards proving
that Satan’s power of death, even over the unsaved, is strictly
subject to the permission of God.
* EXovra: both our versions translate by ‘had’ which is comment, not translation, and comment
obviously suggested by a felt difficulty. Rather, in the words of the Pulpit Commentary :- “With power given him over death, the
penalty of sin, as long as man remains in his dominion, unredeemed.”
It is extraordinarily significant that Christian Scientists,
while disowning all belief in a God who controls Satan, and yet having stumbled
on the experience of Satan’s death-power, are dominated by the very fear which
is the soul of Witchcraft, and for identical reasons.
Threats of death, which have abounded in Christian Science, drove Mrs. Eddy nearly mad with fear, and
produced lawsuits founded on charges of murder by witchcraft. “In coming years,” she says, “the
person or mind that hates his neighbour will have no need to traverse his
fields to destroy his flocks and herds in warfare with error we attack with
intent to kill, as the wounded or cornered beast turns on its assailant”;
“they should have fear for their own lives in their
attempts to kill us.” * Mr.
G. W. Louttit, a former First Reader of First Church of Christ Scientist, says:- “These persons
[members who dare not leave the Society] know that the
hatred of a Christian Scientist, if he understands the system, is more venomous
and far-reaching than the hatred of any other person: it is a hatred that
pursues and bites with mesmeric power, and in many instances has brought rivals
and victims to an unhappy end.”
* Miss Milmine’s Life of Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 224, 354.
So now we reach our critical point. It follows from all we
have pondered that two potential Healers
were present in the synagogue - Christ
and Satan: Christ, who did heal the woman; and Satan, who, since he had bound her for eighteen years, could have unbound her at any moment, and lo, a miracle of healing in an assembly of God!
We have here remarkable light on
countless cures, even within the
On the other hand, we must carefully keep our balance for in
this lovely portrait we see what can happen in an assembly of God. This ‘daughter of Abraham’, a woman of Abraham’s faith, has
come in quiet devotion to the house of God on the day of worship; utterly
unaware of the blessing about to fall, she offers no prayer - so far as we know
- for healing; but suddenly, a word falls from a Stranger present, whom she may
never yet have known; He says nothing to her about the forgiveness of her sins,
or of her sinning no more; erect for the first time for eighteen years, she
immediately before all the assembly glorifies God out of a full heart; and her
recorded experience has blessed myriads for nearly two thousand years. Satan
brought more into this woman’s life than he had ever dreamed.
Nevertheless the deepening peril of the end compels us to
remember that a devil backs the
Gospel from the mouth of a Paul. “A certain maid having a spirit of
divination cried out, saying, These men are servants of the Most High God, which proclaim unto you the way of salvation. And this she
did for many days. But Paul, being sore troubled, turned
and said to the spirit, I charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
AND IT CAME OUT
THAT VERY HOUR” (Acts 16: 16).
It is obvious that a movement whose raison d’etre is
healing, and that on a gigantic scale, could not exist even for a few
months without healing; and therefore all who imagine
that supernormal cure is necessarily a
proof of a divine work need to study Christian Science. So also, in
Spiritualism, we take but a single example. In Odense,
on the Island of Funen, a ‘Brother Johannes’ , purporting to
return after 200 years, “cured all kinds of sickness
in a spiritualist congregation, when invalids would throw away their crutches
and walk, and where (for example) a girl blind for eleven years was made to see”
(Daily Mail,
April 9, 1927). Witchcraft cures
to-day. “The fakirs of
-------
THE
Mrs. Spencer Johnson writes:- “Your reference to the
-------
A DEMON BEHIND THE PULPIT
A leading Nonconformist, a few years
ago, uttered himself in such a way as that all who heard or read what he said
became tragically aware that, from a professedly Christian pulpit, positively
anti-Christian teaching was emanating. Not long after this extraordinary
ministry established itself, I had converse with a friend who had been used of
God to lead to the Saviour a spiritistic medium. This converted spiritist
mentioned that when practising as a medium he had been engaged by this
Nonconformist Minister to sit in his vestry while he conducted a service in the
chapel, in order that in his preaching he might be influenced by the spirit of
Jesus.
-
R. WRIGHT HAY
-------
ANTHRAKIA
By F. E. BATSON
No stern rebuke nor withering scorn
Could have wrought so much that
wondrous morn,
For as Peter looked on the glowing
coal, shame and remorse
Swept o’er his soul;
And thoughts pierc’d and burnt, like
sword and fire,
As he gazed upon this Anthrakia.*
For he saw himself yet once again
In the high priest’s hall, of reputed
fame,
Remember’d the oath, the curse, the
lie,
When there he did his Lord deny,
As man and maid would him enquire
When he stood with the crowd at
Anthrakia.
Yet, behold, what wondrous love
return’d
By the One whose name he had so
spurn’d;
Those nail-pierce’d
hands could a meal prepare,
And a tender voice had called him there;
And a heart o’erflowing with loving
desire
Had kindled for him this Anthrakia.
Beloved, in this cold world around,
Where trouble and strife are
everywhere found,
When friends may deny us, and loved
ones forsake,
And foes look upon us in envy and
hate,
To reflect such grace, let us all
aspire,
With the warmth of our Saviour’s
Anthrakia.
* ‘Anthrakia’, a ‘fire of coals’, occurs twice: when Peter denied his
Lord (John
18: 18); and when the risen
Saviour invites a group of His disciples, including Peter, to the meal He has
prepared (John
21: 9).
-------
WARNING
Some 8,000 Jews and Christians
attended a National Protest Meeting
at the beginning of December at the Albert Hall. Lord Dunsay
sent the following message:-
I thought to win where Pharaoh lost,
I thought to trample under heel
The chivalry of
With all my panoply of steel.
Now is my triumph at its height,
Now is the splendour of my power,
This is the hour of my might;
And there is danger in the hour.
For gathering out of air and haze
Are forces that I cannot see,
And all the way from bygone days
An ancient voice is warning me.
* *
*
25
THE SUCCESS OF FAILURE + 1
By W. B. HINSON, D.D.
The men who have not succeeded are often the great heroes of
God, and heaven is reserved for these conspicuous failures. The glory of these
unsucceeding ones, who were unseduced by the prizes the world offers, and
unaffrighted at all the hostilities which surrounded them. The glory of those
who dared while daring was possible, and who died when life could no longer be
maintained. If you dip into the past some two millenniums you arrive at the
time when Nero, Emperor of Rome,
smeared pitch upon men and women who believed in the Saviourhood of the Son of
God and set them on fire, while he pursued his deviltries illumined by light
emitted from those living torches. And you go back to the time when the Son of
God stood before Pilate who said: “Take him to the cross, and let him be put to death!” Failed!
These are the failures! And the Lord
write me down among them, among the mighty men who attained unto the glory of
conspicuous failure.
And Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, writing his Epistles,
preaching his sermons, living his wonderful life for Christ, and then to put
his neck down on the block and lose his head by the axe of a Roman executioner
on the Appian Road. A failure! And David
Livingstone over in Africa, every nerve an avenue for the chargers of pain to
prance along, writing in his diary the day before he died a prayer that God’s
blessing might rest on any man who would help to heal the open sore of the
world in poor down-trodden Africa. A failure! And Chinese
Gordon, shut up in Khartourn - the man who put a handkerchief outside his tent
by which all men knew the great General was at prayer and might not be
disturbed - scorning any weapon, and leading his troops to victory after
victory with a little cane he held in his hand, and at last cooped up in the
city of the alien to be cowardly assassinated. A failure!
The men to whom the honours of the world appeared as tinsel;
the men who were so large in brain and heart and aspiration and endeavour that
nothing in time could satisfy them,
and so they died in faith, not having received. The men who cannot be warped,
and who cannot be bought; the men who will not lie; the men who believe, and believe in the very innermost recess of the
soul. The men who have got conviction and the men who are held by that
conviction; the men about whom nobody would believe the slander. These failures
of time, these failures of the world, who are the heroes of eternity, and the
kingly priests of the
He it is who inspired old Latimer in the
blaze, to say to Ridley:- “Play the man, and by God’s
grace we will light a candle in
I wonder if we dare stand beside Him in these testing days? Not in vain is the great emblem of the
Christian religion a cross. You have
got it on your watch charm, my brother. You have got it around your neck, my
sister. But have you got it in your brain? Have you got it in your heart? Have you got it in your life? How much money have you ever lost because of the
Cross? How many opportunities for attaining success have you let slip because
of the Cross? Upon what honour have you turned your back because of the Cross?
What disparagement have you deliberately incurred and invited because of the
Cross? What loneliness has been
yours, what vituperation - [i.e., ‘bitter abuse or censure’, Dict. Def.] - and slander have you endured
because of the Cross?
How much has it cost you to be Christ’s
true man, to be Christianity’s champion?
I wonder how many of us are daring to go without the camp to Christ and share His
reproach. I remember when that cup was put to my own lip, the time when He arrested me; and of all things in the world there was nothing
more repugnant to me than to be baptized into His death and resurrection; and
when I read His Word and found I had
to do it, it was putting my head in the dust, and it was bending my proud neck
in humiliation. And I do not believe I have ever done an act that called for
such denial and self-sacrifice as when I walked down into the water and was
baptized into the Name of Jesus Christ and into the company of people I had
derided and scorned, who called themselves Baptists.
And the cup He has put to my lip
many a time since, asking me to do things I shrank from doing, asking me to say
things I would almost as soon have died as spoken them, asking me to take a stand that was the
opposite of all that I was inclined to do. Why, only yesterday I said I was
never intended to be a preacher of the Gospel. But ere five minutes had passed
by He came to me again and said, “Now I have been calling you to be without the camp and bear
the reproach for forty years. Are you going to fail Me now?” And once
again I looked up into His face and
said, “Not while there is a sky above my head or an
earth beneath my feet, for where Thou
goest I will go; where Thou dwellest
I will dwell; and Thou shalt be my God till my life ends, or until the
heavens are split, and Thou shalt
appear in the glory.”
This is the success of
failure. This is the glory of defeat. That a man
can overcome himself, and overcome the world and overcome hell, and stand God’s
loyalist and Jesus Christ’s champion. Are we standing there? Do we dare stand
there? I can promise you nothing for to-day because you do it. But I can
promise you a great deal to-morrow, when
He shall come, before whose fiery Presence the stars dry up like dewdrops,
and heaven opens, and hell, and He
in all His glory will say to you and
to me who have tried to do our little bit down here: “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter
into the joy of thy Lord!”
- Living Links.
-------
EXPOSITION
Sermons now are topical or moralizing
rather than expository. The Bible is far more than literature; it speaks with
the very voice of God. I believe that if accepted and proclaimed it will have
exactly the same effect on the character of the people as it had 400 years ago,
and the same power to redeem and to reform.
- SIR THOMAS INSKIP.
* * *
* * *
*
SELECTED CONTENTS
FROM
THE DAWN MAGAZINE (VOL. 16, 1939- 40)
-------
1 THE KINGDOM A REWARD + 2
2 THE PATH TO THE KINGDOM
* 3 ONE IS TAKEN + 1
* 4 THE WISE BUILDER + 1
5 LITTLE CHILDREN, ANTICHRIST COMETH
6 SCRIPTURAL PACIFISM
7 OUR JUDGMENT AS BELIEVERS
8 THE REBUILT
9 DELAYED JUDGMENT
10 SPEED IN PROPHECY + 1
* 11 PERSECUTION + 1
* 12 GOD AND WAR + 4
13 THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF RAPTURE
+ 2
14 THE TORMENTS OF THE APOSTATE
** 15 SUFFERING AND GLORY + 1
16 REBUILT
17 ROSH AND GOMAR + 1
18 WALKING WITHOUT FAINTING + 2
19 THE LAST ADMONITION
20 THE PERIL OF THE CHRISTIAN JUDAISM
* 21 STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS + 1
22 A CENTURY-OLD JUDGMENT
23 ANTI-SEMITISM
24 THE CHURCH AND THE TOTALARIAN STATE + 2
25 ANTINOMIANISM + 2
26 SYMPTOMS OF THE LAST CRISIS + 1
27 ACCOUNTED WORTHY + 1
28 PRAYER + 1
29 THE PAPTURE OF ELIJAH
30 THE RETURN OF ENOCH AND ELIJAH + 3
31 SALVATION BY
32 SCARLET GUILT + 2
33 LYCANTHROPY OF A DICTATOR + 1
* 34 THE EPOCH BETWEEN OUR AGE
AND THE GREAT TRIBULATION + 4
35 THE WOMAN LEAVENING THE MEAL + 1
** 36 THIS ONE THING I DO + 1
37 THE SERMAN ON THE MOUNT + 1
38 THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE + 1
39 CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
40 THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD + 2
1
THE KINGDOM A REWARD + 2
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
There is
one overwhelming proof that no [regenerate] believer will enter the
A GIFT
First of all, the Second Psalm at once lays bare that the Kingdom is
a gift to Christ, not an inheritance. When the nations are surging in revolt,
and the peoples are seeking to stamp out the Lord and His Christ, Jehovah
says:- “Ask of me” - the Kingdom is therefore a
commanded aim and ambition of the Son of God - “and I will GIVE thee the nations for thine
inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the
earth for thy possession” (Ps. 2: 8). Nothing could be more explicit. So far from the rule over
earth, immediately following the Apostasy, being a perquisite of the Son of God
as such, it is solely a gift from God, and a gift dependent (to begin with) on
prayer. “Ask of me, and I will give.” Christ is the nobleman who has gone “into a far
country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return, having received the kingdom” (Luke 19: 12): so even to Apostles Jesus says:- “Seek ye
first the
OBEDIENCE
But Scripture now unfolds that this gift is the fruit of a
great deal more than mere desire and prayer. “Not unto angels,” says the Apostle, “did he
subject the world to come” - the inhabited earth - “whereof we speak” (Heb. 2: 5) “but of the Son he saith, Thy
throne” - the
Throne of the inhabited earth to come - “O God, is for ever and ever: thou hast loved
righteousness and hated iniquity; THEREFORE God,
thy God” - it is as a Man He is addressed, and
so God is His God - “hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows”
(Heb. 1: 8). Christ loved righteousness and hated
iniquity, and lived that love and hate: therefore - on that ground alone - God has anointed Him with
supreme joy. So our Lord says to us:- “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord” - the natural definition of a
Christian * - “shall enter into the kingdom of
heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father” (Matt.
7: 21) - who lives Christ’s love and hate.
*“Because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord,
and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from
the dead, thou shall be saved” (
MARTYRDOM
But the Lord’s coronation is a consequence of more than
life-long obedience. A fresh statement makes His achievement of the Kingdom on
the ground of martyrdom as plain as words can make it. “We behold
him who hath been made a little lower than the angels” - that is made human - “even Jesus,
BECAUSE OF THE
SUFFERING OF DEATH, crowned”
(Heb. 2: 9). Had our Lord thrown up everything in
PROPORTIONATE REWARD
The truth is sunk deeper into our minds by another passage,
which measures the reward as an exact reversal of the loss; and both, in our
Lord’s case, are of course absolutely unique. “Who, being in the form of God, emptied
himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross: WHEREFORE also God
highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name
which is above every name” (Phil. 2: 6). His exaltation fits exactly His humiliation. He descended
from the Godhead to manhood; He descended from a man to a servant; He descended
from life to death; He descended from normal death to a criminal’s death
therefore He is “highly exalted” - His exaltation is ‘super-superlative’ - the word is emphatic and unique:
in His resurrection exalted; in His ascension, ‘highly exalted’; in His return to God, exalted “above all the heavens”; and in His session on the Throne, “exalted above
all exaltation”.
So the principle is made equally applicable to us. “With what
measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you”
(Matt. 7: 2):
“every one that hath left houses, or brethren, or sisters,
or father, or mother,
or children, or lands,
for my name’s sake, shall receive a HUNDREDFOLD” (Matt. 19: 29): “because thou
wast found faithful in a very little, have thou
authority over TEN CITIES” (Luke 19: 17).
ASSOCIATES
A further proof presents itself. Various passages associate the Saviour with
human companions who achieve glory on identical grounds that is, not as sons of
God, but as men who, like Himself, renounced everything -[when tested (see 2 Tim. 2:
5, 10, 12)] - for the Age to Come. So Jehovah said through Isaiah (53: 12):- “I will divide him a portion with
the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong” -
a statement remarkably confirmed by our Lord’s own words, - “the kingdom
of heaven suffereth violence, and men of
violence take it by force” (Matt. 11: 12). These associates of our Lord are again named in Hebrews (1:
9):-
“Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above
thy fellows”. What constitutes this ‘fellowship’ is made clear by another Scripture. “For we are become” - after conversion - “fellows * of the Christ, IF we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto
the end” (Heb. 3: 14). Our own language is similar. The highest men of science
become Fellows of the Royal
Society; the highest doctors become Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians: so of [regenerate] believers
it is written, - “Heirs [indeed, (see
Greek ...) of God”, as
born again and sharing His eternal life; [but, (Greek ...)] “JOINT-HEIRS with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8: 17).” For “if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2: 12). Thus the [Millennial] Kingdom throughout is made conditional on
Christ-like character and conduct.
*
The word is [see Greek...], sharers, partners, companions.
OVERCOMERS
Our Lord Himself sets the final seal on this truth, “He that
overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with
me in my throne” -
manifestly the Millennial Throne - “EVEN AS” - that is, on identical grounds, for
identical reasons - “I also” - I correspondingly with my brethren - “overcame,
and sat down with my Father in his throne” (Rev.
3: 21). Here entrance into the coming - [“thousand years” (Rev. 20: 5)] - Reign for both Christ Himself and all who will share His Throne is based four-square, not on grace or
gift, but on so running the race as to win the prize.
The Lord Himself here makes our experience identical with His own. Just as the
Eternal Glory of Christ, the glory which He had with the Father before the
world was, rests solely on the fact that He is the Son of God, while His
Millennial Glory, the glory He receives on returning to this earth, rests
solely on His achievements and sufferings as the Son of Man: - exactly so, our
Eternal Glory - when all whose names are in the Lamb’s Book of Life “shall reign
for ever and ever” (Rev. 22: 5), totally irrespective of works done either before or after
faith - rests solely on the fact that we are the sons of God; while
our Millennial Glory - if we achieve it, as Christ did - rests solely on our
obedience and suffering as servants of the Most High, when we “shall be
priests of God and of Christ, and reign with him
a thousand years” (Rev. 20: 6).
THE MOTIVE
Finally, the motive that moved our Lord is to be ours also,
and both are wonderfully compacted into one verse. “Let us also
lay aside every weight, and let us run with
patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus - our model runner - “who FOR THE JOY THAT
WAS SET BEFORE HIM endured the cross,
despising shame” (Heb. 12: 1). Here dawns on us the immense
importance to us all of this - [additional accountability and conditional] - truth being clearly stated. To assume that to be a gift which as a
matter of fact is a reward is almost certainly to lose it; because the conditions on which the prize is given are ignored, and
therefore, with almost equal certainty, some condition or conditions will be
unfulfilled, and so cancel the reward. If our Saviour could go through all His
unparalleled agony because of the joy set before Him, how much more can we - [with
the Holy Spirit’s help and strength (see Acts 5: 32. cf. 6: 5, 8, R.V.)] - master our
present, however disconcerting, for a future of such boundless joy. “Wherefore,
brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election
sure: for if ye do these things” - that is, add the seven graces to saving faith (ver. 5)
- “ye shall never stumble: for thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance” - because an entrance a thousand years
earlier - “into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”
(2 Pet. 1: 10).
BE STRONG
Be Strong: for the days are darkening,
Night cometh on;
Impenetrable gloom fast gathering,
Light almost gone.
Be Strong: though the darkness o’er
whelm thee,
Through it press on;
On to the end of the wearisome
journey,
Where Jesus has gone.
Be Strong: the earth’s filled with
violence,
With hatred and Sin;
Pray that in all things ye may be
found worthy
The Kingdom to win.
Be Strong: keep thine eyes fixed on
Jesus,
He’ll bear thee along;
The battle is raging - the Lord God is
with us,
Our Hope and our Song!
- HETTIE K. PAYNE.
-------
REWARD
Christ will give the crown to none but the worthy. And are we
fit for the crown, before we have overcome? Or for the prize, before we have
won the race? Or to be rulers of ten cities, before we have achieved our ten
talents? God will not alter the course of justice to give you
rest before you have laboured nor the crown of glory till you have overcome. - BAXTER
* *
*
2
THE PATH TO THE KINGDOM
By
LT.-COLONEL G. F. POYNDER
If (as
is the case) the Kingdom is our hope, the prize which we must agonize to
obtain, it is of vital importance that we enquire how we may do so; lest,
through ignorance, or wilfulness, or blinded eyes, we miss what God has
graciously provided for those who really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as
their Lord and their Saviour.
First, we notice that it is no easy road into that kingdom. It is “gotten by
force, and they that thrust men take it by force”
(Matt. 11:
12, marg.). Let
us not sit down satisfied that we are [eternally] saved, that all that is necessary to be done, if we
would enter that kingdom, has
already been done for us. If we do, we show plainly we are not worthy to enter it. Rather let us remember it is held
out before us as a prize for which we must so run as those run
who are anxious to win a prize. It is a hard battle in which we must so fight,
not as those who beat the air, but keeping under our bodies, and bruising them,
strive to be more than conquerors; lest, when we have acted the part of heralds
to others, we ourselves should be rejected at the Bema for the prize (compare 1 Cor. 9: 24-27).
Secondly, as we turn to the discourse
that our Lord had with Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, He plainly showed that
there are two classes of believers: the one class will only be privileged to see this Kingdom of God (so called,
doubtless, because He was speaking to a Jew, and referred, therefore, to the
kingdom on earth, which he would have understood), and the other class who will
be able to enter that kingdom.
Two classes of whom we have striking types in the Old Testament: (1) Moses, because of his sin, only
permitted to see the land, but not allowed to enter at that time. (2) Joshua, who was not only permitted
to see it, but also to enter in, as the leader of God’s chosen people. And what
constitutes the difference between these two classes? The first are those who
are born again only, and go no further; but the second are those who are born
out of water and of the Spirit. What could our Lord have meant by this phrase?
Are we to look upon it as an Hendiadys, or figure of speech, meaning “born out of spiritual water”? Surely not! Nor ought
we to read the water figuratively as the Word of God. for there is no
difficulty in reading the sentence literally, as referring to those who have
passed through the waters of baptism,*
and then have been baptized by the Holy Spirit, and thus endued with power
to win the prize, “the out-resurrection (or ‘first resurrection’) from
amongst dead persons” (Phil. 3: 11, 14), which entitles them “to live and reign with Christ” during the Millennial age (Rev. 20: 4).
* Certainly no virtue is to be ascribed
to the water; passing through the water of Baptism is to show our obedience to
the Lord’s command (Matt. 28: 19).
Again, as we turn to the words of the Lord (Matt. 18:
3 we read, - “Except ye be
converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of the Heavens.” Evidently, then, more is needed than
conversion, if we would enter that kingdom. We need the simplicity, the purity,
the humility, the childlike faith and innocence of little children, if we would
obtain an entrance into that kingdom.
Further, there must be no looking back when once we have set
out for that kingdom (Luke 9: 62). There must be a continuance in the
faith, even though we may be called upon to pass through much tribulation (Acts 14: 22). For though the Spirit of God may
bear witness with our spirits that we are children of God, we are not heirs of
God, and joint-heirs with Christ of His kingdom, unless we are willing to suffer with Him. But if we are, and do so
suffer, then indeed shall we be glorified with Him (Rom. 8: 17).
Let us remember also the solemn, awe-inspiring words with
which our Lord warns His disciples, that sloth and lawlessness will exclude
believers. “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of the Heavens, but he that doeth the will of My Father” (Matt. 7: 21). For, notice, there is no reference to
faith, or to eternal life, it is only “the Kingdom of the Heavens” which is in question in these
verses, and into which unworthy believers, even though they have accepted the
free gift of salvation, will be unable to enter, although they may have
professed devotion to their Lord; for His eyes of fire have scrutinized their
works and found them lacking in
sincerity and in obedience to his
Father’s will. And yet, how many true believers are failing to grasp the
import of these most solemn passages, and the teaching generally of the Master
and His disciples regarding these kingdom truths; but instead - thinking all is
well - are looking for the Lord to come at any moment to call them, and all
believers, to meet Him in the air, and to be with Him for ever! Oh, how
important, then, it is for us who know these things, to so watch and pray that
we may be accounted worthy to stand before the Son of Man when He comes, and,
rendering a good account of our stewardship, hear the “Well done,
good and faithful servant,” and enter with joy into His
Millennial Kingdom of the Heavens.
HAD IT NOT BEEN
Psalm 124: 1, 2
The author of these lines, who died after acute suffering,
sent them to us not long before his death. Above the poem these words are
written:- “This poem has cost me terrible baffling with the Evil One.” -Ed. [D.M. Panton.]
Had it not been for thorns that left me bleeding,
For bitter blasts that blew my will
aside,
I should have miss’d that tender love
and leading
That follow’d me to save my wandering
wide.
Had it not been for disappointment’s moulding,
For rased
ideals, for broken hopes so fair,
I should have been unconscious of
God’s holding
That lifted me from valleys of
despair.
Had it not been for dire and sore heart-burning,
For closed-in walls, and a depleted
store,
I should have fail’d to take the
God-ward turning
And miss’d the thirst to love Him and
adore.
Had it not been for earthly wealth withholden,
For paths of penury that seemed my
lot,
I should have unapprais’d God’s riches
golden,
And fail’d to gauge the truth, ‘He faileth
not.’
Had it not been for the One Hope of Glory
That the Lord Jesus Christ shall come
again,
I should have lost the heart of
Heaven’s story,
But now I know that He must come to reign.
Had it not been! O mercy grand and
glorious
Which proves the worth of what His
Word doth mean;
His blood-tears stain’d
the earth - and still victorious
Reveal what man, may be through
what has been!
- H. H. BROWNLOW.
DOCTOR NIEMOLLER
Solitary, persecuted, faithful to God,
Treading the way that the martyrs have
trod;
Bereft of all love, of children, of
home;
Enduring for Christ’s sake the prison
gloom;
Pacing his cell in the still watch of
the night,
Ambassador of God warring the fight;
Scorning his freedom to valiantly
stand
Zealous for God in a hostile land;
Sword of the Spirit, his weapon, his
guide,
Armour invulnerable whate’er betide:-
Fearless, undaunted, immovable, true,
Martin Niemoller,
our prayers are for you!
- D. GOREHAM.
* *
*
3
ONE IS TAKEN + 1
The appalling
fall in the Churches to-day; the all but universal undermining of belief in the
Word of God; the advance in all nations of an ever-growing lawlessness:- these
are but some of the symptoms that remind us of our Lord’s words, - “When these
things begin to come to pass,
LOOK up, and lift up your heads”
(Luke 21: 28). Look up for what? A rending heaven,
and a descending Christ. And the Lord gives what He reveals as a peculiarly
convincing proof of a closing crisis. “When the [fig tree’s] branch is now tender” - when
Now the Lord gives us a studied simile, revealing once again
that God acts on identical principles in different ages, so that what He has done - [in the past] - is a photograph of what He will do. “As were
the days of Noah, so shall be the presence of the Son of Man” (Matt. 24: 27). The deliverance in Noah’s day was
double: as a matter of historic fact, and whatever we may make of the fact,
there were two escapes, a heavenly escape and an
earthly escape, from the most awful disaster the world has ever known. “By faith
Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God translated him” (Heb. 11: 5). Here was a complete and miraculous
heavenly disappearance before the world-wide judgment of the Flood came. But
there was another deliverance in an earthly escape. “The
longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah,
while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water” (1 Pet. 3: 20). Here was a complete deliverance from
the Flood, but on earth. So, our Lord says, it will be again. The faithful of
God’s earthly people,
So now we confront the extraordinary act of God, which He is
about to repeat, creating a heavenly escape before our judgment Flood begins. “Then shall
two men be in a field; one is taken, and one is left: two women
shall be grinding at the mill; one is taken,
and one is left.” Obviously, therefore, the removal takes place before
God’s judgments have devastated earth’s fields and harvests; and while ordinary
household employments are going their normal round. We are at once startled by
the complete passivity of those removed. In counselling Israel how to escape,
our Lord says:- “When ye see the abomination of desolation” - that is, [within
their Temple, soon to be built in
the City of David, Jerusalem] - their own eyes will warn them - “then FLEE” - in active, passionate, muscular
flight: “let him that is in the field not return back to take his
cloak” (Matt.
24: 15). But in this field the labourer simply,
silently, utterly disappears. So history
repeats itself. Noah both built and launched the
*
Does this portend the scepticism of unrapt believers who no more accept the
Second Advent after the mysterious disappearance than before? On the other
hand, that tribulation ripens and awakens explains the seven raptures hinted at
in the Apocalypse: “when the grain is ripe, immediately he putteth forth the
sickle” (Mark
4:
29).
The removal is full of wonderful instruction. It is extraordinarily
significant that our Lord draws the rapt from
the humblest classes - farm labourers and peasant women. “Hearken,
my beloved brethren” - for it is a vital fact to know - “hath not God
chosen the poor of this world rich
in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?”
(Jas. 2: 5). And it is no mass removal: in this
field, a man is gone; in that home, a woman: that is all. And mentally, at the
moment, they are themselves utterly unprepared. Had they known the day, without doubt they would have been
gathered in assemblies of the saints everywhere for prayer; had they known the hour,
they would have been on their knees in the allotment, or beside the mill.
On the contrary, while the woman is grinding, she is gone. So
the act will take us completely by surprise. It is Elijah over again. “As they still
went on and talked, there appeared a chariot of fire” (2 Kings 2: 11) - his rapture suddenly stopped a
conversation. Luke’s example (17: 34) is still more significant: “there shall be two on one
bed” - a married couple: asleep, one is gone!
The lesson our Lord Himself draws therefore becomes
overwhelming. “Watch therefore: for ye
know not on what day your Lord cometh”: “your Lord” - that is, both
in the field, and both in the bed, are servants of Christ, needing to be
unceasingly watchful. For the removal, obviously, is no act of sovereign grace,
for then knowledge of the hour, and conditional watchfulness, would be
totally immaterial; conversion, not watchfulness, would be ample: on the
contrary, our ignorance (it is here assumed) can be met solely by perpetual
readiness. If conversion is the sole qualification for rapture, the worst
backslider is ‘ready’, and has never been anything else. The opposite is the lesson our Lord
Himself draws. “Therefore be ye also READY:
for in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh.” Obviously what ruled Enoch’s rapture
rules ours: “He was not found, because God
translated him: for before his translation he hath had witness borne to him THAT HE HAD BEEN WELL PLEASING UNTO GOD”
(Heb. 11:
5).
So the conditions of escape are explicit: for the Jew,
instant, obedient flight; for the [regenerate] Christian, unceasing
preparation of heart and life. To
put it beyond all doubt our Lord has elsewhere uttered two decisive words. “Watch ye,
and pray always” - whether we understand this as a
command to pray directly for removal, or not, in no way alters the truth stated
- “that ye may be ACCOUNTED
WORTHY to escape” - that is, the escape depends on the worthiness, and the worthiness depends
on the watching and the praying - “all these things that shall come to
pass upon the earth” - therefore it is a removal from the earth altogether: that is, it is the
heavenly escape - “and to be set [by angels] before the Son of man” (Luke 21: 36). Similar ‘worthiness’ brings a parallel reward. “Thou hast a few names in
Now we face the gravity of the facts. For what are the facts? The signs around us simply
palpitate with the imminence of the Advent: at any moment the removal may
happen: the whole world is conscious of imminent crisis. And what is the
attitude of the Churches? Of the larger groups - two only, the Plymouth Brethren and the Pentecostalists - accept, in their creed,
the Second Advent*; in all the
other groups, it is a scattered minority only that expect the Lord; and the immense majority of the Church of God deny any such return of
Christ at all.
A Bishop has expressed it thus:- “I hate the doctrine;
and I hate it on three grounds: first - it is pessimism; second - it disturbs
and divides our people; third - it cuts
the nerve of missions.” The Methodist
Episcopal Church (says Christianity To-day), revising their ritual for the Lord’s
Table, have omitted three words from 1 Cor. 11: 26 - “till he come”. And to cloud and darken it all still
further, the great majority of prophetic students,
while thoroughly fundamental and evangelical, openly and studiedly deny that
watchfulness has anything to do with rapture; conversion, they say, is the sole
qualification that decides the issue, or else (as Post-Tribulationists) that there is no escape at all - both
thus making our Lord’s own warnings of none effect by their
tradition. And just ahead lies the most awful [and
great] ‘tribulation’ eternity will ever know. These are the almost terrifying
facts we are facing.
* Churchmen themselves would be sharply
divided on the question whether the Prayer Book teaches the literal, physical
return of Christ.
