Young Christian: Volume 16, 1926

How does this New Year find you, dear reader? For Christ, or against Him? Which? O, which? I earnestly ask you. What think you of Christ? Do not cast the question away from you, but put it to your own heart, and answer it truthfully. You are either saved or unsaved—serving Christ, or Satan; in the narrow road leading to glory, or treading the downward path to hell. You will spend eternity either with Christ, or solemn thought in eternal banishment from Him. Again I ask you, Which is it? which will it be, for eternity heaven or hell? Blessed it is for you if you can say,

“Now I can call the Savior mine,

Though all unworthy still;

I’m shelter’d by His precious blood

Beyond the reach of ill.”

Beloved, if this be the language of your heart, it is well with you; and I would just say, Be true to the One who loved you, and gave Himself for you, and who is coming to receive us to Himself!

But O! if my reader be still a stranger to that blessed Lord Jesus Christ, I would say, How awful is your position! unsaved, without the question of your soul’s eternal salvation settled; judgment staring you in the face? Does this startle you? or do you think the case exaggerated? Nay, it is not; and no matter how you look at or regard it, you cannot change God’s Word. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but” —awful thought— “the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John 3:36).

O, beloved, unsaved one, in the face of all this, can you deliberately turn your back on Christ? “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” (Heb. 2:3). We cannot; and surely you cannot be so mad as to begin another year as a rejector of Christ, duped by the devil?

Christ has completed the work of salvation more than eighteen hundred years ago, and you have only to believe it, to accept Him, and life, eternal life, is yours. Is it not simple? God offers this free salvation to you now. Will you take it?

And now one parting word. God in boundless grace offers to “Whosoever will the water of life freely;” but remember, it is now He offers it. “Now is the day of salvation;” beware how you neglect it.

“All things are ready; come,

Tomorrow may not be;

O sinner, come, the Savior waits

This hour to welcome thee.”

A Sheet-Almanac and What It Did

It was a little cottage, a small company, and a young and untrained preacher. But the Spirit of God was there in convicting power, and as the speaker pressed upon his hearers the importance of accepting God’s great salvation, the soul of one young woman was thoroughly aroused by the stirring question, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”

As she passed along the country road on her homeward way, these words were ringing in her ears, wakening the slumbering conscience, and causing deep anxiety as to her eternal destiny.

But the devil, the great enemy of Christ, was there, and at once set to work to hinder this precious soul from heeding God’s warning, yet loving voice, and he had a capital tool with which to work. Christmas was drawing near with its round of gaiety and pleasure, and our young friend was to take no unimportant part in the tableaux vivants and other amusements which were being arranged for the close of the year. She knew that if she confessed herself a follower of Christ, she could not consistently take part in these worldly entertainments, and accordingly she endeavored to stifle the voice of conscience and forget the warning words she had heard. But this was not to be. At the house where our young friend lived, a Christian had placed on the walls of his home a large sheet-almanac, on which to her astonishment and dismay she found the question she was trying to forget, staring her in the face,

“How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”

But in spite of this earnest appeal to her soul, she still resisted. The weeks passed by, and Christmas came with its round of merrymaking fun, and frolic; but though she took part in it all, there was no pleasure for this sin-burdened soul. A short time after, she confessed to a Christian friend that it had been the most miserable Christmas she had ever spent, and now, disappointed with the world and its misnamed pleasures, she turned to the loving Savior, and, blessed be His name, she met with a hearty welcome and found true joy and satisfaction in Him.

Reader, a few days ago, you doubtless received from many loving lips the kindly greeting of “A Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.” If you have come as a guilty sinner to the Savior, you have found in Him the secret of all true joy and happiness, and can sing with us,

“O Christ, in Thee my soul hath found,

And found in Thee alone,

The peace, the joy, I sought so long,

The bliss till now unknown.

Now none but Christ can satisfy,

None other Name for me,

There’s love, and life, and lasting joy,

Lord Jesus, found in Thee.”

Confession of Sins

Some Christians seem to confound two distinct things, namely, atonement and forgiveness. It is quite true that all our sins were atoned for on the cross, and hence the very moment we believe, through grace, on the Son of God, we pass out of a condition of guilt and condemnation into a condition of perfect forgiveness and acceptance.

The believer is united to Christ. He is complete, as to his standing before God; so that the word is, “As He is, so are we in this world,” (1 John 4:17). “Ye are complete in Him,” Colossians 2:10. “Accepted in the beloved,” (Eph. 1:6).

Nor can we ever lose this perfect standing. It is impossible that a single member of Christ’s body can ever, for one moment, be out of that conditions of perfect favor in which he has been set, by God’s free grace, in union with a crucified, risen, and glorified Head.

He may lose the sense of it, the comfort of it, the power of it; but the thing itself he cannot lose. It is his unalterable standing in Christ. Clouds may overcast the sun and hide from our view his genial beams; but the sun shines all the while, with undiminished luster. The believer is accepted, once and forever, in Christ. He is united to Him by a link that can never be severed.

All this is divinely true, and is clearly laid down in the Word in passages too numerous to quote here. But, be it remembered, it is not until we believe, that we enter into this blessed position. The foundation of it all was laid in the death and resurrection of Christ; but it is only when we, by the power of the Holy Ghost, receive into our hearts the precious truth of the gospel, that we enter into the enjoyment of it. “In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,” (Eph. 1:13).

And we have further to bear in mind that, though complete in Christ, as to our standing and title, so that, at any moment, we are ready to pass into the divine presence, and though possessed of the divine nature which “cannot sin,” because it is born of God, yet we have sin in us. We carry about with us a sinful nature, and are liable, if not watchful, to commit sin in thought, word, and deed.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world,” (1 John 1:8, 2:2).

(The reader should note that the italics in chapter 2:2 quite destroy the sense of the passage).

Here, then, we have the doctrine of confession laid down. “If we,” believers, “confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Mark, he says “faithful and just,” not merely gracious and merciful. That He is, blessed be His name; but He is more, He is faithful and just. On what ground? On the ground of atonement. It is wonderful to think that God can be so presented to us in connection with the forgiveness and cleansing of one who has committed sin.

But there must be confession. The conscience must be kept clear. It will not do for a believer to commit sin, and say, “O! my sins are all forgiven, and I need not trouble myself about this matter.” This will never do. A single sinful thought is sufficient to interrupt the believer’s communion. It cannot touch his life, or interfere with his security in Christ; but it can interfere with his communion, and mar his comfort. He cannot possibly have fellowship with God while there is the smallest unconfessed sin on his conscience.

What is he to do?

Let him pour out his heart in confession, let him make a clean breast of it.

And what follows?

Full forgiveness, and cleansing, according to the faithfulness and justice of God.

Some, however, may feel disposed to ask, “Do we not commit many sins which never come within the range of our conscience, and how are we to confess them?”

The answer is very simple: such sins are not in question. We may, no doubt, confess in a general way, our manifold sins, failures, and shortcomings, and feel assured of full forgiveness; but our communion is only interrupted by those things which get on the conscience.

“If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7).

When we are walking in the light, sin is not in question, but we are maintained before God according to the divine efficacy of the blood of Jesus. But if we get out of the light, in the actual practical condition of the soul, and commit sin, how do we get back? By confession, through the advocacy of Christ. If we walk in the light, we have the blood. If we sin, we have an Advocate. The usual way with men is just to reverse this order.

Jesus Is Mine

All through my pilgrim days

Jesus is mine,

Ever His name be praised;

Jesus is mine,

He my Salvation is,

Life, Light and Righteousness;

Fruit of His wondrous grace,

Jesus is mine.

Though rough my path may be,

Jesus is mine,

Whether on land or sea,

Jesus is mine;

I’ve nothing now to fear,

Since He is ever near,

I’m to His heart so dear;

Jesus is mine.

Whether in joy or grief,

Jesus is mine,

Though life be long or brief,

Jesus is mine.

All that He sends to me,

Works only good for me,

This I will some day see;

Jesus is mine.

Then in His home on high,

Jesus is mine,

Far, far beyond the sky,

Jesus is mine.

Soon I will see Him there,

Soon meet Him in the air,

And all His glory share;

Jesus is mine.

Then through eternal days,

Jesus is mine,

Ceaseless my songs of praise,

Jesus is mine,

When I His face shall see,

When I with Him shall be,

I’ll sing eternally,

Jesus is mine.

Scripture Study: 1 Corinthians 14, Part 1

In seeking to understand, and to profit by this portion of the Scriptures, we should notice that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God (2 Tim. 3:16, 17). While the apostle Paul was the instrument God used, God is the Author. The word “inspiration” means God-breathed. “God has magnified His Word above all His name.” (Psalm 138:2). We, debtors to His mercy and grace, should gladly receive it.

We must not for a moment speak of it, nor even think that it is man’s words. “If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord” (verse 37). It claims our obedience just as much as the first day that it was written by the Spirit of God.

We learn from chapter 1:7 that the saints at Corinth came behind in no gift, yet they were not, as we have seen, a spiritual assembly. They did not, as a whole, grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In chapter 3:3, they are spoken of as carnal, and as babes, instead of growing up to Christian maturity in the knowledge of Christ glorified. It is the apostle’s desire and effort to minister truth to them that will set this right.

He unfolded to them in chapter 12, that they were one body in Christ, and everyone members one of another, and this was by the Holy Spirit forming them into one body (verses 12, 13). Then the gifts were set in the assembly (verse 28) and in verse 31, he says, “Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet show I unto you a more excellent way.”

This is the way of love (chapter 13). The gifts are needed, but love is needed to use the gifts to edify the assembly, and if they do not speak with love, they are but clanging cymbals.

It seems that they had been using their gifts, specially the gift of speaking in a foreign tongue, much for their own pleasure. God had given the apostles to speak with tongues at Pentecost, to meet the need created at the tower of Babel, so that all who were there, heard in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. It was useful in that case, but now he endeavors to show them that prophesying is the gift that is most needed. They were exhorted therefore to follow after love, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that they might prophecy.

A man might speak in the assembly in a foreign tongue, but it was perfectly useless, except for himself and God. But the one that prophesies speaks unto man to edification, that is building up; and exhortation, stirring up; and comfort, is encouraging. It brought the soul into the presence of God by His Word.

They are encouraged to speak with tongues, if they are led by God, but if there is no interpreter, they were to be silent. If they spoke rightly, it was a revelation, that is, something new, for the Word of God was not completed then as it is now; or it was giving knowledge, or speaking to the conscience, or unfolding doctrine (verse 6), and verses 7-11, show that speaking without an interpreter or without understanding, is just speaking into the air. It is a sound, but no voice, no message in it.

Verse 12. “Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the assembly.” The one therefore that speaks with a foreign tongue, should pray that he may interpret.

Verses 14-17 further show how out of place it is in the assembly, for nobody can say “Amen” at thy giving of thanks.

Verses 18, 19. Paul thanks God that he spoke with tongues more than they all, then he adds, “yet in the assembly I had rather speak five words (a figure of man’s weakness) with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue. Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.”

Verses 21-25. It is a sign gift, not to believers, but to unbelievers, and if used in the assembly, and one unlearned or unconverted comes in and hears it, he will say, this is madness, but if someone is prophesying, it speaks to his conscience, and so he says, “God is in you of a truth.”

Verse 26 shows the liberty of the Spirit to lead the meeting, but the will of men needs to be curbed, and the Lord does this by giving instructions to them. We do not find any place in Scripture that one man is set over a company of people as their minister; that is departure from the liberty of the Spirit. Here the speaking is limited by the words, “Let all things be done to edifying,” so the necessity comes of waiting on the Lord, and attending to the instructions.

Verses 27, 28. Only two or three could speak at one meeting, and only one at a time. If it was in tongues, there must be an interpreter. If there was no interpreter, it was strictly forbidden. “Let him keep silence in the assembly, and let him speak to himself, and to God,” but be silent.

Verses 29-33. The prophesying was limited to two or at the most three, and only one at a time, and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. No one could rightly say, “I had to speak,” “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all assemblies of the saints.”

“That all may learn, and all may be comforted.”

How careful the Lord is in this way, and here we might well remark that enough care is not used that all should hear and understand. We might learn a lesson from Nehemiah 8:8, “So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.” Those who take part in the meetings, should make an effort to speak plainly for the edification of all.

Verses 34, 35. Another limitation comes in here, “Let your women keep silence in the assemblies, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.” This is surely plain language, it is unmistakably plain. “And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the assembly.” There are lots of opportunities to ask questions privately. We have already seen in chapter 11 that the man represents Christ, and woman represents the church: this is God’s order in creation, and in redemption also.

Verses 36-38. It seems that Paul felt the spirit of independence that would oppose, so he adds, “What? came the Word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.” But if any man be (willfully) ignorant, let him be ignorant. He must just go on in his willfulness, but in poverty of soul.

Verses 39, 40. Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order. Notice the three points: 1. “Follow after love” (verse 1; also chapter 16:14). 2. “Let all things be done unto edifying” (verse 26). 3. “Let all things be done decently and in order” (verse 40).

(To be continued)

The Sabbath and the Lord's Day

Holy as is the Sabbath, I have no hesitation in saying that the Lord’s Day with which the church has to do, is founded on deeper sanctity. The believer has now to beware, on the one hand, of confounding the Sabbath with the Lord’s Day, and on the other of supposing that because the Lord’s Day is not the Sabbath, it may therefore be turned to a selfish and worldly account. The Sabbath is the holy memorial of creation and the law; as the Lord’s Day is of grace and new creation in the resurrection of the Savior.

As Christians, we are neither of the old creation nor under the law, but stand on the totally different ground of Christ dead and risen. The Sabbath was for man and the Jew, the last day of the week, and one simply of rest to be shared with his ox and his ass. This is not the Christian idea, which begins the week with the Lord, gives the best to Him in worship, and is free to labor for Him to all lengths in the midst of the world’s sin and misery.

Testimony

Those of us who have learned Christ desire to spread the good news to others.

To do this, it is not necessary to go to a foreign field, for we have many loved ones and others all about us who have not received the treasure that is ours. All these we can help by our words, our walk, our prayers, and our earnest pleadings.

And while imparting to them the treasure we ourselves have received we can go on feeding upon the precious Word, which is a veritable mine of wealth.

This will keep fresh in us the wonderful fullness of the work and person of Christ, and we ourselves shall be like ever-bubbling fountains, full of perennial joys, because we are feeding upon the tender pastures and drinking of the quiet waters, profiting in our souls by constant contact with Christ in communion.

This precious Bread of Life (John 6:54), necessary before we could live at all, is now the food which gives us strength to live for our Lord.

Through the faithful study and efforts of older brethren, we are supplied with much reading matter that is helpful in our study of God’s precious Word. The Lord revealed Himself in a wonderful way to these faithful servants. They tasted deeply of the riches of the grace of God, as they searched the height and depth and length and breadth of the inexhaustible store that is in Christ.

In our feeble way let us pass on to others what, through grace, we ourselves have received, praying that in so doing, others may be helped and blessed, and we ourselves refreshed and strengthened.

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Tim. 2:15).

Out of Place

The church of God is out of place

In this dark world of sin,

She’s destined for a better land

Where sin has never been.

Her place is with her Head on high,

In scenes of purest light,

Where Jesus dwells her home shall be,

He is her whole delight.

The Jew is out of place as well—

The holy land is his,

He’s now a wanderer o’er the earth,

A by-word and a hiss.

In every tribe and every land,

He’s called “The wandering Jew;”

He’s crucified his rightful King,

He’s getting now his due.

The King is also out of place,

For in God’s Word we see

That, Jesus Christ of Nazareth

On David’s throne must be.

But soon He’ll come to claim His own,

His enemies put down,

As King o’er all creation reign,

Bedecked with many a crown.

And Satan, Christ’s great enemy,

Is out of place as well,

For his abode is far from God,

In deepest, darkest hell.

He’ll tempt the human race no more,

His power completely gone,

And he, compelled by power divine,

Jesus, as Lord, must own.

When all things find their destined place—

The church, the Jew, the King,

The enemy of all mankind—

Then heaven and earth will bring

Their sweet Hosannas unto Him

Before whose feet they fall,

And cast their crowns before His throne

And own Him Lord of all.

Babylon: Part 1

Let us look at Babylon in its past history, and consider how that name was suited to express the special evil that was to grow up out of the corruption of Christianity. In Genesis 10 we have the first mention of Babel. And there we have it connected with a willful man, who had first shown his cunning with regard to brute beasts, and who soon began to turn against his fellows all the craft and experience he had acquired in a lower sphere. Nimrod is the first person with whom you have Babel associated. It is man concentrating power in himself. But in the next chapter (Gen. 11) we have another idea. It is not only one man exalting himself and others subjected to him by fraud or force, but a grand effort of men gathering themselves together to build something permanent and strong and high a tower that would reach toward heaven, and gain them a name upon earth. Here, then, we have the two thoughts that are always more or less connected with Babylon. It may take the form of an individual who exalts himself or of men combining for some notable enterprise; or it may be a mixture of both principles.

Now this you have further and still more plainly developed, when you come down to the history of the Jewish nation. God called them out as a people, and gave them special privileges and blessings. They fell into idolatry, the sin which sprang from Babylon as its great and primitive source; and Babylon becomes the chief means of judgment for the people of God, and the scene of Judah’s captivity. There again we behold Nebuchadnezzar, the golden head of the image, answering to Nimrod, and the great city that he built, which answers to the tower of Babel—the two ideas being united, as indeed they soon became at first; for Babel was the beginning Nimrod’s kingdom. The natural heart covets present exaltation for man on the earth, and this, too, clothed with a religious sanction, but with an idolatrous intent.

Now the Holy Ghost in the New Testament takes up the term “Babylon” and applies it to the corruption that was to issue in professing Christendom. When God saves souls, He does not allow them to choose their own path in the world; still less can He own their choosing their own path in the church. He who understands his place as belonging to God has his will broken. He is privileged to treat his nature as a dead and evil thing; not on the ground of a slave working for something and because he must, but in the liberty of a son of God—of one who has been blessed by God, and who has the interest of his Father at heart. But it is not his Father’s will that at the present time he should meddle with the world, or have the a place in it. According to God’s mind world is not good enough for the Christian, because it is practically under the power of the enemy. There is a time coming when the world will be put under the children of God, when they will judge the world. But this can never be until Satan is set aside, and Christ publicly exalted over the earth as well as in heaven. Meanwhile the saints have to wait in faith and patience. And this is the argument which the apostle urges in 1 Corinthians 6, why brethren in Christ should have nothing to do with the world’s judgments now. It was beneath their dignity as children of God to carry their differences there; it was vain to try to reform the world. Such a thought never entered the apostle’s mind. For faith, while it delights in the deliverance of poor sinners, looks at the world with God as already judged, and only waiting for the execution of the sentence at Christ’s coming.

But while the apostle exhorts to subjection to the powers that be, he never says, You, brethren, that have posts of honor in the earth, you are to continue there. This would have been to defeat the object of God, whose children are not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world. For God is not now undertaking to govern the world, Save in His secret providence of course. When the kingdom of this world as a fact becomes His, He begins by judging the corrupters of the earth, and more particularly every iniquity done under the name of Christ. This is not what God does now. He is rather testing the souls of His people in a place of temptation, where everything is contrary to His name. If they are faithful, they will suffer persecution; if unfaithful, they may be made much of by the world. They may have its ease and honor, but they assuredly will be used by Satan to keep all quiet; for nothing furnishes such a sanction to evil as a good man who joins the world and gives it countenance. Remember Lot. He was in the gate of Sodom, the place where justice was administered. His position there was as dishonoring to God as it was miserable to himself. He had to be forced out of it at last; but even before he was taken out of Sodom, the well-watered plains had lost their value in his eyes. Remember also Lot’s wife.

His righteous soul was vexed with their unlawful deeds, he himself was the object of their taunts. “This one fellow,” said they, “came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge.” They saw the incongruity of his position, as worldly men generally are quick to perceive the failure of the believer. Alas, it is easy to understand how a man may be godly in the main, and yet found in circumstances where a Christian ought not to be, and that so far, he is not a true witness for God. Whether I look at the individual Christian or at the church, I see that God’s object is to have a testimony to His own glory in the world; to have those who are for Him, not in the way of putting down the world, much less of seeking to get the honor and riches of the world; but willing for Christ’s sake to abandon what they liked best, because they look not at the things which are seen, but at the unseen and eternal. This is grace’s triumph, and so far as it is true of us, we are real witnesses for God. On the other hand, if we are seeking to gain or retain the world along with Christ, the principle of Babylon is begun.

In Revelation 18 the voice from heaven says: “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (verse 4). The receiving of her plagues is not the divine motive for separation. Men would be anxious enough about that. But the great thing that God looks for from His people is this that they should not be partakers of her sins. I would put it to every Christian, How far is he in sympathy with God’s mind touching Babylon and its sins? How far does he feel the evil of it, and judge it?

Babylon does not seek heaven, but the earth not the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow, but to sit as a queen and to see no sorrow. Babylon is content with worldly exaltation. If you steer clear of this, Babylon has no attractions for you; and the present danger of every soul from Babylon is, the gradual caring for and allowance in Christians of what man values on the earth. Of late years there has been no little change in the thoughts of Christians as to the present enjoyment of prosperity and pleasure in this world. But there is amazing danger in it. For what is the great thought of it all? Man rising, progressing, exalting himself man showing what he can do, and how improve; and this is sought to be connected with the name and sanction of Christ! Alas! it is Babylon the great (verses 9-19). In her we see the end of the heart’s desire, along with Christ, to enjoy all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I do not wonder at an unconverted man seeking to make the world pleasant; Cain did it, and there is such a thing now as going in the way of Cain. These are the people that handle all sorts of musical instruments, and the artificers in brass and iron. It is true that these things sprang up in a very early hour of the world, but still the Spirit of God does not tell us for nothing that they were in the family of Cain, not in the family of Seth.

(To be continued)

Should we to gain the world’s applause,

Or to escape its harmless frown,

Refuse to countenance Thy cause,

And make Thy people’s lot our own,

What shame would fill us in that day

When Thou Thy glory wilt display.

The Coming of the Lord: 1 Thessalonians 4:16

The morning grays, the moment now is near,

When the archangel’s voice from heaven is heard,

When our loved Lord, descending, will appear,

To change and raise the ransomed by that Word.

What triumphs then! what songs our lips employ!

When Jesus’ love and beauty wake our praise,

When naught of sin or self to mar our joy,

Salvation’s song eternal we shall raise.

O wondrous theme! what wisdom of our God

To make His enemies supremely blest!

For thousand, thousand sinners, cleansed by blood,

In God’s own home above shall find their rest.

Awake, ye saints, awake, His coming nears;

Count all here loss (in Christ all things are yours);

By watching faithfully, when He appears,

Spending for Him these last few fleeting hours.

Correspondence: John 15:2; Conversion vs. Regeneration; Length of Gen. 1 Days

Question: Please explain John 15:2. H. H.

Answer: The real secret of the difficulty felt by so many in this scripture is that they seek to make it a question of life and security, whereas it is simply a question of fruit bearing. If we do not abide in the vine we shall prove fruitless branches, and all such branches the Husbandman removes from the place of fruit-bearing. The question of salvation is not touched.

Question: What is the difference between conversion and regeneration? G. G. H.

Answer: You must distinguish between “conversion” and “regeneration.” A man can be regenerated only once; he may be converted repeatedly. Hence when our Lord says to Peter, “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren,” He simply alludes to his restoration, after his terrible fall. What marvelous grace, that one who had so terribly fallen should be called to such high and holy work!

Question: What was the length of each day in Genesis 1? W. F. G.

Answer: We understand the word “day,” in the first chapter of Genesis, to mean simply our ordinary 24 hours; and we do not consider it scriptural to believe that each of those days may include a long period of time. But we must remember that, between the first verse of Genesis 1, and the commencement of the actual six days’ work, millions of years may have intervened, leaving ample room, most surely, for all the facts of geology. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Then we are told, “the earth” not the heaven “was without form and void.” We are not told how the earth fell into this state; but most surely God had not so created it. And then begins the record of the six days of creation. It is not the object of the Bible to teach us geology or astronomy; but we may rest assured that there is not a single sentence in that divine volume which collides with the facts of geology or any other science. We must, however, draw a very broad line of distinction between the facts of science, and the conclusions of scientific men. Facts are facts wherever you find them; but if you follow the conclusions of men, you may find yourself plunged in the dark and dreadful abyss of universal skepticism.

Do I Love the Bible?

While reading the hymns of one of the finest of the Christian poets of last century, I was greatly struck by the following verses:

“Some tell me that the Bible

Is not God’s sacred Word,

And brand as cunning fables

The records of the Lord;

That Moses is a fiction,

That prophets never spake,

And e’en the blessed gospels

As myths I must forsake.”

Written, in all probability, three-quarters of a century ago, we cannot but be struck by the fact that the infidel attacks on the Bible—on Moses, the Prophets, and the gospels—of the present day, are clearly nothing new. They must have been then as virulent, if perhaps not quite so intellectual, as they are today. Hence we may see that the Bible has always been an object of attack. Why should this be? Let us read on:

“There was a tame I listened

To those old serpent lies,

My foolish heart sore tempted

The Bible to despise;

Its holiness rebuked me,

Its precepts crossed my will,

I wished to silence conscience,

And thus my lusts fulfill.”

Does this not give us a very true explanation of man’s hatred of the Bible? This writer said that “its precepts crossed my will”; and, in so saying, he states that which every conscience, enlightened by the truth, admits as thoroughly correct. Our “will” is the battle ground; but he continues:

“I cared not for the Saviour,

This present world I loved,

Its lust, and wealth, and glory,

Alone my passions moved;

I eared not for a Heaven,

I hoped there were no Hell,

I wished for no Hereafter,

I loved my sins too well.”

Here was the realm of his “will”; here his desires ran riot. A Savior, a Heaven, had no kind of attraction for him. The present was enough! Military glory (for he was an officer), and the pleasures of a mere animal life—these sufficed. As to the future—ah! he only “hoped there were no Hell,” and doubtless closed his eyes and thoughts to the possibility.

But suppose there should be a Hell, and a Judgment Bar, and God to face?

God—the sadly unknown God—He who loves the poor guilty sinner, spite of all his sins, and who, in deep and measureless mercy, seeks his salvation! This is God! At last he cries:

“His mercy still pursued me,

While wandering far away,

His hand with sickness smote me,

To wound, but not to slay;

His Spirit then convinced me,

And brought my guilt to light,

I saw my lost condition

How awful was the sight!

The Serpent’s crafty teachings,

The heart’s deceitful lies;

The skeptic’s subtle reasonings,

All vanished from my eyes.

Naked, and lost, and guilty,

Beneath God’s searching eye,

Eternity before me,

O! whither could I fly?”

Quite so— “naked, lost, and guilty” —a fact true of each individual from king to pauper, in the entire family of man! When this is known in the conscience, by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, and when such an one, thus convicted, places himself beneath the eye of God, then whither can he fly! Yes, whither?

“If you would flee from God, flee to Him!” The God of holiness is the God of salvation, and the penitent, who flings himself on this God, is met with a kiss, a robe, a ring, and sandals, together with a feast of perfect satisfaction.

But it is the sense of guilt that is the deathblow to skeptical reasonings about the Bible, reasonings which are but the miserable lies of the heart of man, and the doctrines of the serpent. God and skepticism cannot co-exist.

Well, then, whither did he fly? He fled to God.

“O, then what beauteous sunshine

Burst on my raptured sight,

It chased away the darkness,

And all was life and light.

I saw how grace and glory

In God’s free gospel shone,

Before the Cross my terrors

And unbelief were gone.”

Just so! The cross of Christ is the solution of the stupendous mystery. There the awful guilt of man, in his inborn hatred of God, reached its appalling height. “Sitting down,” after having done all that the most malicious ingenuity and the most inconceivable cruelty could invent, “they watched Him there.” Ponder that statement (Matt. 27:36). That was man! He could sit down to look and stare on the agony of the blessed “Man of Sorrows.” Then, again, on that cross He was “made sin,” bearing the judgment of God against it; for He suffered not only as a Martyr, but as a willing Victim also He, sinless, and therefore capable of bearing, atoningly, the sins of others He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

Who can fully appreciate the meaning of that cry? None but God.

Marvelous cross! Fit meeting-place of all these antagonisms guilt, grace; hatred, love; sin, holiness; iniquity, righteousness; man, God!

“God so loved the world!”

Therefore a true vision of the cross chases all unbelief away. It is the perfect cure of infidelity, and it dissolves every doubt.

There I learn myself in all my fathomless filth and vileness; there I see God in all His illimitable love and grace. There I apprehend atonement, and know that “the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth from all sin.” Glorious solution! “Beauteous sunshine” indeed.

What of the once despised Bible now?

“I love the blessed Bible,

I know it all is true,

It is a faithful mirror,

In which myself I view;

It shows me all my weakness,

My folly, and my shame,

But makes thereby more precious

My Savior’s grace and name.”

More need not be said! The story of such conversions, in poetry or in prose, is ever welcome—conversions which spring from the written Word a God a book once scouted, hated, rejected; but now cherished, loved, and owned. Such is a true conversion to God.

Reader, are you among the Bible-haters (ponder the question), or among the Bible-lovers? The test is most important.

“I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.” (Job 23:12).

Come Unto Me

“Come to Me, all ye who labor,”

And by care are sorely pressed;

I will bear your heavy burden,

And will give you perfect rest.

Be that burden what it may be,

Sin or sorrow, grief or pain,

Only lay thy load on Jesus,

Full relief shall be thy gain.

Who is He that bids thee do so,

Bids thee cast on Him thy load?

He it is who knows thy sorrows,

Son of Man, and Son of God.

‘Tis for thee He died and liveth,

Now He sits on yonder throne;

He can feel thy deepest anguish,

And can hear thy feeblest groan.

Cast thou all thy care upon Him

Who, in pity, cares for thee;

Then thy heart shall lose its burden,

And thy weary soul be free.

Now relieved of sin’s oppression,

And of every load of care,

Thou wilt love and praise thy Savior

Till thou meet Him in the air—

Meet’st Him on the coming morning,

Day of endless jubilee,

When, in full and blissful union,

Thou with Him shalt ever be.

Scripture Study: 1 Corinthians 14, Part 2

Speaking with tongues was given only to some, whereas every Christian has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him (Rom. 8:9; John 7:39). The Christian has believed the gospel of his salvation, and has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him. He does not pray for the Spirit; he prays by the Spirit (Rom. 8:26). He says, “Abba, Father” by the Spirit (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6).

In Acts 2 the converts did not speak with tongues, nor in Acts 8. It was the preachers that spoke with tongues, so that all could hear in their own tongue the wonderful works of God.

In Acts 10:44 the Gentile converts spoke with tongues, and magnified God, so that the Jewish prejudice was overcome, and Peter, who had the keys of the Kingdom, commanded in the name of the Lord that they should be baptized into the assembly on earth.

In Acts 19, Paul found some twelve disciples of John the Baptist who had never learned that the Holy Spirit had come down to dwell in the assembly. He told them of Christ Jesus, and baptized them in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and laid his hands on them; then the Holy Ghost came upon them and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Among all the many conversions narrated in the Acts, these are the only three eases of speaking with tongues, and in each case what they said was fully understood.

Miracles, gifts of healing, speaking with tongues, have all passed away as no more needed. There is no gospel of healing. There are thousands of sick Christians, and no promise in the Word that they were to believe to be healed. We have all seen answers to our prayers in some eases for our dear sick ones, but not always, as Paul, Timothy, Epaphroditus, Trophimus, and others (see 1 Cor. 11:30; 1 John 5). The Christian’s blessings are heavenly; he has many mercies here as well.

What is called speaking with tongues in this day is against all Scripture, and the influence under which those who have willingly given themselves up to, is not of the Spirit of God.

Satan has always imitated what God does; he used the magicians to withstand Moses; he set up false gods to worship, so that he could keep men away from the true God. God sent prophets; Satan sent false prophets. God sowed wheat; Satan sowed tares—imitation wheat (Matt. 13). God has wise virgins; Satan has foolish ones (Matt. 25). The Lord sent apostles and prophets; Satan does so also (see Matt. 7:22; 2 Cor. 11:13; 2 Peter 2:1; Rev. 2:2).

He now imitates Christ’s miracles. We see them wrought by the enemies of God so-called Christian Science, priests and faith healers. Compare Acts 2:22 for the Lord’s miracles, and 2 Thessalonians 2:9 for Satan’s. In the future day he has his trinity also. The beast, the false prophet and the dragon, and lots of miracles then (Rev. 13:12-14; 16:13, 14).

The Lord’s coming is near; Satan’s miracles are showing themselves, and the poor world is more and more blinded (1 Tim. 4:1, 2; 2 Tim. 3:1-13), and now we would earnestly entreat any dear child of God, who is entangled in any of these snares, and has given himself up to this influence to be led, that he turn to the Lord Jesus, and ask Him to deliver him from what is not of Himself; from what is ruining the souls of so many. It is not the influence of the Spirit of God; it is not what is in the Word of God.

Dear blinded one, look to the Lord Jesus; He alone can set you free. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7).

A Christian wife, in the presence of her husband, said to the writer of this, “My husband’s prayers do me no good now. When we go on our knees, this influence comes on him, then I do not understand what he says.” When asked if he understood what he was saying, he replied to this effect:

“No, but a man said that I might be praying for someone in a foreign country who speaks that language.”

How sad it is that dear children of God should be so deluded, and the praise and adoration of His dear saints hindered from going up to God who delights to hear His Son well-spoken of.

Our only path of safety is in keeping humble before the Lord, and looking to Him to keep us true to His Word and Name.

(Continued from page 16)

To Young Believers

“Grow in Grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18).

I want to say a few plain things to those who are young in the way. We are all too prone to settle down quietly with what through grace we have received, and to forget that there is such a thing as “increasing by the knowledge of God.” A child is not born to be always a child. Its parents and friends would not be satisfied if it always remained a babe in arms, and would be much disappointed if it did not grow in size, strength and intelligence day by day. Thus it is in the family of God. The apostle, in writing to the children of God, says:

“I write unto you, (little) children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name’s sake.” (1 John 2:12).

This is the wonderful privilege of even the babes in the family of God. It is a privilege common to all in the family, whatever their growth and stature may be. Thus we are told in Luke 1:77, We have the “knowledge of salvation by the remission of our sins,” and it is thus at the threshold of the Father’s house, and the starting-point of the heavenly way.

Are you all clear as to this? Perhaps some are asking, “How may we be sure that our sins are forgiven?”

A very important question, but thanks be to God, the answer is

Clear and Distinct.

“Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give... forgiveness of sins.” (Acts 5:31).

“Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins.” (Acts 13:38).

These two scriptures point us upward to heaven, to the throne where the risen and exalted Savior sits at. God’s right hand. Sent by God, He came forth from the Father to accomplish His will. He descended into the depths of woe and anguish under the judgment of God for His glory when “He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.” “He died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” He was buried and thus His life was ended here. But in all this He was

Our Substitute.

“Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” (1 Pet. 3:18).

God has raised Him from the dead.

“Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more.” The whole black past is not only obliterated from the eye of God, but the history of the sinful race is closed forever, and the risen Lord becomes the Head of a new race, and the center of a new circle of blessing on which God’s eye ever rests with favor and complacency. We are brought into relation to this new scene by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and it is God’s will that we should enter in spirit into these divine realities, and thus no longer “live unto ourselves, but unto Him who died for us and rose again.” We look up and see the One who bore our sins in full acceptance and glory at God’s right hand. Nothing can touch Him there, nor can He ever change.

“I change, He changes not,

God’s Christ can never die;

His love my certain resting-place,

He lives for me on high.”

“God is satisfied with Jesus,

I am satisfied as well.”

Here there is perfect agreement and perfect rest.

