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Vol. III. B R O O K L Y N , N . Y . No. 10.
MISSIONARIES IN CHINA
REMARKABLE DISCLOSURES BY ONE OF THEM
“ China will never be Christianized!"
Old Fashioned Revival Wanted in Wall Street
"Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to
any people."—Prov. 14: 34.
MANY BESIDES OURSELVES surely were astonished to read the following extract from the Wall Street Journal, under the caption, “What America Needs”:—
“What America needs more than railway extension and western irrigation, and a bigger wheat crop, and a merchant marine, and a new navy, is a revival of piety, the kind father and mother used to have—piety that counted it good business to stop for daily, family prayers before breakfast, right in the middle of harvest; that quit field work a half hour earlier Thursday night, so as to get the chores done and go to prayer meeting. That’s what we need now to clean the country of filth, of graft, and of greed, petty and big, of worship of fine houses and big lands, and high office and grand social functions.”
This reached the eye of Bishop Candler, whose comment is so appropriate that we cannot do better than quote it here:—
“This editor is right in calling us back to more earnest forms of life than all these things involve. He wants religion in the home; he calls for lives of prayer; he insists that we need the most earnest type of religion to save the country from moral wreck. And he is right. But can we get that sort of religion under the spur of the motive to which he appeals? Hardly.
“We cannot get a revival of religion by seeking a revival of religion. Nowhere in God’s Word are men admonished to seek religion or to seek a revival of religion. They are always urged to seek God. All the revivals of religion which have blessed the world in the history of the past have come when men have undertaken to seek God. None have ever come otherwise. We cannot deify even a revival of religion. God must be the Supreme Object of our love and desire.
“Men Called Preachers Have Explained Away the Word of God.”
“Herein is our trouble—we have lost God. Men called preachers have explained away the Word of God, making it no longer a sure Word of Prophecy, but an antique for the critics to analyze and discuss. The Moral Law has been lowered. The Ten Commandments have been reckoned as a piece of Mosaic plagiarism applicable to the moral needs of ancient nomads in the wilderness, but have no more than a qualified bearing on the life of today. The Sermon on the Mount has been treated as ‘An iridescent dream.’
“The Lordship of Jesus Christ has been denied, while treacherous compliments have been poured out upon His Name, as that of a great Teacher and a noble martyr. His teachings have been defied or set aside wherever they have stood in the way of a rampant worldliness or an insurgent rationalism. The outcome of it all is that multiplied thousands have lost all knowledge of God in their souls. To all intents and purposes God is dead to them. They take no account of His will in any of their plans and doings, but live as if there were no God. They are atheists without taking the trouble to declare formally the atheism which they have inwardly accepted.
“The people must now be called to seek God. He is a real, living Person, and He will be found of those who sincerely seek Him. But He must be sought as the supreme need of the lives of men. He must be sought for His own sake. He will not be found of men who seek Him simply to remedy a bad commercial situation, or to cure social and political ills. He will not consent to be used as a sort of celestial and Omniscient Chief-of-Po-lice to help us suppress grafting and stealing and licentiousness.
“It is quite true that if all the people turned to God they would be turned away from every evil thing. But they will never turn to God until they feel that the worst disaster in life ia that one should fail to know our Heavenly Father. They must be made to feel the sorrowfulness of the orphanage of the soul until, like the prodigal of the parable, they begin to say each
Chinaman, and ‘missions* which go out for the civilization methods are neither Christian nor missions, and ought not to be supported by the churches.
“Now there are some missionaries who simply bring the Bible to the people. Is their success better or worse than the success of the industrial, medical, or ethical missionary? Yes and no: yes, because they may find some believers; no, because they will not find very many who stay with them for any length of time.
“I highly esteem the fact that hundreds of Christians died in the Boxer troubles, but at the same time many sacrificed to their idols. A Chinaman may astonish you by the way he takes in Christian teaching, and by-and-by show that his Christianity was only an outward show.
“I remember a Chinese pastor, who for over thirty years preached daily, and yet one day before his death he confessed that all the time he had worshipped lus idols, too, and he wanted to be burled in a heathen way. Yet at the same time, Christians of one year’s standing suffered martyrdom gladly.
“One Chinese Christian I remember was a handsome fellow, with the most polished manners. He seemed to be thoroughly good and trustworthy, and I would have wagered anything unon his honesty and integrity. One morning I woke up to find that he had been arrested as a murderer and pirate. They produced indisputable evidence of his guilt. I was utterly dumbfounded. This man was in the daytime a clean, honest gentleman, but at dark he girded on his daggers and pistols and became a murderer. He had been doing this for a long time.
Revival of Confucianism.
“It seems that since the Russo-Japanese War, Confucianism has revived in a wonderful way. Officials, students, and scholars united to give Confucianism a new lift up. Now they are the leaders of the common people, and as long as they are so hostile against Christianity, Christianity can make but very slow progress, if any progress at all.
“Another reason which makes Chinese hostile to missionary enterprise is that white men have not always shown themselves true to their professions. White man and Christian are the same to any Chinaman. The Chinese, be they Mohammedan, or Buddhist, Confucianist or Taoist, are forbidden the drinking of intoxicants. Therefore, it is considered very bad to get drunk. Many white people in the East, soldiers and sailors especially, get drunk, and act in foolish ways. Then the Chinese will carefully call your attention to these men and say that, if this is the outcome of Christianity, they will rather have none of it.
Foreign Money Only.
“Mission work in China, with its churches, schools, institutions for deaf and dumb, hospitals, etc., looks very nice to an outsider, but one feels sore to know that all these institutions are kept up by foreign money, and break down the very day that money fails to come. If the Chinese had any use for them, they would keep them up by themselves, because China Is a rich nation.
“As to the future, I do not see that Christianity will make much headway in China. Since the Boxer uprising, and especially since the Russo-Japanese war, the Orientals have gone over to a passive resistance, and the successful American and Japanese boycotts have strengthened their courage. One of the Shanghai papers, speaking on this subject, said:
" 'Foreigners brought over Christianity, liquor and opium. Christianity spoils our families, and teaches us to despise ancestral worship; liquor ruins our family life, and the morals of the people; opium makes us slaves of the white devils and draws all money out of China. We have to fight the three, and we will be the mightiest power under heaven.’ ” within himself, *1 Will arise and go to my Father.’
This is the belief of the Rev. August H. Bach, a missionary of Canton province, China.
As a missionary, the Rev. Mr. Bach served twelve years among the Chinese. During that time he studied them closely, their manners, customs and habits. He is probably as well versed in Chinese lore as any white man of the Orient, and knowing the Chinese as he does, he declares that the Christian churches of the world are wasting thousands of pounds every year in China, through a wrong way of doing mission work.
Here are some of the hard facts which he sets forth for the consideration of the hundreds of churches which annually pour their contributions into the Chinese mission field:—
Chinese Soul-Life.