But one joyous truth is over all. One is taken an unspecified one, and therefore any “one” - can perfectly prepare himself:
while we are not responsible for mass preparation, we can perfectly achieve our
own. Every believer can, if he chooses, obey his Captain’s command:- “Let your
loins be girded about, and your lamps burning;
and be ye yourselves like unto men looking for their lord.
Blessed are those servants whom the lord when he cometh shall FIND WATCHING” (Luke 12: 35). And lovingly to provoke us to this, our Lord sets exactly
between the two escapes, the earthly and the heavenly, and as the key-bolt to
both, one conditioning reminder:- “Remember
* It
is beautiful to note that since one is taken from field-labour and another from
slumber at night, the rapt are from both sides of the world; that is, they are
drawn from all countries - a simultaneous day and night then known only to
inspiration.
THE DISCIPLE OF GOD
Had all my way been cloudless, free
from care,
If all my life had been one answer’d prayer,
If for me sorrow ne’er had play’d a part,
No sadness left its imprint on my
heart;
Supposing skies of deepest azure blue
Had cheered life’s way without one
cloudy hue,
Supposing all my plans had been
well-set,
And I had known no jarring vain
regret:
What should I then have known of love
divine,
If victory over sin had ne’er been
mine ?
I thank Thee, Lord, for pain and solitude,
For all things that have moulded me
for good,
Nor do I crave that Thou shouldst lift
one load;
I ask not for a palm-strewn pilgrim
road:
This world is but a mirage void and
spent,
In Thee alone is fulness of content;
Were the whole wealth of all the world
my own,
I’d cast it down before Thy royal
Throne:
Then mould me by Thy chast’ning purity,
Do what Thou deemest
best - it comes from Thee.
- DORIS GOREHAM.
* *
*
4
THE WISE BUILDER + 1
The main
body of our Lord’s teaching, and the clearest of all his instructions on
practical living, are embodied for ever in the Sermon on the Mount; and His
whole revelation in the Sermon is based on a studied contrast of the Church’s
grace with
* The ‘rock’ on which the
believer is to build his conduct is thus Christ’s teaching; but the ‘rock’ on which he himself is already built, by the new
birth, is the person of Christ, Christ Himself. “The
rock here can hardly be primarily the person of Christ, as in 1 Cor. 10: 4, but is primarily
the word, wherein however He Himself is” (Lange).
It is first of all extremely important for all of us to master
the fact that our Lord is not distinguishing between believers and unbelievers
of the word He has uttered, but between hearers and doers of it. ‘Hearing’ is a
word He uses of faith. “He that is of God heareth the words of God: for this cause ye
hear them not, because ye are not
of God” (John 8: 47). Both groups which the Saviour is
visualizing listen attentively to their Lord speaking: both recognize that
these are commands to be obeyed by someone: both then leave the Mount to live their
life - that is, to build their house of conduct: one group reproduces the
Lord’s words in action; the other - possibly believing and warmly applauding
them - nevertheless acts, in the points named by our Lord, on other principles
of conduct, so building another house, a house on another foundation than the
Sermon on the Mount. It is extraordinarily illuminating of our Lord’s words
that a large section of some of the most Scriptural Christians in the world
pronounce the Sermon on the Mount as not for the Church, and therefore not to be obeyed by
us at all. The fact is, the
difficulty of living it is enormous. As a writer has said within the last few
weeks:- “Literally hundreds of volumes have been
written about the Sermon on the Mount, yet I read it through recently in eleven
minutes. You can read it quickly, but you must take a life time to try to live
it; and even then you will fail.”
Now a brief summary of our Lord’s main points will reveal at
once both the reason of their rejection, and the stupendousness of the
consequences. For example, if obeyed, they would make a ‘
(1) “It was said to them of old
time, Thou shalt not kill: but I say
unto you that every one who is angry
with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment” (Matt. 5: 21).
(2) “Ye have heard
that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
but I say unto you” that a look can be adultery (5: 27).
(3) “Ye have heard
that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt
perform unto the Lord thine oaths: but I say
unto you, Swear
not at all” (5: 33).
(4) “Ye have heard
that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” - exact justice: “but I say unto you, Resist not him that
is evil” -
utter grace (5: 38).
(5) “Ye have heard
that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy: but I
say unto you, Love your enemies” (5: 43).
(6) “Lay not up
for yourselves treasures upon the earth but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (6: 19).
(7) “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you,
so do ye also
unto them” (7: 12).
Our Lord summarizes the Sermon as the standard of right conduct for entrance into the Kingdom. “I say unto you, that except your
righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees” - the standard of the Law,
immeasurably excelled by the standard of the Sermon - “ye” - the disciples
whom He is addressing - “shall in no wise
enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
Over against this marvellous revelation, embodying love in action, we are met with every
reason why we should not obey:- ‘It is a noble ideal,
but impracticable; it is for Jewish disciples before the Church was
founded, and therefore it is not for
us; it is a revelation of world-law
when the Millennial Kingdom shall be established; the commands in it are to be taken figuratively, not literally’:- the complete
difference of these reasons for non-obedience proving at once that they are
merely attempted escapes from the obvious. The warning of the Apostle James (1: 23) springs into light:- “Be ye doers
of the word, and not hearers only,
deluding your own selves.” *
* One example of non-obedience - “Lay not
up for yourselves treasure” - will be sufficient. We could name leading
Second Advent teachers and foremost Evangelists, including leaders among the
Brethren, who in the last fifty years have died worth anything between £10,000
and £100,000, amassed by themselves and not inherited or received by gift.
The problem each of us has to solve is - Were they justified, or were they not?
Now this Sermon, preached wherever Christ is preached
throughout the whole world and identified with Him throughout all time, faces
every hearer; and every Christian hearer is constructing a building - his
religious conduct, enshrining his life - and some believers are building on the Sermon, that is, living it. In this case the life
is built, all down the years, out, of these sayings: it is not believing them,
nor accepting them, nor admiring them, nor even expounding and teaching them,
which our Lord describes as wise architecture, but doing them: “Every one which heareth these words of mine,
AND DOETH THEM,
shall be likened unto a wise man, which built his house upon the rock.” All the hearers are able to build,
and all as a matter of fact are building; the foolish believer builds as
carefully on the sand as the wise man on the rock - sand can look like rock;
and the house we build reveals our wisdom or our folly. If our conduct is to
stand on rock, we must simply obey
Christ. “Ye are my friends, if ye” - not quote or approve or even preach, but - “DO the things which I command you” (John 15: 14).
The Lord most carefully reveals the consequences of how we
build. “The rain descended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house.” Throughout all the ages the believer
has had to stand up against the brunt of a hostile world; the subtle floods of
the flesh; the hurricanes of Satan: and countless buildings, within the
The Lord’s tremendous revelation of the value of living the
Sermon now shines out simply priceless. “The rain descended, and the floods came, and the
winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded
upon THE ROCK.” This believer ‘digs deep’: the Sermon on the Mount deals with
the depths of our being - cutting away our lusts, our ambitions, our
worldliness, and introducing an amazing standard of spiritual life. The safe
depth of the structure is specially revealed in Luke. “He is like a
man building a house, who digged and
went deep; and when a flood arose, the stream
brake against that house, and could not shake
it: because it had been well builded”
(Luke 6:
48). He only digs deep whose living gets
down to the central realities of the spirit as expressed in our Lord’s
commands; and sustaining grace confirms obedience, all the way: God’s grip on our conduct corresponds with our grip on Christ’s words. And the Lord’s summary reveals the enormous
revelation that if we build on the Sermon, and even if we are in the Great Tribulation,
our house stands. No storm can wreck it.
So the Saviour warns us of the consequence of hearing,
believing, admiring, but not doing these sayings. “Every one that heareth these sayings
of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand; and [the elements] smote upon that house, and it
fell: and great was
the fall thereof.” All the hearers are equally skilled in building: where
alone they differ is on what they build; and the second class - building on anything
but the Sermon on the Mount, however high the ethics or sublime the philosophy
- build, our Lord says, on sand. “We may build, as our
little children do on the seashore, our sand houses, and we may pile them up
very quickly too, and be very pleased with them, but they will all come down as
the tide advances” (C. H.
Spurgeon). The consequent crash is terrific. “GREAT WAS THE FALL THEREOF.” What Christ says is rock: what man [very often] says is sand.
Thus, dropping our Lord’s figure, we have the unutterably
solemn dual truth expressed elsewhere, by Christ Himself, in plain language.
(1) “That servant which knew his lord’s will, and made not ready, NOR DID ACCORDING TO HIS WILL, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did
things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten” - for, naturally, it is the very duty
of the servant of God to find our his Lord’s will - “with few
stripes” (Luke 12: 47) - for the other servant consciously disobeyed, he
unconsciously. And here is the golden reverse. “He that hath my commandments,
and keepeth them, HE IT IS THAT LOVETH ME; and I will love him, and will
manifest myself unto him” (John 14: 21).*
* That the Sermon is the standard for
the [Millennial] Kingdom is seen with remarkable clearness by a great Continental scholar.
“What is to form the object and aim of our striving is
the Messianic Kingdom, the becoming partakers in it, the being admitted into it, and the moral righteousness which God imparts
to the believer to assist
him to attain the Kingdom” (Meyer). It is needless to add that the Apostolic Epistles are in
exact accord with the general teaching of our Lord.
-------
DIG FOR VICTORY
Supposing Him to be the Gardener. - John 20: 15.
Dig, Lord, for Victory in my life,
Let sins like weeds be seen;
Cleanse Thou the soil of this my
heart,
Then, Lord, shall I be clean.
Dig, Lord, for Victory in my life,
Sow seed - Thy Word - within;
Thus hidden there to germinate,
That so I may not sin.
Dig, Lord, for Victory in my life,
Grant me Thy constant care;
So growing in Thy Grace, to be
A plant to Thee most fair.
Dig, Lord, for Victory in my life,
Plant seed, and prune, and mould,
That to Thy glory fruit I yield
No less than a hundredfold.
- H. F. WEATHERLEY.
* *
*
5
LITTLE CHILDREN, ANTICHRIST COMETH
One of
the most solemn of all passages the Apostle John addresses to the ‘little
children’. “Little children, it is the last
hour” (1
John 2: 18). Doubtless the aged Apostle’s tenderness for all Christians,
especially his own converts who would be certain to read his letter, makes him
address all with the diminutive of love. But when we remember that only a few
verses earlier he distinguishes between ‘fathers’,
‘young men’ and ‘little
children’ (vers. 12, 14), it becomes apparent that
young believers, ‘little children’ in the Faith
whatever their physical age, are at least involved. We are wise to take it in
its double sense:- all believers, to all of whom the aged Apostle is tenderly
affectionate; and young believers, who will in all probability actually meet
the drama. None need the counsel more.
The Apostle’s first word is a drastic statement of the Advent.
“Little
children, it is the last hour.” The clock now
points to the closing minutes before midnight; all that leads up to the new age
has nearly run out; and at any moment the last crisis will be here. Young
believers do well to grip that Advent truth revolutionizes the Christian life. Dr.
H. W. Frost, the representative of the China Inland Mission in
But immediately the blackest of all clouds mounts the
horizon:- “Little children Antichrist is coming.” The word ‘anti-christ’ means more
than a deadly enemy of Christ: it means a substitute for Christ, claiming, and obtaining, the worship of the
world. It means the eradication of the Christian Faith, as we already see it in
portions of the world. The Supreme
Evangelical Church Council of
Next we have a sudden vision of an evil crowd in that last
hour. “Even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour.” And how do they reveal themselves? By a vast mass movement out of the
* Simon Magus, the
reputed founder of Gnosticism, was baptized into public fellowship, yet Peter
says to him:- “Thy silver perish with thee: I see thou art in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:
20).
** A German writer says that thousands of
young Nazis have left the Church. Some have been compelled to do so. Others
have been strongly advised to give up their faith, for otherwise they would
gain no promotion. In the training camps, church-going is forbidden. Hitler’s
bodyguard left the Church in a block.
But now the Apostle opens a harbour of refuge for the Little
Children, and slips in a word of golden comfort. “Ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” The ‘anointing’ is the Holy
Ghost in [His instantaneous
and] miraculous gifts, by His on-fall or by the laid-on hands of apostles,*
which produced the infallibility of which John speaks: “the anointing
which ye received of him abideth in you, and
ye need not that any one teach you.” We of the modern Church are [presently] without
this anointing, but we have the fruit of that Unction - holy scripture; and we
have the Holy Spirit’s indwelling to
apply that Scripture to brain and heart and life. Here is our perfect harbour
in all the last storms - the Book, in the hands of the Spirit. “He will guide
you into all the truth” (John 16: 13); “He shall teach
you all
things, and bring all things to your remembrance” (14: 26).
[* See Vol. 15 No 24
above.]
Now comes a sharp warning as pregnant and explicit as could be
uttered. “Who is the liar, but he that
denieth that Jesus is the Christ?” Who utters the supreme lie but he who denies the supreme
truth ? All revealed truth is what it is
because Christ is what He is; and to
deny that Jesus is the Christ is to smash the only ladder between earth and
heaven. But we need to distinguish most carefully: not he that doubteth, or
even disbelieveth, but he that denieth: the studied, deliberate, public denial
of the Messiahship of Jesus concentrates, in itself, all falsehood. “This is the antichrist” - the summary
and essence of the coming hell on earth - “even he that denieth the Father and
the Son”. As Jesus
said, “I am the truth,” so to deny Him is not to deny a truth, but all truth; and therefore he who makes this denial sums up in his own
person all falsehood: he is not a liar, but the liar. So then we get here a most precious revelation of the limits
of tolerance all who believe that Jesus is the Christ are in the Church all who
doubt it are in the world; and all who
deny it are antichrists.
The Apostle now presses home our happy duty. It is to act in
an exact reverse of the Apostates. The apostates lived once in the bosom of the
Church; their corrupting influence was a constant peril; their awful example
might influence young and inexperienced believers: “these things
have I written unto you concerning them that would lead you astray”:
and finally, they abandoned the Church and the Truth. How then shall we
meet the danger? “As for you, let that abide in
you which ye heard from the beginning.” Keep the
truth you have,
and what will be the consequence? “If that which ye heard from the
beginning abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son, and in the Father.” We must be enclosed in Christ, like a jewel in its case, if
we are to meet the Antichrist; and abiding in the Church and in the Truth we
shall abide in God.
So the Apostle closes with the Scripture’s invariable
invocation. “And now, my
little children, abide in him”: why? “that, if he shall be manifested” - therefore Christ might have
appeared at any moment since John wrote- “we may have boldness” - we, for even an Apostle is in danger - “and not be
ashamed before him in his parousia:” not shrink with shame from Him, as a guilty thing surprised (Bp. Westcott).* Lange says,
very suggestively: [The Greek word ...] “is literally frankness,
free-spokenness; then confident assurance with respect to all the threats, and
terrors of the judgment.”** Abiding in Him
bears fruit in confidence at last before Him.
* So Dr. R. S.
Candlish:- “It is a very
strong expression. To turn with shame from Him; shrink with shame from Him,
flee and seek to hide in shame from Him at His coming.”
** “The word is literally ‘liberty of
speech to speak out all that we think’.
It denotes the entire freedom with which we unburden, in the presence of an
intimate friend, all which can weigh upon our heart.” (Neander.) So Haupt:- “If we have continued in Him, we shall be able to answer with perfect
tranquillity of mind, unqualified by fear and trembling, the questions of our
righteous judge.”
So then our infallible test and our magnificent duty are one -
right conduct. “If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one also that doeth righteousness is
begotten of him.” Are we born again? or are we going to move with the mass movement to
apostasy? How shall we know? By our ‘doing righteousness’; our actively living a reborn life. The ‘doing’ is emphatic: righteousness is not
only to be known, or praised, or confessed, or preached: it is to be done; and since no man has by nature the
power to do right, if he is doing it he must be born again. And again, how shall we be unashamed before Him at His
coming? Righteous conduct is not only the proof of our re-birth, but our sole
preparation for confidence, boldness, an outspoken report in the presence of
our Lord.
* * *
6
SCRIPTURAL PACIFISM
All we
who, while fully maintaining the State’s right and duty to wield the sword (
The horror of the fact is bound to
impress. A recent issue of the Bible
Society’s organ, The Bible in the
World, says:- “September, 1938, will not soon be forgotten by multitudes in
It is certain that the number of
Christians is increasing who find it impossible to reconcile grace and war. Mr.
J. W. Graham, Principal of Dalton Hall,
It is very remarkable that in 1930 the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Churches affirmed that war is
incompatible with the teaching and
example of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is in accordance with the Christian teaching of the first three
centuries, as shown in the writings of Justin
Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Athanasius, Lactantius and St. Basil. Tertullian wrote that Christians ought not to hold office nor yet
serve in the army. “Jesus Christ, by disarming Peter,
disarmed every soldier afterwards. Can one who professes the peaceful doctrine
of the Gospel be a soldier, when it is his duty not so much as to go to law?
Our religion teaches us that it is
better to be killed than to kill.” Clement of Alexandria mentioned that “those who were the followers of peace use none of the
instruments of war”. Origen wrote:- “We no longer take a
sword against a nation, nor do we learn any more to make war, having become
sons of peace for the sake of Jesus.” Numbers suffered
martyrdom rather than accept military service, saying (to use the
words of one early martyr):- “I cannot serve as a
soldier; I am a Christian.”
-------
THE LORD IS AT HAND
In these words I have a weapon in my hand of no common edge
and temper. I can go to the struggling saint, against whom the battle seems to
go hardly, and say, “Faint not, the Lord is at hand,
and He will bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” To the saint, wearied
with a vexing world, fretted with its vanities, and troubled with the
thickening darkness of its midnight, I can say, “Be of
good cheer; the Lord is at hand; but a little while, and the world shall cease
to vex; sooner than you think, the morn will break.” To the suffering
saint, I can say, “Weep not, the Lord is at hand; the
torn heart shall be bound up, and the bitterness of bereavement forgotten in
the joy of union forever.” To the flagging saint, heavy and slothful in
his walk, I can say, “Up, for the Lord is at hand;
work while it is day; look at a dying world, all unready for its judge; cast
off your selfishness and love of ease.” To the covetous saint, I can
say, “The Lord is coming. This is no time for hoarding
now. Heap not up treasure for the last days.”
-
HORATIUS BONAR, D.D.
* *
*
7
OUR JUDGMENT AS BELIEVERS
By LT.-COL. G.
F. POYNDER
In
vision the seer of Patmos views the Lord of the Harvest as a Son of Man sitting
on a cloud waiting for the word from the inner
1
Hence we may conclude all believers, bondslaves, and true
Christians arise at the first resurrection, having heard the Lord’s Word of
Command; but those who are not counted worthy to stand before Him as unprofitable, wicked and slothful servants, are not
only deprived of their reward, their crown, but are also cast for a time, we
know not for how long, into the outer
darkness or prison house, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,
till they have paid their debt to the uttermost farthing;1 awaiting
the second or general resurrection, after the millennial age; when they
will arise as possessors of eternal life - if their names have not been blotted
out of the Book of life; 2 - and thus they
will escape the condemnation 3 of those whose
names are not found in that Book, and who
are, therefore, “cast into the lake of fire.”4 This is “the second
death.” It becomes,
then, a matter of vital importance that all believers, bondslaves and
Christians take most earnest heed to the Lord’s very solemn warning as given to
us who are disciples - not to the world -
in Matt. 5: 29, 30,
and Mark 9: 43-50.
Again, why is a special promise given to the Overcomer, that he shall not be hurt of
the second death;5 and, to the one
who is worthy of the first resurrection, that “on such the second death hath no power”? 6
Further, the qualifications for those who
have part in, and obtain their reward at, the first resurrection are
plainly laid down. They must “be
converted and become as little children,” 7 - “and if
children ... heirs of God and joint heirs with
Christ; if so be
that we suffer with Him that we may
also be glorified together.”8 They must be born “out of Water and the Spirit.” 9 They sleep
through (the agency) of Jesus. (Gk.) They hear His Voice when He descends “from heaven
with a shout ... and with the trump of God.” 10
They are his witnesses, martyrs who “were tortured not accepting
deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.” 11 “Beheaded for
the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God,” which neither worshipped the
Antichrist nor his image, nor received his mark upon their foreheads nor in
their hands, “on such the second death hath no power”.12 They held fast and permitted no man
to take their crowns.13 Again it is
well to remember that the Apostle Paul, by precept and example, shows the
Saints of God the great importance of holy living, and the terrible
consequences of disobedience to the laws of God, e.g., the case of the
incestuous believer who was to be delivered
“unto Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be
saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” He urges also that the greatest care was to be exercised in
building on the one and only Foundation, that which would stand the fire, which
“shall
try every man’s work; ... if ... (it) shall be burned, he shall
suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved;
yet so as through fire.”14
1 Matt. 5: 25,
26
and Matt 18: 33-35. 2 Rev.
3: 5. 3 Comp. John 5: 24. 4 Comp. John 5:
28,
29,
with Rev. 20: 12-15. 5 Rev.
2: 11.
6 Rev. 20: 6. 7 Matt.
18: 3. 8 Rom. 8: 17. 9 John 3: 5. 10 Comp. John 5: 25, and 1 Thess. 4: 13-18. 11 Heb.
11: 35.
12 Rev. 20: 4, 6.13 Rev.
3: 11.
14. 2 Cor. 3: 11-15 (Gk.)
Are these solemn passages culled from the teaching of our Lord
and His Apostle to be treated as mere platitudes, or discarded as hyperbole?
Nay. Rather may we, as His bond-slaves, take the solemn warnings to heart, that
when we come to appear before His Judgment-Seat, we may render a good account
of our stewardship, and enter into the joy of our Lord. Oh, dear friends, is it
not of vital importance we should ask ourselves as before God, am I following
along that narrow, pressed-in way? “which leadeth into life”? for there be but few that are doing so. Or have we
enlisted under His banner, but are walking the broad easy way amusing
ourselves, living for the world, its pleasures, its frivolities, refusing to do
what He would have us to do, and doing that we want to do?
In a word will our works stand the fire? Are we obeying the
command given to us in Luke 21: 36, and 1 John 2: 28? If not, how can we expect to stand before the Judgment seat
of Christ? How can we hope to escape the Great Tribulation? How can we hope to
have confidence, when called to stand before that awful Judgment seat? I
beseech you don’t neglect these important questions. Settle the answers as in
the presence of God, now; and from this time forth may you determine, as never
before, so to run the race set before us, as earnestly desirous of winning the
prize of the up-calling of God in Christ Jesus. So to fight the good fight of
faith, “not as
one that beateth the air”,
but keeping under our bodies, and bringing them into subjection, denying
ourselves, bearing our Cross. So may we be more than conquerors through Him Who
loved us, ever remembering that He has said, “Behold I come quickly and My
reward is with Me, to give every man according as his work shall be”!1
1 1 Cor. 3: 11-15
(Gk.). From Prophetic Studies, Wm. May & Co., Aldershot,
* *
*
8
THE REBUILT
By
D. M.
PANTON, B.A.
As far
back as two decades ago the Freemasons of Boston applied to the American
Government for the incorporation of a company to take in hand the rebuilding of
the
* The Graphic, Sept. 4,1909.
HEROD
After five centuries of existence, the
* H. Graetz’ History of the Jews, vol. 2, p. 112.
DESTRUCTION
The destruction of our Lord - “destroy this temple”
(John 2:
19),
“the Greater than the temple” (Matt. 12:
6) - was the destruction of Zerubbabel’s
WORSHIP
The coming rebuilding of the
THE IMAGE
So again, the crowning sacrilege which our Lord reveals,
history has already foreshadowed. In A.D.
40 the Emperor Caligula
determined to set up a colossal statue of himself in the
So our Lord says:- “When ye see the abomination” - a Scripture word for an idol - “of desolation” - that desolates: [Christian] martyrs are made in thousands by the refusal to worship it - “STANDING IN THE HOLY PLACE, let them that are in
BEFORE THE TRIBULATION
So therefore the
[* See ‘Ceil’ / ‘Ciel’. - “To overlay the inner roof of a room, generally to plaster
it.” (Dict. Def.)]
FOUNDATIONS
It is remarkable how the way opens practically for a re-built
THE COST
Distressed Jewry, deprived of its immense wealth, is hardly
likely to rival Solomon’s expenditure: nevertheless, modern - [underground gas and oil] - resources may not lag behind. A modern estimate, approved by
leading Zionists including Dr. Gaster, states,
in the background, that King David had accumulated a sum not less than several
hundred millions sterling, and Solomon’s personal income was £3,000,000 a year.
It appears that Solomon set 30,000 men to cut timber; 80,000 men to quarry
stone; 70,000 stone-carriers; and over all these 3,300 foremen. Now the timber
cutters worked in shifts: ten thousand worked in
* The discussion just held in Parliament
on the future of
THE MILLENNIAL
It seems certain that the
[* See David Baron’s ‘Visions and
Prophecies of Zechariah’(page 190):- “Having
placed this crown upon the head of Joshua, the prophet was, by the Lord’s
command, to deliver to him the following message: ‘Thus
speaketh Jehovah of hosts, saying,
Behold the Man whose name is the Branch’
and - [Jesus our LORD, and coming ‘Christ’
/ ‘Messiah’ - the divine world-Ruler)] - ‘He shall grow up out of His place, and He shall build the
-------
BENEATH THE
About the middle of the nineteenth century, Dr.
R. G. Barclay, a missionary, was walking outside the walls of
*
* *
As one walks through these old quarries, he wonders how the
stone could have been dislodged, since the quarrying of Solomon’ day was
carried on hundreds of years before the use of blasting powder. An examination
of the quarries reveals the ancient method. The workmen would cut into the rock
so as to make slots on about four sides of a piece of stone. Then wooden wedges
would be driven in on one side, and water poured on the wedges. As the wood
swelled, it would break the stone free from the native rock. We could see the
holes into which the wooden wedges had been driven. Dr. Barclay says:- “For some time we were almost overcome with feelings of awe
and admiration (and I must say apprehension, too, from the immense and
impending vaulted roof), and felt quite at a loss to decide in which direction
to wend our way. There is a constant and in many places very rapid descent from
the entrance to the termination, the distance between which two points, in a
nearly direct line, is seven hundred and fifty feet; and the cave is upwards of
three thousand feet in circumference, supported by great numbers of rude
natural pillars”.
*
* *
When referring to Himself, our Lord said: “The stone
which the builders rejected, the same is become
the head of the corner” (Matt. 21: 42). Apparently this is a reference to an incident which is
believed to have occurred in connection with Solomon’s quarry and the building
of Solomon’s
The workmen below the ground in the quarries finally set
themselves to the task of fashioning the cornerstone for Solomon’s great
structure. For a long time they laboured, and at last it was finished and sent
up to the surface. The labourers who were working on the
Years later the
With great joy it was brought back to the
-------
AFFLICTION AND GLORY
“Affliction worketh glory:” “our light affliction worketh an
exceeding weight of glory;” “our affliction, which is but for a moment,
worketh an eternal weight of glory.” Every word is a marked and
beautiful antithesis. Strange to say, the Apostle describes the glory by an old
earthly metaphor, nay, by the very metaphor he used to apply to his
afflictions; he calls it a weight. We speak of a weight of care, a weight of
sorrow: a weight of anxiety: but a weight of glory! surely that is a startling
symbol. We do not think of a man as being crushed, overwhelmed, weighed down by
glory. We should have thought that the old metaphor of care would have been
repulsive, that it would have been cast off like a worn-out garment and
remembered no more for ever. Nay, but the old garment is not worn out when the
glory comes, it is only transfigured; that which made thy weight of care is
that which makes thy weight of glory. Thou needest not a new object but a new
light - to see by day what thou hast only seen in darkness. Thou who are
weighted by some heave burden, pause ere thou asketh its removal; thy weight of
present care may be thy weight of future glory - may be, nay, must be when
light shall dawn.
- GEORGE MATHESON, D.D.
* *
*
9
DELAYED JUDGEMENT
The
Bible is most wonderful in the care with which it safeguards us against
dangers; and Jonah, seated on a hill overlooking
Our modem parallel is exact. For more than a century ordinary
men, and not prophetic students only, have watched a doomed world. More than a
century ago William Pitt said:- “There is scarcely anything around us but ruin and despair.”
Thirty years later (in 1819) Lord Grey
said:- “Everything is tending to a convulsion.”
The Duke of Wellington wrote on the
eve of his death:- “I thank God I shall be spared from
seeing the consummation of ruin that is gathering around.” Lord Shaftesbury
said in 1848:- “Nothing can save the
Now we turn to Jonah. Jonah is a complex character, so full of
contradictory qualities, differing convictions and moods such as are in all of
us, as to be curiously instructive. He is a true man of God; he is a fearless
prophet, standing alone among a hostile people; he is a man of constant prayer;
and he knows God - “Thou art a gracious God, and full of compassion, slow to
anger and plenteous in mercy, and repentest thee of
the evil” (ver. 2): nevertheless he is also possessed of an overmastering
passion for justice; and he has a passionate nature; with the consequence that
he is profoundly upset when he finds that no judgment falls on the wicked city.
“It
displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry” (ver.
1). He is so profoundly upset that he
asks for death; and he is so incredulous of the averted doom that he seats
himself above the city, in the passionate expectation that [God’s] judgment will yet fall, - “till he might
see what would become of the city.”
Now here is the exact crux of the problem for ourselves. Jonah
loved justice more than he loved mercy; and as we watch the appalling
atrocities in Europe and in
* Indignation at the passivity of God in view of horrible modem
wickedness is a perfectly possible temptation. A Russian Christian woman’s
experience (while God is silent) is but one of hundreds of thousands:- “I was transferred from prison to prison, and in prisons from
cell to cell, in order to draw from me a confession concerning the brethren and
‘secrets’ concerning the Lord’s work, although there were none of which they
did not know. Each succeeding prison and cell was harder to bear than the
preceding one. This was done on purpose, of course. I can describe the
experiences in the first cell only. The others are too horrible to even think
about. The cell was full of lice and bed-bugs, which literally threw themselves
on me and covered my body. Soon, not a sound spot on my skin was to be found.
All that I could do was to keep my hands moving over my face, in order to keep
the lice from filling my eyes, nose and mouth. My nerves began to give in. I
unclothed, but that did not help. Finally, almost in despair, I dressed again,
and began to pound on the iron door of my cell, as though I were insane. The
guard opened it, and angrily shouted in as to what was the matter. When I
complained, he handed me a bottle of kerosene. Instead of sprinkling it over
me, I poured the contents over my dress. The blood-thirsty insects stopped
torturing me, but as soon as the kerosene dried up they revived, and the
suffering continued.” Imprisonment continued for one and a half years.
The tender rebuke, the gentle challenge to self-examination,
not having proved enough, God resorts to a kindergarten lesson for His immature
child. “The Lord God prepared a gourd” to canopy
Jonah’s withered booth, and deliver him from sunstroke, implying God’s tender
care for His tired child: “so Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the gourd,”
and enjoyed a whole day’s deliverance from the burning heat. The Prophet who
grudged mercy to
Now the Most High draws the lesson from the perished gourd.
“Thou hast had pity on the gourd”- you would have spared it, a worthless weed,
if you could; a gourd so miraculously grown that you have had no chance so to
water or to cultivate it as to make it a pet of your own - “and should not I have pity on Nineveh, the great city?” not the weed of a night, but a vast
community, full, not of withering leaves, but of immortal souls.
But there is yet another fact. An extraordinarily beautiful
revelation of God stands forth in this Book alone, where
So the whole purpose of this Book of the Bible is to put us
right, and to keep us right, in our attitude to judgment; and therefore it is
full of God. God commissions, God warns, God pleads, God reasons, God prepares
a gourd, God makes a worm, God repents, God saves. Not once are the People of
God even named throughout the Book: it is concerned solely with what should be
our master-emotion for a lost world, in close imitation of God. The Apostle
Peter puts it no less graphically. “In the last days mockers shall come with mockery, saying, where is the promise of his coming?” where are the
judgments you foretold that are to set the world right with the return of
Christ? And what is the answer? “The Lord is not slack concerning his
promise; but is long-suffering to you-ward,
not wishing that any should perish, but that” - like Nineveh - “ALL SHOULD COME TO REPENTANCE. But the day of the Lord will come” (2 Pet. 3: 9). The fact is overwhelming that, at
this moment, exactly in proportion as we have the heart of God, and
independently of
all prophecy, we shall desire the
salvation of absolutely every soul that is alive.
Canon Liddon’s
words are very moving:- “It will not be the first
moral catastrophe that has profoundly affected the destiny of man, though it
will be beyond all comparison the greatest. True, it is not yet upon us; but it
is surely, silently, in preparation. As the moments pass they bring us nearer
one by one to the Second Advent. As lives are lived and then drop silently out
of sight, as actions are done or left undone, one way or the other they tend to
make the judgment more imperative, more inevitable. Each man, each nation,
lives, and by living brings it nearer; its causes are ever accumulating new
force and urgency; the angels are ever moving about silently, making the
necessary dispositions. And at last their task will be achieved, and the judge
will come. One cause still delays it
- the love of God.”