Babylon: Part 2

Every child of man stands responsible to God whether converted or not, to own his outcast state as a sinner; he has no right to drown his conscience in the pleasures and glory of the world. But bad as this may be, the thing that God most hates, and that He will judge in an awful and public manner, even in this world, is the tacking on the name of Christ to the indulgences of worldly lusts. Is it not the desire, even of many Christians, to have the grandeur and riches of the world at their back? I do not doubt that they heartily wish to have people converted, but they would like them to bring their earthly influence along with them. This is the spirit of Babylon. What the Lord looks for from us is doing the will of God, suffering for it, and taking it patiently. Any of these things which the heart covets will be found to involve the will of man. There is not a single position of distinction or of glory in the world but what requires a man to give up a good conscience towards God. In other words, you cannot be a member of the world, and act faithfully as a member of Christ. If you value and wish to follow the world, you will make all sorts of excuses, and argue for a compromise; but this only shows how far the leaven of Babylon has affected your soul.

God gathers souls round Jesus that is, Jesus-rejected, and gone up to heaven. Therefore the church is based on these two fundamental truths. She has the cross, and she is united to Christ in heavenly glory by the Holy Ghost sent down. And the cross and heavenly glory will not mingle with the world. This is the very thing that puts my heart to the test. If Christ is my object, I shall not want the world; I shall be looking up, it may be feebly, but still looking up to heaven; and there will be the one object that God uses to strengthen me by giving me willingness to suffer in the consciousness of having Christ in the glory. Whenever the church craves after something else, as the esteem and honor of the world, or even social improvement, she denies her proper glory.

Popery mistook the true character of the church, followed the Jewish system, and thought that people ought to bring their gold and silver and precious stones and goodly things to honor the Lord with (see verses 12-14). But God was wiser than men, and shows that all this pretense of honoring God is a mere sham, and that what people really want is to honor themselves. They are seeking what attracts and makes them an object of attraction, whilst they cover up their real object under the plea of the name of Christ. This is what God will judge, and what infects the whole of Christendom increasingly before judgment comes. You may ask me how that can be possible, when there are so many societies growing up, and such an active energy, religious and moral, dealing with the various forms of public evil throughout the world. I am not telling you what I see, but what God’s Word shows—the all but universal prevalence before the close of a corrupt system, which plainly has its center in Rome, though taking a larger compass, so as to embrace every religious institution which, however opposed it may seem to Popery now, does not link a soul with heaven. (Babylon is not only herself “the great harlot,” but “the mother of the harlots and the abominations of the earth.” There are more of kindred corruptions in religion, though Rome is pre-eminent, “the mother and mistress,” as she claims, of others). There is no safety for any person who is building on the earth. The heavenly saints will be taken away before the judgment falls upon Babylon. They are not referred to in that word, “Come out of her, My people.” This is spoken of God’s earthly people by and by. But at the same time, its principle fully applies, for the essence of Babylon is the union of the world with the name of Christ. “Wherefore come not from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”

The Lord will not hold any man guiltless who has a conscience of what is due to Christ and does not follow it. To such I would say, this is what you will prove: you will go on for a time and be troubled with the truth, for it will condemn you; but ere long you will find that all taste for it is lost; you will tire of it and even turn against it, and then will become morally ripe for Babylon when it bids seriously for you. If I am guilty of the spirit of Babylon, this is what God looks at, as far as I am concerned. The person who travels in her path cannot but be a partaker of her sin. And who so oppose the truth, as those that corrupt it? Who so hate, as those that are condemned of themselves?

There is a great work, not only of dissolving and breaking up what is old, but uniting and amalgamating for various purposes, going on now; and as this was found in Babylon at the very beginning (Gen. 11), so, in the long run, it will be found to serve the purpose of that great city before the Lord God has forever judged her.

There will be, I believe from various scriptures, an astonishing mixture of professing Christianity with Judaism: and the latter, as judged by the new and full revelation of Christ in the New Testament, is no better than heathenism (Gal. 4). We know how tender the Spirit was in bearing with the weakness, the scruples, the attachment to old religious habits in such of the Christians as had been Jews (Rom. 14); but it was a very different thing when teachers sought to impose Jewish ordinances on the Gentile converts. The same spirit treated a ritual borrowed by Gentiles from Jews as the same thing in principle as old and open pagan idolatry.

“But now, after that we have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements of the world, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.”

Popery is the most salient and hateful exhibition of this amalgam now; but greater abominations shall appear. Sacramentalism and rationalism, in these and other Protestant lands, are each provoking the other to excesses previously unexampled. When too, was ever, known such public indifference, which desires leisure for commerce abroad and social development at home? The result will appear in the last stages of Babylon and the beast.

The Lord grant that, instead of merely looking without and occupying ourselves with condemning others, we may take good care that our own souls are preserved from the contaminations of Babylon. May our affections be kept true to Himself the only real guard against the seductions of the enemy! We are espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

(Continued from page 26)

The Obedience of Christ

We have noticed of late, and facts have come before us, where young converts, and, indeed, older Christians, have been ensnared by the enemy with a spirit of lawlessness.

“O! we are saved now; we are Christians; we are not under law; can we not in many things do our own will? Why should we be so narrow and strict? Can we not go where we like, and hear what we like?” And if all this is not said and done, yet what a large portion of our time is spent in doing our own, will?

Perhaps nothing has been more seriously forgotten than this: that the Christian is sanctified by “the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” We are not set apart, as a nation, from Egypt, unto the obedience of the law of Moses, to stand before that mount, to tremble beneath the sound of the righteous claims of a holy God, (“And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake”); neither are we set apart to be a struggling people, striving in vain to keep the law of Moses. We are not sanctified, or set apart merely to obedience, but to the obedience of Christ. (1 Pet. 1:2).

What, then, was the obedience of Christ? Was it a mere question of right and wrong with Him? Had He to use His private judgment as to what was right and wrong? Did He avoid stealing because it was wrong to do so? What was the principle on which He ever acted?

Let us hear Him on the subject: “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My heart.” (Psa. 40:7, 8). What a sight is this! A person on this earth, Jesus of Nazareth, set apart from eternity to come and do the will of God; and, in His case, that will to reach to our redemption by His blood. But in every act He could say, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God.” “For I came down from heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.” (John 6:48).

And in answer to this unmixed delight to do the Father’s will, in every thought and act, a voice was heard from heaven, which said, “Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased.”

To this obedience the believer is set apart by the Spirit; not the trembling, quaking bondage of Sinai, but the obedience of Him, who could thus say, “I delight to do Thy will, O My God.”

In the obedience of Christ, then, we see two things a nature that delighted to do the will of God, and power to do that will. He never could possibly have said, “How to perform that which is good I find not.” The delight of His heart, and every action of His devoted life were well pleasing to the Father. No leaven within, no spot without. His was obedience perfect before God. Such is, then, the standard set before us; such the obedience unto which we are set apart, sanctified. All the rest of mankind doing their own will. Christians separated from them, to delight to do the will of God their Father.

Is it not evident, then, in order to do this, there must also be the same two things in the believer? There must be a nature that delights to do the will of the Father. That nature must be holy; or it cannot delight to do the holy will of God. But man, in his fallen condition, is the very reverse of this; and circumcision, baptism and religious ceremonies, do not change his evil nature. The blessed Lord teaches he must be born wholly anew. He must have a new nature. And even, then the other thing is needed—power.

Such a case is supposed and described in Romans 7. He is born again, has a new nature, can truly say, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man,” but he has no power. He says, “for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” Does not this show the need we have, not only of a new nature wholly from above—of God—but also the absolute need of power; that is, the indwelling of the Holy Ghost; “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” This we find is the all-important subject of Romans 8:1-17.

It may be asked, But has not the believer two natures; and is there not conflict still with an evil nature? And if we are set apart to such a perfect example—the obedience of Christ—can we say that we do always the things that please the Father? Can we say that we have no sin? (1 John 1:8). He knew no sin! Can we say so? Surely that perfect copy is placed before our eyes; but can we say we have never failed—can we say, even as believers, “We have not sinned”? Should we not “make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us”? All most true; and hence mark the divine perfection of the Word of God: we are not only set apart by the Spirit unto the obedience of Christ, but the sanctification of the Spirit [is] unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.

It is impossible to enjoy the power of the Holy Ghost for obedience, unless we receive the seal, the witness of the Spirit to the infinite and immutable value of the blood of Christ. O, sweet relief! O, lasting victory! The blood of Jesus the answer to all that I am, and all that I have done. Not like the blood of bulls and goats that needed repetition, and never purged the conscience; but the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth from all sin. Set apart to that, to the sprinkling efficacy of the blood of Christ. What a peace! God says, “and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Believer, is it not thus written? Is not this your place?

We press, then, this much neglected, blessed truth the obedience of Christ. O, what need of prayer and searching of the Word of God, and what dependence on the Holy Spirit, both to know and power to do, yea, to delight to do the will of God. What have we done this day because it is His will?

I Am Redeemed

Once a slave to sin and Satan,

Now redeemed and brought to God,

Heir of God, joint heir with Jesus,

Glorious triumph of His blood.

I’m redeemed, but not with silver,

I’m redeemed, but not with gold,

With the precious blood of Jesus—

Sweetest story ever told.

With the blood of Christ redeemed,

Precious price beyond compare;

With the blood of Calvary’s victim—

‘Twas for me He suffered there.

All my sins were laid upon Him,

Jesus bore them on the tree

I’m redeemed to God forever,

Through the work of Calvary.

Soon in scenes of brightest glory,

With the whole redeemed throng,

I will sing redemption’s story,

Which the ages will prolong.

It Is My Love to Thee, Not Thy Love to Me

One day, soon after my conversion, when trials had come almost without intermission, and difficulties had arisen in my path continually, as evening closed, I threw myself upon my knees, and said, in my helplessness and sorrow,

“O Lord, I do not know that I have any love to Thee.”

It seemed as though the tiny spark in my heart which should have burst forth into a kindling flame, had been well-nigh quenched by the day’s trials.

As the words left my lips, for I know I spoke them audibly, another voice, quick as a flash of lightning, and tender and gentle, and full of sweetness, said to me:

“It is My love to thee, not thy love to Me.” Ah! I had been measuring the uncertain beating of my heart’s love to Him by the side of His boundless love, who declares, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.” (Jer. 31:3).

That evening I learned a lasting lesson; the love of Jesus to me is outside any love I have, or may have for Him. I was reminded again from God’s own Word, that Jesus “was in all points tempted like as we are,” sin apart, and that in Him now “we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” (Heb. 4:15). How His wondrous love and tenderness drew my heart to Him none can know except those who in similar trials have realized the preciousness of His “love which passeth all understanding.”

Reader, if you are discouraged by your sense of love, and faithfulness to Christ, look outside of yourself, lift up your eyes to Him who has loved you, so fully, so richly, so wondrously as to die for you, and who, now He has risen again ever liveth to make intercession for you; and rest satisfied in the ocean of His unchanging love.

Soon Christ the Lord Will Come

Soon Christ the Lord will come

With shout in air,

To call His people home

To meet Him there,

Then, in His glory bright, we’ll see Him shine,

And know the fullness of His love divine.

E’er long we’ll hear Him say,

Arise and come,

And gladly will we go

To be at home;

Forever we will be with Him above,

And prove the wondrous fullness of His love.

Lord, haste that happy day

When Thou wilt see

The travail of Thy soul,

And happy be,

When we, in Thine own likeness will arise.

And meet Thee, blessed Savior, in the skies.

We mourn Thine absence, Lord,

And long to be

Free from all taint of sin,

At home with Thee;

For never will our hearts be satisfied

Until we see Thee as the One who died.

Correspondence: Instrumental Music in Our Meetings

Question: Why is it wrong, or not suitable for us to have instrumental music in our meetings when the Scriptures speak, in the Psalms and other places, of David and other saints, of employing harps and trumpets and cymbals in the service of the Lord? And in the future they will praise His name in the dance, and sing praises unto Him with the timbrel and harp. (Psa. 149). ENQUIRERS.

Answer: Israel was and shall be in the future God’s earthly people. The veil shut them out from God’s immediate presence, and in the future, in the new temple during the reign of Christ, there will be doors answering the purpose of the veil. They therefore have not the nearness that we, the church of God, have; they have not the intimate relationship of members of the body of Christ or of children of God, the Father. Ours is a spiritual relationship, and, therefore calls for spiritual worship and intercourse with God. And it is by the Holy Spirit dwelling in us that we worship. In John 4:23, 24, “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth;” again, Ephesians 5:18, “Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord:” again, Philippians 3:3, “We are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit (here it is by the Holy Spirit. See N. T.), and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” Again, Colossians 3:10, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another; in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Again, in Hebrews 13:10-16, we find our heavenly altar which the earthly people could not eat of. Verse 15 says, “By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually; that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”

This worship is offered in the holy of holies, the immediate presence of God, which is the Christian’s place of worship (Heb. 10:19-22). Again, 1 Peter 2:5, “Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” Every New-Testament scripture is spiritual worship from the death and resurrection of Christ; and the absence of instrumental music makes one feel instinctively that such would be out of place in the service of God for Christians.

The camp in Hebrews 13 was Judaism. It recognized man in the flesh. The death of Christ, now risen and glorified, put an end to this to every intelligent Christian. Paul, the Apostle, wrote, “I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live;” and again, Colossians 3:3, “Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” We are dead with Christ and risen with Christ. So we are called on to go “outside the camp unto Him” bearing His reproach; for Christendom is now such a leavened mass that Christians who know their place “in Christ” must needs seek a separate path through it, if they would walk with the Lord. (See 2 Tim. 2:19).

Let me remind you that we belong to Christ in heaven, and are therefore heavenly. Our calling, our sacrifice, our priesthood, our altar, are all heavenly.

What a lowering of the truth it would therefore be to bring in music to please the ear of man according to the flesh, and not have it in the Spirit. Israel’s worship was display and show to please the flesh. We are to sing with the Spirit and with the understanding also.

May we ever seek to worship Him in the ordered way, the only way to please Him to whom we belong.

Could we consistently, with our heavenly calling, use in our service in the gospel what God has left out as unsuited to Him in worship in His presence, and think it suited to Him in His service in the gospel, either to children or adults? Nay rather, may we ever seek through grace what is suited for His presence and pleasing to Him.

Only Believe

Getting into the train one evening on my way home from a meeting, a young man accosted me, making some remark about the unusually mild winter we were experiencing.

Gathering from this that the Lord might have me respond, by speaking to him of matters of eternal importance, I was soon led to say that the great thing for any of us was to be all right for the next world while we were journeying on through this; to be ready to leave this at any moment we might be called away; and as this life was uncertain, how important it was to see to it at once.

He acknowledged the force of this, and seemed very open to hear more, saying he would try to be ready.

We were on our way to L. which he hoped to reach very soon.

“Now,” I answered, “if you have to be in L. by such a time, would all your trying ever get you there?”

“No,” he replied.

“Well, then, how do you get to L.?”

“By the train,” said he.

“And what did you do?”

“I got into it, and sat down, trusting it to take me there,” was the substance of his reply.

“And what readiness did you require?”

“I got in, just as I am.”

“Well, now,” I said, “listen to me. You want to get to heaven when you leave this world. Christ is like the train; He can take you there, and He is the only One who can. You are welcome to Him, just as you are, only trust Him; salvation is by ‘faith that is in Him’ (Acts 26:18). Your trying will not help you or fit you—

‘No hard works He bids thee do;

All the fitness He requireth,

Is to feel your need of Him.’

And why? Because He did all the necessary work once for all; finishing it upon the cross, and dying there for our sins (1 Cor. 15:3). Rising again from the dead, He has thrown open the door wide to all. And, just as you entered the train, Christ stands and says, ‘I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.’

“Now,” I added, “do you hope you are in the train?”

“No,” he replied, “I know I am.”

“And,” I answered, “I know I am in Christ, and so may you. Only trust Him, as simply as you do the train, and without delay.”

“Well,” he still answered again, but earnestly, “I will try.”

“That will not do,” I said.

“Well,” he said, “I do hope to be right.”

“That will not do.”

“Well,” said he, “what is it then?”

The answer was, “Believe in Christ, only believe.”

“Well,” he replied, “I will believe, I will believe;” and he shook my hand warmly.

My parting word was, “Then, do believe in Him.”

God knows whether this was a decisive moment for that young man. He said,

“I wish you were going further with me.”

However, dear reader, think over this little incident. May it lead you to take your place before God, just as you are, trusting Christ, the only way to heaven, to find out the efficacy of His shed blood as that which cleanseth you from all sin. He says, “I am the way;” “I am the door.” Do enter in; only believe,

There's a Savior for You!

Afar off from God on the broad downward road,

The soul may have wandered ‘neath sin’s heavy load;

Yet still there’s a message for Gentile and Jew,

And this is its purport—There’s a Savior for you!

Though burdened with sin, and though laden with care,

E’en now there is hope, so you need not despair;

For Jesus has met all the penalty due

To sin; and, in glory—He’s the Savior for you!

O, why quench your thirst at the rivers of earth,

By drinking from streams of unsanctified mirth?

O, why not the world and its pleasures eschew,

And heed the glad tidings—There’s a Savior for you?

A Savior for you. O, how precious the word

That God hath declared Him both Savior and Lord!

He’s finished the work God assigned Him to do,

And now, rest assured—There’s a Savior for you!

Ah! soon will this day of God’s favor be o’er,

When He will forever have shut to the door;

How bitterly, then, all the past you’ll review,

In hearing no longer—There’s a Savior for you!

Indifference

Indifference is a sin of no ordinary kind; it is an offense of great magnitude; it is pure and simple wickedness. To rightly estimate this, we must call to mind what it is that men treat with indifference.

It is the claims of God that are set at naught, and the love of God that is despised. The gift of the Son of God, His work of infinite love at Calvary, the glory which that work has thrown open, and all the present blessings of the salvation of God, are so many trifles to the indifferent sinner; he can afford to treat them with contemptuous disregard, if not disdain.

After all the resources of divine love have been taxed to the utmost, after the heart of God has told itself out in the most wonderful way; after all the treasures of heavenly grace have been presented; after the invitation has gone forth in its fullness— “Come, for all things are now ready” —the insulting answer which goes back to the giver of the feast is:

“I pray Thee have me excused”; I have other and more important matters in hand; I cannot come. There is more wickedness in this than in all the crimes that stain the pages of any prison’s calendar.

Reader, forget not that

“Into the depths of endless woe

Rejectors of the Savior go;

Forbid the thought that you, who read,

Should longer have no sense of need.”

Four Bright Jewels

There are four bright Jewels in the crown of forgiveness. The first is a full forgiveness. Whoever God forgives, He forgives all every sin be it ever so dark and deep.

“The Blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7). “Our God will abundantly pardon.” It is a full forgiveness.

The second Jewel also sparkles; it is “freeness.” Yes, thank God, forgiveness is free. Free.

“I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake.” It is a free forgiveness.

It is neither goodness in man that makes God willing; nor yet evil in man that makes Him unwilling to forgive. It is only and entirely “for His own sake” (His love), that He pardons the guilty sinner. The words in every language which express pardon and forgiveness, all imply a free gift.

We have a third Jewel in this crown: Christ’s forgiveness is final. No after charges. No blotting out today and writing down again tomorrow. The sins of a believer are “cast behind God’s back into the very depths of the sea.”

But there is yet one more Jewel in this crown. Forgiveness is a present blessing. It is not something in prospect, but for present possession. It is not a mere plank on which to cross the stormy waters of Jordan at death, but a staff on which to lean all our journey through life. It is not a promissory note payable in the next world, but a treasure possessed and enjoyed now in this world.

Unconverted men take a different view of forgiveness. They think about it only in connection with the time when they come to die, not before; they only hope to be forgiven then.

Fellow sinner, sin is no trifle, or fancy, but a dread reality. And thank God, “forgiveness” of sin is also no mere fancy, but a grand truth. It is our first, our greatest need, and obtained only through accepting the substitutionary work of this Man Christ Jesus.

“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.” (John 10:27, 28).

Father, We Bless Thy Holy Name

Father, we bless Thy holy name

For love, so full, so free,

That gave Thy Son for us to die

On Calvary’s cruel tree.

We bless Thee for the wondrous thought

That us to save from loss,

Thy Son, the Object of Thine heart,

Should die upon the cross.

The thought was Thine, the purpose, too,

The plan was all Thine own,

That we, as given to Thy Son,

Might share His glorious throne.

With grateful hearts we lowly bow,

And worship and adore,

And soon, mid scenes of purest light,

We’ll praise for evermore.

Scripture Study: 1 Corinthians 15

The resurrection, especially of the saints, is the subject of this chapter. Some were so blinded by Satan as to say that there is no resurrection of the dead. This undermined the truth of the gospel; therefore the apostle enters fully into it to recover them, and to establish them in the truth, that they might be “steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that their labor is not in vain in the Lord” (verse 58).

Verses 1, 2. “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory (or hold fast) what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.” It would indeed be in vain, if Christ be not raised. For the comfort of some trembling ones, we remark, that no believer can believe in vain, now that Christ is risen, living, and glorified at God’s right hand—the proof that God is satisfied, and that we are justified (Rom. 5:1).

Verses 3, 4. “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” This is the first great proof. Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophets (Luke 24:26, 27, 44-47) all bear abundant witness to the atoning death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. To deny it, is to deny the whole Word of God. Every one must believe it, or they cannot be saved (Acts 4:12); and none can be lost who believe on Him (John 10:9; Rom. 10:9). His word to the believer now is, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” (John 14:19). What full assurance this gives! We have boldness now for the day of judgment, “because as He is, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17).

Verses 5-8. The apostle mentions other witnesses who had seen Christ risen: Cephas, the twelve, five hundred brethren at once, many of them living at the time Paul wrote; then James, then all the apostles, and lastly Paul saw Him in the glory of God. A sevenfold, or complete witness.

Verses 8-10. But the apostle cannot let this pass without reflecting on the grace that saved one so unworthy, and made him an apostle, who in his own mind was the least of the apostles, and was not worthy to be called an apostle, because, as he said, “I persecuted the assembly of God,” and added, “By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”

Verses 11-19. But it was the same blessed gospel that Paul and the other apostles preached, and which the Corinthians had believed, and if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how false the thought that there is no resurrection. If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen, then the preaching was in vain, and the believing was all in vain, and the apostles were false witnesses of God, for they testified of God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not, for if the dead rise not, then is Christ not raised: and if Christ be not raised, their faith is vain: they were yet in their sins, and consequently the martyrs, who had fallen asleep in Christ, had perished. If Christ was not risen there was no salvation. “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” The Christian’s prospect is suffering here, and glory to come.

Verses 20-28 are a parenthesis, giving fuller explanation. “But now is Christ risen from (among) the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.” He is viewed as man who has undergone death, and God has raised Him by His favor and power, to bring Him back from among the dead, as those also who are His own, possessing life in Him, will also be raised from among the dead. He was the One who had in grace gone down into death to accomplish and to display the deliverance of man in Christ from the power of Satan and death, verifying the work of atonement as complete and showing openly in man the victory over all the power of the enemy.

“Thus Christ arose from among all the other dead (for death could not hold Him), and established the glorious principle of this divine and complete deliverance, and became the first fruits of them that slept, who having His life, await the exercise of His power, which will awaken them by virtue of His Spirit that dwells in them. It needed to be by man.”

Verse 21. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” “No doubt, the power of God can call men back from the tomb. He will do so, acting in the person of His Son, to whom all judgment is given. But that will not be a victory gained in human nature over death, which held men captive. This it is which Christ has done. He was willing to be given up to death for us, in order (as man) to gain the victory over death, and over him who had the power of death. By man came death; by man, resurrection. Glorious victory! complete triumph! We come out of the state where sin and its consequences fully reached us. Evil cannot enter the place into which we are brought out. We have crossed the frontiers forever. Sin, the power of the enemy, remains outside this new creation, which is the fruit of the power of God after evil had come in, and which the responsibility of man shall not mar. It is God who maintains it is connection with Himself: it depends on Him.”

Verse 22. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Outside the garden of Eden, the fallen Adam became the father of sinful man. In resurrection-life Christ became the Head of the new creation, which believers have part in now. Christ, in whom is life, communicated it to them; it is life in the power of resurrection, without which they could not have it (John 12:24). He would have remained alone. But He died for their sins, and now He imparts life to them—all their sins being forgiven them. It is true, the wicked dead will be raised by Christ, but that is not the subject here. His power will accomplish it.

Verse 23. “But every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming.” Those who are in Christ are quickened according to the power of the life which is in Him; it is the resurrection of life, the resurrection of the blessed and holy, those to whom He had already given eternal life, and this power which He exercises in raising the saints, goes on till all things are subdued unto Himself (Phil. 3:21). Then cometh the end when He takes the kingdom and acts as King, His power subduing all things to Himself; during which all power and all authority shall be abolished, then He delivers up the kingdom to God, even the Father. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Death and Hades are cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14). This is the second death; this is what is said in this chapter about the unsaved. It is not annihilation, it is the lake of fire. The Son of Man is the judge of all. His power raises from the dead, and thus death is destroyed.

They are passed over here in silence, only that death’s dominion is gone, for even the unsaved are then raised from death—that is the resurrection of judgment (John 5:29 tells of resurrection of saved and unsaved). When the Lord has put all His enemies under His feet, and put down all rule and authority and power till the last enemy is destroyed, and the kingdom rule is finished, then He gives it back to the Father. His mediation is needed no longer; all is reconciled to God, and sin’s terrible results are in the lake of fire. Then righteousness dwells in the new heavens and the new earth; all God’s glory made good, then the Son takes His place still as a Man, subject to the will of the Father.

Can we not see in this His wonderful, infinite love that we might forever enjoy His presence with us thus in blessed nearness and intimacy. He said before the worlds came into existence, “My delights were with the sons of men.” His heart will then be fully satisfied.

(To be continued)

Fragment: A Hand to Save

Christ will be a sure Friend, and even if we begin to sink in the water, will stretch out His hand and lift us up. It is sweet to have His hand in any case, even if our failing foot has led Him to stretch it out.

To Young Believers

“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.” (Phil. 4:4).

“Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.” (Psa. 144:15).

Do not think the way home to God our Father is all uphill. God wants us to be happy now. What sort of an idea will men around us get of our God if we always go about with long faces, and look as though there was no such thing as heavenly sunshine? The apostle could write to the children of God and say,

“These things I write unto you, that your joy may be full.” It is quite true that “in His presence is fullness of joy,” but God our Father has made this known to us that its bright “sunbeams” shining along our earthly pathway may fill our hearts with rejoicing and praise now.

An aged saint on her deathbed was seen smiling, and in reply to the question, “What makes you smile?” replied, “I am thinking of my expectations.”

The children of God have everything to make them happy, and even if they meet with trials and discouragements (and who does not?) they should carry the stamp of the peace of God upon their happy faces. Thus we shall commend and “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.” If men can afford to be bright, and sing over their daily toil, and the women over their cleaning and dusting, how much more then the child of God as he thinks of his precious Savior and Lord; his loving Father in heaven, and his bright eternal home. Let us show by our conduct and ways that we believe what we say when we sing,

“Jesus, Thou art enough

The mind and heart to fill.”

Remarks on Prayer and the Word of God

As Mentioned Together in Scripture

Prayer and the Word of God are frequently mentioned together in the gospels and epistles. Their importance cannot be too forcibly impressed upon the saints. The writer does not doubt that very many are far more diligent in this respect than himself, but he is encouraged to make the following remarks, being assured that those, who are the most earnest in prayer, and the study of the Word, will be the foremost to approve of, and have communion with anything that may tend to remind the saints of the importance or lead them on to the more diligent observance of these things.

They are, as remarked above, often mentioned together in the Scriptures. When the Word of God joins together things in themselves distinct, the one from the other, it is not only important to notice the things themselves, but also to notice the connection in which they are found. Thus it is with faith and love; the former to the Lord, the latter to the saints.

In like manner as faith and love are joined together, so also prayer and the Word of God are joined together. From among the passages where prayer and the Word thus occur, I quote the three following: Acts 6:4; Luke, end of chapter 10, and commencement of chapter 11, and Ephesians 6:17, 18.

The first occurs at a memorable epoch in the history of the assembly of God here upon earth. Acts 6 makes mention of the first failure collectively of the saints. Individual sin had occurred in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, but now the change from the freshness and devotedness of chapters 2 and 4 begins to mark the saints in their collective character. How sad this scene! The blessed Lord had suffered, had been crucified, had risen from among the dead, and ascended on high; thence He had shed forth the Holy Ghost, the power that wrought in His disciples, so as to make them vessels of testimony in Jerusalem, both for the conversion, of thousands, and also for bringing home to the consciences of rulers and people that there was a power in these witnesses which was superior to all the power that was of the world; the apostles were faithful, the blessing was abundant, the proof that the Lord was working with them was manifested to the least as well as to the most spiritual (Acts 4:31), and yet, with all this grace and privilege before their eyes, there was a murmur among some as regarded the manner of serving the food. Even in early days how soon thoughts similar to those which influence man in his natural state entered into and had power over the minds of those who were the first fruits of the grace of God and the work of Christ. The attack of the enemy, as is ever the case, was directed against those who were foremost in the battle, for from verse 2 it is clear, that the apostles themselves were to be taken from their hitherto glorious testimony to Christ in heaven, in order to bestow their time and labor upon that which might serve to lessen the murmurings of saints on earth. Wisdom was given to the apostles to meet the danger and to still the murmurings, “Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said, It is not reason that we should leave the Word of God, and serve tables,” (v. 2), and again, “But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word,” (v. 4). If in these early days, prayer and the ministry of the Word was needed for the work, how needful in these days that the saints should continue steadfastly in both prayer and the reading of the Word!

Although occupied in the daily business engagements of this life (engagements doubtless for the most part necessary), the earnest Christian will when such engagements are fulfilled, find time for prayer and reading the Word. He is Thus refreshed and strengthened, and keeps fresh in his own spirit, while performing that which appertains to his calling to perform; but when the energy of his first love is tested by time, there is a danger of his gradually ceasing this habit of prayer and study of the Word, and at length he may find himself passing day after day, and the Bible hardly looked at; and even where the reading and prayer with the family continues, he is aware that, though the form is the same, the freshness and power is gone. What is the remedy? Let him judge himself, and he will find he will again have recourse to prayer and the Word; the former making him humbly feel his dependence from moment to moment upon God, and the latter ministering to him refreshment and strength in his own soul. Again, as regards the assemblies of the saints; sometimes after years of testimony and blessing, the work in its active form ceases, the older saints leave this world, and their places are not supplied by others, the attendance at the meetings or reading the Word and prayer diminish, and the meetings themselves are at length discontinued. The light is no longer the same in the village or town. And why is this? The answer given is, “Because there are so few who attend.” But this is no reason why the two or more who desire to go on with prayer and the Word of God, should not habitually continue to meet together. The failure in such cases is owing to our thoughts being more occupied with the things which are seen, than with the things which are not seen. Matthew 18:19, shows us that two are enough for prayer, and experience has often shown the earnest Christian how much blessing can be obtained in reading the Word alone or with but one other Christian.

The second occasion of this joining together of the Word and prayer is in Luke 10 and 11. In Luke 10, whilst Martha serves; it is her sister Mary who sits at the feet of Jesus, and hears His Word. When Martha complains of her sister leaving her to do all the work alone, the Lord replies:

“Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.”

Immediately afterward in Chapter 11 the Lord is in prayer, and the disciples also ask Him to teach them to pray, and thereupon He teaches them the prayer so well known to all: “Our Father which art in heaven,” This prayer commences with the desire for the glory of the Father, before any mention is made of the wants of those who are the objects of His love; and thus we have another lesson as regards these things, first, to listen to the Word is choosing “the good part,” and secondly, that in our prayers the glory of the Father and the Son should ever take precedence of those things of which we have need while here.

The third and last portion of the Word referred to above, is Ephesians 6:17, 18. In Acts 6 it was the work upon earth, here it is the combat in the heavenly places. For this contest the Christian requires the whole armor of God, first, to escape the wiles of the enemy (v. 11), and afterward, to oppose him in the combat (v. 13). The different weapons for this warfare are enumerated in verses 14, 15, 16 and 17; all are defensive, excepting the one mentioned last, “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God,” (v. 17). But as soon as the saint being completely equipped for defense, receives the Word of God, immediately prayer is mentioned. “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (v. 18).

Thus we have the Word of God and prayer set before us in close relationship together again and again in the blessed testimony which God has been pleased to give us. There are other passages where they are joined together, but I give only the number three, being the full number given by Scripture itself for testimony to the truth (2 Cor. 13:1).

The Clock Without Hands

“I wonder what time it is,” I thought, as I was hurrying along the street near my home; and I glanced up at the large clock over the watchmaker’s shop to seek an answer to my question.

The clock was there certainly, but it was of no use in telling me the time, for the hands were gone! There were the figures marked clearly enough, and there may have been works inside; the springs may have been rightly placed, and the wheels may have been going round; but, if so, it was no good to me. But, though it did not tell me the time, it gave me a subject for thought during the remainder of my journey homewards.

There are three kinds of clocks. The right kind must have good mechanism properly working inside, and hands to point the hours outside on the face.

Secondly, there are clocks with hands rightly enough, but with no proper machinery within. This is a very bad kind, for they profess to show the time, but are, in reality, deceiving those who look upon them.

Thirdly, there are clocks like the one I saw, with no hands.

Was the machinery good? I cannot tell. Only its owner knew about that; he could see the interior, and knew whether or not the works were sound. To him it may have been a very valuable clock, but to others it was worthless.

There are three classes among those who are called Christians, which correspond to these three Classes of clocks.

First, there are real Christians, who know that they are washed in the blood of Christ, and can say that God is their Father, and who are seeking (though perhaps in a very small measure), to bear a faithful testimony to the world around, pointing, as the hours and days go by, to the “Lamb of God,” and warning others that the time is short, and that “He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” It is not that the rightly pointed hands make the machinery good, but because the machinery is good the hands point aright.

It is the work of Christ for us, and the work of the Spirit of God in, us, that make us real Christians; and then our testimony flows from that; though, alas! we often mar that testimony by allowing our old nature to have its way; nevertheless, all that is pleasing to God in the life of a Christian flows from the work of God in the heart. May we all learn, day by day, more of what it is to live here as witnesses for that One who was ever the faithful and true Witness for God!

Again, there are those who make a great profession, and say they are followers of Christ, but there is no life in their souls; they have never known the grace and love of God, nor the power and efficacy of the work of Christ. They are like clocks with hands, but with no machinery inside. In a day that is coming, such people will say, “We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets.” And the Lord will reply to them in those terrible words, “I never knew you.”

Ah, dear reader, see to it that you are not among these; let no supposed good works of your own, or prayers, or Bible-reading, lead you to think that you are safe. Nothing will do but that true faith in the heart that can enable you to say, “I am a poor lost sinner, but Jesus Christ is my Savior.” Of what use are hands to a clock if there is no machinery within?

There is yet a third class of people, who have trusted Christ as their Savior, and who have tasted the grace and love of God. They have believed in the heart, but have never confessed with their lips; they bear no testimony to those around of what the Lord has done for them. They are like true clocks without hands. These cannot be distinguished from the “false clocks” by any but the Master Himself. He can read the hearts, and knows when there is real faith in Himself; and to Him they even are precious.

Are they happy? They cannot be. Salvation is known only by those who have confessed with the mouth the Lord Jesus, and believed in the heart that God hath raised Him from the dead.

Dear young Christians, do not be like hand. less clocks. Your sins are forgiven. You can look up and say, “I have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Then what testimony do you bear to those around? Can they, by looking at your life, say, “What great things God has wrought!” Remember, “that with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

My Meditation of Him Shall Be Sweet: Psalm 104:34

Sweetly the fragrance of Thy name, Jesus our Lord;

Its precious freshness still the same,

Pervades Thy Word.

Sweet to our souls; but to Thy God

Who knew the roughness of the road,

Which in obedience was trod,

No tongue can tell how sweet.

Name of surpassing excellence,

Jesus our Lord;

Beyond the range of mortal sense,

This mighty cord.

This sweet uniting name of love

Must ever in its fragrance prove,

The power omnipotent to move

Worship our God to Thee.

Thy Father’s heart in Thee has found,

(Jesus our Lord),

Supreme delight; the blessed ground

Of one accord;

One heart of love, one mind of peace,

One pattern of pure holiness,

One source of perfect happiness

Jesus our Lord in Thee.