“The religion of today in China is Confucianism among the educated classes, and absolute atheism among the working people,” asserts the Rev. Mr. Bach. The Chinese government favors both, and they satisfy Chinese soul-life. Christianity is considered as ‘foreign,’ and, therefore, officially bad. No boy of a Christian College Is admitted to examinations.
“It can be said that by means of the new schools Confucianism will be revived and form the established religion of China. By that, Christianity has run up against a brick wall. After twelve years of work among the Chinese, I may say that the longer a white man lives in China the more willing he is to admit that he knows less and less about the heart of the Celestial.
“They like only too well to use the missions as a means of advancing their own personal interests, and the missionary sees too late that his success has only been an imaginary one.
“One great hindrance in working in China is the different denominations, whose special doctrines are brought over. What can John Chinaman do but laugh when one missionary wants to immerse, the second to sprinkle, while the third advocates no baptism at all. the fourth asks him to keep Sunday—and the next one condemns them all, and teaches that the keeping of Saturday will open the golden gate?
“These Chinese, smart as they are, only like to take advantage of these circumstances; the cunning and deception of the Oriental has been pitted against the Christian forces, and in many cases Christianity has come off second best. In a good many stations, nine out of ten return to their old form of worship as soon as the mission does not offer any practical advantage.
Desert the Church.
“For nine years I mostly worked on educational lines, and found the Chinese very smart students. But out of the 600 to 700 students not one remained a Christian, but as soon as there was opportunity to go into government service they forgot ail about Christian teaching and changed Into good Confueianists.
“Mission schools, worked and kept lip by foreign money, are much liked by the Chinese, because they can get education without paying for tuition, and have a white man as friend if any official tries to squeeze some cash out of them. I am convinced that any money for mission schools Is simply wasted. If the Chinese want Western learning let them pay for it.
“Just as little sympathy I feel for the medical missions. Mission societies all over the world are spending thousands of pounds annually on hospitals for the Chinese; they send over medicines, and not one Chinaman Is in doubt that his native medicines are much better.
Oriental Civilization.
“Still less I think of those who want to work on civilization lines. It is ten to one that the first Chinaman they meet upon their arrival will be highly polished and far advanced in Oriental civilization; take that man out of his place, and make hirq ‘half and half,’ and he is good for nothing. Nothing is worse than a half-Europeanized
“We have had already too great a disposition to try to use God for all sorts of social ameliorations, moral reforms, and political renovations. It 13 time now we sought Him for Himself alone. It is time we began to cry with the Psalmist, ‘Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.’ Then indeed we shall find Him, when our hearts pant for Him as the hart pant-eth after the water-brooks.”
Difficulties In the Way.
The words of the Wall Street Journal respecting the need of the old-time religion are along proper lines. The Bishop sees clearly what we also have so frequently pointed out, namely, that the so-called New Theology, Higher Criticism and Evolution theory have so undermined faith that it would be folly to look for a return of the pious earnestness of the past, which was built upon a living faith, even though it was not the pure faith “once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3).
We do not admit that none today are pious; that none are what St. Paul styled “sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1: 2). We claim that there are as honest, as upright, as loyal children of God today as ever lived in the world. But they are few. The vast majority, under the false teaching mentioned by the Bishop, have utterly lost the “faith once delivered to the saints.” The great majority of professed Christians are drifting. Long ago they gave up the creeds of the “dark ages," and, believing that the Bible taught the same things as the creeds, it also is being abandoned as too absurd for present-day intelligence. Higher Crit-ism (another name for infidelity and opposition to the Bible), Evolution, Christian Science, Theosophy and Atheism have swallowed up the majority of the intellectuals of the Churches, and the mediocre masses are rapidly following them into the outer darkness of unbelief and godlessness.
It is impossible for an honest man who has lost his faith in God, and in the Bible as the Word of God, to take a real heart interest in prayer meetings, in Bible study and in attempted holy living. He finds nothing substantial for his faith to rest upon. He scorns to be a hypocrite. Hence the old-time religious life is not to be generally expected.
Modern Revivals Unsatisfactory.
Modern revival methods (slangy talk, clownish actions and a pretense that rising to one’s feet in a public assembly means Christian reformation and Spirit-begetting) is too foolish for thinking people of the class represented by the Editor of the Wall Street Journal. It is not for us to say that absolutely nothing is accomplished, and that all fall away who, under excitement, stand up to be prayed for, or to indicate' that they prefer to spend eternity in bliss rather than in torture. WTe do, however, mean to say that such persons are bewildered, if no worse, and a year after, we fear, are as bad or worse than the year before. This is because they are not really converted •—because they have no real foundation for faith given them, and have no faith to put upon such a foundation. They are not even what St. Paul styles “babes in Christ” (1 Cor. 3: 1), for only the Spirit-begotten belong to this class.
What is Really Needed.
The revival reklly needed should not be looked for nor expected amongst worldly people. They have nothing of Christianity to revive. It should begin with Christians who have not yet lost all their faith in God and in the Bible. These should become awakened to the fact that spirituality and faith are at a low ebb. Their prayers should ascend to God, and their Bibles should be studied as never before. They should make use of present-day helps in their Bible study and become fervent and revivified of spirit through a better understanding of the Scriptures. They must see that the Bible was not properly represented in the creeds of the (Continued on 2d page, 2d col.)
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CHARGES “OLIGARCHY”
And Padding of Statistics to Make a Good Showing.
Rev. Henry Spencer Booth, in resigning as pastor of the Centenary M. E. Church of Morristown, Tenn., wrote the following to Bishop W. F. Anderson .—=>
“I herewith formally tender my resignation of Centenary church, of Morristown, Tenn. News of this action, together with some of my reasons therefor, has doubtless already reached you indirectly. For a long while I have realized that the hour is ripe in which to begin cutting, in dead earnest, at the roots of the evils that are sapping- the vitality of Christianity. I decided to take up the axe, but it is a hefty one and the restricted sphere of the average pulpit does not afford sufficient latitude in which to swing it with proper vigor. I decided, therefore, to come out where breathing-room, at least, could be had and mean to ply the blade with my utmost strength. And, as ‘charity begins at home,’ I shall commence with our own denomination.
“In the first place, while it is true that we do not baptize by immersion, there is still too much ‘watered stock’ in Methodism. Too many high pressure methods are used. The padding of her statistics, in order to make a fine showing, is the easiest thing in the world. Hundreds of the so-called conversions reported at the annual conference of the preachers and district superintendents are the veriest fudge. But all these things we have to do to maintain our ‘prestige.’
“Again, we have gone so far daffy on ‘organization’ and ‘machinery’ that we have largely crushed and ground the life out of what real religion we have had. In these times the Methodist preacher has become more a servant of the ‘system’ than of Almighty God. And, as for ecclesiastical politics and wirepulling at our annual and general conferences, we can give ‘Uncle’ Joe Cannon and his crowd points any day.