-------
INVITATION
No one is forcing Christianity on other people. If we open a
Christian school, nobody is obliged to attend it and even if one does attend,
he need not become a Christian. If we open a Christian hospital no one needs to
go into the hospital. If we publish the Bible, nobody is required to read it.
There is no fair sense in which force can be used with reference to mission
work. Non-Christian people can take or leave the missionary message precisely
as anybody in Christian lands can take or leave the message of any minister if
he chooses.
- CLELAND B.
McAFEE.
* *
*
10
SPEED IN PROPHECY + 2
“I do not believe,” says Lord Baldwin, “that we yet realize the
magnitude of the growth of knowledge that has taken place in three generations,
in the 60 or 80 years drawing to a conclusion; our whole view of the world has
been revolutionized in that time, our whole view of history, our whole view of
science, our whole conception of the material world, our whole knowledge of the
growth of progress.”
In 1916 there was held in
* National
Geographic, Mar., 1916.
** The Watchman-Examiner. Sept. 29, 1938.
The Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Daniels, continues:- “The prophet
says, - ‘The
chariots rage in the streets; they rush to and fro in the broadways; the appearance of them is
like torches; they
run like the lightnings’ (Nahum 2: 4). It is indeed wonderful what some of these ancient men
foresaw. Did Nahum get a foreglimpse of automobiles when he wrote those words?
Did Jeremiah get a foreglimpse of the airplane as an army scout when he wrote:-
‘Behold he shall fly as an
eagle and shall spread his wings over
So another prophet says:- “Many shall run to and fro” (Dan.
12:
4) - literally, “hither and thither with speed.” Daniel’s words were long ago
explained by Gesenius thus:- “to run up and down, to go to and fro, hither and thither in
haste, to go over the earth in travel.” In Nah. 2: 3 we read:- “The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation.”
One rendering is:- “with fire of steel” or “fire encased in steel”. “The
chariots rage in the streets.” It means “they
go at breakneck speed”. It is the same word that is used of John’s
furious driving. “They jostle one another in the
broad-way ... the appearance of them is like
torches” certainly a suggestion of to-day’s glaring headlights. “They run like the lightning.” Here is a prophecy of
great chariots of steel, propelled by fire, bumping one another even in broad
highways.
As far back as the seventeenth century, the distinguished
scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, studied
this prophecy of Nahum, and he caught a glimpse of the prophet’s vision of
speed. He wrote:- “I am convinced that there will be a
marvellous increase in the speed of transportation on the earth. I believe, in
the providence of God, though the method now be entirely hidden, men will yet
travel at the rate of 50 miles an hour.” For making this statement the
noted infidel, Voltaire, held
The prophet Nahum (2: 5) sees some
strange sights. They are also familiar to the people of to-day. “They shall
stumble in their walk; they shall make haste to
the wall thereof; and the covering shall be
prepared: the gates of the rivers shall be
opened, and the palace shall be dissolved,”
-------
ANTICHRISTS
This is the antichrist, even he that denieth
the Father and the Son. 1 John 2: 22.
GNOSTICS. - “They say
[the followers of Carpocrates]
that Jesus was the son of Joseph and born after the
manner of other men” - Irenaeus.
Only human. “In the fifteenth year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar God came down to
MOHAMMEDANS. - “Verily
Christ Jesus the son of Mary is the apostle of God. ... Say not, There are three
Gods. ... God is but one God. Far be it from Him that He should have a son.” Koran, ch. iv.
SWEDENBORGIANS - “Jehovah
God was made man, and man God, in one person ... like the
union of soul and body. ... The notion
concerning the birth of the Son of God from eternity, and that this Son
descended and assumed the Humanity, may be compared with the fabulous stories
of the ancients.” - The True Christian
Religion, pp. 124, 218.
COMMUNISTS. - “Here is a new mystery - that of
Divinity dividing itself into two halves. ... God the Father, seeing, from the
height of His eternal splendour, that the poor God the Son, flattened out and
astounded by His fall, is so plunged and lost in matter, that having reached the
human state, He has not yet recovered Himself, decides to come to His aid.” Bakunin, God and the State, p. 31.
THEOSOPHISTS. - “To
identify the Lord with the historical Jesus, maintaining the latter to be very
Deity, Jehovah in person, who assumed a fleshly body, and manifested Himself as
a man, in order to save men from Hell, and commanded His disciples to call Him
Lord, is to fall into a common error.” - The
ATHEISTS. - “Jesus was some fine sort of man
perhaps, but our Saviour of the Trinity is a dressed-up inconsistent effigy of
amiability, a monstrous hybrid of men, an infinity making significant promises
of helpful miracles for the cheating of simple souls, an ever absent help in
times of trouble.” - H. G. WELLS, Outline of History.
* *
*
11
PERSECUTION + 1
It is
wonderfully suggestive, for us who probably stand within sight of the last persecutions under Antichrist, that the Apostle
Peter wrote his Epistles to prepare his readers for the persecutions of the
very Man himself - in his first advent - Nero.
Dean Alford says:- “I should place the writing of Peters first Epistle during
the later years of Nero, but before
the persecution related by Tacitus
broke out. The odium genens hamani which justified the victimizing of the
Christians, was gathering, and producing its anticipatory fruits here and
there, wherever circumstances were favourable.” Exactly so we watch - [today in 2024] -the same gathering hate, an identical ‘sadism’ with persecutions breaking out where
possible; therefore, with a doubled preciousness we can actually hear the
counsel of God on how to meet the identical persecution, given through an
Apostle who himself was crucified.
A never-to-be-forgotten background Peter erects as the setting
for all possible experiences of the
The Apostle opens with an utterance that covers all the
centuries, and all the countries, in which there has been no public persecution
by the State. “And who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good”, or - as the Greek emphasis is, if goodness is
always that at which you aim. All that a righteous government asks is
honest citizenship; and Christian self-control, cleanness, uprightness - wholly
apart from the Church’s spiritual intercession with God - is a tremendous civil
asset, and meets all the requirements of good government.
But history is studded with the fact that governments arise
who do harm the harmless; and opposition,
public or private, is so general to the Christian Faith that Paul says:- “All that would
live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Tim.
3:
12). So therefore, at once confronted with
persecution, we at once meet its beatitude. “But and if ye should suffer for
righteousness’ sake, BLESSED ARE YE.” Here is a startling development. Suffering here is
assumed, notwithstanding [our] righteousness; nay, actually for righteousness - as Paul says, “I suffer
hardship unto bonds, as a malefactor” (2 Tim. 2: 9); and with no deliverance by God. Peter himself had known a
supernatural opening of prison doors by a liberating angel; yet his Lord had
also told him of his helpless carrying
to crucifixion. And the Lord Jesus, giving the same beatitude, reveals that
He Himself is the source of the trouble. “Blessed are ye when
men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, FOR MY SAKE:
rejoice, and be
exceeding glad; for great is your reward in
heaven” (Matt. 5: 11). As Commissioner Lamb, of the Salvation Army, has just said:- “I am inclined to agree that, at the present time, there is some danger of prison becoming a
reward.” So the marvellous word dawns:- “Our light
affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight
of glory”* (2 Cor. 4: 17). Let us never forget that it is the ages of persecution that create the loftiest thrones and the
most golden crowns.
[* Verse 17
reads thus from the Greek:- “The for momentary
lightness of the affliction [of us] according to an
exceeding on an exceeding (aionian) age-lasting
weight of glory.”]
Now our first command from God appears
when under persecution. “And fear not their fear,
neither be troubled.” Do not yield to the terror they would inspire in you: do not be
terrorized: fear only paralyzes. Nothing is impossible to a God-fortified man.
“If we are convinced from the depth of our soul that
the promised help of God is all-sufficient, we shall be most effectually armed
against all fear” (Calvin):-
God’s all-sufficient help to deliver; or equally effective help to endure. Chrysostom’s words are worthy of remembrance. “Should
the Empress banish me, let her: the
earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness
thereof. If she cast me into the sea, let her: I remember Jonah. If she
cast me into the fire, the three Hebrews were there. If she throw me to the
wild beasts, Daniel was among the lions. If she stone me, I shall stand with
Stephen. If she behead me, I am the Baptist. If she takes all I have- naked
came I into the world, and naked leave it.”
But now comes the great central command, controlling and
inspiring all persecution. “But sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord.”
The two first commands
link up; as Isaiah (8: 12) puts it:- “Neither fear ye their fear: the Lord of hosts, him shall ye sanctify; and
let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” It is most remarkable that Moses and
Aaron lost the Promised Land - exactly our peril - just here: “because ye
sanctified me not in the
midst of the children of
An exceedingly important injunction follows, and one we are
likely to find exceedingly difficult. “Being ready
always to
give answer” - a word
often used for the ‘apology’ given when on
trial in the law courts - “to every man that asketh you a reason concerning
the hope that is in you, yet with meekness and
fear”; the fear lest by word or conduct we
misrepresent Christ. “Having a good conscience”: a good conscience turns a man into
steel; what we know to be right is worth living for, and worth dying for: but more than that - one of the glorious
possibilities of persecution is the conversion of the persecutors. “Everybody,” says a Russian Christian woman, “was against me except Jesus. He carried me through; and now
others who once persecuted me are following Him.” Exactly so, the Roman
Centurion, when he heard our Lord’s words under actual crucifixion, and
especially when he saw how He died, was converted on the spot:- “When the
centurion saw that he so gave up the ghost, he
said, Truly this man was the Son of God”
(Mark 15: 39).
So, therefore, the best of all ‘apologies’
the Apostle now emphasizes. “That, wherein ye
are spoken against, they may be put to shame” - that is, proved to be liars - “who revile
your good manner of life in Christ: for it is
better, if the will of God should so will” - for it is God who decides whether
there shall be persecution or not - “that ye suffer for well-doing than
for evil doing”.
Suffering can fall on us for one of two reasons:- as chastisement for our own sins, which is our reproach; or
actually because of our goodness,
which is our glory. Calumny is refuted by our innocence. “All may not be able to wield the sharp sword of argument,
but all can wear the silver shield of
innocent lives.” The two peoples of God at this moment bring the
truth into sharp relief:- the agony of the Jew, who said - “His blood be
upon us, and upon our children”; and the agony of persecuted
Churches, which are being stamped out
for Christ. What a difference in suffering! God says to
Peter gives our final safeguard in persecution, and the
crowning reason why Christian suffering is blessed. “Because Christ also suffered.” It must be blessed to suffer for
well-doing, for our blessed Lord so suffered, and they who so suffer are made most like
Him. The loftier our life, and therefore the closer our resemblance
to our Lord, the more we may expect
to be treated as He was. The Sinless One was the deepest sufferer:
spotless in character, upright in conduct, perfect in ministry; yet the
greatest sufferer of all eternity. What an honour to share His suffering: to “fill up on my
part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ” (Col. 1: 24). Though we can in no way share the
Atonement of Christ, we can share His martyrdom; and we can say, as Latimer said to Ridley:- “By God’s grace, we shall light a
candle to-day in England” - the burning of their own bodies - “which shall
never be put out.”
-------
THE HIDDEN HAND
He held the Lamp of Truth each day
So low that none could miss the way;
And yet so high to bring in sight
That picture fair - the World’s great
Light,
That gazing up - the lamp between -
The hands that held it scarce were
seen.
He held the Pitcher, stooping low
To Jew and Gentile, friend or foe,
And rais’d
it to the weary saint
And bade him drink when sick and
faint;
They drank - the Pitcher thus between
-
The hand that held it scarce was seen.
He blew the Trumpet soft and clear
That trembling sinners need not fear;
And then with tender note and bold
To raze the walls of Satan’s hold -
The Trumpet coming thus between -
The hand that held it scarce was seen.
And now the Master says, “Well done,
Thou good and faithful
servant, come;
Lay down the Pitcher and the Lamp,
Lay down the Trumpet, leave the camp!
The weary hand will then be seen,
Clasp’d in those pierc’d Hands, nought
between.
* *
*
12
GOD AND WAR + 4
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
The
situation in Europe and the world to-day makes us sorely need divine light on
war; and the first thing we observe is a sword in the hand of every nation,
God-given. “The powers that be” - that is, all the Governments of the world - “are ordained of God; for there
is no power but of God and the ruler beareth not the sword in vain; for he is a minister of God” (Rom. 13: 1, 4). In other words every State
- which is simply the nation organized for purposes of government - has a
direct relationship to God. It is ‘the minister
[or servant] of God’; and therefore is
responsible directly to God how it uses the sword, in which its power lies:
whether as a magistrate enforcing the law on all citizens; or as a nation going
to war against another nation. God is the sole power from which the State draws
its power, and therefore the sole Person in the universe to whom the State is
responsible, and to be consulted and obeyed in peace or war.
WAR
Now one, inevitable factor in the life of every nation is,
sooner or later, war ; and in the case of Judah’s King, Asa, we get a studied
and wonderful summary of the bearing of God on war: for Asa’s history reveals
the drastic distinction between war with God invoked and war with God ignored;
and Asa’s own character - “the heart of Asa was perfect all his days”
(2 Chron.
15: 17) -
makes the point extraordinarily clear. His life was full of purging: he purged
the land of idols; he purged the
PEACE
The opening fact is extremely significant. The background of a
decade of perfect peace reveals that peace is a gift of God. “The land was
quiet, and he had no war in those years; because the Lord had given him rest” (2 Chron.
14: 6). The moral purging of the nation was
reinforced, on the political side, by its consolidation in strength and power,
in a way that Jehovah approved: “Asa did that which was good and right
in the sight of the Lord his God” (ver.
2). And Asa fully realizes whence came
these ten years of peace. “We have sought the Lord our God, and he hath given us rest on every side”
(ver. 7). In wars between nations, and much
more in peace, the nation that lays all its weight on God is
almost certainly not the wicked one; for it would
know with Whom it is dealing, and
both conscience and self-interest would prompt to right conduct.
VICTORY
Now the crisis arises. Ethiopia sweeps down on Judah with the
largest army - except one - ever recorded in ancient history; one million men,
with three hundred chariots - or, in modern warfare, tanks. Now we learn on a
gigantic scale that prayer is the most potent of all war weapons, and Asa’s
immediate cry to God is the model State prayer in war. “Lord, there is none beside thee to help, between the mighty and him that hath no strength” - none other that can equalize the
forces; none other that controls victory whether for the big battalions or the
small: “help us, O Lord our God,
for we rely on thee, and
in thy name” -
trusting to Thy help - “are we come against this multitude”. Complete rout of the all-but-mightiest
army of ancient history * instantly follows. “They were destroyed before the Lord, and before his
host”. As lately
as in the Great War at least one Field Marshal acknowledged the truth. Marshal Foch
said during the war:- “I know something about
preparation for war, and formation and concentration, and I can follow up an
advantage; but victory does not depend
on me.” Then, drawing from his tunic a little crucifix hanging from
a twist of twine, the Marshal continued:- “There
nailed to the cross, is the Giver of victory. Triumph must come if we trust in Him.”
* The largest army recorded in ancient
history was that of Xerxes, numbering nearly two and a half millions.
WARNING
The moments of supreme victory can be among the most dangerous
moments in life: so the Spirit of God, falling on Azariah the prophet, warns
Asa. The warning is this:- “The Lord is
with you, while ye be with him; but if ye
forsake him, he will forsake you.” Asa responded
admirably, and a vast covenant with Jehovah was made by all
DISASTER
A most extraordinary prophecy was wrapt up in Azariah’s
warning, exactly forecasting the modem situation of apostate
* It seems obvious that this is a
prophetic past. “The Septuagint and Vulgate, Luther,
and most moderns refer these words to the future: it is the whole future of the people of God, of which the prophet asserts the law - ‘If ye turn away from God, he will turn away from you’” (Lange).
GOD ABANDONED
Some twenty to thirty years now elapse, and again - as the
peril which Azariah foresaw is now at the doors - God sends a warning prophet.
Baasha, king of Israel, threatens Judah, and Asa, without a word to God, forms
an alliance with Syria, and actually bribes the Syrian King with the treasures
with which he himself had enriched the Temple (15: 18). Asa never even names God. Perhaps the gravest fact at this
moment is that God is now never named officially, or in international
documents, by any of the Great Powers of Europe. Ever since the Disarmament
Conference, the greatest effort yet made for peace, when, for the first time,
even King George V omitted the word
‘God’ from his opening address - presumably
because Soviet Russia had just joined - no official document of any of the
Great Powers of Europe contains the name of God, much less is any great
European appeal made officially and directly to God.*
And Asa’s plundering of the Temple is repeated. Sacrifices hitherto devoted to
God - honour, the sanctity of the pledged word and the signed pact, defence of
the weak and helpless, liberty of conscience, the worship of God and His Christ
- the Temple is robbed of the civilized nations’ former gifts to God in order
to preserve a Godless peace at all costs. So the prophet, Hanani, drives home Jehovah’s
final remonstrance. “Thou hast relied on the King of
Syria, and hast not relied on the Lord thy God:
herein hast thou done foolishly.” So at last,
when men are saying, “Peace” - by godless appeasement - “and safety” - collective security by godless alliance
- “then sudden destruction cometh” (1 Thess. 5: 3).
* A deeply happy apparent exception lies
in British Royalty, but the bankrupting fact is that Royalty neither creates
nor controls the policy of the nation. Such were King George’s words in
DIVINE AID
The reproof contains as lovely a revelation as can be
imagined, and is an utterance exceedingly important, for it lifts the whole revelation out of the
[* See Acts 5: 32; cf. 1 John 3: 22-24, R.V.)]
WARS
So now the judgment falls. “From
henceforth THOU SHALT HAVE WARS.”
So exactly our Lord foretold:- “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom”
(Luke 21: 10). In the words of Dr. F. W.
Norwood:- “What are you going to do eventually
with a world which knows that what is morally right is seldom politically advisable?” Recent words of Bishop Watkin Williains (Times, May 4, 1939) bring home the judgment:-
“War is the severest, sorest judgment with which God
manifests His wrath on rebellious nations, worse than famine, worse than
pestilence, and no other way is shown by which we may avert it than penitence
and amendment of life.” And what happened then, happens now -
persecution. The Prophet, and all who sympathized with him in the nation -
protesting (exactly like ourselves) against the godlessness of the nation’s
policy, though with no political or military opposition - suffer: “for Asa was
in a rage, and oppressed” - crushed - “some of the people”. Asa imprisons the Prophet because he
cannot imprison the truth: “he put him in the house of stocks” - the stock
being an instrument of torture, by which the body was forced into an unnatural,
twisted position, and the hands and feet fastened together (Keil). So the doom of God falls. “All the
kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face
of the earth, shall drink: and if they refuse to drink” - by every pact of godless peace - “thou shalt
say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts,
Ye shall surely drink: because of the sword which I
will send among you” (Jer. 25: 26, 27).
UNIVERSAL WAR
Each of the five Great Powers now handles an army larger than
any nation ever mustered before, to which the hordes of Xerxes were but a
reconnaissance. When the Russo-Japanese War broke out, the Tsar, who had
inaugurated the first Peace Conference, burst into tears. It is said (Times, Dec.
16, 1914) that the Kaiser, when
signing the declaration of wax on
-------
ERROR
But the reunion of Churches is
valueless unless it is the union of disciples of Christ; and much that is being
taught in the Churches to-day destroys all vital discipleship. A foremost Anglican Bishop teaches that Christ was
ignorant and errant. Dr. Barnes, in a broadcast from Birmingham
Cathedral, says:- “Jesus accepted the Creation stories
of the Book of Genesis, and thought that humanity had been specially created by
God through the making of Adam and Eve. We now know that man has been created
by a process of evolution from lower forms of life.” The minister of the
chief Congregational Church in
-------
CREEDS
It
is as significant as it is painful that the Archbishops of Canterbury and
York, responding to a deputation representing 8,000 petitioners, while
affirming their own belief in the Nicene Creed, declined to affirm that the
clergy are “not at liberty to set aside the historic
meaning of those clauses which state the events of the Incarnate Life of our
Lord Jesus Christ”. The Archbishops replied (Church
Times, June 30, 1939):- “We still
consider that at the present time there is no occasion for any synodical declaration of this kind.” In other words,
the clergy can be complete infidels, and that without rebuke.
-------
APOSTASY
Apostasy can come with the speed of an
express. It is but a few years since President Hindenberg
- we have reason to know, a regenerate man - instructed Reichbishop
Muller:- “See that Christ is preached in
--------
ARMS
The piling up of war-weapons is being
carried to a pitch little short of insanity. In 1939
* *
*
13
THE SOLUTION OF THE
PROBLEM OF RAPTURE + 2
By A. J. ATTWOOD
I do not
suppose there has ever been a time in my life-time when men have asked so many
questions about this very thing - the period or time when the translation is
likely to take place. The question of the issue is: Will the saints be caught
up before the Tribulation or after the Tribulation? Will they go up at the
beginning or the end of the Tribulation period? There are three views. There
may be more than three, but I only know three held by Bible Students on this
question. We respect each other’s views, and each person who holds a view
intelligently on this subject has Scripture to support that view, but I am not
going to take time to expound, much less to criticize them, but just to let you
see how people’s minds work about it.
The first view is held by those who say: “Yes, the whole Church will be caught up into the presence of
the Lord in the air before the Great
Tribulation”; and the Scripture chiefly relied on to support that view
is this passage given by Paul, 1 Thess. 4: 13-18, although the Great Tribulation is
not even hinted at there.
The second view says: “No; the Church will not be taken before the Tribulation. The
whole Church must pass through this experience, and as Jesus said in Matt. 24: 29-31: ‘Immediately after the Tribulation of those days shall the
sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall
fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall
appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven ... with power and great glory. And
He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather
together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other’.”
These, emphasizing this passage, say: “The translation of the Church will take
place at the end of the Tribulation period and the whole Church must pass
through this tribulation.” Those are the two extreme views, and both are held
by a great number of Bible students all over the world.
There is a third view which steers
through the middle of the two extremes, and assumes that the truth lies between
the two. This third view says: “Yes, some of the
Church will pass through the Tribulation and part will escape it.” Now,
for thirty-three years past I have held that third view myself, and I do not
see any need to relax it, but I hold it still, and will give you two or three
salient reasons why I have held that view for thirty-three years.
First of all, resurrection
cannot take place until after the
Tribulation has run its course according to Rev. 2: 4. Secondly, The translation
of the living saints cannot precede the resurrection of the dead saints
according to our text: “The dead in Christ shall rise first,” and after the resurrection of those
dead in Christ, the living are caught up. Now it follows that if the living
cannot precede the dead in Christ, the
translation of the living saints cannot take place until after the Tribulation has run its course.
But there are several Scriptures which indicate that there are
exceptions to that. The message to
There are also His warnings to His disciples one of which I
read in the Scripture given by our Lord Himself Luke 21: 34-37. “Take heed to
yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be
overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and
so that day come upon you unawares. For as a
snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
WATCH YE, THEREFORE, AND PRAY ALWAYS,
that ye may be counted worthy to escape all these
things that shall come to pass, and to stand
before the Son of man.” There is a promise enshrined in the warning, that there will be some “accounted
worthy to escape”
the things suffered in the Great Tribulation, a promise of escape. And that is
not all. There are chapters in the Revelation which throw light on this. The great 14th.chapter
of Revelation,
begins with the gathering of the “Firstfruits”, and concludes with the reaping of
the harvest, that is the gathering
of the - [left remainder of] - saints. That again is preceded by the
1,260 days of the Tribulation. So you have first, the [selective] gathering of the Firstfruits of the harvest yet
to be gathered; then you have the period of the Antichrist’s rule, and after that the reaping of the whole harvest,
the gathering of - [those ‘left’
(1 Thess. 4: 15-17,
R.V.)] - the people of God.
So I conclude that the truth lies between the two extremes. On certain conditions being fulfilled, stressed
by our Lord again and again, where
the soul is watchful, ready, faithful - it turns entirely on
an attitude of mind and heart - should the Lord appear during the lifetime of
those saints, they will be translated, the
rest will be left. and get ready through the trial through which they must pass;
and at last the whole company of believing people will be gathered, when the
seventh angel “begins to sound, and the mystery of God is finished”, and the kingdoms
of this world become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ, when Jesus comes
in visible power and glory, and His appearance is made manifest.
So, generally speaking, the destiny of the
-------
PARENTS
Authority need not be despotism; it may be tender and
considerate to any extent, provided only that it is authority, and that its
voice is not silent, nor its arm paralyzed by a misplaced affection or by a
want of moral courage, or by secret indifference to the greatest issues which
lie before every human being. - CANON
LIDDON.
-------
“You that are Christians, and believe in the
security of the believer, it will do you a great deal of good if you will read
a little bit more about the Judgment
Seat of Christ and the rewards of Christians, and the awful sorrow to the heart of God on the part of a man who is
saved and who gets out of His will.” - PAUL RADER, D.D.
* * *
14
THE TORMENTS OF THE APOSTATE
Francis Spira, to
whom we now refer, lived about the middle of the sixteenth century (1548). He
was a doctor of law, and an advocate of high rank in the town of
About his 44th year, Spira’s attention began to be
turned to the work of Luther and other Reformers. Eager in the pursuit of
knowledge, he forthwith began to inquire. Spira embraced the Reformed doctrines
with so much zeal, that he even became in his turn a preacher of them; at least
among his family (which was numerous) and his friends he sought to disseminate
what he had himself embraced. To some extent he abandoned other pursuits, and
urged his friends to depend solely on the grace of God in Christ for salvation.
He was well versed in the Scriptures, took a firm hold of their doctrines, and
did all that he could to spread the light at once by his life and his lessons.
The Pope’s legate at
His friends were anxious to read the Scriptures with the
agonized man, in the hope of alleviating his misery; but terrified by the
attempt, he roared out in anguish, beseeching them to desist. The physicians we
have seen, declared that there was no bodily distemper; yet, from hour to hour,
his misery became more and more intense, and the pitiable spectacle became
intolerable to the onlookers. Paul Vergerio, Bishop of Justinopli,
and others tried from time to time to soothe him, but all was rejected. His
mind seemed to become acute, and inventive of arguments by which to torment
himself, by repelling the suggestions of his friends. He clung to the conviction
that he was a reprobate, and
declared that “there was no room in his heart for aught but torment and
agitation”. Roaring in bitterness of spirit, he explained:- “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living
God. ... I have a whole legion of devils who take up their abode in me, and
possess me as their own, and that justly, for I have denied Christ.” In
one of his paroxysms he exclaimed:- “I desire nothing
more than to come to that place where I may be certain of enduring the worst:
and of being delivered from the fear of a worse to come.”
Rarely has the appalling termination of such a career been so
steadfastly contemplated. There was a kind of method in his agony, for he never
ceased to affirm that “when he renounced his opinions
he believed them to be true, and yet he abjured them before the legate.”
His mind, through this torturing process, gradually settled down in the
conviction that he had sinned against the Holy Spirit, and, entrenched behind
that conviction, no created power could move him. He spoke of his mind as
corroded by the reprobation of God, Who had hardened him; and, “I find,” he adds, “that from
day to day, He hardens me more and more.” When he reasoned regarding his
punishment, he always justified the ways of God, declaring that “there was no punishment which he did not deserve for so
detestable a crime”; and adding: “I assure you,
it is no little thing to deny Christ and yet it is more common than is imagined.”
At another time he exclaimed:- “Oh! could I only
experience the least sentiment of the love of God towards me, although it were
but for a moment, as I now feel the weight of His wrath burning like the
torments of hell within me, and afflicting my conscience with inexpressible
anguish! Assuredly, despair is hell itself!”
Painful as are these passages in Spira’s life, they are but
like the opening scene in this tragic drama. “Here is
the truth of my case,” he exclaimed, when his anguish grew more and more
overpowering: “I tell you, that when I first abjured
my profession at Venice, and when the declaration was recorded, the Spirit of
God admonished me often, and yet, while at Citadella,
I, in some sort, set my seal to it. I resisted the Holy Spirit, and signed and
sealed it; and at that very moment I sensibly felt a wound inflicted even on my
will.” And subsequently to this, clasping his hands violently together,
and raising himself up, he exclaimed:- “Now I am
strong, but I sink into decay, by little and little, and consume away. ... I see my condemnation, and know that my only remedy is in
Christ; nevertheless I cannot persuade myself to embrace it. Such is the
punishment of the damned.”
At other periods Spira gave clear
evidence, that, though he could not apply the Gospel to himself, he yet could
preach it to others. He urged his friends to “exalt
the glory of God continually; and not to be afraid of legate, inquisitors,
prisons, or any kind of death.” The moments, however, were few and
infrequent; and incidents sometimes occurred to rouse him to intense vehemence
of feeling. Antonio Fontania,
a priest, who had been with him when he recanted before the legate, came to
visit him, and reminded the wretched man of their last interview: “O the accursed day,” he exclaimed. “O the accursed day! Would that I had never been at
Toward the close of his life, he addressed some young men in
the most solemn and instructive terms, warning
them from his case to beware of a religion of form, or of making faith their Saviour. He spoke of the merits of Christ
as “a strong rampart against the wrath of God”;
but added, that he had “demolished that bulwark with
his own hands”, and was now overwhelmed by the deluge. He urged those
around him to beware of being “almost Christians”,
as he had been, and then broke out into vehement emotion, indicative of his
internal agony. “Give me a sword,” he
exclaimed. “Why, what use will you make of it?”
“I cannot tell,” he rejoined, “to what act my feelings may carry me, nor what I may do.”
He subsequently declared to Vergerio, when his
friends began to take leave of him, “that he felt his
heart full of cursing, hatred and blasphemy against God,” instead of
being softened by the prospect of being left alone; and, on the following day,
he attempted self-destruction, without success. For eight weeks did he continue
in this lamentable state, refusing nourishment, except as it was forced on him,
and gradually becoming emaciated and haggard; and died, soon after returning to
his own house from Padua, a melancholy monument of the effects of
unstedfastness in the faith and the fatal results of that fear of man that
bringeth a snare.
* *
*
15
SUFFERING AND REIGNING + 1
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
When
James and John besought Christ for thrones close to His own in the coming
Kingdom, our Lord replied:- “Are ye able to be baptized with the baptism that I
am baptized with?” (Mark 10: 38), implying that to reign with Him is born only in a baptism of suffering. In view of
this, the suffering of the Apostles, according to tradition, becomes very
significant. According to tradition:- Matthew, martyred in Ethiopia; Mark,
dragged through the streets of Alexandria until he died; Luke, hanged on an
olive tree in Greece; John, plunged into burning oil, but delivered, and dying
a natural death; James the Great, beheaded in Jerusalem; James the Less, beaten
to death with clubs, after being thrown from the Temple; Philip, hanged on a
pillar at Hierapolis; Bartholomew, flogged; Andrew,
bound to a cross till he died; Thomas, run through with a lance; Jude, shot to
death with arrows; Simon Zelotes, crucified in
Persia; Matthias, stoned and then beheaded; and Peter, crucified with his head
downwards. Our Lord sums up the results of their baptism of suffering:- They “shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of
ETERNAL LIFE
John Wesley once said:- “Christ
dying for us, Christ reigning in us;- preach these two truths, and you will
shake the very gates of Hell.” So Paul says:- “Faithful is
the saying” - a
phrase meant to single it out for special study- “For if we died with him” - the aorist [tense] confines
it to a death at a given moment in
the past - “we shall also” - we shall correspondingly, in due course, by sharing in His
resurrection - “live with him”
(2 Tim.
2:
11). “The aorist,” as Bishop Ellicott says, “marks a single past act that took place when we gave
ourselves up to a life that involved similar exposure to suffering and death:
so ‘we
shall live with him’, not in
an ethical sense, but, as the antithesis necessarily requires, with Physical
reference to Christ’s resurrection.” To have shared the cross on Calvary is to share, without
doubt, and for every soul, the endless
and blessed life that is our Lord’s, throughout - [“the thousand years” (Rev. 20: 6) on this restored
earth, and afterwards in] - eternity.