Correspondence: Household Baptism; The Camp

Question: Referring to Acts 10:47, 48, I thought baptism did not carry us as far as the assembly, but into the kingdom on earth. The baptizing of a household could not put them into the assembly, could it? A.

Answer: There are two aspects of the assembly or church of God in Scripture. Ephesians 4:4 is the body of Christ, and this was formed by the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 12:13).

The other (Eph. 4:5) is the house of God, and this is formed by man through baptism. In 1 Corinthians 3:10, 12, 14, 15, 17, these are all builders in the house of God.

The body takes in all who are saved and sealed by the Spirit. The house takes in all who are baptized. Both of these aspects are spoken of in Scripture as the church or assembly of God (Eph. 1:22, 23; 1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Cor. 1:2).

The house of God is therefore larger than the body of Christ, and because entrusted to man, becomes corrupted, and answers somewhat to the kingdom of heaven in its mysterious form. It is now likened to “a great house” (2 Tim. 2:20), nevertheless God dwells in it, and will dwell in it till the Lord takes all His people home.

In Acts 10 it had not taken that character, so we can speak of it as the house of God into which they were baptized. They had been sealed the moment they believed.

Baptism does not introduce anyone to the Lord’s Table; nor is it exact to speak of our little gathering as the assembly of God, but that we are only a few—two or three—gathered where, or how, all of Christ’s members should be gathered. In that way only can we speak of ourselves as God’s Assembly.

Question: What is the camp? Hebrews 13:13.

Answer: It is significant that this scripture is in the Epistle to the Hebrews where Christ Jesus supersedes all that was of the Levitical economy, and is more in contrast with it than comparison. We find Christ in His personal and official glories far above all that was of the law. He is now crowned with glory and honor at the right hand of the Majesty on high; yet He was rejected and crucified by the Jews down here on earth.

At His crucifixion the vail of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom, signifying the setting aside of temple worship, for it was done by the hand of God; from the top where no human hand could reach, to the bottom. When Israel as a nation is restored, temple worship will again be resumed under the reign of Christ. But in Christianity, the place of worship is in the Holiest of all where the Christian enters by a new and living way (Heb. 10:19, 20), and his position on earth is rejected with Christ, who is, with man, still the rejected One.

Read carefully Galatians 2:19, 20, and notice that Paul there is dead to the law by the body of Christ. He is crucified with Christ, and in the power of the new life in Christ, he now lives. His motive the love of Christ, “who loved me and gave Himself for me.” The Christian shares in Christ’s victories, and goes inside the vail to worship, and shares Christ’s place in rejection, and this leads him outside the camp with Christ who suffered without the gate.

The profession of Christianity, which bears the name of Christ, has in principle gone back into Judaism, and puts man under the law to produce righteousness. It recognizes man in the flesh, as if good could be found in him, when Scripture says, “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” Isaiah 64:6. His ceremonies, his associations, his rules, his musical entertainments are all of the camp.

The worship of God is spiritual. It is the heart’s adoration of the Father and the Son, and it is by the Holy Ghost. (See John 4:23, 24. Phil. 3:3. Heb. 13:15). “We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.” (Heb. 13:10). The heavenly and the earthly do not commingle. Christ cannot go with it.

“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. By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.” (Heb. 13:10-16).

I Thank Him for His Word "Hath"

We will let a young friend of seventeen years tell of her conversion:

A tent meeting was being held in a town about two and a half miles from my home. I had been there several times, and how often would I have given myself to Jesus had not pride kept me back, for I was afraid of what people might say! Yes, through pride I yielded to Satan, who whispered,

“There is plenty of time; you are only young, and besides, a great deal better than many other girls, for you go to church regularly, and read your Bible, and say your prayers morning and evening, and what else could be expected of you?”

But I was not satisfied, and thought of that verse which speaks of being tried in the balances and being found wanting, and yet I did not know what it was, for surely I was good enough. The more I thought of what the evangelist, who spoke in the tent, said, the more miserable I felt, so I determined I would not go again, for all my righteousnesses seemed as filthy rags after hearing his preaching. My sister, who had been a Christian for some years, knew a little of what was passing in my mind, and she persuaded me to accompany her once more. On our way we spoke about salvation, and I fully made up my mind that come what might, I would give myself to Christ.

At the close of the service the evangelist offered some gospel books, as he had done several times before, to any who were anxious to be saved. How my heart beat! Should I, or should I not accept one? I thought of all I should have to give up if I became a Christian; then I thought, This may be my last opportunity for accepting Christ. Many times He has called me, and I have refused, I thought. Ah! no one but myself and God knows what a battle was fought in those few moments. God, who is always ready to help those who ask Him, helped me then; and the verse, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” flashed across my mind, and then with an effort, I got up in front of all the people I knew nearly all there and went over to the evangelist and took a book. How I trembled!

When the people were going out, I went over to the evangelist and asked him if I might speak to him. He said,

“I am so glad to see you; you have taken a step tonight in the right path, and I thank God for it;” and then he showed me, as clearly as possible, God’s way of salvation. But it seemed

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His name.” It is the condition on which His presence is given; that is, spiritually. His name means His personal character, so that we could not claim the promise rightly unless we are gathered in obedience to the Word of God “in separation from evil” as redeemed ones, and in the unity of the Spirit as His members, united to Him and to each other (Eph. 3, 4).

In Acts 20:30 it reads, “Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them.” Comparing these with Romans 16:17, 18, should hinder us saying that these are gathered to the Lord’s name; that is, they are not gathered according to the truth that “There is one body, and one Spirit.” The Holy Spirit would not gather two divisions. Nevertheless the Lord, in His sovereign grace, meets every sincere heart who though not understanding these truths, yet remembers Him, in His death, and as individuals He refreshes and blesses them wherever they meet.

On the way to Emmaus He made their hearts burn as He opened to them the Scriptures, but He could not stay with them there, and it led them quickly back to Jerusalem where the rest were, and there they enjoyed His presence

Looking for Jesus

Going into a store one day, I met there a young man who “sought to see Jesus.” He was sitting by himself, and looked distressed and restless, having been, as I learned, awakened at a gospel preaching some time previously to a true sense of his lost condition, and he was in deep anxiety about his soul, and earnestly desiring to find peace with God.

Going near to him, I spoke to him of the Savior and His finished work, for other remedy there is none for a soul in such a state.

“Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12).

His quivering lip told the depth of his feeling, as he answered, “I am looking for Jesus, and I cannot find Him.”

Here was reality, and a soul in earnest. He was looking for Jesus. The sinner was seeking the Savior, and expressing, like one of old, “O, that I knew where I might find Him!”

“But where are you looking?” I asked.

The question seemed to occupy him; and, after some moments’ thought, he said vaguely, “I don’t know.”

“Where is the one your are seeking? where is Jesus?”

It was some time before he spoke, and, with an inquiring look, he slowly said, “In heaven?”

“Yes! Jesus is in heaven; and He is the living Savior in heaven, who has gained the victory over sin, and borne its judgment. Raise your thoughts to Him where He is, and where He is speaking peace to you, and telling you that your sins were all put away when He bore the judgment of them on the cross and died in your stead.

“Now He is in heaven without them, and they can never rise against you again. They are gone in His atoning death, and God sees them no more. Christ bore them in His own body on the tree, died for our sins, and rose from the dead without them. They are gone—put away from before God forever.”

He was listening eagerly, and these few words seemed to lift the load from off him, and, with somewhat of a relieved look, he ejaculated—

“I never thought of that before! Jesus is in heaven and the sins He bore on the cross are gone—and God sees them no more!”

“Yes! God sees them no more. Fix your eyes on Jesus in heaven, for no one could look up into the face of Jesus Christ upon the throne of God, and have a doubt. Could you? Impossible! for no sins could be on Him there.”

More to this effect passed as to the finished work of Christ; and though I never saw him again, I believe these words were light to him, that his eye now rested on Jesus in the glory, whom he wished to find, and had been earnestly seeking, and that he knew his sins were forever discharged by His work on the cross.

As one has said, “Let me see my Savior in the glory, and I have the certainty that all my sins have been put away.” The tide of judgment rolled over the Lord Jesus Christ, and judgment is passed for Him, and forever too for those who believe in His name.

When a soul is in earnest and need is felt, faith appropriates the message from God, takes God at His word, and goes on its way rejoicing.

“There is no other name than Thine,

Jehovah Jesus! name divine!

On which to rest for sins forgiven,

For peace with God, for hope of heaven.

Name above every name, Thy praise

Shall fill you courts through endless days!

Jehovah Jesus! name divine!

Rock of salvation, Thou art mine.”

Yet There Is Room

Yet there is room! room in His house to fill,

Though countless hosts appear;

See, at His table vacant places still,

O! waiting guests, draw near!

Forsake your vain and fading pleasures,

And take His offered, boundless treasures:

Yet there is room!

Yet there is room! The many ransomed there

Suffice not for His love;

He longs that everyone His grace would share,

His saving mercy prove;

For still He stands with sinners pleading,

His voice in heaven still interceding:

Yet there is room!

Yet there is room! O sinner, pause again

Think of this call once more;

Or is your heart so closed, that Christ in vain

Stands knocking at the door t

All His long-offered love discarded,

Himself a stranger disregarded,

Who finds no room?

Yet there is room! O shame, to feel to need,

No hungering after good,

Content upon these empty husks to feed,

So near to heavenly food!

Food, offered still, if you accept it;

But know, for those who will reject it,

There is no room!

Yet there is room! O sinner, hear it still,

And then the words repeat!

Come, feeble, weak, despairing, if you will,

Come to the Savior’s feet,

“Jesus I give! in full surrender,

I come my worthless heart to tender—

An empty room.”

Yet there is room! When earth can give no more

A dwelling to her guest,

Thank God! the Christian sees a brighter shore,

A home of endless rest.

It is enough, when death is nearing,

This blest assurance to be hearing,

Yet there is room!

Yet there is room! a heavenly dwelling-place,

How infinitely wide!

There rests the soul, beholding Jesus’ face,

And it is satisfied,

The flock who follow Him through sadness,

Are gathering there in holy gladness;

Yet there is room!

Confess Christ

One mark given in Scripture of a true Christian is, that he confesses with his mouth the Lord Jesus (Rom. 10:9); and one reason the Lord has in keeping us here, is that we should carry the glad tidings of the already accomplished redemption of Christ to every creature. In former days, God’s people went everywhere preaching the Word. Now, though all are not evangelists, all are called to confess Christ with the mouth, as well as in life and walk.

A Christian is identified with Christ, and is looked at in Scripture as having no other interests than Christ’s; knowing Christ not only as his Savior, but as his resource at all times—his treasure. O how easy it is to speak of Christ and for Christ, when He is really our treasure, when the heart is overflowing with His love!

Beloved fellow Christians, may we more earnestly than ever confess Christ, and tell out the riches of the grace of God to those around.

“We all must speak for Jesus,

Where’er our lot may fall

To brothers, sisters, neighbors,

In cottage and in hall.

We all must speak for Jesus,

To show how much we owe

To Him who died to save us

From death and endless woe.”

Yes, it is the Lord’s command that the gospel be carried to “every creature.” So the apostles understood it, and therefore we are told afterward that they “went forth, and preached the Word everywhere.” Be assured, that if we are living upon Christ, we shall carry about with us “rivers of living water.” Think of these words, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth in Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” John 7:37, 38.

Scripture Study: 1 Corinthians 16

The apostle, in the preceding chapters having faithfully gone over the disorders and given instructions they needed concerning the ways they had fallen into, can now close the Epistle with a few remarks.

Verses 1-3 refer to the collection made for the poor saints at Jerusalem. Their poverty gave occasion for the Gentile assemblies to show their gratitude for the spiritual things ministered to them from Jerusalem (Rom. 15:26, 27). On the first day of the week, each was to devote what they felt right to give as God had prospered them, so that when Paul or those he sent came, the money would be ready for them. Here we see that each one carried his own purse, by the instruction of the Word through the apostle. The common purse ceased with the saints being scattered from Jerusalem (Acts 8), after the stoning of Stephen. Each one since then had to depend on God for himself. It was at this second time of bringing alms to his people (Acts 11:30; 24:17) that Paul was arrested and carried to Rome as a prisoner.

Verses 5-9. In the meantime, he would not come to see them. The second epistle tells us why to give them time to express their repentance with exercised consciences, but he intended to come when he passed that way. He would visit Ephesus, for there a great door and effectual was opened to him, and there were also many adversaries.

Verses 10-12 show us the liberty of the Spirit in ministry, independent of Paul’s oversight. They were to keep Timothy, conducting him on his way in peace; recognizing him as a fellow laborer with the other brethren and Paul. Apollos, on the other hand, goes the way he believes the Lord would have him, and though Paul greatly desired him to go to Corinth, his will was not to go at the present time; but when he counted it the convenient time to go. then he would visit them. There is no opposition in serving according to the truth, and each servant is responsible to his own Master.

Verses 13-14 exhort the saints to watchful steadfastness in the faith. The Spirit adopts the saying of the Philistines here (1 Sam. 4:9) to encourage the Christians to faithfully fight against all evils that might come up.

Verses 15, 16. We get the house of Stephanas, the first ones converted to Christ in Achaia, that they gave themselves up to serve the saints, who in their turn were to submit themselves unto such, and to all who joined in the work and labored.

Verses 17, 18. There Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus filled up the lack in the Corinthians, so his need was supplied, and his spirit and theirs was accordingly refreshed, so that they also were to be acknowledged in their service.

Verses 19, 20. The assemblies of Asia saluted them. Aquila and Priscilla, and the assembly in their house, saluted them much. All the brethren greeted them, and they were to greet each other, as was the customary greeting of Christians, with an holy kiss.

Verse 21 tells us that others wrote what the apostle dictated, and then he put his salutation with his own hand (2 Thess. 3:17).

Verse 22. What a solemn truth is written here. “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha;” which means, that such a person is eternally lost at the coming of the Lord. He may have passed as a Christian with men, but is lost forever.

Verses 23, 24. But the apostle’s heart flows out to the Corinthians after all he has said, and now closes with, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.”

Gleanings

If I wake in the night I am still with Him. I have liberty to pour out my awed thoughts to Him in still and fearless reverence, and my gentle thoughts in prayer, and my gladsome thoughts in songs of the Spirit.

If I wish it when I travel, I travel in Divine society; when I walk in the midst of trouble He revives me; when I droop in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death, He comforts me; when I am engaged in no defined acts of devotion when not a voice is whispered nor a look reflected, “tender thoughts within me burn to feel a friend is nigh.” When I go into the solitudes of nature, I feel around me a thinking, silent life, and “all the air” is love. “Surely God is in the place.”

I hear His voice in the song of the winds, and in the chime of the waters. The earth rocks to His tread in the tempest; at His smile the wilderness breaks forth into singing.

When I return to my home, He who made the desert rejoice, makes the solitary place glad.

I can find Him anywhere, at all times, and find Him as my friend: in the workshop, in the loft all hung with cobwebs, behind the screen of the shaded lane. I can find Him a holy of holies; and solitude of spirit, where I can find no solitude of place, is often to me, “none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven.”

I Am Thine: Psalm 119:94

This is a wonderful stone for the sling of faith. It will slay any Goliath of temptation, if we only sling it out boldly and determinately at him.

When self tempts us (and we know how often that is), let it be met with “ye are not your own,” and then look straight away to Jesus with “I am Thine.”

If the world tries some lure, old or new, remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said: “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own;....but I have chosen you out of the world;” and lest the world should claim us as “his own,” look away to Jesus, and say, “I am Thine.”

Is it sin, subtle and strong and secret, that claims our obedience? Acknowledge that “ye were the servants of sin;” but now, “being made free from sin, ye become the servants of righteousness,” and conquer with the faith—shout, “I am Thine!”

Is it a terrible hand-to-hand fight with Satan himself, making a desperate effort to re-assert his old power? Tell the prince of this world that he hath nothing in Jesus, and that you are “in Him that is true,” a member of His body, His very own; and see if he is not forced to flee at the sound of your confident “I am Thine!”

But after all, “I am Thine” is only an echo, varying in clearness according to faith’s atmosphere, and our nearness to the original Voice. Yes, it is only the echo of “Thou art Mine,” falling in its mighty music on the responsive, because Spirit-prepared, heart. This note of heavenly music never originated with any earthly rock. It is only when God sends forth the Spirit of His Son in our hearts, that we cry, “Abba, Father.” It was when the anointed but not yet openly crowned king had gone out to meet Amasai, and the Spirit came upon him, that he said, “Thine are we, David.” Therefore do not overlook the Voice, in the gladness of the echo. Listen, and you will hear it falling from the mysterious heights of high-priestly intercession: “They are Thine. And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine.”

This is no vague and general belonging to Christ, but full of specific realities of relation ship. “I am Thine” means, “Truly I am Thy servant.” I am Thy chosen soldier. I am Thy ransomed one. I am Thine “own sheep.” I am Thy witness. I am Thy friend. And all these are but Amens to His own condescending declarations. He says we are all these, and we have only to say, “Yes, Lord, so I am.” Why should we ever contradict Him?

In deeper humility and stronger faith let us listen further to the voice of our Beloved, as He breathes names of incomprehensible condescension and love. Shall we contradict Him here, in the tenderest outflow of His divine affection and say, “Not so, Lord”? Shall we not rather adoringly listen, and let Him say even to us in our depths of utter unworthiness, “My sister, My spouse,” “My love, My dove, My undefiled,” answering only with a wondering, yet unquestioning, “I am Thine,” “I am all Thou choosest to say that I am”?

The echo may vary and falter (though it is nothing short of atrocious ingratitude and unbelief when it does), but the voice never varies nor falters. He does not say, “Thou art Mine” today, and reverse or weaken it tomorrow. We are “a people unto Thee forever,” and why grieve His love by doubting His word, and giving way to a very fidget of faithlessness? Love that is everlasting cannot be ephemeral; it is everlasting, and what can we say more?

The more we by faith and experience realize that we are His own in life and death, the more willing we shall be that He should do what He will with His own, and the more sure we shall be that He will do the very best with it, and make the very most of it. May we increasingly find the strength and rest of this, our God-given claim upon God. “I am Thine;” “He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love.”

“Not your own!” but His ye are,

Who hath paid a price untold

For your life, exceeding far

All earth’s store of gems and gold.

With the precious blood of Christ,

Ransom—treasure all unpriced,

Full redemption is procured,

Full salvation is assured.

“Not your own!” but His by right,

His peculiar treasure now,

Fair and precious in His sight,

Purchased jewels for His brow.

He will keep what thus He sought,

Safely guard the dearly bought,

Cherish that which He did choose,

Always love and never lose.

The Refusing, Choosing, Esteeming and Forsaking of Moses: Part 1

“By faith Moses when he was come to years,” that is, maturity. Some translate it, “When he became of age” —gained his majority—these forty years. “By faith Moses when he was come to years, refused.” Very few of us have come to years as Christians. We remain as it were in a certain kind of childhood- infancy—I mean spiritually. We get that referred to in Corinthians and in another part of this Epistle. The apostle said to the Corinthians, “I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.” There it is babes in a sense of a state of weakness or weakling.

In the 6th chapter of Hebrews: “When for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.” This is a test as to how far or near we have come to our majority come to years. It is a simple test—a very trying one!

“By faith Moses when he was come to years, refused.” What did he refuse? “To be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” Just think of the dignity of that! “Son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” Brought up there in all the luxury and in all the learning; it says, “Moses was learned in all the learning of the Egyptians.” He had been in that house—that court—for about forty years. He knew little or nothing outside of it. All at once he refuses it: turns his back on the whole thing. He has come to years; and faith come to years in that way, refuses in different ways, this poor world and all that it has to give. Egypt is the power of the world, and in that way we see and feel that is a simple but searching test. Don’t we feel our own infancy and lack of coming to years?

The child of God is supposed to be continually growing. As it says “Growing by the true knowledge of God.” Then the actions of faith or the path of faith, to the wisdom of this world, is a very foolish thing. He gave up one thing and chose another. What did he give up? All that this world had to give. All that he was heir to as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. A child of the court of Egypt.

What did he choose? That is very striking. “Rather to suffer affliction with the people of God.” Now it may seem contradictory—a paradox—to say in one breath as it were, foolish, but wise course. You can hardly put these two things together. But from the standpoint of human wisdom, what a foolish thing to give up the palatial home—that place in Pharaoh’s court as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter—here a man grown now able to enjoy it all—and give it up to identify himself with a suffering and an afflicted people.

God was unknown in the court of Pharaoh. Whatever else might have been there, God was unknown. You see, the Pharaoh of Joseph’s and of Moses’ time, or as we say sometimes, the Pharaoh of Genesis and the Pharaoh of Exodus, are two different generations of Pharaohs morally. It says, “There arose another Pharaoh that knew not Joseph.” In the time of Joseph, Egypt was friendly to the people of God; but in the time of Moses, Egypt was the oppressor of the people of God. They were an afflicted people—a nation of slaves, but faith never forms a wrong judgment, whatever appearance may be. Faith is faith, and always gets the mind of God.

“Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God.” One says, Wise and happy choice! What is the portion of the people of God as God’s people in this world! Affliction; and the path of faith has always been and will always be a path of difficulty—no faith in heaven—but God’s people, as His people, are an afflicted people. Then the great thing is to know how far are we willing to, as it were, make this path of faith a path of choice? That is what we are called to. I speak this way because I am speaking to us as the people of God, not to unconverted people.

“Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God.” God’s people to our shame and loss have become so identified with the world that we don’t know the affliction that is our due from the hand of the world, if we are faithful to our calling. Such a joining of hand in hand with the Christian and the world, or the church and the world, walking together. The communion, the intercourse with God, the spiritual and godly intelligence that should characterize us as the children of God, is unknown in that path of walking hand in hand with the world, but it takes energy to make this choice. That is why I said at the opening of the reading, so few of us have come to years. I don’t mean years in natural life, but in spiritual life and experience.

“Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy” —He gave up enjoyment, and such enjoyment! Enjoyment of the court of Pharaoh; that place of dignity, known and called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He gave it up. “Choosing rather to suffer affliction... than to enjoy the pleasures of” WHAT? Sin. We all, everyone of us, naturally love the pleasures of sin. They are pleasant. How long do they last? “FOR A SEASON,” and a very short season.

How happy every child of grace,

Whose sins are all forgiven;

“This world,” he cries, “is not my place

My happy home’s in heaven.”

“Its evils in a moment end,

Its joys as soon are past;

But all the bliss to which I tend

Eternally shall last.”

How transient. “The pleasures of sin which are but for a season” given up for a path of affliction—the normal path for the child of God through this world. We often see the poor world looking upon us with pity, don’t we? and saying, You don’t know what you are losing. The path of faith to this world is a path of folly. But at the same time, while the poor children of this world pity us, we pity them, and we say, You don’t know what you are losing.

Take the prodigal in the far country. When he came to the end of his own resources, what did he find? He found degradation for his position and calling, and he found husks for his food. And that, dear young Christian, is all this poor world has to give us. We crave it, but after all it proves to be husks, and what sustenance is there in husks?

Many years ago I was reading a little article in a well-known publication in those days called “Things New and Old.” In it a servant of God was giving an address to the young, and he alluded, if I remember rightly, to Nelson’s Monument in Trafalgar Square—some of us have seen it. It is quite a monument. But come closer home, and go to Washington’s Monument in Washington. That is a monument to Washington, isn’t it? Nelson’s monument is a monument to Nelson, but where is Nelson? Where is Washington? They are monuments to dead men. The very fact that the world raised monuments to them, is a pretty sure proof they held a pretty good place in its esteem, and that on the other hand is just as sure proof that they knew very little of identification with the people of God. We don’t raise monuments to living people, but to the dead ones; and as we often say, these monuments are to those who are where their monuments are not. I just refer to this to show “the pleasures of sin which are but for a season.”

Who ever thought of raising a monument to the apostle Paul? Which of those apostles came to a natural death? Not one as far as we know. What has changed things so? Has the truth changed? Has the character of the Christian’s calling changed? No. What has changed then? O, the Christian; and he has identified himself with the world; and the church of God, that which bears God’s name—the name of Christ in this world—has a marked place in it, a place it never would have had, had there been faithfulness. What the Lord says in the 12th of Luke would have been characteristic of them: “Fear not, little flock.” Is christendom a little flock? All this tells us the vast majority of us haven’t come to years, haven’t known what it is to choose the path of the people of God, which is a path of affliction.

“Pleasures of sin which are for a season,” and as we have already said, at the longest, a short season after all. I am no young man, and if the Lord tarry will soon be gone; but, dear friends, what are seventy-nine or eighty years compared to eternity? That is the proper way to estimate. Look things square in the face, and that is what the wisdom of faith does, and then makes its choice. That is a striking verse from the pen as it were of the Spirit of God: “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.”

(To be continued)

The Wise and Foolish Virgins

The midnight cry is heard!

O! slumbering saints arise,

Awake from sleep, your vigil keep,

And prove yourselves “the wise;”

Arise! arise! go forth,

The Bridegroom is at hand;

The morning Star, He comes from far,

To claim His waiting band.

The midnight cry is heard!-

Go forth, your Lord to meet—

His voice we hear—His step is near,

Your blessing to complete;

Your lamps are all but out,

O! put them now in trim,

Let every light for Him shine bright,

Let naught their luster dim.

The midnight cry is heard!

O! foolish virgins, haste,

While yet there’s room, escape your doom,

Of boundless mercy taste;

The Bridegroom tarries yet,

Your empty vessels fill;

To God on high, go there and buy,

Without a price—who will.

The midnight cry is heard!

He comes! He comes at last!

Ye virgins wise, to meet Him rise,

Your midnight watch is past;

The new eternal song

Now flows from hearts at rest—

With Him in light, where all is bright—

With Him forever blest.

The midnight cry has ceased!

No foolish enter in—

Too late! too late! ‘tis sealed your fate,

And now your woes begin;

Too late! too late! too late!

The door, forever shut,

You knock in vain—no entrance gain

“Depart, I know you not.”

Seek and Ye Shall Find

“I rejoice at Thy Word, as one that findeth great spoil.” How blessed to be able from the heart to say this, and not to be as those who think God’s Word a “dry Book!” The following little incident is written to encourage young believers especially to study it for themselves, and to seek to understand its contents.

A young Christian, who was in the habit of reading a few verses privately night and morning, woke one Sunday repeating over to herself this verse: “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus.” As she dressed, every now and then the words passed through her mind. At last she stood still in the room saying to herself, “What do those words mean, I don’t know?” And then she remembered reading them the evening before. “How can I,” she thought, “bear about in my body the dying of Jesus?” She went down on her knees, and asked the Lord to teach her the meaning of the words, feeling that He must want her to know, by their being so impressed on her mind.

She was staying with friends at the time, some miles from the little meeting which they attended, and to which they drove each week. After reaching it that Sunday, while assembled together, a perfect stranger to her rose to address the company; and what was her surprise to hear him begin to read the very chapter which contained the verse that was so much on her mind (2 Cor. 4:10). Not only did he read it, but spoke especially of it.

Imagine, dear young believer, how she listened, feeling that every word was an answer to her prayer. And so it was, for He who knew the hearts of both speaker and hearer, had by His Spirit guided the one to speak, and the other there to hear and learn.

But it is not to explain the meaning of the verse that this little true incident is told, but that some may be encouraged to seek that wisdom from above when reading the Scriptures, and which will be given liberally by the same Lord, for does He not still live to intercede for, and to answer the longing desires of His own, whether young or old?

Then, indeed, will they not only read, but “rejoice at His Word,” and find from it “great spoil.”

May we, who have by His grace been taught to love Him, “as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby.” (1 Pet. 2:2).

Confession of Richard Baxter

“I confess, to my shame,” writes the godly Richard Baxter, “that I remember no one sin that my conscience doth so much accuse and judge me for, as for doing so little for the salvation of men’s souls, and dealing no more earnestly and fervently with them for their conversion. I confess, that when I am alone, and think of the case of poor, ignorant, worldly, unconverted sinners, that live not to God, nor set their hearts on the life to come, my conscience telleth me that I should go to as many of them as I can, and tell them plainly what will become of them, if they do not turn to the Lord. And though I have many excuses, yet none of them do satisfy my own conscience, when I consider what heaven and hell are, which will one of them be the end of every man’s life. My conscience tells me that I should follow them night and day, with all earnestness, and take no denial till they turn to God.”

Much in Little

“Just one letter of the alphabet makes all the difference between us now,” said a recently converted young woman to an unsaved neighbor who could not understand the great change that had come over her.

“You love the world, and I love the Word.”

How much there was in this simple way of putting it! The Word speaks of Christ, so the true Christian loves it. The world cast Christ out, yet the worldling still loves it.

Correspondence: Rom. 8:2; More Sure Word of Prophecy; Heb. 2:3; John 6:53

Question: What is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which sets us free from the law of sin and of death? (Rom. 8:2.) B.

Answer: When we have seen that the death of Christ has delivered us from judgment, our sins forever put away, then God gives us His Holy Spirit to dwell in us. So that we have life in Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit also dwelling in us. This is the power of the new life, and is called the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. With Christ in glory as the one we desire now to please, we are no longer under the power of sin and of death. We refuse to allow It to act in us; it is not any longer our master. We own that we belong to our Lord Jesus now.

Question: What is the “more sure word of prophecy”? (2 Pet. 1:19) C. W.

Answer: Prophecy was like a light shining in a dark place, and it should be heeded. The transfiguration made it more sure, or confirmed the truth that the Lord Jesus was King, but the Kingdom is yet to come in power and display. In the meantime the Christian has the blessed hope in his heart already of the coming of the Lord as the bright, morning Star that will appear before the day dawns when the Sun of Righteousness will come with healing in His wings. (Titus 2:13). We have already this hope in our hearts. We wait to hear His shout, and to be taken up to be forever with Him. Peter does not say it in this way, but it is what he points to. (Rev. 2:28; 22:17).

Question: How could the apostle say, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” Hebrews 2:3. Was he not already saved, and could he be lost again? A. B.

Answer: The Lord Jesus is seen in this epistle as the Apostle and High Priest. The writer is addressing the Hebrews, and he is one of them. They are seen as journeying on to the heavenly Canaan, but, as with Israel of old, they were a mixed multitude, and those who would reach the end and be saved, were those who held fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Being born again, or new creation life, is not mentioned in this epistle, but the evidence of life is seen in the things that accompany salvation (6:9, 10).

Those who go back to Judaism are apostates; they deny Christ as the Son of God, and go back to their old sacrifices that can never take away sins. This is the willful sin (see 6:4-6 and 10:26-29) that leaves nothing for them but eternal judgment, for Christ is the only Savior.

But no true child of God could say, Christ is no Savior. They might, like Peter, deny that they knew Him. But the Lord could not let any of His own perish, to whom He had given eternal life.

The object of the Epistle to the Hebrews is to unfold to us the surpassing excellency of the glories of our Lord Jesus Christ in contrast with Judaism.

Question: Please explain John 6:53. Inq.

Answer: Our Lord Jesus was the true bread come down from heaven (read verses 25 and 48 to 58), but it was not enough that He came down from heaven. Sin had to be atoned for, so He must die, and in this verse (53) we have a figure of His death, and we feed upon Him as in death. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood, points to Christ in death, here our blessing begins. Men speak of Christ as “our example,” leaving out His death; but we must feed upon Him as dead; that is, we believe that he has died for our sins, and that He has been raised from the dead. He is glorified now. It is this feeding that gives us eternal life, and a sure and blessed hope for the future. Otherwise, “ye have no life in you.”

The Organ Grinder

I was lonely and sad. Everything about me seemed dark and desolate, and my soul was cast down. I had forgotten the admonition: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee.”

Suddenly, out of the deep silence and solitariness of that sad evening, came the sounds of sweetest melody. It was a street organ played by a young boy. I went out to give him a little money.

What an intelligent face was his, and at the same time those large dark eyes which he turned upon me, what a story of need and sorrow they told!

He is hungry, I said to myself, and placing bread and meat on a plate, I added a booklet which was lying on the table. I handed it all to him without any courage to say a word. Yet he deeply interested me, and as I watched him eating from behind the window where I sat, repeatedly my heart went up to God in prayer that the booklet might be used for his salvation. After eating, which was quickly done, he took up the booklet, read its title, “How to become a Christian,” and put it carefully away in his pocket.

Several years had passed, and the terrible war had broken out with its tale of sorrows and distresses, so my little organ grinder had passed out of my mind.

Sometime after I went to visit a hospital where the wounded were cared for. The surgeon was making his rounds. Silent and sad he stood by one of the wounded, holding his wrist and counting his pulse which was growing weaker. I stopped to look at the patient. He was a very young man; his eyes were closed and the seal of death was on his face. At the same moment the chaplain came and leaned over the dying man, anxious to know if he still breathed. All at once the young man opened his eyes and asked,

“Am I going to die?” The chaplain, looking sad, made no answer.

“O, don’t be afraid to tell me. I am ready.” “I cannot say, my young friend,” said the chaplain, “but do you know the Savior of sinners? Do you love the Lord Jesus?”

“Yes, yes, I have just seen Him. I am not wandering. I must tell you before I go.”

“Have you a mother? Can I do anything for you?”

“Yes, sir, but she is not here. I am going to be with her soon; she is in heaven. But I have a young sister. Poor child, she will be lonely now. But I have committed her to the Lord, and He will not forsake her. I would like to send her a few things,” he made a special effort and drew from his pillow a purse, with a few gold pieces, then a Bible, a photograph, and a booklet quite worn, its cover soiled with blood.

“This booklet,” he said, “brought salvation also to my mother. Long ago, I was only a poor organ grinder, and I tried to care for my sick mother and sister. We were very miserable then, when a good lady gave me this little book. O, how glad my mother was when I read it to her! No one had ever given us anything to show us the way of salvation. No one had ever talked to us about that precious Savior who died upon the cross for our sins. The dear lady, we prayed for her every day. How I did long to see her again.”

I drew nearer to catch every word from the lips of the dying man, for I had recognized in him the organ grinder who had once cheered my depressed spirit.

I could no longer restrain myself, and I sobbed aloud. It roused the dying man, and looking at me, he recognized me.

Astonished, but unable to move, he said slowly, “I thank Thee, Lord; I know Thou hearest prayer.”

Brothers, sisters, Christian friends, scatter the good news of salvation. Sooner or later you shall see it bearing fruit, and joy unspeakable shall be yours.

My Savior

Who kindly to my rescue ran?

Who laid redemption’s wondrous plan

Ere earth was formed, or time began?

My Savior.

Then, who should claim my every thought,

And every act of service wrought

Who thus my precious soul hath bought?

My Savior.

No Neutrality, or Decide You Must

When Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, went over to Germany to help the Protestant princes in the cause of the Reformation, he was sorely tried by their lack of decision, and lukewarmness. On meeting the ambassador of the Elector of Brandenburg, he uttered these stirring and memorable words:

“This I say unto you plainly beforehand, I will hear and know nothing of neutrality. His highness must be friend or foe. When I come to his border, he must declare himself hot or cold. The battle is between God and the devil. Will his highness hold with God? let him stand on my side. Will he prefer to hold with the devil? then he must fight against me. A third position will not be granted to him.”

This is plain language, you say, my reader. Yes, the great king’s meaning is unmistakably plain, but not more so than that of the King of kings, the greater than Adolphus.

“No man can serve two masters,” He says. Again, He says, “He that is not with Me is against Me.” A great contest is being waged. The conflict is between light and darkness, righteousness and sin, heaven and hell. On the side of light, righteousness and heaven, stands Christ with His redeemed ones; on the other, is ranged Satan with his hellish host, and every man who has not yet come to Christ. There can be no neutrality in this conflict. No man can stand aloof and say, I shall for the present maintain a position of neutrality. This cannot be; decide you must! If you refuse, He reckons you among His foes. “A third position cannot be granted.”

Reader, in what position do you stand to Christ? Will you condemn His solemn declaration against neutrality? Beware, lest He come and find you in the ranks of the great enemy. Decide at once, and take your stand for Him. He is worthy, having died that you might escape the awful tyranny of the great adversary of souls.

Soon He will come to your border, and if lukewarm, you must expect to be spewed out of His mouth (see Rev. 3:16). You cannot “pigeon-hole” this question. It must be faced honestly now, if you are to reckon on His acknowledgment in “that day.”