“I am in this fight to stay. For you, personally, dear Bishop Anderson, I entertain only the highest regard and affection. But in this case, personalities are apart from the issue. Along with other things,' I am after the system. I call on Methodist preachers everywhere who are weary of acting as puppets in the toils of a great ecclesiastical machine to unite in opposing the abuses and espionage to which they are constantly subject and to protest vigorously and forcibly against the oligarchy. With all kind wishes, I remain,
ASTOUNDING FIGURES.
More Spent for Liquor Than for Church and Meat Combined.
“In the United States last year, according to very carefully compiled official statistics, $1,500,000,000 was spent on liquor or more than was spent on education and the work of the church combined, the excess being enough to pay for all the meat consumed in the country.
“As indicating how excessive is interest in sports, the preacher stated that at a single baseball game in the city of Philadelphia $36,000 was expended, people, in order to secure a desirable place from which to view it, standing from 10 o’clock Sunday night until 1 o’clock Monday afternoon.”—Exchange.
A PROBLEM HARD TO SOLVE.
“Most serious, indeed, is the small increase within the last few years in church membership in most every country on the globe. Every denomination in England is bewailing this unpleasant fact..
“In the United States the Methodist Episcopal church, the largest Protestant denomination in that Republic, with a total communion roll of 2,471,146, for last year showed an increase of only 14,044, less than three fifths of one per cent! ”—London Daily Mail.
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(Continued from first page) past; that it is in direct opposition to many of the doctrines of the past which have justly become repulsive to Intelligent minds.
When once they get the proper focus on God’s Word, one passage illuminating another, their faith in God and in the Bible will become a living one, a moving one, and, with this spirit, faith and works will come—Christian zeal, fervency of spirit in the service of the Lord. With these in turn will come activities in helping one another, activities in family worship, in Bible classes, in prayer and testimony meetings, etc. Then, as the Master said, they will let their light shine and the worldly will see and be influenced by these living epistles known and read of all (2 Cor. 3: 2).
Most Important Points.
It is useless for any to attempt to believe or to attempt to teach others that God is great and just, and loving, while at the same time teaching that He prepared, before the foundation of the world, an immense torture chamber in which thousands of millions would be forced to spend eternity. How our forefathers could believe this and yet believe somehow or other that God is Love we do not understand. It was their faith in God’s Love, and not their faith in' eternal torment, which constituted the power of God working in them for good and which offset the errors of their creeds to a large degree. But no one' of today who is at all awake can any longer think of worshipping a God inferior to himself. A God unjust and unloving, or kind but powerless, can no longer be worshipped in spirit and in Truth.
What the world needs, and what, first of all, the Church needs, is to get doctrinally straight in respect to the Almighty’s character, and in respect to His purposes for His human creatures. As soon as that condition of mind shall have been reached there will be no need to pray or ask for revivals of religion—they will follow irresistibly.
But what do we see opposing any such desirable denouement? We see two hundred thousand Protestant ministers and Sunday-School superintendents working against such desirable results. We see about two-thirds of them advocating Higher Criticism-Infidelity and one-third of them striving to hold the people in ignorance respecting the teachings of the Bible concerning man’s future—seeking, by inference at least, to uphold the atrocious doctrines of devils foisted upon God’s people by the great Adversary during the “dark ages.” It is a sad picture. Has it no silver lining?
The Cloud’s Silver Lining.
There are still a saintly few in the world who are not bowing the knee to Baal, not worshipping the golden calf of mammon, not wandering, not seeking to prove that they are descendants of monkeys, not seeking to figure God out of creation and to say that nature is God. In this time, when others are going into outer darkness, these children of God, feeding upon His Word, are being blessed and refreshed In spirit as never before. To them God’s Word is shining more brightly as the days go by; the rough places are becoming smooth and the dark places clear. To them the glory of the Divine character is being revealed. The secret of the Lord is with them. He is showing them His Covenant and making them to understand 'many of the deep things of His Word, which the natural eye has not seen, nor the natural ear heard, neither have these things entered into the heart of the natural man—things which he hath in reservation for them that love Him.
These are now seeing that the Kingdom for which He taught us to pray is not a myth; these are seeing that it did not come at Pentecost, nor when Papacy was established, nor with the establishment of any of the sects of Christendom. Consequently, they are now praying from the heart, “Thy Kingdom come,” and waiting for the glorious Messiah, promised to begin His great work of blessing natural Israel and through Israel all the families of the earth (Acts 15:14-17; Acts 3: 19-23).
These see that the Kingdom of God’s dear Son is to be one of “power and great glory”; that before it, in a time of trouble, every other religion and influence will crumble to dust; that Satan shall be bound, and for a thousand years the most blessed influences favorable to righteousness will be brought to bear upon mankind.
Church and World Standards.
During the “dark ages” the fact that the Church is a specially called, chosen, faithful class (and only “a little flock”), was seen and preached to some extent. But this lofty Church standard was difficult of application to the world, and the world’s hope, under a different standard, was not seen. It clarifies our minds greatly when we recognize that the elect few are intended by God to be the world’s instructors and helpers by and by, when the world will be granted an opportunity of rescue from sin and death—not to heavenly conditions, but to earthly Restitu
tion of all that was lost by Adam’s transgression and redeemed by the great sacrifice of Calvary (John 3: 16; Isaiah 35).
After learning that the hell to which the world goes in death is the grave, and that it is an unconscious condition, a “sleep,” the next lesson is the resurrection of the dead—“Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, * * * some to shame and lasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). Mankind fall asleep with experiences only with unrighteousness and very indistinct glimpses of holiness and saintship. When awakened "they will recognize the glory, honor and immortality of the saintly Bride of Christ and be recipients of her loving care and blessing, in proportion as they respond to the blessed privileges of that time. As the Restitution work shall progress, and they obediently rise from their degradation, their shame and contempt will gradually disappear, and eventually perfection of human nature may be attained in an earth also attaining perfection, as the Garden of the Lord.
Error Losing its Power.
Intelligent people no longer believe the God-dishonoring doctrine of eternal torture, nor even the doctrine of purgatorial suffering. Having lost these, they are doubting every religious teaching. What they need to see is the Bible’s presentations. They should see the “high calling” now ex
WHY JESUS REFUSED TO PRAY
“I pray not for the world but for those whom Thou hast given Me."—John 17: 9.
WHEN, YEARS AGO, we believed that an eternity of torture awaited all who do not accept God's “call” of the present time, we had great difficulty with this text. We asked, is it possible that our Redeemer was selectively unjust in His dealings with our race? Can it be true that the Heavenly Father merely calls and draws a predestinated few to Himself and to everlasting bliss? Can it be true, as our catechisms recite, that God and Jesus “passed by” the great mass of mankind without drawing them, without calling them, without giving them the hearing ear, -without opening the eyes of their understanding? Can it be that all these blind and deaf, unsought, undrawn, uncalled and unprayed for by the Savior, are going down to eternal torment? Our heart answered, No! But oar brain was confused by the errors, the misinterpretations of the Bible, which we had received.
