Young Christian: Volume 13, 1923

Two businessmen met by previous appointment at a small commercial hotel in the city to settle an account. One was the representative of a large firm, and the other a small tradesman. A little misunderstanding occurred about some charges which were made for goods supplied by the firm; the tradesman thinking too much had been charged, wanted something deducted, which the other did not feel at perfect liberty to do without first receiving permission from the firm. But such was the confidence the tradesman had in his friend that he took out his check book and, putting his signature at the bottom of the leaf, said: “There, Mr. P—, is a blank check with my signature—I will leave you to fill it up; I know you will do the thing that’s right; just make such deduction as you think proper, and fill in the amount.”

Now, did not this show that this tradesman had unbounded confidence in his friend? For it lay in the power of the one who held the blank check to have ruined the other, for he might have filled in an amount entirely beyond the tradesman’s capability of discharging. But, no! he knew the representative of the firm to be an honest man, and so he could trust him to any extent.

How often is this the case, that man can trust his fellow man, even to an extreme, and yet have so little faith in God—his Creator.

If you, my dear reader, are anxious about your soul, I would earnestly beseech you to have that simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that this tradesman had in his friend, and life everlasting is yours.

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Acts 16:31.

You have only, as it were, to write your name on a blank cheek, and trust it in simple confidence in the hands of God, and He will fill it from top to bottom with blessings. Salvation cannot be earned by good works; it would not be in harmony with the grace of God if that were possible.

“God commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8.

If there were any possibility of man’s getting to heaven by his so-called good works, what need had He to have given His Son to a death of shame? No, my dear reader, life can only come through faith in the finished work of Christ.

Believe and Live are the words which explain the principle on which God is giving eternal life to His fallen creatures. One look of faith to the serpent of brass was sufficient to cure the serpent-bitten Israelite of old, and one glance of faith, directed to the cross of Christ is enough to save the most sin-diseased soul on earth.

If you are one who has been trying for years to obtain life by your good works (so-called), religious duties, and morality, let me tell you in all love and kindness, that it is in a way opposed to faith; for salvation has been wrought out over 1,800 years ago on Calvary’s cross, and simple, childlike faith is all you need to make it your own. May God, in His grace open your eyes to see and appreciate the value of simple saving faith.

Sin and Sins

A little crooked s makes a great difference in many things. In the Word of God we find sin and sins clearly distinguished. “Sin” is the root that produces the bad fruit— “sins.”

God judged sin; God forgives sins.

God condemned sin in the flesh, making His Son, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, by His dying in the likeness of sinful flesh on the cross (2 Cor. 5:21). And now He remits the sins or all who believe on Him.

Do you want forgiveness, and think you must utter many prayers to obtain it? Nay, God is offering you pardon; beseeching you, by His servants, to be reconciled to Him (2 Cor. 5:20). Sin in has been judged. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and your sins are forgiven for His Name’s sake. (1 John 2:12), for He bore the sins of all who believe, in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24).

And, if a believer, you have done with sin, you are to have nothing more to say to it (1 Peter 4:1). But perhaps you will say: “Suppose I sin again, Do I not then need to pray for forgiveness?” Let God’s own Word supply the answer: “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” 1 John 2:1.

“If we confess our sins” (not pray for forgiveness), “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9.

It is very easy for a naughty child to say: “Father, please forgive me.” But it is quite another thing for the child to see its wrong as the father sees it, and to come before him in true self-judgment, confessing it. So is it between God and His children. We ought not to sin; but if we do, we are exhorted to come before Him in self-judgment and heartfelt confession.

Keep to Scripture. Every word has a meaning.

How Great the Grace!

O blessed God, how great the grace,

That gave to ruined man a place

Of perfect peace with Thee,

Made through the sufferings of Thy Son!

He, He alone, that place hath won—

Himself hath set us free.

How sweet that freedom tasted now,

Our souls with adoration bow

Before Thy throne of grace;

We gladly worship—wait to see,

The Leader of our praise to Thee,

In glory face to face.

We praise with Him in His own joy,

His praise our ransomed souls employ,

Both here and soon above;

No less a place of praise is given,

No greater here, nor when in heaven,

We share His boundless love.

Fragment: How to Walk

All we can do is to walk watchfully, but peacefully, thinking of the interests of the Lord Jesus, and having nothing as to ourselves—nothing to gain and nothing to lose. The path of peace, the place of testimony, is in seeking to please God.

Scripture Study: Acts 23

Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said:

“Men, brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.” If any, and it is certainly not many, who could truly say that. His sin against God and Christ, and His people, had been done as service for God. Jesus Himself had spoken of this in John 16:2. Paul afterward tells it of others as mistaken zeal, not according to knowledge (Rom. 10:2, 3).

This hypocritical high priest who could only judge by himself, commanded them that stood by to “smite him on the mouth.” The warmth of the flesh in Paul is stirred by such gross injustice, and he replied to him, “God shall smite thee, thou whited wall (Matt. 23:27); for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?”

Some standing by, said, “Revilest thou God’s high priest?” Paul answered, “I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest; for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of Thy people.”

Grace had taught the blessed Apostle to judge the risings of the flesh at their first appearance, and to allow the Word of God to judge him.

We also should learn this of him, but more from our blessed Lord, that no injustice of man’s could lead Him out of the way. (John 18:19-23.)

Still Paul is not bearing testimony for Christ here, as one walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, but rather engages the adversaries with their own opposite thoughts, and takes his place as a Pharisee of the class called Pharisees, and says of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question. This is Jewish testimony. Christianity goes farther, and would speak of resurrection from among the dead.

It was an apple of discord he threw down for his enemies to fight over, for the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither is there any angel or spirit; but the Pharisees confess both, so the multitude was divided, and they strove with each other. The scribes of the Pharisees’ part arose, and strove, saying, “We find no evil in this man; but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.” The dissension became so great, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the castle.

And still the blessed Lord was watching over His servant, and the night following He came to Paul, and stood by him, and said, “Be of good cheer, Paul; for as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.”

What precious grace of the Lord this is to His servant. He does not speak of any failures, but of his faith. Paul hears he is going to Rome, not as an apostle, but as a prisoner, to testify of the Lord Jesus, the rejected, crucified, now risen and glorified One; and nothing the enemy can do, and nothing that Paul can do or say, will hinder the Lord from carrying out His purposes of grace.

We shall see the way in which it is done—not the direct leading of the Spirit, but God, providentially, working out His will. A conspiracy of over forty Jews is formed, and they bound themselves together under a great curse with an oath that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. They told the chief priests, and elders, and they did not reprove their sin, but fell in with their plan to ask the chief captain to bring Paul down into the council, as if they would inquire somewhat of him more perfectly, so that they might assassinate him on the way.

But Paul’s sister’s son, of whom we now hear for the first time, heard of it, and went into the castle and told Paul. Paul called a centurion, and said, “Bring this young man unto the chief captain; for he has something to tell him.” The chief captain took him by the hand, and led him aside, and listened to the story of the conspiracy, and added, “Do not thou yield unto them; . . . and now are they ready, looking for a promise from thee.”

The captain, who now seems to be favoring Paul, and placing himself in a better attitude, making up for his first mistake, said to Paul’s nephew, “See thou tell no man that thou hast showed these things to me.” Then he called two centurions, and ordered them to prepare a strong escort to take Paul to Cesarea. Two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen, to start at the third hour of the night, to bring Paul safely to Felix, the governor. Then he wrote a letter (26th to 30th verses), in which he makes himself safe, representing things falsely to do it.

Still the Lord uses all to take Paul on his way to Rome, and to bring his testimony of the Lord Jesus before men. The governor read the letter, and commanded him to be kept in Herod’s judgment hall, till his accusers should come from Jerusalem to accuse him, as the captain had ordered them to do (verse 30).

What comfort Paul, the prisoner, would have in the words of Verse 11, “Be of good cheer, Paul,” words spoken to him by the Lord Himself, to cheer him during all the way.

Fragment: The Eye on God

When the eye is upon God, self is forgotten when it is not, I am thinking of the slights I receive, and neither faith nor grace are in exercise.

As He Is, So Are We

O! blessed, wondrous words

As Christ is, so are we;

Washed, sanctified and justified.

From condemnation free.

Emancipating truth!

“As He is, so are we;”

He bore our sins, He paid our debt,

When hanging on the tree.

The Father sees us now

In Christ, His risen Son;

In favor thus, we stand in Him,

The head and members one.

As Christ is, so are we,

Though this poor earth we tread;

In “righteousness transcendent” now,

We’re linked with Christ our Head.

And soon the world shall know

The Father sent the Son,

And loved us e’en as He loved Christ,

The spotless Holy One.

O! day of wondrous bliss,

When faultless we’ll appear,

In bodies fashioned like His own,

And his blest image bear.

O! day of joy supreme,

When we His face shall see,

And know the depth of those sweet words,

“As He is, so are we.”

The Place of His Appointment: Part 1

From Notes of an Address.

I should like to read three scriptures; one from the 1st of, Matthew, one from the 18th of Matthew, and one from the 28th of Matthew.

Matthew 1:21-23; 18:15-20; 28:16 to the end. The “world” here should be, as most of us know, translated by the term “age.” While I have it on my heart to say just a little to believers tonight, I trust enough may be said concerning God’s glad tidings to meet the need of any here that are out of Christ. First, let us notice the 20th verse of the 18th chapter.

“For where two or three are gathered together to My name, there am I in the midst of them.”

Now, this text is exceedingly familiar to almost all in this room. We have quoted it a great many times; we have sought to subscribe to it, though conscious of being flecked with many defacings, conscious of very much weakness and very much failure; but it contains God’s principles of gathering, and I trust we may see somewhat in it that shall reach our consciences anew, and touch our hearts afresh.

Now, that little text, if broken up into parts, contains seven distinct thoughts. “For where” —that’s the divine place; “Two or three” that’s the divine testimony; “Are gathered” —that’s divine separation; “Together” —that’s divine oneness; “To My name” —that’s divine authority; “There am I” —that’s divine presence; “In the midst of them” —that’s the divine center. How precious! Now, it is of all necessity, if we are going to be agreeable to Him, to know just where the Lord would have us be, in this world, I mean as to the assembly, our church relation in this world. Now we know that question is commonly considered, allowing the widest latitude for human choice; but when we come to Scripture, we find we are not left with discretional power. We find God has chosen for us, has distinctly defined His mind, and we are responsible and under obligations to answer to that mind as revealed in Scripture—in His Word.

First, as to where, let us notice a little in the 28th of Matthew, for that scripture contains a principle which holds good until this present moment. (10th verse.) “Then said Jesus unto them, Be not afraid; go tell My brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see Me. Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and showed the chief priests all the things that were done. And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole Him away while we slept. . .. Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, unto a mountain where Jesus had appointed them.” What we have from the 11th to the 15th verses, is a kind of parenthesis, and in the 16th verse you have the thought resumed. “And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.” The point I am after in this passage is this, that when we are gathered according to God’s mind, we conform to His appointment, and do not choose for ourselves. It is the principle that is in it. Jesus said to them, “There shall ye see Me.” They answered to His appointment, and found Him as good as His word; and when gathered there, He was in their midst. There is immense principle in that, and as we were saying a moment ago, sometimes during union meetings, souls are converted, souls are saved, and then they are told to select the church of their choice; to go, in other words, where they please. But you see Jesus has appointed a place, Jesus has named a place, and if we are to have His presence, we are to conform to His wishes, His desires, His will, His appointment.

Let us notice still another scripture as to where. Take, for example, the 13th of Hebrews, 12th verse. “Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” Now this is most important in connection with the thought of where. If in the earlier scripture we find that we are to meet the Lord according to His appointment, here we find Him outside of something, and that something is called “the camp.” Well, we all know what the camp was in that day, but What answers to it now? Why, the whole system of things religious, that places man in the flesh in outward relationship with God. Where is Jesus as to that? He is outside of it, and I am called upon as a believer to go forth unto Him, bearing His reproach.

We can’t dwell at length on any of these scriptures. Indeed, the line of truth will be simply suggestive, and you may look these questions up at your own liberty, but that, to me, is the most important. It is a system of things which characteristically stands connected with this world. Whereas the believer has no continuing city here, indeed, is a stranger and pilgrim. It would not be hard to fix the application of such a text as this, unless we were seeking to evade the edge of it; and that is true, you know, as a rule with us, that where scripture is difficult of application, difficult of understanding for us, it is because our duty and our desire part company. That is when we have our difficulty, and you will have it so almost every time. But, what characterized the assembly of God at the beginning, as it came fresh from His hand? What characterized it in anticipation, if you please, when the table of the Lord was first spread? Is it something connected with this world as the camp? No; let us see. Look please at Luke 22:9, “And they said unto Him, Where wilt Thou that we prepare? And He said unto them, Behold when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in. And ye shall say unto the good man of the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guest chamber, where I shall eat the passover with My disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room furnished; there make ready.” Now you see that is consistent with the position of the Christian in this world, who is told that here he has no continuing city, in contrast with that which is called the camp, which is a parcel of the world’s system, and which is an established thing in this scene. What have you here? The brethren gathered by His appointment in a guest chamber. Not the temple, but the guest chamber. That is a remarkable thought. What is a guest chamber? Just a room where one might tarry for a night. Just the opposite of something fixed and sure, and of an abiding character in this world. Just the opposite, and you have the same thought, I believe, in the first chapter of Acts, haven’t you? You remember the scripture, 12th verse. “Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day’s journey. And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room.” So the place, the where, is not only outside, it is not only characterized by being transient, but it is out of the world. It is in an upper room. It is in an out-of-the-world place, an out-of-the-world position, and indeed; if you carry out the thought, in going on to the 10th of Hebrews, in heart and spirit, it is within the veil, it is within the holiest of all. Blessed fact. So you see as to the where, as to the place, it stands detached from this world and attached to heaven; and all that characterized it here speaks of what is transient, or what is not abiding; of what is outside and above it all. But, perhaps, that is as much as we should say as to where.

“Two or three.” “Where two or three.” There is something very blessed in that, and do we really understand the secret of this blessed text? “Two or three.” You see, with all their blessing on the day of Pentecost, they never could have known the specific application of this scripture as we may know it. It is just as though the Lord Jesus anticipated all the ruin that has come in; just as though He had seen how the church would be wrecked, divided and subdivided, and that there would be just a little handful that would be willing to turn aside from the mass to gather to His name alone. Blessed fact. You see, you couldn’t have an assembly composed of less than two. If there were just one, that would not be an assembly. But He puts it at the lowest plurality, and says if there are just two that are willing to abide by these principles, “There am I in the midst of them.” Marvelous truth. Blessed fact.

You see it shouldn’t be a question of numbers that would affect us. We never could arrive at the truth in that way. It either is the truth, or it is not. Numbers cut no figure whatever.

But you know, and I know, too, as a matter of fact, that never did the wrong stand stronger, and never lay the right so weak. That’s a fact, and you know it. You know, I repeat it, that never did the wrong stand stronger, and never lay the right so weak, but God’s truth is just the same. The principles that govern the assembly are just the same, and what we are exhorted to do as God’s children, is to go on with that which was from the beginning. It may not have the appearance of up-to-dateness, it may look a little like a back number, if you are going to think of it in a human way, but God’s truth needs no date. If it were the truth two thousand years ago, it is the truth tonight, and will be the truth eternally. Yes, it will, and God give us, through His own precious grace, in this day of weakness, in this day of feebleness, in this day of littleness, not to despise this day of small things. We may not have the appearance of an army with banners, but we can at least be leaving the wilderness, “Leaning upon our Beloved.” (Songs of Solomon 8:5.) We may be seen leaving the wilderness, owning our weakness, owning our littleness, owning our feebleness, owning our failure, and as we were saying a moment ago, we shall be flecked with many defacings, but the truth of God abides. It is one thing to start out by subscribing to what is unscriptural; it is another thing to subscribe to what is scriptural, and fail in accomplishing your endeavor.

Let us notice a little further, “Two or three.” You know scripture says, “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” That is another way to look at the “two or three.” Not only that it would require this many to form the assembly of the very smallest character, but also, if you have just two, you have the witness number, and if you have three you have the full witness number; so let us not be discouraged since it is a day of small things, knowing that we have the Lord. I say we, and when I saw we, Whom do I mean? Any who through grace, with bowed heads, broken hearts and chastened spirits, are willing to own no name but His. But now a little farther. “For where two or three are gathered together ... ” Now to be gathered, supposes separation; and that is just what is true of God’s people according to God’s thought.

If you take Israel of old, what was said of them in the 20th of Leviticus? “I have severed you from other people,” and now what is said of us? Us, I mean all the children of God. “I have chosen you out of the world.” If there were in our hearts a state which answered to this, you would find something of what you have in character in the 4th of Acts. “And being let go, they went to their own company.” The line of distinction and separation between our souls and this world would be distinct, would be plain, would be clear. But is It? You know full well to the contrary. Distend of our being gathered, I speak of the church of God now at large, including all the systems of man, you have all sorts of mixtures, from the most devoted saints to the boldest infidels, all under the name of Christ. That is not being gathered; that is not according to God’s principle of separation. It is not according to God’s principle of unity, for God’s principle of unity is separation from evil, and not the toleration of it. It is good for us to learn that.

(To be continued)

Hark to the Trump

“Hark to the trump! behold it breaks

The sleep of ages now;

And lo! the light of glory shines

On many an aching brow.

Changed in a moment—raised to life,

The quick, the dead, arise,

Responsive to the angel’s voice,

That calls us to the skies.

Ascending through the crowded air,

On eagles’ wings we soar,

To dwell in the full light of love,

And sorrow there no more.

Undazzled by the glorious light

Of that beloved brow,

We see, without a single cloud,

We see the Saviour now!

O Lord, the bright and blessed hope

That cheered us through the past,

Of full eternal rest in thee,

Is all fulfilled at last.

