THERE is, in the very nature of things there can be, but one First Cause of everything. There is such an One—the living and true God. He is self-existent, never had beginning, eternal—never ending, everlasting; the alone infinite in power, and therefore; irresponsible, and knowing no check or impediment to His will or action,—save that of His own character and essential goodness and truth. “The right” is always His—Himself is the Standard of what is right—He is the One First Cause, originating source of everything that ever was brought into creature-existence—Sustainer in being, and Controller here or elsewhere, of everything—the End for whom it was formed, to be to His glory and praise.
He has been pleased to act, and to speak in and by—creating, providing, and ruling all things; and man down here on earth.
He has chosen, too, to write a Book, by His Holy Spirit, about His counsels and plans concerning the Son of His love—and the glory which He will win—of a new heavens and new earth wherein shall dwell righteousness, after—Himself having become the way, and revealing the way into that glory for man.
What creature is there that is not morally bound—and responsible at its own peril—to own in every way the One who created it, upholds it, and overrules it, and everything else, and who has said that He will turn everything to His own glory—one way or another, in. weal or in woe.
But man in fallen nature ignores this as to himself, and questions it as to others. And why? Simple but solemn reason (which accounts, too, for the scoffing of the infidel scoffer): Adam and Eve apostatized from God—left their creature position—their first estate of innocency and dependent obedience to God, and were turned out of Eden. And “Adam begat in his own likeness and after his own image,” and such are we all, as born in that family, apostate in the Adamic nature from God: in creature-apostasy. Let the predicted great white throne of judgment-to-come—convince you that God is God; and means to make known His rights everywhere, ere the last grains of sand in time’s stinted measure run out.
The LORD God has stood in connection with man—in creation, providence, and government, and given tokens, out of all number, of His eternal power and Godhead, of His patient goodness in caring for man in all his wants, and of His power to keep evil in check for Himself. But alas! man has renewed, times out of mind, proofs that he is,—and, if left to himself, ever will be—nothing but apostate,—standing off from Him as far as he can, his back to God, and his face to the pleasures of self. And what is to be the end of all this? Scripture says—Wrath.
Notice well two things—revealed in Scripture, and confirmed by facts. Israel was the center of God’s governmental plans for the earth. And to this day that nation and its land are the touchstone of everything in the politics of the whole earth. So—
When the Messiah had been crucified and Was gone to heaven, God as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, formed the Church down here on earth. One church was, by the power of the Holy Spirit (come down from heaven with the view of raising and maintaining a testimony to God and Christ in heaven) dwelling in the church, to be the proof to man that the Father sent the Son. And that church has become, in one way or another, the touchstone of everything in the profession among men of being in connection with the God of heaven and with true worship.
It is so now; it is so here; it is so everywhere throughout the whole habitable earth. I am bold to say that “the Church” is now to man religious just what the people and land of Israel have been and are to man-under-civil-government.
The key of every question in government and in religion is found in the Son of Man who sits in heaven—He is, on the one hand, the root and offspring of David; and, on the other, the bright and morning star—(Rev. 22; 16) i.e. The King that Israel looks for, as yet to come in the name of Jehovah, is the same as the Lord Jesus the Savior, who is coming to fetch home His Father’s heavenly children.
Israel, under Moses and under Solomon, knew that if the LORD God their King was honored, then they were at the head of everything;—dishonored, and the four Gentile Beasts were at the head, and they became as the tail; though the Beasts, some of them, might not understand God’s why-and-because of such changes. So—
The Holy Catholic Church at Pentecost (while the Holy Spirit was owned, as in Peter’s and Paul’s days,) knew this—That the Holy Spirit given of God to the Lord Jesus to shed abroad as the Father’s token of His delight in Christ (who had made His throne to be the mercy-seat, and Himself on it to be the life too of his people) made the Church a habitation of God through the Spirit. Thus Jesus, the crucified on earth, made by God in heaven to be Lord and Christ, Sender down of the Spirit—while He was honored, His Company, or Society, reflected the perfect unity of His oneness with the Father—dishonored, and Ichabod (where is the Glory) became stamped upon the Company professing to be His Church; though that on which and that by which Ichabod was so stamped might not understand the why-and-because of the change.