Jolin Wesley’s “Free Grace.”
Trained in the Doctrine of Election and Predestination we, like hosts of others, felt somehow that Brother Wesley’s teaching of Free Grace was more noble, more God-like, than Brother Calvin's teaching respecting Election and Predestination.
Nevertheless, when we reasoned on the subject, we said, Can I think of the Omniscient God preparing a great place of sufficient size to hold the entire human family and outfitted with every devilish appliance for their torture, and yet being ignorant of the conditions under which they would be born? Can I think that He did not know that we would be born in sin and shapen in iniquity? Can I think that He did not know of the present reign of Satan, Sin and Death and that it would last for six thousand years and injuriously affect our entire race?
Brother Wesley’s theory of God’a Love and good intentions—of His endeavor to save everybody—seems inconsistent when contrasted with his teaching that only a saintly few reach eternal bliss and that the thousands of millions must spend eternity in torture. Thus we were once confused, as millions are still confused, today, in respect to the Divine Character as exemplified in the Divine Plan of the Ages. So far as we can see, Brother Calvin had a wise and powerful God such as we could admire and reverence, if He had on,ly been kind and loving instead of diabolical. And Brother Wesley had a kind and loving God such as we could admire and worship, if He had only had the wisdom and power of Calvin’s theory.
So long as we have such confusion in our minds faith and hope and love and trust shake upon the foundations of our reason. We recognize that we know nothing of the future of ourselves; that we are wholly dependent upon Divine Revelation. But we cannot expect that our Creator would give us a Revelation which to sanctified minds would appear Satanic instead of Divine. We must remember that our Creator Invites us to reason, saying. “Come, let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.” Surely a right understanding of the Divine Revelation, the Bible, should be a reasonable one to a sanctified mind.
Hearken to the Word of the Lord: Their fear toward Me is not of Me, but Is taught by the precepts of men! (Isaiah 29:13.)
Hearken again: “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My methtended to the faithful, saintly few and should sit down and count the cost before undertaking so great a contract as to become members of that Royal Priesthood.
If they do not accept this, the only call now extended, they should have in mind that there is a general law of Retribution operating expressed in the terms, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” They should understand clearly that every thought and word and act of theirs will have to do with their future Judgment and affect them more or less favorably in the awakening, when Messiah’s Kingdom will provide to every man a full, gracious opportunity of Restitution to human perfection in a world-wide Eden.
To the time of the Kingdom belongs the statement, “Righteousness exalteth a nation.” This will be a reign of righteousness, and, by Divine direction, will have control of the whole world for the uplifting of all mankind redeemed by the precious blood of Calvary. At present, in every kingdom under heaven, we see exemplified the latter part of our text, “Sin is a reproach to any people”—to the whole world. Let us accept the direction of God’s Word and set our faces toward righteousness with greater zeal than ever—to attain Divine favor, either by the “high calling” of this present time or by the blessed Restitution times soon to be ushered in (Acts 3:19-23).
ods higher than your methods and My plans higher than your plans” (Isaiah 55:9). And so we find, dear friends— God’s Word is true. His Character is glorious. Only the mist and smoke of the “Dark Ages” have confused things for us and mystified matters and darkened the eyes of our understanding.
Predestination of the Bible.
Now as the six thousand years have passed and we have entered upon the Sabbatic Seventh Thousand we are beginning to realize that it marks a New Dispensation—that the night is passed; that the dawn is upon us. The wonderful Inventions of our day along earthly lines are fully in harmony with the clear light shining upon God’s Word, making its dark places bright and its rough places smooth and enabling us to remove the stumbling stones from the “pathway of the just, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”
Now we can see why Jesus did not pray for the world. It was because the world was not in any danger of a fiery hell. More than that, it was because God's time for dealing with the world had not yet come. The world, however, is to be dealt with by the great Redeemer. After He shall have set up His Kingdom in power and great glory; after He shall have bound Satan for a thousand years that he may deceive the people no more, the glorious Savior, Messiah, will cause a general enlightenment of mankind and a full opportunity for all, rich and poor, great and small, to rise up from dust and ashes and the grave to the full perfection of human nature.
The Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in His beams, blessing mankind, healing their diseases, mental, moral and physical, and causing the knowledge of the Lord to fill the whole earth. No longer will any need to say to his neighbor or his brother, “Know thou the Lord, for all shall know Him, from the least to the greatest.” And only the wilfully wicked and disobedient will be cut off from life in the Second Death—not torture; but, as St. Paul declares, “They shall be punished with everlasting destruction.”
We see, then, that our Lord’s reason for not praying for the world was that He knew the Father’s plan that the world was not to be dealt with during this Age, but during the next, the Kingdom Age. The Master prayed for His own, for the class which He has been selecting during the past nineteen hundred years. These are variously called “the elect,” the “disciples,” “His followers,” “members of His Body,” a “Royal Priesthood,” the “Bride,” ‘the Lamb’s Wife,” the “little flock,” to whom it is the Father’s good pleasure to give the Kingdom.
Elect to Bless Non-elect.
Seeing, then, that there is a difference between God’s provision for the world, to be dispensed in the next Age, and His provision for the Church to be given now, we ask, What is the difference between these? The answer is that the world’s salvation is to be to human nature and an earthly Paradise, world-wide; while the elect class is a special one called of God, chosen in Christ and faithful in adversity and, by the Lord’s grace, is to have a heavenly nature, like unto that of the angels, but superior. Theirs is a “heavenly calling,” a “high calling.” They are to be like their Lord and Redeemer and Head and Bridegroom, Jesus, in His glorified state, “far above angels
willing and obedient of mankind to earthly perfection, the great Prophet, Priest, Mediator and King of Glory will at the end of the thousand years’ reign deliver up the Kingdom to God the Father, that God may be all in all (1 Cor. 15: 28).
While Satan will be bound at the beginning of Messiah’s reign and every form of unrighteousness will be rooted out, nevertheless, the raising of mankind up out of sin and degradation to perfection will be a gradual work. As the regenerating influences operate in mankind, they will become more and more alive, less and less dead—until at the end of the Messianic reign Adamic death will be no more; it shall have been fully destroyed by the raising of mankind completely out of it; the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death —Adamic death.
The Second Death will never be destroyed, but will be everlasting. It Is not an enemy to God and His righteousness, but a valuable servant to destroy everything wilfully and intelligently out of apcord with the Divine Government—righteousness.
I Pray for Them.
