[CRi]
PASTOR RUSSELL'S
CONVENTION
DISCOURSES
A collection of sermons, testimony meetings, special
services by Pastor Charles T. Russell as found in
the "Convention Reports" from 1906-1916. Plus
press coverage of the various conventions, interviews
with Pastor Russell, and an exhaustive
account of his...
1912 WORLD MISSIONARY TOUR
[CRii]
Table of Contents
1906
If Ye Be Risen With Christ.................................. 2
Closing Remarks--Asbury Park Convention..................... 7
The Secret of the Lord...................................... 9
1907
Praise and Testimony Meeting................................ 12
Blessed Are Your Ears....................................... 13
The Laborer and His Hire.................................... 15
Sunrise Prayer and Praise Meeting........................... 18
The Hopeless and the Hopeful................................ 19
To Colporteurs and Harvest Workers.......................... 22
Practical Advice for Colporteurs............................ 30
Sunrise Prayer and Praise Meeting........................... 32
1908
Come Ye Apart............................................... 34
Funeral Sermon for General Stewart.......................... 36
The General Assembly........................................ 37
1909
Wisdom...................................................... 40
The Times of the Gentiles................................... 41
The Mystery................................................. 45
Baptism..................................................... 47
Mercy Through Your Mercy.................................... 48
The Heathen For An Inheritance.............................. 50
The Lord's Secret Society................................... 52
Obedience The Test.......................................... 53
Keep Thy Heart With All Diligence........................... 54
You Hath He Quickened....................................... 56
God's Abounding Grace....................................... 57
Address of Welcome.......................................... 60
Address to Harvest Workers.................................. 61
The Value of Toil........................................... 65
[CRiii]
1910
Church Federation--Part I
The Cost of Church Federation to Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Methodists....................... 68
On The Volunteer Work....................................... 70
Church Federation--Part II
The Cost of Church Federation to Baptists, Adventists and Disciples................................ 73
Church Federation--Part III
The Cost of Church Federation to Episcopalians, Lutherans and Catholics.................. 76
Church Federation--Part IV
The Church Militant's Surrender to the Church Triumphant................................ 78
Hereafter................................................... 82
Gather Together My Saints Unto Me........................... 83
Who Hath Known the Mind of the Lord?........................ 87
The Secret of the Lord...................................... 90
The Secret of the Lord...................................... 92
The Ransom-Price............................................ 94
The Church and Her Covenant Relationship With God........... 98
Walk Ye In Him.............................................. 99
The Mystery................................................. 101
Comfort Ye My People........................................ 103
Interview With Prominent Jews............................... 106
Souvenir Book Mark.......................................... 107
Chautauqua Greeting......................................... 110
The Desire of All Nations................................... 112
Mayville Reception, Peacock Inn Monday Evening of Chautauqua Convention................. 115
Mayville Reception, Peacock Inn Tuesday Evening of Chautauqua Convention................ 116
Mayville Reception, Peacock Inn Wednesday Evening of Chautauqua Convention.............. 116
Pastor Russell Interviewed by the Journal................... 117
Pastor Russell's Interview.................................. 118
Special Meeting for Pilgrims, Elders and Deacons............ 122
Mayville Reception, Peacock Inn Friday Evening of Chautauqua Convention................. 125
Colporteur Meeting.......................................... 126
Mayville Reception, Peacock Inn Saturday Night of Chautauqua Convention................. 129
Preaching to the Dead....................................... 130
The Mass Jewish Meeting at Hippodrome....................... 134
Zionism in Prophecy......................................... 135
Zionism--by Eli Daiches..................................... 142
[CRiv]
1911
Obedience................................................... 145
Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled.............................. 147
Preciousness of the Lord.................................... 149
Conquerors.................................................. 152
Children's Consecration Service............................. 154
Zionism, the Hope of the World.............................. 156
Unless Thou Go With Us, Send us Not Up...................... 158
The Secret of the Lord...................................... 159
Growing in Grace and Knowledge.............................. 160
The Suffering of Christ..................................... 161
Babylon: Typical and Anti-typical........................... 164
Loving the Brethren......................................... 166
Baptism..................................................... 171
If Ye Be Risen With Christ.................................. 172
Address to the Harvesters................................... 174
1912
WORLD TOUR
Oriental Experiences........................................ 184
The Wrath of God Revealed Against All Unrighteousness....... 185
Across the Pacific.......................................... 187
JAPAN....................................................... 197
The Great Hereafter......................................... 200
CHINA....................................................... 202
MANILA...................................................... 203
INDIA....................................................... 222
The Kingdom of Messiah...................................... 229
Meeting With Workers........................................ 232
Signs of the Times.......................................... 241
Who Is Jesus?............................................... 245
Parables of the Kingdom........................... 250
EGYPT....................................................... 258
The Great Pyramid........................................... 258
GREECE...................................................... 265
Public Service, Athens, Greece.............................. 267
Athens' Second Public Service............................... 276
ROME, PARIS, LONDON......................................... 284
Spirit-Begetting Day (Sunrise Meeting)...................... 286
Pastor Russell Answers Ministerial Alliance................. 286
Pastor Russell's Reply to Professor Moorehead............... 288
[CRv]
Professor Moorehead's Summary of the So-Called False Doctrines of Millennial Dawn............................ 289
Concluding Remarks.......................................... 293
The Harvest: Its Privileges Great and Small................. 296
Love Feast Discourse........................................ 300
Are We Better Than Others................................... 303
Harvest Workers' Meeting.................................... 308
Farewell Address............................................ 313
Fellowship.................................................. 316
Jesus Our Savior............................................ 321
Farewell Address............................................ 326
1913
God's Object in Calling the Church.......................... 332
Kansas City Weekly Post Interview........................... 336
Pertle Springs Star-Journal Interview....................... 337
Responses to Local Preacher's Attack........................ 338
The Harvest: Its Privileges Great and Small................. 339
Children's Consecration Service............................. 345
Jesus, the Head; the Church, His Body....................... 346
Press Comment--Death the Only Hell.......................... 349
A Clerical Conspiracy to Injure Pastor Russell.............. 351
The Temple of God........................................... 359
If Ye Be Christ's, Then Are Ye Abraham's Seed............... 366
Opposition by Preachers..................................... 371
Pastor Russell in Reply to Critics.......................... 372
Activity in the Harvest..................................... 374
Press Comment--Pastor Russell Raps the Sects................ 377
Refuse Not Him That Speaketh................................ 378
Response to Address of Welcome.............................. 384
We Have Advocate with the Father............................ 385
Perfection.................................................. 391
Press Report--Pastor Russell Comes to Edmonton.............. 395
Press Comment--Beyond the Grave............................. 396
God's Message of Grace...................................... 396
Press Report--Old Earth Will Go On Rolling.................. 403
Press Report--Stirring Sermon by Pastor Russell............. 404
Consecration and Baptism.................................... 406
The Ten Lepers.............................................. 413
Concluding Remarks--1913 Transcontinental Tour.............. 415
Full Assurance of Faith..................................... 416
Praise Day.................................................. 419
Words of Greeting........................................... 422
The Kingdom of God.......................................... 425
[CRvi]
Christian Liberty........................................... 427
The Ministry of the Truth................................... 434
Harvest Workers' Meeting.................................... 438
Harvest Work Report......................................... 443
Love Feast Discourse........................................ 443
Farewell Discourse.......................................... 446
1914
Holiness.................................................... 451
Close of Clinton Convention................................. 455
The Great Anointed One...................................... 458
Concluding Remarks, Asbury Park............................. 463
1915
Grace Sufficient............................................ 467
Freedom in Christ........................................... 470
Love of the Father and the Son Our Pattern.................. 473
Foregleams of Glory......................................... 477
The Drawing Power of God's Love............................. 479
1916
Momentous Types of Glories to Come.......................... 485
Loving Kindness of our Great God............................ 487
The Purchase of Church and World............................ 490
Church's Humiliation Precedes Great Glory................... 492
Nations Before God's Judgment Bar........................... 494
Jehovah's Way Alone Giveth Life............................. 496
Fatherhood of God as Shown in Scripture..................... 498
God's Way vs. Man's Way..................................... 500
Pastor Russell Passes Through the Gates of Glory............ 504
Synopsis Remarks of Bro. MacMillan.......................... 504
Pastor Russell Honored at Bier by Followers................. 505
Memorial Services by Dr. L. W. Jones........................ 507
The Divine Plan as Seen by Pastor Russell................... 509
[CRvii]
DEDICATION
To the King of Kings and Lord
of Lords
IN THE INTEREST OF HIS CONSECRATED SAINTS, WAITING FOR THE ADOPTION,
This Work is Dedicated
"To make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God."
"Wherein He hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things, under Christ.--Eph. 3:4,5,9; 1:8-10.
[CRviii]
"YOUR FATHER KNOWETH WHAT
THINGS YE HAVE NEED OF"
MATT. 6:8.
OUR Father knows what things we need
Each step along the way,
His eye of love doth never sleep,--
He watches night and day.
He knows sometimes, like ripening grain,
We need the sunshine bright,
Again He sends the peace that comes
With shadows of the night.
Sometimes our pride would fain unfurl
Ambition's flaunting sail,--
Ah! then He knows we need to walk
Humiliation's vale.
Sometimes He takes our eager hands
And folds them on our breast,
He gently lays our work aside,--
He knows we need to rest.
Sometimes we need companionship,
Sometimes, "the wilderness,"--
How sweet to feel He'll know and give
The state that most will bless!
Then let us leave it all with Him,
Assured that, come what may,
Our Father knows just what we need,
Upon our pilgrim-way.
[CRix]
INTERNATIONAL
1906
BIBLE STUDENTS
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR1]
If Ye Be Risen With Christ
OUR text is found in the 3rd chapter of Paul's epistle to the Colossians, beginning with the first verse: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."
The epistle is not addressed to the world; the world has not risen with Christ in any sense of the word. The Apostle is not addressing nominal Christendom, for nominal Christendom is not dead to the world and risen with Christ. He is not even addressing justified believers in Christ. He is addressing the class that is buried with Christ by baptism in death--figuratively, reckonedly, their hearts given up, their wills given up. Those who have thus given up their wills and by giving up their wills have given themselves and their all to the Lord, are reckoned as though they were in another land; as though they were not living in the world; as though their earthly life had ceased, and the beginning of the new nature had already commenced; they are reckoned as having risen to newness of life in Christ.
I think then, dear friends, the very first thought that should come to our minds in connection with this word from God's message is, "Am I one of those addressed by this text of scripture? Am I one of those whose life has been buried into Christ? Am I one of those who by the grace of God have heard of the new life, and by the grace of God have entered into that new life, so that I may be said, figuratively, to have already risen from the dead?"
The Apostle uses a very striking and a very forcible illustration, you see. No one can question, when Paul makes that statement, just what he means. He is a very explicit writer. What a strong figure this is. If you have died to yourself, died to the world, died to the flesh, died to sin, died to everything of the earthly kind, and have been begotten of God's spirit, then as the Apostle declares, you are a new creature, old things have passed away, all things have become new.
We are not to understand the Apostle means that this transformation is a sudden transformation, so that in one moment everything has been changed, and that you have forgotten all about earthly interests, earthly ambitions, earthly motives, and earthly sentiments of every kind. That is not the thought. Various scriptures explain to us that the beginning of the new creature is a very small matter; that the matter of increase is a gradual one; that there is a certain moment in which the death of the old will takes place; there was a particular moment in which you surrendered your will, your heart to the Lord. Some can place their finger exactly upon that moment and can say, "at that very moment I gave my all to the Lord." Others perhaps more carefully reared, and more in the habit of living in a Christian atmosphere, may not be as able to place their finger on the exact moment, and to say "at that particular moment I surrendered my all to the Lord." I class myself amongst those. Reared as a Christian child I never knew what it was to be in opposition to God; and yet when I reached the years of thought and accountability, I realized there was something now that I should do for myself; that I should be more than merely passively on God's side; that to be passively opposed to evil was not enough, that the time had come when I must take my stand for the Lord, for righteousness, for truth, and that this meant the surrender of my will and everything to the Lord. Yet in my own case that matter came so gradually that I could not say just what day it occurred. It was a kind of gradually coming to a realization of my responsibility to the Lord, and a realization that I had always wished to be in that attitude, but that now I was in that attitude, and had gradually come to that position. So I think it is with some others--and I am making this statement for the benefit of others.
A gentleman seeing me on a railway train sometime ago, came and sat down by me and said, "Mr. Russell, this is the best opportunity I will ever have of asking you a question: I am a Methodist, and our friends, as you know, claim there must be a sudden conversion-- so sudden a conversion, and so absolute a change, that it will be remarkable to ourselves and everybody else; and I cannot say honestly with myself that I can tell of the moment when I had that wonderful change come into my life. Therefore I am always in doubt; my mind is always unsettled, because I have been taught to believe I ought to have that experience, and be able to point to the very minute in which I gave all to the Lord. And now I want you to tell me whether I have really been converted or not?" I said, "Now brother, we won't go to any particular moment in the past. The Apostle tells us there are some who are begotten of Christian parents, and they are born in a justified condition. You remember the text, "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean, but now are they holy." Thus by reason of God's arrangement, the child is counted as belonging to the believing parent, and is holy, justified. Now, if you were born of Christian parents, and therefore in a justified condition, you would not have the same experience some have of a violent turning around in coming to the Lord. Then I told him of my own experience, and that the word convert means to turn around. But, dear friends, if any of those born in the justified condition should turn around, what would it be? It would mean they would turn their backs on the Lord. They do not want to turn around; they want to keep their faces right straight as they have been going; they were born in harmony with God, and have reason to thank God on that behalf. But if anyone has been in an unjustified condition, or if he were born in a justified condition, and then realized that he had allowed his justification to lapse, and that, instead of recognizing his responsibility to God as he grew up, he has gone into sin, then he has indeed to turn around, and it might be a very violent turning around. In the case of some who are turning from wickedness to a life of righteousness, it is a very pronounced matter. In giving up grievous sins, either secret or public, it ought to be a very notable matter to them; they could not mistake the time. But in the case of perhaps one-third of this audience, we think it would be a mistake to suppose that they had a violent turning around, as probably from childhood they have been desiring to know and to do the will of the Lord. Be thankful if that is your experience, and do not feel fretful if you have not had a violent turning or conversion.
I explained to this brother, who told me that he was a Methodist, and that he had been more or less perturbed in his mind for years, what he should expect, and asked him whether he had given his heart to the Lord. He said yes, he undoubtedly had, so I inquired for further evidence as to his being of true heart and conscience to the Lord; and assured him that he had taken the necessary steps in the way in which he should go. He said, "This lifts a great load from my heart. Now I can feel better as I understand my position better." And so we find with many Christian people.
Now aside from that, leaving out this matter of turning around from sin unto righteousness, conversion, it is after we have been converted, those of us who needed to be converted, after we have been justified, after we have realized that our sins are forgiven, then it is that we are privileged to give our lives even unto death in a full consecration. As the Apostle Paul expresses it, "I beseech you therefore, brethren (after you are brethren, after you are no longer sinners, aliens, strangers, and foreigners, but have come into the family of God) by the mercies of God (in the forgiveness of your sins), that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." Now [CR2] it is this class who present their bodies living sacrifices who are thus reckoned dead with Christ. But the Lord does not wish them to stay dead, you see. It is a good thing to get "dead," it is a good thing to have our whole body fully consecrated to death, but that is not the end of it. You see a time for quickening comes in. You remember the Lord pictures our relationship to him after the figure of a birth; there is the begetting moment: that is, when we were begotten of the holy spirit; the natural begetting corresponds to the spiritual begetting. We are begotten of the holy spirit at the time we give our all to the Lord. It is not a very pronounced matter, it is not a matter that may have a great demonstration connected with it; it is a very important matter, but one that is not always easily discerned. By and by comes the next step, namely, quickening. And as the Apostle says, speaking to some who were once dead in trespasses and sins, they have been quickened. Quickening means to make alive. Now of course, the begetting is the beginning of life, but the quickening comes a little later when there has been some development. So it was in your Christian experience. After you had presented your body a living sacrifice, and God had accepted that sacrifice, and given you the holy spirit,--after you were thus begotten of the holy spirit,--then came the time, perhaps longer for some and shorter for others, when you began to be active; you were quickened, you were energized; you began to say, "What can I do to render my service to the Lord?" You said, "It is not sufficient that I should have given myself to the Lord; I want to use this mortal body, its time, opportunity and all that I have in the service of him who bought me with his precious blood." That is the quickening time. The energy that you there manifest on behalf of righteousness and truth, on behalf of the service of the Lord, and the service of the brethren, is part of the quickening; and there cannot be any child of God begotten of him that will not at some time have a quickening moment. If you have not come to the quickening stage yet, dear brother or sister, you want to get to it; you don't want to let the time go by. It is not just the same as with the natural birth, for you have something to do with this matter. If you are never quickened, if you are never energized, if you never come to the moment where you have such a desire to serve the Lord as will lead you to do with your might what you have opportunity to do,--if you do not reach that point, you will be "still born;" It will be an abortion; you won't come to life, you won't come to the birth. Do you see the picture? The picture is: begetting, quickening, birth. And so it is with us spiritually. We are begotten by the spirit, quickened by the spirit, and born of the spirit in the resurrection. We must have all three of these. We cannot have the third one now; that will be your change; you will only get that after you have been faithful. But what you must have now is the first one, the surrender of yourself, or the begetting; and secondly you must have the evidence of quickening. And when that quickening comes in, you will not only see it, but your neighbors will see it and your friends will see it; it will manifest itself. But all Christian people will not be the same, because we are not all alike mentally or physically; no two will be exactly alike, just the same as no two faces are exactly alike, and so no two experiences will be exactly alike; yet in every case, you, and those who are in contact with you, will be able to discern a change, a manifestation of energy on behalf of the Lord and his righteousness.
I do not say, dear friends, that you will have such a change and such a quickening as will be fully satisfactory to yourself. If you have the right spirit, if you have the right disposition, you will be continually dissatisfied with yourself. I have found some Christian people saying, "Well I feel so dissatisfied with myself and my attainments that I think I cannot be one of the Lord's faithful ones." But, my dear brother and sister, if you felt clearly satisfied it would be a bad sign. You know you have your imperfections. God knows it; he tells us so. He tells us that in our flesh dwells no perfection; and since perfection does not dwell in our flesh, we cannot hope that our new minds, which recognize the standard of perfection, can be satisfied with anything that is possible to us in the flesh; hence we are always dissatisfied, so far as the attainments of the flesh are concerned. Perhaps that dissatisfaction may be greater with you than it was when your begetting began, or when your quickening began. Why? Because you have not really changed? Oh, no, I hope not. I hope that as you look back and compare to-day with a year ago, or even a month ago, you can find that you have made some progress, that there has been some energy displayed, and some manifestation of greater strength as a new creature, some greater ability to conquer the old will, the old nature, and to bring it all into subjection to the perfect will of God. I hope as you look back a month or a year you can see some evidence of growth even though you are still dissatisfied with what you have attained. Now that is right and yet it is wrong. That is to say, it is right we should have the feeling that we are not doing anything of any account: that when we have done all, we are to say, We are servants that have not profited our Master; he has not gained anything by our being his servants; we are his debtors still; we are to realize that all we can do is not aiding the Lord. We are to realize that our all is a little insignificant matter, and the best we can render must be in the divine sight imperfect. And yet faith there is to triumph; faith is to look beyond self and to realize that our sufficiency is of Christ. And then as you realize that it is a gradual process going on from day to day, you will say, "I am not all I would like to be, and yet am I doing what I can? Yes, I am doing what I can to overcome the world and its spirit, and to overcome the things of the flesh, and the adversary." And then when that thought has come, the other thought comes, What can I do? Then the further thought is, Christ is our sufficiency. And thus Christ is continually day by day brought to our hearts and minds as the sufficiency of God which he has provided, and the more we realize our own imperfections and insufficiency, and hold on to the blessed Redeemer, the more we have the peace of God that passeth all understanding ruling in our hearts.
So then, dear friends, coming to our text again, ask yourself, "Am I risen with Christ?" Not in the actual resurrection, not in that glorious resurrection that is to come when we shall be actually with the Lord, but am I risen now in the same sense that I am dead now? According to the will of the flesh I am dead, I have consecrated that; that is laid at the Lord's altar, and he has accepted it through the merit of Christ: I am not alive to the flesh then. If we were to get alive according to the flesh, it would mean that we would die according to the spirit. We cannot have two lives, you see; the flesh must be reckonedly dead; the will of the flesh cannot rule; if it does, then all is wrong with us. If you turn to the flesh, and love the flesh, and serve it willingly and intentionally, of full volition of mind, then it is an indication that the mind of the Lord has perished so far as you are concerned. If the seed of which you are begotten has no effect upon you, it is a sign that the seed is dead; it will never bring forth the new creature. But I hope that is not the case; I hope that as you look into your own hearts you find not only that you have made the consecration, but that you are risen with Christ, and that you can see things are different from your standpoint, and that the world has a different aspect to you because you are in Christ Jesus, because of this change.
The Lord's people are using this figure now, so to speak. Those who are the Lord's consecrated people in this city, or in every city wherever they may be,-- Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburg, San Francisco or wherever they are, whose lives are hid with Christ in God, who are accounted new creatures, risen with Christ, are in the world but not of the world. They pass here and there amongst men and as the Apostle says, "the world knoweth us not." Why don't they know [CR3] us? Don't they know your name--Smith or Brown? Is your name not still Smith or Brown? Yes, among men that is still your name, but with the Lord you have a new name; with the world you still have the same name. Don't they know you? They know you according to the flesh, but they do not know you as a new creature. And from your standpoint and from God's standpoint, you are not any longer in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of Christ dwells in you. If the spirit or mind of Christ dwells in you, you are in the world but not of the world, as our Lord said we should be as he said he was, "In the world but not of the world." We are, therefore, dear friends, to remember at a resort like this, or in any other city or place, or under any other circumstances, that we are not to measure ourselves with other people; we are to remember that there is quite a difference between those who are begotten of the spirit and those who are not begotten of the spirit. We are to remember that while the laws of the land are made for the world in general, those laws should not be the highest standard for our hearts and for our minds. For us it is not sufficient that we should merely keep the laws of a city; they may be very good and suitable for the majority of mankind, but we see there is a higher standard than that of the world. We should apply the law of our Lord to our hearts, doing unto others as we would they should do unto us. The golden rule is the rule that is to regulate all these new creatures in Christ: --and more than even the golden rule, is the rule that we have come under, the rule of Christ, that we are not counting our lives nor our comfort, nor any interest of life, dear unto ourselves, if there comes an opportunity to serve God or the brethren, or even the world of mankind. We are to be emergency people, ready for any emergency to lay down our lives in the service of God, truth and righteousness wherever it may be, and note every opportunity to show forth the praises of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.
I hope then that many of you as you consider this text, "If ye then be risen with Christ," will consider the "if" as you say to yourself, "Where does the if come in in my case?" I hope you will be able to say "Yes, I am one of those whom the Apostle describes here; I am one of those who are risen with Christ; I am one of those who are seeking the things above." Well, how do we seek the things above? Are we to go out on the seashore and seek something that has fallen from above in the strands? Are we to look up into the sky and seek for the stars, or something above? How do we seek the things that are above? What are the things that are above? We answer the things that are above may be understood in two ways. First of all, it signifies the higher things; seek the higher things, the things that are not of sin, the things that do not pertain to the fall. We have every one of us in our flesh the imperfections of the fall that naturally tend to draw us earthward, and towards the things that minister to the gratification of the depraved flesh; and therefore, as new creatures, the new nature is to control this mortal body. You remember that in the 8th chapter of Romans the Apostle Paul brings this matter forcibly to our attention, telling us it is not sufficient that we should be dead to the world, but that we should have the spirit of Christ. He tells us that the spirit of Christ will quicken our mortal bodies. How and when will it quicken our mortal bodies? We answer that the mortal bodies we first reckoned dead, and so now in the mortal bodies you have your tastes, your cravings, your appetites and your ambitions, and these are reckoned dead now, and the Apostle represents it as putting the old nature, the old man, down; and he says of himself "I keep under my body." He not only buried the old nature, but he put him down and put his foot on him. What put his foot on him? Why, the new Paul, the new "I." So the Apostle says, it is I, and yet not I; it is the one that was I, but now I am the new creature Paul; I am keeping the old Paul, with the old nature, in subjection, and under the rule and control of this new will, the will of Christ which is dwelling in me; this will, or spirit, by which I have been begotten through the word of his grace. Now the Apostle says, in Romans 8th chapter, that it is not sufficient we should get the old nature down, and get it dead, and get it consecrated to death, but he says that in proportion as the spirit of God is received in us the new nature triumphs to such an extent that it is able to bring the mortal body into subjection, and that the mortal body may be quickened. So then to give an illustration there was the mortal body, said the Apostle, which once was serving sin, and that mortal body died to sin, gave up sin; that is to say, the will was transformed, but the body might be weak and might slip from under the control of the new mind. The Apostle states there are those who stumble, and he makes a difference between stumbling and falling. To fall would signify, from the Apostle's standpoint, to be utterly cast down; but he says there is such a thing as stumbling, and if we stumble as new creatures, if the new creature fails at times to have and keep the mastery over the old nature, we are not to be discouraged by this, but to remember that the Lord's grace is sufficient for us, and that we may go to him and not only ask for forgiveness for the sin, for the slip, for the unintentional weakness, but we may also ask of him an increase of grace and strength, that on future occasions we may profit by that very stumbling experience, and be stronger in the Lord and the power of his might. And thus we will be prepared for the next trial.
So we see that the experience the Lord wishes to put us through is this: That as we have a conflict here, and there, and elsewhere, with our own weaknesses, the new creature shall by battling against those weaknesses become stronger and stronger, character will be formed, and it will not be the "mushy" kind of character or disposition, but a firm, fixed character, fixed on righteousness, fixed on truth, ready to fight against sin in every sense of the word, under all proper conditions, and to help others, and ready to lay down our lives in battling against that which is wrong. While this new nature of which we have been begotten is to triumph in us more and more, yet we cannot do all of that in a day or a week or a year; it may be several years of Christian experience that you will need as you seek to thus overcome the world and gain the victory over the imperfections and frailties of the flesh. If you are rightly exercised by them, these experiences will only tend to make you stronger. You will say, "there is the place I slipped; the old nature got the advantage unintentionally and my new nature was not strong enough at that point. Now that I find where it was weak I will fortify that position and never slip there again," and the next temptation will not come there, but it will come somewhere else. And so you make a battlement there, and get your strength of character on that point, and then another temptation will come at another point; and you did not know you were weak there, and the trial will come from the point that is weak. Then you barricade that, and increase the strength of character. So you thus fortify yourself against all the weaknesses of the flesh. It is a battle all the way around. The new creature must put up a fortress, and make the heart more impregnable to sin. It is thus that the Lord has promised that when our experiences, and trials, and tests, have sufficiently demonstrated the loyalty of our hearts and minds, "They shall be mine saith the Lord in that day when I make up my jewels." That is the jewel character. You know that a jewel differs from an ordinary piece of glass. The glass may be very beautiful in color, but it is not hard; it has not the real character there; but when you get a real jewel, a real precious stone, it is one that is hard, it holds its character. So the Lord pictures his people, not as merely the best representation of that which is beautiful, but as being the real firm character established. All the experiences of this present time are lessons to make us stronger and to build us up not only in faith, but also in loyalty to principle.
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But now we have risen, we are of those, we trust, who have taken this step, begotten again, quickened, reckonedly risen to walk in newness of life, going through the world with new aims and ambitions. What is your new aim? One says, I used to have the aim of getting rich. But now, what is your aim? You can never work to advantage until you know what you are trying to do. Now it takes a little time, but you must settle the matter. You must not expect to know all about this, and have it all clear in a minute, but you ought to be going on in that direction; you ought to be asking yourself, What is to be my aim in life? What am I living for? We must know what we are after. To those who are new creatures in Christ, God sets before them the grandest ambitions. Are you a very ambitious man, or a very ambitious woman? You could not have a greater ambition than God sets before you. One says, "I have an ambition to be President." If you have, that is nothing in comparison with the things God sets before our ambitions. He says, "You may become a son of God in glory." He says, "You may become a king in glory, a joint-heir with my Son in the great kingdom." Another says "I have an ambition to be a very wise woman, a very wealthy woman, and the wife of some great, influential man." The Lord sets before us a grander ambition than that: we can become the Bride, the Lamb's wife, joint-heirs with him in the glorious kingdom. Is there not abundant room for ambition? I tell you, dear friends, we have the opportunity of being the most ambitious people in the world. Ambition is very good and very necessary. The man or woman who in the present life has no ambition will never make anything but failure, but it is necessary that we get the right ambition, the ambition which God sets before us. And the more that great ambition that God sets before us gets into our hearts and fills us, the more we will control our words and conduct.
Now then the Apostle says, Be ye not conformed, or bent down to this world; but be ye transformed, turned upward, by the renewing of your minds. Have a new mind, the mind of Christ, the mind that has the higher things before it, the mind that has learned that there are more than the few years of this present life, the mind that has come to understand that there is a God, and that he has a great and wonderful plan, and in that great and wonderful plan we may have a place, if we are faithful in this present time. You do not get suddenly from the conformed condition to earthly things to the transformed condition of mind; it is a gradual process; and you will find that even when you have had your eyes fixed on the heavenly glory, when you have seen the things by the eye of faith, which the natural eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man--when by the eye of faith you have come to understand something about those things as they are revealed in the Word of God, even then you find something comes upon you from the earth and draws your attention down to the things that are beneath. But the Apostle says we should set our affections on things above, and if something draws our attention on earthly things, we are to remember that those are not our things but are the things that belong to this earth; that we are new creatures, and our things are the riches of grace, the riches of glory. We are heirs of the kingdom, and whatever may happen to us in respect to this present life amounts to nothing at all in comparison with the interests involved beyond. And so, then, when we come to realize our relationship to the great Eternal King of Glory, and to our Lord and Master, what could there be of all earthly trials that would really affect us very deeply? They might indeed cause the shedding of a tear, they might cause a pang to the heart--that is not unnatural, that is proper enough. Even Jesus, when he was surrounded by the sufferings and troubles of humanity, wept. So it would be no disgrace if we should have this realization of our kinship with the world and should shed a tear. As the Apostle says, so long as we are in this tabernacle we do groan, being burdened; but when we think of how this present tabernacle is burdened, we also think of how this is only a tabernacle, that the great palace, the great home, the great Father's house of many mansions is ours, and this is merely our temporary dwelling place; and his gracious promises are ours, and all things are ours from that standpoint. Nothing is really able to affect such a heart. It rises superior to all the trials and difficulties of this present time, and it is able to sing even in the midst of tribulation. Or, as the Apostle puts it, "We glory in tribulation also; knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the holy spirit, which is given unto us." Ah yes, that is the reason, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. So, dear brethren and sisters, what we want is to have more and more of this love of God shed abroad in our hearts, and the more of it we get, the more enlargement of heart we will have, the larger will our capacity grow from day to day, and from year to year. We should find ourselves growing larger in heart, and able to appreciate more and more the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of the love of God which passeth understanding. You do not understand it fully, and I do not understand it; it passeth all understanding; nobody understands it. But you understand it better than you did before, and I understand it better than I did before. You may appreciate the love of God more this week than you did last week, and next week you should appreciate it more than you do this week.
"Seek those things which are above, where Christ
sitteth on the right hand of God." How are we to seek
them? Our Lord represented how we are to seek
them. He gave a parable, you remember. He told
about the man who, when he found one pearl of great
value, went and sold all he had to get that pearl. And
so the Lord represents that kingdom promise which
he has given us is a pearl of great price, and he has
told us how we may become possessed of that pearl,
that joint-heirship with him in the kingdom. When
we come to know that there is a pearl of such great
value, and that it is possible for us to become the owners
of it, or sharers in that pearl, what are we willing
to give for it? The Lord says that he who really appreciates
that pearl is willing to sell all that he has
and purchase it. Mark you, he is to sell all that he
has; he is not merely to squander all that he has;
he is not merely to throw it around carelessly. Go and
sell, that you may buy. So you and I from the time
we made a consecration are not to think that it makes
no difference how we do, or what we do, or where we
use the talents or powers we possess, but that it is all
consecrated to the Lord. The new creature says, "I
have possession of you now; you are my property,
old creature; your human powers, the power of public
utterance, or the power of money, whatever talents you
may have according to the flesh, it is mine; I will use
it; I will sell it; I will make as much out of it as I
can." And the Lord is pleased to see us thus acting
as stewards, and getting out of our old bodies, our old
fallen natures, all we can get, and using it in joyful
service, the service of our King. What do you possess?
I do not know what you have. You know, and the
Lord knows. But whatever you have belongs to him,
if you have taken the step here represented, if you
are dead. A dead man does not own anything; therefore
you, according to the flesh, own nothing. It is
the creature, then, that is in power. All that the old
creature possesses of time, influence, money, property,
the new creature owns; or rather it is God that owns
it, because it was to God that you gave your old human
nature as a sacrifice, and God has given these things
into the custody of the new creature, and you, the new
creature, are the steward. So as new creatures it is
for you and me to see how we are using these things,
how we are selling those things that we have, how
much we are getting out of our time, whether we are
wasting any upon light reading, such as novel reading,
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or that which confuses our minds; how we are using
time as respects games or other folly, how we are
investing our time for the service of Him who has
bought us, who died on our behalf. And how much
we would like to do more than we are able to do. I
take it for granted, dear friends, that every one of us
who has the spirit of the Lord at all would like to do
a thousand times more, just as we sometimes sing,
"Oh for a thousand tongues to sing
My Great Redeemer's praise."
You cannot have a thousand tongues. Well, you say,
"Oh for a thousand times as much time as there is in
which to serve the Lord." You cannot have that either.
"Oh well, for a thousand times as much money as I
have." You cannot have that either. You have just
got to use the tongue which you have, and the dollars
you have, and the time you have, and the things you
have--that is all you have to use. But if you do not
use the little things well, the Lord will not entrust to
you great things. You remember how he says in giving
the reward, He that is faithful in that which is
little will be faithful also in that which is great; he
that would not be faithful in his stewardship of a little
time, and a little influence, and a little money, would
not be faithful if he had great influence, a great amount
of time, and a great amount of wealth, to put at the
Lord's disposal. The Lord is not expecting us to do
great things, but He is expecting us to show with these
little things what we would like to do if we had the
power, what you would be glad to do if all this could
be multiplied a thousand times; and He is going to
count it to you just as though you had the thousand
times as much, if you are faithful in the use of the
little things. Oh how much encouragement that gives
to us, when we feel how little we have, and how great
is the Lord's work, and how much we would desire to
be, and to do, and to serve! How much it encourages
us to find that the Lord looks upon the heart! I trust
as he looks into your heart he sees it so burning
with zeal, so aflame with sacred love of which we
sometimes sing, that it is really consuming the earthly
vessels, and thus bringing everything as a sacrifice of
sweet odor to the Lord--not sweet of itself, but sweet
because of the merit of Christ imputed to it.
Some one may say, "Brother Russell, I have set my affections on things above, and some how or other they slip off again." Very well, my dear brother, that is just the same as it is with other people. They set their affections on things above and then they slip off and get down to the earthly things which are so near, and especially so if they have beautiful earthly things. If you have a paradise on earth, it is that much more difficult. If you have wealth and beautiful things, and wonderful arrangements, and all of these comforts of an earthly kind, they draw the heart more in that direction, and it is all the more difficult to leave them and set your affections on things above. So the person who has little in some respects has the advantage. But if the person who has the disadvantage prove the victor over it, we may suppose the Lord will appreciate the victory he gained all the more. So keep setting your affections, and if they slip off a thousand times a day, set them back a thousand times, and by and by they will begin to stick to the heavenly things better.
I need not in this connection mention to you that, aside from the effort of the will, comes in the various assistances to which God directs us. Prayer for one thing--"watch and pray." If you are watching and praying and setting your affections on things above, and saying "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done," you will not be thinking so much, if you pray from the heart, of your own will being done. Some use that prayer and never think what it means.
I trust all here, when they pray, "Thy kingdom come," really think about the coming kingdom that God has promised to bless the world, and think about the share that is promised to them in that kingdom. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne."
Another thing, you should have your fellowship with those of like precious faith. If you get in with the world and talk about stocks and bonds, etc., all of that is drawing to the earth earthy; every thought is in that direction; the whole world is tending earthward. So you need to have something to offset that, and if it is necessary to earn your living, either by cutting cloth, or sewing, or washing, or keeping a grocery store, or what not, if these things are necessary, as they probably are in a majority of cases, and they necessarily bring you in contact with those earthly things, remember that it is possible for us, while doing those things, as washing for instance, to think "Well there is another washing that the Lord is doing for me; he has given me the white robe of Christ's righteousness;" and as you wash the soiled linen, you can have a spiritual blessing in your heart by thinking how this great robe of spotless righteousness is ours through him that loved us, and bought us with his own precious blood. And as you find a stain upon your earthly dress and attempt to remove it, think about how the scriptures say that he will present us faultless, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing; and that it is your privilege, if you find you have made a stain on your robe, if you find you have made a mistake, to come boldly to the throne of heavenly grace and have the precious blood applied which will make and keep you clean, which will take off all the spots, and keep them off. Do not allow them to remain. If a spot gets on say, "I cannot bear to have that spot there, I must go to the great Cleanser, the great Redeemer; I must have the precious blood to remove it at once." With that you will find you are thinking more about the Lord, and your affections will be set more on things above, and less and less on earthly things. As you are attending to the various things of business life, you can keep setting your affections on things above. And you are to remember in this connection that the Lord has admonished us not to forget the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, and so much the more as we see the day drawing on. Therefore, if you want to have your affections rightly set, if you want to overcome these things, and be separate from the world, you will need to make use of the opportunity of meeting with the dear brethren wherever they may be, because they love him, not because they are of your station in life, not because they dress well, or are well educated, or because of some other reason of that kind, but because you recognize amongst them the spirit of the Lord our God; because they are brethren in Christ, no matter how weak or imperfect they may be according to the flesh, no matter how illiterate they may be, no matter how poor they may be; if they belong to Christ, they belong to the King's family and are his; and wherever you are, meet with those, associate with them, help them and let them help you; and in helping them you will be helping yourself, because whoever helps another on in the narrow way is helping himself along.
So we have the Word of God as one of the assistants, and God's providence another, and the directions of the Word how to use our wills and set our affections on things above, and doing this in all the affairs of life, and watching and praying and striving against the allurements of the world--all of these things are necessary, dear friends. We may be sure that our Master did not suggest anything to us that would not be necessary, and if his wisdom knows what is best for us, and if he has designed to give us the direction, and if we put ourselves under his direction, and he is the captain and we are the disciples and followers, then let us know that it would be a risky matter for any of the sheep to stray away into any other path than that which he has marked out for us. Let us know that to the extent we want to make our calling and election sure, to that extent we must be sure that we are following the Lamb whithersoever he leadeth us.
A sister said to me this morning, "Brother Russell I
am glad you have that text: it always troubled me to
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know how and when I am setting my affections on
things above." Well, we answer, dear friends, that to
set our affections on things above means all we have
explained, and that it does not mean that we have no
interest in earthly things. Well, she said "How can we
love God with all our heart? Can I love God with all
my heart? Will not some of my heart's affections and
should not some of my heart's affections, go to others,
to my family and to other things of the earthly kind?
Where should I draw the line?" I think that is a good
question for us. How do we set our affections on things
above and give the Lord all our hearts, as the Scriptures
demand, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy being and
with all thy strength?" What does that signify? Does
it mean that we should not love our brother? No, no,
for the Scripture says we should love our neighbor as
ourselves. It does not mean that we should not love
our brother at all. Giving all our heart to God does
not mean that we shall not love our children, our husbands,
our wives, our brothers, our sisters in the flesh,
and also those in the spirit. Not at all. What does it
mean? It means the sum of our hearts, the center of
our affections; as we would say, speaking in numbers,
it must be more than half, the majority of our affections
must be fixed upon the Lord; it must be really
the whole in the sense that if anything else should
come in that would tend to differ from, or be contrary
to, the will of God, that the will of God would so preponderate
that nothing else would have any influence
at all; it should not come to a division of our love, but
as God loves your brother and your sister, so he says
that you and I should love one another--as he loved us.
But he did not wish that we should love one another to
the extent that if it came to a matter of being loyal to
the Lord, and faithful to that brother, that you would
say, "well, now, I would like to be faithful to the Lord,
but I must be faithful to this brother," showing that
perhaps you loved the brother more than the Lord. He
does not mean that as between having the affections of
the wife, and having the favor of God, that you would
say, "Well, I cannot give up the wife, because I must
stick to the wife even if I must forego the Lord's
favor." No, no, that is not loving the Lord God with
all your heart. He means that if it came to a test on
any subject, no matter how great or how small, that
just as the needle of the compass would always turn
promptly to the North, so your heart would say, "If it
is any question as between God and any other person,
or thing
"To the Lord I must be true
Who bought me with his blood."
That would be serving the Lord with all our heart; that
would be giving our all to him.
The Apostle here continues in the same strain, "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." What life is hid? Why this new life that you have, with all its new hopes and new prospects and new ambitions, is all centered in Christ. It is a life of faith. It is not a natural thing. You do not have that new life except as you have the faith. All that you have in the way of new life is hidden in Christ. "Well," says some one, "if Christ should fail, then what?" If you cannot have faith in Christ, you cannot be in him at all. To have your life hid with Christ in God implies that you will have that absolute trust in God that he has provided the redeemer in Christ, and that all of the gracious promises of God's Word will be fulfilled in Him. All of that is included. So, when we say your life is hid with Christ in God, it means that the die is cast, that for you to live henceforth must be to live from this standpoint of faith in Him, and in all of these promises of His, knowing that if He has promised He is faithful to do all that He has promised. So in proportion as your faith lays hold of the gracious promises of the Lord's Word, in proportion as your faith lays hold on the dear Redeemer, in that proportion you may have this victory, because the Scripture says, "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith."
So then, dear brethren and sisters, cultivate faith. Patience, of course, is to be cultivated, and patience will help in the cultivation of faith. We have need of patience in order that we may have faith. We have need of all these things, but the sum of all is faith, hope and love. Without the faith, without the hope, without the love, we would not be acceptable. So now we know what it is to have our lives hidden with Christ in God, so that we are dead to ourselves, dead to the world and all of its ambitions. To us all things have become new.
I trust dear brethren and sisters, as we apply these matters to our own hearts this morning, we can say, "As for me I will serve the Lord; as for me I am a new creature in Christ Jesus; as for me earthly things and the old things--not only the sinful things, but even the things that are right and proper, everything that would be in the nature of a thing I could sacrifice for the Lord and his service to be a co-worker with him-- all of that is already given to the Lord." There is much, as you see, in this matter of consecration, and in keeping it before our minds. There are some people, I find, who always have difficulty. They say, "Well now I sacrificed that; now here is another thing, I must make a new, fresh sacrifice." And so they keep on. They have troubles all their lives, because they have not found out what they have done. What they ought to say is, "I have only one life, and when I give that one life it is all gone, it is not mine at all." I have found that people have that trouble over money matters. You know that money is the root of all evil, as the Apostle points out; and of course every human being has a measure of selfishness. And so they have a measure of selfishness, and gradually the new creature would pull out something from the old creature's grasp, and they would say, "there is something now. There now. There I lay that on the Lord's altar. That is a sacrifice I have made." They do not get the point. All the money you have belongs to the Lord, if you have thoroughly given yourself to Him; you are not sacrificing anew, you are merely rendering unto the Lord that which is His. It is His because you gave it to Him, because you pledged it to him, and the very condition of your pledge was the condition on which you received the begetting of the holy spirit.
I think of one dear brother who came to me in Allegheny some years ago, who had just gotten interested in the truth. He said, "I have been a Methodist so long," and he said, "I have given for years a tenth of all my income." And he evidently rather expected I would say, "My dear brother that is a very remarkable thing, not very many people give a tenth." But I did not say anything of the kind, because the Bible does not. I said, "Sure, that is the best you know." And he thought I had misunderstood him, and so he brought it around again, "I have for years given a tenth of all my income." I said, "Why sure, that was the best you knew. You did not see you had given all to the Lord, did you?" He looked into blank space for a moment, and then his face flushed, he put his hands up to his face and said, "Brother Russell I never saw it that way before. I was boasting I was giving a tenth of all my income to the Lord, and I thought I was doing great things, and I see that when I made my consecration I gave Him all of it; that I belong to Him, and everything I have belongs to Him." The brother got the right idea. The sooner every one of God's people get the right idea, the sooner they will get a better chance for victory.
I am not begging for any money, dear friends; we never take up collections; you will not accuse me of that. I am talking for the benefit of all of God's people, that they should see the principles involved, and they not only apply to money but to everything else. Your time belongs to the Lord. I have heard people say, "I gave so much time to the Lord, and I thought when I had given him so much, that was sufficient." Why, all your time belongs to the Lord. The question is, how much are you using on yourself? It takes eight hours out of the twenty-four to sleep, and three to eat; that is eleven. And it takes some hours out of every [CR7] twenty-four to earn what you eat and a place to sleep, and that takes up a good part of your time. So you haven't very much time to give to the Lord. If you gave him every spare moment of time you have, you could not give him very much; and we want to appreciate the fact that it is so little. The same thing applies to time as to money. If you get the idea that it is your time you are sacrificing, you will pull out an hour here, and an hour there, and five minutes here, and five minutes there, and think you are doing something. If you get the right idea, you will see that it all belongs to the Lord. Then you will say, "How much have I a right to use on myself? How much time shall I spend in anything foolish, or about my dress, or family, or about my home, merely looking out for the beauties of this present earth, and merely fastening myself by so many cords and ties to the earth, earthy, and hindering myself from setting my affections fully and freely on the things above?
It is the same way about influence. One says, "Well, I want to give some influence, but I don't want to give it all to the truth." How much influence have you? Have you a great deal of influence? How much are you devoting to the Lord? I do not believe you have a great deal; I am pretty sure you have not; I know I have not, and I am very glad to give what little I have, and you are glad to give what little you have. It is not worth anything to us, and we have pledged it to the Lord. It belongs to Him anyway, and if we would not give it when the opportunity arrives, then we are holding back, and we will not be of the more than conqueror class; at very best we would come in with the Great Company if we held back on those things. We want to do with our might what our hands find to do, and do it heartily as unto the Lord, remembering that we have consecrated every thought, every day and every hour, every influence, and every dollar--everything we have; it belongs to Him whose we are. He has invited us on these conditions, and we have made this covenant of sacrifice with Him.
Now what shall we say to these things? As the Apostle says, "What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness; looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God"--when we shall receive those glorious things which God has in reservation for them that love him. What kind of people ought we to be? Ought we to measure ourselves by the world, and the flesh, and the devil? I tell you No. We have the one pattern, to be like our Father which is in heaven. There is only one standard God accepts. He could not set up a lesser standard. There is only one perfect standard, and that is what we are to copy after--God's character; not only as we realize it in the principles of His character, but as we see it delineated in our Lord Jesus, who was the express representative of the Father. And the Apostle says that he was an imitator of Christ. "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am a follower of Christ." And so we have in the Father and in the Son, and in the Apostle, God's standard set before us of how we are to walk in the Lord, setting our affections on things above. Even the Apostles are consecrated illustrations of how graciously God fixes this whole matter. When we look to the Father we are unable to comprehend such a life of great glory as we see in His character, and we say, "Oh Lord, give us an humbler pattern, you are too great and wonderful for us to copy." And God says, "I will set you the copy of my Son; He was made flesh that He might illustrate the Father, and the glorious character of the Father in the flesh." And then we look at Jesus and see Him in his perfection, and we say, "Oh, Lord, He is also too grand and too great; we are not perfect that we could copy Him fully." And the Lord says, "Well, here are twelve Apostles, and you will see how they have sought to walk in His steps; these three will all be your illustrations, but the very grand character of God himself is the copy. 'Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.'"
On this subject, dear friends, how much it is like when we were children in school. They had copy books and at the top of every page was a line of copper-plate writing, absolutely perfect, and we were told that was the copy we were to follow. As we looked at the copy we knew from the very start that we could not make a perfect copy like that. Why did they not give us an inferior copy? Because it would not be right to set before us anything as a copy that was imperfect. So God set before us Himself as the grand copy that we are to follow after, but He knows from the very beginning that we cannot form such a character as His. What does He expect? He expects, as we seek to copy Him, as we seek to copy the Lord Jesus, and as we seek to copy the Apostles, that we will become more and more proficient. You will remember that as you looked over the page, after you had written down to the bottom, you were surprised, and probably chagrined, to find that the last line you wrote was worse than the first. Now what was the trouble? Why you got to copying your own work; you failed to look at the original copy; you were watching the line just above, and each line got worse and worse as you went on down; all the imperfections of each line were intensified.
So then, to come back to the illustration, we want to have the Father and the Son continually before our minds, for we are not to copy ourselves, nor to copy each other. It is not sufficient that you should be as good as you were yesterday, or try to copy what you did yesterday; you want to look at the perfect copy every time as being what God designs that you should be like. Will we ever become copies of God's dear Son? Will anybody ever become a copy of Christ? We answer, not in the flesh, because his Son was perfect, and your flesh is imperfect. There may be somebody who has still more imperfect flesh than you, and there may be somebody who has flesh not quite so imperfect as yours; so we are in various conditions. But God has made this general way in which he will deal with us all; He is going to look at our hearts, at our intentions, at our efforts, and so if He finds in your heart this strong resolution, that by the grace of God you will be as near as you can a copy of His dear Son, He will say, "There is a jewel at heart; no matter what the outward expression may be, no matter what the outward form of the natural man may be, at heart this is a jewel; this is the kind I love, this is the kind I am seeking; the kind that has made a covenant with me by sacrifice, and is seeking to walk in the footsteps of Jesus." And so the Lord knows us not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit; and that is a great comfort to our hearts, that the Lord looks not at the outward appearance as men do, but He looks at the heart.
Let us then, by the grace of God, resolve that our hearts shall be faithful, shall be loyal, and that we will appreciate rightly the things of the earth, and that we will appreciate supremely the heavenly things that God has set before us in His Word.
[CR7]
Closing Remarks--Asbury Park Convention
Dear Friends, I stated in my opening remarks to you that the expense of this convention would probably be $25,000. It is very difficult to measure spiritual blessings in dollars and cents. I have heard from many that they enjoyed the convention, and from one brother that he had gotten more than $25,000 worth, himself. Now, if each one of you got as much spiritual advantage as that brother got, I am sure we have made a good investment. But I think the more we learn to measure natural matters by spiritual success and attainment, the better. I do not mean that the natural matters should not be considered at all, or that one should [CR8] go in debt and embarrass himself in order to attend a convention; but there are many who want a blessing not only for their own hearts, but who also want to give the blessing to others. I am glad that spirit prevails. Instead of seeing how much each one can get, each one is anxious to see how much he can do for others for their spiritual advantage as well as what he could get for himself.
You have all heard that there is to be another convention in St. Paul, Minn., next month. I could hardly expect that many of you will be there, but there is also another convention you have heard about--the general convention of the Church of the First Born--and I hope you are all arranging the affairs so as to go. There will be no round trip excursion rates to that convention --it is only one way; and if you get to that convention you will not want to come away; it will never break up; it will be an eternity of blessing and association with the Lord and the Apostles and with all the faithful. The adversary will be bound, everything unfavorable will be restrained, and everything that is favorable will be let loose; and what a glorious time we will have! How it makes our hearts rejoice just to think about that time! We look forward with much anticipation to these conventions, where we have fellowship together, where heart goes out to heart, where we can help one another, comfort one another, build one another up in the most holy faith; and these things draw our hearts nearer and nearer to that grand climax of all our hopes.
I do not think it is very good policy to tell our worldly neighbors that we would really like to go to the other country right away, because they would think we were not telling the truth, and it is just as well not to scatter your pearls before those who do not appreciate them, but I believe all of us are more and more having our affections set on things above, and having less and less attachment to things of this earth, and that we will be very glad when the Lord's time shall have come for us to pass beyond the vail to be forever with the Lord.
In the meantime there is a preparation to be made for that journey and that convention. You know you had some preparations to make to come to this one; you had various things you did not forget--your white dresses and many of you white waists, and so forth. Now, do not forget the great white robe that the Lord has already given us; that will be the great convention robe; no one will be permitted at that convention who does not have on that robe--the robe of Christ's righteousness, covering all our blemishes and imperfections; when we enter fully into that convention we won't have the robes, because the robes only last up to that time, but reckonedly beyond that time we have a different kind of a robe, as we see in the 45th Psalm: "The King's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of fine needle work." In glorious raiment is the picture. We do not know exactly what that means, except it is a beautiful symbol of how grandly beautiful the church will be, when that which is imperfect now shall be made perfect, made like Him, see Him as He is, and share His glory; when that which is in part shall be done away, and that which is complete shall have come; when that which is sown in corruption shall have been raised in incorruption; when that which is sown in weakness shall have been raised in power--not needing to be covered continually with the Lord's imputed righteousness, but being perfect, in the image and likeness of God.
The picture also shows the virgins, her companions, that follow her, who must also be covered with this robe of righteousness. Then, you remember, there is some fine needle work to be done, and I hope that you and I and all of the Lord's people are giving great diligence to get ready those convention robes for the General Assembly by getting the fine needle work in. You know the Lord gave us the pattern. It is a good deal as it is with what is sold to be embroidered, where they stamp the pattern on the cloth, then you take it home and work out the pattern. So the Lord has given us our pattern of purity, meekness, gentleness, patience, love, and these are the flowers that are patterned upon our robes, and we are to hourly, daily, weekly, embroider them. It is not a work to be done in a moment, or a week; it takes time, and perseverance. You need patience in working out the pattern on this robe. The Lord wants people that not only start well, but keep it up; He wants to test us, and prove us; He wants those who have love and zeal. Then he will not be ashamed when we appear in His presence, but will hear His blessed words, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joys of the Lord."
As I look over your faces and think of the dear ones I have met here, I wonder how many of us will ever meet again. It is not at all probable we will ever meet again as a company, but I wonder how many of us are going to meet in the Kingdom. "Oh," some one will say, "you and I have no control of that; we cannot do anything about that." But the Lord says it is largely in our hands, dear friends--in your hands with respect to yourselves, and in mine with respect to myself;--not that you and I are sufficient of ourselves for these things, as our sufficiency is of Christ, but the matter of willing is with us.
I hope that the closing thought of this convention shall be that we are soldiers of Christ, and that we are going to be faithful to Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light; that by God's grace we may attain unto those glorious things which He has promised us; that we shall have faith in His promises, and therefore can trust in His loving care, and sing in the wilderness journey. Take that thought with you for the closing one, and also the text in Hebrews respecting the General Assembly of the First Born. Keep those thoughts to some extent before your minds, and whenever you think of the Asbury Park convention say "that is the time when I made another fresh resolve that, by the grace of God, I will be faithful to Him who was so faithful to me, and I will have more and more trust and confidence in Him and in His promises, rest myself in them, and not worry about them, but have the peace of God ruling in my heart more and more."
And may the peace of God indeed rule in our hearts, sanctify us, and make us meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.
"My Father Planned It All"
What though the way be lonely,
And dark the shadows fall;
I know where'er it leadeth,
My Father planned it all.
I'll sing through shade and sunshine,
And trust, whate'er befall;
His way is best, it leads to rest;
My Father planned it all.
The sun may shine tomorrow,
The shadows break and flee;
'Twill be the way He chooses,
The Father's plan for me.
He guides my halting footsteps
Along the narrow way,
For well He knows the pathway
Will lead to endless day.
A day of light and gladness,
On which no shade will fall,
'Tis this at last awaits me,
My Father planned it all.
[CR9]
The Secret of the Lord
PASTOR RUSSELL discoursed this morning from Psalm 25:14, "The Secret of the Lord is with Them that Fear (reverence) Him, and He will Show Them His Covenant." He considered first the proper and improper kinds of fear and then delved into the "secret." He said:
The emphasis of our text is upon the word "Him." "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." Many other Scriptures agree with this, and assure us that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." (Prov. 1:7). Other fears, however, are discountenanced among the Lord's people, who are exhorted to be of good courage and to fear not the fear of others, but to let the fear of the Lord be their only one. (Isa. 8:12-13.) The Scriptures not only declare that all other fears are tormenting, but assure us that the fear or reverence of the Lord is comforting and helpful and safe for us. And to these testimonies our experiences fully agree. We are repeatedly cautioned against the "fear of men, which bringeth a snare" (Prov. 29:25); and our Lord, emphasizing this matter, declared the reason for this to be that man can do no more at worst than take from us our present life, while on the other hand our hopes respecting eternal life are with God. (Matt. 10:26-28.) The world, by reason of sin and its binding effects, is more or less under the control of "the prince of this world," Satan, and more or less committed to principles of unrighteousness, iniquity, in thought and word and deed. On the other hand is the Divine covenant and law, and those who recognize these are to seek to think, speak and act so far as possible in accord with their spirit and intent. These, however, are the few addressed by our Savior, saying, "Fear not, little flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the dominion."--Luke 12:32.
It is this little company of the Lord's consecrated ones that is addressed in our text as those who fear Him. Under present circumstances it is a question of whether we will fear the world or fear "Him." The Lord is, in a general way, believed in by all civilized people, but He is realized by but few--only a few recognize His real power and authority and their responsibility to Him. Consequently these few are, as respects the world in general "peculiar people," zealous of good works--zealous both for righteousness and for all the ways of the Lord as they see them. The majority of mankind, on the contrary, recognize the Lord but vaguely, and pay little heed to the spirit of His instruction, being governed more by the God of this world, by self-interest, by the ideas of the majority, by Mammon.
The Fear of Mammon
Remarking on this condition of things, our Lord forewarned us: "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." (Matt. 5:24.) And since the majority are serving Mammon, fearing to displease Mammon, seeking to have the approval of Mammon and the emoluments paid by Mammon." (Matt. 6:31.) And since then only a few are properly fearing and serving the Lord and looking to Him for the honors and emoluments which He has promised to His faithful ones--not in the present life, but in the life to come. Mammon controls in business, leads in every social function, and manages all the finest churches and religious functions. Mammon is Confucian where Confucianism is in the ascendancy; it is Mohammedan where the followers of Mohammed are most numerous; it is Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc., according to the locality and the influence. Mammon is too crafty, too wise, to be irreligious. It is well known that there is a religious element in human nature which must be satisfied with something, else the present order of things would collapse forthwith.
Thus seen, Mammon's empire is the world--mankind in general--and from this standpoint we can readily see the force of the statement that the fear of man bringeth a snare, for the fear of man is the fear of Mammon. To go contrary to Mammon's laws in any part of the world is like rowing against a strong tide-- it is very wearisome to the flesh, and the progress is so small that were it not for the encouragements which lie beyond the present life none could endure the strain.
Our text tells us of the "secret" of the Lord being with those faithful ones who hearken to His Word, and have respect thereto, with reverence, fearing to such an extent to displease Him that they dare brave the opposition of the world. This secret is to this class the power of God working in them to will and to do His good pleasure, regardless of the sneers and disapproval of Mammon and his more or less blinded devotees. They must resolve first to be true to the Lord, to reverence Him rather than man and human institutions, and to trust to Him for the strength, the courage, to follow in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus, the great Leader whom He has appointed. After they have thus manifested their loyalty of will, of purpose, of intention, and after He has to some extent tried them--not suffering them to be tempted above that they are able, but with the temptation also providing ways of escape --He gradually makes known to them His "secret," which so illumines and transforms and strengthens them, and develops in them His spirit of perfect love, that His word is fulfilled in respect to them, namely, that "perfect love casteth out fear." Thus it is that those who have the fear of the Lord, and who are granted an understanding and appreciation of His secret, gradually lose all fear of man, and become more and more courageous, strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, so that they are able to say in the words of inspiration, "I will not fear what man may do unto me."
"The Secret of the Lord"
We cannot hope to explain the "secret of the Lord" to any others than the class for whom it is intended; but since there is a measure of fear of the Lord in many hearts that have a still greater fear for Mammon and the opinion of the world, we may hope to be able to make clear the Lord's "secret" just in the same proportion that each of our hearers possesses the "fear of the Lord." Those who have a little fear of the Lord, a little of the proper reverence for Him, may understand a little about this secret, but they will be hindered from understanding much respecting it by their fear of Mammon, of sectarianism--the fear of man that bringeth a snare. These ensnaring fears will be continually suggesting to them that the way of the Lord is not agreeable to the flesh; that it is not popular with the world; that it would constitute them a peculiar people; that it would hinder them from sins and follies in which they are fond of indulging; that it would break their influence with many of their friends in Churchianity; that it would make them practical non-entities in the world; because, according to the worldly proverb, they "might as well be out of the world as out of fashion." Hearts thus ensnared cannot hope to see, understand and appreciate the secret of the Lord in any considerable measure; but in proportion as the fear or reverence of the Lord stands out boldly beyond all fear or reverence for man or human institutions, in that same proportion it is the privilege of each of us to appreciate and enjoy the "Secret of the Lord."
He Has Covenanted to Show Them
The latter part of our text is not the best translation of the original. The whole text should read, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He has covenanted to show it unto them." However, the translation makes no real difference in the matter, because the Lord's "Oath-bound Covenant," which we discussed this afternoon, is really the kernel or pith of this "Secret of the Lord."
[CR10]
To some it may seem peculiar that the Scriptures should intimate that God has secrets--that some are privileged to understand the divine plan, while others are not so privileged. Such will perhaps say, Where is the revelation of God's secrets? Surely it is not in the Bible, for if it were in the Bible it would not be a secret, since the Bible is open, accessible to all the civilized world to-day. We answer that the Bible is accessible to all civilized men, but it is not open to all. To the majority even of professed Christians it is a sealed book, and to none more so than to the ministry. The Scriptures themselves so portray the matter, saying, "And the vision of all is become unto you that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the Book is delivered to one that is not learned, saying, Read this I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore saith the Lord, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men. Therefore, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid." Isa. 29:1-14.
Our Lord spoke in the same strain at His first advent, saying respecting the humble ones whom He chose for His apostles, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent (scribes, Pharisees, Doctors of the Law), and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for thus it seemed good in thy sight." (Matt. 11:25-26.) At the first advent the Pharisees were too self-satisfied, pleased with their own theories, proud of their attainments, and boastful of their progress and of the divine favors enjoyed; the scribes were too learned to be associated with such as constituted the Lord's companions, and, besides, they were becoming more and more filled with the "higher criticism" views of the Greek philosophers; the Doctors of the Law were too proud and too pretentious. All of these were hindered from becoming the Lord's disciples and learning from Him the "Secret of the Lord," because they were all under the influence of Mammon --the great institution of their time which would condemn and ostracize all who would not support it. In an earthly way they had everything to lose and nothing to gain by becoming followers of the lowly one. On the contrary, those who did come to Jesus and became His disciples had very generally less to lose of an earthly kind, and hence were the more attracted by the future prospects which our Lord held out to them. From the worldly standpoint they were foolish babes to place so much reliance upon things unseen as yet and to measurably ignore the prospects and opportunities held out to them by Mammon in the present life.
"The Mystery Hid From Ages"
That which is spoken of in our text as "the secret of the Lord" is in the New Testament called the "mystery of God." The thought is the same, namely, that God--while revealing His plan through the law and the prophets in the Old Testament, and through the words of our Lord and the apostles in the New Testament-- has so expressed the matter that it can be understood only by those who come properly into accord with the Lord--that fear Him. The worldly man in reading the Scriptures fails to understand His secret, and only those that fear and reverence Him to the extent of making a full consecration of their all to Him can comprehend it. The apostle clearly sets this forth in his letter to the Corinthians, saying, "Your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God...but we speak of the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden vision which God ordained before the world unto our honor, which none of the rulers of this world knoweth....As it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him; but God hath revealed them unto us by His spirit."--1 Cor. 2:5-15.
St. Paul, speaking of this mystery or secret of the Lord, intended for His people, but not for the world nor for the merely nominal Christian, declares, "I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you, to fulfill the Word of God; even the mystery which hath been hidden from ages and generations, but now is made manifest to His saints."--Col. 1:25-29. Speaking of the church in the same strain, he continues, "That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love and in all riches and full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, even Christ, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden."-- Col. 2:2-3. Continuing along the same lines, he exhorts, "Withal praying also for us that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ."--Col. 4:3. In his epistle to the Ephesians the apostle also speaks of this mystery, saying, that God's grace in Christ "hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ." Again in the same epistle he writes of God's favor to Himself, "That by revelation He made known unto me the mystery which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit...to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God.-- Eph. 1:9-10; 3:5-9.
St. John, the Revelator, speaking as the mouthpiece of the glorified Lord, tells us of this mystery also (Rev. 10:7), saying, "In the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, as He hath declared to His servants the prophets." Thus we see that the mystery has been in operation from the beginning of the world and is still a mystery so far as the world is concerned, and will continue to be a mystery until the end of the present dispensation and the opening of the millennial age, the only exception being the revelation of the mystery granted to the saints--to those who are fully consecrated to the Lord, the class mentioned in our text, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; he has covenanted to show it unto them."
He That Hath an Ear Let Him Hear
It was for this reason that our Lord spake in parables and in dark sayings that are not yet understood by the world, neither appreciated by any except the few, His "little flock," the consecrated. Thus it is written, "All these things spake Jesus unto the multitudes in parables, and without a parable spake He not unto them; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world." (Matt. 13:34-35.) The apostles came unto Jesus privately, saying, Lord, declare unto us this parable; and Jesus said unto them, "To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without (outsiders ensnared by the fear of men) all these things are done in parables: that seeing they might see and not perceive, and hearing they might hear and not understand." (Mark 4:11-12.)
Now, dear friends, we will do our best to make plain this secret, this mystery, hidden from ages and dispensations, remembering, however, that only in proportion as our hearers have ears to hear can we succeed, only in proportion as the fear of God predominates over the fear of man: only in proportion as perfect love casts out the fear of man and makes us truly freemen in Christ Jesus--only in that proportion can we hope that our message on this subject will be understood and appreciated. [CR11] From our Lord's words and from the Apostle Paul's words already quoted, the mystery is uncovered to those who have the eyes of their understanding opened and the ears of their hearts unstopped. It is the message of the coming kingdom--the message of the "Oath-bound Covenant" discussed this afternoon.
This message explains all the difficulties and perplexities which have hitherto confused us. It shows us how sin entered into the world through Adam's disobedience, how death has been the penalty of that sin, resting upon the whole race of Adam, degrading us mentally, morally and physically to the tomb. It tells us of God's love for us while we were yet sinners, which led to His sending His Son to be our redemption price, "that we might live through Him"--that we might be recovered from death through Him. It shows us that Christ Jesus by the grace of God tasted death not merely for a few, but for every man; and that not merely a few, but every man shall have a resultant blessing from that great sacrifice for sins, and a full and fair opportunity for returning in heart to the Lord and for receiving back again all that was lost through Adam's disobedience, with superadded blessings and everlasting life if obedient. It shows us that this one purpose of God to eradicate sin from the world, and to utterly destroy all who will not come into accord with His righteous arrangements, has never been changed; and although the time for the accomplishment of these promises seems long to us, it is not really long from the standpoint of Him with whom a "thousand years are as one day." It shows us that in the dawning of the seventh day of the Lord, the millennial day--at the close of man's 6,000 years--these blessings are to be realized by the world through the establishing of a glorious kingdom of God under the whole heavens, which will enforce righteousness and shower blessings upon every creature.
"Church's Identity With Mystery"
The unfolding of the mystery shows further that during the Jewish age God dealt with the house of Israel as a typical people, giving them a typical law, a typical "Day of Atonement," typical sacrifices, shadowy promises and during that period selected a few faithful souls from that Nation to be His special servants in the earth during the millennial age. These are particularly described by the Apostle in Hebrews 11, all of whom "having obtained a good report through faith received not the (blessings) promised." (Verse 39.) It reveals to us further the Lord's object in respect to the promulgation of the Gospel during the period since our Lord's death, namely, that the preaching of this mystery to the Lord's consecrated people who fear Him has been with a view to selecting a little flock from among all kindreds, peoples and tongues, to be Christ's bride and joint heir in the kingdom, to be associated with Him as members of the seed of Abraham for the blessing of all the families of the earth. The Apostle's words, we recall, are very explicit on this subject. He declares, "If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise."--Gal. 3:29.
Not only is the message itself called a mystery, but the church class, the "little flock," now being selected from the world, is Scripturally designated "the Mystery of God," and the false systems "the Mystery of Iniquity." "The Mystery of God" is the class associated in the divine plan, and, therefore, a part of that which is mystery or mysterious to the world. As the Apostle declares, "The world knoweth us not, even as it knew Him not." The secret of the Lord is with this class. It is their joy, their strength; it is the power of God working in them to will and do His pleasure. The more they comprehend this mystery the more of this power of God do they possess, and progress in the mystery implies progress in obedience and reverence and service. These in turn mean progress in the graces of God, as the Apostle, explaining and speaking of our advancement as Christians, says, "I pray God for you that the eyes of your understanding being opened (gradually as we lose the fear of man and increase in our reverence for God) you may be able to comprehend with all saints the lengths and breadths and heights and depths (of the mystery), and to know the love of God which passeth all understanding.--Eph. 3:18-19.
The Church as a Secret Society
From the foregoing it will be discerned that the Lord's saints constitute the most exclusive and most secret society on earth. No one can be fully inducted into this society and its mysteries except as the reverence of the Lord abounds in his heart, and as he becomes free from human bondage, sectarian bondage-- free in the liberty wherewith Christ makes free indeed those who are truly His. This secret society needs not to hide its books, neither to withhold its secrets, neither to speak quietly, for while telling the good tidings of great joy to all people, the limitations are upon those who hear--for none can hear the secret of the Lord; none can understand this mystery, except in proportion as he has reverenced the Lord and His Word and made a consecration of himself thereto.
I wonder how many of my audience this morning are members of this society? How many are able to comprehend with all saints the lengths and breadths and depths of the Divine plan? I am sure that all such have love for the brethren in their participation in the fellowship of this mystery. I am sure that all such have the hopes set before us in this mystery as an anchor sure and steadfast, entering into that which is within the vail. I am sure that all such realize that the blessings and favors thus conferred upon us no man can take from us, and that they shall continue to be ours so long as we shall continue to have fellowship in this mystery, which is: "Christ in you, the hope of glory." --Col. 1:27.
I wonder further how many of you are still blinded in greater or lesser degree by the god of this world and the creeds of the dark ages which he assisted in formulating, and has since fostered, so that you are unable to appreciate what we have just been saying respecting the mystery of God. I wonder how many such are desiring to have the eye-salve of truth, which our Lord specially commended to this Laodicean stage of the Church, saying, "I counsel thee to buy of Me eye-salve to anoint thine eyes that thou makest see." (Rev. 3:17-18.) The eye-salve must be bought by the individual who desires to use it; it cannot be bought by one for another; even as we cannot have experiences one for another. The cost of eye-salve is the spirit of self-sacrifice--the willingness to make a full consecration of ourselves to the Lord. Our Lord expresses the matter thus, saying, "He that doeth the will of My Father which is in Heaven, he shall know of My doctrine." Whosoever will resolve that he will no longer fear man, neither be in subjection to the creeds of the dark ages, but that he will accept the Lord as his Shepherd and be a true sheep, and listen only for the voice of His Word, and walk only in accordance to the directions of that Word, fearing God and not fearing man--he shall be blessed. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; He hath covenanted to show it unto them."
I trust, dear friends, that some who have heretofore felt indifferent respecting the Divine plan--the mystery of God kept secret from the world, intended only for them that fear Him--may become so deeply interested, so desirous of co-operating with the Lord in their hearts in their thoughts, in their words, in their actions, that they will make full consecration of themselves to Him. Just now is the moment to make this resolve, accepting the grace of God and the forgiveness of sins through faith in the blood of Jesus, and at once starting on the way to a clearer comprehension of the mystery, and ultimately to a participation in some part of the glorious work which the Lord is preparing us for.
From this standpoint we realize that the great work of God is future; that our special work in the present time is to be the Lord's witnesses before men, to endure hardness as good soldiers, to crystallize character, to learn obedience by the things which we experience, and to be squared and fitted and polished, and thus made meet for participation in the glories of the Kingdom, and for usefulness as members of it in the blessing of all the earth in the millennial age, and for the enjoyment of our Heavenly Father's favor to all eternity.
[CR11a]
INTERNATIONAL
1907
BIBLE STUDENTS
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR11b]
TAKE TIME TO BE HOLY
TAKE time to be holy! Speak oft with the Lord;
Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word;
Make friends of God's children, help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek.
Take time to be holy! The world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone;
By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.
Take time to be holy! Let Him be thy guide,
And run not before Him, whatever betide;
In joy or in sorrow, still follow the Lord,
And, looking to Jesus, still trust in His Word!
Take time to be holy! Be calm in thy soul,
Each thought and each motive beneath His control;
Thus led by His spirit to fountains of love,
Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.
[CR12]
Praise and Testimony Meeting
Sister Margaret Russell Land (Brother Russell's sister) arose and said:
Dear Brethren: I rejoice to be here; undoubtedly the Master, the Chief Reaper, is in our midst. How our hearts rejoice as we realize it is His spirit which illuminates each countenance and teaches us how to love one another! How true His words, "My sheep know My voice, and another they will not follow."
Since coming here many have inquired, "How long since you came to a knowledge of the Truth"? Upon my reply that it is "about thirty-three years," much interest has been expressed, with desire to learn something of the infancy and growth of what we term "present truth." After hearing, these have expressed great desire that still others should hear the same as a stimulus to their faith; so I trust that my testimony may be used of the Master to the blessing of some of His little ones.
Taking retrospective view, we see that more than 1,900 years ago the seed of Truth was planted. My mind pictures the seed-germ encased in the hard cover, representing the dark ages, which apparently hindered its growth, until "the due time," about the 16th century, when it sprouted. Laborers such as Zwingli, Malanthon, Luther, Calvin, Knox and Wesley were hired during various periods of its development to water this precious tree of promise. "In due time," we believe about 1874, the husbandman transplanted it into the open, that it might the better grow, blossom and bear fruit. At this stage He hired other laborers, having had several, we believe, in preparation; but He must needs have one who, despite "the burden and heat of the day," would prove faithful to His trust, even to the very end.
A few years prior to this period He anointed the eyes of a lad of 17 years that he might behold the errors and dishonoring doctrines being promulgated among God's true people. I rejoice to believe that later God's smile of favor rested upon him, my dearly beloved brother, according to the flesh, and that he was accepted as a laborer, not from necessity on God's part, but because this vessel lay in his pathway, empty and ready for service. This youth as a member of the Congregational church constantly inquired for explanations of various obscure passages of Scripture. His Bible class teacher, fearing that these unanswerable questions might make infidels of the other young men in the class, advised that the questions be referred to the pastor of the church, who after studying as to how he could harmonize the seemingly contradictory statements with which he was confronted and thus to prove the Bible to be God's Word by showing its harmony said, "Charles, I can help you very easily." And taking a book from his library said, "Read this carefully; it will satisfy your mind thoroughly on these points." He, very much pleased, took it home and began to read, but after reading one page he closed the volume and returned to the minister with the remark, "I shall need to see the book which precedes this one." "Why, what do you mean?" asked the minister. "I mean that this book starts out by assuming to be true the very things I desire to have proven to be true. I want the book which proves the Bible to be God's word and shows harmony in these Scriptures." The minister said, "I would advise you to stop investigating these things, for they were never intended to be understood." But he was met with the query, "Why then, did God place them here? If this is God's word, I believe He designed that it should be understood." Finally it was decided best to call a meeting of the Church session. Here was more perplexity for the youth; he wondering why it should be necessary to call in consultation any outsiders; but he consented, and the Session was called in a special meeting for the purpose of discussing these perplexing questions and endeavoring to reconcile and prove reasonable some of the church doctrines. The men constituting this "Session" ranked high in professional and literary circles, one being a Professor in the Allegheny Theological Seminary. Charles met with them. At the close of the meeting the list of questions were returned to him with the admission that no satisfactory solution to these could be found. Later at a church meeting he requested a letter of dismissal, stating his reasons for withdrawing from church fellowship. About this time he had a very strange dream, and although he was not at all superstitious, not a believer in signs, dreams, etc., being extremely practical, yet this dream strangely impressed him. In his dream he seemed confined in an underground passage and stifled as with gases. Upon seeking an exit, he started toward a tiny yet the only visible light. He, however, found his progress impeded by prostrate bodies, seemingly dead, but upon examination he discovered they were merely stupefied with these same gases. He awoke, and feeling much impressed by this dream sought its significance, until finally this thought dawned upon him: Could it be that these were all stupefied by the same gases (doctrinal errors) from which he was awaking? Could it possibly be that God was awakening him first, and that his life's work was to awaken and help release others? He determined to seek further knowledge, remembering the Lord's words, "Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." From that time onward so devoted was he to the Lord's service that he spent all of his leisure time in mission work and conducting Bible studies, etc. About 1874 the true mode of Baptism and its import was discerned by him, and he and father, together with a number of others, including myself, symbolized our baptism into Christ by water immersion.
Later, about 1877, after attending a series of services held by my brother, a prominent Pittsburg physician remarked concerning him, "I should not be much surprised if he should prove to be the youthful David who will yet slay with his pebble of Truth the great ecclesiastical Goliath." I feel I can truthfully say ever since those years he has been to me an example of self-sacrifice in every sense of that word and an inspiration, reiterating by his example the Apostle's words, "This one thing I do."
Sincerely and persistently he has pressed on to accomplish what he evidently felt to be his God-given mission. For thirty-three years I have watched his toilings up the hill of difficulty, for those were not days when warm, glad hearts welcomed him, nor words of "God-speed" heard to encourage him, as now; but days of scorn, for the Truth's sake, in which it looked foolish indeed to stem the tide of popular thought upon these subjects almost alone, turning the back upon all that seemed tangible, for that which at that time seemed so visionary. True, others came, and for a [CR13] while rejoiced and assisted, but many becoming weary and relaxed their efforts. Though such discouragements came with "the burden and heat of the day," yet special grace and assistance also came, and the Master whispered, "Be not weary in well doing; in due time thou shalt reap if thou faint not." (1 Pet. 2:12,19; also Heb. 6:10.) Thus sustained and strengthened he continues until, behold! the tree blossoms, and its fragrance is wafted to the ends of earth, and others come "from every nation, kindred, and tongue" to co-labor in promoting the growth of Truth, which is so precious to us now!
"Paul may plant and Appolos water, but God giveth the increase." The Kingdom, the work, the laborers are all His, and to Him we delight to give the glory. We come to this convention 2,500 strong, testifying to the saving power of Him who over 1,900 years ago left us a legacy of love, with the assurance that if we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him. As the reigning time draws very near, dear ones, let us "watch, fight and pray," taking heed that no man take our crown. Thus "we shall come off more than conquerors through Him who loved and gave Himself for us."
[CR13]
Blessed Are Your Ears
Dear Friends: I need not tell you how much pleasure it gives me to be with you this morning. My heart has been with you for a couple of days. I have been thinking about your arrival and your pleasant time here, and remembering you in prayer, and I trust you have all remembered me also.
I am very glad to see so many here. Before I came, when some one saw the program made out and said, "Brother Russell, the friends will be tired to death; every session will be full. How will it be possible?" "Well," I said, "Brother, my expectation is that they will not all be able to get into the auditorium; they will have to take turns, and so, perhaps, they will not all be tired to death." So you see, I am not so much disappointed after all, dear friends.
Now, I hope you are going to have a very happy time--I know, indeed, from your faces, as I look at you, that you are already having a happy time. It seems to me that those who are in the truth, those who have come to see, as we do, something at least of the lengths and breadths, and the heights, and the depths, of our heavenly Father's wonderful plan, can not help being happy. How could we be otherwise! No matter what may befall us, we have the assurance of the Lord's word, that all things are working together for good to them that love Him, to the called ones according to His purpose. If we ask ourselves what are some of the best evidences that we are amongst the called, we would say, one of the best evidences is that we have heard. You who have heard, must have been called. If you talk to a deaf person you will find that he does not respond, he does not appreciate; but when you talk to some one, and he gives evidence that he understands, and appreciates, and responds, then you see he has a hearing ear. So, when the message of the Lord goes forth, those who have ears to hear may hear. Our Lord, at the first advent, you remember, said to some in His day, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear. For verily, I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them."
And so, dear friends, we are living in the harvest time of this Gospel age, in the time when special things are due, in the time when our dear Redeemer tells of His presence, when those who have heard His knock through the prophetic Word--those who have heard and opened their eyes, those virgins who have arisen and trimmed their lamps, those who realize the situation, those who have heard the voice of the Lord speaking peace and have realized the fulfillment of His promise that at His second coming those who would be ready, those who would be waiting, those who would be on the alert as faithful servants, He would come forth and gird Himself and be their servant, and cause them to sit down to meat and come forth and serve them-- are now enjoying these wonderful privileges. Now, dear friends, what you and I are hearing, what you and I are seeing in the Divine plan, what we are seeing of God's great arrangement for a few, that they should be partakers of the Divine nature, is so much more than we had ever surmised, so much more than heart had ever thought, so much more than mind ever appreciated, that when we begin to see what God has in reservation for them that love Him, our hearts are overwhelmed, and we say to ourselves, "Who spread for us this feast if it were not the Master Himself? Where did this message come from? How did it come that after eighteen hundred years we and our fathers, and their fathers, did not know that these things were in the blessed Word"? They were there just the same; we have no new Bible, but we have, dear friends, the light and the blessing that our present Lord gives us upon this Word of His, and this is what gives our eyes the blessing. Blessed are our eyes for we see, and blessed are our ears for we hear His Word in connection with all these things speaking peace to us, and showing us the way in which we should go, and what a joy it has brought into your life and into mine!
So, dear friends, what does it mean that you have been able to see, and you have been able to hear, when all round you, even though some of them seem to be nice people, and some of them very good people, have not heard? What does this say? It says: "Blessed are your ears for they hear, and your eyes for they see." And, indeed, by experience, those of you who have seen and heard, know in your hearts that there is a blessing such as you had never before had in all your Christian experience--I care not whether it was for a day, or whether it was for twenty years. There are undoubtedly many in this room who were Christians for twenty years before they got the blessing of Present Truth, and I am sure that I speak the sentiment of every one of them when I say that all the past of their experience would not compare in any measure with one day, as it were, at the present time, with present enjoyment.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, what effect shall this have on our hearts? Shall we be puffed up as though we made this plan, as though it were ours, as though we had a patent right on it and might sell it out to others? No, indeed! It belongs to the Lord. We are blessed in receiving it, and we would like to see the same blessing extend to all others. We sympathize with those who cannot see, and those who cannot hear; fain would we give them the sight, fain would we give them the hearing ear, fain would we give those virgins who are sometimes asking for it the oil, but it is not in our power to give it to them. The Lord has ordained the means by which all should receive of the oil of the Holy Spirit, which will enable them to appreciate Present Truth; the terms and conditions are clearly laid down, and it cannot be obtained upon any other terms. God has arranged that matter, and the [CR14] terms are these: that we must be fully consecrated to the Lord. And, therefore, when I find some dear friends inquiring about the way, saying, "Well, I am interested a great deal in this and want to know more about it, I think I am going to study this matter up, and see if I cannot see the same as you folks do," I say to them, "My brother, begin at the right place, it will be of no use to study expecting that you will understand merely from study; the study is necessary, but before your study can be effective study, you must make your consecration to the Lord--a whole-hearted consecration, even unto death. Those are the ones to whom the Lord has promised that they shall see, that they shall hear, that they shall appreciate, that they shall understand, and only those."
And so I trust if there are any here to-day who have not made a full consecration of themselves, and who are desiring to look into these things, as one brother said in this very city when we had our last convention here, "I cannot say I am quite a brother with you; I hear you call each other 'brother' and 'sister,' and I cannot quite call myself a brother, but since my wife is one with you in this way, and I am a Baptist minister and her husband, I guess I can call myself a brother-in-law"--if there are any such here we would say that while we are glad to have a brother-in-law present, yet if there are any brothers-in-law here we want to say to you, don't expect that you will understand the deep things of God except by becoming full brothers. There is no other way; not that becoming full brothers means you will come under any yoke of bondage, for we have no yoke of bondage; the Son has made us free and we want to stay free, all of us. That is the spirit of which we are, that is the spirit of which we have been begotten; it is the spirit of truth, of which our dear Redeemer said, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." So the more you are getting of the truth, the more you are getting free indeed.
But there is a good deal of difference, dear friends, let me say, between being free indeed and cantankerous. We do not want to become cantankerous, but we want to become free indeed. Put the emphasis where it belongs; we want to be in sympathy with each other as much as possible, and live peaceably with all men as far as lies in us, and if there are any brothers-in-law with us we want to be at peace with them, and do not want to discourage them, but do want to tell them the plain truth, just as we would like to have them tell us under similar circumstances, that they cannot know the deep things of God except as they are begotten of the Holy Spirit and you cannot be begotten of the Holy Spirit except as you are first of all fully consecrated, after that you have believed. First comes faith as the foundation of everything, before we could be acceptable to God at all; then, as the Apostle says, the basis of that faith, which justifies us in God's sight, covers us as a robe of righteousness, and makes us worthy to come before the Lord at all, and be acceptable of Him through Jesus; then on the basis of that faith, on the basis of that justification, we present our bodies, as the Apostle says, living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, and our reasonable service. Our God has such a reasonable way, dear friends; everything about His arrangement is reasonable, beautiful, grand. So when we put ourselves in His power, we find that He deals with us as with brethren. How gracious is God's arrangement! Then He puts the matter in our own hands and says, "Here you have put the rope around your neck. You have already signified that you are consecrated to death, but I will leave the other end of the rope in your hands; you have control of it, and you can back out any time if you want to." And, dear brothers and sisters, those who have the right spirit do not want to back out; they want to be His clear to the finish; they want to be His beyond the vail in glory, honor, and immortality, and the wonderful things that God has in reservation for them that love Him--for those who love Him not in the ordinary sense of the word love, not with selfish love such as people sometimes exercise toward their own cats or dogs, or children, or what not, but with the love that the Scriptures inculcate--the love of God which passeth all understanding, that is deep, and broad, and generous, and that the Apostle emphasizes when he says, "The fruits of the Spirit are meekness, gentleness, patience, long suffering, brotherly kindness, love." These are the qualifications of heart that will make us more and more acceptable to the Lord, and make us more and more fit and prepared for His presence, and for the work to which He has invited us.
Let us, then, see that we have this love, not the selfish love, but the generous love, the love that is willing to lay down and sacrifice self, and every earthly thing, according to the will of God, not according to the whim of some other person, or somebody else's idea, but according to your conscience as directed by the Word of God. God recognizes this individuality, this personality, and makes you responsible for yourselves. You are stewards of your talents, and your time, and your things, as I am of my talents, and my time, and my things, and each one of us shall give an account of himself. You do not give account as congregations; you do not give account as families; you give account individually. So we want to have that in mind, dear friends, that our wives, or husbands, or parents, or children, will not carry us into the kingdom; each one shall give an account of himself. Let us have, then, this relationship with the Lord, and this personal liberty, and this personal bondage also. We are bondslaves of Jesus Christ, as the Apostle says, bound to do His will, bound to do it even unto death; that is our covenant, and we are glad of it. We have not thought of backing out. Some one says, What is your pay? Well, no slaves were ever paid as we are paid, dear friends--having in the present time the promise of the life that now is, and also that which is to come. Well, says the World, you Christian people have a lot of persecution, and difficulties, and tribulations, and in proportion as you faithfully walk in that narrow way, as you call it, you have a good deal of trouble. Well, we do have to admit that; there is no doubt about it. Whosoever will live Godly will suffer persecution; we have the Lord's word on it; we do not want to deny the truth. But what do we have in addition? We have what the whole world is looking for, and not finding, we have glory in our hearts, and we have the peace of God which passeth understanding ruling in our hearts, controlling in our hearts, and blessing our hearts, so that we are the happiest people in the world. It is in harmony with our experience that the happiest people in the world are the people in Present Truth. I do not know of any other people as happy; you will notice it in their faces, and in everything pertaining to them; and it is getting more so. I am pleased to tell you that as I meet the Lord's people, as I do every week, and, sometimes, as here to-day, for instance, and at another time in Ohio, and at another time in Illinois, and at another time in Pennsylvania, and so on--meeting them at various places, and sometimes for the second, third, fourth and fifth time--that I find a growth in grace; and that is what we ought to expect. We tell you, dear friends, that is what the truth is for. God did not give us the truth so that we merely should know more about Him and His plan than any other people. The Truth was given to sanctify, to separate, to make us wholly the Lord's. And if the Truth is not having that effect upon your heart and mind, it is not having its legitimate effect. And we are all in danger, too. As it was a blessed privilege to come into the light, and the light was intended to sanctify, we are to remember also that unless we abide in the light, and walk in the light, and are faithful to the light, and are good soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are in danger of losing it. The loss is gradual; at first it is so gradual we would hardly notice it; perhaps it would be permitted of the Lord that the Adversary should bring in some strong delusion, or some weak one that would [CR15] seem strong, then we might lose everything that we might have, and be led astray in the error of the wicked, as the Scriptures call it: But the Lord has promised, and we remember His word, that He will not suffer those who are faithful to be tempted above that which they are able to bear, for the Lord knows them that are His, and He equally knows them that are not His. He not only knows those that are warm, and those that are cold, but also those that are luke-warm. Now, where will He know you and me? That is an important question for us. We are preparing for the great Feast, we are preparing for the great Convention that the Lord has been telling us about, and our lives have all been shaped accordingly since we realized the truth. How is the work of grace going on? I am glad to say that, in a general way, it is going favorably. I hope that in each of your cases you can say, Yes, in my heart the work of grace has been going on favorably. We hope that will be more true by this time next year than it is to-day, and that you will keep going on from grace to grace, from knowledge to knowledge, and from glory to glory, until we shall see His face and share His glory.
[CR15]
The Laborer and His Hire
AS tomorrow will be celebrated as Labor Day, and as the Lord's calls are to those who labor and are heavy laden, it will not be inappropriate for us to consider the subject from the Scriptural standpoint. While the Scriptures do not lay down a fixed rate of compensation for labor, they do indicate both in the Old Testament and in the New, as in our text, that labor should have its reward. And the word "hire" in our text seems to carry with it the thought of a bargain or contract between the laborer and the employer, which should be lived up to on both sides. From this point of view all that anybody gets for his laboring is his food and raiment and shelter, luxurious or otherwise. But from another standpoint none should labor for these things alone. In order to happiness there must additionally be a hope of improvement, of betterment. Whoever labors hopelessly, dejectedly, is worthy of our commiseration and needs our assistance that he may enjoy life at least a little. It may safely be set down that the hopeless life is a joyless life. It may also be safely concluded that the hopeful are the ambitious, and that the ambitious are the progressive workers of the world in all departments of industry. Here then lies the difficulty with the vast majority of the race--hopelessness, stupidity, ignorance, blind them to any better prospects, and their toil therefore is doubly weighty upon them and the supply of their daily needs is proportionately disesteemed as an unsatisfactory wage for their labor. It is the hopeful and ambitious that are courageous and successful--and they are a small minority of the whole.
Since, then, the hopeful are the happy, all true philanthropists will be glad to encourage hopefulness in all of his fellow creatures. The bright, intelligent eye speaks to us of hope, whether we see it in the workman, in the merchant, in the lady or in the housemaid. One is hoping for domestic happiness with his or her family, another hopes for name or fame or wealth, and all of these may properly be counted in as part of the laborer's wage and should be sought and appreciated and cultivated.
But some may say, I had hope but it is crushed out, it was killed. My business prospects were seemingly good at one time, but they have all been blasted. Another remarks, I have lost hope of any advancement in my trade; others brighter than myself are far ahead of me; it must be mine to plod along hopelessly. I could long for the end of life's journey were I sure that it would be better. These hopeless conditions apply to three-fourths or more of the adults of the world and of the remaining one-fourth the great majority will ultimately reach the same despair before they die, as comparatively few really attain to the earthly hopes and ambitions and prospects they set before themselves.
The Laboring and Heavy Laden.
Of all the books in the world the Bible is the one which enters sympathetically into the conditions of the race and offers cheer and comfort to the hopeless classes We have already described. It addresses itself primarily, not to the ambitious and hopeful, but to the laboring and heavy-laden and despairing. And to as many as hear and hearken to its voice it brings rest, peace, a new hope. But why does not the Bible especially address the hopeful, the ambitious, the progressives? Ah! it is because these have little or no ear to hear the divine message so long as their earthly hopes and ambitions are so bright and glorious before them. It is when these earthly hopes become blighted that they get the ear to hear the message from "Him that speaketh from heaven," saying, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden (despised and grief-stricken), and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." (Matt. 11:28,29.) Thus it is that the Scriptures everywhere declare that amongst those responding to the Lord's call in this present time not many wise, not many great, not many learned, not many rich are called, but chiefly the poor of this world, rich in faith. The rich, learned, wise are the hopeful, the ambitious, the progressive of the present time, who feel not their need of sympathy and direction and aid. They see their own way or think that they do, and are following that which they believe will bring them the greatest joy--the prosperity which they covet, name, fame, earthly ease, luxury, etc.
When our Lord declares that the laborer is worthy of his hire he expresses a general principle of justice. There are two great hirers or employers into whose service mankind may go--God and Mammon--and each one who hires out should properly consider the wages offered. Mammon makes great professions of what it will give, honor, dignity, wealth, etc.--all things of the present life; it has nothing to promise as respects the future. On the other hand God is now inviting some to become His servants, and He makes very plain the terms and conditions, present and future, of those who shall accept His service. He tells them that to be His servants will cost them the renouncement of the pleasures of sin. More than this it will cost self-denial even in respect to things not sinful. It will also bring against the Lord's servants more or less of the animosity of the world and of the great Adversary. "Marvel not if the world hate you; ye know that it hated me before it hated you. He that would be my disciple let him take up his cross and follow Me." Here are some of the distinct propositions of the Lord respecting the wages that will come to those who will enter His service--they must endure hardness as good soldiers of the Lord Jesus.
But must they serve to the extent of sacrifice and without compensation? No! The Lord has promised compensation--that He will provide the things needful as respects the present life, though He in no wise engages to give more than bread and water--whatsoever [CR16] is more than this is that much more than the contract between God and His servants. But He does promise more in the way of hope. He promises that now, in this present time, His servants shall have in their hearts the peace of God which passeth all understanding. He promises further that the difficulties and trials of life shall constitute to these supervised experience under divine discipline and care, which will work in us a development of character deepening and broadening our hearts, and enabling us to appropriate more and more the peace of God and the love of God and the character of God in our thoughts and words and doings. But, more than this, God gives to those who accept His invitation most glorious hopes respecting the everlasting future. He points out to these that the present life is but a schooling period anyway, and that to the faithful alone eternal experience remains, an eternity of rest, an eternity of joy, an eternity of divine favor and blessing. More than this, the Apostle declares he has given us "exceedingly great and precious promises--that by these we might become
"Partakers of the Divine Nature."
It is when the Lord's servants begin to get a glimpse of these exceeding great and precious promises that have to do with the coming eternity that they begin to realize in true measure the love of God shed abroad in their hearts. Thenceforth, so long as they maintain this attitude of heart, old things are passed away and all things become new--they care comparatively little for the things of this present life, since their aims and objects now are centered in the glorious things of the heavenly kingdom. Instead of laboring for some petty office of an earthly kind, they now perceive that in accepting the Captaincy of the Lord Jesus they have become heirs with Him in His glory, honor and immortality, and associates with Him in His throne, His Kingdom, when it shall have been established. Instead of laboring for riches of an earthly kind, that would so likely take wings and fly away, they have now learned of the true riches of character and of the divine blessings which are, as the Apostle explains, an anchor to their souls, sure and steadfast, entering into that which is within the vail.--Heb. 6:19.
It will be seen, then, that there are two general classes of laborers--the world in general laboring for the things of the present life and having little knowledge and almost no faith in respect to the things of the world to come. Of these we have seen that the vast majority are in a comparatively hopeless and despondent condition. On the other hand we find a new set of laborers in the world, the followers of the Lord Jesus, composed of those drawn from the ranks of the broken-hearted and discouraged children of this world, servants of Mammon. These have received new hopes, new ambitions, new peace, new joys, which far transcend any that they ever previously had, and all that Mammon has to offer to its most successful votaries. They are still laborers, and indeed in some respects their labors may be as difficult as at any time in the past; but they have found the great Helper and have realized the meaning of His words, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Their coming to the Master meant a great transformation of heart and of ambition, of motive, and they are continually being more and more blessed as they hearken to His voice and learn the good lessons whereby He prepares them for future glories, honors, immortality. A summary of all this is expressed in the words, "Labor not for the meat that perisheth" (John 6:27)--the present life and its present transitory interests--but labor for that which endureth unto life eternal. We hearken again and hear the same message through the Prophet of old, saying, Wherefore do you spend your labor for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.--Isa. 55:2.
"They Have Their Reward."
But there is a great difference between being truly the Lord's servants and being such merely in an outward, superficial way. It is necessary to point out that, while Christians are numbered according to the census at a total of 400,000,000, the real genuine followers of the Lord are represented in the Scriptures as being only a "little flock"--not many. And with this Scriptural delineation our judgments and experiences are in harmony, for truly we know of but few who are even seeking to "walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit"--to be "not conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds"--walking in the footsteps of Jesus, gladly sharing in the sufferings of Christ for the prospect of having ultimately a share with Him in His Glorious Kingdom. There have been true and false in every age, and hence what we are saying is not a reflection merely against our own conditions. In our Lord's day He called attention to the fact that very prominent amongst those professing to be God's servants were some who made long prayers for a pretense, who gave alms with a similar purpose in view --of having honor of men, of being thought holy. Our Lord declared of them, "They have their reward"--they get the reward which they were seeking, namely, the praise and approval of their fellow creatures. They were not really God's servants, but servants of Mammon, servants of selfishness, who had put on the livery of the Lord and were pretending to be His. They were seeking an earthly reward of Mammon, and that they got. Hence their labor getting its reward in this manner; they had nothing laid up for them as a treasure in heaven; they got what they were working for, and that was earthly honor of men. That there are many enrolled in Church membership to-day of a similar class can scarcely be doubted, many who draw nigh to the Lord with their lips while their hearts are far from Him, many who are children of this world while wearing the garb of the children of the Kingdom, many that are tares, imitations of the wheat, the true children of the Kingdom.
Whatever we are, let us not be hypocritical; let us not think to deceive the Lord, who knoweth and readeth the heart, and who tells us through the Apostle, "His servants ye are to whom ye render service." (Rom. 6:16.) If we are really living for the present life alone let us not pretend otherwise, but remember that an honest servant of Mammon is much more respectable from the Lord's standpoint than one who dishonestly professes to be a servant of the great King. Whatever we are let us be truthful--we cannot deceive God; let us not deceive our own hearts. Let us be content then to be misunderstood by the world, misrepresented by the hypocrite class, if thereby we have fellowship with the Lord, and have the privilege of walking in His steps, and the glorious promise of by and by sharing His likeness as members of His Bride and sharers with Him in His Millennial Kingdom.
Our text applies to this feature of the subject, too-- the laborer is worthy of his hire. The hypocritical desiring the approval and smile of the world and the prosperity of this present time gets the reward sought in some measure at least, though not always. The god of this world cannot be relied upon thoroughly in regard to any promises. As respects the servants of God, all of these who will prove worthy by their faithfulness will find their God faithful and His word of promise sure-- faithful is He who has called us, who also will do for us exceedingly and abundantly more than we could have asked or thought. Our hire, then, we are to remember, is in this present life trials, difficulties, sacrifices as respects earthly things; but the divine favor and blessing upon our hearts, upon us as New Creatures, and our faith and hope beyond the vail, constitute the chief elements of our wage. Could all the servants of God from the humblest member of the Church of Christ up to and including the most honorably engaged in the public ministries of the Lord's Word--if all these could but have in mind what constituted the wage, the hire that the Lord has promised them, there would be but comparatively little expectancy of great favors or strife therefore, but [CR17] a contentment with the Lord's provision--with a realization that He knows the things we have need of before we ask Him, and that He is both able and willing to give us the things most expedient for our welfare, the things which will help us best in the attainment of the exceeding great and precious promises which are the main part of our wage--the portion most encouraging to us, most stimulating--for which we really live, and on account of which all other things are to be counted as but loss and dross.
Labor to Enter Rest.
The Apostle calls attention to the fact that those who have become the Lord's consecrated followers have by faith already entered into rest by trusting in the finished work of the Lord Jesus on our behalf, by realizing that through His sacrifices God has made provision for the forgiveness of our sins and our acceptance by Himself. This indeed gives a rest and a peace and a joy which the world could not appreciate, which the world can neither give nor take away. All this, however, is a rest of faith only and not an actual rest. The Apostle differentiates between this rest of the present time, into which believers have already entered, and that rest of the future which is in reservation for them that love God. He says of the latter rest, that remaineth for the people of God--"Let us labor, therefore, to enter into His rest," and again--"Let us fear lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of us should seem to come short of it."--Heb. 4:1,11.
Here then are the two thoughts respecting labor. In one sense the Christian ceases from labor when he by faith accepts the Lord Jesus. In a word, he accepts the fact that he was not worthy of eternal life, but that the merit of Christ has made up for his deficiency. No longer need he labor to do the impossible thing, for all that was on our part impossible has been done for us by the Redeemer, and is imputed to us who believe. The believer's reconciliation to the Father is affected through faith, by which he lays hold upon the work already accomplished on his behalf. But therewith the consecration of himself to the Lord begins a new work--not a work of justification, but a work of schooling, a work of grace, a work of development of heart and of head and of talents in the service of the one who redeemed him and set him free from the slavery of sin and death. He has entered into a contract to serve the Heavenly Father with all his powers, and so surely as he remains loyal to the Father and His covenant he is guaranteed grace to help in every time of need (Heb. 4:16.) It is for the consecrated believer, however, to demonstrate his loyalty by his works, by his endeavor to do the Father's will, and different degrees of blessings have been promised to the faithful overcomers and also special blessings to the still more self-sacrificing, styled the "more than conquerors." (Rom. 8:37.) Both are to get eternal life, but the latter are to have it in association with the Redeemer as the Bride, the Lamb's wife and joint-heir in the Kingdom. Thus the Apostle says that by our labors in the Lord's service we are to "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Our labors will have to do with the grandeur of the salvation which will be bestowed upon us, for, as the Apostle again declares, the saved will differ as star differeth from star in glory."
Both of the classes of saved ones just mentioned must labor, must demonstrate their loyalty to God and to the principles of righteousness, by fighting a good fight of faith, striving against sin and laying down their lives for the brethren--for the Lord's cause. Hence, as is declared, we must labor if we would enter into the rest which remains for the people of God. But this labor, as we have already seen, is a different one from that which the unjustified world is occupied in. Our labor is in connection with the Father's work--"I must work the works of Him that sent me." (John 9:4.) We are not laboring for ourselves, but for the cause of the Lord, including the cause of all that are His. If any man after being justified through faith and after making a consecration to do the Father's will shall fail to labor in this manner, it demonstrates that he has not the proper appreciation of the Father's favors nor of his own consecration vow. Such will not enter into his rest --such will be proving themselves at heart disloyal to the principles of righteousness for which God stands, and if disloyal to God and righteousness the only provision for them will be the Second Death. So, then, the better we understand the situation the more thoroughly do we concur with the Apostle's exhortation, "Let us labor that we may enter into His rest."
"God Will Not Forget Your Labor."
Many of the Lord's children, realizing their own insufficiency and the Lord's greatness, realizing the small value of anything they can do to directly glorify the Lord or to promote the interests of His cause, are inclined to feel discouraged and to say within themselves, if not to others, When the Lord shall decide my case I fear that He will find no labor in service accomplished for His cause--no ground for saying to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord." But we remind such that if they are doing with their might what their hands find to do they could not do more, and the Lord is not asking more than they are able to do. He is quite able to do the entire work Himself. But what He does seek in us is the loyalty of heart, the desire, the effort to serve Him and His cause of righteousness. We remind them that in connection with the very Scripture quoted, the Lord not only declares that He will reward the good and faithful servant but he adds, "Thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many things." The intimation is that none of the Lord's people have been or could be faithful over many things--that only a few things are committed to any of us, and that the Lord is seeking merely to note our disposition and to reward us accordingly.
We remind these faithful but timid ones again of the Lord's message through the Apostle, saying, "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which ye have showed toward His name, in that ye have served the saints and still do serve them." (Heb. 6:10). And again He still more particularly shows that there are two classes of labor to be rewarded, an active and a passive. He says, "Call to remembrance the former days, in the which, after ye were illumined, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; some being made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions; and some becoming partakers with them who were so used." (Heb. 10:32,33). Here we note the Lord's benevolence, in that He is willing to count as His servants and laborers to whom He will give a reward not only those who were actively in the conflict, sufferers for righteousness' sake, but also to count in with them and to reward with them others who, themselves suffering nothing, were loyal to the principles of righteousness to the extent that they stood with and acknowledged and upheld the cause of the Lord and those who were His, and who suffered for righteousness' sake. What a gracious arrangement we have here! It shows us that the slightest labor that we can perform in the cause of our Master will be accepted of Him and bring us a share of His ultimate blessing. With such inducements, who has a proper appreciation of the Lord and His goodness would not desire to lay down his life in His service?
The intimation of the Scriptures everywhere is that the Lord's people are to be active, "Instant in season and out of season," using time and talents in the Lord's service and to the Master's praise. They show us that the present life is all one of activity and labor, looking for the rest of the people of God in the future--except that measure of rest which we have by faith, and which enables us to rejoice even in the trials and difficulties of life, and to even count afflictions as unworthy of consideration because of the joys of our faith. I exhort you, then, that we rest from all sin and from all attempts to justify ourselves, that as we have accepted Christ Jesus our Lord, so we continue to rest in Him, the rest of faith, and that we continue to labor to the extent of laying down our lives for the Lord and His cause, and that thus being found faithful as laborers [CR18] we shall ultimately be granted a participation in the glorious honors of the Kingdom.
If there is any one power in the world that will make itself felt, it is character. There may be little culture and slender abilities, yet if there be a character of sterling excellence, it will demand influence and secure respect.
[CR18]
Sunrise Prayer and Praise Meeting
Brother Russell: I was thinking, dear friends, as we gather here this morning, of the words of the Apostle, "Now it is high time that we wake out of the darkness," and then he proceeded to say that those that sleep, sleep in the night, but we are of the day. We recognize that the Apostle did not have reference to the literal day, except as it might symbolize the great day. Looking back, he referred to the past as being a night, and hence it is far spent and the day is at hand. So, when we compare this morning, the whole experience from the fall to the present time, with the morning of the new dispensation representing that great day, then we can easily see that the night is far spent; because four of these days and a little more were in the past and less than two in the future, and he could well say, it is far spent.
And what would the Apostle say, if he were here at the present time? We can suppose that he would be telling us something about the morning that is already dawning. We have heard the glad strain from God's Word that the night has passed, that the morning has come, and we are in the very dawning of the morning. We call it the Millennial Age. I am sure those that have had experience in life will realize that the night of sin and darkness has been a long night, and we are getting anxious for the glorious dawn of the day that our Father has spoken of in His Word, and which He calls, "The day of Christ." If we knew nothing of what the nature or character of the Millennial Age is, the very fact that the Lord called it "The day of Christ" is sufficient. It is the day of the Anointed One, the day in which He will complete the work He came to accomplish. What a great thought it brings to our hearts, from His Word, that the morning is at hand! I trust that you and I, this morning, realize we have fled from darkness into the glorious light of the divine word and plan. The more we are seeking to have our hearts in accord with His Word, the more we will feel inspired to press on for the things before us. The poor world have very little that they can see before them; nearly all that is precious to them is in the past, and they can see only disappointment before them.
Another Scripture about the morning, you remember in the 2nd verse of the 46th Psalm: "Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea," etc. How strange we should not fear if society be convulsed; the shaking time for the whole world, social, financial and ecclesiastical, when all such ruling power that can be shaken will be shaken. And yet, we are not fearing, but we are rejoicing, leaving the world for a little while, and in our daily lives seeking more and more to lay all on the altar. What is it that so fills our hearts? The world has rather a feeling of timidity. It is a blessing they cannot see the troublesome time as we see it. But, blessed are your eyes and your ears--it is because we know what is on the other side, beyond the dark cloud. A morning cometh and a night also. The night of trouble between the glorious morning is a time the world would fear if they knew about it. But we shall not fear, because we have made the Lord our refuge and habitation, and He has promised that all things shall work together for good to those that fear (reverence) Him. We have laid ourselves at His feet to have such experiences as divine providence may see best for us-- the things that would best prepare us for the glorious morning.
Then in that same Psalm, after the expression that we will not fear, though the earth be removed and the mountains be carried into the sea, the Psalmist is prophetically saying that there is a city, a government, a kingdom, that is now in disrepute with the world--the Lord's Church, which He is gathering out, a little flock--the gates of which shall be praise and salvation, the New Jerusalem, and the rivers of salvation make her glorious; she shall not be moved. Oh, no. Everything else may go down, but those that have the hope of the Lord, nothing can move them. Why? Because the Lord, the Most High, is their refuge and habitation.
Some one down in Kentucky had written a couple of letters that he would blow up the Bible House that was sending out those tracts and books, and a brother who happened to be in Allegheny said, if that message could get out everywhere and we knew exactly when he would do it, wouldn't we pack the Bible House full? It is very hard to discourage that kind of people.
We have an anchor, both sure and steadfast, reaching in beyond the vail, reaching clear back to Abraham's time to the Oath-bound Covenant of God, and further back to Adam, and through God's promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. That is the faith that brought us here. It had been lost for centuries in the rubbish, but now our eyes are open and the shadows are passing away.
In the 45th Psalm, after telling about the Bride and how she should not be hurt, we read that the Lord shall help her and that right early. That is as it reads in our common version. A literal translation reads, "The Lord will help her right early in the morning." We are right here, early in this morning, the Millennial Age; the morning is already dawning. You do not see any sun this morning, neither is the sun of the Millennial morning visible. The sun of righteousness shall arise, but not yet. Before that, all the members of the Body of Christ must be gathered; all the true wheat must be gathered.
In Matthew the 13th chapter, after speaking of this whole matter, and representing the whole Gospel Age as the time when the wheat and the tares were sown, you remember our Lord said, after telling about the [CR19] gathering of the wheat, "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun." Why not now? Because all the wheat has not yet been gathered into the garner. Then shall the righteous shine forth, then shall the morning of the Millennial Age be manifested. Now the world is asleep. Some of us have heard the glad message and we are glad to praise Him and to say that the morning is here, not only for ourselves but for the whole world--that is glorious. Leaving out the thought of torment; suppose that all the rest were merely to be destroyed--how much better the glorious hope that, very soon the knowledge of the Lord shall flood the earth and the sleeping ones shall awake and all be invited to breakfast. This will be a grand feast in the morning. He is going to gather all the people and spread a feast, a blessed feast. Singularly, in the original, it is not a supper, but a morning meal.
So, dear brothers and sisters, I hope your hearts are as glad as you are singing about the morning, and praising God, and I hope it makes your faces brighter day by day. As I see your faces from time to time, I can see that they are growing brighter. Wherever the life of the Lord is, it is sure to be manifested. I like to see those whose faces are happy. I would not say that those who have long faces have nothing that would cause them joy, but those that have their faces lighted must have the lamp, or something inspired with God's spirit, which is shining out from their faces more and more, and through their lives more and more shining forth the praises of the Lord in calling us forth out of darkness into His marvelous light.
[CR19]
The Hopeless and the Hopeful
"At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus ye who then were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." (Eph. 2:12,13.) The speaker said: OUR text shows us that the Christians of Ephesus, who came into a good hope through faith in the precious blood of Christ, were previously hopeless, without God and having no hope. If we apply this inspired gauge or standard to the whole world today we find the great mass of mankind to be hopeless, and hence unhappy, burdened, downcast, miserable. And surely as we look into the majority of the hundreds and thousands whom we meet daily, we see their hopelessness, their dejection, plainly written in their faces. True, in some cases we see mirth, in others carelessness, but these are by no means the majority, and even with them a closer acquaintance shows that they are trying to be happy, trying to be mirthful, trying to be careless, rather than succeeding. And what we see on the faces of the most civilized of humanity may be still more closely discerned in the countenances of the heathen in general. Extremely few faces notify us that love, joy, peace, reside within, building upon a blessed hope. True, in every land there are some so rich in wealth and honor and friends that seemingly they have no need of hope for anything either in the present life or in the future. But these are exceptions also, and very many of them betoken, not only in countenance, but in words, that they have not a satisfying portion--that their riches of various kinds only partially satisfy the longings of their hearts; that they know of a surety that the present life is fleeing, and that they have more or less trepidation, fear, unrest, whenever they think of the future--beyond the grave.
Hopeless Thousands, Millions.
Statistics divide the population of earth into 400,000,000 Christians and 1,200,000,000 heathen--just twice the number there were a century ago. It is hard for us to comprehend such large numbers, but, according to our text, this immense host of heathen are without God and have no hope in the world-- they are hopeless. We should notice, however, that the Apostle does not state that there is no hope for these heathen, but simply that they do not have the hope. According to the Apostle, God's favor is all centered in Christ; and only those who know of Christ, and of Divine mercy arranged for through Him, can possibly exercise faith in Him, and hence only these believers could have the glorious hope which center in Him and await fulfillment at His second coming.
Indeed we may say that the heathen are worse off than hopeless. They not only do not have a hope, but instead of it they have fear, a most awful fear, which overshadows all the affairs of the present life. Spiritism-- more truly "demonism"--has long exercised itself amongst them, besetting, threatening, obsessing and tormenting them. It has taught them to fear God as the great arch-demon, and to expect a future life with new and still more trying difficulties than those they now experience, so that with many the only hope of escape from trouble is the belief that they shall ultimately become oblivious of everything, both good and evil. Alas, poor heathen! How much they need enlightenment. They do not need rum, tobacco and opium from the so-called Christian nations--neither do they need to be taught their profanity and vices; they have enough of their own. But they do need sadly indeed the light of the knowledge of God as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord. They do need the true Gospel which the angels proclaimed at the birth of Jesus, "Good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people."
"Another Gospel--A Corrupt One."
With commendable zeal, but not according to knowledge (Rom. 10:2) missionaries have gone to the heathen from Christian lands in a spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice. Some of these have gladly laid down their lives in the service of the heathen according to their light, while others as hirelings, performed the duties required of them by the denominations supporting them as the easiest and smoothest path in life. As the Apostle suggests, however, Christ is preached, whether of devotion or denominational strife. But alas! the true Gospel of Christ is rarely heard--rarely reaches the heathen ears. What they do hear is confusing, bewildering. The trumpet has an uncertain sound. The Methodist's bugle sounds "free grace," the Presbyterian "election" and "predestination," the Baptist and Disciple "water," the Roman Catholic and Episcopal "apostolic succession." To the heathen mind Christ is divided, and His followers cannot agree amongst themselves as to what His teachings are and as to what message should be proclaimed. There are two points upon which they all agree. (1) All mankind are sinners--"born in sin"--and (2) that Christ Jesus is the only Saviour; "for there is none other name given under heaven or amongst men whereby we must be saved." (Acts 4:12.) They all agree that the heathen are not saved in ignorance of Christ, and that the missionaries have gone to them to proclaim Christ and to lead them to faith in Him in order that they may be saved. As the Apostle says, "How shall they believe on Him whom they have not heard?" for "faith cometh by hearing" and hearing depends upon the message of God. [CR20] Grand Truths Confused by Errors.
In all of the above teaching respecting the necessity of faith in Christ as our Redeemer we heartily agree. This is the very kernel and essence of the Gospel of Christ, as set forth in the Word of God. But the beauty and force and blessing of this gospel message is vitiated by a terrible error, which crept into Christian faith in the dark ages, namely, that the salvation which Christ accomplished for us is a deliverance from condemnation to a fiery hell of eternal torment. This is untrue--unscriptural. It is a slander upon our great Creator to declare that He made our race subject to such awful conditions--to declare for instance, that the heathen who died during the past 6,000 years--thousands of millions of them--without any knowledge of the Saviour, therefore, without any faith in Him, and therefore without any hope in Him, have gone down to a hopeless eternity of torment and despair. This is one of the doctrines which the Apostle Paul styles "doctrines of devils." The heathen get enough of this through their own demonology before the Christian missionaries ever preached to them, but it is doubly sad that, when the message of the love of God as manifested in Christ is being proclaimed to them, this "doctrine of devils" should be attached to it and apparently confirm the demonology under which the poor heathen have so long been held in bondage to Satan.
Can we wonder that the poor heathen, who have been taught to worship their ancestors, should be shocked with this false Gospel message that all of their forefathers have been turned over to fire-proof devils to be eternally tormented--because they were not fortunate enough to hear and accept "the only" name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved?" We can fancy the poor heathen saying, "Is this your God of love? And pray what are your definitions of the words love and justice? You who claim to be the only exponents of the only plan of salvation, is this the best your God can do for us? If He is loving, is He powerless?" Alas! alas! The difficulty is not with our all-wise, all-powerful, all-just and all-loving Creator, nor with the glorious plan for human salvation which He has centered in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The difficulty, the inconsistency, is in the error which has become mixed with the Gospel of Christ as set forth in the Bible. The Apostle spake of some in his day who preached another gospel, and so it is today. In the name of the one Father, God, and one Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, another gospel is being preached, not only among the heathen but also in civilized lands--a false gospel--an untrue message, which misrepresents the truth, and is a slander, a grievous slander, upon the divine character.
"Good Tidings of Great Joy."
We have seen the hopelessness of the heathen, and how little hope is afforded them in the message that is being preached to them in the name of God and of Christ. Not only is this message one of despair as respects their forefathers, but equally so as respects the great mass of their living kindred. Indeed, as the Prophet has pictured this erroneous teaching, it is like a bed that is so short that a man cannot stretch himself on it--cannot exercise his mind and heart so as to find rest therein; and, as the Prophet continues, "the covering is so narrow that a man cannot wrap himself in it. If he tries to convince himself that he is one of a very select class, destined for eternal blessedness, while the great mass of mankind are destined for eternal woe, he cannot help it that fear will creep in just as do the chilly winds upon the person who has too narrow a bed covering. He is bound to fear that the apparent partiality of God in permitting his escape from eternal torment, to which millions of others are consigned, may some day change toward him and drop him also into eternal misery. (Isa. 28:30.)
Let us turn now from these obnoxious misrepresentations of the Divine character and plan and note the beauty and simplicity of the Bible's teaching respecting what man was condemned to, what he is delivered from, and of what his salvation shall consist. Let us note first how different the tone, how different the ring of the Scripture references to the Gospel from anything that could properly be applied to these false gospels, these misrepresentations of the Divine plan which have come down to Christendom from the dark ages. Hearken to the first word from the Lord respecting the Gospel--the message to which St. Paul refers when he says "God preached the Gospel in advance of Abraham, saying, 'In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.'" (Gal. 3:8.) Is this the Gospel of salvation or of damnation, good tidings or bad tidings? Assuredly the former. Indeed, as all are aware, this is the very meaning of the word "gospel"--good tidings.
How evidently then some terrible, awful mistake has been made by somebody when the message of eternal torment for 999 out of every 1,000 of earth's teeming population has been called Gospel. The Word could not have been more seriously perverted, for that surely would be bad tidings of great misery for practically all people. But this first message of the Gospel to Abraham tells of the blessing of all the families of the earth--it excludes none. It extends backward as well as forward. It takes in the families of the earth that were living before the flood as well as those living in Abraham's time and all who have lived since, and all who will live in the future. God's promise, the Gospel message, is that all of these shall be blessed. Have they been blessed yet? Assuredly not. Blind indeed would be the eyes of understanding or judgment that could suppose that this gospel blessing has yet come to all the families of the earth. Note again a very similar statement of the New Testament--the message of the angels at the time of our dear Redeemer's birth. They said to the fear-stricken ones before them, "Fear not, for behold we bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people." All Christian people, whatever trumpet they blow, by whatever name they are known, claim these records and translate them just as we have done. It is when they come to apply them that they fall short.
Those who believe in the doctrine of election would have us understand that God did not mean that the Gospel would be a blessing to all the families of the earth, "to all people," but merely to the elect, chosen out from amongst all nations and people. Those who hold to the doctrine of "free grace" would deny this, and declare that there is no election and no preference with God; yet their theory also would make these Divine promises of no effect by claiming that God has limited the blessings to the energies of His people, and that the most that these promises could mean would be that ultimately the zeal of the Lord's people shall be so great that they will accomplish the evangelization of the world, that the "all nations" of these promises are those of the future, and that the thousands of millions of all nations lying in the interim have been without any blessing and will have none. And these two messages are practically all the explanations of these glorious promises that the heathen have heard. Alas! Alas!
Two Errors Bar the Way.
We have already intimated that errors handed down from the dark ages are casting this great cloud upon the Divine character and plan, and hindering a proper appreciation of the glorious plan of salvation which centers in our Lord Jesus Christ. The first of these, as already intimated, is a misconception respecting hell. The Bible "hell," as we have elsewhere shown, is not a hell of torment but of death, destruction, unconsciousness. According to the Bible, the penalty upon Adam, which descended to us, his children, in conformity with the course of nature, is the death penalty. [CR21] He, created in perfection and in God's image, might have lived forever had he been obedient; but, in disobeying, he came under the sentence, "dying thou shalt die." This sentence is the wrath, the curse, that rests upon all mankind. Dying, we all die, because we are the children of Adam and share his sentence as we share his depravity. Hearken to the Apostle's words on this subject, "By one man sin entered into the world and death (not eternal torment) as the result of sin, and thus death (not eternal torment) passed upon all men, because all are sinners." (Rom. 5:12.)
According to the Scriptures, as well as according to the facts as we see them, both the wise and the ignorant, moral and immoral, believers and unbelievers, die, go into Sheol, into Hades, into the state of death. This dying process has continued now for over 6,000 years, and it is estimated that 20,000,000,000 have been "born in sin, shapen in iniquity (Psa. 51:5), lived in more or less depravity and imperfection, and died with more or less of pain, sorrow and hopelessness. The tomb, the great prison-house of death, is well filled with almost enough to reasonably populate the earth. The Scriptures declare that "they know not anything.' (Eccl. 9:5.) They have not gone to a heaven of bliss, for our Redeemer declared that "No man had ascended up to heaven." (John 3:13.) The Apostle Paul declares that "David the Prophet has not gone to heaven." (Acts 2:34.) The wise man declares that they are all in Sheol, Hades, the tomb. (Eccl. 9:10.) Our Lord again declares that they are all in their graves. (John 5:28.) How glad we are that this great mass of mankind are neither in a hell of eternal torture, suffering at the hands of fire-proof devils, nor in a purgatorial inferno, as taught by our Roman Catholic friends. How glad we should be that the doctrine of devils which consign them to such tortures is entirely untrue, unscriptural, and we are not obliged to think that our heavenly Father is an arch-demon, but, according to the Scriptures, may know Him as a God of love.
We have elsewhere shown that those who translated our Bibles have in some instances twisted their translation in harmony with their misconceptions, and that our minds thus perverted have misunderstood some of our Lord's beautiful teachings, and been stricken with fear at some of the symbolical pictures of Revelation which we did not understand.
Hope for the Dead.
The second point in error received in the dark ages is that which teaches that death ends all hope. There is not one word in support of that erroneous thought within the lids of the Bible. On the contrary, its teachings abound with hope for many of the world in the future-- not that the Scriptures teach that a knowledge of the grace of God now may be trifled with, but that the vast majority never yet had a full, fair opportunity to benefit by the redemptive work of Christ. Ignorance, superstition, depravity, and the God of this world have combinedly obscured the eyes of their understanding, more or less; and only in proportion as each has seen, has tasted, has appreciated the grace of God in Christ is each now responsible. This certainly throws the possible opportunities of the vast majority of the race into the future, and, as we shall shortly see, the Scriptures fully corroborate this thought, and promise to Adam and all of his posterity a full individual opportunity for return to harmony with God and of a possibility of life everlasting.
Let us remember that from God's standpoint the entire human race was sentenced to death as unworthy of life, because, as the Scriptures declare, "There is none righteous, no not one," and eternal life is intended only for the righteous. The Scriptures declare also that Jesus is a Savior and a great one, but human theories would make Him the Savior of a small handful of the race, and then declare that that handful get their salvation by their good works instead of by God's grace. Let us see what the Scriptures teach more fully. Let us note the beauty, grandeur, length, breadth, depth and height of the Divine plan therein set forth.
The Bible does teach an election--that ever since Pentecost God has been choosing from Jews and Gentiles a little flock, to be the Bride of Christ. They teach that evil is now permitted in order that the way of obedience to God may be narrow now, to the intent that these elect ones shall be thoroughly tried, tested and proven as respects their faith in God, their loyalty to Him and His righteousness. All of the New Testament Scriptures are addressed to this class--none of them to the world. Jesus prayed for His apostles and for all them who would believe in Him through their word, but added, "I pray not for the world." The reason for this was that He knew that this age was not the Father's time for dealing with the world, but the time merely to deal with those called to be the bride. To this bride is promised His exceeding great and precious promises--to be partaker with our Lord of the Divine nature, to share His glory, honor, immortality and kingdom. The elect enter into these joys and blessings, not at death, but in the resurrection, as the Scriptures declare--"Blessed and holy are all them that have part in the first resurrection." (Rev. 5:10; 20:6.) "They shall be kings and priests unto God and shall reign on the earth."
The Kingdom of Christ.
Everywhere the Scriptures point us to the second coming of Christ and His kingdom of righteousness, which will then be established "under the whole heavens." (Daniel 7:27.) It was for this kingdom that He taught the elect to pray "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." (Matt. 6:10.) That kingdom has not yet come, God's will is not yet done on earth as it is in heaven. The Church with her Lord is to constitute that Kingdom, and it cannot be established until the gathering of the elect from the world has been accomplished.
The long-promised Kingdom of God is the hope of the world. Christ and the Church, spirit beings unseen of men, will take charge of the affairs of earth. Satan will be bound for a thousand years, that men may be free from his deceptive influences and from all the power of demons during that reign of righteousness. Then the "Sun of Righteousness" will scatter all the darkness of ignorance, superstition and sin, and the whole world will be brought to a knowledge of God in His true character as a God of love, a God of justice, a God of mercy, a God of power. So forceful will this be that the Scriptures describe the effect, saying, "Then every knee shall bow and every tongue confess." (Phil. 2:10,11.) There will be none in ignorance. Thus the living, under the judgment of the great King, will be instructed in righteousness and helped out of their fallen and weak condition back to their mental, moral and physical life and health and strength. And only those who will deliberately refuse and rebel against that reign of righteousness shall be accounted wicked, and be everlastingly destroyed in the Second Death without hope of a resurrection or any kind of recovery.
But this glorious hope is not merely for those who will be so fortunate as to live at, or after the second coming of our Lord and the establishment of His Kingdom. The Great King has all the power. He declares that He has the key of the great prison-house of death, Hades, and that it is His good pleasure that all that are in their graves shall hear His command to come forth--the good and the evil. The first resurrection, as we have already shown, will consist of those who have hope, but the future resurrection will include all the remainder, who will come forth for a judgment or trial or test, to see whether or not their past experience with sin and their experience with righteousness will lead them to choose righteousness with all their hearts and thus choose the blessing of God, eternal life. Here we have the resurrection hope which the Scriptures everywhere set forth. We [CR22] remember the Apostle's words, "For the hope of the resurrection of the dead I am called in question. (Acts 23:6.) Again we read that the early Christians were scattered abroad and went everywhere preaching Jesus and the resurrection; Jesus as the One who redeemed us from the power of death, and satisfied for us and for all the demands of justice, and the resurrection power or method by which the blessing of Divine forgiveness will profit Adam and his race, recovering them to all that was lost.
Whoever will take a Concordance and look up what the Scriptures have to say about hope will be thoroughly convinced that as the heathen are without God and without hope, Christians are everywhere exhorted to hope and to allow this hope to be an anchor to their souls while they wait for the fulfillment of all the precious things God has promised through the Redeemer-- to be brought unto us at His revelation, at His second coming, at the establishment of His kingdom." (1 Pet. 1:13.) Let us then search the Scripture that we may enjoy this hope and, as the Apostle says, "Be ready to give an answer to everyone that asketh us a reason for the hope that is within us with meekness and fear." (1 Pet. 3:15.)
[CR22]
To Colporteurs and Harvest Workers
HOW wonderful a thing it is, dear friends, that our heavenly Father should condescend to permit us to be co-laborers with the Lord Jesus Christ in any part of the work. The more we think on the subject, the more wonderful this seems to be. When we remember that before our father Adam was created, there were holy angels of God who were in His favor, and in His likeness, and who never departed into sin at all, that God in His great wisdom and love and generosity has not only provided a Saviour for Adam and all of his race, but has also provided that that salvation should be made known to the world through the Church, which is the Bride of Christ, how wonderful a matter it is. Our first thought doubtless would have been, if we had had the management of it, to take these holy angels, who are so great and wonderful in their character and brilliancy, and to have in some manner used these in conferring the blessings of the knowledge of God's grace and mercy to humanity. But God's ways are not our ways, we read, and His plan and arrangements are not as ours would have been. We are all witnesses of that, not only as respects our own imaginations, plans and conjectures, but as respects all the conjectures that have been formulated, as are represented in all the creeds of Christendom, and all heathendom. God's plans are different from all of those, and yet so wonderful, and so gracious, and so favorable to us, that we could not have asked for anything so wonderful as He has provided.
First of all then is the work of the Gospel Age. We could do nothing at all with respect to the first part. It was necessary that God should send His Son to become the Redeemer. It was necessary for Christ to have been born, so that He could be related to our race, and be the Man Christ Jesus, and that He could give His life, perfect, holy, harmless and undefiled, a ransom for Adam and all the race.
We could do nothing at all in that part of the work. He therefore does not call on us to have any part or share in it at all. But just as soon as Jesus had paid the ransom price, just as soon as He had ascended upon high, there to appear in the presence of God for us, for all who are trusting Him, and for all who believe in Him and turn away from sin and to God and accept His divine favor--just that soon did God begin to manifest His favor toward mankind. And the first ones were the twelve who were blessed with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and were sent out to carry the good tidings of great joy to all people that had ears to hear--not to anybody else. God was not speaking to those who had no ears to hear, but as many as have ears to hear, let them hear, and so God began right at Pentecost and has been continuing all the way through this age to select a people for His name, selecting a Bride for His Son, to be with Him in the kingdom, and all this work of manifestation, all of this work of gathering a people for His name, and all the telling of the good tidings, is not committed to angels, but is committed to those who accept the Lord Jesus.
What favor is there in that? We look back to the time of Jesus' birth, and there was no man in the world at that time who was suitable to tell the good tidings and make known that part, and it was better that God should send the company of angels in the plains of Bethlehem to proclaim that, "Unto you is born in the city of David, a Saviour, that is, Christ, the Lord." It was necessary that that first proclamation should be made by the angels, because if some man had said it, they would have said, "How does he know? Where did he get the information?" But when God sent this first part of the message through the angels, it seemed necessary to use them to that extent, and they were used.
Then came, as we see, the work of this Gospel Age. All through the age, notwithstanding the imperfections of the earthen vessels, the Lord has been pleased to use human instrumentalities all the way down for the gathering of the Church; and He has honored His Word as presented in the Scriptures, and He has spoken through the mouths of those who were His consecrated children. He has honored His message wherever it has gone, and the blessing of the Lord has thus gone out to all the earth--not confined to the Jewish nation, or to the English nation, or to the American nation, or to any one nation, but the message has gone to all the families of the earth. Then we look at what has been accomplished during the Gospel Age, and we see the ups and the downs, and we see the failure at the end of the first century; we see the Church going into the wilderness condition, and we see the Scriptures telling us that notwithstanding the fact that the whole system has become a nominal system merely, and has gotten largely under the influence and control of the Adversary himself--notwithstanding that, God did not leave Himself without a witness; He had witnesses all the way down; they were not known or recognized to much extent of men, but nevertheless God had true witnesses all the way down through these eighteen hundred and more years.
Now then, dear brothers and sisters, if we were to look at the most important part of God's Plan in respect to the selection of the Church, where would we look? Well, we answer, we would, of course, look back to Pentecost and say that was one of the most important points in God's great plan--the beginning of the blessing. Surely it was one of the most important points. The Apostles were there, and a great blessing of truth and grace was on all those who followed the Lord and had a measure of the divine plan, which was doubtless enjoyed by some.
Then where else shall we look for special divine favor? We hearken to the Apostle Peter and hear him say that the blessing has come upon us who are living in the ends of the ages. Now there are two ends to the age; there was a beginning end, and a closing end. There was a time at our Lord's first advent, the end of the Jewish age, and at the beginning [CR23] of the Gospel age, of lapping; and so now, when we come down to our time, we have the closing of the Gospel age and the dawning of the Millennial age. The lapping of the ages have come upon us, and we are living in that time now, dear friends. There are two very important periods during the last two thousand years, and we are fortunate enough to be living in one of them. As a child I used to look back to the days of our Lord, and think with considerable interest of the hymn that says, "Oh, that I could have been living on earth then." You remember the picture it gives when Jesus was here amongst men. I cannot remember the hymn, but you are perhaps familiar with it. I would like to have been here then, that I might see Him and His miracles. But it seems to me that when we come to consider the matter more fully, the blessings in the end of this age are greater than were the blessings in the end of the Jewish age. At very most, our Jewish brethren of that time saw our Lord, the wonderful man, the man Christ Jesus, and they saw the one who was doubtless far beyond all others in His appearance, and they saw the one who spake as never man spake, and they saw the one who performed various miracles, and all that must have been very interesting; and yet we can see that a great many people could have been there present, and hear and take notice of those things, and yet be in the utmost perplexity. They did not know whether this was Jesus the Messiah, or not. You remember the Bible tells us many of the people said, "Do our rulers indeed know that this is Jesus, the very Christ?" And they were perplexed. The rulers said, "No, no, this man is talking about a kingdom, and we are expecting a kingdom, it is true; we have been expecting it for all these centuries, but this man has no army, and he has no financial backing, and the Roman government would not recognize Him, and we Jews ourselves would not recognize Him. He is a kind of a womanish man, talking beautifully, kindly, gently; He is not swearing any, and getting angry, and rushing around as though He would rip the whole world to pieces if they were not likely to fall into line with Him. We need a man of that kind. That is the kind of a man Israel had hoped would establish a kingdom and bring the other nations into subjection. Haven't we been looking and praying for centuries for the time to come when Messiah would come and rule the whole world, and do you suppose a man like this, who goes around and saying, "Blessed are the meek" and "Blessed are the merciful," would make a good general or ruler to bring the kingdom to Israel? "How foolish! Your poor common people don't know anything about this matter. Leave the matter to us; we are scribes and pharisees; trust us; we have a grain of sense and know what we are talking about. Pay no attention to that man, and His disciples. I never saw such stupid people, thinking of Him as the Messiah." Now, if I had been there, my dear brothers and sisters, I am sure my faith would have been very weak, and I should have said, "It don't look much like it, does it?" I am really glad that my lot fell in this time for more reasons than one. I believe that for my cast of mind-- now, we are not all the same--it is a great deal easier for me to exercise faith in the presence of the Lord at this time than it would have been in the days of Jesus in the flesh. I am naturally of a disposition to reason things out from facts, and possibilities and I would have had a terribly hard time to become one of the twelve apostles, or to have gone around with our Lord, without any apparent manifestation of kingly authority then. I would have asked Him a whole lot of questions, at least. Perhaps He would have told me, but I would have asked a whole lot of questions. It would have been a question meeting for a good while with me. How are you going to do it? How is it going to come? How can it ever be accomplished? Explain the matter. And perhaps the Lord would have been gracious to me and said, "Well, he has that kind of a head, and he cannot help it, and I will condescend to make up for him, for his lack of ability to take things for granted. In other words, I would have made a poor rat to go into a trap; I would have wanted to know how to get out at the other end before I would go into the trap.
Now, we have before us the two ends of the age, and we see that at the time of the end of the Jewish age and the opening of the Gospel age, the Lord said there was a harvest work going on; He said that the fields were white already for harvest, and he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto eternal life. And after telling them that, He sent out the twelve Apostles, and afterwards also, the seventy and told them to go everywhere and to preach that the Kingdom of God had come nigh unto them; the Kingdom of God is very near. If you are ready for it, God is ready to establish the kingdom now. So an opportunity was given, and what was the result? Well, the nation as a whole, we are told, at the time of their visitation, did not discern; they did not recognize Him; they said, it is foolish and silly to think of this being the Kingdom of God that this man is preaching. You remember the pharisees came to Him on one occasion and said, we will show up this man, and said it in the presence of His disciples, for they wanted the disciples and all the people to hear how they would overthrow any of His arguments. And they said unto Him, When will the Kingdom of God appear? You do not mean to say you have it now; you do not mean to say you are a King now; you do not mean to say your disciples have any power now--how long have you to wait on your kingdom?
And the poor pharisees were utterly disconcerted when Jesus said, It is not going to appear at all.
How is that?
Why it will be in the midst of you, and you will not perceive it; it will be an invisible kingdom. How much they were astonished!
Well, the fact is, anyway, dear friends, that as a whole they could not receive spiritual things, for they were not for natural men. They were not begotten of the Holy Spirit and the trouble was, they were not in the right attitude of heart to be begotten of the Holy Spirit--that is, excepting a few. As we are told in John 1:11, He came to His own, the nation of Israel, and His own nation received Him not, but as to many as did receive Him, to all of those who were Israelites indeed, in whom there was no guile, to them gave He liberty--privilege--to become the Sons of God, to step from the House of Servants over into the House of Sons, from fleshly Israel over into spiritual Israel; to them, gave He liberty to become Sons of God, even all those who believed on His name, and who subsequently were begotten, not of the will of the flesh, but of the will of God. It was that little class, the twelve Apostles, and perhaps many of the seventy that went out-- we do not know whether all or not, probably not all that were sent out--but the twelve and many of the others, many of the seventy, altogether about five hundred we are told, were influenced by the preaching of the Word of God. That was all the wheat found up to the time of Jesus' death, and that was called a harvest time. They were sent out to reap. Jesus said, I send you forth to reap that upon which ye bestowed no labor; other men have labored, have done plowing and sowing, and ye are entered into their labors; it is the time to reap now, and not specially the time to sow. So they did this reaping work, gathering the five hundred brethren out of the Jewish nation. And then you remember after Pentecost, they kept up the reaping work, because the harvest lasted from the time of Jesus' baptism for forty years, and they were doing a reaping work all of that time. What was the effect of it? The effect was to gather every Israelite indeed--not only those Israelites that were living in Jerusalem and Judea and Galilee, but the work extended out, you remember, ultimately to the Gentile nations, where the Israelites had gone to live, and where they were engaged in mercantile pursuits-- Athens, Corinth, and in Rome. The Apostles were [CR24] sent by the Lord and directed by the Holy Spirit, so they went here, there and everywhere. They first of all went to the synagogues of the Jews, and said it was necessary that the Gospel should be preached first to them. Why? Because it was God's arrangement, that those who had been favored with the blessings of the divine law, and the divine guidance, as the peculiar people of God, should have the full opportunity of having a harvest time, and of having all who were real ripe grains of wheat gathered into the garner of the Gospel age, and so that work was fully accomplished. My supposition is, and I think you will all agree with me it is Scriptural, that God knew every Israelite at heart, and did not leave a single one, but every honest Jew, every Israelite indeed, in all of that nation during those forty years was found. God knew how to direct the various influences of His work, so that those whom He sent forth as reapers--the Apostles, and all who became associated with the truth, each one becoming a reaper--were blessed of the Lord, so that the whole work was accomplished and no grain of wheat was lost. If you remember, the Lord pictures that as the result. Through John the Baptist it was declared that our Lord's work would be to gather the wheat into His garner and to burn up the chaff. When was it gathered into the garner? During these forty years the wheat of the Jewish nation was gathered. And where was the chaff burned? At the end of this forty years the fire of trouble came on the Jewish nation, and all of that chaff was consumed, in the sense that the nation was overthrown--lost its national existence. The nation died there. There has been no Jewish nation from that day to this. There is no Jewish nation today. There are Jewish people today, just as there are Polish people, although there is no Polish nation today. The Polish nation perished, but you will find people who came from that land, and who speak that tongue. So you will find Jewish people, but there is no Jewish nation. That nation has been overthrown. Everything went down at the end of that forty years.
So that harvest time saw a double work. It first gathered the wheat into the garner of the new dispensation under the spiritual ministration, it gathered the wheat of the Jewish nation, and it also did the cleaning up, or the burning up, of the chaff. So that work was concluded, as far as they are concerned. The work has been going on outside of them altogether-- it has been with the Gentiles.
I remind you all how the Lord cared for the true Israelites there. You remember how Nathaniel was brought to the Lord's notice. Two of the disciples had been well acquainted with Nathaniel. They knew him to be a very fine, honest, honorable Jew, and he knew them to be true, candid men also.
So, after they had found Jesus and had become His disciples, they went and found Nathaniel and said, "Nathaniel, we have found Him of whom Moses and all the Prophets did speak; we have found the Messiah."
"Oh, my friends, my brethren, are you being deceived by that Nazarene?"
"Nathaniel, he is the most wonderful man--come and see for yourself."
"Oh, my brethren, I am so sorry for you; you have been caught in that snare. I have heard of other good people being caught in that; I am sorry for you."
"Now, Nathaniel, come and see; you can do no less than that as a true Israelite; you cannot refuse to examine the matter. Can you refuse to examine that which commends itself to your brethren with whom you are well acquainted, and whom you know to be honest Israelites? Are you afraid to examine? Do you not know that God has promised the Messiah? Come and see."
Well, Nathaniel concluded that he would have to go to see. But on the way, you remember, he felt the importance of the matter and realized that he might be subject to deception--he might make a mistake and be at fault. He knew there were false Messiahs being received lately, and he might be deceived, too. There was a large fig tree with its branches coming down towards the ground; under the fig tree he crept and said, "I will have a prayer with God before I go, because it may be a new temptation, a new delusion, and I want the power of God to be with me to help me to know whether my friends here have been deceived, or whether this is the true Messiah." So he went under the fig tree and prayed for wisdom, for knowledge and for aid from the Lord. And then he said, Now I will go. Presently he came, and as he was approaching, our Lord said, pointing to him, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile."
Well now, thought Nathaniel, I hope, I trust, I am an Israelite indeed, and I hope that I have no guile; I hope that is all true; but it does sound to be a good deal as though that man were trying to catch me by saying something pleasant--in our day, we would say, giving him some sweets. So Nathaniel hesitated a little; that was not going to be sufficient proof to him; so he said, "How do you know anything about me, Sir?"
"When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee."
"The answer to my prayer! How could I ask it better?"
The Lord had fixed it so that, being an Israelite indeed, it was very easy indeed for him to find the Master, and get right into confidential touch with Him. I do not suppose that is all the story; it is all that is recorded in the Word--and a little more than is recorded in the Word indeed, for I have paraphrased it a little, but I suppose the facts are that Jesus told him a good deal more, and that they had quite a heart-to-heart talk about the matter. I suppose there was quite a good deal of conversation there. We can't believe that our Lord in all the three and a half years of His ministry said no more than is recorded of Him in the Gospel. You and I would have talked a hundred times as much in three and a half years. But there is enough here and the best part, and the right part, is recorded, so we are very well satisfied.
Anyway, dear friends, the point is this: that there were a great many Jews there to whom our Lord did not talk or try to make it plain. You remember the disciples were surprised at times when He spoke to them in parables and dark sayings, and used figures of speech, and said, This is the bread that cometh down from heaven. If you eat of my flesh, you shall live always. What does this man mean, when He says to eat my flesh? No wonder these poor men were confused. These are very precious words to us because now we understand them; but to those that heard them, and who had no knowledge of spiritual things, no conception of how Jesus was to be the bread of life for the world, all of these must have been very dark sayings indeed. When the disciples asked of Jesus, Lord why do you tell the people these things in such obtuse and parabolic language, He said, To you it is given to know the mysteries, but to them that are outside, to all the outsiders, these things are in parables and dark sayings, so that they might not understand; it is not for them to understand; if they are outsiders, they are not in the right attitude. If they were in the right attitude they would come here to me; they would be my disciples, and I would make the matter clear and plain to them; but they are not for them now; but they are for you. The Lord might have blessings for them by and by; but now all the blessings He had were for those who were His--to those Israelites indeed, in whom there was no guile.
So we carry the parallel from that harvest time down to this harvest time, and we have the sanction of the whole Scriptures in doing this. For instance, we find the Jewish age was a type or pattern for this Gospel age, and that, as God dealt especially with the Jewish nation for 1845 years, so He has dealt with the Gospel Church, Spiritual Israel, for 1845 years. As He has thus dealt with them, and made the one the pattern for the other, we are justified in looking at what was accomplished in the Jewish harvest by the Lord and His Apostles, and we are justified in expecting similar [CR25] conditions in this harvest, only on a somewhat higher plane, because ours is spiritual Israel and theirs was natural, or fleshly, Israel; ours is the heavenly calling, and theirs was the lower calling; ours is the house of sons, and theirs was the house of servants. Therefore, everything here properly belongs on a higher plane. They were taken out of the Jewish dispensation, from the house of servants, into the Gospel dispensation, on the higher plane, and that was the garner for them; and we are to be gathered from the gospel plane to a still higher plane, the spiritual plane, changed in a moment, in the first resurrection; so our things are all higher than theirs. But these two ages are parallel, and the two harvests are parallel, and just as the Lord in the end of that harvest sent forth His disciples to be the reapers in doing the right work, so likewise in this harvest, He is sending forth His people, the spiritual Israelites indeed, in His name, and as His representatives, in doing a harvest work. He is telling us to go everywhere, wherever we find Israelites indeed, and tell them this is the day of their visitation, tell them that now is the presence of the Lord and the harvest of this age, tell them that God is not going to be forever calling the Bride, that the elect will all be called, and that this age will end, and that this is the work in the closing of the harvest time in which the wheat shall be gathered into the garner. And as there the work was successful, blessed of the Lord, and accomplished all that He intended, so it will be here; it will accomplish all that God purposed. If we look back there we will find that the people of that time did not suppose there was any great success; they did not suppose the Gospel Church was making any headway. They would have looked at this fact that there were five hundred people out of the millions of the Jewish nation, and would have said that it is a very trivial thing. What is that, anyway, finding five hundred people in three and a half years ministry, after all of these miracles? Or if it was five thousand, how small was the work compared with the whole Jewish nation!
And what do people today say? Well, you people are very small. Yes, we say, we are very small. You are very insignificant. Yes, that is all very true. Why you think you are going to tear down our churches, and you are not going to do it. Not at all; we do not think we are going to tear down the churches, my brethren. I remember a gentleman who called on me; he was not a minister, but had been educated for the ministry; he was a printer, and had been doing some work for us, and incidentally talking about the matter, he said, "Mr. Russell, how does it come that you seem to be trying so hard to tear down all our churches?"
"Why, my brother," you have misunderstood the matter. I am not trying to tear down the churches."
"You are not?"
"No."
"What does it mean that we are printing so many of these tracts and booklets, etc., and what our shop is doing is very little compared to what other shops are printing for you; you are printing thousands and millions of tracts that are going all over the world. What does it mean if you are not trying to pull down the churches?"
"Why, this is what it means: In the first place, we do not want to pull down the churches; we want the churches to stay; we want them to keep a tight band about all the tares, and hold them in there. If all of the tares got out, they would get in with us; we don't want any of them; what we are looking for, my brother, is to get the wheat, so we look wherever we can and hunt for all the heads of wheat, and try to get them. You will never miss them, they are few; you will never miss them out of any of the bundles; so don't you be afraid, my dear brother; the distributing of a lot of tracts does not mean we think that we are going to get a whole lot of people. We know that not very many wise, or learned, and not many all together, are going to get all of the wheat, and you will not have a single grain left, but you won't miss them very much, because they are in the minority now, and you think them very odd, peculiar people, and you had better be rid of them maybe, and we just want those."
He said, "If that is all you are after, why do you make such a stir, and spread the thing around so?"
I said, "I will tell you: that is the question, we do not know who the wheat are, and the only way for us to do is to take in everything, everywhere, so that we will be sure to reach the wheat in some way. If we only knew the wheat, we would not bother one of the others at all; we would take the truth right to the wheat; but we do not know the wheat; the Lord has kept that secret from us. The Lord knoweth the wheat, and He is going to guide the matter."
Now, dear brethren, why does not the Lord tell us where the wheat is? Why does He not make the thing simple and easy, so that we can come, for instance, to Norfolk and say a word to a dozen, or two dozen, or whatever number of genuine wheat there may be, or a hundred or two hundred--I could not say how many; the Lord knows, I do not. But why don't the Lord fix it so that we can just get at the wheat and fix it up with them? And so in Allegheny, and New York, and Philadelphia, and all over the country. Why don't He fix it up that way? Well, I think the answer to that question is the answer to our text today. God could have gotten all the Israelites indeed in the end of the Jewish age very much easier than in the way in which He did get them, very much easier than to have Jesus and the Apostles go around everywhere preaching the Gospel; He could have done it very much easier than that if He had so chosen; He knew the hearts of these people; He could have picked them out and sent some word. Why did He not do it? To my understanding, there was a great blessing to be given to the reapers, and the Lord is going to give us a chance to do some reaping work now. You remember the illustration of the Emperor moth. A doctor was very fond of butterflies, and was making a large collection; he heard of a very famous kind of a butterfly he did not have in his collection, and a friend presented him with the Emperor moth in its cocoon, and so he put it up in his library and said, I will watch the development of that butterfly with interest. And gradually it began to show evidences of life, and made struggles and worked to get out of the cocoon; and as day after day he would glance up and see the little animal working and fighting its way out, he said, It is too bad, I could let it out easier than that; it should not have to work like that, so he snipped it with his scissors; and the thing got out finally, but he let it out too soon, and as a result of not having enough work, it could never fly; it was too weak. It had not had muscular effort enough in getting out.
So we think that is the reason the Lord allows us now to do the reaping work; it is necessary in His plan and it is necessary for our development; that we should not only have the opportunity of doing something in the Lord's service, but see the reason for it, for if we could see no reason for it, or if we knew our labor in the Lord would be in vain, it would not be very easy to do. Suppose now, for instance, in a certain town, there was not a single grain of wheat, and you knew it. Would you say, Well I know there is no wheat here, but I need the exercise and I will go over the town and spread tracts all around even though I know there is no one here that will be interested in the truth. Do you suppose it would be possible for you to do that, to spend time, labor and car-fare? You would not want to beat the air, so you see God kindly veils our eyes, and does not tell us whether there are any grains of wheat there or not. It is going to do us good to go around and do the reaping and serve the cause, so He veils our eyes, and does not tell us where the wheat is, but gives us the assurance that [CR26] He knows where it is, and that He will not let a grain of wheat be lost; but He will make sure that every grain is reached in some way, and it is our opportunity if we want to be reapers, and if we want to receive some of the wages, to get to work, and according to the energy and zeal we display, we will be manifesting our love for the Lord, for the Brethren, and for the truth. So then, these opportunities of the harvest time are most wonderful.
I do not know how to account for the various features of the harvest work that we have, except to say that the Lord apparently guided our judgment in respect to the matter and gradually opened them up before us, and they seemingly were made necessary by certain things; as, for instance, in the matter of the Pilgrim work. We found that there were little companies of the Lord's people here and there that needed to have a little encouragement, a little bit of help; they had a certain amount of ability and could carry on a certain kind of meetings very well among themselves, but if they would have some additional encouragement, someone to come around and visit them, to help them, and to advise and counsel with them, some who probably had more experience in the truth, or more experience in respect to the holding of meetings, this would be a great advantage. So we started by having one or two go around and as we found the work was increasing and needed more, and as the Lord seemed to provide more, we arranged for others to go around, and they kept going and are going all over this country, and to some extent over other countries, though not so much anywhere else as here. But we see how that part of the harvest work was brought in; there was a necessity for it. There were little classes growing up in their various places needing help, and there was a way to meet this very exigency. The Lord seems to direct the path, and it is grand. We now see that this Pilgrim manner of serving the meat to the household of faith is one of the wisest and best--far wiser than we knew at the time. It is carrying some fresh thought and ability to every class of any size all over the country, to do them all the good possible, and that without hindering the balance. It is far better than having a paid preacher established in every city; it accomplishes more good. A little class must help itself, and must edify one another, and that is what God intended. God's intention never was, in connection with the Church, as the early Church's example would show, that the Church would simply meet together to have somebody preach to them; the Church was to meet together to edify itself, to build one another up. There might have been, and probably was in every congregation of the early Church, a leader, and may be several leaders, who would take turns; but it was not the Lord's plan that one man should do all the teaching and the others do all the hearing, but that all should co-operate in the service, each according to his ability and according to what seemed to be the Lord's providence in the matter.
So these little congregations, instead of being encouraged to give up and sit down and hear something, were all encouraged to co-operate and be Bereans, searching the Scriptures, and pointing out their fulfillment, one to another. It is the very best way. I do not know of any other way that would be as good for the edifying and for the bringing out of the talent, small and great, wherever it may be, either in asking questions, or answering them, or in helping them in any manner; and as a consequence those all over the country who never would have known they had any ability, and whom others would not have known or found to have ability have, under the Lord's blessing, and as they come to a clearer knowledge of the truth, considerable ability in pointing out to each other the precious things of the Lord's Word.
Then again, in the matter of the colporteur work; The colporteur work when it was first started was not what we had planned at all. We were not smart enough; we did not know enough. We tried to introduce the literature in the usual way by advertising in the usual manner in the newspapers, and by getting the books into the book stores, so the people would see them, and so they would be put out through some wholesale house and be taken to the retail places in the country and the people have a chance to come at them in that way. And the Lord permitted the Devil to pen that way up thoroughly--so thoroughly that we could not get any out. I have told some of you, and will tell others now whom I did not address on this subject before, how that the principle book concern handling religious books in the United States tried the Dawns. They first of all said, Yes, send us one hundred copies of the first volume. So we sent the hundred copies, and in about ten days or two weeks, the books came back. We wondered, and inquired how it happened, and got the information, finally, that the gentleman who was at the head of that establishment was very intimately acquainted with some of the premillennial people, Mr. Moody and Major Whittle. He put the Millennial Dawns on the book shelves among other religious books, and in the department where the premillennial literature was kept. You have probably heard of Major Whittle as an evangelist, who used to be associated for some time in holding meetings and in evangelistic work with Mr. Bliss. He came in and looked over the books in this department. They were arranged in rows, and he saw Millennial Dawn.
"Here, look here, what have you got Millennial Dawn on here for?"
"Well, now look here, Whittle, I am not so narrow as all of that. If anybody wants Millennial Dawn or any other book, let them have it. If they want your books let them have them. I am not so narrow and hide-bound as that; people have a right to get what they want."
"Revell, if Millennial Dawn stays on your counter, all of my books, and all of the books of my friends, will come off."
"Well now, Whittle, if you are going to talk that way, they will have to come off." So he ordered them taken off and sent back to us.
That settles it, you see, in short order. We tried advertising Millennial Dawn in some of the religious newspapers. We even took the method of having the address away from Allegheny, so that they would not even smell that way; they were advertised as Scripture Studies, and an address of another city given, but it was not long before they were found to be Millennial Dawn. Then immediately the contracts were cancelled. The contracts were to run for months, but they were cancelled at once, they paid back the balance of the money, and said they would not have that published in their paper at all. So neither the Methodists nor Baptists or anyone else would have Millennial Dawn in their paper or on their book-shelves, and we could not do anything with them that way.
Now, why did the Lord allow Satan to block all of these ways? It looked as though the Lord was allowing Satan to hinder the work, and perhaps Satan thought he had put in a real good stroke,--but he did not know his business. Just the same as when he thought he had done a real smart thing when he got our Lord crucified, it did not work his way. I suppose he instigated Judas; in fact that is what we are told, that Satan entered into Judas, and that was part of the prompting which led him to sell the Master, and I suppose Satan helped those who were trying to accuse Him, and those who finally crucified Him; I have no doubt he was engineering that whole thing; but he engineered it God's way, and so these, when they were hindering Millennial Dawn from being advertised and being put on the counters, were co-operating with God, but did not know it, for when we found they could not be advertised that way, then the next thing was to start out and try to sell them.
Well, at first we were trying to sell them at the regular prices at which other people sold such books. They were costing nearly fifty cents in paper binding, the way [CR27] we were publishing them, in small quantities, and we were selling them for one dollar in cloth binding, the usual price for such books; and then we thought, if these were published in larger quantities could we not get them out cheaper? So we got them out cheaper, you remember, so that we could sell the paper-bound ones for twenty-five cents, and the cloth bound ones for fifty cents. So, for a while we sold hardly any but the paper bound copies. They were entered in the Post Office as second class matter, with the privilege of mailing at a cent a pound, and you remember we finally got it down to where we could send ten volumes by mail delivered to any address in the United States for one dollar. We thought we had done something wonderful, and so we had, and a whole lot of books went out that way; and then what do you think? It looked as though Satan had gotten the upper hand on us; he had tried it several times before. They got a man in the Post Office department who would not obey the law. As long as they held to the law, we always got the better of it. This man said, I am going to make the law myself. Congress did not make the law right and I will construe it myself so that you shall not send that through the mail, nor any other thing of that kind, at that rate. He did not merely rule this against Millennial Dawn. The gentleman was fair enough; it was a general rule of the department against all magazines of that character going through the mails at that rate,--the pound rate, as they called it. What was the result? We could not send out the Dawns ten for a dollar, for the postage alone amounted to about ninety cents on the ten. What did we do then? Well, temporarily, the Devil got them stopped pretty well. We had been and we were sending them to colporteurs in every direction at these rates, as well as to other readers of the Tower, ten cents pre-paid; and the colporteurs were selling them at a quarter; but the Devil stopped that. Of course, I do not want to accuse the Devil of anything improperly. But we thought, well, what will we do now? We thought, we will see if we can do any better by getting a cloth bound book at a very low price. So we hunted around and applied for bids on large quantities, and finally got it so that we could say to the colporteurs or any of the friends, we can send these to you so you can sell them at thirty-five cents, and if you get them by freight they will cost you eighteen cents, and you have about one-half of what you get for them for your expenses on which to live. That is a very remarkable thing, that books could be gotten out at that price. I do not know of any other similar size books that are selling at that price. We sell all the translations, the English, the French, the German, the Greek, the Norwegian and the Swedish, etc., at one price, and the foreign editions that are small necessarily cost a good deal more. The English books we sell to the colporteurs at sixteen cents cost sixteen, sometimes a fraction over, according to varying circumstances, and the foreign ones, some cost twenty, some twenty-five, and some thirty cents a piece, so that last year, the Society lost nearly four thousand dollars just on the price of the books alone. I merely mention this so that you will get the situation before your minds--not that we are making any complaint about it; it is all right. We are very pleased to have it that way. We think that is the way the Lord would have it to be. We want all the poor foreigners who have gotten away from superstition and ignorance to have an opportunity to get the truth at no more cost to them than to anybody else. So as the government carries some letters to California for two cents, and it certainly costs more than that to deliver the letter, and they charge the same to carry a letter across the river from Allegheny to Pittsburg, just so we make a common rate on all Dawns, as low as possible, so that the colporteurs can have consideration, and so that they may be able to sell them at such a small price that they can have enough left to defray their expenses if they live economically.
Now then, dear friends, under that arrangement, instead of paper books going out, it is cloth books that are going out. You say, is there any difference? Don't they all read alike? They all read alike, but there is a great deal of difference in this way: when a paper-bound book has been laying around for about a week, and several people have handled it with greasy fingers, and the cover shows marks of fly-specks and grease-spots, and becomes a little torn and wrinkled, people throw it in the closet or some place else, and that is the last of it; so we find it is a great deal better to have cloth-bound books, because they lay on the center-table, and friends will come in and say, What is that book? And they will find them years afterwards, because they are in a more substantial form.
So that which seemed to be an adverse ruling of the Post Office department, and that which we fought hard and tried to get it changed and could not, turned out all right. All things are working together for good to us, and always have been. It just takes a little time to see it.
Now then, as a result today, what do we find? We find that the first volume has passed the two million mark. And as far as I know, no other book except the Bible has reached such a sale as that; and it is going on and increasing. We do not have any printing establishment of our own. We could not do the work as cheaply as we get it done, because I suppose if we were trying to do it ourselves, we would have to have a plant for that alone, whereas these other people have a plant going and working on other things, and some of them smaller jobs out of which they are making more profit. They have to keep things going anyway, and they just charge a certain profit on what they do our work for, and it comes to us cheaper than if we did it ourselves. Then we do not have to keep the money invested. We can keep turning the money into tracts, and keep sending it out. So the money goes a great deal farther, and that is what surprises some people; they say, There must be a mint of money behind this work. We never heard of so many tracts going out. But our money is not all eaten up by salaried officers, large buildings, interest on mortgages, etc., that are very heavy. The money is going out in the work, and is done economically and as wisely as we know how.
Now as to the colporteur work, I do not know just what the report for this year will show, but this year is already ahead of last year, and we have time in which more will go out. But in connection with this colporteur work, we believe it is not merely the plan to let the books go out. We could have done that by newspaper advertisements. Some newspaper might have given a great write-up, and had the other papers copy it, and the people would have gone into the book-stores and said, Have you any of those books, I want one? There might have been a great rush for them, and they might have gone out over the country very quickly. But that was not the Lord's way; He wanted to give you and me an opportunity of working. He said, "There is the harvest work, go in, he that reapeth receiveth wages. I want to give some of the reapers a chance." If the newspaper people had done it all, where would the reapers have come in? Where would they get the wages? "He that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit." Is it not a great blessing and privilege that we can have in this harvest work? It is not merely the colporteurs who are having a blessing. There are others that are having a blessing, as I think, for instance, of one; I was talking to him not a great while ago, and mentioned to him about one of his family being in the colporteurs' work, and said, How happy you must be, not being able to get into the work yourself and have a personal share in it, that you have at least a number of your family engaged in it? He said, O yes, how much I appreciate that! So, you see, we all are more or less interested, and are drawn together by the very privileges we are enjoying. One may be doing more of actual work, and the other may be sustaining, advising, helping, encouraging, or speaking a kind word, or perhaps taking duties and responsibilities that would hinder this one from going into the [CR28] work, and perhaps another one says, now you can be spared because I can do some of these things for you. So, each one is helping the other.
About how many colporteurs are there, dear friends? Leaving out Great Britain, Australia, and other places, there are about five hundred in the United States and Canada. Now that is five hundred that are having a great blessing, and many other hundreds that through them have their zeal and love intensified, and are kept warm by their efforts, and that is not all. Besides the colporteurs, there are the Sharpshooters. By sharpshooters, we mean those who simply sell to their friends, give away some, and sell some. We call them sharpshooters, because they are not going from house to house, trying to put them into every home. The sharpshooters are doing a whole lot, and are getting a whole lot of blessings.
And then, when we could not have the paper-bound volumes of the Dawns to supply to the friends at ten cents a volume, the Lord let us think of another way of doing it. The Watch Tower is a regularly entered publication of the second class, under the Postal laws. There is no hindrance to the number of pages in it, and so we issued the first volume of Dawn as one number of the Watch Tower in magazine form at five cents per copy, postpaid. If the Devil thought by stopping the ten for a dollar he was going to do us up on getting cheap books into the hands of the people, he was mistaken, because it merely led to a five cent edition, which is only half as much. Now you do not know how many of those are distributed. I know a brother who in the state in which he lives has circulated at least three thousand of those himself, and paid for them all out of his own money. He has sent them all around, all through his own county and in many parts of his State. He is only an example; there are others thinking how they can do somebody good. All the rest of the world is thinking how they can get something, but those who get the truth are thinking how they can do some good, or give somebody something. It changes our hearts and lives. People can hardly believe it of you, that you are trying to do something for them that would cost you something; they cannot understand that. Well, we are willing to be peculiar in that way.
And then, the volunteer work: You see this harvest work advances in all these different features. At first, we used to do more as others do in the tract work, publish tracts, and people who wanted them might pay so much for them. Then we thought there was a better way than that--to let anybody who wished pay for them, let him make contribution to the tract fund if he wanted to voluntarily; we shall not ask for anything, but let him make it if he wants to, and thus we can distribute tracts, and let the friends have free all the tracts they can use. Very frequently the ones who can distribute tracts are the very ones who could not pay, and very frequently the ones that can pay are the ones that might find it impossible to distribute tracts; quite a good many make donations to the tract fund, and they get the tracts and do the distributing also; but anyway, we concluded it would be the Lord's will that the tracts be supplied free, and let them go out by the thousands and tens of thousands and by the hundreds of thousands and by the millions, and I might say, by the tens of millions.
Well now, as a result, dear friends, the tract distribution in which you are engaged, and in which I am engaged, and in which many of the Lords' people all over the country are engaged, we call the volunteer work, because it is not urged on any one, but is a voluntary act, something in which anybody can engage. Now the Lord has fixed it so that nobody can say, Lord there was nothing I could do; for they might have said, Well, we cannot all be Pilgrims, and that is so; and some one might say, I cannot be a colporteur, because I have a family, or other responsibilities; there is nothing that I can do. But no, the Lord took away all that. We did not think of it this way at first; we merely thought of making the tracts free, and letting everybody have them to distribute that wanted them, but you see the Lord was making a way by which every mouth would be stopped, so that nobody could come later and say, Lord, there was not a bit of reaping work that I could do; I was so anxious to do some reaping and I could not find any to do. The Lord says, no that is not right, I gave you something to do. There was a lot of volunteer work to do, and you knew you could get the tracts for nothing, no matter whether you paid for them or not; the freight was paid on them, and they were set down at your town and you only had to go there and pick them up and distribute them.
Well, the matter has been growing and it has finally come to be called the Volunteer work, and we encourage the friends all over the country, and in Europe and Australia, and all around, in every little class, wherever they may be, in country towns or in cities, to form a Volunteer Corps of those who would like to engage in the work, and if it is a city or town of some size, to divide up the classes or towns, so that each would attend to such a part of the territory as he or she could work, and do it thoroughly. And we encourage them to appoint a captain in each city,--one who would take general charge and lay out the work, and say, this quarter for so and so, and that quarter for so and so, and divide it up. Then have lieutenants, say in the northwest portion of the city there would be a squad for distribution with one to be a kind of lieutenant, or one to have supervision of that quarter, and the others to co-operate with him, and so on. In that way, there have been little armies of tract distributers over the country.
Some might say, I wonder if there are enough of those very common people to distribute tracts; I wonder how you find enough of those common people to distribute tracts. We do not want any common, dirty, superstitious people to distribute tracts. You do not want any of them to distribute tracts. What do you want? You want sons and daughters of God--God's sons and daughters who want to engage in the harvest work. If God's people do not take pleasure in making known the message, why, then let it stay at home. So, we do not urge anybody, except in this sense, dear brethren, that as we are saying now, there is a great harvest work and the laborers are few in comparison with the possibilities of the hour, and the possibilities of the hour are the most wonderful possibilities, and it is the most wonderful message of the grace of God, the love of God, the justice of God, the Plan of God, that was ever presented to the world, and it is a great honor God has conferred upon us that we should be counted worthy, that He would let us have a share in this work. He could have done without us altogether, but He has done it for our benefit, that we, just by energizing ourselves, might be making character, and as we are making character, we are making ourselves more and more fit for the kingdom of God, for He has determined that none will be in the kingdom who are merely wishy-washy. God tells us He is seeking jewels. He is choosing out the jewels, and He gives them an opportunity for the development of character, and says they must be overcomers; every one of them must be an overcomer, if he would have a place in the kingdom. So now, dear brethren and sisters, here is an opportunity to become an overcomer. What do we overcome? We are to overcome the world, the flesh and the devil; that is the correct statement, of course; but you cannot overcome the Devil very well; you may resist the Devil, but it will take the Lord to overcome him; and you cannot overcome the world; the world is too mighty for you; you have to simply keep out of the way of the world--go not into the world's way-- but you have something to do in the way of overcoming your own flesh. There you have your battle-ground --your pride or whatever it may be. I do not know, I am not judging anybody, I am merely saying it is your battle, and when you come off a conqueror and a more than a conqueror, it will not be because you have routed the Devil and made him flee, and not because you have [CR29] vanquished the world, but it will be because you have become an overcomer in your own heart and in your own mind. That will be the victory you will gain in your own case, and that is where you will be a conqueror and a more than conqueror, through Him who loved us and bought us with His own precious blood.
Now, we are taking no credit at all for this arrangement; we did not arrange it at all; we are not smart enough to arrange it. We see the things that God has, in His providence, graciously opened up; we see that it is the power of God, and what a wonderful blessing it is bringing to those who are engaging in this volunteer work.
I think of a brother who before the volunteer matter was arranged was a business man in quite a large city, and he has had a good deal of zeal for the truth for a good many years, but since the volunteer matter came out, and since this plan of distribution has been arranged, he used all the powers of his mind more apparently for the service of the truth than he does for his own business, yet his own business has not suffered, apparently. It is not a long while since that the same man sent a contribution to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society for one thousand dollars. He said, Put this into the work. He is also spending a lot of time in the volunteer work; he is a prominent merchant in his place. I do not know what he is worth, I never asked, it is none of my business; I am merely telling you what he does. And not only is he active, but he co-operates with all the brethren in his city. It is not necessary to steal opportunities from one another-- there are enough to go all around, so that all can have a share; so we do not want to be greedy and take it all away from others. I am sure that all who live in the city with this brother have abundant opportunity. Then in addition to their own city, they go out to the neighboring towns, on the electric cars, and while a good many of them do not know how the car fare is paid, I happen to know indirectly more than perhaps the others do; but a whole squad will go down to those little towns, writing down there before hand to some of the brethren who may be living there and say, have you been doing any volunteer work? No, we have not. Well, we have been thinking of coming down and helping you, and do the whole town up in one Sunday, or nearly all, so that you can finish the balance. Would you like to have us come down? Yes, we would be pleased to have you come. Some of them cannot be served by the electric cars, so this brother has an automobile that holds five, and he gets that automobile and enough ammunition to distribute in that town, and then on to the next town, and they do a number of towns. You see, it all shows the way the friends are working. There is no people working for anything else like that. You would have to pay them a good salary for anything else. What, for instance, would that man charge to advertise Pe-ru-na? Not much, my friend, go out and advertise your own Pe-ru-na. But when it comes to the gospel, with his whole heart in it and his life consecrated to it, and when he knows he has the best thing under the sun, or over the sun either, he says, I cannot do too much of this. There is that man, not only working with his time and strength, but with his money also to pay for the tracts.
Now, all cannot do that. I am giving that illustration of what you should do--take your automobiles, etc. Some of you may have three or four automobiles laying aside, but I think very few of you have. What I am pointing out is, that the truth does not strike people as other things do. It makes a different impression. I do not see the person I am going to mention, and I will speak of what was done in another place. In another quarter of the United States they have a very enterprising class, a very diligent class, and it is a large one, too. There are several very prominent brethren there, and they engage in this volunteer work. One of them was telling me how he first came to be interested in the truth. He said he was an Episcopalian. He said, I might go back of that and say I was born in China: my parents were missionaries, and I was born there, and afterwards sent to this country to have my education finished. I was an Episcopalian, and one day, as I came out of the church, I saw a man handing out tracts, and I said, is that a man handing out tracts and not a boy! A man handing out tracts? Why, I know the man! That is a man having several grocery stores. I know he has three or four at least; I know he has several, and what is he handing out tracts for? I wonder who pays him for that. Nobody, I am sure. There is his carriage and he is distributing tracts at the church door. I never saw anything like that before; I am going to get one of those tracts. He said, I got a tract, and I read it over and said, Well, there are some good things in that tract, but I am not convinced by any means. But there is something behind this, for that man is not doing this, except he is deeply interested; that is more than the average consecration to God and loyalty to his convictions. I am going to see what that book is. So he sent and got the book, and he began to be a reader, and now, he says, I am out with the volunteers every Sunday myself. He is a banker in Washington city.
Not long ago in Washington, one brother said to me, "Now Brother Russell, some of us think there has been a little mistake made this way: you know General Hall, of the United States Army, is now interested in the truth?"
"Yes."
"Well, General Hall we elected Captain of the volunteer work this year."
"Yes."
"And what we find fault with is this: General Hall is pretty well acquainted, and all the privates and lieutenants, as they meet him, are by law obliged to salute him, and General Hall, as Captain of the volunteer work, laid out the territory, and assigned who should go to such and such a place, and very unwisely, we think, chose for himself the very part of the city in which he lives. We think that is not right."
I said, "Now my dear brother, don't you say anything about that. I have been wondering while you were telling me, that if I had been in General Hall's shoes if I would have had as much courage as he had, but I am not sure that I would. General Hall has shown more courage in what you tell me than he ever showed on the battle-field in the Philippine Islands when he was over there. I think it takes a great deal more courage for an officer in the Army to go down where he lives and hand out tracts and put them under the doors, and meet his friends on the way, and salute them and be saluted by them, than it would take to go into a battle. I think there are a good many people who would go into a battle who would not go and do what General Hall did. You see, dear friends, God is using that very means to develop and crystallize character, not only in General Hall and some of those others, but to all classes of people everywhere. Then, it has another good effect. If you have gone around and distributed some tracts that are along the line of consecration to God, it will make you straighten right up yourself. You will say, Look here now, people will be looking at me more than ever; they will say, he is claiming to be religious, and he must be more than ordinarily religious when he distributes those tracts, and he will have to walk very straight. So it does you good. If everybody is looking at you, and you have to walk still straighter, all the better. And then, it helps you to remember that God is looking at you, and that is the best of all.
So, dear friends, this work of reaping is giving some of its wages now. We are getting characters formed, characters on which God is placing a grand blessing; characters He declares He is seeking. He seeketh such to worship Him as worship Him in spirit and in truth, and that means no fear of man; that means full devotion to the Lord; that means a full willingness to give all that we have in His service; when we think of what [CR30] that means, all that we have, why, dear friends, we feel almost ashamed to see how little it is. How little you have that you could give the Lord, and how little I have that I could give--a very few years of imperfect talent, and imperfect ability in every way--but do the best we can, and we are ashamed to offer it to the Lord. We might not be ashamed to offer it to some poor man or woman and say, I have done a little favor for you, and we might feel that we had done something for them and that they were under a measure of obligation, but when we think of God, so high, and so great and wise, and so far above us, and of our own littleness and imperfection, and then to think that we would be permitted to offer ourselves and to spend our lives, and that God would say, Yes, I accept you as ambassadors, you are my representatives in the world; God's kingdom has not been established, but you are representing that kingdom in the midst of a perverse and crooked generation! I think I can never thank God enough for my part, and I think you can never thank Him enough for your part. So let us do all in our power, and remember that God Himself has said, "He that reapeth receiveth wages"--and then what? "Gathered fruit unto eternal life." What kind of fruit are you gathering? Why, this very experience is making your own heart overflow, and your own character fruitful. You remember how the Apostle Peter says that, if ye do these things ye shall never fail, but they shall make you that you shall not be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of God. What kinds of fruits shall these be? Why, this very attempt to serve God and to serve His cause will cultivate that for which you are praying. If as Christians you are praying aright, if you are making your chief prayer that you may have more of the Lord's spirit ruling in your hearts and in all the affairs of your lives, then this will be one of the very means of development, whichever part of the harvest work you may be in, and whatever your hands find to do. And we might not all have opportunity of doing many of these things, but at least our hearts are there. But if we have no opportunity to volunteer, or to colporteur, or to do sharpshooting, our hearts at least should be there and we should be in sympathy, and say a word, or write a letter, or do something else that would be helpful in some way. But to have the desires of our hearts there means the cultivation of the fruits and graces of the spirit.
What are these? Well, meekness comes in. How do we cultivate meekness in being a colporteur? My dear friends, it takes a great deal of meekness to start in as a colporteur. If you feel yourself very big, you will say, O let some insignificant people do that; I am too big to do that, too large a plug for the hole; I cannot get in You see meekness is cultivated when you even begin to think about any part of the service. The Lord has so arranged it that you will have to study meekness, and have to copy meekness, or you cannot stand it at all. And you will find that you cannot get along without gentleness. It is proper that you should be meek, and in your endeavor you will find necessity for being meek in your manner, and deferential to others, which is a good quality. It will help you along; it will help you even if it does nobody else any good. And patience. It takes a good deal of patience sometimes, whatever part of the harvest work we may be in. And faith. It takes a good deal of faith. Sometimes you do not see any fruit from your work, or anything to indicate that there are any results coming. Faith in the Lord. Perseverance. All the graces of God's spirit, you see, are to be cultivated along these lines. So, as the Apostle says, if ye do these things, if you have these graces of the Spirit, if you are exercised by the Spirit of the Lord, if ye do these things, you shall never fail, but so an entrance shall be ministered unto you--an abundant entrance, not merely get in, as we used to say, under the corner of the gate into heaven, but an abundant entrance --open the gates wide, come in ye blessed of the Lord, we have a blessing for you; you are one of the very elect; so you have the privilege of coming into the Lord's blessed favors of the kingdom. An entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the kingdom that is to bless the world, the kingdom that is to accomplish God's will, the kingdom that is of the seed of Abraham, of which all the families of the earth shall be blessed, and for which our Lord said that we should pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." I thank you for your kind attention.
[CR30]
Practical Advice for Colporteurs
BROTHER RUSSELL:
I am glad to see such a large company of colporteurs and friends of colporteurs and I presume sharpshooters, too. I was very much surprised to find that so few had made application for territory. I must suppose that you have already applied to the office or else there are very few new colporteurs at this convention who are thinking of entering the work.
A cheerful face: This is very important, some that are the most successful nearly always have something cheerful about their faces. There is no excuse for any of us not having a cheerful face, it does not cost much; you have plenty to make it with; you have the TRUTH. Do not get alarmed when you go to a house to offer the books; you are on a mission of love; you are an ambassador for Christ. I would not like to give anyone such an opinion as would puff him up, but from another standpoint, it is very important that we realize that we are serving the Lord Christ, that you are in the most honorable business you could engage in. You are ambassadors for God. You know how honorable the ambassadors are considered in the various countries; they usually get a good salary and are often exempt from certain laws.
About the happy face, I want to bring in here an item; you cannot have as happy a face after you are all worn out. Therefore when you get to a point where you are weary, stop and go home and rest. Well, you say, I can put in some more energy. If you do, you will just as likely take that much off somewhere else and will have just that much harder work to recuperate. I speak specially of the sisters--some cannot go more than one hour, while others can go for six hours. Some say that while working two hours and having the remainder of the day for something else, they will go forth the next day so fresh that they will take more orders in two hours than they would in four hours if they were tired.
When rested you are all interest, you are animated and you can make the proper impression upon the people.
[CR31]
I think of one brother that was not very successful, and I asked him to show me what his method was. His method was while speaking at the door, he wished to appear very offhand and he would look up and down the street, and so would the customer. Now I said, brother, you have the wrong idea, you do not want that man to look up and down the street, but to look at the book, the book, the book--you do not want the dogs or cats or anything about you while talking, that would attract the attention away from the book. Fasten his mind, you want to help him to centre his mind upon what you are telling him, you do not want to help him think of anything else.
I think of another brother, he said he could not take any orders at all; so I said, tell me how you do it, and he showed me. Brother I know your difficulty. He was a New England man, they talk very rapidly and if you are acquainted with them, you can follow all you can understand, but if not, you would not know a word of what he said. Someone would come to the door and he would say, trrrrrrrrrrrrr. They would say, I don't wish any, thank you. They did not know anything he had told them. In the country, people do not hear much talking and do not talk much, so you must talk slow. In the city people are different and you can talk faster. If you happen to live in the country, you want to get up steam and talk as fast as you can; if from the city, tone down your voice.
Rest: A great many need to know what every person ought to know and particularly the sisters, that is to say; when we get weary all of our muscles relax and not only affects the muscles of your arms and limbs when you are tired, but your abdominal muscles and internal organs and when you get tired, you ought never to lie down in that way; it is altogether wrong, and you are very likely to get up just as tired as when you laid down. Before lying down every night, or any time, you ought to lift the abdominal parts in your hands so as to relax and take the weight from the cords which are elastic. When very weary they are quite stretched out and when you lie down that way you may get up the same and if you keep that up, you will soon not be able to be in any kind of work, especially the sisters, housekeepers, colporteurs, etc. Lift up the abdominal organs, lie down then let go; you have relaxed them. During the night, nature restores the organs and in the morning you will feel you have gotten the good of the rest.
Food: Another important thing is food, you cannot be a good colporteur without eating. Some of the dear friends when they think of economy, think they want to do everything economically. All I am speaking of is that you need food, good food, wholesome food, you cannot afford to take the unwholesome kind. What you want is wholesome food and good food taken regularly and chew it well. God gave us teeth for the purpose of masticating and saliva to help digest the food. But if you swallow your food without chewing it, but washing it down with coffee, etc., you will get dyspepsia and the same if you eat too fast, eat with deliberation and also with thankfulness and an expression of thanks to the Father.
We have already suggested to some of the friends that molasses candy such as you know how to get, is sometimes very good for food, it is very refreshing, you can get a kind of molasses kisses put up in paraffine paper. Take one of those and you will be surprised how quickly it will give you energy; in five minutes you will feel better. Strange, but it is a fact, the governments of the world have found it out, and they are providing candy for the soldiers in the German and American armies. It is found to be a very good thing to bring refreshment to the system quickly. Not that you could live on candy, nor that you should eat all kinds of candy; some is very injurious. I am speaking of the plain molasses, the best kind. You will also find that certain kinds of chocolate is very wholesome and nutritious, it gives nourishment very quickly. Keep in mind food of a good kind and that it should be eaten with regularity. When you are out soliciting, not only your feet have to carry you, and you have to spend energy in walking, but your mind is on the alert and you are using up energy with your tongue, brain and limbs. You are using up energy more than the ordinary people are doing.
Business Details: I wish to mention a few details that will be helpful to you and to the workers of the Bible House: Write plainly, give full name and address of those to whom you want Towers and tracts sent so they will not go astray. Always give your own name in full, do not sign your letter, "Sister Ida." I know that everyone in the Watch Tower Office is a child of God and glad to lay down his or her life in the service, but it makes unnecessary work if you do not give full name and address etc. The work at the Bible House is divided among various departments and if you do not give full particulars in your letter, it necessitates going from one floor to another and consumes a great deal of time which might have been saved by a little more care on your part.
Be prompt; it is not necessary to hold your report and sheets until you have made the delivery of the books; these names are the names of those whose orders you have taken, no matter whether they take the books or not. Just put down all the names of those who order and let it go at that.
In referring to previous communications always give the date. Why? Some write in and say, the last lot of books I did not get. When that letter comes to the office one says, do you remember? No, I do not. We have to ask several people when and where it was, etc., and have a great deal of trouble to hunt up the last order. State what date it was, keep a copy of every order. Some who did not keep a copy, write in and say, their order was so and so, but on looking it up we find they did not order what they now claim; they thought they did, but did not keep any copy. Examine your books at the time they arrive, do not wait and say that the books I got last August or July did not all come. Tell us at once for we want to correct the matter at once. See that the balance is all right, do not wait a month afterwards and tell us, but write at once for it saves you and saves us trouble. Write full name and address at the head of each letter.
Use colporteur envelopes or if you do not have one, write the words "Colporteur Department" on the corner of any other envelope. The reason that colporteur envelopes are provided for colporteurs is that, colporteur mail receives the quickest attention, for their business is important and they are all more or less in a hurry, and if your letter is otherwise addressed, it may be a day or maybe three days later. At Christmas time we may have a thousand letters delayed, which does not matter a great deal, but we want the colporteur letters to have prompt attention; therefore use the colporteur envelopes. You do not need to write on this envelope, for it is already printed on them. If you get out of these, just write "Colporteur Department" on any envelope. If you use a postal card, do the same with that.
Remittances: When you make a remittance or a Money Order or an Express Order, always put it down on your order blank, which is furnished and also enter in the remittance so that it is all there. If you do not, it may make trouble for you and for us. If you make a mistake and someone in the department makes a mistake, they are multiplied.
Keep a Copy: If you have a small piece of carbon paper, so that you could keep a copy of your letters and orders, it would be an easy way and would be very helpful when making reference to any previous transaction. That is an easy way and the best way, for you then have an exact copy, but if you do not have any carbon paper, make a copy anyway for it will take only a few minutes to copy it.
Tower Subscriptions: When Tower subscriptions are not marked (NEW) on the front page of the order [CR32] blank, they will be considered (RENEWALS) and you will be charged 90 cents each, as all colporteurs are allowed 10 cents for renewals. For all new subscriptions, colporteurs are allowed 50 cents. In order to have any recognition as new subscriptions you want to have on the order blank the word (NEW) in the proper place and mark it 50 cents; otherwise it will be understood to be a renewal. We do not have time to go and look up everyone, it would take up more than ten cents of time; because one party takes charge of the subscriptions and another party in another part of the building, quite a distance away, takes care of your order.
Addressing Communications: Communications should be addressed to the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society and not personally to anyone in the office. If you have any personal communication, that of course is a different matter, but no personal letters go into the files. If you should ever want to address me personally, mark it "C. T. Russell, Personal," so it will not be a part of your communication to the office.
Delayed Shipments: If you should find that your books do not come within a reasonable time, advise us; do not wait too long. We have suggested on the bottom of the bill a reasonable time to wait according to the distance from Pittsburg, otherwise let us know and we will trace it to see where it has been delayed, to see where it is and why it stopped. Do not hesitate to let us know, for we want to do all we can to help you.
Conclusion: I want to tell you in conclusion that I have a very deep sympathetic love for all the Lord's people, but want to say that I have a special love for some. You know Jesus loved certain ones: Martha, Mary, Lazarus, Peter, James and John, and Jesus spoke about John whom he specially loved. It is not wrong to love some more, you cannot help it. Why did Jesus love Peter, James and John more? I think it was because they were the most energetic in the Lord's service. I find myself naturally loving those whose love for the Lord is of the practical kind. So when I find one laying down his life for the Lord, I love him most. I think the Lord does and that He is willing I should, so I have a special love for those who are actively engaged in the Lord's work, those who are engaged as Pilgrims, Colporteurs, Sharpshooters, Volunteers, those that are making contributions, etc; these all make a special appeal to my heart. So to all who are here, I feel that I am addressing those; I am addressing some that I specially love. If ever in trouble, write to me, but first write to the Lord and then to me. I am sure the Lord will take care of the matter and then I shall be glad to do anything in my power.
This colporteur session then closed by singing hymn No. 23. "Blest Be the Tie."
[CR32]
Sunrise Prayer and Praise Meeting
WHEN we entered the hall at 5:15 A.M., there were fully 100 persons present. Promptly at 5:30 Bro. Russell stepped upon the platform and there were by that time 225 present; before the meeting closed there were over 400. The service opened by singing No. 19, "Awake My Soul to Joyful Lays." This was followed with prayer by Bro. LaFerrey. Then we sang hymn No. 206, "O, How Happy Are We Who in Jesus Agree."
Bro. Russell: Dear brothers and sisters, I am very glad to greet so many of you this morning and to see that so many of you enjoy the prospect of an early morning prayer meeting.
As I saw a number of you headed this way as I was coming to this meeting, it made me think of some of the reasons that draw us together. I was reminded of the words of the Lord, that in this day, pointing down to the very time. He said we would all be gathered together, the disciples said, "Where Lord?" and He said, "where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." So, one reason we like to meet together in conventions and on every occasion is because the Lord seems to give us something special to eat where we are in fellowship, where two and three are gathered together, etc., so when two or three of us meet in His name, we may be sure of His blessing and a refreshment of spirit.
In this morning time, more than at any other time, though it has been true throughout all the ages where His people met, but now early in the new morning, when, the new day, the grand Millennial Day, He is inviting us together; He tells us that there will be a great gathering, all the wheat from the tares, all the sons of God, that glorious gathering, which will mean the establishment of the Kingdom of God, out of which will flow all the blessings of God to all the families of the earth. So we have many reasons for thankfulness this morning as we think of the blessed scripture references to this morning time in which we are living such as, "God will help her right early in the morning." You remember a picture in the 91st and 45th Psa., and how the Lord in the 45th Psa. tells of the time of trouble. As we see that day gathering all about us, we hear the Lord's word coming to us with special emphasis and we will not fear though the earth be removed, though society be shaken and the Kingdoms be carried into the midst of the sea, because we have made the Lord our habitation. In this connection the Lord tells us He will help her, the church right early in the morning. How precious the thought that we are in the early morning, when the shadows are fleeing and we can see more clearly than they could in the centuries past. It was not the Father's purpose that the special light should shine then, they had all they needed as saints of God that they might be separate from things of this world, but it was not the time to give the glorious sunlight of truth as now. Thus, dear brothers and sisters, if any fail to get that thought, they fail to get one of the most inspiring thoughts of our time, namely: that the light of the truth which you and I are now seeing is not that you and I are brighter than other men to see it, but it is God's due time--it is morning time. Why can you see brighter than you could an hour or two ago? Because the great sun has begun to shine upon the earth. Is that all we shall have? Oh, no, that is only the early light. Bye and bye the great sun of righteousness with full power, strength and light will fill the whole earth with the Glory of the Lord. How glad we are that the blessed day is already dawning, what a blessing it has brought into our hearts; we cannot feast on that thought too much.
I might tell you without any injury to any of you about a dream that I had some years ago that had great influence upon my life. Now do not mis-understand me, I do not wish to commend dreams, I think many are nonsensical dreams. I have had many myself, probably from indigestion. I know of a great many people who lay too much stress upon dreams. I pay very little attention to dreams, only so much attention as would be in harmony with God's word, so as to feel sure the dream came from neither a piece of pie nor inspired by the adversary and I think a great many dreams are inspired by the adversary. I think a safe course is to let no dream have any influence upon our minds except as we can prove them by the word of God.
[CR33]
That is our standard. If it agrees not with the word it is because there is no light in it.
But this dream that I will tell you about may help some of you. I might remark that at the time I had this dream, I was giving attention to the Lord's work to some extent, I was publishing the Truth and some thought I was neglecting my business. I had five stores at that time, and people would say I guess Mr. Russell is fanatical on the subject of religion. I knew I was not, so was in no danger. I thought I was not giving enough time, that I ought to give all my time, and this dream helped me.
I dreamed that I was in an attic room, the front looking to the east, and the ceiling was sloping and I thereby knew it was a top room in a house. All around the room was a platform raised about ten inches and on it were mattresses strewn and upon them bed coverings of various kinds; some had been occupied and were vacant and others were occupied by sleepers, and I was in one corner. Over yonder was a door on the right. I heard a knock that awakened me and I remember how sleepy I felt, I could hardly get my eyes open. There I saw a servant, one that I never saw or knew, he said they are waiting for you for breakfast and they sent me up to see if you were coming. Oh! my, it is late, I have overslept myself. Tell them not to wait for me. With that I thought to get up, but as I started to rise, I was heavy with sleep and my foot caught in the arm of the man sleeping next to me and I went sprawling. I thought well, what will he do? But he was sound asleep, my falling over him had not awakened him. Something in my dream told me that it was Sunday morning, with that I awakened.
What did it mean? Well I might take a meaning out of it, that might be in full accord with the truth. I said first of all, this is an upper room and the Lord speaks of housetop saints. Well, then I am glad. Seemingly I was amongst the housetop saints, I was glad that I was not down in the basement. Then it was Sabbath morning, early in the morning. The sunlight was coming in, all that fits well, the sun is coming in and it is time I was thoroughly awake. Then the empty beds around us, yes, yes, so far as we know, most of the housetop saints have gone in, here a few of us still sleeping; in a dozing way over-charged with the cares of this life. Well, you remember how tired and sleepy you feel almost as if you had been intoxicated. Yes, well that is a good deal the spirit of the world. You are glad you got awake, you felt so stupid, but still next to you was one still more so, and even your falling over him does not awaken him. You are glad you are awake and did not need a knock. What was that you told the servant? Have me excused, tell them not to wait for me. Our dear Lord has provided a bridal feast, not a supper or a dinner but a breakfast. So I knelt down and asked the Lord to wait on me for a little; I determined to be more earnest and diligent in His service. So I say that while I do not attach much weight to dreams and consider most of them fleshly and of the adversary, but if we think upon them and the words of the Lord, and accept nothing but what will agree with the Scriptures, we may get a good lesson from it.
Well, we are house-top Christians; we have heard the knock informing us that it was morning, that it was the time of the feast and informing us that there is but little time to get ready. We have heard the knock and how glad we are. Yet we find some here and there who are still asleep. Let us help them also to hear the knock that it may go to all parts of the world and let it not be said that there were some in some parts of the world to whom you failed to give the knock. The Master said: "Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
So we have heard the knock and already on this side the vail we have entered in and are getting some of the food and refreshment--how glad we are.
The whole world, a greater part of it, as we came here, are still asleep. Some others are awake besides ourselves; you saw the butcher and the baker and the milkman and others all busily engaged looking after their dollars and cents and that was proper in its way. We also have a business, we have left the world behind, we have become new creatures in Christ Jesus and we must be about our Father's business. A principle proper to apply, how energetic have you and I ever been in the affairs of earth in our scramble for dollars and cents? In that proportion let the Lord see that you will be no less energetic in the Spiritual. Some say Brother Russell, you work late and early; well I used to work late and early for selfish interests, I now have something I love far better, why not work late and early in the Lord's cause as well as in the early interests? If the Lord should find that I was careless of His interests in comparison of my previous experience in life, what would He say? It would indicate that I would love the earthly more than the Heavenly. We do not want Him to say that we ever loved earthly things more than the Heavenly. We are not children of the night, but of the day, let us walk in the light.
Ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should come upon you as a thief, but it shall come as a thief and a snare upon the whole world and they shall not escape. Ye brethren are not to fear or measure yourselves from a worldly standpoint. They have no hope such as we have. Surely, very few persons hope as we do. What manner of persons ought we to be, said the Apostle, in all manner of conversation, etc., hastening to that glorious time which shall be ushered in by the great time of trouble, the time of refreshing from the Lord, because the times of restitution shall then be near.
I am glad that we have this blessed privilege of meeting this morning.
BE VIGILANT
UP then, and linger not, thou saint of God,
Fling from thy shoulders each impeding load;
Be brave and wise, shake off earth's soil and sin,
That with the Bridegroom thou mayst enter in.
O watch and pray!
[CR33a]
INTERNATIONAL
1908
BIBLE STUDENTS
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR33b]
HE THAT SCATTERETH INCREASETH
Is thy cruse of comfort failing?
Rise and share it with another,
And through all the years of famine
It shall serve thee and thy brother.
Love Divine will fill thy storehouse,
Or thy handful still renew;
Scanty fare for one will often
Make a royal feast for two.
For the heart grows rich in giving;
All its wealth is living grain;
Seeds which mildew in the garner,
Scattered, fill with gold the plain.
Is thy burden hard and heavy?
Do thy steps drag wearily?
Help to bear thy brother's burden;
God will bear both it and thee.
Numb and weary on the mountains,
Wouldst thou sleep amid the snow?
Chafe that frozen form beside thee,
And together both shall glow.
Art thou stricken in life's battle?
Many wounded round thee moan;
Lavish on their wounds thy balsams,
And that balm shall heal thine own.
Is thy heart a well left empty?
None but God its void can fill;
Nothing but a ceaseless Fountain
Can its ceaseless longings still.
Is thy heart a living power?
Self-entwined, its strength sinks low;
It can only live in loving,
And by serving love will grow.
[CR34]
Come Ye Apart
Text: "And Jesus said unto them, Come ye yourselves
apart into a desert place and rest awhile." Mark 6:31.
ON only two other occasions have I ever addressed larger audiences than the one now before me. One of these was in the city of Glasgow on the occasion of my last visit there, when it was estimated that 4,500 were present and over 1,000 turned away; but my audiences are usually mixed ones and never before have I had the extreme pleasure of addressing so large a concourse of people consecrated to God--Bible students. As the things of the world go this is a very astounding assemblage, because we have come together not for worldly pleasure or recreation, but in strict accordance with the words of our text we have turned aside from the busy scenes of daily life and strife to fellowship with the Lord and with each other--"to build one another up in the most holy faith"--to encourage one another, to lift up the hands that hang down and to strengthen the feeble knees and to bid those of fearful hearts to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. While we trust a physical refreshment will result from this turning aside we specially hope for spiritual refreshment and the rest of soul which began when first we found the Lord and which has been increasing ever since as we sought to know and to obey Him more fully.
We are trusting to His promise that He is both able and willing to cause "all things to work together for good to those that love Him"--to the called ones according to His purpose--we have come here with this confidence and I am sure that many of us already feel well repaid. Indeed, it is always so with those who have given their hearts fully, completely, to the Lord and who are seeking to know and to do His will. They can realize the Father's smiles and the gracious promises which are to be fulfilled in Christ Jesus, and with these as offsets to the trials and difficulties of life they are privileged in all conditions to rejoice--even in tribulations, for, as the Apostle says, "Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts." (Rom. 5:3-5.) Is it any wonder then, dear friends, that as I look into your faces and see them beaming with the heavenly light that I see joy divine? It is no wonder. The wonder, on the contrary, would be if any other condition should obtain. You, like myself, I am sure, have come hoping, praying that the Lord will pour out a blessing such as we shall not be able to contain--a blessing which will continue to increase and expand and which, when we return to our homes, will overflow on the dear children of God not privileged to be with us on this occasion.
Ways of Turning Aside.
We need to get the right standpoint of view. When the Lord used the words of our text in addressing His disciples He did not mean that they should turn aside from sin, for they had already done this, else they would not have been His disciples. So with us. It is not the thought that we have come hither for a brief season of religious worship and turnings aside from sin--from lying, cheating, short weights and measures, from filthiness of word and spirit, from malice, envy, strife, evil speakings and surmisings. No, thank God, we trust that all of us have learned the impropriety of such things long ago and that we left them behind when we accepted our Lord's invitation to follow Him as soldiers of the cross--followers of the Lamb.
Our turning aside to this beautiful wilderness for rest does not mean, to the majority of us, either a turning from self-will and its troubles and trials and conflicts to rest in the Lord by a fullness of consecration in our hearts to Him; so far as I am able to judge, dear friends, a considerable majority of us have already taken this step--have not only turned from sin and been accepted as children of God through the merits of Jesus, but also in addition have presented our minds, bodies, hearts and wills to the Lord, with the agreement that we will carry out this consecration faithfully through the remainder of life, seeking not our own wills, but the Lord's. Quite probably, however, some believers have come hither longing for the rest which our Lord promised to His true followers, saying, "Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy laden --take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart and ye shall find rest to your souls." We hope, indeed, that some of our number are in this attitude--seeking a closer walk with God and further divine light shining upon the road which leads men to the Lamb.
The Lord's promise to such is that He is willing that they should thus present themselves; and it is our hope, our confidence, that those seeking will find and that to those who are knocking the Lord will graciously open the way and that they may become His in fullest and completest sense and He theirs by the same covenant.
It is my pleasure this afternoon, dear friends, to know that I am addressing those who appreciate these words of the Apostle, "Ye know your calling, brethren." Ye know the object of the call--Ye know the method of the call-- Ye know the conditions of the call--Ye know how ye may make your calling and your election sure and how ye might fall and lose all the blessed things which God has promised to those who love him and who respond to the terms of this call. As the Apostle said, "I will put ye in remembrance of these things though ye know them and though ye be established in the present truth."
"The Hope of Your Calling."
I would, dear friends, that it were within my power to picture before your minds the glorious hope of our calling. The Apostle calls it a "high calling." and again, a "heavenly calling." The Apostle Peter speaks of this calling as consisting of "exceeding great and precious promises." He tells us that these are given to us that through the operation of our minds and hearts our course of life should be so changed from grace to grace, from knowledge to knowledge, from glory to glory, that eventually we might become partakers of the divine nature by participation in that great blessing promised. "The First Resurrection." (Rev. 20:5) It is because it is impossible for the tongue to describe this great honor and dignity that the Apostle declares, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him; but God hath revealed them unto us by His spirit, for the spirit searcheth all things, yes, the deep things of God."
Our calling consists of two parts, one belonging to the present life and the other to the future. What we have just been considering relates to the later, which we hope to enter upon in our resurrection "change." "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." In the end of this age, when the last member of the elect Church shall have been called and shall have responded fully and completely to the terms of the call in the present life and thereby have been prepared for the glory of the Kingdom and joint heirship with the Lord.
But the hope of our calling in the present life is the hope that we shall faithfully endure the trials and disciplines and tests which our heavenly Lord may see fit and proper to subject us to--that these trials and tests may not discourage us, may not sour and embitter us, may not make us hard-hearted, but, on the contrary, that they may ennoble us, sweeten our characters, broaden and deepen our hearts' affections toward others and that thus we may become copies of God's dear Son, our Lord Jesus. Ah! how valuable it is to us to have this knowledge respecting the hope of our calling in the present life and in its glorious outcome. How this knowledge and hope are an anchor to our souls, sure and steadfast, entering into that which is within the vail, preserving us from shipwreck, discouragement--from our own fears and from the adversary's allurements and threatenings.
Well may we, dear friends, as students of God's Word, [CR35] blessed by the glorious light that is now shining, well may we apply to ourselves the Master's words, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear;" and again, "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven," but to all outsiders these things are spoken in parables and dark sayings, that "hearing they might hear and not understand." Thank God that we are not any longer outsiders, that we have heard the Master's voice, that we have accepted the Lord's grace provided for us in our Redeemer's sacrifice. We have heard the invitation, "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."--Rom. 12:1.
We accepted the offer, gave our hearts entirely to the Lord and entered into the holy place--into the family of God--into the brotherhood of Christ--into prospective joint-heirship with the King of Glory as members of His Bride Class. It is because we have entered this first fruit of our inheritance in Christ that we have such holy joy and fellowship in turning aside to this beautiful place to refresh our hearts and minds and to strengthen and encourage one another as iron sharpens iron.
The Apostle's expression, "This one thing I do," implies: (1) That there was one all important thing which was worthy of his whole life, of his very best endeavors, and (2) That any division of his interests, a scattering of his powers would in some way be detrimental and a hindrance to the attainment of that one thing which he considered to be in every way paramount. In the context he tells us that he counted all other things but loss and dross in comparison to this one thing, this one pursuit, this one life-work. He intimates that he endeavored to forget anything and everything else that he ever knew lest his education and its exercise in any other direction should in any way distract his attention from this one all important matter. He said that he sought to forget the things that were behind and reaching forward to those things which were ahead as a great prize worthy of every effort and the failure to attain which would be an irretrievable loss. He does not state that the loss of this prize, this high, heavenly calling, would mean eternal torment. Oh, no! There is nothing of this kind in the Apostle's writing, for he said that he had not shunned to declare unto them the whole counsel of God. The doctrine of eternal torment is not the teaching of God, but on the contrary the doctrine of devils, and it came to us from the dark ages and through our forefathers, who were so grossly deluded that in burning one another at the stake they verily thought that they were doing God service. It was not something the Apostle was fleeing from, but striving for--the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.
"If We Suffer With Him."
Distance lends enchantment to the view. Looking back our Lord and the Apostles are applauded as wise, holy, self-sacrificing servants of God, yet to the people of their day they appeared fanatical extremists. Andrew, Peter, James and John were so infatuated with the Gospel of Jesus that they first of all had Him for their guest, let Him speak from their fishing boats and finally forsook all their boats, nets, fishing, etc., and sought to walk in His footsteps. They followed a man whom the learned D.D.'s of their day, the priests and Pharisees, all declared was a fraud and fanatic. His invitation to them was, "Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men." But when they found Jesus the world said of them that they were fools, lacking common sense, and that He was doubly responsible in that He encouraged "ignorant and unlearned men" to act after this insane fashion. Their folly was still more thoroughly demonstrated to the multitude when calamity overtook their leader, Messiah, when He was crucified. To the worldly-wise this justified all the expressions of folly, ignorance, etc., which had been hurled against them.
Saul of Tarsus was another extremist--of wealthy family, of liberal education, and of excellent social standing, because honored with the title and privileges of a Roman citizen. As soon as this man came into proper touch with the doctrines of the Nazarene, as soon as he was convinced of their truth and acted in accordance with his convictions to be a servant of Christ, that soon his name was cast out as evil until he himself said, "We are counted fools all day long;" that is to say by everyone and all the time; others said he was mad, mentally deranged--that no sane man would forsake good earthly prospects such as he enjoyed in order to serve the cause of a crucified one, in the hope that he would ultimately be with the crucified one in His Kingdom and share His glory.
Why should it be thought a strange thing if the worldly view of matters today has not changed on this subject? Why should we think it strange if our names should be cast out as evil and we should be counted fools for seeking to walk after the same course as Jesus and His Apostles? It was our Lord Himself who said that if we would be His disciples that it would be necessary to take up our cross and follow after Him and that we must expect no better treatment than He. If the religious people of His day called Him Beelzebub, what more can we expect at the hands of a similar class who are filled with a spirit of envy and are fearing the undermining of their cherished institutions? Our Lord declared "Whosoever will live godly in this present time will suffer persecution," evil-speaking, etc. Whoever is not prepared for this gives evidence that he has not been shod with the sandals of the preparation of the Gospel of Peace.
"Vocation or Avocation--Which?"
It is wholly a matter of standpoint as to which is wise and which is foolish--the world or the Lord and His faithful footstep followers. From the world's standpoint our position is a foolish one--it is unwise to exchange the advantages and privileges of the present life, which are real, actual, tangible, for a future life which is ours by faith only. From the world's standpoint it is unwise to exchange a certainty for an uncertainty, a possibility for a hope.
But now we take the other standpoint and with the eye of faith consider "the things which God has in reservation for those that love Him." It is wise for us to sacrifice every earthly interest to gain "this pearl of great price." From this standpoint of the Word it must seem foolish to be chasing after the things of this life, which bring little satisfaction even if gained--which are gained by a very few and which if gained are but transitory. Bunyon has well represented the worldly, self-seeking spirit, grasping for honor, of men, titles, earthly riches. He pictures these, we remember, by a man on the seashore with a rake laboriously accumulating a pile of seaweed, corks, etc., things of no value, while neglecting the things of great value, the kingdom for which Bunyon's Christian was seeking and running as in a race-course.
The question is one of vocation or avocation. The worldly thought is that religion is not to be despised, but that it is to be made a vocation only by those who are set apart as the clergy and that they follow it only on business lines of a justifying salary. The world claims that each well-balanced man or woman should have an earthly vocation or business that somehow would represent money, honor of men or social position, and that practically all of one's time and energy should go to this earthly project and that religion should at very most be an avocation or temporary employment-- for a passing hour or occasion. As, for instance, the world would commend and hear of religious worship once a week, as being wise, proper, profitable.
The Lord's consecrated people, on the contrary, take the opposite view, namely, that we should live for the future, for the eternal condition--the seeking of the things to come should be our real vocation and the things of the present time should be treated merely as matters of temporary necessity, as our avocation or temporary employment; just as with the Apostle Paul tent-making was an avocation or temporary business, while the preaching of the gospel was his vocation or temporary employment.
"Christian's Calling or Vocation."
The world, including the nominal church, fails to comprehend that the Church of Christ is a called out "little flock." As Jesus said, "Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." These are the called-out from the world; as our Lord declared, "Ye are not of the world, even as I am not. If ye were of the world the world would love its own, but because ye are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you." Our Lord tells us that we are called with a view to our ultimately receiving an inheritance with Him in His Kingdom, and that meantime [CR36] we are to be His representatives and ambassadors in the world. "Among whom ye shine as lights." He tells us "hereunto were ye called" that ye might receive the inheritance, but that our faithfulness in the present time under present adverse conditions and in contact with the world of mankind blinded by Satan will be tested and proved, that our loyalty to the Lord, to righteousness, may be fully demonstrated. "The Lord, your God, doth prove you whether you doth love the Lord your God with all your heart or not." Only believers are called to this vocation and it is optional with them whether those believers who accept the call and make a full consecration to the Lord receive the begetting of the holy spirit, called in the Scriptures "the anointing." This anointing is the special commission of the Christian calling--He is anointed to preach the good tidings, to bind up the broken-hearted with the gracious promises of the Lord's word. Our Lord Jesus is the Head, the First of this royal priesthood thus authorized and accepted. As soon as He received the anointing of the holy spirit at His baptism it was His commission to preach His good tidings. Similarly the anointing of the holy spirit is their vocation to begin their ministries of Christ, ambassadors of God. We read, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" --that during this Gospel Age God will accept such sacrifices as would come unto Him through Jesus, as would count their offerings "holy and acceptable."
"Bear a Song Away."
So then, dear friends, we have turned aside to this beautiful spot to rest just as Jesus and the apostles did in the olden times. We are still engaged in our vocation as special ministers, servants to the Truth--all of us--not only those who preach publicly but all who have been anointed to the holy spirit and who find exercise for their vocation in a more private way on the train, on the boat, at the fireside, in the shop or mill, in the parlor and dining-room, or wherever we may be our vocation is the proclaiming of the love of God and of the glorious facts that He is now selecting a "little flock" from among the redeemed world for the blessing of all mankind during the Millennial Age.
[CR36]
Funeral Sermon for General Stewart
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."
AS the esteemed George Washington held a
high place in public favor, in peace as well
as in war, so did our esteemed friend and
brother, Lieutenant General Alex. P. Stewart,
to whose remains we pay our tribute of
respect today. It is quite unnecessary for
me to point out to you his "footprints on the
sands of time" as a soldier who laid his all upon the altar
of patriotism in the cause espoused by his State. Suffice
it that I remind you that the soldiers under his command
gave him the sobriquet "Old Straight," because
of his recognized honesty of purpose, on account of which
they loved and respected him.
Neither need I remind you of how he put his high talents to good use as an Educator of the young--as Chancellor of two prominent colleges of the South. I do remind you, however, that these "footprints on the sands of time" took a very, a very different course from those of some of the great generals of the past; and that their trend is worthy of note and imitation in several respects from those who would make their lives sublime.
I will remind you also of the epigramatic eulogy, paid to the General by his fellow of the Chickamauga National Park Commission, when he styled him "First Gentleman of the Splendid South." And I ask you to remember that his gentlemanliness proceeded from the heart, because he was first of all a true Christian.
We sometimes quote that "Charity begins at home," and so, you will agree with me, all of our graces should begin under the home roof. And the fact that he was so deeply loved by his own family is to me one of the very best evidences that he strove to do his duty in his home.
But these matters are aside from my real topic. You desire that I shall tell you what I knew of General Stewart as a Christian, and what are our hopes for him. And this is your right and my privilege, for we are all agreed that to be a courageous general, a College President, a splendid gentleman or a faithful father, one or all would not mean of necessity to be a Christian in the deeper and truer sense of that word--a follower of Christ. This, then, shall be my theme--to demonstrate that the same courageous qualities and honesty that gave him the title "Old Straight" applied to him also as a Christian.
Many years ago he gave his all to his Creator and his Redeemer, and sought light upon the path of life in the Bible. His soul cried out as yours and mine have done, "Lead kindly light amid encircling gloom."
Of a generous heart, he loved his fellow-men, and while seeking their welfare was perplexed to know how the God of Love and Justice could have foreordained the eternal torture of all except the "Little flock" who hear of Christ in the present life and become "saints" or followers. Such a plan implied that its author was less just and less loving than his fellow creatures. The General could not assent to this. The God of his worship must be greater than he, and not his inferior. The "encircling gloom" attached itself to every doctrine which had been taught him from infancy. He could not see the consistency of an "elect" class when all the non-elect were to be tortured. He could not see much "free grace" in what is popularly so called--a "free grace" in name only, since faith is a prerequisite to salvation, and the vast majority of our race die without the faintest knowledge of "the only name given whereby we must be saved."
Another subject that troubled him was the doctrine of baptism--that only the baptized were freed from sin, and only they could be of the "elect" Church. The immersion idea was still more troublesome, because still fewer of mankind have been immersed. The "encircling gloom" deepened the more he investigated, and so much the more he prayed, "Lead kindly Light."
Finally his prayer was heard. All of his difficulties vanished, he saw the Bible in a new light, and beheld by its aid a Creator worthy to be worshiped,--a God of Wisdom, Justice, Love and Power. To this One whom he had long sought to know, the General bowed his heart and consecrated his every talent, and in this blessed faith and hope he died.
I believe, dear friends of his, that I shall fulfil the desire of his heart if I tell you briefly of the Bible interpretation which made the last ten years of General Stewart's life the happiest and holiest of his experience. I will explain to you his hope for himself and all the "elect," and his different hope for the non-elect.
The key to his blessing came through the discernment that the word "hell" has been misinterpreted--that "sheol" of the Old Testament, and "hades" of the New Testament never signify a place of fire and torture, but really the tomb,--that indeed the same words are more frequently rendered "grave." At the same time, his attention was drawn to the fact that God pronounced a [CR37] death sentence, and not an eternal torment sentence, upon father Adam. "In the day that thou eatest (the forbidden fruit) thou shalt surely die."
These items of truth brought him great relief of heart, but still left some "encircling gloom." But shortly the Lord let him see that the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ paid the penalty of death for father Adam, and thus redeemed Adam and his race which shared his condemnation. Next came the Bible testimony that as all die by reason of Adam's condemnation, even so all are to be made alive, given an opportunity of everlasting life through Christ. This threw a flood of light upon St. Peter's declaration that "times of refreshing" are coming, and "restitution of all things." He could see that restitution is just what humanity needs;--an uplift out of sin, out of imperfection, a helping hand back to the original image of God in which Adam was created, but from which all of his race have sadly fallen. As he continued his search and prayer for the Truth, through the leading of the Kindly Light his blessing continued, and he saw that the Bible taught two salvations. One of these, for mankind in general, a restoration to perfect manhood with the whole earth his Paradise restored, waits for the second coming of Christ and his Millennial Kingdom, for which all Christians have so long prayed in the Redeemer's words, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, even as in heaven."
The other salvation is of this Gospel Age--since Pentecost --and includes all of the "elect," "even as many as the Lord shall call," who by faithfulness will "make their calling and election sure." Those who attain to this salvation are the "elect," who must now "walk by faith and not by sight" and in the "narrow way." These are to experience the "First Resurrection" "to the divine nature," and its "glory, honor and immortality."
General Stewart's strong nature laid hold of God's great promises and his faith took fresh root and bore an increase of love, joy and peace. His native courage and honesty helped him to take a firm stand for the true Gospel, of which the Apostle says,--"I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." The General knew that he once had been ashamed of the creeds of the dark ages and its "encircling gloom," and he now would confess the Gospel of which he needed not to be ashamed.
Further, I should remark that as he studied the Bible he perceived that not merely the living nations will be blest during the Millenium, but also the dead. Amongst the precious promises to the latter were our Lord's words, "Marvel not, the hour is coming in the which all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and come forth." All will come forth to share in the glorious blessings of that glad time, but not to compulsory salvation--eternal life will not be forced upon any--and all who will not avail themselves of those precious privileges will be utterly destroyed in the "Second Death."--Acts 3:23.
Dear friends, let us note General Stewart's "footprints on the sands of time," particularly their trend toward Christ and the Truth and the Kingdom. I trust that he won in the election--that he "made his calling and election sure," and will hear the Master's Well Done!-- that he fought a good fight and finished his course and received the crown of glory and that he will shortly be with the Lord in glory, blessing the world. We, who have heard the same message, shall we not lay aside every weight and every besetting sin, and run faithfully for that great prize--the Kingdom?--Gal. 3:29.
[CR37]
The General Assembly
"But ye are come unto Mt. Zion, and unto the city of the living God, that heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly of the first-borns, which are written in heaven." I AM sure, dear friends, that this glorious convention, which has drawn our hearts so near to the Lord and to all that are His has suggested to many of our minds the words of the apostle in our text. As the various speakers have directed our attention to one feature and another of the glorious things which God hath in reservation for them that love him we have in imagination to some extent been caught away and given glimpses of the glorious things which God hath in reservation for them that love Him supremely. Not only have we been pointed to the rich blessings prepared for the Church in heavenly glory beyond the vail, but we have also been reminded of the restitution blessings which then will follow for the uplift of the human family in general. At times we have almost forgotten the great blessings that are to be our portion in things of the glorious "times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began," which the apostle assures us are to be ushered in at the second coming of our Lord Jesus, and following the glorification of the elect Church in kingdom power. Our hopes have swelled with sympathy as we thought of the boundlessness of the heavenly Father's arrangements and his provisions, not only for us who now see and heed and enter into the joys of our Lord by faith and by and by in reality, but also for the good things He has in store for those who know Him not, hear not His voice and see not His glorious character and purposes. How glad we are that He will not leave them under the darkening, benighting, blinding influences of the adversary forever, but has promised, through the prophet, saying, "All the blind eyes shall be opened and all the deaf ears shall be unstopped--and unto Him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess to the honor of our God." As you have connected up into harmonious whole the various able presentations to which you have listened you have recognized them as all fitting and dove-tailing together with a harmonious oneness which could belong only to the truth, and with a grandeur and beauty which could come only from a divine arrangement, which quite discounts, overshadows and makes mean in comparison all the creeds and tradition which were handed down to us from the dark ages-- which were slanders against our God and blasphemies of the Holy Name. As you have listened to these you have perceived that the very center of the divine program of salvation was Jesus Christ our Lord and the work which He accomplished during the three and a half years of His ministry and which terminated at the cross in harmony with His words, "It is finished." You have seen clearly that according to the Scriptures the second step in this divine program for the world's salvation began with the Pentecostal blessing, which recognized and sealed with the holy spirit as new creatures in Christ all of the consecrated believers of that time, and that the same process of spirit-begetting and sealing has progressed throughout this gospel age and is shortly to be finished when the last member of the "very elect" shall have finished his trial acceptably and the entire church of Christ shall have passed beyond the vail by the power of the "first resurrection." We have seen that this glorious consummation is nigh, even at the door. Our hearts rejoice that in this second part of the divine plan the very elect have been privileged to suffer with Christ, to lay down their lives in His service, in the service of the truth and for one another, and that so doing joyfully in the spirit of Christ these elect ones [CR38] will be accounted of God worthy to be sharers of the Redeemer's glory and divine nature and millennial kingdom work, and that Scripturally they are given names which signify these glorious associations--that they are called the "body of Christ" and "members in particular of the "body of Christ" and "the bride, the lamb's wife" and "His brethren." We have seen that not until after this work of gathering the elect and proving them and testing them through "fiery trials" will they be ready for the Lord's service and His kingdom class to rule, to instruct and to uplift humanity in the age to come.
We are learning more and more to appreciate the force of our Master's words, "Through much tribulation shall ye enter the kingdom." Nevertheless, more and more we are counting it all joy, as the Apostle suggests, to be accounted worthy to suffer with Him, with our Master, to be accounted fools for Christ's sake, to be disowned and disesteemed of the world for the Truth's sake, since this is the Father's Will and the tests which he imposed as a demonstration of our loyalty to Him. I trust that we have considered these things during the nine days of our convention--that so far from being disposed to draw back your hearts with mine have repeated the words of our Master and Exemplar, "I delight to do thy Will, O Lord. Thy law is written in my heart."
Church of the First-Borns.
Let us for the moment revel in the green pastures of our text and refresh ourselves with the still waters of its divine assurance. The Lord shall be our shepherd and through the Apostle lead us as a sheep. In our minds we have gone beyond the vail, the trials and triumphs of the present narrow way are past, the general assembly of Convention of the Church of First-Borns has commenced. First among those whom we shall notice will be "The Lamb that was slain," our precious Lord Jesus who left the heavenly glory and endured and suffered and died, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God-- to open up for us and to all mankind the way of life, the way of righteousness to divine favor and blessings. First of all we will be glad to do Him homage and to acknowledge that all of God's blessings and favors have reached us through Him, our Redeemer, our Friend, our Advocate, and now our heavenly Bridegroom, most precious of all relationships--our Lord. That will, indeed, be a gala day when the betrothed Church shall be united, wedded to her Savior. If it was a glorious privilege to be "betrothed to one husband, even Christ," and to have his provided care and assistance in making ready for the marriage, how grandly will that moment be when we shall be made one with the Lord and like Him and sharers of His glory and immortality.
Next, doubtless, we must become acquainted with all the dear members of "The Bride," "The Body." First, our hearts will instinctively seek for those honored agents of the Lord, the Apostles, and as we greet them we will be made to clearly understand and appreciate fully the sacrifices which they made in the service of the Lord, the Truth, the brethren, and how the Lord delights to honor them because of their faithfulness. As we will be introduced to one and another of the Lord's faithful saints we will be sure to love them all, because "he that loveth Him that begat must love also him that is begotten." The same glorious qualities of character which bind us to the Heavenly Father in appreciation will fix our hearts and loves upon all the members of that glorious, elect, glorified ecclesia, the Body of Christ, because of their Christ-likeness above. That they will all have this glorified character likeness to the Redeemer is the assurance of God's word, for the Apostle declares that God has predestinated that those who shall be joint-heirs of Christ in His Kingdom must all be copies of His dear Son. "For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." (Rom. 8:29.)
"As star differs from star in glory," writes the Apostle, "so shall those be who share in that First Resurrection" and its divine nature and kingdom honors. But every one of them will be stars, bright ones, because every one of them will be conquerors; yea, more than conquerors through Him that loved us and bought us. Among the most resplendent perhaps we may find some of whom we had expected less and among the less resplendent possibly some of whom we had expected more. But all will be satisfied--the cup of blessing to each one will be full and all will have the Lord's favor and love and all will be satisfied with His rewards and recognize that He is too wise and true to err. The lesson is that God looketh at the heart and takes into consideration in His judgment all the environments and conditions in a manner and degree that to us are impossible. As we realize the force of this it should make us very generous in our thoughts and conduct toward all. "To his own master each servant stands or falls." It is ours not to judge, but to help the brethren by word, by example, every way. Among all the hosts none will shine so resplendently as this glorified Ecclesia, this honored "Body of Christ." The glory of the holy angels will be that they have never sinned and high indeed in honor will they thus be marked, but the glory of the Church, the Bride of Christ, will be that having been born in sin and shapen in iniquity and redeemed with the precious blood and called with the heavenly calling they responded; so gladly, so willingly, so joyfully walking in their Redeemer's footsteps that they were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake, for the truth's sake, for the brethren's sake, and, assisted by the holy spirit of their Master were enabled to lay down their lives for the brethren and for the truth. For this cause they will be acclaimed "Conquerors, yea, more than conquerors through Him who loved them and bought them with His precious blood." In these will be exemplified the length and breadth and heighth and depth of divine justice and love. Under justice they shared the general sentiments of death; under divine love they were lifted from the horrible pit and mirey clay of sin and death condition and highly exalted to their Redeemer. "Far above angels and principalities and every name that is named."
Before our presentation in the august presence of our Creator, the Heavenly Father, we will be made acquainted with what the apostle in our text describes as "An innumerable company of angels." The mutual joys of this acquaintance can be better imagined than described. Gabriel will be there--he who has been described in the Scriptures as one of the chiefest of the angels and to whom is accorded the honor of our dear Redeemer's earthly begetting of the spirit to His mother Mary. With the perfect power we will then possess we will soon know all that innumerable company and be known of all. "Now we know in part; then we shall know even as we are known." "Now we see as through an obscured glass (by faith); then we shall see face to face." 1 Cor. 13:12. What a joyful acquaintance, how wonderful to think that there will be not a mar, not a blemish, not an imperfection of thought or word or act to mar the bliss of the occasion! By and by we shall learn which of the angels specially served us during our pilgrim journey toward the kingdom condition. We remember the declaration of the words respecting the angels, "Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation?" We remember the Master's words respecting His faithful little ones, saying, "Their angels do always have access to the Father." With what pleasure we shall become acquainted with the holy ones whose mission it is in the divine providence to attend us in our pilgrim way. It will be fortunate for us if, when we meet these blessed ones and greet and thank them for their heavenly ministries, we shall have no blush of shame for things done or said or thought in their invisible presence with us in our earthly journey. They will recount to us various scenes and incidents in our experiences which we have been able only imperfectly to understand. They will show us how, as the Lord's providential agents, they shielded us and assisted us from time to time according to the divine promises to help in every time of need. With the information thus supplied to us we shall be fully informed respecting all the obscure places in life's experiences and be enabled to rejoice more than ever in the divine love and care which not only bought us and sought us, but shielded us and helped us on to God in the glorious [CR39] things of His provision in Christ. Finally the gala day of all will come when we shall be ushered into the presence of the great King Eternal, the "God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," and we shall see His face and join with the angels and cherubim and seraphim in chanting "Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God Almighty; the whole earth shall be filled with Thy glory!"
Approximately the Scriptures tell us that our heavenly Lord himself will introduce us to the Father; and oh, what holy joy is in the assurance that He shall "Present us faultless." (Jude 24.) Faultful we were by reason of the fall and, having been born in sin and shapen in iniquity, through Christ redeemed and the various operations of His word and spirit and the various agencies and our own cooperation we have experienced a purifying influence in our hearts and gradually been changed from glory to glory until finally the climacteric change of the First Resurrection makes us faultless by His grace. As the Apostle explains, "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body," like unto our Lord and to be forever with Him, His body. This glorious presentation to the Father is in the Scriptures termed the marriage feast--the nuptial feast--a feast of joy, of exhilaration, of blessing such as has never been known on earth, nor even in heaven before.
"Clothing of Wrought Gold."
In one of the Psalms (14.) a prophetically symbolical picture is given us of the presentation of the church as the bride of Christ before the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, "the Only Wise God." Here the bride of Christ is styled "the King's daughter." She is described as "all glorious within," as arrayed in the most glorious garments of fine needlework and gold. Hers will not be merely a glory of office and honor, but an inherent glory, an eternal glory, as well. This description may well be understood to refer to the immortality of the church, by which she participates in the divine nature. The gold raiment in a figure represents the same thought, since gold is a symbol of the divine. What a wonderful honor and glory is thus pictured as belonging to the bride, the lamb's wife! Who that clearly sees this calling to divine favor and blessing and service, present and future, could hesitate to pay the price--to consecrate and lay down the present life and all that it includes--realizing that such a sacrifice is small and unworthy of divine acceptance, except as made worthy by the merits of our Redeemer, to whom we are betrothed and to whom we shall be united as bride. "He is faithful that called us and He will also do all that He has promised and exceedingly more than we could ask or think." No wonder the Lord, through the prophet, says to His espoused church, "Hearken, O daughter, and consider and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people and thy father's house" (the world). "So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty, for He is the Lord and worship thou Him."
If the espoused virgin, the Church, could but clearly keep before her mind in the present life the glorious things which God hath in reservation for those that love Him and who demonstrate their love, how gladly she would count all else loss and dross in comparison to the love of the Lord; how she would rejoice to share in His sacrifice and to "Fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the Church." (Col. 1:24.) Incidentally let us remember that there is another company of the Lord's people who will come off conquerors and share in that blessed scene and joy unspeakable. These are referred to in the Scriptures as ultimately conquerors, but not of the "little flock"--"not more than conquerors." These, much more numerous than the "little flock," likewise made a consecration of all to the Lord and they loved righteousness and hated iniquity, but not with a sufficiency of receiving the highness of honor and divine favor. While the "little flock" suffered with Christ and through great tribulation entered the Kingdom, this great company, we are told, will suffer great tribulation, yet not enter the Kingdom class, because not found worthy. Pictures of these are given us in Revelation, where the "little flock," the one hundred and forty-four thousand, are represented as being with the Lord and His joint-heirs and sitting with Him in His Throne and having crowns; but the great company not found worthy of this high distinction are nevertheless to have great blessing and through their unwilling sufferings they shall be prepared for future blessings and honor. Of these we are told, "They shall serve God in His Temple," and again that though not granted crowns they shall have palms of victory; although not counted worthy to sit with the King they shall stand before the Throne as servants of the King. The Scriptures show that these, after washing their robes in the blood of the Lamb, through great tribulation will be permitted to come with the Bride to her nuptial feast and to them the message is sent, "Blessed is he that is invited to the marriage supper." Their entrance to the marriage supper is pictured in the same Psalm that represents the Bride, the King's daughter, the Lamb's Wife, arrayed in glorious garments, in clothing of gold. Thus we read, "The virgins, her companions, that follow her shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought; they shall enter into the King's palace."--Psalm 45:13-15.
"Refuse Not Him That Speaketh."
But now we must come back and remember that the glorious things we have been seeing are still prophetical, still future. For more than eighteen centuries the Church has been coming--approaching--those glorious consummations at which we have been looking, and undoubtedly, as the Apostle suggests, "They are now nearer than when we first believed." But we are still on this side the vail, still approaching, still being fitted for the glorious consummation "change" of the First Resurrection. And in this connection the Apostle speaks of our Lord Jesus and how He will then be the Mediator of the New Covenant between God and mankind in general--in the sealing of which Covenant He invites us to share. All the value of the world's redemption and the basis of its future reconciliation under its New Covenant lie in the precious sacrifice of Jesus finished at Calvary, but in inviting us, in calling us, in speaking to us, He has suggested that we may cast in our lot with Him--with Him become dead to earthly interests and share with Him in the future glories. He proposes to accept us as members of His Body and our burial in death as a part of His own--with which He will ultimately seal His own. Thus the value of His death, which will ultimately speak forgiveness to the world and full cancellation of sin already by faith, speaks these blessings to us who now believe.
We conclude, dear friends, by urging in the Apostle's words, "See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." The world in general cannot refuse because they hear not the message and the call. He will speak to them by and by as the Great King. During this age He is speaking only to those who have the hearing ear and inviting them to joint heirship with himself and directing them to the fact that He has opened up the way by which their sacrifices may be acceptable to God as a part of his, if offered during this "acceptable time," as a sacrifice. He has spoken to us, telling us of the Father's love, saying, "The Father himself loveth you." He has told us of His own love and care of all who come unto Him, drawn by the Father. His message is that "He is able and willing to keep all whom He has committed to His care," that He will give us all the assistance necessary for us to make our calling and election sure, and if we fail it will be our own fault, because He is able to "make all things work together for good to them who have been called according to His purpose," and whom He purposes to share with Christ in the divine nature and heavenly glory.
Blessed are your ears, for they have heard the voice of the Son of Man. Already it has brought us the newness of life. Already, figuratively, we who were dead have become alive and new creatures and if we continue to hear and to be directed by the message all the Divine purpose shall be accomplished in us and all and much more than we have been considering this afternoon will be our blessed portion. In view of these things, dear friends, what heed should we give to every word of God, to every feature of the Divine message. There are many voices calling us in various directions and presenting various hopes and prizes, but if we have caught a glimpse of the one pearl of great price let us indeed give all that we have, life and time, to secure that pearl. This glorious convention rapidly drawing to a close is but a foretaste of the superlatively grand one referred to in our text. If it gives us so much pleasure to discuss together the glories to come, seen only with the eye of faith, what will it be by and by in the convention which will never break up, where there will be no partings? As we go to our homes let us carry with us and distribute to others the inspiring thought of the General Assembly, the General Convention of the Church of First-Borns. And we may add to that the glad thought that the very name First-Borns as applied to the elect Church of this age implies "after-borns" in God's family in the age to come--the Millennium. As the Apostle says, "We are a kind of first fruits unto God of His creatures." How blessed the thought that the sin-blinded and deaf and spiritually dead shall yet see and hear the voice of the Son of Man and that they that hear shall live as after-borns and later fruits unto God. Let us ever keep before our minds the thought of the special favor of the "change" of nature to glory, honor and immortality, which the Lord has promised to the first-borns. Let this thought, according to the Divine design, energize us so that we may make our calling and election sure.
TELL ME ABOUT THE MASTER
TELL me about the Master!
I am weary and worn tonight;
The day lies behind me in shadow,
And only the evening is light!
Light with a radiant glory
That lingers about the west.
My poor heart is weary, aweary,
And longs, like a child, for rest.
Tell me about the Master!
Of the hills He in loneliness trod,
When the tears and blood of His anguish,
Dropped down on Judea's sod.
For to me life's seventy mile-stones
But a sorrowful journey mark;
Rough lies the hill country before me,
The mountains behind me are dark.
Tell me about the Master!
Of the wrongs He freely forgave;
Of His love and tender compassion,
Of His love that is mighty to save;
For my heart is aweary, aweary,
Of the woes and temptations of life,
Of the error that stalks in the noonday,
Of falsehood and malice and strife.
Yet I know that whatever of sorrow
Or pain or temptation befall,
The infinite Master hath suffered,
And knoweth and pitieth all.
So tell me the sweet old story,
That falls on each wound like a balm,
And my heart that is bruised and broken
Shall grow patient and strong and calm.
[CR39a]
INTERNATIONAL
1909
BIBLE STUDENTS
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR40]
Wisdom
THIS text was based upon that passage which says that, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom." He showed that instead of the word "fear," "reverence" was the proper thought, that from the divine standpoint, reverence is the beginning of wisdom. We must have reverence to begin with, and it must also be the middle and end of wisdom--it must be reverence all the time. Our reverence takes on greater heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths. He who does not find his reverence for the Lord increasing is not receiving the grace of the Lord in the proper manner.
The scriptures tell us that God is not choosing the great things, but rather the mean things of this world. From the scriptural standpoint, we have nothing of ourselves to be flattered over. So taking our wisdom from the Bible standpoint, the Lord's people are a pretty hard class to begin with, and we must, therefore, have a good deal of humility to begin with, ready to accept the Lord's way instead of our own way. For instance, and properly enough, we would like to think as well as possible of ourselves, but when men learn that God will have all men come to Him on the same level, they say, No, I am not a sinner in the same sense of the word that they are sinners. Many are therefore staying away from God and refusing to come to God as sinners, but they are willing to come on a little different plane. They say, These others need salvation, and I hope they will get it, but I was better born. They say, I don't ask any mercy from God, I want strict justice, and I will take the penalty. Such are not in the attitude of mind in which they will receive anything from the Lord. But the Lord knows how to deal with such people. They are not saintly people, but some are noble minded, honest, and good intentioned people. God will have a way of dealing with them. He will show them what they need, and the ONE way of getting that need supplied, and that His way is, through Christ, and every member of the race will need a share in the merit of the great Redeemer; because there is no other name given.
The Road by Which We Came to God.
First, we had this reverence for God; something within us told us that we were not perfect--we had a desire to have fellowship or communion with God, a desire to know God. Even when deceived as to His character, we were still feeling after Him. He was very near to them, but there was something before their eyes which blinded them. 2 Cor. 4:4. False doctrine, darkness for light, and light for darkness, so that the creature feeling after God did not find Him. The scriptures inform us that God will have all the blind eyes opened and all the deaf ears unstopped, and we say, How righteous, how just, how like our heavenly Father! But we have not yet come to the time when God will be pleased to open all the blind eyes; that time belongs to the future. God is now gathering out the Bride class, the Lamb's Wife, a special class. In another picture, they are spoken of as the members of His Body, members in particular.
Now the thought before our minds is, what is it that is leading and drawing us? How was it that His message had power over us and did not reach others? Applying to the scriptures, we find that "No man cometh to the Father except the Son draw him." and then we find another scripture which says that none can come to the Son except the Father draw him; he must be drawn first before he can come to Jesus, and then they must come to Jesus before they can have access to the Father. I am supposing that God implanted in father Adam a quality of heart and mind, as represented in phrenology, as the organ of veneration, that he should have reverence for his creator. But the fall, mentally, morally and physically, has disarranged us to such an extent, that no two of our heads are just alike. I am glad that I was born with an organ of reverence, and probably you all have some--very few who do not have it would want to come to the Father. These seek to reverence or know the true God, and wherever there are such, God is willing to lend them a helping hand, and to guide them to the acceptable one, Jesus Christ the Righteous, our Guide, Savior, Pattern, and Teacher, as well as Redeemer. When we first began to feel after God, we had some reverence, and we realized that He would direct us as to what we ought to do. That led us to feel after God, whether through reading a tract or sermon, or what, it led us to realize and understand that God had provided Christ as the way whereby we might have life, and then it was our reverence toward God that led us to come to Him, to see how we might please Him. And then, still further, it was our reverence for God that led us to present ourselves living sacrifices. Our reverence for the Lord increased every step of the way, and it continues all the while, otherwise we would fall from our position. If you lose your reverence, you will let go the whole thing. The proper lesson for you, and for me, and for all who are following the Lord, is to have more reverence for Him. Therefore we will want to develop the fruits of the Spirit, so as to be more pleasing to Him. If we have the proper reverence for God we will want to copy Him, and if we lose our appreciation of the copy we will not want to follow it. If we try to copy ourselves, we will lose our reverence for the Lord; also if you try to copy brother so and so, or sister so and so. What would be wrong about that? It would imply that you had lost your reverence for your copy and had found another copy. I do not want any to be followers of Brother Russell. We all want to be followers of the Lord, as dear children of God, and we want to walk in love, in harmony with His character. Whoever loses his reverence for God will go off in some side-issue, no matter how it comes about. The more you think over it, the more will you agree with me. The fear or reverence of man brings a snare.
We have come now, dear friends, to the end of the harvest time of special testing, etc., and the Lord thy God doth prove you. What is He trying to find out? Is He proving you to try to find out if your flesh is perfect? No, He knew that a long time ago; but He is proving you as a New Creature, and as we get nearer to the end of the harvest, we may expect these tests to be more numerous. The Lord [CR41] then proves you to see if you love Him with all your heart, mind, soul and strength--that is what He is trying to find out. We can thank God that we have found out that we are not as good as we thought. I know who shall stand, and I want to tell you, but I will not give the names, because I can't. Those who will be able to stand are those who love the Lord their God supremely, with all their hearts, soul, mind, and strength,--those who have no other will. He wants those who can trust Him where they can and cannot trace Him.
Various Instruments.
He uses various instruments--the Apostles of old, and the teachers of today, but all the while the Lord is reckoning you as being down at the hundred per cent mark, in your mind and intention, even though by His grace He has made up to you sixty, fifty, forty, thirty, twenty or ten per cent. The Word becomes clearer and clearer to them, and they are able to develop more and more of the character likeness of the Lord. Their reverence for the Lord will determine the cut of the jewel, etc. I do not know what the tests will be, but whatever they are they will prove our loyalty to the Lord.
In the 12th of 1st Corinthians we have the relationship of the members of the body shown, and in the natural body if one member is injured or not as perfect as the others, it is covered up and cared for, rather than exposing the weakness that may be there. We ought to be glad to do for those who are weakest in the body of Christ. Therefore, let us "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the Law of Christ."
[CR41]
The Times of the Gentiles
Text: "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." (Luke 21:24.) HIS discourse was in substance as follows: As the city of Babylon represented the Empire of Babylon, so the city of Jerusalem represented the Jewish nation. The Scriptures refer to the fact that centuries before our Lord's day the Jewish Kingdom had been overthrown--had passed to the control of the Gentiles--and in our text our Lord declares that this subserviency would continue until certain times of the Gentiles, certain years or periods of their control, would pass away. When we read that certain times will be fulfilled, we are justified in thinking that these times have been foretold. And in looking for the statement of the matter in Holy Writ, we notice the facts of the case as follows:
God established the Jewish nation as His representative nation, or Kingdom, in the world, with the understanding that in some manner and at some time that nation would be the channel of divine blessings to all the families of the earth, in harmony with the original Oath-Bound Promise made to Abraham. After a precarious existence of nearly six hundred years, the star of Jewish Empire set, and it has not re-arisen since. The particular date at which the Typical Kingdom passed away is clearly marked in the Scriptures. The solidarity of the Empire in the hands of King David, and his son, King Solomon, was lost in its division in the days of Solomon's successor. Nevertheless, in harmony with the Divine prediction, the royal line continued in the tribe of Judah: as it is written, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come." (Genesis 49:10.)
Of the last king of Judah, Zedekiah, the Divine declaration was, "And thou, profane and wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come when iniquity shall have an end, Thus saith the Lord God, Remove the diadem, and take off the crown; this shall not be the same...I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him." (Ezekiel 21:25-27.) That statement was made just prior to Israel's captivity to Babylon, B.C. 606. And the crown and sceptre have been overturned since then, and will continue so to be until Messiah himself, at his second advent, shall take the throne as the Antitypical Son of David.
The Interim of Time.
The interim of time between the overthrow of the crown in the days of Zedekiah and the establishment again of the crown in Messiah's Kingdom at his second advent is Scripturally termed the "Times of the Gentiles"--that is to say, the years of the Gentiles; the years in which the Gentiles would bear rule over Israel and all the earth; the period in which God would have no representative nation in the world, Some may inquire: Were not the Israelites restored from the Babylonian captivity? Yes, we answer, but they did not receive back the Kingdom; they were thereafter subject to the great dominant kingdoms of the world. First they were subject to the Medo-Persian Empire, whose Emperor, Cyrus, restored them to their own land as a subject-nation. Subsequently they were subject to the Grecian nation. And in the time of our Lord they were still a subject-nation to Rome. Pilate represented the Roman government, and so did Herod, the King of Galilee. Anyway, the Herods were not Israelites, but Edomites.
While it is true that an outward form of Jewish Kingdom was maintained subject to the Roman Emperors for a time, the last vestige of this authority passed away with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army in A.D. 70, and the Jews have never been able to re-establish themselves in their own land up to the present time. Now, in harmony with the Scriptures which foretell Israel's restoration to Palestine, and their re-establishment as the earthly representatives of God's Kingdom, the Zionist movement is coming forth with good hopes of soon effecting a Jewish sub-Kingdom. We may be sure, however, that the declaration of our text will come true to the very letter--"Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled"--or, filled full.
Let us look backward and note what the Scriptures declare respecting earthly empires and the period of their domination. If possible, let us ascertain when the Gentile times began, and when they will end, giving place to the Kingdom of Messiah, the spiritual Kingdom, the Church glorified, whose work will be the ruling of the earth, the blessing of all nations, and the uplifting of the human family out of sin and death conditions to all that was lost through Adam's disobedience, to all that was redeemed through the obedience of Christ Jesus.
The Scriptures very particularly draw to our attention King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Very carefully does the Prophet explain that Nebuchadnezzar had a vision of deep interest to him, but the particulars of which he could not recall. He demanded of the wise men of the Empire a statement of the dream, as well as an explanation, arguing that if they had any supernatural power by which they could explain a dream, the same power could rehearse it. Then it was that Daniel, the Prophet, was brought to the notice of the King, and by Divine power not only rehearsed the dream but explained it--a dream of much more interest to all Christians than it possibly could have been to Nebuchadnezzar himself.
Many of this audience doubtless recall the dream and its interpretation, yet we will briefly rehearse it. In his dream Nebuchadnezzar saw a great image of wonderful height and grandeur; its head was of gold, its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of brass, its legs of iron, and its feet of iron mixed with clay. While it stood [CR42] erect, a stone was taken from the mountain and hurled at the image, striking it on the feet. Forthwith the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver and the gold were crushed to powder and became as the chaff of a summer's threshing floor, and the wind carried them away. By Divine illumination, Daniel, the Prophet, explained the vision thus: The head represented Nebuchadnezzar's own universal Empire, Babylon. The breast and arms of silver represented the kingdom which would succeed his as a universal empire; namely, the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. Upon the fall of Medo-Persia, the Grecian Empire would become universal, to be succeeded in turn by the Roman Empire, whose great strength was symbolized by the iron. This is the Empire which ruled the world in the days of our Lord. Thus we read that our Lord was born at Bethlehem, whither Joseph and Mary had gone at the command of Caesar-Augustus, the Roman Emperor, who sent forth a decree that all the world should be taxed. The civil Roman Empire lasted for several centuries after Christ, and was followed by the ecclesiastical Roman Empire, of which the popes at Rome were the representative heads. This Empire, partly civil and partly ecclesiastical, was represented by the mixture of the iron, representing civil power, and the clay, representing papal religious power; and this phase of Daniel's image still exists in the kingdoms of Europe as represented in the ten toes of the image which stand for the divisions of the territory of the old Roman Empire in Europe.
Daniel's View of the Matter.
When God subsequently gave his servant, the Prophet Daniel, a vision of these same Gentile governments that would bear universal sway over the earth from the time of the removal of the diadem from Zedekiah until the establishment of Messiah's Millennial Kingdom, the picture was a different one. Instead of a glorious image of towering height and splendor, Daniel saw four great, terrible wild beasts. The first, like a lion, corresponded to the head of gold of the image--representing Babylon. The second, like a bear, corresponded to the breast and arms of silver in the image, and represented Medo-Persia. The third, like a leopard, corresponded to the brass of the image, and represented Grecia. The fourth beast, great and terrible, found nothing in the animal kingdom to represent it. It corresponded to the legs of iron, which represented the Roman Empire; while the ten horns of the latter beast corresponded to the ten toes of the image, representing papal Rome and the present subdivisions of imperial Europe. The difference between these two visions represents how differently present institutions, the kingdoms of this world, are viewed from the human standpoint and from the divine standpoint. From the worldly standpoint and estimation, the kingdoms of the past have been majestic, grand; from the standpoint of God, and those who have His Spirit, they have been beastly.
The sequel to both of these dreams showed the overthrow of the earthly governments by the heavenly government. As it is written, "In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a Kingdom, and it shall break in pieces and consume all of these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." The Kingdom of God was pictured in the stone which smote the image on its feet. That stone prefigured Christ and the Church, and shows that it will be the power of God through the Church that will ultimately work the wreck of all earthly governments. Do not misunderstand me; nothing in the Word of God teaches anarchy, or authorizes God's people to fight with carnal weapons; rather they are exhorted to seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and to leave all else to the Lord, assured of His willingness to make all things work together for their good.
As Christ in the flesh lifted neither hand nor tongue to smite the earthly Empire, nor opposed Caesar and his representative, Pilate, so his followers are to raise no opposition to the powers that be, but are strictly enjoined to "be subject to them."
The Image.
What is going to happen to the Image? Oh, that is another part of the dream. You remember Daniel said, I had dreams and visions, and saw a stone cut out of the mountains without hands, and it smote the image on the feet, etc. It did not smite it on the head, for that would have been Babylon. But it struck it in the feet, down in the very last part. What was the result? The whole image was ground to powder and the wind carried it away, and the stone became great and filled the whole earth. The explanation is that that kingdom represented by the stone is God's kingdom, the very one we have waited for, and the very one that was taken away typically from Zedekiah--the real one is the one Christ will have.
Well, Brother Russell, does that mean that we are to knock the other governments to pieces? Oh, no. Our warfare is not with carnal weapons. Our Lord is the one that will knock them to pieces. We are glad the time is coming when God's favor shall return to the Jews, when He will bless all the world through the Jews, and you and I are glad that now, during this Gospel Age, God is taking us out of the world as representatives of that stone kingdom. (Lu. 12:32.) He called some who were Jews at the beginning of the Gospel Age, as we have the word through the Apostle John, "He came unto His own, but His own received Him not, but to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God." They were not sons before, they were servants; but now privileged to become sons. You remember Moses was faithful as a servant, not as a son, but Christ was faithful as a Son, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence firm unto the end. It is this house of Sons that the Lord is gathering out. It is this kingdom of God that will be the power of God to overthrow the present institutions and establish righteousness and truth, and will cause the knowledge of God to fill the whole earth. So it is a great privilege that we enjoy to become members of this Kingdom of God.
This Class Foretold.
I remind you that God had foretold all about His people, that is, He foretold all about it in a certain sense. As an oak tree is in an acorn, so all God's purpose was in the brief statement to Abraham. After he had been a believer and manifested his consecration, the Lord said, "Abraham, come out of thine own country to a land that I will show you, and I will make a covenant with you." So when he did that, God did make the covenant with him, which was that, through him and his seed, God would bless all the families of the earth. God did not at that time wish to make it any clearer, for it was not His "due time," only to give a brief outline. God wished that that promise should be clearly understood, not only by Abraham and the children of Israel, but that you and I should understand it, so that you and I might have a great deal of confidence in it; because God knew that it would not be fulfilled back in Abraham's time, but hundreds of years afterwards. He not only promised it, but He also swore to it with an oath, as recorded in the 6th chapter of Hebrews. So the Apostle says that because of these two unchangeable, immutable things, we might have strong consolation. Not that Isaac or Jacob, or the Nation of Israel might have strong consolation, but that you and I might have strong consolation.
At the time of Isaac's birth it had a kind of fulfillment, but not in its full sense. At the time the promise was made, Abraham had no children, and it was not until twenty-five years afterwards that Abraham had a son, Isaac. God's promise was not fulfilled in Isaac, but God then said, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." So I suppose that as Abraham watched the boy grow up to manhood, he wondered how he was to bless all the families of the earth. No doubt the father and mother were somewhat disappointed, and so God confirmed the promise and said, that through Isaac, his seed should be called. Then Isaac has two sons, Jacob and Esau, and then again, God indicated that the promised Seed should come through Jacob, and so they waited and expected that the Nation of Israel would be the seed of Jacob, because as Jacob was dying he gave the Abrahamic blessing to all of his sons, who became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. Then God said, Your nation cannot exist of itself and I will send the Messiah; and now, be ready, for when He comes, He will come as a Refiner, etc. Who can abide His coming? They expected that when He would come that He would be a great general, [CR43] leader, prophet and teacher, and that He would smite all the nations, and that then Israel, as God's agent, under the leadership of Jesus, the Messiah, would extend the blessings to all the families of the earth. They did not expect anything so very different from what it will be. But when Jesus came, He was not the one they were expecting, and they were disappointed. So the scribes and Pharisees said, It is nonsense and foolishness to talk about that man which so few people recognize. Why, He does not claim to be as holy as we do. He eats with publicans and sinners. All He has is a little group of tax gatherers and fishermen--they are nobody--who would pay any attention to them? He is deceiving them, telling them that He will have a throne, and that they shall sit with Him in His throne, and they are leaving their business and marching around with Him; it is the worst kind of a delusion. We can sympathize with them, can't we, dear friends? We can almost realize that it was said to us. They said, If we could only get these people to see, but you know that you cannot reason with such common people; you know they are walking by faith. We will expose Him, so that these poor fishermen will not follow Him. We will get Him right here and ask Him some questions, and He will not be able to answer them, and it will expose the whole thing. We will ask Him first, When is your kingdom to come? Then we will say, Where are your soldiers? And He will not know what to say. We will ask Him how He will feed his soldiers, etc. We'll show Him up--it is all nonsense.
So they started to do this, and we read: "And when He was demanded of the Pharisees when the Kingdom would appear" (He took all the wind out of their sails, and they had nothing further to say), He answered and said, "The Kingdom of God cometh not with outward show, neither say, Lo here nor there, but it shall be everywhere in your midst." They asked Him no more questions. They could ask all the questions they pleased, and they could not hit His argument at all.
As a matter of fact, our Lord was indeed and truth the Messiah, and He did a very important work, the redemptive work, by dying the just for the unjust. Then His next step was to call a little flock to be His spiritual agents that they might share with Him, that they might be members of His Kingdom, and be exalted to be with Him through the power of the first resurrection. But they could not see it then. The poor Jews looked at it from the fleshly standpoint, so we should have much sympathy for them. I sometimes wonder if I would have received Him under those same circumstances. I am very glad that I am not under their temptations, but leave it all with the Lord. When Christ and the Church shall be glorified, then the Messiah will be composed of Jesus the Head and the Church His Body, and together they will be the great Priest, Prophet, King, Judge and Mediator, which Peter tells us in Acts 3:23 God is raising up during this Gospel age. It is all centered in the cross of Christ, and we are being transformed day by day by the renewing of our minds, ready for the first resurrection. So this is the great Messiah that is being raised up, and this is the great Mystery, which God all through the past ages has hidden, but which is now made known unto the Saints. It was not God's due time in the past. Are you sure of that, Brother Russell? Yes, I am sure of it, for Jesus said so, on one occasion, as you can read in Matt. 11:25. It was made known only to certain ones, as our Lord said to His disciples, "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven, but to all those who are without, these things are spoken in parables, that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not perceive," etc. If they had understood these things, as Peter said, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. God did not make their heart bad, but their ignorance co-operating with their evil heart caused them to do this. The world knows us not, even as it knew Him not, and therefore you and I are to have the same consideration that Jesus had, and are to be privileged to suffer with Him. So if you and I have any of either the literal or figurative stones, remember that the Lord suffered also, and we are not to be above our Master. But if they knew these things, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; and if they knew all these things, they would not have persecuted the members of His Body.
Look at the matter from a different standpoint; you remember how the Lord came into the world, was made flesh and dwelt among men. Being born under the Law, He was subject to all the terms and conditions of that Law; He was bound to keep the whole Law, and if He failed in any part, He would have been a violator of the whole Law, and could not have been our Redeemer. He was perfect, however, as we read in Heb. 7:26--different from the other members of the human family. He had a right to be the Redeemer and Messiah, because He kept the Law, which would give Him the right to perfect human life as a man--not as an angel--but merely the earthly life, the same as any other Jew if he could have kept the Law, but no other Jew ever did keep the Law, so our Lord secured only the earthly rights, but God had another arrangement for Him. Instead of His keeping those earthly rights, He laid them down, exchanged the earthly rights, and received instead the heavenly or spiritual. As the Apostle puts it, He was obedient unto death (on this account). God has also highly exalted Him, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. It was by virtue of His sacrifice. What did He sacrifice? Did He sacrifice everything that He had? No. He had exchanged the heavenly things for the earthly. The Apostle says, He that was rich, for our sakes became poor, that He might sacrifice them. After He became a man, then He made the sin offering, or sin sacrifice. What did He have to offer? He had an earthly nature--all that father Adam had. Father Adam was king of the earth, and had a right to earthly life, as a perfect man before he sinned. So Jesus, you remember, was made a little lower than the angels, etc., corresponding exactly with Adam. Adam became a sinner and came under the condemnation of death, but Jesus came, kept the Law, and secured all that Adam lost. He had a right to Adam's place and a right to say Now I am king. He could have given the world a good deal of instructions, and they might have said, Let us get under that covenant, for it is the best thing in the world, and Jesus might have instituted a reign of great blessing, but still the world would have been under the curse of sin and death. However, He laid the foundation for a better Kingdom, and we want to see what that better Kingdom is. Jesus sacrificed all the human rights and privileges, such as Adam enjoyed; He presented Himself a living sacrifice to God, and when He rose the third day, He was no longer the Man Christ Jesus; He was a new creature. What would He now do with those things which He had laid down? You and I would naturally think that He would give the benefit of them to the Jews, the natural seed of Abraham. Did Jesus do that? No, Israel is still without God's favor. What did He do? He ascended upon Him, taking the merit or value of His sacrifice with Him, represented by the blood in the type, which in turn represented the life of the animal, which was slain, and taking the blood into the Most Holy, He as High Priest over us the under priests, sprinkled it on the Mercy Seat, for us, the members of His Body, the household of faith. Who are the "us"? They are the royal priests, and Levites, both of these represented by the Christ, all of which in a general way had the divine approval. Out of that tribe of Levi, God first selected Aaron and his sons, who typified Christ Jesus our Lord, the Head, and the Church His Body. He is the Head of our order of priests, which the Apostle Paul said was represented in Melchisedec. In Revelation we also read, "He hath made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign with Him on earth for a thousand years." God has been keeping up the two fold idea that these He has been selecting are to do both a reigning and a work of instruction; these two things were to be combined when Jesus is the Head and the Church His body complete. So when Jesus appeared in heaven He applied the merit of His sacrifice, not for the Jews, but for us, so that when we received Him, and accepted Him as our Saviour we became justified; but it will take the whole world all of the thousand years to be just, right or perfect. Now you and I get our justification through faith. Abraham also received his justification through faith, and the Apostle tells us that it was not merely for his sake that it was written. This merit comes to all who are of the household of faith, and then consecrate themselves. What did Jesus give them? Just what He laid down; namely, human rights [CR44] and perfections. They were not spiritual rights, and Adam did not lose spiritual rights. Jesus had human rights to give, for those were what He secured by keeping the Law, and they are what He laid down in sacrifice. So we get these earthly rights, with certain conditions attached to them--He gives us these earthly rights upon the condition that we will do with them just what He did; namely, lay them down in sacrifice. God is going to pass these rights on down through the Church. What do we get if we do this? Jesus said that if we would do that, then we would also share with Him in the higher nature. "If you suffer with Me you shall also reign with Me." Well, now, that is very plain, is it not? Then what is God going to do with this merit which Jesus gave to the Church and which they in turn lay down? He is going to give it to Israel, and then Israel is going to give it to all the nations of the earth. Our attention is called to the fact that their Law Covenant was only a typical Law, and none were made perfect. Our Lord Jesus was the antitypical Isaac, and ye brethren are children of promise, as Isaac was, because Jesus is the Head of this Isaac class, and the Church is the Body, and they are therefore the Spiritual Seed of Abraham, through whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed. DON'T FORGET WHAT THEY ARE TAKEN OUT FOR. I hope you and I will be the faithful in the laying down of these rights, and we should count these things as loss and dross if we might win Him. As soon as the Church enters in beyond the vail, then the blood or merit which has been passing through the Church, will be sprinkled on the Mercy Seat, and it will seal the New Covenant. So we read that, after those days, God would make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah. They could not keep the other covenant, because they were not perfect. The New Covenant will take away their stony hearts, etc., and they shall be His people. God made a promise to the Jews, and that promise must be fulfilled. The New Covenant will mean that all through the Millennial Age all the blessing of knowledge and instruction will go forth, first to the Jews. But more than this, He is going to mediate for the whole world, because the whole world is to have the blessing in sharing in that New Covenant; all the nations are to be invited to share, and they will say, Come, let us go up to the house of Jacob, and we will walk in his statutes. The Christ shall be the mediator between God and Men. By the end of the Millennial Age, all who will reach perfection will reach it as Israelites, as children of Abraham, and so that is in harmony with God's promise to Abraham, "I have made thee father of many nations." So, all who will come into harmony with the New Covenant will receive its blessings.
Now it is a mystery, one that the Jews do not understand, and it is a mystery that can be known only by the saints, and the more saintly you are, the more you will be able to understand. Dear friends, let us hold fast our confidence firm unto the end, for as the Apostle says, "They shall obtain mercy through your mercy."
Gentile Times 2,520 Years.
What we would like to know, if it has pleased the Lord to reveal it, is just how long a period is meant by the expression, "Times of the Gentiles"--or, years of the Gentiles --in which the Gentile nations will bear rule or sway over the land of Israel. If God has been pleased to reveal the matter, let us enjoy it; if He has not been pleased to give any clue to the matter, we cannot find it. We are to remember, however, that this, like other features of the Divine revelation, was intended to be kept secret from the world, and to be made known only to those who are in heart harmony with the Lord--interested--and very desirous of knowing the mind of the Lord on this and on every subject. Hence, we may not look for a plain statement to the effect that in so many years from such an event the Gentile lease of power will terminate and God's Kingdom be transferred to Israel again. Rather we should expect that the matter would be stated in a more or less obscure form, in which it might be read over and over again without attracting special attention except from those especially interested ones led by the Lord's holy Spirit.
We believe that the period is what the Scriptures term "seven times"--seven years. Not seven literal years, but seven symbolic years. A "time" or "year" in symbol represents 360 literal years. In other words, each day of a symbolic year is a year, and hence the seven times, or seven years, would represent seven times 360, or 2,520 years. I give it to you as my conviction, dear friends, based strictly upon the Scriptures, but corroborated, it seems to me, by the events of our day, that this 2,520 years, beginning in 606 B.C., will end in October, 1914 A.D.
That a "time" or "year" has been Scripturally used to represent 360 may be very easily and very quickly demonstrated. For instance, in Revelation a period of time is mentioned in three different ways; namely, 1,260 days, 42 months and 3-1/2 times. The 3-1/2 times of Revelation are exactly one-half of the "seven times" of the Gentiles. The 1,260 years of Revelation are exactly one-half of the 2,520 years of the Times of the Gentiles. And these 2,520 years we believe will expire with October, 1914; at that time we believe the Gentile lease of power will expire, and that the God of heaven will set up His Kingdom in Israel.
We do not expect universal peace to immediately ensue, because Christ is styled the Prince of Peace. On the contrary, to our understanding, the collapse of the nations will be through a fierce strife, "a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation," in which "there shall be no peace to him that goeth out, nor to him that cometh in," because God will set every man's hand against his neighbor. Our belief is that the warfare between capital and labor, emperors and peoples, will be short, sharp, decisive, and bring untold calamity upon all concerned. If people could only discern it, they would avoid it, but their eyes are holden; they see not, neither do they understand.
The Seven Times.
These seven times were foreshadowed in the experiences of Nebuchadnezzar, who was irrational for seven years, and at the end of that time recovered his reason and acknowledged the Lord as the ruler of the Universe. So history seems to show that during this period of Gentile domination the poor world has been in a measure insane, putting light for darkness and darkness for light. Our trust is that at the close of the Gentile Times, and following the short, sharp, decisive time of great trouble in 1915, humanity will regain its sanity and praise the God of heaven and acknowledge that all authority comes from Him and pertains to Him.
GREAT TRUTHS
GREAT truths are dearly bought. The common truth,
Such as men give and take from day to day,
Comes in the common walk of easy life,
Blown by the careless wind across our way.
Truth springs like harvest from the well-ploughed fields,
Rewarding patient toil, and faith, and zeal.
To those thus seeking her, she ever yields
Her richest treasures for their lasting weal.
[CR45]
The Mystery
BROTHER RUSSELL: The Scriptures speak to us of a "Mystery hid from past ages, but now made known unto the saints."
This mystery, dear friends, began quite a while ago. There was a time when all of God's creatures were in harmony, when every creature was holy, and all were happy. Then there came a time when our adversary, Satan, who previously had been a holy angel, Lucifer, the morning star, one of the bright ones, proved disloyal to the Lord, and instead of being a bright star, he became an adversary, as the word "Satan" signifies. With this came a great perplexity no doubt to all the angelic host, as they beheld the failure of one of their brightest brethren. I presume they began to wonder what God would do about it. God did nothing about it, simply allowed Satan to be rebellious, and more than this, He allowed him to progress, and he became a liar and misrepresented the Father. When Adam was told that the penalty for sin would be death, Satan came and slandered God, stating that He was trying to deceive them, and that if instead they would eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would become like God Himself, that evidently God did not want them to know as much as He did, and that He wished to keep them down, but that he, Satan, would be their real friend, adviser, and counsellor, and that they should eat of it and not be imposed upon by God, that they should become gods to know good and evil. Thus we see that this lying against the holy character of God deceived Mother Eve, and through her, Father Adam, and thus Satan's rebellion went so far as to involve this new human creation of God.
What did God do now? He let them alone. Sin progressed, and then came murder--Cain killed his brother Abel. We may imagine that the holy angels were shocked as they saw the riot that sin was permitted to have; they no doubt wondered why God permitted this, and whether or not God was able to cope with Satan, restrain Cain from killing Abel, to bring order out of this confusion; but God allowed sin to progress for century after century.
Then you remember that He permitted the other angels to have fellowship with man, to appear as men to lift them out of their degradation. God wished to demonstrate to the angels themselves that it was not in their power to lift mankind up, but that He would do it by and by, and in His own way and time. But you remember also that while ministering to mankind, the influences of sin dragged them down, so that some of those angels became transgressors against the law of God; and, as Peter and Jude tell us, they left their first estate on the higher plane, and preferred to be on the human plane. They took unto themselves the daughters of men, and brought forth giants, men of renown. It would seem that God had not the power to restrain this spirit of sin, and it looked as though the entire fabric was falling to pieces. We do not know how long this deflection of the angels continued, for at that period man was several hundred years old, and one a hundred years old was only a child then. It is safe, therefore, to suppose that this period of sin lasted for at least two hundred years. God's reason was to prove and test the holy angels, to see to what extent they were serving the principles of righteousness, their loyalty to Him. They were under trial and test just as much as our first parents in the Garden of Eden. All the holy angels are in harmony with God, loyal to the very core; they have all been subjected to the tests and have withstood them, and all are worthy of eternal life and will enjoy it all through eternity. How this matter must have perplexed the holy angels, for God made a confident of nobody. How do we know? Because the Scriptures distinctly tell us so.
You remember the picture in the 5th chapter of Revelation, of the scroll written on the inside and outside. Those who could read at all, those who were in favor with God might read the outside, but the inside was securely sealed, and were not intended for anyone to read. You remember when our first parents transgressed that God gave a little word which was just a clue; namely, when He said that, The seed of the woman should yet bruise the serpent's head. From our standpoint we can see that the serpent, Satan, is to be destroyed soon, because God has revealed it to us, but there are millions of mankind that do not know that the Devil is to be destroyed.
Matters went on for quite a while, until there was a man in the world whose name was Abraham, full of faith in God, and the Lord put certain tests upon him, to test and prove his faith. Abraham was called the friend of God, and God made a revelation to him, something that faith could hold on to, but could not be had from any other standpoint. Abraham was an obscure man, and there was a large nation round about him, and he had very little opportunity to see how his posterity would ever be able to grant a blessing to all the families of the earth. Nevertheless, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. The thought that all the families of the earth were to be blessed, more than offset the powers of sin then prevailing, but he believed that in some way God would bring it to pass. Up to the time Jesus died and the scroll was handed to Him, none could understand any part of the mystery of God. That may seem strange to some and they may ask, Was nothing revealed in the Law? No, there was nothing revealed, they were typified. Many of those things in the Law are not yet revealed to mankind, very few know anything about them; they are still a mystery to them. Were they not revealed to the Prophets? No. Peter tells us that they did not understand what they were, but found out that they were not for themselves that they did minister, but that those things they foretold were for us of this Gospel Age. They spoke of the things that were to be, of the sufferings and death of Christ, and the glory that should follow, and the angels even desired to look into those things, but they were not permitted to know. It must remain a mystery until He should come, when it would be proper to turn over the whole Plan of God for its solution. So you remember in the picture who it is that is worthy to take the scroll, and to look therein, "And every creature which is in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying? Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever." There is no reference to our Lord Jesus Christ in His prehuman condition. Through this worthy one, this divine mystery is to be revealed. Well, you say, what is it? It is God's method of dealing with Satan, who was the original sinner, and God's dealing with the whole Christ. This mystery was revealed to John who wrote about it in signs, sign-i-fied it, and so the mystery as a scroll has been gradually unfolding.
From our standpoint, dear friends, the heavenly Father has committed the whole matter to our Lord Jesus Christ, and He is now making it known to us, not to the world-- the world knows nothing about the divine Plan. Our Lord recognized this matter of keeping things secret, and so He thanked the Father on one occasion for hiding these things from the wise and prudent, but for revealing them to babes. The world could not even understand what was written on the outside.
We can see the wisdom of it all now, for, had the Jews known who Jesus was, then, as Peter tells us, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Then what? He never would have fulfilled that feature of the Law of God. Let us not think, however, that the Jews were sinners above all of us, for Peter said, "I wot not that in ignorance ye did it." That is part of the blindness that will be turned away when the work of this Gospel Age is finished. What then? Oh, we read, They shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, they will realize that they crucified the Son of Man. He will not pour upon them eternal torment, nor fire and brimstone. He will pour upon them prayer and supplication.
I trust, dear friends, that they will be cut to the heart. The arrows of truth shall smite them. Just as at the time of Peter's preaching at Pentecost, some of them there were cut to the heart. If you had not been cut to the heart, you would not have known how to find the Great Physician. We are glad that some time God's mercy will reach all mankind. Under the New Covenant He will take away the [CR46] stony-heart and give them a heart of flesh, and bring them back to all Father Adam had in the beginning, and they will then be ready, anxious for the blessings of the Kingdom.
Let us keep in thought that the Church being a part of this mystery is really the essence of it, and the finishing of the mystery would be the finishing of the mystery, and the Apostle says that we have fellowship in this mystery. Christian people in general do not know anything about this mystery. Look all through the church histories and you will not find this Church recorded anywhere--this is the Church which never had a history written. It is such a mystery that even as we get all the light on the subject, we cannot tell how many of the Church were at the various places where Paul and Luke wrote from. Whoever might receive the Lord, would have the privilege of coming in and of being considered a brother in the Lord. So today we have this privilege of helping one another along. It is the greatest secret society in the world. It is not possible to make the natural man understand the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned, but as they thoroughly consecrate themselves, then they learn of these things. Many have read the "Studies in the Scriptures," but do not understand the mystery, because they are not in the right attitude of heart. The mystery is proceeding, and the Lord is selecting the members of His Church from all kindreds, peoples and nations of the earth. By and by their testing will be ended, and they will be changed in the first resurrection, then the mystery will be ended, and then everything will be plain.
Why not now? For the same reason as in the days of our Lord, so that the Jews might do unto Him whatsoever they desired, and for the same reason that the adversary might oppose the Body Members of Christ, and so that we can walk by faith and not by sight.
Let us look at another side of this mystery. You remember how God mentioned to Abraham that He would bless all the families of the earth--that was an unconditional promise. Because it was an unconditional or onesided promise, it needed no mediator. Wherever there are two sides, there must be a mediator. In matters of business the law courts act as mediator. God had all the power to bless, and He merely said to Abraham that He would bless them, and in order that we might have strong consolation, He swore to it, otherwise it might seem that God had forgotten His promise or covenant. You remember after the promise was made to Abraham he had no child, had none for twenty-five years, and then Isaac was born. We can imagine how Abraham and Sarah looked at that boy. By and by God confirmed the covenant with Isaac, and then He had two sons, and by and by God confirmed the promise with Jacob, and finally Jacob handed it on to his twelve sons, who became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. Then God gave them His Law Covenant and they thought it was a mark of His special favor. They found that they could not keep that Law, or get a blessing from it, so God sent them a further message through Moses that He would raise up a Great Prophet from among their brethren, line unto Moses, and this one was to be the Messiah, and when He should come He would do great things, but who should abide His coming, etc. And then God told them that later He would make a New Covenant with them, after a certain period, and that then He would take away their stony-hearts which had hindered them from coming up to the full standard. They had the law upon tables of stone, but God told them that He would write the Law upon the tables of their hearts, that they should be His people, and He would be their God. That was a good promise, and so, they were waiting for the Messiah to come. They had seen some great men amongst the Gentiles, and they thought that when Messiah should come He would be great like those great men. They thought that He would conquer all the nations, and set up a great empire, but they did not know that it would be with arrows of truth that would smite them down. So when Jesus came, they were disappointed and felt that this one was not the one they had been waiting for. The more I think of the matter, the more glad I am that I am living today than at any other time in the history of the world. He came to His own, but they received Him not, but to as many as did receive Him, to them gave He the power or authority to become the sons of God. He took all that were ready to receive Him, but the rest were blinded.
I would like to have you see another point right here, a part of the mystery. When Jesus came, we read that He was born under the Law, and therefore it was obligatory for Him to keep that Law or He could not have the Abrahamic Covenant fulfilled in Him, and the scriptures declare that He did keep the Law, that He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. That would entitle Him to the rights of a perfect man. Adam had these things, and any Jew who could have kept the Law would have had them also, but none were able to keep it.
When Jesus kept that perfect Law of God, He proved Himself as the one to whom the rights of a perfect man should go. What did He do with those rights?
When He ascended upon high He took the value of His sacrifice, which was sufficient for the whole world, and applied it for--who? Everybody? No, that is the strange thing. Did He seal the New Covenant then? No; because if He had Israel would not have been an outcast. Israel is blinded and must remain so until the blessing comes to them. When the mystery is finished, then will He make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. When He ascended upon high, we are not to understand that He sealed the New Covenant. No, my dear brethren. The Apostle says that He ascended upon high, there to appear in the presence of God for who? The Jews? No. For everybody? No. But for us. THAT IS THE MYSTERY. Who are "us"? The "us" class are those who come into a certain condition of relationship with God. Well, did you not say He had a sufficiency of merit for all? Yes, nothing less than the death of Christ would have released a single one, and nothing more was necessary. What did He do for this special class? He stands there as their representative or guarantor. I hope you are one of this class, and I hope that I am one. Now, what is He going to give us? All that He had; namely, earthly rights. He gives these to us upon condition that we will do with them just what He did, which was that He laid down His earthly rights as a sacrifice, and so you and I must have the same spirit as He had, and we are to be counted in with Him and are to walk the same narrow way, and to lay down our lives. He wants us to pass along these earthly blessings, and we are invited to fill up that which remains of the afflictions of Christ, in order that we might be counted worthy to share in the glories that are to come. These earthly rights are to be given to the Jews, and through them are to be passed on to the whole world, all the families of the earth are to receive a blessing. They will say, Come let us go up to the mountain of the house of the Lord, and we will walk in His way, for "the Law shall go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem," and then all the families of the earth will be Israelites indeed, and Abraham will become the "father of many nations."
In the meantime, we are invited by our Lord to share with Him, drink of His cup. Don't be surprised if all do not understand, for this is the mystery, but all the true church shall understand it. It is for each one of us to seek by the grace of the Lord to be so in line with the mind of the Lord day by day, and year by year, that we may as the Divine Plan unfolds, have the privilege of understanding it.
Are you tired of the mystery and ready to back out, or are you more and more enamored by it? You have already progressed in the matter to a considerable degree, and you are being tested. When the Church has finished her course here, then the blessings will go to all the world at the hands of the Great Mediator, and at the end of the Millennial age, the mediatorial work will be finished, and the kingdom will be turned over to the Father and the world will be tested just as Adam was. The scriptures, however, do not tell us just how it will be done, but they do tell us that it will not be until after they have had a full knowledge of the redemption, and they have been fully qualified and prepared to stand any kind of a test that God shall see fit to bring forth. Then there shall be no more crying, dying, sickness, or sorrow, and He that sat upon the throne said, I have made all things new. What will be new? O, it will be the perfection of the Holy Nation. Lower than they will be the Great Company, associated with her, and the angelic hosts also, and then the human family, and then God will [CR47] have a clean universe, and then shall be everywhere heard, in heaven and earth, and under the earth, praises to God and to Him that sits on the throne, and to the Lamb forever.
Thus great lessons will have been brought forth, and His great character in Justice, Wisdom, Love and Power manifested in a way that could not have been manifested in any other way.
God seeks such to worship Him as worship Him in Spirit and truth.
[CR47]
Baptism
THERE are two points, dear friends, in our Master's answer to the question. We have perhaps learned that it would not be just the proper thing to specify just where we would like to be, either on the right or left hand, but have learned that it will be glorious to be anywhere in that throne of the Millennial age. We are glad that in God's providence we have heard something respecting the great divine mystery; namely, that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." We have learned that that was the mystery which the Apostle tells us was long kept hidden, kept secret in past ages and dispensations, but now made known unto the Saints. The secret is first mentioned where it says that, "the seed of woman shall bruise the serpent's head." Then made known a little more to Abraham when he was told that through him and his seed all families of the earth should be blessed. Then, that the nation of Israel should be the ones to bless all families of the earth, and then, further, that this nation of Israel should constitute the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. So, for centuries they were waiting for the Messiah that should come through them, as had been promised. But when He came to them, His own, they received Him not. However, to as many as did receive Him, to them gave He power, right, or privilege to become the sons of God. They got the promise of certain heavenly things, but the temporal blessings they did not receive. The remainder of the nation were blinded, turned aside. However, the calls of God are not things to be repented of, so in due time He will return to them to fulfill in and through them the promises He had made, as we read in Romans 11:25-27.
There was another feature also of God's Plan which had been kept hidden; a mystery. Abraham did not know of it, Isaac did not know it, Jacob did not know it, and the Jewish Nation did not know it. Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Son of glory. The mystery was that the Messiah should be one like unto Moses, but composed of many members, of whom Jesus was the Head, and the Church was to be His body, and they would compose the Kingdom of God. This was the kingdom that the prophets were inquiring about and searching the scriptures to know or understand what their prophecies meant, but finally learned that they were said not for themselves, but for us. The Jews had full confidence that there would be a kingdom, because of the prophecies, and it was this Kingdom that the mother of Zebedee's children wanted them to have a place in, one at the right hand and one at the left hand of Jesus. We are hoping to sit with Him in His throne, but we do not know that we will be very close, but we are fully satisfied that we are going to get the most wonderful honor, and the most wonderful blessing that God could confer upon anyone, for we are to be given the most wonderful blessing of IMMORTALITY.
What did Jesus say, in answer to the mother's question? He said there were conditions, and you and I are more interested in the kingdom than in the restitution blessings; because it is higher, and furthermore, the earthly blessings are not now offered to anyone. The restitution blessings will be offered in due time, but He has made known unto us that He is now taking out of the world a people for His name. Now, if we have ears to hear, how earnest we ought to be, and if we have the right answer, and do our part, we can rest assured that God will do His part. When we get the right thought in mind, we will see that we have a great proposition on our hands. If you were attempting some great business undertaking, how careful you would be, but nothing in the world ever compared with the great proposition that God has given us.
He then pointed out the meaning of the Lord's expression, "Are ye able to drink of the CUP that I shall drink of?" He showed that it was the same cup that our Lord drank of, no other that we must share; and that we must drink all of it, and that we must "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ." He then pointed out that this is the same as the Lord meant by the sacramental cup--which we must share if we would share in the blessings of all the families of the earth. In other words, this cup of self-denial and self-sacrifice with Jesus signifies our participation in the Blood of the New Covenant--in providing the wherewithal for the sealing of the New Covenant. He made it very clear, however, that the value of the "cup" was in our Lord's merit, that it is "His cup," and that we are merely favored with the privilege of participating with Him in His sacrifice, which has all the merit, and all the blessing power.
He then considered the other feature or condition, and showed that it did not refer to water immersion, but to the real baptism into Christ's death. He then considered the difference between Adam's death and the death in which we are to share, and pointed out that Adam's death was a penalty for sin, but that Christ's death was a sacrifice for sin. He showed that on account of our being children of Adam, we were sharers in that penalty, death, not eternal torment, or anything else after death, and showed that we must be freed from that death penalty before we could accept the proposition to become dead with Christ. He then pointed out that when justified we were freed from the penalty of death which had been handed down to us from Adam, and it was all for the purpose of our then laying down those justified human lives with all their rights and privileges, as a living sacrifice, which was then holy, acceptable in the sight of God, and was our reasonable service, and proved conclusively that it is only, if we suffer with Him shall we also reign with Him.
Here we saw the wonderful Divine privilege granted to the Church in this Gospel Age, and to her alone; namely, a share in this "mystery," this hidden thing which the world knoweth not, and which only the Saints know. The appreciation of this mystery even the Saints will lose, unless their hearts are loyal and obedient to the Lord; for obedience is still better than sacrifice in the sight of the Lord.
[CR48]
Mercy Through Your Mercy
Text: "Even so have these also now not believed,
that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that
he might have mercy upon all.
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of
the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his
judgments, and his ways past finding out!"
I PRESUME, dear friends, that you have pretty well in mind the Apostle's argument in this chapter, the verses of which I read constituting a part. He is talking about the Jews and the calamity that came upon that nation of Israel when they rejected God, and when He correspondingly rejected them, cast them off. He is calling the attention of the Church to the fact that this rejection of Israel is not a permanent thing, not to last forever, that God is going to receive them back again to Himself; and although more than eighteen hundred years have passed since the Apostle wrote these words, you and I have full confidence in the wisdom, justice, love and power of God; full confidence that God will receive them back as His special people. How glad we are. As we look back at the experiences through which they have passed, our hearts are moved with sympathy as we remember, as the Apostle points out, they were heirs of God, of the promises of blessing which you and I are getting. All these things belonged to them and were upon their table, as represented by the rich man who fared sumptuously. Then to think that they have lost all those blessings, and the rich man, as a nation, has gone down into death, and as a people are in trouble, while you and I, represented by Lazarus, have been received into God's favor, and now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise, through faith in Christ. And so the Apostle tells us in Gal. 3:29 that if we are Christ's, then we are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. The Apostle tells us that the branches were the Israelites, that the root of the promise was the Abrahamic Covenant made with Abraham, and the nation of Israel grew up out of that promise, and they were His holy people, and the individuals were the branches of the kingdom of Israel, and were heirs of the promise, "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." They prayed, and waited and longed for the good things to come to them. How sad it makes us feel when we find that when the good things did really come to them, so few were ready; merely a remnant were saved, only a few accepted God and came into Christ. All the rest of the nation were blinded. While it makes us sad when we see what they might have had, but lost, yet on the other hand, we are glad because of their casting off, we have been permitted to come in, and become fellow-sharers with those who did accept God, that thus the body of Christ might be completed in Him, Jesus the Head, and you and I and the other consecrated ones members of His Body. So this was the great privilege that came to them first. (John 1:11-13.) Born not of the will of the flesh, but of the holy Spirit. The Apostles and about five hundred more, then a few at Pentecost, and then a few more through the preaching of the Apostles. These were practically all of the Jews received into the Body of Christ. The end of their favor came and their table, which had been so richly spread, became a trap and snare. How could a spiritual Israelite be anything but sympathetic toward those who lost such a great blessing which we have received. The more we appreciate what we have the more we appreciate what they lost. We appreciate it a good deal more than they and we may be glad for them on that account. That is exactly what the Apostle is saying here, "As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the Father's sake." (Rom. 11:28.) Practically eighteen hundred years have passed, but they are still beloved because "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance"--whenever He gives a gift He means it; He knows the end from the beginning; He would not have promised the Abrahamic Seed anything according to the flesh that He was not able to give to them in His own due time, and this is what the Apostle is writing about in this connection: "I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery," one which the Jew does not understand yet, and one which our Christian friends do not see or understand. They in general have the idea that God is now trying to save as many as He can, and as our Methodist friends say is doing the best He can. We are sorry, but they do not get the right view. That is a mystery which they do not understand, that God is not now trying to save the world. What is He doing? He is finding the seed of Abraham, through whom all the families of the earth will be blessed; first, Israel, and then the other nations. The Apostle is leaving out the other nations in this chapter, merely showing how the favor went to Israel according to the flesh, how they lost it, and how they are to get it back; He is leaving them out because they are to be blessed through Israel in God's due time.
Perhaps I had best refresh your memory about the history of the promise of God in the past. Abraham, you remember, was faithful, and because he was faithful God said to him, "You are My friend; I will tell you that I am going to bless the world." Abraham did not know how and God did not explain. I will choose that the blessing shall come through your posterity and thou shalt have a son of promise in twenty-five years. He believed God that the promise would come to all the world and through his posterity. Then God confirmed the promise to Isaac. Isaac had two children, Jacob and Esau, and God confirmed the promise to Jacob, and when it came Jacob's turn to die, instead of committing it to one son God transferred it to his twelve sons, and the twelve tribes they would represent; all their children were to be the heirs of the Abrahamic Covenant, and that is what the Apostle said, "Under which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come." (Acts 26:7.) The Apostle further says in Hebrews, that God was so willing to impress the matter of the promise that He not only made the statement that He would bless all the families of the earth through Abraham's seed, but He confirmed that statement by an oath, and as God could not swear by any greater, so He swears by himself. Now the Apostle tells us that this Covenant was stated in this form and the oath added for our benefit, not for Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or the children of Israel: "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil." (Heb. 6:18,19.)
What hope? The hope of being members of the Body of Christ, of being sharers with Him of the great blessings coming upon Him and through Him upon all families of the earth. It is an anchor to our soul. Is it to you, dear brother or sister? It is sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil. Now, dear friends, the more you understand that Covenant, and the more you realize how that hope is the anchor of your faith and trust, the more will be your blessing as children of the Lord's family. This hope is the basis of all your hope of being sharers with Christ in the honor, immortality, and the great work of the Millennial age; it is centered in the Abrahamic promise. You see, this was given to natural Israel in the natural way; the Lord added the Law to the Abrahamic Covenant--added for a purpose. Added to show the children of Israel that they were not worthy of such a high position; also to show that our Lord was the worthy one and when He kept the Law it showed that He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. (Heb. 7:26.)
What was gained by keeping the Law? He became the heir of Adam and all of Adam's estate, who was king of the earth before he sinned. God had said that the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and all flesh were in his [CR49] hands or power. He lost that relationship through sin and became a dying creature; so everything passed from him in death, and since then none of his children were able to inherit his estate. The offer to the Jew was that if he could take the place of father Adam he could become the heir of the world. They tried it for sixteen hundred years and more and not one succeeded. Then what? In due time God sent forth His Son, born under the Law, so that He would come under all those terms and conditions, so that if He would keep it then He would inherit everything. Did He keep the Law? Yes, the Scriptures say so. As a Jew He kept the Law and inherited all of Adam's rights and privileges. Well, now, dear friends, He might have kept those rights and dominion and tried to patch up the old condition of things, and have thought that He might have brought a great deal of prosperity into the world, and He might have done considerable, not only for Israel but for other nations, and could have run the world much better than it is at present. But if He had done that He never could have suggested that they would have eternal life, because they were dying creatures and under the sentence of death, which would still have remained. Instead of keeping those earthly rights He laid them down in sacrifice, the Just for the unjust, that He might have in His hands a price or merit equal to the restitution of all. He merely made a preparation to give something. Then the Father raised Him from the dead the third day and He appeared in the presence of God. What had He when He appeared in the presence of God? He had the Blood, which represented the sacrifice of Christ, the value of His earthly rights which He had secured by keeping the Law; He laid down His earthly rights for spiritual rights and had the earthly rights in His possession that He might give them away.
What did He do with these earthly rights? He had enough for every member of Adam's race, enough to satisfy for the sin of the whole world. We read that He presented it to God. For whom? Was it for Israel? No. However, we would have expected Him to have done that because they were His own people, according to the flesh. They fell when they could not keep the Law, and they prayed about it, and God sent them word, saying that He would send them a Redeemer, Prophet, Priest, and King. How could He do more for them than Moses did? Surely, Moses was faithful to the nation of Israel. Well, said the Lord, I will make a better Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; I will make a New Covenant; I will take away their stony heart and replace it with a heart of flesh, and I will write My Law upon their heart. Israel thought: Well, that is good; now we will wait for that blessing of God. In Malachi 3:1 we read, "Behold I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts." Israel said, We are hoping for this new Covenant, and of course there will be a Blesser, a Mediator; we will wait for Him; when He comes then we will have a glorious time. But the Lord speaks further in the second verse, saying, "But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap." When He ascended on high, instead of presenting His earthly rights for Jews, what did He do? He brought in some more mystery. What mystery is this? It was the mystery of the Church. When He ascended on high He presented that merit of His earthly rights for us, the household of faith. He did not have any spiritual rights to give; only earthly blessings. As a man, Christ kept the Law, and as a man He had the right to human life; it was Adam's rights that He laid down. He had the new life himself, but He did not have the new life to give away. What He gave away was that which He had before He consecrated, and He presented it on our behalf, which only gives us earthly blessings--there was nothing more. He gives us those earthly rights under certain stipulations or agreement. He gave them only with the consideration that we should lay them down. If you don't lay them down you can't have them; you must take up your cross and follow Him. If you do not you cannot be His disciple. "If we would reign with him we must suffer with him." Those are the considerations; we must sacrifice these earthly rights as He did. When He appeared in the presence of God He appeared for the Church, for those who would present their all in sacrifice. None of this merit is going to be lost, because if any goes to you it must pass through you; you cannot hold on to any of it; you must agree to lay down that earthly life. This promise came to the members of the Church; all benefited, and all the Church are called upon to sacrifice,--"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." You cannot be members of the Body unless you do sacrifice,--"For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sin." Any man who does not offer is not a priest. Offer up yourself; present your body a living sacrifice.
The whole work of the Gospel Age has been the finding of these disciples, priests, who have the same spirit as Christ; and you and I are to lay down our lives for the brethren. The agreement is that if we suffer with Him, not differently, or something else, but if we do so we shall reign with Him. All down the Gospel Age the Church has been suffering, "filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ." (Col. 1:24.) So the time is going on until the last member of the Body of Christ has laid down these earthly rights in death as a sacrifice. Then what? Then we will be able to do the greater work of the Seed. We are not the Seed of Abraham now, except in this figurative sense. It is only if we make our calling and election sure. "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's Seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Gal. 3:29.) If you finish your course faithfully then beyond the veil you are the Seed of Abraham. Very shortly we will all be glorified and then the whole Seed of Abraham on the spiritual plane will be complete. Then what? We have a lot of blessings and mercies to give away. Now you and I individually have no right to give anything away; our Lord has all the right. Then these rights will be passed on to Israel, as we read, "Through your mercy they also may obtain mercy." (Rom. 11:31.) They needed this mercy long before the Gospel Age, and are still hoping, and I am glad of the hope. Well, what kind of mercy will they get from us? Why, it will be God's mercy. Does it say so? "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out!" (Rom. 11:32,33.) It is the Father that will have mercy upon them, through the Church, which is the Body of Christ--Jesus, the Head, and the Church His Body. They constitute the great Mediator between God and men --the world. We came into Covenant relationship with the Father through faith; no Mediator was necessary, even as no Mediator was necessary with Abraham, but his faith was counted unto him for righteousness. Jesus Christ, the Righteous, is the Advocate for the Church. All things are now working together for our good, so that He may fit us for the Bride to share His own glory. The work for us to do with our Lord will be the blessing of the world. Are we the Mediator? Not yet. You are in the world, but not of the world, but the Mediator is between God and the world. Every member of this great Mediator must have the spirit of Jesus, the Head, "For whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." (Rom. 8:29.) What are we to do? Well, there is that Covenant God made with Abraham, and it must have a fulfilment. God told Israel that He would make a New Covenant with them; that He would put His Law in their inward parts; that He would be their God and that they should be His people. Does the Apostle say that? Yes, read Hebrews, the eighth chapter. Under this New Covenant He says that He will take away their sins. He did not take away their sins under the Law Covenant. The only way to get rid of the things under the Law was to die to it. Whatever Jew does not accept Christ and die to the Law Covenant will never be accepted of God. But "blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of [CR50] the Gentiles be come in." (Rom. 11:25.) Then the great Deliverer will be complete who will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. This Deliverer is born out of Zion; the Head is the Lord Jesus, the Body is the Church; and this finding of the Head and Body has been the work of the Gospel Age. The Head of the Church is distinctly separate from the Body in some respects, and our Lord Jesus was the firstborn eighteen hundred years ago, and it will be a long time before the Body will be born, so the Prophet states, "Shall I bring to the birth, shall I cause the head to come forth and not deliver the body?" No, thank God! It will be the same resurrection Jesus had that you and I are invited to share. You remember how the Apostle Paul puts it, "if by any means I might have part in his resurrection." We are to share in that.
Then will be the time when we will apply our earthly rights to Israel; then will be the time that they will obtain mercy through our mercy, the New Covenant being made with them. If any one wants to come to God during the Millennial Age they must come through this New Covenant, just as the Israelites do, by becoming members of Israel; so that eventually the whole world will be Israelites, and then will be fulfilled God's promise to Abraham where He said, "I will make thee father of many nations."
[CR50]
The Heathen For An Inheritance
Text: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possessions." (Psalm 2:8.) OUR text is from one of the Messianic Psalms. It represents our Lord as making known to His people the Heavenly Father's decree rewarding Him for His faithfulness as our Redeemer, assuring Him of His exaltation to the Kingdom, and that with this will come the inheritance of all the earth, with power to fully subject all things to the Heavenly Father's will. He was to have it for the mere request-- "Ask of me." As a matter of fact, this world-wide dominion has not yet come to Messiah; the heathen are not yet His inheritance; the uttermost parts of the earth are not yet His possession. Indeed, as the Prophet declares, "Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the heathen."
When we remember our Redeemer's love for the race, the love which led Him to lay down His life "to seek and to recover that which was lost," we are inclined to amazement that He has not yet asked the Father for His inheritance of the heathen--we are astonished that He has permitted "the prince of darkness" and the "reign of sin and death" for more than eighteen centuries since He suffered, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. Our perplexity in the matter might well be answered by our Lord's words to the Sadducees, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God." As we come to understand the Scriptures more fully, and to appreciate how the power of God will be exercised in bringing the heathen under the domination of the Redeemer, the eyes of our understanding open and we are enabled to rejoice accordingly.
Why He Did Not Ask.
Our Lord did not ask for His great power to reign at an earlier date because He knew the Father's plan, and was well contented with the Divine times and seasons; He had no wish of change in this. He did not ask to receive the heathen for an inheritance at the beginning of this Gospel Age, but has been content to wait and place that request in its due time in harmony with another feature of the Divine program which must first be fulfilled. That other feature is the selection of the Church, the Bride of Christ, the members of His Body. It pleased the Father to make our Lord not only the world's Redeemer, and the world's King, but also to make Him the High Priest of an Under-priesthood, the Bridegroom of the Church, His Bride; the Elder Brother of the saints of glory whom the Father is pleased to have developed during this Gospel Age as "New Creatures in Christ Jesus"--sharers of His sufferings, and of His glory to follow.
Meantime the heathen have been suffering no damage. Born in sin, shapen in iniquity, condemned to death, they were having experiences with sin and death, and going down to the great prison-house for periods of unconsciousness-- until the Redeemer at His second advent shall call them and all mankind from the great prison-house, the tomb. This He foretold, saying, "All that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and come forth." This will include not only the Church of the First-Born ones, who have been approved of God, and who, passing trial now, will come forth unto life eternal, but it will include also all the remainder of mankind, those who have not had God's approval, all of whom, because redeemed, shall come forth unto judgment--trial. A fair trial will be theirs, to determine their worthiness or unworthiness of life eternal by the manner in which they will receive or reject The Christ of God when, during the Millennium, the same shall be made fully known to them.
It was part of the Divine purpose also that the whole earth should be filled with people, and hence the bringing forth of a progeny is a part of the Divine will. The few short years of the present life, with experience of sin and death conditions, will in due time be supplemented by the glorious period of the Millennium, with its grand opportunities for lessons of righteousness and obedience and rewards. Its corrective "stripes," or punishments, to the careless will be to the intent that so many as possible may ultimately be entirely recovered from death conditions and brought into full accord with God in Christ. And others, demonstrating their unwillingness to come into heart sympathy with righteousness, will be utterly destroyed from amongst the people. (Acts 3:23.)
The More Excellent Way.
So, then, our Lord's reason for not asking sooner for the heathen as His inheritance, and the remotest parts of the earth for His possession, was because He knew the Father's plan to be a different plan, and that it was the more excellent way, and He delighted to do the Father's will. And so with all the followers of Christ: So soon as they ascertain the Father's glorious plan of salvation, they find it to be soul-satisfying, and greatly prefer it to any plan of their own. It is the undeveloped Christians, whom the Apostle designates "babes in Christ," who are continually praying to the Heavenly Father for a change of the Divine program, imagining that their wisdom and their love in respect to the heathen are superior to those of the infinite Creator. Nearly all Christian people have had their experience with such ignorance, and we are glad to suppose that the Heavenly Father laid not the sin of such presumption to our charge, but rather sympathetically appreciated our interest in the heathen, although He must have deprecated our lack of reverence, our headiness, our high-minded assumptions of more than infinite wisdom.
We are not saying a word against missions--home and foreign. Quite to the contrary, we believe that every Christian should labor with heart and hand to do all in his power to glorify the Father and the Redeemer, and to enlighten his fellowmen respecting the cross of Christ, and the blessings and privileges which it secures. But while gladly, willingly, serving the Divine cause, "instant in season and out of season," we should learn to labor and to wait. We should learn that the laboring under present conditions is chiefly arranged for our benefit--for the development in the minds of the Royal Priesthood of the sacrificing qualities, and the [CR51] graces of the Holy Spirit--meekness, gentleness, patience, faith, long-suffering, brotherly kindness, love.
Co-Workers Together with God.
Let us be sure, dear friends, that any theory of ours respecting the heathen, or any other feature of the Divine program, which in any degree implies superior wisdom, or superior energy, or superior love, on our part, as compared with that of our Heavenly Father and our Redeemer, must be wrong. The sooner we learn to pray from the heart, "Thy will be done," the better it will be for us, the more will we be able to get into harmony with our Lord, and the more will we be used as His ambassadors and representatives. The wisdom of man is foolishness with God, and the wisdom of God is foolishness with man, hence we must not take the human standpoint in investigating or reasoning upon the Divine purposes and program. Rather, we must go direct to the Word of God, that we may be taught of God, that we may discern the beauty, the harmony of His plans.
It is written that obedience is better than sacrifice, and this being recognized, how careful it should make us to inquire what the will of the Lord is; to search the Scriptures, that we may there ascertain the Divine program, and be found in harmony therewith. There we find that the Lord's present work is the completing of the Royal Priesthood, the Royal Judge, the Royal Prophet, the Royal Mediator, the Great King, for the world of mankind--for the world's deliverance from the bondage of sin and death, and their assistance back to harmony with God. Thus seeing, we will have patience in respect to the heathen, and strive now to make our own calling and election sure, and lay down our lives for the brethren in assisting to build them up in the most holy faith, "until we all come to the measure of the stature of a man in Christ"--the great Mediator of the New Covenant, of which Jesus is the Head.
Converting the World.
When will the world be converted? When will Christ ask for the heathen? When will the Father give them to Him? How long, O Lord? The scriptural answer, dear friends, is, that it has pleased the Father to select the "jewel" class during the Gospel Age by means which the world would think foolish--by means of the preaching of the good tidings. But His program for the future age is different. There are millions who have no ear to hear the preaching of the cross of Christ. There are millions who have no eye of faith to see the glorious things of God. In fact, according to the Scriptures, only a "little flock," comparatively, can be brought into accord with the Lord under the conditions of the present time, because sin abounds, because death reigns, because Satan, the prince of this world, now works antagonistically in the hearts of the children of disobedience.
Hence it has pleased God to have a different method of dealing with the world of mankind in general from that which He adopted for dealing with the Church in this Age. In the next age force will be used, and not merely moral suasion. Force will be employed in putting down the reign of evil. Satan will not merely be requested to desist from deceiving the world, but will be bound for a thousand years, and be unable to deceive the nations. Likewise, mankind will no longer be invited to accept Christ, and to give their hearts in obedience to Him, but, on the contrary, they will be compelled to be obedient. As it is written, "Unto him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, to the glory of God." Offers of grace will no longer be held out, with reward for faith attached; instead, knowledge shall fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep. (Philippians 2:10,11; Isaiah 11:9.) As a result, no (Philippians 2:10,11; Isaiah 11:9.) As a result, no one shall then say to his neighbor, or to his brother, Know thou the Lord! for they all shall know him, from the least unto the greatest of them. (Jeremiah 31:34.)
Heathen Fall under Him.
Another Psalm describes Messiah's triumph in the Millennial Age, saying, "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most Mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously in the cause of Truth and Meekness and Righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies; whereby the people fall under thee." (Psalm 45:3-5.) Instead of the word "people" here, read the word "heathen" as in the original, and we have a picture of the conversion of the heathen as it will shortly be accomplished. We are not to suppose the Lord will ride upon a horse, nor that literal arrows will literally pierce the hearts of His enemies. We are to understand this picture to signify our Lord's triumphal conquering of the world, and that the arrows of truth which will go forth unto the whole world will reach the hearts of men, and smite them down. Even so we read that when St. Peter preached at Pentecost that the Jews had taken and crucified the Son of God, the hearers were cut to the heart with the lance of truth. Thank God for such arrows from the quiver of Divine wisdom, justice, love. We rejoice that the heathen will thus be conquered for the Lord, and thus eventually every knee bow and every tongue confess.
This work of dealing with the heathen, with the world, with all except the Church, will begin with the generation living at the time of the establishment of the Lord's Kingdom. In due time it will proceed and ultimately include all that are in their graves, in the reverse order from that which they entered, and the last shall be the first to come forth--"every man in his own order" or class.
Too frequently do Bible students neglect to see whether or not their interpretations are in harmony with the context of the passages under discussion. Let us not make this mistake. Turning to the second Psalm, we find that, following our text and a part with it, is the declaration, "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Verse 9.) The application of this evidently is to the time for our Lord's second advent, when the selection of the Church shall be completed, and she shall have entered into His glory as the Bride, the Lamb's Wife, symbolically pictured in the New Jerusalem from God out of heaven. From that New Jerusalem we are told that the river of the water of life shall flow freely, and that whosoever will may partake of it freely--all that are athirst. On either bank will grow the trees of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. And the Spirit and the Bride will say Come, and whosoever will may come and take of the water of life freely. But meantime, before the nations, the world, will be ready for that blessing from the New Jerusalem, they must needs pass through a period of very deep humiliation --"a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation."
As for the nations of that time, the extent to which they will suffer destruction will depend largely on their own attitude, as is intimated by the verses following our text. Those of the nations who freely and heartily accept of Messiah's rule will be correspondingly saved from the breaking process. Hence it is urged, "Kiss the Son, O ye kings of the earth; kiss the Son lest he be angry with you and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little." But while this seems to offer leniency, mercy, these favors are conditional on the manner in which the Messianic Kingdom shall be received. Other Scriptures seem to intimate that all the nations, not only heathen but civilized, will be found in violent opposition to the heavenly Kingdom, and hence that all together they will be crushed as the vessels of a potter.
The Glorious Outcome.
The Lord tells us that as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than man's ways, and his plans higher than man's plans. And this we find true as we come to better understand the Scriptures. Who ever dreamed of such lengths and breadths and heights and depths of love divine, all love excelling, as are implied and included in God's great plan of selecting, first the Christ --Jesus the Head and the Church, His Body--and then through these blessing all the families of the earth with a knowledge of Himself and the glorious opportunities for life eternal! We make no claims of universal salvation, because the Scriptures do not authorize this, but distinctly speak of some who will die the Second Death, proving themselves not sufficiently in harmony with righteousness to be worthy of eternal life--even after being brought to a [CR52] knowledge of the Truth. But the Scriptures do show us that when all the unwilling and disobedient shall have been cut off in the Second Death, then the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, and every creature in heaven, and in earth, and under the earth, shall be heard acclaiming praise, honor, glory, dominion, and might, to him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb forever. And he upon the throne declares, Behold, I make all things new. And there shall be no more sighing, and no more crying, and no more dying, for the former things shall have passed away. (Revelation 21:1-5.)
[CR52]
The Lord's Secret Society
BROTHER RUSSELL: Dear Friends, we have heard from Brother Acheson a welcome on behalf of the City of Seattle and the Church of Seattle. We have heard from Brother Baker the welcome you have received on behalf of the friends of the Northwest territory. And I am sure we all feel very grateful, and as I look about and it becomes my part to represent the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (in one sense of the word I am speaking for you all and for those who are not present)--a large contract in few words.
I want to say I appreciate very highly the effort put forth by the friends of Seattle and nearby places. I feel God has greatly blessed us as we have come to your city and we want to think about the precious things of the glorious plan of our Lord.
Some eighty-nine in number were in the same Special Train coming up from Portland where we had a blessed occasion. Preceding that we were at Oakland, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, Memphis, Piedmont, Washington. And before that we bade good-bye to the friends at Brooklyn, and they sent their greetings to all of you on the way.
What a brotherhood there is amongst those who love the Lord! And how different from any other kind of union or bondage. We all know how the world has appreciated the fact of unions, what endeavor is made to get people into unions and societies. We all know what grips and passwords and obligations are taken, the one to the other. We are privileged to be members of the most wonderful society the world has ever known anything about. It has its grip indeed, and I get a great many of them and appreciate them very much. I know the grip right away. I only have to be on guard that I do not get too much of it. I am learning to take first catch, near the fingers. Occasionally some brother says, I can't get a proper hold on your hand, Brother Russell, and I answer, I try to keep you from getting it. If I should get the proper grip on about a thousand and they should press and express all they mean, there would not be much hand left. I presume we all know the grip.
We all know something about the passwords of our society; we have some very precious passwords and some that cannot be counterfeited. All other societies, in trying to get up a society, try to do so without letting others know the password and secrets of the society. But we have a society respecting which nobody can give away its secrets--the Mystery of God, and we can't give it away. It can be understood by those on the inside and they can try to tell it, but only those who have an ear to hear can hear in the appreciative sense. The Apostle gives us this secret when he says, "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God....But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. 2:9,10,14.) I tell you the Lord was able to get up the best secret society when He sought to do so, and He has done so. I am surprised sometimes that some of the friends are taken in by some people who try to make believe they are brothers of the Lord. No one familiar with the Truth need be deceived. Have that in mind, dear friends.
Well, it will not be long, dear friends, until our secret society will be dissolved, and then it will be no more. The others are hoping that theirs will never be dissolved, but we are just waiting for the time when our society will be dissolved, because the Lord has written it in advance, "The Mystery of God has been finished which he kept secret from the foundation of the world." After that, what do you think? Everybody will know about it. Some one asks, Will everybody know who are of the glorified Church? Surely they will. We know about the Lord Jesus, that He is of the Church, and just so surely all in the Millennial Age will know who are the members of the Church, who have won the great prize, whom the Lord will declare and reveal to be His joint heirs in the kingdom. There is one Scripture that seems to bear upon this subject. It says, "And in Zion it shall be said, this and that man was born in her." (Psalm 87:5.) I think that refers to the way it will be ultimately. The roll call will be there, a very honorable roll call, the Lamb's Book of Life, and I hope our names will be there. I hope they are there now, for you remember the Lord's way of doing is that He writes these names in the Lamb's Book of Life at the time we make our consecration, and he lets them stay there so long as you and I abide in His love and in the condition of disciples. This love we want to abide in us and if it is abiding in us and we in Him then we are His and we will continue to be His. But if not, what then? He says He will blot out their names from the Book of Life. He does not say, however, that all those blotted out of that honorable roll will be blotted out of existence. No, indeed. But you and I desire, and desire earnestly that our names shall not be blotted out at all, but that by the grace of God having been called to this high place of glory, honor and immortality, that we may ultimately be counted worthy to share those things to which we were invited.
I sometimes think how much easier it will be to share those things than to lose them. I sometimes think that the position of the Little Flock will be an easier one in many respects than that of the Great Company. Both will suffer tribulation, "through much tribulation shall ye enter the kingdom," but there is a difference in the tribulation that will come upon the Little Flock and that of the tribulation class. Not that the tribulation class will have any more severe experiences than that of the Little Flock. How could they? Notice some of the things our Lord Jesus experienced. Will any of the Great Company have any harder experience? Some of the Apostles were beheaded, and John was cast into a cauldron of boiling oil. Will any have more severe experiences? What is the difference, then, between the Little Flock and the Great Company who make their robes white in the time of trouble? We have a tribulation in which we are enabled to glory, as the Apostle says, "But we glory in tribulations also." You remember how the Apostle Paul and Silas, his companion, were able to sing praises to God in the prison with their backs bleeding. Yes, indeed, and so may you and I learn to glory in tribulation, "knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts," bringing love, joy, peace and fellowship with the Father, with which there is nothing to be compared. We have the better part. So then all of those who have joined the Lord and undertaken to go the narrow way have counted the cost in advance, that there is to be a narrow way and they are therefore able to rejoice. What is [CR53] the secret? How could Paul and Silas rejoice? Because the love of God was shed abroad in their hearts. So you and I need to get more love. What next? More love. What after that? More love. You can't get too much. Get it shed abroad. We may have some love at the start. There was nothing but love for God that led us to make our consecration. After that there was a further work to do. We received the Holy Spirit permeating our hearts, influencing every action of our lives, and the words of our lips, and finally influencing all the thoughts of our minds, transforming, renewing, changing from glory to glory. But I must not continue in this strain.
I want, then, to say, finally, that the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society greet all of the Lord's dear people at this Convention and in the name of the Lord Jesus we wish you God-speed in your journey toward the heavenly city. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society is pleased with every opportunity of rendering you service in any manner whatsoever, and unto the least of the Lord's people; realizing that it is done as unto the great Master himself.
The Society is pleased to consider all of your interests so far as it is able to do so, and to supply as best the Lord gives the necessary means and opportunities for your refreshment by sending the Pilgrims and Watch Tower and making every arrangement for your comfort and welfare that we may all feast together at the Heavenly Father's table and rejoice together in the experiences at this present time, and all be built up together in the most holy faith and individually reach the glorious kingdom.
Dear friends, I do not know how to give you a more hearty greeting. My heart says, I love you all. We wish to send the good wishes of Brother Russell and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society to all who are at home, and as you overflow here may it overflow upon all the dear ones of the household of faith with whom you have to do.