“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that is not subject to the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John 3:36) (New Trans.).

Life alone is found in Jesus,

Only there ‘tis offered thee—

Offered without price or money,

‘Tis the gift Of God sent free.

Scripture Study: 2 Corinthians 1

The second letter to the Corinthians is a sequel to the first. The state of the Corinthian saints had caused the apostle much sorrow and exercise of heart. He had also passed through great trial at Ephesus, so that he had despaired of life, and now he writes with a heart full of thankfulness, and seeks to encourage them and to confirm them in their judgment of their evil ways, and also to show them, when the evil is judged by the offender, how to restore him. In a loving way he seeks to lead them on in love to each other, and in faithfulness to the Lord.

Verse 1. He addresses not only the assembly at Corinth, but also all the saints which are in all Achaia, which shows us that their state at Corinth was generally known, and that their behavior would have a far reaching influence on others for bad, if their sin had not been judged; and also for good, if they pursued the path, of faithfulness to the Holy Name to which they were gathered. He again asserts his apostleship, for some had thrown doubt upon it (Chapter 12:12, 13). He associates Timothy with himself as a servant of Christ, as one who cared for them with genuine feeling.

Verse 2. “Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ,” is his earnest salutation and desire for them.

Verses 3, 4. His heart overflows with worship, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies (compassions), and the God of all comfort (encouragement); who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”

Verses 5-7. “For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ, and whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the endurance of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation, and our hope of you is steadfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so also of the consolation.”

That is simple and precious. God balances things for us: the more suffering for Christ, the greater encouragement He gives.

Verses 8-11 tell how deep his trial was, and how great his consolation, and how the God who raiseth the dead, was made known to his soul in the trial as He “who delivered him from so great a death, and doth deliver: and will yet we trust deliver;” and in verses 13, 14 he associates the prayers of the saints with this gift of deliverance, and gives them also a share in the thanksgivings on his behalf.

Verses. 12-14. He could boast in this, that his conscience was clear, that in simplicity and godly sincerity (not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God), he had walked before the world, and more abundantly toward them, teaching them what he had ever taught, and what they had acknowledged was the truth and he hoped that they would ever acknowledge it to be the truth even to the end.

They had acknowledged that he brought the truth to them, and he had rejoiced in them also, and in the day of the Lord Jesus, when with Christ in glory, they would still be his rejoicing.

Verses 15-17. It was for their benefit he had spoken of coming to them on his way to and from Macedonia, and when he changed his purpose, it was not the lightness or changeableness of the flesh, he was still thinking of their blessing (see verse 23).

Verses 18-20. “As God is true (faithful), our word toward you was not yea and nay.” Here the apostle digresses from his subject to show us the One who makes all the promises of God good to us. It was Christ that he and Silvanus and Timotheus preached. He was not yea and nay, “but in Him was yea, for all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him, Amen, unto the glory of God by us.”

We bless Thee, O Thou great Amen!

Jehovah’s pledge to sinful men,

Confirming all His Word!

Doubtful no promises remain

For all are Yea, and all Amen,

In Thee, the faithful Lord.

How great the grace of God to bless

By Thee, the Lord, our righteousness!

By Thee, we say again:

For to us all things are made sure,

Through life, in death, and evermore,

By Thee, the great Amen.

Gladly His promises we hear,

For God’s “Amen” dispels all fear,

His faithfulness it proves:

And while such grace from God is shown.

To His Amen we add our own;

For our Amen He loves.

God does not change nor His Word—all the promises are made good in Christ Jesus the Son of God; He fulfills them all. In Him is the Yea, and in Him the Amen, unto the glory of God by us—life, glory, righteousness, pardon, the gift of the Spirit, all is in Him, it is in Him that all is true—Yea and Amen; believers are the objects of these counsels of God; they are to the glory of God by us.

Verses 21, 22. We are in Christ, but not according to the changing will of man, or his transitory and changeable works or feelings. “He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us with you, is God” Himself, the accomplishment of all depends on Him. Under the law, or under conditions, the fulfillment of which depended on the stability of man, the effect of the promise was never attained. Man could not attain it by his righteousness, his state was unable to accomplish it—all is made good in Christ alone. “To the glory of God by us.” We are firmly established in Christ, in whom all the promises subsist, so that we securely possess in Him all that is promised us, but not as something that we have attained to ourselves.

God has anointed us, also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

It is by the Spirit that we understand the deep things of God which are freely given to us (1 Cor. 2:10-12).

By His Spirit we are sealed marked out as God’s children, and the Spirit of God is also the earnest in our hearts, of that which we shall fully possess hereafter in Christ.

By Him we understand; by Him we are marked out as God’s possession, by Him we enjoy what God has given to us, and look forward to the possession of the inheritance of all that glory which we shall have with Christ.

Verses 23, 24, tell us why the apostle did not come to Corinth—it was to spare them; he would not come with a rod, but in love, and in the spirit of meekness (1 Cor. 4:21). He would not rule over them, but be fellow-workmen of their joy; as he was to the Thessalonians (see 1 Thess. 2:7, 11) a gentle nurse, and a loving, faithful father, remembering that each of us stands by faith. God’s sheep are to be fed and led, and not driven.

Another Birthday

Twenty-three! O, can it be

That I another birthday see?

Spared another year to tell

Jesus hath done all things well?

Countless mercies have I seen

Have I always grateful been?

Proved my love from day to day,

Walking in the narrow way?

Many things I’ve left undone,

Often sinned in heart and tongue;

Much I’ve suffered in the past,

Safely brought through all at last.

Feeble though my powers may be,

May I use them, Lord, for Thee

Let the remnant of my days

Be devoted to Thy praise!

Waiting, ready, may I be,

If my Savior comes for me!

If I pass through death’s dark vale,

He, I know will never fail.

Such an Offer

“Such an offer!” Full and free!

Is it really meant for me!

That all my sins on Christ were laid,

That all my debt by Him was paid?

Yes: Jesus says it, who has died:

“Believe,” and thou art justified.

O, what goodness! Lord, I take

This offer Thou dost freely make!

My one desire shall henceforth be

To live for Him who died for me.

Spread the glad news, through every nation!

Instant—free—and full salvation.

The Refusing, Choosing, Esteeming and Forsaking of Moses: Part 2

Hebrews 11:24-30

The Lord Jesus when about to leave this world, left two things: “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” Not, Ye may have. Then He says, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you.” There is a peace outside of all. Peace in and through the tribulation. The apostle speaks to some young converts, exhorting them that “Through much tribulation ye must enter the kingdom of God.” Why has the path of the children of God ceased to be a path of tribulation? Because they left the path. We all know it.

Then the next thing is, Faith esteems, and as we have said, faith never makes a mistake. It is unbelief that makes mistakes. Esteeming what? “The reproach of Christ.” This is a remarkable word: “Reproach of Christ.” It is the character the Spirit of God gives to the suffering of the people of God, but that tells, don’t you see, what the world is.

We often say, to illustrate it: Suppose you are on a train or streetcar; does it or does it not take courage to take out your Testament and read it? People see you reading your Bible, and you are a marked man. That very fact isolates you. Sometime ago I was on the train reading my Bible (I don’t say I am a man of courage. I am not. I am a coward.). A man came and asked me if I was a minister, as if nobody else had any business to read his Bible but a minister. That all tells what the world is. You wouldn’t need courage to read your Bible in heaven, but you do here, and to confess the name of Christ will bring reproach. It tells what a difference between the world and heaven. “Reproach of Christ.” “They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His sake.” I take these things to myself. I am a coward. I almost envy some (it may be natural courage) in tract distribution. I know it takes courage on my part, but that all tells the difference between this world and heaven. In heaven there will be no such thing as bearing reproach for Christ’s sake. It is impossible. “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ happy are ye” (1 Pet. 4:14).

“Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.” When the treasures of Egypt and those who possess them, have passed away, we shall be enjoying the blessed and eternal result of having suffered reproach for Him.

Mr. Darby once remarked, the only man who is ashamed of his religion in this world is the man who has the true one. He said a Mohammedan would take his mat and drop down on his knees and pray. No; it is the name of Christ that brings reproach. Who is ashamed to speak of President Lincoln or Grant in company; in the company of the world I mean? No one. It is an honor to be able to do so. But go into that same company, and make mention of the name of Christ! At once you feel you are out of place, and that name has no place there. “The reproach of Christ.” “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ.” “If they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you.”

“For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” Faith looks on. Faith is wise. Faith says, the pleasures of sin are for a season; the reward for the reproach of Christ is enduring. I sometimes have thought of that hymn of dear old Dr. Watts. I don’t know the hymn, but have known parts of it from my early childhood. “Ashamed of Jesus” is the beginning of each verse, if I remember rightly. How came Watts to write that hymn “Ashamed of Jesus?” He felt it a little. He felt the shame connected with it.

“Ashamed of Jesus, that dear Friend,

On Whom my hopes for heaven depend.”

“By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing Him who is invisible.” If we turn our backs on the world, we will get its wrath. Go on with it, seek to help it and improve it, and we will receive its favor. But turn your back on it! take the place of a stranger and pilgrim just passing through! “Not fearing the wrath of the king.” That is very striking, isn’t it?

“Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My name’s sake.” “Blessed are ye,” and “great your reward in heaven” (Matt. 5). “Shall put you out of their company” another passage says. If we are faithful to Christ, we shall get the world’s cold shoulder.

We might just for a moment refer to the last assembly addressed by the Lord in the 2nd and 3rd of the Revelation, and that is intensely solemn. The Lord, so to speak, has just one thing to complain of; and that is, He has an outside place, and there it is Christian profession. “Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich: and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see,” and then states, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Not knocking at a sinner’s heart, but at the heart of a Christless professor. It may even be of a true Christian, where the Lord has lost His place in the heart and affections.

“If any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him.” It doesn’t say, I will save him, but, “sup with him and he with Me” —communion.

Another thing a strange thing, too: “For he endured” (not a momentary thing) “he endured as seeing Him” who can’t be seen— “Who is invisible.” Faith has to do with an unseen One. “He endured as seeing Him who is invisible.”

What can sustain us in this path of faith? What will enable us to endure? Just having that One whom, not having seen we love, before us— “seeing Him who is invisible.” The Christian is like what they say the bee is. I don’t know much about the bee; I know how it is about the Christian. The bee is a most wonderful little creature. It has two sets of eyes. One set it uses when it goes out and gathers the nectar from the flowers. Then there are no windows in the hive—it is all dark in there. So it needs another set of eyes when it goes inside to put the nectar in place. So with the Christian, he not only has natural sight, but spiritual sight—has the eyes of faith. The things which are seen (seen with the natural vision) are temporal things. The things which are not seen are eternal. “While we look not at things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.” “Endured as seeing Him who is invisible.”

May the Lord bless these few verses He has given to us about that remarkable servant of His, Moses, and what faith led him to do; what faith sustained him in. Moses has been seen in glory with Christ since, and that is where enduring “as seeing Him that is invisible” will end with all the children of faith—in glory with Christ. It is the reproach of Christ now. It will be in glory with Christ presently.

(Continued from page 133)

Communings by the Wayside

“Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them.” (Luke 24:15).

“Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another.” (Mal. 3:16).

How sweet to talk of Him we love,

As on our way we go;

Desiring much in faith and love

As newborn babes to grow.

For, ever as we speak of Him,

Jesus Himself draws near,

To shed His comfort on our hearts.

And dissipate their fear.

‘Twas thus He did with those of old,

Who toward Emmaus went;

The things of Christ—The wayside theme,

On which they were intent.

He hearkened, pitied, and rebuked

The doubtful thoughts they had;

And did not leave them till He made

The wond’ring pilgrims glad.

Rejoicing that they’d seen the Lord,

And heard His voice declare,

That He who had been in the grave

Was now no longer there;

That He of whom the prophets spoke

The Lamb for sinners slain

Who lived, and bled, and died for them;

Was then alive again.

Mosaic types and words fulfilled,

And David’s psalms explained,

Which had to them, and all before,

As sayings dark remained.

O, let us now, who love the Lord

And in Him beauty see

In His blest company delight

As list’ning ones to be,

Waiting to have unfolded more

What much we want to know;

More of His Person and His work

Whilst journeying here below.

To Steady the Nerves

“I wish I knew what was good to steady the nerves,” said Cornelia Sommers, sighing.

“Why, Cornelia,” her mother exclaimed, with real anxiety in her tone. “I didn’t know there was anything the matter with your nerves. I will take you to Doctor Good tomorrow and have him examine you. Sit up to the fire and warm your feet, dear.”

Cornelia did not care for medicine and told her mother so.

“If you are sick,” her mother insisted, “it is better to take something in time. How does the trouble affect you? Pain or just nervousness?”

“Just nervousness, Mother. When I wake up in the night and it’s dark I see things. The things haven’t shape or size; I cannot describe them, but they throw me into such a trembling. I cover my head up with the blankets, and lie gasping for a long time. If I happen to be all by myself in the dark in the evening it’s the same. There’s somebody behind me, or down the street, or under the stairs. My teeth chatter and I feel weak all over. I’ve got so afraid to be left alone a minute that the suggestion makes my fingers and toes tingle. I know it’s foolish, but I can’t help it, even though I try. I feel so silly, too, at my lack of self-control.”

Grandmother, knitting in the corner, looked at Cornelia and then took off her specs. “Cornelia,” she said, “I had nerves just like thine when I was a girl. I covered my head up in the night, and I heard things, and thought I saw worse things, just as thee does. Thy mother is right; thee ought to go and see Doctor Good. I went to see a doctor when I was thy age, and I’ll tell thee what he told me to do, and save thee some trouble if thee wants to know.”

Cornelia said she did, and grandmother went on:

“He was a real good old doctor, and seemed to know just what kind of medicine to prescribe for mind or body, and this is what he said to me one day, when I called at his office to tell him about my nervousness. ‘My child,’ he said, ‘your nerves are all right, or will be in a little while if you will do just as I say. When you feel trembly or weak and afraid to look around, close your eyes and say a chapter in the Bible to yourself. You’ll stop trembling. If the attack is a very hard one, and you are very much afraid, say the chapter out loud. Get the habit of doing this; take the medicine as needed and your nerves will be wonderfully strengthened.’

“That’s what my old doctor told me, and I tried it. The very next time I felt an attack coming on in the night, I followed his directions, repeating ‘The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want’ aloud. If thee’ll believe it, all the dreadful things I had been in the habit of seeing and hearing took their flight. Every time they visited me, they became dimmer and farther off, until I grew to have as steady nerves as I wanted. Try my old doctor’s prescription, Cornelia, and see how thee likes it. It may save thee a doctor’s bill. If it doesn’t work, then thy mother had better take thee to Doctor Good.”

Cornelia tried the remedy, and she proved the truth of her grandmother’s words.

In turning our thoughts to the Lord and thanking Him for all His wondrous love to us, brings calmness to our hearts.

Quietly meditating upon portions of the Word which bring Him before us, will truly bring rest to our souls.

“My mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips: When I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on Thee in the night watches.” (Psa. 63:5, 6).

“When He giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?” (Job 34:29).

Repentance

Repentance is a great word, says one; it is altogether contrary to the bent of the human will. Man may make efforts, but he will never repent. Only grace gives real repentance, which, when used in its proper sense, means simply and invariably the judgment of self. Now to this, man will never bend. Amends he may offer; he may endeavor to do good, and repair the evil; but to own self wrong, without qualification, reserve, or endeavoring to move the blame on others, is never the nature of man, but the result of the working of divine grace, and true therefore of every soul that is truly renewed. It is impossible for a sinner to be brought to God without repentance. Faith, no doubt, is the spring of all; it alone gives power by the revelation of grace in the person and work of Christ; but repentance is the invariable consequence or concomitant.

Repentance is the judgment we form, under the effect of God’s testimony, of all in ourselves to which that testimony applies: it is the estimate man forms of sin, of his own ways as a sinner, on reflection, through the light of God penetrating into his soul, and some sense of goodness in God, and setting up withal divine authority there. This may be through divine warning, as in the case of Jonah, or the lamenting of a John Baptist announcing that the ax is laid to the root of the tree. It is always mercy. He gives repentance to Israel, grants repentance unto life: His goodness leads us to it. There would be no returning if there was not hope; it may be very vague, but still a hope of being received, and goodness trusted to. So it was with the prodigal son, and with the Ninevites. But faith is the only and necessary source of repentance. It is by the testimony of the Word it is wrought. Be it prophets, or Jonas, or John, or the Lord Himself, or the apostles, who taught that man should repent and turn to God, it was wrought by a testimony of God, and a testimony believed. Now, this testimony is the testimony to Christ Himself. Repentance, as well as remission of sins, was to be preached in His name.

The true working of the gospel in the heart is to bring first of all to repentance. It brings into the light, though it tells of love, for God is both; and that love makes us judge ourselves when God is really revealed. It cannot be otherwise. If men have been already exercised, the preaching of a simple and clear redemption will, through grace, give peace. It answers the soul’s need, which, having already looked at itself, is now enabled to look to God through Christ, learns that God is for it, and learns divine righteousness.

If a man has not been previously exercised, wherever there is a true work, the effect of the fullest grace is to reach the conscience, to lead to repentance. The soul feels it has to do with God responsibly; has failed, been evil, corrupt, without God; is humbled, has a horror of itself and its state; may fear, will surely hope, and eventually, if simple, very soon find peace. But it will say, “Now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

We cannot preach the gospel too clearly or too fully—grace abounding where sin abounded; grace reigning through righteousness unto eternal life—but the effect of this gospel when fully received, the effect we ought to look for in souls, is repentance, as the present first effect: and it will be a deepening one all through our course.

“because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His son into your hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal. 4:6).

Love's Wondrous Story

At God’s right hand sits that blest Man

Whose wisdom is unfailing;

Whose ear is open to our cry,

Whose power is all-prevailing.

Kept by His power, preserved by grace,

We onward press to glory;

We then shall see Him face to face

And sing love’s wondrous story.

Correspondence: Unity of Body vs. Family; 1John 1:7; 1 Peter 1:9-11

Question: What is the difference between the unity of the Body of Christ, and the unity of the family of God? C.

Answer: The unity of the body of Christ (Eph. 4:4; 1 Cor. 12:12,13) was formed by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost coming upon the disciples and thus baptizing them into one body, so that all who have received the Holy Spirit are members of Christ and members one of another (Rom. 12:5). Each believer since Pentecost has become a member of this one body by being sealed with the Holy Spirit when he believed the gospel of his salvation (Eph. 1:13).

In the family of God there is oneness of life, so we are one family but all individuals, not joined together but more like a head of wheat, each grain alike but not joined together. The family is classed in 1 John 2 as babes, young men, and fathers, and “because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His son into your hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal. 4:6).

Question: How are we to understand 1 John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin?” Y. B.

Answer: 1 John 1:7 is an abstract statement of the believer’s position, being brought to God who is light. The believer is in the light, and so walks there; it is his position. Practically our behavior is often inconsistent, but that is not the point here. Then “Fellowship one with another” belongs to that position. Again it is not looking at how much or little we enjoy it. “And the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all (or every) sin,” is telling us of what fits us for that position. It is telling us of what cleanseth from sins. It is an abstract statement of what cleanses, without saying when or how. We know the value of the blood. It cleanses from all sin.

We will not understand John’s Epistle if we do not read it in this way. Darkness and light, disobedience and obedience, hatred and love, unrighteousness and righteousness, are all spoken of, and the believer having been born of God is the one; the unbeliever is the other.

Question: Say a little please on 2 Peter 1:9-11. B.

Answer: In 1 Peter 1:23, we have the truth of being born again by the incorruptible Word of God. And in chapter 2:2 the soul is fed on the Word as its natural food.

In 2 Peter 1:3 God’s “divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us by glory and virtue,” and the precious faith given (Verse 1) enables the soul to lay hold of the “exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” There is power here to repel evil that is in us, and the new character is seen further in the diligence to have faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, endurance, godliness, brotherly love and divine love.

Verse 8 declares the rich reward to those who thus live and abound in these things, in that it makes them neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 9 is the contrast of one who lacks the diligence to go on. He is blind, shortsighted, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Sad state for a child of God to be in—stunted in his growth, and ability to discern the things of the kingdom, and feeding on the carrion of this world’s business and pleasure, and in uncertainty even about his salvation.

Verse 10. So a stirring exhortation to wake up and use diligence in prayer and reading the Word of God to make certain of his calling and election, for in so doing he shall never fall.

Verse 11. For so an entrance into the everlasting kingdom shall be his happy portion. The Holy Spirit ever delights to unfold to our souls the glories of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but He wants the condition of soul to be earnestly desiring His ministry. We cannot have this needed condition, except we wait on God to teach us by His Word and prayer.

God Is Satisfied

A servant of the Lord while visiting one day in a large town, where the Lord was saving souls, happened to meet a young person who for five months had been in a state of the deepest anxiety.

Many had spoken to her about her soul’s difficulties. She had attended meetings to hear the gospel preached, but still she remained unhappy. At times it seemed as if her mind would give way under the severe mental strain. Seeing him approach the door of her house, she invited him in. He had just come from visiting one who was also in deep distress about her soul’s salvation, and in the course of the conversation happened to mention this.

“O, indeed, sir, I can sympathize with any one like that,” she observed, “for I have been for five months, ever since my last illness, in a similar state. O, if I could only know that I am saved it would be all right!”

“And so you may at once,” he replied; “for Christ has died and risen, and God offers salvation freely to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you expect to be saved?” he asked. “Is it by doing good works, by praying, or by getting better?”

“No,” she said, “I cannot get better, and my works would never save me.”

“Then do you believe that God is willing to save you as you are, in your sins, helpless, vile, and ungodly?”

“Yes, I believe He is willing to save me just as I am;” and she went on to relate how God had been showing her what she was in His sight. She had been praised by acquaintances for her natural talents, and had been proud of herself in some respects; but she was now convinced that in God’s sight she was only a poor sinner, and that her best state was altogether as vanity.

“Well,” he said, “if you know yourself to be lost and vile, and that God is willing to save you while in that condition, what is there to hinder you believing the gospel, and being saved?”

“I don’t know,” she replied; “but I don’t feel saved, and I should be dreadfully afraid to meet God.”

“Tell me plainly, now,” he continued, “what do you think your salvation depends upon?”

“I believe,” she said, “that my salvation depends upon my acceptance of the work of Christ.”

This reply would to many believers have probably appeared quite sound, but it struck him that the answer seemed to account for this dear woman’s deep distress.

“Ah,” he said, “no wonder, then, you have no peace, such being your idea.”

She seemed astonished, and he continued: “No, your salvation does not depend upon your acceptance of the work of Christ, but upon your believing that God has accepted the work of Christ as a full and complete satisfaction of all your sins from beginning to end.”

Her expression seemed suddenly to change, as though a flash of light from above had entered her soul, and she gazed at him inquiringly. He continued, “It is the creditor that is to be satisfied, is it not?”

“Certainly,” she replied; “thank God for making it all clear to me. I see it all now so plainly. I never looked at it in that way before. I have been thinking whether I accepted Christ properly or not, whether I believed aright, whether I had the right faith, and so on. Sometimes I thought I was saved, and then again I doubted it, and I could not get peace.”

Yes, dear reader, God is satisfied with Jesus, and the work He has accomplished for His own glory, and the sinner’s eternal blessing, who by faith rests on it for salvation.

The Value of a Soul

There are things that can be estimated, but the soul of man no one can value. If we want an idea of its value we must look at the cross, and see Jesus, the Son of God, dying there to redeem it. There we see the estimate God puts upon it. The infinite sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, of infinite and eternal efficacy, shows us the value God puts upon the soul of man.

Man, as to his immortal part, the soul or spirit, never dies; it lives on, and will live on for eternity. Nothing can annihilate it. The body may be destroyed, it may die, and go to dust, but the spirit returns to God who gave it. “The body without the spirit is dead.”

Beloved reader, have you soberly thought of this? that you are a being that is to live for eternity? Time is not everything; death is not all; it does not close your existence; therefore you cannot say, “Come, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” After death what then? Judgment or glory? Eternity! what is it? How long? Ah, dear reader, if you could take all the leaves of each tree in the wide world, and count a hundred years for each leaf; and if you could take the sand of the desert, and count a thousand years for every grain; and if you could take the water of the mighty oceans, and count a million years for every drop; and if you could take the particles of air in infinite space, and count a billion years for every particle; putting these figures together, and adding them up, would give you a rough estimate of the beginning, the morning of that eternal Day for the righteous; and the beginning of that eternal night for the unrepentant and lost.

Ah, friend, of what untold value is your soul!

Are you seeking the world, serving Satan, putting something before your soul? Are you placing more value upon the riches, the honors, the fame, the glory of this passing scene, than upon your priceless soul that must live forever? Friend, answer me, “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” “Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36, 37).

To give the soul for the fleeting joys, honors, riches and glory of this poor world, is worse than folly; and since the soul is of infinite value, nothing can be given in exchange for it. Put the soul into the scales; let it be put into the one side, and the world, and all it possesses, into the other side, and let the hand of God hold the balances, and what will be the result? The soul will weigh all down, and the poor world, with its boasted all, would be as the small dust of the balance, compared with the priceless and immortal soul of man.

God gave His Son to redeem us, to save us from eternal night and misery; and to bring us to endless glory and happiness with Himself. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (John 3:36).

Could anything be more simple or solemn? The one who receives Christ, receives everlasting life and glory; and the one who rejects Him, sees not this life, does not possess it, will never know its blessedness and joy, but the wrath of God abideth on him.

O, the value of a soul! Its worth can only be rightly known by seeing what God gave to redeem it—HIS OWN SON.

All Things Are Serious

Queen Elizabeth’s Secretary, Walsingham, having retired from the busy world into the privacy of the country, some of his gay companions rallied him on his becoming religious, and told Him he was melancholy.

“No,” said he, “I am not melancholy, but I am serious: and it is fit I should be so. Ah! my friends, while we laugh, all things are serious around us. God is serious, who exerciseth patience toward us; Christ is serious, who shed His blood for us; the Holy Spirit is serious, in striving against the obstinacy of our hearts; the Holy Scriptures bring to our ears the most serious things in the world; the whole creation is serious in serving God and us; all that are in heaven and hell are serious. How then can we be gay?”

Scripture Study: 2 Corinthians 2

Paul’s anxiety in the First Epistle was to see the Corinthians hating and judging the sin that led to the offender being put away from among them. Now that the sin has been dealt with as it should, his anxiety is, lest they should fail in their love to restore the one put away.

Verses 1, 2. He determined that he would not come to them in heaviness. He wanted to see them happy in the Lord so that they and he could rejoice together again.

Verses 3-8. It was out of great trial and anguish of heart and many tears that he wrote the letter—not to grieve them but a proof of his genuine love to them; and now he shared their grief over their sin, and was anxious that they should confirm their love to the poor repentant one, and to forgive him, lest perhaps he should be swallowed up with over much sorrow.

Verses 9-13. This had proved their obedience, and now he was ready to join in their forgiveness to the man, that he might be restored to his place among them. He, as the ambassador, could speak for his Master’s forgiveness also, lest Satan should gain an advantage over them. The apostle knew the enemy’s ways and thoughts—It was first to keep the man in the assembly with his sin unjudged: but now it was to keep the man out after his sin had been fully judged and confessed, and Satan had been defeated in this effort to divide their hearts from the apostle.

Verse 12. Paul had been so anxious about them that when he came to Troas, where a door was open to him of the Lord, he could not settle down to the work, because Titus had not come; so taking leave of them, he went away to meet him (see his exercises in chap. 7:6, 7), and then he rejoiced to see how grace had wrought in them. There could be no true restoration without self-judgment which here had evidently been accomplished in the offender, and Paul sees also brokenness in them.

Verses 14-16. The best reading is, “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ, and makes manifest the odor of His knowledge through us in every place.” He comforts himself about missing the open door at Corinth, by the thought that after all, God led him in triumph. He was a sweet savor of Christ, to those who are saved, and it was life unto life; but to the Christ rejector, it was a savor of death unto death. This testimony of Christ was pure in his hands. It was not mixed with man’s thoughts. He labored in integrity, and Christian understanding before God. He was a true ambassador, as the Lord Jesus has said in another place, “He that receiveth you receiveth Me; and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me.” (Matt. 10:40).

Verse 17 (N. T.). “For we do not, as the many, make a trade of the Word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, before God, speak we in Christ.”

Fragment: Alone with Thee

“Keep yourselves in the love of God,” —this is state, and when the Christian profession had slipped, and was slipping, more personal dependence comes in urgently. The moment I let this in, I let in all the light, and gradually my eyes get to see clearly.

Christ is that light, and when I have to do with Him, the subtlety of evil is seen; but besides the light, grace and present dependence are needed.

Let us delight in dependence—that a Person above us should minister to us, and care for us.

Alone!

“Jesus said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest awhile.” (Mark 6:31).

This, this is rest, Lord Jesus,

Alone with Thyself to be,

The desert is a gladsome place,

With Thy blest company.

O! sweet to hear Thy tender voice

Bidding me “Come apart.”

Such rest for throbbing aching mind

Quiet for weary heart.

Yes. This is rest, Lord Jesus,

Alone with Thee to be,

And when I sigh for fellowship,

To find it all in Thee.

Thy saints on earth how dear they are,

Their love is passing sweet,

But I would leave them all to sit

Alone at Thy dear feet.

Such precious rest, Lord Jesus,

Alone with Thee to be,

Thy secret words of love to hear;

Thy look of love to see.

To feel my hand held fast by Thine

To know Thee always near,

A happy child alone with Thee,

My heart can nothing fear.

This, this is rest, Lord Jesus,

Alone with Thee to be,

The desert is a happy spot

With Thy blest company.

Amid the throng I might forget

That I am all Thine own,

I bless Thee for the “desert place,”

With Thee, my Lord, alone.

Stability and Peace

“Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest.”

Here lies the true secret of stability and peace, at all times, and under all circumstances. The authority of God for the ground we occupy, and His presence with us thereon—the word of the Lord, as the warrant for what we are doing, and the light of His countenance in the doing of it. There is no possibility of getting on without these two things. It will not do merely to be able to give chapter and verse, as we say, for a certain position which we have taken up; we must realize the Lord’s own presence with us. And, on the other hand, it will not do to say we have the Lord’s presence with us, unless we can give a divine warrant a “Thus saith the Lord” for what we are doing, and for the path we are treading.

Joshua could never have faced the difficulties of his day, without these two things; and, although we may not have to meet the same things that lay in his path, yet, we may rest assured of this, we shall never get on, in this our day, without the Word of God as our authority, and His presence as our strength. Our lot is cast in a moment of special confusion. A multitude of conflicting voices fall on the ear. Men are taking sides. We see apparently the best and holiest, the most devoted and intelligent men ranged to opposite sides of the same question, and pursuing opposite ways, though professing to follow the same Lord. What are we to think? What are we to do? What do we want? We want to hear, deep down in our very inmost soul, these two weighty and imperishable sentences, “Have not I commanded thee?” — “Lo, I am with thee.” These are grand realities, which the very feeblest and most unlettered saint may enjoy, and without which none can possibly make head against the tide of evil at present rising around us.

Never, perhaps, in the annals of Christianity, was there a moment which more imperatively demanded the most direct personal dealing of the soul with God and His truth. It will not do for anyone to pin his faith to the sleeve of another—. God is testing souls in a very remarkable manner. The sieve is doing its solemn work in the midst of the church. No doubt, those who are enabled to go through the sifting and testing, with God, will reap a rich harvest of blessing; but we must go through it. It is being made manifest, just now, in a very special way, whose faith is standing merely in the wisdom of men, and whose in the power of God. All that is hollow is being exposed, and will be so more and more; but God will keep those whose hearts are true to the name of Jesus. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee.”

This is the soul’s unfailing refuge, at all times. It was to this the apostle Paul directed the elders of Ephesus, at the close of his touching and pathetic address, in Acts 20. “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of His grace.” He does not commend them to any order of men; not even to apostles or their successors; to general councils or their decrees; to fathers of their traditions; to doctors or their dogmas. Ah! no; none of these would avail in the presence of the “grievous wolves” which were about to enter in among them, and amid the “perverse things” which some from among themselves would give utterance to. Nothing but God Himself and the word of His grace could stand, in an evil day, or enable a soul to stand.

There is something perfectly beautiful in the jealous care of the apostle Paul lest any should lean upon him, or upon anything save the living God Himself. Hearken to the following glowing passage, “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the Word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1 Thess. 2:13).

That devoted, single-hearted workman only sought to connect souls with God by means of His Word. This is the object of all true ministry. Where the ministry is not true, not of God, it will connect souls with itself; and, in that case, human influence will be brought to bear-weight of character—education—mental—power—wealth—position—a thousand things, in short, which are all used to form a foundation for the soul’s confidence, and shut it out from God. Thus the faith of the soul is made to rest in the wisdom of men, and not in the power of God.

Christian reader, we want you to ponder this matter deeply. Be assured it demands your serious attention. See that your soul is resting on the deep and solid foundation of God’s Word—that you have His direct and positive authority for where you are, and what you are doing.

And then see also that you have His presence with you. These two things will impart sweet peace to your spirit, and holy stability to your path, come what may. “Have not I commanded thee?” — “Lo, I am with thee.” It is your happy privilege to know the reality of these things, just as fully and just as distinctly in your day, as did Joshua in his day; Jeremiah in his day, and the apostles in their day. The measure of apprehension may vary—the circumstances may differ; but the ground or principle is the same always. Do not, therefore, we entreat you, be satisfied with anything less than God’s authority and God’s presence. Be not troubled or perplexed about the conflicting opinions of men. You must expect these. They are nothing new. But remember that, far above all the din and confusion, the strife and controversy, the opposition of sects and parties—far above all these things, in the clear light of the divine presence, in the calmness of the inner sanctuary, faith can hear with distinctness those precious, soul-sustaining accents, “Have not I commanded thee?” — “Lo, I am with thee.”

These things can never fail, they are imperishable. See that you possess them, just now. Be able, in the calm dignity of a faith that rests only in the power and on the authority of God, to give a reason for the path that you tread, the work you do, the niche you fill. This is not high-mindedness or haughtiness, dogmatism or pride, self-confidence or vain-glory. It is the very reverse. It is self-abnegation, and confidence in God. “With the lowly is wisdom.” Precious truth! May we all remember it! It is the lowly mind that really possesses heavenly wisdom. It is not the learned, the astute, the long-headed, or clear-headed men that can tread their way through the labyrinths of the present moment; no, it is the lowly, the simple, the self-distrusting, the childlike, the unpretending. These are they who will have wisdom to guide them, in darkest times—these are they who will possess peace in their souls and stability in their ways. May God’s Spirit lead us into these things!

The Cross

“It was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.” (John 19:20).

In the cross the world is judged in its religious, scientific and political features, as was typified of old in “the cedar wood, the scarlet and hyssop” (Lev. 14:4; Num. 19:6)—the world in the whole range of its glory. All for God and for faith is judged in the cross of Christ, and in His resurrection. God began a, or rather the, new creation in which all things are new, and all things are of Him (2 Cor. 5:14-20; Gal. 6:14,15; Rev. 3:14), and when the Lord Jesus arose from the dead, He as it were, rose into a new world, founded on His sufferings, death and resurrection.

Of this new creation, this new world, this new realm, He is the head, center and glory, according to the purpose and counsels of God (Eph. 1:10; Prov. 8:23) as Redeemer. He is the second man and last Adam.

This new creation is founded on redemption. His glory as Redeemer is an acquired glory—a purchased glory. His glory as Creator is rather His personal and inherent, not acquired or purchased; and creation is His because He created it; it is the fruit of His creative power and glory as Creator (John 1:1-3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:1-3).

In the first of these scriptures, it is His proper Godhead glory.

In the second, He creates and sustains as the Son of the Father’s love, and all is by Him and for Him.

In the third, it is He as the appointed heir of all things; the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His person, the maker and sustainer of all things by the word of His power; and the One who has by Himself made purgation for our sins, and is now seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high, the ever and all glorious Son, in whom God has spoken to us in these last days.