Praise, endless praise, alone becomes

This bright and blessed place,

Where every eye beholds unveiled

The mysteries of thy grace.”

The Lord Jesus Himself

May the Lord Himself be more personally with and before us! A nearer and more real object than ever!

Truth that gives thoughts is not fully the right thing; but truth that gives Himself—that is the thing.

Jesus once here—now in the heavens—again to be here, and we to be with Him forever—the same Jesus throughout—known for eternity as He was known in His track through the cities and villages of Israel—this is the mystery that gives us Himself. It is the business of faith to reach Himself.

The centurion pierced the cloud, the thick cloud, of His humiliation, and got at the divine glories, which lay on the other side of it, or under it.

The poor sinner of the city pierced the cloud, the dark cloud, of her own sin and misery, and got at the divine love that could heal it all. Faith may thus find various excellencies in him, but it is Himself it reaches.

Faith sits and sings,

“All human beauties, all divine,

In My beloved meet and shine.”

Let not this evangelic age give the work of Christ alone. It tends that way. Without His work, I know, all would be nothing. But let not doctrinal acquaintance with His work turn you from personal acquaintance with Himself.

Not Now

“He that had been possesed with the devil, prayed Him that he might be with Him.” Mark 5:18.

Not now, My child—a little more rough tossing—

A little longer on the billows’ foam—

A few more journeyings in the desert darkness,

And then the sunshine of thy Father’s home!

Not now—for I have wand’rers in the distance,

And thou must call them in with patient love;

Not now—for I have sheep upon the mountains,

And thou must follow them where’er they rove.

Not now—for I have loved ones sad and weary;

Wilt thou not cheer them with a kindly smile?

Sick ones, who need thee in their lonely sorrow;

Wilt thou not tend them yet a little while?

Not now—for wounded hearts are sorely bleeding,

And thou must teach those widowed hearts to sing;

Not now—for orphans’ tears are thickly falling

They must be gathered ‘neath some sheltering wing.

Not now—for many a hungry one is pining;

Thy willing hand must be outstretched and free;

Thy Father hears the mighty cry of anguish,

And gives His answering messages to thee.

Not now—for dungeon walls look stern and gloomy,

And prisoners’ sighs sound strangely on the breeze—

Man’s prisoners, but thy Saviour’s noble freemen;

Hast thou no ministry of love for these?

Not now—for hell’s eternal gulf is yawning,

And souls are perishing in hopeless sin;

Jerusalem’s bright gates are standing open—

Go to the banished ones, and bring them in.

Go with the name of Jesus to the dying,

And speak that name in all its living power;

Why should thy fainting heart grow chill and weary?

Canst thou not watch with Me one little hour?

One little hour!—and then the glorious crowning—

The golden harp strings and the victor’s palm;

One little hour!—and then the hallelujah!

Eternity’s long, deep, thanksgiving psalm!

Your Race Is Run: Prepare to Meet Thy God

It was a notice on a board at the races. Probably the earnest man who carried it never knew the result of his humble service. But a day is coming when it and every effort for Christ’s glory will have its reward.

The unmistakable message reached the conscience of a young prodigal. He was sowing his wild oats. Giddy and careless, he pursued the path of pleasure and sin. Eternity was of small account indeed, to him.

Amid the gay scene with its noise and excitement, it was scarcely to be looked for that conviction of sin should be forced home on a man’s conscience. Yet so it was. The plain, solemn words of warning did their work, and the young man left the multitude to go its way. He could go on no longer on the road of death.

Earnestly he sought to make himself fit for God. But all his efforts at reformation did not meet the demands of his conscience.

How could he prepare to meet God? was the question uppermost in his mind. After all his endeavors and failures, his feelings could be well expressed by the words of the hymn, as he cast himself on Christ for salvation:

“No preparation can I make,

My best resolves I only break,

Then save me for Thine own Name’s sake,

And take me as I am.

“Helpless I am and full of guilt,

And yet for me Thy blood was spilled;

And Thou canst make me what Thou wilt,

And take me as I am.

“Behold me, Saviour, at Thy feet,

Deal with me as Thou seest meet;

Thy work begin, Thy work complete,

But take me as I am.”

Thus at last he found joy and peace in believing. He rested on Christ, and knew that his many sins were blotted out, and that he was clothed in all the beauty of Christ. Then he became a proclaimer of the grace of God which had rescued him.

Correspondence: Acts 2:17; Filthiness of the flesh/spirit; Schools; Instruments

Question: When does Acts 2:17 apply? A. S.

Answer: Joel 2:28-32 will be fulfilled in the millennial reign of Christ. In Acts 2 it is quoted to show that these men were not drunk, as was supposed, but, that the Holy Spirit was causing them to speak with tongues, that all the nations present might understand the gospel. It was of the same kind, but it was not the fulfillment of these scriptures.

Question: What is the difference between filthiness of the flesh, and filthiness of the spirit? (2 Cor. 7:1.) J. D.

Answer: In chapter 6:14-18, we have outward separation from association with the world in its religion and its ways. In chapter 7:1, we are exhorted, having these promises of God’s care over us, to cleanse ourselves, not only in our outward walk and associations, but also with regard to our relationship, with purity of thought. This is needed for communion with God, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. (See also 2 Tim. 2:22.)

Question: What does 1 Corinthians 7:14 mean? A. G. R.

Answer: God respects the children of believers, even where only one of the parents is converted, and expects that parent to own His name and to claim God’s promise for the children’s training and salvation. (Acts 16:31.)

The unbelieving parent is sanctified by the believing one. This is in contrast with the marriages in Ezra 10, and Nehemiah 13. In these, God did not own the marriages, or the children. In 1 Corinthians 7:14, God owns the marriage, and desires that the children may be trained for Him. Sanctification means the act of setting apart. Here it does not mean salvation. God does not approve of believers and unbelievers yoking themselves. It is quite wrong for a believer to engage himself, or herself to an unbeliever (Amos 3:3, 2 Cor. 6:14-18.)

Question: Please explain Ruth 4:7.

Answer: The shoe plucked off, and given to Boaz, expressed the man’s inability, and he gave up all claims on the estate to Boaz, which means “strength.” This is a picture of Romans 8:3,4. “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,” has been more than met by Christ, and what He has done.

Question: What about useful denominational schools for the children? Should we send our children into what we have separated from? N. S. C.

Answer: If it was right, and in obedience to the Word of God, that we separated from sects, to be gathered to the Name of the Lord Jesus, it would be building up what we destroyed, and so making ourselves transgressors. (2 Cor. 6:17, 18; Gal. 2:18).

We may seem to lose some benefits for the present life, if we obey the Word, but in the end, we are benefitted by strict obedience. In 1 Samuel 15, Saul, the king, spared the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord. God rejected him as king for this; it was not obedience.

See also how God honored the Rechabites for their obedience to their father’s command. (Jeremiah 35) We are never wrong in paying attention to the Word, and obeying it.

“Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.” Psalm 119:11.

It was the path in which the Lord walked: “Obedient unto death, and that the death of the cross.”

Question: Does the Sabbath day in Genesis 2:1-3 point on to the eternal state, or to the Millennial reign of Christ? (Isa. 66:23; Col. 2:16, 17.) A. S.

Answer: In Genesis 1:26-28, we see in figure Christ and the church, reigning over the earth, that is the time spoken of in Isaiah 66, when the Sabbaths will again be observed, and in Colossians 2:16, 17, still shadow things to come.

We, as the church on earth now, have Christ, the body, or substance of all the shadows. He is our rest now (Matt. 11:28), yet in Hebrews 4, we look on expecting the time when God’s rest comes, that is, the eternal state, to have our part in it, when

“All taint of sin shall be removed,

All evil done away; And we shall dwell with God’s Beloved

Through God’s eternal day.”

Question: Does the Word of God forbid us to possess musical instruments? D. C.

Answer: No. Christians are left free to be led by the grace of God which has saved them, and to be constrained by the love of Christ to live, not to themselves, but to Him who died for them, and rose again. (Rom. 12:1, 2.) We may use our music for the Lord, though it is first seen in Cain’s world (Gen. 4:21), and Satan uses it to blind many. (Job 21:6-14.)

In Christian worship as found in Scripture, instrumental music has no place. “They that worship God must worship Him in spirit, and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.” (John 4:24; Phil. 3:3).

In Israel’s worship to Jehovah as an earthly people, we find choirs and instruments, wind and stringed instruments, with timbrels and cymbals (Psa. 150), also in idolatry (See Dan. 3).

We find all kinds of instruments employed, but not in Christian worship “Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” (Heb. 12:13).

Because God Says So

My parents were children of God, and were anxious that my brothers and sisters, together with myself, should be brought to know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour. They insisted on our going to the Sunday school, and also to hear the Word of God preached.

The preaching on one Sunday night I well remember. When it was over the preacher went to the door, and spoke to the people as they passed out; presently he took my sister aside and spoke to her. I saw the tears flow, indeed I believe my sister was converted that night. In anger I said: “If that’s the way he goes on making people cry, he is not going to speak to me,” and, crossing over the room, I went out by another door.

I lived on without God, getting further and further away from Him after this, but at length the Holy Spirit arrested me, showing me that was a lost, hell-deserving sinner. He also showed me that I could not get salvation by my own works.

I was miserable, and continued in this state for some time, praying God to save me before it was too late, for I knew that if I died in my sins, my portion would be outer darkness forever and ever. I knew if the Lord should come, and with His voice wake the dead and call the living, and take them to His home, that my parents would go with Him and that I should be left behind. Though the Word told me that Christ came to seek and to save the lost, I could not make Him my own. Prayers and works were of no avail, and my misery increased, until God in His grace showed me what does avail.

One Saturday morning, while eating my breakfast, I was reading in a monthly periodical a piece entitled, “Because God says so.” The story was about an old lady questioning a gentleman as to how she was to know she had eternal life. The gentleman told her to believe she had it, and on this ground, “Because God says so.” Those few words were used to the deliverance of the old lady from her doubts and fears, and, looking into self as I read it, God used it to my deliverance also. I knew I had eternal life, “because God says so.” How well I remember that morning, I could have danced for joy. I took God at His word, and knew I was saved there and then.

Now I can look forward to the coming of Christ with joy instead of fear. I know that I am a child of God, and that the Lord Jesus has gone to prepare a place in the Father’s house for His own. The Lord Jesus said: “In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am there ye may be also.” Thanks be to God! Blessed truth to know that where Christ is, that is the place where we shall dwell. He will not send an angel to get us, but will come for us in His own blessed person, and throughout the endless ages of eternity we shall be with Him and like Him.

“With Thee in garments white,

Lord Jesus, we shall walk,

And spotless in that heavenly light

Of all Thy sufferings talk.”

And now, dear, unsaved reader, ask yourself this question, “Where shall I spend eternity?” Where? Where? If God were to stop your heart beating at this moment where would your soul go that must live on throughout the endless ages of eternity?

Reader, it is a solemn reality. When your feet touch the cold, dark waters of death, and your soul is on the verge of eternal burnings, you will shake like a leaf in an eastern gale. The moment your soul leaves your body, its eternity will begin. What will be the remorse of those who are lost, as they recall opportunities rejected, and pleading spurned! O shelter yourself under the precious blood of Christ while it is yet today.

“Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” Hebrews 3:15.

“He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” Proverbs 29:1.

Take God at His word, believe it, “Because God says so.” If you spurn the offer, your portion must be weeping and wailing throughout eternity. Eternity! Where shall I spend eternity?

Jesus, Our Lord

Jesus, our Lord, God’s well-beloved,

How well we know Thy name;

Jesus, the Lord, the crucified—

In glory still the same.

Jesus, the One who left the throne

To save a ruined race;

Thy love and lowliness still shine

Upon that glorious face.

Jesus, the One who trod the earth,

The lowly, subject One,

Obedience unto death was Thine—

God’s well-beloved Son!

Jesus! what memories fill our hearts

Of Thy blest footsteps here,

While now to heaven our eyes we turn

And gaze upon Thee there!

Jesus, our Saviour, quickly come!

That we may with Thee be;

Heaven’s morning breaks and glory dawns

When Thy blest face we see.

Accepted in the Beloved

It is very wonderful to contemplate the way of the grace of God to a poor sinner; the depths from which it rescued him, and the heights in which it sets him. If we only look at ourselves, even after the knowledge of this grace has filled our hearts with peace and joy, we can never understand why a holy God should take up such as we are; we can do nothing but wonder, while we praise.

But the moment the eye is fixed on Christ, we cease to wonder, for there in God’s presence is a Man, “the man Christ Jesus,” the object of His infinite delight, the joy of His heart. In the face of that Man, the glory of God, the token of His perfect satisfaction, unceasingly shines. And that Man was my substitute upon the cross, the place of judgment and death. Well may I cease to wonder when I see where He is.

There are two extremes, if I may so say, to the gospel, and they are—Christ, the beloved Son, forsaken on the cross; and poor sinners “accepted in the Beloved.” Extremes, indeed, unknown and unintelligible to the natural man, but very wonderful and very precious to those who have, through grace been enabled to look away from the things that are seen, to those unseen and eternal things of which that glorified Christ is now the center. And there it is that these extremes meet, in the Person of the One once forsaken as the sin-bearer, because that was the only way in which a holy God could be perfectly glorified about sin; now glorified by the very God who then hid His face from Him, and the radiance of that glory shining in the face of the One who once cried out in the agony of being forsaken by the God whose heart He knew, and whose glory He vindicated, as none other did or could— “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

As I look back for a moment at that cross of shame, with its unfathomable depths of light and love, and then look up by faith and see Him, who was on it for me, the perfect delight of the God, who, for the moment, had in righteousness to forsake Him; now, too, the Head of that new creation which shall never be stained with sin, or saddened with death, I may well lose sight of myself, and cease to wonder that am “accepted in the Beloved.”

The Inscription on the Cross

It is considered by many that the four different accounts of the inscription on the cross prove, beyond all controversy, that the Bible could not possibly have been inspired in every word, inasmuch as the wording is different in every case.

But those who raise this objection surely overlook the fact that Pilate—who was evidently anxious that all should read it—went beyond the usual custom of fixing up a condemned man’s accusation in one, or at most two languages, and in this case had it written out in three different languages, namely Latin, which was the official language—that is, of the Romans (representing power and conquest-worldly empire).

Greek, which was the usual language spoken by the people (representing art and learning human wisdom).

Hebrew, the vernacular or natural language of the Jews—that is, the religious language (representing the Covenant Race—God’s law).

So that it would be more correct, and much less misleading, to speak of the “inscriptions,” instead the inscription.

And what if the Holy Spirit was pleased to lead one evangelist to quote from the Latin; a second from the Greek; a third from the Hebrew, while a fourth was led by the same Spirit to give the substance of the whole—in order that in each case the wording of the inscription should retain the specific character of the particular gospel in which it was recorded, and thus set forth its own special view of the Saviour?

Surely the only reasonable argument here as to inspiration is that this part of the prophecy, at any rate, did not come “by the will of man!” For had they been merely human records, it is safe to assume that they would almost certainly have them made to agree with one another.

But, instead of this, it should be observed that in each case the words preceding the quotation of the inscriptions clearly indicate that there was a distinct intention that the quotations should differ; for example:

Matt. 27:37 says, “They set up over His head His accusation written.”

Mark 15:26 says, “The superscription of His accusation was written over.”

Luke 23:38 says, “A superscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek and Latin and Hebrew.”

John 19:19 says, “Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross.”

Moreover, all these prefaces themselves differ from one another. Mark merely tells us that the superscription was written; Matthew, that it was set up over His head; Luke, that it was written in three languages; John, that Pilate was the writer.

And it would be just as reasonable to argue that the Bible cannot be verbally inspired, because the evangelists did not all give exactly the same information in this respect, as it is to complain of the wording of the inscriptions. The fact is, they give us different views of the same facts, while all are equally correct. But it is now time to turn round upon the critic and ask him, even apart from what has been said, if he will kindly show us wherein the contradiction lies. Here are the four accounts:

Matt.: “This is Jesus. . . the King of the Jews.”

Mark: “. . . The King of the Jews.”

Luke: “This is. . . the King of the Jews.”

John: “. . . Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

Total: This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

From the foregoing table, it will be seen that the words quoted by the different evangelists were absolutely correct; but as, throughout the whole of the gospels, a perfect and full view of Christ and His teaching, can only be obtained by taking the four accounts together, so here it is the combined accounts that give us the total sum of the wording of the inscription, as written in the three languages; and it is absurd to charge the evangelists with misquoting the inscription, as it would be to say that the chief priests misquoted it when, in the very next verse to that in which John gives it as “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (Chapter 19), they say to Pilate, “Write not the King of the Jews” (Chapter 19:20). The fact was, they quoted, and quoted accurately—those particular words which applied to the argument they were then using, and purposely omitted the rest; and this is just what the evangelists did under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, had they done otherwise, they would have acted contrary to the principles on which the four gospels were written.

The Clock

“My times are in thy hand.” (Psa. 31:15.)

Our life is like the dial of a clock. The hands are God’s hands passing over and over again. The short hand, the hand of discipline; the long hand, the hand of mercy. Slowly and surely the hand of discipline must pass, and God speaks at each stroke; but over and over passes the hand of mercy showering down sixty-fold of blessing for each stroke of discipline or trial, and both hands are fastened to one secure pivot: the great unchanging heart of the God of love.

Scripture Study: Acts 24

What a contrast we see between the heartless, lying accusations of the Jews, through the practiced orator, Tertullus, and the manly and honest declarations of one whose ways were a testimony for the Lord, whom he served with a good conscience. He could appeal to the conscience of his judges, and show a spirit above the passions and interests that surrounded him. How different from the selfishness of Lysias and Festus, who set forth their own conduct, as if it was only in pursuance of duty, and regard for justice. The Lord was above it all for Paul, His servant, and made all things work to carry out His purpose.