If anything occurs that is not just to your pleasement and it does not go down the right way, just forget to tell them about it, as they will have plenty of troubles of their own, enough of bitterness and sadness in the world apart from other quarters, and it will not need to be from you. Let us see that we have sweetness for all with whom we come in contact.
I will just mention that the chairman of the Convention, as representing this Society, will be our dear Brother Rutherford, who is with us on the platform.
[CR53]
Obedience The Test
Text: "For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor?" (Rom. 11:34.)
Roll or Book (Closed).
"And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the back side, sealed with seven seals.
"And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?
"And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon."
Roll or Book (Opened).
"And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
"And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth." BROTHER RUSSELL spoke to the interested from the above text and we briefly report his discourse, as follows:
The statement of the case is that no one ever knew God's mind or character or plan, or that God had made a confident of anybody. No one had counselled Him or directed Him or given Him the wisdom to make the great plan which He is carrying out. We have called your attention to the fact that in Revelation the Lord pictures the matter symbolically, representing Jehovah God upon the throne and in His hand the scroll, written on the inside and on the outside, sealed with seven seals. Next there is a proclamation by a strong angel with a loud voice, saying, "Who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof?" We do not know for how long a time that inquiry was made, "Who is worthy?" For some time the message went forth and it was understood that God had a great and wonderful plan, but who would be worthy to execute it? You remember that John was represented in symbol as weeping much because there was none found worthy, and then an angel came to him and said, "Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof,"--to execute the Divine Plan. So then, dear friends, the next feature in the picture was that John looked in the direction indicated, "and I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and of the four elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints." The lesson taught is that the heavenly Father kept to Himself His great plan and purpose. You remember on one occasion when our Lord Jesus was discussing some matters pertaining to the setting up of the kingdom and said that the Father alone knew His own plans, and told the disciples that it was not for them to know the times and seasons which the Father had kept in His own power. But there were certain things which had been revealed and they were to be brought about through a kingdom. Our Lord said that when he would ascend up on high He would receive the Holy Spirit, which [CR54] He would pour out upon them, and then the disciples should speak as the oracles of God. So then, we draw a lesson from our great Teacher waiting for the Father to make known and unfold the various steps in His plan.
From this standpoint, looking back over the past, we can see a great deal of God's purpose that could not have been known then. Everything was going smoothly up to the time man was created; then came a great deflection when Satan fell. He in turn brought a great temptation to bear upon our first parents and they fell. This continued over centuries of time. Then came the fall of the angels in trying to lift up man. It must have been an astonishment to all, for none in heaven or earth was found able to execute God's plan. Yea, we may say, dear friends, that from that time to the present time God could have wiped that condition out, but He did not and Satan has made himself a friend of this world and we see the whole creation groaning under the sentence. God permitted it all. God has patiently endured all this time. His word has been traduced, they evilly treated His Son, and finally killed Him, even though the message which He brought was that of love. God has permitted the reign of sin and death in order to manifest the various features of His character, and to test the various orders of His creation. All will have an opportunity of showing the real character of their hearts. If you and I harbor selfish, mean, and improper thoughts in our minds the Lord will let us work them out. Keep thine heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. Satan was an angel of high order and respect, but God knew the traitorous condition of his heart long before he found opportunity of exercising it. OBEDIENCE TO GOD WILL BE THE TEST UPON ALL OF HIS CREATURES. The whole plan of God is a manifestation of His character. We have seen an exhibition of God's justice in dealing with our race. When He said, "The soul that sinneth it shall surely die," He meant it, and all down through the ages we have seen the fulfillment of the penalty. Sin and death have been apparent on all sides.
Then God manifested His love when He sent His only begotten Son to die for the world. It was never manifested before. He was the Lamb that was slain. Only those who can view the matter from the divine standpoint can appreciate it--only the Little Flock, no one on the outside. God is dealing only with this class of sons, and we have received the love of God which passeth all understanding, and we have had a further manifestation of His love to the Church. The world has a very different idea; they think God is anything but love, and many have died thinking they were surely going to hell, and they will wake up in a very frightened condition and ask, Where are the devils? where are the devils? Never mind, they will be told; be quiet, there are no devils. The world feels that the heavenly Father has some scheme ready to torment them all.
Then God's power will be manifested in connection with His love in the resurrection, but there is not the one-thousandth part of His power manifested in the work of resurrection. God is not only love, but just and powerful.
Next will be manifest the wisdom of God. The world will learn what you and I are understanding now, that by and by all will come forth from their graves.
In permitting the angels to have a trial God was working out a part of His plan and the fall of man furnished the opportunity for their trial, and ever since God has been permitting evil and sinful conditions to continue in order that man may have a thorough experience with sin. So then, dear friends, God will show the wisdom of His plan eventually, the justice first, the love next, the power next, and finally wisdom. That will be the last thing the people, or world, will see. During this Gospel Age He leads all who are desirous of righteousness and of doing the divine will to the great Redeemer and Life-giver, that they may be justified, sanctified, and then delivered through Him. This is our privilege and during this time the Lord is dealing especially with us. Let us therefore rejoice in the things that our God hath revealed to us. And so the Apostle Peter says, "Whereby are given unto us 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."
What have we done that we should be made joint-heirs
with Jesus Christ? Nothing. You cannot do anything.
It is of His grace, mercy, love and compassion. We should
be more and more conformed to the image of His Son, our
great Redeemer. Now, then, the Apostle says, you see your
calling, you are all called in the one hope of your calling.
Do you suppose He will not test you and me? Verily. Just
as surely as we have become His disciples we will have to
undergo certain tests. What is the test? Loyalty to Him.
Obedience. How was Adam tested? Not by the apple, not
by how much fruit he ate, but it was his obedience, or
loyalty, that was tested. On what ground will He test you
and me?--loyalty. This matter of obedience comes to us
in various forms, in a hundred different ways. He permits
things to come that cross your will. How are you receiving
it? and are you being exercised by it? Are you submissive?
Are you resigned, saying, The Lord's will be
done? We should be. God's will should come into our
hearts more and more each day, for the test will always be
one of love. I hope I will always have that fear or reverence
that will fear to transgress God's holy will, the fear
born of love, not the fear that He is going to eternally punish
me. If anything comes as a spot upon our robe, let us
go at once to the great Cleanser.
"Son of my soul, I let not earth born cloud arise
To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes."
Any spot that you do not get rid of is an earth-born cloud, and if any do not get rid of these spots, they must go through the great time of trouble.
We are in the testing time, and we want to be faithful, for He is faithful who called us, and He has promised to do everything that we have asked Him for.
The Lord thus proves you to know to what extent you love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Therefore,
"Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."
[CR54]
Keep Thy Heart
Text: "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." HE SAID: If the Divine Plan of the Ages does not satisfy our hearts' longings, there is something wrong with our hearts.
I do not think there is anything wrong with the truth, for the more I learn of the truth, the more I say, Indeed, O my soul, you have found the satisfying portion which the Lord shall supply. If you were to look for anything more, what would you find? The TRUTH says to us, "Jesus is mine, this has satisfied every longing of my nature." I believe you have all had that longing, or else you would not be here. God has a way of allowing us to get very hungry before He gives us the truth.
My own experience was that, as a boy of sixteen, I got very hungry for the truth, but could find nothing satisfactory to me. I used to say, This that I have is not the great God that I want, full of Justice, Love, Power and Wisdom. These must be infinite qualities pertaining to Jehovah, and that is the God I am looking for.
I did not think to look into the Bible, and so looked into the various denominations. After looking into their views, and finding them all short--not a little bit short, but a good deal short, the aching void in my heart, and the growing desire for the truth became stronger and stronger, [CR55] but the Lord let me alone in the desert place to find out what it was to get real hungry.
I wandered about for more than a year, and during that time I hunted around in the heathen mythologies to see who the heathen were, they or us.
I finally said, There must be something somewhere connected with our Heavenly Father; it cannot be that God has placed us here as His creatures and not given us some knowledge of His purpose. I was hunting for God's Bible all around the Bible, and finally said, Christianity comes nearer to the true conception of God, but none of the creeds could be seen to be the Word of God. You and I would not deal with the heathen the way the creeds say God is dealing with them, and I said, I will never worship a God who is smaller than myself, but I want one who is worthy of my heart's worship and adoration. God brought me back to the Bible, and I got the conviction that what I wanted was in that book somewhere. Then I read a little further and said, Is it not strange that all these systems get their views out of the Bible! The Methodists say it is free grace and that they get it out of the Bible. The Presbyterians say that it is election and that they get it out of the Bible, and that the Methodists are mistaken. Then the Roman Catholics say, You are both wrong, we are the true Church. Then the Lutheran Church say they are the true Church. Then the Baptists say that if you are not baptized you will go to hell.
I thought, if all get their views from the Bible, what a queer book the Bible must be. So after considering the matter, I realized that in all my wanderings for over a year the Lord was showing me what I did not know and what the others did not know, and further that His plan was a hidden plan.
Coming back to the Bible I found, as the poet has expressed it, "Wonderful things in the Bible I see, Jesus loves me," and more than that I found that Jesus loves the other man also. God's love proceeded to all mankind, and Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man; and "He was the propitiation for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world."
Now, dear friends, we are beginning to find the real Bible and the real God, and our eyes begin to be opened, not because of any superior might, but because the morning time had come, the Day Star was rising, its light was shining upon the past, and we were awake.
Now then, are you awake, and are you hungering? If you have not been hungering, then you have not the truth-- you need to get hungry first. "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." If you are not hungering and thirsting, while you may get a little, you will not be filled. After He gives us some food, we must chew it. Some people say, O well, there are six volumes; I have my children, my business, etc., and I have not the time to chew it. If they get hungry enough, they cannot be stopped by anything; everything else will seem insipid. We therefore see that hunger for righteousness, the truth, is the proper thing.
It was right for Mother Eve to want light and knowledge, but she should have said, I will have full confidence in the servant God sends, and I will believe Him who loves me so. I will be satisfied that He will do the best thing for me. While I would like the knowledge, perhaps it would not be the best thing for me, and I will let God, in His own due time, give me the blessings of knowledge, for I want it to come in the line of obedience to Him, and not from disobedience to Him. Then she would have been right.
So it is with us, after getting the Truth the Devil comes as an angel of light, trying to make us think we will get wise if we follow him, and not be obedient to God. He transforms himself, and therefore we must be on our guard to be sure that we receive nothing but what our heavenly Father shall provide. Let us say, I want only the light and knowledge that the Lord shall give in His own appointed way and I will be pleased to have it thus.
"Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."
How about the issues of life in the case of Mother Eve? If she had kept her heart, she would have had the right to the tree of life, but failing, she came under the sentence of death. Why, Brother Russell, do you mean to say that we are on trial for life? Yes, that is just it, and your trial and my trial are much more important than was that of Mother Eve; because, with you and me, this is the final test, because this is our individual trial, after receiving light on the truth, and if we fail in this trial there will be no further opportunity for us. WE ARE BEING TRIED FOR LIFE OR FOR DEATH.
The Apostle tells us that those now who believe in the sacrifice of Christ, are justified by faith, and come out from under the condemnation which is in Adam; their sins of the past are forgiven, and they step upon the plane of justification.
If now you wish to make use of this justification, present your bodies a living sacrifice. Why? That is a "mystery," but we will explain it: God purposes gathering out of the world a "Little Flock" to be the joint-heirs with Christ, His Bride, the Lamb's Wife, to be associated with Him in the kingdom work. The question is, Can I be one of that elect class? Yes--"Now is the acceptable time." Now is the time that God will accept us, as the Apostle tells us in Romans 12:1. It will not always be an acceptable time, for it will cease when the last member of the Bride Class has been gathered, and there will be no more sacrifice. Will not the world have an opportunity to get into this Bride Class? No, for this Gospel Age is the acceptable time, for those who will be joint-sacrificers with Christ, and who will fill up the afflictions which remain, for His body's sake. We have the privilege of suffering with Him now, and of reigning with Him later.
Is the call still open? No, for we understand that in 1881 the full number had been consecrated. How then is there room for any now? We understand the Scriptures to teach that since the general call ceased in 1881 and the full number had consecrated, had made a covenant with Him by sacrifice, that many of them did not willingly carry out their covenant of sacrifice, and have therefore dropped out of that class, not however into eternal torment, and that others have been admitted to take the place of those who have not proved themselves to be willing sacrificers, who have not been obedient. There are three signs of acceptance:
(1) They must manifest the Holy Spirit, and develop the fruits and graces of the Spirit.
(2) They must grow in the knowledge of the truth, and be able to see that God is opening up to their understanding these great things.
(3) They must find some opportunity for service in the harvest field.
Then, dear friends, we have the evidence that they are the ones whom the Father has accepted, and they are counted in as members of the Body of Christ. It is a fact that some of those more recently coming into the truth are the more zealous amongst the brethren, and they are making rapid progress.
But suppose the last one had been selected, then what would be your duty? It would be to give your whole life to the Lord; because it is a reasonable service, it is the proper thing to do. Will I get any reward? Do it any way, for you belong to the Lord, and you should be glad to lay down your life in His service. You know that if you were to serve some earthly great one you would get a reward, and do you not think that the Great King would give you a suitable recompense.
We have a great advantage now, for the Lord Jesus, when He accepted us, promised to cover all our blemishes, and weaknesses, and imperfections, and He will not suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able. We have much advantage over Mother Eve, for we have not only a knowledge of her experience, but we also have a knowledge of God's purpose through His Word, and of all the faithful ones since, of our Lord, and of the Apostles, and others. It is a test of loyalty with us, and while we have temptations come to us, as they did to Mother Eve, yet we do not have to yield to them, any more than we are obliged to allow the crows to build nests in our hair just because they fly over us. Our safety lies in keeping our hearts with all diligence. The Apostle Peter tells us that if we [CR56] should fall away, after having the blessings of the Lord, it will be impossible to renew us again unto repentance. I hope I will never know anything about it experimentally. Won't the Lord keep our hearts for us? No; because He wishes to test us. He has all power, and could make a mere machine of us, but God is not pleased to have us in that condition. "God seeketh such to worship Him as worship Him in Spirit and in Truth." However, He will allow temptations to come to see what your heart is, how you will do under temptation. We must be loyal, obedient now, and the world of mankind must be loyal in the Millennial Age, otherwise they can never attain to eternal life. The Father will test and prove them also, and He will allow Satan to tempt them as perfect human beings, just as He allowed the serpent to tempt Mother Eve. If, at the end of the Millennial Age, they are not willing to do God's will, they will not be fit to live. God intends to test every creature. He is testing us, the Little Flock, now, and also the Great Company, for there will be none in the Great Company who are not loyal and who have not been proved as such. The difference is that the Little Flock go ahead with a vigorous determination and come off more than conquerors, while the Great Company hold back and do not willingly make the sacrifice which they agreed to do when they consecrated. We should have such a love for righteousness and truth that we will gladly lay down our lives rather than wait to have our lives taken from us, as will be the case with the Great Company. IT IS A QUESTION OF OBEDIENCE OR DISOBEDIENCE.
How is it with us? We have put ourselves in God's hands and agreed to be obedient to Him; will we now draw back from Him and be disobedient? I hope not. We trust we are not of those who draw back into perdition, the second death, but that we are of those who believe unto the saving of the soul. That includes both the Little Flock and the Great Company. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."
Obedience enters into all the little affairs of life. In Mother Eve's case, it was just a question of whether she would or would not eat of the forbidden fruit. Whether we eat, or drink, or whatever we do, we are to do all to the glory of the Lord. We should be obedient children, not fashioning ourselves according to our former desires, before we came to a knowledge of the Lord, and before we made a consecration to Him. We should submit ourselves unto the Lord and ask Him what He would have us to do. If we do that we will not be afraid to take the next step. I hope our spirit is, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; thy law is written in my heart."
Now, if your heart is your garden, then what you plant will grow there if you keep the weeds away; but if you let the weeds grow, you will not be what the Lord would have. Keep your heart then, keep this garden, and make it more and more the Lord's. Then we will have the comfort of the truth and of the Lord's blessing.
"Keep thy heart with all diligence."
Why with so much diligence? Why, dear brothers and sisters, the Adversary is going around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, and if we do not keep our hearts, some ambitious desire will creep in. If you and I are to be victors, it must be by constant vigilance, which the Lord will be pleased to bless. What good company we all have, for the Saints, from God's standpoint, have nothing to be ashamed of.
Let us be faithful, for the Lord is not choosing many great, not many rich, not many learned, not many noble, but chiefly the poor of this world, rich in faith, and He is working in us by His power and assistance. The heart that will not be influenced by God's rich promises will not be, as the Apostle says of the faithful, "changed from glory to glory," and transformed by the renewing of their minds.
Let us have the grace of God abounding in our hearts more and more, that we may be children like unto our heavenly Father, and copies of our Lord. Amen.
[CR56]
You Hath He Quickened
SPEAKING on behalf of those coming from different parts of the United States I know that we are GLAD in the Lord's providence that we are permitted to stop here a few hours. We are all members of the same Body. What a UNION this is! As for the insurance companies, Odd Fellows, etc., all of these unions have an organization with their own secrets, grips, etc. The Body of Christ has its own grips and secrets, yet none can know their secrets or mystery. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him and He will show them His covenant.
What is the fellowship of the mystery? The Apostle explains that it is Christ in you the Hope of Glory. Christ in you and you in Christ--it works both ways. We are in the wonderful mystical Body of Christ which is not yet complete. It will be complete when we experience our resurrection change. Then it will no longer be a mystery. All the world will know these whom God selected--gathered out of every nation, people, kindred and tongue. "They shall be mine, saith the Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels." The Jewels are not made up yet; it is a matter to be determined. We are called to be jewels. In the meantime we must be required to go through certain tests to shape and polish us that we may be able to reflect His glory.
We have our mystery, secrets, grips, etc. I have to be on my guard against the grip occasionally (holding his hand); they imagine this is like a pump handle--the more they work it the more it will give out. Some say, "Brother Russell, I can't get a proper grip"--I tell them I have enough of it.
Our secret is such as eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man--but God has revealed it unto us by His spirit. We talk about the things in reservation for those who love the Lord and our friends do not understand. The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned. We need not be bashful or ashamed to talk our secret before the whole world. It is the Power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. (Romans 1:16.) What a transforming influence our secret has upon our lives. In our three carloads of friends--89 in number, we have not noticed one unkind word and no one getting in another's way. We see that these dear ones are being transformed by the renewing of their minds.
You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Quickened or made alive. Were we all dead? Yes! Who were we? The Apostle says we were children of wrath even as others. Was God mad with them? They were children of wrath on account of Adam's sins. God cannot commend sin; He hath to condemn it. He said, I won't give eternal life to an imperfect one. The whole race is under sentence of death. We have seen that God's provision for them is still future. All are dead in condemnation. God's provision is that He will give opportunity for life to every member of the race.
If we did not know anything about the High Calling and knew about Perfection to be restored and a right to everlasting life would not that be a message of gladness itself? We would want to tell everyone about it just as we do now. We would tell about the Ransom and tell all to wait awhile for Restitution. We would have a reward to KNOW about Restitution even without the JOY of telling it. We wonder how it ever got along before without our heavenly aspirations.
[CR57]
The world does not know what we do. They work and fuss all the week and when Sunday comes they change their clothes, etc., and do not know what they are living for-- all according to what they have been told.
We can commit all of life's affairs to the Father every morning and throughout the day we can render our thanks for our meals and for all things and we can commit ourselves to Him again at night. What a wonderful change! You hath He quickened. Why, it's wonderful! With us it is not as though we were going to get a new cat or chickens or have a new house, etc. The poor world, they need our sympathy. They have no idea of a God and know nothing of His Plan, why they are here--and they know nothing about Restitution. What a HOPE to live for if they knew about restitution. It would take all the starch out of life if they knew it. The world is happy in their ambition which takes their thought and time. It is well for the world that they have the ambition, for if it were not for that they could have nothing. None have what we have. If they had Restitution Hopes, would that compare with ours? No! God has given us EXCEEDING great and precious promises that by these we might be made partakers of the divine nature. He is giving us intelligence and right and proper understanding of life. He has put a new song in our mouth. O wonderful MYSTERY of God. The Creator of all things heavenly and earthly, has He such a Plan as that? He who created cherubim and seraphim, angels, archangels, etc.--the Great God now proposes to gather out a handful of this fallen race to exalt them to the high position of joint-heirs with Jesus. It is too stupendous for us to grasp. It is only through faith and the assistance of God that we can lay hold of these exceeding great and precious promises and make them ours.
You hath He quickened. What was the process? You were
in a condemned condition. You heard a voice. ("Blessed
are your ears.") You heard the Lord say, "You are a sinner
but there is mercy in God--seek his face." We said,
"Thy face, Lord, will I seek." How did we seek His face?
Some of us through a tract or a Tower, etc.--we must come
through His Son.
"Since my eyes were fixed on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside--
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Looking at the crucified."
Then we began to see that God was in Christ reconciling Himself to the world. When we saw this we said, "Lord, I see all of this, how can I get my share--I believe it all." The Lord answered, "Are you striving to turn away from sin? Do you love righteousness and hate iniquity? I count you justified by faith." We answered, "Now may I count myself related to Thee and Thy dear Son. Dear Lord, I give myself to Thee, 'tis all that I can do. What wouldst Thou have me to do?" The Lord says, "Put a new robe on him!" To these the Apostle says, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, and your reasonable service." Not to give it up now in a word, but present it daily and hourly. Present it on the altar. This is the class that the Lord quickens. Then He calls us New Creatures in Christ. We find that we are not our old selves--old ambitions, desires, etc., have passed away. We sing, "Less of self and more of THEE." "What wouldst thou have me do?" The Lord answers, "Ye are dead; walk as New Creatures, according to the Spirit of the Lord. Having the promises before your mind's eye, set your affections on things above. If affections ever slip be quick to set them where they belong; promptly. Ask the Lord for forgiveness for anything which drew you away from the heavenly things." Then you realize that you are in the school of Christ, under trial, bearing tests. Every battle in which you overcome will make you stronger. You will receive a blessing even when you stumble.
You hath He quickened. Let us stay quickened. We COULD lose this light. The Apostle spoke of himself that there was a possibility of his becoming a castaway--a possibility of not being born at all. Let us reckon the trials of this present time as not worthy to be compared with the glory to follow. Put all of the earthly things in one side of the scale, all of the trials, etc., and the heavenly things on the other side, and the joys, the sense of the Father's love and watch care, the precious promises, etc., will go down with a bang. How could we swap again? The worldly have only an earthly glamor.
Faithful is He who hath called us. You hath He quickened.
[CR57]
God's Abounding Grace
Text: "The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich; and he addeth no sorrow." (Prov. 10:22.) ON ACCOUNT of the arrangement of the program for the St. Joseph convention, Brother Russell was obliged to leave the Denver convention and precede the special train party.
When he stepped upon the platform at St. Joseph, the dear friends were singing that precious hymn, "Blest Be the Tie that Binds Our Hearts in Christian Love." The scene was very affecting. Many eyes were moist and the entire audience of about eight hundred were deeply impressed by the occasion, and with the appropriate words which they were singing. Brother Russell joined in with them in the song and greetings, and then addressed them on the above text, in substance, as follows: HE SHOWED that the blessing of the Lord had not made rich the world, but would do so in God's due time. He pointed out that the blessing of the Lord had made Father Adam rich, but that the sin of disobedience had spoiled his blessing and brought upon him instead the sentence of the curse of death. Next he showed the promise of new blessings in the Divine Covenant with Abraham and that the knowledge of this coming blessing means the refreshment and joy to all who can see it and hear it with the eyes and ears of faith. He traced the fulfillment of the promise in Christ and the Church and noted how rich the divine blessing is to all who will receive even the present foretaste. He concentrated attention upon the thought of the fulfillment of the divine promises in God's due time--how the blessing of the Lord in the end would make the Church rich indeed, to the extent of the divine nature and glory and honor and immortality promised to those who will be then joint-heirs with the Lord Jesus in His Millennial Kingdom and His work of blessing to the world.
He pointed out the truth of the statement of our text, "He addeth no sorrow therewith." He showed that the sorrows are not of the Lord's providing or adding, but come as a result of sin and imperfection and that in proportion as we reverence the Lord and seek to walk through life close to Him, in that same proportion we shall avoid the sorrows which come from outside sources. He noted also the fact that it is the divine intention that those who would live godly should suffer persecution, but that such persecution is not of the Lord, though permitted by him, and that with His grace in sufficient supply we may be enabled to "glory in tribulation also."
He pointed out the divine order for all these blessings: That our Lord Jesus, born under the Law Covenant as well as under the Abrahamic Covenant, was thus obligated to [CR58] keep the Law, and did so perfectly; and that thus He was declared to be the one perfect Man through whom accrued all blessings to us from the Lord, including the opportunity of becoming members of "Abraham's Seed." (Gal. 3:29.) By fulfilling the Law Jesus was entitled to everything that Father Adam had originally possessed as a perfect man, everything he had lost through disobedience. Thus Jesus was entitled to everlasting human life and fellowship with the Father--entitled also to be the Ruler or King of earth and to all the earthly dignity and honor from God which this implied--having dominion over the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea, as well as over the fallen race. Had our Lord chosen to exercise those earthly rights He might indeed have blessed the world to a considerable degree through wise laws and regulations respecting diet, etc., etc. But His empire would still have been subject to death, because the death sentence would still be hanging over Adam and his posterity.
Such a blessing was just about what the Jews had expected as a result of the Abrahamic promise. They awaited the Messiah, who, as their Instructor and great King, would rule and guide and bless them and ultimately extend that rule and blessing to all the families of the earth with generally favorable and uplifting influences. God, however, had higher plans for mankind. For "as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God's plans higher than man's plans and His methods higher than man's methods." (Isa. 55:9.)
In harmony with the divine plan our Lord Jesus, instead of keeping the earthly life and empire to which He had a right as the obedient heir of the Law Covenant, sacrificed it--laid it down in death. This was the Father's proposition--that if He would show His faith and obedience to the extent of fully sacrificing the earthly life and rights, the Father would raise Him up by power divine from the dead, not to earthly conditions again, but to heavenly conditions--"Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named." (Eph. 1:21.) It is the Father's proposition that being thus exalted He might still possess the earthly rights which He had sacrificed--possess them as an asset or valuable possession which He might give away for the blessing of Adam and His race, whose lives and earthly rights were forfeited by sin. He showed that our risen, glorified Lord had in His possession when He ascended up on high, enough of blessing to mean the restoration of Adam and every member of His race, or as many of these as He might choose to apply this benefit to. Christ's one sacrifice was sufficient for all if so applied. He requested all to notice that the blessings which Jesus had to give away were earthly blessings, earthly life, earthly power, earthly paradise, etc., and not heavenly things.
The New Covenant.
He reminded the friends that the Israelites, under the Law Covenant had been hoping for these great earthly blessings from Messiah. At first they thought that Moses should be the great Deliverer, through whom they would get the wonderful blessings. But as they perceived that Moses and all of their race were dying, they to some extent realized that their (Law) Covenant was not bringing them the great blessings they had anticipated. Then the Lord sent to them through the prophets assurances that he would make a New (Law) Covenant with them after certain days, thus implying that the (Law) Covenant in which they had trusted was not wholly satisfactory and could not accomplish for them what they needed. They, of course, knew that if they would have a New Covenant, it must also have a mediator. And the Lord, through the prophets, indicated that the great Messiah would be that Mediator. The Lord spoke of those things yet future as though they already were. He spoke of them prophetically. Thus also our Lord was referred to as the Lamb of God slain (in the Divine purpose) from the foundation of the world. Similarly Jesus, before his birth, was mentioned prophetically as the Mediator of the New Covenant--neither the Covenant itself, nor its mediator, being in existence, except in the promise of God. God said to Israel--"Behold, I will send my Messenger,...even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in [the servant or Mediator of the New Law Covenant for whose coming you are so desirous]. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap." (Mal. 3:1,2.)
He pointed out that even though Israel slew the Redeemer it was done ignorantly and that our reasonable expectation might have been that after our Lord had finished His sacrifice at Calvary and had ascended up on high and appeared in the Father's presence, His appearance would have been for Israel, as the Mediator of the Promised New Covenant--to make application of His blood as the sealing of that New Law Covenant. Thus He would have given to Israel the right of earthly life, earthly honor, earthly dominion, which He had a right to through keeping the Law, but had sacrificed so that He might give it to Israel, and through Israel to all the families of the earth. But to our surprise He did nothing of this kind. Instead of showering the blessing of restitution upon natural Israel He did the very reverse. He said to them, "Your house is left unto you desolate. Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord"--at His second coming as the King of glory, the great anti-typical King, Priest and Mediator between God and men--between God and the world. (Matt. 23:38,39.) The Apostle declares that Israel was blinded, but he equally assures us that their blindness will not last forever, and that Divine favor will return to them under their New Covenant.
What did our Lord do with those earthly rights, earthly honors, earthly life privileges, etc., which were His to bestow? We remember that it is written, that "He ascended up on high, there to appear in the presence of God for us" --for the "household of faith," the anti-typical Levites, including the anti-typical priests. He called attention to the apparent incongruity of this, namely, that the Church is hoping for spiritual blessings, glory, honor and immortality on the spiritual plane, and not hoping to get earthly rights, earthly life, etc., such as Jesus had to bestow. He pointed out, however, that the offer made to the Church is from the Father, who, co-operating with our Lord Jesus, has given us who are now called a similar invitation to that which was given to our Lord Jesus. Our Lord Jesus tenders to us first the earthly rights and blessings which He acquired through obedience to the Law and which, by virtue of His sacrifice, He has now to give away. He offered them all to us--to the "household of faith" of this Gospel Age, but conditionally and not otherwise. The conditions are that we shall, as He did, agree to sacrifice these earthly rights, to abrogate them, to lay them down, to die to those earthly restitution rights and privileges and honors. In so doing we shall be following the example of our Lord, walking in His footsteps, and be obeying His Word, and shall be accounted worthy of a share with Him in the heavenly glory, honor and immortality, and in His Millennial reign.
Explaining the proposition to us the Master says that we may first of all count ourselves justified by faith-- justified freely from all sin, as though we were actually perfect. But this justification by faith is merely granted to us for a purpose and for a time--to furnish us the opportunity for sacrificing those earthly rights. And whosoever does not use the opportunity and make the consecration, his justification will lapse--will amount to nothing. If, however, any desire to be His disciple and to follow His leading, to share in His death, to share in His sacrifice, to be dead with Him, that disciple may have the assurance of participation with Him in the heavenly state, condition and glory. "If any man will be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me," "and where I am there shall my servant be." In line with this the Apostle exhorts all believers, all members of the household of faith, to present their bodies living sacrifices, counted as "holy," justified freely from sin through the merit of the blood of Jesus, which makes them "acceptable" sacrificers and enables them to become joint-heirs with Christ in the heavenly glory on the same terms and conditions that the Father granted to their Redeemer. (Rom. 12:1.)
[CR59]
He thus saw that by this Divine program the merit of Christ's death, earthly rights, restitution privileges and honors will pass through the Church without the slightest diminution; for all that the Church receives by faith through Christ must be laid down again in sacrifice. So, then, at the close of this Gospel Age, the merit of Christ will be neither more nor less than at the time He died; but, in God's providence, that merit will meantime have been used as the basis or condition upon which the "elect" Church shall have been lifted, not only out of sin and death conditions, but out of earthly conditions altogether-- to heavenly conditions, to the Divine nature. He paused a moment to consider with the Apostle the wonderful wisdom of God and to say with him, Who knew the mind of God in advance or who was His adviser in this wonderful, economical, judicial, loving and generous arrangement by which we, the "elect" of this Gospel Age, receive grace upon grace or favor upon favor and are permitted to share with our Lord in His great work of blessing the world of mankind with an uplift, social, mental, moral and physical?
"Mercy Through Your Mercy"
What next will Christ do with this merit of His own sacrifice? We hearkened to the Apostle, who explains this entire matter in Romans 11:25-33. He assures us that Israel was not cast off for ever, but merely until we Spiritual Israelites shall first have been sought and found, polished and fitted and brought to perfection. Then "all Israel shall be saved" from the blindness which God sent upon them at the beginning of this age. By that time the Deliverer shall have come out of Zion. The Head, our Lord Jesus, was brought to the birth more than eighteen centuries ago. His Body, the Church, is now being born in the end of this Gospel Age by having share in "his resurrection." (Phil. 3:10,11.)
Israel and the world have been waiting for the development of this great Deliverer--Jesus the Head and the Church His Body. This is the great anti-typical Mediator like unto Moses, of whom Moses said, "A prophet, the Lord our God, shall raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me." (Acts 3:22.) The Head was raised up nearly eighteen centuries ago. The Body is now being raised up and, with the "change" of the feet members, the anti-type, Mediator, Priest and King of the world will stand forth. We are not left to doubt as to how and when and where the blessing will begin. The Divine blessing is to reach the world of mankind through Israel and under their New Covenant. They have been blinded and turned aside, waiting for the Deliverer--waiting for the Mediator. Shortly He will be completed. His first work will be to pass to the credit of the New Covenant that same "precious blood" which, during this Gospel Age, has blessed and comforted the Church and opened for us the way to joint-heirship with the Redeemer through sacrifice.
The blood of Christ represents His sacrificed life and all
the earthly rights represented therein. His right to the
earthly life, by His obedience to the Law, is still His asset
or merit, passed through the Church, which is His Body.
It now becomes the blood of the New (Law) Covenant, the
basis of reconciliation between God and Israel. It seals
that Covenant, which, through Israel, shall extend the
privilege of eternal life to every nation, people, kindred and
tribe. This blood of the New Covenant our Lord invites
His Church to share in, saying, "Drink ye all of it." And
again, "Are ye able to drink of the cup, that I shall
drink of?" Except we partake of the merit of His flesh
and are thus justified by the merit of His sacrifice, and
unless additionally we share in "His cup" as partakers
of His blood, "His death," His sacrifice, we have no life
in us. Sharing with Him in His cup, partaking of His
sufferings of this present time, buried with Him by immersion
into His death, we shall be associated with Him
as members of the Mediator in the work of dispensing the
blessings of that New Covenant, under its terms, to whosoever
wills to accept them.
"Oh glorious hope of heavenly love!
It lifts us up to things above;
It bears on eagle-wings.
It gives our joyful souls a taste
And makes us even here to feast
With Jesus, priests and kings."
Note the Apostle's comments further. In verse 27, still speaking of Israel, he says, "This is my [New] Covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins." He pointed out that the apostle could have referred only to the New Covenant promised to that nation, and the fact that their sin should be taken away at the time when that Covenant is sealed--made operative. St. Paul continues, declaring that natural Israel was treated as God's enemy and turned aside during all this Gospel Age--that we might have the privilege of becoming members of the Spiritual Seed of Abraham under the original, primary Covenant. St. Paul points out that as soon as the Church, the Deliverer, shall have come out of Zion and their New Covenant has begun to operate, the effect will be not only to "save" them from their blindness, but also to "turn away their ungodliness."
Note especially that St. Paul declares of natural Israel, blessed under its Covenant, that "They shall obtain mercy through your mercy." He pointed out that this does not signify that the mercy to Israel, the earthly seed under the New Covenant, will not be Divine mercy, nor does it signify that it is not the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the contrary, it will be of the Father and by the Son and through the Church. "They shall obtain mercy through your mercy." He reminded the friends that every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of Lights and that every blessing comes to us by His representative, our Lord Jesus Christ, and that we, the Church, are by and through Him. Hence, the expression, "They shall obtain mercy through your mercy," is merely bringing to our attention the fact that the Divine purpose is to honor the Church by passing through her the Divine blessing, which from of old had been promised to the natural seed of Abraham.
A Father of Many Nations.
In Ezekiel 16:45-60 the Lord clearly indicates that His dealing with the outside nations will be through natural Israel. Referring to the Sodomites and to the Samaritans the Lord used these two nations as illustrations of the other nations of the world and how they are received to Divine blessing, saying, "I will give them unto thee for daughters [to be instructed], but not by thy Covenant." Their Covenant of that time was the Law Covenant of Sinai. But the Covenant under which these are to be given to them will be their New (Law) Covenant--instituted by the better Mediator-- the Christ, Head and Body.
He showed that thus all the nations of the world will be privileged to come back into harmony with God under Israel's New Covenant. This would imply that to have the benefit of the New Covenant they must become Israelites indeed, with true circumcision of the heart. Thus Abraham will become gradually "a father of many nations." The prophecy declares that after the time of trouble and after the Ancient Worthies shall have been established as the rulers of natural Israel, and after God's blessing and the New Covenant shall have begun to operate toward them, the other nations of the world will begin to take notice. Sin and death will still be reigning amongst them, but they will behold in Israel the beginning of the reign of righteousness unto life eternal. Then they will say to each other, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord's house"--let us come into line with the Divine government established in Israel; Israel's great Law-giver then will be our Teacher also and we will walk in the paths which He directs; for the Law shall go forth from Mount Zion [the glorified spiritual Church] and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, the earthly representative of the heavenly dominion. (Micah 4:2.)
[CR60]
Address of Welcome
AT 11 o'clock Brother Russell came on the platform and was greeted with the Chautauqua salute, which he returned, while all joined in singing, "Blest Be the Tie That Binds." He then spoke in part as follows:
Dear Friends: It affords me great pleasure to be with you this morning. I deferred my little address on this occasion, learning that some were late, hoping thereby to see the larger number of smiling faces.
I trust, dear friends, that we have all come here, not merely to have a season of outing and refreshment physically, but largely, and specially, that we may have a season of fellowship with the Lord, and with each other, that our hearts may be comforted in the Truth, and that they may be more closely knit together in love for the Lord, and for all who are His. We are glad that by the Divine providence, knowledge of Him and His Plan has reached our ears, and our hearts, which enables us to love, not only those of a certain sect, party or class who believe just alike, but all who believe in the great Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; that Gospel which, emanating from the cross of Christ, began at Pentecost to gather a people for the Lord's name, out of all nations, kindreds and tongues, to be His associates in His kingdom, the kingdom of His Son. We are glad to know that when the due time shall have come when in God's providence the election of the Church shall have been accomplished, it will not mean that all the remainder of mankind shall be consigned to an eternity of torment, but it will mean that from that kingdom of the elect, the Glorified Christ will go forth blessing to all the families of the earth, opening all the blind eyes, and unstopping all the deaf ears, and causing all to know the Lord from the least to the greatest.
How wonderful, dear friends, is that Gospel. What wonder is it that after our mind had been blinded for so long with false doctrine, misunderstanding our Heavenly Father and His wonderful character, what wonder it is that as we come to see something of the richness of His loving kindness, and the lengths, and breadths, and heights, and depths of His love, what wonder, I say, that this should prove an attraction that our hearts should be drawn to the truth, as the needle of the compass is drawn to the pole, and how all the compasses in the world, so to speak, point to the one hope, and how our hearts, whether in this land or in Europe, Africa or Asia, all the hearts of God's people are pointing toward the truth, and every one of us, I am sure, are desirous of being more and more filled with the Spirit, and have it abounding in us richly, so that it will make us neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord, so that through that knowledge of Him we may be transformed in heart and life, and be changed from glory to glory, as in the image of the Lord.
Dear friends, I congratulate you that there is such a large number of you present this morning under these happy circumstances and conditions, with our hearts full of praise to the Great King, and with a desire to study to more and more appreciate His Word, and to come into the fellowship of His Spirit, one with another, and with our Lord and our Heavenly Father. It is not often I am sure that this City of Conventions has a convention of this kind. It is not often that mankind comes together at their own expense, over broad distances, to commune respecting God and the precious things contained in His Word. There is usually something of political interest to draw them together, or financial matters, and usually their expenses are paid, but we have come at our own expense.
Now, then, dear friends, in order that our time and energy and money shall not be spent in vain, what is necessarily the proper thing? I suggest that the proper thing is that at the very beginning of this Convention we shall turn our hearts within, for the purpose of being drawn toward the Lord and His Word, and with the prayer to Him that we may seek to know His will, and to do it, and as the Apostle expressed it, to have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. We have all ascertained that it is one thing to have a knowledge of the truth, but another thing to have its Spirit. Still another thing to have it dwell in our hearts. Still further to have it shed abroad in our hearts, filling all the avenues of our lives and thoughts, and constituting the very mainspring of life. I trust that is the thought and intention of every one present. We love to think that each one of these Conventions is a little better than the one that went before. I like to think that it is so, and think it ought to be so, because as you and I get a deeper appreciation of the truth and have its spirit more and more shed abroad in our hearts, we ought to expect that we ought to have that much better fellowship with each other. Let us seek to put away, during the days of this Convention, all worldly thoughts, speculations, ambitions, purposes and arrangements, and let us have our hearts full of thoughts pertaining to the Lord and the Kingdom and the things which He will be pleased to have us blessed with, that our coming together will be for our mutual upbuilding in the most holy faith; because we are living in the harvest time of this Gospel Age, the most glorious epoch that the world has ever known, in that little period of time, which the Scriptures term, "The Day of Jehovah's Preparation," preparing for the Millennium, the time when the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth. The preparations are going on. We have the electric light and all the advantages of our day, such as were never possible or enjoyed before. Many of us have come much longer distances than the Apostle Paul when he went on his journey to Rome, and we have come in a few hours. What a wonderful time in which we are living, and how happy we are to know that God is getting the forces of nature ready for the blessing of all the nations of the earth, with an opportunity of being uplifted through His truth more and more day by day during that blessed period of a thousand years--what blessing that will mean to the world. This glorious prospect is just before us, and it is now due time that we, as members of the Body of Christ, should have a foreview of these blessings.
I was thinking, dear friends, that it might be well if I should suggest a "keynote" for the Convention, in the form of a special text that might be in all our minds, and that might identify this occasion throughout all the coming days, and that we might carry this text in our thoughts when we go home, that it might be a blessing to others. The text I have to suggest is found in Paul's words, 1 Timothy 1:3-4, beginning with the latter part of verse three: "Teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: now the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers."
This entire passage, dear friends, would be very profitable to us, but the central thought I would like to impress is found in the words: "THE END OF THE COMMANDMENT IS LOVE OUT OF A PURE HEART, AND OF A GOOD CONSCIENCE, AND OF FAITH UNFEIGNED."
What does the Apostle mean by "the end of the commandment?" He means that the purpose, the object of God's law, of all the law that God has given at any time or that He ever will give is to produce this condition of heart and mind, namely, LOVE. Not selfish love, but the highest type of love, that of a good conscience, of a pure heart, and of faith unfeigned. This is the substance of the whole teaching of God, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself." Love will be ready and glad to lay down its life in God's service, and it will gain more and more control of every thought, word and act. While in the flesh we cannot do everything perfectly, but if love is in our hearts, it will influence us to do the best we can. Thus the Lord has given all His consecrated ones a law, one still more searching than the Golden Rule, and this rule the Lord calls, "A New Commandment." "A new commandment I give unto you, that you shall love one another as I have loved you."
[CR61]
Address to Harvest Workers
Text: "The fields are white already to harvest, and he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal. I send you forth to reap that upon which you have bestowed no labor. Others have labored and ye have entered into their labors." THIS will not be, dear friends, a regular discourse, but rather a family talk to the harvest workers, and on the harvest work. Nevertheless, I will take a text; our Lord's words, "He that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad."
When we think of a harvest time, it implies that there has been a sowing time and various processes for the development of a crop, that these various processes have accomplished a work, that a crop has been ripened and is ready for the sickle. This is our understanding of the Bible and the great Divine Plan and arrangement-- not that God is reaping all the time, that there has been a reaping time all the way down from the creation of the world. But, rather, when we speak of the "harvest" we have in mind the work that began at the day of Pentecost has continued now for more than eighteen hundred years, and now, to our understanding, it has reached a climax, and the reaping time has come.
We remember that there was a Jewish age, and that during that time a certain work was done with that people, and after several centuries of divine dealing with the Jews under the Law Covenant, under the leadership of Moses and those who sat in Moses' seat, then came the harvest of that age. At that time our Lord Himself came and gathered His disciples and sent them forth as reapers in the harvest of the Jewish age.
In several of His parables He intimated that a new age would begin with Pentecost, in which there would be a time for further sowing for a different crop, that this age would have its end in a harvest also, and that again there would be a reaping work done. We have seen that the Jewish age was a parallel of this age, both in time, each being 1,845 years long, and also in the work done. What they had in a typical manner, we have actually or antitypically. We have also seen that when this age shall end, another age shall begin, and so in the Millennial Age there is to be a sowing time, and then in the end of that age there is also to be a harvest, yet the world goes on just the same totally unaware of what is going on.
But you and I, dear friends, are specially interested in the harvest of this Gospel Age, because all our hopes and interests are centered here. Of course, we study concerning the Jewish Age, and find things there of profit, because they were shadows of things which reached their real substance in this age, and so we can learn many valuable lessons from their experiences. For instance, we are told not to be murmurers as they were, many of them falling in the wilderness, and so lessons are drawn which show that while we are not under the Law Covenant, yet God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and His will and mind expressed to the Jews can teach us certain lessons today, even though we are not under the Law Covenant, but are under the Covenant of Grace, the Abrahamic Covenant, which was before the Covenant of Law, and of which the Apostle said the Law was 430 years after. The Covenant of Grace bore or brought forth no children until and during this Gospel Age.
Now, however, since Pentecost, you and I and all of God's true children, spiritual Israelites, are the children of that Covenant of grace, the Abrahamic Covenant, and we have the High Priest that belongs to that Covenant. The Apostle Paul, you remember, in the 3rd chapter of Galatians, tells us that "If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs of the promise." Under another picture, we are spoken of as "Members of His Body," while in still another picture, as members of the Bride, the "Lamb's Wife." We are heirs of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last day, the end of this age.
God does not intend to reveal the glories of His great Plan until the end of this age; He is allowing clouds and darkness to mystify the world, while He is taking out of the world "a people for His name," and He calls this people the "Mystery" of God, the Members of the Body of Christ.
So, then, we have before our minds what the Lord's purpose is respecting His great Plan during this Gospel Age. When did this work of selecting this Bride class begin? It began as soon as our Lord Jesus ascended upon high and appeared in the presence of God for us. As soon as He applied the merit of His sacrifice for us, the household of faith. Forthwith the divine blessing came upon the disciples at Pentecost. In one sense, the Lord's work began three and a half years before Pentecost; in the sense that He gathered during that time the twelve apostles and five hundred brethren, by His teaching, preaching, miracles and signs, and they were drawn of the Father to Him. You remember in His prayer He thanked the Father for giving them to Him. While they were in one sense received before Pentecost, they were not in the full sense until after Pentecost.
In describing the work of this age, our Lord describes it in the parable of the "Wheat and Tares," how that the good seed was first sown by Himself and the disciples, but at their death the enemy, Satan, came in and sowed the false seed. But the Lord told the disciples not to pull up the tares, for in so doing they would pull up the wheat also and spoil the field, in other words they would create anarchy. All during this age the good seed has also been sown in good and honest hearts, otherwise it would not bring forth fruit, just as if we were to sow good wheat seed upon the rocks and sands of earth. Many of our friends in the various denominations think that God will continue sowing the seed all through eternity, and think that the reaping goes on whenever any one dies, expecting that this work will go on for all eternity and that this is God's plan. But they do not consider the matter properly, and fail to reason it out, and to realize that there must of a necessity come an end to the present order of things. If any one will figure out the matter he can see that the present order of things could not possibly go on for five hundred years. One Methodist brother told me that he thought it would go on for fifty thousand years, and gave as his reason from science, not from the Bible, that all the coal and iron in the earth would first have to be used up. But he failed to get even the thought of scientists who state that at the present rate of consumption the coal beds will not last two hundred years. But, he is a doctor of divinity, and so we must excuse him; he has studied too much,--much learning has made him mad. I am not judging his heart, but he was opposed to the Bible thought that the end of the age is at hand, and that a new age is about to be ushered in, the dawn of the Millennium. In his endeavor to fight the truth he made those wild and blundering statements which you would think an infant would be able to correct. So, then, dear friends, from our standpoint, instead of God's continuing sowing and reaping for thousands of years and all eternity, the very reverse is true. God has been shaping all the past ages, and dispensations, and at the time of our Lord's first advent, it was just the due time, not too soon, nor too late, so that we read, In due time God sent forth His son to be the Redeemer. It was our Lord that began the sowing of that seed that will bring forth the crop of this Gospel Age. He has not been trying to gather in all the earth, but simply planting the truth here and there and gathering the crop from that which He planted--not from the heathen, which He never planted. God could have hindered Satan from sowing the tares, but it was in His purpose to permit it, and the parable shows that God foreknew the course of this Gospel Age. The whole field, Christendom, has been oversown with the tares. We are told that there are four hundred million Christians. We wish there were, but we are all witness of the fact that the number of real Christians, according to the divine standard [CR62] is a very little flock; the number of those who have the character likeness of Jesus is a very small number compared to the whole number called Christendom. This is not an uncharitable view to take, because we do not believe that all the rest have gone to an eternity of torture. Some of those people were noble men and women, but we are standing upon the Scripture statement as to the requirements of a Christian. He is one that does not believe in evolution, that his father was a monkey or some protoplasm; he is one who believes the Word of God, who accepts the facts as stated therein that Adam was created in the image of God, fell to a condition of sin and death, and needed a Redeemer, that God sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (not the likeness of a monkey), that He might redeem them from what they had lost. The Christian thought, then, is that there has been a loss, and that that loss is to be recovered, and the Scriptures tell us that that recovery is called restitution. A Christian is one who not only believes God's testimony respecting sin and the punishment of sin, but he also believes that the penalty for sin has been met by our Lord Jesus, that He died for our sin. He is one that walks in the way of righteousness, and that goes still further and presents his body a living sacrifice. (Romans 12:1.) When we get the scriptural measure therefore of a Christian, it compels us to recognize the fact that there are not many in the world. And so the Apostle said that amongst those there were not many wise, great, rich or noble, but chiefly the poor of this world, rich in faith, and that these by and by shall be heirs to the Kingdom, and this Kingdom is to have the dominion under the whole heavens, and bless all the families of the earth.
There was a time for the planting, and a time for the developing of the wheat class, and now we have come to the time of the harvest, which He said was the end of the age, in which He would send forth His reapers to gather the tares into bundles for the burning, but the wheat was to be gathered into His garner, into the spiritual condition beyond the vail, glorified with the Lord Himself. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of your Father. We are not now shining as the sun, but as candles. We can't shine very much, but the Lord said for us not to put our lights under a bushel, but that it should give its light as far as possible, but we are not to expect that it will give light to the whole world--only those who are in the house, the household of faith. Our Lord let His light shine, and each one of us is to be a burning and shining light, but you and I are only little tallow dips, so to speak, but it will not always be so, thank God. These little dips are to shine now to the glory of God, and the Lord is going to take cognizance of these, and said they should be His jewels. Those jewels and candles are those who in the other parable are called the wheat. I trust you are not of those diamonds, and I trust I will be one, and all these diamonds will sparkle and produce the glorious light and knowledge of God and shine upon the whole world. Thank God! Hallelujah for such a Plan!
Now, dear friends, God could have done all this work; He could have picked out all these members of the Bride class, in fact He is doing it, but He is doing it according to a certain plan, according to an election, God is working it according to certain rules of grace, rather than in an arbitrary manner. He is not saying, I have chosen you, struggle as hard as you please I will yet land you in heaven. But the truth, as a great magnet, will draw all whom He is seeking. As you would pass a magnet around in a box of sawdust, it would bring forth all the pieces of steel that might be in the box, but you would also have some pieces of sawdust sticking to it also, which you would blow off. So in this harvest work, some with a sawdust character also appear, and so the Lord uses certain means by which He separates those who would attach themselves to the work of the truth but who are not of the right kind whom He wishes at this time to separate from the rest of the world. It does not follow, however, because you do not want the sawdust now that it has no value whatever. No, you may make use of it some time--now you are seeking to get the particles of steel. God is not saying that there is nothing that can be done with humanity after the selection of the Church. No, God is now selecting this special class that through them He may bless all the remainder. This is also brought out in another parable where we read, Those who would not have me rule over them, bring them hither, and slay them before me. So, after the gathering of the Church He will say, Bring all those opposers and slay them before me. That sounds like a hard statement, and it seems as though God was going to be very cruel, but not so when we get the thought of Peter on Pentecost. They said, men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved, and they were cut to the heart. How? By the words which Peter spoke. Just as we also see that when the Lord shall smite them with the sword of His mouth that they will be cut to the heart, and we are glad that all of His enemies shall thus fall under Him, so that during the Millennium they will have a taste of righteousness and of His righteous kingdom. After they shall have had their opportunity, then at the end of the Millennial Age they will be finally tested, to see whether they are in harmony with God's law, and whosoever will not come into harmony with God, the same shall be cut off in the second death, because God seeks such to worship Him as worship Him in spirit and in truth. Now, dear friends, since the Father could have done this through the holy angels, or in a thousand different ways, it has pleased God to permit you and me, and others to be co-workers with Him, ambassadors, representatives in telling the message, and in sending out the truth that it may accomplish His purpose. So the Lord sent forth the disciples and ordained that the message of the gospel should be preached, not to convert, but to witness, and to gather out the Little Flock. As He has used human instrumentalities in the past, so now, in this harvest time, He is using His people to be co-workers with Him, just as at the end of the Jewish age he sent forth those to be reapers of that upon which they had bestowed no labor. He says in one of the parables that they shall be gathered from the four winds of heaven, and this blessed privilege comes to you and to me, and it is true here that "he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal." It is a special privilege to labor in the harvest field, and I trust we all appreciate this great privilege of being co-workers with God.
To our understanding the harvest time has been in progress since 1874, and now we are in 1909, 35 years having passed, and only five left, forty in all, and to our understanding the Lord has been supervising the work and carrying it on all the way down, and we are glad to think that it is so, for we would be fearful to trust each other; because there is no human judgment that is sufficient for such a matter as this. If there is a harvest work at the end of this age, and if it is in progress now, and if there is any truth in the matter that we are in the harvest time now, then it follows that it is the most important work that has ever been accomplished--next in importance to the death of our Redeemer. If you or I thought that we had manufactured something of ourselves, how disconcerted we would be; we would feel that if we made it, it must be wrong; we would not trust our own brains with anything of the kind. Our confidence is that He who began the good work will finish it, and He it is that is the Chief Reaper Himself, and is thrusting in the sickle and gathering His elect from the one end of the earth to the other. If this has been true for thirty-five years, are we now to have a different Reaper, or will the same Reaper change His plans, or shall we expect that our great Chief Reaper will continue His work just as He began, and that we may expect an orderly procedure to its full culmination? The latter is my expectation, that He who began the work, the Lord Jesus, will continue to do so and carry it on, and that as He has used you and me and others of His people all over the world, as His agents or channels to do this or that, so He will continue to do during the remainder of the five years of the harvest time, and the whole work will be grandly accomplished, and the reapers will have their harvest home song, and the great nuptial feast will be held beyond the vail, when all the Church has passed beyond, when the time of trouble shall have passed, and the Great Company shall also be gathered upon the other side. Then the Great Redeemer Himself, according to the 45th Psalm, shall present the Bride glorified to the Heavenly Father, and also the Great Company, her virgin companions, shall follow her into the presence of the King. That will be [CR63] glorious, and the Apostle tells us that we will be presented faultless. What does that mean? Not that we will be faultless so far as this flesh as children of Adam is concerned, but so far as your heart and intentions are concerned, you will be absolutely faultless.
Now, as to how you and I will engage in the harvest work. The Lord seems to give us a great deal of liberty and privilege. But in proportion as your heart, and my heart, and the hearts of all of God's people are right with Him, and your intention to serve Him is that of a single eye, etc., in proportion as you are loyal to the Lord and are not minding the things of the earth, but setting your affections upon the things that are above, in that proportion He will grant you and me and any others the opportunity of such service, and He tells us not to wait on great opportunities for great service. If I were to tell you that you had the opportunity of doing some great service, I presume nearly every one of you would get up immediately. Everybody is ready to do great things, but you will notice that very few people do great things, because great things are not so done. The Lord wants you to look at the little things, and to look for the little opportunities, and to use these and your time, and He tells us in so many words that, "He that is faithful in that which is least would be faithful also in the things which are great." Also that he who would be unfaithful in the things which are least would likewise be unfaithful in the things which are great. But the Lord is taking the matter in the reverse order, and is testing us in the little things of our lives.
Now, then, dear friends, coming right down to the matter, how faithful does the Lord see you to be?
Oh, Brother Russell, I live out, and I have no opportunity in our part of the country.
No, I do not know anything of the kind.
There are some people, of course, but they have better opportunities than I have.
I don't know anything of the kind. I believe that just so surely as you are a child of God, there is a privilege in connection with you in the harvest work, and if you are not appreciating that privilege, you are not getting the blessing. You can't afford it. God can afford it, but you can't. God does not need your help nor mine. Let us get rid of the thought that the Heavenly Father needs us. We have been told in the nominal churches for a long time that God is doing the best He can, but can't do all He would like because He cannot get dollars enough with which to send the missionaries. God is going to do His work, but He is giving us the opportunity of doing some of it, so that we may receive some of the blessings. So it is written, "If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him." Not that He needs our suffering, but that is the condition. He would prove our loyalty, even to the extent of laying down our lives in His service. Whoever will lay down his life for the truth and the brethren is the one that is doing the Lord's will, and that person can be trusted. We want to get the full force of that, just as the Lord gives it to us. If you are not sacrificing with the Lord, then you are not a priest, for the Apostle said that, "Every priest is ordained to offer both gifts and sacrifices." You must have both. What can you give? The Apostle said that Jesus is our example, our Head. What did He give? He gave Himself, laid down His life. You can lay down your life, and that is what He asks, for all who would be copies of His Son must follow in His footsteps, as He has set us the example. Of course, Jesus had to be crucified, and the Apostles suffered some, but there is no suffering now. I remember how that came to me when first I consecrated myself. I thought my duty was to join the congregational church.
After I joined I asked, Now, what must I do?
Well, Brother Russell, there is nothing that you should do.
I thought that when I joined the church I must do different than I did.
You will have to do just about as we do.
The trouble was, they had not been living up to the standard; they had no proper measure, but were measuring by one another, instead of God's standard in His Word. In the Lord's providences, I by and by came to see what the Lord's standard is--full consecration to the Lord, and to lay down our lives in His service, and to serve the truth and the brethren at any cost. If our Lord Jesus was proven, what should we expect of us as His followers?
Now, then, dear friends, as we are all Christian people, with a knowledge of the truth, who believe it thoroughly, who are pledged to the Lord, and our lives given in His service, there is just one thing for us to do; and that is, to give our lives, just as we have covenanted or agreed. But there are many ways of giving our lives. But we should first inquire, Lord, what hast thou for me to do? If we believe that there is a Chief Reaper, we ought to recognize Him and ought to be looking for His guidance-- looking over the harvest field, we seeing different things going on, and so far as we can see, all under the supervision of the Great Reaper. We see that the Lord has led to this step and to that step, and some of us were reaped by this or by that work, but all reaped by Present Truth, as it passed through some of these channels or mains. For instance, the Lord was pleased to use the Watch Tower to bring the knowledge of the Truth to a great many.
Then the Lord was pleased to use the tract, "Food for Thinking Christians," to reach a great many. Then, some of you got the Divine Plan of the Ages, and other volumes of the Scripture Studies. Then some of you got tracts and papers. Whichever way was used to bring you to the light of Present Truth, do you give the credit to the Lord for bringing it to you, or to some human being? I prefer, so far as I am concerned in my own case, to give the credit to the Lord, and I believe that if the Lord had not brought it in one way, He would have in another way. If the brother or sister who handed you the book or tract had not done so, some other brother might have. If you had not carried it to your neighbor, some one else might have. If not by hand, it might have gone by mail. Dear friends, to my understanding, all of the credit for present truth, which has reached you and me, and everyone else, should be given to our Lord Jesus Christ, the Great Chief Reaper, who is directing all of the channels and features of the harvest work.
Now, dear friends, if you think on this subject as I have suggested, as I do, then it will be for your pleasure and profit to co-operate with us, and I know that nearly all of you are. I am not wishing to make any reflection, but merely that, that is what we ought to do. Many here are colporteurs making it the main business of their lives to preach the gospel through the Divine Plan of the Ages, by taking fifty or one hundred sermons to their neighbors, thus permitting them to mark and digest the truth in future years. I do not know how many colporteurs are present, possibly 150 right in this audience, and I congratulate those dear friends; they are doing a wonderful work. To my understanding, this is part of what is referred to by our Lord when He said He would cause the angel to fly through the midst of the heavens with the gospel. The Lord uses various ones for His angels or messengers. They are not always on the spirit plane, and they are not always males or females, old or young, but of all classes. They are His, and He is pleased to use them, and whoever He uses is a messenger of the Lord, or a servant of the truth. I thank God, then, for these colporteur angels.
Then the Lord is using other means. We rejoice with the pilgrims, and for those who are sharpshooters, who have family duties and cannot go out into the work altogether.
Some say, Here is a little town, I will take a holiday and canvass that.
Why, Brother Russell, do any spend their holidays that way?
Yes, indeed. They are doing a great work. They cannot fly as far through the heavens, so to speak; they have shorter wings and can only go close by, but God is pleased with them, for they are doing a great work. Just as the Lord said, "He that reapeth receiveth wages," every day; and every colporteur and everyone else who is doing any service ought to look for his wages every day and see that he gets them before he goes to bed--the blessing and joy of the Lord in His heart. Let us go down on our knees and tell over the whole matter of the day, and realize that the Lord loves and cares for us, and receive into our hearts some of the wages which He is pleased to give--the wages of His favor, and an appreciation of the fact that they [CR64] are near to Him, that the Father Himself loveth them, and realizing that they have been manifesting some of the spirit of the Redeemer who left the heavenly glory and became a bond servant and died for them. As the Father was pleased with His Son, so He is pleased with all who are trying to walk in His footsteps.
Then we have another way--the Volunteer work, in which free literature, tons of it, is given away every year.
Some might say, Well, I have no means with which to purchase literature, and I cannot print it myself, and I cannot afford to purchase it.
The Lord said you could have it, dear friends. When we give our accounting at the end, the Lord will ask about the two and the five talents.
And if you should say, I had no talent, He would say, Yes, you did, for I gave to every servant some talent.
The Lord has put it in such a way that no one of us can say, O Lord, my heart was just burning to tell the truth, but, Lord, I did not have an opportunity, Oh, I am so sorry. You can't say that.
You might say, I was not gifted with speech, and whenever I tried it I got so mixed that I stopped.
Well, I guess that is true, but I gave you some printed matter that you could have given out anyway. Any one who wishes to serve the truth has an opportunity.
People from all walks of life, professional people, high officials, bankers, merchants, mechanics, clerks behind the counters, in the factory, in the kitchen and on the farm are all engaged in the work.
So, then, dear friends, no matter what other people may think of the gospel and the harvest work and the ultimate blessing of all the families of the earth, we ought to feel that we have a good gospel, one of which we are not ashamed. But I would be ashamed of everything else under the sun that goes by the name of gospel; there is no other presentation upon the face of the earth but that I would be ashamed to hand out. We have the one message of which we do not need to be ashamed. For it shall be to the whole world during the Millennial Age, and they will all come to a full knowledge of the truth and an opportunity to believe therein. It is the only gospel in the world that is logical and reasonable from first to last, the only one that can draw opposition and that cannot be put to flight within an hour. I dare say that I can describe any creed and with the truth show the inconsistency of it, so that any one subscribing to it would be ashamed of it within half an hour. With the truth we can show the glorious character of our Heavenly Father and His Plan for all men that is admirable and reasonable in the sight of all people. If we are ashamed of it, we are ashamed of our Lord, the Great Chief Reaper and the whole work. Our Lord said, He that is ashamed of Me and My Word, of him will I be ashamed, and I will not confess his name before the Heavenly Father and the angels, etc.
Dear friends, we wish to be of those whom He will confess to be His followers and disciples, who have walked in His footsteps, and whom He will make His joint heirs. Let us, one and all, in the various ways, engage in the harvest work.
One more thought: While the text relates to the harvest work in a general way, "He that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad," there are some dear friends who say, Must we work in some of these ways that you have outlined? Must we do it through the Dawn Studies or through the Volunteer matter?
No, my dear brother, there is no must about it, and you cannot find it in the Bible. You don't have to do anything --you don't have to be of the Little Flock at all, or in the harvest work. IT IS A PRIVILEGE.
Do you mean to say that you denounce us?
No, I do not.
I remember how, when our Lord sent out the disciples and when they returned they said, Lord, while we were out doing the things according to your arrangement, we found a man who would not follow us, and we forbade him. But Jesus said, Don't forbid him, let him do all the good he can; just go on and attend to your own business. You know I sent you out, and YOU got a blessing. As for these others, the Lord's Word tells us that they who gathereth not with Him scattereth abroad, doing more harm than good. A man might go into a flower garden with a spade and turn over the whole garden. He might say, I am working. Instead of picking out a weed here and there, he is trying to upset the gardener's work. So far as the Lord is concerned, nobody can upset the work, but you can do that which is the work of the adversary in the way of interrupting the work, and the Lord's Word shows that He will permit such for a time, but the lesson for you and me is that we have the privilege of being related to the Chief Reaper, and if we think this is in harmony with the harvest work, and that He has been doing it now for thirty-five years, the lesson for me would be to continue as we have under the guidance of the Chief Reaper, doing what our hands find to do as we see it being carried out. But don't find fault with anybody else. If they want to work outside and scratch around, let them do so. Let the Chief Reaper do the interrupting if it is necessary.
I hope we all feel the importance and the privilege and the necessity of being engaged in the work of our Redeemer in gathering in the precious jewels of the Lord at this time.
ENTER IN
FELLOW-CHRISTIAN, enter in--
Into the work that calls for you,
Into the promises grand and true:
Into the joy of faith that waits:
Why stand idly without the gates,
When the fields are ripe?
You sadly say you cannot know
What God has here for you to do,
Or the way wherein your feet should go;
But if you enter in today,
He'll show you, in His own sweet way,
Your privileged place.
And when the sheaves are gathered in,
We may be sure, in that blissful day,
To sowers and reapers Christ will say,--
"You who well toiled and labored and bore,
And zealously sought for more and more
Of God's blessed work,--
"Come in, beloved, come in, come in--
Into the rest prepared for you,
Into the glory now brought to view."
Our heavenly Bridegroom will await
Our triumphant entrance within the gate
Of Immortality.
[CR65]
The Value of Toil
TEXT: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." (Genesis 3:19.) HE SAID: As tomorrow is Labor Day (so-called), we thought something along the line of "Labor" might not be inappropriate on this occasion.
We have all felt, dear friends, at times, no doubt, that the conditions in which we find ourselves as a race are very peculiar.
The Great Teacher said of the lilies of the plain, "They toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." (Matthew 6:28,29.) Similarly we believe that in heaven the angels are free from toil. Divine power exercised in their interest makes toil unnecessary. He who created the angels and made the lilies is the same God by whose omnipotent power we human beings came into existence. We are surrounded by conditions which call for labor, toil and sweat of face, as indicated in our text. Why are these things so? Why is man less favored by his Creator than the angels and the lilies? The answer to this query is found in God's great Book, the Bible. As Bible Students the majority of us know, of course, the answer to this query. And yet it may prove beneficial to us to examine the question afresh.
I remind you that the words of our text are God's comment upon the conditions which now obtain and which were made necessary by man's disobedience and the terms of his sentence. As originally created the conditions of sweat of face and battling with thorns and insects too numerous to mention were not necessary and were not imposed upon mankind. On the contrary, Adam was placed in Paradise, in the Garden of Eden, whose every prospect was beautiful. Its trees were fruitful, yielding a variety and an abundance of life-giving fruit for the maintenance of the king of earth and his queen, Mother Eve. The responsibilities of the situation was merely to dress, or keep, the garden--to pluck its fruits and to prune the waste foliage to Adam's pleasement. Every necessity was provided as surely as in the case of the angels and the lilies. The great change which thrust our first parents from Paradise is the result of "Original Sin"--disobedience to God.
The basis of the fall may be said to have been the temptation of the serpent, but otherwise, too, we may say that it was the loss of faith in God on the part of Mother Eve. Had she properly continued in faith and trust, the Tempter's suggestion of disobedience would have been promptly rejected. His suggestion that the great Creator has been prompted by selfish motives in forbidding the fruit of one particular kind of tree should have been promptly recognized as slander. And the further suggestion that the God of all Grace and Truth lied to them and distorted the facts when he warned that disobedience would result in death--this misrepresentation should have been indignantly resented. But, alas! Mother Eve had not yet reached that degree of character development; she succumbed to the temptation, crude as it was. Her desire for knowledge ensnared her. A lesson to us in this connection is that any knowledge which may come to us as Bible Students, or come to others along any lines out of accord with the Divine testimony, would be costly knowledge indeed.
The Wage of Sin Is Death."
The result of the disobedience might have been the smiting of our first parents by a thunderbolt, but, with gracious purposes, God permitted them to have what they undoubtedly preferred --death by a dying process of centuries. This gave Adam and his posterity contact with sin and its penalty. The divine object in so doing is scripturally declared to be that all mankind might learn of the "exceeding sinfulness of sin," its undesirability and the sureness of its penalty--death. Had it not been for God's intention by and by to send the Redeemer and to pay man's death penalty, and thus to make possible his reclamation from death conditions by re-creation processes, our race might better have been instantly smitten to oblivion in our first parents; and the Twenty Thousand Millions of Adam's children might better have remained unborn. However, the Bible clearly reveals that "as by man (Adam) came death, even so by a man also (Jesus) comes the resurrection of the dead. For as all in Adam die, even so all in Christ shall be made alive, every man in his own order." (1 Corinthians 15:21-23.)
The purpose of the Lord, clearly expressed, is that mankind in general shall have the blessed opportunity of sharing in the blessings of the Millennial Kingdom--the uplifting blessings, the restitution blessings, the resurrection blessings. St. Peter speaks of those Millennial years of blessing as "times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:21.) Very clearly we discern God's wise purpose to be that as mankind through Adam are being made acquainted with sin, calamities, death, so in due time all shall be made acquainted with righteousness, Truth and the boon of life eternal in harmony with their Creator. In that "restitution time," by the contrast of the rewards of righteousness with the rewards of sin, the whole world shall be brought to a knowledge of the Truth and shall discern, not only the Justice of God, but also His Wisdom, Love and Power.
The Tree of Knowledge.
Thus, sure enough, the forbidden fruit was of the tree of knowledge. The eating of that fruit did indeed bring with it to Mother Eve and to all her children knowledge. It has required Six Thousand years of experience under the reign of Sin and Death to learn one side, and it will require another One Thousand Years, the Millennium of [CR66] Christ's reign, to teach Mother Eve and her family the other part of the great lesson, namely, the knowledge of Good. By the conclusion of the Millennium the entire race of Adam will know both Good and Evil experimentally and, we trust, the majority of them will have learned the lesson so thoroughly that they will be fully out of accord with sin in its every phase. But while acknowledging that the eating of that fruit has become the channel of these lessons in evil, as in good, we can see that these same lessons might have been much more readily inculcated otherwise, had our first parents rejected the temptation and proven loyal to their Creator.
Many misunderstood these words, "Cursed is the earth," to signify that our Creator put a special blight upon the fruitful and beautiful earth. On the contrary, while He could have brought the entire earth to full perfection before man's creation, He did not do so, but left the greater part of it in a condition accursed or unfit for human use and habitation even while man was in harmony with God. God merely "Prepared the Garden Eastward in Eden" for the trial, the testing, the proving of our first parents, because He knew what would be the result of that trial. He knew the end from the beginning. Divine foreknowledge is the basis of the statement, "Cursed is the earth for thy sake;" it is thus unfit for you, in your own interest, because I foreknew your transgression and what condition would be most favorable for you, that your death sentence might bring you the largest degree of knowledge and the largest degree of experience in the most helpful manner.
Is it asked how the unfitness of the earth could insure to man's advantage as a sinner and why the Lord placed the cherub with flaming sword to keep the way to the Tree of Life? We reply that all of the experiences of the wisest of mankind corroborate the divine decision that it was wisest and for the best interests of Adam and his children that the curse, the sentence, should affect him in all of his relationships of life and particularly in respect to his earthly home. "Cursed is the earth for thy sake. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee."
Greed--Selfishness--Meanness.
The battle for bread which started when our first parents were thrust out of the Garden of Eden and obliged to labor for their sustenance is a battle which has kept up ever since. It has had the effect of developing more and more in the human mind that evil quality called greed and selfishness. It has had the effect of making our race ignoble, mean. Father Adam, as the breadwinner of the family, surely had noble and generous qualities of heart and a great love for Mother Eve; yet, one could imagine that, as age advanced upon him and he became six or seven hundred years old, the toil connected with his battle with the thorns and thistles was the more severe and that this would, of necessity, make him the more careful, the more frugal, even, perhaps, to the extent of parsimony and meanness. Similar experiences cultivated the same quality in all of his children, and the habit so grows upon us that, not merely are those who have the barest of necessities impelled to be stingy and close, but even those who come into possession of fabulous wealth have this parsimony ingrained in their very being.
We may, indeed, see a blessing in the divine provision of this condition of things. Were it not for selfish ambition and pride what would become of the race, under the reign of "the Prince of this world?" If every man, upon obtaining a competence, were to sit down and be satisfied, where would be the world's progress? How could it carry on the great projects of life--the public utilities, the public charities? Some motive is necessary to keep in operation the great human machine we call civilization. Our Socialist friends may tell us that Love and Benevolence should actuate the human mind to all these things for the public benefit. We are ready to admit that such would be a very ideal condition, so far as the rich are concerned. But why should we expect more of the rich than of the poor, as respects love and willingness to lay down life and pleasure and wealth and comfort for their fellowmen? Our Lord put the matter the other way, saying, He that is faithful in that which is least would be faithful also in the greater things. The poor man or woman who is found to be very generous and very helpful to his friends and neighbors is thus attesting that if he were wealthy he would probably use his wealth for the public benefit. But, alas! we find comparatively little of unselfish love, either in the poor or the rich. And this being true, love could not be the motive power of the world under present conditions.
Paradise to be Restored.
We have already seen that it is necessary, in viewing the Divine dealings with humanity, to keep in memory the future outcome of God's Plan. Otherwise the permission of Six Thousand Years of the reign of Sin and Death would be entirely unreasonable to us, inconsistent with Divine Wisdom, Justice, Love and Power. But keeping in memory the fact that it is the Divine Purpose to reclaim man from his fallen condition of imperfection of mind and physique, and that it is the divine intention to make the entire earth a Garden of Eden--Paradise--from this standpoint, the permission of evil may be clearly understood and appreciated as a master-stroke of Divine Wisdom.
As one illustration of this, suppose that Sin had not entered into the world and the birth of humanity had been as slow as in the case of Adam's immediate children (whose birth rate was probably about one a century), how long would it have required to people the earth? But in Adam's fallen condition, as a part of the result of the fall, the sorrows and conception of motherhood were greatly multiplied (Genesis 3:16), so that during the period of Seven Thousand Years a sufficiency of the human family will have been born to properly fill it. Moreover, the subduing of the earth has under divine forearrangement been accomplished by convict labor; for are not all mankind convicts serving out a death sentence? And is not our Creator permitting man, for his own good, to battle strenuously with the unfavorable conditions prevailing in the earth? And does not this battling serve to quicken man in his mental qualities, even though this quickening be chiefly along selfish lines?
Furthermore, as we have heretofore seen, the reign of Sin and Death amongst mankind made it possible for God, on the one hand, to show the severity of His Justice in permitting us to die thus, as a "groaning creation, travailing in pain," and it made possible the exhibition of His Love in the providing of the Redeemer, who bought us with His precious blood. Further, be it remembered it served as the occasion for the testing of Lucifer, the proving of his disloyalty, when he became Satan, the Adversary of God. Additionally it furnished the opportune test of the loyalty or disloyalty of all the angels of heaven as recorded in Genesis 6, Jude 6 and 2 Pet. 2:4, as we have previously Genesis 6, Jude 6 and 2 Pet. 2:4, as we have previously Genesis 6, Jude 6 and 2 Pet. 2:4, as we have previously seen.
"The Mystery of God."
And now we come, dear friends, to that feature of the great Divine Plan which is so peculiarly interesting to us-- to us who are Bible Students; to us who are disciples of Jesus; to us who have given our all to Him; to us who are trusting that He has accepted us as "members of the Body of Christ," as members of the Bride, the Lamb's Wife, and His Joint Heir in the Kingdom. Without the permission of sin there would have been no such opportunity as we now enjoy of experiencing a "change" of nature from earthly to heavenly--human to divine. As our Lord could not have left the heavenly glory to become a man and to suffer and to die, the Just for the unjust, unless there had been sin in the world; unless sinners had needed redemption; so likewise we would have had no opportunity or privilege of joining with our Lord in His sacrifice of Himself! We would have had no opportunity of joint heirship with Him in His kingdom.
Indeed, had there been no sin to conquer, to down, to overthrow, there would have been no need for Christ's Mediatorial Kingdom--for Christ's reign of righteousness. Had there been no fallen condition of humanity in sin, in degradation, there would have been no work for the Royal Priesthood to accomplish during the "times of restitution," during the existence of the Millennial Kingdom. So, then, while appreciating the terrible devastation of sin in the world, its terrible consequences upon the human family, we see behind the glorious Advent of our Lord in Kingdom power a full recovery of the race from All that was Lost in Adam and Redeemed on Calvary. From this standpoint we [CR67] have a glimpse of the length and breadth and height and depth of the Love and Justice, the Wisdom and the Power of our God. From this standpoint we worship and adore our Almighty Creator and our precious Redeemer! From this standpoint we may have full confidence in the outcome that ultimately all shall have the fullest opportunity of eternal life and that all wilful evil-doers shall be ultimately destroyed in the Second Death, from which there shall be no redemption, no resurrection.
From this standpoint we may rejoice to suffer with our Redeemer, that we may be glorified with Him in His Kingdom and participate with Him in its glorious work of uplifting the poor, fallen race to Paradise, and to all the perfections of Adam. Yea, we may rejoice even in the Second Death of the unwilling and disobedient, realizing that true and righteous is the Divine edict under which they will perish. (2 Pet. 2:12.)
Steadfast, Immovable
To play through life a perfect part,
Unnoticed and unknown;
To seek no rest in any heart
Save only God's alone;
In little things to own no will,
To have no share in great,
To find the labor ready still,
And for the crown to wait;
Upon the brow to bear no trace
Of more than common care;
To write no secret in the face
For men to read it there;
The daily cross to clasp and bless
With such familiar zeal
As hides from all that not the less
It's daily weight you feel;
In toils that praise will never pay
To see your life go past;
To meet in every coming day
Twin sister of the last;
To hear of high, heroic things,
And yield them reverence due,
But feel life's daily offerings
Are far more fit for you;
To woo no secret, soft disguise,
To which self-love is prone;
Unnoticed by all other eyes,
Unworthy in your own;
To yield with such a happy art
That no one thinks you care,
Yet say to your poor bleeding heart,
How little you can bear;
Oh! 'tis a pathway rough to choose,
A struggle hard to share.
For human pride would still refuse
The nameless trials there;
But since we know the gate is low
That leads to heavenly bliss,
What higher grace could God bestow
Than such a life as this.
[CR67a]
INTERNATIONAL
1910
BIBLE STUDENTS
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR67b]
NEARING THE GOAL
WITH eyes aflame, with panting breath, they come,--
The runners,--every nerve and muscle tense,--
Urged forward by a thousand deafening cries,
On, on, they rush, when one, close to the goal,
For but one moment glances back in pride
To note how far he hath outrun the rest.
Alas! tripped by a pebble on the course,
He stumbles, falls, arises, but too late,--
Another sweeps ahead with blood-flecked lips
And bursting heart! One final, awful strain,
With superhuman effort, grand, supreme,
He leaps into the air,--and falls in death
Across the line,--a victor, but at what
A fearful cost!--he gave his life, his all!
I ponder o'er this tragedy of days
When Greece was mistress of the world, and say,
"Hast not thou also entered on a race,
My soul, in contest for a 'Crown of Life,'
A prize thou canst not win except thine all
Thou givest! Then, be wise, and watch and pray,
Turn not thine eyes one instant from 'the mark,'
For fear thou dash thy foot against some small,
Well-rounded truth, which in thy pride thou hast
O'erlooked, and thus thou stumble, fall, and though
Thou shouldst arise, 'twould be too late to win!"
"Ah, then, consider thy 'forerunner,' Christ,
Yea, call to mind the 'cloud of witnesses'
Around,--those noble, faithful ones of old,--
And strip thyself, my soul, of every weight;
Gird up thy loins, make straight paths for thy feet;
Breathe deeply of the Spirit's conquering power,
And run with patient, meek, enduring zeal!
Almost thou hast attained, my soul, my soul!
Shall angels, principalities, or powers,
Or height, or depth, or other creature, draw
Thee from the goal so near? Ah! yes, so near,
The glory-light streams through the parting veil;
Have faith, press on, one effort, grand, supreme,--
And thou hast won in death Love's blood-bought crown!"
[CR68]
Church Federation--Part I
The Cost of Church Federation to
Presbyterians, Congregationalists
and Methodists
AT 3 P.M. the largest auditorium in the Academy of Music was comfortably filled when this first meeting of the series of Mass Meetings on Church Federation opened.
Just before the service opened Brother William P. Mockridge sang as a solo the hymn entitled "A Thousand Years."
Pilgrim Bro. J. F. Rutherford acted as chairman and opened the service by saying, "The entire Christian world at this time is discussing with great interest the question of church federation. We are quite sure that all Christians desire to know how they can get an answer from the Lord's Word on this important question.
"This is the beginning of a series of four meetings in this hall at which Pastor Russell of the Brooklyn Tabernacle will discuss this great question, which has been subdivided under four heads. We are quite sure there is no one in the world today who is better qualified to discuss this question from the Scriptural standpoint and we bespeak for him an attentive hearing.
"For this particular occasion the question is, What Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Methodists must surrender.
"There is no one in the world today who has devoted so much time and strength to the intelligent study of God's Word on this and other Bible lines as Pastor Russell. His writings have been placed in a great number of homes throughout the world. The sale thereof has reached far into the millions and we presume, therefore, that many of the homes in the city of Brooklyn contain his books, wherein all who are interested may find more information along the line of the question which will be discussed this afternoon." (Reprint from New York World, Jan. 18, 1910.)
Mass Meetings on Church Federation
Brooklyn Academy of Music, Sundays, Jan. 23, 30; Feb. 6; 3 P.M. Doctrinal Points Surrendered by Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Methodists, Considered at the First Meeting.
A very large audience attended the first of the four Christian mass-meetings being held under the auspices of the People's Pulpit Association during four successive Sunday afternoons in Brooklyn's largest auditorium, the Academy of Music, for the consideration of the questions involved in Church Federation.
These meetings are unique in that admission is free, no collections taken, no appeals made for financial support in any way, and no business transacted. It is announced that through these meetings every truth-seeking sceptic as well as every sincere Christian may learn the Scriptural basis upon which the conflicting creeds may federate, no matter how great the cost to their own denomination.
Pastor C. T. Russell, of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, has been selected to deliver the addresses at the four big meetings.
The topic for the first meeting was: "What Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Methodists Must Surrender in the Interests of Church Federation."
Topic for Sunday, January 23, 3 P.M., will be: "Cost of Church Federation to Baptists, Adventists, Disciples."
The Honorable J. F. Rutherford, attorney-at-law, introduced Pastor Russell, who said:--
I take for my text the Word of the Lord through the Prophet, "Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid" (Isaiah 8:12).
The desirableness of oneness in the Church of Christ is beyond dispute. The impropriety of sectarianism or division is now generally conceded, although twenty years ago many defended the divided condition of the Church as being helpful. They pointed to our Lord's words, I am the vine and ye are the branches; every branch in me that beareth not fruit my Father, the husbandman, taketh away. And every branch that beareth fruit he pruneth, that it may bring forth more fruit (John 15:1-5). They claimed that the denominations were the branches. The evident teaching of the Master here is that his people are related to him in an individual sense and not as parties, sects or denominations, and that they are dealt with from the individual standpoint as one Church and not many.
St. Paul enunciated the same great truth (1 Corinthians 12:13), declaring that the Lord Jesus is the Head of the Church, which is his body, and that as the human body has many members under the full control of the head, except when diseased, so the Church, as members in particular of the Body of Christ, are all to be subject to the Lord as their Head. They are all to be so connected with their Head, and thus with each other, that when one suffers, all suffer with it; and when one rejoices, all rejoice with it, because they all have fellowship in the one spirit of the Head. Hence the eye cannot say to the hand, nor the hand to the foot, I have no need of you, for every member is necessary to the prosperity of the Body as a whole. And as the joint supports and strengthens the limb and is joined thereto by sinews, etc., so individually God's people are united to each other in the bonds of grace and truth and love.
It must be conceded that Church Federation or Confederacy is in many respects quite a different thing from the Church's oneness illustrated by our Lord's parable of the vine, and the Apostle's illustration of the human body. Nevertheless since a Federation is proposed as the nearest possible approach to the spiritual enjoined Union, it is proper that we and all Christians everywhere should inquire carefully the cost and the gain implied in the Federation movement. As the program shows, this series of meetings will consider impartially the cost of Federation to the creeds of the most prominent denominations. First in the list today we consider the sacrifices of Congregationalism, Presbyterianism and Methodism.
(1) As to church government very slight concessions will be required of any of the federating denominations. Denominational liberties as respects forms of worship and methods of government and discipline are to be permitted very loose rein. The Federation proposes chiefly the regulation of home and foreign mission work and a general watch-care over the interests of the federated systems along the lines of political influence. The expectation is that the political power of the Federation will have considerable to do with molding of legislation favorable to the Federation, and later on, unfavorable to the smaller denominations not associated in the Federation.
(2) It is along doctrinal lines that the sacrificing in the interest of federation will be chiefly demanded.
Doctrinally Congregationalists and Presbyterians are one; hence we may consider their sacrifices of doctrine in the interests of federation as the same. They both accept the Westminster Confession of Faith with its Calvinistic foundation --that God, before the foundation of the world, foreordained whatsoever comes to pass; that he predestined an elect, saintly few to heavenly glory, and equally foreordained that the remainder of thousands of millions of non-elect should be maintained in eternal life to all eternity, in order that they might suffer excruciating pains, both mental and physical, never-ending, as a part of the supposed penalty of the "Original Sin" committed by our first parents in Eden.
Evidently there will be few people in these highly intelligent Christian bodies ready to insist, as our forefathers did, that this element of faith is essential to salvation. Few of us would agree with Brother John Calvin, the great architect of this creed, that fellow-Christians rejecting this doctrine should be burned at the stake, as Brother Calvin decided in respect to Brother Servetus. No, thank God! We have outgrown some of the narrowness which so terribly fettered some of our brethren during the dark ages.
[CR69]
Few any longer believe that there are "infants in hell not a span long," because non-elect. Even where the doctrine of election is still blindly held few have the temerity to state their belief that any innocent infant was predestined to everlasting torture. But Brother Calvin's contention expressed in the Westminster Confession is that there are no innocent infants--that the condemnation of Original Sin was to eternal torture and that Adam's children, "born in sin and shapen in iniquity," were therefore not innocent, but guilty--born under the sentence of eternal torment and salvable from it only through membership in the Church of Christ. Indeed we may say that this theory was still older than Calvin, for did not St. Augustine first declare the danger of infants to eternal torture and the necessity of their being brought into the Church of Christ by baptism in order to escape eternal torture? And is not the force of this teaching still manifest amongst both Protestants and Catholics, as evidenced by their fear to have an infant die unbaptized-- so that some, in extreme cases, even practice "baptism in utero"?
Doctrinally Methodism is indirectly opposed to Calvinism in every sense of the word. Possibly Methodists will have less to concede than Calvinists, because, although in Wesley's days the doctrine of Free Grace was combated on every hand, it is now the tacit faith of the vast majority of Christendom. The doctrine that God had premeditated and irrevocably foreordained the eternal torture of our race except a handful of the Elect was too horrible a one to stand. So the Methodist doctrine of Divine Love for all and Free Grace as respects salvation has appealed more and more to the growing intelligence of mankind. Nevertheless we cannot do otherwise than concede that it will matter little to the thousands of millions which all "orthodox" creeds consign to eternal torture whether they shall suffer eternal agonies as a result of Divine lovelessness in foreordaining their sufferings or to Divine inability to outwork for their benefit the supposed advantages of Free Grace arranged for them by Divine Love.
The More Excellent Way
Our suggestion is that now, in the lapping time of this Gospel Age with the oncoming Millennial Age, as the arc electric light casts the candle of the past into the shadow, so the clearer light now shining from the pages of God's Word casts into the shadow all the doctrines of the "dark ages," relieving us of the horrible nightmare which once beclouded our hearts and lives and made us fearful of our Creator as an all-powerful but merciless sovereign. In this blessed light now shining from God's Book have we not a basis for Christian union? Let us see! If we can find in God's Word that the doctrine of Election and the doctrine of Free Grace are both true, both Biblical, but that one belongs to the Church in this Gospel Age and the other to mankind in general in the coming Millennial Age, will not this solve our problem and give us doctrinal union instead of a mere federation based upon the ignoring of doctrine? We can all assent to this, therefore let us examine the facts.
The Bible assuredly declares a Divine election according to a Divine purpose foreordained--but not such an election as Brother Calvin outlined. God foreordained the selection of a Church, predestinating the number who would constitute its membership and the character of each one who would be acceptable as a member. He foreordained tests of the worthiness of these members and the glorious reward that should be theirs and a great work which they shall be privileged to do for mankind--limitedly now, fully during the Millennium. Accustomed to the election of fellow-citizens to the presidency, to congress, etc., where they will have the opportunity for blessing the non-elect, we should have carried this same thought to the Divine election of the Church. We should have discerned that the elect Church, the "Seed of Abraham" (Galatians 3:29), is specially intended to be the channel of Divine blessing to "all the families of the earth" (Genesis 28:14).
How strange that we overlooked this and the assurance that with the completion of the Church Messiah would exalt her in the "First Resurrection" to be his Bride and joint-heir in his Millennial Kingdom, to be established for the blessing of all mankind! How strange that we did not notice that every text of Scripture used by our Methodist brethren to substantiate their doctrine of Free Grace belongs to the Millennial Kingdom. As, for instance, the Bible, after telling us of the completion of the Church now espoused to the Lord and after her marriage or union with him at his Second Coming, as "the Bride, the Lamb's Wife," tells that then "the Spirit and the Bride shall say, Come and whosoever will may come and take of the water of life freely" (Revelation 22:17).
Ah, yes, we failed disastrously to keep the Apostle's command, "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of Truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). We failed to thus divide the Truth and to note the portion applicable now and the other portion applicable during the Millennium. Thank God, we are not yet too old to learn. We surely have been thoroughly sickened by our mistaken interpretations of the past, which made nonsense of both the doctrines --Election and Free Grace--and worse than this, defamed and vilified our Heavenly Father, "the God of all Grace."
In the light now shining we may see that the terms of the Divine election of the Church are in every sense of the word without partiality, except as regards character and faithfulness. Those now called with the heavenly calling to be of "the elect" are indeed invited to eternal life on the spirit plane, to be like unto the angels, but more exalted, while the opportunities to be granted to the world in general during the Millennium will be inferior, earthly, restitutionary--yet grand (Acts 3:19-21). But this difference of reward is counterbalanced by the severer trials and testings of those now called to be of the elect. They must walk by faith and not by sight. They must take up their cross and follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. They must count their lives not dear unto them, but willingly sacrifice their earthly interests that they may be participators with their Redeemer in glory, honor and immortality, and in his great work of the Millennium--the blessing of the world of mankind with a mental, moral, social and physical uplift.
Cannot we all, Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Methodists, and all others of God's people unite as one body upon this Scriptural hypothesis? Are we not satisfied with the terms of this election--that they are sufficiently stringent to exclude all except the saintly? Hearken to the Apostle's declaration, which we once so grievously misunderstood: He says of God's election, "Whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son." In other words, when our Heavenly Father foreknew and predetermined to gather an elect Church as the Bride of Christ, he also predetermined that none could be members of it unless they attained through faith and obedience in the School of Christ character-likeness of Jesus --heart likeness to him--hence, as nearly as possible, an obedience of the flesh to his Law.
Surely no one will claim that any but a little flock has ever attained to this honored condition; hence our former ideas respecting the non-elect would consign the majority of our families, neighbors, friends and all the heathen to endless woe. But now how differently we see in God's Word that the elect class is selected in advance, that in God's due time, with the Redeemer, it may bless every creature with fullest opportunity to return to human perfection in a Paradise regained--restored during the Millennium. This proposition of the Scriptures includes those who have gone down to the prison-house of death--into Sheol, into Hades, both the evil and the good. All shall then know, from the least to the greatest, that "Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man." They shall know that the redeeming blood was not shed in vain, but will secure to each member of Adam's race, not eternal life, but an opportunity to attain eternal life--either on the heavenly plane during this age or on the earthly plane during the Millennium.
I address you, dear friends, not from a sectarian standpoint, but from a Federation standpoint; yea, more than this, from the standpoint of those who desire to be doctrinally, as well as outwardly, in agreement with the Lord and with each other. Have we not, in this beautiful election of the Bible, the basis for the grandest of all hopes, the highest of all ambitions--to be "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord"? Can we want more than this for ourselves? And does it not enhance the glory of this prize to have the prospect of conquering the world for Jesus and for the Father during the Millennium, in the only way in which it ever can be conquered--God's way?
Is it not for this Kingdom that our Redeemer taught us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven"? Is it not for this Kingdom that he taught us to wait, saying, "Fear not, little flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom" (Luke 12:32)? Is it not for this Kingdom that the world [CR70] waits? "Unto him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess." "The knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth." "All shall know him from the least to the greatest." "And it shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear that Prophet shall be destroyed from amongst the people" (Acts 3:23). Shall we, then, stop merely with an outward federation or confederacy? Shall we not rather unite our hearts and heads and hands along the lines of the Divine promise given to us--"In thee and in thy seed shall the families of the earth be blessed" (Genesis 28:14)?
We conclude that the Foreordination-Predestination theory of our fathers, which consigns all but the elect to eternal woe, and even sent a Christian (Servitus) to the stake, is no longer acceptable or satisfying. Neither are we satisfied that mankind enjoys Free Grace, while only one in a thousand has any intelligent conception of the terms of salvation. Assuredly we could not allow the surrender of these theories to longer bar fellowship in Federation. And yet Federation renounces neither of these errors, but endorses both. Can we conscientiously do this? Shall we not rather reject the extremes of both? Shall we not have union of heart and head, without prevarication, along Bible lines? When we see that the Church is being elected, without the damnation of the non-elect world, but for their uplifting, their blessing during the Millennium, all opposition to such election vanishes. Let us then, by cultivating our hearts in Christlikeness, "make our calling and election sure" (2 Pet. 1:10) to membership in the Bride of Christ, through whom Free Grace will be extended to all in God's due time. --Rev. 22:17.
I thank you, dear friends, for your attention, and now ask you to join with me in singing praises to our great Redeemer. Let us join in singing the first verse of "All Hail the Power of Jesus's Name."
The meeting was then dismissed with prayer.
[CR70]
On the Volunteer Work
THIS meeting was to have been a question
meeting, but Brother Russell first gave a little
talk to the friends on the work in general.
He said:
I want to congratulate the dear friends of the congregation in general with respect to the volunteering that has been done during the past week. It seems a very remarkable record indeed, that 390,000 copies of the Peoples Pulpit were circulated. If you count the sermons that were thus put right into the hands of the people, you can see that quite a considerable work was accomplished in that way, even if nothing else came from it. Suppose nothing came from the meeting at the Academy of Music, the volunteer work itself, the distribution of so many sermons among the people, was well worth the effort.
I understand from several quarters that considerable reading has been done and considerable interest has been manifested from what the people have read from those Peoples Pulpits. The principal article in that issue, "Gathering the Lord's Jewels," is new to a great many.
It is proposed, dear friends, since only about one-third or one-quarter of the cities of New York and Brooklyn have had such a distribution, that now is a good time for this kind of volunteer work, and particularly in connection with the meetings held at the Academy. I think it is a grand opportunity and without any reflection upon those who are not able, I think all who can ought to continue that work. Let each decide for himself, what he or she would like to, and can do.
God is a great paymaster and has already paid us more than we could ask or think and he proposes to do so in the future. It is said of one great preacher in New York, Dr. Hall, who is said to be the greatest man in the country for raising money, that he was asked to preach a sermon in connection with a great collection that was to be taken up. He was noted for preaching longer than some preferred and the people who were interested in the collection said, Dr. Hall, will you please make the discourse very short, pithy, and right to the point, because as you know it will be a great congregation and we want to reach the people, and if you preach longer than half an hour the people will not stay. Dr. Hall said that he would agree not to preach too long.
I will tell you Dr. Hall's sermon, text and all. The text: "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord and he will repay him." Now the sermon: "If you like the security, down with the dust."
Our work is a question of distributing and giving our divine truth. We speak of this work as scattering the hail, or whatever you please, so if you like the security, scatter the truth. "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord and he will repay him." He will attend to it; we know that from experience; he has more than paid me for anything I have ever done. If the whole matter was called off now, we would find that we were debtors and could not pay up the blessings that we have enjoyed.
So as many as can continue in the volunteering next week are requested to do so and to meet at the Tabernacle at 8:30 tomorrow morning, and receive instructions from Brothers Brenneisen and Munsell, who have been selected to look after this work, not because they are the only ones but that we need a head in each department. Some time it may be your turn and then we will want them to cooperate with you --it is one Lord and one great work. I think, dear friends, we should be greatly encouraged and stimulated to go on. Here we are in this city of several millions of population, people gathered from every city of the globe. They are the most intelligent people in several ways, not discounting the city of London. There are not three millions of more intelligent people on the face of the earth than are centered here in New York, in my judgment, and I believe that is the general consensus of opinion. All those people need to have some kind of witness to the truth and the Lord has given us an opportunity to do it. Already you have circulated 390,000 within six days. Such matters are contagious, dear friends; your actions and zeal are contagious; even to those to whom you serve the truth. If you go forth with zeal for the truth, you will be showing forth the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light--there is nothing like it. We can hardly properly estimate the darkness we were in several years ago respecting God's character, etc.
The more you understand your own experience, the more you will find it is not merely a theoretical experience, but something that is helpful in every avenue of life. I think of one brother to whom I made such a remark--that the truth, a real knowledge and proper interpretation of God's Word will be helpful not only in drawing you nearer to the Lord, but it will brighten your whole mind, you will be a better workman. I notice that, Brother Russell, he replied, you will be surprised to know that it has made me a better carpenter during the three years that I have been in the truth. No one can be successful in any department of life unless he has some ambition before him. The great mass of mankind has no ambition. Some, however, have an ambition for fame, wealth, social position, etc., but these are all inferior and cannot call out the better sentiments. But when we get the ambition from the Word of God, we get the highest possible incentive that can come to a human life. The thought is that we may be ambassadors for the Lord, but if we receive persecution from those who are ignorant and do not understand, then let us rejoice, as did Paul, knowing that these work out a better condition in the future. A further thought is the great matter respecting the eternal future to be enjoyed and which these experiences will help us to attain to, and this is the principal ambition that God has set before us. The more we see this, the more we realize the wisdom of God in putting it in just the form which he has put it; it is the very highest.
Do you mean to say that those people who have received the truth, an understanding of God's Word, are naturally the brightest people in the world? No, the Scriptures state that, "Not many wise, great or rich are called, but chiefly the poor of this world, rich in faith." Not many noble; the Apostle said, God hath chosen the mean things of this world to confound the mighty; all those who are specially his are amongst those who are not the greatest
[CR71]
The Tabernacle Building...(Picture only on page) [CR72] Bethel and People's... and Pastor Russell's Study (Two pictures) [CR73] and grandest of the human family. The truth takes hold upon some who are not so grand and noble, and builds up their characters so that they become grand. Each one looking back on his own life and wisdom before he got the truth is truly thankful, and appreciates the fact that we are what we are by the grace of God, for we see what progress we have made and what the truth has done for us and it stimulates us to go on. It took us from the miry clay and put our feet upon the rock and put a new song in our hearts. That is the song that animates the heart and mind, if we have that thankfulness in heart and mind. We are not through, have not reached the goal yet. Perhaps more glorious opportunities await us tomorrow, next week, next year. We are in the Lord's kind hands and are going on from grace to grace, from knowledge to knowledge, and from obedience to obedience.
We look then for as many as can find it convenient and possible to engage in this work, to meet in this room tomorrow.
O, USE ME, LORD!
LORD, speak to me, that I may speak
In living echoes of Thy tone;
As Thou hast sought, so let me seek
Thine erring children, lost and lone.
O, lead me, Lord, that I may lead
The wandering and the wavering feet;
O, feed me, Lord, that I may feed
Thy hungering ones with manna sweet.
O, strengthen me, that while I stand
Firm on the Rock, and strong in Thee,
I may stretch out a helping hand
To wrestlers in the troubled sea.
O, teach me, Lord, that I may teach
The precious things Thou dost impart;
And wing my words, that they may reach
The hidden depths of many a heart.
O, give Thine own sweet rest to me,
That I may speak with soothing power
A word in season, as from Thee,
To weary ones in needful hour.
O, fill me with Thy fulness, Lord,
Until my very heart o'erflow
In kindling thought and glowing word,
Thy love to tell, Thy praise to show.
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Church Federation--Part II
The Cost of Church Federation to
Baptists, Adventists and Disciples
JUST before the meeting opened, a quartet of ladies--Mrs. Frank Detwiller, Mrs. E. W. Brenneisen, Miss Virginia Noble and Miss Blanche Raymond, sang the hymn:
I Came to Jesus
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"Come unto me and rest:
Thy load of care thou mayest lay down
And be no more distressed."
I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary, and worn, and sad;
I found in him a resting place,
And he hath made me glad.
Brother H. C. Rockwell then led in prayer and this was followed by the singing of hymn "In the Cross of Christ I Glory."
The chairman, Brother J. F. Rutherford, then addressed the meeting as follows:
Dear Friends: Those of you who had the pleasure of hearing Pastor Russell last Sunday afternoon, we are quite sure were greatly pleased and blessed. We are glad you give evidence of continued interest in this subject by your presence on this occasion.
In the discussion of these subjects no ordinary mind can quickly take in and retain it all. We desire to call your attention to some aids which will be of great benefit to all who have them in their homes, or who can procure them. In order that the truth might be known freely throughout the earth to those who desire it, the Lord has permitted Pastor Russell to publish and have distributed in many languages a series of "STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES." These studies have reached a circulation that is exceeded by no other publication save the Bible alone. In view of the fact that so many have been distributed throughout the earth, and particularly in this country, we are quite sure that in the great City of Churches, like Brooklyn, there are many copies of these Studies in your homes, and we commend them to your careful and prayerful study of the Bible.
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Pastor Russell is also editor of the "WATCH TOWER." This is a journal published twice a month, in which are discussed Bible topics of interest to all who are interested in the study of God's Word. We are quite sure that there is nothing more beneficial than the reverent study of God's Word.
Pastor Russell's sermons are also published in a large number of the leading newspapers throughout the country, in order that the people in general may get the truth as found in the Bible.
We are glad that you are here this afternoon, that you may have the opportunity of hearing discussed, at this time, the subject announced for this occasion, concerning what the Baptists, Adventists and Disciples must surrender in Church Federation.
Next Sunday afternoon, in this same hall and at this same hour, Pastor Russell will deliver another discourse, the subject then being, what Catholics, Lutherans and Episcopalians must surrender in order to federate with the other churches.
We have now much pleasure in introducing to you Pastor Russell, of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, who will address you. (Reprint from New York World, Jan. 24, 1910.)
Second Mass Meeting on Church Federation,
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Two More Meetings--Sunday, June 30; Feb. 6, 3 P.M.
A capacity house listened to the lucid explanation on Baptism and other main doctrines as held by Baptists, Adventists and Disciples, given by Pastor Russell yesterday afternoon at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The topic for next Sunday, Jan. 30, will be "The Cost of Church Federation to Catholics, Lutherans and Episcopalians."
The Hon. J. F. Rutherford introduced Pastor Russell, who said: NUMERICALLY Baptists, Adventists and Disciples represent more than one-third of the Protestants of the United States. What they must yield for Church Federation is therefore an important question. All three of these systems are built upon the Congregational platform, which recognizes as scriptural the independence of each congregation as to its own creed in all matters of faith and Church order. These bodies of Christians, therefore, could not join the Federation as denominations. The only method by which they could give adherence would be either by abandoning their principles of independence for which they have so long contended, or else by remaining quiescent while their ministers through Councils and Conferences essay to act for them. And here it should be noted that the membership of these large Christian bodies have more and more during the past thirty-five years shown their willingness to have their ministers regulate their affairs, even though contrary to their avowed principles of Church Government.
But it is from the standpoint of doctrines rather than Church government that we shall examine our subject. As we progress we shall find that some of the doctrines once considered all-important can in the light of our day be laid aside as obsolete--as hindrances in every sense of the word. Caution, however, would suggest that for everything discarded as unscriptural the truthful substitute should be found--otherwise our progress would be toward the destruction, not only of the bad of our creeds of the past, but also of their good features.
Doctrinal Surrender of Baptists
Baptists will find little to dispute with their co-religionists of the Federation along general doctrinal lines; their chief difficulty will be in the matter of what constitutes Christian baptism--the necessity of water immersion to admission to Church membership. For years this doctrine has been even more tenaciously held than is generally realized. Our Baptist brethren hold to justification by faith as a first or preliminary step which the sinner must take. But they equally hold that this is not the final step--that the step of sacrifice, the step of regeneration must follow in order to obtain salvation. And a baptism in water they recognize as an indispensable outward indication of this regeneration. Hence it is standard Baptist doctrine, both North and South, in all Baptist Churches with rare exceptions, that no unimmersed person should be esteemed a member of Christ's Church.
In a word, faith and reformation are steps of justification, but water immersion is the door into Christ. Only those who pass through this door are members of the Church of Christ from this viewpoint; hence, consistently, none others are invited to partake of the Eucharist--the Lord's Supper. The argument is that this Supper, symbolizing death with Christ, was offered only to the consecrated and accepted members of Christ's Church. Hence to invite others than those immersed in water would be a violation of the letter and the spirit of the Divine Word and a countenancing of false doctrine. The argument is that all of "the elect" will be guided of the Lord, so that their hearts and heads will become amenable to these teachings. Obedience thereto will be shown by submission to water immersion--the door into the Church of Christ.
Like the rest of us, our Baptist friends have been in the past rather illogical in all matters religious and doctrinal; so much so that many of them have never realized the full meaning of their doctrine. The meaning was grasped in the long ago, but has generally been lost sight of within the last fifty years. It is this: Since water immersion is the evidence of obedience to Divine instruction and since all of "the elect" are not only instructed of God but obedient to him, therefore those not baptized in water are not of God's elect--are not members in his Church. And this in turn, according to Baptist doctrine, implies that all not immersed in water are outside of the Church--outside of the number of "the elect"--outside of God's favor--outside of the salvation provided in Christ--and therefore inside the damnation and eternal torment which Baptist doctrines imply have been foreordained for the eternal torture of all the non-elect.
Do our Baptist friends who meet unimmersed Christians of other denominations in the walks of life from day to day really believe that the latter are on their way to an eternity of torture? Most assuredly they do not! But this is merely because they are illogical, like the rest of us. They are as illogical as their brethren of other denominations. They have outgrown at least this feature of the teachings of the "dark ages" handed down to them by well-meaning but less enlightened forefathers.
One glance at the matter will suffice to show our Baptist brethren that the very strongest features of their teaching need some revision. However fundamental may be the doctrine of baptism, some of their conclusions respecting it will be greatly advantaged by a liberal pruning. But caution should be used. The Bible should be consulted. We offer the suggestion that too hasty a rejection of water immersion would be a mistake--that the proper course for our Baptist friends is to study the Scriptures afresh on this subject. What wonderful advantages are now at command of all Bible students! They have marginal references by which one passage throws light upon another. They have also concordances, glossaries, indexes and all manner of helps for Bible study. Our forefathers before the Reformation were generally illiterate. And even had they possessed education the pen-written Bibles were expensive and obtainable only in the Latin language. Indeed it is within only the last few years that Bibles have become cheap and plentiful and the masses able to read them.
What Must Adventists Concede?
The doctrine of the Second Advent of Christ is common to all denominations. And the Adventist belief that at that time the earth will be burned up is also a feature of all the various creeds. Many Adventists have abandoned the thought that the Saviour's second appearing is at hand. And many more are abandoning the thought that when he appears Adventists alone will be saved and all the remainder of mankind will participate in the destruction and burning which shall then engulf the earth. It should not be difficult for them to realize that there is no great necessity for controversy along the lines of the time of Christ's coming, since they acknowledge themselves completely in the dark on that subject. Neither can we suppose that after thoughtful consideration they should feel justified in assuming that they alone are "the elect." Let us hope that with broadening sentiment they are more and more realizing that there are saints and sinners in their own number as well as in all denominations and as well as in the world; and that "the Lord knoweth them that are His" and will care for them, regardless of denominational lines. But for that portion of Adventists which considers the keeping of the [CR75] Seventh Day of the week the all-important part of Christianity we see no ground for Federation, unless, indeed, they may choose to get about the difficulty by counting the calendar the other way around the world. Thus they might bring their Seventh Day into harmony with what others term the First Day. Or, by counting the calendar in the opposite direction they may still keep their Seventh Day and realize that others are keeping the same day, though calling it the First Day.
Disciple Doctrines to be Voided
Undoubtedly Alexander Campbell was a good man with a great head. And undoubtedly many of a similar class following his lead are today known as Disciples or Christians. Undoubtedly these are following closely to apostolic customs in the matter of Church organization which in many respects is beautiful in its simplicity. Doctrinally they claim most faithfully to stand by the Word of God alone. And one of their familiar declarations is, "When the Word of God speaketh we speak; when the Word of God is silent we are silent." But this beautiful simplicity of theory our Disciple friends have found difficult to work out in practice. Hence we find them as strongly intrenched behind unwritten creeds as are others behind elaborated creeds. These are inculcated through the writings of their standard authorities--including the editors of their leading journals. "Disciples" hold most tenaciously as the Bible teaching that baptism in water is indispensable to the remission of sins. This doctrine is supported by several Bible texts which declare, "Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins." "Baptism unto repentance and remission of sins," etc.
Before pointing out their misapplications of these texts let us note the fact that according to their theory all others of mankind, Christians, Jews and heathens, who have not been immersed have not had their sins washed away. Consequently such are yet in their sins. Consequently such are lost. And lost according to the general understanding of Disciples and other Christians signifies shut out of heaven-- shut into hell and its eternal torment.
Do our Disciple friends act as though they believed this teaching? Do they spend all of their time and energy and money in seeking to bring fellow-Christians into water baptism for the remission of sins and escape from eternal torture? Assuredly they do not. Hence we are justified in supposing that like our Baptist friends they have not taken seriously and logically their own doctrines. Rather they have assented to them thoughtlessly. It would appear to us, therefore, that doctrinally our Disciple friends might easily be prevailed upon to abandon this peculiar tenet to the extent that it would not hinder them from losing their identity as advocates of "baptism for the remission of sins" and merging themselves or federating with others.
To assist them out of their difficulty we remind them that all the Scripture they cite in support of immersion for the remission of sins belonged to the Jews, and none of it to Gentiles. The Jews were exhorted by John the Baptist and others to renounce sin, to return to harmony with Moses's law, and to show this change of character by water immersion. But those Ephesians who believed in Christ and whom Apollos baptized for the remission of sins did not receive the Holy Spirit. St. Paul explained to them that their baptism was an improper one--that they as Gentiles required an immersion into Christ (Acts 19:1-7; Romans 6:3).
Baptist Union Not Federation
As a week ago we suggested to Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Methodists a union of heart and head as better than federation, so now we suggest to the denominations whose doctrines we are considering today. What we shall suggest respecting baptism will apply to all Christians.
All Christians agree that Jesus and his apostles taught baptism and that there are but "one Lord, one faith and one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5). We cannot here elaborate, but merely suggest that nowhere in the Scriptures is infant baptism commanded or urged. The expression, "Believe and be baptized," implies a mental development capable of belief beyond that which infants possess. The original pretext for introducing infant baptism was set forth by St. Augustine, who urged that as all mankind were going to eternal torture except the Church, it was necessary to get infants into the Church; and baptism was set forth as the door-way. All parents, of course, were anxious that their children should be immersed into the Church and saved from eternal torture. And those good wishes were certainly commendable, even if unnecessary.
Subsequently immersion was declared to be unnecessary and sprinkling became the substitute with all. The thought of preservation from eternal torment thereafter attached to the sprinkling. Although our minds have broadened, so that comparatively few believe St. Augustine's presentation, nevertheless the custom of infant sprinkling continues with more or less of fear to abandon it for the child's sake.
Who will dispute that St. Paul's words of Romans 6:3-5 are the clearest presentation of the import of baptism furnished us in the Bible? The passage is cited in proof of every theory of baptism, yet it supports only one--the true one. Notice that it does not say, as many suppose, So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into water. It does say, "So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death." Is there any difference? That difference is the explanation of all of our difficulty on this subject. The clearing of it away furnishes the foundation for harmony between all; and not merely for harmony, but for union among all classes of consecrated Christians.
Consider the passage critically. First, immersion into Christ signifies to the justified believer his immersion into, his burial into, the Body of Christ as a member of "the Church which is his Body" (Ephesians 1:22,23). The Apostle sets forth clearly a distinction between the Church and the world and between the salvation of the Church and the salvation of the world. The Church are "the elect" of the Lord, called and chosen; and if faithful, they will be members of the glorious Church beyond the vail. It, as the Bride of Christ, will be his companion and Queen during the Millennial reign of glory for the blessing of the world --for the blessing of the non-elect, considered last Sunday.
St. Paul not only tells us of our need to be thus immersed into membership in the Body of Christ, but he proceeds to tell us how that membership can be brought about. The words "Baptism into his death" explain the matter. How strange that we ever thought these words signified water immersion! Our eyes are now opened! Plainly, now, we see that "into his death" signifies our participation with our Lord Jesus in suffering, for righteousness in self-denials, self-sacrificings, of the same character as those endured by the Master. It is true indeed that the whole world suffers pain, sorrow, disappointment, etc.; yet our Lord suffered differently from all others, and our dying must correspond to his. He suffered, the Just for the unjust. The holy, harmless, undefiled One laid down his life sacrificially, voluntarily, joyfully. And we, to share in his death, to be "baptized into his death," must do the same.
True, Jesus was spotless, while we are members of the fallen race. But we are justified through faith in his blood. And thence we have in the Divine sight through him a standing of human perfection or justification. This standing is granted to us or imputed to us for the very purpose of permitting us to sacrifice our human rights and earthly interests as he sacrificed his. The "elect" are to be dead with him that in the resurrection they may live with him and be like him and share his glory, honor and immortality. By consecration we present our bodies living sacrifices holy and acceptable to God, as the Apostle declares (Romans 12:1). Thus we are "immersed into his death" and thus we become members of his Body.
Whoever fails to be thus immersed into Christ's death will fail of the membership in his Body--will fail to be of his elect Church, his Bride. The difference between being dead with Adam and being dead with Christ is very great. By nature we are all dead with Adam. He was a sinner, condemned. We as his offspring are the same. It was necessary therefore that we should by faith be lifted out of this condition of death with Adam, in order that by consecration of all earthly interests we might become dead with Christ. Thus we share with him his sacrificial death and, by participation in "his resurrection," also become sharers of his Kingdom glory.
Ridding ourselves, then, of the unscriptural theory of an eternal torment awaiting the non-elect, may not all Christians perceive the reasonableness of the Divine proposition to bless them through the elect? As Jesus by his sacrifice was made Head of the Church, so all who will be his members must share his spirit of self-sacrifice--death to the world and earthly interest. Only such may share with him in his Millennial Kingdom work of blessing, uplifting, instructing, assisting all of the non-elect. Many of non-elect [CR76] under the fuller light and better opportunities of the Millennium will turn from sin to righteousness, from death to life eternal. This "baptism into death" with its blessed reward excludes no denominational lines. It includes in the Church of the elect those of every denomination and of no denomination who comply with its conditions of faith and obedience and consecration unto death.
Was not this our Lord's baptism as he described it? Just before his crucifixion he said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am straitened (troubled) until it be accomplished!" His baptism dated from his consecration at Jordan, but it was not fully "accomplished" until on the cross he cried, "It is finished"--his baptism into death was finished. Was not this baptism into death what he referred to when speaking to his disciples? James and John requested that they might sit on his right hand and left hand in the Kingdom. In reply Jesus said, "Are ye able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" Surely he did not refer to a water immersion! Surely he did refer to his baptism into death, and meant his apostles to understand that only by sharing in his baptism into death could they hope to sit with him in his Throne (Mark 10:37).
With this reasonable, logical, Scriptural view of baptism before our minds which of us would be inclined to dispute over the form of the symbol or in respect to the class of persons who should properly use the symbol? Surely none would claim that infants could thus believe and thus consecrate to death! Surely all would agree that a symbolical immersion into water such as was practiced by the early Church, according to all the records, would be the most reasonable, most beautiful, most appropriate method of symbolizing the real baptism into Christ--into his death. Let us then, dear friends, not be content merely to federate! Let us unite our hearts and heads and hands as members of the Body of Christ; let us be baptized with his baptism, into his death!
Resume
We conclude, therefore: Baptists and Disciples need no longer contend with other denominations even over Baptism. Both may candidly admit that they have laid too great stress upon water immersion. Disciples may wisely admit that consecrated believers not immersed have forgiveness of sins and are not to be eternally tormented. Baptists may admit that water immersion is not the door into the Church and that unimmersed fellow-Christians are not separated thereby from membership in Christ's Body and doomed to eternal torment. Those teachings belong to the past and could not hinder Federation.
Yet we ask, is Federation best? Would not Union be better? We have suggested the Scriptural basis of Union so far as Baptism is concerned--Baptism into Christ by baptism into his death--to walk in his steps in the Narrow Way of self-sacrifice. Surely on this basis all Christians could unite. All can agree that such saintly ones with Christ would be a grand Missionary Band for the blessing and uplifting of the non-elect, non-baptized world.
An evening session was held at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and many questions were asked and answered.
During the following week the Volunteers were again active, distributing about 150,000 copies of the Peoples Pulpit.
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Church Federation--Part III
The Cost of Church Federation to
Episcopalians, Lutherans and Catholics
AFTER the singing of a number of hymns, prayer was offered by Brother F. H. Robison.
The chairman, Brother Rutherford, then introduced Brother Russell, prefacing his introduction with the following remarks:
We are glad indeed, dear friends, to note the increasing interest in the questions of Church Federation now under discussion. These questions are of vital importance to all denominations, and every sincere Christian should take a keen interest in the proper discussion thereof; and we are quite sure you are here for that purpose and for that purpose only, that you might learn more and more, as these discussions progress, what is necessary in order to bring about the proper union of all the churches. The interest is increasing, and we are glad to note that not only those who are here at these services can know about these discussions, but also that the public can have the privilege of reading these sermons, because they are being published in several hundred papers throughout the land.
The metropolitan papers of New York--the World--has published the last two, and in all probability will publish the one to be delivered this afternoon, and also next Sunday. We mention this so that if you desire to secure a copy you can leave your order with your dealer. Also the American of New York, besides metropolitan papers of other large cities throughout the country.
Next Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock will be the fourth of the series of discussions on Church Federation, and the subject will be, "The Church Militant's Surrender to the Church Triumphant." Permit us to say, that this will be the climax of these great discourses, and we suggest that it will be a great treat and hope you will be present and bring your friends, so long as the capacity of this hall will permit you to get in.
After next Sunday Pastor Russell will be absent throughout the South, addressing Bible students' conventions. Following these conventions, he will return to the city of New York and in this hall, on March 6, at 3 P.M., he will address the public upon the topic, "Inferno." All are cordially invited to attend that meeting.
Now for the third time you have assembled here to hear discussed Bible topics that are of keenest interest, by one who has not a peer in the world upon Bible questions. It is not necessary for me to point out his ability to present these questions to you who have had the opportunity of hearing him the past two Sundays. Nevertheless, I would call attention to his world-wide ability as a Bible scholar, author and editor. His sermons are read by more people than any man who has lived on earth. We therefore are glad to note the keen and increasing interest in the study of the Scriptures; glad that you have manifested such an interest; glad that you are here this afternoon to hear discussed at this time what Episcopalians, Catholics and Lutherans must surrender in order to join the Church Federation.
Now I have the pleasure of presenting to you Pastor Russell, who will discuss this topic.
Third Mass Meeting on Church Federation
The Doctrinal Points Separating Episcopalians, Lutherans and Catholics Considered at This Session. The Topic for February 6, 3 P.M., the Last Meeting of This Series, Will Be "The Surrender of the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant." THE third meeting for the consideration of Church Federation was held yesterday in the spacious Brooklyn Academy of Music. This was the third of the series of four meetings called by the Peoples Pulpit Association of New York. Pastor Russell of the Brooklyn Tabernacle addressed the large audience. The text was the same as on the two previous occasions, "Say ye not, A Federation, to all them to whom this people shall say, A Federation; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid" (Isaiah 8:12). The speaker said:
We meet today to consider what sacrifices would need to be made in the interests of Federation by the three oldest denominations of Christendom. Of these Lutherans have least to surrender. Their tenacity for the Word of God they may still maintain, even though others of the federated bodies might more and more abandon the Holy Scriptures, under leadership of the Universities, Colleges and Seminaries teaching Higher-Criticism-Infidelity and the Evolution theory. Almighty God, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, [CR77] firmly believed in by Lutherans, would all be acknowledged with more or less of mental reservation by all the denominations associated in the Federation. Even Luther's plea of consubstantiation in the Eucharist may be held without objection. We conclude then that Lutherans would not be required to sacrifice anything.
Some Things in Common
Episcopalians and Catholics each claim to represent the original apostolic Church. They each claim (through their bishops in the laying on of hands) apostolic authority. Their common claim is that all other denominations of Christians whatsoever are false churches without Divine authority. Accordingly no minister of another denomination would be permitted to preach either in a Catholic or an Episcopalian pulpit. From the standpoint of these denominations all others are heretics; but, they say, not willingly so, but ignorantly so.
Here note the fact that a cleavage is in process amongst Episcopalians. A minority, termed high churchmen, are gradually separating Romeward, while the majority are sharing the sentiments of other Protestants, to the effect that the matter of "apostolic succession" is probably less important than their forefathers supposed.
The Scriptures plainly foretell the perfecting of Church Federation, indicating that it will include Episcopalians, but will not include Catholics, excepting for the cooperation along various lines--especially in the manipulation of social and political influences.
The breadth of the Episcopal creed will not call for particular sacrifices in Federation, if only their pride on the subject of apostolic succession can be satisfied. They are all prepared to admit that no particular wisdom or holiness has been communicated from generation to generation, from bishop to bishop and from bishop to lower clergy through the laying on of hands. They are willing to admit that there have been men as wise and others as foolish outside as inside their Communion. They are willing to admit that no greater light upon the Word of God and its meaning has come down to humanity through its channels than through outside channels. They are willing to admit that their clergy have no more of Divine Grace and Truth, Wisdom and Power than have others of God's people, both clergy and laity, outside their boundaries. Hence they are willing, nay, anxious, for Federation, and ask only that their "face be saved," by some acknowledgment of the long idolized thought that ability to expound the Scriptures and the Grace of God in expounding them could be had only through their channel.
Up to the present time Episcopalians decline to be parties to the Federation unless their special claim be in some sense or degree recognized. Pride says it would never do to retract now all that the denomination has stood for in separation for centuries. They would urge Christians of the other denominations, especially the clergy, to consider the advantage which would accrue to the Federation by having all Protestant ministers accept their ordination. They do not claim that it would make them wiser or better men, nor more efficient teachers, either of truth or error. But they do claim that it would give them an authority in the eyes of the people and give color and reasonableness to the Federation of many churches with discordant creeds posing as one church in the Federation arrangement.
The argument is, "The common people, the laity," are disposed more than ever to think for themselves on religious subjects and to study the Bible for themselves. If, therefore, as ministers, you desire to hold the people in check so that they shall not think for themselves you would do well to concede the claim of apostolic succession--that no one is permitted to interpret or teach the Bible except those who have received apostolic benediction. It was disregard of this claim of apostolic benediction which led to freedom of thought on religious subjects and ultimately led to the formation of the various sects. You should now seek to restrict further investigation of the Bible and further interpretation of it by accepting our theory, by permitting us to grant you recognition in some simple form of the rights of apostolic authority through our bishops.
The Scriptures intimate that Protestant denominations, vitalized and in cooperation with Catholicism, for a short while will dominate Christendom socially and politically, crushing out individual thought and negativing and black-listing all religious teachers outside the Federation and its Catholic ally.
What Catholics Would Surrender
For Catholics to join the Federation would signify the surrender of a great deal, and yet, in the light of the Twentieth Century, surely much could be surrendered without any sacrifice of manhood--merely with the sacrifice of a little pride. For the Church of Rome to federate with the Protestant churches would mean that they ceased to protest and that she relinquished her peculiar claims.
(1) That she alone is the Church of Christ and has authority to instruct.
(2) That she is more than a Church or prospective Kingdom-- that to her has been committed by God the rulership of the world in respect to all matters temporal and spiritual, hence that she is the reigning Kingdom of God.
(3) That her Pope is the authorized representative of Christ, anointed and commissioned of God to fulfil all the prophecies of the Scriptures respecting the reign of Christ, his Millennial Kingdom, etc. This claim of Papacy that the Pope's reign is de facto the reign of Christ is expressed in the declaration that he is the vicegerent of Christ--the one reigning instead of Christ.
(4) The doctrine of transubstantiation--that by the blessing of a priest the ordinary bread and wine are transmuted into the actual soul of Christ--(his flesh and his blood) for sacrifice afresh in each celebration of the Mass.
Whatever may have been true in the remote past, assuredly our Catholic friends can no longer claim that all the purity, all the faithfulness to God, all the sanctity of life amongst believers in Christ are to be found in her communion. St. Paul declares, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his." Surely all Christians admit this standard and the correctness of the Apostle's teaching. Hence the ignoring and setting aside of all creeds and barriers which have heretofore hindered the Unity of the Church of Christ might be possible. Thus the first Catholic objection might easily be removed in favor of Federation, or, still better, in favor of Union. As our Episcopalian friends fail to prove that the apostolic succession to ordination gave either greater wisdom or more grace to their clergy than to other ministers of the Gospel, might not our Catholic friends reasonably admit the same?
The second claim that Papacy is God's Kingdom, that the Popes reign successively as Christ's Vicegerent, should not be difficult for Catholics of our day to lay aside. However strongly it was held in the dark past it is surely little appreciated by Catholics today. No longer do the Popes dominate the civil rulers of Christendom. And no longer do the people consider it wise that they should do so. More and more the people are disposed to consider popes, czars, emperors and kings as merely figureheads, without any real title or authority from heaven to rule or to coerce the people. More and more the masses demand Congresses, Parliaments, Reichstags and Doumas. And more and more do they demand that these shall reflect the sentiments of the people in civil and religious matters. The day of darkness and ignorance in which the people believed that popes and kings were Divinely appointed to rule them with Divine authority has gone by. General intelligence has taught mankind that it is a mistake to suppose that one God-appointed king and kingdom were Divinely appointed to wipe another Divinely appointed king and kingdom off the face of the earth. Hence popes and kings now admit that they reign by a popular sufferance, and their appeals for money, for armies and navies, is no longer on the score that they were Divinely instructed to obliterate each other, but on the score of self-defense.
This claim, however, wholly destroys the argument that we are now or ever in the past have been under Christ's Kingdom, either direct or through the popes. Neither now nor at any other time in the world's history has there been a reign of righteousness such as the Scriptures declare Christ's Kingdom shall be. May we not, then, with good grace--Catholics and Protestants--admit that neither our Catholic popes, emperors and kings, nor our Protestant kings, emperors and heads of Churches, are reigning with any Divine authority manifest to human judgment? Let us humbly admit the nonsense of the legends on our coins, Catholic and Protestant, to the effect that kings and popes reign by the grace of God--by Divine appointment. Let us rather say that they came into power through the exercise of brute force and in a time of common public ignorance. Nor by this do we mean any disrespect to the governments of today--rather we have shown that today the people are ruling through their Congresses, Parliaments, Reichstags, [CR78] etc., and that the kings and emperors are mere figureheads of power, more or less useful and dependent upon the good will of their people.
If it be asked how we shall account for the period of the dark ages and autocratic and devilish misrule, our reply would be to point to the Apostle's words. He declares that Satan is the god or ruler of this world, who now operates through the disobedient--through those not in harmony with God, who constitute the vast majority in Christendom and elsewhere. And we remind you that our Lord Jesus also spoke of Satan as being the Prince of this world or age (John 12:31), and of himself as the Prince or Ruler of the coming age, the Millennial Age (John 18:36).
Ah, yes! the sooner both Catholics and Protestants admit what they and all the world now see, the better--namely, that for a long time our great Adversary held us in a bondage of ignorance and superstition, in getting free from which many bright minds have reacted toward infidelity, because they did not see that many of the teachings of the past, both Catholic and Protestant, were not only irrational, but most positively unscriptural teachings of men, and, as St. Paul declared, "doctrines of demons" (1 Timothy 4:1).
Not Vicegerent Christ
In view of the foregoing--in view of the fact that the Divine titles of all kings and emperors are now abrogated, papacy need feel no special disgrace to her cause in similarly abrogating the claim that the popes reign as representatives of Christ or have authority so to do. Indeed such a claim is more safely denied than held, for in the light of our day papacy's best friends cannot look into the past and point with pride to any achievements as properly representing the reign of the Prince of Peace--Immanuel. In the light of the present all of God's people, Catholics and Protestants of every shade, should rejoice to join in the Lord's Prayer-- "Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." Surely this is what all saints of all denominations should desire and pray for and labor for.
Not that we can hope to bring it to pass of ourselves, however. Nearly nineteen centuries of efforts show to the contrary. Even our last century of great missionary endeavor, Catholic and Protestant, proves this. United States statistics show that in the year 1800 there were six hundred millions of heathens, and that in the year 1900 their numbers had doubled--there were twelve hundred millions of heathens. While continuing our exertions on behalf of the heathens abroad and at home, let us tie our faith to the Apostle's words and wait for "God's Son from heaven" (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
At the second coming of Christ and the glorification of his Church, "his elect," "his saints," gathered from all denominations, Catholic and Protestant (and some from outside of all of them)--only then will the glorious reign of Christ and the Church begin. Only then will the spiritual Seed of Abraham be complete and the work of blessing the unregenerate world begin--the Millennial Kingdom work-- the overthrow of Satan and his empire--the scattering of darkness, ignorance and superstition which he fostered--the flooding of the earth with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God--the restoration of natural Israel to Divine favor--the bringing in of everlasting righteousness through a mental, physical and moral uplift. Whoever then shall refuse all those blessings and privileges will be destroyed from amongst the people. Thus eventually in the close of the Millennium God's will shall be "done on earth even as it is done in heaven"--as fully, as completely. This is the "Kingdom of God's dear Son" for which we wait and pray. And however good or bad other kingdoms, temporal or spiritual, have been, we need no longer consider them substitutes for this one which shall be the desire of all nations" (Haggai 2:7).
TRANSUBSTANTIATION, MASSES, PURGATORY.
We are free to admit that the Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation, masses and purgatory would be difficult for our Catholic friends to abandon for the sake of Federation or for any other reason. Nevertheless we believe that in the light of our day there is more to be learned upon these important doctrines. Without agreeing with these doctrines-- without claiming Catholic affiliation, let me here say that the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which lies at the foundation of these three, is in many respects more rational than our Protestant doctrine of eternal torture. It would surely be more Godlike to provide some way of escape for the millions of humanity than to leave thousands of millions uselessly in untellable anguish to all eternity. However, the Lord willing, it is my intention to discuss this subject in a general mass meeting to Christian people of all denominations on Sunday, March 6. So many of you as desire to attend will be welcomed on that occasion. We will then seek for the Scriptural explanation of these doctrines--purgatory and hell.
THE SUM OF THE MATTER.
Summing up, then, we find that Lutherans would have nothing to lose by Federation--nothing to surrender, except a little pride. Episcopalians likewise will find Federation to cost them little. They can well afford to join the Federation, especially on terms upon which they insist--the recognition of the apostolic succession. And this they can afford to concede in its very mildest form, realizing that it has never specially advantaged them anyway and is impossible of demonstration, in view of the fact that the Scriptures declare that there are but twelve apostles of the Lamb and symbolically show only a twelve-star crown to the Church during this age and only twelve foundations to the New Jerusalem--the Church in glory. How then could Bishops either possess or give apostolic blessings? (Revelation 12:1; 21:14.)
Omitting the Catholic Church, being assured from the Scriptures that she will not be a member of the Federation, we conclude by advising the Protestant Christian Communions discussed today not to be content with Federation, but to go the entire length of union--dropping all their pet ideas and acknowledging as fellow-Christians and fellow-members of the Body of Christ, the Church, all who acknowledge Jesus as their Savior, their Redeemer, and who turn from the ways of sin and to the best of their ability walk in the path of righteousness, and who make full consecration of themselves to the Lord. These are and ever should be ONE in the most absolute sense possible, both now and beyond the veil.
During the week following, large quantities of the Peoples Pulpit were distributed by the faithful corps of Volunteers.
[CR78]
Church Federation--Part IV
The Church Militants Surrender to The Church Triumphant
ABOUT twenty minutes of three, the quartet of sisters, consisting of Sisters Detwiler, Brenneisen, Noble and Raymond, sang the beautiful hymn entitled "Hallelujah," No. 155 in Hymns of Dawn. Following this, Brother William P. Mockridge sang a solo, entitled "I've Found a Friend." During this time the congregation was continually coming in and at 3 o'clock the hall was fairly well filled. Then the quartet again favored the audience by singing No. 157, "Hail the King." About twenty-four brethren occupied the platform. The service was then opened by the singing of No. 273, "His Sun and His Shield," and this was followed with prayer by Brother Burgess. After singing another hymn, Brother Rutherford made the following announcement:
Dear friends, this is the last of the series of four discourses on Church Federation. This is not the last of the meetings, however, to be held in this auditorium. We desire to impress upon all this afternoon, who are interested in such subjects, that on March 6 in this same auditorium, at 3 o'clock, Pastor Russell will give a discourse upon the subject of "INFERNO." We regret, dear friends, that we are unable to secure a larger auditorium, as we anticipate that this will be too small to accommodate the people who will come to hear this discourse. The subject in itself is [CR79] attractive, dealing as it will with Hell, Purgatory, etc., the questions that have given so much concern to all people, especially during the Gospel age; and now that all Christians have had much thought upon this subject, we anticipate a large attendance, more than this auditorium will accommodate. Therefore we suggest that those who desire to come do so early, in order to secure good seats, which will be free. The service here on the 6th of March is not the last one to which you are invited, however, dear friends; we call your attention to the fact that on February 13, 20 and 27 there will be interesting Bible chart talks given at the BROOKLYN TABERNACLE auditorium, the hours being 3 and 8 o'clock. These will be delivered by Mr. Brenneisen --a large chart being used. This chart will be used by the speaker to illustrate the various Bible topics to be treated at that time. We all know that an object lesson is one of the best ways to teach, the eye greatly aiding the understanding of the question, and the chart will be used to help understand more clearly the topics to be discussed. The assembly-room of the Brooklyn Tabernacle is not nearly so large as this, but all Bible students interested in this are invited to attend and we assure that if you are desirous of any more information upon the questions discussed you will be much benefited and blessed. Keep in mind, dear friends, the discourse on March 6 on "Inferno" and the six chart talks on the three Sundays following this meeting.
The congregation then joined in singing No. 249, "Repeat the Story." PILGRIM BROTHER GEORGE B. RAYMOND then addressed the audience and introduced Brother Russell to the audience in the following words:
Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a pleasure which has fallen upon me this afternoon to present to you the speaker, and I want to call your attention to the fact that the Society under whose auspices this meeting is being held has put into the hands of the public over four million volumes of Scripture Studies, the author of which is our speaker. I expect that many of you who are here this afternoon have copies of this work in your libraries, upon your shelves, and that you are not aware of the fact that you are in possession of these books. These Scripture Studies will be of inestimable benefit and profit to you, as they have been to many of us; but they must be read with your Bible in hand, studied as you would study other works to get the information you desired. I call your attention to the statement of the Apostle, "Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
These Bible helps are the only works--I say this without fear of successful contradiction--which make of the Scriptures perfect harmony. They open up the truths of God in the Bible, which is said to be an old fiddle upon which you can play any tune, and they show that the Bible is the Word of God, his plan and purpose. These Scripture Studies, we say to you, are a clear, concise and harmonious treatment, and explanation of God's plan as revealed in his Word.
I should like also to call your attention to the further fact that each week in the daily papers over six million people will have called to their attention the weekly sermon of Pastor Russell--six million each week. Now, dear friends, without anything further, I want to introduce to you the speaker of the afternoon, who will address you upon the subject, "The Church Militant's Surrender to the Church Triumphant," Pastor Russell. (Reprint from Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Feb. 7, 1910.)
Final Mass Meeting on Church Federation
"The Church Militant's Surrender to the Church Triumphant."
A full house greeted Pastor Russell yesterday at Brooklyn Academy of Music as he delivered his final discourse of a series of four on the subject of "Church Federation." The large audience sat as if spell-bound, as they listened to the eloquent words which fell from his lips, all of which appealed to their reason, for he backed every proposition with Scripture. The question as to whether Catholics would bow to the Protestants or the Protestants to the Catholics was treated and the answer was conclusive.
Announcement was made by the chairman that for the next three Sundays, at both 3 and 7:30 P.M., illustrated chart talks on the "Divine Plan of the Ages" would be delivered at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, 17 Hicks street. One of the unique features of those meetings will be that seats will be free and no collection taken or appeal in any way for money, but that all will be welcome.
The chairman also announced that on March 6 Pastor Russell will again speak in the Academy of Music. A burning question will be discussed at that time, namely: "Inferno." THE fourth and final meeting for the consideration of doctrinal surrenders necessary to Church Federation was held yesterday, Brooklyn's largest auditorium, the Academy of Music, being crowded. Pastor Russell of the Brooklyn Tabernacle delivered the address, as follows:
Having viewed during the past three Sundays what the leading denominations would need to sacrifice in the interest of Federation, we come today to the final discussion of this series--The Church Militant and Triumphant and her interest in the Federation movement. Let us endeavor to take so broad a view of this subject that there will be no room for disagreement on the part of true Christians of any denomination.
Text: "Say ye not, A Federation, to all them to whom this people shall say, A Federation; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid."--Isaiah 8:12.
Unnecessary as it may be to explain to this large and intelligent audience the significance of our topic, "The Church Militant and the Church Triumphant," I must think beyond the thousands present of the millions who tomorrow will receive reports of this discourse from that great channel of the world's progress, the secular press. Hence I explain that the term Church Militant signifies the Church in warfare, struggling with the powers of evil, while the Church Triumphant signifies the Church victorious, glorious, joined with her Lord, the heavenly Bridegroom, as his Bride and Queen in the great Millennial Kingdom soon to bless and uplift the world of mankind. I should further add that while in this discussion we have considered the various denominations of Christendom and their creeds, we must today ignore all human systems and creeds. We must take the broad, general ground of the Scriptures and recognize only one Church.
Nor may we make the mistake of saying that the one Church is one sect. No sect, no denomination, however great and influential and numerous and rich, either in sordid or historic wealth, can be conceded the right to appropriate the name which our Lord gave to all truly his disciples. Surely none of us is sectarian enough to dispute this premise. We must learn to recognize the Church of Christ from the same viewpoint as does the Head of the Church. We must learn the force of St. Peter's words to Cornelius, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him." (Acts 10:34,35.)
Taking, therefore, the Scriptural view of the Church, we recognize it as the "Body of Christ" of many members, over which he is the head. It is composed of consecrated followers of Christ, irrespective of all denominational lines --those who, turning from sin, accept Jesus as their Redeemer, through whom they have forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to the Father--those who have become disciples of Christ, taking up their cross to follow him, and who have received the begetting of the holy Spirit. Who could dispute that these are the Church of Christ? Who shall say that they must belong to this communion or that, or lose their relationship to the Head, Christ Jesus? The apostles never referred to Baptist Christians, Methodist Christians, Catholic Christians, Presbyterian Christians, etc., but merely to those whom we have described and whom they styled saints--"the Church of the living God, whose names are written in heaven." (Hebrews 12:23; 1 Timothy 3:15.) are written in heaven." (Hebrews 12:23; 1 Timothy 3:15.) Let us keep strictly within the lines of God's Word, and avoid the errors of the past. Let us today consider this Church as the Church Militant and prospectively the Church Triumphant.
THE CHURCH MILITANT.
If we all agree that we have before our minds the real Church, the Church of the New Testament, let us notice that there is a nominal Church also and that we are not competent to fully determine which are the real and which are the nominal Christians except by the test which our Lord has given--"by their fruits ye shall know them." While the real Church of fully consecrated believers, faithful to [CR80] the Lord and his Word and the principles of righteousness, is represented by a very small number, there is a nominal Church, related thereto as is a shell to the kernel of a nut. The nominal Church includes those whose manner or whose attendance on worship implies a relationship to Christ without having gone the length of a full faith-acceptance of him in sacrifice, perhaps without having fully turned from sin even in their hearts, and without having made a full consecration to serve the Lord. This nominal class may be subdivided into believers who are favorably disposed toward Christ and righteousness; others who regard the Church as merely a moral club designed for social and moral benefit or influence upon the world, by counteracting sinful influences; still others, bitter at heart, sinful and selfish, having no faith whatever in Jesus and no care whatever for morality and using the name of Christ hypocritically, merely as a garment to deceive, that they may the better gain their ends. Thus we find the nominal Church to consist of:--
(1) Hypocrites; (2) Moralists; (3) Indifferents; (4) Seekers after godliness; (5) The true Church, "the sanctified in Christ Jesus" (1 Corinthians 1:2)--"members of the Body of Christ"--prospective members of the Church Triumphant.
FIGHTING WITHOUT AND WITHIN.
Every member of "the Church of the first-born" was called "to suffer with Christ" that he may be also later glorified with him in the Millennial Kingdom. Only those who will stand the test of faithfulness under sufferings, trials, crosses, self-sacrifices have the promise of sharing with Christ the glories of the Church Triumphant. "If we be dead with him, we shall also live with him; if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us." (2 Timothy 2:11,12.)
But why should the Church fight? Is she not commended to live peaceably with all? Are not Christians exhorted to war not with carnal weapons and to be smitten on both cheeks, rather than to return evil for evil? Where, then, comes in the fight? Who are the foes? Surely, none would assail a non-resistant.
We reply that the facts do not bear out that suggestion. Our Lord and his apostles were peaceable and non-resistant, obedient to kings and laws, and yet they suffered violent deaths, as well as stripes and imprisonment. They had their names cast out as evil. And those who persecuted and maligned them verily thought that they did God service. All who follow in the Lord's footsteps must expect similar treatment because, as Jesus said, "The servant is not greater than his Lord." "Marvel not if the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore, the world hateth you" (John 17:18-19). The Master said, "The darkness hateth the light," which explains why the chief religionists of his time, being of wrong condition of heart, instigated his crucifixion. They were of the darkness, living outwardly holy, while in heart they were far from consecrated to God. The very holding up of the torch of Truth was painful to them, reproved them and excited their animosity. Human nature is the same today. Notwithstanding the fact that heretic-roasting has become unpopular and intolerable to the world, there are methods of privately and symbolically roasting, slashing, wounding and killing practiced by those estranged from God, though sometimes highly esteemed of men and wearing vestments only slightly less glorious than those worn by Caiaphas and Pilate.
"WHO SCOURGETH EVERY SON."
The Scriptures explain that there is a two-fold reason why Jesus and all of his followers are required to suffer for righteousness' sake.
(1) It is requisite to their own character-development that they should not only profess absolute loyalty to God and to Truth, but that this loyalty should be put to the test. Thus we read of our Lord that, though "holy, harmless, undefiled," he was proved perfect in his loyalty by the things which he endureth--by his obedience even unto death, even the ignominious death of the cross. The same principle, the Scriptures assure us, operates in connection with all whom God is now calling to be Emmanuel's associates in the Millennial Kingdom. They must suffer with him if they would reign with him. They must walk in his steps (Galatians 5:11; 6:12; 2 Thessalonians, 1:5; 2 Timothy 1:12; 2:9,12; 3:12.)
(2) These experiences are designed of God to qualify us to be judges of the world during the Millennial Age--that the Christ, Head and Body, may be merciful and faithful toward the people of earth. Likewise it is proper that the world should know that its judges have thus been tempted and tried and are able to sympathize with them in their weakness and in their endeavors for righteousness--and more willing to help them up, up, up to human perfection than to consign them to the second death.
Although this conflict has lasted for more than eighteen centuries, it has not been long for any single individual. With the Master himself the trial period was only three and a half years. On the whole, as compared with eternity, the entire Gospel Age of Sacrifice, as the Master said, is but "a little while." And as for the afflictions and testings themselves, St. Paul gives the proper thought, saying, that at most they are "light afflictions but for a moment and not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us," the overcomers. (Romans 8:18.)
THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT.
The Church in glory and in power will contain no hypocrites and no merely nominal Christians--only the true, the saintly, "the sanctified in Christ Jesus." Nevertheless, it will be composed of two classes, as illustrated by the Priests and the Levites in the type. (1) Jesus glorified, the anti-typical High Priest, and his faithful footstep followers, the anti-typical under-priesthood--otherwise, his "Bride." Together these are styled a Royal Priesthood or a Kingdom of Priests. St. Paul tells us that Melchizedek, who was a priest upon his throne, merely typified the Church Triumphant --Head and Body--the Christ, "A priest forever after the order of Melchizedek"--a priest upon his throne. During the Millennial Age that glorious Priest, Head and Members, will bless and uplift, rule and judge the world of mankind, with a view to recovering as many as possible, as many as will obey him, from the ruin of sin and death. During the thousand years of the Melchizedek reign all the families of the earth will be blessed with opportunities of return to human perfection and to earthly paradise. The unwilling and disobedient will be destroyed in the second death. At the close of the Millennium Christ's Mediatorial Kingdom will terminate.
As the Levites were much more numerous than their brethren, the Priests, so there is another class in the Church corresponding --styled "a great company, whose numbers no man knoweth," in that they were not specially predestinated. These less earnest, less zealous than the faithful "little flock," will reach a plane of glory through tribulation also, but with less joy. These, we are told, will be to the Bride as her companions. As Levites they will serve God in his temple, but not be members of the temple class, the Priesthood. These will have palm branches and be before the Throne, while the Royal Priesthood will have crowns and be in the throne as members of the Body of Christ.
THE CHURCH MILITANT'S SURRENDER.
All the soldiers of the cross, experiencing fightings with out and within against the powers of sin and darkness and their own weaknesses, surely long for the time of their "change" in the "First Resurrection." They long for the time when this mortal shall put on immortality; when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption; when we shall be like our Redeemer and see him as he is and share his glory. Gladly, therefore, do all of God's consecrated people wait for the blessed change promised at our Lord's Second Coming, when that which is sown in weakness shall be raised in power; when that which is sown in dishonor shall be raised in glory; when that which is sown an animal body shall be raised a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44,53,54.) Surely such, having prayed, "Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as in heaven," are waiting for the King and God's time for establishing his kingdom for the blessing of the world. No wonder the Apostle wrote of these, "Ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our Body"--the Body of Christ, the Church, through the power of the "First Resurrection" change. This will be our glad surrender to the Church Triumphant, when we shall hear the Master's voice saying, "Well done, good and faithful servants; enter ye into the joys of your Lord. You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things"-- [CR81] participants in the Millennial Kingdom glory and its dominion of earth for the uplifting of mankind. (1 Corinthians 6:2; Revelation 2:26.)
UNION OR FEDERATION--WHICH?
I ask you, my hearers, and indirectly I ask the millions of my larger congregation whom I address weekly through the public prints--What advantage will accrue to the Church Militant through the oncoming Federation? I reply that great advantage will come to the saintly few, not in the manner expected, but along the lines of the divine promise that "All things shall work together for good to them that love God--to the called according to his purpose." The Church Federation, which the Scriptures distinctly show us will be effected, will include the various classes already indicated:--(1) Hypocrites; (2) Moralists; (3) Followers afar off; (4) Saints.
But in the Federation the Moralists and Higher Critics will be dominant forces. The saintly will less than ever be in evidence and appreciated. The outward and apparent success of the Federation will seem wonderful for a moment, but the results will be disastrous.
The saintly few, guided by God's Word and holy Spirit, will awaken to the true situation and become separated from the nominal mass. Their misguided hopes as respects the bringing about of a spiritual Kingdom on earth will be thoroughly shattered, and, more than ever, they will look to the Lord as the source of help and wait for his Kingdom to come through the Redeemer's advent and the Resurrection "change."
In a word, God's saintly people need no outward Federation, even as they need no credal fences. So far as these are concerned, the sooner all barriers between them are leaped and they come together as members of one body, joined to the one heavenly Head and Lord, the better. Let Churchianity produce its Federation and see its folly and failure, as outlined in our text. But let the saints of God draw near to him and to each other in a spiritual union and realize to the full the meaning of the Apostle's words: "One faith; one Lord; one baptism"--one "Church of the Living God whose names are written in heaven." This condition cannot be attained through outward bonds, but can be attained only through drinking into the one Spirit, obtainable through the proper understanding of the Word of God.
CONCLUDING SUMMARY.
Having previously seen that the Federation would require no serious sacrificing by the leading Christian bodies except Catholics, we today have viewed the one true Church composed of faithful Christians of all denominations--her past and present, her future, according to the Bible. In the light of these studies we inquires, Is Federation desirable?
We answer, No! The Church of Christ wants Union! Federation is unscriptural, as our text declares! Indeed, Federation would be a dishonorable compromising between errors still held. Theoretically the "Baptists" would still contend that only the water-immersed constitute the Church, the saved, yet would by Federation say, We do not take ourselves seriously. Theoretically the "Disciples" would still say, Only the water-immersed are free from their sins, saved, all others are lost, but we belie our faith for the sake of Federation. Believers in the contrary doctrines of Election and Free Grace would by Federation virtually say, We don't know what to believe. All believers in the Bible, in justification by faith, in sanctification and in the begetting of the holy Spirit would by Federation virtually say, We accept as saints all the unbelievers called "higher critics," who know not God and respect not the Gospel.
Are God's true people prepared to make such concessions for the sake of a federated form of godliness and numerical strength? Assuredly they are not. The Federation will drive them out of all sectarianism and make of them Bible students free in the liberty wherewith Christ makes free. To such there will quickly come true Union on Biblical lines, as we have shown is easily attainable in the light now shining upon God's Word.
Nevertheless Bible prophecy clearly shows that Protestant denominations will Federate. For a short time Federation will bring great political influence which will breed ecclesiastical arrogance and persecution--culminating in ruin. Let God's faithful ones obey his voice. (Isa. 8:12; Rev. 18:4.)
Gideon's Army in Antitype
Arise! O ye Army of Gideon
Let him that is fearful return,
Jehovah wants only the zealous,
Whose hearts with the love of truth burn.
Ten thousand remain! Still too many;
Once more He their loyalty proves,
To see who most faithfully serve Him,
To see who most fervently loves.
O ye who have sworn him allegiance,
Mark well! He is now testing you,
With the water of truth He will prove you,
To see who is loyal and true.
Look well to your drinking then, brother,
See thou no impurities trace,
Take your lamp, your pitcher and trumpet
And stand every man in his place.
Your sword is the sword of the spirit,
Your lamp is the light from His word,
Your pitcher this poor earthen vessel,
You break at the word of the Lord.
Is your lamp burning bright in your pitcher?
Does your trumpet give forth "certain sound?"
Soon the sword of the Lord and of Gideon
The enemy's host will confound.
For sure is the victory promised
And great is the peace he awards,
Then "stand" in your place all ye faithful,
The battle's not yours, but the Lord's.
May 1, 1908. Gertrude V. G. Calkins.
[CR82]
Hereafter
London, Eng., Royal Albert Hall,
May 8, 1910. Discourse by Pastor Russell
THIS was the first of three great SPECIAL MAY MEETINGS which were held in the ROYAL ALBERT HALL, one of the largest, if not the largest auditorium in the world, and Pastor Russell spoke there on three very important topics, on three successive Sunday evenings. Much work had been done by the London friends and those who came in to help, from nearby places, in preparation for these meetings. Expectation was running high when Sunday, May 8th, came. Brother Russell and the party that had been with him making the trip through Egypt and Palestine, arrived in London the morning of May 8th. A large company of friends were at the depot to greet them. Realizing that it would tax Brother Russell's strength to the utmost to fill the great Royal Albert Hall that evening, it was decided that no other meetings should be held on this day. Therefore, the friends rested and completed arrangements for the meeting. The service was to begin at 7:30 P.M. We arrived at the hall about 7 o'clock, and you can imagine the impression that was made upon us as we came near the hall, to see two lines of people, one from either direction, lined up toward the doors of the great building, waiting for an opportunity to get in. We found that over 5,000 people had already gained admission. Being associated in the work, we gained admission at once, and it was with great pleasure, as we looked around the immense auditorium, to see a sea of faces before us, and watch the different ones gather and note the general impression. It was a sight never to be forgotten. At the time the service began, Brother Sawyer, the chairman, Pastor Russell and others came on the platform. Then the organist started up one of the hymns, and the great audience rose to their feet and began to sing. They sang as only an audience who have more or less familiarity with religious songs can sing. There were then present fully 7,500 people. After the opening hymn, the Chairman, Colonel Sawyer, introduced Brother Russell with the following remarks:
I have much pleasure in introducing to you tonight Pastor Russell of Brooklyn Tabernacle, New York. He is a well-known preacher of the Gospel of Christ all his life. He is a writer on subjects connected with the Bible. He is author of that great work known as "Studies in the Scriptures." It is a work which has been translated into seventeen different languages and read by thousands in different parts of the Empire with gratitude. So great interest has been awakened by these studies, that the International Bible Students Association has been formed, of which Pastor Russell is president, and these Studies are primarily for the benefit of believers, Christian believers of whatever denomination, to furnish them with a knowledge such as will enable them to give an answer for the faith within them. These Studies are of great value to the honest sceptic, because he will find therein proofs of God's, Jehovah's, relationship to man. In pure, plain, and simple language, Pastor Russell magnifies and illuminates that majestic Plan of God as a whole, whereby anyone who feels so inclined may for himself, and without further assistance, obtain a correct knowledge of the mind and purpose of God in the creation, the downfall, and the various steps for the redemption, the uplift, the restoration, the final perfection and salvation of the human race.
It is well to let this be thoroughly understood, in view of any possible criticism, that the only way of obtaining this salvation is through the name and merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and him crucified, the Son of God, our Savior. I mention this specifically, because it is the keynote of Pastor Russell's teachings and writings. Pastor Russell will now address you on the subject already announced, "The Great Hereafter." BROTHER RUSSELL: (As the King of England had died the day previous the subject seemed remarkably appropriate. Brother Russell introduced the discourse with a few remarks referring to the King.) It was in Germany that I heard of the death of your esteemed monarch, Edward VII. I realized that not only your nation, but all Christendom had lost an unobtrusive but wise Counsellor, a power for peace and good-will amongst men. I take this opportunity to express to this great audience my sympathy, which, I assure you, is shared by the vast majority of my American countrymen. My first thought was that, out of respect for the illustrious dead, his family, and the nation, this service should be postponed. But my second thought was to the contrary. Surely at no more fitting hour could we consider "The Great Hereafter." There is, thank God, a "hereafter" for kings as well as for peasants, and royal mourners and a mourning nation need the message from God's Word particularly now. And, since no more representative audience will probably assemble in this capital of the empire, I have a suggestion to offer which I trust will meet with your approval. It is, that before offering prayer we show our sympathy for the royal family in their bereavement by standing.
After a brief prayer, in which the royal family were remembered, the congregation joined in singing the hymn reputed to be the deceased king's favorite, "Nearer, My God, to Thee." For a few moments before he led in prayer the congregation, with bowed heads, prayed silently. The occasion was a very impressive one.
He dealt with the subject of the "hereafter," showing the generally accepted views of Catholics and Protestants; and then, in contrast with these, the Bible presentation, which he affirmed to be not only the true one, but the only logical one. He pointed out the hereafter of the Church in glory and the steps of patient perseverance leading thereto; also that while the Bible shows, and all the creeds confess, that only a "little flock" will be joint-heirs in the Kingdom with Christ, nevertheless there is another salvation which is for the world, an earthly salvation in contrast with the heavenly one, a restitution to mental, moral and physical perfection, to be attained during the thousand years of Messiah's reign in glory, for which we pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." He showed the divine provision for an earthly paradise for such restored sons of Adam as will accept the divine arrangement on their behalf, and that all others will be destroyed in the Second Death. This was a very different outlook than the one ordinarily presented in the creeds of Christendom. While taking no more to heaven than the saintly and elect, as the Bible indicates, all the creeds consign the remainder of mankind either to centuries of torture in Purgatory, or to an eternity of torture in hell. He made very clear the unscripturalness and unreasonableness of this proposition, and showed in scriptural language that God's provision is a resurrection of the dead as the hope of both the Church and the world--the Church in the first resurrection to glory, honor and immortality. He pointed out that the glorification of the elect on the spirit plane, as the spiritual seed of Abraham, is scripturally declared for the very purpose of blessing all the families of earth--the non-elect--giving them fullest opportunity to come to the knowledge of the Lord, and of righteousness, and to avail themselves of a share of God's mercy and forgiveness for all the willing and obedient to life everlasting. There was a good hearing for nearly two hours. The sermon was a most impressive one, the death of the King the day previous having prepared the hearts and minds of the people for the gospel message so impressively [CR83] set forth. Through an accident (providence) it so happened that an incident occurred that completely overawed the congregation. The closing hymn had been sung, the benediction pronounced, and the audience had started for the doors, when, suddenly the great organ began to peal forth "The Dead March in Saul." The hearts and minds of the people were in such a state that as soon as they comprehended the music they stopped where they were standing, as if rooted to their places. The music continued to peal forth, while the people stood with bowed heads, until suddenly through some misunderstanding, the air to the organ was shut off, and the music became fainter and fainter. The effect was almost beyond description. The audience thus stood in silent reverence as the music grew fainter and fainter and finally died away in the distance, leaving the audience in a silence so profound that it was necessary to pronounce the benediction afresh in order to disperse them. Custodians of the hall remarked that for an audience to sit so long was practically unprecedented in their experience. Brother Russell and all the friends who had been working so hard in the preliminary arrangements and who had looked forward to this first meeting as a sort of index of those to follow, were much pleased, and it is hoped that some good was accomplished, some brought nearer to the Lord, some made to appreciate more fully God's love, justice, wisdom and power.
JUST FOR TODAY
LORD, for tomorrow and its needs I do not pray;
Keep me from any stain of sin just for today.
Let me both diligently work and duly pray;
Let me be kind in word and deed just for today.
Let me be slow to do my will, prompt to obey;
Help me to sacrifice myself just for today.
Let me no wrong nor idle word unthinking say;
Set Thou Thy seal upon my lips just for today.
So for tomorrow and its needs I do not pray,
But keep me, guide me, hold me, Lord, just for today.
[CR83]
Gather Together My Saints Unto Me
BROTHER RUSSELL: I am pleased to be with you today, dear friends. I have noted with pleasure the words of our brother, assuring us of your love: and I give you my love in return. It is quite true that where there is one body there is one spirit, for we are all baptized into one body by the one spirit, and whoever has not the one spirit is not in the body, which is the church. We do indeed recognize all nominal churches, and in speaking of them as such we are not to be understood as saying anything unkind, but rather as trying to differentiate between those who have a special relationship to the Lord and those who have a less direct and less close relationship. We love all who are the Lord's. So I feel an enlargement of mind and heart toward all Christian people, as I see by the Lord's grace to be able to appreciate the fact, though there are many who have never yet understood the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of God's plan, and of his love as we have been able to see it. Many of them maybe are true brothers and sisters in the Lord, which have not yet had this enlightenment. We may be sure that all who are led of the Lord may see from this same standpoint. So surely as we are taught of the Lord we shall be instructed in his ways and know his doctrine. If some know more and some less respecting doctrines, let us hope that we will all drink more and more of the spirit of the Lord and know of the doctrine of the Lord; for, as the Apostle says, if we have all knowledge and have not love it shall profit us nothing. We would come short of the glory of God, short of the wonderful things which God has for us.
So then, dear friends, my hope has grown larger and my sympathy broader, for all Christians of all denominations, and I realize that God has many people for whom the truth is meat in due season, and we have many lessons to learn. If we learn sooner than others, we are not to glorify ourselves, but be thankful that when the truth came to us we received the truth and it has been a great blessing to us, and we are to give it to others, and thus we find selfishness has no place in our hearts. Error produces a wrong spirit. It is a deep assurance that we have the truth, the spirit of the truth, when we rejoice to bring peace and good will to others. We have the very best will toward those who differ from us. We remember from the Scriptures that the Lord forewarned us, and said that if we would patiently endure such things, that they would be for our blessing. We remember that this is largely a matter of due time. If we ever forget that feature of "due time" we will lose a part of this combination key which unlocks the safe that gives forth the treasures. The due time is very important, for had we lived a century ago we would have known no more than they did; but living in this day, therefore, we are to be thankful for his favors, not because we are better than our forefathers, but because we are living in the due time. The deep things of God are hidden from the world and are to be revealed to the saints, so it comes to us as an assurance of our faith, if we have come to a knowledge of the truth. What should our attitude be--that God has favored us more than others? Nay, verily. That was what stumbled the Jews--God had done so much for the Jews, and they therefore thought he would do much more for them. In humility accepting as being of the grace of God, all the glories and blessings of knowledge that he is graciously giving us. Thus we shall abide in God's love and favor. We remember, as we have received Christ, so we should walk in him. Did we receive him in a boastful condition of mind? No, in a humble condition of mind.
Our subject for this afternoon, dear friends, is found in the text, "Gather together, my saints, unto me, those who [CR84] have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." Now, then, dear friends, the great proposition of the Gospel is involved, and wrapped up in those words which were uttered by the Lord's prophet centuries before Jesus came, before the forerunner had gone over the pathway, and before anyone knew of the arrangements for this Gospel Church. It was before any could have known, because the holy Spirit was not given, but here it is all summed up in these few words. What an assurance that every part of the word of God is from our Father, and is meat for the household of faith!
One of the thoughts that comes to us in connection with this text is the word "gathering"; in gathering together, drawing together, selecting. This is the thought. During this age, and not in the Millennial Age. In that age the Lord will draw all mankind, instruct all his people, give them one law. It will be a general calling or drawing, then. How distinct and separate God's call is in this age from that of the Millennial Age. This is a convincing evidence of the truth of God's plan, and shows us that the Old Testament was inspired of God, for the prophets could not have written of things they never saw, from the views they had obtained. The proper thought then was, that God had selected all Israel to be his people, and it would not have been appropriate for him to think of other nations, as we read in Amos 3:2. From the Jewish standpoint, God's own words were unexplainable; but from our standpoint, the little flock, the holy nation, the royal priesthood, we can now see it. The eyes of our understanding having been opened, enables us to see the lengths and breadths, etc., of God's plan, which can only be understood by the spirit, which the Apostle tells us in 1 Corinthians 2:9 and 10, searches everything, the deep things, etc., and reveals these things to those who have the spirit of God, in proportion as we have received the spirit. There is a difference in respect to the Holy Spirit; our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, had the Holy Spirit without measure, because he was perfect. How about others? We are not perfect, and so we do not receive it in just the same manner. We receive it by measure. O, we wish we had more of that spirit, and we are trying to obtain more long-suffering, purity, kindness, etc., etc.--summed up in the one word, love. Well, this gathering began long ago, when he began to gather out Israel, when he chose Israel, to prepare them for the message. The little company he secured was only a nucleus. Whom is he gathering? Why make a picking here and there? O, there is a reason. It is not right, says one, to pick one and not choose another. O, but it is fair, because he is picking only a certain kind. We are glad that he is not passing by others and letting them go to eternal torment, but they do not meet the requirements like in the parable of the fish in the net, where some were not of the kind desired. After selecting the good, they cast the others back into the sea, and they were doubtless as happy as before. Many are now in the Gospel net, and they should be in the world, for they have made a mistake in saying they are of the church. They do not know they have made a mistake, they are trying to keep out of eternal torment by getting into the church, and are doing themselves and the church an injury because we know they are not trying to walk after the spirit, for they know they are walking after the flesh every day, therefore they are injured rather than helped by being in the church except now. The condition of the church has become such that it supposes it is composed entirely of this class, and they consider that anyone who tries to walk in the footsteps of Jesus is crazy. They think these are hypocrites. They are unintentionally blinded, not understanding themselves, or us, or the Plan of God. Under that misunderstanding, do you wonder that the majority of Christian people do not know anything about the matter? Thank God for the grace and blessing which have come to you and to me, which enabled us to get our eyes open and see so much of God's Plan.
This gathering we see is the gathering of saints. Has anybody a right to object, if they do not claim to be saints, and if the Lord does not gather them? He is not passing by certain saints, to take other saints, but he is taking all saints and thus we are within the limitations. He never told them to gather the world, the flesh and the devil, and a few saints to put on top of the basket. We have no right to find fault. It is just the right thing. What does God want of the worldly? No reason under the sun. Why gather the saints? O, the Bible makes that plain. Our Lord Jesus is the great Saint, the holy One, for the word "saint" signifies "holy," "sanctified," wholly given up to the Lord. This refers to their minds and not their bodies, for the prophet says, "There is none righteous, no, not one, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." The glory of God is shown when he made man in his likeness, absolutely perfect, mentally, morally and physically, a grand being. Sin has brought us to the present condition. When we think of the glory of God, we know that we cannot show forth the perfect image of God, but we trust we have all some of it. Gradually, I trust, we are getting more of the image of God in our words, our actions, and the very thoughts of our minds, becoming more and more such as God would have us to be. What he is looking for are those who are sanctified in spirit, in mind, in purpose, in will. This is the sanctified class, they are his saints, whose wills are entirely given up to him. Do you think God will find what he wants? Notice his words in Isaiah 55:11, "My word that goeth forth from my mouth shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it." It shall accomplish what? A little? O, no. It shall accomplish that which I please. It shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it. O, my, does not that give us strong consolation that God's Plan will be all fulfilled? Perhaps at one time, you said, God's Plan seems to be a failure, we would have thought God would have had the world converted or saved long ago. What is the end? It shall be accomplished. What you please? What I please? No. What you thought? What anybody else thinks? No, it shall be accomplished, the things which "I" please, and prosper in the thing whereunto "I" sent it. Therefore we must know in what respect he intended it should prosper. It will gather his saints, those sanctified in their hearts. It will not gather in the world. Are there many saints? Not many. Not many great, or wise, or rich, or noble, but chiefly what?--this is pretty hard--chiefly the mean things--pretty hard--tell the truth. There are people in the world just as noble, with just as good shaped heads, if not better than ours, but the word of grace has done more in our hearts than all the knowledge of Oxford can give. Many who have the Oxford knowledge are without the word of God and lacking in all this matter. I heard only today how that when a certain evangelist was speaking in Oxford, some time ago, quite a number of students walked out of the public hall and stamped their feet, making considerable noise. The evangelist had previously said that he had a sister who had died and had gone to hell, and as these students were going out of the hall the evangelist called after them and said they were going there also. They replied, Have you any message to send to your sister?
It is such teachings that have turned so much discredit upon the Bible, so that reasoning minds, who want to know the mind of Christ, are turned away; so they go to work to manufacture a God and a religion of their own, much better than the hell-fire doctrine of the evangelist. If such people as this evangelist had known that God's "wages of sin is death," he would not have made such a statement as that. The Lord is gathering together his saints. What to? One says, it must be to the Roman Catholic church, another to the Methodist, another to the Presbyterian church. The Psalmist did not say that. No, he did not know about such churches, and the Lord never recognized these churches. Where will he gather them? O, that is it, and you and I need to know, for we want to be with them. We hope we are of those saints, and that he is gathering us, and don't you want to know? Well, God has told us through the prophet, Gather my saints together unto "me." It is not merely in a sense of coming to him and seeing he is glorious, and that he spake as never man spake. O, much more than that. Why, even the Roman soldiers sat down and watched him, and we might look back in our minds and see him crucified, and yet have no part in the matter. They watched him die while they played dice for his clothes, and the devil watched him die also. The world knows that the Savior died, but they have not come to know in a Scriptural sense what is meant by being gathered to him. We are to be gathered, but in the Scripture sense, and be drawn to him. Primarily, this drawing is not to the Savior, but to the Father. No man cometh to me except the Father which sent me draw him. It is the Father who is drawing now, and he is doing the calling now in the present time. He is calling all who are suitable for his purpose. In olden times, as illustrated by Abraham taking the wife for his son, it was not Isaac who sent for the bride, but Abraham, and this gives us an illustration of how God gave the holy Spirit to draw the bride-class, to be joint heirs with his son. It is primarily of the Father, but it is not with a view of having them as his bride, but for the bride of his son, to be [CR85] joint heirs with his son, Jesus Christ. Being thus drawn of the heavenly Father, he has pointed us unto Jesus, who died, the just for the unjust, to bring us into relationship with him, and thus into relationship with the Father. Note, then, the proposition before us. You have heard the call, and I trust you have received it, and as a consequence we are on the way--to what? O, we believe just as Rebecca did; she believed in Abraham, as Eliezer said, My master is very rich, VERY RICH, and all that he hath he hath given unto Isaac. He has sent me to get his bride. All of these earthly things the heavenly Father has arranged to give unto the Son. We do not suppose he has given him all heavenly things, for we read, "My glory have I not given to anyone." But all these earthly things are what is mentioned. Everything he has given to Christ, and he invites us to come in and be sharers with Christ in the great work of the Millennial Age, of being God's messengers in carrying the blessings to Israel and to all the families of the earth. What a wonderful privilege, dear friends! Any of us who have the missionary spirit must appreciate what God is going to do when God gets the missionaries ready. What few opportunities you have had for working and studying. All of these are such whom he is training, just as they train a young doctor. That is not a life-work, but those students are merely learning so that they may become effective doctors and surgeons. We may have certain sins to be cut off, and certain ailments to be healed, pouring in oil and putting on bandages, etc. We will all have such a glorious opportunity then, and we are being fitted and prepared for that work. God is interested in the heathen and in the people in your city who are not interested in him, those whom you cannot interest at all. If you have been in the missionary work you have not accomplished much except to fill their stomachs, because you could not do much with their hearts. We all realize how impotent we are. We are unable to do for them the things they need to have done, that would make them meet for God's favor. We must leave them after doing our best. We see that we must leave this one and that one in God's hands. We cannot move their wills. They are free to use them; we used to think that if they did not join some church they would go to hell. How hard a thought it was. We thought, Oh, we must hope that God will do something for our John and for our Mary--which was a proper spirit, and I am sure that God appreciated that spirit, so much more than if we had said, cold-hearted, Let the devil take them. Our hearts rejoice that God is not only as good as we are, but better. He loves them better than we do, and he will not only help them to get their eyes open, but he has the power, and in his due time he will help them to come to a knowledge of the truth. Thank God! What burdens rolled from our hearts. Happy day.
So, "Gather together my saints unto ME." Don't gather them into the churches, into Babylon; don't tie them up and bind them with the creeds. If you have gotten rid of the shackles, don't put them on someone else. We should not speak unkindly of our Christian friends whose eyes are holden, but we should have sympathy, for if we do not have sympathy the Lord will not be pleased. We remember the parable of the man who had much forgiven him, and yet he was unwilling to forgive others. His Lord was wroth with him, etc., because he was not willing to forgive the man who owed him a very little. It is little enough that we can do to have sympathy with our Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Methodist brethren, etc., and we are glad they are not burning us just now at any rate. We see some stumbling and going to the extreme, but we are glad to fellowship any who give evidences of loyalty of heart, for they may be in the same attitude of mind that you and I were. God has not sent the message to them in the fullest sense. God has made us ambassadors to them to represent himself. With what? Converting the world? O, no. What then? To show forth his spirit to all those who have hearing ears. Shall we not put an ear upon them? O, no. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear. So if you come to a man you thought had an ear, and you find he has not, do not offend him, but leave him. Maybe he will have an ear developed, and by and by you may have an opportunity of speaking to that ear. Don't say, here is a man who has two hands, two feet, two ears, and he MUST hear. No, if he has a hearing ear he will hear. If I knew you were all deaf I would not stand here talking to you in this manner. So the Lord is sending his message only to those who have an ear. If we are ambassadors, we are to look for those to whom he has sent his message. Why? "My word that has gone forth out of my mouth, it will not return unto me void." It is the still, small voice for those who have an ear to hear, and he sends the message for you and for me. Our life should be in harmony with that. Sympathy for all, especially for the household of faith.
In being gathered to the Heavenly Father, there is just one way. Is that so? I have heard people say there are many ways, that we are all going by different ways to one place. But the Bible says, only one way. O, Brother Russell, you are too narrow. I am not making the way, for our Lord told us 1,800 years ago that it was a narrow way. How could I make it? Did you say it was a broad way? No--a narrow way. If they wish to find fault with us they can--did they not find fault with Jesus and the Father? Yes. So it is nothing for people to criticize you and me. Very few that he could please; only the few, and so, "Marvel not if the world hate you, for you know it hated me," and we cannot be respected more than our Master. They called our Lord Beelzebub, that is, the devil, but it was not because the Lord did anything wrong, but because they were out of harmony with him. We ought to have a great deal of sympathy. After telling how much contradiction he endured against himself, we ought to be prepared to endure whatever it may be. Don't be discouraged; it is a good sign and you could not be one of the saints unless you become one of the overcomers. If you have no opposition, you ought to be serious, for things are not right somewhere if you have no opposition. Brother Russell then illustrated this matter by telling of a sister in New York city, who once came to him and said she did not have much contradiction, and not many trials, and she wondered what was the matter. He replied that possibly the Lord was preparing her so that she might gain strength and be strong when the trials did come. Later he saw her again and asked her if she was having many trials, and she replied, O, Brother Russell, I have plenty now. Neither should we go to the extreme of some of our friends, to invite trials so that they could suffer for righteousness. If we do our best, the Lord will take cognizance of our efforts. we should seek the wisdom from above. Note the Scriptures say this wisdom that cometh from above is first pure, THEN peaceful. The Lord does not want us to be fighting all the time. Our Lord Jesus did indeed endure a great fight, and all of the Church must endure a great fight, but it must not be a fight you have brought upon yourself, but it must be because of your faithfulness and sympathy, kindness, etc., in holding up the truth, which represents the Lord himself. Then whatever comes under those conditions, you can rejoice. As the Apostle says, Let no one suffer as an evil doer. Let us not suffer as a busybody either, but let us do the things God would approve. I trust that as the days and weeks go by we are getting more loving, kinder, gentler in the truth, and as we are getting more in line with his will, and therefore can be more used as his ambassadors. Gather these unto me, unto God, those who are in harmony with God's mind. How? In what sense together? O, as members of the Body of Christ, just as one joint is joined to another, compacted by that which every joint supplieth. He is gathering the members of the Body of Christ, and he is joining them together, using the human body as an illustration. It is all under the headship of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and as members in particular of the Body of Christ, which is the Church, and the hand cannot say to the foot, I have no need of you. You and I cannot say to one another, we have no need of you either. The Lord will not have finished his work until the last member has been gathered, and then God's gathering will be finished.
Who are these?
The Lord God tells us. They shall be all taught of God. When you gave your heart to the Lord, the illumination took place, illuminating the heart, bringing in joy and peace, and giving you an understanding of the Word of God, and that is the reason we know what the prophet meant when he tells us what these are. What are they? Saints. What saints? O, those who have made a covenant with me. How? How did they make it? By sacrifice. Must they sacrifice in order to get into this body? There is no other way. Well, are any of these, whom God calls, worthy to sacrifice and to come into the Body of Christ? Do we not know that our Lord Jesus would not have been worthy, except as he was perfect? We are all imperfect. Then how could God invite us to be part of the sacrifice? O, that is part of the "mystery," but he opened the way and said, "I am the way and the truth and the life." That is the only way any could come to him. If they do not come this way, all [CR86] their sacrifices will avail them nothing. Coming this way, God will accept your sacrifice and mine, if we come through faith in Christ. That is his arrangement, for Christ has made a satisfaction for our sins. Not for the world's sins, but for ours--the church's. He separates the church and the world. Well, Brother Russell, we were a part of the world? Yes, but how did we get out? We escaped that which they are still under. Well, I thought Jesus paid the penalty for all? He has laid down his life, but the application of the merit is to the other part. The first application of his merit is to the Church, the class which the Father is calling, the saints that he is calling. Well, does it include any except the little flock? Yes, and some more. You remember when Rebecca was coming to Isaac she had a maid companions. Well, as Rebecca was a type, so was the maid servants and both were brought in under the same call, and so it is now. Again we read in Psalm 45, where the Lord speaks there of the Bride, when presented to the Lord, when the Church is completed, all glorious within, and clothed in garments of fine linen, she is brought in unto the king, grand and glorious, when she shall be made like him. That will be the glorious consummation of the Church when she is presented to the Father. Will any others be brought at that time? Yes, the virgins, the pure ones, her companions, not those to be gathered in another age to follow, but who were her companions, who came along with her; they are the ones who are under the present arrangement which the Lord had made. That merit, however, is to be for the whole world. It is even now in the hands of divine justice. It is not applied to the world of unbelievers. Will it reach the world by and by? Yes, but in a different way. The merit is now imputed to us, because the merit that Christ has to give is earthly life and earthly rights. You remember he left the glory he had with the Father, and then became flesh, which he laid down in a sacrificial way, and having laid it down in a sacrificial way in harmony with the Father's will, the Father gave him the reward of a perfect new nature, having glory, honor and immortality. He still has those rights to an earthly nature. They were his to dispose of. After his resurrection he had the divine nature for himself, and hence he had this earthly nature to give away. If we had it, it would mean merely that which belonged to Father Adam. That is what he proposes to give to the world of mankind. It will take the world a thousand years to get back what they were losing for six thousand years. He came to seek and to save that which was lost, not a heavenly, but an earthly nature. He came to recover it and to give it back to mankind--to as many as will. Every eye shall see him, and every ear shall hear him. It will then be whether they will accept the Lord on his terms, which are absolute obedience and faithfulness to him. It will take the thousand years to educate them so they will be able to see the beauty of righteousness, and have character formed that will fit them for the everlasting favor, to all who are pleased to have it on his terms. But that is not what you and I are expecting. God is providing some better thing for us. What is this better thing? O, better than the resurrection to full glory of human perfection. Better than that? O, yes, better, I am sure. It is a high calling, a participation in the divine nature, taking part of--you cannot get it all, only a part. We are to be made partakers of it. Who will get the other part? We come in, in this way: If he had given his merit to the Church he could not have given it to other men. Before giving it to the world, he leaves it in the hands of the Father, and merely appropriated some of it to you, and some to me, some to all those who desire to come to the Father. Those who desire to avail themselves of the special provisions, those whom the Father has called and is drawing --gather together my saints unto me, draw nigh unto God and he will draw nigh unto you. We must first learn that we are sinners, otherwise God could not accept us. You have no sacrifice if your sacrifice is imperfect. The world says, I am asking no favors. God has only the one thing to offer now, the high calling. We must come on God's terms or not at all. As we draw near to God, the first lesson we can learn is that we are unworthy. You see God accepted Jesus and you want him to accept you in the same way. You say, I wish he would, but I find Jesus was perfect and God could accept his sacrifice. He died, and God raised him to a higher nature. I would like to have it also. Well, how can I? O, there is only one way--getting Jesus to be your Advocate. O, will he? Yes, that is part of the good tidings. How will merely an advocate for me do any good. An advocate is one who stands alongside--an attorney, a lawyer. In the German language, a lawyer is called an Advokat, and if an attorney takes your case he will not do so until you have taken the proper steps. Our Advocate with the Father is Jesus Christ, the righteous; he is not the world's advocate, he is our advocate. You remember on the last night when with his disciples, he said to the Father, "I pray for those whom thou hast given me" (the disciples), "for they are thine." ..."Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word." He is not the world's advocate. What can he do? He cannot say we are perfect, when we are not. He can impute, or appropriate to your sacrifice, and make up all of our insufficiency. Our sins were imputed to him and his righteousness was imputed to us. The moment he imputed this, the Father accepted us and the Father shows his acceptance by imparting his holy Spirit and permits us to come into membership into the Body of Christ, and gradually gives us a share in the "common-union," in the sufferings of Christ. He will bring you off more than conquerors, to share with him in the glory that shall follow.
Brother Russell then exhorted the friends to faithfulness, to loving zeal, patient endurance, and the development of the fruits of the spirit, that they might be accounted worthy of associating with the Redeemer in his kingdom work as antitypical priests and kings unto God, as members of the antitypical Mediator between God and men.
BE STRONG
BE strong to bear, O heart of mine,
Faint not when sorrows come.
The sum of all these ills of earth
Prepares thee for thy home.
So many burdened ones there are
Close toiling by thy side,
Assist, encourage, comfort them,
Thine own deep anguish hide.
What though thy trials may seem great?
Thy strength is known to God,
And pathways steep and rugged lead
To pastures green and broad.
Be strong to love, O heart of mine,
Live not for self alone;
But find, in blessing other lives,
Completeness for thine own.
Seek every hungry heart to feed,
Each saddened heart to cheer;
And when stern justice stands aloof,
In mercy draw thou near.
True, loving words and helping hands
Have won more souls for Heaven
Than all the mixed and various creeds
By priests and sages given.
For every grief a joy will come,
For every toil a rest;
So hope, so love, so patient bear--
God doeth all things best.
Be strong to hope, O heart of mine,
Look not on life's dark side;
For just beyond these gloomy hours
Rich, radiant days abide.
Let hope, like summer's rainbow bright,
Scatter thy falling tears,
And let God's precious promises
Dispel thine anxious fears.
[CR87]
THE DAY OF HIS PREPARATION
LAY down your rails, ye nations, near and far,
Yoke your full trains to steam's triumphal car;
Link town to town, unite in iron bands
The long-estranged and oft-embattled lands.
Peace, mild-eyed seraph; knowledge, light Divine,
Shall send their messengers by every line.
Men joined in amity shall wonder long
That hate had power to lead their fathers wrong
Or that false glory lured their hearts astray,
And made it virtuous and sublime to slay.
How grandly now these wonders of our day
Make preparation for Christ's royal way,
And with what joyous hope our souls
Do watch the ball of progress as it rolls,
Knowing that all, completed or begun,
Is but the dawning that precedes the sun!
[CR87]
Who Hath Known the Mind of the Lord?
Manchester, England, May 11, 1910
LEAVING Bristol about 9 o'clock, four others accompanied Brother Russell to Manchester. It was a ride of a few hours, and was greatly enjoyed both in fellowship and in looking at the scenes along the way. On arrival at the station at Manchester, we were met by a committee of seven of the elders and deacons and two of the sisters. They had arranged to take the party for a noonday lunch. After luncheon we gathered in Onward Hall, and a meeting was opened at 3:30 by Brother Ward of the Manchester class. There were about 250 present.
Brother Ward said: I know just how you all feel, you would like to shake hands with Brother Russell. As we waved Brother Russell off, so we will wave him here. (The Chautauqua salute was given.)
Brother Russell:--I will wave mine in return.
Then after singing one or two more hymns the Chairman introduced Brother Russell, who spoke in part as follows:
I am very pleased, dear friends, to be with you this afternoon. My mind is running along the line of the words of the Apostle, which we will read: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen."
We are coming, I trust, more and more every day, every week, every year, to appreciate these words of the Apostle, to appreciate our heavenly Father, to appreciate something about how great our heavenly Father is. We did not know him in the past, though we knew something about him, as the great Creator; knew he must be very wonderful and powerful, but did not know him in the sense of an intimate acquaintance. There is only one way in which we can become acquainted with one another, or with Almighty God, and that is coming to know the disposition, and spirit, and mind. We might live next door to one another for years, and might not know one another. We might know about one another, we might know their approximate age, and a few other things, but we would be unacquainted with each other. To know each other means more than to see each other from time to time. I would want to get to talk with you, to know your mind on various subjects, what you are doing, your business, what you approve, or disapprove, and you would want to know the same about me. Thus we interchange and get to know each other. When we got very intimate we would reveal our secrets to each other, and we would say, O, I know him; we are very close friends, indeed. This is a very happy condition. It is very much the same as this when we speak of our heavenly Father. It is not sufficient that we know his home is in heaven, that he is there, and we here. How may we know God? We cannot go to heaven to see him, cannot commune with him or pry into his affairs. He intimates his willingness to become known to some, not to all, but to some, as our Redeemer said, "The Father and I will come and reveal ourselves, we will sup with you." That is the way to be if you want to get happy. We ask one another for tea and get quite well acquainted, and you become intimate; [CR88] it is the Scriptural proposition of God and our Lord Jesus that those who would have the right spirit of fellowship with God, he will take them into his banquet house and supply their needs and bring forth that which will strengthen and refresh them, and make them well known. I venture to say that if the king that has gone had sent word to any of you, saying, Here is the price of your fare to London, come to the palace, I want to have a little personal acquaintance, that we may get acquainted with one another, so that when you speak of me in your home you may know how to properly represent me; I venture to say you would be glad to show that invitation to your friends and neighbors, and as soon as possible you would make your journey to London and call upon the King and consider it one of the greatest honors that ever came to you. That is just the kind of an invitation our heavenly Father has sent out to some, not to all, not by any means--everybody is not called. Many more are called than accept the call--few are chosen, because few will comply with the terms. All those who have no ear to hear are not called. If there is a deaf man here who cannot hear a sound, I am not talking to him; I may be looking at him, but he cannot hear. One must be able to hear and the other to speak. God tells us that the world is deaf and that he is not speaking to them. So some of us have had this message come to us, not only from one who is as great as the king of Great Britain, but from the King of the Universe. We should make haste to get acquainted with him. I should think that all would appreciate the honor of getting acquainted with him; you and I should greatly appreciate that privilege, the honor of being friends of God and of being invited to the palace, and have relationship with him, and having the privilege of getting acquainted with his royal family. I trust we much more appreciate the honor of the call of God to become his special friends. For not only has he promised that we may become his special friends, but he has said that if we show a proper appreciation and go to the throne frequently enough and draw nigh often in the right spirit, showing a real desire to be in harmony, he will do still more for us. What, more? Yes. How much more? He will adopt us into his family, and make us princes over certain parts of his dominion; he will make us kings, and make us joint heirs with the Chief Heir of the throne, our Lord Jesus Christ. I should think, dear friends, that each one of us, of those who have come to any knowledge of the grace of God, all such would be very desirous of drawing nigh. How do we draw nigh? In two ways; first, in prayer, in communion by going into his fellowship. Second, in his Word and noting what he has to say. There are two sides to the matter, not only telling the Lord what we think and know, but our prayers should frequently be that we do not know this or that, and saying, Lord, we would like to have your instructions and your guidance. That is our part. The other part is God's part, and was foreknown before the foundation of the world, what he was going to do, to invite us to become his friends, and he prepared his message and sent it in advance, and so if you want to hear his Word, you will search, you will go to his Word, and here we have it printed. (Brother Russell holding up a copy of the Bible.) So we studied his Word, and those who love the Lord will search and find out what he says. Those who like to have his fellowship may, and they will go to the Word to hear what he has to say--what words of comfort and consolation upon our difficulties and perplexities; words of admonition whenever we need them, words of counsel as to where we should go and what we should do to be more pleasing and more acceptable to him, more free to understand his plan, and to know what terms on which he will take us into this condition of bosom companionship, to know more of the lengths and breadths and depths and heighths of his love. Thus we are inquiring of our heavenly Father, the King of kings and Lord of lords; we would be interested and he will be interested in telling us of his plan. He says, Now I have such a plan respecting the world. Well, we say, doubtless you have some plans respecting mankind; would you mind telling us? Of course they are good plans. He could not have any bad plans, a good God would not have anything but good plans. A good man out of the treasure of his heart would send forth good things. So we know in advance that our God is good and gracious, and we know that we may expect something good, and if we find it out it will be a good plan. so we say, God, the great Lord of heaven and earth, might we know something of your plans, why we are here, what purpose you had in creating us, and what you intend for us, and are there lessons to learn while here? What shall we prepare for, and how prepare? So he has provided the answer for all these questions, and the proper answer to all these questions is that if we will do his will, he will show us. If any man will do the will of my Father, he shall know the doctrine. Well, can we do his will, the will of our Father? No, you cannot do the will of your Father, but in proportion as you will to do it, in that proportion your will is right. He is pleased to see the right will, for he knows you have not the right kind of a body, or a properly shaped head. He knows that, but he is not going to deal with you according to your imperfections, but according to your will. You can be perfect in will and thought. That is my desire, and if you have that purity of will, intentions, and heart desire he will say, I am pleased to have fellowship with you and I have made arrangements for you. Thus through the merit of Jesus, which is already provided and available for you, if you wish it, and you may thus come and be reckoned perfect in Jesus, his merit will be imputed to cover the imperfections of the flesh, when your heart is in the same attitude as that of Jesus, when he said, "Lo, I have come, in the volume of the book it is written, I have come to do thy will, O God." So when you and I reach that place--when our hearts have come to the point of absolute submission--we are right there where the Father wants us to be. He says, I cannot accept you on account of the imperfections of your flesh, and I have provided that Jesus shall act as your Advocate. What is that? One who stands alongside, and intercedes for you, in every way representing you. Just as if you had a case in court, you would provide an attorney by paying a certain fee. You pay for his time and service. It is his duty now to serve you and he goes into the court as your spokesman--the one who advocates your cause; he speaks for you as your representative. That is what Jesus promised to be. As the Apostle says, if WE sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Who are we?
They "were children of wrath even as others," but they got out of that condition by turning their hearts to God and away from sin; and by accepting his appointed way in Christ. But although there are many steps by which God may be approached quickly or slowly, nevertheless there is the one standard which must be attained before any can be accepted of the Father as members of the Body of Christ. That step is full consecration even unto death. Then the Redeemer imputes such a portion of his merit to such as will make good the sinner's deficiency, and thus enable the Father to accept him as a sacrifice. This is in accord with the Apostle's words in Romans 12:1. Our sacrifices themselves are not only holy and acceptable to God, but only because of our relationship to the great Advocate. Our Advocate imputes sufficient of his merit to make good our deficiency. If one is deficient 50 per cent., the Lord imputes to him that 50 per cent. If another is deficient 25 per cent., that amount is imputed to him. If another be deficient 75 per cent., that amount is imputed to him--to each according to his needs from the abundant sufficiency of him who loved us and bought us with his own blood.
Just as soon as our Redeemer makes this imputation of his merit on our behalf we are in the Father's sight justified fully and completely from all things--as much so as though we had never committed sin. It is in view of this justification that the Father accepts our sacrifice as holy and acceptable, and begets us of his holy Spirit. He exhorted the friends to remember that thus it was that they entered into covenant relationship with God, and that they could maintain that relationship only by continuing their sacrifice on the altar--laying down their lives for the brethren, and in the service of God generally, "doing good unto all men as they have opportunity, especially the household of faith." He reminded us that this covenant relationship into which the Church has come is not by the Covenant of the Law of Moses, nor by the New (Law) Covenant, which will take the place of the old Law Covenant with Israel, under the better Mediator, and which will operate during the Millennial Age, and bring them into harmony with God, and into full covenant relationship only at the close of the Millennium.
Our covenant relationship, which we enter into at once through the assistance of our great Advocate, brings us immediately into fellowship, into sonship; and immediately makes us joint-heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord to the [CR89] heavenly inheritance. Wherefore we are no longer aliens but sons. Not only does no Mediator stand between us and God, but no Mediator brought us to God. The Father himself called us and drew us, as the Scriptures declare, and himself pointed us to Jesus our Advocate. We called attention to the fact that an Advocate stands alongside of as a spokesman, and does not come between, as does the Mediator. He also drew attention to the fact that Jesus was not spoken of as our Mediator, but we are told that he is our "Advocate with the Father."
The evening session for the public was in Hulme Town Hall.
The dear friends at Manchester had made a great distribution of Volunteer matter--about a thousand copies of the PEOPLES PULPIT, besides other methods of advertising through the newspapers, etc., etc. A fine audience of very intelligent people listened with rapt attention to the presentation of the subject of "The Great Hereafter." The next day, Thursday, the 12th, we bade adieu once more and went to Otley.
VICTORY OVER SELF
I slept, and in my dreams I saw, the great White Heavenly
Throne
And, round about, a noble host of those who'd fought and
won
The Crown of Life, but none there filled the places next the
Son.
And as I watched, still others came to swell the hosts of
Heaven,
Methought that by their earthly deeds their depth of love was
proven
And thus to each at God's command the appointed place was
given.
Of some 'twas told how they had spread the Message far and
near,
Of others how they'd labored for the friends they held most
dear,
Still others had with pitying love the lonely helped to cheer.
And each received, when all was told, the Father's sweet
"Well done,"
And all were satisfied with that; but still I saw to none
Was given an invitation to a place beside the Son.
At length methought I saw appear two saints with arms
entwined,
The one was strong and on his strength the weaker one
reclined,
And straightway to the strong one was a favored place
assigned.
For he, although the others each a noble work had wrought,
Unknown to anyone, with self, a deadly fight had fought,
And on the "Narrow Way" to Life an enemy had brought.
The meaning of my dream to me no sage or seer declared,
But oft I've thought this saint indeed the Master's cup had
shared
And to the Saviour's love such love might nearest be
compared. --Selected.
[CR90]
The Secret of the Lord
Otley, England, May 12, 1910
OTLEY is a small town of about 8,000 population, and from a worldly standpoint it is specially noted, because at this place are manufactured the famous Wharfdale Printing Presses, upon which most of our Oxford Bibles have been printed. Some of the friends living at Otley work in the shop connected with this wonderful printing press.
When Brother Russell is in Europe he very seldom includes in his schedule towns as small as Otley, but in view of the peculiar manner in which truth had a start in this place, and because of the zeal and steadfastness of the friends to the truth since the start, he decided to make them a short visit.
It seems that five years ago there was in and about Otley six local ministers of the Primitive Methodist church. One day one of these found a volume of Millennial Dawn in one of the book-shops; he bought it, read it, became greatly interested, and passed it on to his fellow local preachers. As a result the six of them came into the truth. This you may imagine, in a place the size of Otley, caused quite a stir and a great deal of excitement. Then much persecution followed. The dear brethren were severely denounced from the pulpits and in the newspapers. One day, as they say, one of these brethren was passing along the street, a merchant came out of his store on the other side of the street, crossed over and began to talk to this brother, denouncing the truth, and calling it "a sugar-coated pill," "a Yankee patent medicine," etc. While saying this the merchant dropped dead at the feet of the brother. This of course added fuel to the flame that was already burning and the persecutions became hotter. Nevertheless, they bore a faithful witness to the truth. Three of the six have since cooled off in their ardor for the truth, but they have not, however, gone back to the nominal systems.
The three who have held to the truth have manifested their zeal and devotion to the Lord to such an extent that there is now a class there of probably forty. About thirty-four came out for the afternoon service, which was for the interested, and was held in Friendly Societies Hall, the regular meeting place of the class.
In Brother Russell's talk to the friends he called attention to many points mentioned at Bristol and Manchester, but emphasizing especially the thought of "THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD."
At 3 p.m. Brother Waterhouse (one of the three former local preachers), acting as chairman, opened the meeting with remarks as follows: I should just like to say in the name of the Otley Church and the Churches that are gathered here, that we love Brother Russell, and we feel greatly delighted that we have the joy and privilege of having him amongst us today. We know many of us have been greatly blessed through his ministrations, through the printed page, and we know how we have been greatly helped to a better understanding of God's precious word, and so from that standpoint alone we love him, and so we give him a royal welcome and we are glad to see him. It is now my pleasure and joy to call upon him to speak to us this afternoon from God's Word. I will not take any more time, but will call upon Brother Russell to speak to us.
"The Secret of the Lord"
Brother Russell:--I assure you, dear friends, I am very pleased to be with you today. I have had information respecting the friends at Otley and frequently had communications from you, and now it is a great pleasure to meet you in your own town, and those from surrounding places. I thought perhaps we might be profited in considering from the Lord's Word, the words of the Apostle, "The church of the first born."
"The secret of the Lord is with those that reverence him, and he will show them his covenant."
The Lord has a secret; it would be strange if he did not have. We see that that is the method which he has used from the beginning. We see it would not have been wise for him to have revealed all the secrets of his plan, because the Adversary and his fallen associates would have done all in their power to upset his plans. Therefore we remember how Jesus expressed the matter in Matthew 11:25, saying, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes." That used to be a difficult text with us, dear friends, at a time when we supposed that those who could not see anything of God's plan, signified that they were not elected, and that they were going to eternal torment, and thus to thank the Father that he had hidden it from them that they might go down into eternal torment, seemed rather unkind and not like what we should expect. But now we see very well what he meant and he had no unkind sentiment, but that the Father's way is the better way, which you and I are coming to see. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts," says the prophet. So, then, we can see that in the case of our Lord Jesus, had the Adversary known just what the Plan was, he probably would not have so co-operated in the crucifixion, but it was written, and so it must be fulfilled. You remember that he entered into Judas and led the way, step by step, right up to the crucifixion, guided in the surrender to the Jews, chief priests, scribes, and Sanhedrin, and then on to Calvary. We are glad then, dear friends, that our privilege is to be amongst those to whom these things are not secret. The secret is to be revealed to those who are his. We are glad to be his. We think it not strange, that as a good earthly father who had an obedient child who loved him and was anxious to serve him, that he would be pleased to make known his purposes and plans, and even some of the secrets respecting those plans. So our great heavenly Father has some plans, and he is pleased to make known those plans to such an one. As Jesus said, "To you is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven." You could not have known them any more than others. You are not more brilliant than others. In fact, the Lord's people are less brilliant, especially at the time they come to the Lord, that is what the Lord said through the Apostle, "Not many great, not many wise, not many noble, not many rich, but chiefly the poor of this world, rich in faith." Again he says, God hath chosen the mean things of this world that he might confound the things that are great, wise, and mighty. So then this is his own message, and it does not put a very high premium upon our standing. It will help us to appreciate that only those who are small in their own eyes will receive the message. Others are too wise, they will have too much at stake to enable them to receive the message in the way God sends it. Nevertheless, on this point, I would suggest, that my observation is that those who receive the truth, no matter how imperfect they are by nature, through sanctification, their hearts and lives give them the spirit of a sound mind, so that as a result those who have been but a little while in the truth are above the average, because the secret of the Lord is with them, and they have some of the wisdom that comes from above; first pure, than peaceful, easy of entreatment, full of mercy and good fruits. That is what we should expect, dear friends. In other words, the Lord is not picking out the great. We will not say there are no kings in this little flock; we do not know. We will not say there are no lords; we do not know. We will not say there are no members of Parliament, or of Congress; we do not know. We will say, as the Lord did, there are not many in that attitude of mind. They have too much at stake, they are too wise, it will cost them too much. They would feel it so, and they [CR91] would not pay the price. What price? All that we have, and then we must take up our cross and follow him. Therefore it is a good thing that we are not very rich, in either fame, name or riches, or in any other way, because not many of those are called and will not make their calling and election sure. Nevertheless, the secret of the Lord is with those who reverence him. This is a great secret society. In the world there are many secret societies, they have their passwords, grips, and they are very careful to keep their secrets that nobody may know their secrets, but only themselves. But when you and I look around we find God was the first one to establish a secret society, that he has established the church, as a secret society, and in the most wonderful way. He has organized that society, giving them his secrets, that nobody else can know, yet the members of this society are told that they may tell the secret to anybody and give away all the passwords and grips, but the key is the holy Spirit, which the natural man cannot understand, they are not begotten of the holy Spirit, without which they cannot understand the secrets of the Lord. If you tell them they do not understand them. They might hear, but as for knowing and appreciating these secrets, they would not be able to do so. But the Lord has given us these secrets by his Spirit, for the spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things, the mystery of God's great plan. These secrets are for those who reverence him, and I trust I am addressing those who reverence the Lord. How privileged we are that we should know some of the Lord's great plans. Well, says one, Brother Russell, I do not care for any of those things, there is enough in the 5th chapter of Matthew to save any man. All right, brother, if you do not care for them, there are others that do care for them. We are not going to torment you if you do not see our way, or damn you to hell. Enjoy what you can, and we rejoice in what we see, and enjoy and appreciate it.
This thing about wanting to know about the Father's plan, is the very spirit of sonship. Suppose any of you were adopted into the family of one of the great kings of our day. You and he got quite well acquainted and he said, I am going to make you one of the princes and identify you with the kingdom, make you a member of the household. If you had no interest in his affairs, or in the kingdom, or household, it would seem as though you were very unappreciative. He would probably say that as you did not appreciate his goodness, he would pass it on to another. Our heavenly Father is King of kings, and he has adopted us into his family and we are children of the King in the highest possible sense of the word, and we are heirs of the great blessings by and by. At the present time our relationship is a secret which he knows about, and we know, but the world knows it not, even as it knew him not. So if the world does not want to know about it we should not think it strange; we are not expecting them to understand. But we feel deeply interested in the plan; so he says, I am pleased that you are interested in it. Just go through it and enjoy it as much as you like. Can we understand it? Yes, if you study it with a certain key you can understand it. My holy Spirit will guide you, and you will be led into all truth, and he will show you things to come. What kind of adopted children would we be if we did not take hold and become conversant with his mind? So the secret of the Lord is with those who reverence him. The reverence of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and I hope it is growing upon us. As some become acquainted with the Lord they become less reverent. I am pleased to say that I think there is more reverence among my British friends than in America. I am free to say it of you, for it is very appropriate, and it ought to be so with us. Not only in worship, in prayer, but that reverence for the Lord that would in all of our ways and plans, and all of our studies, and all of life's affairs, seek to glorify him, seeking to have all of our affairs under his supervision.
I trust we are all his. You understand that we have no sect, we are not here as a sect, but as a little company of Bible Students. I think that the name, International Bible Students Association, expresses the thought very clearly. We are not trying to start another church--there are too many now. We have no right, no more than they had, to start a church. John Wesley and Calvin had no right to start a church, because there is only one church, which Jesus started long before they were born. But in this church which Jesus started, dear friends, as soon as we are associated with it, we want to have a right appreciation of what are the privileges. We have some dear friends in all the different denominations and associations in all parts of the world, whom we love and esteem and believe they belong to the Lord, yet some of them are more or less tied up with a kind of bondage, some tied with the doctrines of the Catholic church, some with the doctrines of the Episcopal church, some with the Methodist, the Presbyterian, the Congregational, etc.; they are held fast from a full, free investigation of the Word of God and we wish them to be entirely free. Whatever shackles we have had in the past, we want them dropped, so we can know the things which the Father has given us in his Word, and understand the Scriptures better, and we find shackles in every denomination, which prevent them from coming to a clear, full understanding of God's Word. Our thought is, that in every denomination there are many true children of God who belong to the true Church, the Church of Jesus Christ, which he founded, the Church of the first born, whose names are written in heaven, and we want to reach these in a kindly way, guiding them to what we find in his Word. Certain things we thought were in the Word we find are not there. We know that the Lord knows all who are his in every place, and we know that we are living in the time of the end of this age, when every true child of God will awake to a true appreciation of the Word as God's revelation of His Plan, and come into harmony with that Plan. Through his spirit he is showing us things to come. That is the way you and I are finding it. Now is the due time to have a clear understanding of the Bible.
Brother Russell then told of the glorious invitation granted to the "Church of the living God" and the call which has come to her,--to be the Bride of His Son, and joint heir in his Kingdom, and setting before the minds of the class the glorious privileges thus afforded, and the riches of the grace provided in the blessing. He exhorted all to faithfulness, even unto death, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus; and assured all such, in the Master's name, of the "crown of glory that fadeth not away."
Public Service
The friends at Otley are very zealous, and for a town of the size of Otley they did a great deal of advertising for the public meeting, distributing many copies of the People's Pulpit, putting out handbills, cards, and had pasted up fifty large posters and some long banners. In addition to this, they used a very unique method, namely: the town crier is still in existence there, and so at evening time he went to the various street corners, would stop, ring a bell, which when the people heard they would come to their doors and he would then cry out about the evening meeting.
About 300 came to the meeting, which was held in Mechanics' Hall.
Brother Smith (another of the three formerly local preachers) acted as chairman and after a few words introduced the speaker.
Brother Russell held their attention for two hours while he spoke on the subject, "The Thief in Paradise, the Rich Man in Hell, and Lazarus in Abraham's Bosom." We remained over night with our Otley friends and will long remember their hospitality, and their interest in the Lord, his brethren and the Truth.
[CR92]
The Secret of the Lord
OUR train arrived at Nottingham on time, but through some mistake there were none of the friends at the station to meet us. However, as we had some time to spare, we took a ride on the "tram" (street car) around town, before the meeting. At 3 o'clock the friends to the number of about seventy-five assembled in Bible Students' Hall, Exchange Walk. This is their usual meeting place.
The service was opened by the singing of Hymn 76, and the meeting was opened by Brother Smedley, who acted as chairman. After a few remarks the chairman introduced Brother Russell, who then spoke in substance as follows:
BROTHER RUSSELL: I am very pleased to be with the dear friends at Nottingham today, to make your acquaintance at your homes. I have met some of you at various places in the past, but others are from places round about.
Thinking over what topic might be the most interesting and profitable to us, the words of the Lord come to my mind as expressed by the prophet, "The secret of the Lord is with them that reverence him, and he will show them his Covenant."
We know how surely this matter is a secret, because of the very few who understand the Divine Plan; also the fact that very few can see into the deep things of God, for the Scriptures give us abundant testimony that the natural man receiveth not the things of God. Then the Apostle proceeds to say, that we have received the spirit of Christ, and as such we have the privilege of knowing the spiritual things; yea, the deep things. We have all doubtless had experiences along this line, when we knew very little about the Lord, and then when we knew something more, and realized our privilege to grow in grace and knowledge, how our heart rejoiced!
We find that this secret of the Lord is with us in the sense of revealing his secret purposes and plans. We can see God's reason why he does not reveal this secret to the world, as, for instance, if it were open and plain we may suppose that the Jews at the first advent would not have crucified "the Lord of glory." So if Satan had known God's great plan, no doubt he would have tried to circumvent it in various ways. Thus it becomes all the more of an assurance to us that it is of God, because he has kept it hidden, and he is now gradually revealing it, and to the very class he declared he would reveal it to--those that reverence him--not meaning those who bow the head, but whose hearts are reverent toward God, and who delight to think of the Lord in all the affairs of life, and to realize themselves under his divine care. Because you know it is one thing to be spiritual children of God, and another thing to be actually children of God. First, to appreciate being children of God, and to give ourselves fully into his hands and to look for the divine leading in all of our earthly duties and in our heavenly aspirations, and in our study of the Scriptures, to know and expect that he who led us first will lead us to the last, and he who has received us in Christ Jesus will be our shepherd to the end of the way, as we read in Psalm 23. He will receive us into the glorious condition at the end of the journey, if faithful as sheep, and we will "dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
It seems to me that one of the strongest evidences we have in this respect is the fact that it has been misunderstood for so long. Ourselves and our friends, who handled God's Word, did not see the real teachings that it contained, but now it opens up, a plan of God that is so wonderful, so high, and deep, and long; and that very fact gives us further confidence. Who could have written this book and made this plan of God?
So we are assured in the 11th chapter of Romans, "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor?" Who could have suggested to God the making of such a plan, such a great and wonderful plan of the ages? We are confident no one could. As we look back into the past we see that there have been many godly people and many mighty minds amongst God's people, and we see they have written great things; as, for instance, the work of John Calvin. He was a very deep reasoner, and loyal to God, yet he came far short of seeing the lengths and breadths of God's plan.
Then we see in Brother Wesley a grand man, and who in his teachings is loving and lovable, and he had much truth, but yet he did not have the whole plan. So, as we look all the way in the past, after reading the inspired words of the Lord, of the apostles and prophets, nothing is clear in what others wrote. However, they had some truth, and also an accumulation of error. Another one had something else, and some other error. So each had a little of the truth and a good deal of error, and thus we have all the various sects and parties of today. To me it becomes an evidence of faith and the truth of God's word today, that the due time has come, not because of any extreme wisdom on our part, but because the Lord's due time has come for the secret to be made known; it is the due time to open up things new as well as old. It is the due time to show something respecting the new age, as well as to make known more clearly the work of the past ages, just as it was in the end of the Jewish age. They had the Scriptures read every Sabbath day for 1,600 years, and they had been expecting God's blessings, but when the Lord came they were unprepared for him, and when it went to the Gentiles they were unprepared for it. So that provision respecting the Gentiles, that they might come in and be fellow-heirs, that truth was secret until the due time, which was the end of the Jewish age, and the inauguration of the Gospel age. Now truth respecting the Millennial Kingdom and the character of the work there to be carried on has been kept secret until now, the time when the new age is due and the truths respecting God's people are due. Furthermore, in the Lord's plan our forefathers no doubt had a sufficiency of light to help them along, but there was not the same light shining upon other subjects, and they did not have all the great colleges and schools of our day working against the truth. Everything was in favor of the worship of God, reverence for the Bible, etc. But now we are living in a time when everything is sweeping to the other direction. I heard only last night respecting a minister of the Methodist church; he was asked to come to the meeting tonight. "Oh, no, I won't go to that at all," he said. The brother who invited him had himself been an elder in the Primitive Methodist church. The other man said, "I am an agnostic now, and if I were to study the Bible any more I would become an atheist." The Brother then quoted some proof-text. "Don't do that," he said, "I have thrown away the Bible."
The majority of ministers are not thus outspoken, but this one was speaking his mind more freely. It was merely an indication of what the general trend is of our day, among all the students of the civilized world; they are getting away from the Bible. In throwing away the creeds they throw away the Bible, because they think the creeds are founded upon the Bible. Now is the time when you and I absolutely need meat in due season, else we would faint in the way, and now God is providing it. We can see something of the great plan of the ages, with its grandeur and beauty.
There are some of its enemies who declare it is all error, and that Mr. Russell made the "Divine Plan of the Ages." They do me too much honor to say that I could make up the Plan of the Ages. I claim that no man could make up the Plan of the Ages; it is so much superior to anything else which was ever produced by any man, or set of men, or women in all the centuries of the past, from the days of the Apostles down, that it would be entirely too much credit to say that I made it up. It comes to us as evidence that God himself is behind this plan. By the way, that is one argument I used with an agnostic at one time:
Do I understand you do not believe in the Bible?
No.
Where do you think the Bible came from?
O, priests and knaves wrote it.
Which set of priests and knaves wrote it--the Presbyterians?
He did not know what reply to make.
Then I helped him out. No, the Bible existed before there were any Presbyterian priests and knaves.
Perhaps you think it was the Catholic priests and knaves?
Yes, that was it.
Well, then, my brother, if they did, they were fools also.
Why?
Because if any man, priest or knave, wanted to establish a theory, he would make something that would suit his purpose; because if the Catholics made the Bible they did not make it to suit their purpose.
Why?
Because it says those things they do not want it to say, and vice versa. Give our Presbyterians the right to make [CR93] the Bible, and they would leave out all about free grace; and the Methodists would leave out election and the resurrection, etc. So if we gave them opportunity to make the Bible it would be different from the Bible. Just to illustrate with the Catholics: If they wanted to make a Bible they would say something about the virgin Mary, born immaculate, without sin. Why did they not write that in the Bible? That is one of their fundamental teachings. As also about Mary being the mother of God. Why not put that in? Then they would have put in a lot about purgatory, candles, masses, etc. Why not put those things in? Put in a whole lot about the immortality of the soul, the trinity, etc. You see, dear friends, the more we look at it, we see that none of these denominations made this book, but they each took a portion of it that suited them. It all suits us. We do not want anything more, and do not want to take out anything. We are the only people in the world that it does suit.
In regard to the doctrine of the resurrection. They are all troubled about it. They know it is in the Bible, and they read it sometimes, but they have no use for it. If when a man dies he immediately goes to heaven, and if Adam has been in heaven for five thousand years, what would they want of a resurrection? If Paul has been in heaven for 1900 years and only lived on earth for fifty years, why would he want to get back into an earthly body? So you see there is no one in the world who wants the Bible just as it is but ourselves, and we are thoroughly satisfied.
Now, dear friends, what further proof do we need that God is behind the Bible, and that the Bible contains the most wonderful plan that could possibly be made. Neither you nor I, dear friends, could make up any kind of a plan that would be one thousandth as good, or that would fit as this does. Here the Bible, written centuries ago, by different writers during long periods, is evidence that the one spirit of our Lord God inspired those writers, or they never could have written alike. Take it today, with those in the truth; ask any fifty of them, for each one to write out something and to write it along the same line--after we have been studying the books, and have been greatly blessed. You certainly could not get fifty to agree in all the particulars, but here we have a book written by people living at different times, every part of which is in full agreement with every other part. It is very evident that God directed them and they wrote for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the age have come. These blessings of knowledge and truth came upon the first of the Gospel Age, and the last of the Gospel Age, where the Gospel Age joins with the Jewish Age and where it joins with the Millennial Age. What wonderful blessings it brings!
Now our text is, that this secret is with those who reverence God, and he shall show them his covenant. Well, you and I ought to understand something about the covenant if we have come into covenant relationship with the Lord, for he mentions that that would be one of the things that would be revealed, and the Apostle mentions also that this matter of the covenant is the secret, a mystery of God, hidden from the past and now made known unto the saints.
As this subject of the covenant is a live one, in the sense that most of our minds have not been directed to the subject in the past, I have written all that I will have to say, and will probably not say anything new; yet it is the old things that we are trying to be established in. We are not wishing to say anything new, but merely, in presenting the matter orally, that we may say something more helpful to some than in the reading of the same. We suggest, then, that to be in covenant relationship with God is to be in harmony with God, as, for instance, the angels were all in covenant relationship with God. Was man in such a relationship originally? Yes. Did not God guarantee him such as long as he would be obedient? He broke the holy commandment, the covenant. He violated the agreement and, instead of blessing came the curse, the sentence of death. This breaking of the covenant did not merely affect Adam, but all of us. We are told that we are born in sin and shapen in iniquity. God, however, in due time told Abraham something about his covenant. He said, Abraham, I have certain purposes or plans to make known to you, if you will leave your father's house and manifest your obedience and faith in me. Very well. Abraham was glad, and as soon as the time came he left his father's house, came into the land of Canaan and thus, by obeying God, he became heir of the promise. That is to say, he came into covenant relationship with God, and God appeared and said: I will bless you, you are in relationship with me, you have obeyed my voice, you have taken the steps I told you would be necessary; I will tell you something more, The time will come when I will bless all mankind, all the families of the earth. After testing Abraham further, God gave him an oath, that he might feel doubly confident as to all that God had said. This same covenant relationship was maintained by Isaac, then Jacob, all in covenant relationship with God. But it was not the full measure of covenant relationship. They were justified in the sense of being treated as though they were all right, but God did not admit that they were all right, because there were certain hindrances to their coming into full fellowship; and so the Apostle says, "God having reserved some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." But what is it that hinders him from coming fully into a justified condition of life? Abraham was justified to fellowship with God, as a friend of God, but not to the place of being called a son of God. The sonship was lost in Adam and there was no other son of God until Jesus. Next after Jesus was the gospel church. So in John 1:11 we read, that Jesus came to his own, but his own received him not; but to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become sons of God, even those who believed on his name. They were the first to become sons. Abraham was justified to fellowship with God. Why not sonship, as well as we? Although he had the right attitude of heart, of faith, just as Paul says, "With my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I cannot perform it." He was speaking for all of that class coming under the law. Before any could become son of God, it was necessary that Christ should come and that Christ should make an appropriation of his merit on his behalf, so God could only accept Abraham to a degree of fellowship, and treated him from the standpoint of what he was going to do. He told him that at a certain day he would do great things for him, but I cannot do it for you now. First, I must do something else. That was, that God must provide the Savior, etc. Well in line with this promise made to Abraham, by and by God called the nation of Israel, the whole nation, to be his peculiar people, and you remember how he gave them Moses.
Thus St. Peter declared, "For Moses verily said unto the fathers, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you from amongst your brethren like unto me (I am his likeness or type, foreshadowing that great prophet in the small way); him shall ye hear in all things; and it shall come to pass that the soul that will not obey that Prophet shall be destroyed from amongst the people." (Acts 3:22,23.) All who will not come into line then with the great antitypical Mediator will perish in the Second Death, but first they must come to a knowledge of him. All the blind eyes must be opened, and all the deaf ears unstopped. The entire Gospel Age has been set apart in the Divine order for the raising up of this great Prophet like unto Moses-- the great Mediator of the New Covenant. Jesus was raised up first, "Head over all things to the Church which is his Body." Subsequently the Apostles were raised up as members of his Body and since then selections have been made from people from every nation and clime. The great antitypical Mediator will soon be complete.
TYPE AND ANTITYPE.
In proportion as the antitype came in the type ended, but only that proportion and no more. Thus the typical bullock of the atonement found its antitype in the "Man Jesus Christ, who gave himself a ransom for all," and the typical high-priest found an antitype in Jesus Christ, "the high-priest of our profession" or order, and the sacrifice of the bullock found its antitype in the consecration and death of Jesus. Thus also the under-priesthood finds its antitype in the consecrated Church, as St. Peter declares. Thus also the Lord's goat on the day of atonement finds its antitype in the flesh of those who are now consecrated to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. As that goat went to the bullock outside the camp to be burned, so the Apostle exhorts us, "Let us go to him outside the camp bearing his reproach"--outside of human favor and esteem and fellowship, for "If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him." This last mentioned feature of the type has not yet been fully completed, hence the other features of the type incidental to the Law Covenant and its day of atonement have not yet found a fulfillment, but "not one jot or tittle shall fail." All shall [CR94] be fulfilled in due time. The great Prophet, the antitype of Moses, will shortly be completed and be raised up from amongst his brethren, and then the second application of his blood will be made, "On behalf of all the people." Then, in view of that redemptive work--that payment of the ransom-price for all--the whole world will be turned over to the great Mediator, Priest and King. He will take unto himself his great mediatorial power and begin his reign for the overthrow of Sin and Death and for the uplifting of the willing and obedient of Adam's race.
The service then closed with the singing of Hymn 238. Public Service
THE EVENING SERVICE was for the public and was held in Mechanics' Institute. There was a fair-sized audience, who gave close attention. We remained over night with the Nottingham friends, and left the next morning for London.
SATURDAY, MAY 14.--Leaving Nottingham by fast express, we arrived in London about noon, and the day was spent with Brother Russell in looking further respecting the Lord's providence for a future housing of the work in London, as the present arrangement is not entirely satisfactory.
MY BEAUTIFUL SECRET.
I HAVE learned a beautiful secret,
I know not how nor where--
But I know it is sweet and precious,
And true, and glad, and fair;
And that God in heaven reveals it
To all that have ears to hear.
And I know that ere I learned it,
My way was weary and hard;
And somewhere in life's music
There was always that which jarred--
A hidden and dreary discord,
That all its sweetness marred.
But my harp of life was lifted
By One who knew the range
Of its many strings--for He made it,
And He struck a keynote strange;
And beneath the touch of the Master
I heard the music change.
No longer it failed and faltered;
No longer sobbed and strove;
But it seemed to soar and mingle
With the song of heaven above;
For the pierced hand of the Master
Had struck the keynote--Love.
[CR94]
The Ransom-Price
Dundee, Scotland, Wednesday, May 18, 1910
ARRIVING at Dundee, went direct to "Lamb's Hotel," where we were to remain for the night, and where arrangements had been made for the afternoon service in one of the large coffee, or lunch rooms; here nearly two hundred of the friends gathered.
"The Ransom-Price"
The afternoon service was opened at 3 o'clock by Brother Malcomb, who acted as Chairman. After the singing of a few hymns, followed by prayer, the Chairman stated that the friends requested an opportunity of asking some questions. Therefore Brother Russell decided to turn it into a Question Meeting, and questions were invited. However, the questions seemed to be mostly along the line of the "Ransom," the "Mediator and Advocate," the "Covenants," etc., and so it seemed the Lord's will that Brother Russell should go over the various points mentioned at previous appointments. But amongst the various questions, the subject of the "Ransom" seemed uppermost, so he pointed out the difference between our Lord giving himself to be the ransom price for all, and his subsequent work, soon to be accomplished, of applying that ransom-price "on behalf of all the people." Notwithstanding the largeness of the work of salvation, he pointed out how every part of it fits in with every other part. First he showed how our Lord left the heavenly glory--how he was made flesh, for our sakes became poor--how he took upon himself the human nature, in order that he might be man's Redeemer. Second, that he was not the Redeemer when he was born, except in a prophetic sense, the same sense in which he was the Saviour, the Advocate, the Mediator, the King, the Priest, the Judge, the Prophet. Third, he was not any of these as the lad of twelve years when he discussed the Law and the Prophets [CR95] with the teachers of his day in the Temple. Fourth, he was not any of these when he reached perfect manhood at the age of thirty years--except in a prophetic sense. His actual sacrifice took place when he was thirty years of age--when at Jordan he was baptized and symbolically represented the full surrender of his all to the Father's will, as the same had been written aforetime in the Book, the Bible--in the Law and Prophets. There it was that the prophecy was fulfilled of him, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, as it is written in the Book." All the things that you have caused to be written in the Law and in the Prophets respecting the Saviour of mankind, I am here, fully consecrated, to accomplish.
At that moment our Lord sacrificed himself--laid down his earthly life in the Father's hands, saying: "The cup which my Father hath poured for me, shall I not drink it?" At that moment of sacrifice he represented "the bullock of the sin-offering" and its slaying by the High-Priest. He became the antitypical High-Priest in the moment of his self-surrender as the sacrifice. Immediately, as the High-Priest, he passed into the Holy a "New Creature." There he offered for three and a half years the incense of his earthly life devotion, a sacrifice well pleasing to the Father. At the same time, according to the world's estimation, his self-surrender was a stench, as was represented in the burning of the bullock's hide, etc., "outside the camp." From that moment the disciples beheld in his spirit of devotion the antitype of the burning of the fat on the brazen altar in the court.
From that same moment he was the Lamb of God slain-- his life given up to the doing of the Father's will. We looked at the picture of this given in the book of Revelation. There we saw Jehovah upon his throne with a scroll in his hand, written in the inside and on the outside, and sealed with seven seals. No one had yet been found worthy to execute or even to be made acquainted with the Divine Purposes. In answer to the proclamation, "Who is worthy to take the scroll?" no one "in heaven or on earth was found worthy." Even our dear Redeemer in his previous condition was not entrusted with the scroll. But when he had made his consecration as the "Lamb of God," giving up and devoting his life without reserve to do the Father's will--then as a lamb freshly slain he was proclaimed worthy, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory, honor, dominion, might and power." Then the scroll was delivered to the Lamb.
A close connection was pointed out in the giving of the scroll to the Lamb, in the fact that as soon as Jesus had indicated his full self-surrender to the Father's will, the holy Spirit came upon him begetting him as the great High-Priest to his great work. Then we read that as he went up out of the water, "the heavens were opened unto him"-- the higher things were manifest to him, made clearer. As the Logos he had not been permitted to read the scroll; as the boy Jesus, and as the young man Jesus, he had not understood the deep meaning of the Scriptures. Even the angels, we are told, did not understand; the law was so written in types, in pictures, and the prophecies were so given in symbolical language and illustrations, that the Divine Plan thus presented could not be understood by angels or men until the "due time" when God would grant the influence of his holy "Spirit which searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God." It was at this moment of our Lord's consecration, the moment of his death as the Lamb, the moment of his begetting and anointing as the High-Priest, the moment of the heavens or higher things being opened to him--at that moment that the scroll was handed to him by the Great Eternal One. Then proclamation was made, "Worthy is the Lamb!" "The lion of the Tribe of Judah hath prevailed." Although his prevailing would not be completed until Calvary, the surrender of his will was complete, and it was accepted as the sacrifice of his all, since everything else that he had was included in the surrender of his will.
We can well imagine how the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, gave heed as the boy to the reading of the Law and Prophets every Sabbath in the synagogue. We can readily see how he knew the Scriptures thoroughly, and that his perfect mind enabled him to memorize the whole Bible from Genesis to Malachi speedily. How many times he must have wondered respecting the types of the Law, the bullock of the sin-offering, the incense, the sprinkling of the blood, the killing of the Lord's goat and the sprinkling of its blood, the burning of the bodies of those beasts outside the camp, the entering of the Holy of holies on the atonement day, and the reconciliation of "all the people" to the Almighty.
How often he may have thought of the Passover night, the slain lamb, the sprinkled blood, the unleavened bread, the passing over of the first-borns, the exchange of the first-borns for the tribe of Levi, representing the Church of the First-borns, and the selection from these of the priests who sacrificed as the antitype of the Aaronic Priesthood! How often he must have thought of and tried to associate properly together the declaration of the Messiah's glory, and the blessing of the world through Israel, and every knee bowing and every tongue confessing and in contrast, the statement about one who would be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers be dumb--one whom it would please the Father to bruise, and to put to shame; not one bone of whom should be broken--one who should make his grave with the rich, and be with the wicked in his death!
These hitherto complicated and apparently contradictory presentations of the Father's Plan all became luminous to our Lord when the scroll was handed to the freshly slain lamb--to the newly consecrated Jesus. The illumination by the holy Spirit opened before his mental vision the heavenly things. Type and antitype, promise and fulfillment, began to come together and our Lord hastened away from the multitude at Jordan into a solitary place in the wilderness, that there he might deliberate upon the Divine purposes as they were disclosed to him by his illumination.
For forty days he was rapt in study so intently that he forgot to eat, forgot to be hungry. He had meat to eat of another kind. He was absorbed in his study of the Lord's will respecting himself. At the conclusion of the forty days of Bible study in the wilderness he has reached the solution of all the problems proper for him to understand respecting the Divine Word. Figuratively he had read and comprehended all that was written on the outside of the scroll--all that was necessary for him to know prior to the time when he would complete his sacrifice at Calvary.
That he had not yet broken the seals, and that he had not yet comprehended all the things written on the inside of the scroll, is evident from his words to the disciples on one occasion when he said, "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no nor the angels of heaven, neither the Son of man, but the Father only." We thus see that there were certain features of the Divine Plan still kept secret or sealed from our Master up to the time that he had finished his course. But, after his resurrection, we remember his words, "All power in heaven and earth is given unto me."
It was after the forty days that the Tempter came unto him, and his first salutation was that of a friend intent upon rendering assistance. He greeted our Lord as a friend, because they had known each other before on the plane of glory. Now Satan sympathized with Jesus in that he was hungry, and in effect said to him, You perhaps are not aware of the great power that came upon you at the time of your baptism. You now have a divine power which makes it unnecessary for you to go hungry. You should use at once the power that you possess, which will enable you in a word to "command these stones to become food."
Brother Russell then told how, when he recently stood at the fords of Jordan, where Jesus was baptized, he looked from there to the wilderness of Judea into which he went on that occasion, "Led of the Spirit," or rather according to the Greek, "Driven of the Spirit (his own spirit) into the wilderness." He was driven by his earnest desire to know fully and completely the will of the Father that he might do it. As we beheld the wilderness of Judea full of stones, with practically nothing else in view, we could understand why the Adversary suggested the turning of stones into bread, for there was nothing else to make bread of. We noticed that Satan took the most opportune time to make his attack upon the Saviour--when the Master was weak and faint in body and mind through his long fast and study. Under the illumination of the holy Spirit Jesus had for the first time been able to put together all the testimonies of the Scripture, and had seen what great sacrifices were implied before he should enter into his glory, and be able to give to the world the blessings of eternal life. It was at this moment that the Adversary appeared and presented his first temptations. But our Lord was proof against them. Satan left in disgust, convinced that further effort with the Master would be a waste of time. Thus we read, "Then Satan left him." We have no record that he ever returned to tempt him. On the contrary, angels of God then ministered to him. We found in all this valuable lessons to those [CR96] who are walking in the footsteps of Jesus. Their illumination of the holy Spirit could not, of course, be as great as that of Jesus, but their consecration, their baptism into death, and, as the Apostle declares, "a measure of the spirit is granted to every man (in the Church) to profit withal." The measure will be according to the degree possible through his infirmity of the flesh. But to the Master who had no infirmity, the Father gave his Spirit without measure, without limitation, fully.
The Adversary makes an attack upon all of the Lord's consecrated, seeking their weak points at their weakest moments. We noted the mistake of some in parleying with the Adversary, saying: How do you do it, etc., etc.; and we noted that the Master's course was the reverse; that he parleyed not; that he was prompt in his refusal. He left no room for the world, the flesh or the Adversary to gain an advantage over him. We noted that our success as his followers will be greatest along the same line of promptness and decision of character and that every time we stand firm for righteousness under temptation we are demonstrating our loyalty to God in accordance with our covenant of sacrifice. We saw that the Lord proceeded along the same line of loyalty, fulfilling his consecration even unto death, the death of the cross.
Question, What did Jesus accomplish by the offering of himself, begun at Jordan and finished at Calvary? Did he purchase the world? No. Did he redeem the Church? No. What did he do? He secured the price, the ransom-price, sufficient whenever applied, to effect the cancellation of the sins of the whole world, but he had not yet applied it. Neither the world nor the Church was as yet released from Divine condemnation, or brought into full fellowship with God. Although there were five hundred brethren who had accepted Christ and become his followers, the Father had not yet accepted these. They had offered themselves in consecration to walk in the footsteps of Jesus; they had taken up their cross to follow him; they had been justified to fellowship with God, even as Abraham, but they had not been justified to sonship and life. Hence, they could not have earthly or restitution life. Neither could they present their bodies living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, because they were still sinners from the Divine standpoint--no appropriation of Jesus' merit had yet been made in their case. When Jesus ascended up on high, forty days after his resurrection, he commanded representatives of these, about 120, to tarry at Jerusalem in the upper-room until they should be endued with power from on high--until the Father should recognize them--until the Father should accept the sacrifice which they had already made. But first Jesus, as their Advocate, should appear in the presence of God for them, and make such imputation of his merit to them as to cover their blemishes, and permit Divine Justice to accept them as "living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God."
It was on the fiftieth day that the holy Spirit came upon the waiting ones. That was the first intimation to them that the Redeemer had been acceptable to the Father, and that he had imputed to them his merit, and that the sacrifice which they had already made was acceptable to the Father in the Beloved One, and that they were no longer merely justified to friendship, but had come into the position of sons, into covenant relationship with the Father. Thus it is written of the Jews, "He came unto his own, but his own received him not; but to as many as received him, to them he gave power (privilege) to become sons of God, even to them that believed on his name"; which were begotten not of man nor of the will of the flesh, but of God--begotten of the holy Spirit. Thus they became sons of God, members of the anointed Body of the great Messiah, Prophet, Priest, Mediator, King, Judge, appointed for men, on their behalf, to effect reconciliation between God and men during his Millennial reign. Meantime the same work has been progressing throughout all these eighteen centuries. Others have been called, both from the Jews and from the Gentiles, to be the followers of Jesus, his under-priests--the Church of the first-borns whose names are written in heaven. As soon as this work shall have been accomplished, the great Mediator, the antitype of Moses (Acts 3:22,23), raised up from amongst his brethren, will be completed. Then the Mediatorial Kingdom will begin the blessing, uplifting and reconciling of the world. Meantime we thank God for the fact that "we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Jesus as the perfect man, the fleshly seed of Abraham, might have accomplished considerable in the way of helping mankind. As one who committed no sin, whose life would have been secure to him, even though it required twelve legions of angels to protect him, he might have been a glorious earthly prince.
But even as a great ruler amongst men, he would not have been able to accomplish the Divine Purpose of blessing mankind with full uplifting out of sin and death conditions to life eternal. As the man Jesus he could not have accomplished restitution for the race because he would have needed his own human life and rights for himself. The man Jesus, therefore, could not have been "the seed of Abraham" mentioned in the Abrahamic Covenant, that in the seed of Abraham all of the families of the earth shall be blessed. To become this Seed he must first attain to spirit being, just as the record shows he did. By virtue of his sacrifice of his earthly nature, and by virtue of God's having raised him from the dead to the heavenly plane as a reward for his obedience, he has his earthly rights to give to justice as the ransom-price for what Adam lost. The Redeemer is the "Seed of Abraham" on the spirit plane, and during this Gospel Age he is finding his Bride and bringing her to the same spirit plane with himself as his associate and joint-heir in all the great work of the Millennium--the blessing of all the families of the earth. Thus it is written, "If ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed (spiritual) and heirs according to the promise." Gal. 3:29.
Do we see clearly what Jesus sacrificed, what he laid down? He gave himself, he submitted himself to whatever might be the Father's will, but he did not forfeit his earthly life by committing sin so that it should be taken from him. Neither did he barter or exchange it for the heavenly nature. He merely submitted or laid down his earthly rights, in harmony with his own words, "I have power to lay down my life and to receive it again"; authority to say this, I have obtained from my Father. No man took it from him in the sense that no man had that power, since God had promised that "he that keepeth the law shall live by it." Therefore, our Lord's life would have been protected had he not voluntarily submitted and laid it down. He laid it down that he might receive it again; he laid it down in the Father's hands, saying: "Into thy hands I commit my spirit." Then Jesus' rights to earthly life, earthly perfection, earthly honor and glory, earthly dominion and power, all belonged to him as a New Creature when he arose from the dead. He had lost and forfeited none of his earthly rights. Those earthly rights are the basis of all the blessings of God through him to Adam and all of his race. Jesus has nothing else to give away. He needs nothing else; because, in the merit of this sacrifice there is a corresponding price for the first Adam, and a sufficiency for all.
However, Jesus does not give the Church his earthly nature, and earthly rights, but keeps these to give to the world during the Millennium. Indeed, our calling is a heavenly one, and we should feel somewhat disappointed if instead of the heavenly we should receive the earthly or restitution blessing. But since Jesus does not give us these restitution blessings, and since he has no other merit to give to us or to anybody, what does he do for the Church? What is our hope in Christ? What is the philosophy of it?
The answer is, that this merit which shortly is to be appropriated as the ransom-price for the sins of the whole world, was already in the hands of Divine Justice, unappropriated, when our Lord ascended up on high, there to appear in the presence of God for us, the household of faith --to present our cause to the Father. As our Advocate he declares to the Father that we are anxious to become members of the elect Church, his Bride, his Body. In harmony with the Divine arrangement he appropriates a share of his merit to us, so that our sacrifice might be acceptable to God.
Thus, instead of giving us the restitution blessings, which are for the world, our Redeemer, our Advocate, imputes to us of his righteousness, and on the strength of it the Father reckons us holy and acceptable, and immediately accepts our sacrifices. Thenceforth we are dead as human beings and our only standing in God's sight is as "new creatures." But, we have this treasure in imperfect earthen vessels, in which the new creature cannot do all that it would. It is the new creature, however, that God is testing and proving-- the new creature is on trial, not the flesh. The new creature has no Original Sin, nor is it responsible for the Original Sin of the old creature, which was justified and accepted of God in sacrifice and therefore gone. The responsibility of the new creature is that it shall keep its heart in the love of God, in loyalty to him. Correspondingly, of course, it will strive to keep the body, the flesh, in harmony with the divine regulations. Its zeal and energy in controlling the [CR97] flesh and bringing every thought and word and act into accord, as nearly as possible, with the Divine will, shows the degree of its love and zeal.
He then differentiated between past sins and "daily trespasses," saying the new creature needs not to apologize, nor ever to remember the weaknesses and imperfections of the flesh appertaining to the period preceding the sacrifice. By faith the new creature should remember that old things have passed away, and all things have become new, for thus the Apostle declares, "There is now, therefore, no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit." Our Advocate did a thorough work as respects the sins of our flesh: they are past and gone through the forebearance of God (Rom. 3:25). The Father did a perfect work in reckoning us dead indeed to everything of the past, and in begetting us by the Spirit as new creatures--sons of God. It is for our faith to grasp the situation and to enjoy it.
However, as new creatures we are imperfect in that we have only the old body with its blemishes through which to serve the Lord. Because of this antagonism of the legally dead flesh, "We cannot do the things which we would." What shall we do as respects our failure to come up to all the requirements of the Lord, because of our fleshly imperfections? Shall we say to ourselves and to each other, God knows that these imperfect things of daily life are not willingly ours as new creatures, and therefore we need not confess them.
We answer that this would not be the proper course. The imputation of Christ's merit to our consecrated sacrifice merely covered the blemishes against us at that time, but did not cover the blemishes future. Hence, daily we should remember before the throne of heavenly grace the imperfections and blemishes of each day and hour, and should ask Divine forgiveness for these through our great Redeemer. Thus he taught us, "Pray ye, Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." This would not relate to Original Sin, which could not thus be forgiven. It relates to our subsequent shortcomings, after we have become children of God through the begetting of the holy Spirit. Thus the Apostle writes, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
Our Advocate not only imputed his merit for our past sins, but he is still with the Father and has an abundance of merit. Our Advocate has merit sufficient to cover the sins of the whole world, and therefore to cover all our blemishes. Hence, when we go to the Father through him, we may realize that provision has already been made for the covering of these trespasses, but that we can obtain forgiveness only through prayer. God doubtless intended a great blessing in making this arrangement. He intended that each time we come to the throne of grace, we should earnestly repent of our imperfections, and earnestly promise him that we will strive against them in the future. He would thus encourage us to earnestly seek to fortify our characters along the line of these weaknesses, that we might become stronger and stronger in the power of the Lord and in his might, and be strengthened unto every good work.
When thus we come to the Lord to obtain mercy and to find grace to help in every time of need, and promise continued and increased zeal in fighting the good fight, it puts us on our honor, as it were, and makes us more careful respecting our future course. If perchance we fail again along the same lines, we are properly abashed. Then comes an important testing to us. The suggestion comes that we should refrain from going to the Lord in prayer; that we should feel too much humiliated to go to him. If these suggestions be followed, the result will be alienation, coldness. The earth-born cloud will hide us from the heavenly Father's face. Even if we do not go off into greater outward sins, such a course would mean a loss of fellowship which is very important to our growth in grace and knowledge.
Every error, every slip, every mistake is a spot upon our wedding garment and should be repented of, and expunged. With great humility we should go to the Master that we might have such spots promptly cleaned away; as it is written, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us (new creatures) from all sin." Thus we are able to abide in his love. Those who neglect this matter may find themselves increasingly careless respecting the spotlessness of their robes, until perhaps, if they do not fall completely into the Second Death, they find their garments bedraggled and unfit for the wedding. The Bride must be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, and the arrangement on her behalf by her Bridegroom is ample to this end. Those, therefore, who for any reason allow the spots to accumulate, and do not have them cleansed, will have a further test and be obliged to decide to return like the sow to her wallowing in the mire of sin, and thus come under the condemnation of the Second Death; or else, as members of the Great Company, they must wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb, in the great tribulation with which this age will end.
PUBLIC SERVICE.
At the evening session at Gilfillan Hall, the topic was, "The Overthrow of Satan's Empire," and, notwithstanding the rainy weather, nearly 700 were present. Let us hope that some good was accomplished, some ears unstopped and some eyes opened to look further and to listen more attentively for the Voice of the Great Shepherd, in respect to the Divine Plan of the Ages, concerning which he is now instructing his people. From here we went to Edinburgh.
As Brother Russell was coming out of the building, a number who had been at the public service stopped him and began to ask questions and to argue in favor of that blessed (?) doctrine of "eternal torment." They kept it up for about half an hour, and as Brother Russell would answer one question after another, it seemed to anger them and at times the excitement was considerable.
THE SERVANT'S PATH IN A DAY OF
REJECTION
SERVANT of Christ, stand fast amid the scorn
Of men who little know or love thy Lord;
Turn not aside from toil: cease not to warn,
Comfort and teach, trust Him for thy reward;
A few more moments' suffering, and then
Cometh sweet rest from all thy heart's deep pain.
For grace pray much, for much thou needest grace.
If men thy work deride--what can they more?
Christ's weary foot thy path on earth doth trace;
If thorns wound thee, they pierced Him before;
Press on, look up, tho' clouds may gather round,
Thy place of service He makes hallowed ground.
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All His are thine to serve: Christ's brethren here
Are needing aid, in them thou servest Him.
The least of all is still to Him most dear,
The weakest cost His life-blood to redeem.
Yield to no "party" what He rightly claims,
Who on His heart bears all His people's names.
The time is short, seek little here below:
Earth's goods would cumber thee and drag thee
down.
Let daily food suffice; care not to know
Thought for tomorrow: it may never come.
Thou canst not perish, for thy Lord is nigh,
And His own care will all thy need supply.
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The Church and Her Covenant Relationship With God
ABOUT one hundred and forty were present. Brother Russell pointed out the Church and her covenant relationship with God, not through the work of a mediator, but by sacrifice. The world through the Millennium will have the great Mediator appointed of the Father, and promised through the Scriptures, and mediation will be based upon the New Covenant with Israel. The antitypical Mediator is the Christ, Head and Body, and of this great One, Moses was the type. As Moses mediated the typical Law Covenant, so the antitypical Moses, the Christ, will put into operation the New Covenant with Israel. The Mediator will stand between God and the world, and will for a thousand years shield the people from the requirements of absolute justice; that through him Divine mercy may extend through Israel to all, for their blessing and uplifting to perfection. This same blessing will extend to all people, nations, tongues and kindreds, in that they will be permitted to come into and become members of Israel, and thus become members of the earthly seed of Abraham, and sharers of all the blessings of Israel's New Covenant. Thus, in the end of the Millennial Age, all the perfect race will be "the seed of Abraham." When Satan will be loosed out of his prison-house, to test all of them, it will be Abraham's seed of all nations that will be tested as to worthiness or unworthiness of eternal life, and the whole number of these is to be "as the sands of the seashore for multitude." Thus it was written of Abraham, "Thy seed shall be as the sands of the seashore for multitude." Thus, eventually, all the families of the earth shall be blessed through Abraham; as it is written, "I have constituted thee the Father of many nations."--Romans 4:17.
The spiritual seed of Abraham, likened unto the stars of heaven. Jesus was the first, the Captain, the forerunner of these. He became the spiritual seed of Abraham by the sacrifice of himself as the man Jesus. We can hear the Apostle urging all of us desiring to be his joint-heirs in the Kingdom, saying, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God." Only by sacrifice can any come into this spirit-begotten relationship with God as "new creatures in Christ Jesus." The church attains this relationship with God not through the work of a mediator, but by sacrifice." The Scriptures foretold the gathering of the elect Church in these words, "Gather together my saints unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." "They shall be mine, saith the Lord, when I make up my jewels," those being gathered now. Next the harmony between the Apostle's exhortation, that we present our bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, was contrasted with the statement of the Prophet that all of these enter into covenant relationship with God through sacrifice. None except sacrificers can come into this covenant relationship with God now. "Now is the acceptable time" when such sacrifices will be received by the Lord through, and under, and by the imputation of the grace of our great Advocate. The world is not accepted in this manner, but reversely; instead of being invited to sacrifice their earthly natures, they will be given the privilege of restitution to perfection. (Acts 3:19-21.) The privilege of sacrifice, therefore, is unique to this age. The Church of the First-borns present their bodies living sacrifices, accepting the services of the great Advocate, whom God has appointed for this very service, and who gladly accepts the sacrificers as members of his Body, his Bride, his Church, the "First-borns, whose names are written in heaven."
This acceptance of the sacrifice of the Church is the basis of our acceptance as new creatures, spiritual, and these with the Lord constitute spiritual Israel, the spiritual or heavenly seed of Abraham. This Spiritual Seed in no sense took the place of the natural seed of Abraham. Indeed, neither Abraham, nor any for four thousand years, knew anything about the Divine plan in respect to a Spiritual Seed. All the promises made to them were earthly. Hence, as the Apostle says, the Gospel invitation to become the Spiritual Seed by faith was entirely a new proposition, "the Mystery hidden from past ages and dispensations, but now revealed unto the saints." The entire matter of the Gospel Age and its call might be viewed as an interruption in the Divine Plan and purpose for Israel and the world. This Gospel Age therefore is to be seen as a parenthesis. As soon as it shall be finished, God's dealings with natural Israel will again be resumed, only on a higher and loftier plane, through the antitypical Mediator, the Christ, as taking the place of the typical Mediator, Moses. Thus it is written by the Apostle in Romans 11:25-32.
Israel noted its failure to attain eternal life under the Law Covenant. God acknowledged the failure, and encouraged them to look forward to the time when Messiah would take the place of Moses and institute for them an antitypical New Covenant. This New Covenant was foretold (Jeremiah 31:31), saying: "After those days, saith the Lord, I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel [CR99] and with the house of Judah." Moses prophetically foretold the great Mediator and the better work he would accomplish for the people, renewing or making new their covenant. St. Peter calls attention to his words, saying: "Moses verily said unto the fathers, A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you from amongst your brethren like unto me." I am the type on a small scale; I am the mediator of this Law Covenant, but ineffective. When the antitype shall come, the covenant shall be put upon a higher footing by means of his better sacrifice, and that will make of it really the New Law Covenant.
Hence the Israelites began to look forward to the Messiah who would thus transmute their Law Covenant, which they found to be unto death, into a New Law Covenant, which would mean to them eternal life and all the blessings they had been led to hope for. Eagerly, therefore, they watched for the Messiah, but they knew not that when he would come he would be a Spiritual Seed of Abraham, composed of many members. This was the Mystery not permitted to be known to them, or to others; and even yet, made known only to the saints. They knew not that the development of this antitypical Moses would require nearly nineteen centuries for its accomplishment. How could they? The mystery was not revealed. Nevertheless this was the Lord's message to them through the last of their prophets, "Behold I send my messenger,...the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in." (You have been hoping for him this long time. He it is, who as the Servant of the Law Covenant will make it really effective to you in a manner that Moses could not do.) But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appears? For he is like fuller's soap, and like a refiner's fire. He shall sit as a refiner to purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an acceptable sacrifice." (Malachi 3:3.)
Our Lord came in accordance with this prophecy, he was present with the Jews as the Reaper and with the winnowing-fan he separated the chaff from the wheat. As the Refiner he has throughout this entire Gospel Age been seeing to it that those who came unto the Father, through him, should pass through fiery trials and experiences, which would fully test their loyalty and their fitness to be associated with him in the great Kingdom of Glory as members of his Body, as members of his Bride, as members of the great antitypical Prophet, Priest, Mediator, King.
The matter was traced in St. Paul's words in Romans 11:27, where he assures us that as soon as the Church, the Body of Christ, is completed, God's covenant with Israel, the New Covenant, will be instituted. Then their sins will be forgiven, their iniquities pardoned, and they as God's people will be received back into Divine fellowship, through the great Mediator. Also the Apostle's words, "They shall obtain mercy through your mercy"; that it is God's mercy; that it comes primarily through the Lord Jesus. Yet it is "your mercy"--the Church's mercy--the mercy of God and Christ through you to natural Israel, and through natural Israel for the blessing of whosoever wills of all the families of the earth. Oh, the lengths and breadths, and the heights and depths of the love of God; how unsearchable are his riches, and his secrets past finding out! And yet his secrets, his plans are all glorious, generous, loving and just. Well may we rejoice, not only in the share which the Church will have in the glorious plan of God, but also rejoice in the share which Israel restored to Divine favor will have, and in the blessings which then will flow to all the families of the earth.
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Walk Ye In Him
London, England, 10:30 A.M., Sunday, May 22, 1910
BROTHER RUSSELL: Our text is found in the second chapter of Paul's epistle to the Colossians, 6th verse: "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him."
We have seen in the Lord's word how important it is to receive his message in our minds, and that it is one thing to receive it in our minds, and another thing to appreciate his love and what he has done for us. Yet we might do all that, hear and appreciate his love for us and yet not be in Christ Jesus at all. It is an important matter that we realize that those who come to the Lord Jesus must make a full and definite consecration to him. I believe it is a matter that is only partially appreciated by Christian people in general. I remember a dear Christian sister who had been worshiping with us for some time, and she said one day, Brother Russell, I feel deeply interested in all these matters, and now I want to be one with you as the people of God in every sense of the word, but what shall I do and how shall I do it? I said, Sister, you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Yes. You have accepted the terms of believing in the atoning blood and that it is a free offering now to all who have the hearing ear, and have accepted God's grace? Yes. But, she said, there is something else that is not quite satisfactory, there is something that I need to do. Yes, we said, there is. Now, dear friends, this is an important thought. Many seem to fail to get the thought that after they believe, that there is then something more they must do in order to become of the people of God. Positive action must be taken on our part and it requires a great deal of faith. So I said to that sister, Have you entered into covenant relationship with the Lord? She said, That is what is the matter, I fear that I have not. I said, This is an important point. Let me illustrate it along the line of financial matters: You might know of property for sale, with a certain price upon it, and you might take knowledge of the fact that the price was very low, and you might have some money to invest, and your judgement might be that it was a good investment, that it was cheap, etc. You might do that day after day, month after month, and year after year, and that house would not be yours at all. So, in your relationship with the Lord, you might say, He is very gracious and he has opened a door during this Gospel Age for any who wish to come in, I hear the call, I intend to be one of his disciples, and I intend to make my calling and election sure. You might think this way for weeks, months and years, and yet never make a covenant with the Lord to be an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ. That is the point exactly, she said, that troubles me. What shall I do? Well Sister, in the case of that property, you would go to the agent and say, I will take that property, and make a payment on it, secure certain papers binding the contract, and the house would be yours. So in this matter of covenant relationship with the Lord. The proper course is to go to the Lord and tell him that you accept his terms and conditions, and that you give yourself fully to the Lord, telling him so in so many words, binding our sacrifice and thus obligating ourselves to the Lord that we would pay down our consecration to him, and that we will patiently endeavor by his grace to carry out that consecration in all the affairs of our life. Until you do that you have not come into Christ, and he is not your Head. He is Head only to those who are members of his Body, and there is only one way of getting into the Body of Christ which is the Church. It is not by getting up before a certain people and subscribing to certain conditions. There is only one way of coming into fellowship with Christ, and that is the Scriptural way which the Apostle is describing in this text. It is this:
[CR100]
For some hours, days, weeks or months you may have been drawing nigh to God, and he drawing nigh to you. Perhaps some of us were born in this condition of relationship with God, not aliens, strangers; not battling against him, but possibly by reason of having been born of Christian parents with a mind in sympathy with righteousness. Some Christian people are greatly troubled over this matter. They say, I have not had the Christian experience some people have had; they tell how they have had a wonderful change, a revolution in their lives, but I have nothing of this kind.
A dear Methodist brother said this to me at one time: He said, What is it to be born again, to be a member of the Body of Christ? I have been a Methodist for a number of years, but I have never understood the matter. I talk very little of my experiences of the past, but I am continually reminded as others speak that I have never had such thrilling experiences and wonderful change of sentiments as they enjoy. How is it?
Brother, if you had been walking away from God and then turned around it would mean quite a change, an absolute turning upside down. But if born of Christian parents and taught to reverence God and as a child, like myself, had been taught the way of the Lord, then when you gave your life to the Lord it would not mean a revolution, but it would mean that you had definitely and positively fastened or clinched that which you had previously had in mind and lived up to some degree in your daily life.
Well now, he said, that makes things different, for I see that I have been saved all my life.
Nevertheless, dear friends, even though that be our experience of having been born of Christian parents, let us not forget the necessity of a contract with the Lord. It is only then that he will draw near to you, as you draw near to him. He is sympathetic with every desire for righteousness with all mankind, just as you and I and all of God's people ought to be sympathetic with everything in harmony with righteousness and truth at all times and in all places. It is not every person that has been adopted as a son. To be on friendly terms with God is not to be considered an adoption. If he adopts us we must make a very definite contract or covenant with him, as the Psalmist says in Psalm 50:5.
Brother Russell exhorted all the friends to faithfulness. He reminded them that, having made this covenant by sacrifice, they must be tested as was our Lord Jesus as to loyalty to the Father--to the Father's will--to the Father's way--to the Father's time--to all of the Father's arrangements. He reminded us that Jesus showed his own loyalty in that he ignored his own preference that in everything he might know and do the will of the Father who sent him. He pointed out that we needed to be rooted and grounded and built up in our Lord and Master in all these respects. He showed that the various tests permitted to come upon the Church of God from time to time, from first to last, will be tests of these various qualities of heart and mind--tests of heart loyalty. Obedience to the Lord in thought as well as in word and deed means overcoming selfish propensities, which are ours in common with the whole world of mankind in its fallen condition. He pointed out that this involves a battle, a strife, and that the battle is not against the Father, nor against the Brethren, nor against the Truth, nor against the Lord, nor against the World, nor against the Devil. The fight is against the old nature with its perverted tastes, appetites and will. As New Creatures we are to fight the good fight of faith against our natural tendencies, and to keep ourselves in the Love of God, fully submissive to his will.
Third Special May Meeting
Royal Albert Hall, London, Eng., 7:30 P.M., May 22, 1910.
ON account of the king's funeral taking place on the Friday previous to this meeting, the people of London were greatly excited and had not yet settled down to the new order of things. Therefore there were not as many (about 5,000) out to hear this last discourse, yet those who did attend were certainly present because they wanted to hear something, and they gave close attention while Brother Russell talked for about an hour and a half on "The Overthrow of Satan's Empire."
Brother Hemery of the London Branch presided as chairman of the meeting. Among other announcements, he stated that there would be special services for several Sundays in the Whitfield Tabernacle and that all Bible students would be very welcome, especially emphasizing the fact that no collections would be lifted. The thought of not taking up collections, free admission, etc., seemed to be a great surprise all over Great Britain. In this connection, the following clipping from The Morning Leader, London, Tuesday, May 24, 1910:
"Pastor Russell prefaced his remarks by saying that, with no doubt the best of intentions, the London Press had erred in declaring him wealthy, deluged with money. This they inferred, no doubt, from the fact that no collections were asked, and no admission fees charged at his services. He declared that the majority of 'God's' people were not well-to-do financially, and that his friends frequently stinted themselves to sustain his message of God's love. The Bible declares, 'My God shall supply all your needs,' and his experience confirmed this. Without resorting to bazaars, collections, etc., sufficient money is pressed upon him to sustain a large work amongst Bible students all over the world. He would in no case go into debt, but would content himself in using what God's grace supplies. Anyway, he should follow the simple method of the apostolic days, and not sell the truth for money.
"His teachings regarding hell had also evidently been misunderstood by some. He believes in the hell of the Bible --the grave--but does not believe in the torture hell of the dark ages. He believes that every wilful sin merits and will have a just punishment as the Bible declares, but not an unjust punishment of centuries or eternities of torture. According to the Bible all who shall wilfully reject God's grace will die the Second Death, from which there will be no redemption or resurrection."
This discourse was published in hundreds of papers, so we will not reproduce it here.
London, England, Tuesday, May 24, 1910
AT about 3 P.M. the friends assembled at Whitfield Tabernacle for a farewell reception, which was at the invitation of Brother Russell. There was no service that afternoon, but the friends visited and fellowshipped together, then about tea time Brother Russell offered prayer for all of the Lord's blessings, and for a continuance of his blessing for the future. He then announced that he wished all present to take tea with him, that arrangements had been made at nearby restaurants for all. Soon the procession of several hundred started down Tabernacle street, and an hour of special fellowship ensued.
Returning to the Tabernacle, Brother Russell addressed the friends for about an hour, and he said in part:
Dear Friends:--I thought before leaving your shores, or rather your city--as we leave tomorrow morning for Liverpool, Belfast and Dublin--I thought I would like to take this opportunity of saying good-bye, especially to the London friends, and of course those who live in the vicinity and also the visiting friends.
I want to tell you of my love for you, of my interest in your welfare, and it rejoices my heart to see your prosperity in the Lord. As I think I have told you before, for years I have had the impression that in this land, which first of all had its baptism of blood in times of persecution; in this land in which the reverence of the Lord has been so persistently set forth before the people, there ought to be a great many of God's dear people, and there ought to be some way to reach them. For a number of years we have had some disappointment along this line. We have tried considerably along the colporteur lines, and have sent some colporteurs over here from America, but they were not as successful as we had hoped. Nevertheless the Lord has blessed the work; we see it progressing along all lines. Here in this great city of seven millions of people we are glad to see so many interested in Present Truth. Of course we are a small number compared with the seven millions, and have no reason to feel boastful and self-exalted in respect to the work accomplished. You and I have learned to know something of the value of the Truth in our hearts. I sometimes say to some of the friends who are inclined to be discouraged, If I were the only one on the face of the earth who received and appreciated these things of Present Truth, I am sure I would be happy anyway. So we can afford to be happy for we know that any who come into the truth get the greatest blessing of their lives.
[CR101]
I want to tell you how it rejoices my heart to learn of the large amount of volunteer work that has been done; think of it, 700,000!
Brother Hemery:--Seven hundred and fifty thousand.
Brother Russell:--I saw some left over.
When I heard that I said to myself, I could not have done that. I do not do as much as I once did, because the people who know me might think it was wrong for me to be giving out that which I have written, but I still love to give it to them. I thought, what a great blessing that was for this convention. No matter whether a single soul was brought into touch with the Lord, I am sure that you received a great blessing in your heart, because of your endeavor to do good unto all men, especially the household of faith. Think of it, 700,000 copies of the People's Pulpit, each containing three sermons, over two million sermons given out before I got here at all. That did not leave me many to preach to, because a large proportion of the five million left are children.
It seems to me, dear friends, that on the whole we have had a great blessing from the Lord in connection with these meetings.
Brother Russell then called attention to the hundreds of letters that were coming into the London office, asking for copies of the various sermons, "The Thief in Paradise," "The Rich Man in Hell," "Where Are the Dead?" etc., all of which were supplied free, including the postage. We understand that the postage alone one day was about L.25, something like $120.
Brother Russell continued to urge us to pray the Lord to send out the light, and to ask that we might be permitted to be one of the messengers to send it out. He urged all not to spurn the small opportunities, saying that there were not many large opportunities anyway and that the Lord counts faithfulness to small duties as an evidence that we would be faithful to larger ones.
Well, now, dear brothers and sisters, he said, I feel as if I would like to have a personal conversation with every one of you, but that is hardly possible in the few moments at our disposal, therefore we trust you will consider this as a confidential talk, rather than a discourse. I want to tell you how much we appreciate your work unto the Lord, not unto me. [Much hand-clapping.] It is in Christ Jesus that we have this fellowship and love.
At the close of the talk, of which the above is but a synopsis, one of the Elders of the congregation remarked that while all of them recognized Brother Russell as a Pastor, and indeed voted for him every year, when they subscribed to THE WATCH TOWER, nevertheless he thought it would be both wise and proper to nominate him in a formal manner as Pastor of the London Assembly. The matter was seconded, and when the vote was put by Brother Hemery, it was unanimously carried. Brother Russell thanked the congregation for this evidence of love and confidence, and he assured them that he always did have their interests close to his heart, and doubted if he could do more for them as Pastor than he had already previously done, but that in any event they might be sure that they would continue to have his love and prayers and best endeavors. He said he would like to meet with them at least twice a year, but would of course leave that to the Lord. The London friends would be glad to have him move Bethel and the Tabernacle right over to London. They think we have had enough of him and that now they should have him for a while. Brother Hemery was then elected Assistant Pastor.
In view of this election having taken place, Brother Russell, as Pastor of the London Class, called a meeting of the Elders and Deacons and the evening was spent at the Bible Depot in conference regarding the work.
Thus the London Convention closed, and all went away feeling spiritually refreshed, and having a deeper and keener appreciation of the work and needs of the friends in that section of the world. We from America are very thankful for the opportunity of becoming acquainted with as many as we did, for to know them is to love them.
[CR101]
The Mystery
BOARDING the morning train, and leaving many of the London friends waving their good-byes and "God bless you," we started on our journey to Liverpool, which we reached about noon. Here we were met at the station by a number of the Liverpool friends. The class there is now in much better condition than it had been for some time. Various elements causing disturbances and divisions contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures have withdrawn, and the class is now progressing nicely, which numbers about 60. At the afternoon session about 125 were present, and for about two hours Brother Russell discussed
THE MYSTERY.
BROTHER RUSSELL explained that the Church of the First Borns includes not only the Little Flock, but also the Great Company, who will be their companions on the spirit plane in the Kingdom. He showed that these were typified in Israel's First-borns who were passed over, or spared "in that night," when the first-borns of the Egyptians were slain. He showed that the night preceding the day of their deliverance from Egypt typified this Gospel Age, which precedes the Millennial Day of deliverance. All people of God will be fully delivered from the power of Sin and Death, and from the power of Satan, and from all of his malevolent hosts in the coming Millennial Day. But now, in advance, the first-borns are passed over and spared. The antitype of these first-borns of Israel, or the Church of the First-borns, have all been begotten of the holy Spirit to spirit nature and sonship during the Gospel Age.
As God caused the first-borns of Israel to be exchanged for the one tribe of Levi, so thereafter all Levites represented the "household of faith"--the spirit begotten ones of this age. He showed that these in the antitype divided into two classes--a "Little Flock" of priests, the "Royal Priesthood" under Jesus, and a "Great Company," who will eventually come up out of great tribulation, washing their robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb. The latter will be the associates of the Church in the Heavenly Kingdom, though without the crown and seat of honor in the throne. They will be "before the throne" and have palm branches of victory. We saw these also in Psalm 45, where the Bride of Christ is pictured as being brought in before the King in raiment of fine needle-work and gold, and then following her into his presence "the virgins her companions." He saw the same class pictured in Revelation 19. At the fall of Babylon they will be fully set free from the timidity which has restrained them, and be glad to acclaim the Bride, and to say, "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give glory to God, because the marriage of the Lamb has come and his Bride hath made herself ready." More than this, they will hear eventually an invitation that they may participate in the glorious celebration or Nuptial Feast or "Marriage Supper." Again we saw these represented in Rebecca and her damsels, or maids, who accompanied her, when she went to become the bride of Isaac.
He noted that those received of God during this Gospel Age are "all called in the one hope of their calling," all drawn in one manner; the terms for each and all are the same, namely, "If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." Let him present his body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. Thus all now called and received of the Lord enter into covenant relationship with the Father by sacrifice, to follow the example of the dear Redeemer. To each and every one of these covenanters by sacrifice Jesus as their Advocate first of all appropriated a sufficiency of his merit to cover their blemishes.
The difference between those who will constitute the great mass of the household of faith and the "Little Flock" of the "Royal Priesthood" will be that the latter will manifest more zeal, more of the spirit of the Head in their faithfulness to lay down their lives in the service of the Lord, the Truth and the brethren. All must prove loyal in the end, else they will not be in either class, but die the Second Death. We are not to esteem the "Great Company" ignoble and traitorous toward the Lord and his cause, for none such will be acceptable for eternal life on any plane. They have the same love for truth and righteousness and for the brethren as the "Little Flock," the "Royal Priesthood" have, but in less degree; they show less zeal. Hence "through fear of death they are all their [CR102] lifetime subject to bondage"; for fear of the cost, they hold back their sacrifice until too late. Finally the test will come to determine whether or not they will repudiate the Lord, the Truth, and the Brethren. Such as will be unwilling to repudiate their earthly rights will be unworthy of further covenant sonship under any condition. But such as will, when put to the test, prove loyal, will be counted as companions, servants of the Bride, and be her associates in the work of the Kingdom.
He urged the friends, however, to remember that many of us were justified and in fellowship with God, and had presented our bodies living sacrifices, had received an imputation of Christ's merit, and our sacrifices had been accepted of the Father and the holy Spirit of adoption had been imparted, before we understood much of anything concerning the philosophy of the Atonement or the significance of the Ransom, or anything about its application. Not only was this true of us, but it has been true of all Christians during this Gospel Age for centuries. He exhorted, therefore, that none consider the mere knowledge of the Ransom and the philosophy of the Atonement as the all-important matter. Rather we should recognize that our trust in Christ, and our consecration to do the Father's will and our faithfulness in so doing, even unto death, constitute the terms of our acceptableness and the basis of our hope of joint-heirship with our Lord in his Kingdom.
We are now granted special light from the Word of God on the Philosophy of the Atonement, as an offset to the vain philosophies of human tradition, which are springing up around us--Theosophy, Christian Science, Evolution, etc. Were it not for this God-given Light in the harvest time, many of us might have fallen away from the Lord and his gracious arrangements entirely. Our knowledge of the Ransom is to be esteemed a special and very great blessing of the Lord to his people during this harvest time. But, while we are to esteem the knowledge of the Ransom a special mark of Divine favor and guidance and blessing in connection with the Truth, we should not think of making that knowledge a test of brotherhood or fellowship. For aught we know, some of the Lord's people today may be as fully in God's fellowship, as fully in covenant relationship with him, without an appreciation of this philosophy, as were some of our forefathers.
Likewise, let us beware of how the Adversary might seek to ensnare us and to mislead us in the study in respect to the Great Company. If he could get us sufficiently interested in this, or in any similar question, so as to make of it a point of dispute in the Church and to cause a division amongst the brethren and the stumbling of some, we may be sure that it would be pleasing to our Adversary in proportion as it would be injurious to God's people. If, therefore, some say to us that they cannot see the "Great Company" as we do--that it is a spirit class, spirit-begotten, etc.--we answer, "Very well, you cannot be blamed for what you do not see! If later the Lord shall grant you a still further opening of your eyes of understanding that will be a cause for still further rejoicing, but now rejoice in what you can see."
In any case, let us remember that no one was "called" to be of the "Great Company" Class. Let us remember that we were called in the one hope of our calling, namely, to the Bride class. Let us seek to make our calling and election sure. Let us know assuredly that we shall never advance our interests as new creatures by contentions and divisions amongst the Body-members of Christ, the "little flock," the self-sacrificing priests. Doubtless there are many points similar to this which the Adversary has endeavored to make stones of stumbling and rocks of offense for the separating of the Lord's people. "We are not ignorant of his devices," and to be forewarned is to be forearmed against them. It is ours to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace.
Let us be thankful for whatever things God in his providence has revealed to us; and "let us all mind the same things," as the Apostle urges, and be knit together in love and make increase of the Body. Those whom the Adversary is turning aside from the harvest work to dispute over who found the jewels of truth and who showed them most to others are not wise, neither can they be happy. The harvest work is great, the laborers are few, the Master has consented that we may serve! What a privilege is ours! How we should rejoice in the opportunity afforded us for manifesting to our Lord and to our Redeemer our love and our zeal for Him, for the Truth, for the Brethren who are in the light of the Truth, and for still others who are yet in Babylon and darkness!
He called attention to the fact that the harvest work for a time was confined almost exclusively to the Brethren, but that latterly the Lord is opening up other channels. For instance, he is using the newspapers in all parts of the world as his agencies for carrying the message of glad tiding to all who are still in darkness, but who are really at heart, and through consecration, his people. To us this indicates that the supply of consecrated harvesters is not sufficiently large, or that the Lord's people, blessed with a knowledge of "Present Truth," are not as zealous as they should be. For one of these reasons, doubtless, God is using unconsecrated talents and channels, rather than allow the harvest time to go by--rather than allow any of the brethren to be without the necessary light and assistance. We urged more love, more zeal, more of the spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion to the Lord, and to our precious privileges as co-laborers with him.
PUBLIC SERVICE.
After the evening meeting, which was for the public, and held in Sun Hall, Kensington, where Brother Russell spoke on "Man's Past, Present and Future," we boarded the boat for a night trip across the Irish Sea. About sixty of the friends came down to the pier to say good-bye to us, and they sang hymns while the boat was making ready to loose her moorings, and then as we passed quite near the shore for several hundred yards, they followed, still singing, until finally we had to leave the land and get farther out in the deep. They still waved as long as they could be seen. It was a farewell that will not be soon forgotten.
MY PRAYER
BEING perplexed, I say,
Lord, make it right!
Night is as day to Thee,
Darkness is light.
I am afraid to touch
Things that involve so much.
My trembling hand may shake,
Mine unskilled hand may break;
Thine can make no mistake.
Being in doubt, I say,
Lord, make it plain!
Which is the true, safe way,
Which would be vain?
I am not wise to know,
Nor sure of foot to go;
My poor eyes cannot see
What is so clear to Thee--
Lord, make it clear to me.
[CR103]
AT 3 o'clock the Academy of Music was filled to overflowing, and it is estimated that about 600 stood during the service, besides those who occupied the large number of chairs which were placed on the rostrum, and some say close to two thousand were turned away.
This service had been advertised for a long time, and many thousand copies of the People's Pulpit (see cut of reduced facsimile of back page) were given out by the faithful Volunteers. Naturally this subject and the fact that Pastor Russell had just returned from a visit to Palestine and Jerusalem awakened a great deal of interest among the Jews, and many were inside the Academy and heard the sermon, while many others waited a long time outside hoping that some of those inside would leave and then they could secure their places. They waited in vain, however, as those within were too deeply interested to leave. We report the sermon in part, as follows:
Text: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her appointed time is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins" (Isaiah 40:1,2).
Christendom, with united voice, admits that all of the Divine Revelation came to and through the Hebrew people. Listen to the argument of the Apostle Paul, "What advantage, then, hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way; chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God"--the Divine message respecting the Divine purposes, present and to come. The Apostle again informs us that the entire Gospel message was briefly comprehended in the Creator's promise to Abraham, "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Galatians 3:8). [CR104] "TO THE JEW FIRST."
It was the most natural thing imaginable for the Jewish nation to suppose that the giving to them of the Law at Mount Sinai, through the mediatorship of Moses, was the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham. Nevertheless they were mistaken.
Israel's Mediator, and the sacrificing priests, and the sacrifices they offered, and their Tabernacle, with its Holy and Most Holy, and the Temple, and all the features of the Law Covenant were types or foreshadows of the "better sacrifices," higher Priesthood, better Mediator, and glorious blessings of eternal forgiveness and reconciliation yet to be accomplished. Nevertheless the period of Israel's types was not wasted. Not only were the types there given, but at the same time a special class of agents were selected: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the Prophets and worthy ones of that age, holy, consecrated to God, and accepted as agents qualified for the Kingdom conditions. Of these the Scriptures declare, "They fell asleep." They are still asleep in the dust of the earth, awaiting the glorious resurrection morning, and a grand share then with Messiah in the work then to be accomplished. In their lifetime, they were styled the Fathers, because Messiah was foretold to be of the posterity of Abraham, and also "David's Son."
But other Scriptures, without contradicting these statements, show us distinctly that "David's Son" and "Abraham's Seed" is to be Lord and Father of both David and Abraham. Thus we read, "Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth" (Psalm 45:16). David's son, Messiah, will be David's father, or life-giver, when he will raise David from the dead. Similarly he will be the father of all of those ancient worthies; and as David's Lord, and "Lord of lords," it will be his pleasure to appoint to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all of the Ancient Worthies, and Prophets, and faithful ones a glorious share with himself in the great Messianic Kingdom, which he is about to set up for the ruling and blessing of Israel and all the nations of the earth. Will not this be a grand honor to Abraham and his Seed! Could we expect that the Almighty would honor and use in such a high position any except the faithful? Surely not. When Messiah shall make these Ancient Worthies "Princes in all the earth," as representatives of his invisible Kingdom, will not this mean honor and dignity to the Jews first?
"COMFORT YE MY PEOPLE."
Our text is one of three declarations in the Old Testament, which assure us that there is a "double" connected with Israel's history. That is to say, Jewish history naturally divides itself into two exactly equal parts; the first of which was a time of favor, intermingled with disciplines, but favor nevertheless. The second of these parts has been one of disfavor and exclusion from Divine fellowship. As foretold by the Prophet, Israel for many centuries has been without prophet, or priest, and without ephod and without communion with God; whereas, at one time they were God's favored people. They now, according to their own admission, are so thoroughly rejected that they have no communication whatever, no light to shine upon their pathway. The Prophet's words have been fulfilled, "Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap. Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not" (Psalm 69:22,23). They have stumbled; they are blinded; but, thank God! their blindness is not to be perpetual. The period of their blindness is the second part of the "double"; with the fulfilment of that "double" their blindness will begin to vanish, and "All the blind eyes shall be opened." Of that time the Lord declares that "He who scattered Israel will gather them."
We are impressed, not by fancy, but by the Word of God, that Israel's "double" is now fulfilled, that Israel's blessing has already begun, that the opening of Israel's eyes is now in progress. For this reason we have chosen for our text, "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Cry unto Jerusalem and say unto her that her appointed time is accomplished, for she hath received at the Lord's hand double [the two parts of her chastisement] for all her sins." Because the "double" is completed, we may speak the words of comfort.
Thirty-four years ago we called attention to these facts, but few had ears to hear. When eighteen years ago we visited Jerusalem, having in mind chiefly the fact that the time for the regathering of Israel was nigh at hand, and that the set time to favor Zion had come, we found no hearing ears amongst the Jewish people; and Zionism had not then been dreamed of. Our communications with the representatives of the Baron Hirsch Immigration Fund, and also with the executors of the Sir Moses Montefiore Jewish Relief Fund, met with scant recognition. Nevertheless, we felt sure that Israel's "double" had been fulfilled, and that her morning of joy would soon break.
Meantime, how much has happened during those eighteen years! Zionism has risen and engendered the hope of the "chosen people" in every land, and turned their eyes toward the land of promise; not that all are thinking of returning thither, but that every Jew who retains faith in the God of his fathers, and in the Abrahamic promise, is now looking and hoping for the time of blessing, long foretold. They know not about their "double"; they have not been studying the Holy Scriptures, but the teachings of their ancients, as presented by the Talmud. They have been making a very similar mistake to that of Christian people, who have been studying the creeds of the "dark ages" instead of the Word of God.
THE THREE "DOUBLES."
Glance with me at three different statements by the Lord through the Prophets of Israel respecting Israel's "double" of experience: the first, an experience of God's favor; the second, an experience of equal length without divine favor. Notice first Jeremiah's prophecy (Jeremiah 16:18). After telling of Israel's disfavor, and then of their regathering, the Lord declares, "And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double"--some of the recompense with favor, and some without favor. Jeremiah's prophecy looks down to the "double" from his own day, which was more than six hundred years before the second part of their "double" began.
Turn now to Zechariah's prophecy, and note that prophetically he takes his standpoint at the very time when the second part of the "double" began. His words are, "Even today do I declare that I will render double unto thee (Zechariah 9:12).
Come next to our text, and note that the Prophet Isaiah stands with us, and views the matter from the standpoint that the "double" of experience has been fulfilled: "Speak comfortably unto Jerusalem, cry unto her that her appointed time is accomplished, because she hath received at the Lord's hand double [two equal parts] for her sins." It is our understanding that this "double" reached fulfilment in the year 1878 A.D., and since that date we have been declaring to the best of our ability, as the Lord granted opportunity, these comforting words to Israel, assuring God's chosen people that their period of disfavor has ended, and that they are gradually returning to prosperity; that Divine favor began with them in 1878. Yea, more than this, our sermons which to some extent reflect this feature of the Divine program relating to Israel's restoration to Divine favor, are being read to a considerable extent by Hebrews as well as by Christians; their eyes are gradually opening, as the Scriptures foretell they shall do.
But how may we know when the turning point of Israel's "double" took place? How may we know that the "double" was completed in 1878? We reply that the answer to the question necessitates an acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah. Israel's rejection of him as their King marks the turning point of God's favor, as the prophecy of Zechariah, just quoted, distinctly shows. Neither Christians nor Jews have appreciated the full import of the incident mentioned in the Gospel; that five days before his crucifixion, Jesus rode upon an ass, after the manner of Jewish kings, into the city of Jerusalem, a multitude surrounding him, and going before him, shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of Jehovah!" The Prophet Zechariah called attention to this incident centuries before it occurred, and then gives the Lord's words, "Even today do I declare, I will render double unto thee."
Israel's history as a nation began with the death of Jacob, when he gave his blessing to the twelve tribes. The period from that time to the death of Jesus, according to the Scriptures, was 1,845 years; and a like period of disfavor, measuring from the day of Jesus' rejection, marks the year 1878, as the end of Israel's disfavor--the time when the message of comfort should go forth. However, Divine favor was only gradually taken from Israel, and altogether a period of thirty-six years intervene between the death of Jesus and the utter destruction of Jerusalem. Similarly we [CR105] should expect that the return of favor would be gradual, a like period of 36 years; and this would bring us to the year 1914, as the time when God's favor for his people will be publicly and openly manifested.
"THE SEED OF ABRAHAM."
The question now arises, What has God accomplished during the latter half of Israel's "double"? Did he pass by his chosen people to directly bless the Gentiles, or how shall we understand Divine Providence with respect to this matter?
We answer that Almighty God had one feature of his plan which he did not make known directly and explicitly to Abraham or any other prophet; he kept that feature of his purpose a secret. It is this: Messiah could not be a man and yet accomplish the great things which Jehovah intended, as stated in his Word. The Law called for an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and a man's life for a man's life. In this God set forth his principle governing his course of dealing with men. As by man (Adam) came the sentence death, and through heredity upon all of his offspring, even so the Divine law purposed that there must be a sacrifice of one human life to offset the one human life condemned to death. The one who would thus meet the demands of Justice on behalf of the race would have the right to give eternal life and human perfection to every member of Adam's race willing to accept it on the terms of the Divine law. It was for this reason that Christ should die, "the just for the unjust."
As a reward for his obedience to the Father even unto death, Christ was raised from the dead to the Divine nature. In this exalted condition he is capable of being a Mediator and of doing a work for Israel and for the world much higher and broader than Moses could effect. Moses, the typical mediator, made atonement for a year with the blood of beasts; but Messiah with his own blood makes perpetual atonement for the sins of all the people. This is the great Messiah (Jesus) who suffered the death of the cross--for the Jews and for the Gentiles--"for all the people." This is the glorified Messiah, who as the spiritual seed of Abraham is about to bless Israel's Ancient Worthies, and to "make them princes in all the earth"; ministers of his Kingdom for the ruling, blessing and instruction of whosoever will, out of the present sin and death conditions, to life eternal to full human perfection, with the earth as Paradise restored.
MEMBERS OF MESSIAH.
But, some one may say, Where do Christians come in in connection with this Divine arrangement? And if God's dealings with the world are to be through Israel, and not through the Church, why has there been so long a delay? Why did not the glorified Messiah at once set up his Kingdom, and bring forth the Ancient Worthies from the tomb to be its earthly representatives? Oh, here is another part of the mystery of God! Isaac, Abraham's son, was typical of Messiah, the spiritual seed, but before Isaac began the work of dispensing the blessings to his brethren and to his children, he first took a bride, and this act also was allegorical or typical. In the antitype, Messiah, the glorified Jesus, partook of the Divine nature according to the Father's invitation, and he is to take a Bride who is to be his joint-heir on the spirit plane--to share with him the glory, honor and service of his Messianic Kingdom. The period of Israel's disfavor, as a nation, has been the time in which a special class has been called of the Father and begotten of the Holy Spirit to joint-heirship with Christ as his Bride.
But did God pass by the natural seed of Israel to give these spiritual privileges to the Gentiles--to gather from the Gentiles a people, figuratively, to constitute the Bride of Messiah? Nay. The Scriptures assure us that this spiritual privilege went first to the Jews; they show us that during the three and a half years of Jesus' ministry, and during the thirty-six years following it, the gospel message was given almost exclusively to the Jews, and gathered from that people as many as were found to be "Israelites indeed without guile," as many as were not only of the circumcision of the flesh, but also who were of the circumcision of the heart. God did not continue to deal with his chosen people, but after having gathered from them as many as were worthy of the spiritual blessing and exaltation--only then was the message sent to the Gentiles, to gather from the Gentiles a number sufficient to complete the fore-ordained and predestined number who will constitute the Bride.
So then, my brethren, in proving from the Scriptures that Israel's "double" is about completed; that Israel's blindness is about to be taken away, and that Israel's exaltation as the earthly representatives of Messiah's Kingdom is near at hand, we are proving to ourselves another thing; namely, that the full number called from amongst the Gentiles to participate with Christ on the spirit plane, as members of his Bride class, will soon be completed (Romans 2:25-32).
The Acceptable Sacrifice
Is it hard, O my brother or sister,
Some sweet human joy to lay down?
Remember as priests we must serve him,
'Ere we wear kingly glory or crown.
Is the sacrifice thou'rt called to offer
Some precious thing close to thy heart?
Does it seem life itself is relinquished
If thou from this treasure must part?
Remember without spot or blemish
The lamb for the altar must be,
Think not strange that what most thou dost cherish
He should ask as an offering from thee.
Then willingly, joyfully, gladly,
Thy sweet smelling sacrifice, bring,
And fulfill thy atonement-day service
As priest, if thou would'st be made King.
Oh! Haste then, thy best gifts bring hither,
By faith's fervent prayers well perfumed,
And place them with zeal on the altar,
And leave there till all are consumed.
Such sacrifice, under Christ's merit,
Jehovah has never reproved,
But will in His sight be well pleasing,
"Acceptable in the beloved."
He appoints to the mourners in Zion
For heaviness, fullness of joy,
For ashes, perfection of beauty
And happiness without alloy.
Then grieve not O Soul at thy losses
Nor count any sacrifice great;
Who bear His mild yoke with endurance
Immortality's crown doth await.
Behold how the strong ones are falling,
Be faithful and watch unto prayer,
Joint sacrifice now, in His suff'ring,
But soon in His glory, joint-heir.
Gertrude V. G. Calkins
[CR106]
Interview with Prominent Jews
THE discourse on "Jerusalem" caused so much interest among the Jews that a few days afterwards several prominent Jews called upon Pastor Russell for an interview. At one of the conventions this summer, while speaking upon the questions concerning the Jews, Pastor Russell said:
"I am pleased to tell you that the Lord seems to be rather indicating there is to be work done among the Jews. We preached in Jerusalem from Isaiah 40:1-2, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith my God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem," etc., and there were quite a number of Jews present on that occasion, and some of them were very greatly moved. The principal Jewish man in all Palestine was present. He is treasurer and business manager of the Zionist associations of the world and is located there now. He is the head of all their business enterprises, in advance even of the president, although the president is the higher official of course; but he is the highest man, practically, among them. His name is Doctor Levy. His remarks to some of the friends were more than anything he said to me. He greeted me very cordially after the meeting and said he was sorry there were not more of his co-religionists there. There was a little prejudice against the hall we used. It was known to be a hall owned by one of those converted from Judaism to Christianity, in which an endeavor would be made to convert the Jews and make them Christians, and they were opposed to going to that hall. If he had not had a special invitation he would not have been there himself. But somebody took him a very special, urgent invitation, and on the strength of the assurance of that invitation he was present. He said, "I wish you could remain longer; I would be glad to have our Jews here in the city get acquainted and hear what you have to say." But I could not stay. You know everything was mapped out ahead. I was obliged to tell him I could not remain. Then there were others there to speak, and he spoke to some of them. He said, "Why is it Christian people in general do not have such a message as this man brings? How is it all are against us? Instead of having a sympathetic word, they are all against us." He seemed to be touched by the fact that we had nothing to say against them, but rather pointed out the blessings of God that were coming to them. He indicated he intended to write to some of his New York friends that they might attend the meeting there, when he learned from some of our party that the subject there would be from the same text. I do not know to what extent he brought anyone to the meeting at Brooklyn, but there was a good attendance, and many were turned away, unable to gain admission. Those who were present gave excellent attention for nearly two hours. There was a corridor full of people waiting to take their places, hoping some would go out, but they did not go out, seeing what an interest there was not only amongst Christians but also amongst Jews. The Jews were astonished that any Christian should speak of the prosperity of Judaism, and what blessings God had for the Jews; that was something they could hardly understand. Three Jews called on me to see if they could find out what I meant, what I was going to try to do. Was I going to try to get hold of the Jews and make Christians of them? I told them no, the sermon was not preached at all for the Jews; it was for Christian people, but that the Jews were as welcome as anybody else, and that I was glad if anybody heard anything that was interesting to them in the sermon; but we intended making no special endeavor to convert the Jews. I told them, on the contrary, we understood that God had one plan for the Jews and another for the Gentiles, and then I briefly outlined to them the heavenly and higher calling, calling attention to the fact there were no promises made to them of a heavenly kind; that from Genesis to Malachi there was not a heavenly or spiritual promise mentioned; that they were all earthly promises. They agreed to that. I said, All of those promises are to be fulfilled to you, and the time is near at hand. They were good listeners. One of them was editor of a paper, and the other a publisher of a paper, and they were deeply interested to hear what the object was; they thought there must be something or other behind the scenes, and their thought was, Why would it be so? What are you going to do? Where is the trap? We are looking for the snare that would catch the bird. I told them we had no snare at all. We merely had a good message, that we had a good deal of sympathy with the Jews, and we saw God had cast them off at a certain time. They admitted all of that; they could not think otherwise. We told them that we believed God, that we believed the Prophets, that we acknowledged those prophets of the Old Testament the same as they did; that many Christian people had abandoned the Old Testament, thought it was all fulfilled and past, but we followed the Old Scripture suggestions that many of those things were yet future--indeed most of them; that only a small portion had ever been fulfilled, and God in his due time would fulfill all of those promises to the Jews; and just as soon as this spiritual class was selected, forthwith the message would go to the Jews, and the awakening referred to in this valley of dry bones would take place. We called their attention to the fact that it was Israel's hope that they were to be revivified and they would begin to awaken, and I said to them, What has awakened you now to Zionism is a part of God's promises coming at the right time, but it has nearly spent its force; the power that is behind Zionism is merely the power of patriotism. You feel as though you Jews have no home. The Germans speak of the fatherland, and the others speak of some other land; they have a home land. And you say, We Jews have no home land. You would like to have a home land, and it is a kind of a patriotic spirit that is moving Zionism as far as it can, rather than anything practical. Now, I said, Zionism has nearly spent its force, and it has nearly gotten you ready for the power that is going to move you. The power that is going to move the Jews is the power of God through the prophets. God is going to move you as none of this patriotism ever did in the past. And then they had good ears to hear, and I went on and outlined the "Times of the Gentiles," and the "Seven Times," and how they would end in 1915. Also the fact that God had told the Jews in Leviticus that there would be seven times trial, etc.; that we thought these were the same seven times mentioned when God took away Zedekiah, the King of Judah, who was the last king they had, and that the seven times dated from there. Their eyes sparkled and they listened attentively. I think they were there nearly two hours, just in the parlor talking about it--I did nearly all the talking. Well, they said, we thought that if this is not an endeavor to turn the Jews to make Christians out of them, if it is not that, this would be a wonderful power among our people, and we would like to have you address a meeting. Would you? I said to them that if it were anything like a political meeting I would not wish to address it at all; that we did not mingle in politics at all, but if any of them would have an ear to hear, and would like to know about what God has for them as a nation of people, we would be glad to talk to them as much as we have time. You see I am very busy and I could not give you a great deal of time, but if we could have some one large meeting, perhaps then I could talk to a good many Jews together, and I would be very pleased to do so."
Brother Russell afterward said, at one of this year's conventions, Well, they are thinking it over. I did not know what they would think, and do not know what they will do; they had come merely to see what was the motive behind it, to learn if we were trying to trap them. They were afraid if they would push it along we might really catch some of them. That is what they are afraid of. But they all acknowledged and said, Why, this is the most powerful thing we have ever heard. And one of those men said, "I was an unbeliever when I came in here, but now you have convinced me there is something in the Bible for the Jew, and that there is truth in the Bible." And so you and I are learning more and more every day, that that is the wonderful power, both for the Jew, the Gentile and the Christian; it is our Book. Primarily it is for the Christian, but there are certain good things in it for the Jews and for ALL the families of the earth. The Jews are waking up all over the country. I presume that a synopsis of the discourse, which was published in eleven Jewish and Yiddish newspapers, will reach probably half a million of Jews all over the world."
Subsequently Brother Russell received an invitation to address a JEWISH MASS MEETING in the great HIPPODROME THEATRE of New York City.
A copy of the invitation, and Brother Russell's response to the same and a report of the meeting, which took place as per arrangements, will be found farther along in this Report.
[CR107]
JESUS
THE gentle sighing of the wind among the pines,
The joyous singing of the lark at break of day,
The rippling of the water-brooks through cooling
shade,
The patter of the softly falling rain at night,
Are sounds less sweet by far than His most precious
name.
No art can show a form so gracious and so fair,
No master's hand hath drawn a smile so sweet,
Nor could depict the majesty of that pure brow;
No canvas ever glowed with such a holy light
As shines from His most radiant image in my heart.
The dearest earthly friend may fail in time of need,
The sweetest and the loveliest grow cold at heart,
The nearest may not heed the throbbing heart's sad
cry,
The gayest throng may hold the loneliest solitude,
But Jesus, Jesus never fails my call to hear.
Oh, may the music of Thy name more clearly fall
Upon my ears attuned to catch that sweetest sound!
Oh, may Thine image in my heart so bright become
That I by gazing may be changed into the same;
Oh, blessed Jesus, let Thy presence ne'er depart,
Oh, come and reign forevermore within my heart!
[CR107]
Souvenir Book Mark
Text: "Keep thy heart with all diligence."
I AM very pleased to be with you. I am not down on the program for this morning, and will speak to you later, but I thought this would be a testimony meeting, and I would like to put in an appearance and say that I am here, and that I am glad to see you-- glad to see so many faces I recognize; and I am glad to see some that apparently I have not seen before--evidencing the fact that there are some still coming to the knowledge of the truth day by day and year by year.
Now I have only a few moments to speak, and simply will say, "How do you do?" and "Good-bye." Brother Hollister is to speak in a few minutes; he was anxious I should speak instead of him, but I would not do that because he would not speak instead of me this evening.
I was thinking of something I might say to you at this time, that perhaps this will be the best opportunity for mentioning, namely: That we have some little souvenirs of the conventions of 1910. Some of you doubtless have seen them, and others have not. I will describe them to you. [CR108] A Wonderful Likeness of Our Savior Said to be "Taken from one cut in emerald by command of Tiberius Caesar, and which was given from the Treasury of Constantinople by the Emperor of the Turks, to Pope Innocent VIII, for the redemption of his brother, then a captive to the Christians."
The following translation from the Latin is said to be the statement of Publius Lentulus, to the Senate of Rome, during the term of Tiberius Caesar--part of his report on prominent affairs in Judea.
"There appeared in these our days a man of great virtue, named Jesus Christ, who is yet living amongst us, and of the Gentiles is accepted for a Prophet of truth, but his own disciples call him the Son of God. He raiseth the dead and cureth all manner of diseases. A man of stature somewhat tall, and comely, with a very reverend countenance such as the beholders may both love and fear. His hair of the color of philbert, full ripe, and plain almost down to his ears; but from his ears downward somewhat curled, and more orient of color, waving on his shoulders. In the midst of his head goeth a seam or partition of his hair, after the manner of the Nazarites; his forehead very plain and smooth; his face without spot or wrinkle, beautified with a comely red. His nose and mouth so formed as nothing can be reprehended; his beard somewhat thick, agreeable in color to the hair of his head, not of any great length, in the midst of an innocent and mature look. His eyes are gray, clear and quick. In reproving he is terrible; in admonishing, courteous and fair spoken: pleasant in speech, mixed with gravity. It cannot be remembered that any saw him laugh, but many have seen him weep. In proportion of body, well-shaped and straight; his arms and hands right and delectable to behold; in speaking, very temperate, modest and wise. A man for singular beauty surpassing the children of men."
Respecting this portrait, an expert phrenologist, Prof. E. G. Walters, says:--
"The fact that it is a profile, is one point in its favor. Note the great length of the head from the extreme back-head to the root of the nose. This type of head is what phrenologists term 'dolichocephalic head,' which gives the owner a great love of investigation, study and thought; also love of science and domestic traits. The distance from the opening of the ear to the root of the nose equals the distance from the same center to the extreme back-head (minus hair), something I have yet to see in others.
"The very high coronal region, or top-head, is also remarkable. If an imaginary line be drawn from the opening of the ear to any point of the top-head, the space will at once be perceived to be very great. Another very remarkable fact is that were we to use this imaginary line as a radius it would describe a perfect arc or semi-circle starting from the root of the nose clear back to the base of the back-head (minus hair) thus giving all the organs along the line an equal development, which implies an evenness of disposition, completeness of character--perfection. Spirituality, located in the lateral parts of the anterior region of the top-head, looms up conspicuously. The theoretical and practical developments are equal. While I have not a view of the width of the head, yet from the general appearance there must be sufficient degree of executiveness, attack, tact and economy. Do not fail to catch the outline at benevolence and follow it to the extreme back-head. Such 'Human Nature' and 'Spirituality' create marvelous intuitive powers. And such parental love and friendship as here appears! Its owner would instinctively 'pick up little children and bless them.' Such an one, it would be easy to believe, wept over Jerusalem, and would have 'gathered its children as a hen gathereth her brood' (parental love). His large friendship and benevolence would prompt him to willingly lay down his life for the world.
"Notice the full arch of the brow--a perfect arc, caused by the extraordinary development of calculation, order, color, weight and size, all equal. The evenness, fullness and roundness of the forehead are beautiful to behold. As viewed by the science of phrenology, the head is of unusual size (25 or 26 inches in circumference) and perfect in all its parts. Indeed, this head is evenly developed at all points, no one organ, apparently, predominating.
"If this picture were of recent origin I might think it the work of some phrenologist, who alone could devise such a head for the Christ. But, as it is not modern but ancient, I feel persuaded to believe it genuine."
[CR109]
Each one contains four sermons that you see all at a glance, so that every time you see that little souvenir you think of those four sermons; and if you do that every day that will mean a great many sermons inside of one year. These souvenirs are for all present at this convention who have not already had them, and not only those who are here that belong to the Chicago church, and those who are visiting, but all the different classes that are represented here. So that when you go to your home you can describe this matter to them and send in a list to the Watch Tower office through one of the brethren, and say how many there are in the class, and that he was appointed to write and get these souvenirs. They are free, and yet they are priceless--they are priceless because they are free. They will not be given out for money; you cannot buy one for any money. So in two senses they are priceless--like the grace of God. You have not money enough to buy the grace of God, and yet you can have it on certain terms, and the terms are that you shall ask for it. So with these souvenirs: you must ask for them, and say they were promised, and get them in the regular way.
They are thin, like paper, made of celluloid, cut into the shape of a heart, and then on each side they are printed. On the one side is a wreath of forget-me-nots at the top. And that will remind you to forget not the Lord and all his benefits. Forget not the brethren who represent the Lord; forget not the convention that you are enjoying here; forget not the assembling of yourselves together; and forget not to continually look to the Lord in connection with his mercies, and to avail yourself of all the privileges that are ours in this wonderful day.
Then underneath that is this text of Scripture, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth 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." That text has a whole lot in it, you see. It reminds us of our consecration by which we become sons of God, and that we already enjoy this blessed relationship. We are in covenant relationship with our God. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." We have come into this blessed union with him.
This reminds us of another thing, a matter that has perhaps occurred to you frequently. I have had many say to me, "Brother Russell, it seems to me I enjoy restitution things, I can understand them better; I think God must really mean I shall be of the restitution class because I can think about the beautiful flowers and beautiful fruits, and beautiful trees, and all the beautiful things of Paradise restored, but I cannot understand, cannot imagine those spiritual things; I am just lost when I try to think of those." And I say to them, "My dear brother, that is the way with all the rest of us; you are no different from the rest; nobody understands spiritual things. God does not even pretend to explain them. He says you cannot understand them. He tells us, 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.' You see God knew you could not understand it; he did not waste time and space in the Bible to put it in; it would only have been a stumbling block to you; you would have said, I cannot understand that as well as the earthly. But God tells us in advance that we cannot understand these things, therefore you are not to suppose you understand them."
But this text tells us something. It tells us God has certain things in reservation. They are there, they are genuine, and the fact that God tells us they are better than the restitution blessings for mankind, is our very best assurance; and we know that he knows the good, and he knows the better, and he knows the best. He wishes us to have the best things, and, by his grace, let us take them.
There is this text, then, on the heart: "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." We do not know how grand and glorious a spirit being is. We do not know what is meant by the glory, honor, immortality, that God has in reservation for us. We cannot understand it--but we do know this, that when he shall appear, we shall be like him. Oh, that settles it all! If we are going to be like him, that will do, we need not say another word. That satisfies any longing. Do you expect anything better than that? Surely not. If we shall be like him and see him as he is, and share his glory, that is enough--all in one word. We shall be like him who is the express image of the Father's person, he who has been highly exalted, far above angels, principalities, powers, and every name that is named. Another lesson there, you see.
Then turn the heart over and on the other side is a grape vine, branching around the sides of the heart. That reminds us of John 15. You see the large clusters of grapes there and they represent the large fruit of the Lord Jesus, which you and I are to copy after, even if we do not hope to bring forth such fruit as he did. That will remind you all of how Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches, "And herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." Then we remember also what he says to us about pruning. Just as surely as you are a vine, and just as surely as he sees evidence of fruit in you, he will prune you--give you troubles, give you trials, give you earthly disappointments--that the juices of the vine may go to make up the more fruit. He prunes away the earthly attachments and your tendency to cling to earthly things, and when you have trials and tests, understand, then, that is one of the evidences that the Father loves you and that the great Husbandman regards you as a fruitful vine and that he wishes you to bring forth more fruit and fall in line with his providences. Then remember that any branch that does not bear fruit, the Husbandman takes it away--cuts it off entirely. So you and I say to ourselves, We must bear fruit.
Then let us not forget what the fruit is. It does not consist in imagination and all sorts of making types, etc. I am not speaking against types, dear friends, though I think some of the dear friends carry them to quite an extreme. I am sorry to see some have such a tendency to make types out of everything and take their own minds, as well as the minds of the others, away from the more important things. I am afraid the adversary is behind some of this typemaking. Therefore I warn you all to look carefully what types you make. If possible stick to the types explained in the Bible. Then let us bear these fruits, the fruits of the spirit. What are they? Meekness, cheerfulness, patience, longsuffering, brotherly kindness, love. If these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is what he wants. Whoever therefore helps himself, and helps the brethren, to fruits of the spirit, does that which is most particularly serving the Lord and his cause.
Now just underneath the vine, covering the roots, is a picture of the Lord Jesus, about the size of my finger nail. That is a wonderful picture. It is a copy of probably the oldest likeness of the Lord in the whole world. That likeness was found in Constantinople. The history that attaches to it is this: Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judea, had it executed. It is an entaglio etched into an emerald stone. It was sent to Tiberius Caesar when he was the Roman emperor, a little gift from Pilate of a noble face. This was in the palace of the emperors for some time. When they moved the capital of Rome to Constantinople it went along. It was found there in the old palace and was sent to Rome, and it is now in possession of the Vatican. It is certainly one of the oldest likenesses of the Lord, and this is a photograph of it. So you see that it is pretty near priceless in itself.
Then finally underneath this likeness of the Lord is this text of Scripture which each can apply to his own heart and life: "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." With you and me it is not the flesh, but it is the heart we are to keep. If you keep the heart, the Lord will assist in the direction of keeping your flesh. But the Lord is going to judge us by our hearts, by our intentions, by our endeavors. Therefore keep your hearts with all diligence--you cannot be too diligent about it-- for out of it are the issues of life,--life or death is the thought. You are either going to have eternal life or eternal death. All of those who have made their consecration have taken this position, and if it be eternal life then still it is to be determined whether you shall be one of the grand characters of the Little Flock, and have glory, honor, immortality, or whether you shall be one of the lesser characters who shall have life as a member of the Great Company, the Levitical class. I thank you.
[CR110]
Pastor Russell's Headquarters at the Mayville Inn
BROTHER RUSSELL knew that, on account of the convention, the letters and orders coming to the Brooklyn office would be fewer than usual. He therefore took practically the entire office force to the convention, there to continue the necessary features of the work in all departments. The Editor, as President of the International Bible Students' Association, felt it proper that he should be in attendance throughout the entire convention.
Nevertheless, as it was necessary for him to keep up his literary duties, it was advisable to isolate himself to some extent from the glad hands and loving hearts of the 4,000 plus, each of whom desired a few minutes' conversation and to shake hands every time they came within reach. Isolation seemed cruel, but necessary, in the interest of the King's business. Accordingly we rented the Mayville Inn, which was vacant but furnished. There about fifty of the friends were entertained, with the understanding that Brother Russell must not be intruded upon, and could be visited only at meal times and at the evening receptions. He spoke at the Auditorium five times:
(1) At the opening session.
(2) On Sunday morning, July 31.
(3) A special address to the Pilgrim brethren and to Elders and Deacons from everywhere on Thursday evening, August 4.
(4) To Colporteurs on Saturday morning, August 6.
(5) To the convention and to the public on Sunday, August 7.
On the latter occasion the house was crowded and an overflow meeting of about 700 was held in the adjoining theater, addressed by Brother John Kuehn.
SIX RECEPTIONS AT THE INN.
In view of the impossibility of personal contact with any but a very few at the Auditorium, he arranged for six receptions at the Mayville Inn, with admission only by cards. He had 3,600 of these cards printed, and additional permits were granted for the last reception on Saturday evening, August 6. The tickets were good only for the date they bore, so that the chartered steamer which took the friends twenty miles to the Inn and back might not be overcrowded. He desired that all should have a view of the beautiful lake and the opportunity for fellowship en route. The arrangements were enjoyed to the full and were seasons of refreshing fellowship and praise.
At the Inn the crowds each evening were received in the large parlors and halls and verandas and spacious lawns. Brother Russell used a corner of one veranda for a pulpit, and, after greeting the dear friends, spoke a few words along spiritual lines to assist in making the occasion one to be remembered from the standpoint of spiritual refreshment. Then, while hundreds sang some of our sweet hymns, other hundreds were invited into the large dining room, where with zeal they were served by loving brethren and sisters (recruits chiefly from the Colporteur ranks) with a little ice cream, cake, etc., soon exchanging places with the singers. These six receptions added to the comfort and joy and spiritual refreshment of all who participated. The numbers attending furnished a good gauge of the total number attending the convention. Yet there were probably nearly 1,000 who, for one reason or another, did not get to the receptions--some of them refrained from attending, fearing that there would not be room, and that they would crowd out others. There was, however, room for all, and more could have been entertained.
Opening of Convention
THE Convention opened with singing of Hymn No. 19, "His Loving Kindness." We were then led in prayer by the chairman, Brother John Kuehn, at the close of which he said: It is our great privilege, dear friends, to have the Mayor of Jamestown with us this morning and he wishes to speak a few words of welcome to you.
Address of Welcome by Mayor Samuel A. Carlson
DEAR FRIENDS: On behalf of the town of Jamestown and vicinity, I wish to extend to you all a cordial and hearty welcome. During the time I have been mayor of Jamestown it has been my privilege to welcome to this city various organizations. I have welcomed commercial, political, educational and fraternal organizations, but this is the first time it has been my privilege to extend the keys of this city to an organization, world-wide in magnitude, coming as it does from all parts of the world, coming here for one sublime purpose--the work of redeeming the world. I want to say to you that I feel deeply interested in this movement, although I do not understand much about it, but I can read in your faces that you are all truth-seekers, and I know that the great unrest in the political and social world means something--it is significant --it means that the great power which moves the world is preparing for a great change in the future. I believe that the day of restitution is near and I understand that that is one of the great purposes of this organization, to prepare the world for that new day of righteousness that is coming.
I want to extend to you the hand of welcome and I hope your stay will be a pleasant one, and I hope that you will enjoy the exhilarating breeze of this lake, 1,500 feet above the level of the sea, one of the highest bodies of water navigated by steam. I hope that you will partake of this beautiful atmosphere, not only physically and mentally, but perhaps this convention will be the means of working toward that which will uplift this community to that higher, that nobler, grander thing, to which mankind is destined, and I hope this convention will have this influence in this city and surroundings. Again I welcome you.
Chautauqua Greeting
I AM very glad, dear friends, to be with you this morning. I recognize a great many of your faces. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to meet with so many of God's consecrated people who are loyal to the Word of God. I understand there are representatives here from various countries. I have not had the pleasure of meeting all of these various delegates, but I am sure the Lord intends that we shall have a great spiritual feast. I trust you have come with your hearts prepared and that you are desirous of a blessing in your heart, and desirous also that the Lord may use you to bless one another, and that you will seek to pour out your blessings on every hand, not only here with those assembled for Bible study, but upon all the dear friends in this vicinity. Around this place live so many intelligent people there must be many Christians of all denominations, and I am glad we are meeting them here on interdenominational planes, Christians meeting Christians, and not on any denominational lines. I am glad we have no fence to divide us from God's people, that we have seen the folly of these fences, if I might so [CR111] express it, of having such denominational fences. Some of us were once inclined to think that we must think along the Presbyterian line, and others along the Methodist line, and others along the Baptist line, so we have divided and separated. Now, by God's grace, as we study the Word of God we are being drawn "Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee," and in being drawn nearer to the Lord we are being drawn nearer to all those who are his; so I trust, dear friends, and in fact I believe that it must be so, that you are having greater love for the brethren, and I can go beyond that and say, that those who are truly the Lord's feel in their hearts a great stirring love for the world of mankind besides the Church of Christ, a greater sympathy for them, and a desire to do all you can to help them along. This is evidently the proper sentiment. This is the One faith, as the Apostle expresses it, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father over all." How blessed it is to have that experience.
Once, perhaps, we also were more or less divided by sectarian lines, and thought we did God service by so dividing ourselves; but as we study his word we find it is adverse to any such divisions. "That they all may be one, as thou Father and I are one," was the Master's prayer on the very last night he was with his disciples. So I trust that is coming to be your and my sentiments, that we desire to be more and more at one with all who love the Lord Jesus and are begotten of the holy Spirit.
I was thinking, as I sat here, What is it that serves to unite our interests and has brought us to be specially Bible students, instead of as we formerly were, students of our creeds and theories, handed down to us from the past? I believe, in speaking for myself, that I also speak for many who have opened their hearts to me upon this subject: I can say this, that the very thing that is bringing infidelity to the whole world is the very thing that has been drawing my heart to the Lord. I will explain: In my own case it happened a good many years ago, with others it is happening day by day. The experience was this: The higher critics began to tear the Bible to pieces, took off the covers, and took out all the books, and practically told us that there was no Bible there, and that the people who wrote it were old dotards, and knew not what they were doing, and that the Lord and his disciples were fools because they thought the prophecies were inspired, and quoted those prophecies all through the New Testament. So, forty years ago these things aroused my mind and I said, Can this be true? This book upon which the world has been building for centuries, is it all a farce? The first effect upon me was to shake my faith and I threw away the Bible entirely, but afterward in God's providence he led me to a re-examination of the Bible. I took off the spectacles received from my parents and began to study the Bible myself, comparing Scripture with Scripture, the Old and New Testaments from Genesis to Revelation.
As I studied, the harmony began to appear more and more. Now every day my faith becomes stronger and better established, because I know in whom I have believed and why. That is the experience of very many of you here. You have been studying the word of God and that which has injured others, because of the higher critics, has made you more eager to study the word of God. They denounce it as fallible and of men, not worthy of credence, but the more you think of the Apostle's words, that God gave us this book "That the Man of God might be thoroughly furnished unto every good work," the more you are convinced that it is the Word of God. He also tells us in 2 Tim. 2:15, to "study to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." I believe that has been your experience and that I am expressing the sentiments of all who are gathered here from all of the states of the Union, Canada and from various parts of the world.
Well, dear friends, I am glad to be here in your company, and as the Chief Officer of your Association, THE INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS' ASSOCIATION, I am glad to be here.