SUFFERING
But now comes the supplementary truth
so deeply characteristic of Scripture. “If we endure” - here is
something permanent and habitual, the suffering of a godly life - “we shall also” - again, correspondingly: for the [millennial] reign corresponds exactly with the
endurance - “reign with him”. As Mr. Spurgeon says:- “The text implies most clearly that we must suffer with
Christ in order to reign with Him.” “If we suffer” and if we suffer these sufferings therefore are not ordinary human
sufferings, nor Christian sufferings under chastisement or judgment; but such
sufferings as those of Christ, who was sinless: sufferings for the truths He taught, for the principles He laid down, for the rituals He commanded,
for the warnings He uttered. * These cost Him
His life, and if we share them we must inevitably share the sufferings. “It belongs to the mystery of the cross of Christ that the
more purely anyone preaches it, the more persecution, or at least evil report
of the doctrine, he experiences on account of it” (Hadinger). Thus suffering, “not only shall we live, but be kings with Him” (Ellicott). Thus Paul states in his last
letter exactly what he had stated to the Roman Church:- “We are children of God: and if
children then heirs: heirs of God” - therefore inheriting His eternal
life, with no condition whatever attached, except simple, saving faith; - “and joint
heirs with Christ, if so be” - a sharply stated condition - “that we
suffer with him, that we may be also” - that we may be correspondingly - “GLORIFIED with him”
(Rom. 8: 16). In the words of Archbishop Leighton (The First Epistle
of Peter, p. 135):- “‘If we reign with Christ’, certain it is, ‘we must suffer with Him’;
and, ‘if we do suffer with Him’, it is as certain, ‘we shall reign with Him’.”
* We are apt to forget that our Lord’s
whole ministry was involved in incessant controversy, and Paul’s hardly less
so; and therefore to avoid controversy is to be unChristlike. We must suffer
for the truth, or else be disloyal to it. Our Lord Himself was “made perfect through sufferings,” and for ourselves we
do well to remember that it is the injured oyster only that produces the pearl,
and the pearl is a tear made beautiful for ever.
OUR DENIAL OF HIM
But now a still more solemn side of
this exceedingly solemn truth is presented. It is obvious that a [regenerate] believer can be without suffering for
Christ. The unbeliever converted in his last moments on his death-bed has no
opportunity of suffering for Christ - a tremendous reason for not putting off
decisions until the end; and “all that would live godly shall suffer persecution”
(2 Tim. 3: 12) - and Christians who avoid the
godlike life can often avoid the persecution, as thousands are doing in the
countries of persecution at this moment. But we can fall deeper than merely
flinching from the suffering. So ‘the faithful saying’ continues:- “If we shall deny him”
- the future contains the idea of the possibility of the action (Ellicott)- “he also” - He correspondingly - “will deny us”. The Most High has had put on record a
fact which makes all doubt of the fact impossible. “Peter began
to curse and to swear, I know not this man
of whom ye speak” (Mark 14: 7). No denial could be more explicit,
public, and deliberate, and that from the foremost apostle of the Twelve. It is
no wonder, therefore, that Paul says, including himself, “If we shall deny him,” for the chief of the Twelve had done so. If anyone
imagines that no truly regenerate believers are at this moment denying Christ,
under terror or torture, in
HIS DENIAL OF US
The statement here of cause and effect could not be clearer. “If we shall
deny him, he also will deny us.” To
deny Christ is, in general, to be ashamed of Him by word or deed; and so
the non-recognition will spring from the hurt heart of the Lord. The Saviour
Himself states it:- “Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of man also” - correspondingly - “shall be ashamed of him, when he cometh in the
glory of His Father with the holy angels” (Mark 9: 38). As we turned from Him in shame
here, so He will turn from us in shame hereafter.
Such an actual denial by Him He Himself has already expressly stated. To the
five imprudent Virgins who cry, “Lord, Lord” - for He is their Lord - “open unto us,” He replies, “I know you not” (Matt. 25: 12). And what words does He immediately
add? “Watch therefore”: that is,
every one of us must learn by constant alertness and the walk with God to make
both denials - our own and Christ’s
-impossible. This “I know you not” - an exact counter to Peter’s - would, if Peter had been
assassinated in the judgment Hall, have met him in the judgment Hall above * - [or below (see Heb.
9: 27;
cf.
Acts 2: 34,
ff.).]**
* “I never knew you” (Matt. 7: 23) is a sentence of doom on
unbelievers.
[**
There will be a judgment after Death, and therefore before Resurrection! The
words ‘in the judgment hall above’, must point to a time
after
‘the first Resurrection’ (to determine the
nature of rewards during our Lord’s reign upon this earth. Jesus says - of
those resurrected at this time - “... for neither
can they die any more” (Luke 20: 36, R.V.)! Therefore no need for them to
return again into ‘Sheol’ / ‘Hades’!
The apostle Peter and other apostles
are presently waiting for their Resurrection from the dead. See Ps. 16: 10; Matt. 16: 18; John 3:13; 14: 3; 2 Tim. 2: 18; Heb. 10: 13.
cf. 11: 35 and Rev. 20: 4-6, R.V.]
UNCHALLENGEABLE
The Apostle feels it necessary to re-stress the fact afresh;
for the refusal of any truth, however unpalatable, is exceedingly dangerous. “If we are
faithless” - if we
- [who are redeemed and therefore
regenerate] - disbelieve these conditional promises and contingent warnings - “he abideth
faithful; for he CANNOT deny
himself.” To quote
Spurgeon again:- “Surely by ‘If we believe not’ Paul must mean the visible
OUR CALCULATION
So then we are now in Paul’s position, and are able to judge
the issue deliberately, and balance the account as he did. Immediately after
stating that if suffering together, we shall be glorified together, Paul says:-
“For I reckon” - I calculate, I cast up the
account - “that the sufferings of this present time are
not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be to-usward” (Rom. 8: 18):
when I have cast up the sum of the sufferings of this present time, they amount
to just nothing in respect of that glory (Archbishop
Leighton). “I wonder many times,” Samuel Rutherford used to say, “that ever a child of God should have a sad heart,
considering what the Lord is preparing for him.” Again Paul expresses it
in one of the most marvellous utterances of the Bible. “Our light
affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of
glory” (2
Cor. 4: 17). What a vision! It is a leper who wrote:- “To the heart aglow for Thee, the Valley of the Shadow is
like sunrise on the ocean and its meridian will be a glory indescribable.”
OUR RENUNCIATION
Finally, this truth has been wonderfully summed up in one
prominent saint of God. “By faith Moses, choosing
rather to be evil entreated with the people of God, accounted the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of
Egypt, FOR
HE LOOKED UNTO THE RECOMPENSE OF THE REWARD” (Heb. 11: 25). He kept steadily before him ‘the recompense of the reward’: for the blessings at stake will not
only be a ‘reward’ but a ‘recompense’ - in other words, the coming joy will be in proportion to the
suffering endured: the deliberate judgment of Moses therefore was that fidelity
at its worst - a bankrupt people exiled in a desert - is better than the world
at its best - Pharaoh’s palace. And the end of that studied calculation was Moses - [with Elijah] - on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Do any of us realize for a moment what it will be to reign literally with
Christ over the kingdoms of the world? “They shall war against the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for he is Lord of lords, and
King of kings; and they also shall overcome that
are with him, CALLED AND CHOSEN AND FAITHFUL” (Rev. 17: 14). The Lamb alone overcomes the
Federated Powers of the world, for our Lord fights Armageddon alone; but the
saints accompanying Him - “also overcome” - that is, they are ‘overcomers’ selected from all down the ages; and “he that
overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I
give AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS”
(Rev. 2: 26).
-------
ADVENT
Such a summary of
* *
*
16
REBUILT
By FRANK V.
MILDRED
In the
words of Augustine: “
The
The rebuilt city
The judgment of Revelation 18. is a double woe for a double
iniquity, for the reason that literal
Turning to Rev. 17: 18, we have a picture of the same woman: “And the woman
whom thou sawest is the great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.”
The system of commerce thus established in
One of the three places mentioned in Scripture as a source of
gold is in the region of Babylon, and an American writer, Dr. W. D.
Herrstrom, makes this interesting suggestion
(American Sunday School Times, 8th.January, 1933): “after a careful examination of some five hundred Scripture
passages that speak of gold, I notice that much of the gold came from the
region mentioned above (i.e. the vicinity of the Persian Gulf), and eventually
most of it seemed to return to the same region, especially to Babylon itself.
Of the twenty-eight items of commerce in rebuilt
This rapidly-approaching Babylonian autocracy will show no
mercy to the individual, nor will it have any respect for the Christian Church.
The State will be all in all. The leaders of the rising despotisms of our time
are either Marxians, or else have been Marxians - as was Mussolini. These are the words of Karl Marx: “The idea of God is the
keystone of a perverted civilization. It must be destroyed. The true root of
liberty, of equality, of culture, is Atheism.”
Beyond doubt, a period of intense persecution of the Christian
Church is approaching, heading up in the Kingdom of the Antichrist, which will
be a dreadful caricature of the
Our Lord has bidden us to observe the signs of the times, and
we who are His disciples should remember that a perfect escape from the coming
calamities is promised to the watchful believer. “But watch ye at every
season, making supplication, that ye may prevail” - [“be accounted worthy”
A.V.] - “to escape all these things that shall
come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man”
(Luke 21: 36). And “Seeing that ye look for these
things, give diligence that ye may be found in
peace, without spot and blameless in His sight” (2 Peter 3: 14).*
* From Is
Babylon to be Rebuilt?
-------
QUEEN
Queen
-------
WAR BY DISEASE
We print this summary from Deutsche
Wehy, the official organ of the German General Staff, not because
England is at war with Germany, for he who imagines that such practices will
not become general with the approach of the World-Empire of Antichrist is
living in an imaginary world; but in the hope - faint, we admit - that some of
the countless Christians still expecting the worldwide triumph of the Gospel
may be startled into a study of the Second Advent. Sinful mankind is unwise to
attempt to handle the judgments of God. Pestilence is one of His ‘four score judgments’ (Ezek. 14: 21), but by Him it is inflicted
with perfect justice and informed by infinite knowledge - Ed. DAWN.
In
preparing for the use of germs in a coming war, we must first concentrate our
attention on three principal questions. The first is, what kind of germs
produce the strongest and most irresistible effect. The second is, the best way
of spreading microbes. And the third is, what conditions are most favourable
for spreading disease and bringing about epidemics.
As to the first question, we should not be too particular. It
is, of course, rather tempting to speculate on the hope of spreading epidemics
of yellow fever, spotted typhus, or smallpox. In order to achieve this it will
only be necessary to scatter great swarms of flies or lice contaminated with
the virus of yellow fever, spotted typhus, or smallpox, and to keep a large
stock of freshly infected vermin always prepared. But, best of all, from every
point of view, is the infection of the enemy country by bubonic plague. The
plague bacillus is comparatively easy to produce in large quantities; it
retains its contagious effectiveness even in moist and cold surroundings; and
it never fails to produce infection.
As far as the question how best to spread the microbes is concerned,
it must, of course, be assumed that all efforts to infect the enemy will be
concentrated against the civil population, and not against the soldiers at the
front. Epidemics at the front might easily infect our own soldiers, and there
are other reasons which make attack upon the civilian population more
advisable. Aeroplanes will prove the best weapons in microbe-warfare because
they permit of several ways of spreading germs - namely, by squirting them from
specially built apparatus or by raining down bombs or glass containers filled
with microbes. - World Digest.
* *
*
17
ROSH AND GOMER + 1
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
The most
astounding volte-face in modern
history, which has brought into a sudden pact the two most violently antagonistic
Powers of Europe, has stunned the world. No two ‘ideologies’
could be more fiercely opposed than Bolshevism and Nazism; nevertheless,
suddenly, and in violation of all honour among nations, they unite. Nor was it
unforeseen. Herr Hermann Rauschning, a member of the German Cabinet, and a
personal colleague of Hitler, wrote
in 1938 (Spectator, Sept. 1, 1939):- “A German-Russian
alliance will be no ordinary coalition between Powers for normal practical
purposes.
This Pact, so astounding, brings us sharply face to face with
one of the gravest prophecies in the Bible. “Thus saith
the Lord God: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh [
* “Rosh, taken
as a proper name, in Ezekiel signifies the inhabitants of Scythia, from whom
the modern Russians derived their name” (Bishop Lowther), ‘
**
It is “the prince of Rosh,” not the king: it
would appear that the Russian Dictator, unlike the ‘supermen’
of the Roman Federation (Rev. 17: 12), never assumes royalty.
Now the extraordinary fact is that after
* Togarmah is
CAVALRY
One element in the prophecy, so lacking in the modern note as
to make it for many difficult of belief - namely, the enormous stress laid on
cavalry, in this closing age of bombing-planes and tanks - is nevertheless
crystallizing before our eyes. “All thine army, horses and horsemen” (ver.
4); “thou and many
peoples with thee, ALL OF THEM RIDING UPON HORSES” (ver.
14). The word ‘Rosh’
means ‘horse’; and the Cossacks were once the
finest Cavalry in
DIVINE CONTROL
How God is above and behind all war, and can lead the
mightiest nations to their doom, is here strikingly revealed. “I will turn
thee about” -
hitherto Russia has not been fiercely Anti-Semitic - “and put hooks into
thy jaws” - compelling by a superior power - “and I will
bring thee forth” (ver. 4): “I
will lead thee on, and will cause thee to come
up from the uttermost parts of the north”, “and
I will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel” (39: 2). This invasion of
*The
Moscow Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (Sept. 22, 1939) writes:- “Two decades of Marxian shibboleths about internationalism
have never wiped out the average Russian’s two hates - the Poles and the Jews.”
It is of intense interest to observe that apparently
* “There is a general consensus that
Tarshish, the Greek Tartessus, indicates the coast of
** “The young
lions thereof of Tarshish, not of the
other communities” (Keil). “The Arabian nations
JUDGMENT
So then we see that the consummation of
THE VINDICATION OF GOD
So the crowning consummation of all is the vindication of God.
It is learned at last that Israel’s fearful sufferings are due neither to the
impotence nor indifference of God, nor to His permanent abandonment of His
people, but to Calvary - the immeasurable crime which, together with its
consistent endorsement by Israel ever since, created two thousand years of woe;
but now that their judgment as a nation is over, and there has arrived the
world-wide Christ-hate of countless antichrists, the nations are buried in
Armageddon, and the whole earth passes into the Kingdom of Christ. “The nations shall know that
the house of
* One detail of the prophecy is most wonderful. The helmets and
breastplates of ancient warfare, which disappeared with the arrival of
gunpowder, reappear in these final armies:- “all of
them with shield and helmet”
(38:
5).
With the steel helmets we are already familiar in the soldiers around us; and “the
-------
SEVEN LESSONS ON CHRISTIAN SERVICE
1. The work is
manifold that every believer may find his adaptation.
2. The work is
committed to all that none may feel lift out.
3. The work is
one that all may be united in co-operation.
4. The work is
responsible and therefore no one can shrink duty.
5. The work of
each is necessary and no one can with impunity neglect it.
6. The work is
distributed by the Spirit, hence no room for envy or discontent.
7. The work is
God’s work through us, and hence no ground for pride or despair.
- A. T. PIERSON, D.D.
* *
*
18
WALKING WITHOUT FAINTING + 2
One of
the most marvellous chapters in the Bible, dealing with the world’s final
crisis, warns of a danger than threatens the noblest of mankind, while it also
provides a perfect cure; and the warning is carefully pointed, not at the weak
and anaemic, but at the strongest of the servants of God. “Even the
youths” - the word
means choice men, picked for their vigour - “shall faint and be weary, and the young men” - in the prime of power, for the
keenest can be quickest exhausted - “shall UTTERLY FALL” (Isa. 40: 30). It is even
possible that we have over-taxed our strength in splendid running, and are now
fagged out in the last lap.
The disease threatening us all is the fainting-fit. Fainting
is named four times in one short section of this Fortieth of Isaiah. God fainteth not; He giveth power to the faint; even the youths shall faint; they that wait on the Lord shall walk and not faint. Fainting is more than weariness: the
person who faints, suddenly ceases all his work, and is even unconscious of all
that which, a moment before, filled his life. It is exactly true to life in the
spiritual realm. The Christian who has fainted has ceased all work for Christ,
only fitfully attends a place of worship, has abandoned prayer, never witnesses
in the business or the home, and has lost confidence that he was ever converted;
he is in a spiritual swoon, now unconscious of all to which he was once
wide-awake.
We do well to glance for a moment at some of the causes - a
few out of a multitude - producing the fainting-fit. It may be that the ‘mission’ in which we were saved has lost its urge for
us, leaving dry sands like a retreating tide; it may be that we have nursed so
long, so wearily, by a sick-bed; another feels acute business difficulties
thickening; in a third the vital fires burn low, and, possibly some disease, like a hungry tiger, creeps nearer; all of us, workers, are baulked by the obstinate refusal of [God’s accountability] truth by both the Church and the world, each taken as a whole; the struggle over our sin,
also, seems so little a victory: under it all, we almost faint, and countless [of regenerate] Christians are now on their beds in a swoon.
Now the Prophet, to meet the situation, unveils to the exiles
- and we are the exiles of God in a hostile land - the huge background of an
unfainting God. An unfainting God, it is true, is not, by itself, any solution of the problem of our faintness; but it is the first factor
in the solution: there is, around us, an inexhaustible God: somewhere in the
universe is Someone Who never faints. “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? the
everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth FAINTETH NOT, neither is weary”
(Isa. 40: 28). Weakness and weariness have no place in God. Jehovah, the one
unchanged, unchangeable, inexhaustible Being, spends, unspent; He gives and is
never bankrupt; His powers are never used to exhaustion; He burns, with no
dying down of the blaze: His life has in it nothing but life.
Next, the Prophet slips in the vital link between God’s
strength and our weakness, without which the Divine omnipotence would be, not
our comfort, but our despair. “He giveth” - as a habit of
His being, and a delight of His heart - “power to the faint; and to him that hath no might” - our definition of ourselves as we
have given it in many a midnight hour - “He increaseth strength”; for we did have some strength,
latent in our regenerate nature, or we should not have been God’s exiles at
all. For the Prophet, a moment earlier, had revealed how God uses His enormous power. “Lift up your
eyes on high, and see who hath created these
that bringeth out their host by number” - the unfaltering orbits are produced by no strength
of their own - “by the greatness of His might, and for that He is strong in power, not one is
lacking.” He never
lets fall the reins of power, nor - through weariness, or inattention, or
forgetfulness, or inability - leaves some poor weary world to wander off alone.
That is, His power is a constantly given power: it is a supreme quality of God that He is
self-imparting, and in this fact lies our complete deliverance. When God
promises, He pledges the wealth and power of a universe to back the promise;
and if He has kept all these millions of worlds through all these ages in
unfaltering shine, can He not “give power” for my little life, and my little shining, of forty,
sixty, eighty years? - [and even, if He is pleased with us in His
service, for a few years more!]
So now the Prophet unfolds the precious revelation of the
method by which we gain the unfainting life. “They that WAIT UPON THE LORD shall
renew their strength”:
here is the whole secret. To wait on the Lord is to bring Him the empty vessel
- patience gone, endurance gone, perseverance gone: coming thus to Him the
empty vessel in our hands, is the best of all confessions of weakness. “Wait on the
Lord, be strong,
and let thine heart take courage; yea, wait thou on the Lord” (Ps. 27: 14). “Wait,” says Hosea (12: 6), “on thy God CONTINUALLY.” Waiting is a habit of mind brought
into the prayer-room, and kept alert there; a devout mind, that looks in all things to God; a submissive mind, ready to
receive what God will send; a
receptive mind, able to absorb the
plans of God; and an obedient mind, that is resolved to do just what God
commands.
For what we want, when in peril of fainting, is not new
faculties of mind or body; not new opportunities, or fresh fields of
enterprise; not new knowledge, nor even new desires or affections: what we want
is fresh draughts of oxygen in the lungs of the soul - fresh strength to resist the wrong, to pursue the right, to
live in God, and to bless humanity
- and all this oxygen from Heaven comes by waiting upon God. Waiting on God is
the re-gassing of the balloon: waiting leads to strength; strength leads to
courage; courage leads to battle; and battle leads to victory.
So a final triple consequence is stated by the Prophet as an
inevitable conclusion in fact. “They shall mount up with wings as eagles” - buoyancy; “they shall
run, and not be weary” - intensity; “they shall
walk, and not faint” - indomitableness: mounting wings -
the loftiest standards; the unslacking race - the glory-goal; the unfaltering
step - the walk with God: elevation; progress; perseverance. The splendid
vigour of youth suffices for the Alps or the
-------
This I would say, standing as I do in view of God and
eternity: I realize that patriotism is not enough; I must have no hatred or bitterness to anyone. - NURSE CAVELL, before her death, 1915.
-------
PROPHECY
The grave danger of an ignorance or a denial of prophecy is
shown in the unconscious words of the Archbishop
of York (Daily Telegraph, Dec. 4,
1939):- “It can be said of Federal Union that it is a
Christian solution, for it rests on the recognition that we are fellow-members
one of another in the one family of God” In other words, the Church of
God is to be marshalled in support of the instrument which will create (Rev.
17: 13)
the Kingdom of Antichrist.
* *
*
19
THE LAST ADMONITION
By R.
H. BOLL
“But watch ye at every season, making supplication
that ye may prevail to escape all
these things
that shall come to pass, and to
stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21: 36).
This
weighty sentence concludes our Lord’s prophetic discourse, as recorded by Luke.
It is evident from this :- (1) that
certain things shall come to pass; these are in part mentioned in the preceding
part of the discourse (vs. 25ff); (2) that by
watchfulness and supplication we may prevail to escape all those things; (3) that those who so escape shall stand
before the Son of man.
First let us examine some of the peculiar and meaningful words
the Saviour used in this sentence.
... Watch ye; not
the usual word gregoreo, but a term implying sleeplessness, as of a burdened
heart. It is the word used in Mark 13: 33; also, significantly, in Eph. 6: 18.
... Making supplication; meaning to make urgent request; stronger word than prosenchomai, to
pray.
... Prevail;
ischuo means to
prevail; katischuo, to prevail against or over something or somebody; to
overcome, to get the upper hand. The mob cried out till their voices prevailed
(Luke 23: 23) and they got their wish.
To escape; the simple word “phugo”
means to flee; when strengthened with “ek” it means to flee out of some danger or
evil situation, to escape.
... To stand; but to be exact it means “to be stationed,” for it is a passive form of “histemi”,
to stand.
... Before; more literally “in front of”.
These are remarkable words. That the
heavenly wisdom of the Lord Jesus used them with purpose and determination
needs not to be said. Let us then, having examined these outstanding words, try
to take in the meaning of the verse. It forms the final word of the conclusion.
To get its force we must look at the two verses preceding:- “But take heed
to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be
overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and
cares of this life; and that day come on your suddenly, as a snare: for so
shall it come upon all them that dwell on the face of all the earth” (Luke 21: 34).
It is worthy of particular notice how
the Lord distinguishes between His own, the disciples He addresses, and “them that
dwell on the face of all the earth”. These latter are “earth-dwellers”, in the bad sense; people who have settled down here below, “men of the
world whose portion is in this life” (Ps. 17: 14) as contrasted with those who are “sojourners
and pilgrims” (1 Pet. 2: 11). Upon such “that day” will come “suddenly as a
snare” - which
obviously, in the Lord’s warning, must be considered as a dreadful calamity, by
all means to be avoided. He solemnly cautions His disciples not to let their
hearts be taken up with self-indulgence, drunkenness, or the cares of this life
which choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful (Mark 4: 19); for in that case would “that day” come upon them “suddenly, as
a snare” -
precisely as it will upon the earth-dwellers. (Comp. Rev.
3: 3).
Now to our verse. Here the Lord Jesus marks out the course
necessary for His own [disciples] who are to escape the terrible things that shall come to pass and who
shall be permitted to stand before the Son of Man. It is for them:-
1. To watch at every season. Though He
points out certain signs, at the inception of which they should look up and
lift up their heads, for the time of their redemption draweth nigh (Luke 21: 28) - there is never a time when they
should not watch - signs or no signs. For the signs may go unnoticed, and we
may easily misjudge our times. The only safety lies in watching always. (See here Mark. 13: 35-37).
2. Making supplication. This, being a participle, shows that
the supplication is to go on during the constant watching. If they are to watch
at every season, so must they be making supplication at every season,
constantly.
3. And for what this constant, urgent prayer? That they may prevail to escape all the
things that are to come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man. Both the
escape, on the one hand, from the calamities and judgment of that day and, the
privilege of being placed “in front of” the Son of man are here made contingent on
watchfulness and prevailing prayer.
If anyone asks how this harmonizes with the widely-held tenet
of “the
eternal security of the believer” and the doctrine of salvation by grace - I would be far from
detracting one whit from the plain
face value of any of God’s precious promises. But let me say this - that if your faith in those promises sets your soul on fire to serve
God, to work and watch and pray, and to do all His good will gladly, then there is no doubt that you have truly
understood, and your faith in His
gracious promise is having its intended result and manifestation. But if yours is a sort of pleasant
fatalism that tends to make you careless and easy-going, you have surely misunderstood something
somewhere. And you surely need
the Lord’s warning.
Now finally - when could this escape from the things that are
coming upon the world in “that day” and that [selected] translation to “stand before
the Son of man”
take place but at the time and occasion described by Paul in 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17;
when the Lord Himself shall descend from
heaven, with a shout, and the voice of the archangel, with the trump of
God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; and we who are alive, who are here at the coming of the Lord,
changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, shall together with them* be caught up in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. For that let us watch
and make supplication always that we may escape the things that shall come upon
the world and be accounted worthy of the
[* NOTE:
The words ‘together with them” - in this
context - refers to the ‘holy’ dead who will be
Resurrected from the dead at the end of the Great Tribulation: but,
there is a select pre-tribulation rapture of living
saints will have previously taken place! See Rev. 3: 10; cf. Luke 21: 36, R.V.
The Presence of Christ descended into the air to gather His
people - by select rapture - is a divine comfort against the fear of being
left unto the “Day”
of God’s wrath. It is a mistake to place “the Day of wrath” (during the Great Tribulation), before
the Presence of Christ to secretly remove some of His people. “Enoch was translated that he should not see death” ...
“... for before his translation he hath had witness borne to him that he had been WELL
PLEASING UNTO GOD” (Heb. 11: 5 R.V.)]
* * *
20
THE PERIL OF CHRISTIAN JUDAISM
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
Ours is
an epoch so seething with change that every spiritual battle has to be
re-fought, every truth defended afresh, every spirit tested, every sect
scrutinized, every teacher X-rayed by Scripture. It is really wonderful that we
suddenly find ourselves once more in the midst of the controversy between Peter
and Paul, as remarkable a collision as any in the pages of sacred history; the
battle between Grace and Law, which we had thought was then fought out for the
last time. Peter, not only a regenerate soul, but one of the chief of the
Apostles, sided with the Judaizers who maintained that Jewish Christians must
continue to keep the Law: so Paul says - “When Cephas [Peter] came, I withstood
him to the face, because he stood condemned”
(Gal. 2: 11).
THE JEWISH CHRISTIAN
Our problem at the moment is that such a group as that with
which Peter sided is already forming, calling itself the International Jewish Christian Union. Its founder and mouthpiece, Mr. Abram Poljak
- who says, “We have spread all over
* The Cross in the Star of David, p. 44. The Jewish Christian Community Press, 18 Moor Lane Chambers,
JUDAISM
All this prompts in us a warm and happy sympathy; until we are
arrested sharply by our problem. We are startled to learn that the Jewish
Christian Union adheres to the whole Law
of Moses, and refuses all contact with the
“In Judaism are the roots of our
spiritual strength. To desert from Judaism, to decline to be Jewish, is a sin”
(p. 68). “For the Jews”, says Mr. PoIjak, “there can only be a Jewish Christianity, that is,
Jesus as the fulfilment of Judaism, the Son of God as the Son of David” (p.
7l): “We will conclude no alliance with the Church; we
are Jews and we will remain Jews and will live only as Christian Jews”
(p. 46). The Community is perfectly correct in assuming that to remain a Jew is
to remain outside the
UNDER THE LAW
The gravity of such an attitude reveals itself in the
Community’s relationship to the Law of Moses. “That
Jesus of Nazareth is the Incarnation of the Godhead, ‘the Son of God’ did not lead
me away from Judaism but only deeper into it”(p. 1). “If the Jewish
people celebrate the Sabbath and not the Sunday, then as a matter of course we,
too, keep the Law’s Sabbath and not Sunday: why does the Church want to force
us to give up our Sabbath and our national festivals?”(p. 46). “Will then the synagogues be broken up, and in their place
Churches be built? I believe that the Jewish churches will be no churches at
all, but synagogues” (p. 52).* Mr. PoIjak says, elsewhere:- “We do
not force Circumcision, and intend not to force anyone on this matter: yes, we
want to keep the Passover.” Thus there is no question at all that, in
principle, the Jewish Christian Union adheres to the whole Law of Moses.
* Such an attitude ignores our Lord’s
terrible words:- “The blasphemy of them which say they
are Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2: 9).
“For they are not all
MESSIANIC JEWS
Not only would our instinctive sympathy be with Jewish
Christians, as perhaps it would have been, on the first flush of things, with
Peter, but a prophetic consideration
makes us walk with extreme care. It is certain that just after the closing of
the Day of Grace there is to be a Jewish remnant who are unmistakably Jews, yet
who are believers in Christ. “In their synagogues they will
scourge you, and ye shall be hated of all men for
my name’s sake: verily I say
unto you, Ye shall not have gone through the
cities of
THE OBLIGATION OF THE LAW
But now we are brought up sharply by the fearfully decisive
words of Paul. For the very life of the Gospel is at stake. The Jew who refuses
to abandon the Law necessarily maintains the Law’s intensely characteristic
symbol- Circumcision; and the Holy Spirit’s decision through the Apostle is
utterly final. “Behold, I Paul say unto you,
that, if ye receive
circumcision, Christ will profit
you nothing” (Gal. 5: 2). Why? Because Circumcision is the stamp given by the Most
High to the Law through Moses: “yea, I testify
again to every man that receiveth circumcision, that
he is a debtor to do THE WHOLE LAW”; and it is the whole Law which must be kept, or none. “For whosoever
shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one
point, he is become guilty of all” (Isa.
2:
10.). So, then, “ye are severed
from Christ, ye who would be justified
by law”. Paul
reveals that, so long as the Day of
Grace lasts, and as far as salvation is concerned, the Law and the Gospel are
utterly irreconcilable and in deadly antagonism.
ALL OR NONE
A moment’s reflection makes this conclusion* inevitable. If I
am under any of the Law, for any thing, I am under all the Law, for every thing; for “cursed is
everyone which continueth not IN ALL
THINGS that are written in the book of the law, to do them” (Gal. 3: 10). Charles Simeon,
the great evangelical teacher of more than a century ago, vividly sums up the
claims of Law. “Do this, do it all, all without
exception, from first to last, and you shall live; but a curse an everlasting
curse, awaits you if you offend in one particular. You say, ‘I Wish to obey’: it answers,
‘Tell me not of your wishes, but do it’.
You say, ‘I have endeavoured to obey’: it answers, ‘Tell
me not of endeavours, but do it, or be cursed’. You say, ‘I have done it in almost every particular’: it answers, ‘Tell
me not what you have done almost; if you have not done it altogether, you are
cursed’. You say, ‘But I am very sorry for
my transgression’: it answers, ‘I cannot regard your sorrow - you are
cursed’. You say, ‘I will never transgress
again, if I find mercy for the past:’ it
answers, ‘I can have no regard for your
determinations for the future; I
know no such word as mercy; if you
fall short in one particular,
nothing remains but doom’.” As a single leak sinks a submarine, and
the snapping of but one of its twelve wheels stops a watch, so those who shall
keep the whole Law, but break it in one point - the Apostle says - are under the whole anathema of
the Law.
GRACE
So God’s sole salvation excludes all Law because it has
fulfilled all Law: “through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous” (Rom. 5: 19). Jesus was Man, therefore He could obey the Law; and it was for that purpose that He became
man: and Jesus was God, so that His
obedience was perfect in value, therefore covering all conceivable claims on
the human soul; and infinite in extent, therefore covering entire humanity. So,
therefore, any compromise between Law
and Grace is the ruin of both. “Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be
justified by the law; ye are fallen away from
grace” (Gal. 5: 4). Our glory is our complete
renunciation of our own glory, whether in natural birth or in Personal
achievement. As Lefevre
said more than four centuries ago (A.D. 1512):- “O
unutterable exchange! the sinless One is condemned, the guilty goes free; the
Blessed bears the curse, the cursed bears the blessing; the life dies, and the
dead live; the glory is covered with shame, and the shame is covered with glory.”
It is an exchange that is final. “For Christ is THE END OF THE LAW unto righteousness to every one that believeth”
(
* * *
21
STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS +1
In the
world-storm that is now raging, when the Churches of the world find themselves
in a violent clash of opposing nations, a prayer issued by the
* The Guardian, Sept. 29, 1939.
The startling peculiarity of the Church in its nature as revealed
by God, a peculiarity which sets it for
ever apart, is that it is itself a race, a nation, a people, and therefore
sundered from all other races, and nations, and peoples. “Ye are an
elect race, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Pet. 2: 9). All other nations are Lo Ammi - not My people; and the Church is the only holy nation in the
world. We enter into the elect race by being born again into the family of
,God: “which in
time past were no people” - they were scattered individuals among
all nations - “but now are the people of God”. Its government
is not visible; its territory is not [at present] here; its code of laws is not human; and its King is at present a world-exile.