How blessedly and fully these scriptures bring before us our, blessed and wondrous Savior in His person and in His works! How outshining all His works, is that work of making purgation for our sins! How truly we can say with one of old, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior!”

Jesus! how much Thy name unfolds

To every opened ear!

The pardoned sinner’s memory holds

None other half so dear.

Jesus—the One who knew no sin,

Made sin to make us just;

Thou gav’st Thyself our love to win

Our full confiding trust.

The mention of Thy name shall bow

Our hearts to worship Thee;

The chiefest of ten thousand Thou,

Whose love has set us free.

Wisdom's Children: Who Are They

There is one feature which marks the children of Wisdom, and that is, they always justify her. So our blessed Lord tells us, in Luke 7:35, “Wisdom is justified of all her children.” In the same chapter we are told, “All the people that heard Jesus, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.” (Verses 29, 30).

From all this we learn a very simple but a most precious truth, namely, that all the children of Wisdom justify God and condemn themselves. This is the true ground for any sinner. Abel stood on this ground, when he “offered unto God the more excellent sacrifice.” Noah occupied it, when he “prepared an ark to the saving of his house.” It was there Job was standing, when he exclaimed, “Behold I am vile.” “Now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” That was Isaiah’s ground when he cried out, “Woe is me! for I, am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.” It was Peter’s position when he said, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”

“And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me” to enumerate all the children of Wisdom—all the members of that highly favored generation who have freely and fully accepted the counsel of God against themselves, and confessed themselves to be poor, guilty, hell-deserving sinners—who have been led to say, with David, “I acknowledge my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight; that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest.” (Psa. 51:3, 4; Rom. 3:4).

This is the invariable language of Wisdom’s children. They always condemn themselves and justify God. They do not make excuses for themselves; they do not seek to cloak or to palliate. No; “I will confess” is the first grand utterance of every true child of Wisdom; and until this language comes forth from the heart, there can be nothing right—until the soul is really on this ground, there is an insuperable barrier between it and God. So David found it in his day, for he tells us, “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.”

Thus it must ever be. There can be no comfort, no relief, no blessing, no sense of pardon, no peace, no holy communion with God, until the flood-gates of the heart are opened, and free vent given to the spirit of true repentance.

And what then? How does God deal with those who justify Him and condemn themselves? All praise to His name! He justifies them, and condemns their sin. Marvelous grace! The very moment I take my place as a self-condemned sinner, God leads me into the place of a justified saint. Self-condemnation is the sure precursor of divine justification. I have only to declare myself guilty, and leave all the rest to God. Wisdom’s children justify God, and He justifies them—they condemn themselves, and He pardons them. How can this be? The cross is the answer. There God condemned sin. There His righteous wrath against sin was poured out upon the Sin-Bearer, in order that His righteousness might be imputed to the sinner who simply believes in Jesus.

Here it is that Wisdom’s children take their stand. This is their blessed resting place—the solid and eternal groundwork of their peace.

Reader, say, are you one of Wisdom’s children? Have you been led to see your guilt, and own it before God? Have you accepted the counsel of God against yourself Have you justified God, and condemned yourself? If so, you may, this very moment, find repose in the finished work of Christ, and in the righteousness of God founded thereon. Such is the blessed portion of all the children of Wisdom.

Fragment: Profession vs. Living

I believe the time is coming, if not come, when it will no longer be the question of professing to be Christ’s, but of whether we are living the life of Christ.

He Surely Is Coming Soon

Soon Jesus will come, for the daylight is dawning;

He’s coming to call all His ransomed ones home,

His voice may be heard in the night or the morning,

He surely is coming soon.

E’er long He will come, and the call will be given,

His people will meet Him in glory on high,

Be taken by Him from the earth to the heaven—

He surely is coming soon.

How bright is the prospect now lying before us,

Of seeing the One who once hung on the tree,

Of being with Him in His home in the glory—

He surely is coming soon.

All changed in a moment, transformed to His likeness,

We’ll see Him in glory, the glory divine,

When once in His presence we’ll never be parted—

He surely is coming soon.

The night of His absence is growing still darker,

The star of the morning will soon be in view,

Take courage, dear Christian, you soon will behold Him—

He surely is coming soon.

O Christian, be ready, be waiting and watching,

Have on the whole armor, the armor of God,

From the head to the feet may there no part be lacking—

He surely is coming soon.

Rejoice then ye saints, for the moment is nearing

When heaven and earth will be filled with His praise,

No sorrow, no crying, no pain and no dying,

He surely is coming soon.

Unspotted From the World

“What need there is in these last and perilous times, that we should find in a closer walk with Christ, the secret of unspottedness from the spirit of this age, in all its boasted progress. You will recall the parable of the house that was ‘swept and garnished,’ in Luke 11. The conviction as to the last state, which this scripture fastened on my mind, led me to throw down my broom many years ago, and to refuse even a jot of garnishing up to this present day, for I do not like the incoming tenant! ‘And all the world wondered after the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast?’ May the Lord give us, and thousands more, true heartedness to Himself, that may keep us in the true confession of His rights and titles, and of His coming, to make them all good in sovereign power, against ‘the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.’ If the person of Christ were a reality to us, if in fact He were the only living and abiding reality to our souls, how we should make Him the governing and guiding object and motive of our daily life, ‘that Christ may be magnified in me, whether by life or by death.’ May the Lord lead to this devotedness and devotement, by drawing us to His own bosom, that our hearts may beat in true loyalty and attachment to Himself.”

We See Jesus

“Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:56).

Behold the Son of man

At God’s right hand on high,

‘Tis by that glorious risen One,

We are to God made nigh.

Ah! see His hands and feet,

His wounded side behold,

From thence for us on Calvary’s cross,

The blood once freely flowed.

What matchless, wondrous grace,

That God’s beloved Son

Should stoop so low, and bear the cross,

For sinners lost, undone.

But O! what boundless joy!

His grief and shame are o’er;

God’s glorified, exalted Son

All heaven doth now adore.

Nor is He there alone,

The people to Him given,

Raised up and quickened with their Head,

Have now their place in heaven.

In spirit there with Him,

We rest in that bright home,

In patience waiting for that day,

When Christ our Lord will come.

Then we shall see His face,

And bear His image bright,

And cast our crowns before His feet

With rapture and delight.

Fragment: A Gibbeted Man

If I choose to identify myself with a Gibbeted Man, because He is the Son of God, the whole order of the world is upset to me. Where and what is the world to me, while I honor a Gibbeted Man as the Son of God in the highest heavens.

What Shall We Read

A gentleman in India, as he was searching for a book, felt a pain in his finger, like the prick of a pin. He took little notice of it; but soon his arm began to swell, and in a short time he died. A small, but deadly serpent was afterward found among the books. There are many who receive in a bad book a wound that may seem slight but proves fatal to the soul. Be careful what you read.

“It (the Word of God) shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the Lord his God.” (Deut. 17:19).

Correspondence: Romans 8:9; Ephesians 4:8-10; 2 Timothy 2:19

Question: Please say what Romans 8:9 means? D.

Answer: In the flesh was our old state. Not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, is our new state, because we have life in the power of the Spirit. He dwells in us otherwise the character of Christ, the Spirit of Christ, could not be seen in us.

“Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him” (See N.T.). That is, if the Spirit of God does not dwell in a person, the Spirit of Christ cannot be seen in his ways.

Question: Does Ephesians 4:8-10 mean that Christ went into hell when He died? (Psa. 16:10; Acts 2:27). H. C. S.

Answer: When our Lord died upon the cross, his spirit went to the Father to whom He had committed it, and the thief was with Him there that day in paradise, and that is where all the departed spirits of believers are: “with Christ, which is far better” (Phil. 1:23). “Absent from the body, present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8).

Hell in these verses is not the place of lost souls, but the state of the dead, meaning the unseen, the soul apart from the body.

Ephesians 4:8 is the ascended Christ giving gifts to men (see verse 11). Christ did not ascend to heaven till forty days after His resurrection. Ascension means the whole man going to heaven. David is not yet ascended, his body is still in the grave (Acts 2:29 to 34), but his spirit is with Christ (Heb. 12:23), and so are all who died in faith (Heb. 11:13). Ephesians 4:9, 10 tells us Christ descended into the lower parts of the earth, that is, the grave, and is now ascended far above all heavens. There is no preaching to those who are dead. They were preached to before they died, and they are in prison awaiting the judgment for their sins, and on account of their disobedience (Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:5; 1 Peter 3:20 and 4:6).

Question: Does 2 Timothy 2:19 apply to us in the present time? B.

Answer: Yes, the Second Epistle to Timothy predicts and describes the state into which the church or assembly, the House of God, would fall, and has now fallen. In each chapter we find its failure mentioned. We also find our resource in what God has given, that man’s failure cannot destroy or take from the one who walks with God. We do not have the body of Christ mentioned in it. It is the house of God aspect, and though now outwardly ruined, it is for faithful souls, the dwelling place of God still. “The habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22), and will continue to be the Spirit’s dwelling place till the church, Christ’s body and bride, is called home.

In chapter 1:15, the turning away had begun, division had begun. In chapter 2:18 they have erred from the truth, evil doctrine is spreading. In chapter 3:8 they resist the truth. In chapter 4:4 they turn from the truth to fables.

The Lord offsets these in chapter 1 by the promise of life in Christ Jesus and salvation according to His eternal purpose (verse 1, 9). In chapter 2:19 the foundation of God stands sure, His work cannot be destroyed. In chap. 3:14-17 we have the apostle’s example, and the Scriptures which cannot pass away. In chap. 4:8, 18 we have the sure reward to encourage the faithful soul.

Chapter 2 marks out the path for the man of God through the confusion. Like a soldier, he must endure hardness, and have a single eye for his Master (verses 3, 4). Like the athlete, he must be obedient (verse 5)

Like the husbandman he must labor and wait for the harvest before partaking of the fruits (verse 6) He also shares the rejection, and suffers with Christ before partaking of His glory (verses 7-13). He carefully divides the word of truth (verse 15). We have the path of separation from evil, and the ground on which the company of fellowship is formed (verses 19-22).

Verse 19. The foundation of God cannot change or be shaken; its seal is: “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” We do not need to pronounce on people, but we are to depart from iniquity; we can know and associate with those who do so.

Verse 20 describes the mixed condition by the simile of a great house.

Verse 21 tells us to purge ourselves from the mixture, so we shall be a vessel unto honor, set apart and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.

Verse 22 “Flee also youthful lusts,” bids us cleanse our personal ways, and to follow righteousness, practically; faith, that is, obedience to the Word of God; charity, better translated love, the activity of the divine nature; and peace, characteristically; with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Others are found following (not men) but these traits or the character of the divine nature, and we also end other instructions given to the whole church that apply to this little remnant who seek to walk in holy separation to the Lord. (See for example Eph. 4:2, 3).

Verses 23 to 26 give instructions how to seek the good of others who are not clear on the truth; or have fallen into error in any way.

What About Your Soul?

Some few years ago a young farmer walked into my consulting room, looking worn and nervous, and with all the appearance of having undergone great mental anxiety. He complained of having lost his sleep, that his appetite for food had in great measure left him, and that he was subject to attacks of palpitation of the heart.

After hearing his tale of bodily suffering, I wrote him a prescription, and he had risen to take his leave, when I said,

“You have been telling me the story of your bodily sufferings, but what about your soul? Do you know anything of the Lord and His salvation?”

I can never forget the smile of holy joy and peace that immediately lighted up his face as he again seated himself, and said, “Ah, sir, thank God I can now say that my soul is resting on Jesus; but as you have spoken to me on that subject, I must tell you that the agonies of conviction I have gone through have broken my bodily health and brought me to seek advice from you this day.”

“How were you awakened to a sense of your lost condition; and what means did God use to bring you to a knowledge of the Savior?”

“Sir,” he replied, “I was a godless, thoughtless young man, living for pleasure, and in sin, running after the world’s vanities; spending my leisure moments with companions like-minded, heedless of God or eternity, and never feeling my need of salvation.

“I worked on my uncle’s farm, who cared for nothing as long as I did my duty. One day I heard, as if it were the voice of God speaking to me, the words, ‘You are going to hell and eternal ruin.’ I shook and trembled. My soul was in agony. Night and day the words haunted me, ‘You are going to hell.’ The horrors of the pit of woe were then before my mind.

“I tried to get away from them, but in vain—sleep left me. I tossed all night in mental agony upon my bed. I tried hard to drown my thoughts by dissipation, but it was like oil poured upon the fire of my soul. I then thought I would turn over a new leaf, and gain peace and relief to my soul by being religious. I began to attend church, to read my prayers, and to be regular at all the services. But all I did only seemed to make my condition worse, and I was almost driven to despair.

“Being advised to see the minister, I called upon him. He asked me what was the matter with me. ‘O, sir,’ I said, ‘can you tell me how I am to be saved from hell?’

‘My good fellow,’ he replied, ‘do your duty, attend your church, say your prayers, and be regular at Holy Communion, and you may hope to get saved.’
‘Sir,’ I said, ‘I have done all that, but I can get no peace. My sleep is gone and I am in agony. Can you not help me to be saved?’

“‘My good fellow, you are unnecessarily anxious; I can only tell you to follow your religious duties.’

“I found it was of no use talking to him, so I left, my misery more than I could bear. Just then I heard of another minister in the neighborhood as a godly man, so I went to him and poured out the anguish of my soul before him.

“He listened to my story, and assured that God had begun a good work in me, said, ‘My young friend, the Spirit of God has convicted you of sin, and shown you your lost condition, that He may lead you to the Savior. You have not gone to the only source of pardon, the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, shed upon Calvary more than 1800 years ago, but you have been trying to save yourself and make yourself better, and surely in that way you never can get peace. God settled with His own eternal Son on the cross for your sins, when He laid them on Him 1800 years ago. He who died for your sins and was your substitute in death is now in glory.’”

“Blessed be God, in a moment I saw it all. I had been trying to get rid of my sins, which
God had forever put away on the cross of His own Son. My soul found rest and joy at once in believing.”

Dear reader, God says in His word, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (2 Cor. 4:3, 4). If you are unsaved and and still careless about your eternal welfare, it is you who are deluded by Satan.

“Faith is the way of life;

Believe in Christ and live;

Fly to the shelter of His blood,

And peace with God receive.”

I Have Found a Ransom

It is utterly impossible that true, solid, eternal peace can be enjoyed, or true spiritual worship presented, until the conscience is purged by the blood of the cross. I must know not only that all the claims of my conscience, but that all the claims of God’s throne have been perfectly answered by One who died in my stead, ere I can breathe freely, walk at ease, or worship within the veil. There is no if, no but, no condition.

The door is thrown open as wide as the sinner’s heart could desire. His nature, his condition, and all his heavy liabilities have been divinely met in the cross. God can say, “Deliver him from going down to the pit,” not because he has kept all My commandments, nor even because he has earnestly tried but reluctantly failed to keep them, nor yet because he has sincerely repented and purposes to lead a new life; no; but because “I Have Found a Ransom.” Here is true peace. God knew the exact amount of ransom required, and He has Himself found it—found it all—found it for Me.

Reader, rest here! See the full amount of ransom told out beneath the eye of infinite holiness in the life blood of Jesus! See it! hear it! believe it! rest in it! You are not asked to throw the weight of a feather into the balance to make up the full amount. Jesus has paid all; and as the eternal Father raised Him from the dead, and enthroned Him at the right hand of the Majesty in the highest heavens, He, as it were, declared in the audience of all created intelligence—He sounded abroad through the entire universe, “I Have Found a Ransom.”

It is needless for you to say, I can find no rest, I am so terribly bad. I try to live better, but it is all the same. The more I try, the worse I am; I try to keep the commandments; I do all I can, but yet I do not have peace; I am not happy, I do not know that my sins are forgiven.

Dear friend, all this is “I.” You must look away from this poor miserable guilty “I” altogether. God says, “I Have Found a Ransom.” Has He found it in you or outside of you? Has He said, I have found ninety-nine parts of the ransom and you must find the hundredth? Ah! no; He has found it All, He has done all, and He knew what was necessary, and He tells you “The Glad Tidings” in order that you may “hear and live.”

Do not, therefore, read another line of this article until your weary heart has found sweet repose in God’s ransom. He does not ask you to pay a farthing; but He tells you He has paid all. Take Him at His word—confide in His love—lean on His ransom. May God open your eyes to see and your heart to understand and believe the things that are for your eternal peace.

Yet here in God’s most blessed Word,

His love is seen, His voice is heard;

He speaks to you, He speaks to me

With such sublime simplicity.

He loved the world, His Son He gave,

The guilty and the lost to save;

To save them from the woes of hell,

O! This is love unspeakable!

Not by our works, but by the blood

Of Him who once our surety stood;

Nothing but this could e’er atone—

The blood of Jesus Christ alone.

The Conqueror's Song

There is no condemnation,

From Satan I am free;

Triumphant exultation—

That Jesus died for me.

In Him my life is hidden,

My joys do but increase;

He is my blessed portion—

My everlasting peace!

Though Lord of life and glory,

He laid His glory by,

And rich in sovereign mercy,

For sinners came to die,

Or I in outer darkness

Eternally had been;

But Jesus was my ransom,

His blood has washed me clean.

I know Him as my Savior,

My firm, unshaken friend;

I know He will be with me

Unto the journey’s end.

My boast is in His goodness,

My strength is in His love,

And all my hopes and yearnings,

Are in Himself above.

Beneath the glorious banner,

His mercy hath unfurled,

His saints can ever vanquish,

And overcome the world.

With Him they fight and conquer,

Without Him soon they fail;

But ‘gainst His own strong armor,

No weapon can prevail.

O! I will sing of Jesus,

My pilgrim journey through,

And when with Him in glory,

The song I’ll still renew,

With heaven’s fullest melody,

Which never can subside,

And this its glorious burden

“Praise to the Lamb who died;

“Praise to the Lamb triumphant,

The chosen, One of God,

Who plucked us from the burning,

And washed us in His blood.”

In yonder glorious mansions

The ransomed soon shall throng,

And the preciousness of Jesus

Forms the fullness of their song.

Scripture Study: 2 Corinthians 3

What the apostle wrote in chapter 2, leads him now to give an exposition of the gospel in contrast with the law, which false teachers mixed together. Law and grace do not go together. The law demands; grace bestows.

Verses 1-3. “Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we as some others, epistles of commendation to you or from you? Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men.” They were his letters of commendation; the proof of the power of his ministry was seen in their conversion. They were ever in his heart, and he could tell it out afresh, since he was assured of their obedience. They were his letter, because in their faith they were the expression of his doctrine. They were the epistle of Christ, his ministry was used to make them that, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, but on the fleshy tables of the heart by the power of the Holy Ghost, as the law had been engraven on stones by God.

Verses 4-6. Paul was confident in regard to his ministry— “such trust have we through Christ toward God.” Yet it was not trusting in himself; his ordination and authority was from and of God. His competency was from God who hath made us new Covenant ministers, which ministry was not of the letter, but of the Spirit, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life, and the Lord is that Spirit (see verse 17). Every sacrifice and ordinance pointed to Him.

Verses 7-16 is a parenthesis to show the difference between law and righteousness. The law graven on stones was brought in with glory, so that the children of Israel could not bear to look at Moses’ face for the glory of it, yet it was all to pass away, for it was the ministry of death and condemnation. The ministry of the Spirit began with glory, the glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and there it ever subsists. It is the ministration of God’s righteousness in Him, and therefore exceeds in glory. The glory of the law had no glory, compared with Christ’s glory that excelleth. If that which was done away was glorious, much more that which abides is glorious.

There is a danger of Christians making a law of Christ Himself, and thinking of His love as a fresh motive to oblige them to love Him, making it an obligation, which they are powerless to meet to their satisfaction, and consequently they feel condemned in their consciences.

The ministry which the apostle fulfilled was not law. It was the ministry of righteousness and of the Spirit, not demanding righteousness to stand before God, but revealing it in Christ, who was made this righteousness of God for us, and we are made the righteousness of God in Him. The gospel proclaimed righteousness on God’s part for man, instead of demanding it under the law. The Holy Ghost is the seal of that righteousness.

He sealed the Man who was without sin, “Him hath God the Father sealed,” He was approved of God. The Holy Ghost also dwells in all believers, because they are made the righteousness of God in Christ. Thus it was the ministry of the Spirit given to us on our believing the gospel of our salvation. This makes it possible for us to understand the mind and purposes of God revealed to us in the person of a glorified Christ, in whom the righteousness of God was revealed and subsisted eternally before Him.

Verses 17, 18. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” They were no longer under the yoke of the law, nor of the fear of death or condemnation as one has said, “They were in Christ before God, in peace before Him according to perfect love and the favor that is better than life, even as it shone upon Christ without a veil, according to the grace which reigns by righteousness.”

“When it is said, Now the Lord is that Spirit, allusion is made to verse 6 (7-16 is a parenthesis). Christ glorified, is the true thought of the Spirit which God had previously hidden under figures, and here is the practical result; they beheld the Lord with open (that is, with unveiled) face; they were able to do this. The glory of the face of Moses judged the thoughts and intents of the hearts, causing terror by threatening the disobedient and the sinner with death and condemnation. Who could stand in the presence of God? But the glory of the face of Jesus, a man on high, is the proof that all the sins of those who behold it are blotted out; for He who is there, bore them all before He ascended, and He needed to put them all away in order to enter into that glory. We contemplate that glory by the Spirit, who has been given to us in virtue of Christ’s having ascended into it. He did not say, I will go up; peradventure I shall make atonement. He made the atonement and then went up. Therefore we gaze upon it with joy, we love to behold it; each ray that we see is the proof that in the eyes of God our sins are no more. Christ has been made sin for us; He is in the glory. Now, in thus beholding the glory with affection, with intelligence, taking delight in it, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the power of the Holy Spirit who enables us to realize and to enjoy these things; and in this is Christian progress. Thus the assembly, too, becomes the epistle of Christ.

The allusion made to the Jews at the end of the parenthesis, where the apostle makes a comparison between the two systems, is most touching. The veil, he says, is taken away in Christ. Nothing is now veiled. The glorious substance is accomplished. The veil is on the heart of the Jews, when they read the Old Testament. Every time that Moses entered into the tabernacle to speak to God, or to hear Him, he took off his veil. Thus, says the apostle, when Israel shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.

The glory of the person of Jesus Christ, is the substance or spirit of that which the Jewish ordinances represented only in figures.”

Fragment: Circumstances

Nature has circumstances between itself and God. Faith has God between the heart and circumstances.

Our Standing in Grace

We must learn what God is to us, not by our own thoughts, but by what He has revealed Himself to be, and that is, “The God of all Grace.”

The Lord that I have known as laying down His life for me, is the same Lord I have to do with every day of my life, and all His dealings with me are on the same principles of grace. The great secret of growth is, the looking up to the Lord as gracious. How precious, how strengthening it is to know that Jesus is at this moment feeling and exercising the same love towards me as when He died on the cross for me.

This is a truth that should be used by us in the most common everyday circumstances of life. Suppose, for instance, I find an evil temper in myself, which I feel it difficult to overcome; let me bring it to Jesus as my Friend, virtue goes out of Him for my need. The source of real strength is in the sense of the Lord’s being gracious. The natural man in us always disbelieves Christ as the only source of strength and of every blessing. Suppose my soul is out of communion, the natural heart says,

“I must correct the cause of this before I can come to Christ,” but He is gracious; and knowing this, the way is to return to Him at once, just as we are, and then humble ourselves deeply before Him. It is only in Him and from Him that we shall find that which will restore our souls. Humbleness in His presence is the only real humbleness. If we own ourselves in His presence to be just what we are, we shall find that He will show us nothing but grace.

It is Jesus who gives abiding rest to our souls, and not what our thoughts about ourselves may be. Faith never thinks about that which is in ourselves as its ground of rest; it receives, loves and apprehends what God has revealed, and what are God’s thoughts about Jesus, in whom is His rest. Our eyes and our hearts being occupied with Him, they will be effectually prevented from being taken up with the vanity and sin around; and this too will be our strength against the sin and corruption of our own hearts.

Whatever I see in myself that is not in Him, is sin; but then it is not thinking of my own sins, and my own vileness, and being occupied with them, that will humble me, but thinking of the Lord Jesus, dwelling upon the excellency in Him.

It is well to be done with ourselves, and to be taken up with Jesus. We are entitled to forget ourselves, we are entitled to forget our sins, we are entitled to forget all but Jesus.

Thoughts on the Preaching of Jesus Christ According to The Revelation OF THE MYSTERY

The first thing the soul needs to learn and know from God’s Word, is, where it is before God, or, “Adam, where art thou?” and the blessed way God has Himself met that deep, deep need of a fallen, sinful child of Adam, helpless to be anything, or do anything to make himself fit for God’s holy presence, God sending His own Son into the world, that we might live through Him, and also “to be a propitiation for our sins,” thus revealing Himself as a Savior God—as love! In a way too, that does not set aside His holiness, righteousness, majesty, or truth, but maintaining all that He is, so that “the righteousness of God” is revealed in the message He sends us, in “the gospel of God” (Rom. 1).

After, through grace, we believe this message, and are saved, “For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes it.” God gives us the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1), which gift is both the earnest of what we are going to inherit at the coming of our Lord Jesus, and gives us the consciousness of being brought into new and spiritual relationships, so that we know that we are not only saved sinners, and going to heaven bye and bye, but that we are sons now!

The spirit of bondage and fear are gone, and the spirit of adoption has come in, and we cry, “Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8). Also “Christ is in the Father, and we in Christ, and Christ in us” (John 14:20): That we are in Christ before God, and Christ is in us before men! How precious it is to know our position before God, and acceptance in Christ! and our relationship to Him as children, dear children, and the Father’s love, the love of relationship!

But there is another relationship we are brought into, and another preaching, besides the preaching of the Gospel, called “the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the Mystery.” This Mystery (Eph. 3), was never known before the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and is a consequence of His sending and giving the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, and was specially revealed to the Apostle Paul, and taught by him. Though it was illustrated in figure and type in the Old Testament times, the gospel was promised, and spoken of then, but not the Mystery as it is now. So, in Romans 16:25, we find it spoken of as a distinct testimony, and called “the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the Mystery.” Notice, that it is not only the preaching of “the Mystery,” but Jesus Christ according to that revelation! Have we believed it? Are we enjoying it?

In Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1, Christ is brought before us as exalted, and put over everything in heaven or on earth. “Head over all things to the Church which is His body!” Just as the first man Adam, before he fell, was put over everything God had created here below. But there was no helpmeet for him. He was alone, until God caused a deep sleep to come upon Adam, and “took one of his ribs,” and of the rib made a woman, and brought her to the man. She was not, like Adam formed out of the dust of the ground and then breathed into, thus getting the breath of life. But she was taken out of the man, derived her natural life, actually and literally from Adam! So that when Adam awoke out of that deep sleep, and saw before him that beautiful creature God had given him, he said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man!” And in Ephesians 5, this is referred to in connection with Christ and the Church (verses 31, 32).

Yes, dear believer, for we derive our spiritual life from our Head, Christ, having gone into the deep, deep sleep of death on the cross, and as the risen One becoming our life! He is going to present us to Himself “a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (as God presented Eve to Adam) when He comes again.

Then look at the love of this wonderful relationship to Christ in glory. “He loved the church and gave Himself for it,” on the cross, to save us. He goes on loving us as a man loves himself (Eph. 5:29). Now He is on the throne, and because we are members of His body, we are of His flesh, and of His bone! So He nourishes and cherishes it His body, and His Bride. Adam and Eve became one flesh and “He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit!”

“One spirit with the Lord

Jesus, the glorified,

Esteems the church for which He bled,

His body, and His Bride.”

Is it not wonderful? And is it not blessed?

Now let me refer you to the Song of Songs, and ask you to read the 4th chapter, where in a figurative way, Christ speaks to us as a Bridegroom, and we learn how precious we are to Him, and His thoughts of us! Primarily, this is Christ and His earthly Bride. But the relationship of Christ and the heavenly Bride being the same we may, and should listen to, and enjoy the Bridegroom love of Christ to us, for thus He loves us! We read, as He looks at us from head to foot as it were, that in His eyes we are “all fair,” and though we know our love to Him is so feeble, He sees it, and calls it, having “doves eyes within our locks.”

Verse 7. “Thou art all fair My love, there is no spot in thee.”

How precious to hear Him say this to us. And how is it that He can do so? Dear fellow believer, because though redemption is not mentioned in this Song, or the precious blood, yet it is supposed and He, the risen One, being “our life,” He sees us in the life we have derived from and have in Him, as Adam looked at Eve in the life she had derived from him! Christ in giving Himself for us on the cross, cleared and cleansed us from our old Adam life, and all its sins too; so that He sees us “all fair, My love, no spot in thee.” “When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory.” Then in the same chapter (S. of S.). He tells us that we are wholly, entirely His, for Himself! “We are not our own, for we are bought with a price!” (1 Cor. 6:19, 20). “A garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed” for Himself!

Do we believe this? Are we willing to be entirely His? Will you, like Rebekah, when asked, “Will you go with this man?” and Eliezer who had come to get a bride for Isaac, said, “Send me away to my master.” “Hinder me not.” Rebekah answered, “Yes, I will go.” May you and I, fellow believer, not cling to our country (the world), or our kindred (the unbeliever’s company round us), or our dearest friends, and relatives who would hinder us from being heartily and wholly yielded up to Christ our Bridegroom and Savior too, who loved us and gave Himself up for us—to have us for Himself!

May we too, say, “I will go!” for “I am my beloved’s, and His affections are towards me!” The journey will not last much longer, soon our Isaac, the true Isaac, will come to meet us. He is patiently waiting for His Bride.

“Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”

The Shepherd Found Me

The Shepherd found me in His boundless grace

And love, before I knew that I was lost;

My tiny footsteps scarcely had begun

To tread the path of danger ere I saw

The Shepherd close beside me; ‘twas enough!

No sense of danger made me seek His arms,

I did but catch a glimpse of His dear face,

Then gladly let Him lift me to His breast.

And only after that, when I was safe,

And felt His arms encircling me with love,

Did He Himself point out the road beneath,

And let me see the precipice below.

I saw His love before I saw my need,

I knew my safety long before I knew

The awful death from which He rescued me

And though I cannot tell when this took place,

Or when I first was clasped in His embrace,

I only know He found me I am His.

My Grace Is Sufficient for Thee

Some years ago a young clergyman with his wife went to the seashore with their youngest child. After being there for three days, their little one was suddenly taken away to be with the Lord. The young parents took the little body home, with heavy hearts.

After the funeral, he began to prepare a sermon to preach to his people; he took for his text the passage found in the lesson for the day,

“My Grace is sufficient for thee.” (2 Cor.12:9). He spent about two hours in preparing it, then he said to himself:

“It is not true; I do not find His grace sufficient for this heavy trial that has befallen me.” He cried to the Lord to make His grace sufficient for him in this hour of sore need and crushing sorrow.

As he wiped the tears from his eyes, he glanced up and saw over his study table an illuminated text card that his mother had given him. The words read, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” the word “is” being in bold type and in a different color from all the other words in the text. He seemed to hear a voice saying to him: “How dare you ask Him to make what is? Believe His Word. Trust Him, and you will find it true in every way.”

He took Him at His Word, and believed it to be true. He at once had rest and peace, such trust in a sufficient Savior as he never before dreamed could be possible. Within a month the governess in the family said to his wife:

“The farmers are remarking how changed the vicar is; he does not seem fretful anymore, but is quiet and gentle about everything.”

From that day the life of this minister of the gospel was a testimony to the sufficiency of His grace, and His strength that is made perfect in weakness.

Eternity will not be long enough to praise and thank our Lord Jesus Christ for the simple, glorious fact, that His grace is sufficient for us in every trial.

Fragment: A Glorified Man

There is a Man, a glorified Man, sitting now on the throne of God in heaven—that Man is Jehovah’s Fellow. To Him God the Holy Spirit has borne testimony in the Scriptures; to Him He calls the sinner’s attention; to Him He guides the eye of faith of each believer, and there He will fix it, for He, the only begotten Son of the Father, is the sole One on whom, and in whose life and work as Savior, God, even the Father, can rest in complacency. In Him, and through His death, resurrection, and ascension, the sinner can now, through faith, find rest with God in His glory, and receive the free gift of the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps Today

Perhaps today our Lord will come

To bear us to our much loved home;

Before the evening shadows fall

May sound the longed-for clarion call;

Then out of sorrow, tears and strife,

We’ll rise to realms of joy and life.

Perhaps today will be the last

And time shall be forever past

Our light affliction will be o’er,

Then glory! glory! evermore!

These days of toil and pain will cease

And faithful workers rest in peace.

Perhaps today mine eyes shall see

The Lamb of God who died for me.

O, nothing else will matter then,

If unto Him I’ve faithful been.

Live for that day, O soul of mine,

And joy eternal shall be thine.

Watch unto prayer, be of good cheer,

That Day of days is drawing near—

“Perhaps today!” Ah, then, redeem

The time that like a rushing stream

Glides on—Redeem, redeem the time!

Perhaps today heaven will be thine!

The Lord's Day

Holy as is the Sabbath, I have no hesitation in saying that the Lord’s Day, with which the church has to do, is founded on deeper sanctity. The believer has now to beware, on the one hand, of confounding the Sabbath with the Lord’s Day; and on the other of supposing that, because the Lord’s Day is not the Sabbath, it may therefore be turned to a selfish and worldly account. The Sabbath is the holy memorial of Creation, and the law: as the Lord’s Day is of grace and New Creation in the resurrection of the Savior.

As Christians, we are neither of the old creation, nor under the law, but stand on the totally different ground of Christ dead and risen. The Sabbath was for man—the Jew—the last day of the week and one simply of rest to be shared with his ox and his ass. This is not the Christian idea, which begins the week with the Lord; gives the best to Him in worship, and is free to labor for Him to all lengths in the midst of the world’s sin and misery.

Correspondence: Redemption; John 20:5-7; Matt. 3:10; Phil. 1:19

Question: Was redemption accomplished by the blood of the lamb in Egypt, or when the children of Israel reached the other side, of the Red Seas. A.

Answer: It is well to remember that all the types of the death of Christ in the Scriptures put together will come short of the great Antitype, so we draw lessons from each, but they are so connected that in our minds and explanations we borrow from the rest, to explain one; so it is here. The substitutionary death of the lamb preserved the house that had the blood sprinkled, from the judgment of Jehovah on the first born. There was much trouble that night, and fear still of Pharaoh and his hosts; but Jehovah, from that time, had begun the work of deliverance; had come down to deliver them, and led them out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. The pillar of cloud led them and defended them, so that the Egyptians could not touch them, and they could not go back, or compromise with the enemy. They had been Jehovah’s people in purpose, but now they are being delivered, and what exercises go on in their hearts! But peace and rest are not found till the morning dawns, which shows them all their enemies dead upon the sea shore, and they were delivered from Pharaoh and Egypt forever.

What a burst of praise would rise from a million hearts that day. “The Lord is my strength and song and He is become my salvation,” and they prepare Him a dwelling place, but all this must flow from the death of Christ. A partial view of His work does not rest the soul in undisturbed peace, but the knowledge of God’s delight in what Christ has done, and the place He has on high, banishes fear from the heart, and thankful praises flow out. We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is our present state even on the wilderness journey. Peace with God. Standing in Grace. Rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. We are on our journey home to the Father’s house.

Question: Why is each gospel different in its account of the resurrection? What do we learn from the linen, clothes and the napkin? (John 20:5-7). J. W. H.

Answer: God has given us four gospels, all intentionally different, yet all true. We cannot put them into one. If I ask a wife about her husband, she gives me his character as husband. I ask his son, and he tells me of his father. The servants tell me what he is as a master, and his master what kind of a servant he is. All are true, yet, different because seen from a different point of view. We do not reconcile the Word of God, we believe it, and as we learn more of Christ, our fancied mistakes disappear.

Matthew begins with the Lord as Son of David, Son of Abraham, heir of the promises and heir of the throne of Israel. Accordingly we find His legal genealogy, and God speaks to Joseph.

In Mark, He is the Servant Son, so we begin with Him about thirty years of age.