Every one can see the uprightness of the prisoner, and that all the Jews’ enmity of heart and defense was, because the truth was taking away their importance; and their opposition was opposition to God.

But Felix, though he knew better, did not free him, but put off his decision to hear what Lysias would say. He let Paul have some liberty, so that any who wished could visit him unhinderedly.

Afterward, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith of Christ. And Paul reasoned with him of righteousness, of temperance (or self-control), and of the judgment to come. Felix trembled, but like some others (see John 8:9), he would not take his place as guilty before God, but said: “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.” Poor worldly heart! He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him: wherefore he sent for him the oftener; and communed with him, but there is no record given of his taking thought about his soul’s salvation.

After two years, Porcius Festus came into Felix’s office; and Felix, willing to do the Jews a favor, left Paul bound.

Thus the wrath of man accomplishes the will of God. Little is said in Scripture of those years of bondage. What lessons were in them for Paul! He afterward wrote of himself, “the prisoner of the Lord.” What unfoldings of the truth were there given to him as we see in the epistles! What depth of love was there made known to him; love that passeth knowledge; unsearchable riches of Christ; peace that passeth all understanding. And there, despite his miserable surroundings, joy unspeakable and roll of glory, would fill his soul.

The hatred of the Jews; the injustice or his judges; their selfish egotism was all so plainly seen, but out of it all, good came to the prisoner of the Lord, making him to prove afresh that what he had written was ever true.

“All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28.

The Place of His Appointment: Part 2

Then I want to notice another thing here, “Gathered together,” there is divine oneness, And now what about it in the world? If you take a swift sweep over Christendom tonight, What meets your eye? Nearly thirteen hundred different religious bodies. Instead of the saints of God being gathered together, if gathered at all, they are gathered apart. They are scattered. I tell you, beloved, we should feel, every one, that we have contributed to this state or condition of things more or less. But how far are we going on with the principle set forth here? “Where two or three are gathered together to My Name there am I in the midst of them.” You know the Apostle anticipated this state of things. It isn’t that the Spirit of God has been taken by surprise, if I may speak in that familiar way. No, but the Apostle says, “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock,” and he says also, “Of yourselves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them.” He anticipated what has come in. Not only would evil assail the assembly from without, but the church of God would become the very birthplace of it, so that in its practical manifestation, it would be divided and subdivided and divided again, just as we have it tonight. How did Paul meet that spirit among the saints? He says, “I hear there are contentions among you, one saying I am of Paul and I of Apolos and I of Christ,” and, he says, “Is Christ divided?” it would be just as consistent to think of a divided Christ, as a divided church. It is a solemn thing when we think of it. It is the bud and shoot of all sectarianism as we have it tonight, full grown. May God bring us back in our thoughts to His thoughts, and may we be willing to accept what He has set forth, and set to our seal that He is true.

I will not speak further on this, as it would take too long. Indeed; there is enough in that one subject to engage the evening. It was a principle in the death of Christ that we should be One. We get that in the 2nd of Ephesians, and what I press on your conscience is this, if this unity of God’s people was a purpose in the death of Christ, if it cost Him His sorrow, His griefs, His passion, His agonies, when He hung on the tree, How can you dismiss it from your conscience as a subject of little consequence and of little moment? How can you get rid of it? How can you brush it aside so lightly, since it was a purpose in the death of Christ? Beloved friends, God give us to come back to just what He says in His own Word, and be willing to abide by what it teaches. In spite of difficulties, in spite of our littleness, in spite of our want of strength, let us seek grace, those who know the truth, to hold fast that which we have, that no one take our crown. Not the accomplishment of new victories, not entering into new conquests; it is simply holding what you have, lest you lose your crown. That is what you are asked to do. That is what you are exhorted to do. But then again, how would this practically be carried out now? By endeavoring to keep, or according to the corrected translation, “Using diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Now there are two or three things that would be excluded if the unity were the Spirit’s unity. In the first place the Spirit is the Spirit of life; and in the second place He is the Holy Spirit; and in the third place He is the Spirit of truth. So in order to keep that unity you would have to have life—you would have to be born again. You would need to be a child of God. In order to keep that unity, you would need to seek through grace to walk in holiness. In order to keep that unity, you would need to have regard for the truth, and any principle allowed or tolerated that would compromise the question or life, or holiness, or truth, even though there were oneness, it would not be the unity of the Spirit. I speak now as to its practical manifestation in this world. But that is enough as to our being gathered together.

What is next before us? “For where two or three are gathered together to My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” People sometimes say there is nothing in a name. You often hear that, but O, how much there has been in a name, for each saved one in this room tonight: and O, precious lost one, let me turn aside just for a moment to speak to you as to that Name. Did you notice at the beginning of this evening, we read from the first of Matthew, “And His Name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins”? Is there anything in the name? Take the 4th of Acts, if you please, and allow me to read Verses 11 and 12. “This is the stone” (speaking of Jesus Christ) “which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner, Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is no other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” So you are shut up as to that. There is no other way. No other Name. There is no other escape, no other outlet, but thank God, that Name is under heaven, and so available to sinners in this world for salvation. But I want to show you something further as to that Name, and it is in the 2nd of Philippians. I want to show you God’s thoughts about it, before we flippantly say, or allow there is nothing in a name. (8th verse). “He” (Jesus) “being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath also highly exalted Him,” now listen, “And given Him a Name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth.” The word things should be beings; “and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” And would you say after reading that testimony of God, or would you tolerate the thought, there is nothing in a name? God forbid. Now, I say that is the only name to which we are to gather. The only name. If it is the only name for salvation, it is the only name to which we are to gather. You wouldn’t think of putting Martin Luther’s name beside Christ’s for salvation; nor John Wesley’s name beside Christ’s for salvation, and yet you are willing to put those names beside Christ’s when it is a question of gathering. I will use only those two names; they stand for all the rest in principle. There, you have it. Whatsoever is less than that Name is too little, and whatsoever is more than that Name is too much. It is the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you gathered to that Name alone? Are you?

Well, now see a little farther; we might dwell on that, but not tonight. “There am I.” Here is the divine presence. O, that wondering thing, and beloved friends, let us see to it that we cultivate more and more the thought that the Lord Jesus is in our midst. There is nothing that will hold the heart like that. There is nothing that will attract a soul like that. There is no one that has the charm about his name that Christ has, whose presence is vouchsafed to the two or three gathered to His Name; and Why did I read that text from the first of Matthew, at the beginning of this talk tonight? Simply because you have here what you have there. You say, “What do you mean?” Now notice, we read, “And His name shall be called Emmanuel which being interpreted is, God with us.” Not “God with me,” but “God with us.” That is what you have here in Matthew. Did the Jews ever realize that? No, they never realized it. They never saw in Him the Messiah. Since this is true, Where is this fact now to find its application? Where is God with us? You find its realization in the two or three gathered to the Lord’s Name. God with us. “There am I in the midst of them.” Blessed, wonderful fact. “O,” you say, “that might have done in another day,” but why did I read the last verse of the last chapter of Matthew? Simply because as Matthew begins, Matthew ends. Let us notice again in the last clause of the 28th chapter. “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.” To whom is He talking—individuals? No, He is talking to His gathered saints who have conformed to His appointment, and in whose midst He stands for the joy of their hearts. In the first chapter you have “God with us.” With us. Emphasize the “us.” In the 18th chapter you have, “There am I in the midst of them,” and how long? In the 28th chapter, “Even unto the end of the age.” What is it that so much stands in our way as to the realization of this? I will tell you what it is. Let me turn back to the 28th of Genesis, 10th verse.

“And Jacob went out from Beersheba, and went toward Haran, and he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them up for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. . . . And he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.”

Has the sun gone down for you on this world? How about it? Has your heart been abstracted and your eyes closed to what is here? It is very likely that you will find more than what Jacob found. What did he find under these conditions? Notice the 16th verse. Have you ever been made to say that, as gathered to His Name, “Surely the Lord is in this place”? And if you haven’t, Why haven’t you? Just because the sun has not gone down on this world for you. Just because your heart has not been abstracted from what is here. Just because your eyes have not closed against it all. That’s a fact. You noticed in the 28th of Matthew, What? Some doubted. Jesus appointed a meeting place. They conformed to His appointment, they found Him there, they were glad when they saw the Lord, but some doubted; and very likely they might have reported it a dry meeting, a dry place, but Why a dry meeting, a cold place? Because they doubted, because they were still in their souls under the ensnaring effects of this world. Man wants something to see, something to look at, the spectacular. We walk by faith.

When you take your place at the Lord’s table, repeat to your soul, “Surely, the Lord is in this place.” What was Jacob’s conclusion from this? He says, “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Why is it we don’t get more often in the neighborhood of heaven in our meetings? Why is it there is not more with us the sense of what it is to be in the house of God? It is because we are not setting to our seal that God is true when He says, “There am I.” That the Lord is true when He says, “There am I.” But may I be bold to say we will have gone a little farther than Jacob, for if he speaks of the gate of heaven, he speaks of it from the outside. If we speak of the gate of heaven, we speak of it from the inside. You say, “How is that?” Our place is through the veil. Thank God for this. O, how holy, how holy is the subject we are considering at this moment, and one feels like taking the shoes off the feet and bowing the head again, and repeating solemnly, and yet with joy, “Surely, the Lord is in this place.”

O, may God Himself increase and deepen in our souls the sense of privilege that is ours of being gathered to His Name. Didn’t the Lord Jesus repeat this when He said in the 2nd of Hebrews, which is a quotation from the Psalms—notice it please, 11th verse, “For both He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren. In the midst of the assembly will I sing praises unto Thee.” Thank God, I triumph now. If He is in our midst He is there to lead our song. O, how blessed that is. If He has title to sing, having come out in victory from death, that death was for you and me, and we may sing, too. Blessed, blessed be His Name! Do you remember that word in the 14th of 1 Corinthians, where you have a condition of things contemplated which is orderly, and we learn that even if an unbeliever is in such a meeting, he will be obliged to go forth from that place, saying, “Surely God is among you of a truth.” I tell you, beloved friends, we just dabble at the edge of what it is to be gathered to the Name of the Lord Jesus. He is in our midst.

O, God deepen, deepen in our souls what it is, the sense of it, the holy, blessed sense of what it is to be where the Lord is; and may our souls repeat the deepening conviction, it is true, “Surely, His Lord is in this place.”

(Continued from page 20)

Hearts Revealed

Grace gave Christ. Ephesians 2:7, 8.

Hatred killed Him. Acts 2:23.

Love buried Him. Matthew. 27:57-61.

Fear sealed Him. Matthew 27:62-66.

Righteousness raised Him. Romans 6:4.

Glory crowned Him. Hebrews 2:9.

Courage confessed Him. Acts 4:20.

Devotedness served Him. Acts 20:24.

A Good Lesson

One of the leading effects of sorrow and bereavement is to cast a veil over things present, and to bring us into the presence of God and eternal things in heaven. The result of this is that we are astonished to find how strange we are to the things of God and of heaven. To know what faith in Christ secures to us, and to be practically in the familiar use of it, are two very distinguishable things. I know that faith in Christ makes me His for eternity, and makes His Father to be my Father, and the Spirit to be Comforter to me. It gives me eternity and heaven, and cuts me off from earth. But, alas! The being so blessed; and knowing it too, and the being able to act upon it, are two very different things, more so than having learned a language theoretically and thoroughly and being able to speak it.

Now when sorrow and bereavement come, things present for a time fade, and things heavenly and eternal assume more substance to our minds. The object of your love gone to heaven and God and Christ. There is a void down here. The place that was ever full of refreshing water is dried up. You are left, and your mind in grace follows the one you love upward. But, then, perhaps you find how little you know of the God he has gone to, of the Saviour who is there, of his present state, of the connection of the pool down here, and the grace that gave it to you, and the present bereavement of his presence in the pure light above, and of the restoration in the end to God’s glory and his own profit.

How often have I learned in such a season that I had not been living to the glory of God; that Lo, I come to do Thy will, to suffer Thy will, had not been my principle of conduct; and God in such hours has seemed a strange God, a God I had neglected, and practically been living without. Self-ignorance, too, giving Satan power against us at such seasons; for, if we do not attribute to our own sin the having been living practically so far from God, not to be at home with His ways of dealing and with Himself, Satan will boldly inspire not only hard thoughts of God, but hard words against Him, too.

Now, it is clear that God is perfect in wisdom, love, power and goodness. It is only because I, His child, am not in the light of His plans and wisdom that I think I could have done better for myself than He has done. He gave me a pool, and I thought of its suitability to myself and others more than of Him who gave it, and when He took it away, then I found that I had not been thinking of Himself but of His gifts, like Job. Poor Job, self-ignorance led him to mistake God for Satan and Satan for God! I have known this lesson, too, and how, if I did not see the hardness of my own heart, God seemed hard; and how, if I had been living at a distance from God and did not confess it, God seemed at a distance; and how, if I did not confess that the selfishness of fallen humanity had led me, a saint, to walk as if there were a veil between God and me down here, I felt as if the heavens were brass, and that He made it so. I had not leaned upon the arm of God, and to confess this according to the Spirit, or to leave Satan to suggest that God’s arm was raised against me was the alternative; to confess that I had forgotten God, or that God had forgotten me.

But then, it is love divine which, having made us to be everything to Christ, insists upon teaching us now to make Christ everything to ourselves down here. The jealousy of His love, who as the Father, is not satisfied that we take or have anything but Christ as the portion of our souls or our joy, and the jealousy of Christ’s heart cannot be satisfied that we should have anything but His Father as our choice. These lessons break us, and let God and Christ into our souls and make us feel our need of them.

The Beauty of the Rejected Jesus

I have just been asking myself, how far I really see “form and comeliness” in the rejected and despised Jesus; and I am assured that while the soul is under the power of things seen, this cannot be; because the marred visage, the thorny crown, the carpenter’s son, the penniless, homeless stranger, the One spit upon, the patient sufferer of wrongs and reproaches daily heaped upon Him, is no object of “form or comeliness” before the eyes of mere man. If the soul, therefore, be under the power, or presence of things seen, What is Jesus to it? It is faith alone that can admire Him. It is the eye trained and practiced by the Holy Spirit, that alone can see the beauty of the smitten form of the lowly-estated Galilean.

This tells loudly against the constant currents of our hearts. May we be more and more lifted above the admiration of, or delight in, the things seen, the fair shows of the flesh. Such glances of our hearts, of which they are so guilty, weaken our power to perceive this only “form and comeliness.”

So, where is the ear for the Shepherd’s voice? Surely only in that which the Spirit has, in like manner, opened. And if the flesh and the world be practicing it with its music and soft words, its readiness and skill to catch that unearthly voice will, in like manner, decline and he impaired.

Correspondence: 2 Cor. 4:7; 1 Tim. 4:14; 1 Tim. 5:22

Question: How are we to understand 2 Corinthians 4:7, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us”? D. C.

Answer: The earthen vessel is the believer’s body. It has a will, and desires to do its own will, but God has written Christ in his heart (2 Cor. 3:3), and given him Christ as an object in glory (3:18), to behold, and so he changed in his ways from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit.

In Chapter 4:6, God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness (Gen. 1:3), path shined in our hearts, for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Then comes in verse 7 to show how the earthen vessel needs to be dealt with, to let the light shine out.

Gideon and his men (Judges 7:19, 20) broke the pitchers for the light to be seen, but here, God sends circumstances to the believer, which subdues his will, and shows him his weakness, and enables him to depend on God, that the excellency of the pour may be of God, and not of us.

“The treasure is the light of the knowledge of the love of God; and it is in an earthen vessel, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. He puts this amazing glory in the vessel in order that the power may be of God. There is no fitness between the vessel and the thing that is put in it, and there you will find God, and the vessel both brought in.

“We are troubled on every side,” that is, the vessel; “yet not distressed,” because God was there “We are perplexed,” see no way out; “but not in despair,” for there was a way out after all for God was there; “persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.”

The vessel is all broken, and dealt with, but still God is there all the while. Into such an earthen vessel all this glory is put, and so in that sense, we can now rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. The vessel is made nothing of, but it is sustained by another power, which is neither the treasure nor the vessel, and so the man is dependent.” (Notes by J. N. D.)

It is by the laying down of our wills, and walking in obedience to the will of God, that we are always bearing about in our body the dying of Jesus.

Question: Please explain 1 Timothy 4:14. D. I.

Answer: The word presbytery means elderhood. Paul in this epistle instructs Timothy how to regulate things in the assembly, and reminds him, in this verse, of the gift God gave him for this purpose. It was given him by prophecy. (1 Tim. 1:18) Paul and the elder brethren laid their hands on him when he received the gift, thus identifying themselves with, and owning his work. Laying on of hands expresses identification and fellowship with the person., This was needful at the beginning, till the Word of God was completed. Here he is told not to neglect the gift; and in 2 Timothy 1:6 he is to stir it up by practice.

Question: 1 Timothy 5:22. D. I.

Answer: He was to lay hands suddenly on no man. That means he was not to receive a person without a careful examination to see that his character was good. Otherwise he might find himself partaker of other men’s sins, and this truth goes on to the end of Chapter 5, to show that some men’s characters were seen at once, while others were hidden; though evil and good come out at the end.

I'm Praying for You

For some time I had been crying to God to save an ungodly brother of mine. He had been a great trial to my dear Christian father, who often gave him a word of warning. At last my brother was determined he would have his own way, and left his father’s house for Australia.

Several years passed away, and then I wrote to my brother, encouraging him to come to Jesus. I enclosed a hymn leaflet, every verse ending with these words:

“For you I am praying,

I’m praying for you.”

After three months I received an answer from my brother, desiring me never to write to him again, unless I could do so without alluding to religion, or that sort of thing; he was very angry with me.