If there was an absolute, irresponsible Theocracy in the nation, Israel, as to civil government, there was an absolute, irresponsible Theocracy set up in those that formed the Church, as to worship. In the one, the only true and living God, as dwelling between the Cherubim, was known in rule—in the other, the Lord Jesus Christ as sitting at the Father’s right hand on the throne of God in the majesty of the highest in Heaven, was made known (by His Spirit) in worship, and moral and spiritual rule. The setting up was of God—the continuance down here of what was set up, depended upon man’s being subject to the blessing, and so enabled to answer God’s purpose in it. God alone has unquestionable rights. God alone and His written Word are to be listened to. He will teach those who wait on Him. The question, now, is not—Why did He speak by a Balaam? Why through the mouth of his dumb ass? Why set Saul among the prophets? and Jonah? or Why Judas among the apostles? but, (alas! that one should have to quote Pilate) “What is truth?” That is the sole question.
Let not any of the religious, or any of the irreligious who may read this—be offended at the simplicity and plain speaking of one who desires their good. Though desirous to offend none—yet would he, in love to all men as men, risk the giving offense, if so be that he might gain their consideration of the weighty truth which presses upon his own soul as being truth, in the mind of God about them; and judged by him to be so, because so It is written. Bitter shame is it to name it, yet it is truth; for so It is written. The knowledge of it is bitter to the soul of the true Christian, yet all must know it in order to escape worse sorrow still.
Christianity, the Christian religion, as set up in and among men on the day of Pentecost by Christ, has, as a system, utterly failed—been betrayed by the professed holders of it, self-betrayed. Betrayed from within, it has become full of deadly evil. It is become Christendom already, and soon it will pass away, as did Jewdom, and be set aside. That is, if Christ’s predictions in the written Word; if Peter and John and Paul’s writings (i.e. the Holy Spirit’s) cannot be broken, John 10:3535If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; (John 10:35).
Reader! Are you aware of this? Are you prepared for it? Upon such a subject, after such a statement, it is not for man to sport his thoughts. Of what worth are man’s thinkings? Let Christ Himself be heard, and then the Holy Spirit, in what He has written through Peter and Paul and John. Surely God knows man and his language well enough to express what He means to convey, so plainly as that he that runs may read. He is not the only one who cannot express, and lay home on our minds too, what He wants us to know—as some men think. God’s written Word, it was, to which the Lord Himself deferred and bowed, as Servant of God, when He said, “If you (Jews) believe not his (Moses’s) writings, how shall you believe my words?” (John 5:4747But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? (John 5:47)).
Let us now look at the testimony of our Lord, that as Israel would be set aside, so that which would take, their place would likewise fail and be set aside. In Matt. 12:46-5046While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. 47Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. 48But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? 49And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! 50For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. (Matthew 12:46‑50), on account of the Jews’ wickedness, the Lord declared that to Him ties-in-nature were and should henceforth be nothing; but ties in the Spirit, to hold and do the truth, alone constitute relationship to Him. Then follows:
Chapter 13 “Behold, a sower went forth to sow.” (v. 3)—He had brought the seed with Him, and here He came forth, to present it, even as He, just before, had come forth from the house. It was seed to be sown—not fruit to be gathered as under law—Israel had! none to render, and He came forth, here, to sow what might bring forth fruit. [NOTE: As another has suggested: it is not the Jew under law, but man under the word of the kingdom]. Doubtless the seed was of the best quality.
“As He sowed.” (as it was Himself who sowed—the sowing was perfect, according to His aim at the time). But the counterworking elements and the circumstances of the ground are noted. And why did He do it so? He was wise, and knew the mind of Him whose servant He was.
The seed, we shall find, was not, here, merely the word of God, which is in itself the expression of His authority—and to man always a gift, and yet a test; but it was the word of the kingdom of heaven, about to be opened by the Son of Man to as many as received it. Grace alone could propose connection with God and Christ (in a kingdom of heaven) to poor sinners that received and acted upon the word.
1St. (v. 1) Way side sown, and the fowls came and devoured the seed;
2nd. (v. 5) Stony places, and not much earth;
3rd. (v. 7) Thorny places, and the thorns (at least) sprang up;
4th. (v. 8) Good ground—which alone brought forth fruit, some an hundred, and some sixty, and some thirty fold.
Christ teaches, here, that He knew beforehand, and would have us to know beforehand, that the word of the kingdom (v. 19) which He brought and spread abroad—first of all makes manifest the enemy, of it, and of Him, and of us—that marks one danger; and, then, the character of that in which we live is made manifest; whether flesh in its Own nature, or the world—and, after that, we learn that but one out of four such appropriators of it, in the end gets the blessing of the seed sown. Solemn is it as warning as to what man is, and where, and what, his circumstances. The sower was not sowing a field of wheat now—that came afterward (v. 21); but, here, He used His word, not limiting its scattering to the prepared field;—and it had a fourfold experience. The word of God is always a detective test, and makes manifest what it comes in contact with: out of four cases, it is only creative (so to speak) and fruit-bearing in one, through grace. As the word of the kingdom (of heaven) it brought the Sower’s rich grace to light. But how solemn the warning to those to be taken as occupying Israel’s lost place. And yet, if such warnings are received into the soul, it is (not only “forewarned, forearmed” as men say, but) graciously broken down out of all self-confidence and self-complacency, and so weaned from self, and it casts its all upon Him who never fails, and never will fail, those that trust to Him alone. The word was a word of grace, and sent in mercy; but man knew neither what it meant, nor himself and his circumstances as opposed to it. In itself it was fruit-bearing if it took its own natural course.