All who are seeking to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, all who have taken up their cross to follow Him, may well rejoice in that feature of His prayer which says, I pray for those whom Thou hast given Me that they may all be one, as Thou, Father, and I are one, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me (John 17: 20, 21). The oneness of God’s people is not represented in the various sects and parties of the present time. It is represented in the fact that all the consecrated followers of the Redeemer are individually united to Him as the Head and united to each other as members of His Body. “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” Shortly, through the power of the First Resurrection, all these shall be perfected on the spirit plane and constitute the Kingdom for which we pray, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As a Result of that Kingdom’s coming the world will all be brought to the point of believing in Jesus and shall all have the opportunity of obtaining through Him the gift of God, eternal life.
Our Lord’s solicitude was not merely for the Apostles and earliest members of the Church whom the Father gave Him in the special sense, as His personal companions and helpers in the founding of the Church; He prayed on, saying, Neither pray I for these alone, but for all those also who shall believe on Me through their Word. The Master’s words outlined to us the Divine Program. And Jesus Himself began to declare the Gospel and brought life and immortality to light. He commissioned His twelve Apostles, St. Paul taking the place of Judas, to speak in His Name and as His special mouthpieces. Whatever they should declare to be binding on earth would be binding in the sight of God in Heaven. Whatever they should loose and declare to be non-essential on earth, we may know would be so by Divine decree (Matt. 16: 19).
In a word, the Apostles and the Prophets alone are to be considered the special guides and standard-bearers for the Church of Christ. We are to believe on Him through their word and not through the word of councils or synods or presbyteries. Each individual of the Church has his personal responsibility. This is in harmony with our Lord’s declaration, “My sheep know My Voice and they follow Me; a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from a stranger.” It behooves us today to hearken back to the words of Jesus as He personally uttered them and as He personally sent them to us through His chosen twelve.
Soon the Master’s prayer for His disciples will have fulfilment. They will be one with Him beyond the veil, sharers of His glory and Kingdom. Then will come the time when the world will believe. The knowledge of the Lord will fill the earth and all the blinding and stumbling influences of the present will be at an end. The Savior will not need to pray for the world then, but instead, will exercise His power on their behalf, .overthrowing evil and uplifting every good principle and all who love righteousness and destroying those who would corrupt the earth.
and principalities and powers, and every name that is named.”
Is this an arbitrary election? Does God arbitrarily draw and call one above another? Yes. He thus selected the Jewish nation to be His peculiar nation—not, however, to the detriment or injury of other nations. He thus called Isaac instead of Ishmael, and Jacob instead of Esau to be the progenitors of His chosen nation Israel, whom He foreknew as a people and predestinated to a certain service. But this selection .worked no injury to either Ishmael or Esau. Similarly, during this Gospel Age, God chooses from the world a certain class and grants them the hearing ear and the seeing eye, and He passes by others and gives them not this special favor. This, however, is not to be to the disadvantage of the others—non-elect, unchosen, uncalled.
According to His Purpose.
St Faul speaks of the Church as "called according to His purpose.” He even tells us what the purpose is, namely, that in Ages to come He might Show forth the exceeding riches of His grace in His loving kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2: 7). Toward this specially called class God will to all eternity manifest special favor. But we are not to suppose that there is no reason for this selection and favor. There is a reason. It is because of certain intrinsic qualities or characteristics possessed by this class which God is now selecting. They will all be “saints.” They will all love the Lord more than they love houses or lands, parents or children, self or any creature. They will all possess the fruits and graces of the Holy Spirit.
Indeed, this is God’s particular predestination. St. Paul tells us that He foreknew that He would provide His Only-Begotten Son to be the Savior of mankind and the Head over the Church, and He foreknew that He would have a Church, a Royal Priesthood, under the great High Priest, as members of His Body. God foreknew also the kind of Message He would send forth and that it would be attractive only to a certain class possessed of a love for righteousness. These only would hear His call. These only would have the eyes of their understanding specially opened, because these alone would accept of His assurances and make a full consecration to His service. Such He would beget of His Holy Spirit, and such, in due time, would be born of the Spirit in the resurrection and enter into the fellowship and companionship and kingly joys of their Master.
It is of this special class that the Apostle declares, “Whom God did foreknow, these He also did predestinate to be conformed to the likeness (image) of His Son” (Rom. 8: 29). That is to say, God’s predestination was not only that He would have a Church, but, additionally, that the terms or conditions of fellowship in that Church should be that each one would become Christ-like. Surely this is a good predestination, with which no one could find fault. Whether we shall gain a place with the “elect” on the heavenly plane, or a place with the non-elect world in restitution to earthly nature, we cannot do otherwise than recognize the justice of God in so deciding, that none but the saintly copies of their Lord could be members of the elect Church and joint-heirs with Him in His Kingdom.
“True and righteous are Thy ways, Lord God Almighty! Who shall not come and worship before Thee when Thy righteous acts are made manifest?” Truly it is written of this great King of glory, Head and members, Bridegroom and Bride, “Unto Him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, to the glory of God.”
“Ask of Me and I Will Give.”
Although our Lord did not pray for the world, He will yet pray for them, and His prayer will be answered. The promise reads, “Ask of Me and I will give Thee the heathen for an inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession” (Psalm 2: 8). Jesus did not make this request on the night of His crucifixion because it was not the Father’s time to answer that prayer. Appropriately He waited, and while gathering the “elect” from every nation, people, kindred and tongue, the Scriptures declare that He is seated at the Father’s right hand of glory expecting or waiting for the time to come when the Kingdom under the whole heavens shall be delivered to Him by the Father. This will be done at the end of this Gospel Age, when the saintly Body of Christ shall have been completed. Then “He shall take unto Himself His great power and reign.”
A great time of trouble will follow. The plowshare of sorrow will make ready the hearts of mankind for the great blessings which Messiah will then be ready to bestow, because that will be the due time. St. Paul tells us that Messiah’s reign ■will be a victorious one: “He must reign until He shall have put all enemies under His feet (in full subjection); the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Then, after a thousand years, after having accomplished the purpose of the Father in the uplifting of all the
By one man sin entered into the world, and death (not eternal torment) by sin; and so death (not eternal torment) passed upon all men.—Rom. 5:12.
What Say the Scriptures About
SHEOL HADES—HELL
A very interesting pamphlet, explaining every verse in the Bible in which the original words are found that are translated into the English as “Hell,” will be sent on postal card request, free of charge, to any one.
“LOVE NOT THE WORLD**
THIS TEXT brings to mind another one somewhat similar—“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (1 John 2:15.) From these Scriptures we should not get the thought that we are to have no worldly people as our friends, nor to have them consider us as their friends; otherwise it would imply that we were their enemies and they our enemies. But we are to be the enemies of none, and are, therefore, to be the friends of all.
One can, however, scarcely read the above advice from two of the Lord’s Apostles without having another Scripture suggested to his mind—and this, too, from the lips of our dear Lord Himself—which at first sight may seem contradictory, viz., “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16.) The two, however, are not antagonistic, but are in full harmony, when rightly understood.