I took him at his word, and decided that I would not write again, but would pray more for him. I also asked some Christians to carry him to God in prayer. About three months after this sad letter, came the postman and handed me another foreign letter, to my great surprise. And more surprised still was I, as I commenced reading the letter, which ran thus: “My dear sister, you shall be the first to whom I will tell the good news that I am rejoicing in the joyousness of Jesus. O! dear sister, your letter made me wretched, but mine will make you glad; for I have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. After your letter came, I went more into sin than ever I had done, till one night I felt very ill, and then made up my mind if I got better I would go to chapel some Sunday. After I recovered I went, but it only made me feel more wretched. I was glad when the service was over. I felt there was no mercy for me. Then I was very ill again, and could not work.

“O! what a wretched time this was! I again thought if I got better I would go to chapel. God, in His love, raised me up again, and I carried out my good resolution. I thought the preacher knew all about me, for every word he said was just for me; I could not rise from my seat; there I sat while the people all went out. I could not go; I sat and cried.

“A good man came to me, and asked if I was saved; told him no, neither could I ever be. Several of God’s people knelt down, and prayed for me, but this did me no good.

“Here at last I left. But I felt I could not go home, I walked about to a very late hour, praying to God to pardon my many sins, and to let me know it. And as I was walking and praying, these words came to me as if some one spoke to me:” ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.’ I saw it, and went home rejoicing, dear sister.

“I at once went out and told others what the Lord had done for my soul; yes! the very people on the street knew I was a saved man; to God be all the praise.”

I would add a word to any of my Christian readers: O! be faithful with your unconverted relations! Never mind making them angry. The word will be a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death to them. We can sometimes reach our friends better by letter, than by speaking to them; but let us write God’s word and not our own. His words may have a lodging place in their consciences long before it is made manifest to us, as was the case with my brother. Often those who seem to reject the name of Jesus, want Him in their hearts.

“The Word of God is living and operative, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and penetrating to the division of soul and spirit, both of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12. (New Trans.)

The World

This world is the place where Satan has power,

To tempt us without and within;

The place where he gathers his servants together,

To give them the pleasures of sin.

He has plenty to give to the rich and the poor,

Has plenty for young and for old;

He blinds them to pleasures that always endure—

Far better than silver and gold.

He has wine for the drunkard to gladden his heart,

And tempt him his sins to forget;

Let him drink to the full, and yet, when it is past,

His sins are all facing him yet.

He has oaths for the swearer, and hardens his heart,

His conscience he hardens in sin;

To care not for God, to care not for man

Nor for warnings without and within.

He has plenty of pleasures, has parties and balls,

Has dances for young and for gay;

Has theaters and concerts for young and for old,

And says they are innocent play.

He has plenty of gold for the miser to love,

He has business for thrifty and smart;

He tells them to always look out for themselves,

And hardens their conscience and heart.

For people ambitious he has honor to give,

Has admirers for those who are vain,

Has science for learned and intelligent folk,

Has kingdoms for those who would reign.

A religion for those who esteem themselves good,

Who say they are serious and true,

A church and a choir, good music to please,

A preacher, a pulpit, a pew.

The Word

The Word gives assurance, God is ready to give

A welcome to all who believe;

Then turn from the pleasures of folly and sin

And riches eternal receive.

Just one look of faith at the Christ who has died

And has risen again from the grave,

Would spoil all the pleasures of sin for the one

Who to Satan and sin is a slave.

The world is the place where the Saviour was born

In a manger—no room in the inn;

The place where He suffered, the place where He died,

To save us from pleasures of sin.

He has plenty of riches to give to the poor;

The rich they may come, we are told;

He has riches and pleasures that always endure,

Has plenty for young and for old.

He has peace for the drunkard to gladden his heart,

And freely his sins He’ll forgive,

If he will come truly confessing his guilt

And on Jesus the Saviour believe.

He has sweet songs of praises for swearers to sing,

A story their lips to employ

To tell of God’s love to this poor fallen world

And invite to His mansions of joy.

He has pleasures in heaven for young and for gay,

Over there where no sorrow can come,

Where sin is all banished and tears wiped away

In the pure light and joy of His home.

He has for the miser far more than his gold;

He has riches that never decay.

For the thrifty and smart He has plenty to do

In His vineyard, by night and by day.

He has many high honors to give unto those

Who seek for His glory and gain,

When He comes to the earth, as His holy Word says,

With Him in His kingdom they’ll reign.

O! what a rich portion have those who are His!

His place in His glory they’ll share

Himself as their Portion, Himself as their Joy,

Himself as their all over there.

If for each look of faith they fresh beauties behold

While here in this body of clay,

What must it be when in those mansions of gold

They behold Him through heaven’s bright day

Four Things I Know

1. I know that I am a sinner, for the Word of God says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. I, as an individual, am amongst the “all” of that verse. Consequently I am a sinner, and guilty, and take my place before God as such.

2. I know that God loved poor sinners, and that Jesus, the Son of God, came to die for such; for the Scripture says, “Christ hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” 1 Peter 3:18. And again, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” 1 Timothy 1:15.

3. I know that He died for me, an individual sinner; for since I am a sinner, and He died for such, He must have died for me. My name is not there; it would not avail me aught of it were, since there might be many of my name; but He, blessed be His name, died for sinners, and I am a sinner, so He died for me.

4. I know I am saved; for the Word of God says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,” Acts 16:31. Again, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved,” Romans 10:8-13. I do, as a poor sinner that feels his deep need, believe on the Lord Jesus who died for me, and rose again for my justification, and I do confess Him to be Lord over all, and upon the sole authority of God’s Word, I know I am saved. It is no presumption to believe what God has said; no, it is simple faith—just to believe it and rejoice in it because He has said so. Yes, and is it not a wonderful thought that it is possible for the believer to know he is saved? God’s Word says he is, and surely he should know it.

Ah, yes; though Satan and man may and do object, it is the blessed privilege of the believer to know that he is saved.

Dear reader, are you saved? You say you are believing in Jesus. Then it is your blessed privilege to know and to enjoy the fact that you are saved. I will leave you one more scripture: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, which gave them Me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one,” John 10:27-30. Wonderful salvation! Blessed and eternal security!

I Could Not Do Without Thee

I could not do without Thee,

O Saviour of the lost,

Who by Thy blood redeemed me

At such tremendous cost;

Thy blessed Self, Lord Jesus,

And precious blood, shall be

My only hope and comfort,

My glory and my plea.

I could not do without Thee,

I cannot stand alone,

I have no strength or goodness,

No wisdom of my own;

But Thou, beloved Saviour,

Art all in all to me,

And weakness will be power

If leaning hard on Thee.

I could not do without Thee;

No other friend can read

My spirit’s silent longings,

Interpreting its need;

No human heart could enter

Each dim recess of mine,

And soothe, and hush, and calm it,

O blessed Lord, but Thine.

I could not do without Thee,

For, O, the way is long,

And I am often weary,

And sigh replaces song!

How could I do without Thee?

I do not know the way;

Thou knowest and Thou leadest,

And wilt not let me stray.

Christ's and the Spirit's Work

Doubts and fears are often produced through souls being occupied with the work of the Spirit in them, instead of simply resting on the work of Christ for them. No soul ever found peace by looking in. There is the work of the Spirit surely. He sets apart, and is also the seal (1 Peter 1:2; Eph. 4:30). Peace is known only by faith in Christ, and His finished work.

It is looking without at Christ, and not looking within at self, that brings peace.

“Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 4:25; 5:1.

“Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:26.

Then, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” Romans 8:16.

If you reverse God’s order, the soul is filled with perplexity and doubt. Take His Word as He presents it, and all is simple. Peace and liberty are the blessed results.

The finished work of the Lord Jesus is of such infinite worth in the sight of God, that the moment a, sinner believes in the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour, he is accepted of God in all the acceptance of Christ, the beloved, and in all the value of His work. He is brought into relationship with God as His child, and, instead of having a spirit of bondage again to fear, he receives the Spirit of adoption, whereby he cries, “Abba, Father.” God’s way of salvation is very simple.

“I want no other argument,

I need no other plea,

It is enough that Jesus died

And rose again for me.”

“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” Ephesians 1:7.

Scripture Study: Acts 25

Again we find the efforts of the Jews defeated by God’s good providence in Festus refusing to bring Paul to Jerusalem, as they intended to kill him on the way. He ordered that Paul should be kept at Caesarea, and that his accusers should go down there and prove their accusations. When he was come there, the Jews which came down from Jerusalem, laid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove. While he answered for himself, “Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended anything at all.”

Again in Festus we see the injustice in pandering to the Jews, and Paul seeing the injustice, appeals to Caesar, at whose judgment seat he then stood. Festus then conferred with the Council and answered, “Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? Unto Caesar shalt thou go.” To Rome, therefore he must go, not as an Apostle, but as a prisoner. But Paul must also witness, to other great ones of the earth. Festus takes occasion by the visit of King Agrippa and his wife, to bring Paul’s case before them, and their curiosity is aroused to hear of this wonderful man, and the superstitions of the Jews and of the teachings of Paul. With the object of having some accusation to lay before Caesar, and to gratify the curiosity of King Agrippa and his wife, they meet with great pomp to give his case a hearing, specifically to find out what crimes were laid against him. Thus he is permitted to testify to his own conversion, and to the truth that Jesus was risen and glorified.

Praise

While sitting in the twilight,

And thinking, Lord, of Thee,

My heart is filled with praises,

Because Thou lovest me.

I think of all Thy beauty,

Of all Thy grace and love,

That Thou hast set upon me,

Thy tender heart to prove.

Of all the depth of suffering

That crossed Thy holy soul,

When on the cross forsaken,

And sin did o’er Thee roll.

Thy Father’s face turned from Thee,

The sun his rays withheld,

While there, Thou Lord of Glory,

The power of Satan quelled.

Such love cannot be measured,

Its depths cannot be told,

Praise to Thee, gracious Saviour,

Will endless days unfold.

When on Thy throne exalted,

And evermore to reign,

This song will ring through heaven—

Christ did the victory gain.

Extracts of Letters as Subjects for Prayer

234 Santa Anita Court, Sierra Madre, Calif.

My dear Friend:

I am so glad that you want to know something about our little Spanish “Messages of Love,” for I assure you that nothing gives me greater pleasure than to tell about it to those interested. The Lord has indeed graciously blessed this small effort to send the light of His gospel to some of the dark corners of the earth.

When we took up the work, a little over three years ago, one thousand papers were being sent to forty receivers. Through the Lord’s goodness the demand and supply have steadily increased in a perfectly balanced ratio, until now we are sending out thirty thousand papers monthly to three hundred and twenty receivers. It is indeed wonderful, and we can but exclaim: “The thing proceedeth from the Lord.” As nearly every one of our receivers represents a whole field, you can see how large is the area over which this “precious seed” is being sown.

Eight months’ supply of the paper is printed all at once (for economy), and these are brought up here and deposited in our basement. Each month several come to help, and in a few hours the three hundred and thirty or forty bundles are weighed, wrapped, labeled and stamped. Then one of our brothers sends his auto truck and seven or eight of Uncle Sam’s mail sacks. These are filled and taken to the post office, and our little “Messages” are soon on their way to all the Spanish-speaking countries of the world.

Numbers of interesting letters from those receiving the paper are continually coming, all so full of appreciation and gratitude, that it is a pleasure to read them. I will enclose copies of a few of these, and you might pass them on to any whom you think would be interested in them.

I was struck by the prayer of one of the brothers in the meeting here one evening. He asked the Lord to “put the spirit of prayer in the hearts of our brethren elsewhere for this work.” I am sure you will not fail to respond to this, nor to the touching appeals for prayers in the enclosed letters.

With affectionate Christian greetings,

Yours in Him,

Henriette R. Ulrich.

Merida, Yucatan, Mexico.

Thank you for your little paper, “Mensajes de Amor.” We can use all you can send, as we give away hundreds of tracts. My native men go to outside towns with Bibles and tracts. There is nothing more in demand than the little “Messages.” We could use a thousand of each issue, and then not have reached a tenth of the people who would like to have them.

Very sincerely yours,

J. T. M.

Campeche, Mexico.

God has given us an opportunity to open up a Bible room in this city to be entirely dedicated to the distribution of God’s Word and tracts. Could you please send us about 200 copies of “Mensajes de Amor” monthly, and we pray and know that they will bring good fruitage in the vineyard of the Lord. Thanking you and praying for His success upon your work.

Yours in the Lord,

L. P. S.

San Pedro Sula, Honduras, C. A.

Thank you very much for the roll of “Mensajes de Amor.” They are very good and I surely want to be placed on your mailing list. We give out tracts at least twice a week in the trains, where we use about 50 to 100, then also in the park and in barber shops, where we can use a very large number.

The paper is simple and appeals to me, as we need things not above the understanding of the common people, who have little or no education. We do some village work also. I wonder how many numbers you can send me each month. As you see we can use at least 500, possibly you can for the present send me 100 to 200 to take care of one week at the trains, park and barber shops.

Am sure the Lord will provide in the matter as He does in all His work. The train work especially means a wide distribution of the Word, as the people are from all parts of Honduras. How happy we are to be used of Him in this precious work. Pray for souls here as I am sure you do for the other fields where the “Mensajes” go.

Yours in Him,

H. N. A.

Villa Maria, Argentine, S. A.

I herewith acknowledge your great kindness in sending us “Mensajes de Amor” which are very greatly appreciated by us, and all to whom they are distributed. They are most attractively gotten up, and can be placed in the hands of all classes, in the certain knowledge that they will command attention and be read. We shall esteem the favor highly if you will continue to send us your publication, and will endeavor to use it ever to the glory of God.

Again thanking you all and with our united love in the Lord Jesus, assuring you of our prayers, that your work may be greatly blessed of the Lord.

Yours very sincerely in Him,

H. F. B.

Fragment: What is My Motivation?

Now, it solves every difficulty to ask—not, what harm is there in doing this or that—but, Why am I doing it? Is it for God, or for myself?

Two Accounts of the Sermon on the Mount

The account given in Matthew and Luke are compared, and we are supposed to be driven into a corner, from which there is no escape, by the question, “Which of the two really reproduces the words of Christ?” For instance, did He say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3), or, “Blessed be ye poor” (Luke 6:20); or again, did He say, as in Matthew 7:24, “Whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine,” or as in Luke 6:47, “Whosoever cometh to Me and heareth My sayings”?

A little careful reading will show that there is, or ought to be, no real difficulty here at all, for the following two verses show unmistakably that Matthew’s and Luke’s reports contain, not two conflicting accounts of the same sermon, but two separate and faithful records of two different sermons altogether.

According to Matthew 5:1, Jesus went up into the mountain (evidently alone), for we read that, “when He was set His disciples came unto Him”; whereas Luke tells us that, after He had spent a night in prayer on the mountain, He came down with His disciples and sat on a level place (R. V., Luke 6:17). So that it is very clear that the Lord Jesus preached a somewhat similar sermon on two different occasions, although it is often assumed that Matthew and Luke report the same sermon.

This is further shown by the fact that the sermon recorded by Matthew was preached some time before Matthew was called to be a disciple of Christ—the sermon appearing in chapters 5, 6 and 7, and the call of Matthew in chapter 9:9; whereas, on reference to Luke 6:15, it will be seen that Matthew was amongst the disciples which came down with Jesus into the plain (or level place) when He preached that sermon.

Extract

On Revelation 1:5 and 7. By J. N. D.

Verse 5. “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth.”

“And from Jesus Christ”—Christ is the last mentioned of the three, as showing how entirely He is brought out here in connection with the government of the earth.

“The faithful witness” —the one who infallibly showed out what God is, and indeed all truth, when He was on the earth.

“The first begotten from the dead” —this is the power of the resurrection “from the dead” down here.

“The Prince of the kings of the earth” —

His place in power over all dominion here below, a place He has yet to take as to actual possession of it. He is not here called “the Son of the Father;” nor yet spoken of as Head of the body, the church; nor yet as the Lamb in the midst of the throne; but as Prince of the kings of the earth, thus showing that it is simply His connection with the earth that is taken up here.

But then, mark, the moment Christ is mentioned, how the heart of the church goes out with the joy of its own proper and personal relationship with that Christ: “Unto Him that loves us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father.” This never fails; when Christ is spoken of, no matter what the subject is, He is still our Christ, with whom we are livingly associated, so that it is impossible to hear His name only without its drawing forth the response of the soul, and the acknowledgment of what Christ is to it. If I think of the judgment even, and of Him as the Judge, I say, “I am associated with Him;” in all things He is my Christ.

If in this life the wife of some eminent man saw him coming, she would naturally say, “There comes my husband,” because her own relationship is in her thoughts, and first in them. So of the church with Christ, whatever He is revealed in. So it is at the end of the book, when the prophetic part is closed, we find another response of the same kind. The moment He says, “I am the bright and Morning Star,” instantly the church responds according to her hope in Him, and says, Come. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come.” And so should it ever be with us. Christ Himself should be filling up every thought and affection of the heart. It is just this that gives its value to every character of testimony to Christ, to every part of His glory.

That which concerns Christ concerns me, whatever the immediate subject may be. If my heart is occupied with Himself who possesses the coming glory, unless I find Him in the glory, the glory itself would be nothing to me. I always want something that concerns Christ, and because it concerns Christ, it must necessarily concern me.