In Luke, He is the Son of Man, so His actual genealogy is given, and God speaks to Mary. He was the seed of the virgin.

In John, He is the eternal Son. “In the beginning the Word was... He was with God, and He was God.” His history on earth begins with verse 14.

In John 20, Mary of Magdala, in her ignorance, came to the grave, seeking for the living in the place of the dead. Her devoted love could not do without her Savior. This gave her the place to carry the message to the disciples of their new relationship to His God and Father in the risen and ascended Christ.

In chapter 19:39, 40 Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes about an hundred pounds weight, and they wrapped the body of Jesus in the linen clothes with the spices. When Peter and John entered the sepulcher they saw the linen clothes lying all undisturbed, and the napkin that was about His head not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. These show the calm dignity of One superior to death, who without haste or violence of any kind, rose triumphant from the grave. We would not for a moment think that the angel rolled away the stone to let Him out, as was the case in Lazarus being raised, but rather to witness that the sepulcher was empty, for He could not be holden of death. Nor must we let our minds run into imaginings—the Word of God is all we want.

Question: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. When did the last take place? (Matt. 3:10). G.

Answer: The baptism by fire is the judgment that is yet to fall on the unbelievers spoken of in this portion.

Question: What is “the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ?” (Phil. 1:19).

Answer: Paul was in prison for Christ’s sake. His great concern was to give a right testimony, and that it should be done in the Spirit of His Lord. For this he counted on the prayers of the saints, and that through grace supplied by the Spirit, his life might have the character in which his adorable Lord ever acted and spoke, so that Christ might be magnified in his body, whether by life or by death.

May we also think of and pray for this grace to be given to us,

Behold, Now Is the Accepted Time: Part 1

The last preparations for the evening ball were being made at the elegantly furnished home of Mrs. C. Beautiful flowers adorned the well-set tables, and the silver shone and glistened in the lights of the crystal lamps. In the ballroom the musicians were tuning their instruments.

Lina and Anna, the daughters of the house, had just finished their toilette, and were viewing themselves with much satisfaction in the mirror.

“Really the flowers are beautiful,” said Lina, admiring the red roses in her hair. “A good idea of Uncle Robert to give us these just before the ball! He knows far better than his daughter how to select suitable gifts.”

“You are right,” rejoined Anna laughing. “Poor Emilie! If she only knew how we appreciated her present!”

“But how unbecoming to make such a gift,” said Lina, turning up her delicate nose. “At present it has found a resting place between the other books. There it can stay until we make use of it. Don’t you think so?”

“Do you know,” replied the other without taking notice of her sister’s question, “what Emilie says about that book?”

“What?”

“That it will bring us true happiness.”

“True happiness?” repeated Lina scornfully. “As if we weren’t happy without it! I think we are happier than she is.”

“She never goes to a ball,” continued Anna, “but—”

“We know how odd she is,” interrupted Lina. “She often speaks so ridiculously that one might think she were not human anymore. She took enough pains to also speak to me about these things which are so repugnant. Whenever possible, I get out of her way. Why should we at our age walk about with a long face? Life is so sweet! When I get sick, or after I have become old, maybe then I will listen to her advice and read her books, but for the present I intend to enjoy life.”

“Emilie says that only now does she really enjoy life, but never before,” remonstrated Anna. “I don’t understand it, and yet—”

“I don’t understand it either,” interrupted Lina. “But come we must present ourselves to mother.”

After having been seen and approved by Mrs. C. they all proceeded to the ballroom to await the arrival of the guests.

Eight Days Later: Behold Now is the Accepted Time, Part 2

The day after the ball, Lina complained of headache and great weariness. At first no one paid much attention to her. It was thought to be only the natural result of overmuch dancing the previous night, and expected it to pass over soon. But the next day alarming symptoms appeared which were greatly to be feared. She had imprudently exposed herself to the cold night air, and had developed a severe case of pneumonia. At once the very best physicians in the city were called, but in spite of the utmost care given the patient, the disease increased with rapid strides. Poor Anna, almost overcome with her sorrow, would not leave her sister’s bedside, and during the first few days, did everything in her power to divert the thoughts of the patient, but finally gave up, seeing her efforts were in vain.

The unhappy mother did not know how to comfort her child. She brought all that money could buy to quiet the young girl’s unrest, but was also unsuccessful in all her attempts. Nothing lessened that terror of heart.

Alas! “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26).

Mrs. C., overcome with her sorrow, went to her room, bemoaning herself as the victim of a cruel fate.

In this way the dark days passed between fear and hope, until finally the first doubtful looks of the physician caused them to give up the last weak spark of hope they had; and amid the bitter tears of those surrounding the sick-bed, they made known to the dying girl her inevitable death. Mute despair was pictured in her pale face. O, if at this moment she could have had the peace and joy of a true child of God, she would have given all her possessions. But it cannot be had that way.

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold. . . But with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (1 Pet. 1:18, 19).

One morning as the patient’s unsettled glances were followed around the room, by her fond but anxious sister, their eyes lit upon a beautiful bound book, which occupied the last place in the bookcase. It was the Bible—Emilie’s gift. As possessed with a new thought, she arose, but just at that moment her mother stepped into the room, and Anna whispered to her:

“Mother, shall we not invite Cousin Emilie to come? I believe she could be of benefit to Lina.”

Lina heard and understood the words, forcing herself up, cried with a penetrating voice: “No, no. I do not wish to see her.”

The next day was her last.

Surely twenty times at least, Emilie had come to inquire about the dying girl. Up to this time she had quietly hoped to receive permission to speak to her cousin, but neither by the sick one, nor by any of the others, was her wish granted. During the first few days of Lina’s sickness, Emilie had even dared to write a few lines to her, but she, after having read it, crushed the letter in her hand, much offended that anyone should have attempted to speak to her about her soul. So every avenue seemed cut off, and every effort of love rejected. As she came today, she found the door of the sickroom half open. She took courage and stepped in, without announcement. Those who waited upon her were so overcome with grief and exhaustion that they did not seek to prevent her. Lina lay there in a rigid stupor.

The mother had locked herself into her room. Anna beckoned her cousin to take a seat at the bedside. Suddenly Lina opened her eyes wide and murmured:

“O, death! I feel—I must die!”

A long pause followed. Then she murmured again:

“O, it is horrible to die! Horrible!”

“Look to Jesus!” cried Emilie in tones of heartfelt sympathy. “He alone can help you in this serious hour.”

The eyes of the dying girl strayed restlessly through the room, and then fixed themselves with a rigid look upon the speaker.

“No, no!” she cried in painful tones.

“The Bible says, that—”

“No, no! don’t talk to me about that book!”

“Poor child! The Bible is the Word of God, and is rich in comfort.”

“Not for me, no—not for me!”

“Why not for you?”

“Because I despised it.”

“The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7).

“No—no—it is too late!”

“O, no! There is pardon in the eleventh hour, Look to Jesus, dear Lina! Go to Him. He wants to save you and forgive all your sins. He died for sinners on the cross.”

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

“No, no, I cannot. It is too late. I don’t want to hear any more about it. Go away and leave me alone!”

While the unhappy girl uttered these words, there was seen on her pale face a terrifying look of despair. Sadly Emilie left the room. Soon after, the patient again lost consciousness and regained it no more. Her dreadful fear of death furnished an awful picture of the end of a life given up to the pleasures of this poor world.

But now, dear young reader, after having read this story, I would plead with you not to put off your soul’s salvation as Lina did. She thought she would wait until she was on a sickbed; she did wait, and we have seen her sad end.

“Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2).

“To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” (Heb. 4:7).

The Warning

“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them.” (1 Thess. 5:3).

Speak not of the good time coming,

Say not, “Happy times draw nigh.”

Lo! the clouds with terror looming,

Darken o’er the future sky!

Undeceive thyself, O mortal!

To the winds such dreamings give!

Think upon the fearful purging

That the earth must first receive!

Rather tell of wrath and vengeance

Pending o’er this guilty race;

In its shame still glorying—boasting

Deaf to all the calls of grace—

God forgetting—God dishonoring—

Guilty world, thy doom is nigh!

Fear unknown will seize upon thee,

When He shakes the earth and sky!

Sodom’s fall but faintly pictures,

What thy awful lot will be;

It had not so many warnings,

As the Lord hath sent to thee,

Grace refused, makes judgment sorer—

O what grace hast thou refused!

Guilty world, thy judgments hover,

All escape for thee is closed!

Yet as in the case of Sodom,

Lot departed ere it fell;

So, the Lord will come from heaven,

Take His church with Him to dwell,

Ere destruction’s work commences

On this Sodom’s guilty ones.

They, the salt, alone preserve it—

They removed—the judgment comes.

To the ark and from destruction

All who’d be preserved, then haste!

Christ’s alone the Ark of safety—

Come—and full salvation taste.

Tarry not for reformation—

(Sinners—Jesus died to save)

Art thou lost? He came to find thee,

Thou, believing, life shalt have.

Then, amid the coming glory

Which the church with Christ shall share

Thou shalt have thy happy portion,

Bride of His—His image bear—

Then His earthly people gathered,

Earth made clean, and Satan bound;

Thou shalt, with thy Savior, reigning,

O’er a happy world be found!

Scripture Study: 2 Corinthians 4

Verses 1-4. The apostle wrote (chap. 3:6) that God made them able ministers of the spirit of the new covenant, and that their sufficiency was of God. Here he tells that they received mercy to carry it out, and therefore could say, “We faint not.” Sustained by divine power, they gave out the Word in the same purity in which they had received it. They rejected the hidden things of shame; they did not walk in deceit, nor falsify the Word of God, but by manifestation of the truth in doctrine and practice, commended themselves to every conscience of man in the sight of God. The truth had its full force in going out from him. It was not veiled; if men did not see it, they had put a veil on their hearts.

“If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost;” the god of this world, that is Satan, hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the good news of the glory of Christ who is the image of God, should shine forth for them. The glory of Christ risen and ascended, tells of God’s righteousness and love, shining out for guilty, ruined sinners. His delight is seen in the glory in which the Lord Jesus now is seen and known to faith.

Verses 5, 6. The apostles therefore did not preach about themselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and themselves servants for Jesus’ sake. To be such, God had wrought in them. As at the beginning, God had said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. So now God had shined into their hearts, and this shining in, was that the light might shine forth—the light of the knowledge of the glory of God as revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

Verses 7-14. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not from us. A vessel needs to be empty. An instrument needs to have no will of its own, so God must deal with the vessel to reduce it to nothingness, and this is done by circumstances of trial with the teaching of the Word by the Holy Spirit, to bring the flesh in the vessel into the place of death. This is what we have in verses 8 to 11:

“We are troubled on every side,” that is, the vessel; “yet not distressed,” because God was with it. “Perplexed,” that is, the vessel; “but not in despair,” for God is there. “Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” Submission to the will of God, even unto death, is wrought thus in the soul. It was found in its perfection in Jesus. And so it is, “always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.” Wonderful that such a life could be produced in sinful men with mortal bodies. “For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” We see how this was the actual experience of the apostle (2 Cor. 1:8 to 10). He realized in his heart, as the Lord’s servant, what death is, and his life preserved was from God who raises the dead.

The more that the man is set aside as nothing, the more the life of Jesus is seen in the submission to God’s will, the dependence on God, and obedience to His Word, and thus the life of Jesus is seen in his mortal flesh. This is conformity to Christ in the heart by God’s power made good in man’s weakness. So death worked in the servants, that life might work in the converts. What a difference between the prophets of the Old Testament who searched their own prophecies seeking to understand them; and the apostles who knew, understood and felt the truth and taught it, walking in it before God and men. The apostle could quote Psalm 116:10: “I believe, therefore have I spoken.” It was all a living reality to him. We having the same spirit of faith, we also believe, and therefore speak.

It is the same with us all; we cannot rightly minister beyond what we have received. If we go further, we are but a clanging cymbal.

This lesson is meant to teach us that we must have the glory of Christ before our souls, subduing our wills, thus bringing in the power of God, and thus death morally in the servant produced life in the hearers. Death had lost its terror to the apostles, “Knowing that He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and present us with you.” Blessed assurance of hope given by the resurrection of Christ Jesus to the apostles and also to us.

Verse 15. “For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.” What God passed the apostles through in their service in testimony for Christ, was all for the elect’s sake (see Col. 1:24 and 2 Tim. 2:10), giving the character of a rejected One on earth, now glorified at God’s right hand. To serve such a Master, the servant must be like Him.

The Lord suffered also in atonement in which none can share. Sufferings from man, and in testimony for God we all who are believers may have part in. “Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” (Phil. 1:29). The Lord said about Paul (Acts 9:16), “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” Paul knew that the end was glory with Christ above, both for him and for them, and he unites their thanksgivings with his own (2 Cor. 1:11). “For this cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day,” for the trials of the present moment were only temporary, and would soon be over; and besides, as he says, “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment,” in comparison to eternity, “worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” The knowledge of this comforted and sustained the soul to go through the trials and sufferings that God saw fit to allow to come upon His servants.

In all this, the apostles show us the way, as examples that in our path of suffering and service, this truth might comfort and sustain our souls, amid the discouragements of a Christ-rejecting world, which after all he calls “light,” and “but for a moment,” and working, for all His saints, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. It must be so, 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 unseen things are eternal. The power of divine life, with its consequences, were developed in their souls by faith. They knew the result of everything on God’s part.

Lack of Prayer - Self-Confidence

There is an astonishing lack of prayer among many Christians, lint they are stunted in their growth when they allow cares and business to swallow up the Lord’s portion. “Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation;” the unguarded soul falls an easy prey to the world and Satan’s temptations (to self-confidence and giving way to the flesh); grace may use the fall, of course, for blessing in the end but how much better to have walked instructed by God’s Word. Peter had three warnings before he fell (Matt. 26:34, 41, 52).

Jesus Is Coming

Ye saints all, take courage,

For Jesus is coming;

It may be at midnight,

Or it may be at noon:

His Word is, Be ready,

Be waiting and watching,

The trump will be sounding,

He may come very soon

Then the dead shall arise,

And the living be changed,

In a moment, Lord Jesus,

We will meet in the air.

O! how glad we shall be,

When Thy face we shall see,

And with Thee evermore,

Thy glory shall share.

Then, Christian, be ready,

For the night is far gone,

The bright Star of morning,

In the sky will appear;

The darkness be breaking

For all that are watching

And all that are waiting

To meet with Him there.

The Deity of Christ and What Constitutes Christianity: Part 1

In the first place, there are the direct passages—John 1:1

“The Word was with God, and was God.” This is in every way a striking passage: when everything began, He was—that is, had no beginning—was God, as indeed it must be, yet was a distinct personality; He was with God, and always such, was so in the beginning, that He created everything.

We find in Heb. 1 the same truths. He, the Messiah, for of Him he speaks, the Son, is God, is worshipped by angels, in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth, and is “the same” — in Hebrew (Psa. 102), Thou art the existing One, the Being, where the testimony is so much the stronger by comparison with Psalm 102:12, where Christ in humiliation addresses Jehovah.

In John 8 we find, “Before Abraham was I AM,” in contrast with His age as man; which the Jews perfectly understood, and would have killed Him for blasphemy.

Colossians 1:16: “All things were created by Him and for Him,” where it is unquestionable Christ is spoken of, the true force of verse 19 being “all the fullness was pleased to dwell in Him,” and spoken of Him as man living upon earth, and accomplished in fact in chapter 2:9, “In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”

John 10: “I and My Father are one.”

His name is called Jesus—Jehoshua, that is, Jehovah the Savior, for He shall save His people—who, and whose people, in connection with the explanation of such a name? Christ is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. Thus John 12:41, Isaiah saw His glory, and spoke of Him, quoting Isaiah 6. Whose glory was seen there? Jehovah of hosts.

Hebrews 12:25,26: Whose voice spoke from heaven (compare chap. 1:1, 2)—whose at Sinai on earth? Hence His name was also Emmanuel, God with us.

So John the Baptist’s ministry was preparing the way of Jehovah (Matt. 3:3, quoting Isa. 40 Mal. 3:1), “I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me, and Jehovah, whom ye seek, shall come.” If the judgment to come on the earth is referred to, difference of interpretation as to this, or the passing on from Christ’s first coming to His second, does not affect the question of the Person who comes; He who first came will come again.

The more we compare passages as to this, the more we shall see this identification, and that it is not forcing one or two texts, but the doctrine of Scripture woven into its whole texture. Jehovah is Israel’s righteousness, but Christ is made our righteousness. “The Lord (Jehovah) my God shall come, and all His saints with Thee” (Zech. 14:5); “and Jehovah said... a goodly price that I was prized at of them, and I took the thirty pieces of silver,” etc. (11:12, 13). “Then shall Jehovah go forth... and His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives” (14:4). So, as to Redeemer, Jehovah alone is their Redeemer. In Isaiah 63 this Redeemer is clearly Christ. So in Isaiah 50:2, “Thus saith Jehovah... Wherefore, when I came, was there no man?” And then He goes on, and asserts His unenfeebled divine power, yet He continues, “Jehovah Elohim hath given me the tongue of the learned,” and the sufferings of Christ are then spoken of.

In Psalm 2 the kings of the earth are called to trust in the Son—the Christ—yet a curse is pronounced on trusting in man, or in any one but Jehovah. See Revelation 22, He who comes quickly is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last.

In many of the passages in which God and the Lord Jesus are mentioned, with one article in Greek, it may possibly unite them, only in the subject matter of the sentence. Hence, although I think they prove a great deal as to the identification of God and the Lord Jesus, I do not quote them as simply proving, in an absolute way, the divinity of Christ. But the force of the passage in Titus is apparent, “Waiting for the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” It is unquestionably Christ who appears; as it is now in the face of Jesus Christ that we see the glory of the Lord.

This unity of God and Christ is manifest throughout John’s writings, “I and My Father are one.” “We are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” Take, again, such an example—for it is only an example— “And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He shall appear we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of Him. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 2:28, 29; 3:1, 2). Now, who will say to whom this applies—Christ, or God? It is impossible to distinguish them. What characterizes all the writings of John, in the language of Christ, is One who has the place and title of perfect equality, yet now being a Man, takes nothing, never glorifies Himself, but receives all from His Father, as in John 17. In them we have God over all, blessed forever (Rom. 9:5), which, I doubt not, for my part, is the only true sense; and other passages I do not quote, as they are matters of criticism. Indeed, I have only cited such as suggest themselves to my memory. So Thomas “My Lord and my God.”

But there is another class of texts, which to the mind, sensible of what is due to God, evidently show who He is. Grace coming from Him, as is found everywhere— “Out of His fullness have we all received, and grace for grace.” Christ is all. His love passes knowledge. Christ is to dwell in my heart by faith. If Christ be to me what the Scripture says He is to be to me, and be not God, He must exclude God altogether. The very fact that Christ made Himself of no reputation when in the form of God, is again a moral proof of His divine nature. Every creature was bound to keep its first estate; He who was high and sovereign could, in grace, come down and take another nature.

Everything confirms this. He does not merely work miracles and east out devils, but sends others out, and gives them authority over all devils. When He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” who was dwelling in the temple? This kind of proof shines forth in every page of the gospels, and to the mind whose eye is open to see, affords a proof more powerful even than individual texts stating it in the letter, as I speak of the letter.

Let me add the remark, that when it is said the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him, bodily, it is not a vague word, as we speak of what is divine.

Where the leper says, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst,” He says, “I will, be thou clean” —who can so speak? The proofs that He is a man must not be cited against it. We hold to this as anxiously as anyone. His being God is only of special value to us because He is man—a true, very man, though a sinless one— God with us, and then we in Him before God—One who took flesh and blood, that He might die, and partook of flesh and blood because the children were partakers of it—a dependent, obedient man, who, though He had life in Himself, lived by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.

When I am called to believe in Jesus Christ come in flesh, which Christians are to believe, they hold He is a man; but why insist on this? If He was simply a man, how else could man come? Not an angel, for an angel must not leave its estate, and He did not take up angels words which have no sense if He had been one, and was taking up the cause of others as such. When He says, “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father,” and that He is in the Father, and the Father in Him, the last might be said of a man, perhaps; the former impossible as a mere man, or of any but a divine Person. So, when He says, “None hath ascended up to heaven,” that is to state what is there— “save He that came down from heaven, the Son of man, who is in heaven.” And, if all men are to honor the Son even as they honor the Father, it cannot be that He is a mere man, or not have the nature which is to be honored.

Jehovah has sworn that every knee shall bow to Him, and every tongue give an account of himself to God, but it is at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. Hence, though the Son quickens whom He will, as the Father, yet the Father judges no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son as they honor Him. There is no God but Jehovah—I know not any, as says the prophet; but we have seen, by multiplied examples, that Christ is Jehovah.

That as Son He has taken a place subject to the Father as man, every Christian believes—receives the glory He once had with the Father before the world was—everyone who bows to Scripture joyfully accepts; for He is a man forever, in that sense a servant, but He who is the servant can say, I and My Father are one, and I am in the Father, and he who has seen Me has seen the Father also.

Compare the description of the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7 and Revelation 1, and see if the Ancient of Days, who receives the Son of man in Daniel 7 be not the Son of Man in Revelation 1, and in Daniel 7 too; from verse 22 of the chapter the Ancient of Days comes. Hence we have, “the blessed and only Potentate, King of kings, and Lord of lords” then, the appearing of Christ; but in Revelation He who comes on the white horse has on His vesture and on His thigh, King of kings, and Lord of lords. You see, the more Scripture is gone through, the more comes to light that He is the true God and Eternal Life.

(To be continued)

Persevere in Prayer

“If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 18:19).

Many years since, an old gentleman, then residing in Nova Scotia, was one night awakened and with an intense desire to pray for the safety of his son, a sea captain, at the time, away on a long voyage. He arose from his bed and fervently besought the Lord not only once but twice that he would take care of this son, whatever the circumstances might be.

Some time after this, the son came home for a visit, and one day as they sat at dinner, the father suddenly exclaimed,

“N., where were you on such a night, of such and such a month?”

At first he was unable to answer but as he thought it over he replied,

“We were on the Pacific Coast, in a terrific gale of wind, and on a lee shore at that, and though we did all we could to move the ship off, it proved unavailing and it seemed we would go ashore, which meant the loss of vessel and all hands. In my extremity I went to my cabin, and there falling on my knees, besought the Lord to save us, and even while thus engaged, the officer in charge shouted down the companion way, ‘Captain, we are all right. The wind is off the land.’ I went on deck, and ordering the necessary change of sail, we proceeded on our course, all truly thankful we had escaped a watery grave.”

Thus we see how the grace of God spans the continent, and that He hears and answers prayer according to the riches of that grace, and thus we are encouraged to pray at all times, assured that our prayers also will be heard as were theirs.

We little know how much we deprive ourselves of, by not persevering in prayer. In the above instance, we see perseverance, simple faith, and unity of the Spirit a combination that ever accomplishes its purpose. Surely, in these last and closing days, this should be the attitude of all those who look for His coming, and with “the Spirit and the bride,” saying, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Correspondence: Answer to a Paper Sent for Criticism, Part 1

Answer to a Paper Sent for Criticism

“He that hath My Word, let him speak My Word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.” (Jer. 23:28). We will not occupy ourselves with the evils of this paper, but look at the Scriptures, and believe what God has spoken. We seek His grace to teach us by His Spirit.

Let us notice that judgment on the earth is in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, eternal things are opened up. Life and incorruptibility are brought to light by the gospel (2 Tim. 1:10 N. T.).

John 3:17 is quoted to prove that all will be saved, if not during their life here, at the resurrection. Read the verses 14 to 18, and notice that “He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but, he that believeth not is condemned already.” “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on Him” (verse 36). This is plainly eternal. Which is yours, dear reader?

John 4:42. These Samaritans, outcasts from the Jews, rejoiced that Jesus the Christ was the Savior, not of the Jews only, but of the world, of “Whoso-ever.” How strange it would sound in Nicodemus’ ears to hear that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Nicodemus knew that God loved the Jews, but to love the ungodly Gentiles, he had never heard before. Thus John 6:33, “giveth life unto the world,” is easily understood. “Every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life” (verse 40). This is God’s will.

And again verse 53 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eaten My flesh., and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” This eating and drinking is believing that the Lord Jesus died for you. John 1:9, and 9:5 are like the sun shining upon every man, whether he can see, or whether he is blind. It is not salvation to all.

John 12:32. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” God thus sets Christ, lifted upon the cross, before all men, as Moses lifted up the brazen serpent, “that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:14, 15).

1 Corinthians 15:22 is often quoted in this paper. Let us examine it, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” The subject of this chapter is “the resurrection of the saints,” and it is proved to be true by the resurrection of Christ Himself. The gospel Paul had preached to them was that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”

Adam’s fall took in all his race. Christ’s headship takes in all who believe on Him, and it is their resurrection that is spoken of. The only verse that speaks of the unbelievers’ resurrection in this chapter is verse 26, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death,” —that is when they are raised to stand before the great white throne where they are judged according to their works, and cast into the lake of fire; and death and bell, that is hades, the state of the soul and body being separate., is ended. This is the second death to which there is no end (Rev. 20:10 to 15).

Romans 8:1 is not speaking of all mankind, but only of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 1:10 is quoted to show that all men, and fallen angels, even the devil will finally be saved. This is the usual wicked perversion of the Word of God in this paper. We know, for God has said, “Every knee shall bow, of heavenly, earthly and infernal beings, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to God the Father’s glory.” (Phil. 2:10, 11 N. T.).

Matthew 25:41 and Revelation 20:10 tell us that the devil and his angels are to be tormented for eternal ages. God’s Word says it, and wicked men will share their doom.

Ephesians 1:10 is the Millenial Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ when He shall reign in a kingdom that never decays, as every other one has done. His glory will fill heaven and earth, as the waters cover the sea, and believers shall reign with Him (1 Cor. 6:2, 3). 1 Corinthians 15:24, 25 tell us of its successful accomplishment till all enemies are put under His feet, and then He delivers the kingdom up to His Father.

2 Peter 3:13 and Revelation 21:1 to 4 tell us of the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The inhabitants all clothed with the righteousness of God—Christ, God’s righteousness; but there is a third place in Revelation 21:8, that has inhabitants. It is the lost. They are in the lake of fire, the second death, to which there is no end, for death in the Scriptures is never the cessation of existence— it is eternal. God cannot cease to be God; and sin must be put away from His presence forever. It is proved again that “Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” are necessary for salvation.

(To Be Continued)

Correspondence

Question: Please explain John 6:53.

Answer: In this chapter we have the soul hungering and thirsting after something to satisfy its need. In verse 35, Jesus said unto them, “I am the bread of life; he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst” (see also verse 51). The Lord further states that it is eating His flesh and drinking His blood that gives eternal life. Verse 35 says that we have to come to Him, and believe on Him to get this blessed satisfaction. It is what God has provided for us by sending His Son to die as an atoning sacrifice for sin (see 1 John 4:9, 10), believing on Him who died for our sins, we receive eternal life and forgiveness, so that eating His flesh and drinking His blood is making His death to apply to our lost condition, thus telling us that we have eternal life through His death, eternal salvation. (John 5:24).

Question: Are we in Christ dead and risen? A.

Answer: We are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1; 1 Cor. 1:30, 2 Cor. 12:2). That is our standing before God where no condemnation can ever come. (See also John 5:24).

But the Scriptures say that we are dead with Christ; buried with Christ; risen with Christ, not in Chris. The Scriptures teach that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin (Rom. 6:6), so that our faith can lay hold on the fact that we, as men in the flesh, have died with Christ, and are buried with Christ, and risen with Christ (Col. 2:20,12; 3:1). Sin is in us still, but we are to reckon ourselves “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:11). Like Paul, we may say, I am crucified with Christ, and now Christ lives in me. A new life, a new object and a new power to life, is ours.

Question: What does the last part of 1 John 1:9 mean, “and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”?

Answer: The children of God are in the light. If they do wrong a cloud comes over their happy communion with the Lord, and the Holy Spirit in them is grieved.

This should, and often does, lead them to feel that they have done wrong, and then lead them to confess to the Lord their wrongdoing. He is their Advocate with the Father (2:1), ever maintaining them before the Father as His children, and this assures them that the sin is forgiven.

Then the words, “and to cleanse them from all unrighteousness,” is to cause a deeper exercise in their souls, so that they may ask themselves, What was the cause of my failure? Then they find that prayer and watchfulness had been neglected, and their eye being off the Lord, they were allowed to fall, to teach them to keep Him before their hearts so that such falls would not happen again, and thus it cleanses them from all unrighteousness.

Have You Decided for Christ?

People may live for years agreeing to the necessity of salvation, and yet remain all the time unsaved. Numbers and numbers of souls assent to the needs-be of salvation, yet die without it.

The greater number of our readers assent to the needs-be. O, let us ask each one—Have you turned to God? Has your heart bowed before Him? Have you owned your sins to Him, and have you really and truly cast yourself on the Lord Jesus Christ for pardon? Be assured of this, dear friend, that there must be direct and personal dealing with God, or the soul is still afar off from Him.

Some little while ago, three Christian men were speaking together of the moment in their lives when they had truly decided for Christ: One had been a drummer boy. A Christian soldier of his regiment was dying in the camp, and he had called the heedless drummer boy to his bedside, and made him promise he would that night kneel down beside his cot and pray to God. The boy declared he would, and went slowly and thoughtfully back to barracks. It was a testing moment for the boy. The men observed something strange about his behavior, and chaffed him, till at length the hour for sleep came. Four times did that drummer boy walk round his cot in fear of man, yet not daring to break his promise made to the dying soldier.

Presently he fell down upon his knees by the cot-side, in the sense that God’s eye was upon him. He could but kneel, pray he could not, for he did not know how to pray—all he could say was, “God, teach me how to pray.”

For a month he knelt thus by his bedside, each evening being pelted with boots and brushes, until at length God showed him from the Scriptures, salvation through His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

The turning point with that boy was his kneeling down by the side of his cot. There the battle was fought and the victory won. That one act of decision was of eternal importance.

The second man was the son of Christian parents, and had been brought up with every religious advantage. The day he left his home in the country, his godly parents had pleaded with him to give himself up to Christ, but the young man had come up to the large city unsaved. He entered the police force. He was a quiet, moral man, but morality will not save the soul or give us peace with God.

One night, when in the police station off duty, he could not. sleep, but for hours cried to God to save his soul. At about two o’clock in the morning, God showed him that neither prayers, tears, nor good wishes can procure us salvation, but that in Christ, and Him crucified, salvation is to be found. There and then he closed with Christ, and received Him as his Savior, and is now at peace. As he said, the moment of decision with him was that in which God was showing him by the Holy Ghost, that not in his goodness, but in Christ and His blood, is salvation for sinners. He, by grace, decided in his soul as God spoke to him.

The third man had been led by a pious friend, an old comrade. to attend a chapel, where God showed him His word, “Whosoever!” He laid hold on that one word, whosoever. The deciding point with this man was believing God’s word, that it was true, and true for him, and the result was, he testified that God had given him life everlasting in His Son.

God may deal with men’s souls variously, but let us learn from these three witnesses, who agreed that a moment came in their lives, such as they had never had before, when they in spirit had decided for Christ, and from that moment all had been changed to them.

Now, God may lead up to this point by a long process, or bring the soul to it at once, but certain it is, that every sinner saved by grace, does come into close quarters with God. He is no longer standing afar off considering the needs—be for salvation, nor at a distance from God making resolutions, but he does believe God.

Again we would repeat our question, “Have you decided for Christ?”

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isa. 1:18).

“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for—it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” (Rom. 1:16).

The Shepherd Found Me

The Shepherd found me in His boundless grace

And love, before I knew that I was lost;

My tiny footsteps scarcely had begun

To tread the path of danger ere I saw

The Shepherd close beside me; ‘twas enough!

No sense of danger made me seek His arms,

I did but catch a glimpse of His dear face,

Then gladly let Him lift me to His breast.

And only after that, when I was safe,

And felt His arms encircling me with love,

Did He Himself point out the road beneath,

And let me see the precipice below.

I saw His love before I saw my need,

I knew my safety long before I knew

The awful death from which He rescued me;

And the I cannot tell when this took place,

Or when I first was clasped in His embrace,

I only know He found me—I am His!

Tracts and Their Traces

It was late in the evening of a quiet Sunday, and the man who was addressing the crowd in the open air, had been often moved to speak of Jesus to the multitudes who frequented that breezy spot. He was a simple, earnest man of God with few gifts but much grace, and in telling the story of the cross many a head was bent, and many an eye moistened with emotion. The last hymn was being sung. The speaker moved quietly about among the people, offering them well selected tracts.

A year passed, and the preacher often wondered whether the seed sown in this, and similar services which he had conducted, had borne fruit. One evening, in the Autumn, he was crossing a ferry, not far from the spot where he had spoken before, when a rough man in the boat accosted him:

“Good evening, sir: I suppose you don’t remember me?”

“No, I cannot say I do,” was the answer, after a close look at him.

“Ah, but I know you,” exclaimed the honest man.

“Indeed! how, or where, may I ask?”

“If I may tell you all about it, I should like to do so.”

“Do tell me, my friend.”

“Do you remember preaching on the hill yonder, one Sunday evening last summer?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, I was one of your hearers—and I thank God I was! You talked of judgment to come. I thought you must have known what a sinner stood close to you, for you often looked at me. Before you were finished I was fairly beaten down. And then you gave me a tract, which I took and walked quietly home. I am not ashamed to tell you that I wept all the way home. Mine was a solitary room, and when I reached it, I sat down to read my tract. That, too, spoke of a coming judgment, and my conscience was on fire. But it told also of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away sin. Ah! that Was what I wanted. I cried unto God. I could not sleep, and so for many weary weeks I went on, miserable enough. At last I saw that God’s way to me was through Jesus Christ; and that my way to God was just through Jesus Christ, too. One Mediator between God and men, and so resting on and trusting alone in Him, I found that death had no sting in prospect, and judgment no terror, for faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and through Him alone, even my crimson sins were made ‘white as snow.’”

“How is it now, my friend? Do you ever sin now?”

“O, sir, I wish I could say no! but I cannot. Yes, I do sin.”

“And what do you do when you sin?”

“What can I do, but just go to God, and confess my sin to Him.”

“Do you hope to go to heaven when you die?”

“Yes, for His sake; not for my own, for I am all unworthy, but He is all righteous.”

“What will make it heaven to you?”

“There I shall see His face,

And never, never sin,

There from the rivers of His grace

Drink endless pleasures in,”

was the quiet answer.

The questioner ceased, it was enough. He saw the work was of God, and in thus meeting with the human instrument of his conversion from darkness to light, John had realized one of the deepest wishes of his inmost heart.

Seed-sower! go on sowing “beside all waters,” for God both can and will “give the increase.” (1 Cor. 15:58).

Scripture Study: 2 Corinthians 5

Verse 1. “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” In this passage our body is looked at as the tent or house in which we dwell; it may return to dust, but we have in view our new resurrection body, which will be eternal in the heavens, bearing the image of the heavenly (1 Cor. 15:49). There is no uncertainty about it. “We know” is full assurance, given us from the Word.

Verses 2, 3. “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.” This is supposing us to be children of God. The unconverted dead must also be raised, that is, clothed in the body, but will be found naked in their sins before God. “Naked” applies to their state before God. as in Genesis 3:10,11; and Revelation 3:17, 18.

Verse 4. “For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.” The groaning here is not to get rid of the troubles of life, nor because of any uncertainty as to the future, but because the body was a hindrance to the full enjoyment of the divine life, and tended to depress the spirit. The apostle saw by faith, and longed for the glory that he knew awaited the children of God when the Lord comes. His desire was not to be unclothed, but clothed upon with the resurrection body, when mortality will be swallowed up of life. What a triumph over all the ruin and bondage that sin had brought! His hope was not to die, but to be with and like Christ in heavenly glory.