How, then, shall we understand that we are not to have friendship with the world, and yet are to love the world? The key is found in the word “world.” As, for instance, if one should go into politics, he would find that politics is so interlaced with evil things that it would be practically impossible for him to engage in it without compromising his relationship with God. It is difficult for any man to associate very much with another unless he is more or less in politics. Therefore, it means being in accord with sinful practices—not, perhaps, directly, but indirectly.
Very few people know how political affairs are carried on. A man in politics forgets his conscience; he is almost compelled to “give and take” with others. Otherwise, the district or ward or state tnat he represents would proportionately lack representation, because he would be ignored; and anything that he would be inclined to say, would result in driving him out of politics, which would cause his ward or district or state to suffer injury. So, then, the broad thought connected with this text would be that God’s people will recognize the things of the world in general, as being in opposition to the service of God, and that they are not in sympathy with the chicanery and methods of the Prince of this world.
There is a worldly side to every question, every business; and for us to conform ourselves to these arrangements and to co-operate with them, would be sin on our part. Nevertheless, as the Apostle says, we cannot go out of the world, and must, more or less, have contact with worldly people. The proper course is, therefore, as indicated in the Scriptures, that the Lord’s people walk circumspectly, seeking to keep themselves loyal to God and to all of His principles; seeking to separate themselves from the world and to be burning and shining lights that the world may see their good works and glorify their Father in heaven.
We Are to Do Good to All Men as We Have Opportunity.
If God so loved the world, even while they were yet sinners (Rom. 5:8), as to sacrifice the dearest treasure of His heart in order to redeem and save them, then such love and such benevolence toward the world on our part cannot be out of harmony with His will. Indeed, such is the direct teaching of the Word—“As you have therefore opportunity, do good to all men; love your enemies, do good to them that hate you; pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is In heaven; for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”—Gal. 6:10; Matt. 5:44-48.
To love the world as God loves it, is not the sentiment against which the Apostles warn the Church. That is a grand and ennobling love which, without having the least fellowship with the impure, pities the fallen and longs for the time when they may be rescued from their degradation. The love which is worthy of our emulation is that which benevolently ignores personal antagonisms and animosities against us and, overleaping all selfish considerations and vengeful feelings, considers only the possibilities and the ways and means for peace and reformation and salvation.
But the love of the world, the friendship of the world, to which the Apostle refers, is the love of fellowship, which implies the partaking of its spirit—its aims, ambitions and hopes, and its me'thods of pursuing them. If any man love the world in this sense, surely the love of the Father is not in him.
As children of God we have been called to a position of great Savor and advantage. Our Heavenly Father has revealed to us His plans and purposes and has condescended to take us into His fellowship and active co-operation; and so grand and glorious and extensive is the outlook of the future that we are able to view the things of the present life in a vastly different light from that in which the world views them.
So we are not to love the present order or arrangement, nor the things that are part and parcel of it, identified with it; but rattier we are to love the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, for which we pray, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth.” We are to love the world only in the sense of having sympathy with them, as our Heavenly Father has, while we are unsympathetic with their arrangements.
According to God’s arrangement, we must take our choice between the Divine friendship and fellowship, and worldly friendship and fellowship. The things which the Lord loves are distasteful to the world; and the things which the worldly love—evil deeds and evil thoughts—are an abomination to the Lord, and those who love and practice such things must lose the fellowship of the Lord and His spirit, must go into the outer darkness of the world.
ASCEND, BELOVED.
“Ascend, beloved, to his joy;
Thy festal day has come;
To-night the Lamb doth feast his own, To-night he with his bride sits down, To-night puts on the spousal crown. In the great upper room.
“Ascend, beloved, to thy Love;
This is the day of days;
To-night the bridal song is sung,
To-night ten thousand harps are strung,
In sympathy with heart and tongue, Unto the Lamb’s high praise.
“The festal lamps are lighting now. In the great marriage hall;
By angel bands the board is spread,
By angel hands the sacred bread
Is on the golden table laid;
The King his own doth call.
“Long, long deferred, now comes at last,
The Lamb’s glad wedding day;
The guests are gathering at the feast. The seats in heavenly order placed, The royal throne above the rest— How bright the whole array!
“Sorrow and sighing are no more;
The weeping hours are past; To-night the waiting will be done, To-night the wedding robe is on; The glory and the joy begun,
The hour has come at last.
“Within the hall is heav’nly light?
Around, above, is love;
We enter to go out no more;
We raise the song unsung before;
We doff the sackcloth that we wore. For all is joy and love.
“Ascend, beloved, share his life;
Our days of death are o’er;
Mortality has done its worst,
The fetters of the tomb are burst. The last has now become the first. Forever, evermore.
“Ascend, beloved, to the feast, Make haste, the day has come;
Thrice blest are they the Lamb doth call
To share the heavenly festival
In the new Salem’s palace hall, Our everlasting home.”
PASTOR RUSSELL’S SCRIPTURE STUDIES.
These volumes deserve a careful Study by all who are not thoroughly satisfied with the Bible interpretations of the "dark ages.” They can be bought for a trifle or borrowed free. Address us.
Respecting the first volume of this work “The Atlanta Constitution” says editorially:—
“It is impossible to read this book without loving the writer and pondering his wonderful solution of the great mysteries that have troubled us all our lives. There is hardly a family to be found that has not lost some loved one who died outside the church—outside the plan of salvation, and, if Calvinism be true, outside of all hope and inside of eternal torment and despair.
“This wonderful book makes no assertions that are not well sustained by the Scriptures. It is built up stone by stone, and upon every stone is the text, and it becomes a pyramid of God’s love and mercy and wisdom. There is nothing in the Bible that the author denies or doubts, but there are many texts that he throws a flood of light upon that seem to uncover its meaning.”
* * * .
The set of six volumes, cloth, 3,000 pages, is supplied by the BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, No. 17 HICKS ST., BROOKLYN, N. Y., for the usual price of one such volume, viz., $3.30 prepaid.
FALSE CONCEPTS OF DIVINE WISDOM "Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, the whole earth shall Vb 'filled fliith Thy
Glory.”—Rev. 4:8.
Shakespeare tells of some "damned by faint praise!” We grasp his statement as implying that a faint praise is more injurious than silence. But as we look to ourselves and the remainder of the reputed four hundred millions of Christendom and their united tribute of praise to the Almighty Creator we are forced to admit that with many He ,1s given ‘‘faint praise,” while the vast majority positively blaspheme the Holy Name by most atrocious misrepresentations of the Divine character, which they claim to be His own revelation of a demoniacal plot for the eternal torture, in one way or another, of the thousands of millions brought into existence by His power and without their consent.