It is perfectly true that some subjects, even connected with our Lord, are more interesting than others, and that in proportion as they bring us into closer connection with Himself. The crown of Jesus in that day will be composed of many diadems, and each one, though worn in respect of others than the church, will form part of our joy, because part of His glory. Our joy does not only consist in the knowledge of individual salvation, as our individual salvation is not the end of our joy. Although, blessed be God, it is the beginning to us; there is not one thing, however apparently disconnected with it, that can ever lose its value in the eyes of a saint, viewed in its connection with the glory of Christ. We may see this carried out at the deathbed of a Christian. If Christ Himself has been his joy, all that belongs to Him will be precious. If the soul has been merely occupied with the work of Christ in bringing salvation to itself, there will be peace, because it knows salvation; but if the person of Christ has become the object of affection, and the soul is occupied with Himself, such a one has a constant spring within, of joy, as well as settled peace; for when Christ is the personal object to the soul, it possesses a joy which the mere fact of knowing we are saved (blessed as it may be) will not continuously give. If Christ fill the heart, it will not be merely that I am happy because I am saved; but the thought of Him, to whom I am going, will fill my soul with joy. It is true, I am going to heaven, but the thought that makes heaven a heaven to my soul is, that Christ Himself is there; there is someone to go to. The person I have loved on earth, I am going to be with in heaven. And thus it is always expressed in Scripture. For the spirit, it is departing and being with Christ.

Verse 7. “Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him.” Not so the church. I am not going to wail when I see Christ. Ah! how my face will brighten when I first get a glimpse of Him; though, alas; if our affections are not right, it cannot be a present joy to think of being caught up to meet Him. And here I would ask, Is there anything allowed that would make you wish the Lord’s coming delayed; any mere natural affection even that comes in, turning the eye and the heart away? If the heart is wrapped up in Christ, and we feel what it is to be in such a world, not of toil merely, but of sin, what a thought to be with Christ out of it!

Surely there is not a chord in the heart of the saint that does not vibrate exactly contrary to the feelings of those whose eyes shall see Him and wail! And yet the positive hope, the joy of seeing and being with Himself, is a yet fuller and more abiding source of joy than deliverance itself.

When I say “Every eye shall see Him,” then it is wailing with the poor world; but when I say, “My eye shall see Him,” then every feeling of my soul will bound up with joy—the very opposite of wailing. Am I looking even only to be spared? Did not Christ say: “I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and receive you unto Myself?” which was really saying, “This world is not good enough for you; I cannot stay with you here, where sin and sorrow are stamped on all around; but I will come and take you to be with Me where I am.” What an entire difference between the two aspects of the coming of the Lord!

Dear to God

O, that when Christians meet and part,

These words were graved on every heart,

They’re dear to God!

However willful and unwise,

We’ll look on them with loving eyes,

They’re dear to God!

O, wonder! To the Eternal One,

Dear as His own Beloved Son;

Dearer to Jesus than His blood,

Dear as the Spirit’s fixed abode,

They’re dear to God!

When tempted to give pain for pain.

How would this then our words restrain,

They’re dear to God!

When truth compels us to contend,

What love with all our strife should blend!

They’re dear to God.

When they would shun the pilgrim’s lot

For this vain world, forget them not;

But win them back with love and prayer,

They never can be happy there,

If dear to God.

Shall we be there so near, so dear,

And be estranged and cold whilst here—

All dear to God?

By the same cares and toils oppressed,

We lean upon one faithful breast,

We hasten to the same repose;

How bear, or do, enough for those

So dear to God!

Correspondence: 2 Cor. 2:14-16; The Unity of the Spirit

Question: What does 2 Corinthians 2:14-16 mean? D. C.

Answer: Paul compares Christ to a conqueror in this passage, and himself as one led about in triumph by Him, and the gospel which he carried with him, the testimony of Christ—the savor of His knowledge, in every place he went, to the sweet spices burned on the occasion of some great victory. Unto God, this gospel was ever a sweet savor of Christ, and to those who received it, and by it were saved, it was a savor of life unto life; and to those who rejected it, it was a savor of death unto death. Conquerors saved some alive, and put others to death, just to satisfy themselves, but God delights in those who honor His beloved Son.

Question: What is “The unity of the Spirit?” L. B.

Answer: “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling,” Ephesians 4:4. All true believers are in this verse. When the Holy Spirit came down in Acts 2, He baptized the believers in that upper room into one body; by the Holy Spirit’s presence in them, they were all livingly united to Christ, the Head on high, and to each other. This was a new thing on earth, the fruit of accomplished redemption, and as one after another believed the gospel and received the Holy Spirit, they were added to this body, whether they had been before Jews, Gentiles or Samaritans; and so it is up to this present time. Every believer is livingly a member of Christ, a member of the body of Christ, members one of another. (Rom. 12:4, 5; 1 Cor. 6:15, 17, 19). We are also children of God, the Father (Born. 8:15; Gal. 4:6; 1 John 3:1, 2).

Many believers do not realize these relationships for themselves. God declares them true of all His redeemed people of this present time. Believers, who lived and died before Christ came, did not possess these blessings, though they were born again as well as we. God can bestow His grace in these ways, because of accomplished redemption. (John 12:24; John 7:39; Acts 10:43, 44).

What an immense favor to be thus put in living union with our Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit! What a new light it throws on the church of God! We see ourselves united to Christ in glory, and to every true believer on earth. At the beginning, all were together; not so now, though they ought to be, for faith takes in the truth that God has made us one by that one Spirit, and we therefore should act as this is the unity of the Spirit. It is the inward realization and behavior consistent with the truth that we are one body.

Ephesians 4 begins with the Apostle beseeching those saints to walk worthy of the vocation, the new relationships he has unfolded to them, including the mystery that we, with Christ, are one. Some might wrongly think from verse 2 that this is impossible, considering their varied tempers and dispositions, and it would be, unless the grace of God rules in their hearts and controls them, so he exhorts them with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love, to endeavor to maintain this unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

It is not unity of Spirit only, but the unity of the Holy Spirit in the ways and truth of God. The unity of the body is formed and maintained by God. Our failures, or our obedience does not alter it, but if we do not seek to be led by the Lord, we must grieve and quench the Holy Spirit who will not fail to carry us through to the end of our journey in this life. What unhappiness in life this makes for many of the Lord’s dear ones. The Holy Spirit ever puts the Lord before us as our object and center. His is the only name given to be gathered to. (Matt. 18: 20).

But though all are not now gathered to Him, yet we must think how He loves all His members, and love them as occasion is given. We may not like their ways in many things, nor can we walk with them in ways contrary to the Word of God, but we must in our hearts love them because they are dear to Him, and carefulness becomes us not to do anything that would hurt them, or influence them to walk in ways not pleasing to the Lord.

It is quite true, sad to say, that many of Christ’s members are linked up with divisions and associations quite contrary to the Word of God (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1) out of which some of us, through grace, were delivered. And now, if true to the Lord, we could not go with them in paths of disobedience, but as far as the truth of God will allow us, we should walk with and help them to advance in the truth. This is our privilege toward every member. To be in divisions or sects is carnal (1 Cor. 3:3). It would not help them for us to go there, and we would put ourselves in wrong ways. It may seem egotistic, but Christ is the center! because He is the Head of the body, and there each member should be. He is our guide, and His Word is sufficient to show us the way. The Holy Spirit will not lead us any other way than by the Word.

Then Matthew 18:18-20 is important. If we maintain the unity of the Spirit, we recognize the action cf the two or three, who with Christ in their midst, are acting for Him. We must recognize that we are in one fellowship with all that are so gathered. It is not a union of assemblies but it is a recognition that they are all one though in different localities. If the man in 1 Corinthians 5, was put away at Corinth, he was put away for the whole church on earth, and letters of commendation are given to receive those coming from other places as strangers.

We see in Scripture, how serious has been the church’s departure from this truth of the unity of the Spirit in divisions (Rom. 16:17); in departure from the truth (2 Tim. 1:15); in self-will and self-exaltation (Acts 20:30).

The question for our souls is, Whose are we? Do we own the Lord’s claims over us? Then we have no choice. If we ask Him “Where dwelleth Thou?” His answer to us will be, “Come and see” (John 1:38, 39).

Some Fell by the Wayside

It was nearly nine o’clock one lovely Sunday evening, when, as I stood talking with a relative, on the pavement in front of his residence, we saw a young girl whom we knew approaching. After inquiring of her welfare, our conversation took a different turn, and little heeding the continuous rush of the passers-by, we proceeded to “the old, old story of Jesus and His love,” and entreated her to yield her heart to the Lord.

For a few moments she stood, apparently halting between two opinions, and then expressed a great desire for salvation. She went on to explain that being in service, her mistress would expect her to be in by nine o’clock, so that she could not linger longer that evening. We felt almost unwilling to let her depart, until she had found that rest for the weary and sin-stricken soul, which the Lord Jesus has promised to give to every one that comes unto Him.

Finding that Lizzie would be at liberty on one evening during the week, we obtained her promise for that evening. But when the evening came we waited in vain for her.

“When any one heareth. the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside.” Matthew 13:19.

So it proved to be with Lizzie; though the seed had been sown only on the Sunday evening before, and though she had appeared to be so much affected by the story of salvation, the enemy had succeeded in catching away that which had been sown in her heart in the few days that intervened. And all this happened at a time when she was softened by recent bereavement, and we knew the sorrow she felt at the death of a tenderly beloved brother.

By placing before her an attractive picture of this world’s pleasures, the enemy succeeded only too well in persuading the young girl to close her eyes and ears to the truth, and the door of her heart to Him who had knocked and sought admission. Having once yielded herself to the suggestions of the tempter, Lizzie soon became indifferent to the truth, and soon after coolly informed me that if life only were before her—that is, if there were no eternity to dread—she would not think of the Saviour.

Alas, how many at this moment are pursuing the same downward course! It may be that you, my reader, can remember a moment in which you were almost persuaded to cast yourself at the feet of Jesus, and claim His proffered mercy; but you did not improve the golden opportunity and now, Where are you? Consciously afar off from God, with less desire for salvation than you then experienced. And what has the enemy given you in exchange for all the countless blessings which will be yours, if you accept the Lord Jesus as your Saviour? Nothing! Nothing but the judgment of God for refusing such a precious Saviour, and an eternity of woe and misery.

We beseech you, dear friends, do not do as Lizzie did, in allowing the enemy to catch away the Word of God that has been sown in your heart. Gladly receive His Word; believe what He says and peace and joy shall be yours, both now and for eternity.

“Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” Joshua 24:15.

The Conqueror

The everlasting Son of God

In time a babe was born;

The lowly Jesus, Son of Man,

In woe, in want, and scorn.

What works of love, what words of grace,

He heralded afar;

And then He bled for sinful men,

A dying Conqueror.

Exalted on the throne of God,

In majesty and might;

His name the sinner’s joyful plea,

The Father’s full delight.

Messiah, Lord, a Saviour God,

The Bright and Morning Star;

O, tell His triumph and His fame,

The risen Conqueror.

O, sing His praise, the sinner’s Friend,

The church’s glorious Head;

Who burst the bands of death and hell

A Victor from the dead.

The Light of life, the Joy of men,

The mighty Man of war;

He’s coming soon, o’er all to reign

A glorious Conqueror.

Ten myriad voices, loud and clear,

Ring from the ages past,

And ransomed souls of every clime

Proclaim their Lord at last;

Through all the darkened lands of earth

His servants shout afar,

That Jesus Christ is Lord alone,

Eternal Conqueror.

Divine and Eternal

Here is true rest for the exercised conscience.

“The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7.

The eye of infinite holiness cannot discern a single stain of guilt upon the conscience that has been one purged by the precious blood of Christ. All the sins and iniquities of the believer are plunged in the waters of eternal oblivion. God has pledged Himself never to remember them. He can say, “I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob.” Man cannot undertake to forget. He cannot prevent memory from throwing up, at times, upon its surface, the record of the past; but God can. The atoning work of the Lord Jesus has forever canceled the believer’s guilt, so that it can never again rise against him.

Dear young reader, have you been led by God’s Spirit and by the action of the Word, to see your guilt in the light of the divine presence? Have you been brought to own yourself utterly lost? If so, you can, at this moment, enter into all the tranquilizing power of those most blessed words: “Thy sins and iniquities will I remember no more.”

Jesus paid the debt—paid it on the cross—paid it in blood. Believe this, on the authority of God, and your soul shall have the sweetest peace, If God assures you that He will no more remember your sins and iniquities, then verily, peace—divine and eternal peace is your settled portion—peace founded on the blood of Christ, and the imperishable record of God.

Written Ministry

The subject of reading matter (periodicals and tracts), has exercised me much for a time, and I venture a few suggestions. First, as to the importance of having in our homes, good reading for ourselves, to commence with. As one goes from place to place, the importance of this is felt. Very few Christian homes are without the weekly, if not the daily newspapers, and these are regularly read. Yet again and again one finds not one good, helpful, Christian magazine in such homes; and often the Prophet’s words might be used, “My people are destroyed (Heb. cut off) for lack of knowledge.” Hosea. 4:6. Beloved, this is, I believe, a very serious neglect with some. It is true that the Word of God must have the first place in a Christian home; and no books, papers or magazines should take its place.

Yet we believe where the Book of books is valued and fed upon as it ought to be by us, anything that helps, to a further understanding of its precious contents, will be valued and hailed with great delight. The written ministry of many honored servants, gifted and deeply taught in the Word, is within the reach of all.

Thus periodicals are a channel which all might enjoy from month to month. We cannot neglect such without serious loss to ourselves; and if loss to ourselves, it must be with loss to others.

Next, as to the children, and young in the home circle. How important for parents to place before the young, reading of a simple, sound, and Scriptural character. Here also there is need of real discernment, for much of the literature printed for the young, tends to educate their minds for light reading of the “novel” style. Here parents need to have godly wisdom and true discernment. All religious books of this kind should be discarded. We believe the love for novels and the theater plays, might in many cases be traced back to reading of this kind, with a religious clothing. Then let us he awakened as to the importance of simple, earnest, Scriptural reading for the young; and thus seek to store the young minds with knowledge, good and sound.

Eternity alone will fully reveal the loss to many parents, who now heap up riches and add land to land, and neglect to lay out part of their means regularly, to instruct the young upon divine things. What a blessed field lays open here to parents! The newspaper is subscribed for and paid for regularly; then, let us see, beloved, that first of all, each month or year, reading for ourselves and homes is attended to, as far as we are prospered in this world’s goods. O, how many a child of God we have heard bless the Lord for the written ministry; and also how many children have been brought to God in tears and repentance, after reading some gospel incident recording the conversion of others. Upon no other subject ought parents to be more awake.

Next we will look beyond the home circle, and see among our neighbors, what a field there is to serve the Lord Jesus.

These fields lay open everywhere, and all around us. What are we now doing in this respect? An aged Christian, a few years ago, came into a Tract Depot, and bought a few dollars’ worth of tracts, and said, with tears coursing down his cheeks, that a neighbor living by his side for nine years, had just died, and that he had never so much as given him a tract, or paper, setting the gospel before him, or warning him of his danger; and now he had died suddenly, and he feared he was lost. O, beloved, what a thought for us! One soul gone into eternity, and lost forever, whom we knew on earth! What a field here lies before every one of us. Often there are difficulties in the way of speaking to people about eternal realities, when one gospel tract, of but few pages, and handed on, or sent by the post, could do all the work. It can reach the king’s palace; it will enter the home of the poor; and stay for weeks, months and years, and turn up again in time and deliver its true and faithful message, just the same as it could the day it left the kind and thoughtful hand that passed it on.

Thousands upon thousands can rise up as one man, and testify that a tract was the means of their conversion. Thousands upon thousands will tell us, they have been restored from paths of sin and vice to that of peace and righteousness, by the truth carried by these silent messengers. Others have been cheered, comforted and stimulated in their Christian lives by them. And again what light and truth they have carried to people, and to homes, making the Bible itself a new book to them. This is a grand work—the distribution of tracts. It is a work in which the young and old, rich and poor, educated and illiterate can help. The fields everywhere are open. Then let us, beloved, inquire, Have we been, and are we now, as diligent in this branch of service for the Lord, as we ought to be? If not, may this day find us with more decision and purpose of heart to help, in some way, the distribution of tracts.

For a few cents, good gospel papers could be supplied to neighbors month after month. Thus in the absence of an evangelist, the work of presenting the gospel could be carried on continually. In a village, or town, street after street could be canvassed; tracts sent to a number of addresses through the mail; thus for a trifle, good gospel reading placed in many homes each month. How many will enlist in this service, take up the work in faith, and water it with much prayer? The end draws near. Soon we will leave the fields, now open, behind us forever. The Lord forbid that any of us may thus leave, and have no sheaves to lay down at His feet, when He comes.

“In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.” Ecclesiastes 11:6.

Not Your Own: 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

“Bought with a price” —so very great—

Jesus alone could pay

My ransom from the dreadful guilt,

And take my sins away.

His precious blood, the awful price,

For me He freely gave:

And dare I doubt His tender love,

Or willing power to save?

He sought me, wandering far from God,

And took me by the hand

To lead me forth from endless woe,

Into the glory land.

So deep a debtor to His blood,

No wonder He should be

Most precious to my ransomed soul,

Now, and eternally.

But I!—ah canst thou care for such—

So worthless, wayward, cold,

So slow of heart to apprehend

Thy love, and grace untold?

Can I be loved, and prized, by Thee?

Speak, Lord, O, can it be?

“Yes—in proportion to the price

Which I have paid for thee.”

Then, Jesus, Lord, with joy I yield

Myself, my all, to Thee,

For Thou hast loved me unto death,

And given Thyself for me.

Scripture Study: Acts 26

Then Agrippa said unto Paul, “Thou art permitted to speak for thyself.” Paul answers with perfect freedom and dignity, and as one now in communion with God. He tells the story of his life and conversion from Judaism to Christ; his zeal for the law, and as a Pharisee, and the promise of God of One to come, and be raised from the dead.

“Why should it be a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?” Here he connects the teachings of Christ, with the hopes of the Jews.

He had thought that he ought to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and this he did with all the energy of his character as a devout Jew, giving his voice against them, to put the disciples of Jesus to death, and compelling them to blaspheme that dear name by which they were called. And being exceedingly mad against them, persecuted them, even unto strange cities. It was while in this occupation that the Lord met him on the way to Damascus with authority and commission by the chief priests.