And I want to say to the Mayor of Jamestown and vicinity, We appreciate his words of cordial greetings extended to you this morning. We are glad to meet in Christian fellowship Christians from everywhere and we trust that Jamestown will not be the worse for our having been here, but better because of your influence in this vicinity --not meaning by this that there is any special lack of Christian character, but that every Christian should be growing day by day, and that the people of this vicinity ought to receive an impetus from this convention, and we too. Much will depend upon all here, not collectively, but individually. It will not do to say, that if we as individuals are careless of our deportment or words, that others will make up for it, but we must recognize that the whole is made up of individuals as the river is of drops of water; each one is accountable, and so let us seek to glorify God in our bodies and spirits which are his.
We have come here and will stay with the Celeron people in their midst and spend some money, but not for their "gim-crack" amusements. I fear they will be disappointed in this respect, but I hope they will see that there is something better to live for. The majority of people have very little to live for, and I sympathize with them. I tell you, dear friends, that if you should take out of my life the knowledge I have of Christ and God and the fellowship of the brethren in Christ and the interest in his Word, it would leave my life a blank. Now I say that the majority of the world have very little to live for, not only around this beautiful sheet of water called Lake Chautauqua, but all over the world, rich and poor everywhere; they are without God and have no hope. They do not even know why they are in the world; do not know what God's purpose was in bringing them into existence. How thankful, dear friends, we ought to be that God has so graciously favored us as to give us an interest in his book, and to gradually open our eyes of understanding. We sometimes sing "Wonderful words of life"--and they are words of life. What the poet expressed was far beyond anything that he knew, but which we realize to be the very grandest possible statement of the Truth, that these wonderful words of life have a power in them not only in restraining from sin, but a power of producing a happy life and joyous faith.
I do not know when I have seen a more contented and happy set of faces. I congratulate you that you have something inside shining out. I am glad of that hymn. God not only tells us the truth through Jesus, the prophets, and apostles, but all who receive the spirit of truth manifest it in their words, conduct and features. Send out the truth, then, dear friends. You and I have something to do with sending it out, and with how much blessing we will get every day from this convention. May it be a time long to be remembered, of joyful blessing and fellowship with God and with each other, a time of growing in grace, a time of being strong against temptations that may assail you afterwards. Here I remark, that our heavenly Father has so arranged matters that those who are his people, those who constitute the Church, are to have certain special trials, "The trial of your faith being more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor at the appearing of Jesus Christ." That trial of your faith and mine must go on if we are to be overcomers. It will not therefore do to pray that we have no trials. I do not pray for trials but leave that to the Lord. I am not going to do as one brother said: Brother Russell, I have been praying that the Lord will send me some great trial. I said, Brother, you have a great deal of courage. I believe that the Lord will hold me in the trials which he sends me, and as the Scriptures say, he will provide a way of escape. So then, knowing that God intends to give us trials, let us be prepared for the trials. Let us remember, that if we have special privileges at this convention, in fellowship, being strengthened in our spiritual nature, growing in the power of his might, that it may be an offset for certain trials which may come to us some time after we have returned to the busy world. So as the bee lays up honey for the winter time, store up your spiritual refreshment for your return to your home; also as the bee lays up more honey than for itself, so in our various associations together as Bible students let us go back laden with the precious things we have heard for those behind, laden with the precious things from the Lord's words and filled with the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, able to be a comfort and to strengthen and build them up in the most holy faith.
Now, then, in conclusion let me say, It will not be possible to do as I have done on some previous occasions and smaller meetings; it will not be possible for me to have a private interview with all who would like to have one, two or five minutes. Five minutes for 4,000 people, we would have to stay here the remainder of this year. Our Jamestown friends would no doubt make us welcome, but we cannot afford to stay. Finding that impossible, I have arranged another way: My own lodgings at the convention are at the other end of the lake, at Mayville, and I want to invite every one of you to come up and see me. If you [CR112] all try to come up at one time you will block all the lines, therefore I have made provision for 500 on six different nights, that will take in 3,000--that may leave out a thousand who cannot get in, as I see they are still coming. Anyway, we have made provision for the six nights, 500 for each night. We have invitation cards, so that there will be no difficulty about those who are going. Get a card or you don't get in; the card will not cost you anything, except that you write your name and address. A plain luncheon will be served on the boat, as you will not get to Mayville until 7 o'clock. As the boat leaves at 9:30 you will need to start at 9 o'clock--that will get us rid of you, you see. That will leave a twenty or thirty minutes' walk to the boat, and then a nice ride of an hour and three-quarters and give a splendid time for fellowship. I know from previous experiences that the whole theme you will have to talk about is God's word, the Truth in general. We cannot get too much of God's Word and the farther you get into the Truth, the emptier you will be of the world's vanity and the more peace you will have on the journey in the narrow way of all those who are walking heavenward.
So I close by wishing you all a very happy time at this convention. The Association's Secretary and myself have done our very best to serve your interests in appointments, etc. Of course, like everything human, it is imperfect. You will probably not have it as nice as you will when you get to heaven. But be sure that they have done the best they can for you, but if anything is unsatisfactory, please report to the Information Bureau. It has been reported that we are all colored people. I hope we have the proper color--by this I do not mean to say anything discouraging to our colored friends who are with us. We recognize all those who are the Lord's, without respect to nationality or color; we love all those who love him. May we have a very joyful time at this convention; let us ask his blessing. (Brother Russell then offered prayer.)
Services closed with singing Hymn No. 19--The Beauty of Holiness.
[CR112]
The Desire of All Nations
(Reprint from Jamestown Journal)
Forty-five Hundred Bible Students Here
--Remarkable Large Attendance
at Annual Convention of International Association
SERMON BY PASTOR C. T. RUSSELL
Head of Association Spoke Before Immense Audience
Sunday Morning on the Desire of the Nations--Large
Audiences Also Assembled Sunday Afternoon
and Evening and This Morning--Visitors
Continue to Arrive for Convention but
Everything Moves Like Clockwork
MEMBERS of Bible classes affiliated with the International Bible Students' Association arrived on every train Saturday evening and all day Sunday; still others reached the city this morning and more are expected this evening, tomorrow and even as late as Wednesday. A conservative estimate of the total number of persons present for the annual convention of the association at Celeron, which was opened Saturday morning and will continue through next Sunday, is 4,500, and it is safe to say that several hundred more persons will be here before the great gathering comes to a close.
Not only is the convention the largest ever held in Jamestown or at any point on Chautauqua lake, excelling all others in point of attendance by many hundreds, but it is one of the largest gatherings of the kind ever held in the United States. In spite of the fact that the burning of the Sherman house deprived the city of its largest hotel, the committee in charge of the arrangements for the convention went quietly at work and by one of the most effecting house-to-house canvasses ever conducted in this or in any city, succeeded in providing accommodations for the great army of visitors, and it is still a source of wonder to the great majority of the residents of Jamestown how the work was accomplished in such a highly successful manner without an aggressive campaign of publicity.
Everything connected with the convention moves like clockwork and thus far no hitch of any description has occurred, although the problem of handling between 4,000 and 5,000 visitors is a gigantic one. In speaking of the matter of providing accommodations for the thousands of visitors to the convention, one of the officials of the association stated that Jamestown is now really entitled to consideration as a convention city for the reason that it is taking care of the largest convention in its history and but seldom indeed does any city, large or small, have an opportunity of entertaining a larger gathering for such a long period. The visitors are being cared for in the hotels and homes of this city and at every point on the lake from Celeron to Mayville.
The Desire of All Nations
At the conclusion of the testimony meeting, Pastor Russell spoke on "The Desire of All Nations," and he was greeted by an audience of fully 3,500 persons, occupying practically every seat in the mammoth auditorium. The discourse was plainly heard in all parts of the hall and every word received the careful attention of the immense audience.
Pastor Russell took as his text, Haggai 2:7, "I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come."
(Pastor Russell prefaced his remarks by saying:
The whole world, dear friends, in one sense or another is looking for something great, and we are not behind them, for we also are looking for something great.
For a long time the world of mankind has realized that conditions as they now are here are not satisfactory, and yet, they have realized that these conditions are not of our own making, and that they must be under divine supervision, and this has been a cause for a great deal of wonderment on the part of Christian people and others, as they have noted the terrible reign of sin and death, and have thought, How different things are from what they are in heaven.)
"The great Messiah, 'King of Glory,' has long been waited for by the civilized nations," he began. "For thirty-five centuries the Jews have waited for him as the great Prophet foreshadowed by Moses and foretold by him (Acts 3:22); and as the Great King foreshadowed by their Kings David and Solomon; and as their glorious priest typified by Aaron, but especially in the former's majesty as king and priest foreshown by Melchizedek--a priest upon his throne (Psalm 110:4).
"Free Masons have waited twenty-five hundred years for the same glorious personage, as Hiram Abiff, the great Master Mason whose death, glorification and future appearing are continually set before them by the letters upon their keystones. He died a violent death, they claim, because of his loyalty to the divine secrets typed in Solomon's temple. He must reappear, they claim, in order that the great antitypical temple may be completed and its grand service for Israel and for all peoples may be accomplished. They claim that his presence is to be expected speedily.
"Christians of every shade, in proportion as they are conversant with the Bible (Old Testament and New), believe, also, in a great temple builder who died because of his faithfulness to the divine plans for the spiritual temple, the elect church (1 Peter 2:4,5). Him they expect to come a second time, 'in power and great glory,' to complete the temple which is his body, and in and through that spiritual and glorious temple to bless Israel and all the families of the earth. His second presence in glory and power, but invisible to men, is believed to be imminent.
"The Mohammedans, also worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and David and Solomon, are also expecting a great heavenly messenger to bless them and all peoples by the establishment of a heavenly kingdom. They have awaited his coming for centuries. They believe his kingdom to be near at hand.
[CR113]
"WHO IS THIS KING OF GLORY?"
"The same glorious personage will fulfill all these desires --these hopes. Is it not time that all of these peoples, fearing God and hoping in his promises, should come together in one hope, in one expectation? It must be so, for do we not read prophetically, 'The desire of all nations shall come!'
"We are well aware that great barriers lie between these multitudes; but we hold that they are chiefly barriers of superstition and ignorance. In the past they have pulled apart, and have slandered and persecuted one another. If now they will sympathetically draw near to each other surely they will find much to appreciate in each other's hopes and aims.
THE BASIS OF SYMPATHY.
"The fact that the Jews and Mohammedans, Catholics and Protestants and Free Masons, all base their faith on the Old Testament of the Holy Scriptures, is ground for the better understanding pleaded for.
"All Christians must accept the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures because the founder of Christianity, Jesus, and his special mouthpieces, the apostles, taught nothing contrary to the law and the prophets. Indeed, they quoted from the Old Testament in proof of every doctrine advanced. They claimed that they neither destroyed nor ignored the Old Testament, but merely noted its fulfillment.
"The error in the past has been the general disposition to appeal to superstition and prejudice and bigotry, rather than to facts and Scripture. We must reverse the lever in order to attain the good results--in order to see eye to eye.
WHAT ALL CAN AGREE TO.
"All agree that the world needs the divine blessing! All agree that we have been laboring under a mistake in supposing that education and civilization are alone necessary to secure human happiness. We perceive that the greater the civilization the greater is the unrest; and the broader the education the greater are the suggestions and opportunities for taking selfish advantage of others.
"All are agreed that only the later inventions, telephones, etc., and our modern and costly police precautions, make it possible to live in civilized lands and that, despite all these, murders are a hundred fold what they were fifty years ago. In those days a murder would be detailed and discussed for a year. Now we give little heed to several reported in each day's newspapers. Thousands are executed, other thousands are imprisoned for life and we pay little heed-- so gradually have we become accustomed to these horrors of our civilization and education.
"We oppose these with church and mission influences, with Sunday-schools, Y.M.C.A.'s, with courts, juvenile and superior, and yet they increase. We penalize the carrying of weapons and bombs and wisely prohibit inflammatory speeches; and the better informed know that Christendom is like a powder magazine which some unlucky friction between the classes may any day explode.
ALL HOPES REALLY ONE.
"Admitting that all mankind are imperfect, 'born in sin and shapen in iniquity,' we nevertheless cannot assent to the doctrine of total depravity--that there is nothing good in any man, or in all men. Each one who prays 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others' should concede that others, as well as himself, would prefer righteousness to sin, if the environment were different--if his appetite were not so perverse, if his will power were not so inadequate. So, then, whether Jew, Mohammedan, Catholic, Free Mason or Protestant, do we not all really desire the one thing? And do we not admit, after centuries of endeavor along different lines, that God alone can send us the aid which the whole world so greatly needs? We do!
"Let us now formulate this 'desire of all nations' from those holy Scriptures which we all acknowledge. Let us see that it is exactly what we all have been looking and praying for under different names: It is the Kingdom of God!--the Kingdom of Allah! Its rule is to be 'under the whole heavens,' however heavenly or spiritual the great ruler will be (Daniel 7:27). Under its beneficent and uplifting influence the glorious result will be that God's will shall be done on earth as completely as it is now done in heaven. This is exactly what the Scriptures declare-- that sin and ignorance will be done away; that the knowledge of the glory of God's character will fill the whole earth. It means a strong government exercised for the restraint of sin and for the freeing of mankind from slavery to sin --the slavery of inherited weaknesses entailed by Adam's disobedience. The great heavenly king, the son of David, who will do these things, according to the law and the prophets, will have many titles indicating various features of his greatness. 'He shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty Elohim, the Prince of Peace, and the Father (life-giver) of eternal life (Isaiah 9:6).'
"He is called the Savior by the Prophet Isaiah (14:15), for he shall 'save from their sins' and from the penalty of sin all who shall become his 'people.' And all who will wickedly refuse his rule of righteousness and his assistance out of sin and death conditions will be esteemed 'wicked' in the proper sense of that word; and of these we read: 'All the wicked will he destroy.'
LOVE RIGHTEOUSNESS--HATE INIQUITY.
"We have had too much of hatred and persecution because of the differences in our degrees of knowledge as expressed in our differences of belief. Let this cease. Let us unite in our love of righteousness and in our hatred of unrighteousness--in-equity. Let us cultivate such a sympathy for the coming reign of righteousness to be established by Messiah (by whatever name he and his kingdom may be handed down to us) that our characters shall be more and more influenced and transformed by the prophetic view. We are all agreed that Messiah's kingdom is nigh, even knocking at the door of the world. In the wonderful inventions of our day we have the very foregleams of that kingdom as outlined in prophecy. The necessities of the case also corroborate this: The tension between capital and labor will soon be to its limit and break; the grasp of monopoly will soon be so strong that the masses will be ground between the upper and the nether millstones; our high-tension living is calculated soon to have our race in the madhouse; specialists say, within one century. Let us believe the Word of God delivered by the prophets of old. Let us prepare our hearts for the Great King and know that such will have the chief blessing.
HE MUST REIGN--UNTIL.
"According to the Bible the reign of the promised Great King shall not be an eternal reign. Eventually the dominion of earth originally given to Adam and lost by disobedience and consequent incapacity, is to be restored to such of Adam's race as shall attain earthly perfection and Jehovah's approval. Messiah's empire will be a mediatorial one and, according to the Scriptures, will continue only one thousand years. But we are assured that the period will be quite sufficient for the great work to be accomplished. Father Adam, after being sentenced for sin-- 'Dying, thou shalt die,' experienced the dying process for 930 years. Contrariwise, the world will, under the Messiah's rule as king and priest, Melchisedek (Psalm 60:4), gradually rise up, up, up, out of sin and death conditions during a very similar period of time.
"Paradise restored will no longer be a garden merely, but the whole earth, as God's footstool, shall be made glorious (Isaiah 9:13). The promises of God to the children of Isaac and Jacob are not heavenly or spiritual, but earthly. From Genesis to Malachi there is not a suggestion of a heavenly or spiritual calling. If Christians have a heavenly calling it is no cause for offense to Mohammedans and Jews--neither of whom have conflicting hopes. There is no need for conflict--every reason for harmony.
TIMES OF RESTITUTION.
"Not only do the ancient prophecies foretell coming blessings of the Lord upon Jew and Gentile, bond and free, but the law typified the same. Every fiftieth year with the Jew was to be a jubilee year--a time of release from debts and from all bondage. The lesson is that Messiah's reign will be the great time of jubilation to men, to all who will accept and obey his rule. The cancellation of debts represents that God (through Messiah) will thus cancel the debt of original sin and set free Adam and his race. All will then be given a fresh start for life eternal. The setting free from bondage in the jubilee year typed man's release from the weaknesses inherited through Adam's fall. It will include the resurrection from the dead, the great prison house mentioned by the prophet (Isaiah 61:1).
"If we see this great fact about to be accomplished need we quarrel about how it is to be done? Since it offers [CR114] blessings to all who love God's righteousness, why dispute over details? Shall we contend with God and his plans and promises except to our injury? Let us rejoice with the Jew. God has decreed for the natural seed of Abraham a glorious share in the great work of blessing the world--to the Jew, first, this means a blessing; to the others, later. The Scriptures clearly teach that Messiah will establish the new covenant with Jacob--natural Israel. Let all who reverence the Lord acquiesce in his arrangements. And if the Jews shall some day see that the oath-bound promise to Abraham meant two seeds, let them be glad and rejoice in their portion. If the great Messiah soon to be revealed in power and great glory be composed of many members on the spirit plane, what matters it to Jacob, all of whose promises are on the earthly plane? Moreover, there is no room for jealousy anyway, for these 'elect' who shall be on the spirit plane are of all nations--the Jew being there given also the preferred place. Furthermore, the select or 'elect' few are not either Christians or Jews in the ordinary usage of those words, but saintly, holy ones chosen by the Lord from every sect and party, because of their love for righteousness and faithfulness under trials.
I WILL SHAKE THE EARTH.
"The context shows us that 'The desire of all nations' will be realized as the result of a great shaking of the heavens and earth and sea and all nations. This is prophetic of the great time of trouble, with which the collapse of present institutions will come about as precedent to the establishment of Messiah's kingdom--'the desire of all nations.'
"We are not left to speculate respecting the import of these words, 'Shake the heavens, the earth and the sea.' The great theologian, St. Paul, quoted this very passage in his epistle to the Hebrews (12:26-28). He pointed out that the literal shaking of Mt. Sinai and the terrible sights associated at the time of the inauguration of Israel's law covenant was but a feeble picture of the awful commotion which will prevail in its antitype--when Israel's new (law) covenant will be instituted at Mt. Zion in the end of this age at the hands of the antitypical Moses--Messiah.
"The prophet intimates that it will be a short, sharp, decisive shaking, quickly accomplished. And the Apostle explains that it will be so thorough-going that everything that can be shaken will be shaken and will be removed. In other words, everything that is in the nature of a temporary makeshift for righteousness, truth, equity, will be shaken out of the way--not be allowed to remain, because the Lord will make a thorough work. St. Paul intimates that the kingdom which the church is to receive will be the only institution which will stand the shaking time and that only because the 'Church of the first born, whose names are written in heaven,' will have the divine approval; they will 'be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye'-- established enduringly on the heavenly plane at the right hand of God, principalities and powers being subject.
THE PRINCE OF PEACE.
"Notwithstanding the fact that Messiah's kingdom will be introduced by a period of universal trouble, anarchy, etc., which will overthrow civilization and uproot every sinful and imperfect human organization, nevertheless this will eventually lead to the most profound and most enduring peace. In that one great lesson humanity will learn the futility of its own endeavors, and will cry unto the Lord for help and for the desired peace--then 'the desire of all nations shall come.'
"Referring to this time of trouble the Prophet David declares of the Lord's work at that time, 'He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth. He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear asunder.' (Psalm 46:9.) Then wonderfully he announces the climax of it all, 'Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted amongst the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.' The only true basis of peace is righteousness and on this firm foundation Jehovah through his Anointed One will shortly establish it (Psalm 46:10)."
THE WRATH OF GOD
THE wrath of God is love's severity
In curing sin--the zeal of righteousness
In overcoming wrong--the remedy
Of justice for the world's redress.
The wrath of God is punishment for sin,
In measure unto all transgression due,
Discriminating well and just between
Presumptuous sins and sins of lighter hue.
The wrath of God inflicts no needless pain,
Merely vindictive, or Himself to please;
But aims the ends of mercy to attain,
Uproot the evil, and the good increase.
The wrath of God is a consuming fire,
That burns while there is evil to destroy
Or good to purify; nor can expire
Till all things are relieved from sin's alloy.
The wrath of God is love's parental rod,
The disobedient to chastise, subdue,
And bend submissive to the will of God,
That love may reign when all things are made new.
The wrath of God shall never strike in vain,
Nor cease to strike till sin shall be no more;
Till God His gracious purpose shall attain,
And earth to righteousness and peace restore.
[CR115]
Mayville Reception, Peacock Inn
Monday Evening of Chautauqua Convention
A SECOND detachment of Bible students, after the day's services, took a steamer for the upper end of the lake to attend Pastor Russell's reception. The lake journey was an enjoyable one along spiritual lines, the students rendering various well-known hymns effectively and discussing the convention topics of the day. They were as happy a crowd as ever passed over our beautiful lake.
At Peacock Inn the visitors crowded the lower floor of the house and the extensive lawn. Pastor Russell, after greeting each visitor, addressed them as a whole. He welcomed those already well known to him, as well as others whom he had not met previously. He congratulated them upon the wonderful day in which we are living; upon the wonderful Bibles from which we may study concerning the great divine plan of the ages. With an Oxford Bible in his extended hand he remarked: "I fear that even we fail to appreciate the value of this great book, which has exerted more influence in the world than all other books combined." He remarked that few preachers realize that the Bible has been in the hands of the public for only about one century. "Our oldest Bible societies," said he, "are this very year celebrating their centennial. When they were organized Bibles were only possessed by the rich. Now they are to be found in the homes of all--obtainable free by the destitute. Many are learning the value of Bible reference and the usefulness of Bible concordances in Scripture studies.
"Furthermore we are too apt to forget that general education has only now reached the masses. It is not yet thirty years since free schools were established in Great Britain. It is only about ten years since education has been made compulsory in all the most civilized lands. Thus God has favored our day in a two-fold manner, not only by giving us the Bible, but by giving the masses the intelligence necessary to its study.
"But, alas, just as these precious opportunities are in the hands of the masses--just as these blessings were given to humanity--just as Christendom was prepared for Bible study, the Lord allowed the Adversary to bring forward a most subtle influence in opposition to it. The foul-mouthed infidelity of the past has been supplanted by a far more dangerous enemy to Christian faith--the infidelity known as 'higher criticism.' It is dangerous because of its insidious character. It has entrenched itself in all the colleges and in all the theological seminaries. While all of our churches of all denominations ostensibly stand as defenders of the Bible, the citadel of faith is being captured by the great Adversary of God and the truth--Satan. He is deceiving, estranging and misleading the hosts of Christendom through the very theological professors and D.D.'s to whom they have been led to look for spiritual light and direction and whom they had supposed to be staunch defenders of the Bible as the inspired Word of God.
"This is a severe arraignment, but it is a generally truthful one, as each may demonstrate to himself. Most regretfully I am persuaded that four out of every five of all the ministers and Sunday school superintendents of Christendom have ceased to believe in the Bible as the divinely inspired revelation of the will and purposes of the Almighty. Some of these, nevertheless, claim to be earnest followers of Jesus as the Son of God and of divine origin. Yet how weak is their position! If Moses did not write the law and if it were not inspired, nor the prophecies inspired, what could we think of Jesus and his Apostles accepting those prophecies as inspired and founding all of their teachings thereupon? Most evidently higher critics who still believe in Jesus as the divine Son of God have not thought logically on the proposition and will reject everything pertaining to the Scriptures upon further reflection.
"I congratulate you, my friends, that while sorrowfully we behold the fulfilling of the Scriptures in the falling away of these our friends, we are not compelled by anything in reason nor in the Scriptures to suppose that their fate for such infidelity will be eternal torment. I congratulate you that, as Bible students, we are growing stronger in our faith day by day while, in fulfillment of the Scriptures, a thousand fall at our side and ten thousand at our right hand (Psa. 91:7). I congratulate you that the study of the Bible with the assistances which God is now providing is clearing up the mysteries which have perplexed us all our lives and is bringing to us greater appreciation of his glorious purposes and greater loyalty to him and more earnest desire to serve his cause of righteousness and to lift up the standard of the cross of Christ.
"Truly, as the Lord through the prophet expressed it, our feet have been kept from stumbling. Instead of stumbling-stone of greater intelligence of our day has lifted us to a higher plane of devotion and appreciation of the heights and depths and length and breadth of the love of God which passeth all understanding.
"Do not misunderstand me to be speaking harshly or unkindly of our dear friends who are stumbling over the educational opportunities of our day. On the contrary I sympathize with them. Once I stood exactly where they stand--once I, too, repudiated the Bible and the Word of God. I was as honest then as I am today, and feel bound to give others credit for equal honesty. They are blinded by the dazzling glare of the earthly science of our day. If they ever knew they have forgotten and dropped the light, the science which comes only from above. Some of them may be recovered from the snare of the Adversary, as I was. There is this difference, however; the majority seem to exult in their unbelief and to pride themselves and plume themselves on their opposition to the Bible, while my position was the very contrary of this. I deplored the necessity for abandoning the Bible. I considered it the rational thing to expect from the Supreme Creator some revelation of his purposes respecting mankind--the object of our creation; the purpose to be attained, and how and why.
"I have no doubt that many of you have had experiences similar to my own. Many of you have told me so. Let us hope that, as we have been recovered from the snare of the fowler, so also may some others be. Let us be prompt to lend the helping hand and an encouraging word. Let us realize that to the honest-hearted, the loss of the Bible must be a disaster to faith and hope, as it was in our own cases. Let us trust that there are many others, honest as ourselves, who will yet be recovered. Let us be encouraged to help them by a remembrance of how great a blessing came to us through the proper understanding of the Word of God."
Journal Editorial
BIBLE STUDY CONVENTION.
"One of the greatest conventions, both in point of attendance and enthusiastic interest, that have ever been held on the shores of Chautauqua lake is that of the International Bible Students' Association, now in session at Celeron. There are more than four thousand visitors at the convention, and from all reports they are delighted with the beauties of Chautauqua lake and with the arrangements which have been made here for their entertainment.
"These devoted Bible students are certainly given a cordial welcome to fair Chautauqua and industrial Jamestown. They come here in a quiet and unostentatious way in a spirit of devotion to the Book of books and a desire to learn more and more of its teachings under the leadership of Pastor Charles T. Russell, of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, a preacher and Bible teacher of world-wide reputation. The people of Chautauqua county are somewhat familiar with Pastor Russell and his teachings by reason of the Sunday School lessons which have been prepared by him and published in The Journal for a long time. But until the coming together of this great number of his followers from the very ends of the earth Chautauquans had little idea of the magnitude of the movement of which Pastor Russell is the recognized head."
Tuesday Sessions, August 2, 1910
THE Tuesday morning session was one of the most important of the convention and the auditorium was very well filled, both main floor and gallery. Brother E. W. Brenneisen, of Brooklyn, delivered an excellent discourse on "Baptism and Its Import." This was followed by a symbolic immersion in Chautauqua lake, near the toboggan slides, in which 242 men and women participated. Old men and women were immersed along with young people, the ceremonies taking place in the shallow water, and being witnessed by hundreds of persons along the water front and in boats.
The morning session of the convention opened with the singing of a hymn, "Love Divine, All Love Excelling."
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Mayville Reception, Peacock Inn
Tuesday Evening of Chautauqua Convention
TUESDAY evening the third instalment from the Bible Students' Convention, numbering nearly 600, visited Pastor Russell and were addressed by him on the lawns and verandas of Peacock Inn. The twenty miles' ride on beautiful Lake Chautauqua feasted their eyes. Their hymns of praise wafted to the cottages on the shores led many to surname these International Bible students--The Happy People. Pastor Russell spoke briefly and informally. Referring to the beautiful scenery of the lake, he remarked:
"The view turned my mind back to the Garden of Eden, reminding me of the divine provision of our first parents before sin came to mar the divine likeness in which Adam and Eve were created. Then my mind went forward into the future, guided by the divine lamp--the Word of God. In its light there arose before my mental vision Paradise restored--not a garden merely, but the entire earth made beautiful, gorgeous, fruitful, sinless, happy.
"I called to mind the inspired promise so familiar to us all: 'There shall be no more sighing, no more crying, no more dying;' for the former things of sin and death will have passed away, and the great King of Glory shall announce, 'Behold, I renew all things.' (Rev. 21:5.) I recalled also St. Peter's words of assurance respecting those glorious 'times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began.' (Acts 3:20-21.) St. Peter adds that this restitution of earth to its designed perfection typed in Eden, and of man to God's likeness, delays until the second advent of the Redeemer. And other Scriptures, dear brethren, assure us that the coming of our Master as the King of Glory is timed by God to take place as soon as the elect church shall have been called and chosen and tested and found faithful.
RESTITUTION WORK BEGUN.
"The divine purpose will not be thwarted by the permission of sin to mar the original. The sacrificial death of Jesus is the complete offset to the penalty pronounced on Adam and his race. Restitution to perfection and divine favor will result in God's 'due time.' And we believe that time near at hand.
"Do we not see the promised blessings coming? What are our vast irrigation schemes by artesian wells and by aqueducts but fulfillments of the prophecies pertaining to the reign of Messiah and the blessing of the earth? Hark to the message: 'Streams shall break forth in the desert, and the wilderness shall blossom as the rose.'--Isaiah 35.
"Burbank and others are under divine guidance working miracles in horticulture, just as Edison and others have been the instruments of Providence to give us electrical devices. What beautiful fruits and flowers are the result! It is difficult to imagine greater perfection either in Eden of old or in the world-wide Eden to be restored.
DELIVERING THE CAPTIVES.
"But, my friends, the most important piece of restitution
work relates to man. The hard, stony selfishness of heart
which is worldwide is not God's likeness nor to God's glory.
"'Man's inhumanity to men
Makes countless thousands mourn.'
"Nineteen centuries of preaching shows that the cure of this malady is not in our power, and that only the few even desire or seek for the Lord's spirit of gentleness and tender-heartedness. The great King of Glory is also the Good Physician. He only can cure the disease of sin and its results. Through him God's promise to Israel will be fulfilled."
After some light refreshments the "happy people" departed on the boat for the lodgings along the lake and at Jamestown, singing en route.
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Mayville Reception, Peacock Inn
Wednesday Evening of Chautauqua Convention
THE Peacock Inn and its spacious lawns at Mayville, with Pastor Russell of the Brooklyn Tabernacle as host, entertained the fourth contingent of Bible students, about 600 strong, Wednesday evening. The numbers each night are regulated by cards of invitation. Like its predecessor the occasion was an enjoyable one long to be remembered with pleasure and profit. Again the songs of "the happy people" of the International Bible students, coming and going, gladdened and cheered the dwellers at the lakeside homes, who will not soon forget this convention.
In connection with his greetings Pastor Russell said:
"To the gathering of Bible students who visited me here last evening I remarked the increasing beauties of nature as foregleams of the great 'restitution' promised in the Bible (Acts 3:20), and which we believe is now nigh at hand. We then considered the world's hope, based on the great sacrifice at Calvary and the Bible's testimony respecting its far reaching results. Tonight let us consider briefly the future of the church's hope.
"Like many of our Christian friends, for a long time we did not understand how to 'rightly divide the word of truth' (2 Tim. 2:15); we did not comprehend that God's plan provides first a heavenly salvation for the church and then an earthly salvation for manhood in general. The study of our Bibles along dispensational lines clears away all of our difficulties. It shows us that the promise that the redeemed 'shall sit every man under his own vine and fig tree and long enjoy the work of their hands' is God's provision for Israel restored to divine favor, and for all the families of the earth; but not for the church. Of the true church, the Bride of Christ, it is declared that her members shall in the resurrection be 'like unto the angels'-- heavenly or spiritual beings.
"St. Paul distinctly says of these: 'Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.' (1 Cor. 15:50.) Jesus tells these that he has gone to prepare them a place in the Father's house on high. But the place for man, the earth, already provided from the foundation of the world, is a very different one from ours, of which we read, 'Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath in reservation for them that love him.'
THE SPIRITUAL CALL.
"Now we understand why it is that from Genesis to Malachi there is not one suggestion of a heavenly or spiritual hope for anyone. Every promise is earthly. In Abraham's case, for instance, we read, 'Lift up, now, thine eyes and look to the east, west, north and south, for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee.'
"St. Paul refers to this difference between the hopes of the spirit begotten church founded at Pentecost and the hopes of all others. Pointing to the faithful of the past [CR117] he declares that although they had God's testimony to their faithfulness, nevertheless they received not the promises, 'God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.' (Hebrews 11:38-40.)
"As soon as we get our better thing, our higher reward of 'glory, honor and immortality,' in joint heirship with our Lord as figuratively his bride, then the worthy ones of ancient times will get their reward of resurrection to human perfection. Then under Messiah's kingdom those perfect men will be the 'princes in all the earth.' (Psalms 45:16.) Then from the spiritual to the perfected earthly ones, the blessings and instructions for the world will descend to the poor, ignorant, selfish and superstitious world--to help them; to uplift the obedient to the perfections illustrated by the perfected worthies.
WHAT HEAVEN IS LIKE.
"We have all heard of the Sunday school teacher who told her class about heaven--about its pianos, harps, organs, horses and carriages, fruits and flowers, etc. We see that she was merely thinking of the blessings God has provided for the faithful and obedient of the world, 'in due time.' She had no conception of the heaven of heavens promised to the faithful followers of Jesus in the narrow way.
"The Great Teacher explains that it is impossible to describe heaven and its beauties and charms. He said to Nicodemus: 'If I have told you of earthly things and ye believed not, how would you believe if I should tell you of heavenly things?' (Jno. 3:12.)
"In line with this the Bible makes no attempt to describe heaven itself, nor its inhabitants. Merely we are told that God is a Spirit 'dwelling in light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can ever see,' personally. Man must discern God in his works--the noblest of which is the perfect man--made in his moral likeness on the earthly plane--a little lower than the angels on the spirit plane. The most that the Word declares of our heavenly inheritance is that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath in reservation for them that love him.' (1 Cor. 11:9.)
"But while refusing to inform us of the heavenly conditions God does give us a soul-satisfying portion. Through the Apostle he declares 'it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he (the glorified Jesus) shall be revealed (at his second advent, in power and great glory) we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is,' while others not thus 'changed' from human to spirit nature, by the first resurrection power, will not see him as he is, but only as he shall be revealed in his providence and judgments, which every eye shall recognize.
"How satisfactory--beyond all that we could have asked or thought. 'Like him'--what more could we ask--'like him' whom God hath highly exalted, far 'above angels, principalities and powers.' We stand amazed at such grace. Moreover, we can realize that he who called us to become 'partakers of the divine nature' and joint heirs with the Redeemer in his mediatorial kingdom has provided for our every comfort and joy in that heavenly state, the details of which we may not now grasp. Prophetically of these it is written: 'I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness.'" (Psalms 17:15.)
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Pastor Russell Interviewed by the Journal
Christian Pulpits Held by Infidels. Inconsistent
to Give Money to Universities and Seminaries
which Teach Evolution
IN an interview with a representative of the Journal, Pastor Charles T. Russell declared that many evolutionists fraudulently hold Christian pulpits and that they are thus sailing under false colors. Pastor Russell gave utterance to this expression of sentiment when he was told that many wealthy and respected citizens of this country contribute liberally to foreign missions and thus indicate their consistency and sincerity in their efforts to promote the Christian faith. Among other things he said:
"You state that some of our wealthy citizens occupy a ridiculous position in that they contribute millions to the support of foreign missionary societies to send Bibles and missionaries to the heathen to convert them to Christianity, and that at the same time they contribute other millions to college which openly teach evolution and repudiate the Bible. Is this a fair statement of your contention?" Pastor Russell was asked.
"Yes, you have stated the matter fairly. It seems to me that the position is an inconsistent one--to spend money in making infidels at home and other moneys in the opposite direction abroad. Indeed, to my understanding, the so-called gospel that is preached to the heathen is a message of damnation rather than a message of salvation; the doctrines of the creeds of the dark ages are presented instead of the doctrines of the Bible. Thus God's character and Book are misrepresented at home and abroad."
"What would you advise the rich to do in this matter? Would you advocate the discontinuance of contributions to the foreign missions, or the withdrawal of support from colleges teaching higher criticism, or what?"
"Each rich man must decide such questions for himself; each is a separate steward, responsible to God. For my own part, I would not give a dollar to either. I surely would not assist the colleges in their present work of undermining faith in the Bible as the Word of God; and just as surely I would not assist in preaching to the heathen doctrines which misrepresent the divine character and government. Understand me, however, I hold that the rich have every right to give their wealth to the promulgation of infidelity if they choose, and that college professors have every right to undermine Christian faith in the Bible and to destroy all confidence in God and Jesus Christ as the redeemer of the world, and that the name of Christ should not be used as a foil of infidelity--that Christian parents should be permitted to know in advance that the sending of their children to college in this, our day, means the destruction of all their faith in God and the Bible."
"Do you consider it wrong for a man to accept a Christian pulpit when he disbelieves the Bible and its teachings of the Savior's miraculous birth and sinfulness, and that he 'gave himself a ransom price for all?'"
"Yes, I would consider such a course highly reprehensible and thoroughly dishonest. But, of course, if the entire congregation fully understood the preacher to be an infidel-- an unbeliever--and if they called him because of his unbelief, he then would be fully at liberty to accept such a call, and would be free from charges of personal deception. But if the congregation and the minister still maintained and held out to the world that they were Christians, they would be really deceivers and slanderers of the name Christian."
"From your remarks, I gather, Pastor Russell, that in your estimation a man believing the doctrine of evolution would not be a Christian at all. Did I understand you rightly?"
"You understand me correctly. The entire teaching of the Bible is opposed to the suggestion that man was evolved from a lower order of animals. The issue is so squarely drawn as to leave no room whatever for compromise. A Christian is one who believes the testimony of Jesus and the apostles, that Jesus is the son of God, that he died for man's sin, the just for the unjust that he might bring us back to God, from whose favor we fell representatively in Adam. I see no reason why a man who denies the Bible, denies the fall of Adam and his race, denies the redemptive work of Jesus, and denies the restitution work which eventually he will accomplish--I see no reason why such a man should misrepresent himself as a Christian. Far more honorable would it be for him to declare himself anti-Christian --in opposition to the teachings of Christ and the Bible. One surely wonders whether or not the majority of the learned gentlemen who occupy this incongruous position would do so if there were neither salary, titles, nor honorary emoluments attaching."
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(Reprint from Jamestown Evening Journal, Saturday, August 6, 1910)
Pastor Russell's Interview
Leader of International Bible Students' Association Discusses
Several Topics of Timely Interest--Views Given in Clear,
Concise Manner Churches Have Taken a Step in the Right
Direction in Making Their Sittings Free--Financial
Matters Not Mentioned in Brooklyn Tabernacle
--Eternal Torment Should Not Be
Preached--Theory of Evolution Conflicts With Bible.
A REPRESENTATIVE of The Journal visited Pastor Charles T. Russell and interviewed him upon various points which, we believe, will prove interesting to our readers. The questions and replies follow:
NO ADMISSION CHARGE--NO COLLECTIONS LIFTED.
"It is reported that you never participated in a meeting where an admission fee is charged or where collections are taken up. Is that a fact and, if so, what led you to such a course?"
"It is a fact. Without wishing to reflect against brethren who take a different view of the matter and who follow a different course, I feel that I should follow my own conscience in this and in every matter. Not long since it was the general custom to sell the sittings in every church, in addition to charging a rental. This custom is still followed, but the majority of churches have broken away from it and have their sittings free. I believe that they have taken a move in the right direction and that it can only be a question of time until they will agree with me that the lifting of collections is equally ungracious--a cheap form of begging --an attempt to wheedle from people money which they are not really anxious to give to the cause. In some parts of Germany they used to have the matter skillfully arranged with a tilting lid upon the collection box and a cord which passed back over the collector's finger by which he could trap the lid and dump the contents when desired. To the lid were fastened coins of large value as an appeal to the pride of the contributor not to put anything very small on the plate. If a small coin were placed upon it the cord was pulled and it was dumped out of sight; but, if large pieces of money, they were allowed to remain in sight.
"All Christian people claim God as their Father and the Lord Jesus as the great supervisor of the affairs and interests of the church. All agree that our God is rich. 'All the gold and the silver are his, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.' It seems to me, therefore, that we discredit our faith or discredit our God when we beg in his name and without his authority. 'The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.' And such will find no difficulty in finding opportunities for contributing to the work which they love and desire to serve. For the sake of those who are cheerful givers and who might feel a hesitancy about giving so small an amount as they could afford to give I think that a collection box might be fastened in every church--but then not in a conspicuous place--not before the worshiper as he passes out or in but off in some corner where he could find it or be directed to it if anxious to use it.
"This sentiment has been with me from childhood. Well do I remember how then I saw some of the wealthy men of the congregation passing the collection boxes Sundays and how I sympathized with them, thinking that it must be a very uncomfortable matter to pose as beggars, even for a good cause. I did not then realize as I now do that such lifting of collections is out of harmony with the spirit of the entire Word of God. When about 13 and connected with the Congregational church I had an experience which made a lasting impression. Our congregation held a church fair, in connection with which the 'sheep' worked hard, giving their own time and money so that they might have an opportunity also of fleecing and milking the 'goats'--their worldly neighbors and friends who had no particular interest in religion. Amongst other novelties incidental was a voting contest for a lady's watch. One of the subscription books was given to me, with the suggestion that I get some votes. Having few wealthy friends I cast about in my mind with whom I should begin to get my book properly started. I thought of Dr. Hostetter, of stomach bitters fame, as a man of whom I had heard as being wealthy, but whom I did not know. I went to his office, explained my errand, and was promptly handed $2, the gentleman evidently appreciating the privilege. As I walked from his office the thought bore upon me, 'You have begged two dollars.' I felt so mean about the matter that I wished that $2 back in Dr. Hostetter's pocket. I started to return, but concluded that I would be making a bad matter worse by so doing. Resolving that I would never beg another cent under any conditions, I rendered up my accounts. I feel as strongly in the matter today as I did then, and am determined never to make an appeal for money, either directly or indirectly--not even making a 'poor mouth.'
"My conclusion that the Lord is fully able to supply whatever money he needs for his own work is fully borne out by my experiences. It is mine to use carefully, economically, every dollar which the Lord puts under my control directly or indirectly, and to leave to him to decide what are the necessities of his work. I neither beg nor go into debt."
"Are we to understand, Pastor Russell, that no collections are lifted and no appeals made for financial assistance in the Brooklyn Tabernacle?"
"Yes, that is exactly right. We have no desire to 'milk the goats.' And as for the 'sheep' of the congregation, they consider it a privilege to participate in the expenses. I might say that financial matters are not mentioned on the Brooklyn Tabernacle platform, either by myself or the assisting pastors.
PASTOR RUSSELL'S WORK INTERNATIONAL.
"Pastor Russell, will you kindly tell our readers why your work is always along independent lines--never under the auspices of any denomination or denominations?"
"All Christian people of all denominations, Catholic and Protestant, and Christians outside of all denominations have my sympathy and Christian love. I desire to be in fellowship with them all. To my understanding, however, the division of God's people into sects and parties having other names than those approved by Jesus and the apostles and separated from each other by creedal fences is all wrong. The majority of Christians have quite outgrown the sentiment which first led to their denominational organization; but through custom the differences are maintained, and to the dishonor of the Lord's character. It is not questioned that our Redeemer and his apostles established only the one church. When our various organizations were organized, each at its organization claimed that the others were wrong --were not the Church of Christ originally established-- and that it was the original one, or modeled after the original design. Hence the warfare which one time was bloody between the different sects and parties claiming to be the one true church.
"I thank God that that day has passed--that today a broader thought prevails. All denominations have repudiated the basis of their organization. We should, perhaps, except Catholics and Episcopalians, but the latter, at least, are ready to concede that all who are joined to Christ through faith in the merit of his sacrifice and through consecration to his service are members of the one true church, 'the church of the living God, whose names are written in heaven.' In proportion as this general fact is recognized all denominationalism is discounted, repudiated, as of human [CR119] organization, the product of ignorance and misunderstandings. The wonder is that, realizing and confessing all this, Christian people of various denominations still support their creedal fences--maintain their human creeds, which many of them at heart disown.
"As for myself, I consider it proper that I should not only preach Christian fellowship with all Christian peoples, but that I should ignore and stand free from all the creedal fences--in the open, in the liberty wherewith Christ makes free, in fellowship with all who acknowledge him. And thus it is that, by the grace of God, I am preaching weekly through the newspapers to millions of Christian people of all denominations the 'One Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of all.'"
"How about your church enrollment at the Brooklyn Tabernacle? Does it not imply a subscription to some kind of a confession of faith?"
"The Brooklyn Tabernacle congregation has no roll of membership. It welcomes all who love the Lord Jesus, who trust for justification in the merit of his sacrifice and who desire to walk in his steps of consecration and self-sacrifice. In view of what I have said respecting our financial affairs your readers will be surprised perhaps to learn that the Brooklyn Tabernacle congregation numbers very few who are rich in this world's goods. It is quite heterogenous as respects nationality and worldly conditions. Every Sunday you may meet not only American borns, but English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, French, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Germans, Poles, Syrians, Italians and Chinese. Of every nation and of every denomination they were described by St. Paul's words, 'not many great, not many rich, not many mighty, not many noble, but chiefly the poor of the world, rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.'"
ETERNAL TORMENT SHOULD NOT BE PREACHED.
"Pastor Russell, it is well known that you do not preach eternal torment, but in the interest of our readers I desire your view of the recently promulgated suggestion of theological seminary professors, to the effect that ministers must endorse in their pulpits the doctrine of eternal torment, even though they do not so believe, in order to maintain an influence over the masses. Should they, or should they not, do so?"
"Surely if there is any place in which honesty and conscientiousness might be expected it would be in the Christian pulpit and from Christian ministers, whose very position is a claim that they are not seeking the world's favor, but that of God alone, and that they stand for the truth at any cost. Ministers who believe that all except the saints will at death pass either to purgatorial sufferings of centuries or to an eternal torment, would be inexcusable if they did not so preach. My advice to such would be that they make a fresh examination of the Bible's teaching on this subject--that they be no longer satisfied merely with the fact that thus and so our fathers believed. Our fathers read the Bible in the light of a pine knot or tallow candle. Must we do the same? Shall we refuse the electric light of better translation and more harmonious interpretations which the Lord is now supplying? To spurn these privileges would surely be wrong.
"But assuredly very few Protestant ministers anywhere in any denomination any longer accept as true this horrible nightmare of the dark ages! Beyond question every educated minister knows the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Scriptures furnish no basis for belief in such a hell--that the hell of the Bible is the tomb, the state of death, recovery from which can only come by a resurrection of the dead. Under these circumstances it is not strange that a hell of torture is no longer preached amongst civilized people, except in an inferential manner.
"Some ministers of easy conscience content themselves with the use of ambiguous language respecting the future of the heathen and non-elect in general. They know that the thought of eternal torment is deeply imbedded in the minds of the majority of their hearers and without directly referring to the matter or explicitly saying what they do or do not believe, their hearers will surely draw the inference of eternal torture. Others less logical, without claiming any inspiration on the subject or any knowledge, proceed to manufacture and picture eternal remorse, gnawings of conscience, etc., as being the punishments for sin. Every minister of God should long and pray for the time when the truths of God's Word on this subject will be made plain. And each one should do his share to lift the cloud of ignorance and superstition which dominates the minds of the majority of the people on this subject, and which hinders love for God and for his Book and a full consecration to his service.
"Yes, I am aware that Dr. Vernon, venerable and respected as a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, not long ago at a public meeting advised that the old-time hell fire torment must again be preached if the churches would be filled and their treasuries replenished. But I do not think that any particular number of the ministers who heard Dr. Vernon shared his sentiments on the subject. They well know that if they were dishonest enough to preach what they do not believe on this subject the masses of their hearers are too intelligent to be interested any longer in such absurd misrepresentations of divine justice and love."
THE EVOLUTION THEORY UNSCRIPTURAL.
"It is well known, Pastor Russell, to the readers of your sermons that you are not an evolutionist, but I believe it would be of interest to our readers if you would frankly state whether or not in your opinion one could believe the theory of evolution and still be a Christian, and are there many who are thus departing from what you claim in the Scriptural teaching? And are these mostly in the cities or in the rural districts?"
"Perhaps you have misunderstood my position. I understand the Bible to teach that the creative days of Genesis, some of them before the sun and moon shone in upon the earth, were not solar days of 24 hours each, but epoch days thousands of years long--each day 7,000 years long according to the Scriptures, in my understanding. During the first six of these epoch days I understand the Scriptures to teach that a process of evolutionary development prevailed. This, I think, is substantiated in the statement that God said 'Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.' Such a bringing forth implies a gradual process of nature, instead of an instantaneous, creative act.
"It is in respect to man's creation that our evolution theories conflict with the Bible, the divine revelation. Evolutionists claim that man was evolved from a monkey. The Bible claims that man was a direct creation of God. I stand by the Bible. And even the most pronounced evolutionists seem ready to admit that the entire human family sprang from one pair, although this gives a death blow to their own theory, according to which many monkeys of the past should have evolved into humans, and some monkeys of today should illustrate the processes--especially the educated monkeys, chimpanzees, gorillas, etc., brought into contact with our civilization. I would not think it worth while quarreling with people who desire to run down their ancestry. What I object to is that their willingness to demean their forefathers should have any weight with Christian people as an offset to the Word of God.
"When you ask whether or not a person could be a Christian and a believer in evolution, you place me in a difficult position. It is not mine to judge any man's heart and to determine whether or not he has been gotten of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, the Scriptures assure us that 'if any man will do the will of my Father he shall know of my doctrine.' We can surely say that any Christian who believes in human evolution--that man is falling upward--has gotten far away from the divine message knowingly or ignorantly. The fundamental teaching of Christianity evolutionists certainly cannot hold--
"(1) That man was created in the divine image and likeness.
"(2) That by his transgression of the divine law he came under a penalty of death, 'Dying thou shalt die.'
"(3) The teaching of Christianity is that Jesus came into the world to rescue mankind from that death sentence which came through father Adam, and by satisfying the requirements of divine justice to open up the way for man's resurrection from the dead in due time. The teaching of Christianity is that the world's salvation will be by restitution of the willing and obedient to human perfection lost in Adam and redeemed by Jesus. Christianity further teaches that that blessing will come to the world during Christ's mediatorial kingdom reign, and that during this age God is calling the saints, holy ones, followers of Jesus, to testify their devotion by their faithfulness and self-denials unto death and then to be glorified with their Redeemer as his bride and joint heir in his kingdom. Every feature of all the Gospel of Christ is denied by the teaching of human evolution, which knows no fall and which knows of no need [CR120] of a redeemer to rescue from the fall, and which knows of no resurrection, and which knows no need of a glorified church to effect the restoration in due time.
"I believe that many sincere people, confused by the misinterpretations of the Bible and certain poor translations in our common version, have gone over to evolution, not from choice, but because they thought it preferable to thus believe rather than to believe the doctrine of eternal torment. Such people have my sympathy. I wish that they could see with me the beauties of the great divine plan of the ages."
PASTOR RUSSELL ONCE AN INFIDEL.
"It has been reported, Pastor Russell, that you in your youth were an infidel--an unbeliever in the Bible. May the readers of The Journal have a word from you on that subject? And would you supplement it, please, with some advice to honest infidels?"
"I recognize a broad distinction between an atheist and an infidel. The former atheist, in my use of the term, signifies one who does not believe in a personal God, the creator. The latter word, infidel, to me signifies one who disbelieves that the Bible is a divine revelation. That is to say, an infidel does not have faith in the Word of God. I never was an atheist, and could never be one. To me all nature speaks of a great supreme first cause, a God, of and by whom and through whom are all things, and we by him. To me 'day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge, and there is no place where their voice is not heard.' Everybody should believe in a supreme creator--a personal God. And it seems to me that only idiots and imbeciles could really be excused for total blindness on this subject. To this agree the words of Scripture, 'The fool hath said in his heart, "There is no God."'
"But so far as rejection of the Bible as a divine revelation is concerned, I was an infidel--an unbeliever. Reared a Christian, I early made full consecration of my all to the Lord. Before I reached 16 years of age my early teaching of heaven for the elect and a hell of eternal torture for the non-elect acted upon me as an emetic and I threw up all that I had believed on that subject. I took the spectacles of the higher critics and through them found fault with everything from Genesis to Revelation. I said to myself, 'I can no longer worship the imaginary God of my childhood, ferocious, unjust, tyrannical, unloving and unlovely.' Why should I worship an inferior? Rather would I worship a good man than a vicious God. I perceived that our great creator had not been changed by the various misrepresentations of his character; that he must be the embodiment of every grand and noble trait and quality.
"I bowed my knee and worshipped an unknown God, saying, 'Great Creator who made me, I reverence thee. I perceive that neither other men nor myself have the power to create the tiniest little creeping thing that has life. How great must thou be, my Creator! the Creator of all men and of all things! Whatever I have of appreciation of justice and whatever I see in others of that quality must have come from thee. Whatever I possess in the way of wisdom and whatever other men have of this quality it can only be so much that thou hast given us, and we are unable to measure thine infinite wisdom, so far beyond the scope of our intellects. We perceive the mental and the physical power of man and his ingenuity and ability to harness the winds and waves, flame and water, and to make these his servants. How much beyond all of this must be the power of him who created us! We bow before thee! We wonder and adore! Above all I recognize that the grandest of all qualities in the human character is love and sympathy. And I reflect that the very noblest, most loving and sympathetic of our race must be far inferior to our creator who implanted those qualities. Appreciating, then, with our mental grasp something of the length and the breadth and height and depth of thy wonderful character, I bow before thee. Thou art my God and I thy creature and servant. Would that I might call myself thy son, though I realize that for this I am not worthy!'
"My heart found rest when I found the true God, but I said, How strange that we lost him! And surely so wise, so just, so powerful and so loving a God would be pleased to give to his creatures some expression of his will respecting them and of his divine purposes in connection with their creation. This started me to look for a divine revelation. I said to myself, 'It is but reasonable to expect that a good God must have a gracious purpose in connection with my creation. And it is but reasonable to expect that if he gave man the power to think he will give some satisfactory message to those seeking it in sincerity.'
"But I said, 'This is not in our Christian Bible, as I had supposed.' Interpreting it in the light of the conflicting creeds, it seemed to me a confused mass of contradictions. The trouble was in my regarding the Bible from the standpoint of the various creeds instead of allowing God to be his own interpreter, that he might make it plain. Thinking that perhaps those whom we called 'heathen' peoples might be indeed wiser than we, I investigated the prominent religions of the world, only to turn from them all, and from all their sacred books, in disgust. I was obliged to concede that, however unsatisfactory was the Bible, it is far superior to all competitors.
"I began a fresh study of the Bible. After a hasty glance at the Old Testament I said, 'No, those old prophets, however good, however well-intentioned, were confused and spoke irrationally.' Then I took up the New Testament. I said 'Surely Jesus of Nazareth was a most wonderful character. Surely of him they said truly, "Never man spake like this man!" Surely the purity of his life shines through all of his teachings and through the teachings of his apostles.' The feet of my faith began to find a resting-place. Joy and peace began to come with the very suggestion that I was finding the divine revelation for which I sought.
"Now I rejoiced that I had found a substantial rest for my faith--that I had found the channels of divine revelation respecting the divine purposes. But I encountered a new and unexpected difficulty. I noted that Jesus and the apostles corroborated their teachings by the prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures--that a large proportion of the New Testament is made up from quotations from the Old Testament and of comments thereupon. Alas, I said, I must either repudiate the New Testament or accept the Old Testament also! It would not be logical to suppose that Jesus and his apostles were the inspired channels of the Creator, able to make me wise and yet suppose that I was so much wiser than they that I could know wherein the prophets of old strayed from the truth while they discovered it not.
"Again I was driven to an examination of the Old Testament. Well do I remember when I discovered the key to the difficulties. One of my first stumblings was over the Prophet David's prayer for his enemies, 'Let them go down quick into hell.' I re-examined this from the standpoint of the Hebrew and found that in plain English the word hell here signifies the grave, the state of death. I perceived that I had been unjust to David; that he merely had been praying for what the judges of our courts today attend to without praying, namely, the sentencing of evil-doers to a death penalty. This proved to be the key. When I found that our English word 'hell' in the Old Testament is the translation of the Hebrew word 'sheol,' signifying tomb, the bulk of all my objections to the Old Testament vanished. A critical examination showed that the original sentence upon our first parents in Eden was a death sentence; that in consequence our race is a dying one, but that it has been redeemed from 'sheol' by the Saviour and that ultimately 'sheol' will be destroyed and all the prisoners of the grave be released in the 'resurrection of the dead, both just and unjust.'"
FOR WHOM PASTOR RUSSELL WRITES.
"In preparing your Sermons and Bible Studies for the hundreds of newspapers publishing them each week, The Journal being one of the number, what class of readers do you especially cater to?"
"I seek to be a purveyor of the Divine Truth to Christians of all denominations and to Christians outside of all denominations --the great mass of nominal, church-going people. It is my endeavor to make them educational, uplifting, beneficial, to every reader. Many write me of their deep appreciation--some from the educational, some from the sentimental and some from the religious standpoint. I have personal knowledge of hundreds of infidels that have been reclaimed to Christianity by my Volumes of Scripture Studies and by my sermons in the newspapers. In a letter recently received the writer informed me that his neighbor had put up a wire fence to keep his chickens off the writer's garden patch as a result of his reading one of my sermons in which the principles of justice were set forth. The neighbor perceived for the first time that he must observe the Golden Rule and must have his chickens observe it also." [CR121] "THE EARTH ABIDETH FOREVER."
"It is reported that you expect the re-establishment of the Jews in Palestine within the next five years, never to be again overturned. Will you advise our readers how you would harmonize this view with the statement of some that the world is soon to come to an end--to be destroyed-- to be burned up?"
"It is the common teaching, I admit, of all the Christian creeds that the earth is to be destroyed by fire. Adventists more frequently refer to this expectation than do others, but it is a fundamental in all the various creeds. To my understanding they all err in that particular. They have lost sight of what the Bible teaches, namely, that 'The earth abideth forever,' that 'Seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, shall continue as long as the sun and moon endure.' St. Peter is good authority with all denominations, and he explains that with the return of the Messiah the great time of blessing will ensue, 'times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. And he shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you, whom the heavens must retain until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.' (Acts 3:19-21.) Times of restitution signify the years of the Messiah's reign in which he will bring the whole earth back to the glorious condition typed in the Garden of Eden; and bring man from his lost condition in sin and death to the original perfection in which he was created, plus the valuable lessons of experience learned in connection with the reign of Sin and Death and the redemption and restitution therefrom.
"By the way the foundation for the World-burning theory was laid in St. Peter's words also. The commentators of the past, not perceiving that 'times of restitution' are to follow the second advent of the Messiah, the time for blessing all the families of the earth--mistook St. Peter's symbolical fire and thought it literal. The fire of that day will be no more literal than the coals of fire which we are scripturally urged to heap upon the heads of our opponents, and the 'fiery trials' that assail all who are loyal to the Lord and to his word. 'The fire of that day shall try every man's work, of what sort it is.' All the wood, hay and stubble of error will be consumed, St. Paul tells us, and only the gold, silver and precious stones of divine truth will stand the test.
"It is my understanding that we are already entering this day of fire. The elements of society are preparing for the great crash, the great conflagration, the great conflict between the rich and the poor, princes and peasants, the trusts and the people. The scriptures intimate that this great day of trouble will be a period of anarchy, in which the fabric of the present social structure will be consumed. They assure us that upon their ashes the Lord will establish the new order of things, symbolically styled the 'New heavens and the new earth,' before which the present symbolical heavens (ecclesiastical) and the present symbolical earth (human society) will flee away and no place be found for them.
"As for the Jews, it is not our thought that all the Jews will return to Palestine, but that representative Jews from all lands, some of the most religious of them, will return thither. According to the scriptures, we understand that they cannot possibly have any governmental standing or recognition there until after the close of the 'times of the Gentiles,' 1915 A.D."
PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING
GOD never would send you the darkness,
If He felt you could bear the light;
But you would not cling to His guiding hand,
If the way were always bright;
And you would not care to walk by faith,
Could you always walk by sight.
'Tis true He hath many an anguish,
For your sorrowful heart to bear,
And many a cruel thorn-crown,
For your poor, tired head to wear;
He knows how few would reach heaven at all,
If pain did not guide them there.
So He sends you the blinding darkness,
And the furnace of seven-fold heat;
'Tis the only way, believe me,
To keep you close to His feet--
For 'tis always so easy to wander,
When our lives are glad and sweet.
Then nestle your hand in your Father's
And sing, if you can, as you go;
Your song may cheer some one behind you,
Whose courage is sinking low;
And, well, if your lips do quiver--
God will love you better so.
[CR122]
Special Meeting for Pilgrims, Elders and Deacons
DEAR Friends: I am very glad to meet with you this evening--the pilgrims, strangers foreigners, respecting this world, elders and deacons in the Church of Christ, of all denominations, irrespective of denominational lines. I thought I should like to have a little talk with you, because it seems to me that, in the first place, there is a great work devolving upon you--a great responsibility in connection with the Lord's harvest work. And, in the second place, because I believe that those who occupy any place of service in the Lord's household have correspondingly heavy temptations and trials, and every one of us ought to feel the responsibility of the position and the dangers to our own feet. You know it is very easy for us to think about other people, and other people falling, and other people slipping, and other people sliding, but it is a very important matter, I think, to bring it right home to ourselves. When, in looking over the general interests of the Lord's work, I have seen those who are in danger, and those who are slipping and sliding, I have observed for years that a large proportion of them are those who have had influential places in the Church of Christ--important positions of service in the Body of Christ,--and I feel that the Apostle's words are fully substantiated when he said, "Do not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive a severer judgment." So while it is a very honorable thing to be a servant in the Body of Christ, it carries with it a very weighty responsibility and danger, lest, after preaching to others, we ourselves should be castaways. In my own personal experience, dear friends--and I expect to say nothing to you I do not feel for myself--I have had this heavily upon my heart and mind for several years. I have noted some of those who slipped away from the truth, and have said to myself, Some of these people have good intellects, some of them at least see matters very clearly, and if they could see clearly at one time and, apparently, be very intelligent in the truth, and then to lose it and have it all become blind to them, might not I, similarly, fall away from the position of favor, and knowledge of truth, also? And my heart answered, Yes, and I said to the Lord, "Lord keep me, hold me in thy powerful hand."
While we are not to attempt to pass judgment on anybody and say, "You are thus, and you are so, and you have too much of this, and too little of that," yet we cannot be oblivious to some conditions you know, and after one has fallen away, it is not improper at least to say, "On what did he slip?" At the time it might be improper for us to judge that anyone was slipping, or that he was in a wrong condition of heart, because we are not able to judge the heart; but after one has slipped, then I think it is right and proper that we should look to see upon what did that person slip.
I remember as a boy passing along a street of Pittsburg, one evening, after the snow had fallen, I walked over one of those old, smooth, iron cellar doors when it was covered with a thin shimmer of snow. Just as I stepped upon it I went down that quick (snapping finger). And just as I fell I thought of the Scripture that says, "Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." I think I had hardly touched the cellar-door when I had that all through my head. I do not know that I had any haughty spirit in connection with that fall, but I concluded that I could learn a good lesson from that. I have watched, and my experience is that there are slippery places along the spiritual pathway, and when we are carelessly walking along, thinking about something else, and not minding our feet, not watching where we are stepping, is the time when we are likely to go down quickly. And the thing, so far as my judgment will enable me to determine, that has proven the most disastrous to those who have fallen, has been a spirit of pride and selfishness. You know what I mean. I think it is often well for us to be so much on guard on that subject that if we find any feeling creeping up at any time of any disposition to sit down on anybody, we had better inquire of ourselves, Why am I wishing to sit down on that brother? Is it simply because it is necessary and proper, or is it some feeling of pride that I have? And whatever may be the matter that comes, we need to keep close watch upon ourselves, upon our own hearts. Of course, we want to keep watch upon our tongues, and upon all the conduct of life, but especially upon our hearts. What is the motive? Why did you say that? Why did you do that? What was the motive behind such an action? And when we thus criticise ourselves, we are doing what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, "See then that ye walk circumspectly." To walk circumspectly means to look all around to see where you step. And so you and I, dear brethren, in proportion as we have service to do for the great King, realize that our adversary, the Devil, goeth about seeking whom he may entrap, and ensnare, and stumble, and that in like proportion he gives special attention to us. I am confident he gives me plenty of attention. Of course, we are glad on the other hand that the Lord also is giving us his attention. Whoever is specially beset by the adversary, the Lord, we may be sure, is also specially caring for, if they are his and loyal at heart. "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them."
It would not be my thought to inculcate a spirit of slavish fear, but a spirit of great reverence for God, and an intense feeling that we are in the most important work and that we are simply there as God's servants, and the servants of the Church, and it behooves us to do all in our power to serve the flock of Christ and not to do so from any selfish motive, any spirit of vaunting self, or puffing up self, or exalting self before the people, but, simply, How can I best serve the Lord, and those who are his? And where that spirit is within, I believe there is safety, and if there be any other spirit, if you find yourself looking out for a position, I believe you will find you are in a dangerous place and should pray God for your deliverance.
I am not the only one who has observed this. Some dear brethren have written me along the same line. I think of several pilgrim brethren who wrote me, saying, "Brother Russell, I wish you could put something in the Watch Tower that would serve to help save and protect us pilgrims. When we go places the dear friends make so much of us that I feel," one writer said, "that so far as I am concerned I sometimes almost feel my head swelling, and you know that is a dangerous feeling." It was; he was right. It is well that the Lord's people everywhere should exercise judgment, and not speak in too laudatory terms of anybody, but speak in as laudatory terms as you please about the truth and about the Great One who gave us the truth--the Lord. But do not puff up anybody unduly. There may be some that could stand it, and others who could not stand it, and you and I would be very sorry if we should find ourselves responsible ultimately for having helped to stumble some brother in the way. The very fact they mention this, you see, shows that others besides myself have felt the importance of the situation and the responsibility of the position.
As I was thinking about this little address this evening,
a certain text of Scripture came into my mind, the language
of the Apostle Paul when he called together the elders
of Ephesus, when he was on his way to Jerusalem, and had
not time to go to the city. The elders came out to meet
him near the ship, and when they were together he said,
as the mouthpiece of the Lord Jesus, "Take heed, therefore,
unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the
Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of
God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." (Acts 20:28.)
Mark the way the Apostle states it--"Take heed
[CR123]
PILGRIMS, ELDERS, & DEACONS.... (Picture only on page)
[CR124]
unto yourselves." That comes in first, my dear brethren,
with all of us. God sees it to be more important to you
what you shall do for yourself than what you shall do for
anybody else, and God sees it to be so with me, and that
I must be more particular respecting myself than respecting
anybody else, no matter who. It is well I should feel the
responsibility of being a servant of the Lord and a mouthpiece
and ambassador, and it is well that you should feel
your responsibility in whatever you shall say and in all you
shall do and in all your conduct, remembering the influence
this will have on others, either for good or for evil, but it
is still more important for yourself. God says that this
matter should begin with you, in your own heart, and with
me in my own heart. "Take heed unto yourselves." That
means, dear friends, a very careful watch, a watch of our
motives, a watch of all we do--strict heed--not merely that
you took heed last year and took an inventory and saw
then just the condition of your heart and found it all right.
I have found in my experience it is important for the
Lord's people, especially for those who are in any prominent
place, to take inventory of their condition every night.
How are you tonight, before you go to bed? What is your
heart's condition? How near are you to the Lord? Have
you any spots upon your garments, any wrinkles upon the
wedding robe? If so, get rid of these. There is only the
one way. He who does not keep rid of the spots he gets and
keep rid of the wrinkles he gets, is not in any condition to
teach the flock of God anything on the subject. This
matter begins with ourselves, dear friends. "Take heed
unto yourselves."
Then, secondly, you will be in the proper condition to take heed of the flock of God, which God has purchased with the blood of his own Son. How much heed does the flock need? All your imperfect powers, and all of my imperfect powers. It is a wonderful privilege to be ambassadors for God, as though God was speaking, as though we were his mouthpieces. Oh, if we could only feel this evening as we sit here, and feel it every day, that it is not a plume or a medal, or something to be displayed, but it is a responsibility that we must give an account of! If you have large privileges, you have also large responsibilities. If the Church of Christ has given you a position, then you owe it to God to consider, as the Apostle said, that the Holy Spirit has made you an overseer--not merely that the flock of God has made you an overseer, not merely have they voted for you to be the elder or deacon in the Church, but that God has been behind this matter, and that the whole arrangement is of him. It is that you are to recognize and feel the responsibility, not merely to those brethren who chose you, but also that God was behind the whole arrangement, and that they were acting according to design and arrangement in electing you, and that you in accepting the election were responding not merely to their votes as the votes of so many New Creatures in Christ, but because you understand that the Holy Spirit was acting and moving according to the directions of the Word of God through those brethren who thus voted, and that your responsibility, therefore, is a double one: that as having accepted their votes and as having accepted the service which they tendered, and to God as recognizing that all the affairs of the Church of Christ are under divine supervision. As the Apostle puts it, God hath set in the body the various members as it pleases him, and if we are not faithful to the setting, he is very able to unset and to bring a different arrangement. It is for us to be, therefore, very careful to feel fully and strongly this responsibility to God and to the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made us overseers.
The Apostle goes on to say that the Holy Spirit made us overseers for certain purposes--with a certain object in view. What was that object? Was the object of the Holy Spirit in making us overseers of the flock that we might entertain the world? No. That we should feed the world? No. That we should tickle the ears of the Church? No. That we should show off ourselves, and flash? No. What was the object of the Holy Spirit in making us overseers? The answer of the Apostle is that the Holy Spirit made us overseers that we might feed the flock. What is it to feed the flock? It is to give them the meat in due season, to give the nourishment. Now, there are some who have a feeling that they must give the flock that kind of food which would glorify the giver most, and unless they can find some way of glorifying themselves in connection with it they are not going to feed anybody. That is all wrong. We all know that is wrong. They know that is wrong. They have not thought upon the responsibility of their position. The proper attitude, dear brethren, I am sure you will agree with me, is this: God wishes his flock to be fed; he has given you and me the opportunity of service in that direction; he expects us to lay aside self entirely and to devote ourselves with every energy to do all we can to feed the flock, ignoring self. Never mind whether they have any respect for you or not; never mind whether they glorify you or not; go in and feed the flock--let the other matter take care of itself. But my opinion is that the flock will ultimately know whether you have been feeding them or not, and the flock ultimately will appreciate you as a servant. They will not appreciate you as lord and master and as a king over them, and you should not wish to be so appreciated. The proper attitude for all the Lord's people is to be glad to be privileged to be servants of the flock, and, as Jesus said, he that is greatest amongst you, he whom you should esteem the most highly, who was it to be? The one who puffeth himself up? Nay, verily. Who was it to be? The one who serves most--the one who most thoroughly lays down his life in the service of the Lord's cause. Now that is the lesson the great Teacher himself gave to you and to me, that if we would be pleasing to him what care you and I whether we are pleasing to any one else or not. Of course, we should all like to be pleasing to everybody, and especially to the flock of God; that is proper enough; but we should fix first in our own hearts and first in our own minds that we should be pleasing to our Heavenly Father and to our Lord Jesus. And if we find that we are pleasing to them, no matter what else may happen, we have every reason to be thoroughly satisfied with the result. Is not that what we all agree to? I am sure it is.
Therefore, the special exhortation I wish to give is, that we forget self entirely, except to see that self is hard at work, that the "old man" is thoroughly bending his back to help on the New Creature in all the work that the New Creature is engaged in; that you are working him for all he is worth--making a regular slave of him if you please-- your old man, the natural man, the human body. I do not suppose there is any danger of anybody here going away and telling a story to the effect that they did not like the speaker because he spoke so disrespectfully of his father when he mentioned the "old man." We have the thought that our old man is the old nature, and that, as the Apostle tells us, you remember, the old nature has been given to us as New Creatures to be our servant, and whereas some of us formerly lent our powers to sin and wrong doing, so now, as New Creatures, we are to take these bodies and use them for every kind of righteousness, that we may glorify God in our bodies as well as in our spirit which are his.
So then I hope I make clear, and that it enters into all our hearts, the very great responsibility of being representatives of the Church in service--appointed to a service and not to lordship, and, secondly, appointed of the Lord to be his servants to feed the flock of Christ. We will honor our Lord and please him best to whatever extent we forget self and engage most thoroughly in the service of the truth. So that if the thought ever comes before your minds--as it may, or might--if I do this it will not glorify me, if I do that it would glorify me, you are to put such a thought entirely from you as being disloyal and unworthy of yourself as a New Creature. The whole thing you and I must have in mind in respect to our service is, What will please our Master whom we serve and whom we expect to join shortly, if found faithful, in his kingdom? If we seek to serve ourselves, then be assured that we will not be pleasing to him, and that we will fail of the great prize. We may be sure--I am certain you will assent to this --that the Lord will not have a single one in the kingdom class who is self seeking and selfish; that is contrary to the spirit of our Master; and so the Apostle tells us that God foreknew and foreordained the election of those who would be copies of his Son, and, therefore, if you and I would be copies of Christ and joint heirs of Christ in his kingdom we must be copies in this particular sense that he was servant of all; and to the extent that you and I can be servants of all, or servants of a few, as the case may be, we should be glad of the opportunity.
Now, another line of thought, if you please: When I use the word "preach" do not understand me to mean merely to orate as in a discourse or sermon. We are preaching in the sense of teaching. All public speaking is in the nature of preaching or giving forth the message, whether it be in holding Berean classes, or whatever other way; it [CR125] is a preaching or sending forth the message of the Lord. And I suggest to you, dear friends, that the thing we are to preach, the message we are to deliver, is a very important one, and that the Adversary would like very much to get our minds diverted from it. Some he might tempt to go off on to some side issue that was new, so that the class might think they were getting new light. I do not think you want any new light. I do not think the Lord wants any new light. I do not think there is any new light, my dear friends. Our great light was started eighteen hundred years ago. The difficulty with us has been that that light has become obscured by the traditions of the elders, and we are trying to get the globe washed clean so the light can shine out. We are trying to get things so that the great truths that Jesus and the Apostles enunciated are understood clearly by ourselves and all the flock of God over which he has made us overseers. Hence we should avoid anything like trying to manufacture some new light, dangerous to ourselves and dangerous to the flock. Is there not plenty in the Gospel Jesus preached? Is there not plenty in the Gospel the Apostles preached? How much more do we want, I would like to know? I do not think, my dear friends, that it is necessary for you and me to turn in to be manufacturers of new light, and I think there is a danger in that direction, therefore I am seeking to guard you. I believe that the message of the Lord Jesus, the message that the angels announced, is the message that the world needs to understand--the great love of God, and the great love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and how he died, the just for the unjust, and the class he is now calling, and how we must make our calling and election sure, and how the ransom price that Jesus paid is the foundation for the entire scheme of salvation, that the death of Jesus is the foundation upon which every feature of divine grace is builded. Then all the philosophy connected with that can very well come in; it is all connected; but ransom, restitution, sacrifice, and the divine nature--these are the fundamentals of the Gospel of Christ, so far as I can see. These are the things that Jesus and the Apostles taught and that they set us an example respecting. I believe your course will be the most pleasing to God, and the most successful with his people in bringing them into harmony with the Lord and blessing them with the richness of his spirit, in proportion as you keep very close with the Master and to those twelve stars whom God appointed to be the circle, the crown, of the Church, as pictured in the 12th chapter of Revelation.
Another thing: Some of the dear brethren seem to find as much about Brother Russell in the Bible as they find about the Lord Jesus, and I think that is a great mistake. I do not find it there. Some of them say that I am blinded on that subject, that they all can see better than I can. Perhaps they can, I do not know, but I think, dear friends, that there is a danger in that direction, and I would like to put you all on guard. I think it is the Lord's will that we should recognize every agency God uses, but we are not to recognize any agency of God as being in any competition whatever with the Lord or with his divine arrangement. He is the fountain of blessing, he only is most to be praised. I think that is the right sentiment. I believe you all agree with that. And yet I think there is a danger of some dear friends preaching Brother Russell. Brother Russell would like for you not to do so. He thinks it would not be to the glory of God. Let me repeat, then, dear friends, that in my opinion we have so much of the Gospel of God, so much of his plan to study, so many opportunities of showing forth his praises, that we should employ all our time in that way. My advice, therefore, is that we give very little attention to anything outside of that. The Scriptures do indeed say that we may render honor to him to whom honor is due, and that is applicable to anybody and everybody; as, for instance, we look back and we see Martin Luther, and he did a grand work, and we thank God for him; and we might say the same of John Wesley, and very truthfully; I am glad in God's providence he lived, and that he was a faithful man. And there were others of the Lord's people in the past. Let us be glad and rejoice in every one, and be thankful to God he has used various agencies in helping us, and in helping others, and in bringing forward his great cause; but let us not go into anything that would be at all like man-worship, for I am sure that would be displeasing to the Lord and injurious to ourselves. I remind you again of the Scripture in Revelations where the Church is pictured, which we called attention to, I believe, thirty years ago. John, the revelator, who was seeing these things, fell down to worship the angel who showed them to him, and the angel said, "See thou do it not; worship God; I am thy fellow-servant." And so, dear friends, if our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Lord have used Brother Russell in any measure he is very glad and very thankful to be used. And if the Lord is pleased to use him any more, he will be glad to be used down to the last breath, but he does not want any worship, he does not want any undue adoration, he does not want any praise. He is glad to have the love of all those who are brethren of the Lord and to be considered a fellow-servant with all, striving to bring to pass all the glorious things that God has promised, striving to tell the good tidings of great joy to as many as the Lord, our God, shall call.
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Mayville Reception, Peacock Inn
Friday Evening of Chautauqua Convention
NEARLY six hundred more Bible students from the convention visited Pastor Russell at the Peacock Inn, Mayville. Pastor Russell welcomed all most heartily. In the course of the evening he gave a little address as on previous occasions. He said in part:
"One of old was declared to be 'a burning and a shining light.' There is force in this expression. Some lights are cold, austere, unsympathetic; but the kind approved by the Master was the burning kind--warm, glowing, sympathetic, helpful, intensive. The Master himself furnishes the best of all illustrations of the principle enunciated. He was the light which came down from heaven--undimmed, resplendent, shining forth to the utmost the light of divine truth. Not a cold, forbidding recluse was he, holding himself aloof from the people with a haughty and disdainful spirit, telling coldly 'wonderful words of life.' On the contrary his entire life was sympathetic, whole souled. One of the charges brought against him by the cold Pharisees was, 'He receiveth sinners and eateth with them.' Even his disciples were shocked that he should converse with a woman of Samaria. But the common people heard him gladly. While recognizing that he was far above their plans--while beholding in him the glories of an only-begotten of the Father they nevertheless were drawn to him because he was the burning as well as the shining light. And they declared, 'Never man spake like this man.'--John 6:46.
Let Your Light So Shine
"Bible students are all Christians, though, alas, all Christians are not Bible students. True, God's Book may even be read through by some who are unbelievers. And it may be scanned critically by opponents who seek to find fault with it and to entrap it, as they sought to find fault with the Master. But these are not Bible students in the proper sense of the word. Only those who have made a consecration of their lives to the Lord and who are anxious to know the divine will, that they may conform their lives to it, and who, to attain this end, have entered the school of Christ to be taught of him--only these are Bible students from our standpoint--searchers after the secrets of the Lord because they love him and are appreciative of his glorious plans and desirous of understanding them fully. Such Bible students --including you, dear friends, and myself, I trust-- should be burning and shining lights in the world and amongst our fellow Christians of all denominations, many of whom, alas, have much of the spirit of the world and are lacking in the spirit of the truth because of insufficient knowledge of the truth itself--because they are not sufficiently Bible students.
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"'Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven' (Matt. 5:16). We are not enjoined to make a show of carrying our Bibles in an ostentatious manner. We are exhorted to show forth in our daily lives the lessons we learn from its precious pages. As the Bible is our lamp provided by the Lord to all those who walk in its footsteps, so each of these in turn is a lamp which should shine forth upon others the light, the knowledge, the spirit of truth for their edification. In other words the holy spirit is not poured out upon the world of mankind, but merely upon the Lord's servants and handmaidens. It is an appointing for these and upon these evidencing to them that they have been begotten again to the new nature. It makes of them light bearers for the benefit of others--burning and shining lights, sympathetic and helpful lights that they might 'show forth the praises of him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.'--1 Peter 2:9.
"The Light Shineth in the Darkness"
"While keeping the lamp trimmed and burning--while seeking to glorify God as burning and shining lights in the world, we must not forget that the Bible assures us that we will be no more successful in converting the world than was our Master. His great light shone in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. And the religionists of his day instigated his crucifixion. The Master's prophecy respecting his followers will prove true to the end of the age: 'The darkness hateth the light.' 'Marvel not if the world hate you. Ye know that it hated me before it hated you.' John 3:13. It is altogether a mistake, therefore, to suppose that you or I or any other person or all of the Lord's consecrated people, letting their light shine faithfully before men, could convert the world. Such was not God's intention.
"It is the church, and not the world, that is being tested at the present time. The opposition of the world and all the powers of darkness serve to test us as new creatures-- to test our loyalty to God and to his truth. Whosoever receives the light of truth intelligently must rejoice in it, and, rejoicing in it, he must let it shine out upon others, or by covering his light with a bushel, he will demonstrate his lack of courage, lack of appreciation, lack of opportunity, which the Lord is now specially seeking for amongst those whom he has invited to be sharers with Jesus in the glories of the mediatorial kingdom about to be established amongst men. It is important, therefore, that we do let our light shine before men. It is important that we be willing, nay, glad if need be, to suffer for our loyalty to the Lord and to his message. And we have his word for it that he that is ashamed of him or of his word now, of such he will be ashamed by and by, and not own them as members of his bride class, not accept them as assistants with him in his glorious throne.
The Light of the World
"'The light of the world is Jesus.' 'That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.' (John 1:9.) Thus far Jesus has not been dealing with the world, but merely the blessed ones who have the eye of faith and ear of faith. 'Blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear.' (Matt. 13:6.) The time for the enlightment of the world will be after the special call of the elect. Then the church, as the bride, will be with the heavenly bridegroom in his throne. Then all now found faithful in the matter of letting their light shine will be associated with the great light, Jesus, as members of his body. Altogether they will constitute the great sun of righteousness which will then arise with healing in its beams for the blessing of all the families of the earth. 'Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who hath ears to hear let him hear.' (Matt. 13:43.) He that hath a desire of heart, let him be obedient and thus make his calling and election sure to this glorious chief salvation."
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Colporteur Meeting
BROTHER RUSSELL: Dear friends, I am not on the program this morning. I really have other duties that would properly claim the time, but as I thought of this gathering of the colporteurs this morning, I could not resist the temptation to come down and meet you here, and it seemed too good an opportunity to say a word or two.
I want to tell you how much I love, not only all of the Lord's dear flock, but how much I especially appreciate the dear ones who are engaged in the colporteur service. In this I am not saying a word against those who are not privileged to engage in this work. God bless them! I know that a great many would like to be in the colporteur work if they could be, and are not so situated that it would be proper for them to engage in it. Some of them have mortgages in the way of debts, and some have obligations and mortgages in the way of families, and these are properly to be recognized as responsibilities not to be passed by. We must be just before we are generous; and while we might like to give our time in the Lord's service wholly and completely, yet, if in his providence, or by our neglect, or in some other way, we are handicapped and cannot so engage, then the Lord expects us to be patient and to do the best we can, and to do all in our power thereafter to redeem the time, and make the best use of what we have and reasonably can do in his service. When I speak encouragingly of the colporteurs, or speak favorably of their work, I trust that the dear friends who are giving their time and energy to other parts of the work will not feel discouraged. As, for instance, I think very highly of the pilgrim service, and I think that God is blessing it and using it. Also the volunteer work. That is very noble work, too, and accomplishing a great deal for the spread of the knowledge of the truth. But it seems to me, so far as my observation will carry, and you know I have a good place of seeing up in the Watch-tower top, a good outlook from there--the Lord has greatly blessed the colporteur work in the finding of many of the grains of wheat that are being gathered in this harvest time.
I want to say that much for your encouragement, because I am aware that you may leave a city, or a town, or a village, and feel as though you had accomplished perhaps very little, not seeing much fruitage of your labor at the time, and you may need to know, and it may be to your advantage to be encouraged with the knowledge, that that city frequently fructifies after you have gone, and brings forth fruitage you know not of. I have been pleased during the last two years, and during the last year particularly, to notice that the colporteurs are getting more and more into what I might term the spirit of the ministry. I am not sure if I make myself clearly understood by that expression, but my thought of the ministry is the particular service of the truth, that they are thinking of the matter less and less as a business proposition, and more and more seeing the great fact that you go forth as ambassadors for God, as the representatives of the Lord, blowing upon the silver trumpet, and telling the people directly, or indirectly, perhaps by dropping some word, and more particularly, perhaps, by the printed page that you will leave with them, that the Jubilee time is at hand; the great time for the blessing of the world has come; that the redemption accomplished by our Lord is further reaching than we had once supposed; that it includes not only the saints of this present age, but also the whole world of mankind within the sweep of God's wonderful provision of grace, truth and blessing, and life eternal, if they will receive it, and that they shall all have the eyes and ears of their understanding opened, that they may clearly see and appreciate, before they will be counted as rejectors of the grace of God.
I see that you seem, as colporteurs, to be appreciating this matter more during the last two years in particular, and seeing that it is not merely a business affair, but that it includes the opportunity for especially presenting the truth and gathering together in little groups those Bible students with whom you come in contact. We have already suggested, and many are following it, more we believe each year, the thought of keeping track during your canvass of a city or town and marking on your books those who manifest a spirituality--those that seem to have really an ear for the truth, and an ear for more truth than you dare tell them while you are colporteuring; because in attempting to tell a good deal in a few minutes you might spoil the whole matter, and it is wiser that you shall refrain yourself at the time and merely get the books into their possession, that subsequently they may have that special opportunity [CR127] of reading; whereas if you would stop to discuss the matter, you not only would take too much valuable time, but also you might start something that would be injurious to your work in general. Therefore your wise course seems to be that which you are more and more following--disposing of the books and making note of those in a memorandum who seem to have a spiritual character and to manifest an ear for the truth, that you may call back again upon those and in a friendly way make their acquaintance, speak a few words, and ascertain whether or not they are reading. Let them know it is not merely a business matter with you, but that you are deeply interested and had noticed their evidences of spirituality. They will feel all the more pleased, and perhaps encouraged, if you will tell them that you noticed in your conversation with them that they were not of the ordinary merely nominal class, but that you perceived they had a real heart interest in God and in his Word. They will feel complimented, and very properly so, because perhaps that very thing has been to their disadvantage with many others who would think that strange or peculiar. Now if you recognized their peculiarity as being an evidence that they have been with Jesus and that they were students of his Word, it would be a refreshment and encouragement to them. And thus getting acquainted with these, you would be in a position by the conclusion of your canvass of the place, where you could bring them together and say, Let us meet together at such a little room, or such a little place as might be convenient, and there tell them the importance and value of study, and how it would be to their advantage to meet together, and there introduce to them the Watch Tower and other things that might be interesting to them, and get them acquainted with each other, so that they might start some kind of a prayer and testimony meeting.
Now that is the kind of meeting I think would do them the most good to begin with--a prayer and testimony meeting. They can do their reading perhaps by themselves and it will probably be the very best way that they should read all through the entire set of six volumes before they begin to have ordinary Dawn studies. If they first of all get their minds saturated with the truth as best they can, then coming together, if there are any wrinkles or difficulties they can be smoothed out by the meeting; but if they meet together merely to read, it is too tedious for a new beginner; I think, as a rule, it goes too slowly. If he has interest at all, he wants to read ahead faster. The most interested people are those who want to read the first volume through in a week, at least. Some of them have injured their digestion by wanting to read it all through before they go to bed; but I have known some very good ones to do that--staying up all night. One brother told me he was a local elder in the Methodist church, and the first time he met the colporteur he declined to purchase, and the colporteur had heard a good report of him, and said, My friend, I hear that you are a real Christian man, and I want to lend you one of these; you can have it for the reading of it, and I will not charge you anything for it. No, he says, if you bring it here I will burn it. I would not have it in my house. Afterwards this gentleman came home from his work in an iron mill in Pittsburg, and said, As I glanced through the parlor, I saw on the floor a book, and behold it was one of those very books, as I thought, that the colporteur had been trying to sell to me, and I had refused and said I would burn; it was night-time and I said to myself, Now I have got a good chance to read it when nobody will see me. A luncheon had been left for him. He went and got the book, and he ate and read, and ate and read, until he had eaten enough of the natural food, and he pushed the plate back and kept on reading. "Well," he says, "Brother Russell, I won't be tedious in the matter, but I will just say that when my folks came down to make the fire in the morning to get ready for breakfast I was still reading--but by that time I did not care who saw me."
I am just telling you that as an evidence of how it is that some who are at first in opposition afterwards become very fast friends of the truth. It does not count any that a man is in opposition. I rather think that some of our very best material has come from some of those who were most opposed to us before. There is one of the brethren on the pilgrim force who was preaching at one time, and advised his congregation that if they got hold of one of those books to burn it, and now he is on the other side of the fence-- very strong indeed as an advocate of the truth. I rather like the kind of people who have enough energy to want to do something one way or the other. I remember that Saul of Tarsus was the very one who was doing everything of damage to the Church when he thought he was doing God a service; and when God opened his eyes by and by, and he saw where he really stood, he had that same energy to put in on the other side for the truth. That is the Apostle Paul who has done so much for us all.
Well then, dear friends, be not discouraged with the various experiences that come to you, but try to meet the occasion. The first thought is to get the book into the hands of the people under as favorable conditions as possible, and encourage them to read; and the second thought is, not to let that seed which you have planted simply dry up there and lie without any care, but attend to the watering of it. Go back in every case where you find that you have evidence of true Christian character, whether they are deeply interested in the truth or not. Even if they have expressed the real Christian character and they have purchased of you, go back and see whether or not they have been reading, and in a kindly way let them see you are not in it for the money. They will be surprised at that. Nobody but an ambassador for the Lord is doing anything except for money.
Then try to get them together before you leave. Now this is the work of the ministry, the work of service, not merely getting the books out, but specially getting the hearts open and getting the truth in. I want to tell you that every day, practically many letters every day, are telling how this good colporteur or that good colporteur has brought the truth to somebody; and that is an encouragement to you and an encouragement to us at the office also.
I am sorry to have to say that we have an apology to make respecting the office management. Some of you have been disappointed this spring in the matter of your books. I want to assure you, dear friends, it gives us at the Watch Tower office just as much pain, grief, and sorrow, as it gives you who were out in the field, and if we had known any way, if we could have thought of any way, to have gotten things out of the rut quicker, we would certainly have done it. The dear friends who are serving you there at Brooklyn, be assured, are doing all in their power to serve you properly. I am sorry to say they have not all got perfect heads--but you knew that before. You have experience on your own part, I am sure. We all know that, dear friends--none of us are perfect, and we want to have sympathy with one another. You remember the Lord says he will have mercy on us in proportion as we have mercy on others, and I want to tell you right on that point I was wonderfully pleased with the manifestation of the sweet spirit of patience, and long-suffering, and brotherly kindness, that many of your letters manifested. It did me good. It showed me that the work of grace had been going on in your hearts as well as going out from your hands. We are not going to blame Divine Providence with our getting short of books this spring. That would not do, but we do believe that the Lord's Word is true which assures us that all things--all of our circumstances, all of our affairs--shall work together for good to them that love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. If it does not work out this way it will work out that way, and whichever way it works it will work good to the right class. It may be working some patience, and some experience, we do not know. Get as many lessons out of it as you can, and be assured that those at Brooklyn who have charge of matters there--myself included, for I am not going to try to dodge the responsibility, you know--are trying to learn our lesson, too. We do not want you to have all the patience and all the experience, we want to get some of it, but we are not going to let you have patience and experience in the future along that line if we can help it. We are going to have plenty of books if we can possibly get them printed, and we think we can.
I want to say further that some of the dear friends thought when the books ran short it meant that we had not the money to pay for them. That was not the case. The Lord was good, and the money could have been there to pay for them, and it was more to our shame that we did not have them in time. If the Lord had withheld the money and there had not been money to pay for the printing of them, then that would have cleared us of responsibility entirely. But we cannot clear ourselves in that way. We must say that, with our very best endeavors, and trying to be as expert as possible, and to watch every opportunity to serve your interests and all the other interests of the [CR128] work, there happened to be a corner that was overlooked temporarily--in trying to watch another part of the work, that particular feature was left unguarded temporarily. With such a large force, and with so many books going out, if we once get short we get into a whole pile of trouble, and so do you. We are trying to have it so that the dear friends who are in the colporteur department have that matter so deeply impressed on their minds and hearts, and so sorry about it, that they will never forget it all their lives. If that is a satisfactory and sufficient apology to you, I hope it will be accepted as such.
To tell the truth about the matter I think this is about the way of it: The wonderful amount of volunteering that has been going on, and the getting ready of that volunteer matter and sending it to all parts of the country, and the different editions, is quite a job--more of a job than probably any of you imagine. And you know a human mind has only so much ability, and we cannot get more than 24 hours in a day, and you have to sleep part of the time and eat part of the time--and that is where we came short. If we could have gotten the days lengthened it might have worked out all right. But it taught us a lesson, and we will try to see you will have no further difficulty in that way.
I want to say also in this connection that if there is any colporteur present--and I will not merely limit it to those present, but I will say any colporteur anywhere, who has been engaged in the work, and who, by reason of this--I do not know what to call it--not negligence, because I do not think it was negligence, but I will call it accident, the best name I know of--has been disadvantaged so that it will interfere with his colporteur work, I wish he would let us know the amount of financial loss he sustained, and we will use our best judgment as to how much of it we will credit to his account to help him out of the difficulty.
I do not know, dear friends, to what extent the home office has been responsible for the fact that there are not so many books selling this year as previously, but it is a fact. I do not know what reasons there could be for it. So far as I can judge, the colporteurs are just as earnest as they ever were, and those that are working seem to be selling as many books as heretofore, and I am trying to probe the matter to see just where the difficulty lies. In my opinion there ought to be more books selling today than ever before. I know someone might say to me, "Brother Russell, some cities and towns have been colporteured three times." Very well, I will guarantee you the last time more books were sold than at any of the others. Surely so. I believe a great many more books will be sold and I believe the field is far from being overdone. Perhaps we have distracted some of the minds of the colporteurs, by suggestions respecting the newspaper work. I rather think that has been the case. Now I think we had better get that right out from our minds--wipe out all about the newspaper work. Let me give you just a few suggestions, fresh, new, that you will just put down now and leave out all the other things, for I find the letters we have sent out have been understood by some in one way, and understood by others in another way, and some turned clear upside down. We have not any better heads than we were born with, and when we get things mixed up we have to have patience with each other. So if I mix up the letters you must have patience with me, and if you mix up the reading of them, I will have patience with you. Now the thought we have, putting it in brief form, would be this: the newspapers all over the country are doing a great work. To me it seems to be really a miracle that God has wrought. I do not know any other way to look at it than that. Just to think of it, that several hundred of the prominent newspapers all over the United States and Canada are publishing the sermons every week, reaching so many people every week, and that this is new to them! The majority of them never published a sermon before. Some of the New York newspaper people told some of the friends that they had not published a sermon in thirteen years before. They said the reason was, when they published them the last time there was such a conflict over the matter, such a commotion made by the people, that all the preachers wanted to have their sermons in the paper after one appeared there, and they could not publish all because they had not space for them, so they stopped publishing any. Now the big thing is that so many have undertaken the publishing of our weekly discourses. It looks to me as though the Lord was behind it; but anyway, it is for you and me to take the situation and not stop to discuss the matter, whether the Lord arranged it or how; if we believe it is a service for the truth, we are glad of it, and we won't spend any time guessing about how it came about or who was responsible. The Lord, we believe, is responsible for any of the openings for the truth that may come to us during this harvest time.
We think that is a safe proposition to have in our minds. Then it is for you and for me and for all of the Lord's people to do what we can to cooperate with what seems to be the openings of divine Providence. Now what can we all do? I think all will agree that a very proper thing would be to let the gentlemen who are publishing the sermons know that you are appreciative of it, that you are glad they are being published, and that you are a subscriber because they are publishing them. That is certainly fair to the publisher. If he never gets a letter from you, he will never know but that this is something nobody is reading and nobody cares for. He knows about base-ball and basket-ball and the prize fights, because he has information from people about these, that they like these features, and they are looking for that, but he will never have any word about the sermons unless it comes from the people who are interested in the sermon feature. The editors are wanting to see whether or not this feature of their publication is meeting with popular endorsement, and they will be glad to hear from you. Write them in a kindly strain, not saying too much, but merely pointedly saying that you are taking the paper, and you appreciate the fact that a great newspaper is thus forwarding the Gospel message of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that the world is getting some knowledge of what things are written in God's book.
Then as to the colporteurs,--as you go to a city where the sermons are published, in the course of your conversation something may turn up that would indicate that the party knew of or did not know, or you might put the question in some delicate form whether they were aware or not, that certain sermons were published weekly in their paper, and then listen to see how they seemed to take it.
Yes, there is.
Have you read any of them?
Yes, I have read them, and like them very well.
If you find they like them pretty well, you can say, Now this book is along the same line as these discourses. And if you find they did not like them very well, you had better say nothing about that. In other words, the Lord said we were to be fishers of men, and if you find a kind of bait that the fish don't like, keep that off your hook.
There are a few of the newspapers that would like to have some special canvass made that would call the attention of their people to the fact that the sermons are being published. At the office we will know of these newspapers, and we will have a special arrangement hereafter that will disassociate the colporteurs working for the newspapers from the colporteurs that are working in the regular way. The regular colporteur work will go on just as before, ignoring the newspapers, except as they may have an opportunity of drawing attention to the fact that they are publishing the sermons, and if they find that they are interested in the matter, then identify the books with the sermons--that will be all the ordinary colporteurs will have to do; but we will have another set of colporteurs, some that will or have already sent in their names as being willing or anxious to engage somewhat in the newspaper work, and for them we will have a special edition of the HEAVENLY MANNA prepared specially for their use. We have not all the particulars of this so we can give them to you now, but to those who have indicated their desire to be engaged in that newspaper feature of the work, and who seem to have special qualifications for it, we will give special instructions by mail and send them samples of this HEAVENLY MANNA that is intended for the public. It will be more showy in style than our ordinary thirty-five cent edition and it will not be as good in quality as our best leather edition of the MANNA, but it will be specially something that will be attractive to the people and that can sell at a price which will allow a good margin, and then the price of the book and a brief subscription to the paper can be combined all for the one price of one dollar.
And thus those who engage in that part of the work will be able to do a double service of putting into the hands of the people something that will be very helpful to them in the HEAVENLY MANNA for every day reading, and, secondly, also helpful in putting into their hands the weekly sermons and drawing their attention to the matter, which will be a good service. But my thought is that it should [CR129] not in any sense of the word interfere with the regular colporteur work, and that the field had best be entirely separated, and that you keep right along with the ordinary colporteur work as heretofore as being one of the best services that we know how to render to the Lord.
I believe, dear friends, that is about all I have to say, and it is my custom when I have got through to sit down. I do not often get through so soon, and I would have more I could talk about, but this meeting is called specially for the colporteurs' testimony meeting and for some colporteur instructions.
We have asked Brother Cole to take special charge of the instruction feature, Brother Bohnet feeling himself rather rusty in colporteur work now, having been out of that part of the work for a while and not so up to date as Brother Cole is, therefore we are going to leave the instruction feature to Brother Cole, and you will have an opportunity of plying him with some questions if you wish. We think that is the better way, rather than to have each one give his experience, because while some of the experiences are very good, they are not apt to be as broad. That one person may be successful in his method, but there are certain methods by which all can be rather successful, therefore we think that is the better way; and I hope you will concur, and not think we are trying to muzzle anybody, or keep anything that is good away from you, for that is not the intention; but we have found that sometimes very unsatisfactory methods were proposed, and some thought they were very good when we knew they were not. They might be good for one person to try, but would be very unsatisfactory, as we have proofs, for the rank and file of the colporteurs. Therefore, we are trying to give you such suggestions in the colporteur work as would be generally helpful to all, and then if you know a better way, God bless you, take the best you know.
Then, dear friends, I will conclude my remarks by saying that I have had great pleasure in being with you this morning, and if I were to think for a moment you were all colporteurs, it would rejoice my heart so much I could hardly eat my dinner; but I guess you are not all colporteurs, though you are all sympathizers with the colporteur work; and I presume all the rest that are not colporteurs are what we call sharp-shooters, looking for special opportunities to slip in some of those keys for Bible study. So, dear friends, be encouraged. The harvest is great and the laborers are none to many, and there is very much ripe wheat to be garnered. We are having evidences of it every day. And the newspapers where they are published are, we believe, stirring up a good sentiment. I want to tell you just about one case that came to my notice, and I do not have as much time to examine those matters as I used to have--I used to read over many more of the letters than I have time now to read, but this matter was brought to my attention as being one of special interest. A brother who was a colporteur was laboring in a country district, and he went to a very small village and went into the country store and spoke to the storekeeper, and in the hearing of others made a canvass of him. The storekeeper said, That is something like what I have been reading in our newspaper we get from our county-seat town. He saw that the storekeeper was favorable, and he said, Yes, it is by the same pen as those sermons.
It is?
Yes.
Well, then, I want it. The brother says he took orders, I think, for ten copies in the grocery store, because those people had been reading the discourses in the newspapers. He said, to his surprise, as he was going a few days after that down the road, he met a party of men working on the road, as farmers generally do join together and fix up the road, and one of those men was one who had been in that store and recognized the colporteur and he says, Here is the man I got those books from; you all want to get them. He took six more orders from those men right in the road there. It shows, dear friends, that there is an opportunity being opened up by the newspaper work that may make a very much larger field for the colporteurs than they have had before, because it gives a certain kind of an impetus, something to back up what you have said respecting the presentations you are making.
So then, dear friends, addressing you as colporteurs, I am very glad to be with you this morning, to look into your faces, and say, Be of good courage, there are not very many more hills on the road for us to climb before we get to the Eternal City, and soon we will be there, we hope.
[CR129]
Mayville Reception, Peacock Inn
Saturday Night of Chautauqua Convention
IN order not to crowd the chartered boat, no more than six hundred were permitted to attend Pastor Russell's reception on any one evening. The restriction was effected by means of visitation cards, not more than six hundred of which were issued for any one of the six evenings. Last evening marked the conclusion of the receptions. The steamer was crowded, but "The Happy People" maintained their equilibrium of spirit and let their songs abound, giving good evidence that they were singing and making melody in their hearts unto the Lord. They evidently enjoyed the scenery of the lake, but the eyes of their understanding seemed to take in still more beautiful Elysian fields. It was the same on the return journey.
The Mayville Inn was illuminated throughout, as were also its verandas and lawns, the Chinese lanterns giving a gala effect.
The crowd was welcomed by Pastor Russell, who greeted each one personally. He subsequently addressed them from the veranda, following which a light collation was partaken of. The address in part was as follows:--
"The General Assembly of the Church
of the First-borns"
"My dear friends, our Convention nears its close. To me it has been a very enjoyable one. So far as I can discern, it has been the same to all in attendance. It is a delightful and blessed experience that so many of the Lord's people, by his Providence, have been permitted to turn aside from the busy cares of life to spend ten days in Bible study and in fellowship with each other in spiritual things. We have thus been remembering the inspired exhortation, 'Forget not the assembling of yourselves together, ...and so much the more as ye see The Day draw nigh.' The nearer we come to the great Day of the Lord, in which the Church will be glorified with the Bridegroom, and in which the great work of blessing the world at large will begin, the more precious are our opportunities for Christian fellowship. And more than this; they daily become more important to us for our strengthening and upbuilding in the faith once delivered to the saints.
"As we think of the closing of this Convention, let
our minds go out toward the Great Convention promised
in God's Word. At it will be gathered all of God's people
--all 'Israelites indeed, in whom is no guile.' That Convention,
like this one, will be unsectarian, interdenominational.
Presbyterians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists
--the holy, the saintly out of each and all of these will
be at that Great Convention. St. Paul styles it the 'General
Assembly of the Church of the First-born ones.' How
grand to think of such a reunion, without a creedal fence
between any of the participants and all of them surrounded
and safeguarded by the
'Love Divine, all Love excelling,'
and the Wisdom and Power Divine! Do you desire to be
[CR130]
present at that Convention? The question is an unnecessary
one. It is the hope, the desire, the aim of every one
of us to be there--to make our calling and our election sure;
to so run that we may obtain that great prize of participation
in the 'First Resurrection.' Of that resurrection we
read, 'Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the First
(chief) Resurrection; on such the Second death hath no
power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and
shall reign with him a thousand years'! (Rev. 20:6.) Let
us have this in mind, dear friends, that our participation
with our Lord in the glories of his Kingdom is dependent
upon our faithfulness here in following him through evil
report and through good report, through honor and through
dishonor in the bearing of the cross along the narrow way
of self-denial.
The First-borns Passed Over
"I remind you that when God brought typical Israel out of Egypt, the first-borns had a peculiar salvation or preservation first. The night before the deliverance all the first-borns were in danger of death, and were saved only when under the blood of the Passover Lamb. We see, dear friends, the significance of this beautiful type. St. Paul tells us that Christ is our Passover Lamb, slain for us. We each have appropriated his flesh, his human nature, which he sacrificed on our behalf. We recognize his sacrifice, the blood of atonement. We see that this entire Gospel Age is the antitype of that night. We are hoping to belong to the first-borns begotten of the holy Spirit who, during this night time of sin and death, will be passed over and, on account of the blood without and the Lamb within, be accounted worthy of being passed over--accounted worthy of eternal life on the spirit plane as members of the 'Church of the First-born'--participants in the 'First Resurrection' to glory, honor and immortality with our Lord-- like him.
Priests and Levites--Which?
"I remind you that all of these first-borns, passed over, typified all of the Lord's people of all denominations and outside of all denominations who are now passing from death unto life. I remind you, however, that in the type, the first-borns of every tribe were exchanged for the one tribe of Levi--the priestly tribe, which thereafter typified the 'Church of the First-borns'--the 'household of faith.' But I remind you further that the Lord divided that tribe into two classes. A little handful were made priests and occupied a special position of favor and relationship and nearness to God, and the remainder of that tribe were honored in being used as the assistants or servants of the priests. This is an allegory or type. 'The Church of the First-borns' will consist of two classes, a 'little flock' of priests and a 'great company' of the 'household of faith' and typical Levites who will serve. I remind you that the 'little flock' of priests do their sacrificing now and, if faithful, will shortly be made a Royal Priesthood, a reigning priesthood, joint-heirs with the great King of Glory and High Priest of our profession--Jesus. I remind you that the 'great company,' typed in the ordinary Levites, will not be in the Throne, but serve before the Throne. They will not be living stones of the Temple, but serve God in the Temple. They will not wear crowns of glory, though they will be granted palms of victory.
"What places will you and I occupy in the resurrection, in the General Assembly of the Church of the First-borns? Will we be of the Royal Priesthood, or of the less honorable, but still blessed, servants? Will we be of the Bride class or of the less honored virgins, her companions that follow her? It is for us, dear friends, now to make our calling and our election sure by our zeal, our earnestness, our devotion to the great King and his Cause. He has called us to the highest place. It rests with us, under his wonderful and gracious arrangements, to determine whether we will be passed over or not passed over, and, if passed over, to determine whether we will accept the place to which we are all called or the inferior place which will be granted to those who do not keep their garments unspotted from the world and who, therefore, must come through great tribulation to enter into the Kingdom at all.
Encouraged to Leave Behind the Sweet Fragrance
of the Spirit of the Lord
"I exhort you, dear friends, that we strive to be present
at the Great Convention, 'the General Assembly of the
Church of the First-borns,' and that we strive to make
our calling and election sure, that we may be of the Bride
class, the Royal Priesthood class, the members of the Body
of the great Prophet, Priest and King of Glory! It is to
this end that we have come to this Convention--that we
might encourage each other and be encouraged to maintain
the good fight of faith and to gain the victory, so far as
our hearts are concerned, over the world, the flesh and the
Adversary. I trust that we shall all go away from this
Convention strengthened by Divine might in the inner man.
I trust that we shall leave behind us a sweet fragrance of
the Spirit of the Lord in every cottage and hotel in which
we have been lodged. I trust that we shall go to our homes
so filled with the Spirit of the Truth, the spirit of meekness,
gentleness, patience, long-suffering, brotherly kindness
and love that we shall carry a blessing to those of our
homes, that they may take knowledge that we have been
with Jesus and have learned of him and that the blessing
may thus overflow and abound to many hearts. I doubt
not that such will be the blessed results and that this
Celeron Convention of Bible Students will be a marked
epoch in the Christian careers of many, marked with blessings
from on high and mutual refreshment of spirit amongst
all those who have participated."
"Chosen in Christ ere the dawn of creation;
Chosen for Christ to be filled with his grace;
Chosen to carry the streams of salvation
Into each thirsty and desolate place."
[CR130]
Preaching to the Dead
THE Sunday afternoon meeting in the Celeron auditorium was marked by the largest attendance of the entire series, Pastor Russell addressing an audience of between 4,000 and 5,000 persons, including many Jamestowners.
Pastor Russell took as his subject, Preaching to the Dead, and as his text the sixth verse of the fourth chapter of 1 Peter, "For this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but alive according to God in the spirit." He spoke as follows:
"The Bible, to be understood, must be viewed from its
own standpoint. This, as Bible students, we are learning
more and more particularly every day. In the past we
have read our Bibles 'up-side-down.' Many read as a duty;
others as a sort of charm that would placate divine justice
and bring us divine favor. Now we are learning to read
the Bible in a common sense way, and to use our reasoning
faculties in connection with its statements and prophecies.
As a consequence, while others are falling from the faith--
some into infidelity styled higher criticism and evolution;
others into fanciful wrestlings of the Word of God--we
are coming to appreciate the Bible as the most safe and
sane book in the world. Correspondingly our faith in God
increases--faith in his wisdom, justice, love and power to
accomplish all the good purposes which he purposed in himself
before the creation of our race. Correspondingly, too,
we are coming to appreciate more than ever the value of
the great Redeemer and of the great sacrifice for sin which
he accomplished at Calvary. We are coming to see the
truth of what we once considered poetic license when we
sang,
'There's a wideness in God's mercy
Like the wideness of the sea.'
"Let Dead Bury Their Dead"
"No Bible topic requires more careful discrimination in its study than does the subject of death. This is mainly because of the general confusion of mind which came upon [CR131] Christendom during the long centuries of the church's comparative darkness, when Bibles (the lamp of God upon the Christian's path) were scarce, and when few could read the truths of priceless value that were chained to lecturns. In consequence of this confusion we hear intelligent people talk ignorantly and stupidly respecting death. They make confusion worse confounded by telling us of Adam's spiritual death and discussing 'natural' death and 'the death that never dies,' etc., etc.
"To get the Bible view of death we need to brush away such foolish babblings and confine ourselves to Bible language and the rational thought connected therewith. For instance, according to the Bible, there is no 'natural death' --it is not natural for man to die. It is according to the Bible arrangement and man's nature that he should live-- live eternally, as do the angels, if obedient to the divine commands. Death, therefore, is the unnatural thing! Do we think of angels as dying, and of heaven as filled with cemeteries? Have they doctors and undertakers there? Surely not! Yet it would be just as proper to speak of natural death amongst the angels as in respect to men.
"The term spiritual death so frequently used respecting Adam and his fall is wholly unscriptural. No such expression is found in the Bible; neither such a thought. Adam could not die a spiritual death, because he was not a spirit being. He was an earthly being--not an angel, but a man. As the Scriptures declare of Adam, 'Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; and crownest him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands;' 'over the beasts of the field, the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air.' (Hebrews 2:7; Psalm 8:5-6.)
"It is, therefore, absurd for us to continue longer to speak of Adam dying a spiritual death, while admitting that he was not a spirit being. It was simply the man Adam that died. His death, however, did include the gradual processes of decay, and affected not only his bones and muscles, but also his brains--his every mental and moral quality. The sentence, 'Dying, thou shalt die,' took hold of him as an entirety; hence we find, as the Scriptures declare, that there is 'none righteous; no, not one'--none mentally, morally or physically right. All have sinned. All come short of the glory of God in which Adam was created. From the moment of disobedience and divine condemnation Adam and his race have been judicially dead and gradually going down, down, down, in degradation and into the tomb.
"Speaking of the dying race from the judicial standpoint our Savior called them all dead. He declared that none has even a reckoned life, except such as by faith accepted him as their Lifegiver--Savior. His words are, 'He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.' (John 3:36.) Speaking to one who believeth on him the Savior said, 'Let the dead bury their dead; go thou and preach the Gospel.' (Matthew 8:22.) From the right standpoint this meaning is evident. Let the dead, the condemned and legally dead world, look out for its own affairs. You become one of my followers and carry my message of life and hope to as many as have ears to hear!
"Dead in Trespasses and Sin"
"Thus the whole world of mankind through heredity, through inherited weaknesses, through participation in the sentence that came upon father Adam justly, are all judicially dead in trespasses and in sins--not one of the race is worthy of eternal life upon the only terms and conditions which God can offer--namely, perfection and obedience of the divine standards.
"Jesus preached the Gospel amongst those judicially dead through trespasses and sins. A few had the hearing ear and accepted the good message and gave their hearts to God and accepted the terms of discipleship--to walk in the Master's footsteps in the narrow way faithfully unto death --willingly offering, sacrificially, their little all in the service of God, his truth, his righteousness, his people. These few, as we have seen, the Savior recognizes as having life--as having 'passed from death into life' (John 5:24.) nevertheless their change was only a legal one. Actually, according to the flesh, they were still imperfect, fallen, dying. But by divine arrangement their new minds, their new wills, were accepted of God in Christ and their flesh ignored as dead, and they were begotten by God of the Holy Spirit as new creatures and became sons of God. As sons, they were free from all the previous condemnation that came upon them as members of Adam's race--freed through the imputation of the merit of the Redeemer's sacrifice applied on their behalf. Thus they attained the liberty of the sons of God--freedom from sin-condemnation.
"We are Saved by Hope"
"While speaking of believers begotten of the Holy Spirit and new creatures in Christ Jesus as having passed from death unto life, the Bible, with equal explicitness, tells us that the resurrection of the mind, the will, of the new creature, is not the completion of his salvation. He has received a great blessing, a great salvation; but what he now enjoys is merely a fore-taste, an 'earnest,' or hand-payment of the great blessing which he will receive eventually, if faithful to his covenant unto death. The fruition of the hopes of the new creation will be attained in the end of this age at the second coming of the Redeemer, when he comes to set up his kingdom in power and great glory for the blessing and salvation of the world, when 'every knee shall bow and every tongue confess' (Psalm 6:23). The Scriptures point the new creation, the Body of Christ, the 'saints,' the church, to that illustrious day as the time when they shall experience their glorious change from earthly to heavenly conditions--when in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye the resurrection power will lift them wholly out of earthly conditions to the perfection of the 'divine nature.'
"Describing this 'first resurrection' of the saints, the Apostle says, 'It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body' (1 Corinthians 15:43-44). Respecting this glorious consummation of the hopes of the church, the Apostle declares it to be the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls--'the grace (salvation) that shall be brought unto you at the revelation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ' (1 Peter 1:13). For that glorious time the Lord's people are to wait patiently, realizing that, as new creatures, they are being tested by the weaknesses and frailties of their old bodies reckoned dead. They are to show their loyalty to God by fighting a good fight against the weaknesses of the flesh, against the allurements of the world and the snares of the Adversary.
This Light Upon Our Text
"Consider now, in the light of the foregoing, the meaning of St. Peter's words used as our text. We perceive how the Gospel message from first to last has been preached to a dead world--to a world under sentence of death--to a world dead in trespasses and in sin and unworthy of divine notice. The message has not gone forth to every creature yet. The divine promise is that eventually every eye shall see and every ear shall be unstopped, and then 'the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth' and 'every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.' But that will be during Messiah's kingdom of righteousness, which will last for a thousand years for the world's uplifting. That time has not yet come; hence that glorious message which all must hear and those glorious sights which all must see and all confess are not yet revealed. As yet the message can be appreciated only by a comparatively small proportion of our race, 'even as many as the Lord our God shall call.'
"The Redeemer says that they must not only be thus 'called of God,' but that they must be 'drawn' by him, in order to be blessed during this age. He says, 'No man can come unto me, except the Father which sent me draw him, and he that cometh unto me (thus drawn) I will in no wise reject' (John 6:44-47). For these few of the dead world the gospel in the present time is intended. No others have the ear to hear. But while those who hear are few in comparison to the millions of the world who do not hear, nevertheless they are many in comparison to the still fewer who accept the call under the conditions and limitations of the narrow way of self-sacrifice. 'Many are called, but few are chosen' to this high calling of joint-leadership with the Redeemer in his kingdom.
"By and by when all eyes and ears of understanding shall be opened and the blessing of the Lord through Messiah shall be world-wide, it will not be merely a calling to righteousness that will be extended. A command will be enforced by disciplines, 'stripes,' 'corrections in righteousness,' to the intent that the 'dead' world in general may be blessed and be resurrected--lifted up, up, up, out of sin and death conditions to the human perfection bestowed upon Adam and his race in creation. Only the unwilling and disobedient will die the second death, from which there will be no redemption, no recovery.
[CR132]
Live in Flesh and in Spirit
"Those who hear the Gospel and accept its terms of consecration unto death of the flesh and are begotten of the Holy Spirit as new creatures, 'partakers of the divine nature,' have, so to speak, a dual existence from the time of their begettal of the spirit. From God's standpoint they are new creatures begotten to the divine nature, which, if faithful, they will fully obtain in the 'first resurrection.' Yet according to all worldly concept of the matter they are still human beings, very much the same as they were prior to their consecration and spirit begetting. The world may, indeed, see certain changes more or less radical in their conduct and words, but, like as not, these will appear to the worldly merely as fads, fancies, eccentricities. Perhaps, indeed, as in the case of St. Paul, they may be considered as 'beside themselves'--mad. Hence, as the Apostle declares, 'The world kneweth us not, even as it knew him not' (1 John 3:1). The world did not know Jesus to be begotten of the Holy Spirit, the son of the highest, etc., nor does the world yet know that he is highly exalted at the Father's right hand. So also it is with the followers of Jesus. They similarly have received a spirit begetting and similarly, in due time, are to experience the glorious change of the 'first resurrection' and be perfected on the new plane of the divine nature.
Judged of Men--Judged of God
"Note again the Apostle's words respecting these spirit-begotten followers of Jesus, the 'little flock,' who walk in his footsteps of self-sacrifice. He says that these shall be judged according to men in the flesh, but according to God in the spirit. Men not knowing us as new creatures in Christ may think of us and approve or condemn as they would think of and approve or condemn others--according to the flesh. The world will not see that in these new creatures there is a battle in progress--the new creature seeking to conquer the flesh and to bring it into subjection to the divine will, but not always able to do so.
"All we can do is to do our best, whether our best shall be as good as or better than that of our fellow creatures who are not spirit-begotten, but who may be less depraved by nature--nobler by heredity. Our consolation as new creatures is that we are not to be judged by human judgment, but by him who called us and drew us to himself, who sanctified us through the blood of the cross, and who begat us with his own holy spirit, to his own divine nature. He will judge us according to the spirit, according to our minds, according to our intentions, according to our efforts. To the faithful who at heart are overcomers the Lord eventually will say, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of thy Lord. Thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many things.' (Matthew 25:21.)"
MY SACRIFICE
LAID on Thine altar, O my Lord Divine,
Accept his gift to-day, for Jesus' sake.
I have no jewels to adorn Thy shrine,
Nor any world-famed sacrifice to make;
But here I bring, within my trembling hand,
This will of mine--a thing that seemeth small;
And Thou alone, O Lord, canst understand
How, when I yield Thee this, I yield mine all.
Hidden therein Thy searching gaze canst see
Struggles of passions, visions of delight,
All that I have, or am, or fain would be--
Deep loves, fond hopes, and longings infinite.
It hath been wet with tears, and dimmed with sighs,
Clenched in my grasp till beauty hath it none.
Now, from Thy footstool, where it vanquished lies,
The prayer ascendeth--"May Thy will be done!"
Take it, O Father, ere my courage fail;
And merge it so in Thine own will that I
May never have a wish to take it back;
When heart and courage fail, to Thee I'd fly.
So change, so purify, so like Thine own
Make Thou my will, so graced with love Divine,
I may not know or feel it as mine own,
But recognize my will as one with Thine.
[CR133]
(Picture only)
[CR134]
The Jewish Mass Meeting
October 9, 1910
Pastor Russell, of the Brooklyn
Tabernacle, Addresses an Enthusiastic
Audience at the Hippodrome,
New York, N.Y.
BROTHER RUSSELL received an invitation
to address a Jewish Mass Meeting in the
great Hippodrome Theater of New York
City. The invitation and Brother Russell's
response to the same follow:
NEW YORK, September 20, 1910.
Pastor C. T. Russell, Brooklyn, N.Y.
DEAR SIR: Your sympathetic interest in the Jewish people for years past has not escaped our notice. Your denunciations of the atrocities perpetrated against our race in the name of Christianity has added to our conviction that you are a sincere friend. Your discourse on "Jerusalem and Jewish Hopes" has struck a responsive chord in the hearts of many of our people. Still we doubted for a time if any Christian minister could really be interested in a Jew as a Jew and not merely from a hope of proselyting him. It is because of this feeling that some of us request you to make a public statement respecting the nature of your interest in our people and we desire you to know that the statement you did make was very satisfactory. In it you assured us that you are not urging Jews to become Christians and join any of the sects or parties of Protestants or Catholics. That statement, Pastor Russell, has been widely published in the Jewish journals. We feel, therefore, that we have nothing to fear from you as a race. On the contrary, in that statement you mentioned that the foundation of your interest in our people is built upon your faith in the testimonies of our Law and the messages of our Prophets. You may well understand how surprised we are to find a Christian minister acknowledging that there are prophecies of the Bible still unfulfilled, which belong to the Jew and not to the Christian, and that these prophecies, according to your studies, are nearing a fulfillment of momentous interest to our Jewish race and, through us as a people, to the nations of the world.
These things, Pastor Russell, have led to the formation of a Jewish Mass Meeting Committee, which, by this letter, requests you to give a public discourse, especially to our people. If you will kindly accept this invitation, will you permit us to suggest a topic for your address, which, we believe, will be very interesting to the public and especially to the Jews, namely, "Zionism in Prophecy."
As for the meeting: We suggest Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock, October 9. We have secured an option on the Hippodrome, New York's largest and finest auditorium, for that date, and we hope that this date and the place will be agreeable to your convenience. We assure you also of a large audience of deeply interested Hebrews, besides whoever may come of the general public.
Trusting to hear from you soon, we subscribe ourselves,
Yours respectfully,
JEWISH MASS MEETING COMMITTEE.
BROOKLYN, N.Y., September 21, 1910. Jewish Mass Meeting Committee, New York City.
GENTLEMEN: Your kind invitation to address the Jewish Mass Meeting in the New York Hippodrome Sunday, October 9, at 3 p.m., came duly.
I thank you for the confidence which this invitation implies. The date you have selected is not only appropriate in its relationship to the Jewish New Year, but it is very suitable for my own arrangements, as I leave on October 12 for appointments in London and elsewhere in Great Britain.
Amongst the several prominent members of your race
suggested for chairman of the Mass Meeting, I select Mr.
John Barrondess, because I have had the pleasure personally
of conference with him and because I know him to be very
loyal to the interests of your people and because I believe
him to be very highly esteemed as such in the counsels of
your race. Faithfully and respectfully yours,
C. T. RU
During the week preceding the Mass Meeting many thousand copies of a special paper printed in Yiddish were sold at news stands and distributed with other Yiddish papers. This paper contained quotations from Brother Russell's writings and sermons, and a report of his findings in Palestine during his recent visit to the Holy Land. In this paper were two very significant cartoons.
One represented an aged Jew seated in a graveyard, surrounded by tombstones. Each of these stones represented one of their dead hopes. The picture shows that the Jews have reached their limit--all hopes practically dead, and they do not know which way to turn.
The other picture represents the Jew as waking up--he hears a voice, and, looking up in a surprised manner, he sees Pastor Russell, who holds in his hand a scroll of their prophecies, and is pointing to them, and to the New Jerusalem in the background, which will soon rise out of the ruins of the present city within the walls. Thinking these cartoons will be of interest to others, we reproduce them on the following pages.
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(New York American, Monday, October 10, 1910)
Pastor Russell Cheered by an Audience of Hebrews
Four Thousand in Hippodrome Applaud When Venerable
Brooklyn Clergyman Advocates Establishment of a
Jewish Nation. Hearers Who Came to Question
Gentile's Views on Their Religion Find He
Agrees in Their Most Important Beliefs.
Preacher, After Hailing Them as One of
the Bravest Races on Earth, Says
Kingdom May Return to Them by 1914.
THE unusual spectacle of 4,000 Hebrews enthusiastically applauding a Gentile preacher, after having listened to a sermon he addressed to them concerning their own religion, was presented at the Hippodrome yesterday afternoon, where Pastor Russell, the famous head of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, conducted a most unusual service.
In his time the venerable pastor has done many unconventional things. His religion is bounded by no particular denomination, and encompasses, as he says, all mankind. His ways of teaching it are his own. But he never did a more unconventional thing than this--nor a more successful one.
He won over an audience that had come--some of it, at least--prepared to debate with him, to resent, perhaps, what might have appeared like a possible intrusion. "Pastor Russell is going to try to convert the Jews to Christianity," was the word that many had received before the meeting. "He wants to proselyte us."
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RECEIVED AT FIRST IN SILENCE.
In the crowd which filled the big showhouse were scores of rabbis and teachers, who had come to speak out in case the Christian attacked their religion or sought to win them from it. They had questions and criticisms ready for him. He was received at first in a dead silence.
But the Pastor did not seek to convert the Jews. To their unbounded delight, he pointed out the good things of their religion, agreed with them in their most important beliefs as to their salvation, and finally, after a warm advocacy of the plan of the Jews establishing a nation of their own, brought about a tumult of applause by leading a choir in the Zionist anthem: "Hatikva--Our Hope."
A more interesting audience the Hippodrome never held, perhaps. From all parts of the city came serious-minded Hebrews to hear what it was an alien, a Gentile, might have to say to them at a service held during their week of feasting, Rosh Hoshkana. They were quiet, well-dressed, thinking men and women.
Among them were many prominent figures of the Hebrew literary world. Some of these escorted Pastor Russell to the Hippodrome in a motor car and then took places in the auditorium. The literary men recognized the pastor as a writer and investigator of international fame on the subject of Judaism and Zionism. Some of those present were Dr. Jacobs, editor of the American Hebrew; W. J. Solomon, of the Hebrew Standard; J. Brosky, associate editor of the same; Louis Lipsky, editor of the Maccabean; A. B. Landau, of the Warheit; Leo Wolfsohn, president of the Federation of Roumanian Societies; J. Pfeffer, of the Jewish Weekly; S. Diamont, editor of the Jewish Spirit; S. Goldberg, editor of the American Hebrew; J. Barondess, of the Jewish Big Stick, and Goldman, editor of H'Yom, the only Jewish daily.
NO RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS THERE.
No symbol of any religion at all greeted them when they gazed at the Hippodrome stage. It was entirely empty save for a small lectern and three peace flags hanging from silken cords above. One was the familiar white silk banner with the Stars and Stripes in its center, together with the words, "Peace Among Nations," in letters of gold. Another bore a rainbow and the word "Pax." The third was a silken strip bearing miniature representations of all the nations' flags.
There were no preliminaries. Pastor Russell, tall, erect and white-bearded, walked across the stage without introduction, raised his hand, and his double quartette from the Brooklyn Tabernacle sang the hymn, "Zion's Glad Day." The members of this organization are Mrs. E. W. Brenneisen, Mrs. E. N. Detweiler, Miss Blanche Raymond and Mrs. Raymond, Emil Hirscher, C. Meyers, J. P. MacPherson and J. Mockridge. Their voices blended perfectly, and the hymn, without any instrumental accompaniment, was impressive.
But still there seems an air of aloofness about the audience. They did not applaud, but sat, silently watching the stalwart figure of the pastor. When he began to talk, however, they gave him respectful attention.
With a powerful, yet charming voice, that filled the great playhouse, the unconventional clergyman made his every word audible to every hearer. His tones pleased their ears, his graceful gestures soon captivated their eyes, and in a few moments his apparently thorough knowledge of his subject appealed to their minds. Though still silent, the 4,000 were "warming up" to him.
RESERVE AND DOUBT VANISH.
It was not long before all reserve, and all possible doubt of Pastor Russell's entire sincerity and friendliness were worn away. Then the mention of the name of a great Jewish leader--who, the speaker declared, had been raised by God for the cause--brought a burst of applause.
From that moment on the audience was his. The Jews became as enthusiastic over him as though he had been a great rabbi or famous orator of their own religion. He hailed them as one of the bravest races of the earth-- having kept their faith through the persecutions and cruelties of all other people for thousands of years. And he predicted that before very long they would be the greatest of the earth--not merely a people, any longer, but a nation. By a system of deductions based upon the prophecies of old, the pastor declared that the return of the kingdom of the Jews might occur at so near a period as the year 1914. Persecution would be over and peace and universal happiness would triumph.
As he brought his address to a conclusion the pastor raised his hand again to his choir. This time they raised the quaint, foreign-sounding strains of the Zion hymn, "Our Hope," one of the masterpieces of the eccentric East Side poet Imber.
The unprecedented incident of Christian voices singing the Jewish anthem came as a tremendous surprise. For a moment the Hebrew auditors could scarcely believe their ears. Then, making sure it was their own hymn, they first cheered and clapped with such ardor that the music was drowned out, and then, with the second verse, joined in by hundreds.
At the height of the enthusiasm over the dramatic surprise he prepared, Pastor Russell walked off the stage and the meeting ended with the end of the hymn. He was congratulated by scores of men and women who had come in indifferent, if not hostile, frames of mind, and he made a friend, they all declared, of everyone who had heard him.
The following is a stenographic report of the entire discourse:
Zionism in Prophecy
PASTOR RUSSELL: I will read in your hearing from the Holy Scriptures, Leeser's translation, the Hebrew version:
Psalms 102:14-16: "Thou shalt arise, O Lord; for thou wilt have mercy upon Zion; for it is time to favor her, for the appointed time has come. For thy servants hold dear her stones, and her very dust they cherish. Then shall nations fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of earth thy glory."
Mal. 3:1,5,6,7: "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall clear out the way before me; and suddenly will come to his temple the Lord, whom ye seek; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire; for, behold, he is coming, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will come near unto you to hold judgment; and I will be a swift witness.... For I the Lord--I have not changed; and ye sons of Jacob --ye have not ceased to be. From the days of your fathers did ye depart from my statutes, and did not keep them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts."
Ezekiel 16:60-63: Nevertheless will I indeed remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant. And thou shalt then remember thy ways, and be confounded, when thou receivest thy sisters, both those that are older than thou and younger than thou; and I will give them unto thee for daughters, though not because thou wast faithful to the covenant. And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: in order that thou mayest remember, and feel ashamed and never open thy mouth any more because of thy confusion, when I forgive thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord Eternal."
Jeremiah 31:31-37: Behold, days are coming, saith the Lord, when I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant.
"Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day that I took hold of them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they have broken, although I was become their husband, saith the Lord.
"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord, I place my law in their inward parts, and upon their hearts will I write it; and I will be unto them for a God and they shall be unto me for a people.
"And they shall not teach any more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of them even unto their greatest, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I not remember any more.
"Thus hath said the Lord who bestoweth the sun for a light by day, the ordinance of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirreth up the sea that its waves roar.--The Lord of hosts is his name.
"If these ordinances ever depart from before me, saith the Lord, then also shall the seed of Israel cease from being a nation before me during all time.
"Thus hath said the Lord, If the heavens can be measured above, and the foundations of the earth be searched out beneath, then also will I reject all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith the Lord."
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Isaiah 40:1,2: Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
"Speak ye (comfort) to the heart of Jerusalem, and call out unto her, that her time of sorrow is accomplished, that her iniquity is atoned for; for she hath received from the hand of the Lord double for all her sins."
MY JEWISH FRIENDS AND OTHERS: I have pleasure in being before you today. I am here because of your invitation, for which I thank you. I am pleased to have an opportunity of speaking to my Jewish friends and neighbors in this city. All the more so because I believe that some, in the name of Christ, have dishonored his name in various persecutions against your race.
I cannot be surprised, my dear friends, that after centuries of persecution you should feel that it would be almost a miracle if you should hear a Christian speaking the words of our text to the Jews, in defense of the Jews. I am pleased, therefore, to have this opportunity of saying that I have no sympathy whatever with the conduct of the Russians, nor with the demoniacal conduct of the so-called Christians of Roumania. We read, too, of the fact recently that in Roumania there was a terrible scene enacted when so-called Christians dug up the dead of the Jews, brought their carcasses and laid them on the doorsteps. Dear friends, this is not properly attributive to the Christianity which I stand for. I am glad that I stand for no such misrepresentation of the One whom I recognize as my Creator, as my Master, and one who is of your race.
Nothing in his Word ever directed his followers to thus misrepresent the principles of righteousness, justice. I should like in one word to tell you the very reason why there is such conduct on the part of some who have named the name of Christ. It is this: That during the period we call the Dark Ages, when ignorance was prevalent throughout the civilized world, various false theories and doctrines, quite contrary to the Law of Moses, quite contrary to the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles, were brought in. So we find that today the name of Christ is attached to various theories which you and I and all Christian peoples recognize as sinful and wrong and dishonest. By all Christian peoples I mean the Christian people in general whom you meet in this land of liberty; a very different view, you will notice, from that held by Christians of Russia and Roumania and some other parts.
The whole world is swayed by the power of the mind. When a man's mind is disarranged his conduct will be in harmony with the disarrangement. What wild and unreasonable things are often done by the insane because the mind has gone wrong. I am not charging the Christians in the Dark Ages with these things, but I am charging it, dear friends, to that which the Scriptures call "Doctrines of Devils," promulgated in the name of Christianity, and some of those doctrines of devils are very devilish indeed. One of these doctrines is what I hold responsible for all the various injustices that have been done to your race--the doctrine that our Heavenly Father, when he created the race, also made a great place of eternal torment and purposed that the great proportion of these human creatures whom he made should be cast into this eternal torture. All of this we believe to be very dishonoring to God, and it is because of this wrong theory respecting God and his character and his purposes toward the children of men that the world has witnessed such terrible persecution of the Jews--and all done in the name of love.
It is not surprising at all that practically all Christian people believe that every Jew is going to eternal torment. So I say, with the thought before their minds that the great Creator has damned every Jew to eternal torment, is it any wonder that those who believe such a thing should act like demons? It is no wonder! A man is bound to be conscientious and we must admit that these people are acting according to their consciences, but if a man is conscientious he will act according to his light or according to his darkness, and this gross darkness which came upon the civilized world 1,000 years ago, from which we have scarcely emerged, is responsible for the misrepresentation of the Almighty's character, and is responsible for the persecution of the Jews. Have we not been told that every man should seek to be in harmony with and should follow the example of his God? Whoever, therefore, has a devilish conception of God will have a devilish form of conduct. And theoretically that has come upon Christian people who are slowly emerging from the gross errors of the Dark Ages. Many errors still cling to them; for instance, the doctrine of eternal torment. These Christian people believe this to be the doctrine of the Bible, and I thought the same. I also thought that I was getting it from the Bible, but I found out differently, my dear friends. I found out that I had been taking the traditions and creeds of men, and I had been told that these creeds fairly represented the Word of God, and under the impulse of the refusal of my mind to follow such a leading I became a kind of an unbeliever, totally rejecting both the Old and the New Testaments; and I know, therefore, how to sympathize with those who are called Higher Critics. I know how to sympathize with those who feel that there is no real intelligence in the Bible.
But, dear friends, after having had this experience, by God's grace I came back to the Bible itself and made an examination along its own lines, and today I am a believer in not merely the New Testament, but in the Old Testament also. I have the opinion that both Jews and Christians have to a large extent neglected the intelligent study of the Word of God and I would like not only to awaken all the Christians --men and women--to study the Bible, but I would also like to awaken all the Jewish people to a study of the Word of God, a study of your own Scriptures, which contain the most wonderful message. They explain all the affairs pertaining to your people.
After making a thorough study of the prophecies I found the whole picture of the world there, and I thank God so often for these prophecies! They are not yet fulfilled. Certain portions of them have been fulfilled; and then there are other things that God has for the Jews and for the Gentiles.
To my understanding, God has two salvations--a special salvation, which is only for a mere handful--merely a saintly few, and as soon as the saintly few have been selected as the body of the Great Messiah he will fulfill all the glorious things the Jews have been hoping for, which you and I have been hoping for, and which the whole world has been hoping for. Do we not all see the need of a great Deliverer for the Jew; do we not see the need of a great deliverer for the whole world; do we not see that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together, waiting, waiting for your Messiah, my Messiah, for the Messiah God has promised, the Messiah of the whole world?
When we come to see what our God is doing, then there is a great sympathetic bond I believe between every intelligent Jew and every intelligent Christian. We have one God, the Father of all, and we have one hope in his glorious plan, and the glorious hope of this plan is all centered in the Messiah that has been promised to the Jews for these 3,500 years since the day of Abraham. God, foreknowing what he would do for the blessing of the world, declared in advance to Abraham that through his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed.
He intimates that there would be two kinds of Abraham's seed--he would have a heavenly and he would have an earthly seed. Remember how in the Scriptures he said, Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven and also as the sands of the seashore. These two seeds eventually shall bless the world. As soon as the heavenly seed shall be completed-- and we believe that that time is near at hand now--then the blessing of God will begin to come to his earthly seed. And what do we see, my dear friends? Do you see the condition in which we are as a race? Do you see the sickness and weakness of the world of mankind today? Do you realize that sin is the very cause of all this, and do you know that God has declared, as I have read in your hearing, that the time is coming when he will blot out all those things which are the results of sin? You and I, and all mankind, are suffering from these things and they will all pass away. Does this not mean that in due time the wilderness shall blossom as the rose, the solitary place shall be glad for them, the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep and none will need say to his neighbor, Know the Lord? We have not had that time yet! It is still in the future. That is the glorious promise of God which Israel is looking forward to if they are looking in the right direction; Christians are also looking forward to this, and all nations look forward to it.
As I have read, not only is the blessing to come to Israel
but also to the Gentiles. That is my understanding, dear
friends, of what the Bible teaches. Let us look for the
great antitypical Moses, this great antitypical David, this
great antitypical Melchizedek; this great one that is mentioned
by Daniel, the prophet, when he said: Then shall
Michael (the archangel) stand up (assume control) and
there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there
was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy
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people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found
written in the book. God is making a record of those who
are true Jews; he has a book; he has an account, and you
and I realize that. We know we are not living here in vain.
You and I believe that the Great One who created us has
something more in store for us than the brute beast. What
is that glorious thing that he has provided?
Our Scripture tells us that under this new regime which shall be inaugurated when Michael shall take control, Israel will be the first to be blessed, as God said in the Scriptures which I have read in your hearing. It shall come to pass as the Lord God has said. After those days I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant I made with them when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, but a new covenant, like the former, but more glorious. As the first covenant had a mediator so this new covenant will have a mediator, a better mediator. As Moses led the people on the right way, so also will the antitype of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses, the greater one than Moses, do. There cometh a greater one than Moses. Now this one will be the one through whom all the promises of God will come to Israel, and through Israel to all men.
To my understanding, dear friends, the Scriptures are very clear in their statement that this New Covenant will be for Israel only and that all the nations of the world, if they desire to receive the blessings of that covenant, must come into Israel, so that during the reign of Messiah, which will be for 1,000 years, all nations will be pressing into it that they may become members of Israel, and so the nations will eventually come to be a part of Israel, as the Scriptures say--the seed of Abraham, like the sands of the seashore, filling the whole earth--and every one who will not become an Israelite, who will not come into harmony with God, with that divine law, with the New Covenant, will be cut off in the Second Death. The Scriptures say that at the end of Messiah's reign every one will be perfect; all will be of the seed of Abraham, and his seed shall then be as the stars of heaven and as the sands of the seashore. But during his reign every one who will not hear that prophet will be destroyed from among the people.
Then, you inquire, why is it that God has so long delayed? Well, my dear brother, whether I can make the matter clear to you or not, it is a fact we all recognize, that he has delayed. And during this delay of now more than 3,500 years from the time that promise was made to Abraham, from the time God took his oath, bound himself to the blessing of all the families of the earth, and bound himself that the blessing should come through Abraham's seed,--from that day to this, in all 3,500 years, your faith as a people has not failed. And in my estimation it is one of the most miraculous things in the world today to see the faith of Israel as a people. I esteem it, my dear friends, to be a miracle itself. No other country has ever done anything like this. No other nation is the seed of Abraham, as God has revealed this matter.
God gave an illustration of the delay, you remember. The covenant made to Abraham was made a long, long time before Isaac was born, and so God's promises to Israel, natural Israel, the seed of Abraham, have been long deferred, and to our understanding in a certain way that we may not have time to fully discuss this afternoon. Our thought is that now God's time has come, as we read in Psalm 102: "To favor Zion, for the appointed time is coming." Do you believe that he did found your nation, and that he had a purpose in respect to that founding? Do you believe the promises? Do you believe that the Lord's promises will yet be fulfilled? Do you believe that he is able to do so? My dear friends, I am afraid that some of the Jews are getting weak in their faith respecting the promises of God. God's purposes ripen slowly, but if the Scriptures are true, and we have a right understanding, Messiah will very shortly be manifested in power and great glory, not visible to men, but as a spirit being, invisible to men, as Daniel described, you remember: Who as God--one like unto God, with power. Yes, my dear friends, with power; with power through Israel to fulfill all the glorious promises God made to Abraham and confirmed to Isaac and to Jacob.
Let me give you an idea of one way in which I think of this matter. I refresh your minds respecting the history of Israel; how after God dealt with your people through judges, he gave them kings, and the name of the last king you remember was Zedekiah. Upon Zedekiah God pronounced a great sentence, which has since gone into effect. Let me remind you of the words of the Prophet addressing Zedekiah, the last king of the Jews. I understand about Maccabeus, king of the Maccabees, but the Maccabees were not Jews. God has promised his blessing to Israel and Judah. Now I will quote you the words of the Prophet Ezekiel, 21:25:
"And thou profane and wicked prince, whose time has come that iniquity shall have an end. Thus saith the Lord God: Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him." Who is this one that is coming? Who is this one that is to take the throne of David? Who is this one that is to be the successor to Zedekiah? Did God not promise to David "the sure mercies of David," that of the fruit of his loins he would raise up this one? This was not fulfilled at that time. It must belong to some future time because the sure mercies of David were pointed to after that time and they have not yet been fulfilled. That great Messiah is not a man, for no earthly being is able to accomplish for Israel, and through Israel for the world, the wonderful things which God has declared this Messiah shall accomplish. He is to bless all the families of the earth--not merely those living at that time, but also all those who have gone down into the sleep of death. That is the time of which Daniel speaks, that in this day many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall come forth; and some shall shine as stars in the firmament.
Now, my dear friends, a certain period of time from the time Zedekiah lost his crown is measured all the way down. What do we find for this measurement in the Word of God, in the Holy Scriptures? Through the Prophet, God has given a measure which reaches from Zedekiah, from the time his crown was taken away to the time that it would be restored. You remember how it was at the time Israel was discarded from divine favor as a nation--not the people but as a nation; the crown was taken away from them as a nation, was removed, to be no more until the Messiah, but still they would continue to be God's people. This shows the difference between God's people and God's nation. But at the time the crown was removed from the brow of the king of Judah, a lease of power was given to the Gentiles.
I remind you that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, was the one who took Zedekiah prisoner. I remind you that he had a wonderful dream and Daniel the Prophet was there and interpreted the dream. I remind you what the dream was; that he saw a great image--head of gold, breast of silver, belly and thighs of brass, and legs of iron, and the feet of iron and clay mixed. I remind you that Daniel gave an inspired interpretation of that dream. Daniel said that Babylon was the first, or head of gold; that after Babylon would arise another kingdom, a universal kingdom; and then a third, and then a fourth. You remember who these are: First, Babylon; second, Medo-Persia; third, Greece; fourth, Rome. Rome came in fourth and was represented by the legs of iron--the strongest empire the world has ever known. Since the Roman empire departed as an empire, what do we have? Papal Rome. This was shown in the image by the feet of iron and clay mixed, the feet being part of iron and part of clay; the iron representing the Roman or civil power and the clay the religious influences or addition to the Roman civil power. So these ten toes seem to indicate also the kings of Europe of the present time, for they have been the successors and their empires are more or less of religious and civil power combined; as for instance, the kingdom of England is not merely a civil but also a religious monarchy, and so with the other monarchies in Europe. They have the religious feature represented in the clay and the civil power represented in the iron. This is a picture of the whole world and all the empires of earth to whom God gave a lease of power more than 2,000 years ago.
We see how this has been fulfilled. What will follow this? Is this great image to stand forever? No! Was Babylon to last forever? No, it was cast away and was succeeded by Medo-Persia. Did it last forever? No, it was followed by Greece. Greece was followed by the Roman empire. Did it last forever? No, it merged into Papal Rome. What about all this? What was the end of this prophecy of Daniel? The king beheld in his vision and a stone was cut out from the mountain without hands and smote the image-- Where? In Nebuchadnezzar's days, the head? No. In the Medo-Persia days? No. Where? In the feet; smote the image in the feet at the end [CR140] of the Gentile times. If you and I see it that way then we must see that we are now somewhere at the time of the feet and we should expect that the time for the smiting of the image in the feet by the stone would be near.
You remember the result; that the stone which smote the image in the feet accomplished the complete destruction of the Gentile empire. The great image went to pieces and the wind carried it away; there was no place found for it. And the stone became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. And Daniel's interpretation of that stone is that it represented the Kingdom of God. He is pointing out how the dominion was taken away from Zedekiah and given to Nebuchadnezzar, and to all of his successors, and that the kingdom power would revert to Israel. Messiah, the head of Israel, will become the great stone that will eventually be the kingdom which will fill the whole earth, and bless the whole world. Is that a plain picture? I hold that it is. Is it a far-fetched interpretation? I hold that it is not. I hold that there is no other interpretation possible; we must either believe that or give up the whole matter. If we see that the first part has been fulfilled in the past, does it not confirm Daniel's prophecy to you and to me, and to as many as have ears to hear, that the latter part is just as sure of fulfilment as the first part?
Another part of this prophecy shows us that there were seven times determined upon this great people. What is a time? A time is a year. Seven times, seven years. Not literal years. More than literal years. There is a symbolical year used in prophecy which is reckoned on the basis of a lunar year; twelve months of thirty days each, or 360 days --each day representing a year. One symbolical year, therefore, would represent 360 years. How many would be represented in seven times? I answer seven times 360 years would be 2,520 years. And if we measure those 2,520 years from the time that God took away the diadem from Zedekiah and gave a lease of power to the Gentiles, what do we find? We find the 2,520 years will soon expire. And what would that mean? That would mean the time to restore Zion has come, and that, my dear friends, is part of my message to the Jews.
You have suffered persecution for centuries; God has surely promised you a blessing, and the time of fulfilment is near, and the blessing that will come upon you is so much greater than you have ever dreamed of that we are astonished to see the grace of our God and the wonderful lengths and breadths of his mighty plan.
The reason that you and I have been inclined to go after infidelity and to reject the Bible is that we never saw the plan of God as there outlined; never appreciated its wonderful promises, never appreciated the fact that God will bless every member of our race. "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed," and that includes the knowledge of God, and the knowledge of his power, and the knowledge of his guidance, and the knowledge of the blessing that will come through the great Mediator of the New Covenant.
Well, how would we measure this period of time? You might say you would count it a few years sooner, etc., but I will tell you how I measure it. I find that the year of Zedekiah is the year 606 which we call in our common reckoning B.C. I forget how it is spoken of by the Jews, or the word that they use. 606 years B.C. and 1914 years A.D. will make what? 2,520 years. What do you see? You see forces at work today that the world has never before seen; every intelligent man sees something wonderful that he does not understand. We hold that the only proper conception of the things that are happening in your day and mine are seen only from the divine standpoint. From God's Word we can know something of what the commotion of our day signifies. Can any deny that we have commotion in our day? That we have wonderful things in our day? That ours is a most wonderful day, for electricity, steam and all the wonderful inventions that come along these lines? How should we understand these things?
Some tell us these are all a result of our having large heads; that we are brainier than any people who have ever lived on the earth. Is this true? As far as you are concerned, and I know as far as I am concerned, you and I recognize great characters of the past that were greater than any of our day. Is it not true that Moses has not today his equal in the world as a law-giver? Is it not true that David could touch more hearts than any other poet in the world? Surely! Shall we say, then, dear friends, that all this great blessing of our day is merely the result of ours being a "brain age" and that we are so brainy today? Let us take the Scriptures for it, let us take the words of the prophet for it, that this is the "day of preparation." Preparation of whom? Messiah. That is what we have been praying for, for Messiah and for the great kingdom of God; for the blessing that God has declared shall come through the seed of Abraham to all the families of the earth. Do you not see that these are the beginning of the blessing? My understanding from the Bible is that the blessings which you and I are enjoying today, the most wonderful blessings the world has ever known, are only the beginnings of God's blessings. I thank God that the great blessing is thus coming to all people and tongues. I thank God we have this hope of Messiah.
As an illustration, the one who has been instrumental in bringing forward many wonderful things from electricity, Mr. Edison, says himself that he has no great intelligence on the subject of electricity or any other subject; he himself tells that he merely stumbled into these things. The simple interpretation is that God's time has come for the lifting of the veil of ignorance that has been in the world, and therefore the blessing of the Lord is coming out here and there.
I remind you of your Jubilee system, inaugurated by Moses; how it pointed forward to a great time of blessing. You remember under the jubilee arrangement that on the fiftieth year every one should again receive what had been lost; everything should go back in accordance with the original arrangement. What did that mean? I agree with you that it was a very good law; I agree with you that it was a very simple law put into operation on a very similar scale to our present bankruptcy law; it was typical of something in the future, typical of a great rest day.
Do you not as Jews hold to the promise of the great period of Messiah's Kingdom when the great Sabbath of rest and peace will come to all the world? I understand that you do. I certainly do. Now this great Sabbath year, this great Jubilee, is another picture of the great day to come, Messiah's reign, his Kingdom, the restitution spoken of, with every man restored to his former estate-- that which was lost. Do you know that our Scriptures, your holy Scriptures, read that God created man not in an imperfect condition but in his own image, in his own likeness, perfect morally, perfect in mentality? Do you agree with me that the Scriptures, your Scriptures, show that so perfect, so absolutely perfect was Adam that even when the sentence of death came upon him he did not crumble into dust in a few years, but for 930 years he was going down into death? As we mark the history of the world coming down to us we find that the average of human life is only about 35 years. In our day we have come down to the very limit almost, and I have noticed within a week the statements of some, an English physician of prominence, and an American physician of prominence, and they both reached about the same conclusion, that at the present rate of the mental decline of the human family, 268 years more would make everybody insane. The world is becoming insane so rapidly that these gentlemen figured out that we would all be insane in 268 years. What does this mean? A great fall of our race, in the strength of mind, in the strength of body, which perhaps some of you have discovered already. Many of my friends have told me that they had a nervous breakdown. That means that none of us is equal to the strain.
Now, my dear friends, if you have the Bible standpoint that God created our first parents in his own image and likeness, and that sin came upon them, and that mentally, morally and physically we have fallen--if we have this before our minds, and then the great Jubilee, we see that man will be restored to his former estate--to all that he lost. That would be restitution according to the Bible. Now I hold, that, we either stand for God and the Bible or we stand against it. I stand for the Bible, and the Bible stands for Israel, and therefore I stand for Israel; and the Bible tells of restitution; of Divine favor, and therefore I proclaim it. I am glad, therefore, of having this opportunity of addressing so many of the Jewish people here and of pointing them to their own Scriptures as teaching these things, telling of the good things God has in reservation for you.
What, in view of this, is the lesson of the hour? It is this, my dear friends: That we should seek justice, and not merely seek the land of Palestine. I may say here that it is not at all my conception of the Bible teaching [CR141] that the eight millions of Jews in the world are going to Palestine, even though it has been estimated that, under most favorable conditions, the land could support more than twice that many. It is my thought that some of your most earnest and saintly people will go to Palestine quickly, and that the rejuvenation there will be astonishing to the world. We have no thought whatever that it is God's plan respecting the Jews that all Jews will return to Palestine, but the time has come when it is the duty of every Jew who is not going to Palestine personally, to give his sympathy, to do all in his power to help every Jew that does desire to go there, and should be specially desirous of assisting financially those of the Jews who are now suffering in Russia, helping them back to Palestine, and establishing there great enterprises. (Applause.)
In regard to your Zionistic ideas, I believe the due time, the set time, as our text says, to remember Zion has come; therefore God raised up for you a certain great leader, Dr. Herzl. Through his efforts the attention of the whole world has been attracted to Palestine, and to the Jews, and the original covenant. This I understand was a political move--not religious in any sense of the word--for the benefit of the Jews living in places where they suffered persecutions. It was also with a certain justifiable national pride that Israel might have a home like other people, and national distinction, and this would give them a share and a proper recognition by the world of the right of a government, and the right to share with others, as members, in the blessings belonging to the human family; that was the original proposition, and it has done a great deal. It is not necessary for me to tell you that the Zionist movement has reached practically its limit, that you have gone nearly as far along that line as you can go. What then? Should you feel discouraged? I say that this is NOT the time for discouragement. This is the very time for encouragement! (Applause.)
We have come to the very time, dear friends, when that realization is to come in, when the promises given in the Word of God to your race are about to take hold upon you as a people and fire your hearts as never before. They say, as some have said to me, Pastor Russell, those who are interested in the Zionist movement are only the poor. The rich of our people do not seem to be interested in it at all. I know nothing of that matter, dear friends, but I have this to say. If my understanding of the matter is right, the voice of Moses is going to the rich, the leaders of the Jewish people; the very foundation of your national character is laid in your religion. And whatever touches your religion, and your religious sentiments, and your faith in God, and your faith in the promises made to Abraham, that is going to stir you as a nation as nothing else has ever stirred you. I believe that we have come to the time, the set time, in which God will restore Zion, and that this fulfilment of Isaiah 40:1,2 is true: "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, Cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the Lord double for all her sins"--a second portion for all her sins, and a blessing must immediately follow. We are in that very time, dear friends, to my understanding. How largely this will move the hearts of all, and that quickly!
If I rightly understand your prophecies--God's prophecies which you recognize--they indicate that Jacob's trouble is not over yet, that this trouble will still be with you, and that you will have more persecution and not merely in Russia, not merely in Roumania; I do not know, my dear friends, whether it will extend to this country or not; but doubtless it will be done also in the name of Christ--and I am sorry for that fact. It is sad indeed to be obliged to admit that these tribulations will probably come to you from professed Christians. How ashamed I feel of those who thus dishonor the name and the teachings of my Master, I cannot find words to express!
They are deluded. They have misunderstood the Teacher whom they profess to follow. Their thought is that God will torment eternally all who do not profess the name of Christ. Controlled by delusion, they are serving the great Adversary and dishonoring Jesus. At the same time God has in these trying experiences of your people a purpose-- to develop your people, and to test your faith, and to keep you together as a people and make you a homogenous people. But as the trials and difficulties of the patriarch Joseph were God's providences to lead him on to influence and power and honor, so will all these experiences and persecutions work blessings for your race and tend to drive them out of their present satisfaction and make them long for home--for Palestine. These experiences, in connection with the voice of the prophets, which will henceforth more and more ring in your ears, will be the providences of God to accomplish for you more along the lines of Zionism than personal pride and national patriotism. There is no other race that shows such persistency as the Jewish people, and this is all centered upon the religious sentiment, faith in the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, faith in the promises of God that in the seed of Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed; and as those persecutions come and as the great time of trouble shall come upon all the world--never mind whether it be in 1916 or not; any way that you can interpret that prophecy, no matter which way you do it, you cannot land very far from 1915 to 1916--God's promise will be fulfilled. In every direction in the world today, my dear friends, we see signs of great trouble, not only financial, but also capital and labor storms, and the people and the governments and the religious systems of the world will all be in conflict according to the Scriptures. I remind you of Daniel 12:1, which marks our day, declaring: "At that time shall Michael (the antitype of Michael, one like as God) stand up, the great Prince (Messiah.)" Then what? "And there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation," no, nor ever will be again. "At that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book."
My dear friends, when that time of trouble comes over Christendom, over the civilized world, a great many of the wealthy Hebrews will want a place of safety and I think that place will be Palestine. The Bible clearly indicates to my mind that many wealthy Jews will go back to Palestine. The Scriptures clearly show that the end of Jacob's trouble will take place right in Jerusalem; the persecution from the civilized world will drive them there and that finally the time of Jacob's trouble will come; then, as the Lord declares, in the midst of that trouble he will reveal himself, not as a man, but manifest his Divine power, as the prophet declares: "The Lord will go forth and fight for you as he fought for you in the day of battle," pointing back to the time when God fought for the Jewish people. In that day he will fight for Israel as in the day of battle. Then there will be a manifestation of his kingly power, and then the blessing will begin, and at that time also will appear, according to the Scriptures, your ancient Worthies, your saintly ones, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David--all the holy Prophets. These will not appear as imperfect men when they come because they have demonstrated their worthiness and faith in God, but will appear as perfect men, and of these it is written, you will remember, by one of the prophets: "Instead of thy fathers they shall be thy children," and Messiah shall be made prince over all the earth; all the people of the world will be under this government; it will be a kingly government, my dear friends. You remember the great King of Israel will be the Messiah on the heavenly plane, invisible to man, the Prince of Light as supplanting Satan, the Prince of Darkness, and this great one will have the earthly government; your ancient Worthies, your saintly ones, will be princes in all the earth, perfect as men, and under the direction and guidance of the heavenly Messiah they shall be rulers amongst men, as the Scriptures declare: "I will restore thy judges and counsellors as at the first." You remember he gave them a counsellor, a law-giver in Moses and not a king, and so this represents a kind of a republic, if you please--not a real republic, but a theocracy. God will be the great one, Messiah will be his great representative to bring righteousness and peace and blessing to all the earth, and lift up mankind from the degradation and weakness and imperfection of sin, and Messiah will operate through these saintly ones of the past, to bless not only Israel, but through Israel to bless all mankind, all the families of the earth.
I thank God, my dear friends, for such a glorious hope, and I suggest to you all that you should come to the point where you will be seeking the Lord, for he says: "I will pour upon them the spirit of prayer and of supplication." I would that all Jews were in the attitude of prayer and supplication toward God and looking for the fulfillment of all the prophecies which God has written for our admonition and encouragement. Your desires should be more and more for God and righteousness and you should be seeking [CR142] to do those things pleasing to him, and to cultivate those elements of character without which no one could secure a place in the great institution that is to bless the world. Dear friends, God will not receive a man merely because he is a Jew. There must be something in you, something specially in harmony with the divine character, or he will not use you. I think one thing God will be specially pleased with in respect to Israel is faith, faith in God, faith in his promises, and I do tell you that I love and appreciate the faith that has been manifested by Israel for these 3,500 years, and I believe Almighty God is very much pleased with that faith. We see, according to the Scriptures, that this was the very quality in Abraham which made him specially pleasing to God, and he was called a friend of God, and so then the Jews who would be in harmony with God must be men of faith and not faith without action, but faith and action, and your action will be in accord with your faith in the glorious promises which God has made in the Bible.
It has been suggested, and I think it a very good plan, my dear friends, that we close this service by the singing of a hymn which I understand you are well acquainted with.
Our Hope
So long the ancient fires blaze
In ev'ry staunch Jewish soul,
And Eastward we longing gaze
Toward Zion, beloved goal--
Not lost is our hope of old,
Graven in our hearts so deep,
To return to that land foretold,
Where our loved sires sleep.
While yet our eyes with quenchless tears
Yearn for our one-time land,
And by graves of sleeping seers
Our hosts resolve to stand--
Not lost is our hope of old, etc.
Thrills yet every brave Jewish heart
With love of flag and land,
Hope from us shall ne'er depart
Of our return--a triumphant band--
Not lost is our hope of old, etc.
[CR142]
(As we are about to go to press with this Report, we notice the following article in the Chicago Record-Herald, under date of October 30, 1910. While we are informed that the dates mentioned in the article are not all correct, yet Zionists agree with the article in general. We give it place here, as it indicates the general and increasing interest in the Zionist movement in all parts of the world, and illustrates the fact that the secular press is giving considerable space to articles and notices along this line.
(Record-Herald, Chicago, October 30, 1910)
ZIONISM
By Eli Daiches
SLOWLY but surely the world-wide Zionist movement is approaching victory. The cry, "Back to Palestine," which for more than eighteen centuries has stirred feelings of a new nationalism in the Hebrew race, is nearing realization. Nothing is stronger proof of this fact than the appearance of the modern, rejuvenated Jerusalem.
As the Zionist movement has crystallized and broadened, softening the iron-hand rule of the Ottoman government, the vitalizing spirit of twentieth century progress and achievement has transfigured the city which Hebrews the world over hope before long to call their own. A large department store, modeled after the American system, will soon be established in the Holy City by a wealthy Jew. A company has been formed to introduce the telephone. An arts and crafts school has been established and is doing splendid work. The Jewish Colonial Trust recently declared a dividend of 12 per cent, the sixth dividend in five years, which means that every $5 share has earned 74 cents in five years. In the past few years a large portion of its capital of $2,500,000 has been invested in Palestine. The Anglo-Palestine Bank has been formed with a capital of a half-million, and is doing a great work along the line of colonization.
NATIONAL FUND GROWS.
The Jewish National Fund, which derives its resources from voluntary subscriptions and by selling stamps, has now a capital of $500,000, and recently financed the construction of a workingmen's home. Five hundred thousand olive trees have been planted in the Herzel forest, extending from Jaffa to Jerusalem.
Striving for the establishment of the Jewish nation on its own soil in Palestine, the Zionist movement was born on the day when the Jews became an exiled nation, 70 A.D., but only in recent years has the propaganda assumed definite proportions. Throughout the past 1,840 years there have been at various times individuals who sought to re-establish a Hebrew nation in Palestine. In the fifteenth century Joseph Nasi asked assistance of the Republic of Venice in behalf of his race. But the conditions under which the Jews lived for so many centuries made many of them despair of ever reaching the goal.
Wainder Cressen, once American consul in Jerusalem, who afterward became converted to Judaism under the name of C. Boaz Israel, established a Jewish agricultural college in Palestine in 1845 and asked the American government to enter into negotiations with the Turkish government with a view to restoring Palestine to the Jews.
PRELIMINARY ATTEMPTS FAIL.
Sir Moses Monteflore, the English philanthropist, made seven visits to Palestine, seeking concessions for the establishment of Jewish colonies. But all these preliminary projects failed. The Jews did not feel the national enthusiasm necessary to carry the plans to success. The conditions under which they had lived made propaganda difficult.
The influences most prominent in the formation of the first stage of modern Zionism were the rise of a strong nationalistic sentiment and the development of anti-Semitism.
Dr. Theodore Herzel, father of the modern Zionist movement, was inspired in his work by the feeling of enmity which has developed against the Jewish race. Dr. Herzel, an Austrian dramatist and a man of striking personality, wrote his epoch-making book, "Judenstaat" (The Jewish State), in 1894, while the whole race was in excitement over the Dreyfus case. In this book he called upon his people to organize and return to Palestine. The book made a great impression, and such representative men as Max Nordau, Dr. Alexander Mamorek, Dr. Max Bordenheimer, David Wolffsohn, Dr. Moses Gaster and Professor M. Mandelstamm became the co-workers of Dr. Herzel.
BECOMES A VITAL FORCE.
The Sultan of Turkey, having heard of the Herzel publication and the intense feeling its exposition of wrongs inflicted on the Jewish people had caused in the whole civilized world, sent a messenger to Dr. Herzel, offering his people a charter to Palestine if they would stop the agitation which followed the Armenian massacre. The offer was rejected.
With Dr. Herzel as the standard bearer the Zionist movement had received sufficient impetus to become a great vital force. A programme embodying the aims and principles of the movement was outlined and accepted at the first Zionist congress, held in Basel in 1897. It was resolved that the Jewish people should be publicly and legally assured a home in Palestine. It was also decided to promote study of the Hebrew language and literature and to establish a high school in Jerusalem.
Another decisive step was taken at the second congress, also in Basel, in the following year, when the "actions committee" was formed and the Jewish Colonial Trust Company was organized with headquarters in London. The latter is capitalized at $10,000,000, of which $2,500,000 has been paid up, and it is managed by a board of directors selected from the executive committee of the Zionist organization. This company stimulates and initiates commerce and industry in Palestine, and is the medium through which funds are directed to their various channels.
[CR143]
HERZEL SCHEME DENOUNCED.
The Jewish National Fund, the purpose of which is the acquisition of capital for the purchase of land in Palestine, was organized at the fourth Congress, held in London in 1900. The fund is not to be used until $1,000,000 has been obtained, half of which amount is always to remain on hand. People wishing to contribute may purchase Zionist stamps at 1 cent each, or they may inscribe their names in the "Golden Book" and subscribe $50.
In the interval between the fourth and fifth congresses, Dr. Herzel called upon the Sultan of Turkey, who conferred upon the Hebrew leader the grand cordon of the Order of Mejidie. Addressing a meeting in London a little later, Dr. Herzel expressed great satisfaction with his mission. Dr. Herzel's assurance that the German Emperor was in full sympathy with the Zionist movement was a feature of the fifth Zionist congress held in Basel. At the following session the East African scheme was advanced by Dr. Herzel, who had been offered by Joseph Chamberlain, then colonial secretary of England, the use of the Uganda territory for colonization purposes.
The presentation of the scheme was the occasion of one of the most dramatic incidents in the history of Zionism. Dr. Herzel was in favor of accepting the offer, his intention being to use the territory as a place of refuge for Jews threatened with massacre in Russia and Roumania. But his plan was most emphatically denounced by those whom it was intended to benefit. Russian and Roumanian delegates hooted the scheme as a betrayal of the cause of Zionism. They wanted no palliative, they asserted. "Give us Palestine, or we stay where we are," was their cry. "It means the ruin of Zionism!" shouted many delegates, as they shook their fists in anger.
Pale and shaking, Dr. Herzel stood on the platform and attempted a defense. He lifted his right hand. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem," he exclaimed, "let my right hand forget its cunning."
No final action was taken, but a commission was selected to examine the territory and report to the next congress. But in the midst of strife and agitation, Dr. Herzel, the leading spirit in the Zionist cause, passed away.
A report adverse to the East African scheme was given by the commission when the seventh congress opened in Basel in 1905. A resolution was adopted declaring that the Zionist organization "stands firmly by the fundamental principles to establish a home for the Jews in Palestine, and that it rejects, either as an end or as a means, any colonization activity outside of Jerusalem."
The Zionist organization in the United States is called the American Zionist Federation, and has 250 affiliated societies, with a central bureau in New York. The order of Knights of Zion is the Western Zionist federation, and has its headquarters in Chicago. It was organized in October, 1898, and has thirty-five branches. Attorney L. Zolokoff is the Zionist leader in this city.
Many Hebrews of the United States believe that the whole course of world events is now favorable to the Zionist movement, and that the day is near when their aims will be realized and the Jews, as a united people, will become one of the most powerful factors in the modern world.
Reaper or Gleaner
All the vales are covered over
With their wealth of golden corn,
All the hills and fields are smiling
With the fruitage they have borne;
Sing! O Reapers, shout for gladness,
'Tis the joyous Harvest morn!
Lo! the ripened sheaf is bending,
Purple hangs the clustering vine,
Rich the vintage thou shalt gather
Golden grain and gleaming wine,
If thou slacken not thy reaping
What a Harvest feast is thine!
Sad one, heard'st thou not the Master
When He sent the reapers forth?
Grieve thou not, tho' late, thy service
Still may have unmeasured worth;
See'st thou not some scattered wheat heads
Almost trampled down to earth?
Fear thou not thy Lord's displeasure,
He will surely bid thee "come,"
For He marks thy smallest service
Thou can'st surely render some,
He'll reward thee, tho' thou bearest
But a single wheat-head home.
For His wheat to Him is precious
As the "apple of His eye"
None too lowly for the Master
Gather all and pass none by;
Each shall have a place, tho' humble,
In His kingdom by and by.
Reaper, art thou? or a gleaner
Entering at th' eleventh hour
In the harvest field of labor?
Rich reward shall be thy dower;
When the "Lord of Harvest" calls thee,
Thou shalt share His throne and power.
G. V. G.
[CR144]
INTERNATIONAL
1911
BIBLE STUDENTS
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR145]
International Bible Students Association
"Wisdom from Above; the Noblest Science; the Best Instructor"
Trans-Continental Tour, June 9 to July 12, 1911
PASTOR RUSSELL
And Special Train of International Bible Students
Obedience
I WILL make my address very short, dear friends, and give you time to get back from your suppers. I have in mind a subject that might be appropriate to us for a few moments of consideration. What is it that the Lord specially expects of you and of me? What is the testing matter in God's sight? We might view the subject from various standpoints, and something might be said from them all, but to my understanding, there is just the one thing that covers all. We might say that God desires us to have a great deal of meekness, a great deal of gentleness, a great deal of patience, a great deal of longsuffering, a great deal of brotherly kindness, and a great deal of love in general. And we might lay stress upon one or another of those, and they are all very properly to be emphasized when thinking of a Christian's duty and a Christian's privilege; but when we think of what God is requiring of the Church, there is one thing that I believe covers the entire matter, and if you and I see that one thing it will help us in all that we do and all our thinking along those lines.
We ask ourselves what was it that Jesus specially did, what quality was it that Jesus specially developed? What was it that the Father saw in him that was well pleasing? By what process did he gain a great prize and come off a conqueror? What was it that he did? What was it in all his experiences that he learned? The Bible answers that he learned Obedience by the things which he suffered. And I understand, dear brothers and sisters, what we have specially to learn is Obedience. Now I would like to impress that thought in my mind and in the minds of all who are present. God looks for obedience. When Jesus came, you remember, and was thirty years of age, and presented himself at Jordan in consecration to do the Father's will, what did he say? Lo, I come to do thy will, O God--I have come here to be obedient to your will, whatever your will is, in things great or small, difficult or easy--your will is that which I am here to do. And that should be your attitude and mine, dear brethren and sisters. This is the only proper attitude. I have found some dear Christian brethren and sisters who seem to have a different thought. They seem to think, now God wants me to make some sacrifice, and I will make a particular sacrifice of my own. Jesus did not so say. Jesus did not say, I am going to make a great big sacrifice of my own. He says, I just want to do whatever the Father wants to have done, nothing more, nothing less. And so it is with you and me. We are not to pick out something, and say, Now how can I scheme something and work up something and do something that will be novel, and God will say, What a wonderful thing you have done. We are not able to surprise God, dear friends, by any wonderful things we can do, and every time we think we are going to do some wonderful thing, by the time we get through with it we will find it is a very foolish thing--sure to be so. And just the right attitude, then, is Father, what is thy will? What sayest thou for me to do? All of Jesus' ministry was spent in this way. You remember he began thus at the very beginning of his ministry and said, Lo, I come, as in the volume of the Book it is written of me, to do thy will--everything that is written in the Book; everything that is in the Bible. Everything that God has been telling for all of these previous centuries what the Messiah would do, I am here, Father, to do any and everything you would have for me to do. To my understanding, our Lord Jesus did not at first comprehend all that he was to do. Those things written in the Book were still hidden from him. When he made his consecration, you remember he had not yet been begotten of the Holy Spirit. It was after he had made his consecration, and after he had gone down into the water, and symbolized his consecration by baptism, that the Holy Spirit came on him, and the higher things, the heavens--were opened unto him and he began to see deep spiritual truth, began to understand those things of which he had knowledge previously but not an understanding. Just the same as you and I at one time had some knowledge of what was written in the Law and in [CR146] the Prophets, but we did not have an understanding of it. We knew the Scriptures stated this and stated that, but what did that mean, and what did this mean? So it was with our Lord, before he was begotten of the Spirit. He knew those things were written there; he knew those things written in parables and dark sayings; he knew God had that all covered up, and he knew he had come to be the Messiah, he knew the Messiah was to fulfill all those various things; but now, what was he to do? He did not see how those things could be fulfilled, for he did not know what they meant. There he saw the bullock of the Sin-offering and the goat of the Sin-offering, and the scape-goat, and the sprinkling of the blood-- what do they mean? And he saw the typical Pass-over lamb, saw the killing of the lamb, and the eating of its flesh, and the sprinkling of the blood, and the eating of the unleavened bread, herbs, etc.--but what did they mean? He saw the first-born of Israel were passed over and he saw that they became the Priests and Levites of the future--but what did it mean? Just as soon as he received the Holy Spirit, those things began to be opened up to him, he began to understand them. Then what did it mean? Oh, then he saw that he had already contracted to do the things that he now came to understand fully. That is to say, he began to see that the bullock represented himself and his sacrifice; he began to see that the copper serpent on the pole was merely a type of himself; that as Moses raised up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of Man be lifted up; and that as people looked to the serpent and were healed of the bite of the fiery serpents, so humanity is to look up to him as the great sin-bearer, and have their sins and their pains, etc., which are the result of sin, healed of the bite of the serpent.
But the whole lesson for Jesus was, first, would he, without understanding all the terms, agree to do God's will, at any cost? He did that when he left the heavenly glory. He said, Father, if you have a glorious plan, and if you have intended me to be the instrument of that plan, although you have not told me how it is to be worked out yet, nevertheless I am ready; I will lay aside the heavenly glory, and I will assume the earthly condition--you see that is a necessary step. And that is all I ask, just let me see one step and I will take that step. So he found himself in fashion as a man. Now he said, Father, what is the next step--I delight to do thy will--everything that is written in that Book. Then the Father showed him the things written in the Book. Then you see how the remainder of his life was filled up with doing all the things that he could find were written in the Book. Now what was all of that? Obedience--the spirit of obedience. It was the spirit of obedience from the beginning that prompted him to lay aside the heavenly glory and assume the human nature. It was the spirit of obedience then that led him to say, Now, Father, here I am; for this purpose I have come into the world, now here I give myself away. Obedience. Then after he began to see more and to understand better, obedience still came in, and he said, this is the thing to be done, and that is to be done next, and the other is to be done afterwards, so step by step our Lord's pathway was a pathway of obedience and an obedience that cost him something. Every step that he took cost him something.
Now dear friends, you and I are invited to walk in his footsteps --in his steps of obedience. It is the obedience that God is counting. It is the obedience that is going to make you acceptable in God's sight. Obedience to the Commander means loyalty. Suppose a soldier in the army who would say, Did the general issue that order?
Yes.
Well, I don't understand what that means, I am not going to do it until I understand more about it. As soon as I know where the thing ends, then I will begin to be obedient.
That man would not be a loyal soldier. The business of a soldier is to be obedient. He knows that when he enlists. So when you and I have enlisted to be soldiers of the cross, it means obedience, whatever the Lord's providence brings to us, whatever the Lord's words shall indicate to us, to do not only his will, but to do it with delight.
We mentioned this morning how some have had a hesitancy saying, "Now is it necessary to be baptized?"--a wrong spirit entirely, you see, to be enquiring as to it being necessary--as though it were compulsion. There is no delight in that. The thing that will bring divine blessing is to delight to do God's will. Father, what is thy will? Show me what it is, make it plain to me, I am ready, willing, anxious to do everything that is written in your Book--all that you have marked out for this elect class.
Jesus has gone before. He has set us an example, and we are walking in his steps of obedience. They have led us thus far, and a blessing has come with every step of obedience we have taken, if we have taken it with the right condition of heart, and a blessing awaits every future step you and I will take if we simply take the future steps with loyalty to God and delight and pleasure in doing the will of our heavenly Father. And thus right down to the end of the journey, all the steps will be blessed of the Lord, and all who thus follow in the footsteps of Jesus, in the footsteps of obedience, thankful obedience, will all find themselves shortly, dear friends, in the kingdom.
THE TIME IS SHORT
UP, up, my soul, the long-spent time redeeming;
Sow thou the seeds of better deed and thought;
Light other lamps, while yet the light is beaming;
The time, the time is short.
Think of the eyes that often weep in sadness,
Seeing not the truth that God to thee hath taught;
O bear to them this light and joy and gladness;
The time, the time is short.
Think of the feet that stray from misdirection,
And into snares of error's doctrine brought:
Bear then to them these tidings of salvation;
The time, the time is short.
The time is short. Then be thy heart a brother's
To every heart that needs thy help in aught.
How much they need the sympathy of others!
The time, the time is short.
[CR147]
Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled
I HAVE in mind, dear friends, the words of our Great Master and Teacher, just before he died. "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." It seems to me that sounds the very beginning of man's experience in sin. Fear has been one of the terrible scourges through which he has afflicted himself, in a great measure. Father Adam and mother Eve were afraid after they had sinned. They went and hid themselves. And so there is a general tendency on the part of mankind to hide from God, realizing that we are sinners, realizing that we are imperfect, realizing that God is perfect, realizing that his law is perfect. Realizing that there is a penalty attached to his law, man has feared the worst and apparently the great adversary has taken advantage of this element of fear in our natures to endeavor to drive us still further from God.
If the world could but put away the fear it has, if the world could draw nigh to God, how assured we are in God's Word that he would be pleased to draw nigh also to the world--to every one of his creatures. But this element of fear entering in has destroyed our conception of the Almighty and has made man to consider the heavenly Father as the greatest of all evil beings, in a certain sense of the word, the one he should most dread, the one he should most fear. And so we find today, looking all over the world, that the heathen are in great fear and great trepidation, and they indeed worship no other God than a demon and have no other sensibility on the subject except that of fear. The element of love seems not to enter into any other religion than the religion of the Lord, our God, as presented to us in the Bible. No other religion I know of inculcates love for the Creator, or tells about the Creator having love for his creatures, but as heathen mind has thus turned against God through fear, we believe the Scriptures to indicate that they are turned through doctrines of demons, misrepresenting the Almighty, misrepresenting the divine plan, giving them all sorts of terrible thoughts respecting the future; so it has been to a large extent that the same prince of demons, and the same demons, have operated to some extent amongst Christian people, so that all of our creeds have taken on the coloring of the heathen religion; and as many of the people came from the heathen religion, it was a very easy matter for them to bring with them their misconception of the Almighty. And apparently, although the Bible teems with declarations of God's goodness, God's mercy, and God's love, yet this seems to be the thing that is very difficult for those who are out of harmony with God to understand, and the more they turn away from God, the more they delve into sin, the further they feel they are from him, and the more they feel that his anger should properly be against them.
It was not until we became Christians in the true sense of the word that we began to know something about God's real character, and began to trust him as a God and be able to look to him as our Father. The first good lesson for us that we learned at the very beginning of our Christian experience was that God had mercy upon us, and that he sent his son, and that Jesus died, the just for the unjust. We were so mistaught respecting the heavenly Father that perhaps many of you, like myself as a child, were inclined to reverence Jesus as the personification of love, and to think of the heavenly Father as the personification of anger and severity; and you would come to the Father through Jesus, hiding behind Jesus. And this thought was so thoroughly instilled in our minds that it was a difficult thing when we came to know the Lord better to fully get rid of all those thoughts of fear.
I saw recently a statement in the newspapers respecting a Sunday School Superintendent. He said to the children, "What do you think you would do first when you would get to heaven?" One little girl held up her hand.
"Well, tell us what you would do?"
She says, "I would hide from God behind Jesus."
There it is, my dear friends--run and hide from God behind Jesus. So this is what we have been doing all along. This is what the whole world has been doing--hiding from God. And it is fortunate for us, for to some extent we learned, even if it was indirectly, of the love of God through our Lord Jesus Christ; but we have to remember, and we do remember as children of older growth, that the Bible everywhere tells that it was God's love who planned the whole arrangement for our salvation, that it was the Father who arranged for the Lamb to be slain from before the foundation of the world; and it was the Father that sent, in due time, his Son into the world that he might redeem the world; and it is the Father who declares that he is the redeemer and the Savior and besides him there is none other; that is to say, while Jesus is the active person in this work of redeeming and saving, our Lord Jesus is merely carrying out the program of the heavenly Father, whose love we have in the past so much doubted. But now as Bible students, as we have come to study the Word of God more fully, we have come nearer to God, we have heard his message, "Draw nigh unto me and I will draw nigh unto you," and then the Lord Jesus revealed the Father as he said. He was revealing the Father more than he was revealing himself. He came that he might show forth the Father's character; he came as the exemplification of the Father's character and plan; he came telling us he was not doing anything of his own volition, but entirely according to the Father's gracious program. And so in this verse, "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid," then another verse, "Let not your hearts be troubled; Ye believe in God, believe also in me." The Jews had been believing in their heavenly Father, but had not been able to fully grasp the greatness of God and his mercy and love, but now they were to see in Jesus an exemplification of mercy and love, and they were to associate these in their minds. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is related to the Father, and there is one God and one plan--one God and Father of all, and one Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Then the message of God to you and to me, in our Savior's words is, "Let not our hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." Fear hath torment. There is ground for fear with sinners, but there is a ground then again for losing that fear--we have been redeemed with the precious blood. Something has been accomplished by our Savior. There is the opening of a reconciliation through the merit of his sacrifice. At one time we but vaguely comprehended what this great transaction is which our Lord Jesus accomplished. Now, by the grace of God, the due time seems to be here when his true people may see more clearly than ever in the past something of the length and breadth and the height and the depth of God's love, and the method by which God is working all things in harmony with his own justice, his own love, his own wisdom and his own power.
The first lesson we learn, then, is that we are sinners, that God is just and that he has pronounced a just penalty against sin. And it helps us so much when we begin to see what divine justice called for--that it did not call for eternal torment, but it did call for the life of the sinner. When we got that fact clearly before our mind, it was very helpful to every one of us, I am sure. After we saw clearly that he who gave life to mankind had a perfect right to determine that if that life would not be used in harmony with the divine law for God, for righteousness, in harmony with God, then that life should be forfeited, should be canceled, it helped us to see the next point plainly, that God having declared human life forfeited by Adam and his race, had provided also a way by which that sentence might be set aside, namely; that he would send his Son and that his Son would pay the price of redemption, and through the merit of the sacrifice of Jesus, the just for the unjust, there would be a reconciliation opened up whereby man could be recovered from the death sentence. Then the beauty of God's plan was thoroughly seen by us when we perceived that Jesus paid this very death sentence, that he did not go to eternal torment for us, or to purgatory for us, but he went into sheol, he went into hades, he went into the tomb, he went into the state of death--he died that he might recover us to God. Now the matter seemed quite clear to our minds, death the wages of sin, and Jesus dying and paying that very penalty.
Then the next thing in order would be the application of that penalty. When we say that Jesus paid the penalty we are using the word "Pay" in an accommodated sense; that is to say, it cost him so much, and that cost to him when he was thirty years of age, and for three and a half years when he was laying down his life and finished laying it down at Calvary, that was the cost to our Lord Jesus for our recovery. But while that was what it cost him, and that, therefore, was what he paid, in the sense of laying down life for our purchase, that was merely getting ready the purchase price. After the purchase price was thus in the divine hands, after Jesus had died and his death was a sufficiency for the sins of the whole world, it was in the hands of justice, but not yet applied to anybody. Then came the next step in the [CR148] program--the application of the merit of Christ. And what a wonderful philosophy opens up before our minds when we see how God is working in such a philosophical manner--much more so than anything we ever dreamed of! I tell you I get more in love with the heavenly Father's gracious character, and all the various details of it, the more I see of his gracious plan. How could we help but admire and love him, one who is so just on the one hand and so loving on the other, and one who is so fair in all his dealings--absolutely fair.
When we saw that God did not begin to deal with the world, although Jesus had died for the world, we saw the object. He tasted death for the man; it was not merely tasting death for the church. He was the satisfaction for the Church's sins, but not for the Church's only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Then we say, "When did he apply his merit for the world?" The answer is, "He has not yet applied his merit for the world." Is that the reason that the world is not reconciled to God? Yes, that is the reason the world still lies in the wicked one, as the Scriptures declare. Had the merit of Christ been applied to the world, and had the world been taken out of the hands of the wicked one, then the world would not be in the hands of the wicked one now; but the fact that the world still lies in the hands of the wicked one, that the world are still the children of wrath, as the Apostle said, is the evidence that Christ did not apply his merit to the world. Well then, what did he do? Did he do nothing? Oh, he did something, my dear friends; he did something of importance to you and to me. He did the first part of his great work. What was that? He ascended up on high and there appeared in the presence of God. For whom? For us. Who do you mean by "us"? "Us" who believe. "To us who believe he is precious"--to all who believe he is precious--to all who believe in the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation through his blood. Only those who believe, not to another soul. Not to an unbelieving soul has he ever granted any share in the merit of his sacrifice, but only to us who believe. And how did he apply it to us? The Scriptures say that he imputes it to us. Now what does "impute" mean? Impute signifies to make an indirect application.
Let me give you an illustration: Suppose I needed a thousand dollars and I went to you and said, "I would like to have a thousand dollars." And you would say, "I will neither give you nor lend you a thousand dollars, but I will endorse a note for you for a thousand dollars." Now then, if your endorsement is satisfactory, and will bring me the money, your endorsement is an imputation of a thousand dollars to my credit at the bank. So in case of the Church, Christ does not give to the church the value of his death; the value of his death is restitution only; he does not give us restitution. He does not wish us to have restitution; he has some better things in store for us. The heavenly Father has proposed that this class that is now being called may become heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And since he is on the heavenly plane we also hope and trust we will be with him and see him as he is and share his glory on the heavenly plane. If so, we do not want restitution; we do not want the earthly life-rights of Jesus. We want merely what our God has provided. You need the present life and present body you have, as far as it will go, and you want an imputation of the merit of Christ to cover all the blemishes of your body, every blemish you have through sin, you need an imputation of Christ's merit covering all that imperfection. Why so? Because the call of this Gospel age is for you to present your body a living sacrifice, and you could sacrifice what you have, you could offer it to God, but God could not justly and consistently accept it as a sacrifice because it is blemished. Therefore it needs to have the imputation of the merit of Christ added to it, covering its blemishes and imperfections, and just as soon as that point is attained, satisfaction is there and God is ready to receive your offering as long as this Day of Atonement continues.
Bear in mind that this Day of Atonement lasts for more than 1800 years. The beginning of the Day of Atonement was in the days of our Lord's flesh, and his was the first great offering, and God accepted it because he was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. Then after he ascended up on high, he gave an imputation of his merit, he endorsed, for all of those who would come unto the Father through him, and who would take up the cross and follow him--he became endorser for all of these, he imputed his merit to their contract so they could be acceptable in the sight of justice; and forthwith those who were waiting on the day of Pentecost, you remember, were immediately accepted as the holy Spirit came upon them, indicating that God had accepted their sacrifices, and God there begot them of the holy Spirit that they should be New Creatures in Christ, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ, their Lord. And the same imputation made at that time has stood good for all the Lord's people of this class all the way down through this antitypical Day of Atonement, and still stands good and will stand good down until the last member of the elect shall have availed himself of this privilege and shall have presented his body a living sacrifice. And just as soon as the last member of the elect company shall have finished his course, all that part will be at an end, for thus it is written of this time. Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation. That is to say, now is the special time of this special salvation as members of the Body of Christ; now is the acceptable time in which God is willing to accept the sacrifices of those who choose to come in and walk in the footsteps of the Savior, and take up their cross and follow him, laying down their lives in the service of God and of righteousness and on behalf of the brethren.
Do we then, dear friends, have clearly in mind what constitutes this presentation, or imputation of merit on our behalf? And do we see this, that if some of that merit was applied to Saint Paul and Saint Peter and others of the early church way back there when they died, they needed no further imputation; they were through with the imputation; they merely needed the imputation so that the sacrifice could be offered, and when the sacrifice was complete the imputation was at an end; and so this imputation or loaning of the merit of Christ to the various members of his Body continues down through the age; and when the last of these notes which he endorses shall have been paid, when your life shall go out, when your contract shall be finished, then by the grace of God, the matter will be at an end and all the merit that was imputed to you and to me and to all those who believe, and who take up their cross to follow him--all of that merit will be back again in the hands of justice, ready to be applied, not in the same manner, but in a different manner, to the world. Well, how will it be applied to the world? "How could it be differently applied to the world," says one? Why, very easily. It would not do the world much good to merely impute Christ's merit to them. Why not? Because whenever the imputation would be at an end the merit would no longer be there and all the right to life would be gone. What Christ wishes to do for the world is to give to it that which it lost and which he laid down, namely; the right to earthly life and the right to earthly dominion that Adam had at first, that Adam forfeited through disobedience, and that Christ won for himself by his obedience, and it is now his estate to give away to mankind.
So during the Millennial age, under the new Covenant which Christ will inaugurate at the beginning of that age, all the world of mankind will become his; they will no longer be children of wrath. Why not? Because of the merit of Christ applied to the sealing of that New Covenant on their behalf. God says to them, "Your sins and your iniquities I will remember no more." So then the whole worlds' sins and iniquities will be blotted out as far as God is concerned, and the whole world will be turned over to Jesus. They will not be perfect; they will not be worthy of eternal life; and if they were to fall into the hands of God immediately their imperfection would lead them to commit sin again; but they are not allowed to fall into the hands of justice; the great Mediator keeps them in his own control. Having purchased them with his blood, he holds them in his control; he stands between mankind and divine justice, and there as a Mediator between God and man he deals with mankind to lift them up and bring them to full human perfection, giving them all the good blessings of restitution which they need. So as many as are willing by the end of that Millennial reign of Christ will be back again to all that was lost in Adam, all that was redeemed on Calvary, and then all those unwilling to make progress, undesirous of coming back to God, will have died the second death, from which there will be no recovery. Then the Mediator will step from between and he will turn over the restored world of mankind and the restored Eden with it to God, and divine justice will then deal with the perfect race, because all will be able to stand the test of divine justice; all should be, because they will all be perfect and God does not propose that mercy shall intervene between divine justice and any perfect individual. If the individual is perfect, God's law is not too severe for the perfect individual to observe, and to have eternal life under it; and if he will not come into line with the divine law, he shall not have everlasting life.
But now this class that has come to know the Lord, after they have become members of the Body of Christ, it is for these to learn more and more to have confidence in God; and it is to this class that the word of God is applicable, all things shall work [CR149] together for good. To whom? To you who have accepted the Lord Jesus, to you who have become new creatures in Christ, you who have become related to the heavenly Father through his Son; all things shall work together for good to them that love him more than they love houses, more than they love land, more than they love parents or children, wife or husband, more than they love themselves. I believe that with the majority of people, self-love is the great difficulty that stands in the way--self-love, self-gratification. It is easier to deny everything else than to deny yourself--but that is exactly the condition Jesus laid down, "If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself"-- self-denial.
Well, my dear friends, if we have come into this blessed relationship to the Lord, if we have made a thorough covenant, if we are seeking to walk in the footsteps of Jesus to the best of our ability, if we are trusting in the merit of his blood for our continued acceptance with the Father, then our text is true and applicable to us, "Let not your hearts be troubled about anything, neither let it be afraid." There is nothing to fear. As Saint Paul says, "If God be for us, who could be against us." What would it amount to if they were against us? They will be against us sure enough, but if God be for us, what will it amount to if the whole world be against us? One with God is a majority, someone has well said. That is the right thought. Let not your heart then be troubled, you have a great friend; the King of Glory is your friend, your Father.
One of the brethren was speaking of one of the pilgrims to an outsider and the outsider was not very well able to understand how the work was carried on without collections, and the brother said, "Well, he has a rich Father." He did not explain which father it was that was rich, but I know which one he meant. It is a rich Father we all have. How could we be poor? And besides this rich Father has sent us word that we are his heirs. He says, "If you are my children, then are you my heirs," heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time--in the end of the age. Now I believe that it is very nearly ready to be revealed. I believe we are down very near to the end of this age. I am hoping that very soon you and I and all of God's faithful ones shall be inheritors of all things; for, as the Apostle says, "All things are yours because you are Christ's, and Christ is God's."
Now then, why let your heart be troubled, or be afraid? The
only thing that should trouble your hearts or mine, or which
should make us fearful in any sense of the word, would be not
what men might do, nor what men might say, but what might
be done by ourselves as expressed by the poet when he said in
that beautiful verse,
"O let no earth-born cloud arise,
To hide thee from thy servant's eyes."
That is the only thing to fear, that is the only thing to trouble your soul, and that is the only thing that troubled the soul of our dear Redeemer. Nothing that the Jews or Gentiles ever did or suggested worried him at all. He was not troubled about any of those things. The only trouble that we see he ever had was in the Garden of Gethsemane. There he was in trouble-- "Now is my soul troubled, and exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Why? Well, he was wondering whether or not he who represented so many important issues, he who had undertaken such a great and wonderful work, not only wonderful in respect to himself in that he had left the glory of the heavenly plane and became a human being for the suffering of death and the redemption of mankind, and the pleasing of the Father, but he was wondering whether or not he had done everything that he could have done and had done it perfectly to the Father's pleasement. That was the source of his agony in the Garden. And so Saint Paul tells us, you remember, when he had offered up strong crying and tears unto him who was able to save him out of death, he was heard in respect to the things which he feared. He feared that he might possibly have made some slight error, and since he stood alone as a representative of the whole issue, one slight infraction of the divine law, one slight infraction of his covenant would have dashed the whole matter. No wonder, as the hours were few between the time of his praying and the time of his crucifixion that he wanted to make sure there was no earth-born cloud between his soul and the Father's, and he was heard. Although the statement is not found in our common version in respect to the angel appearing and comforting him, I think it must have been so, and perhaps some still older version may be found in which that will be recorded. I believe some messenger from the Lord must have come in there, because there was such a wonderful change in our Master's demeanor; just as soon as he had reached this climax of sorrow and wonder and perplexity, and prayer, something came to him, and the most likely thing I can think of is the thing recorded in our Gospel that the angel of our Lord came and gave him a satisfactory message that he had done his work nobly and faithfully, and the Father was well pleased with him. Then he was calm again, the calmest of all the calm on that wonderful day in which he was lead as a lamb to the slaughter. Not a word was said, and not a thing was done to oppose the things done by the shearers. And so if our hearts are in tune with the infinite one, then all is well, all is peace within.
As our dear Master was tested on the particular point of obedience, that is the particular point for you and for me to learn--loyalty to God, because obedience means loyalty. The soldier who on the field of battle is obedient to the orders of his general, is accounted loyal; and if he were to say, "I do not see the meaning of that order or that command or why we should march in this direction under the hot sun," he would be disloyal and in rebellion against the law under which he is a soldier. So you and I are soldiers of the cross; we are under the eye of the Captain and under the direction of the great heavenly Father, and in the battle that he has for us we are not to be the judges, but we are under his direction, and he assures us that all things shall ultimately work together for good. It is for us to trust and to be obedient.
So then, dear soldiers of the cross, let us go on with strong hearts. Faithful is he who called us, who also will do for us exceedingly abundantly more than we could have asked or thought, according to the riches of his grace and his loving kindness in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[CR149]
Preciousness of the Lord
THE text that is before my mind at present, dear friends, reads, "To us who believe, he is precious." To me this carries with it a great deal of weight. It appeals to my mind as very true in my case. The more I believed the more precious the Lord became to me, and I believe that it is so with all of God's people; the more we have learned to know about the Lord, the more we came into real touch with him by faith and obedience, the more precious he becomes to us. And here we see the relationship between faith and knowledge, and we perceive that many of us in the past have greatly erred in that we have failed to see the importance of knowledge. Knowledge of itself, as the apostle suggested, might puff us up, but love would build us up, and yet we could not have any love if we did not have some knowledge; because, how could you love that of which you knew nothing? Hence the Scriptures seem to put these two matters in relationship one to the other--faith and obedience, faith and love. As we progress in knowledge we may progress in faith built upon that knowledge, and as we progress in faith and knowledge we must come to the point of obedience; otherwise the faith will begin to wane and we will not be able to take on further knowledge. Has it not been so with every one of us here present this afternoon? As Christian people have we not [CR150] found that it was necessary for us to feed on the Word of God, that it constitutes the bread to our new natures? In proportion as we got the knowledge and mixed it with obedience and with faith, in that proportion our love for the Lord and our progress as new creatures was manifest.
And what about believing? I think we have had very lax ideas on this subject of believing.
Perhaps we have even given slack thoughts to others which were not helpful to them, the ordinary thought in the human mind that all who are not believers are lost and that "lost" means to go to an eternity of suffering. It would have been a hard-hearted person who would tell his friend or neighbor, "You are not a believer; you, therefore, are lost; you are going to eternal torment." That would have been a difficult message to give with our misconception of the divine arrangement. But when we come to see what God's real plan is, namely; that his purpose and arrangement for dealing with the world is all future, that the present time is merely the time for dealing with believers, and believers only, then it makes the matter entirely different. We see that these believers are called to be the elect of God, called to the great high calling of joint-heirship with Christ, called to the new nature, called to all of those wonderful things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of the natural man. And we see, then, dear friends, that since this calling is for the believers, it does not imply that the unbelievers will lose everything, but they will lose this high calling, this special privilege, this special opportunity; but they will still have in God's gracious arrangement the opportunity that God has arranged shall come to the world in due time--the opportunity for attaining earthly perfection, the earthly Eden, and all of those things will still belong to them.
This brings us, then, to the thought, What constitutes a believer? We must take the Scriptural proposition and say that a believer, from God's standpoint, is not one who merely believes with the mind, but as the Scriptures say, "With the heart man believeth unto Salvation." It is a heart matter, not merely a mental matter. The Scriptures also say to us, you remember, that devils believe and tremble. Believing merely that the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world, merely believing he is the Son of God, merely believing he died for human sins, merely believing he arose from the dead to be the justifier of those who believe would not constitute us believers in the Scriptural sense. To believe with the heart is what our Lord Jesus referred to when he said to the disciples, "If you believe, if you will be my disciples, if you will come in with me, deny yourselves, take up your cross and follow me." Those who thus take up their cross and become followers of Christ are the believers, those are the ones to whom he is precious; those are the ones that are precious to him. We are to make this clear-cut, and I think perhaps sometimes in talking to some of our neighbors and friends we have not gotten the matter as clear-cut as we might have done.
Not long ago I was speaking to a lady and she said, "I believe in Christ."
I said, "You have never given your heart to him?"
"No."
"Well," I said, "why then do you call yourself a believer?"
"Oh," she said, "I believe Jesus died, and I believe he gave the ransom price, too."
"Well," I said, "That amounts to nothing. You have not become a believer in the Scriptural sense of the word."
"Why," she said, "is that true?"
I said, "That is true."
"Then have I not come into divine care and providence at all?"
"Not at all, not any more than a heathen has. The fact that you have lived where you had an opportunity did not make you any better than the heathen, but it was rather worse on your part; you have had the opportunity, you have had the knowledge and the heathen man never had opportunity and knowledge, and his responsibility in God's sight is less than yours."
"Yes," she said, "I do believe."
"But you do not believe in the Scriptural way. Suppose I should tell you over in a certain place was a million dollars, and it would be yours if you would go there immediately, and before anyone else would get there: you would go there quickly, if you believed. If you did not go there it would be because you did not believe it, because you would have an interest in getting a million dollars, and what you could do with it. Now God has offered us something with which a million dollars is no comparison in value at all, not worthy even to be mentioned. This great gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, that we might become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord, is beyond comparison with a million dollars. Whoever, therefore, says he believes and yet neglects to take the proper steps whereby he will get his share of that great blessing belies his own testimony. In that case he does not really believe that there is such a prize, that there is such an opportunity, that there is such a proposition on God's part."
"Well," this lady said, "why, Brother Russell, do you mean to tell me then that my prayers to God are of no avail? I pray regularly to God, and have done so all my life."
"I mean to tell you that your prayers do not come up before God at all. I mean to tell you that you have no standing before God at all."
Perhaps this is what I should say, for all I know, to someone here present this afternoon; I would at least discharge my duty. The person who does not come to the Father through Jesus does not get connection with the Father at all, neither in prayer, nor in any other way. And there is no way of coming to the Father except through him as our advocate. There will be by and by a way in which the whole world will come to God through the great Mediator, through the mediatorial kingdom, through the great work which Christ as Mediator will accomplish for a thousand years, of instructing, and chastening, and helping mankind-- all the world will have a chance in that.
Then this lady said to me, "If then my prayers are not heard, and as you say God has no interest in me, am I to understand, if that is really the case, that God has no interest in me?"
"You are to understand that exactly, that God is not taking any interest in you any more than he is taking interest in all the remainder of mankind. He has taken that much interest in you and in all the remainder of mankind, that he has provided a glorious opportunity in the millennial age in which every one, even all the remainder of Adam's race, will have a glorious opportunity; but God is not taking any particular interest in you as an individual, because you are spurning God's arrangement and God's offer of the present time, and he has only the one offer now. It is my duty to tell you this matter very plainly. There is no other door, no other way, no other arrangement by which you can now draw near to God except under the call he is now issuing. He has only the one call and one blessing now--'Ye are called in one hope of your calling.'"
This lady, however, was familiar with the Scriptures, and she said, "I have relied upon the Scripture that said, 'Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you.'"
But I answered, "It says, 'Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you', but you have never joined the 'Ye' class, you have never joined the 'You' class. You must join the class referred to, or else the promise is not yours."
She then said, "Would you advise that I would not go to prayer at all?"
"That would be my advice, that you do not pray to God at all, if you have no interest in him, and he has taken no interest in you. If there is no arrangement by which you draw nigh to God, you have no confidence whatever and the sooner you find it out, the better."
So then, dear friends, this text means something--to us who believe he is precious. If he were sufficiently precious to all and they knew about him they would be believers in this Scriptural sense, in the sense of acting upon their faith. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness; but he showed his belief by his conduct, by his obedience to the divine proposition. And so you and I, if we believe that Christ died, if we believe he rose again, let us then act upon the proposition that God has made through him, that he is willing to receive us as his children, that he is willing to give us his Holy Spirit, that he is willing that we should come in under his love.
I was not at all surprised to hear that lady say at one time that her heart was quite unsettled, and she knew not what to think. And I said to her, "That is your condition: You need the settling power of the Lord; you cannot be happy in the sense you would like to be happy until you have accepted God's terms, for God has no other arrangement by which permanent and proper happiness can enter into human life except through relationship with him, and this relationship is through faith and obedience of faith. It is a reasonable service. How could we offer less?" The more that you and I understand the matter, the more we are persuaded that if we had a thousand tongues, if we had a thousand lives, as the poet has said, "It would be an offering far too small to offer to the Lord."
[CR151]
Very well do I remember how as a child this matter appealed to my own mind. When I was about fifteen years old, I said to myself, See here, you understand that God has permitted you to pray to him as a child because your parents were God's children, and because the believing parent had a sanctifying influence and effect over the child from the standpoint of divine providence. So I said to myself that evidently it was all right that as a child I should pray to the Lord; coming through my parents I was acceptable to the Father; this is indicated in the Scripture. But now I am going to be fifteen years of age, and I am thinking about other matters, is it not about time I was thinking some about my relationship to God as a personal matter? Wouldn't God be offended at me more or less, and would not his love and favor and care to some extent depart from me if now I begin to have a reasoning mind, and a thoughtful mind, and if I should reject his favor and say, Oh, well, I care nothing for this blessed relationship with God, and now I will let it lapse? I have the opportunity of making it for myself, I have been under divine favor as a child, and have realized divine protecting care, and have gone to the heavenly Father in prayer regularly, and have known something about the comfort and peace, even as a child, but now I am at about the time I do not want to let the matter go too long. Then I thought of the fact that Jesus was thirty years of age when he was accepted, when he made his consecration. I said, Yes, but evidently that was under the law, and now I am not under the law; I am not limited, therefore, that I must wait until I am thirty. Now I have the mind, the faith, to know and appreciate, and am I not to understand that God will be willing to accept my heart now? So I said to the Lord, I will go and I will be very glad indeed he has given me this precious privilege of giving my heart to him. And I knelt down and just as quietly as we are talking at this very moment I told the Lord that I wished to be his child, that I was glad of the opportunity that he had left open through the precious merit of our Savior, that I might come near unto him in a personal way, that I very much appreciated the privileges that I had enjoyed in childhood years and days, now I would accept for myself the gracious arrangement and consecrate my life wholly to him.
I have never regretted it, dear friends. He was precious at that time, as I saw that without the merit of his sacrifice I would have no hope of a future life at all; he was precious when I understood that through faith in his blood the Father counted all my imperfections covered with the robe of his righteousness; he was precious as I came to understand more and more of the details of the philosophy of the atonement work; and every day, every hour, I feel the cleansing power as we sometimes sing; every day and every hour he becomes more precious to me. And I think I am merely expressing the sentiments of all Christian brothers and sisters; I believe that it has been the very same with you.
I am merely telling this story that day by day as you seek to walk in the footsteps of the Master, and to lay aside every weight and every besetting sin and to run with patience the race, and realize more and more what the length and breadth and height and depth of God's love is, the more and more precious may the Redeemer become to you.
He was first of all our Savior, and we realized we might have a future life; and then after that the preciousness of our high calling, that he was our bridegroom and we were his bride class in process of selection, then the relationship became still more dear. Every day he becomes more precious to us who believe.
Now, my dear brothers and sisters, we have been seeing how the Lord becomes more precious to us. Shall I say on the other hand that we become more precious to him also? Well, I believe that is true. I believe that the Lord loves most those who have been most fully developed in his character-likeness. In other words, he loved us in one sense of the word while we were yet sinners, then he loved us with a special love when we turned from sin to serve the living God, and when we gave our hearts entirely to him, he tells us of his love, and the love of the Lord for the church I believe continues to increase in proportion as we grow in grace, grow in knowledge, and grow in his character-likeness.
Let me remind you of something we have in the Scriptures along this very line. We read that Jesus loved all of his disciples. You remember the words, "Having loved his own, he loved them to the end"--no waning of his love, not even when on that last night they all forsook him and fled; his love for them never decreased. That love was more intense for some of the disciples than for others. You remember those three disciples mentioned so particularly and so frequently, Peter, James and John. These three we remember went with him on some of his special missions; as, for instance, when he went to Jairus' home. Jairus' little daughter lay dead, and Jesus took with him Peter, James and John and went in and the others were all excluded while he with these and the father of the little girl were present in the chamber of death; and Jesus called the maid from the sleep of death.
Again, it was the same three disciples, Peter, James and John that he took with him into the high mountain and was transfigured before them, and he left the other nine disciples down at the foot of the mountain.
Again, it was this same three, Peter, James and John, on the last night on which he was betrayed, that Jesus had come with him a little farther. Judas having gone to sell his Master, Jesus left the eight behind in the garden and went a little farther with the three, Peter, James and John, and then he left them and went a little farther by himself. But notice that these three were especially dear to the Master all the time. Is there not a lesson to us in this? Must there not have been a reason for it? Could you imagine that Jesus would especially love these three disciples without some special reason? There was surely a reason, and we have no doubt the reason was their zeal, their love for him. Note that these were the three disciples who were always near to the Lord. I remind you, for instance, that it was two of these, James and John, who went to a city of Samaria to buy some food for the Lord and the other disciples, and how indignant they were when the people of that city refused to sell them any food, and said, "If your Master will not come here and heal our Samaritan sick the way he heals the Jewish sick, then we will not sell you any food--to the Jews and buy your food." James and John thought, "Now here is the Master, here is the anointed of God, and to think that we should be so treated, and that we who are to be with him in his throne, and to be his associates in his kingdom, shall be treated so also." They came to Jesus and said, "Lord, what shall we do? We have been insulted. Shall we command fire to come down from God out of heaven and consume these men and their city?" And Jesus loved the zeal they had, but he said, "My disciples, you do not understand the spirit you have; you want to be my disciples, you have a holiness of spirit, you have an earnestness of heart, but you have not gotten the right conception. The Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Let the poor Samaritans alone."
And you remember on another occasion when Jesus said, "Whom do men say that I am?" Peter spoke up and said, "Some say this, and some say that."
"But whom say ye that I am?"
Simon Peter answered, "Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
He was the one who had the courage of conviction to speak out his mind. And Jesus said to him, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, flesh and blood has not revealed this to thee, but my Father."
And so, dear friends, on many occasions, these three showed their special zeal and earnestness in respect to the Master, and the Master showed special interest in them. What does that teach us? It teaches us this: That there will be differences in the Church of Christ, even amongst those who will be accounted worthy to sit with him in his throne; the Lord will love all of them, and the Lord will bless all of the faithful ones, who will be more than conquerors, and the Lord will have some who will be specially near to him. You remember how James and John suggested to the Master, "Lord, the others would not appreciate it so much as we do, but will you grant us the special privilege, we would like to be just next to you, we love you so much; grant, or permit, when we come to your kingdom, that we may sit one on your right hand, and the other on your left hand."
"Oh," said Jesus, "do you know what it costs to get on the throne at all? Are you able, are you willing, to pay the cost of getting on to the throne? Are you willing to be baptized with me in my baptism into death? Are you willing to drink with me of my cup of suffering and ignominy?"
They said, "Yes, Lord, we are willing for anything"--the thought paraphrased would be, "With your assistance, and divine assistance we will go through anything to be with you; we love you and we want to be with you." "Very well," said Jesus, "That being your heart condition, I assure you that if you maintain that condition"--I am paraphrasing, dear friends, not using the words of the text, merely,--"if that be your heart condition, I will guarantee that you will be somewhere in my throne, for that is the very class the Father is calling, that is the very class to whom the throne will be given, but as to who shall sit next to me, on the right hand, and on the left, is not mine to give. That position will be given according to the principles of justice. My Father, who is the representative of Justice, will determine who [CR152] shall be at the right hand and who at the left hand; that is not for me to decide; that is for divine justice to apportion out amongst the loyal and faithful ones."
So all the Scriptures you remember draw our attention to this great fact, that as star differeth from star in glory, so also is the resurrection--the chief resurrection, the resurrection in which you and I hope to have a part. So if we are of the Lord's people, if we have entered into this blessed relationship with him as true believers, as believers who have given their little all and who have been accepted in the Beloved--if this be our condition still that is not enough; we must go on to perfection, we must go along to the end of the journey; we must not only make the consecration, but we must live the consecration; and not only so, but the zeal with which we show our love, our consecration, will determine whether or not we shall be of the little flock or of the great company. And, further, even if we have the zeal, that will bring us into the little flock, still there is a further zeal which will determine how near we may be to the Master in the throne. With that thought before our minds, and with the thought that he becomes more precious to us every day, and every hour, as we come to see more of the deep things of God, and the length and breadth and height and depth, we have that thought I suggest to you, that he becomes more and more precious to us, that we show to him more and more of our zeal, more and more of our love, that we count not our lives dear unto ourselves: do not think of your life as a very precious thing. If you do you will hold on to it so tightly that you will never make a sacrifice of it; we must be of those who love not their lives, but are willing to lay down their lives; that is our consecration, that is our engagement with the Lord, and he leaves us with a free hand as to that, with a loose rein as it were, and that is the reason that all through the New Testament there is nothing of law set forth or commanded. The Lord leaves us to ourselves largely to see with what degree of zeal we will carry out that proposition, and how much we will sacrifice, and how free and with what loving zeal we will sacrifice.
So, then, dear friends, I will not detain you longer at this time but emphasize the text before us, "To us who believe he is precious." Let this preciousness continue, let it increase until by and by we may be awakened in his likeness, and share in his glory, and all the blessings which God has in reservation for the faithful ones who love him more than they love houses, or lands, or parents, or children, or husband, or wife, or self, or any other thing.
[CR152]
Conquerors
Text: "If ye do these things ye shall never fail, but an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." WE HAVE been hearing with a great deal of interest respecting these things that are so necessary to us as new creatures in the Lord; these things that are to constitute us conquerors; these things whereby we become copies of God's dear Son, our Redeemer. And now it is not merely that we believe these things: it is not merely if we profess that we will do them, but the apostle says, if we do them. You see there is a difference between believing these things, professing these things, and doing these things.
When I heard the dear brethren point out with a great deal of care and earnestness how much is signified by meekness and gentleness, and by patience, and by long-suffering, and by loving kindness, and by love, I said to myself, "I wonder when I look into the audience how many I would find that seemed as though they were doing all of these things to the full extent that the dear brethren have been setting them forth. And I doubt, my dear friends, if there is one in the house. Is that right? And I was afraid that there might be a danger of some humble meek, gentle, mind, not thinking too highly of itself, saying, "Well, there is no hope for me then; I have not all of these qualities and graces in that full development you have been telling about."
How may we understand this matter, then, since it is not merely believing, and it is not merely consecrating, but the Apostle says, "If ye do things." Well, the truth of the matter, I think, is this: That the Lord does not expect perfect doing on your part or on mine; he expects doing, but he does not expect perfect doing, because he remembers our frame, he knows that we are dust; he knows that with the very strongest desire of heart along all of these lines, as the Apostle Paul has declared, we cannot do the things which we would. How then are we judged by the Lord? He will not judge us merely according to believing? No, that is a different question. Believing is good, knowing these things is important, and fully trusting in the whole matter is very essential, or we would not go on; and consecration is good--very important; no man or woman can run in this race unless he enters the race; the entrance of the race is the first thing; but the entrance of the race is not the last thing. The entrance of the race is of importance at the time, but after the entrance of the race, it is all important to run, and, to run and keep on running until we have reached the end of the course. So then the doing is important because God is going to look to see how much we do--not merely how much we profess, or according to the last illustration of the vine given us, he is not going to merely look at the leaves, not merely at the branch, and the thrifty-looking sort of growth; he will not merely look at the bud of promise that represents the bunch of grapes, but he will wait to see the development of the grapes--he will wait to see the growth of the Spirit of the Lord in each one of us as a child of God. The thought in my mind is, that the amount of doing God expects from you and from me is each according to his respective ability. Now that suits us all. God expects you to make a full consecration of your heart, and he expects you to do all in your power--let me emphasize the word do--do all in your power, and he does not expect you to do one thing more than that. Is not that happifying to us? Is it not that a source of consolation to us to know that while we see all of these things, all of these beautiful graces and fruits of the Spirit manifest in our Lord, and testified to by the apostles, yet what the Lord will require of us is, "Have we done what we could?"
Sometimes I have heard some of the brothers and sisters saying in testimony meetings, "Well, I am not perfect, but I do the very best I can." And I think if that dear brother or sister is doing the best he or she can, he or she is a saint surely, and the Lord will have them in the kingdom without any doubt. That is all that is necessary, to do the very best that I can--nothing more. So let us bear in mind, then, that what God is looking for in us is not absolute perfection but relative perfection--that perfection which gives to him the very best of our ability.
Now, if we do these things we shall never fail. "Oh, well," says one, "I have made a good many failures; I have failed many times, and the Lord says, 'If you do these things you shall never fail.'" My dear brother, if you would do all of these things perfectly I presume you would never fail, you would never make a mistake. If you had meekness perfect, and gentleness perfect, and long-suffering perfect, and brotherly kindness perfect, and love complete, how could you fail? You could not fail. But that is not the apostle's thought. The apostle knew who he was talking to; he knew he was talking to imperfect beings like himself, and like you and me, and he was not putting up some impossible proposition like the law that no one could keep; he was putting up the proposition to those who were called by the Lord's grace and who are making their calling and election sure, If ye do these things, if you are adding to, and if you are modifying, and growing in grace--if this is your attitude of mind, if this is your heart's desire, if you are doing the best you are able along this direction, God will see to it that you will never fail. How fail? Why that you do not come out a failure. You will stumble, but stumbling is not failing. We do not want [CR153] to stumble, even; we do not want to feel discouraged if we stumble, but if we do stumble we want to learn a lesson from stumbling, that our experience may teach us to be more careful through all the remainder of the race course. Some of the noblest characters you have ever known in the race course have made failures at times; that is, they have stumbled; but the Scriptures say, "Though you stumble yet you shall not be utterly cast down."
You see the difference between stumbling and being utterly cast down. One who is utterly cast down is one who will go into the second death; he has failed; he has absolutely come short.
Then among those who shall do these things and gain the kingdom, doing the things they are able, fight the good fight of faith as they are able, running the race with patience to the extent of their ability, looking unto Jesus the author of their faith, until he shall be the finisher--among them will be some who will miss the kingdom, and yet not so utterly fail as to go into the second death. There is the great company class. How sorry we feel for them, in one sense of the word, that they should have had the privileges of the race course, the privilege of the high calling, and yet have failed to make their calling and election sure. We feel sorry for them, and yet we feel glad in another sense of the word that our heavenly Father is so loving, and kind, and gentle, and so long-suffering that he would not, merely because they had not run up to the extent of their ability, cut them off entirely, but he will provide a way in which they shall receive chastisement and correction, that they might ultimately come off conquerors, though they would fail to come off more than conquerors.
If we do these things we will not fail. Be of good courage, as the apostle says; if you have endured something look back and take encouragement from what you may have endured in the past. You remember the apostle in his letter to the Hebrews calls their attention to a certain time and place, and says, "Call to mind the former things, and how you all endured a great fight of afflictions." Have you anything of that kind now going on? Someone might say, "No, I have not any fight of afflictions." What is the matter, my dear brother, if you have not any fight of afflictions? There may be a reason. Look carefully. Have you joined the enemy's ranks? How is it there is no fighting being done? Has Satan turned around, and is he fighting for righteousness? How is it you have nothing to fight for? If you have not anything to fight for now, can you look back and see any time when you endured a great fight of afflictions? If you can, take good courage from that, and say, "Well, the Lord helped me before in that fight, and he is still on my side, and he will still be with me." Then another thing; the soldiers are not always fighting; they are not always having afflictions. Our gracious leader leads us sometimes in green pastures and beside the still waters, and he sometimes gives us a convention trip, or a feast, or something, and we do not have perhaps the same amount of fighting under those circumstances.
This reminds me of a sister who came once to me and said, "Brother Russell, I am afraid that the Lord is not on my side. I am afraid he has not accepted my consecration."
I said, "Why?"
"Well," she said, "Brother Russell, I know it says in the Scriptures that through much tribulation ye shall enter the kingdom, and I am not having any tribulation, and I am just afraid that the Lord has never accepted my sacrifice."
I said, "Sister, that would of course be a very serious condition, because the Lord says that whosoever will live godly shall suffer persecution. So to be without persecution is rather a suspicious sign. But let me encourage you a little to say that perhaps you are so full of joy and faith and love and devotion to the Lord, that you count it all joy and do not notice that you are having affliction--perhaps that is it."
"Well," she said, "you do not know how glad I would be if I could think that that were true. I am sure that it is not true. I would indeed rejoice in some tribulation for the Lord's sake, and the truth's sake, but I am afraid that is not true in my case."
"Well, now," I said, "I am not competent to say, but I suggest to you then that perhaps the Lord is giving you a little time since you have come to the knowledge of the truth in order to strike down your roots into the ground firmly and get well rooted and grounded and built up in the Lord, and in the love of the truth, and in your faithfulness to the Lord--perhaps that is why he is giving you a quiet time. Perhaps he is going to let the storm fall over you, and all around you, by and by, and now he is giving you a little quiet space. Are you using it well?"
"Well," she said, "I am glad of the suggestion; I will try to use it so I will have the roots well grounded and well fastened to the Lord and to the truth, and well sustained, so that if by and by the storms shall come I will be able to stand them."
I think that is the way with the Lord's people generally. They will have a blessed time, and frequently the dear friends realize that after a quiet time, a good time at the convention, for instance, then they have a very severe time, perhaps a stormy time afterwards, and all kinds of trial of faith, and patience, and brotherly kindness, and of meekness, and of gentleness, and of love--all sorts of things come.
"The Lord your God doth prove you whether ye love the Lord your God." Those who know about such matters tell us that plants that have no storms would take very little root, and that really the shaking of the plant in the wind helps to make it root down more deeply. I am not skilled in that line to speak of the matter myself, but I do know that in the Christian experience it is true that only those who have passed through trials and difficulties, much tribulation, will be ready for the kingdom. So then are you getting ready for the kingdom? Do you expect tribulation? How are you standing it now? If your tribulation has not yet come, do not forget that it must come; it is not merely the tribulation class that will pass through tribulation but the saints who get into the kingdom will suffer tribulations. The main difference between those who will get into the kingdom class through much tribulation, and those who will come up on the plane of the great company and through great tribulation, will be the way in which they have received the tribulation--how it comes to them. The little class is to have the tribulation because of their loyalty to the truth, because of their courage, because of their faithfulness in praising him, and lifting high the royal banner, and in showing forth the praises of him who called them out of darkness into his marvelous light.
As the Apostle says of that class, they will take their tribulation joyfully, glad to suffer tribulation, rejoicing in tribulation, and in everything giving thanks; and the great tribulation class that will pass through tribulation, washing their robes, are those who will have avoided the taking of the tribulation, and will have avoided the standing up for the truth for fear of the death, for fear of the shame, for fear of the contempt of those around them. Therefore, theirs will not be tribulation in joy but tribulation in sorrow. Let us, then, be of those who have the tribulation joyfully, counting it all joy that we might be accounted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. As the apostle says, "The spirit of glory and the spirit of God shall rest on you." We should have that testimony that we are God's children, that we are following in the footsteps of him who set us the example that we should walk in his steps.
Now, if ye do these things, ye shall never fail. God is not going to have in his kingdom class any who have not meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, brotherly kindness, love-- and how short a time there apparently is in which we have to prepare for this! We, of course, are not qualified to say whether it will be a day, or an hour, or a year, or two years, or more; it is not for us to decide that; but we may be sure that the right spirit in us would lead us to be so earnest and energetic that we would want to have Christ's likeness formed in us just as quickly as possible.
And do not think of these things of the Spirit as having to be cultivated in their order; that you must first get meekness, and then next get another, and so on, but you are getting a little more of this, and of that, and of the other, day by day; you are cultivating all along the line. Just the same as in school; the child in school does not merely study spelling and reading first, and then take a course in arithmetic, and then take a course in writing. There is a partial lesson in the subject of reading, arithmetic, writing, etc., each day. So it is in the school of Christ. The Lord wants us to learn all along the line every day. And we have such a splendid Teacher, and he has set us such a beautiful example, and we have given our hearts to him, and have pledged our lives, and he has given us the earnest of our inheritance, the first fruits of the Spirit, that it might be in us and abide with us, and enable us to come off conquerors. Only as we have this glorious hope, only as we have this glorious promise, only as we have this glorious example--only thus can we have the courage for the difficulties by the way, that we may indeed come off more than conquerors through him who loved us and bought us with his precious blood--to whom be glory and praise forever! Amen.
[CR154]
Children's Consecration Service
THERE were a number of such services held at various places on the trip, and his remarks were practically the same at all, so you may consider the following remarks as applying to all:
The Scriptures give us the thought that it is not displeasing to our heavenly Father, but rather pleasing to him, that parents should consecrate to him the fruit of their bodies. Very early in Bible history we have an account of how the parents of Samuel presented him in an especial manner to the Lord, to be an especial servant of the Lord. Also in our Lord's day many of the parents brought their children and desired that they might have some kind of a blessing, or some kind of a consecration, to the Lord. And the disciples were disposed to say, Not so, and to tell the people that our Lord's ministry was not for children, but for grown folks. The Master intervened, and said, "Suffer, little children to come unto me; forbid them not, for of such like is the kingdom of heaven." And he instructed us that unless we should become like little children we would not be fit for the kingdom. The thought seems to be, that the Lord would inculcate simplicity, purity, honesty, sincerity, such as we find in the mind of a little child--trustfulness in the Father and trustfulness in those with whom we have to do. So we as God's children are to become humble-minded as little children. I presume you have all noticed that a little child has absolute confidence in its own parents, unless something shall have occurred to break that confidence; its father is the greatest man on earth; its mother is the grandest woman on earth--"My mamma said so", "My papa said so." The little child is willing and ready to believe everything from its parents. So we as children of older growth and begotten of the Holy Spirit, are to have such faith and trust in our Father in heaven that we have absolute confidence in him as a little child, fully trusting that all things that he has promised he is able and willing to perform.
It might be asked by some, "In what way will this matter profit either the parents or the children?" I cannot answer that. I would say, however, at the very outset, that nothing in God's Word puts this as a matter of obligation upon any parent. It would be just as well to have the matter clear before our minds-- it is not an obligation. Those who come asking a blessing upon their children do not come because the Lord sent for them, or because he commanded them so to do. Indeed it would not be an offering upon a part of the parents if it were a command. You cannot make a sacrifice of that which is commanded. But it is a privilege.
Very many Christian people have had this same thought respecting consecration, and their minds have been satisfied in a large measure by the usual custom in the nominal churches of baptism of infants--sprinkling them, as it is called, and to the Episcopalians and Lutherans it means very much more than it means to the others. To these it means generally an escape from hell by getting the child into the church. We are sure that this is the understanding of the Catholics, for they say so, and many of our Lutheran friends have the same idea exactly, and some Episcopalians seem to attach some significance to the matter of sprinkling of infants. However, many Protestants have gotten away from this idea, and merely view the matter as a consecration of their children to the Lord. They say, as in olden times it was the custom amongst the Jews to circumcise their male children, so now, instead of that, we have this matter of sprinkling or christening the child; and sometimes they have a thought of consecration. Of course, we would not think of sprinkling a child and calling it "baptism," because to our understanding it would be contrary to God's Word, contrary to anything that the Lord or the apostles taught. We, therefore, could not go that extent.
It has been frequently brought to my notice how many parents feel they would like to do something with their children; they would like in some manner to say to the Lord, "Lord, we give you this child," and they would like to say it in some public manner; they would like to make it definite. They would like to give the child something it could remember in after days; they would like for the child to be able to look back and say, "I was consecrated to the Lord in my childhood." And indeed, my dear friends, that is my own experience. My parents told me that I was duly christened in the Presbyterian church. They supposed that was baptism according to the Scriptures, and I have only kind feelings toward them for their very good intention in that connection. While I understand it was not baptism, yet I do appreciate the fact they were willing and glad to give me to the Lord, and invoke a divine blessing upon my life. And I remember very well my mother saying to me one day when I was about seven years of age, "Charles, when you were an infant I consecrated you to the Lord, and I asked him that if it were possible you might become a minister of the gospel."
I remember what I answered. I said, "Ma, I think that is very nice, but it seems to me that I would rather be a missionary to the poor heathen than to be a minister here in a civilized land; it seems to me there are so many churches and so many preachers here, and that the poor heathen have so little opportunity of coming to the knowledge of the Lord, that I would rather be a missionary."
My mother said nothing on the subject further; she left it there; but I have been thinking over it lately, dear friends, and I think, perhaps, the Lord is going to fulfill both of these wishes; that in the present time I have the opportunity of ministering the truth, the gospel of the grace of God, to many people in civilized lands, and if it pleases the Lord, by and by that I shall be associated with the Lord Jesus in his kingdom in the work of blessings all the heathen, all the families of the earth; so I am preparing to be a missionary, you see, even in heathen lands.
With these remarks, dear friends, calculated to arouse thoughts in all our minds, and put away any suggestions to the effect that there is any thing obligatory about such matters, we now accept those who are here today, and ask the Lord that he will bless them.
The blessing of the children by Brother Russell was very impressive. Brother Russell placed his hand upon the head of each child, then addressing it by its Christian name, used words about as follows: "May the Lord bless you and keep you, and give your parents wisdom as they seek to guide you in the ways of the Lord."
[CR154]
Who Hath Believed Our Report
THE text that is in my mind for this occasion is found in the prophecy of Isaiah: "Lord, who hath believed our report, and unto whom is the arm of Jehovah revealed?"
We might apply this text in some degree to the meeting this afternoon. We delivered a report. The word 'report' in this text signifies message, proclamation. For who hath believed the message--proclamation of truth? Who has discerned the arm, the power of the Lord, as revealed in the Gospel, and God's great provision for man's needs? In the audience of somewhere near a thousand people, how many we wonder, had a hearing ear, that they could hear? How many understood something of the length and the breadth and the height and the depth of the love of God, which passes all understanding? We might perhaps have been inclined to think, "How could anyone do otherwise than be impressed by the simplicity of God's message, and yet we remember that the Scriptures [CR155] show us, and the facts prove to us that it has been so during the eighteen hundred years since the message of the Lord has been given, that it has been proclaimed here and there, and very few have believed the report. Look out all over the world today and see how few there are who believe the message of God in respect to his great plan. The great majority seem to be blinded by the adversary, the God of this world who blinds the minds of those who believe him not, lest the light of the goodness of God should shine into their hearts. The apostle's words imply that the great adversary is the one who is especially interested in beclouding the mind, and that God's truth is the special thing intended to enlighten the mind, and that not everybody is in condition of mind to be profited by this great light that would shine forth.
The question asked by the prophet implies that only a few would hear the report, would hear the message, would hear the Gospel, only a few would give heed to it. When we view the matter in the light of the eighteen centuries, and then think of how little faith there is today, we can well understand God's standpoint in speaking through the prophet and saying, "Who is it that has believed?" Practically nobody. We indeed see great churches, and sometimes fine buildings, and sometimes large congregations and yet if we would inquire for the faith once delivered to the Saints, if we inquire for an intelligent understanding of God's great plan, how few would you find who have that understanding, who have delivered the message, who have accepted it, and who are walking in the footsteps of Jesus.
Some might say to us, "Brother Russell that is a wrong view, why everybody believes the report. Here in this city, it is named after a saint, and there are other cities along the coast all named after saints practically, and all through the land are churches of various denominations, and they have all believed Jesus, they have all believed the report." But we cannot so think; we must agree with the Lord's message through the prophet to the effect that a very few have believed the message. Quite a good many have believed the mixed messages that have gone forth; the message, for instance, of our Catholic friends that if they belong to the Catholic church they will be pulled through purgatory and finally get to heaven. A considerable number believe that in some measure, but is that the message once delivered to the saints? We say not. It has little of it, but very little--not enough to call it good tidings of great joy. Then some others have believed our Presbyterian friends, that God is electing some, and they hope they belong to the elected company. But is that the full message, or is it only a little of the message? Surely the latter. It is only a little of the message and not the report of God's grace toward all mankind, and not merely toward the church. Who hath believed the message that God sent?
Then our Baptist friends also limit the matter, saying that it is by election, and then additionally it is by the water route after you have the election--the election and the water route both. There are dear, good friends amongst the Baptists, but very few of them believe the message.
But we are not wishing to lay too much stress on these various features of the divine plan. Our thought would be that God very graciously has a message that even the poor and the ignorant in considerable degree can accept and lay hold on. Who hath believed the report--not doctrinally, as theologians, but in a general way the message that all mankind have heard--at least all of the civilized lands that had an opportunity of hearing the message--that God is willing to forgive our sins, God is willing to receive us as his children, that God has made a way and he invites us to walk in it? Now put it in the very simplest form, and how many have believed that? Oh, says someone, "Why a great many believe that." I doubt it. Remember the Scriptures say, "With the heart man believes." What is it to believe this message of the narrow way, and the privilege of reconciliation with God, with the heart? I think that we will all agree that to believe that message with the heart would mean that it would thoroughly enter into us that we would believe it with all our minds and all our strength, to be thoroughly convinced by it, to have no doubt about it. If they believed the message of God's love and favor, and of reconciliation to him, and of becoming joint-heirs with Christ in the heavenly kingdom, would they not forsake everything that they might take up with that message? Can you imagine anybody in the world really believing that God would sentence our race to death--not to put the worst construction on the sentence, but simply put it as the Bible does--and that he did it justly, and then that he had also made a provision in Christ, our Lord, whereby we might return to his love and favor, and that he would receive us again as children, forgive all our trespasses, all our sins that are past and bring us back right into his own favor, and be our Father and we should be his children, and he would take care of all our interests, and all things would work together for good to us, and if we had passed through certain trials we should have his assistance, then by and by in only a little while, a few short years, he would take us to himself in the heavenly kingdom and make us associates with our Lord Jesus Christ on the spiritual plane-- who could believe this with the heart and not be exercised by it? Who could possibly say, "I do not care for that, I really believe it is so, but I do not think it worthy of any of my attention?" I think that very few would really believe that message, even in the very simplest form in which we could put it--in the form that all people who have any knowledge whatever of the Gospel could understand it, even if they had a certain admixture of error--even allowing for all of these errors of doctrine being mixed with the matter, to just know this simple fact that God is willing to receive us back as his children, to forgive us our sins, and care for us, and bring off eventually conquerors with Jesus whoever believes that with the heart would, I think be sure to accept the terms, because they are so very favorable. Then the fact that so very few people do give their hearts to the Lord, or give their hearts to Jesus, and do give up all the little they have, proves that only a few believe. Others may believe with the head merely, a sort of general assent--I think that Jesus died; I believe he was a good man; or, I believe he was the Lord-- or whatever it might be; but it is merely a head acceptance, and it does not enter into their hearts. With the heart man believeth unto salvation. That is the kind of believing that counts for something. When it goes down into their hearts, it goes right down into their hands also, and they want to use their hands for the Lord; it goes down into their feet, and they want to use their feet for the Lord; it goes down into their pocketbooks, and they want to use that for the Lord. And so it effects anything and everything they have; it affects all the affairs of life.
Now I am addressing those especially this evening who believe, who have made consecration, those who with the heart have believed. How precious is our possession, dear brothers and sisters? How precious is the Lord to us--to us who believe with the heart he is precious. All the teachings of the Lord's great plan are revealed to this class. How favored we are that by God's grace we have heard, and that our hearts have been responsive, and that we have accepted the great proposition of the Lord to become his children! Now is the acceptable time in which God is willing to accept our little offering, and to let us count it in as a part of Jesus' sacrifice, that we may be sharers with him in the suffering of this present time in order that we may also be sharers with him in the glory that shall follow.
So I rejoice with you that we have heard the report, that we have heard the message, that to us the arm of the Lord, the power of the Lord, has been revealed--not to the world; they do not know the power of God. You and I are only learning about it; we have only begun to see the arm of the Lord. The arm, you know, in symbol stands for power. God has revealed the power. Now the world has not seen the power, nor has the world seen the arm of the Lord. You and I see that the Lord is the arm that our heavenly Father puts down to grasp the poor human family and to lift it up. At one time we saw in a measure this matter, and saw that Jesus was the arm of Jehovah, but we thought he was only going to lift up the saintly people; and that was good; that was a glorious message; but now we have seen further, and we have believed further, and the message has gone out further, that the arm of Jehovah not merely will lift up the saintly few, but that saintly few will become a part of the arm of Jehovah, so to speak, and that arm of Jehovah shall during the thousand years of Christ's reign bless mankind and lift them up.
Now at the close of this little session of today our hearts, I trust, are going out to the Lord with gratitude for all the privileges we have enjoyed in connection with the service. Some of you here have been laboring to make a success of the meeting today, and I praise God on your behalf and rejoice with you that you had such a very enjoyable experience. You worked hard I am sure to bring such results for a weekly afternoon. And those of us who will go farther on will have you kindly in our remembrance as some who have been faithful to your opportunities. As I looked at the audience today it seemed to me I saw some that looked as though they were saintly people, and who had already believed God's report respecting his Son, and now let us hope they saw and heard a little more clearly today, and that henceforth they may, by reason of what they have heard [CR156] be brought into further grace and nearer to the Lord. And those of you who remain here--what an opportunity you will have to continue to witness of the Lord! And not merely witness by tongue, but remember there is one way in which we are all witnesses, whether we wish to be or not, and that is by our daily life--our conduct, our work, our actions. Are we, then, living epistles of the Lord, known and read of all men? If so, as the apostle says, Let us walk circumspectly, carefully, looking around, guarding our thoughts and words and deeds, showing forth the praises of him who hath called us out of darkness into this marvelous light, commending the truth to others by the consistency of our lives and our faithfulness to the principles of righteousness. This is one of the witnesses we can all surely give, and one that I trust the dear friends residing here will find it their privilege to give. And others, knowing that you are advocating these things, and having heard what a high standard we believe God has established, namely; a standard of saintship, no doubt the people of this city will look at you still more careful with examination than ever before. They will say, "These are some of those who claim that only the saints at the present time are going to have everlasting glory, and heaven. I wonder if he is a saint; I wonder if she is a saint." And so you will be put on exhibition, so to speak; you will be under scrutiny. How carefully then will you walk before the Lord? How careful will you be to show forth the praise of the great King? Then some of you may have other opportunities in your meetings to present the truth. How wise you should be as ambassadors for God to present it as of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember what Jesus said on this subject, "Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves." As one of our good German sisters once expressed it a very forcible way, bringing it down to some language of our day, "The Lord says we should be as wise as snakes and harmless as pigeons." That gives the thought, dear friends. How wisely we want to use our opportunities! We are all, I believe, learning more and more every day that wisdom is to be exercised in the presentation of the Lord's Word. I presume that every one of us who is a child of the Lord, and somewhat experienced in the truth, and who has endeavored to present it to others, has made certain mistakes, being too harsh, perhaps, or presenting the truth in a too rigid form, not sufficiently kindly in manner, with kindly words, and with consideration for others. We are to remember that those who catch fish never do so by beating the water with the fish rod; that drives the fish away. And so if we would be wise in this, fishers of men, it behooves us to consider how carefully we are to deal with those who are giving some attention to the truth. The truth is to be the bait, and we are to dangle the truth before them so as not to do them injury, not to do them harm, but to bless them and get them into the Gospel net, and to get them into better and fuller relationship to the Lord.
So then, my parting word to the dear friends of Santa Crus is that we pray God for a continuance of his blessing, and we rejoice with you that we have had a blessing so far, that your efforts to praise the Lord have been blessed so far, and we ask on your behalf continued and increasing wisdom to show forth his praise, and to help those with whom we come in contact.
[CR156]
Zionism, The Hope of the World
THE EARTHLY ZION
SPEAKING from the text, "The law shall go forth from Mount Zion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isaiah 2:3), Pastor Russell declared that Christians have inadvertently misappropriated to themselves many promises of the Scriptures which are not wholly theirs. Christian creeds and theories have surmised that through the rejection of Jesus, all Jews dying in unbelief of Messiah were foreordained to an eternity of torture because of that unbelief in the Only Name.
A more careful study of the Bible, he declared, is showing Bible students the error of this position. Jews who do not accept Jesus as their Savior and who do not become followers in his steps in the "narrow way" will indeed fail of attaining a place with Jesus in his throne of glory. They will fail to become joint-heirs with him in his glorious Messianic kingdom. They will fail to become members of the spiritual seed of Abraham, respecting whom Saint Paul said, "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29). "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
But, asked the pastor, are there not many besides Jews who will fail of making their calling and election sure to that heavenly portion--to membership in the Messianic body or kingdom? His own conviction is that there will be found as many Jews as of any other nationality in that spiritual company which, the Scriptures declare, will, all told, be but a "little flock." Indeed, there are strong reasons for believing that the whole number of the elect company, this royal priesthood, this spiritual seed of Abraham, this Messiah of glory, long promised, will be only "a hundred and forty-four thousand." (Revelation 14:1).
WHAT BECOMES OF THE OTHERS
If the church of glory, the body of Christ, be but a small company out of the millions of Christendom, what becomes of the remainder of Christendom as well as the Jews? If only the elect gain the kingdom, if only the few make their calling and election sure--what will become of the great mass of the non-elect, both Jews and Gentiles, and the heathen myriads? Pastor Russell declared that very foolish and unscriptural conclusions have been reached in respect to elect and non-elect.
The apostle declares that all non-elect are to be blessed by the elect as soon as the election is completed. But we, following the teachings of a darker time and a less convenient Bible, have declared that when God predestinated to elect the church, he equally predestinated to damn to eternal torment all others. But not a word of authority could be found for such a view in the Bible. Saint Paul's statement is wholly respecting the church, not the world, when he declares, "Whom he did foreknow, them he also did predestinate that they should be conformed to the image of his Son." Such a predestination on God's part, all can heartily endorse. Who can say that it would be right on God's part to accept any membership in the glorious Messianic body, of which Jesus is the head, except such as are pure in heart, saintly, and so demonstrated even by fiery trials and disciplines!
God kept secret this mystery, Saint Paul declares--the mystery that he is now selecting a favored class to be associates with Messiah in the kingdom of God, for which we have been praying and through which the whole world of mankind will shortly be blessed. Now the church's election is about completed, the pastor believes; and therefore now is the time for more light to shine out, that God's further gracious purposes toward natural Israel and the world may be more clearly seen.
THE HEAVENLY ZIONISM
The Zionism of the past eighteen centuries has been of the heavenly kind. It has been calling and inspiring to loving zeal, obedience and activity such as have the "hearing ear" for the heavenly calling to joint-heirship with Messiah. This glorious privilege is about to end because the full number predestinated of the Lord will soon have been completed. Meantime, the pastor and others of God's consecrated people should be Zionists in the highest sense of the word, and, laying aside every weight and every besetting sin, each should strive to make his calling and election sure to a place in the heavenly Zion--the kingdom of Messiah.
It will be from this Mount Zion, the spiritual kingdom of Messiah, that the law will go forth during the thousand years of the Messianic reign; the great judge and lawgiver of the world will be the glorified Redeemer; and his associates, in his various [CR157] offices of prophet, priest, king, judge and mediator, will be the faithful zionists of the present time who follow in the steps of their Redeemer, delighting to lay down their lives for the truth's sake and for the brethren's sake, in co-operation with the great captain of their salvation, through the merit of his imputed righteousness.
THE WORD FROM JERUSALEM
As soon as Mount Zion, the kingdom, shall be completed by the glorification of the last member of the church, it will be time for the law to go forth therefrom for the correction in righteousness of the world's affairs--for the overthrow of every form of iniquity and everything contrary to the golden rule. In other words, when the kingdom class shall have been completed by the elective process, which is the divine arrangement of this age, forthwith that kingdom will come into power and the reign of righteousness will begin.
But God has a time and order and arrangement in respect to every feature of his program. In the remote past, before Jesus came and became the head and leader of the church to glory, God was in covenant relationship with Abraham and his natural seed. The Scriptures assure us that a considerable number were so full of faith and loyal obedience to God that even though they lived at a time before the calling to the church began they, nevertheless, were marked by the Lord for special blessing and a special share in the kingdom work when the time should come for Messiah to take his great power and reign.
Reference is made to these ancient worthies by Saint Paul in Hebrews 11:38,40. He says, "These all died in faith, not having received the things promised them (the earthly promises) God having provided some better thing for us (the church) that they, without us, should not be made perfect"--should not enter into the earthly blessing which belongs to them.
Accordingly, the Scriptures tell us that one of the first operations of Messiah's kingdom, after the binding of satan, will be the resurrection of the ancient worthies of the Jewish race. These, the inspired Word tells us, will be made princes in all the earth--representatives of the spiritual and invisible Messianic kingdom. These will constitute the earthly Jerusalem, the capital of the new dispensation. While the law will proceed from the invisible and all-powerful spiritual Messiah, it will come through these resurrected, perfect and approved earthly representatives; and from them it will go forth gradually, as the divine message and rule, to every nation, people, kindred and tongue.
THE NEW COVENANT ISRAELITISH
Even if nothing were said in the Scriptures respecting God's special blessing to natural Israel, it might be inferred that they would most quickly fall into line with the leaders of their own race, particularly as this would be in harmony with the traditions of their race for the past thirty-five hundred years. Besides, the law given to Israel, and represented on the two tables of stone, will be the same that will go into force again as the law of the kingdom, the Gospel call being an appendage. The difference between the old law covenant and the new law covenant (Jeremiah 31:31) is that Israel's new covenant will have a greater and more powerful mediator than Moses, the antitype of Moses, Jesus the head and the church, his body (Acts 3:22,23). Besides all coming under that new covenant by devotion to righteousness, will have their past sins so fully forgiven that the Lord will not remember them any more--the basis for this full forgiveness being the merit of Jesus' sacrifice.
Few have realized how clearly the Scriptures set forth that the new covenant will be Israelitish, if the promise respecting it be carefully read and noted. Christ is the mediator of that new covenant and its "better sacrifices" have been in progress during this Gospel age. It will be instituted with the ancient worthies first, then gradually with all the Israelites who flock to the standard then lifted up amongst the people. As the blessings of restitution, earthly prosperity, health, strength, etc., begin to be manifested among those living under that covenant arrangement, other nations, the Bible tells us, will also desire to enter into its blessings; and they will be permitted so to do. By individually renouncing sin and accepting the covenant and its mediator they will become "proselytes of the gate." Hearken! "Many nations shall come and say, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord's house, for he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths."
ONE KING BUT TWO KINGDOMS
It has escaped Christendom in general until recently that the divine promise to Abraham is to be fulfilled through two seeds-- one a heavenly class, the other an earthly class, with Messiah the head over all (Romans 4:16). For eighteen centuries God favored the seed of Abraham, the nation of Israel.
That period of favor, explain it how we may, began to wane about the time of Jesus' death. It was completely removed from them in the desolation of their land by the Roman army A.D. 70. Now a parallel time has been reached, hence it is time for the return of God's favor, as shown on previous occasions. The favor is already returning.
The Jew has not been so comfortable, nor so favorably fixed, as he is to-day, in more than eighteen centuries. But his blessing is only beginning. Shortly divine favor, in God's due time, will accomplish for his chosen people all the precious promises of the law and of the prophets. Already the Jew is awakening to a realization of this great truth.
A voice is sounding from the wilderness, and the Jews everywhere are harkening to it. It does not call them to become Christians, but to remain Jews and to realize, as Jews, the ideals set before them by the Lord in the Law and in the prophets. To all those exercised thereby a great blessing is near, which will more than compensate for the sorrows of the past. Neither by swords nor guns nor dreadnoughts, neither by flying airships nor torpedoes will Israel's great victory be gained; neither by money power and worshiping of the golden calf of finance nor by trusting in the arm of flesh, but by looking to the Lord, from whom will come their help.
Messiah's spiritual empire, about to be established, will bind satan, restrain every evil and lift up a standard for the people, blessing Israel and establishing with them the new law covenant instead of the old law covenant, under the better mediator still more capable than the great Moses, under the greater king still more wise than Solomon and still more beloved of God than David. This great celestial empire will be established with great authority in the world by a time of trouble, a time of earthly distress, which the prophecies picture as terrible.
ISRAEL'S HOPES--WHY SO DELAYED?
The perplexing thought with our Jewish friends, as well as with Christians, is: If these things be so, if Messiah's kingdom is yet to be established, as the Jews contemplated, only on a spiritual plane instead of an earthly one; and if God's purpose is to use those anciently favored people as the channels of his blessing in the future, why has there been so long delay?
We answer: This is what the Scriptures term the mystery, the matter which God did not reveal directly, either to Abraham or through any of the prophets. Indirectly he hinted at it, saying to Abraham, "Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven, and as the sand of the seashore for multitude."
But Abraham did not discern, nor did others, that these two illustrations belonged not to the same people, but to two different Israels--the heavenly and the earthly, the stars representing the heavenly seed and the sand of the seashore the earthly seed.
The restitution privileges soon to be opened, first to Israel, will, later on, be thrown open to all nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues, that they may press in also under the same glorious terms of Israel's new covenant, because "Israelites indeed," without guile and sharers in all the blessings of God supplied through the great Mediator of the new covenant and his earthly instrumentalities.
Zionism, amongst the Jews to-day, we believe the Lord is stirring up, a preparation of natural Israel for the great blessing which so soon will be at their door. As they begin to really appreciate the land of promise, the rich promises in connection with that land must become theirs, and the inspiration of those promises' end will lead the feet of a reverential, representative number of them back to the land itself, to which the Lord declared he would bring them; and that from thence they should be plucked up no more. Remember, in this connection, Saint Paul's reference to the new covenant and the time when it will go into force with Israel, as recorded in Romans 11:27. The pastor rejoiced in any opportunity he had of stimulating Zionism, both spiritual and earthly, for both are vitally connected with the salvation of the world of mankind in general.
[CR158]
Unless Thou Go With Us, Send Us Not Up
DEAR FRIENDS, I will not speak to you very long. It is a warm afternoon to sit so constantly. My mind was running along the lines of the words of Moses. When the Lord directed him to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt up to the promise land, Moses answered, "Unless thou go with us, send us not up hence." The Lord replied, "My presence shall go with thee; I will give thee peace." I was thinking that this represented to a considerable degree the sentiment we all have, that we all ought to have, in respect to the great transactions that we are now engaged in. We are going up out of Egypt; we are going up to the promise land, and the heavenly Father sent us word that he will give us the heavenly Canaan-- "go up and possess the land." And it sounds very easy to us, "Go up and possess the land," and I presume Moses was the only one of all the Israelites that really felt any hesitation about leaving Egypt. But Moses was able to see that a considerable amount of difficulty lay before them. What is it going to cost before we get into the glorious land? How many difficulties will there be in the way? How much will be the travail of soul before we shall enter into these glorious things? Then these words of Moses, "Unless thou go with us, send us not up." I think that you and I feel that same way; that unless God is with us it would be in vain if he should tell us, "Come out from amongst mankind, and be a separate and peculiar people, and take up our cross and follow the dear Redeemer," to accept him as our leader and the Captain of our salvation, to go on in this narrow way from grace to grace and from knowledge to knowledge, and from faith to faith, until we shall enter into all the glorious things which God has in reservation for those that love him-- "Unless thou go with us, send us not up hence;" let us stay in the world unless we would have the Lord's blessing and assistance. How could we ever expect to reach these glorious things unless we had the dear Master for our guide, and counselor, and assistant all the way? What a precious comfort it is that the heavenly Father gives us this same assurance he gave to Moses--"My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee peace."
And now dear friends we have found it so. Those of us who with earnestness of heart left the world behind, left the antitypical Egypt, and are going up, following the Captain of our salvation, have found that the presence of the Lord goes with us; we have found that he gives us the peace; we find in him the peace of God that passeth all understanding, and is ruling more and more in our hearts--not having attained the full rule there yet perhaps; we have not reached the glorious Canaan, and have not entered in to all the glorious things in reservation, the things God has promised us, but we are on our journey and faithful is he who called us, the one who gave us the invitation, the one who said, "Go forth now and possess the glorious things;" faithful is he who called us, who also will do for us exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever ask or could ever have thought.
Our heavenly Father, when he marked out the narrow way in which our dear Redeemer walked, knew the trials and difficulties of the way. Our dear Redeemer knew not the way he would take, as the Psalmist says, "Thou wilt make known to me the path of life," and God made known to him step by step the path that would lead to the glorious consummation--glory, honor, immortality, the divine nature; and he was faithful in taking all of these steps. And then the Father through him, and through the apostles, by the Holy Spirit, made known the steps that we should take. He shall show us the path of life. He will make us know the steps that will lead us to glory, honor, immortality; he knows the way we shall take. How comforting that is! And to know he is our Father, and that he is not cold and indifferent, and looking on to say, "Well if you do it then I will give you the prize, but I have no care whether you get it or not." Not that mind, but like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that reverence him; and he has adopted us into his family, and we are his children, and he says, I have been watching you all the journey long, and I know the way you will take, and I know the difficulties and trials; I have planned them all; I want you to have trials; you must have these conditions; you can never have the development of character unless you do have the opposition of the world, and the flesh, and the devil; these are necessary to prove you. "The Lord, your God, doth prove you." What does he prove us for? "Whether ye love the Lord, your God, with all your heart," etc. What does he expect of us? He expects of us obedience. Our dear Master learned obedience by the things which he suffered. Obedience means, to my mind, loyalty to God, absolute loyalty to God under all circumstances and under all conditions--in the light, and in the dark, when we can see what his leading is, and when we cannot see the leading of the Lord--to be faithful, faithful when all seems unfavorable; faithful when the sun is shining on our way, and faithful when it is dark sometimes, and when the rain comes down, and when the sorrows of life overtake us. Be thou faithful, loyal to God, obedient to him. So Jesus says, "Be thou faithful." How long, Lord, must we be faithful? Can we finish it today? No. How long must we be faithful? "Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee the crown of life."
Then the Lord has sent us forth, and the apostle says he is able to do for us better than we could ask or think, and we have assurance on the way that all things shall work together for good. Sometimes we can see them to be working for good, and sometimes they seem to be working ill, but we are to know and be assured that he knows the way, and he is interested in us, he is our Father, and we have his love; that he makes all the provisions necessary, that nothing can in any wise harm those that are trusting him. "Unless thou go with us, send us not up hence." Let us not even love the world; we had better stay right with the world unless we have the assurance of God's Word that he will carry us through. But he has given us that assurance. "My presence shall go with you." Has it been so with us? Have not we found it just as the Lord told us? We have had his presence on the journey. "In all their afflictions, he was afflicted." We read of the Israelites, as they passed through the afflictions on the way to Canaan--in all their experiences he was afflicted. So we say in all our difficulties and trials our elder Brother, our heavenly Bridegroom, is interested deeply, and he is able as well as willing to provide for all the little incidents of the way. And he would have us learn the lessons of faith and patience, and obedience, and loyalty, and all these various graces about which the brethren have talked this afternoon. Are we learning them dear friends? I trust we are, and I trust that the Lord's grace is going with us, that his presence is with us, and he will give us peace--not only that he will give us peace when we get to the end of the journey, and we shall enter into the joys of the Lord, and enter into all the glorious things which he has in reservation, but I trust he is giving us peace now. It is our privilege; as the apostle says, "We who believe do enter into rest." There is no doubt that there is a still more perfect and complete rest for the people of God, for God has promised and he assures us now, that we who believe enter into rest. Are you getting your share? You are not getting your share unless you are exercising faith, and exercising it not merely as an abstract principle, but a faith that manifests itself by works, a faith that works with zeal.
I will close my remarks on this occasion by saying that the dear friends here and on all our journey along, and indeed wherever I go, have, I believe a great blessing whether the worldly and nominal church get any blessing or not; the faith and works come right home to the door, and there is necessity for work; and if we do not have the faith we do not have the works. So the faith and works come right along. One dear brother said to me on one occasion as I got off the train on Sunday morning, "Brother Russell, it is a very unfavorable morning I will admit, but I want to tell you I already have a blessing. I never did have anything special to do with any meetings before today, but the responsibility fell on me, and there were not many to help, and I had to take care of it myself, and it was awfully hard, I was so inexperienced in such matters, it was such a new experience to go out and distribute tracts, and it was hard at first, but I said to myself, 'Here now, you are going to shirk your duty in serving the Lord; you said you would like something to do, now he has given you something to do, are you going to do it?' I said, 'No I will not shirk it, Lord; help me.' The Lord helped me, and I have gotten such a blessing. I am happier than I have ever been before; if the convention does not amount to anything to the others of this city, I have gotten a blessing in my heart." So I think it is everywhere that all of those that love the Lord, who serve him, who have faith in him, and are trusting in him, and are having the faith that works by love--not which works in a combative way that hurts people; we do not want to have that, [CR159] but the faith that works by love, let us get that kind, dear friends. I have had many experiences in having fights, but I have found that there is very little good results come from having battles with people. The love and kindness and tender mercy, of our God appeals especially to our hearts, and as we exemplify the same loving kindness and mercy of God in presenting this glorious plan to others we have his blessing.
So then, we are on our way, we are still going up, and when we started we said, Lord unless you go with us we will not go up. The Lord said, "My presence shall go with you, I will give you peace." And has it not been so? The Lord's presence has been with his people--"Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." So in all our experiences let us look to the Captain; let us remember, too, that the Captain of our salvation is also our Counselor and tells us what to do.
One of the speakers this afternoon referred to the fact that the general in the army laid out the work and told the others what to do. And so it is with our great General. You and I are not competent to lay out our work; we have all the confidence in the great Captain of our salvation. So it is not for you nor for me, nor for any other brother or sister to attempt to tell the Lord to push and pull things out of his way, but simply to seek to find out what is the Lord's way, what is the Lord's will. The Captain of our salvation is ordering the battle and he knows the results will be all right. And if he is not giving us all the opportunities we think we ought to have, we ought to have confidence that he knows how to manage his own battle, and if our hearts are fully submitted to him we will more likely be called upon for more service.
I am very pleased to congratulate the dear ones of the convention company who have come on the train, and the dear friends who came from Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco, and finally the dear ones of Sacramento, and the blessings of the Lord have been with us richly and abounding. How grateful we are to him, the giver of all things! We rejoice with the dear friends here in Sacramento that they have made such kind arrangements for our entertainment, and for our meeting here in this hall, and for the evening meeting. I am glad that they have so cheerful and happy a company here, and that this shall be an occasion long to be remembered.
No doubt when we get into the great convention, the general assembly of the church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven, we will talk about the different conventions--I remember seeing you at this one, and that one, and what a time we had at the other place--do you remember the little speech I tried to make? We will have a good time, dear friends, all of those who love the King. The Lord has a blessing for all those who seek to do anything in his name, and to help the brethren, or to cooperate in his service. He is able to do for us exceedingly and abundantly more than we could ask of him, according to the riches of his grace.
[CR159]
The Secret of the Lord
I REJOICE this morning, dear friends, to find myself with you. I remember very well my previous visit to your city. From the Watch Tower list I know that the numbers here are increasing, and from other sources I have reason to believe that you are not only increasing in numbers, but also in spirituality; this is the real desire of our hearts. What would numbers amount to if we did not have the spirit of the Lord? What is the object of this long selection that God is making during the present time, except to take out a people for his name, people that are to be heart-loyal to him. We are all aware that we have imperfections of the flesh, that there is none righteous, no, not one, but we are glad to know that God looketh not on the outward appearance, but on the heart, and we are glad to believe that in heart we are growing more and more in the likeness of our dear Saviour, the likeness therefore of our heavenly Father, because he was the express image of the Father's person in every sense of the word.
The text which we have for consideration this morning is one that I think is very precious--"The secret of the Lord is with them that reverence him, and he will show them his covenant." And who are those that reverence the Lord, and how may we show the Lord our reverence? The Lord answers the question by telling that if we do the Father's will, that will be the evidence that we are his disciples. If you love me you will keep my commandments --my directions; and the apostle says that we have an additional command, in that we not only keep the Lord's commandments, but they are not grievous to us; for, as our Lord said, "Father, I delight to do thy will." It is one thing to not wish to do God's will at all, and to wish to do our own will; and it makes quite a step when we surrender our own wills and accept the will of the Lord; and even then sometimes after accepting the Lord's will there is quite a battle with many as to how they shall surrender themselves and keep the surrender before the Lord so they do not take back anything they have consecrated to him; it is quite a fight many have along that very line. When we not only have made a consecration of our wills, but when we find ourselves so in sympathy with God and his wonderful arrangement, his divine plan, and the purposes revealed in his Word, and the elements of divine character--justice, wisdom, love, power--made known to us in the Word of God--when we are in harmony with this, then we are close to the Lord; then we delight to do his will--not merely will do it, and say, "Lord it is very hard; I am sorry you asked me to do anything so hard;" but, on the contrary, to say, "Heavenly Father, here is your will, I am glad to know it; I did not know it before, but now that I do know it, I am so pleased that I may do your will." That is the attitude of heart we all wish to attain more and more. It is not an attitude of heart that we could expect to reach at once; but it is the mark before us. So that starting in, and having great battles with ourselves, and hard work to keep ourselves submissive, and saying, "amen" to the divine propositions as they come to us, we gradually get to looking to see what is God's will, and to prefer God's will to anything of our own, or anything that anybody else could give us. That is the real attainment. It is that class that is referred to in our text, "The secret of the Lord is with them that reverence him," that love him, that love his will and his way more than anybody else's will, more than anybody else's way, and more than their own will, and more than their own way. He will show them his secret. You have found it so, and I have found it so, that the Lord makes known his secrets in proportion as we get in that right attitude of heart where we can properly appreciate them and enjoy them. Now the other, the worldly class, do not understand God's secrets; he does not wish them to understand; they are not in a condition to understand. Even some who have taken the name of the Lord and have made even an outward consecration to him, are not in position to understand the secrets of the Lord. Why? They would not make proper use of them if they did know them; they would do themselves further injury if they did know the Lord's secrets; they might seek to oppose him, which would be a terrible condition. And so, the Scriptures tell us that none of the wicked will understand. How glad we are that the wicked cannot understand God's plan! If they did, it would be injurious to themselves, and would interfere with God's plan, in a measure; therefore, God wisely and lovingly keeps his plan hid except from the proper class. "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" said Jesus, but to all outsiders, these things are spoken in parables and dark sayings, that, hearing, they may hear and not understand, and seeing, they might see and not believe. Is not that wonderful, dear friends? It is God's way. His ways are always marvelous to us; the more we get to understand them, the more wonderful they appear. Who would have been God's counselor, to have told him how to do this matter? The apostle was certainly [CR160] right in suggesting that not a creature could ever have suggested to our heavenly Father how to carry on his great and wonderful plan that he has arranged. He needs no counsellor; he is the all-wise one. We are children of his, taught in the school of Christ, our elder Brother, who has gone before, who has trodden the pathway in advance, and who is now our instructor, that he may bring many sons to glory, honor, immortality, joint-heirship, with him in the kingdom. How glad we are!
I remember one expression our dear Master made use of that seemed at one time a very peculiar expression. It must still seem very peculiar to all except those who know something about the divine plan of the ages, and that expression was this: He said, "Father, I thank thee that thou has hidden these things from the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for thus it seemed good in thy sight." Now, it seems so strange we had the thought that anyone who could not see these things would go to eternal torment! It seems so strange that the dear Redeemer who came into the world to save sinners should say, "Father, I thank you that you have hidden these things from all the masses of mankind, so they cannot see them, and cannot understand them." Could Jesus want the mass of mankind to be kept in ignorance so they would not understand, and so, they would go to eternal torment? Oh, no, my dear friends, it is altogether different from that. He loved them all, and he has a gracious plan, the Father's plan. But he knew the Father was selecting a special class, a little flock, to be joint-heirs in the kingdom, and he saw them and recognized them, and in prayer owned the Father's wisdom in the method adopted, that these things should be obscured from the masses of mankind then and ever since.
So then, let us not boast ourselves of greatness, of wisdom, nor of the things that the world is boasting. If we boast, let our boasting be of the Lord, his wonderful love and grace toward us, that while we were yet sinners, God had compassion on us and provided a Redeemer; and then in his providence we were humbly born, or in some other way favored so that his grace has reached our ears, and so that our hearts were not so proud they would not receive the message, or not so hard that they would be opposed to the message, but it is by the grace we are what we are, that our ears heard and our hearts rejoiced, and we are going over, as our dear brother Read sang a little while ago, "Our Friends are Passing Over." Soon we will all have crossed over, and those before on the other shore are almost now in sight. Thank God for our wonderful privileges. I congratulate you all this morning on our having this opportunity of meeting again, and thinking of our heavenly Father's plan; and we who have come from a distance are glad to meet you of Portland and vicinity, and you of Portland and vicinity, I am sure, are glad to meet all of those dear ones who have come a long journey, to see you, and so our hearts and our prayers and hymns are ascending up-- not in any merit of ourselves, but from the censer of our glorious Lord, the great High Priest; and they ascend as a sweet incense before our heavenly Father, and we have his blessing with us this morning, and this causes all our hearts to rejoice.
And while our hearts are rejoicing and blossoming in the desert places of the heart, we are becoming more and more glad, and are bringing forth, I trust, more and more fruitage to the great Master's glory. I remind you and myself at the same time that we are now in a land which not a great while ago was a desert land, and here is the beginning, as it were, of some of those glorious promises in Scripture which tell us that the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and that springs shall come forth, and wonderful blessing shall result. Now, in your land, as I know from previous visits, we are seeing a beginning of Millennial age blessings. As we passed the desert places we saw evidences of fruitfulness that will come from the application of water, and you are raising wonderful orchards of plums and apples, and they are famous now throughout the world; they are going to nearly all our eastern cities. Your prunes are to be had in our markets in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and everywhere, and your apples are famed the world over. The Oregon apple is known in Great Britain. Some of our Scotch friends who are with us have probably eaten Oregon apples in Scotland. And we have heard about the laws you have framed here--all, we believe, under providence. So what there is going on today my dear friends, that you and I may not see something of God's overruling providence? Think of your wonderful law, specifying that your orchards must be almost up to the standard of Eden, not an apple that is specked or wormy shall be shipped from the State. So some of your Edenic fruits are going out, and are lessons to the whole civilized world of what is best in this world. When some of us think of the poor, scrawny apples we sometimes ate, and the worm-holes we had to cut out and bite out, we are thankful that there are good laws in Oregon covering such matters, and bringing nature up to her best. Now, from the world's standpoint all of this they call evolution, and from our standpoint all of this we call merely the beginning of restitution, because God has declared that this Edenic condition which he gave a sample of to our first parents in Eden, is to become a world-wide condition, and that Messiah's glorious kingdom shall bring the whole earth into Edenic perfection, and all that was lost through sin and through death is to be brought back. If we see, then, the beginnings of restitution in the light, and intelligence, and in the wonderful inventions that are coming to the world in our day, and in the fruit, and in the control of the world, and in the knowledge of chemistry, which enables mankind to cope with the various difficulties of earth today--and remember that we are still under the curse--the thorns and the briars, and all the insect pests, are part of that curse--we look down to the future and say, "What a glorious home God will have for mankind when Messiah's kingdom shall bring the earth to full perfection, and bring mankind up out of all this sin and degradation and meanness, back to all that was lost in the first man, and redeemed by the second man, our Lord."
How glad we are, then, dear friends, to see that we are living in the very beginning of the glorious day to which the whole world has been looking forward! How it cheers us, how it comforts us; and while we are not expecting the blessings for ourselves, but are hoping to attain something still better--exceedingly abundantly more than we could have asked or thought--yet we are glad of these blessings for mankind, and we are glad to see these things come to pass in our day as further additional evidences that we are in the dawning of the new dispensation, and the time is at hand for God's blessing and the outflow of truth, which is symbolized by the water which is making your desert blossom as the rose.
[CR160]
Growing in Grace and Knowledge
IN A VERY considerable sense of the word, this will be the termination of one part of the convention. There will be some meetings tomorrow, but those who are in the convention touring party will not be with you. So this will be a good time for me to speak for the touring party, and say to the friends of Portland that we very much enjoy indeed the kind hospitalities you have given us, and the various expressions of love and brotherly kindness from you. We appreciate it all very much, and we are glad for the opportunity we have of being with you a couple of days and getting better acquainted. And now as the convention draws to a close, I feel that all our hearts are blessed somewhat by the Lord's favor; I hope so; I hope that we are all growing in grace as we are growing in knowledge. And my experience teaches me that God's plan seems to me to give us a certain amount of testing and trial by the way; it is not all testing, it is not all trial, it is not all persecution, it is not all opposition, it is not all temptation; if it were, it would be so narrow a way that perhaps we might not be able to progress. But the Lord very graciously gives us a measure of trial, and then a measure of freedom from trial. So it is rain, sunshine, trial, [CR161] blessing, as we go along in the good way. And we have had now a feasting time together in spiritual things, and a time of rejoicing in thinking of the Lord and his providence, and his glorious plan, and after having a good spiritual feast there will be opportunities for exercise, you know. That is the way with our bodies. After we eat then we exercise and use the strength we derive. Let the Lord see how you are using the Spiritual food he is giving you and as you use it to his glory he agrees to give you more and to strengthen you still further. He has promised that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled, and we are getting filled, and then we need more, and then we get filled up again, and we have a larger capacity from time to time. I presume it is with you as with myself, that your capacity for spiritual things is increasing--I hope that is so with all of us.
But now with all of this feasting, with the opportunities for service that will come, and which I believe we wish to use loyally and faithfully, showing the Lord our zeal and love--with all this doubtless you will have trials and difficulties, and you must be ready for these. I do not mean to sound an alarm, or for anybody to be looking for trouble; we generally get plenty of trouble without looking for it particularly, but we are to be on our guard, watch and pray--not merely pray, not merely watch, but watch and pray--and see that our lamps are trimmed and burning, and see that our hearts are in the right attitude toward the Lord.
And now to keep our hearts in the right attitude so we are thus able to enjoy our blessings, and then be able to render service and withstand temptation and trials, my experience is this: That we want to have obedient hearts, and we want to have grateful hearts, and we want to appreciate the great blessings that God has granted us. There is one hymn we sometimes use, "Give me a thankful heart," etc. That to me is a good thought. I always like to feel grateful to my Lord; my intellect tells me I owe him so much, and I feel as though I want my heart to keep pace with my intellect. My intellect says I owe the Lord a great deal, and my heart says, I want to be very thankful, and tell him so, and show him so by my words and thoughts and doings.
And another point is this, that we want to keep very close reckonings with the Lord. You cannot afford to run long accounts with the Lord. You want to go to him every day at least twice, and then perhaps a good many times during the day if you find special cause for thankfulness. The apostle's thought is thus carried out in our lives. He says, "Pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks." Our whole lives are to be prayerful in the sense that we will always be considering what is the Lord's will respecting us, and in the sense of being thankful for everything that comes to us, both of joy and sorrow; it is always to be with thankful, grateful hearts. Our going to the Lord would always include an acknowledgement of our imperfections; otherwise we might get puffed up. We want to watch every day to see that we have imperfections. The man or woman who does not know of his or her own imperfections, will come short. Our Lord intimated this, you remember, in the prayer he taught us, saying, Pray ye, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. That implies that you and I come short, and we will continually need to pray. These are not the trespasses of original sin; these are the trespasses that are ours as new creatures when we are desiring to do the Lord's will, and as new creatures we are seeking to walk in his path, but find we have imperfections of the flesh and that we make failure to some extent, perhaps coming short of all our opportunities. Perhaps we have an opportunity of serving the Lord and laying down a little inch of our lives, and fail to properly appreciate it at the moment, and after this we think of what we might have done and how we would do better the next time. It would be very proper to tell the Lord about the whole matter, and thus to acknowledge our trespasses and shortcomings; and thus to keep, in that sense of the word, short accounts with the Lord--seeing that every night before we retire that everything between our hearts and the Lord is without a cloud, without a single unsettled item, that we have taken everything to the Lord, and have confessed everything that was in our own judgment imperfect in our conduct, and have sought his forgiveness and have made resolutions to follow more closely still in the narrow way, in the footsteps of our Master. And thus progressing, we are coming up Zion's hill, and we are very near to the end of the journey, when we hope to be with our Master, and the great convention will begin. We are all getting ready, I hope, and waiting for it, and praying for it, and delighting in it in advance.
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The Suffering of Christ
Text.--"So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation."--Heb. 9:28. THIS brief statement by the apostle is really a summary of centuries of accomplishment. The suffering of Christ began with our Lord, began with the time when he made a consecration of himself, presented himself to the Father when he was thirty years of age. The sufferings of Christ continued during the three and a half years of his ministry, and the sufferings of Christ have continued all of these eighteen hundred years since, and we are finding that this is the key which very many of God's dear people have overlooked, and therefore have been in considerable quandary as to how to understand the divine dealings. The apostles understood the matter very clearly. They understood they were to suffer with the Lord as members of his body; they understood that these sufferings of the body of Christ must be complete before the glory should follow; but this thought has been lost sight of during the dark ages, and instead of this proper thought that the church has a share in the sufferings of Christ and in the glory to follow--instead of that thought coming with joyous emphasis by our Catholic friends in their organization, their church was organized with the thought and with the understanding that the sufferings of Christ did not extend to the church; that the sufferings of Christ were accomplished in his own person; in one sense of the word then they have a peculiar arrangement by which they repeat the sufferings of Christ in the sacrifice of the mass. And they do this repeatedly for the sins of the individual and sins of congregations, and low mass in a general way, and high mass for particular sins. And so they have this as the carrying out of the further sacrifice of Christ, instead of seeing that all the church is to suffer with him. And so they have exalted the Pope to be the vicegerent of Christ, to be the representative of the Messiah, that he should reign, and that in his reign should be fulfilled all the glorious promises that God made respecting his kingdom, and the glorious blessings that would flow from Messiah's reign. How much disappointed they would feel if they were to get a proper view of the situation! Instead of having accomplished anything great in the world, we find the world today in as bad a condition in many senses of the word as it was a thousand years ago, and yet our Catholic friends claim that the thousand years of the reign of Christ were in the past, and that the Pope and those associated with him are reigning in glory, and that practically the work of Messiah as the great king of earth under the whole heavens to bless all the families of the earth must practically be considered as accomplished; and yet today, even according to the most liberal calculation at least two-thirds of the human family are ignorant of the Lord entirely, having no knowledge of God or of his Son. This great mistake which our Catholic friends fell into has descended also to Protestants. While the Protestants repudiated some of the Catholic doctrines they did not know what to do with other features, so they carried these on, and our Protestant friends really are claiming, "Yes we are living in the reign of Christ."
"How long has he been reigning?"
"Oh, we don't know how long."
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"Where did the reign begin?"
"Well, none of us know; the Catholics say they know when it began, but we Protestants believe that the Catholics are all confused, and that they are the anti-Christ, but somehow we believe anyway that the kingdom of Christ has been going on."
Well, where are the fruits of Christ's kingdom? They cannot tell us, except that they hope against hope that shortly, perhaps pretty soon, they don't know how long, they will conquer the world for Jesus. And it is really pathetic to see sometimes the zeal of some of the Christian Endeavor friends as they will pray and sing "All the world for Jesus," and then hear their statements that they will raise thirty millions of dollars and convert the whole heathen world instanter. It seems really pathetic that intelligent people should make such statements, or entertain such thoughts for humanity, when we know from the statistics of the United States governments that there are twice as many heathen today as there were a century ago--six hundred million a century ago and twelve hundred million today. And even if they did storm the world for Jesus, and bring the whole world into the blessed condition you have in Tacoma, you would have hard work leaving anything out of doors that you wanted to protect and save. God's will is nearly as far from being done in Tacoma as it is in Tokyo--very little difference. We have more saints, I presume, in Tacoma than we have in Tokyo, but as far as the world is concerned, the world in Tokyo, and the world in Tacoma, and the world in Brooklyn, are all practically as the apostle says "The world by its wisdom knows not God," but it seems to be getting in some respects further away from God than it was before. I am not speaking of the benevolent institutions of the world; I am finding no fault with those; I am glad we have good benevolent institutions. Even though there should be more or less of graft and corruption in connection with nearly all the operations of them, they are well intended, and there is a good thought behind them, and we are glad of that.
But the point that we wish to notice is that we have not God's kingdom in the world, and there is no sign of it, no tangible evidence that we could storm the world any more than we could storm Tokyo, or Tacoma, or Brooklyn for Christ, and yet there are the masses of intelligent people, some of them saying that Messiah's reign is ended, and we are in the times mentioned in the twentieth chapter of Revelation, when the devil is loosed for a little season, and the devil is a protestant; and shortly everything will be wound up. And then our Protestant views that we don't know where we are, but Christ has been reigning and making about as poor a job of it as could be--that is what they are claiming.
Now the Bible has such a fine presentation of the matter, and how glad we are we can see in God's Word that which is satisfactory to our reason, and which will ultimately be satisfactory to the whole world of mankind. We see from the Bible why there has been a delay. Failing to see this is what has led our Christian friends into all of their difficulties. If they had clearly understood the "mystery" as the apostle calls it, it would have solved the whole matter, but evidently our heavenly Father did not wish the mystery to be completely solved until the beginning of the seventh trumpet; so it is written that when the seventh angel shall begin to sound, the mystery of God which he has kept secret from the foundation of the world should be finished. When God keeps anything secret, and wishes to do so, let us not be surprised that nobody finds it out. This mystery that the apostle mentions is Christ in you, and it is stated plainly enough even though we were blinded to it for quite a while. This great mystery that the church was the body of Christ was buried under the traditions and superstitions of centuries; from the time the apostles fell asleep the church lost sight of the fact that if she would reign with him in the future she must suffer with him in the present. And when she got the idea she was already reigning, of course she got the idea that her time of suffering had passed, and pride and vain glory took the place of humility and a desire to suffer with the Lord.
But we are glad in God's providence that we have been awakened and that we begin to see these things; if we were stupid and asleep at one time we have gotten aroused, and we have been seeing more and more clearly, and now as we go back from our present standpoint we see the length, and the breadth, and the height, and depth of divine wisdom, justice, love, and power, such as we never dreamed of before. And this becomes to us a wonderful proof, positive proof, not only that there is a God, but that the Bible is his Word, and it equally proves to us that the various denominations are not in line with it.
I think of one infidel who said to me that he would not believe the Bible. I said, "Why? Where do you think the Bible came from?"
He smiled and said, "Priests and knaves."
"Oh, you think that the priests and knaves made the Bible?"
"Certainly."
I said, "which priests and which knaves made the Bible?"
Well he had not expected that question. I said, "Did the Presbyterian priests and knaves, or the Baptist priests and knaves make the Bible?"
He hadn't thought of it. "Perhaps you would say, they were not old enough, that the Bible was made by the Catholics?"
"Oh yes," he said, "the Catholics--that is it, the Catholic priests and knaves."
"Well," I said, "my dear friend, it is rather remarkable is it not? They ought to be called also fools, for they made a Bible that does not suit them. If a man does a forgery at all he would do so for some purpose, he would have some object in view, but to commit a forgery and not have that forgery what he wants it to be would indicate that he is a fool."
He said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "If the Catholics made the Bible they made one that does not suit them. It has in it a great many things they do not believe and they wish were not there, and it does not contain a great many things they would like to have there. They would like to have the Bible corroborate them and say that Mary was the mother of God, but it does not say so. They would like to have the Bible tell them that Mary was born immaculate, as they claim. They would like to have the Bible tell something about beads, and praying with beads, and have the Bible tell them something about praying to the saints, and praying to a lower saint and then to a higher saint, and finally get to Mary, then to Jesus, then to the Father--gradually stepping up. They would like something in the Bible to corroborate their teachings. You see if they forged the Bible, they made a poor forgery. Then they would like to have something in the Bible authorizing them to have their sacrifice of the mass. They would have something in the Bible about the holy water and the sprinkling of it. They would like to have something in the Bible to tell about the holy candles, and consecrated burying ground, and about hearing of confessions. They would like to have something in the Bible about purgatory, something about the sprinkling of infants, and something about keeping Sunday, and something about the holy Trinity. There are a whole lot of things they wish they could have in the Bible that they do not have there. They have a whole lot of things in the Bible they do not know what to do with, and they wish they were not there. They have no use for the resurrection when every one is more alive than even before he died." "Now," I said, "my infidel friend, if you think the Catholic priests and knaves made the Bible, you must think they are a set of fools. But they would not make the Bible like that. And" I said, "for the same reasons the Presbyterians would not have made it even if they had lived in the time. The Bible does not suit them. It has something about election, but it also has something about free grace that they do not know what to do with. And so our Methodist friends would have in the free grace and would leave out the election altogether, as they do not know what to do with that. And so with all denominations. They would all put in something more and all would leave out something else. As far as I know we are the only people in the whole world that the Bible suits; it suits us exactly the way it is."
And because of God's providence we are getting the true light on the Word, which shows the true condition as God intended it to be understood. It is all rational and sure from God's standpoint; it is all reasonable and all beautiful, and we are surely finding that out. It has been just as beautiful all these centuries; it has had all of these teachings for these hundreds of years; we are merely finding out the lengths and the breadths and the heights and the depths of the love of God which passeth all understanding, and how this love of God is clearly presented in his Word. And it explains our text that now we must suffer with him if we would reign with him, and that these sufferings of Christ belong to this present time, and that Christ cannot come to give the great blessings to the world of mankind until the church which is his body is completed. And so instead of hastening the Lord we should be doing exactly what the Lord said to do. The bride is to make herself ready--never mind about hurrying the bridegroom, the bridegroom is ready now and has been all of this time; it is the bride that is to be made ready; the bridegroom has been sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on high, as the apostle says, waiting for the time to come for the divine arrangement to be fulfilled, and the whole thing given to you and to me [CR163] is to be ambassadors, to be mouthpieces of God in inviting and calling and drawing, in the name of the Father, and in the name of our Lord, all of those who have an ear to hear his message. We do this not merely orally, not merely from the platform, but also in our daily lives. So let our daily lives express the lessons of true holiness. Let all our actions show the power of God, and the hope that is within us, that all may see that we are his, that all might take notice of us that we have been with Jesus and learned of him, and we are being exercised by the exceedingly great and precious promises that our Father has given us, and which were intended to work in us to will and to do his good pleasure--not only for ourselves but also for each other, for the apostle, you remember, tells us this was the very object in giving the Holy Spirit. He says, God poured out the Spirit on our Lord Jesus, and he gave some prophets, some evangelists, some teachers, etc., for the work of the ministry, for the work of service. What service? For the work of developing the body of Christ, not for the work of converting the world, but for the work of the ministry, developing the body of Christ, until they all come to the full stature of a man--adding on the different members of the body, until we as a whole Church shall come to the full stature of a man, of which great man Jesus is the head. This is the great prophet, the great king, the great judge, the great lifegiver, the great mediator between God and man.
Now our dear Master suffered and entered into glory, so all the Body of Christ must suffer. There are two ways in which we stand related to Christ. We stand related to him, our head, as new creatures, that is the figure of the priest, prophet, King; it is the new creature that stands related to Christ also on the fleshly plane; your flesh is related to Christ, and my flesh is related to Christ. In what way? In this way: that as Jesus' flesh suffered, so you and I and all his faithful consecrated ones are counted in as part of his flesh. How so? Why in all your afflictions. "In all their afflictions, he was afflicted." All your afflictions are the afflictions of Christ, all the sufferings of the church in the flesh. You are not suffering as new creatures, you are suffering in the flesh. You remember how the Lord spoke to Saul of Tarsus on this subject. Saul had been persecuting Stephen and others, and the Lord appeared unto him on the way to Damascus, and said to him, "Saul, Saul why persecutest thou me?"
"Why, Lord, am I persecuting you? I never persecuted you. Who are you? How do I persecute you?"
"I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest."
Whenever Saul did anything against Stephen, he was doing that against Jesus; whenever he did anything against any of the other saints who were counted in as members of the body of Christ, their flesh was like that of Jesus in the world. Whoever harms one of you, the least of these my little ones, is harming the body of Christ; and so all the body of Christ is suffering together. Thus we are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, and we are filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. As he was afflicted, so are we; as he was opposed by the world, and the flesh, and the adversary, so we are to expect the same. The Lord himself says, "Think it not strange concerning these experiences;" and St. Peter says, "Think it not strange concerning these fiery trials." Jesus says, "If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, what will they say about you? If they say all manner of evil against him, what must you expect?" We must not expect that we will be superior to our Lord. We must not expect that the world will be friendly to us if they were not so to him.
Then the apostle says, we are to rejoice in this. Of course he proceeds to say that no tribulation for the time being seems joyous, but rather grievous, nevertheless it yields the peaceable proof of righteousness. And so when you and I become more and more developed in Christian character, in the likeness and mind of our Lord, it enables us to see that these various things that might mean harm to our flesh, as various trials and difficulties, are all so many blessings. If you receive them properly--the if is there-- let us make sure the if is applicable to us--if we endure these things joyfully, then the Spirit of glory and of God resteth on us. How glad we are! Of course that gives us rejoicing.
I think of one old gentleman who came to see me one day. He inquired for me at the office, and hearing him I went to the door, and I said, "How do you do, Mr. __________."
He said, "Do you know me?"
I said, "I ought to know you, you have been around Pittsburgh for twenty years or so; of course, I know you."
He was about seventy-five years of age. He looked very much abashed.
He said, "Have you a back room?"
"Yes."
"I wish you would take me back there and kick me."
I said, "Mr. __________, I have no feeling like that towards you."
He said, "It would be a good thing."
"Oh," I said, "I have nothing against you; you have not done me any harm."
He said, "Oh, yes, I have done you harm. I said everything about you, and I thought worse."
"Well, well," I said, "never mind it now; we will let that go; you seem to be in a different frame of mind anyway. Let that all go."
"Well, it makes me feel worse that you take it so kindly."
Then he began to tell me how he had come under the influence of the truth; how a friend had loaned him Volume III. of Dawn, in order that he might read about the great pyramid. It was handed to him wrapped up, and when he got home and found it was Millennial Dawn he was angry and did not want the book in his house. He said he could not sleep comfortably with that book in the house. He wanted to burn it, but it was not his book. He wanted to take it back to that man who gave it to him, but that would be an improper act, and he had promised to read that chapter; he did not want to read it, did not want to open the book, did not want to look at it, but finally concluded the least he could do would be to read that chapter in a rather cursory manner, and take it back wrapped up, and when he would meet the party, just say, "Thank you, very much." But if the party should say, "What do you think of it?"--well--not say much about it, not get into any controversy. But he said, "Brother Russell, after I read that chapter, and I did not read it in a cursory manner after I got started, I could not read it any way but carefully, then I began at the beginning and read all the remainder of the book, and now I have come here, and from the young man out in the office I have gotten the other two volumes, and I will tell you in advance that I am more than half convinced that I am going to believe every word that is in them."
I said, "All right, Brother, we are very glad."
So I have found sometimes that those who are our greatest enemies, and those who are most opposed, have real good and honest hearts, and it is because they have honesty underneath that they want to fight the truth, because they truly believe it is contrary to God's word. So when I find anybody fighting real hard, I have come to wonder if he will not get converted to the truth. No man has ever tackled the truth successfully that I know of, they nearly always have done themselves harm, but any way we are content whether we shall ever see any fruits to our labors or not--though we are not satisfied. You know there is a difference: we are content every day, but wholly dissatisfied all the time. That is to say, we will not be satisfied until we get what the Lord has promised, and all the glorious things he has in reservation. We will be satisfied when we are awakened in his likeness, and after his glorious plan shall have reached its consummation, then all God's people will be thoroughly satisfied, but now we are contented. We do not know all his plan may call for; we are simply soldiers. He is the great captain. If he says march to the left, we will march to the left; if he says march "right flank," we turn to the right. So we are under orders now, not knowing all the purposes of the great Captain of our salvation, but he is now showing us a great deal of his plan.
As a child I used to think about the heathen; I was always interested to give my little mite to the work of missionary endeavor. I think of the time when I was about ten, perhaps, and a boat by the name of the "Morning Star" was being built for work in foreign lands; I do not remember now just what islands they were, but one of the vessels used in missionary work had been destroyed in some manner, and they started to build another one. She was to be called the "Morning Star." All the Sunday School had the opportunity of subscribing for shares in some amount for the "Morning Star," and I wanted to get some shares. I did not expect it would ever pay any dividends, but I wanted to have some money in that boat. As a boy of ten I had not any money, nor any way of getting any money; I did not think of any way I had. I was not allowed to sell papers, and I did not know of any other way I could get money. Finally, I thought of a way. I said, "Father, which article on our table is the most expensive."
He said, "That is a very strange question." Finally, we concluded that butter, which was then selling at one dollar and twenty-five cents a pound--that was during war time--was the most expensive article, and I figured out about how much butter I ate in a week, and what my share would come to, and asked him if I could have that much money instead of the butter, for a week or two weeks--I don't remember just how long, but for the time the missionary sum was made up.
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"Well," he said, "what do you want it for?"
I said I wanted it.
"But what for?"
"Well, I wanted to get some interest in that Morning Star boat."
"Well, well," he said, "you need not mind doing without butter; I will see that you have some money to get some shares in that."
"Oh, no," I said, "you can take what you like, but I want to have some of my own." I wanted something I had paid for in some way--something that had cost me something.
So I have always had a deep interest in the poor heathen. I was talking to a sister in the train who had once been a missionary in China, and we could touch in sympathy readily. Her sympathy had been with the heathen, and she was working for them in China. We were saying to each other what a wonderful blessing was coming to the poor heathen, so much better than we had thought for. What would all the Morning Star boats you and I could build amount to in comparison to the great morning star that God is going to let shine out? And it will only be the precursor to the great sun. The morning star goes first, and the sun comes right along afterward, and the whole earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of God. The heathen will see the Sun of Righteousness and will all get a share of the blessings.
But our text goes on to say that to them that look for him, he will appear unto salvation. This first seeing will be when the whole world will see the Lord from the standpoint of one who is displeased with the present arrangement, and who is about to bring on civilization a certain chastisement, which the Bible foretells, for the judgment of the Lord will be abroad, and the fire of God's anger, the fire of God's jealousy, shall burn, as the prophet says. They will first have that experience. Everybody will more or less see that the Lord is displeased, and that sin has brought a certain amount of wreck and ruin in its wake. Then what? Then they will be looking for something better, and they will gradually begin to look for what? For the Redeemer, for the Saviour, for the Deliverer, to bless them, and lift them up and help them. Do the Scriptures tell us about the Jews? What will they do? Will they look? Yes, they shall look unto him whom they pierced. I am glad they will look. The time of trouble God will permit to come on the world will make men's hearts look over the transitory things of the present time, and make them look towards the Lord--they shall look to him whom they have pierced. What then? They will mourn; they will be sorry. I am glad they will be sorry. They will be cut to the heart. As I remember, one of the pictures of David's psalm represents that Christ shall ride forth as a great conqueror. "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, and ride forth prosperously," is a cry prophetical of Jesus in his glorified condition. "Thy right hand (thy power) shall teach thee terrible things." Yes, there will be a terrible time of trouble. "Thine arrows shall be sharp in the hearts of the king's enemies, by which they shall be made to fall." How many in the world are enemies of Christ? How many in the world are enemies of the Lord in the sense of not being his servants, not being in harmony with him? They are all going to fall under these arrows. The Lord is going to shoot out these arrows at them all. They will be the same kind of arrows St. Peter shot out on the day of Pentecost. He was talking to some of the Jews, and we read that they were cut to the heart. What cut them? His words cut them. They cried out, "Men and brethren, what must we do?" So I will be glad when the whole world gets cut to the heart, and when some of the Lord's arrows, the declarations of his Word, shall enter in and show them just where they are, and shall cut them to the heart. It will be a happy day for them. Their eyes will open then to see what the love of God really is. And that is what the prophet says the world shall know--the knowledge of the glory of God will fill the whole earth. That is what is going to bless them all. They have been hearing bad tidings of great misery, which has misrepresented our Lord and the heavenly Father for all of these centuries; they are going to hear something of the good tidings which shall be unto great joy--they are going to have a blessing.
Now, the Jews will be amongst the first that will look unto him; he shall appear to them that look for him; and then the whole world as they begin to see the blessings of the new covenant coming to the Jew will awaken to the fact and say, "Here is the beginning of the Lord's blessings. See the Jews in prosperity. See the blessings the Lord has poured out on them." And they will want some of those blessings, and they will see that those blessings could only be obtained along the pathway of righteousness. And then they will say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord's house, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. The Jews are getting these blessings, and we will go in those paths, and he will give us some of those blessings." And gradually they shall all come to see him. God will arrange it so that the whole world will need to look for the blessings, he intends to give them; and looking for those blessings and desiring those blessings, and praying for them, and getting into the condition of mind to receive them, will mean the blessed things that will be exercised amongst mankind during that thousand years which will help them up, step by step, out of their weaknesses and imperfections. And as they come to appreciate the Lord, they will see him more and more. Just the same as you and I have been seeing him more. The apostle says, you are looking unto Jesus. Are you looking unto Jesus? Yes. As you look unto Jesus, you see him more clearly today than you did a year ago? I hope so. So do I. We are all seeing him more clearly. His glorious character and plan and arrangements are all more glorious in our sight than ever before. So will the world look for him. To them that look for him he shall appear unto salvation. And the more they look, the more they will see; and the more they look and see, the more blessings they will get, until, at the end of the thousand years their eyes will be fully opened; for it is written all the blind eyes shall be opened, and all the deaf ears shall be unstopped, and the blessings of the Lord will be with them.
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Babylon: Typical and Anti-Typical
FOR centuries Bible students have observed that many of the strong expressions of the Old Testament respecting Babylon found their parallels in the New Testament, used in respect to mystic Babylon. Many of these statements of the Old Testament seem far too vivid and too strong to be applied to literal Babylon. Hence it was surmised that mystic Babylon was more particularly referred to than the literal. It was noticed also that as Israel and Judah went into captivity to literal Babylon, so apparently the book of Revelation teaches that spiritual Israel would have drastic experiences in a captivity to mystic or symbolic "Babylon the great, the mother of harlots" (Revelation 17:5).
Within the past fifty years, under the blighting influence of the evolution theory and the destructive higher criticism of the Bible, these parallels have been lost sight of. Indeed, aside from international Sunday school lessons, Bible study has been very largely neglected, even in theological seminaries. And Sunday school lessons, under guidance of worldly wisdom, have sought to avoid everything except the "milk of the Word" (the simple doctrines) to avoid controversies.
Only very recently is true Bible study being revived in conjunction with the International Bible Students' Association, a branch of which I have the honor to address today. We may well congratulate each other, dear friends, that in God's providence we have escaped the faith-destroying influence of higher criticism and evolution. We may well congratulate ourselves also on the degree of liberty we have attained in the study of God's Word-- freedom from the confusion creeds manufactured for us in a darker age--freedom from some of the rank superstitions and false theories which, for a time, fettered our reason and made the divine plan to appear ignoble--unworthy of a just and loving man, much more of an all-wise, just and loving Creator.
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GREAT BABYLON OF OLD
Briefly we remind you that ancient Babylon was built on the river Euphrates; that she had impregnable walls; that the river ran through the midst of the city, and the great gates of brass spanned the river as a protection against assaults of an enemy from that quarter. The name of the city was attached to a large area of country outside of it, for which it served as the capital. Indeed, at its zenith Babylon was mistress of the then civilized world-- the first universal empire.
We remind you of the captivity, first of the ten tribes of Israel, and later on of the remaining two tribes or kingdom called Judah. The method of Babylon was to scatter the Israelites among the Babylonians, and through their earthly interests to amalgamate them as part and parcel of Babylonia. This condition of things lasted until the fall of Babylon before its conqueror, Cyrus.
The general gained his victory in a remarkable manner, while the Babylonians, assured of their security, were reveling at a banquet. Although the crisis came suddenly, the preparation had been long in progress. The soldiers of Cyrus, under his direction had digged a canal of considerable depth ready to drain off the water of the river as soon as the necessary connection was made. When the canal was in readiness the connection with the river was speedily made and the water flowed rapidly into the new channel, leaving the bed of the river under the great brazen gates, on both sides of the city, an open roadway, through which marched the army of Cyrus. Suddenly, at an unexpected moment, the boastful city, the proud Babylon, was captured.
Then it was that Cyrus, the victorious general, gave the command which granted liberty to every Israelite carried captive thither, to return to his own land. Additionally, assistance was rendered to all who desired to return, and the golden vessels pertaining to the worship of God in the temple were sent back. But strange to say out of all the millions who had constituted Israel and Judah before the captivity, only about fifty-three thousand of all the tribes were anxious to avail themselves of the privilege of returning to the land of promise.
ANTI-TYPICAL OR MYSTIC BABYLON
The Book of Revelation, the book of symbols, the last message of our ascended Redeemer to his church through the apostle John, was written long centuries after literal Babylon perished. Its references to Babylon, therefore, can be viewed only in the light of symbolism. As already suggested, many of the prophetic utterances seem far too strong to be applied to literal Babylon and her fall.
Indeed, while speaking directly of Babylon and her fall at the hands of the Medes and Persians under Cyrus, the prophecies speak of the end of this age and of world-wide calamities incidental to the overthrow of every institution contrary to the divine will, preparatory to the inauguration of Messiah's kingdom.
I request that at your convenience you read Isaiah 13:1-19, in confirmation of what I have said. I recommend further that you compare Jeremiah 1:15-29, with Revelation 18:6, and Jeremiah 1:38, compare Jeremiah 1:15-29, with Revelation 18:6, and Jeremiah 1:38, compare Jeremiah 1:15-29, with Revelation 18:6, and Jeremiah 1:38, with Revelation 16:12, and the forty-sixth verse with Revelation 18:9. with Revelation 16:12, and the forty-sixth verse with Revelation 18:9. with Revelation 16:12, and the forty-sixth verse with Revelation 18:9. Compare also Jeremiah 51:6-9, with Revelation 18:4, Compare also Jeremiah 51:6-9, with Revelation 18:4, and verse thirteen of Jeremiah 51 with Revelation 17:1-5, and and verse thirteen of Jeremiah 51 with Revelation 17:1-5, and verses thirty-seven, sixty-three and sixty-four with Revelation 18:2-4-21.
No one can make these comparisons, I believe, and not feel fully convinced that the Holy Spirit dictating through Isaiah and Jeremiah was the same Holy Spirit which guided St. John through the apocalyptic vision. Nor can such students escape the conclusion that the force of the prophecies apply specially to mystic Babylon rather than to the literal city and country. As one section of literal Babylon fell before another, so Revelation predicts it will be with mystic Babylon. As literal Babylon ruled over the whole world, so mystic Babylon is represented as ruling the civilized world, and hence the entire world.
As the lords of Babylon were made drunk by wine which they drank from the golden vessels captured from the temple at Jerusalem, so mystic Babylon, represented by a woman, is said to make all nations drunk with the wine, or doctrine, which she gives them out of the golden cup which she holds in her hand. As literal Babylon fell by the drying up of the waters of the Euphrates, so Revelation tells us that mystic Babylon sits upon the symbolic Euphrates, and that the way of the kings of the East shall be prepared by the drying up of those waters (Revelation 16:12).
Similarly, we are assured, mystic Babylon's end shall come suddenly, "in one hour." Like a great millstone she shall be cast into the sea to rise no more. As the literal Israelites were invited to leave Babylon the literal and were helped so to do, but only a few responded, so spiritual Israelites are urged to leave mystic Babylon in which they have been in captivity, but only a comparatively small number have a sufficiency of courage, love and zeal to respond at the first--others will be delivered after her collapse. Now, however, the message is, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen (sentenced to fall). Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." (Revelation 18:2-5).
WHERE IS MYSTIC BABYLON?
No student can examine the records without astonishment and a realization that mystic Babylon must be some great, influential system of great power in the world during this Gospel age, and especially at its close. The very prominence given to Babylon, both in prophecy and in revelation, warns God's people that if they have not yet found Babylon they should seek for her. For so great an institution as made all nations drunk with her false doctrine must be very prominent, indeed, to those who were made so under the influence of the stupefying draft from her cup.
Indeed, the intimation is that the whole civilized world will be so intoxicated with the false teaching of Babylon as to be completely under her influence. And when she falls it is particularly explained that all the great, the rich, the mighty, the influential of earth will mourn the catastrophe of her fall. Only the saintly few will recognize its true import and rejoice, as we read, "Alas! that great city that was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls! For in one hour so great riches is come to naught....What city is like unto this great city! And they cast dust on their heads and cried, weeping, and wailing, saying: Alas, alas, that great city!" (Revelation 18:16-19).
But, on the contrary, another class rejoices, as we read:
"Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her. And I heard a voice of much people in heaven, saying, "Alleluia! Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God, for true and righteous are his judgments, for he hath judged the great harlot which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand." (Revelation 18:20 and 19:1-2).
It seems very clear, my dear brethren, that many of us were once a part and parcel of this great Babylon--this great system of confusion, by which the divine character has been so traduced through misinterpretations of the divine Word. I am aware that Catholics declare that Protestants are this Babylon system, and I am aware that Protestants claim that Catholics are this Babylon system.
To my understanding of the divine Word, both are right! Babylon is the mother system and the various sects of Protestants are the daughters, and the name Babylon is a family name. It belongs to the mother system first, and to all the daughters of the system now, as well. Improper association with the world, its governments and systems, is a crime to which they are parties. The "daughters" have followed the example of the "mother," and more or less are coming back into sympathy with her in all particulars. None of them have maintained the proper attitude of virginity and separateness from the world.
"I SPEAK NOT UNKINDLY."
Do not misunderstand me. I believe that there are true saints of God in all the various parts of Christendom--mother and daughters. I do not even charge nor believe that those who have upheld and are upholding the various sections of Babylon have an evil intention. I believe that they are thoroughly "drunk," intoxicated with their own erroneous theories. The fall of their present institutions will be a startling blow to them, for they verily believe them to be Christ's kingdom--and style them such--Christendom.
The fall of Babylon will astonish the entire world, so complete is the illusion that Christendom represents the throne and government of Messiah among men. And, be it remembered, the vast majority in all the various sects and denominations of Christendom are worldly people who have no conception whatever of the true church and her cause. Their ambition is to approximate righteousness and a form of godliness, but no more than this seems to them necessary, since they have not been begotten of the Holy Spirit and therefore cannot appreciate things from the divine standpoint.
To them the fall of Babylon at first is astounding, a perplexity, but will work no real injury, because the reign of Babylon over the earth will be superseded by the reign of the New Jerusalem-- the kingdom of God's dear Son. The most saintly of God's people will hear the voice of divine command, "Come out of her, my people," and will obey it before the fall comes, but a large [CR166] number, even of the Lord's people, lacking courage, will share with Babylon the troubles of that hour.
Subsequently, however, they will rejoice and be glad when they realize the justice of the divine execution against Babylon, and to them will come, as an inferior company, an invitation to attend the "marriage supper of the Lamb." Their honorable position will be that of bridesmaids to the still more faithful and courageous "little flock," who will be accounted worthy to be the bride class and to sit with the Redeemer in his throne. Then speedily will follow the long-promised times of restitution to the world of mankind, for which we pray. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven."
"THY KINGDOM COME."
As God and his glory and honor are to be first in the minds of his children, so their next thought should be for the glorious kingdom, which he has promised shall bless the world. However much our personal interests and affairs may be pressing upon us, and however much we may desire to have the Lord's blessing and guidance our appreciation of his beneficent arrangements which he has so clearly promised in his Word, we are to remember that the kingdom, when it shall come, will be a panacea for every ill and every trouble, not only for us, but for the whole world of mankind. We are not, therefore, to permit our own personal needs to be too prominent, but are to remember that the whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain together, waiting for this glorious kingdom and the blessing upon all the families of the earth, which our heavenly Father has promised shall yet come through the seed of Abraham.
This thought respecting the kingdom, its necessity, and the blessings that it will bring will keep prominently before our minds our own high calling to joint-heirship with our Lord in this kingdom. And in proportion as that hope is clearly before our minds it will be, as the apostle explains, as "an anchor to our souls, sure and steadfast, entering into that which is within the vail." This anchorage of hope in the future, in the kingdom, will enable us to pass safely, and with comparative quiet, through the trials and storms and difficulties of this present evil world. More than this, our thoughts respecting the kingdom will remind us that if we are to be heirs of the kingdom it will be necessary that we have the appropriate discipline and training.
"THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH, AS IT IS DONE IN HEAVEN."
This petition offered from the heart implies that the one offering it has made a full consecration of his will, his heart, to the Lord, and that as he hopes for the kingdom by and by to come and subdue all unrighteousness and to establish the divine will from sea to sea, and from pole to pole, so now, the petitioner, being thus in accord with the Lord's will, and thus wishing that it might be universally in control, will see to it that this will is ruling in his own heart--that in his own affairs God's will is done to the best of his ability in his earthly condition, even as he hopes to have it perfected in the kingdom. No one can intelligently and honestly offer this petition and not desire and endeavor to have the Lord's will done in himself while on earth. Thus a blessing comes to the one who offers this petition before he has asked any special blessing upon himself or others. The mere thought of the divine arrangement brings a blessing, a peace, a rest, a sanctification of heart.
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Loving the Brethren
"Hereby we know that we have passed from
death unto life, because we love the brethren."
IT IS often with the Lord's people a question whether they may count themselves as new creatures, whether they may know that they passed from death unto life. The apostle seems to anticipate this very question, and in our text tells us how we may know, and states that the love of the brethren is the proof. It seems a very strange statement, too. One might say rightly enough "Love the brethren? I should think we all have no trouble in doing that; no trouble in loving the brethren."
Oh, but that is the proof of having passed from death unto life. Why, that is the easiest thing in the world to love the brethren. Well, some of the brothers and some of the sisters are always easy to love, and yet there are some whom it is difficult to love, and I believe that is what the apostle meant, or what the Lord had in mind when he directed the apostle so to write. That this would be a proof not that we loved a certain clique of the brethren, or a few of the brethren, or those that are good looking, well educated, talented or witty in their conversation. Oh no, we can find all of these people in the world without being brethren at all! You might find them witty and bright and honorable and very fine people in many respects, but there is evidently something in this text that is deeper than all this. The love of the brethren means to love them because they are brethren; to love them, even if they have not all of the lovable qualities, to love them because our heavenly Father loves them. Because he loved them enough to beget them of his Holy Spirit, and take them into his family, is a good reason why you should love them if you wish to be in harmony with him.
Now ordinarily we are not specially to approve of anything selfish, in the way for instance, of a special family love, and say, simply because these are my kith and kin, I will love them, and others equally as good I will not have any feeling for at all; that is rather a selfish spirit--"God bless me and my wife, and my son John and his wife, us four and no more." We are not to cultivate that spirit; we do not understand that to be the spirit of the Lord, but the Lord lays out a certain family line and to love within that line is really a necessity; that unless we have that love for the brethren we have not the spirit of the Lord. As, for instance, Jesus said, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye should love one another." He did not say you should love everybody. He did not say, "I give you a commandment that you shall love your enemies just as much as you love the brethren." He did say we are to love our enemies. Yes, we are to do good unto all men, but we are to love the brethren. And as we said before, some of the brethren have amiable qualities that anybody might love, and some of the sisters also, and there would be no difference in their case. The test evidently is whether or not we love all the brethren because they are his. Whosoever shall do an act of kindness to you, because you are his, shall in no wise lose his reward. But it should be done because you are his, not because you are so desirable, and so amiable, etc. Now let no one misunderstand me as putting a premium upon disagreeability. We are all to be as amiable as we can, if we have sourness in our disposition by nature, we are to put in as much of the sweetness of life as possible.
I remind you of what the old lady said about her pies, when they said unto her, "Won't you tell us why your pies are always so good?"
"Well," she said, "I do not know, unless it is this; that I put in more sugar perhaps than some."
"How much sugar do you put in?"
"Oh," she says, "I put in all my conscience will allow, then I shut my eyes and put in another large spoonful."
So, dear friends, let the sugar represent the love, and when you and I are trying to sweeten up a little, we will put in all the sweetening our conscience will allow, and then shut our eyes and put a little more in. That is the way we get more sweet, more loving, more kind, more gentle, more like our blessed Master, and more helpful one to another. But as long as we are in the flesh, we will have the kinks and twists and corners and rough places to some extent with which we were born. You were born with some, and I was born with some; we are all born with some. You might ask why the Lord did not pick out those who did not have any rough corners and bumps. Why he did not pick out [CR167] the nice and smooth ones? I answer, he could have picked out a lot of angels, and passed us all by, could he not? But I am glad he did not. If he had intended to pick out only perfect ones, he would have left our poor race go by, and we would not have had any prize of the high calling to run for. He would have said, "Here are angels who excel in every respect, and they never have at any time transgressed the law, they are perfect in all their qualities and attributes, they are in the image of their Creator, and have never lost that image, why should I stoop down and take some of the poor fallen children of Adam, and lift them up out of the mire of sin and imperfection, and polish them and make them my jewels? Why not take some of these others?" I am so glad our heavenly Father did what he did do. In fact, every day, as I come to better understand just what his divine purpose is, I am more pleased with it if possible than the previous day. And so, with the old book, the Bible, which other people want to throw away because it does not suit their changed ideas. We are getting our ideas changed every day just by the book, and it is getting better to us. Why? Because we are allowing the Book to change us, instead of trying to change the book; we are allowing the Word of God to have the transforming influence.