In 1. The word of the kingdom was heard, but not understood. Deep the responsibility to man from God’s thus sending a sower, and such a sower. This and it not known—the wicked one comes and snatches away that which was sown in the heart, [mark this, as showing the responsibility of men hearing the word] Satan, and then men under him (though unconscious of being under him and robbed by him, and ignorant of their responsibility,) are detected by their want of understanding of the word (v. 19).
In 2. It was received—heard, and anon [immediately] with joy received, yet had no root in the man himself—lasts but for awhile—but when persecution or tribulation arises on account of the word, by and by [the same word as “anon”] he is offended. Feeling is not conscience it will act forthwith, [immediately] to receive; but if tested by trial from within or without (of what the relationships, there, are toward the word), the receiver is, as it were, caught in “a trap” by opposition of feelings.
In 3. The thorns—care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches [the first acting on the heart of the poor man, the second on that of the rich] they sprung up [Did the wheat shoot at all, or was it merely received? It is not said which, in v, 7 or 22] and choked the word, and it was fruitless.
In 4. The word is received when heard, and it is understood. But, note it well, nothing came out but what was inside of it (23). The good ground was ground fit for its development—as legality and self-righteousness in man are fit for Moses’ law, and the heart of a Saul, made to know himself as “of sinners, the chief” (an utter wreck too), was fit for mercy and grace.
What I glean from the parable, is this. Christ knew beforehand, and would have us to know, that the gracious word of the kingdom (when, Jews having failed under law, He addressed the word to man as man) is detective of everything in and around the one to whom it comes. A deep responsibility, to have it sent to us; high privilege too, if we know ourselves to be ruined sinners—germ of blessing too, but only to those who know that which is in their circumstances, and themselves, but that in the scene too there is Another, and He brings the word as his remedy to us in utter ruin. Then it is fruit-bearing, and surely a blessing if we are really subject altogether to it. God’s word accomplishes itself, where it has its sway—and is (through the last Adam) creative anew to us and, so, fruit-bearing. The Lord closes with the solemn words— “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
2ndly. But, that there may be certainty to us about this failure of man in man’s present responsibility, Christ gave a second parable (v. 24-30). That of the sower was a sort of introduction. The field of wheat follows—likewise to prove a failure in man’s hand. Both parables teach the same lesson, methinks.
v. 24-30. Another parable put he forth to them, saying,
v. 24 The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man [v. 37, the Son of Man] who sowed good seed
[v. 38, the children of the kingdom] in his field
[v. 38, the world; not the church ];
v. 25 But, while men, slept, his enemy [v. 39, the devil] came and sowed tares [v. 38, the children of the wicked one] among the wheat, and went his way;
v. 26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
v. 27 So the servants of the householder came and said to him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? Whence then has it tares?
v. 28. He said to them, an enemy has done this. The servants said to him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
v. 29 But he said, Nay; lest, while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
v. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest [v. 39, the end, (lit. common ending of the world, lit. age) ] [v. 41, the Son of Man] will say to the reapers, [v. 39, the angels] Gather together [v. 41, g.t. out of the kingdom all things that offend (lit. snares laid for an enemy)], and those who de iniquity (or lawlessness) and bind them in bundles to burn them [v. 42, and cast them into a furnace, of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth]: but gather the wheat into my garner; [v.. 43, Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father]. Query, is there a contrast here to the kingdom of the Son of Man, v. 41?
Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Note it—the parable was spoken in public, but the explanation given only in private, to the disciples, and only (v. 36-43) after He had sent the multitude away (v. 36) and the disciples had asked Him its meaning.
What is the instruction given to the verses 24-30, by the inspired explanation in 33-36? but just this; the Son of Man sowed [originated] a company and companionship of the children of the kingdom in the world.