Verse 13. “At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?’ And I said, ‘Who art Thou, Lord?’ And He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest; but rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee: delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me.’ Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: but showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me. Having, therefore, obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: That Christ should suffer, and that He should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.”

Thus he showed his change, and his path had been marked out by the Lord Himself. He was called to tell of the glory he had seen, and to give evidence that Jesus was in the glory, and that his commission came from Jesus in that glory, who called him in separation from both Jews and Gentiles, to send him to them with His message, that, if received, would change their position; also, would open their eyes, and bring them out of darkness into light, from the power of Satan unto God, giving them an inheritance among the sanctified. This simple history put the case of Paul, and the conduct of the Jews, in the clearest light.

To Festus, this was but an excitement of the mind, and he says, “Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad.” But he said, “I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness; for the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely, for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner.” Then he appeals to King Agrippa with such dignity and assurance of his knowledge of the facts of the ease, that the king does not say, “It is not true,” but rather turns the appeal into lightness, to hide his own feelings, but his heart was unchanged, and so he says, as it were, “You’ll soon be making a Christian of me.”

How blessedly the Apostle has recovered his spiritual state! We see in him here a heart filled with the Spirit, and the love of God. His imprisonment for two years has wrought good in his soul; has set him free from Jewish connections, and brought him into the mind of God. His answer to Agrippa shows it. He said, “I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.” What happiness and love are told out in these words! A prisoner, but how rich in his spirit, his heart filled with compassion for his judges, and well he might be happy, for he knew his possessions were in Christ, and all things in Him. He was now serving the Lord, and witnessing for Him in the power and liberty of an ungrieved Spirit.

His judges heard and considered his case. “This man doeth nothing worthy of death, or of bonds.” “This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar.” But the Lord had spoken to His servant (Chap. 23:11), “Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of Me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.” So to Rome he must go, and if sent there unjustly, yet the Lord is with him every step of the way. And all the discipline he passes through, is measured by the One who loved him, and bought him with His blood, and called him by His grace to this path of testimony and suffering. Paul realized it when he wrote: “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the church.” Colossians 1:24. Devoted servant he was, but compelled by grace into his path. At the same time, if we compare him with the Lord, blessed as he is, he grows dim, and is eclipsed before Christ, so that we could no longer think of Paul, but of Him who was perfect, the perfect subject of the testimony itself.

Prayer

Oft do we need to be in prayer

For there are troubles everywhere.

The enemy is on our track,

But prayer will always drive Him back.

Prayer makes the Christian warrior strong,

Though fierce the battle is and long.

Prayer strengthens us by night and day,

And keeps us in the narrow way.

Prayer makes us strong to do God’s will,

And joyfully His word fulfill.

Whate’r the difficulty here,

Prayer make us face it without fear.

No snare can take our weary feet

If oft before the Mercy Seat.

Though Satan hurls His fiery dart,

Prayer will sustain the fainting heart.

Though in a scene where snares abound,

Prayer holds the saint on solid ground.

Prayer brings God’s answer from on high,

And makes us feel that He is nigh.

When answers come from God above,

We learn still more to trust His love—

A love that never can be cold,

Can ne’er decrease, and ne’er grow old.

Then let us oft before His throne

Make all our wants and wishes known,

For we, ere long, are sure to see

Prayer answered for eternity.

The Old and New Testaments

The Old Testament begins with God— “In the beginning God” (Gen. 1:1).

The New Testament begins with Christ “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ” (Matt. 1:1).

The reader will also have noticed that while the Old Testament contains much of grace in it, it nevertheless deals chiefly with law, and so we find it ends with the word curse (Mal. 4:6); for man had broken the law, of which the Old Testament speaks, and it was written, “Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them” (Deut. 27:26).

On the other hand, the New Testament, while mentioning law (Rom. 3:31), deals chiefly with grace, and so ends, not with a curse, but a blessing: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, Amen” (Rev. 22:21).

And so we read that, in the Old Testament, “the law was given by Moses”; in the New Testament “grace. . . came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

And in perfect keeping with this, we find one of the first miracles wrought by Moses was that of turning the water into blood (Ex. 7:19) type of death. While the first miracle performed by Christ was that of turning water into wine (John 2:1-11), representing joy and strength. Again, the first question in the Old Testament contains a call from God to man, “Where art thou?” (Gen. 3:9); while the first question in the New Testament contains man’s cry for God in Christ, “Where is He?” (Matt. 2:2).

Is there no design here? Is there no teaching in these things? Should we not ask ourselves whether we are under the law that worketh wrath (Rom. 4:15), or under grace that bringeth salvation (Titus 1:11)?

At the same time, we must not for a moment fall into the error of looking upon the Old and New Testaments as if they were two separate and opposing books. They are not. They merely give two aspects of the mind and purpose of the unchanging God. Both enshrine the Saviour, each revealing our blessed Lord from its own particular point of view. Hence: In the Old Testament we see Christ.

In the New Testament we see Jesus.

In the Old Testament we see a just God.

In the New Testament we see a Saviour (Luke 2:11).

Both are the good and perfect gifts which have come down from the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (James 1:17).

Of the Old and New Testaments it has been truly said—

The New is in the Old contained,

While the Old is by the New explained;

Or—

The New is in the Old concealed, While the Old is by the New revealed; Or, again, The New is enfolded in the Old, while the Old is unfolded by the New; or, yet again, The Old is the solid and firm foundation of God’s unchangeable law of righteousness, on which the New with all its beauty and grace is built.

The Church or Assembly: Part 1, Matthew 16:18

The only time this word, in the Greek, is used for a building made with hands, is in Acts 19:37. It should be idol temples. At that time there were no buildings called churches. In verses 32, 39, 41 of same chapter the word assembly, is rightly translated. The assembly here was the heathen mob, opposing the truth. In Acts 7:38 it is the assembly of Israel going through the wilderness. In all the rest of the places in Scripture, it is used for the assembly formed by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. We will, therefore, use the word assembly in this paper.

Matthew 16:18 is the first mention of the assembly in Scripture. The Lord has been rejected by Israel, and He has rejected them, but He is also thinking of God’s purposes, which are unfolded to us in the Epistle to the Ephesians, and of which He had spoken in Matthew 13, as the pearl of great price. It is not Israel as a nation that is now before Him, but those gathered out from Jew and Gentile, brought by redemption, into a new place and relationship. He is not speaking of Himself, as Messiah, but as Son of Man, the rejected Son of Man, and He asks His disciples, “Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” And again, “Whom say ye that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered him, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. And I say unto thee, Thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My church (assembly); and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

It was not any suggestion of the mind, or discernment of Peter’s own, that led him to say, “Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God,” but it was a revelation from the Father in heaven. Flesh and blood had no part in it. Thou art Peter (a stone), and upon this Rock (Christ, the Son of the living God), Peter and all true believers (living stones), would be built as His assembly.

“I will build,” tells of the Lord’s intention to do this when the proper moment came. He had to suffer and die to glorify God about sin, and it was when He was risen and glorified that the Holy Spirit would come (John 7:39), and not till then would this word be fulfilled, “I will build My assembly.” There can be no mistakes here. It is a divine Builder, a heavenly Architect; He knows each stone, each has eternal life; each partakes of His new risen life as Head of the new creation. In John 20:22, He breathed on them, and said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” It is a life like His that can never die, and the Holy Spirit is its power. The gates of hell (hades), the power of death, shall not prevail against the assembly. It is different from Israel, or the nations. The power of the enemy has destroyed them, but in Christ’s assembly, which is made up of all who believe on Him, all are eternally secure.

There are other aspects of the assembly, where there are professors in it, without life, a name to live, and yet dead (Rev. 3:1): but every true believer is included in Christ’s assembly, and no condemnation can come to them; they are built on the Rock which nothing can shake.

There are no keys to the assembly, and there are no keys to heaven. The keys given to Peter were keys of the kingdom of heaven; that is the profession of Christ’s name on earth. Peter, in his preaching in Acts 2, opened the door for repentant Jews; and in Acts 10, for the Godly Gentiles, and the keys are not needed anymore. The door is open; all may enter in and be saved through the precious death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Peter’s writings are in accord with Matthew 16:18. The hope of setting up the kingdom of Israel in the land of Palestine, had died out, and they were scattered into many lands. But those who believed in God, by Jesus Christ, were through abundant mercy, begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and a heavenly inheritance was now before them. They were born again of incorruptible seed, by the Word of God which liveth and abideth forever. And again, “To whom coming, as unto a living Stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious. Ye also as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” It is a house of priestly worshippers, whose right from God is, to worship in His presence as holy priests, and the exercise of it was meant for us here on our journey through the wilderness. And have we not realized a little of it when gathered as in Matthew 18:20, around our Lord Jesus to remember Him?

The confusions and divisions that exist now are far from the normal state of Christ’s assembly. His saints suffer loss through this, and the Lord does not get the praise due Him, because His people do not know their portion and liberty as holy priests. Man’s arrangements have interfered with their liberty, yet we thank God for the full assurance His Word gives of the eternal security of every dear, blood-washed child of God. (Rev. 1:5.) None can pluck them out of His, and the Father’s hands, are His words. (John 10:28, 29.)

There are other ways in which this assembly is revealed to us. As the body, and bride of Christ: as the house, or dwelling place of God, and also in its responsibility on earth, and its perfection in glory.

We may look again at these again, if the Lord will.

Fragment: Bearing His Reproach

Jonathan loved David with all his heart, but he did not follow him outside the court circle; so it is with some in the present day. They love Christ, but they will not “go forth unto Him without the camp bearing His reproach.” But Jonathan, refusing David’s fellowship, fell with Saul on the mountains of Gilboa!

The Father's Object of Delight Is Ours

The Father has given us the very object He delight in for the object of our affection. The Father could not be silent, when Christ was here.

“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The perfection of the object makes manifest the imperfectness of our apprehension of it; but that is the way God brings our affections into tune with Himself.

He could say at the beginning, because of His intrinsic perfectness, and at the end, because of His unfolded and displayed perfectness, “This is My beloved Son.” Then what do we say? In weakness and poverty, surely each can say with unhesitating heart, “I know He is perfect.”

We cannot reach His perfectness, but we do feel our hearts, poor and feeble as they are, responding. The Father has shown us something of His perfectness. The Father is communicating of His delight.

“This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Not in whom you ought to be well pleased (which is true too); but His way is to communicate to them of His own love to Christ. It is a wonderful thing that the Father should tell of His affection for Christ, and that when He was here among us, the Son of Man on earth among sinful men.

A person need not know that he is righteous in Christ before he can be attracted by this communication with Him. With the woman in the Pharisee’s house, it was what was revealed in Christ to her that made her love much, not what she received from Him. The blessedness of what was in Christ had so attracted her, and absorbed her mind, that she found her way into the house and thought not of the dinner. She was taken up with Him; she wept, but had nothing to say. Jesus was there. He commanded all her thoughts, her tears, her silence, her anointing of His feet—all noticed by Him, and all before she knew what He had done for her. Attracted there by what she saw in Him, she received the answer as regards peace of conscience from Himself.

Behold I Come Quickly

O! Lord, our hearts are listening,

That joyous shout to hear,

Which wakes the saints now sleeping,

(That shout so very near)—

When we, with them, ascending,

Shall meet Thee in the air,

To gaze upon Thy glory,

And all Thy likeness bear.

O! hour, for which, in patience,

Thou’st longed through all the night,

Whilst we Thy saints, being gathered,

Were brought into the light;

And now, the church completed,

Thou canst no more delay—

O! Lord, with shouts of triumph,

We pass into the day.

O! hour, of richest blessing—

We brought to Thee so nigh,

To be Thy joy forever,

And share Thy throne on high;

To rest, in all that brightness,

And ever there abide;

To find Thy heart delighting,

In us, Thy chosen bride.

O! blessed, coming, Saviour,

Then speak the joyous word,

To which our hearts responding,

“Forever with the Lord” —

Forever with Thee, Saviour—

For evermore to be,

In deepest, fullest, blessing—

Forever, one with Thee.

What Is Meant by the Weakness of God?

Answer: The natural mind knows nothing of the things of God. They are foolishness to it. The preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that perish, but unto us who are saved, it is the power of God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching (the gospel) to save them that believe. It is the power of God, but a stumbling block to the Jews. To the Greeks, foolishness, but unto the called ones, both Jews and Greeks, it was Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. So the gospel is the weakness and the foolishness of God, but it is stronger and wiser than men.

The natural mind talked about it as being weak and foolish, and God’s answer is the 25th verse. God has chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the mighty. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are: “That no flesh should glory in His presence.”

Everything is ours in Christ, the despised One. God teaches us to glory only in Him.

“He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”

Why Does the Apostle James Use the Title, "Lord of Sabaoth"?

Answer: James wrote by the Spirit of God to the twelve tribes scattered abroad. He includes unsaved ones in his epistle. Its subject is practical righteousness. In Chapter 5:1-6, he is speaking against the wickedness of the rich men who were grinding the faces of the poor (Isa. 3:15), and defrauding their labors, an says their cries of distress under such tyranny, “are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth,” the great “Ruler over all,” Jehovah of Hosts. This is in keeping with the object of the epistle, which contains truth alike applicable to Israel, or the church.

Please Explain Hebrews 6:1, "Let Us Go on Unto Perfection"

Answer: The Epistle to the Hebrews is occupied with Christ in contrast to Judaism, and we have Christ and His work unfolded to us. The rest is seen as but shadows which were the beginning of the doctrine or teaching, from which we must go on to what belongs to full growth.

The things mentioned in verses 1, 2, are as far as Judaism could give them. Verses 4, 5, are things belonging to Christianity.

It would be to profit if we could follow this out through the chapters and in reading the epistle, it is well to keep this in view.

Prophets and angels, Moses, Joshua and David; the Aaronic priest must all give way to Christ. He was to be a Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec. An earthly altar to give place to a Spiritual one, so the place of worship is within the vail. The many sacrifices that could never put away sins, pass away, and give place to the one great sacrifice that put away sin so perfectly, that every believer stands before God in its perfection. (Heb. 10:4, 12, 14, 17). It could not be repeated.

The Son of God has accomplished it all, and is now a man living and glorified in God’s presence.

To go on unto perfection, is to learn everything in the light of Himself as God and man, and to know that He is the one in whom we are accepted. There is no thought of what is commonly spoken of as sinless perfection, till Christ comes and claims His church; then we shall be in all His perfection spirit, soul and body.

I Have Found Christ Tonight

In a little country village lived one, who for years had been in trouble of mind concerning her eternal future. She was truly anxious to find peace with God, but was hindered by the false doctrine that some are born to be saved, others to be lost; yet she was unwilling to give up hope. She would frequently send for me, and ask me to pray for her, which I ever most readily did, taking the opportunity to earnestly plead with her to cast herself on Christ, and to fully trust Him. The answer would invariably be:

“I can’t; I wish I could; but don’t give me up.”

This distressed soul constantly attended the preaching of the Word, and eagerly drank it in, but the only effect apparently, was to make her more miserable. This continued for about two years. I almost despaired of her conversion, but at length God’s time came for answering prayer. One Sunday evening I was about to conduct a service in the village, and, on retiring beforehand for prayer, the burden of souls pressed so heavily upon me, and especially the case of this woman, that I said: “Lord, Thou art surely going to bless tonight; let Mrs.— be saved.”

At the very moment that the preacher was thus alone with God about the woman, she was alone with the devil, who tempted her spirit, whispering these thoughts into her heart: “You are a fine hypocrite, going to hear the gospel preached, making people believe you want to be saved, and you know you never will be.”

“Well, after this night I will never go any more, but I will go this once,” she said.

During the address this verse was quoted: “The word is nigh thee even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith, which we preach: that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Romans 10:8, 9.

As the people were leaving, a voice whispered to the preacher: “I have found Christ tonight!” and there stood before him the woman for whom he had prayed, saying: “Lord, let her be saved” the very woman who had told the devil she would go to no more gospel meetings after that night.

“It was that verse that did it,” said she; “how was it you never told me these things before? I could not help myself, but just said in my heart, ‘I do confess Thee, Lord. I do believe in my heart that God hath raised His Son from the dead. So I am saved. I will tell them at once, I will confess Him with my mouth.’ Then the devil whispered, ‘Don’t do it now, there’s your neighbor behind you.’ I was nearly yielding to the temptation and felt a darkness coming over my soul, so I hastened to confess Him to you.”

She did not rest with telling me; she went home and told her husband, and then her friends what great things the Lord had done for her. She still rejoices in the Lord.

The Shedding of Blood

You know there are a great many different religions in the world, but they can easily be divided into two kinds only. One kind has much to say of the shedding of the blood of Jesus; the other hates the mention of it. You can easily try the claims of false religions by this one test: Do they reject the blood of Jesus as the only means of salvation?

If we turn to the Bible, we find that it, everywhere, presents the blood of Christ as the sole means of salvation. Until Christ shed His blood on the cross, God ordained the blood of beasts to be shed as a type of Christ’s.

Just as soon as sin and the curse came into the world, there came also the shedding of blood.

The garments wherewith God clothed Adam and Eve were obtained by the shedding of blood.

Abel was accepted because he came to God through a bloody sacrifice. Man’s approach to God is, from one end of the Scriptures to the other end, shown to be possible only through blood.

“Without shedding of blood is no remission.” Hebrews 9:22.

“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7.

Do any ask why this is so? It is because sin is against God. It is rebellion against Him. It is the breaking of His commands, and is contrary to Him, so David had to say, “Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight.”

It is plain, then that sin being against God, salvation from the curse it has brought upon man, must be from God, and in God’s own appointed way. He has only one way of salvation, and that is by the shedding of blood. His justice and His holiness demand it.