Well now, admitting that the whole world of mankind are fallen and imperfect, why did not God pick out the best he could out of the whole rubbish pile, and say? "I will not bother with those poor crooked and gnarled ones." Why did he not say? "I am going to make my selection for the bride of Christ from amongst the world of mankind; they are all fallen, but I will pick the best there are." Did he do that? No, the apostle says, on the contrary, not many good, not many wise, not many rich, not many noble--Oh, that last one hits the worst of all--not many noble! And then he goes on as though he were trying to push the matter down on us and says, "God has chosen the mean things." That is very hard on us to say that we are the mean things--out of the whole mean lot, the whole mean world, that God has picked out the meanest of the mean! Is not that now pretty hard? It is. And people that have much self-esteem are apt to go off and say, "I will not have anything to do with that mean set at all; I hold myself above the average riff raff of this world, and I will not get down to their level, and if that is the kind God is picking out, he can pick without me." And God does pick without them. They are not going to have a share in the matter. God says he will do all these things himself. How does it come, then, that God is taking the mean things of this world? Is it not altogether contrary to anything that you and I would do? It seems almost as though the apostle must have made a mistake and that God is not choosing the mean things, for surely those whom you and I know amongst the Lord's people are not the meanest of the mean are they? Did the apostle make a mistake? No, I think not. Let me tell you how it is: He did not say that there were none noble amongst those whom the Lord is drawing; he did not say, there were none educated; he did not say there were none rich; but he said there were not many of those classes, but chiefly the mean things of this world. Now how does it come that God so chooses? Well, my understanding of the matter is this: God is calling for a certain humility of heart, and that humility of heart requires, first of all, that we realize that we are sinners; and if we do not realize that we are sinners, how would we ever apply to God for permission to become his children through faith in the sacrifice of another? We would not do it. I think of a gentleman to whom I was talking--a business acquaintance, and something or other came up in connection with this subject, and he said, "Well I never had any requests to make of the Creator to forgive my sins for me, he just punishes me as much as he thinks I ought to have, and I will not ask anybody to bear my sins for me."
Now that is the spirit of pride, the spirit of self-sufficiency, and the Lord is passing by those, no matter how bright they may be. I think that man was rather an honorable man in his general dealings, perhaps above the average of his general cast of mind, and general spirit of fair dealing in the world, and yet God passes him by and takes someone who is meaner than he. Why? Because that meaner one came in through the right door. The right door is an acknowledgement of sin and imperfection, and the realization of the need of a Savior. "No man cometh unto the Father except by me," said Jesus. How true that is! There was a man who would not come to the Father, because he would not come to Jesus. There are plenty in the world who, in their general conversation, would say to you, "Well, I know there are people who need a Savior, I believe there are people who need salvation." They usually have a wrong conception of the word salvation. By salvation, they mean to be lifted up out of the dung-hill, as it were, and to be set on their feet, and to be lifted out of some very degraded habits, and so they say, "Oh I believe there are some people that need a Savior, that are pretty much fallen down." They would say, "Look at that poor devil, indeed he does need a Savior; I think he does need something." That is quite true; but he has not realized that there are none righteous, no not one, in God's sight, and that from God's standpoint, each one of our fallen race needs a Savior--one able to save to the uttermost.
So then, I take it, this is the particular reason why God is passing by some of the great, rich, noble, some of the very fine characters of the world. His message is grace; we were singing about it--"Of grace divine, the half was never told." God's message of grace and favor is, "I will forgive you, I am ready to receive you." Those who are well to do, those who are rich in various talents and opportunities and are not so very fallen are very apt to say, "Well that does not have any particular attraction for me. I never did claim to one of those low down people. I think that if God wanted to save anybody, he would want to save me."
Mr. Ingersoll, the great infidel, intimated that if there is a God, and if there is a future, God would just want somebody like him to make a good sample on top of the basket, as it were. There were plenty of mean people, and he thought he was a pretty noble and strong character in many respects. Perhaps he was; I will not dispute that. But he felt himself quite great, and he thought God would be glad to have him; he had been doing very well in this world, and thought God would like to have just such a grand character as he was. He did not realize that he owed whatever degree of fineness there was in his character to God's grace. The story is told that his father was a minister, and for aught we know, a sincere believer in the Lord. But the whole world has been benefited by the grace of the Lord and the enlightening influence that has gone out, and so you and I, born in a Christian land have been profited by the fact, even though all of those around us are of the class of merely nominal Christians. Nevertheless, even upon the nominal Christians, the grace of God has been such as to give them a better and broader view, and their children therefore would be better born. So Mr. Ingersoll did not perhaps realize to what extent he owed his own good qualities of mind to the fact that he was not born of heathen parents, in a heathen land.
So, while giving God thanks for all we have and are, and seeking to estimate ourselves as nearly as possible by the proper measure, we all feel that we have everything to be thankful, to be grateful for. The grace of the Lord has done much for us. The grace of God appeals particularly to those who have little. The man of little learning feels his littleness of learning, and he is more humble-minded, more teachable, more apt to say, "I wish God would show me the truth along this matter." A man who has passed through college, and thinks he has found out that Isaiah never wrote the book of Isaiah, and the whole Bible is a fraud, is not very apt to ask God to teach him anything. He says, "No, if there is a God, we of the colleges ought to be able to tell the people, and to write a Bible better than anybody else. Those prophets of old knew little in comparison with us." The very knowledge he has stands in his way, and hinders him from becoming a disciple of Christ, hinders him from seeing the beauty of God's Word. He is not even willing to investigate the Bible from the standpoint we see its beauty; he is not willing to look for the internal evidence; he sees enough examining the external and says, "I see the fallacy from the external standpoint, and it is not worth my while, I would not waste the time looking into it from the internal standpoint." We see the very reverse of that. From the internal, we see the beauty of the divine plan, and thus we see that none but God could ever have made that book, wherever he came from. But then it is the same way with respect to wealth. Such a one is very apt to say, "Oh well, I know I made this, I earned that, and I was fortunate. It is a matter of luck, you know, or it is a matter of ability. I have the ability to make money, and some people think God gives it to them, but I know that I made it." Well, he is in great danger; he is not rightly appreciating the giver of every gift. He is not apt to think of his wealth as being a stewardship from the Lord, he is apt to think of it as being his own, instead of thinking of it as being something that belongs to the Lord, and he is not apt to become a follower of the Lord.
So we have gone all around the line and see that there are obstacles in the way of those who are seeking to come to God. Now, how should we come? Well, by the grace of God we are here, and we are thankful we are here. By the grace of God we realize ourselves sinners, and by the grace of God we have harkened unto his Word, and our minds were not attuned for some [CR168] earthly message, but for the message of the grace of the Lord, and we have accepted of the Lord Jesus, and believed in him as the Redeemer from sin, and have heard that he is willing to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquities, and our hearts are glad because of the simplicity of our trust, and the simplicity of our faith, and we know that if we do not have the simple faith, we would lose all that we did have. It is only those that get the simple faith as a little child. God says his people are like a little child. As little children we have all confidence when our heavenly Father says there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust; we are simple enough to believe it, and the worldly people are foolish enough not to believe it. He says all the silver and gold in the country are his; but as the world would say, we are foolish enough to believe it. Does he say he has prepared things for us beyond the sight of the eye and range of ear? Yes, and we are simple enough to believe it, and the world says, "You are foolish, watch out for the things of this life. You do not know whether there is any future life or not. See that you get your share now, and take a good stand for the present things, and let the next world look out for itself." But on the contrary, the Lord says he is choosing those who have such faith, such confidence, in him that they are willing to sacrifice all the earthly interests; those that have such faith in those things not seen-- things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man--such faith that they are willing to sacrifice all the things of this present time that they may gain these things. And the world looks on with astonishment and says, "Little soft in the head--no, any business man would know better than that; there is a man risking everything on things he has not seen; that is like gambling." That is from the worldly standpoint, for they say that in the first place, you do not know that there is a future life; and, secondly, you do not know that there would be anything better for you in that future life. So you see, our viewpoint is altogether different from that of the world; and it is the very class that can exercise faith that God can call now; he is not calling the others. He is not letting them slip down into eternal torment--Oh no, we are glad he is not! But he is not calling them to be the Bride class. He is calling those who have an ear to hear; those who will hear the message he has given, those whose hearts are touched with his message of love and grace divine, and now then, the message which he gives to us is the message that we should love one another. And the peculiarity of this text is, it implies that it is a difficult thing to do; so difficult a thing to love all the brethren that, if we reach the point where you can truthfully say, "I love every child of God," you may also say, "Well that is a proof that I have passed from death unto life." Is not that wonderful? To me it is very wonderful. Now I know some of the brethren who are not just what I would make them if I had the chance--and if they had the chance of making me, I suppose they would make me different. So we are not to make each other over--it is not in our power, and we are not so authorized. I guess if we were to undertake it we would find it quite a job. We are to love each other because God has accepted us. If God has given us an indication, and some evidence, that one is a brother in Christ, that the Lord has given him of his holy Spirit, we are to love him because he is the Lord's; we must not allow ourselves to do anything else than love him; and if we love him we must seek to show that love, for you cannot have that love and seek to hide it; it is bound to be manifest in the character. Some of those ungainly qualities become the trial of your patience, perseverance, longsuffering, kindness and love. If there were not any such things in the church, we would have no proof at all that we were the Lord's brethren; but having these tests in the church amongst the brethren, it behooves us to see to it that we are learning our lesson. Never mind about the other brother, and say, "Well, he has a lesson, I want to help him to learn it." Never mind, the Lord says for you to learn the lesson yourself. Here is where my chief concern must come in, in my own heart that I should seek to learn to love the brethren, not that I must teach the brethren to love me, or I must teach them to love each other. That may be done in a general way through the Lord's Word, and through the exposition of the Scriptures; but my chief concern, my responsibility is for myself, and yours is for yourself. God will hold you responsible for the way you have striven, and me for the way in which I have striven.
There is one way of looking at these peculiarities of the brethren that I believe may be helpful to us, and one peculiarity of those who are the Lord's people whom he especially draws, and honors, and who make any special progress which is, that they have real character; there is something real firm there; others do not often get very far in the school of Christ, if they even come to the point of making a consecration. They generally take everything just like putty; you make a dent in a piece of putty, and it stays there; there is no individuality about the putty, or about the clay, it is just something to be shapen. But real Christian character, and the kind the Lord is looking for, is that which has an individuality, and which has a will. There must be a positiveness of personality; and if that person should acquire certain character, then all of that will is behind all of those acquired traits, and he is all the harder customer to handle. Indeed I do not know any worse ones to handle than some of the brethren would be, because any thing they have that is of a cantankerous disposition, they have that firmness and positiveness of character that forces that cantankerous quality right to the front, so that it may become a real trial to love the brother, to be patient with him, to be kind, and longsuffering and gentle with him. I tell you God knew how to make the school in which to give you and me the polishing. Perhaps he chose you and me to polish somebody else too. We must not look at all the bumps on the other men and women, but suppose that we have our share too, and they have to be prepared to take our bumps and knocks.
It reminds me of the way in which they polish diamonds. We all know that diamonds are very precious, and that the preciousness of the diamond does not only consist of its pureness and absolute clearness, but its value also consists in the fact that it is very hard, almost impossible to cut it, for you can cut almost anything else with a diamond. Now that is what the Lord seems to be implying in connection with his church. He calls us his jewels, and all of these jewels are jewels because of this quality of hardness. You can take a piece of gelatine and it may look as pretty as a ruby, but it has not the firmness or solidity of a ruby. If you could get rubies of the same size that you can get blocks of gelatine, you would have something very wonderful. But the gelatine has no particular value in comparison with the ruby, because it has not the firmness or hardness. So you can get a piece of ice that is just as clear as a diamond, and hard too, but it will not stand the heat; it will melt and go to pieces, and you could not put it in your shirt-bosom, or in your hair, for it would only melt down. Now when you get the quality of hardness you have difficulty in dealing with it. And the diamond is correspondingly the hardest stone in the whole world to shape and polish and bring into the proper condition so that it will refract the rays of light, and give forth a beautiful appearance.
Now that is what God explains he is doing. He is taking you and me in the rough, right out of the earth, and putting us into the School of Christ, and he puts us in there that we may be polished, and in order that he may put on us the different facets; one would be meekness, another patience, another long-suffering, another brotherly kindness, another love; and so we need all of these qualities put upon us as precious jewels before we will be able to refract the light of the divine character. Now then, this is the arrangement God has made, and if you and I were to change it just a little, we would upset things; and he will not allow us to change it; he has fixed it and he will keep it so. It has been so for eighteen hundred years that he has been polishing us, or as the Scriptures express it, the bride makes herself ready. Is not that the way the bride makes herself ready? I think so. So then, dear brethren, if there is an awkward one in the class here, there or anywhere, be sure you do not put the awkward one out. It might be that the Lord wishes to give you your polishing that way. The polishing must come or you will not be ready for the kingdom. It would not do, of course, for the awkward one to be allowed to spoil the class or spoil the arrangements; while dealing with this one it might be necessary to use firmness, or something, but you get the point, that we are not to disfellowship anyone on account of differences of viewpoint, or something of that kind, but rather, if we are all brethren in the Lord, we must love one another and endure from one another all things, "Love endureth all things." You will remember how the apostle brought these things out and indicated that it was necessary for us daily, as you and I continue daily in the School of Christ, to have these things to perfect us in the character-likeness of our dear Redeemer. "Hereby we know we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; you not only love him, but you will want to do all the good toward him that you can. That does not mean that you must take him in hand and teach him a lesson, as I have heard some brethren talk of others. The Lord does not want you to take him in hand any more than the Lord wants him to take you in hand and give you a lesson. We must not run and do some job the great Master had not told us, we must wait for the Lord, "Wait ye upon me, saith the Lord." Not only would he have us wait on him with respect to earthly [CR169] things, but in respect also to things in the Church, and use more patience, and allow the perfecting process of the truth to polish us all. That does not mean that we should let anybody run away with the class, or teach something wrong, or do something wrong, but stand up for the truth, and whatever we say should be said from the standpoint of love, as should everything we do, speaking the truth in love; do not hold back the truth and say, "Now for love's sake I will not speak the truth." That would be wrong on the other side; that would show you did not have enough character of your own. You must have enough backbone so that when the truth is in jeopardy you will speak for it. You see the two qualities go together. We learned a little yesterday, and we learned a little today, and we hope to learn a little tomorrow; continuing in the School of Christ, and he is the great teacher.
So the polishing and preparation that God is giving to you ought to be making you a wiser husband, a better husband, a wiser and a better wife, and a wiser father and mother, or wiser and better children, as the case may be. I believe the spirit of the Lord enters into all of life's affairs, and that we cannot be leaning in one direction and be making progress in another direction. I believe we are so constituted that whatever way we are going we are progressing along that line. And we want the spirit of the Lord in us. And that means what? That means we will be watching particularly our own character development. I will tell you something, you may not think it a secret, but it is this: I am more interested in my own character development than I am in the character development of any one of you. God gave me that specially, and my everlasting condition depends upon my own progress, therefore if I would be making progress, it behooves me that I should not wait until you should point out something to me, but it behooves me to be watching all the little leadings of providence, and learning the little weak points I have, and strengthening the things which remain, and bringing everything into proper shape, into alignment with the Lord's Word and character--meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, brotherly kindness, love--that his Word tells about. I not only want to have it theoretically in my head, but I want to work it out. I do not always succeed, you know, I frequently have to take myself in hand and give myself a lecture, and it is generally after I go to bed that I lecture myself, if I have not been as patient on some occasions as I think I might have been. I am much interested in keeping my mind in the right attitude. Do not let your mind go and say, "Oh, I cannot change it now." It is better to change it and give yourself the lecture, give yourself the chastisement in your own mind. The apostle says that if we judge, or punish, ourselves, we do not need to be punished and judged, or whipped, of the Lord. He is not looking for children that need to be punished all the time; He will put them doubtless in the second company if he puts them in the clear at all. He is wanting especially those who so love him, and who are so in sympathy with the divine purposes and arrangements that they delight to do his will. If we delight to do the Lord's will, then we will feel sorry for anything in which we have come short. And if we have come short on some point we will correct ourselves, and give ourselves a good talking to, and ask the Lord's grace whereby we may be strengthened in character along that line. Then you have fortified a weak place in your character, and you are better ready for the next time when temptation comes along.
So then, dear brethren and sisters, hereby we know--hereby we may know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. If we love the brethren, let us see to it that we shall show that we do love them. Somebody has said, "Do not keep all the flowers until I am dead, and put them on my coffin. Give me some of them while I am alive." That is a good idea. I am not speaking of literal flowers, but we have flowers of words and kind actions, and little tender notices in which we may show our love for the brethren. And that is really a very distinguishing feature I think amongst the Lord's people at this time, there is so much love amongst them. People have mentioned this to me when they first came in contact with the truth. They said, "Why I came into the meeting and I was just surprised to see what a spirit of love and fellowship there is among these people." I said, "Yes, wherever the Lord's spirit is there is bound to be a manifestation of it." We could not have his spirit and not manifest it some way. There are certainly plenty of opportunities to manifest it; it is the manifestation of the spirit of love and tenderness to somebody that is in trouble, and the more trouble they are in the more they need it, so we have plenty of opportunities. Dear friends, let us be alert to use these opportunities, and have the proof that we are acceptable to the Lord.
The evening service was for the public and was addressed by Brother Russell, on the subject: "The Hereafter." One of the prominent officials of the city introduced Brother Russell. The hall was crowded, and the audience listened to the entire discourse which lasted for nearly two hours.
Pastor Russell replies to Bishop MacDonald, Victoria Daily Colonist, Tuesday, August 15, 1911.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
PASTOR RUSSELL'S REPLY
Sir:--Returning from my trans-continental tour, your issue of July 11th has my attention. Victoria friends consider that Bishop MacDonald's sermon on the Hereafter published in your columns was intended as a reply to my discourse on the same topic in your city a few days ago. In reply to their request, will you permit a few kindly intended words of reply, which I herewith enclose?
You report Bishop MacDonald as saying that in speaking of the "Hereafter," it seemed needful to set down two things by way of preamble. The first was that the soul is immortal. Man dies, but his soul dies not. The soul has a life of its own which it does not share with the body. It follows that, as the soul is a form of life that thinks and wills, the soul can live after the body has gone back to kindred dust. Even the pagans of old reasoned out for themselves this great truth--Cicero, Plato, Aristotle.
It is very remarkable that a bishop well versed in the Bible neglected to quote the Bible or any of its writers, and instead, quoted some heathen philosophers who possessed not the light of Christ and whom St. Paul declared were without God and had no hope in the world.
Of course "There is a reason" for the Bishop's course. The reason is that the Bishop knew that his Bible contained nothing in support of his statements--not a word, not a text of Scripture either in or out of its connection.
The Bible does teach a future life. The Bible does teach that death does not end all. But the Bible does not teach a continuance of human life in death. On the contrary, it bases all hope of a future life on a doctrine wholly unknown amongst the ancients and very little known amongst moderns, but everywhere in evidence in the Bible--the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Nor can we honestly twist these words to mean resurrection of the living, for that which is alive and perfect needs no resurrection. Had there been no death there could have been no resurrection promise. And a resurrection promise confirms the thought that the dead are really dead.
The learned Bishop tells us in the above quotation that the soul does not die, that it has a life of its own. The Bishop, of course, would not claim a personal knowledge on the subject. His education in this matter he derives from the great teachers, Cicero, Plato and Aristotle, but not from Christ nor from the apostles and prophets, for they teach the contrary, that the soul can die. Let me cite a few Scripture passages: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." (Ezek. 18:4). "God is able to destroy both soul and body." (Matt. 10:28). "Christ poured out his soul unto death; he made his soul an offering for sin." (Isa. 53:10-12). St. Peter proving the resurrection of Jesus, declared that it was foretold by the prophet, saying, Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades, sheol, the tomb, the state of death; and that this prophecy was fulfilled in our Lord's resurrection from the dead. His soul was not left in hades.
We could wish that the learned Bishop had given us a quotation from Plato, Cicero or Aristotle respecting what the soul is. No doubt the definition would be as amusing as one proffered by a Methodist bishop in these words: "The soul is without interior or exterior; without body, shape or parts, and you could put a million of them in a nutshell." No doubt this good bishop was making sport of his audience in the description he gives of nothing. Of course you could put a million nothing in a nutshell, or twenty millions, or more, just as easily. Even a microbe would not come under the definition for, small as it is, it has a body and shape, interior and exterior.
Permit me briefly to set forth the teachings of the Bible respecting the soul and its future. I stand committed to its presentation as the only sane and logical one in the world. I back the Bible presentation although I well know that it is discredited today by nearly all of the great and learned bishops and doctors of Christendom.
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The Bible teaches, not that a man has a soul, but that he is a soul. And there is just as much difference in this as a man's having a cow and being a cow. The death sentence upon Father Adam was not upon his body but upon his soul. It was not his hand that sinned in plucking the fruit, nor his teeth that sinned in biting the apple--it was his soul, his intelligent will, that sinned and that was sentenced to death under the general law of God: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die."
God's creation of Adam, a man-soul, is described in Genesis. He formed a body and brain, everything necessary; but this was not soul. He had no life, no animation, no knowledge, no will. Into that body God breathed the breath of lives. Nephesh chai. This is the same breath of lives common to all breathing animals. The difference between man and the lower breathing animals is one of organism--genera. They eat similar foods, drink similar water and draw oxygen from the same air. In the Bible use of the word soul all breathing animals are souls, as truly as man is a soul. They are inferior souls because they have inferior organisms or bodies. Thus we read that when the flood of waters were upon the earth in Noah's day every living soul in whose nostrils was the breath of lives perished.--Genesis 7:22.
Not only the learned Bishop, but all the unlearned of humanity know that the shape of a man's head indicates the qualities of the soul, just as truly as the shape of a dog's head indicates his peculiar traits--setter, terrier, bulldog, etc. A person of practically no forehead we call an idiot or irrational. He is irrational because he lacks that part of the brain organism which reflects, compares and reasons. Who cannot tell the difference between a mean man and a truly noble one by the shape of his head? The noble soul must have the mental organism favorable to nobility of sentiment, benevolence, kindness, reverence, spirituality, conscience, love. These organs of the brain and body have everything to do with the character of the soul.
As before stated, the soul is not the body, nor is it the vital spark of life called the spirit of life, which animates the body. The soul is a third thing, the result of the first two in active, harmonious co-operation. The spark of life animated the body of clay which God had formed, the body, and vitality surged to every part of that body. The nerves quickened it to intelligence. Those in the fingers touched; those in the ears heard; those in the eyes saw. These various senses acting directly upon the brain inspired thought, comparison, reason, will. Then and not until then was Adam a living soul, that is, a living person, individual, being. That living soul continued for nine hundred and thirty years until, through wear and tear of the organism, dissolution, death came--the spark of life, ruach, spirit, fled from the body. That instant, Adam the man-soul, a living being, the personality, ceased. The body began to return to dust. The spirit of life or spark of life, which God had given on condition of obedience and which was forfeited by disobedience, no longer belonged to Adam. It had been given to him, and might have been maintained forever, had he been obedient.
As with Adam, so with his children, with certain exceptions. Adam's children are not created by God as he was, but are his posterity. He transmitted to Mother Eve a spark of the impaired life while still he possessed it. Mother Eve furnished the body in which that spark of life was generated to birth, when it became Adam's son, Seth. He, in turn transmitted a spark of the same original life to his children and he died. Thus the process of soul-making has progressed for six thousand years; likewise the process of soul-destruction or death--closely kept pace.
The prophet Job briefly explains the effect of the divine sentence of death and the subsequent promise of divine mercy and rescue from death by resurrection. He says: "Thou turnest man to destruction. Thou sayest, Return, ye children of men." In other words, he who sentenced Adam to death as unworthy of life promised a redemption from that death sentence--not a redemption of the body, but a redemption of the soul, the man, the intelligent person who sinned, and who was sentenced to death.
The ashes of our race are scattered over the earth; some burned in the fire; some eaten by fish; some dissolved into gases by natural processes; some, buried, fertilized oaks and apple trees whose fruits have been eaten by swine, and the swine in turn shipped to all parts of the earth and eaten by humanity, etc. The resurrection of Adam's body and the resurrection of the bodies of all of his children is not only an unthinkable thing, but an unscriptural proposition. The creeds do, indeed, speak of the "resurrection of the body," but not so the Bible. The Bible tells of the resurrection of the soul and that in the resurrection God will give it, the soul, a body as it hath pleased him. Some souls (the church of the first borns) will get spirit bodies in the resurrection. The remainder of mankind will get human bodies. This St. Paul most clearly sets forth. In the same chapter he assures us that if there be no resurrection of the dead, our faith is vain, our preaching is vain, all hope is vain. We might as well abandon any expectation of a future life unless there be a resurrection of the dead.--1 Cor. 15:42-44.
It was because one man-soul sinned and was sentenced to death that all the human souls which came out of his loins shared death by heredity. (Exodus 1:5). The divine arrangement thus ignored any except the first man-soul so far as sentence was concerned. In due time Jesus came into the world to be the Saviour of men--to save or recover them from sin and from the penalty of sin, death. In order to do this he must satisfy the divine sentence of death against the first human soul, Adam; hence the Logos was made flesh: he also became a man-soul, a special body being prepared for him. The penalty which he paid corresponded exactly to that imposed upon Adam, because it was by the divine intention that he gave himself a ransom, a corresponding price, for all. Hence he poured out his soul unto death; he made his soul an offering for sin--in offset to Father Adam's soul, being or personality, sentenced to death. Afterward God raised his anointed one from the dead in fulfillment of the Scripture, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hades, sheol, the tomb, nor suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." He was put to death in the flesh, but quickened, made alive, resurrected, in spirit--a spirit-being, a spirit-soul.
The exalted Redeemer is carrying out the Father's programme. During this Gospel age he is inviting a saintly, willing class to take up their cross and follow in his steps, and to have share with him on the spirit plane as spirit-souls, spirit-beings--like unto the angels, but higher. As soon as the divine "election" of the royal priesthood shall be completed, the glorified Messiah and his bride, the church, will inaugurate the long-promised kingdom of heaven amongst men, and by instruction and correction in righteousness will lift up the willing and obedient out of sin and death condition, making perfect man-souls of every one of them, if they will. And all the unwilling and rebellious will be destroyed in the second death, without hope, without remedy. This resurrection to perfection not only will appertain to those living at the time the kingdom will be established, but it also will include, according to the Bible, "All that are in their graves"--the human family in general, "every man in his own order."
Thanking you, Mr. Editor, for the courtesy of the publication of this further explanation of my view of the "Hereafter." Brooklyn, N.Y., August 3, 1911.
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Baptism
IT affords me great pleasure to be with you this morning--my first visit to Vancouver. There is one thing I notice in respect to the Bible students all over the world, and that is that they have one mind, one spirit. And this is in accordance with what the apostle intimated; we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body. How much of oneness there is expressed in the Bible! How much we are coming to see that this is the divine arrangement--one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, one church of the living God. On the contrary we find many that have had conflicting views, many different views of baptism, many views respecting the Lord, and there are a great variety of denominations claiming to be the body of Christ. How glad we are that we are coming to see just what the heavenly arrangement is.
Now we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body. What is this baptism of the one Spirit? What kind of a spirit is it? What kind of a baptism is it? Our dear Baptist friends recognize in part that baptism is an important question, and so do we; so do all Christian people. Yet there are a variety of views respecting baptism. But there is one baptism according to the Bible. That one baptism brings us into the one body. "Yes," say our disciple friends, "that is exactly what we claim, and we have that one baptism, and our church is the one body." It looks as if that were a correct application of the matter. It has the appearance on the surface, as though water baptism brings them into the Baptist church, makes them the one body, the one church; and yet you and I see very clearly that would leave out a great many good people; there are a great many good people that are not in the body of the Baptist church; there are a great many saintly people that have never been immersed, and that would leave all of them out; one baptism into the one body would leave all the good Episcopalians out; it would also leave all of the good Roman Catholics out, and all the good Methodists, and all the good Presbyterians, and all the good Lutherans, and it would only have the good of the Baptist church in. And then that one body would not be one either, because if we ask our Baptist friends, "Are you one body."
"Yes, we are one body."
"Have you the one Spirit?"
"Well, no, some of us have a different spirit. Some of us have a better spirit, and some not so good a spirit; some are fully consecrated to the Lord and are saintly, and others are not."
Now what is the one baptism by which we are all immersed into the one body? What is that one body? The one body is the body of Christ, composed of many members, and into that one body comes all the saintly, wherever they are; the Lord knows them that are his; and all of those that belong to that one body are to have--what? Glory, honor, immortality, which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has in reservation for those who love him--who love him more than they love houses, or lands, or parents or children--more than they love any other creature, even themselves. He has it in reservation for them. It is the saintly kind he is calling for, and that is the invitation he sent out-- "Gather together my saints unto me, saith the Lord." What saints are these, Lord, of yours? Those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. Are any others the saintly class according to this invitation? No. Only those who have made a covenant with God by sacrifice by a full consecration of their whole hearts, and all that they have and are, are begotten of the Lord's Holy Spirit. These are the Lord's jewels. These are the Lord's saints, whether they are Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Disciples or whatever they may be.
Now we are beginning to get what we recognize as right. We all wondered once how it could be that there was only one church, and that must be ours, and could not be the other brother's. Now we come to see that none of these earthly systems that have been called churches are not the church, but the Lord has his own church, and a way of joining his own church, and he keeps the records; and so it is written that all of these have their names written in heaven.
And how did they get in? Oh, they were baptized in. We are baptized by that same Spirit into the one body, into the body of Christ, and we become members of his body. Have you his spirit, my dear brother? That is the question with you and with me. Have we the Spirit of Christ? If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his, even if he were baptized in a whole ocean full of water; that would not make him one of his, to be baptized in an ocean. There is only one way to be baptized into Christ, and St. Paul tells us about that one way. He says, so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, into the body of Christ, into that company of which he is the head, and of which we are privileged to become members--reckoned members already, and, if faithful, we will be made members in the full sense of the word by the glorious resurrection change in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye--so many of us as were baptized into this body, then, of which Jesus is the head and the church is his body, all of us who were baptized into the one body, were baptized into --water. Is that the way it reads? No, that is not the way it reads. So many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, into this one body of which he is the Head, were baptized into his death. It is a very different thing to be baptized into death with Jesus, and to be baptized into water with him. And whoever mistakes this point is mistaking one of the most important things in the Bible, and he cannot go any further unless he sees this. Water baptism is merely the symbol or picture of that which has already been accomplished when baptized by the one Spirit, by the consecration of our hearts, by having the same mind that Christ had when he made his consecration unto death; to be dead with him, baptized into his death.
So many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. What does that signify? What is his death? Was his death any different from that of any other person's death? Why should the apostles say, be baptized into his death? How could we get into his death any more than the world is in his death?
Well, there is a deep truth lies there, and it is this: that by nature you and I were children of wrath, even as others; we belonged to Adam and his race; we did not need to be baptized into Adam, to get into his death; we were in his death by natural processes. We were born under the sentence of death, with the whole world. Our Lord Jesus was not so. The Scriptures specifically tell us that God in his divine wisdom had made it necessary that before the world be rescued from sin and death it was necessary that a just one should die for the unjust, and there was no just one in the world to die for his friend. No man could redeem himself. Our Redeemer was wholly harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners, and he left the glory he had with the Father, humbled himself, became a man, and he was the man Christ Jesus. And being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself then, even unto death. Then as a reward for his obedience unto death the Father highly exalted him.
Now then Jesus allowed his life to be taken from him, not by the Father, but by man. Men with wicked hands crucified him, and he did not resist. He had the power to resist, and he might have called for legions of angels to defend him. There would be no reason why he must have given himself over, or must have died. Instead of consecrating himself thus to a sacrificial death, he might have said, "I have done nothing amiss; I have kept the divine law. I can therefore call on my heavenly Father to defend my life that I be not delivered to you, that I be not allowed to die for any reason." And it would have been so. But he had at the beginning of his ministry, at thirty years of age, made his consecration unto death--I have come to do thy will, O my God, all that is written in the book. I will be glad to do your will at any cost, even of life itself. And this was all symbolized by our Lord when he went down into the water. He pictured there his full consecration of all he had to the Father's will, and when he arose from the water he went about doing that very same thing. He still had the spirit of obedience, and all through the three and a half years he was laying his life down, he was using it up. He was dying daily, as the apostle Paul would express it. And when was it finished? It was finished on Calvary? How do we know? His dying words were, "It is finished." What was finished? His baptism unto death was finished.
Now we are invited to take up our cross and follow him and to walk in his footsteps as he set us an example. Oh, you say, Brother Russell, we could not do that, could we? Yes, that is what the Bible says. It would not say walk in his steps if you could not walk in them; it would not say, take up your cross and follow him, if you could not do so. The Bible is a reasonable [CR172] proposition. It declares that it is possible for you and for me to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. The apostle says that when we are baptized into his death we participate with him in his death, sharing with him in his death. Now how can we share his death, since his was a sacrificial one, and since we belong to the race that is under condemnation? The Bible answers. It declares that he stands for them, to be the advocate of a certain class that the Father is now calling. "Gather my saints together unto me." These are very few, because there are not many who want to be saints. One gentleman said to me the other day, "I read the Scripture Studies when I was sixteen years of age, but every time I would come near anything about consecration I would just skip over that part very easily. If I knew just where it was, I would avoid it. I knew somehow there was something in there I was not ready for, and I just skipped over that."
Now the Lord is not looking for those who skip over. If you want to skip over, you can skip over all the consecration; you can pass by the narrow way altogether. It is a favor to know about the narrow way, it is a favor to be permitted to walk in the narrow way, a great privilege to be a follower of Jesus; it is a great honor to be permitted to be dead with him, and suffer with him. If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him; if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. To live with him means to participate with him in glory, honor and immortality.
Now what are the conditions? Why you must walk in his steps, if you want to be with him. How did he reach that glorious exaltation? On what condition did the Father highly exalt him? Because he was faithful--faithful to make a covenant, and faithful to keep the covenant. On what condition can you and I be with him and share his glory? We may make the same covenant, and we must keep the same covenant to the extent of our ability. How can we make such a covenant? How could God make a covenant with us? We answer that God gave his Son to redeem the world, not merely the handful of the church, the saintly few, but he who is the world's Redeemer, before he makes that application of merit on behalf of the world to satisfy justice for the sins of the whole world, he imputes a measure of his merit to you and to me, and to all of those who desire to take up their cross and follow him. He does not give it to you. He will give that merit to the world by and by. When he gives it to them, it will mean to them earthly life, earthly restitution, and earthly blessing, just the very things that he sacrificed. Did he sacrifice the earthly things? Yes. Did he sacrifice the heavenly things? No. Well what did he sacrifice? Why he sacrificed his perfect manhood, and he sacrificed all the rights he had as the successor of Adam who was the father of the race, and to whom belonged the earth and the fullness thereof. As a perfect man he never failed to keep God's law, and he had a right to the earth and the fullness thereof, and all of this he laid down, or surrendered, in harmony with the Father's will, that these might in God's due time go to mankind--to Adam and all his children who would come in harmony with God, and God gave our Lord Jesus the higher nature, the divine nature, as a reward for his obedience unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore, also, God has highly exalted him. On that account God exalted him, the apostle says.
Now the time is coming when the whole world will come under the blessings of the new covenant through Israel and through the arrangement then to be made; the blessings of the Lord will fill the whole earth, and all will have a great blessing. But he is not calling you and me to earthly relationship. He is inviting us to the heavenly calling, the Apostle says, to be with him and share his glory, to be the bride and joint-heir of the great King of kings, and Lord of lords. And the invitation he gives us is that we shall share with him in laying down our lives.
Now what is it we are doing, then? What is this narrow way? What is this journey? Do not forget our text. Ye are baptized by baptism into his death. How is it his death? Why you have been counted in as a member of his body, and I have been counted in as a member of his body, and, so to speak, Jesus has been dying in the world for more than 1800 years. We are sharing in the sufferings of Christ. The Apostle says, "I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ." Whoever gets a large share of the afflictions and sufferings of Christ, is going to have a large share in the glory that shall follow. So we find the Apostle very anxious that he might have a good share in the afflictions of Christ, and he intimates in one of his epistles that some of the dear brethren had missed some opportunities, but that where they came short it gave him all the more opportunity to suffer for Christ's sake.
Let us then dear brethren and sisters, assembled here as Bible students from all parts of the country, and various parts of the world, give our hearts more fully than ever to our dear Lord that he may more and more fashion them, and with our feet in the right way, so we may perform through him the obedient sacrifice, even unto death, and then with him share the eternal glory. And I trust we will all thus meet in the great convention the Apostle mentions in the twelfth chapter of his letter to the Hebrews, where he says that we shall come to the general assembly of the church of the first-born, whose names are written in Heaven.
[CR172]
If Ye Be Risen With Christ
Text:--"If, then, ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God; set your affection on things above, and not on things on the earth." THIS is not a general advice, dear friends. The apostle is not advising everybody to do this. It is only a very particular, special class. The class is indicated by the word "if." "If ye then be risen with Christ." To the remainder of the world it would be foolishness to suggest the seeking of the things which are above. The things that are above are not intended for them, but the earthly things, the restitution blessings are for them. In times past we have not always seen this clearly, that God has two different blessings; that the great blessing he designs to give to the world of mankind is restitution, to bring them from the condition of sin, and meanness, and wickedness, back to holiness, back to full fellowship with God as Adam enjoyed at the beginning. It does not mean that they shall have heavenly blessings, because Adam had no heavenly blessings, and Adam lost no heavenly blessings. He never had a spiritual nature, and never lost a spiritual nature, and his home was of the earthly kind. The Garden of Eden was merely a sample of what the earth was, and Adam himself was merely a sample of what perfect mankind was to be. When man shall be brought back to perfection, the whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge and glory of God, and every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess to the glory of God. That will be a grand consummation of the plan of God for mankind. And they shall build houses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them; they shall not plant and another eat; they shall not build and another inhabit, but they shall long enjoy the work of their hands; and the earth shall yield her increase, and the wilderness shall blossom as the rose, the solitary place shall be glad, and streams shall come forth from the desert. Are not these good things? They are all of the earth earthy. And yet the apostle in the text, speaking to the class he is addressing, says, "Set your affection on things above, and not on the things of the earth." Here is a difference, here is a distinction. Some are to set their affection on earthly things and long enjoy the work of their hands as perfect men, having been brought back from the fallen condition, back to all that was lost in Adam, and to all that was redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ, back to all the fullness of human perfection like Adam was at the beginning, with the addition [CR173] of the experience gained not only by evil and sin, but also blessed by experiences in rising up out of sin and degradation and coming back to the Father's house. In that condition, the perfect man will be as described in the eighth psalm: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands." What works of God's hands? Was he set over the angels? Was he set over heavenly things? Nay, verily. What glory did he possess? Was it heavenly glory? Nay, verily. "Thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas." He was the king of earth. It was from this glorious position of kingship that father Adam fell. It was to all of these things he lost that he was redeemed; as we read, "I have come to seek and to save that which was lost." Eden was lost; Eden is to be recovered; Paradise is to be restored. Harmony with God and communion were lost, and these are to be restored through Messiah's glorious kingdom. Human perfection was lost; it is to be restored through Messiah's kingdom. Everlasting life as a man was lost; it is to be restored to all who are willing to accept it at the great Redeemer's hand.
But it is not respecting the restitution class that are to get the earthly blessings, and have these Millennial age favors that the apostle is speaking in our text; he is writing to a special class, a peculiar people, a little flock, a saintly few, some who have been called out of the world. God has seen fit in his great wisdom to provide a little flock to be joint-heirs with his Son in his great and glorious kingdom, so long promised, which is to bring these blessings to the earth and to the natural man. Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. The natural man cannot appreciate the heavenly things of which he is speaking in our text. The natural man can only appreciate the natural things, the earthly things, and as the natural man looks at the earthly things, and hears the description of the Eden that is to be established under the whole heavens, his heart is full and satisfied, and he says, "That is the very best I ever dreamed of-- yea, better than I ever dreamed of; I never knew that God would provide things so glorious and so desirable." But then this other class is begotten of the Holy Spirit to a new nature, to which they will be born in the resurrection--begotten of the Spirit, then born of the Spirit, just as we are now begotten of the flesh and then born of the flesh. The new birth in its fullness will consist of these two parts, just the same as the natural birth consists of two parts, first begetting, and then birth. Our Lord was the first-born from the dead, the first-born of every creature that he should be the first that should rise from the dead.
But the apostle is not speaking of that actual resurrection in our text; he is speaking of the beginning of it in this sense that we should now experience the change of nature, the begetting of the Holy Spirit, and we become, from the divine standpoint, new creatures; old things have passed away, all things have become new. To us the things of the earth are not as grand as those better things which we are anticipating, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath in reservation for those that love him--who love him supremely, more than they love houses and lands, more than they love parents and children, more than they love husbands and wives, more than they love their own selves. He has these things in reservation for those peculiar people, which we will admit are few, and peculiar. There are not many of this class, there are only a few who have received the begetting of the Holy Spirit, and in this sense of the word only a few have started in this new life, or, figuratively speaking, few have risen with Christ to walk with him in newness of life.
"If ye then be risen with Christ"--what do you mean by being risen with Christ? We could not rise with Christ unless we be first dead with him. It was necessary that Jesus should first die. What way did he die? He did not die with Adam. He died, the just one for the unjust one; he gave a sacrificial life, it was a sacrificial offering of himself that he gave. Now then, you and I are to be dead with him--and then what? Then yours will have to be, and mine will have to be, a sacrificial death, as his was; if we would be dead with him we must sacrifice our life with him. But, you say, "How could this be done?" We see plainly that our lives were bound up with Father Adam; we were involved in death with him. How could we then die with Jesus, since we were already by nature children of wrath, and bound up with Father Adam in his death? How could we get out of the Adamic death and into death with Christ? That is a question the Bible answers so beautifully, and tells us that we who desire to come into membership into the Body of Christ, as New Creatures in him, have this great privilege of participating in death with him, that God will accept our sacrifice. But now, how do we know that God will accept our sacrifice? The Apostle says, in Romans 12:1, "I beseech you brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God." But how can it be? Jesus could not offer his body holy and acceptable without being perfect, how could we offer our bodies holy and acceptable without their being perfect? That brings us to the connecting link, and that is this: that Jesus stands as the great Advocate for all those who thus desire to come in as members of his Body, or in the other figure, as members of the Bride, the Lamb's Wife. He stands as their Advocate. And what does he do? He imputes something to them--he does not give to them earthly nature, he is keeping all of that for the world; the world is to get the earthly nature which he laid down, but now he is proposing that the saints shall not be of the world, and says, "Ye are not of the world even as I am not of the world, because I have chosen you out of the world." Now these whom he has chosen out of the world are those who desire to be footstep followers of the Lord, to be joint-heirs in the kingdom, and to accept the spiritual things instead of the earthly things. This is the class which he stands for. He will be their advocate. And what will the Advocate do for us? He will justify us freely from all things. How? Well, he does not do the justifying, but the Father does the justifying, as the Scriptures declare, "It is God that justifieth." On what account does the Father justify? Through the merit of the Advocate Jesus Christ the righteous. We have to have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And who are we that have this Advocate? We who have turned our back on sin, we who have accepted God's gracious promise and invitation, we who have presented our bodies living sacrifices, and thus have done all in our power. Then comes the Advocate and imputes a sufficiency of his merit to make up the deficiency of our offering, and forthwith the Heavenly Father can justly accept our offering, as he justly accepted the offering of our Lord and Redeemer. He justified us, and from the moment we are justified we are acceptable with God, as living sacrifices.
So now, that is the way we come to be in Christ. If we make this consecration to suffer with him, then we become dead with him. "And if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him." "If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him." How well the Scriptures fit together!
The Apostle is speaking of this class who have been justified in Christ, the class who have thus died with Christ, died a sacrificial death--not merely that they will suffer rather than sin. Oh no, more than that! Jesus did not suffer merely rather than sin; he suffered sacrificially; he suffered when he was doing right; and so that is what the Church is doing--suffering for righteousness sake. And so, Peter says, If any man suffer as an evil doer, let him be ashamed; if he is an evil doer or a busy body in other men's matters, and he suffers for it, he is not to thank God for it. If he suffers for righteousness sake, the spirit of glory and of God rests upon him. The Master suffered for righteousness, and so we are to follow in his steps as he has set us an example. So we have the thought that we are dying with Christ, that the whole Church is called to die with him, that is the contract all the sanctified in Christ Jesus have made, and that there is no other way to get into the Body of Christ, which is the Church.
Now then, to be dead with him is not enough. If Jesus had merely died and had not arisen, where would have been the advantage? So the resurrection of Christ was just as important, in this sense, as the death of Christ, and these two points are linked together in the Scriptures. And so with you and me. It is not only important that we should be dead to sin, that we should become sacrificially dead by consecration to walk with our Master, but it is also necessary that we should reckon ourselves alive from the dead, to walk with him in newness of life. Why necessary? Because we all need to have our instruction as New Creatures. When did our instruction as New Creatures begin? When we became New Creatures. What we know as Old Creatures was not part of our instruction. Whatever we had in the old body, before it was consecrated to the Lord and accepted by him has been a good or a poor asset as the case may be. Some had an asset of bad temper, and others had an asset of strong will; others had some good and some bad. All of these assets belonged to our mortal bodies, but when we made our consecration to the Lord these all became assets of the New Creature, and the New Creature is transforming and bringing them into usefulness as servants of the New Creature. The Apostle, you remember, explains in the 6th chapter of Romans how we are risen with Christ; [CR174] that the power of the Holy Spirit which raised up Jesus from the dead if it dwell in you; will quicken your mortal body. He is not here speaking of the resurrection actually, but of the quickening influence of the Holy Spirit in our bodies before we get our immortal bodies. This body was mine originally, and when I made my consecration to the Lord he accepted it, and it was justified, and he begot me with the Holy Spirit to be a New Creature. I, as a New Creature, had this body to do with the best I could. The Father said, I will not give you the new body until the actual resurrection, then you will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. It is sown in corruption, then it shall be raised in incorruption; it is sown a natural body, then it shall be raised a spiritual body. It is not the time now to give it to you, the Lord says, but now I will give you the control and responsibility of this mortal body that you have had right along. It is yours; it belongs to you. There is a difference between being a cow and owning a cow. I am a New Creature now, but I own this mortal body. The Apostle says, "It is not I, yet I control this outward 'I'." So then, I am to bring this mortal body into subjection to the will of God in Christ. That is the whole duty, the whole work of the New Creature. And God gives the New Creature the opportunities for work on this old body for its development, bringing in the thoughts, and words, and deeds of the mortal body into subjection to the divine will. And as he studies what the divine will is, he grows strong in the Lord and in the power of his might as a New Creature of Christ. He is growing as a New Creature, and the Apostle says as New Creatures we grow strong while according to the flesh, we die, we perish; that there is a warfare between the old nature that was us, and the new nature that is us since we have been accepted of the Lord and have been begotten as New Creatures. We are to walk in Jesus' steps, we are to enter into the same covenant of sacrifice that he entered in to, being justified freely through his merit, all of our imperfections being made up out of the merit of the Beloved One, and ours is a covenant by sacrifice to be dead with him. Yes, we are also risen with him. And if we are risen with him, it is our duty and pleasure to seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. To seek them, how? To seek to have a share in them, to avail ourselves of the glorious opportunity and invitation to become sharers in his throne. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne." All of God's people who are risen with Christ should understand what they are doing, that they are seeking those earthly things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, that they may be his Bride class, that they may be his joint-heirs in his Kingdom, that they may sit with him on his throne. And we are not seeking the earthly things, and that means that we are, so far as possible, to cut off every earthly tie--or at least be willing when the Lord shall bring circumstances and trials and difficulties which shall lop off these earthly ties, and which will separate us more and more from the world, and attach us to the heavenly things.
[CR174]
Address to the Harvesters
THIS is the harvest-workers' day. It occurred to me that this word "harvest" has taken on a new meaning with very many of us from what it used to have in olden days. At one time we had a general impression that there was a general harvest work going on all the time and that death was the great reaper, reaping them in, a few occasional grains going to heaven, the great mass going down to eternal torment. We find all of that was a delusion--nothing of that kind in the Bible at all; that this expression "harvest time" is used in the Scriptures in a very special and peculiar manner. We find that in the end of the Jewish age Jesus sent forth his disciples to proclaim the kingdom, and to gather all the Jews of that time who were ready for the Gospel dispensation. They returned and told him they had done all he told them to do in proclaiming that the kingdom was at hand, the kingdom had come now, and then Jesus said to them, "I sent you forth to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labor; other men have labored and ye have entered into their labors." How plain it all is now! The law and the prophets, from Moses to John, had been doing a sowing work, a preparatory work, a development work, and when Jesus came he came not to sow the law, not to teach the law--nor, on the contrary to teach the violation of the law--but he came to teach the fulfillment of the law; he came to tell that the harvest of that age had come. He was there because it was time to look for ripe grain; he was there to gather the Jews who had been living under the law, and whose hearts were consecrated to God and who had desired to come into sonship with God, and who had not been able to come into sonship with God because they were sinners, and because the law said, "he that doeth these things shall live by them, he that doeth these things shall be a Son of God," and they were not able to do these things, therefore they were all bewildered and unable to reach any satisfactory conclusion. To those who did receive it, Jesus' message was to the effect that now they might become Sons of God under terms of a special character, becoming his disciples, taking up his cross and following him, trusting in the merit of his sacrifice, and laying down their lives in his service; that thus they might become new creatures to whom all things have passed away and all things become new; and they thus as new creatures would be on a new plane entirely from the natural plane. He was starting a new dispensation, and those who would constitute the beginnings of the new dispensation were the riper ones of the old dispensation; and the old dispensation for sixteen hundred or more years had been developing this class. Here were the very best of the Jews, the holiest of them that were living in our Lord's day. I think there must have been a great many holy Jews, because we have proof of it. They were ripe for the Gospel message. And when the apostles, speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit, proclaimed the truth to them on the day of Pentecost and on subsequent days, there were thousands of them in the right condition of heart, ready to receive it. That proves they had been planted a good while before and they were well developed and they were ready for God's message of grace in Christ, all ready to receive it. Now those who were gathered at that time were gathered out by the Lord and taken into the Gospel dispensation, into the new arrangement. That was the work Jesus and the apostles did there. They did not do anything for the Jew in general; they merely did their work for the Jews who had an ear to hear and a heart to receive. It was a reaping work. Any of them that were ripe enough to be reaped came on and were gathered out. That was the work Jesus did during the three and a half years of his ministry, and it was the same work he sent forth his disciples to do after Pentecost. They were to begin at Jerusalem; they were not to go to the Gentiles as yet. As a matter of fact, the Scriptures show that it was God's agreement with the Jewish nation that they should have the first opportunity to this high calling of the bride class; it must go first to the Jew; as Saint Paul said, it was necessary that the Gospel should be preached first to the Jew. It was God's arrangement; it was God's promise. So then, for three and a half years, the Gospel was preached only to the Jews, not to any Gentile; not until three and a half years after the cross were completed could it be possible for this message of the high calling to go to any Gentile; and the first of the Gentiles to hear was Cornelius. But now my point is not to go all through this detail, but merely to emphasize the fact that there was a harvest work done in the end of the Jewish age, and it was a different work than had been going on all through the age. All the farmers in this neighborhood know what a harvest time is; they have a plowing time, they have a seed sowing time, and then they have a harvesting time. Just so in God's great plan; he has a plowing time, and a seeding time, and he has a harvesting time--the harvesting time comes finally to get the ripe grain. Now there was such a harvest in the end of the Jewish age which gathered the "ripe" Jews into the Gospel age, which was on a higher plane, and that harvest [CR175] witnessed the burning up the chaff of the Jewish age--that is to say, the overthrow of the nation outside of those who were gathered into the Gospel age--all the remainder was wiped out, not as individuals but as a nation. The time of trouble came on them in the end of their age, and you remember in the year 70 Titus overthrew Jerusalem, and from that time to this there has never been a Jewish nation. We find according to the Scriptures that the Jewish nation will be restored and will have divine favor again, but not until the church shall have been completed, because their age ended and our age began, and not until our age ends will their age begin again.
Now the point I wish to make is, that as there was a harvest then so the parallel shows a harvest there. As God had an age dealing with the Jews, bringing them up to the harvest time, so in the end of this age he has a harvest in which he will gather the ripe wheat of this age. So then it has not been true as we have often heard that there has been a harvesting going on all the time. Not at all. The harvest is the end of the age. Now our thought is not taking time now to prove this thought that we are now living in this harvest period, in the harvest of this age, and that in this very day God is gathering the ripe wheat of this Gospel age; just as in the days of Jesus and the apostles, he and his disciples gathered the ripe fruitage of the Jewish nation. What a wonderful thought that is! How impressive is that thought, that we are indeed living in the time of special favor! Look out all over the world and see what you think of it; and ask even the worldly people what they think of our day. Well, they will say, ours is a wonderful day, but they do not know what to make of it. The difference is just this: We also know that it is a wonderful day, and we do know what to make of it. We do know that it is a wonderful day because it is the harvest time; it is the time in which the Chief Reaper is here; it is the time in which the great work of God is being accomplished. The masses of the world do not know what is going on, just as the masses of the Jews did not know what was going on in their day. Did the Jews know indeed that Jesus and the apostles were gathering out the ripe wheat from their nation? Nay, verily; they laughed at them; they commented on some of them that they were ignorant and unlearned. They had all kinds of derision for them, and they crucified the Master himself. Why? Because, as the Scriptures say, they knew not the time of their visitation. They did not realize that they were being specially favored of God. They did not realize they were in the harvest time. But why didn't they? How could some know and others could not? Oh, my dear friends, the Bible tells us why! The Bible tells us that none will know, none will understand the divine arrangements, except those who live close to the Lord, and the trouble with the people of that time was that not very many of them were living very close to the Lord; they were hypocritical; they had a great deal to do with pharisaical arrangements, vestments, public prayers, and much outward form of religion, and very little of the real sincere thing. Jesus says so. We would not be competent to judge of that, but Jesus tells us that there was a great deal of formality there. And so amongst his disciples not many of the pharisees, not many of the rich, not many of the great, not many of the learned, not many of the wise, were found, but chiefly the poor of this world, rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom.
Now why did not they know? Because they did not live near enough to the Lord. You and I remember very well how it is written in the Scriptures. "The secret of the Lord is with them that reverence him, and he will show them his covenant." He does not say that he will show his secret and make known his covenant to everybody. He does not want everybody to know all about his plans; it would not be to their good or to his glory. It is far better that the world should not know about the various features of the divine plan; they would not appreciate them, and they might harm themselves with those things which are real blessings; but the Lord is prepared to make them known to those who live near to himself. I trust you and I are keeping this in mind, and that unless we abide under the shadow of the Almighty, we will not clearly and distinctly hear his voice in all the features of his plan. So the nearer you and I can abide under the shadow of the Lord, close to him, the more we may expect to know, and understand, and enjoy, and profit, by the various features of his plan as they become due. I will not attempt to prove to you what we have already put into print, and what is familiar to nearly all of this audience, and perhaps all of you, namely: that we have been in this harvest time since the fall of 1874. This, to our understanding, was the marking, according to the Bible, of the time when the harvest period began, and this harvest period is to continue forty years, just as it continued for forty years with the Jews,--they were a typical people, and we are the antitypical Israel; the things that were done by them were foreshadowings of the greater things that are to take place with us. In other words, remarkable as it may seem, the harvest work of this age is in many respects a still more prominent and greater matter than it was with the Jews in their day. How much greater? Oh, it is much greater; it was only one little nation, in size somewhere about the size of the State of Pennsylvania, or less, one little nation, one little country, and today the harvest work is world-wide. Wherever there are people, there is a possibility that there are children of God, and if there are children of God, then the harvest message and the harvest experiences belong to them.
It is just here I am reminded of a letter I got yesterday from a brother in India. We have already published some letters from that brother telling of the interest of the people in India, and that in one district the poor people are much interested in the Gospel message; so much they cannot send out the native teachers fast enough. There are little groups varying from thirty to one hundred and fifty people, constituting the congregations. And as fast as these native teachers can be instructed about the things of the kingdom, and that our God is a great God, and a loving God, and a wise God, and that he is gathering the bride class, and that after the bride class is completed he will use these to bless the world, and they shall constitute the bride, the Lamb's wife, and be joint-heirs of our Lord Jesus in his kingdom, and that the power and sway of that kingdom shall extend to all the families of the earth, they are sent out. As the poor people of that district never heard much if anything of a good time coming they write that their hearts overflow with gratitude to God; they could not have expected anything so great and so good. Within the last few months they tell me that the work has nearly doubled. They sent me a photograph of fourteen of the native brethren who are teaching the Word and going about into different districts, and taking these in turn to some extent--going one here, and then another place, making circuits all over that community--and the people are hearing gladly and rejoicing. Of course, there would be, naturally, some opposition, and they sent a clipping from an India paper, copied from an American paper, three columns long, in which the writer was trying to say something derogatory to the Studies in the Scriptures; they had three columns of it and they published it over in India, and instead of working harm, it worked a lot of good; people began to inquire for those books, and the friends sold a lot of books, and gave away a lot of tracts as a result. So the Lord knows how to bless all kinds of efforts --those that are made against us and those that are in our favor. He is able to overrule all things for good to those who love him, and you and I are coming to have more and more confidence that nothing is able to pluck any out of the hands of the Lord, and that he is able to bless the harvest work and everything pertaining to it. It is for us to use all the wisdom we can, and all the grace we possess, and to strive for more, and to realize that the real management of the harvest work is in the hands of him whom we serve, and we are glad that it is, and that he is the great Harvester. He was the harvester at the first advent and directed all the reapers, and so, my dearly beloved, surely he is still as such interested in the harvest time now and directing the course of the reapers. Otherwise how sad we would be at times! But when we know that he is at the helm and directing all things, our hearts can rejoice.
Another thing this letter said was this: that as the people came to understand there were certain blessings for Christians, and then that God was going to give a blessing to the Jews in the future, they say that the Mohammedans come around and inquire, Why does not Pastor Russell write something for us Mohammedans, showing where we come in? We are the children of Abraham by Ishmael; we are following that line; where does our share come in? So, the writer said, I do not know what to tell them, but told them I would report. So we will have to tell the Mohammedans something about what God has for them. How glad we are that we have a heavenly Father who is so rich. He can give crowns and fortunes to his saintly ones, his children, and he still has other fortunes to give to those who during the next age will come forward and be in line to receive them. Oh, the riches of his grace and loving kindness in Christ Jesus toward us!
Now I must not deal too long with these generalities, just a thought respecting the fact that we are in the harvest time, and that a great harvest work is going on. The next thought is this: Who are the reapers? Who were the reapers at the first advent? [CR176] There is the pattern. Who did Jesus use there? We answer, he took those Jews who were ripe and ready to be used, and used them as the reaper under his own direction, and it was these very ones he sent out two and two to tell the people. And so we have reason to expect that this would be the way now. The Lord could indeed use the angels now and do a reaping work with them, and he could do without us altogether, but this has not been his plan. It has pleased God to use these poor creatures of the dust, you and I and all of his people, wherever they may be, all who are sincere, all who are washed in the precious blood of Christ, all who are begotten of the holy Spirit. It has pleased the Father to make us ambassadors for God; in his name we present the petition; in God's name we tell the good tidings. What an honor to be co-laborers with God! Was there ever such honor given to mankind? Why if we had read in some fable story of old that the gods had come down and made use of humanity in such a way, we would have said, "Oh, it is just a fable!" Dear friends, this is something that we know. We know in whom we have believed, and we know what he has stated to us. We know it is God's plan to make use of us, his poor creatures, servants of God--sons of God in disguise, if you please--that we may have this great privilege of doing this harvest work. And this harvest work will soon be completed--by October, 1914, so far as we know; we do not claim infallibility, but so far as we understand the Scriptures by October, 1914, the harvest will be completed. The forty years of harvest will be sufficient. Now see how God has arranged for this entire matter. When there was only a little Jewish nation to be dealt with in forty years, it did not need any steamboats, did not need any steam cars, did not need any electric cars, did not need any automobiles, did not need any telegraph, telephones, printing presses, etc. They got it all through in forty years. But you never could do it now with twelve men, or one hundred and forty-four thousand men, walking around as they did, and riding on a camel occasionally, as they did, or sometimes on a boat that took six months to get any place. It could not be done today, all over the civilized world; it would be impossible. So our God, equal to the occasion, has brought in the enlightenment of the world, making all the various features of the great plan to work together. These things are merely the beginnings of the blessings that are coming to the world anyway, and now they can come in a little sooner so that we can use the railroads, and telegraphs, and printing presses, and everything, so that the harvest message can go to the ends of the earth and the millions of people on the opposite side of the globe, over in India, can have the same message, and within a very short time after we have it here. Is not that wonderful! Now these miracles have become so common with us that there is danger of our forgetting that they are miracles; we are living surrounded by miracles; the whole matter is a miracle. The miracle is this: that God has so overruled matters in connection with the Gospel message, that although many have misunderstood, many have slandered, many have abused, and many have misrepresented, some intentionally and some unintentionally, yet notwithstanding all, it goes right forward and with increasing momentum. Nothing can stop it until God's time shall come. And when God's time shall come we want him to stop it--don't we? Of course we do. Nothing could stop it sooner.
As Jesus used the disciples, and all the believers during that Jewish harvest, and made them instruments for carrying the message to all the brethren, so now as fast as you and I come to receive a knowledge of his grace, and realize where we are, we get the message and pass it on, it is our privilege to carry it on to someone else, and so it is spreading all over the world, and nearly always through the consecrated. But you also know that God makes the wrath of man to praise him at the same time. In that paper, the publication of three columns, intended to do injury to the work, it simply stirred the people up to read about the truth. So the Lord is able to overrule all kinds of efforts, and we believe he will do so, and it is not ours to interfere. It is ours to find out what the Lord will have us to do and pay strict attention to our part and let the great captain look out for the general interests of the work. He is able to do that and we are not. We are therefore safe when we fully trust him, come what will, and to simply watch our own part and make sure that our lives, our work, and our privileges are not being wasted, but are being put in the proper direction according to our understanding of his will.
Now the Lord has many varieties of instrumentalities in this harvest time, just as we should expect; it is really wonderful how he has raised up one after another of these, how much each one seems to have been ordered of the Lord. I remind you, for instance, of the pilgrim work, and how the Lord has blessed that pilgrim work, so that it has been a very essential service. The dear pilgrims go from place to place and meet with the little classes-- not to take the place of the little classes or be "popes" of the classes but to be there as mouthpieces of the Lord, speaking forth the truth and seeking to guide the dear ones in the right ways of studying his Word, and then they go to another place, and to another place and these various ones going all over the world are having a good effect--much better than if we could place one of these brethren in each town. If they could stop in your town for a while they would get in some kind of a rut possibly, while if they keep going and are entirely independent, and carry the message here and there, and then another one comes to you, you get a greater variety, and they get a greater variety, and the whole work is accomplished in a way that is really peculiar; and so far as we know has never been duplicated any time during this gospel age. Where did it come from? From the Lord, I believe.
Then take the tract distribution, the volunteer work, what a wonderful work that is! Now when I mention the word millions, not one person in a hundred knows what a million is. You know what a hundred is, and ten hundred make a thousand, and then a hundred thousand and then ten hundred thousand and you begin to get the size of a million--ten hundred thousand--a thousand thousand. Now then these tracts are printed and shipped to all parts of the world and are being circulated. Everybody has a glorious opportunity, a wonderful privilege. Those who cannot preach orally, cannot say, "I have no way of preaching, I have no gift of the tongue." Here is something you can do where you do not have to use your tongue at all. I know of some brethren who can preach a thousand sermons in a few days, preach to a thousand people, leaving them two or three sermons each time. What a wonderful privilege that is! How much we ought to appreciate that privilege! Where did that privilege come from? There is nothing like it in the world. You do not know of anything else of the kind. We have large tract societies which are undoubtedly trying to do good, but they do not circulate any tracts at all in comparison with what we are circulating; you hardly ever see one, while they are going out here by the millions. I do not have the exact figures for this year, but I think over ten million surely. But this year they will have in Great Britain alone four and a half millions, and I am sure ours here will come to at least eight millions; that will make twelve millions--twelve million copies, three sermons each thirty-six million sermons going out! They ought to reach somebody. And they are in various languages-- Dutch, French, Hollandish, Danish, Norwegian, German, Swedish, Syrian, etc. Who is doing that? The great Chief Reaper, I believe, dear friends. We are simply trying to follow his leadings; he is the one who is directing here and there all the various steps of the harvest work. We simply try to follow what seems to be the indications of divine providence, and it goes grandly on; no human wisdom deserves credit for it; we are accrediting it all to the wisdom and grace divine.
Then there is the newspaper work. What a wonderful work that is! Think of it, there are estimated to be every week ten millions of readers. They are not all read of course. If one in ten reads them that would be a million readers. Suppose only one in a hundred reads; that would still be a good many. Suppose only one in a thousand reads; that would still be a good many. Now the Lord seems to have opened up all these ways. His ways are wonderful. The harvest message is going out far and near. It is only about a year since there was no publication of the sermons of Great Britain, but I understand that, including the sermons and Bible studies, there are now two hundred and sixty-five papers in Great Britain publishing them. There never was such a thing known in Great Britain before. All the centuries there were Christian people there, they never had that many sermons published--not a tenth of them. I am merely mentioning that as another evidence of the Lord's providential leading. Now it is for you and me, and for everyone who belongs to the Lord, not simply to look on and see these different things, and see that they are prospering. They are indeed, but you have certain responsibilities, certain opportunities, certain privileges. It is yours to use these, or, failing to use them, you fail to do your part of the reaping work. All of these matters go, as far as the world can see, and as far as any of us can see, in a natural way; there is no money that rains down in the office of the Watch Tower, or anywhere else; no miracles worked in financial matters any more than anywhere else--it comes from you and from others. There are never any collections taken up, never any money solicited--you know that. It all comes; no miracle at all.
[CR177]
A minister asked me not a great while ago, "Brother Russell, what is the explanation, you do not take up collections?"
"No."
"Where does the money come from?"
"Well now," I said, "I am afraid if I were to tell you, you would think I was trying to hoax you; but I will tell you; the candid truth is this: when people become interested in these things, they come with their money and say, 'Cannot I get some money into that? I want to get a little money in; even if it is only a little, I want to get that money in.'"
He looked at me; he evidently had never had any experience like that. He had always been used to raking and scraping and pulling and hammering, and taking them by the feet and shaking them until the money would come out of their pockets. What is the reason, my dear friends? Are those in the truth more wealthy than others? Nay, verily. There are very few wealthy people in the truth. The secret of the matter is this, that when you properly touch a man's heart, you touch his pocket-book, because his pocket-book belongs to his heart. The new creature has charge of the pocket-book as well as of the tongue. There is the secret of it all. That is the explanation of the whole matter. When persons are reached by the truth, and sanctified by the truth, it will effect every act of their lives, every thought of their lives, everything that they do. It must all come under this direct supervision of the great head of the church, and they all say, "If by any means I may serve the Lord and do something to forward his cause and to honor his name." That is the spirit; and is not that the very spirit we ought to expect? It certainly is. It is another evidence of the Lord's blessing in connection with his whole harvest work, that there has never been even one collection taken up at any time, and we never expect to take up a collection. If in the Lord's providence, the money stops, so that the work will have to stop then we will say, "Lord, thy will be done."
What is this message that was preached in the end of the Jewish age? What was the harvest message back there? What is the harvest message here? I remind you that the harvest message is as Jesus said, the Gospel of the kingdom. Well is it any different gospel? It is the same Bible, but we used to use the word kingdom in such an awkward way. We thought somehow the kingdom was everything else than what it is to be. We had such confused ideas; we were trying to put things together in a jumbled-up way; we did not read our Bibles sanely. We would read the Lord's prayer, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven," and we did not believe it; we did not know enough to; we were so mistaught as to have false expectations all along the line, and not know that the Lord is about to set up the kingdom, a kingdom that is to be a mighty kingdom, a kingdom that is to put down all other kingdoms, and cause every knee to bow, every tongue to confess. We did not realize it, but now we are beginning to get our eyes open, and this is the very message the Lord is using as a harvest message--just as he used that same message in the harvest of the Jewish age.
Now you will say, Brother Russell, you have not said anything about the colporteurs; many of us are colporteurs. We have not forgotten you either; I am just leaving this for the last. That is the way we always do at dinner; we have the dessert last; we have been keeping this colporteur matter for the last. I am not saying a word against all the other methods; I appreciate highly the work of the Pilgrims, I appreciate greatly the volunteer work; they are grand; they are of the Lord, and I think that all who can should participate in some kind of service for the great King. If he does not do so, it indicates that he has not the proper warmth, and the proper interest in the Lord's cause, and he will not be an overcomer. If he has opportunity to serve and does not serve now under these conditions, he will not be allowed to serve under the glorious conditions. It will be those who are glad to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and to suffer with him, and preach the Gospel he preached who will have a share with him in the glory by and by.
Coming then to the colporteur work--of all the different parts of the work it seems to me to be one of the most important, if not the very most important. It is hard to say, of course, just which is the most important; there are sales that do not amount to anything, where people buy a set of books and put them on the shelf and never look at them. That accomplishes very little in the present time anyway. Somebody might buy a set of these books which they never look at, and a visitor may come in, as it has happened many a time, and become interested. But, in one sense of the word, there might be much seed lost in that way. As the Lord indicated in the parable, some would fall by the wayside and do no good; some would fall on stony ground and do no good; some would fall in thorny ground and do no good; it is only that which falls in the good ground that brings forth fruitage; so we expect a certain amount of it will bring forth no particular fruitage; but while it is not ours to determine which part of the Lord's harvest work is the most important, and it is not ours indeed to say anything much upon this subject at all, but are rather to say if the great King opens up various ways, if the great Reaper has various instrumentalities in the harvest field, let us bring them all in. But so far as my observation goes, one of the most important features of the whole harvest work is the colporteur feature. I am glad to notice from the badges before me that a great many of those here present today in the front row at least, are colporteurs, and that is not casting any reflection on others who are not colporteurs, because some of us, like myself, cannot do everything. We cannot be colporteurs, much as we would like to be. And so with some who are not out in any kind of public service; they have not the opportunity perhaps. Perhaps the mother has a child to take care of; perhaps all she can do is to take a few minutes occasionally to talk to a friend or write a note to Cousin Lizzie or to Aunt Mary, or to somebody else, about the truth, and to call their attention to this, that or the other. And the Lord even uses such endeavorers to his praise, and the finding of grains of wheat. And I am sure a blessing always goes with such an effort. It shows the Lord what you would like to do if you did not have a child or family to care for. And the Lord would say, so to speak, "Well, there is a child of mine; if she were differently situated she would do just as well as any others." So the Lord takes note of the spirit and not merely of the outward success that we may have in some particular part of the work. So with some of the brethren. Some have family responsibilities, obligations to wives and to children, and it would not be the Lord's will for these to go out to serve in the harvest work and leave responsible duties unattended to. No, no; the Scriptures very clearly indicate that these are mortgages they must watch and attend to; the interest must be paid on them; however much you would like to serve, you must keep these obligations settled.
And then, let us say right in that connection that there is such a thing as keeping a watch upon the moments, a watch upon the hours, lest they slip away from you. How easy it is for some people to lose a few minutes! How easy to wait half an hour, either doing nothing, or doing something that is not worthy of your time, or thought, or attention, or reading something that is not profitable, but rather injurious--perhaps filling the mind with chips instead of with apples! The Lord tells us through the apostles that one of the things we can do is to show our love and zeal and energy by--what? Redeeming the time! What do you mean by redeeming the time? Buying it back, purchasing it away from other things. You would have pleasure in fixing ornaments on the mantel, perhaps, and having a lot of bric-a-brac, or you would have pleasure perhaps having your family on a larger scale, and more elaborate arrangements for them, and take all of your time to keep things clean and in order; but you may redeem some time here maybe. It is not for me to tell you where, it is not for anybody else, perhaps, to tell you where; the husband might tell the wife, or the wife might tell the husband, or they might confer together, but it is not for any stranger to enter in and mind their business at all. So do not understand that I am doing so. It is for you to consider in what way you can redeem some time for the service of the Lord, the service of the brethren, for the service of the truth, and to show forth the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. It is for you to watch your own hours, watch your own moments, and it is for me to watch mine. I could waste some time too--every one of us could do some of this, but we want every moment to count.
But you say that is getting it down pretty hard on the "old man." Yes, my dear brother, the old man has got to have it pretty hard; that is your contract with the Lord, that the old nature is to perish as the new nature survives and flourishes. And that is the Lord's contract with you. You have agreed to give up the old man with his desires and preferences, and have agreed to live as new creatures in Christ Jesus, not according to the flesh, not according to worldly standards, not according to those things that would be pleasing to you and pleasing to the eye, and pleasing to the world. It does not mean you must have unpleasing objects around you, but that you shall make all things, especially all affairs of your lives, God first. The Lord Jesus, the great Reaper, and the work of the harvest, the privilege of sharing the Lord's work--these things are to be right at the top and to govern and regulate every little affair of life--the home, the office, the business.
I think of one dear brother who said to me not long ago, [CR178] "Brother Russell, I have a situation offered me, it is an advanced position from the one I now have, but where I now am I can serve the truth more, and have more time for study, and more time for attending evening meetings, and they want me to take the management of a certain department, and offer to double my salary. What do you think?" I said, "Brother, do not take it; you have far better use for your time. It is necessary for you to labor for your family, but you are supporting them now, and have things comfortable now, and you are able to do this and have some time to devote to the better work; do not allow the adversary to get all your time and all your talents into business, and sell it out for double the number of dollars. What will dollars be worth to you? What will the Lord's approval be worth to you in comparison with dollars?
Another brother who had a high position, asked me respecting the matter, and I counseled him to leave the higher position and go to a lower one, less salary and less responsibility, where he would have more time to serve the Lord. That is the chief object of our lives. What else are we here for? You are a new creature. Does the new creature have anything to do with earthly things, except merely to provide for necessities of the flesh? That is all the new creature is to strive for--blessings and prosperity along the lines of the new creature, along the lines of the spiritual work; this is our work, this is the great work of God which he has committed to us, and as ambassadors for God we dare not take on other business more than is absolutely necessary to provide things decent, honest, and needful. These terms do not mean extravagance or luxury. You must pay your debts, and you ought to be decent as a representative of God.
Well now, after all, it is opportunities we all have. Here are some of us who are especially privileged by being engaged in the harvest work as colporteurs, going about generally, we advise, as they did in olden times, as the Lord first sent out the twelve, then we read he sent out seventy additional ones, two by two, two by two, to various cities. And so these dear colporteurs are going out generally two by two; and I think that is usually the best, unless the Lord's providence seems to intercept it in some way. Two by two they are going to the various cities, counties, towns, villages; two by two they are preaching the Gospel here and there; two by two they are witnessing that the kingdom of God is at hand; two by two they are telling the people the good message in a few words, leaving them something that will furnish them a very complete knowledge of the divine plan and arrangement and be helpful to them through all the remainder of the present life, and also in that which is to come. Can you think how any ordinary people, or people of ordinary talents, could ever expect to do more than that? I cannot. Just see the privilege of these colporteurs! The ministers of a city have those who come to hear them, and as one gentleman said to me not long ago, remarking on how many attended the meetings at Boston, that there were four thousand people there to hear Pastor Russell, and he said he did not understand it; they sat there so long on a hot day, and he says, there in Boston there are great ministers, and some had only twenty, some forty, and some possible fifty or sixty of a congregation this summer weather; and they feel as though they had a pretty fair attendance when they have from forty to sixty; they think they are doing pretty well. How does it come four thousand people leave the seashore and leave the mountains, and leave the piazzas and shade, and leave their beds, and come and sit for two hours in a Boston theatre in June weather?
I said, "Brother, I think the secret may be known perhaps from the Word of the Lord. The Lord I think was speaking of our time when he said, 'There shall be a famine in the land, saith the Lord, not a famine for bread, neither a famine for water, but a famine for hearing the words of the Lord!'"
"Now," I said, "I rather think that forms some explanation; these people were hungry; they have gotten too far along to be interested in any of those doctrines of the dark ages which told them that all except a saintly few would be roasted through all eternity; they cannot believe it any longer. And then instead of that all the learned men, or the learned pulpits, are telling them the new idea of evolution, that man was created a cousin of a monkey, and that their forefathers were all monkeys, and they are getting along first rate, and since they did not fall downward but have been falling upward they do not need a Savior, and they have not got a Savior, and that Jesus did not redeem them. Now this is what is being preached as Gospel. No wonder the poor people are not satisfied. Is there anything in that message that would satisfy a hungry soul? Is there anything that would satisfy the longing soul? No. No man is benefited or satisfied by being told that his great-grandfather was a monkey. There is no Gospel in that at all. Yet that is what the doctrine of evolution and higher criticism amounts to. They say the Bible is not reliable, that higher critics find there is nothing in it, and they say, We will tell you, the real Gospel is what we have, that our forefathers were monkeys, and we are going to get out of monkeydom into higher conditions by and by; it may be centuries and centuries, you will never see it, nor we, but our children will sometime grow up to be like angels. Is there anything there to satisfy anybody? No sir. But in the message God has given us, in the message of the Bible, in the message of God's redeeming love, in the message that God once so loved the world that he provided a Redeemer for it, and provided a Bride for his Son, and that the King and Queen shall bless the world, and regenerate the world-- in that message there is a blessing; there is something that is soul satisfying, a comfort to all of those who have ears to hear. And even those who hear a little bit know that it sounds good. They cannot understand the deep things unless they are spirit-begotten, but even the little on the surface that they can hear sounds good and rational to them, and they say so."
Now these colporteurs going around from house to house have an opportunity of coming right into contact with the people. The preacher only gets a few that come out to hear him. The great masses, they tell us, are not going to them; they are complaining that very few are coming to church. Why don't they come to church? A faint suggestion is held out that a law must be passed compelling people to go to church, the same as they used to do. I don't think that law will keep very long; the people are not living on that plane today.
But here is God's arrangement--this colporteur work. Was there ever anything like it before in the world? Never, never anything like it before. Where did it come from? Who made it up? Divine providence guided. Here are the colporteurs going to all those homes and finding the people and telling them the old, old story.
Let me tell you just about one; perhaps I have told some of you before, but I will tell it again. A lady approached by a colporteur said, "No, I don't want the book; go take it to that saloon-keeper across the street; I would not have your book." And the colporteur thought it very strange that she should say, "Take it to that saloon-keeper across the street," because colporteurs very rarely call on saloon-keepers; they are not supposed to be much interested in religion, and they are trying to confine themselves to those who are interested in the Bible. But this lady said she did not care for it at all, take it to the saloon-keeper. The colporteur thought that was a peculiar statement, and said to herself, "I am going over to see that saloon-keeper anyway; I will just try it." She went over to the saloon-keeper and he said, "No, I do not want the book; I do not think very much of God; I cannot love God; he has been very cruel to me."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, God sent my two little children to hell, my two little girls; I loved them so much; they were nice little girls, and I did not have them baptized, and they both died of scarlet fever, and I sent word to the priest and he said they had gone to hell, I had not had them baptized. He would not even put them in decent burying ground with other Catholics; they had no hope at all. I think it was awfully cruel of God to do that to my little girls because I did not attend to having them baptized."
Poor man! Thoroughly under the power of superstition! Thoroughly bound hand and foot and mind and everything else!
And so the colporteur had an opportunity. "Oh," she said, "you have not understood the Bible; the Bible does not say anything of that kind. The Bible says your children are simply dead; they are asleep now, and that God by and by will wake them up. Jesus at his second coming will awaken all the dead; your little girls will come back."
"My little girls come back?"
"Yes, all the children are coming back, and everybody is coming back; they have all gone down into the tomb, and Jesus died for them to redeem them from the tomb and make their resurrection possible. If Jesus had not died then they would have been dead, as a dog is dead, never to have any future life; but Jesus died for them, and that secures a resurrection from the dead, and an opportunity of coming back to perfection and harmony with God?"
That man became astonished. He wondered, could it be true? He said, "You tell me that these books tell that?"
"Yes, these books tell all about that."
"I want those books; I will take those books."
He bought the books, and he started immediately to read them. And the way I came to know about it is, I was in that city probably a month after that, and they told me this, and said that he had [CR179] not seen as yet that he should give up the whiskey business, he is still keeping the saloon and keeping the Truth. And he thinks it is all right to sell whiskey and beer. I said, "Have any of you given him a hint?"
"Yes, we tried to give him a hint, not too hard, but we thought we had better not push it too fast."
I said, "That is right, let him read, let him study, let him understand. But I think we had better give him a little hint, he is seeing something." So they said "He is at meeting today." They pointed him out to me, "That is him, that red-faced man; he keeps a saloon; it is his children that died; he is the one; he is becoming quite interested; he comes to all the meetings, he is always regular at meetings, and is anxious to know and understand."
So I went on to another city and I thought I saw the man there. I said, "Did I see that man there?"
"Yes, he was there, he came along."
Then by and by I went to another city, and I saw a man that looked like him again, and I said, "Is that that man?"
"Yes, that is the same man; he came along again."
I guess that man went at least a journey of six hundred miles to hear more of the good tidings of great joy that shall be to all people. His ears are getting open a little.
Now how long do you suppose any one might have preached in a church with a steeple in that town without that man ever getting to know the Truth?
They might have preached for centuries as far as he would be concerned. Yet there was the way that God used, you see, in taking the message right to the home, right to the individual, putting it like salve right to the poor heart. It is the only salve there is; there is no other salve in the world, my dear friends, that would have healed that poor man's heart, is there? No indeed; God has the only salve, and he has given you and me the privilege of carrying it around to those who have wounded hearts, and binding up the broken-hearted. That is what he told us to do. Some other people seem to think it is our commission to take a hammer and break other people's hearts. The Lord never told us that. We do not find it in the Bible, do we? But we read this, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Oh, that is it! Hunt out the broken-hearted, they are the ones that are ready for the Truth. Whoever has had suffering, sorrow, pain, trouble, and the plow-share has gone deep into the heart, hunt them up, take them the balm of Gilead, take them that which will heal, take them that which will help and refresh them more than anything else in the world.
Now this, I think, is the wonderful privilege you enjoy as colporteurs! And I want to suggest to those who are not colporteurs, that they should not do anything rash and unreasonable and throw away their property and go into the colporteur work--not that. Nor that they should abandon their wives, or husbands, or children--not at all. Do not think of me as saying a word of that kind. That would all be insane. The Gospel message of the Lord is according to the spirit of a sound mind, which recognizes the right principles of justice in all of our dealings towards husbands and wives and children and everybody else. But there are a great many who have favorable opportunities, a great many who have no special thing to hinder or tie them down, or prevent them from engaging in this wonderful service. They may be doing volunteer work, and we are very glad of it; or they may be doing some other work, and it is very good; but those who can ought, as far as possible, I think, engage in this colporteur work. I am not wishing to urge anybody against his conscience, or inclination; it would not be his sacrifice if it was because I merely urged it, and it fails to be your voluntary act. But you have my word for it that I believe a great many will come by and by on the other side of the vail to the place where they may say, "I wish I had taken a more earnest view of matters then; it does seem to me as though I had been rather asleep-- just in a kind of a stupor, and I did not realize the harvest work was going on, that the reapers were gathering out the grains of wheat, and the Master was the general director who was telling us to pray for laborers, and I prayed for laborers, and forgot to answer my own prayer and go out and do some reaping myself." That would be a sorry day for us, even if we got into the Kingdom, to have to look back and see where we failed to show proper loyalty to the King. But I rather think if we have opportunities and do not use them it would indicate that there was in some way a lack of loyalty; and those who lack loyalty we know will not be in the "little flock;" they may be in the "great company." We might also remind you that even amongst those who will get a position in the "little flock," there will be different grades and stations; as the apostle says, "As star differeth from star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead." That means that the church class will vary in their degrees of brilliancy, of honor, of glory, and of association with the Master. Just as the Master again intimated to the two disciples. They said, "Lord, grant that we may sit one on thy right hand and the other on thy left hand in the kingdom." "Well," said Jesus, "if you are faithful, you may get into the kingdom, but as to who shall sit next to me, and as to what place they shall have, it is not mine to give." This will be given to those whom the Father ordains; and the Father represents justice in all his dealings, and the ones that should be there will be there; there will be no preference shown in the matter; it will be the most loyal one who will be next to the Master. Just as Jesus himself was the most loyal of all, and will occupy the central position to all eternity, so you and I may get near to the Master in the future glory in proportion as we come near to him now in the spirit of our minds, in our hearts, in our energies, in our zeal for God and for truth and for the brethren. Is not that so? Surely we all agree it is. Therefore, seeing that we know these things, let us make fresh resolutions today--nothing rash, but as Jesus said, sit down and count the cost, then do according to your love and according to your zeal, and ask the Lord's guidance and blessing and help.
Before I sit down I want to call your attention to the fact that we have prepared what we believe will be a pleasant surprise to you all. The Scripture Studies as we have now had them for some years are very attractive books; I think all agree to that; but we have the thought of making them still more attractive, and so we have gotten them out in this style (exhibiting sample copy). This happens to be the first volume. On the side is stamped "The Divine Plan of the Ages." Then, underneath, in gold letters, "A Helping Hand for Bible Students." On the backbone, "Studies in the Scriptures--Series First." And at the bottom, "London," then a dash line, then "Bible and Tract Society." Then a dash line and, "Brooklyn." It makes a very attractive volume, I think.
Then we have here also illustrations of the size of the different volumes, which is very attractive; that shows the first three. Turning it over we have the other three. It is very convenient to carry, you see. You can have that right in your book, and it forms a very small package indeed, very little more than the book itself; it can be carried in that way and the whole six can be shown as a complete set. If it be impossible to sell six, then the three can be suggested.
There is perhaps a possibility of selling more Scripture Studies today than ever before. It has not been so that we have sold more this year, or more last year. The last two years have not been so good, but we think there has been some fault somewhere; we do not know where it is; but those who are in the work, and who are using the best methods, are succeeding in selling more books today than they ever sold in their lives before, and we believe there is better territory. That is to say, the territory that has been gone over once or twice, or even three times, is not spoiled at all. The ones you see at one time you may not see at another time; some are always out. Especially it is advantageous usually if a brother has canvassed the city before that a sister should follow; or if a sister canvassed it the first time, or the second time, that a brother should follow. Thus there is a little variety given to the style of contact. It is very rarely advantageous that the same individual go over the same ground again, although we have known cases in which that has been successful. One brother I know of, who is here present in the meeting today, wrote me to the effect he had found that, going over his same territory again after he had done it thoroughly as he thought, he was very successful the second time also, after previously being done by somebody else.
I think the books are now in a very much nicer style than
before, and I hope you will all be pleased with them. This cloth
is not made in this country; it is a peculiar style of cloth, but
one we preferred to anything we found here; so it is all being
imported from Great Britain. We would prefer to patronize
American cloth, if we could, and if they ever know enough to
make it right we will be glad to buy it here; but we will get what
we want, if we have to get it from our English cousins. They
are ahead of us on some things, you know, and we are glad of
it. We have to acknowledge the truth sometimes. We are ahead
of them on some things; we are ahead of them on the numbers
of population anyway, and we have a larger field, and the work,
so far, is greater here than in Great Britain, and the people here
are more ready to buy books than in Great Britain, and a great
[CR180]
many more books are sold here than there. But they write me
that since the trouble has begun in Liverpool, and Manchester,
and London, and several other cities, and even in Scotland,
that the colporteurs are having better success. People are waking
up to the fact that they are living in peculiar times, and the colporteurs
wisely call attention to the fact that this is merely
a foreshadowing of the great time of trouble, etc., and thus
the people see something. They say, "Well, I want to know more
about that. If the Bible tells about this trouble we want to know
what it is." And there is a good religious basis there, a good
basis on which to work. And we believe the Lord has much
people in Great Britain, and we have very great hopes for success.
As the sermons now are being published in 265 papers, we believe
it is going to make quite an impression there, and people will soon
begin to inquire for the books; they are already inquiring to some
extent. In our Master's day, the Pharisees, the teachers of the
Bible, were the very ones who wanted to take our Lord's life;
so, strange to say, some of our dear Christian friends over there
now are very angry; they are trying to do what they can to oppose
the colporteurs, and to oppose the sermons, but God has to do
with the matter; we are to do our part and leave all the rest to
him. In many cases it works out for good; in many cases
people are more stirred up to buy the books and read them
than if they had never heard the slanderous misstatements.
And when they read and find out how much they were mistold
on the subject, then they become suspicious forever after that
of all these people who have had anything to say; they begin
to think, Well, there must have been some object in trying to
keep us from reading these books. And the real secret of the
matter is this: That the people know more about the Bible
after they have read these books than the preachers do, and the
preachers do not like to have the pews get ahead of them, and
they do not like to have questions along Bible subjects which
they cannot answer; and so we can have a sympathy for these
preachers. But this is not the right way to take it, my dear
friends. The ministers, above all others, ought to be honest;
they ought to say, "We find the religion we have been preaching
is not satisfactory to ourselves; it has not been satisfactory to
our hearts these many years; we know it. If we can now find
something more satisfactory and have a better understanding
of God's Word, it will bring harmony instead of confusion;
God bless the light, we want it all, and we will sing as one of the
Methodist hymn books had it:
"'Send out thy light and truth, O God!
Let them our leaders be,
To guide us to thy holy will,
That we may worship thee.'"
We want to get rid of worshipping parties and sects, and worship God, and him only serve. Let that be the echo of all our hearts, dear friends, and then use all the opportunities we can to help ourselves and to help each other.
There is another point about helping yourselves. The colporteur will dry up, as far as religious things are concerned, unless he reads, as well as others. It is foolish to advise other people to read and then fail to read yourself. My experience is that nearly all of those who have left the Truth are those who have never made a thorough study of the Scripture Studies. What is the lesson to us? This, I think you will all agree: that if this is really a re-statement of the Word of God, the study of these volumes is not a study of something else, but the study of God's plan, in an arranged and consecutive way. It is a selection of Bible studies on one subject gathered together from the different parts of the Bible. So with each of the Studies, it is merely the Bible--references, citations and quotations all through. So you are reading the Bible and reading it in an orderly way. Now does this bring you blessings? Yes. Does it bring blessings to all who are of an honest heart, who study it? Yes. And how much can you afford to do without? Well, we find this continually, dear friends: Some brother will send in some question, and just as soon as the question comes we know he has not been reading, or if he ever read that volume in which it is answered he had forgotten what he read. That does not say he is a bad brother; it does not say we do not love him--not at all; but it does indicate that he is not living up to his privileges, or he would know how to answer his own questions, and not only to answer his own questions but to help other people answer their questions. Now you all want, as colporteurs, if you are going forth to help people to the Truth, to be thoroughly furnished; as the apostle says, "That the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work." That is what you want to be. That is what I want to be. That is what we all want to be. But colporteurs and pilgrims, especially, ought to know the Bible from first to last; they ought to have all the divine plan well in their minds and be able to answer every question as far as possible. We all have leaky vessels; we may all forget something sometime; it is no dishonor to a person if he has forgotten something. But seeing we have these earthen vessels, and they are leaky, let us use every means to keep the flow of Truth coming into them constantly, so we may be continually full, because we are always near to the fountain of grace.
I do not know that it is of especial interest to the colporteurs but the India paper volumes are now gotten up in a little leather case. There is no profit on these to anybody, so that the colporteurs will hardly be interested in selling them. But you will merely know they are to be had. They are five dollars and fifty cents with the little case and all complete. There is no profit in it anyway, therefore nothing to allow the colporteur. The only way you could do would be to add on a Watch Tower and make it $6.50, for the Watch Tower for one year and the set, and that would leave the colporteur fifty cents on the Watch Tower.
I was telling you how some of the friends were successful in selling the sets of six volumes. We have found that with the proper canvass they can sell six volumes just about as easy as they can sell one. That is remarkable. We are going to have them in a little paper box, about the color of the books, maroon color, and they look very nice, and the whole six books and the Watch Tower for a year for $2.65, which is only about the price of one religious book; for one doctrinal book, the price is usually about $2.50, were you to go to any book store to buy it; and here are a set of six of them, over three thousand pages, all in nice binding and put up in a little box, including the Watch Tower, for one year, all for $2.65. So that becomes a very nice proposition for a great many. They look nice in a library, and are remarkably cheap. And they get that paper for a year. And so they get a blessing, because sometimes the Watch Tower has been found to bring attention back to the books, when they might have neglected the books on the shelf. The reading of the Watch Tower draws their mind to the books again, and they go to the books. And thus the one helps the other.
Colporteur's Poem
In quiet drowse of summer day,
The sleepy country village lay;
In mill and smithy, field and home,
The dull routine of work went on,
And no one dreamed that summer day
God's messengers had passed that way.
Nor heeded two who meekly came,
And in their blessed Master's name
Knocked at each door and spoke this word,
"If you care aught for our dear Lord,
Behold a message here we bring
To those who long to see their King."
"He says to all his virgins dear,
'Prepare yourselves, the Lord is near.'"
See here are jewels, which he sends
To all his lovers and his friends;
Love tokens which he bids them wear,
That they may daily grow more fair.
"This daily manna he provides for
All who would become his bride,
It gives them courage every day
To pass along the narrow way;
And here we offer other food,
All strengthening and very good."
"Which if you want and cannot buy,
We'll gladly send a free supply."
"Oh, yes, I love the Lord," some said,
"But I don't eat that kind of bread,"
And sniffed and sniffed and looked askance,
"Your bread smells like the second chance."
Still others said, "O, no indeed,
We have our church, our books, our creed."
While others had so many cares
They'd scarcely time to say their prayers;
One said she scarcely read a book,
She'd rather wash, or sew or cook.
[CR181]
To some the message sounded good,
They seemed to be in hungry mood,
They listened in an earnest way
To all the strangers had to say;
And as they watched them out of sight,
They wondered if their words were right.
As noon came on, with tired feet
They reached another village street,
And coming to a village store,
They stepped within the open door,
And to the waiting clerk they said,
"Where could we buy a piece of bread."
"And cup of tea, we weary are,
The day is hot, we've traveled far."
He shook his head, "Not in this town
Is restaurant or bake shop found."
Then after some persuasion he
Found one kind soul who made them tea.
They purchased cakes, and when he brought
The fragrant beverage, piping hot,
Down there upon the bench they sat,
With tea and cakes upon their lap;
And as they ate and rested there
From grateful hearts arose a prayer.
That God would still their footsteps guide,
And bless the hearts that did provide,
And that the cup of water given,
Be written in his book in heaven.
Then strengthened they went forth once more
To bear the Truth from door to door.
They found that few had any ear
For those grand truths to them so dear;
One said, "I'm Lutheran through and through,
No other food for me will do."
Some said, "It may be all you say,
But I don't believe I'll buy today."
Some shut the doors and locked them tight
Until the two were out of sight.
"No time to bother with such stuff,
Of reading matter I've enough,"
Said others with indifferent air,
And turned about and left them there.
So they passed on, their errand done,
And no one cared when they had gone,
And no one knew that in disguise
God's angels passed before their eyes;
But all God's secrets are his own,
And in due time he'll make them known.
--Rebecca Doney
[CR182]
INTERNATIONAL
1912
BIBLE STUDENTS
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR183]
HE LEADS US ON
HE leads us on, by paths we did not know,
Upward He leads us, though our steps be slow,
Though oft we faint and falter on the way,
Though storms and darkness oft obscure the day,
Yet when the clouds are gone
We know He leads us on.
He leads us on through all the trialsome years;
Past all our dreamland hopes, and doubts, and fears
He guides our steps. Through all the tangled maze
Of sin, of sorrow, and o'erclouded days
We know His will is done;
And still He leads us on.
And then, at last, after the weary strife,
After the restless fever we call life,
After the dreariness, the aching pain,
The wayward struggles which have proved in vain,
After our toils are past--
He'll give us rest at last.
[CR184]
Oriental
EXPERIENCES
IN CONNECTION WITH THE I.B.S.A.
MISSIONARY INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE ON
THEIR TOUR OF THE WORLD.
This section of the Report is more in the nature of a letter, or series of letters, to the home folks--THE INTERNATIONAL BIBLE STUDENTS-- rather than to the public in general.
(The public report of the Committee, as to its findings along the lines of missionary activity, can be had upon application to the International Bible Students' Association, 13-17 Hicks Street, Brooklyn, N.Y.)
As a basis for this report of their ORIENTAL EXPERIENCES, letters will be used, which the compiler of these "SOUVENIR NOTES" sent home from time to time, to the Chicago Class of International Bible Students.
These letters have been revised, and discourses, descriptive matter and interesting incidents inserted from place to place.
Thus all the International Bible Students reading these notes may mentally go over the route of some thirty-five thousand miles traversed by the Committee.
LETTER NO. 1.
On Board S.S. Shinyo Maru, Mid-Pacific Ocean, December 28, 1911.
To the Ecclesia of I.B.S.A., at Chicago, Ill., U.S.A. Dearly Beloved in the Lord:--
Grace, Mercy and Peace be unto you. IN accordance with my promise to send you word from time to time of our movements, I am writing this first general letter. I can, of course, give you but a brief outline, trusting that if it is the Lord's will to give further details in the next Souvenir Report.
After leaving Chicago the night of Monday, December 4th, and saying good-bye to the twenty or more friends who sang me off with "God be with you till we meet again," also over the phone to many others, whose loving words were much appreciated, I arrived in St. Louis the next morning. I was met at the station by Bro. Hoeveler, and, after breakfast, looked around for some of the rest of the committee, who were to come by different routes. Soon I saw Bro. Ernest Kuehn of Toledo, and a little later Bro. Maxwell of Mansfield, and still later the rest of the committee, Bro. Russell, Bro. Robison, General Hall and Bro. Pyles; also Bro. Margeson of Boston, who, though not a member of the committee officially, is making the tour with us, and incidentally acting as conductor of the party, thus making himself very useful in looking after many little details.
After exchanging greetings with a large number of friends from the St. Louis class, and nearby places, we went to the parlor of a hotel in connection with the station, and here Brother Russell talked to the friends for about three-quarters of an hour.
He called attention to the fact that many people were in bondage to the various sects, denominations, organizations, etc., and stated that as soon as we discover that we are in bondage to anything that limits our serving the Lord with our whole heart, then is the time to step aside. He then asked the question, Are we, then, in bondage to Christ? Yes, he said, bondage of the most absolute kind--for then we have no will of our own. This he illustrated by calling attention to the various members of our natural body, how they were all in bondage to the head, and this is the way we should be, as members of the Body of Christ, in bondage to him as our head. He stated that our finger, for instance, might wish to become independent. Very well, call in a surgeon, cut off the finger and lay it on the table. There it is, it is independent, is it not? But what good is it? it can do nothing, because it is severed from all connection with the head, the directing power. The only way we can be of use is to be bound to one another in the body of Christ, and then to keep our wills fully submissive to that of our great Head. We are like sheep, not like dogs which bite and devour one another.
He then called attention to the friction that is bound to occur among the members of this wonderful body, because they are all characters of much firmness, characters which will not be afraid if someone says "boo" to us. Otherwise the Lord would not be able to use them as jewels in His temple or crown. Each one as he rubs against another does two things--knocks off corners and polishes. He said we should not try to see how many corners we can knock off of others, but rather watch to see how much polishing we are receiving from our contact with each other. Then he called attention to gelatine, which can be made into as beautiful colors as real jewels, but there is no firmness to it--no hardness, and if it rubs against other masses of gelatine, it does not affect it at all. He then spoke about the holy Spirit, which, like oil, will do away with all fraction and make matters go smoothly in the classes.
He then had considerable to say about the election of elders, stating that in our elections, while having in mind the perfect elder, yet we must realize that none of us are perfect, and none will measure up to the full requirements. Some will seem to possess certain qualities to some of the friends, while others do not see those qualities. He suggested that if the majority agreed that a certain brother had the qualities of an elder, then the others should consider the matter and note if they were mistaken, and if possible try to make it unanimous. He said we should not be like the juryman who claimed the other eleven were stubborn because they did not see the matter just as he did.
Brother Russell then told a story on himself, how that, on one occasion he explained a certain matter in a way that he thought would be very simple and plain to all, but that somehow the friends could not see it. Then one sister got up and said something which he thought would surely mix up the friends completely. But just then one of the party arose and said, O, now I see. Thus he said one brother may be apt to teach some, even though many thought he did not have the qualifications. He stated there was too much splitting [CR185] of hairs, rather that we should look at the matter from a more general standpoint.
At 10 o'clock we were obliged to say good-by and started for Dallas, Texas. As there are just eight in our party, we occupy two tables in the dining car, and eat at the same time, which gives special opportunity for fellowship. It was a ride of a day and night to our next stop.
DALLAS, TEXAS.
WE arrived here about 9 o'clock in the morning, with the rain coming down plentifully. A number of the Dallas friends were at the station to meet the party, and gave us the usual Southern hearty welcome and all had the "Millennial Dawn Smile," notwithstanding the rain.
Here we were met by Brother and Sister George F. Wilson, of Oklahoma City, Okla., who will make the tour with us. Others also had expected to be in the party, but at the very last were prevented from so doing because of sickness.
Pastor Russell twice addressed the Dallas Bible Students, much to their pleasure and profit.
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.
IT was thought best that I should go on ahead of the rest of the party to Los Angeles, California, so I did not remain with the friends at Dallas, but started on with the intention of gaining twenty-four hours. I was due in San Antonio at 7:45 that night, and expected to leave at 8:30, but as my train was late, not arriving until after midnight, I went to a hotel for the night.
Early the next morning I went over to the railway station to see if any friends were there waiting for the train with the rest of the party, which was due at 7:30. The first person I saw that I knew was Sister Ida Zalmanzig, a sister who has helped to translate the 1st volume of "Scripture Studies" into the Spanish language, and who is doing colporteur work amongst the Mexicans who live in San Antonio, of which there are a great many. When I saw her she was handing out Spanish tracts to the Mexicans sitting in the station, and conversing a little with them.
Soon a number of others came to the station, some from nearby cities. Among them was Brother Seth Moore, of Crystal City, Texas. He is a blind brother, but he said he was glad to see me, notwithstanding his natural sight is gone.
The train with the rest of the party was also late and did not arrive for several hours, so I could not wait, but took the morning train for Los Angeles.
SAN ANTONIO TO LOS ANGELES.
I TRAVELED two days and nights, arriving at Los Angeles about noon. Brother Mitchell met me and took me in his auto to the Alexandria Hotel, and after registering I went with him to Boos Bros. Cafeteria, where a number of friends meet every noon for lunch --both spiritual and natural. (Such an arrangement obtains among friends in other large cities--those who work down in the cities--and it affords a splendid opportunity for discussing matters of interest.) There I met about a dozen of the friends.
That evening we all went to the station to meet the rest of the committee, having received word that they would be in about nine o'clock. It seems that their train out of San Antonio was very late, but, providentially the Lord had just put into service a few days before a brand new, handsome de luxe train, very rapid and extra price--I do not know that there was anything providential as to the price, but the speed was at any rate, for without it Pastor Russell could not have kept his appointment at Los Angeles the next day. The committee saw that this was the only chance to reach Los Angeles in time, so paid the extra fare and boarded the train.
On account of the high speed of that train the other members of the committee thought that they had passed Brother Jones' slow train somewhere out in the deserts of Arizona or New Mexico, and that he would be coming along some time after midnight; so they had a laugh to themselves, thinking that though I had started from Dallas twenty-four hours ahead of them that they would beat me into Los Angeles. However, they had the laugh to themselves, for when they stepped off the train at Los Angeles, I was there to meet them, having arrived that noon.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.
A LARGE delegation of the Los Angeles Class of International Bible Students escorted the committee to the Alexandria Hotel, and, after registering, we all went to the parlor of the hotel, and Pastor Russell told the friends about the meetings at Dallas and San Antonio.
SUNDAY.
The next morning, Sunday, was the day to which the friends had looked forward, and for which they had made preparation for a long time. The hall in which the morning services were held--the capacity of which was several hundred --was packed to its limit with Bible students. After an enjoyable Praise and Testimony Service, Pastor Russell was introduced, and spoke from the texts found in Romans 18:18, and 1 John 5:17, on the topic:
"THE WRATH OF GOD REVEALED AGAINST ALL
UNRIGHTEOUSNESS."
WE showed "how" and "why" it was revealed, and made very clear that ALL unrighteousness is sin, and not, as the old adage puts it, "To steal a pin is a sin, but to steal a tatter is a greater." It was sin in God's sight, whether Adam ate an apple or killed a man-- "All unrighteousness is sin, and the wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness." The following is a brief synopsis of his remarks:
The wrath of God is revealed, the pastor emphasized, and we see it all about us. Every cemetery witnesses to it, so does every coffin, every hearse, every piece of crape, every doctor's sign. Pain, suffering, speaks of disease; disease of decay; decay of death working in the human family and bringing all, rich and poor, bond and free, to the grave, the great prison house, from which none can escape until the resurrection, at the coming of Messiah.
Death, the penalty of sin, the manifestation of God's wrath against sin, began to be revealed six thousand years ago when our first parents disobeyed the Divine command. Every day and every hour since, the world has been witnessing that God's wrath is against it, that the death penalty is being inflicted. As the scriptures declare, the world has been under a Reign of Sin and Death. However sympathetic and loving the Heavenly Father has been, he has allowed stern justice to mete out this penalty against every member of our race. He is thus giving us a great lesson on the exceeding sinfulness of sin--its pernicious, injurious influence and results under Divine law. He wishes this lesson to be so thoroughly impressed upon our race that when in due time, He shall bring in relief we will never forget the lesson, to all eternity, but will hate sin and dread it as our worst foe.
We may understand the Apostle to lay special emphasis upon the word "all" in our text--"The wrath of God is revealed against all unrighteousness"--not merely against great [CR186] sins and gross violence, but against every form of sin--even the slightest. Thus the scriptures declare that God's law is one, and that a violation of it in one point means the violation of the entire law. To break one commandment would be sin and merit the death penalty; and to break all the commandments would be sin and merit the death penalty. Eternal life is provided only for those who are perfect and who maintain that perfection and harmony with God by full obedience to the Divine law in every particular.
Do not misunderstand me to teach that it makes no matter whether one be a gross sinner or only a minor offender. In one way it will matter, and in another way it will not. Adam's transgression was, in some respects, a minor one, as compared to that of his son, Cain. Adam stole and ate a forbidden apple, and the penalty was death--the very strongest penalty of God's law. If he had murdered his wife the penalty would have been the same--death--not eternal torment.
Whatever Adam's transgression, divine law would have hindered him from ever again coming back to God. It would have cut him off from everlasting life, and he would have need of a Savior, just the same for one sin as for another. Murder would have been sin, and the disobedient eating of the apple was sin, and sin cannot be condoned by the divine law. It requires a Redeemer, and to be the Redeemer He must suffer death, the penalty that was against Father Adam.
Now notice the case of Cain. He was shapen in iniquity; in sin did his mother conceive him; the condemnation upon our first parents extended to him; he was born with a fallen nature, he was born under the death sentence. The killing of his brother Abel did not increase the penalty, which stood the same--death--cutting off from life. "The wages of sin is death"; "The soul that sinneth it shall die."
RETRIBUTION--SOWING AND REAPING.
There would have been no message sent to mankind exhorting to righteousness and to turn from sin had God not intended to redeem man by the death of His Son; and redeeming them means to give each and all of the human family another opportunity, another trial, another judgment--to test their worthiness or unworthiness of everlasting life--to prove to what extent their acquaintance with sin and its penalty has taught them the great lesson respecting the sinfulness and undesirability of sin and the sureness of its penalty --death.
Accordingly, for 4,000 years God sent no message to the world in general--until Jesus came and died, the Just for the unjust, and thus made possible the release of mankind from the death sentence--a resurrection from the dead. The only exception to this rule was God's Covenant with Israel, under which they tried to gain eternal life by keeping the law, and became a great example of the fallen man's inability and of the need of the Savior.
LIGHT SHINED IN DARKNESS.
For more than eighteen centuries this message has been going forth--namely, that God has provided for the race a redemption from the original death sentence, and that there is to be a "resurrection of the dead, both of the Just and the unjust." All mankind who hear this Message are thereby warned that every art of the present life will have its weight, either in the uplifting or in the degrading of his own character, and thus have a bearing upon his future interests. It is in view of this future opportunity for life or death everlasting that our conduct in the present time has a bearing.
Those who have the hearing ear and the eyes of understanding opened, discern, as the Apostle says, that in God's estimation all unrighteousness is sin--however great or small. Those who now accept God's invitation are informed that if they make a consecration of their lives to follow in Jesus' footsteps, God will deal with them as with new creatures, and no longer impute to them their share of Adam's condemnation, but treat them as having passed from death condemnation to life justification.
Moreover, their flesh will be reckoned as dead; full arrangements will be made for the covering over of all their unintentional weaknesses, and their judgment in God's sight will be according to their will or intention. If their intentions are perfect they will be counted as perfect through the merit of their Redeemer and Advocate. But St. Paul admonishes the church, saying: "If we sin wilfully, after that we have received a knowledge of the truth," "and have tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible to renew us again to repentance"--wilfulness in the matter would seal our case, however small the transgression --just as it sealed Adam's fate with his minor transgression.
But let us not forget that the Apostle limits this possibility of sin--the sin unto death--to the church--to the Spirit begotten ones. These, receiving their share of the great Atonement sacrifice of Jesus, and failing to conform to the divine requirement, come under the divine penalty a second time, and theirs will be the second death, from which there will be no resurrection, no recovery.--Compare Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-31.
COMING EVENTS CAST SHADOWS BEFORE.
It should be clear to us then, that, in harmony with our text, the whole world is now under the wrath of God, which came upon the race through the disobedience of our first parents; and the only ones who have escaped from that wrath and gotten back into harmony with God are the saintly few, begotten of the Holy Spirit. The escape of these from Divine wrath or the death sentence is not actual, but by faith. They reckon themselves as having passed "from death unto life."
As for the remainder of the world, they are not thus reckoned, for they are yet in their sins, still children of wrath and experiencing the penalty of sin. The world will continue under these conditions until the completion of the election of the church, and then the Redeemer, who now occupies the position of Advocate toward the church, will assume a new office; He, with His church associated with Him, will become the great Mediator between God and men. He will mediate for Israel and for all the families of the earth--appropriating the merit of His sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, even as in the beginning of this age He imputed this merit to the church for the covering of her sins.
Thenceforth, as soon as the great High Priest shall have sealed that New Covenant for the world, and the Father shall have accepted it, the sins of the world will be cancelled. That is to say, death, the wrath of God revealed against all unrighteousness for six thousand years, will immediately be cancelled as respects all who will then avail themselves of the privilege and enter into the New Covenant relationship. The glorious mediator of that New Covenant will bind Satan for 1,000 years and scatter all the ignorance and superstition which now darken the human mind and cause misapprehensions of the Divine Word and character. Simultaneously He will get loose the blessed influences of truth and enlightenment and the "whole earth shall be filled with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God."
Thenceforth the wrath of God will no longer be revealed against any on account of Adam's transgression. It will no longer be necessary to be sick or in pain, or dying. On the contrary, all may be making good, rapid progress up, up, up, out of weakness and dying conditions, back toward the full perfection of human nature which Adam had before he sinned, when he was in the image of his Creator. There will still be the marks of the wrath upon mankind, the weakness and imperfections of the human flesh. These marks will not be fully blotted out until toward the close of the 1,000 years of Messiah's reign. This agrees fully with St. Peter's words, "That your sins may be blotted out when times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." (Acts 3:19.) It is therefore one thing to have our sins forgiven and to realize that God is no longer angry with us but reconciled, and it is quite another thing to know our sins are blotted out.
The sins of the church are forgiven the moment we are accepted of God through Christ and made partakers of the Holy Spirit and are styled children of God and heirs. But the marks, the blemishes of sin, continue with us as long as we have our present, imperfect bodies. This to the church will mean that the blotting out of their sins will be in death, because the church will be awakened in the resurrection perfect, "spotless," "without blame," "irreprovable." The Apostle describes this resurrection as the Chief Resurrection, saying, "It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body."--1 Corinthians 15:44; Rev. 20:6.
"THE WRATH TO COME."
If we have seen what has constituted the divine wrath as it has been revealed for 6,000 years, we will be the better prepared to understand what to look for in respect to any [CR187] future manifestations of Divine wrath--"wrath to come." We are to clearly distinguish between the wrath of a good man and the wrath of a bad man, and how these would manifest themselves; and, similarly, we should be able to discern between the wrath of God and the wrath of the devil. The wrath of God, as exhibited to us for 6,000 years on the pages of history, has been a just dealing--the abandonment to destruction of those who are not worthy of everlasting life, by reason of disobedience to divine law.
The redemption accomplished for these through the death of Jesus will eventually be gloriously worked out, and give to every man a full opportunity of recovery, harmony with God and everlasting life. The reason why God makes this provision for redemption is because only one man sinned wilfully and intelligently. All the remainder of his children were "born in sin" and under the death sentence. The redemption, therefore, is in order that every individual may have an opportunity for reaching a decision as to obedience or disobedience.
PUBLIC SERVICE.
It had been arranged to hold the public service at 3 o'clock in a large auditorium, but at the last moment it was found that the hall could not be put in readiness, and the next best thing was a large tent. This proved to be just the thing, as it held a large number of people who filled every seat and listened with very great attention for about an hour and a half while Bro. Russell spoke on "Which Is the True Gospel?" At the close of the service hundreds of people took the "Hell Tower" as copies of it were handed out.
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA.
THE San Francisco and Oakland Classes consolidated for the day and all meetings were therefore held in Oakland. The morning service was a Testimony Meeting, participated in by the audience in general, and the members of the committee.
The afternoon service consisted of a discourse by Pastor Russell, then a Symposium by members of the touring party. Brother Russell called attention to the wonderful things which the Church has been called to, and how we should bend every effort to attain to that for which we have been called. He spoke especially about the future work of the Church, after the Millennial Age, and stated that, while there is no positive statement from the Scriptures, yet there is much that points to the fact that inasmuch as "God created not the earth in vain, but formed it to be inhabited," so with all the other planets around our sun. Then would that be all? he asked. No, he said that astronomers tell us that there are planets around all the other stars, which are themselves suns, and that beyond the millions of stars or suns that we can see, each having their own set of planets revolving around them, are millions upon millions of other stars. And, that doubtless the work of the Church throughout eternity to come would be to people, govern and direct the affairs in connection with those billions of planets. In support of this he called attention to the text in Ephesians 2:7, "That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in His kindness toward us through Jesus Christ."
[CR187]
ACROSS THE PACIFIC
GOOD-BYE TO AMERICA.
TUESDAY, Dec. 31, 1911--The great day came when we were to leave America for the far East, and hurry home, by way of India, Egypt, etc. Arrangements were made to sail on the Japanese boat, "Shinyo Maru," which signifies "Springtime on the Ocean." The weather was almost like July, the air brisk and the skies as blue as indigo. There were about fifty friends at the wharf to see the party off. Besides these, there were many others, friends of the other passengers. Our friends came on board and inspected our new home for the next few weeks. Incidentally, they left Brother Russell many bouquets, decorated his berth with flowers, gave him several boxes of candy, etc., all tokens of their Christian love and esteem, for his work's sake. Just before leaving the ship they assembled before the stateroom door and sang, "God be with you till we meet again." In response he offered a brief prayer and a parting blessing upon them all.
We lifted anchor at one o'clock, the immense crowd of people on the wharf waving their handkerchiefs to their friends on board. It was a very impressive sight.
We soon passed out through the "Golden Gate" and were then on the great Pacific Ocean, with an average depth of two miles, and six thousand miles across. This reminded us of the hymn, "There is a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea"; also of the one, "His love is deeper than the deepest sea"; also of the Scripture, "The knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall fill the whole earth, as the waters cover the great deep."
SHINYO MARU.
ALL then went to our state rooms and began to arrange our things for about a four weeks' stay on the boat. She is comparatively a new boat, 550 feet long, 63 feet wide, and 38-1/2 feet deep. This is her third voyage.
On board such a ship as this one is surrounded by all the comforts and requirements that can be desired. The spacious dining-saloon, social hall and library, and--what is so essential to comfort on a steamship--the large, well ventilated cabins and bath rooms, make the traveler feel that he has left none of the luxuries of modern life behind him.
The captain is an Englishman, the purser, first mate, steward and doctor are Americans, but the rest of the officers are [CR188] Japanese. The rest of the crew are mostly Japanese, and some Chinese. It seemed queer at first to have so many Japs and Chinamen about us, but we have gotten so used to it now that we think nothing of it. The dining room is very nice and the bills of fare elaborate and wholesome.
Brother Russell was soon ready to begin work and began dictating. Very little time goes to waste if he can help it, and he is a wonderful example for all. The rest of the party put in the time in various ways, some walking the decks, the others reading, and some taking it rather easy, for they began to have queer feelings, even though the sea was quite smooth. All were at dinner, however, some appreciating it more than others. Everything is very nice on board the ship, meals good, and the state rooms quite large, and in fact, the appointments of the entire ship are first-class. While not as large as the great Atlantic liners, it is equal to them in many respects.
It is said that a trip around the world in this day of rapid, inexpensive and luxurious travel--the very contemplation of which would have awed our grandparents, is looked upon now almost as an essential part of the education of a scholar, the politician, and the man of business.
The days on the water are much alike, nothing but water in sight. We have not passed a ship. During the day Brother Russell is busy dictating, part of the time to me and part of the time to Brother Robison. The rest of the committee meet each morning for a Dawn Study, which Brother Kuehn conducts. Occasionally some of the passengers come in also, but the hearing ears are few and far between. Occasionally the wind gets boisterous and kicks up quite a sea, and the presence of a number of the passengers is conspicuous by their absence. I have been feeling fine and have not lost a meal, either by not eating it or after eating it.
The dining-saloon is an oft-recurring attraction. The sea air, the sea breezes, the exercise on deck (on board this ship a walk eight times around the deck equals a mile), the joys of good company, all tend to put the traveler on the best of terms with his appetite. The well equipped tables, the snowy damask, the silver and the other accompaniments, joined with the triumphs of kitchen art placed before one by Oriental waiters, in spotless white, all tend to bring joy and content.
December 14, 1911. This is Wednesday, and a very clear day, though somewhat chilly. They tell us that we will strike warmer weather in a day or two. As it is, an overcoat is quite welcome, even inside, but especially out on the deck. All seemed to have had a good night's rest. A number got up at what they thought was reasonable time for breakfast, but after waiting quite a while, they learned that the time drops back about thirty minutes every half day, so that it was really thirty minutes earlier. It is now three hours and a half earlier here than in New York, or two hours and a half earlier here than in Chicago, because we are running away from the sun all the time. Soon we will come to a place, they tell us, where we cross a certain line and will have lost an entire day. In other words, at that time, today will be yesterday.
Brother Russell and his two stenographers have been busy all the morning, while the rest of the party have begun the reading of the Scripture Studies, hoping to read them all during the trip. It is now afternoon. All the party except two were at the tables for lunch, which was nicely prepared and served by Japanese and Chinese waiters. The Japs wear white jackets, while the Chinese wear long blue aprons, reaching nearly to the floor. Some have queues and some have cut them off. They seem to understand us pretty well, but we cannot understand much they say, and, of course, absolutely nothing when they talk in their native tongues.
SUNDAY ON THE PACIFIC.
NEARING HONOLULU.
BY special request from Captain Smith, of the Shinyo Maru, Pastor Russell conducted a service for Divine worship from eleven to twelve o'clock. A number of the passengers were present, besides the committee and those traveling with them. Bro. Ernest Kuehn presided at the piano, and the entire congregation joined in the singing. The service opened with the singing of "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name."
Prayer by Pastor Russell.
Hymn, "The Church's One Foundation."
Reading of 27th Psalm by Pastor Russell.
Hymn, "How Firm a Foundation."
Text: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou are mindful of him? and the Son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the work of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and all oxen, yea, and the beast of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth."--Psalm 8:3-9.
THE suggestion of the prophet respecting man is one which we believe has occurred to every intelligent being. As we look out upon the vast expanse of water and the riding of our vessel upon it, we think, How little is man; how small a speck in the universe. When we look up into the heavens and realize that they represent so much more of divine power, we are still more surprised. When we consider the heavens and realize that all these stars, except the planets which belong to our own system, are really suns and that around each of these suns revolve planets as our earth revolves around our sun, and when we think of the number of those suns and their planets, we are amazed, and we feel [CR189] our own littleness all the more. We ask astronomers as to the number of those suns, and they tell us that there are a hundred million of them in sight, and if we would average the planets around those hundred million suns at ten, it would be ten hundred millions of planets. And then they tell us further that if we could take our stand upon the very farthermost one of these we would see still beyond us as many more, and as many more. Our minds are appalled as we begin to think of the heavens, the work of God's fingers, and then to consider man, how small a work in God's sight. We have an appreciation then of what the Scriptures say man is like in God's sight, as "the dust in the balance," that is not worthy to be taken into account. We have all been in the grocer's shop and noticed that he pays no attention to the dust in the scoop of his scale. So man is so small in the sight of the great Divine Creator that we wonder that God should have any interest at all in humanity.
Only for the Bible, dear friends, we should have no knowledge of God's interest in us, and we might think that God is so great that he would have no heed for us. But, when God reveals himself to us in the Bible, we begin to see that there is not only divine power exercised and manifested in the creation of all these worlds, we also have this divine power manifested in God's dealings with us, and also the love of God which the Scriptures state, "Passeth all understanding." What wonderful condescension on the part of the Creator that he should have heed to us.
But our text goes on to give us further information on this subject. "What is man that Thou are mindful of him, and the Son of man that Thou visiteth him, for Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels." Only a little lower is the thought. Of the angels the Scriptures give us to understand there are various ranks, some higher and some lower, but all perfect. Then in the world we have various orders of animal life, the beast of the field, the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and man as the highest of these earthly beings, and he stands related to all these lower creatures as God does to the entire universe, and this is the honor with which our great Creator endowed his human creatures. So we are told in this Psalm, "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet." What a wonderful creature man is, then, from this standpoint! While he is a little lower than the angels so far as his nature in connection with the earth is concerned, whereas the angels are more excellent so far as their natures are concerned, but in this psalm it speaks of man as being superior in this respect, that he has a dominion. The angels do not have dominion over other angels, but all are subject to the great Creator, God. But man, in the likeness of his Creator, has been given a dominion over the lower creatures, and in this respect it is a wonderful honor with which he has been crowned--"Thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and hast set him over the work of Thy hands."
It might be said with great propriety that if God is thus careful of humanity and has so highly honored his human creatures, why should He not have made a still better preparation for us in the world? Why is it that they are subject to such unfavorable conditions under which we now exist? Why is there sorrow, pain, sighing, crying and dying? Why have we tempests, storms, cyclones and tornadoes, famine, drought and pestilence--why all these things if God is so careful of us as his creatures? We would have no answer for all these questions were it not provided in the Bible. In this wonderful book of all books, we have the key to the answer, the explanation, and that is: Originally God provided that man should be subject to none of these difficulties and disasters. Man was made perfect and placed under favorable and perfect surroundings in a perfect garden, Eastward in Eden with everything necessary for his welfare. No storms, no sickness, no tempests, no difficulties, and man himself might have lived forever. Such was the wonderful dominion of this human Son of God.
Why then the change? This wonderful book answers that the change all came about because of sin, and so we read. St. Paul says, "By one man's disobedience sin entered into the world." (There was no sin in the world before) "and death came as a result of sin." There was no dying on the part of man until sin came. So, all the aches, pains, sorrows and sicknesses which we experience are all part of this dying process. And so the difficulty with us all, then, my dear friends, is that by nature we are children of wrath. Is divine wrath torture? No, indeed. That was handed down to us, perhaps, by our well-meaning forefathers. Oh no, Oh no. The wrath of God we see on every hand, as the Apostle Paul declares. "The wrath of God is revealed" --in our own bodies, our aches and pains, mental imperfections, physical imperfections and moral imperfections, all of which are parts of this great penalty for sin, because we read that when man became a transgressor God sent the holy angel to drive our first parents out from the Garden of Eden, away from the trees of life that were to sustain them in perfection, out into the unfinished earth. While the whole earth could have just as easily been made perfect, God left it unfinished, unprepared for man, and merely prepared a garden Eastward in Eden for the trial of our first parents; because divine wisdom foresaw that man would sin, and instead of making the whole earth perfect, God left it in an imperfect condition, except the Garden of Eden. So we read that when God thrust our first parents out of the Garden of Eden, he said, "Cursed is the earth" (not that I will make it unfit, but it is already) for thy sake. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth, and in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou return to the ground, for out of it wast thou taken. Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return."
In other words, dear friends, the great penalty against our race is a DEATH PENALTY, "Dying thou shalt die." Gen. 2:17. This has been upon our race for six thousand years, from the time that sin entered into the world. So all the pages of history from Adam's day to this are marked with sin and sorrow, pain and sighing; because we are all sinners, and because we are sinners God is treating us according to His own purpose, "Dying thou shalt die."
But this is the sad side of the matter. Is there no other side to the matter, is there no hope for us? The same blessed book--the Bible--tells us. The Gospel message, which signified "good tidings," tells us that God has some good tidings for those whom he condemned to death. We inquire, What is this good message? The Scriptures answer, the good message is that he who condemned us as unfit for eternal life has provided for our redemption, that his Son became our Redeemer, that Christ died, the "just for the unjust," that he might bring all back into harmony with God. Oh, we say, but did not Jesus die eighteen hundred or more years ago? Yes, truly. And have we not the same reign of sin and death as then? Yes. Where, then, is the blessing which has come through Jesus. Well, we answer, a two-fold blessing has been provided. First of all, a blessing of hope which some of God's people enjoy, a blessing of knowledge that in God's due time He will bring in the great blessing that this gospel message tells of.
WHAT IS THE GOSPEL MESSAGE?
Oh, it is that God provided a Redeemer and that, therefore, there shall be a resurrection of the dead; they shall [CR190] not remain dead, but come forth. There shall be a new dispensation, a glorious morning in which all sin and sorrow will be done away. So, the Scriptures assure us of that time that there shall be no more sighing, no more crying, no more dying, because all the former things, all the things of sin, the things of death will all have passed away. And we inquire, who is so powerful as to overthrow sin and death, and lift up humanity from death out of sin and weakness and imperfection and bring him back? The bible answers this question that the One who will do this is the great One who sits upon the throne of God, as we read, "He that sitteth upon His throne said, Behold, I make all things new." But who is this? Oh, the very same One, who, by the grace of God became our Redeemer, Jesus; He is to be the great King of Kings and Lord of lords, and is to reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth, and under the blessed influence of that kingdom the full blessing of God shall come to the earth again. "All the blind eyes shall be opened and all the deaf ears shall be unstopped," the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. These are words of the prophet given to us for our hope and strengthening of our hearts that we might turn from sin and become more and more the children of God.
We have spoken about the world and how it is to be
blessed by the Messianic Kingdom, the Kingdom of God's
dear Son, the Kingdom Jesus taught us to pray for, "Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in
heaven," but we see not all these things accomplished yet. We
see not mankind brought back to perfection, nor the great
work of good tidings accomplished amongst men. But we have
a word from the Apostle upon this subject. He said, But
we see not all things put under man, but out of harmony.
But, says the Apostle, we see a beginning of God's work;
we see Jesus, who by the grace of God has tasted death
for every man. We see more than that, my friends. More
than eighteen hundred years have passed. Not only Jesus
has tasted death, but a great many have been going into
death, in answer to the call to be of the Bride of Christ,
the Church of the First Born, to be associated with our
Lord--this is the church we sang about in our second hymn:
"The Church's one foundation,
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy Bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died."
This is the first work, then, of God in the redemption of mankind--the gathering of the Bride of Christ, the Church, to be associated with Christ, and to share in His glory, honor and immortality. We hope to be of this class, and to this class belong all the great promises that they with Him shall share with Him in the first resurrection, and then bless all the families of the earth with restitution. The world of mankind is to be restored to all that Adam had and lost, all of which Jesus redeemed at Calvary, and associated with Him will be the Church, called out of the world, a saintly class who have been walking in the footsteps of Jesus, as we read again in the words of Jesus, "Blessed and holy are those who have a part in the first resurrection, on such the second death hath no power; they shall be priests unto God and Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years." The thousand years of Messiah's reign, the thousand years of the world's uplift, the thousand in which Satan will be bound, the thousand years in which knowledge shall fill the whole earth, the thousand years in which the world shall be brought to the paradisaic condition, which was symbolically represented in the Garden of Eden, and when every creature in heaven and earth and under the earth shall be brought to that glorious condition where they will sing praises to God and to Him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb for ever and ever.
And yet there is another side, for the same Scriptures which tell us of the exaltation of the Church to glory and the blessings of the world through the Kingdom of Messiah, which tell that the earth will be the Paradise of God, they also tell us of a class of incorrigibles which will be punished. After this class have been brought to a full knowledge of God and then wilfully sin against divine light and blessings, the punishment against these will not be eternal torment, but destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power, as said St. Paul.
The service closed with the use of "Nearer my God to Thee."
Prayer by Pastor Russell. ----------
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.
FROM San Francisco a voyage of six days, with gradually increasing temperature, brought us in sight of Diamond Head, the landmark of Honolulu. The Hawaiian Islands, our beautiful territory in the Pacific, have been aptly called the "Paradise of the Pacific." The sensuous beauty of the tropics is there mingled with the inspiring grandeur of high and rugged mountains and volcanic formations; the warmth of the torrid zone is tempered by the ever-present ocean or mountain breezes. Honolulu, the capital is a handsome city and with embowered streets, electric cars, electric lights and modern hotels. The houses are surrounded by gardens ablaze with blossoms, palms and all the wonderful foliage of the tropics. The population is most cosmopolitan and picturesque, including the "dark-eyed Kanakas," Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, East Indians and many other nationalities.
We arrived there early in the morning, and soon the government doctors came aboard and inspected the ship and passengers. Then the pilot came aboard and steered the ship through the narrow channel in to the beautiful harbor. In it were all kinds of ships, a number of them being United States war ships. From the harbor we had a beautiful view of the mountains and could see some craters of extinct volcanoes.
Our visit here was one of great interest and profit. Providentially a gentleman came to the ship to meet a party of missionaries whom he had been expecting, but they failed to arrive on our ship. He made the acquaintance of our party and kindly volunteered to act as our guide, whose kind services we gladly accepted. If we had looked the islands over for weeks and made arrangements in advance for a guide, we could not have secured one better known or better posted than this gentleman. He had lived there nearly thirty years; he had been a sugar planter, but now retired from active business. The population held him in high esteem; he seemed to know everyone, and every turn in the road. He is a hard worker in the churches and in missionary work, and connected with several of the mission schools. We, therefore, considered his presence providential. Therefore, with trolley cars, automobiles and his assistance, we [CR191] secured information which otherwise would have consumed considerable time.
THE next afternoon on board ship we all got together in the parlor and this time had with us a lady passenger who was becoming interested. Brother Russell talked to her, and we all occasionally put in a question. He talked truth to her and we all asked questions as to the missionary work in Japan. She is or has been an Episcopalian, but is disgusted with the churches. She is a very fine lady and I believe is a real grain of wheat. Sister Wilson got her started, so you see the Lord has a reason for sending Sister Wilson along, the only lady in the party. This lady married a Japanese some twenty-five years ago, and he is connected with a large factory for the manufacture of Japanese pottery, which is shipped all over the world; they employ about three thousand people. The Missionaries have often tried to get her to co-operate with them because of her great influence on the Island, but she said she could not believe what they taught.
The next night a heavy wind came up and as a result many of the people the next morning had that peculiar expression that goes with sea-sickness. It must be experienced in order to be appreciated. It is a good deal like the little girl described her feelings when "looping the loop" on one of the figure of eight coasters. She said, "Mama, it felt like I had freckles on my stomach."
The next day the wind had subsided somewhat and the friends gradually came forth from their places of refuge. Your humble servant, however, has not been troubled so far, but we are not out of the woods yet, so I will not crow.
When I had opportunity I conveyed to Brother Russell the greetings sent by me, some in particular and others in general. To all of which he said, When you write back, kindly express to the friends my appreciation of their kind words.
It is a great comfort to know that you are all remembering us in your prayers to the throne of grace, and we feel that much of the success of this tour will be due to your prayers. Keep them up.
As we are running away from the sun, the time here is about a half day earlier with us than with you. I am now writing this two days out from Honolulu, and so far I have lost over seven hours since leaving Chicago. Therefore, when it is one o'clock in the morning with me, it is eight with you. When we get to Yokohama it will be a great deal more. Saturday night we will pass the 180th meridian, and here we drop a whole day, namely, December the 24th, which with you will be Sunday, but we will not have any Sunday this week. As Monday, the 25th, is Christmas, and all the stores out here on the ocean will be closed, it will be a holiday, and there is to be on board ship a combined Sunday and Christmas. Brother Russell has been invited by the captain to give an address appropriate to the occasion, and they will have the ship decorated and we will have a high time. Don't you wish you could celebrate with us? Last Sunday Brother Russell, by request, had charge of the Divine Worship, and gave a splendid address for three-quarters of an hour, covering the entire plan.
The rest of the passengers on board amuse themselves in various ways. There are a number of ship games that can be played on the deck. Evenings they have moving picture shows, dances, sleight of hand performances, etc., etc.
Friday, Dec. 22. The days have been much alike and nothing of special interest has occured. Today, however, we pass the 180th meridian, which we pass about midnight. Our time now is called West Longitude, but as soon as we pass that meridian it will be called East Longitude, and in order to have the same time as the folks at home when we arrive at home, it will be necessary for us to skip an entire day. Therefore, we will drop tomorrow, Saturday, the 23d, entirely out of our calendar, so that after midnight tonight, Friday night, it will be Sunday morning. Since we left Chicago, for instance, we have been going away from the sun, or, in other words, the sun would rise at Chicago about half an hour earlier every day than it does with us on the ship. By the time we get to this meridian, while it is only Friday night at midnight on the ship, it will be 9 o'clock Saturday morning in Chicago, that is, the sun will rise there nine hours earlier than with us. However, we will just skip right over Saturday and instead of calling it Saturday the next minute after midnight Friday, we will call it Sunday morning. So that, while it is still 9 o'clock Saturday morning in Chicago, we will have jumped over Saturday and it will be Sunday morning with us on the ship. In other words instead of being nine hours behind Chicago, we will be fifteen hours ahead. We will, however, keep losing half an hour per day while traveling West, so that by the time we get to Chicago again we will have exactly the same time.
SUNDAY, DEC. 24, 1911.
SERMON BY PASTOR RUSSELL ON BOARD S. S. SHINYO MARU.
(By request of Captain Smith.)
Our text is chosen from the chapter read, Romans 1:16 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."
[CR192]
THERE are many religions and it is a mistake that we have, perhaps, said in the past that there is no religion but one. A religion would properly be considered: "Any system of worship by which any people recognize the Almighty and seek to do Him honor." We are, therefore, to recognize the various great religions that are in the world, in the sense that we would not properly ignore them. We have, for instance, the Confucian teaching, the Brahmin teaching, the Buddhist teaching, the Mohammedan teaching, the Jewish teaching and the Christian teaching. These all present themselves to us as religious teachings. They all believe themselves more or less rational; they all believe themselves more or less reasonable. Every man tries to think that his own theory on any matter is a seasonable theory, and he is proper in so doing.
This morning, in harmony with our text, we propose to compare the religion of Jesus to all other religions. In the beginning, we state with the Apostle, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." Whatever may be said of other gospels, we believe, as Christians, that in the Christian religion we have that of which no man need be ashamed. There may, perhaps, be certain features and forms of certain creeds of which we might be ashamed--they do not come up to our highest ideals. But the Christian religion, as presented in the Word of God, should be the standard of Christianity, and of that we are not ashamed. It will compare with all other religions in the world, and come off victorious in every sense of the word. All of these various religions seem to recognize that man is in an imperfect, unsatisfactory, sinful condition; therefore, each of these religions seek to present certain tenets, or teachings, that will help him up out of his imperfect condition, back into harmony with his God.
If we consider the teachings of the Mohammedans, they have certain qualities which are very advantageous, and other qualities that we could not so highly recommend. Their endeavor is not to do injury, but to make man better. Their theory is that mankind are fallen and need lifting up out of their fallen condition. The same may be said of the Brahmin, the Confucian and the Buddhist. They are all more or less presentations of what are supposed to be cures for man's fallen condition, cures for his unsatisfactory attitude. Some of these religions offer one kind of a penalty for those who will not accept them, and others offer other kinds. Some offer one kind of reward for those who accept and follow their teachings, while others offer other kinds of rewards. But all agree that man needs to be elevated and lifted up out of his fallen condition, which is sinful and unsatisfactory. There seems to be in every man naturally, without any education on the subject, something which tells him that he is not perfect, not in full accord with his own conscience, not in accord with his own highest ideals of the divine mind. All religions, therefore, recognize this principle of sin and propose remedies therefor. We see the evidence of these as manifested in their disciples everywhere. Some seek to crucify the flesh in one form or another--some by flagellations, some by restraints upon the various liberties of life, some by holding their hands in the air for days, seeking to become holy and thus appease their god. None of these things seem, to our minds, in the light of the gospel of Christ, to be the highest and noblest ideals. Doubtless all have done some good and uplifted some men out of the degradation in which they were. Mankind might have been worse off if it had not been for these religions.
But now, if we compare these with the religion of Jesus Christ, we believe everything is to be said in favor of the religion of Christ. In the first place, all of these religions more or less resemble the Jewish religion, which is of God, and hence all of these religions are all more or less in harmony with God's proposition. His proposition to the Jews was, "Do these things and ye shall live," have everlasting life. That was the Covenant made by God with them at Mount Sinai at the hands of Moses. They thought at first that they would surely be lifted up out of sin, because God had given them a law, and by keeping it they would be perfect and be brought into harmony with God. In this they were mistaken, because, as they found out, that as the centuries passed, none of them were able to keep the law, because it is the measure of the perfect man's ability, and none of them could measure up to the perfect man. The Jews found, as the Apostle states it, "By the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified in His sight." But they found, also, that the Law, instead of perfecting, justifying them and giving them eternal life, the Law brought to them a greater realization of sin than they ever had before, and this was the real blessing of the Law Covenant--it showed them their sinful condition and their inability to lift themselves out of it. The Jews do not recognize that great fact today, for if they did they would be crying to God for mercy instead of trying to keep the Law and thus justify themselves.
But the same thing might be said to be true of all the heathen religions. All offer help by which mankind may make themselves perfect, but none are able to make themselves perfect, and they all realize that they are sinners and imperfect to the last degree. There is, therefore, nothing that is logical in any of these, because they all start out to claim that a man ought to be perfect, ought to be holy, [CR193] and are agreed that he is not. This agrees with the words of God with respect to Israel. "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight." It agrees with all of these that man is a sinner, that he cannot do the things that he would, that his ideals are to be and are higher than his capacity and ability. And so St. Paul declares, "We cannot do the things which we would."
Christianity answers that the reason is that we are fallen creatures, sold under sin. Who sold us, when and where? The bible answers that, "By one man's disobedience sin entered into the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men." Death has passed upon the entire race and thus impoverished it mentally, morally and physically, so that now, because of the fall, we cannot do the things which we would like to do.
The bible tells us that originally Adam was not in our condition, but was perfect and he could do and could keep the divine law perfectly, but that we are sold under sin. And so the Prophet David expresses that same thought, "I was born in sin, shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." So we behold, my dear friends, that we are a race of sinners, imperfect mentally, morally and physically; and, therefore, unable to keep the divine standard or law. What, then, does Christianity offer us that no other religion offers us? Christianity offers us a Saviour, and no other religion offers a Saviour. Christianity recognizes that the condition came about by one man's disobedience, Adam, and it sets forth Jesus as the One who redeems man from that death sentence that came upon our first parents, "As by a man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead," writes St. Paul. "For as in Adam all die, even so all in Christ shall be made alive," writes St. Paul--"Every man in his own order." Here, then, Christianity has a superiority logically, in that it provides for a satisfaction of divine justice. All religions say that it is divine justice that is opposed to sin, but Christianity offers a satisfaction for divine justice. "Christ died for our sins," "Gave Himself a ransom for all." "He is a propitiation (satisfaction) for our sins (writes the Apostle) and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." So, then, Christianity is not only more logical, but is more just--it recognizes Divine justice. We must recognize that if God condemned the world understandingly and truly, as the Great Judge of mankind, there must be some satisfaction of justice ere the Chief Justice of the universe could set aside the penalty and release the culprit. Man has sinned and the great Chief Justice has passed the sentence, and there is no way to revoke that sentence except by meeting it. And so, Christianity sets forth that our Lord Jesus came into the world to meet the penalty, and that He by the grace of God tasted death for every man.
Christianity has another superiority over all other religions, and it is this: That it recognizes a love and compassion upon the part of God that no other religion recognizes. All these religions do recognize a God, and I claim it makes very little difference whether they call him Allah or Jehovah or some other name; they recognize, we believe, the same one God, but they do not recognize His real traits of character. They perceive His justice, and their own transgressions of Divine justice, but they do not see the merciful provision that God has made. Their god is represented by the Chinese idol, which pictures the character of God. I remember a Chinese banner I once saw--the figure on this banner represented a very demon-like character, and lightning was represented as flashing from his closed fist. He was a god to be feared, one who would take vengeance upon them.
The God of the bible, while just, is not a vengeful God, not unkind; but, on the contrary, He is the God of all grace, the Father of mercies, from Whom cometh every good and perfect gift. And the great gift that He gave is the greatest of all gifts, the gift of His Son for man's sin, that thus He might offer a satisfaction to His own Justice. Nor was this at the expense or contrary to the will of the Redeemer; because the Scriptures make clear that it was by virtue of the prize set before our Lord, as we read, "For the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross despising the shame."
This love of God is not content with merely the provision of the Saviour, and the arrangement that if anybody shall hear and believe he shall be blessed, but this love of God proposes to go still further, namely: That he who thus redeems the race shall become the King of earth, and his scepter of rule shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth, until every knee shall bow and every tongue confess to the glory of God, and the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep, and every creature shall come to know that there is a God, and that the way He proposes to be just and merciful is through His Son, Who is to be the great Deliverer of the race.
In what way will this great Deliverer come? This is a part of the gospel, a part of the good tidings--it is through His great Kingdom which He will set up in His own due time. His Kingdom shall not be merely for the rich, or powerful, but for the poor. He shall lift up the poor from the dunghill, is a part of the prophecy. His power and influence shall be the great lifting principle that will level the whole world of mankind. As the Scriptures declare, all men are on a common level before God, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and all are recipients of Divine mercy. The blessing of the Lord is that all may come back, and when thus brought back to all that was lost in Adam and redeemed by Christ, they will be able to keep the Divine law perfectly and will, therefore, to all eternity be in covenant relation with God. Those who refuse to enjoy that blessing prepared for them, the Scriptures clearly declare that God has not prepared a place of torment for them, but has provided a second death--"The soul that sinneth it shall die," "The wages of sin is death."
So, then, my dear friends, the gospel of Christ is world-wide. [CR194] But, you say, What about the Church? You have been speaking about the world and what Jesus will do for it, What about the Church? Oh, my dear friends, those of us who have experienced the power of this salvation know that as a power it has not lifted us physically to perfection, but has a power that has come into our hearts, into our minds, through faith, by transforming, by converting us, our minds, our wills. I recognize some in our midst whom I know were once aliens, strangers and foreigners to the Lord, who by a knowledge of the Saviour have become transformed in their lives so that now they are seeking to walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, the Spirit or mind of God, after the Divine will so far as possible according to the Divine law. Here we see the difference between the Jew under his covenant of law and the Christian under the higher covenant that the Lord has made at the present time. The Apostle said that the Jew could not do the things that He would, but he declares equally strongly that the righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. How, then, is this possible? Are we better than the Jews? Are we of less fallen nature than the Jews, and made perfect? Nay, verily. The Apostle explains that for the class now called out during this Gospel Age there is a special arrangement in operation, and God deals with these according to their minds, their wills, their intentions, so that under this Covenant of Grace, which we are enjoying, we are counted as fully keeping the Divine Law, the righteousness, the full meaning of the Law is fulfilled in us who are walking not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Not up to the Spirit, but after the Spirit. But how could we be fully justified if not able to walk up to the Spirit? The answer is, that the blood cleanses us and commutes our sins, and he imputes his perfection and righteousness to us so that our best endeavors are accepted in Jehovah's sight as perfect, for we are justified, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
Another way in which the Gospel of Christ is superior to all others is that this gospel is world-wide. No other gospel of which I have knowledge is world-wide. The Gospel of the Son of God is that "Jesus Christ by the grace of God tasted death for every man," rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, every nation and people and kindred and tongue. "There is a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea." I know of no other religion that is so unbiased, that recognizes no national lines, that has the thought that we are one race, which sprang from one man, condemned through one man, and redeemed through the man Christ Jesus, and that all are to have a blessing--no other religion under the sun.
The religion of Christ, of which we are not ashamed, is best in this that it is the most God-like religion, because of its breadth, because of its justice, because of its impartiality, because of its love, its goodness and merciful qualities; it shows forth as does no other religion the Justice, Wisdom, Love and Power of Jehovah, our God.
To Him be glory and honor and dominion forever. ----------
"MERRY CHRISTMAS."
MONDAY, December 25--CHRISTMAS DAY. The ship's officers did everything to make this day a pleasant one for the passengers. It seemed rather strange to celebrate Christmas out on the big Pacific Ocean, without a tree in sight and no snow on the ground. However, they decorated the dining room with about four hundred flags of the various nations, also with colored trinkets, and we also had a real Christmas tree. Elaborate meals were prepared, also special programs for the afternoon and evening. All are feeling well and happy.
Pastor Russell was requested to conduct another service, which we report as follows:
THERE is a great deal of interest, my dear friends, centered around this Infant, whose birth is celebrated by this day. It might be well, perhaps, to have in mind the basis for this Infant's birth and what it imports. I have, therefore, before my mind several questions:
Why was the expected babe?
How was this Babe peculiar--holy, harmless, undefiled?
Who was He who was thus born?
Why did He die?
What results have followed?
What may we expect? WHY WAS THIS BABE EXPECTED?
Why were all men in expectation of Him at the time of His birth? What was there peculiar about Him to lead them to expect His birth?
The answer to this question is that God had made a certain promise centuries before and that promise had not been fulfilled. That promise contained the thought that a holy child would be born, and, that in some way, not explained in the promise, that child would bring the blessing the world needed. Therefore it was that every mother amongst the Israelites was very solicitous that she might be the mother of a son rather than a daughter, that, perchance, she might be the mother of this promised Child. Thus the matter went on for years, until finally the Child was born.
The promise back of the expectation was the promise God made to Abraham, saying, "In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." From that time forward Abraham began to look for that promised seed-- that promised child. He looked first of all to his own children, and was finally informed that it would not be his children direct, but that through their children at some remote date this Child should be born, the seed of Abraham. So, from that time onward, all the Israelites were waiting for the birth of this Child to bring the blessing.
But why was a Messiah necessary, and why wait at all for the birth of the child? The answer to that question is that sin came into the world; that, while God placed our first parents, holy, pure and free from sin in the glorious condition of the Garden of Eden, with every favorable prospect and everlasting life at their command if they continued in harmony with God, but, by virtue of their disobedience they came under Divine displeasure and sentence of death. This sentence of death has brought along in its wake aches, pains, sorrows, tears, sighing, crying and death--all of these experiences as the result of sin. Our heavenly Father said to our first parents, the first intimation that He gave them, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." The serpent in this expression means Satan, all the powers of evil, everything adverse to humanity, everything adverse to the blessings which God had given them, and which they had lost by disobedience. But the promise was vague and they understood little about the "seed of the woman," and "bruising the serpent's [CR195] head." It merely means, in an allegorical way, a great victory over sin and Satan, without explaining how it would come. So mankind continued to die, so mankind continued to have aches and pains and sorrows and continued going down to the tomb, and they realized what they needed was some Saviour to come and deliver them from the power of sin, to deliver them from the death penalty of sin. A Saviour who would be, in other words, a life-giver. They were dying and needed fresh life. This is the meaning of the word Saviour in the language used by our Lord and the Apostles. They were hoping and expecting that God would send a life-giver. It was on this account they were so greatly concerned in the promise made to Abraham, reading, "In thee and thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed," a release from sin and death. In no other way could mankind be blessed. It is impossible to bless mankind except by releasing them from sin and death. Hence, the Scriptures tell us of God's sympathy, that God looked down from His holy habitation and He beheld our sorrow, and he heard, figuratively, the groaning of the prisoners --humanity--all groaning and travailing under this penalty of death. Some with few aches and pains, and some with more aches and pains; some with few sorrows, and some with greater sorrows, but all groaning and travailing in pain. But, God's sympathy was manifested, and we read that when He looked down and beheld that there was no eye to pity and no arm to save, with His own arm He brought salvation. This is what was promised to Abraham, that one should come from his posterity who should be the Saviour of the world, and because this was made to Abraham and to his seed, they were marked out as separate from all other nations and peoples and nationalities. To the Jewish nation alone belonged this great honor that through them would come the salvation. Hence, from that time onward the Jews spoke of themselves as God's people, the people whom God had promised to bless, and through whom He would bring a blessing to all others. Therefore, all other people were called heathen, or nations, which the word means. Israel was thus separated because God's Covenant was with Israel, and not with the others. But God's Covenant with Israel was for the blessing of all the others, "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." So, we have the "Why" of our Babe being born on Christmas day.
HOW WAS THIS BABE PECULIAR, HARMLESS, UNDEFILED?
How could He be a Saviour? In what way could He be different from any other babe? Why not use some other babe as the one through whom salvation should come? The answer of the bible is that salvation could not come to mankind unless there would be a satisfaction of justice on account of original sin. That must be the first consideration. The penalty, "Dying thou shalt die," was pronounced against the first man and must be met before the world could be blessed. Why not let any man die? Because they were all under the sentence of the original condemnation, and none could be a ransom-price or a substitute. Hence the necessity for a specially born babe different from any other babe. In what way was this One differently born? The bible explains to us very distinctly that He was not begotten of an earthly father. Although Joseph was espoused to Mary, yet this child was not the result of Joseph, but the bible explains that this child was specially begotten by Divine power in the mother, though she was still a virgin and brought forth this child. This is the Scriptural proposition, and while it may not seem clear to some, yet the Word of God standeth sure. If the Redeemer was not perfect then he could not be the saviour of the world. The redemption required that Jesus must be perfect, based upon the statement that He was fitted to be a Redeemer as perfect as the first man that sinned, "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." So this one must be, as the Apostle declares, "Holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners." (Heb. 7:26.) He must be entirely distinct and separate from humanity so far as sinful features are concerned. If we had time it would be interesting to go into the scientific features of how a perfect child could be born from an imperfect mother. We see this in a natural way: If a breeder of stock wishes to raise the standard of his stock he selects a fine bull, or goat, or a ram, and thus he improves the entire herd. And so, if we had perfect fathers we would soon have a perfect race. But that is impossible. No father can produce a perfect child. Hence it was necessary in this case, which the Scriptures declare was accomplished, that God begot this Son with power from on high; and, therefore, that born from the virgin was separate and distinct from all humanity. His life came not from His earthly father, but from His heavenly Father.
WHO WAS HE THUS BORN?
The Scriptures tell us that He had a pre-existence. We have an account given in the first chapter of John's gospel. It is written that before He became flesh Jesus had an existence, as he declared, "Before Abraham was I am." Again, in one of His prayers, "Father glorify we with the glory that I had with Thee before the world was." So the Apostle Paul tells us that He was the very beginning of the creation of God and that by Him all things were made. The Apostle's declaration is that our Lord Jesus was the beginning of the creation of God, and then the active agent of the Father in all the creative work in the angelic world and humanity, in all things that were created. The whole matter is summed up by John. I will give a more literal translation, "In the beginning was the Word" (this expression, Word, in the Greek is Logos. The thought behind the word Logos is that in olden times a king, instead of speaking his commands directly to his people, sat behind a lattice work, and his Logos, or messenger, or word, or representative, stood before the lattice work and gave the message of the king to the people in a loud tone of voice. The king himself was not seen by the people--the Logos was the one seen. So this is the picture the Scriptures give us of how Jesus was the express representative of the heavenly Father, the one through whom the heavenly Father made Himself known--the word, or the Logos). So we read in the first chapter of John, "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with the God, and the Logos was a god. The same was in the beginning with the God. By Him were all things made and without Him was not anything made." In other words, He was the direct creator of all things. He was the divine Power, Agent, Word, Messenger, Logos of Jehovah. He did all the great work of creation, but He Himself was the first of God's direct creation, the first born of all creatures that in all things He might have the preeminence of the first place. And so, when the time came that our heavenly Father made known His great purpose that He would bless the world, He gave opportunity to this first begotten One, this One begotten of the Father, to be the servant in this great work He intended to accomplish for mankind. And so, the Scriptures state, "That for the joy set before Him He endured the cross despising the shame." And now He has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He has this great reward because of His obedience, even unto death, the death of the cross. The Apostle speaks of Him as having been rich, but for our sakes became poor, that through His poverty we might be made rich. He tells us how He left the glory he had with the Father and humbled Himself to the human nature. Why? Because, as already stated, it was necessary that someone should become man's Redeemer, and [CR196] as an angel could not redeem man, neither could a lower animal redeem man; because the Divine law is, a man's life for a man's life; an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; a life for a life. This was to teach us a great lesson, that human life, having been condemned to death, it would require a human life to redeem. It was, therefore, necessary that Jesus should become the "Man Christ Jesus," in order that He, by the Grace of God, might taste death for every man.
WHAT RESULTS HAVE FOLLOWED?
The results that have followed have been that He himself proved His own faithfulness. Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, the death of the cross, the most ignominious form of death. It pleased the Father to thus prove Him, not only by death, but by the most ignominious form of death, hence dying as a culprit, being crucified between two thieves. What a terrible ignominy to die thus! It would be ignominy enough for us in our imperfection, but for Him, "Perfect, harmless, holy, undefiled and separate from sinners," it must have been a deep and poignant cause for sorrow. Having completed the laying down of his life during the three and a half years, he cried: "It is finished." What? Not his work, for that lay before him. He merely finished this part of the work, finished laying down His life for a ransom price. What next? After His death came His resurrection; and we read that, "God raised Him from the dead on the third day." According to the Scriptures, He was raised up from death a glorious being: "Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption: sown in dishonor, raised in honor: sown in weakness, raised in power: sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body." "Wherefore, God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and of things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every knee should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." But we see not yet all knees bowed to him.
Why not?
Oh, the Scriptures tell us that before He begins His great work for the world of mankind, He does first a work, for the elect, the Church, those who desire to walk in his footsteps, to gather out of the world a Bride to be co-workers with Him in all of the great work of the Father. This is the only work yet accomplished, and this has been going on now for over eighteen centuries. We see how He gathered out the saintly ones from amongst the Jews, Israelites in whom there was no guile; they were gathered to Him. Not finding enough to make the desired number, He proceded to gather them from all nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues, and people, until the foreordained and predestinated number of the Bride shall be completed. So the Apostle tells us that when this Bride-class is united with Him they will be parts of the Seed of Abraham, as we read, "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs of the promise." (Galatians 3:29.) That promise, dear friends, is the promise made to Abraham that through him and his seed all families of the earth should be blessed. So, then, this is the work that Christ is accomplishing now.
This is a very special invitation and they that would be his must also walk in the narrow way. If they will sit in His throne, they must suffer with Him. If they suffer with Him they shall also enter in and share His glory. So the suffering of the present time, and the glory that shall follow was not only accomplished in our Lord Jesus personally, but He was an example for all the Church, justified through faith in His blood; they have a share with Him in his sufferings and will also have a share in His glory, and will also have a share in the first resurrection, which is for the Church. The Apostle says, "I do count all things but loss and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection" (the special one) to the divine nature. How? By being made comformable to His death; for, "If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him." "If we be dead with Him we shall also live with Him." Thus far has this message of the Babe of Christ gone.
WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?
All the families of the earth are to be blessed, as originally promised in Eden, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." Also as St. Paul states it in the 16th chapter of Romans, "The very God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." So, then, the next thing in order in the outworking of God's plan will be to bruise Satan and destroy sin.
When and how?
Just as soon as this age shall end; because this age is merely for the development of the Bride-class, then will come the free grace to all the families of the earth. Messiah's kingdom shall come. He has promised that when He shall reign, all His faithful shall reign with him. "To Him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on My throne, even as I overcome and am set down with My Father on His throne." So all the Church shall be associated with Him in His great Messianic Kingdom, and "He shall reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth," and "Unto Him shall every knee bow and every tongue confess to the glory of God the Father." "The knowledge of the glory of God shall fill the whole earth," and the whole earth shall become as the Garden of Eden--Paradise lost will be Paradise restored. The Divine image lost in Adam will be restored to man. Human nature will be brought to perfection. But the glorious reward to the Church will be to have the divine nature, to be like her Lord and to sit at His right hand and to bless the world of mankind. Not only perfect and having all that Adam had, but with an additional knowledge and character, and there is every evidence that this shall be an eternal blessing.
SHALL NONE BE LOST?
Oh, yes, the Scriptures tell us that some will be lost, and that the loss they will sustain will be loss of life, of all the pleasure of life, loss of God's favor, of everything. They shall be as though they had not been. They shall be destroyed from amongst the people. St. Peter says, "They shall be taken and destroyed as brute beasts."
When? When the eyes of their understanding have been opened to see the Lord and understand His glorious character, and shall appreciate and enjoy His blessing, when such intentionally reject the grace of God, they shall die the second death, from which there is no resurrection, no hope. But thank God also, there shall be no knowledge or suffering for them, as they shall be destroyed as brute beasts.
Our rejoicing, then, today, my dear friends, is in proportion as we believe in this Babe of Bethlehem; in proportion as we believe he was manifested on our behalf; in proportion as we believe he died for our sins; in proportion as we recognize Him as the glorified Saviour; in proportion as we have rendered our hearts to Him, and seek to do the things well pleasing to Him.
Our hope on behalf of mankind in general is that in God's due time His blessing shall reach all mankind--not the same as that for the Church--but as St. Peter tells us in Acts 3:19-21, Times of refreshing shall come from the presence of God the Lord, and He shall send Jesus, whom before was preached unto you, whom the heavens must retain until the times of restitution of all things spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets.
Closing hymn: "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name." ---------- THIS is the 28th, and we are due at Yokohoma Saturday, the 30th. The sea is getting rather rough. We have all had an invitation from the President of this Japanese steamship company, who lives in Tokyo, to take tea with him at his house on the 30th. He has the finest house in Tokyo. We have accepted the invitation. Will tell you about it later.
Will now close this letter with much love
from all to all. Titus 3:15.
L. W. Jones, M.D.
(Mailed from Tokyo, Dec. 31, 1911.)
[CR197]
JAPAN
LETTER NO. 2.
January 8, 1911.
To the Ecclesia at Chicago, Ill., U.S.A. Dearly Beloved in the Lord:
I am writing this to you on board the steamship "Shinyo Maru," as we are sailing down the Straits of Formosa, en route for Hong Kong, China, which we expect to reach early the morning of the 10th.
Since writing Letter No. 1, we have been to many places, and our experiences have been varied. I will begin with our landing in
JAPAN.
OUR ship anchored out in the harbor of Yokohoma, the seaport of Tokyo. Our big ship could not go up to the wharf, so we were landed by means of small boats. In America when we arrive at a station one usually sees a line of cabs, hacks or carriages waiting, and immediately there is a rush on the part of the drivers to secure your patronage. In Yokohoma, however, it is different. Instead of carriages, we found a long line of vehicles waiting for us, which to our western eyes were very strange. They are called "jinrickshas," and are like a large baby buggy on two wheels, but with a pair of shafts. The whole thing is pulled by a man who gets between the shafts and trots along, sometimes for miles without stopping. The men in charge of these made a rush for us as soon as we set foot on land, each trying to get a customer. Soon we were each seated in one of these queer conveyances, and off trotted our human horses. It was rather hard to reconcile oneself to such an experience of having another human being act as a beast of burden and pull you around while you sit comfortably in the ricksha. However, a person can get accustomed to almost anything, and as that is the custom in not only Japan, but in most of the Oriental countries, we soon forgot the contrast between our position and the man pulling the ricksha, especially in view of the fact that it was his business, we paid him for his services and he was well satisfied.
We rode through the city and out into the country, a ride of about three-quarters of an hour, until we came to the home of Mr. S. Asano, President of the Toyo Kisen Kaisha, the company which owns the Shinyo Maru steamship. Upon arrival at the home we dismounted from our rickshas and, upon ascending the steps to the house, were met by several prominent Japanese gentlemen, dressed in European clothes, Prince Albert suits, etc. Then, after greetings were exchanged, we were invited into the reception hall, then several Japanese young ladies, in Oriental costumes came forward, invited us to have seats and then proceeded to fasten on our feet, over our shoes, some knit shoes. We were then invited to inspect the home. The cloth shoes were worn as a means of protection to the highly polished floors and expensive matting in the various rooms. The home is very expensive, in the way of mattings, tapestries, carvings, etc., but did not appeal to us very much from the standpoint of comfort. There were a great many ugly old images scattered through the house which seemed to be highly prized, but which were enough to give one a nightmare to even think of. However, every person to his taste--a thing of beauty is a joy forever--but our ideas of what constitutes beauty differ considerably.
Then there was some entertainment provided for us--not only our party, but all the cabin passengers who came on the Shinyo Maru. This entertainment consisted of a Japanese lunch of tea and sweet cookies, and then an exhibition of jugglery by some of the best actors along that line to be found anywhere in the world, and they performed some wonderful feats and tricks. We would have preferred being somewhere else, but knew not that we were to be so entertained, and being inside had to remain. After the entertainment we got into our rickshas, which were waiting for us, and trotted off to
TOKYO.
THIS the capital of the empire, is the home of the imperial family, and in many respects is quite modern. We stopped at the Imperial Hotel, which is quite European, though under Japanese management. Here we remained for a number of days.
Our visit to Japan was during their holiday season, for they, instead of observing the first day of January as a holiday, observe the entire week, and they certainly make the most of the occasion. Stores are not closed on any other days in the year, not even Sunday, but they are during this entire week. The people dress up in their best clothes and spend the time calling upon one another, leaving their cards if the people are not at home. The homes are all decorated with a peculiar combination of evergreen, bamboo and straw, placed beside the doors or nailed over them. Each of the articles in the decorations signifies something suggestive of luck, good omen or charm [CR198] such as should represent the propitious occasion on which new hopes and happiness are ushered in.
On these New Year days all girls, young and old, and many of the boys play battledore and shuttlecock. This game seems to be an endeavor to keep a little thing with feathers attached to it, or made of paper, in the air as long as possible, by means of a bat, something on the order of a tennis racket. All the streets of the resident districts and yards are crowded with the players, in their gay new year costumes. Also in every direction one sees many soldiers, on foot and mounted, dressed in their gay uniforms, all bent upon calling on someone.
SUNDAY.
THIS was the big day for us, as arrangements had been made for two meetings in the Y.M.C.A. There were fully thirteen hundred present, mostly young Japanese men, at the afternoon meeting, and seven hundred at the evening service. While there were some white people present, most of them were conspicuous by their absence. Pastor Russell spoke on the topic, "Signs of the Times." It was my privilege to introduce him, which I had to do through an interpreter, and then to lead the singing. Some sang in English and the rest in the Japanese language. The deep, reverent, earnest simplicity of those young men was very impressive and caused one to feel that he would like to do everything in his power to help them out of the darkness of their superstitions. Brother Russell then spoke and I never saw better attention from any gathering. The following is an introduction to the afternoon's discourse:
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES, BY PASTOR RUSSELL,
In the Y.M.C.A. at Tokyo, Japan, December 31, 1911.
I AM glad to welcome you here today. I am glad to see so many young men present. I am glad to see so many, whether you agree with what I say or not.
The topic for this afternoon, as advertised,
is "The Signs of the Times." I need
not remind you that we are living in a most
wonderful day, such a day as the world has
never before seen. You yourselves know
something about the changes that have occurred in Japan
within the last forty years. You may perhaps suppose that
equally great changes have not taken place in other parts of
the world, but they have taken place all over America and
Europe, but not quite so recently. Let me illustrate to
you: One hundred and five years ago we did not have
a steamboat in the world. Eighty years ago we did
not have a locomotive or train of cars in the whole world.
Still more recently was the invention of the telegraph and
telephone. Now more recently the wireless telegraph. What
we note in these direction are all indications of what have
occurred in other directions. In all the great sciences we
find there have been great blunders. Scientific works on
chemistry written within the last twelve years are of no
value whatever. I mention these things that you may see
that the inventions that have come to Japan recently are
shared by the whole world. So in religion, we all find that
there have been great changes in the religious thought during
the last few years. As a result,
not only Brahaminism,
Buddhism, Confucianism, but
Christianity are all on the
defensive. We who are Christians
cannot deny the fact that
we have all had errors in the
past. We look back but a little
distance and admit that there
was a period of darkness in the
world. We find that superstitions
are breaking away; we
find that the shackles are breaking
away from our minds, and
we are glad of it. It becomes
us as Christians to be quite
understood in this matter. We
have nothing to gain by pretending
that our forefathers
were all right. We find, on the
contrary, that out of the 600
denominations of Christians
there must have been a good
deal of error in every one of
them. We are glad to believe
that there was truth in every
[CR199]
OUR PARTY PHOTOGRAPHED AT TOKYO (Picture only)
[CR200]
one of them, but now we wish to get rid of the error that
was in them. More and more we are finding that the simplicity
of the early Church is what we need. Christian people
then of all denominations are desirous of getting back to the
teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. But while we are glad
and rejoice that the shackles of superstition are breaking, we
need to rejoice with fear. The pendulum that has swung too
far to the one side is apt to swing to the opposite side. Finding
we are throwing away the superstitions, we are in danger
of also throwing away with the superstitions the truth,
and this we find to be the case amongst Christian people.
For instance, we find that there are many Christian people
leaving Christian doctrines entirely, and not only throwing
away the creeds, but throwing away the Bible. Indeed, we
have found a good many, not only in Europe but also in
America and here as well. Many are disposed to not only
deny the inspiration of the Bible, but also to even question
the existence of a God. We believe that this is a most dangerous
condition to be in. In our judgment, it would be far
better to consider God to be the god of Confucianism, or the
god of Brahminism, than to have no god, and if we believe
in a god we would expect that he would make some revelation
of his will. We have today in all of our great colleges
and seminaries those who are teaching that the Bible is not
the Word of God. They tell us that Moses did not write
the first books of the Bible. They tell us that Isaiah did not
write the prophecies that bear his name, nor Jeremiah, nor
Hosea, nor any of these. We must allow that the people have
intellects and they will reason that if Jesus said, "Moses
wrote of me," and we find that Moses did not write of Him,
then Jesus was mistaken. Jesus and the Apostles all quoted
from Moses and the prophets. If they were mistaken in
this, they must have been mistaken in everything. We hold
that Jesus and the Apostles were correct, and that the Higher
Critics are in error. In line with the Higher Critics' denial
of the Bible comes the doctrine of Evolution.
Pastor Russell then spoke at considerable length along the lines of Daniel's Prophecy.
MR. YAMMAMATO, Secretary of the Tokyo Y.M.C.A., arranged for a photograph of the committee and others, which we reproduce herewith. Mr. Yammamato is the Japanese gentleman to the extreme left in the picture.
I took down both the afternoon and evening discourses in shorthand, while Brother Russell was speaking in English, and at the same table with me sat a young Japanese, who took down in shorthand the two discourses, while the interpreter spoke in that language. It is a mystery to me how he could report such sounds, but he did it.
The attention at the evening service was also excellent, at the close of which several hundred of the Japanese young men wrote their names and addresses on slips of paper requesting literature. Some of them said they could read English and would translate the literature for the others. Following this was the evening discourse on
"THE GREAT HEREAFTER."
By Pastor Russell of London Tabernacle.
Sunday evening, December 31, 1911, Y.M.C.A.,
Tokyo, Japan.
OUR subject for this evening is "The Great Hereafter." This afternoon we considered "The Signs of the Times." We found the signs of the times indicated in the Bible. We find the Bible telling exactly the signs we see about us today. We quoted from Daniel's prophecy, written twenty-four hundred years ago. Through that prophecy God tells us of these days when many are running to and fro with railways, steamships and every means of locomotion, and a great time of trouble.
Now we connect this matter up with "The Great Hereafter." What will come after this time of trouble? The Bible answers that God will set up His Kingdom under the whole heavens, that this will be Messiah's Kingdom, the Kingdom of Christ, and he shall rule from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth. As a result it tells us that the knowledge of the glory of God shall fill the whole earth. The effect will be that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess to the glory of God. These are the very words of God through the prophet. The Bible proceeds to say that when Christ shall take His Kingdom, the first work will be the binding of Satan. "He shall lay hold upon that old serpent, the devil and Satan, and bind him a thousand years." The Bible tells us that this has been the difficulty of the world for the past six thousand years, the reign of Satan. On the contrary, we see what Jesus said was fulfilled. He declared that Satan was the prince of this world. St. Paul tells us that Satan is "the god of this world who now worketh in the hearts of the children of disobedience." Satan has been using himself to blind the minds of mankind. We believe he has had much to do with many of the religious systems of the world. The Apostle Paul tells us this, "The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them." (2 Cor. 4:4.) Therefore, it is very appropriately set forth in the Bible that just as soon as Jesus takes the reign of the governments of the world in his hands, the kingdom of Satan will fall. And so, after Jesus said that Satan should be bound for a thousand years, he added, "that he may deceive the nations no more until the thousand years are over." Satan is called the "prince of darkness," while Christ is spoken of as "the Prince of Light." Which has been reigning, dear friends, the Prince of Light or the prince of darkness, for the past six thousand years? Some of us Christians have been trying to make ourselves believe that what we call Christendom was Christ's Kingdom. We speak of the [CR201] United States, Canada, Germany and France and Great Britain as being Christian nations. But the Bible does not agree to that. The Bible says that all are under the reign of the prince of the world, Satan. Could we suppose that Christian England, Christian France and Christian Germany would be building great guns to blow the others off the face of the earth if they were Christ's Kingdom? I tell you nay. None of these are Christ's Kingdom. We are still praying for Christ's Kingdom, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." Is there any place on earth where God's will is done as it is done in heaven? There is no such place. There can be no such condition until Christ's Kingdom shall be established, and even after His Kingdom is established, it will take quite a little while to bind Satan and convert the world. This is the glorious hereafter the Bible points out. Not only will peace reign from sea to sea, and from shore to shore, but the blessing of the Lord will be upon the earth. God's blessing is not upon the earth now --God's curse is on the earth now. Not until the curse is removed will the blessings go forth. That is what we are all waiting for. You remember where the curse came in. The curse is a curse of death, and the cause of death was sin. The effect of sin and the effect of death is all the sickness, pain, and sorrow and tears. The Bible clearly sets forth that if our first parents had not sinned, the sentence of death would not have come upon them. When God drove our first parents out of the Garden of Eden, "Cursed is the earth for thy sake. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee, and in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou shalt return unto the ground from whence thou wast taken, for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." That is the explanation to us why we have all these disadvantages in the world. Why must the farmer battle with the thorns and thistles and weeds? Because of the curse. Why do we have storms, droughts, pestilences, etc.? Why do we have aches, pains, sufferings, etc.? Because of the curse. Why do we have dying and why do we have cemeteries? Because of the curse. There are no doctors nor undertakers in heaven, because there is no sin there, there is no curse there. And so, just as soon as the curse will be taken away from the earth, the blessing of the Lord will be upon mankind again. Now this is the whole gospel of the Lord, about the taking away of the curse and bringing in the blessing of mankind.
THE interpreter, Mr. Obata, a professor of theology in the Methodist College, has a good understanding of both the Japanese and English languages, so the next day arrangements were made to publish the first volume of "Studies in the Scriptures" in book form in Japanese; also to have sections of it appear month by month in the magazine for which this young stenographer was writer and a partner in. So you see the work is going on way off here in Japan. Other things were arranged for and much information gathered as to results of missionary work all of which shows their evident need in that Oriental land, as well as in all other lands, namely, the Kingdom of Christ. Altogether we feel that our stay in that part of Japan was a success.
Some of the party went on to Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe and other places, while I remained behind at Tokyo to attend to some matters. I joined the party later at Kobe. The train on which I went down to Kobe was their fastest express making an average of twenty-six miles an hour--it did not take our breath away. I managed to secure an upper berth, which is a single one, and it was a good deal like a shelf, with a pad on it, on which a bed is made up. They gave me a hard pillow and, altogether, I slept very comfortably, better than I had expected, notwithstanding the fact that both men and women were allowed to smoke those terrible smelling cigarettes--and there was plenty of smoke, I assure you. The dining cars, or restaurant cars, as they call them, serve very good meals.
When we again boarded our ship at Kobe we found the Chinamen waiters had all had their queues cut off. China has just declared itself a Republic. Before that act the Chinamen would not have dared to go back without their queues, but now they do not dare to go back with them. If they were to wear them now they might be taken for imperialists and would be likely to have their heads--queues and all--cut off.
INLAND SEA.
FROM Kobe the course of our ship was through the Inland Sea, the most picturesque stretch of enclosed ocean in the world, for over 200 miles, an all-day scenery-feast. Silently the ship threads the narrowest of channels; square-sailed junks float by; towns, villages, castles, temples, forests, cultivated vales and terraced hills, sharply cut peaks and low-running mountain chains succeed one another for a whole day, until we came to the city of Nagasaki, where we stopped to take on coal.
This is a most interesting scene and I must tell you about it. The work is all done by men and women, using little baskets holding two shovelfuls of coal each. As soon as we steamed into the harbor many small boats, holding about thirty people, and other larger boats, each holding about thirty tons of soft coal, came along side our big ship, tied to her, and soon the natives had bamboo stagings erected from the barges up along our ship to an opening where they could dump the coal into a bunker. There were probably a score of these stagings on either side of the vessel, and each staging had several landings, like large steps. On each of the landings two people would be stationed; sometimes two men, again two women, or one man and one woman. The people below in the coal barge would fill the baskets with coal, and then they would be passed up from one landing to the next. They were so skillful at the work that the baskets moved along in regular streams and seemed to bound up from one to another like rubber balls. About seven hundred and fifty people worked on either side of the ship, fifteen hundred in all, from ten o'clock in the morning until four in the afternoon, and during that time they placed three thousand tons of coal in our vessel. One can hardly believe such a thing [CR202] possible, but such is the case. The accompanying picture is an actual photograph of such a scene. It is considered the fastest coaling station in the world, faster even than where they have modern machinery. The wages that these people receive is the large sum of twenty cents per day--less than an English shilling. If any of you are out of a job, here is your chance. It is not a case, either, of everyone working but father, for the whole family work together. We even saw women passing up the coal and rowing the boats with babies strapped to their backs, and the babies seemed to enjoy it too, and some would sleep as contentedly as though in an aristocratic down crib. The needs of the people are very simple, both as respects food and clothing.
At Nagasaki we found a different type of people. They are much poorer. All over Japan, however, the customs and costumes were new and strange to us. We soon got used to them and then all looked much alike and we were ready to leave the little narrow streets, etc. As a whole, our impression of the Japanese is much better and we find them a very thrifty, industrious and polite set of people. We noted, especially, how the husbands and wives work together, and here many people in both America and Europe could learn some valuable lessons. We noted many instances where the men would have the children strapped to their backs, also boys doing the same, walking about the streets, while on the other hand, the women would work on the boats, handle coal, carry vegetables on their backs to market, etc. We heard no bad language or cross words--all seemed like one great family trying to help each other. They are very polite and obliging to foreigners. Our stay amongst them will long be remembered with pleasure.
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CHINA
AFTER a night and day's ride across the Yellow Sea we arrived at the mouth of the Yangtze River, and then a small steamer took us up the river about nine miles to the city of Shanghai. Here we found a very busy cosmopolitan city, with three general divisions, English, German and French, besides, of course, the Chinese. Some people, learning that we were coming, arranged for an afternoon and evening meeting on Sunday, and so Brother Russell spoke twice that day.
On account of the war in China many missionaries were there who had been forced out of the interior, some coming as far as two thousand miles. There were quite a number of these missionaries at the meeting who listened quite attentive for the time being, but that was as far as it went, they seemed to care little for the Gospel of God's love, which shows the ultimate blessing of all the families of the earth through His Kingdom, but preferred to hold to the gospel (?) of damnation.
It would have been impossible under the existing war conditions to have gone into the interior, but through these missionaries, fresh from the interior, and through other sources, were received a [CR203] great deal of information, which otherwise would have necessitated a trip into the interior.
The condition in China in some parts is something terrible. Certain sections are overflooded with water and thousands of people are dying daily of starvation, and there are millions who have absolutely nothing on which to live or with which to do. Some of the people are floating around on the tops of their houses. Others wade in the water up to their necks and try to reach down and cut some of the rice. I do not see how trouble could be much worse for them than it is in the interior of China. All we who live in the United States, especially, have much for which to be thankful, and our sympathies ought to go out to those poor people. We who know God's Great Plan can well be thankful that we see the silver lining of this terrible, black cloud, and that we know that soon Messiah's Kingdom will be established, when the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall fill the whole earth, and the desire of all nations shall come. It requires faith, however, and strong faith, too, to "Wait ye upon me saith the Lord," "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord." What we want to do is to develop the fruits and graces of the Spirit that in due time we may be accounted worthy a place in the glorious Bride-class, to sit with Him on His throne and to dispense the Kingdom blessings to the whole world, China included. Then we can do what we now only long to do, but have not the power to do. Then "All power in heaven and earth" will be ours, and not for our own selfish purposes, but for the poor groaning creation, every people, nation, kindred and tongue.
Our party split here and we left Brothers Pyles and Robison in Shanghai, where they will for some time make further investigations, interview missionaries, etc., and they will later meet the rest of the party who will go to Hong Kong, then to Manila and back to Hong Kong.
There goes the gong, announcing lunch, or "tiffin," as it is called; and, as I have not missed a meal yet, I will have to take this one in also. Come and join us--there are several vacant tables. I am sure you are here by faith anyway. As to the time of day here, Monday, one o'clock in the afternoon, it is about two o'clock early this morning with you. You have passed through the Sunday services and are now home and in bed. May you all have sweet dreams.
The rest of the party all send Christian love and greetings.
I remain, as B 4,
Yours in HIS service,
L. W. Jones, M.D.
(Mailed from Hong Kong, China.) ----------
LETTER NO. 3.
BAY OF BENGAL.
On board Steamship Delta.
January 21, 1912.
To the Ecclesia at Chicago, Ill., U. S. A.
Dearly Beloved in the Lord: GREETINGS to one and all! We are now on board the Steamship Delta, enroute from Hong Kong to Singapore, where we expect to arrive on the 24th. My last letter (No. 2) was mailed upon arrival at Hong Kong from Shanghai. Since then we have had a very interesting time.
A three-day voyage, often in view of the coast or islands and amidst hundreds of fishing junks, transports one to South China, a different world.
HONG KONG, CHINA.
AT last the blue islands and headlands around Hong Kong are sighted, and if approach is in daylight the passage of Lymoon Pass is most interesting and the farther panorama of Victoria, rising in terraces 1,800 feet to the Peak, and Kowloon opposite, with the great harbor, full of the world's shipping, is a sight to thrill and excite, a memory for life.
A speedy landing by steam launch throws one into a cosmopolitan whirl that is a kaleidoscope of pigtails, sampans, rikishas, electric cars, sedan chairs, English shops and Chinese signboards. Sikh policemen and Parsee bankers, Malay seamen and pole-carrying coolies--and the end is not yet, nor ever, for variety is every-day fare in Hong Kong. The vegetation along certain walks and in the Botanical Gardens is a riot of luxuriance. The cement walks all over the mountain, the viaducts and water supply, cause wonder and admiration. Villas and clubs are veritable palaces, and below huddle in crowded tenements a quarter of a million Chinese, part of the groaning creation, waiting for the "times of restitution," when Messiah sets up His glorious Kingdom to bless, not only these poor Chinese, but ALL families of the earth.
After spending a day there our party was split up still more, part remaining and using that as headquarters, while they investigated in various directions. The rest of the party, Brothers Russell, Hall, Kuehn and Jones, went to Manila for a ten-day trip. By dividing forces at these various points and each acting more or less independent of the others, much more was accomplished.
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MANILA
OUR tropical island possessions naturally arouse much curiosity in American world-tourists, and certain of our party are scheduled to visit Manila, the gem of the Orient.
In the midst of luxuriant vegetation, fronting on a splendid bay, American enterprise has transformed a sleepy and unhealthy Spanish colonial city with native population into a bustling and well-ordered capital. The combination of Filipino, Spanish and American elements makes it fascinating.
The trip to Manila is usually rough, and we were looking for a hard time, but were agreeably surprised. It took us two days and three nights to make the trip, and our boat was many, many times smaller than the boat we had been on; it was a freighter and carried only about a dozen passengers. The Lord's hand was certainly with us on this trip. Before our steamer could come to the dock, launches came out bringing various people, and among them was a Mr. Hashim, a prominent merchant of Manila, and owner of the Opera House, which Brother Driscoll, who had preceded us by several weeks, had engaged, in which Pastor Russell was to lecture. Mr. Hashim is a Syrian, but is thoroughly Americanized; he is a man of about 35 years old. If he had been a brother in the truth he could not have done more for us, and he seemed to know all about everything and everybody.
Next, as we landed and went to the Custom House to have our baggage examined, to see how much stuff we were smuggling into the Islands--whisky, cigars, etc., the first gentleman we met was a Mr. Vaughn, one of Uncle Sam's soldiers, and a nephew of Sister Dakin, of the Chicago Class. She had given me a letter of introduction to him, and had written him a letter concerning our coming. He was very kind to us, and personally looked after our baggage for us.
General Hall then called up on the phone the Army and Navy Club, got in touch with the officers, and arranged for [CR204] our entertainment there. This club is much like a fine hotel, though not for the public--only for army and navy officers and their families and friends. About ten years ago General Hall was stationed in the Philippines and still knows a great many of the men there. He also arranged with General J. Franklin Bell, Commander-in-Chief of the twenty thousand troops stationed in the Islands, to introduce Pastor Russell at the public meeting in the afternoon.
SATAN CAME ALSO.
We found that one of the papers had voluntarily announced that we had not arrived, and also published a lot of "stuff" about Pastor Russell, which they copied from the Brooklyn Eagle. Thus, you see, Satan came also. Well, as usual, it turned out to be another illustration of how God will cause "the wrath of man to praise Him." I have learned that whenever you see some wrath of man, there will shortly be some praise come out of it for the Lord. Of course this opposition, and especially the false notice to the effect that we had not arrived, probably kept some away. However, we had fully a thousand present, and, to our surprise, instead of being the white people of the Islands, the majority were Philippinos, bright and intelligent, most of whom could read English. The rest of the audience was composed of Army officers, regulars, and some of the general public.
General Bell then introduced Pastor Russell, and as he stands high in the respect and esteem of the people on the Islands, it was cause for much comment the next day, as to why the newspaper should publish what they did, when General Bell, General Hall, Colonel Histand and others were on the platform, and General Bell introduced such a man as the paper tried to make Pastor Russell out to be. The paper published what one of Pastor Russell's enemies had to say about him, and an enemy is a poor source to which to go if you wish to get the truth concerning a person. The next day one of the papers said:
"The Free Press (Manila) frankly confesses that after hearing both sides of the matter, it does not feel qualified to express an opinion, but it believes that when such men as Major-General Bell and General Hall identify themselves with Pastor Russell and his propaganda, there cannot be anything very seriously wrong with him or it. Possibly the best criterion, however, is the address itself."
Thus many more people were interested in looking into the matter and reading the address than otherwise would have been. The Free Press of Manila reported the discourses of the day, as follows:
In a few well chosen words General Bell introduced Pastor Russell, as follows:
LADIES and Gentlemen:
"We have gathered together to listen to a lecture upon the greatest work which has been produced in the world, the Holy Bible; a book which stands alone, without a rival. I have been requested to introduce the lecturer.
"Time was when any minister of the Gospel, speaking in the holy name of religion, could depend upon the acceptance of his word with unquestioning faith, but, with the progress of the world in scientific education, the time has come when people demand proof, and when he who would convince must speak with authority, and to speak with authority he must qualify as an expert.
"The gentleman who is to lecture this afternoon is known the world over as an authority upon the bible. His sermons are printed in more than a thousand English and American periodicals, and he has written works upon the bible, six volumes in all, which have reached the extraordinary circulation of three million copies more than any other work, save only the bible.
"This gentleman has been elected as a delegate by the International Bible Students' Association to make a tour around the world in the interest of Foreign Missions.
"I have the exceptional privilege of presenting to you Pastor Russell of Brooklyn and London Tabernacles."
WHERE ARE THE DEAD?
By Pastor Russell.
MY topic, Where are the dead? must appeal to every thinking hearer, for we all expect to die, and we all have friends and neighbors who have died, and for whose condition we have deep concern. Besides, our topic stands related to every religious system in the world, Christian, Confucian, Brahmin, Buddhist, all; because all religions purport to be preparations for the future beyond the tomb. Although I am a Christian and a firm believer in the bible as the one and only message from God, nevertheless in my bible I find many things which I did not suppose were there, and I do not find other things which I once supposed were there. In the bible I find special hope, and a very special provision for Christians--real Christians, saintly Christians, and I also find in my bible divine promises to others besides these; namely, blessings for Brahmins, Buddhists, Confucians, Mohammedans, etc., namely, for "All the families of the earth." But the bible does not reveal the same blessings for all mankind, nor even the same blessings for all the saintly and conscientious of the various religions.
MISTAKES WE ALL MADE.
I admit at the beginning that Christians have made serious mistakes in their interpretation of the Divine purpose, and I claim the same in respect to all the heathen religions. This is not assailing the honesty or integrity of our forefathers. They were as honest as we, but lived in a darker period--they stumbled more than we now need to stumble. This is shown in the variations of doctrine of all the great religions, including Christianity. Our six hundred creeds tell us of six hundred variations of theory in respect to the Divine program. It is not to find fault with these, but accepting the situation to turn away from all the human misconceptions and creedal errors--back to the foundation of truth, the Word of God as represented in the Old and New testaments.
I refresh your minds respecting the teachings of all the great systems of religion, including Christianity. They all give us a dark picture respecting man in his fallen, imperfect, sinful condition; respecting matters for the present life, and for the future life; respecting punishments for sin, and in regard to a hope of future blessings for all who will seek righteousness. Instead of hiding or apologizing for your Christian views on these subjects, I will candidly and truthfully acknowledge that during the dark ages the followers of Jesus got into a more confused condition than any other religious people, in respect to the Divine plan, in respect to [CR205] the dead, good and bad, civilized and barbaric, Christian and heathen. But to see our error is the first step necessary for its correction. And how glad we are and ought to be that life in this glorious epoch, in which the electric arc light is eclipsing the tallow candle, we are able to see the mistakes of our forefathers, and wherein they left the inspired words of Jesus, the Apostles and the Prophets. Surely we are living in the day mentioned by our Lord when he that hungereth and thirsteth after righteousness shall be filled.
My assumption, my dear friends, is that all honest people desire the truth, that no true child of God wishes to spread confusion in the world, but that all of them desire to know the truth, to be sanctified by it, and to propagate it for the sanctification of others. So then, if what I shall say conflicts, is found to be in contradiction of many or all of the six hundred creeds of Christendom, and with the various theories of other religions, bear with me remembering that none of us are or ever were satisfied, and that as one of the dissatisfied ones I claim that we were all partly right and partly wrong, and that now, all lovers of the truth and righteousness may see eye to eye and come to the glorious condition mentioned in the Scriptures where we shall recognize one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, one Redeemer and one Church of the first born, and a glorious work to be accomplished by that Church, for the blessing of all the families of the earth. The Scriptures foretell of the period of darkness, yea of gross darkness upon the earth and upon Christendom, but they foretell also the scattering of this darkness, this night time, and the dawning of a new day, the new dispensation--the kingdom of Messiah, for which many of us have prayed long, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth even as it is done in heaven."
Buddhists, Brahmins, Confucians, etc., all intimate that the majority of mankind at death pass into most undesirable conditions, but it remains for Christendom to give forth the most serious misrepresentation of the Divine character and plan. Our Roman Catholic friends have a hell of eternal torture indescribable, but it is for a comparatively small number. The majority, according to them, go to purgatory, to suffer torture in one form or another for centuries and thus to be purified and made ready for heavenly bliss. Many of our forefathers were Catholics and shared in the protestations against purgatory and refuted it because not found in the bible. But did they not go to a worse extreme by enlarging hell and consigning to it all except a mere handful of saintly believers in Jesus. This is certainly the teaching of all our Protestant creeds, which none of us now really believe. Nevertheless, those creeds still more or less bind and blind God's people and hinder the presentation of the bible by branding everything out of accord with themselves as heresy. I urge all of you who are true Christians to set up before your hearts and minds God's words as the only standard of truth, of orthodoxy, and that you recognize everything else as heresy however honestly held.
As you are all familiar with this discourse, we will not give it more space here.
As the close of his lecture Pastor Russell announced that a special meeting had been arranged for the evening, at which General Wm. P. Hall, from the War Department, Washington, D.C., would speak on "The Bible and Christianity from the Standpoint of a Soldier."
WE had expected to leave that evening for our return to Hong Kong, but our boat would not wait and so we had to remain over until Monday night. Arrangements were, therefore, made for a meeting between seven and eight o'clock, as the Opera House was engaged for the rest of the evening. It was announced to the afternoon audience that General Hall would speak in the evening on the subject of "The Bible and Christianity from the Standpoint of a Soldier." This was our only opportunity of advertising the meeting, and was at a very inconvenient hour, as it was the dinner hour in the city of Manila. Well, the evening came, and we had a fair audience. General Hall spoke for about half an hour, then Brother Kuehn for a short time on the same subject, from a Merchant's standpoint, and then I followed for a short time on the same subject from a Physician's standpoint.
Following is what the Philippine Free Press had to say about our three discourses:
THE BIBLE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A SOLDIER.
COL. H. O. S. HEISTAND introduced his long-time friend, Gen. Wm. P. Hall. He said:
There is no country and no people without a religion. We of the Philippine Islands, and our whole country, and all of the countries that have ever been represented in this country, are Christian countries. They belong to that great class who adhere to and believe in the Christian religion.
Religions are antagonistic. The Christian religion sprang from a country of poverty. The wealth and culture of the world were against it. Notwithstanding all the persecution, notwithstanding all the efforts to destroy it, yet it stands the tests of time, and when understood and reasonably accepted offers no difficulty. I have some difficulty myself, but I am glad that I was here today to hear Pastor Russell on "Where are the Dead," and had some of those difficulties removed.
It is a very dangerous point when a person gives up one religion or a tenet of his religion and has nothing else to substitute for it.
I am to have the pleasure of introducing a soldier whom I have known all my life, an intimate associate, a Christian man. And when he was not a Christian he was always upright and never approached any subject without the broadest sympathy and justice. He is going to speak on "The Bible and Christianity from the Standpoint of a Soldier." I am glad to have men of my own profession hear from a soldier of high rank, of long experience, who finds Christianity a help to the soldier, and he will give you a basis upon which soldiers may find Christianity a help to them in their profession.
I need merely mention his name--he is well known. I have great pleasure in introducing Brigadier-General Wm. P. Hall of the United States Army.
GEN. HALL said in part:
Fellow Soldiers, and fellow Christians:
It affords me great pleasure to be with you tonight, and to make some remarks on "The Bible from a Soldier's Standpoint," because since I left the Philippines God has blessed me with a view of the bible which I never had before, and which I desire now to present to you. As you all know, the bible has much to say respecting the fighting of a good fight, as loyal soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ--warring against sin in ourselves and everywhere. But before I come to that feature of my subject, I ask your attention to another feature of the subject, not so generally discerned. It came but recently to my attention and has appealed to me as nothing else [CR206] ever did. In this view the Almighty is a great King or Monarch. The entire universe is His dominion. Our earth, a small fraction of the universe, is a scene of anarchy, rebellion against God and His righteousness.
According to the bible, man was created perfect, so man was made to be the ruler of the earth. So the Prophet David declared, "Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep, and the beasts of the field; the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea." Man lost this noble state, this grandeur of his own personality and all this dignity and honor as the god of the earth. He lost this through disobedience to his Sovereign, the Almighty. The penalty against him was, "Dying thou shalt die," "Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return." Most of the animal creation is in rebellion against man, because, having lost his original perfection of being he no longer can fully control the lower creation, although some members of the race possess still a considerable measure of this power to tame the wild beasts and to command their obedience.
The reign of death, the penalty for sin, has wrought havoc with mankind, mentally, morally, physically. In consequence hundreds of millions have gone into the tomb, and of those now living all are blemished physically, mentally and morally. Some so much so that many of them are confined in prisons. Many others in lunatic asylums, and altogether, as St. Paul declares, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together." This is a sad picture. There is a brighter side to it, however, as we shall see presently, for God does not intend that this province of His empire shall be permitted to continue in a condition of rebellion. It is neither to Divine glory, nor to man's advantage that the present order of things should last forever. The bible declares that God will permit the present disorder, the present reign of sin and death only for a certain limited time. Then He will bring in a glorious reign of righteousness through the Redeemer.
NOT THUS WITH THE ANGELS.
According to the bible there is no such reign of sin and death in heaven amongst the angels as we have here on earth amongst men, and the explanation is simple: There is no sin in heaven. Everything there is operating in harmony with the Divine will and all God's spiritual creatures enjoy their heavenly blessings, because God is pleased to grant them every good thing because of their obedience.
This implies that the reign of sin and death for six thousand years is because of man's rebellion. More than this there is no hope that man will ever recover himself out of his present conditions, and bring himself to such a state of perfection as that God would be willing to receive him again. Everywhere in all our personal experiences we perceive that the tendency of sin is always downward. Any hope for recovery must rest upon Divine mercy, forgiveness of our sins, and an uplift out of our degradation by a superhuman power. And this is just what the bible tells us God proposes.
The bible promises that Divine power will introduce a new order of things, that the Divine curse, or sentence of defeat will be lifted from humanity, and every member of the race will be granted every assistance necessary to rise up out of sin, ignorance, superstition and degradation. Yes, out of the tomb also--up and up to the full perfection of the human nature which father Adam had and lost. Additionally we see that these will have a knowledge of sin and a knowledge of Divine mercy which father Adam did not have when he transgressed. There is a certain test before any will be decreed worthy of everlasting life, and that test will be obedience to the heavenly Emperor, and to the laws of His heavenly empire.
Some of you may not be aware, as I was not aware until recently, that the bible teaches such a restitution from the power of sin and death. The Divine promise is that then all who wilfully, deliberately, intelligently love sin and hate righteousness will be destroyed in the Second Death, as St. Peter says: "They shall perish like natural brute beasts." Notice that this does not mean an eternity of torture, but destruction. These shall perish, as St. Peter says. "They will be punished with an everlasting destruction." Then will be fulfilled the glorious promise of the Scripture to the effect that "every knee will bow and every tongue confess to the glory of God," while "the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will fill the whole earth." Then will be the time mentioned by our Saviour in His prayer, when God's kingdom will come and God's will be done on earth even as it is in heaven. Of that glorious period the bible tells us, "There shall be no more crying, no more sighing, no more dying, because the former things (or sin and death) will have passed away."
HOW IT WILL BE DONE.
I know well, my dear friends, that you are thinking: How does General Hall expect that all this wonderful transformation will be accomplished? Does he forget that the gospel has been preached for eighteen centuries and that the conversion of the world is practically as far away as ever? Does he forget that, according to the United States statistics there are today twice as many heathen as there were a century ago? Does he forget that if the entire world were brought to a condition of as great enlightenment as prevails in Manila, or in London, or in any other city or town that God's will would still not be done on earth as it is done in heaven?
No, my dear friends, I am not forgetting these things. I am not hoping for the conversion of the world by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ. I find that the bible does not so teach; that the Gospel is being preached for the purpose of calling and perfecting a saintly few, and that as soon as these shall have been found that Divine election will be complete, and God's very elect from every nation, people, kindred and tongue and denomination--shall be glorified with Jesus in the [CR207] first resurrection--then will come the reign of Messiah which the Scriptures everywhere declare. God's Kingdom shall come into power, Messiah shall take unto Himself His great power and reign, His reign will not be for the purpose of personal aggrandizement. Messiah's Kingdom shall be under the whole heavens, as the bible declares, "He shall reign from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth." Under the sway of His kingdom and its righteous arrangements, every feature of the blessing will be brought out. Earth will become a Paradise, the wilderness shall blossom as the rose, the solitary place shall be glad, the streams shall break forth from the desert, ignorance and superstition shall flee away. The sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his beams." All shall be brought to a knowledge of the truth.
MESSIAH'S KINGDOM THEOCRATIC.
We might, dear friends, rightly say that a republican government, a government of the people by the people is the noblest of all. If all men were perfect and all the conditions were perfect it surely would be ideal. Indeed, I understand the bible to teach that a republic will be the ultimate form of human government after Messiah's reign shall have brought the willing and obedient of humanity to perfection, and the earth to a paradise. But Messiah's kingdom will not be a republic, it will be a theocracy--a Divine will of government. Right will be the law and every transgression will be punished in proportion to the wilfulness of the transgressor until all shall learn righteousness from the least to the greatest, until all the willing and obedient shall have been gradually uplifted and strengthened mentally, morally, physically, and shall have attained perfection.
Of this glorious kingdom of Messiah which is to accomplish so much for mankind Saint Peter tells us, saying, "Times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets." Saint Paul gives us the particulars of this in a few words, saying of Messiah: "He must reign until He shall have put all enemies under His feet." "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." He proceeds to tell us that after Messiah shall have thus conquered sin and death and shall thus have released mankind from death and brought them, the willing and obedient, back into full accord with the Almighty, then the Messianic Kingdom will cease, because Messiah will deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father that He may be all in all.
While I am glad to find this glorious outlook for the world clearly set forth in the bible, I am glad, also, of another feature in the Divine plan. I am glad that the Kingdom has not yet begun. I am glad that you and I and all of God's consecrated people have the invitation to become associates in that glorious reign of righteousness--actively associated as joint-heirs with our Lord Jesus Christ as co-workers with Him for that thousand years of His Messianic reign for the overthrow of death and the deliverance of humanity.
SOLDIERS OF THE CROSS.
But there are conditions upon which we may reign with Messiah--upon which we may be accounted worthy of membership in that Bride class, His companions in glory. We all know these. We are called to suffer with Him as good soldiers, enduring the cross, despising the shame. We are called to fight a good fight now under the standard of Jesus, as soldiers under Him, the Captain of our salvation. We are called to endure hardness for His sake, for the truth's sake, for righteousness' sake, for the sake of those who need our assistance. My exhortation to you is that those of you who have not yet enlisted under the banner of Jesus the Son of God should do so at once and that with the full understanding that the terms of our enlistment are: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life," and to those who hear me who have already enlisted, as I have done, under the banner of Jesus, I quote the Master's words, "Be of good courage, greater is He who is on our part than all that could be against us." A little while and our battling against sin, selfishness, meanness and the adversary will all be ended, and if faithful we shall receive the crown of life, which fadeth not away, which God hath in reservation for them that love Him.
THE BIBLE FROM A MERCHANT'S STANDPOINT.
MR. E. W. V. KUEHN was selected by the International Bible Students' Association as one of the seven gentlemen to make a tour of the world and to give a report on foreign missions. For years Mr. Kuehn has been a contributor to Christian missions and it was partly on this account, and partly because the views of a keen business man were desired, that he was chosen. He said:
I am not a sermonizer, I am a business man. But I find in the bible matters which deeply interest me--especially so since I came into contact with Pastor Russell's books. A Christian from youth, the son of Christian parents, I always reverenced the bible, but only quite recently have I learned to love it, and to know of the wonderful plan of God which it contains. I am not to discuss all the features of the Divine plan. We have already today heard much that has been deeply interesting to us. I am merely to supplement what you have already heard with some remarks respecting God's word from a business standpoint.
A business standpoint necessarily means standpoint of profit and loss. Every business man purposes a gain, a profit, otherwise he would go out of business. Although the Great Teacher said, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul" (his own life, his own being), nevertheless, I believe that the profit and loss account with the religion of the bible has not had sufficient consideration from the majority of us in the past.
PEARL OF GREAT VALUE.
I remind you of Jesus' words to the effect that the kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who found one of great value, and went and sold everything he possessed and bought that pearl. The pearl was for sale, the price upon it was fixed, he took no advantages of the seller. The two points of the parable are (1) The great value of the pearl and, (2) That it was cheap to the man who purchased it, although it cost him everything he had.
This is the proposition which the bible sets before us. You and I are seeking the best there is in life. We have something to invest a certain amount of money, a certain amount of influence, a certain amount of time, a certain amount of talent; these are our capital. We are desirous of using these most wisely, most advantageously, most judiciously. Various matters present themselves as investments and the question is, which will be the best investment that you can make with your capital, and that I can make with mine? To illustrate: In this community there are some who have said, we will invest in a newspaper enterprise, because this will give us not only comfortable remuneration, but influence and power amongst our neighbors, and the opportunity for much good and proving ourselves honorable citizens and useful ones. Other have said, we will go into this or that line of merchandise. We will serve the public and incidentally we will reap our reward of public confidence, business prosperity and the comforts of this life. Others have said, we will enter the military service, we will be faithful soldiers and win honors and spurs, and a good name amongst our fellows and by our patriotism we will be an example to posterity. Others have said, we will be teachers and use time and influence for the assistance of the rising generation, helping them to qualify for the duties of life and to become useful citizens. Others have said, we will be Missionaries and Pastors, and help people along religious lines. All of these employments and ambitions leading up to them are laudable. Every man should have an ambition and it should be not merely for self, but along generous lines, it should include his fellowmen.
But to which of these positions or services did the Great Teacher refer as the Pearl of Great Value, for which life and all we possess should be given. They are all honorable as we have set them forth. How shall we decide? The bible answer is that while all of these are pearls of a certain value, none of these is the Pearl Of Great Value. The Pearl Of Great Value is the Kingdom. For it we may sell all that we possess of every kind to purchase it, to become possessors of it. No man, however, gives all that he has to his profession as a physician, teacher, business man or a soldier. There are limitations. It would not be wise to sacrifice life for business, nor for honor, nor for any earthly project. Life is too precious for that. But when we come to see the Pearl of Great Price, the Kingdom, we realize that it will be cheap [CR208] and desirable at any cost--even life itself and health and strength--even though it cost us every cent that we possess and every power of mind and body. This is the suggestion of the Great Teacher as to the value of the Kingdom.
HOW PAUL VALUED IT.
It was in respect to this same Pearl of Great Price, the Kingdom, that St. Paul declared that he counted all other things, great and small, of an earthly kind, as "loss and dross." Yea, said he, "these are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us"--the Kingdom glory. Nor was it an idle boast. God put him to the test and he showed his appreciation by the things which he endured, and by the willingness with which he endured them. Few young Jews had the same brilliant prospects as his. He was of a wealthy family, he had a splendid education for his day, he had wonderful natural talent as a lawyer, he was a wonderful logician, and to back all this up, he was a Roman citizen, which of itself was worth a "great price." Like other men, he surely perceived the possibilities which lay before him in life, how prominent he might become, how he could surround himself with ease and comfort, the joys of a home and a family, the sensual pleasures of the world in general, and especially attain a good name amongst men, which is rather to be chosen than great riches, but with every prospect, also, of adding great riches to those which he had already inherited. These things were before him for a time, until in God's providence he caught a glimpse of the "Pearl of Great Price." Once having seen it, all other things lost their value in his estimation. He gladly covenanted with God to give up everything that he might become the possessor of the Pearl of Great Value.
And how faithful he was the New Testament abundantly testifies. He gave his all, he gave it freely, he gave it gladly, he gave it joyfully. So high was his appreciation of the prize he was gaining that all he gave for it in the way of sacrifice, suffering, self-denial and misrepresentation, slander, poverty, imprisonment and death he counted to be but loss and dross in comparison with the riches of this inheritance, the Pearl of Great Price--the privilege of joint-heirship with Messiah in His glorious Kingdom.
THE PEARL IS THE KINGDOM.
What, then, is this pearl? The Great Teacher tells us that it is the Kingdom of Heaven! It is the Kingdom which God for ages has promised shall be established under the whole heavens for the blessing of all the families of the earth. It is variously styled: The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven. It signifies the rule, the government, the dominion. Particularly, it signifies to us the privilege of being joint-heirs with Messiah in that glorious reign of righteousness which He will establish as God's representative in the earth--the Kingdom which eventually shall overthrow all sin, which shall cause the knowledge of God to fill the whole earth, and which eventually will produce on earth the same blessed condition which prevails in heaven. It is the Kingdom referred to by Jesus when He told us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven."
This Kingdom has not yet come. Satan is still the "Prince of this world." We are still under the reign of sin and death. The only work thus far accomplished is the redemptive work of Jesus finished at Calvary, and the further work of showing amongst men this Pearl of Great Price-- the privilege of joint-heirship with Jesus in His Kingdom, and of permitting a limited number to purchase this Pearl of Great Price. It is offered to each one who is willing to give all that he has, whether that all be much or little. He can not have it for less. It is worth a thousand times more.
The Great Redeemer Himself was offered this Pearl by the Heavenly Father. Thus the apostle declared of Jesus, "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Heb. 12:2.) And in harmony with the Divine plan Jesus, during the past nineteen centuries, has been offering a share with Himself in this Glorious Kingdom, to such as rightly value it and are willing to give all they have therefor. But the opportunity will not continue long. Very soon we believe this opportunity will cease, because the elect, predestinated number will have accepted, and thus the opportunity will cease.
But where the opportunity of the Church to gain the Great Prize ends, the opportunity for mankind in general to be blessed will begin. As soon as the Kingdom Class shall be completed and glorified, the Kingdom reign will begin, bringing light, knowledge, blessing and privilege to all the sons and daughters of Adam. "The Sun of Righteousness will arise with healing in his beams." But that Great Sun of righteousness is the Kingdom, and whoever would have a share in it must now purchase the same by walking in the footsteps of Jesus, who has set us an example that we should walk in His steps.
I am glad, my dear friends, to tell you that I for one have consecrated my little all to the Lord, and am planning to lay it down in His service as the days go by. I trust that many of you have done similarly, and that others, seeing the value of the prize, may at once go to the Lord and make a full consecration to Him, that they also may be counted in as members of His Bride, as members of the Kingdom Class. The gaining of this Kingdom, the sacrificing of our all to the Lord will mean the giving up of all earthly ambitions, but it will not necessarily mean the giving up of our earthly occupations, if these seem to be the ones by which we may best glorify God and serve His cause. You see, then, the difference between ambitions of a merchant or a physician, or a teacher, and the mere following of these in a secondary sense, not as our ambition, but as our labor in life. Thus Saint Paul, in giving up all for the prize, the Pearl, the Kingdom, on occasion became a tentmaker, working to supply the needs of himself and others, but tentmaking was no longer his ambition, no longer his aim or prize, but merely an incidental stepping stone in connection with his purchase of the great Pearl of the Kingdom. God grant that it may be so with you and me as we seek to purchase the Pearl of Great Price by the sacrifice of every earthly interest and ambition.
THE BIBLE FROM A DOCTOR'S STANDPOINT.
AMONG the members of the Missions Investigating Committee who visited Manila Sunday was Dr. L. W. Jones, a physician and surgeon of Chicago, who has traveled extensively in the interest of bible study, for he has found time amidst other duties to give considerable study to Holy Writ. He supplemented the remarks of the other members of the committee by giving a short address. His remarks were in substance as follows: Ladies and Gentlemen:
I desire to briefly give you my views of the bible from the standpoint of a doctor. I have always been interested in the Scriptures, but not until some ten years ago did I come to see how reasonable and consistent the bible was, and how in harmony it was with what we ought to expect of a great being like the Almighty, whose attributes we have learned to recognize as Justice, Wisdom, Love and Power.
As doctors we go about from day to day, year in and year out endeavoring to relieve the poor world of its aches and pains. We use our best judgment and endeavors, bring to our assistance all the aids known to the medical and surgical world, but the best we can do is to palliate and give temporary relief, for death claims all sooner or later and we are helpless to withstand its reaping hand. Therefore, questions come to the mind of every thinking physician and surgeon: Why are all the aches, pains, sickness, death and sorrow? Has this condition of things always existed? If not, when and how did it begin? Will it ever cease? If so, when and how? We realize that we can do very little this side of the grave, and so another question comes to us, Is there hope beyond the grave?
For answers to all of these questions we may study all the known sciences such as mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, biology, etc., and study the histories of the world, but our search is in vain; they can tell us nothing. The only answers are found in that great "book of books"-- the bible. It answers all questions and in a way that appeals to any unbiased and reasoning mind. We, therefore, turn to the bible for a little while this evening to be instructed therefrom.
HOW AND WHEN DID SICKNESS COME.
Turning to the Bible and citing such texts of Scripture as Genesis 2:7, Gen. 1:31, Deut. 32:4, Psalms 18:30 and as Genesis 2:7, Gen. 1:31, Deut. 32:4, Psalms 18:30 and as Genesis 2:7, Gen. 1:31, Deut. 32:4, Psalms 18:30 and as Genesis 2:7, Gen. 1:31, Deut. 32:4, Psalms 18:30 and Ezekiel 28:15, he declared that God created man perfect, in His own image and likeness, not in the image and likeness of a monkey, as our Evolutionist friends would have us believe. He further demonstrated from the Scriptures that the perfect man was placed in the perfect Garden of Eden, with [CR209] all the requisites necessary for his sustenance throughout all eternity, upon the one condition of obedience, that disobedience in God's sight is sin, and that God clearly stated that the penalty of sin is DEATH, and not something after death, such as eternal torment. (Gen. 2:17, Romans 6:23, death, such as eternal torment. (Gen. 2:17, Romans 6:23, James 1:15). In answer to the argument that might be brought to the effect that the soul cannot die, he stated that never in the chemical laboratory with any of the various analyses, or with the microscope having the highest power lens or with the scalpel in either the dissecting room or at the operating table has any scientist ever been able to discover that a man has a soul that could not die. He refuted the argument by quoting Ezekiel 8:4,20, Isa. 53:12, and Matthew 10:28. argument by quoting Ezekiel 8:4,20, Isa. 53:12, and Matthew 10:28. argument by quoting Ezekiel 8:4,20, Isa. 53:12, and Matthew 10:28. From these texts he showed that man is a soul, as are all breathing, sentient beings--not that man has a soul.
He then called attention to the fact that Adam did sin, he did not go into eternal torment, but he did die, and that as a result he brought the whole world into sin, condemnation and death, as shown in Gen. 5:5; Rom. 5:12,18, 1 Cor. 15:21,22. and death, as shown in Gen. 5:5; Rom. 5:12,18, 1 Cor. 15:21,22. and death, as shown in Gen. 5:5; Rom. 5:12,18, 1 Cor. 15:21,22. He then declared that the condition of death, instead of being a condition where a man was more alive (in heaven, hell or purgatory) than he was before he died, and where there was blazing fire, cursing and blasphemy, shrieks and groans, pains and sufferings and remorse, great activity and anxiety for friends who have not yet died; was a condition of extinction--oblivion, of darkness. (Job 10:21); no remembrance (Psa. 6:5); place of silence (Psa. 115:17: no remembrance (Psa. 6:5); place of silence (Psa. 115:17: land of forgetfulness (Psa. 88:11) where there is neither work nor device, wisdom nor knowledge (Eccl. 9:5,10; Job 14:21).
He further called attention to how the world is dying mentally, morally, and physically, as illustrated by all our insane asylums, hospitals, jails, work-houses and penitentiaries and stated that breathing your last breath was not all there is to death, but that death included all of the concomitant symptoms of the multitude of diseases with which mankind is afflicted.
He described all of the misery, sorrow, sickness, suffering and depravity that is about us, as being part of the awful curse that is upon mankind, stating that the world was practically one great, foul abscess as prophesied by the Prophet Isaiah, 1:6. Thus people estimated as twenty thousand million have come into the world through much pain and suffering, there have been twenty thousand million death-bed scenes, and twenty thousand million funerals. Thus mankind have been going down into the grave "sheol," "hades," the tomb, and are now dying at the rate of ninety thousand a day, without any hope so far as they themselves are concerned of stopping the dying process or of recovery of themselves from the death state, for the Scriptures state in Psalm 47:9, "None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him."
HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE.
Dark as is the awful picture which he described, he stated that there is a silver lining to this dark cloud. The speaker then showed how God came to the rescue of mankind nearly two thousand years ago and provided a Great Physician who would be able to do for mankind all that we would like to do, but which we are unable to accomplish. He showed from John 3:16 that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (The Great Physician) that whosoever believed in Him should not perish, but might have everlasting life." Also from 1 John 4:9 and Romans 5:8 everlasting life." Also from 1 John 4:9 and Romans 5:8 he called attention to the fact that Jehovah God, instead of being a terrible tyrant and vengeful God, was a God of love and in the giving of His Son for us while we were yet sinners, He manifested His love as fully as He demonstrated His justice in carrying out the death penalty which He had pronounced upon Adam for his sin.
While on earth Jesus demonstrated the authenticity of His claims as the Great Physician by performing many miracles while on earth, opening the eyes of the blind, curing the palsied, the lepers and many others, and even awakening the dead. These, he said, were but samples of the work the Great Physician would do in His due time. Eventually He would fulfill the oath-bound promise God made to Abraham, saying, "In thee and in thy seed will I bless all families of the earth," and the promise given by the angel at the birth of our Lord and Saviour when he said, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto ALL people.
THE CURSE OF DEATH DESTROYED.
But, he stated, in answer to the query, When and how will this all be accomplished, and why the delay since Jesus came, died and paid man's penalty, by going into death for him?--he stated that the Great Physician intends to have a whole corps of under physicians and nurses, and is now enlisting recruits for his hospital service. He showed that it requires time to find sufficient who are willing to enlist and undergo the training necessary for the great work of restoring all the mentally, morally and physically sick. He then showed how God went to the Jews to find enough who were willing to enlist under the banner of the Great Physician, who showed them that they must go through a similar course of training to that which He experienced, that they must be touched with the feelings of the infirmities of mankind, must become acquainted with all of their trials, temptations and besetting sins in order to properly deal with them in the due time. However, as shown from Romans 11:5, He found but a remnant, and the rest were blinded for a season, and God's favor has gone now for the past nineteen hundred years to the gentiles (Acts 15:14), "to take out of them a people for His name," called the "fulness of the Gentiles" (Romans 11:25). These have been taken out of every people, kindred, nation and tongue; Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Indians--from all nations. Why? In order that no person who ever lived will be able to state that his condition is such that none can sympathize with him or understand his disease. There will be some from amongst all of these under-physicians to the Great Physician who will have gone through similar experiences, mentally, morally and physically.
THE RESURRECTION NEAR.
The bible shows that this full number of recruits has nearly been filled, that they have been tested and glorified on the Divine plane with the Great Physician, and that just as soon as the last few have finished their training and qualified, then they, too, will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and be with the Great Physician. This means the blindness upon the Jews, God's originally chosen people, will be removed, and the Apostle Paul tells in Romans 11:15 that it will mean the resurrection of the dead.
Jesus also declared that "All in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and come forth." Paul further attests this in Acts 24:15, that "There shall be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust." Thus is shown that All, both just and unjust are dead, and Jesus said in John 3:13, "No man hath ascended into heaven." Not even David, the man after God's own heart, went to heaven, as said the Apostle Peter, Acts 2:34.
THE JUDGMENT DAY.
Then, said the speaker, will begin the great judgment day of a thousand years, when those on earth will be cured of all their troubles, physical, mental and moral, and also those under the earth. The world's great hospital will be in full operation for the next thousand years blessing all the willing and obedient, at the hands of the Great Physician and His under-physicians. The work will be done by processes [CR210] of testing, trial and judgments or disciplines. The time is spoken of when the "highway of holiness" shall be opened up, on which all the redeemed may walk, step by step, to the perfection once enjoyed by father Adam when fresh from the Creator's hands. (Isa. 35:10.)
PROPHECY FULFILLED.
The speaker declared that then would be fulfilled the prophesies spoken by the mouths of all God's holy prophets. (Acts 3:19-21) Quoting a few, such as Isaiah 61:1-3, Isa. 35:5-6, "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the dead shall be unstopped, the lame man shall leap as an hart and the tongue of the dumb shall sing." "In that day none shall say I am sick." "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." And there shall be no more curse." (Rev. 21:4, 22:3.)
Thus, my friends, the bible gives the only answer to the many questions that have arisen in our minds. God has permitted all of this trouble in order that man may learn the great lesson of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, so that through all eternity they may live here on this restored earth in peace and happiness, and serve their God from the standpoint of love.
The speaker declared that the reverent study of the bible was the grandest study of all the sciences, the study which "addeth wisdom to the wise and maketh wise the simple." He urged that all Christians throw away their creeds and unite upon the study of the bible. He stated the greatest helps to bible study had come from studying the wonderful writings of Pastor Russell, the speaker of the afternoon.
WE then returned to the Army and Navy Club for meals and for rest, and I can assure you this was greatly appreciated, for here we got some American cooking which tasted "like mother used to cook." We had been eating food cooked by Japanese and Chinese. Here at the Club we had opportunity of meeting many of the officers of the Army and some of the Governors and Judges of the Island Provinces. Through all of these men whom we met and our travels about the Island we learned a great deal about the conditions there. So at this point of my letter I want to say that I am proud of the United States in what she has done for the Philippinos and the country. It is something marvelous and in such decided contrast with the way the European countries have done with their colonies. Here we saw improvements on every hand and the people being educated, lifted up and civilized, while in other countries they have been kept in subjection. They have free compulsory education, and of the original 1,000 teachers taken over from the United States, 800 still remain, and these are supplemented by 8,000 native teachers; and besides the schools they now have, arrangements are now under way for 400 more to be put up at once, as the present accommodations are inadequate for the needs of the people, who are waking up to their privileges. It is now necessary to have half day sessions, one set of pupils coming in the morning and the other half attending in the afternoon. Then I want to speak a word for the personnel of the officers and men that our Government has sent out there. I never saw better specimens of men, far superior to what I had expected to find. Uncle Sam has done more in the last ten years with his gunboats and soldiers for the civilization of the Philippinos than Missionaries could have done in a hundred years. Now is the time for the truth to gain an entrance and the natives are hungry to read. Announcement was made at the meetings that free literature would be sent to any who would write their names and address on slips of paper. Several hundred slips were handed in.
MEETINGS AT HONG KONG, CHINA.
We left Manila Monday afternoon, and were told to hurry and get aboard our ship, which was at anchor out in the harbor, so at three o'clock we went in what they told us was the last launch. However, we found they had an immense cargo of hemp to load, 4,000 bales, each weighing 260 pounds. This took them until after eleven o'clock at night to load, so it was nearly midnight when we lifted anchor. We had a very quiet sea all the way to Hong Kong, arriving there on the 18th.
In our absence arrangements had been made for Brother Russell to address a gathering of Chinese Christians in the City Hall that evening. We found about one hundred and fifty assembled, who paid close attention to all that was said, and wanted another meeting the next night. Brother Russell was scheduled to speak to English-speaking [CR211] people the next day at four and nine o'clock. The only time, therefore, for another Chinese meeting was between those two meetings, so arrangements were accordingly made. All were greatly surprised to find nearly four hundred Chinese present, and they, too, gave close attention. Of course an interpreter was used at those meetings. Their language is the funniest ever. It sounds as though the speaker had a hot potato in his mouth and at the same time was troubled with cleft-palate and had a bad cold. They wanted more meetings, but those could not be supplied. They also want literature, and this they will be able to have soon, as arrangements were made for some to be printed; also for the first volume to be printed in Chinese. It seems that the Lord is turning from the white people and going to the natives in these various countries, similar to His turning from the Jews to the Gentiles at the first advent.
Regarding the meetings addressed by Pastor Russell while in Hong Kong, the South China Press wrote up the following:
PASTOR RUSSELL.
TALKS ABOUT THE FUTURE STATE.
Big Meetings at the City Hall.
"Where are the dead?" asked Pastor Russell at the City Hall last evening, and in the course of an hour and a half he supplied an answer to the question. The Hall was crowded, many people having to be content with standing room, and throughout strict attention was given, the audience very evidently being given seriously to thinking.
The famous preacher is no sensationalist. A venerable looking gentleman, with white hair and white beard, he speaks with great earnestness in a clear voice in which the American twang is just to be traced, and an occasional flash of gentle humor lends point to an affective though unassuming platform style.
The Bible the speaker advanced as the one true basis of life, and he lamented that although all the denominations agree there is one God, one faith, one baptism, and one Church of the Living God, yet there should be such discrepancies as now exist. Where were these denominations authorized in the Bible? Nowhere, and the simplest and the best way for them all would be to throw aside all those creeds which had divided people into sections and come together on one platform with the Word of God.
They wanted to see what the Bible said about where the dead were. It said the dead know not anything; their sons come to honor and they know it not, to dishonor and they perceived it not. Why was it? Let the Bible answer again --because there was neither wisdom nor knowledge in Sheol. And was not Sheol hell? Yes, Sheol was hell, and all were going to the Bible hell, but the Bible hell was not a hell of torture. The Bible hell was the grave. If all were doomed to be eternally roasted it would not be just. It was time they got to the truth and rid themselves of a lot of rubbish of the dark ages.
Ultimately, said Pastor Russell, there would be a great manifestation, and then all would see that God's ways were wise and just and loving and altogether right, and that he was able to do according to His good pleasure not a God with good intentions but lacking in power, nor a God with bad intentions abusing His power, but a God with good intentions gradually working out all things according to the guidance of His own will. By Adam's sin all died; by the death of Jesus all were redeemed. All their creeds told them the dead were really more alive than they were alive, but the dead were really dead, and the hope of the dead was the resurrection of the dead, when there should be a glorious awakening.
Following the City Hall meeting Pastor Russell addressed between 300 and 400 Chinese.
Later in the evening there was a question meeting, when there was again a large attendance. Pastor Russell delivered a short address and afterwards answered various interrogations on points raised by his two addresses or such as perplexed his questioners. The meeting lasted till close on 11 o'clock.
IT is a very sad sight in China to see human beings doing the work of beasts of burden, and especially the women. There are many large buildings all the way up the sides of the high hills, almost mountains, and all the material for these buildings is carried by men and women up these hills. The material is put in two baskets hung on a pole which is carried across the shoulders. They will carry as high as fifty bricks, twenty-five on each side, and other things in proportion. The amount they carry in each basket is all I would care to lift with both hands. Some of the people are very, very poor, and in the interior, in the famine district, thousands are at the point of starvation, and that section of the country is just between the territory of the two sections at war with each other, and so is not under the rule of either faction of the government.
MONDAY, the 22nd. Well, we are on board ship again, headed for Singapore. Hong Kong is now a matter of history so far as our work is concerned. While there we came into close touch with the existing conditions and have a clear insight as to the results of missionary work activities of the past. Results were what we were looking for and not merely to interview missionaries, although our interviews with many missionaries indicated the condition of their minds as to the hope of converting the world, etc. The members of the committee which we left at Shanghai caught up with us just before we left Hong Kong and are now on board this ship with us. We were very glad to see them again, for our close fellowship for several weeks has brought us very [CR212] near and dear to one another--like the members of a family, and when one or more is absent from the rest of the party, the rest miss them and their prayers are continually with them.
The same ship which brought them to us from Shanghai also brought nearly a dozen missionaries who had spent years in the interior of China, but the war and famine have driven them out and they are now on their return to their homeland, which I believe is Great Britain, at least that is the home of some of them.
Yesterday was an interesting day. At 10:45 there was divine service, conducted by an Episcopal minister, using the Church of England service. After thirty-five minutes of preliminaries, reading Scripture, singing hymns, prayers already printed, and responsive readings, he discoursed for thirteen minutes, using for a text the 38th verse of the 12th chapter of Matthew, where it speaks of a certain generation desiring a sign, but that they should have none, save the sign of Jonah. The sum of his talk was to get into the Church by baptism and there rest quietly, trusting implicitly for the final outcome, not inquiring into doctrines, etc. He used the illustration of a ship, and how we get into a ship, not knowing anything about the engines or charts and maps, but leave it all to the captain and officers. He failed to state, however, how we would know that the Episcopal Church was the right boat and how we should look upon the other churches or boats. There was little to satisfy a thinking or inquiring mind.
In the evening our party all went to another part of the ship to visit the missionaries, above mentioned.
Brother Russell was requested to give them a little talk, which he did from eight o'clock until ten o'clock, treating on the fall, ransom, restitution, resurrection, judgment and a lot of parables. They seem like an earnest band of men and women, and have certainly gone through a great deal and sacrificed much for what they think is the Lord's will. We trust something said may have a tendency to open their eyes and ears to the truth if it is the Lord's will.
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.
FIVE days on the ocean from Hong Kong, passing the coast of French China, brings our party to Singapore, where the whole steamer traffic of the Orient passes in review. Here through passengers for Colombo only call for the day, with chance to visit the fine Botanic Gardens and lunch at one of the great hotels. Those bound to Java, or transferring to the steamer for Rangoon, disembark and have more time to inspect this most cosmopolitan city--beautiful in many parts and curious in all. Swarms of Chinese, black Madrassi and Tamils from India; Malays, Hindus, Javanese, Siamese, Cingalese, Afghans, Burmese and other strange races fill the streets.
SINGAPORE.
This is Thursday morning, January the 25th. We are now leaving Singapore for Penang, our next stop. Yesterday we arrived at Singapore early in the morning and found that our ship would lay over here all day and night. Some of us, therefore, started out to see what could be done about a meeting. We had to go by faith, for we did not know a soul here. However, one thing led to another and finally we got into touch with the Chinese Anglo Mission School, a school which is under the supervision of the Methodist Church. We visited only the school for boys, which has over 1,200. We learned that there was a still larger school for the girls. It was my privilege to visit a number of the rooms. The scholars range in age from six to twenty-six years of age. The higher grades take up a good deal of high school work and also a business course in shorthand, typewriting, bookkeeping, etc. There is also considerable Bible study-- Gradually while in the lower grades the prejudice against the Christian religion is broken down and by the time the boys finish school they claim one-third of them are professed Christians, although not many join the churches. The boys are Chinese, Malay and Indian. We continue to hear splendid reports regarding the Chinese and their ability, trustworthiness, etc. It was very interesting to listen to them in school and to examine their written work. Their work would compare very favorably with that in our schools. I was especially impressed with one room containing about forty little tots of about six years old, nearly all Chinese. They started in school last November, only two months ago, at which time they did not know a word of English. The teacher had them recite for me three stories, Jack and Gill, and two others. They all recited together and I never heard a class anywhere speak more in unison than they, and pronounced their words well. Pastor Russell was invited to speak to the [CR213] school, so we got him up there at twelve o'clock, and the teachers gathered the scholars, especially the older ones, in the drill hall, and he spoke to about 300 for nearly an hour. He used a great deal of tact in his remarks and gave them much to think about. His address in brief was as follows:
MEETING HELD IN METHODIST MISSIONARY SCHOOL, SINGAPORE,
DURING NOON HOUR.
INTRODUCTION of Pastor Russell by one of the teachers: We are always very glad to have men come to us from other parts of the world. Today we have with us Pastor Russell, of Brooklyn, New York. I do not know what he has to say, but it will be something good. He spoke in China through an interpreter, but he will not have to do that here.
Pastor Russell: It affords me a great deal of pleasure to be here. I had a somewhat similar audience in Manila, and I thought as I looked over this audience and arrangement, how similar it was to that in the Philippine Islands. There, under the care of the United States Government, schooling is given great attention, and they tell us of the wonderful interest being aroused in the people of Manila and all through the Philippine Islands. One thousand teachers were brought over by the United States Government a short time ago, and now there are six thousand Philippine teachers also, so that you see the people of the Philippine Islands are hungry for education. We inquired whether or not they had compulsory education, and they answered, Oh, no, we cannot get the schools built fast enough! They tell us they are obliged to run two different sessions a day. They are building more schools, also. When I came here and looked over the school you have I was impressed that there was the same thought here of desiring to have education. Then while thinking about what I would say to you, a text of Scripture came to my mind. We believe that the Bible is God's Word, a revelation of what His purposes are; He tells us of matters that are going on. I will take that passage in the 12th chapter of Daniel, in the Old Testament. There God told Daniel in advance, 2,500 years ago, about our very day in which you and I are living. This is the circumstance--I believe you will all be interested in it, because it shows the fulfillment of that prophecy. God had told Daniel in advance certain things that would take place in respect to the Jews, and then added some other things that did not apply to the Jews, but to other nations, and Daniel was very anxious to know, and God said, through the angel, Go thy way, Daniel, for those things are closed up and sealed until the time of the end--not the end of time --you see there is a difference between those two thoughts, the end of time and the end of the age. So he explained what it would be like in the time of the end or the end of the age. So that those living in the end of one age might know when it was, and when was the beginning of another age. He pointed out that we are living in a different time, not only in Singapore, but everywhere. You see the electric cars running here, the telephone and the telegraph and steam trains, and you see that you are getting things in this land that we have in other lands. It is not very long since we had the first steamboat and the first tramcar, and not very long since we had the first electric car. These are all new in America and Europe and nearly as new as here in the Straits. Now all these things belong to this new age, and the Bible tells us that the time before us is to be still more wonderful than anything in the past. We are only on the verge of a more wonderful period than the world ever knew, and it is of that time that Daniel's prophecy tells us. (Brother Russell then talked to them for about an hour along the line of "The Signs of the Times," as elsewhere reported in this volume.)
ABOUT eighty of the boys and a number of the teachers board in their boarding school. Brothers Kuehn, Margeson and myself were invited there for dinner, which invitation we accepted. It reminded us considerable of the Bethel dining room. We had an excellent opportunity of getting better acquainted with the teachers, who are a fine class of ladies and gentlemen--all Methodists. They seem earnest and sincere. That evening was the evening for the Epworth League to meet in the Wesley Methodist Church, and as Brother Russell had been asked, while at the school, at noon, to speak at the Epworth League meeting, we all went there after dinner. There were probably fifty all told, nearly all adults present. The minister in charge gave Brother Russell a splendid introduction, stating that he had heard of him through his home paper from England, which he received regularly each week, and whose sermons he was enjoying. Brother Russell then gave another masterly discourse on the Church, the high calling, etc., and the steps leading up to joint heirship with Christ, etc. I took down in shorthand quite a full synopsis of the discourse, which you may read as follows:
EVENING MEETING IN THE WESLEYAN M. E. CHURCH, SINGAPORE.
THE assistant pastor of the church introduced Pastor Russell by saying, "We have tonight a great privilege, Pastor Russell of London and Brooklyn Tabernacles is to speak to us. I have known of Pastor Russell for some time and have been reading his sermons, which are published each week in the paper I receive from my home in England. I do not know how to better introduce him than to read to you a clipping from the London Graphic, as follows:
"Pastor Russell, who for a number of years has been a frequent visitor to our shores, is about to become more permanently located in Great Britain. He has accepted the pastorate of the London Tabernacle, which is shown in the accompanying picture.
"The advent of Pastor Russell brings to this city and country a man of international reputation, who is known almost as well in Great Britain as he is in America. He has addressed immense audiences in the Royal Albert Hall, London, and in the most prominent provincial cities and towns, and is well known upon the Continent, where he has traveled and lectured extensively.
"He almost always lectures under the auspices of the International Bible Students' Association, which is very strong in Great Britain.
"It is a noteworthy coincidence that just at this time, [CR214] when England is bidding good-bye to one of its most prominent religious leaders, who is taking up a fresh field of activity in the New World, that Pastor Russell, who is reputed to be the most popular preacher in America, should become, almost simultaneously, prominently identified with religious effort in England. However, he retains his charge in New York, and will endeavor to make the voyage to America twice a year to look after the spiritual interests of the Brooklyn Tabernacle congregation."
Pastor Russell will now speak to us.
Pastor Russell: I am very pleased, dear friends, to be with you this evening, and am pleased to have the opportunity of congratulating you upon the work I see here in progress. I had the pleasure of meeting with your school today at the noon hour and am pleased to see the practical way in which you are trying to help the people of this vicinity with better ideas with respect to civilization, and God, and to help them in their present and eternal welfare. I am sure, however, that you may have some discouraging features here, as are found elsewhere, so as I thought about a text several came to my mind. I will take them all and condense as much as possible, but this one specially came before my mind. Hebrews the 10th chapter, verse 35, "Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward."
It seems to be a part of the Divine arrangement that God's people should be required to exercise faith. The Apostle writes, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." And this matter of faith is one that is gradually developed in us. We grow in grace, we grow in knowledge, we grow in faith and obedience to the Lord. It is a matter of progress. In the matter of faith, I suppose you feel as the Apostle suggests, and that you will not cast away your confidence in the Lord. It might be very unsafe, dear friends, to have too much confidence in ourselves, but when we think of our great heavenly Father, let us have renewed confidence in Him. Let us remember what the prophet says in Isaiah 55:11, "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." That has been a very great consolation to me during experiences when things were not so favorable, and other experiences that were favorable, to remember that God is at the helm in respect to all his own work, and that He is working and operating all things according to the counsel of his own will.
I am glad to address you from the standpoint of the Church of the one God. The hymn selected at the opening is very precious to me, "The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord." And further that she in the Divine arrangement is to be the Bride of Christ, and is to be associated as co-worker with Him; hence it strikes me very favorably; it seems to me it is one song that all Christians should learn to sing. It may be that we are of different denominations, under different control, but in deed and in truth there is but the one Church of the living God, whose names are written in heaven. I am glad, dear brothers and sisters, to tell you that I hope and believe that I belong to that one Church, and it is my hope for you also that you belong to the same one Church. It is the one mentioned here in the hymn to which the Apostle refers in his letter to the Ephesians, "I have espoused you as a chaste virgin unto one husband, which is Christ." This was not only applicable to the Church at Corinth, but to all people in every age from that time to the present; we are all espoused to the Lord. This matter of espousal is one of the beautiful illustrations in which the Lord tells us of the very close relationship between Himself and His people--the thought is that of a true bride and true bridegroom. We could imagine, as the Scriptures tell us, that there have been failures in the Church to live up to their true privileges, because worldliness has come in, but let us think of it from the Apostle's standpoint of the true virgin class and endeavor to hold this position, and not seek to become contaminated with the spirit of the word, but to seek to have that meekness and purity of heart, which the Lord, the great Bridegroom, approves, and which alone will make us acceptable to Him when He comes to make up these chaste virgins, the Church of the Living God. And when we think of the virgin Church of Christ it calls to our mind, you remember, our Lord's expression in reference to His second coming, for I presume that all the Lord's people here in the Straits of Malay have before their minds the same thought, the Apostle enunciated, that we are all to look for our Lord as the great heavenly Bridegroom. If we are espoused to Him and are to have a share in the marriage with Him, we are necessarily interested in his second coming when He will receive us to Himself, and must have in mind that at His second coming the marriage will take place.
This leads to the thought that marriage was not the same amongst the Jews in the times of our Lord and Apostles as today. We have a very different ceremony. Now a contract is made and they come before some authority representative of the Lord and they make their acknowledgement and are pronounced husband and wife. But this was not the same at the time of our Lord. The custom was very different. What they did was to have an espousal which might last for perhaps a year, and during all that time of espousal the virgin was expected to retain her virginity, her purity, her loyalty to whom she was espoused. And so this was the Apostle's thought, when He said, I have espoused you, the Church at Corinth, as a chaste virgin, unto Christ. What do we mean by this espousal? Oh, we have entered into a contract, as did the Jews. They made the contract either with the Bride's brother, or her father, who represented her, and obligations were entered into by which it was determined what the bridegroom would give to the bride, and her obligations. So we have entered into a special contract with our heavenly Father. We have learned that through Him we are to have everlasting life, and He has given us this great honor of becoming the Bride of His Son and his heir and joint-heir with the Son. Of what? Oh, of all that He has and what He is to have. What is He to have? Oh, things that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of natural man, but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.
Oh, how much love will He require? What tests will He have upon us if He would have us worthy? How much love does he require? Oh, a great deal, my dear brothers and sisters; a great deal of love is required! He has expended a great deal of love upon us, "He so loved us that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And He was obedient, even to the death of the cross. Wherefore, God hath highly exalted Him, has given Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall ultimately bow, not only on earth but the things of heaven. These are the things to which we may be made joint-heirs, "If so be that we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified together." But do you say the sufferings of Christ are linked in with that? Yes, it seems that the heavenly Father wishes to prove the degree of our love, for if we do not love much we will not be willing to suffer for the Truth and Christ's sake, and if we do love much we will be willing to suffer and endure hardness as good soldiers, and to count everything else as loss and dross that we might become a joint-heir, and be His Bride in the great work that He is to accomplish. It seems to me, my dear brothers and sisters, that this is a wonderful hope He has set before us. We who were children of wrath as others, and not worthy to be sons of God, He hath brought nigh, and has given us this invitation that we may become followers of God, that we may be children of God, that we may become the Bride of Christ. How wonderful it is! What does it imply? Suppose we should become the Bride of Christ, is there anything great attached to that? To the saints the various names given to God's people, whether Methodist saints, Episcopal saints, Roman Catholic saints, Congregational saints, or Baptist saints, does not matter, for the important feature is not the label, but the fact that they are saints and belong to Christ, and so the Apostle says in Gal. 3:29, "And if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise."
"If ye be Christ's," coming back to the statement when writing to the Corinthians. If you are espoused to Christ, if you belong to the chaste virgin Church, then what? Oh, it means so much, dear friends. How much? Why, said one, Brother Russell, I never thought it meant so very much. It means we will get heaven? Oh, yes. Like the angels? Yes, but more. How much more than angels will we have? Oh, well, we must take what God has said; God said that we shall be joint-heirs with Christ. The angels are not joint-heirs with Christ; they must all worship Him. It is different to be made a joint-heir with Christ and a worshipper--"Let all the angels of God worship Him." But there is a difference between the worship that will come to Christ from the angels and from mankind, and the special relationship that [CR215] will be between Christ and the Church. This is the particular thought that is given us in telling us that we are the espoused Church. So Jesus said, "He that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I overcame and am set down with my Father in His throne."
Then the Apostle goes on to tell us further that in our glorious resurrection change we shall be like Him and see Him as He is. How like Him, and what is He? The express image of the Father's person. Is He higher than angels. Far above angels. And we shall be like Him? Yes, and we will be far above principalities and angels. And all of this is implied in the statement, "Heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ." It represents us as being on the same plane. It is like a joint stock company; all the members of that company have equal share. So that when we read we are to be joint-heirs with Christ, we are to share or participate with Him in all that He has. I remind you of what Saint Peter Said, "Wherefore are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these (promises working in us, inspiring hope, giving courage, urging us to endeavor and bring to greater and greater faithfulness) we (the espoused Church) might become partakers of the divine nature." Now what do you think of that? Is it not too wonderful to believe? Higher than angels, cherubim and seraphim, still higher, to the plane of the divine nature, which will be the divine Father, the divine Son, and by and by the divine Bride, the Lamb's wife. Is it not too much to believe? Yes, if God did not make it so plain in His Word. No wonder Saint Paul calls it a high calling--this very high invitation which God has given us to be associated with His Son in all these wonderful things.
Now again, referring to Gal. 3:29, "If ye be Christ's." How much hangs on that word Christ! Not merely the first steps to be Christ's. If we take the first step, and if we come then to take the next step, and if we abide in Him, and if we shall by faithfulness come off conquerors, and more than conquerors, if all that is there (and never forget it), then what about the if? "If ye be Christ's then are ye Abraham's seed." Abraham's seed? Yes. I thought that was for the Jews. Well there are two seeds; the Jews are a part of that seed, but there is another, the spiritual seed, and we may be members of the spiritual seed. This espoused virgin of Church is invited to become the Bride of Christ in exactly the same way that Rebecca became the wife of Isaac. This is the Apostle's thought. There are two seeds, the first, the spiritual seed, is higher, then comes the earthly seed. So God said to Abraham, "Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven (that is, Christ and the Church), and as the sands of the seashore" (the earthly seed). One is heavenly and the other is earthly. You and I could never be of the earthly seed because we have been invited to become the Bride of Christ and He is the heir of that Abrahamic seed. If ye be Christ's --if you are espoused to Him and make your calling and election sure, and become a member of the Bride of Christ, then you are Abraham's seed. Well, what of it? Oh, that seed of Abraham is the most wonderful promise in the Bible, everything in the Bible is about that seed of Abraham. I remind you of what the Apostle says of the matter in Hebrews 6th chapter, verses 18 and 19, where he is talking about this promise that God made to Abraham. God knew that it would be 3,500 years before it would be fulfilled. God not only promised Abraham these things, but He swore to them by two immutable things, that God could not change, that we might have strong consolation. It was not for Abraham's benefit, but it was necessary for us that God added his oath that we, the Gospel Church, might have strong consolation, we who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, as an anchor to our souls, both sure and steadfast, which anchoreth within the vail, which Jesus has entered. What hope? This hope of becoming Abraham's seed; this hope that we might inherit those promises made to Abraham. What is it? My dear brethren, the fact that you are here and are deeply interested in this work shows that you are deeply interested in the promise; that all the families of the earth shall be blessed. That is why you are here, because you are interested in humanity, and you would like to carry the blessings of God to every creature, and God's promise to Abraham is eventually that all shall be blessed. Oh, but you say, Brother Russell, it is six thousand years and we hear by the statistics of Great Britain and the American government that there are twice as many heathen now as there were a century ago. Well, do not become discouraged and cast away your confidence. How shall we understand it? If there are twice as many heathen now as there were a century ago, in another century would not there be twice as many more? How can the Abrahamic promise be fulfilled? Just this way, my dear friends, when we see God's plan which is so wonderful and beautiful.
God has not yet finished this work of making up this seed of Abraham. He began it with Jesus, who is the Head, and we are the under-members. Jesus is the Bridegroom, but we are the espoused virgins, to be His Bride; but not until the whole Church is completed will the Seed of Abraham be complete. "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed." Now, if the Abrahamic seed is not completed we see a reason why all the families of the earth are not blessed. We are not to expect all the families of the earth to be blest until the Abrahamic seed is complete, and this is what God has been doing the past 1,800 years, selecting the seed, Jesus the Head and the Church His Body. "If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed."
You remember when Jesus came, the first offer was given to the nation of Israel; they got all these opportunities. He told His disciples, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles and into the cities of the Samaritans enter ye not." And so you remember Saint Paul said to the Jews, It was necessary that the Gospel should be preached first to you, but it did not end with you; seeing you count yourselves unworthy, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. So God did take out some from the Jews, to be members of this spiritual Seed of Abraham. On Pentecost there were several thousand and the Holy Spirit adopted them into God's family, no longer belonging to the house of servants, as we read in Hebrews 3:5,6: "And Moses verily was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; but Christ as a Son over His own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end." We belong, you see, to the house of Sons--spiritual, not the natural seed. This spiritual seed God has been gathering during 1,800 years from all nations, and after being called they are to be proved, and tested, and found worthy. You know how it is, and I know. "Through much tribulation shall ye enter into the Kingdom." Every one of that class must endure trials. So if you and I have a share in it let us remember what the Lord said to the Apostle, Rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer for His sake. It is just like a piece of money. If it did not seem right, you would say, that does not look right, does not look good, and you would test it with acid, to see if it was good. If it were copper you would not test it at all. You would not waste the acid. So with the trials of God's people, they are only put upon those who give at least an outward appearance of obedience. This experience is only preparing us for a glorious place in the Bride of Christ.
Another thing about this is the text of Brother Wesley, it is found in Revelation and reads, "And the spirit and the Bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." At one time we had not noticed the meaning of this text, but when we carefully investigate now we see that we as God's Church are merely espoused virgins; we are not the Bride yet; we are not the Bride until the marriage. We are espoused to Him as a Bride, and at the second coming He is to receive us to Himself, and the marriage of the Lamb will come. Then we will be the Bride. So you remember that our Lord in the parable represented that at his coming there would be a class, all virgins, some wise and some foolish. You and I want to be of the wise class, having our lamps trimmed, not merely the light of God's Word, but also oil in our vessels,--the Holy Spirit in our hearts,--so at the second coming of our Lord, whenever that time shall come, we may be ready with our lamps trimmed and burning, because none but the wise virgins shall go in. Will there be any more Brides? No. Only one Bride. No polygamy, just one Bride of Christ, and she will be His and the marriage will take place at the second coming, and the door will be shut. No one else will ever become of that Bride class. They will fail of that particular blessing which we have already seen is the most wonderful proposition that could be made before human minds, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and which fadeth not away, but is reserved in heaven for you who have been kept by the power of God, ready to be revealed at the end of this [CR216] age--that will be the time. What kind of salvation then? Oh, the salvation of the first resurrection. His words are, Rev. 20:6, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." What, is the Bride going to reign with the Bridegroom a thousand years? That is what Jesus said, She shall sit with Him on his throne and reign with Him a thousand years, share His glory, honor, immortality, etc., in all the great work of his Messianic Kingdom. Now, don't you and I want to be members and prove faithful so that we who have been invited to be His Bride may be received to Himself? I am sure that we do, and so this text that we have been discussing has a wonderful force. The Spirit of the Bride were not saying Come at the time it was written; it is a future text. There is no Bride yet to say Come. Neither is there any river of water of life. Suppose some one should ask, where will you find the river of the water of life? My dear friends, there is none now, but God has promised it. Hear what Jesus said, "That water that I shall give him shall be in Him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life." You see it is a well spring, you have it in your heart if you have the begetting of the Holy Spirit, and I also in my heart. Some have the wells of water springing up, bubbling up. If we are faithful more and more each day this water of life is more and more precious to us. It is my own experience as the days go by that the water of life springing up is all the more precious. And where will this great river of the water of life come from? Let us go and see. It is all written how the Redeemer who is to be our Bridegroom, said in Revelation, Come hither, John, and I will show you the Bride, the Lamb's wife. That means, I will show you the Church, after her change, after the marriage has taken place, because now she is the virgin, espoused, then she will be the married wife. The marriage of the Lamb will come for his wife hath made herself ready. John turned and looked and he said, I beheld the New Jerusalem, etc., filled with the glory of God. That is a picture of the Church in glory, after the Church has been completed, and the marriage shall have taken place, pictured by the New Jerusalem; not literal golden streets, not literal walls. A city in symbol represents a Kingdom, and authority, and rule. God has promised that His Kingdom shall come as Jesus taught us to pray. How could we ever pray if we did not believe; but we are praying and striving in connection with this, that the Kingdom is to come and that it is to accomplish wonderful things, that God's will is to be done on earth even as it is done in heaven. What a wonderful change! Yes, it will be the Kingdom power. Under Him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. All the blind eyes and all the deaf ears shall be opened, thank God! You and I have tried also to open some blind eyes and found ourselves totally unable to do so, for several years, because it was absolutely beyond our power. All we can do is not much; you are doing what you are doing, and I am doing what I am doing. Jesus said he that hath an ear to hear let him hear. We cannot make him hear. He that hath an ear--tell it not only with your lips but with your lives. Show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Not all have the hearing ears and the seeing eyes. The glorious time is coming when all the blind eyes shall be opened and all the deaf ears shall be unstopped and unto Him every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess, and the glory of the Lord shall fill the whole earth.
What shall we be doing then, my dear brothers and sisters? Oh, we will be associated with Him in all that great missionary work. It is a blessed privilege, whether in a foreign country, or in a city, or in the home land, to do anything that we can now. But it will be grand that if we have the blessed privilege of service, and shall by and by have the privilege of lifting up the whole world. When the glorious Kingdom of Messiah shall be established, when we shall be reigning, that will be the time. Notice this statement, the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven, from God, and then what? Note what John tells us about the New Jerusalem; it is the one Church that is pictured, which has twelve foundations, no more, no less; and in the twelve foundation stones were the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. That is our Church, is it not? It surely is. It is the one for which all Christians pray, whose names are written in heaven, founded by the Lord Jesus Christ, whose primary teachers are Christ and the Apostles. That is our Church. Well, what about it? Listen: And John watched and saw from underneath the throne-- not through the throne--a river of water of life, beautiful, clear as crystal, pure, clean truth, proceeding from under the throne. Where was it going? It goes outside the city itself. The city is the Church. Where is it going? Way out to the world. Then what? On either side of the banks of the river there were twelve manner of trees, and their leaves were for the healing of the heathen. What? Yes, and the leaves were for the healing of the people. What more? This water of life that flowed out is that of which the Bride said Come and take of the water of life freely. Oh, how wonderful it will be! Everybody will have a good chance to come. Are you not glad? I am. Oh, I am so glad that these poor people who have not yet heard will have such a glorious opportunity then, when the Spirit and the Bride shall say come. It will be with power. There will be a river of water of life then.
But, Brother Russell, was not the spirit merely poured out on the handmaidens and servants at Pentecost and the same now? Why speak about the spirit in the world? That is a part of the prophecy of Joel. We did not notice how it read,--after those days, and in those days. We are in those days, in which God pours out his spirit upon his servants and his handmaidens, and if you and I are such we get a portion of it, and if we remain his servants we continue to have the Holy Spirit. And after those days then I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. Not merely upon the servants and handmaidens. Now it is only for them, but after these days it will be upon all flesh.
Come back to Gal. 3:29, "If ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs, according to the promise." What promise? The promise made to Abraham. What is the promise? It is this: Abraham, I intend to bless the world, not merely the Church. Abraham, I will tell you what I intend to do; that blessing to the world shall come through your seed. It has taken God all this time to get this seed of Abraham. If you belong to Christ you are heirs of that [CR217] promise. The world is to be blessed and it is to be by you and by me, if we are members of the Abrahamic seed. I tell you, my dear friends, I want to be a member of the Abrahamic seed, and an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ. I am glad every day I live of having the privilege of showing to those who have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the hearts to appreciate, about God's great plan. But when I look down upon the world in general and see the thousands of millions, and their hopeless condition unless God does something, and then to see that God has it all planned out and intends to do it all, and that you and I may have a share not only in the present missionary enterprises at home and abroad, but by and by, if faithful here, we will reign with Him, and if we are dead with Him we shall live with Him, I tell you there is something worth living for and enduring for. That is the pay that God gives us, the trials and difficulties now and testings of faith because He does not intend that any shall share that blessing in the future if not faithful now. But if we deny Him He also will deny us, and if we confess Him, and are loyal to Him, He will take pleasure in confessing us to the heavenly Father and the holy angels, and we shall be absolutely blameless when the Bridegroom will present the Bride to the Father.
In the 45th Psalm we read that She, the Church, is all glorious within: Oh, my dear brothers and sisters, within-- in the heart. Without it is not always what we would like to be. But this Bride is all that she should be; she shall be brought in, in fine needlework. The gold represents the divine nature, the white linen represents the purity, and the needlework the beautiful outworkings of Christian character. The picture of the Scripture is that when we come to the Lord in our own imperfections we are not acceptable; but He gives us a wedding garment, without which we can never enter and become a member of the Bride class. We must have the justification by faith first. You cannot buy it; it is the gift of God through Christ, and it is represented in the fine linen of righteousness of the saints, to cover all our imperfections. "Blessed is the man whose sins are not imputed, whose sins are covered," figuratively, with this robe of Christ's righteousness. This robe has a stamping on it just the same as you would find if you go to some of your stores and get a pattern all stamped on it. Then you would need to take a needle and work out the pattern. The stamping has been given us in our Lord Jesus and we must work it out. The robe is free and the stamping is given us, but we must do the embroidery work. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do His good pleasure. It is more and more inspiring as the days go by.
Assistant Pastor: Any other remarks would be entirely out of place, except to say that we appreciate the visit of Pastor Russell with us.
The closest attention was given and at the close they said they wished he was to remain longer, and that if we ever came this way again to be sure to look them up. They certainly have something to think about, which is logical, reasonable and Scriptural. Good results surely ought to come from our visit here. There was one missionary present from Java, and she was much interested and gladly received a tract at the close. Who knows that that may mean the start for further work in Java?
Down here we are only about thirty miles from the equator. We expected to be a shadow or grease spot by this time, but to our surprise found it only about 85 degrees and a nice breeze blowing. However, the rays of the sun are very direct and it is necessary to wear one of their special topies or helmets, otherwise one is liable to experience bad effects from the sun. This is a very tropical country, as you may imagine. We took a ride out some distance in the country and saw rubber plantations, cocoa-nuts growing and all kinds of tropical vegetation.
SATURDAY, Jan. 27th. Well, we have just been doing the city of Penang, which is about two hundred miles on the way from Singapore to Colombo. It has been very hot here, at least 100, so that if you are having zero weather up there you can imagine that we notice some difference here. It is a thoroughly tropical place, and the inhabitants are Malay, Indian and Chinese, the latter predominating. It being Saturday the schools are closed, and as we are here but a few hours could not arrange for any meetings. Several of us took Jinrikshas and rode out to the home of the superintendent of the Methodist Mission Schools, which are branches of the schools we saw at Singapore. They have about 2,000 pupils in all, 200 of these being girls and the rest boys. We had a nice visit with the superintendent and his family and gathered considerable information. They are evidently doing good restitution work here. On our return we visited some large botanical gardens and here saw many tropical plants and trees, cocoanut, clove, cinnamon, acasia, and many, many others. Further along on our way we passed a large race track, and as Saturday afternoon is observed here as a holiday, we met all kinds, shapes and colors of people, wearing all kinds of clothing, and some of them not much of anything. It was the strangest sight I ever saw--it beat any Midway. It was a kleidoscopic phantasmagoria of miscellaneousness, and then some. The riksha men who pulled us about were Chinese and could not speak English, so we had a great time making them understand where we wanted them to go, and when we finally did get back to the boat we had our trouble in trying to settle with them. No matter how much you may pay them, they always want more. Although all business men speak very highly of the Chinese and have little use for the Japanese, my experience has been just the contrary, and the impression I got of the Japanese is still more favorable than that I have received of the other nations. We are still tied up to the dock and they are loading the cargo, which consists mostly of some kind of flour in bags and great blocks of tin, each block weighing about 75 [CR218] pounds or more. It is said that two-thirds of the tin of the whole world is shipped from Penang. I will be glad when the ship starts up again so that we will get some breeze. We will probably pull out in about two hours.
There is a party of about ten returning missionaries on board, but we cannot do anything with them, as they have ears, but they hear not; eyes, but they see not, and as we are not in the business at present of manufacturing eyes and ears, we have decided to leave them alone. Brother Russell gave them a splendid discourse last Sunday night, which ought to have done them good, and we thought possibly it would, but at Singapore they got hold of some tracts written against Millennial Dawn, and instead of using their own judgments in regard to what they themselves had heard from Brother Russell himself, they preferred to condemn the whole matter because of what they read in that little four-page sheet. We are glad that we can appropriate the passage to ourselves, which reads, "Blessed are your eyes and your ears that they see and hear." There is nothing like the Truth in the whole world.
Jan. 31. Well, this is early Wednesday morning, and we awoke to find the Island of Ceylon in sight, and we are due to land by noon, which is a day earlier than we had expected. Brother Driscoll is probably waiting for us. Since leaving Penang we have had a quiet time; the sea has been very smooth. We have been very busy, however, writing up matter to mail back from Colombo. The weather down here is not half as hot as we had expected, more like our June weather. We are now more than half way around, and are going down the hill, so to speak. Eight more weeks from today and we expect to land in New York.
There is nothing special to write about this morning. We are all well and are looking forward with considerable curiosity to our visit in India, which will be three weeks or more. We will have to purchase bedding to take along with us for use in both hotels and on the trains, as they do not supply any.
With much Christian love to all, I remain, as B4,
Yours in HIS service,
L. W. Jones, M.D.
(Mailed at Colombo, Ceylon.) ----------
LETTER 4.
"Bethel" Russell-Puram, Neyattinkara.
S. Travencore, India, Feb. 7, 1912.
To the Ecclesia at Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.
Dearly Beloved in the Lord:-- HERE we are at the above place, about as far from home as we could well be. This is the Society's headquarters in southern India. I am writing this in the new "Bethel," just finished the day before we arrived. The work here is in charge of Brother L. P. Devasahayam, but now known as Brother Davey. He is the brother many of you will remember having met at the Saratoga Convention. Then he was dressed in Oriental costume, with turban, etc. He had come to America some seven years before to study to be a missionary so as to return to India and instruct his people. Well, after studying for seven years in one of the Methodist colleges in Ohio he graduated an infidel, having no faith in the Bible. About that time some International Bible Students induced him to attend the convention at Saratoga, which he did, began to get back his faith in the Bible, went to Brooklyn, where he remained some time, studied the Bible diligently with the aid of "Millennial Dawn" (that terrible book), or "Studies in the Scriptures," as they are called. He is now a firm believer in the Bible as the revealed Word of God and has returned to India, and since that time has been actively engaged in preaching to large numbers of natives the unsearchable riches of God, and telling them of the wonderful Kingdom which God is about to establish, through which not only they, but also their forefathers (whom they have been taught have gone to a hell of torment), and all others will be blessed with an opportunity of returning to harmony with God. That was "good tidings" to them, for they had never heard anything like it in the past, and the more they hear the more they want to hear and they tell it abroad to every one they can find. As a result, great crowds have been coming to hear Brother Davey expound the gospel, and about thirty traveling workers are associated with him in the work. Of course, as might be expected, the preachers of the eternal torment gospel (?) do not like the advent of this pure light and considerable opposition has been the result. Nevertheless the work pushes on.
Well, I am getting ahead of my story, and must go back to Ceylon, where I mailed letter No. 3, and tell you what has transpired from that time to this. It will be impossible, however, to portray matters as vividly as I would like, because it is impossible to put down on paper all the sights, sounds, and odors which we experienced.
COLOMBO, CEYLON.
AS our great ship anchored in the harbor of Colombo many small boats full of people hovered around, waiting until the health officers should come on board and inspect the vessel and people who expected to land. We soon noticed in one of the boats the familiar figure of our dear brother, G. C. Driscoll, who had preceded our party several weeks. He, of course, had to wait his turn to come on board, the same as the others. Here he comes up the ladder now, dressed in the tropical garb worn by Europeans and Americans when in this hot country. It was the first time since last November that we had seen him, so it is needless to say that the greetings all around were very hearty. He had many interesting things to relate of his experiences along on the route.
We then got in the small boats, which took us ashore, and went direct to our hotels, met some of the class of Bible Students there and then prepared for business. I will not go into details, but merely mention two meetings at Colombo and one out on Leper Island.
The meetings at Colombo were well attended, but mostly by Orientals the whites as a rule being indifferent to the gospel message. Deep interest was manifested and many handed in their names for literature, so as to learn more about this glad message.
The city itself is quite modern in some respects, but here the customs and costumes, service at hotels, money, language, etc., is all different. We no sooner get accustomed to the manners, money, etc., in one place than we are obliged to begin all over in another.
LEPER ISLAND.
THE next thing of special interest about which I wish to tell you is a visit we paid to what is known as Leper Island. This is a place where the government of India has isolated about two hundred and ninety lepers, as there are that many there at this time. To reach the island we rode in carriages through the narrow, ill-smelling streets to the outskirts of the city, then walked some distance to a river, up which we must go for a short distance in a boat. The governor of the colony, Dr. R. Pestonjee, or medical superintendent, as he is also called, had kindly volunteered to us, through Brother Driscoll, the use of his boat and men to take us over to the island. Therefore, upon arrival at the river bank we saw a queer looking craft out in the stream. It consisted of two canoes, dug out of logs, about twelve or fourteen feet long and placed about ten feet apart, on which was built a platform having a canvas cabin built over it. It was quite a palatial affair for that section, and there were even several chairs for us within the cabin. The river was [CR219] so shallow that it could not come within fifty or a hundred feet of the shore. The crew, however, which consisted of two natives, wearing only breechcloths, waded ashore, made a seat of their hands and carried us, one by one, to the boat. As they carried Pastor Russell, I thought it too good a chance to miss, so took a snapshot of him (picture). When we were all on board the natives pushed and paddled the craft up and across the stream, and soon we were tied up to the landing, where the water was deeper. As we ascended the steps we were met by the doctor himself, who gave us a hearty welcome.
The doctor told us that the missionaries and preachers in Colombo had tried to influence him to not permit Pastor Russell to speak to the poor lepers. However, he paid no attention to them, and after showing us through the grounds, which are very beautiful, with houses and other buildings scattered here and there among the trees of various kinds, he then picked out a place where we could hold a service and gave instructions that any of the lepers, men or women, might come out and listen to the lecture. The men and women are segregated and never meet except on some such an occasion as this. Leprosy is a terrible disease, and we are very sorry for these poor creatures, but as they are so afflicted one can hardly see how they could be more comfortably situated than they are here. There are attendants to look after their wants, doctors and nurses to assist them; they have comfortable places in which to sleep and an abundance of food.
A table was soon put into commission under the trees as a platform, upon which stood Brother Russell and Brother Pieres, who acted as interpreter. (Picture.) The people were gathered around in a semi-circle, some squatting on the ground and others standing. Besides taking some snap-shot pictures I succeeded in taking down a shorthand synopsis of Brother Russell's remarks to the lepers, as follows:
BROTHER RUSSELL: I am very glad to be with you today. My heart goes out to you. I am glad to see such good provision made for you that you can be clean.
The disease of leprosy in the Bible is made a picture of sin. Not that only the lepers are sinners, but it is a type, or picture, or figure, of sin. It is a picture of sin because it cannot be cured. Only the power of God could cure leprosy, and just as the Bible teaches that only God can forgive and cleanse us from sin. All men are sinners, and all women are sinners, but God has made a gracious provision by which sinners may be forgiven. As yet He has only begun this great work. Those who specially believe in the Lord may have forgiveness of sin now. But God has a gracious provision in the future when He is going to blot out sin. That is a part of the Bible teaching that we had not noticed a short time ago. The Bible tells us that there is a glorious time of restitution coming. By the word restitution we mean, to restore, to bring back to perfection. Surely that is what is needed. You need not only to have your flesh restored, but to be otherwise restored. Not only you need to have restitution, but all the rest of us need restitution. Some of us have not the leprosy but have other diseases. The whole world is lying in sin and, therefore, the penalty of sin is upon the whole world. God did not place us in this imperfect condition in which we are now; it is not given to you to have the leprosy, and given to me to have some other disease. It is not God that brought death upon us, considering that this is the proper condition. The Bible tells us that all these sicknesses and dying are the result of sin. It was not because you did some sin before you were born that you were imperfect, and because I did something before I was born that I am imperfect. The Bible tells us that we were all born in sin. We ask where did the sin come from? The Bible says that the first man, Adam, our father, sinned. And when he sinned he brought the penalty of death upon him. But he was so perfect, so in the image of God, that it took him nine hundred and thirty years before he died. Then His children were born in sin and so his race gradually deteriorated because of sin. This is the penalty for sin; not that God said that we should have a life of sorrow and trouble and then at death go to a purgatory of torment. We made a mistake in reading our Bible. And just so the Buddhists and the Shintoists and the Brahmists are finding that they made mistakes in the past. But the Bible shows us that God is a god of love. A god of love would not provide eternal torment or even provide purgatory for us. Because God is love, therefore He loves all mankind, because they are all His creatures. Of course He loves the saintly ones best. But the Bible tells us that most of the people are unsaintly, because they do not know God. The Bible says that after a certain number of people have been born into the world, and a certain amount of experience has been had, that God intends to wipe out all sin. And when sin is wiped out it will mean the wiping out of all the pain, sickness and dying. God proposes to give everlasting life to as many as will come back into harmony with Him.
The Bible tells about two different salvations. The principle salvation is for the saintly ones now. They in the resurrection will be changed and made like unto the angels, spirit beings, holy. Now we would all like to be saintly and [CR220] like to get that great blessing. But we would not have very much hope for the people of India and Europe and China; we could not hope that many of them would become saintly. So, if only the saintly are going to be saved nearly everybody is going to be lost. God shows us, though, that He is going to have a different plan for that. Then all the saintly ones will be gathered, we believe, very soon. The saintly ones will be what the Bible calls the Bride Class. They will be associated with Jesus in the great work which He will do then. The Bible tells us that Jesus is shortly to set up his Kingdom. That Kingdom is to bless all the world of mankind, everybody. Now that Kingdom is just waiting until the saintly company is complete. Then the blessing will begin to come to the whole world. All the lepers will be healed, all the blind eyes will be opened, all the deaf ears will be unstopped, all the sick will be healed, and in due time gradually all the dead will be raised; but they will not come back to the earth in the present condition. The Bible tells us that the earth is to be made wonderfully beautiful and wonderfully fruitful, and the earth is to become the paradise to the world of mankind. And all mankind may thus come up to full perfection. By perfection we mean that condition in which Adam was created. Adam was never an angel, and never lived in Heaven; he never lost Heaven, never lost an angelic station. He was a perfect man, had a perfect home, and was an earthly being. He was a great king; he had control over all the earth; and so God says in the Bible that He gave Adam whole control of the whole earth, over the beasts of the field, over the fowl of the air and the fish in the sea; all were in subjection to him. But he sinned and came under the sentence of death. And he began to lose all this and became mentally imperfect; so that today some are insane altogether; and he became sick in body, and today very few people live to be more than one hundred years old. But when mankind is brought back he will be brought back to perfection. This is called restitution in the Bible. He will restore them again to that which they were. This is what Christ has come to do. At his first advent He came to pay man's penalty. What penalty did he pay? Did he go to purgatory? No, no. Purgatory was not the penalty. Did Jesus go to eternal torment for us? No, no. Why not? Because this was not the penalty. What was the penalty for sin? Hear what the Bible says, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." "The wages of sin is death." Hear Saint Paul's words, By one man's disobedience sin entered into the world, and death as the penalty of sin, and thus death passed upon all men, because all men are sinners. So you see the reason we are all dying is because we are not fit to live. God is pleased to have perfect beings live. God does not wish to give everlasting life to sinners and those who love sin. God does not propose that imperfect people shall have everlasting life. Therefore, this plan that God has made is, first, that Christ should die for our sins, the very penalty that God pronounced against Adam and all his race. Now Christ died for our sins--"Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man," the Scriptures say. And the great outcome is to be the giving of life to everybody and the healing of sickness. So the Bible says that Jesus will reign for a thousand years to bless all mankind. He will bless the world in different ways. He will bless the minds of the world, take away the ignorance, superstition and blindness. Here we are in Ceylon, near India, with perhaps several hundred religions. Why so many religions? Because we are ignorant. Because we do not know the Truth, and God proposes that during Christ's reign of a thousand years ignorance will be wiped away. So the Bible says that the light of the knowledge of the glorious God shall fill the whole earth. "The sun of righteousness will arise with healing in his beams" to scatter all the darkness, ignorance, superstition, and bring in the true light. The Bible says that we have been in darkness during all these six thousand years. Not merely the people in India have been in darkness, but the people in Europe, America and everywhere have been in darkness, too. There is what the Bible says: "Darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the heathen." Some have it darker and some not so dark, though they are all in darkness; but when the time comes God's Kingdom will be set up and all darkness will disappear. Why does God delay? The Bible represents that God is not slow in this matter. The Bible tells us that God has a great week of seven days and six of these great days in which he permitted sin, trouble and labor, are past, but now comes the great seventh or Sabbath day. These great days are thousand year days. So the Bible says, "A day with the Lord is as a thousand years." We have just come to the beginning of the great seventh day, and it is because we are in the morning of this great seventh day that we are getting so many blessings.
Do you notice how many great blessings have come during the past century? Steam railroads, steamboats, electric fans, and electric lights, and all the blessings of our day, have come during the last century. Only eighty years ago there was not a single railroad in the world. But here we are now with railroads everywhere. These things are all getting ready for the great time of Christ's reign. They are all a part of the plan for the blessing of all the families of the earth. And it is in line with this now that the terrible darkness is fleeing away--our misunderstanding of God, our misunderstanding of the Bible. The true light is beginning to shine into our minds, into our hearts. Buddhists and Brahmins, and Christians, and Mohammedans, are all finding that we had things that were wrong. All true people are glad to get rid of their ignorance and their wrong. As we get rid of our errors we begin to see more and more of the [CR221] glorious character of our God. The angels are not sinning, and the angels are not dying, and the angels have no hospitals, and the angels have no lepers, and the angels have no consumption, because they are in harmony with God. Man has all the sickness, and sorrow, and pain because he is out of harmony with God. We all see that we could not help ourselves. You and I might do a little bit to help one another and ourselves, but very little. We cannot lift ourselves out of sickness, pain and imperfection. The Bible tells us that God looked down from his holy habitation to behold the sinful condition of man, and beheld and heard the groanings of the prisoners. We are all prisoners, we are all in slavery to sin. We are all enslaved to sickness and death. We can do something to help one another and we try to do so; we have medicine for the mind, and we have medicine for the body, and we have medicine for the heart, but we cannot get rid of sin. It is like leprosy, it cannot be cured. But now when the Scriptures say that God looked down and beheld our condition, prisoners of sin and death, what does He say He did? Does the Bible say that God was indifferent, and that he did not care for those millions of people? Oh, no! God sympathizes with us. We read this in the Bible: He beheld that there was no eye that could see, no arm that could deliver man from sin and death, and so God provided Jesus. And what must He do? Oh, He will set up this glorious kingdom which will help all mankind. The healing of the sick and the blind at his first advent were only samples of what He will do for all mankind. But before He could do this something else must be done. The death sentence that was against us must be paid, not a purgatory sentence, not an eternal torment sentence, but a death sentence; a death sentence that carries with it sickness, sorrow, pain and suffering. Now Jesus has done this part of the work. He paid the penalty. He died the just for the unjust. The Bible says, He tasted death for every man. The Bible says that, As by one man sin entered into the world, so by the death of another man, Jesus, sin is to be canceled. The Bible says that as by a man (Adam) came death, even so through Jesus will come the resurrection of the dead. So then we are waiting now for the Kingdom of Christ. He has paid the penalty, but something must be done first before He sets up His Kingdom. And this is to gather the saintly few, some from Ceylon, some from India, some from China, some from Japan, some from Australia, some from Europe, some from America-- not many, only saintly ones. All these saintly ones will be glorified in the first resurrection. Then they will be like God. The Bible says they will have the divine nature. They will be associated with Jesus in the great Kingdom that will bless all the families of the earth.
Now, is not that a glorious outlook that we have? Saint Peter says that times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and He shall send Jesus Christ, whom the heavens must retain until the times of restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets.
I am very glad to have had this opportunity of meeting with you and I hope that this message that I bring you will do you as much good as it does my heart. I am looking forward to that glorious day that the Bible tells about when Satan will be bound for a thousand years, when mankind will be lifted up out of sin, ignorance, sorrow and death. All will have a full opportunity to come back to the perfect condition enjoyed by father Adam, and the only ones who will not be permitted to live are those who will not obey. Will God torture them? No, I would not think you would torture your enemies. The Bible tells us that God will destroy these. They will not live for all eternity in torment. Hear what the Scriptures say, "All the wicked will God destroy." "The soul that sinneth it shall die." They shall be like the brute beast. I hope none of us will be of those. I hope we are all turning our hearts to the Lord and seeking righteousness. God is pleased to bless more and more all who are feeling after Him. When we come to understand how good and loving and kind He is it draws our hearts out in love to Him.
I would like very much to have had some pamphlets to give you free, but I have nothing. How many would like to have some pamphlets in your own language, and I will send them free? Will you raise your hands so that I will know how many to send you? (Quite a number signified their desire to have reading matter.)
Let us rise and close with a word of prayer; we will all offer each for himself a prayer to God thanking Him for His goodness.
God has promised a glorious day,
And by faith we now see it draw near;
Our Redeemer has opened the way,
And soon will its glory appear.
There the dead shall arise from the tomb,
And the living to health be restored;
And away from all sorrow and gloom,
They'll be led by the life-giving Lord.
A highway shall there be cast up,
And the stones shall be all gathered out;
And errors no weak ones shall trip,
And no lions of vice stalk about.
There nothing shall hurt nor offend,
In God's kingdom of glory and peace;
The wicked their ways shall amend,
And the righteous their joys shall increase.
There God's hand shall all tears wipe away;
He'll the joys of His favor restore;
And the light of that glorious day,
Will bring life, joy, and peace evermore.
[CR222]
INDIA
WE left Colombo one afternoon on the S.S. Bengalia, en route for Tutocorin, India, which we came in sight of after a night's ride. We were accompanied by Bros. Tussaint, Chapman, Pieres and boy. Our big ship could not go within four miles of the city, so we were taken ashore in a steam launch. This was a very pretty ride through the harbor. We are now to have our first experience on an Indian railroad. First of all, however, it was necessary to pass the custom inspectors. We got all the bundles and suit cases of our party together in one pile and told the official that we were all of one party, so he simply requested that a few of the bundles should be opened, and then passed us all through. Then we boarded our cars. India being under the control of Great Britain, the railroads and cars are much after the order of those in Great Britain, though not as good. They are entirely different, however, from our cars in America.
Well, we managed to secure two compartments and we were soon off, headed for Quilon, the terminus of one branch of this railroad, which we reached about 8:30 that night. We were met at the station by Brother Davey, who had come down from Neyattinkara. He had tried to secure sleeping accommodations for us, but as the only place like a hotel in the town, a government bungalow, had just been taken by some young English planters, there seemed to be nothing for us.
I might here explain that throughout India exists a system of Dak Bungalows. These are rest houses where travelers can put up. They are of three classes. The first class are fully equipped with furniture, crockery, and cutlery, while there is a cook and servants. The second class are very similar to the other, but there is only a man in charge and no servants. The third class vary greatly in many parts of India and frequently are quite unfurnished and afford nothing but shelter. These bungalows are government property and are clean and comfortable, while the charge for staying in a first class bungalow for 24 hours is about a shilling for each person. Throughout India a second class bungalow may be relied upon at intervals of about 30 miles, and a first class every 100 miles. In addition to these there are Inspection Bungalows which are used by government officials, but permission must be obtained to use them. Almost every large town has its Dak Bungalows as well as its hotels, which are generally good and clean. The prices vary but may be put down at 7 to 9 shillings per day. Frequently the motorist will find a second class bungalow where there is a railway [CR223] station with a refreshment room, which will afford him an excellent stopping place. You must furnish your own bedding if you wish any. If there are not enough cots, then the soft side of the stone floor is available, and we all made use of that from time to time. One can become accustomed to a great many things when compelled to.
We finally prevailed upon the station master to let us use the waiting rooms of the station; also to make up our beds in one of the cars on which we had come up. Brother and Sister Wilson, Brother Robison, and Brother Tussaint occupied the station; Brothers Russell, Pyles, Maxwell, Pieres, boy and Chapman occupied the car. This left Brother Kuehn, Brother Davey and myself to find quarters at the bungalow, as they had promised Brother Davey he could have one room. In this room we found two cots and a table, and on these we made our beds. About midnight the young English planters came in half drunk, and forgetting that they had given up this room for us, came in, and thought we were some of their friends, so began to pull us out of bed. They broke into the room twice that night and we began to wonder how it would all end, but they finally got it through their heads who we were and quieted down for the night.
The next morning the rest of the party came up to the bungalow, where breakfast was served to all, and then we started on a trip never to be forgotten by those participating. Shortly after breakfast a large sight-seeing motor car drove up and we all got in. Until a few months before we arrived the fastest means of travel from Quilon to this place, Neyattinkara, and a little farther on, was by ox cart, but now a company has established motor service for some seventy miles. So we secured the use of these cars for our various trips during our stay in the Travencore district.
Well, it was Sunday morning and our ride of about forty-four miles was a delightful one, over the hills, through the valleys, between the tapioca and rice fields, and every now and then passing through a grove of cocoanut palms and other tropical shrubbery. The day was perfect and we wished all could have been with us.
ARRIVAL AT TRIVENDRUM.
ARRIVING at Trivendrum, we stopped at the "Travelers Bungalow," which, by the way, was first class, a very pretty and comfortable place, and here we rested for a few hours and secured a good dinner, which was much appreciated after our ride in the open air. Our "Fire Car" was a curiosity to all. Every few minutes we would either meet or catch up with some ox cart, in which were a few people, or they would be hauling a great load of brush, fodder or grain. As the drivers would hear us coming they would scramble out of the carts, rush to the heads of their little bullocks, and do all in their power to prevent a runaway when we passed. It was an exciting time. Then other natives, hearing the tooting of the horn on our motor car, would come running over the hills and out of the houses to see us go past. Not very many automobiles or white people pass through that section. Children up to six years of age wear no clothing at all, and those older do not wear enough to be burdensome--all are barefooted. They would stand at the edge of the road, climb on the fences, anywhere to get a glimpse of us.
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Every few miles we would pass through some native village, and they were real natives living there. The houses and stores are constructed mainly of mud walls, with a thatched roof of cocoanut palm branches, supported by bamboo rafters.
A TRIUMPHANT ENTRY.
After we had traveled about fifty miles in the motor car and were within about three miles of "Russellpuram," we suddenly turned a curve in the road --and the sight that greeted our eyes we will never forget. Brother Davey knew all about it, but had said nothing, as he wanted to surprise us. There, in the road, were about two thousand natives, representatives from various classes, which Brother Davey had interested more or less in Present Truth. They had been preparing for months, the same as we do in Great Britain or America for a convention, and the results of their preparation with small means and little to do with, certainly manifested their zeal. If the friends and people in general in our home lands would put forth the same amount of energy and sacrifice in trying to demonstrate their love for Pastor Russell in the way of a royal welcome that those natives did, there would be such a demonstration and reception as the world has never known. The natives that could be called dressed wore varied colored clothes, and had all kinds of banners on bamboo poles; the banners were made of paper, with crosses, stars, etc., pasted on them, some cut square, some like pennants, etc., and the larger ones having various lettering in colors, with words of welcome to Pastor Russell, [CR225] etc. When they saw us they shouted and sang, and shouted and sang. It was such a surprise that we hardly knew how to take it. Brother Russell stood up several times in the car and bowed to them, to their intense pleasure.
After considerable difficulty, like trying to get a large herd of cattle on the move, this strange reception committee of at least two thousand, were started up the road--and such a sight and such noises. In front of the motor car was a fife and drum corps; behind us were bagpipes, tom-toms and other native musical instruments, while alongside of the motor car a man marched beating some cymbals. The crowd filled the road completely on both sides and for a long distance in front and stretching far in the rear. The men blew the fifes as though they would blow their heads off while the man playing the bass drum was so happy he could not walk, but fairly danced along--none of them kept in step. Part of the music they played was hymns and many of the crowd would try to sing the words in their native tongue, and we joined in English. Farther up the road the din was increased by loud reports from explosives, which they set off, further attesting their welcome. All this was surely a strange procedure on a bright Sunday morning. It was necessary to constantly toot our motor horn, which, together with the noise of our musical instruments and the explosions, attracted large crowds of natives from quite a distance, and we from our exalted position on the high seats of our sight-seeing motor car, could see them coming from all directions over the hills, and they too joined in the procession. The crowd was so great that we could not go faster than a man could walk, so we had the procession with us all the rest of the way to "Russellpuram," where a great tabernacle of bamboo poles and cocoanut palm branches had been erected. By the time we arrived there our procession had increased to about five thousand, and they stretched out ahead of us for fully a mile, filling the road completely. Then at the tabernacle we found still more waiting for us, so that altogether we estimated that there was seven to eight thousand natives.
AT THE AUDITORIUM.
Upon arrival, the committee were invited to the platform to seats around a table, on which were glasses of cocoanut milk, which, by the way, is a very refreshing drink in this warm climate.
Then some girls came forward and put around the neck of each a wreath of flowers, woven together in a peculiar way, and handed each of us a bouquet, also put together in a peculiar manner. This bouquet I must describe, because of its significance. It had seven prongs or divisions to it, and the center prong had fastened to its top a lime (sour lemon). In America we call it a joke to hand a person a lemon, but here it is a token of love, hope and respect, and is the highest token of esteem that they can pay. We, of course, accepted all these kindnesses in the spirit in which they were offered. While these people are simple and poor, yet they have good hearts and when, in God's due time He lifts the veil of ignorance from off their eyes and they rise to their restitution rights, they will do so quickly and make noble specimens of humanity.
After our rest and refreshment we then went to the main part of the platform, which was probably thirty by fifty feet in size, with a gable roof about twenty feet in height. The auditorium proper was about seven or eight feet high and consisted merely of a flat tent of cocoanut palm branches supported on bamboo sticks. There were no chairs or benches for the audience, for they would not know what to do with this if there had been any. In fact, all over India the great masses of the people all squat down, whether resting or working. Even blacksmiths and other tradesmen squat down on the ground. I even saw some people who did have benches or chairs on which to sit, instead of sitting on them with their feet on the ground, as we would, they had their feet on the benches and squatted down. Well, the audience was soon squatted and the meeting opened. The opening feature was a song, "Joy to the World the Lord Has Come," which was rendered by a choir of some sixty native girls. These had been under instruction of Brother Davey and his helpers, and one or two could read and speak [CR226] English, but the rest could not. However, they sang the song in English, and pronounced the words as distinctly as I have heard many classes of children sing in America. It was certainly very pleasing to hear them. Prayer was then offered by Pastor Russell, who acknowledged the goodness and greatness of God, stating that our hearts were overflowing with gratitude, and asked the heavenly Father to grant His blessing. He prayed that while we did not know how to ask as we ought, yet we wanted to ask according to His will and His Word, because that Word assured us that God is a God of love, that He is more willing to give us the Holy Spirit than we are to give good gifts to our children. He therefore asked for the Father's blessing upon that assembly, according to the wisdom God would see best, especially for all who were truly His children, and declared that he asked not because of any merit of ours, but for Jesus' sake.
I should have said that before the prayer was offered an interpreter took his place at the side of Pastor Russell, and then several others were scattered throughout the audience, who stood up while the others squatted on the ground. Brother Russell would speak a sentence or two, the interpreter at his side would repeat the thought in the native tongue, and then the interpreters scattered through the audience would repeat that thought together. Thus, about three thousand of them could hear what was being said. The others, most of whom had come out of curiosity from hearing the din as we came up the road, soon left and went home. Brother Russell's remarks were as follows:
GLAD TIDINGS.
THE subject announced for this afternoon is "Glad Tidings." I will remind you of the words of the angels when they announced the birth of our Saviour. He said, "Fear not, behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people." That message of good tidings has not yet reached every creature of all nations. Why is this? Jesus died for our sins more than eighteen hundred years ago. Now the question is, Why did not God see to it that this message reached all creatures if it is for all? The Bible gives us the answer to this question. The Bible tells us that God not only intended that Jesus should die for our sins, and thus pay our penalty, but something more; another thing that is to come is the Kingdom of Jesus. Many of us Christians with the very best desires have overlooked the importance of this part of the Lord's Word, the Kingdom. We all see the great need of a Kingdom in the world, but we all see, also, how there are great kingdoms in the world, but all these have a selfish impulse. Selfishness seems to be at the base of all kinds of wrong doing. If we could only have some very wise leaders who were very good and loving and considerate, that is what we would want, and that is exactly what God proposes to give us. God acknowledges that we have not had any good government yet, not because people have not good impulses, but because sin and selfishness are in our hearts. As long as there is sin and selfishness in the heart we cannot trust anybody fully. But when God arranges the matter we find no objection to His arrangement. As we come to know that it is Jesus who redeemed the world with His own life that is to be the great King, we realize we can all trust Him fully. And this is exactly what God has promised. He is about to set up His Kingdom. You may ask why God did not set up His Kingdom long ago? I answer, the Bible tells us that God has another part of His plan that will come in first, and that part is the selection or election of the Church. The Kingdom cannot be set up until first the Church is found. There was one time when we all supposed we had found the true Church. Our Catholic friends said that they were the true Church, our Anglican friends said they were the only true Church, and so said the Methodists, and the Baptists, and the Presbyterians, and all, but now we all acknowledge that we made a mistake. We all acknowledge that the Church is not in any one of these systems. According to the Bible we find that the Church is composed of God's saints, and these saints of God may be found in one or all of these; so if there are any saintly Roman Catholics they belong to Christ's Church. And so with the Church of England, the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian and all. The Lord says that He knoweth them that are His. He tells us that His Church is the Church of the First born ones whose names are written in Heaven. The writing of our names on earth does not effect very much. But if we have our names written in Heaven and are faithful the Lord says that He will not blot out those names. He tells us that the Church which He has been selecting for eighteen hundred years is to be His associates in the Kingdom. He tells us that when the time for the setting up of Kingdom shall come these will share in the first resurrection. What will be their work? The Bible tells us that they will be kingly priests, or priestly kings. So the Apostle Peter says, Ye are a royal priesthood, [CR227] a peculiar people, who should show forth His praises, etc. Now, how will this Church, when it is completed, serve this work of kings and priests? The Bible explains to us that they will have a glorious change from earthly to heavenly conditions and this change will make them perfect and complete. This is called the resurrection change. It is called the first resurrection, and the word first here means chief resurrection, because those who get a share in that resurrection become spirit beings. God promised that they shall be made like unto the angels. They will not be men any longer. They will be higher than angels, and so Saint Peter says, "God has given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these we might become partakers of the Divine nature." The Divine nature, as we know, dear friends, is above angelic as well as above human. Now I quote our Lord's word about this Church. He said, "Blessed and holy are all those that have part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests unto God and unto Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years." (Rev. 20:4,6.) That is the promise to the Church, you see. There was a while that we Christians tried to think the Church was reigning now, but we have come to see that we are not reigning at all. We are not intended to reign until the resurrection, when we get our chance. Therefore, we do quite right when we pray the Lord's prayer, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, even as it is done in Heaven." And then the prayer tells how completely it will be done on earth, even as it is done in Heaven. Now think of that, think of God's will being done here on earth as completely as it is done in Heaven! Would it not be a grand world then? That is all we need, you see, the Kingdom of Christ, to put down sin and lift up mankind. You may say Christianity has already been reigning for eighteen hundred years. Now, I answer, Christianity has merely been trying to find the Bride of Christ, the Church. God is now having the Gospel preached to call out this class that will be the royal priesthood. Things will be very different when the Kingdom of God is set up. Jesus will not ask the people whether they like or whether they do not like to be bossed. The Bible explains when once his Kingdom is established all people will know just what is right and just what is wrong. Darkness will flee away and the light will shine out. We have a great deal of darkness in Europe and America, but you, perhaps, have still greater darkness here in India. That is what the Bible says, you remember. Darkness covers the earth (the civilized world) and gross darkness the heathen.
With the establishment of the Kingdom, then, will come the reign of righteousness. All of mankind will be helped up out of their superstition and mental blindness. For a thousand years the Bible says that the Church shall live and reign with Jesus. When the required number which fill the earth then every one who sins shall receive punishment and every one who seeks to do right shall be helped and blessed and lifted up and made strong in character. And more than this, the uplifting will take hold of his body and his mind and he will be altogether lifted up. This in the Bible is called restitution. Restitution means to lift up or restore to that which was before. This is the salvation that God is providing for the world. For a thousand years Christ will be restoring all things. You ask, what will He restore? The Bible tells us that the earth itself is to be brought to perfection. The Bible also tells us that God made a sample of Paradise when He created Adam in the Garden of Eden. The Bible tells us that man lost that Garden and perfection on account of sin. The Bible also tells us that Jesus became the Redeemer. The Bible also tells us that Jesus died to redeem not only the earth but the world. I will quote you a text of Scripture, "Now we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God might taste death for every man." (Hebrews 2:9.) Again we read in 1 John 2:2, "He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." So you see God recognizes the sins of the Church as one thing and the sins of the world as another. The same death of the same Jesus makes satisfaction for both. But the world does not get her salvation at the same time that the Church gets hers. Now is the time for the Church to get everlasting life. Those who miss this great prize miss a great deal. But there are millions of people who will miss that. God never intended to have any more than a few, so the Bible speaks of the Church, as the "little flock." I quote you His words, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." But after the Church, the little flock, is complete, [CR228] then what? Then comes the blessing of the world. We all ought to be very glad to know that the whole world is going to be blessed. When I was a child I read in the Bible that only those who have a knowledge of Jesus would ever have salvation. For there is no other name given among men under Heaven whereby we shall be saved except the name of Jesus. But now, dear friends, we see that your forefathers and my forefathers did not know about Jesus. They, therefore, could not be of the Church class. They can not have their share in the chief salvation. What, then, will be their fate? Notice in our text, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all." That includes your forefathers who lived before Jesus came, and mine that lived before Jesus came, and it includes all who have lived since Jesus came.
Jesus Himself said that this is the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and God has provided that all shall come to a knowledge of the truth. The hundreds and thousands of millions who never had a knowledge of the truth are to have an opportunity to hear it. When will they ever hear it? After the Kingdom of Christ is established. How will it do anything more than now? Oh, God's promise is that the Kingdom of God shall be established and He shall reign for a thousand years to bless all the families of the earth. What will be the result? The Bible tells us, "Unto Him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, to the glory of God." Does that prove that everybody is going to be saved, that there is to be universal salvation? Oh, no! It means that an opportunity for coming to a knowledge of God, and to be restored to the perfection once enjoyed by father Adam, is the promise to all; but it also means that all who will refuse to walk in the light of that knowledge will die the second death. As Saint Paul says in 1 Cor. 15:25,26, "He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." What does that last part about death mean? It means dying. We are all dying as a result of sin. Father Adam was to die and it was his disobedience that brought death. "The wages of sin is death." These statements of God's word have been in fulfillment for six thousand years and, therefore, our race has been a dying race, and because they are under this sentence of sin that they are all having sickness, pain and sorrow. It is on this account that we have our mental, moral and physical weaknesses, and so the race has been going down in sin and death. So the Scriptures say that it has been a reign of sin and death. It has been a terrible reign, ninety thousand people dying every twenty-four hours throughout the world. Very few of these ever heard of the name of Jesus, the only name given for salvation, the true light that shall yet enlighten every man, and that true light will shine out through Christ's Kingdom. You remember how the Scriptures tell that it is a dark time at the present time; the Psalmist says, figuratively, "Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a lantern to my footsteps." That means that the pathway is now dark. The pathway is dark here in India, Europe and America. Some of us have had God's word shining upon the pathway. It has brought a great blessing wherever it shines. The Bible proposition is that the darkness shall flee away, for it tells us that this new dispensation is to be the morning of the new day. The sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his beams. The knowledge of the glory of God shall fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep. Thus, eventually, there shall be no need to say any further, "Know thou the Lord, for all shall know Him from the least unto the greatest." Is that good tidings for us? Does it make your hearts happy? Does it make you love God more to know that He is a God of justice, love and kindness? This is what Jesus said it would do, "Sanctify them through thy word, thy word is truth."
Now, this salvation that is coming to the world is altogether different from the one that is coming to the Church; remember the Scriptures tell us that those who will be with Christ will be like Him. They shall see Him as He is and share His glory; they will sit with Him on His throne, share in the work of blessing and ruling the world.
I urge you all to become saints, to become sanctified in Christ, to make your calling and election sure. But I bid you not to think of our heavenly Father as intending to eternally torture your forefathers. Think of Him as the great God that has provided the salvation for your forefathers, a great blessing for those who have not been called to the high calling of this age. As we said before, that blessing is called restitution. Let me quote you Saint Peter's words in Acts 3:19,21. Pointing down to the second coming of Jesus he says, not that the world will be burned up, not that a general destruction of the world will come, but this is what he says would come: "Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you; whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." God has been telling us of this blessing that is to come, but we have overlooked that part. Now we see still more beauty in the call of the Church. What a grand privilege it will be to be co-laborers with Christ in the blessing of all the families of the earth. It is blessed now to help somebody to know the Lord, and the way of righteousness; surely it will be a hundred times more blessed when we will be able to lift them up out of their weaknesses, etc. This, then, my dear friends, is the meaning of my text: "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people." The basis of that good message is, Jesus Christ has already died. His death was necessary as our redemption price. Then the first work to be accomplished by Christ's death is the selection and election of the Church. This part of the work we believe is being completed. In other words, we believe this Gospel Age is very near at hand, but this does not mean the end of the world, but the end of the Age. Where this Age ends the next Age begins. The next Age, the Bible tells us, will be a thousand years long and one of the very first works Jesus will do in that next Age will be this: He shall bind Satan a thousand years, so he shall deceive the nations no more. We are not to think, my dear friends, that all of our various errors have come of our own intentions. We are to remember what the Scriptures say, for Saint Paul says: "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of those who believe not." Why would Satan seek to blind our minds? The Apostle tells us why--"lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, which is the image of God, should shine unto them." In other words, Satan would like to have us all misunderstand our heavenly Father. See how he has succeeded all the world over. See what Hinduism is, what Buddhism is; see what Shintoism is; see what Mohammedism is; and see how much Christianity has been in error, too. We charge it all against Satan. No doubt many of these Buddhists and other men were good in some of their intentions, for some of their [CR229] teachings are very good, but they have beclouded our minds. The god of this world, Satan, has blinded our eyes. He did not want us to see God's goodness and God's love, therefore he often led the Christians to misrepresent our heavenly Father. I, for instance, with just as good intentions as I have today, once misrepresented my heavenly Father. Satan had helped to blind my eyes with the erroneous doctrine of eternal torment, misrepresenting the Father's grace and mercy. And so, when once we misunderstood God and preached what we believed, we misrepresented Him further. Now, when we come to understand God's word aright, we see what gross darkness we were in. Our Roman Catholic friends, for instance, teach that God has a purgatory in which some of our forefathers and some of ourselves are to be roasted for centuries. And we Protestants had it worse in some respects. We said that the heavenly Father was going to have merely an elect Church, and roast everybody else in eternal torment. I trust the Lord has had mercy upon me for thus misrepresenting His glorious character. We remember how Saint Paul, before he came to the Lord, before his eyes were open, persecuted the true Church. He tells us that God had mercy upon him for he did it ignorantly, and I trust that God had mercy upon me because I ignorantly misrepresented Him at one time and now I am trying to do all I can to make known the goodness of God to all people, and this can best be done by showing the real truth of the Bible. When we come to understand the Bible rightly it is the most wonderful book in the world. I hope, then, as you come to know of the real God, that this knowledge of Him will draw your hearts "Nearer, my God, to Thee." Amen.
AT the close of the service we were introduced to a number of the public officials of the town of Neyattinkara, and these were men of education and splendid specimens of manhood. We talked with these for some time, some were native preachers, others doctors, lawyers, merchants, etc. Then our committee had supper at "Bethel." Meantime, the natives hung around and tried every possible way to get a further look at us. Then, when evening drew on, we had another service in the Tabernacle, at which Brother Russell spoke, as follows:
THE KINGDOM OF MESSIAH.
THE meeting opened with song by the girls, "Joy to the World, the Lord has Come." This time the song was sung in the Tamil language. This was followed with prayer by Brother Davey.
Brother Russell: I am glad to have this, another opportunity of addressing you and as I think of the fact that I may never see you again, I say to myself, what is the most important thing that I can say or suggest at this time? I will assume that you here have been hearing something lately about the Kingdom, that Jesus, who died for our sins, is shortly to set up His Kingdom to bless the world. I presume you have had brought to your attention the fact that this means great blessing to the whole world. I will assume that as you thus think of the coming blessing to the world your hearts are very grateful to the Lord. The person who receives a favor from another and is not thankful is not a good man or woman. When you think of the great gift that God has thus provided for mankind we ought to be very thankful to Him. Think of the fact that when we were yet sinners God redeemed us through the precious blood of Christ. Not that He redeemed us from eternal torment or purgatory, but He redeemed us from the real penalty of sin, death. This gives a glorious conception of our heavenly Father and also of our Lord Jesus Christ. We do not think of the Father as the Son, or of the Son of being the Father, but we see the grace of the Father manifested through the Son. We see that the Father did not die for us, but that the Son did, and we also see it was the Father's plan from the very beginning that the Son should redeem us. Our Redeemer, you remember, said, "My Father and I are one"-- one in sympathy, one in plan, one in operation, and not one in person. That this is what Jesus meant is shown in His prayer on our behalf. He prayed the Father that we might all be one even as He and the Father are one. Evidently He did not mean that we are to become one person, but we are to be one in the sense of having one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and in harmony with God our Father. This is the oneness that we can appreciate, that we should be of one heart, and of one mind, as followers of Jesus and children of the Father. This is the sense, then, in which Jesus and the Father are one. Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us that He was one with the Father because He never had any other will than to do his Father's will. And this is the sense in which we are to be one. We are to have no will of our own, merely to do the will of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said He came not into the world to do His own will, but His Father's will, therefore, they are one. This was the Holy Spirit, the spirit to do the Father's will. And this is what He wants us to have, the same spirit that He had, the spirit, or mind, or will, to do the Father's will. This is the Holy Spirit. Whoever has this disposition has the spirit of Christ. "If any man have not the spirit of Christ he is none of His." The spirit of Christ, you see, means the mind that Christ had. His spirit or mind or will was, "Thy will be done"--the Father's will. And that is the very class He is calling for now. And so the Scriptures say that we must all be baptized into the one Body. What one Body? This is a figure that the Bible uses, as if you have a council, that council is one body and it has a chairman for head. That is called the body of the council, and the chairman is the head of the council. This figure is drawn from the human body. Your head controls your whole body, and so this is a picture the Bible gives us of the Church. So the Apostle says, "God gave Jesus to be head over the Church, which is His body." And so, again, he says, "we are members in particular of the Body of Christ," which is the Church. Thus he illustrates the matter and says that one of us is like the hand, another like the foot, another like the [CR230] eye, and we find this account in the 12th chapter of 1 Cor. He says, that the eyes cannot say I have no need of the foot, nor the hand to the eye, I have no need of you. Now get this illustration before your minds; Christ is the head of the Church, which is His Body. Now, then, take the text we had, We are all baptized by one spirit into the one Body; so when you got the spirit of Christ it brought you into this Body of Christ, and if you did not get the spirit of Christ you never got into the Body of Christ. But why should we want to be in the Body of Christ at all? Because only the Body of Christ is to share in all the glory with Jesus the Head. So then do you not see how anxious we should be to get into the Body of Christ? This is the great prize, "the pearl of great price." We saw this afternoon that the Church is to be glorified; also that this Church, which is the Body of Christ, is not the Methodist Church, not the Presbyterian, not the Lutheran, not the Church of Rome, not the Church of England--none of these are the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is made up only of those who have been baptized into Christ. Do you not see how important it is to get baptized into Christ? Take the text of the Apostle again, "By one spirit we are all baptized into the one Body of Christ." This one Body, not being these earthly bodies, is the heavenly Body, the Church. There is only the one Church. It includes all the saintly ones; it does not include any except the saintly ones. So you see, then, it means a great deal to be baptized by the one spirit into the one Body of Christ. Now the question before you to ask yourself, and for me to ask myself, is, "Have I been baptized by this one spirit into the one Body, which is the Church of the living God? What is this one spirit? It is the spirit of God, and we are to be in submission to God, the spirit or disposition that Jesus had. He says, I came not to do Mine own will, but the will of My Father. Have you said this same thing, and have I said this same thing: I am doing not my own will but the will of my Father in Heaven? If we have, we have the same spirit that Jesus had. Otherwise we have not the spirit of Christ, "and he that hath not the spirit of Christ is none of His." That is the message of God through the Apostle. Now it is not merely enough that we have the spirit of Christ tonight, and say, I want God's will to be done at any cost. That is enough for tonight, but not enough for tomorrow. It must be the same tomorrow, "not my will but Thy will be done." God allows it to be a test of our character. He allows temptations to come to you and to me and to all His children, and the Bible explains the matter thus, "The Lord your God doth prove whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart, or no." It is very easy to sit here tonight and say, God has promised me a share in the Kingdom if I give my heart to Him. To do so tonight would be very easy, but God is not satisfied with that; He wants it to be positively your will. Therefore, all Christians are subjected to various trials and tests. But why does God not make it easy for us if He wants us to be His children? Because He wants fixed and positive characters in this glorious company. So the Bible says, blessed is the man that endureth trials, for when he is tried (when his trial is over) he shall receive the great reward. When we think of it but a moment, this glorified Church is to be made so very high, we see it is very reasonable that God should test us. See the trials the heavenly Father permitted to come upon our Lord Jesus Christ; He had opposition of every kind. The Apostle says, He endured great temptations and contradictions against Himself. He says that you and I should consider this in our Lord lest we should become weak and faint in our minds. The Apostle says, "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood." He means that we have not resisted to death, it has not yet cost us our lives to be faithful to the truth and righteousness, but our heavenly Father wants in that glorious Bride class a Bride for Christ, such as will be faithful even unto death. Therefore, He allows all kinds of trials and tests to prove us. It was so with our Lord Jesus Christ. You remember He had His trials; you remember His disciples went against Him, and all the nominally holy people of that time went against Him. They even said He had a devil and was bad. Finally they crucified Him under false charges. In submitting to all this He proved Himself faithful unto God, and God rewarded Him. So the Apostle says, after telling that He was faithful unto death, even the death of the cross, "Wherefore (on this account) God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name that is above every name." Now if the Father wants to have some share this glory with Him and be His associates in the great Kingdom, should we not expect that He would test these also in the same manner? Therefore, the Apostle says, "Think it not strange concerning the fiery trials that will try you, as though some strange thing happened to you." I do not know but that you and I may have persecutions before we die. The question is whether we will be faithful in that trial or not. The Lord said that we would not likely be faithful if He did not help us. But the Apostle said that God is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able to bear. In my own experience some people that I believe are Christian people persecute me a great deal, and so it may be that some Christian people may persecute you, just as professedly holy people persecuted Jesus and the Apostles. No matter where the persecution comes from, "Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life."
We see then, my dear friends, how valuable this great prize is. How much do you think it is worth to be a member of the Body of Christ in glory? How much are you willing to pay to be counted a member of the Body of Christ in glory? The Bible tells us exactly how much we will have to give up. It will cost you all that you have, whether that be much or whether it be little. I remind you that Saint Paul, who was well educated and wealthy and had many advantages, sacrificed them all. And what did he say? Did he think he had done very much? He said, I count all things [CR231] but as loss and dross that I may win Christ, and be found in Him. What did he mean by winning Christ and being found in Him? He means that he may win a place in that glorious Body which is Christ, in which Jesus is the Head and the true Church are members.
It will not be decided who will be members in that glorious Church until the resurrection time. We are accepted now as probationary members; just as the Methodist friends accept members into their church and afterwards make them full members, so God counts us as members of the Church. But the real membership in the Church will be beyond the veil, after the resurrection, the first resurrection. Only the faithful will be admitted to that Church.
Now then, my dear friends, the last message I would leave with you on this occasion is this: This elect company of the Church is very nearly completed, and if you have made a consecration of your all to the Lord, and He has accepted you, then, as the Apostle says, "Seek to make your calling and election sure." I cannot help you very much; I can exhort you and call the matter to your attention, but each one must make his own calling and his own election sure by conforming to his own covenant. The more God brings to our attention the wonderful plan, all His promises of the Bible which are for the elect to help us on the way, the more we appreciate the plan. So then, whether you get in or not, or whether I will get in or not, depends upon our having the spirit of Jesus. The words, "spirit of Jesus" mean so much too. To have the mind of Christ toward God the Father, to do the Father's will, the mind of Christ, to do good unto all men as we have opportunity, to be ready to lay down our lives for the brethren, means a great deal. We cannot get this mind of Christ suddenly, for the Bible says that we must grow in grace and grow in knowledge and grow in the fruits of the spirit. As you allow the mind of Christ to dwell in you richly you become more and more Christlike. The Apostle explains what he means by this --lay off all things such as anger, malice, envy, hatred, strife. But, he says, add meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, brotherly kindness, love. If these things be in you and abound, they shall make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord; and an abundant entrance shall be ministered unto you into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Just one more point: Some one will say, we are not perfect as Jesus was; we have weaknesses and difficulties that He did not have. This is all true. Then how can we be perfect as He was? The Bible says that if we give our hearts fully to the Lord we have done in this respect what He did. The Bible says that if, then, we do the best we are able to do we shall be counted by the intentions of our mind. The Bible says that the value of Christ's death is imputed to cover our unintentional sins and shortcomings. So then, I exhort you to have the spirit of Christ and to allow it to abound in your hearts and lives. This is the very same thing that I am trying to do myself; and as many of us as are faithful for a little while will enter into the Kingdom and share it with the Master. But as many as are of the worldly mind, and ready to sell out for some earthly thing, will not be part of the Kingdom.
Now, goodbye, and God bless you all. ----------
The simple sincerity of these natives impressed us very much. There is a thirst among them for knowledge; they are awakening from the condition where they have been made to feel that they are nothing, that they cannot rise higher and that it was never intended they should be anything other than what they are. Therefore, any kindness shown them is greatly appreciated.
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MEETING WITH WORKERS.
FOLLOWING the evening service we sat in front of the "Bethel" talking over matters, and then a sort of impromptu meeting was called, which consisted of a Symposium by the Committee, and a Discourse by Brother Russell to the Native Workers, of whom there were about thirty present. These men seem very earnest and desirous of doing something in the Lord's service. Many of them have not been able to read much, but they have listened to Brother Davey's instructions, and then in turn they go out to tell the same thing to others. It is a question how many of them see enough of Present Truth to run for the High Calling, but they are, at any rate, receiving some knowledge that will be of great assistance to them in the "times of restitution." There are a few, however, that seem to be real jewels, and whom we believe will make their calling and election sure and win a place in the Bride Class and reign for the blessing of their countrymen and all others.
There were about thirty of the native workers who are assisting Brother Davey in the work, and about 100 others present.
The remarks by the Committee and Brother Russell were, of course, through an interpreter, and were as follows:
SYMPOSIUM BY MEMBERS OF INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE AND
ADDRESS BY PASTOR RUSSELL TO NATIVE WORKERS.
GENERAL HALL: I am very glad to be with you all this evening and to say a few words with regard to the Bible from a soldier's standpoint. You perhaps know that the Lord selects people from all classes and walks of life and it makes very little difference in what capacity one is making his living when the Lord elects him to follow Him in the Truth. God is looking at the heart. In other words, He is requiring that everyone must be honest and straight-forward, and desire to do His will and to be the very best he can in that direction.
In the United States of America, where there are probably more people in the Truth than elsewhere, we find them from all walks of life. We have seen people in the Truth, Bible students, who are from all countries in the world. They may look very different, some white, yellow, black, but the Lord cares nothing about the color, and there is one thing we can recognize all the time, and that is their anxiety and desire to do the very best they can to serve the Lord and to do His will.
Before we came to the Travencore district we heard a great deal about you people. We heard that you would go a long way to hear about the Bible, and that you would do a great many things and make many sacrifices in order to follow out its teachings. After seeing all of you today we are satisfied that these reports are true, and in the next few days to come in which we will be with you we hope to see more of you and to give you all the encouragement that we can and to receive all the encouragement that you can give us. It is a great help and a great encouragement to us to see all of you loving the Bible and its teachings so much. I would be glad to talk with you longer, but I know some of these other gentlemen wish to talk to you, so on that account I will say goodnight, and God bless you.
BROTHER PYLES: Dear friends, I am a merchant. I will speak to you about the Kingdom from a merchant's standpoint. Ever since I was a little boy I prayed, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. But for many years I had little knowledge of what that Kingdom would be. But about fifteen years ago I read a book written by Pastor Russell, and although I had always been a Bible student, I never received God's plan until I read that book. Then I learned what a wonderful time it would be when His Kingdom would be established. I was more anxious than ever before that the Kingdom should be established and I have continued to pray, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven. Now tonight I want to congratulate you all because tonight you are one year nearer to the establishment of that Kingdom than you were a year ago, and I believe very soon that that great time of blessing will be here, and that all the families of the earth will be blessed. All the dead will come forth from their graves. Righteousness will cover the earth even as the water covers the great deep. Are you all anxious for that time to come? Answer, and tell me if you are? I am glad to know it. The General has told you how important it is to be honest. As a merchant I found it very necessary from the very start to be honest, and on that account I was successful, because if I had been a thief I would have had employees who would have cheated me. Now God is taking out people from the world who are honest people to deal honestly with the people in the next age, when He establishes His Kingdom. So you see how important it is to be honest. Now I would advise you all to read the tracts and books which you have explaining the Bible and also listen to our Brother Davey, and the other teachers who talk to you, and also advise you to search your Bibles, to find out if everything you hear is true. I think they will tell you the truth, but it is not safe to believe everybody, so I suggest that you prove everything by the Bible.