In the words of Chrysostom:- “Since heaven has become my country, the whole world is a
place of exile; for Constantinople is no nearer
Our relationship to all other nations at once becomes obvious.
“I
beseech you,” says
the Apostle, “as sojourners and pilgrims.” The word translated ‘strangers’
or ‘sojourners’ means ‘foreigners,’
dwellers in a foreign land and the word rendered ‘pilgrims’
is almost our ‘tourists’, that is, travellers
bound for another country: the one means that anywhere on earth we are not at
home; the other means that in any nation we are not among our own folk. For
they that say such things - namely, that they are strangers and pilgrims - “make it
manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own” (Heb. 11: 14). As Israel, separated from all nations, made its baptismal
plunge into the Red Sea, and rose to walk a lonely nation with God; so the
Church, drawn out of all tribes and peoples and nations and tongues, goes down
into the baptismal grave many nations, but rises in new life one nation, “where there is neither Greek
nor Jew, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free”
(Col.
3:
11).
The reason for the creation of this Holy Nation is now given. “That ye may
show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his most
marvellous light: that, wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works,
which they behold, glorify God in the day of
visitation.” The visible character of a - [regenerate and obedient (see Acts 5: 32,
R.V.)] - Christian is a masterly reply
to modem propaganda,
the most deadly intellectual weapon of to-day. All that a totalitarian State hears or reads is
absolutely controlled; but Christian character and life, even in a prison, is
inevitably seen, and, for those
around, it is impossible to be hidden; and God is seen in the man. The awful multiplication of spies - it
is said that
But a momentously practical question
now arises: what is to be our attitude to the Government, and to the laws, of
the land in which national birth has placed us? The Apostle answers:- “Be subject to
every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake:
whether it be to the king as supreme; or unto
governors, as sent by him.” Our submission is not necessarily
approval: we submit to the ordinance for the Lord’s sake, not necessarily for
the ordinance’s sake: we desire to be winsome, and sympathetic, and obedient
wherever possible, so as to commend our Master to the nation in which we live.
Our Lord, when about to be executed by the State, openly acknowledged that the
power of that State was ordained of God: “Thou wouldest have no power against
me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19:
11).* It is manifest, however, that an
impassable gulf yawns the moment the human ordinance clashes, in plain black
and white, with any command of God. It was Peter himself who said:- “We must obey
God rather than men” (Acts 5: 29), a decision which ultimately cost him his life, and all the
martyrs theirs. But, short of that, the Christian - like his Lord, who never entered on a crusade against
political or racial corruption, but poured out the truth which can alone
cure it - pays the taxes, obeys the laws,**
intercedes for all in authority, and by maintaining his saltedness saves Sodom.
Under the terrible totalitarian Emperors of his day, Tertullian said:- “We Christians, looking
up to heaven with outspread hands, and without a prompter, because we pray from
our hearts, do intercede for all emperors, that their senates may be faithful,
their people honest, and their whole empire at peace.”
* It is nowhere written, Christians, submit yourselves to good
governments, any more than it is written, Children, submit yourselves to good
parents, or, Servants, submit yourselves to good masters - “not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward [i.e.,‘perverse’]” (1 Pet. 2: 18). Grace is much more powerful in
submission to evil.
** In this sense we can say, “I am a Briton born,” even as Paul cried, “I am a Roman born” (Acts 22:
28), when he invoked the Roman law courts (Acts 25: 11) in defence of his
character, though not in defence of his property or life. But, as Paul has
himself said:- “Our citizenship is in heaven”(Phil. 3: 20).
So the Apostle adds a warning that has by no means been
unnecessary down the Christian ages. “As free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bond-servants of God.” The word ‘cloak’
aptly expresses some fair and attractive pretence by which we conceal some
secret evil, injurious to the State, that we are practising. Our freedom is
God-given: “ye are bought with a price, become
not bondservants of men” (1 Cor. 7: 23): nevertheless behind our refusal of
the State’s law may lurk an unbrotherliness - the word means anything opposite
to love and charity - which does not fulfil
our real service, which is “bondservice to God”. Our sole defence against an
iniquitous Government is the Most High (1 Pet. 4: 19). Martin Luther,
in his agony of spirit on the night preceding his appearance before the Diet of
Worms, prayed:- “Do Thou, my God, do Thou God, stand
by me against all the world’s wisdom and reason. Oh, do it! Thou must do it.
Stand by me, Thou true, eternal God!”
The Apostle now closes with a general summary of civic virtue
in the child of God.
(1) Honour all men. Here is a fundamental command that could have come only
from the God who is love. Peter was surrounded, as we shall be increasingly, by
persecutors and slanderers, by whose hands he was ultimately killed:
nevertheless we are to “honour all men”
- all having infinite possibilities, all made in the image of God, and all
redeemed in their totality by Christ. It is a suggestive little fact that, in
the old days, no Jew would tread on any chance piece of paper on the floor lest
the name of God might be written on it. It must never leave our minds that
there is no man who may not carry, not the name, but the character
of God. Tertullian says:- “When the pagans deserted their nearest relatives in
a plague, Christians ministered to the sick and dying: when the pagans left
their dead unburied after a battle, and cast their wounded into the streets,
the Christians hastened to relieve the suffering.” So Madame Chiang Kai-Shek
wrote recently:- “The Generalissimo and I feel that no
words we could speak could sufficiently express our debt of gratitude to the
missionary body all over
(2) Love the Brotherhood. In the fierce war of nations, and the grave mistake of Churches in identifying themselves with their
nations, this command becomes much more difficult, yet far more urgent. We own but one Brotherhood - those born of God
in every nation; and God’s command is that we love these everywhere, and under
all circumstances. The Oxford Conference of 1937 said that “if war breaks out then pre-eminently the Church must
manifestly be the Church, still united as the one Body of Christ, though the
nations wherein it is planted fight each other”. So the World Missionary
Conference, held in
(3) Fear God. Over against the fear of man Scripture invariably
counter-poises the fear of God, and not for the world only, but also for the
Church. Grace does not cancel the fear of God: the command here is as direct
and straight as the love of the Brotherhood: Grace cancels for us the fear of
God as Christless sinners, but imposes a real fear of God as His responsible servants. “If we
have lost our thought of God as an all-just and all-holy Judge who will call us
to strict account for all service done or left undone, we must re-capture it”
(T. H. Darlow).
“Work
out your own salvation with fear and
trembling” (Phil. 2: 12).
(4) Honour the King. It is simply overwhelming to us, who are standing on the threshold of Antichrist, that
the ‘king’ under whom Peter wrote is Nero, who, re-incarnated in the murdered ‘seventh
emperor’ (Rev. 17: 11), will be the Antichrist. “There is NO power but of God”
(Rom. 13: 1). We
honour the office rather than the person, or the person because of his office: in some cases (as in
-------
THE WEEK OF PRAYER
Once more the leaders of the Evangelical Churches summon to
the Week of Prayer. “In the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and by invitation of the World’s Evangelical Alliance, we are called to
devote the first complete week in 1940 to united Prayer and Intercession. Let
each of the days, from January 7th to 14th be days in
which Prayer shall have the first place in our life and service. The sacrifice
needed, to make room for this, will
be a wise redeeming of the time. The distraction and anxiety of the world
challenge us, who believe in Christ, to make Him manifest as the true supply of
all real needs, the way of our only deliverance, the substance of our one true
hope. Year by year it becomes more evident that the trouble from which all
other troubles spring is man’s determination to set himself instead of God in
the centre. That is the essence of sin. For that, one cure and only one is
offered - the Cross of Jesus Christ.”
* *
*
22
A CENTURY-OLD JUDGMENT + 2
By WILLIAM MARRIOTT
It is always interesting to trace a truth before ever it has
emerged into public notice. This
letter (given us by a great-grandson of the same name) was addressed to an
official of the C.M.S., dated July 31, 1827,
and written by the son of John Wesley’s executor; and it was composed when the
chief protagonists of this particular truth - Govett and Pember and Seiss, not
to speak of A. B. Simpson, Hudson Taylor, and A. T. Pierson - were still in
their childhood, or not yet born. - Ed. [D.M.Panton.]
You
asked my opinion the other day relative to the First Resurrection. It appears
to be God’s method in regard to those mysteries which have been hidden from
past ages, rather to bring them to view gradually than develop the whole of
them at once; because there is a preparation of mind necessary to receive them.
Witness an instance in the Apostle Peter previously to his being sent to
Cornelius, and again - you will recollect what Our Lord said to His disciples
not long before His bodily presence was removed from them. “I have yet
many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear
them now” (John 16: 12).
My idea then regarding The First Resurrection* is as follows. It is spoken of as
taking place at the commencement of the Millennium; when Satan, who is said to
have “the powers of death” (Heb. 2: 14), is bound for a thousand years. His
overthrow was accomplished, and his schemes in the seduction of our first
Parents completely thwarted, by the death of our Redeemer, who is spoken of by
the Psalmist as leading “Captivity captive” (Ps. 68: 18). It is also related by the Evangelist
St. Matthew that at Christ’s death the graves were opened (as it would seem by
the earthquake which then happened) “and many bodies of the Saints which
slept arose and came out of their graves after his resurrection and went into
the holy city and appeared unto many” (Matt. 27: 52, 53). As then this partial resurrection
took place in token of Christ's having triumphed over or conquered His enemy,
not only in his own person, but in behalf of his people (for the Apostle says “Them that
sleep in Jesus will God bring with him”, 1 Thess. 4: 14), so in token of his triumphant reign
commencing on earth; when the promises shall be accomplished of the Heathen
being given him for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for
his possession (Ps. 2: 8). The kingdoms of this world having
become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ (Rev. 11: 15), there shall be a more glorious manifestation of his triumph
in the resurrection of such as have suffered in his cause.
* This cannot be interpreted as a figurative
resurrection, for if so, the clause “the rest of the dead lived not again until the 1,000 years were finished”
must also be understood figuratively; but this is plainly inadmissable.
This will throw some light perhaps on the representation given
under the fifth seal (Rev. 6: 9, 11) of the souls of them that were slain in the persecutions
under the Heathen Emperors (or Pagan Rome) who are depicted as crying from - [within
‘Sheol’ / ‘Hades’
(see Lk. 16: 23, 24, R.V.), where] - under the Altar for vengeance to be
executed, when it is said to them, that they
should rest for a little season until their fellow servants also and their
brethren which should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. But as those
which arose on Christ’s resurrection were not seen by all the City, but only
appeared to various inhabitants of Jerusalem, so I do not imagine this
resurrection will be generally visible but may be manifested to many for the
stronger confirmation of their faith.*
* Possibly this may have a very powerful influence towards
effecting that sudden and general conversion of the Jewish Nation which I think
we may expect to take place about the same period (see Isaiah 25: 8.) and of the receiving of
whom the Apostle speaks in the Eleventh Chapter to the Romans, “If the falling of them be the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?” (ver.
12).
For he had just before remarked, that “through their
fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles” (ver. 11)
and afterwards he adds (ver. 15), “If
the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” And ver.
25:
“For I would not brethren that ye should be ignorant of
this mystery, that blindness
(or hardness) in part is happened to
For my opinion is, as you know, that
there will not be a personal reign of Christ on earth; against which I
think there are the strongest objections, but I believe the Saints will reign
with them, during this period (Rev. 20: 4), those at least who have suffered in His cause; such as He
will rank among the Martyrs*: these it
appears will be honoured with a resurrection before others so that they shall
he with Christ when he comes to judgment. For he is represented as accompanied
on this important errand by Saints as well as Angels (Jude 14.) and it is said
by St. John in the former part of this verse. “I saw thrones and they sat
upon them and judgment was given unto them”: (see also Matt. 19: 28; Luke 22: 30). Besides the Apostle Paul says, “Know ye not
that we shall judge Angels?” (1 Cor. 6: 2, 3). This distinguished honour then,
living and reigning with Christ during the thousand years is reserved for such:
and although a thousand years bears no proportion to Eternity, yet it is in
itself no inconsiderable period of duration: and in respect to the existence of
our Globe will I apprehend be the Sabbatical or Seventh Part. Although it would be presumptuous in us to attempt to
fathom the Divine mind and counsels, yet we are sure that all which God does is
the result of infinite wisdom and reason; and it appears (if I may be allowed
to hint it) not without reason that this honour is put upon the characters here
mentioned seeing they have already given so public a testimony of their being
devoted to the cause of the Redeemer by laying down their lives for His sake (2 Thess. 1: 10). The purport of this general
judgment being as I apprehend to exhibit to men and Angels the equity of the
Divine procedure and sentence of the Judge, St. Paul observes (1 Tim. 5: 24), “Some men’s sins
are open beforehand, going before to judgment”; so in regard to the characters of
which we have been speaking, they have been made already sufficiently manifest.
* Is there not a meaning which has not
been generally obvious in these words of the Apostle, 2 Tim. 2: 11, 12? “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” - and
again - - “If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together,”
Romans 8:
17.
To add a word more on what the Apostle says in his first
Epistle to the Thessalonians (4:
16), that “the dead in Christ shall rise
first”. From this
I gather that even at the general Resurrection there will be a priority in
favour of them, they probably will be aroused by the first sounding of the
Trumpet, nor need we wonder if such as rise only to shame and everlasting
contempt (Dan. 12: 2), should be backward to appear: nay, are they not represented
as calling on the rocks and mountains to fall upon them in the general breaking
up of nature, and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 6: 16). But that there shall be more than
one sounding of the Trumpet on this awfully grand occasion is not only a
generally received opinion, but is implied in the Apostle’s words when he
speaks of the last Trump, at which time the change shall pass on such as are
alive (1 Thess. 4: 17), and the general resurrection take place.
-------
The greatest of all the revelations
about the future condition of the saints is that they are to be identified with
Jesus Christ in His reign - that is, those who ‘overcome’. Not all saints are to be elevated to
this position; this is for victorious saints - A. T. Pierson, D.D.
-------
UNWATCHFULNESS
An assumption made by nearly all
students of prophecy, silencing some of our Lord’s gravest warnings - an
assumption, namely, that the Church is
watching for her Lord’s return - Madras
completely overthrows. Probably the most ‘ecumenical’
Conference of all time, 470 delegates gathered out of the Churches of 70
nations, issues this message to the world:- “God grant
to His Church to take the story of His love to all mankind, until that love
surround the earth, binding all nations in a deathless faith in Christ.”
That is, the Church’s sole outlook is a world converted by the Gospel*: to say that such a Church ‘watches’ for an Advent on a bankrupt dispensation, an
advent of which it is both ignorant and totally incredulous, is a grave
untruth; and it follows as an equal certainty that if the Church does not watch it has no conceivable escape
from the penalties our Lord has decreed for unwatchfulness. “One is taken,
and one is left: watch
therefore” (Matt. 24: 42). That is - if words have any meaning - the unwatchful are left.
* It is true that a sub-section of the
Conference issued a ‘minority report’ endorsing
the Second Advent; but this only beings into sharper relief the official ‘message to the world’.
-------
WATCH
One outlook alone is authorized by
Christ Himself. The Friend’s Witness sums it up well: “In
view of the great event, in view of the state of the world around us, how
earnestly we should seek to lead others to the Saviour; and, still more, to take heed to ourselves in the warning
given by our Lord in Luke 21: 36:- ‘Watch ye therefore, 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’.”
* *
*
24
ANTI-SEMITISM
1
Many
circumstances have conspired to produce the outburst of hatred of the Jew. Some
of the emancipated Jews have, through their great ability and energy, risen to
high and influential positions in literature, commerce and finance. This has
provoked the envy and jealousy of the peoples amongst whom they dwell, who
complain of the supplanting of the children of the soil, and the predominance
of an alien race. Wealth and influence, too, have paid the usual penalty
attached to greatness when it refuses to render itself amenable to the designs
of others; and the Jew has become obnoxious to those to whom he would not
become subservient. The difficulties, also, of the industrial classes in their
struggle for existence, intensified by competition from with-out, has caused
them to regard with little favour the immigrant Jew, who, flying from
persecution elsewhere, has come to seek a share in that employment which is
already too scarce, and which is regarded as being too scantily rewarded.
Anarchists too, and socialists, ignorant of the general level of indigence
which characterizes the Jews as a people, regard with special enmity a race
which numbers amongst its members some very wealthy and conspicuous money-lenders,
bankers, financiers and merchant princes; and the war against property in
general is directed specially against the Jew. Besides all this, deep-rooted
animosity against the Jew, regarded as the destroyer of the Founder of
Christianity, and the enemy of His creed and adherents, ever latent amongst
ill-instructed Christians, seems ready to exhibit itself as an active force - N. S.
TAYLOR.
2
An
encyclopedia of anti-Semitism in six volumes has been published in
3
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is strongly recommended by Hitler in Mein Kampf, and two versions of it were published
in
4 *
The
central force of the whole abomination is Julius
Streicher, who stands in special honour at the
right hand of Hitler, and publishes
his incredibly foul journal, Der Sturmer, with Hitler’s express blessing. The Sturmer
is much read in schools by order from above. It has illustrations of
hideous old Jews violating innocent German girls; of rabbis drinking the blood
of German children. Its letterpress insists, ad nauseam - though nausea, I
confess, is easily reached - that Jews by their religion are bound to violate
Christian girls. “Now we know why the Jew does all he
can to ravish German girls at the earliest possible moment; why the Jewish
physician rapes his female patients while they are under an anaesthetic.”
Strange reading for schools, save in a country given over to criminals!
* We print this deeply revolting
revelation solely because it is exceedingly important that we Christians should
know all the facts of to-day, and not live in an imaginary world. - Ed. [D.
M. Panton]
The psychological basis of this devilry is the regular
well-established Nazi myth.
5
Permit
me to add my own to the other protests which you have already printed against
the publication in
6
Pharaoh
tried to annihilate the Hebrews, and all the firstborn of
Anti-Semitism proves the supernatural character of the Bible.
In Deuteronomy 28. - 32. is the most appalling description of human suffering ever
written. Though written more than three thousand years ago, it predicts in
detail the history of the Jews of three thousand years. It has been fulfilled
continuously, century after century, down to the present time, even as to-day
in
That the Jew has survived at all for the last twenty-five
hundred years is a supernatural fact. No other nation ever has or could endure
similar treatment. This fact is also the supernatural fulfilment of
supernatural prophecies written twenty-five hundred years ago. “Thus saith
the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by
day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the
stars for a light by night, which divideth the
sea when the waves thereof roar; the Lord of
hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from
before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation
before me for ever. Thus saith the Lord: If
heaven above can be measured, and the
foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I
will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord” (Jer. 31: 35-37) - FREDERICK ERDMAN.
7
John Cournos well observes in his recent book that the Christless
acts of Christians have shaped the Jewish policy toward Christ and that “a truly practising Christianity might have at almost any
time caused Judaism to melt as the snow melts away under the warm sun.”* Indeed whenever thoughtful Jews,
eager to find the truth, come in contact with consecrated Christians,
the impact of the Christ-centred life produces a revolutionary change in their
thinking. By far the greater number of Hebrew Christians were drawn to Christ
through the silent witness of the lives of earnest Christians. Professor Kohnstanun,
of the
* An Open Letter to Jews and Christians. 1938. pp.
74, 150.
He says:- “At this early stage in my
philosophical thinking there appeared a person, who, in his quiet way,
exercised a profound influence upon me. He presented a rather extraordinary
riddle in my matter-of-fact and rather superficial mental world. My class-mates
related that this man, who was our chemistry teacher, strange as it seemed,
went regularly to church on Sunday. We could not interpret this behaviour as
due to a lack of modern scientific knowledge, for his clear-cut objective and
splendid instruction in chemistry were evidence of his sound scientific
knowledge. The only alternative explanation of this strange behaviour was that
it emanated from some inexplicable external motive, and this explanation just
did not fit. None of us could deny the fact that everything he did was prompted
by the greatest sincerity and earnestness. ... just as my teacher in chemistry
in the high school had become a problem to me, so it was now the case with my
university professor, Dr. van de Waals,
one of the greatest scientists in the world, who was later a Nobel prize
winner. I came into close personal touch with him. He was a man whose
objectivity and deep humility were only surpassed by the great sincerity of his
whole being. This man, too - how could I explain it? - was a witness, even if
usually a silent one, for that same Christianity which I had believed I could
ignore as a message long since outgrown.”*
* “My Way to the
8
The
ritual murder calumny - the alleged Jewish sacrifice of children - is a relic
of the days of witchcraft and m “black magic”,
a cruel and utterly baseless libel on Judaism. Religious minorities other than
the Jews, such as the early Christians, the Quakers, and Christian missionaries
in
9
They come out of the night of years,
with
Out of the mystery of time that was
before the Flood.
They saw imperial
They saw the sculptured, scarlet East
shrink under the grey sands.
They saw the star of
They saw the world of
And go with ravenous eyes ablaze and
jaws that would not spare,
Snarling across the earth, then
toothless die upon his lair.
* *
*
25
THE CHURCH AND THE
By KARL BARTH
Professor Karl Barth, in his book, The Church and the Political Problem of Our
Day*, from which we take these extracts, deals exclusively with Nazism, after the
closest personal observation and experience; but the totalitarian State,
whether National Socialist, Fascist, or Bolshevist, by its claim in each case
to self-deity, comes under his strictures as all of them inevitable preludes of
Antichrist. Karl Barth himself may yet follow Martin Niemoller to martyrdom - Ed. [D. M.
Panton.]
* Hodder and
The
justification and the power of the totalitarian and radical dictatorship of
National Socialism lies in the pre-supposition that it itself is able to be and
to give to man and to all men everything necessary for body and soul, for life
and death, for time and eternity. In our situation to-day we have to do with this form of the
State, with dictatorship, with this, a totalitarian and radical dictatorship.
And it must now be said of this political problem so addressed to us that it is
definitely not “only” a political problem.
Whatever other forms of the State in other times and under other circumstances
might signify for the Church, this form of the State, a totalitarian and radical
dictatorship, faces us with the question of God, and thus with the question of
faith. In the face of this dictatorship there are only two questions really
full of import and significance for the Church and these she must answer: [1] Has the perfect
Think only of what has happened inside Germany: within a bare
six years a great and in the end not abnormally unreasonable and vicious people
is claimed and possessed by a new
political system in such a way that to-day every movement, every single
movement, of its inner as well as its outer life in all areas is so determined
by this system that all resistance, yea, even all disagreement is made “mechanically” impossible. National Socialism as a
political experiment, is a dictatorship which is totalitarian and radical,
which not only surrounds and determines mankind and men in utter totality, in
body and soul, but abolishes their human nature, and does not merely limit
human freedom, but annihilates it. This much is certain, that now it can no
longer remain hidden that German National Socialism is in reality reaching out
after the whole of Europe, and even beyond
And now it becomes understandable why, at the point where it
meets with resistance, it can only crush and kill - with the might and right
which belongs [only] to Divinity! Islam of old as we know proceeded in this
way. It is impossible to understand National Socialism unless we see it in fact
as a new Islam, its myth as a new Allah, and Hitler as this new Allah’s
Prophet. Its design has become clear in the course of the struggle against
the Catholic and
When that occurs which in this matter is now in Germany
notoriously resolved upon and already put into practice, namely, the “physical extermination” of the people of Israel, the
burning of Synagogues and Scriptures,
the rejection of the “Jew God” and the “Jew Bible” as being of the very essence of all that
which ought to be an abomination to the German “man”
- then it is thereby and thereby alone decided that
there the attempt is being made to strike a mortal blow into the roots of the Church. Can anyone so much
as want to close his ears to all the unutterable misery caused by this
anti-Semitic pest, crying to Heaven in every German country? But how is it possible
that our Christian ears do not tingle in view of what this plight and
malignancy mean? Objectively, what are we then, without
Nothing short of a tremendous positivising - [or
politicising] - of
our Church and political life could ever be equal to this vitality and demonism
of National Socialism’s onslaught. Are we not startled that actually so little
of this is to be seen among us? Already all speaking out in faith can no longer
be done - [without suffering the dire
consequences - imprisonment, torture and ultimate death- from State
Officials] - in
-------
LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD
The secretary of the London Missionary Society, Mr. A. M. Chirgwin, has received a letter from a German missionary
who was a colleague in the Madras Conference:- “Your letter of Sept. 29 was for
me an unspeakable joy and encouragement. Take my heartfelt thanks for your
great faithfulness. I assure you of the same from my side towards yourself and
the other brethren. We meet every day in our prayers before the Throne of our
common Lord, in the same faith and in the unity of the Una
Sancta, which cannot be destroyed. The fellowship in Christ remains in spite of
all darkness. The faithfulness of our churches towards missionary work is
unparalleled.
-------
WAR AIMS
It steadily becomes clearer that the chief aim of the War
among the nations, and what will be its chief ultimate, though possibly not
immediate, fruit, is a
We believe that a necessary guarantee is an immediate,
explicit, and official statement of our intention of inviting all nations to
put away war between themselves and to unite under a federal Government with
supreme and single authority. - A
manifesto issued by fifty-seven British men of science, all Fellows of the
Royal Society, Oct., 1939.
*
* *
If out of this situation a more reasonable
*
* *
Let a confederation of Europe be established, an association
of free nations open to all who are prepared to submit themselves to the public
law, which such a confederation will administer and uphold. Let us highly
resolve at the outset that our main war aim is to reconstruct the shattered
fortunes of
*
* *
The time has come to supersede the absolute sovereignty of the
nation-State and to transfer some part of its functions to a Federal
Government. Unless we can succeed in achieving this result the war will be
fought in vain, if only because by leaving the existing European anarchy
uncontrolled with each nation-State as arbiter of its own interests and judge
and jury in its own cause it will pave the way for a series of future wars,
each more destructive than the last, until our civilization goes the way of its predecessors, through its
failure to adapt its political institutions to meet the challenge of its
new-won technical powers. It is the contraction of our world effected by the
speed of communications which has made federal union the supreme political need
of our times, for the world is now so small that unless they can be superseded
the nation-States will grind one another to pieces. - C. E. M. JOAD.
*
* *
One of the first to see this truth was Carnegie, who argued half a century ago for the creation of the United States of Europe. Industry and
commerce have now united the world, but its politics are still organized in
national States, and its economic life is therefore frustrated and bewildered.
The founders of the
*
* *
There must be acceptance of the principle that international anarchy is incompatible with peace, and
that in the common interest there must be recognition of an international
authority superior to the individual States and endowed not only with rights
over them but with power to make them effective, operating not only in the
political but in the economic sphere.
*
* *
Federalism postulates, according to its best accredited
exponents, a central government, over-riding all national governments in all
questions of foreign policy, with a single
tariff system, a single currency;
its own army, naval and air forces powerful enough to suppress all war between
States members of the union, and to resist, or deter, all aggression from
without - The Spectator, Nov. 3, 1939.
* *
*
26
ANTINOMIANISM + 2
By A.
W. TOZER
While the saved are completely freed from the Law of Moses,
evangelical Christians too often forget that we are “under law
to Christ” (1 Cor. 9: 21);
and the fracture of this law - practically the entire New Testament - can involve exceedingly grave consequences, though not
eternal perdition. - Ed. DAWN. [D. M.
Panton.]
To any
casual observer of the religious scene in our day, two things will be at once
evident: one, that there is very little conviction for sin among the unsaved;
and two, that the average professed Christian lives a life so
worldly and careless as to make it difficult to distinguish him from the
unconverted man.
The Power * that brings conviction to the sinner and enables the Christian
to overcome in daily living is being hindered somewhere. It
would be too much to name any one thing as the alone cause, for many things stand in the way of the full
realization of our New Testament privileges, but one class of hindrance
there is which is so conspicuous that it must be named: I mean that thrown up by wrong doctrines or by
over-emphasis on right ones. I want to point out one of these doctrines,
and I do it with the earnest hope that it may not excite controversy, but
rather bring us to a reverent
examination of our position.
[* See Acts 5: 32: “And
we are witnesses in him of these THINGS;
and God gave THE
HOLY SPIRIT to THOSE who SUBMIT to him” (from the Greek
text). Cf. 1 John 3: 24: “And HE who KEEPS his COMMANDMENTS
abides in Him, and he in him, and by this we know That he abides in us, by the SPIRIT
which he gave Us.” (From the Greek text.]
Fundamental Christianity to-day is deeply influenced by that
ancient enemy of righteousness, antinomianism. The creed of antinomianism is
easily stated: We are [eternally] saved by faith alone; works have no
place in [this initial] salvation; conduct is works, and is
therefore of no importance. What we do cannot matter so long as we believe the
right thing. The divorce between creed and conduct is absolute and final. The
question of sin is settled by the cross; conduct is outside the circle of faith
and cannot come between the believer and God. Such, in brief, is the teaching
of antinomianism. And so fully has it permeated the teaching of the fundamental
element in modern Christianity that
it is accepted by the masses as being the truth.
Antinomianism is the doctrine of grace carried by unchecked
logic to the point of absurdity. It follows the teaching of justification by
faith and twists it into deformity. It plagued the Apostle Paul wherever he
went, and called out some of his most picturesque denunciations. When the
question is raised, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” he blasts it wide open in that
terrific argument in the sixth chapter of Romans.
The advocates of antinomianism in our times deserve our
respect for at least one thing, their motive is good. Their error springs from
a desire to magnify grace and to exalt the freedom of the gospel. They start
right, but allow themselves to be carried beyond what is written by a slavish
adherence to an undisciplined logic. It is always dangerous to
isolate a truth,
and then to press it to its limit
without regard to other truths. It is not the teaching of Scripture
that grace makes us free to do evil. Rather it sets us free to do good. Between
these two conceptions of grace there is a great gulf fixed. It may be stated as
an axiom of the Christian system that whatever makes sin permissible is a foe
of God and an enemy of the souls of men. - The
-------
THE
There is a place where thou canst
touch the eyes
Of blinded men to instant, perfect
sight;
There is a place where thou canst say,
“Arise!”
To dying captives, bound in chains of
night
There is a place where thou canst
reach the store
Of hoarded gold and free it for the
Lord;
There is a place - upon some distant
shore -
Where thou canst send the worker or
the Word
There is a place where Heaven’s
resistless power
Responsive moves to thine insistent
plea
There is a place - a silent, trusting
hour -
Where God Himself descends and fights
for thee.
Where is that blessed place - dost
thou ask, “Where?”
O soul, it is the secret place of prayer.
-------
PARDON
A criminal (says the Evangelical Christian) who had been
imprisoned for a very serious offence was pardoned by the governor of the
state. He was called in before the governor and was requested to be seated
facing the governor who, addressing him, said:- “I am
about to hand you a pardon and set you free, but I suppose that you will soon
break the law again and be placed behind the bars.” The guilty man
replied:- “No, sir. I expect to go straight, now that
I am set free. You will never again see me in jail.” The governor then
said to him:- “You have been a captain of a boat on
the river, have you not?” “Yes, sir,” he
answered. “Do you intend to go back to the river work
when you are released?” “Yes, sir, I do,”
he said.
A strange light came into the eyes of
the governor as he gazed intently upon the man to whom he was about to grant
this great favour. He said:- “I want you to promise me that when you go back again to the
boat service that you will never go into the room of a sick boy, beat him with
a club of wood, force him out on the deck on a cold rainy night and make him
work when he is utterly unfit for it.” The prisoner replied:- “Certainly, I will not. I am not a brute, if I have done any
wrong. I would not think of doing such a thing. Why do you make this strange
request?”
The reply came slowly from the
governor’s lips, and a strange moisture appeared in his eyes. Looking closely
at the prisoner, he said:- “You did that to me. When I
was a boy in
The great Judge of all, to whom God
has committed all judgment, was once the innocent Sufferer: my sins crucified
Him: nevertheless He offers pardon and liberty to all, with the words, - “Go and sin no
more.”
* *
*
27
SYMPTOMS OF THE LAST CRISIS + 1
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
The new
Pope, who knows that even the powerful Roman Church is in danger, thus sums up
the situation. He says (Times, Oct. 19, I939):- “Across the face of
LIES
We now see some proofs. A narrative in Daniel opens with what
might be a lightning snapshot of
THE JEW
The
Antichrist’s dealings with the Jew is next packed into a sentence. He makes a
covenant with the apostate Jews - ‘a firm covenant’ (Dan. 9: 27), characteristically, as we see things
to-day, to be broken half-way through its course; and he rages against the
Covenant which God has made once again with
THE IMAGE
The crucial moment of all history now arrives. How far
antagonism to all religion can go
PERSECUTION
So now the horror falls on all Jews who neglect the warning of
Christ. “They that be wise among the people shall instruct many:
yet they shall fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by spoil,
many days.”
DEITY
Now all centres on him who is named the ‘Vile Person’.