No matter how pleasing to you any other way may appear, you will not find in it any salvation which in the day of judgment will enable you to stand before God in peace. Every religion which has ignored the blood of Christ, will in that day be proved false. Its adherents will find themselves still in their sins, and therefore under condemnation.

To save the sinner, Christ must take the sinner’s place, and bear the guilt, of his sin. He did this, bore fully God’s wrath against sin. He shed His blood, suffering for our sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.

Thank God, this is all done, all finished, and there is remission. Forgiveness is offered to every sinner. God is ready to forgive. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. Blessed, glorious message to lost sinners!

Reader, do you know and enjoy the reality of it? Have you confessed your need of it? Have you bowed at the feet of Jesus in heartfelt repentance for your life of sin, and gazed adoringly upon Him as, upon the cross, He was shedding His precious blood for your salvation?

“It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Leviticus 17:11.

God's Hand

O Lord, how many changes come;

Each casts me on my knees,

All sent by Thee across my path,

The need none other sees.

‘Tis Thou alone canst see the need,

Of every added blow,

To draw me closer to Thy side,

That I, Thy love might know.

When seemingly from time to time,

All would much brighter grow,

And then the eye from Thee is turned,

Thou would’st not have it so.

In love to test, and draw me back,

To fervent pleading prayer;

Thy hand again didst send the cause,

That keeps me kneeling there.

Fragment

We are told that Solomon was seven years in building the temple, and thirteen years in building his own house. I cannot doubt, therefore, that we are intended to learn that the mind of Solomon was more set upon his own house than upon the house of God. We have the same lesson taught us in Haggai 1. And it is a needed lesson, as we all know. See what money Christians will spend upon the adornments of their own houses, and add house to house, compared with what they give for the furtherance of the house of God.

Scripture Study: Acts 27

Looking over Paul’s interesting history, we can see the grace of God in His ways toward His servant. Paul might question himself, and be cast down at the knowledge of his failure to walk in the power of the Spirit. The Lord comes to him to cheer him, and tells him that, as at Jerusalem he had witnessed for Him, so would he do at Rome. (Acts 23:11).

So that all along the way he might be assured that the Lord was taking him there. All the enemy’s efforts, through men, to destroy him, were unavailing. God was making the, wrath of man to praise Him, and to fulfill His purposes, and Paul had to succumb to all the discipline His divine Master and Lord put on him by the way, His grace at the same time fully restoring him to communion with Himself, and making all his sufferings, sufferings for Christ, and clearly showing that the Apostle was like his Master in suffering rejection for the truth’s sake.

In this part of his history, we find grace makes him superior to all around him in the sense of the Lord’s goodness, protecting him and others with him, and truly wonderful to see how like Joseph in the prison all his words come true.

Verse 1. With other prisoners, Paul is given in charge of Julius, a centurion of Augustus’ band. Luke is there, but it is not said as a prisoner. The Lord makes Julius favorable to Paul, so that when the ship touched at Sidon, he allowed Paul the liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself. No doubt, his companions, Aristarchus and Luke, would share this joy of Christian fellowship with him. Another refreshment by the way from the Good Shepherd of the sheep.

Luke gives us a vivid picture of the voyage, and Paul is seen in it, not as a prisoner, but in reality directing and encouraging the whole company. They did not at the start take his advice (Vers. 9-11), but as the storm rages, and all despair of their lives, Paul stood forth, and said, “Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of life of any of you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am and whom I serve, saying ‘Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar; and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.’ Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer; for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me. How be it we must be cast on a certain island.”

In verse 31 he prevents the sailors from fleeing out of the ship, and then encourages all to take food (they had had no regular meals for fourteen days), with the promise that their lives would be spared, and it was necessary for their health. Then he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all; and when he had broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all of good cheer, and they also took some food.

But the ship was doomed, and their lives were spared as Paul had declared. The soldiers, soldier-like, wanted to kill the prisoners to hinder any of them from escaping; but Julius, the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose, and commanded that those who could swim should first get to land, and the rest, some on boards, and some on anything of the ship that would hold them up. And so it came to pass that they all escaped safe to land.

Cleaving Unto the Lord: Acts 11:13

A distracted heart is the bane of a Christian. When my heart is filled with Christ, I have no heart or eye for the trash of the world. If Christ is dwelling in your heart by faith, it will not be the question, What harm is there in this, or that? rather, Am I doing this for Christ? Can Christ go along with me in this? If you are in communion with Him, you will readily detect what is not of Him.

Do not let the world come in, and distract your thoughts. I speak specially to you who are young; we, who are older, have had more experience of what the world is, we know more what it is worth, but it all lies shining before you, endeavoring to attract you. What does it fill its shop windows for else? Its smiles are all deceitful, still it is smiling upon you. It makes many promises it cannot fulfill; still it promises. The fact is, your hearts are too big for the world, it cannot fill them; they are too little for Christ, for He fills heaven; yet will He fill you to overflowing.

Never be content without being able to walk and talk with Christ as with a dear friend. Be not satisfied with anything short of near intercourse with Him who has loved you with such manner of love.

Comfort for a Day of Trouble: Part 1

“Ye now therefore have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” John 16:22.

When God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, afflicts or chastens one of His beloved children, He would assure our sorrowing hearts of His unerring, unchangeable love—a love too which always considers the good of its object, and never makes a mistake, but ever has a deep, rich blessing in reserve, into which it is the desire and delight of the blessed God to lead us when the sorrow or affliction through which He has passed us has accomplished His purpose in our souls.

“‘Tis His great delight to bless us;

O, how He loves!”

We find the bitter waters of affliction to be very grievous while passing through them. At times the deep waves of sorrow seem to roll to high, and to press with overwhelming force and strength upon our souls; but the Word declares that “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13.

God would have us turn away our eyes from the raging waves and rolling billows; and our ears from the fierce howling winds, to listen to His well-known voice speaking to our hearts, and saying, “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.” Matthew 14:27.

How delighted the poor, frightened disciples must have been to hear their Master’s well-known voice! and how gladly they would receive Him into their little ship! With Jesus on board, all was peace; the One by whom, and for whom all things were created, had by His word bound the winds and stayed the waves, and “there was a great calm.” His eyes and His heart had followed that little ship as it rose and fell upon the angry waves, because His own were in it; and as they were being tossed about upon the raging waters, He was up above it all, alone with the Father, praying for them. In their time of need He comes to them, and carries them safely across to “the other side.”

The lesson is learned, the storm has produced its intended effect, and now they can enjoy their beloved Master’s company on “the other side.” “The Lord hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebuketh the sea. . . . The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him.” Nahum 1.

It may be that God, in His infinite wisdom and love, has sent some great sorrow upon you—such anguish of heart and bereavement as you have never counted upon or expected to pass through. The desire of your heart may have been taken away from you with a stroke. (Ezek. 24:16). The sea, the fire, or the railway train have, perhaps, been God’s way of removing from your side, and your sight, one dearer to your heart than all else you possess.

Like Job of old, you may have said in your heart, “I shall die in my nest.” Job 29:18. But in order to instruct you in His ways, God has come in, stirred up your nest, and taken the choicest nestling away.

The young eagles can never know the strength of the wings that bear them, nor the warmth and softness of the feathers spread out for their rest and comfort, until they leave the nest. God in His divine wisdom and infinite love, has stirred up some of our nests; but the everlasting arms are beneath and around us, and our Great High Priest ever liveth to make intercession for us, so that in the day of sorrow and bereavement our faith does not fail. The Comforter, now present, would seek to turn our gaze away from the spoiled and empty “nest,” to the Father’s house and the many mansions yonder, where Jesus is; from the heavy cloud of sorrow at present overhanging the path, to the bright eternal glory so soon to burst forth—when the Lord Himself shall come and with a shout of joy take us away from sin and sorrow to be with Him, and like Him forever. Earth has one less for many a desolate heart, but heaven has one more.

We read of a shepherd who wanted to get his flock of sheep across some mountain stream into a place of safety; but they refused to cross, and again and again turned aside from the water, Night was quickly coming on, he could no longer delay, so he went to the side of a bleating dam, and taking her little lamb in his arms carried it across the stream to the other side. The dam immediately followed, was the first over, and then the whole flock crossed too. Thus the Good Shepherd sometimes takes a loved one from us and carries our lamb in His bosom safely to the other side, forming a strong link between our hearts here, and Himself where He is. He would have us follow Him more closely (no longer afar off), for the nearer we keep to the Shepherd, the more we help the rest of the flock.

The widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17) to whom the prophet Elijah was sent, had an only son. She knew what it was to trust in the Lord God of Israel, and had in her house an unfailing cruise of oil, a barrel of meal that wasted not. A day came when death entered that house. Her child died. Then the hidden chambers of her heart, so long locked up; the secrets of that heart so carefully concealed from every eye, are opened by the finger of God, and she says to the prophet: “What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?”

“Give my thy son,” says Elijah, and he takes him out of her bosom, and carries him up; and while the poor mother sits below in sorrow and bereavement, a wonderful scene goes on above. The dead child is laid in the living prophet’s bed, and quicker than electric telegraphy, there are communications established between earth and heaven.

The prophet prayed, and we read, “The Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijha took the child, and brought him down. . . and delivered him unto his mother; and Elijah said, ‘See, thy son liveth.’ And the woman said to Elijah, ‘Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth’” The lesson was learned, her soul had increased in the knowledge of God, and no doubt that day of death and resurrection marked the beginning of a new period in the house of the widow of Zarephath.

“Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” Hebrews 12:11. “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:17, 18.

The Lord knows each sorrow through which “His own” are passing, not a sigh is breathed, not a groan uttered, not a tear shed without His knowledge. David says to Him, “Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle: are they not in Thy book?” (Psalm 56:8) and Jehovah, when speaking to Moses about His afflicted people in Egypt, says, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people. . . and have heard their cry. . . for I know their sorrows.” Exodus 3:7.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the sent One of the Father, when passing through this world, was a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Thus we read, “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” Isaiah. 53:3, 4.

Go to lone Gethsemane, and hear Him say, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death; tarry ye here, and watch with Me” (Matt. 26:38), and gaze upon Him with adoring heart as He kneeled down and prayed, saying, “Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done,” then “there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Luke 22. The blessed Lord Jesus Christ may well say to His poor and afflicted people. “Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow.” Lamentations 1:12. Pass on to Calvary. There, that blessed, perfect One tasted sorrow as none of His own ever have done, or can do. Listen to the breathings of His heart in Psalm 22:

“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? . . . I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. . .. I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint: My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of My bowels. . .. they pierced My hands and My feet.” And again, in Psalm 69: “I was the song of the drunkards. . .. Reproach hath broken My heart; and I am full of heaviness, and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave Me also gall for My meat; and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.”

There are many sorrowing hearts in this poor sin-stricken world, and many bottles of tears are being shed day after day, and night after night: but God tells us it will not be always so, for there is a day coming when He Himself shall wipe away all tears from the eyes of His people. (Rev. 21:4). Just think of God’s blessed hand wiping away His poor sorrowing people’s tears! And it will so delight His heart to do it that He will not commit this service of love to an angel, not even to Gabriel. He will wipe away their tears Himself. Then those eyes that have been so often and so long dimmed by the hot, fast-flowing tears of grief and sorrow will never shed another, how could they?

“And God has fixed the happy day,

When the last tear shall dim our eyes,

When He shall wipe these tears away,

And fill our hearts with glad surprise;

To hear His voice, and see His face,

And know the fullness of His grace.”

(To be continued)

O, Give Thanks!

The wife of a Christian man who was ill, took to his bedside a plate of hot soup. As he took it, he exclaimed, out of the fullness of a grateful heart: “My praises do not keep pace with my mercies!”

He was in the habit of tracing God’s hand in all the circumstances of his life, and felt that he had never praised Him enough for His care.

Dear young Christian, can we not all say the same? Do we not find that our praises lag behind? Yet the Lord even “daily loadeth us with benefits.” (Psa. 68:19).

“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18.

The Assembly: Part 2, Acts 2

Before the Lord could build His assembly, the work of redemption must be accomplished. “The Son of Man must be lifted up.” In John 12:23, 24, Jesus said, “The hour is come, that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Also He said, John 16:7: “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” After He rose from the dead His disciples saw Him, and received instructions from Him, by the Holy Spirit, for forty days. They were to wait at Jerusalem for the promise of the Father (John 14:16), as it reads, “Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” He would not say whether the kingdom would be restored to Israel at that time. God’s long suffering extends to the utmost limit before He gives men up. The prayer of Jesus on the cross was to be answered by giving them another offer, if they would repent (Acts 3:17-21), but they would be His witnesses when they had received power, after the Holy Ghost was come upon them. (John 15:26, 27).

In his Gospel, Luke has told us that He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. While He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried, up into heaven. And in Acts 1 a cloud received Him out of their sight. While they were still gazing steadfastly toward heaven, as He went up, two men in white apparel stood by them, and said, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.”

This is true for the future godly remnant of the Jews who, on the Mount of Olives, will wait for Him, and see Him coming, with all His heavenly army of saints, for their deliverance from their enemies. (Zech. 14). When He comes for His heavenly saints, they shall be caught up to be with Him; they shall meet Him in the air. (1 Thess. 4:15-18). The dead raised incorruptible, the living changed to immortality, and ruptured into His presence. What a moment of bliss for all His redeemed up to that time!

The disciples returned to Jerusalem, and for ten days more waited on the Lord in prayer. They appointed one to fill their number—twelve. They did it intelligently, as their Scriptures led them, and the Lord gave understanding. (Luke 24:45.) When the fiftieth day was fully come (that is what Pentecost means), they were all assembled together with one accord in one place. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Cloven or divided tongues, as of fire, sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak in other languages than their own, so that the foreigners from all the different countries could hear in their own tongues the wonderful works of God. The Holy Ghost had come, and two wonderful facts were accomplished at the same moment.

The body of Christ was formed, that is, all who were sealed with the Spirit were believers (John 7:39), and were united to Christ in glory, their risen Head, and to each other as members of the same body. (1 Cor. 12:12, 13). The second thing was: They were builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Eph. 2:22).

These facts were true of them, but were not yet unfolded to their faith. But they knew the Holy Ghost was come, and they knew the Lord had sent Him from the Father (Ver. 33), so they had the guidance of the Spirit in what they did. Peter’s address convicted many of their guilt of murdering their Messiah, whom God had raised from the dead, so that about three thousand souls separated themselves from the perverse generation, and were baptized into the new, redeemed company. These were the godly remnant of the Jews, often spoken of as Old Testament saints, now brought into the Christian assembly. God was now gathering His children into one. (John 11:52).

As yet they were all Jews, and on Jewish ground, waiting to see if the Lord, at that time, would restore the kingdom of Israel. Peter gave them another offer in chapter 3:17-21, but they still opposed, and put some of the apostles in prison, and lastly stoned Stephen, fulfilling Luke 19:14. His spirit is received up, and Jesus sits down (Stephen saw Him standing), till His enemies be made His footstool. We are now introduced to Saul who was consenting unto Stephen’s death. He takes up the service of persecuting, even unto death, those who believed on Jesus, and he thought he was serving God.

God, by means of persecution, scattered abroad in different directions the assembly at Jerusalem, except the apostles. And those that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word. Philip went down to Samaria, and preached Christ unto them, and there was great joy in that city. It is to be noticed here that though the Samaritans had believed the gospel Philip preached, and they were all baptized, yet none of them had received the Holy Ghost. They were born again, and brought into the profession of Christ (Gal. 3:27), yet they were not sealed. At Jerusalem the apostles heard of Samaria having received the Word of God, and they sent Peter and John who, when they were come, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost, then they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. The breach is gone; the saints at Jerusalem, and at Samaria, are one in redemption. In this case we also see the difference between the work of the Spirit in conversion, and in His dwelling in them.

Another noticeable fact is, that Simon, the sorcerer, himself believed, and was baptized. He seemed to be a true believer, but the apostles discerned that he was not converted at all. (See John 2:23-25 and 6:66-69). In this we see the beginning of failure, in what was committed to the servants. (1 Cor. 3:12).

In the eunuch we see a godly Jewish proselyte, who has been to the empty temple at Jerusalem to worship, returning as empty, and as ignorant, as when he went up, but the Lord sent Philip to meet him. The story of Jesus in Isaiah 53 lays hold of him, and Philip, at his request brings him in also. Philip is caught away, and the eunuch goes on his way rejoicing to carry the story into dark Ethiopia.

Chapter 9 tells of Saul of Tarsus, the instrument that the Lord knew (yes, like Jeremiah, before his birth Jer. 1:5 and Gal. 1:15, 16) and had formed and fitted for the work of an Apostle. A man trained in Jewish self-righteousness, breathing out threatenings and slaughter, seeking authority from the high priest to destroy Christianity, and wipe out the name of Jesus from the earth. He lived in all good conscience before God (Acts 23:1), and wrote of himself, “Touching the righteousness of the law, blameless.” (Phil. 3:6). He thought he was serving God in his blind, mad career. (Acts 26:9-11).

In chapter 9 we see him arrested by the Lord Himself, convicted and converted, humbled and broken, asking, “Who art Thou, Lord?” “What wouldst Thou have me to do?” The Lord sends Ananias to show him the way, and to bring him in, also, to the assembly, the house of God.

Straightway he preached that Jesus is the Son of God, and went into retirement for a time to learn more perfectly the ways of God. (Gal. 1;16, 17). He conferred not with flesh and blood. With his message given from the Head in glory, he goes forth. “Paul an apostle (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised Him from the dead.” Acts 26:16-18). He knew that suffering and rejection from man was to be his lot for Christ’s sake. (Acts 20:23).

From the glory and the gladness,

From His secret place:

From the rapture of His presence,

From His radiant face—

Christ, the Son of God, had sent him

Through the midnight lands;

His the mighty ordination

Of the pierced hands.