Now I say in conclusion that I hope you may grow in grace of God and in the still further knowledge of the Truth.
BROTHER MAXWELL: I am glad to be with you today and to note your zeal and enthusiasm.
I hope you may continue to love the Lord and to love the Lord's word and to endeavor to live according to its teachings, for then you will be sure to get into the Kingdom and God will make you a blessing to others. So I wish you goodnight.
BROTHER ROBISON: I also am glad to be with you tonight.
I remember the words of the Apostle, Partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession. I trust this may be your experience, to consider, to think upon and to think about our great High Priest. We may all be sure He can teach us the things which we wish to know. Also the Master's saying, he that will do His will (the Father's will) shall know the doctrine. I hope that you may pray as the Bible records one as praying, "That which I see not, teach Thou me." With this I bid you goodbye.
BROTHER KUEHN: I also am glad to be here with you today. Since December we have traveled over fifteen thousand miles, have been in Japan and China, and we have found some of the Lord's people in those places, and some are also feeling after God if haply they may find Him, and we have had some blessed experiences in meeting with those; but your expressions of peace and love touch me deeply today. I felt that this was the garden spot of our experience. I saw within your hearts the peace and love that has come into ours. I see it is the message of the angels that heralded the birth of our Saviour. "Peace on earth and good will to men," is in your hearts. May this peace and love grow and may it in some of you bring forth a desire to be of that class which will bless all the families of the earth. There is not much time left to be associated in that Bride of Christ, the Seed of Abraham, who shall bless all the families of the earth. That association up there our Master illustrates in the use of the "pearl of great price" that we should purchase. You can purchase that pearl if you will, whether you have an anna or a rupee, or a cocoanut farm, or whether you are cultivating rice. Whatever you have you can purchase with it that pearl of great price, and if successful in that you may continue your manifestations of peace and love to all the world.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. ---------- BROTHER JONES: I am glad, dear friends, to be with you today. Being a doctor, I am interested in the sick and dying people. We find such all about us--in our own families, and amongst our neighbors. The question often comes to our minds, Why this condition? I want to say that the answer is found only in the Bible. It shows that this terrible condition was brought upon the world [CR233] as the result of the sin of disobedience on the part of our first parents.
Two of the brethren have told you tonight how necessary it is to have the element of honesty. I now wish to mention another element, that of LOVE. God is now looking for people who have both of these characteristics-- HONESTY and LOVE. Such people will see that God is honest, and that He is loving. They will also see that His Son Jesus was also honest and loving, and such accepting Jesus as their Saviour, will gladly consecrate their all to God, and seek to have a place in His Kingdom.
Then God will open the way to help the poor world, the sick and the dying. He will give all such many experiences with the sick and dying, to make them sympathetic and loving, so that when His Kingdom is set up--of which you have heard tonight--they will be the doctors and nurses who will bless, and CURE them too, of all their sicknesses, mental, moral and physical and raise the dead-- not only the people who may be living on the earth at that time, but all of the twenty thousand millions who have died.
I am sure you all love to do some good thing for other people, but what a joy it will be to actually and fully bless the entire world, by lifting them out of death and healing them completely.
In conclusion, I wish to say that, if you will faithfully follow the Lord Jesus, you will be given a part in this great work of blessing the whole world. Then there will be no more sighing, crying or dying. All tears will be wiped from off all faces --there shall be no more curse. Let us be faithful.
ADDRESS TO WORKERS BY PASTOR RUSSELL.
BROTHER RUSSELL: I am very glad to have this opportunity for a few minutes with those who have been more particularly identified with Brother Davey in the work in this vicinity. In a sense we might consider you as evangelists and deacons, and Brother Davey in the light of an elder in the Church here. You know the word elder, as used in the Bible, signifies an elder brother. It does not necessarily mean older in years, but older or more developed in spirituality, and so the word deacon signifies servant. Of course all elders are servants, too. As the Bible suggests, we are to serve one another, and so we read that our Lord Jesus served not Himself, but served us. We do well to always remember His word that as He was the Master, yet He became the servant, and we should also serve one another. We remember His words, "Let him that would be greatest amongst you become servant of all." Whoever would exalt himself shall be abased, but whoever would abase himself in service will be honored of the Lord. So now as I look at you and think of you as so many deacons or servants in His cause, I ask myself, What is the most important thing that these dear brethren could have suggested to their minds at this time? I believe the most important thing for me to suggest to you is humility. You may say to me, Brother [CR234] Russell, we have nothing to be proud of. I know it, none of us have anything to be proud of. We all ought to be very humble, especially when we remember that the Lord has made His special promises to the humble and especial threats to the proud. There is this, however, that becomes a temptation: When the Lord favors us by giving us so much knowledge of the Truth as He is now giving us, it becomes a great test to the humility of the heart. If any one has pride in his heart this knowledge will puff him up. He will be in danger of saying, Oh, I know so much; I know so much more than other people know. We are, indeed, very thankful for what we do know. We do, indeed, see that God has given us wonderful light upon the Bible. We do indeed, see that while some of the great and learned of the world are stumbling, we also see that some of the humble ones of the world are receiving great light; but the Bible says wisely, What have we that we have not received? If we receive it, it is not ours to boast of. It is not more for us to boast of than for the man who is receiving from us to boast of it. We would not see more clearly than many other Christian brethren except that it is God's due time and He has favored us with it. If we have received the Truth of the Lord it is for us to be very thankful for it and not to boast of it. It is for us to feel all the more humble. Do we not see more and more clearly every day that we could not have gotten the truth of ourselves. If then it is a gift of God, and if we properly appreciate the gift let us appreciate God highly in our hearts. And the thankful heart should always be the humble heart; and so the Apostle says, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time." You are to remember that the Truth at the present time is not given to us merely for ourselves, but to be dispensed to the other members of the household of faith, as so much of a talent or privilege which He has given to us. If we bury our talent in the earth we will get no reward from the Lord, but rather disapproval when He enters up the case. But if we exercise ourselves to the best of our ability in the use of the talent the Lord has given us, it will bring forth fruit--to some a certain measure of increase, and to others another measure of increase; some thirty, sixty, one hundred fold, but the Lord gave the same words of approval to all, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joys of thy Lord."
I hope that this will be the Lord's words to every one of us, "Well done, good and faithful servant." We are to keep these points before our minds if we would be faithful. We are servants of the flock, not lords of the flock; faithfully serving the flock, not serving ourselves, and not only faithful, but also good. The goodness refers to a condition of our hearts, the faithfulness of our service.
Before I close, my mind goes to the words of Saint Paul, as he met the elders of the Ephesian church, and to a certain extent the same words would properly enough apply to you, and the evangelists, and those who are telling about the general message. He said, you remember, and I will quote his words, "Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood." This would not all apply to deacons, because deacons are not overseers, and they, therefore, have not so large a responsibility; but there is, nevertheless, a responsibility and a great privilege. The right thought to have is that the whole work is God's work. God is calling the Church to be the Bride of Christ and to be associated with Jesus in the Kingdom. God could call the heathen or others by some supernatural power, and could whisper the message into their ears, or He could send it by angels, but it has pleased God to use a different means. It has pleased Him to use preaching, thus to gather the Bride class to Himself. So the Apostle said, we are co-laborers with God. It is God's work; it is He that is doing it. It will not fail even if we fail. If we fail it will be merely failing to use our privilege. In that event God would use some other agents or agencies in the work. What a great privilege, then, is ours, being co-laborers with God, and His servants in this work. Much of our faithfulness will doubtless depend upon our appreciation of our privileges. I urge, therefore, that you do as I do myself in this matter, namely; Realize that we are only God's servants, go to Him directly every day to ask His special guidance and direction in His special work, and similarly at the close of each day go to Him to make a report. If we have enjoyed blessings and privileges of service, thank Him for the opportunity. If we have failed to be faithful to the best extent, make apologies to the Lord and pledge ourselves to greater usefulness.
So then, dear friends, faithfully remember this word, "Take heed unto yourselves and to the flock of God." He who does not take heed to himself cannot be a proper servant of the Great Shepherd in dealing with the flock. Carry my blessing to those dear friends who did not get to these meetings, and whom we will not see on this visit. Tell them of my love for the Lord and my love for all who are seeking to be in harmony with Him, and all who are seeking to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. I hope you will report as much as formerly to Brother Davey and that you will give report so that we may know about the work here.
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In conclusion I ask the Lord's blessing upon Brother Davey and upon you all as you continue in His service. Amen.
WHEN this service was concluded it was about ten o'clock at night, and as we were somewhat weary from the long ride, about fifty-five miles, in the motor car, all the excitement of the "Triumphal Procession" and the meetings of the day, we sought our couches of rest. Some of these were on cots, Brother Pyles' was on a plank and the rest on the floor. We all had our bedding with us, it being necessary for travelers to carry some with them if they wish any, as it is seldom furnished throughout India, except in the best hotels in the large cities. Even the trains do not furnish any. Our outfit consisted of a canvas carry-all, in which we rolled up a pad, a blanket or two, a pillow, and as many sheets and pillow-slips as one wished to carry, which were not very many. We were all surprised that we could rest as well as we have been doing under these conditions, but it only shows what one can do when compelled to. As we were preparing for bed the natives still hung around and seemed loath to leave, and Brother Davey was obliged to go out and practically drive them away. Many, however, did not go far, but laid down on the ground in the Tabernacle or anywhere and slept until morning, and they were up bright and early watching for us.
Monday. Well, this is the next day after our wonderful experience of yesterday, which are now matters of history.
We have just had breakfast and are now ready with our bedding and other luggage to start for the motor car. As we are to have a different car today, still larger than the one used yesterday, and which cannot come out here on account of the low hanging branches of trees, we will be obliged to walk about a mile down the road between the tapioca fields and through several little villages before we reach the car. The accompanying pictures were snapped on the way.
The native workers who have been assisting Brother Davey and others there insisted on going with us to our car and carrying our luggage. The girls had fallen in love with Sister Wilson, so she was seated in Brother Davey's little pony cart and they surrounded the cart and kept as close to her as possible all the way down. As love begets love, so Sister Wilson's love for the girls, which she showed by many little kindnesses, drew from the girls their love in return, which was simple and true, and only goes to show that when the right people exercise the proper influence upon the girls and women of India, they will develop into noble women, just what God intended they should be.
Upon arrival at the place where our motor car was waiting, we found it surrounded with natives, some who came some distance to see us off, while many others were there through curiosity. Soon we were off for another long ride to
NAGERCOIL.
ON the way we passed through many more villages and between the various fields and through tropical verdure of all descriptions. At times we would see them grinding up cocoanuts, so as to procure the oil, which is quite a source of revenue for the natives. Again we would see them reaping their rice and other grain with hand sickles, the same as of old, and occasionally we would see some out gleaning after the reapers, which reminded us of Ruth and Naomi.
In due time we arrived at Nagercoil and just before we reached the bungalow where we were to have some dinner a small brass band met us, and the way those little fellows would blow their horns was a caution. They evidently thought that the more noise they could make the more we would appreciate their welcome.
That afternoon we went to the town proper to a college or school, which is under the auspices of some denomination, [CR236] the principal of which is an European, but the scholars are all natives, and a bright lot they were too. Arrangements had been made for Pastor Russell to lecture here, so they were looking for us, and soon their auditorium, which held several hundred, was packed to its utmost capacity, and others stood in the doorway, sat on the window sills and filled the porch, which ran around the building, and then many others could not get in. The service was as follows:
THE meeting opened with prayer by Mr. Parker, the principal of the college. He prayed for the Lord to meet with us that afternoon, that we might have given to our minds and souls to realize more what the true light is, and to some extent grasp eternity of life to our souls and lives and that our mission may be widened and that we prepare ourselves for greater work. He also prayed the Lord to bless him who was to speak that he might have a message for our hearts and minds; also to bless all the work done in the Lord's name, and for His glory. He then said:
I am to introduce Pastor Russell.
Pastor Russell: I want first of all to say that we appreciate very much the kind invitation of Reverend Parker to address you this afternoon, and I wish also to say that the Church with which he is connected is not responsible for anything that I may say, so we want to start out fairly. Brother Parker tells me that the most of his congregation are Christians, and I am pleased to know this, but I am also pleased when I have Brahmins and Buddhists in the congregation.
My thought, dear friends, is that there are some of God's people in every land and connected with every religion. When I say God's people, I mean honest people, for I cannot imagine any man as a good man who is not thoroughly honest; no man can be religious if he is not honest. Furthermore, I respect the religious convictions of all mankind. When I meet the Chinese and know what their general convictions are of religion, I say, these people are worshipping God, though, as the Apostle says, they do not understand God; they are feeling after God if haply they may find Him. So when I find people in India who differ from our views in respect to religion, I accord to every man or woman the right to their convictions in respect to their religion. I am glad that people worship, even if not up to my own standard. I would rather see them worshippers in some form rather than atheists or unbelievers.
Now, when we think of the fact that there are so many different religionists in the world, Brahmins, Confucianists, Mohammedans, as well as Christians, and various sects and parties in all these religions and amongst Christians too, when we think of this, it assures us that there is something radically wrong when there can be such discrepancy amongst people who are anxious to know the truth and to hear the truth.
I had an experience which helped me in my difficulties. I lost all my faith in the Lord Jesus, but I never lost my faith in the great Supreme Creator. I said, surely the very smallest form of life is greater than I could produce. I am not able to produce a flea or an ant. The one, therefore, who created that ant or flea must be a great deal greater than I am. And when I see the orderly arrangement of that little animal and the function of life operating in them, their eyes, etc., adapted to their conditions, I perceive the one who made them must be infinitely greater than I. Think of the eye of the beetle, and then of the fish--so different, so different from that of a fly, or of a human being. I said, who gave the fish an eye suitable to the water and that would not be injured under such conditions as mine would be? Some one far wiser than I. And when I contrasted those lower forms of life with men and I see man's towering over ants, and all animals, then I say, if man, with all his ability and skill, is not able to make a flea or an ant, who made man? That wonderful being, the most wonderful in the whole world, with power of mind, with power of intellect, power of morals?
No other creature in the world can duplicate it. Who made man? He must be a great God, a very great God. He must be a very wise God, a very just God, because He gave us the sense of justice and appreciation of right and wrong, which the lower animals do not have. He must have had them or He could not have given them to us. If He gave us a sense of justice and a measure of wisdom, did He not give us love? What would the world do without love? So, [CR237] I thank God that He has given man these qualities which enables him to see what he is. Yet with all this we realize that you and I are fallen and imperfect beings. If we could have a perfect man here now how grand it would be! We wonder and adore when we think of God.
Next my mind says, This God who gave me a sense of justice must have a great sense of justice also. This God who gave me an appreciation of love and goodness, and tenderness and gentleness, how could He ever give me these qualities if He did not possess these qualities Himself? So I said to myself, Here is my God, I will bow down and worship Him. I know not the Lord Jesus, but I still believe in this supreme Creator. I reasoned this way: That He who gave me these qualities must have them Himself, and I said, there is my God, the God that I will worship, and I will find out all I can learn respecting Him and the wonderful plan that He has, why He made me, etc. Having lost faith in my own Bible, I went to investigate the Bibles of what we term the heathen. So I searched amongst them only to find, my dear friends, after careful study, nothing to compare with the Bible, so back I came to the Bible. I said, if there be in the whole world anything that contains the revelation of this great God it must be the Bible. There is no other book that could compare with it; but I said, the Bible does not satisfy me. What was the matter? I became a Higher Critic, and in that view of higher criticism I began to think that I know a great deal more than the prophets knew, or Jesus and the Apostles. So that under the leadership of these professors I could think certain passages in Isaiah never were written by him, or that Daniel never lived, and that Moses did not write the first five books of the law, etc. So I threw away all these at the suggestion of my professors. I said, I cannot subscribe to those things. When I came back what did I find? I found that there were things in the Bible I did not know were there, and things that I thought were there were not there. Today I stand before you believing that the Bible is the only revelation of God. Now I am just as strong a believer in the Bible as I was previously a disbeliever. More so now, because I know why and I know what I believe. I have come to the place where I take not my own guess about it or anybody else's guess; I demand that they shall show me the Scriptures, etc. Is not that the way you would do with algebra or geometry? If someone told you something new, about the shape of the earth, or where Africa is, or India, you would say, I am going to prove or look up the matter, and you will have better satisfaction and contentment.
Now this is my position in respect to the Bible. I once took and preached what my creed said, that how God before He created the world was so wise that He knew everything He intended to do, and foreordained and predestinated everything from the beginning. Then I said, what a pity that only a mere handful would go to glory, only a few be saved, only those who had accepted Jesus and become followers in His footsteps! What about the remainder? God foreordained and predestinated that they should go to an eternity of torment. As soon as that got hold of my mind I said, could it possibly be that the God of all grace and the Father of mercy should have predestinated and foreordained from before our first parents were created that this would be the result--could this be possible? Nevertheless, I could never worship a God like that. Yet I preached it unthinkingly.
After thinking it all over I was very much ashamed of myself for misunderstanding my God and misrepresenting Him. I apologized to Him and told Him that I should have known better, even if I had no Bible at all. Here is a company before us; if any one in this company was making a practice of torturing poor rats in a cellar what would you think of him? You would not want to own him as a friend of yours. You would say, I will have decent associates or none. Shall we suppose that the great heavenly Father which art in Heaven is worse than the worst person here, or ever known? I said, I will never believe anything like that. And more than that, my friends, very few people any longer do believe it. All the different churches are dropping it out. What does it mean? The same as with me, when such become disgusted with all the creeds they say, away with the creeds and with the Bible, too, just as I did, because they thought that the Bible substantiated those things. That is the reason the most intelligent people of today are becoming infidels; they are not called that, however, but they say, We are not like Tom Payne or Robert Ingersoll. Oh, no! The difference is not that these men believe anything more than those of the past did; the difference is that these men were foul-mouthed in their infidelity, uttering [CR238] things in a foul manner, while our higher critics utter what they say in a kindly manner, etc.
I sympathize with these people, but I say, let us be honest with ourselves. If I ever become an unbeliever in the Bible I will say so plainly and not deceive other people. I know now what I believe and why I believe it. That is just what I want to say to you this afternoon, because if you are not yet come to the place where you have had your testings along the line of higher criticism, it is very sure to reach you, as it does everybody. Then if you do not have the foundation of a proper understanding of the Bible, your faith will go down and you will hardly know how it went. But if you do have the right view of the Bible you will have no difficulty whatever.
What is the solution of this matter? I think it is connected with the subject this afternoon, "Where are the dead?" I believe it lays at the foundation of all Christian faith, the foundation of all error, the foundation of all truth also. If we can get that idea rightly settled, I see no reason why Brahmins, Buddhists and Mohammedans cannot all join in together. I think that is just so. You will be surprised if I tell you that it has proven so. Some from all those have said, well, now I see the truth.
(Brother Russell then gave a discourse for about an hour on the subject, "Where are the Dead?" The general outline of his address is familiar to most of you, and we will not give it space here, but refer you to similar remarks delivered at Manila--Letter No. 3.)
WE then went to a third-class bungalow for the night, at which there were absolutely no accommodations, except some empty rooms with stone floors. During the evening, before we retired, quite a large crowd assembled in the large courtyard in front of the bungalow and Pastor Russell spoke to them at some length through an interpreter. This meeting was made specially lively by reason of some disturbers present, especially one women, whom others had urged to interrupt the meeting, etc. The crowd in general remained until the discourse was over, then gathered around us, took all the literature we had in their languages, which we brought from Brother Davey's, and then wrote their names in our books, asking for literature to be sent to them, which will be done.
We then made down our beds on the stone floors and secured quite a good night's rest. The next morning we were ready for breakfast, which we secured at the other bungalow, which was a first-class one, and were soon on our way in the motor car back to this place, which we reached about noon.
OX-CART PILGRIMAGE.
THE day was hot so we rested until the latter part of the afternoon, and then started on a new experience. Ox carts were provided for us, which are rather small affairs on two wheels, drawn by two bullocks, which travel at the rate of about two miles an hour. They told us there were springs on the carts, but they had to be seen rather than felt. Two people could squeeze into one of these carts, which we did, and off we started for a trip of about two miles. Then we got out of the carts and tramped over the hills and through the tapioca fields until finally we saw a mud house on the top of a hill in the distance, with two high flag poles in front on which were waving some banners. We were informed that that building was their first Tabernacle, where the work in this section of India first started. Soon we reached there and a service was started for the hundred and fifty or more natives assembled there and who had been waiting for us for some time. Many others would have been there but could not get away from their work. Brother Russell spoke to them at some length, then introduced the Committee one by one to the natives. I then took the accompanying picture of them, the Committee standing in the rear.
We then came back to our ox carts, held a council and decided that the party should split into three groups and go in different directions to visit other classes. This we did, Pastor Russell, General Hall, Brother Kuehn and Brother Davey going in one direction; Brother Maxwell and Brother Robison in another direction; and Brother Pyles and myself, with Brother Theopolis, our interpreter, in another direction. We all had about equal distances to go, some six miles. So we "bumped and bumps" until about nine o'clock, when we reached our destinations. I cannot speak for the others, but when our cart reached a certain point we were told to get out, which we were glad to do, and then we tramped through the fields in the dark. If there were snakes there we did not see them. After traveling for some time Brother Theopolis called loudly and then we heard a faint response in the distance, and after a bit could see a torch, and then some people, and soon several natives came up to us, whom Theopolis recognized as the friends we were trying to find. They led us through a path they had cut for us through the fields to another mud tabernacle. Just as we reached the door about a dozen other girls received us by singing some hymn in their native tongue. We then went inside and it was the privilege of each of us to give a brief discourse to the natives squatted about us. They seemed to appreciate very much our visit, and in fact tried to show their appreciation by presenting the only thing of value they had, namely, three eggs. Such kindness from them, giving us their all, even though it was only three eggs, touched us deeply, and I am sure we will never forget our visit with those people. I might say, that in all these native meetings the men sit or squat in one part of the room and the women in another part, and the latter have their heads completely covered, just the same as the custom in olden times, and is probably that to which the Apostle makes reference.
We then went back to our ox carts and started on our eight-mile return trip, arriving at "Bethel" about midnight. To our surprise, we found that we were the first to return. However, the others came shortly afterward, and their reports of the meetings they addressed were quite similar to ours. We were glad for the trip, but were also glad when it was over--our bones ached for days afterward.
Friday morning. Here we are, still alive after our ox-cart experience of last night, and while waiting to start on our journey I am writing this letter on Brother Davey's typewriter in his new study in the "Bethel." As I am writing I hear the girls singing, "God be with you till we meet again." They are in a building, or tent, close by, which is being used as a lace factory, and the girls are being taught to make lace by using pillows, in which they stick a lot of pins, I think in the form of a pattern, and then work the thread around the pins, etc. They do nice work, but their pay is very small. They are just beginning their day's work, which is always begun with devotional exercises.
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I will now close, with much love to all, and remain,
as B4,
Yours in HIS service,
L. W. JONES, M.D.
(Mailed from Neyattinkara, S. Travencore, India.) ----------
LETTER NO. 5.
CALCUTTA, India. To the Ecclesia of I.B.S.A., at Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.
Dearly Beloved in the Lord: SINCE my last letter we have traveled over a great deal of territory, but I will mention only a few things.
I wrote my last letter from "Bethel," Russell-puram. After finishing that letter we started on another walk through the tapioca fields to the town where our motor car was waiting, again passing through the little villages by the way. Getting in our car we were soon off for
TRAVENDRUM.
THIS we reached about noon and went at once to the Travelers Bungalow, where we stopped on our way out. This is a first-class bungalow, being provided with some comforts which were much appreciated by us all. We had a good lunch, and rested some time before the afternoon meeting, which had been arranged for, and at which Pastor Russell spoke on the subject of "The Destiny of Man." This was held in Victoria Hall, which was filled to its limits with natives having considerable education, and many being present of different religious beliefs, Brahmins, Buddhists and Hindus. At first some of these seemed to sneer at what was being said, but pretty soon the sneer on their faces turned to intense earnestness, for they were hearing something entirely different from what other white people have been telling them about the Christian religion. As a result, long before the evening meeting was due, the hall was packed again and they were impatiently waiting the arrival of Brother Russell. In the evening he discoursed on "The Present Day Unrest," and showed that it was prevalent over here in India, as well as back home in Europe and America, etc. He then pointed out the cause, sin, and also the only hope for any and all in every land--the Kingdom of Christ. He said:
We will treat our subject from the standpoint of a lecture, though, as a matter of fact, what we will have to say will be from the Scriptural standpoint. It would be almost useless for me to say to you that we are living in a great and wonderful day, the like of which the world has never seen, for this is generally recognized by all who have thought on the matter.
The Travencore District indeed has not as large an acquaintance with these present-day wonders as others have. I was pleased to see a motor car here connecting you with the rest of the world and the railroad and the steamship. I inquired for the telephone, but found it had not yet reached you. But these things are gradually spreading to every nook and corner of the whole world. These present-day inventions of various kinds are hardly realized to be present-day inventions by many of us because they are so common and we think they have been with us for centuries upon centuries. You may think of Europe and America having them a long time, but no, they are new to us. You will find from history that the steam railroad is only eighty years old. How strange! How wonderful! They reached America and Europe in advance of reaching India, but they are here. With the railroads and steamships came the telegraph, the telephone, and now wireless telegraph connecting people hundreds of miles apart, etc. If it had been told us in the past, such a person would have been called foolish. Well, wonders never cease. Some of the wise men tell us that we are on the verge of more wonderful things. Mr. Edison, who is identified with many of these inventions, while not a believer in the Bible, states that these are just the beginning of still more wonderful inventions. As a poor boy he gradually got a little common knowledge and God seemed to open the door to him and he began to grasp these things. Not because he was so great or wise, but because God's time had come. God lifted the curtain and light streamed in. There are two ways of viewing these things.
First, the higher critical or evolutionary way. Yet how [CR240] foolish that is when we consider that today we have no one equal to Shakespeare, David, Job and others.
Second, God's time has come. Whether we are Brahmins, Hindus or Christians, we must recognize that there is a great supreme being or ruler of all things, and that all God's purposes are good and are to be accomplished. None are bad purposes. He is a gracious God, and the Bible speaks of Him as "The Father of light and mercy, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift."
Brother Russell then told these people how he left the Bible, investigated the religions of heathenism, and how he finally came back to the Bible again. This he followed with a discourse on "Where are the Dead?" (Letter No. 3--Manila.)
At the conclusion of the service many requested literature, and they kept several of us very busy for quite a while handing out slips of paper and pencils with which to make application for the literature. This will be sent to them either from the London or Brooklyn offices. We remained over night at the bungalow, getting a good night's rest and partaking of a good breakfast.
Our motor car soon drove up to the front of the bungalow and we were presently all seated and off for another forty-mile ride to Quilon, where we started from, and which is the terminus of that little branch of the railroad.
We took train from Quilon and rode only to the first town,
KOTTARAKARA.
WE stopped here because of the fact that a great many native Syrian Christians had been holding a conference or convention there and there was an opportunity of getting into touch with them. It seems that in the early part of the Gospel Age some of the Apostles came over into the western part of India and sowed the seeds of truth, and these have been growing more or less all these years, and now there is a goodly number of earnest religious people in this section. Many of their people are very bright and intelligent.
At this place there were no first-class bungalows, so we had to go to a second-class place, where no meals were served. Otherwise it was pleasant. However, we took along with us some canned salmon, some bread, some packages of cakes, etc., and Brother Davey, who accompanied us to this point, also brought some coffee, etc., so altogether we managed to get up a fairly good supper and breakfast.
After supper arrangements were made for some more rapid transit ox-carts, in which we rode to another mud meetinghouse. As we drove up to it a native began to pound a large piece of brass, which was hung by a rope, and this brass would ring out so that it could be heard for miles, and was an excellent bell. Soon the crowds began to assemble, and then we had considerable singing. Several of them sang us a number of hymns in their language, and then we sang a number of hymns in English.
The meeting house was dimly lighted with one smoking lamp, in which was some of Rockefeller's oil. The lamp would gradually get dimmer and dimmer, and I would have to turn it up to get enough light to see to write my shorthand notes of what Brother Russell was saying. The building was crowded, others sat on the mud wall, which was about four feet high, while many others were outside on the grass.
Brother Davey acted as interpreter for a while, and then he was relieved by a native lawyer, who is a Christian. He was certainly a bright man, and were he to be in such cities as London, New York or Chicago, he would make his mark. He rendered splendid service as interpreter, and a profound impression was made upon all. After Brother Russell had talked about two hours and the meeting was practically dismissed, they wanted to hear more, so he said that having heard that the people who had been assembled in that town of late had been discussing a great deal on the question of Jesus and the Trinity, Brother Russell said he would tell them something about Jesus. This he did, and I give you herewith a report of both those services, as follows:
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SUBJECT, "SIGNS OF THE TIMES."
BROTHER RUSSELL: I am very glad to have paid a visit to the Travencore District, and that visit is very nearly ended, for I leave tomorrow for Madras. I am very pleased with many things that I have seen in your country, and I want to tell you of a particular thing that has impressed me: It is the fact that I have seen manifested a great deal of honesty. All people ought to be honest; if they would be honest in other matters they should especially be honest in religious matters. I believe God is especially pleased to bless those who are honest. I have been impressed with the thought that I have met people here who are just as sincere Christians as in Europe and America, and I am acquainted with a great many Christians, and especially with the very sincere kind.
My address, then, will be especially to Christians present, but I hope something I may say will be of interest and profit to those who have not made a full consecration to the Lord. I want to call your attention to the fact that we are living in a very wonderful day. No one of intelligence will dispute the fact that there never has been such a time as that in which we are living. Nearly everything that we are using in America and Europe are new things. New inventions that are coming up and new blessings that are coming to the race, labor-saving inventions and many things to bring more happiness and more peace to humanity, and many arrangements by which great knowledge and present intelligence is coming to people.
Now then, there are two ways of viewing this matter: Why is it that all these blessings have come to us just recently? You here in Travencore know of only a few of these things comparatively; they come to Europe and to America a little sooner than to you. The railroads and the telegraph are some of these. But they are all new to America and Europe too. One hundred years ago there were none of these things. They were not dreamed of. So some wise men are telling us that it is a process of evolution, but the Bible says no. The Bible says that all these blessings of our day are the beginning of still greater blessings that are yet to come. The Bible tells that for six thousand years we have been as a race under the Divine curse. The Bible says that the curse is to be removed, and as men have been under a curse for six thousand years, so they shall be under a blessing for a great period. When we speak of the curse of God we are not to think of God as swearing, for this word curse means "unfavorable condition." God created man perfect in His own image, as the Bible tells us, and he might have continued to live forever if he had continued obedient to God, and if he had continued obedient to God he would have had an Eden home, and all the blessings of the earth would have been his. But God placed him on trial, and he was disobedient to God and God as a penalty for sin forfeited his right to life, and that was the curse. God said to Adam, "Dying thou shalt surely die," and He put him out of the Garden of Eden that he might die, and we have all been dying as a race from that time until now. We all have aches and pains and sorrow and tears, and death. We have been obliged to labor with sweat of face against the conditions that prevail. All this is the curse, and God says that the time is coming when this curse of death will be removed. After the curse of death is removed, then mankind will have life. The Bible tells that they will all come up to perfection, or they will have an opportunity of coming up to perfection. That is to say, all who will obey the voice of God and be obedient in their hearts will be helped up out of their imperfection to perfection, helped out of sickness, sorrow and death, up to perfection and everlasting life, and the Bible calls that the removal of the curse, and it says, "There shall be no more curse." It explains that there will be no more sighing, no more crying, no more dying, but it tells that it will take a thousand years to remove this curse. God could remove it immediately, but He sees it is better to take a thousand years. During that thousand years the Bible says all the willing and obedient will be rising up little by little, and they will be getting stronger in mind and body and in every way. Man was created perfect in the image of God and by sin and under the curse he fell into imperfection and death. And as he gradually fell so God thinks best that he shall gradually rise. He will rise gradually so that he will the better appreciate all the steps of the advancement. He will be learning special lessons during all that time of rising. The rising up will be in proportion to his coming into harmony with God. Those who will quickly get into harmony with God will rise quickly. Those who have any sympathy with sin will be slower in getting up, and all those who refuse to make any progress at all will be destroyed. Now, the time was when we and all Christian people misunderstood this matter. We did not read our Bibles carefully enough. We got this wrong impression: We thought that God had cursed mankind by sending [CR242] him to eternal torment. Our Catholic friends said to purgatory. And thinking of God as having this attitude towards us we naturally could not love Him as much. How could we love some one who had damned us before we were born? But we see we made a great mistake in our reading and studying of the Bible. The curse belongs to the present-- we are now under the curse. All our sorrow and pain and troubles are parts of this curse or penalty, and those who go down into death are still under the curse too, but not suffering any. God would not torture them, and no good man would torture a fellow man. No good man would torture a dumb brute. God could not think of torturing mankind. What the Bible tells is different from what we thought. We took our different Christian creeds, made in the dark ages, and thought that they properly represented the Bible, and that was a great mistake. The Bible, on the contrary, teaches that death is the punishment for sin. Mark, the Bible says that "The wages of sin is death." Nowhere does it say that the wages of sin is purgatory. The Bible says the wages of sin is death, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." Now if God had not taken compassion upon us and provided a Saviour, our death would have left us hopeless through all eternity. If God did not have mercy, a dead man would be just as much out of existence as a dead dog, but God had compassion upon mankind and He provided a Saviour--not a Saviour from eternal torment, not a Saviour from purgatory--but a Saviour from death. Death is the penalty, and Jesus rescues and redeems us from death. Now then, how could we be saved from death? The Bible answers, by resurrection. The Bible says that when we go down into death it will not be a real death, but as it were a sleep. The dead are unconscious, they know nothing at all, and that is what the Bible says, "The dead know not anything." Their sons come to honor and they know it not, they come to dishonor, but they perceive it not of them." Why? Because, "there is neither wisdom, nor knowledge, nor device, in sheol (the grave) whither thou goest." For six thousand years our whole race has been going down into the grave, to sheol, to death. Our hope is not that which many have, but it is the Bible hope. We are not to hope that the dead are not dead, we are not to believe that a dead man is more alive than before he died. We are to take the Bible view and believe that a dead man is dead and would never live again unless he had a resurrection. I do not know how many of you are Bible students. Since coming to your city I have been informed that a good many of you are Bible students. I have been informed that some of you know the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. I hope that I am talking to some of this kind, so that they will know the Scriptures when they hear them. I remind you of some of Saint Paul's words in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians. He says, "If there be no resurrection of the dead, then those that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." Paul says that all Christian preaching and all Christian faith is vain if there be no resurrection of the dead. The Apostle says that if there is no resurrection of the dead we might just as well eat and drink and die and have no thought for the future at all. Then he goes on to say that there is a resurrection of the dead. Christ has already risen from the dead. He has become the first fruits of them that sleep. What is the meaning of that expression, "Those that sleep?" The answer of the Bible is that all people who die sleep. That is to say, natural sleep illustrated the condition of mankind in death; when a man is soundly asleep he knows nothing; when a man is dead he knows nothing. When a man wakes up again from sleep he knows no more than he did before, and so the resurrection of the dead will be the awakening of the dead. So I remind you that the Apostle says he preached Jesus and the resurrection. Why should these two matters be joined together, Jesus and the resurrection? Because we have just said that unless Jesus had paid the penalty there could be no resurrection. Adam was condemned to death, and all of his race shared that condemnation, and then Christ took the place of Adam, and He died to redeem Adam. The redemption of Adam includes a redemption of all the race, because they came under the curse through Adam's sin.
I remind you of Paul's words on this subject, "As by a man came death (the curse, not as by man came eternal torment the curse), by a man also came the resurrection of the dead, for as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive." It does not say, as in Adam all went to eternal torment or to purgatory. Then the resurrection of the dead comes through Christ because He has redeemed the race [CR243] through His own death. Do we not all know that Christ died for our sins? Do we not know that He suffered the penalty for the sinner? Now what penalty did He suffer for you and for me? Did He suffer purgatory? No. Why not? Because purgatory was not the penalty. Did He suffer eternal torment? No, no! He is exalted to Heaven. Why did He not suffer eternal torment for us? Well, eternal torment was not the penalty. What was the penalty and what did He suffer? The penalty was death, and He suffered death for us. He paid the very penalty which God sent upon us and that is what God said, "I will redeem them from sheol (the grave)," and this will be accomplished for them in the resurrection.
Now then, we said this was connected with the signs of the times. How? This way: Messiah's Kingdom is to be the channel through which this blessing is to come to the world, just as Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth even as it is done in Heaven." God's will eventually is to be done as fully on earth as it is now done in Heaven. Does any one think that you and I will bring God's will to earth and have God's will done on earth as it is done in Heaven? Oh, no, we are not so foolish! Take the very best powers of earth and God's will is not done very well there. On the contrary, "darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the heathen (Gentiles)." Then how will this be brought about? The Bible says that the God of Heaven will set up a Kingdom. Messiah, He who redeemed the world, is to take His great power and reign. The first feature of His reign will be the binding of Satan. The Bible says that Satan shall be bound for a thousand years, and at that time instead of darkness from the prince of darkness will be light from the Prince of Light. The Bible says that He must reign until He shall put all enemies in subjection, until He shall have established righteousness throughout the earth; then, as a result, "Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess to the glory of God." How glad we are that that time is coming! How glad we are that God says He is going to do it, and that He is going to do it through Jesus! How glad we are that God has not left it in our hands! How imperfect we find ourselves and how impossible it would be for us to accomplish much!
That will be the penalty for those who will refuse to come into harmony with God when Messiah will reign? They will be counted wicked and God says, "All the wicked will He destroy." He will not preserve them in hell or purgatory, but destroy them. The Apostle explains, saying they will be punished with "everlasting punishment." Saint Peter says, "They shall perish like natural brute beasts." But let us not forget that the weak and ignorant are not wicked. Let us not forget we are all in this condition because sin came; and before any could be sentenced to destruction, the second death, he will have had a full opportunity for returning to harmony with God. Some of us get our knowledge and opportunity now, but the great masses of mankind will not get their knowledge and opportunity until the future, until Messiah's Kingdom shall bring the light of knowledge of God to fill the whole earth. That Kingdom is likened to the sun of righteousness--"The sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in His beams" and all the darkness of ignorance and superstition and sin shall be scattered before that glorious light. The Bible declares that the light of knowledge of the glory of God shall fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep. It will not be as now. This completeness of knowledge we do not have now. Even Christians have had so much darkness that we have had different creeds but, "In that day all shall know the Lord from the least to the greatest, and none will need to say to his neighbor, know thou the Lord, for all shall know Him from the least to the greatest." Well now, why do we think this glorious time is near at hand? Some people say it is six thousand years since Adam was created and sinned and is now two thousand years since Jesus came and died and redeemed the world, and if the Kingdom has been so long delayed, how have we any idea but that it will be delayed for thousands of years yet? There are two lines of similar reasoning showing that we should expect the Kingdom now: One is that God has arranged His matters upon the plane of seven; as, for instance, we have a week of seven days, six days of labor and sweat of face and the seventh of rest and comfort. This represents on a larger scale seven great days. These great days are all a thousand years each. Seven great thousand year days make a great week according to Bible chronology. Christ's Kingdom is the seventh day. Now we are in the beginning of the seventh day and the blessings of the Lord are beginning to come in. It is only a few years since we had a light like this (Brother Russell pointed to a dingy, smoking kerosene lamp, the only light we had in the building). We had nothing better than tallow candles a short time back. Now these are quite in the past. We have very little use for these in the civilized lands. We have gas and electricity. All these things at the present time, and everything coming forth now, all show that we are in the lapping of these two ages. So to speak, we are in the Saturday night, and the dawn of Sunday morning is right upon us. And the glorious day of the future is to be glorious because it is the day of Christ. I remind you that it is a Bible expression, "the day of Christ," for He must reign for a thousand years. Some one may say, Why did not God send these blessings sooner? Because God has a plan of His own. He is wise and we are ignorant. Some day we shall see why He permitted sin to reign for six thousand years, and then brought in the seventh day with His blessing.
But I remind you of another reason why God is not going to bring in the Kingdom until a certain time: When God made His plan that Jesus should have a Kingdom to bless the world, He had another part to that plan. Peter tells us that He would have a company associated with Jesus in that grand work, that little company would be associated with Jesus, or called, "The Church of the First Born." Another name for them is, "The Body of Christ," and another is, "The Bride of Christ." It is the Church of Christ in the sense that it is called out of the world, to be associated with Him. I remind you of His promise, He said, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on My throne, even as I overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne now. The Bible says He is now ascended up on high and is set down with the Father in His throne. Christ will have no throne of His own until the right time, and that will be when the Church is completed and ready to sit [CR244] with Him in His throne, and that will be at the beginning of the Millennial Age. And so all work of this Gospel age has been for the purpose of electing some saints for this work. God offered this great favor first to the Jews. He knew that enough of them would not be worthy to fill this company, but He took as many of them as were ready. The Jewish nation were spoken of in the Bible as the house of servants, but all of those who accepted Christ and became His disciples became members of the house of sons. Moses was faithful over his house, the house of servants, but Christ, the Son, is over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the profession of our faith unto the end. Now, hear how Saint John tells us, "He came unto His own and His own received Him not, but to as many as received Him to them gave He power (privilege) to become Sons of God. We do not know how many received Christ in this proper sense. We do not know how many were begotten of the Holy Spirit, and became members of the house of sons, members of the Body of Christ, members of the Church of the First Born, but we do know that there were not enough to fill God's elect provision, so by and by the message was extended to all the Gentiles, and that is the reason it has come to you and to me. We are all Gentiles and now are privileged to come into the house of sons of God, members of the Body of Christ, members of the Church of the First Born, and in this way God has been taking out a people to be the Bride of Christ. In this way He has been gathering the Bride of Christ from every nation, people, kindred, and tongue, and I am very glad is visiting your land to see what seems to me to be good evidence that there are some of the faith amongst you. Now the gathering of this saintly Church is only the beginning of God's plan. They will be associated with Jesus in the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is for the very purpose of blessing the non-elect world.
I hope that many of you will strive with myself to make our calling and election sure. If we are faithful we are to get the greatest reward imaginable. The blessing that is coming to the world that they will have if they will be faithful is a great blessing, it will be more than we ever dreamed of--human perfection in an earthly Eden. But Jesus calls this which He offers to the Church a great prize, a great treasure. He calls it a "pearl of great price." He says, that this privilege of becoming joint-heirs with Him in His Kingdom and sharers of His glory, honor and immortality is a pearl of great worth--a pearl that is worth all you have. We are exhorted to go and sell all we have and purchase that great pearl. Pay any price necessary in order to get into that glorious Kingdom. If it should cost you all your wealth, have it. If it should cost you all the comforts of life, obtain it. If it should cost you the loss of all friendship in the world, have it. The Lord is seeking for this class who so prize this offer that they will lay down their lives in order to obtain it. He tells us that we must expect it will cost us something. He says, "Through much tribulation shall ye enter the Kingdom." But to those who are faithful, it is sure. He says, "Fear not, little flock, it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." But the Father will not give us the Kingdom until the right time--not until the last member of the "wise virgins" has gone into the marriage. Then the glorious blessing will begin. The sufferings of the Christ will be ended, because Christ's sufferings did not end eighteen hundred years ago. Jesus suffered eighteen hundred years ago; He is the head; He suffered and entered into His glory, but the Church, which is His Body, has been coming on since, and we must suffer with Him, and the last member must have his suffering before the whole Church will be glorified. If we suffer with Him we shall be glorified with Him. Now, mark! We do not get this glory except at one time; the Bible and Jesus say, Blessed and holy and all those who have part in the first resurrection; they shall be priests unto God and to Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." (Rev. 20:6.)
I hope then, my dear friends, that some of us will be amongst that glorious company, the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the Church of the First Born.
And now I fancy someone saying, Brother Russell, which is the Church of the First Born? I fancy someone saying, Brother Russell, are you here to teach us something about a new church. I fancy someone here saying, Brother Russell, we have too many churches. And now I answer, my dear friends, I am not here to start a new church. My views of the Bible teaching is that none of these churches are the [CR245] Church of the First Born; they have all come now to acknowledge that. Jesus never established any of these churches; neither the Lutherans, the Baptists, Congregational, Presbyterian or Roman Catholic is the Church which Christ established. And their names are written on earth. We read on the contrary, "the Church of the First Born whose names are written in Heaven." You ask me, Oh, Brother Russell, how shall we get our names written in Heaven? I will tell you. It is first by accepting Christ as your Saviour, by turning away from sin to the best of your ability, by living righteousness to the best of your ability, and making a full consecration of your whole life to God in His service, and then day by day seeking to know God's will and seeking to do it. You may say, Oh, may we know God's will? How may we know the Truth? The Bible tells us that we should be ready to give an answer to every one who asks us a reason for our hope. The Bible tells us that God gave us the Bible that the man of God might be thoroughly furnished, that we might all know whom we believe and what we believe.
And now, my dear friends, I hope you will all be Bible students. I hope you will all be Bereans. You remember what we read about the Bereans in the Acts of the Apostles. From God's standpoint they were nobler because they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether these things be true or not. Just so I would have you not receive what I may say or what any man may say just because it is said, but take it to the Word of God and see what the Word of God says in support or in opposition.
[CR245]
AFTER MEETING.
SUBJECT, "WHO IS JESUS?"
I WAS thinking of saying something to you about our great Saviour. I understand of late you have been having in this city considerable discussion along this line.
Who is Jesus? One of your prominent men called upon me and wanted to know what I thought upon that subject. I am very pleased to take that subject and treat it very briefly.
There are two theories about Jesus. And besides these two theories, there is a third, which is the Bible theory.
At the beginning of the Gospel Age eighteen hundred years ago there were a great many people, wise people too, saying, Oh, we do not believe that Jesus was in Heaven before He came to earth. They said, We are ready to admit that Jesus was a good man and spoke fine things, but not ready to admit that He was the Son of God. We are willing to admit that He was a great teacher, and that we do good to follow His teachings, but we deny that He ever came down from Heaven. Well, many of the Christians realize that that was a wrong position, and they said, certainly Jesus did come from Heaven, and then they got into discussion one with the other, and the Truth itself was lost sight of. That is generally the way when people get to fighting. The more people said that Jesus did not come from Heaven the more others said, Oh, we must prove that He did come from Heaven. Then they proceeded and said that He was not only the Son of God but that He was His own Father also, and then they had to go at the other features and made the doctrine of the trinity, and after they had elaborated it, even then they were unable to make it seem logical. And then when the people asked them about the various questions they said, we cannot answer, it is a mystery; and then they looked into the Bible and could not find anything in it about the trinity, so they had to make up something about the trinity.
About seven hundred years after Christ's death there was a part of the verse added in the epistle of John, 1 John 5:7. That is the only passage in the Bible that in any sense of the word says anything about the trinity. Now we know they put that in in the seventh century, because the old manuscripts of the New Testament do not contain these words. They found the passage where John said, there are three that bear witness, the water, the spirit and the blood, and these three agree in one testimony. Now they added to that. Some good priest, I suppose, thought God forgot to put something about the trinity, and he thought he would have to help Him. So he added in some words in the manuscript to make it read this way: "There are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Spirit and the Son, and these three are one, and there are three that bear record on earth, the water, the spirit, and the blood, and these three agree in one."
You see, then, where he added to the Word of God. Now, when our common version of the English Bible was translated we did not know this; we did not have many of those ancient manuscripts in the Greek. But in the last sixty years we have found a whole lot of them. We now have about seven hundred ancient Greek manuscripts and some of them as old as the year 350, and these show us that these additions have been made. Not only so, but if you should read it with the additions you will see how foolish it is, and if we strike out that addition we see how beautiful and simple it is. Now, notice, for instance, it says with these alterations, that "there are three that are bearing witness in Heaven, the Father, the Spirit, and the Son." What are they bearing witness to? That this is the Son of God. How ridiculous, to say that the Father is going around in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit going around in Heaven, and the Son going around in Heaven, saying. This is the Son of God. Is not that ridiculous? Whenever people attempt to tamper with God's word they spoil it.
Another place that they added to the Word of God I will just point out to you. The last verse of Saint John's Gospel is added: John never wrote it at all. How do we know? Because it is not in any of those old manuscripts. Now see how foolish that last verse of John is. This is the way it reads: "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." How ridiculous that is! Just think, to write so many books about Jesus that the world would not hold them. It is nonsense. See how many books you could put in this building. How many millions could be piled throughout this Travencore District. Look at all the rest of the world. To say that the world could not hold the books that would be written is ridiculous. But the fact that [CR246] these little things that are changed are ridiculous show all the more the beauty of the Bible as God gave it to us through Jesus.
Now come back to our proposition about Jesus: One part claimed that Jesus was only a man, sinful and imperfect. The other part claimed that He was more, that He was the Father, the Son, and everything. The one was on the one extreme and the other on the other extreme, and the Truth was in the middle between them and was lost sight of. Attention was not paid to what the Bible said. People were trying to prove their own ideas and trying to force the Bible to give their ideas. I have already called your attention to the fact that there is no statement about the trinity in the Bible and that that statement in 1 John 5:7 was added, spuriously. (The interpreter then read it in his native Bible.) You see it is not even in the Malalam language. So also in the revised version of the English translation it is omitted, because all scholars admit that it was a fraud. With that one stricken out there is not a statement in the whole Bible saying a word about the trinity. And our trinitarian friends are quite extreme and make a ridiculous theory. You will understand, then, that I am neither a trinitarian nor a unitarian, as these terms are generally used.
I will come to what the Bible says on the subject, but first want to show how unreasonable it would be to believe in the trinity. If we ask trinitarians what they mean by trinity, they give two different answers: (1) One set would say that it is three Gods, and yet they are one God, and they go on to say that each of these is equal to the other in power and glory. (2) Then the other trinitarians will say, No there are not three Gods, there is only one God, but He has three manifestations of Himself. Whichever way they take it they are in confusion, and if you just corner them a little they say: Oh, we will not discuss it; it is a mystery! We answer that they make a mystery of it. How could three things be one thing? Now see the confusion they get into; those who claim that there are three gods equal in power and glory hardly know what to say when they come to discuss the death of Jesus, and then they generally fall back and say, No, it is only just one God, but that He has three personages in Himself. Well then we say, when Jesus died, which God died? If there is only the one God, did that one God die, and was the world without a God for three days, and could a dead God raise himself from the dead on the third day? No, that, they say, is absurd. And then they generally say this: Oh, no, it was simply God in Christ, just the same as that light is in my hand (Brother Russell put his hands around the lamp). It is the light that represents God and my fingers represent Jesus in the flesh. They say from this standpoint that when Jesus died God simply got out of Him. Then we say, God did not die at all? They say, No, God did not die. Well then we say, what was it? Why, it represented God dying. Well, we ask, was it a fraud? Did Jesus pretend to die? Did God merely allow Himself to be put on the cross and pretend to die, but not die, but get out just at the proper time? Did He pretend that He was dead three days, and pretend that He arose from the dead when He had not been dead at all? And was He fraudulent all through His ministry? Did he pretend to pray to the Father when He was the Father Himself? Did He pretend that He had left the glory when really He was as glorious as ever? When on the cross he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?" Was He making a fraudulent statement? When He arose from the dead and said to Mary, "I have not yet ascended to my Father and to your Father and to my God and to your God," was He telling a falsehood? My dear friends, we got ourselves into a great deal of confusion because we did not pay enough attention to what the Bible said.
Now let us see what the Bible says: See how beautiful and simple the Bible teaching is on this subject. The Bible tells us that there is a Father, that there is a Son, that there is a Holy Spirit. The Bible gives great honor to the Father, great honor to the Son, and great importance to the Holy Spirit, but the Bible says not one word about these three being one God, equal in power and glory. The Bible says the Heavenly Father is above all.
Hear Saint Paul's words to us, "There is one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ." One and one make two. Again the Apostle says, "The head of woman is the man, and the head of man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God." Hear what Jesus himself said, "My Father is greater than I." My Father is greater than all. "I came not to do mine own will, but to do the will of Him that sent [CR247] me." Do equals send each other? No. Our Lord's statement that the Father is greater is consistent with the Bible from first to last. Jesus said, "Of mine own self I can do nothing; as I have heard of the Father I speak, and my testimony is not mine but His that sent Me." Now see what the Bible says about Jesus: It tells us that the heavenly Father never had a beginning, "From everlasting to everlasting thou are God." But the Bible tells us that Jesus had a beginning. The Bible tells us that Jesus was the first one that the heavenly Father ever created. More than that, He was the last one that the Father ever created. In other words, the heavenly Father only created the one being, and then He used that one whom He had created as His honored agent in all the work of the creation--in the creation of Heaven, of earth, of angels, of man, everything. That is very different, you see, from what trinitarians think, and it is equally different from what Unitarians think. Unitarians deny that Jesus existed before He came into the world. They deny that He had a miraculous birth. They claim that He was an imperfect man, like the rest of us, but higher and better. So you see the Bible position is different from any human position. Come now to the first chapter of John's Gospel and let us read it together. We read it this way, giving you the little changes that have been in the Greek text: "In the beginning was the Logos"--the Word. This word Logos or Word, had a peculiar meaning. It was this: In olden times when kings would make a proclamation to the people, they did not appear personally, but sat behind a lattice screen, and an honest man stood outside of that lattice work, and spoke the words of the king to the people. The king spoke to him in a low tone and he spoke to the people in forceful language. He was called the Logos, or Word, of the king. That is to say, he was the messenger or mouthpiece of the king. He was the honored representative of the king. Now there is the picture that the Bible uses respecting Jesus and his relationship to the Father. In the beginning was the Logos, the Word. He was the first one or beginning of God's creation. And the Logos was with God." You will notice here the words the God and the words a god. This is the proper reading of the Greek. The article is used to indicate the heavenly Father as the great God in contrast with all lesser gods.
"By Him were all things made that were made, and without Him was not one thing made that was made; and the Logos was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we behold his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father." You get the thought, then, that our Lord Jesus from the very beginning was honored of the Father. He was God's first Son, the only direct Son, the only begotten. Now that agrees with what Saint Paul says. He says that Jesus was the beginning of the creation of God, the First Born of every creature.
Again we read Jesus' own words in Revelation. He there says that He is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega--using the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet--the first and the last that God created. All other things were to come through Him. So the Apostle again says, "All things are of the Father...and all things are by the Son." Now this gives a very glorious and exalted position to our Lord Jesus. He was already higher than any of the angels before He became man, but when He became man He did not merely go about in a human body, did not merely pretend to become poor; He really became poor; He really left the higher nature and He really took the human nature. And so the Bible again says, "He was made flesh." The Bible does not say that He got in the flesh. The Bible does not say that He was incarnated. That is a wrong thought. We have been talking for centuries about the incarnation of Christ, but the Bible never says a word about the incarnation. The Bible tells us that He was made flesh, not that He got into flesh. In other words, when Jesus was amongst men He was a man. He was not an imperfect, sinful man, such as you and I are; He was a perfect man, just like the first man was, and so the Bible says, "He was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners." (Hebrews 7:26.)
He did not receive His life from an earthly parentage. If He had received His life from an earthly parentage, then He also would have been a sinner, but His life came down from above. He took the lower nature and had the life in a lower nature. Now why did He do this? There were several reasons. The heavenly Father had made a plan by which it would be necessary to have a Redeemer and the redeemer must be a man. The bulls and goats of the law dispensation would never take away sin. Why not? Suppose He had slain all the bulls and goats in the world? Why would not that have redeemed man? Because it was not bulls and goats that sinned, therefore the slaughtering of them would never cancel the sins of men. Similarly it was not an angel that sinned, it was not an angel that was sentenced to death, therefore it did not require the death of an angel. It was not a God that had sinned. So that a God would have to die. It was a man that had sinned and a man that had been condemned; therefore, it must be a man that must die for sin. Nothing but the death of a perfect man would redeem Adam. And, therefore, the Logos humbled himself and became a perfect man, that He might redeem man. Now notice how the Scriptures declare this: "The man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all." Why would Jesus be willing to do this? And why would the heavenly Father suggest and make such a plan that would make necessary the death of his Son? Because God had a great plan that He was working out that would bring a blessing to Jesus, and to all, and Jesus was quite willing to do the Father's will in this matter, and so we read: "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of the majesty on high." What was this offer that the Father made to the Son that made the Son glad to do His Will? We answer, that the Son was so fully in harmony with the Father, and so confident that all the Father's plans were good, that He was ready to do anything the Father suggested. He might have looked at it and said, Father, I am your first born son, would you ask that I should leave this glory and go down to earth and die? Would you ask it of Me, and demand it? It would not have been just to have demanded that the Son must die, but the Bible says that the Father set before Him a great joy. The Bible says, that He had the joy set before Him of bringing many sons to glory and of doing the Father's will, besides which the Father promised the Son that at the end He would have still a higher glory and a higher nature. But you say, how could the Father give Him any more glory and honor than He already had? Was He not already above the angels in glory, the first begotten of the Father? Yes, but [CR248] the Father promised Him that if He would show His devotion in this manner, even unto death the death of the cross, that He would give Him a share in the divine nature. Saint Paul says again, Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame; wherefore also God has highly exalted Him, and has given Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, both the things of Heaven and the things of earth. In other words, my dear friends, Jesus was made a partaker of the divine nature. When did the Father give Him this divine nature? The Bible explains this: when He was thirty years of age He came to John at Jordan and made a full consecration of his life and therefore received the Holy Spirit. That is called the begetting of the Holy Spirit. You see the connection between the word begetting and the word born. Your child is begotten and nine months afterward it is born, but in the interim of the time between the begetting and the birth there is the development, yet the life which he is begotten continues down to the end and constitutes the life of the born one. This is the illustration that God uses to show how He is doing this work. As soon as Jesus made his full consecration of his all the Father begot him to a new nature, the divine nature. And then during the three and a half years of Jesus' ministry He was fulfilling his commission of laying down his life unto death, and He finished it completely at Calvary when He cried, "It is finished"--I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do. He was dead for parts of three days, and on the first day of the week God raised Him from the dead by His own power. Did He raise Him up as a man? Oh, no. As a man He died for our sins. God raised Him from the dead perfect on the divine plane. His resurrection was his change, just as a similar process is going on with respect to the Church. We have been called of God to be joint heirs with Jesus Christ in all the wonderful things that the Father has given Him. But if we would ever share those things we must be faithful unto death as He was, "If we suffer with Him we shall reign with Him." When we make our consecration we receive the begetting of the Holy Spirit. With us also the flesh is to be sacrificed. But Saint Paul says, "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." (Romans 12:1.) If we are faithful unto death we will receive also with Him the crown of life. The promise to us is the same as to our Lord Jesus, of glory, honor and immortality. As the Lord Jesus was glorified in His resurrection, so the Church is to be glorified in her resurrection. Hear the Apostle Paul in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, describing the resurrection of the Church class, the saints. He says: "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." Then he goes on to say we must all experience this change. In other words, our sacrifice of the earthly nature also must be completed and we as New Creatures must be perfected in the resurrection. Why? Because, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." So then, you see, my dear friends, that when God's plan shall work out to completion, the gathering of the Church will be to this condition. The Father will have immortality, and glory, and honor, the divine nature, as He has always had; the Son will have the same that He has had since His resurrection, and the Church will come to the same divine nature in the resurrection. Not that the Church will be equal with the Father, nor that the Church will be equal to her Lord and Redeemer. He will always be the Head over the Church, which is His Body. The head of the Church is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.
There is so much to be said on this subject it is hard to know where to stop. I have merely tried to give you a little outline of how great our Redeemer is. From the Bible standpoint we lay aside that thought of the worldly minds who say that Jesus was merely a man like other men. We lay aside that foolish idea of the dark ages, and take the word of God which, just as it reads, we find very beautiful. The Bible says that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. But this word also shows that there are two. What way, then, was it true that John said, "My Father and I are one?" (John 10:30.) He meant that He and the Father were one in mind, and purpose, because He would not do any will of His own; He would do only the Father's will. They were in absolute oneness, therefore, and so He wishes all His disciples to be in harmony with each other. He wishes that we all should have a will to do the Father's will. Thus we would be one with the Father, and one with the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is what He says, Let me quote you: In His prayer the last night before He went to the Garden of Gethsemane, as recorded in John's Gospel, He prayed for the Church, "Not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine...that they may be all one as thou Father and I are one...that they may be one in us." This shows [CR249] the sense in which the Father and Son are one, and this is the same sense in which He wishes you and I to be one, and one with Him and with the Father--a oneness of spirit, a oneness of mind, a oneness of heart, a oneness of purpose.
There is one other Scripture which some might stumble over which I will mention and then I will close:
Jesus said to one of the disciples, "He that has seen Me hath seen the Father." What did He mean by that? He meant this: the Father cannot be seen by any man, for the Bible says that the Father dwelleth in light which no man can approach unto, which no man hath seen, nor can see. Now, if no man can see God because He dwells in such light, how could He manifest himself to man? He would have to reveal himself in some way. Now what would be the best way for God to reveal himself to man? Why, we remember that when Adam was created he was created in the image and likeness of God. In other words, the perfect man is the most like God of anything that could be shown to man, and since the Lord Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh, and since He was a perfect man, and a perfect representative of God, we see the force of His argument. There was no other perfect man to represent God in the whole world. Jesus had become the man Christ Jesus and was the perfect representative of the Father. Whoever saw Jesus therefore saw the Father in the most absolute sense in which it is possible for a man to see God.
Finally, my dear friends, those who become heirs of God, and joint heirs of Jesus Christ, and members of the Bride Class, will have this experience: We shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in the resurrection change, that we may be like Him and see Him as He is and share His glory. I wish this great blessing for as many of you as desire to have it. This is the "pearl of great price," and we do well that we give up everything else that we might gain the joint heirship with our dear Redeemer.
Now I bid you all good-bye. I may never see you again, but hope to see you in the future. May the Lord's richest blessings be with all who are seeking to know and to do His will.
AFTER our night's rest and our picnic breakfast, we went down to the station, where we said good-bye to Brother Davey, to meet again we know not when, but with pleasant recollections of his untiring zeal and deep Christian earnestness. Our train soon came along which took us to a junction point where we said good-bye to Brothers Pieres, Tussaint and Chapman, who returned to Colombo. Going a little further we connected with the Express train to Madras. This was a journey of a day and two nights. En route our party had many pleasant seasons of fellowship, talking over matters in general pertaining to the truth, asking and answering questions. One evening in particular was very precious; we all assembled in one compartment, and had a testimony from one, followed by a prayer, then another testimony, another prayer, etc., and some songs. All these little seasons of fellowship, together with our roughing experiences together, brought us very close one with another.
MADRAS.
IN Madras, the metropolis of Southern India, today is gathered the wealth and fashion of Anglo-Indian society belonging to this part of the Indian empire. The city covers a considerable area even for its population of 509,000, and contains besides the crowded native section known as Blacktown, and the fort region called Georgetown, many fine homes, surrounded by luxuriant gardens. Throughout the city are fine drives and boulevards, some of which are lined with huge banyan trees. These drives and the promenade on the seashore, known as the Marina, are the fashionable resorts on fine afternoons. Madras was one of the most important of the early settlements of the East India Company.
Upon arrival at Madras we found that Satan had preceded us; some of his representatives in Colombo had taken the pains to send word to the religious leaders here and especially to the secretary of the Y.M.C.A., which had been rented for a lecture Sunday morning. As usual the information sent was a misrepresentation, and the people in connection with the Y.M.C.A. became quite alarmed. However, the service took place, and, notwithstanding the opposition, the auditorium was crowded and many stood up. The following is a report of that morning meeting, which was listened to with deep interest, and at the close some questions were asked and answered.
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SUNDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 11, 1912.
Y.M.C.A. HALL, MADRAS, INDIA.
"THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM."
PASTOR RUSSELL: I am very pleased to be with you. I stand here today, not as a representative of the Y.M.C.A., and they will not be responsible for anything I will say, though I believe I will not say anything that Christians who accept the Bible will be dissatisfied with, and I cannot imagine how anything that I will say can give offense to any Christian man or woman.
I am accompanied by six others of the committee appointed by the International Bible Students' Association--I will introduce them to you. (Pastor Russell then introduced the various members of the committee to the audience.)
I was chosen as the chairman of the committee and we are on a tour of the world investigating and looking into the foreign mission work, and noting its success, with a view of giving some report to the International Bible Students' Association respecting what we have seen of the work, and respecting anything that might be said along missionary work.
The International Bible Students' Association wishes that I should have the opportunity of addressing Christian people all over the world, and therefore they made arrangements to have an advance agent go before and secure different places and make arrangements for meetings, and I find upon arrival here that arrangements have been made for this meeting. I might also say in this connection that the International Bible Students' Association is wholly undenominational; people from all denominations participate in Bible study.
We are living in a wonderful day, the like of which was never known before. With the coming of the electric light and the steamboat of our day we believe it is entirely in harmony with God's word that we find fresh light shining upon the Bible, and so we find it. We believe all Christians so consider it or should so consider it that God gives us greater light as we get nearer the perfect day.
The subject announced for this morning's address is, "The Parables of the Kingdom." I had nothing to do with the selection of the subject, but it is a good one. But it seems to me that if we have a clear idea of the Master's Kingdom it will help us all.
I might remind you that this was the customary way for Jesus to preach. "He opened his mouth in parables and in dark sayings," and "Without a parable spake He not unto the people." Everything that Jesus said was in parabolic form. He did not mean any literal thing. In speaking of the water of life, it was not literal. Everything He said was spoken in parables. Therefore a good part of the work of all Bible students is to study these parables, to see just what the Master was teaching. The Master took up one thing to illustrate His teachings. Thus also we should study to get the Lord's thoughts.
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THE PARABLE OF THE KINGDOM.
WHAT Kingdom is meant? We answer, the only Kingdom that Jesus preached or talked about. He never preached about the political kingdoms of the world. He never said whether the great British kingdom was better than the German kingdom, etc. He did not talk about the kingdoms of this world, but about the Kingdom of God, or of Heaven.
Where is the Kingdom of Heaven? He tells us that it has not yet come. When it shall come He will be the King and the Church that He is now gathering will be the queen, and sit with him on his throne. There will be a real Kingdom, and so He taught us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth even as it is done in Heaven." We could never hope, my dear friends, by any Kingdom that you or I could establish to bring the world to that condition where God's will would be done on earth as completely as it is done in Heaven. That would be a very foolish thought. All the missionary efforts could not do it. He taught us to pray for it that He would set it up at his second coming, and receive us to Himself and cause us to sit with Him on His throne. He calls His Church, you remember, "a Royal Priesthood." What does royal mean? It means to be a king, a priest, to be a teacher. So Jesus taught that when His Kingdom would be established He would be the great King, or Priest, unto the Church, and that they would be assistant Kings and Priests for blessing all the families of the earth. I am sure there is not a heart in the whole world that would not be glad to see all the world blessed. I am so glad I find in the Bible that the whole world will be blessed. We are all witnesses that, as Paul said, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, waiting." Waiting for what? "Waiting for the manifestation of the Sons of God." Who are they? "Beloved, now are we the Sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when He shall appear we shall be like Him (in the resurrection change), for we shall see Him as He is." Then the groaning of the world will cease, because the blessing of the Kingdom of Peace will fill the whole earth. That is the glorious time when Christian union will be in the world. Jesus prayed for the Church, that they might all be one, and we believe that the time is very near when all God's people will be able to see eye to eye. We have been seeing cross-eyed all this time unintentionally, but in due time we will all be able to see and teach the same thing, seeing the same Lord Jesus, and worship Him in spirit and in truth. Then the world will get its great blessing.
But now, you see that that Kingdom is future, that it will be established at its second coming. Therefore we are doing as Saint John says, waiting for the Kingdom from Heaven, and as he also said, "Come quickly"--I am not saying how quickly. The Bible is full of it; as Brother Moody said, the Bible has nothing that is so prominent as the blood of Christ for our redemption, and the second coming for our delivery.
Jesus was talking a great deal about the Kingdom. I will assume that you are all Bible students, that you have noticed these parables, and that they were all spoken about the Kingdom. Why so many? Because the subject can be viewed from different standpoints, just as it requires several illustrations to show you the different sides of this building. So these different parables are so many different pictures of the one thing, all relating to the Kingdom, and he calls them "The Parables of the Kingdom." I am not using the Bible, supposing that you are all familiar with the Bible. Now, for instance, the parable says, "wheat and tares"; you remember that. I will briefly outline it. Jesus said, a certain man sowed good seed in a field, and while he slept an enemy oversowed it with tare seed. I am told that it was the custom in Palestine for an enemy to do this. Jesus uses this as an illustration. He said He was the Son of Man who sowed the good seed of the Kingdom, and that Satan would come afterwards and scatter the seeds of error.
The seeds of truth were to bring forth a crop of the children of the Kingdom; they would be the ones to participate in the Kingdom. The object of Satan was to keep these from developing and becoming children of the Kingdom. So Satan has always been the adversary of the children of God, and is the great adversary, as the Bible sets forth. Then the servant came and said, Lord, did you not sow good seed? Whence, then, are the tares? Oh, He said, my enemy, Satan, had done this. The parable represents it as though the Master did not know, but God knew all the time, and Satan never did anything that our Lord did not know or [CR251] could not prevent. So the servant said, Wilt thou that we pull up the tares? Oh, no, the roots of the tares and wheat are so interlocked that you would spoil the whole matter-- let both grow together until the harvest. When is the harvest? He said, "the harvest is the end of the age" (world). End of the world, is that what you mean, Brother Russell? No, it is the end of the age. The word "world" in the Greek is aion, meaning the end of the age. The Lord marked out that there would be a time to plant the good seed, then it would develop, and then the harvest time which would be the end of the age, and then would come another age. I remind you of the patriarchal age when God dealt with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Then it was all changed, and at the death of Jacob came a new age, and in it all of Jacob's children are called Israel, and they were God's special people for 1845 years, from the death of Jacob to the death of Christ. That was the Jewish age. Then came the harvest, or end of the Jewish age, and the new age, the Gospel age, began when the Gospel was thrown open to not only Jews but to Americans, Europeans, and all--to any, if he have a hearing ear. He has the privilege to respond, and he is represented by the parable of the wheat.
In the time of the harvest I will say to the reaper, separate the wheat from the tares. They have grown together during the whole time. Their separation is not to take place until the end of the age, then there will be an absolute separation, every grain of wheat from every grain of tare. I believe it and you do also, for it is His inspired Word. Then what will happen? Then the tares will be burned in fire. Who are they? They are some very nice people. Do you believe, Brother Russell, that they will be burned in fire? No, remember that it is a parable. You cannot burn symbolic tares in literal fire. So you see he symbolizes persons and represents them by the tares. The tare is a poisonous weed, and they look a great deal alike while growing. I believe it is called darnel, very common in Palestine, and may be here. It grows with the wheat, and they have to exercise a great deal of care in killing it lest they destroy the wheat. So in the illustration, people are darnels. Who are they? They are those who have not been begotten of the Holy Spirit, and therefore not children of the Kingdom, and therefore have no part or lot in the Kingdom arrangement, but they think they are the real thing. They are not the wicked and sinners, but very good, benevolent people, and of good character. The parable does not say that they are bad people, but that they are imitation wheat. What the Lord is looking for is the wheat class, begotten of the Holy Spirit--all others are tares.
Now this fire represented here is not to destroy them as individuals and will not burn up the people along with them. But that fiery time Saint Paul and Saint Peter mention when all of this tare class will be dissolved--they will not profess to be tares but will go off on Higher Criticism and Evolution, and say they do not believe the Bible, and the Church will be all the better off without them. The Lord will take care of all those who are sanctified in their hearts and begotten of the Holy Spirit, and nothing will be able to pluck them out of the Father's hands. What will happen to them? He says, Gather my wheat into my garner. What is the garner of the Gospel age? It is the change to the Heavenly condition. Now we are in the world of mankind, in general represented by the wheat, and the change will be when we are changed in a moment, when we are caught up with the Lord in the air and thus we will be with the Lord in the heavenly garner by the first resurrection. Now what will take place then? The righteous will shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of the Father. That will be a glorious period. We have had a night time all along, as the Psalmist says, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." "Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a lantern to my pathway." You do not carry your lantern in the sunlight. It means that it must be dark now. So the Psalmist says, "Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a lantern to my pathway," and God's people have need to take heed to every step, because "darkness covereth the earth and gross darkness the Gentiles." Saint Peter gives us another word on that also; he says: "We (the Church) have a more sure word of prophecy, unto which we do well that we take heed, as unto a light which shineth in a dark place until (until what?) the day dawn." A dark place, and we need the lamp until the day dawn. When? When the sun rises. When? When the harvest has been accomplished, and the purposes of the Lord have been done. After the tares have been sown and are allowed to grow together, and in the harvest, the end of the age, after the fire has come upon the tare class, and the wheat has been brought into the garner, then will the righteous shine as the sun. Then will be broad daylight. This Kingdom which the Lord promised is not merely the Lord Jesus, who is the head over the Church which is His Body, but we are members in particular, and this is the Church, which is to shine forth as the sun. The whole Church means the annointed, Jesus the Head and the Church His Body. He received the Holy Spirit first; it came upon Jesus at Jordan, and then at Pentecost it came down upon the Apostles and the early Church; and all through this Gospel age it has been coming down upon the other members of the Body as the prophet David said in Psalms 133. So the Holy Spirit has been coming down over the Church all during this Gospel age. And the Apostle says, you have an unction from the Holy One and you all know it. Who has? Why all those who receive the Holy Spirit. This is the union whereby we are prepared by the Lord and received into his family and become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ, if so be we suffer with Him, that we may be glorified with Him, and share in His Kingdom. That is the picture of the Kingdom all through this Gospel age, because Jesus explains that the good seed which He sowed in the field was the word of God. It was the good word of the Kingdom, the good message of the Kingdom. Jesus meant that God [CR252] having decided that He would have a Kingdom and that He should reign a thousand years to bless the world, has decided that Jesus should be the great King and He passed through His necessary experiences. God decided more-- that He would have a Church, to be joint heirs in the Kingdom, and that is the work that has been carried on now in finding you and me, and all people who desire to be of the Kingdom. Which Church do you mean? I mean the Church of which the Bible speaks, and that includes all of God's saints, begotten of the Holy Spirit, whether in the Roman Catholic, the Church of England, Methodists, Presbyterians, or Baptists, wherever they are, "The Lord knoweth them that are His." There may be a great many tares around them in all the denominations, and wherever his people are, but whether they are in one of these denominations, or not in any of them, the Lord knoweth them that are His. His Church is composed of all those who are vitally united to the Lord, and we become so by faith and consecration, which makes us members in God's sight; and if faithful we shall be glorified as His Body. This message should be the great incentive, that God is going to have a Kingdom and that He has invited us to be His heirs, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, which fadeth not away, to be revealed at the end of the age. God has the whole matter ready and as soon as this time has come it will be revealed, and then we will see who have been the worthy ones. We know that Jesus was worthy, and has been received into glory and highly exalted, and now who are the Bride class and joint heirs? Will you be one? Will I be one? We do not know for sure. We may have a good confidence that, if we are walking faithfully to the best of our ability, we have the promise that He will cause all things to work together for our good, and we will be faithful if we faithfully stand the various tests, and then we will share all those glorious things. So we can have faith in this matter. That is what He wishes us to have.
"THE PARABLE OF THE TREASURE HID IN THE FIELD."
THE Lord represented a man going about and finding a field having a treasure there. No matter how it got there, it may be a rich vein of gold, or a deposit of copper, or something very valuable. He sees the value and knows it; other people do not see it. Suppose that property was for sale; he would say, I see there is a very valuable piece of ground, and I will sell all I have and purchase that. That is the picture Jesus gave. It is like a great treasure and God is inviting a little flock, and if one hears of that he has, so to speak, his eyes fixed upon the treasure that God has provided,--the most wonderful thing in the world. What shall he give for it? Oh, give all that he has! Can he give half? No, God will not let him have it for half, not for three-quarters, or nine-tenths or ninety-nine one-hundredths. He cannot get it unless he gives all. He must give all to the Lord. He must give all his time, his will, and property,--that is the price. No man will get that great treasure of the Kingdom unless he agrees to those terms which are God's terms. You and I have not much to give; it takes most of our time for ourselves and families, and if we give all we have it will be very little, but it is the only price. Go and sell all you have.
"THE PEARL OF GREAT PRICE."
THE Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a merchant man buying pearls. They did not have merchant men like we have today to whom they could sell. But if they found a pearl they had to wait for some one to come along. Pearls were the jewels mostly in vogue in the days of the Lord, so He mentions them. Here is a large pure pearl which is very rare, and this merchant man is represented as finding this one of great value, and when he saw it he went and sold all, everything he had. What does he want to do this for? He does not tell. When he sold all that he had, he went and bought that pearl, and it took all he had. That is what the Lord's work illustrates. Jesus, not Brother Russell, said the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto this, and that the terms upon which it may be obtained are stated. How many want to get the Kingdom? It is one thing to be saved, and another thing to get the Kingdom. We are merely talking about the parables. Here is the offer before you and me. God intends to have an elect class, a Bride class, for his Son, all virgins, all pure in heart, not in the flesh. "Blessed are the pure in heart." Their intentions can be pure, their motives can be right, and God says that this is the class He is going to receive. They must not only be pure in heart, but be so anxious to co-operate in heart that when they find this great pearl they will sell all they have. What does that mean? Consecrate yourself, all you have. Let me illustrate it: Suppose I were in some kind of business, or a general, or a doctor, and suppose this had been my ambition. You know how much so many will lay down to get some such literal pearl of ambition, but here God has set before us a pearl of great price. When I try to imagine this I think something of King George, and think what would you give to take King George's place? Suppose you should get in to be associated with him as a son or a member of his family. How much would you give? Oh, you say, you could not tell how much, you would give everything. If you should do that, it is not a circumstance to what God is offering. To be an heir of God, and of King George, are different matters. To be associated with them are two different things. Sometimes King George's kingdom will end, so far as he is concerned, but the Kingdom of God's dear son, which He is offering, and which is a pearl of great price, is an everlasting Kingdom, glory, honor and immortality. See what Saint Peter thought it was worth. He said, "God has given us exceeding great and precious promises that by these we might become partakers of the divine nature. He says that the promises are great and precious; he had it rightly summed up. Ah, they are what? Glory, honor, immortality, joint-heirship with Jesus. God gives us those promises. Yes, what for? That by these promises dwelling in us, working in us, regulating, and sanctifying our lives, we might become partakers of what? The divine nature. Brother Russell, does Saint Peter say the divine nature? Oh, I thought it was the angelic nature. No, Jesus, you know was in his resurrection exalted very high, far above angels, etc., and every name, next to the Father Himself. What about the Church? We shall be like Him, and share his glory, and that means that we will be like Him, and far above the angels, if we are faithful, if we are amongst those who get this pearl of great price. I tell you, my friends, there is a reason for these parables.
"WISE AND FOOLISH VIRGINS."
THE word virgin means pure person. By the way, it says, at that time, not as though it refers to the whole Gospel age, but at a certain particular time. Some of the parable fit the entire age, such as the "Pearl of great price," and "Treasure hid in a field"; they apply to the whole eighteen hundred years and have been applying all the time.
But this parable says then. The Kingdom of Heaven shall be likened to ten virgins, down at the close of this age. Five were wise and five foolish. The Lord divided the matter into five to make the matter even. He does not say some, but five were wise and five were foolish, and by and by the announcement came. What announcement? The announcement came, Behold the Bridegroom! Why was that an important announcement? Have not God's people [CR253] been waiting for eighteen hundred years? Surely. Did He not say, If I go away I will come again and receive you unto myself? This parable tells the way He will come, and the way He will receive His Church. At this time the Church will all be wise virgins, and will be accepted of Him; they will be pure in heart, and the wise will be those living so nearly to the Lord that they will have their lamps trimmed, and the Holy Spirit, or oil, in their hearts. When the message comes in the end of the age this class will be able to look at once and then see clearly, and they will all be prepared to meet the Bridegroom; but the other class will not be so prepared.
I will take the parable as a whole. It says that the wise and foolish virgins all arose and trimmed their lamps. They were all good, all virtuous. And then that announcement that was made was premature. He did not appear. It was a little too soon. So they all slumbered and slept. If I were to tell you of my personal understanding, I would think it had some fullment in the harvest work in the year 1884 in a movement, which extended over a good part of the civilized world, when many people arose and thought the Lord had come. They heard the knock, arose, trimmed their lamps, and met with a disappointment, as the parable says. Since then some slept and dreamed very peculiar things. So that is the reason we have so many different denominations; but we have no desire to discuss their peculiarities, etc. According to the parable they have slept and dreamed. But the time has arrived when the Bridegroom comes, and the cry is heard, Behold the Bridegroom!--not cometh, but, Behold He is present, and has come. That is the announcement that will be given out at the second time. The first one that He was coming, and the second that He is here. Then all the virgins arose and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish ones found their lamps had gone out, but the wise ones had the oil in their lamps, and they saw and went in with the Bridegroom into the marriage. No one else will be of the Bride class, only those that were ready, not only living, but those who have died, and the marriage of the Lamb will take place, and no one else will ever get into the Bride class. What about the foolish virgins? Does not that mean they are pure? Yes. Well, they afterwards went and got the oil, the Holy Spirit, and then they came and said, Lord, Lord, open to us, we want to be of the Bride class; we did not know how important it was; Lord, let us in. No, the Bride class is complete, the door is shut, you cannot come in. Oh, they will have wailing and gnashing of teeth--sorrow and disappointment. Why were we not wiser, why did we not think more of this pearl of great price, and sell everything; and, as Saint Paul said, count all as loss and dross, that we might win a place in this company? So they will have their wailing and gnashing of teeth and sorrow. But this was not an eternal sorrow or regret; they were virgins, pure; they were hunting after earthly riches instead of this pearl of great price, and that is the reason they go into this condition and were not ready to receive the Bridegroom. But the Lord shows us that He will bring that great company through great tribulation, and they will wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, and be before the throne. Oh, that is different! The Bride class will be on the throne, and this class before the throne. The Bride class on the throne will have crowns, they will be kings, but the foolish virgins were not up to the standard; they were pure, loyal, and stood the tests finally, but did not voluntarily go in the proper spirit; they shall be before the throne, and have palm branches. I am glad of that, glad that if they cannot have the crowns they will have the palm of victory.
Then again the little flock are called the Temple of God, and these others are called servants. They shall serve God in his Temple, but the Church will be the Temple. You see the difference all the way through. Then again the second class which are mentioned in the 46th Psalm where the Church is spoken of as the Bride, all glorious within. She shall be brought unto the King in fine needlework, painstaking character development. The robe is given to her from our Lord, our justification--we could not be acceptable with the Lord unless He would give us that white garment. It has all the stamping on it just as a lady who goes to some place and buys a piece of linen all stamped, but it needs the fine needlework. So when the Lord gave us our justification we found the stamping of the fruits of the spirit and graces of the spirit which we must work out. All the fine needlework is picturing the faith, perseverance, etc., of character development. So that is the picture--she, the Bride class, shall be brought unto the King, all clothed, perfect inside, the image of the Lord in spirit--no matter how imperfect in the flesh, we must all at heart be clothed within--raiment of fine needlework. The glorious robe must be beautifully embroidered. The foundation of all was the righteousness of Christ and the work under his guidance in the development. And the gold, what does that mean? It is a symbol of the divine nature. Everywhere in the Scriptures, in the Tabernacle services, etc., gold represents things divine. So, in the Bride's garments she shall be in raiment of gold as well as fine needlework; she shall be clothed in immortality. As the Apostle says, we shall be changed. Oh, that will be a wonderful time, dear brothers and sisters! That is the class that will have purchased "the pearl of great price"; they will be the ones who will have laid down their lives faithfully; they will hear the "Well done good and faithful servant." You did not do very much. What, not much? Yes, that is what He said. You have been faithful in a few things. You could not do very much, could you? None of us can. When we have done all, we have not done anything profitable. None could say, here is one, God needs him so much, how could God get along without him? He does not need us, but we need Him. After the Bride goes in then we read, the virgins her companions that followed her, they also shall be brought into the presence of the King. That means that this secondary company who will be brought ultimately into the presence of the King, not with a robe of glory, but they will be conquerors, and we will be glad to see them. They will be companions; she, the Church, will be associated with her Lord on the kingly plain, and they on a lower plain, which will be glorious, but not as high or wonderful as that to which the Lord has called us. If He has told us what the pearl is and the price, we do not want to keep back anything, but if we do we may not get anything, or get into that secondary place. Another parable--
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"PARABLE OF THE YOUNG NOBLEMAN."
JESUS spoke this parable because He was nigh unto Jerusalem and because the people thought the Kingdom of God would soon appear. This is a free translation. Note that He speaks this parable because He was nigh unto Jerusalem and because they thought the Kingdom of God would immediately appear. Jesus had said unto them, "Take up your cross and follow me." Peter said, We have left all to follow Thee, what is there in it for us? Then He answered and said, He that hath followed me, in the regeneration, shall sit upon the throne judging the twelve tribes of Israel. That was the promise the Apostles were thinking of, that was all before they had been anointed with the Holy Spirit, because Jesus had not yet paid the ransom price, and God could not recognize any until Jesus had died and had ascended upon high, there to appear in the presence of God--to appear for us, as our Advocate; just as if you had a case in court. You are not a lawyer, you would have to go and get a lawyer, and until he would appear for you, you could do nothing but wait, because you have no standing in the court. So with the whole world; nobody could have a hearing before God until Jesus had ascended up on high, there to appear for us, as our Advocate, but now we have an Advocate with the Father. Now then, He appeared for us and made satisfaction, and we appropriate the merit of his sacrifice on our behalf, that we might be made the righteousness of God through Him. The Apostles did not get any spirit begetting until Pentecost, until Jesus himself poured out his divine blessing. God gave it to Jesus (John 1:33), this, which He poured out upon them at Pentecost (Acts 2:33), and it came a witness to them. Well, the Apostles were expecting that the Kingdom of God would immediately appear, and so they were saying, I wonder which will be nearest to the Lord when He sits upon his throne? You remember the mother of James and John came to Him and said, Lord, grant that these my two sons may sit with you on your throne, the one on the right hand and the other on the left hand. They were expecting it at almost any day and they did not get the right idea that it would take the whole age to elect or select those that would be on the throne with Him, so Jesus spake this parable on this account, "Because they thought the Kingdom would immediately appear." He said, The Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a nobleman who went into a far country to secure authority, to rule and exercise his commission. They understood that because it was the custom then. Herod had gone to a far country, to Rome, to be invested with authority over the Galileans, and they knew all about it. So when Jesus gave this parable they understood the parable. He wanted them to see that it would not immediately appear, but that it would take a good while to go and get the authority and to return. So this nobleman before going called his own servants, he did not call everybody, and delivered unto them the goods. There were two parables of this kind, the pounds and the talents. By and by he returned and reckoned with them. I have come back now, you have had these talents and pounds, what have you done? I want to have a report from all my servants. One said, Here is what you gave me; I have been trading with it and tried to use it for your service; it is the best I would do. Another one answered and reported, and another until all reported but one. One said, I gained two pounds, another said I gained five pounds, and another said I gained ten pounds. But one had concluded that he had so little that he would not trade with it but digged a hole and buried it, and that is the only one whom the Lord reproved. He was not dealing with the world. They relate to you and to me, and to all who become God's consecrated people. You have your opportunity here in Madras, and I have mine all over the world, or especially in London and New York. I am not responsible to you nor you to me, but we are all responsible to the Lord Jesus. At his second coming He is going to investigate what you have done that you may give an account. If you go and bury your talents in the earth, either in business, pleasure, or whatever way, He will say, Wicked and slothful servant, you had a talent and failed to use it. Why did you not use it? In all except this one case the Master said, Well done, good and faithful servant, you did the best you could. Then the one who had the five, as well as the one who had the two, received the words of approval, Well done good and faithful servant. How faithful? Oh, you have been faithful over a few things. These are only little things, not very valuable. I have a whole lot, and these do not amount to much, but I wanted to see how faithful you would be. He that is faithful in that which is least would be faithful also in much. I was trying you with the little opportunities I gave you for glorifying my name, and laying down your lives for the brethren, and showing forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. All that use their opportunities faithfully will enter into the joy of the Lord. What does that mean? Oh, my dear brother, that is the resurrection change, changed [CR255] in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. What will it be? The Apostle said, "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." This is Scripture. Enter into the joys of your Lord. What does that mean? It means, as He said to one--have thou dominion over two cities, to another over five cities, etc. It means that this class, this Church, is called to be the kings and rulers of the age to come, to bless the world in this great government that God intends to establish, that will be world wide, under the whole heavens, as the Scriptures say. This is the way of picturing it, showing that there will be differences, yet that they will all have relationship, Jesus the great King and we the under kings. How beautiful it all is! Oh, we hope, my dear friends, that we may make our calling and election sure. Another parable.
"PARABLE OF THE UNJUST STEWARD."
OUR Lord referred primarily to the Pharisees. There was a certain man who had a steward, and who was reported to him to be unjust, and he called that steward and said, Give a report, now, because I hear that you have not been doing perfectly my will, and your stewardship is about to come to an end. That steward said, Well, I am about to get out of my situation, and I will call my master's debtors and I will fix them. He called one and asked, How much do you owe my master? He said, so much. Very well, sit down and mark it down fifty per cent. I will discount that. Then he called another and asked the same question, and he said, so many measures of oil. Very well, cut that down also. He minimized the debts of the people. He had a right to do that under the arrangement then because the steward was given full control and could do anything that he wished. His master commended the unjust steward; he said, This is a very wise thing for that steward to do. He cut down those accounts for those people. Suppose that man had one hundred measures of wheat, and suppose he did not have the money, it was very wise to cut it down and not make it an entirely bad debt. So in America and Europe we have what are called bankruptcy laws, and in some cases accounts may be cut off entirely, so that a person may make a fresh start in life; otherwise such a person would be discouraged so that he would never get along. God also had an arrangement with the Jewish nation, that at the time of their Jubilee year all debts were canceled. Now the steward was not doing wrong in this particular, because he had a full right, and his master said, That is a pretty wise steward of mine. I told him he would have to lose his job, and he said, I will make these people my friends. Now Jesus said, you Pharisees have not been doing this. Instead of telling them how to keep the law, or part of it, you have been increasing the law, and binding on heavy burden. The Pharisees sat in Moses seat-- instead of Moses. Instead of trying to help the people they tried to make the law so terrible that it discouraged the common people. The Pharisees pretended to keep it but they did not. Jesus said they were hypocrites; they kept it in some little things, but not in the spirit of the law. Jesus pointed out that the keeping of the law is not possible under present conditions. It is the measure of a perfect man's ability. But the Pharisees, instead of telling the people, You are a poor generation, you cannot keep the law, called them sinners. They should have been helping them--if you cannot keep all the law, do the best you can, they should have said. Try now to keep half. Jesus applied it to them as much as to say, You Pharisees are stewards, you should have cut this down and been helping the people, but instead you are binding heavy burdens upon them which you will not lift with your little finger, yet you have many advantages over the common people. The Pharisees carried some of these little things to such extreme that they said if a person were to pluck some grains of wheat on the Sabbath day and to rub them between their hands to get the shell off, they were threshing, and therefore claimed that the people were breaking the Sabbath day. Again they said that if a person were to kill a flea on the Sabbath that that would be hunting, therefore it would be breaking the Sabbath day. Jesus was pointing out that the end of the Jewish age was at hand and it would be better for them to help the people to see that God does not expect more of them than they were able. They should have said, We Pharisees do not keep the law either. None of us can keep the law. Do the best you can and we will hope that God will see that we are doing the best we can, that He will make some arrangement for our imperfection. If they had, then when Jesus came along to make a sacrifice to cover their imperfections, they would have been ready to receive Him. But the Pharisees acted hypocritically; they were so blinded that they were not able to see Jesus, and his teachings, and so it worked against them. So after giving this parable to the disciples He makes an application to them--so likewise, you wise disciples, make to yourselves friends with the Mammon of unrighteousness. Anything that is of an earthly character, if you have money, wealth, opportunities, etc., use all these things with which to do good, that you may advance your spiritual condition. We are not to hold fast to earthly riches, but when we surrender ourselves to the Lord we are to leave all our affairs in his hands.
THAT same evening a parlor meeting was held at the home of one of the members of the Madras class. There is a class there of about fifteen to twenty people and they invited in a number of their friends so that there were probably fifty people altogether present that night and they listened to a discourse by Pastor Russell and seemed to appreciate very much his visit, as well as the visit of the committee.
THIS is certainly a queer city, with its claimed large population, living in anything from a mud hut to a palace; and the people wearing anything from nothing to fine silks and jewels. There are very few sidewalks in the city, so if one wishes to walk he gets out in the street with the rest of the animals. All, men and women, go barefooted, except Europeans and Americans.
Yesterday we took a ride to some places of considerable [CR256] interest, and called at Little and Big Mounts of St. Thomas, the Apostle. Strong tradition has it that at about A.D. 52 the Apostle Thomas came to this part of the world and worked and preached until killed by the Brahmins. On these mounts are now Catholic Churches, which we visited. In them they have various old things which are claimed to have been connected with the Apostle. The accompanying pictures show something of these and some of the party going up the Big Mount, which is reached by a long winding stone stairway. It is very evident that some man by the name of Thomas, whether the Apostle or not, did visit this part of India and did a good work in sowing seeds of the Gospel. In one of the convents on the hill we had quite a discussion with the Mother Superior and a bright young Catholic woman. They were well versed in Catholicism, but knew little about the Bible. When Brother Russell asked them some questions about the Trinity and about Mary being the mother of God, the Mother Superior got a Bible and said she could find all about it there for us, but after looking considerably she had not found it by the time we left and is perhaps still looking for it.
Brother Robison left us here and will make a trip through India over different lines than we will travel on later.
This afternoon a number of friends from the Class of Bible Students here, numbering perhaps forty, called at the hotel and we had about two hours fellowship together. They appreciated very much this opportunity of meeting Brother Russell and talking with him personally.
The next night we held the Public Service in Victoria Hall, at which there was a large attendance. The topic was, "The Great Hereafter," and Brother Russell treated it a little differently than usual, on account of the mixed audience, which was composed of Christians, Brahmins, Buddhists and Mohammedans. He spoke for an hour and three-quarters, and treated the matter so logically from all standpoints that all the mixed audience could see the reasonableness of the True Gospel, and they could see that through and by it was the only reasonable means of bringing all these different religionists and others into harmony with Jehovah and one another. At the close of the service many handed in requests for literature treating further on the subject. We left here feeling that the Truth had been given a strong witness.
VIZAGAPATAM.
EN ROUTE for Calcutta to visit the above place, and to look into missionary activity there. A retired army officer kindly entertained us in his large bungalow. As to the results of the missionary activity there for the past many years, well--the people are a long ways from being converted, and the whites care little about the glad tidings of great joy which shall be, not only for the poor natives in and about Vizagapatam, but the whole world. This army officer, who is also a doctor, spent much time with us asking question after question, and remarked before we left, "I think that your visit here was providential for me, whether it accomplished anything for others or not." His interest and love for the Bible revived and he seemed to have found that which satisfies as nothing else can do. We were glad to have done him some good, even though we were disappointed in not finding greater results from the work of the missionaries during the years of the past.
As we were walking from the railway station to the gentleman's bungalow our hearts were made sad by the sight of three lepers standing at the side of the road, and within a few feet of us as we passed, with hands outstretched for some coins. I said, hands, but this is hardly true, for what they held out were what was left of the hands they once possessed. Now, many joints of their fingers had rotted off, and matter was then dripping from their finger stubs; the same was true of their feet. One poor fellow had over half of one foot rotted off. Another was almost completely covered with large, raw ulcers, on which the flies were feeding. One also had been so affected by this dreadful disease that his face was all caved in and the disease had invaded his throat so that he could make only some husky sounds. Surely they were a pitiful sight, with no one to care for them, and no hope that any could give them that their condition would ever be any different, either now or in the great future, but on the contrary, according to all the creeds, notwithstanding they have suffered so much in this life, they must all go to an eternity of torture. We were glad for the light of the glorious gospel of good tidings, of the soon coming Kingdom of Messiah, which will cure them of this disease and all that it symbolizes. In this section, unlike the Leper Colony at Colombo, previously described, [CR257] these poor lepers get no care from the government, but are allowed to go about on the streets. We saw others at some of the railway stations. How the infection is not spread and others become contaminated is a mystery. We took some snap-shots of two of them, but the pictures did not turn out very well, but we show one herewith, and perhaps you can notice the stubs of one poor fellow's fingers. After seeing them it made us wonder whenever we saw a fly light on us or any food, if it had been on one of those lepers, and hence we could not enjoy our meals as well as we might otherwise.
CALCUTTA.
CALCUTTA, our next stop, is built on the Hoogli river, a mouth of the Ganges, about ninety miles from the sea, and is the seat of supreme government of the empire, the vice-regent of which serves as the representative of George V., Emperor of India. It is also the commercial center of the presidency of Bengal, and so famous for its handsome buildings, public and private, that it has been called the "city of palaces."
Sights will not fail the traveler. There are the public buildings and the zoological gardens to see, the fort and the native bazaars, an over-decorated Jain temple, a "burning ghat" for disposal of corpses, and famous Hindoo shrines. In the botanical gardens is the largest banyan tree in the world, stretching over an area of 300 feet in diameter, with hundreds of aerial roots forming trunks.
Our visit at Calcutta was a pleasant one, and besides holding services for both the natives and the white people, we also looked into matters in general and also had conferences with Brother and Sister Richardson, representatives of the society, who have been working for some time in the interior. We were very glad to see them and to learn of their experiences. We were sorry to part with them as they went back to their fields of labor.
Trusting these brief notes will give you some idea of our
whereabouts and experiences, and with Christian love to all,
I remain, as before, Yours in His service,
L. W. JONES, M.D.
LETTER NO. 6.
Bombay, India, February 23, 1912. To the Ecclesia at Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.
Dearly Beloved in the Lord:-- WE arrived here yesterday afternoon about five o'clock, and here again we found Satan had preceded us, his representatives having sent word ahead that we were coming and to look out for us. They did their supposed duty, but the Lord, true to His word, caused their wrath to praise Him, and their free advertising only assisted in filling the hall to overflowing.
On arrival I found a number of letters waiting me--from Brothers Read, Horth, Evans, Rechel, and, of course, from my family. While these letters are six weeks old when delivered to me, yet I am mighty glad to get them.
This is the first decent hotel we have been in for many a day. I think this is the best city in India.
My last letter was written from Calcutta, and since then we have seen many strange sights and had some peculiar experiences, as our party divided and thus different places were visited. I will not go into details, but will mention one or two places in particular. One was
BENARES.
THIS city, to more than half the population of the globe, is a very holy city, and to half of those it is the holiest of all cities. To the Hindus it is as the Mecca to the Moslem, or as Jerusalem to the mediaeval Christian, while to Buddhists it is sacred because it is the place to which their great founder journeyed as a holy spot fit for him to begin preaching his new doctrines more than 500 years B.C., but no one knows anything of its history before that time.
To give an idea as to how great is their superstition, I will mention that with its 2,000 temples and shrines, it has for thousands of years been the chief place of pilgrimage for the faithful from all parts of the country. For those wishing to see for themselves the worshipers of the faith of the Hindus at their holiest shrines, this city certainly affords the opportunity. We walked through many of the narrow, dirty streets of the city, and were made to think of a great multitude of harmless lunatics. We made our way to the River Ganges, which to the Hindus is very sacred; in fact, so much so, that if anyone can die with their feet touching that water, they are sure to go to the happy place. Our guide told us of one case where an old man was expected to die, so the rest of the family took him down to the river's bank to breathe his last, but for some reason he refused to die just then, so they stuffed his mouth and nose with mud and thus forced him to die at that river. It was in the forenoon when we reached the river, and here we took a boat to see the famous bathing-ghats, where thousands of pilgrims of both sexes and of all ages, from every part of India, immerse themselves in the water of the sacred river, while fat Brahmins officiate under great umbrellas. I took the accompanying photographs, which will give some idea. On the banks of the river fires are burning on which are laid the dead bodies, which they burn instead of burying them. The varied structures and the gay costumes of the bathers combine to make this one of the great sights of the world. Many temples, etc., are also near by, the Monkey Temple, the Gold Temple, etc. While we were there we heard a bell ringing, and upon inquiry were informed that it was to wake up their god, who was drunk. He must have had it pretty bad, because the bell would ring quite frequently. Benares is the special haunt of beggars of every description of disease, deformity, and dirt. All these sights and odors and superstitions made us heart-sick, and we were only too glad to make our exodus, and we could truly pray, Lord Jesus, come quickly. What a transformation it will be there when God's will shall be done on earth even as it will be done when Messiah sets up his kingdom!
Our next stop was at Lucknow, and we all said upon reaching there, "we are in luck-now." It is a beautiful place, with many things of historical nature attracted to it. Other places were Cawnpore, Agra, etc.
We were very glad indeed to reach Bombay. A welcome sight here was the face of our dear Brother Robert Hollister, who had come on from London to look after certain work for the Society in India and other countries. He sent his love to you all in Chicago, as he is known to many of you.
We have had some good meetings here, for both natives and whites. One educated and refined gentleman was so impressed with the message he heard that he came down to the boat to see us off and brought Pastor Russell a handsome wreath of flowers and a hand bouquet, as an expression of his appreciation of the things he had heard.
Well, as I do not think of anything more to write just at present, I will retire and send my next letter from Suez or Cairo.
With Christian love and greetings from all to all, I remain
as B4, Yours in HIS service,
L. W. JONES.
[CR258]
EGYPT
LETTER NO. 7.
Alexandria, Egypt, March 7, 1912. To the Ecclesia at Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.
Dearly Beloved in the Lord:-- WELL, here we are in the land of the Pharaohs, the pyramids, and many things of interest to Bible students.
My last letter was from Bombay. From there we steamed for several days across the Arabian Sea, stopped a short time at Aden, at the beginning of the Red Sea (which, by the way, is very blue), then steamed up to Suez, making quite a long trip of it. As a Sunday was spent on the water, Brother Russell addressed a meeting at which about eighty of the passengers attended.
Eight o'clock here in the morning is about ten o'clock the night previous with you. We had a very quiet sea and the big ship moved along at the rate of about 335 miles a day. As we traveled along, nearing Suez, we could see the land on either side; to the left was Arabia, while to the right we lashed the Peninsula of Sinai, at the southern end of which is Mt. Sinai, where the Law Covenant was entered into, etc. A little farther on we passed near the place where the Seventy Palm Trees were, under which the Israelites rested, after crossing the Red Sea. Then farther on were the Twelve Wells of Moses, still known as such.
Upon leaving the ship and passing through the various experiences with custom officials and health officers, we took train up to Ishmalia, this journey being along the Suez Canal. Ishmalia is quite close to the place where the children of Israel must have crossed. From here we went direct to Cairo, reaching there about midnight.
THE GREAT PYRAMID.
THE next day matters of business occupied the attention of all until after lunch, then we boarded the trolley car for a trip to the pyramids. As we reached the outskirts of the city we could see the three pyramids in the distance, becoming more and more visible as we neared them. It caused a strange feeling to come over us as we realized that now we were actually seeing and would soon more closely examine that great Witness which has stood there so proudly these many centuries. From the end of the car line it is about half a mile to the pyramid; we walked it, but many of the travelers prefer to ride on a little donkey or on camels.
To our great pleasure we found Brother Morton Edgar there at the pyramid, he having come from Scotland a short time before to make further excavations, measurements, etc., preparatory to issuing the second volume of his work on the pyramid. We were very glad indeed to have him there, for we knew that he could tell us more about that Witness than any one living. The Arab guides know absolutely nothing of the teachings of the pyramid, and as Brother Edgar knows every foot of the inside and also had with him his chief helper, Judah, we did not require the services of any of the guides. This was quite a surprise to these Arabs, however, and they thought it very strange that we would go inside without them.
At a distance the great pyramid does not show off what a mighty structure it is, but as one gets alongside, he is soon convinced that it is the greatest building in the world.
The entrance is
on the north side and
about fifty feet up the
sloping side. To
reach this we found
it necessary to climb
over about fifty feet
of rubbish. With no
railing, fire escapes,
or anything else to
support one, even this
height made some
feel a little queer, and
Brother Pyles remarked,
"I would
give a dollar if I had
not started." However,
[CR259]
THE THREE LARGE PYRAMIDS... (Picture only)
[CR260]
helping hands were extended to him, and soon we were
in front of the entrance. We stood around this for some time,
Bro. Edgar in the meantime pointing out and explaining
various things of interest. In
his first volume on the Great
Pyramid Passages he shows a
number of excellent illustrations
of just how this entrance looked.
We then went into the Descending Passage, passed under the Granite Plug, which stops up the lower end of the First Ascending Passage. We kept on down until we came to the Subterranean Chamber or Pit. On the way, however, we, of course, passed the lower end of the Well. This Subterranean Chamber is about 250 feet from the entrance, and the whole passage to it is very slippery, and would be difficult to travel over, were it not for holes that have been cut in the floor of the passage about every four feet. Of course it was dark in here, but we each carried a candle.
After examining this Pit, Brothers Wilson, Kuehn and I thought we would like to go to the end of the Blind Passage, which extends from the south wall of the pit; this is about fifty feet in length, and at its farther end would seem to represent the Second Death, or the end of the Millennium. It is a continuation, so to speak, of the Chamber or Pit, but is only a passage about two and a half feet square.
We then came back up the Descending Passage to the Forced Passage around the Plug, climbed it into the First Ascending Passage, representing the Jewish age. This is quite steep and slippery.
At the top we came to the beginning of the Grand Gallery, and at our right was the opening to the Well 200 feet above the lower opening, which we saw near the Subterranean Chamber.
Brother Edgar gave us a fine point about this with respect to the New Covenant. It was a fine thing to have him with us for two hours, giving us lessons on the pyramid while being right there on the spot.
The rest of the party had become exhausted, so only Brothers Wilson, Kuehn and I were making the trip with Brother Edgar--Judah, of course, accompanied us.
We then went through the long Horizontal Passage, which caused us to stoop a good deal, [CR261] to the Queen's Chamber. The first six-sevenths of that long passage represents the first 6,000 years of the world's groaning under the curse, and it made our backs and knees groan, so to speak. The last one-seventh is 21 inches deeper, representing the Millennial age, when the average man, or perfect man, can stand erect.
Then we came into the Queen's Chamber, made of very large limestones, the joints between which are very fine and decidedly different from what we see in the construction work of our government buildings in America or Great Britain. If you look at any of our buildings, there is no difficulty to find the cracks.
Then we went up the Grand Gallery, under the Granite Leaf, into the Ante-chamber, and then stooping considerably and passing through a small passage we entered the wonderful King's Chamber, built of very heavy, dark granite blocks. We, of course, saw the Coffer, hollowed out of a great solid block of granite. A remarkable thing about it is that the cubic inches of its sides, ends and bottom, which are about four inches thick, represent as many cubic inches as there are cubic inches of capacity in the Coffer itself. In other words, if this Coffer were cut into small squares and piled together, the pile would exactly equal the inside measurement of the Coffer. While in this King's Chamber we sang some of the song, "Come all ye saints to Pisgah's Mountain."
Our descent was more difficult than the ascent, and it was a long and slippery journey from the upper end down through the Grand Gallery and First Ascending Passage to the Descending Passage. We finally reached it, however, and then climbed up the Descending Passage and out the Entrance Passage, then down the side of the pyramid fifty feet to the ground.
The rest of the friends decided to go back to the hotel at Cairo, but I arranged to remain with Brother Edgar at the Mena Hotel, near the pyramid. I was quite able to take some nourishment after our climb, and so Brother Edgar and I ate a good dinner, and then started out to make an inspection of things by night, as the moon was just at its full and the stars were shining brightly. We walked around the Great Pyramid, nearly a mile, and also went over and took a view of the old Sphinx. While this is a large thing, it is nothing in comparison with the Pyramid. Many of the photographs of it are taken at close range with the Pyramid in the background, and thus it is made to appear to be as large as the Pyramid. There were a great many tourists there, and they seem to make a special point of coming out to the Sphinx at night. To reach it they must pass the Pyramid, but that has little attraction for them. I heard one lady who sat on a camel near where I was standing remark to a friend that the Virgin Mary sat on the Sphinx with the infant Jesus when on their flight into Egypt. That is one of the traditions of Catholics.
After a night's rest Brother Edgar and I soon dispatched
breakfast and then went out and climbed a hill near the
hotel, from which we had a fine view of the Delta of the
Nile. This hill is quite close to the Pyramids, and is covered
with small, smoothly polished stones, showing that once they
had been in water. There are different theories as to how
they got on top of those hills. Some think they were in the
last ring of water around the earth, and that when it
broke these stones were precipitated to the earth. One fact
[CR262]
ASCENDING GREAT PYRAMID AT NORTHEAST CORNER. (Picture only)
[CR263]
is very evident, they are there. All the desert, in fact, is
covered with them.
There were some things I forgot to look for while in the Pyramid and some other things I wished to look at again, so Brother Edgar and I started over to the Pyramid again, but on looking down the road where the tram-car stops, we saw five dromedaries (one hump camels) coming up the road, and on their backs we saw Brothers Russell, Pyles, Maxwell, Kuehn and Wilson. They were on their way to visit other Pyramids and the old city of Memphis, of historic interest, fifteen miles away. They asked us to join them. As we wished to make other examinations inside the Pyramid, we said we would join them later.
We then re-entered the Pyramid, and Brother Edgar pointed out and explained many interesting points. We made another inspection of the Subterranean Chamber or Pit. He is having that completely excavated and the rubbish taken outside. The bottom of this has never been thoroughly explored, and he expects to find some interesting measurements in connection with it.
Coming from the Pit we reached the lower entrance of the Well, so decided to make the ascent. It is 200 feet long, quite irregular, and much like a crooked chimney, and presents about the same difficulties one would experience in trying to climb up the inside of such a chimney. If it was straight up, its vertical height would be about 165 feet. I would not have missed that climb for a good deal. Sometime when you are going up a high building, take a look up the elevator, or lift shaft, and imagine climbing up in it in the dark, except for a tallow candle in your hand, and nothing to hold on to except a small rope, and some rough niches in the sides, in which to stick the toes of your shoes, and at times being obliged to brace your feet on one side and your back on the other side.
We were glad to reach the Grotto, which is a natural grotto or cave in the solid rock--not cut out. Think of the Great Pyramid being built over this natural Grotto, and it being in just the right position so that it would harmonize with all the measurements of this Great Stone Witness. In this Grotto we rested a little and penned a word of greetings home, which was signed by Brother Edgar in Scotch, by Judah in Arabic, and by myself in United States writing.
We then ascended the rest of the distance, the last 25 feet of which is vertical and the most difficult to get up. This well illustrates the fact that the end or last part of the course for both the Church and the world will be the most difficult. We, of course, came out at the upper opening of the Well, near the junction of the First Ascending Passage with the Grand Gallery and the Horizontal Passage to the Queen's Chamber. Here I received further lessons from Brother Edgar.
It was also at this point where we were making some investigations the day before when some guides came along pulling a tourist through the Pyramid. One guide gets in [CR264] front, takes one hand of the tourist and another takes the other hand or pushes and up he goes, dodging his head now, then stooping low, then he comes into a larger opening, etc., past the Well, and finally out again, and knows no more about what the Pyramid teaches than does a rabbit. This well illustrates the point that "The world knows us not, even as it knew Him not." There we were right near the Well making our examinations, etc., but this traveler passed right by and I doubt if he even saw that there was a hole there. So it is with the world; they pass right by the International Bible Students and can see little to interest them in what we are examining. We, however, can see God's gracious Plan which is being worked out, and so that Great Stone Witness also contained, to us, a wonderful outline of that same Plan.
We then descended the Law Age Passage, being abruptly stopped by the Granite Plug, which is composed of three sections, the length of the three being about fifteen feet. We then climbed down around this to the Descending Passage, but just before reaching it we took a look into the Forced Passage made by Al Mamoun. Reaching the Descending Passage we took note of the fact that its floor directly under the base of the Granite Plug was not worn as much as the rest of the floor and found it to be a large piece of limestone, much harder than the rest of it. This seems to teach the firm footing the Jewish nation had at the time their Law Covenant was instituted. The Jews had a better standing, because the Law itself is perfect.
Going up the Descending Passage to within 25 or 30 feet of the entrance, we noted the finely ruled line on the side, which marks the date of the building of the Pyramid, by measuring back from near the upper opening of the Well down to the First Ascending and up the Descending Passages to this line.
We then went outside with the thought of going up the outside of the Pyramid, but as there is nothing to be gained by so doing, except a fine view of the country, and as it would have been a hard climb, we decided not to do so, but instead went and got some lunch.
In the meantime Judah had made arrangements for three "Ships of the desert," and off we started to try to catch up with the others of our party. It was an interesting trip across the desert, but I would prefer to ride in a Pullman car to riding on camels, and we all had enough of it before we reached the end of our journey. The camel on which one brother was riding started to run away. I will not say who he was, but he is well known to you all. Our party finally reached the ruins of Old Memphis, and we looked at a number of these. We saw the big statue of Rameses, part of him being missing, but that part still remaining was in an excellent state of preservation and demonstrated the great skill of those sculptors. It was around that vicinity that the Israelites used to make bricks without straw. Near here also, on the banks of the Nile, is where Moses was found in the rushes. A little further on we came to a railroad station, and we were glad to leave our camels and take the train back to Cairo, a happy lot, but sore and tired.
The next day we left for Alexandria. Brother Edgar and Brother Pfund remained over night in Cairo, so as to say good-bye to us, and this is where we left Brother Edgar on the station platform, waving to us as far as we could see him, until the train was out of sight. Brother Pfund went on with us to [CR265] ALEXANDRIA. HERE we looked over a number of ruins. First, however, we waited on the street corner for a car, and then went to a hotel for dinner. After that started out to see the Pillar of Pompey, which is some twelve feet in diameter and about eighty feet in height, all made of one piece of granite. There it stands alone, and has been there for a long, long time. How these people living at that time could handle, carve and erect such a monument is beyond modern skill. We also visited the catacombs, and a little later are to take ship to Greece.
We are now about to leave Egypt and are very thankful
for an opportunity to have visited it, especially the Pyramid.
I now close this letter, with Christian love to all, and remain
as B4,
Yours in HIS service,
L. W. JONES, M.D.
LETTER NO. 8.
London, England. To the Ecclesia at Chicago, Ill., U.S.A.
Dearly Beloved in the Lord:-- UPON leaving Alexandria, Egypt, we steamed across the Mediterranean Sea, arriving at Pyreus, the seaport of Athens. We boarded a train for Athens, and were then really in Greece. Here, of course, everything is still different, money, cooking, language, etc., from what we have been experiencing for some months.
We were surprised to find Athens such a large city and so clean. The old city of Athens is in ruins, but the new city is quite modern, having good buildings, paved streets, etc. We, of course, visited the ruins of the old city, and among the interesting places we visited the Acropolis, on which are still the ruins of the Parthenon, Mar's Hill, etc.
THE ACROPOLIS.
THE Acropolis, the glory of Athens since the time of Pericles, was in early times a place of residence as well as a sanctuary.
The remains of a palace similar to those of Mycenae and Tirynce have been discovered.
During the time of Peisistralos it was reserved for the residence of the ruler of Athens and later dedicated solely to the gods.
It was captured and its buildings destroyed by the Persians, B.C. 480, after which the walls were rebuilt by Themistocles and Kimon, the drums and triglyphes from the burned temples being used in the work.
During Turkish times it was converted into a citadel surrounded by a wall with fortified towers, its temples used as dwelling houses and mosques.
We enter the Acropolis by the Beule Gates, so named from Mr. Beule, who discovered it in 1852, ascending them by marble steps to the
PROPYLAED.
This splendid Doric gateway to the Acropolis is built entirely of Pentelic marble, the work being carried out during the years B.C. 437-432 by the Architect Mnesicles.
The building consists of a central colonnaded portico with five entrances, surrounded by pediments both east and west, and a wing on either side. The north wing was called Pinakotheka or Picture Gallery.
On a platform before the south wing stands the temple of Athena Nike.
THE PARTHENON.
Passing through the Propylaea the way ascends to the Parthenon. This temple, wholly of Pentelic marble, was built under Pericles, the entire work being completed in the years B.C. 447-438.
The peristyle consisted of 17 columns on the sides and 8 at each end.
The two pediments contained about 50 life size figures, there were 92 metapes, while around the cellar wall ran a frieze 524 feet in length, all of this work being of the utmost perfection and beauty.
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The building stood almost in its original perfection until 1687, when, having been converted into a powder magazine by the Turks, a bomb fired by Venetians, who were besieging the Acropolis, exploded within.
Many of the sculptures were saved by Lord Elgin, who carried them to England in 1801, and they are now in the British Museum.
AREOPAGUS--MAR'S HILL.
THIS is sacred to all Bible students because of its association with the Apostle Paul. On the top of this hill or mass of rock is where St. Paul addressed the "men of Athens" when he was here in A.D. 54.
This is a small hill on the top of a high elevation overlooking the new city of Athens. We ascended the hill by means of stone steps cut in the natural rock. On the day of our visit there the wind was very strong, making it uncomfortable to remain long on that elevation. The hill is entirely barren of any vegetation, being merely a mass of rock. We viewed the surrounding country from various parts of the hill, and then picked out what to us seemed to be the very spot from which the Apostle Paul delivered his address to the people below.
We then held a short service on this memorable spot.
There was first a song, "All hail the power of Jesus' name," sung in the Greek tongue by several of the Greek brethren of the Athens Class, after which Brother Russell offered a short prayer. He then suggested we sing a few verses in English, which was done, all joining in singing the same grand hymn. Brother Russell then spoke briefly as follows:
Brethren, I congratulate you on the privilege we enjoy today, of standing on this very memorable spot, a spot that has associated with it very much indeed that is so very precious to us, and to all Christian people, and especially to those who are rejoicing in the Gospel of which Paul was not ashamed, the Gospel which has for its very foundation the fact that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He rose the third day, according to the Scriptures," for our deliverance. This is the Gospel which will eventually cancel the sin of the whole world, bring to mankind the divine blessing, and the removal of the curse which came upon the world through sin. The further part of this foundation doctrine is that which the Apostle propounded and set forth in his great epistle to the Corinthians, namely, that the very foundation of all Christian hope is identified with the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead? "If there be no resurrection of the dead, our hope is in vain."
I am glad, as one of this little party, that we are here today and have the privilege of calling to mind these various things and which are encouraging our faith and love, and stimulating our devotion to the Lord and to the same Gospel --the same Gospel for which the Apostle preached and labored and died. The same Gospel, indeed, for which our Lord Jesus died, in order to proclaim the love of God, which passeth all understanding.
The service then closed with a word of prayer and the singing of "Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love."
DESCENDING the hill we entered our carriages and rode over to the other hill, where Demosthenes and other noted men of the past used to make political speeches.
Then we visited an old prison, where Socrates was confined and where he committed suicide by drinking hemlock poison.
Next we rode to another part of the city and went into
THE STADION.
THE Stadion, the scene of the Panathenaean games, was built about B.C. 330, and at a later period renewed in pentelic marble.
During the middle ages most of the marble was carried away. In 1896-1904 it was rebuilt on the ancient lines, and again in Pentelic marble, at an expense of $3,000,000, by Mr. Averoff, whose statue is placed at the entrance.
The Greek national games are held here and once in four years the international "Olympic games." The seating capacity is 50,000.
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PUBLIC SERVICE.
ATHENS, GREECE.
MARCH 8th, 1912. This evening service had been widely advertised, and when we arrived in the Business Men's Club Hall, in which the service was to be held, we found it crowded-- every seat was taken and the aisles, doorways and windows were full of people. Brother Bosdoyannes of Crete served as interpreter. (Everything was Greek to us.) Brother Russell then spoke in part as follows:
I have great pleasure in being present with the citizens of Athens. I do not forget that this is a great seat of learning. Although I had not expected to speak on this occasion, I am very pleased with the subject which has been selected for me.
I esteem that the Divine Plan for human salvation is the most wonderful thing for the human mind to investigate. All the other sciences relate to matters that are comparatively temporal, but this one to things eternal. I hold that it is quite reasonable to expect that our great Creator would give us some knowledge of his own will. And yet, as we look out over the world, Christian people as well as others are considerably confused regarding God's Plan. Evidently God has been pleased to leave us in a measure of darkness, otherwise there would not be some 600 sects of Christian people, besides other sects of other religious people. My own thought is that all Christian people, and all other religious people are in the main honest, yet none of us are quite satisfied. I find in the Bible something to intimate that this would be just the very condition of things. And so God tells us, through the prophet, "Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the heathen." We see that this has been the case, and the same Bible tells us that in the end of this age there would come a great light into the world, and that this great light would cause a better understanding of God and all other matters. I remind you of the words of the Prophet David, "Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a lantern to my footsteps." This signifies that during all this time of the world's existence, the Bible has been the lamp or light to God's people. Even though we have not understood it perfectly, it has been the light which God gave us. But Peter tells us that in the closing time of this age, we are to expect a greater light. He says, "We have a more sure word of prophecy to which we do well that we take heed as unto a light which shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn." Now, I hold, my dear friends, that we are in the dawning of that new day. All around us we see wonderful inventions and wonderful blessings coming to us. These blessings, to my understanding, are all foretold in the Bible, and the Bible tells us that these blessings are to proclaim the new dispensation. To my understanding the Bible justifies us in saying that we are only at the very verge of wonderful things. We all recognize that ours is a wonderful day, but we have not all perhaps reached the same conclusion as to why these things come now.
There are two theories, the one that we are undergoing a process of evolution. They would have us believe that our forefathers were apes and monkeys, but that we have gotten away from that condition, and that all of these things are now coming as a result of evolutionary processes. We hold to the contrary of that. Although we have a great deal of general intelligence today, it is not superior to that of our forefathers. Here you are in the midst of antiquity, and these tell us of people of great brain power, living long before our day. We have reason to doubt the theory that those who produced these works of art were nearer monkeys than we.
I stood in Alexandria a few days ago, and there looked upon the great "Pillar of Pompey," and wondered how monkeys erected that great pillar. I do not believe there are any implements in the world today that would erect such a pillar in that position.
If we look back along the lines of history, we have Shakespeare of the past, and you have your Demosthenes, Plato and Socrates here. And in our Bibles we have Saint Paul, and we have the Prophet David, and we have the great Prophet Moses also. Those men were not monkeys. The work they left behind indicate that they were men of master minds. We wish we had today some statesmen like Moses. We would like to have more poets like David, and more wise men, like Solomon. We would like to have more like Demosthenes, Plato and Socrates. We would like to have more Shakespeares in the world, and more great artists and sculptors.
The other is a better explanation of our times, which is that God's time has come to give us these blessings. The Bible all along has been telling us about the "Golden Age" to come. All mankind for centuries have been looking forward for the Golden Age, and the blessings that would then be in the world. Six thousand years ago God intimated that He would bring in some great change. We remember what He said to Father Adam and Mother Eve when they had sinned, and when He has put the curse or condemnation of death upon them, the seed of the woman would ultimately bruise the serpent's head. We all recognize that as symbolic language, and that it signifies, by and by some one would rise through humanity who would crush evil. By common consent all Jews and all Christians understand the seed of the woman to be Messiah. For six thousand years, therefore, the world has been waiting for Messiah. God told through Abraham what he would do through Messiah. I remind you that Abraham was a special friend of God, and He therefore communicated to him something regarding His plans. He said, Abraham, I intend to bless all the families of the earth. Abraham, more than this, I intend to bless them through your seed--through your posterity. That "seed" we know in a [CR268] general way applied to the Jews, yet the Jews never succeeded in getting to the place where they could bless all the families of the earth, but in God's own time He brought forth one, His own son, born a Jew, the seed of Abraham, to bring these very blessings. The Jews expected the wrong thing, they thought He would be a great conqueror, a great soldier, and that he would conquer the Romans and deliver them. Then, too, we Christians have made some mistakes in interpreting that prophecy. We said, Jesus did set up His Kingdom eighteen hundred years ago; we said, This spiritual kingdom which Jesus set up, and which began at Pentecost, is to spread and convert the whole world; we said. This is the way in which God's promise to Abraham is to be fulfilled; we said. Jesus is the seed of Abraham, Jesus will work through His Church and then set up God's Kingdom. We made some great mistakes, for that is not what the Bible teaches. We were honest in believing it, but that was not the Apostle's thought; we got away from the teachings of the Apostles. The whole Church fell into a period of darkness, as we all confess. For hundreds of years the Church was in great darkness, and all the Protestant reformations and Protestant denominations are so many attempts to get out of darkness. We have been making some progress, but not much. The difficulty is that we did not go far enough back. You and I want, therefore, tonight as Christian people to rid our minds of everything except that which the Bible teaches. Where the Word of God speaks, we are to speak, and where the Word of God is silent, we are to be silent. Jesus himself is the one who had the great teaching, and he expounded the prophecies, then came the Apostles of his special appointment, twelve of them. We made a great mistake when we said there was to be a succession of Apostles, and through that great mistake all these errors came in and brought the dark ages.
Let us elaborate this point a little, for it is an important point. Jesus appointed twelve Apostles only. There never were to be any more than twelve Apostles. Various times in the Bible Jesus refers to the "twelve Apostles of the Lamb," and I remind you, in His last message to the Church, He pictured the twelve Apostles in the glorified condition of the New Jerusalem, and represented them as the "twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem," and on its twelve foundation stones were the names of the twelve Apostles. There never were to be more than twelve. Hence, our doctrine of apostolic succession is all wrong. The early church supposed that when one of the Apostles died another should take his place, and thus they say the apostleship has been continued. By and by when all the Apostles were dead, and all these bishops were like the Apostles, they were considered apostles also. Bibles were not needed then. And so they said, Whenever we want information of God's will, we will invite a council of these bishops, or successors to the Apostles. That is where we got all of our old creeds. These bishops who were supposed to have the same authority as the Apostles met together and decided what we should believe. But God never authorized them to be Apostles. Good men many of them were, but they were not authorized to speak for God. Thus, gradually, century after century, the church got away from the Word of God. Now we have come to a time when we are anxious to get back to the Word of God. All Christian people agree that there is only one church. All Christians, therefore, agreed that sectarianism is wrong, but they are all wanting to know what is right. According to my study, my dear friends, there is something right in nearly all of them. Nearly every denomination in Christendom has something in harmony with the Bible, but God never authorized any of them. We all have one creed that we acknowledge--that is the Bible, as we have it, containing the words of Moses and the Prophets, Jesus and the Apostles.
Now we must come back in our minds and see just what the Bible teaches. Bible students all over the world are finding this to be true, and when we get the Bible view it is beautiful. Now I propose this evening, in harmony with the announcement, to give you the Bible view in as few words as I can place it.
He then proceeded to point out that Christ's Kingdom is not yet set up and that it is still in order for us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come." This fact, he said, is illustrated in that all the governments are armed and ready to fly at each other's throats. He then showed that the delay was for the purpose of selecting a Bride for Christ, that "When He shall appear, we shall appear, with Him in glory." First, however, it will be necessary for the Church to be selected. He showed that it was not the church of England, or Germany, or Russia, or Greece, or of Rome, nor any of the Protestant sects-- that it was not any of man's churches, but the Church which Christ founded. He was not called a Baptist. St. Paul was not called a Baptist, neither was he a Methodist, neither was he a Greek, neither was he a Roman Catholic. What then? This, "The Lord knoweth them that are His," and those that are His in the Roman Catholic church belong to the true Church. All that are His in the Greek Church are His in the true Church. All the saintly Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and all the other saintly ones in Christ belong to His Church. This is the one Church that is mentioned in the Bible, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." One Church of the living God whose names are written in heaven. Now I hope I am addressing some who belong to the true church of Christ.
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He began with the Jews, but they were the natural seed of Abraham, and that was implied in the promise to Abraham. Every saintly Jew was selected and then that nation was set aside; they have been blinded so far as Christ is concerned ever since. The gospel message went on and came here to Greece. Saint Paul, you know, preached not very far from this very place, but he did not find very many. There have not been very many in the true Church, so the Bible says-- "Fear not little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." There was a little flock found-- some Jews, some Christians, some Romans--and so the gospel has been going on, selecting here and there the saintly ones the world over, from every nation, kindred, people and tongue. What will He do with them? Ah, there is a definite fixed number, and as soon as this definitely fixed number is completed, then this age will end, but that will not mean the end of the world. It is true that the Bible does speak of the end of the world, but that word world is from the Greek word aion, or age. One world or age ends and a new world or age begins. To my understanding we are right at such a change now, one aion is ending and another aion is beginning. The aion appointed for the selection of the Church is coming to an end now. When it ends the Church will be glorified with Him in glory," and the purpose of that glorious appearing, and that Kingdom will be not for the injury of mankind, but for the blessing of the whole world. That is one of the great mistakes that we have made. We said, We find something in the Bible about God's election, and the Bible tells over and over about the elect, and the very elect, and the making of our calling and election sure. Yes, God is electing the saintly ones, picking them out--all those who walk in the footsteps of Jesus. But the mistake was made of supposing that all of the non-elect were to be damned to eternal torture. That is unscriptural --no Bible for that. On the contrary, the non-elect are about to be blessed, and the elect ones are to be God's agents for blessing the non-elect. We who live to-day ought to be able to understand this. Do we not in all of our great civilized nations have elections. In America we have our Congress; in Great Britain they have their Parliament; in France they have their Chamber of Deputies, and here you have your own. These men are elected or selected for the blessing of the peoples of those nations. When they meet at the capital, it is a meeting of the elect ones. All the remainder of those people are the non-elect. Do they torture the non-elect? No. They bless the non-elect; they pass laws for the benefit of the non-elect. That is exactly what God's Word tells us He is doing for us. He is gathering an elect Church of all saintly ones, and when they are gathered He will use them to bless all the non-elect. But, how will these bless the world? Will Christ have another Bride? Will the world have the same chance to go to heaven, and to spiritual beings like angels? No, no. Those special blessings are only for the elect, only the elect will enter heaven, only the elect will sit with Christ on His throne, only the elect will be like unto the angels spirit beings. The blessing for the non-elect is a different kind of a blessing altogether--it will be restitution. Restitution a restoration means the restoring to that which once was.
Now since man once was in the image and likeness of His Creator, a perfect man, he was not an angel, and so he never fell from the condition of an angel, and never fell from heaven. The Prophet David tells us about man when he said, What is man that thou art mindful of him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownest him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Thy hands, and gave him dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, etc. Here we find man described, and from this glorious condition he fell through disobedience. He fell into the imperfect condition in which you and I and the whole world are today. We are not a living world, we are a dying world. As God created Adam, He never would have died had he remained obedient. It was when he disobeyed God and was disloyal as the son of God that he came under the penalty or curse of death. The penalty that came upon man was not the curse of eternal torment, neither was it the curse of purgatory, it was the curse of death. You remember God said very distinctly, "Dying thou shalt die." It is plainly written there in Genesis. (Gen. 2:17.) It does not say, Because you have sinned, therefore thou shalt live for ever in torment. And then when they were cast out of the Garden of Eden, so that they might die, you remember the words there, "Cursed (unfit) is the earth for your sake. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth, and in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread until thou returnest to the earth from whence thou wert taken, for dust thou art and unto dust shall thou return." How plain God made it for us! And we note that Father Adam, under that sentence of death, under those unfavorable conditions, lived 930 years, or rather, let me say, he was 930 years in dying. But today very few live to be more than 100 years old--the average of human life today is 35 years; or rather, I should say, the average of human dying is 35 years, and all of our weaknesses, physical, mental and moral, are associated with this dying. The Bible says that we were born in this dying condition. That is the reason that it is found necessary to put some of these depraved ones in prison. That is the reason that some of us are born with such weak minds that it is necessary to put them in the insane asylums. That is the reason that some of us have such physically weak bodies that we need medicines all the time. We are a dying race, we are under the curse of death. That is a bad enough curse, my friends, but it is not as bad as we thought--it is not eternal torment. God never said that the wages of sin is eternal torment. We got that in the dark ages. When we go to the Bible, we find that God said that "The wages of sin is death." It is the Bible that says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." It is the Bible that says because Jesus died for our sins, therefore there shall be a resurrection of the dead. It is the Bible that says that just as soon as God shall have finished the selection of the Bride class, then the Kingdom shall be established. It is the Bible that tells us that when that Kingdom is established it will bless all the families of the earth. I remind you that that is what God said to Abraham, the first mention of the Gospel made: "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Now that "seed of Abraham," you see, includes the Church. So the Apostle points out, using two different figures. One, the figure of bridegroom and bride. The other the figure of the man Jesus as the Head, and the Church as His Body, and says, "Ye are members in particular of the Body of Christ." (1 Cor. 12:27.)
My friends, how plain it is, when we have the Bible for it, that the blessing of all the families of the earth has not come, because the Bride of Christ, the Seed of Abraham, is not complete, for this word Christ you know means, the anointed. Now the Lord Jesus, the Redeemer, was anointed with the Holy Spirit and so every member of the [CR270] Body of Christ must be anointed with the same Spirit. This anointing of the Church began at Pentecost and all the way down this anointing has been coming through God's consecrated people. The words of the Apostle are true today when he says: "The anointing which we have received of Him abideth in you, and ye shall abide in Him." And so this whole Church of Christ is the anointed one, the Christ of God. Do not misunderstand me; you and I are not the Redeemer of the world. Jesus is the one whose life was valuable for the purchase of the world, but Jesus associates us with Himself in this work of the Kingdom, the blessing of the world. Now, as I said a while ago, so I repeat that this age is very nearly at hand, and that means that the opportunity for you and for me to make our calling and election sure is very short. And it means that we should be very earnest if we appreciate this great privilege. It means that the time for the blessing of the world is very near.
I described a little while ago what is meant by restitution, and I will give you a little more of that. First of all, I will prove from the Bible that restitution is the thing that is to come through the Kingdom of Jesus--restitution of the poor fallen, weak humanity, back to the full image and likeness of God. There will be an opportunity for every one of them, and those wilfully and deliberately rejecting it will die the second death. The second death will be just like the first death, only with this difference, that none will be redeemed from the second death. None will ever be resurrected from the second death, but, as Saint Peter says, they will be in their death like the natural brute beast-- destroyed. Saint Peter's words I want to quote you about restitution are found in Acts 3:19. This is the way it reads: "Times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must retain until the times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." That leads us to say that God has been telling about these restitution times in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament--indeed, more in the Old Testament than in the New Testament, and there is a reason. The New Testament was especially for the gathering of the Church, and, therefore, speaks more particularly of the things pertaining to the Bride class. But the Old Testament tells over and over about these restitution times. Let me remind you of some of these. "The wilderness shall blossom as a rose and be glad, and springs shall come forth in the desert." "The knowledge of the glory of God shall fill the whole earth, as the waters cover the great deep." That means ocean-deep knowledge of God in the world, reaching to all of mankind. And what will be the ultimate result of all this blessing and knowledge coming to the world? Oh, it will mean great blessings of a temporal kind, and it will mean great blessings of a spiritual kind--many blessings. And so we are assured that a time will come when every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess, and all who will not bow and who will not confess will be destroyed in the second death. And when those blessings shall prevail, what then, my dear friends? Oh, these temporal blessings, healings and upliftings of mankind will bring man back to the condition in which God created him, the image and likeness of God in the flesh, that which God declared was very good; but it will take a thousand years of Christ's Millennial Kingdom to do that. Therefore, the Bible tells us that Christ's Kingdom will last for a thousand years, and at the close of the thousand years He will deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father. And then what? Oh, the Bible says that then every creature in Heaven, and in earth, and under the earth, will be heard saying, "Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might be unto our God forever and ever." And what will be the condition of mankind? Oh, we read again that there will be no death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things have passed away. Who will do this? The great Messiah. So we read: "He that sat upon the throne said: Behold, I make all things new."
So, my dear friends, I congratulate you that we are living in the most wonderful day of the world's history. The six days of sorrow and sin and crying and dying are ended. We have already entered upon the great seventh-day period. It is to be the great Sabbath Day in which God is to give rest to the people, a blessing to all those who will come into harmony with Him. I am glad that I am living today, not merely because of the wonderful blessings and conveniences of a temporal kind, not merely because today we have the railroads, and electric cars, and electric lights, and telegraph, and all this, for there were none of these eighty years ago, they are distinctively signs of our times, but I am especially glad, my dear friends, for the light that is shining upon God's word. I am glad that all of us as Christian people can come back to the Bible and see it more clearly. I am glad that thus all Christian brotherhood and love for one another may be deeper than ever before. I am glad we are living in a day when God's true people do not think it right to burn one another at the stake, or do them injury, but rather to help one another. I am glad that God has determined to have an elect Church, a Bride for Christ. [CR271] I am glad that that election is not quite complete yet, for I am striving to make my calling and election sure to a place in that company, and I exhort all of you who are God's consecrated people to similarly make your calling and election sure. And to all others I say, there is a message of God's grace that must not be spurned. Whoever, because of believing that God is loving and merciful, would thereby take liberty to sin will find that he will have special punishment upon himself as a result. Whoever knows the Master's will and does it not will be beaten with many stripes, but he who knew not and did it not will be beaten with few stripes.
Now I thank you for your kind attention and I wish to mention another matter before I close. The friends arranged for me to meet you tomorrow evening, at the same hour, seven o'clock. I will give a lecture at that time and try to close the lecture a little early for an opportunity for any who desire to ask questions.
[CR271]
MEETING AT HOME OF A SICK BROTHER--BROTHER EKONOPOLUS.
THE class of Greek brothers at Athens numbers about twelve and they were nearly all present at this meeting. Brother Bosdoyanes served as interpreter and after greeting one another he translated a message in Greek from the sick brother to us.
Brother Russell: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to be with you all this morning on this occasion, so that the pleasure is mutual. I trust the Lord will give His blessing to our visit and that some good may be accomplished with those who are interested in the Truth, as well as to the public.
After this the song, "Oh, Happy Day," was sung, part of the friends singing in Greek and part in English. Following this a word of prayer was offered by one of the Greek brothers.
Brother Russell: I scarcely know what will be the best place to begin, since we have so short a time. I will just talk for a few minutes on general themes and then given an opportunity for such questions as may be in the minds of the friends.
It seems to me that those of us who have been studying
the Divine Plan for a while see a great deal in our day to
encourage us. We, perhaps, have been expecting some of
the troubles that are now upon us to have come a little bit
sooner, and yet we see that coming, as they do, all of a
sudden, at the close of this is fully in harmony with the
Divine Word. As the Scriptures tell us, "in one hour" her
tribulation will come upon her. Suddenly, unexpectedly, as
travail upon a woman with child. And so now, after waiting
a good share of the forty years of this harvest time, we see
many signs of unrest that is to overthrow the present institution.
The Lord gives us a message respecting the present
time. He says, "When you see these things beginning to
come to pass, then lift up your heads and rejoice, knowing
that your deliverance draweth nigh." There might be danger
of some of our friends and neighbors misunderstanding our
cheerfulness connected with this trouble; they might think
we were rejoicing in the troubles that are coming, but not
so; we are rejoicing in the good things that are beyond the
trouble. This reminds me of our Lord's words in describing
the matter of His Apostles after His resurrection. He said:
"Thus it behooves the Son of Man to suffer and to enter
into His glory." It is necessary that these things that are
written in the prophecies be fulfilled and then will come the
blessing. So our hearts are rejoicing now, not that we are
without sympathy for the world, but that we have greater
sympathy for the world. We see that God loves the world
still more than we ever loved it or could love it, and through
His Word now opening to us we have seen the wonderful
blessings He has in store for the world of mankind; consequently,
we are more really in a hurry for the world's
blessings than for our own. If it would please the Lord
we would be pleased to remain several years more and endure
what He would think best through His grace. The present
unrest which we see markedly in certain manifestation is
apparently very general, although we might not have so understood
the matter. For instance, I was very much interested
in hearing about the coal strike in England and the
prospects of its proceeding to Germany and France and ultimately
to America, though I never thought of there being
any trouble here in Greece, but on the way up in the car I
was told of evidences of trouble here in your midst. These
things indeed must needs be because otherwise how could
other things come afterward? It is all a part of our heavenly
Father's outlined plan--not that
He has planned the evil things
that will take place, but that His
plans include the permission of
these evil things to bring about
the good things. Now, then, in
view of these conditions and
what we may reasonably expect
within the next two years, what
manner of persons ought we to
be? It is a very important time
for the Lord's people; it is the
closing up of our trial time. If
the elect will soon be completed,
and if we hope to be members of
the elect, we must expect that
our tests and decision will be
very near at hand. With these
thoughts before our mind, it
seems to me that it will be very
sobering to us all. Our great
King, our great High Priest, has
not only come through the door,
but He has come in amongst the
people. The great tests of God's
people are not only nigh, but
they are here--we are in them.
What will be more pleasing in
the Lord's sight than to find the
condition of our hearts such as will bring His words of comfort,
"Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the
joys of your Lord"? Will He ask, "How much do you know
about the Divine Plan of the Ages?" Will He ask, "How
much do you know about astrology and geology and trigometry"?
No, there will not be the things concerning which
He will inquire. All these things may help us in attaining to
what He desires, but these things themselves are not the things
which the Lord will desire to see in us. What He will approve
will be this: If He sees that our hearts are very loyal to all the
truths that we have received, if He shall find us hungering
and thirsting to do His will, if He shall find us so loyal of
heart that we will desire that every word and thought and
action shall be to His pleasement. This is the condition of
heart that He will approve. There is no doubt about it, we
all agree to this. Thus our first thought should be along this
line, loyalty to God, loyalty to the Truth, loyalty to the
brethren, loyalty to everything that we see to be in harmony
with the Divine will. After deciding that point, and finding
our hearts are loyal to God, another question arises: What
effect will this loyalty to God have upon our outward conduct?
And would we have an outward loyalty that testifies
[CR272]
(A Good Picture of the Great Pyramid from a Distance. Note How Small
the Stones Appear as Compared with a View at Close Range.--See Page 96.)
[CR273]
(View of Entrance to Descending Passage Fifty Feet Up the
Side of the Great Pyramid. Note the Great Size of the Stones.)
[CR274]
to the sentiments of our hearts? The first thing that our
Lord will expect in the way of outward manifestation of
loyalty and which we should look for in ourselves and in
each other is this, namely, love for the brethren. Why so?
Because the brethren represent to us the Lord Himself. All
who are begotten of the Holy Spirit are children of the
heavenly Father, and, therefore, brethren, and all these are
younger brethren of the Lord Jesus. We cannot render anything
of special service to the heavenly Father, nor to the
Lord Jesus personally. They are so great, so high, as to be
beyond anything that we could do to render them any
valuable service, but the brethren are right with us, in the
same city, perhaps in the same house, and the Lord's way of
viewing the matter is that if we really have love for Him we
will love all these who are brethren of His; as the Apostle
expresses it, he that loveth the brethren gives evidence that
he has been begotten of the Spirit, and that he is a child
of God Himself. It seems to me along this line that our
special testings and trials of loyalty are coming. The brethren
all have their imperfections, and we have ours. There is
none perfect, no not one. And it becomes a part of our test,
then, how we shall deal with these who are imperfect and
whose imperfections more or less grate upon us and irritate
us. This draws out in our conduct what may or may not
demonstrate that we have the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit
of the Lord is a spirit of meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering,
brotherly kindness, love. And we have an abundant
opportunity, therefore, of demonstrating these very qualities
to the brethren; and one of the things
which doubtless will help us more in our
dealings with the brethren, and in exercising
the graces of the Spirit is this:
That we doubtless have imperfections
which grate upon them and we need
their patience, their sympathy, and their
love. But the particular thought is that
we all have in God's sight many imperfections,
and so the Scriptures represent
that if we realize that God has been very
gracious to us in forgiving our imperfections,
we ought, also, to be very sympathetic
and gracious toward them. The
Apostle tells us that copying the Lord
Jesus we ought also to lay down our
lives for the brethren. And while we
are learning thus to lay down our lives
for the brethren and to love and sympathize
with them, we find that this also
has an influence upon our dealings with
the world. The heart that is overflowing
with love for God and for the
brethren, and also for the Truth, will
soon be overflowing with love for the
world, and thus the work of grace will
not only continue to deepen in our hearts, but will expand
abroad to all people; and whoever has this broad sympathetic
love for humanity could not help but have a sympathy for the
lower creatures. Thus it is that influences of the Truth and
the Holy Spirit being shed abroad in our hearts makes us
more kind and gentle to all, and more like our heavenly
Father, who is kind to the unthankful, and who sends His
blessings upon both the evil and upon the good.
Future days may bring us, perhaps, more particular trials than we have yet had--this is our expectation. The tests upon the Church all the way down have been severe, but the tests that are to be expected now in the ending of the age are still more severe than any in the past. But we ask, is this just, right, that we should have severer trials than came upon our parents a century ago? The answer is, yes. We have many advantages over them, we have greater opportunities in a general way for education and a general knowledge from the worldly standpoint. Besides this, we have special light from the Divine Parent. It is not only a part of the Divine arrangement that it should be so, but we see the justice of this, that where much is given much will be required; where little was given little was required. If our trials should be in proportion to our present blessings of understanding of the Divine Plan they would certainly be very great. I am rather expecting, therefore, that there will be some very extremely difficult trials for the Church. Just how near these are we do not know, and just what the nature of these trials are we cannot know. We can only say with the Apostle, we have not yet resisted unto blood, unto death. Who knows but what we will be called upon to prove our loyalty even by the sacrifice of our lives. Let us then, dear brothers and sisters, resolve in our hearts that we will be faithful to Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Faithful in all our dealings with the brethren and in our dealings with the Truth-- sanctified loyalty to God. After all, this matter of loyalty is the real test to bring some sons from the lower plane of the human nature, even the plane of sin, to the plane of glory, honor and immortality; but He does not wish to elevate a single one to that high position who is disloyal in the slightest degree. Hence loyalty to God is the test that is upon us, and so it was with Jesus. He is our exemplar and our forerunner in all these matters. What did He do, and for what did the heavenly Father honor Him with glory, honor and immortality? It was His loyalty to God that was tested, and His loyalty to God that was rewarded. He undertook to do the heavenly Father's will and be proved Himself loyal to all that He engaged to do. He was loyal to the Truth, to the brethren, and above all loyal to death, even the death of the cross, "wherefore also God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name that is above every name," and our call is to walk in His footsteps in the same way of obedience and loyalty and share with him ultimately, if faithful, in His Kingdom. Let us then be faithful. If we are faithful we know that He will be faithful--"Faithful is He who called us who also will do it"--do for us exceedingly, abundantly more than we could have thought or asked according to the riches of His graces in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In view of all these things, what should be the attitude of the minds of the Lord's people in respect to the trouble and those who are causing the trouble? To what extent should the Lord's consecrated people take part in manifestations of disapproval of kings, or presidents, or governors, or those in authority? To what extent should they manifest their sympathy with labor, and what they realize to be some of the rights of the human family that are now being cried out for by the masses? Our proper attitude is outlined by the Lord through the prophet: "Wait ye upon Me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey; for My determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them Mine indignation, even all My fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of My jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent." (Zephaniah 3:8,9.) The thought is that God intends to do these things. It is He that intends to permit this time of trouble and to bring order out of the confusion, and to right the affairs of the world. The world that knows not of it may well be excused in thinking they must take matters into their own hands. The world would be excusable for saying, This thing will never be done unless we do it ourselves; but we would not be excusable for we have the Word of God and see the plan of God, and know that God is at the helm and that He is [CR275] superintending the whole work. We see that these things are coming now because it is God's due time. We see that it is this increase of knowledge that is waking up humanity and bringing the great time of trouble, and we see that this great time of trouble is about to be utilized by the Lord to favor the interest of His Kingdom and to establish the reign of righteousness. Our knowledge, therefore, of the Divine Plan separates us entirely from the world in our attitude toward these things. We are waiting to see what God will do, and how God will do it. We already have quite a considerable conception of how it will come to pass, and yet there are little details that are not fully known to us. But our confidence is in the Lord, and we are waiting for Him to do it, and are deeply interested in what He is doing, and in what He is permitting us to do--kings and peasants, rich and poor, the capitalist and the working people. Our attitude, then, as God's children, is a waiting attitude. Of course, also, with the attitude of students, students of God's Word and comparing the events we see day by day with the things written in the Word. But this does not mean that we are to take a cold and indifferent attitude towards them. On the contrary we are to have a greater sympathy for all--a greater sympathy than others are able to exercise, because our minds are unbiased, and because we see behind the scenes what God's plans are, and because we see what results are coming and what the real cause of those results are. We are, therefore, to have a greater sympathy with the working classes; but this does not mean that we are to encourage them to violence, nor that we are to encourage their discontent. Rather, we should throw our influence as far as it will go towards peace. We should tell them as much as they are able to receive respecting the Divine blessings that are coming, and to advise them to wait for the Lord to bring it to pass, and not to precipitate the trouble before the Lord's time. Similarly with capitalists; we can feel a great deal of sympathy for them, and for kings, and for all who are in authority, both temporal and spiritual. They do not see the situation as clearly as we do. They are not, therefore, as responsible as we would be, if we were in their places. But even if we were in their places would we not find it difficult to walk so circumspectly as not to do violence to any of the interests of these times? It is certainly a very trying time upon kings and presidents and all who are in authority. They should have and do have our sympathy. If we were in their places and would act according to our best judgment, we would be in trouble with some classes. No one could be wise enough to steer his own course in life in the present time free from difficulties if he has power or wealth. Therefore, our hearts go out sympathetically for the rich and for the poor. And when we read in the Scriptures about the difficulties coming upon the rich we are to read these sympathetically. We may well thank God that His people are neither very rich nor very great according to the course of this World.
In a word, then, the Lord's people at the present time should be peacemakers. This does not mean that they are to leave the proclaiming of the Gospel to try to make peace between capital and labor, and people and kings. We have only one commission, and that is to preach the Gospel; but while telling the good tidings we are to encourage by manner and speech the spirit of meekness and patience and long-suffering and peacefulness.
BROTHER EKONOPOLUS, the sick brother, then had some questions which he wished to ask Brother Russell, as follows:
Question No. 1. What is the meaning of the twenty-four elders which we read about in the book of Revelation?
Brother Russell: I think it is in the seventh volume.
Question No. 2. How explain the verse in Hebrews 9:4 in which the Apostle Paul writes that the golden altar was in the Holy of Holies? Some present the solution for this difficulty, saying that we must acknowledge or accept that the Apostle in saying golden censor meant one of the little golden censors by which the priests would carry the fire from the brazen altar.
Answer: There is unquestionably a difference between the statement of the order of things in the Tabernacle as given by the Apostle here, and the statement as given in the Old Testament. But we must hold steadfastly to the account given in the Old Testament, because the Apostle's own argument supports the Old Testament. He says that it was necessary for the High Priest to offer the incense upon the golden altar before he would enter the Most Holy. This means, too, the golden altar could not have been in the Most Holy, according to the Apostle's own account, and according also to the Old Testament account. The only explanation we could think of would be this, therefore: Either that the Apostle had a lapsus linguae, a slip of the tongue, or that his amanuenses to whom he dictated this put in the wrong word, saying behind the veil instead of before the veil. It is not a matter of any importance, anyway. Nothing serious depends upon it. We see what was the real intention at all events. The golden altar was in the Holy and not in the Most Holy, and, therefore, whatever slip was made in this record has no bearing or special importance.
Question No. 3. In the Tabernacle Shadows we read, "we must distinguish between the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement and the sacrifices which were following the Day of Atonement, and that the first were presented for the sin of Adam, while the following were for the private or individual faults committed by ignorance or wilfulness." But [CR276] it has caused me a great anxiety. In Hebrews 9:7 the Apostle teaches that the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement were for all the sins which were committed, for the sins of the whole people.
Answer: In the English Bible it reads, "But into the second went the High Priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people."
There is no conflict between this statement and the other. The Apostle is here speaking about the Day of Atonement sacrifices, and not about any of those sacrifices following the Day of Atonement. He explains in harmony with the account in the Old Testament that the arrangement was in two parts. In one sense of the word the Day of Atonement sacrifices were all one sacrifice and one work on behalf of all the people, but in another sense of the word it was divided into two sacrifices, the first one for the priests and Levites, and the second for all the remainder of the people, and the Apostle is speaking of this phase of it in this verse. He is here speaking of the second, which he is offering for himself and for the errors of the people. The first, the blood of the bullock, was for himself and his house, and the second was for the errors or sins of all the people. These errors of the people for which the High Priest offers atonement are not wilful sins, but those which are committed through ignorance, superstition, blindness, etc.--through heredity. In other words, God proposes to forgive and to cancel all sins for humanity that has come to us directly or indirectly as a result of Adam's disobedience. But if after getting that blessing and knowledge then we sin with any measure of wilfulness that measure which is wilful is not covered by the atonement.
Question No. 4. What is the difference between the sacrifices afterwards, following the Day of Atonement, and the sacrifices during the Day of Atonement, both being for the sins of ignorance?
Answer: We must consider what the Apostle is speaking about, and he evidently here is not talking about the sacrifices after the Day of Atonement. So he says in the sixth verse, Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first Tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the High Priest alone once every year (the Day of Atonement).
Question No. 5. Were the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement offered for the sins of the people committed through ignorance?
Answer: This was a complete cancellation of all sin up to that date. It is merely a representation of the first Atonement Day, showing that when we once come and get our blessings from the sacrifice of the day of atonement it cancels all so far as we ever had recognition and ability.
Question No. 6. When the Lord said in the parable that the seed would bring forth some thirty, some sixty and some a hundred fold, are all these classes belonging to the Church or to the Great Company?
Answer: He does not say, and I would suppose it would represent all that are fruitful, that would bring forth the fruits of the spirit. One hundred fold might be those who came up to the very highest standard, and those who would bring forth sixty might refer to that same class, but not to shine quite as highly in the Kingdom, as we read that "Star differeth from star in glory." And the thirty fold might mean those who perhaps will be of the Great Company class, who will develop the spirit of the Lord, but not in such an abundant measure. They will all bring forth fruits of the spirit, in any event; just the same as those who are of the two classes, the wise and the foolish virgins. They are all virgins--all pure, all acceptable to God.
Question No. 7. Are you addressing your prayers only to the Father in the name of the Son?
Answer: Usually I follow that form of addressing the heavenly Father--only in the name of the Lord Jesus; but I have found myself in prayer addressing the Lord Jesus himself, for I find nothing in the Scriptures to contradict that, for they say to honor the Son even as we honor the Father. Nearly all the Scriptures follow that course of addressing the Father and I think of only one that is different, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."
Question No. 8. How must we pray in the name of the Father?
Answer: Upon the basis of His name.
Question No. 9. Are there special instances in which we should appeal to the Lord Jesus?
Answer: I cannot think of any circumstance in which the Lord Jesus could do more than the Father. But in my own mind and prayer I think of the two being one because their wills are one, and therefore I never make any mistake. I find myself thinking sometimes of one and sometimes of the other, but it is Thy will and not My will, and so I try to blot out any distinction.
Question No. 10. Please explain the statement, "I am the Lord, the first and the last," in Isa. 41:4; 44:6.
Answer: Well, I suppose it means that God is the only one that should be recognized. All others go into forgetfulness. I will be the God eventually, in the end. So this primacy of the heavenly Father is recognized by the Lord Jesus when He said He would deliver up the Kingdom to the heavenly Father that He might be all in all.
ATHENS' SECOND PUBLIC SERVICE.
PASTOR RUSSELL:
We are thankful by the grace of God that we are privileged again to be with some of His children tonight. We are thankful that we can meet in the spirit of brotherly love and Christian fellowship, with malice toward none, but with charity toward all. Some questions have already been handed in and these will be attended to as soon as we get through with this address. Meantime, if others have questions they might write them out at their convenience.
Briefly reviewing what we found last night we would say, we found that God is selecting a Church of a very saintly class. We found that this very saintly class, the Church, is described in the words of Jesus; that Jesus said if any man will be My disciple let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me.
Brother Russell then proceeded to give a discourse along the line of the selection of the Church with a view of taking up the questions soon afterward. However, before going very far, the number of Greek priests who were in the audience decided that they wanted to have some questions answered at once, and so they interrupted the meeting and a regular riot ensued. First one priest would get up and make some remarks, then some one else in the audience would reply to him, and then another priest would say something, and thus they had it back and forth, paying very little attention to Pastor Russell, who was on the platform. He, of course, was endeavoring to address the audience through [CR277] the interpreter, as everything was Greek to us, and the interpreter did the best he could to explain, but the others paid no attention. The truth that Brother Russell had been telling them evidently hurt a good many and thus, as in all cases the darkness hateth the light. The uproar continued for considerable time, reminding us of Saint Paul's experience in that section of the country in times past. Finally the president of the club which owned the hall stood up in the rear on a chair after the manner of the town clerk in the days of Paul and after considerable talk he quieted the audience, and soon the meeting was dispersed without any serious trouble.
CORINTH.
LEAVING Athens we went by train to Corinth, and here we were surprised to find it a small city just the reverse of Athens. Arrangements had been made for a morning service in the City Hall, but upon arrival found that the crowd was so great they could not gain admittance. They consulted among themselves and arranged for the service to be held in St. Paul's Greek Church. This was quite a surprise to us, but we were glad to fall in line with their wishes. Brother Russell then spoke on the subject of "The Great Hereafter," and the people were so well pleased that they requested another meeting in the same place that afternoon. Brother Russell consented, so spoke to them again.
WHICH IS THE TRUE CHURCH.
First reviewing the morning talk on the subject of "The Great Hereafter," and then said:
If our children are to have an opportunity, what about our forefathers? If God is going to blot out all sin, etc., what about our forefathers? All the prophecies of this age belong to the Church; all the prophecies concerning the world belong to the next age. Now, we all know that all our forefathers were not members of the Church of Christ in the highest sense of the word. We know that the Church of Christ in the highest sense of the word is composed of those who walk in the footsteps of Jesus. We know that not very many walk in the footsteps of Jesus today. When Saint Paul was here in Corinth only a mere handful believed. What is the hope of those who have been passed by during the past ages who have not been saints, in the highest sense of the word? You and I ourselves profess to be saints, but we could not claim that all our forefathers were saints.
I remind you Jesus said that only the blessed and holy will have part in the first resurrection. All the great mass of Germans, British and Americans, and there are thousands of them, have been passed by.
I am not asking what you think, nor what I think, for neither of us is authority on this subject; but God in His Word has told us about his provision for these who are dead. We are considering the eternal interests of a very large number of people. The True Church, the saints, have never claimed to be a large number. Remember the words of Jesus, "Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." In my own estimate, I reckon that about twenty thousand million people have lived and died, and yet only a few of those have been saints and constituted members of the real Church of Christ. Only a few of those are what the Bible calls the elect and very elect, who make their calling and election sure. The great masses of them are only non-elect. Many of our forefathers neglected the Bible altogether, speculating as to what would happen to the heathen. Some of them told us that thousands of millions of them were being lost every year. Neither you nor I nor anybody else believes that theory. We could not believe that our heavenly Father made men to be roasted for all eternity. To think thus of Him would be to think worse of our God than of any human being, for no human being would be so wicked as that. The Bible, on the contrary, tells us that ours is a great God, a merciful God, and has no pleasure in the death of those who die.
Now we ask the Bible as to what it tells us of God's provision for the thousands of millions who have never heard and have never had any opportunity of coming into harmony with God? We believe the great mistake we have made is in the kind of hell to which people go. The hell that we made in the dark ages was with fire, devils, etc., but the hell of the Bible is a different hell altogether. The hell of the Bible in the New Testament is hades, and in the Old Testament is sheol, and these words do not mean a lake of fire. These mean the grave, the state of the dead. In the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi--the only scriptures that they had for thousands of years--the word sheol means the condition of death. I am not conversant with your Greek Bibles, but in our English Bibles this word sheol is translated more times grave than it is hell, and it means grave every time. Do not mistake the speaker to say there is no hell in the Bible. All men, good and bad, go to the Bible hell. All through the Scriptures we read about Abraham and Jacob going to sheol. The corresponding word in the New Testament is hades, and there we find that the good as well as bad go to hades. We find Saint Peter said that our Lord Jesus went to hades, the tomb, the state of death, and that God raised Him from the tomb, from hades, from the state of death, on the third day. We also note the Bible states that those who die are not conscious of anything, whether good or bad; neither the holy experience any blessing in hades, nor the wicked any torture in hell. The Bible says that all fall asleep, and that they will remain asleep until the resurrection from the dead. So the Apostle says that all who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. I remind you of the statement that Abraham slept with his fathers. Abraham was a holy man and his fathers were heathen men. Where did they sleep? Did they sleep in heaven? Is Heaven a great sleeping place? We do not think so. Did they sleep in the Catholic purgatory? It is too warm. Could they sleep in our Protestant hell? It is still warmer; it is still hotter. Where did they sleep? All through the Old Testament the kings, prophets, etc., fell asleep. We come down to the New Testament and we found there also the same thought. I remind you of what Jesus said. (Pastor Russell then gave an outline of his sermon on "The Rich Man and Lazarus.)
Pastor Russell then referred to St. Paul's statement to the resurrection, as stated by the Apostle in 1 Cor., 15th chapter. He dwelt upon this at some length, and stated that the Word of God is the only authority.
WHERE ARE THE DEAD?
Where are the dead? Not in Heaven, hell or purgatory, but as the Prophet Daniel said, They that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.
You remember the words of St. Paul that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and the unjust. The question is, Are they dead? The Bible says that our friends are dead. Some others say that the dead are alive. We hold with St. Paul to the Bible that the dead are dead, and that there is to be a resurrection of the dead. There could not be a resurrection of the dead if nobody were dead. [CR278] If everybody became more alive when they died how could there be a resurrection of the dead? Notice again, the Bible teaches that He is our Redeemer; you remember the word Redeemer means to purchase, to purchase back again, but what have they to purchase back from? From torment? No. From the grave. And so the prophet said, speaking for God and Jesus, "I will redeem them from sheol. Oh, sheol, I will be thy destruction." In other words, when God said that He would redeem them from the death condition, he meant that he would destroy death. The Lord Jesus during his thousand years reign will destroy the grave by taking mankind out of death, out of the grave. See, again, what the penalty was: Did He go to hell, or to purgatory, or did He die for our sins, which? We must come to the Bible. What does the Bible say? The Bible says, "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." Again, it says, "Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man." He did not taste eternal torment for any man. If there ever was a penalty of eternal torment against you and me, it is there yet; but there never was, thank God, such a penalty. The penalty against us was a death penalty, and Jesus has paid the death penalty, and, therefore, there shall be a resurrection of the dead. If you read in Genesis what God said the penalty would be upon our first parents the whole matter becomes very plain. There we read that the penalty would be death. They disobeyed and the penalty came upon them and God drove them out of the Garden. They were driven out into the accursed condition of the earth so they would die; thus we read, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." This is the penalty that God pronounced--a death penalty. It has been terrible penalty --a reign of sin and death, sickness and suffering, both mental, physical and moral, with sighing, crying and dying for six thousand years. But it is not eternal torment. The Bible does not say that God sentenced our race to eternal torture, but, as we have seen, He has provided the Redeemer and the Redeemer has died for our sins, to release us from death. That part is all finished, thank God. We are merely waiting now, since He gave His life to redeem us, to take His power to uplift the world and overthrow sin. Let me remind you of a text of Scripture we frequently forget: The Apostle Paul says, As by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead; for as all in Adam die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Now what came because of Adam's disobedience? All in Adam died. The benefit from Jesus' death is a resurrection of the dead. We clearly see that if Christ had not died for the dead then we would remain dead, just as the brute beast, but because Jesus has died for our sins, therefore there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust. Hear the words of Jesus in John 5:28,29--He had been telling about His glorious Kingdom that is to come--then He says: "Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and come forth." Not all in Heaven shall come down, or all in purgatory or in hell shall come up. But He did say, all that are in their graves shall hear His voice and come forth. Just exactly as Paul said, there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust, for the 29th verse reads, "They that have done good unto a resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto a resurrection of damnation (judgment)." Jesus, you see, divided these two: First, all those who have done good--then all the remainder are counted in as having done evil. Let us see what is meant by good and evil here. To do good does not mean to be perfect, for none can be perfect if he tries. To do good in God's sight means now to have come to Him, giving Him your heart and trying to do His will to the best of your ability. Those are the ones who have done good. Those are the saintly ones. The ones who walk in the footsteps of Jesus; they are to constitute the first resurrection-- Blessed and holy are all those who have part in the first resurrection; on such the second death shall have no power, but they shall be priests unto God and Christ and shall reign a thousand years. (Rev. 20:6.) All the remainder of the ones who are counted evil, and that means they have not come into harmony with God--and it includes all the heathen, thousands of millions, and includes many of your brothers and sisters, and fathers, and mothers, and mine, who have not lived as saints. They also shall come forth from the grave in a resurrection, but it will not be the first resurrection. Only the saintly will be in it. I do not know how this 29th verse of John 5 is rendered in your Greek Bibles, but I will tell you how it is in our English Bibles: I find that in the original Greek it is rendered better than we have in our common English version. According to the Greek it is rendered properly, "They shall come forth unto a resurrection by judgment--(krisis)." This word krisis signifies testing or trial. It will take a thousand years for the Lord to deal with the world and bring them up in this resurrection. It will not require a thousand years to awaken them--just a moment. But the awakening of a man is not restoring him. Take, for instance, Father Adam. If we had power now to awaken Father Adam, he would be a feeble old man, would he not? He died of old age, nine hundred and thirty years after being put out of the Garden of Eden. To awaken Adam to merely the condition in which he was before would do no good, and I have no doubt that you Greek here appreciate this word anastasis better than the peoples of other languages. This signifies, to raise up again, to bring back again to the place it once was. What did Father Adam fall from? The Bible says that he fell from perfection, the image and likeness of God. He experienced nine hundred and thirty years of dying, "Dying thou shalt die," until he was dead. So in the resurrection when awakened, he will have an opportunity of coming more and more out of death, until he shall be fully out of death. The Bible does tell in 1 Cor., the 15th chapter, "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." But this is in reference to the Church only. Only the Church will have that instantaneous change to the plane of spiritual condition, because the Church has her krisis now. But the worlds krisis will be during the thousand years of Christ's reign. All men will come forth from the tomb that they may have a raising up or resurrection, not merely Father Adam, but all of his children, because they have all shared in his condemnation. Jesus not only redeemed Father Adam, but all those who lost their life through Adam. I [CR279] quote you again St. Paul's words: "As by man came death, so by man there shall be a resurrection of the dead." The dying sentence came upon the world through Adam and has continued for six thousand years, but the works of Jesus will last for a thousand years, lifting them up out of their dying condition. As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order. The Church will be the first class and the world will be raised in the next age. The resurrection that will take place during a thousand years is the same as St. Peter speaks of and calls it restitution. The word restitution means to restore. Not only Father Adam, but all of his children are fallen men, and God intends to bring them back out of their fallen condition into harmony with Him. There is no statement, however, in the Bible that all men will attain eternal life, but all men will have an opportunity to attain eternal life. We all share in Adam's condemnation, so God made provision through Jesus of coming back out of sin, condemnation, ignorance, back into harmony with God. Now let us see how reasonable this doctrine is from God's standpoint. When God made man, what did He make him? Let us ask the Bible. The Bible does not tell us that God made man an angel, and that he fell from being an angel. The Bible does not tell, therefore, that the restoration will be to bring him back to an angel. Hear the Lord's word through the Prophet David: "What is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the Son of man that Thou visitest Him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, Thou has crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet." Adam had the glory of a perfect man as he stood there in Eden, and God made him king of the earth, besides He had put all things of the earth under him, the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, all sheep and oxen, and whatsoever passed through the sea. So, my dear friends, you see how reasonable it is that God proposes to bring mankind back from sin, back to perfection if they will.
Satan shall be bound a thousand years that he shall deceive the nations no more until the thousand years be past. Light and knowledge and the glory of the Lord shall fill the whole earth like the sunlight. Meantime, while mankind is being lifted up, the earth itself will be restored and perfected for mankind. It will require a thousand years for this great work. He says He will make the place of His feet (the earth) glorious. There shall be no more curse upon man or upon the earth. All the wicked will He destroy, says the Scripture. St. Paul says, "They shall be punished with everlasting punishment"--a destruction that will last forever. The Scriptures say it will be the second death. It will be just like the first death except that there will be no resurrection from it. St. Peter says, "They shall perish like the brute beast, for whom there is no redemption or resurrection in the Bible. But that penalty is only for the wicked who willingly and intentionally refuse the grace of God. Then the Bible tells us how glorious it will be when the whole earth will bow the knee to God. All the wicked will He destroy, and every knee will be bowed and every tongue will confess to the glory of God.
Here, again, the message of Jesus on this subject. "Every creature in Heaven and on earth, and under the earth, will be heard saying, "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb, forever and forever." How glorious it will be at that time! Hear, again, the Scriptures, "There shall be no more sighing, no more crying, no more dying, because all the former things (of sin) have passed away." Some will say, I do not believe the time will ever come when there will be no more sickness, sighing, dying and crying, but I reply, Is it so in Heaven? Do they have tears, and hospitals, and insane asylums, and cemeteries in Heaven? Why should we say that the angels should have a different condition than humanity? Our Lord's Prayer tells us that we are to expect that when His Kingdom shall reign that as a [CR280] result of that reign God's will shall be done in earth even as it is done in Heaven.
I think of two Scriptures that may be in the minds of some, and I would like, therefore, to explain these while I think of them. For instance, some may say, you were speaking about the dead sleeping and waiting for the resurrection; did you forget about the thief on the cross? Therefore, let me explain that. (Brother Russell then gave a long explanation of this Scripture and also of the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.)
Conclusion: If we would have a place in the heavenly Kingdom we must prove our loyalty to God. I trust some of you are seeking to make your calling and election sure to that glorious inheritance. Now, I thank you for your attention and bid you goodbye.
There were several Greek Priests present, and also the Mayor of the City, all of whom evidenced much interest. As there are few seats in these churches, the people nearly all stood up, and they remained for two hours in the afternoon to listen. I remember some army officers in uniform present. One was called out by someone, but the minute he could do so he came right back and listened to the end. At the conclusion one of the brothers stood up in a carriage and handed out right and left tracts which had been brought. We did not have near enough to go around.
OLD CORINTH.
AFTER the service the Mayor went with us in carriages to old Corinth, some three-quarters of an hour ride from the new city. Here we inspected the ruins of the old city, which had been covered over completely by earthquakes, but has since been uncovered in many places. It was not difficult to trace many things which are familiar from reading of Paul's experiences there.
We spent the night in the new City of Corinth, and early the next morning took train across the country from Corinth to
PATROS.
From here we were to board our ship to go to Italy. Just before reaching Patros a young Greek gentleman got into our car and, becoming acquainted with him, found that he had lived in America for a number of years and was then in Greece to get his parents and bring them back here. He spoke very good English and stated he was well acquainted in Patros and would be glad to be of any service to us while there. This we found very acceptable, because everything was "Greek" to us there, the language and everything else. On arriving at Patros we found that our boat was about five hours late and would not reach Patros before midnight; therefore, we went to the hotel, and made use of the parlor. During the afternoon, however, we went about the city of Patros and noticed many interesting things about it. The young Greek also hired a carriage and took four of us about the city, pointing out the principal things of interest. After supper we all gathered in the parlor of the hotel, and after a song service it was decided to have a testimony meeting, and we give here the testimonies of the different members of the Committee. Even the young Greek gave a testimony to the fact that he was very glad to meet us as Americans and had enjoyed his stay with us very much. The first one to testify was
BROTHER PYLES: I was just thinking the past few days that we were somewhat out of practice in our testimony, that we have taken up some other kind of life, avoiding work, responsibility, trials, worries, etc. We have been highly favored with the association of each other, and all probably have weaknesses and more or less trials with each other, yet nothing with what we find in our every day affairs; yet I question the fact that being so closely associated whether we might not possibly be taken unawares when these trials come. When in danger and having troubles and struggling on we feel the great necessity of obtaining assistance from the Lord, but when everything seems to be going smoothly we may be a little careless. So tonight I appreciate a testimony meeting that I might take my bearings and see where I stand in my relationship to the heavenly Father, to examine my heart, to see what He wants me to do. As I take an observation, I find my will is right. Nevertheless, I feel that this observation will be beneficial to me. I appreciate the blessings of the present time. I refer to the association with Brother Russell and the brethren, and to the favors the Lord is bestowing upon us, and that we are the recipients of prayers going up on our behalf, all of which I feel I have great appreciation for, and I am very thankful to my heavenly Father for these privileges and opportunities.
As I pray for the general harvest work and for our Pastor, I also remember this Committee, and I trust that the balance do the same and that I am included.
BROTHER WILSON: Well, dear friends, I am like Brother Pyles in one respect, having gratitude and thankfulness in my heart for the blessings the Lord is conferring upon us in so many ways, yet, like the Brother, I feel sometimes that we are so rapidly passing through the various scenes of this country, bumping up against the worldly things to such a considerable extent that we are likely to forget the higher things. I refer more particularly to myself. I try, however, to look up to my heavenly Father in thankfulness for His goodness and try to remember the harvest work and all the dear ones everywhere. I esteem it a privilege that the Lord has permitted me to be amongst so grand and Christlike characters.
I feel it has been of great benefit to me in many ways, yet I realize, too, that it is a matter about which we should be very careful in our hearts and minds, not to lean upon others or for myself to criticize what others do, or do not do, but to lean wholly and solely and entirely on the Lord, and to look to Him for strength. As the Apostle said, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. When we feel strong, we feel that we are enjoying the Lord's blessing, and are likely to become ungracious or unfaithful, and then I fear we are on dangerous ground, and I feel that I should not rely upon my own strength, nor upon anyone but the Lord, and how mindful He has been to us. What wonderful care He has taken of us all, kept us so far in a condition of fellowship one with another that I have to say that I have no grounds for complaint in any way. Some things, of course, have tried our patience, but those we should be glad of. I know not what further to say, only that I am glad and thankful that the Lord has allowed me the grand privilege and blessing of being associated with our dear Pastor so long and with the members of this Committee, and while I have been neglectful in some instances, it is not because I tried to shirk any duties I felt competent to do. I have not been as mindful of some things as I might have been, but I hope the friends will realize that it was not a desire to shirk.
BROTHER HALL: I have thought, and back before we started on this trip, about the first of last December, and ever since that time up to the present time I have been more and more convinced, and am absolutely certain of the fact, that this trip and the obligations and duties which have come upon us, and which are falling to us now, are certainly in the lines of the Lord's leading. I am also certain as I can be of anything that He is directing the work of this Committee and the work that has been laid out, and while I do not pretend to understand how it is to work out, yet at the same time I am thoroughly satisfied that I can see the Lord's hand connected with our trip, both by land and sea. We crossed from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, then across the Pacific Ocean to Japan, China, Manila, and all the way along and on through India, over thirty thousand miles, and the care and protection and supervision which the Lord has exercised over this party and over the details of this trip have impressed themselves upon my mind, and I am sure it is the same with all the individuals of this Committee. That ought to be enough if we need anything to strengthen our faith in our heavenly Father's kindness and grace, even if we had not been sufficiently established in the faith before, that all of our steps are guided and directed by the Lord. I am more and more impressed with the fact, and I believe everybody else who is connected with the Truth and the High Calling in any way is also, that we are in the position [CR281] of someone who is about ready to start upon a long journey and must put himself in readiness to start upon a long journey at any minute, and yet, at the same time, he does not know when he is going to take the final step. We are on the way and must keep ourselves in readiness to take the final step to the other side, and yet we never know when it will be. It is a condition of expectation and it reminds me of the Israelites, and like them we must be ready for anything that comes up in any shape, both in those experiences which seem to be blessings and in those which seem to be unpleasant. I could go on and say a great many things, but I shall only remark that I was just looking over the papers this afternoon, and it seems to me that the events which have occurred in the world since we started should impress upon our minds the fact that this is the end of the Gospel Age. They certainly confirm that belief more and more all the time, as we see the strikes in England, and the United States; but we want to be always ready to do whatever comes to our hands to do and to do it the very best we know how, and to the honor and glory of the Lord. That has been my prayer; that every member of this Committee should do everything to the honor and glory of the heavenly Father.
MRS. WILSON: I thought that, as "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," I want to first thank our heavenly Father for the goodness, and the privilege of letting me go on this trip, as the experiences received have greatly strengthened my faith, and I am more convinced than ever that poor man cannot uplift or convert the world, but that it will take the Lord's Kingdom to do it. I also want to thank the brethren and Brother Russell for having been so patient with me, for I must have been a trial to all. I realize that, and I want to benefit by the experiences that I have gained, and ask the heavenly Father to keep me more humble and to be so that I may remember this trip and bear the experiences in mind. I realize that I come so short of what I want to be. In coming to the Lord in the morning I ask Him to give me grace to do so and so. I realize my weaknesses, but I realize that His grace is sufficient, and I thank Him for those promises. I ask an interest in your prayers, that I may grow stronger, and I thank you all for your kindness and patience to me.
BROTHER MAXWELL: I feel thankful to our heavenly Father for the things that have come to me to strengthen my faith in His providences and in His grace. There have been many things that have come to me that have been blessings. I used to think over that passage of Scripture of the whole creation groaning and travailing in pain, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, and yet I saw but very little of the groaning creation; but during this trip I have seen much that has drawn out my sympathies to the world of mankind. How degraded man has become since left to himself! Also, how unable mankind is to lift the groaning creation out of the present troubles. It is impossible, and we see with all the work that has been done by many noble-hearted missionaries to do the best they could with the light they had, they have accomplished very little, so we are waiting for the Kingdom to do that which mankind has been unable to do. I think we have been blessed by God in His kindness and care that He has taken of us all. We certainly have been preserved from sickness and dangers, seen and unseen. He has borne us across on the water, and we have been strengthened in our faith by seeing His kindness and love manifested in the care He has taken of us. I think that His kind providence ought to make us very thankful, that we have been under His supervision for over three months and no evil has befallen us, nothing of an outward character has prevailed against us, but His kindness has been manifested to a great extent. There are things that have come to us in our lives since we have left our homes that certainly have given us great hope and expectation. I trust I shall be able to stand the great test that is coming to us all, and that I may not be overcome. Sometimes the thought comes to my mind that it is possible if I do not keep close to the Lord I may fail, fail of the great reward held out to us. I trust that the close association we have had with one another may be helpful to all in that great time which is to try the Church especially. I hope that we shall all be found worthy to reign with our dear Redeemer when He takes His great power to reign, and that we shall be associated with Him in that grand and glorious event which is to help the groaning creation.
My heart and sympathy has gone out to those poor people. I cannot help but think how many of them have gotten into vice and licentiousness, and how thankful we ought to be that our lot has been cast in a land of light and liberty, with so many privileges. How thankful that we have not been born in heathendom, amongst these things that we have seen which to us are very terrible. I am glad for this testimony meeting for perhaps we ought to have had more of these. We are glad that our hearts have been kept in harmony with the Lord, and His work, and that we have become more and more attached to our leader, He who has been especially called by the Lord at this time to make this trip. I trust that our love towards each other has been more deeply cemented and more closely bound, and that we will never forget this journey and the sweet associations we have had with each other, and that these will bind us closer to one another, and especially to our Lord and Master, and we will look forward with gladness to the time that is near at hand when we will be with Him.
BROTHER KUEHN: If there ever was any doubt in my mind as to whether this trip of the world's tour was of the Lord's arrangement, that has been long ago dissipated. When first the suggestion of an invitation to join the world's tour was made to me, matters at home seemed not favorable to my going. I made it a matter of prayer, asking the Lord, to know if it was His will, for such a journey, and to know if I were to be one of the party. Gradually matters shaped themselves in business and otherwise, so that the way opened.
[CR282]
The incident at Honolulu, when the Lord so wonderfully provided a guide, as it were, to inquire into the conditions of the missionary work, was the first eye opener, as it were, in answer to my prayers. And along the journey there have been such instances--for instance, this brother who became acquainted with us on the train on the way to Patros and offered his assistance to us who were strangers to others, and to the people, and language, too. And reviewing the entire trip thus far I am fully assured that it is of the Lord's arrangement; and, as Brother Hall has suggested, it has strengthened my faith, but not only that, the association with those natives who have shown such childlike faith has been strengthening to my faith.
In line with our Manna text this morning (March 11) I am resolved more and more, as I appreciate God's kindness for all his favors shown to me, and especially on this trip, to lay aside all hindrances and to run more fervently the race that is set before us. Considering the advantages that are ours, to live in America, as compared with these countries in darkness, so great that we could almost feel it, I appreciate more than ever what the heavenly Father has done for me, and it has drawn my heart more strongly to Him and I am determined that I will go on. We know not what is before us, but as I think of Saint Paul, whose memory is revered by our being in the vicinity that has been hallowed by his presence in former days, he who said, "I have fought the good fight, and kept the faith," the same grace and strength that enabled him to not only say but do that will enable us to come off more than conquerors.
I feel it is a high privilege to have been selected, as I come now to see it as a selection from above to be associated in a work that must be of history--the closing of the harvest of the Gospel age. I want to prove myself more worthy of the favor bestowed upon me. I can say with General Hall that the signs of the times have been very plain and also the hunger for knowledge and Truth in these foreign nations, reaching out for the message that those more highly favored have rejected--it is to my mind an indication that there is a turn of events in favor of the coming age, and that the sealing of the saints of God is nearly completed.
BROTHER JONES: It seems very significant to me that we should have this testimony meeting tonight, at the close of this great tour, for we might say it has practically ended, inasmuch as the last meeting planned took place yesterday at Corinth, and is now a matter of history.
Two lines of thought have specially impressed me: (1) In regard to the world and (2) in regard to the Church. As we have traveled about from country to country and have seen the condition of affairs in those places, and at the same time learned of the strife in the home land, I was greatly impressed with the fact that nothing but the Kingdom of Messiah can ever straighten our matters. And in this connection I was made to feel very humble when I realized how little I or any one else could do to deliver the poor world in its trouble, and realized how great God is and I rejoice to know that He has such a wonderful plan as Pastor Russell has shown us is contained in the Bible, and I am more than ever convinced that the Divine Plan of the ages is the true plan of salvation.
While on the trip I have been reading especially the Gospels and have been surprised to note how much is contained therein with respect to the Kingdom of Messiah, and so, I marked those passages as I came to them, and I find that if everything pertaining to the Kingdom was taken from the New Testament, there would be very little of it left.
The second thought that was impressed upon me especially was in connection with the Church. As I saw the condition and signs of the times prevailing in the world, I realized that these two are indications of the fact that the Church is nearly completed. Yet I realize that there is still a time of testing upon her and this was particularly impressed upon me as I ascended the well of the Great Pyramid and found that about the last twenty-five feet was the most difficult portion to ascend and required that I keep a tight hold upon the rope, which to me would symbolize the rope of faith. Realizing, therefore, that the severest tests and trials are now about to come upon the Church, I am returning with a strong desire to serve the brethren and help them as well as myself to make our calling and election sure--serve them more humbly, kindly and lovingly.
I greatly appreciate our fellowship together on the trip and I can say that I have learned to love all more than ever, and that I have a great love for our heavenly Father, for Jesus our Redeemed, and all present. Here in this connection I wish to say that I have daily remembered the various ones in the harvest work, the various members of the committee and the different friends whom we have learned to know, whom we have personally met on our tour, and so I especially make mention of them in our prayers. The dear Greek brethren whom we left at Corinth and Athens, a little farther back, Brother Edgar, Brother Pfund at the Great Pyramid, then back at Bombay our dear Brother Robert Hollister, then the friends at Madras, a little farther back the dear ones in Travencore district, back farther those who are beginning to take an interest in the Truth in China and Japan. I also daily remember the friends at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, who have been toiling day by day at the work which in many respects is like the toil of the world, and which only the spirit of the Lord helps them to keep at. I have also remembered the dear Pilgrim brethren who are going from town to town and the colporteurs going two by two from house to house, and also the volunteers, gleaners and those on beds of sickness who perhaps can only pray for us who are permitted to go out into active service, and yet their prayers, as one brother said are like bandages and sandwiches for the soldiers on the battle field.
I desire to ask an interest in your prayers as I also pray for you.
PASTOR RUSSELL: The prevailing sentiment in my mind in connection with this trip from the start has been one of great gratitude to the Lord and an increasing appreciation of my obligation to Him and His goodness toward me. And this thought has been intensified as I came in contact with the actualities of life throughout Japan, China, India, Egypt, and I have said to myself over and over again, Verily my lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. The Lord was very gracious to me that I was born of Christian [CR283] parentage, under such favorable conditions, and I said over and over to myself, What manner of person ought I to be in return, and how much greater responsibilities have I than these poor creatures who have had such disadvantages and lack of opportunity. And yet, all my journey, I have not seen anything worse than I have anticipated seeing. From my study of these lands I had formed quite accurate conceptions of just what they were. They are not any worse, but in some respects I was very pleased that I found some things better--chiefly that there were some saints in those lands, and it cheered my heart that there were true characters there.
I have also greatly appreciated the fellowship that I have had with the members of the committee. I have not formed any different opinion of any than I had at the beginning. I thought much of you at first and I have had my convictions intensified, but they are the same as at the beginning, only they have been proven. It has been sometimes under trying conditions and circumstances, but I am glad these demonstrated great love and loyalty to the Lord and His Word. I love you, if possible, more than ever.
The whole experience has been a wonderful and convincing lesson respecting the things we have already believed and taught. We believe things still more deeply, if possible, and shall in the future present them, if possible, still more concisely --the necessity for the Kingdom, and that there is absolutely no human power in the world that could uplift humanity. The tendency in some respects would be downward, as we have seen. Some of these people have really been blest in that they have had a large amount of ignorance; if they had had more knowledge they would have been developed in sin. I can see the wisdom of the Almighty in permitting such ignorance. I can say that the bringing in of the light and Truth to these people in their unregenerated condition would not do them much good, but that the only things that could really uplift them in Messiah's Kingdom-- that heavenly power that will not only lift up physically and emancipate from slavery in mind and body, but also give the glory to God. The knowledge of that Kingdom will not prove an injury but a blessing. All this I behold before my mind more vividly than before.
Correspondingly, I rejoice that the matter is in better hands than ours,--in the hands of the great Creator; and correspondingly I feel also to appreciate the fact that God not only assumes responsibility but that we can see He has a responsibility in respect to these creatures whom He created, that their interests are necessarily also a part of His concern; and while He was not under obligations to redeem them or to give them eternal life we can see very clearly that it would be just like Him to do something good for these who through the fall and ignorance and unfavorable conditions have come into life under disadvantageous conditions, and to give them an opportunity for recovery from the curse of disobedience.
So I am returning to the other parts of the world invigorated in mind, strengthened in faith, and in mind, not only along the lines mentioned, but also along the lines of God's providences with our committee during this considerable journey. It would appear that we could not possibly have asked for or expected such wonderful openings or opportunities as we have had. It would appear also that the Lord must have arranged these very affairs. Amongst others, our experiences of yesterday in the Greek Church, by power and arrangement entirely outside of our hands, we had such a favorable reception at Corinth, and an opportunity to present the Truth in some measure to intelligent and earnest people for three hours. We were able to mention many features of the Divine Plan and interest was created to such an extent that many expressed themselves as pleased and also stated their intention to start afresh to study these matters.
While this is fresh in our minds in Greece, yet it is in full harmony with our experiences in the Hawaiian Islands, Japan, China, the Philippines, etc.
Another thing surprised me, and this is the surprising thing in my whole journey, that those to whom I expected to be able to do some good I was quite unable to reach at all, namely, the missionaries. In the start of the journey the missionaries were very largely before my mind's eye. I said to myself, I believe I would be a part of the divine will that all these missionaries should have a witness respecting the committee, and I believe we could use this means to bring many of them to the meetings, and they would all receive a great blessing--being honest people they would be profited. I have been disappointed respecting the missionaries. We not only got very few of the English and American visitors to our meetings, but additionally those who did come seemed rather indifferent. They were unready to hear the Word of God--they were indifferent to do it. My surprise was correspondingly very great. Nevertheless, we have good meetings, but they were more with the Oriental people, with those whom we thought would have no interest in the matter.
We had feared these would be so degraded that they would not have a hearing ear. I have been astonished to see how many of the Chinese have keen ears for the Truth--much more than the whites. The same way in Japan, in India, and everywhere; it seems to have been the specially interested of the common native people--different from what I have anticipated. So I have been disappointed in those who have had the largest measure of divine favor in birth and education-- unfavorably disappointed. Also disappointed, but favorably, in respect to those who have had little advantage, and all this seems to my mind to teach a great lesson, namely, that apparently the message of the Kingdom and of God's grace has already accomplished a considerable proportion of its work and that what may be expected henceforth will probably be in the nature of gleanings and these might be expected as much from some of the Oriental natives as from others. The prospect in India seems to be very favorable in many ways, especially in the Travencore district. Also the prospect in China seems to be good, and I cannot say but that in Japan it is favorable also.
On the whole, the conclusion of my testimony is, that I am very appreciative of the Divine favor bestowed on us, and feel very grateful to God for the privilege enjoyed, and I am returning with a heart not only grateful, but full of thanksgiving [CR284] and strengthened by the various experiences of this journey.
ROME.
THE next day we arrived at Brindisi, Italy, and from here took train to Rome. Our journey through southern Italy was a very beautiful one. We arrived there about night time, and then the next day we spent in looking over matters of special interest, such as St. Peter's Cathedral, the Colosseum, Titus Arch, the Catacombs, etc. New Rome is truly a wonderful city and modern in all respects. It has fine streets, good buildings, etc.
St. Peter's Cathedral is a wonderful building and must have cost a great many millions of dollars. The weather does not seem to affect the statuary inside, as the beautifully sculptured marble is apparently as perfect as the day it was put there. Then we saw the wonderful paintings of past masters. Further along we noticed the bronze statue of Peter in a sitting position, and nearly all the toes of one foot are worn away by reason the people constantly kissing it. You can draw your own conclusions.
Later on we visited the Colosseum, and while within it a shudder came over us as we realized that on that very spot, and within those walls hundreds of Christians used to be gathered in the arena, and then the starved lions would be let loose and they would tear them to pieces, all for the amusement of Nero and his crowd of thousands who filled the seats of that immense amphitheatre. (See page 104.)
We also paid a visit to the catacombs, where it is stated some three millions of so-called Christians were buried, none are there now, however. Our guide showed us many caves with remnants of altars, etc., still there, in which the early Church used to hold services.
On our way back to the city we came up the Apian way. This, you remember, is the same road over which the Apostle Paul walked, after the shipwreck, and as he was entering the city of Rome a prisoner. We all got out of our carriages and walked along this road also in to the city through the great gates. It was as Paul started up this road that he was met by some brethren who came out to meet him, and he says that they comforted him not a little.
Then inside the city we saw also the Arch of Titus, made historic because of having been erected by Titus after his conquest of Jerusalem, when he brought back as part of the spoils the Golden Candlestick, etc. These are carved high up on the Arch, and can still be seen there, and thus we know something of how the originals looked.
PARIS.
FROM Rome we went on to Paris, and here met with the little class of International Bible Students in that great city. I report herewith a brief synopsis of that meeting.
Pastor Russell: I desire to talk to you a little while about the story we have loved so long, and I am sure we will love it as long as we remain loyal.
Anything that comes up which I think would be profitable to the household of faith, you know I try to put before you in the Watch Tower. The present journey that we have accomplished thus far around the world has been one of great value from an instructive standpoint. It has served to confirm various thoughts that we already had in our minds respecting the heathen and the Divine Plan. We found the heathen people in practically the condition we expected to find them. Indeed, we were much surprised to see a more favorable outlook than we had expected. I do not mean that we found the people in better condition than we expected, but that we found some more religious, in a deeper sense than we had expected. I was telling the friends on the train about some of our experiences in China--at Hong Kong. The missionaries there opposed any proposition to hold a meeting, trying to discourage the Chinese, but the Chinese saw that there must be some reasons why there was such opposition and they were independent enough to want to have a meeting. The result of the matter was that we had four meetings. The first meeting was for the Chinese only, and we had three Chinese ministers and a professor of a college--the latter acting as interpreter. The next night the Chinese wanted a meeting held for them in a little church, and had a very interesting company of about three hundred present, including a number of preachers. Then there were two meetings for the English, which were fairly well attended. As a result of the meeting we arranged there for the translation of the discourses delivered and also for the translation of the First Volume of the Scripture Studies, all to be translated and printed. We asked the interpreter what he would charge for doing this work, and to our surprise he said, This is a work for the Lord, and we will not receive anything for it. Another Chinese showed us some kindness and after the meeting asked, When can you speak to us Catholic Chinese. He said this message is not for Protestants only, but for Catholics also. We had to tell him that we had no further meetings and were very sorry for this, but that we would come again. One result of our journey seems to be this, namely: That English-speaking people of those countries and all people of Christian lands have no ears or curiosity even to hear. They seem to be fully engrossed in business and pleasure and have very little interest in anything spiritual. We thought of the Master's words: "Woe unto you who are rich now; for ye shall mourn." No doubt the Millennial condition will be disadvantageous to them in many ways, for they will not be able to get the advantage over the common people. More and more we can see the significance of our Lord's declaration that prosperity in the present life is not really favorable to the High Calling. "Not many great, not many wise, not many rich, but chiefly the poor of the world, rich in faith," are heirs of the Kingdom. On the contrary, the natives wherever we could obtain access to them seemed very amenable to the message of the Gospel of the Kingdom. Some of the Mohammedans inquired whether or not we could stop and talk to them, and also some of the Buddhists and Syrians, and singularly while in Greece many of the average Greek people had an ear to hear the Truth, but some of the learned scoffed and showed opposition.
On the whole, we go home with a feeling that the evidences are in harmony with the time prophecies that nearly all are ready and ripe, but the Lord seems to be giving the heathen an opportunity. And as we hear from home we hear of strife in England, Germany and America. All these things together seem to be very convincing and corroborate even the time features of our presentation. I remind you, nevertheless, that if the time features should prove to be entirely erroneous--if nothing special should happen in 1915--it still would not overthrow the Divine Plan of the Ages; it is not [CR285] merely the time we are worshiping and rejoicing in, but the grand Plan of the Ages, even if it were 500 years ahead. My thought is that the proper attitude would be to continue earnestly serving the Lord until our change, whenever that should be. If I should be here ten years from now, I hope I should be just as zealous as today. And in line with this we will continue all of our preparations for further service in publishing and distributing just the same as though we were not living in 1912, but in 1900. For instance, we have arranged for several millions of free pamphlets to be printed in the Indian language, and in the Chinese, and in the Japanese language. I heard recently that there has been a shortage of free literature here in France. I am sorry for this delay, but perhaps it will sharpen your appetites and cause you to feel your privileges all the more. We are now proceeding to at once get out more of this literature so that you will all have plenty to do. We have circulated a great deal of literature in Germany, Great Britain, Norway and Denmark, but in France, Austria, Greece and Russia comparatively little has been done. In Russia it is because we could not get in there. I have been thinking over these countries and wondered if the Lord would not open the way whereby they could get something. The chief difficulty has been that we were not able to circulate the literature. It seems to me that all those who are willing to labor ought to have a sufficient amount of ammunition with which to labor, and so we will see to that hereafter. Having in view a great activity in the work here we think of making some arrangements while on this journey for this very matter, of which you will hear fully shortly.
I want to say again that we have enjoyed very much meeting with you here and to see the spirit of the Lord manifested. May the Lord's blessings be with you.
Then followed five-minute talks by various members of the committee.
LONDON.
WHEN a few hours' ride by train brought us to the English Channel, then by boat to the British side, then by train for another hour and we reached the great city of London. While this is only four thousand miles from home, it seems real close.
Brother Hemery of the British Branch met us at the station, as did many others. The next day being Sunday, I went to Glasgow, Scotland, and twice addressed the friends there, greatly enjoying the privilege of meeting with the friends.
Meantime, on Sunday, Brother Russell spoke to the friends in the London Tabernacle. During the following week meetings were held in various places nearby, at which Brother Russell spoke. During the days matters of business were attended to.
Finally the time came to sail for America, and while we were sorry to part with the British friends, still we were not sorry to board the train which would take us to Liverpool to connect with the great steamship Mauretania, on which we were to sail.
We are looking forward to a pleasant journey across the
Atlantic, so will say good-bye to the friends who are singing
hymns on the wharf at Liverpool, and will close this letter
with much Christian love, and remain, as B4,
Yours in His service,
L.
PRAYER OF THE CONSECRATED
WE seek not, Lord, for tongues of flame,
Or healing virtue's mystic aid;
But power Thy Gospel to proclaim--
The balm for wounds that sin hath made.
Breathe on us, Lord; Thy radiance pour
On all the wonders of the page
Where hidden lies the heavenly lore
That blessed our youth and guides our age.
Grant skill each sacred theme to trace,
With loving voice and glowing tongue,
As when upon Thy words of grace
The wondering crowds enraptured hung.
Grant faith, that treads the stormy deep,
If but Thy voice shall bid it come;
And zeal, that climbs the mountain steep,
To seek and bring the wanderer home.
Give strength, blest Savior, in Thy might;
Illuminate our hearts, and we,
Transformed into Thine image bright,
Shall teach, and love, and live, like Thee!
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SPIRIT-BEGETTING DAY.
SUNRISE MEETING.
BROTHER RUSSELL was due to arrive in the early hours of the morning, sometime between 5 and 6 o'clock, so a number of the friends with their automobiles drove down to Warrensburg to meet the train on which he was expected to arrive. In the meantime the rest gathered in the Auditorium for a sunrise meeting, notwithstanding the fact that the sun did not shine very much. It had rained hard all the night and the morning hours were dark and cloudy outside. However, the inside of the Auditorium was bright with electric lights and the friends were cheerful and happy and were comfortably seated. This illustrated to our minds our condition in this world. Everything outside is dark and gloomy and clouds of trouble everywhere. But in our hearts we are happy, full of joy and peace because of the light of the Holy Spirit which is shed abroad there. At half past five o'clock in the morning there must have been some three to four hundred of the friends gathered in the Auditorium. There were a number of songs and prayers and then the chairman made a few remarks, and about that time the automobiles drove up and Brother Russell got out. As he came on the platform all the congregation rose, gave the Chautauqua salute and sang one verse of "Blest be the Tie that Binds." Brother Russell then spoke as follows:
Dear brothers and sisters, I am very glad to be here with you. Glad to see so many are well enough to be up this morning.
We remember the Scriptures tell the Church that the Lord will help her right early in the morning--we are pretty near that morning. How glad we are to see the evidences multiplied that we are nearing the new day and dispensation. We see that it means so much more to us than to others. The heavenly Father is already beginning to pour out the blessings of the Kingdom. All these invitations are but foregleams of that glory, and how glad to feel that we may share in these blessings now; but the world is to have a great blessing also. We are not of those who would say, "God bless me, my wife, my son John and his wife, us four and no more." We thank God that we have come to an appreciation of His great plan, that is to bless all the families of the earth. Our hearts are so fully in tune with Him that we rejoice in that plan. And, secondarily, that we may have a share in being connected with that great plan. What a good time we have coming when we get into the general Assembly! How glad we will be! It is early in the morning for us, too.
I learn that you are having a very enjoyable time. The same convention spirit is here that is in the larger conventions. Whether there are many or few, if we have the spirit of the Lord then we are sure to have an enjoyable time. Some have asked, What is it that makes you one spirit, whether upon the Pacific coast, the Atlantic coast, Great Britain, or anywhere? I have answered what I think you all recognize to be the Lord's teaching on the subject, namely: We were all baptized by one spirit into the one Body of Christ. That is the secret of it, my dear friends. Whoever has received that baptism is at one with the Lord, and if at one with the Lord, he is sure to be at one with all who are His. If there be trials, dear friends, partially because of our heads, environments, etc., nevertheless, we believe that these also gradually smooth out and our ideas will become the same as those of the brethren at large, because our hearts and intentions are the same.
Respecting the Bible House, some have said they could not understand how so many could live so beautifully--trying to give credit to your humble servant. Not so, we said. We are of one spirit and children of the Lord.
Glad we have a little of it now and will have more as the days go by, and by and by when the time comes for us to pass beyond into the glorious Kingdom, we trust we will have made some progress in the spirit of the Lord and His character likeness so He will be able to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things."
We are glad of this hope then, that we will have Him usher us into the presence of the heavenly Father, and that He will present us blameless and unreprovable. What a wonderful transformation God intends to work in us, that He will transform us from poor, imperfect, fallen creatures, children of wrath as others. By these things He works in us to will and to do His good pleasure to such a wonderful extent that He makes us New Creatures in Jesus Christ. To think that He should have made all the glorious things of the whole Universe then this His final creation the most wonderful of all, accomplished by His spirit working voluntarily in our hearts, from a desire to please Him; as we see this great work now in progress and that God is the great workman, and the Apostle says, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them"--as we see this, what an influence it should have upon our lives! And it makes us desire to become more and more copies of His dear Son. Oh, we may be assured that He who begun this good work will not fail to carry out His part. And as He has assigned to us no part that we cannot carry out, therefore, let us be of good courage and good zeal, for He who is for us is more than all that can be against us.
This is my desire this morning, dear friends, that I may remain in the way, running his race, copying the Master, and that this be the attitude of my heart, that it may control more and more my words and actions and every thought, that I may be more and more a copy of the Lord Jesus and then be prepared to share with Him and with you all the glorious things of the Kingdom.
This service then closed with a verse of number 204.
"O hail, happy day, that speaks our trials ended!
Our Lord has come to take us home; O hail, happy day!
No more by doubts or fears distressed,
We now shall gain our promised rest,
And be forever blest! O hail, happy day!"
PASTOR RUSSELL ANSWERS MINISTERIAL
ALLIANCE.
IT has been suggested, dear friends, that I should say first something respecting the International Bible Students' Association; why there is such an association, what right there is to have such an association, and whether there is such an association. I do not exactly understand the purport of the questioner. I can say, however, dear friends, that the International Bible Students' Association is so called because no other name would better suit the circumstances and conditions as we know them. The International Bible Students are those Christian people all over the world who are studying God's Word and desiring to know the real meaning of that Word. We are not attempting to sail under the name of any denominational banner; instead, we believe that Christian people in general have reason to conclude that there is something seriously wrong with nearly all those Christian systems, that they were organized in the dark ages more or less, and more or less they are all in conflict in their teachings, and more or less they contradict each other, and more or less they acknowledge that they themselves are seeking more light. Therefore, instead of crystallizing any saying we will make a new denomination, we say, on the contrary, No, there are already too many--about six hundred --and each of them more or less representing a different Gospel. We must all acknowledge that there is but one Gospel of the Lord Jesus; so the Scriptures tell us: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Father and God of all, and one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," and one "Church of the first born, whose names are written in heaven." How, then, so many churches and so many denominations? I said a moment ago that our different denominations represent so many different creeds, or different views of the Gospel of Christ. Some might be inclined to challenge that and say, No, all people believe in one doctrine. But, my dear friends, that is an error. There was a sufficiency of difference in the views of the past to cause our forefathers to make new denominations, one after another, to express their different views. Each differed something from the other, else why [CR287] are there more than one, and the difference between the denominations, as we all agree, is a different view of the Gospel message of the Lord Jesus. I am glad indeed that there are many things common amongst us all--One God and Father, and one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I am glad indeed that the majority of Christian people recognize the great fundamental proof that Christ died, and that we must have faith in His blood. I am glad there is so much in common amongst Christian people, but there is considerable still that is not in accord. As a matter of fact, Christian people say there is no hope of our getting together in common harmony and understanding of God's Word. I will not go into that part now, to discuss that, because it is the subject the friends have chosen for me for Saturday night in this same room. It had not been arranged for me to speak here, but because of a little commotion in the paper an arrangement was made for me to speak Saturday night respecting the "One true Church of Christ."
Now I am calling your attention to the fact that there is an association called the International Bible Students' Association; it has been in existence for some thirty years, composed of Christian people out of all denominations and of all nationalities, and in all parts of the world, and whether you stepped into a Bible class in San Francisco, Portland, Brooklyn, New York, Toronto, Canada, Nova Scotia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, or wherever you find them, they would be of one mind and spirit, because they are drawing their inspiration from the Word of God, and not from any human creeds of the past. We are seeking to know what God has said, and not merely preaching the creeds of the past. If we have an inspired word of God, and if we believe Jesus and the Apostles spoke by inspiration, why take what some one spoke in the fifteenth, twelfth or fifth century? Why not go back to the fountain head and get it pure from the great founder, through whom God said the streams of Truth should come to all hungering for the water and bread of life? This, my friends, is what the International Bible Students are seeking to do, to get the pure teachings of the Word of God. Neither do they find any unnecessary objections to people who differ. On the contrary, they have the broadest sympathy for all denominations, the Episcopalians the Roman Catholics, the Presbyterians, Baptists, etc.; they have sympathy as brethren, because they believe that all these people who are up to their own standard are seeking to know and understand the Word of God. If they follow not with us, very well, let them follow the Lord the best they can. If later they see this is the better way to grow and assist one another, very well, at that time we will be glad to welcome them. If that time should never come we will still bid them God-speed and rejoice as we see them progressing in doing God's will as they see it. So then, my dear friends, we have no antagonism to other Christian people. Indeed, this is one of the points and reasons why the Church is divided by the various creeds. Our Presbyterian friends are fenced off by their creed, and the Methodists are not in it; the Methodists by their creed, and the Presbyterians are not in it. So with all the various denominations. And, in reality, all are ready to confess that all are man-made, not having come from Jesus, the Apostles, or the prophets. We say then, why permit them to separate the children of God? Why should not all God's people be Bible students? Why should any prefer to have the name Baptist, or Methodist, or Calvinist, or Wesleyan, or Lutheran --why prefer these to the name which God gave His people--Christians, pure and simple? So we prefer to be known simply as Christians. So, whether we were Presbyterians, Baptists, or Catholics, we are glad that we can come together and see the fallacy of having been divided. We say, let us be one with God's people, no matter what denomination they are in and give them the right hand of fellowship and receive the same from them as they are willing, and then journey on toward the heavenly Kingdom.
This International Bible Students' Association, then, my dear friends, has in it people from all denominations, and when any come to the study of God's word and have received the spirit of the Truth, it gives them the spirit of a sound mind, especially when they consider the Word of God, and from this standpoint all the words of men seem as nothing. One word from God is worth a thousand from men. We are not wishing to get away from this condition, for it is a most blessed one and helps one to grow in the graces and knowledge and fruits of the Holy Spirit. This is what God intended when He gave His message, and this is the fruitage He expects. We are glad we realize it more and more, and are not satisfied, but going on and on. And, if our heavenly Father has more to show us in coming days or years, we shall be glad to receive every good word of God, and if any dear brothers, Presbyterians, Methodists, Roman Catholics, or others can call our attention to anything in God's Word that we have overlooked or misunderstood, they will be our friends. We will not feel that they must be throttled because they know something different from what we know. We will be glad to receive instructions from any one capable of giving us instruction.
The International Bible Students' Association is chartered and I am very much surprised to know that your ministerial association, among whom I would presume are men somewhat learned in the affairs of life, has never before heard of the International Bible Students' Association. It is known all over the world, and there are millions and millions of pages of literature distributed all over the world, published in at least twelve different languages. There are three or four in the languages of India, in Chinese, Japanese, Holland, Dano Norwegian, Greek, Roumanian, Russian and, of course in English. It is very strange that your ministerial association has not had more knowledge than this, and that they should think we are intruding upon them or to give the impression that we are laboring under their auspices. Nothing further from the facts of the case. Surely we never made any appeal to them, and nothing gives you the indication that we did. We would not think of it. We would not sail under the poor flag of the Baptists, the Roman Catholics, etc.; not any other flag than the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that right? We think it is right. So, my dear friends, we meet here under the auspices of our God and Father, and Lord Jesus Christ, and with the full commission of the Divine Word of God, with the full authority of the constitution of the United States, and with the full chartered right of the International Bible Students' Association, which was chartered in Great Britain. So, my friends, I hope you have a little better knowledge of what the International Bible Students' Association is. We have no thought of claiming to be of any other sect, or a part of any of them. We desire to bring the Word of God into touch with every Christian mind in the world; we try to get the people to study the Bible, instead of the creeds of the dark ages. How much did we ever gain from studying the creeds of the dark ages? Think of Brother Calvin and what it did for him! What a blot upon a good man's name, that he was a persecutor of Christians, and burned Brother Servitus at the stake. I never knew until lately the particulars of the burning. Poor Servitus was not burned after the manner of Latimer and others by our Roman Catholic friends. Instead of the fire being started near him so that the flames would come up about him and quickly suffocate him, we now learn that the fire was built about ten feet all around him, and he was literally roasted alive for five hours. Think of that! Is it not a most horrible blot! We hardly think of the devil doing such a thing. The devil is no friend of mine, but still I would not want to accuse him, or Brother Calvin, of doing such a thing. Brother Calvin's creed was at the bottom of it. If he had not had that devilish creed he never would have acted that way.
His creed was not election, because that is taught in the Bible and was in the Bible 1,500 years before Calvin was born. The doctrine of election is a precious doctrine, but it was the doctrine of reprobation, that every man not elected to heaven was foreordained and predestinated before the time of his birth to go to an eternity of suffering, and that the devils would roast him through all eternity. Brother Calvin, being led by this theory, was ready to burn a Christian and as much as said I will roast him only four or five hours, but all eternity will not be enough to satisfy God.
Poor Calvin! How glad we ought to be, dear friends that something has occurred that has helped us to get rid of that horrible doctrine, else we might be burning each other today.
So then, dear friends, this convention has met here to worship God, to consider the terms and conditions of the great proposition made to humanity. We are here today because we are seeking to make our calling and election sure. We did not come here to convert Pertle Springs or Warrensburg, [CR288] and, I venture to say that the people of Warrensburg have not been improperly urged or bored. However, I am sure all the dear friends will be glad to give freely what they have received freely, and which has brought such a blessing to our hearts. We are glad to give it, and give it freely. And all our meetings, you know, are without collection and without any fee for admission.
One minister in New York City said, What is Pastor Russell going to do! By and by our congregations will think it is a crime to take up a collection? We have hard enough time now, what will we do if we cannot take up a collection? My dear friends, we believe it does the people of God good to give money to benevolent purposes and to support some mission, and all that, but we do not think it in harmony with the Divine will that they should be bored and twisted in every way to get money out of them. We do not say a word about money, taking up collections, but they may take up collections two or three times a day if they choose. However, we believe we are doing the will of God more perfectly when we eliminate this matter. I don't suppose you hear a word about money here. Some of you have attended all kinds of conventions, but you never saw meetings carried on in just the same way; we are trying to carry it on after the manner of Jesus and the Apostles. We are not copying our Methodist, or Baptist friends, but we are not quarreling with them. If theirs is a better way, let them have it and be satisfied. Why should they be denied the privilege of worshiping God after their own conscience, and doing the things in the way most pleasing to them?
Our thought respecting collections is this: The heavenly Father tells us that all the gold and silver and the cattle on a thousand hills are His, and if He wished for anything He would not require to ask us. Our heavenly Father is rich and He makes us rich with world's goods, or influence, or time, in whatever proportion He thinks best, and we are to render these to the Lord according to our best judgment, glorify Him in body and spirit, which are His.
WHAT IS THE RESULT?
We have no trouble, because we merely spend what we have, not over-spend, and then have fairs, and grab bags in order to make up some deficit for what we have unwisely gone into debt for. We have the precedent set in the Scriptures. If we are satisfied, why should others complain? On the contrary, all these who are in this attitude of mind have great privilege in giving according to their substance and ability. It is a pleasure to give, but if it is pulled out of you, and you are bored, and a bag is put under your nose every few minutes, you would not feel good about it.
I remember a Reformed Presbyterian minister said, How is it done, Pastor Russell--where does it come from?
I said, Brother, if people's hearts are thoroughly united to the Lord, they will want to do something for the Father, the Saviour, the brethren, the children, and indeed you would have to restrain them from giving so much.
This minister looked at me as though he would say, Do you take me for a child that I should believe such stuff as that? I saw he was thinking that, so I said, Brother, it is true. Some say, Can I not get some money into that work? I have not much, but I would like to be associated in that work, and then they push the money under. Again he was surprised, because it had never been thus in the Reformed Presbyterian church.
Now, my dear brothers and sisters, think over this matter --What is the Lord's way? What is the example of Jesus and the Apostles? And then act according to your judgment, not mine; act according to your own judgment as to the way you can best glorify God in body and spirit. Then you will have a blessing from the Lord, whether or not you do just exactly as we do. All who are seeking to do the will of the Lord and are trusting in His precious blood as we are, are our dear brethren.
PASTOR RUSSELL'S REPLY TO PROFESSOR MOOREHEAD.
I brought with me a copy of the resolution which your Ministerial Association published and I thought it might be perhaps a part of your desire this evening that I should answer these propositions. They say:
"The convention is not under the auspices of the Evangelical denomination, nor yet authorized by any accredited Christian organization."
Of course you cannot tell what people mean by "accredited Christian organization." I cannot, at least, but perhaps some of the rest of you are wiser as respects this word. But if the International Bible Students' Association sounds like a Christian name, I can tell you that it is a Christian association. It is accredited in the sense that we accredit ourselves, whether anybody else cares to or not.
I do not suppose, my dear friends, that the Methodists are specially accredited by the Baptists, or the Baptists by the Roman Catholics, so where will you draw the line? I think the Baptists will accredit themselves, and the Catholics themselves, and so the International Bible Students' Association are quite competent to accredit themselves.
The next objection in these resolutions is that I am the author of Millennial Dawn.
Now, my dear friends, I cannot say that I am sorry I wrote Millennial Dawn, because it would not be true. I am very glad if the heavenly Father was pleased to have me write those six volumes, because I know of a surety that they have accomplished a great deal of good. I will not say that the Ministerial Association ever got any good out of it, nor Professor Moorehead, D.D., but there are others who have. I can tell you, and could show you letters from hundreds of infidels and Christians, who had lost their faith and did not know what to believe, but who were helped back to a faith in the Bible through these books. I will tell you about one of them. This gentleman came from Ithaca, New York, and while in the Watch Tower office, attending to some business, he saw the racks of literature, etc., and he noticed the people engaged and asked, What is this going on? The reply was, This is religious work, tracts, etc., being mailed all over the world. This gentleman afterwards explained it: He inquired of the lady at the counter and found her very intelligent respecting the Bible, and was surprised and said to himself, I wonder if others are equally well instructed respecting God's Word. So he went out and came back at a time when this lady was not there so as to speak to others. He said he was surprised for he asked questions and found a ready answer from all working there. He said, This is very strange! So he told me that was the reason for staying over two days, to attend the Sunday services, as I was to speak and he wanted to hear me. At the conclusion of the service he came up to shake hands, and said, I stopped over to hear you because of being interested in the people in the mailing office. I am sorry, Pastor Russell, it is of no avail to me. I have no Christian faith left.
How is that, you look like a Christian man?
Oh, indeed, I was an elder in the Christian church and was a Bible teacher in the Sunday School, and it was in connection with that work that I got into infidelity.
How was that?
This way: In the study of my lessons I wanted to get all the information that could be obtained and got some reference books, etc., and these were along the line of higher criticism and my faith was entirely undermined, and I now know that the Bible was nothing and that I was fooled in believing the Word of God. Now then I see that it is only human sentiment and not based upon faith. I stayed over because of curiosity, because there is nothing to build upon. When I lost my faith I did not stay with my class to teach them the higher criticism; I said, God forbid, I am sorry to have lost my faith and hope I will not help them into this terrible condition I am in. So I said nothing to anybody, but simply withdrew, resigned as teacher and elder in the church and simply stepped out. Neither will I stay there, and act a hypocrite and represent myself as teaching what I do not believe. As I was with those people in the mailing room I said, I used to have such a faith, too, and would like to have it back, but there is no chance.
Well, I said, there is a chance. I will tell you that I was once in a very similar position.
What, were you ever as I am and threw away your Bible?
Yes, in a very similar position. I thought it was unreasonable and that the Bible contradicted reason, and I threw it away for nearly two years; yet I was constantly feeling after God, desiring to know the truth.
Then you came back to the Bible?
Yes, in God's providence.
And you have such a faith as this now?
Yes, I believe it is the most wonderful book in the world.
[CR289]
It is a thousand times better than all the creeds.
Well, Pastor Russell, that is the first gleam of hope and I feel that if it is possible that something brought Pastor Russell's faith back perhaps I can get that.
I said, Brother, I have a volume I will give you, if you will read it.
Surely I will read it.
I gave him the first volume, and he had it about eight days when a letter came from him, and he was so overflowing that he could hardly write, could hardly express himself, because of a feeling of gratitude in having his faith back, not only all that he had before, but now it was stronger and much better than anything he ever had before.
Now that has been duplicated in many instances from all denominations, and from Catholics also who have thrown away their Bibles. So, my dear friends, if our friend in the Ministerial Alliance of Warrensburg know nothing about Millennial Dawn some of us do know and I have no apology to make in connection with the books or their teachings. They represent exactly what I believe the Bible to teach. Furthermore, there are no ministers in Warrensburg or the whole state of Missouri who can contradict them. They may try to slander them just as our Brother Moorehead tried. Anybody can say something bad about the Bible, and many people have done it. I would like to know how many have contradicted the Bible and its teachings. How many in centuries? Yet Jesus and His teachings have stood and so will Millennial Dawn with those who have read it. It is those who have not read it or who are trying to refute it, reading with prejudice, and trying to slander. So we must have the spirit of truth before we can get the truth out of it.
PROFESSOR MOOREHEAD'S SUMMARY OF THE SO-CALLED FALSE
DOCTRINES OF MILLENNIAL DAWN.
We will now consider these propositions which Mr. Moorehead thinks are false doctrines as taught in Millennial Dawn:
First, So-called false doctrines of Millennial Dawn.
"Christ before His advent was not divine."
Well now, let me say first of all that the object of the Professor stating these was not to make known such truths, because if he wished to make them know he would have said, Get the books and find out. On the contrary, his object was simply to prejudice the people so they would not get the books. That is an old trick. So the statement is put in such a form as to make it unreasonable.
But now, what do the Scriptures say? It is not what Professor Moorehead says, for we are not ready to take him instead of God, or the Lord Jesus, or the Apostles. What say the Scriptures? If I was to take up this one subject alone, of the pre-existence of our Lord Jesus Christ, it would take more than an hour. Then the other questions would be here still unanswered. So I must divide up between these and give a little on each subject; but remember that all these are treated in the six volumes of Millennial Dawn, or Studies in the Scriptures, and are so treated that Professor Moorehead cannot answer them, because they are thoroughly Scriptural, and he does not want the people to read, because they are Scriptural, and they would be converted if they did read.
What does Saint Paul say? You know Professor Moorehead's theory and the one we had--something that we never understood, and something that they never understood--the doctrine of the trinity. We had two ways of stating it: One says, it is three Gods in one person, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. They must say, one person, because the Bible says there is one living and true God, therefore they must get the one in somewhere. The others had to make that fit, so they turned it over and the more they think of it that three times one is three, they say, that does not sound right. There is one God in three persons. Now tell us what you do mean, and if they are honest they will say, we don't know; they don't know what they mean. I used to be with them and I knew that I did not know, and that they did not know.
Professor Moorehead would not think of discussing the proposition with me; he would just as soon take his life as to discuss it; he knows that he would have no foundation on which to set up his theory.
The Scriptures say that there is one God (not three Gods); that was the great point God made in telling the Israelites all through the Old Testament, "Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Jehovah"--that is the way it reads. Did He say, the Lord thy God is three? No. Well how about the New Testament, does it contradict that? No, indeed. The Apostle Paul says to us (not to trinitarians nor to Brother Moorehead) but to all Christians who take the Bible, "To us there is one living and true God, the Father"-- that is to us. Then what more? "And there is one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." That is but two. One and one equals two--one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ. Then he proceeds to say, "One God, the Father, of whom are all things and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things, and we by Him." That is the Bible. Is there any statement of the trinity in the Bible? Not a word; it does not occur in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Not a word about it.
Brother Russell, you must be mistaken, we have several trinity churches--you may have one in Warrensburg.
But there is nothing like it in the Bible. Did Jesus say He was His own Father? Did He say that He was His own Son? How could He be His own Father and His own Son, both at the same time, and in the same person? It is absurd. It is strange that we did not use any of our brain power in the past. We did not study our Bibles at all. There was some excuse for some people in the past who had to work fourteen to eighteen hours a day for their bread, but there is no excuse now. In the past they had no Bibles, except those written upon parchment which cost a fortune; now you can get a good, complete Bible for twenty-three cents. There was an excuse in the days of Abraham Lincoln, for then a person could not read by Mr. Rockefeller's oil, nor by gas light or electricity, but only by tallow candles and pine knots. There was some excuse then, but none now. So, when we come to see what the Bible says, it tells us not a word about three Gods being one God nor one God being three. It does tell us there is one God and one Lord Jesus. It also tells us that there is one Holy Spirit, the spirit of the Father and of the Son and of all who are in harmony with the Lord. It is called by different names: "The spirit of God," "the spirit of Christ," "the spirit of holiness," "the spirit of truth," "the spirit of a sound mind," "the spirit of liberty," "the spirit of the Father," "the holy spirit of promise," "the spirit of meekness," "the spirit of understanding," "the spirit of wisdom," "the spirit of glory," "the spirit of counsel," "the spirit of faith," "the spirit of adoption," "the spirit of prophecy."
These various titles repeated many times, and used interchangeably, give us the full, proper assurance that they all relate to the same holy spirit--indeed, frequently the word "holy" is added in, combined, as, for instance, "the holy spirit of God," "the holy spirit of promise," etc. We must seek an understanding of the subject which will reject none of these appellations, but harmonize them all. It is impossible to harmonize these various statements with the ordinary idea of God; but it is entirely consistent with every one of them to understand these various expressions as descriptive of the spirit, the disposition and power of one God, our Father; and also the spirit, disposition and power of our Lord Jesus Christ, because He is at one with the Father; and also to a certain extent it is the spirit or disposition of all who are truly the Lord's, angels or men, in proportion as they have come into oneness, or harmony, with Him. All these names are proper names and we are exhorted to be filled with the spirit--not filled with a certain person, which is a mistaken idea.
Now, what does the Bible state about our Lord Jesus Christ? What was He before He came into the world? Unless Warrensburg and Pertle Springs are different from the majority of cities in this country and Europe, in all probability at least one-third of the ministers do not believe that Jesus had any pre-existence at all. I said one-third, but I really believe that two-thirds do not believe that Jesus had any pre-existence. They believe that He began when He was born, the babe at Bethlehem, and the majority tell us that they believe He was born a sinner, the same as others. I do not say that is true here in Warrensburg, but two-thirds of our ministers are higher critics, and do not believe in Jesus, and do not believe that He ever was divine. Yet in this day, when two-thirds do not believe that Jesus was divine, I am pointed out as a heretic and these two-thirds who do not believe in God's Word are the gentlemen of the hour.
Let me quote from the first chapter of John's Gospel. I will give the exact translation; it should read this way: [CR290] "In the beginning was the Logos." Let me explain that this is the picture God gives here through John. In the beginning was the Logos, the name of Jesus, before He became flesh. We do not know how far back--He was the beginning of God's creation.
Do you mean to say that God created Him?
Yes, I am only quoting the Bible; it says He was the beginning of the creation of God, the first-born, He is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. God made just one being and never made any more, because all subsequent creations were operated through Divine power, working through Jesus in His pre-human condition as the Logos. "The Logos was with the God and the Logos was a god." Mark the difference between, a god and the God. A god means a mighty one--any person. The God means the mighty one--Jehovah. The mighty one would be higher than a mighty one.
All through the Old Testament the meaning of the Hebrew word Elohim is the "Almighty One." Logos means mighty, not almighty. The angels are mighty ones, because they have a great power. On one occasion the seventy elders of Moses are spoken of as Elohims--mighty ones, to be the special ones in the nation of Israel, but anything these mighty ones could not judge, they were to bring to Moses.
Now coming back to John's statement, "The Logos was with the God, and the Logos was a god, and the Logos was in the beginning with the God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made."
There you have the story from the Bible standpoint; it tells us that the Lord Jesus did not begin His existence as the babe of Bethlehem, and evidently He knew that all the world and all things that were made were made by Him, and that He Himself was the beginning of Jehovah's creation, and that Jehovah acted through Him that in all things He might have the pre-eminence over all other things in the whole Universe. That is the Bible statement, my dear friends. We stand by the Bible and it is right. No other proposition is reasonable.
Ask Jesus whether He was the Father or not. Jesus said, "I and My Father are one."
Brother Russell, I thought you said they were not? No, my brother, you and I are one. Read that prayer of our Lord's in the 17th chapter of John: "I pray for these that they may all be one even as you and I are one." We are to be one in the same sense. Are we one in person? No. Neither is the Father and the Son. You see the point, my dear friends. It is very clear when you take the Bible for it.
Ask Jesus again: "I came to not to do My own will, but the will of the Father which sent Me." Again, "Of Mine own self I can do nothing." There was no disloyalty on the part of Jesus--He never said He was the Father. When He came to His dying hour He cried, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me." Was He telling a falsehood, was He the Father Himself, and merely pretending that He was dying? That is the theory of the trinitarian when it is boiled down--that He was the Father and could not die, because the world could not do without a God for three days, therefore, when Jesus died on the cross it was merely a pretense--He slipped out of the body and said, Let the people think I am dying. They say that He could not die, but merely that He let that old body die--that is the theory. But what does the Bible say? Does it say that the body was to die for our sins? No, the Bible says that His soul was to die, for it is our soul that was to die for sin, and in order to be our Redeemer His soul must die. So we read, "He poured out His soul, He made His soul an offering for sin." We will see the fruitage of it by and by. But His soul did travail, and it did die. And it was His soul that was raised up from the dead. Mark you what Saint Peter said. Go to the Bible, dear friends, don't go to the creeds. Saint Peter says in the second chapter of Acts, when telling the people about the resurrection of Jesus, "This is that which was spoken of by Prophet David saying, thou wilt not leave my soul in hell--'hades.'" Saint Peter then went on to say that David was a prophet, and that so far as David was concerned his soul did stay there, and his sepulchre is with us until this day, but he being a prophet spoke of Christ's soul, that it was not left in hades, that God raised Him from the dead. So you see it was the soul of Jesus that died, and which God raised from the dead. Take the Bible, and we will not get mixed up.
So, then, we do agree that Jesus was not Divine before He came into the world, for if He had been he could not have died because of the peculiar character of the Divine nature, which cannot die, for it is immortal. If Jesus had been Divine He could not have died. Thank God, for He must die for our sins; that was the price.
How was He raised from the dead? The Bible tells us that God raised Him from the dead by His own power--but not to be a human being again. He was raised to be a spirit being, higher than He was before. God made man a little lower than the angels, which means that angels are higher than men, and if Jesus was raised from the dead a man He was raised a little lower than the angels, and that would not be a suitable reward. That is what our friends believe, however; that is what our Methodists friends believe, that He has that very body in Heaven. Our Methodist friends have it most particularly stated there; they say, "Christ did surely rise again from the dead, and took again His body, with all things appertaining to the perfections of man's nature, wherewith He ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth until He returns to judge all men at the last day." (Article 3 of the Methodist Articles of Religion.) That is very funny; it sounds as though the body was a sort of luggage, or trunk, and that all things appertaining thereto were the straps, etc. Taking His body with Him! Here was one thing, and He was another thing. I think if our Methodist friends try that over again they can improve on it.
The thought of the Bible is that God allowed His Son to become a man for the very purpose of redeeming man. Why so? Because the Divine law says, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life," therefore, the blood of bullocks and goats could not take away sin, because bulls and goats had not sinned, but a man had sinned, therefore a man must die. Likewise an angel could not die for men, for an angel had not sinned, but it must be a life for a life--a human life for the human life that had been sentenced to death because of sin. That is the meaning of the word ransom; it means a corresponding price. It must be the same price to release Adam as the penalty was against him. But in order to give the human life for mankind it was necessary for Him to have a human life; therefore, the Divine arrangement was that He might be changed from the spirit nature to the human.
He did not get into a human body and masquerade around. No, "He who was rich for our sakes became poor." He did not deceive the people by getting into a body. The Bible says, "He was made flesh and dwelt among men."
Now, then, Jesus the man was there for the very purpose of rescuing the world, and the Bible says, "A body hast thou prepared for me," for the very purpose of suffering death. And when He had died, He had made the use of that body which God intended, and had no further use for that human nature, as God had promised that He would highly exalt Him. Would not that be reasonable? Do you suppose if Jesus was higher than the angels in the heavenly Father's estimation and love, and it pleased the heavenly Father for Him to leave the heavenly glory on a spiritual plane and become poor, in order to carry out the Father's will, that the Father would condemn Him to stay in that condition through all eternity? Indeed not. The Bible tells us that nothing of that kind occurred. It tells us that Jesus took the human nature and when God raised Him from the dead God raised Him a spiritual being. He was put to death in the flesh, and quickened, or made alive, in the spirit. Was He a more glorious spiritual being? He tells us how He left the glory of the heavenly nature, humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore (because, on this account) God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name that is above every name. This is what Saint Paul said, God gave Him this glorious nature in His resurrection. He was not made merely equal to the angels, but far above angels, principalities and powers and every name that is named. Now the Bible says that He has the Divine nature. Glory, honor, immortality and the Divine nature are His portion now.
Second, so-called false doctrine of Millennial Dawn.
"When He was in the world He was not divine."
No, my dear friends, when in the world he was a human being. The Bible is reasonable, whether Brother Moorehead is or not.
Third, so-called false doctrine of Millennial Dawn.
"His atonement was exclusively human--a mere man's." [CR291]
Yes, it was, because an angel could not die for a man, nor a bullock be worthy for man, but only a man. None could be a Saviour unless He was a man, a perfect man, as we read in 1 Timothy 2:5-6, "There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself a ransom for all." That is the way Saint Paul states it, "the man Christ Jesus." But now when Professor Moorehead puts it "mere man," he is intending to try to cause a misrepresentation. What does it mean to your mind? The thought is, "just like other men." That is not true, and if Professor Moorehead read the books, he knows that it is not true that we claim Jesus was a mere man, imperfect. We show from the Bible, "For such an High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the Heavens" (Hebrews 7:26). He was not an imperfect Saviour, but the man anointed of God, the man Christ Jesus, the perfect one.
Fourth, so-called false doctrine of Millennial Dawn.
"Since His resurrection He is divine only,--no longer human at all."
Certainly He is divine only. How could He be both human and divine? People write and talk as though they did not have any thinking apparatus at all. He must be either one thing or another. You cannot be a cat and a dog both. You could not be a river and an ocean at the same time, neither a man and a being of the divine nature at the same time.
So the Bible tells us that He was the Logos, with the Father. He was made flesh (not only into flesh) and He dwelt amongst us and we beheld His glory, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father. That the Logos then as a human being gave himself sacrificially, and the Logos was raised to the divine nature, glory, honor, immortality, in His resurrection, and so He will ever be at the right hand of the Father. He could not be the Father, but He is at the right hand of the Father. You see the difference. He will always be at the right hand and will judge men--the place of government, next to the Father.
Fifth, so-called false doctrine of Millennial Dawn.
"His body was not raised from the dead."
No, we answer, there is a great mistake in nearly all of our creeds. You will read in the so-called Apostle's creed, which was not written by the Apostle, which all scholars know, but the laity do not. It declares, "I believe in the resurrection of the body." There is nothing about the resurrection of the body in the Bible; it says the body shall return to dust as it was, and that God will give it--the soul--a body, to each kind its own kind of a body--those in the human family a human body, but those of the Church will get a spiritual body; they will have a change of nature, for they must all be begotten of the spirit and will be spirit beings, and have spirit bodies, like unto Christ's glorious body. We quote Peter's statement, that God raised His soul from sheol, not His body, but raised His soul on a higher plane, on the divine plane, instead of on the human plane. The same personality which was the Logos, and became flesh, and was a human soul, is now resurrected and glorified, and is a divine soul. The word soul is also used in the Bible in connection with the heavenly Father.
Sixth, seventh and eight, so-called false doctrines of Millennial Dawn.
"His second advent took place in 1874."
"Saints were raised up in 1878."
"Christ and the saints are now on earth, and have been for thirty-four and thirty-eight years respectively."
There are some things of this kind, my dear friends, that would take more time to explain than is at our disposal, and in the time allotted to me I will not be able to give a satisfactory reply as I would like to give.
To our understanding, however, the second coming of Christ will have two stages, and in the Scriptures these stages are called the "parousia" and the "epiphania." Now the difference between these two words is not always apparent in the common English version, because both are rendered by the word "coming," but all scholars should know that in the Greek there is this distinction between these two words. The word epiphania signifies the shining forth, the manifestation, and when used it refers to the way Christ shall be manifested at his second advent. "He shall be revealed in flaming fire." That will be a revealing in flaming fire, not literal, but symbolic, but fire which will manifest His advent in a time of trouble, such a time of trouble as never was before. This flaming fire of trouble in the day of the Lord will be the outward sign by which the world will know that Messiah has accepted His throne, that He has taken His power, and that His Kingdom is about to be set up, and then, "Justice will be laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet." All errors will be swept away and every imperfect thing that can be shaken will be shaken, and only the unshakable things will remain, as Saint Paul says in the 12th chapter of Hebrews.
That epiphania, dear friends, has not yet taken place. But, do we not see the labor trouble, do we not see the army trouble, etc.? Do we not see all the strikes, etc., in Germany, in Great Britain, here and elsewhere? Everything is published abroad and nearly everybody who knows anything about society today knows that the world is sitting close to the crater of a great volcano. We all know it whether we are Methodists, Presbyterians, or nobody.
Now, that time of trouble we believe will be in connection with the epiphania, at the time of the judgment of the world, or nations, or systems. There is more or less injustice and iniquity in all our arrangements of society, political, financial or ecclesiastical, and more or less that is right, and more or less that is wrong. When that time of trouble comes, the people will recognize it, and then the Scriptures say they will be calling upon the rocks and mountains to fall upon them. That is not the real thought--not to crush them, as if a mountain fell upon them, they would not know much about it, but the thought is, cover us, protect us, because of this great day of wrath. These rocks of society are the Free Mason rocks, the Odd Fellow rocks, this insurance society and that insurance society, and the people want to get into these rocks to protect them in this time of trouble, and they want to be identified with the strong governments, such as the United States, for they want to be protected. If they go to Europe, they want to say they have their passports from United States or from Great Britain, etc. So they will say, those great mountains will be my protection. That is the way these things are used in the Bible. Here rocks represent stone fortress. When the trouble breaks out they will begin to go into these things so they may be sheltered and protected, but the Scriptures say they will not be able, for it will be a time of trouble that nothing will be able to deliver from.
At the conclusion of that trouble they will be conquered, not by men fighting it out, but the Lord says that it will be for the elect's sake. For the elect's sake it shall be cut short. That means that Christ's Kingdom, taking its power, will put an end to this trouble. That is what you and I have been praying for, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, even as it is done in Heaven." It will take the whole thousand years of Christ's reign to have the will of God done on earth as it is done in Heaven. It will be a gradual work. There will be some blotted out in the second death before the world will be in that glorious condition where every creature in Heaven will be singing praise, glory, honor, dominion and might to Him that sitteth upon the throne.
But now about this word parousia: It signifies "presence" that is not manifest, not seen. Well, will Christ be present in such a manner unseen, unknown? Yes, my dear brother, the Bible tells us very plainly that He will be present but not visible to any one, and not exercising any power that the world can see, but He will be present and doing a work in his Church, amongst his people.
In that sense He has been present for the last thirty-seven years. This statement as to the period of time is correct enough, but it is put in a form calculated to deceive people, because of the bluntness in the way it is stated. Do you remember what Jesus said He would do when He would come again? I will remind you. One of the things is that He will receive us, His faithful people, whether in the Presbyterian church, the Methodist, Episcopal, or Roman Catholic, or outside all these churches--whoever they are-- He will gather all the elect, the saints, to Himself.
Then, another thing will be that He will take His great power and rule the world with a rod of iron. That will be at his second coming. Before that takes place He does something else. To illustrate this our Lord gave several parables. In one of these parables, of the wheat and the tares, He taught that He was sowing the good seed and that later when men--the Apostles slept, Satan came in and sowed the seeds [CR292] of error--tares. The result of sowing the tare doctrines was a mixture of children of God and of the devil--those who believed the message of God and were begotten of the Holy Spirit and others who were deceived. He said, let both grow together until the end of the world. That word "world" does not mean the earth, but in the Greek it means "age," the end of the age, for this earth is never to pass away. "God formed it not in vain, but He formed it to be inhabited." The whole earth, my dear friends, is eventually to be made like Paradise from pole to pole, from shore to shore, and the whole world will be God's footstool, and, "He will make the place of His feet glorious." He has not done this yet, but Messiah's Kingdom will do it. For a thousand years Christ and His Church will reign for the blessing of mankind and the purifying of the earth, until it comes to a Paradisiac condition. In this parable it is taught that this age will end, and a new age will begin; the two will lap the one upon the other. What will help them in the end of this age? He said He would be the great chief reaper in the end of this age, as in the Jewish age. What did He do then? He sent out His disciples to gather in all the wheat of the Jewish nation. He sent them forth to reap that upon which they bestowed no labor. They reaped all the ripe grain of the Jewish nation in that harvest. So Jesus said there would be a harvest time in the end of the Gospel age, and that He would again be present here and do a work of reaping; and He said that then the tares would be bound into bundles for the burning but that He would gather the wheat into His garner. It would all be done in the harvest time, and He will be present in that time.
Take another parable. He gave this parable because many thought He was about to set up His Kingdom. He said, "A certain young nobleman went into a far country to receive a Kingdom and return." He here illustrates that while He was to be the King of the world, He will not take the Kingdom at his first advent, but go first into a far country, Heaven, there to be invested with authority, and then, in due time come again. He said when this young nobleman returns, he will call His servants (not the world), to whom He gave talents, in one parable the pound, and in another parable the talent, saying, trade with these things, make as much out of them as you can. At his return He does not deal with the people in general, but calls His own servants, the Church, and reckons with them, before He does anything with the world at all. This is done in the harvest time, during the parousia, before the open manifestation of the establishment of His Kingdom. This has been going on for thirty-seven years, since 1874.
You mark that there has been something of a reckoning with the nominal church. They know something is the matter, but they do not know what is the matter. They know a change has come over the church; they are aware of it, my dear friends, His reckoning is taking place with each one of us. What kind of an answer will we give when He asks for a reckoning of our account? If some of us should say, Lord, we hid your talent in the earth and we have been so busy with our house and morals, etc., we really forgot that we were servants, but were serving ourselves, our people, our denominations, and forgot that we had a talent to serve you, He will say to such, "Depart thou wicked and slothful servant." He did not say, Go to hell and be roasted. No, but that such would receive certain chastisements and punishments. Then He called the other servants. Some answered, "Lord, thou deliverest unto me two talents; behold I have brought two other talents beside them." "His Lord said unto him, well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." So it was also with those who had received the five talents. He said, You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. You showed your earnestness and zeal and love and loyalty, therefore, my dear servant, enter into the joys of your Lord. You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things--over the whole world. In the Kingdom his faithful servants are to share with the Master, to sit on his throne with Him. In another connection we read that He will give such rule over two cities and five cities, according to their faithfulness, zeal, love and activity in His service.
Oh, dear friends, this is the reckoning that we believe is going on now. Whatever we see in the Word of God we are deeply interested in. We are not saying anything fishy, not dealing with any spooks, but walking by faith. Whether the Lord is present or not, whether we are living in the parousia or not, I tell you, dear friends, it is a very interesting matter to view it as we view it, because it will help us to realize that He is dealing with us, looking at how we are using the talents given to us.
Ninth, so-called false doctrine of Millennial Dawn.
"The professing Christian church was rejected of God in 1878."
My dear friends, there is a statement in the Scriptures that at a certain time this will be true. Whether true now or not, the time is coming when the voice of the Bridegroom and of the Bride shall be heard no more in her, in Babylon. That time will come, whether now or at a future time, and we believe that those who are in harmony with God will not be in Babylon any longer. As their eyes open, we believe they will see that they are misrepresenting God while they are there, and if they do realize this they will know that the only terms on which they can remain will be that they should not tell God's word. If I were trying to get into any of these churches that these brethren have charge of, they would try to put me out. Well, I am not trying to get into them, because I would feel that I was stultifying myself, for their creeds are not such that any man or woman could confess-- we cannot believe them today. Perhaps our grandfathers could believe them, but today we cannot. If you stay there as a Methodist, you are saying, I believe in and stand for those God-dishonoring doctrines of that creed. So with any others of the churches, according to their creeds. Do you wonder why I do not try to speak under their auspices! I would rather they would come here and study together what God's word teaches and not what the creeds teach. Let us get free from the bondage of any traditions, bondage of human errors.
"Tenth, so-called false doctrine of Millennial Dawn."
"The final consummation and end will take place in 1914."
We are expecting in October, 1914, that a great change will be due. Now, how quickly will it come? Whether on the stroke of the clock or not we do not know. We believe that it will land upon humanity by that time. Perhaps some of it will come before that, but we believe it will be stayed off until that time. Now, dear friends, what if it does not? We are just as well off as the rest. That is what the Bible states. If it does not state that to you, we have no quarrel. And if it does not come we will not try to bring it about. But, on the contrary, we will try to practice peace and holiness withal. We are children of peace and peacemakers, not strife breeders. But we believe the Bible teaches October, 1914, as the time. If that is incorrect for a year, or five, or one hundred years, no matter, it is coming some time, whether we have it right or not.
"Eleventh, so-called false doctrine of Millennial Dawn."
"Silence as to the person and work of the Holy Spirit."
Not at all; if the brother will read he will find three or four chapters in the fifth volume of the Millennial Dawns or Studies in the Scriptures devoted to the Holy Spirit and all the texts of Scriptures bearing on it.
Twelfth, so-called false doctrine of Millennial Dawn.
"Teaches that Christ did not mean what he said regarding the destiny of the wicked."
This brother says I do not believe and teach what Christ said. What does the Bible say? Well, the Bible says, "All the wicked will God destroy." Do I believe it? Yes. Does Brother Moorehead believe it? No. He believes that all the wicked will God preserve in fire, with devils having tails, pitch forks, etc. The way the preachers go on to tell about it is laughable. One of them went on to tell about it as though he had been in hell and knew all about it. He went on to say that after a person had been in hell for some time the old skin becomes asbestofied, so to speak. After awhile the skin cracks open, he says, and the flames go right in; it is awful. Well, I should think it would be. When asked how any man could stand it for centuries after centuries, they say, God will inject or infuse life, so that He will keep them alive, so as to perpetuate an awful eternity of horror, and all except the saintly few will be roasted in that way. Think of it! Did we not have our heads pretty well muddled when we preached the same things? I believe God will forgive me for attributing such awful doctrines to Him.
I remind you of what that great doctor of theology, Jonathan [CR293] Edwards said. In answer to a question as to whether we would not feel bad if we got into Heaven and knew that our loved ones were in eternal torment, he said, No, you will look over the battlements of Heaven and perhaps see your parents or children writhing in the lake of fire and suffering untold agonies and then turn around and clap your hands and praise God for His justice.
Poor Jonathan did not have a very good idea of justice. I would not like to have him try a case in court for me. My dear friends, it is ridiculous. What did Jesus say? Jesus said, "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son shall not see life." This means that He will not let them have life; they will not suffer in misery. So the Apostle says, This is the promise that He has promised us, that we might have life and this life is in his Son, and when He shall appear we shall appear also with him in glory, in the first resurrection. But those who will not come into harmony with God, shall not have eternal life; and I thank God for the wisdom and justice of His plan.
I presume Brother Moorehead had special thought with respect to the 25th chapter of Matthew, because there we read, in the 41st verse, "Depart from me, ye (speaking of the goats) cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." What is meant by the everlasting fire? This everlasting fire is just as symbolical as the goats. Fire is a symbol of destruction, not preservation. Do you put anything into the fire to preserve it? Why not? Because it would burn up. So this is the picture God gives, "All the wicked will God destroy." In another place fire came down from Heaven and destroyed them all. It did not preserve any of them. So in this chapter Jesus pictures the two classes, and you cannot burn symbolical goats with literal fire. The goats is symbolical and so is the fire. The goats represent a wayward class, and the fire represents their destruction.
Saint Paul said, "They shall be punished with everlasting destruction." Did he say anything about their being punished with fire? No.
Peter says, "They shall perish like the natural brute beast." Do they roast them or torture them? No. Does he state that God will? No--all the wicked will God destroy.
So again in the 25th chapter of Matthew one receives life everlasting, and the other everlasting punishment--not torment. What is the punishment for sin? What does the Bible say? Let me quote from the Bible--never mind the creeds--remember the Bible: "The soul that sinneth it shall die"--not that it shall live forever in torment. That is the punishment for sin. It is just the same as the greatest punishment in our laws. No civilized nation would think of torturing any criminals. So God said that the extreme of all punishment will be that he will destroy the beings entirely. So He says, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment" --which is destruction, the punishment of death.
But then, there is another answer: the word punishment here used, in the Greek is "kolasin," and it means, pruning or cutting off; and he shall go away into everlasting cutting off from life, from the Lord, and all hope of life. Before being cut off, however, they will be given every opportunity. That parable does not belong here in this age, but this one, the one about the sheep and the goats, belongs to the next age, during the thousand years of Messiah's reign, when the whole world of mankind will be before the great Millennial throne of the great judgment day, and all the sheep will be at the right hand of favor, and the goats at the left hand of disfavor for the thousand years, and at the close the sheep will be received into favor with God, but the goat class will be cut off in the second death. The first death was the penalty for sin; Love sent Christ to redeem the world from the first penalty, but Christ will not die for those who go into the second death, and there will be no hope or redemption for them.
[CR293]
Concluding Remarks
NOW, my dear friends, we have come to the conclusion of this convention. I have not been privileged to be with you at every session but my heart has been with you from time to time, and all the reports I have received are to the effect that you have been having a good spiritual feast--just what you came here to enjoy and to help to give to others. And, indeed, I have heard some of the friends make the remark, This is our best convention, but I tell them that is so in every convention, and I think the explanation must be this: That by the Lord's grace we are growing in grace and knowledge, and in His love, and, therefore, each time we come together it seems more precious, simply because our own hearts are in better condition to receive the blessing. You might be here and your heart somewhere else, and you would get no blessings at all. You might be in an evil condition of heart and be vexed and hurt by everything. I am very glad, indeed, to hear, so far as any friends could go and report, that they had not heard anything except the Lord's name was praised, and that all His people seemed to be greatly blessed in this privilege of fellowshipping together.
I cannot tell, dear friends, brethren and sisters, how long it will be before we will meet again. As you know, I am expecting to meet with some other dear friends in about a month in Toronto; we expect to have another convention as large as this one, and then we expect to have another in Washington, D.C., and directly following that I take the steamer for Europe, and after several stops in Great Britain, the last Sunday of July I will be in Glasgow, where we are to have a large convention, and then after visiting a few other towns, the following Sunday I will be in London, where we are to have another convention. I wish I could take you all along and have the benefit of them all. It is not selfish on my part, but I was telling some of the friends about the matter, how that they could go to all the conventions, and so cheap. I was saying that we do nearly everything in our minds anyway. As for instance, I was introduced to a dear sister who had come quite a distance to this convention, and I understand she is Polish and unable to understand a word that we said, but she wanted to participate in the spirit of the convention; and as she looked into the faces at the convention she was getting a blessing. Now, if she shuts her eyes she can imagine she is with us in Toronto, later in Washington, later in Glasgow, and later in London, what she can do the rest of us can do. Is not that so?
I think of another sister who for some reason went away every summer to visit one of her daughters for awhile, and as she came back from such a visit of several months, she said, Brother Russell, I am back again; I have had a good time, been to meetings all the time I was away. I asked her what she meant? She said, Every Sunday as regular as the time came, I got a hymn book and sang my hymn. Next, she said, they are having prayer, so I had prayer. Next she thought, now they usually sing another hymn, so I sang another hymn. Then, she thought, they have a sermon, I cannot be there to hear, so I had a sermon to read, then I prayed in the usual form, and Brother Russell, I have been having a grand time--yes, had a spiritual fellowship with everybody, all in my mind.
Now, was not that a pretty good idea? It is so cheap, you do not have to fix up, no fixing of dresses, etc., no suit case to pack, no board bills and railroad fare, nothing of the kind, and no dusty travel. You can get all of that benefit just in your mind. I fancy most people have never learned what a great privilege a brain is. If your mind and heart are rightly in tune with God you can have a good time with God anywhere. At one time it was difficult for us to understand [CR294] how we could have fellowship with our heavenly Father; we used to wonder how God would hear so far, and if He could hear if we would whisper. Now we have something that helps us, dear friends. Some of the inventions of our day, such as the telephone and the telegraph and the wireless telegraph teach us wonderful lessons. If man can have wireless communication with other men hundreds of miles away we can now see how the great God can have communication with His children. Our minds can the better grasp the facts. As we get this illustration, it helps our faith. Why, it seems almost as though we were walking by sight and not by faith. Particularly when we see the fulfillment of the Scriptures going on right around us every day, and more and more wonderful things coming, just as God said they would come, and just as we have been seeing in His word before they came. We knew about their coming, and when they do come, they become confirmations of our faith and trust in God.
I say, dear brothers and sisters, "What manner of persons ought we to be?" We should certainly not think of comparing ourselves with other people in the sense of comparing ourselves with worldly people, because we have so many advantages over other people. How little they really appreciate life. They hardly know why they are in the world. Just ask somebody why he is here, why God created him, and what God intends with respect to him? The chances are that he will be thoroughly surprised, never having thought of the matter as to what he is doing here or what his hopes are. That person does about the best he can if he fills his life with business or pleasure. He cannot keep his head empty without being an idiot. But I tell you, my dear brothers and sisters, this more and more impresses itself upon me. What manner of person ought we to be--ought we to compare ourselves with others and say that we are better than they? Oh, that would be a poor plan, but some of us who have been Christians for years are not to compare ourselves with others who have been Christians for a day, week or year or month.
I remember a friend coming to me one day saying, "Brother Russell, I have such difficulties along certain lines." Well, I tried to give him good advice. Oh, yes, I see that and know how it ought to be done, but do not seem to be able to do it. I make a failure of it; if I could only do it the way you do it would be all right. I said, my dear friend, if you could do it the way I can do it, it would be a great shame to me, for I was a Christian before you were born, and if I had not learned to do better each day I would certainly be discouraged. Oh yes, he said later, that helped me so much. I found that all God required of me was to do my best. If I had a little experience I gained more experience. He found it to be a great blessing. So we all will find a great blessing by coming into this attitude of appreciating our blessings and making certain allowances if we have certain known tendencies.
The Apostle says, speaking along this line, we should not judge one another; yea, I judge not mine own self, he said. What did he mean? Oh, he meant that he might be too lenient with himself, and again too severe, when, perhaps, he was doing the best he could; so he said, there is one that judgeth me.
So that is our thought. And since we have come to know our heavenly Father is a good, gracious, loving Father, delighting to do good, having sympathy, etc., now we can come to Him as children to a Father. And He says we must come to Him and acknowledge our faults. How precious to remember that He is able to appreciate our condition and sympathize with us, and also provides for us a Great High Priest, and Advocate. So the Apostle says that if we trespass against others or against Him, let us come with boldness to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in every time of need. I think there is a special reason why God has fixed this matter as He has done in respect to our coming to Him in prayer. He might have said, Now they are my children, I will not count these things against them, I will merely reckon that they did not know and were imperfect and weak, and did not do it intentionally, and I will make no record of it. That is not the way God does. But what does He do? Does He charge them up, whether intended or not? Yes. Whether deliberate or not? Yes. Whether we thought or did not think? Yes. He charges them all to us. Then what? He has made provision through Christ that these trespasses that were not intentional, not wilful on our part, can be atoned for us. But why should He do that? What object could be served by doing that? Oh, it brings the matter to your attention and to my attention to know what right is. Knowing that we cannot do the right, the effect is to teach us that we are weak and imperfect and needing God's mercy. That sends us to the throne of heavenly grace, and makes the throne of grace a very precious place, my dear friends--a very blessed place--and it impresses upon us the matter, and if you have come once and have occasion to go the second time for the same weakness or blemish, you feel as though you wanted to say, Lord, this is the second time and I told you before that I would try to be more careful and here is the second time, and I am ashamed, but I felt that I must come, that I did not dare to stay away for I felt that if I did this earth-born cloud would be there and I could not realize the privilege of being a child of yours without forgiveness through the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Do you not see, then, dear friends, that it impresses the matter more than if you say, God knows all about it and did not count it against me. The only way you can blot that out is through the merit of Christ's precious blood. It gives us an appreciation of the merit of Christ's blood and makes it precious before us.
Then, dear brothers and sisters, we will welcome the difficulties and tests which we know must come to every Christian. They may never have them the second time, but we will hope that you will so fortify yourselves and say, there is a weakness in my nature; I see it now and I am going to barricade it by putting every resolution behind it to keep it strong, and it becomes the very strongest part of your character. You did not know it at first, but after you found it out, then you fortified that weak spot. You are making character, and even the mistakes and failures become helps. God's arrangement commends itself to us as being the very essence of wisdom for us.
Further, as you would have to do this time and again, it would have the effect upon your own heart of making you very humble. Oh yes, whatever pride was there, if you were feeling that you were much better than the average of people you would say, Oh, I have found some of my weaknesses and feel very humble before God. Good for you; you need to be humble before God, for if you were any other way than humble before God you could not abide in His love. Humility is a very prominent grace in the sight of God. "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time." It comes right in as you find your weaknesses--humble yourselves and make it right with God.
Another thing it will do for you: After you have humbled yourselves several times coming to God in prayer because of your weakness-it might be an appetite for liquor, or good things of this life, or a bad temper, or impatience, or criticizing someone else, or tongue of slander--whatever it may be, and you have found yourself out, you will feel real mean and ashamed of yourself. Well, that will help you when somebody says something mean to you; it will be such a help to you. You will say to yourself, I had my little experience, I guess I had better not say anything. The gracious God has forgiven me and I will be gracious to forgive others. It will make you tender-hearted, you will not sympathize with sin because God has no sympathy for sin, but He has a great deal of sympathy for the sinner when weak and the fault is through weakness or disposition received down through all those generations of six thousand years since the fall. We get His spirit as we thus follow the directions of His word.
But then comes in this difficulty: After you have gone to the Lord for some matter and you have had forgiveness and then you transgress again, there will be a disposition come into your mind which will say, you can't go to God with this; don't pray at all tonight. Avoid trying to meet the Lord. What would you say if you did meet Him? How could you pray? There is a dangerous spot, my dear brethren. If you pass that night without prayer, then the next morning and the next night it is easier to pass again without prayer, and say, I don't want to pray, and don't feel like praying. You do not, because you do not feel like coming into the presence of the Lord and telling Him what you need, and there is a tendency of getting further and further away from [CR295] God, and that has led many people away from God altogether. That is very much the stand of the great company class, as I understand the Bible to describe it (not attempting to judge any individual). The great company class is described in the 7th chapter of Revelation as those who have come up out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. But how did their robes come to be washed, my dear brethren? Because they were spotted. Why did they not keep them unspotted from the world? Oh, they would say, nobody could do that, there is not a person surely that could go through life and keep themselves unspotted. Oh yes, my dear brother, there is. Brother Russell, do you believe in absolute perfection of the flesh? No, I never found it in the Bible or found anybody perfect in the world (Jesus excepted). How, then, keep unspotted from the world? We mean just this: The tendency is that if you got one spot on, a hasty temper, etc., unkind words which hurt somebody, you knew it was wrong at the time, but you could not help it, as it were, because of the circumstances. As it happened, it just seemed to sweep you along and you said it before you knew it. Then what? You have a spot, and the only thing to do is that you first go to the person whom you hurt or offended and make it right with him. Do your part in the way it is stated.
Oh, you say, that might be too humbling; it might be a colored brother, a child, or someone else, and it would be too humiliating. Never mind, my dear brother, you want to keep your own skirts clean, and you want to do it. If troublesome, it will be all the more helpful to you another time. Good for you, first-rate discipline; God has it in the best form possible. After doing the best you can to right the matter, then come to God with the spot, and you can get it removed. How? By the precious blood that cleanseth us from all sin. Remember that that word cleanseth does not refer to those sins which were washed away when we accepted Christ as our Saviour, but refers to a work going on day by day. Not something accomplished in the past, but going on now. So then, the blood of Christ is the blood that keeps cleansing us. Every day you get some spots, and thus every day you are in danger, and thus every day you need to go continually for that blood that will cleanse the spots away. But now, my dear brother, suppose you did not do that and you said, Now, I can't go to God for I know He will not hear me, as I have this matter unsettled with my brother, neighbor or friend, therefore, I will not pray at all; I will not be a hypocrite, for I know God will not hear me unless I make it right, and I am not ready to make it right. You are in a dangerous condition and it may cost you your crown. At that very minute, that is the most important thing in the world to you. Why? Well, if you do not get over it you will never be an overcomer. That is the importance, my dear brother. I have opportunity for seeing this matter more than some of the rest of you and I see such a one making no progress along spiritual lines and he goes back and gets off into error, and since there is only one way, and that is to have short accounts every day, don't let it run, even a minute, if you can avoid it. Get right with the individual, do your best; if he refuses to accept your apologies, make them ample, so that you can tell God that you have done the very best you can, and then come to Him and have faith that He can forgive the trespass, which is the same as is referred to in the Lord's Prayer. We are not referring here to original sins; God does not forgive an original sin, because only the blood of Christ can cleanse from that. But after that is done, and you are a New Creature in Christ, you still have this mortal flesh, and you still must keep it unspotted, and you still have need of the merit of Christ being imputed to you.
But suppose you should let it stand and get more spots tomorrow, and more the next day, and by and by some one would say, There are so many spots on your robes! Oh yes, everybody has--you know everybody has. And that is too true--too true--and that is why the great company is going to be a great company. They do not keep their garments unspotted from the world. The Little Flock, the Scriptures say, are to be without spot or wrinkle. Who keeps the robes? You do. Without desire on your part for the cleansing of the robe, it will not be cleansed. We must take our steps in order to have this thing right with God, our Master and Head, our Lord. This then, my dear brothers and sisters, would be the thought I would leave with you. We do not know what trials or difficulties will beset us, but His grace is sufficient for us, but only by the way He has arranged it-- only in Christ--that is eternal. Every blessing and every forgiveness of divine favor comes through Him. All things are of the Father and all things by the Son, and we by Him. That is the way we must come.
Then this keeping of our account is making character. When we rectify a wrong, we are doing something that will make us stronger; then it will help us to look around at the other points of our character, where we find we have weaknesses by nature. Fortify these points. This is the will of God, and this is growing in grace and knowledge and love, growing in the spirit of the character-likeness of our Lord. This is exactly what the Apostle wants us to do. God has foreordained that you and I could not be of the Divine Nature class, the Royal Priesthood class, the Bride Class, unless we were copies of His Son. That is what it says in the 8th chapter of Romans --He foreknew all that glorious Church. All these, He says, must be conformed to the likeness of His Son. Is not that plain enough?
My dear brothers and sisters, those are the terms upon which we are to get into the great general convention that is coming by and by--the general assembly of the Church of the First-born, on the other side, beyond the second vail; that is what we are hoping for. And if we get this, whether in the Great Company or the Little Flock, if we get into the heavenly condition, it will be a glorious privilege and it will be because we are overcomers, when we have our robes thoroughly washed of all spots either by daily washing, or finally in the great tribulation, and then prove ourselves overcomers and loyal to God in the end; otherwise we will go into the second death. Let us try day by day to keep our garments unsoiled and we will be with the Saviour and share with Him the glory, honor and immortality that He has promised.
There will be the different positions, you see--the Bridegroom, the Bride, and the virgins, her companions who follow after. Will you be there? Will I be there? I hope so, my dear brothers, my dear sisters. It is for you; I cannot make your calling and election sure, and you cannot make my calling and election sure. You may have an influence upon me, and I may have an influence upon you, by what I say or do, but the matter lays in your hands for yourself and in my hands for myself.
We are not to say we have given ourselves to God and that He will carry it out. No, He only works in us to will and to do His good pleasure, while we wish to do it--it is for us to desire.
You can bar the Lord's providence out of your heart and life, for God recognizes the human will.
Then, my dear brethren and sisters, I beseech you, using St. Paul's words, by the mercies of God (all the good things that He has done for us whom He has called to become joint-heirs) that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. We have already presented them in a sense of consecration. You did a presentation yesterday, and do the same today and every day, and I do mine, but we must keep the matter right [CR296] up to date, keeping it presented to God, allowing it to be consumed on the fire--allowing it to be a sweet odor to God. I am sure this is your sentiment, as it is mine: May we, by the Grace of God, meet beyond the river, on the heavenly shore, at the great convention of the General Assembly of the Church of the First Born, whose names are written in heaven.
We are not going there merely because we are Bible Students, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans or Roman Catholics, but because we are what we are by the grace of God; because we have accepted God's terms, because we are members of the Church of the First Born, and, therefore, our names are written in Heaven--because we have been faithful to Him.
[CR295]
LIGHT after darkness,
Gain after loss,
Strength after suffering,
Crown after cross.
Sweet after bitter,
Song after sigh,
Home after wandering,
Praise after cry.
Sheaves after sowing,
Sun after rain,
Sight after mystery,
Peace after pain.
Joy after sorrow,
Calm after blast,
Rest after weariness,
Sweet rest at last.
Near after distant,
Gleam after gloom,
Love after loneliness,
Life after tomb.
After long agony
Rapture of bliss!
Right was the pathway
Leading to this!
[CR296]
The Harvest: Its Privileges Great and Small
TODAY, dear friends, is especially appointed as Harvest Workers' day. As I came in I heard our dear brother praying that the Lord would hold back the time of trouble until you and I and others of His people would have an opportunity of doing a little more work. Well, don't you put any confidence in God's answering that part of the brother's prayer. In my opinion, God will not do anything of the kind. That time of trouble is coming exactly as he intended it should. We have a God who is wise enough to know in advance and He will not change for our prayers, or the prayers of our enemies. They pray many things. If many of the prayers of today were answered, I would be cold and dead. But I know, dear friends, that God is not answering any such prayers. We must pray in harmony with His Word. He has appointed the times and seasons and it is not for you and I to ask him to extend the time, but to work today, knowing that the night is coming when no man can work. We must work because the time is limited. Even if there should be a lot of time, even if the time of trouble should not come as we expect, nevertheless, there would be a limit to your time and my time and we must each have that in mind. Now is the acceptable time so far as your opportunity and my opportunity is concerned. Do not wait until tomorrow, or next year, but now. If your hands find anything to do in the Lord's work, consider that it is the grandest privilege in the whole world. It has been a great privilege, my dear brothers and sisters, to be servants all through this Gospel Age, even way back in the days of Abraham and Lot and down through the days of the prophets when they did not understand God's word, long before the matter had been opened up, but it became a greater privilege when Jesus came, when he began to open up the Divine Plan and to show that his disciples were to be priests, He the chief and they the under-priests, that they were to be co-laborers. We pray, Be ye reconciled to God. It becomes a great privilege as the light increases that they might know more of the Divine Plan. It was a great privilege all through the Dark Ages to serve the Lord, even if they did not know much about the plan, even if the darkness was so dense that they could not see any particular light. They merely believed in God, and said, Somehow God will eventually honor his own name, but they knew not how it would be done. If it was a great privilege to be servants of God, sons of God, serving the Father then, why, dear brothers and sisters, think of the privilege of serving God today! It seems to be the greatest privilege and service the world has ever known. Never has there been such a time. Why? Because we now see things that before were obscure, and we are beginning to see something of the breadths and lengths and heights and depths of the love of God. As we see it, it brings encouragement to our hearts. We also see what our privilege is and how we can serve. As we see what the sacrifice may cost to be engaged in the Lord's service, and take up the cross, and see the reward, I tell you, it makes this Harvest the most wonderful time and privilege even known to God's people. Then furthermore, there is still a further blessing, because there is so much need of it, for as we look all about us we see how blind they are in the different denominations of Christendom and see that they are in just the same condition that we once were. That is the best way to realize it, if we were once in that condition ourselves. If we realize our previous condition and how many of our friends are still there, and realize what a blessing it was to our own hearts to know the Plan, what a privilege it becomes to carry the tidings here and there to every hearing ear, to those having a desire to understand. And when we see so many going into infidelity and losing faith in the Bible and in God, we see great need to put forth every effort we can. If we have the love for God and for the brethren, then we will be glad to do everything in our power to carry the same message of blessing to them with which God has favored us. There never was such an opportunity as we possess as Bible students, of carrying the message, whether the people hear or whether they forbear. We have the most favorable conditions.
WHAT ARE THESE CONDITIONS.
I shall put the Colporteur Work first, because I believe it ranks very high in the Lord's service. It seems to me that the Colporteur Work is one of the most important works in which the Lord's people can engage. I admit, of course, that it may be done in purely a business, or systematic way, for the finding the kernels of wheat--those who have the hearing ear, that is what I advocate, but that is not making it a matter of business. Of course from a standpoint of business you could engage in a business where it would be much more profitable. No one would engage in it from a purely mercenary motive. I am glad that the Colporteurs can merely make their expenses, and in order to do even that they must look bright and sharp. If there was great profit, we do not know who might come into the work. We are glad that the Lord is supervising the matter and that He will continue to guide in every department of His service.
Let me illustrate to you one of the ways in which a Colporteur of today has a superior opportunity and privilege of serving the Lord, and which comes not only to the brethren, but also to the sisters, and it is this: Suppose we had just landed in this world and knew nothing about the world previously, and we would say, Are these large buildings churches? Yes. And ministers of the Gospel preach here more or less of the Truth, and are more or less sincere? Yes. Suppose I could get one of those churches to preach. But you could not get that, because it is a very expensive building and already occupied. But suppose a miracle was performed and I was made pastor of that church. What then? Well, if you did, you would have the opportunity of talking a few times every week to the same people. I do not know how the congregations run here in Washington city, but in many of the cities, there are comparatively few people who attend church, even when 1,400 are on the church register. Then I suppose there would not be more than 100 or 200 in attendance and it would be the same hundreds. Suppose you preached to them for a year. Well, you would say, if they would let me preach I would get in a whole lot of truth. Perhaps you would, but they might not allow you to preach much Truth. Well, suppose you had, and you had had a whole year and reached 200 people every year, what have you accomplished? You have simply talked to 200 people.
Now notice: some humble Colporteur, he has not had much education, and has not had the privilege of getting into a large institution to preach, but he has a better opportunity. Not merely as good, but better; he goes right to a house, rings the bell, gets the very person who went to church and he has an opportunity of putting something into his hands that will preach to him for a whole year. If [CR297] a man has an ear to hear, and you give the proper stroke to the bell of Truth, you have an opportunity there as good as if you had preached for a whole year, and then you not only get to the whole 200 people, but in addition you get the other 1,200 that do not go to church, and whose names are on the church record, and who have perhaps not been in church for years, or for a long time,--you get an opportunity of meeting them. The experience of the Colporteur shows that some of those people are avoiding attendance at church because they no longer find anything there that satisfies their souls. They say what is preached to them is not good food, but only like husks. The preacher is perhaps a Higher Critic and intimates now and then that the Bible is a foolish old book, and occasionally lets slip that we are evoluted from apes. And so they cannot find any particular food for their souls. So you have an opportunity of reaching them in their own homes and in a few moments you can find if they have any room in their hearts and then introduce something to them that will help them out of darkness into this marvelous light.
This is not all, you not only get the 1400 in that church, but 1400 members of another church, and still another church, and then you get as many that do not attend any church, and thus you have six times 1400--you have thousands. The Colporteurs get the opportunity in one year of reaching thousands of people. Is that not so? Can you imagine a better opportunity for serving God and spreading the Truth? I cannot. It seems to me very clear that this is the grandest privilege that could be offered to anyone.
I can imagine if I went into a city and met many intelligent people, how I would like to hand a tract to every one of them, but I cannot; because it would be an intrusion. We cannot go that way, but we can very appropriately go to their doors, saying, "I am doing a little Christian work calling attention to the people who believe in the Bible and showing a perfect harmony of the Bible, from first to last, and it is finding a great demand amongst thinking people; it is strictly undenominational. It goes merely by the Bible and does not hew to any creed; I believe it is just the thing that Christian people need to stem the tide against the Higher Criticism." You see, then, you have an opportunity that you could not have had otherwise. Do you not see that with a volume in your hand and a business proposition, that you have an opportunity of reaching the head and heart of that man which you could not get in any other way? I think so.
And more than that, my dear brothers and sisters, this very matter of Colporteur work becomes a matter of a kind of inspiration in God's people, and the Lord has indicated that all who have received His Spirit will have a desire to promulgate the good message, as we read respecting our Lord Jesus and which he says was applicable to Himself, therefore all his church which are members of his mystical body, in Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he Has anointed Me to preach the glad tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted and to declare the acceptable year of the Lord." That was said of the Lord Jesus, and is applicable to all the members of His body. Whoever receives the begetting of the Holy Spirit has an unction from the Holy One and the tendency of the Spirit, the inspiration of this begetting of the Holy Spirit, is a desire to tell of the goodness of God and to tell everyone who has an ear to hear, respecting the glorious plan of God and to show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
You have that inspiration; now, then, the question comes up, is there any opportunity? The Lord shows you an opportunity; then it becomes a test to you. Here is an opportunity, I would so like to do it; this opportunity is open to me; I can here not only serve the Lord and the Truth, but I can earn a bare living at this work. Shall I engage in it or not? Then the other thought says, It is going to cost you something, you will not only deprive yourself of your comfortable home, but your friends will be against you and speak evil of you, that you are a fool, and gone crazy on religion.
Well, you know Jesus went crazy on religion, so they said. Also St. Paul went crazy on religion, so they said. So they said of John Wesley, but they do not think now that Jesus, St. Paul or Brother Wesley went crazy on religion, but in their day they thought so--whoever is earnest in the cause of Christ. Here is a chance for a victory, but if you go into politics, and waste your time and everything, and run all over the world for the chance of being president of the United States, then in the eyes of the world you would be a wise man, but if you are going to tell the Good Tidings and seek to glorify God and seek to carry His blessed plan to other Christian people, then you are a fool for Christ's sake. That is exactly what it is. But we do not care, my dear friends, for we have certain rewards now in the present time, and still greater rewards to come. We are all familiar with those rewards, glory, honor and immortality. Is not that right? What more can we say to you than He has already said? Nothing more could be said. He has offered us joint-heirship in the Kingdom, glory, honor and immortality --the Divine nature; but that is not all--in the present life we shall have tribulation, but with the tribulation we shall have the peace of God which passeth all understanding, ruling in our hearts. How much is that worth? Oh, my dear friends, when you compare the great peace of God that comes to those who are loyal to Him and count no earthly thing in comparison with the Divine Will and favor, then you have something that the Apostle spoke of. These tribulations are not worthy to be compared with the joy and peace that we shall have. We have partly revealed now the peace of God and the joy of the Holy Spirit and the realization of the fellowship with our Lord and Saviour and that we are fellow-heirs with the other saints to all the promises that God has made. I tell you that is something that is worth a great deal and these things offset the buffeting and scoffing and ridicule of those who do not know better, but who are confined to earthly things, "whose god is their belly," as St. Paul says, they are living for earthly honors and the good things for their stomachs. We count all those things as loss and dross. God may give us some of these good things in this life, but we give them all in His service, because we have started out with a consecration to death. That is our covenant with the Lord, of baptism into His death, and we wish it to be accomplished, and if He sets before us an opportunity of engaging in the Colporteur work or anything else, we are glad to do it. The Lord says, here is a chance for service, there is something to do. Then that is the time which tests whether you really meant it or not. But, of course, the Lord knew the heart in advance, but He is leaving this to you and me to prove our profession. If we accept that opportunity, then our actions speak louder than words. On the other hand, our actions would be asking, Lord, I misstated myself. I was not very anxious, but was merely talking a little. See to it, my dear brethren, God is not mocked, he who is professing to serve God and finds an opportunity and does it not, shows that he is not in the right attitude of heart. You and I have an opportunity and He lets us make some opportunities also, so St. Paul found his opportunity, and said, "Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel of Christ." Did he mean that he would go to eternal torment if he did not preach the Gospel? That is what someone would say. No, he meant, O, I could not be happy in anything on earth, I would have fire in my bones. It is the greatest privilege I have in the world to tell the goodness of God, the redemptive work of Jesus, and what the terms and conditions are of joint-heirship in the Kingdom. To be a servant of God, it will be woe to me indeed if I could not preach this glorious message.
Now that is just what the Lord wants; he is testing just that class who would rather talk of the Gospel of Christ than eat a good dinner. If you had to take your choice, you would rather miss your dinner. That is what the Apostle meant that we should be instant "in season and out of season," whether in or out of season for ourselves, if it is convenient so far as the other party is concerned. If he is willing to hear, let everything go by the board that you may have the great privilege of telling him. So, my dear brethren and sisters, those who are engaging in the work are getting a great blessing, even if it is proving a great test to some. Our zeal is being tested, our love is being tested and the degree of our earnestness is being tested.
Not merely, Would He be displeased with me if I did not go into the service? It is your privilege, and He is giving you these tests and is noting what effects they have upon you, noting those who have a fervency for service, and says, "They shall be Mine when I come to make up My jewels"-- He takes such opportunities to test them. They are not all tested that way; there are certain brethren and sisters who cannot go into the colporteur work, and should not go into that work. I often have them write letters to me, some [CR298] asking whether they should leave their families, and I say, if they have helpless fathers or mothers, or children dependent upon them, it is not for them to forsake the obligations of nature. That is the first mortgage and you have no right to dispose of them, only your own equity. Every obligation to wife or children, or those who are helpless or dependent, these come in as mortgages and the Lord wishes us to recognize these first. But if we can make straight paths for our feet and make arrangements for others, it is our privilege to avail ourselves of such opportunities and to use them.
I think, my dear friends, that the colporteur work has put books into millions of homes--I think that is safe when we realize there are six millions in the several languages-- I think, also, that in a good many of those homes also they have never been read, but I tell you I think there are some people reading them now that did not right after they bought them, and others who will read them when the time of trouble nears, as the Scriptures intimate that the foolish virgins will come afterwards, first acknowledging that they have no oil in their lamps, but finally they will procure the oil, and become of the Great Company class. We are glad that even in that way they may have a blessing at the Lord's hands, even if they lose the chiefest prize and favor of God.
So then my first suggestion, my dear friends, would be, if you can make the necessary arrangements to engage in the colporteur work, by all means make that your special work under the leading of Divine providence. I am merely advising that--it is not for me to direct your lives, etc. If God had told me to tell you so and you needed it, then it would be duty for me to do so, but God has not done so, but has left it as your privilege, your sacrifice, which you are to render joyfully and willingly. It is a privilege, and that demonstrates who they are that love the privileges and avail themselves of them.
If you cannot do that, then the next thing in order is, Could you be a sharpshooter?
What is a sharpshooter?
We use that term for one on the lookout amongst his friends and relatives where he might find an opportunity of getting in a volume or a set; those who cannot put in all their time, but use an hour now and then.
I know of some of the Lord's dear people who have been very successful in bringing a blessing to many others and bringing them the truth in this way.
It is a way that has proved very successful recently in Great Britain and one class tried it particularly. On the strength of that we have recommended it to others in Great Britain, and it might be well here--I do not know. In that class they took up the matter systematically, dividing the territory of their town amongst different people, amongst those who could give an hour or two each week, and they would go through the town loaning the first volume, The Divine Plan of the Ages. They would have a nice little talk ready, and going to the door would say: "I represent the International Bible Students' Association; we realize that a great many people are falling away from the faith of the Bible, because of having the ideas of olden times and misunderstanding the teaching of the Bible. We have a book here that is very helpful to all who desire to have a clear understanding of the Bible, and I would like to loan it for a week." In some cases they loan it for two weeks. Then they call for it and say, "I am collecting that book I left, may I have the volume I left? Have you read it, and did you enjoy the reading of it?" They do not try to sell the book, nor give any indication that they wish to sell it. If the people should say they wished to buy it, they would sell it, and say, We are loaning them all around and some who like it get a dozen or more and loan them to their friends.
Well, the class in that place, while only a small city, now numbers about 250. I think there were 200 at the last Memorial Service. That showed very good results from that kind of work. I think it would be worth while for some to try it in this country, those who cannot go into the regular colporteur work. Then after reading the books, if they want to know more, tell them where the class meets, and say, We will be glad to have you come in. We have only regular Bible study, no matter what our forefathers believed; we believe what we find in the Bible and are glad to have any light upon it, and then use our understanding.
They often say, Well, that is just what I believe; that lady did not have any bad motive in coming to me, there must be something good in it.
Nevertheless, I urge the colporteur work first. This is, however, as good a second as I could imagine.
Another part of the work, my dear friends, is the Class Extension Work. As the class grows and have opportunity to do Extension work, we think it a very good thing, but we find a good many of the friends misunderstand the matter. Some classes who have no talent of its own will write us at Brooklyn to know how they can engage in the Class Extension work. Well, have you any one who could engage in it? No, they say, could you not send us some one? No.
The instruction is that when a class grows and they have some brethren who cannot be used most of the time in the local class, why have them sit there and hear discussed what they themselves could say just as well? Why not have them out extending the word to others in an evangelistic way? That is the thought of Extension Work. Here is a little neighborhood over here and perhaps you could find a place for a meeting--an empty store, or a 5c theatre. Many of these people have a sympathy for Christianity, though they themselves are not Christians, and they say, Well, you tell me that you do not take up collections, so there must be some good in it, and I will let you have the use of this place. In many of the cities they do not have these theatres open on Sunday and they will make the best places for the people to come in to hear. They often charge for only light, and in the winter for heat--no charge for the hall; or, if you have to pay anything, it would be merely something for the janitor, for his work of cleaning it up. It is always best not to hew too close to the bone, although not be extravagant. You should not say, How much is it, any price, I will take it. If a man had given a low price show him that you appreciate what he is doing and accept it without any suggestion of a reduction, if he is making a concession. If he does not, instead of Jewing, say, I would like the place, but it is a little more than we feel justified in spending, and much as we would like to have it, we will have to forego it and look for some place that I can get for about such and such a sum. Well, he will probably say, Come here, we will let you have it at that price. You have not said anything dishonoring to yourself, you have treated the matter in the best way. I cannot imagine that Jesus ever begged. Spend carefully what you have to spend, but be not beggars.
This work has been doing a considerable amount of good in more ways than one. It has helped to let off steam. If you have in your class half a dozen speakers just as good as the one on the platform it becomes a trial to human nature not to find fault. There is always opportunity to find fault with any speaker--no doubt you can find fault with me. I am not claiming infallibility or anything else. So some could probably find fault with an angel. We are sorry that such a spirit of faultfinding exists amongst the brethren. Nevertheless, it does in some places. We cannot help thoughts from coming into our minds, but we can keep them from becoming a fault, by rejecting them. You remember a proverb: "You cannot prevent crows from flying over your heads, but you can keep them from building nests in your hair." You cannot keep these thoughts from coming to you, but you can keep them from controlling you by saying, I am a child of God, and this would not be in the spirit of harmony with God. So the Extension work is furnishing a kind of relief for those who are able to speak outside, and the Society is ready to co-operate with those classes who have an over-supply of talent. We do not mean that you should find third or fourth-rate brothers that could go out. No, not at all, what the Society is willing to co-operate with is, that if you have any brethren in your class who are fully equal with the brethren that are serving there, the Society will be glad to have those go out, in the name of the Class, and in the name of the Society, and we will co-operate under those circumstances. We do not want anybody to go out merely to make a noise and misrepresent the cause. We hold the classes responsible for any going out. We could communicate with the Class and then with those brethren and they could go out under the Society, but we do not think it is the proper way. The Class should know these brethren better than we could, as to whether they were suitable ones to represent the cause of Christ in this kind of work.
We want the Society to operate as far as possible along general lines. What it should do here in Washington should be done in Seattle or in Florida; the same principles always, [CR299] no partiality. Let the terms be made with the Class and the Class be responsible to the Society. Make reports to the secretary of the Class and the Class should, through its secretary, report to the Society, and thus we would know what is going on. We are glad to furnish the literature, and, if need be, join in a part of the expense, if kept moderate.
Another part of the work: Not everybody can engage in Class Extension Work, but God has fixed the work so that there is not a single one who cannot do harvest work.
What is this other part of the work?
Well, He has volunteer work.
What is that?
Oh, that is the scattering of the printed page; you know how that is going on. I do not know the official count of the year thus far, but I suppose the Society has published at least ten or more millions, and it is sending them out in different languages. We have a brother now who is attending to the circulation of six hundred thousand in Japan; also a million copies in China; also some circulated in different languages in India, in all places where there are people able to read--(all nations are not able, you know)--but to those who have some knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and who are perplexed by the different doctrines which they have heard, we are thus able to bring to them a clear view of our wonderful God and His Book, and the great Plan of Salvation that is gradually opening up, and of the privileges of being joint-heirs of Christ, if they suffer with Him that they may reign with Him. There never was such a work done before along these lines. The Lord Himself seems to have guided step by step. We were not wise enough, but as necessities seemed to arise we went forward.
At one time, you know, we had small page tracts and put out at small price, then afterwards made free. No other tract society of which I know is sending out tracts free by the millions, yet all tract societies have large donations of various kinds, and they all wonder where we get the money. They will write to me to know where we get it. I met a minister at one time who asked, Where do you get the money?
Well, my brother, God sends the money.
Is it true that you never take up a collection?
That is true.
How do you get it then?
I said, Well, brother, when people get interested in the Bible, heart and head, it is to such an extent that it reaches down to the pocketbook, and by that time it opens the clasp. Then they say, Can't I get some money into this thing? I have been wanting to know how to get some in, will you take some? Well, brother, we say, if it is given willingly we take it and will do the best we can with it.
He looked at me as much as to say, Do you take me for a fool? They know it was never so with them.
Well, my dear friends, the matter is marvelous in our eyes, not that we have a large amount of money, not that we spend a great deal of money. The amount is nothing at all in comparison with the work that is being done. The work is being done so much more economically than any others are doing it. No bills are contracted, everything is done on the cash basis, and we believe that is the way the Lord wants it to be done. We have in New York and Brooklyn at least ten printers to whom we are their best customers. They may not make the most money from us, but they probably do more work.
Then we have a large firm in Akron, Ohio, printing and binding millions of papers and printing thousands upon thousands of books. Also near Chicago another large company, likewise one of the largest in the world, and we are the best customers they have. We have no machinery of our own, and do not print a single tract or book. Some people say, Why don't you do your own work? O, I say, it would take a great deal of time and money and we prefer to let other people have that and the worry, and we use our time in overseeing other matters, while they take the labor and bother with the type-setters, and some who become drunk, and others involved in the labor union difficulties, etc. They can attend to those matters and we can attend to the Lord's work. We believe we can do it cheaper this way, because we can give a contract and the people will attend to the matter for us, and we are not so sure that the Lord's people would be as good from a business standpoint. With the Lord's people it might be that generosity might come in too much. At all events, we believe the most economical way is to get them printed by contract. So they are going to people all over the world and they are furnishing opportunities and privileges of service.
What do you pay?
We do not pay anything.
What do they pay for getting them?
Nothing. The only people that get pay are the printers and the papermakers, and some express people. All who do the work of distribution do it free, as unto the Lord, glad to get a chance.
One minister said, "If I could get people to work for me as they work for Pastor Russell I would have a great congregation too."
I told him that that was where he made a mistake; they are working for the Lord. They know what they are working for and they have an ideal before their minds, believing that the work is from the Lord, and they believe in what they are circulating, and that it is a service unto the Lord. It makes a great deal of difference.
A paid minister is never a satisfactory one, whether circulating tracts or preaching from the pulpit--a paid ministry has always been a mistake.
Well now, this harvest work, my dear brethren and sisters, has been progressing and has been getting a certain amount of momentum and today has more than ever, just as in this matter of the publicity respecting "hell." It has gone through the newspapers--here are extracts from different newspapers (holding up a number of clippings), showing that it has been called to the attention of many people. Some say they believe in hell, and in roasting them well. Others say they do not believe in it--the people are getting their eyes open; they have not heard it discussed before. They may have heard statements that the preachers did not believe it, but they did not like to ask too far, as it is a delicate question. He does not say publicly that he does not believe it, but he would give the impression that he does and would land them somewhere, and they would look around to see where it was. The preacher, meanwhile, did not believe it, but it had been taught him by his forefathers, and he would go through the motions as though he were putting them there without saying so.
That is a kind of stultifying of conscience, which has done a great deal of harm--believing one thing, and then saying another thing. Whoever trifles with the Truth is in a dangerous position. God desires truth in the inward parts; that is, in our very thoughts and words, being honest in all things. That does not mean that you should tell everybody everything you know, that is your business, and you are fully justified in avoiding a question. That is not misrepresenting, but if you stood as a minister to teach or present God's Word before a congregation, and you handled the Word of God deceitfully, so as to make them believe one thing which you did not believe, and which the Bible did not teach, then you are searing or violating your conscience and making yourself less prepared for some future step of Divine truth when it shall come your way. I think that is one of the difficulties with the ministers today.
I was talking with one minister on my way to Toronto, he was a very prominent man and I had met him several times. We got to talking about certain doctrines and I said, How can people hold these different creeds and be strictly honest with themselves?
Well, he told me how he tried to do; he said, I never preach hell fire.
Well, I said, What do you preach?
I preach about generalities, you know. You can preach a great deal and not preach hell.
I said, it appears to me you are only neglecting the truth, you are avoiding telling them what the truth is. Do you not know that the public mind has become poisoned on this subject and many hearts turned from the heavenly Father, and they cannot love Him as they ought, or as they would if they knew better, and these poisonous doctrines have hindered them from loving God and the Bible, what are you doing to help them to love Him and have His name exalted and His Book properly reverenced?
Well, it was a close question and he hardly knew how to answer. He then branched off to tell what other ministers were doing. Later on he said, I wish you would tell me just what you do believe. He had not had the Scripture Studies, [CR300] so I said, I will have a book sent to you. He said, I want to read. He had gotten his mind working. He seemed a good brother and wanted to do the right thing. He was not a higher critic in the worse sense at least. As we talked about the Scriptures, he said, Pastor Russell, I cannot say I believe the Bible inspired as you believe--no one can charge you with believing otherwise, for you believe that certain words were used to give the Divine thought. I said, that is the thought; for I had called attention to certain Greek words and showed how these fitted and how they applied, and he was astonished to see any such careful fitting of words of the Bible. For instance, when Jesus said He came to give Himself a ransom-price, and that it meant a price to correspond, and that the thing He did for the human race corresponded with the penalty. He was astonished to find such a close fit. He said, I want to read. I hope he will. I hope he is one of God's people, but I cannot say for there are many things drawing him to the other side. He will have all the weight and influence of his denomination and his own congregation and family to hold him back.
Well, my dear brethren and sisters, here we are in this time when the minds of the people are getting open, and now is the right time, this next twelve months--but I cannot say there will be twelve months--but I have no confidence in the Lord holding back the storm because of the brother's prayer. I should not wonder at all if we should have a splendid good year, and that it would be one of the very best that we have ever had in every department of the work, in spreading abroad the glory of the Lord's name.
What about your part in it--are you going to have any share in it? What about my part--am I going to have any share in it? I think of one of our hymns: "Lord, if I may I will serve another day."
We cannot know beyond today; we have today--what are we going to do today? It is the impracticable people who are saying, Well, next year, or tomorrow, etc. If you do not begin today, you never will make a beginning, for tomorrow never comes, because when you get there it is today. What shall I say more respecting this harvest work, dear friends? What a privilege we have! I wonder how many are in thorough earnest in the great privilege? What a great privilege we have in being co-laborers!
Brother Russell, are you sure God is doing it? I am sure, and that is the reason I am in it. If I had any other thought I would say, Sit down and wait until you know what you are going to say, and wait until you know what you are going to do. If you do not believe, do not try to tell others what you do not believe--be honest with yourself and God. We do not want anyone to take up the work if he does not believe in it. I have had numbers of people write me who thought there might be a profit in the business. Some often ask if they can get into the work, and we would ask them if they had studied along this line? They would reply, Some. Better study more--how do you know what you want to tell other people, be honest with yourself, and then be honest with God.
Now, brothers and sisters, I presume those who are here this morning are such as have studied and are convinced of the Divine character of the Plan of the Ages, which God is working out according to the counsel of His own will. I shall assume that you are, as myself, fully convinced that this Gospel Age is devoted in order to the gathering out of the Bride-class; that we are now down in the "harvest" of the Gospel Age; the time for the gathering of the wheat into the garner; also that at the conclusion of this age a great time of trouble will come; also that beyond this time of trouble comes Messiah's glorious Kingdom, and the blessing of every creature--all the families of the earth--and that the elect of this age are to be associated with the Master in His glorious work of extending Divine favor to all who will come into harmony.
So, my dear brothers and sisters, my exhortation is that we lay aside every weight, and every entangling sin, and that we run on patiently, not necessarily very fast, but just as fast as we are sure God is leading us, but run patiently the race that is set before us, until He, the Author, shall become the finisher of it--until He shall say, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful in a few things (a few things, you are not doing very much, nobody knows better than you and I do, and so He thinks of the circumstances and says, You have been faithful in a few things, you used the favorable opportunities which showed to God the intentions of your heart, and you were loyal to Him), enter into the joys of your Lord. (That is the kind I want.) You have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things."
That is our hope and our ambition. As you go to your homes and I to mine, let this loyalty and faithfulness to the Lord and to the Truth and the brethren of the Lord be the overmastering thing in our lives, not by our language merely --let our conduct, words and thoughts and doings show forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness--let us show this by our zeal, and all according to knowledge.
This service then closed with the use of hymn No. 260:
"Send out Thy light and truth, O Lord;
Let them our leaders be
To guide us to Thy holy hill,
Where we shall worship Thee.
Send out Thy light o'er land and sea,
Till every heart shall bow to Thee."
[CR300]
LOVE FEAST DISCOURSE
THIS service opened with the use of hymn No. 160, "Lord I am Thine, entirely Thine," and was followed with prayer by Brother Burgess. Then, after the singing of two or three more hymns, Brother Russell spoke as follows:
Dear friends, the time has come for us to say goodbye as respects this convention. I have had great pleasure in connection with the convention myself, and have been deeply interested in noting the comments of others, and I was glad to note that there was a happy tone connected with the whole matter. Quite a number remarked that they felt it had been the very best convention they had attended. We have made note of the same thing repeatedly with other conventions, each one has seemed a little better than any other. When we think of it, dear friends, that should not surprise us. Some said they thought the speakers, of whom there were about fifty, at the convention, had done better than the same speakers had on previous occasions. I was glad of that, but it was only what we should expect, that they should be getting some increasing ability in the Lord's service, but I think the real secret of the whole matter of the interest in these conventions is the spiritual growth which we ourselves are making. So far as I am able to see, dear friends, there is a very deep work of grace going on in the hearts of the Bible Students all over the world. This is what we should expect, for we should see a growth in grace as we grow in knowledge, and a growth in love with all this. Surely this is our object and is our reasonable expectation for ourselves and others. I believe that this is the secret of our feeling that each convention is better than the previous one, that there is a still further illumination of our minds in sympathy with the plan of our heavenly Father--seeing more and more of the lengths and depths and heights and breadths of that plan. Our hearts, therefore, are more and more glad in consequence.
I congratulate you then, dear friends, that as we close this convention it is with this happy feeling that it is good to be here. And whenever I come to the closing part of any [CR301] convention one text seems to loom up before my mind, and that is found in Hebrews, the 12th chapter. The Apostle is there speaking of the General Assembly of the Church of the first-borns, whose names are written in heaven. And if we are interested in these conventions, trying to have them as general as possible, and if some have come from thirty states, that is quite a general representation, but you have left some behind, who could not come, and as surely as they are brethren, they are also deeply interested in this convention also, but in this great convention for which we are hoping, nobody is to be left out. That is the best thought, that every member of the Church of the first-born will be there; it will be the General Assembly, and I am sure that is good for us. What we enjoy ourselves we do not enjoy selfishly-- our joy is increased if we are able to share it with others. So our Lord Jesus, being heir of all things by the Father's arrangement, has permitted us to come in and get a blessing so that we may tell it out to others so that they may also come in, and thus the Church of the first-born be sharers of these blessings, grace and glory.
Now I am wondering in regard to that General Assembly and Church of the first-born who will be there? I am very much interested in that question. It might seem selfish to say I am very anxious to be there myself, and yet this is not selfish, because it is the Father's good pleasure--the will of the Father--that, having set before us these great blessings, we should appreciate and desire to have them, and count all other things as loss and dross that we may win these things set before us.
You remember how Jesus treated the matter in connection with the Jews; He said that a great King made a feast and invited men of nobility, and when the time came He sent word to tell those bidden to come, that the oxen were killed and everything was ready. They made light of it, however; one went to his farm, another to his merchandise, another married a wife, and that settled that--they all had excuses. The parables go on to say that the king who made the supper was wroth; because, after having provided everything and inviting them to his feast that they should make light of it. And so it is with you and me, we are invited to this symbolical feast of fat things; very precious things, invaluable things. We have been invited, we have accepted the invitation, our names have been enrolled and we have been given the white garment that we may enter in. Now then, the Apostle says, "Let us fear, lest these glorious promises being left to us any of us should seem to come short," that we should find the slightest indifference in our hearts, that we should not get all that God is anxious to give.
Let us put away any such thought that we would not be caring for those things, or that we would not aspire to things so high. One said to me not long ago, Brother Russell, I do not aspire to such great things. I said, Brother, it is that or nothing, for He has not offered anything else. You must either say you do not want it or take it. There is no chance of taking anything else, no use of talking about securing restitution, for God has not offered it, but has offered the most wonderful blessing that could be imagined, and I believe that by the grace of God every one here present desires and is striving to be ready for and to attain to those glorious things which God has in reservation for them that love Him. Then He places a test upon us as to how much we love Him; Do you love Me as much as your house? Do you love Me as much as you love your good name? As much as your parents or children? This is the matter for which God is testing us. Perhaps we do not realize at times why these tests come, into our lives respecting parents, children, houses or lands; it is to see if we love Him or these more. That is why He is testing us. We said that we loved Him more than all things, and He said, I will see: What are you going to do with this matter or that? He says He will test you on this matter. He wants those who love Him more than all these other things put together, more than they love themselves, so that they are willing, yea, glad, to take up their cross and follow Him, counting all else but loss and dross that they might win Christ, and be found in Him, having their names in the Lamb's book of life, and be amongst those who will be of the Church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.
It is not the sudden tests, my dear brother; we go on day by day and He is very patient with us. He lets us handle many things for a while and perhaps then they go to pieces in our hands, and then we see something else, and He asks, Do you love Me more than those? Thus we will have a lesson from those things going to pieces, and finally we learn that there is nothing satisfactory, except that which is in accordance with the heavenly Father. Then we shall through these experiences and disappointments come to the happy condition where we will be pleased to render everything fully to the Lord.
If we have the proper conception of the time in which we are living, that we are in the dawn of the time for the blessing of the world, and the glorification of the Church of Christ, then we must realize that there is not much time for you or me to perfect ourselves; there is not much time to decide, but we should come to a decision and act, be of good courage and have character formed. That is the kind the Lord wants, and He wants you and me. But if we do not get there after He has accepted us, it will be our fault-- not His--because, faithful is He who hath called us and He will also do exceedingly abundant and more than we could ask or think. Then finally the results, therefore, are in your hands for yourself, and in my hands for myself, and no one can take the matter in hand for one another. You remember the picture given in the 12th chapter of Hebrews; the Apostle is picturing the Jews as they came out of Egypt and approached Mt. Sinai, where God made the covenant with them; they had been in bondage. Egypt typically represented the world, out of which God has delivered them, brought them through the sea and baptized them into Moses and the cloud, and then they had some experiences in the wilderness, and finally, in God's providence, they came to Mt. Sinai. God said, Stop here, I am ready to enter into covenant relationship with you, and make you My covenant people. If you get those promises made to Abraham you must become children of Mine through obedience. I will give you My law, and if you will keep that you will get all those Abrahamic blessings; they will be yours, you shall increase and you shall bless all other nations. And the people said, "All these things will we do." They tried, but failed; because they were imperfect, and because their Mediator, Moses, was an imperfect man, and not able to make full reconciliation for them--only typically, and, therefore, they were a typical people, and the arrangement could be only typical. But now, says the Apostle in Hebrews 12, "We have not come to that Mount," and then he tells about the Mount. That, He said, was covered with the clouds and thick darkness, and God spake to them out of the clouds and fire and smoke, and the whole earth trembled, and they were in fear of Moses, and they entreated that they should not hear the voice of the Almighty. So terrible was it that Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." This is the description that St. Paul gives, taking it from the Old Testament.
Mt. Sinai was typical; we are coming to a better mount, Mt. Zion, the Church in glory, and the Kingdom of glory, and so the Apostle says that we have left Egypt, the world, and are approaching this Mt. Zion, where God is about to make a New Covenant with the world--this is what we have been approaching unto right along, the whole Church has been approaching it for eighteen hundred years, and now, my dear friends, if we have the right conception of the matter, you and I have come right up to the Mount, right at the time when God is ready to establish this new dispensation that was typically represented by the Jewish arrangement.
St. Paul gives us to understand that all the different things which the Jews feared were only a picture of the Great Time of Trouble in the end of this age. We are not only come to Mt. Zion, but we realize that the trouble is very near. It may be only a very short distance. It is not, however, the trouble in which we are interested, even as the people of Israel were not interested in the demonstrations at Mt. Sinai, but in the fulfillment of the Covenant there established. And so you and I are not interested in the Time of Trouble, except that we know it is to be a sign, for the world must pass through that terrible experience before the Kingdom can be inaugurated. What we are interested in is the Church of the first-born--the General Assembly, and so if we are near the Time of Trouble, we are near the General Assembly of the whole Church of the first-born ones. I remind you, dear friends, that all those people back there were not the first-born, only those of the Tribe of Levi constituted the first-born. You remember where the expression comes from: You know when they were coming out of Egypt there was the Tenth Plague, and wherever the blood of the [CR302] Lamb was on the door posts and lintels and the lamb inside, there the first-born were spared, passed over, and those passed over as the first-born, you remember, were exchanged for the Tribe of Levi, and they became the representatives of all those first-born of Israel, and that Tribe of Levi represented the Church of the Gospel Age, the Church of the first-born ones. All of these were passed over in advance of the world. All those who come out of the world become New Creatures in Christ Jesus, and receive the Spirit of begetting, they become the Children of God--all these are the Church of the first-born. In the type there were not only those of the Tribe of Levi, but some of them were specially called to the priesthood; so here, amongst those of the household of faith, some are specially invited to the office of members of the Royal Priesthood, the Body of Christ. So you see there are two classes, one very small and the other much larger, but all these together constitute the Church of the first-born, all these are begotten of the Holy Spirit during the Gospel Age, not merely the Little Flock.
But now we are coming down to the General Assembly of the Church of the first-born, and we are glad, not only for the saintly few, but glad for the antitypical Levites--for all of the Church of the first-born. But if we can, my dear brothers and sisters, we want to make our calling and election sure to the priestly company, for that is what God has called us to, and to which our dear Master would have us attain. This class has been in process of selection all during the Gospel Age, coming up, up, up to Mt. Zion, coming up to this closing period, coming up to the First Resurrection, coming up to the time when we will experience our change, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, to be forever with our Lord. Amen, so let it be.
"Watch and pray that you may be accounted worthy to escape those things that are coming upon the world, and to stand before the Son of Man." Some are going to watch and escape, others will not be watching and will go into that tribulation that is coming upon the world. The tribulation coming upon this second class will still be a manifestation of the Lord's interest and love, but those who watch will be still more pleasing to the Lord. The Wise Virgins who have their lamps burning and are seeking to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and counting all else as but loss and dross, they are seeking for this blessing of the prize of joint-heirship with the Master in the Kingdom. To those He will say, "Well done, good and faithful servants, enter into the joys of your Lord; you have been faithful in a few things, I will make you ruler over many." Then, my dear friends, will come a great trouble; we have not the particulars, but it will be a great trouble, and those not watching will pass through the great tribulation. Far better would it have been if they had watched and kept their garments unspotted from the world; far better if they had watched and trimmed their lamps and put more time in Bible study and prayer and in the service of the Lord. They would have been choosing the better part toward God. But God, in His mercy, will not let them go if they are still holding fast to the precious name; never will He desert a seeker, one who puts his trust in Him, even if it is necessary to bring such a one through the Great Tribulation; He will not leave them without the necessary discipline which will enable them to secure a place in the glorious future.
I remind you again of how these two classes are pictured in Revelation; the 144,000 are sealed in their foreheads; they are a special number. Then comes in the second class, and we read that they constitute a great multitude, out of all nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues. We read, also, respecting them that they will be before the throne, not on it, and that they will have palm branches, instead of crowns, and will serve the Temple class. Which do you want to be in, my dear brother and my dear sister? I know what you wish to have, you wish to have that better part which God is pleased to give to us. Settle it, therefore, in your hearts, be not double minded, and as you go from this convention do not allow the world or the flesh or the devil to sweep you into some different attitude of mind. If by God's grace you have had a spiritual feast here, let it continue, and as you go home, spread it abroad and tell about the convention, the various truths you have heard, tell them out to others, and like the widow's cruse of oil, they will multiply. You will increase your own store as you give it to others. So go from here, therefore, to carry and spread blessings every place you go. Let us, dear brethren, go from this convention taking with us blessings that will be far reaching--into all the thirty-three states here represented.
None of us can tell, my dear brethren and sisters, if we
will have another convention or not. You know not whether
you will be here on earth, nor I whether I will be here on
earth, but I trust we will all be at the Great Convention there.
I am hoping for it. If that were taken out of my life it
would be a different life for me. If it were taken out of
your life, what would you have left? All things of this world
seem empty to us after we have tasted of the Word of God
and the power of the ages to come and have been made
partaker of the Holy Spirit--everything else is insipid. The
poet has well arranged it:
"Jesus is mine, Jesus has satisfied."
But, you say, Brother Russell, if I could go to my home and could take the blessed influences to others I am sure that would help me, but I am afraid that when I get away from here the Lord will allow some trials and difficulties to come upon me. Well, I am sure He will, I am sure He will. How could you otherwise make character, my dear brother?
So then, my dear friends, do not go away expecting that everything will be happy and that henceforth all things will work smoothly; that will not be until we get to the other convention. After that everything will be happy, no more sorrow, no more trials, all tears will be wiped away. Our great Master will say, "Enter into the joys of the Lord." It will be all joy after that. Now is the time, however, in which he is testing us and if we could only realize it that every difficulty and trial that comes to us is supervised by our dear Master, that He knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust, and that He will not allow us to be tempted above that we are able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape and cause all things to work together for our good--if we could only keep those things before us, with what courage we could meet these things; not in our strength, but in His strength, who has made these promises and has given us these assurances. That is what the Lord wants us to be, not strong in ourselves, but in our confidence in Him that He who has begun a good work in our hearts and in our minds is able to complete it. But He wishes us to co-operate with Him and to do the best we can, for He has promised to make good every insufficiency, so that we may come off more than conquerors through Him who has bought us with His precious blood.
I have no doubt, dear friends, but that there will be many surprises for us when we get beyond the vail, when we find who will constitute the overcomers, and find some whom we surely thought would be there, will not be there; and, many whom we did not expect will be there. You and I are not to judge one another's hearts; we are not competent, so don't worry about the others. Remember what Jesus said to Peter, about John. The Lord said to Peter, "Feed My sheep," then Peter said to the Lord, What about John? Jesus practically said, That is none of your business. Let us remember that there is only one Lord, and that we must be faithful to Him. Never mind if some do not come up to your ideal. Help them all you can, but don't bore them with your ideas, for theirs may be better than yours. Each to his own responsibility--do nothing to hinder, but above all things help them, and in dealing with one another see to it that you deal in love. Remember that every member of the Body of Jesus is precious in His sight, and if you do injury either by word or act to a single one you are displeasing the great Head of the Church, and He will have something against you from His standpoint, and you want to put away all anger, malice, strife, bitterness, evil-surmising, and to have pure love one toward another--that is, "love one another, even as He loved us." Is not this well pleasing to the Lord? I am only reminding you of what we have seen in the study of the Word of God. I am reminding you because we may not all meet again. Just who will prove faithful only the Lord can say, but I believe it is a very important moment, and if I only had the power I would like to say some word that would make such a lasting impression it would do you good to the end of your race-course, so that you would look back to this very evening and realize the necessity of keeping your garments unspotted from the world, and that if you do get any spots on your garments that you will get those spots removed by the blood of the great Redeemer.
Also have good courage as you go, remembering that God is for us, and that our Master and Head is for us, and that all the children of God are for us--everything is on our side-- [CR303] all things are yours if you are Christ's, for Christ is God's.
Dear brothers and sisters, I will leave the matter here, I am glad for this convention, and glad for this privilege of meeting you, and glad for the precious hour we have had in conclusion considering the Word of God and things pertaining to the Kingdom. I believe that God in His providence meant that we should have a blessing, and it will not be confined here, but will be extended abroad in many languages, all over amongst those with whom we have influence and love, and thus we may be brought nearer and nearer, daily striving for a share in that Kingdom.
[CR303]
Are We Better than Others?
I ASSURE you, dear friends, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to be here. I do feel that I have a warm place in your hearts and I assure you you have a warm place in mine. So this welcome is mutual.
I was wondering what subject would be best for me to have this morning and asked the Lord about the matter. You have been at the convention for one day: You have had a very good convention so far, I learn, and are enjoying yourselves. I am sure that the question which I am going to ask is one that will be foremost in your minds. You have been receiving of God's favor, God's blessing. Looking back we realize that we have been recipients of His mercies from the very earliest moments of our lives. It seems to me in my own case I can see something of this. I believe in very many other cases in proportion as we look at the matter we find there have been things in God's providences which have affected us very early in life. I remember St. Paul writing on one occasion that God had called him from his mother's womb. It seems to me very striking that God should have been able to do such a thing, and I believe in some respects many of us can trace some manifestation of Divine providence at a very early period in life's experience; in my own case I certainly can. I can remember various incidents in my youth in which I had indications that God was supervising my affairs, not indications at the time--things that at the time I did not realize were of Him, but years after I realized that this move and that move and the other change that perhaps seemed at the moment to be very disadvantageous, I afterwards realized that they all had been working for good and my real advantage.