Verse 5. “Now He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing, is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” Here we are told that God has begun the work in us already, and in all that we pass through in His dealing with us, tend to the same blessed end, to be companions with Christ in glory; it is of necessity that we be formed after His pattern. Here it is not that our souls are resting on His finished work, though through grace we do that also, but here it is His Work in us— “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Eph. 2:10). And in order that we might have this blessed hope of being with and like the Lord ever consciously before us, God who wrought us for this self-same thing, hath also given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. He is the pledge and proof to our souls that all His purpose will be accomplished in us. We know that the Lord has gained the victory over sin and death and Satan’s power, and now after going through death, He lives to die no more.

He but awaits the moment purposed of God when He will come, and we who are living shall then be changed into His likeness in glory, and be with Him without dying, as we saw in 1 Corinthians 15. “This mortal,” “the living ones,” shall put on immortality; and this “corruptible,” the bodies gone to dust, shall put on incorruption. Mortality shall be swallowed up of life.

We may die, but there is no necessity. Whether living or dead, the result through Christ’s work will be the same. What grace to us this is!

Verses 6-8. “Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. (For we walk by faith, not by sight.) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.” We do not speak now of being in hades—the unseen—but rather we know that we are absent from the Lord while still in the body, and the apostle puts it as walking by faith and not by sight; that he was, willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. The Lord has indeed lifted the veil, so that now we speak of being with Christ when we die, and we know that it is far better than any life here. To die is gain (Phil. 1:21-23).

Verse 9. “Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be acceptable to Him.” “We are accepted in the beloved.” (Eph. 1:6). Here it is the thought of being zealous to be well-pleasing to the Lord, so that whether in the body or out of the body when He comes, we might have His approval of our ways.

Verse 10. “For we must all appear (be manifested) before the judgment seat of Christ: that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” We are already brought into the light of God’s presence as believers, and have seen in the finished work of Christ, the judgment of all our sins. The light of God’s holy presence can find not a spot on those washed in that precious blood, and we are to have our glorified bodies like our blessed Lord. Yet assuredly the Lord means us to think of that manifestation when we shall each one see our past life on earth in that holy light. Are we afraid of it? No, how could we be afraid? Yet we think of all our crookedness, and it should have a salutary effect on us now, to see that our ways in the present are such that we would not be ashamed to look at, up there in the glory. It is great gain to the soul to have everything out with God. We could not then fear the judgment seat, for in the light of God’s presence we see that, all is forever settled and put away. We have not to be judged for anything. Christ has settled it all long ago, but this is stated to have its present effect on the conscience. If we have failed to judge ourselves, and judge others wrongly, and allowed evil in any way, the thought of this rightly leads to heart searching, and to a solemn reverence for God and His holiness that should produce an exercised conscience and a careful walk.

Verse 11 leads us to think of the unsaved who will have to stand at the great white throne and be judged for all the sins they have committed. It is profitable to the soul to have a sense of the judgment of God against sin, and it is only under grace that it could, be maintained in its truth, for who otherwise could bear the thought of receiving that which he had done in his body? None but one who is completely blinded.

We stand at the judgment seat in bodies like Christ’s body of glory. Grace has triumphed and put us there; there are no traces of sin in us then. We can look back at all the way God has led us, in grace, helped, lifted us up when falling, kept us in the way. What a tale of grace and mercy! If we look back now, our sins do not rest on our conscience. We hate them, but they are all put away, and we know that we are made the righteousness of God in Christ. We have the sense of God’s love and patience, goodness and grace, and this blessed effect on the soul will be ours perfectly when all is manifested.

The apostle not only says, “We persuade men” but also “We are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.” He does not fear being manifested, it will give him to see more of God’s ways toward him when he is in the glory; but he was living in it at that moment; the sense of God’s eye upon him had its sanctifying power in his walk here on earth.

Verses 12, 13. He would not commend himself to the saints again, but he gave them occasion to glory in his behalf, to answer those who blamed him wrongly, and who boasted in appearance and not in heart. He then said, “Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God: or whether we be sober, it is for your cause.” He walked soberly for their good. He had in view the glory of God, and the good of the saints.

Verses 14, 15. “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again.” The love of Christ witnessed in His atoning death, was a fresh motive to make known to men their state and need, for if one died for all, it declared that all were in that dead state, and it became a fresh motive for the believer’s living, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again. This is a new order of things; believers are living, all else are dead; they are alive in Christ risen, it is a new creation of which Christ is the type and the head. He was once known to some as Messiah of Israel. They were men on earth and in the flesh.

Verses 16, 17. “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (there is a new creation. N. T.): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” It is a new heavenly order of things to which every believer now belongs. In this new order of things,

“All things are of the God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.” God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, but the world would not have Him, yet He did not judge them, did not impute their transgression to them, but made atonement for sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and now in divine righteousness, gives to the apostles the ministry of reconciliation. This makes them ambassadors for Christ, so they, as though God did beseech by us, we pray in Christ’s stead “Be ye reconciled to God.” For He hath made Him sin for us, who knew no sin: that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. God had set His love upon us where we were in our sins, and gave His Son, who was without spot or motion or principle of sin, to be a sacrifice for sin, that we should be made the righteousness of God in Him. Man has no righteousness for God. God has made the saints in Jesus, His righteousness; in Christ first and then in us as in Him.

And now, a righteousness divine

Is all my glory, all my trust;

Nor will I fear since that is mine

While Thou dost live and God is just.

Clad in this robe, how bright I shine!

Angels possess not such a dress;

Angels have not a robe like mine,

Jesus, the Lord’s my righteousness.

A Song of Praise

Lord Jesus; now to glory raised

Exalted on God’s throne,

Worthy to be forever praised

Art Thou alone.

On earth Thou wast the lowly

Man, Obedient unto death,

Accomplishing salvation’s plan

Thou yield’st Thy breath.

Now, from the Father’s glorious throne,

We hear Thy welcome voice,

Inviting all who will to come

In Thee rejoice.

Thy resurrection, blessed Lord,

Proclaims Thy work well done;

Worthy art Thou to be adored

God’s only Son.

When Thou, our Savior-Lord shalt come,

According to Thy Word,

Then we shall be with Thee at home,

And praise Thee, Lord.

We hail Thee, Savior, crowned above,

Who once for us didst die,

We’ll praise Thee for Thy wondrous love

Eternally.

The Deity of Christ and What Constitutes Christianity: Part 2

I know not that I need multiply passages, after these I have quoted. What you will remark, is, that it is not a question of expressions as to which criticism may be exercised, but the doctrine and system of Scripture. It is Christianity, as it is given to us in Scripture. I take up Christianity as the truth, and that is Christianity. A religion is what it professes itself to be, and that is what Christianity professes itself to be—the revelation of God, and eternal life in the person of Christ.

It professes another truth, that is, ‘atonement,’ or expiation of sin. It does not teach a goodness of God which can bear with any sin, but maintains the perfect holiness of God, and the putting away of sin, but it does it in a way which equally maintains infinite and perfect love. Man instinctively felt the need of expiation. This is publicly known in heathenism; but there it was very much the dread of a god who had passions like ourselves, and men might justly say, tantoene animis coelestibus iroe? Judaism, as revealed of God, maintained this thought, but it began by a deliverance of the people, and witnessed a God not revealed, but who gave commandments, ordained sacrifices, which kept up the thought that sin would in nowise be allowed; but it was the “forbearance of God” in view of a work to be accomplished, the way into the holiest not yet having been made manifest, nor peace given to man’s conscience, though it was relieved through sacrifice when occasion called for it; Christ appears in the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; was once offered to bear the sins of many, and give a perfect conscience, without diminishing—nay, in maintaining in the highest way—holiness, in the judgment of sin in the conscience, according to the majesty of God; and withal giving the perfect sense of unbounded love, in that God did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us the love that gave Christ. Christ gave Himself in a love that is divine, and passes knowledge.

The foolish question has been asked, What righteousness is there in an innocent being suffering for the guilty? It is a foolish question. There is no righteousness in my paying my friend’s debts. It is kindness; love; but it meets the righteous claim of his creditor. The claims of a holy God are maintained intolerance of evil; and that is of the last importance for the conscience and heart of man; it gives him the knowledge of what God is in holiness. There is no true love without it. Indifference to good and evil, so that the evil-doer is let pass with his evil, is not love, and the dissociation of right and wrong, by God’s authority—the highest possible evil. Now, good and evil are elevated to the standard of it in God’s nature. We walk in the light, as God is in the light, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses from all sin. The glory of God is maintained, and the heart of man placed in association with the perfectness of that nature, and in peace with the perfect knowledge of His love, and that is the highest blessing, the highest good. Diminish the holiness, diminish the love—I have not God, I have not my soul formed into communion with Him. Take away the character of judgment or righteousness exercised, as regards evil, and you obliterate the authority of God, the creation, place, and responsibility of man.

This part of the truth, again, enters into the whole texture of Scripture, from Abel to the allusions to it in Revelation 1 shall merely quote a sufficient number of passages to show that Christianity must be given up, as taught by Christ and His apostles, if expiation be. I do not quote the Old Testament; expiatory sacrifices are, beyond all question its doctrine, and prophetic testimony is clear that He was wounded for our transgressions, the chastisement of our peace laid upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed; that He made His soul a sacrifice for sin, and that He bare our iniquities.

When I turn to the New Testament, I find Christ stating that He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28). The Lord’s supper—the standing institution of Christianity—is the sign of His blood shed for many, for the remission of sins. John the Baptist points Him out as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Paul tells us that God hath set Him forth as a propitiation, through faith in His blood (Rom. 3:25); Peter, that we are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Peter 1:18, 19); John, that He is the propitiation for our sins and the whole world (1 John 2:2); Peter, again, that He bare our sins in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). The Hebrews enlarges on it fully as a doctrine. He must offer for sins (Chapter 9). He offers one sacrifice for sins, and then sits down (Chapter 10). We have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins (Eph. 1:7). We are justified by His blood (Rom. 5:9). Without shedding of blood is no remission (Heb. 9:22). He gave Himself for our sins (Gal. 1:4). It is when He had made the purification of our sins, that He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens (Heb. 1:3). Cleansing, justification, forgiveness, peace, redemption, are all attributed to His blood. He bore our sins, gave Himself for our sins, makes propitiation for the world, is delivered for our offenses.

As I have said, it is a doctrine interwoven with all Scripture, forms one of the bases of Christianity, is the sole ground of remission and there is none without shedding blood and that by which Christ has made peace (Col. 1:20). The thought that He was sealing merely His doctrines by His death is utterly groundless, it is never stated as its force in Scripture, expiation is stated constantly; and if it was a mere testimony perfect as He was in it—it does not serve for one, for the testimony would be, that the most faithful of men was forsaken of God. What testimony would that be? Take out expiation, and Scripture becomes impossible to understand: introduce it, and all is plain.

I have not written a treatise, but simply recalled what must present itself to every unprejudiced reader of Scripture, as memory furnished it, and what the soul convinced of sin cannot do without. If Christ be not God, I do not know Him, have not met Him, nor know what He is. No man can by searching find it out. If Christ has not offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin, then I had neither peace of conscience according to the holiness of God but pass lightly over the guilt of sin, remaining at a distance from God—nor do I know God’s love, who so loved as not to spare His own son. There is no true knowledge of sin without it, no true knowledge of God.

(Continued from page 247)

(Concluded)

Fragment: Declension of Soul

Declension of soul will begin in a way almost imperceptible. The turning back may be very small. Lot’s wife only looked back; the Israelites did not go back to Egypt, they only remembered the leeks and onions.

The Burnt Offering: 2 Chronicles 29:26-29

In the Lord’s House the ready Levites stand,

Each instrument attuned, to practiced hand,

The Lute, and Harp of many a sounding string,

Placed in the Temple by the Minstrel King.

In silence waits that bright imposing throng,

Not yet the moment for the solemn song;

The Altar, soon the Holocaust (burnt offering), must fill,

Till then, O band of Harmony, be still.

But now, the Monarch gives the appointed sign,

Ye priests advance (we are priests) advance you white robed line;

Awake! awake! to bless that wondrous Name,

Whose savor went to God in leaping flame!

Then as the purple clouds arise aloft!

Each chord vibrates and thrills, each flute breathes soft,

And swiftly rush the ascending tongues of fire,

To the sweet strains of the Melodious Choir.

The priestly trumpets sound triumphant notes!

While in the air the chant of glory floats!

Higher and higher yet, and past the skies!

Into God’s heart, in very heaven they rise!

The never ending Anthem, while it rolls,

Still finds its echo in our inmost souls

Lord Jesus Christ, we will adore Thy Name,

Whose savor went to God in leaping flame.

The sweet perfume of the devoted Love!

Delights God’s heart, in highest heavens above!

As ages pass no note of praise is lost,

Changeless the value of the Holocaust!

Christ's Sympathy

It is well to bear in mind that this is not the day of Christ’s power, but it is the day of His sympathy.

When passing through the deep waters of affliction, the heart may at times feel disposed to ask, “Why does not the Lord display His power and deliver me?” The answer is, “This is not the day of His power.”

He could avert that sickness—He could have removed that difficulty—He could have taken off that pressure—He could have prevented that catastrophe—He could have preserved that beloved and fondly cherished object from the cruel grasp of death.

But instead of putting forth His power to deliver us, he allows things to run their course, and pours His own sweet sympathy into the oppressed and riven heart, in such a way as to elicit the acknowledgment that we would not for worlds have missed the trial, because of the abundance of the consolation.

Such, my reader, is the manner of the Lord Jesus just now. By and by He will display His power; He will come forth as the rider on the white horse; He will bare His arm; He will avenge His people, and right their wrongs forever.

But now His sword is sheathed, His arm covered. This is the time for making known the deep love of His heart, not the power of His arm; no, nor the sharpness of His sword.

ARE YOU SATISFIED TO HAVE IT SO? IS CHRIST’S SYMPATHY ENOUGH FOR YOUR HEART, even amidst the keenest sorrow, and the most intense affliction?

The restless heart, the impatient spirit, the unmortified will, would lead one to long to escape from the sickness, the difficulty, the pressure, but this would never do. It would involve incalculable loss.

We must pass from form to form in the school, but the Master accompanies us, and the light of His countenance, and the tender sympathy of His heat sustains us under the most trying circumstances.

“Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior.” (Isa. 43:1, 9, 3).

Fragment: The Cross

“Now is the Judgment of this world.” The cross is the terminating point between God and everything here.

Correspondence: Answer to a Paper Sent for Criticism, Part 2

Answer to a Paper Sent for Criticism

1 Timothy 2:6 is quoted to show that at some future time after death, and in resurrection,, the unsaved will all receive the gospel. It is said God’s power will do it. Let us see this verse and its context. This Russelism teaches that you may sin as much as you like, you are going to be saved any way, for God is too loving to damn any of His creatures, and the writer calls this righteousness, for Christ died for all, tasted death for every man.

What horrible perversion of Scripture! How God’s grace is turned into lasciviousness, “Let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation is just.” Romans 3:8. Look then at 1 Timothy 2:3 to 7, “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” This is surely in the present time.

Paul found out his sinful condition by the Lord Jesus speaking to him from the glory (Acts 9). Up to this time he thought of himself as serving God, but now he saw all his righteousness was filthy rags. (Phil. 3:4 to 6 compare with 1 Tim. 1:12 to 15). “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief.” “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for to be testified in due time.”

God could say in Job’s day (33:24), when a man was convicted of his sinful condition, “Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.” Christ Jesus is that ransom, the only Mediator between God and men, and verse 7 declares that Paul was a preacher and an apostle (a sent one), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth, so that the due time had arrived for us all to hear the story.

This paper’s statements contradict all the gospel story denies that God will do as the Scripture, that is, His Word, says that He will do. There is nothing in this passage about a future day of salvation. It is what is declared now: it is the truth for the present period of God’s grace. What can God do but carry out His word with the despisers of His grace,

“Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish” (Acts 13:38 to 41).

“He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy”... “Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:26 to 31).

Dear reader, hearken not to men’s fables. Believe God’s Word, and be saved now!

John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” In Hebrews 9:26, we see that the work is done. “Once in the end of the world (that is, man’s trial is at an end) hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” And on account of this sacrifice, all believers are now accepted in Him, also the foundation is laid for all things in heaven and earth to be reconciled to God (see Col. 1:20, 21; also Heb. 9:22, 23), but the lake of fire and its inhabitants are not the “things in heaven and earth,” there is no reconciliation of those in the lake of fire. Sinner, do not let the servants of Satan blind your eyes to God’s salvation. It is now, now, COME NOW! Titus 2:11 is for men now, and Isaiah 61:1 to 3 tells of salvation, and also of the day of vengeance (ver. 2).

Romans 5:18. Leave out the words in italics, and we see that it is the two headships: Adam’s sin and Christ’s one righteousness. All men come under the first; grace puts the believer under the second. Verse 19 confirms this.

Leviticus 23:10, 11 is Christ’s resurrection in type. The church period is Verses 15 to 17.

Isaiah 53:4 to 6 is the language of believers. Only such can say, “Christ died for our sins.” We can say to the unconverted, “Christ died that you might be saved,” “Christ died for all,” but it is “whosoever believeth on Him shall receive remission of sins.” (Acts 10:43). Such are “justified from all things” (Acts 13:38, 39), and in 1 John 2:12, “I write unto you, little children, because your sins, are forgiven you for His name’s sake.” We are children, of God, and our sins all forgiven.

In Mark 9:43 to 48 three times our Lord speaks of the worm that dieth not, and of the fire that is never quenched. Gehenna outside Jerusalem is the illustration the Lord uses. That fire is quenched, and worms gone long ago, but the Word of the Lord endureth forever; and the worm that torments the unsaved, is their worm, and fire is what they are cast into. Their worm denotes that each one will be punished according to his own sins, while the fire contains all the lost. (See also Luke 12:47, 48; Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:6).

2 Peter 2:4, 9 tells that the wicked are reserved unto judgment, both men and angels.

Ephesians 2:1. “Dead in trespasses and sins” is the spiritual condition of us all as born in sin. In Romans we are seen living in sin till we are converted.

Ephesians 2:8 tells how we are saved. By grace and through faith, with no good works to boast of. Our old nature is not changed, and we shall not get rid of it till our earthly journey is ended, but God has given us a new life, and the Holy Spirit dwells in us to teach us, and is the power of our new life. Our old man is crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6), so that we are to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord, (verse 11), so that we are not slaves to sin any longer.

The word mortal is never applied to the soul. It is the body that is mortal. “The soul that sinneth it shall die” (Ezek. 18:20) means the person. That was judgment on the earth. It is the same in Acts 27:37. There were 276 souls or persons in the ship. There is plenty of proof in Scripture to show, if a man is willing to receive it, that the soul is immortal. Men may kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul (Luke 12:4, 5). We are to fear Him who after the body is killed, can cast the soul into hell, the place of punishment. The body is the tent or tabernacle wherein the man lives (2 Cor. 5:1, 4). If a Christian dies, he is “absent from the body, present with the Lord.” (verses 6, 7, 8).

(Continued from Page 252)

(To Be Continued)

Where Would Your Soul Be?

The toil of the summer day was over at last, and Mr. T’s shop was closed for the night, at least, so he thought. But there was a ring at the bell, it was the mail-cart driver, who had come in for a friendly chat. He had recently met with an accident while driving the cart; it had been overturned, and he had been thrown out over the hedge.

“If your neck had been broken, John, instead of your arm, where would your soul have gone?”

The arrow struck home. All that John could stammer out in reply was, “To hell, I am afraid.”

Several months passed. Mr. T. was away from home on one of his business trips, when, at a house at which he called, he was accosted by an elderly man, whom he recognized as John’s father, who asked him to see his son who was seriously ill. Mr. T. looked at his watch, and said,

“It is only ten minutes before my train starts.” But the anxious father was importunate.

“If you mean to see him at all, you must see him now, for I fear he has not long to live. Mr. T., do you remember having spoken to John about his soul, when he was thrown out of the cart?”

“Yes,” and the question, “Where would your soul be?” had searched the inmost heart of the poor sufferer, who lay exhausted on his bed.

“You are nearing eternity, John,” said Mr. T. “Are you ready to go—ready to enter the presence of God?”

“I don’t know. I can’t make out at all,” was the reply. He knew not whether he was lost or saved, but said, “I should like to be sure, one way or the other.”

“Have you never read ‘God is love?’”

“Yes,” John answered, “I have.”

“Have you not read, too, that ‘God is light?’”

“I think I have read that somewhere.”

“But have you not faced the fact ‘that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all?’”

“No, I have not thought much about it,” answered John, “only I don’t feel ready to die.”

“And now you are entering into the presence of Him who dwelleth in the light, which no man can approach unto. How can you bear to stand before the great white throne, when the books shall be opened, and the dead shall be judged out of those things which are written in the books according to their works?”

“O, I know! I know, now! I am a lost soul. I am not saved. I never was.” The poor sufferer trembled as he spoke.

“You may think I am dealing hard with you, John, at this time in bringing before you such truths,” said Mr. T. gently, “but this is God’s way, His own blessed way of making you feel and know your need of a Savior. Concerning your lost condition, God would have you know the provision He has made. He has said, ‘I have found a ransom;’ and for whom—for the righteous or the sinner; for the saved or the lost?”

“O! for the lost,” he answered, “but I don’t know how.” Taking the Bible, Mr. T. read from Leviticus 1:4:

“And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.”

“Who was it that said, ‘It shall be accepted for him,’ John?” Then, handing him the book, Mr. T. showed him that it is the Lord who speaks, and if such was the case, how could the Israelite not rest satisfied? Mr. T. then turned to the words:

“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” also,

“He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed,” and asked, “Do you believe this?” John believed, but he did not feel saved, and he hesitated. His friend pressed him earnestly to rest on the Word of God— “with His stripes we are healed”—and not to refuse the gracious words.

“No, I must not—I will not do that! I now take God at His word,” said John.

The end of the conversation was that John was enabled to say, “Yes, I trust and I thank Him, and I feel happy, too. He has saved my soul! I know it now! O, I can praise Him! I can praise Him, for He has saved my soul!” His testimony was bright, and his confession of his Savior clear. He delighted to tell all who came near him what, great things God had done for his soul.

Dear reader, the same loving Savior who was so gracious to John, waits to be gracious to you, poor anxious soul. Take courage, come to Him as John did, simply taking Him at His word.

“Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” (John 6:37).

No longer doubt the message,

No longer stay away;

A full, a free salvation

His blood provides today.

O! trust thy soul to Jesus,

If thou would’st happy be;

While the Lord Himself is calling,

Calling thee.

The Guilty World

“Not this Man, but Barabbas! Now Barabbas was a robber.” (John 18:40)

The world has never been the same

Since Jesus died—

Since He, the peerless, spotless Lamb,

Was crucified.

Earth chose instead sedition’s son,

With loud acclaim,

And meted to the sinless One

The cross and shame.

No wonder crime, and hate, and war,

Creation knows!

O’er it there burns the blood-shot star

That then arose.

Rebellion lifts its rebel arm,

And claims the spoil,

Oblivious to the dread alarm—

The sure recoil!

Weep, weep, O Earth, weep bitter tears

For this thy crime;

Against thee stand two thousand years

Of sin-stained time;

Ere judgment falls, repent thy sin,

For He must reign;

And let the cry, “O Lord,” begin,

“Come back again.”

No Treasure in Heaven

A wealthy farmer once took two Christians to the top of his house, and showed them farm after farm, stretching far away, on the right hand and on the left. He told them that all that land belonged to him.

Then he took them to another place and showed them great herds of cattle, horses, and sheep, saying as he did so:

“These are all mine, too. I came out here a poor boy and have earned all this property myself.”

One of the Christians pointed up to heaven and said:

“And how much treasure have you laid up yonder?”

After a pause, he said, as he heaved a sigh, “I’m afraid I haven’t anything there.”

“And isn’t it a great mistake that a man of your ability and judgment should spend all your days in laying up so much treasure on earth, and not laying up any in heaven?” said the other Christian. The farmer answered solemnly:

“It does look foolish, doesn’t it?”

Not very long after this the farmer died. He left all his property for others to use, and no doubt lost his soul through greed of wealth.

“What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26).

As the Serpent Beguiled Eve

“For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

In order to see the subtlety and craft which the serpent used in beguiling Eve, turn to the third chapter of Genesis, and note that young Christians are exposed to the same satanic craft today, his skill being greater now, if any difference, by reason of six thousand years of too successful experience with human nature, during which he has become well acquainted with its weak points.

In that chapter the serpent first attacks (and later denies) the authenticity of God’s Word by subtly insinuating a doubt into Eve’s too open mind, as to whether God has really said what He is alleged to have spoken: “Yea, hath God said?” And today some men of learning (really Satan’s ministers), although transformed as “ministers of righteousness,” (2 Cor. 11:13-15), are seeking to instill into the minds of the young and others, the same subtle doubt as to whether certain parts of the Bible can any longer, in view of various conclusions of “modern science,” be accepted unreservedly as the inspired Word of God. Behind all this propaganda, the blood-bought child of God sees the wicked animosity of the enemy of Christ and of our souls, “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world” (Rev. 12:9). And faith replies to such attacks: “Let God be true, and every man a liar; as it is written, That Thou mightest be justified in Thy sayings, and mightest overcome when Thou art judged.”

But Paul tells us that the danger he fears for us is that our minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. As he says elsewhere, “I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.” The method which the serpent used so successfully with Eve—presenting “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” as something desirable—he would find much less successful than is too often the case with us, if there were in us less of the desire to be conformed to this world (in fashions, headdress, or otherwise); less of ambition for a high place in that which is soon to pass away, and more of the simplicity which is in Christ; more contentment with the low place and with such things as we have, and more confident trust in God our Father, who will not withhold any good thing from them that walk uprightly.

But Paul’s godly jealousy over us has a godly motive. It is the desire that he may present us “as a chaste virgin to Christ.” And surely the thought of the worthiness of that One Who “loved the church, and gave Himself for it”—Who speaks of her as “My dove, My undefiled,” showing how He values her keeping herself even here in this defiling scene, separate from all that of which He disapproves; and Who is soon—very soon—going to present her to Himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; ought to keep us from the corruption which is so contrary to His mind.

Ashamed of Jesus

Jesus, and shall it ever be,

A mortal man ashamed of Thee,

Ashamed of Thee, whom angels praise,

Whose glories shine through endless days?

Ashamed of Jesus! sooner far

Let evening blush to own a star;

He sheds the beams of light divine

O’er this benighted soul of mine.

Ashamed of Jesus! yes, I may

When I’ve no guilt to wash away,

No tear to wipe, no good to crave,

No fear to quell, no soul to save.

Till then, nor is my boasting vain,

Till then, I boast a Savior slain,

And O, may this my glory be,

That Christ is not ashamed of me.

Ashamed of Jesus! that dearest Friend,

On whom my hopes of heaven depend,

No, when I blush, be this my shame,

That I no more revere His name.

“In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed.” (Psa. 31:1).

“Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.” (1 Pet. 4:16).

Scripture Study: 2 Corinthians 6

Verse 1. “But (as) fellow workmen, we also beseech that ye receive not the grace of God in vain” (N. T.). What it means is, that as workers with one another the apostle beseeches that the Corinthians would not receive the grace of God in vain. They had received it outwardly, but whether they had all received it in their hearts, was the important point. While fully acknowledging their profession of Christ, he had become troubled about their behavior, for if they did receive it in vain, they were still in their sins; they were not quickened at all. If we have truly received grace, we are saved by it. We have believed the gospel by which we are saved. A person may make a profession of faith in Christ, without the reality in his soul (as in Matt. 13:20-22).

Verse 2 is a parenthesis quoting from Isaiah 49, where the Lord was not only saving Israel, but also the Gentiles; but He being rejected, Israel is set aside, and the gospel of the grace of God is going out to both Jew and Gentile before the fulfillment of Isaiah 49 comes. This is the church period, not mentioned in that chapter. But the apostle applies it in the words, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation,” a blessed and important truth for the present time.

Verses 3-10. It was the ministry of reconciliation that he had proclaimed as an ambassador to the world around, without which none could be saved, and those who were, were made the righteousness of God in Christ. And he is showing to them how he exercised this ministry in the varied ways and trials that he had passed through. He was indeed and in truth a minister of God, and he was careful to act in ways becoming the One who sent him, worthily representing Him in whose name he spoke, giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed; in all things approving himself as one who was sent, showing out the character of the One who sent him. What patience he exercised, in the midst of his afflictions, his necessities, his distresses, with such spiritual energy that told how greatly he realized his important commission, and his need of constant dependence for supply of strength and wisdom, to endure such stripes and imprisonments, such tumults and labors, in watchings and fastings, going through it all in pureness, in knowledge, in long suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Ghost, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God; through the arms (see N. T.) of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, through glory and dishonor, through evil report and good report; as deceiving, but trite; as unknown, and well known; as dying, and behold we live; as disciplined, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things. What a path the apostle had to tread, as the Lord said of him at his conversion, “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name’s sake.” Another has written on this:

“Thus he showed himself to be the minister of God in everything which could test him; in pureness, in kindness, in love; as a vessel of power; whether disgraced or applauded; unknown to the world, and known and eminent; outwardly trodden under foot of man and chastened, inwardly victorious and joyful, poor and enriching others, having nothing, and in possession of all things. Here ends his description of the sources, the character, the victory over circumstances, of a ministry which displayed the power of God in a vessel of weakness, whose best portion was death.”

Verses 11 to 13. Here he tells them that he speaks freely to them now, and that his affections are flowing out to them, theirs are straitened or hindered toward him, and he asks, as an answer to his love for them, to let their hearts expand in affection to him. They were his children, and it was as a father that he spoke to them. Love ever begets love.

Verses 14-18. He gives them instruction to choose their company, and specially not to be yoked together with unbelievers in any voluntary association. As a matter of employment, and filling our place in the world, we need to mix with it all the day long in most cases, but that is not what is mentioned here. Our voluntary associations are to be with the children of God, as in Acts 4:23, “And being let go, they went to their own company.” It was an unequal yoke for King Jehoshaphat to go to war with Ahab, and so partnership with the world is forbidden here. One can do business legitimately with any, if it is a legitimate business for a Christian, and not be yoked with him. The difference between the believer and the unbeliever is very great, the one is righteousness, the other doing as he pleases. What fellowship has light with darkness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? and what part hath a believer with an unbeliever? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? and Christians are the temple of the living God; as God hath said (see Lev. 26:12), “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

Here he again in his love is impressing upon them how God has separated them to Himself, and seeks to detach them from what would hinder communion with God, and hinder his pleasure in them, and to attach them more firmly in love to Christ. So now he exhorts them to come out from the yokes that belong to this world. A Christian is not to enter marriage with one who is unconverted, but if already married he or she is not to leave the unconverted partner, but he is to separate from everything that denies the position of one who has his life and his interests in the new creation, of which Christ is the Head in heavenly glory. He cannot put himself under the same yoke with those who can have only worldly motives. He is to separate from one who can only live for self, being unconverted; while being converted, should live for Christ.

So the Christian is enjoined to “come out from among them,” and “be separated from them,” and “touch not the unclean thing,” and “I will receive you” (they were already saints, and children of God their Father), “and will be to you a Father, and ye shall to Me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

Under this title God declares that He will provide for and protect and guide those who thus walk in true heart obedience and separation to Him, owning them as His dear dependent ones, His special care in this world, and it is as the Lord Almighty He promises it.

Waiting

We’re patiently waiting

Until Jesus come,

And earnestly longing

For the rest of Home

For the glorious rapture

Which is nearing each day,

When Jesus appearing,

Shall call us away.

To catch the first accents

Of that beloved voice!

Beholding Thee, Jesus,

Our hearts will rejoice;

And the heavenly glory,

In prospect so bright,

For which we are waiting,

Shall burst on our sight.

It is not the glory

We desire to see,

But our Savior Himself,

Who our heaven shall be;

His presence is heaven,

His love our delight—

Though now absent from Him

In this dark dreary night.

We’re waiting and watching—

We know not the day

When our Savior may come

And call us away.

We know that His promise,

Though deferred, cannot fail,

And though wearily sighing,

Our faith shall prevail.

But Jesus, loved Savior,

Whilst Thou dost delay,

No shadows can vanish

No breaking of day;

It must be Thy hand, Lord,

That wipes from our eye

The tear of the desert

And hushes the sigh.

We’re glad to be weary,

That then we may rest,

In unbroken enjoyment,

On Thy beloved breast.

We’re glad to have sorrow

That Thou may’st remove

Each trace of our crying,

With Thy hand of love.

No other can lighten

The sin-burdened heart;

And no other can bid

Our sorrow depart.

Descend, then, from heaven,

Performing Thy Word—

Receive us to Thyself,

Our adorable Lord.

Accepted in the Beloved

More than twenty-five years ago, I wrote to my eldest brother, telling him that I had found Christ. That brother had known the Lord already a number of years, and my letter, thus confessing Christ, brought from him a very hearty reply. It was something to the effect that he would rather have heard such news from me, than that I had become a millionaire, or a prince among the great ones of the earth. The joy that filled my heart, on meeting with such a response from one I so admired and loved, comes back to me now as one of the happiest moments of my life.

Bearing this in mind, though we are unknown to each other, I would desire to heartily congratulate every young believer, who reads these lines, on having through grace become a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. With distinctness and certainty, you may affirm that you have become a possessor of Jesus Christ, for by believing on His name it has been your unspeakable privilege to have received Him. (John 1:12.) It is a work of joy to the Holy Spirit now to bring you into the blessed realization of your possession. “Ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.” John 14:20. Well may the heart, that begins to realize that it possesses Jesus Christ, gladly respond,

“Thousand, thousand thanks shall be,

Blessed Savior, unto Thee.”

Such is God’s way and order, as He has said, “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Romans 10:10. Not having seen and complied with this order may be the reason why some young Christians have to mourn the absence of assurance and joy in the Holy Ghost (1 Thess. 1:5, 6). The mistake is frequently made of beginning at the wrong end. You may desire first to have the sweet, joyous sense of acceptance in your heart, then to give the Lord thanks for having saved you; but it is more to the Lord’s honor if you hear His word and believe Him, and just tell Him that you do believe Him, and give Him thanks. Take Ephesians 1:3 to 7, and use it as your thanksgiving to the Lord. Then, as He leads and gives you the opportunity, tell someone else that you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that God says that you are “accepted in the Beloved.” This will be like setting open the door of a cage, to let the lark escape, to soar upwards and sing in the blue heavens.

Confession of Christ thus begun, should be maintained. It will be more difficult to do so than to fix a badge to your collar, but the wearing of a ribbon, or of a certain dress is, in comparison to the real confession of Christ, what praying by machinery is to the prayer of the heart. The Lord wants reality, and what will suit His eyes. He looks not on the outward appearance, but on the heart. It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaketh. While the heart is fresh with the love of God, the lips will freely speak of Christ. Peter ceased to confess Christ before he began to deny Him.

Young Christians, and old ones too, like young soldiers, need to hear the word of command: “Front.” This may keep us steady, or, if there has been declension, it will bring recovery. When the Lord’s eyes met Peter’s, backsliding ceased, and restoration began. Far wiser is it to keep facing our front, and to have our eyes on the Lord, so that our hearts and lips are free to confess His name.

Is He not worthy? The Father said of Him, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Twice such a testimony was given from heaven. When John was permitted to see and hear what was going on in heaven, he writes of ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, who said, with loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” (Rev. 5:11, 12).

It was the face of this Worthy One that Stephen saw, and it so charmed him that he heeded not the stones cast by his murderers. Since then, in many lands, the noble army of martyrs have joyfully sealed their confession to His worth with their blood. Read God’s roll of honor, (Heb. 11), and see the company into which, through grace, you have been brought, and seek strength from Him to fight, like them, the good fight of faith.

“Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 10:32, 33).

Forsake Not the Assembling of Ourselves Together

No doubt the spiritual instincts of the children of God would lead them always to desire to be together. For my own part I cannot understand a child of God who on principle could abstain from any occasion that summoned round the name of the Lord the members of the household of faith. It appears to me that, far from being a waste of time, or from any other object being of the same moment, it is simply a question whether we value Christ, whether we truly are walking in the Spirit, if we live in the Spirit, whether the objects of the constant active love of God are also in measure the objects of our love in Christ’s name.