While His servants who should have watched, slept—the devil came and planted among the wheat, children of the wicked one. This became apparent after a time, and those that had been asleep, asked, should they go and root up those the devil had sown while they slept? No: lest you root up the wheat with the tares. A party that had been sleeping, instead of watching, is not the one to correct the results of the devil’s hatred against the field-owner. Angels shall be sent, at the period of the common ending of the age, to gather out the tares for burning, at the time of harvest. Satan’s children shall go to his place. The Lord will take the righteous into the kingdom of the Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Here was a second proof of how man, under the present trial, would fail; we may say, alas! has failed, though the Son of Man will keep his own through all the evil; Satan’s craft, man’s flesh (asleep at one time, too ready to cut off with the sword at another time,) and this world of mixtures, good and had together in it—notwithstanding.
3rdly. Then follow two more predictions in parables, to the same effect.
1. v. 31, 32 show how Christ foresaw it all and warned about it. The kingdom of heaven entrusted to man’s responsibility, instead of being a kingdom of heaven and of heavenly people and principles, would (through Satan’s agency,) become (monstrous!), not a lowly plant that proclaims its own lowly origin, but a big tree on earth, for devils [v. 32, the fowls of the air, which in v. 4, 19 is the wicked one] to lodge in the branches thereof; [a great tree, Nebuchadnezzar, (Dan. 4; 10, and v. 12, 20-23,) was a great tree. Ezek. 17]
2. v. 33, We have another parable proving the same thing. Note it, leaven is never once used in Scripture for truth, the gospel, or anything good. Leaven and honey were prohibited to be offered to God (Ex. 34; 25 Lev. 2; 11 Amos 4; 5). And Paul writes, “Keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of Sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5; 6-8), which, to the Scripture student, is decisive.
Can anyone read this chapter thus far in God’s presence, and not see that the Lord foresaw, and forewarned in it, of the entire failure in man’s hand of the trust made to him of the kingdom of the Son of Man Not so—if taught of God.
4thly. In the rest of the chapter, He shows that though (as above) in man’s hand all will fail, in His own hand as Son of Man there will be no failure. He loves His own divinely, and will secure what He loves, and seeks, to the end. See the three parables of the “treasure hid in a field” (v. 44); “the one pearl of great price” (v. 45, 46), and “the net cast into the sea” (v. 47-50).
Oh, that my reader might ponder and understand these things! What is man? And what has man ever wrought? And what is the latest of man’s failures?
Again, God the Holy Spirit, who wrote down Christ’s testimony, has confirmed it all, by writing down that which Himself moved Peter, and John, and Paul, and Jude, &c., to teach and to understand. They all were witnesses of the same truth as Christ had taught.
What else did the Holy Spirit mean when He moved Peter to write the 2nd and 3rd chapters of his Second Epistle?
What, when he guided John to name the antichrists [substitutes for Christ] Who was John’s antichrist (1 John 2:1818Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. (1 John 2:18))? Who, they whereby we know that it is the last time [hour] and v. 22 and 23, and again iv. 1-5?
What did Jude mean in his heart-stirring Warnings? What, Paul in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians? What the meaning of the testimonies of Paul and of John concerning the two mysteries, when laid, the one alongside of the other?
The apostle Paul (1 Cor. 4:11Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. (1 Corinthians 4:1)) writes, “Let a man account of us (apostles) as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.” Reader! join with me in so reckoning them, and let us read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what they write.
There are two mysteries in Scripture which are in strong contrast: viz.
1. The Mystery of Christ.
The good one is thus honorably spoken of, as—the wisdom of God in a mystery, 1 Cor. 2:77But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: (1 Corinthians 2:7); and (the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ) the mystery of His will, Eph. 1:99Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: (Ephesians 1:9): and the mystery of Christ, 3:3, 4, and Colossians 4:33Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: (Colossians 4:3); and the great mystery, Eph. 5:3232This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:32); the mystery of God, Col. 2:22That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; (Colossians 2:2), and Rev. 10:77But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. (Revelation 10:7); the mystery of godliness [or piety] 1 Tim. 3:1616And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (1 Timothy 3:16).
The evil one is branded and is full of evil—evil of man’s pride and self-will, through misapplication of Scripture, to his own exaltation, as though himself and not Christ (a savior of lost ones), was and is the center as well as motive and end of God’s treatment of everything: (see above in Matt. 13:1111He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. (Matthew 13:11); Mark 4:1111And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: (Mark 4:11); Luke 8:1010And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. (Luke 8:10)). It is thus stigmatized as infamous in Rev. 17:5, 65And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 6And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. (Revelation 17:5‑6): “Babylon” the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth,” &c. “drunken with the blood of the saint, and with the martyrs of Jesus.”