I remember, too, and as I look back in more recent years I can see other experiences in life in which the Lord's providence has overruled. This was for good, that was for good, all the journey through. It is not for me to say, my dear brethren, that God picks us out specially at the moment of our birth and gives us special favor. I cannot say that and yet I can say that he has shown special favors to some nations, some races of people, more than to others. While I was in India, for instance, recently, as I looked at the poor people there and tried to put myself in their places, and tried to gauge them as near as I could, I said to myself, in what respect are these people deficient? Have they not the mental capacity? Of course, just the same as here, there are people to be found there who cannot appreciate anything. There are always people who cannot appreciate good things, but there are people in India and in America and all over the world who can appreciate good things, people of conscience and people of heart, people who desire to know and love the Lord. I found such characters in India, that seemed to have a real good soil for the Truth, and I said, "Why was it that God favored us of Europe? (Because I reckon that the Americans, you know, are all Europeans. The stock came from Europe, it merely has been transplanted to America-- all the same stock.) Why has God so favored the white race above all the other races? Are we better than the others?" And then I compared matters and I said, "There are more of our race in the Insane Asylum than there are of these Indian people. There are more of our race in jails than there are in India." And I compared again, so far as these people naturally are concerned apparently they are not so aggressive and not so much disposed to have a selfish preponderance of power as we people, and I found indeed many things in which I believed these people seemed to be superior to us, and I felt somewhat ashamed of my own race, that while we have greater blessings in so many ways and greater ability in some ways, those abilities seem to be largely in the way of taking what other people have and appropriating it to ourselves: that seemed to me the great mark of the white man everywhere I have been: he was shrewder than the others and therefore more able to grasp. Selfishness is more predominant in the white race than in others, and I wondered all the more why God gave us so much favor. Then I remembered what I read respecting the Jews, that God favored them as a race, and then He said, "You are a stiff-necked generation and a rebellious house," and then again He said, "Not for your sakes do I this," and I said, it looks a good deal the same. God, in the Jews, had taken the worst and most stiff-necked people, and again, He had taken our forefathers of Europe, and he has taken some of the most rebellious and stiff-necked, hard and selfish people of the whole world; it seemed to me so. Well, you know, friends, when you want to make a very fine razor you get some of the very hardest steel, the hardest kind there is; it will take the very best edge. And perhaps the Lord is putting an edge on us; perhaps he is polishing us up. I am sure we never would have done in our natural condition. The Lord does not love selfishness, I am sure of that, and yet from this people God is choosing out His jewels, mainly, chiefly. First the Jews got the opportunity and next came our forefathers, and we have the very best favor of all. Century after century God's favor has been more with the white man than any other and even today nearly all the blessings are with us--our land and territory, and knowledge, and the Bible in so many convenient forms, nearly all with us. It looks as though we see another illustration of what the Apostle means when he says, "God is choosing the mean things of the world." Pretty hard on us, isn't it? But it is the Bible. God is choosing the mean things of this world, but they cannot be mean and be the Lord's Jewels. Whatever we are by nature, grace must work a transformation or we never can be ready for the Kingdom. All that will be in the Kingdom must have His character likeness. They must become as the Apostle says, "a new creation"--regenerated, and that is the whole secret of it, my dear friends. God is making a new creation. He sent His message to the Jewish people, but they were not ready as a nation. "He came to His own and His own received Him not." They crucified Him. "But to as many as received Him to them gave He power to become sons of God." The Jews were not worthy as a nation, but God proposed to find a holy nation, a peculiar people, different from all other people. But to what nation would He go? Would He go to the Grecians or would He go to the Africans, or the people of India, or the people of China? Where would He go to find His people? The Jews were not in a condition to be His people; only a few of them were ready for adoption into the family of God. Where would He find the nation? There was no other nation so fitted in the whole world. The Jews in God's providence had been lifted out of their meanness and there were some of them in a glorious condition of holiness of heart, Israelites indeed in whom there was no guile. What nation now could we put this remnant of true Israelites into? No other nation. God did not accept of the other nations. [CR304] Yes, but the Apostle says, "Ye are a holy nation." Oh, my dear friends, the word nation signifies "people" or "generation." "Ye are a holy generation." Who was the holy generation? These regenerated ones, these begotten of the Holy Spirit. They are the regeneration, the new nation that God is forming. He could not find a nation among the fallen nations of the world and therefore He took as many of the Jews as were ready, and now He is taking out of all nations and people and tongues and He is making a holy nation. How glad we are that in God's providence we have been invited to belong to that holy nation! Glad to be invited, but more glad that the invitation reached us. More glad still that when the invitation reached us we had ears to hear. God's providence favored us and we had the blessing of the Lord and His guidance, and hither by His grace we have come. We are what we are by the grace of God. Is it not wonderful, dear friends?
Now, I have not told you my text, but it is in view of what God has done for us in bringing us here, bringing us into this condition and bringing us now into this harvest time to the great blessing of a clearer knowledge of Himself, a glorious knowledge of the Divine character, and of the Divine Word, making it all so luminous. We are almost walking by sight; the faith seems to be swallowed up almost; as we see the various things harmonizing in God's Word we become stronger in our faith every day. God has done all this work, and in addition to that, we who are here this morning, we have been privileged to come together from various parts, some of you miles and some many miles, we have come together still by His grace, still favored. We have the blessed privilege now of sitting here together in Heavenly places in our hearts, in our minds, with God our Father, the great Creator of all the Universe. What a privilege! And with our Lord Jesus Christ, and to apply to ourselves all the exceeding great and precious promises of God's Word. All that privilege, yet, my dear brethren, the text is, "What shall I render unto the Lord my God for all His benefits to me?"
That's the question; that's the question I believe that is uppermost in all our hearts. The more we appreciate what God has done for us and what He is doing for us and what He tells us He is ready to do for us, waiting to do for us, the more we realize these things, the more our eyes of understanding open, the more we see the length and breadth and height and depth of God's great mercy and love, the more we feel "What shall I render unto the Lord?"
It is not, my dear friends, "what shall this man do?" You remember St. Peter's reference to John, the Apostle, "Lord, what shall this man do?" Jesus said, "Never mind him, attend to yourself, Peter." So with us, it is not "What will he or she render?" but "Lord, what will I render to the Lord." That's the thought. Why should we want to render something? Because, my dear brethren, there is no noble soul in the world that wants to be continually receiving, receiving, receiving, receiving blessings, mercies upon mercies, filling our lives. There is no noble soul that wants to receive all the time and does not wish to make return. The person who always wants to borrow and always wants to get and always wants somebody to give him something, he does not know the spirit of the Lord, because that is not the spirit of the Lord. We may be needy and the Lord is glad to be gracious to the needy and we are glad to be gracious to others in proportion as we are able when they need, but the soul that receives 1d, the soul that receives pounds, or whatever it may be, he wants to give something back if he is a noble soul. If he can give nothing but thanks, then he will give thanks.
I remember, very early in my life, this came to me in this very way. I was a lad about 15 years of age, and I reasoned the matter out one day and I said, "See here, you go to God in prayer, and you ask Him for certain things. By what right do you go to God? You are not a member of the Church. God only has dealing with the Church. Is not that so?" And I said, "Yes, I guess it is so. I don't quite understand, apparently it is only the Church." "Why, then, do you go to the Lord in prayer?" "Well," I said, "I presume I go to the Lord in prayer because my parents are Christians. I am their child and all they have belongs to the Lord. I suppose that is why the Lord allows me to come in prayer." "How long will this continue?" "I don't know. I suppose God will continue to be in that relationship up to the time that I reach a discernment of mind myself; till I have a personal responsibility. Yes, that seems right." "And about how soon do you think you are going to have the personal responsibility?" "Well," I said, "I don't know. Thirty years of age under the law, but we are not under the law. I don't know. After I have a discerning mind that I can reason the matter out, I guess, I shall have a responsibility from the time I am able to reason it out." "What are you going to do about it?" "Well," I said, "I would not like to be without a God. I need a God." "Well, you say you believe that you have a parental standing and you don't know when it will run out; when you have come to the place of personal, intelligent responsibility?" "Yes." "Don't you think you have come to that place now?" "Well, I think I have," I said. "I think I have." "What are you going to do about it?" I thought it out and I said, "Oh, God, I will give Thee my heart. I am so glad that You are willing to accept it. It is such a privilege for me to give Thee my heart. I need a God and I need all the blessings You have promised to Your people. Lord, let me be one of Thy people." And I believe, dear friends, that was exactly the right thought, although I have come to understand the Divine Plan much better since my childhood's days. My mind is still the same on this subject; I see nothing in the Scriptures to the contrary.
I will bring in a little matter here that will be helpful to some. I was talking to a lady. The aunt of this lady is a consecrated child of God, and we were all in company, traveling in the train. I had an opportunity of speaking to the niece and I said, "Have you ever made a consecration to the Lord?" "No," she said. "I understand what you teach and I believe it is all right. I don't doubt it is all right, about restitution, about the bride class and about the kingdom. I believe it is all right, but I don't feel I want to consecrate my life. I feel I want to keep control of myself. If I did it I would want to do it right and proper, but I feel I don't want to do it. I am quite satisfied when I can go to the Lord in prayer morning and evening. I don't want to make a consecration of my life, I just want a certain amount." I said, "You pray, do you?" "Oh, yes, certainly. I could not get on without prayer." I said, "Why do you pray?" "Why, I pray to the Father. I ask for the things I need and for His care." "Oh," I said, "you have no right to go to God in prayer. Do you not know that God hears not sinners? Are you not a sinner? Are you not in harmony with the whole world? Don't you know that the whole world has been condemned by God to death? Condemned as sinners? When Adam was condemned that condemnation passed upon the whole world, and the only ones that have escaped that condemnation are those who have come into Christ." She said, "I never thought that. Is that so?" "That is so. Your prayers have not gone higher than your own head, not a bit higher. God is not anxious to have your prayers. Don't think you are favoring Him. It is you who are receiving favors. You favor yourself if you give the Lord your heart; you will be the one that will be under obligation. He is not depending upon human beings at all and He is able to create as many as He may choose. He does not need you or me at all." "Well," she said, "I believe in Jesus." "Oh, you believe in Jesus; you believe that He died. You believe He has offered you an invitation to become a member of the bride class and you have rejected it." "Yes." "Now, what would you think; supposing some gentleman friend proposed marriage to you and you disdained it. Then you needed something and you went to him and asked him for money and other things. Would you want his fellowship, his care, would you want him to do all that you wanted him to do when you had spurned any of his love?" No, she would not. "Well," I said, "you could not do that with the Lord if you chose to do so because He would not have it so. He has made just one arrangement. 'No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.' You cannot come to the Father any other way. The Father is inaccessible to sinners. God heareth not sinners. Jesus has become an Advocate for a certain class and you are not in the class He is advocating for; you don't belong to the class. The Scriptures say that when He ascended up on high He appeared in the presence of God for us, not for you. Who are these 'us' for whom Jesus appeared? They are His followers; they are those who have accepted God's invitation through Him. That's who have become His disciples or followers; none others in the whole world have an Advocate with the Father. 'We have [CR305] an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.' 'Let us come with courage to the throne of Heavenly grace that we may find mercy and grace to help in every time of need.' But there is no provision for others at present. There is a provision for them in future. He is going to establish that great mediatorial kingdom and the whole world is going to come under it that they might be helped up out of their degradation and brought back to perfection. All that God will do for them, but those who come now, there is no other door, no other way, no other name under Heaven or amongst men whereby they can come. 'He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber'--climbing up some other way instead of coming in by the door. That is the appointed way of discipleship. 'If any man will be My disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me...where I am there shall that disciple be also.'"
I believe, dear friends, it does us good to see just where the lines are. It helps us for ourselves to know which side of the line you are on. You know if you have stepped over that line or not. Your neighbor will not know, but you know if you have made a full consecration of yourself in the name of the Lord. I may not know. I may have a good guess, but I cannot know in the same way that you know. I know for myself. I know I have made a consecration to the Lord. I know that I have that Advocate. I know that I gave my whole heart to Him and we all know. This is the door. There is no other way of access. God is inaccessible to the sinner. "No man can come to the Father except by Me." "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." There is not any other.
That young lady afterwards said to me, "Oh, Pastor Russell, you made me feel very badly. When I went to pray in the evening I could not feel the same. You broke my hopes and faith." "No, sister, I did not break your faith, I merely showed you you did not have a faith. You did not have any to break. You had no relationship with the Lord. I merely undeceived you. My hope is that you will feel so broken up over the matter that you will say to yourself, 'I need a God.'"
That reminds me of a young woman who came to America from Germany. I think I put it in the "Watch Tower," but I will mention it again. The father and mother of that young woman were in the Truth, but she had had an education in Germany, and like many others who have had an education, she lost her God and her religion, and when she was coming to America her father wrote to see if I could do anything to help his daughter, to kind of help her along, get her a situation. So we thought we would invite her to come to the Bethel Home until she would have a chance to look around. And in those few days she found there were others there who had found the Lord, that they had a Father in Heaven whom they could go to in every trial and difficulty and they had a Lord Jesus Christ, their Saviour, their Redeemer, and she felt she had not, and she came to me and said, "Pastor Russell, I am in great trouble." She did not speak very plain English. She said, "In my own country, when at school I lost my God." Those are her very words. "I feel so unhappy." And I said, "Yes, no one can be sane and in a right condition of mind and not have a God. No one can feel properly happy without having God, and there is just one way for you to have the Lord Jesus Christ." So I told her the story as simply as possible and we knelt and she gave her heart to Him unreservedly and she has been a very faithful servant of the Lord since then, seeking to do the Lord's will, and very earnest.
But you see the principle, dear friends. It is not the easy matter that some people thought. God will only accept the perfect ones. How then do we come; we are imperfect. Look at the world, see the world and its imperfections, and how God is going to deal with it. Instead of receiving the world in their imperfect condition and counting them as if they were perfect, He merely turns them over to the Redeemer, to the Purchaser, that He may deal with His own, causing the light of the knowledge of God to fill the whole earth and bring all people to a clear understanding of righteousness in order to prove whether or not they will be loyal to righteousness, loyal to God. If they will, to help them clear up to perfection, and if not to destroy them in the Second Death, so that at the end of that 1,000 years He will present the world before the Father and they will all be perfect. Will the Father accept them? Yes. Why? Because they are perfect. God proposes always to accept a perfect creature. When Adam was perfect he did not need a redeemer. While he was perfect he was in perfect accord with his Father; all the things on earth belonged to him according to the Divine arrangement. As long as he remained a son he remained an heir of all the earthly things. When he sinned he lost his sonship, his inheritance, and the whole race has been bankrupted and now God's arrangement through Jesus is to bring them back. First He redeemed the whole possession; He purchased for man the right to life, to bring them back from death for 1,000 years, to full perfection, all that was lost, and when they are back again, Jesus at the end of the 1,000 years shall present them before the Father. Oh, they will be perfect! No need of a mediator any longer, no, not a bit of need. No need of a Saviour any longer, not a bit. Why, because they will be perfect. A perfect man needs no mediator. A mediator stands between the imperfections of a sinner and a righteous God. But they will need a Mediator until they have been brought up to perfection where God can recognize them and where they can fully obey the Divine requirements.
But now, that's the world and that's the Mediator for 1,000 years dealing with the world, but now God is dealing with the Church. It is different with us. He is not the Mediator to stand between the Father and us. He is the Advocate to introduce us to the Father right away. Right away? Yes, immediately. How so? We are coming to the Father. "No man cometh to the Father but by Me." Now then you want to come to the Father and you say, "How can I come?" and the Master tells us--tells us how we may come. There is only one condition. One condition? What is that? Well, the Father at the present time is only seeking some on the Divine plane. On the Divine plane? But we are human and sinners. Yes, and you say God is seeking sons on the Divine plane? Yes. "And could I have any chance of getting on to that plane?" "Yes, that is the only chance there is. If you don't take that chance you don't get any other." "Well, how?" "On the same terms that I have taken." "Lord Jesus, did You take any terms? What were your terms?" The terms were this in the case of Jesus: "I presented My all to the Father, sacrificially laying down My life, giving it all into the Father's hands that His will might be done no matter what came, pleasant or unpleasant, happifying or otherwise, anything, everything, that the will of God be done." "What did the Father do for You?" "Oh, He accepted that covenant of sacrifice; He accepted that, and the way He accepted it was, He gave Me the spirit of begetting to a new nature, and counted that I was already dead to the flesh, the earthly life, and then I had to continue to live out that consecration of sacrifice. For three and a half years I laid down My life in sacrifice and finished it at Calvary, and then I was dead for three days, and then what? Then He raised Me from the dead by His own power. A man again? Oh, no! To the Divine nature, far above angels and cherubim and seraphim and every name and every power next to Himself, His own right hand of favor. He did all that." "And now what?" "Now He wishes Me to be an Elder Brother to as many of you as desire to walk in the same way and I will call you brethren in one figure, and in another figure, members of My Body. In another figure I will speak of Myself as being your High Priest and you being under priests, and in another figure the Heavenly Bridegroom and you the bride class. These different figures, in addressing you, but whatever one, it all means the same. It is an invitation for you from the Father. 'All things are from the Father, but all by the Son.'"
"Well then, Lord Jesus, tell us what we shall do." "Well, I will tell you through Paul. Present your bodies living sacrifices, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." "Lord, our bodies are imperfect. You are not forgetting that, are you? We are imperfect and You are perfect. You presented a perfect sacrifice. The Father could accept Yours, but could He accept ours?" "It will be holy and acceptable." "How can this be? How can we know that it is holy? We know that it is not acceptable, for He has already said that sinners are under condemnation." "Oh, you will be holy. Just do what I tell you and I will show you how. Just you present yourselves, that is all that you can do, and then I will make up your deficiency. That is what I can do that you could not do. And when I have made up your deficiency and accepted you as part of My own sacrifice then the Father will accept that as your sacrifice, as My sacrifice." [CR306] "Now, Lord Jesus, tell us are we to sacrifice ourselves?" "Not at all. All that you can do is to present yourselves. You cannot sacrifice yourselves. Only the High Priest can sacrifice; you can merely present yourselves. That is all you can do. I will tell you the rest.
"The goat did not sacrifice itself. The goat was merely presented. Tied to the door. That tying up to the door of the tabernacle represents your presentation of your bodies a living sacrifice. Then it is for the High Priest to accept that sacrifice. He kills and offers the sacrifices. You are accepted to become new creatures, begotten of the Holy Spirit, brought into the Body of Christ. This is God's wonderful arrangement. Very beautiful! Notch for notch, item for item! Only God could have made anything to fit so perfectly, only God."
So this then is the answer to our question, "What shall I render unto the Lord my God for all His benefits?" That's the answer. "Present my body." "I will give myself to the Lord." It is not an offering that is worthy. It is so insignificant. I often have battles with myself. I often feel mean myself. How must it appear in the sight of my Heavenly Father, and yet this poor thing, the only thing that I have, it is my little all. The Lord says He is willing to accept it and I am so glad to give it. Here, Lord, I give myself away. I never would have dreamt that You would be willing to receive such a poor, imperfect sacrifice, but, oh, Lord, I realize how wonderful must be the character that can have such great compassion and such great love and mercy, but I see how Your justice has made the arrangement through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus. There is sufficient to cover all my needs and the needs of others, and so I am accepted in the Beloved. Oh, I am glad. Now the Lord is mine and I am His. What a blessed condition. I have a Father instead of being alone and a stranger and foreigner and under condemnation of death and cut off from Divine favor and not permitted to come to God in prayer because I am a sinner. Instead of that we are brought nigh, we are made children, and if children what of that? Oh, if children, then heirs. Heirs? Heirs of what? Heirs of our Father, heirs of God, joint heirs with our Elder Brother, who is our Advocate, and through Whom we hope yet to be victorious and to gain all His inheritance.
My dear friends, I am more and more convinced of that text of the Apostle. It has more and more weight with me every day, when he says, "If God be for us, for us, who shall be against us?" Well, He has been for me a good while, before I was for Him, and He favored me a great deal even before I gave my heart to Him, and He has been for me ever since I gave my heart to Him, and now I understand why He is for me. Every father will be for his children, won't he? Looking out for all their interests. It is the duty of a father to do this. God shows us this and teaches us this and He Himself is looking after us as His children. Looking to see whether you have anything to eat tonight or anything in the morning. It is all the interest of our Father. Not one hair of your head could perish without your Father knowing it. That's the thought Jesus gives, you know. I tell you, my dear friends, if I were to lose my Father I would be an orphan indeed. So would you. Since we have come to know Him and the more we know Him the more we come to feel the blessed relationship of this family of God.
"What shall I render unto the Lord?" "Oh, Brother Russell, you have told us. You have given your all, that's all there is." "No, that's not all there is. It is not sufficient that I should render once." "Can you render it more?" "You can keep it rendered, cannot you? Yes, day by day. I wish to have this disposition, this spirit in my heart. Here's another day, what shall I render unto the Lord today? Oh, don't you see if this spirit of the Master be in us every day we live and every hour we live it will be, 'What shall I render unto the Lord my God for all His benefits?' I got some more benefits this morning. I got some more yesterday afternoon, and I am getting more every day. Can I render more every day?" That's what the Lord wants us to do. That is what Jesus calls the zeal of His house. "The zeal of Thine house has eaten Me up." We are to be zealous in the Lord's service. It is to take hold of our minds, our bodies, our time, and take hold of every influence we have, our money and everything. All we have is so little, so little. Once, indeed, perhaps, some of us thought (well, fortunately for me I never did think I had much, but some people evidently think they have a good deal, they hold on to it so tight) they were rich. Oh, it takes so little time to find out how little we have and it seems to me that St. Paul was one of the most wonderful illustrations, and his own case such a wonderful picture to my mind of the proper attitude in this matter. Paul was of a wealthy family and he was learned, a member of the Sanhedrin, an educated man, a Roman citizen and possessed of gifts and talents naturally, and more richly endowed than the majority of the most noble among them. He occupied a very prominent place. And what did he say? Did he say, "Lord, most of these Jews are poor beggars and they have not much to give and I will give as much as they and a little more, I think." Was that it? Not at all. If he had said that the Lord would have said, "Saul of Tarsus, please keep it to yourself." If he had said, "I will give you 90 per cent," He would have said, "Keep it all, Saul, you love it too much." But Saul did not take that view at all. Saul took the right view; St. Paul took the right view. He said, "All that I have, all that I have. Oh, when I think of it I am ashamed to offer it to the Lord, it is so little. I reckon that all these things are but as loss and dross, as dung, not worthy to be compared with the glorious things that God has provided and offered to me." That was the right view, and that view held the great Apostle day by day, and apparently every day he was saying, "What shall I render to the Lord today?" Here's another day for God, I am His. I have given it. It is not much, but, oh, there is all of it. I want to increase it as far as possible. Jesus gave the same thought in the parable of the talents. He represented His disciples as being stewards. They had made their consecration to Him and He gave them back those pounds and talents to be used in His service. "Use these until I come and I will see what you have done with it." Then He went to the far country, even Heaven itself, and we have these talents to use. What are we doing with them? I tell you, dear friends, if we have a right appreciation of that great Lord and Master of ours we will say, "Here are your talents, and they are not as many as I wish they were." I wish they were more, but I must be very active in my use of these. I want to show how much I love Him and how desirous I have been of serving, and so in the parable it shows how when the Lord returned one said, "You gave me two talents, that's all I had. By Your grace and the opportunities I had I have been able to make two more talents of it." "Good, good, my child, my servant. Well done, first rate. Come now, enter into the joy of your Lord. You have been faithful in a few things. It was not much, but you have done faithfully. I know now that if you had had 100 talents you would have used those 100 just as faithfully. The loyalty with the two talents showed what you would have done with 10, 100, 1,000. Come now, I will make you ruler of many things." So it is with every one of us. You know your talents. You might have two talents; two may be made into four; five; five can be turned into ten. This the Lord expects us to do. Does He require it of us? Yes and no. When He left those servants with the talents He did not say, "Now unless you use these talents well and double them I will give you a punishment." He did not say that. Not at all. He just said, "I leave these with you to do your best till I come back." He wanted to see what kind of zeal and love they had. He did not say, "Every one of you will get a flogging if you do not do well." So the Lord has not said, "Now you have consecrated certain things to me, your time, your talents, your strength and your health. If you don't do it I will send you to Hell." Not a word of it.
Dear friends, He gives us in this parable the suggestion I have given you. "These talents made you stewards and I want to see when I return to what extent you have been earnest, zealous to serve Me because I am looking out for some servants for the Kingdom and those of you whom I find faithful over a few things I will give them charge of many. They will have much in their hands, but now I will just see what you have done with your talents." He did not even tell them that when He went away.
Dear friends, my time for making my reckoning has not fully come yet. We believe some have had their reckoning. The Lord has tested their cases. St. Paul, for instance, died, slept, waited for his time of reckoning. I don't know what the Lord said to him. I suppose He would say, "You have done very well." I think Paul is going to have a very high place in the Kingdom and I am sure we will all be very glad. I think he will be in a good place.
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Now my time has not come to make my final reckoning. I still have an opportunity of getting in a little work and turning over the talents a bit. I may not have very long; perhaps I may have tomorrow, and the next day and the next month, and perhaps a whole year more. I don't know if I will have a whole year more. But I want to get a little more in before the Books open if I can. I want to have that one or two talents that I have turned over as satisfactorily as possible, to present to my dear Lord that I may hear Him say, "Well done; you have done the best you could." (If He says to me "Well done" I will be so happy!) "Enter into the joy of the Lord." (That will make me so happy!) I have already entered into some of His joy now. We all have. We have entered now by faith; our hearts are rejoicing; even in tribulation we are able to rejoice. Nothing shall stop our rejoicing; nothing can stop it because it is something which is not dependent upon earthly things. Our rejoicing is dependent upon the Divine favor and if you can feel that you are doing what you can to serve our Heavenly Father and our Lord Jesus then you have the joy and peace and blessing, and the peace of God which no man taketh from you and that no tribulation could possibly disturb. "Hold fast that which thou hast; let no man take thy crown." Be faithful unto death that He may give you the crown of life.
"What shall I render unto the Lord my God for all His benefits?" It is not merely "I did render," but "I want to know today what I can render. I want to be rendering today a little more, if possible, than yesterday, a little more service, laying down a little more life. I cannot give more than I originally rendered. I agreed I would give all, but I am merely carrying out that original agreement." We are just doing as Jesus did. He gave all at the beginning and day by day and year by year until the cross He continued to do so, and then cried, "It is finished." That was one picture, and another picture was His cup, and He represented the cup as representing His trials, His difficulties, His sorrows and His yielding up of life itself. You remember His illustration. He said, "I have a baptism to be baptized with. Are you able to be baptized with my baptism? Are you able and willing to drink of My cup?" So He has been inviting you and me. This is the proposition, "that you drink of My cup, then you will share in My glory. If you suffer with Me then you will reign with Me," and so in this Jesus Christ was saying, as prophetically said, "What shall I render unto the Lord my God for all His benefits towards Me?" and then He continues, "I will take the cup of salvation." Take it? Accept it now. You accepted it when you made your consecration, but you have to accept the cup every day, every day, do you not, and your heart has maintained this attitude, and God allows this to go on. "Why, if I did it first, do I do it now?" Well, my dear brethren, God wishes to develop us, to crystallize our character. We have need of patience therefore. He is going to give us it by daily testing and if we endure this testing it makes us strong, strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, and so in this case "I will take the cup of salvation." I take it today and if I am living tomorrow I hope to take the cup of salvation again. It is the cup of salvation and a cup of suffering both, because the salvation of this present time depends upon taking the cup of suffering. No man gets this salvation--so great salvation except by drinking His cup.
Then the next part of the text says, "I will take the cup of salvation." I remind you that Jesus took the cup of salvation in this way down at the very end of His experience; in the very closing day He said: "The cup that My Father hath poured for Me shall I not drink it?" He still had the cup. He had drunk it in one sense of the word; He accepted it at the beginning, but it had to be drunk day by day, and there at the very end of His course were the very heaviest dregs of the cup. The dregs were there, the most trying portion of the whole experience. But He said, "I will drink it." And so the Father says to us, to you and to me. It is the cup of our Lord; it is His cup. He gave it to us; He allows us to drink of it. All those who drink of His cup will share in His glory. I don't know, dear friends, what dregs there may be in our cup before we complete the matter of consecration. You don't know. But I will tell you what I have made up my mind to and that is that I am not going to worry what is in the cup. The Father knows and He says we will not be tempted more than we are able; with every temptation He will provide a way of escape. We don't know a word more on the subject. He does give us other words. He does assure us that "all things will work for good to us" and that even the trials and tribulations will work out for our good. The more we have of them they will work out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. If the Father pours a good deal into your cup, just conclude that the Father must be intending to work out still more glory for you and then when you think of that you will be able to say calmly and patiently, "My Father poured it out. Have I confidence in Him? Have I learned to know Him? Yes, I love Him. Yes, I realize that He loves me." What more shall we ask? That is sufficient.
There is one other thing mentioned in the text and then we will close. "I will take the cup of salvation, calling upon the name of the Lord." That's it. Don't do it in your own strength and say "I vow that I will do it." That is not a safe way. It is good for us to be very cautious in what we say, in all our covenants, to be sure that our minds are thoroughly made up, that there is no wavering in us, but that we be not too confident in ourselves. Remember Peter who said, "Lord, if all should deny thee, yet will not I," and before the cock crew twice he had denied Him thrice. Poor Peter! But I think, dear friends, perhaps the Lord allowed that to happen to Peter for our sakes, that we might realize that we need to be careful to put our confidence in the Lord. "I will take the cup, calling upon the name of the Lord." "Lord, in Thy name, by Thy strength, by Thine assisting grace, I will drink this cup." That's the way, dear friends, and we need that every day, not merely at the beginning. We need it today; we need it tomorrow. Therefore God's people need it always--to make use of the great privilege we have of approaching the throne of heavenly grace. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous. We have the throne of heavenly grace to which we may come that we may find grace to help in every time of need, as well as forgiveness for our sins. Then, dear friends, let this text dwell well in our hearts and let it be a comfort to us in coming days--we know not how many--until the Master says "Come up higher." Say this text every day. Think of it every day if possible, "What shall I render to the Lord my God for all His benefits towards me..." and see if you cannot render a little more today than you have rendered yet, and tomorrow a little more than today, and I believe it is so, that our capacity will increase day by day. For instance, we are filled with the Holy Spirit at the beginning and yet we are to be filled and filled with the Spirit, because we get an enlargement of soul and we can receive more and more of it, and we throw off more of the old things and therefore have more room for more. In the case of Jesus it was different because He was perfect and so we read of Him that God gave Him the Spirit not by measure but without measure, unlimited. But we can only receive a measure and, day by day, as we present ourselves and as we take the cup, calling upon the name of the Lord, His blessing comes with the endeavor, and we become more and more emptied of self and selfishness and more and more filled with the spirit of God and, therefore, more and more copies of God's dear Son.
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Harvest Workers' Meeting
A GREAT deal, my dear friends, connected with our hopes is associated with this word "Harvest." If we are not in the end of this Age then there is no Harvest work here and we are mistaken. If we are in the end of the Age, "the Harvest is the end of the Age," and we are not mistaken. We are not of those who profess knowledge on the subject; we have never claimed to have knowledge; we believe and therefore we speak, as the Apostle says. The whole matter is a question of faith and none of it is a matter of knowledge. We believe in God our Father, "whom not having seen we love." The same of our Saviour. We believe these things on the testimonials given to us and our faith is rested upon these promises of God, these arrangements we see God has made, and so we are rejoicing today because of faith. There are plenty of other people in the world today who do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ at all, others who do not believe what the Scriptures say about His having left the Heavenly Glory. But we are what we are and we have the rejoicing we have because of the faith we have. Take away that faith and I will be poor indeed. So I say, in this matter then of our having faith that we are in the Harvest, we are just in line with all the other phases of our faith, all the other blessings we have, and we are getting a blessing through our faith in the Harvest time in respect to the Harvest work. I venture to say that those are enjoying themselves most as Christian people who have a faith in this respect, in respect to the Harvest work and who are acting, living, day by day in accordance with that faith, seeking to do with their might what their hands find to do as co-laborers with the great Lord of the Harvest Who we believe is now gathering the wheat into the garner and soon will accomplish His great work.
Our subject yesterday, you remember, was "What shall I render unto the Lord my God for all His benefits towards me?" What does the great Chief Reaper say we may render? He says we may render our time and our strength in accordance with this work, this time in which we are living-- the privileges which belong to this Harvest time, and some therefore in full accord with that have had the privilege of doing Harvest work, some in one respect and some in another, but so far as I know all those in the Present Truth are realizing it is a great privilege to have any share in the Harvest work. Some are not so situated that they can give all of their time, talents, influence, all of their might in every way to this Harvest work. I know some are even inclined to grieve a little. They have become more or less entangled in the ordinary affairs of life. They are so situated they cannot do all they would. At the First Advent, you remember the Lord Jesus chose the Apostles, the 12, and apparently they were all single men except Peter; Paul speaks about Peter leading about a wife; we may therefore suppose he had a wife to lead about; but his wife did not stand in the way of Peter's co-operation with the Lord, co-operation with the Harvest work to be done, and I assume that if his wife would have been in the way to hinder the work St. Peter might not have been permitted to have been one of the Apostles, while he might have been one of the ordinary disciples. He might not have had the privilege of being an Apostle. And so with some today; there are some who are more privileged to engage in the work than others. They have fewer responsibilities. God does not wish us to neglect the duties of life. When I say "duties of life" I must check myself a little because there are a considerable number of God's people inclined to interpret such words as "duties of life" from the standpoint of the world. From the standpoint of the world it is a duty of life to make a fortune if you can, and if you cannot to try it. To make a fortune is the chief duty of life according to the world. For anyone to engage in the Harvest work, to spend his time and influence in going about to encourage, to assist others, in the study of the Bible and explain matters to them or help to awaken their interest would seem to be folly. I know some of our dear friends have had a great deal to endure in that way. Sometimes it is from the father, sometimes the mother, sometimes the brothers or sisters. "All this is foolishness, rank foolishness. You ought to be doing something useful." They look at things from a totally different standpoint from that which God has given. From God's standpoint we see that whatever we can do to be co-laborers with God is the most wonderful privilege we can have, is the privilege He has given to His people. Whether we are doing elders' work or deacons' work, or whether the ordinary work of the Church or speaking to those we meet, we can be co-laborers together with God as though God did beseech them by us. "We pray thee in God's stead to be reconciled to God." It has been the chief business of God's people all these 1800 years; no other business to be compared with this. If you are a sailmaker, if you need to make your living, then you make sails just as much as necessary to support yourself decently and in order to provide for those depending upon you, not to lay up money, goods, not to lay up, give your love to, anything. When you see beautiful pictures, beautiful furniture, etc., in the shop windows, you can look at them and enjoy their beauty. I can enjoy those things every time I go along a street. Some may say, "But they are not yours." That does not matter. I am glad they are not mine. I would not enjoy them if they were mine. I would have to keep them in order. I get far more good than if I owned them, by just looking at them. If I took them in and locked them up very few people would see them. When in the store lots of people can see them. I am better pleased that lots of people have that pleasure than that I should have it alone.
So then, dear friends, we have taken a peculiar view of all God's people do, that is to say, all of God's people should do. It is true we have gotten into an occasional worldly spirit; the nominal church of the day has been immersed in the world; there has been no persecution, nothing to make them on the alert to defend the faith. They have nothing to defend. They have fallen asleep and if you say something to them about religion they feel like saying, "Don't, my! I was just having a pleasant doze." They feel as if it were an ant or a fly or a mosquito coming round to annoy them in their sleep. We cannot help that. They say people about to perish in the snow become so stupefied that they feel they are just about to go into a beautiful dream. People in the first stage of freezing, if left alone will simply sink down and go to sleep and never know anything. Just sleep to death in the cold. And so these dear Christian friends, many of them are cold, some of them lukewarm, the Scriptures say, and they need our attention. They have needed it all the way along, but there has generally been enough persecution to keep them awake. As long as that was the case they were in better condition, but now there is nobody left to make them afraid. Now they have come to a very snug and nice condition, nice comfortable pillows, cushioned pews and everything is going well. They need to beg a good deal for money occasionally, but that keeps them in Christian work, the need of money. The only kind of work they do is raising money. Just as sure as you name "Christian work" there nearly always is "money" at the other end of the street.
Well, friends, we are living and we have got awake. We were asleep, too. We ought to have compassion on those who are now asleep. We were immersed in the riches of life, etc., trying to grasp pleasure. Different ones had different experiences, but by the grace of God our ears have heard the call, we have been wakened, we have found out that it is morning. We had a long sleep at night, we have looked out of the window and we saw the first gray streak of dawn and we beheld that the day was dawning, and our hearts were glad. And now what are we trying to do? We are trying to go all over the house of Christ, all over the church of Christ, whatever they call themselves, those who sleep in the Episcopalian room or those who sleep in the Roman Catholic room, or the Baptist room, or wherever they are asleep, we are trying to knock, to cry, "Wake up; it is morning, it is morning." And that's what our work today is. The Harvest work is, waking up. That's another way of looking at the matter. It is morning in one figure and Harvest time in another. God is just about to pour out His great blessing, to complete the gathering of the various [CR309] members of the Church. The door will soon be shut. Is not that the way you feel? It is the way we all feel. That's exactly how we feel. There is a great blessing to be given some of our dear ones who have been faithful servants and who are more or less asleep. Oh, how we would like to get them awake. We are not to pray them awake. Prayer is good, but it must not take the place of preaching. There is much more in Scripture about preaching. I have no authority to pray for you to be converted, to pray for you to get light. God has made certain rules and regulations on which you can get light and others on which you cannot and it is my business to be an ambassador, to tell the terms, to call attention to God's Word, not to ask God to call your attention, because God has done all He intends to do. His part is all done. We must call attention to the Bible, to the message it conveys. This is the work of the Harvest, the closing of the Age, and this new light that is rising in the East, as soon as we get a view of it, as soon as we see the sunrise and have found out what the Sun of Righteousness means, the great Sun that with healing in its beams is about to flood the world with the knowledge of God, tell it out. Tell it out to the nations? No, we need not tell it to the nations. They have not any ear to hear at all. Tell it to God's people, those who profess to be God's people. Tell them of the wonderful things that are so near at hand. Tell them about the Bridegroom and the Bride. Tell them that if they want to make their calling and election sure they must be quick or the door will be shut, and whatever blessing they will get it will not at all compare with what the wise virgins get.
We must build up one another, energize one another, that we may make our calling and election sure, not that God could not get along without us, my dear friends, oh, my! there are a thousand ways in which He could do without every one of us, but He privileges us. It is a great privilege that we might be God's ambassadors, God's mouthpieces, and how much joy it brings when we do anything for the Lord! Surely the Lord never allows anybody to labor in His service unless He gives them exceedingly, abundantly more than they could have asked or thought as a reward.
I think of one brother. I went to a certain city to a meeting and he was to meet me at the station. It was not a very large place. This is some years ago. It was a rainy morning. I got off the train. "Well," he said, "this looks very unfavorable for our meeting--a wet day--but never mind, Brother Russell, I am happy whether this meeting amounts to anything at all or not. I have got my share of the blessings already." "How?" "Well, this way. I have never done volunteering, as you call it, until this time, and it so happened that there was no one else to take up matters in the way of circulating announcements of this meeting. The 'old man' did not like to do it. But I told him he had to do it, and finally I got him at it and it went along swimmingly then, and now that so warmed my heart, and that effort to serve and be faithful to the Truth has brought me such a blessing, if nobody else gets a blessing out of this meeting I have already got mine." So that is the experience of all God's people who have rendered unto the Lord their lives, who have said, "What shall I render unto the Lord," and when they have found something they could do, no matter how little it might be, that they were anxious to do the little thing. Some you know will say, "If I could go on the platform and speak for Jesus and tell about the Harvest message, you know I would be glad to do it." You see the point. They would do something if they thought it was a large thing, but if it was a little thing they pass it by. That's a mistake, my dear brethren, that's a mistake. If you want to please the Lord you will have to begin the other way and say, Lord, no matter how little the thing is, let me do whatever is to be done. Begin with the first thing you find. Do it so well that the Lord will say, Give him the chance of another. Give him more and more and more. I think that's the Lord's way. "To him that hath shall be given, from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." To him that hath used shall be given more and from him that hath not used shall be taken away the privileges he had. Don't overlook the little things. If it is the smallest kind of thing, if done unto the Lord, count that you have great honor in being His servant in any manner. In the end He will say to us all, "Because you have been faithful in a few things, in little matters, I will give you something of importance." That will be the way at the end if we are faithful. It will be because we are faithful in a few little things. There is not very much that any of us can do. It is all trifling from God's standpoint, but He looks at the spirit.
Now, then in this Harvest time, surrounded by good evidences that the Age is closing and that the new Age is drawing on, what manner of persons ought we to be? The Apostle wanted to know that away back eighteen centuries ago. Well, they should be zealous, and all Christians should be zealous. We have all good reason to be, but coming down to our day there is a special reason for being zealous--so many special reasons; they all seem to focus right upon this time in which we are living. God has been preparing for this time in which you and I are living. He has been preparing for more than 6,000 years, has He not? Do you ever think of that. God has been preparing for it all these thousands of years, by sending prophets and causing various dispensations one after another, that this Gospel Age might come in and then upon this Gospel Age He has poured all His mercy and blessing, and now we are at the close of the Gospel Age, the focus of all these 6,000 years. I tell you, my dear friends, God must be deeply interested in what is going on now. He did not let these thousands of years go by and send His Son and afterwards the Apostles and teachers, and then have it all for nothing. Here we are now at the Harvest time. How would you feel, those of you who have any experience in farming, if you went into a field and with great labor turned over the soil and left it for awhile, and ploughed it again, put in the harrow and harrowed it, and put in the seed and all the other processes, then you watched and tried to see that it was well watered, etc., and you watched and waited, what for? The harvest, the harvest. The husbandman has long patience while he waits for the harvest. Of course, he waited for a long time before he put in the seed and before he did the other features, but all the waiting and the grand sum of everything is the harvest. And here we are in the Harvest, in the most wonderful time the world has ever known. More than that, the Harvest is nearly over, if we have the right conception. I say it is faith you know, not knowledge. We believe that the Harvest is nearly ended. How long has it been? Oh, some thirty-seven years. Only about two years, a little more, left of the Harvest time, so far as we know. I tell you, my dear friends, every moment of this time gets more precious as we begin to feel there is something to be done here. God is not getting excited about it; don't think that. God is not thinking that His plan is in any danger of failing. It is you and I that need to get a little bit afraid. Let us fear lest we should even seem to have come short. There have been promises left to us and one of them is that "he that reapeth receiveth wages." Let us fear that if we don't reap enough we cannot get as much wages as we hope to get. Let us fear lest we should show any carelessness in this time of reaping, in case He might say "There is a half-hearted laborer; let him stand aside; put on that other person who is anxious for work over yonder." Let us fear lest having an opportunity of laboring in the Harvest field any of us should miss that opportunity through any disinterestedness. God is looking for very warm-hearted children; He is looking for those who are so earnest for His Truth and for their brethren that they are anxious to lay down their lives in His service. "They shall be mine, saith the Lord, in that day." Why? Because they are jewels. That kind of people are all jewels. Even the world knows they are jewels to some extent. They may think they are very foolish but they admit that there is quality there. Even the great Napoleon who was a very cold-blooded man surely, said, "If I could have people to serve me as some Christians serve Jesus, I could easily conquer the world." Yes, if he could have all his soldiers like some of Christ's soldiers he might do so. Now we want to be like those he would have liked to have, and not like the nominal mass who are very indifferent, because we have so much advantage every way over other Christian people who have ever lived, who have never had this opportunity. Look at the present privilege we have today. In this Harvest time we have opportunities for doing ten times as much as any person in previous times ever had. For instance, the harvest work of the Jewish Age occupied forty years. First of all Jesus and the disciples labored three and one-half years before the cross and then there were three and one-half years after that before the Gentiles got any opportunity, making seven years in all devoted to the Jews only. The Gentiles got no opportunity. Then there were the remaining thirty-three years of their Harvest [CR310] time in which the message was sent all through Palestine, everywhere, like a fine tooth comb, to find every "Israelite indeed." Like a magnet cast in to find every true particle of steel so the Truth found every "Israelite indeed" in that people, and all that took forty years and at the end of the forty years, in the year 70, all was destroyed. All accomplished during forty years. Now we have a Harvest that is much wider. We have a world-wide Harvest. This message of the Truth which Jesus brought has gone over all nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues, and wherever the message has gone we may assume there are some grains of wheat. So there are some Christians in Africa, some in India, some in America, some in Australia, some in China, some in Japan, some in Great Britain, some in Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain--all the world over there are some who are true wheat, we may assume, and now they are in the Harvest time. See what a large field there is to be harvested, dear friends, and compare this large field with the little field of Palestine and see what a difference, and see that the same length of time was apportioned--forty years there, forty here. So much larger a field in the same time. How can that ever be? Oh, I said a moment ago that God had been shaping everything towards this day, this Harvest time. Now, see He has got everything ready and necessary just at the time and not too soon. Here are ships to go across the Atlantic, and it only takes seven days. Here are swift trains to go in every direction, only requiring a few hours. And so on, over the world God has prepared for this day. Fast printing machines that will turn off printed pages by the millions. Express companies to carry them everywhere over the earth. Everything, everything that makes this the wonderful Harvest time, and that is just what it is. And so today the Truth is being published all over the earth in some sixteen different languages. At this very time there are nine young Japanese going with literature to all the different ports of Japan where there are any people likely to be able to read the Truth in the Japanese language and giving them a test. If they have any aptitude after testing them, they will have an opportunity of reading at least the first Volume, for that Volume is being published now and will be ready soon. One of the magazines there will be publishing some chapters of it during this summer, beginning this month. In August there will be another, and so on.
And so the message is going out in China, Japan and India, these different languages. Then alone in India there are different languages, just as different as German and English are different.
Well, dear friends, God is doing this work we believe. If you and I thought we were doing anything of this kind how foolish it would be for us, how foolish! We would not want to be doing any such work. It is because we believe it is the Lord's work, because we believe the Harvest time has come, because we believe God has given us the Harvest message and the privilege of being co-laborers with the Great Reaper in this work of making known the Truth which will act as a sickle to reap the wheat. What acted as the sickle in the Jewish Harvest? You know. The sickle that gathered there was the sickle of Truth. The Truth that Jesus sent the Apostles all around the country to preach. They did not have very much to preach either. He told them merely, "Just as you go, preach, saying, 'The Kingdom of God is coming. Repent and believe the good news!'" that's all. If we send round one or two copies of "People's Pulpit," we are sending a little more explanation of what the Kingdom is, what it has to do, etc., and how the door will soon be shut, and how those who want to have a share must make their calling and election sure.
Now, I believe you and I are deeply interested in this Harvest message as we know how to be. Is that right? We don't know how to be any more interested than we are? The only thing that can make us more warm is if we get more insight, more appreciation, and we get that in proportion as we use the knowledge we have, in proportion as we thrust in the sickle. Every time you seek to do a service of love to the Lord and the brethren you get warmed up to the matter, further energized and stimulated, and the thing becomes more real and more glorious to you as the moments and days go by.
Now coming down to something still more practical: You have not any opportunity of engaging in the Japanese, Indian, Austrian, African work, etc. You are right here in Scotland. You are right here in Great Britain. This is your opportunity. What are you doing? Are you doing with your might what your hands find to do? And by the time you have done that are you looking for something more for your hands to find to do. That's the spirit of service. It is not merely saying, "if the Lord asks me to do that I will do it." That's not the spirit of service. That's a spirit of standing holding your hands in your pocket and being careless until the command comes. The Lord is not needing us to do the harvest work. No one is. He that reapeth will receive wages. It is an invitation, just like everything else that God gives out during this age. It is our privilege to present our bodies living sacrifices. It is our privilege to become a child and heir of God. All privilege, no commandment, no threat-- not one. All privilege. Just the same with the Master "For the joy that was set before Him He endured the cross and despised the shame." The Father did not threaten Him. He set the joy before Him and Jesus gladly laid down His life. The same Father and the same Saviour has set the same joy before us and gladly will we lay down our lives in the service of the Truth if we have His spirit, and laying down our lives is our reasonable service. It is not doing something foolish. It is having our minds exercised to spend every moment of time and every particle of brains that we possess as wisely as we know how to do, to bring forth the desired result. It is not merely a matter of wasting energy and making a fuss. It is what you can accomplish, what results you can attain.
I see some of you, dear friends, who have engaged in that branch of the work which we call the colporteur work and I think that is a great blessing and means a very great privilege. As I look over all the agencies that the Lord has been pleased to use during this Gospel Age I don't see any that seems to have accomplished more under Divine Providence than this work, the colporteur work. I think I told you on a previous occasion how God seemed to get the work into that direction. At first we thought the work of circulating the Studies should be accomplished in the ordinary channel-- through the bookstall, but our opponents were too strong. They told the booksellers if they kept these books on the counters they would take away all their books, they would pirate them in some sense of the word. The booksellers were afraid to carry them on their shelves, and so when they would not sell in that way we wondered how God would have them brought to the people, and gradually God opened the way in the colporteur work. One after another came forward and enlisted in this army of the Lord and now there are about 700 people going about giving all their time to circulating the Truth, telling the people what glorious things God has for them, telling them as wisely as possible to interest them and not choke them, and bring the Truth to their attention, and then to leave sermons ready in their hands that their visit may indeed be a benediction in itself. It often is. Many times people have said, "When I just looked into the face of that brother or sister I saw there was something there that was very noble, a true Christian spirit, and when I saw that person was so earnest that I should have that book I took it. I thought there must be something in that book that would impress that person so. I knew it was not the money they were after, indeed, they said they were not there for that purpose. I am sure they would have earned their living otherwise better, and I am going to see what brought that bright light into the face of that young man or woman."
I will tell you about one sister. She was quite young. She had not been out in the work long, had only recently given her heart to the Lord. Her mother and sister were in the Truth and this one was about sixteen when she first gave her heart to the Lord and she had quite a knowledge of the Truth beforehand because she had had it in the home, and when she became a colporteur (she had a very sweet face), when she would go to tell about the Truth she would just tell it out of her heart in a very simple artless way, and that is indeed what often rejoices the heart of the people. They see that the person is very much in earnest and that they mean everything they say. In this case, this young sister went to a house and there was a lady came to the door, and she talked about the book and about consecration and about different things and the lady, who was a Christian herself and had been for some years--probably thirty-eight--in the way, said, "Come in, come in," and so she sat down and told her "of grace so full and free." She had never heard anything like it, especially from the "mouths of babes and sucklings," so she got the sister to tell it over again, for she liked [CR311] to hear it. (She told this herself after, for she came into the Truth). And after, as she was listening, a minister who lodged in the house came in, and she got the sister to tell the story again to this minister, tell about God's plan, etc. And that lady who had been a Christian for years, she was surprised that one so young could know what real consecration meant and the minister was very much astonished, too. How could that young child know all about the steps of grace in the way that he had not comprehended before so clearly and could not have told himself so well! Because that is the truth, my dear friends. We have much advantage every way when we get the Divine plan of the Ages before our minds. The whole story is a true story, the whole is consistent, with beautiful, graceful lines.
This little sister told the story and the lady bought the set for herself and said to the minister, "You must take a set," so there were two sets sold.
Another case I heard of was that of an elderly sister. One lady to whom she sold a book and who afterwards came into the Truth said she came first to a meeting to find out who that was who sold her the book. She said, "I will tell you of her face when she talked. It just seemed so animated as if she just believed everything she said. I just had to watch her face all the time she was talking and it impressed me that she certainly believed what she was saying, so I took the book."
Another case of a young brother who had a very nice appearance and a bold way of presenting the Truth and seemed to be very clear, very earnest. The people were impressed. They said, "he is not thinking about pleasure, he is thinking about religious matters. I never heard our preacher talk so much. He does not say so much; he seems to be glad when the visit is over and he gets away. He asks about the crops or something, but he has not much to say about religion." And they noticed this colporteur knew something about religion and the privilege of the Truth.
I don't know any other way of preaching the Gospel that is equal to it. Suppose you were landed here in Glasgow, an utter stranger, and supposing you had the knowledge of the Divine plan that you have now, and supposing not a soul in Glasgow had the knowledge. You would say, "What am I going to do?" Suppose God said, "I will let you have the chief church of this city." Suppose He said that. You said, "Thank you, I will take it." The largest congregation (and the largest salary included) for a year was yours. How much could you do? You would have a chance of talking to that congregation so many times a year. Suppose you told them the Truth and suppose they all listened (they would not, but suppose they did), you would get a chance to talk to how many? I don't know how the congregations average here but in America they are getting very small in the great churches. In some large churches where there are congregations running up to hundreds they only have a congregation of from fifty to 100. (I heard in London of one place where they usually had about six every Sunday. One reads the lesson, another gives the music, another is usher, they all have offices and I presume a good sum of money goes in the matter and that is probably why they keep up the positions.) But suppose in this case you had everything favorable and a congregation of 500 (that would be very unusual), as a colporteur you would have a better opportunity than if you were in that pulpit with the salary attached and full liberty to preach the Truth. How could that be? You go right from house to house and you might say to yourself as you go along, "These are nice looking houses, these are nice looking people, do they attend Church? Well, I find about one-fifth of them attend Church and the other four-fifths never do, or very rarely. Well, I wish I could speak to those people who hardly ever go to Church, because quite probably they have become discouraged and lost their interest in religion. If I could have a few words with them perhaps I could find they were dear saints of God. If I walk up to a door, ring the bell or knock, and say 'May I talk to you about your soul,' they will shut the door, call the policeman, or something." But now instead of doing that you have the other way. Knock. "I have called to show a little book that is a great help in the study of the Bible. I presume you are Christians here, consequently interested in the Bible. I would like to call your attention to this book. I represent the Bible and Tract Society and they find a lot of people are losing their faith in the Bible and they have a little book here which, no matter how well informed you may be, will stimulate your mind and bring those things before your mind which will help to reestablish your faith and make it all the more strong. And then you may have friends and you have something which you can give them." When they ask you some questions about the Bible you might say, "I have not time to answer," and you could just give them this book. It is just the very thing and it is such an interesting matter. Some people have found there is not a single novel in all the world so interesting. It is a novelty to see all God is doing, that He is doing a great work in respect to mankind, and you could not have a more interesting subject and this book presents it in a very nice way. There is one chapter on one subject and it gives all the Scriptures right together, and then takes up another subject and so on and so it is really like the Bible only topically arranged. Now, I think you will be very deeply interested. Let me show you this chart." (And you give them a little talk on the matter.) "And now the price of the book is, to be just, it is really given away in one sense of the word, the three volumes sell for the price of one ordinary book. Three for a dollar, three for 4/-."
Well, anyway, you get the opportunity there of getting right to that person and then if they seem to indicate in any way that they are religiously inclined you have the chance of saying, "May I ask if you are a Christian yourself," "Oh, yes, we belong to the Presbyterian Church." "Yes, I thought that likely. A great many Presbyterians are interested in this book. Perhaps you would not like me to put the matter any clearer," and say, "Have you given your heart to the Lord?" (I would not say it in every case. It sometimes is not good, not always. You will have to judge the occasion. Some people you can ask if they are really consecrated, or you can tell them about yourself. "Well, now, I know as a Christian I never did appreciate, etc." You can talk about yourself ever so much in this way and not be egotistic and at the same time they will hear what you say about yourself if you put it nicely when, if you spoke about them, they would not like it so well.)
"I always find the best Christians are interested. There are some worldly people who are interested because they have got tired of the churches" (And when you touch just where they are, a little twitch goes through them--'That's my case,) so you just rub in that thought and then you say, "Now, I must not keep you. I will just ask you: can I sell you these books. I believe you will consider them the very best investment you have made in your life. I feel sure of it, and by the time you have read them, if you could not get another set, I am sure you would not sell them for pounds."
Now, you have the choice, not only of one house, but all the houses in Glasgow, one house after another, and wherever you go each volume represents sixteen different sermons and they can read them over and over again if they are interested, and if not interested they will be different as if they were sitting listening to your preaching, because the great majority of people do not listen to the sermon. They could tell you, perhaps, Mrs. Smith had a new bonnet, or Mr. Jones had a straw hat which he should have thrown away, but as having anything particular to think about you know that is an exceptional matter. They tell us so. Our own experience corroborates. Most of it went over your head.
Well, now, I say a colporteur, going from house to house, has a better opportunity of reaching the heart of the people and making an impression for God and the Truth than if he had a pulpit in Glasgow. Besides a pulpit in Glasgow needs a great deal of education and ability and in all probability if you got the fine education you would lose your religion. The educational institutions seem to be very favorable to kill off all the religious faith there is and leaving people undermined in respect to God and the Bible.
Now, my dear friends, I do not know how many more of you who are here present could give your time to colporteur work without interfering with their just obligations to aged parents or obligations to wife or to children, but don't think for a moment that you have to provide for parents who are well-to-do. Not at all. Don't think you need to lay up a good bank account for the time of trouble to burst. We are not to do things from the worldly standpoint. We are to take God's standpoint. You do owe something to your children. If a man care not for his own he denies the spirit of God, he denies the faith. He misrepresents the faith, because God wishes His people to make reasonable provision for those depending upon him. We must not neglect any duty. But don't make any mistake. "Well, father and mother don't [CR312] need me, but you know they won't consent to me going out." "If you were going to get married to a man or a woman, would not they consent to your leaving home?" "Oh, they would have to." "Well, you are engaged to the Lord. I think just as much of the Lord as I would of an earthly lover (and if we don't think more of the Lord than we do of wife, husband, parents or children we are not worthy of Him. He says if we are ashamed of Him He will be ashamed of us and would not wish to have us in that Bride class)." So if any of you are not in the work and can arrange your affairs and get into it, by all means do so. You may say, I could get on all right only I have a nice little business and it is doing first rate. Oh, well, it will hatch our eggs for the time of trouble, too, and there may be snakes in those eggs. The right way is Seek ye first (chiefly) the Kingdom of God and a place in that Kingdom, seek this first and all these other things God is able to take care of. He has done so in the past. Look back to the Apostles, how faithful they were. St. Paul did not say, "If I do so and so I will lose my share in the home and the Jews won't have anything to do with me. I will lose all my opportunities of making a fortune and being a great man." He said, "If by any means I might gain Christ--a membership in the Body of Christ-- if by any means I can do this, I will count it cheap." And so with us. If you could not get full price for your business, take less than full price. Show the Lord that you are willing to sacrifice something, that you want to serve. Don't merely say, "What shall I render," and then when the Lord shows what you can render, "I am merely saying it. I have no intention of rendering anything." If that is really your mind the Lord will know it. But if you find it out, just say, "Old man, I am going to get the better of you. I am going to put off all that spirit of the flesh and I am going to get right into that place where I can be used of the Lord." That's the best we have to suggest to everybody--colporteur work. It is a grand opportunity.
I was talking to one of the brothers here who is a colporteur. He went through some such experience--sold his business, and is giving all his time to the work. He said to me, "I was wondering if you would advise me to go further afield." I asked if he were not doing well in Glasgow and he said, "I am doing very well in the city, but I thought merely I could do something outside that might be more difficult and leave Glasgow to others." Do you see the spirit? That's the spirit the Lord wants. I did not tell him to go further afield. I think he should stay right there until the Lord shows that there is a particular reason for going outside. For instance, if those who can give an hour, or a half day, or a half of each day (some have household duties and other matters to attend to), if they can take up all the Glasgow territory then I would advise that he leave that territory to them and go further afield. The Lord is able to care for us and to protect our way and use us in any part. What He wants is this loyalty of heart, this zeal for the Lord's house. Zeal for the Lord's people. We are the house, a living house, the house of the Lord which is the Church. The Zeal for the Lord's house "has eaten us up"--zeal for those in Babylon who need it or else they will starve; zeal of service to the Lord in His work.
Now, we will leave the colporteurs. There are other departments. The Volunteer work. Every one of His people can do something. There is not a single one of God's people who has hands and feet and eyes and mouth that cannot do something. Now, the volunteer work. Those who have not the time, who need to pay attention to their business and cannot give their time to the colporteur work, they can see what they can do in the whole Church by way of cultivating acquaintance with their neighbors, circulating tracts or papers or whatnot, or by doing volunteer work, and all these things that the Lord gives us to do will make us have more or less of a "bad odor" to the world. That is what the Lord pictured in the Tabernacle. The bullock was taken outside the camp and burned. What sort of a smell of burning hair, hoof, entrails, etc., would there be? What kind of a smell? I fancy all the Israelites looking over in that direction holding their noses. A stench in the nostrils of the world. And then the Apostle says, "Let us go to Him outside the camp bearing His reproach." What's the reproach? Why, of being a bad odor to mankind. We would not be a bad odor to the Lord in being colporteurs. Not a bit. It is a very good odor with the Lord and the angels. I fancy the angels will be saying, "Wish we had such opportunities." I fancy the Lord looking down at His brethren and noting their faithfulness and saying, "They shall be mine." But from the world's standpoint they say, "What are you doing?" "Oh, I am colporteuring." "You mean you are peddling books?" "That's what I mean." "I don't want any relative of mine to go round saying he is peddling books." It is not peddling books. They merely use that expression, the Lord allows them to say something very mean that will tear you in the heart and give you a jag, but the old goat needs to have some trouble, doesn't he? The more dead the goat gets the less he will feel these things. Get more dead. "Oh!" you may say "when they said that it did hurt me." You were not entirely dead. Well, just take it to the Lord and say you want to be entirely dead to the world's opinion and still more keenly alive to His favor, His smile, and by the time you have done this there will merely be the mark of the hurt left.
Paul said, "I bear about in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." What did he mean? This. In olden times they used to brand their names on their possessions. A man of the name of Paul would put a "P" on his goods. It would not be very pleasant to be branded thus. (They did the same to their slaves. That was the trade mark on the slave.) The Apostle says, "I thank God I am the slave of the Lord Jesus Christ and he has put some marks on this slave." What did he mean? He had suffered stripes. He bore the marks he had received because he belonged to the Lord Jesus, and he was glorying in his infirmities, in his tribulations, and glorying in the things he had been permitted to endure. He said, "I will not boast of myself or anything I have done, but I will boast that I have become a servant of Christ and that I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ." And so, if you and I are trying to get there more and more, to glory in tribulations, also knowing that tribulations work patience and patience works experience, and experience more hope, and hope makes us not ashamed--not ashamed!--to get more gracious as we go on becoming better soldiers of the cross every step we take, that's the thought. Well, now, it is the same way with the volunteer matter. I am not sure whether I told you this before but I will tell you now.
In Washington City one time--you know in Washington City there is a brother, a General, Gen. Hall. In this city one day, one of the brothers said, "Bro. Russell, I wish you would speak to Bro. Hall. We think he is doing very wrong. We chose him to be the Captain of the Volunteer Department and that gave him the assignment of territory where the work should be done and to our surprise he chose for himself the district in which he lives and that is the wealthy district, where all the people are well-to-do, and when he goes round the soldiers will be saluting him, saluting him, saluting him, and all the time he is putting the tracts under the door, acknowledging the salutes, putting another tract in, saluting, so on, and we don't think the General is doing just the right thing." "Oh!" I said "I think General Hall is exhibiting most wonderful courage (I did not say a word to the General himself --oh, dear, I quite forgot he was in the hall here--loud laughter--well, it cannot be helped.) I said, "I think General Hall is exhibiting most wonderful courage. I don't believe it took as much courage as that to stand before the Philippinos in the Philippine war. I think he is covering himself with glory." And, as I thought over the matter, I said to myself, I hope I would have had just as much courage as Gen. Hall. I am not sure I would have, but I hope I would have it. If I had not it at first I would try to screw it up.
So we have a Captain and he is the great General, the Captain of the soldiers of the Cross. He has gone before. He was faithful himself. He endured much for us and he expects us to show some appreciation and show some loyalty and some willingness to endure hardness as good soldiers of the Cross in any service we give. Here, then, is a service. If you have not engaged in the volunteer work, by all means begin to. It is a great favor. If you ever get into the Kingdom and look back and see that you had an opportunity of engaging in volunteer work and you missed it and that there was a little bit of pride, I think you will feel very much ashamed in the presence of the Lord and the others, and I feel sure that you would not get as high a place in the Lord's favor as you would have done if you had shown the loyalty he expected. You remember he tells us through the Apostle that as star differeth from star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead. The resurrection of the Church class will bring some to one degree on the Heavenly plane and [CR313] some to another. Jesus, the most faithful of all, will be the most honored and the greatest light. I think St. Paul will be amongst the very bright ones and St. Peter, and if any of us get in at all we will be glad to be in any place, but if we put our light under a bushel, if we are ashamed to let our light be seen, it means we are ashamed of the light, and Jesus classes the light and Himself together. "I am the Light." It is His spirit in us that constitutes us the light of the world. He says, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven."
I think of another brother in Washington City. He keeps a grocery store. He has a large family. I think he has fourteen grocery stores. I don't know why he does such a big business. I never asked him why he has such a big business. He is very loyal to the Truth in the sense of being very willing to serve it. He was out with Volunteer literature, distributing near an Episcopalian Church and a gentleman he knew came down the steps of the Church and saw this brother. He said, "Why, I know that man. He has a number of stores. He is not doing this because somebody pays him. He must believe what is in these papers. He must believe it pretty well down in his shoes. If I had got this paper from some boy I might have thrown it in the gutter, but I got it from a man who has apparently got a conviction, and his doing so is a sermon in itself, much better than the one I have heard in the church." He went round to that brother's store and said, "Have you anything more to read like that." He gave him the "Studies in the Scriptures." Now he is in the Truth and he is out with the Volunteer matter. He is a man with a big business, one of the chief men in a Washington bank. Keeps up a good position. His father is a missionary in a foreign land and this brother was born there himself. His father won't have anything to do with the Truth, but the son has found the difference.
Well, dear friends, here are these various opportunities for going into the Harvest Work, and one of the most interesting features of all is that there is only a little while left and if you want to get your sickle in at all get it in quickly and pray the Lord of the Harvest that you may be one of those who get something to do. Everyone can do something. If you cannot go out with volunteer matter you can at least speak to your neighbor over the fence as you hang out the clothes you have just washed, or you can speak to your fellow workmen. That's how I would pray God. I would pray God to do something to me to know how to present the Word to them. God will give me wisdom to know how to present His Truth--make me a channel of mercy to some one, that my face and my manner and my language may show and everything might tell; that I might render unto the Lord the very best I should be able to do. In going out with this thought every morning I believe it is a great help to you and that we do find opportunities, and God is pleased to give opportunities, and there are people right in your workshop that are hungering. They may swear sometimes, and may not seem to be religious at all and yet deep down in their hearts they may have a hungering for righteousness, people who have become disgusted with religion and have said, "There is not any religion."
One lady said to me, "Pastor Russell, I wish you would pray for me." I looked at her in surprise. It is very rarely a person not in the Truth asks, "Pray for me." "I ask that you pray that I may be able to appreciate this Truth that you are teaching." A most wonderful request! The only one I have had of its kind. I asked why she made it. Her sister, she said, was in the Truth. It had made such a difference in her life and I know now there must be something in religion. I doubted it before. Our family are Catholic, and we got out of Catholicism and got into Christian Science, and out of Christian Science into New Thought, and then Theosophy, and then we became Agnostics, and now we do not believe anything. All our friends are in the same condition and this sister of mine got into communication with some of your people here and got to read and study, and you cannot imagine what a change came into her life. Now, I know there is a power in religion and I would like to have that power myself. I would like to get into relationship with God." It was the life of that sister that told. She probably did not say very much. She had only been in the Truth a little while herself, but she was living, showing by her actions that she was fully consecrated to the Lord, so you and I want to let our light shine. The Harvest work is here and there is plenty to do, and so with all the brethren, if you are here from some city or town, as you go home carry the message along. Have the same thought in your own heart and let it overflow to others and you will find they also will want to see that they have a privilege and want to use it and enjoy it. You can assure them of this, that no other people in the world are so happy as those who have given themselves to the Lord. Others may be seeking pleasure but the ones who have happiness are those who are the Lord's and to whom the Lord has vouchsafed the consolation that they are His, and being children and heirs are appreciative of the privilege and are doing all they can to glorify their Father and their Saviour and to do good unto their brethren--not only those in the Truth, but those outside in Babylon and all men everywhere.
[CR313]
Farewell Address
DEAR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, I have greatly enjoyed this convention. It has become almost a proverb with us at the different conventions that each one seems to be a little better than any other previous one, and it has been so this year. We have had three conventions in America this year; one at Pertle Springs, about the middle of the country; one at Toronto, specially arranged for the convenience of the Canadian friends and the American friends nearer the border, and another at Washington City, and in all three of these conventions it was believed that each one was the best. Now, here we have the same experience in Glasgow, and I would not be surprised to hear still later on that the London one was the best. I have tried to explain to myself this phenomena, and the only explanation I find is that the Lord's people are gradually becoming more and more filled with the Holy Spirit, and in proportion as that is true, undoubtedly it must be the case that we will appreciate the truth and appreciate all the children of the truth more and more as the days go by and as these meetings go on. So we are glad that this convention has been a very blessed one of the Lord, and I was thinking, as our dear brother was speaking in conclusion of how we had fellowship with the Father and with the Son and with each other, that He left out the Holy Spirit. We not only have had the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, but the Scriptures give us, I think, the keynote to all of our fellowship along that very line, for by one spirit we were all immersed into the one body, and that is the reason we have the fellowship. If we were not immersed into the one body we could not have such fellowship and co-operation as fellow members of the same body, only by receiving of His spirit do we have this fellowship in the body of Christ. If we should be in the body of Christ, a member of the body, and with a small measure of the spirit, we would be as a babe that did not grow, and if we did not grow in spirit, if the spirit of the Lord was not more and more filling us, we would not have more and more of this fellowship, but because we are being filled with the spirit, because we are being expanded as we are being filled and enlarged, our hearts are therefore filled more and more. "Be ye filled with the spirit." This is true of our fellowship with the Lord, as well as with each other, and whatever helps us to be drinking in of this spirit of Christ and to be thus filled with the spirit of Christ, is something that is helping us onward in the good way, and preparing us for the eternal [CR314] joy and glory, and whatever hinders us in this development and in this appreciation of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of holiness, the spirit of truth, the spirit of a sound mind, the spirit of loyalty to God, the spirit of brotherhood, whatever would hinder this would hinder us from our proper progress and growth and development as members of the body of Christ, which is the Church. So, then, the reason we have enjoyed this convention is that we were all immersed by the one spirit into the one body and we are being filled more and more; we are eating of the truth, we are drinking of the water of refreshment from the Lord, we are being sanctified through these instrumentalities, and all of our fellowship, therefore, inspires us, encourages us,--it has all been encouraging us along this same line of being filled with the spirit. Now, to what extent do you notice this? It seems to me that there may be a danger of our not noticing our own growth. We do notice our own imperfection if we are properly minded; we see the defects more and more clearly as the days go by. We see this imperfection and that imperfection. We had them before, but we did not notice them, but as we are filled with the spirit, all the weaknesses of the flesh begin to be more and more manifest. Just the same if you had a vessel and it had a crack in it, you looked into it and you said it looked as though it would hold water, but as you keep filling it the more the water will come out of the crack and the crack will become more manifest. So with your earthen vessel, as it is being filled with the spirit, as the spirit goes in and you are filled with the spirit, you find these cracks all the more prominent. They discover themselves to you; your human vessel has more cracks, more imperfections, than you were aware of before. All the same, dear friends, it is because you are being more filled with the spirit and you have something then in which you may rejoice; even the ability to see your own imperfection is blessed of the Lord by His providence, and even though we may never get these earthen vessels into any condition satisfactory to us, we are rejoicing at the thought that the general convention is coming and then we will all have new bodies and have the spirit filling these new bodies; everything will be perfection, not a thing to be desired more. We shall know as we are known; we shall see as we are seen. All that we have ever desired will then be accomplished, and our warfare will be over. No flesh to war against, no foe to have any power to hurt us in that sense of the word, for we shall be like our Lord and sharer in His glory. We will have passed from all the warfare into the glorious condition, and so we express it sometimes that now is the time for the church militant, the church at war; by and by is the time for the church at rest, the church at peace with itself, the church at peace with the Father and with the Lord, and finally the church in power and glory spreading forth and showering down the blessings upon all the families of the earth. When we think about the church militant we remember that they are still training, and while remembering that we must fight, and that it will be a good fight, we must remember that this fight is not fighting the brethren. No; and it is not exactly fighting the devil, because you are not able, so you had better leave off and save your energy for something you can touch, for you cannot injure him. We will not attempt to fight the spiritual powers, we are not able; the Lord will deal with them in due time. Meantime, if we abide under the shadow of the Almighty and under the protecting care that He has arranged for us, we shall be saved and the wicked one toucheth us not. O, we want to be in that close relationship to the Lord that the wicked one cannot even get his hands on us. He may shoot out arrows, even bitter words that may hurt your flesh, but they cannot do you harm, the new creatures cannot be injured by anything Satan will do to you so long as the new creature is abiding in the Lord and full of faith and trust in Him. I do not understand the principle and I do not know if anybody else understands it, but there is some principle at work, I believe, that in my own mind I have associated it in this way with this thought, that is, that there is a power surrounding every individual. Suppose, now, here we have two men, we will say, the one an evildoer and the other a child of God, the one a worldly person and taking an interest in evil things; the other a child of God seeking to lay down his life for the brethren. In the case of the evildoer Satan would not be specially interested in doing him harm, he would want to be his agent, and he would not need any special protection from the Lord. By and by he might be in very close contact with Satan that he could not be hurt more than he is already hurt,--as we sometimes say, "It is hard to spoil a bad egg," but in the case of the child of God having become a new creature, he would be the very prey of the adversary, and we can well imagine if there was not some protecting power of God thrown round every one who has become a disciple of Christ, the adversary would break through and destroy him. That is my imagination of the subject and I think certain Scriptures would seem to support that thought: God's people seem to be immune from this power of the adversary, the wicked one is not even able to touch them if they abide in this proper relationship to the Lord, because there is some power by which God seems to encircle His holy people, some power that we cannot describe, and that we cannot even understand. It is described in different ways in the Bible, as, for instance, we read, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him and delivereth them." We do not quite understand what that term means. Again we read that the angels are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those that shall be heirs of salvation. But while we remember that our Heavenly Father can use all sorts of things for His angels, His ministering spirits, such as the lightning, the air--any power as the channel, as the protecting influence or power for the protection of His people, we do not know whether these are the living angels who have a protecting care over us or certain powers that we can not perhaps understand that would make us immune from any attack from an evil source. I fancy that this protection may be often more complete or less complete, as, for instance, suppose it were an electrical power that surrounded me for three yards when I was in very close fellowship with the Lord, and suppose that if I should become more or less overcharged with the cares of this life so that this influence might become less and less and come down within, say, 12 inches or 6 inches, or be merely a covering protection, finally, as I would become gradually absorbed in worldly things, and if I then should chance through the weakness of the flesh to do or say something wrong, contrary to the divine will, then the adversary would get a power over me, he would touch me, he would inflict some injury upon me. My thought is, when God's people are living most closely to Him in their hearts, in their mind, then they have this protection most complete and the wicked one has no opportunity of touching them, and he is likely to leave them for a while. Look at our Lord Jesus, for instance, in the wilderness, the adversary came to him at a time when he was weak according to the flesh, having fasted for forty days, and suggested co-operating with him, that they might be partners in the great work of blessing mankind. In all this there was a temptation to the Master in His very weakest moments, yet when Jesus was firm to the truth, what protection there was! The adversary found he could not touch Him, weak as He was. From the beginning of His ministry it seems that the adversary found it was no use trying. Again, we never hear of any temptation that Jesus had but that the adversary had forsaken Him without making any impression on Him. So I believe you and I should be. As we are very firm to the truth, in proportion as we answer Yes or No promptly in any matter, in that proportion we are used to specially discourage the adversary and in that proportion we are stronger ourselves by reason of exercising our resolutions on any subject. Indeed the thought is that the human will is a power that we cannot fully comprehend. It is something wonderful, and the more I think of it, the more I am amazed at what the poor human mind can do. The proper position for every Christian to take would be in being very positive: "I have taken my stand for the Lord. I have given up my life. I have laid aside my own will and I have taken the will of my Master, and I am going to follow in His footsteps." The more positiveness you can put into it, the more successful you will be in fighting the good fight against all the attacks of the adversary. Dear brethren and sisters, as we shall say farewell this afternoon, we want to carry with us some thoughts respecting how we can be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might; how we can be helpful to others; how we can more and more show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. I believe that these conventions are very useful in this way, and I believe we have all profited by this convention, and feel more resolved than ever that by God's grace we will stand firmly for Him. And after we have had these privileges [CR315] and blessings, would it be strange that we should be tested along this line? O, you say, brother, I hope that my coming here is not going to bring me any extra tests. Well, now, my dear brother, I do not know about that; it may bring you some extra tests; you may have some extra temptations. Then I am sorry that I came if I am going to have some extra trials. No, not at all, you must have these trials or you will never be an overcomer. I think of one dear brother who said to me: "Brother Russell, at the beginning of this year I was thinking over what I would specially ask the Lord for and what I would specially try to cultivate through the year, and as I looked over my character I thought that what I most needed of all the gifts and graces of the spirit was patience; I was too much inclined to be impatient with everything. Lord, this is the great thing I need, and the apostle's word came to me, "Ye have need of patience, etc." I prayed the Lord for patience, and I kept on praying, and I am still praying for patience, because I believe it is the thing I so much need. And I began to notice to my astonishment that I seemed to be more impatient than ever; I seemed to have more trials than ever, and I was very much perplexed. How is it that just at the very time I am praying for patience I seem to have a greater tax on my patience than before; what does it all mean? And I just began to think that that is how God has answered my prayer; I was praying for patience and the Lord could not give me patience, except by giving me trials to develop my patience. God was giving me trials and I was having to get the patience, and so I believe I was getting stronger. It was just the very thing I was praying for." We are praying for these graces of the spirit, meekness, gentleness, patience, longsuffering, etc. We come together at these conventions and seek to stir one anothers pure minds by way of remembering the glorious things God has in reservation and the necessity for having these qualities and graces of the spirit, and then we go home not to sit down--no; we have been putting on some armor, and when we put on armor, what is it for? Why, to fight. A man does not put on armor to go to bed in; he puts on armor to fight with. You are here putting on the whole armor of God, seeking to be in a good condition to fight a good fight. Then, when you get home you are going to have a chance to fight; not to fight the brethren, that is the wrong way. You are not to fight your family; that is the wrong way. You are not to fight against the Lord and His providences. That is the wrong way. You are to be kind and gentle and affectionate toward the family of God and your own family. We are to be kindly affectionate one toward another, forgiving one another if any man have a grievance against another being of a forgiving and kind disposition. Who am I going to fight? Am I to go out in the streets and fight the world? The world is blind and deaf and they are weak through the fall. Who shall I fight? O, you have got to fight inside, fight the old nature, fight a good fight against your impatience, against your lack of gentleness, rudeness, perhaps. Perhaps it is natural for you to be rude, then gentleness makes it quite a fight to get on properly, to keep the old nature of rudeness down. And the Lord says these are the qualities of His Holy Spirit that He wishes you to cultivate and if you have got the armor on, you are strengthened and you see some of the beauties that God wishes you to put into your character that you may be ready for the kingdom. But suppose I never cultivated these gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, what then? Well, if you do not cultivate them, and if you do not fight down the old nature, I am not sure that you will be ready for the kingdom. Does not the apostle Peter give that suggestion, after telling about these various things we should add to and we should strengthen ourselves in this way, he says, "If these things be in you, etc....But he that does not see these things is blind," says the apostle, "and cannot see afar off." He has forgotten what God has already done for Him, he is not striving to make his calling and election sure, and he will not get into the kingdom. It is by much tribulation, by much striving that you will ever get yourself into heaven. I thank the Lord He does the polishing, but it is His spirit that is working in you to will and it is His spirit working in you to do. It is His work all the same and His work is being done in you. You have to do the work yourself, but he is influencing you to do this and thus you become an overcomer. He is working in us, but He is using us to do the work; He influences us to do His work by the exceeding great and precious promises. It is these things working in us that will develop the character that He is pleased with and that He is pleased to reward with a share in the kingdom. What, then, will be the result to you of this convention? Will it be a blessing? I trust so by the grace of God! If it will be a blessing, it will be because you have some such thoughts as these in your mind and because you make some such application of the blessings enjoyed here. But if you lay aside this armor as soon as this convention is ended and do not do any fighting, then it will have profited you comparatively little, it will have been like a song or a pleasing tale; that is, all the good it will be. We are in earnest because we have something to seek. The Lord has promised you and me the most wonderful thing that could be imagined by the human mind, nothing short of it. There is nothing else like the prize of the high calling in all the universe of God. There never has been such a proposition as this that God has been making during this Gospel Age, and that He is still holding out to you and to me. Instead of being children of Adam and under sentence of death, we are lifted up to that condition and made sons of God, and "if children, then heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord to all that inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, etc....ready to be revealed in the last time." We see this ready to be revealed and everything about us shows us that we are getting nearer and nearer every day. Here we are, dear brethren and sisters; how are we going to receive it? What effect is it going to have upon us? O, I tell you I want to get that prize. I want you to get that prize. I want all God's consecrated people to get it. I believe God wants me to be most anxious for myself. He called me; He invited me. He says, My invitation is to you. I also gave an invitation to others, but if you neglect my invitation and spurn that invitation, you are not pleasing to Me. You remember in the end of the Jewish Age the Lord gave a parable about the great feast that He had made, and how that many were bidden and how they made light of it, they did not take it seriously. They said, I guess it is nothing much. I have got some farm work; another said, I have married a wife, and I cannot come. And so they had one excuse or another and the majority did not go, and the king was angry. Why should He be angry. He is angry, offended with them, not angry that He would send them to hell and tell the devil to roast them; He was angry in the sense of being offended. Here I have made all this feast and I called you my friends, and invited you to come. It was a great honor that the king should invite you to come and here now you make light of it in the sense that you do not care to respond, and come after everything was ready: the King was offended. Now, my dear friends, if, after having all these privileges, I did not get ready and go myself, the King would be offended with me; I would not have this favor. He wants me to attend to myself first. He wants you to attend to yourself first. Help the others all you can, but make your own calling and election sure. Give urgent heed to yourself primarily. That is the Lord's will that seems to stand out in all the texts of Scripture. Let that be the thought in our mind, and let us be more earnest than ever. There is a great election; God has made an election, you are nominated and I am nominated. We thank God for this. Now, about the election! O, it is not like the election that is in the world. We are not running against each other, and if one gets it the other loses it. O, no! This is an election in which every one who is nominated may get the election if he conforms to the rules and regulations laid down. God will determine we are worthy of a place if we show the quality of heart and mind, this zeal for Him and His truth and for the brethren. I am gathering all the jewel class. I call these jewels because they are so different from the world; they have the spirit of My Son Jesus. You and I want to make our calling and election sure to be amongst those jewels. Well, Brother Russell, suppose that your next door neighbor would be offended at you. What is that! Your next door neighbor. Who is he? Brother Russell, it might cost me a shilling or two in my business. Suppose it took away all my business. Bah! What is your business, and what is it worth? Well, my dear friends, when we begin to think about the wonderful thing that God has given us, is proposing to give us, is anxious to give to us, and when we think of what it is worth, suppose you had the greatest business on this earth, suppose you were the richest man or woman in the whole world, and suppose it took every shilling and penny [CR316] that you had, and suppose you were to starve to death, would not that be the cheapest thing you ever knew of, to get the crown of glory and joint-heirship if it cost everything you had? It is not likely to cost you much; you have not got much to lose. Dear brethren, we want to get the proper proportion before our mind that all the things of earth, the good opinion of all our friends and neighbors in the whole world, if we had them all and did not have the Lord's good opinion, the Lord's favor, how poor we would be! If we have the Lord's favor and are rich towards God and have lost all earthly things, how rich we are! This is the way to compare it, as St. Paul says, "I count all things as loss and dross that I may win Christ and be found in Him a member of His body, that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection" to glory, honor and immortality, to be made conformable unto His death, His same kind of death, a death not for sin, but a doing of the Father's will as He did to the best of your ability,--if this is the way that you will have a share in His death, then you surely will share in His resurrection and you will be at the great Convention. We do not know, dear friends, if we will have another convention in Glasgow. I do not know why I have felt in connection with the different conventions, it might be a presentiment, but I have thought on each occasion as I have bade the friends good-bye, will I ever see these dear brethren and sisters again! I do not know anything to the contrary. I do not know whether I will ever be here again; I am not worrying about that so long as we are ready when the Lord comes it will not make a particle of difference and we can be quite content whatever lot we see since 'tis our God that leadeth us. And sometimes we sing "He kindly veils our eyes, and o'er each step of my onward way He makes new scenes to rise, etc." If He knows, all will be right. As I say, we may never meet again at a convention, we may never meet here, but will "we meet beyond the river, where the surges all are o'er?" I am hoping so, dear friends, hoping so, and it is for you to decide. Oh, Brother Russell, not for me to decide! It is for you to decide whether you will be in that great Convention or not, and I have to decide. The whole matter rests with you for yourself and with me for myself. It seems to me as the days grow fewer and fewer, in any event they cannot be very many, I see how precious are these days, and yet I say to myself in the language of the text I used the other day and asked you to remember, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me?" I want to have that thought in my mind every morning as surely as the sun rises. I want to have that thought, "What shall I render, etc.," and then I want to have the remainder of the verse and to remember what it means, "I will take the cup of salvation," it is a glorious cup, and yet the taking of it means I will endure suffering, shame, whatever my Father shall pour, just as Jesus said when He came down to the close of His life, "The cup that my Father has poured shall I not drink it?" Surely I will! My Father has planned this matter and He is arranging the matter that things shall work out for my highest welfare, so whatever He may be pleased to send, I will be pleased, by His grace, to accept with praise and thanksgiving. May this be our spirit, the spirit of the Lord in us, as we are all baptized by one spirit into the one body, and as we feel this fellowship, may the spirit of Christ abound in us more and more and make us to rejoice in our privilege of drinking of His cup that we may also be counted worthy to share in His glory! Amen.
[CR316]
Fellowship
ON our convention programs this is Fellowship Day. The word "fellowship" appeals to us all. It represents "comradeship," to be one with another, and this fellowship in Christ means that all who are the Lord's people are fellows, are associates. They are not of different degree; they are all one in Christ Jesus. "One is your Master; all ye are brethren"--all ye are fellows, all ye are associates. It means more than this, because there is a way in which God Himself tells us that He brings us into fellowship with Himself through Christ. He makes us partakers of things that are far beyond our own nature. We are human and, therefore, our interests are properly considered to be earthly interests, but God has given us a very high call, a very great invitation, to leave the human nature and become associated with Himself on the Divine plane, and so St. Peter says, "God has given to us exceeding great and precious promises that by these we might become partakers of the Divine nature." There is an intimate fellowship then suggested, that we should be of the same nature as our God. When we come to think that no other creatures of God have ever been accepted to so high a state, so blessed a fellowship as this--to be made one with God our Father, we marvel. As the Apostle says, "Truly our fellowship is in the Father and with the Son." This is a very wonderful thought, dear friends, that our Great Creator should so humble Himself and so bless us as to give us such a wonderful privilege. Then this privilege is only extended to the Christ; no such privilege was ever extended to angels nor to cherubim nor seraphim. "Unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou are My son, this day have I begotten thee?" None. To none of the angels was such a message sent. It is peculiar to the Christ; peculiar to Jesus, in the first place, because He was the only begotten of the Father. He has overcome. He has fulfilled the conditions that were necessary to this high exaltation and He has ascended up on high and is now at the right hand of the Majesty of Heaven and He is ever to be on God's right hand. And next to Him comes His Church, the Church which is His Body. Here is the fellowship that is promised us in the future. We have not yet entered into that fellowship, we cannot enter into that until we shall be changed. When our resurrection change comes will come the glorious conditions when we shall see as we are seen and know as we are known and enter into all those things we now enjoy by faith. We will be the actual possessors then. All the trials and all the testings will be past and all the glories will have arrived.
This fellowship, dear brethren, that we speak of, we have as members of His Body. We saw last evening when considering the subject of baptism into His death, we saw how we were to be inducted into the Body of Christ by a full consecration of our heart, by becoming dead to the world, by dying to all earthly hopes and aims and ambitions. Then we come into membership of the family of Christ. Then we become Christ's fellows, His brethren as the Scriptures have represented the matter--"Behold I and the children which thou hast given Me." That is to say, "I and Thy children whom Thou hast given to Me." The Lord is speaking of the Church and He speaks of them as being His brethren. This again gives the thought of fellowship; the family, the Heavenly Father the head of the family, the Lord Jesus Christ the Head of the Church and the Church His associates and joint-heirs. One family, and just as the members of one family share in all the interests of the family in a particular sense in which others do not share, so all of us who have come into the family of God have a blessed relationship with the Father and Son that none other can possibly have. It belongs only to the Father. We may well suppose that there is a fellowship amongst the angels. They have a fellowship amongst themselves. Truly they do worship the family also, truly they reverence God and Christ, but there is not a fellowship in the same sense. They are not fellows at all. "Are they not all ministering spirits" or servants? Their spirit is that of service, servants of God, which of course is a very high and honorable station. We all rejoice to be servants of God to whatever extent we can, but there is this difference between these angelic sons of [CR317] God and the service they may render and these begotten sons of God of the Divine family. There is a closer oneness with the family. As Jesus said, "The Father and the Son will come in with us and sup with us and we may have fellowship with them," and this refers to what we enjoy in the present life and does not bear at all upon that coming joy and fullness of blessing which will be our portion when that which is perfect shall come and that which is in part shall have been done away.
Now there are certain conditions laid down in respect in this matter. Your degree of fellowship with the Lord and my degree of fellowship will depend upon certain things. It may be a closer or less close fellowship according to circumstances. No one has fellowship at all with the Lord unless he comes into covenant relationship with Him. We think it not improper to call attention again to the fact that there is only one way of getting into relationship with God, only one way, and that is by accepting His terms and coming into His family. We do, indeed, see other blessings held out for the world by and by, but they are not held out for the world now. We see, because God tells us so, that in the next age He has wonderful blessings of restitution for the human family, a doing away with the curse and a bringing in of all the blessings He has promised to man, but there is no way now to God, to these things, no one now can enter into these restitution blessings, nor into relationship and fellowship with God by believing these things. Anyone, indeed, may hear of restitution and have his mind greatly relieved if he had previously heard that God intended to eternally torture the human family. He might be greatly relieved and have a much more kindly and filial feeling towards the Heavenly Father as a result of hearing of His goodness and His great plan in arranging for the blessing of mankind, but he still could not come into relationship with Him. There is just one way of getting into this fellowship. This way of coming into fellowship is the way that Jesus marked out. Jesus was in fellowship with the Father. He did not come into fellowship, He was in fellowship. But He set us an example in His life that we should walk in His steps. You remember that being in fellowship with the Father He had the privilege of laying down His earthly life and accepting the great reward of the glory, honor and immortality of the Messianic work of the future--all this as a result of His being in fellowship with the Father at the beginning, for if he had not been in fellowship with the Father He could not have had the opportunity of doing it. Father Adam, for instance, after he fell by his disobedience, had no fellowship with God. Previously he had fellowship with God. He was under a covenant with God. God's arrangement was that he might live forever if he would continue to be obedient and that bond of agreement of doing the Father's will, having everlasting life, that covenant he broke by his disobedience; thus the relationship between God and Adam was broken. Adam, instead of being a son, became a sinner, and as a sinner he came under the prescribed penalty, he was already cut off from fellowship with God. So all of his race were born in this condition, cut off from fellowship. So the whole world are "strangers and aliens" from God. Why? Through their wicked works. What wicked works? The wicked works that Father Adam started and that you and I as children of Adam cannot hinder because we are born in iniquity. These wicked works have separated us from God as a race, and people who are still in that condition have no relationship with the Father, no fellowship with the people of God. They may mingle with the people of God, but they cannot be in fellowship. Why? Because all those who are in fellowship have been baptized with the one Spirit into the one body and they have the one hope of their calling, the one aim and purpose, the one hope. No other can enter into that fellowship. We can meet them, we can shake them by the hand and tell them we wish them well, glad to see them, but they cannot enter into the fellowship. It is a secret order, my dear friends, God's own great secret order, and there is only one way to enter that fellowship, a way God has provided through Christ, through faith and obedience. Some have said to us at times, "Oh well, you do indeed take a stronger view of the Christian life than I do and you indeed teach a higher standard of Christian living than I have hitherto and a higher one than I have ever heard of, but nevertheless I have a great deal of pleasure in coming to your meetings and I enjoy myself a great deal and I pray to God as well as you, and I call myself a Christian as well as you." "Well," I say, "brother, have you ever become a Christian in the sense of the cross, in the sense of entering into a covenant relationship with God?" "Oh, no," he says, "I don't wish to take it so deeply as that; I will talk a little of God and fully enjoy going to meetings and enjoy singing some of the hymns, but I don't wish to take it too seriously." "Well, my dear brother, you must take it seriously or not take it at all." "Oh," he says, "I have taken it and I am enjoying it as it is." "Oh, my brother, friend, you are not realizing where you stand. You have no relationship to God at all." "Oh, but He hears my prayers. I have much pleasure in coming to Him in prayer." "No, my friend, your prayers are never heard." "Never heard!" "No, no, never heard. Only one class of people have their prayers heard. God 'heareth not sinners.'" "Oh, but," he says, "I am not a sinner. You know I am not one of those who cheat and steal and swear." "No, no, but you are still a sinner unless your sins have been forgiven. You are either a sinner or not a sinner. If you are not, it is because God through Christ has forgiven your sins, and then if you are, this forgiveness you can only have by coming in the appointed way. There are not many ways of getting your sins forgiven --just one." "Well, is God not rather pleased to have me pray? Does He not really take pleasure in seeing me bow before Him? Am I not favoring Him?" "No, my dear friend, think it not so. God is too great for you to favor Him by bowing your knees." When we compare our own littleness with the greatness of our mighty God it seems to me we are little microbes in comparison--scarcely to be seen. You remember how the Prophet expresses it. We are like "the small dust of the balance." You know when we go into the grocer's shop he sometimes knocks the dust off the scoop before he weighs the article we are purchasing. But perhaps there is still a little dust left and he does not pay any attention to that dust; it is too small. So that is the picture the Psalmist gives, that we are so little that we are like the dust of the balance which is not taken count of in the weighing. And we might just draw the wrong thought. We might think that God would not notice us at all. No, the prophet is wishing to call our attention to what might really be the relationship of God to us if he chose to stand upon His dignity and look down upon our littleness and our imperfections. He might disdain us altogether. But not so; He has had compassion upon us. The Psalmist says, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him." Oh, man was not worth taking heed to. He was only a sinner and only so little anyway. But God has had compassion; He has provided a Saviour. God has made the way open, He is going to open it still wider, we see, by and by, but the way that is open just now is the only way by which you and I can come, the only way by which anybody can come unto the Father now. What is that way? Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me." "Oh, well," says our friend, "I do believe in Jesus, you know. I believe that He was born and that He died. I believe He was good. I believe He was a great teacher." "Oh, my dear friend, the devils also believe it, do they not? What then is the favor you do God by believing? No favor to God. You want to get rid of the thought that in coming to worship on Sunday you do God a favor." No, all these blessings of fellowship in the body of Christ and all the privileges that come to the Church of Christ are of His bounty and not of our merit. They are really for our own advantage. Why should we meet together? That we might have spiritual fellowship. Why should we consider the Word of God? That we might grow in grace, grow in knowledge, grow in love, grow in preparation for the glorious things before us.
And then I have said to some, "You cannot come to God in prayer except you are a consecrated Christian." "Oh," they have said, "that seems strange. That is different from anything you have told us before." Well, my dear friends, perhaps we have all in the past made some mistakes. Perhaps we have not told people plainly enough, perhaps we did not see clearly ourselves what are the limits that God has placed. You see we got the thought that everybody was going to a place of torment and we naturally tried to break down all the barriers and make them as low as possible because we did not wish our friends to be eternally tortured. But we knew all the while we were making it different from what Jesus said. He said "If any man want to be My disciple, let him take up his cross and follow Me, [CR318] then as My disciple he will share My glory," but we said, "Oh, that would make it too narrow. We must not tell people about that narrow way. They would refuse to come and then we would not have anyone, and they might all go to Hell." We see our mistake was in not rightly reading the Word. They are all going to the Bible Hell--everybody --to sheol, hades, the tomb. All are going there but provision has been made for the redemption and recovery of all-- everyone--all Adam's children. We all see that and the time for this is all stated in the divine great plan and the full portion of time given so that Messiah's Kingdom may rule and bless and put down evil and raise up the poor race. Every provision is made and now, now there is a call to a special class and you and I as His followers have no right to change one jot or one tittle of the plan. If He makes the way narrow and you make it broad or I make it broad we are defeating the very mission that God intended His Word should fulfill. We are working against God. We are deceivers to that extent. It is not our privilege to make the way any wider than God has made it. It is our duty to make it just as He stated and to show what are the terms of this fellowship. There is only one way to get in and there is only one way to stay in and one proper course if we would make our calling and election sure.
One person to whom I mentioned this matter of not being permitted to pray, not having this fellowship, this privilege of drawing near to the Father was greatly astonished and said, "Oh, that thought has hurt me a great deal. It has stumbled me. I feel I have lost my faith." "Oh," I said, "it is better that I should lay the matter before you in the proper time than that by and by you should find out your mistake and say, 'Why did you not show me the narrowness of the way? I would then have been put on my guard and might have taken the narrow way!'" So I said, "Your prayers never go higher than your head. They may do you some good just as a man may partly hypnotize himself, but that is not God's way." You and I have the satisfaction of knowing the terms stipulated in God's Word. Why, you know people have had good feelings while doing the very worst of things and they have thought they were doing God's service. Religious people of the past persecuted one another in violation of every principle of love and justice and were happy in doing it. Was it from God that their happiness came or was it some misrepresentation that gave them their joy? Surely it was the latter and not of God. We are reminded of the case of Saul of Tarsus, who when persecuting the church thought he was doing God service. That does not mean he was doing it. It proves that a man can be deluded and think verily that he is doing God's service and have a great deal of joy in doing that which is really the very reverse of the service of God. And what Saul of Tarsus might do you and I might do, therefore it behooves you and me and all to take heed to our steps and to pray as the Scriptures express it--"Order my steps according to Thy Word," and if we are ordering our steps according to the Word, which is the only safe way, then we have the peace and joy that cometh from the Lord. We find the expression of His Word indorsed in our conduct and experience and indeed you know that the indorsements of the Lord's Word are those which we would not have thought of. For instance, He says, "If ye receive persecution for righteousness sake then happy are ye, or happy ye may be. You may well be happy." You see, the very reverse of what we had thought. We should have been inclined to say, "Oh, I would not have any persecution. I would have all joy and pleasure and no one to persecute me or do me harm." But, no, the Lord says, "If you are My children I will show you how great things you may suffer for My sake. I will show you the privilege of being My disciple. I will test your loyalty and every time that you realize that your loyalty is tested, every time you find yourself an overcomer under these tests, every time rejoice knowing that great is our reward in heaven for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
This friend, then, to whom I said he could not pray, was deluding himself. He thought he could get on without suffering for Christ and get into the kingdom by a side path. Not so. It is either in or out, in the fellowship or out. Either a member of the Body or not a member. It is either enter the straight or narrow gate or not; walk in the narrow way or not; suffer in the body of Christ or not suffer. You see we take our choice. Now is the time to choose, now is the time. It is important, therefore, to see the terms and conditions God has laid down.
I can perhaps give you an illustration proving what I have said respecting God not hearing any except those in covenant relationship with Him. Let me remind you that the Jews were in covenant relationship: they had entered into fellowship through the law covenant and through the sacrifices. True those sacrifices were only typical and their fellowship was not a complete fellowship and true their mediator was not a real mediator but only typical and their covenant was not the new covenant that is to be made with mankind but merely a typical one, but nevertheless it illustrates the principle. Now Israel, before they entered into that covenant relationship, did not enjoy the same privilege. In former times before that time if any one wished to go in prayer to God he had to offer a sacrifice, offer a sacrifice for himself, as for instance when Cain and Abel drew near to God they brought sacrifices and offered them, and God showed that He would not accept the sacrifice represented by the fruit of the earth but He would accept the sacrifice that represented a death, for He wished to foreshadow that the death of Christ was necessary. So when Abel brought the firstlings of his flock and offered these, God accepted that as a type of Christ, as the first lesson that a death was necessary before there could be any fellowship between God and the sinner. So it was subsequently when Abraham came to God. He offered a sacrifice then. He could have fellowship with God on the basis of that sacrifice. But when God took the whole nation of Israel to Himself He then made one sacrifice or one set of sacrifices through Moses by which that covenant was made operative and the whole nation came under that covenant and became God's people and He their God.
Then these sacrifices you remember were kept alive and revived year by year, always a fresh blotting out of sins every year for the whole nation, so that every Jew after that Atonement Day was privileged for a whole year to come to God in prayer, but if that sacrifice in the Day of Atonement was not offered he would not have the privilege of prayer. So the Jewish people today are not in a condition to pray to God because they have no sacrifice and they have rejected the anti-typical sacrifice, therefore they are without any means by which they can draw nigh to God and they will be in this condition until the great anti-typical Mediator shall take His power and be the anti-type of Moses, when the new covenant shall be inaugurated as the anti-type of the law, and then as the new Mediator he will take over Israel again and they will come into favor again with God and then they will have their eyes opened to recognize the real sin atonement, the better sacrifices, and then He will pour upon them the spirit of prayer and supplication. They have been unable to pray to God all this time. Their prayers could not ascend to God because they had been cut off from fellowship. They were cut off three and one-half years after the cross. They could not be cut off till then because God had the Jewish nation in a special relationship to Himself and promised that a certain period of time should be set apart to them--70 weeks of years, 490 years, and that 490 years did not expire until 3-1/2 years after the cross. You remember that 70th week was the one in which the prophet said that Messiah would be "cut off in the midst of the week and cause the oblation to cease," etc., so it was in the midst of that 70th week, 3-1/2 years before the end of their favor, that Jesus died and then they came to the end of that period that God had promised and then what? Then they were no longer specially favored and God was open then to make a covenant with anybody who might come to Christ. So the Gentiles got the opportunity then. The Gentiles previously had no opportunity. They were cut off. Their prayers, if they had prayed, would have availed nothing. They were strangers and foreigners from all the promises of God. They were under the sentence of death. But now came the time in Cornelius' day when the door was thrown open to the Gentiles and the Gentiles were to have the same privilege if they would accept Christ, the better sacrifice, and you remember Cornelius, we read of him, "Now Cornelius was a just man," a righteous man, a man who was honorable, just, upright. "And he feared (reverenced) God and he gave much alms." He was liberal to the poor; he was a fine character, and a Gentile--altogether outside the Jewish hope. God never accepted the Gentiles before that; then what kind of Gentile would He favor first? Why just the kind here. Cornelius was the very kind he would give the first favor to. So the angel came to Cornelius and said, "Cornelius, thy prayers and [CR319] thine alms have come up before the Lord." Did they not come up before that? No, they had not ever come up before that in the full sense though they had come up as a memorial before God. God merely looked at them. They were there, just the same as a servant would come into your presence and you would see him there and not recognize him, not deal with him at all, but allow him to come into your presence. So Cornelius' prayers and alms come up before God as a memorial. "Therefore send men to Joppa for one Simon Peter. He lodges with Simon the tanner. And when he shall come he will tell thee words which shall be for the saving of thyself and thy house." So you remember then by and by Cornelius' servant did bring word and St. Peter was wondering why God had sent him to preach to a Gentile. It seemed so strange, he had not supposed the message would ever be told to the Gentiles. Jesus had said, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles. I am only sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel," and now then to be sent directly to Cornelius, to have a vision saying it was God's will he should go there, and to hear what the angel had said to Cornelius! St. Peter said, "I must preach Christ. I must tell this Gentile about Christ. He is a good man and apparently God has favored him." He did not know how much God had favored him but the Holy Spirit was sent upon Cornelius just as it had been upon the Jews. St. Peter was astonished and then he glorified God because he was not a narrow minded Jew although he had indeed thought that God intended to give all these special blessings to the Jews and had never imagined that God was going to allow Gentiles also to come in and be fellow heirs with the Jews in this gracious privilege of being members of the Body of Christ which is the church. He was astonished.
But now what I want you to notice is the kind of man God dealt with--a man who wanted to come near God, a man who was "feeling after God if haply he might find Him," a man who was living as righteous a life as he could. That's the kind God is always prepared to favor and so when the due time came Cornelius got the opportunity and his prayers and his alms availed though they were not received until he had heard of Christ and until he had believed that Christ died for his sins, until he had accepted Christ. When he accepted Christ and when he pledged himself to be a follower of Christ then he became a footstep follower in this relation of his mind: then Christ became his Advocate and he was accepted of the Father, the merit of Christ covered his imperfections: then his prayers and his alms might come up and not only be there but be received, because now he had come in the appointed way, because the great Advocate had included him amongst those for whom he made application of his merit.
The only other class, my dear friends, that are included in this favor would be our children, the children of believers. You remember what Paul says on that subject. He says, "the believing husband sanctifieth the unbelieving wife; the believing wife sanctifieth the unbelieving husband." What does this mean? From the divine standpoint the fact is that if either the husband or the wife are in Covenant relationship to God, so far as their children are concerned they are counted as being the children of the believer and are under divine care in a sense in which they would not be under divine care if they were the children of unbelievers. "Otherwise your children would be unholy." Unholy--out of God's favor, "but now are they holy" because one of the parents believes. God counts their children holy even though the children are born before the parent believed. That believer has given all to the Lord. That includes his children, his horses and cattle, everything he had--his money in the bank and the property he has, everything went. They all became the Lord's. The children became the Lord's in the same way as the property and the Lord's supervision was over the children as it is over all the interests of those who are His people.
I remember in my own case (I don't think I have ever mentioned to you here before), in my own case when I was about 15 years old, I reasoned the matter out one day and I said, "See here, you go to God in prayer, and you ask Him for certain things. By what right do you go to God? You are not a member of the church. God only has a dealing with the church. Is not that so?" and I said, "Yes, I guess it is so. I don't quite understand: apparently it is only the church." "Why then do you go to the Lord in prayer?" "Well," I said, "I presume I go to the Lord in prayer because my parents are Christians. I am their child and all they have belongs to the Lord. I suppose that is why the Lord allows me to come in prayer." "How long will this continue?" "I don't know; I suppose God will continue to be in that relationship up to the time that I reach a discernment of mind myself, till I have a personal responsibility." "Yes, that seems right." "And about how soon do you think you are going to have a personal responsibility?" "Well," I said, "I don't know. Thirty years of age under the law, but we are not under the law. I don't know. After I have a discerning mind that I can reason the matter out, I guess I shall have a responsibility from the time I am able to reason it out." "What are you going to do about it?" "Well," I said, "I would not like to be without a God. I need a God." "Well," you say you believe you have a parental standing and you don't know when it will run out, when you have come to the place of personal, intelligent responsibility." "Yes." "Don't you think you have come to that place now?" "Well, I think I have," I said, "I think I have." "What are you going to do about it?" I thought it out and I said, "Oh, God, I will give Thee my heart. I am so glad that You are willing to accept it. It is such a privilege for me to give Thee my heart. I need a God and I need all the blessings You have promised to Your people. Lord, let me be one of Thy people."
And I believe, dear friends, that was exactly the right thought, although I have come to understand the divine plan much better since my childhood's days, my mind is still the same on this subject. I see nothing in the Scriptures to the contrary.
This person whom I cited as not having any right to pray said, "Why, I feel so lonely now that I cannot go to God in prayer. I feel as if a great loss has come into my life," and I said, "It is good for you; I hope you have such a loss that you will want to trust God forever. Give all that you have and then realize that you have not been a profitable servant, that you have not brought Him anything great, but that you have only given Him the fag ends of a life. That's all you or I can give, so when we have given all we realize that the Father could not accept our sacrifice at all had it not been for the arrangement He made through Jesus, by which--the death of Jesus--the merit of His sacrifice can be imputed to us and thus make our little offering acceptable."
So then, dear friends, the first point in approaching God, in this fellowship, is to realize that the only way open for approaching God is through Christ, and to have a desire to approach God the Apostle gives us a suggestion along that line when he speaks about certain ones as "feeling after God if haply they might find Him." This desire of the heart must come first. You will not "feel" until you desire to "feel," and then you will begin knocking and searching. "To him that knocketh shall it be opened; him that seeketh shall find." So when you began to want to have fellowship with God and to realize that you were poor and lonely without any fellowship, then you began to pray and Jesus said, "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." This weariness, this heavy laden condition of the heart, is all the result of sin and depravity in ourselves and those around us and the lonely feeling and the selfishness in ourselves and the selfishness we come in contact with outside, we despise. We would like to come "nearer my God to Thee," and if we just ask the Father He does not answer our prayers directly, but merely sends to us, perhaps a brother or a sister or a hymn or a text of Scripture or something that points us to the way just as the angel told Cornelius to send for Peter that he might be told the way. So God uses some other agency with you. Perhaps it is a hymn and in that hymn you find a verse which describes the way to present your body. Perhaps the testimony of a brother or perhaps a conversation or perhaps reading your Bible for yourself you found the way, you found the only way to approach God was through the new and living way which Christ had opened up. It is the way He opens up for us to come to the Father, to come to fellowship with Himself, to attain to all the glorious things He has in reservation. What is this way? The way of sacrifice. "Present your bodies," make your sacrifice. No other way. Sit down and count the cost, the Lord says. Don't do it hurriedly. Think it over. You must get very hungry for the Truth before you will appreciate it. You must see how lonely you are without a God before you see what a great privilege you [CR320] have in having a God. So don't do it hastily. Just do the very reverse of what the evangelists say. Sit down and count the cost. And if you count the cost, what do you find? Oh, you find that the cost is indeed great in one sense of the word, not to be slightingly thought of at all. All you have, everything, that's the cost. But how little you have, how little you have, and how much you are going to get in return. When you go to the store to purchase something you may say, "I have only a little money and I must count the cost. I have not much to invest," and you look round and you see this and that and something that is a great bargain and you invest in that. "Oh," you say, "it is all the money I have, but it was such a bargain." So, dear friends, we will never get another chance like the present of getting this great bargain of getting our Creator to be our Father and Jesus our Redeemer to be our Elder Brother and our Bridegroom and our Advocate with the Father, the one through whom we have forgiveness of sins and reconciliation through His blood and fellowship with the Father and with the Son, as the Apostle says. This was the thought in the mind of dear Brother Paul when writing to the Philippians (I will give you my text near the end, my dear friends!). The Apostle said, "Yea, doubtless I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." Mark you, my dear friends, just to know about it is so good, to know about it so good that it would be worth the loss of all things: just to have the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Well, that's very strong. Just the knowledge. How much blessing you have from the knowledge you have received, how much I have! Just suppose for a moment that instead of getting anything future suppose it was all going to end at death, we would have the best time in the world. The world would say, "Oh, you have not had a good time." Yes, my dear brethren, we have had that. We have had the peace of God and all the joy of the Holy Spirit.
Now if the Apostle considers this so great a matter, "Yea, doubtless I count all things but loss...for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I might win Christ and be found in Him," you see the knowledge was necessary, because without the knowledge he could not do anything. You cannot become a servant of the Lord without knowledge. Hence the necessity for preaching as the Apostle says. We cannot pray people into Heaven. We are authorized to go and tell them the terms. If they hear the terms they do not need us to pray for them. God Himself has made the whole arrangement: it is all planned already. It is like as if there were a table here spread with certain food and we were hungry. Suppose it were announced that everyone here who desired to have it could partake of the food. You would not need to say, "Please may my friend partake of it?" Why, go and tell your friend to come along. So God has prepared the feast and it is not for you and me to say, "Please may this one have this?" God would say, "I thought I told you it was for all who desired it. Send your friends along, don't stop to pray to Me."
The knowledge you see, then, is so valuable. If you had never heard of Christ, of the way, then you never would have been in Christ today. Thank God for the knowledge of these things, for the knowledge of the way to eternal life. Many others have been deceived and did not know about the "narrow way," did not know to take it. Thank God for knowledge in the matter, dear friends, that we may make "our calling and election sure."
Now the Apostle goes on to say "that I may be found in Him" (Phil. 3:8,9), a member of His Body, associated in the Body of Christ, of which Jesus is the Head. Was not the Apostle in Him already? Yes. There are two senses of being in Him. We are in Him now by faith and consecration and we hope to be in Him beyond the vail in glory. We hope to be counted worthy to be members on the other side. He says if we are faithful we may be sure He will be faithful and if we are faithful then He will not blot our names out of the book: He will let them stay in, just as they were when we came in. When you said, "I am making a real consecration," He said, "Well, I will mark down your name in the Book of Life. You have made a good confession: go on now in the way and you will be a member in that glorious Body beyond the vail." But suppose you fail. Suppose you become worldly minded and lukewarm and fail to keep your covenant, then what? Oh, then you could not be of the Body, because all the Body are to be copies of God's dear Son, and if you were not zealous and earnest as He was, then your name would have to be erased and another one's name would be put there instead and so the whole list would be complete.
The Apostle says "that I might be found in Him, not having our own righteousness (which was of the Law) but that which is through faith in Christ." That is the righteousness we want, the imputed righteousness of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith, the righteousness which God imputes to us.
"That I may know Him." What does he mean by "knowing Him"? Did Paul not know Jesus? Did He not reveal Himself to him on the way to Damascus? Had he not seen Jesus in a more particular way than any other? What does it mean? It means this: The word here signifies an "intimate acquaintance" with Him. Now when Saul of Tarsus met Jesus on the way to Damascus and was smitten down with the brightness, he did not know Him. He had learned a little about how great this One was whom he had been persecuting. He learned that much about His greatness, but he did not get acquainted with Him. How do we get acquainted with the Lord? Oh, you know, there was a time that you did not know Him. You knew about Him, that He had done this and that and the next thing, but that was a knowledge of Him. There is a difference between having a knowledge of a person and being acquainted with him. "You know your King?" "Yes, I know King George. I know he is reigning." "Do you know him?" "Oh, yes, I know a good deal about him." "But do you know him?" "Oh, no, I never was introduced to him." "That's what I mean."
Those who come into fellowship with Christ, there is a fellowship established between them. This is "getting to know." And does this make any difference? Oh, yes, Jesus says it is a very difficult matter to get to know the Lord. Difficult matter? Oh, yes. He is so high and we are so low, it is difficult to get well acquainted. How do we get well acquainted? Why, as we grow in grace and as we grow in knowledge, in love, in the Heavenly Father's spirit, and the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you get the thought? Every day that you live as a Christian you are getting into that place where it will be possible for you to enjoy more and more of fellowship with the Father and the Son until you finally come to have such a spiritual appreciation of God that you will really know Him, really know Him, not merely know about Him. He will come unto us and sup with us and will reveal Himself to us and show us His real character, and we will get to understand, we will have the spirit of our Father and our Lord Jesus. Oh, we will know God, whom to know is life eternal. Those who get into this fellowship will have the eternal life. Those who do not get to know Him, who do not come into this fellowship will not be in a position to have eternal life. That's right. That is what the Lord meant. Yes, indeed. And so you see the blessed experience which brings us nearer to God is making us ready for this eternal life and glory, honor and immortality.
Now the Apostle continues "that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection." What does He mean by the power of His resurrection? Any power in the resurrection of Jesus different from the resurrection of anybody else? Oh, yes, His was a special resurrection. In His resurrection He was changed from the earthly nature to the divine. Oh, the power that not only raised Him from the dead, but raised Him up far above all others, that's the power and resurrection the Apostle wanted to know, to experience also the power of that resurrection--not merely by and bye, but to have it now, to rise with Christ, walking with Him in newness of life, day by day, a new creature in Christ and thus to share with Him in that great glory.
"That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering." Well, you see there is one kind of fellowship we have in our mental vision with the Lord, in our talking about holy things, considering the Word and then there's another, "in the suffering of Christ." What kind of fellowship is that? That's the fellowship that unless you have it you cannot get the other. If you managed to avoid all suffering it would mean that you were not living as you might. If you manage to avoid all shame for Christ's sake it will mean that you are guarding yourself very carefully to avoid that shame. It will [CR321] mean you are afraid of that shame, that anyone might say, "You also are one of them," as they said to Peter when he denied the Lord. "He that is ashamed of Me and My Word, saith the Lord, of him will I be ashamed." St. Peter got over that. He did not stay in that condition, but it was given as an illustration of what might happen to any of us. We might get into such a condition of terror that we might deny Him. If St. Peter had not got over it he never would have got into the Kingdom. He became such a faithful follower and endured so much for Christ afterwards. It is said of him that when he was crucified, by his own request, he was crucified head downwards, saying, "I am not worthy to be in such a glorious position as was my Lord." It showed how he wished to have fellowship in the Master's sufferings.
This is the way to get fellowship: whatever you can do which will be in the Lord's service, the service of the Truth, the service of the brethren, do it and you will be getting into fellowship with Him, not only in mind, but also in suffering, also in His spirit, and only by drinking into this spirit and getting fellowship with Him will you have the strength and fortitude to fight the good fight and be faithful and loyal in laying down your life, walking in His steps. Then to all such as are thus favored the Lord has provided a glorious fellowship beyond, that we should have part in the first resurrection and share in His glory.
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Jesus Our Savior
DEAR friends, as the Scriptures inform us we are all by nature children of wrath condemned to death and in need of a Saviour. "Saviour" signifies "lifegiver." Jesus became flesh in order to be our Saviour--not our Saviour from eternal torment, but from death. He is the Saviour of all mankind. He died in order to remove the curse of death from the human race. This curse has not been removed yet from mankind, but it will be in due time.
At the present time, however, God has made an arrangement whereby some by faith can come out now from under this death sentence. He has been seeking during this Gospel Age a class who will share in the first resurrection from the dead, before the world of mankind. What class is this? A class of people who have faith towards Him. "Without faith it is impossible to please God, for he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." This is the class and the only class that God is dealing with at the present time, those who have this faith towards Him and exercising this faith you may consider yourself as though you had already passed from death into life, and, indeed, we have this new life begun in us, but it is not complete and it will not be complete, as the Apostle declares, until our Great Heavenly Father, who has begotten us to the new life at the resurrection from the dead, shall bring us in that resurrection to the perfection of life everlasting. We are like the remainder of the world so far as outward appearance is concerned. We are still imperfect. God speaks of the things that are not yet as though they were already accomplished and so we speak of being alive in Christ. At the same time with the Apostle we say our lives are hid with Christ in God, and when He who is our life shall appear at His second coming then we also shall appear with Him in glory. Our appearing will be with Him; He must come and be our life-giver and as the agent of the Father He must raise us from the dead before we can have eternal life. Then, as the Apostle explains, that which was sown in weakness will be raised in power, raised in glory. That which was sown an animal body, a human body, an earthly body, will be raised a spiritual body --in the case of the Church, not of the world, only the Church. This is the Apostle's thought, making prominent the fact that Christ is the great life-giver and the more prominence we give to this matter the more do we come into touch and harmony with the Word of God and the Spirit of the truth. When we realize that we have no life of ourselves then we realize that we need this life-giver and if He had not come to be the life-giver, mankind would have been like the brute beasts in death. But because Jesus has died, therefore, we have the double assurance in that God raised Him from the dead that He will raise us up also by Jesus in His own due time.
From this standpoint, you know, it is that we speak of being asleep; falling asleep; all who have faith in the resurrection might be spoken of as falling asleep now, assured that there is a glorious awakening coming, and that will be the time the blessings will come--at the second advent of our Lord. "Even when we were dead in sin He hath quickened us together with Christ and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus." The Apostle's thought is that God is no longer treating the Church as though they were dead in trespasses and sins and under Divine sentence, but we are passed from that by faith; we first are recognized as passing from death into life by exercising faith in the promises of God, and He deals with us according to our faith; in proportion as we have faith, in the same proportion may we have the joys of the Lord and enter into all the provision He has made for those who can and do exercise faith, for without faith it is impossible to please God.
We are free to admit that half the people in the world today have, by virtue of their condition through the fall, lost that particular quality of mind which would be favorable to faith, and that those people will have a great deal more difficulty than others in exercising faith, and that perhaps they could not exercise it at all. If they cannot, then they cannot come in under the call that is now open. But God has a time and a way for dealing with them, though now He is only calling those who have come under faith and exercised that faith, and in proportion as they exercise that faith, in that same proportion they grow strong in faith and become more and more pleasing to our Father.
We have been raised up so far as the new creature is concerned. The new creature is raised up and has a standing with God, and yet the new creature is obliged to occupy the earthen vessel, as we sometimes say. The Apostle says we have this treasure, the new nature in an earthen vessel, an imperfect fallen body. The new nature is raised, but the earthly body is not raised. It is going down more and more into death and so there is a warfare, the Apostle explains, between the flesh and the Spirit; in proportion as the one perishes and dies, the other may grow strong in the Lord and be prepared for the great change of the resurrection. He says here, you notice, that we are not only raised up with Christ, but seated with Him in the Holy, the heavenlies. What is the thought? It seems to be the picture that is given us in Tabernacle Shadows. In the Tabernacle Shadows the High Priest made His offering, His sacrifice of the bullock and then He passed under the first vail into the Holy, into the presence of the Golden Candlestick, and the light that it shed, into the presence of the Table of Shewbread and the blessings implied thereby, and into the presence of God as represented by the Golden Altar of Incense, where he offered incense. This is what came to Jesus when He made His consecration at Jordan and then passed immediately under the begetting of the Holy Spirit into this special condition as a new creature. The Apostle says we also are to pass into the heavenlies. We have already passed in--all who have been accepted in Christ Jesus, all who have received the begetting of the Holy Spirit. First of all, they must have tendered their consecration to the Lord; it must have been accepted and that acceptance would be indicated by the impartation of the Holy Spirit, and then they would pass under the vail into the Holy. We get the thought that the vail, the first vail, represents the death of the will [CR322] and the second vail represents the death of the person. Now when we pass the first vail it means that our lives are fully consecrated to the Lord, that we are dead, we have given up all our own will, we have become dead with Him, that we may become members of His body on the other side of the vail. Thus we enter into the Holy, into the heavenlies, into the first part of the Tabernacle which was called the Holy. We have not yet passed into the Most Holy; that will be when our death actually comes. Then, passing beyond the death actual, the resurrection will raise us upon the other side of the vail, according to the picture, and then we shall be in the presence of the Eternal God in the Most Holy.
We are represented in this condition by the Apostle as "seated with Christ in the heavenlies." That is a very beautiful picture. It is not that we are standing there as having no place of rest; it implies a restful condition. Those who come into Christ, they do enter into rest; as St. Paul says in the fourth chapter of his letter to the Hebrews, "We which believe do enter into rest." The faith in our hearts, the consecration and the obedience, with the begetting of the Holy Spirit usher us into this rest in the heavenlies, the Holy place. We are with Him; He is our elder brother and we have fellowship with Him. He is our Head, we are His members, the under Priests prospectively. We are to be the royal Priesthood if we are found faithful. We are, in a preparatory sense, the Royal Priesthood now, but everything depends upon the faithfulness with which we endure in the present time those trials and those tests of loyalty and faith which came to our Lord Jesus and which must come to all His followers if they would become His joint-heirs in the fellowship of the Kingdom.
Now comes a very important part, "That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." Why, my dear friends, we might well say, "Has God any more riches of grace to give than He has already given? Have we not seen that He has given His Son? Has He not sent His Son into the world? Did He not willingly come to be the redeemer of man?" Yes, indeed, rich is the grace, truly so; provision for all mankind. As in Adam all have gone into death and condemnation, so all through Christ may come out of that condemnation and death. Is not that riches of grace? Yes, indeed, but that much of riches of grace belongs to all the world of mankind; that is not for us specially, that's for us inclusively. We are joined with the world in this general salvation, the redemption which Jesus purchased. But for the Church, (The Apostle is speaking to the Church), we have still further riches of grace. Yes! What? Oh, "the riches of God's grace wherein we stand," as the Apostle says in the 6th chapter of Romans. We have come into this grace wherein we stand. What grace? This is the grace that we have been accepted of the Father and begotten of the Holy Spirit and thus made children of God; we who were strangers and aliens and rebels at one time He has reconciled through the death of His Son and then given us this wonderful privilege above all the rest of the world and above all the world will ever have, this grace that we may become sons on that high plane, the Divine nature. And that's not enough, says the Apostle. God has more. Is it possible that the great Heavenly Father could do more for such poor creatures of the dust as ourselves who are so imperfect--not only human beings, but imperfect human beings, for the Apostle says the Church consists chiefly of the poor of this world, not the high and noble--the ignoble, and yet God has done so great things for us and He proposes to do all these great things in the future, making us joint-heirs with His Son in that glorious Kingdom to bless the whole world. Is not that riches of grace? Yes. Could you have thought of any more? No, no, we could not. What more then? What does the Apostle refer to when he says that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace. The thought, my dear friends, is that there are coming ages in which God will display still more grace toward the Church than in all these things that He has already given to us and promised to us, still further things, exceeding riches of His grace in ages to come. Wonderful! Oh, the length and breadth and the heights and depths of the love of God in Christ! No wonder the Apostle breaks out in these works! No wonder! I tell you he was getting a view of these lengths and breadths just as you and I are-- a little more every day. As we have fellowship with the Father and with the Son through meetings and prayer, and are thus more and more conformed to the image of God's dear Son, proportionately we get nearer our God and proportionately we can see more of these lengths and breadths and appreciate the love of God, which passes all understanding.
But how can God show any more favor to us? Brother Russell, can you think of anything that could be more? Why, here as we have already seen we are to be associated with Jesus and we are to have this same Divine nature. Now there is no higher thing than that to give us. No. Well, how could God show any more exceeding graces than that? And then the great privilege of reigning with Christ for a thousand years! You remember, he says, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne." Oh, Brother Russell, surely the Apostle made a mistake when he spoke of the exceeding riches of grace to be shown in future ages. How could there be any more? Well, we may be sure the Apostle was actuated by the Holy Spirit and did not overstate the matter and that there are still further manifestations of God's grace towards the Church.
Why, says one, He must love the Church very much. Oh, He does, He does love the Church very, very much and there is a reason. The reason is that He has made the way so narrow, so narrow, the terms so exact that only a certain class will care to go in that narrow way, only a very special class will follow on that way after starting and the Lord says that those who follow on through all the trials of the way, He says they are jewels, jewels, jewels. More than the angels, Lord? Yes, more than the angels. Why so? They cannot have at any time transgressed Thy Law, O Lord. Why are they not the jewels? Oh, my dear friends, we rejoice that the angels have thus shown their loyalty. We rejoice when we see in the Scriptures that there, have been certain tests to prove the angels in the past when at the time of the flood some of the angels kept not their first estate, that some of the angels did maintain their loyalty, and, therefore, we see that they did have some testings and that some of them proved their loyalty by abstaining from sin. But, my dear brethren, the tests that come upon the Church of Christ are still more severe than any test that ever came upon the angels, and because these, the faithful ones, will pass through these tests, therefore the Father will specially love and honor them and set them on High. Does He not give us, through the Apostle, the illustration that the most precious of metals on earth are tried or proved by fire, that their purity may be manifested, that all the dross may be eliminated, and then does He not tell us that the trial of your faith is in God's sight much more precious than that, although that is the highest test in the line of earthly things. How precious the test, then, in God's sight to see that as we have allurements from the flesh, the world and the adversary, that we crush them out of sight and that our hearts go out loyally to God, for the Divine approval! "I delight to do Thy will, oh my God." The words of the Saviour, of all His disciples, and we must all come to that point or we cannot be His disciples. And then this same class, this Jewel class, are continually saying not merely at the beginning of the way, but all the way along. "What shall I render unto the Lord my God for all His benefits towards me?" Yes, that's the class that are asking that, that the Lord is specially seeking, those that are seeking to know and do the Father's will, and by the way I will mention it here that I have found it very profitable to myself in addition to all the manna texts and all the other good texts, to have one text for every morning, as nearly as possible the first thing in my mind as I awake and see the daylight, and that that text will be just that one that I have spoken--"What shall I render unto the Lord my God for all His benefits towards me. I will take the cup of salvation" --I will accept the terms, I will receive whatever God the Father may have for me today. "Calling upon the name of the Lord"--not trusting in my own strength, but all in the name of the Lord. And I believe you will all find that a very helpful text. It is true we have all done this; we have all said, what shall I render, we have all agreed that the thing we shall render is our lives, but we die daily, so we must pledge ourselves daily. And the very earliest morning is the best time to have the thought in our mind, and I think the little practice that way is the thing which will help us. So every morning let us say "What shall I [CR323] render unto the Lord my God" then we begin to think about the blessings, the riches of His grace, then we go on to the things promised and then these exceeding promises that reach away beyond, they will all come streaming into our mind and we feel oh! so thankful to God. And we have this blessed influence at the very start of the day, and I can recommend it to you all as being a very helpful practice.
Well, I say that on account of such faithfulness as God is expecting in the members of the Church, He calls them jewels. What is a jewel? A jewel is a very clear, transparent precious stone that may be polished, that may be made to look very beautiful. Yes, that's true. There are many things, however, dear friends, that look very clear, very transparent and very beautiful. You know there are certain dishes that are set upon the table that look just as beautiful as a diamond or a ruby. They are very clear and very burnished in some respects. But the one is merely glass, or such like, and the other is a very substantial thing. The one is almost indestructible and the other is not. So you see it is not merely to have a certain kind of outward appearance; He is looking for those characters that are like jewels, that are firm, firm for righteousness, firm against sin, firm to know and do the will of God. That is what your Father seeks and in proportion as He is finding this in you, or if you are even interested in the formation of character, He is saying "Here's another of My jewels," and this formation of character sometimes is slow, day by day, week by week, month by month, the tests come in to determine whether or not you will be one of His jewels, whether you will stand the polishing, be loyal through it all, will not chip, will not show any cross grain of your own, will be fully submissive to His will, say of every trial, "The cup which my Father hath poured shall I not drink it?"
Well, my dear friends, can you wonder when you look at the matter from God's standpoint, the nature of those whom He calls to be saints, can you wonder that the Father loveth us (we read "The Father who loveth you"), not because of our character likeness, but because we have His Spirit, His Holy Spirit received into us and lived in and lived out; this is what is pleasing and acceptable in God's sight. It is not merely what you and I might do on the spur of the moment in the way of making a consecration, but it is living out that consecration day by day. It is easy enough to stand up and decide, but can we live it? It is easy enough when everything is easy and everyone round us is praising God, but when we are alone, compassed by the adversary, and by the flesh and the world, then how loyal are we? God is seeking for those who will be so loyal for Him that they are willing to lay down their lives in His service and the service of the brethren. And for these He has such wonderful blessings as we have already been considering, and then in the ages to come He will show through us more exceeding riches of His grace.
Now, we said how could there be anything more? We just remind you afresh, dear friends, of what we have already said, that God has approximately (according to what astronomers can tell us) a thousand millions of worlds. Think of that! One hundred and twenty-five millions of suns and an average of eighty planets to each sun would be one thousand million worlds, and if the principle applies as the Apostle suggests, that God formed not the earth in vain, but to be inhabited, if that said principle be applied to all these worlds we may well say that God formed them not in vain: He formed them to be inhabited, and now He has on this planet granted man an exhibition of His love, justice, wisdom and power in His dealing with man, and has made you and me His witnesses. We have been right in the midst of it; our eyes have discerned God's loving kindness and tender mercy and by the time He shall have finished His work in us He will be ready to use us in connection with all those other worlds. Must we not suppose that since Jesus our Lord has been the Divine agent in connection with every feature of creation, for without Him not one thing was made that was made, if that be so will He not still be the Father's agent in connection with these other worlds? Yes. And if we become the Bride, the Lamb's wife, as joint-heirs with our Lord Jesus Christ, will we not be associated with Him in all the glorious work? Surely we shall be, my dear brethren. Now we can begin to see what the Apostle meant when speaking of how God in ages to come will show still further riches of grace for the Church. I don't know how many kinds of humanity God may have for these various planets. Undoubtedly one planet will have one kind of humanity and another planet another kind. They will all be human beings, all in the likeness of God, but in the same way as God has the tiny flower and the larger flower, the lily and the rose and what not, so He has variety all over, variety among the angels, various planes of angels, so we may suppose that amongst the different races of men there will be different natures, and so forth, they will all be in the likeness of the Great Creator in the sense that they will have those qualities by which they can appreciate Him and enjoy Him, and can appreciate the principles of His righteousness; all that will be the same, but there will be variety. And the Church shall be associated with her Lord in bringing to pass all those wonderful things. There will be a 1,000 years for the blessing work in connection with the earth, and let us say some more for each of the planets and then go out amongst the others and see where eternity will be and you will see very easily that there is plenty of room, age after age, for work after work, until the whole creation will be filled with God's glory and His grace and the knowledge of Him. We are not to suppose that things are to be carried on in the same way in other planets as they have been here. God here for those 6,000 years has been giving a great object lesson which is to last for all eternity. All the angels are to take note of that lesson, all mankind are to know about it, and the Church, which will be associated with Jesus, will have knowledge to the full and can testify to the full of the absolute justice of God and the inflexibility of His justice that when once He sentenced the race, nothing can set aside that sentence. The death sentence has been imposed and it must be exercised without mercy for 6,000 years. That is not all, for we see next the love of God manifested through Jesus as we never would have seen it had there never been a world to be brought back from the dominion of sin and death. We see God's love manifested in Jesus, in the giving of His Son and in Him coming into the world to be our Redeemer, and all He suffered and bore, and then we see, also, God's loyalty to principle in highly rewarding Him far above angels and principalities and powers and every name that is named, and oh we rejoice at His exaltation! And then we see the further work of grace in connection with ourselves, and thus we see, dear brethren, God's justice, His love, and ultimately we shall see His wisdom in the matter. All shall see God's power in connection with the recovery of man, even the great power of the resurrection of the dead, the most wonderful power of all power that God ever can or ever will manifest.
And then, my dear brethren, we think about those planets far and near. We have no reason to think we see all of them, that astronomers have seen all of them. They themselves tell us that there are probably just as many more that they cannot see at all, that there is no such thing as an end of space, where there are not planets, and we are simply lost in amazement and our hearts go up the more in gratitude to our Father and in appreciation of the great privilege which we have and the grace of God that has been so manifestly and so wonderfully in operation for us who are in Christ Jesus.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." What has the Apostle here in mind? Why does he say that by grace we are saved? It means, my dear brethren, by grace are we saved; it is not of any duty that God holds to us. It was not that God said, Here I have sentenced those poor creatures to death and it is my duty to them to recover them. Not at all. There was no duty in the matter. Justice merely said God hath created this race, created Adam, and given him the privilege of life everlasting. There was no obligation to give Adam everlasting life even if he had not sinned. He could have said, I have determined to let you live 1,000 years, or 100 years, or 10 days. There was no saying how long he would live. The flies and the various insects only live a certain time, and they have a certain amount of pleasure. God had the same right to say to man, I give you like the other creatures on earth a certain period of life to live, and enjoy yourselves, and then die, and we could not have said, Oh, God's justice claims that He shall do more for us. Not at all. It would be a blessing to have that privilege of life for a day, for 100 years, for 1,000 years: It is all of grace.
[CR324]
So when man came under the sentence of death there was no justice which could say to God, Now you must release them. Whatever was done to the sinner was of grace, of His own free will, because He delighted to be gracious to us and so He has made the plan. Now it is by grace we are saved, and it will be by grace that any of our race will be saved, not only in this age, but when the next age shall come and the world will have its opportunity. It will still be by grace, by grace. Yes, God is not bound to mankind any more than He is bound to the Church. No obligation whatever. It is His own free will He exercises.
In the next Age it will be God's grace by works, but now in our case, in the case of the Church, now it is God's grace through faith. You see the difference? A very wide difference between the advantages of this Age and the next Age. No difference so far as the grace is concerned, but a great difference so far as individuals are concerned. Now the offer is merely to those who can exercise faith and those who cannot exercise faith cannot have the blessings, and in proportion as we exercise the faith we may get the blessing, but in the next Age it will be by works and will not be such a test of faith. Now we walk through dark places and have merely the light of God's Word. We are walking in dark places, as the Apostle declares. "Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning," but the morning is not here and we need that lamp to our feet because it is a dark time and that requires faith. It requires faith to hold the Word of God as a lamp to our feet; it requires faith to walk by the light of God's Word, because there are many voices saying "Go this way and that way." There are many enticements every way, hence those who walk by faith, by the light of God's Word, are a specially loved class by the Lord and a class that He invites to a special place, because when the next Age shall be ushered in, dear friends, and the glorious Sun of Righteousness shall shine forth with healing in His beams and scatter all the darkness of earth, you can see readily, there will not be the same need for faith. They will not need to walk in the light of God's Word. There will be plenty of the light of the new dispensation shining and the light of the knowledge of the glory of God will fill the whole earth. There will be no place that will not be illuminated by that glorious light, and Jesus declares that He was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, all those who have gone down in heathen darkness, in Africa, millions on millions, all those of India, all those of China, and so on, all, who have gone down to the tomb in darkness, in ignorance of the true light that will enlighten every man that cometh into the world, no matter who he was or where he lived or when he lived, so long as he is one of the children of Adam, because as by man came death so also the resurrection. As all in Adam die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. There's the blessed fullness of God's goodness. And when these come forth it will be morning then. It will be daylight then. It will be easy to see everything then: they won't have the same difficulties in connection with faith.
Oh, says one, don't you wish God had let us live then instead of now? Oh, no, I am glad to live now, to walk with the lamp now. "I would rather go in the dark with Him than go alone in the light," as we sometimes sing: beautifully expresses it, too. Why, you admit that it is hard to walk by faith? Yes, it is. You admit there are difficulties and pitfalls that we could avoid if we saw more clearly? Yes. Why should we not desire more light? Because God puts a special reward in connection with this dark pathway in which He asks us to walk by faith, a reward that will not come to the world when they walk in the light of the new Dispensation. Then they will know the things that are obscured now--the things that people are cavilling at now that they are ridiculing now. The whole world will see, know and clearly understand. They will not get a reward for faith because it will not be difficult: they will not be able to avoid believing. You cannot help believing things that you see. You see me: there's no need for you to get a reward for seeing me. So then God's arrangement for the next Age and for mankind in general will be according to their works and so we read, you remember Jesus pictures that new Age in Revelation 21 and speaks about how all shall come forth from their graves and the dead shall come up and all shall stand before the great White Throne. That's the same great White Throne as we have in the 25th of Matthew. There it is spoken of as a judgment seat. All people are to be judged during that thousand year day, all mankind are to be before the judgment seat of Christ, before the great White Throne, representing the purity and justice of that throne, not established to condemn mankind; they have already been condemned, and the One on the throne is the One who has redeemed them from that condemnation, and He during the time He is on that throne will be there for the very purpose of giving a blessing to all those whom He has purchased with His own blood and scattering all the ignorance and darkness and binding Satan for the 1,000 years that he can deceive no more, and lifting up and helping all those who desire to come unto the Father through Him. But though they will not be on trial for faith it will be for their works, and the Lord will not expect them to do perfect works at first, because they will be weak. While Satan will be bound for a thousand years, while all the darkness and ignorance and superstition will be cast away and the light of truth will be shining clearly, and everyone shall know the Lord, and the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep, nevertheless they will have the imperfections of their own flesh to contend with. These they must battle with: to whatever extent they have lived regardless of the divine will at the present time and knowingly have done wrong, to that extent they will have degraded themselves and they will have all the more steps to climb up, but the whole world will have a priest upon the throne. It will not be merely a king with great power. He will be a king indeed, but His power will be used for the benefit of His subjects, not for their injury--to put down everything that's in opposition to righteousness, that He may thus deliver them from the snare of the Adversary and from the control of evil and darkness, that He may help them out of their own weaknesses: and so He will also be at the same time upon His throne a priest, the two phases joining. A priest forever after the order of Melchisedek, who was a king and a priest at the same time--a Helper and Teacher and general Blesser and Manifestor of divine mercy, all that, because these words "priest" and "king" mean "ruler" and "governor," and one who has the power and authority to aid and to help us.
My dear friends, when we see what God has for the world we can see that gradually as they will give heed to the instructions of the great Priest upon the throne, the great Teacher of that time, Jesus the Head, the Church His Body, as they will give heed, they will be helped out of all their weaknesses and gradually come to more and more strength of mind and of character, increase of knowledge, until they, if they will, may come fully up out of all that they have lost in Adam, fully up to all the perfection from which Adam fell, all the blessings that were purchased for them by the death of Jesus. All, all through works, works, works. They will require by their efforts to get out of sin and to fight against sin. Oh, they will not be successful in one moment, or a week, or a year, but during that thousand years they will have the fullest opportunity and plenty of time to get clear up out of their weaknesses so that they may be fully perfected and able to do perfect works, made complete by the assistance granted them during that 1,000 years.
Now, you see the difference between that day and the present time? Now God is judging us according to our faith and says, According to thy faith be it unto you, because now good works are impossible, and if God would say to us "According to thy works be it unto you," oh, we would have to give it up. Good works are not possible: perfect works are not possible: we could never commend ourselves to God by good works, because restitution has not come to make us perfect so that we could do His will. But we can have the perfect faith and the loyalty of heart and we can show by the best works we are able to do what we would like to do if we had perfect bodies, and He says, "I will test you not by works but by your faith and the degree of obedience which you strive to render. I will know how hard you strive to do perfectly My will, I will see this and it will be according to your faith and your attempted obedience that I will regard you.
Neither will they be entirely without faith in the future, but faith will not be the test there, just as works are not the test now. Faith is the test here, so then faith will not be the test there, but works, because they will have the uplifting influence of restitution bringing them back where they will be able to serve the Lord. So the Apostle is speaking here [CR325] of works and he says, "for by grace are ye saved"--you can count yourselves saved now, reckon yourselves new creatures in Christ all through faith. But, oh, says one, I have not faith. I cannot believe it. No, only those who can accept this grace by faith can have it now because this is the class God is calling now. This is the class He is accepting now, none others, and that faith is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Why, is faith a gift of God? Have we nothing to give Him? How can it be my faith if God gives it to me? Well, my dear brethren, let us see how that is. Some of us were born with this quality of faith in our minds--ability to exercise faith. We were born with that ability. Did we acquire it ourselves, or were we born with it? Then it is of God. The first man, Adam, had faith, had the quality of mind that would enable him to exercise faith, and some of his race have fallen in one way and some in another way, and some have so fallen that they find it almost impossible to exercise faith. But if you and I are able to exercise faith, where did we get that quality? Oh, we got it from heredity. Yes, and where did Father Adam get it? From the Father. Very well, then you did not make the faith yourself, did you? I did not give myself the quality of exercising faith.
But more than that, after we do exercise faith it is God
who leads us on in this way of faith and He gives us the
trials and the testings and the instructions and the encouragements
and all the experiences to draw out our faith and give
us more faith and more faith. Have you not more faith
than when you began? Yes. Where did you get it? Was it
that you merely resolved to have more faith? No, you were
in the school of Christ and the great Teacher appointed by
the Father was instructing you and giving you lessons that
developed you in faith. You grew in faith as you grew in
grace and this is what the Apostle is saying here. He says
"not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works lest
any man should boast" Eph. 2:8,9). If we did good works
we might say, "See how good I am?" and feel as if there was
some credit due us. But the more we see that all we have is
from God, that we never merited such favor, that we never
did anything to commend ourselves to God, then our hearts
are glad. "Not of works," the Apostle says. It is faith and
that faith is not of our own manufacturing either. It is our
faith. We must have got the faith, but God has been working
in us: He has been giving us hardships and experiences and
He has developed our faith. Everyone of us as Christians
do well to look back and see the divine providences in our
experiences that we may see how God has been doing this
work, developing faith in us and helping us to have more
faith, and so the Apostle says in the next verse, "For we are
His workmanship." Ah, there you see, my dear friends,
that's the point. Who worked this faith in you? We are
His workmanship. It is God that worketh in us both to will
and to do. How does God work in us to will and do? Does
He cause some miraculous influence to lay hold upon our
hearts and brains and put thoughts in there to compel us to
do this and that? Oh, no. Far, far different. How then?
The Apostle Peter tells us. He says, "God hath given unto
us exceeding great and precious promises that by these we
might be made partakers of the divine nature." That is how
God does it, by these precious, inspiring promises. We cannot
get along without the Bible, my dear friends, no one can be a
Christian and a child of God without the instructions from
the Father's Word. By these, then, is the power of God
working in you to will and to do.
What more can He say than to you He hath said
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?
As you have listened and as you have sat to be instructed by the Father, as you have sought to walk in the "narrow way" He has come near to you and you have had more fellowship with Him, you have appreciated more and more His character and plan and you have grown in grace and knowledge and have become more determined to do right than ever before. That was the Father's drawing and not of yourselves. It was God working in you "for we are His workmanship."
Oh, my dear friends, let the workman go on in your hearts: let Him melt and fashion: let Him chisel and polish: let Him make of you, as the Apostle says, a vessel unto honor. You remember the Apostle says, "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor"--less honor. The potter makes some vessels plain and some he ornaments, so the Apostle's thought is, God has a great factory and you and I are in His hands. He is moulding us and fashioning us. Let Him work out whatever He is willing to do. He will only work through His providences and He will make of you the very best that is possible to be made. Is not that so? And you have so much to do. You say, "How can I have anything to do if God hath determined to do this?" Oh, my dear friends, He has made our will the very keynote of our existence and you have a will by which you can will yourself out of His hands, or you can will yourself into His hands and yield yourself to be a minister of righteousness, to be used of Him and made meet for His future use in the glorious kingdom.
Now, I trust that all of our hearts are saying, "O Lord, work in us more and more to will and to do. We boast not of any works of our own. We realize that what we are is by Thy grace and by that grace we are determined that under all these blessed privileges, God being for us, we shall be submissive. The Father Himself loveth us and He is desirous of making us jewels and ultimately of gathering us as jewels when He comes "to make up His jewels." O, we want to be among them, we do, and that means that we want now to be submissive. Don't think you must do the work. If you find things going different from what you had expected them, still it is God's providence for you. I have heard from a great many of God's people who told me that they could see most distinctly God's providences in connection with their lives. I think if we are watching for them we can all see these dealings. So many at home have said, "Brother Russell, if it had not been for the breaking of my leg (or the rheumatism, or what not), if it had not been for these things I never would have had such a blessed privilege as I had by reason of this coming upon me. It gave me leisure time, it kept me off from my business, it placed me on my back or on a chair, and I was obliged to have nothing to do for awhile and to let worldly things go, and God took advantage of that very thing and He providentially brought to my notice the Truth, and oh, the blessing I have gotten. I thank Him for the affliction and for all the providential care that He exercised over me as His child, though He gave me affliction."
But, my dear friends, that same person could have received the matter in a very different way. He could have been dissatisfied and discontented and lost all opportunity for blessing. In proportion as we exercise faith in God, in all the circumstances and conditions of life in that same proportion we will get the blessing that God designs to give us.
God's burdens rest upon the strong--
They stronger grow who bear them long,
And each new burden is a sign
That greater power to bear is thine.
So now no longer I repine,
Because a heavy cross is mine,
But struggle onward with the prayer,
Make me more worthy, Lord, to bear!
[CR326]
Farewell Address
DEAR friends, there is something very interesting to me in connection with the closing of conventions. I have been this summer at three large conventions in United States and now two large conventions in Great Britain, besides about eight or ten small conventions on the way, and when it came to the closing days of these different conventions, every one of the brethren felt, as I believe you feel now here, that the last was the best. But I think the reason for this is very plain to be seen; as we are seeking to draw near to the Lord, are growing in grace, growing in knowledge, growing in love, we appreciate the wonderful truth of the divine plan more and more. It was good ten years ago; was better every year since, and it is getting better every day and that's the secret I think of our conventions always seeming to us the last to be the best.
This word "Farewell," Fare ye well, God bless you, God be with you, these are in the three words. The words are of great import to us, for we know not if we shall ever meet again under these conditions; and now, dear friends, as the days and years go by we are getting our affections, I trust, so much the more thoroughly set upon the heavenly things and the heavenly fellowship that all the experiences of the present time seem to run in that direction, and so sitting here tonight I know your chief concern is, will we be in that Great General Convention of which the Apostle speaks in his letter to the Hebrews, for it is the General Assembly of the Church of the First Born ones whose names are written in heaven. Will we be there? The conditions you know, dear friends, are already arranged for; they are unalterable. God could not do more on our behalf. He could not favor us more than He has done. As we have looked at these subjects during the last few days together, we have seen that He has done wonderful things, exceeding riches of His grace and loving kindness have already been manifested towards us and He has promised us still more in the future; in the Ages to come He will still show forth those riches of grace in His loving kindness towards us who are in Christ Jesus, and we are in Christ Jesus in the sense that the Scriptures represent, that He indeed is the great Mediator of the New Covenant.
For the sake of some who may be here for the first time, perhaps I should explain a little bit along the line of what I signify. There was an old covenant that God made with the human family away back in Eden. Father Adam was in covenant relationship with his God, and so you hear of all the wonderful blessings and favors of God to Adam, and the dominion of earth which the Scriptures declare he had: "God hath put all things under his feet,"--the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, all things in subjection to him, and God promised him everlasting life on condition of his continued obedience to Him, to the divine will; he was perfect, with no predisposition to sin. He was in the image and likeness of God and had no disposition to sin, quite to the contrary. But under all those favorable circumstances our father Adam sinned, came short of the requirements and thus broke the covenant, and the Scriptures declare, broke that everlasting covenant which God had made with him, and so he and his children have been aliens and strangers and under the sentence of death from then till now and what we need and all humanity needs is a re-establishment of the covenant relationship between God and the creature. If that covenant can be re-established then mankind will have the blessing that was once lost, the eternal life, the eternal joy that goes with that covenant relationship. All the angels are thus in covenant relationship with God, all who are in harmony with God, all of His intelligent creatures, are thus treated by Him.
We are not in that condition yet. God made a little example of the Jewish nation and made certain suggestions to them. To them He said, that if they would keep this covenant, viz., if they would keep the divine law perfectly, then indeed He would be in covenant relationship with them; they should be His people and they should live everlastingly. They failed to keep the divine law. We see, dear friends, that they were not to blame; they could not keep those laws of God because they were the measure of a perfect man's ability, whereas they, like ourselves, like the entire race of Adam, were all imperfect through the Fall. But God, nevertheless, we see had good intentions in respect to the giving of that covenant (the Law Covenant) for He wished two things to be accomplished. One was that He would make in that Law Covenant with the Jewish nation, He would make a type or illustration of the better conditions that will prevail bye and bye in connection with that; He typified the necessity for better sacrifices by these inferior sacrifices which belonged to that Law Covenant. You remember it was established by the shedding of the blood of bulls and goats and the anti-typical bullock and goat are to be slain and the result of that is to be the bringing in of a still better covenant than that which was brought in at the hands of Moses, and as Moses was the Mediator of that Law Covenant so a greater than Moses, even the Christ of God, is the Mediator of the New Covenant, for the Old Covenant was only the foreshadowing of that New Covenant, under which the blessing will come to all mankind. But the terms of the New Covenant will be the same--do and live, works, obedience. "He that doeth these things shall live by them." The difference then between mankind under the New Covenant and the Jews under the Law covenant will not be in respect to the requirements for fellowship with God. There will be an obligation upon mankind that they shall be obedient to the divine law. The difference will mainly be that the New Covenant will have a better Mediator and that better Mediator's ability will be established in the better sacrifices which He offered, says the Scriptures. There's the relationship between the type and the antitype, the one a figure and the other anti-typical. You remember how God instituted the Law Covenant. First of all He appointed Moses to be the Mediator of that Covenant, and now when He is about to establish the anti-typical one, first of all He appoints a Mediator, and so the Apostle tells us that Jesus is the Mediator of the New Covenant. But as St. Peter points out, in the record of Acts 3:22, this great Mediator of the future is more than the present Jesus, more than the man Jesus. This great Mediator is to be composed of many members. Mark the words of St. Peter: "A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you from amongst your brethren--a prophet like unto me," viz., Moses. I am his small type, I am a foreshadow of that great one that God will raise up from amongst your brethren. God has been doing that, my dear friends, He has as the Apostle says raised up Jesus first and made Him to be the Head over the Body which is the Church, and now from more than 1,800 years from amongst the brethren He has been raising up this Body, this Body of the great High Priest, this Body of the great Mediator, that is to stand for a thousand years between God and man, the world. And you and I have the great privilege of being members of the Body of that great Mediator and sharers with Him in His glorious work, and so the Apostle says you remember that we are able ministers, servants of the New Covenant. That New Covenant has not yet been made, has not yet come into existence. It is merely in preparation. Before it can be made the better sacrifices must be offered and now is the time for the offering of these better sacrifices. Our Lord Jesus offered His great sacrifice, you remember, during the three and one-half years of His earthly ministry. He began the work at Jordan, where He presented Himself a sacrifice without blemish. He concluded that feature at Calvary, where He cried, "It is finished" and in the type this was the offering of the bullock. Then next in the type came the offering of the goat which represents the church which is His Body. The great fat bullock represents the Master Himself, and the lean goat all the Church. So it is in the picture. And the goat is to have all the experiences that came to the bullock and so the disciple is to have the same experiences as His Lord and we are to walk in His footsteps as He showed us the example, and we are to fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ and then to be able, or qualified, ministers, or servants, of that New Covenant. In what way are we serving the New Covenant? In two respects. In making known the grace of God and seeking for underpriests [CR327] to be associated as members of the Body of the great priest; we are in that sense serving because we are helping to get ready the new Royal Priesthood which will have to do with the execution of the terms of that Covenant. It will not go into effect until the priesthood is ready to do its work, priests upon the throne associated with Him, helping and uplifting the poor groaning creation, and so if Jesus is the great High Priest and the great King then His disciples are the under-priesthood and He says: "He that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on my throne" and as He was the anti-type of Melchisedek so all His members are also partakers in that Melchisedek type because we will be priests upon the throne with Him; and now then the able ministry of this New Covenant is the finding of the fellow members and that is your work and mine. We are not now to rule the world, to enlighten it. It is not in our power to deal with any class except the class that God is dealing with. His first work is the calling out of a class as a people for His name and we are His channels for the gathering in of these who will constitute the Members of the Body of Christ, which will be the Christ in glory. Are you not glad, dear friends, that God has given you the privilege of being His mouthpieces and of inviting such as have the ear to hear to become joint heirs and fellow members of the same Body? We are glad, and this is the ministry, the service which the Lord expects us to be faithful in. In proportion as we appreciate the privilege ourselves, in proportion as our consecration is a real one, every opportunity for serving the brethren and finding those who have an ear to hear and giving them the opportunity of coming into the Body (all these privileges are ours), and in proportion as we are so doing we are accomplishing the work of the ministry, the work that God intends His servants to do at the present time; and we are all ministers in this sense, not merely those who preach from the platform or pulpit, but those who preach in their daily lives; as the Lord says, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me for He hath anointed me to preach the good tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken hearted and to declare that acceptable time of the Lord." These are our privileges and whoever has the anointing, has the divine ordination as a minister of Christ, a servant, to call on others to become joint servants with himself and members of the one Body through association with the one Head and through the begetting of the holy spirit.
Then, dear friends, there is still another way. This is part of our ministry, but the other part of the service is that which is pictorially represented as the sacrificing of that goat. It had to be sacrificed: it had to share in the suffering; it had to die. If it had not died then that part of the plan would not be carried out, so unless you and I die according to the flesh we cannot enter into the things of the spirit because, as the Apostle plainly declares, "Flesh and blood shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven" and if we would be of those who would enter the kingdom of Heaven as New Creatures, changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye from earthly to heavenly conditions, then we must have the begetting of that spirit for no one will have the birth who does not first share in the begetting, so if we have not the begetting, the beginning of this relationship in Christ as Members of this Body of the great Mediator, Prophet, Priest and King and Judge, if we have not the beginning we can never have the consummation. The great privilege is ours, it is within our grasp, and what are the conditions? That we should be so faithful to Him who called us out of darkness into His marvellous light that we shall count our lives as nothing.
One dear brother said here he had given all his living and I thought of what Jesus said, that he who kept his present life should lose it and he who lost his present life for His sake should find it. None will gain the heavenly life who do not lay down the earthly life. It does not matter whether we shall die a martyr's death in the same sense as our Redeemer died or whether we shall have different sufferings from His. The whole matter is brought out by St. Paul when he speaks about the way in which the bullock was treated and the way in which the goat must be treated. The bullock you remember after being killed and after its fat was put upon the altar, the head and the hoof and everything appertaining to the bullock was taken outside the camp, into a place of dishonor and that meant the risking of public opinion and the getting of the disfavor of our fellowmen because of our favor of God. But Jesus experienced the matter. He had the powers and the abilities to have made Himself every interesting and attractive to all those Pharisees and Jews and instead of saying "Crucify Him" they would have cried out in His praise. But Jesus took the Father's way. He said, "The cup that the Father hath poured for me shall I not drink it," and thus in obedience to the Father His daily life led more and more outside the camp, and the burning of the flesh, the shame experienced and the general destruction of the flesh took place outside the camp in this disfavor. And so the Apostle says to us, represented by the goat, "Let us go to Him outside the camp bearing His reproach," for only those animals killed upon the Day of Atonement and whose blood was afterwards taken into the Most Holy, only those animals were burned outside the camp. Do you see, dear friends? Here then in its two parts is the great sacrifice of this great anti-typical Melchisedek priest who has not yet taken His place on the throne, but who is now offering His sacrifice,--His sacrifice, composed of two parts, first His own particular personal sacrifice; secondly, the sacrifice of those who come unto the Father through Him and who become His members. So He can say of us as He did say of some when speaking to Saul of Tarsus, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? The flesh of the saints which you are persecuting is my flesh," and so long as saints are suffering in the world it is Christ Jesus suffering because the sufferings of Christ are not finished and will not be until the last member of His Body shall cease to suffer and shall pass beyond the vail. And so the prophets of old were principally speaking of the Church in this united sense and speaking of the sufferings of this present time, the sufferings of Christ (they have continued now for more than 1,800 years), and of the glory that will follow. Just as soon then as the sufferings are ended the glory will begin. So here is a part of our privilege. "If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him." If we be dead with Him, not a different death, the same death, the sacrificial death; different from the death of the world as we saw, you remember, on Saturday. If we suffer with Him, if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him. Here's the condition and here's the work of God going on, all preparing, making ready for the inauguration of that New Covenant, and just as soon as the last Member of the Body of Christ shall have suffered and the last Member of the Body shall have been glorified, then the great anti-typical Prophet shall be raised up from amongst the brethren, member by member, the great Prophet will be complete and ready for His work and the sacrifice will all be completed and the blood of the sacrifice will be ready to sprinkle on the mercy seat on behalf of the people. Just as the blood of the bullock was sprinkled upon the mercy seat on behalf of the High Priest's members and His house (and them alone, not for all the people). And when all that shall have been accomplished then we see shall take place that exactly corresponding to the inauguration of the Law Covenant. For Moses took the blood of bulls and goats. He himself was mediator of the covenant. He was then ready to put that Covenant into effect. God authorized the making of the Covenant and this Mediator was then ready to make it.
But you see, my dear friends, we are very near that time now when the whole Body of Christ will be complete and when all the blood that has been gathered is applied, not yours, not mine, because after we have been adopted by Him and have become the Members of His Body it is no longer you and no longer me, and therefore He could say, "Why persecutest thou Me." Saul of Tarsus was not persecuting ordinary people, not the flesh of ordinary people, but Jesus, and so the blood of Jesus will soon all be spilt and the sacrifice will all be applied and then He will be ready--ready for what? Ready for what was pictured in the picture of the inauguration of the Law Covenant. Moses took the blood and sprinkled the two tables of the Law. What does this represent? The one represented the law towards God and the other the law towards man. The one represented the demands of divine justice that have been violated in Adam's transgression. He had violated the law, for he that is guilty of violating even one point is guilty of all, so Adam had become a violator of God's law and before there could be any reconciliation possible God's divine Justice must receive something as an offset for sin and this is represented in the sprinkling of blood upon the two tables of stone. That represented the satisfying of justice. Then he turned and sprinkled all the people. It took only a moment you see to [CR328] sprinkle the tables of the law and so it will only be a very brief matter for the Lord, the glorified One to appear in the presence of God and present the satisfaction to justice on man's behalf, the merit of His own sacrifice; take but a short time. Then the next part will come in and it will be a longer one; just as in the type it would be a considerable work to sprinkle the blood on millions of people--hours, perhaps days. So in the anti-type it will take a little while for Jesus to make satisfaction to justice and take over the human family. It will take all the thousand years to do this sprinkling of humanity and bringing mankind under the influence of the blood and giving that very blessing that Jesus intimated when He said, "I am the light of the world--the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." That sprinkling of the blood speaks to us of how God through Christ for a thousand years will be effecting this work of reconciling the world to Himself, bringing it back to harmony with God. It will take a thousand years to do this work, the whole thousand years. And will they all receive the favor of God? They will all have it. And will they all receive it in the sense of making personal application of it? We cannot say that, because God will still respect the human will and whoever intelligently, deliberately rejects the favor of God and refuses to come into harmony with the laws of the kingdom will therefore cut short his own privileges and the result will be that he will die the Second Death, from which there will be no redemption, for which there will be no atonement and no resurrection of the dead. But by the time a thousand years shall be finished and all those who have rejected it will be in the Second Death, then the whole world of mankind, all raised up under the blessing that comes to them through the blood of Jesus, through the knowledge and assistance of the royal Priesthood, that whole world of Adam's race will have come back into harmony, with God and thus into human perfection, all that was lost will be theirs again. And will they be right then, will they be in covenant relationship with God? Nay, verily, except in the sense that they have been all through the thousand years in covenant relationship through the Mediator, but God will have no dealings with mankind during that thousand years. His whole dealing will be through the Mediator, but at the close of the thousand years the Scriptures declare that the Lord shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father.
Oh, but then, you say, can the world stand it? Yes, my dear brethren, because they will all be back again to the same image of God in which Adam was created and in that glorious likeness of God. There is nothing in the divine law that will condemn them. They will have the divine approval and that covenant of blessing and eternal life which was theirs through the Mediator will then be theirs independently of the Mediator and because of their own perfection. The Mediator will merely be set aside after He has done His great work. The Apostle tells us of this great work. He says He must reign until He shall have put down all insubordination and all that is contrary to God. All will be put down. Satan's reign will have come to an end. Satan will be bound, and all the imperfections that have come to humanity, the class that will be restored to human perfection, all their imperfections will be put down, they will be freed from them. They are shackles that have been hindering them for many years. Then the Son will have finished His work with mankind. They will all be free. "Whom the Son shall make free shall be free indeed" and so the whole world will be free again, back again in the same freedom that Adam was created in. The Apostle says, you remember, "The whole groaning creation is travailing in pain together until now," and the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption. It will take a thousand years to deliver them. But they shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God--not spiritual sons, earthly sons, human sons. Now this is the great work and thus the Apostle in the 12th chapter of Hebrews, tells us we are approaching the general assembly and that it will be our general convention over there when this time of suffering with Christ and laying down our lives for the service of the Lord and the brethren when it will all be finished and the last member will have passed beyond the vail, that will be the general assembly of the Church of the First Born through the power of the first resurrection, as the Apostle declares. He is telling us of what we are approaching; we are not approaching what the Jews approached; that was merely the type when they came to Mount Sinai, and so that was a type of how it is to be here. We are coming down now to Mount Zion; there is to be a great shaking and trembling here and all men will be in fire and trouble and they will be glad to have the great Mediator step between and glad to have Him making the atonement, applying the merit of the atonement on their behalf and set up His kingdom and take them back into harmony with God that they may enjoy the blessings of God under the protection of the royal Priesthood, the great Mediator.
Now, then, how blessed is our portion! What a great privilege to know that God is calling us to so high a service! What a great privilege to know that even now we may be faithful ministers of the New Covenant getting ready at our part in sacrificing, associated with our Master and in Him as the Head we His Members of His Body going to Him without the camp and with Him on the other hand seated in the heavenlies, in the holy enjoying the wonderful grace and blessing and privilege of our blessed relationship in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now, my dear friends, when we get there it will be no longer necessary to say "Farewell" and no longer necessary for saying "Good-bye," but now we are not there yet and I am wishing you "Good-bye." I am wishing that as I say good-bye you will have the full meaning of it, "God be with you." Good-bye in its full meaning signifies "God be with you" and may He give you grace to grow, and keep you to the end. I know He will because He changeth not and He already has made all these arrangements for you and me and all, even as many as the Lord your God will call He has made the arrangement and He is faithful and will never change from His arrangement, and therefore the whole matter, my dear brethren, is "Good-bye," God be with you. Abide in His love; see that you do not wander away from Him and from the conditions of your covenant; He will not wander from you. It is a question merely to what extent you and I will be faithful to Him.
I don't know, dear friends, none of us know, how many more such conventions we will have. So far as we can judge, probably there will be very few. So far as our understanding of the Word of the Lord goes we are very near the end of this Harvest time. We do not claim that we have any infallibility in regard to the matter and our consecration was not made until 1914; our consecration was made until death, and if in the Lord's providence I shall live longer than the Lord be praised and then I can rejoice just as much in 1916 as 1925, rejoice as much as in this present moment and I shall anticipate that under the Lord's providence His grace will be more abundant as the years go by and that my joy in the Lord will go on increasing to the very end, but now, so far as we know, it looks from the Scriptures as though a very little while, three years, and less, and we will be in the kingdom. There may be things about it we do not understand and we have no desire to be dogmatic in any sense of the word and do anything rash, but we are trying to learn to appreciate the value of the present things and also the value of the things to come. We are trying to learn to take such a view as Paul did when he said, "I count all these things as loss and dross that I may win Christ and be found in Him"--in the anointed--membership in the Body of that Great Mediator. If He might win that, all other things of the present time might go and this is what is coming more and more into your heart and we are getting more and more lifted out of the selfishness of the world and we are looking beyond to the heavenly things. Indeed, I think nothing impressed me more lately than the strife between some candidates for the presidency of the United States, the strife between certain parties who were seeking the office, a noble office and all of them noble men, but in their strife they belittle themselves in striving for the office which we think rather should seek the men than the men the office, but I thought at the time of how different from ours. Those people would think of us, they would say, "Foolish, foolish, spending time and strength talking about a kingdom that they have never seen, talking about a kingdom they have never seen, worshiping, bowing down and laying their lives at their feet and counting all things as nothing to have the smile of His approval whom they have never seen except by the eyes of faith." And I had the pleasure of thinking to myself, "How foolish are these people." I can see they are spending time and strength and money, in legitimate propaganda you know, spending lots of money and time and all that and all for what?" Oh, you [CR329] say, for four years of the Presidency of the United States; a great honor. Great indeed, my friends, but it was not even for that, it was for having one chance out of four or five of being the President. Oh, I said, if those people would endure such things for the chance of being President for four or five years what could I not endure for the chance of being an heir of glory throughout eternity! What now, friends, is it insane or is it sane? Is it insanity? Then I am one of the insane. If you and I, my dear friends, stake our all upon the kingdom are we not following a good example? How much did Jesus give? He laid down His life. How much did St. Paul give? He laid down his life. How much did St. Peter, John and the others? They laid down their lives. They all bought that pearl of great price. Whoever sees that pearl, "let him go and sell all he has and buy it." It is the most wonderful bargain. I feel rich already. Why? Because all things are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's. But I tell you candidly, my dear friends, if this whole matter about the future were a fable and there was no future at all, still I am having a happy time anyway. (Laughter, cheers.) We are having the very happy time the others are wishing they could get. I believe that is the very essence of wisdom, not only to get the happiness now, but, we believe, shortly to have that glory--immortality, and joint heirship to the kingdom, and then beyond, oh, beyond, the kingdom in the ages to come all that thousand of millions of worlds, to be joint heirs with Christ as associates in the great work stretching away beyond into eternity, if you can imagine the scope of such a word--millions and millions of years. We can count the millions forward; our evolutionary friends can count them backwards. (Laughter.)
Well, now, my dear friends, in conclusion I would say that as we depart from here and say good-bye, we make the resolution that by the grace of God we will, as we suggested during the discourse two days ago, every morning in life endeavor to think of that text that I brought to your attention: "What shall I render unto the Lord my God for all His benefits towards me. I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord." And then every day, of course, when we thus pray and if we can say we will take the cup of salvation, calling upon the name of the Lord, it will mean we will drink whatever cup the Lord pours for us that day, in His strength. We know what it means. It is to be a cup of joy bye and bye, but now it is a cup of shame and ignominy. He has made certain arrangements for our good "to work in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure" and to work out for us "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen"--don't spend your time looking too closely to the earthly things, lift your minds more and more to the heavenly things, the higher things God has in reservation for them that love Him, love Him more than houses, more than our lands, more than our parents, more than children, more than ourselves. Then how much we must love if we would be pleasing to the Lord for He hath declared that he that loveth Father, Mother or Sister or Brother more than Me is not worthy to be of My bride class and we see that wherever our love is our service will go. Whoever loves will love to serve. If you love the brethren you will want to do them good, and thus we are fulfilling the divine will, the divine plan and are being prepared for association with Christ. Farewell and God bless you.
COURAGE! PRESS ON
TIRED! well, what of that?
Didst fancy life was spent on beds of ease,
Fluttering the rose leaves scattered by the breeze?
Come, rouse thee! work while it is called to-day:
Courage! arise! go forth upon thy way.
Lonely! and what of that?
Some must be lonely; 'tis not given to all
To feel a heart responsive rise and fall,
To blend another life within its own:
Work can be done in loneliness. Work on.
Dark! well, what of that?
Didst fondly dream the sun would never set?
Dost fear to lose thy way? Take courage yet!
Learn thou to walk by faith, and not by sight;
Thy steps will guided be, and guided right.
Hard! well, what of that?
Didst fancy life one summer holiday,
With lessons none to learn, and naught but play?
Go--get thee to thy task! Conquer or die!
It must be learned; learn it, then, patiently.
[CR330]
INTERNATIONAL
1913
BIBLE STUDENTS
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR331]
THE WORD OF GOD
OH, wonderful, wonderful Word of the Lord!
True wisdom its pages unfold;
And though we may read them a thousand times o'er,
They never, no never, grow old!
Each line hath a pleasure, each promise a pearl,
That all if they will may secure;
And we know that when time and the world pass
away,
God's Word shall forever endure.
Oh, wonderful, wonderful Word of the Lord!
The lamp that our Father above
So kindly hath lighted to teach us the way
That leads to the arms of His love!
Its warnings, its counsels, are faithful and just;
Its judgments are perfect and pure;
And we know that when time and the world pass
away,
God's Word shall forever endure.
Oh, wonderful, wonderful Word of the Lord!
Our only salvation is there;
It carries conviction down deep in the heart,
And shows us ourselves as we are.
It tells of a Savior, and points to the cross,
Where pardon we now may secure;
And we know that when time and the world pass away
God's Word shall forever endure.
[CR332]
1913 Transcontinental Tour
OF
PASTOR RUSSELL
God's Object in Calling the Church
I AM very glad to be with you to-day. I recognize many of your faces; some seem to be new, and we are glad for the old faces and also for the new ones. More and more we are realizing that there is only one family of God, and that all of God's saintly ones belong to that one family.
I am reminded of the statement made respecting Gideon and his band. You remember the story of Gideon, of course, and that Gideon and his brethren were very loyal to God, and how the Lord used them in overthrowing the enemy. But the item that comes to my mind declares that Gideon, and all the members of the family of Gideon, all his brethren, had faces as though they were the sons of a King. It seems to me that is true of the Lord Jesus Christ, the greater Gideon, and all His brethren, that they necessarily all have faces of a King. So I look into your faces this morning and see them happy and rejoicing, and I know the reason--"Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free." "Sanctify them through Thy Truth; Thy Word is Truth." This explains to us the blessing that has come to all our hearts as we more and more come to know God and to know His wonderful plan. "Still increasing light, and still increasing joy," is what the Lord promised to those who are faithful. As we continue to walk in the narrow way, the path continues to shine more and more as we near the Eternal City.
I do not know to what extent your hearts are rejoicing in the Truth, except as I see it in your faces, and your being here implies that you have an interest in the things that belong to the glorious Kingdom of the Father. It seems to me as though the whole plan of God continues to grow brighter and clearer every day we live. Every increased ray of light seems to bring an increase of harmony, and so I am glad to meet the friends here in Kansas City--and I presume some are from surrounding places--and to know that your hearts are swelling with joy and loyalty to God.
I was thinking of the motive and object that God has in dealing with us. I am not hoping to say anything especially new on this subject, for I always tell you about everything I know in the Watch Tower and Scripture Studies. I can not tell you anything more than I have already--it will merely come in a little different phraseology. But I was thinking of the object of God in calling us to be His children, heirs with His Son. He is thinking that thus He might show forth His own praises--not in any selfish way, for our Heavenly Father has plenty of glory and honor entirely aside from you and I, or anything we could do for him; He has the honor of all the Angelic Hosts and He has the perfection of Himself, and there is no reason that He should need you or me to show forth His praises. But there are features of the Divine character that never were known before. God had these qualities of character, but He never had the opportunity of showing them, because there never was an occasion. The permission of sin, and the need to do something to eradicate sin, gives an opportunity for God to develop His great plan which you and I are sharers in. Without the permission of sin everything might have been going on in glory and harmony. If Satan had had a rebellious thought God could have promptly either destroyed him or in some other way preserved the harmony of the glorious condition before Satan was permitted to bring in the trouble and sin. God did not, however, exercise His power to restrain Satan, but allowed him to take his course, because He saw the glorious end to be accomplished eventually.
And then God did not stop our first parents from committing sin, but allowed them to take their own way, because He knew how He would work it out in the end.
Then He allowed the children of Adam and Eve to be born into the world in an imperfect and sinful condition-- [CR333] not because He could not have hindered it, but because He saw how eventually He could in that way make it all work out for still more glorious purposes than by hindering it. And it is in connection with this that you and I come in. God could have used Jesus, or could have associated with Jesus some of the Angelic Hosts, and Jesus and the angels could have blessed mankind during the thousand years. But this other feature came in. God said, I will select from among mankind some to be the associates with My Son and sharers with Him in the great work of blessing the world and uplifting them out of sin and degradation and death. And that is the reason this Gospel Age came in, you see. That is the reason a call went forth for a church class, for those who would separate themselves from the world, take up their cross and follow Jesus. Why follow Jesus?
Well, says one, follow Him in order to be saved.
Oh, no! God has provided a salvation for the world in the next age. But this call of the Gospel Age is something unique, separate and distinct. God said, I will gather out of the world some of those who have a hearing of faith and a response of heart, and they shall be my peculiar treasure: that is, like jewels. If you had some diamonds and rubies and sapphires, etc., you would say, Would you like to see some of these peculiar treasures I have. I will show you my jewel box; these are my peculiar treasures. You have other things, of course, but these are your peculiar treasures. So the Lord says that the Church is His peculiar treasure. You remember our Manna text about two weeks ago, which said that the Church shall be a Royal Diadem in the hand of thy God--not a diadem that He is going to wear on His head, as though he needed any glory to be added to Him, but it is a diadem that he is going to have in His hand, and represents power you see--in His power He will show the Church forth; and by showing forth the character of the Church and what He has been able to do with the Church, it will be a glorious thing for those who will be the jewels and reflect the glory on the one who designed this great diadem and all of this great plan in which we will be associated.
So then, dear friends, God purposes that He shall have this special class, this peculiar treasure, a peculiar people, different from all the rest of the world.
Well, Brother Russell, do they look so peculiar as that?
It is not in the outward looks merely that they are going to be peculiar, and it is not by wearing some peculiar kind of clothing that they will be peculiar, nor by talking in some peculiar sort of way that they will be peculiar. They will be peculiar, as God says, "Zealous of good works."
Well, you say, Brother Russell, that does not take in just the consecrated saints of God, because there are a whole lot of people that are zealous of good works; we have a "Good Works" Committee, and we have all kinds of institutions in our city here, and many of them do good and great works; some of them arrange for hospitals and serving in hospitals; some are building orphan asylums, etc.--all kinds of good works, and it is not merely the Church; in fact, I do not know that the consecrated have so much to do with the hospitals and asylums as some others; they seem to have something else to keep them busy.
Well, my dear brother, we are not saying those are not good works; they are very good works, indeed, building hospitals, and asylums, and schools, and colleges, and we are very glad and rejoice with the world that they have the inclination to do these things. We rejoice with the world in every thing that makes for righteousness of any kind.
But why don't you do more of it? I haven't heard of you having anything to do with the building of a college, or an orphan asylum, or a hospital.
No, my dear brother, I have not. Cities build hospitals, and counties build hospitals, and the states support many of the hospitals, and if I need them there is no doubt I would get my share. The whole people are very properly taxed for hospitals and schools, so that you and I in proportion as we have property that can be taxed pay our share toward these things.
Well, then, what kind of works are these you think the Lord's people are specially to be engaged in?
The same kind of good works the Lord Himself was engaged in. Did our Lord Jesus build any hospitals? No. And we are not saying anything against hospitals. Did He build any orphan asylums? No, and we are not saying anything against that good work. But Jesus had a still higher work. We are not throwing any cold water on any good work; we love all good work and all good workers, but, as, for ourselves, we have a special call.
Who do you mean by "we"?
I mean all who hear the Lord's voice; all who become His consecrated children. He does not speak with one voice to Methodists, and with another to the Presbyterians, etc., but He has just one voice that comes to all the Lord's people and that advises us--what? That we should do good unto all men as we have opportunity, and that would include hospitals and asylums and everything of the kind, but especially to the Household of Faith.
Now I see, Brother Russell; you mean it is still a higher work to serve the Household of Faith than to build hospitals, asylums, etc.
It is not I, but the Scriptures that say it is a higher work. It is the Household of Faith that Jesus served; it is the Household of Faith the apostles served. What can we do for the Household of Faith? There is a great deal to be done. In the Household of Faith we include the Presbyterians and Methodists and Catholics--all classes--and do good to them.
Well, what good can we do?
You know what you needed to have done to you, and
you know what I needed to have done to me. You know what
blessings came to your heart through the Truth; could you
do anything better for your neighbors and friends and the
Household of Faith than to tell them about the good tidings
of great joy which shall be unto all people? No, that is the
best you could tell them. Could you tell them anything better
than the message of God's grace that has come into your
heart, not only speaking peace to you, but inspiring you with
this glorious hope of joint heirship with Christ. You could
not tell them anything better--
"I love to tell the story,
It did so much for me,
And that is just the reason
I tell it now to thee."
But, Brother Russell they won't all like it so well; they would rather we should build a hospital.
We cannot help that. They might think more of us if we would build a hospital than if we would do something else. They might have thought more of Jesus if he had built hospitals, and if he had gone around building hospitals, asylums for the blind, etc., I suppose He would never have been crucified at all. It was because He did not do those things, but did something else, that he was not so well pleasing to some. But the way we are to judge in the matter is that it will be pleasing to the Heavenly Father. The Father shows us His plan. Before we got the Father's plan we might be working at cross-purposes here and there and doing various things, and, as the Apostle says, Verily thinking we are doing God a service. Paul says he was going about persecuting the Church of Christ, thinking he was doing God a service. It was not because his heart was wrong, but because his head was not right. That is the way you and I were at one time. We were working at cross-purposes because we didn't know the will of God. Now, since God has graciously opened before us the Plan of the Ages, and since we have begun to see what God is doing we say, Lord, can we be co-workers with you? And the Lord says, yes, that is just what I want you to do. If you want to be co-workers with me, that is what I am pleased to have you do. If you see what my work is, and if you want to join in with me, come right along; in proportion as I see you zealous, I will give you a little more and more part in the work I am doing.
But didn't you say God was saving the world?
Oh, no; that is just what I did not say. Some one else said that. The Bible says God will save the world; that all in their graves shall come forth that they may reach a knowledge of the Truth, because God wills to have all men recovered, saved, and to come to a knowledge of the Truth.
Well, should we not be trying to bring them to a knowledge of the Truth now?
Certainly; that is what you are trying to do--to bring everybody to a knowledge that you can.
But you can not bring very many. [CR334]
No, you have not been successful in bringing very many to a knowledge of the Truth.
Well, why is it?
God says that His work now is to bring to a knowledge of the Truth those who have an ear to hear, and He says, "He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear." He says there are not many of those now.
Well, if they have no ear to hear, who is to blame? Is God to blame?
Oh, no; God did not blind their eyes or stop their ears.
The Bible tells us that the God of this world hath blinded the minds of all those who believe not.
Then why doesn't God open them?
Because it is not the time for that. The Bible tells us the time is coming when all blinded eyes will be opened and all deaf ears will be unstopped. In the meantime God is working a wonderful work. He is gathering here and there the saintly ones--those that have an ear to hear. "Blessed are your ears, for they hear." "Blessed are your eyes, for they see." But your eyes did not get open all at once; it was a gradual work. And many who have come into Christ have their eyes still partly shut, you know--just like a kitten is several days old before it can see. Its eyes are wide open and it looks like it could see something, but you will find it can not. It takes quite a little time to get the focus. So it is with us. After we became Christians we could see a little, but we didn't get the focus clearly, and we stared around and did not see much of anything. And I am sorry to say that some stay in that "kitten" condition too long. We are doing everything we can to get the focus of our understanding. I remind you of what the Apostle says, "I pray God for you"--
What! Praying for the Christians?
Yes, praying for the Christians.
Well, I supposed He would pray for the outsiders who were blind.
No, St. Paul realized that many Christians were not seeing very clearly, so he says that he prayed God that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened, that they might know what is the hope of their calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.
Has it not been so? Yes, St. Paul's prayer is being fulfilled in you and will be fulfilled in all of those who are earnest and honest at heart.
Now then, God has been working this way for 1,800 years and always gathering the same class of people, from various nations, peoples and tongues. The Lord knoweth them that are His and He is giving needed assistance to each one who is sincere in heart and earnestly seeking to know the Lord, feeling after him, and earnestly desiring and praying from the heart "Send out Thy light and Truth, O Lord! Let them our leaders be." All such true prayers are being answered, and such people are being led into the light and truth and being blessed of the Lord day by day.
Well now, Brother Russell, that won't do. It does not seem reasonable. If this company here gathered in Kansas City was a very high-class company--if there were some congressmen here and some judges, and some of the most noted people in the city, the rich, the wise, the learned, the professors, etc.--then we might think that what you were saying was true. But you would not think that God would especially pick out a nondescript class such as we are here this morning. (Laughter.)
We can only go by the Scriptures, dear brethren. If not Bible is unreliable, then count me out of it, because I do not know anything on the subject except what the Bible says. And I do not reason outside of the Bible; I reason inside of the Bible. I believe in reasoning--"Come, let us reason together"--but I am not going to go outside of what God has said to reason. God tells us what he is doing. He tells us He is gathering a special class and He is looking at the heart; others may look at the outward appearance, but He looks at the heart.
Now, Brother Russell, you are judging these other people. Do you mean to say that because there are no judges or congressmen here their hearts are not right.
I am not judging their hearts a bit. I am merely quoting the Scriptures. God is gathering the class whose hearts are right, for the Lord knoweth them that are His. He does not mean to do what we used to think, that everybody who was not a saint of His is going to be thrown to the devils and roast through all eternity. What a change it brings over the whole aspect of things to know that God is not premeditating evil even against those who may be His enemies through wicked words, but is premeditating good for them, is going to bless them, and is now merely calling out a class He can use in doing that work of blessing.
You remember, then, the Scripture, "Not many great." Does that fit this company? "Not many wise." "Not many rich." "Not many learned." I guess the Lord took the measure centuries ago of just what we are like. We are very thankful, nevertheless, that God would do such a thing-- that He would accept what He tells us are the mean things of this world. That is the way it says--God hath chosen the mean things of this world.
Do you call us mean, Brother Russell?
No, my dear brother; that is not it. The thought behind that expression is that which the world would consider mean. And there may be some real mean Christians come into the Truth. I think there are some very mean Christians. I do not think that Christianity was the cause of their being mean, but they were naturally mean.
Why does not Christianity appeal to the great minds of the world, and the rich and the educated?
The Bible tells us that the rich have plenty to satisfy their hearts anyway; they are not feeling any great need; therefore Jesus did not think it worth while to say, Come unto me all ye that are rich, but He said, Come unto me all ye poor and heavy laden. The Apostle does not say there were no rich, or learned, or wise that are called, but he said not many rich, not many wise, not many great, but chiefly the poor of this world.
Now it is the same way with the intellectual. They rather look down on the average human being. They say the poor people don't know any better, they are believing that story of the fall, and all of those other stories of the Bible. So in what they think is wisdom they are ignoring the Word of God and all the plan of God that is connected up with this story of Adam and Eve, and the Fall and the Redemption. Because the story of the Bible fits and dove-tails together, and whoever leaves out a part is losing his connecting link, and can not get the plan of God. Therefore the wise, according to the course of this world, can not understand the plan of God.
How about the ignoble? Surely the saints should be noble, anyway.
No, the Bible says, "Not many noble." How can that be? Some people are poor and uneducated and yet may have very noble minds, and they rather feel, Well, now, I am above the average people; I know I am. These persons with that kind of feeling of self-satisfaction say, Well, you know I am not going to get down to the same conditions those other people do and confess that I am a sinner, for I am not a sinner; I am one of the best people in the world. They feel kind o' "upie-upish," and that no matter how poor they are, if God is going to make any show by and by He will need to have them; and whoever may be saved, they know they are naturally better and nobler than some of these, and therefore because they have this thought they are not so ready to see that every human being needs a savior.
We do not mean that you should exaggerate your sins and say, Lord, I am one of the worst sinners that ever lived. St. Paul said that, but he told the reason. He says, Because I persecuted the Church of Christ. But God was merciful to him and forgave his sin when he turned about and changed his course. So, in one of his epistles, after telling about some of the Gentiles who were murderers, and thieves, and covetous, etc., he says, Such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye are sanctified. That is it! Now, that makes a great change. After you have been washed, after God has accepted you and forgiven your sins, you are no longer under that sentence of former sin. You might have some weaknesses of the flesh, and you are striving against these, but you might never be as successful as some other person that [CR335] was naturally better born. But God looketh at the heart and not at the outward appearance merely. He knows to what extent you are striving against sin, seeking to put down the old man and his works. Others may not know; others might misjudge you; but the Lord knows all about it. We can come to Him acknowledging that we are sinners, and give ourselves wholly to Him, and then He will work in us. "Ye are God's workmanship."
Oh, some one says, I thought we were working in ourselves?
Well, you have a lot to do with it; you must co-operate; God will stop at once unless you do; but God is doing a work in you and He is the one who is inciting you to do good work. The Apostle says, It is God that works in you to will and to do His good pleasure. But how? Why, He has given us exceeding great and precious promises that by these (these promises working in you, inspiring you, inciting you, and showing you the course and what the result will be) ye might become (gradually attain to) partakers of the Divine nature. The consummation is the Divine nature, and that comes to us by Divine power--changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. And whether you and I will be in that glorious change and be made partakers of the Divine nature, depends on the zeal with which we love righteousness and hate iniquity and seek to do the will of God now in ourselves and toward others.
What are those good works you can do? One of the good works is that as ambassadors for God and Christ you can make known the terms and conditions of His Kingdom to whoever may have an ear to hear it. What about the Church? Well, you are to build one another up in the most holy faith, to be sympathetic and helpful, not to stumble each other, not confounding one another, but helping one another.
And so it is expressed in other language--The bride made herself ready. You have your share to do, and I as a member of the Bride Class prospectively have my share to do. No matter how mean they have been according to nature, the transforming work goes on in their hearts and they become noble characters; they may never be able to control the flesh so they will seem as noble as some of the world, but if the nobility is in the heart that is what God is looking for; and if He sees that true nobility in your heart, that loyalty to Him, to righteousness, to truth, to the brethren, then you have the evidence that you are His, and His providences will work in you for your good.
Will these providences always make us happy? Oh, no; when the Lord works in you it will be in the same way that the lapidary works on a jewel. The lapidary will not pick up any cobble stone or ordinary quartz rocks and put them on the wheel to polish. They lie around in abundance everywhere. It is when he gets a real jewel that he puts it on. And if the cutting process goes on it is because the Lord loves you. It is because you are His jewels that He deals with you. And all the trials and difficulties He sees best to bring upon you are intended to fit and prepare you to be jewels mounted in that glorious diadem. You know an unmounted jewel would not show forth much. To begin with, we are only jewels in the rough, and we need the polishing and cutting. We need the skill of the great Master Workman in order to be properly shaped and prepared to show forth the glory--just as we would see that a diamond properly cut will radiate the glories of the sunlight in a wonderful way. So God is cutting and polishing His jewels so they will show forth His praises. It is not sufficient that they be all properly cut and polished: He lays them aside until He is ready to mount them. The mounting time is the resurrection time. They are going to be mounted in gold and gold is the symbol of the Divine nature. And all of those jewels are going to be members in the glorious diadem in the hand of our God. Is that worth while, do you think? And will God be glorified in that, do you think? Yes, He surely will be glorified in His Church. And these experiences, then, are all working out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory says the Apostle. Take, then, thankfully and gladly and joyfully whatever God's providence may bring to you. God knows better than I what I need, and He has promised me His grace will be sufficient for me. I will not be tempted above that I am able to bear, but with every temptation He will provide a way of escape, and I am trusting Him for this, and I am resting in joy, and peace, and satisfaction, whatever may betide of an earthly nature.
This is the message, then, we would like to leave with you to-day: that we are in the Lord's hands, and He is working out this glorious Church as a Royal Diadem in the hand of our God. Who is He going to show it to? Well, He will show it to the angels, and it is going to be one of the greatest lessons the angels ever had. They never knew any sin in the sense of experiencing it themselves. They have always been holy, happy, obedient to God. The redemption manifests His love, and His being willing to accept those of mankind who are obedient to Him will always be a lesson to the angels, and they will say, "See there how God deals! We have learned lessons through seeing the dealings of God with that Church Class." They will glorify God in that day when they shall see how the Lord's blessing eventually will bring the Church to glory. The angels of God will all rejoice, even though the Church is to be on a higher plane still than the angels--far above angels and joint heirs with the Lord. The angels will rejoice because they are fully in harmony with God and will be ready to sing praises as the Scriptures represent--unto Christ every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. When the Bride shall be glorified with the Bridegroom, all the angelic hosts shall also bow the knee, because the Church will be on the highest plane associated with the Lord, and whoever of all the angelic hosts are loyal to the Father and loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ will also be loyal to a class exalted to be the Bride, the Lamb's Wife, in that glorious Kingdom.
Then the Lord is going to show this diadem to the world. Do you think the world will know who gets into that elect class? Oh, yes; the Bible clearly indicates that God intends to make known to the world just who all have made their calling and election sure. They will say, Why, I knew that man; he was not such a wonderful man, either. He lived in our town; I used to see him every day; I did not think he was such a wonderful man, and God made him all of that?
Then it will be explained to him and he will say, Oh, I understand now. I thought the man was kind o' peculiar in some ways--or woman, as the case may be--yes, she was a little peculiar.
Where does it say they are going to know about this? It says, you remember, "It shall be said of this one and of that one that he was born in Zion." Zion represents the Kingdom in glory--the Church in a glorified condition will be Zion, and we are going to be born into Zion.
Are we not born now? We have been born according to the flesh, then begotten again, but we have not been born again. This second birth, the spirit birth is the resurrection. We have the begetting of the spirit, but it has not yet been completed; when it is we will be born in Zion. Then it will be told, the record will be made, this one and that one was born in Zion. They will begin to look up and say, I wonder if I knew any of these? They will look up the list and find your name if you are one of the faithful, and they will say, Why, I knew these people; you know I thought they were honest, but I could not understand them. They will get the explanation, how these were blinded like the rest of the world, but got their eyes a little more open, and they were loyal to what God showed them, and they have been blest, and see what they have attained to! Now, there is a blessing for you, too, in this lesson, for if God would do this to these, He is willing to bless you--not the same blessing, but you will get a blessing--God has blessing for everybody that comes into harmony with Him. The same gracious Father that rewarded these and took them to the Heavenly plane is dealing with us now through them, and Messiah's glorious Kingdom, and He will give us the blessings He has promised to us, namely: Restitution to human perfection.
Thank God for such a good God and such a glorious plan!
Note the following by the editor of a large weekly newspaper. It is quite in contrast to the spirit of envy, jealousy, hatred and malice manifested by the "Scribes and Pharisees" of our day:
[CR336]
Kansas City Weekly Post Interview
"So many Gods; so many creeds;
So many paths that wind and wind,
When just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world needs."
PASTOR RUSSELL is a kindly, creedless shepherd, who goes about the world doing good and minding his flocks--and incidentally his own business.
This good shepherd was in Kansas City Sunday ministering to the soul wants of thousands here. In a short time he will go to London, the metropolis of the world, to minister to the needs of his flocks in the British Isles. A short time ago he was in China, where the little yellow men loved him and followed him about the streets. And it makes no difference where Pastor Russell goes, it's all the same. He says that men seeking the truth and the light are all alike, regardless of their color, their race or their language.
I have heard of Pastor Russell, of Brooklyn Tabernacle, many times, and I have read his sermons; but I have always thought of him just as an ordinary, good, well-groomed minister. It had never occurred to me he was any different from thousands of other preachers who wore frock coats and white ties. This was because I had never seen him or heard him talk.
Last Sunday morning I walked into the Hotel Baltimore, in Kansas City, and talked with Pastor Russell for an hour. It is my custom when entering a large hotel to inquire for a guest to go at once to the room clerk, but this was not necessary this time, for men were standing in groups in the lobby, looking in one direction. I heard such remarks as: "Isn't he a fine-looking gentleman!" One man said: "I ain't much on religion, but I'll bet that is one preacher I would like."
So I walked right over to Pastor Russell and introduced myself. Although I do not hobnob with the clergy, I did not feel ill at ease for a moment. Here was a man who had no creed. He belonged to no denomination. He said he had nothing against any church and wished them all well, but that he preferred to belong to the same church that Jesus of Nazareth belonged to. Asked what church that was, he said: "None of the denominations that exist to-day."
We talked about life, Pastor Russell and I. And it is a good subject. Here was a teacher, a prophet of God, whose books have reached a circulation of 8,000,000, and have been printed in nineteen different languages, including Chinese, and whose parish is the world, who held the same views of life that I, a man of the world, did. It was a revelation.
Here is what Pastor Russell believes, in substance. There is a God, father of all, who is Love. Religions, creeds, denominations are interpretations of God's will. All of them have much good and some bad in them.
The Bible is the world's greatest book, and true. The world can't do without it, and it will help everybody who studies it. Our civilization is founded upon it, and let its enemies construct a better civilization than we have if they can.
It is the business and privilege of all who believe in the Bible to work together, to deal justly, and, above all, to be kind.
It is the belief of Pastor Russell, and the thousands of members of the International Bible Students' Association, of which he is president, that some day all creeds will unite in one band for the purpose of making the world better. And making the world better ought to be the desire of every honest man.
You might look the world over and not find so good a man as Pastor Russell for the position he holds. He is 61 years old. Young enough to see the joy in life, and old enough to have sound judgment. His face radiates with kindness and proves his life has been well spent. There are no traces of dissipation. His soft white flowing beard is not the beard of a charlatan, of which we see so many, but the beard of a patriarch, a father. It gives you confidence. There is not a man who does not believe Pastor Russell is sincere.
And so he goes about the world making people glad. He did not ask me what church I belonged to. He did not care, and he is the same with everybody. And I left the hotel feeling that if the Scriptures did nothing else they were worth while just because they produced this good shepherd from Brooklyn. As I left him he gripped my hand warmly, and, slapping me on the back, said: "God bless you, young man; be fair and kind and give the Lord a square deal, and you won't have much trouble."
At the Auditorium, where Pastor Russell spoke Sunday afternoon, there was no ranting, and no collection was taken. Neither Pastor Russell nor his flock are out after money. If it is your good fortune ever to meet with this good man from Long Island, you will decide, as I did, that the man who thinks all the good men are dead has something wrong with him. Leslie Earl Claypool, Editor
From Kansas City Brother Russell went on to Pertle Springs, Mo., where there was an eight-day General Convention in session. He was there but for only a portion of that Convention, and as none of us could be there throughout the entire series of meetings, we can give but a partial report of the proceedings, which we do as follows: [CR337] Pertle Springs Star-Journal Interview YESTERDAY afternoon a representative of the Star-Journal called on Pastor Russell at Pertle Springs and asked him many questions concerning the faith or the interpretation which the International Bible Students' Association as a class place upon the Scriptures. In opening his remarks, the Pastor said:
"Whilst Catholics are returning to the Bible and the present Pope has directed that their people be encouraged in Bible Study, Protestants are drifting rapidly into infidelity under the modern designations, "Higher Criticism and Evolution," said the Pastor. "Our fathers during the Dark Ages got away from the Bible by supposing an 'Apostolic succession.' Gradually decrees got the Bible's place under the supposition that they agree. Now, having outgrown those creeds, in rejecting them, many are rejecting the Bible also. This is a mistake! The Bible is the only rallying ground for human brotherhood and Christian brotherhood. The world otherwise is facing anarchy. A lost religion will soon mean a lost God and a lost future hope and a selfish strife for the present life only. The hell torturing theory is nauseating people. They are rejecting the Bible because they erroneously think that it teaches it."
Did man actually fall from perfection?
"Let us not mourn our errors of the past unduly, but at once, now, get right with God and His Book! Its presentation is logical from Genesis to Revelation. It tells of the perfections of our first parents, of the test of their loyalty, of their failure and its penalty, death--not eternal torture. It tells that all of present imperfection, mental, moral and physical, is incidental to the death penalty. Twenty billions have been born dying and soon toppled over into the tomb. They are not being tortured in hell or purgatory, but according to the Bible are unconscious until their resurrection."
Is God's mercy man's only hope?
"God's mercy cannot forever allow sinners to live in sinful pleasure to injure themselves and others and mar creation; nor could it permit sinners to live in torture to blaspheme the Holy Name. But one thing could be done under the Plan arranged. Man could be redeemed by a Saviour's dying, 'The just for the unjust to square the demands of Justice against the race through Adam's disobedience.' God purposed this remedy for all the race 'before the foundation of the world.' 'In due time Christ died for the ungodly' --'He tasted death for every man'--not eternal torture."
Will the prisoners be set free?
"The Bible alone teaches that men die when they seem to die; yet it calls this a sleep, because there is to be an awakening, 'a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.' The Prophets and Apostles all 'fall asleep,' as well as all others of Adam's race. They are sleeping in a great prison house, the tomb, unconscious until it shall be opened and they shall be called forth. This shown by many Scriptures. The Bible hell is the tomb."
What do you understand by the Deliverer, the Ransomer?
"It was not sufficient that Jesus came and died for man's sin. Such satisfaction of Justice is preliminary to their recovery from the prison and from the hereditary weaknesses which led them to the prison house, the tomb. Hence the Redeemer is also to be the Restorer and life-giver. The time for all that deliverance or 'Restitution' is still future, but near. It will begin at Jesus' second advent, says St. Peter.-- Acts 3:19-23."
Is not Messiah's Millennial Kingdom an exploded theory?
"Some good people ask. It was Jesus Himself who told of His future reign of a thousand years, when His Bride Church, the 'elect' will be associated with Him in His kingdom work; and when Satan shall be bound.' Revelation 20:1-5.
"The loss of this hope by our forefathers led on to all the grievous errors from which we are now seeking to escape. Do we not still pray, 'Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth even as it is done in heaven?' The Messiah's coming Kingdom is the key to the world's blessing by Restitution back to human perfection in a world-wide Eden."
What do you understand by the high calling of the Bride?
"While waiting for His 'due time' to come for the blessing of mankind, God is not idle. He made one election during the Jewish Age, from amongst that people, of a very saintly few for His future work. And during this Christian Age God has been making another election--the Church, 'the Bride, the Lamb's Wife.'
"These elections do not spell torture to the non-elect of mankind, but the reverse, blessing. Through these 'elect' saints, God's favors and mercies will be poured out upon Adam's race for a thousand years--for a full uplift to all that was lost in Eden and redeemed at Calvary."
Will every sinner be punished?
"This does not mean that there shall be no punishment for sin. Quite to the contrary--every wrong act, word or thought has its degrading influence and will bring its 'stripes.' It does mean that none now are in torture. All are asleep in Sheol, Hades, the tomb, and all will be blest and reasonably dealt with by the Redeemer. Therefore, every good endeavor now will bring proportionate uplift of character and tell on the future favorably--even in those not of the saintly, elect class. The parables and dark sayings of Jesus and the Revelation are now in 'due time' being understood, and are in full harmony with Divine Justice and Love."
LIVING FOR JESUS
LIVING for Jesus day by day,
Following just as He leads the way,
Never a choice in great or small,
Doing His will, and that is all.
[CR338]
Response to Local Preacher's Attack
IN RESPONSE to the attack on Pastor Russell's position, in regard to the soul and the condition of the dead after death, by Rev. J. O. Staples of the Baptist denomination, one of the Bible students left over at Pertle Springs to pack up some traps volunteered the following response:
There were many points upon which the Bible students here could agree with the Baptist brother. He berated those who placed false beacons. We are glad to agree with our reverend brother. The placing of the false beacon of eternal torment as the wages of sin not least. For centuries it has been the custom of the clergy to use "scare words," to scare people into the church through fear of eternal torment. Today the scheme does not work because the man in the pew is often better informed on this subject and better educated than the man in the pulpit. To them the Bible says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." "The wages of sin is death." The preacher who tries to preach eternal torment today soon finds himself without a congregation. Intelligent men will not stand hearing our all powerful, all loving, all just God defamed and misrepresented as being less powerful, less loving, less just than the human beings he created. Which one of us would torment the worst criminal we know, forever without hope of release even though he repent? If Rev. J. O. Staples would do this we are glad that he is not to be the judge of the human race, yet Brother Staples is an able Bible student.
We are glad this able brother admits that sheol does not mean torture. By admitting this, he admits the Old Testament does not teach eternal torment. He also admits the word hell does not mean eternal torment because every place in the Old Testament where the word hell is used it is used to translate the word sheol. The Bible students here regret our dear brother had not discovered this before writing his article, for in many respects he really is an able Bible student.
If sheol means hell and hell does not mean eternal torment, and if hades means hell, and as he says hades does not mean eternal torment, then gehenna and tartaro are not places of eternal torment, because they are also translated hell. All Bible students agree on two points: (a) that the wilfully wicked shall be punished, (b) that their punishment shall be everlasting. The Bible students here agree with Brother Paul when he said in 2 Thes. 1:9 that these wilfully wicked, who suffer the second death from which there is no resurrection, suffer eternal destruction. As they are never raised, their punishment is eternal--everlasting. They remain dead forever, extinct.
Our good Brother Staples infers that Brother Paul didn't know what he was talking about, that Jesus Christ is not the resurrection and the life, that we can raise ourselves, that people when they die are not dead, and that our God who can destroy both soul and body, according to the Scriptures, can't do anything of the sort, but must keep them alive in the fire of gehenna to be tormented forever without any hope of release. What nonsense! Does Brother Staples know more about this matter than Brother Paul and the rest of the Apostles who wrote the New Testament? Yet we do not wish to discredit our brother. In many respects he is really a very clever Bible student.
We do not wish to dwell upon his interpretation of the rich man and Lazarus, but will take his position. Our brother claims this parable to be literal. If the fire and torment he describes are literal, the reward which Lazarus received must also be literal and we have no record that Lazarus went to heaven because he was good, but simply because he was poor and covered with sores; nor have we any record that the rich man was bad, but went to torment simply because he was rich. Surely our dear brother would not care to be so literal in his interpretation. Yet if we admit one point we certainly must admit the other. Then viewing the matter again we find heaven described as Abraham's bosom. If our Brother Staples insists upon this literal translation, we are reminded of the worthy clergyman in Jefferson City who was trying to convert a negro and an Irishman who were sentenced to be hung on the same day. His efforts were rewarded with success in part. The negro repented, but he could make no impression upon the Irishman. The day before the execution he made a final call and said, "Tomorrow that poor negro will be carried away to Abraham's bosom while you will be suffering the tortures of hell." "Oh, bad luck to you," said the Irishman. "Do you think Abraham will thank you for stuffing his shirt full of dead niggers?" The Irishman was right. He realized the true situation far better than the poor clergyman, who was blinded by his creeds and the superstitions of the dark ages. We do not believe our good Baptist brother will insist upon the literal translation of this parable, for he is too good a Bible student.
The superstitions of the dark ages have blinded many good people. To get this smoke out of our eyes is no easy task. The Bible students sympathize with the dear brother and suggest that he search the Scriptures to find if anything alive was ever thrown into the valley of Hinnom, into the gehenna fires. If he finds that nothing connected with the Scriptural ceremonies was ever tormented with these fires, and that they were used for destructive purposes only, he will begin to see why gehenna, instead of hades, was used in the passages he quotes. It is a matter of regret that he has not discovered this truth before and removed the foul stains he has been placing upon the name of our God. We believe he will do this, for he is an able Bible student.
The entire trouble seems to lie in the fact that our worthy, brother does not know what the soul is. If he will inquire he will find that man has not got a soul. He will find that man is a soul. We refer our dear brother to Genesis 2:7, which tells us how the soul of man was formed. It shows the soul to be composed of two parts--a body and breath, or power of life. We agree with the brother in the general principle of the indestructibility of matter, and no doubt the brother will also agree that the elements which compose matter can be separated. We illustrate this principle in a simple way. Water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen. Oxygen is not water. Hydrogen is not water. Yet these two gases in their proper proportion make water. You separate these two elements of water and you destroy water. The two elements which compose the soul are being separated every day. When the breath passes out of the body the soul is destroyed never to come forth again till the time when "All who are in their GRAVES shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and shall come forth." John 5:27-29. Our Brother Staples will admit this if he is a good Bible student.
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is one which has caused much trouble to consecrated Bible scholars who believe it, and also much financial benefit to the church organization which compels them to believe. We will not discuss the subject. Suffice it to say that there is a liberal reward offered for anyone who will find the statement in the Bible that the soul is immortal, everliving, or never dying, as indicated by the creeds of most denominations. Our Brother Staples is a student of Scripture, and in order to substantiate his claim he must find that text. To be fair in the matter, we will permit him to use any authorized translation in English language or the original Greek and Hebrew. On the other hand, if our dear brother (and we bear him no ill will) cannot find such a direct statement and can find a direct statement, or statements, that the soul does die, then we would advise him to study his Bible over again with the help of "The Plan of the Ages," as prepared by Pastor Russell. God's word is true though all men be liars. God's true light will shine into the hearts of his every truly consecrated sons. If our Brother Staples is such we will gladly welcome him to our ranks as a CONSECRATED BIBLE STUDENT, an earnest seeker after the truth, irrespective of denominational restrictions or prejudice.
[CR339]
The Harvest: Its Privileges Great and Small
WHILE our brother was speaking about the Pastor I was thinking of the fact that we are all sheep and that the word "Pastor" means shepherd; but our great Pastor is the Lord and all of us are under-shepherds; that is, those who are in any capacity related to the flock are, as it were, under-shepherds; and some of us are watch-dogs, etc. Some are to help guard against wolves; some are to help show the sheep the way. So we are all co-laboring together as under-shepherds with the Great Shepherd in the feeding and leading of His flock. We are glad to have any opportunity in this privileged work.
Our topic for this forenoon is in respect to the Harvest, and as I stand before you I think especially of Jesus' words of more than eighteen hundred years ago: "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the Harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His Harvest." (Matt. 9:37-38.)
Whoever is praying for the Lord to send a laborer knows the laborer that is nearest him--that is himself. So our Lord would have us pray earnestly, and appreciate the importance of the Harvest work, then he knew very well when our prayers would go up for more laborers if we were at all conscientious it would mean, What are you doing yourself? So my thought especially is to bring to your attention and refresh in my own mind the thought that there is a great harvest work going on, and there are certain privileges for you and for me --yea, for as many as are disposed to be servants of the Lord and to lay down their lives in His service.
I need not especially refresh your minds on the subject of this harvest time and how it corresponds with the previous harvest time, the Harvest of the Jewish age, and how these two ages are parallel the one to the other, corresponding the one to the other. You are familiar with these things. I merely, as Peter said, stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance of these things, though ye know them. Indeed, dear friends, I am not expecting to say anything new. Ours is the old, old story that we have found to be so bright and so precious, and more so the deeper we look into it. It seems to be more blessed every day.
The harvest work consists of various parts, and these are more or less important, and you and I might perhaps misunderstand to some extent the value of these different parts of the work. I will go over some of them. The general work of the entire Gospel age as we all recognize it has been to sound forth the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. In one sense of the word you might say a harvesting process has always been going on--always some of the Lord's people coming to ripeness of character, and the mission of God's people has been to build one another up in the most holy faith, to ripen each other in character, in all the fruits and graces of the Holy Spirit--in meekness, gentleness, patience, long suffering, brotherly kindness, love; because if these things be in us and aboundingly so, they shall make us neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord, so an entrance shall be ministered unto us abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. These are the Apostle's words and we have great confidence in them. He spoke as by Divine authority. This work of building up which has been going on all along seems to have a special heading up, as it were, in the Harvest Time. The crops have been growing, and here and there some maturing all along and coming to a certain time we call harvest time. We say, The fields are getting white for the harvest. That means that the grain is getting ripe. And the Lord used that illustration in respect to the Jewish Harvest, the end of the 1,845 years of their favor of God. They came to a time when the greatest favor of all came to them, at the conclusion of their age, and they had the blessing of the Master's presence, and the especial blessing of the Holy Spirit through Him, and then through the Apostles, and that general ministry of the truth was for the gathering in of all the ripe wheat of that Jewish age, all the Israelites indeed. Now there were nominal Israelites as well as Israelites indeed, and it was the intention to ripen and gather into the garner of the Gospel Dispensation all of those Jews who were in readiness of heart. Yet as we look back and harken to the words of Jesus and the Apostles we find that many of them knew not the time of their visitation. They did not know [CR340] it was the harvest time, and they did not know the sickle of truth was being thrust in; they did not realize a work was being wrought in their day, did not believe though it was declared to them by a man, as the Lord said. He did tell them indeed all about it, and yet they could not believe that it was so. It seemed so different from what they had thought. We understand it will be correspondingly so in the end of this age: that the Lord has so arranged the matter that these two ages would be parallel to each other and the harvest there would find nominal Christendom in a very similar condition to what the harvest there found nominal Judaism. There were indeed many of them earnest, good people, many of them very sincere, and many of those sincere ones evidently more or less in doubt and darkness. Witness the fact that Saul of Tarsus was himself a persecutor of the Church, and verily thought he was doing God a service. That has been a lesson to me, to see St. Paul an opponent of the truth and I have said, Now you don't know who it is opposing the truth today that may at heart be really loyal to the Lord, and if so the Lord will have His own way of causing him to see a great light--not in the same way exactly that Saul of Tarsus saw it, smiting him down, but it will be great light nevertheless. It is the light, you know, that will smite down when the time comes.
So we are glad to be here, and glad to be awake to the fact that the harvest and reaping is going on, and that you and I have the privilege of being co-laborers with our Master. One says, Dear brother, do you believe the Master is doing a work here? We answer, yes, we believe it just the same here as we believe He did a work there in the end of the Jewish age. He was the great Chief Reaper there; He was the one who had supervision of the entire work, but He did not do all the work, mark you! We read that Jesus and His disciples baptized more people than did John and his disciples, howbeit Jesus Himself baptized not but His disciples did the baptizing. Now so here in the parallel time Jesus is not doing the work directly Himself, but He is supervising it. His disciples are engaged in this work. You and I and all of these co-laborers and co-reapers in this harvest time are the Lord's agencies, and you remember how He spoke of this time and declared that He would cause His angel to fly through the midst of the heavens proclaiming the Gospel. Where are the heavens? The ecclesiastical powers. The message is to them. It is not especially to the world. The Lord is not trying to reap the world. The world's time for sowing has not come. The world is to have its time by and by. Then the knowledge of God will reach the whole world and at the end of that 1,000 years of Christ's blessed reign of righteousness the whole world will be under supervision and the great crop will be reaped then, and we believe it will be a wonderful crop indeed; because as the Scriptures explain to us before the end of that age every knee will be bowing and every tongue confessing to the glory of God, and all who will be worthy to stand at the close of that 1,000 years will be ushered into the everlasting future, and that will be their reaping time; that will be the time in which they will be gathered into the garner of everlasting perfection on the human plane. But the world is not being dealt with yet, only the Church. Which Church, Brother Russell? The Bible tells us about the one Church of the living God, whose names are written in Heaven and all the saintly Roman Catholics that belong to the Lord belong to that Church, and all the saintly Lutherans belong to that Church--and as many as the Lord has called and have been sanctified through His Truth, as many as have become children of God, that is the Church they are members of. All the other memberships count for nothing whatever. Jesus was not a Methodist or an Episcopalian, etc. St. Paul, St. Peter, St. James, were not members of any of these various denominations. What Church were they members of? That is the Church you want to be a member of, and I wish to be a member of--the Church of the Firstborn ones, whose names are written in Heaven. After that Church shall be completed, then God will have a dealing with the world, and they will be after-born, you see. Just as surely as you introduce to me and say, This is my firstborn, I understand that you either have other children or expect to have other children. So that is the thought of the Bible everywhere, that the Church now being gathered is the first-fruits unto God of His creatures, as St. James says. When you gather first-fruits from your garden, do you expect to gather any more? Surely you do, else you would not call it first-fruit. So when God prepares to gather out a first-fruits, it implies there are after-fruits. He is now merely harvesting the first-fruits, and if the first-fruits be holy, says the Apostle, what will be the general crop? Well, if God has been careful to see that the first-fruits are holy, He will see that all the crop is holy. They are not going to be a crop of sinners God is going to gather into His Kingdom; they will all be saints; nobody else will be acceptable to God. But the difference between being a saint now under present conditions and being a saint under future conditions is very great indeed. Now it is a narrow way; as the Scriptures point out, straight is the gate, narrow is the way, and few find it. And to find it one must walk in the dark and take the lamp of God's Word to light their footsteps; as we read, "Thy Word is a lamp to my feet, and a lantern to my footsteps." All of those who find the narrow way and walk therein must use the lamp and walk with great particularity; as St. Paul says, walk circumspectly, carefully examine all around at every step the progress we make.
The Lord says the ones He is calling and developing now are all jewels. Oh, that is a precious word--They shall be mine, says the Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels. He is now gathering out His jewels. They must be special characters if they come out now, because against them is all the spirit of the world, the natural tendencies of their own flesh, and the great adversary as well. You remember in one of the prophecies He tells us the Church class now being gathered shall be like a gorgeous diadem in the hand of our God. That will be a glorious position. We will all be gold-mounted. We will not only be jewels, but polished jewels, and that is the meaning of your experiences and mine. Through much tribulation shall ye enter the Kingdom. The tribulation is represented by the polishing of these jewels. You know how a jewel is put on the lapidary's stone, and how with a great deal of friction it is finally ground, and its various facets ground on it so it will reflect and refract the light of the sun. Then after you have cut a diamond, you want to mount it, and you put it in some beautiful design of gold mounting, and put every stone so it will show out the beauties of its own individuality. That is the picture God gives us respecting the Church. He tells us He is going to mount the Church with the Divine nature, which is symbolically represented by the gold. And these jewels are to show forth the praises of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light. He called some of them out of the mud, as it were, just as these literal diamonds are taken from the mud and the earth, from miles of depth, and are washed, and cut, and mounted. So with the jewels of God's Kingdom class.
So the whole work of the next age will be to instruct and encourage men and to assist them up out of meanness and degradation, back to the full perfection of human nature. That will be restitution, as the Bible calls it. It will bring them back to holiness. The thought of the word "holy" is that which is whole, that which is complete, and Adam was whole, complete, when God made him in His own image. Then came disobedience, and now he has had 6,000 years of falling and deterioration and unholiness, so the whole world lieth in the wicked one, as the Apostle says. But God's proposition is to restore them, bring them back again, as many as are willing, to human perfection. In the meantime he is working this other work, gathering the saints, to make them joint-heirs with His Son, by a change to the Divine nature, that they might be God's instrumentality in blessing and uplifting humanity.
But see the difference: We are beset by the world. The spirit of the world is the spirit of the Adversary. The god of this world, Satan, has blinded the minds of all those who believe not. He is the prince of this world, Jesus said. And in proportion as men and women have their minds obscured and darkened and have the shackles of error and superstition on them, in that proportion they are under the control of the Adversary and cannot do the things they would because of his misleading. The people will not have that in the next age, because the world will then be turned clear around. Instead of having everything misrepresented to them they will have everything properly represented. Instead of Satan's being the prince of this world, it will be Messiah who is prince of the world. Satan will not oppose then. Our Lord's first work will be to lay hold on that old serpent, [CR341] the devil, Satan, and bind him for a thousand years that he may deceive the people no more. How about their own flesh? They will have assistance with that. Instead of having everything to mislead them and make the pathway of life slippery and treacherous, they will have the assistance of Christ and the Church on the plane of glory to assist them up out of their own personal weaknesses to perfection. Is not that good?
The harvest is going to be a great one down there. I am not qualified by the Word of God to say how many are going to be saved generally. That is not written in the Scriptures. When Jesus was asked that question He evaded it, and so should I if He did. I do not know any better rule than to say that I believe a great many people when they get their eyes of understanding open will be honest enough to desire to be in harmony with God, and I believe the blessed things of Messiah's Kingdom is going to bring in a great harvest at the end of that age; but in what proportion I do not know. I remember at one time of thinking along this line. I said, Well, the Lord likened these to sheep and goats, and there are so many more sheep than goats I think that is a good sign that there will be perhaps many more of the saved than of those that will finally be destroyed in the second death; but when I went to Palestine where the Lord uttered the parable, I found their flocks were about half and half, and I had no more to say; the picture would not hold out; so I leave it there. The Lord knoweth those that are His, and will take means by which every one who is thoroughly desirous of being in harmony with Him shall get the full light of truth and the full blessing He has designed they may have, and all of those who are finally out of harmony with Him will surely be destroyed in the second death. So the Lord guarantees us that at the end of that harvest there will be no unclean thing in all the world; every creature will be bowing and every tongue confessing, and the knowledge of the Lord will fill the whole earth, and every creature will be saying praise to God, glory, honor, dominion and might to Him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb forever. That will be the grand outcome when all the harvest work shall be accomplished--not merely the harvest work that is now going on, for that will soon be accomplished, we believe, and all of the ripe grains of this Gospel age will have soon passed beyond the vail to be with the Lord, sharers in His glory and Kingdom. Then will be the sowing and working with the world for a thousand years, and finally the gathering of that crop at the end. That is the picture before our minds.
But we are mostly interested in the harvest work now going on, because you have a share, and I have a share, and it is very important we should know what we are doing. Jesus had His particular work to do and He did it, and He left us a work to do, and we are to do it. What is our work, to convert the world? Oh, no, the Master said when He would come He would not find the faith on the earth, but would find nation rising against nation, wars, etc., and people would, down at the very last, find a time of trouble; and He intimated that we should watch that we might be accounted worthy to escape all of those things coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens would be shaken, etc. So evidently the world would not be converted. The completion of the Church will be while the world is still in opposition, still under the blinding influence of Satan. And now while we are in this condition it is very important that you and I should be wise, and so Jesus continually told us to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.
That brings us down to how the harvest work has been going on, for if we have the right conception of matters we have been in the harvest now for about 38 years. Will it last much longer? I do not think it will. Do you know, Brother Russell? We do not know and never said we did. How could we? The Lord said we must walk by faith and not by sight. How could we say we ever knew? We do not say now we know. We have found in the Scriptures certain things which seem to us very reasonable, very logical, fitting in well together; we have laid these before you with the suggestion that you read and study them and form your own conclusions. I am not to form your conclusions, and you are not to form mine; each one is to have faith of his own; each one is to know why he believes and the foundation for all we believe must be in the Word of God. Whatever may be given to you by myself or by anybody are merely suggestions, and it is for each Christian to be alert to know the teachings of the Father's Word.
During this harvest time the Lord seems to have been guiding in a rather remarkable way. So there have been different things accomplished in ways that have never before been used exactly in the same manner--methods different from anything heretofore. At first we tried ordinary methods in respect to the presentation of the Truth, and we thought now the way we must do is to get these books, Millennial Dawn and Studies in the Scriptures, into the book stores, and so we got them into the hands of one of the leading booksellers of the world, who would have the best opportunity of getting them in everywhere. And they had only been one day on his book shelf when a minister, Major Whittle, at one time a co-laborer with Mr. Moody, saw them on the counter and said: "Revell, where did you get these Millennial Dawns?"
"I got them the same as I got your books."
"Well, Revell, you don't want them there."
"Yes, I do. I am not hide-bound, Mr. Whittle."
"Well, if Millennial Dawn stays on your book shelf all my books come off and the books of all my friends. Now, what do you think?"
"Oh, if you are going to talk that way I will have to take them off."
So he packed them up and shipped them right back. The Lord did not intend Millennial Dawn to go out that way. If it had gone out that way it would have been a great disadvantage, as we now see. We thought at the time that was quite a hardship, but we see now it was a great blessing. So all things work together for good to those that love God. God had His own idea about the matter but had not told us in advance.
Then, in the Lord's providence, the next suggestion was that some of the friends of the Truth who had been blessed by a study of these books, would like to go out and give their lives doing colporteur work. Then that became quite a work, until now how many do you think there are? In this country and Canada there are about 700. There are other hundreds in Germany, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, Australia, etc. What is the result? The result is that these volumes have reached over eight million copies. Now if all the book stores had had them it would probably not have amounted to one-hundredth part of that number; 800,000 would have been a large number. But it is over eight millions now and they are still going out in the same way. Thus, we believe, the Lord is overruling this harvest work. We did not do it; we did not know how to do it. Merely when the door closed in one direction we tried to use common sense as to what other way the Lord would have. The Lord opened this other door, so it has been going out that way.
Then another matter came along, the literature plan. We began the free literature plan in a very gingerly way. We had at first a very small price put on the tracts, then we thought, No, there are a great many people who would like to give away tracts who have not the money to buy them, and others who have money to buy them that would not care to give them away, or do not have the time or something, so we made the proposition that we were going to give away all the tracts everybody needed and would use and they could have as many as they wanted free. The friends could hardly believe it at first; they said, These great tract societies that have large backing and foundations, etc. of hundreds of thousands of dollars charge for tracts; it cannot be possible. How many of them go out free? Well, you know the report of the Watch Tower--I think it was twelve millions of copies last year, and I think they reached probably all parts of the earth--two different languages in China, six different languages in India, one in Korea, and the Japanese, and Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, German, French, Italian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Russian, Roumanian, etc.--all languages; I think nineteen is my recollection now. And these are going out free. It costs something, doesn't it? Sure it does. They do not come down out may be. The transportation companies do not care any more for us than for other people.
Now there never was such a propaganda as that carried on as far as I know of in any part of the world at any time in the world's history. That is another part of the harvest work, you see. Who arranged that? Some people say, [CR342] Brother Russell. No, he did not, my dear brethren; Brother Russell merely found the door open and went in. But somebody opened the door and guided the way, and Brother Russell has merely been trying to follow in whatever way the Lord would open up. That is one of the ways He opened up. Now we would like to say that the Lord did that. We believe He did. That is our thought. Somebody else may have a different view; he has a right to his opinion.
Then came along the Pilgrim work. That is different from anything that has been done before. Something a good deal like it was done in olden times by the Wesleyan friends, Methodist friends, circuit riding, etc. But we have something they never had and on a still larger scale all over the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and other countries--people going up and down everywhere preaching--and "No collection, Seats free." It has almost become a trademark with us, dear friends. We have no objections; we believe that is the way it was in early times. When Jesus preached we doubt if they took up collections; we have no record of it at all; but He gave away a whole lot--bread, fish, etc. There is no word about His ever taking up a collection. I cannot imagine the Savior ever would do so. I cannot imagine the Apostles would do so. It seems to me it would be lowering the dignity of the Master and His great work for Him to have taken up a collection and begged of the people. I think our dear friends of the different denominations are under a mistaken idea. I am not trying to be their censor or to guide them, I am merely going ahead with this matter the way it seems to me to be the Lord's will, and they can do what they think is the best way. If they think well to follow the same course, very good, but that is their business. The point I am making is that so far as we know the Lord guided in all of this matter of the sending of these preachers in all directions. And wherever they go they have the good message and stir up the pure minds of the Lord's people and seek to cultivate the graces of the spirit, and not being dependent on anybody for a copper they can be that much more free in all they say, and to counsel wisely. They do not ever ask a penny, and if a dollar were given them they would send it right on to the tract fund. So you see they are not making any money out of it; they merely get their expenses, and we think that is a good plan. We are not finding any fault with others for doing differently; they have a perfect right to do it; but we think this a good way; these brethren have nothing to think about financial matters, they can give all their time and thought to preaching the Gospel, presenting it to the people, and helping them as they go. They do not merely preach on Sundays, but every day in the week right along, everywhere. That is another part of the work.
Then came the newspaper work, and the Lord opened that up. One newspaper first of all got interested and wanted to publish the sermons; then others wanted the sermons; then a syndicate took over the matter and said, We will attend to all of this and have the whole matter in our care, and we said, Very well, we are glad to have it so. You know how to do this better than we do, anyway. Very well, that is the Lord's providence, and we are very much pleased to have it so. And now as a result of that part of the work, what have we? About 1,500 newspapers in the United States and Canada, about 500 in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and Germany, making about 2,000 papers in all that are publishing the sermons, etc., and it is estimated that those are reaching approximately twelve millions of readers every week. So the Lord has led on in that way, you see.
Now perhaps you will be interested in knowing which of these are the most successful ways. I was a little curious myself, so recently while a meeting was being held, a kind of a social meeting, I said to the friends, Now I would like to know how you first came to a knowledge of the Truth? What was the means God used to bring the knowledge of the Truth to you? The response was about like this: First, those show their hands who first received a knowledge of the Truth through hearing the preaching of somebody, some pilgrim brother, Brother Russell or anybody else.
About 40 showed their hands.
Then the next question was, How many first got the Truth through the literature given out free?
And the hands showed 41, as near as I could count.
The next question was, How many got the Truth first through colporteurs and the books?
And the hands showed 70--nearly as much as the free literature and preaching both.
Then the fourth question was, How many got the Truth first through private conversation with some person who was not preaching in a public way, but merely in a private conversation had their attention first brought to the Truth?
And the hands were 70. Think of that! I congratulated the friends who were present. It happened to be a meeting of sisters and there were about 300 present and some of them did not come in under any of these heads, and therefore we did not get the full vote. But these four heads showed a great deal of interesting matter to us and we said to them, Now you see that not my public speaking and all others speaking have reached as many proportionately as others have done through colporteuring and private conversation. Then the two leading ways God has been pleased to use are, the colporteur work through the books, and the private conversation. I said, Now the Scriptures limit the opportunities of the sisters in respect to preaching the Gospel, but you see what a blessing is right in your hands; you have an opportunity for private conversation with people, and have the opportunity of colporteur work. So I do not see that the sisters are done out of very much of their privilege and opportunity by any Scripture regulations that refer to them as separately from the brethren.
I would like to know how it is here. Would it not be interesting to you, too? How many here present first came unto a knowledge of the Truth through the colporteur work, through some colporteur bringing the books to your town? Please raise your hands.
Result, 64.
Now how many first came to a knowledge of the Truth through free literature that was given to them?
Result, 58.
Now how many first came to a knowledge of the Truth through hearing some kind of public preaching?
Result, 42.
Now how many first came unto a knowledge of the Truth through some private conversation?
Result, 154.
Well, no matter, dear friends, how we came to a knowledge
of the Lord's great plan, I am sure all who have ever
seen the light of the knowledge of God's great plan of the
ages have something which rejoices their hearts.
"I love to tell the story,
It did so much for me,
And that is just the reason
I tell it now to thee."
The showing of the hands here this morning indicates that private conversation has had the largest influence as far as reaching the people is concerned. So I want you to all have a realization of the fact that the opportunities of service in the Harvest Work are right in your hands. Each one has the opportunity of private conversation. There are some, however, who I think would do well not to talk too much. We have heard of people who whenever they talk "put their foot in their mouth." That is very true of some people. There are some who cannot present the Truth logically, but are too antagonistic, too combative, etc., and they do harm. Whenever you find that is your experience then you do well to avoid using that method which is not successful and to try some other method; as, for instance, the giving out of literature, etc., or inviting them to hear somebody else.
Now, my dear friends, what I should like this morning is to have you realize that the Harvest is not yet ended, and that there is still room, and time, and opportunity, for you and for me, and for all of the Lord's people, to continue to show forth the Lord's praises. Indeed, my experience teaches me that there never was a time when people were more alert to hear than at the present time. There is an awakening of the minds of Christian people, there is a hungering for the Truth, as I said to the editor of the Congregationalist in Boston. I had been preaching in Boston, and there was a very large crowd present, it was a very warm day and the Boston Theater was crowded full. It seats 3,600 people and there were 400 chairs approximately on the platform. There were over 4,000 people and they said about 1,000 had been turned away from the door [CR343] The next day one of the editors of the Boston Congregationalist, a newspaper there, called to see me and said: "Pastor Russell, how do you account for such a crowd of people on a warm June day when the theaters are calling them there and the shade and the hammock inviting them, and the seashore inviting them, and the street railways had excursions, trains, etc.--how do you account for such a crowd of people coming? Now we have very able people here in Boston; you know we think we have some of the ablest ministers in the world here in Boston. We rather pride ourselves on our culture here in Boston, and yet most of these ministers yesterday were satisfied if they had a congregation of 40 or 50, and if it went up to 60 they had a good congregation. "Now," he said, "how do you account for that? What is the explanation?"
I said, "My dear brother, I think we might best look into the Bible for an explanation. The Bible, I believe, describes our day, and the Bible says there shall be a famine in the land, not a famine for bread nor a famine for water, but a famine for hearing the Word of the Lord. Now, brother, it looks to me as though the people are hungry for the Truth." He had already remarked that some of those people sitting there looked as though they were almost ready to fall off the edge of the chair, they were leaning forward so intensely interested, and sat there for two hours. I said, "These people were hungry. Don't you think they were?" He thought they looked hungry. Then I said: "Let me tell you what I think: We as ministers gave the people for a time awful doctrines, such as Brother Jonathan Edwards thought was the Truth, about horrible tortures for the future, and pictured the angry God who was shaking the sinners into Hell, and I believe that we very much overdid our own conception of matters. Since then we have gotten our conceptions cleared and we have better thoughts than that of God, and I suppose there are few ministers here in Boston who believe one word about Eternal Torture--perhaps not any of the educated ministers in this city. But we have taken that away, and what have we given them instead? Is it not true that all the pulpits of the educated ministers are either giving something about the latest novel, or some other foolishness, or they are giving them the latest deductions along the lines of higher criticism, undermining the Bible and the things of the Bible? Or, they are giving them the doctrine of evolution, and saying: This is what you are to believe: Your grandfather some distance back was a monkey. You should be glad you are not monkeys, but you are getting away from it. Now, I said, it seems to me we have made a mistake if any of us thought that would satisfy a hungering soul. There is no soul that is going to be satisfied with being told that his grandfather was a monkey. If he is satisfied with it, it shows he is a very poor creature in his own intellectuality."
Now, I believe we cannot improve on the message of God's Word, and you witness that I try to give it as plainly, simply and beautifully as my stammering tongue will permit. It is the message of God's love, the message of God's plan; that is the message of the hour for the world, and they all need it, they are hungering and thirsting for something and not getting it; they are in danger of slipping away into infidelity and utter rejection of God altogether.
I remind you, dear friends, of the fact I have mentioned before in print, that you have opportunities as ministers of the Gospel of Christ--every one of you; that the Lord has not limited the matter to those who stand on the public platform; He has indicated that all are authorized to preach and teach His Word who know His Word. "He that hath My Word, let him speak My Word faithfully." He that hath merely a dream, or imagination of his own mind, let him tell his dreams, but he that hath My Word, let him speak My Word--let him tell forth the Truth faithfully. (Jer. 23:28.) I remind you again of what the Scriptures show us, namely, that this authority to preach comes by receiving the Holy Spirit. Whoever receives the Holy Spirit is anointed to teach, as Jesus declared, quoting from the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me." When did it come on him? When he made his consecration at Jordan, when the Holy Spirit rested on him as a dove. He was anointed of the Father to preach at that time, and so he says, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Now as that Holy Spirit on our Lord gave Him the authority to preach, so all others who receive the Holy Spirit, all others who receive the spirit of Truth, are authorized to preach; and anybody who has not received the spirit of the Lord has no authority to preach at all, no matter how many synods have presumed to give him authority. There is no authority for preaching the Word of God other than that which the Bible contains: "He that hath My Word, let him preach My Word faithfully."
I remind you also that many of you have opportunities superior to what you would have if you had a pastorate in some congregation of Christendom. You could only reach fifty to one hundred, or maybe five hundred at the most, and you would reach them perhaps once or twice a week, while as it is many of you are finding opportunities for private conversation seven days in the week, and some of you are doing "sharpshooting" as we call it, and some are doing volunteering --carrying the printed message--and some are doing colporteur work, taking the books around and showing them to people.
I should say, lest some should mistake this matter, that all of this work that is done by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, and the International Bible Students' Association, which is simply another branch of the same work, is all done as pure philanthropy. There is nobody makes a penny out of it. I do not make one cent, either by royalty or premium, and the Society in publishing these books loses some money every year as the years go by. You can readily see that when I remind you the books are disposed of at the rate of 16 cents apiece, bound in cloth. You can see there would be no profit in them. But anyone can have that book sent to him in China for 25 cents, including postage, or anywhere else on the face of the earth. Nobody makes any profit. And when we count in the money for foreign translations, there is a loss of thousands of dollars every year. Where is it made up? My dear friends, there are always people saying, I would like to get some money into this work. I remember one brother of the Reformed Presbyterian Church who called on me and said, "Pastor Russell, I would like to ask you a question, and hope you won't think it is impertinent."
"Oh, no, go on."
"How do you get the money? You do not ask any collections, and do not charge any admission fee--how do you get the money?"
I said, "Brother, if I tell you I fear you will think I am trifling with you. But I will tell you the strict truth. People bring money and send it through the mails, and say, 'Will you let me have a chance to have some share in that work?'"
He looked at me as though he thought I would take him for a child, a novice. I said, "Brother, it is strictly true. People are anxious to get some money in; we never ask anybody for a dollar or a cent, but people are anxious to get some money into the Lord's work."
One brother said to me, "Brother Russell, if you ever get short of money, remember I have got some, and would be pleased to give it." I said, "Brother, you will never have me ask you for a cent as long as you live. I made up my mind long years ago that whenever the money stopped coming I would understand that the Lord wished me proportionately to slack down on the work; but as long as the money keeps coming I will try to spend it." So I have been spending it. We are spending money all the time, and gladly, cheerfully; it is not ours at all. We spend it economically, too--very economically. Indeed if you will read the Society's report every year you there see what you can get done in the way of printing, and you will find that we do our work most wonderfully cheap. Nobody is cheated, everybody gets his proper wages and amount of money, but it is done on a large, wholesale scale, and we know what the things cost, and we expect to get them at a reasonable price--and we do.
Now all have the opportunity of harvest work. After having a good week's visit together here on the precious things of God's Word, I hope as you go to your homes it will be with fresh spiritual strength and courage, and with fresh zeal, and that you shall carry your earthen vessels full of the Lord's spirit and pour it out like the widow's cruse of oil at your homes and all around and fill up everything with the Truth, wherever there is any interest, and whoever has [CR344] an ear to hear. I do not say that you should bore anybody; I do not think that is the proper or wise thing to do. As soon as I find a person has no ear to hear I stop--not too abruptly, but I simply cut it off there gradually, knowing that I am only wasting my breath. I have no breath to waste, and nobody else ought to have. If people are not interested in what you have to say, think nothing the worse of them. Understand their ears are probably filled with the sand of business or pleasure, and their eyes are full of desire. Do not worry them. Maybe the Lord has not called them. You are not to give them the call except in the sense of presenting it. Jesus did not say, Whoever you make an ear for may hear; but, Whoever has an ear let him hear. So you are merely looking for those who have ears. I have found some dear friends who were disposed to take chisel and mallet and say, If you haven't an ear I will give you one. That is a mistake. It doesn't reach into the heart then. We want to be wise in this matter and merely seek for those who desire the Truth. The Lord has people--we are finding more of them every day--who hunger and thirst after righteousness, after the Truth. Nothing else will satisfy them. That is the kind the Lord wants to hear now. What about the others? Oh, well, the Lord has a splendid time coming for them. They will miss a whole lot. There is a special blessing for the church that does not go to any other class, but the Lord is nevertheless rich in mercy and has plenty of blessings to shower upon all the human family very soon. How glad we are for that!
I heard of the resolution that was passed here the other day respecting moving pictures, and other pictorial means of reaching the public. I was very glad to see that so many of you seemed to take an interest in that matter. I have noticed especially for the last three and a half years how much this matter of pictorial teaching is doing in the world, and I have said, Every other people are making use of it except the Truth people as far as I can see, and is there not some way we could do something to get it before the people and thus teach what the Bible says on these various subjects? I thought of one plan, and thought of another, then some of the plans I thought of did not seem very practical. Then I started out to work up a plan. I have been working at that plan now for about two years and one-half, and we have produced some pictures that are very wonderful, we think. We have gotten copies of pictures from all parts of the world, pictures that were never before shown in public at all as far as we know, and that would be very interesting to the whole public. Everybody would want to see them, wherever shown, because they are beautiful pictures interesting in both detail and subject matter. And with all of this we want God's great plan of the ages to be seen--the things past, the things present, and the things to come, just as the Bible outlines it--part of it by moving pictures, and part stereopticon views, part lectures, and these lectures will be delivered three times a day. To preach three times a day and keep it up every day would need a good throat, wouldn't it? So we have arranged to have the phonograph do the preaching, and the pictures and the whole thing will be working automatically, as it were. It will take some hands to attend to the matter, but it is still another part of the harvest work, a part which we believe will be very interesting to you all. We cannot all engage in that, and I want to say just here that I would not like to have any engage in this work who are colporteurs and who are meeting with success. We want to keep it away from them. Why? Because we think there is no way they could do better than the way they are now serving; we would not want to stop the colporteur work for a minute; that is too valuable a service, as the vote I told you about showed more to have been reached that way than any other, and a large number here this morning were reached through the colporteur work. But this is still another part of the work, you see, that the people in general may have an opportunity of coming into touch with the Lord and His Word and get their faith back. People are losing faith in the Bible. They have had the story of Jonah and the whale shown up to them to be a foolish story, and many other things in the Bible shown up as contrary to reason, and we wish to show that on the very face of it these are very logical and true things and the Bible is a book worthy of all consideration, and that the man of God through the study of it may be thoroughly furnished unto every good word and work.
I should tell you another thing, just very briefly, and that is about the New York Temple. You will hear about it somewhere else, and I will tell you now. The New York Temple is a building that came into our possession in a very remarkable way. It looks as though it was the Lord's providence, I do not know anything else. We had been trying to secure the use of some building in New York for public meetings, and they were all so thoroughly taken up with business of one kind or another that it seemed not to be successful. And then when we had about given up all hope here we came into possession of a building partly finished and practically bought for no money, bought on credit and practically self-supporting--it seems too much of a miracle to tell you all that; it just reads like a miracle. The Lord is not working any miracles, I guess, but it is pretty near like a miracle, and so now that building already has mortgages on it and the mortgages are going to finish the building and give us possession of it. We will have the whole Temple. It will be very nice and hold a good number of people--not as many as we could wish it might hold, but probably a little over 1,300 is the capacity of it. We would have liked it to be at least twice that large, but we cannot have everything we want and we are thankful for what we have.
This matter of the moving pictures and the teaching of the Word of God pictorially to the people has appealed to me so strongly it is my present thought that I will use all my influence with the Society, and I believe it will be successful, so that building may be entirely devoted to the Picture Gospel--the proclamation of the Gospel through pictures to all the millions of people who are living in New York and vicinity, and to the other thousands who may be coming there day by day, and that every day in the week. Sunday, Monday, etc., morning, noon and night, there will be the Gospel being preached there, and we expect that the house will be crowded all the time. The question is between using the Temple that way or using it for the voice preaching and we concluded how this would reach more people than we could use with our voice, or that of any other of the brethren could reach. But we have to say that we are not to count our chickens before the eggs are hatched, or at least showing some signs of it; but the building is nearing completion and we expect to have it ready for operation this summer--or at least by September, and expect to have the first exhibit, or one of the first exhibits of this new moving picture arrangement that you have voted for and endorsed. I was glad to know of your endorsement; I believe it is one way in which the Lord is going to bring a knowledge of His Bible to more people than ever before--all classes of people and especially Christian people that should be deeply interested in the Word of God, or what the Bible says. But the whole world in general is interested, and there are more people perhaps proportionately outside the Church that are interested in the Bible than some of us have been inclined to think. Many of the churches are not having very large audiences, but this does not mean that the public has lost all faith in God. On the contrary, for some reason there is a large number not wishing to attend church, and these we are trying to reach, and there is no need for any jealousy on the part of those ministers who have congregations--not at all. We are not especially reaching their congregations; we are reaching the unchurched millions, if you please, through the newspapers and through the large gatherings that are being held in various places--very few of them being church members, comparatively; there is no competition at all. We wish all who have the message of God's blessing in proportion as they have the pure message. Some have it more pure and some less pure, but it is a matter of comparison. We are thankful for all the various means God is using for making known the riches of His grace, and you and I are glad we may have a share in being co-laborers for the Lord in the present time. And if we are faithful in the present use of opportunities, he will account us worthy to share with the Master in the Kingdom when the power of the Kingdom shall be exercised to make the knowledge of the glory of God fill the whole earth. He that is faithful in that which is least of the things of the present time would be faithful in greater things, and they are the ones who will have a share with the Master. Show your faithfulness to the Lord--not to me. I cannot know how faithful you are. [CR345] You may be ever so faithful and have so many difficulties in the way that what you do might seem slight, or you might be able to do much more. So let us each do in the sight of the Lord what we believe would be pleasing and acceptable to Him, and then wait for Him to say, "Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities" (Luke 19:17). We are to be members of that Kingdom class, and that class is to rule the world; and whether you will have ten cities, or five cities under your authority I do not know, or whether I will I don't know; we are leaving all of that to the Lord; He will do what is best, and we will be thoroughly contented, satisfied, when we awake in His likeness and share the glorious things He has promised to the faithful.
A LITTLE WHILE
A LITTLE while, our warfare shall be over;
A little while, our tears be wiped away;
A little while, the power of Jehovah
Shall turn our darkness into gladsome day.
A little while, the fears that oft surround us
Shall to the memories of the past belong;
A little while, the love that sought and found us
Shall change our weeping into Heaven's glad song.
A little while! 'Tis ever drawing nearer--
The brighter dawning of that glorious day.
Blest Savior, make our spirit's vision clearer,
And guide, O guide us in the shining way!
A little while, O blessed expectation!
For strength to run with patience, Lord, we cry;
Our hearts up-leap in fond anticipation;
Our union with the Bridegroom draweth nigh.
[CR345]
Children's Consecration Service
IT HAS been requested first of all to have a little service of consecration of children. We remind you there is nothing obligatory in this matter, that consecration is that which is voluntary, therefore if anyone prefers not to have his children consecrated that is entirely his own business, just the same as with our own consecration. Indeed, some might say very properly that when they consecrated their own lives and all they had that they consecrated their children. Very true, indeed: a very proper thought: and yet some have found a great deal of comfort and blessing, and joy, in making a more special and individual matter of the consecration of their children. The most precious things that they own in the whole world, the fruit of their own bodies, they delight to give to the Lord, and we believe that in some cases it has worked a great blessing both upon the parents and children--upon the parents in that they felt afterwards still more earnestly, if possible, the obligation they had assumed toward the Lord in respect to these children, and how they should train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and upon the children in that they afterwards learned what had taken place, and what it signified and thus felt that they had in an especial sense been consecrated to the Lord and His service. I have known some cases of this very kind, and also have I known cases in which when sickness came to the child both the parent and the child felt as though there was a special relationship between the child and the Heavenly Father, and sickness and death had less fear for them because of their greater confidence in that they had given the matter entirely into the Lord's hands.
We have the illustration of the Scriptures justifying us in having such a consecration service, because we remember how some of olden time were consecrated to the Lord when they were children and how some were brought to Jesus and He laid His hands upon them and blessed them. So we think this sufficient example and this seems especially appropriate because many of us were accustomed in past times to take children at the time of their infancy and have them sprinkled, supposing it to be baptism. Afterwards, ascertaining that this was not baptism, we were somewhat at a loss what to do to take its place. So this matter of consecrating the children seems to very appropriately come in to take the place of the other which is unscriptural and improper, because baptism is merely for believers.
[CR346]
Jesus, The Head; The Church, His Body
WE HAVE chosen for our text this afternoon the Apostle's statement in Ephesians 1:22,23, that God gave Him, Jesus, to be the Head over the Church which is His Body. The word "body" is used in this text in the same way we use it in the other affairs of life; as we speak, for instance, of the body of Parliament, or body of Congress, or body of the Senate, and the different members of the Senate, different members of Congress; or as we speak of the Presbyterian body, of the Methodist body, and the various members of these bodies. So God speaks of His Church as the Body of Christ, of which Jesus is the Head, and of which every other saint of God is a member. The human body is the picture used in all of these cases. In the Senate, for instance, they have a chairman who is the head over that senatorial body. In Parliament they have one who is the head of Parliament, and so in every body, in every meeting where it is a corporate body, there is a representative head. So in the Church of Christ, Jesus is the Head, the Chairman, the Leader, the Captain of our Salvation, and as we come into relationship to God through Him we are counted as members of this Body of Christ.
What does "Body of Christ" mean? The word Christ means anointed, and the Body of Christ means the body of a company of anointed. And what is meant by anointing? The answer of the Scripture is, that God purposed in Himself from before the foundation of the world that He would establish His Kingdom, and that Kingdom should bless the world. In His wisdom He foreknew all that would take place in the way of entrance of sin and penalty for sin, and the condemnation of sin, and the sighing, and the crying, and the dying--all of that He knew, and then He also knew His own plan and arrangement by which He would set aside this curse of death and by which He would bring in a blessing instead of the curse to the whole human family. And He purposed that this should be done through a great Kingdom. And this Kingdom was to be different from any other Kingdom, in that it would have a monarch who would be not only a king, but also a priest, and so Christ is called a priest and a king after the order of Melchisadek; because Melchisadek, we are told, was a king and a priest at the same time. Christ is to be a king and priest at the same time, and the anointing of this great king and priest was to represent His induction or bringing into the place of favor where He might be the authorized head, the authorized king, the authorized priest, that God would thus recognize Him as a king and priest. When did God do this with Jesus? We answer, that with Jesus this was done at the time He made His consecration when He was thirty years of age, when He came to Jordan to be baptized of John; there He gave His life; He gave His all a willing sacrifice to God. This was God's condition: the one who would be accounted worthy to be King of kings and Lord of lords must first show His obedience to the Father, even unto death, an obedience that would bring in any kind of requirement that the Father might please. So Jesus in coming specified that He was ready to do anything and everything--"I came not to do mine own will, but the will of my Father who sent me, and to finish His work." God is the great master workman and Jesus is the great chief agent in doing all the work God intended should be done. And the first work to be done was to prove Himself worthy to be king, the great priest, and thus He would have authority to bless the world. And, secondly, this very sacrifice by which He would prove His own worthiness to be the great king and priest would be a sin offering on behalf of mankind to pay the ransom price for the sins of the world, and thus to legally and justly set aside the penalty that God had pronounced against Adam and all his race. Jesus then took this step when He was thirty years of age, saying, "Lo, I have come, as in the volume of the Book it has been written of me, to do Thy will, O my God." Did He do it all then? No, that was merely the beginning of it; that was merely His consecration. What followed that? Obedience. For three and a half years all the testings of the Master's experience were proving Him out; were demonstrating that He really meant all He said when He made that consecration vow to God. When did He finish? He finished His whole work on Calvary when He died, and in dying cried, "It is finished." What was finished? His sacrifice was finished. His obedience unto death was finished. His fulness of laying down His life in the Father's service, and His work as purchaser of the world, was finished. Then what? Is He still asleep? Oh, no, the Scriptures assure us that God raised Him from the dead by His own power on the third day. Why? St. Peter says in order that He might be a prince and a savior to the world.
What is the first step in this matter of saving the world? Has He begun the work of saving the world yet? No, the world still lieth in the wicked one. More than 1,800 years have passed and the world is still in sin, still unforgiven.
What about the Church, Brother Russell?
The sins of the Church are forgiven. We have escaped the condemnation that is still upon the world. We were children of wrath even as others are still children of wrath. How did we escape, and they not escape? Because we have come in under a special invitation, or special call. What is our special call or invitation? That as many as hear this message may become, on certain conditions, members of this anointed class, members of this special body that God is selecting from the world--this Body of Christ which is the Church. For God gave Jesus to be the Head over the Church which is His Body. Now not until the whole Body is complete will God's plan be ready to be carried out as respects the world. It has taken 1,800 years to complete the Body and it is not quite complete yet. Thank God, no, not quite! That leaves an opportunity for you and for me to come into harmony with God through Christ and into membership in this Body of Christ which is the Church.
On what terms may we come in?
First of all, the terms are that God shall nominate you. There is an election going on. You do not nominate yourself; God nominates you. Then you elect yourself. The Lord makes the invitation while the door to this High Calling is open, and it is for us to enter into the terms and conditions, and by so doing make our calling and election sure as members of the Body of Christ.
One says, I believe I am a member of the Body of Christ. How did I come in?
First of all you were drawn; you had some feeling after God and some desire to come near to Him, no matter where you got it; no matter whether you always had it all your life, no matter whether you got it at your parents' knees, no matter whether you got it through hearing a hymn or reading a book, or through hearing the Scriptures--no matter where you got it you got the drawing, you got the call, the invitation, when you got that which invited you to Christ and gave you an understanding that this was the way to God. "No man cometh unto the Father but by me," says Jesus, and so we see this is the only acceptable way. Those who have never heard of Jesus have never seen, have had no opportunity of coming to the Father through Him; never had the opportunity of becoming members of the Body of Christ. So the great mass of the heathen world, thousands of millions, have never had an opportunity of coming to God because they never heard of the only name given under heaven or amongst men whereby they might be saved. Will they ever hear? Oh, yes! Why don't they hear now? Because the god of this world has blinded their eyes and stopped their ears. Satan is the one who is responsible for this great din of confusion which blinds and hinders people from appreciating the precious invitation of the present time. "Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear."
Thank God, then, if you have seen anything, if you have heard anything--anything that would let you know there is an opportunity now of coming to God through Christ. And so we inquire further, How shall we come? What shall we do? and we learn first of all that the first step is to turn from sin. Then you must learn that God has made a provision through the death of His Son whereby the sins of the world may be forgiven. And you say, I am one of the world, I believe that Christ is the Savior of the world, and I accept Him as my Savior. What shall I do?
Well, says Jesus, if you want to become my disciple then I will deal with you, and I will be your advocate; if you do not want to be my disciple, then of course I am not ready to do anything for you now.
Suppose we do not want to become his disciple. We say, Lord, that is something that is going to tie up our liberties, is it not?
[CR347]
Probably it will.
And we would not have the former freedom in sin?
No, you would not.
We could not do our own will as much as formerly?
No, you could not.
Well, we do not care to tie up ourselves in that way.
Very well, stay out.
What will we have to do--go to eternal torment?
No, nothing of the kind, but you will lose the blessings my disciples are going to have.
What blessings?
Oh, you do not need to know, if you are not going to come into that attitude. After you have gotten sick of sin and weary with trying to do something and failing, if you then come around and ask me how you may be my disciple I will tell you. You will be in a teachable condition then, you are not ready to hear now; you are in a self-satisfied condition: I am merely speaking to those who have already found they are weary and heavy-laden and need rest. I am only addressing those who feel their need of a Savior. Go and have whatever experiences you may choose to have. You may not learn your need in time to come into this calling that is now going on.
Another says, I want to come back to God. I want to feel God is my Father, and I am no longer an alien and stranger and foreigner to Him. I have nothing to give or bring-- "Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling." Lord, give me such blessings as you see I should have.
The Lord says to such, You are in the right condition; I will tell you now what you shall do. It is a very narrow way. If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
What is it to deny oneself?
It is this: It is to give over his will, his self-sufficiency, his own will to do his own will, and to say, Here, Lord, I give myself to Thee; do with me and for me according to the riches of Thy grace and your loving kindness toward me, whatever that may be.
The Father is greatly pleased with these; pleased that we should thus come to Him through the Son, and the Son is greatly pleased with these; they are the very kind he is looking for.
This self-denial is the first step; you give up your own will. It is just as though you personally, as a man or woman, died--no longer your own. All things thenceforth become new. You died to the old, earthly ambitions, hopes, prospects, and all of that, the great fortune you were going to have, and the great name you were going to make; you become dead to all of these and become alive to new hopes, prospects and desires.
What are the new things? Why that you would have God's favor, and be called a child of God, realize his supervision of your affairs, that you would know from his own assurance that in your case all things would work together for your good, because you love Him, because you have been called according to His purpose, and because you have responded to that call.
Well, Lord, I am ready to sit down and count the cost. There is not very much to count. At one time I thought these things I have were very valuable, but I have found out that all things of this present time are but trifles, toys, as it were, that a child might play with; whether fortunes of men, earthly palaces, or honor amongst men, they are all as trifles, and as bubbles in the air that are gorgeous to appear, but really vanishing to nothing. When I compare the things I possess, and the hopes of the present with those glorious things which you assure me you have in reservation for them that love you, I count that these things, as the Apostle said, are but loss and dross and dung as compared with the riches of Thy glory and grace which I have the privilege to be revealed in me if I am faithful.
The Lord says, That is the one I am wanting. I will explain next what it is to take up your cross: At first you won't know exactly what it is to take up your cross: you don't know what your crosses are going to be, but gradually I will let you see: gradually you shall know what the crosses are, the crosses of your own will. They will come up in different ways you do not fully understand at first, but you will find it will turn out all right if your consecration was all right to begin with. You may at first think, Why this is going to be a terrible trial; but just keep firmly on as you started, and be loyal to me, and you will find that the trial will probably all part before you, and you will have rejoicing in that which at first seemed to be tribulation: as you go on from step to step I will cause the way to open before you. It may seem at times as though you are coming up against a blank wall and can go no farther, and difficulty and disaster is staring you in the face. When you come to that place I will provide a way of escape that you will not be tempted above that which you are able.
What about the following?
Well, the following is in the same line: it is patiently continuing in this way, patiently continuing to bear the cross, because, as the Apostle says, you have need of patience that after you have done the will of God you might receive the promise. The thought is, you must demonstrate until God is satisfied that your character is fixed--fixed for righteousness, truth, loyalty to God, to His Word, and to the principles of righteousness.
But you say, I realize the weaknesses of my flesh, and I am afraid.
The Lord did not say it was your flesh to be perfected. He said it was you as a New Creature that is to be perfected. In our flesh dwells no perfection. God knew that to begin with. He told us from the beginning that we are all by nature sinners and children of wrath, and it is only of Christ that all of these imperfections are covered--every weakness that is not ours intentionally, everything you do not will to do. Whatever you will to do that is wrong, that is a particular crime and sin on your own part. Whatever you have not willed to do, whatever has come in spite of your endeavors to the contrary, that is not sin on your part; that is weakness of the flesh, the fallen nature, which Jesus died to cover up for you; and so it is your privilege to have courage and faith in the Lord and to go on from strength to strength, from grace to grace, from knowledge to knowledge, growing in Christlikeness, and thus become more and more a copy of God's dear Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
So then, dear friends, that is the way we come into the Body of Christ.
Now, you say, which time did we come into the Body of Christ?
We answer that there are three bodies of Christ.
Well, which one do I belong to?
You must belong to all three of them in turn. In the first place, the Body of Christ, which is the Church, is composed of all those members who are begotten of the Holy Spirit, and they are thus begotten the moment they present their bodies a living sacrifice in Jesus' name. Then they are accepted of God and that constitutes them members in the Body of Christ, which is the Church, because all of these members have the same anointing that the Head has, and that is the picture God gave us. He gave Aaron as the priest or representative of the whole Christ. Oil was poured on Aaron's head and it ran down his beard and even unto the skirts of his garments. Aaron's head represented Jesus, and the other members of Aaron that were covered with this robe that had the anointing oil on it represented all the members of the Body of Christ, the Church, as they shall be gathered out of the world throughout this age. So the moment you came into the Body of Christ you came under that anointing, and I the same, and so with all the church all the way down. In the case of the Apostles there was a particular manifestation at the beginning, on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit that had first come on Jesus the Head there reached down from the Head to the shoulders, so to speak, the Apostles being the first members of the Body. Since then as we come into the Body of Christ we come in under the same anointing and become members in particular of the Body, this spiritual Body, related to Jesus as New Creatures in Christ, all old things have passed away and all things have become new. Saint Paul says of this, that the hand member cannot say to the foot member, I have no need of you, for every member of the Body is necessary. God purposes the whole, complete, body, and we are not to speak or think lightly of anyone whom God receives into the Body, and whom we understand through consecration has received the begetting of the Holy Spirit. That is the first Body. Do you belong to that Body? We believe that all who have made a consecration belong to this one Body, the spirit-begotten body.
Now there is a second Body of Christ, which will be the Body beyond the vail, the completed Body? Will it be the same? Oh, no, it will have some of the same members, but not all of the same members, because only those who, after having been begotten of the Holy Spirit, shall press on faithfully to the end will be accounted members beyond the vail. Some will fall out by the way and not be worthy to be members [CR348] in that glorious church who will be the real kings and priests. We are now reckonedly kings and priests, because that is the one hope in which we have been called, but we must make that calling and election sure, and all will not make it sure. What will happen to those who do not make it sure? Two things may happen to them: some of them, according to the Scriptures, may die the second death, if they turn from the Holy commandment; if they return to wallowing in the mire of sin, St. Peter says there remaineth for them only the blackness of darkness, the second death. They have had all their blessings, they have misused them, and there is nothing further for them in God's plan.
Then there is another company that neither denied the Lord nor returned to wallowing in the mire of sin, but lacked zeal; nor did they so faithfully persevere in the way that the Lord could count them copies of His Son and receive them to the Heavenly throne and glory. Who are these? They are pictured in various ways in the Scriptures. In one place they are called foolish virgins; they are not impure. The word "virgin" means pure, and the whole Church of Christ is pure. The wise of this church that are pure will reach the throne, because they will so run, be so wise in their use of present opportunities and blessings of God that they will attain to all the glorious things and make their calling and election sure; they will be wise enough to lay aside every weight and besetting sin and run with patience the race set before them. The others, unwise, who have accepted Christ, after having given up the world, will still be more or less trying to tag on to the world while walking the more slowly toward the Lord. So while eventually if they keep on at all they will be conquerors, yet they will not be those overcoming conquerors to whom the abundant entrance will be granted. They are the class who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage. What death? The death of the old man, the death of the flesh. They are fearful of it; they are afraid it will be too hard to break off this tender tie, or that one,--What will my friends think? What will the world say? All of these things are detriments to them, and hold them back, and, therefore, they are not courageous enough to go on and follow the Lamb withersoever He goeth. They are loyal, faithful, but not as courageous as they should be; they miss the great prize, but will get the secondary prize; instead of being in the throne they will be before the throne; instead of wearing the crown of glory they will only have a palm of victory. A palm of victory will be a great deal better than nothing--Oh, yes, to be before the throne would be a great deal better than to be in outer darkness of the second death! They will be a grand class when they are finished and pass through great tribulation, but they might have passed through much more gloriously and been of the throne class if they had been faithful. It all remained with themselves. God nominated them, and it was up to these people to decide about the election. They failed of election because they failed to have sufficient zeal, sufficient love and earnestness to gain that great prize.
So you see then that the Body of Christ of the present time is not a Little Flock and a Great Company, but "ye are all called in one hope of your calling" and there is no decision as to the two classes in the present time. We are all one body now; all who receive the Holy Spirit are one company now. But when the end of this age comes and the great Master shall make the division between the wise and the foolish, between the Great Company and the Little Flock, there will be a difference after that. Then these are the two bodies of Christ: the one to which we belong now,--and all belong to this one Body who are begotten of the spirit,--then the other body that will be clothed upon with immortality, joint-heirs with Christ in his throne and Kingdom.
What about the third Body of Christ? That third Body of Christ is Christ in the flesh.
Why, Brother Russell, I thought you said awhile ago the New Creature was a member of the Body of Christ?
Yes, quite right; the New Creature is a member, and will be perfected and be a member beyond the vail in glory.
Then how about the Body of Christ in the flesh?
Jesus had a body in the flesh, did He not?
Yes.
What did He do with that body in the flesh?
He consecrated it to death, He laid it down day by day, hour by hour, until He finished the work at Calvary. All of that was the sacrifice of the flesh. And when He took you over to be His disciple did He exclude the flesh and say, "I will take you merely as a New Creature and not take your flesh"? No. He took all you had--your flesh, your property, everything you had; all went with you when He received you--your children, your mortgages, and weaknesses and all; He took your all right over.
What is He doing with them, you say?
Well, my dear brother, from that time on you have been His flesh. And so we have had this thing to look at: that for 1,800 years Jesus has been in the flesh; He has accepted us as His flesh, we are His representatives, His flesh. Wherever you are, Christ's flesh is, and that has been true for 1,800 years.
Oh, I wonder, says one, if that can be so?
Yes, surely it is so. Hear what Jesus said to Saul of Tarsus. You remember Saul had been persecuting the Church, and how he was present when St. Stephen was stoned to death, and how he was hailing others to prison, and how Jesus hailed him by the way and said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
Saul was astonished. Persecuting somebody up there? Why, I was persecuting some renegade Jews down here!
"I am Jesus whom thou persecutest."
He was not persecuting Jews in Heaven, he was not persecuting the New Creatures, he was persecuting the flesh of Jesus. Wherever there has been a disciple of Jesus, and that disciple has suffered in the flesh, it has been Christ suffering in the flesh. "Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind."
"Whosoever will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."
How did Jesus suffer? He suffered in a great many ways. He suffered from being misunderstood, from being slandered, and in every way you can think of. We cannot possibly expect to suffer in all the ways the Master suffered. We are not worthy of so much suffering as He was worthy of.
Brother Russell, is not suffering a sign of God's displeasure? No, you do not think because Jesus suffered so much that was a sign the Father was displeased with Him, do you? No, you do not think that was so, but you think, on the contrary, that as the Scriptures say He was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. And it pleased God to bruise Him, to put Him to grief, to put Him to shame. How does it please God? Did He take pleasure in the suffering of His Son? That is not the thought. The thought is, in God's great plan it seemed wisest and best that He should put His Son to all of these severe tests so that both angels and men, looking back to the experiences of Jesus from Jordan to Calvary, could see that He was faithful unto death, and glorify God because of His great loyalty, and that the reward of His obedience might be manifest to all, and all might see the grounds and conditions upon which God gives His blessings. So there will be an incentive to you and to me, and to all who may ever have opportunity of serving God to know that whoever renders any service to Him and the pleasure of any kind of suffering for righteousness sake, the spirit of glory and of God rests on them, as the Apostle says.
Now the proposition, you see, includes the whole Body. If we suffer with Him we shall also be glorified together. If we be dead with Him we shall live with Him on the spiritual plane, be partakers of His divine nature, share with Him in His glory. All of these things are conditional upon our demonstrating that we are members of His Body, and actuated by the same spirit. Some may have more tribulations than others. Someone said to me recently on this subject, Should we not expect the tribulation to be equal and evenly divided. No, brother, if it is a large diamond it may take a great deal more polishing, because a large diamond is worthy of more polishing. A little diamond requires less polishing to make it shine as much as it can shine; but if it is a large diamond as in the case of our Lord, and as in the case of St. Paul, it would require a great deal of polishing, a great deal of affliction, a great deal of difficulty, that they might fully show forth the praises of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Now, I am very much pleased to have had the opportunity of speaking to you this afternoon as a class, and to rejoice with you in the wonderful privileges and blessings that are coming to us in our day, and in the increased light and knowledge, not only on God's Word, but on every subject under Heaven, and to rejoice with you also that not only are our eyes of understanding opening daily more widely than ever and we are seeing the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of God's character and plan, but we rejoice also [CR349] that in God's providence the world is coming to see more and more of His goodness and of His wonderful arrangements. The eyes of the world are becoming more and more opened and the delusions that have been on the world are more and more passing away. How glad we are! This is evidently the beginning of a new day and our hearts rejoice in the privilege we have of enjoying it in advance of the world, and let us see to it that all the light, and all the blessings, and all the knowledge that God sends to us, produces in us the very experiences that He desires; that it has a sanctifying effect, as Jesus said in His last prayer to the Father, "Sanctify them through Thy Truth, Thy Word is truth."
I take this opportunity to remind you that perhaps in the past some of us have not been sufficiently careful in talking to friends and neighbors when trying to impress them with the importance of the Truth; we have not always remembered as we should to urge upon them the fact that unless they make a consecration of their hearts they are not to expect full clear light on the plan of God. I was recently in a railroad train and a young man on the train shook hands with me and said that he knew me, told me his father's name, and how he had been trained more or less in the Truth from childhood. I said to him, How are you getting along?
Well, he said, I do not get along as rapidly as I would like; I seem to forget everything. I have read the volumes, yet when I read them I forget them. I go back and read them over again and it seems as though I had not read them before at all. And I heard you speak several times and felt very much impressed, then it all slipped away.
I said, Have you made a consecration of your heart to the Lord?
No, I have never taken that step yet.
Then how do you expect that the Lord is going to impress His Truth on your heart when you have not given Him your heart? How do you expect that you are to be sealed with the spirit of the Truth when you have not submitted your heart to the sealing? God only seals those hearts that are submitted willingly, joyfully, gladly, and fully, to Him. You must take this step, give yourself to Him, then the truths as they come along God by His spirit will impress on you. And this is what the Bible calls the sealing of the spirit.
So the Scriptures tells us of those who are in Christ and have received the sealing of the Holy Spirit and an unction, an oil of lubrication from the Holy Spirit, how they get to know things, and the Truth comes more clearly and forcibly to them. But you must take the step. God gives you a certain amount of light and truth, then it is for you to say whether or not you appreciate it, and whether or not you have been loyal to that which you received. If you take the steps of appreciation and obedience, then you are ready for more light and knowledge, then another step of obedience and more light, and so on from grace to grace and knowledge to knowledge, from the way a child crawls to the way a man walks, until we all come to the full stature of a man in Christ.
When you and I came into the Body of Christ first we were not full-sized members at all; we were little members; we had to grow; you had to be receiving the strength and nutriment that you might grow thereby and become a fully developed member. And if you do not become a fully developed member, then in the glorious membership beyond the vail another one would be found better fitted for that place and you would be set aside for the Great Company class.
So you see, we are not here merely to make a consecration, and make a good start; we are here to enter the School of Christ, to learn of Him, to be taught of Him, to give ourselves fully and unreservedly to the rules and regulations of this School, that we may be taught and developed in heart and mind, and all the spiritual progress we need to qualify us and fit us for the presence of our Lord, and for a share with Him in his glory, honor, and immortality.
[CR349]
Press Comment--"Death the Only Hell"
Declaring that death itself is the only hell, and that the dawn of the millennium is close at hand, Pastor Charles T. Russell of the Brooklyn Tabernacle last night addressed a crowd that taxed the capacity of Beethoven Hall.
With a train load of delegates from the Eastern States and Canada on their way to a convention of the International Bible Students' Association at Los Angeles, Pastor Russell arrived here on the closing day of a local convention of Bible students and his address last night on the subject, "Beyond the Grave," embodied the principal teachings of the organization of which he is the head.
Pastor Russell said that he had been brought up, as a child, in the Congregational faith, but afterward underwent a period of doubt about the truth of the Bible. He studied the teachings of the greatest religious leaders of the world, without finding spiritual peace, and finally turned again to the Bible to see whether, under reasonable interpretation, the teachings that had made him skeptical might not be harmonized with the conception of God as a being of infinite wisdom, power, justice and love.
He found, he said, that the old teaching that hell is a place of eternal torment for sinful souls is not borne out by the Bible itself.
HELL IS STATE OF DEATH.
"The hell of the Bible is the tomb, the state of death," he said "The Hebrew word 'sheol' and the Greek word 'hades' mean the same thing. Any other construction of the Scripture is a misrepresentation of God. We simply are waiting for Christ to gather His church, which is to be His bride, when the 1,000 years of peace will prevail throughout the world.
"When the restitution of man comes, the elect of Christ will bless those who have led sinful lives while in the previous life, and all men may be blessed. I do not claim that all will be saved, but those who will not accept Christ in the second life will die and remain in a state of death, which is hell."
Continuing, Pastor Russell said in part: GRAVE DIVIDING LINE.
"The grave marks the dividing line between the known and the unknown. All beyond the grave is held by faith, not by knowledge. How important then that we accept only divine testimony on a subject regarding which none but the Almighty could enlighten us. We admit that our own guessing on this subject would be unsatisfactory. Why, then, prefer the guesses of other men who know no more on the subject than we do?
"I know that spiritism claims to have communications from the dead and that thus it has proofs. I admit that some learned men have become psychics and corroborate spiritists. I prefer, however, to follow the Bible's teachings and to believe those men are deceived. The Bible tells us that the intelligences which communicate through the mediums are not dead human, but the fallen angels. The Bible tells us that these evil spirits, 'demons,' purposely strive to deceive humanity, and to misrepresent God's plans; and that God will not fully restrain them until an appointed time, but permits them to test our loyalty and faith Godward.
BIBLE LOGICAL.
"When I say that the Bible's teaching regarding 'beyond the grave' is logical, some will scoff. But hear me for my cause. Hear the Bible's own testimony--not what the creeds say it teaches.
"It teaches that the dead are not alive anywhere--that a dead person cannot experience either joy or sorrow. It teaches that all hope of a future life by divine appointment is vested in Jesus, who died that we might as a race be released from the death sentence inherited from Father Adam, and that thus Jesus might become the life-giver or Savior to as many as will return to God through Him.
"The promise of the Bible is not that the dead are not dead, but that 'thy dead men shall live.' Because of the proposed resurrection of the dead they are figuratively said to 'sleep.' Thus the hope set before us is: 'Many that sleep in [CR350] the dust of the earth shall awake, they that have done good (that passed divine approval, the saintly) shall come forth to shine as the stars of heaven.' They that have not been approved shall awake to shame and lasting contempt. Their shame will last until they reform--their contempt until they shall cease to be contemptible, and learn and obey the way of God under Messiah's Kingdom.
REDEMPTION NECESSARY.
"Death with its attendant mental, physical and moral weaknesses, is God's curse or penalty for Adam's sin of disobedience. Resurrection, uplifting from all this, is God's remedy --the lifting of the curse. The Redeemer's death was necessary as man's redemption price. Next in order will be His Messianic Kingdom. He must reign 1,000 years to fully overthrow the power of sin and death and to uplift or resurrect the willing and the obedient, thousands of millions of Adam's family for whom he died--'every man.'
"The perfect man, Adam, and his perfect, happy, Eden home were a picture, a prophecy of what all may attain, if they will, through the Redeemer's Kingdom. What a glorious outlook 'beyond the grave' we find in the Bible, for the world! Those refusing to progress, the Bible declares, will be cut off from life in the second death. It will be like the first or Adamic death except that there will be no redemption from it --no resurrection from it. All consigned to it will, St. Peter declares, perish 'like natural brute beasts'; in everlasting destruction,' St. Paul declares.
"Note the beautifully sympathetic description of God's work for men through Messiah's Kingdom: 'God shall wipe away all tears from all faces'; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain there.' (Rev. 21:4; Isa. 25:8.)
"The explanation is: He that sitteth upon the throne saith, behold, I make all things new (Rev. 21:5). A new heaven of spiritual power will have supervision of earth's affairs, and a new earth or social order will obtain amongst men. These are the glad 'times of restitution which St. Peter tells us will begin at the second advent of Jesus' (Acts 3:19-21).
THE MESSIAH'S KINGDOM.
"All except those now spirit-begotten will share in the general resurrection or uplifting of Messiah's Kingdom during his reign of 1,000 years. Some are more and some less dead, morally, mentally and physically, than others. Hence some will need more and some less uplifting or resurrection. But all need it greatly. Without Messiah's aid they could never get free from the death and into perfection of earthly life. It will require all of the 1,000 years to uplift or resurrect the world. Hence only the church class, changed to heavenly nature, will really live again fully until the thousand years shall be finished, although the willing of the world will be gradually rising, gradually experiencing restitution or resurrection, throughout that thousand years.
"If 'beyond the grave' means Paradise Restored, and human perfection to mankind in general, it means still more to the saintly Church of Christ--his bride. Let us all live godly, but let as many as will become footstep followers of Jesus and thus gain with him glory, honor and immortality."
LOVE'S ALCHEMY
LOVE is the filling from one's own
Another's cup.
Love is a daily laying down
And taking up;
A choosing of the stony path
Through each new day
That other feet may tread with ease
A smoother way.
Love is not blind, but looks abroad
Through other eyes;
And asks not "Must I give?" but "May
I sacrifice?"
Love hides its grief, that other hearts
And lips may sing;
And burdened, walks, that other lives
May, buoyant, wing.
Brother, hast thou a love like this
Within thy soul?
'Twill change thy name to saint when thou
Dost reach thy goal.
[CR351]
A Clerical Conspiracy to Injure Pastor Russell
Clerics Fear That the Pastor's Clear and Convincing Presentations
of God's Word Will Discredit Them as Blind Leaders of the
Blind Into the Ditch of Confusion and Unbelief--Matt. 23:13.
Their Desperate Tactics Duplicate Those of the D.D.'s of
Jesus' Day, Who Incited the People to Cry, Crucify Him!
Modern Burning at the Stake Is Done in Churches Dedicated to God's
Worship and Instruction in Justice and Love, and is Termed "Roasting."
The various denominations of Christendom, after fighting each other for centuries, have concluded that they all are partly wrong and partly right, and that they do not know where the Truth lies, nor what is Truth, nor what is Error. The decline in church attendance and contributions combined with the increase of church expenses, cause troubles many and grievous. The lessons of the success of Financial Trusts inspires them to form a Church Trust or "Federation of Churches." They hope thus to impress the people by a bold front. But especially they desire to impress the newspaper proprietors and the politicians for such services as they may call for. The proposition is a frothy one, representing a very few--nearly all clerics. The people of all denominations are unenthused. In doubt on all religious problems, and hungry for the Truth, the poor sheep are confused by the actions of their clergy.
Led by the Federation's press agent, Mr. Ellis, the "Religious Rambler," a systematic attack is being made on Pastor Russell through the religious (?) press as well as in the secular. All the clergy have been urged to join the conspiracy, and nearly one-fourth of their number have joined the campaign of lying and slander. Others more noble have refused, after the manner of Gamaliel, saying, If this thing be of God ye cannot overthrow it! Take heed lest ye be found fighting against God!--Acts 5:34-39.
EXCUSE--THE GOOD CAUSE.
Jesus was crucified for the good of the cause as the Scribes, Pharisees and Chief Priests declared. The Apostles similarly suffered for the good of the cause of error. The martyrs executed for centuries past were done to death for the good of error's cause. The Truth, the cause of God, of Christ, of the Apostles, never needed to put anybody to death, either physically or figuratively. Error and Tyranny are fearful and prepared to do violence for their own preservation.
So it is today. We are in the dawn of the Golden Age, the Millennium. The light of the new day is scattering the gloomy spectres and hobgoblins of the night. We are awakening from the horrible nightmare which so terrified our fathers and threatened to alienate us from our God and from His Word, the Bible. Fear of sectarian fences, gates and bars is seizing some whom the Bible denounces as "hypocrites." (Isaiah 33:14.) Wild, lest their hypocrisy should be revealed to the public, these murder a Christian brother and fellow servant and excuse themselves by saying, We do it for the good of the cause. (1 John 3:15; Isaiah 66:5.) do it for the good of the cause. (1 John 3:15; Isaiah 66:5.) Truly so, but as usual for the good of a bad cause--the cause of Error, Superstition and Misrepresentation of God and His Word. Beware of such! Be not deceived! God is not mocked! He that doeth righteousness is righteous--not those who conspire against the promulgation of the Truth. "My soul, come not thou into their secret" scheming.--(Genesis 49:6; Prov. 1:15,16.)
"NOT RENDERING EVIL FOR EVIL."
In none of his sermons or writings has Pastor Russell ever made a personal attack upon preachers or others. He remembers and obeys the command of the Bible, "Speak evil of no man." Even under the attacks of slander and misrepresentation he has never returned evil for evil, nor railing for raillery. He has set a noble example for all, in preaching the Word of God fearlessly, courageously, even when he knew from experience that it would be met, not by logic or reason or Bible truths, but by poisoned "arrows" of slander as the Bible forewarned.--Psa. 64:3.
Pastor Russell does indeed attack errors of doctrine, unsparingly, though in kindly terms. This is the crime for which he is being "roasted." His attacks are so forceful, so logical, that they carry conviction; therefore he is feared and his words misrepresented, to keep Christian people who are really hungering and thirsting for Truth from reading the Pastor's writings. But if it be a crime to refute and denounce Errors, Pastor Russell has the good company of his Redeemer and the Apostles, and of all reformers. He is backed by the Lord's Word. "Cry aloud! Spare not! Show My people their sins!"
THEIR GREAT MISTAKE.
The preachers who are complaining about small congregations, and who blame Pastor Russell for this, are mistaken. Higher Critics in our Colleges and greatest pulpits have for thirty years been undermining faith in the inspiration of the Bible. Their teachings have come to be believed by the people. The result is that the people are too honest to take pleasure in supporting by presence and purse what they no longer fully believe, and they discredit the preachers as less honest, and as merely preaching for the sake of money and honor.
Many ministers are reading Pastor Russell's books and preachings much of what they read, and then denounce Pastor Russell to keep the people from reading the same books. One prominent Evangelist, after breaking a few chairs and denouncing Pastor Russell, preached a sermon on Christ's Second Coming which, if not quoted from the Pastor's books, is so much like his writings that some people think them quotations.
[CR352]
It is time that the people know the facts, and hence this statement. This issue of The Bible Students Monthly is, however, reserved for use only in places where the preachers make preconcerted attacks on the Pastor. This is not a retaliation, not an attack on the personality of any one, but a showing of the clear facts as in contrast with the dark slanders of the Pastor's opponents. A marked sample copy of this issue has been sent to all preachers to warn them re the course of error being pursued and that they are forcing the Truth to be told.
CHARGES REFUTED--REPORTS FREE.
We can only very briefly here give the Pastor's answer to the Calumnies of The Eagle and the Ministerial Clique. We can, however, supply free on request his full reply and also the Missionary Committee's Report. The Pastor affirms briefly as follows:
MY ANSWER TO THE SLANDERERS.
I never defrauded my wife nor anybody else. My wife and I mutually agreed that the property I earned and owned should be devoted to the Lord's service. I carried out my part of the agreement and made a deed, which my wife did not sign. Subsequently the property was sold for debts which my wife had contracted unknown to me. Her dower interest was sold for her debt at public sale. The property being mortgaged, brought all that anybody probably would have paid.
The girl who sat on my knee and who kissed me was an adopted child in short dresses. Her brother had died, and she was in grief; besides, my wife had publicly requested her to kiss me every night before retiring, as her foster-father. If there be any crime in this, let the stones fly, but tell the truth.
As to my being in a girl's room with the door locked. Our servant girl was reported to be sick, and my wife asked me to take time to see her, as I had some knowledge of medicine. In the room where she was there was a noisy pump and sink, and after being interrupted, I turned the key for quietness for about one minute. My wife never charged me with unfaithfulness; nor had she any ground for so doing. She stated under oath that she made no such claim, and also under oath stated that she and I had lived celibate lives for eighteen years.
It is quite untrue that I was silent to my wife for months. The reverse was true--that my wife was silent to me except in the presence of others. She thus and in every way sought to coerce me into giving her more liberty in the columns of the Journal I edited and published, The Watch Tower--because she had adopted suffragette sentiments. She was not granted a divorce. There were no grounds for it. She got a legal separation nine years after she had left me.
I never claimed, nor sought to show, that my wife was insane.
In my tour of foreign lands a year ago there were with me six other members of the Committee appointed to investigate the Foreign Mission work. Of these, five are still living: Dr. L. W. Jones, of Chicago; Mr. E. W. V. Kuehn, of Toledo, Ohio; Prof. F. H. Robison, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Gen. W. P. Hall and Mr. J. T. D. Pyles of Washington, D.C. These well-known, reputable Christian gentlemen will fully corroborate my statement that I spoke publicly at every place reported in the hundreds of newspapers which publish my sermons weekly.
I did sue two newspapers for damages the one case I won and the other I lost. I consider that my cause in both instances was just and that this is not the first time that justice had miscarried in court.
In conclusion, I ask, what must we think of a Christian minister who, because he has no Scripture to back up his side of the argument, would resort to such misrepresentations of facts in an attempt to murder the reputation of his opponent? All sane people must feel sorry that a Christian minister would take such a course.
[CR352]
Los Angeles, California
A RIDE of about eighteen hours brought us to Los Angeles, where we found one of the finest classes to be found anywhere, probably four hundred interested in Present Truth. They had done a most thorough piece of advertising and everywhere one looked could be seen some kind of advertising respecting Pastor Russell and the meetings. They had also secured a number of automobiles, and on each side of each car there was a large cloth sign announcing Pastor Russell. A parade was made with these, which attracted considerable attention.
The friends have secured for a permanent home a large church building, and it is now known as the "Los Angeles Temple," and all the sessions of the Five Day Convention were held in the Temple, with the exception of the great public meeting. This latter was held in their beautiful auditorium, and every one of the 4,000 seats was occupied, with about 400 men on the platform. It was a sight not soon to be forgotten. The closest attention possible was given while Pastor Russell spoke on "Beyond the Grave," and at the close of the service 475 names were handed in for literature. Their convention was for five days, but on account of other appointments we could spend but the one day with them.
As both the talks of Brother Russell, the one to the interested and the one to the public, are published elsewhere in the report, we will not repeat here. We just give a few words of greetings from Brother Russell, as follows:
At 10 a.m. while a testimony meeting was being led by Brother John T. Read of Chicago, Brother Russell arrived at the hall and was warmly greeted with the Chautauqua salute and singing of hymn No. 23. Brother Russell then addressed the friends as follows: [CR353] Preparing for the Kingdom--Testimony DEAR FRIENDS, I heard you were having a nice testimony meeting here and that I would have a few minutes in which to give my testimony; in the meantime I had the pleasure of visiting some of the sick of the congregation this morning. I am glad indeed to be with you, glad to see your faces still indicate that you have the oil of the spirit within, the joy of the Lord making fresh your hearts-- a fountain ever springing, as we sometimes sing. I am glad if I can display to you the same kind of face, and that my face can also indicate to you that the love of the Lord is within. I assure you that is the case. That is part of my testimony, that the way before shines more and more as we near the Eternal City. We are hoping for great things, and hoping for great things in the very near future. Of course it is not in your power nor mine to say positively that our expectations are all going to be realized in so short a time as we are hoping for, but we certainly will be very glad if in the Lord's good pleasure we shall all be in the Kingdom in a short time. There are very few people perhaps that are as anxious to get into the Kingdom as we are, and perhaps many of the other people who come to Los Angeles are trying to keep out of the Kingdom, trying to keep away from the tomb, but from our standpoint the whole plan of God seems so different from what it ever did before. Now we see that to the Church the tomb is the gate to glory; that there is no other way of passing to the New Nature than by the full, complete destruction of the flesh. At the present time we have the beginning of this experience when we give our hearts to the Lord, and are reckoned dead according to the flesh and alive according to the spirit; and begotten of the Holy Spirit as New Creatures in Christ. Then the new life has a start, and that new life is to progress at the expense of the flesh. As the New Creature prospers and grows strong in the Lord and the power of His might, the old creature is proportionately dying, with its aims, ambitions, hopes, fears,-- everything that belongs to the old nature passes away; as the Apostle says, Old things are passed away and all things have become new.
We are glad then, dear friends, to realize that this is our blessed portion as members of the Church of Christ. I congratulate you here on the Pacific Coast in the City of Los Angeles on the many blessings you are evidently enjoying. I have heard of the growth of the cause here, and in the various cities nearby, and I rejoice greatly with you as I hear from time to time, as I rejoice with the Lord's people everywhere, and you will be glad to know that the same blessed experiences that have been yours--namely, of increased privileges of service, and of increased joy in the Lord, and of increased opportunities--have been going on all over the world. I will not weary you now by going into a detailed account of the condition of things throughout the world. You get everything pretty well up to date through the Watch Tower, you know. I keep very little back. Nearly everything that I know goes out in the Watch Tower columns. You know, then, from what you have seen there that the work is growing all over this land, and in Canada, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, China, Japan, India, and South Africa. The Lord seems to have some people everywhere, and wherever the people of the Lord are there is a measure of hungering and thirsting for righteousness; and righteousness relates not merely to right conduct, but also to right thinking. Whoever is hungering and thirsting after righteousness is hungering and thirsting for the Truth as well as for good deeds and right actions, etc.
There is another thing that has encouraged me a great
deal, and no doubt you have the same experience here. I
would like to have had the opportunity of being with you
without being seen this morning, and to have heard your
testimonies, but I have no doubt that if I had heard them
I would have heard what I know of going on elsewhere;
namely, a very deep work of grace being manifested; that the
truth of God's Word seems to be entering very deeply, running
through all the fibers of the heart and of the mind and
of the body even, bringing the very thoughts of the mind
into subjection to the will of God in Christ, as the Apostle
expresses it. I have no doubt that is your experience here.
It is very wonderful indeed how much the Lord's people are
growing in grace all over the world. Why should it not be
so? Is it not a very proper thing? What have we been
hungering and thirsting for? We have found that which is
most precious to us, soul-satisfying. If there is anything
else that is good, if anybody else has anything as good or
better, I am glad for that. As for myself, if there is anything
better I can get, I will be glad to get it. But I am not
looking for anything better. I am thoroughly satisfied after
having thought and studied, having exercised my mind and
heart, and found nothing in general that would be satisfactory.
"Jesus has satisfied, Jesus is mine"--not merely in that effervescent
way I sang those words forty or fifty years ago,
but in the special sense of knowing who Jesus is, knowing
what Jesus has done, and knowing what He has purposed to
do for the Church and for the world, and how He is to be not
only the Savior to the Little Flock and to the others of the
Great Company, but that ultimately He is to be the Savior
and a great one able to save to the uttermost the whole
world of mankind, all that may come unto the Father through
Him. I am glad to have that view of the Savior, and that
view of the Heavenly Father's work through Him. It expands
our hearts more and more deeply and more broadly
than ever before. The little narrowness that was in your
heart perhaps at one time has been gradually taken away,
and you have gotten more of the character-likeness of the
Lord Himself; as Jesus said, Be ye like unto your Father
in Heaven. For those who thought the Father in Heaven
was specially engaged in roasting people, and creating other
people to be roasted, to be like Him would be a terrible
thing. But we have found out differently. We have found
out the real meaning of the statement that God is love, and
that He is the Father of mercies, and we have found out
what our Savior said, not merely be like your Father in
Heaven, but He added also that explanation of what the Father
in Heaven is like when He said, For He is kind even to
the unthankful. And if you and I get that proper estimate
of the Father, and get more of His spirit into our hearts, it
tends to make us more loving toward the Heavenly Father,
and more kind to our families and more kind to our neighbors,
and more gentle toward all and in every way, even to
the unthankful, even to our enemies. Kind to your enemy?
Yes, love your enemies, Jesus said, and do good to them that
persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely
for my sake. God will make up to you a recompense of
blessing and it will work out for good to you eventually.
How gracious are the promises of His Word! How He has
said everything that could be said; as we sometimes sing,
"What more could He say than to you He hath said,
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fled."
Our Father's Word, when we come to understand it,
when we come to have the right light upon it, Oh, how good it
is! What a satisfaction to the heart! How it stimulates,
how it refreshes, how it gives strength and courage to the
mind and to the body--yes, to the body also, surely. I venture
to say if you will look into your own experience since
the time you first came to know the Truth you will see that
proportionately you are stronger physically, that somehow
there is an ease of mind and rest that enables you to be
stronger because of your relationship to the Lord and your
trust in Him. But especially do we become stronger in faith,
stronger in love, stronger in hope toward God, stronger in
desire to be pleasing to Him, stronger in our effort to be of
much comfort and assistance to others--"Strong in the Lord
and in the power of His might." May He continue to sanctify
us by His Truth and fit us for the Heavenly Kingdom.
That is my testimony, dear friends.
[CR354]
THY WILL BE DONE
MY Lord, Thy will not mine be done:
Whatever path Thy love shall choose for me,
Through desert sands, or if beside the sea,--
Thy will be done!
Oh, may Thy will in me be done:
Should "harvest" labor be for me Thy will,
Or if I may but suffer and be still,--
Thy will be done!
My Father, let Thy will be done:
If sweet the cup Thou pourest for me to drink,
I'll praise Thee, but if bitter, I'll not shrink,--
Thy will be done!
Forever may Thy will be done:
I would not choose, I leave it all with Thee,--
The pilgrimage, if short or long it be,--
Thy will be done!
[CR354]
Quickening of the Spirit
I AM VERY glad to be with you, dear friends. The text of Scripture which comes to my mind at this time particularly reads, "And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." (Eph. 2:1.) The word "quickened" signifies made alive, and, therefore, the text says that you whom God hath made alive were dead; not totally dead, not actually buried, but dead in trespasses and sins. And this calls our minds back to the fact that a great sentence and curse came on the world as the result of sin. Death passed upon all men. We are members of that race which were thus condemned, and, therefore, we were condemned, not personally, because we never were tried personally. Our father Adam was on trial; he alone was tried; but God's great law stands anyway. That law declares that all unrighteousness is sin, and that the wages of sin is death. When father Adam, who was created perfect and put on trial, disobeyed and was sentenced to death, and when we, his children, were born in sin, it followed naturally we would partake of the imperfection; and if the perfect man did not keep the divine law, how could imperfect men keep it? Therefore, since we were all born in that condition of sin and imperfection, we were all subject to death; as St. Paul says, Death passed upon all because all have sinned. Because we are sinners we cannot have life. And here is the proposition, then, that the Bible sets before us, so different from any proposition that has ever come from any other quarter, that it is life or death eternal. If you will be in harmony with God, and perfect, and do His will, delight to do His will, He will be pleased to give you eternal life. If you will not be in harmony with God, if you will be imperfect, then His pleasure is that you shall not live at all, that you should not have any place in all the universe. How simple a proposition it is! When we read the Bible aright as Bible Students, we come to see that it is not a question of Heaven or Hell, but a question of life or death. God's provision for the angels, for instance, was, that, being perfect, they should maintain their perfection and by maintaining that covenant of life they would live everlastingly; and to live everlastingly from God's standpoint, the only way God would have any of His creatures live at all, means that they should live happily, live to enjoy life, live in pleasure. So we see, in harmony with the Word of God, that all the holy angels are happy, and perfect, and blessed, because they are not sinners, and have not transgressed God's Law. Then we see equally the reason why our text says that we were dead in trespasses, under the sentence of death. In fact, the Bible speaks of all mankind, the world in general, as being a dead world--not that there are not people able to walk about, not that all have gone down into the tomb, but those who have gone into the tomb have merely gone to the place where all others are going, because the one sentence is upon all, for none are fit to live.
Brother Russell, do you say none are fit to live?
Yes, I think you are fit to live under present conditions, I think I am fit to live under present conditions, but I admit that we are not fit to live under the perfect conditions God has prepared according to His righteous law which we see [CR355] is so reasonable. You are not fit to live with the angels and like the angels, because with your imperfection of mind and body you would be making some trouble all the time. So would I. Even with the new nature begotten in us we find it difficult as New Creatures to live in harmony with the will of the Lord. And you sometimes make mistakes, don't you? So you see, then, as natural men and natural women we could never be fit to live everlastingly, because we would always bring in trouble wherever we would be, and God says he does not want anything of that kind going on in His Universe, but He intends to have a Universe in which every body will be happy, and everybody will be good, and everybody will be perfect.
Well, why did He make us imperfect, then, if He wants everybody to be perfect?
The Bible answers that God's work is perfect. We are not God's work. God made father Adam, and then father Adam by the law of nature propagated a race, but not until he himself had become a sinner, not until transgression, and sin, and unrighteousness, and the sentence of death, had come upon him; and, therefore, all of his race were born in sin, and we have been coming down all the way along--six thousand years of falling. Is it any wonder that our heads are not all right? Is it any wonder that today the very best we can do we cannot do perfectly? It is no wonder at all.
Why does God expect us to do perfectly, if we cannot?
God does not expect you to do perfectly. He knows you cannot do perfectly, and He gave the Law to Israel for the purpose of showing to them, and incidentally proving to us, that by the deeds of the Law can no flesh be justified in His sight. That gives up all hope, doesn't it? God has decreed that none but the perfect can keep His Law, and none but they shall have everlasting life. He has also proved that no human being is able to keep the Law. That proved that none of us could have eternal life unless God would do something for us.
Now, how will God do something for us? It is the old, old story of Jesus and His love, and the Heavenly Father and His love. We must not forget the Heavenly Father's love. I think in the past many of us have not been inclined to think how much the Heavenly Father is love. The Father Himself loveth you, you remember Jesus says to the Church. And again we read, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." And so the proper thought for us to have is not the one that is frequently given to children, and frequently held by older people, that God is very cross and very angry, and that He was just about to smite us and send us all to eternal torment when Jesus stepped in and said, "Oh, Father, please for my sake do not send all these people to eternal torment!" It makes out our Lord Jesus to be very loving, and makes the Heavenly Father to appear most evil and unjust; that He knew we were imperfect, knew we could not do perfectly, then was about to send us to eternal torment when we could not do perfectly. You see that is a wrong thought. As Bible students we are gradually getting rid of the error.
The right thought is that God from the very foundation of the world had a loving purpose in respect to our race. Did He know we would sin? Oh, yes, known unto the Lord are all His works. Did He know we would be imperfect? Yes, He knew it all. Why did He permit evil? Because He was so wise that He knew from beforehand how He could overrule the whole experience of mankind, and all these 6,000 years of sin and death, for our good. How could good come out of all this evil? What would be gained by that that could not have been better gained in some other way? Let us see what God's Word says. If He had not permitted sin, then men never would have known what would be the experiences of sin, how sinful sin is, and what evil conditions it promotes and brings about. Father Adam, we presume, had no idea what would be the result of his disobedience. He knew God had said, Thou shalt not sin, thou shalt not take of the forbidden fruit, but he did not know how it would bring all of this change of sin and sorrow, and mental, moral and physical depravity into the world. He did not for a moment think about all of the insane asylums, and all of the prisons and jails, and the weak-minded and depraved people in the world. He did not think how it would come to you and to me, and how our tendencies would all be downward because of the fall. The angels would never have known that. Nobody would ever have known the effect of sin if God had not permitted sin to come.
Now there is a difference between permitting sin and causing sin. For God to have caused the sin would have been to do evil. God does no evil: He tempts no man. He was not responsible for the sin coming into the world, but He did allow Satan to take his own way and be a rebel against the divine government. He had always treated Satan right. You know Satan's previous name was Lucifer, the morning star, the bright angel, one of the highest of the order of angels, and he, according to the Bible, became very ambitious, and thought he would like to have a power of his own to see what he could do if he had his liberty to direct things. In attempting to get that he became disobedient to God, a traitor against the Divine government. God could have stopped it at any moment; He could have arrested Satan and could have held him in restraint, so that he could not have uttered a word or done a single thing in opposition to God's plan. But God said, No, I will let Satan take his course and let all the angels see what the effect of sin amongst angels would be. So God did not hinder things, and Satan misrepresented God's character. He said to mother Eve that God had misstated things to her: that whereas God said they would die for eating of the forbidden fruit, I will tell you, said Satan, it is not true at all; you won't die; on the contrary, you will become like gods, you will just get to be like the angels. And when mother Eve was under temptation God did not interfere. God could have sent an angel to say, Beware! Remember you were warned that you would die if you ate that! But He let her alone; His Word was there; she had her full testing; she ate, disobeyed.
Then God could have said to Adam, Do not follow your wife's advice, you know what this is. I will give you another helpmate that is better than she is and if she dies it will not make any difference to you, for I will see you through in the matter. But He did not. God permitted the whole reign of sin to come in, with the tremendous influences for evil in the world.
Then you remember how other angels were tempted to sin, and many of them fell, and you know what a terrible time they had before the flood, and how at the flood God wiped out that order of things, and then after the flood God started a new order of things and let mankind and the angels see things and try it over again under somewhat different conditions.
So God allowed this reign of sin and death to illustrate certain pictures. It illustrated what righteousness is, the necessity for obedience to God, and that there can be no happiness except in being obedient to the Creator. That is all illustrated, you have learned it, and I have learned it. And just as sure as you and I have learned there can be no real happiness contrary to the divine arrangement, just so all the holy angels see as clear as crystal that whoever sins will suffer. They all know it now. But if you had told any of the angels beforehand, they would have said, Well, I don't know, how can you tell that? Where is your proof? There never had been any demonstration of sin before. The first manifestation of sin occurred when Satan became the enemy of God, then the second manifestation was when our first parents became transgressors. It looked as though God had no power. There was Satan in rebellion, why did not God stop it? I suppose the holy angels would say, Why does not God stop Satan from tempting those creatures of His, and from all these wrong things He is doing, bringing temptations in to the other angels? But God held His peace; He did not explain; He did not say anything. Then I presume--I don't know--the Bible does not say, but I presume that all the angels, or a good many of them, got the impression, Well, we thought God was able to do a great deal more than He is able to do. Surely if He were able to stop Satan and sin He would do it. And then came the temptation to doubt the Almighty's character and power. And then came the temptation to doubt God's wisdom--He did not know what He was doing, He did not know what Satan would do, He did not know what men were going to do. Everything was doubt and confusion, and all the angels would look on with astonishment as they would see the reign of sin and death progressing and running over hundreds of years,--When will it stop? What will be the end of all this? Is the whole Universe going into anarchy? What will become of this reign of sin and death? Of course some would say, Well, we have every confidence in the Almighty; we do not understand it--just as you and I said we did not understand it--it seems strange; what can it mean? Nobody seems to know. It seems an awful reign of sin and death, and apparently God is unable [CR356] to cope with the situation, and does not know what to do. And God allowed it.
And then when the time of the flood came He did put a stop to things. It had gone as far as it ought to go. And yet the flood came in such a way that the angels might have said--for there was room to doubt that the flood came providentially, because it was one of those great rings, the last one of them--Well, it so happened, that ring that was to stay up came down and drowned them all, and that let the Lord out of a bad dilemma, and let Him start it all over again.
Then we see Noah and his family start out with offering a sacrifice and saying that they wanted to serve God and in only a little while the downward tendency of sin made the whole earth full of violence again.
And then it was over 2,000 years before God said to Abraham that He intended some day to bless the world. That is the first thing God ever said about blessing the world. He never told anybody He ever intended to do anything for the world at all--just allowed it to go on, and on, and on. Now, then, if the angels heard that, and no doubt they did, they would say, God says to Abraham that He is going to bless the world. How will He do it? It is easier to say that He will bless the world than to do it. There is room to doubt, you see. Then Abraham had no child and he said, I do not see how I am to bless the world, I have not even any child, and God said it would be my child. So day after day and year after year went by and he did not even have a child; yet God said that through his posterity He intended to bless all mankind. There was plenty of room to doubt. God meant it to be so. He wanted to put it that way, that those who wanted to doubt could have as much chance as they chose, and those who wanted to believe would have as much chance for exercising faith as they chose. By and by Abraham's faith was rewarded. Isaac was born, and Abraham and Sarah looked at the little boy--Oh, yes, he is the long-promised Messiah, God is going to bless the world, here is the son of promise. Ishmael is not the one. Then Isaac grew up, and was not a very specially bright boy either. They did not quite understand it. He got to be a young man, and there was no sign of blessing the world; it seemed to be as far off as ever. There was every opportunity for the angels to doubt--another mistake, another blunder, another time God did not know what He was doing, and He promised more than He could accomplish. You see all the angels had plenty of testing.
Things went on, and by and by Isaac had two sons, and God said it would be through Jacob the blessing would come. Then Jacob's sons grew up, and they were pretty bad boys. They practically murdered their brother Joseph, and they were none too promising to bless the world. Yes, God's promise was, "In thy seed shall all the families of the world be blessed."
Then when Jacob died God indicated how all of Jacob's children would come in to be the heirs of this promise. But instead of getting up in the world where they could bless everybody else, they got right down into slavery, and sunk a little lower and a little lower, until the Egyptians had such power over them, taking away all their weapons whereby they could defend themselves, and made slaves of them, and even compelled them to kill their own children lest they should become too numerous. How was that blessing the world? Were they blessing the Egyptians? No. Did God forget all about His promise? No. How long was it from the time He promised Abraham until He began to manifest something to Moses? Over 400 years. Just think of that, the very line that God said the blessing would come through were a nation of slaves, in slavery to the main nation of that day. It did not look much like God was keeping His promise, did it? Then what happened? The next thing was, God raised up Moses, provided him an education, trained him in the very home of Pharaoh. It looked very remarkable. Even the Israelites could not realize it. At one time Moses proposed to help some of them. They said, Who made you our ruler? They would not have him to be the ruler. Moses was obliged to flee from the very people he wanted to help and benefit, the very people he thought he was to be leader of, and he was away forty years. Why, you say, God did not care anything for time at all, did He? Oh, my dear friends, God has lots of time. When God's due time came He sent for Moses to come back from the land of Midian right to the children of Israel. Now, Moses had been courageous before, he was ready to lead out the Israelites, ready to stand up for them. He preferred to be an Israelite and stand with God's people rather than to be in the house with Pharaoh and have all the pleasures of sin for a season, the Apostle says. But now when God said to Moses, I am ready for you to deliver Israel, Moses said, Oh, Lord, excuse me, I had enough of that before; I went to deliver them forty years ago, you know, and was not able to do it.
Moses, I am ready for you to deliver them.
Lord, please send someone else.
Now the Lord said, You are very meek and modest about the matter, and I will give you Aaron to be your mouthpiece, and he will be the one who will do most of the speaking. You will be behind him and tell him what to say, and he will be your mouthpiece to do the saying. Now go on.
So Moses and Aaron started out. Moses representing God and Aaron being the mouthpiece. What were they to do? They were to bear witness to the people of Israel that God wanted them to go out of the land of Egypt to offer sacrifice to Him, etc., and you remember how one plague after another came on the Egyptians until they finally let Israel go. Then it looked now for all the world as though things had come to the right place. The Israelites marched out. The wind blew the waters of the Red Sea back and left it dry enough for them to pass over in the night and by early morning they were on the other side. The Egyptian Army came along, the wind came the other way and the waters gradually rose on them and they were drowned. Then the Israelites said, God who has delivered us is evidently going to do for us all the wonderful things. So onward they went to Mt. Sinai. God said, Now are you ready? If you are ready I am.
They said, Yes, Lord, ready for anything.
Very well. Before I will give you any work in blessing of the world you will have to show that you are able to rule yourselves; you cannot expect me to put you up as teachers to instruct and guide the world unless you show that you can keep my law yourselves. That is fair enough, because we cannot teach others if we do not know ourselves. Are you ready, then, for me to make a covenant with you?
Oh, Lord, have we not been waiting for over 400 years?
All right, the Lord said through Moses, I will make the covenant.
They answered that all of these things they would do. They got the table of the Law, the ten commandments, and they would keep His commandments and He would bless them. They would grow great and influential and all the world would come under their sway. But it was only a little while until they had broken the commandments and found they were sinners. Then God arranged for them to have atonement days, to cover their sins for one year. So they tried an entire year to see if they could live without sin and keep the commandments of the Lord, so they would not die, but be worthy to be His people. They could not do it. They kept on with sickness and dying just the same. What was the matter? Was not God living up to His terms or were they not living up to the terms? Well, they found out finally that the fault was with themselves, that they had entered into a contract they were not able to keep; they had agreed to keep God's Law, and were not able to do it.
Now that is the very lesson God wanted them to learn-- but not them especially. The Apostle explains that in dealing with the nation of Israel God was dealing with them in a typical way, so you and I of this Gospel Age would get the lesson, we would see where they failed, and we would know that if those Jews failed to keep the Law, and could not keep the Law because they were fallen creatures, you and I would know that if we had been in their places we would have failed just the same as they did. So this would make us cry out, Lord, we must have help or we cannot keep the Law.
So God said to them, Now, my people, I appreciate your condition and the situation of things, and that you are not able to keep the Law, and I do not want you to be discouraged; I intend by and by to bring in a different order of things. I knew in advance you were not able to keep your Law Covenant, but I intend to give you another Law Covenant, and it will be more favorable to you. What did God mean by that? Had He given them too hard a law at first? No, no, He could not give a bad law. If He would give a bad law, then He would be a bad God, you see. The only law God could give would be a righteous law. Then what kind of a new covenant would it be that would be better than the one they had? The Bible tells us that the difference would be that there would be a better mediator of the New Covenant. Was not Moses a good Mediator? Was he not a very faithful leader of his people? Did he not leave the throne of [CR357] Egypt for them? Did he not try every way to be a faithful mediator between God and Israel? Yes, he did. How could God send a better mediator than Moses? This way: Moses was a member of the fallen race and imperfect. He gave all he could give, but he was only a typical character. He gave all he could give, but he was only a typical character. He had no real rights to give any more than anyone else had. Because all the race of Adam was under condemnation, all imperfect, and Moses just the same as the others--not as low as some, but nevertheless imperfect. Then how would this other mediator be better than Moses? This way: Moses as a typical mediator offered typical sacrifices, a bullock and a goat for the sins of the people, but these did not really take away the sin, they merely covered the sins for a year, but now God says, I purpose that not only the sins shall be covered, but I purpose a sacrifice that will really cancel all of those sins, blot them all out. I will make a new Covenant with you, saith the Lord, not according to that Covenant I made with you when I took you by the hand to lead you out of the land of Egypt, which covenant ye brake, but I will make a New Covenant with you, and I will remember your sins and iniquities no more. I will just forget all about them, as though you never had had them. And I will do more than that, because if I merely blot out all your past sins and leave you with the kind of heart you have now you would merely get into more sin, so I will take away the stony heart, --the hard heart, the selfish heart, the heart that would take advantage of its neighbor, and brother, and servant, the heart that would do selfish things for selfish purposes, to get something for itself.
Where did we get the hard heart? We got it through sin. Did Adam have a hard heart? No, Adam had a very tender heart, because he was in the image and likeness of God. Don't you think God has a tender heart? Yes. Be ye tenderhearted, said the Apostle. Be ye like unto your Father in Heaven. So God is going to take away the stony heart and give instead a heart of flesh. Now we can see how the blessing is going to come. When God does all of that for mankind, it will be lifting them clear up out of their fallen condition. And if they get back to where they have a heart of flesh, the image of God, as Adam had, then they can do perfectly; they can keep His law, and He can give them eternal life. Then they can be used of Him in blessing anybody else who is not in that condition.
Has God done that for the Jews yet? No, not any more than he has taken away the stony heart from amongst the Gentiles. He has not taken the stony heart out of the flesh of any people. We have not found any that are back to the image and likeness of God. Why not? Because the time of that covenant has not yet come. When will all of that be, and how long will it take? It is for the antitypical Moses when he comes to bring in this New Covenant and cancel the sin and give the new heart. How long will it take? It will take the antitypical Moses exactly a thousand years. What will he reign for? To overcome sin and take away the hardness, dissolve the hard heart and give instead the warm, gentle, sympathetic heart that was lost way back 6,000 years ago.
Well, now, what is going on in the meantime? We are waiting for the antitypical Moses. Everything in the type must have an antitype. Here is the Law Covenant, and here is to be the New Law Covenant, but there could not be any Law Covenant until there was a Mediator of that covenant. Who is that to be? Christ, the Head, and the church, His body. Moses could not do anything in the way of instituting a covenant until first of all he killed his sacrifices. He first killed the bullock, and then the goat, and not until he had killed the bullock and the goat was he prepared to make that covenant. And what is the antitype of that? Why, the great antitypical Moses must make his sacrifice. Jesus first of all sacrificed himself, then he must sacrifice the church, and that takes all of this Gospel age. He killed the antitypical bullock when he gave up his own life, when he offered himself sacrificially for our sins, when he said, Not my will but thine be done; when without resistance he allowed himself to be led as a lamb to the slaughter. And then at Pentecost he began dealing with the antitypical goat class, and I hope you are a member of that class, and I hope I am a member of it. How many of them are there? Perhaps 144,000. I used to think that was too few, but the more I come to think about it the more it seems to me that is a very large number. I would wonder more that there would be that many than that there would be more, as I come to see how few there are who seem to be glad to lay down their lives in the Lord's service. If all of these who would be with the Lord are to be footstep followers, copies of His spirit and zeal, I wonder where He would find 144,000. But then the Lord knows his own, and if God has fixed the number at 144,000, not one less will do, and there will not be one more in the company. The election of the church will be at an end, the body of the antitypical Moses will be completed, "For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you." (Acts 3:22.)