And what were his thoughts of himself then? “The chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15); “less than the least of all saints” (Eph. 3:8); “the least of the apostles:” “not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the assembly of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am.” 1 Corinthians 15:9, 10.

This is the instrument God had taken up to carry out His message. The Lord said unto Ananias, “Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: for I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

We shall endeavor to look at his teachings in connection with the assembly in another paper.

“What is, the joy of the Redeemer, but the joy and communion, the happiness of His redeemed.”

Correspondence: Dan. 3:18; John 3:13; Luke 23:43

Question: Would Daniel 3:18 illustrate the words of the Lord Jesus, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”? J. T. G.

Answer: It would illustrate their faithfulness to God, and that they would not give the king’s authority a place above God’s. It was better to obey God than man. Daniel 6:4, 5, shows both. Daniel was faithful in the business of the kingdom (the things of Caesar), at the same time he set God first, and prayed to God, though forbidden by the king to do so, thus he rendered to God the things that are God’s.

Question: |iI| cannot get the sense of John 3:13. Jesus Himself was speaking, and was not yet crucified, yet He speaks of having ascended and being in heaven, while here on earth. W. D. W.

Answer: Matt. 11:27 and Luke 10:22 tell us of the mystery of the person of the Son of God, whose being none can know. John’s Gospel brings this much before us. He does not solve it, but counts on our faith to trust Him. Men say, “Seeing is believing.” Faith says the opposite, “Said I not unto Thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see?” John 11:40. John’s Gospel anticipates, and speaks as if all was done. It is as good as done in the purposes of God, which cannot fail. Who else but He could speak as being in heaven, while here upon earth? In these verses He is bearing witness to what He had seen and heard—new and heavenly things never heard of before, that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.

Question: What did the Lord mean when He said to the thief on the cross (Luke 23:43), “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise”? Is that hell or heaven? Did He descend into hell to preach to the departed spirits, and was not ascended to His Father?

I believe the thief was saved, but the matter is not clear to me. Could He mean that the thief went to God, and God and Christ are one.

“I and My Father are one”? C. E. W.

Answer: When the Lord was about to die, He committed His Spirit to His Father. He did not go into the prison where lost souls are; He did not descend into (gehenna) hell, the place of punishment, but into (hades) the state of the soul absent from its body. This word is also translated hell, and is used of Him in Acts 2:27, 31. The word paradise means a place of delights. In 2 Corinthians 12:2, 4, Paul was caught up there; in the second verse it is the third heaven; in the fourth it is paradise. So when the Lord committed His Spirit to His Father, He was received there while His body lay in the grave; yet no corruption was allowed to touch it. (Psa. 16:9, 10 and Acts 2:27.) But this was not ascension. Ascension is where spirit, soul and body—the complete man—is taken up. David has been there with the spirits of just men (Heb. 12:23) ever since he died, but it is written (Acts 2:29, 34), “David is not ascended,” but Jesus is (Acts 2:29-36.)

The rich man in Luke 16:22, 23, died and was buried, and in hell (that is hades, the state of the dead), was also in torments. That was not paradise, nor is it said to be gehenna, but it is real suffering begun. When he is raised from the dead (Rev. 20), then he will stand before the great, white throne, and, spirit, soul and body, be put into the lake of fire-judged according to his works.

The Lord did not go into prison. There never was any preaching done there. 1 Peter 3:18, 19, tells us of Christ who once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit, by which (the Spirit) He went and preached to the spirits in prison. It means that the Spirit of Christ in Noah preached to the antedeluvians, and because they were disobedient to the preaching, they are now in prison, which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. (Compare also 2 Peter 2:5, 9). The great gulf is fixed by death; there is no discharge in that war. (Eccl. 8:8; Luke 16:26.)

The first mark of grace in the soul of the thief was seen in condemning himself and the other one, as justly receiving what they deserved, and he justifies Jesus, saying, “This man has done nothing amiss.” The second mark was that he turns to the very one he reviled before (Matt. 27:44), with the prayer, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” Here his faith owns this dying man as Lord and King, and looks forward to their being raised from the dead. Jewish faith looks for the kingdom to be set up in earthly glory, but what a surprise to hear of immediate blessing before the kingdom could possibly be. “Verily, I say unto you, Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise,” in that joyful garden of delights, and best of all, in companionship with his blessed Redeemer. What grace to make a condemned thief, the earliest trophy mentioned in Scripture of His grace to sinners. How could He do it? Because there on that cross He bore his many sins.

There are three persons in the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Ghost. They are one in mind and purpose. It is the Father’s will, the Son’s work, the Holy Spirit’s power and witness, both in creation and redemption. In John 10:28 to 30, the Father and the Son go together in one mind to give eternal life, and to hold the sheep securely. “I and My Father are one.” It is in mind and purpose, while distinct persons.

The Last Ball: Or Only One More

Nellie was very fair! I had often watched her with admiration as she rode up and down the promenade; her golden hair floating in the wind, and her sweet face radiant with smiles; she had much natural amiability and sweetness of temper and was loved by many.

Her days passed in a whirl of gaiety, in which she was the center of attraction. Young, lovely, and wealthy, her company was sought after and courted; her silvery voice echoed through many a mansion, and her graceful form was constantly to be seen in the many ballrooms and fashionable circles of the very gay town in which she lived.

To the eye of the inexperienced, Nellie’s fair face was blooming and healthy-looking, but there were some who watched her with anxious care, and knew well that the hectic tinge on her cheeks, and the diamond luster of her brilliant eye, gave warning of an early tomb. Her kind physician had ofttimes warned and pleaded with her to give up a life of gaiety and late hours, which was feeding a disease that human skill had failed to arrest; but she laughingly put away such fears, saying, “Let me have one more ball, and then I shall become religious.” But the one ball was followed by many; and night after night, Nellie, radiant as ever, was in crowded, heated rooms, as if determined to live in a whirl of pleasure as long as she possibly could.

Poor girl! there were few, if any, in the circle in which she moved to speak to her of Christ; few to tell her of the only One who could give her real joy and satisfaction, and who could, in place of the passing pleasures of a poor fleeting world, give her pleasures that would last forever, and would not pass away. To one who did speak to her of an eternity which might not be very far off, she answered: “O, but I’m not so ill as some people think I am, and I do mean to be religious someday.”

It was a night of intense cold; Nellie’s elegant dressing room in L. Crescent was brilliantly lighted, everything in it showing the exquisite taste and refinement of its fair occupant; she lay in her dressing gown on the sofa, resting from the fatigue of her half-finished toilet; she looked pensive and a shade of sadness was over her large eyes, as she repeated again and again to the companion who was going with her, “And this is to be my last ball; I have made up my mind to have only one more, and then I shall retire into private life, and become religious.” “Are you sure you are able to go tonight?” said her friend, “you don’t look quite well.” “Not quite well,” said Nellie; “but I’m only to have one more,” and so saying she rang the bell for her maid.

Soon the lovely one was dressed in her snowy satin with its rich lace; it had been made on purpose for “Nellie’s last ball.” The freshly-gathered hot-house roses were twined through her golden tresses. The white gloves and boots drawn on those tiny hands and feet, and she was ready. The carriage was at the door, Nellie’s friend had taken her place in it, and she, wrapped in her white cloak, was descending the staircase. The keen blast of a severe winter night had to be faced by that fragile form; the little foot was on the carriage step, she shuddered and drew back, quickly retracted her steps into the hall, and fell backward at the foot of the staircase.

Awe-stricken, yet not realizing the fact that this was more than a faint, her friends carried her to her room, and her doctor who lived very near was present in a minute; but no power of man could recall life, and horror-stricken friends gathered round to hear that the heart of that gay worldly one had ceased to beat forever.

She was dead!

This is a true story; many details I refrain from giving. I have told it simply as I got it from one who knew her. I was myself living but a few doors from the house in which she lived, at the time she was thus called to meet God in a moment. And for you who are unsaved, I write it as a word of warning. Take heed lest ye too be cut off in your sins!

Where is Nellie now? Her silvery laugh will never ring again. She had “the pleasures or sin for a season” here without Christ, but let a veil be drawn over her eternity of woe. It is for me now to cry aloud to you, Escape, escape lest ye perish like her! Hearken, ye gay ones! Stop and think! Tomorrow you may be in eternity! Your laughter may be turned into weeping and wailing; your mirth into anguish and woe! I would reason with you, I would plead with you, I would beseech you to come to Jesus now! “He ready stands to bless you.” Flee to Him now! Surely you are not going to wait for “only one ball more.” The risk is too great. Your whole eternity may depend upon it. Cast yourselves into those loving arms now, ere it be too late.

He offered Himself a sacrifice for sin that He might give eternal life without money and without price. Did it cost Him little to purchase salvation for guilty rebels? to leave the brightness of the glory and come down here to die? “Ah,” you say, “but I shall not die like Nellie I am not likely to be cut off in a moment. I shall have time to repent, and turn to God ere I die!”

And who has given you this promise, may I ask? I find none such in God’s Word.

“Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3). There is time, now this moment for you to turn to God. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.” I have no promise for tomorrow. There is salvation for every one who believes in Jesus now, but I dare not say, You may have one ball more and then come to Christ: the risk is too great: come now, just as you are, delay not a moment. I was asked lately by one who had heard the gospel, and had been pressed to accept Christ, “but could I not put it off for a year, I am not likely to die?” O horrible thought! Put off the salvation of your precious soul for twelve months more! Thousands of souls go down into hell every year, and Why not yours, ye rejecters of Christ? God is not mocked: if ye live to the world and refuse Christ ye shall die in your sins. You may be very attractive and very amiable in the world’s eyes, and you may even have a profession of being Christ; but if you have never been converted, your mask will be torn off some day and you will have to stand before God an unveiled soul. How, O how, will you stand the gaze of His eyes, who “knew no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth”?

O reader, that would be an evil day for thee, to be found like one, who when called to die, cried out, “I would give millions for one moment of time.” But too late, too late then! Your season of grace is past, and you have lost Christ forever, for the sake of the shadowy unreality of this world’s fleeting joys.

Reader, it is of the Lord’s mercy you are still alive: do not trifle with the grace that still pleads with you. “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sin; be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18).

Do you wish to spend eternity with Christ, with Christ forever? Look unto Him now. Or do you wish to have only one ball more? one more! one more! It matters not what only one more of anything that keeps you away from Christ; one more grain of sand, it may be, from the sirocco of sin, one more breath from the poisoned simoon of pleasure; one more wave from the sea of sunny enjoyments here, bearing you onward, poor victim, upon its deceitful tide to your eternal doom!

“And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried, and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.” Luke 16:23, 24.

Choose

“Some day,” you say, “I will seek the Lord;

Some day make Him my choice;

Some day, some day, I will heed His Word,

And answer the Spirit’s voice.”

Choose now, just now, for the Lord is near,

Angels your answer will wait.

Choose now, just now, while the call is clear;

Soon it may be too late.

God’s time is now, for the days fly fast;

Swiftly the seasons roll.

The present is yours, perhaps your last;

Choose for your priceless soul.

Choose now, just now, there’s a soul at stake;

What will your answer be?

‘Tis life or death, and the choice you make

Is for eternity.

“Seek ye the Lord while He may be found; call ye upon Him while He is near.” Isaiah 55:6.

Fifteen Minutes

As a young man was starting out on his Christian career, an old man put his hands upon his shoulders, and said: “There are three simple rules I can give you, and if you hold to them, no one will ever write ‘backslider’ after your name.”

“Take fifteen minutes each day to listen to God talking to you through His Word.
“Take fifteen minutes each day to talk to God.
“Take fifteen minutes each day to talk to others about God.”

“Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.” James 4:8.

In Season and Out of Season

“To everything there is a season,” and the season for the gospel worker is this present moment; “the night cometh, when no man can work.” Never, again will he have a better opportunity for working for eternity than this day offers. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.”

Now is the period which may be brought to a close at any moment, for when the Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, this “now,” this day of salvation will be over. Now, the golden present, the opportunity which will never return. Therefore, let us heed the Scripture exhortation, “Be instant in season and out of season,” remembering that in and out of season means always, everywhere.

Nor is it only because the day is far spent and the night is at hand, that we need exhort one another to the work, for a deep desire after reality in divine things abounds in many hearts, and calls for the loving energy of every true servant of God. The only ease infidelity offers is “a leap in the dark,” and the only balm formalism presents is an undefined shadow of a substance which may or may not be found when life is passed! The no-belief of the skeptic covers unrest of soul; the ceaseless effort of the formalist to reach rest evidences that the desired end is not attained. But the true Christian has rest, for he has Christ, and Christ dwelling in the heart by faith fills the breast with life, light, and liberty, and is the unanswerable witness to theories of darkness and doctrines of unrest.

Christians, you have “the treasure” (2 Cor. 4:7); in you is the fountain of living waters (John 7:38), and you are set here upon the earth to bestow of the treasure, and to communicate of the living waters to others. Men, women and children around you thirst; they are poor, they need Christ, and God has given you His salvation not merely for your own blessing, but that you may be a blessing to others—even as He said to Abraham, “I will bless thee. . . and thou shalt be a blessing.” And certain it is that the nearer a Christian dwells to the source of all blessing—God Himself—the fresher, the sweeter, the richer are the streams of blessing that, through the Spirit, flow out of his heart to the refreshment and blessing of others.

Let us then arise, and shake off the dust of the earth from our souls, and go forth as from Christ to the Christless world, with hearts and hands laden with Divine bounties to the unsaved and the unsatisfied. Be instant in season and out of season, for always do men need Christ, and peace, and rest, and joy.

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 15:58.

Fragment: No One So Near

I shall find One in heaven nearer and dearer to my heart than any one I know on earth. No one is so near to us as the Christ that is in us, and no one is so near to God as Christ.

What Is Man?

“When I consider Thy heavens, the works of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, What is man that Thou art mindful of him?” Psalm 8:3, 4.

O what is man that God above,

Should stoop in pity and in love,

Down to his low estate?

God, who His power to man would prove,

Who framed the worlds and made them move,

And holds them in His hand.

Man who is vile, and full of sin,

By nature had no claim on Him

Who could have passed him by.

Man who his own way ever sought,

And who had never given thought;

Toward God who loved him so.

Well may I ask the reason why,

God sent His Son for man to die,

And suffer in his stead?

‘Tis in the cross of Christ I find

The answer, and God’s holy mind,

Toward man who spurned Him so.

His power the heavens above declare,

Sun, moon and stars, He placed them there,

His will their path controls.

The earth beneath obeyed His call,

The human mind is far too small

To comprehend His might.

And yet when I consider this,

And think how God could plan to bless

Those who His power deny,

I wonder, and adoring stand,

And praise the One who thus hath planned

To save poor sinful man.

Scripture Study: Acts 28

They had landed on the island of Melita, and God laid it on the hearts of the uncivilized inhabitants to show them kindness, and this they did liberally. They kindled a fire, and received every one of them because of the rain that was falling, and because of the cold.

Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, and a viper came out of the heat and fastened on his hand. The barbarians saw it, and said among themselves, “No doubt, this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet Nemesis, the god of vengeance, suffereth not to live.” They watched him for a while, expecting that he would suddenly drop dead, but as nothing unusual happened, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.

In the same quarters, Publius, the chief man of the island, had possessions. His father was sick with fever. Paul went in and prayed and laid his hands on him, and healed him. Others also on the island, who had diseases, came and were healed. These honored Paul and his companions with many honors; and when they departed, they loaded them with such things as were necessary.

We are not told of any evangelizing on the journey. After three months, when the winter was gone; a ship lying there took them to Puteoli, where they found brethren, and were asked to tarry with them seven days. This was another green spot in the desert world!

Then they journeyed toward Rome. At Appii forum, and The Three Taverns, the brethren from Rome came to meet them, and this cheered the heart of Paul somewhat. He knew what awaited him in every city, for Was he not going to bear testimony to, a rejected Lord, whose prisoner he afterward called himself? The Lord knows how to strengthen and to help His dear servants in the hour of trial.

It was not the time yet for his trial before Augustus Caesar. The testimony of Paul, the prisoner, must go forth; and God prepares the place and the people, and gives Paul exceptional privileges to have his own hired house with a soldier as his guard. After three days he called the chief men among the Jews together, and told them how he had been falsely accused, and that he was wearing the prisoner’s chain for the hope of Israel. They were willing to hear of this sect that was everywhere spoken against, so, on the day appointed, many came to him into his lodging, to whom he expounded, and testified the kingdom of God, out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets all the day long. But a suffering, and rejected Messiah was not the kind of king they wanted. So some believed and some believed not. A king that would give them Palestine, and prosperity, and peace on the earth, would suit them, but the Man in the glory, calling out the church as His body and His bride did not suit them. Things new as well as old, He had to tell them (Matt. 13:52), but they would not hear. It was earth they wanted, not heaven.

Paul therefore, before they left, quoted to them part of Isaiah 6, “Well spake Isaias the prophet by the Holy Ghost to our fathers, saying, ‘Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.’ Be it known therefore, unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and they will hear it.” (See Isa. 6:9, 10; Matt. 13:14, 15). The long suffering of God is over for the present to the nation of Israel, till the church is completed. Israel is now not the people of God. Those of them who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ now, are brought in on the ground of mercy to all, for He hath concluded all in unbelief, that He might have mercy on them all. (Rom. 11:32). Now the gospel goes out freely to the Gentiles.

Having thus declared the truth to them, they departed with great reasonings among themselves. Paul was allowed to go on bearing his testimony for two whole years, yet as a prisoner. The Word of God does not tell us of an Apostle ever being sent there. God has no “See”; no ecclesiastical center on earth.

Christianity dates from a glorified, earth rejected Christ in heaven. Here ends the history of the acts of the Holy Ghost through the apostles.

Paul, from the prison, wrote the Epistles—Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon—a rich feast for the soul, taught of God by them.