There may be said to be three different theories prevalent in Christendom on the subject. They all have zealous, earnest, honest advocates. Each contradicts the others. Each claims to love God and to seek to serve and honor Him. Evidently, two at least of the three are wrong. It is our conviction that all three are in error. We believe that all three of them have fragments of the truth around which have crystallized distorting, slanderous, blasphemous errors. The upholders of these theories are so blinded and bewildered that they fail to discern that their praise and worship toward the Creator are defiled and converted into slanders and calumnies and blasphemies by their incrustations of falsehood.
Three General Views.
All three of these views declare that the Almighty, with full power to have done otherwise, so created humanity that a child once born into the world can never die—he must live somewhere unceasingly—either in pain or in pleasure. By what authority any make these declarations we have never ascertained.
Surely it is a gross slander upon a God of infinite Justice, Wisdom, Love and Power to claim that He ever entrusted to poor, fallen, human parents the power to bring into existence sin-blighted and sin-disposed human creatures such as we see our race to be, and then made the happiness of their eternity dependent upon a superhuman resistance of the evils of their environment and of their depraved constitutions! This blasphemy against the Holy Name is common to nearly every creed of Christendom.
Our Catholic friends tell us that by Divine arrangement terrible purgatorial experiences await practically every member of our race, in the hope that, if rightly exercised thereby, after centuries of torture, an eternity of bliss will be gained. Is not this also a blasphemy against the Holy Name? Who can deny it? Who would not shudder to have such an awful crime of evil design charged against himself or against his earthly parents? Who that is begotten of the Holy Spirit is not pained even to think of such a charge being made against his Heavenly Father, “the God of all grace”? Surely such a theory is blasphemous, horrible.
But we have grown so accustomed to this blasphemy that it fails to prick the majority to the heart as it should. With all of our development of human sympathy and care for the sick and even for our wounded enemies on the battlefield, and with our precautions of modern times against criminal negligence which might lead to the destruction of human life by conflagration—with all of our fire apparatus and benevolent laws for the protection of the very humblest of our race, we have calmly and without protest charged against our great Creator, and Indorsed it as our belief, either publicly or tacitly, that He would look upon a holocaust of millions with no fire brigade for their relief. Is not this blasphemy of the Holy Name?
Worse and Worse—-Predestinated.
Is it any wonder that in early life our childish hearts were filled with fear rather than with love toward our Creator and toward His Revelation, the Bible? Is it any wonder that it required all kinds of fighting with our common sense to believe, as we were taught we should, that God lovingly predestinated that .all the families of earth should suffer eternally except a saintly handful—because He was pleased to have it so! because He foreordained that it must be so! because He made a great place called heli before He made the earth, and made it large enough to hold the entire human family! because He created fire-proof demons to inflict torture upon the poor unfortunates who were born in sin, shapen in iniquity, in sin conceived by their mothers, and many of them left without an opportunity of hearing of the “only Name whereby they must be saved”—and that He wisely and with devilish intention laid up fuel enough to last to all eternity for the torture of His helpless creatures!
And are not such evil thoughts and ^presentations respecting our great
Creator blasphemy? If not, pray tell what would be blasphemy? Most assuredly we can think of nothing that could possibly enter the human mind or pass the human lips more blasphemous than this doctrine. And yet those who bow down before this creed number some of the ablest and most intelligent, most enlightened and most benevolent of our depraved, fallen race. How is this? How comes it that we have been so blinded as respects our own conduct and misbelief? The Scriptures answer that Satan has deceived us; he has put light for darkness and darkness for light.
Still Another Blasphemy.
A considerable portion of thinking and Christian people will join with us in saying, Ah! surely Brother Calvin grievously erred and grievously misrepresented the God of Love when he taught the doctrine of the predestination of the wicked to eternal torture! Ah! say these Christian friends, our hearts rebel against that theory of Divine predestination. We claim that the Almighty is Love itself—that He is sympathetic with His creatures and is using every effort to avert the great calamity of eternal torture.
Ah! dear friends, is not this another form of blasphemy? If some of us blasphemed the Holy Name in representing our Heavenly Father as merciless, loveless, have we not in another way blasphemed that same Holy Name in declaring that He lacks the power and the wisdom to do the good which His loving heart would prompt? Do we worship a stupid and impotent God, one who blundered in the creation of our race, and who, for six thousand years, has been striving to rectify that error and all the while has been allowing thousands of millions of His creatures whom He loves to go down to an eternity of torture? Alas! it would be nearly as easy to worship an all-powerful and loveless God as to worship an all-loving but unwise and impotent God who foolishly, sinfully, brought thousands of millions of intelligent beings into existence only to cause them to suffer an eternity of agony through His incompetence.
Earth Full of God’s Glory.
Thank God! dear friends, for the glorious day in which we are living, with its electric light and other evidences that we are in the dawning of a New Age. Thank God! that in this day the electric lamp of Truth is showing up the mistakes of these blasphemous errors which have so defiled all the precious truths of God’s Book for years, for centuries. Thank God that our Bible is becoming a new Book to those whose eyes of understanding are opening to the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of the love of God which it declares.
Now we are seeing that “the wages of sin is death”—not eternal torment nor Purgatory. Now we are seeing that Jesus met this death penalty as the Redeemer of our race from the power of the tomb. Now we are seeing that the salvation that God has promised will be brought to us at the second coming of Jesus and the establishment of His Mediatorial Kingdom for the blessing of all the families of the earth! Now we are seeing that the salvation provided is a resurrection of the dead—not merely an awakening from the tomb, but a complete uplift out of sin and degradation to the full perfection of human nature in the earthly image of the Creator.
Now we are seeing that this great blessing has been set apart by the Almighty as the work of the great Sabbath Day of a thousand years, in which “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” Now we are seeing that the whole earth’ is to be reclaimed from the curse and made to blossom as Eden—that the place of Jehovah’s feet, His footstool, will be made glorious and in every way happifying to all the willing and obedient, whom the great Messiah shall recover fully from sin and death. Now we are seeing that the intelligent rejectors of Divine Grace will not be tormented but, as it is written, “All the wicked will God destroy.”
The Church Being Selected.
Now we see that free grace and the glorious opportunity to human restitution will be ushered in with the Kingdom, but that preceding that glorious Epoch God is making a selection of a saintly class to be the Bride of Christ —“the Lamb’s Wife.” This explains why the darkness has been so long permitted—becaufte God would test the “elect” by obliging them to walk by faith and not by sight—He would test them by obliging them to endure hardness as good soldiers—He would test them by requiring that they shall suffer for righteousness’ sake and thus manifest their love of righteousness to a remarkable degree. Now we see that the faithful of these are to experience a change from earthly to heavenly conditions, in the First Resurrection, and that this change has its beginning in the begetting of the Holy Spirit. Now we see that these, with the Redeemer, will constitute the Kingdom class which, invisible to men, will bind Satan for a thousand years and supplant his reign of darkness and sin by a reign of light and righteousness, helpful and uplifting to mankind.
“Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God,”
We come now to our text: It declares that the time is coming when the whole earth shall be full of God’s glory. Ah! glorious Day! Then the shadows of ignorance, superstition, misunderstanding and misrepresentation in respect to the Divine character will all flee before the light of the knowledge of the glory of God—the appreciation of the Divine character as manifested in the Divine Plan for human salvation! Could this Scripture ever be fulfilled, could the Divine character ever be appreciated by intelligent, honest, just and loving hearts, if in any corner of the Universe there were such orgies and tortures of His creatures as the creeds of the Darker Ages have set forth? Surely not! On the contrary, in this glorious Day will be fulfilled the Scriptural prediction: “All in heaven and in earth and under the earth (everywhere) heard I saying, praise, glory, honor, dominion and might be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever!”
As we emerge from the darkness and praise the Lord in thought and word and act, we thus “show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
“Into the Liberty of Sons of God.”
The Apostle Paul (Romans 8: 21) declares that the groaning creation shall be delivered from its bondage of corruption into the liberty of the sons of God. The meaning of this is clear. The corruption came upon all through Adam, the deliverance from that corruption is to come to all through the second Adam. All are to be delivered from such bondage, however they may use the deliverance and the privileges of liberty. Those who use them rightly will come into harmony with the Redeemer and with the Heavenly Kingdom and will be blessed eventually with eternal life. Those who reject these liberties after they come to understand fully, and comprehend their lengths and breadths, will thus be choosing for themselves the Second Death.
The liberty of the Sons of God, their freedom from corruption, death, is here distinctly shown. The angels are not subject to, not bound by, such corruption, such dying conditions. They, as sons of God, are free from corruption, from death. Adam in his original perfection was a son of God, as the Scriptures declare (Luke 3: 38), but he lost his sonship for himself and for all of his race and received instead degradation and bondage to cor
ruption. The hope for Adam and for his race, then, in Christ, is deliverance from the power of sin and death into the liberty proper to them as sons of God. The entire reign of Christ on the earth, as the Scriptures show us, will be devoted to this work of setting free the human family from the various bondages of ignorance, superstition, weakness, heredity and bringing back all who will by restitution processes to the original image and likeness of God, and making them again human sons of God like unto Father Adam before he sinned, plus a large and valuable experience gained during the 6,000 years of the fall, and also through the 1,000 years of the raising up—the Restitution Age, the Resurrection Age (Acts 3: 19-21).
The Light Shining More and More.
How glad we are that in this dawning time of the New Dispensation the light is shining upon the Divine Word as well as throughout the realm of nature! How glad we are that we no longer must think of the Church alone as the subject of salvation and the world as a whole the subject of condemnation and eternal torture! How just, how reasonable, how loving are the Divine arrangements! To see these things should draw our hearts near to the Lord in appreciative love, and we should worship with the greater devotion One whom we thus see worthy of praise and adoration.
We are not, however, to expect the world to be able to realize these things; it is not the Divine intention that they should grasp the Plan; as the Master said to the faithful disciple of old and still says to us—“To you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to outsiders all these things are spoken in parables and dark sayings, that hearing they might hear and not understand.” They will both hear and understand in due time, but now is the time for the calling out of the elect, “the perfecting of the saints,” etc.
Let us whose ears and eyes have been blessed of the Lord respond with all gratitude and humility, not merely with outward praises of our lips, but also with our hearts let us confess His loving kindness and tender mercy, and let this appreciation more and more sanctify our hearts and separate us from the world, its aims, its selfishness, and let us fight a good fight against sin, especially in our own mortal bodies, because even though the imperfections of the flesh be not counted against this New Creation, begotten of the Spirit, nevertheless the fact that we possess the Spirit of the Lord should lead us more and more to desire that perfection which is most pleasing and acceptable to Him, and to strive, therefore, to the extent of our ability, not trusting to the attainment of that perfection, but relying upon the merit of that great Atonement Sacrifice.
What “Corrupt Communication” Signifies
"Lei no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth; hut that which is good, to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto
the hearers.”—Eph. 4:29.
CORRUPT communication is the
spreading of evil report or message instead of good. Our text might be understood to mean a corrupting communication according to the course of ordinary conversation. Our minds might get us into all kinds of difficulty with ourselves and with others, if we did not keep a rein upon them and hold them within certain bounds; but our tongues might do even more injury than our minds. What we may think injures only ourselves; but if our tongues come into the matter, not only are our own minds defiled, but there is contagion, there is rancor; for the tongue spreads the matter all around. And whether the matter be true or false, the influence is corrupting, degrading, tending at times even toward immorality.
It would appear that not only amongst the worldly, but amongst the Lord’s people there is a tendency to relate little incidents or make little remarks which, while not necessarily sinful, tend to cause sprouts of evil to develop. It is along this line that the Apostle says we should let no corrupt communication proceed out of our mouth. If, by any mischance, any corrupting information has come to our attention, we should see to it that it goes no further. We have sometimes wondered whether it is the quality of the fallen mind to use the tongue to the disadvantage of others, or whether evil spirits have something to do with it.
Let us, as the Apostle enjoins, drop evil communications; shun them, and hold fast only to that which is edifying—the word “edifying” having in it the thought of an edifice, a building up of each other.
Broad Scope for Conversation on Riches of God’s Grace.
But some, even of those who profess to love the Lord and to be trying to walk in His footsteps, will say, “I never speak anything but the truth;
and I mean no harm to anybody; but I must have something to talk about when my neighbors come in, and many of them would think me tiresome if I should try to interest them in religious matters.” But it is evil speaking, slander all the same, and the scandal-monger, however refined his methods or words, well knows that so far from the scandal ministering grace to the hearer, it ministers evil; that the hearer, impelled by the forces of his fallen human nature, goes out to tell the scandal to others. The fallen nature feasts and revels in just such things, assuring many that they are thus moralizing, preaching against sin, and that in thus discussing and impliedly denouncing the transgressions of another, they are mentioning matters abhorrent to themselves. Alas! their reasoning is seriously defective when the Lord’s counsels in righteousness are ignored.
There is surely broad scope for conversation among Christian people on the subject of the riches of God’s grace in Christ Jesus our Lord, expressed in the exceeding great and precious promises of the Divine Word. In these things we have indeed that which not only ministers grace to the hearer, but that which adds also to the grace of the speaker. It showers blessing on every hand so far as the New Creature is concerned, and assists in deadening the old nature with its evil desires, tastes and appetites.
This, evidently, is what the Apostle had in mind when he said that the Lord’s people should “show forth the praises of Him who called us out of darkness, into His marvelous light.” And a heart filled with the spirit of love, the spirit of God, the spirit of the Truth, and overflowing with the same will be sure to bestow it upon others; for, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh”; “Blessed are the pure in heart.”—• 1 Refer 2:9; Matt. 12:34; 5:8.