Now we see how God has been proceeding. Coming back to our text, "You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins," we see the whole world were sinners, and you and I were of that same class, and just as condemned and devoid of life as the rest, but God has made us alive. How so? Through the imputation of Christ's merit in advance of the world. Why so? Because God wishes now to select a special class from the world. Not everybody has been invited to this. There are millions living today that never so much as heard of Jesus Christ; and there are thousands living right here in San Diego, and in California, and in New York, and all over the civilized world, that have never heard in the Bible sense of hearing. They have heard something about it, but they did not hear in their minds; they have natural sight, but do not see with the eyes of their understanding. They do not comprehend that they are sinners and [CR358] God has provided a Savior, and that he is now asking those invited to come in. How could that be? From prejudice, superstition, false teaching, false theories--some from parents and some from outside. Many of the creeds have false doctrines in them. One asks, How could a good man put bad things in a creed? The Bible says the devil put these things in the creed; the devil made part of our creeds. Is not that hard? It is pretty hard. How could he do it? Oh, he has been working at this business a long time; he is an expert hand. The Apostle says we are not ignorant of his devices, and speaks of the "wiles of the devil." He is wiley; he is like the serpent; he is deceitful. He misled our forefathers, and they would think they were going to do something very zealously for God, and he would lead them way past the right mark and get them to do something very much to God's discredit and to their own; as, for instance, in the case of Brother Calvin. I can see, as I look back over the pages of history, how the devil has been working hard with all people that have ever tried to get out of darkness into light. That makes me all the more solicitous for you and for myself--and for myself especially. It is all right for you to watch for me, but still more important that I watch for myself; and I am trying to watch out for the devil all the time. I know he would like to do me up, and I know the Lord is willing I shall not be done up, so I am going to try to walk very near to the Lord, and if we thus walk near the Lord, in humility of mind, in full confidence in his power, trusting only His Word, and if anything would seem to lead us off to do some guessing for ourselves to come right back and say, No guessing for me, I have the Word of the Lord. I will stay by what is written--thus it is written; I will walk according to the way it is written and leave out those things that I might be tempted to guess at. If you would guess at something, and bolster it up, then by and by somebody will be coming along and if it is written they will have the advantage, and your pride would say, I have said so and it is so. But the Bible says for you and for me to walk circumspectly. That means to walk looking around you. It does not mean that we are to be living in fear and abject dread; that would mean we would lose our faith in God; we are not hoping that by any strength or power of our own we are going to come off conquerors and win the great prize; our confidence is in God; he has begun a good work in you and he is able to do it; but we are to walk with fear in the sense of having such respect for God and such respect for his promises, and such anticipations of the grand outcome, that it will make us very careful.
If coming days shall bring severe trials, then coming days will also bring us increased joy; for as the Apostle says, These light afflictions which are but for a moment work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. How are they light afflictions? In proportion as you get the matter balanced in your mind, they are light afflictions. Your mind balances the afflictions of this present time with the joys and blessings of God's favor now and in the future, and from that standpoint what is the trifling worth of this, that and the other thing of life in comparison with God's favor, and love, and promises, and everlasting blessing in the future: The more you study it, the lighter the afflictions appear to you, until they begin to say, I dreaded those things so much and really they are not worth thinking about at all. So you will get to thinking less and less about the affairs of life. You will say, Well, let them do what they will, I do not care; my heart is fixed on the eternal God, why should I worry about these other things?
So, then, dear friends, we are dead with Christ, dead to the world, and we are alive toward God as New Creatures. Having begun in the spirit, let us walk in the spirit; let us not try as New Creatures to walk after the flesh, but rather put away the defilements of the flesh of every kind--the desire for wealth, fame, name, ease, pleasure. How shall we walk after the spirit? God, through the spirit of His truth, has told us if we would have His highest favor, the great favor and blessing to which He has called us, we must walk in the footsteps of Jesus--self-sacrifice. And this is our desire --may I speak for you and for myself? This is our determination, by the grace of God helping us we will go on unto perfection, and we will reach the glorious prize of our High Calling in Jesus.
[CR358]
Santa Ana, California
THE NEXT morning, Sunday, we arrived at this place for a public meeting, proof of which can be had from the accompanying photograph of our great train and party.
Satan came here also, and had succeeded through his representatives, in getting the Opera House condemned, so that we could not hold meetings in it. However, other places were found and the meetings were held.
Since the tour, word has come that a sharp investigation has been made of the condemnatory proceedings, the result of which is that it has been decided that the building was perfectly safe to hold twice its capacity, and that some other motive must have been back of the order to condemn the building, and the directors of the building publicly stated through the papers that they had been "played with." Perhaps they do not know who did it, but we think we have a pretty good idea who it was and why--because "darkness hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds be made manifest."
The meeting was held, however, with about 1,200 in attendance, with an overflow meeting going on at the same time, so thus we see that the Lord causes the wrath of man to praise him.
[CR359]
Pasadena, California
GOING on from Santa Ana, we reached Pasadena in time for the advertised public meetings, and here there was a large attendance, probably 1,300. One hundred and eighty-three addresses for literature were handed in. This city is one of the garden spots of the world, and when the whole earth gets to be even as beautiful as Pasadena it will be grand, yet we know that it will be still better.
[CR359]
San Francisco, California
THIS was another of our "big" appointments, and it was the halfway point of our tour. Brother Russell spoke twice, once to the interested and once to the public. Seven hundred interested were present and about 4,000 at the public meeting, and 408 requests were handed in for literature. We felt that our visit here was indeed very profitable. This new, modern city is nearly a miracle in itself. Seven years ago the city, covering an area of ten square miles, was destroyed by earthquake and fire. Today a new San Francisco, at a cost of over $500,000,000, stands on the sight of the old, and is graced with as fine a collection of buildings as any city in the world. They contemplate holding a World's Fair here in 1915.
[CR359]
The Temple of God
MY TOPIC for this afternoon, dear friends, is found in the Apostle's words, "For the Temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." (1 Cor. 3:17.) As Christian people, Bible Students from all denominations, it would seem that we have something in our faith that is in sympathy and harmony with each denomination, the world over. Do our Presbyterian friends speak of the election? We more. Do our Methodist friends have the doctrine of free grace? We more. Do our Baptist friends understand the importance of baptism, to some extent? We more. Do our friends of the Christian denomination, and our Congregational friends, appreciate the great privileges of individuality in church government? We more. Do our Masonic friends understand something about the Temple, and being Knights Templars, and so on? We more. Do our Roman Catholic and Church of England friends believe in a Universal church? We more. In other words, it would seem as though the message of God's Word has been more or less subdivided, and each denomination has taken hold of a piece of the truth, and around that bit of truth has gathered a good deal that we think is erroneous. But we are glad they have that little bit of truth. If they had not had some truth at least they never would have had an existence at all. So one has taken a little line of truth, and encircled it with theories and made a separate church. God never said they should make a separate church. God never said to make a Baptist church, or Presbyterian, or Methodist church, etc. The Lord intended to make one Church, and he intended that one Church should have not merely a little scrap of the truth, but all the truth.
We are not finding fault with our neighbors and friends --not at all; for we remember we had very similar ideas, and not very long ago; but, without finding any fault with anybody, we are glad that we are coming to see a more reasonable and harmonious way, and, abandoning all church creeds and fences that so long have separated God's people, we come together upon the platform of the Bible, and everything that is in the Bible, and the Bible only. Is not that very happifying to us? Is not that what is bringing us so much blessing in the study of God's Word, as International Bible Students? It is. So I am glad to address delegates especially here from the Bay cities, and also including some thirty-five states represented in the excursion party.
I am very glad to have this particular opportunity of saying a word about some of the things in which we agree with our Masonic friends, because we are speaking in a building dedicated to Masonry, and we also are Masons. I am a Free Mason. I am a free and accepted Mason, if I may carry the matter to its full length, because that is what our Masonic brethren like to tell us, that they are free and accepted Masons. That is their style of putting it. Now I am a free and accepted Mason. I trust we all are. But not just after the style of our Masonic brethren. We have no quarrel with them. I am not going to say a word against Free Masons. In fact, some of my very dear friends are Masons, and I can appreciate that there are certain very precious truths that are held in part by our Masonic friends. I have talked to them at times, and they have said, How do you know about all of these things? We thought nobody knew anything about these things except those who had access to our very highest logic.
I said that I had been in conference with the Great Master Workman, the Lord himself, and I have secret information through the Holy Spirit and guidance in respect to what the Bible says, and that contains all the truth, I believe, on every subject. And so if we talk to our Masonic friends about the Temple and its meaning, and about being good Masons, and about the Great Pyramid, which is the very emblem they use, and what the Great Pyramid signifies, our Masonic friends are astonished. One who had been a Mason a long time recently bought a lot of books that had the Great Pyramid discussed, and sent them to I am sure a thousand Masons. He paid for them and sent them out at his own expense. He wanted the Masons to see something about the Great Pyramid. He knew they were greatly interested in that. But we are not going to discuss the Great Pyramid this afternoon. We are going to discuss free and accepted Masonry--the Bible Masonry, my dear friends.
The Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter are our authority for saying that we are the Temple of God, and that the Temple of God is holy. What does the Lord mean by that? He means this: That God who condemned the whole world as sinners, and declared he would have no fellowship with sinners, has provided a way by which these sinners can come back into harmony with him. And they can only come back through the arrangement He has made in respect to this great Temple. Well, you say, where is the Temple by which the world can come back to God?
I answer, the Temple that God purposes is not yet built.
It must be a Great Temple, Brother Russell--all of these centuries and the building not built yet?
That is so. The Great Master Craftsman of our High Order of Free and Accepted Masonry, the Lord Jesus Christ, laid the foundation of it all; as the Bible says, Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ. He has the foundation for high and acceptable masonry, and all that pertains to it.
And what has been going on since Jesus' day?
St. Peter says that God is selecting living stones to be parts of that great Temple he intends to construct.
Who are the living stones, and what does it mean?
You may be one of the living stones, and I may be one; St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, St. James, and all the holy people of God from their day down, have been invited to come in and be living stones in this great Temple which God is erecting.
And this great Temple had its figure back in Solomon's day. The Temple which Solomon erected was a figure, or picture, of the great Temple which God is erecting. The Temple Solomon built had its peculiarities. One very especial peculiarity was that the great stones were taken out from right underneath the site. I was in that quarry once and saw it myself; and some stones were lying there that had been partly prepared and apparently abandoned. But the Temple was built of those stones brought from right near where it was built.
And Solomon's Temple, you remember, had the peculiarity that our buildings of today have; namely, that each stone when it is numbered is made exactly to fit the place in which it is to be located. And then it is marked definitely for that place with signs which the builders understand, and when they come to the construction one stone goes upon another, and everything goes up quietly and orderly, and no confusion about it. Just so it was in the building of that [CR360] Temple, which is the first building we know of in the world's history that was built along the lines of our modern masonry. That great Temple of Solomon's was built and came together, every stone fitted to its place, and not the sound of a hammer; they did not need to chisel or do anything of the kind; it was not a particle out of true.
What does that represent? That represents you and I; we are the living stones, the Apostle says. And what about our chiseling, and polishing, and branding, for our places? You can see the fitness of it, dear brethren. I need not particularly dwell on that. The trials and difficulties of life are the chiselings that come to all of these stones that God is dealing with. The quarry is the world in general. We are taken out of the world, separated from the world, but we are chiseled in the quarry, made ready for our positions and then taken to the proper place. And that has proceeded for how long? For 1,800 and more years, this work of chiseling and preparation.
Brother Russell, don't you mean longer than that?
No, my dear brother.
Were there no living stones before that?
No, Jesus was the foundation stone; there were no stones chiseled out before he came; none could be accepted before that. He did the great work of founding this great order to which we belong, the order of Free and Accepted Masonry. He is the Grand Master, and we are not to recognize any other. We may indeed recognize assistants in the work, and superintendents in this, that or the other division in the quarry, or in the building, etc., but there is the one Grand Master who has the supervision of the whole matter. He is our Lord and all ye are brethren; one is your Master, even Christ.
You know what experiences you have had in the way of separating you from the world; it was a difficult matter to block out your character first of all and come to the place where you would be separated from the other surroundings of the present time. It was still more difficult perhaps in some respects that you should receive the chiselings, blow after blow, experience after experience, trial after trial, in order that you might be fitted and shaped and prepared for a place in the glorious Temple that is yet to be constructed.
The polishing process is also going on. The polishing properly comes last, I presume. I trust you are getting some of the polishing now. You know we get most of the polishing with each other. You may polish me a little, and I polish you a little; as the Scriptures express the matter, the Bride makes herself ready; it is a polishing process. And here I see a lesson for us as the Lord's followers: that while various severe difficulties, trials and tests may come from the world, yet this very finest polishing of all will come when in contact with the brethren. Therefore, if we learn to love the brethren, and to put up with all the various weaknesses and imperfections that they as imperfect beings may bring to bear on us (and that we bring to bear on them), and if we are rightly exercised by these rubbings together, we get on finally the polishing, the polishing that the Lord describes, you remember, as the fruitage of the Holy Spirit, saying, the fruits of the Spirit are manifest, which are these: meekness, gentleness, patience, long suffering, brotherly-kindness, love. And if these things be in you and abound--if they polish you--ye shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord. And so it is an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Well, what about the Temple, Brother Russell?
The Temple is in process of construction, we believe, now.
And it has not been in process of construction all down through the age?
No, simply the foundation was laid, and here we think we have the real picture of the Pyramid: that the foundation was laid in Heaven, and that is the top stone, as the Apostle says. Now that all seems very strange, but we must remember that all of these pictures are unnatural--they are heavenly pictures. The top stone, Jesus, was first laid there, and all the stones must be fitted up to Him. So the Apostle says that you and I are to be built up into Him, into conformity with the laws of that great Master of ours; for you know the Head of the Pyramid is a perfect pyramid itself, and all the stones under that simply come into line with the top stone; and that top stone is what the Bible declares Jesus is --the chief corner stone, the foundation of all, and we are being built up instead of being built down. You see how that can be? The Apostle says we must all be changed, and the gravitation will be the other way--changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom. You could never gravitate upward unless you had the change; but; changed into spirit beings like the Lord, you will be built up and completed with Him on the heavenly plane, far above angels, principalities and powers and every name that is named.
When will this Temple be completed? To our understanding, with the end of this age comes the building of the Temple. Just as they first got ready all the stones and all materials for Solomon's Temple, and then began the building of it, so we understand that our great Master Workman, the Captain of our Salvation, has been getting ready these living stones all of this time--supervising the matter under strict rules and regulations as to the shape, size, quality and everything--and not until the whole number of stones is completed will the construction of the Temple begin.
What will the construction be?
The construction of the Temple will be that resurrection change from earthly nature to heavenly nature.
But, Brother Russell, all the stones, perhaps, were finished when Solomon began his building?
I answer that I presume they were all practically finished, but I do not know that the last of the polishing had been put on all of the stones before some of the work began. So I am assuming now that the work of construction of the Temple has begun. And the Scriptures so intimate when they say that the dead in Christ shall arise first--beforehand--and then afterward we which are alive and remain shall be caught up to be with them and with the Lord. So we who are alive and remain, not yet being caught up, are still in the place of polishing and preparation; the good work of the Lord is going on with us, and it is getting us ready for our change. The Temple will not be completed until every living stone is there. And then what? The next thing will be that which our Masonic friends make so much of, and which we make so much of, namely: the glorification of the temple. That is a grand thing in Masonry. They picture how Solomon, the wise--the type of Jesus--offered the sacrifice, and how God accepted it, and the glory of the Lord came into the Temple. Just so our Temple, the Church in glory, will not be the Temple of God until the Heavenly Father himself shall have recognized it. It will be the work of the Lord Jesus to build with these living stones, to shape them, polish them, and finally to translate them to glorious conditions by the resurrection change, and then, all changed, the Temple built, not another stone to be added, not a stone lacking, then it will wait for the Father's action. And what will that be? Pictorially, he shows us. The glory of the Lord will come upon this living Temple, of which we hope to be the living stones beyond the vail--spiritual beings.
This is represented, you remember, in various ways. One way is in the ninety-first Psalm, where the Lord Jesus is represented as introducing the Bride, and how she shall be brought in raiment of fine needle work and gold into the presence of the King. The Bride class is one picture, the Temple class another picture, but from this picture of the Bride coming in we have the thought that Jesus must first, as it were, as the great Advocate for the Church, present us blameless and irreprovable before the Father in love. Then the Father accepts us. He has already accepted these living stones in the sense that they have received the spirit of the Lord. The begetting of the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle tells us, is the earnest of our inheritance; that which we are to inherit is the glorious fulness of the Father's favor and love beyond the vail. What we now have is a mere foretaste of it--just a little sample. And if the foretaste is so good, what will the fulness be, when we shall be made like Him, and be filled with the Father's spirit and the divine power, to be thereafter forever God's agency, God's Temple, through which He will manifest himself to angels and to men!
What will be the use of this Temple after it is completed? And what is the Temple for? The use of the Temple was all pictured back in the Law Dispensation. It was to be a house of prayer for all nations. That is what the Temple at Jerusalem was particularly. You remember it had different courts. First of all was the Most Holy, and the Holy, then came the court in which the Jews might come; then came the women's court, then the court of the Gentiles, and various divisions, representing different classes, as it were. So during the Millennial age--and this was a picture of the Millennial age-- after the Temple shall have been glorified, God will be in [CR361] the Church, the divine power operating in it, and all nations will begin to draw near to God! and in order to do so they must draw near to this Temple, because the glory of God will be in her. And this is the name wherewith she shall be named--The Righteousness of Jehovah. That is to be the name of the church. Will we really be righteous, then? Oh, yes, none except those who are absolutely righteous will be there.
All the nations, heathen and all classes, Jews and Gentiles, will come to the Father through this Temple. Who will be the Priests is another picture. The Priests in this new Temple of the future will be, first, Jesus the great High Priest --a King and Priest together, a priest upon his throne, after the order of Melchisedec. He is not on the throne yet; he is waiting. Where is he waiting? Why, the Bible says he is waiting at the Father's right hand. What does it mean by right hand? That is the place of chief favor, right next to the Father. The Father said, Sit at my right hand until the right time comes for your foes to be subjected to you. It is not time yet; just wait awhile. And the time of waiting is the time for preparing those living stones for the Temple. The time in which we wait also represents the preparation of the Royal Priesthood. But we are not Royal Priests yet. Did not St. Peter say, Ye are a Royal Priesthood? Yes, but he was speaking prophetically. You are to be a Royal Priesthood. There is still a chance that you should not be. It is only those who will be declared worthy to sit with him in his throne that will be the Royal Priesthood. "Blessed and holy are all those who have part in the first (chief) resurrection; on such the second death shall have no power." They will be divine. They shall be priests unto God and unto Messiah, and shall reign with Him a thousand years--"A thousand years, earth's coming glory." Yes, a thousand years for the blessing of the world through this great Temple that God is preparing. A thousand years during which these Knights Templar are to scatter blessings to all the families of the earth. We may not wear our white feathers now, but we will have all white raiment by and by. "They shall walk with Him in white, for they are worthy."
Now the question arises, How can we become members of this order? Would you like to become one of these Knights Templar on the heavenly plane. I am not saying anything against the earthly Knights Templar. You can use your own judgment. You know I never advise one way or another respecting what things we shall eat, or drink, or wherewithal we shall be clothed. I merely advise how we come into harmony with God, according to the Bible, and each man and woman must use his or her own judgment respecting the will of God. If you think it is the will of God you should join the Odd Fellows, and don't feel you are Odd Fellow enough in becoming a follower of the Lord, go and join the Odd Fellows. If you feel that you want to become a member of the Free and Accepted Order of Masonry, and do not feel free and masonic enough as a follower of Christ, God bless you, use your judgment; that is yours to decide, not mine. But now I am talking about this great order of masonry of which Jesus is the Grand Master. This Order is to be entered in a peculiar way. There are certain conditions, --the low gate, the narrow way, the difficult path.
Although I have never been a Mason, I have heard that in Masonry they have something which very closely illustrates all of this. It is in riding the goat, etc. And the Bible calls for the goat, you know. The Bible tells you that your goat, which you have to ride more or less every day, is your own flesh. Our Masonic friends have it down very fine. I do not know where they got it so well. I have often wondered where they found out so many of the secrets of our High and Accepted Order of Masonry.
From the time you come in to be a member of the Royal Priesthood, a living stone, a member of the craft of Masonry, from the Lord's standpoint, to be chiseled yourself and to help chisel others, and help prepare one another for the kingdom, a place in the Royal Temple,--from that moment on it was necessary for you to enter by that narrow, difficult way. Jesus described it, saying, If any man will be my follower --that means, if any man will be a living stone in the Temple, if any man will be a member of this High, Free and Accepted Masonry--let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
And the Masons have another thing, I am told, that represents it--every stitch of clothing is to be removed, nothing on at all: "nothing in my hand I bring." That is the way it reads with us. The High Order of Masonry does not leave you a single thing when you enter it. You give up all to the Lord--everything, yourself included. That is the condition. It is the most stringent condition known in any secret order in the world.
Do you mean that the Lord's Church is a secret order?
Yes, surely it is. It is the most wonderful secret order the world has ever known. The mystery of God is not finished yet, the Bible says--the mystery of God which he has kept secret from the foundation of the world--will not be finished until the sounding of the seventh trumpet. The Bible tells us that the Church is the mystery--the mystery is represented in the Church. So we may walk through the world, and the world knows us not, even as it knew Him not.
Did the world know the great Mason when he was here?
No.
Did the world slay the great Master Mason?
Yes.
And Masonry also has its chief Mason slain. It is the same picture. The Masons are accepting that first Mason that was slain, because he had the secret. It is their theory that this first Mason had the secret plans for the Temple, and that when he was slain more or less of the mystery connected with the Temple was lost, and that certain features will not be completed until his resurrection. So the Masons as a body theoretically declare that they are waiting for the return of that first Master Mason who lost his life back in Solomon's day because of the secret of the Temple. So you and I as under-masons are waiting for the return of our Master Mason who gave his life on this very account in connection with this secret of the construction of the Temple, the Church.
So we might find other analogies, but this one of full consecration is the main thing. The only way in which one enters this High Order of Divine Masonry is by the giving up of himself, full self-surrender--and by riding his goat to death. The goat represents your human nature. If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him; if we be dead with him, it is the condition on which we shall live with him.
It is interesting to know something about the degrees of our Masonry, too. There are some who take merely the initiatory degree, and never go on unto perfection. The first step, or degree, is recognition of Jesus as our Savior, and faith in Him. That will give us a right to go on to higher degrees. Then if we would become of those who have a right to enter into the secrets of the Lord, and know about the mysteries that belong to this High and Accepted Order of Masonry, we must go on to higher degrees, because those who are in the first degree practically know very little. The Apostle tells us that the natural man, the world, receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. So then, since the mysteries of this Order must be spiritually discerned, you see there are secrets that nobody on earth can find out.
More than that, our Masonic friends have great trouble in keeping their secrets from leaking out, but God in his great Secret Society has fixed it so that you can tell all you like about it, and the other man cannot understand it unless he has the key. Jesus preached in the world, preached out in public, and thousands heard him, but very few understood. And you and I might tell the good tidings of great joy, and the Bible says none of the wicked shall understand. Why? Because they must belong to this Order before they have the power, the hearing ear. "Blessed are your ears, for they hear." "Blessed are your eyes, for they see." Not everybody has the hearing ear and seeing eye. It is only those who have come into this divine masonry that have this spiritual insight, and this spiritual guidance, and may know the things that are freely given unto us. It is something that is freely given to one class, and not intended for anybody else. Why not for everybody? Because God is not dealing with the world. He will deal with the world after he has built the Temple. But they will never be priests, or members of the temple. They will have a great blessing, restitution, human perfection. It will be grand for the world, but it would not be for them to know all about the secrets of this masonry God is carrying on; they would interfere with God's plan; as, for instance, if all the Jews had understood about our Lord Jesus, if they had understood his parables and dark sayings, they would not have crucified him. Then how would the Scriptures be fulfilled? How would God's plan have been carried out? St. Peter said to some of the Jews, I wot that in ignorance ye did this and also your elders, for if they had known they would not have crucified the Prince of Life. How wise then on God's part to keep a little part secret from the world and [CR362] not let them know too much. Besides, in proportion as the world has knowledge in that same proportion it has increased responsibility.
The more I see of God and His Book, the more I appreciate his wisdom and love and kindness, not only toward this Royal Priesthood, this Temple Class, but also toward those who are ultimately to be blessed of Him through these.
So, then, I repeat what Jesus said about the terms of membership. I do not know if we are all members of this order or not. You know our order is so secret we cannot know each other always. Is not that wonderful? I find that is so with Masons also. Many Masons shake hands with me and give me what I know is their grip; they don't know me from a Mason. Something I do seems to be the same as Masons do, I don't know what it is; but they often give me all kinds of grips and I give them back, then I tell them I don't know anything about it except just a few grips that have come to me naturally. But the Lord has so arranged this matter that you and I cannot know who are the approved Masons; He alone knows; He alone knows how true and loyal we are at heart. We might put on uniforms and wear feathers--and I think there are many Masons perhaps that go around and parade who do not come up to all the high standards of Masonry either, and some of their Masonic brethren are perhaps ashamed of them. So there are many who come in and have more or less of an outward appearance of being Christians and are not such really at heart. I wonder how many of us here present have taken the first step, the first degree? I wonder how many have gone on to take the second and third degrees? I wonder how many have come into Knighthood--shall I say?--to be Knights Templar? That simply means to be very honorable in connection with this Temple service; as, for instance, to be leaders in the Church. That is getting up to one of the high degrees, to be leaders in the Church of Christ, to be Knights Templar, to be amongst those who are special functionaries in any matter pertaining of the interests of the Temple, and know most about the things of the Temple.
You know that in these orders of Masonry, as they progress from one step to another, they learn more and more, and there are Masons in the thirty-second degree that know a great many things that Masons of the fourteenth or sixteenth plane would not know. And those on the fourteenth plane know a great deal more than those down in the third degree. It is a matter of increased knowledge. So it is in the Spiritual Temple. The Apostle urges us to come up higher. He tells us to grow in grace, and grow in knowledge, and grow in character likeness of our Lord, and become more and more like the great Chief Commander, the great High Priest of our profession, the great Templar of all Templars, the one who died for us and set us an example; who not only redeemed us and gave us an opportunity to come in and be members of this higher fraternity, but also set us an example of how we also should walk.
A Mason will tell you with a great deal of pride, we Masons try to live up to a high standard. I am sure they do. So I say to you, dear friends. We of the Free and Accepted Order of Masons of the Lord Jesus Christ's Commandery have the very highest standard, and ours is not the cross that is on the head of the sword, but ours is the cross of Christ, the cross with which we must be marked day by day. And our marks are not uniforms and white feathers, but our commander has given us different kinds of marks if we belong to his high Commandery. One of the very highest of this order of ours, a thirty-second degree spiritual Mason I will call him, was St. Paul. St. Paul in one of his epistles boasted about the kinds of marks he bore. He said, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am one of His. What did he mean? Oh, they were not marks the world would appreciate! They were marks such as our Savior had, and such as all the high spiritual Masons must have.
Where were they, Brother Russell?
St. Paul goes on to tell us, as Jesus had the mark of having been smitten and condemned, and beaten and crucified, those were his marks of faithfulness to God, to truth and to righteousness. So St. Paul says, so many times was I shipwrecked, so many times did I receive thirty-nine lashes over my back, and the salt then rubbed on to make it smart and leave a scar. And he said, in this will I glory. These are the marks and the Masonic Fraternity does not know much about that kind of marks. It is generally very honorable amongst men, but our Society has its own marks, and there is one that knows all these marks. If you receive any marks in his service, he tells you, Faithful is he who called you who also will do it. What will he do? Oh, he will give us exceedingly, abundantly more than we could have asked or thought and all of these light afflictions which are but for a moment, transitory, shall work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Where? Beyond the vail, in that Temple which is about to be constructed, in the Royal Priesthood, that is about to be established, of which Jesus is the head.
Now, have you taken the first step of humility to acknowledge your sins? Have you acknowledged you have nothing in your hand to bring to make you worthy to be accepted of God? Have you acknowledged that you are trusting in the precious blood of Jesus? Have you taken these degrees? Have you said, Simply to Thy cross I cling? Have you taken that degree?
Have you gone on then to say, Lord, I give myself to Thee? And have you received the initiation into this high degree in which you may be called a Priest, a saint of God, a member of the Royal Priesthood? I hope you have.
And are you going on still from grace to grace, from knowledge to knowledge, from one degree to another degree? Are you laying aside the things of life that you may more and more practice or work these things that belong to our order of Free and Accepted Masonry? It is the grandest Masonry of all. It is the greatest Temple of all. All the other Temples, all the other societies, are only shadows and pictures, or figures, of this one which is the great one of all. No matter where you may come from, no matter who you may have been when you came into the lodge of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be one of this Order, you have a right to the regalia and all that belongs to the Order. And you are not at liberty to go back on that which you have attained. There is only one way that anybody whom the Lord accepts and gives a degree of the Holy Spirit can go out. And if he is once in, there is only one way to put him out, and that must be according to the Lord's arrangements; because there is a secret writing of the names even in our Order. Their names are written in Heaven. Everything is kept secret. Nobody even knows who the members are. What do you mean by Free and Accepted Masonry?
We are free, my dear brethren; not free to do sin, thank God! we do not wish to do sin. Our very desire to come into relationship with God means that we do not love sin, but we are free from it, free from the domination of sin, free from the fear of death, free from that condition of sin and death in which we once were by nature when we were children of wrath even as others. The shackles have fallen off. If the Son makes you free, then are ye free indeed. And thus every man made free by the Lord Jesus Christ, through the merit of his sacrifice, in thus presenting his body a living sacrifice and being received of God, and inducted fully into this Masonic Fraternity, into this Masonry of the highest order, into this Royal Priesthood, happy is his position, for the spirit of Glory and of God rests on him. And the more he is laying down his life, the more faithful he is, the more attentive to the rules of the Order, the more progress he will make, the higher will be his station; he will rise from stage to stage and from degree to degree until he shall have the highest rank and be in the fullest sense in favor with the great Chief Captain of our Salvation.
The Lord gives another picture of the Temple through the Apostle Peter. It is a very good thing to have this in view at the same time. It is one thing to think of the glory and another thing to think of the present time difficulties. He says to each of us, Know ye not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit? Those persons who have received the Holy Spirit are Temples of the Holy Spirit. It is not the world. The world by nature knows not God; the world is under condemnation; the world are called in the Bible, "children of wrath." God has not begun to deal with them yet nor to give the blessings He intends for them. He is now only dispensing blessings that belong to the Church class, to those who come into this position of receiving the Holy Spirit. Now we have not received the Holy Spirit in full. We explained a while ago that the Holy Spirit in full will be given beyond the vail, when all of these living stones as the completed Temple will be filled with the Glory of God. That will be the glorification in full. But there is a sense in which you received the Holy Spirit when you gave up your will to the Lord, and the Holy Spirit came into your own heart. And in that sense of the word this body of yours became a temple. Wherever God's spirit is, there is a temple. So the Apostle says, Know ye not that ye are the temple [CR363] of the Holy Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you? Have you received it, my dear brother? And is it dwelling in you? I hope you have not grieved it or ignored it, or lived contrary to this new spirit with which you have been begotten. The Apostle says, Grieve not the Holy Spirit wherewith you were sealed unto the day of redemption. From the very time that stone was taken to be worked upon, from the time it was sealed, the preparation began. That is, it was marked as one of the stones of the Temple. We have received the seal, the mark of the Holy Spirit. Now, then, the chiseling and polishing goes on. The Apostle says we have this treasure, the Holy Spirit, in earthen vessels that the glory may be of God. That is to say, God's Holy Spirit that you have received constitutes you a temple. It is not a very satisfactory temple, is it? No, it is not. It is more like a tabernacle, as the Apostle elsewhere calls it.
What is the difference between a temple and a tabernacle? A temple is a permanent structure, a tabernacle is a temporary structure. So the Apostle calls our present condition, in which the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts, a tabernacle condition; it is not to last forever; it is to be for the present time. If we are rightly exercised by this power of God in us, and learn the lessons and have the experiences, then we will be ready for the Temple conditions. They are different pictures--blended pictures. The Temple is one figure and the Tabernacle is another. But the thought is, if the Holy Spirit dwell in you, that means that you should regard your bodies very sacredly. The Apostle in that same connection, goes on to say, What communion hath light with darkness? What harmony is there between the Temple of God and the Temple of idols? Or, between the purity that belongs to the Temple of God and the impurities that belong to the flesh, the world and the devil? Do you see the wide distinction? You have been accepted into this high Order of being Temples of the Living God, and he has placed his Holy Spirit in you, and now we see that as a Temple of God we should be pure and clean. We see that this sanctifying power of God extends and operates through all your powers, in your mind as well as in your tongue, and in your words, and in your hands, and where your feet should go.
And so one of our hymns says most beautifully:
"Take my life and may it be,
Lord, acceptable to thee;
Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet and let them be
Swift on errands, Lord, for thee;
Take my voice and let it bring
Honor always to my King.
Take my lips and let them be
Moved with messages from thee;
Take my silver and my gold;
Nothing, Lord, would I withhold."
We are all His Temple--the whole Body is the Temple of God--and here we see finally the threefold picture of the Body of Christ. We have the Body of Christ first of all in the sense that we become members of the spiritual company of which Jesus is the Head. That is the Body of Christ you enter when you make your consecration. That is one picture of the Body of Christ.
Now another is that Body of Christ beyond the vail, the elect of God, the Royal Priesthood class--all the Body of Christ of which He is the Head.
But there are more of this present Body of Christ begotten of the Holy Spirit than will be in that after Body of Christ--many more. Why? Because not all of those who have been called, not all of those who have been accepted, will be finally found worthy to be of that Royal Priesthood. Some of them will even be found worthy of going into the second death, and be utterly destroyed, if they turn to the flesh, and the world, and the devil, and live in these things.
Then there is still another class, a large class that will not prove disloyal but they will not be sufficiently zealous; they will not deny the Lord and go into the second death, as those who turn their back on righteousness; but having a love for righteousness, and a great love for the Lord, they still do not have enough zeal and fervency of spirit to make them worthy to be accounted members of that Royal Priesthood class. What will be done with them? The Bible tells us that they will constitute a great company out of all nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues, and that they must wash their robes. They do not keep their robes unspotted from the world, therefore they must wash them and make them white. But how? It will be in great tribulation they will wash them; but the power of cleansing is not in the tribulation; the power of cleansing is in the blood. They must wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb.
Now we are glad indeed that the Great Company class will thus be brought up even through great tribulation. They will be the anti-typical Levites, the Great Company class of Revelation. Do you wish to be of that class? Or do you wish to be of that class to which God has invited you? Remember they were all called in one hope of their calling. There was just the one invitation sent out. There was the same begetting of the Holy Spirit in every case, and the difference between the Little Flock, the Royal Priesthood, and that Great Company of the Anti-typical Levites who will be servants of the Priests in all of the glorious work of the future is that the one was more zealous, more like the Lord, and the others hung back. Why? The Bible describes it-- through fear of death. Didn't they know they had consecrated to death? Yes. They knew they gave their lives but still they hung back. The pleasures of life, and family, and wealth, whatever it may be, held them back. They never really carried out what their own hearts desired. They wanted to do it, they saw the pattern, Jesus running in the race; they saw the Apostles running along in the same narrow way. They have seen saintly ones since then going hastily along with good courage, and do not seem to be afraid of death at all; they plunge right in and seem to enjoy it; and they say, Here I am, fear of death--Oh, I would like to be with them!
But they hold back, fear of death and love of the world-- do not like to break it off. They look away awhile from the pathway, and get absorbed in the world and are crushed with the cares of life. By and by they look back and something calls their attention to the narrow way.
O, yes, I would like to be of those running in the narrow way. I almost envy them!
Why don't you go?
Well, you know I cannot; I have so many things here; it seems to me I have more to break loose from than other people.
If you love the Lord more you will love the world less. We all love the world naturally to begin with. Therefore it is a test as to how much you love the Lord. The Lord says, in speaking of the Bride class, He that loveth father or mother or houses or lands, or self, or any other thing more than he loves Me is not worthy to be My disciple. That settles it. So then, these dear friends--good people, honest people, they love righteousness, they like to give money to good causes, they appreciate saintly living and all of that, but they are holding back through fear of what it is going to cost. They made the consecration else they would not be of this class at all. They gave their life to the Lord, but they have not faith enough, perhaps. More faith would say, "Jesus says that all things shall work together for good, so He will make them work together for me, and I will go on, laying aside every weight and besetting sin and everything that would hinder me from running the race with patience. I need more faith and zeal, more love."
How do we get more love? We get more love of the Lord the more we think about Him and about what He has done for us, and His glorious plan.
Well, says one, I have been that way, but Brother Russell, I get filled up sometimes, just running over with love for God and appreciation of His plan, then it seems to all go away.
Why, yes, naturally enough. You know you have an earthen vessel that is leaky; you cannot hold in very much; you must come often and stay long enough at the throne of Heavenly Grace that you may obtain the streams of blessing from God, in order that you may keep full. You cannot expect to pray once a week and keep filled with the Spirit. I do not think you could expect to pray once a day and keep filled with the Spirit. I would not expect to. I believe we need to go frequently to the throne of Heavenly Grace. What for? To obtain mercy. Mercy for what? For your imperfections. There is none perfect, no not one, and if you do not acknowledge it and do not get these imperfections cleansed away day by day, your robe will not be fit to be seen when you come into the presence of the great King. You are on test to see where you will be fit to be. That is the thought [CR364] the Bible gives us. We all know that none are worthy to begin with, and when we come into the Lord's company a robe is given to each one there--a white robe representing purity covering all our garments. Our own garments, you know, are like filthy rags; you haven't any righteousness at all. You would better not tell everybody all you know about your own natural robe. But the Lord's arrangement is that all those coming through the straight and narrow gate making a consecration and entering this high order of Priesthood shall be given clean, new garments. Oh! it is nice to have on something nice and clean, sweet, good, and to know that now we can come into God's presence and, figuratively speaking, He will not recognize our imperfections, but we will be there as one of His, clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
It is so nice to come in amongst the Lord's brethren and to recognize that we all meet on a level, and part on the square, and all can feel that the robe of Christ's righteousness makes us all common members of the one fraternity. It is a very blessed thing.
One says, I knew that man ten years ago; he was a drunkard in the gutter.
Never mind about what he was ten years ago. He has come into this High and Accepted Order of Spiritual Masonry, he has become a member of the Royal Priesthood; he wears the livery of God, given him through the Lord Jesus Christ, the robe of Christ's righteousness. There is not a spot on that robe. None may say a word against him truthfully, or properly. All his past is under the blood; Jesus has made him whole; he is accepted as a member of this spiritual Masonry. Thank God! That is the way we should view each other. All of these spiritual Masons should know each other, not after the flesh but after the spirit.
Now, what about this robe, Brother Russell? Can anybody wear His robe?
Well, the instruction is to keep your garments unspotted from the world. So you watch from the time you become Christian.
Oh, you say, seeing how much sin there is in the world, how many allurements and pitfalls there are, how can I ever keep from making a mistake or misstep, getting too close to something that would soil my garments?
The Apostle says to walk circumspectly. That means, looking all around at every step you take. That means that whether you move out to this ranch, or into that city house, whatever you do, you shall think first of all how it will affect you as a New Creature--not how it will affect your pocketbook merely. When Lot went down and lived in Sodom he made a very bad choice, and if you go and live in Sodom in order to get the beautiful advantages of earthly things, you will be making a bad choice. With every one of us it is the same. So he that is begotten of the spirit and has this robe of Christ's righteousness is to walk very circumspectly.
What he eats?
Yes.
You don't mean that, do you?
Yes, I do. Whether ye eat, or whether ye drink, whether ye buy or whether ye sell, whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God. That is the Bible way. That is the way you will progress and keep your garments unspotted. If you are not careful you will get spots on them and if you are careful you will get some spots also. Do you suppose anybody except the Lord Jesus ever walked through this world of sin and imperfection without getting some spots on his robe? None but He. You have gotten some on your robe, and I have gotten some on my robe--everybody has gotten some.
Well, what shall we do? How can we walk through the world unspotted from the world and be in the end without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, as the Bible says, if you say it is impossible to go through the world without getting spots or wrinkles?
The answer is that God has provided a fluid that will take off these spots--they are figurative spots and it is a figurative fluid. The Bible tells us that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. If you have a spot on your robe that is the thing to do, and the more earnest you are, the more you love the Lord, and the more you appreciate that grand prize of our High Calling, the more diligent you will be to keep your garments unspotted.
What will that mean?
That will mean that every morning you will go to God in prayer--perhaps many times in the day, but at least every morning--and say, Lord help me to so live today that I may walk with thee unspotted from the world.
Will that do, Brother Russell?
Well, that will do for a start, dear brother, then you must watch.
The Lord said to watch and pray, so you have prayed, now go on watching and watch the best you can all day that you keep far away from all sin.
You say, I cannot make more than half as much of a fortune.
Better not have any fortune. Better enter into the Kingdom a bankrupt to some extent as far as earthly things are concerned than having much riches to be cast out as unfit for a place in the Kingdom.
Well, you say, suppose in spite of ourselves we get a spot?
That is the thought, dear brother, you will get a spot in spite of yourself--perhaps the very moment you are not thinking; therefore it is all the more important to try to keep thinking, watching, watching, because even in spite of watchings you will get some spots and if you don't watch you will run into nearly everything. Did you ever notice a lady with a white dress going down the street? If she has worn a white dress many times you will see she watches her steps carefully and when she comes near something likely to soil, she will turn the skirt over. That is the right idea. You have a robe and I have a robe and every now and then we need to "keep" our garments that they may not be spotted with the world.
And if you get a spot what would you do?
The right thing would be to make some apology to the Lord at the very minute you noticed it, and say, Lord forgive me, I have made a mistake there; I will try to be more careful. And then you may not have an opportunity to say more to the Lord on the subject before evening; but you need to go before you retire to rest, and it should be that you would be so anxious for the Lord's smile that you could not possibly go to sleep without being sure there were no earthborn cloud between your soul and the Lord. That is the only way to live close to God. That is the way to keep your garments. There is no patent way, dear brother--no other royal road. That is the royal road that the Lord has marked out for all His followers who would gain the prize.
Then the next day perhaps it is the same thing in a little different form--so much the same though that you feel more discouraged than you did the first time. Now! that is practically the same thing; it came just a little different. Before I knew it there it went, and I got that spot again. Now you feel more ashamed of that spot than you did of the other one? Why? Because you had told the Lord before that you would be very careful, and if possible you would never do that same thing again, yet it was pretty near the same thing. Oh, you felt sick almost at heart! What would you do? Well, there is just one right thing to do, even if it is the seventieth time seventy, and that is to do what the Lord has instructed you, through the Apostle, to do: To go with courage--
Oh, you say, Brother Russell, I had courage the first time.
Well, brother, there is only the one way.
I cannot go, Brother Russell.
There is only one way to do, to go with courage to the throne of heavenly grace that you may obtain mercy and forgiveness, and may find strength, grace, to help you in future times of need. That is God's way.
Well, Brother Russell, I cannot see any good in that.
There is a great deal of good in it if it is God's way. And He is pleased to have it that way. Besides, there is another good thing in it--you will be humbled by it; it will bring you right down low in the dust. If we can go and acknowledge the same thing over a second time, or a third time, or a tenth time, Oh, it should make us all the more humble, so that we could hardly feel as though we could lift up our eyes to the Lord at all! Yet it is the only thing we can do.
Do you want to leave those spots on your robe? That is a mistake some make, and after they have gone once or twice and had forgiveness, then they make mistakes and grow cold, and the spots multiply on their garments. Then some might say, I see you have several spots on your robe?
Oh, yes, everybody has them. They try to hide them, or they don't amount to much--most people have more than that.
Now that is just the wrong thought. That person cannot go to the Lord, and that is what stopped most of the family or individual prayer--spots on the robe. You have got to [CR365] get right down and acknowledge those spots, or they will get the better of you--one or the other. If your robe continues in that way, and you do not get it cleansed, be sure that when the grand end of the age comes, and the Master will inspect, He will not say that you may walk with Him in white for you are worthy, and that your robe is without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. If you are amongst those who have the spots and wrinkles, then you are in that class that is mentioned in Revelation--the Great Company. There will be a good many of them. They started well, and went on until they found faults coming, and they were not humble enough to accept God's arrangement for their sins, they broke off communion, and therefore the sins got more and more the better of them. So while they still loved righteousness, still preferred it--they did not prefer sin, they did not prefer the devil and his service--yet they are not fit for the Kingdom. No one is fit to be of the Bride class except he wear that wedding garment without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. But I am glad that God has something for these dear brethren. They will come through great tribulation--more tribulation perhaps than they would have had if they had walked right in the footsteps of the Lord.
We are not forgetting it says that through much tribulation we shall enter the Kingdom. The Little Flock will go through great tribulation, but they have so much of the spirit of the Master that they do not feel the tribulation nearly so much. Notice Paul and Silas, their backs beaten with thirty-nine blows each, until the blood came, then washed with salt water, and yet they were able to sing praises to God in prison. That is the spirit of the overcomers. Do you think they suffered nearly as much as someone else would have suffered under the same circumstances? I tell you no. And so it is with all of those who suffer with Christ. They have the spirit of loyalty and zeal, and the spirit of glory and of God rests on them. It compensates so much to know that these are only light afflictions in comparison to the blessings that shall come, and are working out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things of this present time, but at the things that are unseen --the things of glory beyond the vail.
We trust that as we think over the gracious arrangements our Father has made for us, we are more and more determined that by His grace we will have that which He offers to us, that which He is most pleased to give us and that by His grace we will be--conquerors? Yes, the Great Company will be conquerors. We read palm branches were given to them. Thank God, they will have the palms of victory! If they do not get the victory they would never be on the spirit plane at all. No one will ever get everlasting life unless he gains the victory. But they have to gain it by being pushed into the great time of trouble, forced to the point where they decide for God or for sin, and they will finally decide for God and come off conquerors. Oh, we are glad! Conquerors before the throne. But the more than conquerors are those in the throne; they are such as rushed on toward the prize; presenting their bodies living sacrifices, holy, acceptable unto God, their reasonable service, they delighted to do God's will, even as their Leader did. These shall be accounted worthy to be His joint-heirs in the Kingdom.
Let us, dear brothers and sisters, choose the wise part. Let us count all other things as but loss and dross that we might win that pearl of the Kingdom. You remember Jesus said that if you once got your eyes on that pearl to go and sell all that you have and buy it. You cannot give too much to get that pearl--the prize of our High Calling in Christ.
A PERFECT TRUST
O BLESSED peace of a perfect trust,
My loving God, in Thee;
Unwavering faith, that never doubts
Thou choosest best for me.
Best, though my plans be all upset;
Best, though the way be rough;
Best, though mine earthly store be scant;
In Thee I have enough.
Best, though my health and strength be gone,
Though weary days be mine,
Shut out from much that others have;
Not my will, Lord, but Thine!
And e'en though disappointments come,
They, too, are best for me,
To wean me from a clam'ring world,
And lead me nearer Thee.
O blessed peace of a perfect trust
That looks away from all;
That sees Thy hand in everything,
In great events or small;
That hears Thy voice--a Father's voice--
Directing for the best:--
O blessed peace of a perfect trust,
A heart with Thee at rest!
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If Ye be Christ's, then Ye are Abraham's Seed
I AM VERY pleased, dear brethren and sisters, to have this opportunity of addressing you again at Portland. I see that the Lord's people are one people wherever I find them--from all nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues. He is selecting them, yet they all have one character-likeness; they all belong to the one family. My text bears upon that subject--the Apostles' words: "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed."
I believe it is because we have become Abraham's seed that we have the general family likeness of all the family of Abraham. You remember Abraham was called the father of the faithful. Not that all the natural seed of Abraham were faithful. By no means. But because he represented our Heavenly Father, the great Father of all the faithful, and because as a type of Jehovah God he was the initiator of this faith which is now inspiring our hearts, and we are becoming children of this faith, begotten of this faith, guided by this faith, led and sanctified by this faith, and ultimately to be glorified in response to this faith.
But the question properly comes to us, How can we who were Gentiles, who were never related to Abraham at all, be said to be the seed of Abraham? God made a very definite promise to Abraham. Shall we suppose it was merely a figurative promise? Shall we suppose that God ignored the natural descent of Abraham's posterity? Nay? God waited for the birth of Isaac, and distinctly said, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called." Then have you and I anything to do with it. We are not children of Isaac? Isaac never was our father. We belong to what the Bible terms Gentile nations, who by nature are without God and without hope. Where do we come in? How do we become members of Abraham's seed?
The Bible explains that our Lord Jesus by nature was not of Abraham's seed, but of the heavenly nature, and in harmony with the divine program He left the heavenly courts and humbled Himself to take the lower nature, the human nature. The question then was, Of which family or nature or class of humanity would He be born? And the Scriptures inform us that according to the flesh He was born of Abrahamic stock--the son of Abraham, and the son of David, according to the flesh. Then is Jesus, according to the flesh, the Messiah? We answer no. Jesus according to the flesh could not save the world. Why not? Because even in His perfection all the man Christ Jesus could have done for the world would have been to establish a glorious kingdom of perfection, and give the world all that any perfect man could have given to humanity in the way of instruction and assistance. One perfect man could never help an imperfect man to live righteously. He might, indeed, have guided him into better living, into better doing, and into happier conditions, but he never could be the great Redeemer that God foretold-- the one who is not only to bless Israel, but all nations; and not only the living of all nations, but the dead of all nations; for in Abraham's seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
More than this: to merely establish a good government, such as, for instance, Solomon established, and such as some other kings have a greater or less extent established, or such as our own government, would have been the highest conception of anyone in olden times. But the government God purposes to establish that would bless the world, is to do something more, because from God's standpoint this word "bless" means much more than ordinary human mind would comprehend. The word "bless" from God's standpoint would mean to bless in the full, complete, degree. God calls our present condition a cursed condition, or under the curse, and whoever would be brought under the blessing would correspondingly be brought out from under the curse. You could not be under God's curse and God's blessing at the same time. The whole world was and still is under God's curse, under the sentence of God, and the only way the blessing of God could come in as God intended in His promise made to Abraham would be by the cancellation and rolling away of that curse. And so when God said to Abraham, in thy seed, in thy posterity, shall all the families of the earth be blessed, it meant that this seed of Abraham would roll away the curse and roll in instead God's blessings upon humanity.
But you see that Jesus in the flesh could not do that. He could have taught the Jews something, but what could a perfect man do amongst imperfect men? We see that God's perfect law given to the Jews could not make them perfect. Did not they strive to the best of their ability to keep that law, and were unable to do it? Does not St. Paul tell us that by the deeds of the law no flesh could be justified in God's sight? He found in His members another law working in opposition to God's law, and bringing him into slavery to this law of sin and death working in him. If Jesus had been a preacher, He could not have preached a greater law to mankind than the Law Covenant itself preached. It was continually saying, Do right and you shall live, do wrong and you may not live. That was the meaning of the law. Now, Jesus could never have said anything more than that to anybody. He might have said, You had better eat a particular kind of food. But the law said that. He might have said, You had better deal thus and so with your family. But the law said that. There was nothing that Jesus as the man could have said that the law did not already say and command. So, although He was the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, as such He could not bless either Israel itself, nor all the families of the earth.
What then? God never intended that Jesus in the flesh should bless the world. It was to be the New Creature Jesus, it was to be the Christ of glory, that was to bless the world. How then would Jesus ever become the Christ of glory? How would He ever become the Messiah?
Oh, Brother Russell, do you mean to say Jesus was not the Messiah when He was born?
No, He was born that He might become the Messiah; just as we read. He was not the King of Israel when He was born, but He was born that He might become the King of Israel. He was not the great Prophet, Priest and King when He was born, but He was born that He might become such. Something had to be done before He would occupy that exalted office. The Scriptures tell us that He was 30 years of age when He came to John at Jordan and was baptized. What would a water baptism do? An outward baptism would not amount to anything, but it was a real baptism that took place there. The Apostle puts the thought of the prophet in the mouth of Jesus, saying, Lo, I have come to do Thy will, O my God, everything that is written in the book. What did that mean? Why, he knew that things were written in God's Book, in the book of the Law; there were types and shadows there, various things that were not commandments at all. For instance, the type showed there would be a Lamb led to the slaughter; He had come to be that Lamb. The type showed that before there could be an atonement for sin there must be the death of the sacrifice; the bullock of the sin-offering had first to be offered. He had come to be the anti-typical sin-offering, to give Himself in God's service a sacrifice, to present His perfect body, His human nature, all that He had, to give it all sacrificially into the Father's hand--There are things in your Book, in the types and shadows, I have not comprehended, but I have come to do all that is in the Book--everything. The Apostle points out that was the very time the Lord became our sacrifice. He took away the first that He might establish the second. That is the translation of our Common Version, and it does not give a very clear significance. The proper thought would be, He removes the type that He may establish the anti-type. The type was the first, the anti-type was the second. He came to set aside the type. When? Just at that moment before John at Jordan when He was thirty years of age, when He said, Lo, I have come, I give Myself unreservedly, Father, that I may do Thy will; work now in Me, fill up such a cup for Me as seemeth best to You. Provide the sin-offering at any cost to Me. What was the cost to be? It was to be, primarily, His death; because mankind was under the sentence of death, the curse, and it was necessary that He should taste death for mankind before He could bring the blessings. He must have wherewith to satisfy the claims of Divine Justice on behalf of Adam before He could ask for the release of Adam and his race.
Did the Father accept Him? Yes. John says he bare record--he saw--we do not know that any of the people who stood by saw; the record rather is to the contrary, that John alone saw--I John saw and bare record that I saw the Holy [CR367] Spirit descending upon Him in form like a dove. And He who sent me declared, Upon whom thou seest the Holy Spirit descending and resting, this is He, this is the Messiah, this is the one that is to do the work, this is the one that is to be the Redeemer. Messiah means king, the one that is glorified and exalted to the position of high honor and glory. But our Lord Jesus was not in a position of high honor and glory as Prophet, Priest and King when He was amongst men. He said He came to be the servant. What service did He render? He says, Greater work can no man do than to give his life. And that is what He did; that is the service He rendered. Jesus Christ by the grace of God tasted death for every man;--broad indeed. That is one thing about the Word of God that is different from any human theology ever conceived; it has a depth and width and height and breadth to it such as the human mind could never conceive. You would never have thought of so great a salvation as God has provided --neither I, nor anybody else. All the theories and theologies we have ever heard of come short of this grand standard that God has provided through the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Holy Spirit came on Jesus that was the Father's acceptance of Him; that was His anointing; from that time on He was called the Anointed of God. As the Anointed He did not enter on His work of blessing. He had still to prove Himself, to demonstrate Himself, and to learn His own lessons, before He would be qualified to be exalted to the kingly and priestly power and exercise that great office to which God had called Him and for which He had consecrated Himself. As an illustration of this we see how David the prophet as a youth was anointed of Samuel the prophet some years before Saul was dead--some time before he entered upon his kingly office.
Come back now and see the steps He took. When He was consecrated the Spirit came upon Him, then the testings were to go on and all that He had promised in His consecration had to be fulfilled in those three and a half years. What did He promise? He promised to do the Father's will in every respect. Those things were accomplished within the three and a half years. He went about doing good. The Father gave Him some special trials. He Himself said, the cup which My Father has poured for Me--the cup of ignominy, shame and suffering which He hath poured for me, shall I not drink of it? And drink it He did. The Apostle tells us He was faithful in His covenant of sacrifice unto death, even the death of the cross, the extreme limit of humiliation, ignominy, shame and death. In His dying breath He cried, "It is finished." Now what was finished? He had not finished the work of blessing the world. Merely His own personal sacrifice of Himself was finished. What came next in God's order? Next came His resurrection and His manifestation to His disciples that they might know He had arisen from the dead. He appeared and manifested Himself under different conditions to prove two things: (1) that He was no longer dead, and (2) to prove that He was changed from what He was before. Instead of going with them, and sleeping and eating with them, He merely came in and spoke a few words and vanished out of their sight. He met them here or there and walked a little piece, giving them lessons to prove He was their Lord indeed, and opening to them the Scriptures, so that afterwards they said, Did not our hearts burn within us as He talked with us on the way to Emmaus and opened unto us the Scriptures? He could come and go like the wind. When He went in and sat with them at the table and broke bread, immediately they knew Him, and immediately He vanished from their sight. You remember He appeared some seven times during the forty days, but only a few moments each time--probably not more than an hour or two altogether in the whole seven appearances. When He did appear it is not said that He was with them in the ordinary way, but that He manifested Himself, or appeared. You and I do not speak of appearing to each other. You cannot disappear from me and I cannot disappear from you. We do not use such terms as manifesting ourselves or appearing to one another. But those are the terms used respecting Jesus, because in His resurrection He was a Spirit being; as the Apostle says, He had been put to death in the flesh but God had quickened Him in the Spirit.
After He had convinced his disciples of his resurrection, He ascended up on high. There was another part of God's plan still to be accomplished. It was necessary that He should appear in the presence of God for us, that He should make presentation on our behalf of His blood, the merit of the sacrifice, the value of His sacrificial death, that we might be justified through His merit, that the Father might give us the benefit of this cleansing that He had accomplished for us.
Who do you mean by "for us"? The Bible limits this expression to the church. He has not appeared for the world, and they do not want Him to appear for them; they are not anxious to have Him for their advocate. They say, never mind, we are going to build some more battleships and blow some more people off the earth and sea. Never mind, we are going to make some more money and build some more castles. We don't want Him for our advocate. If we did, we would have to be in line with what He has to say. We want to have our own plans for a while and see what He has to say. We want to have our own plans for a while and see what we can do. Let me see what I can do, then let my son John see what he can do. Let us see if we cannot make our name great. So mankind in general are not wanting this Advocate to appear for them, nor to reconcile them to the Father, nor to bring them into any relationship to him.
Are there any who would like to have Him appear as their advocate? Oh, yes. There is a room full here that want him as their advocate. Why do we need an advocate? Because we never could have access to the Father otherwise.
Why, Brother Russell, couldn't we pray. Didn't the Jews pray?
Yes, the Jews prayed because they had an arrangement especially made for them. Moses instituted a special arrangement for the Jews, under God's direction; it was a typical affair; it was not the reality. Under the arrangement of the Law Covenant there were certain sacrifices for sin offered every year, and those were only typical sacrifices and only made a typical reconciliation, and on account of these every Jew was privileged to come near to God, to draw near to the Holy and Most Holy in prayer. But you and I, who are Gentiles, never had even that, and the Jews do not have it either now, because all of that has passed away, so far as any reconciliation by the blood of bulls and goats is concerned. They could not have such an atonement day if they tried. They have no High Priest, they have no Holy and Most Holy, and they have no Sanctuary to which they could go and make an offering and thus bring the acceptance. All the typical matter has passed away and we are living under the antitype. So if we desire to draw near to God we have an Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous. Let us, therefore, draw nigh with good courage and having our hearts sprinkled from any consciousness of evil, that we may appreciate what God has done for us in Christ.
Wasn't it merely for the Church then living that Christ appeared? Oh, no, in God's plan the whole Church is one company from first to last; even as Jesus prayed the Father on the night before his crucifixion, saying, I pray for those whom thou hast given me and yet I pray not for these alone, but for all of those who shall believe on me through their word. We come in under that score, my dear brethren. We belong to that same class, that same body, of which Jesus was the head, of which the Apostles were the first members, and of which all the faithful in Christ Jesus throughout this Gospel Age are the members in particular. So we have had reconciliation with God through His Blood.
Our sins were imputed to him figuratively, and we may realize ourselves as free from sin, by faith. The sins are not canceled for those who cannot and do not exercise faith. The sins are only covered for those who do exercise faith. He has, indeed, a great work to do for the world in the future, but that work is not yet begun. The only ones yet reached by the grace of God in Christ are those who belong to the household of faith which is the church. Ours is the household of faith because we are believing things not seen as yet. You have never seen into the Most Holy except with the eyes of faith; you have never seen Jesus except with the eyes of faith; you do not recognize Him as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world except with the eyes of faith. You never came to the Father through Him, except through the ear of faith. You never realized your sins were forgiven except by the sense of faith. It is that which God wishes to recognize, and any one who does not exercise faith is not acceptable to Him. "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Others will have the opportunity of knowledge by and by. In the next age they will be seeing the things we believe now. But God is now attaching a special reward, a special blessing, a special opportunity, to those who have faith and who will exercise it, walking by faith and not by sight. That, I trust, includes you and me.
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After Jesus had ascended on high, what was He then? He was then the spiritual Seed of Abraham, the one who is to bless. Primarily He became the Seed of Abraham when He received the anointing at Jordan, and to a certain extent He began the work of blessing, but it was a typical work He did in healing the sick and in giving certain instructions, even though His instructions were all parabolic and symbolic, things they were not able to understand until after Pentecost. The work of the Blessor was in Him from the time He Himself received the begetting of the Holy Spirit. And then when He was raised from the dead He was the perfected one, the seed of Abraham complete, so far as He Himself was concerned. Why do we limit it in that way? Because the Bible intimates that God from the beginning not only had in mind Jesus to be the great Savior and Blessor of the world, but also a company of associates with Jesus. He was to be the Captain of their salvation, and to lead forth many sons to glory, honor and immortality. And those sons of God He began to lead at Pentecost are the same Church of God which are still being led. And what is He leading us to? To glory, honor and immortality. We are to be with Him and share His glory and see Him as He is throughout all eternity. What will that do for us? That makes us members of Abraham's spiritual seed, and we are thus to have a share with Christ in blessing the world. "If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed"--you see the if, you see the condition and only you and the Lord can say whether you are Christ's, whether you have made the full surrender of yourself to him.
The seed of Abraham as God meant it was primarily the spiritual seed--Christ and the Church on the Divine plane. But there is another seed of Abraham according to the flesh, the natural man, the Jew. They also will have a part in the blessing work, but the spiritual seed comes in first, as God mentioned to Abraham, Thy seed shall be as the stars of Heaven. You and I are of that "star" class, as St. Paul says, As star differeth from star in glory so also is the first resurrection, the Church's resurrection--differing, but all like the stars, all heavenly in contrast with the earthly.
Now go back and tell us where it begun, again. It began with Jesus, the perfect man, giving Himself a sacrifice, laying down His earthly rights, and God begat Him to this higher nature. He did not need anyone to make good for His sins, because He had no sins. But you and I must come through Him as the sin-offering, as the one who would become our advocate, covering our blemishes and imperfections. Why? Because God would not accept any imperfect or blemished thing; therefore, the invitation to you and to me is, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice."
But we say, how would God accept us?
God has made the arrangement for us through Christ that upon His imputing His merit to us we may be thus accounted of God as though we were perfect.
How can God count anything perfect when it is imperfect?
Suppose you were wanting to go into some place of entertainment and the price was one dollar; and suppose you had only fifty cents and somebody came along and said, Take this fifty cents, here is enough to make it good. You would get your ticket all right just as though you had the whole dollar. So that is exactly the case with us. In coming to the Father and this great feast He has prepared for us, maybe we have only ten cents instead of a dollar; perhaps we have only a nickel; perhaps we have only a copper. Oh, you say, there is no use of my offering a penny at that window; that is too glorious a spread for me to get with my little penny; it would not pass there at all.
Some one says, Offer your penny and see. There is somebody going to make good for all you are short.
And timidly, but still with a little faith, you hold up the penny, and the ninety-nine cents necessary to complete the matter is provided for you by this one who is attending to the matter.
That illustrates the picture we have before our minds that God is inviting us to lay down our lives sacrificially with the Lord Jesus, and he says to us through the Apostle to present our bodies living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God. Is it really Holy? Yes, Jesus' blood made it holy. His merit made up for your imperfection, and you can get right in on this same footing with the Apostles and all the faithful of this Gospel Age and thus become joint-sacrifices with Jesus. Then God accepts that sacrifice, and you become members of that Spiritual Seed of Abraham. There is only one way to get through, whether Jew or Gentile. Some of the Jews thought they ought to get in on different terms, but God has only one arrangement. No man cometh unto the Father but by me, said Jesus. Any one else who tries to get into the sheep-fold except through the door, Christ, is a thief and a robber, attempting to take advantage of things that are not properly His.
Then what did the Apostle mean by saying that the Jews must become dead to the Law? They must become dead to the Law in the sense that they had as a nation previously for 1,600 years been hoping that they might get eternal life by keeping the Law. They found they were not able to keep the Law. What, then, shall they do? St. Paul says, become dead to it, then accept Christ, and consecrate yourself, and through His merit you may come in and be members of the Anointed One.
Well, what about us Gentiles? What shall we do? We simply do the same. God never gave us the Law, nor any hope of any kind. The only hope that is set before us is the opportunity of coming into Christ by the surrender of what we have of earthly things. How much have you got? Turn your pockets inside out, dear brother. You remember how it used to be when little boys playing marbles, etc. You would turn your pocket wrong side out to see what you had, and you had some strings, a nail, a marble, and so on. You did not have very much, did you? But it was all you had you were to give. That is the proposition God makes. You may have a ranch, or a house, or not much of anything, but you have to give what you have--not only what you have now, but all you will ever have as long as you live in this world, and more than that.
Not more than that, surely?
Yes, more than that. More than you will ever have as long as you live on the earth.
What more is there?
Why, you would have naturally an inheritance coming to you on the earth. You belong to the race of Adam, and while Father Adam died a bankrupt, yet God has made a provision whereby Jesus redeemed him, and he is going to get back his estate, and the whole human family will become rich again. What are they going to get? All that was lost, the whole estate is coming back. When? During Messiah's Kingdom. So you as a human being, until you made your consecration to the Lord, had your rights in that, and I had my share in that, too. But if you want to come into this high calling you have not only to give up all that is in your possession now, and all you will have as long as you live, and consecrate it to the Lord, but you need to give up and include with it all these earthly hopes and ambitions and everything that was coming to you at any time through the redemptive work of Christ.
That would be a good deal, wouldn't it?
It just depends on how you would look at it. The Apostle Paul gives us an illustration of how properly to estimate it. You remember he had a high family station, was a Roman citizen by birth, he had a good education, wealth, good standing and great prominence in the world, besides his share in God's promises for the future. What did he have to hope for in exchange for these? Oh, he says, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has in reservation for those who love Him, but he has revealed them to us by His spirit! We are beginning to see that the things we have sacrificed are not worthy to be compared with the glorious things God has for us. These things that are now apparently precious to us--or that once were so valuable to us, these earthly hopes, etc., have all lost their charm in the sense of being our idol, or to be compared at all with the glorious things in reservation for us. We estimate them as loss and dross that we might win Christ and be found in Him.
The Christ is the Seed of Abraham, Head and Body. If you win Christ it means you win a place in that Body of Christ, which is the Church. If you are found in Him it means that you have, by the grace of God, stayed in, and shall hear the "Well done, good and faithful servant." You have been faithful over a few things,--you cannot say that you have done very much--any of you; it fits us all, we do not accomplish very much; the Lord could have done it easier in many respects without us. The angels would have been glad to make all the communication you and I have made. He could have done it in a hundred ways without us altogether. It is a privilege, an opportunity for us.
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But, Brother Russell, that is coming too close, because we really sacrifice something.
Yes, God counts that we are sacrificing something; He is pleased to have it that way; but really this sacrificing is in your own interest, because you could never be prepared for that glory unless you would develop this spirit of obedience and loyalty, and our sacrificing means loyalty to God, the Truth and the brethren, and obedience to God and the Golden Rule. That is our covenant.
What covenant do you mean? Jesus was under the same covenant you and I have been called under, and it reads like this: Gather together my saints unto me, saith the Lord--my holy ones, all who are desirous of doing my will.
Who will you call first, Heavenly Father?
Give Jesus the first opportunity, that in everything He might have the pre-eminence. Jesus, do you want the opportunity?
Oh, yes, I delight to do thy will, O my God. I will take the first opportunity.
Then the Apostles came along, and they made the same covenant of sacrifice. And you and I have come, and we were called, and we also made the same covenant.
Then where does the natural Seed of Abraham come in? They have already received a blessing at the Lord's hands, and will receive more. It was a great blessing for God to take that people and deal with them as He did. What did He do for them? First of all He gave them trying experiences in Egypt, then He brought them through the wilderness into Canaan, and worked great signs. These were valuable lessons. He made a great history for them, and the whole nation has been blessed when they look back at that history. And the people of that time were strengthened by it. Then they were in the land of Canaan for centuries under God's special care, sometimes receiving chastisements and sometimes blessings. But they never got the great blessing of eternal life, though the other blessings were valuable. You remember the Apostle tells us that the trials, blessings, etc., God gave to natural Israel developed in them a certain special class-- Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the prophets, and he goes on to say time would fail him to mention all the other faithful ones not so prominent as these. There were a good many throughout the Jewish age found worthy, as we learn from Hebrews 11. They have nothing yet but the promise, but the promise is good that they will have a better resurrection. When will they get it? After the whole church shall have been completed. God has ordained that the Christ shall have the pre-eminence. After the spiritual Seed of Abraham has been completed, then something will begin to be done for the natural Seed of Abraham.
Will the natural Seed of Abraham have any advantage over the remainder of the world? The Bible answers yes, that those worthy ones of the past will come up to human perfection in the resurrection, instead of coming up imperfect human beings. Will that be a better resurrection? I tell you yes; the majority of mankind will have to be raised up and up for centuries, perhaps during the thousand years, gradually attaining more and more to the perfection of human nature. And then what? They will be associated with the Kingdom. Jesus says so. He is to be on the throne, and the Church is to be with Him, invisible to men, but there will be something men can see. Jesus says, Ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets. Why? Because they will be perfect men. They will be grand examples in the world of God's likeness in the flesh. They will be the earthly phase of the Kingdom, in the sense they will represent the heavenly kingdom which the world cannot see.
Are we sure the world cannot see the heavenly kingdom?
We have Jesus' words for it. "Yet a little while and the world seeth me no more." But they will see Him represented in these perfect men, just as God is manifest in a perfect man. Adam was made in the image and likeness of God; whoever, therefore, would see a perfect man would see the best illustration he could possibly see of a spirit being. No man can see God and live, and since our Lord Jesus by his change to the Divine nature is the express image of his Father's person, therefore no man can see Him and live. And when the Church shall experience her change she shall be like her Lord, and no man will see her.
Then the whole world will come into subjection to that Kingdom. The spiritual Seed of Abraham will be in the Kingdom glory, and those in the earthly dominion will be princes in all the earth, as the Scriptures describe them. These will be Abraham's natural seed. When the Kingdom is set up, all the blessings of God will go to those who are really Israel. The first representatives of Israel in the flesh will be Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets, and then we think all the promised blessings will rest with them,-- no one outside. Only by coming into relationship with this company will any get a blessing at all in the Millennial age. We think they will want to get in very fast. It will be like it is here in America: there are certain blessings and privileges to be secured by getting citizenship here, and you will find people flocking here from Italy, Spain, France, Sweden --everywhere--and becoming citizens, so they may enjoy the blessings and privileges that belong here. That is exactly the picture God gives. They are all going to become Israelites in the future; everybody is going to press into that nation.
What will the terms be?
The terms will be full surrender, abandonment of sin, consecration to God, faith in God, trust in Him, and loyalty and obedience to this great Kingdom of God.
Who will come in first?
I don't know, but I think a good many who will come in early will be the natural Israelites, because what will be offered to mankind will be more in line with what the Jews have been expecting than anything else in the world. It will be really what they have been expecting. I think of one Jew that said not a great while ago, after hearing something about the Divine plan, and how God was going to restore Israel to His favor, and that instead of being outcasts any longer they would be brought near to God's favor, as St. Paul explains in Romans 11. He said, I own eleven scrap yards, and, Oh, if I could believe that is true I would be ready to sell every one of them. The Jew still has in his mind somehow that Messiah and his Kingdom are coming, and that the blessing of Abraham is yet to come to the world. He does not know what to make of all this that has been going on for 1,800 years. He is greatly puzzled to know why Lazarus should have been taken into Abraham's bosom as Abraham's child, and why he should seemingly be rejected and be an outcast and in trouble; but his eyes are going to open. God will pour upon them at the proper moment the spirit of prayer and supplication, and they shall look on Him whom they pierced. They will begin to see something of God's mystery then, how it was necessary that one should redeem them before anybody could restore them. They will begin to get the key to the Divine plan of the ages, and that it rests in the cross of Christ. All the blind eyes by and by will see, but I believe the Jews will be amongst the first to see and the first to be blessed on the earthly plane.
And then who next, Brother Russell?
Well, my dear brother, I would rather incline to hope there is a certain class of Christian people that have been considerably misled and confused, and after they shall begin to get their eyes open a little they will see that some of the things that were believed by those foolish Millennial Dawn people are coming true, and they will begin to study. The Bible intimates they will--that the foolish virgins will get the oil, and that they also will want to knock and come into harmony with God.
And thus the message will gradually spread, and all nations will get to know by and by that it is really God's Kingdom, and that it is established, and that by coming in and becoming Israelites, by becoming Abraham's Seed, they will get the blessings. There will be a great rush to get in, I think. Every nation, people, kindred and tongue will have an opportunity. And finally in the end of the Millennial age all the evil doers having been destroyed, there will not be any but Abraham's Seed in the whole world--a great number that no man could estimate. And they will all need the trial that God there prescribes. Having demonstrated that they could be loyal during the favorable conditions of Christ's Messianic Kingdom, when every wrong-doing shall be punished and every well-doing blessed, they will then be tried to see whether they would be all right if left alone and the Kingdom would be withdrawn. Jesus will deliver up the Kingdom to God, the Father, and then will come the great trial. Satan will be loosed for a little while, then there will be opportunity for sin to prevail--a test for all those perfect beings to determine whether they are loving God or not, whether they are loyal to the principles of righteousness or not. And all of those not found loyal to truth and righteousness and God will be destroyed from amongst the people, even as you burn brambles, and tares, and things that are cumbering the earth. Or, as St. Peter says, natural brute beasts are destroyed.
[CR370]
So, dear brethren, the test to them will be loyalty; and let me say in conclusion this is the test upon you and I now. It is not merely if you will be whipped into line. The Lord wants more than a person who has merely to be whipped into here, and then whipped into there, and then whipped into the other place. He wants not merely those who fear to do wrong, but those who love to do right and hate the wrong. That is the class He is choosing, and now it remains for you and for me to develop character and to stand the test. If we have the right conception of matters, there is only a little while longer in which you will have the opportunity of proving your character, and I of proving mine. All of those found worthy to walk with him in white because they are worthy shall have the best beyond the vail, and the door to the High Calling will be shut. Then will come the tribulation, and then gradually out of the tribulation will come the second company class--all overcomers, indeed, but not to that highest glory.
Let us show our loyalty so surely to the Lord that He may be pleased to make us joint-heirs with His Son in the Kingdom. Amen.
[CR370]
Tacoma, Washington
Our next stop was at Tacoma, Wash., and here we found the class had grown in grace, knowledge and zeal since our visit two years previously. We received a warm welcome from the Bible Students--and also from the preachers. The latter, however, was of a different nature from that extended to us by the Bible Students. It was the same old story of Satan coming also, and wherever the light goes the agents of darkness try to make trouble.
However, there is another phase to the matter, for, as of old, "the common people heard him (Jesus) gladly," so today the common people hear Pastor Russell gladly, as the following item from one of the Tacoma papers attests:
(Tacoma Tribune, June 19, 1913.)
SPECIAL BRINGS PASTOR
Noted Evangelist Arrives in City for a Big Meeting--Declares
the People Demand Light
Report by Berthe Knatvold
"Moving pictures--the right kind of moving pictures --are certainly agents of uplift. In our new temple in New York we will show films presenting creation from nebula to flying machines, three times a day.
"If the preacher would hold audiences, he must feed the multitude.
"There is a famine in the land. Not a famine for bread, but for the knowledge of the Lord.
"Brother Calvin fed the people on predestination for several centuries, and they were too terrified to cry out for other food.
"Along come the evolutionists, the preachers of the higher intelligence, and say: 'Here is the soul-satisfying doctrine for you. Your ancestor was a monkey.'
"The world is pretty fairly civilized from Timbuctoo to Tacoma. The traveler no longer confronts the cannibal king, reposing in the shade of a palm tree and gnawing a human limb.
"Just as the appointed time for electric lights has come, so also has come the time for the greater spiritual light." --PASTOR RUSSELL.
Pastor Russell is a man of indefinite age and mystifying placidity. An expressionless face, guiltless of furrows as though composed of substance less prone to change than suffering, wasting flesh, shaven free of the patriarchal beard which beclouds its borders, contradicts its own two dominant features. A straight, narrow mouth, drawn out to grim contact with the parenthesis which curve from nose to chin, and two large, luminous eyes seem to monopolize the energies and to leave the other portions of the physiognomy untouched by emotion, even by thought.
He was sitting in his compartment in the Pullman which is a unit in the "International Bible Students' Special" of 10 coaches and 276 passengers, when I called for the interview arranged several days ago. The blinds were up, and along the cement promenade lines of "students" moved, none passing without a look fraught with significance, and many stopping to raise children in their arms for a glimpse of "Brother Russell." Indeed, so constant were the interruptions of this kind that the blinds had to be lowered and the flock shut away from view of the pastor, lest the coherence of the interview be lost.
And this was the man, this elderly gentleman whose undeniable personality radiated through the swathings of fleshy and emotional serenity in which it was enveloped as in an aura--this was the man whom critics and opposing clergymen labeled "colossal fraud," "faker," "charlatan." This man beaming tranquilly under the resplendent sheen of the high silk hat reposing like a crown laid aside to give the weary sovereign head pause from power, on the rack above him-- this was the man whose worst enemies admitted, gave his message free to the world--asking no guarantee for lectures, taking no collections. This was the man who rumor had it had not only laid by treasure in heaven, but had a considerable store of the treasure which moth and rust can corrupt, accumulated by the sales of books, offered to the public when the thought was best attuned to purchase--directly after lectures. This was the man whose followers adored as "pastor," and whose critics denounced as the commercializer of religion.
[CR371]
JUST BACK FROM ORIENT.
"I have just returned from the Orient," he said when the formalities were over, the blinds pulled and the interview was under way. "And I was astonished at the development along intellectual lines, which I found prevalent everywhere. The cannibal king no longer gnaws a human bone as he sits in the shade of a palm. The Chinese are not barbarians nor the Japanese heathens, nor the Indians unregenerate. Christian missionaries have made little headway converting the intellectual classes of those ancient lands. In India they have found they cannot get them to their churches --so they have built colleges. Eager for new world knowledge, the Indians have enrolled in the colleges, absorbed what they had to offer--and repudiated the religious teachings after graduation. The missionaries have done good among the lower classes. They have certainly been useful to the poor natives--rice being given in equal shares with doctrine--and they have taught low caste women to be more like ladies--to do less work, a doctrine readily absorbed.
"The educated classes refuse to believe that their ancestors, who were men of culture when our forefathers still wielded stone axes, are suffering eternal torture. They will not accept the teaching. If we are to convert them to our way of thinking, we must ourselves think something better than they think--not something worse. In China I looked at the ugly brass and bronze and lacquer gods in a temple and realizing that the Chinese did not worship those things of metal and wood, but strove through them to concentrate on the ideas they represented, I realized that Christendom had long worshipped uglier gods than those. We do not forge our gods of metal--but have we not, for centuries, written with printers' ink and with the finer substances of our minds, more heathen pictures of God than the Chinese?
"We are getting away from our bondage to the gods of fear and dread and torment. Enlightenment has come. Three hundred years ago Brother Calvin fed the people on predestination and eternal punishment, and they were too terrified to cry out for other food. Then came the evolutionists in this latter day, crying in the wilderness: 'Here is the soul-satisfying doctrine for you. Your ancestor was a monkey.' But that is a side issue, just as ugly and impossible as its predecessor. Newspapers and magazines have set the world thinking, and where there is thought there follows rational conclusion. God is no longer a dread presence, here or hereafter. Just as the appointed time for electric lights has come, so has come the time for spiritual light. The world is now a gridiron of rails and wires--and the greater wonders are already at their dawn. We no longer believe in hell fire--we refuse to entertain the thought of eternal punishment. We are beginning to argue the other way--for eternal progress, everlasting betterment for all.
MOVING PICTURES FOR GOSPEL.
"The International Bible Students' Association has just donated its Sixty-third street temple in New York to the public as an agent for uplift. It will be a moving picture theater for the public. Moving pictures--the right kind of moving pictures--are certainly agents for uplift, they inspire thought. In our temple we will present films showing the process of creation from nebula to flying machines, three times a day. Other rare films, presenting Bible incidents, views of foreign lands, etc., will be shown every day of the year. We must all get together and push enlightenment along."
The International Bible Students' Special arrived in Tacoma from Portland over the Northern Pacific tracks at 7 o'clock this morning. A reception committee from the local Bible Students' Association, headed by Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Fleetwood, who are personally entertaining Pastor Russell at their home, 902 North Sheridan street, welcomed the visitors.
Prior to the meeting at the Temple of Music this afternoon, the entire party was conveyed in special cars to some of the interesting points in the city, including the stadium. The advance agents for Pastor Russell had hoped to arrange a meeting in the stadium at which he could address the people of Tacoma, but owing to the regulations governing the uses of the stadium and to the uncertainty of the weather, the project was dropped.
At 8 o'clock this evening Pastor Russell will speak in the Tacoma Theater. No entrance fee will be charged and no collection will be taken. At the meeting hymns will be sung by the audience, assisted by the full quota of the traveling "students," nearly 280 in number. These are trained singers, having traveled with Pastor Russell on his tour of the country.
Following tonight's meeting the party will return to the special train and Seattle will be the next stop. After that the line will be crossed into British Columbia and a zig-zag course back to New York will be taken.
[CR371]
Opposition by Preachers
AS WE remarked at the beginning, the preachers did their best to thwart our meetings and to influence the people against coming out to hear Pastor Russell, but in spite of their attack 1,800 came to the public service, and of these 275 handed in their names requesting literature. We give herewith the newspaper report of the attack by the preachers and Pastor Russell's reply:
(From Tacoma Tribune.)
ATTACKS RUSSELL for SELLING PRACTICES
Rev. E. L. Benedict of Mason M. E. Church in Statement
Scores Evangelist
Attacking Pastor Russell "for sailing under false pretenses," Rev. E. L. Benedict of the Mason M. E. Church today declared the evangelist had made a fortune by selling books and wheat, using his religion as a means to raise money.
In his statement Rev. Benedict said:
"Pastor Russell sails under false colors regarding the running of his church. He claims to charge nothing for his services, takes no collections and pays his own bills. This immediately places every other church which does take collections in a false light. The facts are: Pastor Russell, by preaching the end of the world in 1914, makes people believe that their money is of no use after that date, and easily gets hold of it.
"Another game that is worked by Pastor Russell's followers is the selling of "miracle wheat" at $1 a pound. We are informed that his man, Mr. Bohnet, sold $100,000 worth of miracle wheat at $1 a pound, and while Pastor Russell claims not to have sold the wheat, yet Mr. Bohnet has his office in Pastor Russell's church and Pastor Russell got the money for the publication of his tracts. Pastor Russell's connection with the Union Bank of Brooklyn is not in harmony with the thought of the modern ministry. If we pursued such methods for raising money we would not have to take a collection in church, either.
"We object to Pastor Russell because of the way his agents have of fooling the public about his literature. They change the name of their literature from time to time, so that the unsuspecting church member does not know the name of the denomination. They call it the "People's Pulpit," the "Interdenominational Religious Newspaper," "The Bible Students' Monthly," etc. By this method they pull a number out of the churches under false statements or else get them dissatisfied. In their method of disposing of his four volume library on millennial dawnism, their agents invariably deny being connected with any church. Many people get this library, thinking it is not sectarian and interdenominational.
"Pastor Russell takes passages of scripture, mainly from the allegorical chapters of Daniel, and old testament prophesy, twisting them all out of their setting, and applies them to this age in which we live. Pastor Russell sets up a bogy man called "a literal fire in hell" and accuses us ministers of preaching a literal fire. I have been preaching for 18 years, and I have never preached a literal fire nor have I heard any other minister preach a literal fire. Anybody [CR372] with common sense knows that we do not need a literal fire to burn up a soul. Pastor Russell teaches a future probation. He says it is the business of the church (meaning his church) to brush up the saints and that the mass of the world are all going to the devil. But in this new earth, during this millennial reign, these polished saints will give another opportunity for these terrible sinners to repent. It is for this reason and to satisfy his religious calamity theory that the committee that made the tour of the world reported that foreign missions in different foreign lands was virtually a failure.
"When such men as William H. Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and William J. Bryan speak in great praise of the work of foreign missions, we prefer to believe them, instead of Pastor Russell's calamity hunters. We take issue with Pastor Russell on his exploded theory of "soul sleeping." Pastor Russell would try to make us believe that when we go through the little gate called death, the soul goes into the ground, there to smoulder with the decomposing body until the resurrection. The Bible in unmistakable terms says, 'Dust thou art and unto dust shall thou return, but the spirit shall return to God who gave it.' Another reason why we cannot accept Pastor Russell doctrinally is his 'end of the world fallacy.' He has it all figured out by Scripture that the world is coming to an end in 1914.
"The Advents, of which Pastor Russell is first cousin, made themselves the laughing stock of the world by several times setting a date when the world should come to an end, and 'the world still do move.'"
Dr. Hugo P. J. Sellinger, professor of religious education and sociology at University of Puget Sound, in a statement said:
"Outside of the late Alexander Dowie, founder of Zionism, in my opinion, Pastor Russell is the most monumental religious faker of the age. He is one of the few men who have been able to take a segment of religious truth and by ingenious perversion make it appeal to the popular imagination.
"Pastor Russell stands for the immoral doctrine of conditional immortality, which is merely to say that you can follow every lascivious and pervert bend of your imagination or inclination without, in the end, having to be held accountable for it.
"Pastor Russell is a man of strong animal magnetism, gives one the very strong impression that he is in the pursuit of his movement for revenue and for revenue alone. It must be utterly denied that he is rendering service to humanity or to humanity's God in the spirit of the Gallilean, who said: 'If any one would be greatest among you let him be servant of all.'"
Rev. Thomas W. Lane of the First Methodist church said: "I have no use for him. I came from the same section of the country where he made records I do not care to discuss, for I fear they would get me into trouble. I have no confidence in him. I have no use for him."
Rev. H. T. Mitchelmoore, acting for Rev. Murdoch McLeod, says of Russell:
"Let Professor Moorehead speak for me; the millennial dawnism of C. T. Russell is a mixture of universalism, second probation and restorationism and the Swedenborgen method of exegesis. Let the reader remember that imposition is not exposition, nor is eisegesis, exegesis. Mr. Russell constantly employs both. He imposes on scripture his views and reads into it that which never entered the mind of the inspired writer.
"Men and women of force do not follow Russell. Equally manifest is the sincere piety and Godly character of many of his followers, when God in His infinite mercy preserved His people from being deceived and betrayed by His counterfeit of Christianity."
[CR372]
Pastor Russell in Reply to Critics
Editor of The Tribune: I am requested to reply briefly to the charges of my critics reported in your yesterday's issue.
On some points my opponents are misinformed, on others they are evidently prejudiced and spiteful. The basis of their opposition is stated by Rev. Benedict. They are opposed to me because, without taking up collections or making any solicitation for money, I am preaching to thousands almost daily, while they have but few hearers even on Sundays. They are specially vexed that a newspaper syndicate representing nearly 2,000 editors are weekly placing my sermons in the hands of more than 12,000,000 of readers. A further grievance is that the public are buying and reading my books "Bible Keys" in 19 languages, to the extent of 8,000,000 of copies.
The proposition with these ministers seems to be "What can we do to prejudice the people against this man and his writings?" When, therefore, they attempt to state my views, etc., it is not to inform the public, but to deceive them--to prejudice them so that they will not hear me, nor read my writings.
FEAR PEOPLE ARE IMBECILES.
They fear that all the thinking people of all denominations will be convinced by my message. Therefore, they declare that only imbecile crossheads would be deluded by it!
Do they fear that all or nearly all of their people are imbecile? or why do they think worth while opposing what they describe as insane? The public is getting wise respecting their objects and methods.
Yet, those who hear me know that I never speak an unkind word respecting any minister. I do, however, smite the creeds of the Dark Ages hip and thigh!
FOREIGN MISSIONS REPORT.
I challenge a single unkind remark or exaggeration in the report made by a committee of seven of which I was chairman.
Indeed, the report was too moderate. That committee of the International Bible Students' Association are all deeply interested in the heathen, and laboring for their true enlightenment. Within the past year they have printed 4,000,000 of tracts in the 10 most prominent languages of the East, and have put them into the hands of the benighted ones.
This is more than all other missionary and Bible students' societies together accomplished. And no one was asked to give a dollar. It all came freely from loyal Christian purses.
MIRACLE WHEAT AND UNION BANK.
What perverseness moves a minister of Christ, a minister of truth, to slander a brother minister or anybody else? Why tell what he does not know to be the truth? I have no knowledge of the Union Bank of Brooklyn. I heard that it failed through the dishonesty of its officials. I never was inside its doors; never was financially nor otherwise connected with it; nor do I know who were its directors.
"Miracle Wheat" is a new variety of wheat discovered and so named by a farmer at Fincastle, Va. I copied an item about it from a newspaper in my religious journal, which carries no advertisements. Three years later one of the readers wrote me that he had bought some of the miracle wheat at $1.25 per pound and found it very prolific--up to 3,000 grains from one seed. He sold some of it and donated to the society of which I am the president.
The following year he and another donated 18 bushels, fixed the price at $1 per pound and asked that it be mentioned in my journal and that we bear the trouble of mailing it. I merely gave their reports and a copy of a report by United States government expert. The wheat was sold and in all $1,800 was thus donated by these two friends to the work done last year amongst the heathen. No one ever complained of the wheat, and all were offered "money back" if not satisfied.
If anybody has a microscope that will show anything wrong with this, we would like to have a look through it. We presume the wrong was that it was not "raffled at 10 cents per grain," or grab-bagged for at a church fair!
NO FIERY HELL IN TACOMA.
Rev. Benedict knows of no preaching of a fiery hell in Tacoma. Good. But what kind of a hell do they preach here since the people will no longer come to hear them describe [CR373] the fiery one? I wonder if the people who have heard these ministers preach for years know what kind of a hell the local reverends have made for them--or rather for the masses of Tacoma people who do not go to church?
By the way, who gave these ministers authority to change hell from what their forefathers and their creeds fixed it to be!
Ah! perhaps Rev. Benedict is the preacher we heard of who declared that--"There is no literal fiery hell, but there is a hell of gnawings of conscience which is still worse."
Poor humanity! How they need the very message that is now stirring up classes of Bible students all over the world! How they need to know exactly what the Bible hell is and just what salvation from it is to be! I now offer to your readers, free, a pamphlet which gives every text of the Bible containing the word hell, and shows the original Greek and Hebrew words and makes the whole subject plain and clear as a crystal. It also explains the parable of the "Sheep and Goats" and of the "Rich Man and Lazarus." It contains just what the bible students need and want to know, and just what my critics do not want them to know about. Their motto would seem to be, "Keep the people in ignorance." A postcard addressed Pastor Russell, Brooklyn, N. Y., will bring your readers free copies of that pamphlet with my best wishes for their present and future.
THE END OF THE WORLD.
One critic says I work upon the fears of the foolish by telling them the world will soon end. I assure your readers that this is untrue. I do believe and teach that the present age is about to end, but that "the earth abideth for ever." I tell that the coming age is to be one of great blessing to the race as a whole, and that present-day blessings are but foregleams of that blessed time.
But note how dishonest the accusation. Every creed represented by my critics teaches that the world is to be burned up! And these preachers say, "Yes, but no one knows when. It may occur tonight!" Rev. Morehead, quoted by one of the critics, declares that he goes to bed every night expecting that Christ's second coming may be before morning!
All my critics are angry about is that I get the money and
the hearers and they do not; and I don't tell them how it
is done.
Very truly yours,
C. T. RUSSELL.
JUST TO LET THY FATHER DO WHAT
HE WILL
JUST to let Thy Father do what He will;
Just to know that He is true, and be still.
Just to follow, hour by hour, as He leadeth;
Just to draw the moment's power, as it needeth.
Just to trust Him, this is all. Then the day will
surely be
Peaceful, whatso'er befall, bright and blessed, calm
and free.
Just to let Him speak to thee, through His Word,
Watching, that His voice may be clearly heard.
Just to tell Him everything, as it rises,
And at once to bring to Him all surprises.
Just to listen, and to stay where you cannot miss His
voice,
This is all! and thus today, you, communing, shall
rejoice.
Just to trust, and yet to ask guidance still;
Take the training or the task, as He will.
Just to take the loss or gain, as He sends it;
Just to take the joy or pain as He lends it.
He who formed thee for His praise will not miss the
gracious aim;
So today, and all thy days, shall be moulded for
the same.
Just to leave in His dear hand little things;
All we cannot understand, all that stings.
Just to let Him take the care sorely pressing;
Finding all we let Him bear changed to blessing.
This is all! and yet the way marked by Him who
loves thee best:
Secret of a happy day, secret of His promised rest.
[CR374]
Activity in the Harvest
OUR TEXT is found in the Apostle's quotation from the Old Testament, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." (Eph. 5:14.) Our text may be applied to the world in general first. The world in general is asleep. In one sense of the word it is dead. The death sentence passed upon all. As we know, the whole world is said to be dead in trespasses and in sins, dead under Divine sentence. Our first parents having disobeyed God, we, being in their loins, shared with them the sentence that came upon them. But this death sentence that was passed upon all has been transmuted, or changed, by the Lord to be a sentence to sleep for a while and then to be awakened. God had this in His glorious purpose from before the foundation of the world; as the Bible tells us that Jesus in the divine program was the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. God knew exactly what He intended to do. He intended to redeem the human family and, therefore, because He purposed this redemption and restitution by awakening from the sleep of death, He always speaks of this when speaking to those who know Him, those who believe Him, not as a death state, but as a sleep state; as, for instance, Abraham slept with his fathers. And just so our Lord Jesus called our attention to the fact that God said, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." God would not speak of Himself as being the God of anybody who was dead in the sense of being extinct, for whom there would be no future life. Therefore, Jesus, in reasoning out this subject with the Scribes, declared that this was proof of the resurrection of the dead. Not a proof that the dead were alive, nor that they did not need a resurrection, but a proof that the dead would rise because God said respecting these that He was still their God, thus recognizing them as still having some right in God's great arrangement to a share in the future life by a resurrection secured through the redemption accomplished by our Lord Jesus' death. So, then, in this text the Apostle is saying that those who are thus asleep, those who are thus with the dead world, should awake. "Awake, thou that sleepest in the dust"--rise up superior to the remainder of mankind, wake up, realize what and where you are. That brings to our attention that the majority of the human family seem to be passing through life in a kind of a maze; they are not awake; they seem to be going about as in a dream; they are not thinking of any of the important things of life, as a rule, but they are thinking of the trivialities of life, what they shall eat, what they shall drink, wherewithal they shall be clothed, where they are going to get some pleasure, who will entertain them--those are the trifling things the world thinks about, instead of thinking of the weighty things, the things that pertain to God, to the Divine will, to the future and everlasting life.
There is a picture that is known as the "Soul's Awakening." It represents a young girl sitting in meditation, with a book in her hand; she is bending her eyes and looking toward the Lord--into space. The thought that the picture gives to my mind is, that here is a young person who has been in the ordinary affairs of life hitherto, but now has seemed to get the eyes of understanding open, seemed to come out of the sleep, as it were, seemed to awaken. The body was awake before that, but now the soul is awake to think about God and the things of the future, about the meaning of the Word of God.
I presume that picture represents something in the experience of practically all who have come to the Lord. There has been an awakening of the soul first, and it is to this that the Scripture seemingly has an application, Awake, thou that sleepest, arise now from the dead. What then? Christ shall give thee light. But we need to awake. And this is the first thought we should have in sympathy with those who are still away from the Lord, who have never yet heard the voice of the Lord. Blessed are your eyes for they have seen, and your ears for they have heard. Things come to us we did not think of before, we have had the soul awakening. We are thinking about what the Lord has to say to us. You know some of the world have been steeped in sin and degradation, and living for the world merely, and never seem to think of anything at all; they heard and never paid heed; they heard about heaven, and about the Lord, yet it never seemed to go in. Then came a time when they somehow or other experienced a soul awakening; they realized they were sinners and there was a sentence against them. Perhaps they got the right view that the sentence was death, but more likely the wrong view that it would be torment. From the moment of awakening it meant a crisis in their lives; how would they respond? Would they come near to God and get a blessing, or would they turn from God and wander off into greater darkness, greater sin, and be more difficult than ever to reach with the message? Perhaps in your case, as in mine, it was not a case of awakening out of a condition of sin, but we had been God's people all our lives, had never known anything else. I am sure that is the case with a great many people who are of the Lord's family; trained as Christian children, they never knew anything except the Bible, hymns and prayers; and yet the soul was not awake. It was going through the form of singing the hymns without really thinking of what the words meant. They were asleep--somnambulism, as it were, going around half stupid, not knowing what they did or said. I had my own experiences in that way. I remember very well the period of my soul awakening. It was when I was about 15 years of age, and I thought, as I looked at that picture called "Soul's Awakening," that the young person in the picture looked to be about 15, and that gave me the thought that perhaps there were a great many of about that age when they reach thoughtful conditions. There seems to be a great change, you know, in human nature about that time, and it is a splendid time for the forces of spiritual growth to come toward these, and for parents and guardians to have in mind that it is a very favorable time for soul awakening. I do not mean to say that we should delay our endeavor to bring the child to a knowledge of the Lord. Quite to the contrary, from the time the child is born it should always be trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We believe the training of the child should begin nine months before it is born, in order that the child may be properly born, in order that the parental mind may have the proper influence on that child. The best opportunity you will have in the whole experience, so that the proper thoughts of justice, and love, and mercy, and kindness, and gentleness, and reverence toward God, may be impressed upon the child mind is prior to its birth. I have a good deal of confidence in that. As I look about me in the world and see how farmers are careful of their stock, and how they try to get the best blends of nature, etc., and see how husbandmen and florists are careful with respect to the flowers, trees, etc., then I think how strange it is that untrained minds are not careful with their children, which are a million times more valuable in comparison. As parents and guardians, we should be specially alert as children are reaching the age of from 10 to 15, the most favorable time, according to the disposition of the child. If they pass that opportunity, in my opinion the chances are they will pass other opportunities further on. That is the most favorable time for opportunities looking toward the soul's awakening, getting their mental eyes open to see things in a new light, to look beyond the trivial affairs of the present time,--from broomstick horses and rag dolls to higher thoughts. And, if your experience has been anything like mine, it is this: that children of from about 12 to 16 reason just about as well as they will ever reason all [CR375] their lives. That seems remarkable to be true, but my experience teaches me that children reason with a great deal of accuracy at that age, and it is after that that their minds become perverted by false reasoning, and they get the brain powers mixed up; they don't know how to think or what to think; they are getting ideas crowded on one another, and they are learning what deceitfulness is--learning it from neighbors, teachers, friends, or parents, as the case may be, and the honesty that belongs naturally to the minds of many children seems sure to take its flight. Of course, ages, and conditions, and children, differ. I am merely making general suggestions.
We should be on the lookout, then, for all of this, and remember the words of the text. If they can arise as little children with their minds in good condition before they have sown their wild oats, all the better. And yet, strange to say, I have known parents, and Christian parents, too, who have said, Well, I think all children must sow their wild oats. How strange that a Christian parent should so reason! Sow your wild oats and you will reap your wild oats, too. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap"--no getting away from it. So my thought is that the child mind from its very earliest opportunity should be kept near to the Divine standard. The parents should be able to express to the child in sympathetic terms these qualities which the child mind is so ready to receive, just like a sponge sucks up water. The mind of the child is ready to absorb very fully the thoughts that are given by sincere parents, or by any person in whom the child has confidence. One great difficulty seems to be that children lose confidence in those whom they know very well if they find them deceitful. No matter if you have never deceived the child, if it finds out you have deceived other people, or practiced falsehood in any way, its mind is perverted, it loses faith, it keeps that same dishonesty of purpose and thought. Indeed, I have known parents that seemed to think it something wise and proper to teach children to be thrifty, to take advantage of somebody else, and to "fib" a little. I trust that none who have come to a knowledge of Present Truth, and who are before me in this audience today, could have such sentiments, but I am mentioning the matter on general grounds, and not with a view of making any specific application of the matter to anybody within the hearing of my voice; for I trust that by the grace of God, having learned the right way ourselves, we are prepared to point the right way to our children and to all with whom we have influence.
Those who do awaken should arise. It is quite possible to awaken and then go to sleep again. Try it in the morning and see. When you first awake there is a certain amount of freshness to the mind, but, if you turn over and doze a little, you may go sound to sleep again. Just so with the soul's awakening. That is a favorable moment to take advantage of; it means so much blessing; but, if the soul turn around drowsily, or has no encouragement at the proper time, it may drop off to sleep again. So we should encourage those who have awakened to arise from the dead world and be separate from those around them.
What would be the result, then? The next statement of our text is, "And Christ shall give thee light." He does not give light to those who are not awake. "Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart." These are approaching righteousness; they have a righteous desire and are approaching uprightness; they have been down and in arising from the dead they are getting upright. The dead are represented as being down. These arise from the dead, and become upright in character, upright in desire, and that is the kind the Lord is pleased to give light to.
What kind of light did he give to us at that time? I am not speaking of Christians; they have not been Christians yet; to merely awake, merely arise from the dead, is not to be a Christian. He gave us the light to see this, first of all, that as sinners we have no hope of everlasting life, that the wages of sin is death, but that the gift of God is everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Then we must accept Christ, must somehow come in conjunction with Him, must lay hold on Him.
And then what? Then we must go on in the light and encourage one another. I have an idea some of us have at times made a mistake in the way of talking a great deal of truth to people without showing them the important point. Here is the point: Truth is for the righteous; truth is for those who have taken their stand on righteousness, on the side of the Lord, and we are trying to tell them the truth without their taking the stand that God does not wish them to know the truth without their taking. They may only understand a certain limited part. It is to their advantage not to understand beyond, for with an increase of light comes an increase of responsibility. God will not open their eyes beyond a certain degree unless they take certain steps. How kind are all of the Divine arrangements! Blessing there, plenty of it, and yet limited to the human will.
Then, after they have responded and said, I see I must come to the Father through you; tell me what I shall do in order to be an heir of eternal life? then the Master tells them the terms. The light is shining more. The Lord now says, If you desire to be my disciple, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Me; then where I am there shall that disciple be. Unless they take that step, the light will not probably shine much more clearly. They that walk in the light as He is in the light, for them the light is intended, and they go on from grace to grace, from knowledge to knowledge--just as you put one foot forward first and then the other foot forward, then the other and so on. You may progress in the way of light, for the path of the just is as a shining light that shines more and more until the perfect day. So, then, this message of the Lord to us is full consecration.
When do we become members of the Body of Christ? Not when we wake up, not when we first rise from the dead. That is a great mistake many of us made in the past; we did not know what it meant to be a Christian. We were merely looking toward Christianity, merely getting the soul awakening to see that there is such a thing as harmony with God, and escape the condemnation that is on the world. There is still condemnation upon all except those who are in Christ Jesus. The Apostle truly says, Therefore there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus and who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. It is from the moment we get into Christ Jesus that we lose all condemnation, and it is from the time that we lose the condemnation of death that came on our race through Adam, that we begin to have the opportunity of life, because, you see, it is a trial for life. The first trial for life was given to father Adam, and, when he failed, condemnation came on all. Now no man can be tried twice unless in the meantime he has been cleared of the previous condemnation, when it is a capital offense. That is the end of the matter. Now we, as a race, were sentenced to death by God's Law, "Dying thou shalt die." The whole race is under it. Nobody can have a second trial through Christ until he gets out from under the first condemnation that came through Adam, and so merely the awakening does not give us our second trial. Arising from the dead, and seeking to live an honest, decent life, would not mean that we had passed into trial. It is only the Church that is on trial; the world is not on trial at all. Not until after you come into the Body of Christ and have Christ's merit imputed to you to cover your imperfections and to make you acceptable sacrifices can you come into relationship with God at all. Thus He makes certain terms with you by which you can become heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ, your Lord. No one is on trial for eternal life except those who have been begotten of the Holy Spirit, because all the race are still under condemnation of the Adamic sin. Does not that make it clear who is on trial now, and who will be on trial by and by. The world's judgment lies in the future, and the Church's judgment commences the moment any one of us comes into the Church. It has been going on for nearly 1,900 years. The head of the Church has been tried first and found worthy--"Worthy is the Lamb." He was glorified. The apostles were tried, and the Church all the way down has been under trial. By and by the Church's trials will be finished, the last member will pass beyond the vail and enter into the joys of His Lord. Only those thus begotten of the spirit are on trial for life on the spirit plane, whether they get the highest place, the Divine nature, members of the Royal Priesthood, or whether they get a lower place on that spirit plane as members of the Levite class, the greater company. And St. Paul says, in the sixth chapter of his letter to the Hebrews, that those who have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, if they shall fall away and turn their back on the Savior, their portion would be the second death. But that would not be very many, for the world has not tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the age to come, and been made partakers of the Holy Spirit.
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Amongst those who have come into Christ are included you and myself, I trust,--and not us merely; we should not think that merely those who are associated with the Bible Students' Association would be the elect of God, but all who belong to the Lord, whether Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans or Catholics, whatever they may be, if they belong to Christ, though they may have more or less ignorance of the Lord and His plan, and of the Bible, yet, if they belong to the Lord, He is their head, He is to be the guide and He will be the instructor. And in the School of Christ they must be brought to a certain amount of development where they will be ready for the Kingdom. To some who have come into the Church of Christ we might apply our text and say, "Awake, thou that sleepest." I am not sure but what a good many of the Church are asleep. The Apostle seems in the very connection of this text to imply that some of God's people who have escaped from the world and the bondage of sin and death, and have come into Christ as New Creatures, have gone to sleep on the matter, sleeping with the world, overcharged with the cares of this life, Jesus says, and they are in danger. The sleepy ones will not be in the Kingdom. The Apostle says that we are not of them that sleep, but we are children of the day, so, therefore, be awake and sober, looking for the great salvation that is to be brought unto us. There is a certain sense in which, if we go to sleep now as Christians, we become overcharged with the cares of this life; it is usually with the world that is dead, whether it be by intermarrying with the world, and thus have the spirit of the world brought close to us and are overcome by the influences of it, or whether it be by business entanglements, or alliances, or partnerships, or what not, that may not be favorable to our spiritual interests and consecration to God. There is a great danger that after you become one of the Lord's people, after you have become thoroughly awake, after you are a member of the Body of Christ, and after understanding a good deal of the Truth even, you might become overcharged with the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches. Probably you might get the deceitfulness of riches without getting the riches; just as many people and more get into trouble without the riches as with the riches; it is trying to get the riches that has the deceitful part to it.
My text is also applicable to the future age. We considered the world and its awakening, and the Christian and his awakening and staying awake, now look forward and see that this same text will apply to the world during the Millennial Age. The world will be asleep, some of them asleep in death, and some of them asleep in ignorance and superstition, but there will be a great racket at the beginning of that new day, and the majority of people who are not in their graves will certainly get awake. I think I see that some of the worldly people are even getting awake now, and, as the racket goes on and the day of trouble comes, I think the whole world is going to get awake, and then Christ will give them light. The whole thousand years will be a time of arising from the dead. Not merely those who are in their graves will arise from the dead, but all those who will be living at the time the Kingdom is established, and before any are awakened from the tomb, will begin to get awake and arise from sin and evil conditions, trying to get up a little higher, and more awake, and get more of the blessings that will be coming at that time from the glorious Sun of Righteousness, the Lord Himself and the Church with Him. Christ and the Church are in the Scriptures represented as being the Sun of Righteousness that will arise with healing in its beams. Then the poor world that is in sorrow, and pain, and sighing, and crying, that has been afflicted of the Devil for 6,000 years, will begin to look up to the great Redeemer for deliverance from the power of the Devil, and the Devil will be bound for that 1,000 years and have no power to deceive them any more, and the true light will shine out and all the darkness will be scattered. Glory to God for that!
Will they all awake? The Word says that all the blind eyes shall be opened, and all the deaf ears unstopped, and the knowledge of the glory of God shall fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep, until none shall any longer say to his neighbor and brother, Know thou the Lord, because all shall know Him from the least unto the greatest.
How about those who will prefer to be asleep and won't arise from the dead state? The Bible indicates that a hundred years of patience on the part of the Lord Jesus as the great King and Priest will give the opportunity to every one of those to reconsider and to take the proper view and to respond, and to love righteousness and hate iniquity, and, if by the end of that hundred years they are not found in harmony with God, they shall be destroyed from among the people. There will be no further opportunity for them; they will have had all that was ever intended for them by Divine wisdom.
On the contrary, those who will be awake and come to the light the Lord will give more and more light. It will not be the perfect day all at once. That great Sun of Righteousness, like our natural sun which is the picture of it, will have a gradual rising; gradually its rays will dispel the darkness and clouds and bring more daylight, and so during that thousand years the world will be rising, and rising, and rising-- arising from the dead! It will take the whole thousand years for them to completely arise from the dead. One says, Why does not Christ do it all for them? Because it is far better that He should help them do it themselves; he is taking the best way; it is His blessing, but His blessing comes in the most practical way. The person who thus learns to co-operate with the Lord will be forming a character, so that at the end of the thousand years he will have formed a character based on experience. He will have had experience with right and wrong, and, backed by all that experience, having attained the full perfection of human nature, Oh, what a wonderful being he will be! Will He be proof against sin? He should be; there is no excuse for anyone who would not be then. But this restored man, when brought back to the image of his Creator, will have a personal test. All through the thousand years they will be under the Mediator's control and guidance as the great King, and any wrong will be punished and any right will be blessed, but, when they reach the end of the thousand years, Messiah will give over His Kingdom, and they will be left to themselves. Those who have formed character, who have really learned to love that which is right and to hate that which is wrong, will be ready for any kind of a test, and those who have not come to such a determination will not be ready for every test, and God will then bring the test against them. We may not know definitely the character of the temptation. In Revelation it is symbolically represented as the loosing of Satan and his going forth to tempt the world. No matter what the temptation is, we may know it will be a very crucial one. Everybody who has any sympathy for wrong will be deceived into taking the wrong course. We presume that those who reach perfection there would not take the wrong course if they realized it would bring death on them; they would dodge the wrong course then just for fear of death. But God is not pleased to give eternal life to those who would merely dodge the penalty; He only wants those to have eternal life who love the right as He loves the right. God is not afraid of any punishment in connection with Himself; it is because right is right that God loves the right, and He wants of those who would enjoy His favor of everlasting life to also love right because right is right. He wants them to hate wrong because wrong is wrong.
If any of them are destroyed in the second death, one asks if that would not be an unkindness on God's part? They had no rights at all, because they were born without any life rights. God never made them any promise of life everlasting. It is only indirectly He has told His people that He intends to provide a way of escape to the whole human family. Nobody has a promise from God. God merely said to Abraham, and to the Church through the prophets and apostles, what He intends to do for the world; He has not promised the world a thing; He is going to give it as free grace. These blessings of God which we are now enjoying should be appreciated from the standpoint of right and wrong, and you and I must learn to appreciate these principles in the same way that the world in the future must learn. Otherwise we will not be acceptable with the Lord. He seeketh such to worship Him now, and then, and always, and everywhere --angels and men--God seeketh such to worship Him as worship Him in spirit and in truth, such as love righteousness and hate iniquity. I hope we can all mark that down clear in our minds so we can press on loving the right, standing for the right, and eschewing all wrong, even if the wrong would be to our advantage.
Here I will leave the matter with you, dear friends. "Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." He is to be the great Light-giver, the great enlightener of all mankind; as He has declared, "This is the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world."
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Press Comment--"Pastor Russell Raps the Sects"
Says Denominations in the Churches Are Stumbling Blocks to Christ
SAYS HELL-FIRE IS A MYTH
Deplores Lack of Interest in Bible Study and
Explains Status of the Dead--Big Audiences to Hear
"Every graduate of a college in this country today is an unbeliever in the Holy Bible. Most of the colleges denounce the book. The courses in the colleges of today compel the students to lose faith in the Bible. Many of the graduates have no faith in the Great Creator."
So declared Pastor Russell, the famous nonsectarian Brooklyn clergyman, to an audience of nearly 2,000 persons at the Moore Theater last evening. The aged pastor spoke in his usual unostentatious way, prefacing his address with the statement, "I want to have a heart-to-heart talk with every one of you."
Pastor Russell bitterly denounced denominations in the churches. He said that they were a retarding stone in spreading the teachings of the Bible broadcast. "Put all the creeds up as targets and then shoot them down--down and out forever," he said.
He cited a case in which he personally investigated in New York in which, he said, a father, eager to have his child get a complete education, sent her to a college. She was a strong believer in the Bible before she entered, but after she graduated she had lost all faith in the book, he said.
SAYS MINISTERS ARE UNBELIEVERS.
"The professors are all unbelievers in the Bible. Even the ministers are thorough unbelievers in the Bible. This is the time of darkness. But the great light is soon to appear. God tells us a new day will soon dawn.
"All this fictitious description about the horrors of hell is a disgrace on God. Is it possible for us Bible students to think that God, with all His love and sympathy, would create such a hell as is pictured before us today?
"But soon a great change is going to come. The 'mystery' is that the church, as well as her Lord, and in association with Him, will be the world's Restorer--Regenerator. Not any of the nominal churches of Christ is meant, but the one true church, composed only of saints. These have been in process of selection for more than eighteen centuries.
"When I say that the Bible's teaching regarding 'Beyond the Grave' is logical, some will scoff. But hear me for my cause. Hear the Bible's own testimony--not what the creeds say it teaches.
THE DEAD--DO THEY LIVE?
"It teaches that the dead are not alive anywhere--that a dead person cannot experience either joy or sorrow. It teaches that all hope of a future life by Divine appointment is vested in Jesus, who died that we might as a race be released from the death sentence inherited from Father Adam, and that thus Jesus might become the Life-Giver or Savior to as many as will return to God through Him."
Pastor Russell addressed an audience of more than 500 persons in the auditorium of the Scottish Rite cathedral yesterday afternoon. This meeting was attended mostly by Bible students of Seattle and nearby cities. He told of what great progress had been made of late in winning the people over to the Bible and gave suggestions on the most efficacious method to pursue in carrying on the work.
Dr. Russell is accompanied on his western tour by 225 Bible students of the eastern states. Dr. L. W. Jones of Chicago is conducting the excursion. Following the close of the afternoon meeting many of the visitors were taken about the city in automobiles furnished by local followers.
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Victoria, B.C.
JUNE 21, 1913
TO REACH Victoria was a ride of about five hours from Seattle on one of the Canadian Pacific steamships. This trip was especially appreciated by the friends who had spent so many days on board our train.
Victoria, B.C., has been described as "a bit of England on the shores of the Pacific," which certainly conveys an excellent idea of what the city actually is, its institutions, buildings, clubs, homes manners and customs being essentially of English character, and one with any knowledge of England would imagine he walked its streets or conversed with its people, that he was, indeed, in a bit of England, and it is these characteristics that make the city extremely interesting to all visitors from the United States.
However, while all of these features are very interesting, to all, yet to the International Bible Students, our special interest was in meeting, greeting and fellowshipping with those of "like precious faith." Our interest also centered in the public meeting, addressed by Pastor Russell at 8 p.m., because we desire all who are hungering and thirsting for a knowledge of the Truth to have an opportunity to hear it from the lips of him whom the Lord is using so wonderfully in these latter days.
About 500 Bible students were in attendance for the afternoon meeting. The evening meeting taxed the hall to its full capacity of about a thousand, so that the interested friends gave way to the public and held an overflow meeting which was addressed by Pilgrim Brother Saphore. Brother Russell's afternoon discourse is as follows: [CR378] Refuse Not Him that Speaketh I HAVE a great deal of pleasure, my dear friends, in being with the class at Victoria today. I may say to the friends by way of introduction that the goodly company traveling along, about 240, are a company made up by Brother Dr. Jones of Chicago. He learned that I would be taking a tour of the western coast, and asked whether or not I would like to have some company; I said I always enjoyed having good company. He said he thought we would have maybe two or three cars anyway, but later reported that there were nine cars full. So you see there are quite a good many that have the pleasure of visiting Victoria and seeing you here with the Body of the Lord, and meeting with all the other dear friends along the way. On the train they have in a certain degree a convention season all the time amongst themselves. I do not have a great deal of opportunity to see them on the train, necessarily being busy, but they have enjoyed themselves, I am sure, a great deal as they have stopped at one place and another. You all know something about the journey we have had. I joined the party at Hot Springs, Arkansas, having made some half-dozen different stops before that, and from Hot Springs on I know we have had very nice convention seasons. Wherever we have gone we have found the friends of one mind, one heart, and one spirit--because we were all baptized by one spirit into one Body. The one spirit is the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ and His spirit was, you remember, to do the will of the Father who sent Him. And so when we are baptized into that one spirit, when our spirits, our minds, are buried, immersed into the mind of our Lord, and He accepts us as members, that is what produces the great oneness--the sympathetic heart oneness--of all the members; because we are each and all recognizing ourselves and each other as merely members of the Body of Christ and merely under the headship of Jesus. As long as the headship of Jesus is recognized, we must of necessity have a great deal of harmony. My head directs this hand what it shall do, and the other hand what it shall do, and also the feet--every member is under the direct control of the head, therefore the harmony. If my hand got the St. Vitus dance, and I could not control it with my brain power, it would be in a diseased condition; the hand would not obey the head, and I could not do various things I would want to do. I would try to pick up a glass of water, or to feed myself, and this motion would go on all the while. Why? Because the hand is sick; it is out of harmony with the head. So when any member of the Body of Christ is out of harmony with the Head, he is sick, and would be proportionately unable to get a blessing himself or to do good to others. The greatest blessing and usefulness we will have always must be from our co-operation with the great Head in all the work that He is doing. You are not doing any of the work, and I am not doing anything in the work; we are merely factors. God is the great one who is doing the whole plan. He it is that formed the plan and is carrying out His own purposes. Our Lord Jesus is the great factor the Heavenly Father is using, and we are invited in, not to be heads, not to be rulers, not to be anything but obedient.
I was thinking over what subject the Lord would have me use for this afternoon, and the text of Scripture came to me which I will give you: "See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh from Heaven" (Heb. 12:25). The Apostle says elsewhere, that God hath in these last days spoken unto us through His Son. He is here contrasting this message that God has sent us through the Lord Jesus Christ with the other messages that God sent through inferior servants previously --the prophets, including Moses. All of these angelic messages through the prophets by inspiration came previously by this, that or the other hand, as might be necessary, but God hath in these latter days spoken to us by His Son. Jesus told about how a certain husbandman had sent different servants and they were mistreated, etc., and finally he said, I will send my son. And so it is in harmony with that that the Apostle says, God is now speaking to us through His Son. And he tells us in another place He is speaking peace through His Son--speaking the peace of Jesus Christ. What does that signify? Oh, that signifies there was a war before; there was rebellion before. Our whole race rebelled against the Heavenly Father way back in Adam's time, when Father Adam and Mother Eve were on trial. Mother Eve was misled by Satan's suggestion and disobeyed God's word, and then Father Adam, leaning to his own understanding, concluded he would be a transgressor, and wilfully sinned that he might have fellowship with his wife rather than with his God. And so the whole race got into rebellion and were condemned. God said, I will cut you off from fellowship, you are all sinners, death is the sentence; none of you are fit to be called my children any longer. And then afterwards He did give an opportunity for some to come into harmony with Him during the Law Covenant time, and there He spoke to them especially through Moses and through the law, directing that those who would come under those sacrifices, and who would hear Moses, might do so; as we read, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. They could not hear anything more than that. God had not spoken in any other way than through the law and the prophets, and there would be some excuse for people not believing them and not fully obeying them. And yet the Apostle says that those who disobeyed Moses' law died without mercy. Why? Because Moses was merely God's mouthpiece, and if they disobeyed Moses the penalty was death. The Apostle's argument is, Now, brethren, look back at the history of Israel in the past, and see how they from time to time were negligent of the messages God sent at the mouth of angels and at the mouth of Moses, and how that from time to time disasters came on them because they were negligent. If there was such a penalty for negligence in respect to Moses, who was an inferior servant, what do you think would be the result of refusing Him that speaketh from Heaven? Do you see the contrast? If those who rejected Moses' law died without mercy, of how much sorer punishment suppose ye they should be accounted worthy who would count the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified an unholy thing, a common thing, and do despite to God's spirit of favor? Oh, you are bound to see that as the earth drinketh up the blood that is spilled, so we might expect there would be nothing further for those who would reject the arrangement God has made.
As I studied over this text, which seemed to be the one the Lord had for me for this afternoon, it seemed to me I realized something more than I had ever realized before in these words; and that deeper meaning is that apparently there are a good many more going into the second death than I had been inclined to suppose. My mind has always been inclined to suppose that nearly everybody when brought to a knowledge of the truth, to a knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus, would surrender and say, Gladly will we go in the Lord's way. But there were the Jews, who were more or less a typical people, and we remember how many of them fell on this occasion when they rejected the Lord's testimony, and how many of them again fell in the wilderness on that account; and the Apostle calls up these very illustrations-- Now see what happened to them! See how it is with you! That is the very argument the Apostle makes.
In thinking of the Church I have been inclined to believe that the three classes would be something like this: The Little Flock, only the limited number, probably 144,000 as far as we may be able to judge; then the Great Company, whose number no man knows--the number of whom is not revealed, God not having fixed it in any way, merely those who failed to become worthy of the Little Flock condition and yet are loyal to God in their hearts, and will not be permitted to die the second death. Then I have always thought of the number going into the second death as probably being very small; but as the Apostle's words came before my mind this morning in thinking this matter over, See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh from Heaven, for they who refused Moses perished, I said, Are there many refusing Christ now? Well, I believe, dear friends, that perhaps a considerable number get enough hearing of the real ears of their hearts to make them to a considerable degree responsible. I am not meaning to say that anyone becomes fully responsible until he has come into the spirit-begotten condition. We were discussing this matter yesterday, and I was trying to point out to the friends that no one can be on trial for eternal life until first he has gotten free from the sentence of death. The first sentence of death, the Adamic [CR379] sentence, must be removed before anybody can be on trial for life or death again. So then we see God's wonderful mercy in providing that those who come now into Christ will not be on trial merely when they hear about Christ, merely when they hear there is a door open of return to God, and their hearts have a longing in that direction. They look over toward the Tabernacle--I am speaking figuratively--they look toward God, and they go a little piece farther and they look again, and stop and think, and they hear God's voice, "Draw nigh unto Me and I will draw nigh to you." Then they go a little nearer--they are approximating justification: that is, they are going in the right way toward justification; every step is a step nearer to justification. Every step is bringing them a blessing. As they draw nearer to God they have more of His favor. So we pointed out that in all of this drawing near to God they had not yet come into the full trial, full testing until they came to the place where the Lord accepts them, and justifies them, and at that point He has indicated, "Present your bodies a living sacrifice." So they keep coming on, looking forward, and learning a little more and a little more. Finally they come to the parting of the ways. There, now, you understand the condition. You cannot go on into the Tabernacle condition unless you present your bodies, unless you make a full consecration. You have no standing with the great God unless the great Redeemer Himself shall accept you, and He will not accept you as His brethren, He will not count you in as part of His flesh, and will not sacrifice you as part of the offering of the Lord, unless you give yourself fully and unreservedly to Him. So that was the deciding point. When you gave yourself unreservedly was the time when the Lord Jesus accepted you, in harmony with the Father's plan.
And immediately after He accepted you and counted you as His flesh, then the Father accepted that flesh; because, as we pointed out, the flesh of Christ has been offering all through this Gospel Age. Jesus first offered His own flesh, and when He finished that He appeared in the presence of God and made satisfaction for the sins of all His disciples. And then as soon as the Lord made satisfaction for them, the twelve apostles, the Father immediately accepted their sacrifices as indicated by giving the Holy Spirit. So all other believers received the Holy Spirit as they were accepted of the Lord and all were accepted of the Father just as soon as the great Advocate accepted them. So then we have been coming down through all the age and the flesh of the Church, the consecrated ones, has been the flesh of Jesus, and this flesh of Jesus has been suffering all the way down for pretty near 1,900 years--Christ suffering in the flesh. So we see the fulfillment of the Scripture which declares that we are filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. And the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. All these various Scriptures tell us that now are the sufferings, and then is the glory. The prophets of old, St. Peter says, spake of the sufferings of Christ--Christ Jesus the head and all the members of the Body of Christ--and the glory that will follow. The glory will follow promptly just as soon as the sufferings are over. You and I are anxious to have a share in the sufferings, that we may also have a share in His coming blessing, glory, honor, immortality.
Then we pointed out also that as soon as we are received of the Lord in spirit, we are all one in body--that is, as New Creatures. There is the one body in the flesh. Then there is the other body, the New Creature body, composed of Christ the New Creature and all of us as begotten of the Holy Spirit New Creatures, and the New Creatures inhabit this flesh of Christ. So the Holy Spirit in you is inhabiting the flesh of Christ, and the Holy Spirit in me is inhabiting the flesh of Christ; and so in all the Church of Christ. Here are two bodies of Christ, then, the body of Christ in the flesh and the body of Christ spiritually dwelling in these earthly tabernacles, and seeking to bring them to the sacrificial point in everything day by day.
And then we pointed out the final Body of Christ beyond the vail to be composed of the more than conquerors only, Jesus the Captain, and all of the most zealous and faithful ones who would lay down their lives voluntarily and of their own free will in obedience to His example.
So we have the three bodies. This last body is taken out of the others and besides there are some left, and those constitute the Great Company and some who go into the second death. But you see all of this dealing is with this class that God receives, and He does not receive us until we come to the point of full consecration, then the New Creature is there, and it is the New Creature that is on trial, not the flesh. And your trial and mine, therefore, could not begin until we become New Creatures. So that in all of this Gospel age it is only the New Creatures that have been on trial for life eternal or death eternal.
We are not wishing to make any different statement from that this afternoon when saying, See that ye reject not Him that speaketh from Heaven. We are not meaning to say that anybody could reject Him in the full sense of the word and go into the second death unless he had fully come into Christ and had become His disciple, and had heard His voice in a very special sense. We, dear friends, hear in a way that we did not hear before we received the begetting of the spirit. When we were begotten of the spirit we got a new understanding, a new hearing, new ears as it were, new eyes, and as New Creatures we could see, hear and understand differently from what we ever could before. As St. Paul says, The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, neither may he know them, for they are spiritually discerned. We could not discern them until we were begotten of the spirit.
But now there is such a thing as rejecting Christ after we have heard about Him. Using these rugs here as illustrations, suppose that this rug shall represent the approach, the court condition, and the second rug shall represent the Tabernacle, and this strip between them shall represent the door into the Tabernacle, and out there shall represent the world. When we started from the world and came a little piece toward the court we were going in the right direction, and we got a little blessing every step we took. Now suppose we stop right at the door there, would we have advantage so far as we came? Well, we have gained a certain advantage but if we got that far and saw and then turned back, it is questionable whether we would have any advantage over others that never saw any. If once we have seen anything and then reject it, it is questionable whether it has done us any good--it is a question whether it has not done us harm.
After we come further, and after seeing the sacrifice of atonement on the altar in the front of the court, and come on in the Court farther, thus progressing nearer to God and getting better ideas of Him, and then we see the laver there representing purification, then if we do not go any farther, but say, No, I will hold back, I won't purify, I won't wash, I won't think to put away the filth of the flesh, it is doubtful whether the seeing of the altar does us any good. I doubt it very much. And then if we do see it, and wash and put away the filth of the flesh and become cleaner in our daily lives in coming nearer to the Lord, and then come clear up to the door of the Tabernacle then learn the thing necessary, namely, that we should present our bodies living sacrifices, and if then we stop it is doubtful whether all these steps will be of any advantage to us. I rather think that the steps of progress might not be of any advantage. Why not? It would be in line with this text, "See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh from Heaven."
What was it we heard? We heard a speech from Heaven inviting us, and after coming a certain piece we got a blessing as far as we came, and coming further we got more blessing, but any time we stop then we are refusing Him that speaketh--refusing the great Speaker from Heaven, the great Teacher.
But, you say, Brother Russell, it is in the future He is going to teach?
Yes, He is going to be the world's great Teacher in the future, there is no doubt about that. Everybody's ears and eyes then will be opened. But these who now have their eyes and ears opened and see these things under the present pressure of sin, ignorance, weakness, labor and heavy-laden conditions, and if it does not impress them, if the blood of the Savior is nothing to them, and if they turn back and reject or refuse Him that speaketh, and refuse His message, I do not know how much they are advantaged; I rather believe, as far as I can figure out, that they will be somewhat disadvantaged by reason of having heard now and having come to see these things.
How would they be disadvantaged? I am speculating now. I haven't any positive Scripture to say this, but I am just reasoning it out. This text has led me to do some of this reasoning. I rather think that whoever hears of a good thing and rejects it, that good thing does not sound quite as [CR380] good the next time he hears it. I can imagine the world in the next age hearing about God's goodness and I can imagine them in my mind as being, Oh, so wonderfully impressed! For instance, I would put myself in imagination to the time when the Kingdom is established, and suppose we were amongst those who would be awakened from the tomb and come up. Suppose we had died in fear of Purgatory, or Hell, or something, and with the last thought on our mind--when we even tried to die very quietly the last thought was, Well, the next minute maybe the devil will have me. That is the way it has been with many, you know. I think a great many people try to keep a very sober face as they go down into the dark valley of death, try to be very quiet, they do not want anyone to know how much they are feeling of fear, yet occasionally some will say, I feel a great dread; I wish you would stay near me. It is the dread in their minds caused by these teachings they have had about devils, fire and pitchforks, etc., and they would not like just to say, I am afraid of the devil catching me. They would not want to say that for the sake of their friends; they keep a stiff upper lip for their own sake, and keep perfectly quiet and don't give in. That is what they all try to do. It is just as well they should. But I fancy when these people would awake with these very same thoughts, they would think as they opened their eyes, "The devil!" They do not see any devils but they will be looking around for them. And their friends who are there to meet them when awakened from the tomb would say, "We are glad to see you."
"Where am I? Where are the devils?"
"Oh, my dear brother, it is a mistake we had."
"Mistake?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, we are sure. That was a mistaken theology, doctrines of devils that came in, and God's people, all of us, were deceived and we were all in great terror and misunderstood God and His Plan altogether. Now you are just being awakened from the sleep of death."
"How long have I been asleep?"
"For 100 years."
"And what has taken place?"
"Oh, the world has been changed a good deal since you fell asleep. You will find things going on nicely now. Jesus is the King indeed. You know Satan used to be the prince of this world--you heard that from the Bible."
"I didn't know what it meant."
"No, you did not, but he was indeed the prince of this world and deceived the whole world and misled us all for a time and made us think God was a devil, and now we are really getting Messiah's reign, and He is showing us the truth, and the whole world is getting the blessings God intended, and God has been very good all the time. This is the penalty of sin you have experienced in sorrows, aches, pains, difficulties and death, and all the remainder of mankind were a groaning Creation. We were all having these difficulties and that was the curse, and now you are getting free. Don't you feel thankful to God?"
"Oh, yes, if God is so good as that I think I want to be His servant."
See how it will affect them. They will say, "If God is really good I want to serve Him." And I think, my dear friends, that person will be in just as favorable a condition as the other person who would have a different experience and who would awaken and say, "Where am I?"
"You are in the Millennial Age."
"Yes, that is what I have been expecting; I was expecting that. Have you got a nice place for me? Nothing will be too good for me."
He will then see what the conditions are and will say, "This is not nearly as good as I expected; I heard Pastor Russell speak, and I thought it would be much better."
That person who merely gets a glimpse beyond into the future, and hears of God's goodness now, and is not melted by his own imperfection and need of the Savior, when he hears the voice of God speaking in Christ and telling about the love of God which passeth all understanding, and his heart is indifferent and steeled against it, and he says, I will wait, I will get all of that by and by, I will have a good time now and I will live according to my own desires at present, I guess it will be all right by and by--I do not think it will be so good for that person by and by. I believe he will be considerably disadvantaged in the future if he hears of the grace of God now and rejects Him that speaketh from Heaven--even if he hears only a little bit of it such as the world can hear. I do not mean as much as you and I who are spirit-begotten can understand and know of the deep things of God; we can appreciate God's great plan in its lengths and breadths and heights and depths. Oh, no, I do not mean that! I mean those who can get just little glimpses of restitution, the whole earth to be made like the Garden of Eden and all men having the privilege of coming to perfection. If that does not appeal to them, and if they do not love the kind of a God that has made that kind of a provision for men, they are not in a very favorable condition of mind. If they reject Him that speaketh from Heaven now, I would not be sure they would not reject the voice of Him who will speak from Heaven by and by during the Millennial Kingdom.
I will tell you what I think: I think that when I first hear that sweet story of old--the story that is always going to be sweet and precious to those who are God's people-- when I hear about God's loving provisions I want to let it down into my heart and I want to tear away and put out of my heart everything that would hinder it from flowing in freely to every part of my being, and there bringing fruitage to God, love, appreciation, devotion and all proper feeling. What can I render to the Lord for all His benefits towards me? Oh, show me what little thing I can do, I appreciate this redemption so much! I appreciate the love of God so much! Is there not some way I can show Him I appreciate His love?
Yes, there is.
What is it?
Well, He has offered a certain cup and He says that those who especially love him and want to know specially what would be His Will, that cup represents His providences for that special class. If, therefore, you have heard of His grace and want to do His will, take the cup.
Who drank the cup?
Jesus, and He set us an example.
Did He walk the narrow way?
Yes, sir, He did, and set us an example that we should walk in His steps.
Is it a reasonable service?
"I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice...your reasonable service"--nothing unreasonable about it. What have you got to give?
Hardly anything. Just think it over a little while and you will be almost ashamed to offer what you have. If you offer all you have you will feel ashamed, and say, No, the Lord would have no use for such a trifling little thing as I am, and my little things, my time or money or whatever I may have--whatever constitutes my value. Oh, no, I could not offer it to God. But that is God's offer to us. He says, Now I know you have nothing practically, but if it is only a penny you have to give all you have. If it is a million dollars you could not give any less and get into the Kingdom. Whatever you have, you have to give. That "Pearl of Great Price" is worth everything you have; and as Jesus gave all He had, and as He left the Heavenly glory to die that He might win that prize, so if you want to be a joint heir with Him you know just what you are to do. You have not anything to give in comparison with what He gave, and yours would not be worth anything because it is all worm-eaten with imperfection and sin, whereas His was holy, harmless and undefiled. But He makes yours worthy by imputing His merit to it and that overcomes all the imperfection of your little offering. Now if once we hear, see that we reject not Him that speaketh from Heaven. You will find that after you have rejected once or twice, the story will not seem nearly as wonderful, not nearly as sweet. That is a fact, is it not? Whoever rejects this matter finds it to his own disadvantage, I believe, every minute after that.
But, Brother Russell, what do you say about those who do not hear?
Well, those who do not hear have not the least bit of responsibility in proportion as we have who do hear. The heathen millions who have not heard of God could not present their bodies. And what could they do? Jesus says that those who knew not will be beaten with few stripes in comparison with those who did know. So if you and I have heard and do not know the will of God, and what is right and wrong, the responsibility lies with us and we would get stripes even if we did not come into a condition of having a full test or trial for life eternal. Even if we only came along and saw [CR381] the Tabernacle and heard of the privileges and arrangements, if we did not respond we would have a certain amount of responsibility.
Then there is the next step after we have heard Him speak. We say, I heard the voice of Jesus saying, Come unto Me and live, and I came to Jesus as I was. That is your position and mine, is it not? We passed in here at the gate of the Tabernacle Court and saw the sacrifice for sin, and our hearts were uplifted toward God for the great redemption. We saw the laver representing the cleansing of the flesh, and we said, Oh, we are glad, we want to put away all the filth of the flesh we can; we want to be as near pure as we can be; we want to do our best.
We came further up to the door of the Tabernacle and said, Lord, we understand we can go in? May we?
Have you washed at the laver?
Yes.
Did you see the sacrifice and accept it?
Yes.
Now you want to enter in and become priests?
Yes, Lord, if we may.
Very well. Tie yourself up like that goat at the door of the Tabernacle.
What does that mean?
That means, give up your own will, surrender yourself.
Will you accept me, Lord?
I will attend to that.
So we gave ourselves, and He there, as the Great High Priest, accepted that offering that you made and I made. We tied it up in the sense of making a consecration. Your consecration tied the goat at the door of the Tabernacle. You did not sacrifice the goat--the goat does not sacrifice itself. The underpriests do not sacrifice the goat. The High Priest sacrifices the goat. So you merely can go as far as tying up the goat. You tied your goat there, and I tied mine there. Here, Lord, we give ourselves away. Then the High Priest came, smote the goat, killed the goat--death to the flesh. Henceforth you are represented in his body, a member of the body of that High Priest. Then as members of the body of the High Priest we had the right and privilege of the interior, and in the Tabernacle itself, in the Holy, we had the fellowship with God, as we partook of the unleavened bread of His presence, and we had fellowship with Him as we saw the light from the Golden Candlestick giving us light on the precious things of God--yea, the deep things of God. The things in the Tabernacle were hidden from the sun, they were darkened as respects outside light, and we had the interior light. And then we had also the blessed association with the incense; not that you and I perhaps had anything to do with offering the incense, but the incense that the Great High Priest offered was sufficient for all of us, and makes all of His members acceptable in the Most Holy.
Now after we have heard His voice, after we have come in, after we have become of the priestly class, is there any Church then. Brother Russell?
Oh, yes.
I thought that was outside that the Church was--see that ye refuse not Him?
We did accept Him and came in.
Is there anything more?
Oh, yes, He still speaks and it is for you and for me to hear it. See that ye refuse not anything that the Great High Priest says.
How does He speak to us? After we are inside, you know we have accepted His voice?
You merely accepted the opportunity of coming in under Him as your head. He is more to you now than He ever was before. This hand of mine has more responsibility to this head than to anything outside. That table and chair may be under control and possession of the head but not in the sense this hand or foot may be. In everything this hand and foot are responsible. The will of the head is to be done in the body. Hand, see that ye refuse not the head that directs your course, and speaks and acts through you.
Does that apply to us?
Yes.
Did it apply in the type?
Yes.
Don't you remember some of the rebellion and some of the wrong doing Paul referred to among the Israelites was done by the underpriests? Some of the underpriests were the very ones that were in rebellion against the voice. That might be you or me, my dear brother; we might be rebellious against the Master. See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh from Heaven, for if those who refused the typical Moses died without mercy, you who have now come in under the headship of Christ and have agreed to be subject to Him in all things--if you are disobedient to Him you will run the risk of the second death. That is what I understand the Apostle to mean. The more I think of it the more reasonable it seems that if I have come unto the Lord and He has accepted me as a member of His body and I made a full consecration of all to Him, it should be my highest aim, my highest desire, to do His will, and if in anything I should be rebellious against the will of the Lord then I would be a rebel, and as a rebel refusing Him that speaks I would be like those who refused Moses back there, and that the anti-typical punishment would come on me. As the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up some of those priests there, just so it would be here, as the Apostle uses that as an illustration.
See that ye refuse not Him. What is He saying to us? Well, He tells us we are in the School of Christ and He has become our teacher. Those in the School of Christ are to be still more amenable to the voice of the Teacher than before they came into the School. What lessons does He wish us to learn? Oh, a variety of lessons. The first lesson is meekness--teachableness. Will there be any of the Body of Christ who will lack in teachableness? We suppose that there is more lack along the line of failure to be teachable than any other line.
What would interfere with teachableness? Well, self-conceit would interfere a good deal, and self-will. Should not everybody have a little self-conceit? Well, anybody that is big enough ought to have a little self-conceit, but none of us are big enough. I do not know what you have to boast of. I do not know what I have to boast of. And I believe that when we are in the School of Christ and hear our Master's voice instructing us we had better all conclude that of ourselves we are nothing, that without Him we can do nothing, and that here is the very first thing, we need to be taught of God. We need to be taught by the Great Teacher God has appointed to teach us, and if we refuse then we are refusing Him that speaketh from Heaven; we are refusing the very Teacher God appointed, the Lord Jesus.
Well, Brother Russell, the Lord Jesus does not come down and teach us in so many words?
Oh, well, my dear brother, He has been the instructor of His people nevertheless, He is our Teacher through His Word and through His promises. If you have never heard His teachings then you are not in His School at all. Now did you hear the voice of Jesus?
Yes.
How did it first come to you?
Through the Scriptures, through His promises, and through the various experiences of life.
What have they taught you?
The first lesson is meekness. If they have not taught you and I meekness then we have not even learned the primary lesson. Lord, show me Thy way, not Lord, I want my way, and I am going to have my way, and here is what I prefer, and this is what I am going to do. The Lord will just let you go and do your way. Many of us know it. Has not that been the history of the Church all the way down? Doesn't the Lord let people go their own way? Do you know anybody the Lord has ever forced? I do not know of any. He is not seeking for those who need force. He will use force on those who need it in the next age. The whole call of this Gospel age is for those who declare in their covenant that they want to do God's will, and they will sacrifice their lives, anything, to do His will. Now after they have come in and He has accepted them and the contract is sealed, and He has given them the earnest of the inheritance, the Holy Spirit, it is too late to go back on that contract. It is either go on or perish, to my understanding. It is, get everlasting life along this line, or get the second death. It is either, hear Him that speaketh from Heaven and get His blessing, or, you will die as one that is unsuitable for any blessing of God. I believe that is the teaching of the Word. Now we should hear His voice very attentively. There are different degrees of hearing and obedience. You see it in dogs, and horses, and everything else. You know some dogs, if you say, Here, Jack! the dog will jump up and run to you with his tail wagging. That is the kind of a dog you like, is it not? The kind of a dog you have to say Jack! Jack!! Jack!!! and hit him with a stone, you don't want that dog around at all. You say, that dog is no good. [CR382] Now the kind of a dog you want, the kind of a dog you like, is the one who is responsive, ready to do, so that if you just snap your finger and he catches your eye when you motion to him he is right there on the spot to do. That represents the Little Flock class. They are watching the Lord's eye--just watching the Lord. We do not see God's eye in one sense of the word; it is a figurative expression, but He says we are the ones he will guide with His eye. "I will guide thee with mine eye." That is the kind He is looking for, those who are all attention to see what they can render to Him. As the eyes of the servant are to the master, the eyes of the maid to the mistress, so are our eyes to Thee, Oh, Lord. That is the thought, you see, to see what the Lord's will is--watching the Lord, not waiting until He hits us; not waiting until we are knocked down by some providence. The Little Flock class will be such as can be guided by the Lord's will; that are so anxious to do His will, so alert, so willing--anything, any time, Lord--now, or any time, any moment. That is the spirit of them. Now that will be the first class graduated out of the School of Christ.
Then the second class graduated from the School of Christ will be those who are rather slow, and busy. The dog is busy playing with a ball or a bone and you say, Jack, come here! He will wag his tail a little and still gnaw the bone. And you say, Come here, Jack! Then he will leave it and come. You see, he is not quite as alert as the other dog. He does come after you say, Jack, I want you to come here! Or, if you want to put it as an illustration in school we will say there are different children in there; one is attentive to do just as the teacher would have done, the other is rather inclined to play and forget the rules of the school and yet is not a bad boy or girl. Another is really a bad one. You see, there are three kinds. The Lord is seeking the attentive pupils for the Bride class. Then there are those who are well intentioned, but more or less do not study their lessons properly somehow. They will study some, then play a little, then study some more. They will come in as the second class. They will have to be kept in after school and get a little switching on the hands, etc., and then they will get second place as servants in the Kingdom; instead of being on the throne they will be before the throne; instead of having golden crowns they will have the palm branches; instead of having the Divine nature they will be of the spirit-nature like unto the angels. Very good indeed--Oh, yes, very blessed! Anything the Master will give will be good. Those are real good people; they are well meaning people, but they are not up to the standard the Lord wants for the Bride class. You and I want to see that, because we want to be pleasing in His sight; we want to be of the Bride class who will have the love of the Bridegroom, the very one who wants us to be there. You know how He has expressed it: If you love father, or mother, or houses, or lands, or self, more than Me, you are not worthy of Me. The ones who will get first place are the ones who will catch the spirit of the Master and have the loyalty to Him and His cause. Is that going to be your position and mine, dear brother? If so, then we may say to ourselves, By the grace of God we will be with Him in the Throne, we will be more than the merely conquerors, we will have the joint-heirship. But if we are of those who hear His voice and refuse and say, We have a plan of our own, a will of our own, etc., and we are not looking around, Lord, especially for Your will, we are doing something, then I understand that those will not get anything, not even life itself. All of those who are so indifferent to the Great Teacher, the second death would be their portion, is my understanding of the Scriptures.
So we must learn this first lesson, meekness. With some people meekness is very difficult. But things are pretty well balanced. The man who is very meek and teachable is very apt to have a disadvantage in other ways. Sometimes people impose upon him; they impose on the weak, you know; therefore it would be a disadvantage in some respects. The man who has a good deal of self-esteem and is not very meek, will get along a little better by himself; he can get along pretty well alone; but he will have his difficulty in respect to coming in under the Lord, you see. If you are going to be one of the meek kind, you have to take it on the Lord's terms. We have to be meek. You cannot change the shape of your head; if you are born proud-spirited you have that much more to battle against. And if you were born humble-minded you will have other things to confront you, but it will come easier for you to be meek. It is according to the shape of your head and the experiences of life since. But the thing balances pretty well. One has one difficulty, and the other has another. So we are to take it that the Lord is fair in His dealings, then get this thought, that meekness is the first lesson to be learned in the School of Christ. The Lord puts it first. You cannot make any progress at all until you are meek, because meekness signifies teachableness.
Next comes gentleness, and patience, and long-suffering, and brotherly kindness--making progress, you see, all the way along. It is all progress in love. Meekness is the foundation for love. Gentleness is a very important thing. The person who is rude and boisterous is not in a proper way to be used of the Lord; he will not be ready to learn the lessons. The person who is not brotherly kind will not get along very well; he will not be pleasing to the Lord. He must learn brotherly kindness in order to be kind to all the brethren, to love the brethren. He must be gentle towards them so as not to offend or hurt them, or stumble them, but if he is gentle he will always be wanting to be assistful to them. That is the spirit of the Lord.
You say, it is all right for those who have it, but I do not have it.
But, brother, then you have to get it.
Oh, Brother Russell, I cannot ever become as meek, and gentle, and patient, as the other fellow.
Well, your flesh may never become just as gentle as his or hers, but you have to get it in your mind or will. The Lord is going to judge you by the will, you know. The body may be ever so imperfect, but you must have it in your mind; it must be your desire, and endeavor, and effort. You, as a New Creature, must be gentle, else you will not be ready to be of the Kingdom at all. You, as a New Creature, must be meek, no matter what you are in the flesh. If you do something wrong, you will have to be meek enough to go and confess it and acknowledge you are wrong. It will be good for you. It will help you to be more meek the next time. And if you are rude in some respects and have to apologize for it, it will help make you more gentle the next time. So by your difficulties you will learn the lessons. If you cannot learn them one way you will have to learn them the other way, or not be fit for the Kingdom, because these are qualities of heart and mind that the Lord demands. He will give you a new body if He finds you have a ready condition of your mind. If your mind is meek, and gentle, and patient, and kind, and loving as a New Creature, the Lord says, I know he has a very mean body and a lot of trouble with it, but I see his heart and he is all of this in his heart--meek, gentle, patient, loving, kind--Oh, I love that child notwithstanding his poor body. I am going to give him a new body in the resurrection. He will not have any trouble when I give him his new body, because I know his intentions are all right.
But, my dear brother, getting the intention all right is what you are to do and what I am to do. Get your hearts right with God and then do your very best with the body. Every time the body balks, see that it gets the proper discipline. Make it go and do the thing in proper form. If it was rude to somebody, humble it, make it meek by saying, Now you have to go and tell that brother you are sorry for what you did.
But I do not like to do that; it goes against my grain.
Well, go against your grain; it is better to go against the grain and acknowledge a thing and learn the lesson than to fail to enter into the Kingdom. That is part of the process.
Now, He that is speaking from Heaven, our great Teacher, is telling us all of these things and giving us all of these lessons and when we get the right view of it, it will not be such a personal thing with us, I think. We will be looking to the Lord as respects all of life's affairs. For instance, nearly everybody is inclined to say at first, "When I first got the Truth." And after we get along a little piece further, and get our eyes of understanding more widely opened, then we will say it differently; we will say, "When the Lord was pleased first to give me the Truth." Do you see the difference? "When I first got the Truth" means that I went and got it. That I did something. You see how big I am, I did it. That is the feeling. Then after we get along a little further, we say, Oh, no, I was blind enough, I didn't get it, the Lord graciously let me have it. He sent it to me.
In one place, I remember I had been speaking and they were coming out of the meeting and I was shaking hands with some of them, and one dear sister said, Oh, Brother Russell, I want to tell you how God was good to me. First [CR383] somebody handed me the First Volume of Studies in the Scriptures. My friends got about me and told me it was a bad book, surely, and not to read it, and they wanted me to burn it, and I did burn it. I am sorry but I burned it. And then, Brother Russell, God was good to me and sent me another one. And then my friends still got around me and persuaded me and I burned it. Oh, she said, I am ashamed. But God still pursued me with His goodness and sent me a third copy. Oh, Brother Russell, it burned me! And her husband was with her, a doctor, and he spoke up and said, "And me, too."
So I think we come more and more as we grow in grace and knowledge to see that it is not something you have done, or I have done, or that somebody else has done; it is simply something God has been doing for us. You and I are not very bright, are we? Compare ourselves with Shakespeare, and we feel we are rather "small potatoes" in the basket, don't we? Compare ourselves with Solomon and some of the others of the past and we are very little. Where did we get to know anything about God and His plan? Look at a man with a great big head and a big mind; look at Brother Calvin and other good men; look at Brother Wesley, and Brother Melancthon, and Brother Zwingli, and Brother Knox, and all of those eminent men of the past, and the eminent men of our more modern times, and we say to ourselves, Didn't they study Theology? Yes, they studied Theology--they thought they did. Were they not able me? Oh, yes. What did they make out of it? They made out what you and I are ashamed to acknowledge, and what if they were living today they would be ashamed to acknowledge. There is nothing in the whole lot that is worthy of the least consideration. They will all be ashamed of some of the things they have written and said.
What, then, are we abler than they? No, not at all. Then how do you account for the fact that we have more light? When God's due time came the light began to come-- not because you and I were brighter, or that anybody else was brighter, but because God was ready to give it to us. How did He give it to us? He chose His own way of sending His message, and I am glad to get the Truth of God in any way that He is pleased to send it. We want to be so meek and teachable and humble that any way God sends us instructions, whether through trials, difficulties, sickness, or through books, pamphlets, or hymn books--no matter how it comes, if it brings to us the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God, if it scatters our darkness, ignorance, superstition, if it brings us out of darkness into His marvelous light, we will be sure it is God who has done it, for you could not have done it for yourself. Is not that so? I am sure of that for myself, dear brethren.
So I say, See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh from Heaven. Is He still speaking? Yes, He is speaking louder than He ever spoke before right in our day. God's voice never has been heard in the way it is now. The Apostle says so. Speaking of the past and the typical, He says, God's voice then shook the earth--way back in the days of Moses in the typical time at Mount Sinai when the Law Covenant was made, of which Moses was the mediator. It was only a typical covenant but in order to picture the thing properly God brought all that wonderful manifestation of lightnings, and thunders, and power, so that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake; and all the people were in a tremor for the great disturbance of the time. What was it? God was speaking--giving that Law Covenant. Now St. Paul, standing down here prophetically at our day and pointing back to that time, says, God's voice then shook the earth, but now hath He declared I will shake not only the earth (society) but I will also shake the heavens (the ecclesiastical powers). Are they going to shake? They are shaking now. There is no doubt about it. Whose voice is shaking them? The Lord's voice. What is the Lord's voice? The truth is the voice of God. God does not need to send a brass trumpet from Heaven. The seventh trumpet is not a brass trumpet nor a silver trumpet. They had brass and silver trumpets, and ram's horns back there, but here we have the real thing. God's voice speaking out in one way, and another way--by the printed page, and by your voice and my voice, and all these different agencies of His. Whoever is in harmony with God to a certain extent is God's voice speaking to the world today and telling the world that we are on the eve of a great change of dispensations, that the Great One who redeemed the world is about to take His great power and reign. And in proportion as you and I are in accord with our Master, the great Head, He can speak through us, using us as His members. So the voice of the Lord is being heard in the earth today, and those that hear let them see that they refuse not the message of the hour. If they refuse Him who is now speaking from Heaven, as most of them are going to do and are doing, all the more severe will be the tribulation that will come upon them--a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation, no, nor ever shall be the like thereafter, Jesus said.
So, then, we are hearing the voice now, and hearing it more clearly, and you are prospering in that voice of the Lord Jesus today and getting a clearer understanding, because you also heard yesterday and were obedient, and you heard previously and were obedient; and in proportion as you hear the voice and humble yourself and cultivate the qualities of meekness, gentleness, patience, brotherly kindness and love, in that proportion the Master will be ready to speak through you and use you as part of His mouthpiece as He speaks to the whole world respecting this New Dispensation and the blessings that are to come through it.
Let us then be glad, and let us set down in our hearts this prominent thought, that we will give heed and not refuse Him that speaketh from Heaven. We do not know where it will lead to, but we wish to follow the leading of the Lord and His voice and His message, no matter how or where or through whom He sends it, so long as we believe that it is the message of His Word. And it is not merely to have the Bible in our hands. Your grandfather had the Bible in his hands, and your father had the Bible in his hands, and you had the Bible in your hands for years and years and didn't know anything about what was in it at all. But when God's due time came and in His own way He opened the eyes of our understanding, He gave us the blessing. And for my part I am thankful for anything He has given and for all the blessings that are coming, and I wish to be in the condition of heart and mind that I can receive more today, and more tomorrow--yea, all the way to the end of the journey-- and I am glad if in the meantime I can also be a part of the Master's body, the Lord's flesh, used of Him to show forth the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
[CR384]
BRINGING HOME THE FLOCK
THROUGH pastures fair,
And sea-girt paths all wild with rock and foam,
O'er velvet sward, and desert stern and bare,
The flock comes home.
A weary way,
Now smooth, then rugged with a thousand snares;
Now dim with rain, then sweet with blossoms gay,
And summer airs.
Yet, safe at last,
Within the fold they gather, and are still;
Sheltered from driving shower and stormy blast,
They fear no ill.
Through life's dark ways,
Through flowery paths where evil angels roam,
Through restless nights, and long, heart-wasting days,
Christ's flock comes home.
Safe to the fold,
The blessed fold, where fears are never known,
Love-guarded, fenced about with walls of gold,
He leads His own.
O Shepherd King,
With loving hands, whose lightest touch is blest!
Thine is the Kingdom, Thine the power, to bring
Thy flock to rest!
Vancouver, B.C.
Response to Welcome Address
I AM ONLY to say a few words at this time, dear friends, in response to this greeting that we have had. In this response I am representing the majority of those present, and am addressing the Vancouver class and our brother as a representative of it.
We want to say, dear brothers and sisters of Vancouver, that we greatly enjoy our pleasure in being with you. We have been expecting a joyful time here, and we are starting out with it. The Lord has favored us with a beautiful day in the first place. I cannot give credit to the Vancouver class entirely for that; I would like to do so, of course; but we thank the Lord for whatever share they had in it. We see they have been making preparations for us; they knew we were coming and their hearts are full to overflowing. They have been busy trying to prepare the way and to prepare the people for the message of the hour--for the afternoon meeting in particular, and for a good season of refreshing and spiritual fellowship together this forenoon. I am sure we appreciate their endeavors. It has been part of my experience to know that the dear friends everywhere in making preparation for the conventions and for the public meetings, while they are doing this in a sacrificial way as it were--that is, doing it for the Lord rather than for themselves--nevertheless they always get a great blessing. It seems to be a part of God's providence in dealing with His creatures that in proportion as they seek to do good to others, in that same proportion they get a blessing themselves. So I am sure that our Vancouver brothers and sisters have had a great blessing on their own hearts while they have been striving to prepare for the meeting. "He that watereth shall be watered also himself." How true that is! How we have all proved it to be so!
I think of one dear brother whom I met a good many years ago when our meetings were very small and he had done what he could to make ready; he was about the only one in that town, and as he met me at the train it was raining and was a very unsatisfactory day. He said, "Brother Russell, it does not look a bit favorable, but it does not make any difference as far as I am concerned; I have received my blessing. This is the first time I ever distributed any literature of any kind, it is something entirely new for me, but the literature was here and needed to be distributed and I was the one to do it. I said, 'Lord, help me to do it.' After I 'cracked the ice' the first time it all went easy. It was a little hard to get the ice broken, but everything went smoothly after that and I have been just rejoicing. I am just full up now, and I have gotten my blessing whether the others do or not."
So I was thinking of how wonderfully God has arranged all the different features of the harvest work, so that every member of the Body of Christ--I do not mean merely those of us who are now in the Truth, but each one of God's people who may hear His message and desire to co-operate in His work--has something he can do, and he will get a blessing in proportion as he sees his possibilities and his opportunities, and in proportion as he responds to them and seeks to let his light shine, and holds up the banner of the cross, and glorifies God in his body and spirit which are His.
[CR385]
Our dear brother referred to the fact that there is a great oneness in the Body of Christ, and I think we all know the reason. The Bible tells, you know. Union of hearts always leads to union of heads. Our heads are all different, no two alike, and if we were to stop for a moment and think it all over we would naturally see that we would never agree. How could my shape of head agree with that other brother's shape of head, or he with someone else, because with different shaped heads we must see things a little different. What is it, then, that enables all the Church of Christ to come together in unity of heart and mind and oneness of vision to see things alike, with different heads? The secret is found in the words of the Apostle. He says we were all baptized, immersed, by one spirit into one body. That is the key. We were all buried. The old "you" was buried, the old "I" was buried--all of our old selves were buried. We were buried into one spirit. What was the one spirit? The spirit of Christ. What is the spirit of Christ? The spirit of obedience to the Father. Is not that the spirit you got into? Yes. You were buried? Yes. Now you are a member of the Body of Christ and under that glorious Head who delighted to do the Father's will? Yes. No wonder, then, that those who are in full subjection to our Savior, the head of the Church, and who delight to do the Father's will, have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ keeps them clean from all sin. The word "cleanseth" means to keep clean. The original cleansing was done when we were first received, but after we have been received there are imperfections of the flesh, and shortcomings, and the cleansing must continue, and we must therefore go daily to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and find strength to help in every time of need; as our Lord taught us to pray. Forgive us our trespasses--the trespasses of today. Then when tomorrow comes we will have more imperfections, because we are still imperfect. However perfect the will, however thorough-going the new nature, however determined we are according to our loyalty to the Lord to live faithfully, we will find there are blemishes of the flesh we are unable to cope with. The Lord knew it and He made this very arrangement and said, Come now to the throne of heavenly grace and pray, "Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." And how humble it makes us all to go to the Throne of Grace! How much we feel that, as we must come day by day and feel that we are only gradually making progress and we cannot do all we would like to do! The Lord intended it so. His intention respecting us is that we keep very humble; that is the place to begin; that is the foot of the cross, humility, the very foundation of all graces. You cannot begin to grow in character likeness of Christ unless you have humility and meekness right at the bottom; then gentleness, patience, long suffering, brotherly kindness, love. You are growing up into Him in all things, but you must have the proper foundation in order to grow. The brother or sister who does not begin to grow meek, teachable, under the great headship of Christ, is not prepared to go on. He will have a short course and a rugged one unless he gets right in at the foundation of meekness and humility.
The Lord would say, "Oh, I knew you did not do wrong intentionally."
"Then why, Lord, if you know I did not do the thing intentionally, must I go and ask to have it forgiven?"
"Well, that is my arrangement for you. While I know you did not do it intentionally, if you want to have it forgiven you must come to the throne of heavenly grace and ask for it to be forgiven."
Why so?
It will help you to remember that you are imperfect, and it will help you to remember that the only cleansing there is in the precious blood; it will help keep you humble; and then, more than that, it will make you generous toward the brethren--"Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Do you not see how the Lord intended that to work out? "But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." What would that mean? That would mean that a great cloud would come up between our hearts and the Lord. He would not forgive our trespasses, and we would be off at a distance. It does not mean original sin. The original sin is all settled. That is forgiven; the Lord never goes back on what He has already done. It is these little trespasses, weaknesses, imperfections, that must be cleared out of the way every day at the Throne of grace through prayer. How wise God was to make us thus dependent--that we could not have the way open with Him unless we would keep the way open with the brethren. Unless we were very humble and gentle toward all we would get into trouble. So this is one of the great lessons for us all, without any exceptions, and I trust it will be one of the blessings of this convention that all our hearts will melt and flow together in sympathetic bonds of union. We have all been immersed into the one Body of Christ, the one Head is Lord over all, His will is our will; our own wills are dead, and we are alive toward God in Christ, and any privilege we have is the privilege of the New Creature. And then our imperfections and trespasses in God's sight call for sympathy from God and forgiveness. That makes us tender and forgiving one of another, even as God for Christ's sake forgives us. Is not that it?
Now then, my dear friends of the Vancouver class, accept our congratulations--and I speak on behalf of Doctor Jones and his party of about 240 who are in the special train. I know they are all full of love for you here, and they appreciate very much the kind words of greeting that were extended through our brother, and we bid you all Godspeed. We shall be leaving you shortly and we wish to leave our love with you and to carry your love with us. Remember us at the Throne of Grace, as we remember all of the dear household of faith.
[CR385]
We Have an Advocate with the Father
MY TEXT is, "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous" (1 John 2:1). More and more for the last year or so I have been impressed with the thought that our mission is not merely to tell about the Divine Plan of the Ages, but there is a special feature of the work that sometimes might be neglected. It would be the proper and logical thing for anyone hearing the Divine Plan of the Ages expounded to consecrate his heart to God, and to seek to come into harmony with the God of Love, and yet there are some I find who are disposed to say, "By the time I have studied the entire matter, and when I understand it fully, perhaps then I may consecrate my life." Perhaps we have not sufficiently pointed out in the past that this is not the proper course; but that the course God would have us pursue is this: that when we find we are sinners, that is the first thing; then we should repent of the sin and turn from it, even before we find the Lord at all. The step of repentance comes first. Then after we have found that God has made an arrangement by which sinners may be reconciled to Himself, the proper thing next for us to do is to ascertain what the steps are by which we may obtain our share of that reconciliation. Then will come some knowledge of the Divine character and plan. A person who is living in unrepented-of sin would not be in any condition at all to receive the great plan of the ages, because God has declared that none of the wicked shall understand. God does not wish His great plan to be understood by the wicked. It is not the plan of God that is intended to break men's hearts. The very reverse is true. It is the plan of God to bind up the broken-hearted--it is the message of God that speaks peace to those who are in trouble and who are looking to Him and seeking for the righteousness which He will provide. Some, I think, have made a great mistake in thinking the Gospel is a hammer whereby they are to break men's hearts. The devil does the breaking of hearts, I think, a great deal. I do not know of any commission to you and to me to break the hearts of any. By and by in the great time of trouble we may see that some hard hearts will be broken, and during the future the Bible indicates to us that the Lord will specially break their hearts--or dissolve their hearts, more properly. He says I will take away the stoniness of their hearts and will give them hearts of flesh. Instead of being hard and selfish, the hearts of men, under the conditions of the Kingdom, will gradually become soft, and tender, and [CR386] kind, and gentle. This is the way the Lord will operate. But now, in advance of that Kingdom of Messiah, He is seeking for those who are seeking for Him, and if they seek He may be found of them; and those who are not specially seeking Him are not likely to find Him at the present time.
The message of the Gospel then is to those who are already broken-hearted. You remember how Jesus quoted the prophecy of Isaiah 61, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." This is the work of the Lord, preaching the Gospel to the meek. If there are those who are haughty and proud, we are not specially to hunt them up. If they come our way then we may make the message not to exclude them; but our message is to the meek. You see we have had the wrong idea in the past; we would go out into the highways and those that were blasphemers and very wicked were the very ones we thought we were to deal with. It is quite to the contrary. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek, the teachable, to those who want to know. That is the only class God wishes to have know now. All the others by and by will have their eyes opened and their ears opened. He is seeking the class now that desires to be the Bride company, joint-heirs with His Son; therefore the message is not what would suit the hard-hearted at all; it only suits the tender-hearted. Tell them about the love of God, the mercy of God, the forgiveness of sins, the privilege of coming back and having Him as the Father, and having Jesus as the Saviour.
I think this should be an important point with us in our seeking to present the message to those who have hearing ears. If they come to meetings the supposition is their hearts are in a receptive attitude, that they are meek, teachable; and if when they are at the meeting they are told something about the Divine Plan that finds lodgment in their hearts, it implies they are good-ground hearts, and God has a message for them; that their hearts were in the good condition that would receive the seed of the Truth, and it would spring forth there and yield some fruitage. And yet, many no doubt heard this afternoon in our public meeting who will not bring forth any fruitage. They heard gladly--glad there was going to be a good time coming-- far better to hear that God is going to bless the world than that He is going to do injury to the world; rather know that God is a kind God, and generous God, than to think of Him as a very demon; but not ready to give their hearts to Him, not teachable, not in the right attitude. I think, as Christian people, we should know how to deal with these, and not merely lead them on, and say, come now and have further knowledge. I think we should indeed give them further knowledge, but I think at the same time that whoever we have an opportunity of instructing in the Truth, we should give them the thought that they will not get the Truth clearly, not see the Divine Plan with clearness of eye, unless they consecrate and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit of the Lord. Because the Apostle says distinctly in so many words, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. So then unless one becomes a New Creature in Christ, he will never understand the Divine Plan. Neither you, nor I, nor anybody else can ever teach him. I think if we have this in mind it will make us more solicitous that our influence be in the direction of leading people to consecration. It should not be sufficient for us to see that they take the steps to justification merely.
Let us see what the steps are in approaching the Lord. First of all, one desires to come to God; he feels he is a sinner. Jesus said, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Those who are not weary are not likely to come or rest; those who are not heavy-laden are not likely to hunt the Savior and Burden-bearer. It is after they are weary of sin, and heavy-laden with a feeling of their need of a God, that they begin to desire a Burden-bearer, helper and friend. Then is the time to direct them, "This is the way; walk ye in it." And we point them in the way of faith; we tell them of the steps necessary to be taken in order to come to God. The step of turning from sin might in some respects be called a conversion. It is sometimes so spoken of, and yet that is not the principal conversion. There are two conversions-- turning from sin, and full conversion to God, we shall see as we go on. We turn from sin first. We cannot go in two directions at the same time. Whoever is seeking to draw near to God is seeking to leave sin. Whoever is living in sin is wishing to be away from God. Those who are desirous of approaching God, you can inform in this way: The first thing of all is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Whenever I talk on this subject a picture comes before my mind, and I will give you this picture. You remember the Jews had a Tabernacle; that Tabernacle was a picture of God's plan. The Tabernacle proper was built of boards and covered over with skins. Around about that Tabernacle there was a court constructed of linen curtains hung up on poles. In the front of it was a gate, and right in front of the gate was an altar where the offering was made. Then a little piece back of that altar was a large laver of brass in which there was water for the washing of the feet and hands of those who desired to be priests. Now this is our progress, then: Turning away from the world we desire to come to God. That Tabernacle represents God. God's presence was represented by the Shekinah glory in the Most Holy. Whoever wanted to get to God figuratively was wanting to go toward the Tabernacle. Right in front of the gate was the altar. You can go no further unless you see and recognize the fact that Christ died for our sins; that is the message of the altar--Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He is our Redeemer. We needed to be redeemed. Our sins could not be forgiven except by and through the merit of this sacrifice which God has provided without any expense to us; it costs us nothing; it is free so far as we are concerned, but it cost the Lord Jesus something, and it cost the Father to provide this for us. There it is, but it must be seen to be accepted; there is no further progress except as it is recognized. Then seeing the sacrifice, we go on.
As we go farther we see the Laver, and that represents the cleansing of ourselves. While we did turn from sin, we say: Now I find there is certain filthiness of the flesh, and I desire to get rid of some of this; I am seeking to get near to God, and I will put off some of the filth of the flesh, will try to become more clean in my words, thoughts and deeds, that I may be more and more pleasing to God. That is the picture.
Then he goes clear up to the door of the Tabernacle; but he is not a priest yet, and his sins are not forgiven yet. The time for forgiveness of sins is when he is accepted by the great High Priest. The individual is typically represented in that scene as being a goat that comes in and goes clear up to the door of the Tabernacle, and there the High Priest accepts it and kills it as a sacrifice. That represents your sacrifice and my sacrifice; as St. Paul says, in Romans 12:1, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." That is where you present yourself. Not that the goat had [CR387] merit, but the High Priest had the merit in Him. His sacrifice had made good for this goat. So Christ's sacrifice has made good for you, and if now you desire to come to God you must come as a sacrifice. There is no one else received except sacrifices now. If you do not wish to present your body a sacrifice to God, you are not invited now. You say, I would like to come to God, but I do not care to just sacrifice. Very well, stand aside, God will have a time for you by and by. He is not inviting any except this first class. He is calling for those who would like to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, those who would like to lay down their very lives in His service. This is the class mentioned in our text when we read, We have an Advocate with the Father. Who are "we"? We are those who have forsaken sin, drawn nigh to God, and come to this place where we say, O Lord, I give myself away. That is the goat ready to be slain. And there the Lord accepts us. That is the slaying of the goat. That is the death of the old man, the old nature, and just at that moment the old nature is reckonedly dead, and that moment the New Creature begins --begotten of the Holy Spirit that we might be children of God, spiritual sons of God. Then we have an Advocate with the Father. We have become the Lord's in two senses: First, in the sense we are New Creatures, begotten of the Spirit, which by and by will be glorified in the first resurrection, if faithful. But now we are not ready for that. We must grow in grace, knowledge, love, and in all the fruits and graces and characteristics of the Master --grow by our trials, by our obedience, and striving against the world, the flesh and the Devil,--grow strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. We must do this before we will be ready for the resurrection change. In the present time, however, as soon as we become the Lord's, we not only belong to the Church in general with all others of God's people, in this one brotherhood of Christ on the spiritual plane, but we are also members of Christ's body on the fleshly plane, on the earthly plane. Your flesh is His flesh, my flesh is His flesh. We present our bodies living sacrifices, the Lord accepts the whole thing, and your body becomes His, and from this standpoint the Scriptures speak of the Church in the flesh as the flesh of Jesus. Jesus has been in the flesh for these eighteen hundred years. Jesus personally died, and personally arose from the dead, and personally as a Spirit being He ascended on high; then at Pentecost He began receiving the Church, and every one He received had a body of flesh, and that body of flesh that was received was received as Christ's body of flesh. So Christ's flesh has been in the world all the way down. All the consecrated ones are His flesh. From that standpoint Christ has been still suffering through all of these 1800 years. No wonder the prophets of old, St. Peter says, spake of the sufferings of Christ--still going on--all the saints are filling up, says St. Paul, that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ--all the members of His body. After these sufferings are filled up, then the glory will follow. The glory has not yet followed, because the sufferings are not yet completed.
Now our ability to endure faithfully is limited; you can only endure in proportion as you appreciate. When you first came into Christ and made a consecration you saw only in a measure, you suffered a little, you sacrificed a little, you didn't know anything more. God kindly veiled your eyes; and so gradually as you were faithful in the least things, He showed you a little more you might do. Then as you were faithful in that, He showed you a little more, and a little more. Faithfulness, obedience, light and knowledge keep pace with each other. The Christian walk is a walk in a path that shines more and more unto the perfect day, in a path that shows indeed more the sufferings with Christ every day, but not necessarily more of unhappiness. Quite the reverse. Instead of meaning more of unhappiness it means greater joy, because the sufferings of Christ participated in by His people bring the highest joy; as the Apostle says, we are permitted to rejoice in tribulation. You know what he meant by that. Remember how that same Apostle learned to rejoice in tribulation himself; how he received thirty-nine blows of the whip when he was put into the jail at Philippi. It was the custom at that time to wash the backs of all prisoners whom they had whipped with salt water, so that the smarting might be more painful and the discipline more severe. After all of that the Apostle Paul, with Silas, was able to break forth in singing to God that he was accounted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. I tell you, dear friends, there was no suffering there in one sense; there was in another sense, but he had the rejoicing in tribulation. Is it sensible to talk about rejoicing in tribulation? Why, says one, I should think it would be an insane man that would rejoice in tribulation. Oh, no, there is nothing insane about it. He goes on to say, Rejoicing in tribulation, knowing--you see the knowing has a great deal to do with it; if he had not known it would not have been any cause of rejoicing, but he was rejoicing, knowing--that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and thus he realized that all of these trials and disciplines were developing him as a Christian, making him ready, polishing him for the future service of God; not only in the present life but preparing him also for the glory beyond.
The same Apostle again says that when severe afflictions come upon us we should remember that the spirit of glory and of God resteth on us. And that in proportion as we are found faithful, and worthy to suffer for Christ's sake, in the same proportion we may expect a heavier, richer weight of glory in the future.
So then, beloved, this matter of suffering with Christ in the flesh is something that you and I can appreciate and enjoy. If you have trials in the flesh on account of Christ, and because you become disciples of His, rejoice therein and continue faithful in order that you may by and by as a polished jewel be ready for a glorious setting in the immortality of the future.
You remember that is the picture the Lord gives. He tells about the Church. It is a beautiful picture. In one place He tells us we are jewels, and these jewels are being made ready; that He will make up His jewels, by and by; and He explains to us why, if we are the Lord's jewels, called out of the world and begotten of the Holy Spirit, we may expect to have the trials and tribulations, because every jewel needs to be polished. A jewel that is uncut, unpolished, is not worth very much. It has a value, but the real value is brought forth in the cutting of the jewel. So the Lord gives you and me the cutting and polishing necessary to enable us to reflect the glorious light of the goodness of God by and by. They will not all take the same amount of polishing. A little diamond can be cut easier, and polished easier, than a big one; the larger the diamond, the more work in polishing is required. So hope for it that you may be a large jewel in the Lord's hands, and that you may be accounted worthy of a good deal of polishing, that you may also in His providence have a glorious part when "Grace hath well refined our hearts."
Then after all these jewels are ready, He says He will make up his jewels. What does that mean? I will tell you what I think. You know the jeweler when he is wanting to make up a very gorgeous piece of precious stones, selects different stones, and the different places, and their relative position one toward the other, so that one will shed more or less of beauty on the other. That is making them up. He arranges a place for each stone; and if he is a professional jeweler he may make the piece to fit the stones he has. So that is what God represents He is making up --a gorgeous Diadem. Gold in the Bible represents the Divine nature, and God has promised that all of these jewels now being cut and polished will all have the Divine nature; they will, therefore, have the gold setting; and as the prophet of old says, The Church shall be a Royal Diadem in the hand of her God. Is not that a beautiful picture? Why doesn't He put the Diadem on? Well, dear friends, it would be too much honor for the Church for the Lord to put her on His head. No, indeed, there is no such incongruous picture in the Bible. The Bible is a very careful book. The Bible does not say God is making up a Diadem to put on His head, as if to show us forth as something that would adorn Him. Oh, no! We read that it will be a diadem in the hand of our God. He will turn it around in the light to show the various beauties of these gorgeous diamonds that have been polishing for eighteen hundred years. Angels and men will know something of the grandeur touching that diadem company that the Lord will then have completed.
Brother Russell, will the world ever know about the saints? Will they ever know who is of that company?
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Yes, my dear brother. You remember how it is written in the prophecy again, "It shall be said of this one and of that one, he was born in Zion." That will be told by and by. There will be a regular list made; they will know who are on the other side, who have gained the prize of the High Calling. I hope your name and mine will be amongst them, that we may be accounted worthy.
Brother Russell, it seems easy to have your name written there, doesn't it?
Well, it does seem easier to have it written there than to keep it there. It seems easy to have it written there in the sense that you have so little to give to the Lord that it is an easy thing to give it. But remember how you hung on to that little, how tenacious you were; but afterwards, looking back you say, it was only a trifle. One of the poems in our Poems of Dawn represents the matter beautifully--how the speaker had his own will as a flower in his hand, and he wished to give it to the Lord, and yet he clung to the flower so tenaciously that by the time he really surrendered it into the Lord's hands it was crushed, wilted, dead.
That is very much like some of us have done. We have held on so tight, one would have thought we had something valuable; yet we knew all the time that we had nothing practically of any value to give to the Lord, and it was merely of His grace that it would be received by the Father at all. But we are glad the Lord did accept our little gift.
In the Lamb's Book of Life all of these are written from the very time they enter in. Written as what? Oh, written as members of His body, as members of the Bride class, if we are faithful. He says that if we are faithful He will not blot out our names. That means if we are not faithful He will blot them out. Faithful to what? Faithful to just what you agreed to do. What is that? We just agreed to give our little all. Now you would not think of doing any less than that, would you? As St. Paul says, it is a reasonable service; we could not ask the Lord to make us His joint-heirs unless we gave Him all we had.
So then these are the terms upon which God accepted us and our names were written, and they will stand there unless we withdraw. But if we deny Him, He will also deny us. He says so. If we confess Him, He will confess us. Is that what it is, then, a matter of confessing Christ, or denying Christ? Yes, my dear brother, that is in substance the whole matter; you can state it in just that way. To confess Christ is to live for Christ every day, confessing Him in your daily life, in all the affairs of life; confessing Him in your business life, in harmony with His will; confessing Him in the way you use your time, your influence, your money--in the way you do everything. Whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we should do all to the glory of God. And He says that if we thus confess Him, He will not deny us. But if we deny Him, if we seek to live after the world, if we neglect our covenant of sacrifice, then we will not be fit to be of the Bride class.
In this connection I am reminded of the beautiful hymn we sung awhile ago about the Bridegroom and the Bride entering into the marriage. We know we have nothing worthy --the robe, the lamp, and all we have, are the gifts of our Lord. That illustrates also this same subject we are discussing. I will remind you of what a Jewish wedding was. Certain persons were invited to come, and they might be on the way, and some might be on the hill yonder, and some in the valley below; they are coming toward this place where the wedding is to be. If some one should say to them, Where are you going? They would say, I am going to the wedding. And to another, where are you going? I am going to the wedding. But they have not reached the wedding place yet; they are merely on the way. Now when they get to the house and come to the door, that is as far as they can go unless they come under some kind of conditions; and the conditions were that anybody entering such a wedding invited would receive a wedding garment. It was a very plain, simple, white garment, and when each guest had put on the wedding garment, all the guests looked alike at that table in that house; they might have richer or poorer garments underneath, but the wedding garment covered everything and made all of those guests brethren for the time being, because they were guests of that host who had invited them and provided the robe.
Just so you and I and all others who have accepted God's invitation and heard about the wedding garment and the wedding He has prepared for His Son. We said we would like to get into that company. So we have been coming on the way, and striving to put away sin and draw near to God. Now, we say, Here we are, if we can now get into this wedding; we have done the best we could as we came along to straighten our robes and get them in good order. But our robes will not do here; you must put on a wedding garment here, or you can go no farther. Very well. One had a better coat, and another a worse coat; one had a better dress, another a poor dress; but all the dresses, all the imperfections, are covered by the wedding garment when we enter in. Now that moment of entering in, that moment of getting the wedding garment, was when? It was the moment of your consecration. Nobody got the wedding garment except as he made a full consecration of himself to God. How do we know that is so? How do we know that God does not deal with the world in general, does not hear the prayers of everybody? Why should you lay such stress on the point of consecration? Why surely there are many Christian people that have never made a consecration, and really don't know what it is. They have been praying this long time, and now you seem to intimate that there is no relationship with God unless they made a consecration?
That is my understanding, Brother.
Well, what about these Christian people who have been praying?
It is easy to pray; the question is, does God hear? Now get the thought: God heareth not sinners, as the Scriptures say. In order to have the ear of God, and to be heard of Him, and to be permitted to bring our petitions to the Throne of Grace, we must get into relationship to God somehow. By nature we were sinners. There is only one way to get rid of your sins--by belief in the Lord Jesus Christ. But believing merely does not get rid of your sins. The word believing would apply to the Devil, as the Bible says devils believe, but they are not justified by their believing. Neither are we justified simply by believing. Why does it say then believers are justified? That is to say, the believer who acts on his belief, and who shows he really means it, will make a full consecration. A believer from the Scriptural standpoint is a disciple, a follower. A disciple means pupil. So if you want to enter the School of Christ, there is only one way. It does not say that everybody are in the school of Christ, and some take more lessons and some less. There is one definite way of coming into the School and becoming a pupil of His: If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross--cross-bearing --and follow me--faithfulness. Then it is that as we become disciples of Christ He becomes our advocate. He does not advocate anybody who is not His disciple.
What is the meaning of the word "advocate?" Advokat in the German represents the thought. It signifies one who pleads the cause of another, standing as his representative. The Germans use the word advocate as a synonym for our word attorney, lawyer. A lawyer is a representative at court. An attorney is one who represents you at court. We stood before God's court represented in father Adam. He was on trial, and was sentenced to death. He was a sinner, and you and I were born in that condition as children of Adam, and if we would come back to the court of God now and say, We would like to have that record of sin blotted out so far as we are concerned, the great Court of Heaven would say, we cannot receive you; we do not receive sinners at this court at all.
What shall we do, Lord? We would like to come to you. Is there any way?
You may come by getting the Advocate. There is only one Advocate for us to get; that is the one God has provided, the one who is willing to be our servant.
If you enter into an earthly court and say, I have a case coming on here, the court would say, Have you an attorney?
No, I have no attorney, no advocate.
Well, you must get one.
So you would have to go and get your advocate.
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You would then go to someone and say, will you be my advocate, attorney, lawyer, in this case?
I will charge you $200 if I like your case.
You tell him a little about your case, and he says, I would not undertake it at all.
You may go and hunt another attorney or advocate, and say, Would you take my case at all?
Yes, for $500.
You are limited by what your attorney will do. When we want to approach the great Throne of God and get our sins marked off and get reinstated with God, we must go and get an attorney, and there is only one to get, and you are limited to His terms. But His terms are so reasonable when we see them, we have every reason to thank God.
He says, I will be your attorney if you want to come in under the call at the present time.
What is that call?
Full consecration to God, giving up your life sacrificially to His service.
So you make the arrangement, and Jesus then becomes your advocate. So our text says, We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.
When did He advocate for us? He advocated for us first of all when He arose from the dead and ascended up on high, there to appear in the presence of God for us. That word "appear" is the same word they use in court. If you employ an attorney, he would say, I will appear for you when court opens. What does he mean? He means he will go into court and give his name to the court as your representative in this case. After that the court will not pay any attention to you; anything it has to say in your case will be referred to your advocate, counsellor, attorney. He represents you in every sense of the word. Jesus ascended up on high and appeared in the presence of God for us, not for the world. The world does not want any attorney with God, nor any dealings with Him. The world is in sin, wishing to forget God, having no hope; they are busy with their own affairs, and Satan has most of them blinded anyway, so that none of them are wanting an Advocate with the Father. There are just a few who want the Advocate,--you and I and all others who desire to come into fellowship with God.
So He appeared for us before we were born, you say?
Yes. He appeared for the whole Church at once. How could He do that when we were not born at all for hundreds of years afterwards? God in His wisdom foreknew what He would do. He knew of the call of the Church, foreordained their number, and what their character must be. They must all be copies of His Son, all living sacrifices, holy, and desirous of pleasing God. The work of this Gospel age is to find that class, and Christ at the very beginning appeared as the Advocate for all of those who would come unto the Father through Him.
Now what did He do, then?
Well, He settled for all the sins that were past--all Adamic sins that were past--when He appeared as our Advocate.
What is Adamic sin?
Adam by reason of disobedience was a sinner, and needed to be redeemed, and you have inherited certain weaknesses from Adam.
But since He cancelled all of those sins, we have had trespasses?
Yes, nobody could live a single day without trespassing, because God's law is perfect, and we are all by nature imperfect. In your heart you do not sin; the New Creature does not sin; it is merely the flesh that is weak, and sins. And Christ, our Advocate, is there with the Father to make good for all of those Adamic weaknesses.
But suppose my mind consents to the wrong?
To whatever extent your mind consents to it, to that extent it is wilful to sin; then it would not be forgiven; only that portion could be forgiven which was not wilful, that portion which belonged to Adam; but the part you would add to it is not forgivable.
What would happen, then?
Whatever is not forgivable is punishable. You would get stripes of one kind or another, in proportion to the degree in which your will consented. But we are not to suppose that the will would give full consent. There is such a sympathy between the flesh and the will that sometimes the will may, so to speak, become lax, allowing the flesh to go and take it by force. The will should not do that; the will is responsible, and will get some kind of stripes because it has been careless. But the will itself does not love sin, and that you know because after the temptation of the moment has passed, you feel sorry for it. You would not feel sorry if you had approved it. If your will changed and preferred to live in sin, then you would not be sorry for the sin afterwards. You would say, That is just what I wanted to do. But many sins we all have are such as are weaknesses of the flesh, which says to the will, "You just be blind a little bit while I, the flesh, have a little bit of freedom." That is the tendency, and that is where you must conquer as a New Creature. The New Creature is to say, "No, you are my flesh, I am accountable for you, you shall not do anything of the kind; I am to have the victory over the flesh." Each one must be an overcomer in fighting the fight of faith and obedience to God, in putting down everything that pertains to sin and unrighteousness in ourselves, and standing for that which is right and pleasing to God. That is the test of our loyalty to Him and the principles of His government. If you should go to the extreme of saying, I have given up all opposition to sin, my will is surrendered to sin, then that means you have died as a New Creature altogether. It would be the sin unto death, to my understanding.
But, as says the Apostle, we are persuaded better things of you, brethren, though we thus write; we are persuaded your hearts are loyal to Him who called us out of darkness into His marvellous light, and you are wishing to fight a good fight against all the faults of your natural, fallen flesh, and God is pleased to help you, and you have the assurance of the Lord's Word that He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear, but will with every temptation provide a way of escape.
But suppose, Brother Russell, we are overtaken, and there is part wilfulness, or part or entire ignorance, or what not,--what then shall we do?
Why, my dear brother, the Bible says, if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father. If we sin, if we trespass as our Lord's prayer tells us, forgive us our trespasses, our daily shortcoming, the things in which we fail to come up to the full requirements,--if we thus trespass we need to go to the Fountain of Grace. And this is the picture that is given us.
These robes we put on when we came to the Lord and desired to have entrance to the wedding were white and clean, representing our purity, our full justification at that moment, justified the moment we made our consecration, and covering all the blemishes of our flesh. Now the robe was not necessary for the New Creature? Oh, no, the New Creature needed no robe! It is the flesh that needs the robe --the flesh that has become the flesh of Jesus. Jesus said to Saul of Tarsus when he was persecuting the Church, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? He was persecuting the Church in the flesh; Jesus called their flesh His flesh. So our flesh is the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is covered because it has imperfection. We have this treasure in earthen vessels.
Now our Master says, Keep your garments unspotted from the world. And then He tells us the class that ultimately will enter into the marriage and constitute that class will be without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. But perhaps every day you may get a spot on your robe. What shall you do? There is the secret. If you get a spot on your robe you are to go to the Fountain that the Lord has provided for uncleanliness and sin, the Fountain of the Blood of Jesus. "It cleanses me" as we sometimes sing. That is the way you keep your garments unspotted from the world.
But one says, Surely if we did it in ignorance the Lord would not count it a spot? Yet He does; He counts it a spot if it is wrong. All unrighteousness is sin; all sin is a spot on your robe, no matter whether you knew it or didn't know it. Why does He not ignore anything except where the will would come in? He has His own way, and that is the better way. He says, I want you as my disciples to learn carefulness. Every morning think about your robe as [CR390] you start out. Say, at the opening of each day, What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me? Then answer, You may take the cup of salvation and walk carefully before the Lord, unspotted from the world. Then at night as you review the day you find you have failed here and there. The one thing is, never go to bed, never go to sleep, with a spot on your robe--never. That is the only way I know of to keep the garment unspotted--take it to the Lord in prayer. He said the blood of Jesus Christ would cleanse us from all sin. The word "cleanseth" there in the Greek is the imperfect participle which signifies, "keeps cleansing;" continues to cleanse us--not merely what He did at first, nor what He may do at any time, but the Apostle says His blood keeps cleansing us from all sin.
Why should He do this for us? Why should He not allow them to go, and say, "Never mind, I knew you didn't intend it, don't bother with it?"
Oh, He wants you to learn every little thing in respect to your imperfections, that you may be all the more on guard; or, as the Apostle says, walk circumspectly, watching where you tread--"I wonder if that is a bad place to walk? I might get my garment soiled there."
Did you ever notice a lady with a white dress on passing through a muddy street, or near muddy wheels, etc.? how carefully she will draw her garments around her to seek to walk carefully at each step? She is trying to keep her garments unspotted. And if she got a spot on this garment, what would she do? She would not necessarily send it to the laundry to have it all done over because of a single spot, but she would have a cleansing fluid; she would take out the spot with a great deal of care--the very way the Lord tells us to do. We take it to Him and He sponges the spot and we stand before Him clean again, forgiven, and with the white pure robe.
The great difficulty seems to be that after we have had some experiences of that kind--it does very well the first time, but after we have done it more than once, properly enough we feel, Oh, I am ashamed that I have not made more success in my striving; I thought I could manage that matter better; I felt sure that would be the last time I would need to go to God in prayer on that matter; I felt sure that by His strength assisting me I would be firm on that point, and it should never have to be repented of again.
That is the time you are in danger. That "again" comes in there; the tendency, you know, is to stay away, say nothing about it, try to forget it, tumble off in bed and go to sleep and never mind it--land of forgetfulness. But the stain is still on, my dear brother. And the next day you will feel the same, try to forget the robe, try to forget the spots, try to forget the Lord--and you succeed. Gradually a veil comes between your soul and the Lord. He is not as near as He formerly was. He is not as dear to you as He formerly was. He is far off. He is still your God, you are still trusting in Him, but there is a lack of the fellowship of the spirit; there is a lack of comradeship that you want. Those earth-born clouds have arisen and are hiding you more and more from His face.
That is the experience of hundreds of the Lord's people, because they do not resolve that they could not live away from the Lord's presence, and could not be in His presence with the spots. They cannot be in fellowship with the Lord with the spots on, and they cannot have proper Christian life absent from the Lord.
So then the lesson to us on that point is, watch and be humble. You see how much more humble you are when you come back and say, "Oh, Lord, another time; I am ashamed!" The humbling will do you good. The Lord wants all His children to be very humble. That is one of the very foundations upon which all the other graces are to be built. He wants you to learn every day. And so the Apostle says, Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. If the spot remains, gradually it becomes more and more of a barrier, and if it continues in that way you will not be accounted worthy of a place in His Bride company at all.
So then we see the necessity for prayer, and the forgiveness of sins, and how the Lord made it all to work for good to us. But suppose you let the spots go on, what then? You will be like a good many people; you would have a good deal of company. The number of those who are without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, is very small; there are many who have not kept their wedding robes with sufficient care; they have not shown their appreciation of the wedding, and how much they would like to be there. And if some one would say to such a person, "Why you have spots on your robe, don't you see?" he would say, "I know I have."
He tries to put it out of sight, tries to ignore the spots. That is the tendency. Or, to say, "I know there are spots there, but I try to forget them,--Is there anything else I can do for you?"
He tries to turn it off. Everybody has them, he says.
I hope everyone in this audience tonight is going to look at his or her garment before going to sleep tonight, think about its value, its passport into the Kingdom to the wedding. It means everything. Instead of having it all bedraggled and spotted with sin, it has a certain stamp on it, and you were to embroider it with the character-likeness of the Lord. You were to get that robe ready for the wedding, and all the painstaking stitches of character and preparation for the Lord's likeness--all of these things you were to do. The robe was pure and white when you got it, and if you have neglected it some, see that you go to the Lord and stay with Him until you have the assurance of His forgiveness. He is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It is not a matter merely of love, it is a matter of justice. Have we really a right to go to God? Oh, yes, says the Apostle, let us come with courage to the Throne of Heavenly Grace to obtain mercy. How would it be justice and mercy? Why, God made the arrangement. Jesus has died, paid the penalty and made application of His own merit sufficient to cleanse all your spots that are unintentional. It is all there to be asked for.
Now there are some who will not do that; they will
live short of their covenant; they will not have the smile
of the Lord; they will not be walking in the light of His
countenance. Think it all over. Have you done the best
you knew how to do, as the Lord's servant, the Lord's
steward, as one who professes His name? Have you done
your very best, and can you say "Lord in my imperfection
I am sure I must have come short of your perfect standard;
forgive I pray the shortcoming of thy servant for
Jesus' sake." That would be all fixed, wouldn't it? Then
you will have the Father's smile. Our hymn 273 contains
this very thought:
Sun of my soul, my Father dear,
I know no night when thou art near.
O! may no earth-born cloud arise
To hide thee from thy servant's eyes.
But there are some who will not "keep" their garments, and the Bible tells us about these. They get their garments all bedraggled and they are not fit for the wedding at all. What will become of these? You remember the picture. God gives us a little glimpse in the seventh chapter of Revelation of these and tells us they must wash their garments, and make them white and come up through a great time of trouble. It is not the sufferings that will cleanse them but the blood that will cleanse. And you might just as well have the cleansing now and thus be pleasing to the Lord, and enjoy the light of His countenance day by day. This is our blessed privilege. I wonder if we are not all of one heart and mind on this subject? I wonder if we do not appreciate the condition of having an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous? I wonder if we will not try to use that great Advocate more, and to keep in close touch with the Father according to the gracious arrangement He has made for us? So doing, an abundant entrance will be ministered unto us into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
[CR391]
Perfection
THE text before my mind on this occasion is our Master's words, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." That to my mind is a very wonderful text; it states such a wonderful thought. And there is another like unto it, "Be ye holy; for I am holy." And there is another one like that: "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God."
As we find those statements in God's Word, and then realize our own littleness and imperfection, we say to ourselves, What does the Lord mean when He says for us to be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect? How could we imperfect beings be like our God? Like many of our dear Savior's expressions, it is a dark saying; as when he said, "Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." It is a dark saying, it needs something to illuminate it, something to enlighten us as to what he does mean. As Saint Paul declares, the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God, neither can He know them, because they are spiritually discerned, so when our Lord used these words to our disciples they were still natural men and of course they did not fully comprehend what He meant, just as we ourselves did not at one time comprehend. It seemed like a rather exaggerated statement, hyperbole, poetic license as we would say--something said and not meant. But as we receive the Lord's spirit, this becomes our instructor. The Apostle says that God has given us the spirit that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. That is to say, that we might be able to comprehend the deep things of God's character and plan.
So as New Creatures in Christ we begin to receive nourishment in our hearts and minds and feed upon the things of God. With our first knowledge of the Lord we find more and more of our own imperfection; but we did not know at first how imperfect we were; the imperfections of the flesh grew upon us; that is to say, our appreciation of them increased. At one time we thought we were models in every way, and that perhaps no people in the world were more upright in character and more honest than we, more anxious to do the right or square thing; and yet after we came to know the Lord and to understand more and more of His Word, we began to see that there were imperfections of character we did not know of at first. And this was part of the leading of the Lord's spirit, to show us our own selves and to cause us to more and more aspire to the perfections that He would set before us. Gradually as we came to hearken to the Master's Word, and as we were guided by the Holy Spirit, and that was in proportion as we gave heed, in proportion as we surrendered ourselves to know the Lord's will and to do it,--in that same proportion we began to see a little more and a little more the reason and the logic connected with these statements. They become plain to us now. These admonitions are not given to us as natural men, but apply only to those who become New Creatures in Christ. The Lord knows that your flesh could not be perfect like unto your Heavenly Father. He knows we are all born in sin and misshaped in iniquity, that we are as disposed to sin as the sparks fly upward, as the Bible assures us.
And here comes in a remarkable thing: that we must become New Creatures before we can have any of these new experiences. How do we become New Creatures? As human beings we are not worthy of Divine acceptance; we are informed that we are under the sentence of death, and our only hope of life is by becoming associated with the Life-giver; and if the Son shall make us free from the bondage of sin and death we will be free indeed; if the Son shall give light then we will have light indeed, for [CR392] in Him is the light of the world, and God brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. What is this message, then, we have through Him? It is that being sinners we are part of the whole world of sinners, part of the whole world that He died to redeem. And, furthermore, that while He is not yet ready to deal with the world he is prepared to deal with a certain special class; namely, with the class that desires to forsake sin and to turn their whole heart to God; and turning to God to fully submit themselves to Him to do His will at any cost. In other words, to sacrifice themselves, to sacrifice their wills. This, then, is the message that comes to us, that God is calling for a special class to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord to the Heavenly inheritance. An inheritance implies a gift or a promise. God has promised a Heavenly inheritance. He did not promise it in the vague way He promised Abraham, that some of his seed would become as stars of Heaven, the special seed, the Abrahamic seed, the Messiah seed. In the New Testament He brought to light this immortality which is the gift of God to the Church, as well as everlasting life for the world; and so the Apostle, explaining God's plan, tells us that ours is a high calling, a Heavenly calling, a calling to the Heavenly nature.
Now things begin to shape before our minds, and we begin to see that before God deals with humanity in general He is dealing with a special class, and this special class is to become a new nature, and that new nature is of a higher nature. We are now of the human nature, which is the highest of all earthly natures, and He invites us to the Divine Nature which is the highest of all Heavenly or spiritual natures. What a wonderful proposition! Can it be true that God would invite us who are so imperfect, and so little, members of the fallen race, to become members of the Divine Nature, far above the Angelic nature, above Cherubim and Seraphim! Yes, even so, as the Apostle says, God hath given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these we might become partakers of the Divine Nature. It takes us a little while to recover from our breathless astonishment--astonishment that God should have such a wonderful, broad, comprehensive and benevolent plan for those who were once enemies through wicked works, once under the condemnation of death. Our minds were indeed illuminated when we learned that he had a plan of salvation for the world, that God so loved the world that He gave His Son that whosoever believeth might not perish; but to hear that not only we were not to perish but if we would become associated with our Savior in the present time and under the present call we might attain to that highest of all natures, seems too wonderful to believe. It staggers our faith, it is so much more than we would have dreamed of. But gradually as we get to know our Heavenly Father these things become more reasonable to us, and we see that he is operating along the lines of certain principles and what He is especially seeking for is obedience and loyalty. He has plenty of room, and plenty of work to do, and He would just as soon take us if we are loyal of heart as to take the Angels, and He would rather take us than the Angels because if we pass through the experiences that He has mapped out then indeed it will prove us and develop in us character, and we will have had experiences such as no Angel ever had. And therefore He extends to the Church, the followers in the footsteps of Jesus, these wonderful blessings beyond anything he has ever offered to the Angelic Hosts--to become sharers with Messiah in His glorious reign, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in Heaven for you--you who are kept by the power of God unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the end of this age.
When once we get our minds illuminated to this degree, and see that it is the offer of God to us to become New Creatures we say, Were these words of Jesus addressed to the New Creature or to the Old Creature? Did He mean to say that as men and women in the flesh we should be like unto our Father in Heaven? Or did He mean that we as New Creatures who have been begotten of his Holy Spirit should become like unto our Father in Heaven? Oh, the latter, surely. The human being with its imperfections could never be like God, and we feel that continually. We have these imperfections day by day. Each and all of God's children know or ought to know of their own blemishes by nature and that they could be nothing in God's sight except through the covering merit of our Savior's sacrifice applied to us as his Bride class. But when we come to understand and appreciate the matter it is this: That He looked first of all to those who would respond to the invitation, to the call. What was the call? The call, or otherwise as the Scriptures speak of it, drawing, came to us before we came to Jesus. As the Lord said, No man can come unto me except the Father which sent me draw him. The Father did the drawing but He would not receive us; when we responded to the drawing He pointed us to the Son--the way, the truth and the life-- saying that no man could come unto Him except through the Son. But what was the drawing? The drawing was that desire of our heart before we came to God at all, for righteousness, for God. How could that be, if it was natural to us? How could that be a drawing of God? We answer that in God's arrangement when He created our first parents they were very good, in his own image, they had a desire for harmony with God; that was part of their perfection; the human brain was so constructed that it was the very life of our first parents to be in fellowship with their God. The very essence of their joy and pleasure would be to be in accord with him, and when sin came in and they were cut off from fellowship with the Father that must have been one of their most grievous troubles. Just as it was you remember in the case of our Lord Jesus, who in His dying moments cried, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me? That was the most terrible moment of all His experiences. The perfect man Christ Jesus had always been in fellowship with His Father but now at the very last moment, for one moment at least, He must bear the full penalty of sin and must be treated exactly as the sinner was treated; He must be thoroughly separated or cut off from that fellowship with God; and that was His severest moment as we see. So our race, cut off from fellowship with God, nevertheless would have the hungering soul's Divine care, the Divine love and goodness. Father Adam and Mother Eve must have greatly desired this; otherwise they could not have been in the perfect image of God. But as the centuries of sin and death rolled on, and the race became more and more depraved and demoralized, this hungering of soul after God, this feeling after God, was more or less lost, and the character-likeness of God became more and more blurred, faint and indistinct, and so in some more and in some less this desire for God still remains, but in some it is so feeble that they care little and are easily satisfied by the pleasures of this life, or by the sensualities of life, and sometimes they are separated from God through ignorance and the doctrines of demons, as the Bible declares. Misunderstanding God, they are thus driven away from Him instead of being drawn to him. Whatever of natural drawing they might have had, the great Adversary intervenes and seeks to thwart; as Saint Paul declares, The God of this world hath blinded the minds of all those who believe not lest the light should shine unto them, should be seen of them, lest God should draw them, lest the light of the knowledge of God as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord should shine in their hearts and scatter the darkness, and make known to them more and more the true character of God and thus they should be drawn of Him.
But with some of us the Adversary's powers have not prevailed; with some of us the drawing influence of desire for God and righteousness has prevailed above this stupefying influence of the world, the flesh and the Devil, and these are the ones that thus are drawn by the natural inclinations of their mind Godward--desiring right, desiring truth, desiring to be in harmony with God. Some of us who were not born of religious parents and who as sinners in the fullest sense of the word, had our experience as sinners in alienation from God. On the other hand, some of us were born in a measure of justification; as children of believing parents we had a measure of fellowship with God always, and this constituted a drawing power with us, and we were near to God even from childhood. And I assume I am speaking the sentiments and experience of many here present. I find it more and more to be the case that very many of those who become God's consecrated people have had a goodly heritage upon them, and have been born with a measure [CR393] of relationship with the Lord and in favorable conditions to be drawn of Him and understand His Word, to hear the voice of God speaking peace and pointing them to Jesus Christ as the way, the truth and the life.
After we were drawn and after we were called, after we had thus responded and came to Jesus, what did we say to Him and He to us? The language of our soul to the Master would be, Lord, we would see the Father. And His answer to us would be, Whoever sees Me gets the best glimpse possible for him to have of the Father. You can not see God who is a Spirit. If you can see Me in the sense of seeing the history of My life and character, you get that which you can best understand and appreciate of God; I am the Father's express image; I was His perfect image in the flesh and now in Glory I am the express image of the Father's person on the spirit plane. You cannot see Me now, but in your mind you can see Me as I was, and as I was seen by My Apostles in this world, and you can approach from that standpoint and you may have fellowship to that degree.
We say, Lord, we appreciate this. We see your character was a beautiful one; we see your loyalty to the Father. We understand you came into the world and died for our sin, and our hearts respond with great gratitude to our Savior, and to the Heavenly Father whose plan you are carrying forward. But now if we have found favor in Thy sight, tell us what thing we shall do whereby we may become more and more in fellowship with God, become children of God, and be recognized by Him as members of His family.
And Jesus answers us, and says: If you draw near to the Father you will become my disciples, and whoever will walk in My steps will not only have a better glimpse of the Father as He goes onward in the good way, but eventually he shall see the Father in the fulness of Heavenly glory. He will share My glory and see the Father. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."
Then we say, Lord, we are very glad, but we do not quite understand the way.
And His answer would be, as paraphrased from the Scriptures in general: It is not necessary that you should see all the way; it is only necessary that you should see in a general way the grand outcome of the plan, and in a particular way that you should see the particular step of each day and each hour.
And we say, Lord, what is the first step we should take?
And His answer is, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ if you would be saved. You are to believe that I am the Redeemer; you are to recognize that you are sinners; you are to realize the sentence against you is a death sentence and you could never be freed except in this way which the Heavenly Father has appointed; you are to accept therefore My death on your behalf as being the Divine arrangement for the cancellation of your sins, and if by faith you accept this you are ready then to take the next step.
We say, Lord, by faith we do accept, we believe that you are the Anointed of God, that you are the one mentioned by the Law and the Prophets that should come into the world to be the Redeemer of men; we recognize you as being the Son of God, the one whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world to be the Redeemer of the world. We perceive that your death at Calvary was not for any sin on your part either in the sight of God or men, but that your death was a sacrificial one, that you laid down your life, that you permitted men to take your life from you when you might indeed have resisted them either by calling on the Heavenly Father for defense or by using your own powers of eloquence and logic by which you would have turned the minds of the people from being your assailants to become your friends and defenders. And we hear your word assuring us that the grand outcome of the ransom sacrifice is that the Kingdom of God will be established in the earth, and you will be the great King in that day, and then you will bestow upon mankind the great blessings of God for their uplifting out of sin and death, and out of condemnation and up to the full image of God in the flesh. Do we believe properly?
Yes, you believe properly.
Are our sins then forgiven since we thus believe?
No, my beloved, your sins are not yet forgiven: you have merely taken the step of faith; you are merely now come to the place where you may know the next step to be taken, and if you take that next step your sins will be forgiven, and at the same time you will be ushered into a new nature.
Lord, what is the next step, that we may take it?
The answer is, You are to know now that my present call and invitation is to a class who desire to accept the terms that they may become my joint-heirs in that glorious Kingdom that is to bless the world.
Why, Lord, is it possible that you would like to have us associated with you in that great honor, and blessing, and work?
I would be pleased to have you if you are of the right kind--if you have My spirit.
Lord, what is Your spirit?
My spirit is a spirit of humility, a spirit of obedience to the Father, a spirit willing to abrogate yourself and to glorify the Father in your body and spirit which are His, And if you desire to become of the same spirit, of the same mind, if you desire to become My disciples and walk in My steps, then indeed you will be with Me and share My glory on the spirit plane.
The proposition is so astounding at first we say, Oh, Lord, what will be the cost? Surely there will be great cost attaching to such a great invitation as that. We see that a place in the Heavenly Throne and to be the great Messiah has cost you so much, you left the Heavenly glory and manifested your devotion to the Father's will, and you as the man Christ Jesus gave yourself unreservedly even unto death--what would be the terms and conditions upon which we who are so much inferior might become your joint associates in that Kingdom?
And the Master answers, You would not be worthy at all except for what I have told you of My willingness to impute to you of my merit. I have died for the sins of the whole world and you are members of the world, and if you wish to have it so you may have a share of that forgiveness of sins now in advance of the world upon certain conditions; namely, first the exercise of faith, which you say you have; and, secondly, upon your making a consecration of your lives as I made a consecration of mine.
But we say, Lord, you had something to give; no wonder that the Father would accept yourself. You had a blameless life when you were in that Heavenly glory, and when you were made flesh you still were blameless, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, while we were born in sin and imperfection. How can the Father accept us and give us a share with you?
Leave that to me. If you wish to be my disciples your faith must accept the fact that I assure you I will make good for all your blemishes. You may not understand it in full now, but as you will grow in grace and knowledge I will show you these things more and more clearly, and the entire plan of God will appear more and more logical to you as you progress.
And we answer, Oh, Lord, it is enough; we are completely satisfied--more than satisfied; we rejoice to think that what little we may have of earthly time, talent, wealth, name, fame, opportunities, that these little things not really worth a cent, and which we do not know that we will have the control of for a single hour--that we may be privileged to lay these at the Father's feet through you, and that we should thus be accepted to such great honors.
And the Lord says, It is even so; sit down and count the cost.
And our souls answer the Lord, We do not need to count the cost, it is so little when we contrast it with the blessings, honors and favors of God which we are seeking for and which you have promised us, that there is nothing to count. Lord, we have nothing to give; it is not worthy of any consideration. We estimate the matter from the view-point of Saint Paul who declared, I count that all of these things of an earthly kind are but loss and dross in comparison to the excellency even of the knowledge of God; the knowledge of God is worth so much, just to know Him, just to get a glimpse of the Divine justice, love, wisdom and power, is worth the sacrifice of all the little we have, for we have nothing of any value. And as we thus begin to get the proper focus on the matter we say, Lord we give ourselves to Thee, it is all we can do; [CR394] we simply give our little all and accept whatever you have to give.
And the Lord says, That is the right spirit, and immediately he imputes to us individually His merit, which makes us holy and acceptable in the sight of the Father, and the same minute that we are thus holy the Father accepts us as New Creatures and the begetting of the Holy Spirit is there, and from thenceforth old things pass away and all things become new. We are now counted as members of His glorious Church which is in the making, in the preparation, in the washing, in the cleansing, in the polishing, in the getting ready. The sins that are past are all cleansed, and the New Creature has no defilement of its own, but there are certain imperfections attaching to the flesh still, and although the flesh be covered with the imputed robe of Christ's righteousness, nevertheless these weaknesses may from time to time crop out, and the New Creature is to be prompt to notice them, because the New Creature is this new mind, this new will, that henceforth regulates, rules, controls, this mortal body.
I have found some of God's dear people who did not realize how much of a contract they have on hand, and they were very careless about watching the things specially given to them to watch; they were continually watching other people and telling other people about their weaknesses and forgetting about themselves--a great danger. It is for us to realize our first obligation is in respect to our own flesh. God did not make me accountable for your flesh nor you for mine. He does indeed say we may help one another, and counsel one another, and build one another up, and we can indeed help one another to put on the robe of Christ's righteousness and to keep it properly; as we read in the Scriptures. The Bride makes herself ready. We can give each other valuable suggestions, but the responsibility really rests with you as a New Creature for your body, and with me as a New Creature for my body. And here we have the task of our lives, because in our flesh, as the Apostle says, dwells no perfection. Not all alike have imperfection, some have one degree, some another, and some are more imperfect and blemished in one way and others in another way; but as the Scriptures continually assure us, there is none righteous, none perfect, no not one. We all come short, and need to realize these shortcomings, and we are to fight the good fight against them.
But, Brother Russell, if God knows that our flesh is weak, and if He is dealing with us as New Creatures and not intending to judge us according to the flesh, what has the flesh to do with it, anyway? Surely it makes no difference to God what the flesh may be if my heart is right, if my heart is pure and sincere.
Yes, it makes a difference. God has given you your flesh to practice on, and you as a New Creature will grow in grace or not grow in grace in proportion as you practice on this mortal body, or fail to practice on it, and on these difficulties that you are to overcome, and it is as you show your loyalty as a New Creature in fighting down everything in your flesh that is contrary to you and the Father, that you show your loyalty to righteousness, to truth, to God and the Brethren, in that proportion you are growing in grace and in that character which God can approve.
So you and I before we would be prepared to be of the class that God has called us to, must of necessity be developed; therefore whoever God calls and accepts in Christ and who has the begetting of the Holy Spirit, are in the School of Christ. Then begins the lesson they must learn; they must grow in grace, and grow in knowledge, and grow in love, and as the Apostle explains, be transformed. What does that mean? It means to be formed over again. Suppose a man accepts Christ: could he be formed over again? Yes, my dear brother; if he is not formed over again he will not be ready for the Kingdom. But this transforming is not a transforming of the flesh. Indeed it may affect your flesh, and I have seen many homely faces transformed into very beaming ones by reason of the spirit of the Lord within; but this is not the thought here; that is a secondary matter. The transforming, as the Apostle says, is the renewing of your minds, new minds, minds made over. Think of that! How can we make our minds over? You know how you sometimes speak of making up your mind. You balance a thing, weigh it, then decide so and so. You know how you used to decide according to your own preferences, now you must make up your mind not according to your own preferences, but according to certain principles, certain lines of righteousness, and principles of justice and love, so that the New Creatures in Christ have a new set of rules, altogether different from what they ever had in the world. The world has no such regulations and rules as are applicable to the New Creatures in Christ. Everything you do must be squared by the rule of justice. You dare not do as a New Creature anything that would be unjust to a neighbor, to a brother, or to anybody. You are bound at least to be just: to the very extent of your ability you must not be lacking in justice. I think there are many of the Lord's people who have not fully realized this part of the lesson, that the new nature and obedience to its rules means absolutely the Golden Rule on their part toward all others. They must not do to others what they would not have others do to them. Because of this, sometimes the way of the Lord is evil spoken of. Sometimes one may fail to pay his debts, sometimes he may be careless as to how he involves himself in debt; the principle of justice is not standing out prominently enough before the mind of such a one. He has been in the habit, perhaps, as an old creature of not respecting the rules and lines of justice but sliding through here and there as he or she might be able and leaving others in the lurch. That will not do for the New Creature: the New Creature has come under new rules and no matter how much the old creature might seek to shirk, the New Creature's duty is to bring the body into subjection, and that justice shall rule in every act and word, and as far as possible in every thought. So that with these principles of justice in our minds, we have that much of God's character likeness. How would you and I as New Creatures be like unto the Father in Heaven if we did not have the principle of justice? The cultivation of the principle of justice in your life and mine, and in all our actions and dealings, in all our words, in all our thoughts--how close it comes to us! It may be comparatively easy to be just in our dealings so far as money is concerned, and say, I would not owe anybody a penny, I would pay to the very last mite, and I would rather live on the plainest of food than to be in debt and be under obligation or be unjust to another, but it is not so easy to be thoroughly just in our minds and words. To be unjust in our words is so easy. The New Creature is to sit in judgment against every word the mouth may utter. No wonder the Apostle says, If any man sin not with his mouth, the same is a perfect man. It is for the New Creature, then, to be on guard that it may be developed along this line; and if it fails time and time again the New Creature must prosecute the matter, it must thoroughly show the Lord that it has no sympathy with injustice. You have to be just in your thoughts before you can be properly just in your dealings. The man who thinks unjustly in spite of himself will act unjustly: therefore it comes down to the very matter of controlling our thoughts. How shall I think of that man, or that woman? Never with a prejudiced mind, but always with calm judgment, seeking to give them the benefit of the doubt if there is any doubt whatever. Besides that, the Lord counsels great mercy on our part, telling us that He would rather we would err in the sense of being too lenient than in the sense of being just merely.
Then beyond justice comes love, the very highest of all the attributes of God. God is love. God is just, but He is love also, which is still higher in the sense that it implies something more than justice. He will do all of justice to everybody, then He will do a little more, He will do something of love; He shows us this in His dealings with our race. He was only just toward us when He condemned our race as unfit for everlasting life. And He might have remained just and never provided any redemption or any opportunity for us whatever. But God was more than just, and so in due time He provided the Redeemer. This was grace, this was mercy, this was love. And this love has been working all through God's great plan for our race, providing first the Savior, now providing the Church, and making provision for you and for me in His mercy that we might come from the ranks of sinners and up to the ranks of glory, and forgiving all of our past for us and giving us all the encouragement of the way, and the assurance of His love and favor, and making all things work together for good to us. This is the love of God, and if we would be children of our Heavenly Father we must as New Creatures have this character likeness, we must have love. What will that mean? That will mean sympathy and assistance, and not merely justice. There is nothing of grace in the giving of justice: [CR395] it is right; anything less than justice is wrong; but we are to be more than just, we are to be kindly affectioned one to another, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake forgave us. He is wishing that you shall see that quality in His character and shall copy it in your life, and that I shall see it and copy it in my life. We see then what Jesus meant when He said, "Be ye perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect!" That is what He meant, to copy Him. Not that you can ever get your mortal body to that perfection where it would be perfect as God is perfect, or all your actions perfect as God is perfect, but He did mean that you were to have your mind in full sympathy and accord with God and His arrangement, striving to the best of your ability to practice on this mortal body so as to bring it more and more into accord with God. Why? Jesus said the Father is kind, even to the unthankful. It is comparatively easy to be generous toward those who are kind to us--to those who have done something for us and we would like to do something for them in return. It would be a mean disposition that would not want to do that. But that is not what God is inculcating. It is not merely to have kindness and be as good to another as he is to you, but more than that, to be kind to the unthankful, to those who are ungrateful, to those who despise you, and hate you, and persecute you. See how our poor world in its blindness has been misrepresenting the Heavenly Father, picturing Him as worse than the devil, and He is kind nevertheless. The poor world in its blindness has gone far off in wicked works, in every way opposed to Him, but in His kindness He is pursuing, and He is providing the blessings necessary--first the Redeemer, then the Church which is now being developed.
But as the Bible says, we are in the School of Christ, we are being taught of God, we are His workmanship; He has been working in us by His providence and Word, working in us by our experiences which He has made for us, and the opportunities He gives to us--all of these things are designed by the Lord to bless us and develop us in His own character likeness, that, as Jesus said, we should be like unto our Father in Heaven, so that we should be holy, even as He is holy, that our intentions, our aims, our desires, should be of exactly the kind God has.
If, therefore, you find you have in your heart a feeling of bitterness and envy, or strife, beware; that is a dangerous condition; that is not of the Holy Spirit at all; you are not holy as He is holy if you have these elements of character, because the Apostle explains that all of these qualities of character are works of the flesh and the devil, and if you have them it is that much of the flesh and devil working in you. And if, on the contrary, you have holiness, and a completeness of desire to know and to do God's will, and if this is an increasing power in your heart, then indeed you are being sealed of the spirit, and the character likeness of God is being impressed upon you, you are getting more and more day by day to see things as God sees them, to sympathize with the things God sympathizes with, and to be opposed to the things God is opposed to. That means that we shall love righteousness and hate iniquity. So you remember it was written of our Lord, and that was the grand climax of His character, "Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows"--above angels, above the Church, making Him head over all things to the Church, and saying that all the angels shall worship Him. How much did He love righteousness? You want to see, because you want to copy Him. He hated wickedness so that He would in every way avoid iniquity, injustice, unrighteousness, sin, and He loved righteousness to the extent that He would rather die even the death of the cross than resist the will of God. This, dear friends, is the great test of character that is going on with you and with me, and according to these lines God is dealing with us. And it is not merely that we are fighting the good fight and trying to accomplish something in our flesh; because you may never succeed as a New Creature in getting as good control of your flesh as somebody else may have of His flesh at the very beginning of the way; but what you do want to see, and what God wishes to see in you and in me is that our whole hearts are set for righteousness, and that we love the right and hate the wrong and that we are striving to the best of our ability to put down the wrong and to uphold the right, especially in ourselves, in our own characters and in our actions, words and thoughts. So shall we be the children of the Highest, and so when our great Redeemer in the end shall examine us for graduation He shall be ready to say to us, as He is represented as doing in the parable, Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things-- not very much, you did not have much to be faithful over, but you have shown the right spirit--I will make you ruler over many things. If you would fight so loyally against sin in your bodies, if you would be so loyal to the principles of righteousness under conditions as you had them, I know that with the perfect bodies that I will give you in the resurrection you will be able and perfectly willing then to do the will of the Father perfectly. And so the Father will be glad to have you fully His and to have you glorified with the Savior at His right hand.
[CR395]
Press Report--"Pastor Russell Comes to Edmonton"
Pastor Russell, in company with a special train party of about 200 International Bible student delegates will arrive in Edmonton on Wednesday morning from Calgary. He will give a lecture in the Empire auditorium, Second street in the evening, beginning at eight o'clock, upon the theme "Beyond the Grave."
The special party first assembled in Chicago under Dr. L. W. Jones, a well known Bible class leader. Twenty-six states and five Canadian provinces are represented in the gathering, which left Chicago on June 2, to attend the Los Angeles and the Seattle Pacific coast conventions, going via Hot Springs, San Antonio, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, Victoria and Vancouver.
WORKS WHILE EN ROUTE.
Much work has been done en route. Pastor Russell is an ever busy editor, author and preacher. He is accompanied on this trip by his secretary, who is kept busy between cities in connection with Pastor Russell's literary work. Additionally Pastor Russell has delivered at least one public lecture in nearly every important city en route. He spoke in Portland's new Arena Rink to an immense crowd, and is scheduled to deliver his now famous lecture on "Beyond the Grave" in Edmonton.
John T. Read, basso, of the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago, is in the party and is to direct the musical program of the evening.
The enormous number of people regularly reading after Pastor Russell reaches a marvelous figure. His weekly sermons are now published in nearly 2,000 newspapers, reaching approximately fifteen million subscribers. This, figured upon a basis of only five readers for every paper, brings Pastor Russell's weekly congregation up to 75 million. Additionally, he is well known through his books and many special articles published in a religious press.
SPEAKS TO ALL CLASSES.
Pastor Russell is the duly elected pastor of the London Tabernacle, the Brooklyn Tabernacle and the Washington Temple congregations, and is president of the International Bible Students' Association and the Watch Tower Bible Society. [CR396] He accepts his maintenance from the latter society and accepts no salary or fee from any of his congregations, nor for delivering any public address. In harmony with this policy, he speaks only in public halls where Catholics, Jews, Christians, skeptics and all, can meet together to consider the Bible on its merit.
The party goes to Winnipeg on Wednesday night, and will then visit St. Paul and Minneapolis, winding up their trip at the International Bible Students' mid-summer convention at Madison, Wisconsin, arriving there on July 2. This trans-continental tour covers over 8,000 miles in a period of 30 days.
[CR396]WILL GO TO LONDON.
Pastor Russell is scheduled to go to Great Britain July 25, to conduct a series of meetings in the Royal Albert hall in connection with his London Tabernacle work. He will speak in the leading cities of Europe and the provincial cities of Great Britain on week day nights, returning to London for three or four big Sunday meetings.
Those looking after arrangements for the Edmonton meeting anticipate that an immense throng will assemble to hear the famous international preacher. They lay stress upon the points that all are invited, that seats are free and that no appeal of any kind will be made for financial assistance.
[CR396]
Press Comment--"Beyond the Grave"
Clergyman Says He Has Preached More Hell Than Anyone
Else, But Not the Fire, Brimstone and Pitchfork Variety
The special train carrying Pastor Russell and party of 225 Bible students, now touring the western provinces, arrived in the city this morning at 9 o'clock.
When asked about the charge that he is a "no hell" preacher, Pastor Russell replied:
"There is no minister in the world that preaches more hell than I do, but the hell that I preach is the hell of the Bible and not the hell of the fire, brimstone, pitchfork and sandpaper-slide variety. The hell of the Bible is a most reasonable interpretation of the original Greek and Hebrew terms--Hades and Sheol--which means the death state, the tomb."
A meeting was held in the Empire theatre auditorium this morning for the benefit of Bible students. It took the form of a prayer, praise and testimony meeting. Short addresses were given by several of the ministers accompanying the party.
MEETING THIS AFTERNOON.
Another meeting is being held this afternoon in the Empire auditorium. Pastor Russell addresses the Bible students on "The Body of Christ and the Import of True Christian Living." There are about 350 of these students now in the city.
Tonight at 8 o'clock the pastor will deliver his celebrated lecture on "Beyond the Grave." He is meeting with great success in this lecture, drawing crowds that test the capacity of the auditoriums, hundreds and sometimes thousands having been turned away. In Calgary last night an audience of 2,500 listened with rapt attention throughout this discourse.
Pastor Russell is an independent Bible exegete, whose commentaries on the Bible called "Scripture Studies" have reached an enormous circulation being now in the eighth million. About 2,000 newspapers carry the pastor's sermons weekly.
When asked regarding the origin of these Bible students the pastor said:
"I find in the world today a hunger for the Bible such as is unprecedented in past history. These Bible students have sprung out of all denominations and, in harmony with the spirit of our times, are seeking information from the Bible in its own light rather than from the creeds formulated in the dark ages.
WANTS TO INVESTIGATE.
This growth of Bible students is a spontaneous effort on the part of all Christians everywhere to investigate the Bible in the light of the Divine plan of the ages."
[CR396]
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
FROM Calgary we made a side trip of about two hundred miles farther north--the most northern point of our tour--reaching Edmonton about 9 o'clock in the morning. None of train party had ever been to this city, and it was also Brother Russell's first visit. The class there is but a few years old, nevertheless they are wide-awake and had made excellent provisions for the meetings and entertainment of the touring party. Many friends in the Truth came long distances and experienced considerable difficulty reaching Edmonton. One old brother, about seventy-five years of age, came sixty-five miles, driving the entire distance in a little buggy. We felt that our visit to Edmonton well repaid us for the entire tour. The following discourse by Brother Russell was greatly enjoyed by all, but especially by the Edmonton friends, as it was the first time many of them had seen or heard him:
Discourse by Pastor Russell.
Subject: "GOD'S MESSAGE OF GRACE"
THIS is my first visit to Edmonton, and I want to say in advance of my discourse that I am very much pleased to meet with you and to note that the same Heavenly Father who has been blessing His people elsewhere has His glory to shine into your hearts also; and thus we recognize that all who belong to Him caused some of the light and knowledge of are members of the one family of which He is the Head; of which our Lord and Savior is the elder Brother, and of which we are all members in particular by the Grace of God through Christ. I greet you all, then, dear friends, in the name of our glorious Savior, and in the name of the one common salvation which we all have through Him, and in the hope of that glorious attainment to which He has called us by His grace; namely, joint heirship with our Savior in the Kingdom. I wish you all as a little class here at Edmonton, and those at other places who are meeting with you here, very much of the Lord's blessing, and assure you that our Heavenly Father's arrangements are such that all the sheep of His flock may have His blessing, and care, and protection, and oversight, here as well as in Brooklyn and everywhere else. How wonderful it is that we find the provision of our time is such as to give meat in due season to the household of faith everywhere! Just a little while ago we could not have believed it possible that way off in this north country, and way in the south country, too--in South Africa, and in India, China, Japan, Australia, and [CR397] everywhere, all the world over, the same message of God's grace and truth could go, and that all of God's people could think, and feel, and sing, in harmony, and have the same Manna text every day, and the same lessons in general every week. It seems very wonderful. Then you, know, I visit you twice here every month in the Watch Tower, and we have good long talks together. All of these things are of the Lord, evidently; He made them all for us; we are living in this happy time, this wonderful day of privilege and blessing more than ever known in the world's history before. I trust, then, that this little convention tour and our coming to Edmonton, and your meeting with so many of the friends from 34 states of the Union, will bring cheer to your hearts and great encouragement in the way, and that we will all depart this evening in the same joy of the Lord.
My text for this afternoon is the words of the Apostle, "Be filled with the spirit" (Eph. 5:18). This word "spirit" has given a great many of the Lord's people perplexity of mind. We read of spirit and spiritual things in so many different ways that people are confused, especially in view of the fact that for some centuries the doctrine of the Trinity has been very prominent before all our minds, and according to that doctrine we were taught that the Holy Spirit is a third person, a third God as it were: one God the Father, another God the Son, and another God the Holy Spirit. Then we were told that these three would make one God, and we did not understand how the three could be one. Then we were told there was only one God after all, but there were three manifestations of the one God. And the more we were told the more we were perplexed; and the more we inquired the more we were told that this was a great mystery which nobody understood. Now we find, dear friends, that the mystery is mostly in the fact that we have been believing what is largely mystical and not what is real, not what is in the Bible. If we take the Bible for it the mystery clears away and everything becomes very simple and clear.
First of all, we should know the meaning of this word "spirit." The word spirit in the Hebrew language is used in a general way as covering anything of influence or power that is invisible. Any invisible power is spirit power. Any invisible influence is spirit influence. The thought of invisibility goes with the word spirit--that which is not seen, not tangible, cannot be handled. So that a thought upon the mind is called the spirit; as we read in the Scripture, Who knoweth the mind of a man, or the spirit of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? That is to say, your own mind knows your own mind. I cannot know your mind, and you cannot know my mind except as I express myself. So no one knoweth the spirit of man except a man's spirit, and likewise the Apostle says that no one knows God's mind, or God's spirit, except God. God only knows His own mind, His own purpose, His own intention. There is a general way in the use of the word spirit; it stands for the mind, the will, the purpose. It also stands at times for power; as, for instance, the spirit of God moved upon the waters. It was not God's mind that moved on the waters, it was not His thought; it was the spirit of power or energy from God that moved upon the waters and caused them to bring forth.
Then, again, we use the word spirit in connection with all life. When we say a dog has a spirit of life we do not mean the dog has a ghost in him; we mean the dog has that quality or principle which we call life. We call it the spirit of life because you cannot see life. You know how you could kill the dog, stop him from living, but you do not know how you could put the life back again. When you kill a dog you do not see the life going away. That principle of life came from the dog's parents all the way back. The spirit of life in a horse or other animal comes down from the parent. So with humanity. You received your spirit of life from your father, and he received it from his father, and so on all the way back to Adam. God gave that power of spirit of life to Father Adam. Nobody but God can give the spirit or power of life, but as long as you have it yourself, even a little spark of it, it is possible for you to give it to another; just so in the ordinary way God has arranged the power of procreation. Every father has the power to give life to his child; he gives some of that spark which he received; he cannot give any more that he received or possesses. What he gives may be under more favorable circumstances and his child may live longer because of more favorable environment, but it cannot get more life than its father possesses. So this is called the spirit of life, or the opportunity of living, this spark of vitality which God gave. Now, what the spark of vitality is nobody knows; it is merely the power to live. You see the same thing in a tree; that little bud on the tree has life in it, and if you break off that bud you will kill the whole matter, but there may be life enough in the root to send out another bud. Each bud would, therefore, be a child from the root, but it is the same spark of life. If you freeze the seed or roast it you destroy the germ of life in the seed and it will not germinate because there is no power of life there.
Now, God is back of all of this life and it is an invisible thing; you can tell when a thing is alive but you cannot give the life. God declares that He gave life to father Adam on condition that he would use that life in harmony with his Creator's will, and if he would not use it in harmony with His will He would recall it. Now, recalling it would not mean that it would be a thing that would have ears and be able to walk. For instance, I give you permission to go some place and to get something that is mine; suppose I had a valise and I would give you permission to go and get that valise and you can have it. The permission is what I give you, and while you are on the way I may recall that permission and say, "Stop, I will change that, I have recalled it." It does not mean the permission had ears to hear, and that the permission walked back to me, does it? Just so when God recalls the power of life it does not mean something goes back to God in a literal sense; it is a permission to live. He gave the permission to live and then He recalled it. So the Bible says that the dust returns to the earth as it was, but the spirit, the spirit of life, the power to live, returns to God who gave it--returns in just the same way the permission I gave you to get my valise returns to me. I had the right to give you permission to do that, and I had the power to prohibit your doing that. God has a right to give us the power to live and He has the right to countermand that and say, "No, you are not using that life as I intended, therefore I recall the privilege of living." It is not a thing: it is merely the privilege of living; and the spark of life which God started keeps on going except as unfavorable circumstances might stop it here and there. You can start it in your children and they may go on for a certain distance and something unfavorable stops it with them. But before it stops with them they may have given a spark of it to their children; and so it may continue on, but it is merely the privilege of living, and it is called the spirit of life because life is a thing that is not tangible, that you could handle or see. It is not a thing at all; it is a principle, a right, a privilege.
So much, then, for the meaning of the word spirit. We are not going into it more in detail now, but coming back to our text we read, "Be filled with the spirit." What spirit are we to be filled with? Is it the spirit of life we are speaking of? Oh, no, because it is addressed to people who already have the spirit of life from their fathers else they could never hear or understand anything. It is addressed not merely to natural men, it is addressed to New Creatures; hence it does not refer to the natural life at all. It is speaking of another spirit of life. Is there more than one spirit of life? Yes, we answer, there are two spirits of life. How is that? This way: When God gave to our human earthly parents the right to live that was the earthly spirit of life, or the right to earthly life, that He gave to them, and with that right to earthly life went certain powers. As soon as that life came into the body of Adam he became a living soul --not that he got a living soul, not that a living soul entered into him, but he became a living soul. Well, says somebody, I do not see any difference whether he became a living soul or whether a living soul was within him, or whether he had a living soul. There is a difference; there would be the same difference as whether you have a dog or whether you are a dog. You say, I have a soul, or, I am a soul. Do you see the difference? You have a dog, or, you are a dog. A soul is a being, a thinking person. You cannot be a thinking person without that spark of life, and you cannot be a thinking person without the body; and the kind of a person you will be depends upon the kind of a body you have. If you have a body like a dog, we know what a dog can do. We see from the shape of the dog and his head just what he can think and do. We see a horse and a cow and we know what they can do. But we look at a man and [CR398] say, that man has a higher intellectuality than a dog, and therefore the spark of life which the man gets enables his thinking apparatus to think far higher than the dog could think, but it is the same kind of life; it is the same spirit of life in a beast that is in the man: it is not a different kind of life. It is the same kind of life in a lily that is in an oak, but in an oak it leads to a great strong tree, and in a lily it leads to a tall, slender stick with a flower on it; that is vegetable life. In a dog, or horse, or cow, or man, it is all animal life, the spirit of life animating animal bodies or physical bodies, and the kind of thoughts and personalities will depend upon the shape of the body; so that you as a soul are different from me as a soul. The difference in your disposition and mine is exactly the same as is manifested in the shape of your head and mine, and the shape of your face and mine, and as there are no two faces exactly alike so there are no two souls exactly alike; they could not think exactly the same. Now we can train our thoughts, we can bend our thoughts, so to speak, and bring them into the same channels, but naturally, without any such bending or training you are according to what you were born, and according to what your environment and circumstances have made of you. Suppose you have twins, who are very much alike, can hardly tell them apart, but you train the one in college and under certain conditions, and you train the other one under different conditions, and there will be considerable difference because of their environment. Suppose one gets no education and the other gets a college education, you can see that the one would be very different from the other. Now their souls, their personalities, were practically the same to start with as twins, but the different circumstances made one much nobler and developed him much more, and left the other one in a very undeveloped condition; he did not bring out all the possibilities of his organism.
So much then for the spirit of man that is in him--the human life of a man. And then we use that same word life, or spirit, when we speak of the mentality of a man; for we speak of God being a spirit, and the will of God, and the mind of God, and the mind of Christ, and so the spirit of man, and mind of man, and will of man. You may will this, or will that, you may think this or that; it is the will of man, it is the mind of man; you think on your own plane, according to your own development. We get now to the highest thought of spirit--"God is a spirit." What does that mean? God is a spirit being. That means God is a being that is invisible to men, that is mighty and powerful and influential, and we cannot see Him because He is a spirit. He is an intelligent power. We see various things respecting this great power. As Jesus said, God is a spirit and they that worship must worship Him in spirit and truth. It is only with your mind that you can worship God in a way He will be pleased with. In order to give worship to God that He would be pleased with we must raise up to Him and recognize Him as a spirit, and in our hearts and minds we must do Him reverence. Many people worship God in an outward form and their hearts are far from Him. He does not pay any attention to their forms at all.
God who is a spirit has made other spirits. He has made Cherubim and Seraphim, and the angels, different orders of spirit beings. They are all higher than man; they are all spirits; you cannot see them; they are all intangible. We merely know about them through the Bible. The Bible tells us there are such and we believe that God made these spirit beings. They are more like God in this respect, that He being a spirit or invisible person, and they, being spirits or invisible persons, are that much higher than man who is a material being. Now what a spirit being is you and I do not know; the Bible does not tell. It is not a spirit nothing, it is a spirit being; and the Bible tells us there is a spirit body. We are not to think of spirit as being merely some gas, etc.; that is not the thought; but it is merely so different from our body that it is not possible to understand because the Bible does not attempt to make it clear or to explain to us. The Apostle says we do not know what we shall be, but we do know when the change shall come the Church shall be made like her Lord, see Him as He is, and share His glory.
We now have before our minds the spirit beings, the earthly beings, and the difference between these, the difference between the mind of the spirit being, which is the spirit of a spirit, and the mind of a human being which is the spirit of a human being. God's mind, God's spirit, would be the spirit of a spirit; man's mind would be the spirit of a man. Then we would say of Satan that he is a spirit being also, and the mind or spirit of Satan would be a different mind or spirit from the mind or spirit of God; because Satan, as the Bible explains to us, is in antagonism to God; his mind therefore is operating in opposition to the mind of God. So the Bible explains to us that the will of God is that which is in harmony with all the things that are right, and just, and loving, and good, and true; this is the spirit of God the Holy Spirit. Mark now! God's mind, God's disposition, is holy. We see then what it is for God to be a spirit and what it is for Satan to be a spirit. God is a holy spirit, one that is perfect, one that has these grand qualities of character, and all the angels of God who are in harmony with Him are holy angels because they are holy spirits, or those spirits which are in conformity to God's standard of righteousness, justice, love, wisdom and power, co-operating with the holy God, the great Spirit, the Father of Spirits as the Bible says. Then, on the other hand, we have Satan the antagonist, the rebel, opposing God. He is not only a spirit being but he has the mind or spirit of Satan, is in antagonism to righteousness, the foe of God and the foe of all those who are in sympathy with God, and then he has under him, as the Bible explains, a whole corps of fallen spirits, fallen angels, and they have his spirit, and disposition, and mind, and they do in harmony with him, he being the head over them. He is the prince of demons; they are demons, evil ones, and he is their leader. This princedom of Satan is not of divine authority, but, as the Bible says, he was one of the higher order of the angels when he fell, and being of a higher type of nature he naturally became superior to and the commander of these other inferior fallen angels. Now here are these great forces that are in opposition to God and the spirit of holiness and all who are in sympathy with that spirit, and Satan and his spirit, or mind, will, of unholiness, in opposition to all who are in sympathy with Him. Now mankind may take sides with either God or Satan, and so the Scriptures speak of some as being the children of the devil because his works they do; that is, they have received his spirit, they are exercised by the mind of Satan and the same spirit of opposition that Satan had; therefore they are called the children of the devil. Has Satan really begotten any children? No, not in the full sense of the word, but his spirit has been contagious and he has more or less blinded and confused the human family; and he has put light for darkness and darkness for light until, deluded by him, they have taken the same antagonistic view that he has, and are manifesting his spirit.
Father Adam as a perfect man had a perfect mind; not like yours, not like mine; he had perfect judgment; he was well balanced and there was nothing of peculiarity about his mental makeup. He was not peculiar in the sense of being unreasoning and lacking power of mind of some kind, just as liable to go into error as into right; his mind was so balanced that he would always know the right from the wrong, and in that consisted his perfection. Just so if you and I had perfect brains we would know right from wrong without anybody telling us; but because of our fallen condition we find people who do not know right from wrong, and some know better than others know. For instance, some people have thought it just all right to burn each other at the stake because they did not know any better. Their brains were unbalanced, they were deluded and thought amiss. They were not necessarily bad people, but they got the wrong view of things and with their poor, imperfect heads did what they would not have done if they had had sound heads. So the Apostle, speaking of the Church, tells us that when we become the Lord's people we receive the spirit or disposition of a sound mind. Naturally we are insane; some are more insane and some are less insane; some have better judgment and some have poorer judgment. But just as soon as we become members of the special class, begotten of the Holy Spirit, and the transformation of character begins, it tends to make us more and more sound in our reasoning. Even with poorer brains, directed rightly with the Lord's Word and the spirit of righteousness, we could do better than we would have done otherwise. And that is the spirit of a sound mind, the disposition that belongs to a sound mind, that we have. We do not have a sound brain, but God's brain is sound, and if we have His mind, His spirit, dwelling in us and directing us then we are regulated more and more by the spirit of a sound mind.
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Father Adam in his perfection had a perfect mind and it was so in harmony with God that God could talk with him as to a friend, a son. He called Adam His son and talked with our first parents in the Garden of Eden, and in every way they were able to appreciate Him and to commune with Him because He had made them so much higher than the cattle and other creatures. He made them purposely in His own image. We are not to suppose God has fingers and nails, and toes, etc., as we have, although sometimes these figures of speech are used. We do not know what God's person is like because the Bible does not explain, but we do know the sense in which man is in God's image is that he has these mental qualities like his Creator's, so that he can reason as God reasons. Now you see the dog cannot do that; the dog has not the image of God; the dog cannot reason on higher things. A dog can reason a good deal and understand a good deal, and the Bible speaks of a dog as being a soul, and a fish as a soul--everything that has intelligence the Bible calls a soul or being--but these different souls, or beings, fishes, beasts, etc., have souls that are more or less intelligent, though none of them at all anything near the intelligence of humanity. For instance, you can speak to your dog and say, "Go bring in the sheep." and there are dogs that have so much intelligence and knowledge that they can count and know every sheep in a large flock, remembering probably 100 or more, and would not miss a single one of them but bring them all in. You could tell the dog to go outside and the dog would know what you meant and go outside; or, Come and lie under the table, and he would know what you meant. He has a certain kind of intelligence and reasoning power, and that intelligence constitutes a dog, a soul--not that the dog has a soul, but the dog is a soul, and because he is a soul he is able to think and reason; and any being that is not able to think and reason is not a soul. Any being that is able to think is a soul.
When we come to man, we find that Adam as a perfect man, a perfect soul, had a good mind based upon a good bodily organism that God was pleased with, which enabled him to think, and study, and reflect, upon justice and wisdom and the relation of things to right and to wrong and to everything else. So in that respect he was like his God. Suppose you say to the dog, "Now you know how to count the sheep, I will tell you something about astronomy;" and the dog merely wags his tail and looks at you; he does not know anything about astronomy. You might try to teach him all your life and he would not know a thing more when you would be dead than before, because he has not any brains to take in astronomy, although he has brain power for some other things. You and I as human beings have these qualities the dog has; he loves to eat and has an organ of the brain that says, This tastes good, go and eat some more, and you have that same organ which is called Alimentiveness, in the human brain which says, I want to eat, I like to eat, it tastes good. Then some dogs have more Acquisitiveness and some less. Some dogs when they have more bones than they can eat will go and bury them and keep them for the future. They have economy. They have Secretiveness and various other qualities which are the same as human beings have. On many of these things they reason just the way we do, because they have these organs of thought and reason just as humanity has. They have love and sympathy. Many dogs and horses have been known to die from sympathy when a mate would die. The horse or dog would be so attached in his sympathies that he would die of grief. There are many cases of that kind which you have all heard about. They could not take any pleasure at all in life, and simply died from grief. But they lack other qualities; they lack God-likeness; the image of God is lacking. It is these qualities in us that constitute us the image of God--the ability to think along these higher lines that the dog cannot.
We would say then that father Adam had the spirit of God in the sense that his mind being perfect would be in harmony and accord with God's mind or spirit; he had the spirit of God not in the sense that you and I may get the spirit of God; he had it in the sense that he thought as God thought, and viewed matters as God viewed them because he was made so that he would think of things from that standpoint. So God tells us in the future He will pour out His spirit upon all flesh and they will all then come back again. That is to say, as they receive of His spirit it will mean they will be coming back to this soundness of mind; all through the Millennial Age they will be raising up, receiving more of God's spirit, their brains will be coming more nearly to the perfect standard; more and more they will have the right mind, the mind of God, on every subject, until when they shall have reached perfection, and their heads are perfect in every sense of the word, they will be back again as Adam was in the image or likeness of God. In that sense of the word God's promise will be fulfilled that He will pour out His spirit upon all flesh. It will be poured out in a different way from what comes to the Church. The way in which it will be poured out to mankind will be that they will be instructed in what they should do, and as their minds respond and they are obedient to the laws of the Kingdom they will gradually grow to physical, mental and moral perfection. And they will thus be coming back into the spirit of God, into His likeness, into His image, as Adam was at first.
But now we are coming to the most important point we wish to make--how you and I are to apply this text, namely, "Be filled with the spirit." God does not intend that the world should have His spirit; the fallen man could not have God's spirit! and so just as soon as man became a transgressor, and took an attitude of opposition to God, he was thrust out of the Garden of Eden. God withdrew Himself, and left the man, the sinner, alone. Now he could have no communion with God; he could merely think along his own lines; he had no further guidance from the Lord and his mind began to operate lower and lower and the higher qualities of his mind began to dwarf more and more. I was not there when they were put out, but I fancy I know just how they got along after they got out. While they were in the Garden it was all nice between father Adam and mother Eve; they would say, "Have some more of these nice fruits, they are plentiful, take plenty," and they would eat all they wanted and when they wanted to, and had everything very nice; but after they were thrust out into the unprepared earth where the thorns and thistles were, and where they must earn their bread in the sweat of face it was a different proposition. Father Adam grubbed the earth with its weeds and thorns, and he would say, "Now, Eve, you be more careful how you use those potatoes, because I tell you I put in a lot of sweat and work getting those potatoes ready." And she would say, "Adam, you have become very stingy; you used to be generous in the Garden." "Yes, but they were plenty, and we could get nice things then and we only had to pull them off the trees." So you see this quality of selfishness would come in very naturally, and I am sure it was not a week before they had a scrap. Adam loved his wife enough to be disobedient to God that he might have her company and fellowship, but I am sure it was not long before they had a scrap, because the conditions had changed. And so it is now, my dear friends: plenty of people would be nice people if conditions were changed. Just change the conditions to what they will be during the Millennium and the people who are living would be ever so much nicer people; they would not have to tramp all over each other, and would not have to fight and cheat each other to get the best of everything. This was the condition of things when they had their first son, and Cain naturally enough was marked before he was born. There was some kind of a mark set on him after he became the murderer of his brother, but he was marked in his birth. You can see that from his character and the disposition he had. Where did he get the character? I presume that at the time of his conception and development father Adam and mother Eve were feeling very, very cross, very much disappointed that they had gotten out of the Garden--why was God so cruel to them anyway? Why should He not overlook that first transgression? Why should He not be more generous with them?--and in their feeling of envy, and jealousy, and hatred, poor Cain got his birthmark, and he was envious and jealous, too. I used to wonder how the race could deteriorate so quickly that the first son of perfect Adam and Eve could be a murderer, and have that bitter spirit, but I see it now; he was marked from his birth; and the fall came in rapidly in his moral qualities--much more rapidly than in his physical qualities. He was still strong and vigorous in his physical qualities, but he had the marks of hatred and selfishness; the meanness and quarrelsome disposition were there because he was born that way. Sin had entered into the world and all the things of God's spirit were not there. God had withdrawn Himself. He would not deal with Adam and his race at all; He would not call them sons any longer; they were rebels, they were under sentence of death--"Dying thou shalt die." Even when God [CR400] dealt with the children of Israel and made them His special servant people for a time He would not call them His sons, would not give them His spirit, would not beget in them His spirit. Why? Because His law required satisfaction of the penalty first before this would be proper, and He had a wise reason for putting it so; it would be the best way in the end. It was not that God was feeling jealous, and feeling as though He wanted to be particular to a hair's breadth as to the formality of the matter, but He fixed it so that it would require a redeemer to die for our sins before the forgiveness of sins would come, so He might thus illustrate the dealings of His Kingdom, the principles of His government. The first we could know of any return to God's spirit was when Jesus came. God did put His spirit on the prophets of olden times--not in the same way that it was upon father Adam in that they would be in His image, for they were imperfect men like the rest of the world; nor in the same way He gives His spirit to the Church--not the spirit of adoption; they were not adopted into His family and the prophets did not become sons of God; but God's spirit operated on the prophets in a mechanical way, just as you would go to the piano there and strike the keys and bring forth certain sounds. The piano has no knowledge of the matter at all; it merely responds to the touch that you give it. So the Scriptures tell us the prophets of olden times spake and wrote as they were moved--that is to say, the piano would make a sound as it would be moved, and the one moving it would be the player. So God was the One who moved these prophets to speak and write things they themselves did not comprehend. They knew the words they were saying, but they did not know their meaning. Neither did other people know the meaning, and neither could the meaning be known until God's time for it to be known. When God's time came for it to be known then His spirit would give His people an understanding of that which had been written long, long ago.
John, the forerunner of Jesus, was the last of the series of prophets, the Bible tells us, and he was filled with the spirit from his birth. That is to say, God's power began to operate upon him at his birth, and even before his birth, as we have the record that John leaped in his mother's womb --showing the power of God's spirit operating on him there. The spirit of the Lord was upon him from his mother's womb, is the record. And he continued under the special guidance of God to be a very special prophet because he was the one who was to introduce Jesus. But this did not make him a son of God for he was not begotten to a new nature at all; he was merely acted upon by the Lord and guided. He was a very good man undoubtedly, and was guided of the Lord's spirit in what he said and did, and was used of the Lord in announcing the Master. Then came Jesus. Jesus had been in the Father's likeness in His prehuman condition. The Bible tells us He was the very first of all the spirit beings, the only one indeed that God directly created--the beginning of the creation of God, the firstborn of all creation, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence, might be first, highest. Then this Logos, our Lord in His prehuman condition, was with the Father, and all things were made by Him, and without Him was not one thing made that was made. He had God's spirit in the sense He was in God's likeness and image, in His own perfection of character, and His mind would be in full accord and sympathy with God's mind, just as Adam's mind was in full accord and sympathy with God. Then He had God's spirit in the miraculous sense that God's power came on Him to do all of this creative work. He had it both ways; not only that He had the mind or spirit of the Father, but He had the energy or power of the Father operating through Him. Then when the time came for God to provide a redeemer for the world, His arrangement was that the one who would be the redeemer should be the great one who would be the restorer. He could not be the restorer unless he would be the redeemer, and God fixed it so that in order to be the redeemer it would mean a test of His humility, and obedience, and loyalty to the very last degree--faithful unto death, even the death of the cross. And He was faithful. This opportunity was given to Him instead of to some of the others, the Cherubim or Seraphim--given to Him as an honor, as a privilege. Why? Because the one who would do this, the one who would be thus obedient, the one who would thus be man's redeemer in God's plan was to be highly exalted far above all other beings; and it was God's will that this one, the Logos, who had always been first in the Divine order, should continue to be first, should continue to be Head over all; therefore to Him first of all came the privilege, the opportunity, that He might come into the world and be the redeemer, and by becoming the redeemer to become also the Lord of Glory, a partaker of the Divine nature and a joint-heir in all the realm of the Father's universe. And He was faithful, and He attained. When He was the perfect man He had the spirit of God in the same sense that father Adam had the spirit of God, and He maintained that spirit, or mind, or likeness, of God as the man; and instead of doing as father Adam did, saying, I give up, I will not be in accord with the Father, He took the very opposite course, and when the time came and He was 30 years of age He sacrificed all of His earthly rights. "Lo, I have come to do Thy will, O My God." That is the reason I came into the world that I might do your will; I am here for that very purpose--everything written in the Book. What book? The book of the Law and the prophets. What is written in the book? The Law was written in the book. But that was not what Jesus referred to. He must keep the Law. That was compulsory. There was no sacrifice about keeping the Law; He must not do otherwise. If I come into your city of Edmonton, and say, I am going to sacrifice my rights and keep your law, you would say, Brother Russell, you are not sacrificing any rights, it is your duty to keep the law of Edmonton while you are here. So with our Lord Jesus; He was obliged to keep the law, otherwise He would have been a sinner and lost His life. What He did do was everything written in the book. There was more in the book than the Law. The book told about what God's will would be respecting the one who would be the great Messiah. The book told about how this one who would afterwards be so highly glorified would be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so He would not open His mouth to defend Himself, or to sway His audience with His eloquence and turn them away from crucifying Him, but allow them to take their course and crucify Him. It was also written in the book in the types of the Law that on the Day of Atonement He would be the great anti-typical bullock; and as the bullock was led to the slaughter for the sins of the people, so He, in order to fulfill that part written in the book, would be slain. It was written in the book that Moses lifted up the serpent on a pole and the people looked at the serpent and were healed. This was written in the book as foreshadowing or illustrating what He would be. "Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." Now these things written in the book God did not command Him to do. No, God is so very exact that He never commands you to do more than justice. It would be unjust for God to ask more than justice and He will never be unjust. If He had commanded Jesus to be the sacrifice it would have been Law and would not have been any sacrifice at all. The moment you make a law of a thing it ceases to be a sacrifice. So when Jesus came He must keep the Law, because He was a Jew born under the Law, and it was right to keep the Law and wrong to do anything else, and His life would have been forfeited if He had done anything else; but He was not bound to do anything more. And that was what He sacrificed then, all of these earthly rights of His over and above the Law, all that belonged to Him as one who would keep the Law--every privilege and right He had. I have come to do Your will, O, God; to lay every [CR401] privilege and right I have at Your feet; do with Me as seemeth best; fill up whatever cup Your wisdom sees best to give. I know not all that is written in the book; I see some of the things and other things I may not see, but whatever you have caused to be written in the book, whatever you have prophetically declared respecting your requirements and tests of the one who would be the Messiah, I am ready to do anything and everything, do all; I give Myself away.
And when Jesus did that at 30 years of age He symbolized it by baptism. John did not know what He was doing. John was there symbolizing the reformation of the Jews, telling them to come and wash their sins away and start afresh, and when Jesus came John knew He was not a sinner, and said, Why do You come to me? If either one of us needs to be baptized and wash away his sins, it is I, not you! Jesus said, Never mind, John, permit it to be this way now; I know what I am doing. But it was not proper for Him to tell John, and John would not have understood anyway. It was not something for John to understand. John was not of the spirit-begotten ones. He was doing something John could not understand, and that others of that time could not understand, but you and I understand. He was symbolically representing His death, the full laying down of all His earthly rights and interests, and His resurrection from the dead a New Creature. When He did that God sent upon Him the Holy Spirit. John saw it. No one else saw it. John bare record, He that sent me said, upon whom thou seest the spirit descending and resting on Him, it is He, you can tell the people. So John says, I bare record that I saw the spirit of God descending on Him as a dove and it abode with Him.
What was that? one asks. That was God's spirit in a very special way, called in the Scriptures the begetting of the Holy Spirit. Now what does begetting mean? Begetting is the start of life. "But, Brother Russell, Jesus had not lost His life, how could He have life started in Him?" The life He had before was the life that had come down from Heaven and it was an earthly life, because while He did have life as a spirit being He had laid aside the glory, honor and higher nature and was made flesh, and He was merely the perfect man at that moment, and there as the perfect man He gave it all up, surrendered it all and reckoned Himself dead, gave up these earthly interests to death, and that was the particular moment in which God started a new life in Him--the begetting of the Holy Spirit to a new life. Now what kind of life was that? That new life that was started in Him was the beginning of a life as a spirit being. The begetting continued with Him, and during the three and a half years of His ministry that spirit abode with Him; He was filled full of the spirit, much more than any of His followers ever could be because having a perfect head and all His powers perfect He had room to receive the spirit. He had no opposition from imperfect flesh to interfere and hinder; He could receive the full mind, the full spirit of God, the full power of God in the way that none others could receive it. Just as you see some people today who are naturally born with better bodies and better heads than others, and some are of a less cantankerous disposition than others and can receive the spirit of the Lord in larger measure or more quickly than others--not necessarily meaning that they are going to be any more faithful in the end, but they can receive a larger measure of the spirit. But Jesus being perfect, the Bible says God gave not the Holy Spirit to Him by measure. There was no limitation; the fulness of the spirit came upon Him. Being a perfect man with a perfect brain He was able to receive of the mind or spirit of God perfectly, and could operate it. He did not have a battle with sinful and depraved flesh; He had no craving appetites for things that were of a degrading kind. He was perfectly balanced, and the spirit of God enabled Him in this all right condition to be more filled, and guided, and directed, by God in that perfect way than any one else could have been.
When did He get the spirit perfecting? It came at His birth. You see how the Bible pictures it: begetting is one thought, birth is another, and the period between His begetting and His birth was three and one-half years--three and a half years of spiritual gestation. He was begotten to a new nature, then for three and a half years the developing and testing of His character was going on, making Him stronger and stronger in every way, then He reached the completion at three and a half years and finished His course on Calvary, dying in obedience to His Father's will, laying down everything. Then on the third day God raised Him from the dead. He was the first-born from the dead; it was His birth to a new nature. The New Creature had been in a condition of gestation in a mortal body. The New Creature had been growing all the time and now it was ready for birth, and the old body that had died was succeeded by the new body which God gave Him in His resurrection.
We will not take time now to talk particularly about the way in which Jesus manifested Himself during the forty days He was with His disciples when He appeared as a man, though He was not a man any longer. He took different forms, but they were not His own form. He appeared in this way and that way; it was not His real appearance, but as He manifested Himself. We will speak of what He was. He was a spirit being, and as a spirit being during those forty days He was invisible nearly all the time. Only a few minutes at a time did He appear, and only about seven times in all. Then He ascended on high to the presence of God. How? As a spirit being. Did He not take His flesh along? Oh, no, He said He gave His flesh for the life of the world. Now if He gave it for the life of the world He would not be taking it along, would He? If He would take it along, He would be taking it back again. He does not need a body of flesh in Heaven; He got along up there previously without a flesh body, and all the Angels get along better without a flesh body. Most all humanity talk about when they will "shuffle off this mortal coil" and feel as though they will be glad to get rid of it, and yet somehow or other, they always fancy if they get rid of it for awhile they will have to be imprisoned in it again, such is the confusion of thought. But we see from the Apostle's language very clearly that God gives the New Creature a body as it pleases Him. He has been pleased to give it a spirit body--sown in weakness, raised in power, sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown an animal body, raised a spiritual body. There is an animal body and there is a spiritual body. They are not the same, they are totally different; one is earthly, the other is Heavenly. He was our earthly Lord when He was in the flesh, and He is our Heavenly Lord now that He is a spirit being, "Now the Lord is that Spirit," as the Apostle says, As a spirit, then, He is highly exalted; and you remember how the Bible speaks of Him--"when He bringeth in the first begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the Angels of God worship Him." He was highly exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on High. What does that mean? Not merely He has a seat there He must sit on, and that the Father sits on another seat continuously and forever, but the right hand position, as we often use the word. He is always to be at God's right hand. He will never be anywhere else than next to the Father in the Chief position.
Now coming to the Church; as our Master was begotten of the Holy Spirit to become a Son of God on the spirit plane, so He opened up the way that we might become His brethren and that He might become our instructor and our forerunner. That is one picture. Another picture is, He is the Captain of our salvation and we are under-soldiers marching under His guidance. Another picture is, He is the High Priest of our profession and we are the under-priests. Another picture is, He is the Bridegroom and we are the betrothed ones, waiting for the time to come when the one who betrothed us will say, Come unto the Heavenly Home. He has gone to prepare a place for us. If I go to prepare a place for you on the Heavenly plane, I will not forget to come again and receive you unto Myself, and take you to that Heavenly condition. This will be the second advent. And He will take us to that Heavenly condition by giving us a change of nature from the earthly to the Heavenly by a resurrection--the same kind of a resurrection He enjoyed Himself. The Apostle explains that it is a part of His resurrection, because it will be of the same kind as His, and we will really as His members be sharing in the same resurrection. Part of our resurrection took place 1800 years ago when Jesus arose from the dead, and part of our resurrection is taking place now, when you and I and all the faithful of God's people are changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and shall enter into that which is beyond the vail. This will all be the one resurrection, because it is all one body. The head [CR402] was born first and the body is to be born afterwards. That is the picture the Prophet gives us, saying, "Shall I bring to the birth (the Head) and not cause to bring forth? (the body)." And the Apostle says that He who brought again from the dead the Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the flock, will He not with Him also bring us from the dead? Yes, He will bring us; it will be part of the same resurrection. So the Apostle speaks of desiring to be a sharer in Christ's death that he might also share His resurrection.
Now when and how do we get the spirit? Just the same as with the Master; we must walk in His steps; He has set us an example that we should walk in His steps. What did He do? He consecrated Himself, and we must consecrate ourselves. He gave up all His earthly rights, and we must give up all our earthly rights. Does that include restitution in the future? It includes everything, not only what you have now, but all you are an heir of. If you had one dollar in your pocket today and gave yourself to the Lord, and tomorrow you become the heir of a million, it takes in your million just as much as your one dollar; and if you have few powers today and by education these powers become ten-fold more in ten years, then it includes all those powers; they all belong to the Lord. Everything we have is consecrated, present and future. You had prospects as a member of the human family; so had I; we all were redeemed by Jesus and we would have the right under God's arrangement to accept the restitution. We have the right by nature to restitution, because God provided it, and Jesus died for that very thing, that restitution might come to all. Very well, then, He invites us to give up what we have, and we give up all and there the restitution privilege comes in. That restitution will make good all your blemishes. All that restitution part Christ makes up to you. Say you are one-tenth of a man,--you say, Brother Russell that is too small an estimate. I don't know, brother, I am not sure whether we are more than one-tenth of a man or not. But we will say a quarter of a man--three-quarters imperfect, dying, dead. I doubt the quarter though. I think a tenth would be better, but we will say a quarter, and there are three-quarters that would come to you additionally in restitution to make you a perfect man. Where would you get it? Why that is what Jesus would give us by and by in restitution times, and now if you become His disciple and come in under this present arrangement, He will not need to give you that three-quarters of manhood by and by, but He imputes it or reckons it to you now, the very moment you consecrate all you had--this one-quarter. You say, God would not receive my one-quarter? No, but Jesus is going to be the Redeemer and Restorer of the world and He will impute to you that three-quarters He was going to give you in restitution, and as He gives you that you stand now complete in Him, in the arrangement God made through Him. Now you are a whole man when He imputes the three-quarters and you have your own one-quarter. Then your sacrifice is complete when you give up all your restitution rights and you lay down your life, everything. That is a complete sacrifice from God's standpoint--not that you have completeness to give but Jesus makes up all our deficiency and reckons it to us, and thus we stand complete, and as complete ones consecrated to God we are acceptable to Him. How acceptable? Why exactly in the same way He was acceptable--acceptable as a sacrifice under this special call God extended. I remind you that God proposes to make a covenant. A law covenant? No, the Jews had a law covenant, and they failed to keep it. Is it the New Covenant? No, the New Covenant is to be applied and introduced in the next age. Jesus and the Church are to be the Mediator of that covenant between God and man. What covenant is it, then? It is the covenant that is mentioned in the Bible--"Gather My Saints unto Me, saith the Lord." Who are your saints, Lord? "Those who have made a covenant with Me." What covenant? A covenant by "sacrifice." There we have it--a covenant by sacrifice. With whom did God make it? With the Christ. This was His arrangement from before the foundation of the world. He proposed to have a Messianic company, and the Apostle says He not only foreknew Jesus, the head of the Church, but us also who are the members of His body, and He purposed that everyone who would be in that company should come in by a covenant of sacrifice. Sacrificing what? Sacrificing all. Now you and I could not be accepted at all except the Lord would impute to us and take us under His covering as members of His body. We were members of the fallen race for whom He died, and a share of restitution belonged to us in His arrangement, therefore He thus covers us and lets us come in as sacrificers. Imperfect sacrifices could not come in and you and I are imperfect, but by the imputation of His merit we are perfect, holy, and acceptable to God. That is the way the Apostle puts it. He says, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God." You did not do it by yourself, it is not something you can do unless God's mercy had been manifested in the redemptive work which He accomplished in Christ. But, says the Apostle, I beseech you through that sacrifice of Christ, and the mercy there, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, your reasonable service. When we have done that we have done just what Jesus did; only we did it with our little part and He helped us out. But we are doing exactly the same that He did, and the Father deals with us just as He did with Jesus; only when the Father gives to you His Holy Spirit you can not receive it without measure, because you are only one-tenth of a man, or one-quarter of a man, and you could only receive a limited measure of the spirit on account of your imperfect flesh.
What does the text mean, then? The thought is this: that as the spirit of the Lord comes in there is first of all a little time perhaps in which you will be dormant, practically doing nothing, but the spirit will be operating in you. There was such a period in Jesus' life. After Jesus received the Holy Spirit He did not go out immediately after He came up out of the water and begin to preach.
He was led of the spirit into the wilderness. What for? That new spirit, that new mind, was going to do some thinking and some studying. What was He studying? He was thinking about the plan of God. Having been begotten of the Holy Spirit it became an illumination to Him; as the Bible says, the Heavens were opened to Him and He began to see things in a different light--much light came to Him on everything. Just so with you and me: when we received the spirit there was not such an effulgence of light because we did not receive so much of the spirit, but a little light came in just in proportion as we were able to receive it. If you had a small capacity it was less and if you had a large capacity it was more. This limitation the Apostle speaks of; He says, "After that ye were illuminated." Just as sure as you were begotten of the Lord's spirit you got this illumination and this illumination meant an enlightening of your mind and you began to think, Now I have consecrated all to God, what shall I do? And for a little time you were not prepared to go out and preach and talk, and it was better that you should not do so, for you wanted to know what you were going to do. It is right to be taught first yourself; you could not teach another person until you had learned something. So Jesus wanted to know what to do. He took this 40 days in the wilderness away from everybody in order to think, and study, and commune with the Father. He had waited until He was 30 years of age and that was the time for the change; no more carpenter shop for Him--at least that was not to be the main business after that; He was to start in under the influence of the Holy Spirit and become a preacher of the Gospel. Just so in my experience, I instinctively knew it should make a change some way, but I did not have the knowledge. Nobody around me knew what to tell me. We are just finding out that we have all been asleep and have been waking up to see now. We have been begotten of the Holy Spirit and what does that mean? That means God has accepted us as His children, and if children then heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord. What more does it mean? It means that being a child you will now be treated differently than what you were before. How so? You will go to school. All the children of the family have to go to school. Others outside may be neglected, but just as sure as we belong to the family we will have to begin to learn lessons to qualify us for the work of cooperation in the Father's family and in the great things the Father has arranged through His Son and joint-heir, so that the begetting of the Holy Spirit was the starting in you of this mind consecrated to God, this disposition Jesus had--"Let this same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." What was that? It was the spirit of humility and obedience to God. No matter what the Father's [CR403] will might be, He would gladly do it. It was the spirit of service. No matter what the service--anything at any cost. It means the spirit of love, because God is love. If we become His children and receive His spirit we must be loving. You cannot be anything else but a child of love if you are begotten of the spirit of the Lord. So the spirit is to work in us, and it is a gradual development. You say, What am I to do, for the spirit is upon me? What is it for? For your own instruction, to build you up, to control you, and you are to be under the Father's care. You are not to do it all yourself. What you are to do is to watch yourself and to see what your part is. You are not to watch the whole Universe, and you are not to tell God how to rule the heathen, etc. We used to pray that way, you know, and tell God with mighty power to convert so many at this meeting. I do not know whether people here ever prayed that way or not, but they used to tell God just what He should do. Some of us used to pray about the heathen and what should be done with them, and what to do with the Jews. You could nearly always tell by the long prayer when it was coming around to the end--it got around to the Jew. The long prayer was a regular thing in the Churches in the past. That is not what the spirit was given to us for, to tell God what to do. Our part is to have humility and to say, Lord we are your children, tell us what your will is, and we are going to hearken to Your Word, we are going to be instructed and guided; guide us, Oh, Lord, and we will try to be so attentive and obedient that you will not need to guide us with a whip, or a bit and bridle, as a horse and mule, but you will guide us with your eye that we may see your pleasure or displeasure with this or with that, and seeing your pleasure or displeasure will be sufficient for us; we delight to do your will; Thy law is within our hearts.
[CR403]
Press Report--"Old Earth Will Go On Rolling"
About 250 Bible students gathered from all parts of the United States came into the city yesterday with Pastor Russell, traveling by special train. It was the longest train that has been over the high level bridge so far. These students of the Bible of all ages and all positions in life, are paying their own traveling expenses. Pastor Russell addressed an audience of students in the Empire auditorium and at eight o'clock this evening will lecture in the same place on "Beyond the Grave."
"I see people in Edmonton are very busy making money," said Pastor Russell, who talked with a Bulletin reporter shortly after his arrival in the city yesterday. The pastor with his secretary, was in his room in the King Edward Hotel, looking over the manuscript of one of the weekly sermons which will be read by some 20,000,000 people in all parts of the world. Pastor Russell, whose sermons are printed in thousands of newspapers every week, has the largest congregation of any preacher or writer now living, and reaches more people than do all the publications of the Hearst syndicate.
MENDING, NOT ENDING.
Pastor Russell at once attacked the doctrine that the world will some day be consumed in fire and come to an end. All the predictions which have been made, he said, concerning the end of the world are founded on mistaken impressions of what is contained in the Bible. When St. Paul wrote that the earth was to be burned up with fire, he meant, said Pastor Russell, not that the world was to come to an end, but that the nations of the world were to pass through a period of trial and suffering from which they would emerge a better people, inhabiting God's kingdom upon earth.
INHERIT THE EARTH.
"You people are interested, it seems, primarily in making money. My mission here concerns not money but Heaven, but I have something to tell you about the earth, too. It says in the Bible that the earth is God's footstool and the place of His feet He will make beautiful. His people are sent out to inherit all the earth. If anything more were needed to contradict the belief that the earth may soon come to an end it is the saying that God sent His people into the earth to inherit it. There are thousands of miles of territory where man has never trod. How then can the earth come to an end before that which is written is fulfilled?
LITERAL INSPIRATION.
"Do I believe in the literal inspiration of the Bible? Most certainly I do. How else could a book be written which meets the needs of all time and all peoples? Yes, the Bible is inspired in a way that no other book ever was. Of course, there are some things in the Bible which are written in parables and which must not be taken as the recounting of facts. That is one of the things which I endeavor to impress upon Bible students.
TOO MANY CREEDS.
"I do not preach any creed. We have enough creeds and too many and they are passing away. The differences between the creeds are being eliminated and people are coming to see--through all the means of enlightenment that this century affords--that there has been too much gloom and darkness. People want light and they are getting it. All the creeds have got away from the Bible and I am teaching that we ought to get back to it.
THE PROMISED LAND.
"There is not one intelligent person or minister of religion in your city who would dare to defend all the points in the creed of the Church to which he belongs. The barriers placed between the sects are being burned because people find that they hinder and don't help.
"In Canada you have all races and all creeds. Some of them come from lands where they have not the same opportunities of enlightenment, but they soon learn. I don't think that the immigration into this country is going to produce the social problems that some people foresee--at least not to the extent that they imagine. America has been and is one of the greatest melting-pots the world has ever seen, and it is surprising what advances are made by the second generation of immigrants. I think there is a great future before Canada. It is part of the promised land, and the promised land was destined for all the peoples of the earth. I would not desire to see any excluded, for we can all learn something from the humblest immigrant who comes to your shores."
[CR404]
Press Report--"Stirring Sermon by Pastor Russell"
PROOFS DEMANDED ARE GIVEN BY DIVINE
Reformation Movement Had Blessing, He
Says to Both Catholics and Protestants
Before an immense audience, Pastor Russell, known throughout the English speaking world as one of the greatest ecclesiastics of the day, delivered his address, "Beyond the Grave," in the Empire Auditorium last night. The subject is taken from the text: "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain."
"What a glorious vista of the future our text opens before us," said Pastor Russell. "Remember, too, that these words do not apply merely to the saintly few who would gain the great prize of the Heavenly, Divine nature, and joint-heirship with Jesus in His Kingdom. We have always expected much for this class. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." We have always known that whoever would inherit the Kingdom would be like unto the Angels, and superior-- "partakers of the Divine nature." "Beyond the Grave" has always had a silver lining of hope and joy and blessing to the saintly--for the elect, the Bride of Christ, the Church, the Body of Christ, of which He is the Head.
"But the context shows us that the blessing of our text for the world in general--for the non-elect. This is the surprising feature, so different from anything presented to us in any of the creeds, either in or since the 'dark ages.' For this glorious view, for this hope beyond the grave for mankind in general, we must go clear back to the words of Jesus and His twelve inspired Apostles."
PROOF DEMANDED IS GIVEN.
"But I fancy some saying, Give us a proof of this astounding statement!
"This is exactly my purpose, dear hearers--to give the proofs, the Bible proofs, that you call for, that all thinking minds and loving hearts are hungering for and crying for. Our mistake of the past has been that we have attempted to reason out problems on the Divine Revelation and to receive the Divine Message in simplicity, and, as Jesus said, as little children. "The meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His way."
The pastor traced the origin of the creeds, declaring that when the Apostles had fallen asleep in death in various quarters there arose bishops who claimed to be successors of the Apostles with similar authority and Divine inspiration. Bibles were scarce and very costly. Bible study was, therefore impossible. The bishop-apostles told the people what to believe. When gradually their teaching clashed apostolic councils were called and the bishops in council formulated the creeds. Gradually truth was lost sight of and error took its place on many subjects.
"The reformation movement," he said, "had been a blessing to both Catholics and Protestants--to the entire civilized world--as shown in the fact that our heads and hearts are more just and more loving than were those of our forefathers in the "dark ages"--evidenced by the fact that we no longer tolerate burning at the stake, or the rack, or thumbscrew, or cutting out the tongue by the root, etc. The nearly six hundred Protestant sects represent just that many endeavors to get back to the light of the First Century. We must receive the light of God's Word into pure hearts if we would appreciate it. If any passage seems dark we must seek the light upon it, not from the "dark ages," but from another portion of the Bible itself. This, my dear fellow-Bible-students, we are endeavoring to do.
"The effect of all this will be exactly what is stated in our text. Messiah as the representative of the Father will shower Divine blessings upon our race. And this in our text is figuratively spoken of as God wiping all tears from off all faces. By the close of Messiah's reign all imperfection will be gone--all sin will be gone. God's will be done on earth even as it is done in Heaven now.
GOD'S KINGDOM IS THE HOPE.
"All these blessings coming to the world, according to the scriptures, wait for the establishment of God's Kingdom. And the Church, the saintly little company out of all sects and parties and nations now being selected or elected, is to complete the Kingdom when glorified. Hence the Kingdom of God cannot come nor its reign of righteousness begin, until the Kingdom class shall have been elected. Then God's Tabernacle will be with men for a thousand years--Messiah's Kingdom is called a Tabernacle because it is not to be a permanent or eternal condition of things, but merely to serve its purpose during a thousand years in putting down sin and in raising up humanity to the original God-likeness."
The discourse lasted nearly two hours. The interest of the audience was intense, many leaning forward in their seats as if fearful of losing a single word.
O LOVE, our refuge in earth's wildest storm!
O Service, life-breath of a heart that's warm!
A dual-unity, of heaven born;
For love is service in its highest form.
Flame-tints that shimmer on the desert air!
Love-lights that make Life's sands a garden fair,
Where joy and pain sing softly to the soul,
That God in man is Love in human care.
[CR405]
PASTOR RUSSELL
Famous Preacher and Writer, Delivered a Lecture
This Morning at the Sherman Theatre on
"Beyond the Grave"
FAMOUS PREACHER VISITS BRANDON AND
SPEAKS ON INTERESTING SUBJECT
Pastor Russell and Nearly Two Hundred and Fifty Delegates to Bible
Students' Convention, Spent Several Hours Here Today--Preaches
Doctrine of No Literal Hell Fire Hereafter
Pastor Russell the famous preacher, of Brooklyn Tabernacle, known throughout the world as the "Non-Sectarian Defender of the Bible," accompanied by nearly two hundred and fifty delegates of the International Bible Students' Association, arrived in Brandon today by a special train from the west and after a stay here of a few hours left again for the east. Pastor Russell and his party are returning from Los Angeles, Cal., where they have been attending a great convention held there recently. During his stay in this city Pastor Russell delivered a lecture in the Sherman theatre on the subject for which he has become famous: "Beyond the Grave," the chief point of which is a strong argument against a literal hell fire.
The present tour was started from Chicago on June 2nd and before they break up at the International Bible Students' mid-summer convention at Madison, Wis., on July 6th the party will have covered over 8,000 miles in thirty days. Pastor Russell has spoken at practically every city of importance along the route.
In the party of delegates twenty-six states and five Canadian provinces are represented under the leadership of Dr. L. W. Jones, a well known Chicago class leader. Mr. J. T. Read, of the American Conservatory of Music, Chicago, is in the party and directs the musical program at each meeting.
At the gathering here this morning about five hundred people listened to the famous speaker's remarks on the subject which has always succeeded in drawing great crowds wherever it has been discussed. The speaker handled his subject in a free and easy and withal convincing manner, and from beginning to end was accorded rapt attention by all present.
Pastor Russell said in part:
"The grave marks the dividing line between the known and the unknown. All beyond the grave is held by faith, not by knowledge. How important then that we accept only Divine testimony on a subject regarding which none but the Almighty could enlighten us. We admit that our own guessing on this subject would be unsatisfactory. Why then prefer the guesses of other men who know no more on the subject than we do?
"I know that spiritism claims to have communications from the dead and that thus it has proofs. I admit that some learned men have become psychists and corroborate spiritists. I prefer, however, to follow the Bible's teachings and to believe those men deceived. The Bible tells us that the intelligencies which communicate through mediums are not dead humans but the fallen angels. The Bible tells us that these evil spirits, 'demons,' purposely strive to deceive humanity, and to misrepresent God's plans; and that God will not fully restrain them until an appointed time, but meantime permits them to test our loyalty and faith Godward.
Of course I am aware that the learned college professors
and ministers of our day are opposed to the Bible, and believe
it the greatest deception the world has ever known.
Of course I know that they build their faith in a life beyond
the grave not on the Divine promise of a resurrection
of the dead, but upon Plato's philosophy; older than the
Gospel of Christ and contradicted by it. I agree with the
poet--
'Each heart will seek and love its own,
My goal is Christ and Christ alone!'
"Others may be able to rejoice in their own and other men's guesses, but I cannot. I want as an anchor to my soul, as a fountain to my faith, a message from the One who knows--a message from God's word. I am here to address others of a like precious faith in an infallible Guide.
"I will not stop to dispute regarding the history of the Bible. Its inspiration is proven to me by its contents. However, I sympathize with those who have been turned away from God and the Bible because of the inconsistency of its supposed teachings. Ah, yes, I had my experience there. When I assumed that all taught by the hundreds of Christian creeds came from the Bible I held it responsible for all their nonsense. Now I see better--that the Bible has been misrepresented in the house of its friends.
THE BIBLE'S TEACHING LOGICAL.
"When I say that the Bible's teaching regarding 'Beyond the Grave' is logical, some will scoff. But hear me for my cause. Hear the Bible's own testimony--not what the creeds say it teaches.
"It teaches that the dead are not alive anywhere--that a dead person cannot experience either joy or sorrow. It teaches that all hope of a future life by Divine appointment is vested in Jesus, who died that we might as a race be released from the death sentence inherited from Father Adam; and that thus Jesus might become the life-giver or Savior to as many as will return to God through Him.
"The promise of the Bible is not that the dead are not dead, but that 'thy dead men shall live.' Because of the proposed resurrection of the dead they are figuratively said to 'sleep.' Thus the hope set before us is: 'Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, they that have done good (that passed Divine approval, the saintly), shall come forth to shine as the stars of Heaven. They that have not been approved shall awake to shame and lasting contempt. Their shame will last until they reform--their contempt until they shall cease to be contemptible and learn and obey the will of God under Messiah's Kingdom.
THIS IS THE ENTIRE PLAN.
"Death with its attendant mental, physical and moral weaknesses is God's curse or penalty for Adam's sin of disobedience. Resurrection uplifting from all this, is God's remedy--the lifting of the curse. The Redeemer's death was necessary as man's redemption price. Next in order will be His Messianic Kingdom. He must reign 1,000 years to fully overthrow the power of sin and death and to uplift or resurrect the willing and obedient, thousands of millions of Adam's family for whom he died--'every man.'
"The perfect man, Adam, and his perfect, happy, Eden home were a picture, a prophesy of what all may attain, if they will, through the Redeemer's Kingdom. What a glorious outlook 'beyond the Grave' we find in the Bible for the world! Those refusing to progress, the Bible declares, will be cut off from life in the second death. It will be like the first or Adamic death except that there will be no redemption--no resurrection from it. All consigned to it will, St. Peter declares, perish 'like natural brute beasts, in everlasting destruction.'
"Note the beautifully sympathetic description of God's work for men through Messiah's Kingdom: 'God shall wipe [CR406] away all tears from all faces; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain' there.--Revelation 21:4; Isaiah 25:8.
"The explanation is: He that sitteth upon the Throne saith, Behold, I make all things new. (Rev. 21:5.) A new Heaven or spiritual power will have supervision of earth's affairs, and a new earth or social order will obtain amongst men. These are the glad 'Times of Restitution' which St. Peter tells us will begin at the second advent of Jesus.-- Acts 3:19-21.
WHY SO LONG DELAY?
"It is more than eighteen centuries since Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. Why so long a delay in bringing in the restitution times? If God is compassionate, why delay resurrection work--the uplifting work?
"The Bible tells us why! And the answer is soul-satisfying. We rejoice in the delay--that the Kingdom has not yet been set up and the restitution work begun. God even tells us that He kept these matters a 'mystery,' a 'secret,' because this was wise, so as not to interfere with His purposes outworking. Now, in the dawning of the new day, with its showering of blessings of every kind, the 'wise' of His people may understand--'The mystery shall be finished.'--Daniel 12:20; Revelation 10:7.
THE HIDDEN MYSTERY REVEALED.
"The 'mystery' is that the Church, as well as her Lord, and in association with Him will be the world's restorer-- Regenerator. Not any of the nominal Churches of Christ is meant, but the one true Church, composed only of saints. These have been in process of selection for more than eighteen centuries. These are Scripturally styled 'the elect.' All others are non-elect. The elect, through the Messianic Kingdom will bless the non-elect by the resurrection of that thousand years.
THE CHIEF RESURRECTION.
"The elect, chosen from Jews and Gentiles, from every nation and sect, will all be Christ-like in character, in heart all saintly. They will have a different reward, a different resurrection or uplift from that of the world. Theirs is styled the first or chief resurrection or uplift. It begins when first they surrender themselves to the Lord. To them "old things pass away and all things become new." As these gain moral victories over their fallen flesh, they rise higher and higher as new creatures. They have Divine aid in mortifying the old nature and in becoming more and more alive towards God as new creatures in Christ. Their resurrection or uplift out of death will be completed with a 'change' which will give them new bodies of the 'Divine nature' instantly. Then they will not only be superior to humans, but superior to Angels, 'far above Angels,' and like their Lord Jesus.
"Can we wonder that for so high a glory, honor and immortality God requires special tests of loyalty to Him, to His Word and to the principles of righteousness? Surely not. It would be strange indeed if God were to accept to the plane of Divine sonship any not first tested and found faithful even unto death.
THE REST OF THE DEAD.
"All except those now spirit-begotten will share in the general resurrection or uplifting of Messiah's Kingdom during His reign of 1,000 years. Some are more and some less dead, morally, mentally and physically, than others. Hence some will need more and some less uplifting or resurrection. But all need it greatly. Without Messiah's aid they could never get free from death and into perfection of earthly life. It will require all of the 1,000 years to uplift or resurrect the world. Hence only the Church class, changed to Heavenly nature, will really live again fully until the one thousand years shall be finished, although the willing of the world will be gradually rising, gradually experiencing restitution or resurrection, throughout that thousand years.
"If 'Beyond the Grave' means Paradise restored, and human perfection to mankind in general, it means still more to the saintly Church of Christ--His Bride. Let us all live Godly, but let as many as will become foot-step followers of Jesus and thus gain with Him glory, honor and immortality.
[CR406]
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
WE reached Winnipeg the same afternoon, in ample time for the evening public service, which Brother Russell addressed, there being present about 3,000 people who gave close attention, and 314 requested further information.
We also had the next morning and afternoon with the Winnipeg friends whom Brother Russell addressed on the combined topic of Consecration and Baptism. Quite a large number presented themselves for symbolic immersion, but when the time came it was found that every church door and place where there was a Baptistry was closed to us. The result was that the friends postponed the water immersion, and we learned that later it was performed. Surely the hireling shepherds care little for God's true heritage.
[CR406]
Consecration and Baptism
There is a gate that stands ajar,
And thro' its portals gleaming,
A radiance from the cross afar
O'er all the earth is streaming.
O depth of Mercy! can it be
That gate was left ajar for me?
For me, for me?
Was left ajar for me?
Beyond the river's brink we'll lay
The cross that here is given,
And bear the crown of life away.
And praise the King of Heaven.
O height of glory! yes, I see
A crown of life reserved for me:
For me, for me,
A crown reserved for me."
THE "crown of glory" that is reserved for us, my dear friends, is conditional. It is not ours for sure; it is ours--IF--and that little word "if" is very important; as the Apostle says, If so be we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.
My text on this occasion is the Apostle's words in Romans 12:1, "I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, your reasonable service."
What mercy of God is there that appeals to us in this way? Why should the Apostle say, I beseech you by the mercies of God. What mercies? The Bible answers that the mercy comes to us first of all in making the provision for our sins, in making provision for our redemption, and thus making provision for our restitution as a race, [CR407] and that comes to everybody unsolicited. God did not wait until we should ask Him for it. In His love and mercy He provided everything from the beginning. He knew when he created our first parents what all the results would be, and He did not begin His great work until first of all He had made ample provision for the redemption of the whole race. And this is undoubtedly the mercy of God to which St. Paul referred. He is appealing to those who have heard. The great mass have not heard; the world in general has not heard. The god of this world is blinding the minds of all those who believe not. The Apostle is not addressing unbelievers at all. He is addressing those who believe that God has sent His Son; those who realize that Christ has died for our sins; those who realize there is forgiveness of sins through faith in His blood; those who have taken the step of trusting in Christ. To these the Apostle appeals. He beseeches these brethren, not as sinners, not as aliens or foreigners. His words may be applied to us from two standpoints, either before we become consecrated people, or afterwards; as, for instance, it would be only those who have attained the standpoint of justification, and had presented themselves in consecration. It is not for the aliens and sinners at all. Blessed are your ears for they have heard. Blessed are your eyes for they have seen.
After we become the Lord's people in the sense of having made a consecration, it would be proper to think of what we had done, and every day to encourage ourselves, and to hear the Apostle's words encouraging us, saying, You have already received God's blessing of forgiveness, you have already made your consecration to God, and it is proper for you to present your body every day. But we are now considering the matter chiefly from the standpoint of the original contract, and how we came to make that contract. There would have been no opportunity for us to make a contract to present our bodies unless first we had received the Lord's grace in the forgiveness of our sins. He indicated this clearly in the type when he would not allow any sacrifice to be brought to His altar except it were perfect. Any animal brought to the Lord's altar must be without blemish; The Lord thus indicating that no one would be acceptable to God in a blemished condition. And before you and I could be without blemish in the sight of God something needed to be done for us to cover the blemishes we had by nature; for we were by nature children of wrath, even as others. The thing done for us was the forgiveness of our sins. And this is represented in various ways. It is represented as covering the weaknesses of the flesh with the robe of Christ's righteousness. The forgiveness of our sins, which comes in first of all, brings us first into relationship with the Father.
PICTURED IN THE TABERNACLE.
Tracing the matter, then, as we have it before our minds, let us picture the Tabernacle of old before our minds. God gave it to be a picture of the great plan that He had, and you and I are represented as being in the attitude of believers, belonging to the camp of believers, but we want to come near to God in a more than ordinary way--not merely to be believers that there is a God, but we want to leave the camp of general belief and draw nigh unto God, and the picture would be of the individual going out from the camp toward the Tabernacle. You remember the picture of the Tabernacle. It stood on the plain, and all around it was a curtain of white, and in front of it was the altar of sacrifice and the gate, and the one who desired to draw near to God would approach that gate. As he would come to the gate he would see there that which was represented as a sacrifice for sin--the sin-offering on the altar, and he could not pass through that gate without seeing it. This implying that we must recognize Christ and the sufficiency of His sacrifice before we can in any sense of the word draw near to God.
Now when we see the sacrifice we are not justified in full, but we are more justified than we were before; just as Jesus said of those two Jews, the one a pharisee and the other a publican. They both went to the Temple to pray because they were Jews and under the Law Covenant they had the privilege of praying. One said, I thank Thee that I am not a sinner. The other said, Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. And Jesus said the poor publican who was a sinner and who confessed it went down to his home justified rather than the other--more than the other one. That is to say, he was in a more justified attitude of mind and heart. Neither one of them was fully justified, because none of the Jews were ever justified to the full. All any Jew ever had was a typical justification, and typical relationship with God. There could be no actual justification until the real sacrifice for sin had been offered by our Lord, and had been presented to the Father when he ascended up on high and appeared in the presence of God for us. But all of us can appreciate this matter of being justified more in one condition than in another; that is, we are more nearly justified. So each one of these as he approaches God at all is in a justified condition; he has come more and more into that condition which is right. So when he is getting back to God, he is getting back to what is right. Every step we take toward God of faith and obedience and desire to please Him is a step in the right direction of complete justification. So every Israelite then coming toward the Tabernacle and passing toward the altar was getting more justified. He now sees the basis of this reconciliation to God. He perceives the sacrifice there offered was the basis. Then he went on and saw the laver with the water, and the opportunity of there washing away some of the filth of the flesh, and he did so. That is a further preparation. Then he went on still further, clear up to the door of the Tabernacle. His desire was to enter in and be one of the Royal Priesthood, and he could go no further now, unless the High Priest would come and do something for him.
In the type, all of God's people thus coming are represented as the Lord's goat class. They are either the Lord's goat class or the scape-goat class. If they take up this position and go forward, when they come up to the door of the Tabernacle, passing through the court, pass the altar, pass the laver and come right up to the gate, here they are tied. You remember both goats were tied to the door of the Tabernacle. That means both were consecrated. You tied up your goat when you said to the Lord, Here Lord, I give myself away. Tied up for what? Waiting for the High Priest to do something. How long would it take the High Priest to decide? Oh, in a moment he appeared, and what he did was to kill that goat; and as soon as it was thus killed that represented God's acceptance of your consecration in your case, and my consecration in my case--"ye are dead." There is your dead goat. Your life is henceforth hid with Christ in God. From that moment on the goat no longer represented you, no longer represented me; it represented merely the old nature and the flesh, and the New Creature was represented in the High Priest's body; we became a member of that High Priest. "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." As underpriests we were represented as thereafter passing under that first vail, and once inside there we were in the presence of the light of the golden candlestick, the shewbread, the golden altar of incense--all of those blessings. Or, as the Apostle says, we are seated with Him in the heavenlies. We have not gone into Heaven itself beyond the second vail, but we are in the first of these heavenlies; and it is a heavenly condition we have come into. Old things are passed away. We passed out of the court condition, away from the camp, and into this blessed condition of the light of the presence of the Lord, and in the presence of the heavenly bread, and the presence of the incense, and all of this fellowship with God through Christ. This was our blessed state. [CR408] PRESENTING OUR BODIES.
Now the Apostle's argument in Romans 12 relates primarily to this point, the tying of your goat, the presenting of your bodies. He does not say, Sacrifice your bodies. Nobody but the High Priest could offer a sacrifice; and before you could be acceptable to God at all the High Priest has to do the offering; you can merely do the presenting. You present the living sacrifice and the Lord takes it in hand, accepts it, and thenceforth with His acceptance it is reckoned a dead sacrifice and you a New Creature in Christ, begotten of the Holy Spirit.
Each one of these different pictures that the Bible gives us has its place, and each one helps us to see the great things God has done for us, and is doing for us, because the more clearly we see them and the more clearly we can tell them to others, the more blessing we are going to have. The better you can tell a thing, the better you understand it yourself. If you do not understand it yourself, you are not prepared to present it to another. We were anointed to preach the message as we understand it, and in proportion as you understand God's message you are authorized to preach it according to your opportunities.
GETTING RELIGION.
This matter, then, of coming into the Body of Christ is the all-important thing. From that standpoint, how erroneous was the thought some of us had when we thought religion was like this dollar: We said, did you get religion? And if you said you got religion, it was like putting the dollar into your pocket--you got religion and put it down somewhere; now you had religion. So people talked about religion they got so many years ago. One says, I got religion twenty years ago. Another, I got religion a year ago. That was a wrong thought; at least many got the wrong thought out of it, I am sure. The thought is that the religion we get is the religion we are getting more of every day we live; we are to grow in grace, grow in knowledge. It is not merely like a piece of money or something of that kind that we put in our pockets and say, I have got it, here it is. It is something you have to keep getting every day, just the same as you need to be eating every day and studying every day.
Suppose you were a child and were going to become a school teacher, and you undertook to enter the grades for education. It would not be merely entering and putting your name down, enrolling yourself as one who is to be prepared for school teaching; that would not be enough; it requires patient education and training until you graduate before you are ready to be a teacher. That is exactly the picture God gives us in respect to the church. He wants to have a lot of teachers to instruct the world, and He has invited you and me and all of His people during this Gospel age to come out from the world and become associated with Jesus, that He may make of us the Royal Priesthood. The word "priesthood" stands for teacher, because under the Jewish arrangement all the priests were teachers, instructors of the people, helping them in every way in respect to morals and education. Then the kingship comes in with the ruling power. These priests are to have the authority to rule. God can trust this particular class, because He will get such a special class from the world that they can be entrusted with this great power. The great work is not only to use power to rule the world for its good, but to instruct and uplift the world.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS AN ILLUSTRATION.
I was much impressed along this line when in the Philippine Islands and beheld there the condition of things, so changed in such a short time, from the time the United States government took possession of those islands. It seemed almost miraculous that there could be such a wonderful change in so short a time. I inquired of the general in charge there, General Bell, "Do you have compulsory education?"
"Oh, no," he said, "we do not need compulsory education here; these people are all so anxious to get an education. We first of all," he said, "imported a thousand American teachers and that started the matter. Now we have 6,000 native teachers, and the whole people are just hungry for an education."
It is indeed a beautiful thing to see. I addressed a congregation of probably 2,000, nearly all young men of from 18 to 30, all understanding English as well as you and I do, and all well capable of thinking everything in the English, and there had not been any of them who understood our language a short time before; they were all deep in degradation, ignorance and superstition just a little while before. It was the grandest exhibition of restitution work I have ever seen anywhere in the world. It seemed as though the government of the United States had treated them so generously, so kindly--just the way a good elder brother ought to treat his younger brothers. I was proud to think that we were living in a time when selfishness seemed for once to have forgotten to try to "skin" somebody, and take advantage of them. It seemed as though it was a very noble example of how all the heathen nations ought to have been treated, or ought to be treated now.
This matter of the teachers going there reminded me of the great work God intends to do by and by for the whole world. They all need instruction, don't they? How blind our eyes were! And how others were still more blind than we! Now God purposes that all the blind eyes shall be opened. He could do it in a miraculous way; He could send the angels to do it; or He could do it in some other way by working a miracle; there are a thousand ways I presume our Heavenly Father could take, but I believe He intends to do it in a very practical, reasonable way, very much the same as the Philippines have had their instruction in natural ways. And now God's arrangement for the whole world is that He is first getting ready these teachers--or call them missionaries if you prefer, because I do not know any missionaries that have done a greater work than that thousand American teachers who went out there along the lines of secular employment, in a civilizing way--who will not only give them civilizing ideas, and uplifting things, but who will give them the proper religious information. The Lord says He will turn to the people a pure language that they may call upon the name of the Lord and serve Him with one consent. That will be a grand time. What they need is this pure language, this pure message of God, of His love, and justice, and mercy, told in a pure way. We are in the School of Christ. What are we here for? We are getting ready for exaltation. What is the exaltation going to bring? It is going to bring us wonderful opportunities. What are they? Why, our great Redeemer is to be King of the world, and He wants us to be His associate kings, and missionaries, and teachers of the world, to instruct them, to lift them up and help them out of their degradation. Is not that enough to inspire angels and men? Surely it is. So we see the particular way in which God is dealing with us, in calling us out of darkness and into light, and giving us trials and difficulties and faith testings in various ways, so that we may be built up in the most holy faith, and have genuine character.
IS CONSECRATION SLAVERY?
Now this is what Jesus has invited us for. He is not going to accept one of these royal priests unless he will bring his entire being as a sacrifice to God. That, you know, is very extreme. If you become a real follower of the Lord, people will say you are a very extreme man, or woman. The terms of our call are extreme. Wasn't Jesus an extremist? Wasn't St. Paul an extremist? Were not all the apostles extremists? Yes. In that sense of the word, all the followers of Jesus have been peculiar people. But in the sense of merely wearing a peculiar-shaped hat, or bonnet, or coat, that is not our peculiarity. We are to be peculiar people in that we are zealous of good works, zealous for that which is right, loving the right, the truth, and loving God's way so that we will be glad at any cost to serve His cause. Are there many of that kind? Not very many. God says not many great, nor many wise, not many rich, not many learned. Those who are of that spirit of mind are not being called, not being drawn, not being prepared, and will not be in the Kingdom. The majority of those who will be in the Kingdom will be the poor of this world, but all rich in faith. They must have this quality of great faith in God, or they will never be able to overcome the trials of the present time. And they must have that great faith and trust in God so they will never wish to depart from God's way in the future; so when they are made kings and priests in the world they will not think as Satan thought, when he had a little position, Well, now, I could do better than God. God is not going to have any of that kind. He will have them all tested beforehand, and they will be submissive to God, so glad to know His will, and so full of faith in Him, that they will say, as Jesus said, Not my will, but Thine, be done. We cannot improve on the Master. If Jesus with His perfection could not think of anything better than the Father's plan, and would not think of anything else, that is exactly the lesson for you and for me to learn. Not, could [CR409] I have a better way, or another way just as good, or might I not twist it a little bit. God is testing us that way sometimes now in respect to the work, and in respect to our dealings with each other in the classes, to see whether we are absolutely loyal to Him and His Word. If you are of any other mind or disposition than that of absolute loyalty, you are very apt to be sidetracked right now. I tell you the Lord is not making a bungle of this educational process He has adopted, and that He is carrying out. It is going to be done to the very last notch--it will be thoroughgoing; there will not be a single one in that company that will not be worthy. Not only worthy is the Lamb that He should receive the highest honor, but all of those who are with Him we are told will walk with Him in white, for they are worthy. That is the way it reads. Jesus, telling about the first resurrection class, says, they will be blessed ones, holy ones. Blessed and holy are all those who have part in the first (chief) resurrection. That is the only class that will be in the Kingdom--the blessed, the holy, the fully consecrated; their faith in God fully submitted to Him, doing His will in every particular.
Now, then, the first step is the one we have mentioned. After you have taken all the steps of progress toward God, desiring to be near Him, you will finally come right up to the question, Now I have approached and see all of these things; I see Christ's sacrifice, and I have washed at the laver, now what shall I do? Can I go no farther?
You can go no farther unless you pass this first vail.
What does the first vail mean?
That first vail signifies death.
Death in what sense?
Death in the sense that it signifies the giving up of your present life.
But you say, Brother Russell, I do not have much life. The doctor says I cannot live more than a couple of years at the very most. Would that be worth offering to the Lord?
Or, another one says, Brother Russell, if I were wealthy you know I might think there would be something I have to offer, but you know I am very poor.
Another one says, Brother Russell, if I were talented, I presume that would be something all right, and God would accept the sacrifice of my talents. But I haven't very much talent. Now what should be done, Brother Russell?
My dear brother, what the Lord proposes is, not how much you have, but the willingness you have. How willing are you? If you give it with all your heart, if it is only one penny, would it be acceptable? No, that is true, God would not accept one penny, and He would not accept only a little bit of your character, and He would not accept all you have.
Well, why then do you tell it?
This is the thought: God will accept only that which is perfect, and you are imperfect. God's provision in Christ is, however, that when you come to the place where you say, 'Lord, would that I could give Thee my little all, but I know it is not worthy of Your acceptance; but I do give it to You, please accept it, do anything with it," then Jesus imputes His merit to it. Suppose, now, the value of it were a thousand dollars--perfect--and that by reason of the fallen and battered condition in which it is, it is only worth ten cents--a great depreciation. Then you would need how much? You would need $999.90 to be imputed by Jesus' merit to make it acceptable.
We are not all that bad, are we, Brother Russell?
Well, I am glad to think that not all are so depraved; I am glad to suppose that there is something of value in every human being. If not, what could you present? You cannot present something you do not have. All God could mean is that you should present what you have. So when He invites you to present your body a living sacrifice, He does not say, If you have so much money, or talent, or so many bonds; He merely says, Just give what you have to give, and see that you give it with a whole heart and with good desire, and that is the condition upon which it will be accepted--no other condition. You cannot give half, or three-quarters, or nine-tenths; you have to give everything you have, or else it will not be accepted. And you must give it with a willing heart. With a grudging heart the Lord would not appreciate it at all; He seeketh such to worship Him as worship in spirit and in truth. And then the merit of Jesus makes that sacrifice acceptable, because He does not present it as your sacrifice; He presents it as His own sacrifice; He merely accepts you.
You say, Lord, here I am, one of those that You bought with Your precious blood.
Yes.
Lord, I understand You are going to give the world of mankind an opportunity for everlasting life?
Yes.
There is going to be restitution to human nature?
Yes.
Would I have a right to that, too?
Yes.
Now, Lord, I hear there is some other way, earlier than the restitution time?
Yes.
What is that?
Well, you will have to become My disciple.
What are the terms of discipleship?
Oh, everything you have. If any man will be My disciple, let him deny himself completely, lay aside all self-will, everything, and take up his cross and follow Me; only in that way can one be My disciple; only such can be where I will be--where I am there will My disciple be.
So, then, we understand the terms, and we say, Lord, you surely know that we have nothing very much?
Oh, I know all about you; I have made all the arrangements.
But would you prefer to take someone else?
That is not for you to decide. If you wish to present your body now while the opportunity is open, you are not to query about what I prefer, or what I would do if you do not present yourself. Mind your own business, here is the invitation to you. In view of the mercies provided for you, the Apostle says, I beseech you to present your body a living sacrifice. It is the grandest opportunity you ever heard of; there never was such a wonderful thing before. God never before made such an offer to anybody, at any time. None of the holy angels ever had such a proposition from God. No other class of the world ever had such an offer, that they should be lifted from degradation and sin, and not merely be brought back to perfect human nature, but get the Divine nature, the highest of all natures. Most wonderful!
And what about the price?
The price might be viewed from two standpoints. Jesus said we should sit down and count the cost--not do anything rashly. Jesus did not work along the lines of modern evangelists, and get people to say things they do not mean. He says, I will tell you the terms plainly; sit down and count the cost, then if you decide on the matter, see that it is with a full heart and loyalty to the last, and then press forward.
When we look at the matter of what it is going to cost, there are two different views to take--God's view and man's view. From the standpoint of man's view you would be saying, Well, what is it going to mean? Well, says one, You won't be able to go to the theater any more, and you cannot play cards, you cannot drink any more, and cannot carouse; you cannot do other sins any more; these will all be over for you, and you will have to do thus and so; you will have a hard time this way and that; and you will have to give your whole life to God; to be a kind of slave to Him, and not have your own will about anything; you cannot even do what you want to do, or drink what you wish, or wear the clothing you wish; you have got to think about what Jesus would have you do in everything. That is a terrible slavery to get into. Don't you go into that. Why, He would not even allow you to think for yourself. There is no slavery in the world like being a child of God and an associate of Jesus. You do not have a single thing of your own, everything is given up--you cannot eat, or sleep, or think, or do anything as you choose, you have to ask what the Lord would have you do about everything--no will of your own. Any other slave would be allowed to eat what he chose, practically, or to think what he wished to at least, but you cannot even do that; you must say, Not my thoughts, not my will, not my choice, but simply the Lord's. Now that is the world's view; it seems hard; some will say, that is too much.
The other way, God's viewpoint--or rather your view and mine from God's standpoint--is like this: We say, What have we? We have practically nothing. We are dying creatures, and we have very little wealth, very little strength; it takes nearly all of our life to provide for our own necessities and shelter. How much time could we give to the Lord, [CR410] anyway? I do not see why He should accept our sacrifice at all. And then when we do anything, quite likely because of our imperfections of mind and body we would bungle the matter; we would likely do just as much harm as good. Why should God want us to preach the Gospel? He knows we are so incapable we would botch things right along. So from God's standpoint we are practically beggars, and haven't anything to give Him. St. Paul gives that thought when he says, speaking of himself, I do count that all things are but loss and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. Do you remember how many things St. Paul had? He had more than most of us. He had a good education, and a good position in everything as the son of a very noble family. He was a Roman citizen by birth, and that of itself was worth a fortune. He had good powers of speech and reason. You may see that in all the epistles he wrote. He could have made his mark anywhere. Anyone who will read his epistle to the Romans can see there was a master mind behind that writing. The person who wrote that book of Romans could handle a case at law anywhere. He was logical in all his reasonings. This was the Apostle, then, who said, after summing up all he had left and looking at it, I count that all these things I have given up are just so much of loss, and dross, and dung, that I might win Christ; all that they could bring me in the present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. He got the right standpoint. That is our standpoint, my dear brethren--not the world's standpoint. They can never understand you; as the Scriptures say, the world knoweth us not, even as it knew Him not.
I have no doubt that with many of the world it is like it was with two Germans who were with me in a passenger train in Germany. As we were riding along they noticed that I did not swear, and did not chew any tobacco, did not smoke any cigars, did not get out and get some beer at the different stops the train made. They make regular stops in Germany and there is always beer, and they think it is always the right thing to do to get another glass of beer. They noticed I had not any of these things, so one of them leaned over, and using the best English he could command, said, "What pleasure have you in life?"
Well, I thought that was a very good illustration. He could not think of a single pleasure I had. The world knoweth us not. They do not know what pleasures we have. We have pleasures that the world cannot understand. We have pleasures even in walking in the narrow way. As the Apostle says, All of these light afflictions which are but for a moment, we do not count them very great, they cannot last very long, and they are working out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are unseen. We are looking with the eye of faith, the eyes of our understanding. Whenever anything begins to feel rather hard, you must be looking at the things that are seen. Whenever you think you are having an awful time--Oh, my, it will crush me!--then just say, I must be looking at the things that are seen, and must be forgetting to look at the things that are unseen as yet. Then just shut your eyes to the things that are seen and ask the Lord to help you set your affections and your eyes of understanding on the things not seen as yet, the things that God has in reservation for them that love Him; the things that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man; those things which God has revealed to us by His spirit; that the natural man cannot understand, because they are foolish unto him; but to us they are the most wonderful realities, and bring the greatest blessings.
The whole world today, everywhere, is rushing for something of pleasure; they are out to hunt or to fish, or something, always hunting for pleasure--and did you ever see any of them who have caught up with the pleasure? No, they are just hunting for the pleasure. We have got it. Don't you see the difference? We have the pleasure--the peace of God which passeth all understanding ruling in our hearts. We have the joy that the world knows nothing about. Let us rejoice in what we have, and all the more rejoice because we know that the world, blind as it is at the present time, will see better by and by. Their eyes will open by and by, and, Oh, then we will have the pleasure of giving them the blessings they have been running after now and could not understand about! We will have the opportunity of retaliating then. If they have said anything bad about us now, we will do something good to them in return. Will that be good retaliation? How glad we will be to heap coals of fire on the heads of some, in the proper sense that the Lord meant!
CONSECRATION IS PICTURED IN BAPTISM.
Now all of this is viewed from another standpoint, and I should speak of that on this occasion, because the subject of baptism comes up before us, and some are thinking of being immersed to symbolize their consecration. That which we have spoken of from the standpoint of presenting our bodies a living sacrifice is all pictured in baptism. It is the very same lesson.