“He shall magnify himself above every god, and shall
speak marvellous things against the God of gods.” It is striking to note how Godet, writing half a century ago,
deduced the principles of Antichrist as we are watching them now openly
avowed:- 1. “There is no personal God without and above the universe. 2. Man is
himself his own god - the god of this world. 3. I am the representative of humanity; by
worshipping me humanity worships itself.” Mussolini’s words are these (Times, June 11, 1932):- “Nothing human or spiritual exists or has any value outside
the State”; and each Dictator adopts the slogan of Louis XIV, “The State, it is I.” The Antichrist will also say in
his heart:- “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt
my throne above the stars of God” (Isa. 14: 13); and it is remarkable that Mussolini
has said, - “I give to the Italian nation a hard but
magnificent task, that of obtaining primacy on earth and in the skies.” Such super-deity is already in the
world. A Japanese pastor, who taught that there are four persons in the
Godhead, the fourth being the Emperor, was immediately arrested for insulting
the Emperor by placing him fourth instead of first.
FORCE
Peculiarly coming to life throughout
* “This,” says Mr.
Hore-Belisha, War Secretary (Times, Nov. 23, 1939), “is a fortress war. An organization of almost inconceivably
great dimensions has been established - a world within a world.” The
Paris Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (weekly ed., Oct. 20, 1939), writes:-
“The Maginot Line is the most perfect fortress system
known to military science and may go down to history as a landmark in defensive
methods equal in fame to the Great Wall of China. The technical equipment of
these fortresses almost surpasses the imagination. If one could imagine an
underground castle which exposes virtually no area of its walls to siege, is
equipped with the machinery of an electric power station, and combines the
essentials of an hotel and a hospital with the gunnery of the Navy and its
centralized command in addition, one has many of the features of the larger
fortresses of the Maginot Line.”
** “There are
probably some 13,000,000 young Germans between the ages of 16 end 24 to whom
Hitler is God, Himmler is his prophet, and the
noblest task of a good Nazi is to beat up Jews and anti-Nazis in a
concentration camp.” - G. R.
Clerk, The Times, Dec. 1, 1939.
BRIBES
Characteristically we are seeing the coming enormous bribery. “Whoever acknowledgeth him he will
increase with glory, and he shall cause them to
rule over many and shall divide the land for a price.” An American journalist gives evidence
that has thrilled the world of the amounts lodged, for safety’s sake, in
foreign banks by the four leading
Nazis - Goering, Goebbels, Ribbentrop
and Hess; amounting to a total of £6,974,700, or each a double millionaire.*
* Proofs in detail are given in the Paris-Soir, and
reproduced in full in the Manchester Guardian, weekly ed., Sept. 29, 1939.
THE END
Finally,
* The ‘historicist’ interpretation
of prophecy, though with entire sincerity and graciousness of heart, has done a
grave disservice to the
-------
HOW I ASCERTAIN THE WILL OF GOD
By GEORGE MULLER
1. - I seek at the beginning to get my
heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given
matter.
Nine-tenths of the trouble with people is just here.
Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do
the Lord’s will, whatever it may be. When one is truly in this state, it is
usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.
2. - Having done this, I do not leave
the result to feeling or simple impression. If I do so, I make myself liable to
great delusions.
3. - I seek the will of the Spirit of
God through, or in connection with, the Word of God.
The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the
Spirit alone without the Word I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the
Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and
never contrary to them.
4. - Next I take into account
providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God’s will in
connection with His Word and Spirit.
5. - I ask God in prayer to reveal His
will to me aright.
6. - Thus, through prayer to God, the
study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to
the best of my ability and knowledge, and if my mind is thus at peace, and
continues so after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly.
* *
*
27
ACCOUNTED WORTHY
By
“Watch ... and pray that ye may be accounted worthy ... to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21: 36). What is involved in this worthiness?
It must include our being -
1. PREPARED TO GIVE
ACCOUNT TO HIM. We
know that we shall have to do that (Rom. 14: 10; 2 Cor. 5: 10); and we must expect, when we do
stand before the judge, to account to Jesus Christ for (1) the relation which we have voluntarily sustained to Himself -
how we have received His invitation, and with what fulness we have accepted Him
as the Redeemer, the Friend, the Lord of our heart and life; (2) the way in which we have served Him
since we called ourselves by His Name - i.e. how closely we have followed Him,
how obedient we have been to His commandments, how earnest and faithful we have
showed ourselves in His cause; in fact, how true and loyal we have proved to be
as His servants here.
2. CONFORMED TO HIS
LIKENESS. Will not
our Lord expect to find those who professed to be His disciples, who had access
to so many and such great privileges, stand before Him such as He lived and died to make them? We know what
that is. “He gave Himself for us, to
redeem us from all iniquity”; He has “called us
to holiness”; He
came and wrought His work in order that He might make us to be in our spirit
and character the children of God, bearing our heavenly Father’s image. He will
therefore look to those who stand before Him as His redeemed ones for: 1. Purity of heart; the abhorrence of all that is evil, and love for that which is
good and true and pure. 2. A
loving spirit; a spirit of
unselfishness, of devotedness, of generosity, of tender solicitude for the
well-being of others. 3. Reverence
and consecration of heart to God.
3. READY FOR THE HEAVENLY
SPHERE. To “stand before” the king meant to be ready to fulfil
His royal behest, prepared to do at once and to do effectively whatever He
might require. To stand before our Divine Sovereign means to be ready to do His
bidding, to execute His commandments as He shall employ us in His heavenly
service. We naturally and rightly hope
that He will entrust us with the most honourable errands, will appoint us to
elevated posts, will charge us with noble occupations that will demand enlarged
ability and that will contribute great things to His cause and kingdom. We may
be sure that the devoted and faithful discharge of our duties here will prove
the best preparation for celestial activity and usefulness. He that is faithful
in a few things now will be made ruler over many things hereafter. He who puts
out his talents here will be found worthy to stand before the King, and to be
employed by Him in broad and blessed spheres of service there.
4. DEVOTED IN MIND AND
SPIRIT. If we would be “accounted
worthy” to do this,
we must “watch and pray”. 1. We must spend
much time with God. In the study of His will and in supplication for the
quickening influences of the Spirit. 2.
We must often examine our own hearts, observing our progress or retrogression,
ready for the act of penitence, or of praise, or of reconsecration as we find
ourselves declining. We must also observe the forces that are around us, and
distinguish carefully between the hostile and the friendly, between those which
make for folly and for sin and those which lead up to wisdom and to
righteousness. - The Pulpit Commentary.
* *
*
28
PRAYER + 1
[PART 1]
THE BLESSINGS OF PRAYER
Ding Li Mei (of whom Dr. J.
R. Mott says those who know him
best will tell you that the dynamic secret of his life is the central place
which he gives to intercession) has enumerated the following ten out of the
uncounted blessings which he himself has experienced in the practice of this
habit:-
1. I am so much with the Lord that he seems my closest Friend.
2. My spiritual life is refreshed like the sprouting grain with
rain.
3. Justice, peace and joy constantly fill my soul as the light
fills the heavens and I get uncommon strength.
4. When I study the Bible I seem to see Heaven opened, and
realize that I am having communion of heart with Christ himself.
5. When I talk about the Gospel in private or in public I have
an unshakable confidence that the hand of the Lord is. supporting me.
6. My love has been steadily expanded until I now am conscious
of no man in the universe whom I cannot love.
7. When I fall into sin, whether secret or open, whether great
or small, I experience an immediate rebuke of conscience, which drives me at
once to confession and repentance.
8. In all my work for the Lord, although the results are not
alike evident or immediate, I do not know of any effort that has been in vain.
9. Intercessory prayer has greatly enlarged my circle of friends
among God’s co-workers, and through the Lord’s kind care these friendships will
never cease, but will continue to grow, thus far excelling the friendships of
the world.
10. And best of all, I am not the only one who is trying to
persevere in intercession. Others in my own and in other Christian
organizations, both men and women, in church and school and ministry, have
likewise been banded together in similar covenants of prayer these same twenty
years. I am personally acquainted with not less than ten who have their
individual lists for prayer besides the cycles prepared for the use of groups.
They are unanimous in their testimonies to the blessings of this habit.
Intercessors who can bring the nations into touch with God at
this juncture are the greatest asset they possess. No praying man or woman
accomplishes so much with so little expenditure of time as when he or she is
praying. If there are limitations, they are not in God, but in ourselves. It
has been well said that “God is brooding over this
unhappy world with a passion of love, with an infinitude of power. He is
seeking with all the intensity of his nature to save and redeem man!” If
only he might find some men or women who believe in that love, who believe in
that power, who are prepared to count upon it, to depend upon it, to stake
their all upon it, that love and power would be released in a marked degree for
the redemption of the world. Shall we be among those men and women? “If there should arise,” it has been said - and the
words are surely true to the thought of the Lord Jesus Christ - “one utterly believing man, the history of the world would be
changed!”
- The
Bible for
-------
AN APPEAL
Mr. Sidney Collett
has issued an appeal, copies of which have been sent to all Members of
Parliament, on the present grave situation. How solemnly (he says) the Word of
God is being verified:- “Ye cannot prosper because ye have forsaken the Lord” (2 Chron. 24: 20). Oh, the anxiety, disappointment and shame we might have been
saved if we had but heeded the following gracious words of Heavenly Wisdom:- “There is no
King saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty
man is not delivered by much strength” (Psalm 33: 16). Therefore, “It is better
to trust in the Lord, than to put confidence in
man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to
put confidence in Princes” (Psalm 118: 8 and 9), for “Except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain”
(Psalm 127: 1). Whenever
[PART 2]
MAXIMS ON PRAYER
By
ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D.D.
Before making
definite choice of an object in prayer consider
well whether the Spirit of all prayer lays it as burden on your heart. That
being clear, “pray without ceasing”, till you have the answer, or, at least, the assurance
of answer.
2. Those who deliberately choose for
themselves the part of supplicator and intercessor will study to meet all the conditions of a true channel of
blessing, removing all known obstacles either to the inflow or outflow of the
Holy Spirit’s fullness. All
privileges have their price.
3. Prayer is the very breath of piety.
There is therefore no surer index of what you are spiritually, than what, in
your inmost self, you most desire and yearn for; and of this the true prayer
habit is the natural and necessary expression.
4. “Come boldly
unto the throne of grace.” The rent veil has opened to all believers the way to the
mercy seat. God is more willing to answer than we are to ask. Let us not
interpret beseeching as though it were besieging. We have only to ask and
receive.
5. Believers have never reached the
limits to the possibilities of prayer. Whatever has been attained or achieved
has touched but the fringe of the garment of a prayer-hearing God. We honour
the riches, both of his power and love, only by large demands.
6. Do not measure the blessing of
prayer by feelings. When you feel least
like praying you need it most. Satan uses discouragement and despondency to
break up habits of supplication; but a traveller might as well give way to
drowsiness and inaction when in danger of freezing!
7. Prayer is an all-inclusive duty. The
injunction to “pray” is, at least, a sevenfold command:
it means “Acquaint thyself with God,” “Keep
thyself in his love,” “Study to show thyself
approved unto God,” “Taste and see that the Lord
is good,” “Walk by faith, not by sight,” “Be anxious for
nothing,” and be a
co-worker together with him.
8. True prayer is seeking first the
9. There is a great advantage in united
prayer. It makes intercession more unselfish. We are prone to give undue
emphasis to what personally affects us and our narrow circle of sympathies and
interests. To join with other devout souls in prayer enlarges its range and
scope and refines its spirit.
10. God uses intercessory prayer to
comfort and sustain others in great crises. A missionary being reproached for “burying himself in China”, calmly responded that he
always felt, in any danger or difficulty, “the prayers
of two thousand converts holding him up”.
11. A prayerless disciple is an obstacle
in the way both of God and man. The
barrier to the conversion of men may, in God’s sight, be found not more in
their evil hearts of unbelief than in the unbelief of his own children who have
no grip on his promises or power.
12. Time is not a necessary factor in
prayer. Yet it is necessary to take time to pray. A ruffled lake cannot reflect
the starry heavens, and a disturbed and restless soul gets little vision of
God. We need to wait before him, get calm and quiet. Then when we realize his
presence, praying becomes natural, as the child asks of his father who is
before him.
13. There are Scriptural terms of
prayer, mainly seven: abandonment of known sin, a forgiving spirit, unwavering
faith, spirituality of motive, in Jesus’ name according to the will of God, and
importunity. Compare Psalm 56: 18; Mark 11: 25; James 1: 6, 7; 4: 3; John 14: 13, 14; 1 John 5: 14, 15; Luke 18: 1.
14. Keep before you the grand leading
promises to the prayerful; God’s immediate help, the possibilities of faith,
and of abiding union with Christ, God’s infinite power and riches in glory,
rest from anxious cares, and the special promise to those who are in agreement.
Compare Isaiah 65: 24; Mark 9: 23; John 16: 27; Ephesians 3: 20; Philippians 4: 6, 7, 19 and Matthew 18: 19.
15. Be encouraged by Scriptural examples
of intercession such as that of Abraham for
O thou hearer of prayer, thyself “teach us to
pray”, show us
that path of the life which leads straight up the shining way to the throne of
grace, and develop in us this crowning grace of intercession. In the name of
Jesus. Amen.
-------
INTERCESSION
A correspondent writes:- “I will be
72 in June, and at 72 I can’t have very long to go. Do you consider that it
would be profitable both for now and for eternity to cease from business and
resolutely devote say one to two hours forenoon and the same in the afternoon
to prayer and intercession?”
In the Bible of the late Thomas
E. Stephens, the founder of the
Great Commission Prayer League, these words are written:- “On Saturday morning,
August 3, 1918, I was deeply impressed with the following sentences which I
read in R. E. McAdam’s little leaflet entitled Maxims on Prayer, as I rode to the office: ‘No praying man or woman accomplishes so much with so little
expenditure of time as when he or she is praying. If there should arise, it has
been said - and the words are surely true to the thought of the Lord Jesus
Christ in all his teaching on prayer - if there should arise one utterly
believing man, the history of the world might be changed. Will you not be that
one in the providence and guidance of God our Father?’
“The foregoing burned itself into my
very soul, and my heart immediately responded:- ‘yes, Lord, utterly unworthy as
I am, yet by thy grace, if this statement is indeed true, and if this is God’s
call to me, I’ll be that one. I’ll let Him, the great Intercessor himself, be
that one in me and through me. And I’ll give, and do now give, myself
unreservedly to him for the one supreme work of intercession in the Holy Ghost.
I do, Lord, all there is of me. Possess and use me utterly for this one great
work - thy cleansed and hidden temple of intercession.’”
+ 1
THE DAY OF PRAYER
The appointment of a Day of National Prayer by order of the
Privy Council, and therefore by an official act of the Government, is the most
important event that has yet occurred in a war heavy with black thunderclouds.
It is certain that no other Great Power of Europe either would or will so
approach God. We, the Church of Christ in Britain, can thank God that it is a
war which has been forced upon England, and a war in which she fights for
liberty and honour. We are reminded of the words of Mr. Asquith in the House
of Commons on Aug. 7, 1914 (Times,
Mar. 29, 1939):- “If I am asked what we are fighting
for, I can reply in two sentences. In the first place, to fulfil a solemn
international obligation - an obligation which, if it had been entered into
between private persons in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been
regarded as an obligation not only of law, but of honour, which no self-respecting
man could possibly have repudiated. I say, secondly, we are fighting to
vindicate the principle in these days when material force sometimes seems to be
the dominant influence and factor in the development of mankind, that small
nationalities are not to be crushed, in defiance of international good faith,
by the arbitrary will of a strong and overmastering Power. I do not believe any
nation ever entered into a great controversy - and this is one of the greatest
history will ever know - with a clearer conscience and stronger conviction that
it is fighting not for aggression, not for the maintenance even of its own
selfish interest, but in defence of principles the maintenance of which is
vital to the civilization of the world, and with the full conviction, not only
of the wisdom and justice, but of the obligations which lay upon us to
challenge this great issue.”
* *
*
29
THE RAPTURE OF EL1JAH
(The Quarterly
Journal of Prophecy)
In the
life of Elijah there was much of mystery and majesty, but the closing scene of
his earthly pilgrimage was awfully sublime. Unlike all other men while in the
world, he was privileged to differ from them in the manner of his leaving it.
Elijah seems to be the most unearthly character revealed in the sacred page,
the Son of God alone excepted. But lest we should think of him above what we
ought to think, and so rob God of the glory of His grace, and ourselves of the
advantages of his example, we are expressly told, “that he was a
man subject to like passions as we are” (James 5: 17); and if we examine his history
minutely, we shall find proof of this, and see reason to conclude that his own
account of himself was correct: “I am not better than my fathers”
(1 Kings 19: 4). He was a vessel of God’s own forming
and filling, an instrument of God’s own preparing, and one whose prayers,
history, and influence, God has signally used to promote his own glory. Elijah
honoured God through life, and now God is about to honour him, and that in a
most extraordinary way, by taking him to himself without “the pains,
the groans, the dying
strife”.
Elijah is very near eternity, fully conscious of the fact, yet
he is perfectly calm. He walks,
he talks, he waits, without impatience - a stranger to terror or distraction.
So we see in Elijah a man near eternity, - a blessing to the end; intent upon doing
good to the very last step of his journey. He visited the schools of the
prophets at different places; - there he saw that his labours had not been in
vain, and that he was not the only servant of God left in
Elisha offers a
wonderful model for those who, left, are startled and awakened. “There are
last that shall be first.” He says:- “I pray thee, let a
double portion of thy spirit rest upon me.” He was not like that king on whose
arms he afterwards laid his dying hands, and whom he had to reprove for his
backwardness (2 Kings 13: 19). Elisha had one unlimited warrant, and he was no niggard in
his request. Some suppose that he actually asked for twice as much as Elijah
himself had possessed. That he asked and obtained this blessing will not appear
unreasonable to conclude, if his after-history is considered and compared with
that of Elijah. The miracles which he wrought were more numerous than those of
his great predecessor, and more beneficial in their effects. In the tenderness
of his character, and the evangelical cast of his ministry, he also exceeded
Elijah. Like that wondrous man, and even more than him, Elisha was enabled to
look into the invisible world (2 Kings 6: 8-17), and forward to futurity (2 Kings 8: 12). In making such a request as this
Elisha proved that he was awake to the greatness of his work, and the
difficulties thereof, and was afraid to follow Elijah in the prophetical work
without a very large measure of the Spirit of God. He knew that God had not
exhausted His stores upon Elijah, and he had a noble ambition to be great in
spiritual things, assured that a double portion of the [Holy] Spirit
would make him more humble, and enable him to bring more glory to God.
There follows a spectacle of wonder such as hath been seldom
witnessed in this world. In the distance dark rolling masses of clouds are
betokening some fearful commotion in the elements of nature. The wind howls
piteously, and the deep-toned thunder peals forth its notes of grandeur. The
coming whirlwind approaches directly towards the path of the two travellers,
who still walk calmly on. Oh, sight of wonder! they are wrapped in the awful
folds of the wings of the whirlwind! Forth from the centre of the storm rushes
a glorious chariot, drawn by horses of fire, and parts the friends asunder.
Elijah is gone; borne upward, as on the lightning’s wing, he is gone, into
heaven, and Elisha is left behind. “One is taken, and the other is left.” The one filled with rapture, the other with amazement.
The one entering on sinlessness, the other on service. As one strikingly
observes, “The blood which we see trickling from Him
who hung upon the cross, gives the fiery chariot all its power.” Elijah
well knew this when, in an after-day, he talked with Moses and the Saviour on
the holy mount, “of the decease to be accomplished at
But what a change for Elijah change of worlds, of
circumstances, of company, and of condition. And what a change for the rapt
child of God, when the last fetter is broken and the last sigh heaved. Ignorance,
dullness, coldness, are for ever fled, and all is light, life, and love. The
war of the whirlwind is not heeded by him who rides home to his Father’s house
in a chariot paved with love. For the [select]* translation of Elijah foreshadows that of the saints in the latter day.
As in the days of Enoch, of Elijah, and of Christ, the times preceding the
coming of the Lord and the rapture of the saints will be times of growing wickedness and ripened apostasy. But
though the portion of the Church destined to this high honour may (for we cannot speak positively) have
to pass through much tribulation, yet they shall be taken into their ark before
the fiery deluge comes. There in their chambers shall they hide themselves for
a little moment, while the Lord “cometh out of his place to punish the
inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity.” What a blessed change will they then
realize! This vile body shall be fashioned like unto his glorious body, and
that “in a moment - in the twinkling
of an eye”.
[* Luke 21: 34-36; cf.
Rev. 3: 10.]
It may be that those are right who conclude that by taking Elijah
to heaven without dying, God intended not only to provide a witness to the
glory of Christ in the holy mount, but a herald of his second coming among the
Jews. One witness records that Moses and Elijah “appeared in glory, and spake with Jesus of His decease which He should accomplish
at
* *
*
30
THE RETURN OF ENOCH* AND ELIJAH + 3
By J.
A. SEISS, D.D.
[* NOTE:
There are numerous Prophetic Bible Students today, (who have Bible evidence for
believing
MOSES will accompany ELIJAH during the last 3½ years of the Great Tribulation.]
The
apocryphal Gospels, Acts, etc., which, though we go not to
them for doctrine, belong to the early
literature of the Church, and hence are competent witnesses as to the
opinions current among Christians at the time they were written, are also very
positive and clear in the assertion that
Enoch, - [not MOSES God’s Law-giver] - with Elijah, is to witness again
upon the earth. In the History of Joseph
the Carpenter, Jesus
is represented as saying: “Enoch and Elijah must,
toward the end of time, return into the world and die, namely, in the day of
commotion, terror, perplexity, and affliction; for Antichrist will slay them”
(Chap. 31.).
So in the Nicodemus, two old men are found living in their bodies in Paradise, one of
whom says: “I am Enoch,
who was well-pleasing to God, and who was translated hither by Him; and this is
Elijah the Tishbite; and we are also to live until the end of the world; and
then we are to be sent by God to withstand Antichrist, and to be slain by him,
and after three days to rise again, and to be snatched up in clouds to meet the
Lord” (Chap.
9. alias 25.).
So also in an ancient book called Revelation
of John, a voice from
heaven is represented as saying, - “Three years shall
those times be. And then I shall send forth Enoch and Elijah to convict him [Antichrist]; and they shall show him to be a liar and deceiver; and he
shall kill them at the altar, as said the prophet.” So also Tertullian (De Anima,
50):- “Enoch was
translated, and so was Elijah; nor did they experience death; it was deferred;
they are reserved for the suffering of death, that by their blood they may
extinguish Antichrist.” Arethas (on Rev. 11: 13) declares the two Witnesses to be Enoch and Elijah, and claims that this was held with one accord in
his day - concorditer affirmatur. Ephraem the Syrian, in quite
another section of the Church, speaking of the Antichrist and the great day of
judgment, says:- “But, before these things, the
merciful Lord will send Elijah the
Tishbite, and with him Enoch, to teach religion to the human race; and they
shall preach boldly to all men the knowledge of God, exhorting them not to
believe in the tyrant through fear. They shall cry out and say, ‘This is a
deceiver, O ye men. Let none of you in any way believe him: for in a little while he will be utterly abolished. Behold, the
Lord, the Holy One, cometh from heaven!’”
So also Ambrose,
who reproves Victorinus for
substituting the name of Jeremiah in the place of Enoch as the companion of
Elijah in the last years of this present world. And scarcely, until after the
first half of the Christian ages, do we hear of any other testimony on the
subject. Whenever we hear of the last great Antichrist and the Witnesses who
withstand him unto death, Elijah and Enoch,
Enoch and Elijah are the
names we hear from the lips of the most eminent teachers, bishops, apologists,
and martyrs, from the time of the Apostles onward. Modern Christendom has well
nigh dropped these names from all such connections, as it has also well nigh
dropped most of the characteristics of primitive Christianity itself; but
nothing that it has substituted in place of these names can claim even a moiety
either of the Scriptural or the traditional evidences, which still, in spite of
everything, continue to proclaim Enoch and Elijah the Two Witnesses.
Of all men that have ever lived, Enoch and Elijah are the judgment
prophets. We do not know of a single other word that Enoch ever uttered save on this theme
of “judgment from above”. There is no evidence
that he ever preached on any other subject. The all-absorbing,
all-comprehending, as all-characterizing topic of his entire ministry, as
attested by the New Testament, was this, that he prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord
cometh with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their
ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have
spoken against Him” (Jude 14,
15). He was, therefore, the great prophet of judgment before the Flood, and hence one special witness
of Christ in the specific character of the strong Angel coming down from heaven
in the clouds to execute vengeance upon the guilty.
As to Elijah, he was also pre-eminently a messenger and prophet of judgment. The Book of Ecclesiasticus says of him, that he
stood up as fire, and his word burned like a lamp; he brought sore famine upon
the guilty, and by his zeal he diminished their number, and brought kings to
destruction, and anointed kings to take revenge (Eccles.
48: 1-8). Words and works of death and portent to the wicked constituted
the great outstanding characteristic of his whole prophetic career,
interspersed with the power of
resurrection. His spirit was not the evangelic, but the judgment, spirit.
That wild figure, ‘that stern voice, those deeds of blood,
that vehemence of judicial administration, which stand out in such startling
relief from the pages of the old records concerning him, have become somewhat
silvered over in the Christian’s thoughts with the light of the Mount of
Transfiguration; but the fiery zeal, and destructive wrath, and rugged outline
of the old prophet of woe and death to Ahab and Jezebel, Baal and Ashtaroth, is
still the true and characteristic picture of Elijah, identifying him, of all others since his time, as a
peculiar Witness and Messenger of the Judgment-Angel. We search in vain for any
other two prophets so peculiarly,
intensely, and characteristically Judgment-prophets, or that so specially take on the
features of heralds and representatives of the coming of the mighty judgment-Angel.
“Even after the lapse of eighteen
centuries,” says Herschell, “the Jews at their marriage
feasts always place a chair and knife and fork for Elijah. In the celebration of the Passover two large cups are
filled with wine. After the blessing, the second, ‘Elijah’s cup’, is placed
before the master of the house; the door is opened, and a solemn pause of
expectation ensues. It is at this moment that the Jews expect that the coming
of Elijah will take place to
announce the glad tidings that the Messiah is at hand. Well do I remember the
interest with which, when a boy, I looked towards the door, hoping that Elijah might really enter.”
-------
SNOW
Europe and
-------
MIRACLE
There will probable be supernatural
protection of antichrists. There is unmistakable evidence (says Prophecy)
that for years Father Divine has
been absolutely invulnerable against the many violent forms of death that have
threatened him. On thirty two occasions people have tried to lynch him, and
failed every time. Reliable eye-witnesses have seen the bullet scars which he
carries at the back of his dead, where he was shot at point-blank range.
-------
JUDGMENT
Bear in mind the time is coming when Christ will be worth more
to you than ten thousand worlds like this. Bear in mind that He is offered to
you now. This is the day of grace:
it is a day of mercy. You will find, if you will read your Bible carefully,
that God always precedes judgment with grace. Grace is a forerunner of Judgment. When Christ came to plead with
the people in
* *
*
31
SALVATION BY
Salvation by battle, one of the
recognized doctrines of heathendom, was stated afresh by non-Christian
authorities in
But, far more novel and infinitely more grave, it is voices within the
So the Bishop of London, Dr. A.
F. Winnington-Ingram,
in a sermon in St. Paul’s Cathedral on August, 1914, said:- “If it so happens that some dear boy, the darling of your
home, passes with unsullied honour, and to uphold the nation’s name, into the
presence of the Unseen, you will find him there, waiting for you, when your time
comes, one of God’s own children and kept most safely in His care. If a heathen
poet with only a vague belief in another world could say: ‘a sweet and pleasant
thing it is to die for your country’, with how much more conviction should a Christian
parent say the same?”
Nonconformist voices were equally explicit. Dr.
Fort Newton, of the
* So many errors around us, which plume themselves on their
novelty, .and imagine that that they are brilliant inventions of the modern
mind, are merely old heresies refurbished. Salvation by martyrdom - which has
at least the advantage of a direct and deliberate death for Christ - is thus
stated by Aretas,
one of the early Fathers:- “The shedding of their
blood for Christ’s sake delivered them from every stain; for being baptized in
their own blood, they came up white from the laver.” Nor is the idea
always confined to heroic death. When a trooper in Napoleon III’s
Guards, who had robbed a jeweller, cut up his body into seventy-eight pieces,
and thrown them down various drain-pipes, was guillotined, he exclaimed:- “I am quite ready to die, for my own blood spilt will not be
too much to wash away my crimes.”
So that actually Christian preachers are not only proclaiming
salvation by battle, but making the soldier’s death part of the Atonement. Says
the
Now we turn to men actually at the battle front. It is upon a
heroism recognized by the Holy Ghost that this monstrous perversion of the
Gospel is boldly built. Paul recognizes self-sacrifice for a loved and noble
friend, or devotion to death for a just and holy cause, as a rare but remarkable
proof of devotion. “Scarcely for
a righteous man will one die: for peradventure for the good man” - for the good cause - “some one
would even dare to die” (Rom. 5: 7). It is on this noble instinct that Satan has grafted one of
his most daring and deadly deceits. A Canadian General, Sir A. W. Currie, issued this Army Order:- “Under the orders of your devoted officers in the coming
battle you will advance or fall where you stand facing the enemy. To those who
fall, I say, ‘You will not die, but step into immortality. Your mothers will
not lament your fate, but will be proud to have borne such sons. Your names
will be revered for ever and ever by your grateful country, and God will take
you unto Himself.’” One effect of all this upon the men is strikingly
revealed by an Army chaplain. He says:- “Some time ago
I put up an announcement in an officers’ mess to the effect that on the four
ensuing Sundays I would attempt to answer the following questions: (1) Does a soldier who dies in battle go
straight to heaven? (2) Is there an
everlasting Hell? (3) Is
Christianity a failure? (4) Does it
matter what a man believes? Before I had time to deal with the first one I was
interested to discover that all the officers had been discussing the questions,
and had unanimously given these answers : To the first, Yes; to the second, No;
to the third, Yes; and to the
fourth, No. That, I think, may be given
as representing popular opinion in the Army.”
Against this, however, we can put a letter which came from the
trenches - a remarkable letter signed by nineteen soldiers representing eleven
denominations. Addressed “to the Churches at home,”
it ran thus:- “Out of gratitude to us the Church is losing
thousands of us. If you fought by our
sides you would know that ‘sacrifice’ is not our saving grace as we are
carelessly told, which belittles our Saviour’s great Sacrifice when He gave
Himself, not only a dead, but a living, Sacrifice for us. He laid down His
life, with all its moments and days: we out here ‘walk blindly’, gambling,
drinking, cursing, into death. We cannot tell you all, but we pray to God that
you will understand, as leaders of the Churches. Is it compromise we need now,
and when we come home, or is it a Saviour and examples of manhood? For the
Master’s sake do something, if only to appeal to your chaplains and teachers out
here upon this grave question, to show us what the giving of our lives to God
through Jesus Christ means. We sign this letter to the leaders of the Churches,
as a band of Christians of many units, who, although few in number, are banded
together to show one another, and also our comrades, Jesus.”
One critical passage - for the Bible always has a Scripture
which immediately settles a controversy - dissipates this pagan error. “For the good
man someone would even dare to die; but” - here is a vaster prodigy, an
unheard of love - “GOD commendeth” - proves, establishes beyond question, throws up into sharp
contrast - “his own love” - a love altogether unlike human love, and a love absolutely
peculiar to Himself - “that while we were yet sinners” - that is, while not an inch nearer meriting such a love - “Christ died
for us.” That
which man will hardly do for what is noble and right, God has done for what is
unutterably abhorrent to His sensitive holiness. Which of us would lay down his
life for a low blackguard, or a vile and dangerous criminal? but this is what
Christ did. But the contrast is still sharper. “For while we were enemies” - not simply godless
and careless, but machinegun enemies of God - “we were reconciled to God
through the death of His SON.” If a man murdered your son, would he
not be your enemy? so around the Cross, men - civilians and soldiers, priests
and people, governors and citizens, Jews and Gentiles - all appeared, not only
at their worst, but at their most malignant and murderous, at the very moment that Christ was
dying for them. Here is the vast and impassable gulf between the two
sacrifices. No Englishman in the Great War ever cast himself on a bursting bomb
to save the lives of a German platoon; no Austrian submarine ever scuttled
itself and sank in the Mediterranean rather than torpedo an Italian cruiser; no
Turk ever filled an Armenian grave with his own corpse: yet this is the miracle of love God, wrought on
For so He
left the mountain top, that none but He had found,
And He descended that abyss, that none
but He could sound;
Still downward, downward, amid night,
that only He had known,
’Mid deathly horrors still He went,
unaided and alone,
’Mid awful terrors, dark and grim,
that only He could dare,
And when He reached the end He found a
grave was waiting there.
