8. “K.,” North Devon. When we think of the tone of your letter, which we replied to in our last November issue, and read the one which has just reached us, we cannot but thank God with our whole heart for His abundant mercy. For what service we have been to you, we can only prostrate ourselves before the Lord, and give Him all the glory. For the sake of our readers—who have joined with us in prayer, and will now mingle their thanksgivings with ours—we transcribe an extract from your letter. “It is with a heart full of joy and gratitude that I write these few lines to tell you that God has indeed answered prayer, and granted me a full sense of pardon for the past, and has given me grace and strength to withstand the temptation I had yielded to so many times. Ο may I ever be kept humble and watchful for the future. I can see now why I failed. Though I have been for some time praying the Almighty to help me, I had not faith to believe He would hear me, and have been trying to stand in my own strength, and of course have failed. Not only has the Lord restored me, but has allowed me to be the humble instrument of leading several others to Him. It has made me deeply thankful, and very much ashamed at the same time, to think I have known the Lord so many years, and yet never tried to speak a word for Him before. Will you, please, still remember me in your prayers, that I may grow daily in the grace and love of God, and strive to lead others to Him?.... With deep gratitude for your help,” &c.
9. “A. M.,” Glasgow. We recommend you to write at once to the author.
10. “J. C,” near Stonehouse. We do not believe you could possibly have any more real influence in stemming the awful tide of intemperance, by walking contrary to the word of God, or by adding to it. If all temperance societies are in direct opposition to that command, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” &c. (2 Cor. 6:14, 15), and, as they are open to all, they clearly are thus composed of believers and unbelievers: it follows then that it cannot be right, under any circumstances, to disobey God. And further, if even the society were formed and composed only of Christians, would not this be adding to the word of God? If we go back to that which was in the beginning of Christianity, as set up of God, can we find a trace of any society but the one assembly of God? We find the Holy Ghost baptized all believers into the one body of Christ, and we seek in vain for any other society as of God. (1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 4:4.) Further, if we examine that epistle which especially describes these last sad days of Christendom, is the instruction there that we should join in society with the unconverted to improve the world? If you will read 2 Timothy 2:19-22, you will find it teaches the very opposite. “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.” Surely purging himself from is not joining in a mixed society. It might look to the natural man far more likely for Lot to be useful by joining the society of Sodom.
11. “Inquirer.” Scripture informs us that the Holy Ghost dwells in the body of the believer (See 1 Cor. 6:19; Gal. 4:6.) He is first brought by the Spirit to the Lord Jesus Christ as a sinner to a Savior, and thus becomes a child of God through faith; then the Holy Spirit is given to him as the seal and earnest of the inheritance, &c. The church on earth, looked at in the place of corporate responsibility to the Lord, and in failure too—the house of God—is also the temple of the Holy Ghost. (See 1 Cor. 3:16; 1 Pet. 4:17.)
12. Whitby. It seems to us not well to speak of passages being parallel in the word of God. We may be quite sure that every part of scripture has its own peculiar significance. There is much teaching concerning Christ in the Book of Proverbs; in fact the scriptures generally testify of Him. In Pro. 8 “wisdom” speaks, and Christ is revealed elsewhere as the “wisdom of God.” In chapter 1 of John’s Gospel we have the personal titles of Christ as the Word, Son of Man, Son of God, &c, but His relative titles of High Priest, Head of the church, Bridegroom, and others are not revealed there.
13. “T.,” Bristol. The place of women in the assembly, and in service, has often been referred to in former numbers of this Magazine. We would now only remind the inquirer of one scripture, “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” (1 Tim. 2:12.) The precepts of the word of God, and the examples there given of godly women, provide abundantly for the highly honored place of women in the Lord’s service.
14. Collumpton. No doubt the leprous house teaches us most valuable lessons in dealing with sin in the assembly. What you say about an Israelite being prohibited from being in a suspected house we believe to be very important, as also scraping the walls after the leprous stones have been removed. But these points have been taken up by us more fully than is practicable in this serial, in a little volume entitled, “Peace and Communion” published by Broom, London.
15. Stourport. Such questions as to the need of musical instruments in worship, would never arise, if the scriptural distinctions of dispensations were seen. When Jehovah saved the children of Israel from Egypt, and brought them through the Red Sea and the wilderness into Canaan, He took them up as a people in the flesh, gave them the law, and promised them a place of greatness in the world. As types, they read us many precious lessons. Worship, however, was then of a fleshly kind, so that damsels playing the timbrel, and David playing the harp were quite consistent with their calling and position. But when Jesus came into the world and was rejected, He spoke of the necessity for the new birth, and gift of the Spirit, and also of the entire change in the character of worship. It was no longer worshipping in Jerusalem as it had been, but “the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” (See John 1:10-13; 3:7; 4:21-24.) In 1 Cor. 14:7, 8, the Spirit, by the apostle, is only using a figure to show the necessity of those who speak doing so in words easy to be understood. Doing things decently and in order must always be carried out consistently with the principles of the dispensation. When the church has been taken to glory at the coming of the Lord, and Israel is again taken up and brought into their promised blessing in the millennial earth, it will be quite consistent for them to have a magnificent temple, to keep feast days, offer sacrifices, and sing praises again to Jehovah “with the timbrel and the harp.” The great truth of Christianity is that the Holy Ghost has come down from Christ in glory to abide with us forever, in virtue of our accomplished redemption, so that everything now to be acceptable to God our Father must be in the Spirit. Hence in the chapter to which you refer, it is said, “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also; I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.”
16. “B.” Scripture clearly makes a difference between “purchase” and “redemption.” Wicked men—false prophets—are spoken of as “denying the Lord that bought them.” (2 Pet. 2:1.) A slave may be purchased and be a slave still, only having changed masters; but a slave redeemed is no longer a slave. The field (the world), in the parable of the treasure hid in it, has been bought, and Jesus as man is Lord of all, but all men are not redeemed. A Christian is both bought and redeemed. To such it is said, “Ye are not your own, but bought with a price” and “in him [Christ] we have redemption through his blood.” (1 Cor. 6:20; Eph. 1:7.)
17. Newfield. Scripture says that Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, and that God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, &c. This surely does not imply that Christ, who is God, does not love the world; but that His heart was specially set on that object which is in peculiar relationship with Himself, and which He will by-and-by present to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
18. “A. U.” We should never expect to know the will of God by looking at men, even Christians, and analyzing their differences. We have in the word of God that which we can trust, and is sufficient for us under all circumstances. To it faith always turns, and the heart, by grace, is always subject. There we have that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only center around which the Holy Ghost gathers Christians, and, when so gathered, He is in the midst who has redeemed us, has sent down the Holy Ghost, is Head of His body the church, is soon coming to receive us unto Himself, and meanwhile would have us walk individually and collectively in ways suited to Him who is holy and true. We know it is His mind that we should depart from iniquity, be separate from vessels to dishonor, and be with them who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Diotrephes, in 3 John 1:9, was not doing this, but, in pride and self-will, casting out the apostles themselves.
19. Margate. You will find your questions in reference to Heb. 6 answered in a tract entitled, “The Young Believer’s Difficulties,” published by Morrish, London.
20. “R. S.” Sharpness. “Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected,” &c. (Luke 13:32.) Herod had no power against the Lord until His work was done. And though He should go up and die at Jerusalem, yet on the third day in resurrection He should be perfected. (John 2:19.) It is blessed to know it is also with the Christian. Herod, or the world, may hate and seek to kill him, but neither can do this until his work is done; and if they put him to death like the Lord, he will soon be perfected in resurrection.