And, lastly, what did Paul mean, Rom. 11:13-2513For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: 14If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. 15For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? 16For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches. 17And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; 18Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. 19Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. 20Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: 21For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. 22Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. 23And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. 24For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree? 25For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. (Romans 11:13‑25), when he wrote, that, as the Jews had for their unfaithfulness been set aside, and another witness brought into their place—so he certainly foresaw that that witness which superseded them, would likewise fail and be set aside to make room for another?
When the Jews were owned of God as the keepers of His Scriptures (iii., 2), where were the Gentiles? They were their oppressors in the world, as parts of the great statue of Dan. 2; but below them in the knowledge of everything that was of the true God; whether they lived under the four Beasts (Dan. 7), or in the outer parts and corners of the earth that lay outside of the Beasts. But they were shut out of Israel, and knew that it was so. Now (according to Eph. 2:11-2211Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; 12That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: 13But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. 14For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; 16And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: 17And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. 18For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. 19Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; 20And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; 21In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:11‑22)), the believers, whether Jews or Gentiles, form one habitation of God through the Holy Spirit: that is a visible thing tangible to sense. Believers were “all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:2828There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)). Well, as this new witness, (Paul writes to them), they needed to be warned (Rom. 11:1818Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. (Romans 11:18)) not to boast against Israel (v. 20, 21), and not to be high minded, but fear—and (v. 22) “behold the goodness and severity of [lit. severing, cutting off] God: on them which fell severing, but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” I might be thought beside myself, if I ventured to express what this means. So in prudence I forbear. But what would you, reader, or men think, in a case such as I will put before you.
After twelve years of refusal to pay his rent a tenant, who had been spoiling the property, assumed that it was his own, and that he might break every clause in the lease, and yet maintain that he was a good tenant, and could not be turned out for violating all the provisos of the lease. The case is before the judge. What would human jury, and what would human judge say? Change now the case, and what are we to think of the so-called Reformation, and of the 1,200 years failure of the so-called Church which preceded. it? And what of the Church which had set aside the Word of God—symbol of His authority—expression on the earth of His right to be heard by every one? The Word not known, and the Holy Spirit not owned, how could its doctrines of grace and precepts of heavenly life be known or acted upon? How could even the salvation of an individual, upon the sure ground of the Word of God that cannot lie, be known? And what are we to think of protestants in 1874 differing from us in this judgment? While they are protestants, they assert, by their position, that the Church had failed entirely. If so, God says, it will be cut off. If that (its failure) be not true; then let them doff the name of protestant, and don that of “the Church.”
But further, read Rom. 11:2525For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. (Romans 11:25), where Paul’s authoritative word comes forth— “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part, is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” There is development in the evil;—progress. 1. While men slept; 2. Evil crept in, but put out; 3. The mystery of iniquity; 4. Evil superficial [as in 2 Tim. 3]; and lastly, open manifest rebellion. It was so in Israel, as Stephen said. (Acts 7).
And note here, that, while the union of believing Jew and Gentile together in Christ (made through the Spirit to be one body) had never been predicted in Jewish Scripture—the rejoicing of the Gentiles with and under Israel, had been fully revealed (Romans 15:7-127Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. 8Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: 9And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name. 10And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. 11And again, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people. 12And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust. (Romans 15:7‑12)). Israel, as a nation, separated from the rest of the nations, is to be, and will be, the center of blessing to the whole earth, when the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Beloved reader! I have been in prayer and confession for God’s true people, and for the wicked too, in and round this town—and now I entreat you to weigh that which Scripture says.
I could, as a watcher, tell you of much which meets the believer’s eye, to the grief of the heart, in eternal. things around us. But, no, I will not.
I close with this word: There were heavens and earth before these; and they perished in the deluge. But the heavens and the earth, which are now, are kept in store, reserved unto fire. These have been witnesses of strange things: such as—the Jews and the Gentile nations—Israel on the one hand, and the Roman kingdom on the other—combining to murder the Christ of God, Israel’s Messiah, and to reject Him, Sender down of the Holy Spirit afterward; and of the consequent dispersion from the land, of the Jews. And they will be witnesses.
2ndly, of two similar judgments of God upon the apostate. First, when the Lord, having saved all His own of the present period, will set aside wicked Christendom as having set aside His Spirit and the truth, and, after that, restore Israel as a whole; and, after the final apostasy described in Rev. 20:7, 87And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. (Revelation 20:7‑8), (in taking part openly with Satan, against God’s Christ, when reigning), and the judgment consequent thereon (v. 9, 10), then, but not till then, these heavens and earth, also, will yield their places to new heavens and a new earth, wherein. shall dwell righteousness.