A Christian lady visited a soldier terribly wounded, lying in
the ward of a large military hospital. A nurse, entering, said to him:- “You have no need to worry over your sins; anyone who gives
his life for his country, as you have, is all right.” The man smiled
faintly, but he shook his head and said: “Ah! lady,
that is a mistake! When I lay out there in the open, I knew I had done my bit.
I hadn’t failed King and Country; but that didn’t help me to face God. I wasn’t
fit to die, and I knew it, and it has been an awful trouble to me every day
since. But just now, as I heard that lady’s prayer, I saw that the Lord Jesus
had been punished for all my sins, and I might go free, and such a peace has
come into my heart. How wonderful of Him to die for the likes of me! No, I’ll
not be afraid to die now, because He has forgiven me.”*
* The heathen conception is brought up
to date by an incident (New Statesman, Jan. 27, 1940) in
-------
FALSE PROPHECY
It is an
extraordinary proof of the sharp limitations of demonic knowledge to note the
unanimous denial, before this War, of its advent. Here are but two predictions
of foremost mediums taken from Psychic News (we quote them from Prophecy):- “Once
again, as Europe moves towards another of its many crises, the voices of these
spirit guides who in September last predicted peace, say again that there will
be no world war” (Psychic News editorial, January 21st. 1939).
“To a world still filled with fear we repeat once
again the message we have printed without equivocation for nearly two years:
England will not be involved in war” (April 22, 1939). As late as
September 2nd the Psychic News printed an alleged communication from Earl Haig:- “I assure you earnestly that peace will be the outcome. The
crisis will be over within 14 days - that is, the mental danger. The physical
danger is over now.” No clearer proof could be conceived that ‘false prophets’ once more abound in the world.
* *
*
32
SCARLET GUILT + 2
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.” Isaiah 1: 18.
God
never acts except upon good and sufficient reasons never irrationally, never
arbitrarily; and He is always influenced by good reasons: good reasons have
more weight with Him than with anyone else in the universe. On the other hand, the main cause of a man continuing in sin is his obstinate refusal to
reason. For the dilemma between God and man is inexorable. Either
God must abate His claims, lower His standard, condone sin, and so share
iniquity; or else the enormous power of the Godhead, backed by inescapable
righteousness, must crush the sinner. Therefore “come and let us reason
together, saith the Lord”. “The
greatest enemy of the Power of Darkness,” says Thomas Carlyle, “is a thinking man.”
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
be as while as snow
though they be red like crimson, they shall
be as wool.
The Most High selects two words to describe sin: scarlet, to
picture its glaring, flaunting, challenging nature; and crimson, a word meaning
double-dipped, picturing its ineffaceable stain, its ineradicable dye. “We have some difficulty,” said a scientific lecturer,
“with the iron dyes; but the most troublesome of all
are Turkey red rags. You see I have dipped this into my solution; its red is
paler, but it is still strong. If I steep it long enough to efface the colour
entirely, the fibre will be destroyed.” That is - in the illustration of
Jehovah - there is no known natural process of getting sin out of the character
without destroying the man: it has soaked the fibre. And our fallen flesh is
double-dyed. Some garments are dyed, first in the wool, and then in the thread
or piece: so souls are ‘twice dead’; born corrupt, though born without a single evil habit; but now also
ineradicably sinful through years of constant sin.
So the Most High takes sin (1) in its most malignant nature, and (2) in its most deep-seated virulence. What are sins scarlet in
their blaze, and crimson in their shame? The scarlet sins are filthier vices,
such as secret adultery; daring crimes- murder, rape; blasphemies; the studied
propagation of atheism. And what are sins crimson in inextinguishable dye? Habits become as nature; decades of
debauchery; criminal propensities fed by the indulgence of a lifetime. And what
are double-dyed sins? Sins against floods of light and abundant knowledge; sins
in debauching others; sins against holy covenants and vows; sins in spite of
tremendous warnings constantly repeated; sins that have sunk us beneath the
beasts.
Now behold the blessed reasoning of mercy, that comes entirely
and alone from the side of Deity. “Though your sins be as scarlet” - assuming the very worst - “they shall be
as white as snow”:
as remarkable and fundamental a revelation as even God Himself could make. For
it reveals that man, in his substructure, in his original make-up, is not
hopelessly dyed, and that sin is no essential part of his texture; that it can be separated; that there is a moral
chemistry which can take the scarlet and the crimson out of human nature, and
out of the vilest individual life. But only One can do it. All men can dye
their souls, says an old divine, but only God can bleach them.
So instantly breaks the song no angel can sing, words that
have changed millions in every race and clime. “They shall be white as snow”: God will do
it, if only we apply the remedy. “Your hands are full of blood: wash you,
make you clean” (ver.
15). During the Bolshevist Revolution a
Russian was converted; and he confessed in public that he had murdered more
than three hundred persons with his own hands: yet he is washed. “THE BLOOD OF JESUS
CHRIST HIS SON CLEANSETH US FROM ALL SIN” (1 John 1: 7).
-------
ATONEMENT
The
tendency of the World’s religion just now is, to reject the blood and to glory
in a Gospel which needs no sacrifice, no “Lamb slain”. Thus they go ‘in the way of
Cain’ (Jude
11). Cain
refused the blood, and came to God without it. He would not own himself a
sinner condemned to die, and needing the death of another to save him. This was
man’s open rejection of God’s own way of life. Foremost in this rejection of
what is profanely called by some scoffers ‘the
religion of the shambles’, we see the first murderer; and he who would
not defile his altar with the blood of a lamb, pollutes the earth with his
brother’s blood. - DR. ANDREW BONAR.
-------
WASHED
One night in June a few years ago,
Sister Margaret was going home from her work in the streets, sad at heart after
a night of fruitless toil. She had taken with her a bunch of flowers, and now
they were all withered except two roses - the one a deep red, the other a pure
white. Suddenly looking up, she saw in the shadow of a doorway in Piccadilly a
young girl, a picture of utter despair. The Sister came to her and held out the
roses; but the girl’s face at once hardened scornfully, and she turned away.
Quietly the Sister followed her, when the girl turned and said angrily, “Why do you come to me with flowers? Do you want to torment
me?” “Do you know what these roses seem to say
to me” replied Sister Margaret “this white and
this red rose? ‘Though your sins be as acarlet, they shall be as white as snow’.”
“Yes,” said the girl, “that
is all very well for you, but I am not fit to touch them.” “Oh, but the message is meant for you as much as for me,”
and again the Sister held out the flowers. Then the girl burst into tears. “I will take them and keep them for my mother’s sake. She
sent me two roses in her last letter. I have got them now in the Bible she gave
me when I left home to come to
* *
*
33
THE LYCANTHROPY OF A DICTATOR + 1
There is
a tree in Sequoia National Park, California, 260 feet in height, and its diameter
at the foot is 45 feet; its trunk alone contains enough wood to make 40 five-roomed
houses; and it would take 30 large railway trucks to transport the timber. Such
was the tree of which Nebuchadnezzar dreamed, only far vaster. It pictured a
dictatorship reigning over the world: “the height thereof reached unto
heaven, and the sight thereof unto the end of
all the earth, and all flesh was fed of it”
(Dan. 4: 11). And it was a God-given power. The
Prophet says:- “The Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar
the kingdom; and because of the greatness that he gave him, all the peoples,
nations, and languages trembled .and feared before him” (Dan. 5: 18).
The whole is an amazing picture, for all time, of human power
at its apex, measured against the power of God. No dictator could exceed the
absolute autocracy of Nebuchadnezzar: his wealth immense, his power unbounded,
his enemies destroyed, his own image worshipped as a god. “Whom he would
he slew, and whom he would he kept alive”
(Dan. 5: 19). Then came the warning dream, given
him in pure mercy and grace- a tree dashed to the earth, isolated, its portion
with the beasts. Then, with the warning unheeded, Nebuchadnezzar is plunged
into the most awful fate recorded of any monarch in history: with the depth of
the punishment, as always, measured by the height of the iniquity, he is made what his heart
is - a beast, “till thou know that the Most High ruleth
in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to
whomsoever he will.” And the crowning uniqueness of it all is that the
entire narrative is a State paper, a decree of the Dictator himself, recording
with his own hand the whole incident for the whole world.
The crisis of Nebuchadnezzar’s life approached in a dream of
the night. With the exquisite tact of the love of God, a still small voice
speaks to his soul in the night watches; and a vivid picture is given the
sleeping man of coming danger. “Hew down the tree, and
cut off his branches, shake off his leaves,
and scatter his fruit.” At the same time the dream indicated
that whoever and whatever was the Tree, it was no picture of pure destruction:
“nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth”
(4:
15). Eternity will doubtless reveal that
no great Dictator has ever been without, at some time or other in his life, a
vision of the precipice.
Characteristically, the Most High now stamps home the
premonition by expounding it to the endangered soul in plain and explicit
words. If doom alone was meant, it would fall unforetold: God’s love foretells
the worst, to save. “O king, it is the decree of the Most High: thou shalt be
driven from men, and thy dwelling shall be with
the beasts of the field: wherefore, O king, break off thy sins by
righteousness, and thy iniquities by showing
mercy to the poor.” The warning to show mercy to the poor strikes the deep note of evil
dictatorship - savage cruelty; and is most signally balanced in the words of a
godly Dictator of ancient England, Alfred the Great:- “Comfort
the poor, protect and shelter the weak, and with all thy might right that which
is wrong.” Such noble thoughts are as unknown to any modern Dictator as
they were to Nebuchadnezzar.
Now that the Dictator has had his explicit warning, a pause - one
of those dread pauses in life when God is silent and a man is being proved - follows
for a twelvemonth, when at last the crisis arrives. “At the end of
twelve months” - a
blank concerning which we know nothing - “Nebuchadnezzar said, Is not this great
It was in “the Royal Palace of Babylon” that “Nebuchadnezzar was walking”, at the moment. In the neighbourhood
of Babylon an inscription has been unearthed of the actual words of
Nebuchadnezzar. He had rebuilt
Like a flash falls the thunderbolt. “While the word was
in the King’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven: Thy kingdom is departed from thee.” The Septuagint adds, concerning the dream, - “he kept the words in his
heart”. Nevertheless
Nebuchadnezzar had plunged again into the round of social pleasures and
imperial politics and ambitious dreams: the Tree waved its branches over the
world, unconscious that every month an axe crept closer to the root: the Most
High was totally ignored. Nebuchadnezzar, like the modern Dictators, banked on
the impotence of God. Nor, it seemed, without reason. Jehovah had chosen a holy
City - that city was in ruins: Jehovah had built a divine
The warning of love, laid by Nebuchadnezzar in its grave, now
springs to life in judgment; and God’s estimate of a proud and merciless
Dictator is appalling: as a beast in heart, he is now made a beast: what
Nebuchadnezzar was adoring - himself - suddenly vanishes into a wild animal,
and in a moment he is degraded not merely to a beggar but a brute. “The same hour
was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: he
did eat grass as oxen” - a form of insanity, known as
lycanthropy, in which the patient imagines himself an animal* - “till his hair was grown like eagles’
feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.” For seven years the Dictator was a
madman, for only so could the colossal accumulations of pride, that blacked-out
God, break down. So deeply is the coming world Dictator’s character that of a
brute that his only title, throughout the Apocalypse, is ‘the Wild Beast’.
* The demoniac often betrays the symptoms of insanity; and it
remains to be seen how lax the devil-controlled leaders at the end (Rev. 16:
13) will betray mental symptoms. “Mussolini,”
says Dr. Inge
(Church of England Newspaper, June 5, 1936), “may or may not be mad. One well-known foreign doctor who has
seen him is convinced that he has incipient general paralysis of the insane.”
After relating Hitler’s awful outbursts, screaming in his room, pointing to
invisible objects he sees in corners, and ejaculating unintelligible phrases - that
is, ‘tongues’, Dr. Hermarm Rauschning
says:- “It is terrible to think that a madman may be
now driving the world to war.” Jehovah’s word abides:- “I am the Lord, that maketh diviners
mad” (Isa. 44: 25).
But how blessed to know, vividly revealed here once again,
that, so long as a man is alive, behind the worst distresses there is a loving
and pardoning God. When we cannot be drawn to God we can be driven to Him. When
rank, honour, power, even manhood, had been lost, this Dictator says:- “I lifted up
mine eyes unto heaven” - the recognition of God, the enthronement of God, the
worship of God; and the pardon was instantly proved in the cure - “and mine
understanding returned to me, and I blessed the
Most High”. It is
exquisite to remember that in the world’s dawn, perhaps three thousand years
before Calvary, “the Lamb had been slain from the foundation of the world”
(Rev. 13: 8): in other words,
The crowning glory of all is the new character of the
Dictator. The open confession of such a record could not be surpassed for
humility: yet Nebuchadnezzar is such a changed man that he says, - “It hath
seemed good unto me” - it hath seemed to me comely - “to show” - and that by a State paper addressed
to the whole world - “the signs and wonders” - the miracles of abasing judgment - “that the Most High hath
wrought toward me”. The miracle of the humility
competes with the colossal character of the pride. And such is the lovely
graciousness of the new nature that this is what he says of the God who had
crushed him beyond any man living. “Now I,
Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honour the
King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways judgment; and
those who walk in pride he is able to abase.”
-------
A great without has been written on heathenism. Men and women
are toiling without a Bible, without a Sunday, without prayer, without songs of
praise. They have homes without peace, marriage without sanctity, young men and
girls without ideals and enthusiasm, little children without purity, without
innocence, mothers without wisdom or self-control, poverty without relief or
sympathy, sickness without skilful help or tender care, sorrow and crime
without a remedy, and, worst of all, death without hope.
- MRS. WHITFIELD GUINNESS.
* *
*
34
THE EPOCH BETWEEN OUR AGE AND
THE GREAT TRIBULATION + 4
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
It is of intense interest to enquire how
the Most High will act in the years probably nearly ahead, when the Day of
Grace is dying, and yet when full judgment has not yet burst upon the world;
and we discover that He adopts a process unique in the history of the world.
Definite judgments are launched, of the most warning character; but they are
attached, apparently solely, to two men; and these men are themselves so
unique in their history, and so amply empowered of God, that they expound and explain the ominous miracles they are working,
on a stage watched by the whole world:
so that the last appeal of love could not be more forcible or convincing. It is
a tremendous fulfilment of the divine work - “At the mouth of TWO WITNESSES shall every word be
established” (2 Cor. 13: 1).
WITNESSES
We find that two startling figures are suddenly on the earth.
Exactly as Elijah appeared of old,
without genealogy, without record, suddenly stepping out of the unknown, so
these two Witnesses - universally acclaimed as Enoch - [Why Enoch instead of Moses the
Law-giver?]* - and Elijah in the
[* See Exo. 3: 7-8;
10-12; 16-18a; 4: 4, 12, 17;
Rev. 16:
2-7,
R.V. Cf.
Matt. 17: 1-4; Mark 9: 2-4, 9, 10; Luke 9: 29-32,
R.V.
Both these greatly used servants of
God failed to complete their God-given
commission, and were replaced by Joshua and Elisha (Deut.
32: 48-52; 1 Kings 19: 2-4.) The
divine Power and Authority which they lost will be given again, to complete their
former God-given Commission during the final 42 months of the Antichrist’s evil
reign? (See Dan. 7: 24-26; 11: 35-44; 2 Thess. 2: 3-12 and Rev. ch. 13.]
FIRE
The first proof of their power is an extraordinarily vivid
revelation of our modem age, and how they meet it. These are two men who, never having died, are therefore still liable to death;*
and they are sent to face a world armed with all modern science - bombs, poison
gas, the Black Death dropped in cans,
and every rank of society soaked with spies. Therefore, most remarkably, their
first power is purely protective, and absolutely unique. “If any man
desireth to hurt them, fire proceedeth out of
their mouth, and devoureth their enemies”
(Rev. 11: 5). Without such power they would not
survive for a week; and it is purely supernatural, for it even destroys a plot, ere its
attempted fulfilment. “And if any man shall desire to hurt them” - even plotting in a concealed cellar - “in this
manner must he be killed”: the lightnings find them out. Here at once we are off Gospel
ground. This, the first record - [since the times of the God’s Prophets
and Apostles] - of restored miracle, by its very
nature could not [today] be in the
[* NOTE: Here is Scriptural proof that Elijah’s rapture into
heaven, was not to appear before the presence of
God with an immortal body, where Christ is now seated at His Father’s right
hand. Therefore, we have very good reason to believe he (at some unknown time
afterwards) “went down
ALIVE into Sheol” (Num. 16: 30, R.V.) to await his appearance before the
Antichrist with Moses in the near future.
See also Samuel’s appearance before
disobedient Saul:-
“Then said
the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee?
And he said bring me
up Samuel. And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice
... And Saul
perceived that it was Samuel ... And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou
disquieted me, to bring me up?” (1 Sam. 28: 11, 12, 14b, 15a, R.V.)]
DROUGHT
Next, the nature of their mission is revealed. It is, as
throughout all the past ages of human history, judgment with a view to rouse repentance, when the sin borders on
the hopeless; and it is judgment so
manifestly supernatural as to be indisputably from God. Both were formerly
prophets of judgment. Enoch, the Gentile, warned the whole world of the Flood,
and prepared a godly seed to repeople the earth; and Elijah, the Jew, while he
called down fire on the enemies of
PLAGUE
A further fact reveals the power of these two Prophets as
wholly unique in the history of mankind, as we should expect in the last,
supreme crisis of the world. “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.” Such power has never before been committed to men - [since
the days of MOSES] - in
the history of the world: so far from being themselves killed, they can plague
whomsoever they will throughout the whole earth, as often as they choose. The thousands
of years spent in the heavens* - Enoch, four to
five thousand, Elijah, two to three thousand - together with a possession of
the Holy Ghost so ample as to make them Olive
Trees, Lamps of Oil, make their wills so conformed to the Divine will that they can be
entrusted with these unparalleled powers.
[* NOTE. There is no Scriptural evidence to
suggest that Elijah has ‘spent thousands of years in the heavens’! But there is
plenty of Scriptural evidence, that he later descended into ‘Sheol’ / ‘Hades’ to be with Moses, David, Samuel, Peter, and the rest of the ‘holy’ dead! (See Num. 16: 29, 20; cf. Luke 16: 22, 23; Matt.16: 18; 1 Sam. 28: 11-15; Ps. 16: 10; John 3: 13;
14: 3; Acts 2: 34ff.
R.V.)]
ASSASSINATION
Next follows, in one of the most astounding facts ever recorded,
the greatest miracle an evil man will ever work. The coming of the Lawless One,
we read, is “according to the working of Satan with ALL power and signs and wonders [wrought on behalf] of falsehood”
(2 Thess. 2: 9). “The Wild
Beast shall make war with them and overcome them, AND KILL THEM.”* The reason is given: “when they have finished their testimony”: “man is [not] immortal till his work is done”, and now their - [i.e., the ‘two
Witnesses’] - death can produce more fruit than their life. But the enormousness of the miracle
remains. In his personal combat with them on the streets of
[* Here is Scriptural
Proof that Elijah did not
appear before the presence of God in heaven where our Lord Jesus is now seated! Elijah’s change from mortality
into immortality
at the time of his rapture did not take place! His
appearance on earth was like that of Samuel
the prophet (1 Sam. 28: 14-15);
the son of the ‘widow woman’ (1 Kings 17: 17-24);
and Jesus’ ‘friend Lazarus’
(John
11: 11,
13, 14, 17, 23,
25-27, 39, 43, R.V.): and all others who were
resurrected from the Dead by the Apostles were NOT IMMORTAL! Only after ‘the
first resurrection’ (Rev.20-4-6), and our Lord’s return to earth can they be! See also Matt. 16: 18;
cf. John 3: 13; 14: 3; Acts 7: 4b, 5; 1 Pet. 1: 9-11; Heb.
11: 39,
40;
Phil. 3: 11, 12,
R.V.]
TELEVISION
One detail in the drama is one of the most striking proofs of
prophecy ever given. For three and a half days “they
suffer not their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb” ; exactly as, a few
years ago, when a youth attempted the life of Mussolini, his corpse was left in
the city streets for three days, for the rancour of the crowds; and “THEY THAT DWELL ON THE EARTH” - the population of the whole world - “rejoice over them”.* But
how could the world know the fact within three and a half days, before the Prophets
are risen and gone ? Early commentators felt the difficulty acutely: to-day,
the telegraph in a few minutes tells the whole world the facts; and television
will reproduce the corpses to the ends of the earth.
* It is remarkable that an identical
degradation occurred just before the Roman storming of
RESURRECTION
But now we get a more enormous miracle
by which the Most High instantly out-balances what He has allowed the Lawless
One to do. He grants the godless a momentary victory only to reveal their enmity
and folly to the whole universe. “The breath of life from God entered into them, and they
stood upon their feet; and they went up into
heaven in the cloud.” For the first time in the history of the world the godless crowd sees dead
bodies coming to life, and actually watches a rapture “they went up
into heaven, and their enemies beheld them”. Doubt is for
ever buried in sight, so that absence of repentance now proves sin beyond hope,
and the earth-shock which, as in our Lord’s case, accompanies their
resurrection, wrecks a tenth of the city, and slaughters “seven
thousand men of name”, that is, persons known and distinguished (Bp. Wordsworth) - how many of
the ordinary population is not stated * - and
so proves to the crowds that they are dealing with the Lord of earth as well as with
the God of heaven, when they killed Prophets who “stand before the Lord of the
earth”**.
* Again proving that
we are off Gospel ground; for none was slain at the earthquake of Calvary, nor
the earth-shock of the empty Tomb; and an earthquake that shook Paul’s prison
to its foundations (Acts 16: 26) actually saved.
** Plurality of rapture is thus proved
beyond contradiction. (1) Our Lord,
and probably those who broke out of the tombs accompanying Him, has been rapt,
and as the ‘first-fruits’ (1 Cor. 15: 20) of
the one harvest; (2) a body of
saints, specifically named ‘firstfruits’, are on
high before the Tribulation (Rev. 14: 4); (3)
here are two prophets visibly taken up in a separate rapture; and (4) the martyrs under Antichrist, on
high (Rev. 20:
4),
could not have been rapt before the close of the Tribulation. The disappearance
of the Witnesses, removing by far his greatest obstacle, appears to date the
commencement of Antichrist’s reign of three and a half years.
FEAR
The tragedy closes for the world in terror only. “The rest were affrighted, and
gave glory to the God of heaven.” So it was with the Roman soldiers when
they saw the Angel at the Lord’s tomb. “For fear of him the watchers did
quake, and become as dead men” (Matt. 28: 4). The world suddenly realizes that
judgment is at the doors. But their prayer of terror is no prayer to God. “They say to
the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6: 16).
-------
“Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy of this
book” (Rev. 1: 3). He who has mastered the Apocalypse - or rather whom the
Apocalypse has mastered - lives in another world: his outlook has been revolutionized for
ever.
-------
REVIVAL
Our Christian life is always open to a golden revival:- “Suddenly the message of the Cross gripped me!
My eyes filled with tears. I thought it strange, as I had all along insisted on
this as the one supreme message. The whole day my thoughts were centred on the
Cross of Christ, and when the time for prayer came I felt a consuming longing
to plead for souls. The Cross and the Blood of Christ were the outstanding
themes in all prayer, and there was a depth in the prayers I had never felt
before. God put the burden of prayer upon me in such a measure that I thought
seven to ten hours of each day the privilege of my life.”
PRAYER
A day of really ntional
prayer can be extraordinarly effective the moment it
is officially decided upon by the nation. Mr. C. C. Crossar
ppoints out in the Christian (Feb. 15, 1940) that on
July 17, 1918, the then Prime Minister (Mr. Lloyd George) announced in the House
of Commons that August the 4th would be a National Day of
Intercession. Count Hertling,
ex-Chancellor of
GRACE
Wonderfully gracious things can be done even in war. During a fierce
engagement in the Great War a British officer saw a German officer impaled in a
barbed wire fence, writhing in agony. The fire was dreadful, yet he hung there
unscathed. At length the Britisher said: “I can’t bear
to look at that poor chap any longer!” So he went out amid the hail of
shell, released him, and bore him on his shoulders to the German trench. The
firing ceased. While both sides waited in wonderment the German commander
stepped out from the trench, took from his own bosom the Iron Cross, and pinned
it upon the Britisher.
* * *
35
THE WOMAN LEAVENING THE MEAL + 1
By D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
Five
parabolic ‘women’ are named in the New Testament, and all are cities: Hagar, earthly
THE MEAL
Paul’s words make it clear that the Meal, in which the Woman
hides leaven, is the
*A
recent writer (Mr. G. Walker,
British Weekly, July 6, 1939) uses the very
word ‘leaven’. “It is
no longer easy to name the denomination
by the shape of the collar. The Oxford
Movement changed more than doctrine and ritual, it transformed the
wardrobe, and its influence has gradually leavened circles rarely suspect of
Romanising!”
THE LEAVEN
Our Lord’s studied picture is a wonderful revelation of the
action of the Papacy. “The kingdom of heaven” - in
parables, the Church dispensation - “is like unto leaven which a woman
took” (Matt. 13: 33). Leaven - which, in Scripture, always
symbolizes that which is evil - is not, like yeast, a fermenting element,
different in substance from meal: leaven is simply old and sour dough, which
infects the whole meal with its corruption. The Woman’s name, stamped on her
forehead, is “Mystery,
[* That is, ‘the
shaving of the head, or part of the head,
especially that of a monk.’
HIDDEN LEAVEN
The Woman then hid the
leaven.* The insertion of the leaven at first,
in the days of the amalgamation of Church and State under Constantine - the Woman’s ‘fornication’
with Kings - was so secret and subtle that no warning voices were raised; and
the same slumber all down the ages, only broken for a time by the Reformation,
has brought entire leavening infinitely nearer. Here are insertions of the
leaven:- holy water (A.D. 120); penance (157); monkery (328); latin mass (394);
extreme unction (558); invocation of Virgin Mary and of saints
(594); Papal usurpation (607); image worship (715); canonization of saints (933); baptism of bells (1,000); transubstantiation(1,000); indulgences (1,190); dispensations (1,200); the Inquisition (1,204).
* The craft implied in the concealment at once overthrows any
interpretation that the Gospel will permeate the world: “no less,” says Archbishop
Trench, voicing nearly all commentators, “than a
prophecy of a final complete triumph of the Gospel, that it will diffuse itself through all nations, and
purify and ennoble all life.” God does not hide His Gospel but blazons it abroad - “preach
the gospel, to the whole creation” (Mark 16: 15,
cf. 2 Cor. 4: 3); and the facts of to-day
ought by now to have punctured the unscriptural mirage of a converted world.
Comment careless and biassed has imposed on the parable a meaning exactly
contrary to that of our Lord. Mr. Govett’s
masterly exposition of the parable will be found in DAWN, vol.1, p. 323 and following issues; and a few copies
in tract form are still obtainable from Mr. H. F. Weatherley,
NATURAL TASTE
It is well to grasp the significance
of ‘leaven’. Leaven is introduced to make bread
more palatable to the natural taste: it removes the plainness and heaviness of
pure meal: it puffs up, it swells, it introduces thoughts, motives, practices
that appeal to the carnal man. So
* “It is not
simply that the leaven touches particle after particle of the flour, as water
might do - that would only make a paste; but it really puts its own life into
the mea1 and penetrates it with its living nature from centre to circumference”
(J. Clifford, M.A.).
THE
The leaven’s permeation of the Church of England is public knowledge. More, than a thousand
Anglican clergy to-day publicly assent to the Creed of the Council of Trent. Father
Hugh Benson, the son of a recent. Archbishop
of Canterbury, after joining, the Roman Church, said:- “For years before I became a Catholic I recited my rosary
every day. We taught the doctrine of the confessional, and I can tell you I
used to hear far more confessions than I have heard as a Catholic priest on
practically every point except the supremacy of the Pope; we
believed the teachings of the Catholic Church, and taught most of her doctrines, as
thousands of Anglican clergymen are doing to-day.” The Royal
Commission of 1002 declared the Anglo-Catholic doctrines to be “plainly significant of teaching repugnant to the doctrine of
the Church of England, and certainly illegal and should be promptly made to
cease by the Bishops” - an instruction that has been totally unheeded.
Rome has always said that “it is the Mass that matters”;
and the New Prayer Book, which Parliament turned down, but which, officially
printed in enormous numbers, is freely used, centres everything in
Transubstantiation.
CONCEALMENT
It is extraordinary how exactly the parable is being fulfilled
in the crafty concealment of the leaven. Cardinal
Newman, while still an Anglican clergyman, wrote (Letters, vol. 1, p. 490):- “I expect to be called a Papist when my
opinions are known. But, please God, I shall lead persons on a little way while
they fancy they are only taking the mean, and denounce me as the extreme.”
Father Mathew, a priest of the Roman
Church, stated in Court on oath before Mr. Justice Darling, in April, 1913, that
he had officiated as curate at Holy Trinity,
THE FREE CRURCHES
The parable now begins to find its closing stage of fulfilment
in a growing leaven in the Free Churches. One writer says (British
Weekly, April 1,
1937):- “The greatest menace to the Church of Scotland
in Scoto-Catholicism is the tendency towards a
sacerdotal conception of the office of the ministry. With this, which has
already emerged in some quarters, there tends to go a virtual rejection of the
priesthood of all believers, a widening of the gulf between clergy and laity, a
childish pride in the ‘successio perpetua presbyterorum’ exactly parallel to the Anglo-Catholic
and sub-Christian notion of ‘Apostolic Succession’, and a sacerdotal and even magical
view of the sacraments.” It is general in Nonconformity. “There is a movement in the Free Churches,” says Dr.
A. E. Whitham (British
Weekly, Oct. 7, 1937),
“that is very significant, All communions are more or
less affected by it. In the
* To regard the Bread and Wine as being objectively
Christ compels worship - that is, idolatry; and all who have fellowship with
such worshippers disobey the Spirit:- “with such a one
no, not to eat” (1 Cor.
5: 11);
no meal may be shared, which must supremely include the Lord’s Supper. A Congregational
minister can now say (Christian World, June 22. 1939):- “In Baptism the child
receives God’s gift of ‘new life’ in Jesus Christ; he is made a member of
Christ’s body which is the Church; he is admitted into the fellowship of the
Christian household.”
THE BURNING OF THE LEAVEN
What a tragedy we face! The whole Meal
is to be leavened at last; while the deep concealment of the leaven alone
explains the tragic mystery that the advance of
* The Papacy in Politics To-day, p. 63. For: the coming flight of the Papacy, see DAWN, vol. 1, p. 293.
** The Rosary is an apt example of
leaven.. Introduced into Christianity following the Crusades, it was supposed
to have been borrowed from the Moslems, who in turn had taken it from the
Buddhists at the time of their invasion of
-------
SAFETY
Only in the Almighty can there be true
safety. In the early days of the Reformation a Cardinal said to Martin Luther:-
“What! Do you think the Pope cares for the opinion of
a German boor? The Pope’s little finger is stronger than all
* *
*
36
ONE THING I DO + 1
By D. M.
PANTON, B.A.
Apart
from our Lord, Paul is the only man
presented to us by God for imitation;
as he says himself, by inspiration, -
“Be
ye imitators
of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11: 1). This lends immense force to the
master-passion of Paul, which, therefore, should become ours:- “ONE THING I DO” (Phil. 3: 13). He says there is a mountain summit
yet ahead that he has not reached: Paul the aged; Paul, after writing his
greatest Epistles, and having founded his noblest Churches, nevertheless cries,
- “One thing
I do; I PRESS ON.” He uses a careful word. “I count
not myself to have apprehended”: I have taken stock; I have summed up the facts; I have reached
a mathematical conclusion: my whole life must be concentrated on one aim: “one thing I
do.”
UNAPPREHENDED
The Apostle begins by acknowledging exactly what had not yet
been achieved even by the chief of the Apostles; an unachievement which, if it
included Paul, must embrace every one of us. “Not that I have already obtained,
or am already made perfect; but I press on, if so be that
I may” - for it
depends on my own effort - “apprehend that for which also I was apprehended by
Christ Jesus.” Paul
is the supreme master of the doctrine of assurance: his statements of our
fundamental safety by saving faith are unsurpassed: his own [eternal] salvation he was the last soul in the
universe to doubt. Since he was as certain as anyone in the world that he had
obtained [that initial] salvation, what was it that he had
not ‘obtained’? “Not that I am
already made perfect”. The word ‘perfect’ was
used of racers and wrestlers, when their strength and ability had passed the
standard of their ‘agonistical’ exercises. “Paul did not go to sleep over the singularity of his
conversion; nor rock himself in the cradle of his apostolic success; nor sooth
himself with the opiate of his official position” (W. M. Taylor, D.D.). Salvation
- [‘by grace through
faith’ (Eph. 2: 8, R.V.)] - can never be insecure: the
‘prize’ can never be assumed until it is
won.