I think therefore that it is according to the Lord that the children of God should if practicable be together every day. To this the power of the Spirit would lead: only the circumstances in which we are placed in this world necessarily hinder it. Therefore the true principle according to the Word of God is coming together whenever it is practicable; and we do well to cherish a real exercise of heart and conscience in judging what the practicability is, or rather whether the impracticability be real or imaginary. Very often it will turn out to be in our will, an excuse for spiritual idleness, a want of affection to the children of God, and a want of sense of our own need. Accordingly obstacles are allowed in our minds, such as the claims of business, or the family, or even the work of the Lord. Now all these have their place.

Surely God would have all His children to seek to glorify Him, whatever may be their duty. They have natural duties in this world; and the wonderful power of Christianity is seen in filling with what is divine, that which without Christ would be merely of nature; and this should ramify the whole course of a man’s life after he belongs to Christ. And so again the claims of children for instance, or parents, or the like, cannot be disputed: but then if they are really taken up for Christ, I do not think it will be found that it is to the loss of either parents or children, or that the little time is missed in the long run that is spent in seeking the strength of the Lord, and in communion according to our measure. We ought to be open for both; and we shall ourselves never have any power to help, unless we have the sense of the need of help from others; but both will be found together.

Look Upward

When langor and disease invade

This trembling house of clay,

‘Tis sweet to look beyond our cage,

And long to fly away;

Sweet to look inward, and attend

The whispers of His love;

Sweet to look upward to the place

Where Jesus lives above;

Sweet to look back, and see my name

In life’s fair Book set down;

Sweet to look forward, and behold

Eternal joys my own;

Sweet to reflect how grace divine

My sins on Jesus laid;

Sweet to remember that His blood

My debt of sins has paid;

Sweet on His faithfulness to rest;

Whose love can never end;

Sweet on His covenant of grace

For all things to depend;

Sweet in the confidence of faith

To trust His firm decrees;

Sweet to lie passive in His hands,

And know no will but His;

Sweet, blessed hope! and I at last

Shall see Him and adore;

Be with His likeness satisfied,

And grieve and sin no more.

Correspondence: Answer to a Paper Sent for Criticism, Part 3

Answer to a Paper Sent for Criticism

In Philippians 1:21 Paul writes: “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Where is the gain? Verse 23 answers, “To depart and to be with Christ is far better.” This is not resurrection. Peter also writes about death as putting off his tabernacle (2 Peter 1:13, 14). Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 was caught up into paradise. He did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body. See how the man is distinct from his body, and the Lord said: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up, but He spoke of the temple of His Body.” These foolish reasoners tell us that He was dead, all gone into the grave, yet He said, “I will raise it up,” showing that He was still living. A beast has a living soul, but not an immortal soul; God has given that to man. His soul never dies. The unsaved have eternal existence; the saved have that, and eternal life besides; that is, a life of blessedness in the knowledge of God (John 17:3). A person living in pleasure is dead while she lives (1 Tim. 5:6)—this is her spiritual condition in fleshly ways.

Genesis 3:22-24 is not a question of the immortality of the soul, but of the condition of sin that God would not allow to be perpetuated, and none can now eat of the tree of life, till we do so in the paradise of God in heaven, where everything is pure and holy (Rev. 2:7).

James 2:26 is quoted as if it said the spirit is dead without the body, but that is a lying invention of man. “The body is dead without the spirit” is the truth.

Ecclesiastes 9:5. Everything in that book is wisdom “under the sun,” so these deniers of the truth of the soul’s immortality, love to quote this verse. We have already seen that those who die in the Lord, have departed to be with Christ. They know nothing “under the sun,” but they are with the Lord, and are blessed there—no unconsciousness there.

In Hebrews 12:23, we have the spirits of just men made perfect. We find Moses and Elias on the Mount of transfiguration. Christ and the thief together in paradise, while their bodies were on the cross. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus after the rich man’s funeral—all these picture to us their souls; one in bliss, the other in torment. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob still living, though their bodies are gone to dust. (Luke 20:37, 38). The Lord draws these pictures for our understanding.

Acts 2:29, 34, “David is not yet ascended,” for ascension takes in the whole man. Christ’s spirit went to the Father, while His body was on the cross (Luke 23:46). He did not ascend till 40 days after. So David and all the rest of the old Testament saints’ spirits are seen in Hebrews 12:23. We might say that Enoch and Elijah are ascended, for they did not die.

This paper says Christ had a mortal body. He had nothing of the kind, death had no claim on Him.

Sin was not in Him, nor mortality in His veins. He was the sinless Son of God. His miraculous birth brought a clean thing out of an unclean, “That holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Mary’s son was Mary’s Savior. She was a sinner, He was not. He was the Lamb foreordained before the world’s foundation, without blemish and without spot. He became a man that He might die for others. He gave His life. No man could take it from Him, but in obedience to the Father’s will, and for us, He laid it down that He might take it again (John 10:17, 18). His flesh never saw corruption (Psa. 16.10; Acts 2:24, 27). “Who only hath immortality” (1 Tim. 6:16). It belongs to Him, and He has communicated it to angels and to men, yet as the Captain of our salvation, He was perfected through sufferings. He was always perfect and sinless in His person but suffered in this world to glorify God, and to bring us there to Himself.

1 Corinthians 15 is not the resurrection of the human race, but of the saints. Sheol in the Old Testament and Hades in the New Testament, mean “the unseen,” and represent the state of those who have died. It does not mean the place of punishment. Gehenna is also translated “hell,” and means the place of punishment, the lake of fire.

The thief on the cross (Luke 23:40 to 42) owned his sin and crimes; he also owned Jesus as Lord and King, this was the work of grace in his soul. What he had before him was a place in the Kingdom. The Lord gives him present blessing with, Himself at once, without waiting for the Kingdom. This paper asserts that paradise is when the Kingdom comes. Paul was caught up to it then. The thief said, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom.” He looked forward to the resurrection, for at the present moment the King was crucified, but Jesus answers, “Verily, I say unto thee, ‘Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.’” What a surprise! What a joy to the saved sinner! And specially those sweet words, “With Me.” What grace of the Lord this is, to exchange a cross for a place in paradise; and the company of transgressors, for the company of Christ; not to be a subject of the King on earth, but to be a companion of the Lord in heavenly glory. It is absurd and misses the point entirely to punctuate this the way it is done by those who teach the non-immortality of the soul. Paradise in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 is in heaven, and so in Revelation 2:7.

Luke 16:19 to 31 is a parable, certainly—a picture painted by the Lord to show us the future of the pharisee and the sinner, as in chapter 15. It is not national, it is individual. The Jews thought riches a mark of God’s favor, as in Deuteronomy, but a change had come, Israel was divorced from Jehovah. So Lazarus, the one whose name means “my help is in God,” is poor and sick, he has nothing but God. The rich man living for himself, has everything but God. He dies, is buried; no doubt a grand funeral, but in the “unseen” his soul is tormented in that flame; but Lazarus exchanges misery for bliss. Abraham’s bosom is the Jewish idea of bliss. The rich man on earth could command servants with his money, but he needs to beg now that he is gone. He is afraid his five brethren may come there too, to add to his torment. He did not teach them to obey Moses and the prophets, nor did he himself believe the word, and now he is lost, and his brethren would not believe his message if it came to them through one rising from the dead. He claimed to be a child of Abraham, but he was proved to be a wicked man living without God. It is certainly a parable, and if but a picture, what must the reality be. There is no more offer of salvation after death. It is too late then, the great gulf is fixed, no transfer can be made then.

It is wrong to say that we are put on equality with Christ. He is ever the pre-eminent One. In all things He must have the pre-eminence (Col. 1:18). “First-born” expresses that place. He is chief among ten thousand, the Head of His body, the assembly. He the Redeemer, we the redeemed, but we are to be like Him, and to see Him as He is. He has given us glory, and we shall behold His glory that He had with the Father before the world was. That is the glory given to Him now as the Mighty Victor. It is His alone (John 17:24).

To say that such doctrines as we have referred to in this paper are honoring to God, or His Word, when they contradict that Word so much, is truly a marvel of blindness of the worst kind. This paper calls it common sense, when it is but the outcome of a perverted mind that refuses God’s Word. God has magnified His Word above His name (Psa. 138:2).

2 Corinthians 10:5 exhorts us thus, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

The Holy Spirit is a person, as well as the Father, or the Son. Satan and his host are persons, and so are all angelic beings. We must not deny what Scripture affirms.

(Continued from Page 280)

(Concluded)

The Divided Testament

Some years ago, a French colporteur wended his way through a large forest to reach the huts of charcoal burners dwelling in those secluded places. Arriving at one of them, he greeted the woman at the door, and offered her a New Testament for sale.

Jeanne hesitated. Still she wistfully eyed the neat little book. At last she produced ten cents, and taking the book said,

“I cannot refuse, Monsieur, but may I be pardoned if it is a sin.” Presently in came her husband. After their meal, Jeanne timidly produced her book for his inspection. As she feared, he was tired and cross, and upbraided her for spending his money in this fashion.

“But,” said she, “the money is not all yours. I brought my dowry when we married. The half was as much mine as yours.”

“Give me the book,” said Jacques in a temper; and he snatched it from her hands.

“The money was half yours and half mine you say. Well, then, the book is the same.” He opened the book, tore it in two parts, dropped one into his blouse, and tossed the other to his wife.

Some days later Jacques sat in the forest by his charcoal fires. He had finished his mid-day meal and felt lonely. Suddenly he remembered the torn book, and he would now look at it. It was the latter part of the book. His rough fingers had divided it in Luke’s Gospel. He began at the very beginning—

“And will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.”

He read to the end of the story; then a dozen questions presented themselves. What had he done the poor lost son? Where had he been? What induced him to return?

“I wish I had the beginning of the story,” he said to himself, but his pride, at first prevented him asking Jeanne for her part of the book.

Meanwhile Jeanne lived her dreary days and used her leisure moments pouring over her part of the book, spelling out the hard words in it. She began to delight in it, but when she reached the end, her interest was doubly quickened. That young son his waywardness, his journey, his sin, his misery, the wonderful change in his thoughts—

“I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father”—but the rest of the story was in the other part of the book. What then had happened? Did the father welcome him? Her tender heart longed for the answer, but she had not courage to ask Jacques.

One day, however, the rain poured down with special vigor, and Jacques came home feeling specially weary. He ate his soup and bread for supper as usual, and at last he blurted out:

“Jeanne, you remember the book I tore in two?”

“O, yes,” said she half fearing.

“My part had in it a wonderful story, but only the end of it. I want to know the beginning of it. Bring me your part.”

“O, Jacques!” said Jeanne, “the same story is ever in my mind, only I lack the ending; did the father receive that willful son?”

“He did. But what was it that separated them?” asked Jacques.

She brought her piece of the book, and knelt by his chair. Together they read the whole of the beautiful parable, and the Spirit of God who had been working in both their hearts, caused its hidden meaning to dawn upon them.

That was the first of many Bible readings by the firelight after the meal was over. That was the beginning; and it led both of them to yield their hearts and lives to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The parable of the prodigal son was an absolute novelty to the French charcoal burner and his wife; it is probably familiar to the reader of these lines, but have you made its application to yourself? Has it ever raised in your mind the questions that it did in theirs?

When the sinner, weary, sad and humble returned homeward to seek his Father, did the Father receive him? Why, yes, he did, indeed.

“When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him.”

Again let me assure you, it applies to you. If you but turn to God, confessing yourself a lost sinner, coming to Him through the Lord Jesus Christ, pleading the merits of His atoning sacrifice, you will get just such a gracious reception as is described.

Behold God’s precious, spotless Lamb!

He bore the weight of sin and shame;

There’s power to save in Jesus’ name,

His blood avails for thee.

He left His home, the heavens above,

Came down in purest grace and love;

Mercy the Savior’s heart did move,

Mercy for such as thee.

The Soul Will Never Die

This world and all in it must perish. You see death all around you. The great Pyramids must someday give way before the march of time. Most of the mighty cities of history are now but dust, and those that remain are so changed that the people who used to live in them, would not know them now, if they were to come back to them. Men speak of becoming immortal by their own deeds, but a few years will blot out all their memory.

On one occasion the great Napoleon was in the picture gallery of the Louvre. He expressed admiration of a great picture to a general of his staff at his side.

“Yes,” replied the general, “it is immortal.” “Immortal!” exclaimed Bonaparte, “how long will it last?”

“Three or four hundred years,” the officer replied.

Pointing to a magnificent statue nearby, he demanded:

“How long will that last?”

“Three or four hundred years,” the general thought.

Looking him in the eye the Emperor asked, “You call that immortality? Ah, nothing but our soul is immortal!”

“Where will your immortal soul spend its eternity?”

At Sychar's Well

Jesus, the Savior of the world,

Once sat on Sychar’s well;

The depth of love that brought Him there

No creature tongue can tell.

With journey weary, there He won

A weary sinner’s heart;

A prophet He, all she had done

He told her every part.

She heard Him tell of God, who gives

The living water free;

A well within that satisfies

To all eternity.

‘Twas true that Jacob’s well was deep;

But ah! far deeper still

The well of love in Him who did

On earth His Father’s will.

He who will judge in righteousness

In that appointed day,

Had come to seek and find His sheep

Who wandered far away.

The Father gave that sheep to Christ,

She heard the Shepherd’s voice,

And none can pluck them from His hand

O’er whom He doth rejoice.

Delivered, saved, she there beheld

Her Savior, face to face;

Destined to dwell in His bright home,

Blest trophy of His grace.

“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat: yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” (Isa. 55:1).

Scripture Study: 2 Corinthians 7

Verse 1. “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” The promises referred to here are quoted in chapter 6:16-18, applying Leviticus 26:12 to us, though first written for Israel; and Isaiah 52:11 is also. Holiness becomes God’s house forever (Psa. 93:5), to be suitable for His presence, and that is where we are brought to. We must “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh,” that is, in our outward life and circumstances: and of “the spirit,” and that is in our thoughts and mind, occupying ourselves with good, and this is necessary if we are to have the Spirit dwelling, in us ungrieved, and that we might be in communion by the Spirit with God as our Father.

It is while here in this evil world we need to learn to fill our place for Christ and be in spirit out of it.

The words used are plain and emphatic, “Come out,” “be ye separate,” “touch not the unclean thing.” And it is surely worthwhile with this promise, “I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

What encouragement this is to walk in simple obedience to His Word and in dependence on Him who is Almighty. It is to us, as to Abraham of old, “I am the Almighty God: walk before Me, and be thou perfect.” (Gen. 17:1). He will not fail any of those who put their trust in Him.

Verses 2-7. Having gone over what ministry is in its reality, he now returns to his own relationship with the Corinthians, that the bond of love in the truth might be strengthened which had been formed between them by the power of the Holy Spirit. He had been true to them. He had not wronged, nor corrupted, nor made gain of any one. It was in his heart still to die and live with them. He wanted them to know what satisfaction he had in their repentance. He was filled with comfort, and was joyful in his tribulation. Before he knew of their repentance, he had no rest; he was troubled for their souls; without were fightings, within were fears, but God who comforteth those that are cast down, comforted him by the coming of Titus; not only to see him again, but to hear the story, how they had comforted him, when he saw their earnest desire; how they mourned over their sin, and how they were sorry to grieve the apostle so much, so that now it was rejoicing to him.

Verses 8-10. He had been so long in hearing the answer to his letter which he was sure would make them sorry, that he regretted sending it; but now he did not regret it, for he saw the fruit of it was good, and their sorrow was to repentance. Their sorrow was godly sorrow, and not to their hurt but for their blessing, for godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be regretted; the sorrow of the world worketh death. His joy now went beyond his sorrow, for he saw reality in them in their judgment of their ways. Now he seeks to bind up the wounds he had felt it necessary to make, and it was written by the inspiration of God.

Verse 11 tells what mingled exercise of soul they had gone through, and in the end approved themselves clear in the matter.

Verses 12-14. He had written, not for his cause who had done the wrong, nor for his cause that suffered wrong, but that his care for them in the sight of God might be seen by them. He was comforted in their comfort, and he rejoiced in the joy of Titus, because they had refreshed his spirit also, and his boasting to Titus of their reality, proved to be true.

What a true hearted shepherd is here seen, like a gentle nurse cherishing little children, and like a wise father exhorting them (1 Thess. 2:7, 11).

Verse 15. His inward affection is increased and deepened towards them, while he remembers their obedience to the truth, and how with fear and trembling they received him, and he rejoices that his confidence in them as an assembly is unabated. He knows that some individuals may not have fully judged themselves, as we see in chapter 12, but that did not hinder his joy in the many.

In our chapter we see how God fits His Word to our human mind. We see the difference between the individuality of the apostle, and what inspiration is. We had in 1 Corinthians 7, the distinction between what he said as the result of his experience, and what he wrote as the commandments of the Lord. The difference here is in the experience itself. He wrote an inspired Epistle, and in his anxiety for them, fearing they had rejected him, regretted that he had sent it; then when the glad news came of their repentance, he is rejoicing in the good that had reached them, and his own sorrow is forgotten. All this is recorded by inspiration for our edification, that we might, in our small measure, be able to help others.

Saviour, Teach Me

O, teach me what it meaneth

That cross uplifted high,

With One, the Man of Sorrows,

Condemned to bleed and die.

O, teach me what it cost Thee

To make a sinner whole;

And teach me, Savior, teach me

The value of a soul.

O, teach me what it meaneth

That sacred crimson tide,

The blood and water flowing

From Thine own wounded side.

Teach me that if none other

Had sinned, but I alone,

Yet still Thy blood, O Jesus,

Thine only, must atone.

O, teach me what it meaneth

Thy love beyond compare,

The love that reacheth deeper

Than depths of self-despair.

Yea, teach me, till there gloweth

In this cold heart of mine

Some feeble, pale reflection

Of that pure love of Thine!

O, Infinite Redeemer,

I bring no other plea;

Because Thou dost invite me,

I cast myself on Thee!

Because Thou dost accept me,

I love and I adore!

Because Thy love constraineth,

I’ll praise Thee evermore!

Sowing and Reaping

“Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.” (Ecc. 11:1).

“What good can I do?” said a very sincere, but timid Christian servant, to a friend who was urging direct effort for the soul-saving of perishing sinners upon her as a personal duty. “I have so little time and less opportunity.”

“Can’t you even give away tracts?” was the answer.

“When? I am employed from morning to night. On Sunday I take my turn out with the others just to chapel and back again, and through the week I am only out on an errand for my mistress. I wish I could work for Christ Jesus my Lord, but how can I?”

“Well, it is difficult, Maria; but is not your duty to answer the bell every day?”

“Yes.”

“Then carry tracts in your pocket, and when anyone comes to the door to sell or beg, give one away with prayer.”

“So I will. I never thought of that but if they refuse—?”

“If one should refuse, all will not.”

The tracts were bought, and soon an occasion for their use offered itself: A woman accustomed to selling fruit and vegetables at the house rang the bell, and Maria answered her; and as the purchase was completed, she quietly gave a tract to the woman.

“What do I want with that trash?” said the woman angrily, and she whirled the tract into the air and went her way. Poor Maria! It was a very discouraging beginning.

Not long after, she was taken very ill. In her illness she told the friend who had advised her effort, how badly it had succeeded.

“Did you give it with prayer?”

“O, yes, and even tears.”

“Then leave the results with God. You have done your work, and must be content that the disciple shall not be above the Master. Jesus was scorned by those He longed to save. Let no failure turn you from your resolve; when you are better, try again.”

But Maria was going to her heavenly home. Her illness terminated in consumption; and she was soon taken to the Savior’s sheltering arms. She never knew what became of her silent, winged messenger.

It was night, an impatient man walked up and down a lane which skirted a large city. Presently he stopped under a streetlamp post, stooped down, and picked up a piece of paper. It was headed,

“What am I living for?”

“What, indeed!” said the man to himself bitterly, then he crushed the tract in his hand, stood still a minute, then unfolded the crumpled paper, and read on to the end. Afterward he turned out of the lane, and went with restless steps and beating heart to his home, with an arrow fast in his conscience, and a tumult of confusion through all his nature. That arrow of conviction was sent to his heart by an unfailing Messenger. The Spirit of the Lord was dealing with the sinful man.

That “piece of paper” was poor Maria’s despised tract, carried by the wind to do God’s bidding. In His mysterious providence she was not permitted on earth to learn of its fruit, or her answered prayer. By it the poor man who had once a pious home, was led to the Lord Jesus.

The timid believer’s trembling, tearful effort was not forgotten in the Master’s service.

“Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” (Gal. 6:9).

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 15:58).

Are We Witnesses for Christ?

How important, dear fellow believers, to have Christ fully before our hearts, that others entering our homes may see on whom we are feeding. Is it a little bit of Christ, and a large portion of the world? Any one entering our homes, wound they be able to tell at a glance, by the Bibles, and reading matter lying around, and by the text cards on the wall, that we were followers of Christ?

How guarded we should be as to our literature. The daily papers, magazines, and other reading that some of our dear young Christians are indulging in, which are of no profit to the soul, but rather a detriment, and if sought after, is a marked hindrance to the growth of the soul.

The enemy is very busy in these last closing days, and is doing all in his power to attract and distract the dear young believers, bringing those things before them that do not savor of Christ; not only the young, but some of the older ones too. May we all be more and more exercised as to our ways, our manner of living, our example before others, that Christ may be seen, known, and read in us.

Some time ago, a son showed his father through his beautiful and well-furnished home. When they were seated in the comfortable parlor, the father turned to his son and said,

“Well, son, you have a very comfortable home, but no one could tell by walking through it whether a child of God or a child of the devil lived here.”

At another time, a Christian man and his wife were asked to visit a certain home, and on entering it, they could see at once what this family was connected with by the pictures on the wall, and the images that were standing about the rooms here and there. Each room bore the same testimony, even to the kitchen. It made one think of the faithfulness of these people to their profession, and were not ashamed of it.

Dear Christians, may we not be ashamed of the testimony of Christ, and may grace enable us to be true witnesses for Him.

“Epistles, known and read of all men.” (2 Cor. 3:2).

“As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby.” (1 Pet. 2:2).

“Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them.” (1 Tim. 4:13, 15).

The Moon

The moon is the second luminary named in Genesis 1:16 as the lesser light made by God to rule the night.

In more ways than one does it symbolize the collective company of believers—the church which is Christ’s body.

As the moon has no light of its own, but borrows it from the sun, and reflects it again on the dark earth, so does

THE CHURCH

derive its life, its light and glory from Christ, and is responsible to reflect Him in this world (1 Tim. 3:15), as she will be the vessel of God’s purposes through the countless ages of eternity (Eph. 3:10). If the moon could possibly vaunt itself against the sun, it would cease to fulfill its mission. How important then that the church should be true. In responsibility on earth only as light-bearer has she failed (Rev., chapters 2, 3), still believers who know its place of affection to Christ will be enabled to act suitably to the truth of it. Whatever God establishes, Satan seeks to destroy the force of. In nothing has he apparently succeeded so well as with his

COUNTERFEIT OF THE CHURCH,

supposing we contrast the true one in a few of its features with the false.

The first was predestinated before the world began; is not of this world but heavenly, and her blessings spiritual and eternal, and in Christ.

The false one began in time, mixes with the world, and is earthly, and her portion for time only, and apart from Christ. It is ignorant of and slights the real blessings.

The first has her life hid with Christ in God, not being yet in display, and is taught by Christ.

The second is at present most glaring, and usurps the place of teacher.

The true one is holy, and like a true widow, mourns and fasts at missing her Bridegroom, awaits His time to reign with Him, when owned as King.

The false one is compared to a shameless woman, mourns not the absence of Christ (not being part of Him), and when the true church is taken out of this world, will glory as queen in that same independent spirit.

The true church will be displayed in white; the false, in scarlet all ablaze. The former will dwell forever with Christ; the latter dwelling on the earth shall receive her deathblow at the hands of the Lord. Who else is represented by this counterfeit but every false religious system. (See Rev. chapters 17-19:4).

The church of Christ is composed of every true believer in this world, whether man or woman, boy or girl—all will be present when the church is complete in the glory yet to come.

“We wait for Thee, O Son of God!

And long for Thine appearing;

‘A little while,’ Thou’lt come, O Lord,

Thy waiting people cheering.

Thus hast Thou said: we lift the head

In joyful expectation,

For Thou wilt bring salvation.

“We wait for Thee, content to share,

In patience, days of trial;

So meekly Thou the cross didst bear,

Our sin, reproach, denial.

How should not we receive with Thee

The cup of shame and sorrow

Until the promised morrow?”

The Riches of His Grace

The precious name of Jesus is, thank God, being sounded far and wide, and the truth of the forgiveness of sins, and escape from judgment, through Him, is widely proclaimed; but we need to apprehend better the manner in which God blesses, and the fullness of His grace.

In the parable in Luke 15, the father did not content himself until the son—who had so disgraced his father’s name, but who, now, had owned his sins was clothed in the best robe, and ushered, with ringed hand and well-shod feet, into the house. There that which was reserved for a distinguished guest, was prepared; the fatted calf was killed, and the son was to feast in company with his father: “They began to be merry.”

Just so, our Savior-God is not content with merely saving us from destruction, nor even with giving us a place in heaven, but brings us to the ocean of His love, where we may drink again of the riches of His grace and glory.

There we may contemplate the place of blessing into which we are brought “in Christ Jesus.” “He hath made Him to be sin for us, He who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Shall we ever fathom the depths to which Christ went, when He was made sin? No, never, throughout eternity! Never shall we rightly appreciate the sufferings of Calvary. But what joy to us to be able to look upon “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world;” and to know that He, having been made sin, having borne all the judgment at the hands of a holy, sin-hating God, is now glorified; and that through His work upon the tree, this poor groaning world, now so leavened and corrupted by sin, will be brought into richest blessing.

All that had to be met, has been met. The basis has been laid, on the ground of which the whole earth, when cleansed from all evil, shall ring with praise to God. Then the thorn shall give place to the myrtle, and the desert blossom as a rose.

Yes, the work is finished. Every question has been once and forever settled, and we who believe are brought into present blessing.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:1).

“He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.” (Eph. 1:6).

“Ye are complete in Him.” (Col. 2:10).

Not only are we cleared from all the judgment which we deserved, but we are brought into all the nearness and privilege in which the Lord Jesus Himself stands; with Him, joying in, and rejoicing before, His Father and His God.

May these wonderful truths have a deeper place in all our hearts. Then, indeed, will the Lord get truer praise, and richer worship will flow forth from us to our Father and our God.

Submission: Job 5:17-19

Since thy Father’s arm sustains thee,

Peaceful be;

When a chastening hand restrains thee,

It is He!

Know His love in full completeness,

Feel the measure of thy weakness,

If He wound thy spirit sore,

Trust Him more.

Without murmur, uncomplaining,

In His hand

Leave whatever things thou canst not

Understand.

Though the world thy folly spurneth,

From thy faith in pity turneth,

Peace thy inmost soul shall fill,

Lying still.

Fearest sometimes that thy Father

Hath forgot?

Though the clouds around thee gather,

Doubt Him not.

Always hath the daylight broken,

Always hath He comfort spoken,

Better hath He been for years

Than thy fears.

To His own the Savior giveth

Daily strength;

To each troubled saint that liveth,

Rest at length.

Weakest ones have largest share

Of the tender Shepherd’s care,

Ask Him not then, “when,” or “how,”

Only bow.

The Recruiting Sergeant

With blackened face and begrimed clothes, “big Jack” was tramping steadily homewards after his usual heavy day’s work at the iron foundry. I cannot tell you as he walked along the road with hands thrust far into his pockets and head bent down, what his thoughts were. He was not a boy of many words at any time, but the contented look on his pleasant face ever told of a heart at peace with God. Whatever his reverie may have been on the evening in question, it was suddenly interrupted by one whose appearance formed a marked contrast with “big Jack,” in the grimy working clothes.

Right in the pathway stood a smart recruiting sergeant, resplendent in a new uniform, and looking just as trim and clean as possible. “Big Jack” instinctively drew to one side of the pavement, lest contact with his sooty coat should soil such marvelous cleanliness, thinking to pass unnoticed. But the sergeant noticing the broad, vigorous frame, and honest look in the gray eyes that glanced at him, saw material such as he was seeking, stopped the youth, saying abruptly,

“Are you not tired of your job, young man?”

Smiling pleasantly, “big Jack” answered, “If I am, I have no thought of changing it for yours,” and without further words he trudged on to the humble home, where his patient widowed mother awaited him.

Now it struck me when Jack told me this incident, that we Christians might learn much from the ready zeal of the recruiting sergeant. Not one moment did he let slip in accosting an entire stranger to give him an invitation to serve his country.

As we pass through this world “by sin undone,” many a gloomy face we meet which bears the unmistakable stamp of a sin-stained life; and could we not ask such, if they are not weary of the service of a hard master, whose only wages are death? Might not the words of the sergeant, “Are you not tired of your job?” apply to them with a sorrowful intensity?

Surely if we did but show the same diligence and energy in pressing the claims of our Master, we might win more souls to enlist in His service. I fear that among our everyday associates there may be some who have never heard a like interrogation from our lips, nor received any invitation from us to enroll themselves under the banner of our Leader.

Let us, dear fellow Christians, seek to show our colors as unmistakably as did this soldier. What a long way off that uniform could be seen, giving undoubted proof that the wearer was serving his country. Should it be less evident that we are Christ’s servants, stamped as His blood-bought ones? Let us each one seek to prove ourselves good soldiers of Jesus Christ, glorying in the privilege of being His ambassadors, not easily rebuffed, if we meet with a discouraging reception, but putting forth every effort to recruit the bright ranks of the army of the Great Captain of our salvation, from the sorrowful band of heartsick, weary captives of the enemy.

“Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” (2 Tim. 2:3).

“He that winneth souls is wise.” (Prov. 11:30).

The Service of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Ghost has made the church of the Living God His dwelling-place, and His desire is the coming of Christ. He has the character of a servant till Christ comes. He will not be then, as He is now, the Comforter the One, who, in the absence of Christ, does as Christ would have done. He will not then be the Guardian, taking care of the church in the wilderness; but ever the power of life and enjoyment the power that knits up all to Christ.

The Lord's Love

“Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” (John 13:1).

“The love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.” (Eph. 3:19).

There’s nothing like Thy trusted love,

Lord Jesus, here below;

Its sweetness we would daily prove,

And all its fullness know.

Thy love has thought of every need,

Of all the pressure here,

And ever lives to intercede

Till we are with Thee there.

Correspondence: 1 Peter 3:19; Jesus Always Son of God

Question: Did the Lord’s spirit go into prison to preach the gospel when He died? Is that what 1 Peter 3:19 refers to? V.

Answer: It was Noah that preached to the people before the flood by the Spirit by which Christ was quickened from the dead. The flood put them all in prison, because they did not hearken to the word preached. There is no preaching in prison in the Scriptures. 2 Peter 2:9 tells us they are there awaiting eternal judgment.

When the Lord Jesus was on the cross He said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit”

Luke 23:46; and in John 19:30, He gave up His spirit. The Father’s hands is not a prison. He said to the thief at His side, “Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise” (which means “garden of delights”), that was not a prison (Luke 23:43). There was only one happy place, and that was in the presence of God.

Atonement was made on the cross when Jesus was forsaken of God. His death goes with it, His body was in the grave, but death could not hold Him (Acts 2:24). His soul or spirit was in hades, that is the unseen or state of being unclothed (2 Cor. 5:1). It does not say in the Bible that He descended into hades, translated hell (a creed of man’s said that), but He was in the unseen. Before he went there, He prayed that He would be saved out of death (not from it.) He came to die. Psalm 16:9, 10 is the answer to His prayer in Hebrews 5:7. His body was then in the lower parts of the earth, and in going there it was to defeat Satan’s power, and to deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb. 2:14). We as believers are those delivered from the bondage of sin and Satan’s power—the freed captives (Luke 4:18, Eph. 4:8).

Question: What scripture would you give to prove that Jesus was ever the Son of God? E. G. M.

Answer: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1). God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit (verse 26), “Let Us” proves it.

John 1:1, 2, 3. He is called the Word, verses 14, 18, 29, 49, 51, speak of the same blessed Son. “In the beginning (before anything was created) was the Word,” this declares His eternal existence. “The Word was with God,” tells His distinct personality. The Word was God, tells His absolute deity. “He was in the beginning with God. All things received being through Him, and without Him not one thing received being, which has received being.” (N. T.).

The Son of God is spoken of as the Creator and the upholder of the universe (Col. 1:15, 16, Heb. 1:3). Unto the Son, He saith, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Heb. 1:8; Psa. 41:13; 106:48). He is the great “I Am,” the ever-existing One (Ex. 3:14; 6:3; Isa. 6:1-3; John 8:58; 12:41). He is “the Mighty God, the Father of eternity” (Margin) (Isa. 9:6). “Whose goings forth hath been from of old, from the days of eternity” (Margin) (Mic. 5:2). When on earth He was “God manifest in flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). “In Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). “He is the true God and eternal life” 1 John 5:20 (N. T.).

When He became a man, He is the firstborn (highest) of all creation (Col. 1:15). When He rose from the dead, He became the Head of His church in new creation (Col. 1:18; Rev. 3:14). “First-born,” means Supreme, Highest. Yet, though He was rich in glory from all eternity with the Father, He veiled His glory under a servant’s form, and became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich (2 Cor. 8:9).

“Fairer than all the earth-born race

Perfect in comeliness Thou art,

Replenished are Thy lips with grace,

And full of love Thy tender heart.

God ever blest! we bow the knee,

And own all fullness dwells in Thee.”

Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Most likely this text has not been proofread. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: BTPmail@bibletruthpublishers.com.

Young Christian: Volume 16, 1926

Table of Contents

The Young Christian

A Sheet-Almanac and What It Did

Confession of Sins

Jesus Is Mine

Scripture Study: 1 Corinthians 14, Part 1

The Sabbath and the Lord's Day

Testimony

Out of Place

Babylon: Part 1

The Coming of the Lord: 1 Thessalonians 4:16

Correspondence: John 15:2; Conversion vs. Regeneration; Length of Gen. 1 Days

Do I Love the Bible?

Come Unto Me

Scripture Study: 1 Corinthians 14, Part 2

To Young Believers

Babylon: Part 2

The Obedience of Christ

I Am Redeemed

It Is My Love to Thee, Not Thy Love to Me

Soon Christ the Lord Will Come

Correspondence: Instrumental Music in Our Meetings

Only Believe

There's a Savior for You!

Indifference

Four Bright Jewels

Father, We Bless Thy Holy Name

Scripture Study: 1 Corinthians 15

Fragment: A Hand to Save

To Young Believers

Remarks on Prayer and the Word of God

The Clock Without Hands

My Meditation of Him Shall Be Sweet: Psalm 104:34

Correspondence: Household Baptism; The Camp

I Thank Him for His Word "Hath"

Unknown Title

Looking for Jesus

Yet There Is Room

Confess Christ

Scripture Study: 1 Corinthians 16

Gleanings

I Am Thine: Psalm 119:94

The Refusing, Choosing, Esteeming and Forsaking of Moses: Part 1

The Wise and Foolish Virgins

Seek and Ye Shall Find

Confession of Richard Baxter

Much in Little

Correspondence: Rom. 8:2; More Sure Word of Prophecy; Heb. 2:3; John 6:53

The Organ Grinder

My Savior

No Neutrality, or Decide You Must

Scripture Study: 2 Corinthians 1

Another Birthday

Such an Offer

The Refusing, Choosing, Esteeming and Forsaking of Moses: Part 2

Communings by the Wayside

To Steady the Nerves

Repentance

Love's Wondrous Story

Correspondence: Unity of Body vs. Family; 1John 1:7; 1 Peter 1:9-11

God Is Satisfied

The Value of a Soul

All Things Are Serious

Scripture Study: 2 Corinthians 2

Fragment: Alone with Thee

Alone!

Stability and Peace

The Cross

Wisdom's Children: Who Are They

Fragment: Profession vs. Living

He Surely Is Coming Soon

Unspotted From the World

We See Jesus

Fragment: A Gibbeted Man

What Shall We Read

Correspondence: Romans 8:9; Ephesians 4:8-10; 2 Timothy 2:19

What About Your Soul?

I Have Found a Ransom

The Conqueror's Song