THE PAST
Paul now defines what he means by his
concentrated singleness of aim. “Forgetting the things
that are behind.”
Among the things ‘behind’ Paul, take but a single group - his sufferings for Christ. “Of the Jews five times received I
forty stripes save one, thrice was I beaten with
rods, once was I stoned; in labour and travail, in
hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness”
(2 Cor. 11: 24). What a golden record! He forgets it all. Humility that
begins to plume itself on its past is already dead. Equally vital is it to
forget our failures, our disappointments, our sins: brooding on the
past paralyses the present, and bankrupts the future.
One word of our Lord counters both. “Many that are first shall be last” - first-class runners may lose the
race even in the last lap; “and the last first” (Mark 10: 31), for even if, at this moment, we are
last, we may yet be first, if - “one thing I do”. Let the glorious, certain, infinite future, with its boundless possibilities, bury a stained and disappointing past.
THE PRESENT
But again Paul defines his attitude, which makes our model,
towards the present. “Stretching forward to the things that are before”: stretching ourselves out, as the
keen runner in a race, towards the things in front: not satisfied with any past
achievement, or suffering, or consecration, but continually reaching forward
with ever-growing ardour. An artist, standing before his latest picture, was
seen to burst into tears. When asked why, he replied:- “Because I am satisfied with my work.” He had reached his ideal,
and therefore exhausted it. Never so Paul. The successful runner is the racer
who has girded his loins tight, forgetting the past - looking over the shoulder
would lose any race - with his whole energies he is concentrated on the goal.* “Stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal.” Passionate
absorption is beautifully illustrated in General
Booth, when himself over eighty. A friend of his writes:- “I learned the secret of his power. He said, ‘When do you go?’ I said, ‘In
five minutes.’ He said, ‘Pray’; and I dropped on my knees with General Booth by my side,
and prayed a stammering and stuttering prayer. Then he talked with God about
the outcast of London, the poor of New York, the lost of China, the great world
lying in wickedness; and then he opened his eyes as if he were looking into the
very face of Jesus, and with sobs he prayed God’s blessing upon every mission
worker, every evangelist, every minister, every Christian. With his eyes still
overflowing with tears, he bade me goodbye and started away, past 80 years of
age, to preach on the Continent. And I learned from William Booth that the
greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender. It is not a question of who you are or of
what you are, but of whether God controls you.”
* Professor Eadie expresses it thus:- “The picture is that of a racer in his agony of struggle and
hope. Every muscle is strained and every vein starting - the chest heaves - the
big drops gather on his brow - his body is bent forward, as if he already
clutched the goal.”
THE PRIZE
Paul next makes clear what lies beyond the ‘mark’ - the tape which the winner first
touches. “I press toward the mark FOR
THE PRIZE.” If
I touch the goal first, I am therefore awarded the crown of wild olive,* which was the prize of the winner in
the Greek games. Concerning the gift, Paul has just said, - “not having a
righteousness of mine own”, God has given me His, a pure gift; but what I have not yet
apprehended, because not yet made perfect, is a ‘prize’;
and no prize ever existed that did not have to be won. And what that Prize is
he has already shown:- “if by any means I may attain unto the out-resurrection from
among the dead”.
The Revelation puts it beautifully:- “Blessed and holy is he” - no mass - [at
the yet
future] - resurrection, but the beatitude and sanctity of an
individual - “that hath part in the first resurrection: they shall reign with Christ a thousand years” (Rev. 20: 6).
**
* An important difference, however,
between the human race and the divine race is that in the human there can be
but one prize-winner, who ousts all the other runners; whereas in the divine race all who reach the prize-standard
attain the prize; and so our Lord apprehends us all for the Prize.
** All [Christian] martyrs will be
in the Kingdom (Matt. 10: 39; Rev. 20: 4) therefore, it was when told by inspiration
of his imminent martyrdom, that Paul knew at last he had apprehended: “the time of my departure is come; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown” (2 Tim. 4: 6).
LIKEMINDED
Paul makes a final appeal. “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect” - full grown, as opposed to babes - “be thus minded: and if in
anything ye are otherwise minded, even this shall God
reveal unto you”.
Multitudes of Christians are content just to be saved: others in youth have
wrought marvels, and are now drifting downstream on motionless oars: others - as
Paul here assumes - have, quite sincerely, had wrong convictions concerning the
Prize. Our Lord has expressed the principle for ever:- “If any man willeth
to do his will” - he who has made up his mind to put into action
whatever God tells him to do - “he shall know of the
teaching, whether it be of God” (John 7: 17). If “one thing I do”, God will open my eyes. “There is no one among us, however limited his powers may be,
whose weakness and incapacity may not be changed into wisdom and knowledge; his
timidity into firmness and fearlessness his hardness and unloveliness into amiability
and gentleness” (Marsaken).
CONCENTRATION
So our magnificent opportunity awaits us. “ONE THING I DO.” Scatter-brained people never arrive anywhere. Many
aims dissipate energy: contrary pulls on the soul cancel out, and leave a man
powerless: if anything is to be well done, it must be done with the whole soul
and with every faculty. Paul does not mean, This only do I do, but this is my all-controlling purpose, my one over-mastering aim:
all my evangelism, all my missionary effort, all my prophetic study, all my
practical sanctification - all is embodied in one master-passion - “that I may apprehend that
for which also I was apprehended by Christ Jesus”. Paul thus adds here a wonderful revelation nowhere else (so far as we
recollect) explicitly made:- namely, that Christ apprehended every one of us
for this very purpose. Seize the victory, he says, for which Christ seized you:
the Prize is so much our Lord’s wish and intention for us all that He chose
every one of us with a view to it. Not that universal achievement will happen. “They which
run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize even so run, that ye may attain [the prize]” (1 Cor. 9: 24),
This truth of the Prize, - Mr.
G. H. Pember, one of the
greatest students of prophecy of the nineteenth century, wrote to Col. Joseph Sladen shortly before his death, “I believe to be not only true, but also the doctrine of which the Church is just now in special need.” It seems certain that the inconceivably
greater pressure since Mr. Pember wrote, together with the double fact of a
manifestly disintegrating world and a deeply corrupting - [and
apostate] - Church will, mercifully, drive many
believers to this truth - the divine solution of the problem. “Opportunities,”
said Napoleon, “are born, and die, in the same day: there is time to win a
victory before the sun goes down.”
-------
NAZIS AND ANTICHRIST
It is most remarkable that the Nazis
already acclaim Antichrist - the coming reincarnated Nero. Mr. Hutchison, a
Canadian missionary returned from
* *
*
37
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
The
Sermon on the Mount contains the principles of the [Millennial]
*
* * *
*
The Korean not only memorizes Scripture; he puts it into
practice. One day there came into one of the mission stations a sturdy
Christian from the north. After the usual greetings, he was asked the purpose
of his visit. His reply was: “I have been memorizing
some verses in the Bible and have come to recite them to you.” He lived
a hundred miles away and had walked all that distance, travelling four nights -
a long stroll to recite some verses of Scripture to his pastor, but he was
listened to as he recited in Korean, without a verbal error, the entire Sermon
on the Mount. He was told that if he simply memorized it, it would be a feat of
memory and nothing more; he must practise its teachings. His face lighted up
with a smile as he promptly replied: “That is the way I learned it. I tried to
memorize it, but it wouldn’t stick, so I hit on this plan. I would memorize a
verse, and then find a heathen neighbour of mine and practise the verse on him.
Then I found it would stick.” - JAMES S.
GALE.
*
* * *
*
“But I say unto you, Swear not at all.”
False swearing was forbidden of old; but every kind of
swearing is forbidden now by word of
our Lord Jesus. He mentions several forms of oath and forbids them all; and
then prescribes simple forms of affirmation or denial, as all that His
followers should employ. Notwithstanding much that may be advanced to the
contrary, there is no evading the plain sense of this passage that every sort
of oath, however solemn or true, is forbidden to a follower of Jesus. Whether
in court of law or out of it, the rule is “Swear not at all.” Yet in this
Christian country we have swearing everywhere, and especially among law-makers.
Our legislators begin their official existence by swearing. By those who obey
the law of the Saviour’s Kingdom, all swearing is set aside, that the simple
word of affirmation or denial calmly repeated, may remain as the simple bond of
truth. Believers should not yield to an evil custom, however great the pressure
put upon them; but they should abide by the plain and unmistakable command of
their Lord and King. - C. H. SPURGEON.
*
* * *
*
Our Lord reviews in the Sermon on the Mount much of the Law,
and sets up a new and higher standard. The Law generally taught as its principle
- righteousness, or strict justice. Man was to render to God His dues; and then
he might exact what was due to himself from his neighbour and fellowman. If
injured, he was to seek and obtain redress. “If men strive ... and if mischief follow, then thou
shalt give life for life; eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand,
burning for burning, wound
for wound, stripe for stripe.” (Exod.
21:
22-25).
This rule Jesus expressly repeals. The Christian is not to
resist the evil man; but to be patient under injury, whether that be inflicted
on our person, or on our property; by an individual, or by the oppression of a
government (Matt. 10: 38-41). We are to forgive without limit the evil world in the midst
of which we are set; that God may also without limit forgive us. (Matt. 6: 12, 14). As the Law taught justice, the
Gospel teaches Grace.
Now this is an answer to those who would distinguish between a
Christian’s personal enemies, and those of his country. We are to resemble our
heavenly Father; and He is not making any such distinction of countries. He is
calling men of all nations to be reconciled with Himself. And the Christian is
one who has left his standing as one of the nations of the world to become a
member of Christ, and one of the Church, which is Christ’s body. We are no
longer of the world, even as Christ was not (John 8: 23; 15: 19). We are pilgrims and strangers on earth, seeking a better
country, even an heavenly (Heb. 11: 13-16).
This one principle then, that WE ARE TO RESEMBLE GOD THE FATHER AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST, AND TO EXHIBIT THEM TO THE WORLD,
seems to me to settle this question for those who are candid. Under the Law God
took as His title “Jehovah, God of armies”
(Ps. 80: 7, 14; Amos 5:
27,
etc.). Then war was
lawful: and the courage of Jonathan, and David, and Samson, glorified Him. What
says the Son of God concerning Himself? The Spirit of God came on Him “to heal the broken-hearted,
to preach deliverance
to the captives, and to set at liberty the bruised”:
(Luke 4:
18). How then can any resemble Christ in
warfare - breaking the hearts of wives and families, seizing prisoners of war,
and detaining the wounded? - ROBERT GOVETT.
*
* * *
*
In the year 1830 George
Muller writes in his journal: - “My wife and I had
grace given to us to take the Lord’s commandment ‘Sell that ye have and give
alms’ (Luke 12: 33) literally, and
to carry it out. Our staff and support in this matter were Matthew 6: 19-34; John 14: 13, 14. We leaned on the arm of the
Lord Jesus. It is now twenty-nine years since we set out in this way, and we do
not in the least regret the step we then took.”
This was written in the year 1860, but his testimony to the
possibility of carrying out this command literally lasted to the end of his long life of ninety-three
years. Thus we have the instance of one man who for sixty-eight years dared to
take the Lord’s commands literally, and carry it out.
He also remarks about Matthew 5: 39-44: “It had
pleased God, in His abundant mercy, to bring my mind into such a state, that I
was willing to carry out into my life whatever I should find in the Scriptures.
For instance: ‘Resist not evil; but
whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee
at law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And
whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go
with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and
from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute
you.’”
He comments on these commandments thus:- “It may be said, surely these passages cannot be taken
literally, for how then would the people of God be able to pass through the
world? The state of mind enjoined in John 7: 17 will cause such objections to vanish. Whosoever is willing to act out these commandments of the Lord LITERALLY will, I believe, be led with
me to see that, to take them LITERALLY,
is the will of God. Those who do so take them will doubtless often be brought
into difficulties, hard to the flesh to bear, but these will have a tendency to
make them constantly feel that they are strangers and pilgrims here, that this
world is not their home, and thus to throw them more upon God, who will
assuredly help us through any difficulty into which we may be brought by
seeking to act in obedience to His Word.”
*
* * *
* *
It is sometimes contended that the
Sermon on the Mount is to be in force during the Millennial Reign of Christ.
But we can gather from the Sermon itself the
character of the age for which it is intended.
Corruption is widespread - for they are to act as salt for the
preservation of society.
Moral darkness covers the people - for they are to be light in
the world.
Mammon competes with God for the
allegiance of men - for they are warned that it is not possible to serve both.
The Lord is absent - for they are fasting.
The ‘world-rulers of this darkness’ are in control; the
The contrast between the age to which
the Lord spoke and the age of His Millennial Reign could not be set in sharper
contrast, nor can we fail to recognize in it the characteristics of our own.
- C.
F. HOGG.
* *
*
38
THE MYSTTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE + 1
1
How shall we escape the awful Day? We cannot do better than
read the Lord’s last message in the third chapter of Revelation. “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. Behold I come quickly: hold
that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy
crown” (Rev.
3: 10, 11). Those, therefore, that keep the Word
of His patience, that believe His Word and
live it, shall be numbered with His waiting people, and shall be saved from
this awful catastrophe.
Someone asked Dr. A. J. Gordon if all
believers should go up with the Lord when He came, or if only those that are
walking with Him in holiness and separation, and they quoted that passage in Revelation
about the first-fruits unto God and the Lamb, the holy ones in whose “mouth was found no guile, and they
follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” He was asked if only those will be caught up when He
comes, and the others would wait, or should all the people of God go up
resurrected or translated? Dr. Gordon shook his head with a. solemn, modest
expression, and said, “I have not light enough to
answer, but I would rather take no chances.” - A. B.
Simpson, D.D.
2
“They discerned not till the flood came, and took
them all away.”
They saw not the meaning of the sign, till it was too late - till judgment had
drawn its sword, and flung away its scabbard. Then indeed, when it was too
late, they read the lesson it should have taught. When the heavens, inky black,
poured down torrents of rain, and the incessant thunder growled, and the
whirlwinds roared, and the waterspouts descended, and yawning gulfs flung up
from below the angry waters of the great
nether deep, when all refuges failed, and the fierce waves advanced still on
the dismayed crowds at charging pace - then went up here and there the drowning
cry from the despairing sons of unbelief. “Ah, Noah
was right! He said, the flood would come. He fled wisely to the refuge! We
see! But it is too late!”
How was it, when Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven?
when not Elisha’s eyes alone, but those of the fifty sons of the prophets
attested the miraculous ascent of the well-known prophet? Did all
But how were the tidings received by the idolaters around? To
them did the news bring faith? Said they? - “This is the finger of the
God of Israel! He is the God of gods! Down, ye idols, to the fire and to the
pit! Calf of
3
In this hour of His appearing the matter
of making ourselves ready is the most important thing that concerns us. Many
are taking for granted they are ready. Measured by Christ’s own words to His
disciples, readiness for translation does not consist, as many erroneously suppose, in being saved or filled with the Spirit.
We need to go to the Word of God and see
for ourselves what conditions He imposes for translation and reigning
with Him. In His Olivet discourse (Matt. 24., 25.) the Lord foretells the terrible
calamities coming upon the whole earth. With pointed warnings and explicit commands
He exhorts His disciples to escape these
judgments. And He tells them how. It is not without significance
that His words of prudence and caution are not spoken to the Church as a Body
but to individuals: “Take heed to yourselves lest at any time
your
hearts be overcharged.” The original Greek renders “yourselves” and “your” with peculiar emphasis. “Watch ye therefore
and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape.” “Because thou didst keep the word of my
patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of
trial which is to come upon the whole world.” “Blessed
is he
that keepeth his garments.” In the Lord’s emphatic admonitions to His disciples to be
wary and watchful, He does not encourage
them to rely on their born-again experience; neither does He encourage them to rest in any past blessing. The
Lord’s emphasis is laid on WATCHING, HEEDING, PRAYING. The
escape, according to Christ’s own words, is made on condition of
personal effort and is wholly a reward of the effort to be ready.
To watch means, in the original, “to be alert to be
aroused”, “to be awake”. In this hour of
His coming He has shown us in pointed warnings that the only way to escape the
trouble coming upon the whole earth is to “WATCH AND PRAY ALWAYS” (Matt. 24: 42; 25: 13; Mark 13: 35; Luke 21: 34-36; 1Thess.
5:
6;
1 Pet. 4: 7; Rev. 3: 2; Rev.
16:
15).
- SARA FOULKES
4
A person about to go to sleep in a snow-storm, about to fall
into that stupor which ends in death by freezing, must rouse, stir, excite,
awaken himself by any means possible, lest the awful torpor of that deceitful
drowsiness overcome him. In the midst of all the horrors of this day, just
before the coming forth of the Antichrist, there is a strange oppression and
sluggishness and drowsiness over God’ people. Horrors are coming on this
Christ-rejecting world; and those horrors will overtake us, and our loved ones,
unless we awaken from our stupor and
keep the commandments of Jesus, the
Son of God. It is amazing to see how so-called Christian people can sit
idly around, gossiping and idly talking, instead of making preparations for the
greatest event of the immediate future - the coming of the Lord. Christians
spend more hours in idle conversation then they spend minutes in actual, earnest,
fervent prayer before God. - W. C.
5
Our Lord expressly told His disciples to look and pray for
deliverance from the tribulation times. “But watch ye at every season, making
supplication, that ye may prevail to escape all
these things that shall come to pass, and to
stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21: 36 R.V., see also Rev. 3: 10). But if I must go
through the tribulation, supposing I am alive, would our Lord teach me to pray that I may
prevail to escape it? According to 1 Thess. 4: 13-18, the living believer and the dead in Christ are to have equal
treatment at His coming, but if the living are to go through the tribulation,
it will be much better to have died before it begins. The greater part of the
Church has already fallen asleep and so has escaped it altogether, and of those
who are alive we read, in 1 Peter 1: 5, “who are kept by
the power of God through faith unto salvation, [‘of souls’
(see verse 9;
cf. Ps. 16: 10; Acts 2: 27, R.V.)] ready to be revealed in the last time” (see
also Hebrews 9: 28 R.V.). What is this [future] salvation
which we who are alive and remain unto the Coming of the Lord are to be looking for then?
Surely it is a salvation out of the tribulation, just as Enoch was delivered
from the awful times which preceded the flood. Thus the dead and living in Christ have equal treatment at His
- [manifested and personal] - coming* by being caught up together
to meet Him in the air.
[* NOTE:
There will be two select translations of living saints! The first before
Antichrist’s persecutions begins - after 3½. years of Daniel’s 70th week
(Dan. 9: 27;
Rev. 13: 4-10; cf. Lk. 21: 36
& Rev.
3: 10 - and the second select translation, at the
end of the Great Tribulation when the ‘holy’
dead will be resurrected. (1 Thess. 4: 15; Rev. 20: 6, R.V.)]
The Apostasy and the full manifestation of the Antichrist
cannot take place until the restraining [literally the holding down] is taken
away (see 2 Thess. 2: 3-7). What is this restraining which
prevents the full development of these evils, but which will one day be taken
away? The answer to this question is quite simple if we turn to the 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18. There we see the removal of just those who do restrain the Apostasy
and whose going would undoubtedly set it free. But if this is so the
tribulation which follows the Apostasy will not take place until there are - [selected, repentant,
restored,
and obedient] - believers who have been removed.
Therefore those who are alive at the time are not to expect to go through it,
but to watch and pray for deliverance from it.
- S. J. HENMAN.
6
Every year now makes our relation to the Lord’s coming a
matter of more vital and urgent importance. Questions are being settled now
which shall determine, not so much our [initial] salvation (for that should be long since settled for
most readers), but our position in the coming [millennial] age, our reward, or loss. Some are going “to reign in
life” (Rom. 5: 17): some will be “ashamed
before Him at His coming.” Some will receive the victor’s crown: some will see their
works burnt up, like wood, hay and stubble. (1 Cor. 3: 11-15). In Matthew 24. and 25., after describing the signs and conditions preliminary to His coming in
judgment, our Lord, in verse 42, turns to warn His own servants. “Watch
therefore,”
introduces the parables of the Householder and Thief; the Faithful and Evil
Servants; and the Wise and Foolish Virgins; and concludes in verse 13 with a reiterated “Watch therefore.” For at any time, we who are His servants may be summoned to render account. The
churches of Thyatira and
7
In
No one is so deeply conscious of his own utter weakness as is
the true overcomer; and yet, at the same time, he is equally conscious of Jesus’
victorious power given to, and working through him, so that, with St. Paul, he
can truly say: “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses
that the strength of Christ may rest upon (cover) me
... for when I am weak,
then am I strong”
(2 Cor. 12: 9, 10). “Thanks be unto
God, which always leadeth us in triumph in
Christ” (2
Cor. 2: 14). - J. A. HARRIS.
-------
THE WORLD
“Demas forsook
me, having loved this present world”
(2 Tim. 4: 10). The old oriental story of Sinbad’s
voyage tells of a magnetic rock that rose, silently, out of a placid and glassy
sea. All unconsciously, the ship was sucked towards it; silently the bolts
slipped from the ship’s sides one by one: until all the bolts and clamps
withdrawn, the whole structure collapsed, and the sailors woke to their
drowning agonies. So stands amongst us all, the magnetic rock of world
enchantment: the suction is silent, subtle, slow; but, under its spell, bolt
after bolt of holy resolution, clamp after clamp of godly habit, is drawn; and
the whole structure of a radiant discipleship dissolves in tears of shame.
* *
*
39
CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
I hugged
my illusion that we were a united people tight, and was heart-sick when I was
forced by facts to give it up. Part of my illusion came through my false
conception of New Testament unity, my misunderstanding of the Lord’s teaching.
That an intelligent, self-respecting, aggressive, and independently-thinking
people could be able to study the marvellous Book and could agree in their
understanding of what the Lord has said to men, and that the understanding of
each would advance at the same rate of speed with the understanding of every
other one in the group is, of course, not thinkable. Think of it - a large
group of students, slow students, average students, apt students, quick
students, scattered throughout the world with almost infinite varieties of
background and early training - this is the church of the Lord. To expect this
group of students through an independent and conscientious study of the word of
God to work out in themselves the same convictions is to expect the impossible.
What possibilities for endless debate and discussion in this host of honest and
conscientious students. And yet this group is exhorted to speak the same
things, to be perfectly joined together in the same judgment and to have no
division among themselves; this is the group that is exhorted to endeavour to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Admittedly it presents a
grave problem that only love, forbearance, long suffering, with patience, can
solve. Certainly the dogmatic spirit, cocksureness, and self-righteous air have
no place in the effort to solve it. The convictions of the plodding students
are just as sacred to him as the convictions of the apt, quick students are to
him. - J. N. ARMSTRONG.
*
* * *
*
Sometimes, even when vital relationship exists, Christian
fellowship should be refused. The Scriptures clearly set forth the grounds upon
which this should be done. (1) He
who denies the fundamental truth - “that Jesus Christ
cometh in the flesh” is not to be received. (2 John 10, 11, with 5: 7.) Of this class were
certain sects of the Gnostics, already beginning to arise in those days, and
their modern kin. (2) He who sins
against his brother and persistently refuses to make proper amends is to be
regarded as were “the Gentiles and the publican” (Matt. 18: 15ff). (3) The Christian who is walking
disorderly or living in gross sin is to be withdrawn from (2 Thess. 3: 6, 14; 1 Cor. 5.)*. The
relationship remains, but the fellowship is to be disrupted in order that “he may be
ashamed” and
brought to repentance. So he is not to be counted as an enemy, but admonished
as a brother (2 Thess. 3: 15).
* Is it not significant that, although there are a number
of grievous faults for which Paul rebuked the Corinthian church - their
contentious spirit, litigations, abuse of spiritual gifts, disorderly conduct
at the Lord’s table, false teaching on the part of some concerning the resurrection
of the dead - it is only when dealing with the moral questions in chapter 5
that he so much as suggests withdrawal of fellowship? And the last of these
matters (the resurrection - chapter 15) has to do with an important detail
of God’s future programme.
Christian fellowship is based upon relationship - the relationship
which we sustain to God and consequently to one another. All those who have
become “obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye
were delivered”
and have thus become “sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” are members of the one body, branches
of the one true vine. They have been washed in the same blood, they adore the same
Saviour, they confess the same Lord; and to them comes the earnest entreaty from
the shadow of the cross: “This is my commandment, that ye love one another,
even as I have loved you.” - J. EDWARD BOYD.
*
* * *
*
I love those words of Paul when he was writing that second
letter to the Corinthians, and dealing, as I venture to think, especially with
that portion of the
*
* * *
*
Already weakened and enervated as many orthodox members
doubtless are by the poisoned spiritual atmosphere in which they dwell so that
they no longer have strength to protest, a little more of the overhead
deadening process of Modernist schools, preachers, Sunday School literature, of
study classes with lecture and text-book filled with subtle Modernist evolutionary
poison, and soon there may not be even enough life remaining to cause them to
condemn unorthodox utterances in private, or even in their own hearts. This
writer knows of more than one who was formerly a stalwart orthodox layman, who
has fallen before the seductive heterodoxy of Bishops and other leaders of the
Church they loved. But we must not love a Church organization more than we love
our souls and the souls of children and others. We had better by far flee from
*
* * *
*
The Roman Church lays it down that an ‘ecumenical’ council is called by the Pope or by the Emperor with
his consent. There is no evidence that the Pope convoked any of the first five
accepted ecumenical councils. There are twenty councils, from
* * *
40
THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD + 2
By BROTHER LAWRENCE ANDREWS *
* Brother
Lawrence wrote in the seventeenth century, in words which, full of spiritual
charm and truth,
have helped souls in all Christian
groups for over two hundred years.
God lays no great
burden upon us - a little remembrance of Him from time to time, a little
adoration; sometimes to pray for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your
sorrows, sometimes to return Him thanks for the benefits He hath bestowed upon you
and is still bestowing in the midst of your troubles. He asks you to console
yourself with Him the oftenest you can. Lift up your heart to Him even at your
meals or when you are in company - the least little remembrance will always be acceptable
to Him. You need not cry very loud: He is nearer to us than we think. Remember,
I pray you, what I have often recommended to you, which is, often to think on
God, by day, by night, in your business, and even in your diversions. He is
always near you and with you: leave Him not alone. You would think it rude to
leave a friend alone, who had come to visit you: why then must God be
neglected? Do not then forget Him, think often of Him, adore Him unceasingly,
live and die with Him: this is the glorious employment of a Christian - in a
word, this is our profession; if we do not know it, we must learn it. We ought
to act with God in the greatest simplicity, speaking to Him frankly and
plainly. Let us think often that our only business in this life is to please
God; that all besides is perhaps but folly and vanity.
THE APPROACH
I consider myself as the most wretched of men, full of sores
and corruptions, and as one who has committed all sorts of crimes against his
King; moved with deep sorrow, I confess to Him all my wickedness, I ask His
forgiveness, I abandon myself in His hands, that He may do with me what He
pleases. This King, full of mercy and goodness, very far from chastising me,
embraces me with love, makes me to eat at His table, serves me with His own
hands, gives me the key of His treasures; He converses and delights Himself
with me unceasingly, in a thousand and a thousand ways, and treats me in all respects
as His favourite. It is thus that I consider myself from time to time in His
Holy Presence.
THE RENUNCIATION
Having found in many books different methods prescribed of
going to God, and divers practices of the spiritual life, I thought that this
would serve rather to puzzle me, than to facilitate what I sought after, which
was nothing else but how to become wholly God’s. This made me resolve to give
the all for the all: so after having given myself wholly to God, I renounced,
for the love of Him, everything that was not His; and I began to live as if
there were none but He and I in the world. Are we not rude and deserving of
blame, if we leave Him alone to busy ourselves about trifles, which do not
please Him - which perhaps offend Him. He bears with them now, but it is to be
feared these trifles will one day cost us dear.
Let us begin to be devoted to Him in good earnest. Let us cast
everything besides out of our hearts; He would possess them alone. Beg this
favour of Him: for love of him surrendering, if He think fit, all other
pleasures. Let us renounce and renounce generously, with single heart, for the
love of Him, all that is not His; He deserves infinitely more. He told me that
all consists in one hearty renunciation of everything which we are sensible
does not lead us to God, in order that we may accustom ourselves to a continual
conversation with Him, without mystery and in simplicity.
THE PRACTICE
I know that to arrive at this state, the beginning is very
difficult. Be not discouraged by the repugnance which you may find to it from
nature; you must do yourself violence. I found no small trouble in this
exercise, and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the difficulties that I
encountered, without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered
involuntarily. I made this my business, as much all the day long as at the
appointed times of prayer; for at all times, every hour, every minute, even in
the height of my business, I drove away from my mind everything that was
capable of interrupting my thought of God. Hold yourself in prayer before God,
like a poor, dumb, paralytic beggar at a rich man’s gate. Let it be your business to keep your
mind in the Presence of the Lord: if it sometimes wanders and withdraws
itself from Him do not much disquiet
yourself for that; trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract than to recall
the mind; the will must bring it back in tranquillity: if you persevere with
your whole strength, God will have pity on you. Knock, be instant in knocking,
and I answer for it, He will open to you in His due time and grant you in a
moment what he has withheld during the many years. Thus, by rising after my
falls, and by frequently renewed acts of faith and love, I am come to a state
wherein it would be as difficult for me not to think of God, as it was at first
to accustom myself to it.
THE PRACTICAL
The times of business do not with me differ from the time of'
prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are
at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great
tranquillity as if I were upon my knees. I say:- “O my
God, since Thou art with me, and I must now, in obedience to Thy commands,
apply my mind to these outward things, I beseech Thee to grant me grace to
continue in Thy Presence; and to this end, do Thou prosper me with Thy
assistance, receive all my works, and possess all my affections.”
THE JOY
For above thirty years, my soul has been filled with joys so
continual and sometimes so transcendent, that I am forced to use means to
moderate them and to prevent their appearing outwardly a silent and secret,
constant intercourse of the soul with God, which often causes in me joys and
raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great, that I am forced to
use means to moderate them, and prevent their appearance to others. I know not
what I shall become: it seems to me that peace of soul and repose of spirit
descend on me, even in sleep. To be without the sense of this peace, would be
affliction indeed; but with this calm in my soul even for purgatory I would
console myself. I know not what God purposes with me, or keeps me for; I am in
a calm so great that I fear nought. What can I fear, when I am with Him?
CHRIST
Christ loves us infinitely more than we can imagine: love Him
therefore, and seek no other relief than in Him. Let us make the most of the
day of grace, let us redeem the time that is lost, perhaps we have but little
left to us: death follows close, let us be well prepared; for we die but once,
and a miscarriage then is irretrievable.
Perhaps He is just waiting for one generous resolution on our part; let us be
brave. All possible kinds of mortification, if they are devoid of the love of
God, cannot efface a single sin. We ought, without anxiety, to expect the
pardon of our sins from the Blood of Jesus Christ, labouring simply to love Him
with all our hearts. So little time remains to us to live; you are near sixty-four,
and I am almost eighty. Let us live and die with God: sufferings will be ever
sweet and pleasant to us, while we abide with Him; and without Him, the
greatest pleasures will be but cruel anguish. May He be blessed for all. Amen.
-------
CHILDREN AND THE ADVENT
That ‘little children’ can watch for their Lord is
proved by these verses of a missionary’s little daughter, aged eight. - Ed. [D.
M. Panton.]
He may come in the morning,
He may come in the evening,
He may come in the night,
Or p’r’aps
in mid-day light:
Oh ye people, watch and pray,
For He may come any day
Do not linger, do not stay -
Just go quickly on your way,
Christ the Lord is coming soon,
Far beyond the sun and moon:
Oh ye people, watch and pray,
For He may come any day!
- MYRTLE G. POWLEY.
-------
THE NAZI GOSPEL
By KURT C.
W. LUDECKE
“National Socialism is able to
influence greater masses at once than the Church possibly can. Oh yes, Ludecke, if you want to see my meaning illustrated, you
need only go to the funeral of a Nazi and watch the faces, blank while the priest
is reading the service” - there Herr Hitler stopped long enough to
imitate a priest mumbling the Litany, fingering an imaginary rosary, and
spreading hands in blessing (an excellent performance, as always) - “and see them light up when the Nazi leader lifts the flag
and speaks words of flame over the dead.”
“Yes, National Socialism is a form of
conversion, a new faith, but we don’t need to raise that issue - it will come
of itself. Just as I insist on the mathematical certainty of our coming to
power, because might always attracts might, and the traditional things, whether
they be Right or Left, constructive or destructive, will always attract all the
activist elements, leaving only a juiceless pulp in the middle - just so do I
insist on the certainty that sooner or later, once we hold the power, Christianity
will be overcome and the ‘Deutsche Kirche’
established. Yes, the
Hitler was ablaze now, and I could see the ideas of
* From I Knew Hitler, pp. 465, 466. Jarrolds, 10/6.
[THE END]