I was very sorry to hear that our dear Baptist friends in this city feel very harshly toward us. You would not think that. Our Baptist friends practically hold that unless you are immersed you are not in the Church at all; and unless you are in the Church you are not saved at all; and to be unsaved means to go into hell--and they would not even allow water that some should be kept out of hell! That is pretty harsh. Did you suppose anybody in this city of Winnipeg would feel so harshly toward fellow creatures that they would refuse some water to keep them out of hell, according to their own doctrine? Well, I am surprised. We will retaliate on our Baptist friends some day; we will have heaps of "water" on them! They will see better what baptism means, some day. We do not want to feel harshly at all. We have known of times when just such experiences as that refusal has worked out good. I will tell you of one case. A Presbyterian minister and an evangelist were holding some meetings, and the evangelist thought he would stir up things a little, so he asked the congregation, Have any of you those books called Millennial Dawn or Studies in the Scriptures?
About thirty hands went up.
He then told them they should bring all of those books and burn them, that they were terribly bad books. He read over in the book of Acts where St. Paul spoke of some who had books of black art, and he said, This is a similar case, this is of the devil, bring those books.
So they went out into an alley-way. It was a small town, and the alley was near the church, and they had a big bonfire and burned 23, I think it was, of the books. And they had a hymn and prayer while they were doing it. While this was going on a gentleman went past there who was a member of the same church, the Presbyterian church, and he happened to be a doctor and druggist.
He said, What are you doing? What does all of this mean?
Oh, they said, we are burning some of those books, they are terribly bad books.
The man said, Well, that reminds me of the dark ages.
Oh, doctor, those are very bad books, I will tell you they are, it is the right thing to do; undoubtedly we will agree on that.
So the doctor managed to get one of the books, and read it, and then he sent the preacher a letter of resignation, and said, All I ever knew about God and the Bible I got out of that book. I never knew anything about God and the Bible compared to what is in that book. What a class of people you are indeed! I do not want to have anything more to do with you in any sense of the word. Take my name off of that roll, I would not have it enrolled there for anything.
And the Presbyterian preacher said afterwards, That is the worst day's work we ever did in this world; we lost the best paying member we had by it.
That was the sore spot. If it had been some poor man I am afraid it would not have made much difference, but it was the best paying member of his church. I guess, my dear friends, that some of the best paying members have been fooled.
I think of a brother in the city of Victoria who told me he gave $2,500 to help build a Y.M.C.A. building, and after they had built it he got a knowledge of the Truth, and he thought he would like to have some little use of it, thought he could go there as a Christian and make some use of it, but no, sir, he could not have any use of it. He found it made a difference what he believed.
Now, I believe that all of these things will react; sometimes they will react in the present life, sometimes in the future. We will leave it all with God. We are not wise enough to know how to manage the Universe. I trust we have all gotten over praying as we used to--telling God how to run Heaven and earth and everything else, and that we [CR411] have concluded that He knows so much better how to do it that we dare not attempt to tell Him how, but merely ask Him how it is going, and study His Word to see what answer He gives. We are finding that the better way, and rejoicing in it.
Coming back to this matter of baptism--It does not mean as our Disciple friends say, the washing away of sins. I will assume that nearly all of you have in mind the chapter in the sixth volume which deals with baptism. I will merely remind you that baptism is a figure, a symbolical picture--a moving picture, if you please--which the Lord arranged should be kept moving all down this age, exhibiting in form the great lesson of burial with Jesus--the old man dead, buried, the human will buried; that which is raised up is the New Creature, to walk in newness of life. There is great danger of our treating the matter in a formal way, but this picture is showing us, as the Apostle explains, that from the time we gave our heart to the Lord we were dead, and that as New Creatures we should walk in newness of life--our daily course should be altogether different from that of the world. It will not be that after this you should say, Well, the business custom is thus and so. You are not like the world. The business customs are fixed for the unregenerate, for those who would be thieves and robbers if they could. These laws are all framed for thieves and robbers, and people who do not recognize God at all; but you and I are under still higher law than any human law made in the world. We are glad to see human laws gradually lifted up to a very high standard. We are glad that you and I as New Creatures always have our standard at the very top. Ours is the highest standard there is. What is our standard? In what way do we rise to walk in newness of life? Old things have passed away--old ambitions, old motives, the thought of making a great name, and own the earth, or accomplishing something of a worldly kind--and all has given place to the higher ambition, that we might have favor with God, and be His dear children, anxious to know His will and to do it. The first general laws given to these is the Golden Rule.
Oh, you say, Brother Russell, that is a very high law.
Yes, the Lord has no lower law than that, nothing less than Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is the lowest law there is for Christians. You might keep out of jail and be a very decent citizen, and walk on a very much lower plane; but to be the Lord's representative, His child, the plane He sets forth for us to walk on is to love your neighbor and deal with him as kindly and generously as you would have him deal with you.
A pretty high law, you say?
Well, that is not all; it is still higher than that. Jesus did more than keep the Golden Rule, did He not? If He had not done more than that you and I would not have been redeemed by the precious blood, because He might have done as much for us as He would ask anyone to do for Him, and never have died for us at all. His sacrifice was all of that, and much more than the Golden Rule. He was bound by the Jewish Law to do to His neighbor as He would His neighbor should do to Him. The Golden Rule is the Jewish Law that the Jews could not keep because of their fallen condition. St. Paul says that you and I can keep that law, not that our flesh is more perfect than their flesh, but that in dealing with the Church God is scrutinizing and judging them according to the heart and not according to the flesh. Therefore, God says that if in your heart you are striving to love your neighbor as yourself, and to do to others as you wish they should do to you, if you do sometimes come short, He has made arrangements by which you may still be of His family, because you can go to Him with the matter and say, Lord, I am sorry; I failed; I came short of the Divine rule, but I will strive again; forgive me, for Jesus' sake, cover me again; take away the spot from my robe, that I may be perfect and acceptable to you, and that there should be no earth-born cloud between Thee and my soul.
So God has made a provision for us He did not make for the Jews. The Jews were under a typical law, with a typical Mediator, and he could not come in and offer atonement for any of their weaknesses, and have them judged according to the mind. But God through Christ does make that arrangement for us, and we are judged according to our intentions, according to our will. So that when you and I are living to the best of our ability up to this Golden Rule, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit, even though we can never fully catch up with the spirit of that law which we are walking after; and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us and keeps us clean while we are thus striving to walk after the spirit.
But that is not enough. After doing that which it is our duty to do, then we have agreed to do more; we have agreed to give up all our earthly interests.
And let people tramp on me? one says.
Yes, sir, that is it, if you understand it to be the will of God. You have agreed to do God's will, and to drink the cup He pours for you. You remember what Jesus said in His own case? When He was approaching His dying time on Calvary the thought came to Him, What about these things? Would you ask for the legions of angels? Would you try to be delivered? Would you use your tongue to deliver you? Would He have an oration to stir the whole multitude until they would turn against the chief priests and scribes, or perhaps the chief priests and scribes themselves would turn on His side, and say, We bow before You, we fall at your feet? For never man spake like this man. Did Jesus do that? Oh, no, here He would suffer Himself to be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and would not open His mouth in self-defense. Why? Because He saw that to be God's will. And so whatever you see, as far as you are able to understand is God's will respecting you, you are to drink that cup; whatever I see, as far as I am able to understand God's will, I am to drink that cup--drinking it with as much pleasure as possible, delighting to do the Father's will, even though it be a bitter cup.
You remember the two disciples who came to Him. They thought the Kingdom was very near, and they said, Lord, we have a request to make, before anybody else has spoken for the place. We would like to ask that we might sit next to you, one on your right and the other on your left hand, in this glorious Kingdom you are going to establish.
Jesus, I presume, appreciated their love for Him, and their desire to be near Him. I do not think it was merely selfishness that they wanted to be nearer than the others, but I think they specially delighted to be near the Lord. They were of a very zealous turn of mind, as you remember James and John were called the Sons of Thunder, they were so zealous, so earnest in everything they did. It was these two, you remember, that when somebody refused to sell Jesus and the disciples some bread, said, Lord, shall we command fire to come down from Heaven and destroy these men and their city? They were ready for anything, you see. They were of that go-ahead kind. The Lord loves all of that kind, dear friends. I believe He loves them a great deal more than He does those who are cold and indifferent, and who say, "I don't care; I don't care." I believe the Lord liked to have those two disciples want to get near Him; He did not reprove them for it, anyway. He said, My disciples, do you understand what it will mean to be with Me in that throne at all? Do you understand what it will cost you? They did not know, of course; the Holy Spirit had not yet come. He then said to them, Are you able to drink of the cup of suffering, ignominy, and shame, that I shall drink of? There is the condition. You cannot be in the throne unless you drink My cup.
Well, that is more than the Golden Rule, you see. The Golden Rule does not call for any sacrifices; it merely calls for even-handed justice; but now here is something sacrificial, something more than right, submitting to wrong for Christ's sake, for the sake of the Truth and the brethren and the Lord's cause. Are you willing to drink of My cup, and to thus ignore self and its preferences? And are you willing to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? Well, now, that was not water baptism. The baptism He was to be baptized with He said would be finished the next day. He was straitened until that baptism should be accomplished; and the next day His baptism into death was finished when He cried on the cross, "It is finished." And He said we would have to be baptized with His baptism. The water was a symbol of His baptism, but the real baptism of Christ was His immersion into death--fully, completely, giving up His life into the Father's will. If you and I wish to be with the Master in His throne, the only way is such a full consecration as that, such a readiness to drink His cup, whatever He may pour for us. We are not to go out and pour a cup for ourselves, and say, We are going to be in here. We are not to bury ourselves. Do you see the [CR412] picture? When you give yourself into the hands of the administrator of baptism, you do not bury yourself, you merely submit your will. You say, Here, take me, bury me. Just so we say to Christ, our Lord and Head: Lord, into Thy hands we commit ourselves; bury us in whatever way you please, our life is given up. And then He lets us down figuratively into death, and it is of His power that we will be raised up again to the perfect life beyond the vail, to glory, honor, immortality, sharing His resurrection, the first resurrection; and unless we have the burial into His death, we will never be raised in His likeness.
This picture of baptism corresponds exactly to our text in Romans 12:1.
The importance of the symbol I should mention here. The symbol is important. I do not know whether Brother John Wesley was immersed or understood baptism, or not, but I feel sure he was fully consecrated, and had the real immersion. If he had known about the symbol, then held back because of what his brother Charles or somebody else would say, I think he would be proving that he was not fully dead to his own will. But suppose he never saw it was a symbol, never caught that thought, then I presume Brother Wesley had no obligations for water baptism at all, and he did not need to have it. So I think our Episcopalian and Methodist and Presbyterian friends, and all good people of the past. But when you and I come to see the matter, we are responsible according to our knowledge.
I remember what a fight I had on the subject of water baptism; and my point is, if I had refused to be obedient in that matter, it would have meant the stoppage of my progress in the way of the Lord. I do not believe the Lord would have allowed me to go on if I had stopped right at that barrier. I think I needed to take that step to prove that my heart was correct. I said, I see what baptism is now; I didn't see before. I am told that I was sprinkled when an infant and I said, I accept that, I will count that as my baptism.
But why don't you go and get immersed?
Well, in my case--you see this peculiarity, in my case, I think it would be better not; as if my case were different from anybody else's case. Do we all have different cases? The Lord laid down one law for His people--no peculiarity of case at all, if you know it.
And so in my own mind I said, Now in my case I believe the Lord would be more glorified--we are always going to do something for the Lord, whereas He is really the one who is doing something all the time for us; but we are in the habit of thinking of it as, I am going to do something for the Lord; and because it is the Lord and His interests, I must not jeopardize His interests.
I said to myself, Why, some people will say you are merely a turncoat, and you are just afraid you are going to hell, and want a little more water insurance, etc. That is the way I reasoned on the subject. I put it off that way for awhile, but every now and then it would come up again-- What about water baptism?
Why, I settled that.
Then it would come up again.
Well, I did settle that.
Then it would come up again.
Oh, I am done with that; I settled that.
But I hadn't settled it, my dear friends, and there was something way back in my heart that told me all the time I had not settled it. So one day I said, Now make a good settlement of this. And I backed myself up in a corner, so to speak, and said, You are not going to get out of this corner until you settle this matter; settle it now, here, just before you leave this corner. And the argument I put up with myself then trying to see how much better it would be for me to do according to my own will and not bring any ignominy on the Lord--you know that was it; I was going to save the Lord ignominy, etc. I finally said to myself, Now suppose the Lord had made some very severe conditions, and had said, Are you my disciple?
Yes.
Do you love me?
Yes, I do, Lord.
Have you made a consecration of your life to me?
Yes, Lord, I have given you all I have, and hope you have accepted it.
Now suppose I put some hard thing on you: suppose I say you must walk on your hands and knees up the main street of your city, and stop at every step and shout my name aloud. Will you do it?
Sure, Lord, if I knew you said it, I would certainly do it.
Well, now, because I have given you something easy to do, that has a beautiful picture in it, is that the reason you are balking?
And I said, I see the point, Lord; it is easy enough, and I guess there is no way out of it. Lord, I am sorry I halted on this subject at all. I see it now.
If I had not come to that point, I do not believe the Lord's favor would have continued with me. He would not have sent me into the second death, but I do not think I would have been in the Little Flock at all unless I had passed that point. I have nothing in the Bible to say so, but that is the way I reason on the subject. Why? Because that would have proved I was not wholly dead, wouldn't it? I got that view of it and said, Why you are not wholly dead. Were you not buried? Well, I thought I was, but there is something still sticking on there. So I went and got completely beheaded; I gave all the headship to the Lord, and my self-will and all desire to rule myself, and I said, Lord, now you do what you please.
I am telling you this because I know a good many of the Lord's people who are stumbling just in the same way. I am not making it out that water is the important thing, for I am pointing out that saintly people without the water are going to be in the Kingdom, because they did the best they knew, and gave up their minds and all according to what God showed them; but if he has shown you and I something more, then the responsibility of that greater knowledge is here, and there is not any way that you can escape if your will is fully submitted to the Lord. Now it is for you to decide.
Saturday evening, when we were leaving, many of the local Bible Students crowded about the Convention Train of eleven cars, singing hymns to us and we to them respecting the precious tie that binds our hearts in Christian love, and praying in song, "God be with you till we meet again!"
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The Twin Cities--Minneapolis and St. Paul
ANOTHER night's ride brought us to Minneapolis in time for a morning service with the large number of interested friends, whom Brother Russell addressed as follows on the subject of "The Ten Lepers." The afternoon service was for the public of Minneapolis, while the evening service was for the public of St. Paul. At both services large audiences attended, and many requests were handed in for literature. From St. Paul we proceeded on to the eight day General Convention at Madison, Wis.
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The Ten Lepers
I AM GLAD to be with you all, and to greet the Minneapolis and St. Paul and nearby friends.
I have before my mind this morning the words of Jesus respecting the ten lepers that he met and healed. "Were there not ten cleansed? but where are nine? Only one hath returned to give glory to God."-- Luke 17:17,18.
Leprosy has long been regarded as incurable, and, therefore, is used as an illustration of sin, which is also incurable. As only the Master's word could heal the lepers, so nothing short of a Divine remedy can cure the leprosy of sin. Lepers in olden times were obliged to separate themselves from others, and whenever approached were required to cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" Cut off thus from association with others, the condition of the poor creatures was far from enviable. So sinners by Divine decree are isolated, separated from the pure, the holy, the righteous.
Though all humanity are sinners by heredity, we must not forget that they constitute but a small proportion of God's great family, amongst whom are angels, cherubim, seraphim, etc., who always have fellowship with God and with each other. But while the Scriptures declare of humanity that all are sinners, that none are righteous, no, not one, yet all do not appreciate their condition, nor cry aloud, Unclean! Indeed, there are various degrees of uncleanness; some are more and some less sinful.
The two extremes of sin are represented in our Lord's parable of the two men who went up to the Temple to pray, the one a publican, the other a Pharisee. The publican realized his sin and smote his breast, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" The Pharisee, on the contrary, felt himself so superior to the publican that he did not realize himself a sinner at all; he thanked God that he was not a sinner. Jesus declares that, because of his acknowledgment of sin, the publican was more acceptable than the Pharisee.
In other words, the Creator wishes that each one of Adam's race should realize his imperfection--that he comes short of the Divine standard of perfection--short of that standard which God would be pleased to bless with everlasting life. While the Bible thus declares that all are sinners, it does not unreasonably say that there is no difference. What it does say is that the slightest degree of sin would mean that we are sinners, and that hence the person with the least taint of sin upon him would need the Savior, the Deliverer--would need to be cleansed. And, in order to realize his need of assistance, he must see his sin and cry unto the Lord, Unclean! Lord, save, or I perish!
Here again many of us have made a serious mistake in the study of our Bibles. When reading that the sinner would perish, we forgot the meaning of the word perish, that it signifies to die, to lose life. There is nothing in the word perish that signifies to be tortured to all eternity. "The wages of sin is death," destruction--annihilation, if you please. And if God had not made some provision for man's recovery, there would be no future life for Adam nor for any of his race. Death would indeed have been a hopeless state; just as leprosy, whether in a small or greater degree, signified the presence of a hopeless disease, from which there is no recovery.
JESUS THE GOOD PHYSICIAN.
Jesus is the only physician who can heal this leprosy of sin; nothing that the sinner himself can do would cancel the sentence. God purposely so arranged the matter. The Good Physician heals humanity at a great cost to Himself. As the wage, or penalty, or sin upon Father Adam and his race means death, so whoever would redeem Adam must be prepared to pay his penalty before he could assist the sinner legally, justly. None of Adam's race could serve as a redeemer, because each and all were born in sin and therefore as subject to the penalty as Father Adam himself. Nor could any of them be born without sin, because the life of the race came from its father.
Whoever, therefore, would be the savior of man must have a life separate and apart from that of Adam, and must be willing to sacrifice it on Adam's behalf.
All of the angels had such a life--separate and apart from Adam's life--and any of them, therefore would have been capable of being man's redeemer if the Heavenly Father had made them the proposition and they had chosen to accept it. But Jehovah God gave the first offer to become man's redeemer to the very highest of all His creatures--His Only Begotten Son, the Logos, of whom we read that He was the Beginning of the creation of God, the First-Born of every creature, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last.
"FOR THE JOY SET BEFORE HIM."
It was not within the province of even Jehovah Himself to demand that one holy creature should die to rescue, to redeem, humanity. The matter, therefore, was optional with the Logos; and if He had not chosen to accept the proposition, it doubtless would have been extended to others. But such was the love and loyalty of God's Only Begotten that to know the Father's pleasure in the matter was to cheerfully obey. It was a joy to Him to serve in any manner and to further God's will.
No doubt the Son would have done this without any suggestion of a reward, but the Apostle suggests that a great reward was proffered Him. He says, "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured." His joyful obedience began when He exchanged the higher nature for the human. The same joy continued when, as the Man Christ Jesus, He offered up Himself, and faithfully obedient to the Father's will to the very last, saying, "The cup which My Father hath poured for Me, shall I not drink it?"
St. Paul further explains that it was the Redeemer's faithfulness and loyalty to the Father, in doing His will to the extent of laying down the human life, that became the basis of His still higher exaltation--above His prehuman condition. The Apostle says, "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth." Thus, as the Apostle explains, He has been exalted and qualified to be made a Prince and a Savior and able to grant forgiveness of sins to as many as will come unto the Father through Him.
WHAT SIN-FORGIVENESS MEANS.
Forgiveness of sin has two aspects: (1) the cancellation of the legal condemnation; and (2) the recovery of the sinner from his loss, his imperfection. Jesus came into the world to accomplish both of these results. By His death He would legally satisfy the Divine Justice, giving His life as instead of Adam's life, which was forfeited by sin. Then, according to the Father's promise, being raised from the death state to a glorious state, with plenitude of power, He would use that power and opportunity for the release, or recovery, of mankind from the mental, moral and physical degradation brought about by sin.
Thus we read that Jesus died that God might be just and yet be the Justifier of all those who believe in Jesus--of all who shall become His disciples and follow His leading and direction. Again, we read that He came to seek and to save, to recover, that which was lost.
SINNERS OF TWO CLASSES SAVED.
It was just like our great Heavenly Father to take advantage of the opportunity of human salvation from sin to illustrate different characters amongst men and different degrees of His favor toward these. He foresaw that the great necessity of the world would be the Messianic Kingdom, the powerful Reign of the Redeemer forcefully putting down sin and all unrighteousness, scattering ignorance, darkness, superstition, etc.
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He foresaw that some of the human family would need to have stripes, punishments, corrections in righteousness, in order to teach them the great lesson that all unrighteousness is sin; and that all sin brings degradation, sorrow, pain, death, according to Divine arrangement. Messiah's Kingdom would be necessary to show how obedience to God would, on the contrary, bring a gradual uplifting and recovery out of sin, sorrow, tears and death, eventually back to perfection.
But while the great mass of mankind would need the severe lessons of the Millennium, the Reign of Christ, a certain few would be able now to develop an eye of faith and an ear of faith by virtue of their desire to do God's will. These would be doubly precious in God's sight; for "without faith it is impossible to please Him," and those who could exercise faith under adverse conditions would be His peculiar treasure. Therefore God has arranged to gather out this special class in advance, and these He calls His Elect, the Church of the Gospel Age.
This call, to which these respond, is not so forceful as will be the call of the future; they must have hearing ears and attentive hearts to hear the voice of God in the present time at all. Additionally, they must be both able and willing to walk by faith, their path lighted only by the Lamp of God's Word. "Thy Word is a lamp to my feet, a lantern to my footsteps." Furthermore, they must walk in a narrow way, a difficult path of separation from the world. Not only must they strive to live separate and apart from sin, but after the pattern of their Redeemer they must present their bodies living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God, through the merit of Jesus' sacrifice.
These are scripturally styled the justified by faith, the sanctified, or set apart to the service of God. These, under the typical arrangement of God with Israel of old, were pictured in the tribe of Levi, who were set apart from the remaining tribes to be God's special servants, and ultimately to be the instructors and guides of their brethren of the other tribes. So the elect class in process of selection since the ascension of Jesus since Pentecost--are to be God's special servants by and by in the blessing of the world in general; for they are to be joint-heirs with Jesus, their Redeemer, in all the great work of His Millennial Kingdom, designed, arranged, prepared, for the blessing and uplifting of all humanity, and for the destruction of the wilfully, intelligently, sinful and rebellious.
"THOUGH YOUR SINS BE SCARLET."
The Lord used crimson and scarlet as indicative of the most flagrant sins, and then declared that His arrangement for the forgiveness of sins through the Redeemer is effective even for the very worst sins. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool." (Isaiah 1:18.) This is an assurance for us. God knows that all of Adam's children were born with the hereditary taint of sin, "prone to sin as are the sparks to fly upward." He is not expecting perfection of any under such conditions; all must have help, and the Savior whom God has prepared is qualified to give help to all.
The help given to the special class that is in process of
selection during this Gospel Age is in the Scriptures figuratively
represented as the Robe of Christ's righteousness, covering
each of the sinners, and thus hiding the actual blemishes
of his flesh. In other words, the Lord declares of this class
that He will judge them, not according to their flesh, but
according to the spirit of their minds, the intentions of their
hearts and the efforts which they will put forth in resisting
sin and doing God's will. This Robe of Righteousness will
cover sins of every kind and degree, except wilful sins.
"O blessed thought!
O words with Heavenly comfort fraught!"
The arrangement for the sins of the world, to be carried out in the future, will similarly be ample, though different. The world's sins will not be covered, nor will the world be dealt with merely according to their minds and hearts. The world's salvation is spoken of as being one of works. Each sinner will be encouraged and assisted back to perfection along the lines of good works.
Assistance and strength of character will come to them day by day and year by year until, before the Millennium will have ended, all the willing and obedient will have become perfect, mentally, morally and physically. They will have attained the image and likeness of God, lost by Father Adam in Eden; and with this perfection will come their right to human life, forfeited by Adam and redeemed by Jesus.
But some one may say, If mankind are to have an opportunity during the Millennial Age, will that not be a second chance? We reply, No. None will have a second chance for everlasting life. By nature we are all sinners, condemned to death. Our chance for life at all is through the Redeemer's sacrifice. He died for all. But only when we accept the fact and come under His direction as His disciples, do we obtain our share?
Since Jesus accepts as His disciples during this Age only such as consecrate, or sacrifice, their lives to the doing of God's will, only they get the benefit of the Redeemer's sacrifice during the present life. Those who do not get that benefit now still have it assured them by Jesus' death, according to the Divine promise. Those who do not get their chance of everlasting life now will get it during the Millennium.
SIN A TRANSGRESSION OF LAW.
Human laws are not always the same as the Divine, though properly intended so to be. Thus the Lord informs us that some who are highly esteemed among men, and approved by human standards, are an abomination in the sight of God. Contrariwise, sometimes things disapproved by man are in accord with the Divine Law. God seems to put justice in the very highest place in His estimation of sin, while poor human judgment sometimes gives it a very low place. For instance, some will cry out vigorously and vengefully against immoral dances and petty thievery, who would not hesitate to join in a Trust intended to deprive thousands of fellow-creatures of their share of the blessings of our day. In the eyes of human judgment, these would be esteemed noble examples; while in the sight of Divine Justice, we believe, they would rank as very vicious and criminal.
TEN CLEANSED--BUT ONE THANKFUL.
When ten lepers came to our Lord praying for healing and were granted their request, only one of them returned to thank the Savior; and Jesus called attention to the fact. It well illustrates the difference between the two classes of the saved. The entire ten lepers would well represent the world of mankind in sin. All would be glad to be relieved of the leprosy of sin and to be holy and happy.
But as only one of the ten was so appreciative as to come back and worship the Redeemer and offer Him his services, it represents the fact that only a small proportion of humanity is properly appreciative of the blessings of forgiveness of sins and healing therefrom. The only one who was thankful would well represent the class of sinners who now constitute the true Church, and who, realizing the Divine arrangement for the forgiveness of sins, come thankfully and offer the Lord their little all to be used in His service.
The "exceeding great and precious promises" of God's Word are given only to the thankful and consecrated, who have already presented themselves living sacrifices to God. "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom." "God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit," which is granted only to the consecrated. These promises are to strengthen and nerve the consecrated and to enable them to overcome, in fulfilment of their covenant of consecration.
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Concluding Remarks--1913 Transcontinental Tour
WHEN it is remembered that the majority of the meetings here noted were held on week-days, the attendance surely indicated that the people had not lost their interest in the Bible and in religion, and that the falling off in the general Church attendance is therefore properly chargeable to another cause. We believe that the decrease in Church attendance, of which we hear so much, is chargeable to the fact that the public have lost their faith, as well they might, in the creeds of the Dark Ages. They are receiving no spiritual food. When the ministers preach to them along the lines of sociology, or astronomy, or science, the pews, as well educated and as well informed along these lines as are the pulpiteers, care little for the minister's dissertation.
Oh, that the ministers of today, instead of feeling angry against the Truth and fighting it, would investigate it thoughtfully and prayerfully! Then indeed they would be a power in the earth, in this, our wonderful day, in which God is sending out His Light and Truth to be the guide of His people, to guide them to His Holy Hill--the Kingdom of Messiah! What a power these ministers might be, if backed by the truth of God's Word!
How pitiable it seems that men so well equipped would be not only useless as respects the advancement of Christ's cause, but be really the leaders of the opposition thereto-- ignorantly serving the Prince of Darkness! All the more, however, the Truth must be spoken. The shackles of the creeds of error must be broken. The beauty of the Truth must be exhibited; for it is the Power of God for the calling and electing and perfecting of the Bride class to be the Lamb's wife.
But while we must oppose the error, and must uncover its very foundations in our efforts to "show forth the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light," nevertheless, let us all the more speak the Truth in love, without harshness, without personalities. Our dear brethren are deluded, deceived, not intentionally opposing the Truth, we believe. How glad we shall be for the day when the great Adversary, who deceived us all and is still deceiving so many, will be bound for a thousand years, as promised!-- Rev. 20:1-3.
WORDS OF CAUTION.
This may be as good an opportunity as any for a few words of caution. We are all in danger of going to extremes, and all should remember the Apostle's words, "Let your moderation be known unto all." At one place we found that a spirit of antagonism had been aroused by means of immoderate statements on the part of a few. They had suggested that Brother Russell and his writings are divinely inspired, as were the Apostles of old. What a great mistake! No wonder such statements were resented! When asked if such were our opinion, we promptly assured the dear friends to the contrary.
The view we have always presented, and still hold, is that the Lord Jesus appointed only twelve Apostles, St. Paul being the one to take Judas' place. The words of these would be so supervised by Divine Power that whatsoever they would declare binding on earth, the Church would know would be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever they would declare on earth to be loosed or not binding, they might know would not be obligatory in the sight of Heaven. In other words, those twelve Apostles were the special mouthpieces of the Lord to His Church. They still speak to us. We need no others; we expect no others.
The most we have ever claimed for our own presentations, written or oral, is that they are in line with the words of the Apostles, that they harmonize with them--that we keep so close to the words of the Apostles and the words of our Lord that our Message may be said to be their Message, except in respect to the particular words used and the arrangement of them. In the Studies in the Scriptures we have classified the various presentations of Jesus, the Apostles and Prophets into different studies or topics; and this is what we meant when we declared in an old Watch Tower that, on this account, whoever reads the Studies in the Scriptures is really reading the Bible in an arranged form--topically. In no case have we ever presented anything as of ourself. In every instance we have fastened our presentations to the Scriptures on which they depend and rest.
Our claim has been, and is, that because we are living in the dawn of the New Dispensation, it is the Divine will that the Mystery of God should now be finished, in the sense of reaching a completion, or unfolding. This we hold comes to us, not through special inspiration to speak or to write new things, but by the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, enlightening us and directing us to the Lord's Word, and assisting us to see the proper application of the same. The wonderful light of our day upon every subject undoubtedly inures to these ends.
Because it is due time, the Lord would send the light to His people, and as usual, would send it through some earthly instrumentality. If, in the Divine providence, we have been used or shall be used of the Lord, it will be in making clear the sayings of inspiration already written, and not in making any new revelations or prophecies.
We take this opportunity, also, to guard the dear friends against the report that we are making any different presentations by letter than we have made in The Watch Tower and the Studies in the Scriptures. If any claim to have such letter, ask to see the letter, and refuse to receive as from me anything contradictory to the Studies in the Scriptures and The Watch Tower. If we ever see the necessity to make changes, we will preferably do this in public print rather than in private letters or in private conversation. Let us stick to the written word in the Scriptures as well as The Watch Tower publications.
"My soul be on thy guard;
Ten thousand foes arise;
The foes of sin are pressing hard
To draw thee from the prize.
"O! watch, and fight, and pray
The battle ne'er give o'er;
Renew it boldly every day,
And help Divine implore.
"Ne'er think the vict'ry won,
Nor once at ease sit down;
Thine arduous work will not be done,
Till thou hast gained thy crown."
[CR416]
MADISON, WIS.
MADISON CONVENTION
JUNE 29--JULY 6, 1913
Full Assurance of Faith
I AM PLEASED, dear friends, to meet with you at this convention. I have had a very enjoyable time, indeed, in visiting many of the dear friends at little conventions for a month. You already have some record of this in the Watch Tower. Passing from Michigan down through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas, then across some of the southern states--Arizona, New Mexico, California, and around the circuit. You will be glad to know that everywhere the Lord's people seemed to have the same spirit-- the spirit of the Master, the spirit of the Truth; and as our topic for today is "Full Assurance of Faith" you will be glad to know that I have found good evidence of full assurance of faith all the way around. That is very helpful; it is what the Apostle says we should have; and yet as we come to our day we are all sadly aware that not very many have the full assurance of faith. The great majority of people seem to be losing their faith; and, worse than that, they are losing the foundation, or basis, of faith. The great colleges of our land have for years been undermining the faith by undermining the Bible. They do not make any attack on faith itself; they all admit that faith might have its place, and be a grand and glorious quality, and that the Bible instructs for faith, but they did proceed to do the same work that Robert Ingersoll and Thomas Paine tried to do; they proceeded to undermine confidence in the Bible; and confidence in the Bible, we hold, is the very basis of all faith. After we have lost our confidence in the Bible, what have we left?
We would have merely what the higher critics would give--what they call higher criticism and evolution, and this would mean that after a little process of reasoning to conclude that the Bible is all a forgery and a fraud made up by people who know less than ourselves. The result of that process of reasoning is that there is no foundation for any faith except what this man, or that man, or yourself, might guess? And how much confidence have we in what we guess? Not very much, and not much reason to have. We have no confidence in the flesh, no confidence in humanity; we know that all men are imperfect in every sense of the word; we are imperfect in our judgments. If men were to picture God, there would be as many different styles of God as there are different persons. We see that as we look into the past and note how many different creeds have been made and the different kinds of Gods that those different creeds have explained. We see what the noblest minds of the time might come to in the way of image worship, and worshiping the worst kind of images that could be made. You can do more of black representation by pen and ink, or by printing with the press, than you can by making all the idols of all the heathen lands. And while the heathen were carving their ugly idols out of stone and wood, and fashioning them out of clay or metal, we Christians were printing descriptions of God the like of which you could not mold in clay and you could not fashion with anything else. We have the worst of the whole universe. And great men made these images--men of noble minds. It just shows us how little confidence we would have in anything that men would do, and how we may be sure that if we had been in their place we would not have done any better. We are not finding fault with them; we are finding fault with the real foundation of the whole matter. The Apostle states it; he tells how the god of this world has been responsible for all of this misleading. He tells how the god of this world blinded the eyes of humanity and keeps them blind, lest they should see the glorious light of God's goodness. He explains also that Christians' eyes are not very widely open for the same reason--the god of this world has gotten the bandages so tight and the influence so strong upon us that it is with difficulty we get our eyes of understanding open. So I remind you of the Apostle's prayer for us, the Church, that the eyes of our understanding may be opened--wider and wider--that we may be able to know what is the hope of our calling, and what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. You remember the Apostle tells us that in the end of this age many shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons; that is what has been going on. I will not take time now to go into that fully; that is not my subject for this afternoon; perhaps on Sunday we will consider that matter. But the fact is there centered. We have come to the time when many have denied the faith and are denying the faith--good people, intelligent people, ministers of the Gospel in the various pulpits, professors and theologians, presidents of colleges, confessing that they have lost the basis of their faith.
I heard recently of a number of young men who after being in college a little while signed, with a great deal of regret, a certain paper in which they unitedly said they had been Christians when they entered the college, and they were Christians no longer, and they felt their loss. The text of Scripture they used was, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him." They lost their Lord by going to college. I think it is safe to say that 99 out of every 100 of the young men and young women who go to the higher schools of learning, colleges and high schools, lose all their faith in the Bible and thus become on a par with the ministers of many of the churches, who still may be preaching but have not their faith. They have lost their faith. Now it is not for us to suppose for a moment that these people are wicked people. On the contrary, I believe they are well-intentioned people, many of them fine people; I appreciate them; but they have gotten under this delusion. And the delusions of the past coming up now to the full blaze of our new dispensation, there is a conflict between the light of our day--and there is light today--and the darkness of the past. There is a conflict between these two as they meet, and there is such a clash between the light and the darkness of the creeds of today that everybody "sees stars," [CR417] so to speak, and are astonished, and don't know what to think. The people in general who are still holding onto the Bible seem to be holding on in a sort of blind way, hoping against hope that they will not have to lose their faith. They are afraid to think and afraid to read, lest they lose all the little bit of faith they have. And the fact is that they, as we all know from our own experiences, had not enough faith to worry about, ever. They had faith in a sense, but they did not have a well-established faith; they did not have an assurance of faith; they had what we all had in a measure--a kind of credulity, a kind of blind faith that would say, Well, I trust I am one of the elect. That is all you could say--you trusted you were one of the elect; the chances were against you, but have faith, brother, hold on, trust you are one of the elect. That is very poor, in the light of today; in the light of today we see that is foolishness; we are seeing how many of these great creeds, and how many features of the creeds, are crumbling to pieces. As, for instance, if any Presbyterian two months ago were rejoicing that his child were an elect child, now all of his faith is dashed, because our Presbyterian friends meeting in Atlanta, Ga., have decided that there are no more non-elect infants going to hell. Now we are glad for the non-elect infants, but how do you know yours is elect, anyway? They are all at sea, nobody knows what to think--just perplexity.
And yet at this very time when higher criticism is undermining
the foundation of all thinking people, and they are
losing faith and are afraid to think, how gracious God has
been to us! The eyes of our understanding are opening, and
we are getting to see His book to be the most wonderful
book in the world. You never saw the Bible as beautiful as
you do today. You never understood so much of God's plan
before as just now in the midst of all the turmoil of all
denominations and all the college men and all the learning
of the world.
"How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said?
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled."
Is not that comforting? Did not the writer of that beautiful hymn have the right thought in the matter? Indeed I have wondered if God did not partially inspire some of those hymns, for they seem so wonderfully to fit our times and conditions, and seem to have been so misty at the time they were written. It looks to me as though they were partly prophetic; or I presume the poets used what is termed "poetic license" and felt they were permitted to use language stronger than they really thought was true, since it was poetry. The very strongest language anybody can use would not be strong enough today to express the faith, the confidence, the trust, we have in our God through seeing His real character and His real plan as outlined in His Word. Full assurance of faith? Yes, indeed; and there is a great deal of difference between having a full assurance of faith and a full assurance of credulity. Credulity means to be just ready to swallow and believe everything. That is what most people used to do. It is what none of us are able to do now. We say, How do you know? When you know the person does not know, but is merely guessing, you say, Well, that is your guess. And then you ask yourself, Do you know? And then you find you do not know, then you say that is your guess. And that is credulity--believing something without evidence, without proof. We do not want to be credulous; there is no advantage in that; that is not faith. We have been making a great mistake as to what faith is. Faith must have a basis, and the basis must have some intelligent presentation. Why do you believe in a God? Well, you say, I see evidences. Very well; now without the evidences your faith would amount to nothing. Suppose you would have no evidence; then it is mere credulity to say you believe in a God.
And so about the Bible. Why do you believe it? Well, my mother believed it; my father believed it, and their parents believed it, and of course I believe it. That is not faith at all; that is merely credulity. Heathen people could do just as well as that. Their parents believed their heathen books, and their grandparents believed the same. To understand God's Word, that which gives us faith in the Bible, is to have the proof that it is of God.
But, one says, Brother Russell, these higher critics are busy proving to us all that if we read what they write, the Bible has no foundation. They will prove to you that Isaiah never wrote the Book of Isaiah, but that different people wrote that book. They will prove to you that Jesus was mistaken when He said Isaiah the prophet said so and so. They will prove to you that St. Paul was mistaken when he quoted from Isaiah and said. Thus saith the prophet Isaiah. They will prove to you that Daniel did not write his book-- or if he did that it is fulfilled. They will prove to you that Moses never saw the books of the Pentateuch.
My dear brother, I am not going by what they prove; they are trying to prove something by the outside of the Bible. I do not know enough to dispute with them, and they do not know enough to dispute with themselves. It is a matter of guesswork as far as they are concerned, and some of them are pretty bright people and can put up a strong argument in some things.
But what is your reliance, Brother Russell?
Why, just the same as yours.
What is ours, then?
Our reliance is that the Bible itself contains a great Divine plan that is superior to anything any mortal man could have produced. That is our confidence in the Bible. Find me a watch before anyone ever made a watch! Show me a watch with the wheels going round with precision and perfect relationship to each other, that keeps correct time, that 24 hours on that watch means 24 hours by the sun, and I will say that somebody made that watch; that watch never happened to come that way. Those wheels did not fall into place like that. Those hands did not get on by accident; nor do they go round and keep that kind of time by some kind of psychomancy. No, there is some intelligent power behind it.
So with the Bible. When we find those prophecies of the Bible and the teachings of the Apostles and prophets interlocking, and based and depending on one another in the most marvelous way, all the way from Genesis to Revelation, and the Apostle bringing out his proof here, and Jesus bringing in His prophecies there, and these all co-ordinating and fitting together and making up the great plan of the ages--tell me who made that, my dear brother? You cannot convince me that any human being ever made it. The very conditions of today furnish one of the strongest proofs of the inspiration of the Bible.
I remember an argument I had with an infidel when I was quite young. He said, Do you believe in the Bible?
I said, Yes. Don't you believe in the Bible?
No.
Where do you believe the Bible came from?
Oh, he said, priests and knaves!
Well, I said, which set of priests and knaves do you think made it up?
He hadn't expected that question and he thought a little while.
[CR418]
Do you think the Presbyterian priests and knaves made it?
He hesitated a little.
Perhaps they are too recent: you want to go back further? And the Methodists, and Baptists and Lutherans the same way?
Yes.
Perhaps you mean the Catholics, they claim to be the oldest?
Yes, that is it, it was the Catholics.
I said, Now, my dear friend, let us reason a little on that subject. If the Catholic priests and knaves made the Bible, they were fools also, because they made a Bible that does not suit them. They would not want to make the Bible the way it is now; it does not fit the Catholic doctrine. They would like to have various things in it that are not there. They would put in a whole lot about the Virgin Mary being the Mother of God, and about the Virgin Mary having had a miraculous conception, and that is not in the Bible. And they would tell about the mass, and that is not there. They would tell about purgatory, and they would like to have in it about St. Peter being the first pope. They would like to have something to intimate that we ought to use images and beads in worship. They would like to put in a whole lot about hell-fire and eternal torment. And they would like to put in about the trinity, because even the word trinity is not there. Now, do you not think that if the Catholic priests and knaves made the Bible they made a poor fist of it? They not only did not put in the things they wanted there, but left out a whole lot of things they would like to have. For instance, they do not know what to do with the doctrine of the resurrection; they would like to have it out. They have the theory that people go to Heaven, hell or purgatory immediately, no need of a resurrection: yet they know it is in the Bible. If they ever come across it in their reading it is only a "thorn in the flesh," so to speak; it merely disturbs their peace. Why should they need a resurrection when people are in Heaven, hell and purgatory, just where they want them? Then they run into something about a future Day of Judgment, and they don't know what to do with that. They think the judgment must be past or they would not be in hell, Heaven or purgatory. So you see our Catholic friends never made the Bible--surely not.
And I could just say the same about Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.--none of them would make the Bible as it is today. They would all put in a whole lot more about going to hell--well, I am not sure about that today; perhaps they have cooled off a good deal by this time. I am glad of it. Oh, yes, we are glad to see every step of progress. I am glad those little infants are not going to eternal torment now by foreordination and predestination--the non-elect infants. Think how many are now saved from that by changing the Presbyterian creed--40,000 every day saved! That is the way to get them to Heaven. If they had thought of that some time ago they might have had a good many in Heaven by now.
But our Presbyterian friends would not make the Bible the way it is today. Neither would our Methodist friends. They would leave out all of those texts about election and making your calling and election sure, and the very elect; they don't know what to do with them, and wish they were not there. And our Calvanistic friends would leave out some of the texts about free grace, and "The spirit and the Bride say come, and whosoever will may come and take of the water of life freely." That does not fit with their idea of election, and the free grace does not fit the other way. Of course they would all put in about the trinity, because they all hold that as the very essence of all faith. The more unbelievable a thing is, and the more you do not understand it. Oh, that is the thing to believe! That thing you cannot understand, and which is the most mysterious, is the most important thing!
But, my dear friends, from our standpoint of the Bible how simple it all is, and the whole matter throughout thoroughly explained. What is there that is not explained? I will tell you that we have reason for strong consolation!
These dear people of God I think mean well, and I love all who mean well and are striving for the right, and I love such of our dear friends of all the denominations. If I make any fun, it is of the creed and not of the people. I remember how I was deceived by these same creeds, and horribly injured; and I look out and see the whole world today is greatly injured. I believe many people are going after sin today who, if they had a right knowledge of God, would be following after righteousness.
A lady said to me not long ago, Before I got the truth I used to be in society, and I had a belief in the Bible-- that is, I thought I believed the Bible. I believed all about hell and the devils: I thoroughly believed that, and I was just afraid I would go there; I didn't know how I could make sure that I was one of the elect, I couldn't say for sure; it was a point I longed to know, and I didn't know it. And, she said, I used to try to drown the subject in my mind; I would go to parties and balls, and try to keep up a general whirligig of experiences and excitement in my life, and they were all empty to me; I knew they were not soul-satisfying. And then I got the Truth, and Oh, it was satisfying! I knew then why I had never been satisfied before. It was this wrong conception of God, this thought that God had made that great hell and was bent on having it filled full, and had left only a little corner in Heaven for the saintly handful, and it was doubtful if there would be room for me to get in. That was a horrible thought, and to think that we should have any dealings with such a God at all!
I believe that many men have been led to drinking and debauchery and all sorts of sin simply by reason of not seeing the real God, because for anyone to see the real God is to love Him. We are made on that basis. There is no human being I know of that was made without the organ of Veneration, and notwithstanding 6,000 years of the fall, there is in every man's head, unless he be an idiot or in some way deformed, that quality of reverence for a Supreme Being and a desire to render worship. When they had this wrong conception of God before their minds they did not wish to retain God in their minds. That is the way it reads in Romans. St. Paul is describing how men at first were not willing to retain God in their minds, and he gave them over to reprobate minds, and to do things that were improper, and the doctrines of devils got in and misrepresented God, so as to keep men in ignorance, darkness and superstition. The god of this world blinds the minds of all those who believe not. Blinds them by these various doctrines that you and I had something to do with for awhile. You and I, by some process we did not understand, in one side of our minds thought of God as being the great representative of Satanic energy, opposed to everything good, everything that was fair and right, and bent upon destroying the creatures He brought into the world. On the other side of our minds, we somehow got the thought that God was loving, kind and merciful. We never could get the two sides of our head to balance. We never knew which side to look at, but fortunately for us, as Christians, we got the devilish idea subordinated, and got the thought of God as loving, and going to Him daily in prayer we tried to forget the devilish part. And the others, on the other hand, remembered the devilish part and never had the good part about God to appreciate. And that is the condition the whole world has been in. Oh, thank God for the morning light! Thank God we are in the time when the path of the just is shining more and more unto the perfect day! Thank God that the perfect day is so near we can almost see the dawning of it, and almost realize that we are right there! A little while and our change will come! A little while and the Church will all be completed and gathered out of every nation, people, kindred and tongue, out of all denominations--the one Church. ***
How full is your faith? I trust that it is very full; that you have a good assurance. What kind of an assurance have you? You have the assurance that you have taken the various steps God directs. He explains the whole matter to us. He tells us we are sinners, children of wrath even as others, and He tells us Christ tasted death for the whole world, and that by and by He is going to give human life, restitution life, to all the world who will receive it, and that now the call is for those who desire to come out of the world and separate themselves from the world, and be a peculiar people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, zealous of good works--zealous of everything that is God's will, and ready to lay down our lives in doing it. We have a good basis for faith, a good basis for assurance. Did you forsake sin?
Yes.
Did you trust in the Lord Jesus as your redeemer?
Yes.
Did you make a consecration of yourself?
Yes. [CR419]
Did you say, O, Lord, I give myself away?
Yes.
Did you realize that when you thus gave yourself to the Lord you were still imperfect?
Yes.
Did you realize that thus He gave to you or imputed to you those blessings which He would otherwise be giving you actually in the next age, so that now you get all of these things reckoned to you which the race of mankind will get for themselves during the thousand years of Christ's reign?
Yes.
Then did the Father fulfill His promise by giving you a measure of His spirit?
Oh, says one, I am not sure whether he did or not.
Well, now see if He did. The Holy Spirit is not manifested now in the same way it was in the early Church; at that time the Holy Spirit was given in a miraculous way-- outward evidences, tongues, miracles, etc., attesting that these persons were accepted by God as members of His Church, and had been begotten of the Holy Spirit. But all of that ceased with the early Church; it was not necessary afterwards; it was merely for the establishment of the Church.
Have we no way of knowing whether we belong to the Lord's family? What proof have I that I received the Holy Spirit?
Have I the Holy Spirit in the sense of full consecration to God?
Yes.
Is my spirit, my mind, my will, a holy will?
Yes.
And is this holy will bearing any fruitage?
Yes.
What kind of fruitage is this holy will bearing?
Oh, directed through the Word of God, this holy will is bearing fruitage in my daily life.
Can people see it?
Yes, to some extent.
What kind of fruitage is it?
Well, the fruit of the spirit is manifest, or can be seen. It is this: meekness. Has it made you more meek?
Gentleness. Has it made you more gentle?
Patience. Have you become more patient?
Brotherly kindness. Is it making your heart broader, deeper and more sympathetic?
Godliness. Are you becoming more and more a pattern of your God, the real God, the God of love, mercy, kindness? The whole thing is comprehended in the one word love, the Apostle says. Here is how we will see whether or not we have the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that every tree shall be known by its fruits. On a good tree you will find good fruits, and on a bad tree you will find bad fruits. He said all His people should bear fruit. "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." Are we bearing good fruit? Are we becoming more and more like the Lord? Are we having more and more fellowship with God and with our Lord? Are we getting a deeper and broader sympathy with all of the household of faith? And are we getting into broader sympathy with the poor world in its fallen condition, and in sympathy with every good move to help them out of their fallen condition? If so, we have all of these evidences not merely that we believed the right book, and we have believed in the right God, and that book has the right plan in it, but we have evidence that we are the children of God; and if children then heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord; and if so be we are willing to suffer with Him that we may also be glorified together. He may test us as to our willingness to suffer--not merely to suffer, as St. Peter says, for wrong-doing, for Peter reminds us that if any man suffer as a busybody in other men's matters, let him not think he is suffering for Christ's sake. To suffer as a busy-body in other men's matters means about one-half of the suffering of the world. I guess I am safe in saying that one-half of the suffering in the Church is because of busy-bodying in other men's affairs. But the Apostle goes on to say that neither should we suffer as evil doers. God forbid! We might be misrepresented as evil doers, but that would not be suffering for evil doing. We might be called to suffer and be blamed as if we were evil doers; but if any man suffer, let him suffer as a Christian. Jesus was accused of being an evil doer, a blasphemer, an injurious person, and so were the apostles. It was on that score that they were all persecuted. But what the Apostle says is, that if you suffer let it be as a Christian--because of something you have done that is right, in harmony with your covenant with God, in harmony with God's Word and will. And if you suffer as a Christian, rejoice therein, for the spirit of glory and of God resteth on you. And then you may have, in view of all these things, full assurance of faith.
[CR419]
Praise Day
I AM very glad to be present with you at this convention, dear friends. I am very glad to hear that the Lord's blessing has been manifest, and trust it will continue to be a season of refreshing to the close. That we may all depart to our homes invigorated for further duties and privileges, as the Lord may bring these to us; that everyone here may carry home a blessing, that thus the blessing of the Lord poured out here may extend to other hearts and lives.
In connection with Praise Day, it occurs to me that one of the most blessed praises we can render to the Lord is that of thanksgiving in prayer. In fact the whole matter of prayer seems to be one very largely of praise to God. We have, indeed, things to ask God for, but we are becoming more and more convinced that He has thought out and planned for us so abundantly, so fully, that we have little to do except conform to the conditions He has laid down, and thus receive by obedience the blessings we need. The more advanced Christian people become, the more their prayers resolve themselves into opportunities for praise and thanksgiving to God, and the less they have to give the Lord instructions.
I remember in my younger days I was often surprised to think how fully the Lord was instructed by so many people in prayer. They told Him what to do here and there, how many to convert at this meeting, and what to do in general. They took more time in telling Him what He should do than in studying the Word to find out what He wanted them to do. We are learning to reverse this, and while we still go to God in prayer, we no longer tell Him when He shall convert [CR420] the heathen, and how many to convert at this or that meeting, realizing He knows far better than we do what is best; that He has His fixed arrangements, in line with which we and others may have His blessings, and out of line with which He does not dispense these blessings.
My text will be the Master's words while looking at the Jewish Temple. "My house shall be called the house of prayer for all nations."
We remember that the Jewish nation, their temple and priesthood, were all typical of better things to come. I remind you that according to the Apostle Peter the temple then was merely a figure of a greater temple which is now in preparation. The Apostle tells us that the true temple of God is the church, and that we are all living stones in that temple. The time has not yet come for bringing these stones all together as a temple, but the living stones are being fitted, polished and prepared by present experiences for that glorious condition. He proceeds to tell us that Jesus is the chief corner stone, and we are living stones to be built up under Him; that the Holy Spirit operating in us as new creatures in Christ, in His providence, and with the instruction of His Word, and the co-operation of our wills, is working in us to will and to do His good pleasure. This work in us is God's work, as the Apostle declares, "we are God's workmanship."
What a wonderful thought, that the great Creator is now making a new creation, and He is working in us that we may constitute that new creation. The new creation is not complete in you or me. It is complete in the Lord, who has passed beyond the vail, and so it will be with every one of the church as they pass beyond the vail. The grand completion will be in the first resurrection, of which the Apostle says, "It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body." Then, when the work of fitting is completed, we shall be made like our Master, see Him as He is, and share with Him in immortality.
In connection with the construction of Solomon's temple we remember that the stones were chiseled and prepared before they were brought to the temple, or the building was begun at all. So every one of these living stones will be completed before the construction of the great temple. As in the type the stones were so perfectly prepared that they were brought together without the sound of a hammer, so it will be in this grander temple. There is no purgatory experience for the church. The change from earthly nature to the heavenly, the divine, will be instantaneous. There will be no other hearts perfect. Not that these will be perfect in the flesh. In our flesh dwells no perfection. It is God's purpose that they shall be perfect in their spirits, their minds, their intentions, their wills, and they must be tested and proved in every way to determine whether they will be loyal to God to the last degree. All such will have an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, says Saint Peter.
To our understanding the construction of the greater temple is already in process, while some stones are still being finished in the quarry, the construction proceeding as each one passes beyond the vail. After the temple is completed, then what? It will be the house of prayer for all people. How so? We remember that Solomon's temple was merely a picture. As that temple was completed before the glory of the Lord filled it, so the church will be completed before the glory of the Lord will fill the church. That filling with glory will be our acceptance to the fullness of His favor and blessing for evermore at His right hand, with our Great Redeemer. Then will be in the church, the temple of God, the shekinah glory of the Divine presence. It will not be merely for the blessing of the church, as the glory in Solomon's temple was not merely for the glory of the temple. The church will represent God for all desiring to draw near in the future time. The presence of God in the church will be that toward which mankind will be drawn during Christ's reign, and all approach to Him will be through this temple, the church.
The pictures presented in the tabernacle belong to the present time; those of the temple to the future. We are now in the tabernacle condition. We have many illustrations now of the temple condition of the future. All who are of the royal priesthood now are privileged to partake of the shew bread and to enjoy the light of the golden candlestick. All of these belong to us now in an anticipatory sense, but we will have them in the fullest sense by and by. Then all who desire to approach God will approach the church, which will be his representative in the world. The great mediator between God and man will be the high priest and the under priests. The sacrifices of the Christ constitute the basis of these blessings coming to mankind. What a glorious prospect, not only to the priesthood, but also to the world, all of whom may then draw near to Him.
Let us consider this matter of prayer at the present time. Perhaps some of us have not been careful enough in the presentation of the matter to others. According to the Bible the privilege of prayer is restricted; according to the thought of the world the reverse is true. Christian people generally would say God wants everyone to pray; sinners and moralists, those acknowledging Christ and such as do not acknowledge Him; everybody is exhorted to pray. Does the Bible say so? It says nothing of that kind. The Bible indicates that God is not pining away with the desire to have men pray to Him; nor is He sad because they will not occasionally bow the knee. No, we have a great God. He is not pining for mock worship of anybody. On the contrary, as with earthly potentates, so with this great potentate of the universe, certain restrictions are placed upon approach to Him. An earthly king would require a proper introduction by a responsible person, and perhaps it would be necessary to make an appointment a month beforehand. If this is true of the earthly rulers, how much less would we think that the potentate of the universe would be intruded upon at any moment by any sinner. It is a great privilege to pray to God. The Bible shows that many people pray whose prayers are not accepted.
There is absolutely but one way; there is but one person who can introduce us to God, and any who lack that introduction have no right to pray. We have no doubt that God has a sympathetic interest in everyone who has a desire to draw near to Him. As the Scriptures say, "Draw near to Me and I will draw near to you," but God would not come into communication with that heart. "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me," said the Saviour. There is no other way to come. Those who have not made their arrangement with the Great Advocate have made no arrangement at all. There is no other name given under Heaven or among men whereby we can be saved. This is the only name. Through Him we may come; without Him we may not come.
The heathen may pray, but like Cornelius of old, their prayers would only come up before God as a remembrance. He was a good man, but God's favors were covenanted to Israel exclusively up to that time. The Israelites had typical sacrifices and a mediator, and enjoyed typical privileges of prayer. It was not so with the Gentiles. Cornelius was a just man, who gave alms to the people, and prayed always. Would not God hear his prayers? No, he did not hear them up to a certain time, even though he was doing the best he could. When the Jewish Age had ended, and the time came for throwing open the doors to the Gentiles, this good man who reverenced God was the first to receive the privileges of prayer and relationship with the Father as a son. But it was not without certain formality. God sent an angel to him to say "Thy prayers have come up before Me; I have not yet received them. I am taking notice that you have prayed. Now the embargo is lifted, Cornelius, and your prayers have come up, but I can not receive them yet. Send now to Joppa and call for one Simon whose surname is Peter, who lodgeth with one Simon a tanner; when he is come he will tell you words that will be for the saving of yourself and your house. This will give you the opportunity. If you believe his words and act upon them you may come into relationship with Me [CR421] and your prayers will be received." Peter came and told Cornelius how Jesus had died, and that those believing might come unto God through Him as their Advocate. He believed. Immediately God recognized him, he accepted of the provision through the Advocate, and became the recipient of the Holy Spirit as a mark of his sonship. He now had a full right to pray to God as his Father. Only those who are sons of God can say "Our Father which art in heaven." All of this idea of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man is worldly reasoning, trying to climb up to God's favor by some other way than the one prescribed. If we have anything to say to anybody as servants of God, in the way of explaining the Word, we are to point to the Bible and say that there is no other name, and no other way to pass from the ranks of sinners into the rank of sons.
If we come will the Lord surely receive us? You say will not Jesus receive everybody? No, only the sincere ones. Not only does the Word inform us that God heareth not sinners, but we remember that Jesus would not stand good for everyone that came to Him. We remind you of a certain young man who came. He was of good moral character and Jesus loved him. He loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and beholding him loved him. Did he become his advocate? Not at that time. He told the young man, however, just as He tells you and me and every other person, the terms of discipleship. If he chose to become His disciple, then Jesus would act as his advocate, but not otherwise. Why? Because God is not calling the world now. He is merely dealing with a special class who desire to come unto Him; whose hearts hunger and thirst after righteousness. Such only will He receive now. As there is a system by which the cream is taken from the milk, so God is now taking from among men the cream, as it were, and leaving the skim milk. God has His way of separating the milk and taking out the cream class. Not that the skim milk has no value, but the cream has special value. Through this class He will pour out His blessings upon others in due time. How glad we are to see the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of God's great plan, and how glad we are to conform ourselves to it.
The Saviour said, "If ye abide in Me and My words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you." At one time we thought that gave us liberty to ask for anything, but the more we study and grow in grace and knowledge, the more clearly do we discern certain restrictions. First we must get into Him before we can abide in Him; and secondly we must abide before we can continue to grow in grace and knowledge; and finally, after these qualifications are fulfilled in us we must have His Word abide in us. We must not only have an interest in doing His will, but we are to have such a love for His will that we will study His Word. After we have the Word and His spirit dwelling in us we may ask everything we choose, because we would not ask for anything contrary to His Word and will.
Even as we come to grow in grace and knowledge we have a restriction as to the amount of liberty we would have in prayer. We would only wish what would be His will. As Jesus said, He came to do the will of the Father. If any matter is proper in His sight it should be proper to you and to me. Our judgment is faulty, therefore we must ask, not in accordance with our desire, but as He may please. His will is expressed to us in His Word. How important that we grow in knowledge and in His spirit, and thus our prayers will become more and more filled with thanksgiving and praise to God. When I say praise to God I include our hymns of praise, which are prayers in poetic form, being set to music.
"SO AS BY FIRE."
I SOMETIMES feel so passionate a yearning
For spiritual perfection here below,
This vigorous frame with healthful fervor burning,
Seems my determined foe.
So actively it makes a stern resistance,
So cruelly it sometimes wages war
Against the higher spiritual existence,
Which I am striving for.
It interrupts my soul's intense devotions;
Some hope it strangles at its very birth
With a swift rush of violent emotions
Which link me to the earth.
It is as if two mortal foes contended
Within my bosom in a deadly strife;
One for the loftier aims Jesus intended,
One for the "Mammon" life.
And yet I know this very war within me,
Which brings out all my will-power and control;
This very conflict yet through Christ shall win me
The loved and longed-for goal.
And when in the immortal ranks enlisted,
Sometimes I wonder if we shall not find
That not for deeds alone, but also what's resisted,
Our places were assigned.
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Words of Greeting
I WANT to give my word of greeting this morning, dear friends, to let you know that I have arrived and that I hope you are enjoying yourselves at this Convention. I believe the Lord has blessings for His people whenever they meet in Jesus' name, and with a desire to know His divine will. I trust our joy will be added to because of this convention, and that in going from here we will bear a song away, one that will not die in our hearts, but will bring cheer and blessing to our homes whither we go.
I am not intending to detain you very long this morning, but this may be one of the few opportunities of saying a few words, and the text that occurs to me on this occasion is the Master's words:
"Woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.
Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.
Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets." (Luke 6:24-26.)
I do not know, my dear friends, how many of you may be rich and come under that classification; nor how many of you may come under the Master's classification, "Ye poor," but we do believe that there is a wisdom in the Master's words that is not to be found elsewhere, and what I am about to say is not anything intended to stir up class strife or hatred--by no means--but rather that all true peace and true blessings come in harmony with obeying the Master's words, and that all the difficulty, and strife, and disorder of the world comes through neglect of these very words of Jesus.
When speaking of the "rich" we are to have in mind those the Master had in mind, not only those who are rich in a financial sense, wealthy, but that He includes also those who are rich in the honors of men, rich in education or in any particular sense of special privileges, advantages and opportunities.
Although not rich myself, I can sympathize with the rich in their position, as well as with the poor in theirs. God, Himself very rich, is able to sympathize with both the poor and the rich; so is the Savior, who, being rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich in the truest sense of that word.
Some of God's faithful servants in the past were very rich--Abraham, for instance. Nevertheless, the Lord forewarned us that not many rich, great, learned, or mighty would receive the highest blessing promised during this Age. On the contrary, recipients of the greatest favor will be chiefly the poor of this world, rich in faith. These will be the heirs of the Kingdom.
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The Master evidently intended to include riches of every kind--learning, influence, honor of men, etc., as well as financial wealth. This view broadens the text to signify that all who now possess great privileges and blessings above the average of mankind will by these blessings, be more or less hindered from obtaining the best things of God's favor, and more or less subject to woes.
We are not to take the views of the darker days, and to suppose that the Master meant that the rich at death would be thrown into everlasting torture. The woes of the Bible, on the contrary, apply to the present life. The rich, the influential, the learned, the great, addressed by the Master in the words of our text, were living in the close of the Jewish Age, but realized it not. And we might have no occasion whatever to apply our text today, but might consider it as already fulfilled in the past, except for the fact that the Jewish nation and its experiences at that time typified the Gospel Church and the experiences of Christendom in our day.
WRATH TO THE UTTERMOST UPON THE JEWS.
St. Paul, referring to the same woes which Jesus predicted but living near the close of the Jewish Age, when the woes were being poured out, declared, Wrath has come upon this people to the uttermost--that all things written in the Law and the Prophets concerning them should be fulfilled. (1 Thes. 2:16.) If all the woes purposed of God upon the Israelites in the conclusion of their Age were fulfilled, as St. Paul declares, then none of those woes belong to the future.
That woes and tribulations are associated with the present life for both the rich and the poor is undebatable. All acknowledge these woes. But the most terrible foreboding are associated with imaginary woes of the future life--quite contrary to the Scripture teachings. If we must speak of tribulations in the present life, in order to be faithful to our commission, we are glad to be able to set aside and nullify the nightmare of the Dark Ages respecting eternal torment for any.
The Jews, whom Jesus addressed, He declared "knew not the time of their visitation." They realized not that they were living in the end of their Age, and that a great settlement of matters was about to take place. Similarly, we are now living in the end of this Gospel Age--another great settlement day in the Divine arrangement. The intellectually, politically, socially and financially rich at that time, addressed by our Lord, were very self-satisfied, very prosperous, and looked for the Messianic Kingdom in an opposite direction from that which Jesus taught. So today, the intellectual and the rich in various ways are satisfied as never before, and merely wishing that nothing might disturb their wonderful progress for the future, and these are looking for their blessings and prosperity in a direction the reverse of that indicated by the Word of God.
Jesus prophetically foreknew and foretold the crisis of the Jewish nation. His Message gathered out of that nation the "Israelites indeed, in whom was no guile." Then the nation was given over to itself. The Divine Hand which had guided it safely in the past let go the rudder; and human passion accomplished the wreck in the anarchy which overthrew the nation in A.D. 70. Similarly, we may understand that now has come the Harvest of this Gospel Age; that now God is gathering His elect; and that as soon as this work shall have been accomplished, the Almighty's Hand which has held in check the powers of human passion until now will release its hold.
Then mankind, left to themselves, will wreck their present civilization. As the rich of Jesus' day suffered most keenly in their time of trouble, so the rich will suffer most keenly in the time of trouble now near. Thank God, however, that these woes, both upon the Jews and upon Christendom today, are not woes of eternal torment!
COMPENSATION IN NATURE.
Who has not been struck with Nature's compensations? The rich, the learned, the favored, have trials and difficulties, perplexities, cares, doubts and fears, which the poor, the unlearned, know nothing about. The clerk, the mechanic and the laborer may finish their toil under certain hours and be care free, while the employer often faces perplexing problems which hinder sleep and undermine health.
In matters of grace the same rule to some extent, prevails. The rich have more on which to set their hearts, more to occupy their time, more to cultivate self-will, more opportunity for self-gratification, more riches for which to be responsible, more education by which, under present conditions, errors are more likely to influence, have more to divert them and to cultivate their pride. The naturally noble, contrasting themselves with their inferior neighbors, are inclined to resent the idea that they are sinners, and as much dependent upon the Lord's grace as the humblest and the meanest of their fellows.
NO PARTIALITY WITH GOD.
We are not to understand that God is partial to the poor, the mean, the illiterate, the ignoble. The Scriptures assure us that God is impartial. All other conditions being equal, riches, honor, nobility of character, would make the possessors more esteemed in God's sight. But other conditions are not equal. During this Age God is choosing a special class. He puts faith first, then meekness, gentleness, patience, brotherly kindness and love in their order.
Apparently the life experiences of the poor and ignoble are as favorable, or more so, than the conditions of the rich and the talented. All of their experiences tend to develop faith, while those of the rich tend rather to develop self-reliance, self-assurance. The experiences of the poor and ignorant tend to develop meekness, teachableness, whereas the experiences of the learned tend naturally toward self-conceit. The experiences of the great in dealing with subordinates tend to beget arrogance and self-assurance; whereas if they become disciples of Christ, those qualities are serious handicaps and interferences. Thus we see why not many rich, wise, great and noble are amongst those upon whom the Gospel Message takes serious effect. Not only have the poor many advantages in respect to hearing and obtaining the Gospel Message, but their being more numerous than the rich would be another reason why they would predominate among the Lord's elect-class.
NOT ALL POOR ARE BLESSED.
Our text, however, does not refer to poor people in general, but to a special class of poor. "Blessed be ye poor; for yours is the Kingdom of God." Some poor, instead of being drawn to God by their poverty, cultivate a spirit of anger, malice, hatred, strife, and are thus not only embittered in spirit, but have their faces turned in the opposite direction from the one in which God's blessings come. Alas, how true this is today.
The class described by Jesus as "ye poor" is composed of those who are hungering after righteousness, and who have approached the Fountain of Blessing, the Almighty, and have been received as children of God. The poor include all of God's people, whether or not poor as respects earthly goods, earthly honor, fame, etc. Whatever earthly blessings they may have had, they gave up, sacrificed, that they might thereby become heirs of God, joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. Of the Redeemer it is written, "He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor." As the Master made a full surrender of His will and talents, and all, so also must all who, hearing the Master's voice, become His disciples, or footstep followers.--2 Cor. 8:9; Matt. 16:24.
This does not mean that the Lord's people must of necessity throw away or give away their property and become penniless. It does mean, however, that whatever property they once called their own, by the terms of their consecration became the Lord's property, and they merely His stewards in the administration of that property and the use of it in harmony with the Lord's will.
Neither does this mean that, if they had riches of learning, they must ignore their knowledge and speak and act ignorantly. It means, however, that their learning is no longer theirs, but the Lord's. It is no longer to be used for self-gratification, self-honor, self-praise, but to be used in the service of their Redeemer, to show forth His praises no matter how unpopular His cause in the sight of men--no matter how foolish it may cause them to appear in the eyes of those who are blinded to the Lord's arrangements.
This poverty and sacrifice does not mean the giving up of noble sentiments and high ideals; but it means the bringing of these ideals, etc., into the Lord's service, for the support and advancement of His Message of Truth, for the blessing of mankind along the lines which His Word indicates.
This sacrifice, or surrender, does not mean that honor of men will be disesteemed thereafter; for it will always be true that "a good name is rather to be chosen than great [CR424] riches." It means that worldly reputation will be held secondary to the Lord, the Truth, and service for the Lord's cause, so that whatever honor of men they may possess will be turned as wisely and as prudently as possible into the channels which will glorify the Lord and honor His Message, regardless of the fact that so using it will gradually consume it; for the world knows not the followers of Jesus, even as it knew Him not, and appreciates not the true honor which cometh from Above but merely the honor which is of men.
WORLDLY WISDOM VS. HEAVENLY WISDOM.
The Scriptures distinctly point out that there are two kinds of wisdom, radically opposed to each other--the earthly wisdom and the Heavenly Wisdom. The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, and the Wisdom of God is foolishness with this world. This means that there are two different ways of viewing nearly everything. The world's viewpoint ignores the future beyond the grave, lives for the present, thinks for the present, strives for the present. The Heavenly Wisdom looks chiefly beyond the grave, for that eternal condition which God declares may be attained by all obedient to Him. From this viewpoint the things of the present are temporary, transitory, fickle, uncertain, in comparison with the future blessings. St. Paul declares of these that they are not worthy to be compared with the future glory to be revealed in the Lord's people (Romans 8:18).
Those who follow the earthly wisdom are subject to the frailties and imperfections of the human mind with which they were born--born in sin, misshapen in iniquity. "In sin did my mother conceive me." More than this, they are to a large degree susceptible to the evil influence of Satan and the fallen angels, and the "doctrines of demons" with which these seek to ensnare and mislead all who have not put themselves under Divine protection by becoming disciples of Jesus. This includes the great majority of humanity, of whom the Apostle declares that the god of this world hath blinded the minds of all those who believe not, lest the glorious light of God's goodness, shining in the face of Jesus Christ, should shine into their hearts (2 Cor. 4:4).
Of these again the Scriptures declare, "The whole world lieth in the Wicked One." Not intentionally and knowingly, but ignorantly, through depravity and deception, they are servants of sin. Their only hope lies in the promise of God that eventually the time will come when Messiah shall take His great power, exalt His Church, and institute a rule of righteousness in the world, which will bind Satan and break the shackles of ignorance and superstition, and bring in a clear knowledge of God and the Truth.
Meantime, many in the world are considerably swayed by the spirit of Satan--anger, malice, hatred, envy, strife. When circumstances are favorable, these evil qualities are not brought into activity; but under other circumstances, no evil work is too vile, if it will minister to their selfish propensities. Thus today we see people not naturally bad, in the sense of preferring evil to good, but deluded and without Divine guidance, and thus ready to do anything and everything, under stress of necessity, for the maintenance of the present order of things. Not knowing of God's Plan, and not having the Wisdom from on High, they are not waiting for Messiah's Kingdom, but are bent upon attaining their own ends, in harmony with their own theories.
According to the Bible testimony, these are the ones who are about to bring upon the world the great time of trouble, the like of which never was since there was a nation (Dan. 12:1). In that great time of trouble the worldly rich will have fulfilled upon them our Lord's words in our text, in accord also with the words of St. James, "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you" (James 5:1). Miseries will also come upon the poor, but will be felt especially by the rich, because of the wealth, luxury and comfort previously enjoyed by them.
On the contrary, the poor in spirit--those who have given their little all to the Lord, and have nothing to lose further--can look with equanimity upon any experience which may come to them. Having nothing of their own, they can lose nothing. "Blessed be ye poor; for yours is the Kingdom of God," and as inheritors of that promise they are rich with the wealth which moth and rust cannot corrupt and which thieves cannot destroy or steal.
The whole matter, then, is one of wisdom. Shall we give our affairs into the hands of the Lord and allow Him to work out our best interests for us and to give us His very best blessing? Or shall we seek to hold control of ourselves and of our own wills, and thus miss the greatest blessing that God has to give, and obtain the inferior one? Or by wilfully choosing sin, shall we deliberately reject everlasting life, and come under the penalty of the Second Death --Destruction?
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The Kingdom of God
OUR subject, dear friends, is "The Kingdom of God." We ask you to go back in your minds to the very beginning of God's dealings with our race in the Garden of Eden, and there we see God established His Kingdom. God's Kingdom is a Kingdom of righteousness, and with the righteousness of God always goes divine blessings. So when God created our first parents He made them His representatives in the world, even as the Scriptures inform us. We read in Psalm 8 "Thou has made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet."
It was a small Kingdom, in one sense; only two human beings, namely, the king and queen, all other creatures being inferior. The Divine intention respecting this Kingdom was that it should spread and fill the whole earth, and that every member of the race should be a king. So God said to the first pair, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it." That is to say, the Garden of Eden only had been subdued; only that Garden was in proper condition for the comfort and blessing of man in the highest sense. There was an abundance in the Garden until the race would multiply, and then as the family increased they were to subdue more and more until the whole earth should be subdued. Adam and Eve were made in the image and likeness of God. "Very good," said the Creator. God has not changed His intentions; He still has the same purpose in view. He never changes; He is the same yesterday, today and forever. His purposes change not because He is so wise that He knows the future as well as the past. He is working all things after the counsel of His own will.
I am not teaching republicanism, or indicating what form of government may be best at the present time, but God's arrangement is ultimately to have a republic throughout the earth. Some say we are not ready for a republic yet; we need kings and queens and czars and emperors. I am not deciding about it; let each use his own best judgment on that point. It is not possible for you or me, or any other imperfect being, to establish a government fully satisfactory to anybody who is right minded. We are all imperfect and "cannot do the things that we would."
Father Adam, though privileged to be a great king, having dominion over the fishes, the fowls and the beasts, himself failed to be fully loyal to the great Creator. We remember in what respect he failed. God placed him under a certain test, saying he might eat of any of the trees of the garden save one; of that he was forbidden to eat upon the penalty of death. Notwithstanding that warning, he soon succumbed to temptation. It was not the value of the apple, but the act of disobedience which brought the penalty. Had Adam been in the condition you and I are in, the matter would have been very different. He was perfect, undefiled; no sin in him. He sinned with deliberateness, with intention, and, therefore, with great responsibility. If a man or woman, after six thousand years of falling, were to commit such a trespass, it would not be such a serious matter in the sight of God as the transgression of Father Adam.
The penalty brought upon the race was a deserved penalty; a righteous one, when we see what the penalty was, namely, "Dying thou shalt die." The penalty was death; not to live in a manner of torment. The adversary has sought to mislead us on this subject, and has quite generally succeeded in making the world think God has done some injustice; that He has been the most atrocious character that our poor minds could imagine. This is a part of Satan's tactics, to put darkness for light, and light for darkness. He has represented God as being a great devil, and you and I came to think of the great God, the Creator, as being the worst of all beings we have ever heard of or imagined. When you have time, sit down and write up a description of the worst devil you can possibly imagine, and I assure you it is my judgment it would not be possible for you to picture a worse devil than our creeds have told us our Heavenly Father is. I could not write it worse.
When in India not a great while ago some of the people there told me what they thought of our God. I was asking about their idols, and why they are made so horrible in appearance. I said, "Do you really worship these as your god?" They said, "No, this merely represents our god, it is an image of him." I said, "Why do you make them so ugly?" (They are so ugly I think the devil must have something to do with all of them.) They did not know just why they were made so ugly. I suppose they thought of God as a being with such a horrible character, and they tried to picture this in the idols of wood, stone or metal, as the case might be. They got their wrong ideas of God where we got ours, namely, from the adversary. After asking them why they have their gods so ugly, the thought came to me, "You have been worshiping a more horrible image of God than these poor heathen." It seems a most remarkable thing that the devil could succeed in getting the most intelligent people of the world to believe the most ridiculous thing that could be expressed in language. Can you account for it in any other way than the thought of the Apostle Paul, that we have been "giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils?"
The great adversary had been looking around with a view to having a kingdom of his own. As the Scriptures point out, he said, "I will exalt myself above the plane of the angels and be as the Most High." He wanted an empire of his own. He did not think of taking Jehovah's place, but wished to establish a rival dominion. He was thinking how much better things could be done than God was doing them. When he saw the program God had marked out for filling the earth with a population, and subduing it, and having a glorious empire, Satan said, "Here is my chance; I will seize the opportunity," and he did so by lying. Jesus said Satan was the first liar and the father of lies. He said, "When he [CR426] speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own, for he is the father of lies." What lie is referred to? He contradicted God, point blank, by telling mother Eve that she would not die by partaking of the forbidden fruit. But why did she take the word of the serpent as instead of God? He had to bring in another lie, assailing the character of God. He said, "God wants to keep you in ignorance, for He knows by eating you would become like gods, rivaling Him; that is why He has forbidden you to eat of the tree." Poor mother Eve partook; Adam also took of the fruit and shared the penalty of death rather than be separated from his wife, and Satan had gained his point. For six thousand years he has held the race under his dominion; he is the god of this world in the sense of having the rulership of this world; he now rules in the hearts of the children of disobedience, which means all except the saintly ones. Satan has stolen the dominion of earth.
As the Apostle says, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now...waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God," for the Messianic Kingdom. They do not know what they are waiting for, but from the divine standpoint we know. God does not intend the blessing shall come to them until these sons of God shall be manifested, in due time. By the sons of God is meant, Jesus the Head and the Church, His body. Not until these sons of God attain the great first resurrection, and the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom, will the poor groaning creation receive the necessary assistance to bring them out of their bondage.
We estimate, and we think conservatively, that about twenty thousand millions of the human family have been born in sin and misshaped in iniquity, lived a few years in trouble and gone down into the prison-house of death. They are held fast and cannot escape until He shall open who has the key. Jesus died to redeem the race from death, and He announced, "I have the keys of hell and of death." In due time He will liberate the prisoners; He will break their shackles, as the prophet says. He will say, "Show yourselves; come forth." Then will the Lord's Kingdom bring its blessings to all.
In the meantime we have various kingdoms, denominated the kingdoms of this world. All of the kingdoms of this world constitute Satan's kingdom. He is really over them all and working through these kingdoms. We do not think mankind would desire him as their ruler if they knew it; they are too loyal to principle; I believe they would rebel against Satanic authority if they recognized themselves to be under him as a prince. You and I are trying to awaken mankind to the fact that there are two opposing authorities in the world, namely, Satan and Christ, the god of this world and the god of the world to come; the prince of darkness and the sun of righteousness; the kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of Christ.
God is at the present time permitting these various experiences that the world may learn a great lesson respecting the exceeding sinfulness of sin; and to show to angels and man the results of allowing Satan to have authority. God gave the authority to man, but when man believed Satan he was permitted to suffer the consequences, that he might thoroughly learn the needed lesson. But God will not allow this matter to go too far. If God did not hold with a firm hand we would have terrible conditions on earth. They would be a thousand times worse than at present, were it not for His power restraining the evil spirits, under Satan's control. Satan is ruling, and is influencing mankind to such extent as he is able.
We understand the time is near when Satan will be fully restrained and the Kingdom of the Lord will be set up. The nearer the time the better for all who are in harmony with God. Some say, "I expect God's Kingdom to come, perhaps before tomorrow morning," and still they find fault with us because we point out from the Scriptures that the Gentile times are drawing to a close, and that marks the time for the establishment of Messiah's Kingdom, which will break the shackles of tradition, and set free all who have gone down into the prison house of death. What a glorious prospect of the Kingdom. When it is rightly understood, how earnestly we may pray "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven." Let us continue to pray, and to labor with our lips, our hands, our entire beings.
The Lord is now gathering out a class who are to be associated with Christ in the exercise of rulership in that great Kingdom; a class willing to battle steadfastly against sin, and through Christ to be made conquerors and more than conquerors. Such will sit down with Him in His throne when His kingdom is established; when He shall reign upon the earth for a thousand years. Are you sure? Yes, Jesus said so. He said, "Blessed and holy is he who hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power ...and they shall reign with Christ a thousand years." In one of the parables this glorious Messianic Kingdom is referred to as the pearl of great price, which is to be regained. He says, "Of all pearls I never saw a pearl like that; I want to sell all of my possessions and purchase that pearl." So it should be with you and me. When we see that pearl we should be willing and glad to dispose of everything else that we may win a share in the Kingdom with Christ, that we may be possessors of the Kingdom pearl. There are other pearls among men; the pearl of political influence, praise of men, riches and comforts of this life. But I trust to each of us the privilege of gaining joint heirship in the Kingdom eclipses all else; the gaining of the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved for those who are kept by the power of God through faith, unto salvation ready to be revealed in the end of the age. That is our pearl. Have you sold all for that pearl which "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, but which God hath reserved for them who love him?" All you and I have is as nothing in comparison to the value of that pearl. Paul said, "I count all things as loss and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus, my Lord... That I may share in His resurrection." Do you not feel the same, my brother?
When the glorious reign of Christ has finished the work assigned to it He will turn the Kingdom over to God, the Father, that He may be all in all. Then will be fulfilled God's plan as originally stated to Father Adam. All evil and all of the wicked will have been destroyed; there will be no rebellion against God anywhere; sin and evil will have taught their lessons; those who have availed themselves of the opportunities of the Kingdom will be perfect and in harmony with God, and mankind will have the kingdom. The Kingdom shall be given to the saints of the most High, as Daniel declares, but they will not need the dominion, having attained the Divine nature and the better conditions; therefore the Kingdom of earth will be eternally the portion of perfected mankind.
What beyond that? You say, "Nothing is known beyond that. The Church will have had all of her glory, and will retire to private life, as does the president when his term of office is over." Not so: Jesus is finally to be heir of all things, and the Church, His bride, is to be joint heir of all things with Him. "All things are yours, you are Christ's and Christ is God's." "But," you say, "there are no more rebellious provinces to subdue, and bring into harmony with God; what will we do?" Look out some starry night and see all of the worlds about us. Think how long a time would be required to order affairs on Jupiter and Mars; to bring races upon these; to instruct them; to start things going. But what when through with these? Able astronomers tell us there are many suns, each having planets or world's revolving about it as our earth revolves about the sun. How many, a thousand? Yes; more. Ten thousand suns? Yes, more. Fifty thousand suns? Yes, more. A hundred thousand suns? Yes, more than that. Two hundred thousand? More than that. Five hundred thousand suns with planets revolving about them? Yes, more than that. Would there be a million? Yes, more. Ten million? More. Fifty million? More. A hundred million? Yes; between a hundred and a hundred and twenty-five millions of suns. Think of that; and allowing eight planets for each sun it would make a billion worlds. Do you think, dear friends, that you are going to run out of a job? I tell you, no. Our Father is rich. He calls us into His family out of the riches of His grace. As the apostle says in Eph. 2:7, "That in the ages to come God might show the exceeding richness of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." Think of that! I have not told you half now.
Well, may we pray, "Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is done in Heaven." Is not that our attitude? We are right close to home now; God is speaking to us. If we desire a share in that glorious Kingdom as associates of His Son, we must make our calling and election sure by so running in the race as to obtain that Divine blessing, and honor, and glory with our dear Savior.
[CR427]
Christian Liberty
OUR TEXT for this evening is found in the eighth of Paul's letter to the Romans, verse 21: "Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
When we speak of liberty in respect to our human family, we must necessarily use the term in an accommodative sense. All civilized nations are prone to boast of their liberty. Christian people are also disposed to boast of our liberty, and yet as a matter of fact the whole world (as the Apostle explains) are slaves. We were born slaves, and only those who have been set free know what real liberty is. Our text, however, assures us that it is part of the Divine program that all of God's creatures who will, may eventually experience this liberty.
As we look out into the world we perceive that everyone, not the world merely but the Church also, are bound in a certain way, bound by our own ignorance for one thing, bound by our own mental weakness, our lack of knowledge, our moral weakness and imperfection, and our physical weakness, so that, as the Apostle has truly said, we cannot do the things which we would. From this standpoint, dear friends, all talk of liberty might seem to be strained. And then the natural question arises: Why did God create us? Why did He bring us into circumstances of slavery, sin, and imperfection in our own flesh? The Bible answers that we were all born in sin, we were all shapen in iniquity, "in sin did my mother conceive me." That is the explanation. We know it is the truth that none was ever perfect born except one, Jesus. Adam was in his perfection when God created him in His own image, in His own likeness, and declared him to be very good, very satisfactory to God. That must have been perfection, my dear friends; nothing short of perfection is satisfactory to God. We are imperfect, and therefore cannot of ourselves be satisfactory. We require that something should be done on our behalf in order to render us satisfactory to God. We need a great work of restitution and reconstruction. We need that these mortal bodies of ours should be changed, made perfect. If they were perfect, with our minds, our will, and our intentions perfect, what grand privileges we would have in life, and especially so if all the human family were of the same mind. If right-mindedness prevailed, Oh how grand the world would be! Even at the present time, notwithstanding all the disadvantages of the curse, how beautiful it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. To have the spirit of a sound mind, to have the spirit of liberty, is a great advantage in the present life. What advantage has a Christian? Much every way, he has been made free, not wholly free but partially free.
This matter of slavery, then, dear friends, in order to have the thing properly before our minds, must be recognized as a slavery which began six thousand years ago, when our first parents were disobedient to God and were expelled from Eden, and cut off from fellowship with the Divine Creator. Then, indeed, their weakness and their ignorance began to weigh upon them, and to impair their powers of mind and of body. It was not long before the disappointments and dissatisfactions of their minds were impressed upon the children that were born, and even in the first of their children we find a murderer. Doubtless he was marked by the very conditions that prevailed at the time of his birth and before. The parents, cast out of Eden, would naturally feel a measure of resentment, dissatisfaction and discontent, wondering if they should not have had more consideration, wondering who should be blamed, and striving to console themselves with the changed conditions in which they found themselves under the curse, outcasts from Eden. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground from whence thou wast taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. That is to say, the curse under which they lived, and the sweat of face which was incidental to gaining their livelihood, so changed their general attitude towards everything that selfishness came in. All this, we can [CR428] see, marked the children, and thus the first son was a murderer, he had the spirit of a murderer born in him; a spirit of resentment was there. Not that Cain was wholly to blame for his condition, any more than you and I are wholly to blame for our condition. You were born in sin, I was born in sin, and so was the whole human family, according to God's Word, born sinners; and the responsibility for this lies not with God; God did not create our race imperfect; the responsibility lies with Father Adam. With everything perfect and everything to his advantage, his was the disobedient act, the sin that brought the trouble upon himself and upon all of his children. God's share in the transaction, therefore, has been merely the holding up of those glorious principles of righteousness which eventually shall shine out and be manifest to angels and to men, as the only proper course which God could have pursued in respect to His rebellious children.
And the fact, dear friends, that we were thus born under these conditions explains to us a great deal that previously was so mystifying. How many people ask: Why did God create that man in such a condition? Why did God bring forth into life the imbecile? Thus the Lord is charged with what Adam did, and what the children of Adam do. People are thus very unjust because of their ignorance of God, and because of their ignorance of the laws of heredity. But we are now seeing that the laws of heredity prevail. The manner in which you live as parents at the time of the birth of children has much to do with their future. Not that it is possible for us as imperfect beings to bring forth perfect children. That is impossible, because "who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" as the Scriptures remark. But in proportion as the parents are sanctified to God, in that proportion the child will have a blessing. You remember how the Apostle Paul says that the believing parent (even if the other parent is an unbeliever), exercises a sanctifying, setting-apart influence in respect to the child. Whether the believing parent be father or mother, the child is counted as belonging to the believer; for the Apostle says, "Else would your children have been unclean." Because God's people enter into relationship with God, all that they have shares in their relationship to Him. Not only their children, but all that they possess, belongs to the Lord when they have made themselves fully His by consecration. And so our children from this standpoint, the Apostle declares, are the Lord's children, and His special care is over these children of believing parents. But even upon this simple doctrine of God's Word (and the beauty of it is manifest), namely, that He should have a special care over the children of those who have made a consecration of their lives to Him, that their consecration should more or less mark their children favorably, many have stumbled. We know what errors have been taught right from this very text. Presbyterians, having established to their satisfaction the doctrine that persons are either elect or non-elect, and that this election took place long before this world was made, naturally enough believe that their children are elect also, and thus in olden times they divided between elect children and non-elect children. The elect were all to go to Heaven and the non-elect were all to go to eternal torture.
The Presbyterian General Assembly meeting in the United States, held about eight weeks ago, in the city of Atlanta, Ga., passed a very wonderful resolution on this subject of eternal torture. I was pleased to read that they resolved that, henceforth, no infants shall be damned to eternal torment. That is grand, dear friends! Think of it: If 90,000 a day are dying, at least one-third of that number are infants, and thus 30,000 infants are saved every day! Now, the only wonder is that our dear Presbyterian friends did not do this sooner. But we rejoice at every step, and we believe that others will be sure to follow. I do not, indeed, have any feeling of retaliation. Quite to the contrary, I rejoice. My parents were Presbyterians; I was duly baptized that I might be one of the elect infants and get to Heaven, and I appreciate the confidence of my parents. They did according to their light, and I am glad that by the grace of God our light is still better than theirs, not that we have a new light, but that the same lamp (God's Word) is now illuminated as never before. Each page is casting light and glory upon the other pages. Indeed, the whole book is luminous; and as you and I become real Bible students, and take off the sectarian spectacles that so troubled us, we begin to see light in God's light. Then our hearts also are illuminated. The illumination is going on, and I find that I can see that illumination even in the faces of those who have come to a knowledge of the Truth. Their faces seem to shine in a way they did not shine before. They seem to shine more than the faces of other good people even. You know so many people in the world have only blank faces, they have nothing within that gives the real brightness, and even if they be Christ's and are trusting in the Lord, there is so much that is obscure and so much that is dark, just as it was with ourselves, no wonder that their countenances are more or less overcast. But now, thank God, the true light is shining more and more clearly, and we enjoy it, and it is shining from our faces I trust, and is being told by our tongues for the edification and the blessing and refreshment of others, that all may have a share in the blessing that is coming to God's people. That light was obscured for a time during the Dark Ages, because the Word of God was then neglected. It was not studied at all for over 1,400 years. Only creeds were studied; and even since the abandonment of creeds to some extent, the Bible is generally only partially studied, with fear and trembling, lest anyone should get away from the creeds. Such forget that God never had anything to do with the creeds, that they were man-made, and even worse than that, devil-made.
I am glad, dear friends, that Presbyterians are seeing the plan of God more fully, and that they are realizing, as we are realizing, that God is love, and that a God of love never damned even the infants. We would hold that nobody is in danger of going to the eternal torment that we once said we believed in. We are glad that our Presbyterian friends very kindly let the little ones off, it is a step in the right direction. We rejoice with them, and we hope that some steps will be taken for the liberation of others who died before this resolution was passed, that the damage may thus be removed entirely. Yet with our understanding of the matter none need have troubled. We know that the little ones are merely waiting, just as all the remainder of Adam's race are waiting, for the second coming of Messiah. They are all waiting for the time in which Christ will set up His Kingdom, when He will bind Satan for 1,000 years, that the "Old Dragon" may deceive the nations no more. Oh, how sadly he has been deceiving us, and how glad we are to get rid of the deception, and to see God's true character more fully!
So, then, dear friends, this doctrine of eternal torment is merely one of the delusions that have been upon us, merely one of the chains of slavery from which we were freed. And yet we were there under those heavy chains of superstition, ignorant of God's Word. We did not know our God, not having properly studied His Word. Now we are getting a little more freed from the obscurity of the past, and we thank God.
The world is grasping after liberty today perhaps more than ever before. They are seeing the value of liberty, they are appreciating it. Right here I might remind you of one great stroke for liberty, which ended in anarchy, namely, the French Revolution. It looks to us, not only from the natural standpoint but also from the standpoint of God's Word, as if the tendency of our day is very much in the same direction. The whole world today, with its greater knowledge, is appreciating liberty more than ever before, and in their agitation for liberty they are inclined to go to the other extreme and resort to anarchy. The fear of the whole world is anarchy. Not only do the common people fear it, but the most intelligent statesmen in the world fear it, even as Jesus said (describing this particular day), "Men's hearts are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming." Those things have not come yet, but Jesus referred to men's attitude before the events should come; the anticipation of the trouble brings fear, and thus the world is in this measure of dread. We ought to have a great deal of sympathy with those who are in this fearful attitude, and who are loving liberty. We love liberty ourselves, and if they are inclined to make some mistakes, we should think very sympathetically of them. We see our own mistakes. Perhaps if we had not come to a better knowledge of God's character and His glorious plan respecting the future, you and I might have entertained just as wrong conceptions of liberty as some of the world do today; and you and I might be making for anarchy just as some others are making for anarchy today.
Socialists say to us: "Never mind about the future. We have been told long enough to look to the future for our reward. We are now intending to look to the present for our reward." The poor creatures are without enlightenment in respect to their liberties and rights as men. They have no enlightenment respecting God's true plan, and they are thus losing faith in the future life. The danger is that when they lose faith in a future life, the present life may go for a [CR429] song so far as they are concerned. They will then be ready to sacrifice it for any bauble, for any brutish arrangement that they may term liberty.
But we are talking this evening about the true liberty. There is a true liberty which God has provided, and that liberty is coming. It is not here yet, but every indication is in harmony with the testimony of God's Word, that liberty is coming, and getting nearer every day.
We are not to forget the part that Satan and the fallen angels have had in man's degradation and enslavement. The Apostle particularly tells us about the influence of the "doctrines of devils," that is, of the fallen angels, and how they have affected the world. The whole world is more or less deluded by these doctrines of demons; and the strange thing is that in Christian lands the very worst of these devilish doctrines is found! I was put to shame not a great while ago when speaking to some intelligent natives in India. Apologizing for the fact that they were not Christians, they said: "We cannot be Christians, because we cannot believe what your missionaries have told us, and we cannot believe in your God. We acknowledge that the white man is very brilliant in many respects, and we realize that in a number of respects he is our superior; but when they tell us in their religious talks that our forefathers for generations past have been in eternal torment because they did not believe in Jesus, we cannot receive it. Our God would not allow us to torture even dumb creatures, and how can we believe in and worship a God who would torture human beings, and all on account of their ignorance?" I was obliged to reply: "My friends, we agree with you. But such is not the character of our God. We Christians have misrepresented our Heavenly Father and His glorious arrangements. We are sorry now that we misrepresented our God, and as we get our eyes more widely opened from day to day, seek to tell others of how loving and merciful He is." They said: "Will you not stop awhile and explain it to us?" But I replied: "My appointments are booked ahead and it is impossible for me to stay, but I will arrange for someone to visit you and tell you about the God of Love, and to point out to you what God's plan is." With this promise they were measurably satisfied, and bade me good by, trusting that they would find something satisfactory. They acknowledged that they had nothing satisfactory of their own, but indeed, my dear friends, I was obliged to confess that what they had was as good as anything that was being offered to them--doctrinally, I mean. The missionaries indeed did have moral practices and moral ideals to present, and some education along the lines of sitting upon a stool instead of upon the ground, and eating with knives and forks instead of fingers, all of them very good lessons; but so far as instructions in God's real character was concerned, I found nothing.
Well, this bondage, this slavery in which we were born, has affected us mentally, morally and physically. During the 6,000 years since Adam it has come down and made great inroads upon all the powers and talents that belong to man, so that today we are what we are, and very much ashamed of ourselves as a whole. London could not boast of itself as a whole. London could pick out some noble characters from amongst its inhabitants, no doubt, and take pride in these. And Brooklyn could also take some great characters and take pleasure in them, and also in every other nation and city there would be a disposition to take pride in some of the best and noblest specimens; but as a whole we are sadly undone; as the Prophet David expressed it, speaking as God's mouthpiece: "From the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is no soundness." We are all enslaved to the extent that we have these imperfections. We are all handicapped, we are not free. Now, what do we need to make us free? We need the very things that God has declared He intends to give. Notice the language of our text in Romans 8. The Apostle is pointing us down to the end of this Gospel age, and also pointing us to the work which the Master will do at His second advent. He says (verse 20), that the creature was made subject to vanity, that is, to frailty--mental weakness, moral weakness, physical weakness. We came under that influence not willingly. We did not prefer to be born in sin, we did not prefer to be born in weakness, either mental, or moral, or physical, but we were born thus unwillingly. God was responsible. He was responsible for the curse coming upon our race. He brought that penalty. He cut us off from fellowship with Himself, and justly so. Are not all the interests of His creatures in His hands? Was it not entirely proper that our Heavenly Father should say to Adam and Eve: "If you will keep in line with the thing I have given you, if you will use your powers and talents in harmony with the righteous arrangement that I have made, then you may have them forever, you may live forever, you may inhabit the earth forever, and it will be yours to possess." The Lord said to them that they might multiply their children and fill the earth and subdue it, that is to say, as their children would be born they might extend the boundaries of Eden and take in more and more, subduing the earth, until the progeny of Adam and Eve, all righteous and perfect like themselves, would be of sufficient number to fill the whole earth, and to control and fully use it.
That was the arrangement, and the arrangement also included a penalty, that if they did not be obedient they would not possess the earth so easily, but instead the curse of death would come upon them. (How mistaken were we in imagining the curse was eternal torment.) "You will not be worthy of living at all. My law will see to it that you shall not live as rebels. I am not preparing a universe to be filled with rebels, and those who wish to rebel against My law and authority, they shall be destroyed from amongst the people." So, then, the death penalty was a just penalty. And the fact that God did not strike down our first parents in a moment with a thunderbolt, was merely the exercise of His mercy. He cast them out of the Garden of Eden and permitted them to do the best they could to prolong their lives. Nine hundred and thirty years was the span of Adam's life. Oh, what a constitution he must have had! Fine indeed, an image and likeness of God, king of the earth. Nine hundred and thirty years was he able to battle with the adverse influences of the unprepared earth, without fellowship with God.
God was fully justified in bringing this penalty upon our race; and we rejoice to know that it is not the unjust penalty we once supposed. God had an object in being merciful to His creatures, in allowing them to live as long as they could. He had a purpose. He knew that by and by in the appropriate time He would redeem them, paying the penalty for them, recover them from their fallen condition, and bring them back again, and that all the experiences they would gain in connection with the fall, with sin, sorrow and pain, the groaning and the dying and the sighing, all those experiences would be valuable to them by and by. What a wonderful plan! How reasonable! Thus we see, dear friends, that God is not dealing ruthlessly with mankind in allowing them to have experiences with sin and death. The Scriptures tell us that we are to learn experiences of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, so that when these are brought back into full harmony with God they will know better. They will know that God's ways are made for happiness and for peace. Other ways are ways of unhappiness; they bring disaster. The proposal of God lasted for 4,000 years, and yet that was no sign of its fulfillment. He did, indeed, give to the Jews a law, telling them that if they were able to keep that law, then He would know that they were able to do the work that He wanted to have done in the world. He would commission them as His people in the world; but first He desired them to demonstrate that they were properly the seed of Abraham. God said, in effect: "I have already explained to Abraham that it is My purpose to bless all the families of the earth, and that the blessing shall come through his posterity. Indeed, you are the children of Abraham; and if you only keep My law and obey My statutes, then I will perform on your behalf all that could be asked. I will give you eternal life, and then you will be prepared to accomplish the work which the "seed of Abraham" was to accomplish, and thus become the blessers of the remainder of the race of mankind." The Israelites rejoiced exceedingly when God promised them such special favor. How disappointed the poor people were as they, year by year, tried to keep that law but were not able to do so. They, like the remainder of the world, were imperfect through the fall, and therefore, like the remainder of the world, could not keep God's perfect law. We cannot do the things that we would. The Jew found he could not obey that law much though he desired to do so. He did get a blessing, however, by trying to keep it; and every person who tries to live in harmony with God and with the principles of righteousness will surely receive benefit in himself (in his mind and his body); but he cannot gain everlasting life. No, God has shut the door to everlasting life, and it can be gained only in one way, through the one door that God has appointed, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ.
But I say that in due time God sent His Son, born of a virgin, that He might redeem, purchase back, that which Father Adam and all his race lost. How? Why, the penalty [CR430] all came through one man, therefore God can justly let the death of one man offset the death penalty of another man. We perceive a perfect equation here. As the whole race came under condemnation through one man's disobedience, so the whole race may come into the other man's justification. "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead, For as all in Adam die, even so all in Christ shall be made alive." But this grand deliverance is not yet, it is merely prospective. Jesus came, and Jesus died. Yes, the ransom price is in the hands of justice; but it has not yet been applied for the sins of the world. No, we are still waiting. This ransom price affects the whole human family. Everyone involved is equally interested in the death of Jesus.
Now, what is God's proposal? Oh, His proposal is so broad and grand that when first we learned of it we were amazed and said: It is too good to be true. But, my dear brothers and sisters, why should we prefer to think our Heavenly Father is a devil, instead of thinking of Him as being a gracious God and (as He tells us Himself) the Father of mercies and the God of all grace? This message appeals to our hearts, it is the message that we need. All the heathen have devil-gods, none of them have a worse one than we imagined we had. Oh, I was ashamed when I asked the natives why they made their images so horribly ugly. They had no answer, but my conscience smote me when I remembered what an ugly idol I had mentally made for myself in past times. My idol was not graven by the tool of a carpenter, or a stone-mason, but my idol was printed with ink on paper; describing a creed that required a worse god than any heathen god in wood or stone. But the best of God's people gradually triumph over those wrong conceptions. They get better ideas, and try to forget the dream, the nightmare of the Dark Ages. They try to live more in the sunlight of God's precious promises. And yet at times the dreadful creed-god will come in only to cause us trouble and distress.
But thanks be to the true God, we now see that the penalty for sin is not eternal torment, but death; and the recovery is a resurrection from the dead, applicable to the whole human race. The resurrection of the dead, says the Apostle, "Both of the just and of the unjust." It leaves none out. Then those dear little infants that we thought were damned and going into damnation at the rate of 30,000 a day, are simply going down into the tomb. Rachael speaks of these. You remember it is written in the Prophets: "Rachael weeping for her children" because "they are not." She was not weeping for her children because they are in hell or purgatory, but because they "are not." And the Lord's message to Rachael was: "Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy"--the great enemy Death. Death is the enemy that has been stealing our children and loved ones, and causing all the havoc in the world under the curse. God has made His arrangement, and the time is all set. As there was a set time in which Christ was to come at the first Advent and the set work for Him to do then, so there is a set time for Him to come at the second Advent. We may not all know it, but God has a set time. Known unto the Lord are all His works from the foundation of the world. In God's set time Messiah shall come again, not to be crucified, not to suffer again the just for the unjust, not to redeem man again. Oh, no, there is no need for any further suffering for sin. He did suffer, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us back into harmony with God; but now He comes a second time, says the Apostle, without a sin offering unto salvation; that He may save those for whom He died. For whom did He die? Jesus by the grace of God tasted death for every man, Jew or Gentile, bond or free, of every nation and race, color and sex, all are included. I tell you, my dear friends, we have a God who is a great one, and He does His work so grandly. He has lengths and breadths and heights and depths of love and mercy and gracious provision that we never would have dreamed of. In that future time Messiah shall be reigning. The Kingdom shall be the Lord's, and Satan shall be bound that he may deceive the nations no more. The dead shall be awakened and then helped up out of their depravity and mental weakness. All the bondages of ignorance and superstition will be broken off. Strength of mind and body will be obtained by the restitution processes.
I have often tried to think what a perfect human being would look like. I would like to have a picture of the Savior, for I believe that such a picture would give us a good idea of what a perfect man must be like. The Scriptures say, indeed, that when the people heard Jesus they wondered, and bare him witness respecting the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth, the fine gentle thoughts and grand expression coming down to the simplicity of the common people, that they could all appreciate. And I think that Pilate bare record in that act of his when he brought forth the Master for the last time. Evidently perceiving that there was no cause for death in Jesus, you remember that he had thought to satisfy the fiendish sentiment of the mob by having Him whipped, then he presented our Lord to the people and proclaimed, "Ecce homo!" that is, "Behold the man!" "See the man! You have not another Jew like this man! Do you really want Him crucified? Do you want to crucify the best appearing Jew you have?" This seems to be the last appeal. "Look at the man now. Look Him in the face and tell me, do you want to have Him killed?" Well, dear friends, we are glad that the time is coming when all such misunderstandings will be things of the past. We are not faulting those who crucified the Savior. Indeed, we remember there was a great deal of loving interest, as St. Peter explains, saying: "I wot, brethren, that in ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers, for if they had known they would not have crucified the Prince of Life"--the life-giving Prince, the One through whom everlasting life is to come. They would not have crucified Him had they known; therefore God hid it from their eyes, from the eyes of those not in the proper condition of heart, and then in their blindness they did what they would not have done had their eyes been opened. Messiah must be cut off as foretold, according to Divine purpose. Away back in Moses' time it was written, "Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree." In order that Jesus should be made a curse and should fulfil all the requirements of the law, He must suffer upon the cross. It was so arranged of God, and He allowed the Jews to be merely blinded to some of these facts; He allowed them to thus fulfil His word. But as I say, I have sometimes wondered what the perfect man will look like when the whole world shall have come back. The work of the thousand years shall not only have influenced those living at the beginning, but shall have affected all those who have gone down into the tomb. You remember the Apostle says that they shall all have a resurrection, every man in his own order--in his own company--indicating that there will be a different classification of those coming forth from the tomb. They will come forth in the same condition, with the same imperfections with which they went down-- everything that they inherited from Adam apparently will be theirs still. They will come forth, and it will be declared to them, and they will understand, that God has provided a Savior and a great one, able to save to the uttermost, even to save those who have gone down into the pit, into Sheol, into hades, into the grave, into the state of death. Thus will God show His power in a work of re-creation. What could equal such a manifestation of power? Nothing could compare with bringing father Adam from the state of death. Infinite power will be manifested in re-creating man with the same peculiarities and characteristics as he had before he died. That is what the Bible proposes, and that is the work of the thousand years, namely, the restitution, restoration. Those who fall in line with the Kingdom arrangement will make greater progress in restitution and reach perfection sooner than others. Even the slow will have the opportunity granted to them, and some Scriptures imply very clearly, we think, that one hundred years of trial will be granted to each one, and that if he makes no evidence of progress in a hundred years he will be cut off as merely a cumberer of the ground, and unworthy of any further consideration at the hand of the great Messiah.
My dear friends, when we notice how much men can accomplish even at the present time in ten years without the interposition of Divine power, even though handicapped with ignorance and superstition, and with every mental, moral and physical blemish, we wonder how much will be accomplished in ten years under Messiah's Kingdom. I think that ten years of Divine rule will make great inroads upon all the various vices and sins of the world. I think that ten years of Divine discipline will show great reformation and transformation throughout the world, twenty years still more; and I would like to imagine the condition of the world fifty years from the time Messiah sets up His Kingdom. I fancy it will be a glorious world. I fancy very few will fail in obedience to God; and yet it is not for me to judge, or for you or for anyone to judge. The Bible does intimate that some, even after all the display of Divine goodness, will have the characteristics of Satan himself. When fully surrounded by Divine favor Satan became a wilful transgressor, and in [CR431] pride attempted to set himself up in opposition to God. All those who have Satan's spirit are spoken of as his messengers, his followers and disciples; and for Satan and all his followers God has provided the second death--everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power. They shall be treated like natural brute beasts, as St. Peter says. Then, my dear brethren, our text leads us down to the time when all this work of restitution has been accomplished, and it says that when the whole world shall have been restored and brought back to perfection, that will be the deliverance of the creature from the bondage of corruption. Don't you see? The "creature" referred to is the human family. Our good brother Wesley made quite a serious blunder of this text when he said it might be cattle, and expressed it so in one of his writings. But any good man might make a mistake, and we are not finding fault with him. Still, we understand that God has not provided everlasting life for the brute creation. We find nothing of that in the Word of God. They die because that is the order of their nature, to live for a certain period of time and serve their purpose as natural brute beasts, and then having served their purpose to have others take their place. Only for man did God ever propose everlasting life. And so when Jesus died there was no mention of redeeming the brute creation. They would perform, as it were, the functions that God had arranged for them. It was man who was the great object of God's arrangement. It was man who had sinned for whom Christ died. It was, as the Apostle Paul makes clear and explains, by one man's disobedience that sin came in, and by one man's obedience righteousness comes in. So, then, this text of the Apostle in Romans becomes clear and luminous from this standpoint.
The Apostle says that the creature was made subject to vanity not willingly. God arranged it so. Not willingly, but by reason of Him who had subjected the same. He allowed the curse to come, He allowed this inheritance to pass from one generation to the next, the father and mother to mark their children in sin. But He allowed this reign of sin and death that has been going on. He could have blotted them out of existence instantly with a thunderbolt, but He preferred to leave it as it is for the lessons to be learnt; He subjected it in hope. There was hope in it; He wished to give mankind a hope. It was not a sure thing for them because it was still to be left to themselves. When the Messiah shall reign and all the opportunities shall be granted to mankind to return to the Father's house and to return to the perfection in which they were created, to return from the ways of imperfection and from the bondage of corruption, when that opportunity is theirs, it will still be for them to decide for themselves. Our Lord explains the matter: The Father seeketh such to worship Him as worship Him in spirit and in truth, and only to these will He be pleased to give the fulness of his blessing. So, then, it is in the hope that they would profit by this experience of pain and sorrow and sin and dying and sighing and crying, and fully learn the great lesson that a great mistake was made, and when they find themselves back again, they will be so armed with the knowledge of the past, and with the knowledge gained in connection with the fall of the race and the recovery of the race, they will be fully armed against all the alarms of sin and Satan, and they will say: To my Lord I will be true who bought me with His precious blood. It is for the hope that there would be such a class--a considerable class-- in that hope God arranged things, when he allowed this law of heredity to operate against our race, and to bring us down to weakness of mind and body. It was in this hope, and He kept repeating this hope, you remember. He told Adam and Eve just a little about it, saying: The seed of the woman shall yet crush the serpent's head. The serpent represented evil, and the seed of the woman represented the Messiah. Then again He repeated the same thought to Abraham: In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. The hope was always kept prominent. Then to Israel, there is a hope for Israel, and to whom it was given if they could keep the law then you will get life and I can use you in connection with that hope. So, also, with the Christ, the same hope and the same promise. Unchangeable Himself, God seems to have been working according to the counsel of His own will. But as we get nearer and nearer to the great day when these things are to be consummated, God is granting more and more light upon His Word, upon the writings of the Old and New Testaments.
Our eyes are opening more widely to see more of the lengths and breadths, more of the heights and depths than we saw before. Thus we see, dear friends, that it is in hope. Let us consider what the hope is.
Because the creature itself (that is the groaning creation, mankind), also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption. The bondage of corruption is the bondage of death. What is the bondage of death? The bondage of death is a principle we all concede by the weaknesses we have. Your moral weaknesses are so much of that penalty working out in you. This is all the bondage of corruption and death that is holding the entire world. Is not that true? Can we improve upon the Apostle's statement? Is there a wise man anywhere that could write the matter more clearly that would fit all the circumstances as we know them in our experience? Surely not.
Now, then, God's purpose is to deliver the creation from this groaning body; and He has appointed the thousand-year day of Messiah's reign, and Messiah is to be the one who shall deliver men, break their shackles and set them free; not contrary to their wills, but little by little as they exercise their wills and strive to overcome their weaknesses and endeavor to get out of the bondage of corruption. All those endeavors will bring blessing and will be useful to them, far better indeed than if God were to bring them forth from the tomb perfect. If God were to bring them forth perfect they would not know themselves, let alone be known to others; and what then would be the advantage of all the experiences of the downward course? Everything would be lost, they would be just like new Adams all over the world if brought back perfect, and just as liable to sin as Adam was liable to sin because he had not the experience.
Adam had not tasted of evil, he had only tasted of the good; but now God for six thousand years has been giving the world a taste of evil. We have all been eating the bitter fruit, and so the Prophet Ezekiel, you remember, tells us how the children's teeth are all set on edge. The fathers (i.e., father Adam) had eaten the sour grape of sin, and all the children's teeth have been set on edge. You have your weaknesses and imperfections, and I have had mine all as a result of the same transgression. God speaking through the same prophet says that in the coming glorious epoch this law shall no longer be operative. He that eateth the sour grape in that day his teeth shall be set on edge; the soul that sinneth will be the one that will die. In the case of Adam, one soul sinned, and twenty thousand million souls die as the result because they are his children. But one soul died for Adam, as we read: Jesus poured out his soul unto death; He made His soul an offering for sin. In the future Jesus shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied. He shall behold the grand result--the whole human family bought with the precious blood, and all will have the opportunity of profiting by this uplifting, and thus identify themselves with the experiences of the past and with those other experiences of the future, so that at the conclusion they shall fully get rid of the bondage of corruption, the bondage of death. They will be grand creatures, they will be even better than father Adam. Adam was perfect so far as the physical organism was concerned, but his knowledge was deficient. He knew some thing of the favorable side of life, but he lacked experience of the dark side.
As men return they will be fully informed--having gained knowledge of sin and death, they will now gain knowledge of righteousness and life. If they then decide in favor of righteousness, they will get God's blessing of everlasting life, because "the creature also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Was Adam a child of God before he became entangled with the bondage of corruption? Yes, indeed. Is he not in the Bible spoken of as a son of God? But are his children spoken of as sons of God? Oh, no; not down to the time the Redeemer came. During all that time no sons of God were mentioned. At the very most Abraham was a friend, not a son. And at the very most the people of Israel were the house of servants under Moses, not a house of sons. Indeed you remember that that was the very plea upon which they once thought to stone the Savior. He said He was the Son of God, while they denied that anyone could be a son of God. They were quite right, they were not sons of God, for the door to sonship had not yet been opened. No one could be a son until God had made provision for his return to sonship. The whole world, as they gain perfection by the restitution process, will get back to the liberty of sons of God. Oh, that will be glorious, that will be joyful! The holy angels, you know, are all sons of God. He acknowledges them that they are sons, though they are sons on different planes from ours--some upon one plane and some upon another. [CR432] They will all have the same liberty from corruption, the same freedom from death. God does not have any dying sons; whoever is counted of God as a son must have life. He has no dead sons, they are all living sons. Well, where do we come in, Brother Russell? Where is our share? You have talked about restitution in the future, how the creation is coming forth into the liberty of sons of God, but do not the Scriptures say that we are sons of God? Yes, the Apostle John says: "Now are we sons of God;" but he adds that it doth not yet appear what we shall be. We are sons of God, and yet we have not received the full blessing that belongs to the sons of God. We are sons of God in an embryotic sense, in a sort of anticipatory sense. We have the promises of God and the acceptance of God, but we have these in an unfulfilled condition. We are only sons of God in proportion as we can exercise faith. But how do we get to be sons of God? Sons all have liberty. We are speaking of all who belong to Christ. When I speak of belonging to Christ I do not recognize any sectarian lines whatever, whether Baptists, or Presbyterian, or Episcopalian, or Roman Catholic, or Lutheran, or whatever they may be. Those sects are not of God's arrangement; God has only arranged one Church, the church of the first-borns whose names are written in heaven. God's people, wherever they may be, whether in these different denominations or out of them all, if they belong to Christ then they belong to the Church which is the church of the first-borns whose names are written in heaven. No one can blot them out from their membership except the Master Himself; and He says He will not blot out the names that He writes there, except for disloyalty in coming up to the agreement we have entered into as our reasonable service. How do we become sons? How much liberty have we got? There are questions that can be viewed from different standpoints. If you ask the world today, "What liberty do Christians have?" I think they would reply that they have not any liberty at all, they are the most bound-up people imaginable. I was traveling one time in Germany, and there were two passengers in the same compartment with myself. They noticed that I did not get out at the wait stations and get a drink of beer, that I didn't smoke and didn't seem to do any swearing. One of them looked over in a kind and compassionate way, and said: "Say, Mister, what pleasure do you have in life?" Well, I could only smile, my dear friends, because I had so much pleasure, far more than they had, and I was just wondering what pleasure they had in life. Our standpoints really are so different that, as the Apostle says, the world knoweth us not even as it knew Him (Jesus) not. A different standpoint, you see. The world cannot understand our position, and we do well not to take it too seriously with them.
But now, as to our own position, from God's standpoint what is it? Well, in one sense of the word we become free, and in another sense of the word we become bond-slaves. First of all we will see what the Apostle says. He says we become bond-slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. St. Paul was speaking of himself. He says, "Let no man trouble me, I bear about in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ." What did he mean? The Greek implies much more than our English does. In olden times they had slaves, and every slave had a branding iron upon him to indicate that he belonged to such a person, so that if he ever strayed or was lost he could be identified. The Apostle spoke of himself as having become a bond-servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus he says, I bear about in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ, having in mind the blows he had received when he had been whipped and beaten because of the witness to the truth and his fidelity to the Lord. He had gloried in his difficulties. You remember on one occasion we read of St. Paul and Silas being cast together in the prison at Philippi. They had been lashed, notwithstanding that Paul was a Roman citizen and could have claimed otherwise. In their haste the authorities had lashed them before investigation, and according to the custom, salt was rubbed into the wounds. You can imagine how their poor backs felt as they lay bound, with their feet in the stocks and their backs bent in a very awkward position, bleeding and smarting with the salt! That was a very sore experience, my dear friends, and let us be thankful that we have not the same experiences today; yet let us make the resolution that if, by God's providence, anything of that kind should come along, we shall strive that by any means we might be accounted approved of God, and receive grace sufficient for such experience. But regarding these two noble men--whoever reads the narrative must confess that there are very few such characters in the world today suffering for righteousness sake. These two noble souls broke out in praise to God until the prison walls rang! My dear friends, this is the same Apostle that says to you and me, "Rejoice in tribulation." He knew how to rejoice in tribulation, he could speak from experience; and if you and I should have the same experience, or if our experience come through some other kind of tribulation, in any event let us learn to rejoice in tribulation; knowing (it is the knowledge that makes such a difference) that tribulation worketh patience, and that patience is working experience, and that experience is working hope. All these trying experiences God permits to come, and must be intended to work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. We have, like the Apostle Paul, become bond-servants to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have described what slavery we have come into. How much liberty do we have in Christ? Let us view it from one standpoint. May you eat what you please? May you drink what you please? No. May you be clothed as you would? No. Oh, you say, almost any slave would be allowed to drink and eat whatever he could get. But not so with us. Whether we eat, or whether we drink, or whatever we do, do all to the glory of God. Bound like that? Just so, just so. Pretty severe bondage is it? Worse than that though. More of it still? You cannot even think as you want to. Now, my dear friends, did you ever know a slavery before that attempted to hinder a man's thought? That is the slavery of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only slavery that attempts to hinder a man's thoughts, and, as the Apostle says, to bring every thought of the heart into the captivity to the will of God in Christ. Tightly bound up! If you can get any tighter bonds than those show them to me.
Well, now, my dear friends, there is a peculiarity about this matter, for while you are tightly bound up you have absolute liberty at the same time. Yes, my dear friends, because these bonds are voluntary bonds. It is not that the Lord binds you up, it is not that the Lord puts these shackles upon you. No, indeed, you put these on yourself. He never made a slave, he merely tells you the privileges and the opportunities, and if you choose then to bind yourself, and to bring yourself into subjection and under restraint, then you will be kept of Him. Jesus Christ did not do His own will, but the will of His Father who sent Him. If we would be of His mind and spirit, this must be our attitude and our course, to seek not to do our own will but the will of the Father in heaven. It is therefore a voluntary matter. And more than that, the yoke you have to put on for yourself. He would not even say, Will you take my yoke? He said, Take my yoke, put it on yourself. And if you have fastened it on the Lord with an eternal covenant to be servants of Him, you put that yoke upon yourself. More than that, if still upon you you have the key, and you can open that lock and discard that yoke and be your own freeman again if you choose. So you see, my dear friends, you have not been brought into subjection, you have merely subjected yourself. Christ has not subjected you, you have merely made yourself a bond-slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your own will has done it, that is what the Lord is pleased with. There are not very many, but the Lord seeketh such. He has been seeking such for 1800 years, to be copies of His Son. They must be all copies of His Son, for only copies of Christ will be in the Kingdom class. The seed of Abraham will all be sons, and that is why it has taken so long to find this spiritual seed of Abraham. Jesus Himself was the spiritual seed of Abraham according to the flesh--yet, according to the flesh He could not fulfil the demands of that Abrahamic covenant. He needed to lay down His earthly life, because He needed the earthly rights to give to mankind. If He had kept His earthly rights He would have had nothing to give on our behalf, but when He laid down His life on our behalf sacrificially God highly exalted Him to the Divine nature. Now He has the earthly life-rights at His disposal, for He did not forfeit them by disobedience. He presented His life-rights to justice on behalf of father Adam's life and all the children of Adam, so that by this one sacrifice for ever He might perfect all those who come unto the Father by Him. He perfects the Church now, those who now choose to take up their cross and follow Him, by giving them the experience that they need to enable them to come off conquerors. He makes them free from all other authority, and becomes the only one to whom they are responsible. If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. How? Well, he has already made us free in that he has given us freedom of mind. And then He has shown us how to use this liberty, this freedom. We did not know enough to choose before, now we are free to that extent. And then He has shown us how to use this liberty, this freedom, that by using this liberty [CR433] and sacrificing the earthly nature, we might become joint heirs with Him in glory, honor, and immortality, and partake in all the glorious things that God has in reservation for them that love Him; that thus we may make our calling and our election sure with him--making it sure by obedience now. The glorious first resurrection shall complete the work. We are not fully liberated now, for as the Apostle explains we have this treasure, this new relationship, only in an earthen vessel, only in a mortal body. The new creature cannot use this mortal flesh as it would, owing to imperfections and weaknesses. It would indeed long to bring every power into full obedience to God's will, but it cannot do the things that it would, and so the new creature is waiting for the time when the change shall come; and thus the Apostle mentions this in connection with the blessing that is coming to the world, saying, For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now, and not only they (that is the creation in general) are waiting for perfection and waiting for liberty, freedom from the bondage of corruption, but we, ourselves also, the Church, are waiting. We, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we, even we, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, for the deliverance, waiting for our change, waiting for the time when the new creature, the new man that has already been begotten of the Holy Spirit, shall receive the completion of God's blessing in that glorious resurrection change. That shall make us free indeed! Whom the Son makes free shall be free indeed. He will make us free indeed in the resurrection, in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. Then His work for the world will be to make them free, and during the thousand years He will be liberating them, and then at the close of the thousand years all who will come into harmony with Him will be free from corruption, and will have the glorious liberty of sons of God on the earthly plane. We are not on the earthly plane because we have had a change of nature by becoming related to Christ Jesus and becoming joint-sacrificers with Him, sacrificing the earthly nature. We have become heirs of God with Him, and associate heirs in that higher nature.
Thank God, dear friends, for the glorious prospect, not only for ourselves, but for the unhappy groaning creation. May the Lord help us more and more to appreciate not only the liberty we have in Christ, but to appreciate the fact that it is our privilege to be the bond-servants of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP
WOULD ye be My disciples? Consider again:
Can ye follow My footsteps through trial and
pain?
Can ye throw away pleasure, and glory, and fame,
And live but to honor My cause and My name?
Can ye turn from the glitter of fashion and mirth,
And dwell like a pilgrim and stranger on earth,
Despising earth's riches, and living to bless?
Can you follow the feet of the shelterless?
Can ye ask from your heart the forgiveness of men?
Can ye list to reproaches, nor answer again?
Can ye pray that repentance to life may be theirs
Who've watched for your falling, who've set for you
snares?
When ye hear I am come, then can ye arise,
The joy of your heart springing up in your eyes?
Can ye come out to meet Me, whate'er the cost be,
Though ye come on the waves of a storm-crested sea?
When I call, can ye turn and in gladness "come out"
From the home of your childhood, the friends of
your heart?
With naught but My promise on which to rely,
Afar from their love--can ye lie down and die?
Yea, we'll take up the cross and in faith follow Thee
And bear Thy reproach, Thy disciples to be.
Blest Saviour, for courage, to Thee we will fly;
Of grace Thou hast promised abundant supply.
[CR434]
The Ministry of the Truth
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. (2 Cor. 3:5,6.) THE APOSTLE evidently addressed these words to the Church at Corinth as referring to his own ministry, the ministry of the Truth amongst them. Indeed, he chose very appropriate words, and the matter was very appropriate to them, but we believe there is a still broader sense in which this whole matter can be taken, for it applies to you and to me, and to others of God's people.
The Apostles were specially privileged of the Lord to carry His message and in His name to speak forth the words of life; so in a lesser degree you and I and all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ have this same privilege of showing forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. This is our special business in the world. We are not, therefore, to suppose that the Apostle meant that simply the Church at Corinth were his epistles, and that he has written these things in their hearts, and that, therefore, he was referring to himself merely in this way, for his words elsewhere fully carry out the thought that we have already expressed, namely, that every member of the Church of Christ is an authorized mouthpiece of the Lord. When we speak of the Church of Christ, dear friends, and those who are authorized mouthpieces we are not to have in mind merely all those who bow the knee; the Church of Christ is a very specially called-out class, and a class which has followed that call, and a class who having followed the call of the Gospel, and having approached the Heavenly Father's throne of grace have been accepted of Him, a class which He has not only accepted, but, as the Apostle says, that He has sealed (indicating the sealing of the Holy Spirit). Therefore, only those who have received the seal of the Holy Spirit are really the Church of Christ. There are many others, indeed, who, like the Israelites of old, approached the Holy more or less directly and more or less rapidly and with more or less zeal, but only those who went forward to the extent of making a consecration of themselves were ever permitted to enter into the Holy. (Only those who were priests were permitted to enter the Holy.) And so in God's arrangement in the antitype, He is now calling out a royal priesthood. This priesthood is associated with Jesus, and the Apostle clearly points out to us in many Scriptures that Jesus is the High priest of our profession of our order. We are not of the Aaronic order of priests, for according to the Aaronic order of priests (which was the typical one) Jesus Himself was not a priest; no one might belong to that (as the Apostle points out) except those who were of the special tribe, and appointed to that work, but those priests were only types and, as it were, shadows of that priesthood of which Jesus is the great High Priest, Chief Priest, and of which you and I, by the grace of God, are privileged, if we will, to be the under priests.
And so the congregation of the Lord's people, those meeting in His name, are all of them such as are drawing nigh to God and His message of all who have any interest at all in Him is: draw near unto Me and I will draw near unto you. The nearer we draw to the Lord the closer we are coming into fellowship with Him, the more blessing we have, so that those who make little advance towards the Lord and righteousness and towards holy things, and think a little about the things of God, have a little blessing; God very graciously gives them a little blessing, but they are not Sons of God, they are not Children of God. We are to remember that it is a great mistake that is being made by the world in general when they think along the line they so frequently express, namely, about the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. No greater mistake along Christian lines could be made than that. God has disowned our race entirely. He was the Father of our race, He distinctly tells us so in the Bible, and He just as distinctly tells us that when our race, through our Father Adam became transgressors, He would no longer recognize them as sons but as aliens, as strangers, and placed them under sentence of death. No son of God is under sentence of death; and so, dear friends, Adam and his race are not sons of God, according to our findings in the Bible; no matter what we find elsewhere, no matter what the greatest man on earth might think, we are to go strictly by the Word of God. If we were wise enough of ourselves to know anything, then we would not need the Word of God at all, but since we are not wise enough, and realize that we know nothing of these matters, and that we are wholly dependent upon the Lord's arrangements and revelations of Himself and His plans, it therefore behooves us to take the Word of the Lord implicitly. We are then following that thought when we say that we are not children of God by nature. We were children of wrath, says the Apostle. We were also children of wrath. Thank God we are no longer children of wrath. We have escaped (the Apostle says) the condemnation--or according to a different translation--we have escaped the damnation that was on the world. If these words were only rendered alike in every case our English Bibles would be much more plain to us, but when it is rendered "condemnation" in one place and "damnation" in another our minds are apt to get confused. And so the damnation God has over mankind is not condemnation to torment, nor to throw us to the great adversary and the fallen angels to torture us to all eternity, but the damnation that is upon all men is a condemnation of unfitness to be the sons of God, unfitness for eternal life because we are sinners, and because God has made His arrangements so that He will not recognize any sinners as sons, nor give to any sinners eternal life. We are glad for that. How glad we are that sinners have not by nature eternal life, that thus they might have some eternal suffering or torturing, mental or physical, or of some kind. How glad we are that God has made His plans just as He has declared it in the Word, that life is the gift of God, and that He will give eternal life only to those who come into full accord with Himself, and then since the whole race of Adam got out of accord with God through the disobedience of Father Adam and the condemnation of death, and through the dying process which have weakened us in mind and in body, so that we cannot even do the things that we would do, and we cannot commend ourselves to God as we might like to do. We cannot keep God's perfect law, as the Jew showed us--even the best of them could not keep His law; as we have it in the Scriptures, by the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified in God's sight. And when we understand this we are not amazed at all that the Jews, who for 1600 years or more tried to keep that law, we are unable to keep it, and we are not at [CR435] all surprised that the Apostle points out to us that the law was given by the Almighty, not that He thought that the Jews could keep it, but with the thought that God would set before mankind the perfect standard, so that they might see their imperfections and their need of a Savior, so that in due time God should send forth His Son, born of a woman under the law and the keeper of the law and the obeyer of the law, justified by the law all might realize that the only way to everlasting life is through the merit and the sacrifice Jesus offered on our behalf, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us back again into accord with God.
And now we see, dear friends, as we understand God's Word, that He has made this great arrangement by which the world of mankind might come back into accord with Him, and although He has not yet opened the door to the world, they are still outside, and so far as they know there is no plan of God for them, because God has not revealed to the world His plan, but He has revealed it to the Church, as Jesus says: to you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to all outsiders these things are spoken in parables and in dark sayings, that they might hear and not understand, because it is not for any to understand God's plan except this special class that He is now dealing with; and this special class is the class that is harkening to Him, that is feeling the drawing, that is wishing to draw near unto God, as the Apostle says, feeling after God if haply they might find Him. He wishes to draw near unto all these, and He has sent through Jesus and through the Church a special message to all such, speaking peace by Jesus Christ and by the blood of His cross, telling the world of mankind that God has had a plan, that He has provided a Savior and a great One, and that He is able to save to the uttermost all who will come to the Father through Him.
And then the answer comes back, yes, but thousands and millions have died without even hearing this precious name, the only name given under Heaven amongst men, what about these? The Lord says that His arm is not short, and He assures us that all who are in their graves will hear the voice of the same Son of God, and they will all come forth and they will live and attain to everlasting life, but not yet, not yet the world, God's due time has not yet come. Nearly 2000 years ago the time of God came for beginning the work, and the very beginning of that work, as we see, was the sending of His Son, and the work of the Son was to demonstrate His loyalty to the Father by obedience to the Father's will even unto death, even the death of the cross. And we see then that God declared that because He had thus loved righteousness and hated iniquity, "God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." And so the Apostle tells us with regard to that prophecy respecting Jesus that He by dying had fulfilled the Father's will perfectly, and raised Him from the dead by His own power, and in due time He highly exalted Him far, far above angels and principalities and powers and every name that is named-- far above all, and exalted Him that unto Him every knee should bow. The Heavenly ones? Yes. Both in Heaven and on earth. Already, dear friends, we perceive that the Heavenly Hosts have bowed to the One whom the Heavenly Father has exalted. But the time has not yet come when every knee on earth shall bow, but it is written that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess to the glory of God. And so our faith looks up and waits for that glorious blessing upon the world, when they shall hear that only name and have the opportunity of bowing the knee, and when only those who refuse to come into accord with the divine glorious blessing and arrangements, only they will be destroyed and that without remedy.
Meantime this glorious Master of ours whom we now recognize as our Master because the eyes of our understanding have been opened, and whom the world would be recognizing if their eyes were opened; but their eyes are closed, the god of this world has blinded their eyes and they see not, neither do they understand. The Lord is only wishing to open the eyes of those whose hearts are in that right condition. To have our hearts not in the right condition, this would be to give us knowledge that we should not rightly use. Hence it is written that "None of the wicked shall understand." But the wise shall understand. God wishes His people to know, because He can tell His children of His plans, and they will not be injured by knowing, but there are people in the world who, if they knew of the love of God, might do violence to His love. He has given us the liberty to tell out His message. He has not restricted His people, saying you must not speak here or there, but you may speak My message wherever you have an opportunity, and I will see to it that none will be able to understand it except they have the hearing ear, and I will give that hearing ear.
What a contrast between this arrangement God has made for His great secret society and the other arrangements of secret societies of men. Every secret society recognizes that it must keep certain of their secrets apart from other people, and in endeavoring so to do they have passwords, and have special means of keeping out all those who are not members in proper order and standing. But no such difficulty with the Almighty, because everybody may tell all he is able to tell about God's great plan. None is to be able to understand it, and only those who have the leading of the Holy Spirit and the instruction of the Lord from the inside, they alone will be able to comprehend the lengths and the breadths and the heights and the depths and to know the love of God which passeth all understanding, and to have it rule in their hearts.
We see then, dear friends, that as Jesus has been exalted (1800 years ago) and finished His work, then the next thing in order was the selection of the Church, the under priesthood, the under priests, because God at the same time that He arranged to have a great high priest arranged also to have an order of priests under His headship. There was Aaron, the type and the sons of Aaron under him; here in the antitype there is Jesus and other Sons of God under Him, for "it pleased God," writes the Apostle, "in bringing many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering," and He having become the captain of our salvation is leading onward a company willing to follow in His steps. He has become a leader, He is not driving, no one is being driven by the Lord; fear is not the lash by which any of the Lord's people are driven into sacrifice, it is a privilege of love, and if it is not of love it is not a sacrifice at all, and if there be those who have not the spirit of the Master in this respect, then they are not of the royal priesthood at all, and they will not be associates with Him at all, whatever we think there is for them in the future. God's great arrangement is broad; but now we are specially interested in this word that appertains to ourselves that (as the Apostle says) we might make our calling and our election sure; that we have a calling to God, and that there is an election going on, a selection that God, that God is selecting a special class from amongst mankind to be associates with the great High Priest of our profession, Jesus. The thought that He is to be the king of glory and to reign throughout the earth, and to establish righteousness in the earth, and that we are invited to be associates with Him. O, wonderful thought--was there ever anything like it before? Surely not. Will there ever be anything like it again? We believe not, dear friends. Then this is the one opportunity for becoming members of this royal priesthood, and this is the one opportunity if we have already taken the step. It is the one opportunity of losing that great privilege. Let us hold fast, therefore, whatever we have attained to, and let us press along, as the Apostle says, along this same line; because faithful is He that called you, Who also will do it. We might be in doubt if it were an earthly being that had made us such great promises; we might say that it is all promises; it is on the paper, but it will never reach fulfillment; it was never intended anything but to lure and captivate. O, my dear friends, it is the reverse; we are dealing with the God of all the earth and He is giving away this great privilege and blessing. Moreover, there was a purpose in revealing it. Faithful is He that is calling us Who also will do it.
Now, the Apostle was speaking to some of this priestly class; he was one who had become one of the priests himself. That is to say, each one who approaches God, he reaches the place of a full surrender of himself, of his will, of his all, to God, is then anointed a sacrifice, because Jesus, our great High Priest, stands ready to accept us as joint sacrificers with Himself, making good our shortcomings and imperfections of the flesh that thus our sacrifice may be acceptable with the Father, and that we may become members of this priestly company. Just as soon as we become members of this priestly company, the anointing comes. You remember how every one of the priests before entering upon his office and becoming a member of the High Priest's body, he came under the holy anointing oil. Just so with us. You remember our Lord was anointed with holy spirit, as we read "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore, God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." Above his fellows, head over his fellows. The Church are his fellows. We are his fellows. You know the meaning of the word "fellow," one [CR436] who has fellowship, associated with, not inferior: inferior indeed in some respects in the sense that my hand is inferior to my head, the head is a more honorable part than the hand. But the hand is a fellow member with the head and with all the other members of the body, sharing with the interests of the head. So we all fellowship with the Lord, sharers in this great matter which the Father has entrusted to Him--we have received of the anointing under Him. So the holy anointing oil which came upon our Savior at the time of His consecration that same anointing came from His hand, as the Apostle Peter tells us, upon the Church at Pentecost. He received it from the Father and He shed it forth upon us, and not merely upon those who were there assembled at Pentecost, but that same anointing which ye have received of Him abideth on you and shall be with (in) you, and it has been coming down over the body all the way down for these 1800 years; and whoever comes into the body comes under the anointing, so that the anointing which ye have received--we are not anointed as individuals but as members of His body. Of our own selves we are nothing, we have no standing of ourselves.
Here then is the beautiful picture that God gives us. Now, as soon as we receive this anointing, then we have the authority to preach. My dear friends, there is the anointing that we all can have, without which we would have no authority to preach. Hear how Jesus expresses it, or rather, hear how God expresses it by the prophet in respect to Jesus; and Jesus Himself quoted this very prophecy from Isaiah in the synagogue in Capernaum: 61 Isaiah: The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. "He hath anointed me," what for? To preach? Yes. Was Jesus anointed to preach? When did He get His anointing to preach? At the time of His baptism, when He made consecration and the Holy Spirit came upon Him. Did He have no anointing before that? Did He preach any before that? No. No anointing before. From that time on the spirit of the Lord was upon Him, anointed to preach and to tell the good tidings; and He had good tidings to tell. And so the whole life and ministry of Jesus was this preaching of the Truth, declaring all the Truth; and because He was anointed. Then He authorized His disciples that as soon as they would receive the unction, this anointing, from on high, they should preach, beginning at Jerusalem; and the ministry was to be to all the nations of the world. So it has come down, and the Apostle Paul speaks here as how he is one of these priests which exercised this power and privilege of speaking to others in the name of the Lord; and so he says of the Church: ye are our epistles, ye are manifestly declared to be epistles of Christ, ministered by us, we wrote that in your hearts, we told you about it, you get the blessing through the things that you have heard, and thus written not with ink but with the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. And ye may say, my dear friends, that the same Apostle has been doing a great deal of the writing in your hearts and mine. God has used him as the pen, as it were, by which these precious things were written and impressed in our hearts. This is the message that is so wonderful, that has such a transforming effect upon your life. Why, what were you before you heard of the grace of God, and what a change has it made in all your living and thinking? It not only affected you in respect to your spiritual interest and your worship that you could worship God better in spirit and in truth when you came to know Him, but it affected your earthly affairs I am sure. I am not particularly acquainted with your affairs individually, but I know in a general way from all the true people of God as I come into contact with them that from the time they get clear into the Truth it seems to have a cleansing effect inwardly and outwardly, their methods, their speech, and every power. One gentleman said to me--he was a laboring man, a carpenter-- "why," he said, "Brother Russell, I cannot tell you how much the Truth has done for me. It has made my heart happy and glad, and given me fellowship with the Lord in respect to the present life, and the prospect of that great prize beyond, but, Brother Russell, it has really helped me in my business; my health is better, I can think better, I am more competent in my work, and it has made my employers to have more confidence in me. They tell me to do the work and leave me to do it. Somehow they have the impression that I am living a conscientious life. They have absolute confidence, and they say, go and do it, and it seems as if something had taken place inside, and somehow everything works more orderly and more systematically since I have seen the order of God's great plan." It is true, my dear brethren, concerning nearly all of God's people who have been in the Truth for any length of time, whose lives have had an opportunity of undergoing that great transformation mentioned by the Apostle, this transforming or by the renewing of our minds, and may so be able to prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The Apostle then has done such a work in the Church there, and has been doing such a work in the Church all the way down. He was indeed a very able minister (a minister means a servant, we do not want to forget that). We all want to be ministers of Christ, servants of the Truth, ministers of the Gospel, servants of the Gospel, not a lord, but a servant. We want to keep that thought clearly in our mind, because there is a tendency to lose sight of the meaning of this very simple phrase. Indeed, the Apostle was privileged to receive the message himself to speak forth words to others, so all of God's people are privileged to do so.
Have you received the anointing of him, and does it abide with you? Yes. Very well, it is true of you in proportion to your experience and opportunities, as was true of the sealed or anointed ones. And everything that appertains to him has its relationship to us. And so, when he said "the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek," that also comes to you, just as soon as you come under that same Holy Spirit of anointing.
He was anointed to preach, to preach good tidings. No man ever was anointed to preach bad tidings. Dear friends, there is no scripture for it anywhere. The bad tidings of great misery that have been preached in the name of the Lord that have driven thousands if not millions away from God and the Bible, is not of God, there never was authorization for that--only authorization to preach the good tidings of great joy which shall be indeed to all people. That message all the anointed ones are privileged to speak, and no one else is privileged to speak or preach at all. Not everybody can come here to Great Britain and say, I am from France, and so I speak to you in the name of the French Government. What would be done? Why, he would be arrested. They would say, you are a fraud, you have no authority to speak in the name of the French Government here. He would be subject to arrest, he would be misrepresenting the matter entirely. And so people here, when they claim to be ministers for God, ambassadors for God, they are setting up a claim that they represent the Lord and His Kingdom which is to be established when the right time shall have come. And when the appropriate time shall come, the Psalmist says, that he will ask of the Father, and He will give him the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession, and that he shall then take his great power and reign, but that kingdom is not yet. We are living here, He has sent us the authority, He has sent us the Holy spirit, He has sent us the unction from the Holy One that we should be His representatives, that we should be His mouthpieces, and speak in His name and tell about His coming kingdom, that we might make known to everyone who wants to know, that has an ear to hear, the grace of God that bringeth salvation that has already appeared in the sense in which Jesus is bringing it, and which ultimately is to appear in power and great glory for the blessing of the world. You and I and all the others who have received this anointing of the Holy Spirit, whether you and I know them or not, whoever has the mark which God has recognized, the evidence that he has received the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of sound mind, the new mind of Christ, all such are ambassadors for God, all such are ministers of this New Covenant, ministers of the Truth, and the one message is for us all to show forth the praises of Him Who called us from darkness into His marvelous light; I used to wonder what that was, that marvelous light; was it the light about hell, was that the marvelous light, that 999 out of every 1000 were to be eternally tortured? Oh, no, dear friends, gradually our eyes are opening, we are seeing where that darkness came from, and the Apostle calls them doctrines of demons, and they had their power over us, and we have sympathy still for those over whom they have power; and the same Lord has promised that ultimately all the blind eyes shall be opened, and all the deaf ears shall be unstopped.
But now the Apostle says in our text, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. My dear brothers and sisters. I believe that is one of the most important lessons for God's people to learn. We have no doubt that we are ambassadors [CR437] for God, that we are all privileged to preach in his name according to our opportunities and limitations, as for instance persons of lesser education might not have as much influence as a person of more education might have, and one with more talents might have more than one with fewer talents, and persons of white colour might have more opportunity than a person of darker colour; not that God makes any difference. We are subject to certain conditions which are unavoidable. And the sisters are limited in that they may not preach from public platforms, but there are plenty of opportunities. What grand opportunities we all see every day for sisters, an opportunity of preaching the gospel, showing it forth in her conduct, not merely those who have leisure and time to talk and to visit and to tell about the good things in that way. Some even of the humblest may have the opportunity of telling a neighbor over the fence, as they hang up the washing, something about the Savior, something about the glorious plan of God. All have the opportunity of passing the literature on that will carry the message, and so all are privileged to be sharers together in this great work that God is doing in sending forth the message. What message, Brother Russell? The same message that Jesus preached. What was that? That was the message of the kingdom, this gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world for a witness, not to convert the world, but for a witness. But why have a witness if you are not going to convert the world? The witness is for the purpose of finding that special class which the Lord is seeking. The witness is for those who have an ear to hear, not for those who have no ears to hear that God might find this special elect nation from every people and kindred and tongue. In the first resurrection, there will be found from all nations and peoples and kindreds and tongues in the glorious Messianic Kingdom a class that with the Savior will be engaged in blessing all nations during the thousand years of Messiah's kingdom. That is the message we have, dear friends, the message of the kingdom, but while realizing that we are privileged to be servants of God, and to be ambassadors of God and to tell forth the message, let us remember that we have no sufficiency of ourselves. What does that mean? That means that you should realize and that I should realize, and that all who would speak in the name of the Lord should realize how poor these imperfect vessels are for carrying so glorious, so grand a message, the message of the King of kings, and Lord of lords. Who is worthy?
I tell you, my dear friends, as we begin to realize the greatness of our God and the grandeur of the message we have to give out, we feel our own insufficiency. And then we hear the Lord's Word saying: Be ye holy that bear the vessels of the Lord's house and that bear about this message of the Lord to others. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. The truth was intended for this particular purpose. This must be the first effect upon our own hearts. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth, was our Master's prayer on behalf of you and me and all his people sanctification, setting-apart, separation from the world, separation from sinners. And the more, dear friends, that we endeavour to live that separated life, that copies the Savior's life as it is possible in our imperfect bodies to do, the more we try, the more we find that as the Apostle declared, "in my flesh dwelleth no perfect thing." Oh no, our perfection and sufficiency is of him, as Jesus said, of yourself you can do nothing. We can do nothing of ourselves, and the sooner we learn that, the better. As we go forth, during the remainder of this day, and the coming days of the week, one lesson I think we should bear these thoughts in our hearts is that we are not sufficient of ourselves. Not that we should do nothing, and so be like the man in the parable, who went and hid his talent in the earth. Oh no, but realizing the great privilege, and feeling the burning desire to tell forth the praises of him who called us out of darkness into light, then while bursting with the desire to tell the good tidings to others and full of energy to preach the truth at any cost and expense and inconvenience, then remember we are not sufficient. What would be the effect? Oh, we should want to go frequently to the throne of the Heavenly grace that we might find mercy for our imperfections, and that we might find grace of God, to help in every time of need.
I believe, dear brethren and sisters, that is the special thing that God's people everywhere need to have in mind, and particularly as we see the Word of God and the plan of God so clearly, and as we perceive that so many others are so very blind on the subject, and we realize how very blind we were before ourselves. Then there was a danger of a certain amount of pride and self-sufficiency, and we would know how to do everything, but let us remember that we are just as apt to make a mistake.
Then we need the guidance and power and the Lord's spirit to give us wisdom and direction. And if we realize that we are not sufficient for these things it will bring us near to the Lord, and it will make us more earnest in ascertaining the mind of the Lord, and study the Word of the Lord, because there are certain things concerning which we would say, how am I to know that that is true, and as you become fortified in the knowledge of God's plan, and become strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, our own weakness will not stand in our way. His might will be sufficient for you, and the more and more you will be feeling, and we all are feeling more and more, that we have no sufficiency, that we need his help every hour, and that we may have it because the work is the Lord's. It is not our work. It is His work, His kingdom. We are carrying the message for him; we are his servants, and it is proper that we should say, Lord, show Thy servant what Thy will is, Lord, grant Thy servant wisdom and grace, that I may speak forth the words with wisdom and power and earnestness and with simplicity. That is another matter, dear friends, simplicity, which is often lost sight of by using large words, perhaps, which many of the audience do not understand, and perhaps the speaker does not fully comprehend. We do not want to be puffed up of ourselves. We do not want to seek to be anything of ourselves. The real servant of the Lord should seek to be nothing of himself, but to show forth the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I was much impressed by reading the Scriptures that it is recorded by the Apostles themselves that they were ignorant and unlearned men. What a wonderful admission, what evidence that those men were simply trying to tell God's message, that they were not trying to puff themselves up or to speak for themselves. They were merely speaking as the Lord's mouthpieces. I do not think they could have hidden it, but they did not hide it. It is recorded there and has been read all down during the 1800 years. You and I know, and Peter and John knew that they were ignorant and unlearned men in comparison with the Sanhedrin. And they had to give their message in opposition to all the influence of the Sanhedrin; and yet the Message of God is mighty to the pulling down of the strongholds of the devil. It has always been so, dear friends, because thanks to God, we are the stronger when we are thus weak, as the Apostle says, when I am strong, then I am weak, and when I am weak, then am I strong. Therefore then, dear friends, let us be weak as respects ourselves, and have no confidence in our own flesh or in our own policy, and let our confidence be in God, for our sufficiency is of God. He is the one who is talking to us by the Apostle. The Apostle says, I have not done it myself; God is the one who has been doing it, who also hath made us able ministers. He was an able minister. My dear friends, anybody who reads these epistles of St. Paul will see that he was a very able servant of God, and your ministry and your power for God and power to show forth the gospel, and your power to make the way of the cross and the coming kingdom simple to others will depend largely upon your being made able ministers of the Lord. It will be the Lord who will make you able ministers. If God shall make us able in anything, it is to His praise, for it is His work. We may glory in His goodness, in being used as His vessels. And those who become the most pliable now will be made into the most glorious vessels in the future. You know that very fine things are made and very fine glass, that is very plastic, that can be twisted in any form, and made into the right condition. And I wish so far as the Lord is concerned to be very pliable that He may mould us and fashion us as He will. This goes on first of all in our own lives, first in ours. You cannot give sanctification to any man or woman if you yourselves have not received it. Take it in first and then let the message come out.
Let us not forget, dear friends, in this connection, that the message to give is not merely about the plan of God, Oh, no, but with all the telling about the plan of God and about the Kingdom of God and about Jesus and what He has done, let it all be with one aim in view, and that one aim in view is that the person who hears it may be sanctified by it, that he may be set apart and become one of this class of the royal priesthood, brought to the point of full consecration. And any conversation or preaching that you and I may have an opportunity of doing will be valueless except in proportion as it shall have some such result. So the question we [CR438] should ask, not how many times have I preached, not how many Scriptures have I quoted, the result will be how many have I helped nearer to the Lord, how many have I brought to this place of decision, that they give their hearts entirely to him, and be sanctified by the truth which they have received. So in proportion as we would be able ministers of the Lord, it will be in proportion as we ourselves are sanctified, and in proportion as we have produced in others that sanctification of spirit and heart and life.
May the Lord assist us to be indeed able ministers of the New Covenant. Amen.
[CR438]
Harvest Workers Meeting
THE Bible speaks of a Harvest of this Age. To our understanding, we have entered into that period of time when the present age is closing, and the new age beginning. We understand that this is a lapping time--the new lapping on to the old. We understand that we have been in this lapping time for a considerable period, and that the new dispensation in particular might be considered as beginning about 1873, with the close of the 6,000 years.
Dear Brother Rutherford gave some of the evidences (reasons for conclusions) regarding the signs of the times-- indications that we are in the closing of this age. It is not the thought that we have yet entered into glory. It is not the thought that the Master's glory and Kingdom are now prevailing, but that it is near at hand, and it is only a question whether or not we may know the time for the establishment of the Kingdom.
We would not claim that we know the actual date; all we merely claim is that the Scriptures do give us certain bases for faith. The Scriptures, for instance, give us a certain amount of logical data which seems to indicate that the 6,000 years from Adam have closed, and that the great, 7,000 has already begun. But at what time in this seventh 1,000-years the Master will take his great power, and begin His reign, is not definitely shown. We have our expectations respecting the end of the Times of the Gentiles; respecting the setting up of the Kingdom in power and great glory. Our thought has been, and still is, so far as we are able to understand the Scriptures, that the Gentile Times will close with October, 1914--not a great while in the distance. There are others, of course, who misunderstand this thought, and think that in October, 1914, we are expecting to see the Lord come in the flesh. That would be a great mistake. Others think that we are expecting that at that time the world will be burnt up. That is a great mistake too. We think that that time will be ripe for the burning up what the Bible speaks of--not a literal burning, but a time of trouble--that is the "fire" spoken of by the Apostles and Prophets as being the feature which will close this present age, and the feature with which the new dispensation will be introduced. We think this is very clearly stated in the Scriptures.
But whether that Time of Trouble will come promptly upon the close of the Times of the Gentiles, it is not for us to say; and it is not even for us to dogmatize, that we know positively. We do not know positively--we merely have drawn certain conclusions from certain scriptures, and these have been presented to you orally and also presented in the printed page, so that you might have a basis for faith. And it is open for everybody to exercise that faith, or a different faith. One may believe whatever he likes respecting the time, and any other feature of God's plan, except those essential features which are indisputable, and which are laid down plainly that Christ died for our sins, and that the great Seed of Abraham--members of The Christ--will deliver the whole world from the dominion of sin.
We think, however, that the Apostle meant that we should know something about the time, for he says, "Ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day (that great seventh thousand-year day) should overtake you as a thief," (1 Thess. 5:4) but, "As a snare shall it come upon all them (all the world)" but ye, brethren, are not in darkness," intimating that there will be a special light to God's people at that time. And the Scriptures seem to indicate, as nearly as we are able to calculate, that about October, 1914, the Gentile Times will end. God has not stated that just when the Gentile Times end all the world will be in anarchy. He has indicated that anarchy will come, but He has not said that it will come the very minute the Gentile Times end. The Gentile Times, shall we say, are a period of lease during which God has permitted the Gentiles to do what they could towards the world's government. For a time He had His own kingdom, the Jewish nation. They were His special nation, His special people, and during that time He simply allowed the other nations to lie in darkness. But then came the time when He discontinued His own Kingdom, and, with the taking away of the crown from the last of the Kings of the line of David, the Lord made a special declaration, which would seem to indicate that He had set apart a period of time during which the Gentiles would have to do the best they could, and show to themselves, the world, and the angels, what they could do in the way of giving good government to the world. And so it has been that these different nations apparently were inspired by a feeling that they wanted a good government, that they wanted to establish order. All reasonable people realize that order is a very essential thing in the world; without order there is no peace, and no blessing. Therefore--perhaps getting their cue from the fact that God had promised Israel that they should become a great nation--perhaps getting that idea, the other nations thought that they would be the ruling nation. "Why should these Jews think they are going to become a great nation some day just because their God has promised that they shall be the ruling nation of the World. O! we have our Gods also, and they are greater than theirs; and we will see what we can do." And in due time God set aside His own typical Kingdom--it was only a typical Kingdom --and allowed the Gentiles to see what they could do: and they have done pretty well altogether. While we can, of course, feel that the world has done great things, yet we can realize that humanity has been striving for something good rather than for something bad. For instance, Nebuchadnezzar, the king who set up the first universal empire--and a magnificent empire it was from the world's standpoint-- thought that, by taking the people out of this country, and putting them into that country, and vice versa, and by so mixing up all the world till they were all strangers in a strange land, he would be able to govern them better. He seemed to know a good deal, did Nebuchadnezzar. And the Lord shows, in the picture given to Nebuchadnezzar, that his kingdom was the head of gold in the great Gentile image. [CR439] But this kingdom became very corrupt, and failed to accomplish very much. After a time it got into bad practices, and the historian says that Belshazzar made a great feast, and commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which had been taken out of the temple in Jerusalem, how they drank out of these vessels and praised false Gods, and how in that very night the kingdom was destroyed.
Then came the next Government--the Medes and Persians, to see what they could do. "Let us see if we cannot give the world a universal government. We can do better than Nebuchadnezzar. We can do something better than that." And in some respect they did better.
And so it was with all these Gentile Governments-- Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome; all these different empires have held their sway, and we have seen the best that man can do.
I suppose that these people were not trying to see how much harm they could do, but rather to see if they could not set up a grand empire which would be the best the world would ever see. They did bad things, but more or less the conception in their minds probably was good; and it has shown us that the very best that man could do is very, very unsatisfactory, and that it is not at all what we would conceive to be the grandest and best condition for the earth; and it shows us that unless God would interpose everything would be unsatisfactory always.
And now, with the most wonderful blessings which are given in our day, and which have brought us to the very climax, as it were, of the enjoyment of life, and the appreciation of the blessings and powers of men--in this very time, God is allowing the greatest climax of all, when man has reached his highest, in general education and knowledge and wonderful inventions. O! I am very much surprised when I look at the great engineering feats of today; the tunnels under rivers and through mountains, and our wonderful trade, and our great buildings, and I feel rather a pride in the human family, and I think to myself what the angels of God, looking down, would say. "Look what those poor, imperfect sinners are able to do." It is really wonderful, my dear friends. And God is allowing it all to culminate in disaster, because with our enlightenment there is selfishness --the selfish principle that has got hold of the hearts of men--and the more enlightenment there is, the more men know how to use the forces of nature and powers of man selfishly; and this selfishness on every part, the world over, is bringing the time of trouble. And that is exactly what the Bible describes; it will be a case of every man's hand against his neighbor.
And so God will allow this, the most wonderful period of man's intelligence, to go down in an awful rack and ruin. But not for long; because the Divine Wisdom has foreseen, has arranged and ordered the whole plan, that this time of trouble which is now coming, was held up until due time; and so, while men's eyes have been blinded, and while the world does not see what it will all eventuate in, God has been getting ready His forces, He has been preparing His Kingdom --Christ the head of that Kingdom, and the Church to be sharers in that Kingdom.
So then, we see from this that it is perfectly reasonable to think--to my mind it is perfectly reasonable to suppose-- that, from the time that God took away His typical Kingdom, and said to Zedekiah: "And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, Thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown; this shall not be the same; exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it; and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it to him." There, you see, was a time of overturning of the world's affairs, of the affairs of Israel, until he should come who had right to the throne. We recognize our Lord Jesus as the one having the right to the throne; we recognize that the Lord Jesus acquired the right to that throne by His redemptive work, his loyalty to the Heavenly Father unto death; and that the rule which belonged to man passed to Him, the great Shepherd of the flock, and that the right is invested in Him; and that He is waiting for the selection of the Bride class. And the whole matter will be completed, we understand, in this period of time; 2,520 years from the taking away of the crown in 606 B.C.--"Seven times" (seven years of 360 days makes 2,520 days, at a day for a year equals 2,520 years); so that, if we have the true reckoning of time, it would seem that this period would end with 1914. However, we do not think that it is infallible, it may not be true for two years or so--it may be more; but as far as I can tell, that is what it is, and we will leave it there. If we have made some mistake in the time, it will not matter a bit; we are consecrated to Him unto death. Perhaps the Lord will test us along this line. But I should not mind; I tell you that I am enjoying the Lord, and enjoying the previous Word more and more every day, and if it gets still better by 1914, I don't know how good it will be. So that, whether we have the exact moment is very immaterial to us; it is quite a secondary matter. But there is no doubt at all that the Kingdom will come--whether in that year, or another year--it is sure to come, "For the Lord of Hosts hath spoken it, and who shall disannul it"?
We understand that the last 40 years of these 2,520 years are set apart; first, because there was a similar harvest time at the end of the Jewish age, and then because many prophecies seem to mark the beginning and the end--prophecies seem to mark 1874 very clearly, and then other prophecies (the Gentile Times in particular) mark 1914. You remember that at the end of the Jewish age it was just 40 years from the time that Jesus began his ministry--40 years exactly until the Jewish nation disappeared as a nation, went into Hades as a nation.
This Harvest time, dear friends, is a very interesting time, just as the Harvest of the Jewish Age was a most interesting time. I should say that the Harvest time is the most interesting time of all to the farmer. No doubt it is very interesting when he ploughs his fields in hope, and then it is an interesting time when he sows his seed in hope, but I fancy that the farmer's great interest of all is right down in the Harvest time, when he is thrusting in the sickle--when the reaping machines are getting in the crop. I fancy that is the time of the greatest interest of all. And so I think it was with the Jewish nation; that that 40 years was the most interesting period of the whole age; and so I think it is in this Age, that these 40 years are the most interesting years in the whole Gospel Age: they are most interesting.
And you and I living today, as representatives of the Lord's body, are privileged to enjoy more blessings now. We have more opportunities now in the Lord's service than any people at any time back. You know how it is on a farm at the time of Harvest; everybody is fully engaged, and they cannot get laborers; and so the Lord pictured that same condition in respect of the Church. There was a laboring time back there, "Go ye into the vineyard. Pray ye the Lord that He will send more reapers into His harvest." And so there has all the way down the Age been an increasing need for laborers. But the real time of the Harvest is toward the conclusion of the Harvest time, and as we look around us today, we find that truly the fields are white to the reaping, white for the harvest. And so it is today; the world never was in a better condition for the Harvest work than it is today. And those who are very intimately associated with that work will all bear me witness that in years past although there was work indeed to be done (and very pleasant and profitable work it was, and we were deeply interested in that work) yet we did not have the same opportunities as today; there seemed to be more hindrances to the work. People were not so wide awake as they are at present. But the gradual spreading of the Truth, the Volunteer matter, the Colporteur work, and public meetings--all these things have been getting the people more and more awake gradually. They have not woke up perhaps as quickly as you and I have done. We perhaps woke up with a start; but these have been getting a little restless; and we have been awakening them all, nevertheless, and all the world is gradually getting awake. Some of them have [CR440] fallen clear off again into Higher Criticism and Evolution; but many of God's people in the denominations are getting thoroughly awake; and I am sure that just in proportion as they get awake, it is an opportunity for you and I to do some good work for them. We are told that we are trying to pull down their churches! Oh, their hearts are so set upon bricks and mortar! But the great image that they have set up is of no account. We can feel for them, for we are really trying to do them good; we are wishing very greatly to give them a good share of the blessing that we have already received. If you could give to your neighbor one tenth of the blessing you have received, would you not be glad? That is the very spirit the Lord wishes to see in us; the spirit of love. And love, instead of thinking evil of its neighbor, and trying to do him harm, thinketh no evil, and desires to do good. Love is anxious to serve. Love and serving seem to go together; whoever loves will serve.
But our first love is for the Lord, His plan, His work; all these come the first; and we want to show that we have His principles in our hearts, and we want to correct the misunderstanding they have about our Heavenly Father; we want to show that they have misrepresented the Heavenly Father's character. If someone had said evil about your father's character, you would like to explain that your father was not that kind of person, and you would be very earnest about it, wouldn't you? How much more so with our Heavenly Father.
Now we, as New Creatures, who know how great is God's love--how much interested we should be in telling others about His love, and in showing forth His praises. We love all the brethren--whether Presbyterians, Methodists, Catholics, whatever they may be, we love them. We should like to help them some. We know the difficulties they are in; we were there ourselves once. We have had similar experiences; we know just how they are all mixed up in their minds, and how they would like to know these things. Now we want to have a great sympathy towards them; and we want to use all the wisdom that we have, we want to do a good work for them, because the end of the Harvest is drawing near. We are getting in very close to the end of this Harvest, and whatever will be done in the way of getting into the Kingdom will be done soon. Would you not feel sorry if that brother who brought you the Truth had been negligent in his duty? or the sister, if she had been negligent of her duty, and you had been allowed to remain in darkness? Would you not feel sorry? And so we are to have this spirit prevailing--an increasing desire to show the Lord's praises forth, and increasing desire to serve all the brethren; and we know that this is the work which the Church should do.
We seek the work that the Lord makes. Dear brethren often say to each other, "Pray for me that I may make my calling and election sure." He means all right; but how foolish! Shall I pray that you may make your calling and election sure? You pray that I may make my calling and election sure? Why, we are to make our own calling and election sure. God could not make your calling and election sure for you; and God could not make your calling and election sure for me. I must do that for myself. If I do not do it personally, it will not be done at all.
But there are certain cases in which we are told to pray. As the Apostle Paul says, "Dear brethren, pray for us." For what? What do we want each other to pray for? "O! that a door of utterance may be opened to us, to speak the mystery of Christ," says the Apostle. (Col. 4:3.) That's it. The Apostle never said, pray ye that each may make his calling and election sure. He never said pray for each other in that way. Pray for opportunities of service. Pray for wisdom in presenting the message to others. Pray for the Lord to assist you in inculcating meekness, humility, and gentleness. That is what we are to pray for.
And we realize, dear friends, that God is not giving these things away in any haphazard manner. The disciples made that same mistake. They said to Jesus, (Mark 10:36.) Grant that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory. But Jesus said He could not do that. It shall be reserved for whom the Father has arranged it; and the Father has arranged it along the line of justice. Whoever is the proper one to be placed next to the Lord will be next to the Lord, and all the praying in the world would not put anyone there who was not worthy. Do we suppose that God is going to do things in heaven and earth according to our imperfect prayers?
We may, however, pray for many things. We can pray the Lord to send forth more laborers in His vineyard. Lord, we see that there is such a wonderful harvest work going on, and now we see that there are opportunities for more laborers. We can pray that the blessing of the Lord may be upon the various instrumentalities being used in the Harvest work, that more and more laborers may be sent forth, and that the work may be done according to His will, and that all the ripe wheat may be gathered in before the time. And so we are praying in accordance with His will in praying that we may have a share in that work, and that others may have a share in that work. It is the grandest work ever known.
As I look back and read of some of those good men of old who laid down their lives in the Lord's service--Brother Wesley, for instance. I always like to think of Brother Wesley, he had such a loving character. And Brother Knox, Brother Calvin, and others. All these good men laid down lives in that work, of which you and I can see more than they did; for we are privileged to see more of God's character, of God's plan, of the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of the glory of God, and we are more highly favored than any who laid down their lives in preaching even a part of the Gospel. And they realized these things and they prayed, "Lead, kindly light, amidst the encircling gloom." And if they, in all that difficulty, were faithful unto death, why, I say these are grand characters. They had trials that we do not have; trials of faith that we do not have. We may have trials they did not have; but it is for us to appreciate the great privilege of this time, that you and I have the opportunity of being engaged in this great work now.
But coming down from this to what this work is. I remind you that the Harvest work seems to be little different from any other work that has ever been done in the world; but it is a little like the work that took place at the first advent. You remember how it was then. The disciples did something that the Scribes and Pharisees never had done; something totally different. They went down amongst the people, they usually went about two and two here and there preaching the message. And they had a message, too. Their message was about the Kingdom, the KINGDOM. The Scribes and Pharisees of course believed in the Kingdom, but they were getting the idea that the Kingdom was only likely to come by means of co-operation with the Roman Empire. The Sadducees hardly believed anything. They represented the most intelligent of the people. The Sadducees did not believe in any future life at all. They were like the Evolutionists--let us do the best we can today, and if we do that, then our children will be on a higher plane, and their children will be on a higher plane still, and so on. Well, these great thinkers and wise men of their day had given up all ideas of the Curse--they were Higher Critics--and they were trying to work themselves in with the Roman Empire, and they thought that by thus getting into good relationship with the Roman Empire they might be able to have Israel acknowledged in some way, and so might be able to bring the Kingdom. And so, when the High Priest made the prophecy that it was expedient that one man should die rather than that the whole nation should perish, they very likely thought; "If we allow these men to go on, and teach these things, the Romans will come and take away all the liberties that we have, and so we should not have a thing left, and what about the Kingdom then?" But the 12 and the 70 went about everywhere telling the people that the Kingdom was at hand, Messiah's Kingdom was at hand, and the whole country was being stirred up with the thought that Jesus was the Messiah.
Well, we have a message to deliver today, that the kingdom is at hand. It is a great message. And we have to tell the world that God has a better Kingdom which is going to be established, and which will satisfy all people. And so the world is beginning to realize that God has a Kingdom, and that the prayer we have been praying for years refers to God's own Kingdom. And I believe that there is a great substratum of people who have a good inclination towards the Lord, and towards the Bible. There is a deep feeling of reverence and piety; and that is one of the reasons that I have felt a special interest in Great Britain, because I felt that the experience of centuries, and of this repeating of the Lord's prayer, has been very valuable, and that it has taught the people that there is a God, that there is a rightful authority.
Still, our message is not a popular one. They do not like to hear that the Kingdom of God is coming, and that soon. If we were to put it off for a hundred years or so, they would say, "All right. There is no danger there." But when we say, 1914, oh! that's terrible. They do not notice the inconsistency of the matter. Why, these people are expecting the Lord to come tomorrow; and yet we are foolish because we are not expecting it till 1914. And these people who will tell you that they are expecting the Lord to come tomorrow, tell us that we [CR441] are so foolish to expect that Messiah will really set up His Kingdom in 1914; that a great time of trouble will come then, and that in the midst of that great time of trouble God will establish the Kingdom that is to be the desire of all nations. My dear friends, it seems so strange to me that intelligent people can hold on to the foolish notions that they have believed for centuries, and yet reject the clear, simple statements of God's Word. But apparently it is owing to hardness of hearing.
Still, we are to bear this in mind, and we are sympathetically to remember that they are doing according to their light; or rather I am afraid I should say, according to their darkness. And it looks to me--I mention this from my own experience--that some of the Lord's people are running great danger along that line; they are in danger of being puffed up by the fact that they know a little more than other people about these things. But in proportion as we get puffed up, we are not suitable instruments for the Lord. We must be very humble and teachable, lest we be ensnared by the Adversary. There is no people in the world that Satan is trying harder to ensnare than ourselves. The denominations are so soundly asleep that they do not need any special attention; but those of us who are awake, and have got a measure of truth, of light, of understanding--to these he gives very special attention. Let us not forget that.
And there is reason for us more and more to realize the need of prayer. The Adversary is strongly against all those who are seeking to follow in the footsteps of the Master. We may be sure that he is following us very closely, that peradventure he might find an opportunity to touch us. The Apostle tells us that we are to keep ourselves in the love of God, that we are to keep near to the Lord, and near to the truth, that thus the Adversary touches us not. The nearer we are keeping to the Lord, the farther we are from the Adversary, and the more we shall be on our guard against any endeavors on his part to touch us, to ensnare us, mentally, morally, or otherwise.
All these things are of importance to us who are engaged in the Harvest work; and, so far as our judgment goes, it has been those of our brethren and sisters who have produced most of the gifts of the spirit, those are the ones that are most earnest in the Harvest work, and they are the ones, therefore, that need to have these instructions before their minds especially.
But coming to the Harvest work more particularly, we see that God has made different arrangements for this work, and the Lord Himself seems to have arranged these things for us. The Lord opened the door to one opportunity, and we took that step; and then he opened another door, and we took another step, and so on. And so it seems that God has been leading the whole work, and the Harvest work seems to be gaining momentum every day, every hour. The people are better prepared to reason, owing to increasing knowledge, and the laborers in the vineyard are becoming more wise, and more skillful in operating the various pieces of machinery that go to accomplish the Harvest work. They are getting better oiled. Oil represents what the Apostle called "Unction." Unction means oil. He says, "You have an unction (an oiling) from the Holy One, and you all know it." Every one of us has received the unction of the Holy Spirit; that is, a lubrication. It makes you more smooth, it makes you more gentle, more kind and more patient, more painstaking every way. It makes you more and more a copy of the Lord, the more of this oiling you are getting. You are one part of the machine. The Apostle says we are all like members of the body, and each one must go and purchase a supply of that love which supplies the suppleness of the joints. "That which every joint supplieth," the Apostle says. It is love he means.
I see, then, taking a broad view of the harvest field, I see a great work going on everywhere. And I am so glad. I see the Lord's people so active in the service, some in some way, and some in another. They seem to have been getting the right thought; and that is, not that we should all try to do the same thing, but that each one should try to do that which he can do best. And that is just what the Lord means us to do.
And so all those who are in the Body of Christ are trying to get all the other members in; and as soon as we have got them all in, and every member has been tested, then the Body will be completed, the harvest will be over, and the door will be shut to that high position.
But now we have not yet found all the members, but we are finding opportunities increasing on every hand; and we are learning not to seek particularly to do some big thing. The Lord wants to see how faithful you will be in doing some little thing. That is what He is looking for. Does He say, "He that is faithful in that which is greatest?" No. "In that which is least." And so you and I want to be faithful in these little things, no matter how small your opportunity is. You may not have opportunities to engage in the volunteer work, in the colporteur work, or in the book-loaning work; but the question with the Lord will be, "Is he, is she, doing all that he or she could do? Are they showing that zeal, are they showing that spirit, that if they had more opportunities, they would do more?" If you are not using the small opportunities, then the Lord will see that you could not be properly trusted in large opportunities.
But we are to remember that our sufficiency is of God. We are not sufficient of ourselves. He does not want us to be able to do our own will. If we have given up our all to the Lord, we want to do the Lord's will. But then we must know what is the Lord's will for you and for me; and we should take in all our surroundings, and say: Well, now, the Lord knows what could be done in this city, and the Lord knows what education I have got, what advantages I have got, and He knows, too, what disadvantages I have; and we should look at it in this way, then in that way; and then we should say: Well, what would the Lord have me to do; what would be pleasing to the Lord; He has a great work, but He will let me do something, I am sure He will. He says so. Now what would He have me to do? I want whatever the Lord will let me do. I know He will choose my inheritance for me eventually, and I am sure that He will just give me something to do now, if I will be on the alert to do with my might what my hands find to do. If it is done slackly, don't think that the Lord will find something else for you to do. If you are slack on the little things, then He will probably be slack about giving you other things to do. But if He sees you are faithful in the little things, then He will give you something more to do.
You remember the beautiful hymn that we have, "O! to be nothing, only to lie at His feet." The story goes that it was composed by a lady who was possessed of great wealth, and one day she went out into her garden, and she found that the flowers were drooping for want of water. Evidently the gardener had been neglecting his duty. So she looked about to find a sprinkler, but there was no sprinkler to be found; no suitable vessel to be found. But she found a broken flower pot with a hole in the bottom; and she stopped up the hole with her finger and put some water in it, and sprinkled the flowers with that. And then she thought: "How like the Heavenly Father that is. There are His flowers that want to be sprinkled, and it may be that the proper ones are not attending to their business; but here is a broken pot, discarded as not being worth anything, probably cast aside into the roadway, to be trampled under the feet of the horses to make gravel, which is brought into use." That may be you; it may be me, if we are sufficiently humble and ready for the Lord's use at any time, in any place. Where you find any flower in the Lord's garden, and they look thirsty and need a blessing, ask the Lord to let you carry to them some of the Water of Life, no matter how broken a vessel you may be.
And so we are to have this humble feeling. We are not to say that we are very suitable to the work. We must acknowledge that we are not very suitable. The Lord is passing by the great good people of today. O! what fine men there are in the ministry today, in all the denominations; men on whose studies thousands of pounds sterling have been spent to get them ready for the work; all spent on their preparation, but lost! because they are not attending to the flock. They are not sprinkling water; they are sprinkling something else; or not doing anything at all. Well, the Lord will have the work done, and let us rejoice that the Lord will use imperfect vessels in His service.
What are His services? First, the colporteur work. I must put that first, because it would seem that the Lord uses that more than any other. All the dear friends who engage in this work--I want to say that they all testify to the very great blessing they get from the work. I tell you that I love their spirit, and I believe that the Lord gives that spirit which, forsaking all other aims and advantages, seeks to serve Him. But some will say, "I say, Brother Russell, you are speaking against me. I have a wife and family to look after, and can't go into the work." Not a bit, brother. The Lord knows your inabilities. And if you are so circumstanced that you cannot engage in that part of the work, then look to some other part of the work.
Not a great while ago, at a meeting composed of nearly all what I considered to be brethren in the Truth, I said I [CR442] would like to know the number of those present who had come into the Truth through the various means. Those who had come into the Truth through hearing preaching; those through first receiving free literature; those who had come in through first getting the Scripture Studies through a colporteur; those by word of some friend spoken to them privately. You would be surprised at the evidence.
There were 40 who had come into the Truth through first hearing preaching.
There were 40 through getting free literature.
There were 75 through receiving the books from colporteurs.
Nearly as many by first hearing preaching and first receiving free literature; nearly as many as both put together --40, 40, 75. I thought that was very encouraging to the colporteurs. You see how God is really blessing that part of the work.
Then another thing that will encourage some, that will encourage those who have not opportunity for colporteuring, but who have an opportunity occasionally for a private word and are on the alert for a private word. They may introduce themselves by a remark about the weather; but you do not want to stop long there. You should get right on to the plan of God. And there are a good many who have that opportunity. If you are traveling by train, there is an opportunity to look around and see if there are any there to whom you can speak about these things. Now, I want to say a word for the encouragement of these, that the number that responded that they first received a knowledge of the Truth through private conversation was just the same as the colporteurs--75. Of course, these friends came out afterwards. I merely questioned them as to how they had first received the Truth. Now, those that first got the matter from colporteurs, they might not have succeeded unless someone had helped them in the way of private conversation afterwards, or by afterwards hearing preaching. But how encouraging that is to those who have but little opportunity.
But, dear friends, we have to realize that these opportunities are given us not merely to see how much intellectual knowledge we have, it is not to show others how much we know about the Bible. If you have anything like that before your mind, you are not going to be a successful broken vessel, and you will not water many of the Lord's flock, and you will not have the opportunity of ministering to the Truth. But you should remember that God has given you the opportunity of a moment to speak a word for Him, and that God's intention, God's will, respecting that person is not merely that he should see how much you know about the Bible; God's will is that he should be sanctified, and the truth is the only way by which he can be sanctified; and if you are giving him the Truth all the time, the result will be that you are bringing him a little nearer, a little nearer to the point of consecration, and you are thus helping him to see the privilege he has of giving his life to the Lord, a living sacrifice, to be used in the Lord's service. That is the real end of all the work that is being done.
And then your part in the literature is that you see that you put the proper kind of seed into the ground. Say you know a person; you know something about him, and you know the difficulty he seems to be in. Well, it is for you to make a good selection among the various tools that emphasize that point; and then you can say to him, "I think there is an article in this that I believe is just what you would like to read. It tells about so and so." You bring these two things together, and you accomplish more by doing it that way.
I cannot tell you much that will be of interest about the harvest work as far as Scripture Studies are concerned, except to say that God is still blessing that means of service. The number of books going out is large still; and I can tell you that this present year, 1913, has been the best year so far--the best year. And it ought to be so, with more to spread it, more zeal, more intelligence, more experience, it ought to be so. I think it ought to be better than it is. I rather think so.
The figures I have show that last year there were 75,000 Scripture Studies sold; and this year 71,329 so far. You have got a chance to make it much better. I am afraid there is not time enough to make it double, but if we keep up to the present rate, the number would be about 87,000, which would be about 12,000 more than last year. But that's not enough! However, I am glad we are not getting behind. We must be thankful for small things.
So far as my observation is concerned, I do not know any better way of presenting the Truth than through the printed page, and I do not know a better way today of getting clear in the Truth than by reading the Scripture Studies. Of course, I do not say that the accessory things are not helpful; but I mean to say that in hearing preaching, or in reading sermons, or in reading Bibles, people only get a little truth here and there. God's plan is so systematic that it can only be really appreciated by being taken in an arranged form, in a systematic, orderly way; and that is what the Scripture Studies endeavor to do. It is simply the Bible in an arranged, conclusive, orderly presentation. And those who thus get it are well rooted and grounded generally, and those who do not get it in that way are very likely not to be well grounded, and very likely to be losing faith to that extent.
As far as we know, the Lord has arranged that we should have these Scripture Studies in the convenient form in which we have them, and I believe that they are being blessed of the Lord in use. Of course, I am merely suggesting this, that each one should use his own judgment, and diet themselves accordingly.
Extension meetings have been very profitable also, because they have not only found many hearing ears, but they have stirred up the hearts of those who have been engaged in the work. I believe the Lord to be really specially blessing the brethren by giving these opportunities for service, and I verily believe that those who are neglecting these opportunities for service are neglecting opportunities for fellowship and for Christian development, and that they are making a great mistake, and suffering a great loss. Contrast those who today are clear in the Truth with what they were before, or with other Christian people. Who are those that are clearest in the Truth? Those who are most energetic.
And we see today that a comparatively small number of people in the world are exciting a great deal of interest on every hand. We are not very numerous, and we have not plenty to spend; but the fact that we know our Bible, and what we believe, and why we believe it, gives weight and power to the Truth. It is quite unanswerable. There can be no answer to the Truth as presented from the Bible standpoint, and those who have it readily in their hands are not only blessed themselves, but are thus able to bless others also.
Then the Volunteering. There is a work that God seems to have arranged. You could not get that work done anywhere else. Would our Methodist friends think of doing volunteer work? I think not. Would our Catholic friends? Not unless the priest said that they would go to hell if they did not.
I do not know any other class that have that sufficiency of zeal. Do you know how many copies of free literature have been distributed by the people of Great Britain this year so far? Eight millions of copies. Nearly all circulated by hand, and by people that would not wish to circulate anything else. Nearly all circulated by those who love God in truth and in sincerity.
I think that is grand, my dear friends. It is a great test. The fact that there is such an opportunity of serving the Lord and to hand out the Truth becomes a test to the humility of the individual. None are so humble that they cannot share in the service of the Truth. They might say, I cannot preach; I cannot colporteur. Well, is there nothing you can do? God has arranged for something that each one can do. But still they might say, "I am poor; I cannot afford it." But they are free! postage paid! So there is absolutely no ground left at all for objection.
I am convinced that all who love the Truth, who love Him, and who love the brethren, will have a chance of showing their loyalty to God, and that He will give us all a chance. They are wonderful chances, too. And I am so pleased to see that many of God's people are rejoicing in the privilege of showing forth His praises. Never mind if it is not customary to go about giving out literature. Never mind if it is not popular to give out religious literature. We have a message and work, and this is our way of preaching. It is the only way that some of us have. Shall we neglect it because other people do not go about it that way? No! All the more reason why we should do it.
I trust that all God's people are being greatly refreshed as they are seeking to lay down their lives in the Master's service. There is a great blessing for us. You are getting your share, and I am getting my share. I do not think there is anybody happier in the world than myself. The brethren often say to me, "So and so has done you up pretty roughly, Brother Russell." Ah! brother, but the Lord does me up well!
[CR443]
Harvest Work Report
BROTHER SHEARN, in giving a report of the Harvest work in Great Britain, reminded the friends of the necessity for haste in these latter days. He used as an example our Lord's life, calling attention to the fact that, at the tender age of twelve years, He was found engaged in His "Father's business." Having learned, most probably from His mother, something of His special mission, He desired to be informed of its details at the earliest possible moment. We read of His more formal entry upon His "Father's business" a little later on, the record stating that He "began to be about thirty years of age"--not a day or an hour late--when He came to Jordan to demonstrate there the purpose of His life, His "Father's business." Still a little later, when speaking to His followers, He said that "no man having put his hand to the plough and turning back is fit for the Kingdom of Heaven." Singleness of purpose and resolute determination to carry out that purpose is essential.
The Lord, having sent His disciples to preach the Kingdom, later on appointed other seventy, and sent them two by two into every city and place whither He Himself should come. Saying, "The Harvest truly is great, and the laborers few, pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the Harvest that He send forth laborers into His Harvest." "Go your ways, carry neither purse nor scrip, nor shoes, and salute no man by the way." The King's business required haste. If this was true when applied to the Jewish Harvest, surely it is equally true today--"The King's business requires haste."
In giving a few facts and figures relative to the Harvest work in this country, I think it only right and proper to commence with the report of the Society's work as recorded in the London Office. I am glad to say this has been another year of progress in nearly all directions.
OUTPUT OF VOLUMES.
Total output for 1911.................46,654 897
Total output for 1912.................78,992 1,519
Nine months during 1913...............71,329 1,854
(These figures do not include the magazine edition.)
The output of Vol. I alone is now 1,422 weekly.
Australia, in nine months during 1913, 22,090.
Number of Colporteurs in Great Britain, 93.
VOLUNTEER MATTER--"PEOPLE'S PULPIT."
1911......................6,400,000
1912......................5,000,000
1913 (3 months only)......2,218,000
DISTRIBUTION OF "EVERYBODY'S PAPER."
(Indicating the growth of public work in Great Britain.)
1912......................3,500,000
1913 (9 months only)......4,900,000
EVANGELICAL WORK.
As an example of the evangelical work being done, let me mention that on the Tyneside there have been fourteen series of "Class Extension" meetings; 350,500 "Everybody's Papers" have been distributed; 842 "Studies in the Scriptures" have either been loaned or sold; 3,174 people have attended the meetings, an average of 42 strangers at each meeting. Nine Study Classes have been formed, with an average attendance of 18.
ONE OR TWO SPECIAL ITEMS.
It is probably known to most of you that the Glasgow Church has undertaken, and partially completed, a distribution of free literature to all the farms and isolated homesteads in Scotland--an undertaking of no small magnitude. The friends in Ireland are doing a similar work, though on a smaller scale.
In Wales, a witness has been carried on by Bro. W. Williams, which is of rather an unusual character. Following the custom of that country, the meetings have been held in the open air, and crowds have attended night after night.
The friends of the London Churches, viz.: Forest Gate, and Lancaster Gate, have of late extended their parishes and joined hands with the smaller Classes on the East and South Coasts of Europe, with the object of undertaking the various features of Harvest Work conjointly. By these means it is hoped that every town and village in these two areas will be Volunteered this year, and many Class Extension meetings held. This plan is spreading over other parts of England and Scotland, and bids fair to be an effective means of extending the witness of the Kingdom.
The work, in nearly all centres, shows considerable growth during the past two years, more particularly perhaps at Lancaster Gate, Forest Gate, and Glasgow. For instance, the Lancaster Gate Church reports for the past twelve months as follows:
CLASS EXTENSION.
Forty-one series, or a total of 240 meetings, with an average attendance of 40 persons. The copies of "Everybody's Papers" distributed totaled 947,000. As a result of this work, 24 Classes for study have been formed, and eight existing Classes largely increased. In addition to this the brethren have co-operated with other Churches in 20 towns, supplying Speakers and helping with the Volunteering.
VOLUNTEERING.
The Volunteers have distributed 480,000 Tracts during the past nine months, and the inquiries received as a result have been very satisfactory.
BOOK-LOANING.
A total of 5,845 volumes have been loaned in the twelve months, and 634 sales effected.
COLPORTEURING.
The sale of volumes by the friends, during their spare time, reached a total of 1,500 for the year.
Seeing, dear friends, that the opportunity for work is likely to be restricted to a few short months, and that there is still much to be done, let me urge you to be active, ever remembering that the King's business requires haste!
[CR443]
Love Feast Discourse
AT the conclusion of this Convention I am thinking, as I presume you are all thinking, about how the future will be, where we shall convene next. These precious promises that are ours, so wonderful, by these we go on with good courage hoping for that great Convention mentioned by St. Paul in the 12th chapter of his letter to the Hebrews, "the general assembly of the Church of the first-born ones whose names are written in heaven." All these little conventions we are having at the present time, here and elsewhere, are merely foretastes, but small foretastes, of the riches of God's grace and the wonderful blessing He has in store for His people, this thing of which we are informed that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, but hath been revealed to us by the spirit." He has caused us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. While we are still in the flesh we have indeed the weaknesses and difficulties of this present time. Ah, what will it be to be there; and while we are thinking of that life beyond the vail, and while trusting it will be our turn to pass over before very long, naturally and properly we will have in mind what are the special qualifications, how shall we make our calling and election sure? This is a matter in which God does the nominating and then the individuals nominated are called upon to do their own electing. This is a strange procedure, nothing like it anywhere else but in God's plan alone. But the very fact that He has nominated us and called us, the very fact that He has given to us a knowledge of His arrangements and the invitation and drawing influence, all this tells us, as His Word assures us, that it is possible for us to make our calling and election sure. He has not called us in vain to something which is impossible for us to attain, set before us a tempting high calling and bidden us hope and strive for it and then find in the end that it was not possible for us to obtain at all. We do know indeed that God set something before the Jewish nation in that He gave them certain promises and gave them the law and knew they could not keep the law, but He was merely making types of them; we see, too, they got a blessing through the endeavor; but He has assured us that the better promises and the better sacrifices have now been provided and the better Mediator has already been arranged and He is inviting us to be joint heirs with Himself in the bringing to pass of this new and better Covenant, the Law Covenant, which is to bless the whole world of mankind. Our part in this is plain; we see Jesus and what He underwent, we see His sacrifice on our behalf, and on behalf of the sins of the world, and we behold after His [CR444] sacrifice a book of remembrance of life everlasting has been opened; the Scriptures declare He not only brought life but immortality to light through His message. The immortality offer is exclusively confined to those who are associates with Him and will now suffer with Him that they may, as a result of their faith manifested in the sufferings, be counted worthy to reign with Him in the glorious Kingdom that will bless mankind. These things are set before us and He assures us that He who hath begun the good work and has been directing the sacrificing thus effected is able to finish it, and if we are properly in line with Him and our Consecration has been fully and truly made. He, the great High Priest, stands surety for us. If we do these things we shall have the great blessing of joint heirship with Him. Now what are the things that are before us; how many ways are there put before us in the Bible; how many different viewpoints are used by way of giving us this view from one standpoint and that view from another standpoint; how are we encouraged to see what God expects of us? Sometimes it is called sacrifices; at another time it is called fruit-bearing and we are said to bear much fruit. There, that is the very thing the Father is looking for, and with the giving of these different pictures we see that fruit-bearing is connected with cross-bearing; whoever has the sacrificing condition of heart becomes, as a matter of fact, a fruit-bearer and will attain this much fruit from the stem of sacrifice. We see it in the Master, that He bore much fruit, the fruitage of meekness, gentleness, patience, love, etc., the fruits of the spirit and what God is looking for in us, and we see that this led Him to sacrifice. It was in connection with this, then, that His sacrifice took place, that when He was reviled He reviled not again, when He was mistreated He did not mistreat in return, but in everything sought to do the Father's will. Now let us look at the matter from another standpoint, thus: that you and I should not only sacrifice and bear much fruit, but another picture is that we should be like unto our Father in heaven. But, you say, Brother Russell, we do not know much about the Father in heaven. Yes, dear brother, the Bible shows us that the Father has revealed Himself in the Son, that in the Son we see the best possible expression of the Heavenly Father and so the Apostle also says that we should be like unto the Lord Jesus Christ and he says that this is God's foreordination, this is what God foreordained, namely, that He would have a Church, the Bride of Christ, to be conformed to the likeness of God's dear Son with Himself. If you and I wish to be members of the Bride of Christ then we must copy Christ and His characteristics in our hearts. Impossible! We can never attain to perfection of thought in the flesh! In the heart you can be thoroughly loyal no matter how imperfect you may be in the flesh. You may be bound hand and foot, under restraint, and cannot do what you would in your mortal body, but you can do what you please in your mind and praise God in your heart no matter if you were bound in body. The same thought prevails in respect to the bondage of weakness and imperfection that are of the flesh, these may hinder us from doing all that we would do, but they do not hinder us from willing all that we will; in our hearts we are copies of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Apostle says, "Let (that is, permit) this same mind to be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Well now, you say, does the Apostle say "permit," do we not have to get it? The Lord is willing to give that mind or disposition and it is for us to follow the leadings of the Lord and the arrangements He has made that we may obtain this spirit, mind or disposition of the Master; the first thing is for us ourselves to make a full surrender, a consecration, that God may then come in and, having a right to all within, He may work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure, for, says the Apostle, "we are His workmanship;" He is working in us; what a wonderful thought, that the great God who made heaven and the earth, whose power was exercised through the Savior in all that work, creating the heavens and the earth and all the creatures on the earth and all the angelic creatures also that this same God is now again working through Christ and again perfecting another creative work and this work which He is now perfecting is the work of the New Creation, the most wonderful creation of all God's creation. How wonderful He is, that He should begin by taking poor creatures and working in them, setting before them the light and truth and opportunities and if they respond then He begins to work in them through the promises and leadings and all the experiences of life, for "all things are working together for good to those who love God, to the called according to His purpose." Are we called according to God's purpose? Surely. Have you responded to the call? Yes. If we can answer that, then the next question is, are we allowing God to work in us, are we allowing Him to work in us to will and to do? He will not work in us contrary to our will but seems to say, "No, no compulsion here, in the class I am seeking for, there must be no compulsion. I am here to give them the opportunity and to show them what is possible; they must all be sacrifices, willingly and joyfully." So it was with the Master, "for the joy set before Him" He endured all these experiences; so it must be with His foot-step followers. We must forsake all else for the joy set before us and, as expressed in the Psalm when speaking of the Church under the symbol of a Bride, "forget also thine own people and thy father's house, so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty for He is thy Lord and worship thou Him." You know who our father's house is, all the world are our father's house; all are our brothers according to the flesh through father Adam. We have been taken out from our father's house. We have heard the invitation to become the Bride of God's Son and, like Rebecca, we have said good-bye; we are not going for your injury but to marry Isaac through whom all the blessings are coming. We are not in any sense speaking evil of the work or thinking hurt of the world.... We are going to be joint heirs with our Savior in an inheritance incorruptible and that fadeth not away reserved--is it reserved? It is reserved. Can we have it now? Not until the time. It is reserved in heaven for you--who? you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. What a precious thought, that we are not keeping ourselves; the Lord is my keeper, I shall not fear and I shall not want, for He will guide me still. What He expects of you and me is that we shall love the Shepherd and trust the Shepherd's voice, not hearkening to any except His voice. We cannot be His sheep unless we follow Him. "My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me, a stranger will they not follow." They do not recognize the voice of a stranger. They ascertain and perceive that it is a stranger's voice. So you and I have become of the Lord's flock and He has brought us forth, so far leading us on and has all these blessings for us. Our place is to follow, not to seek to lead, to take His place, not to run without His guidance, to go before Him, but to follow after Him. I believe this is a very important matter for us that in all our ways we should acknowledge Him. I am trying myself to realize this more and more. Every person who has a strong impulse has a tendency to go ahead and do something for himself or herself and to forget to say, is this just the Lord's way and is this what the Lord would have done, am I sure He has intended this? No matter how small the affair, or the home or family or of the Church or our own personal affair, or our temporal affairs, in all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will give thee the desires of thine heart. We have the good desire, we are desiring to please the Lord and the Truth; remembering the danger, we are enabled to acknowledge Him, we are enabled to look constantly, earnestly, watchfully, to see which way He is leading and which way His promises direct. I have found some of the Lord's people at times feeling downcast saying, this has happened to me, everything seems to be going wrong. Well, I say, may be that is the Lord's providence for you; don't forget that He is leading you; whatever the way the Lord is leading you must be a good way, and if it is not so bright and cheerful as you hoped for, perhaps He sees you need a little cloud and difficulty and sees some part of your character that needs to be prepared better. Therefore, let us have this, not only the faith in God and the courage to follow, but the implicit trust that learns more and more as the days go by to watch for His leading and Word. I find myself--and I presume it is true of others, there is no way we can tell the mind of others than in our own experiences--I find myself frequently forgetting to look that matter up and see what the Lord said about it, and if I catch myself in that way going about without watching the Master's leading, I bring myself back again, that is, the New Creature brings back the mind of the Old Creature and says, Study this lesson in this way and see how it is. We are all thus being developed by the hand of our dear Savior and under the providential grace that our Heavenly Father has arranged for us because He is not using His individual power with merely you and me, but He has made general broad lines covering all His sheep so that all His sheep are being dealt with and all of our needs are wisely provided for long in advance; He knows what we need and in all the experiences of life faith can firmly trust Him, come what may. But it is easier to sing that than it is to have the trusting faith when the [CR445] trials and difficulties are around us. All the more we need to "repeat the story o'er and o'er of grace so full and free" and to remember how wonderfully God has put these promises in His Word, and how rich they are, how much encouragement there is in them, and while we are in that attitude of heart surely we will be near to the Lord and proportionately afar off from the spirit of the world--and so we wish to be-- more and more separate from the world. We have indeed earthly duties; we do not wish to shirk any proper responsibility but to do in all things that which would be right and just and sensible, and we believe this is the will of the Father. We wish to redeem the time for the Lord's cause and our own building up in the most holy faith and this should be our constant endeavor, redeeming the time, sparing nothing in the protection of the New Creature, but not the Old Creature; we want to let him starve out a little better that we, as New Creatures, may get fatter in proportion as the Old Creature is not too well cared for and fed and pampered to. The Old Creature is to perish and in proportion as the New Creature prevails the Old Man perishes; the two have contrary interests and our interests are the spiritual and heavenly and to these we are to look. We are not in much danger of being too hard on ourselves--there may be some indeed, but not many. We will find we are inclined to look out for self and the interests of the body, the cravings and desires; all this constitutes a part of the...that we shall put these down. The Lord is not looking, verily, for babes but is looking for strong characters. He has a glorious Kingdom to establish, and He does not want a single weakling on the throne. Why, on the throne of Great Britain you always want and expect a noble, strong character, even although the kings have not the same power they used to have. We would not like a weak character there, so God is preparing a great kingdom over all the world. He has the strongest of all characters as the Head of the Church and now he is looking for strong characters showing their loyalty to Him and firmness by the things they are willing to do and endure and the sacrifice they are ready to make in the interests of the Lord and His cause, in the interests of the principles of righteousness and truth and He is finding them, for hundreds of years He has been finding this class, and if you and I have the right view on the matter He has almost finished the matter of selecting a few more grains of wheat to be gathered into the garner, we do not know how many, it is not for us to say it is completed, it is done, but it is for us to labor so long as the door stands open, to thrust in the sickle of truth and bring as many as possible to a knowledge of the Lord; but so far as we can understand a very little time will finish all this work of gathering the first-fruits of His creatures, the Kingdom class, and then the glorious change and we shall be like Him and see Him as He is and share His glory. All this before the great convention, all this before you are ready to go to the great convention. I sometimes think, dearly beloved, we need to give fresh heed to the preparation; the nearer the wedding comes the more the proposed bride makes ready, the more careful she is of the garments for the occasion and every little thing is fixed up in readiness and everything arranged, not a thing to be left to the last moment--I never was a bride, of course, and cannot say experimentally, but I can well imagine how the sisters would feel on such an occasion. How much more careful we should be; is there anything in your character which needs straightening out; is there a spot or wrinkle or any such thing? You remember what the Apostle said, that we should be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Oh, how careful. Well, it is a great wedding; there never was a wedding like this one and never will be another; it is the wedding of all weddings, the marriage of the Lamb, and His wife is to make herself ready; that is the reason why you and I need to feel more and more that there is nothing in the world so important as this preparation, that we should have our robes in the right condition and help each other to have our robes in the right condition; how careful we should feel for all those who are hoping, with us, to enter in and how careful for ourselves. If there be wrinkles, and that is not so serious a matter as a spot, a spot representing a real sin which needs the precious blood to take it out, nothing but the precious blood would take away; no spot can be removed except by the blood of Christ which taketh away the sin of the world, which cleanseth us. How else could we have the garments pure and white if the blood did not keep us clean, if we could not go always to the throne of Heavenly Grace to obtain mercy and reconciliation to the Lord? What a merciful provision the Lord has made. Coming down to the wrinkle, I do not know what it would be, an indication that even with all the purity of the robe, though pure and white, there is something which has disordered and disarranged the robe a little; we want all the wrinkles out and, as I say, a bride, coming near to the time of marriage, how careful she is, brings to us the thought of the Bride of Christ and how careful we should be that there be no wrinkle or spot, so that when we are presented to our glorious Bridegroom He will be fully appreciative of us; and this is not all, but after receiving us Himself He promises to introduce us to the Father with exceeding joy. Oh I do not know what that means, the exceeding joy, more than any joy that you ever had an idea of; probably much beyond anything within the power of your imagination, without spot, blameless before His presence; think of that, my dear brethren, blameless in the presence of the Almighty God. This is the proposition of our Savior and Bridegroom. Truly we have a Savior and a great one.
And now we will close this convention and go to our homes with a song in--a song in our mouths? Yes, and a song in our hearts. As the Scriptures say, making melody in our hearts towards the Lord. Sometimes we cannot do much for the Lord but our hearts can be thankful and appreciative. We are all the time receiving, even the... we receive in His service. We must thank Him for them because they are the grandest things in all our lives. So then, carry a message from myself to all the dear ones in all the different homes that are here represented, not only in London, but those beyond in outside towns and cities. Please carry my love to all the dear ones; tell them I will be glad if they will journey with me in their minds during the coming weeks; it will be without dust or toil and difficulties and it will be cheap and they can have fellowship all the way along, and as they will think of the good tidings going out and the gathering of the Lord's people let them rejoice together that our hearts may be glad in the Lord and His wonderful arrangement. Now we are about to have a love feast; a love feast is not merely a literal feast of bread that will be eaten; that is indeed a trifle, as you speak of the matter here. The literal feast of bread is a symbol. Away back in the days of the Apostles we read they journeyed in prayer and praise and in breaking of bread from house to house. Some of our dear Christian friends have misunderstood this and keep the Lord's supper every day, but not so, the Lord's supper was an annual celebration, but this breaking of bread was merely having fellowship together. Brother Wesley seemed to get that thought and the Methodist brethren used to have Love Feasts, but I do not know whether they have them now; probably they are a little too aristocratic; Love Feasts are not fashionable nowadays. We will break off a little piece of bread and then in our hearts we will be fellowshipping with each other, partaking of the one body, not celebrating the Communion Supper, not celebrating the Lord's death, but celebrating the fact that we are all members together of the one loaf and are having a joyful feast of the Lord's blessings; we are happy in the Lord. May these thoughts, then, be with us as we partake and thus not only will we have a literal feast of bread as a token of the blessing of the Lord and the spiritual food and the fellowship together in the breaking of the food, but we will have the privilege of having a handshake and we will have all who were speakers on this platform during the convention to be arrayed here in front and have them stand behind the rail and all the Elders of the congregation with them; we would like to have the elders of all the classes everywhere but it would be impossible and the good intention is here; in any case those who have spoken on the platform will represent all the congregation if you please. Then it seems right to ask all the elders of the London Congregation to participate because in a general way they represent the convention home here. I am sure you will have a good time of fellowship. In the meantime we will have some praise, singing, making melody in our hearts and with our voices to the best of our ability and if we cannot sing very much and make what we call classical music we can at least do what the Psalmist David said and "make a joyful noise unto the Lord." I have the thought that God is very pleased with the joyful noise of His people rendered in a spirit of praise and thanksgiving, more than a paid choir of those who may not have any real interest in the matter which they are singing.
[CR446]
Farewell Discourse
WE HAVE come to the close of the Convention. I have not been privileged to be at very many of the meetings of the Convention, but I have nevertheless been able to scent the spirit of the Lord among you; and I believe I express the sentiments of all, both the home congregation and the visiting brethren and sisters, when I say we have had a very enjoyable time, and if we have the opportunity for an expression on the subject, I have not much doubt that the suggestion will be as it is with nearly every Convention in America. "This last one has been our very best." (Cheers.)
And I think, my dear brethren and sisters, that there is something in that. It ought to be the best; if it is not the best for you, then there is something lacking in you probably, just as likely as something wanting in the Convention. The way in which you have enjoyed this Convention has been to some extent commensurate with and in harmony with the condition of your own heart. If it was full, if it was warm, if it was thankful to the Lord, then you had a good time surely. The Lord is ever ready to bless and pour out His spirit upon those who are in the right attitude to receive it, and I think that is the secret of this general expression that the last convention is the best. I really believe that they do all get a little better actually and I think that the friends themselves are getting more into that right condition of heart which enables them to appreciate each other, to appreciate the spirit of the Lord, to appreciate the truth; it goes in deeper, it sinks more, it "spreads abroad," as the Apostle expresses it you remember--"having the love of God spread abroad in your hearts." Oh, we had something of the love of God from the very time we began: if we had not had something of it then we would not have been received into His family at all. No one is received, surely, into the family of the Lord, no one is begotten of the Holy Spirit, unless the spirit of love has come into his heart first and is there. But, you know, my dear brethren and sisters, our hearts are very small to begin with, and what there is is filled a good deal with the things of the old man. We have to be gradually emptied to get rid of these things, of self-will and selfishness and general meanness that came to us through the Fall, and have been accumulating more or less in our fore-fathers and coming down to us as their children. We all have some of it: it is like smut, it is hard to get washed off, it clogs, it hinders, it is not desirable in any sense of the word. But it takes us a while as New Creatures even after we get a little cavity in the heart and after the Lord puts there the begetting of the Holy Spirit, it takes a little time for it to be shed abroad, for the meanness to work out, to be thrown off, and for the graces of the spirit to develop and for the tenderness to come into the heart and for all the fruits of the spirit to abound there more and more.
Now, the more you get into that condition and the nearer you are to that condition, the better I believe you have enjoyed this Convention; so if you have not enjoyed it make a thorough search of your heart and see if you cannot get some cleaning work done and some more oil of the spirit shed abroad, and get some of that quietness which comes from the Lord. The quietness will thrust off earth's sorrows and gradually be shed abroad in our hearts, and will transform us into real copies of our loving Savior with His glorious character, which we all so much admire.
I say that this work is the work of love. The Heavenly Father is Love, and when Father Adam was in the likeness of God I am sure he must have been a loving being. Of course, God has the quality of Justice. He has also the quality of Wisdom. He also has great power. All these things He has; but when He describes His own real character, the very essence or centre which gives Him special personality, He tells us He is Love. We so misunderstood that so long, we so excluded it from our hearts and minds, that we could only get here and there little bits in. We had so much of the wrong, the error, the misunderstanding congealed in our hearts--more or less ice--that it was difficult to get the love shed abroad. But now, gradually the Lord is giving us more truth, and the ice is thawing, and we are getting to see more of the grace of our Heavenly Father. We are getting to see more of the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of His glorious character and His glorious plan. We are getting to appreciate it more and more. We love it, and the more we are His children the more we desire to become copies of our God, and copies of the One whom He set to be the example for us.
I trust we are getting this enlargement of the heart, that our hearts are all being enlarged--that is the real thought of the Apostle Paul--"The love of God shed abroad"--enlarging our hearts, making us broader-minded men and women. We feel ashamed when we look back, just even a few years, to see some of the mean little thoughts we had, some of them about this matter and some about that. Thank God it is getting a little better, we are coming a little nearer to the pattern, we are drawing grace from the Lord and coming a little nearer and getting inspiration from His Word, from His glorious promises, and thus the grace of God is more and more transforming us--forming us over again--because it does not merely stay in the heart, it permeates, it goes through all the "vine." The heart pumps it out, you know, and it causes the whole body to pulsate. By the time we are full up, full of love, we are pretty near the place where we are ready for the Kingdom. Is not that so? It is, and I hope we are getting right near. I see you are. I have more opportunity of seeing it than the rest of you as I travel over the world, and I hope you will take my word for it. As I go from place to place, thousands of miles apart, I can see the dear ones of the Lord's family growing. I know you will be glad to know that they are growing away out in California, away out in British Columbia, and away out in the United States, in Germany, in Sweden, and so on, growing, yes, the spirit of the Lord more and more manifest. That is just exactly what we expect. What else could we expect? If we have been feeding on the very richest spiritual food, such things as the eye had never seen before, such things as ear had never heard of, such things as hearts never fed upon before, if after that we are not well nourished children of the King, what would it take to make us healthy? What manner of persons ought we to be?
Now, then, if we do not feel that we are coming up to the pattern, we can get as near to it as we can. You can never get up there, I can never get up there, but while we may never get our flesh up there, we must remember that it is not our flesh that is to get up there. It is our hearts, our minds; and we can get our flesh as near the right standard as possible. God is looking at the heart, don't forget that. "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." You will either get this everlasting life for which we are running, or not get it, according to the condition of your heart. It is true that the flesh does furnish an index to the heart. It is true that the flesh and the mouth answer according to the condition of the heart; but only the Lord is able to know and read the flesh and to understand it fully. You and I are incapable; even in our own case we cannot always be able to judge thoroughly as St. Paul said of himself: "Yea, I judge not mine own self: there is one that judgeth me." He was glad to leave the judgment in the Lord's hands and do the very best that he knew how to do, and so it is for you and for me. Do your best and leave all the matter of results with the Lord. He will surely give us exceedingly abundantly more than we could have asked or thought.
Now, then, with this thought of the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts, and with peace permeating our lives more and more every day, and with this manifesting itself to some extent towards your husband or wife, towards your children, towards your neighbor, towards your dog and your cat, and toward everything you have to do with, your [CR447] butcher, or your grocer, and towards everybody you have dealings with. That must be manifest, my dear brethren and sisters, it ought to be. The new mind is there and the new mind is ruling. The new mind can make some impression upon the flesh; if it cannot bring it fully into subjection it can at least show that something is doing, something is there under way. So let us have that thought in mind.
But with all that, the point I would like to leave specially in your mind on this occasion, the thought that I think would do us most good to carry away from this Convention uppermost in our minds, would be--what? Love of the brethren. LOVE OF THE BRETHREN. Yes, I am not meaning that you should not love others. I am not meaning that, according to God's Word, this is one of the highest tests of character development, love for the brethren. And it seems to be, dear friends, that this principle of love, which is the very essence of our Father's character, and which is the very test which will determine whether you will get into the Kingdom or not, and whether I will get into the Kingdom or not, this is the very grace of the spirit upon which Satan will be sure to give us the hardest struggle and the closest tests. I do not know anything particular, anything about the condition of affairs here in Scotland, whether you have any special tests along this line or not, but I do know that here and there (I do not know the particulars of many places) are tests of that kind, and little frictions and little contentions. The trouble is lack of love amongst the brethren. That's the trouble now. "And who is doing that?" you say. Well, I will tell you. I think the Devil is always to be looked at in connection with our difficulties. In our flesh we have the disorganized arrangement natural to us, each one has, and the Devil seeks to work up these things that are natural to us, and through these stir up the fleshly things in us-- anger, malice, envy, hatred, evil-speaking--"works of the flesh and of the Devil." Notice--"Of the Devil." I told you so! Yes, of the Devil. He started those works, it was through the sin that he introduced, that all these depravities came to us, and they become almost second-nature to every human being. Who has not got selfishness that he needs to guard against? Who has not the tendency to be jealous and envious? Who has not some seeds of all these other evil qualities? Each one has, I believe, because there is none perfect.
The Apostle says "put off" all these. Do you find anything of that kind ever cropping up in your mind? Put it away, put it away, as you would put away a contagious thing. If you had a garment with some contagion in it that would bring sickness into your home and that might cause the death of yourself or your family, would you trifle with it? Would you bring that garment into your house and flaunt it there? No, you would put it far off, you would do everything to destroy these germs of disease. So here in these things of the flesh we have the seeds of the most deadly poison, the poison that poisons the soul, the poison that does more harm than all the other poisons and pestilences in the world; and the Lord says "put them away, have nothing to do with them," just as soon as you notice them in yourself. Don't be looking at the other one and saying: "She has them," or "He has them." Let them look after themselves, but you and I have each to look after ourselves. I am to watch my heart. God did not make me a governor of your heart. Perhaps he did give me some responsibility in making me your Pastor through your vote, but He gave me special charge of my own heart, and He wishes me to give special care to my own heart. How easily I could cultivate selfishness in looking at the brethren and imagine that they were trying to do this or that, and feel envious of their prosperity. Right mean and miserable all these things of the Devil are. Everything of the Devil is mean, is it not, when you get a proper view of it, when you get your eyes opened to see what the spirit of the world is and the meanness and selfishness and sin? It is all distasteful to us when we get the mind, the spirit, of the Lord. We really love the good things. We put off the mean things, and the good things we put on. Meekness--begin with meekness. Don't forget that meekness is the very foundation. First, meekness--teachable, ready to receive, not haughty and disdainful, but meek. "If you can tell me something I will be very glad to know it." Gentleness --not rudeness. We have plenty of rudeness by nature. It takes us a good while to get rid of it and to put in a little bit of gentleness. Everyone likes to be called a gentleman or a gentlewoman, but they do not really appreciate these terms, and often that which is boastful and rude passes for courage. But, my dear brethren and sisters, we are following the instructions of our Lord to the Apostle--Put on all these, meekness, gentleness, patience. With whom? Oh, with the dog and the cat? Yes. With the butcher and the baker? Yes. With the husband and the wife? Yes. With the children and the parents? Yes. More and more we come to see how much patience we need, as the Apostle says: "Ye have need of patience." Oh, you have need of meekness, gentleness, patience. You cannot be prosperous as a Christian unless you give heed to these things and put them on, make them part of yourself, of your character, not merely put them on in the sense of a garment that you put on when you go out, and off when you come in, but in the sense that you put on some flesh. You are putting on a little more flesh, you are getting strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. Meekness is the power. What power? Of the Gospel. Gentleness is the power of the Gospel. Patience is the power of the Gospel. Brotherly-kindness is the power of the Gospel. Love is the power of the Gospel. It takes more power to do these things than it takes to be rude and vain, and of the worldly, mean disposition. It takes a great deal more strength of character, and we need that strength. The Lord is pleased to see us develop all these graces of the spirit.
After patience, what comes next? Brotherly-kindness, Love. Kindness to the brethren. "Why," you say, "Brother Russell, that seems very strange that you should insist upon brotherly-kindness. We surely all love each other?" Now, I think that is one of the graces that is the very hardest of all to develop. I had a letter just last week from a brother, who said: "Brother Russell, I have not been in the Truth a great while, but when I came among the Truth friends I was told: 'Oh, when you get acquainted with the brethren you will be pleased with them all.' Well, I have not found it so. Some are haughty, and some are selfish. One told me the other day that he had the Bible all at his finger-ends. That is not the kind of man I like. I thought I should love the brethren, but I cannot love a man with that kind of pomposity." No, I guess he could not love him so very dearly, could he? That is, apart from the New Creature.
Well, my dear brethren, my experience is that God has not chosen out the nice people of the world for the Church. My experience is that I have found a whole lot of very nice, fine people in the world. I can admire them very much. I think a great deal of them, especially if they avoid profanity --good minded people. And the Lord has invited into the Church some that I never would have thought of. He has, indeed. I think I have told you before, but it will stand telling again, about one of my experiences twenty-five years ago. It was in Allegheny. An old lady came into the meeting one evening, dressed in a ragged iron-black shabby skirt, a black and white shawl which was not on straight, and a coal-scuttle bonnet stuck on awry at the back of her head. I said to myself: "Where did that bundle of rags come from, and what is she doing here?" When the meeting was over I thought, well, she won't have understood much, and I guess she won't come back here again. Not that we did not treat her just as if she had been beautifully dressed, not that, but because I thought she was incapable of understanding spiritual things, uneducated, unable to read. (I found out afterwards that she could not read.) She came back the next Sunday, and the next, and the next, and the next, and I began to wonder what it meant. I spoke to her and found she was a tea-peddler. She continued to come regularly, and by-and-by the bonnet was on straight, so was the shawl, and the skirt did not look quite so dirty. She seemed to drink in and understand the spiritual things; and before she died about a year after in the hospital, she was a bright saint of God and gave a good witness on her death-bed to the power of the Truth. I took the lesson to myself. If the Lord had said to me, "Go out and look for a jewel which I have in this city," I would have passed that old lady five hundred times and never would have dreamt that she was a jewel. But the Lord's jewels are to be found in some very queer, unexpected places, and only He is capable of knowing them. Whoever has the right condition of heart, no matter how mean, how low, how degraded according to the flesh, the Lord willingly takes them if they come and works in them the transforming influence to will and to do of His good pleasure, and does for them as he did for that old lady, making real saints of them, and that in a very short time! I have seen the same in other people, and it gave me a good lesson. This is the lesson it gave me: Whoever the Lord honors by giving them a manifestation of His Holy Spirit, indicating that He has received them as children into His family, you treat them as children of God. That is what I mean to do, whether they are black or white, whether they are mean or grand. If they are united to the Lord, then we [CR448] are members of the same body, and I must treat them considerately in every way, and think kindly of them, and do everything that I would if they had nobler bodies. They are not responsible for their birth into the world on a mean plane. None of us are. God has had such mercy with us all, Oh, how He must expect that we should not look down upon or frown upon or treat disdainfully any whom He accepts and whom we have any reason to believe are really His children. Let us fix that in our minds. I believe if we saw that rightly and got that thought well and deeply embedded in our hearts, it would help us to be more kind and gentle with all the brethren who are not so noble as we are! (Amen!) We always like to think of ourselves as among the noble. Well, put yourself where you like, among the noble or ignoble, remember the Lord says, "Not many noble, not many wise, not many rich, not many learned, but chiefly the mean things." Think of that! The mean things! That is very queer! Mean things? Most of the Church mean things? That is true. You had enough meanness yourself, so had I. We all have had enough of the meanness, and we are all disgusted with ourselves according to the flesh. We are all waiting for the glorious completion of the Lord's work when we shall be absolutely free from every imperfection. That's the grand climax. The Lord is not going to have anything ignoble in the Kingdom. No, they will all need to be noble by the time they get there, and He is dealing with them now, all those who are weak, poor, heavy-laden. Yes, He says "The world would not have you. Come on." The work of grace goes on in that heart, God has some wonderful surprises for the world when they shall by and by come to know what a work of grace means, and what He has been doing in the world for these 1800 years, taking the ignoble and making of them the sons of God in glory, His sons on the Divine plane. He is going to show that the power of God is to make a new creation of the poorest and most miserable kind of earthly clay! Yes. It will be to the praise of His glory eventually, won't it? It will, my dear brethren.
Well, the thought I am impressing is that some of these brethren who are not noble by nature but ignoble, instead of disdaining them, instead of putting them away, treat them kindly. Instead of being offended at them (for we can get offended as that dear brother was that I mentioned getting the letter from), treat them considerately. If anyone says "I don't care to keep company with these people," well, he can get out. The Lord will not keep him in if he does not like the company of the people He has chosen for His Church. "If you don't like those whom I receive, you may go out yourself." Would not you say so? Suppose you had invited in to your home some friends, and some of these friends took exception to the others you had invited, would you not say "Whom I invite are my friends, and I expect all those who are my friends to treat each other in my house as they would like to be treated themselves?" So I think the Lord is expecting us to have great compassion upon each other, and to remember that we are to treat each other as we would expect them to treat us; and you need mercy, and everyone of God's people needs mercy. What would you do if He did not give you mercy? And you need consideration, and you need kindness and help, and if you do not give a helping hand and if you do not give kindness, what will the Lord do? If you do not, then you are not the right kind for Him to give His favors to. By what you do you show the way that you appreciate, and you will be treated by Him after that manner. If you will not in your hearts forgive, then He will not forgive you your trespasses. Our original sin has been forgiven, you know. I do not mean He will take back the forgiveness of the original sin, but we have day by day our own sins, and the Lord says: "You must learn to have My spirit. Am I not kind in My treatment of you? You are not up to My ideals, are you? You are as much below Me as that man is below you, surely! Well, then, I expect you to show My spirit. I am kind and good to all, and especially to all those who have become My children. Now, I want to see that spirit in you, and if you do not have that spirit you cannot be in that company of Mine that I am making up as a Bride for My Son. They must all be copies of Him, or they will not be acceptable to Me." What a lesson to us! Brotherly-kindness!
"Well, but we must be ashamed of them sometimes," you say. The Lord says "Whoever is ashamed of Me and My Words (and I understand that includes His brethren. You know He calls us His members, and therefore to be ashamed of one of the brethren is to be ashamed of Him) of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He shall come in His glory." Wherever the members are, wherever the consecrated are, we must not be ashamed of them. We cannot appreciate their weaknesses; the Lord does not mean that. We must not say they have not any weaknesses, that they are perfect, but we must sympathize with the fact that in their hearts they are desirous of doing His will. That is the reason He has accepted them, and if I cannot read the heart I know that God has read it, and that means that I take His reading of the matter and say: "That is a child of God. God has given him some measure of His Holy Spirit; the Lord has shown him some measure of the Truth, and he has had a blessing. It is a sign that he is a son of God, and therefore he is my brother, and it is my duty and my privilege to love him and to try to think of his interests and try to put myself out of his way as much as necessary, in order to help him in the good way."
The Bible makes one statement, my dear brethren and sisters, about love of the brethren that has always impressed me very strongly, and I want to give it to you now and to leave it upon your minds as we close. It is: "Hereby we know that we have passed from death unto life if we love the brethren." Now, what do you think of that? Do you know that you have passed from death unto life? "Well," you say, "I hope so." But notice, there's a way of knowing. What is it? "Do you love the brethren?" "Well, I love some of them. I love the refined ones." Oh, that's not it. "Oh, some of them are beautiful characters, I really love them." Of course, we can have preferences. The Lord had preferences in His love, and He does not mean that we may not have preferences in our love. We read: "Now, the Lord loved Peter and James and John." Those were the three specially beloved disciples of the Lord, and it was understood amongst the twelve that these three were specially loved. He took them to more places than the others. There was something about their natural make-up, or their zealousness of spirit, that specially made them pleasing to the Lord. So there may be some of the brethren, of the sisters and brothers, who specially appeal to you. They may have more of the perfection of natural character, or are more developed in the spirit, and you say "I specially love them." The Lord does not say you must not. I love the Lord because of His perfection, and all, as near as they come to Him, the more I love them--the nearer they come to the grand character of the Master Himself. There is no objection to specializing love. But what about the others that are not our ideal? "Well, there's Bro. So-and-So, and Sister So-and-So, I cannot say I love them, because, you know, they have such mean traits." Of course they have, and perhaps you and I have some of the same traits. We must not forget that. No one sees his own mean traits thoroughly. If anyone saw his own mean traits thoroughly you may be sure these traits would begin to disappear very rapidly. If people realized the meanness of their own conduct, they would very soon change it. So, perhaps, we have not seen all the mean traits we have. We must take a general view of ourselves.
But if there is anyone amongst the Lord's people whom you do not love, then I am not sure that you have passed from death unto life, and you are not sure! "Oh," you say, "Bro. Russell, I passed long ago, and I had such-and-such evidence of it." My dear brethren, what you had some time ago is one thing, and what you have tonight is another, and what you have tomorrow will be still different. We do not go into the Kingdom on the score of twenty years ago, or of one year ago, or of yesterday, even. It is, what is your standing this minute? If you had a conversion to God and made a full consecration to God twenty years ago, what manner of men ought you to be today after twenty years' of growth in the garden of the Lord, as one of the flowers who has had the special care of the great Caretaker. If you had the spirit of the Lord twenty years ago your love today ought to be overflowing in your heart. You ought to be rich in grace and abounding in the fruits and graces of the spirit, and if you are not, better be afraid of not gaining the Kingdom. Better to be afraid now, than to find out after a while that you were not enough afraid. There is such a thing as having too much confidence. My dear brethren, the Apostle says, "Let us fear lest a promise having been left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it."
We have been encouraging each other, and we need encouragement. I am not trying to discourage anyone now, but I am wishing to say that while we have all these encouragements, here is one of the tests the Bible gives us, a kind of final test of love, and especially of love for the brethren. How so? Why, it is so hard to love the brethren, IT IS SO HARD TO LOVE ALL THE BRETHREN, that if you [CR449] can say you do love all the brethren, and say it truly, it is a sign you are a changed man. Think of that! You must be a New Creature, passed from death unto life, or you could not do it. The brethren are so hard to love. Is not that so? It is so. The knocks and tests and so forth we get from them, and the fact that we expect so much from them, make it hard. But now you have to measure up to it, and it is just as well to have our minds right keenly alive to it. We are getting close to the time when we hope to hear the Lord saying: "Come, my beloved, into the mansions prepared for you." We are hoping for that soon, and nobody is going in there who has not passed from death unto life, who is not staying out of death and staying in life. It is one thing to pass from death unto life, but you may pass back again from life unto death. We do not want to do that. If we have made a passage from death unto life, and have got an evidence of life in Christ Jesus and all things are become new, and are growing in grace and knowledge, then we should keep this test before us: "Do I love the brethren?" "Do I love all the brethren? Is there a single one of God's people in all the earth that I do not love, that I would not be glad to do a kindness for, that I would not be willing to serve in any way? Is there a single one? If we can say "there is not a single one, I will be glad to serve any of the brethren," then it is a good sign. It is a sign you are still alive, not only that you have passed from death unto life, but that you are still living and getting more and more filled with that holy spirit which is the very aim of our being.
And what shall we do if, as we think over the company of the Lord's people, we say: "Well, there's a brother, and every time I think of him there is a kind of grudge comes up in my mind against him?" That is because you are not right. What would you think of the Lord if every time He thought of you a grudge came up in His mind against you? "Oh, but I am trying to do right." Well, how do you know that that brother is not also trying to do right? "Well, I don't do the things he does." No, but you do something else. If we do not judge ourselves the Lord will have to come in and do the judging. He wishes us to take these specifications and apply them to ourselves. You remember that beautiful picture in Revelation about the golden rod, and John being told to measure the temple of God. I think you and I are that temple, and that the Lord is measuring us with His law of Love, and that we are being measured to see to what extent we are of the right dimensions and properly in harmony with the arrangement of the Lord's plan. I hope the measures are all going to turn out right, and I hope if we have in any manner allowed the Devil to bring in any anger, hatred, envy, and evil-speaking (they are terrible things), if, after searching our hearts you and I find that we have a single one in the world, anywhere, whom we do not love, we will put this away and bring our hearts into full accord with the Lord and thus be in readiness for the Kingdom. And the effect of this will be, I believe, manifest in proportion as you are faithful in it. The other brother will begin to feel the same way. Don't say "He did so and so to me, so I will just treat him so and so."
That brother whose letter I referred to a few minutes ago, said in the letter that a certain brother had passed him on the stairs and did not even nod to him. But before I got to the end of his letter I discovered that he had not nodded to the brother! Yet he was complaining about the brother not nodding! So as we get ourselves right, perhaps the other brother and the other sister will get right, too. That is how to promote love amongst the brethren, and gentleness and patience and meekness and the holy spirit of the Lord, the spirit of love.
Now then, my message to you, dear friends, at this Convention, and which I would like you to carry home in your hearts and spread upon the dear ones of the dear classes here represented, is: "Let brotherly love continue," and, more than that, let it increase, let it abound. Love covers a multitude of faults, so if you are seeing a whole lot of faults in your brethren, just make sure you have not got enough love for them. It will cover a whole lot of your brother's faults if you get enough of love for him. Many of the weaknesses belong to the fallen nature, and it takes the New Creature a while to get his bearings and to appreciate his condition, and get a victory over the flesh. It was the same in your own case, and with all the Lord's dear people except the Lord Himself, who was separate from our sinful race.
Now, my dear brethren and dear sisters, with this expression, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with us all. Amen.
A PRAYER
HEAVENLY Father, Holy One!
May Thy will in us be done:
Make our hearts submissive, meek,
Let us ne'er our own way seek.
Loving Savior, we would be
Ever more and more like Thee,
Free from pride and self-desire,
Fervent with a holy fire.
[CR450]
INTERNATIONAL
1914
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR451]
Clinton Convention--July 5.
Discourse by Pastor Russell. Subject: "HOLINESS"
IT affords me great pleasure, dear friends, to
be at the Clinton convention. I have already
been to the Asbury Park convention. We
had a good time there, and they are still
enjoying themselves, I am sure. We had a
good time also at Columbus, Ohio, and they
still have a good time there, too. And now
I find that you are having a splendid time
here. How wonderful that the Lord's people wherever they
may gather may have the same blessings of Heavenly
Father, the same consolation from the same promises on
the same conditions, and the secret of the entire matter is as
expressed in the Scriptures, that we were all baptized by
one Spirit into the one Body, under one Head, in the one
hope of our calling, in the one glorious prospect. Therefore,
indeed, we are members in particular one of another and
members of the body of Christ and children of the same
Heavenly Father. No wonder we are happy.
"I'm happy, I'm happy, O wondrous account,
My joys are immortal, I stand on the mount."
This is Holiness Day, and my text in harmony with the day is: Be ye holy, even as your Father which is in Heaven is holy."
We will consider first of all what is signified by the word "holy." What does it mean, "Be ye holy"? To some extent, perhaps, we have all had misapprehensions of the meaning of the word holy at some time in our Christian experience. At one time we thought it meant the thought as represented by some Christian people who told us that they had never sinned, or that they never did sin, or that they did not sin now, or that they had not sinned for many years, and we thought that might be what the word meant, and we were perplexed because if we were honest with ourselves we knew we did not live up to that and we had reason to doubt if anybody ever did live up to it, and the more we knew of those people the more we were convinced that they did not themselves, and the more we were convinced that the Bible is entirely right when it says, "There is none righteous, no not one."
If, then, dear friends, there is none righteous, no not one, and if none of us could boast of righteousness, and the Apostle said of the Jews not one was able to keep God's law, then what does the Scripture signify that we have taken for our text, "Be ye holy, even as your Father in Heaven is holy." Is not God perfect? What is this that is meant by our text, Be ye thus holy?
We answer first of all that the word holy signifies that which is whole--that which is complete, that which lacks nothing. And this word holy, or complete, is the same, therefore, as perfection, so that it is equivalent to the statement, "Be ye perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect."
Now you say, it is just as bad as ever, Brother Russell. I cannot be perfectly holy in every action, word and thought, and I ask why can we not be, and the answer we get from the Bible is that we were born imperfect. As the Psalmist expresses it for himself, and for all of us, "I was born in sin, I was misshapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." That is the reason, therefore, that you will find it impossible to be perfectly holy, because you were born a sinner, and you and I know that is not peculiar to yourself or to any other one person. We know the entire human family was born in the same manner, every one born unholy, born a sinner, and that, my dear friends, is the secret of our need of a Savior; for if you had been born holy and perfect you would not have needed a Savior, and if not, you may be sure no Savior would have been provided. If, then, we get the proper thought in connection with this matter of sin and holiness, right and wrong, it is thus that our entire race has been born into the world sinners, weak and imperfect physically and mentally.
Your reasoning is not sound. Nobody else has a sound head. Your body is not sound. Nobody else has a sound body either. Your morals are not perfect. Nobody's are. All have sinned. All are come short of the grand standard of divine holiness and perfection. From the crown of the head to the sole of your foot there is no perfection. You have the Bible for it. Where is the remedy then? For all of this, the only remedy for this matter so far as the human family is concerned, would be to be made over again. And that is God's proposition. He tells us that He intends to have a regeneration of our race.
We have all been generated from the life given to our Father Adam, and as generated children of Adam we are all sinners, imperfect, and not worthy of everlasting life. Therefore, the whole race, under God's decision, being unworthy of everlasting life, is under a sentence of death, and those shall die who are not worthy to live everlastingly and to enjoy the blessings that you otherwise would have been allowed to enjoy. The only hope is regeneration--generated over again with a fresh start of life. That is what the world needs, is it not?
That is a hard question, Brother Russell. How can mankind ever be regenerated? We see the race going down to the tomb, men and women, old and young, all classes going down. How can they ever be regenerated? Does the Bible tell us what is God's Plan in this respect? He has purposed from the beginning to have such a regeneration and He has sent a new Life Giver. Now what do you mean by a new Life Giver, Brother Russell? Adam was intended to be the life giver to his family, and instead of giving life, on account of the sin which he committed, he brought into the world a dying race. And now God's provision is that He will send a Savior and a great one.
I have heard of saviors, but what has that to do with Life Giver? Very much. The word Savior means life giver. And so when Jesus was among men He said, "I am come that they might have life." Did they need it? Yes, indeed. It was life that was forfeited, gone on account of sin. All of our weakness and suffering are on account of sin, and God has provided Jesus to be a life giver.
In what way does He need all of His life for himself? My dear brother, to go into that question is to go into the whole Plan of the Ages. The Bible tells us how God arranged that matter to send the Life Giver, the One who would regenerate our race. To be the regenerator of humanity he needed to be the Redeemer of men first, to give a ransom price for Father Adam and his race. Now then, according to the Bible, Jesus was in the form of God, a spirit form, a heavenly form or condition. He was at the right hand of the Father in the sense of being next to the Father in glory, honor, distinction and power. He was the Logos, the Word of God, the Messenger of God, the One through whom God had been operating in all the works of creation, as the Scriptures tell us, "Without Him was not anything made that was made." And to this great Logos, the Heavenly Father made the proposition--not the proposition that we once supposed, that the Heavenly Father compelled the Son to suffer for us and violated all principles of justice in so compelling the just to suffer for the unjust--no it was all done as the Bible explains, along the lines of harmony, justice and love. The Heavenly Father set before His Son the Logos, a great proposition and left it open to Him to either accept or reject it. If He would accept it it would be a great lesson to himself as well as a great blessing to humanity, so you remember the Apostle tells us--I will not go into details, I will assume that all present are very familiar with it. I am now merely drawing out your minds, stirring up your pure minds by way of remembrance, although you know these things, that you may be able to connect them up and see something of the great workings of the Heavenly Father's Plan. So the Apostle tells us that God set this matter before His Son, the Logos, and Jesus, for the joy that was set before Him, by the Father, was willing to endure all of that. He was willing to leave the heavenly Glory where He was rich in the highest station, and humble himself and become poor by becoming human nature. And He did more, because more was necessary. He was willing to sacrifice that nature and lay down His life, to give himself completely in death, to die "the Just for the unjust." What for? The joy that was set before him. What joy? I suppose one of the chiefest joys of our Savior was to do the Father's will. He put that first. "I delight to do Thy will, O God. Thy law is written within My heart." That was the first joy, something the Father would like to have done, [CR452] so it was something He would like to do.
A secondary joy would be the great privilege of blessing the human family, thousands of millions of human beings that needed the blessing to come into this divine arrangement. Incidentally also would be the great exaltation that would come to himself as a special mark of the Heavenly Father's approval and love, so the Apostle tells us. It was so that when He was obedient even unto death, the Father has highly exalted Him and given Him a name, title and honor that is above every name and title and honor, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, both of the heavenly hosts and also the human family, of those in heaven and on the earth. So much has been accomplished, dear friends, that Jesus has been exalted, and the heavenly hosts already bow the knee in the sense of honoring Him next to the Father. They all honor Him as such.
Then will come in due time the further part when every earthly knee must bow and every earthly tongue confess, also, that He is Lord, to the glory of the Father. We have not reached that time yet; but there is another work going on that Jesus had in mind no doubt, and it was a great pleasure to Him knowing that He would become the Captain of our salvation, that He should lead forth a company of the Sons of God, in a special sense being their Captain or Head, the Body of Christ, the Church, the Bride, the Lamb's wife. And we see, therefore, that we were a part of that great Plan that the Father set before Him, the Son, that He had this in His mind, that He not only would redeem the world from the death condition, but that some of us would have the privilege of being uplifted from the human nature to the Divine nature. So that is the conditions upon which He could be a man's Redeemer and upon which He might be the Great One who would be the Life Giver to the world.
Mark the point that we are making--that the world had lost life and He was the Life Giver and that He could not give the world life until the world could first be redeemed. A sacrifice for the sin of the world must first be provided, and Jesus in laying down His human life, was laying down sacrificially the ransom price sufficient for the sin of the whole world. Now we see from God's arrangement, nothing would stand in the way of God's allowing Jesus to be the Life Giver to the world. So He is ready, as the Life Giver, to appreciate the value of His death to mankind, and thus set them free from the sentence upon the world.
Our thought is that this soon will be accomplished. Very soon God's time will come when the great clock of the universe will strike the hour. I do not know that it will strike that hour this year, or next year, whatever faith or hope or desire you may have. We do not, nor have we ever, claimed to be infallible. But we do say we are absolutely sure of the nearness of the Father's Kingdom, and we do say that, "He (Christ) must reign until He has put down all enemies"; and we see the evidence that the time of that reign is drawing near.
At the time for Him to set up that Kingdom He will make the application for the sins of the whole world, and the whole world will be turned over to Him. Why turn the world over to Jesus? My dear brethren, the world has been under a sentence of sin and death conditions and so sin and death have reigned for 6,000 years; but in God's provision the time has come, or will be here very soon, when the Redeemer will take the power in His hand for giving the blessings to mankind that His death entitled Him to give them. He has the right to give them something because He bought them with his own precious blood. That is the term the Bible says and it is a mistake to say there is nothing in the nature of a commercial transaction; because in the Bible the term used signifies a commercial transaction. Not that God is dealing commercially. There was a price paid and a thing was bought. We were sold under sin by our Father Adam, and the consideration with the first transaction to go to the whole race was sold under sin, and they have been there ever since--the wages, or result of sin.
Now the One has appeared, who has been willing to give His life a ransom and purchase us by giving His human life on our behalf, so that we, as a race of mankind, might be set free from the sentence of sin and death. This would do us little good as a race. (I am not now speaking of the church. I am talking of the world. Will talk of the church by and by.) If we were set free from the power of sin and death now, how little progress would the world know how to make, even with the best of intentions. Even if they were delivered from death they would be unable to lift themselves out of their fallen condition.
So, under God's provision, we see that Jesus should not only be the Redeemer, the purchaser of the race, but after purchasing it He would take hold of it and do something with it. Therefore God arranged that He should be a great King to rule humanity, to rule His purchased possession. He is entitled to take 1,000 years in which He will uplift them out of sin and death, and bring all back again to the image and likeness of God, to all that was lost in Adam, to all that was redeemed at Calvary. He will be the King for that purpose. Does it need kingdom power? Yes. Will He have it? Yes. He is to be King of kings, and Lord of lords. Are we sure He will have the power? The Scriptures assure us, saying the Father has declared that all of the powers of the Divine Kingdom shall be behind Messiah's throne. Do we need more assurance? God said it. In the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians we read, "For He must reign till he hath put all enemies under His feet." He must reign as representative of His Kingdom and the Father's, until He hath put all enemies, all sin and all opposition to righteousness, under His feet.
In doing all of that, dear friends, He will be bringing mankind back again from sin and from death and from unholiness back to holiness. Do you see? Holiness is that condition of perfect Father Adam who was in God's holy image. When He made him, God declared He made man righteous, made him in the image and likeness of God, for man could not be better. How could he be better and be anything else than the image of God--an earthly image of the great Heavenly Creator. That image has been lost for 6,000 years, and for 1,000 years Jesus will be restoring it to mankind and with much power and authority to break the chains of ignorance and superstition and set the prisoners free. At the same time He will be the great King over the whole earth. He will be the great Priest.
What is that? In order to get the Bible picture we must go back to the priesthood that God established, representative in Aaron and his sons. The intention, according to the divine law given them was that they should be the instructors of the people. They would rule, the priests would instruct. The priests would have to do with the healing of diseases during the Millennial Kingdom. These two offices are to be added to Christ--a King and a Priest. A priest upon His throne. "I have sworn, Thou art a Priest forever, after the order of Melchizadek." Paul points out the application of that prophecy that it was an application to Jesus. God has determined that Jesus, as the great Priest, shall have the double office of being King and Priest at the same time, and Melchizadek, king of Salem, was the type of this office of Jesus as the great Priest or King, and in all of that work and blessing of mankind the church is to be associated with him, because they are to be made kings and priests, or more particularly, reigning priests to have the order of royalty and the order of priesthood combined in us because we will be associated with our great Lord and King, and all of His works both as King and Ruler, and also as the Priest or Teacher of mankind. So then, the work will go on for a thousand years, and the standard before all of the world in that thousand years will be "Be ye holy even as the great Heavenly Father is holy." Get back to the image of God. It will be part of the work of the great Priest to show the people how they have fallen far from the image and likeness of God. It will be a part of the great Priest's work to help the people to overcome their weaknesses and to get back to the condition in which they will be pleasing God, and a certain period of time will be allowed. The entire thousand years will be set apart for that work to lift the world up to God-likeness--holy as God is holy-- perfect as He is perfect. Man will be perfect on the human plane, as God is on the divine plane. The same spirit or disposition, only one is human and the other divine. The same holiness you see as God is holy according to His sphere, so man will be required to be holy according to his sphere--the human plane.
What if they do not? The Bible tells us it will behoove every member of the race in Adam to fall in line and perfect holiness. The blind eyes shall be opened and the deaf ears shall be unstopped and they shall come to hear of that arrangement and how much God loves us and how He has provided a Redeemer of the race and how Jesus died for our sins. They shall come to understand the Kingdom of God and the great King of the thousand years, and if they are not touched with the love of God and do not desire to come [CR453] back into harmony with God, and do not put forth the effort to come back to the image of God, they will be counted unworthy of eternal life and will be destroyed from among the people. So at last, all those of the human family who will not avail themselves of the blessed privilege of Messiah's Kingdom, when it shall be in the world for the uplift and the return to the image of God, and the regeneration to a new life of the human race, all who refuse God's arrangement through Jesus Christ will die the second death, and those who come wholly into His image and likeness may have everlasting life. Thus the angels, all those angels who are out of accord with the divine authority and the Spirit of God, will never be continued in lasting life, but will be destroyed in the second death, just as the Bible says Satan will be destroyed, and all who follow him. So humanity, when the opportunity is placed before them and the full knowledge and clear understanding is on earth, by taking their stand on the side of God and seeking as dear children to come into harmony with God and return to His likeness, will find this will be possible; or they will be following the course of Satan and failing to come to God's likeness and will share with Satan in the general destruction which awaits all those who will not have the Lord's ways in their hearts. So we see that the language of our text, "Be ye holy even as your Father which is in Heaven is holy," will be the rule of the whole world. Nobody is to have everlasting life except on those conditions.
What about the church? I am coming to that. That is the most important thing. It will help us to see our share. If we see the glorious law of God on the subject, how does it apply to you and to me? "Be ye holy." That means you and me. "Be ye holy, even as your Father which is in heaven is holy." What does that mean? It means, my dear brethren, that in the New Testament in all of these things that are said to you and to me are not addressed to us as human beings at all. The Heavenly Father is not saying, Be ye human beings now perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect. It would be impossible now. There is no process of restitution going on at the present time. Everything is unfavorable now so far as the perfection of the flesh is concerned. God has made no arrangement for restitution for it. He has left it exposed to the spirit of the world and the power of the devil to a large extent, and you must fight against the Prince of the Powers of the Air, the Prince of Darkness. You must war a good warfare against your flesh, and you must seek also to beware of the spirit of the world; but it is not the flesh that God is speaking to. God is speaking to the New Creature.
Now what do you mean by the New Creature, Brother Russell? Some probably understand just what I mean fully or in part and still others do not understand at all. Therefore, I must treat it from this standpoint and proceed to show what the New Creature is according to the Bible. It is the spirit-begotten ones. Who is that? Come back and see. Our Lord Jesus when He left His glory and appeared among men, He left the heavenly nature and became of the earthly nature--the man Christ Jesus. And so the man Christ Jesus as a baby was different from other babies in the way He was born. Whereas others were born in sin and misshapen in iniquity, in the case of Jesus we read that "He was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners." He did not have any of the defileness common to humanity, so when He was a man He was different. His life came from above and a specially prepared body was given Him. "A body hast Thou prepared Me for the suffering of death." Those of you who are interested in looking this up will find it fully treated in the first chapter of the 5th volume, entitled "The Undefiled One." This one, undefiled, when He reached thirty years of age was the perfect man Jesus, holy, harmless and separate from sinners. He was God's Son on the earthly plane, in the same sense that Adam had been God's son on the earthly plane. The advantage He had over Adam was, as the Bible indicates, that He had a deeper knowledge of things. "By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many"--knowledge which Adam did not possess.
His work was a two-fold work. On His own behalf it was necessary that He cease to be a man if He would return to the heavenly conditions. In no way could Jesus have ever attained the heavenly condition if He had not died to the human nature. Therefore on His own account, in order to ascend up where He was before, it was necessary, as He himself pointed out, that the Son of Man must suffer and ascend to His glory. Furthermore, it was necessary for the great Plan of God that He should die for our sins. So you see there was a two-fold work of Jesus; He died for our sins, and His death was necessary as a proof of His own loyalty to the Father on account of which God has highly exalted Him to a nature far above principalities and powers and every name that is named.
When did that take place? The Bible shows us that that took place in the action of our Lord when He was thirty years of age. You remember He was anxious for that very moment. Under the law it was not a boy that was to sacrifice himself and be the Redeemer of men, not a man of twenty or twenty-five years; but according to the Jewish law it must be a man thirty years old. In harmony with the law He was fulfilling He must wait until He was thirty years of age. So we read, as though He were watching the very moment and hour, "When He began to be about thirty years of age, He cometh to John at Jordan." He did not wait until fully thirty, and then spend a day or two on the way. No. When He was about that age He cometh to John at Jordan. He wanted to make His consecration and be about His Father's business as soon as possible. As a lad He thought perhaps He might begin the Father's service. Then you remember how He questioned the Doctors of the Law as to the possibility of what a boy could do. You remember He came to the conclusion that a boy could not do anything, and He went home and was subject to His mother and Joseph until He was thirty years of age, and as soon as that time came He said, "Now is the time I must be about my Father's business." "Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it is written of Me. I have come to do Thy will, oh My God." Did He make a full surrender? Yes. "Not My will but Thine be done." It was the sacrifice of His will, of himself, because the sacrifice of His will meant all that He had.
Now, when Jesus made this sacrifice of himself at thirty years of age, what did God do? I answer, God accepted Him. In what way? He indicated His acceptance by sending upon Him the holy Spirit. You remember that John the baptizer was the one who bore witness. Apparently John was the only one that saw the holy Spirit in the form of the dove. He bore witness, saying, "This was He of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for He was before me." That is the one who was appointed of the Father to do the great work and carry out the great Plan, to bless the world, to be the One before whom all things in Heaven and earth shall ultimately bow down. That is the One, and John bare record, that this holy Spirit came upon Jesus. What is that that is called the begetting of the holy Spirit? What does that mean?
As the body of Jesus was accepted there of the Father as fully consecrated to death, the Father said in effect. Now I am not wishing You to be dead, You must indeed give up this body that I have prepared for You, that is My will, but at the same time, I will start You into newness of being and that New Creature is what I will beget in You at the very moment of your consecration of the human nature. That New Creature given, that spirit-begotten One, continued for three and one-half years growing more and more strong as the body went down into death. The New Creature was triumphing day by day in the doing of the will of God, and at the conclusion, you remember, Jesus cried, "It is finished." He had finished the work of sacrificing the flesh, and on the third day God raised Him up in the great resurrection change--changed from the human to the spiritual nature.
"Sown in weakness, raised in power. Sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body"--would be applicable to the Savior's change as it will be applicable to ours.
We shall pass through experiences similar to His. Do you see where our Lord became the New Creature? It is the New Creature that must be all the time holy, even as the Father in Heaven is holy. In Jesus' case it was possible for His flesh also to be holy, because His flesh was perfect. Therefore, He could maintain His perfection of the flesh as well as the spirit; but in the case of the Church, we who are so fallen, who are sinners even as others and are invited to walk in His steps and be His disciples and present our bodies living sacrifices, we are told when we are begotten of the holy Spirit, even as we make our consecration, and we become New Creatures in the same manner that He did, that we, as New Creatures, are heirs of glory, honor and immortality with our Lord on the other side the veil. And is it this New Creature in our case? Yes. It is this New Creature that God addresses saying, "Be ye holy even as your Father in Heaven is holy."
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You say, Brother Russell, that that is possible? I answer, yes.
Now, Brother Russell, what do you say is possible? It is possible for you as a New Creature, to be holy, to be perfect as a New Creature. The New Creature was not born in sin. The reason the old creature was born in sin was that we got our human life and all of our imperfections from a father that was a sinner; but this New Creature that we receive from God was an untainted life. Your Father is holy, and if you are His children then His Spirit in you, the life He will give you, is a holy life. Therefore, the Scriptures always speak of the Church as having the holy Spirit of God. The holy Spirit could not be unholy. So if your spirit, begotten of the Father, should ever turn to love sin, it would be a positive proof that you no longer had the holy Spirit, for you would be having an unholy spirit if you loved sin.
We have this treasure, this New Creature is a great treasure, this holy Spirit by which you have been begotten of God to the things unseen which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, this creature, dear friends, we have this treasure in an earthen vessel. You and you and you and you are all imperfect. Nobody knows how imperfect, you say, except yourself. So with each one. No one knows the imperfections really of another. We may know in part. It is possible we do not know all of our own imperfections. We may readily suppose that our Heavenly Father looking down on our flesh sees still more imperfections. It is not the flesh that our Heavenly Father speaks to or is judging at all. He is judging us according to the Spirit. It is the New Creature God deals with. The old creature was born in sin and misshapen in iniquity and is under the sentence of death, and so you let it go down and it is going down. Whatever there is left you consecrated to God's service, and say, I am going to strive for the new life. The old creature is counted dead and God looks at you that way. "You are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God." You are a New Creature, and you have a new life, "For the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ hath begotten us." So when we are told that we are to be holy as our Father in Heaven is holy, that is so, for our heart, our mind, our will, everything is to be holy, loyal, complete without a flaw, without one item out of accord with the Heavenly Father. Is that right? Yes. You say, Brother Russell, that is just what I want to be. I know it. How do you know it? You could not be in the Father's family unless you were that way? He did not receive any others. You must turn your back on sin and strive for God's likeness, and do the will of the Father. "Not my will but Thine be done," before God will accept you at all as a child and beget you with the holy Spirit. I know very well, you need not tell me. I am striving to be that, Brother Russell. I know it. God is pleased with that. You are pleased yourself, and I am pleased with you. We are all pleased to find a great work of grace going on in our hearts.
I might just break in here on the subject and say it is one of the greatest pleasures of my life, as I meet the dear friends in various parts of this broad land and in Europe, everywhere I do meet them, and also by correspondence, one of the greatest pleasures of my life is to find what a growth there is of the Lord's Spirit, the friends becoming more God-like and manifesting the holy Spirit more and more in word and deed and in every way. I am glad that is so. It is right. I am glad it is so.
If we were begotten of the holy Spirit to a newness of life, how could we make any improvement on that? The New Creature grows in grace, grows in knowledge, grows in the various fruits and characteristics of the holy Spirit. All you had in the beginning was a good will. Practically all you said was, "Now I want God's will to be done." Do you know what it is? Not very well. I am trying to find out. How? By studying the Bible, and the principles of God's government, trying to note His dealings with His creatures and trying to learn the lessons of righteousness whenever I can find them, whenever I can come in contact with the children of God. I am seeking to find out by them and to be guided by His holy Spirit and the Word of truth, that I may know the will of God. You are growing in grace, and by growing in knowledge you are getting to know what God's will is. Because you are thus growing you are able to look back on your experiences, and so I remember when first I gave my heart to the Lord, I was just as honest as I am today. Is there any change in you? Oh, yes, I thank God there has been a great change. What kind? The transforming of my mind, the renewing of my mind. How do you mean? This new mind is the product of your brain. Your mind and your will are not the same. You had a will to do God's will before you knew it. Then you used your mind. You used your brain. You received more or less of instruction from the Bible, from various sources, though it has all passed through the brain. The brain being imperfect, these thoughts could not get through very readily, there were obstacles there, and you had this difficulty and that prejudice and the other misapprehension of your mind. What do you mean? This: When you were living in the world, properly you lived the way the majority of your people lived, in the cellar of your house--the animal portions and appetites. Those were the organs you continually used. You hardly ever went up into the upper part of your head to live there, and see around. After you became a Christian and gave yourself to the Lord, you began to examine things. You said a great many of these organs down here are too much developed. I have been thinking too much about them. All of these are more or less animal requirements and I have been using these more than the higher ones of the spiritual nature--benevolence, kindness, etc. These organs of the higher part of the brain I do not use so much. You decide you will move into the upper part of your house, and you find a great deal of cleansing necessary. You had a great many things in your head that you did not want. You start to straighten up and order your brain. But it is not perfect yet. No, but the new will comes in and says, Now I am going to use my brain according to God's ways.
In the Bible we find more and more those very practical lessons that we need in all of our lives. It tells you how to eat and drink and what to wear and how to think. Think of it! It tells us how to think. We did not even know that. We thought quite narrowly. We are learning how to think. Who is teaching us? "They shall be all taught of God." God is teaching us through the words of the Book. God is teaching His people. Are you learning your lessons?
Not long ago I took dinner at the house of a brother, and after dinner he said, speaking of his family, "Those are my children; aren't they pretty nice?" You have a very fine family," I said. I could say it with a conscience. They seemed noble. "They are fine, I admit," he said. "But they are not what they should have been if I had known something of God's plan when they were little; but as you point out in the 6th Volume, it is impossible to train the tree after it is grown as you would if it were a twig. I cannot do with them now what I would like to have done, and I did not know enough when they were little tots to tell them about God's plan. I did not know how to live myself, and I did not know how to tell our children how to live." That is an evidence that that brother was growing--growing in knowledge; growing in grace and undoubtedly in obedience. The important thing is that the will must be given up. You must have a holy will first. God will not deal with you at all until you have a holy will. After that you can bring it to our Father and give it wholly, unreservedly to Him, for life. Your word, your conduct, everything to Him. "Thy will be done." Then the Lord says, "You are just the kind I wanted, I am pleased to have you in My family, I accept you through the merit of My Son Jesus. The wedding garment shall cover all your imperfections I know with a will like that you will overcome the imperfections of your body to the best of your ability, and as long as that is the case I have arrangements already made whereby you may abide in My love and be My son." But there are tests coming right along. Would we grow or get absorbed in business? The Lord points out the danger of that in the parable of the wheat and the tares, how the thorns sprung up and choked the wheat. It was too lightly received, in some cases the thorns sprung up and choked it. What is that? I have given my heart to the Lord and after saying, Thy will be done, God's will be done in me, the will of God was forgotten, and instead of remaining loyal to God, there was the delving into business after the manner of the world, the flesh and the devil as others and not seeking first chiefly the good things that God set before us. What is that? The Kingdom, that we might be joint-heirs with His Son, and so He expects us that if we receive this latter properly, this thought of the Kingdom will have such an influence upon [CR455] us that it will transform our words, thoughts and doings and make us more careful and loyal every day, and we will be able to think better and do better and govern our bodies better, and so we will be bringing our bodies into subjection.
You will say to yourself, "You used to do, that it is true. You cannot do it any longer." The flesh will cry out. You are not giving me my rights. You will say, You have none. Unless you set him down thoroughly, he will get up and answer back. Set him down thoroughly. Tell him he has no rights. You are going to do with him as you understand to be the will of God. You have before served the flesh, but now the spirit. As soon as you can come to understand God's will you want to do that in your mortal body. Sometimes your flesh will deceive you and get involved some way, as these organs of the mind and body are all weak. Therefore, you as a New Creature will have to be continually on guard against your own flesh. There are continually temptations to draw your flesh aside and pervert your mind. More than that, you have the great adversary, the devil, seeking to dislodge your mind and draw it away; but the Father giveth you strength as a New Creature. We are told that Satan is our great adversary, "Whom resist steadfast in the faith." It is a continual battle. The New Creature is continually having war on the world, the flesh and the adversary.
Remember the other side, "Greater is He that is on our part than all that be against us." Those who serve the flesh will have indeed the rewards of the flesh, and those who serve the Spirit of God will be heirs of the great promises to the faithful. What are they? The things you know about. The things that "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man what God hath prepared for them that love Him: but God hath revealed them to us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."
How much do we love Him? That is the question. You loved Him in the beginning? Yes. And you love Him still? Yes. How much do you love Him? Lay the emphasis on the much. How much does He require that you love Him? He says, "With all your heart, with all your mind, with all your being, with all your strength." Now how much? Everything. Love God supreme is the thought. That is holiness, my dear brother, is it not? Holiness--completely given over to God. Complete. No corner left open for the world, the flesh or the adversary. It is all the Lord's. No part for sin. It is all the Lord's. Whatever part sin gets, it is because you have been overtaken in a fault, unwise as it were. I presume every Christian has had such experiences. None have been without. They have been the best helps you have had if you have been rightly exercised. They have taught you where you were weak and not to trust yourself, and that consecration to God is only to be maintained by a close walk with God, by a continual relationship with Him, by having fellowship with Him in prayer. Here it is, then. "Be ye holy (be ye perfect), even as your Father in Heaven is perfect and holy." That means, then, brought down to the simple things of every day life, but as nearly up to the Divine standard as it is possible. Let your will be perfect. Let your endeavors be perfect. Holy, fully given up to the Lord. Do not recognize sin in any sense of the word, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the desires thereof. Don't be making your plans so as to entrap your feet bye and bye. Now I am the Lord's and this body is to be used in every way to His praise, and I believe, my dear brethren and sisters, in God's arrangement He has made it so that while our works are not what will justify us, our faith will. Nevertheless, He has provided the opportunity for His people to work and be co-laborers together with God, co-workers with God. And, dearly beloved, I believe in proportion as you will find yourself continually co-laboring with God and in fellowship with Him, thinking about Him and His ways and the things He has promised, the things of the world, the flesh and the devil will be that much further from you, so that the one who is fully consecrated to God will seek to do what Jesus said to do, and that just as much as possible you will say, "I delight to do Thy will, O God," and as soon as God had accepted him and the holy Spirit had come upon him, he got out into his ministry, doing with his might what his hands found to do. So with all of the followers of Jesus who walk in His steps. God has given us this privilege. "He that reapeth receiveth wages." I hope you are all so engaged, and I do not believe, dear friends, there are many other people in the world who are having as much opportunity for serving the Lord and are as effective in His service as Bible students. I am glad of that. I am not boasting. I am simply telling you what should encourage us.
It is not anything great that you can do that will connect you with God. He is able to take away all of the weaknesses of the flesh in a moment. Why, then, does He allow you to stay in this imperfect body and contend with its weaknesses? Because He intends you to war a good warfare. It will show the degree of your loyalty and submission to the will of God, your holiness of mind, the completeness of your submission to Him. He is looking for priests who will rule the world and give Him the glory through all eternity. He is looking for such workers as He can trust and He is giving them the opportunity to prove their loyalty of their hearts, the New Creature, and God in turn will be glad to recognize that New Creature, and in due time will give us the new bodies which will be in full harmony with His will.
As our Redeemer is perfect we will be perfect, and through all eternity will have no further conflict with opposing influences. But in holiness of mind and loyalty of heart and will, and in the love of all these, will be priests and kings, and will hear the "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things. Enter thou into the joys of thy Lord."
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Close of Clinton Convention
WE will consider the praise service that is just ended as the introduction for this meeting at the present time. My text for this occasion, dear friends, is found in the Apostle's words,
"The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." 1 Cor. 3:17.
We are arrived at the conclusion of our conference, dear friends, and I would like to give you this text, a text to carry home, one that will be helpful not only to each one of us here present, but one I trust helpful to others at home.
We have had a very enjoyable conference, I am sure you will all agree. I dare hardly to ask whether or not this is the best convention you ever attended, because it would seem to be begging the question, and it has been so suggested to me as the best we have ever had, but I was expecting that. So it is at each convention, the last is the best. The newness and freshness is in our memory; but I am sure you will all agree with me that it is not as good as we hope yet to have. We still hope for the Grand Convention, the "General Assembly of the Church of the First Born whose names are written in Heaven," and we are thinking to prepare for that convention; and we know that unless we make our calling and election sure in the present life we will never be of the great convention, and we are glad to think that at that time when the Lord's people are gathered together there will be no schisms, no divisions; all will be complete, perfect, and we shall know as we are known.
I believe a great deal of the divisions and difficulty among God's people at the present time and for the past [CR456] 1,800 years or more is because of misunderstanding. We do not know, do not fully see, do not comprehend each other. Therefore, the many different denominations of Christendom in all of which are many souls seeking to know and to do God's will; and all of which saintly ones are members of the church of the first born, and all of which, of course, will be found in the grand General Convention when we shall meet with our dear Redeemer and all of the members of the Body of Christ will have gone before and the whole church will be complete.
While speaking of this convention we think you all appreciate that we should bear in mind the welcome we have received from the citizens of this city. I am aware that we have passed such a resolution, but I am still recounting the sentiment that we have been kindly received. I trust in turn that we have been kind to them and have done our part to represent the Lord and wherever you go God would be represented in all you would do and all you would see would be impressed for good, and that some light and blessing has been shed abroad in this city, and that some other people have been refreshed also as well as we.
In addition to this welcome which we have received from the citizens here, we have in mind some of the Bible students who are residents of this place who have put forth heroic efforts on behalf of this convention and have done a great deal to bring it to a success--Brother Horth and others associated with him. It is not necessary that we ask a vote to thank each other for whatever we may do. We are all doing unto the Lord. How could we do less! All of our best talents and efforts are God's by contract and agreement. We expect to do our best, expected Brother Horth and his family to do their best and all of the rest of us, nothing less, how could we?
It is said that one of the great admirals of the British navy on the eve of a great battle addressed the sailors and said he confidently expected every sailor to do his duty, and that meant a great deal in view of his enlistment and contract, and so when I say, I trust he and all of us have been doing our duty, we are merely doing what we agreed to do, giving everything we have, our strength, energy and everything to the Lord. If you are doing it, we are glad; if not, we are sorry. We will assume that all have been seeking to glorify God in your spirits and your bodies. We trust that all of our hearts are bubbling over with joy in the Lord, and I desire to more and more glorify God and show forth the Truth He has given us.
I trust as we go to our homes a blessing may go with every one of us, and that every one far and near may get a share in the blessing that has come to your soul; and I sincerely believe that as you attempt to pour out that blessing when you reach your home you will get a double portion yourself, and the more you give out the more you will have. It is so generally, and I believe it will be so with you and me. "Freely ye have received, freely give." Therefore, God's blessing will go from this convention far beyond this to every place you and I shall go the remainder of our lives. We are to have a life feast.
I am digressing from my text. It is one which we all realize is very appropriate to us. "The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
Both St. Paul and St. Peter are our authority for saying that the church which is the body of Christ is the Temple of God, and that His Temple is holy. God, who condemned the whole world in Adam, and who has declared that He will have no fellowship with sinners, has provided a way by which these sinners can come back into harmony with Him. Only through the arrangement which He has made in respect to this great Temple can mankind come back into harmony with their Creator. St. Paul points out the foundation of this great antitypical Temple, saying, "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." St. Peter declares to the church, "Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy Priesthood, to offer up sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
Solomon's temple was a type, or figure, of this greater Temple which God is erecting. Solomon's temple had several peculiarities connected with its construction. One very special peculiarity was that the great stones were taken out from underneath the side of the Temple. Another peculiarity was that each stone was made to fit exactly the place in which it was to be located, and then numbered and marked with signs which the builders understood. This method is followed by modern builders also; and when a building is constructed, every part is put in place quietly and orderly--no confusion whatever. So it was in Solomon's Temple! The stones were made ready before they were brought thither, so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was being built.
THE LIVING STONES OF THE GREAT TEMPLE.
Having described the Temple of Solomon as a type, we will proceed to discuss the antitype--the Church of the living God. The Builder and Maker is God. The quarry is the world in general. The living stones are taken out of the world, separated from the world, but are chiseled and polished in this antitypical quarry, made ready for their positions, and then taken to their proper place. For more than eighteen hundred years this work of preparation has been going on. Jesus was the Foundation Stone. Before He came there were no stones prepared; none could be accepted until He had come and died, "the Just for the unjust."
Then the process of cutting, chiseling and polishing the "living stones" of the Temple was explained. Each consecrated Christian has had experiences of such a nature as to separate him from the world. It was a difficult matter to block out character and to bring each to the place where he would be separated from his surroundings. Still more difficult in some respects have been the chiselings, blow after blow, experience after experience, trial after trial, in order that each living stone might be shaped, fitted and prepared for a place in that glorious Temple which is yet to be constructed. The polishing process has also been going on. As the Scriptures express it, the Bride makes herself ready. Each living stone polishes others.
Here is a lesson for those who are following in the steps of Jesus. While various severe experiences, trials and tests may come from the world, yet the very finest polishing is produced by contact with the brethren. Therefore, whoever learns to love the brethren and to endure all their various weaknesses and imperfections, and is rightly exercised by these experiences, will receive a fine polish--that which our Lord through His Word describes as the fruitage of the holy Spirit. "The fruits of the Spirit are manifest, which are these: Meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, brotherly kindness, love." If these things be in us in abundance, we shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord. And so it is that an entrance shall be ministered unto us abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Savior.
CONSTRUCTION OF ANTITYPICAL TEMPLE.
Next the construction of the antitypical Temple was discussed. Eighteen hundred years ago the foundation was laid--in Heaven--the Top Stone, as the Apostle says. All the other stones must be fitted up into Him, according to St. Paul. In describing the antitypical Temple the Apostle here uses the figure of the pyramid, the top stone of which is a miniature pyramid, all remaining stones being fitted to come into line with it. So the Scriptures declare that Jesus is the Chief Corner Stone, the Top Stone, into which the Church, as living stones, are being built up, instead of being shaped to a foundation below them. This will be accomplished in the First Resurrection, when the Church, changed into spirit beings like the Lord, will be built up and completed with Him on the Heavenly plane, far above angels, principalities and powers, and every name that is named.
To our understanding of the Scriptures, the building of the antitypical Temple will be done at the close of this Gospel Age. Just as in the construction of Solomon's Temple, all the materials were first prepared, and then the building began, so it will be with the antitypical Temple. Our great Master Workman has been getting ready the "living stones," supervising their preparation under strict rules as to shape, size, quality, etc. This work has been going on through this Gospel Age, and not until the full number of stones shall have been made ready will the construction of that glorious Temple begin. This construction will be the Resurrection change--"Changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye;" for "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God."
Since we are now living in the close of this Age, the stones for the antitypical Temple must practically all be finished. Therefore, our thought is that the work of construction of the Temple has already begun. This does not imply, however, that the final polish has been given to all [CR457] of the stones. Those long since prepared could be put in place while the last stones were receiving the finishing touches. He declared that the Scriptures so intimate when they say that "the dead in Christ shall rise first"--beforehand --and that "then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord." The fact that some are not yet "caught up to meet the Lord," but are still in the place of polishing and preparation, indicates that the Temple is not yet completed.
After every living stone has been placed in the great antitypical Temple, the glorification of the Temple will follow. In the type, King Solomon, type of our Lord Jesus, offered the sacrifice, and God accepted it; then the glory of the Lord filled the Temple. So in the antitype, the Church in glory will not be the Temple of God until the Heavenly Father Himself shall have recognized it. It is the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Master Workman, to shape and polish these living stones, to remove them to glorious conditions by the resurrection change, and to build the Temple. Then when all is finished, not a stone lacking, He will await the Father's acceptance. The glory of the Lord God will fill this living Temple.
"A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL NATIONS."
The purpose for which this glorious temple of God is being constructed: Back in the law dispensation the required information was pictorially set forth in types and shadows. The Prophet Isaiah had foretold that God's house was to be called a house of prayer for all nations. This was what the temple at Jerusalem was in particular. It was arranged in different sections, representing various classes, as it were. First in importance was the Most Holy, then came the Holy, then the Court into which Jews might come, next the women's Court, last the Court of the Gentiles. Thus was depicted the millennial age, after the glorification of the antitypical temple.
God will be in that temple--the entire church of Christ glorified. The Divine power will operate through it and all nations will begin to draw near to God. But in order to do so they must draw near to this temple, for the glory of God will be therein displayed. All nations, both Jew and Gentile, will come to the Heavenly Father through this temple.
Another Old Testament picture was that of the typical priesthood. The priests of this new temple will be Jesus, the great High Priest, and His church, the underpriests. Jesus will be both King and Priest, "a priest upon His throne," after the order of Melchizedek. Our Lord is not yet upon His throne, but remains waiting at the right hand of the Majesty on High, until the antitypical temple is completed. The Father's right hand signifies the place of chief favor, next to the Father Himself. As it is written, "Sit at My right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool."
During this period of waiting the "living stones" of the temple have been prepared; those who will constitute the royal priests have been in training for the duties of their office. As yet there is no royal priesthood, for only those who shall be declared worthy to sit with our Lord in His throne will constitute with Him that royal priesthood. Again it is written, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and shall reign with Christ a thousand years."
These priests are also knights of the temple. While at present they do not wear white plumes, yet by and by they shall wear not only white plumes, but white raiment. Our Lord has said, "They shall walk with Me in white; for they are worthy."
OTHER PICTURES OF THE TEMPLE.
There are various New Testament references to the church of Christ as a temple. One of these was St. Paul's question addressed to the Corinthian church, "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you?" It was shown that this question does not apply to the world, for by nature the world knows not God. They are still under condemnation, "children of wrath," according to the Scripture. God has not yet begun to deal with them nor to give them the blessings which He has purposed for them. During this Gospel age He is dispensing blessings only to the church class to those who have received the holy Spirit.
Beyond the veil the church class will receive the holy Spirit without measure, when all the "living stones" constituting the temple of God shall have been glorified. But on this side of the veil those who give up their will to the Lord and who are accepted and begotten of the holy Spirit as new creatures in Christ, receive that spirit in measure; and so the bodies of these may be said to be the temples of the holy Spirit. Wherever God's Spirit is there is a temple, as St. Paul's question sets forth. Again the Apostle declares that we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the glory may be of God. God's holy Spirit constitutes its recipient a temple of God.
Elsewhere the Apostle calls the bodies of those begotten of the holy Spirit tabernacles. The difference between a tabernacle and a temple is that the former is a temporary structure, while the latter is permanent. So St. Paul calls the present condition of the church, in which the holy Spirit dwells merely in our hearts, a tabernacle condition. It is not to last forever; it is only for the present trial time. If we are rightly exercised by the power of God within us, then we shall be made ready for the temple condition. These are blended pictures of the Apostle's thought, which is this: If the holy Spirit dwells within us, we should regard our bodies very sacredly.
In that same connection the Apostle goes on to say, "What communion hath light with darkness?" And again, "What harmony is there between the temple of God and the temple of idols?"--between the purity that belongs to the temple of God and the impurities of the world, the flesh and the devil? Those who have been made the recipients of the holy Spirit of God should be clean and pure, as befitting a temple of God. They should see to it that this sanctifying power of God extends to all their faculties and operates through them--in their minds, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their words, thoughts and doings.
"HE SHALL PRESENT YOU FAULTLESS."
Bro. Russell concluded his address with an exhortation to those who realized themselves to be living stones in the antitypical temple of God. He urged these to appreciate the privilege of present discipline. Much chiseling and polishing are necessary to prepare these stones for their future position. Therefore each should thankfully welcome whatever experience of this kind the Master Workman shall see fit to permit him to have. The present discipline of the church is for the purpose of developing the character necessary for the great service for which God is building His temple.
While each faithful follower of the Lord looks forward longingly to the glories of the future, when the glory of the Lord shall fill the temple, yet each should remember that unless he is submissive to the chiselings and polishings of the present he will be set aside as a living stone and his place given to another. The cultivation of pride along any line, the development of an unsanctified ambition, are amongst the greatest dangers to these living stones now in course of preparation. Such flaws developed would render any unfit for a position in the temple.
The Scriptures declare that the great Master Workman will present each of His faithful ones blameless and irreprovable before the Father with exceeding joy. After having received the Redeemer's "well done," the church will then receive the Father's approval and be honored in the presence of all the holy angels. Surely this experience will fill the church with glory. Then will follow the blessed privilege of taking hold upon the world's affairs, rescuing mankind from bondage to sin and death, and blessing all mankind with the knowledge of the glory of God, whom to know aright is everlasting life.
I tell you, he said, the man or woman who becomes a true child of God and who becomes well saturated, well filled with the holy Spirit, will be a fine character whatever they may have been to begin with or whatever their stage of development. Whether they reach it speedily or slowly will depend upon themselves. If they are indeed fervent in spirit serving the Lord, looking to His Word, desirous of seeing what God's will is, desirous of putting into practice everything they learn they may grow very rapidly. I have known most fair, saintly characters to be developed very shortly. I have been amazed to see a party being taken out of a very fallen condition, and the grace of God come into the heart and work miracles; old things passing away, and all things becoming new. Their new desires and new hopes all help them to do those things pleasing to God so that to cultivate in their hearts, words, lives, mind and thoughts those things pleasing to God and everything not pleasing to Him put away all of those.
It is a constant work, my brother, but mark you, if you are merely laboring for an earthly education and some position [CR458] in society you know it would require years of study in a school or college, and now God has put us in the school of Christ, preparing us as members of this Royal Priesthood to take the control of this earth for a thousand years. Do you not think you need preparation? I am sure you do. Do you not think you need to show God He has safely chosen you that He may have patience with you? Do you not need to show Him your earnestness of heart and desire that you may be what is pleasing to Him? Yes, I am sure you do.
This is what the Bible tells us He is doing. He is
working in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. It is
much a matter of will at first. You say, I would like to be.
You are unable to do much. You are handicapped by the
weaknesses of your natural body and brain. You do not
know how to bring them into control. You say "I have my
hand under control. I never hit anybody now." I am glad
you don't. Do you hit them with your tongue? Some control
the hand and do not control the tongue. It is the most
powerful member of the body and you can do more harm
with it than any other organ you possess. And the influence
of your tongue may go for miles and miles and miles
and may reach millions of people. There is no other power
that will compare with it. Have we given our tongues to
God, and are we seeking that they may glorify Him to
speak forth His truth?
"Let my tongue speak forth His praise,
Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways."
All of our powers are to be engaged in the Lord's work, but it takes a little time, and the important thing of all is that we first have the will right and it must through the brain, and until you find out intelligently what God does want, you are working to disadvantage.
We have learned something about our Heavenly Father's plans and character, His work, His wishes to us, His intention respecting us, and because of this knowledge, we are better able to cope with the situation, not only in dealing with others, but with ourselves. We know better how to bring our thoughts into subjection to the will of Christ. Think of that. Bringing your thoughts into subjection to God's will. This is the holiness, then, that belongs to the temple class, and I hope you will be a member of that class. "The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
This is the matter to which you have been called. We have all been called in the one hope of our calling. We have all been called. That will not be the end of us. We remember the scriptures which tells us that in the "ages to come," away beyond the millennial age, away after God shall use the church in the blessing of the world, God will show the exceeding riches of His grace and His loving kindness toward us who are in Christ Jesus. Let us then seek more and more to cultivate this holiness without which we cannot be pleasing to Him, or can see Him or be members of this temple class or share His glory. In proportion as we shall be faithful in thus following the instructions of the Lord's Word we will be making our calling and election sure as members of that glorious temple class, as members of that royal priesthood class, as members of the body, the Lamb's wife, as members of the children of the highest.
LOVE FEAST.
Now the time has come, dear friends, when this convention closes and we will have to look forward to the general assembly, not knowing whether in God's providence we may ever be called upon to meet together again as an earthly assembly, we will be looking for the General Assembly of the Church of the first born. We shall now have a Love Feast, and all of those who desire may have the opportunity of saying good-by one to another. We cannot all say good-by and shake the hand of each other one personally. That would take quite a while, but we can do it by proxy. This is the way we will do it: All of those who have served on the platform as speakers at this convention will be asked to come to the front and arrange in a line, and all of the remainder of the congregation, if they desire, will be privileged to come forward and shake hands and bid them good-by, thus closing the convention. On the first day of the week the early Church had the breaking of bread --a common meal. We cannot have a common meal here, but we can have a common love and that represents not only the people here, but all the saints of God, every place. The Lord knoweth them that are His.
[CR458]
The Great Anointed One
OUR text today is found in the 61st chapter of Isaiah's prophecy, 1st verse: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted."...
From our text, dear friends, we recognize that the Prophet is speaking of the Christ--Jesus the Head, and the Church His Body. I need not remind you that the word "Christ" signifies "The Anointed," and that God's arrangement from the very beginning was that He would have a great Anointed One who would accomplish the Divine purpose.
From the beginning God had foreseen that sin would come into the world. He had foreknown that our first parents would fall. And He had provided, the Scriptures assure us, for a salvation from the sentence that came upon the world as the result of sin. It was not a sentence, we find, such as our forefathers told us about, not a sentence of eternal torment, as though the Great Creator was evil-inclined toward His children, bringing into existence thousands of millions of people with the express purpose of tormenting them through all eternity. Not so; but it is as the Bible represents, that God had pronounced the sentence of death upon the human family. He declared that our first parents, because of sin, were not worthy to continue to live forever. He made them and started them under conditions favorable to everlasting life in Eden; and when they were disobedient, when they became sinners, the sentence applied to them, "Dying, thou shalt die," not, living, thou shalt live in torture.
We misread our Bibles, dear friends. Thank God, our eyes of understanding are getting more widely open, and we are seeing more and more that the difficulties with the Bible are not really in the Bible itself, but in these misinterpretations of the Bible which came in during the dark ages, and which became so indelibly impressed upon our minds from childhood that we thought of our God as being the most powerful enemy of the human family that could possibly be imagined. Now, the eyes of our understanding opening--as the Apostle prayed they would--we are beginning to see what he said we would see. He said, you remember: "I pray God that you (the Church), that your eyes of understanding opening, ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the length, and breadth, and height, and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge"--the love of God which passeth all understanding.
We are just getting our eyes open, dear friends. We are seeing greater lengths and greater breadths, we are seeing more of the heights and more of the depths, of God's love every day; and we are coming, I believe, as a result of this, to a better appreciation of Him and His love. The light is coming, I trust, into all hearts and minds and more and more. And because we love God, therefore we delight to do those things that are pleasing in His sight. It is no longer, Will you do this, or go to hell? No, my dear brethren, the thought is the very reverse. Our Father, who loves us, and who hath done great things for us, and who hath promised still greater things in the future for His people, we delight to serve. We delight to be His [CR459] children; we delight to be under His care. We would feel strangely if cut off from our Master.
It may be that things have come in between our God
and our hearts. The poet has so beautifully expressed our
desire to keep close to the Lord, saying:
"O let no earth-born cloud arise,
To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes."
We are glad because we have seen Him, seen Him with the eyes of our understanding, because our eyes have been opened. The difficulty in the past was that we did not see God: we saw the misrepresentation of God. And that is exactly what St. Paul told us was in his day the trouble with many, that Satan, "the god of this world, hath blinded the minds of them which believe not."
Why would Satan do that? Why would Satan misrepresent "the God of all comfort and the Father of mercies?" I believe, my dear brethren, it is because the world, if they know about our God and His real character, would, the great majority of them, delight to do His will. But the world knows Him not; and Satan is trying to keep the world blinded to God's real character, His real purpose and plan. Why? Because as he has become His enemy and delights to thus misrepresent God, and misrepresent the Bible, mankind are drawn away from the good, they are drawn away from God. There are various allurements of the world, the flesh and the devil to attract their attention; and having no God to worship, to give their hearts to, they give their hearts to the world, the flesh and the devil.
I have had the personal testimony of many, and some of these very clearly intimate that it was because they did not know God that they did not love Him. Therefore, they did not come into relationship with Him. That is what St. Paul says: "Lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them"--shine into their hearts. It is this reason that the "god of this world blinds their minds," misrepresenting the facts, misrepresenting the teachings of the Bible, misrepresenting the character of the One who gave us the Message of the Bible. But as the love of our heart unfolds, and we come to understand God's character better, what a great change comes in! As the Apostle says, "Be ye transformed, by the renewing of your minds, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." What a change! Why are there not more in this way? Because, as we have said, not every man sees. Only a few have had their eyes of their understanding opened. Only a few really see God's true character.
The great majority are under the dispensation of the adversary, thinking of God as being the great devil. How could we properly worship a devil? And how could we properly worship our God, when we attributed to Him the qualities of a devil? I am speaking with all candor and deliberation when I say this, because I cannot imagine how it could be done. It is not in the power of my brain to imagine any devil that could possibly be worse than you and I were told our Heavenly Father is, was and always would be. Think of it! A God with all power to do anything and everything--almighty power-- engaged in bringing thousands of millions of human beings into the world with the foreknowledge, with the predestination, with the fore-intention, that they should suffer an eternity of torture at the hands of devils! I do not believe that Satan himself is anything like as bad as that; and do you think I would worship Satan? Not a bit of it, my dear friends! Do you think I could possibly worship my God when I had that misapprehension of His character? It is impossible. I tried to, and I was considered a good Christian, under the circumstances. I was striving to live according to the right, brethren, yet my heart had not been touched as it was afterwards touched, when I beheld the love of God which passeth all understanding. I cannot fully understand this love yet. I am getting to understand it a little better. I hope, but "it passeth all understanding!"
I care not how rich you are in Christian experience, or how many years you have been in the Lord's family, if you have been making proper progress, this love passes all your understanding. And if you are growing, you will find more to appreciate and to follow of God's goodness and love and power. These things will be more and more amazing to you as the days go on.
Well, this great God of ours purposed from the beginning that when sin should enter the world, He would not allow it to continue forever, and He said so. He plainly told our first parents after their disobedience that the time would come when the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. That was a figurative expression, prophetically representing that righteousness, in some way identified with the human family, would ultimately overpower sin as represented in Satan, and in the serpent, who was the instrument of Satan, who was the cause of the fall. God did not tell Father Adam and Mother Eve how He would do this, how the Seed of the woman would bruise or crush the serpent's head, and it was a matter of faith with them that it would ever take place. It was a matter of trusting that God would do what He said. And, my dear friends, it is a matter of faith yet. God has not yet bruised Satan. Satan is not bruised today, is he? He is very much alive.
If the head of the serpent was bruised, or crushed, the sin would be crushed, and this is the meaning of it, you see. Sin is to be crushed, and that has not yet been accomplished; but we still have firm faith and trust in God that this will be accomplished. The time for the accomplishment of it you and I are seeing more clearly today is the time when Christ's Kingdom is established in the world; and that Kingdom of God's dear Son will be the power of God amongst men for their deliverance from the power of Satan. And Satan shall be crushed--bound for a thousand years. All the evil influences represented by the serpent will be brought under the power of the heel of the Great Deliverer of our race.
He will put down all sin and insubordination, and bring all things into accord with the Divine requirements of justice, wisdom, love and power; and those that will not come in harmony with these He will destroy. O, the Bible is so beautiful and plain, and we did not know it!-- so grandly simple, telling us all the time about that great Kingdom; not merely telling us about the Kingdom, but telling us how it would be instituted, who would institute it, and giving us types to foreshow the antitypes. The prophets told about the Kingdom, Israel's kingdom, and that their kings typified the coming Kingdom. God gave the Jews a high priest, and that high priest in his office as healer and physician and instructor, educator of the people, and the under priests assisting him, were all typical.
In due time the Great High Priest, Christ Jesus, and the under priests, the Church in glory, will be the world's priesthood instructing the people, healing their diseases, and helping them out of their difficulties. The Aaronic priesthood were only types pointing forward to that glorious consummation. And the Bible goes on to show that in the future these two offices--the kingly and the priestly offices --will be united in one person. There will not be one king and one priest, but there will be a King-Priest. So God said through the Prophet David, speaking of Jesus, as the Apostle Paul tells us, David said that Messiah would be a Priest forever, after the Order of Melchizedek.
And who was Melchizedek? He was that great personage who lived in Abraham's day, in whom the two offices of king and priest were united. And St. Paul says that Melchizedek was a type of Christ in His Millennial Kingdom, uniting both offices. He would be a king to rule, and a priest to instruct, bless, uplift and heal--combining the whole.
And then God, you will remember, instructed Israel as to the particular way in which their kings were to be anointed, and in which their priests were to be anointed. You remember He had them make a special kind of ointment, or oil, an anointing oil. No king was properly anointed unless that oil was put upon him, and no priest was properly anointed unless he received of that same holy anointing oil. According to the Scriptures, that holy anointing oil represented the holy Spirit, that which was understood to be something very special and very different from anything else.
God arranged that that oil in the type--composed of those particular ingredients--should be something that nobody might ever have excepting the high priest and the king. It was a special composition; no Jew was allowed to make that ointment, except those who had the right to make it for that particular purpose. So God represented, you see, in the type, that in due time He would anoint certain ones with the holy Spirit, and that anointing would be for a special purpose.
Now our text is discussing that very matter, discussing [CR460] the anointing of this Royal Priesthood. So we read: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach the good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted ..." etc.--continuing to tell the things the Great King and Priest will do.
The special points here are these: the anointing, first of all, and afterwards, why the anointing. The anointing, brethren and sisters, began at a certain time and place, and with a certain person; He was the first One that was ever so anointed. Who was that person? Oh, you all know; it was the Lord Jesus Christ. And who anointed Him? You remember very well. It was at Jordan, when the Savior had reached the full perfection of manhood, thirty years of age under the law, and where He made a consecration of himself to do the will of God even to death. There He was anointed of the Father. There He was accepted of the Father; and by this acceptance the Father said, "Ah! you have agreed to do the important thing, and in view of your engagement to do this, I will give you an anointing to this high office. You will be anointed to be the Great Deliverer of the world, because you have made this consecration of yourself."
And so, you remember, the record is that Jesus was baptized, symbolizing His death; and as He arose from the water, the holy Spirit descended upon Him in a bodily form, like a dove, and it rested and abode upon Him. It didn't disappear, sink right into Him, but was merely an outward representation of God's power coming on Jesus, authorizing Him and anointing Him, designating Him as the One who would be the Christ--the Anointed-- the King, the Priest, the One in whom would center all the promises that God had made from the days of Adam and Eve. All of them referred to and rested upon this Great One who as the Seed of the woman would ultimately bruise the serpent's head.
Well, did the man Jesus bruise the serpent's head? Oh, no. No, He did not. He did not bruise the serpent's head. The serpent's head is not bruised yet. Why the delay, then? Ah, there is another feature of the plan here! The serpent was to bruise His heel, first. Is the serpent to bruise the heel of this Seed after the serpent's head is crushed? Oh, no! The bruising of the heel must precede. No serpent with its head crushed will hurt your heel, or any other part of you. So the serpent was to have his time first for bruising the heel. What does the heel signify? Why, the heel is not a vital part. You might have your heel crushed, you might have it injured, and it would not prove a vital matter; but if the head be crushed, it is a vital proposition. And so God, in the picture, you see, showed that some slight and temporary injury would come to the Anointed One, but that the result to the serpent would be utter destruction, as represented by the crushing of the head.
But we say that this crushing has not yet been accomplished. We are witnesses of the fact; and yet nineteen hundred years have passed. Why the delay? The Apostle Paul explains; he says: "This is a matter of mystery to the world, but it is now made known to the saints." What mystery? Ah, the mystery that, in God's mind, in God's plan, the Great Anointed One was to be not merely Jesus, but also a Church, which would be His Body. And so the Apostle says that this is the mystery--that Christ would include a company, the elect class--Jesus the Head, and the Church His Body; for "God gave Him to be the Head over the Church, which is His Body." "We are members in particular of the Body of Christ." How beautiful it is dovetailed together, you see; no doubt about it, no room to doubt; the Scriptures make it very plain!
Now then, my dear friends, the fact is, as the Apostle explains the matter, that as this holy anointing oil which represented the holy Spirit, was "poured out on the head of the high priest, even Aaron's head, and ran down his beard, even to the skirts of his garments," so God intended that this anointing of the Royal Priesthood should begin with the head, Jesus--He was the Anointed One--and then should come down over all the members of the Body, all these nineteen hundred years, clear down to the end, to the completion of the whole Body of Christ. And so if you and I get into Christ, we are getting into the anointed Company, the Body which was so anointed.
It was not that God changed His plan, that He first said, I will anoint My Son, My only begotten Son, and I will let Him do this work; and then after taking a second thought said, I believe I had better have a Church, a Bride class, for Him. No, no. The Apostles Paul and Peter explain to us that the entire matter was known of God and in God's plan from before the foundation of the world --no second thought about it at all. It was God's purpose from the beginning. He had merely kept it a secret; and therefore it was a mystery, says the Apostle, "hidden from past ages and dispensations, but now made known unto the saints"--that we should be fellow-heirs with Jesus, members together of the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ. So then, dear friends, the work that has been continued these eighteen hundred and more years, is the work of anointing this Body. The one anointing which came eighteen hundred years ago upon our Head, the Lord, was at Pentecost extended to the Body. From the Head it passed down to the members and has been coming down, and coming down; and if you and I are received into the Body of Christ, we come under this anointing. All those whom God thus receives becomes members of this anointed class; that is to say, members of the Christ. "The Anointed" are the Christ. The meaning of the word "Christ" is the "Anointed One," as we noted at the beginning. So the whole Church, Head and Body, is God's Anointed.
Now for what are they anointed? We answer, they are anointed to carry out the great work of God. What great work of God? God's great work planned from the beginning, as portrayed in the Bible; for instance, in the first definite promise made to Abraham, when God said, "In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Who is that Seed? The Seed is Christ, said the Apostle. (Galatians 3:16,29.) And does he mean Jesus only? Oh, no. He particularly says in Galations 3:29, speaking of the Church: "And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." So you see, brethren, God's intention is this elect class of which Jesus is the Head--this Anointed class--is to be God's agency in blessing the world.
Ah, you say, now I see! I see why the world has not been blessed! I always wondered why God did not bless the world. I always wondered why the heathen were allowed to go down by the thousands of millions into death. I wondered why. I did, too, my dear friends. I used to say, even as a child, "It seems so strange that I love the heathen more than God loves them." I tried to get together my pennies, nickels and dimes to forward the cause of missions in heathen lands. I said to myself, "God has all the power, and He is letting these creatures go down in death"--I thought then that He was letting them go down to eternal torment, while He sat up in Heaven and looked on calmly and said, "Raise the money. If you do not raise the money, I will send them to hell." My dear friends, we did not know our Heavenly Father then. You see, it was a misapprehension. That is not His spirit; that is not the mind of God. We misunderstood. We see now in God's great plan that He purposes first to gather out the seed of Abraham, the anointed class; and that is all He has been doing thus far. He has only gotten that far-- and not that far even, because this class is not yet complete. You and I are hoping that by the grace of God, and with His assistance, we may make our calling and election sure, so that we may be members in this Body of Christ; that we may make our calling and election sure to membership in the Church in Glory, because there are those now in the Church, during the present life, who have received the holy Spirit, but who will not be in the Body of Christ beyond the veil. Oh, that is made very plain! that is the reason we are urged to "make our calling and election sure." That is the very reason we are told we must "so run as to obtain." That is the reason we are enjoined to see to it that no man takes our crown. A crown was apportioned to each of us as soon as we made our covenant with God. As soon as we received this anointing of the holy Spirit, we were counted in as members of the Body of Christ. Those who prove wholly faithful, when they pass beyond the veil, will each have his crown-- those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life as "more than conquerors."
Now you and I having had our names recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life, it is for us to see that we do not do anything to let the Lord see that we are unfaithful, so that He would blot out our name from the Book of Life. It is for us to see that we do nothing that will forfeit our interest in that crown, so that it will go to another. There is not to be one short in that elect company; [CR461] every crown will have a crown-wearer. Whether you will be one, or I will be one, depends on our faithfulness --not upon the amount of money we have saved and will give to some missionary cause; not by the amount of singing or preaching we are doing. Some among us cannot preach at all. God has made the matter so simple and plain that the result will be according to the condition of heart. Heart loyalty is the requirement.
If you have the right spirit, full determination to do God's will, you will abide in His love, because you have accepted His terms, have given Him your heart, have turned your back on sin, He has accepted you; and "the Father himself loveth you," Jesus said. I tell you, my friends, God loves you! It is so wonderful that the great God would love little human beings, anyway, with all our imperfections--for all had a share in the fall. It is wonderful that we should have His attention at all. But we have Jesus' word for it--"The Father himself loveth you" --all those who have accepted His terms in Christ, who have consecrated their lives to Him, and are seeking to walk in the Master's footsteps.
And the Apostle says, "God is for us." He is on our side. He is going to help us. He says that God has such power that He can help us; and He will make "all things work together for good to them that love Him, who are the called according to His purpose." All things to work for their good! My dear friends, that is an insurance better than anything else in the whole world! No other insurance will come up to that--God's insurance, that He loves us, and will make everything work out for our good as New Creatures! This promise is sure to all those who are His children according to the Spirit.
The Apostle says that God is working in us. Does he say that? Yes. "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." He is now working in you. God working in me? Yes. How? By His providence and by His Word.
I have known some very wonderful cases. I was telling of some at the luncheon table today. A certain poor bar-keeper in Wisconsin got the Truth, and it made a great transformation of his life--made him a different man altogether. In four years from that time he was one of the elders of the church. Wonderful transformation! So the Apostle says, "He worketh in us both to will and to do"--what?--"of His good pleasure." How? Why, He makes certain promises to you. What is He leading you to lay aside? Every weight, and every besetting sin, while you run with patience the race set before you. Why? If you did not know about God's plan, you would not know about running for anything. What are you running for? Trying to run into Heaven? Trying to keep out of hell? Ah, no! When we come to understand what the Bible sets before us, the church of Christ--this "crown of glory" that the Apostle spoke of that God is holding out, that He is going to give to a certain number--when we hear of it, and understand about it, we wish to know the terms and conditions. And the Lord will be glad to give us the prize, if we continue faithful.
All these wonderful things? you ask. No earthly crown can be like that. No worldly prospect would compare with that. The political outlook would not offer any such thing. Nothing to compare with that crown. So you say with Jesus, this is "the pearl of great price," of great value. I will sell everything I have--my time, my talents, my money, my property, my influence, everything that I can give or use, anything to glorify God and be pleasing to Him--that I may obtain His good favor, and that He may accept me as one of His saints in glory, and give me a joint heirship with the Savior in that wonderful Kingdom.
But some may say, Brother Russell, that is merely an ambition to get a high position. My brother, what if it were merely ambition. Anything wrong about it? Why yes, you say; it is selfish. Well, will it be any more selfish to wish for a Heavenly crown than an earthly crown? Any more selfish to wish for immortality, and to dwell with the God who made us, than to be mayor of this city? No. Besides, the real essentials of God's arrangement to give these crowns, to give these blessings, to this church, is this: that all the families of the earth may be blessed. Ah, what an aspect that gives it! Nothing selfish about that--the desire to bless everybody. Every good man and every good woman has that desire even now. If you have not the desire to bless somebody else, something is wrong with you.
Therefore, just as surely as you have the mind of God, you will be wanting to do good to all men as you have opportunity, and especially and particularly to the household of faith. That is the Scriptural position, and it ought to be your position and mine. Now, if I would like to do some good today to one, two, a dozen, a hundred or a thousand, and if you would, if you could, like to do good to one, two, a dozen, a hundred or a thousand--if we have that desire, would not God do good to millions of our race, in His own time and way? Wouldn't it be grand to turn this earth of ours into a Garden of Eden, from the north to the south, and from the east to the west? Wouldn't that be a grand thing to have a share in? I think it would; you think it would. Every sane person would think so. God's plan is so wonderful and so thorough that there is no sanity that will contradict it. It is insanity that contradicts. Everything in God's plan is beautiful and harmonious.
We have societies organized to overcome the white plague, to combat liquor and other things that are doing harm. Wouldn't you like to be on the side of the Great King, who has all the power and wisdom necessary to treat this whole subject, and every other subject, thoroughly, and to bring about the blessing of every member of our race, that the poor, fallen ones who are slaves of sin and weakness and imperfection and death may be loosed from the bondage of Satan, for that is what it is; that is what the Bible calls it--the bondage of Satan-- that they may be set free from pain, sickness, sorrow, degradation, and may come up, up, up, out of all this misery and death back to the full image of God, as it was in Eden? Wouldn't that be a grand work to do?
Wouldn't you be the happiest man or woman you could imagine yourself to be, to think you would have a share in such a work? You would, surely. And that is exactly what God has invited us to do. We are to be, if faithful, heirs of God and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ in the great Kingdom, for which Jesus taught us to pray, and for which we have prayed, "Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth, even as it is done in Heaven." You could not ask anything better. If you get God's will done on this earth even as it is done in Heaven, you have got all you can ask. Our Lord Jesus knew exactly how to pray, and He was very thorough in His statement. So we are "waiting for the Kingdom of God's dear Son," waiting for the putting down of sin and the uplifting of righteousness, which will bring just such a blessing. Then what? When we shall get our share in the Kingdom, dear friends, then will come the time when that first recorded prophecy will be fulfilled, and "the Seed of the woman shall crush the serpent's head."
Now, this Seed of the woman, as we see, was the Christ--Jesus the Head, and the church His body. "Now, Brother Russell," some one may say, "You have no Scripture for that. You have no Scripture for saying that the church is a part of the Seed of the woman." Oh, yes, I have, dear brother. I would not talk about it if I did not. The Apostle Paul is my authority--the very best authority, just alongside of the Master Himself; and the Apostle Paul says--speaking of the church, the body of Christ, of which you, dear friends, will be members, and I trust I will be a member, with God's saintly people everywhere-- "The God of peace will bruise Satan under your feet shortly." Satan is going to have his head crushed. That is to be the end of him.
We are not speaking anything in malice about the devil, either. We believe we will be doing him a good turn. He has had a reign of six thousand years, reigning in sin and in terrible conditions; and he has had enough, and when he is blotted out of existence, it will be the very best possible thing for everybody, and we think for him. Yes, his head is to be crushed, and he is to be crushed "under your feet." That is what the Apostle says, Romans 16:20: "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." That was uttered eighteen hundred years ago. It is pretty close now, isn't it. I think we are getting right to the spot. Eighteen hundred years ago! It is near now. I am safe in saying that, am I not?
Yet, it will take a good while to get the serpent thoroughly crushed. This serpent represents more than Satan alone; not the person of Satan, merely. A serpent figuratively represented sin as in the type, you remember, when the Israelites were in the wilderness, bitten by the fiery [CR462] serpents. These serpents represented sin of all kinds, causing pain and death. You remember Moses then lifted up a brazen serpent on a pole, and the Israelites were saved by looking at it. So, then, this serpent that is now to be crushed is not merely Satan, but it is all sin, in every shape and form. It is to be crushed, utterly blotted out. And how long will it take to do that? I know exactly how long. It will take just a thousand years. How do I know? Because the Bible says so--that wonderful Book, my friends, that we once thought was such a silly old Book, in which all our professors pictured a real hell. But these ideas deceived them, getting them in confusion, ignorance and superstition.
It was the creeds of the dark ages that got us all into superstition, that befuddled our minds and made us all groan. Revelation gives us a symbolical picture, that "all nations were made drunk." And I tell you, as I look back and think over the matter, our experience with error has been more like drunkenness than anything I can think of. We were bewildered. I never was drunk, but I have been bewildered and befuddled. I think that is the way it is. Now that we are getting sober, have got able to think more soberly, to reason more carefully, to understand God's Word better, what a blessing is coming into our hearts and lives. We had nothing to compare with it when we were filled with that false doctrine that was poured out into the "golden cup." The cup was all right. A golden cup is a splendid kind of cup; but we got some bad wine into the golden cup. And we are told that this wine was poured out from the Word of God--which was very misleading.
Now all this sin, and all this error, and all these misunderstandings, are part of the serpent, and his head is going to be crushed. It will take the thousand years' reign of Christ to crush out all sin and evil, and to lift up humanity out of the mire and out of the weakness and bring them back into the image and likeness of God.
Look at all the creeds, all the propositions that have been handed down to us as being what God was to do. One says this and the other says that. Look at them all, and ask the people if they believe these creeds, and you will find they begin to squirm at once. They will say, No, that is not what we believe; we do not hold that now. Well, I am glad they don't. It is better for us all. It wouldn't be very safe here if they held the creeds the way they used to hold them. You remember that when they took a prejudice against anybody they built a fire outside and they put him on; and they thought they did God service. We say they were sadly blinded, and we are glad that the people, the intelligent people, are getting their eyes more widely open, to see that that is not God's program or God's spirit, or anything like it. We are glad to know this, dear friends. All the creeds of the past were held by our good forefathers, and they were just as good as we were when we believed them, just as well-intentioned. We did not mean anything wrong, but we were deluded; but we are surely the better for having lost these things, these creeds, which so hindered us. The teacher says, "Every prophet is assured of his own vision." Every teacher is assured of that. But you would not find a single minister in this age who would think for a minute of defending the creed of his own denomination. And no wonder. He would be a very foolish man if he attempted it. He would show up his folly before he would be through.
There was one dear Methodist brother who thought that he would try this. His name was Dr. E.L. Eaton. Some of you have heard of him. Dr. Eaton invited us to discuss the Word of God. If he had asked us to discuss Methodism, it would have been a different proposition; but he said, Let us discuss God's Word. And we discussed the Word of God, and we treated Brother Eaton with perfect kindness, whether he treated us so, or not. But Brother Eaton made such a poor show that his congregation would not have him back again at all; and no other congregation had Dr. Eaton, or would call him, for about five years. Then he got a small congregation in the West. He made such a poor fizzle of what he wanted to show-- and yet, he is a very able man. But, my dear friends, nobody can defend the creeds of the dark ages, and especially in the light of the Divine plan of the ages, as it is now shining forth from God's Word. It is absolutely impossible for any of them to do that--to compare the creeds with God's plan. But, my brethren, if you ever find anything better than what we have will you be sure, please, to tell me. I want the best there is. But we are sure there is nothing better.
Now, we have before our minds the Anointed, God's Anointed, who is to bless the world. It is to be an anointed class. They are to be associated, and Jesus is to be the head. They are all to be received of God; He has been getting ready this anointed Seed of Abraham that He promised was to bless the world. And the world has been waiting for six thousand years to get that blessing for which God has been selecting the church.
What is the next thing in order? The kingdom, and the wisdom and knowledge of God, which will fill the whole earth, and the power of God, which is to wrestle and grapple with all the questions that are now perplexing humanity. And all this wisdom of God, this power of God, this love of God, this Justice of God--all are centered in the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the grace of God we are accounted in with Him, we are to be full sharers with Him in the sufferings of this present time, sufferings for righteousness sake, and are to be sharers in His coming glory. Then what? What more? Nothing more. That is all there is of it. That is the whole plan. But it will be a glory that will last through all eternity. Will His plan include the dead? Yes, indeed. They are members of the families of the earth. Your sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, and mine, are dead, many of them, and the blessing covers all. God's mercy is broad, blessing all and then we will have the joy of perfection and of being with Him.
Now, in this present tabernacle, we do groan, being burdened by weaknesses, burdened by consciousness of wrong in ourselves, burdened by the wrong doings of others. We have to battle against these odds. The Lord says it is good for us to have to battle, until we develop and become like our Lord Jesus. Although His body was perfect, He suffered persecutions in the flesh; they said all manner of evil against Him. He was to endure these things--that was the prophecy of the Scriptures. And what did Jesus say? He said: "The cup which My Father hath poured for Me, shall I not drink it?" and He did drink it. And great was the reward received for such holiness--holiness in the sense of complete submission to the will of God. He said: "I come not to do Mine own will." That was holiness, loyalty, a complete giving up of himself to do the Father's will, whatever it might be.
St. Paul, you remember, tells us about it. He tells us how Jesus left the glory that He had with the Father before the world was, and humbled himself and took upon Him the form of a servant. He became a man, and humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross. "Wherefore (on this account), God hath highly exalted Him; He hath given Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, both of things in Heaven and things on earth." That was the great glory that came to Jesus because of His loyalty. Yes, it was a great blessing; and this same blessing, my dear brethren and sisters, the Lord tells us He has in reservation for you and for me, and as many as have the mind of Christ, the Spirit of Christ, the disposition of Christ. We are to walk in His steps, and also to lay aside every weight and every besetting sin, "and to run with patience the race set before us." We are to look to Jesus, the Author of our faith, until He shall become the Finisher of it. He will finish our faith by giving us a share in that glorious resurrection, a share in His Kingdom glory, honor and immortality. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne."
Will that be sufficient reward for you, my dear brother, my dear sister? Will that be sufficient, or is that not yet enough? "I shall be satisfied when I awake in His likeness." And you will be satisfied; it will more than compensate for all the little things you suffer and endure now, my dear brethren. If you are making good Christian progress, no doubt by the present time you are counting that the affairs and trials of this world are not to be compared with the glories that shall be revealed in you, counting as the Apostle Paul did, that all things suffered or sacrificed are only loss and dross when compared with the exceeding great and precious things that the Lord has proposed to give. If this is your sentiment, then you are satisfied that God has begun a good work in you. You are satisfied that He is carrying it on in your heart. You are satisfied to let Him who began this good work complete it. Thy will, not mine, be done, is your prayer. And you are more and more trusting that the Lord is wise, the Lord [CR463] is good, and that the various experiences which He permits to come to you and me, to all His people, will be such as will be for our welfare. So we will continue to trust Him even where we cannot trace Him.
[CR463]
Concluding Remarks Asbury Park
I AM glad to be with you again, dear friends. Since I was with you last I visited two other conventions, the one at Columbus, O., and the other at Clinton, Ia. They were very blessed occasions. The Lord's spirit was very markedly manifest amongst the brothers and sisters there, you will be glad to know. I brought them a similar message from you here; that the Lord was blessing you, and that you were greatly enjoying yourselves. I am sure that was the truth.
Now we have come to the close of our meetings, and our hearts and minds, no doubt, are filled with the thought as to whether there will ever be another such convention; such a general gathering of the Lord's people in this particular way. We have before our minds, I am sure, the Apostle's statement respecting the general assembly of the Church of the first-born, whose names are written in Heaven. This is a general assembly in one sense of the word, dear friends, yet it is not very general either, because we are not able to gather from all parts of the world. Neither are the Lord's people sufficiently well acquainted with each other, though they have much in common. We have no doubt whatever that the general assembly of the first-born will include the true saints of every nation and denomination. We have no doubt that many will be included in that company who are not well acquainted in the present life, because, as the Scriptures declare, "The Lord knoweth His own."
We are not able to know each other at the present time. The great adversary has sought to separate the people of God by misrepresentation. And not only to separate them from the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, and from the Bible, but also to misrepresent them to each other. For this reason the Lord's people have not understood each other; they are not well acquainted with one another. But when the glorious change shall come; that resurrection change which will give us the new body, the Apostle says, "We will know, even as we are known." There will be no barriers between, no misunderstandings, no false doctrines to separate into sectarian divisions. All will be one in Christ Jesus.
The particular thought I would like to have you take with you as you go to your homes is that expressed by the Apostle when he says, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." There is only the one body of Christ. It is true we have the Presbyterian Christian body; we have the Methodist Christian body; we have the Lutheran Christian body; we have the Disciple Christian body, and the Roman Catholic Christian body, but all of these various divisions of God's people, according to the Bible, are the result of ignorance, superstition and false doctrines which have divided the Lord's sheep into different parties and companies, more or less in opposition to one another, in doctrine if not otherwise. In proportion as we have overcome these errors, as the eyes of our understanding have been opened; or as suggested by the Apostle, in proportion as we are able to see the lengths and breadths and heights and depths, and come to know the love of God, in that proportion all of these errors which now blind and confuse, begin to pass away, so that the true people of the past. (Some text is missing in the original here.) The darkness of the past which so befogged us, and gave us so much trouble in every way, is gradually passing away. The new dispensation is at hand; the light of the new order of things, the light of the Lord's presence is scattering the darkness. We all rejoice in the fact that all darkness will flee away; that the great sunlight of Divine truth will flood the whole earth, as the Bible foretells. These things have been written thousands of years, yet never fulfilled, but now they are on the eve of fulfillment. The sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his beams, with restitution in his beams, blessing all the families of the earth. That will be glorious, my brothers and sisters, when God's power is exercised to heal and bless the world of mankind.
But you say, "Brother Russell, they will not all see these conditions." Yes, they will. We have the positive assurance. It is written, "All the blind eyes shall be opened and the deaf ears shall be unstopped." But, you say, if the blindness came once it may come again; there is no assurance. Yes, there is, my dear brethren. I remind you, again the Bible tells us who has been causing this blindness; who has been blinding our eyes and stopping our ears to the true message of God's Word? It was Satan. As Saint Paul says, "The god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not." Everybody who does not believe God's wonderful, beautiful truth is blinded by Satan. It is not Brother Russell who says this. It is Brother Paul, a better authority by far; an inspired authority. The god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the glorious light of God's goodness as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ, should shine into your hearts. Satan has not wanted the goodness of God to shine into our hearts. He did not want us to see how the love of the Heavenly Father was exercised toward His human creatures, and that He had such a good plan for us. Why not? Because love begets love. If we once come to see how much God loved the world, and His people especially, it begets love in return. As the Apostle says, "Not that we first loved God, but He first loved us." It was a responsive love that came into your heart and mine. You cannot have responsive love except in proportion as you come to understand the love of God in its lengths and breadths and heights and depths.
We are thankful to God that our eyes have been opened, and some others are seeing more than they once did of God's love for the children of men. We are seeing more than we have before what wonderful blessing He has for the church; that we shall be His associates in blessing all the families of the earth during the reign of Christ.
Will not this great one who deceived us, and blinded us, and divided us into sects and parties; the great prince of this world; the god of this world, Satan--will he not do this again? No, my dear friends, for the Bible assures us. Jesus assures us himself in His last great message to the church that Satan shall be bound; that the old serpent shall be bound for a thousand years that he may deceive the nations no more. He has been leading us astray through his deceptions. The Apostle Paul says, "We are not ignorant of his devices." We are finding out more and more that the great difficulty with the world has been the delusions of Satan. Not only has he deceived the heathen, but also those in civilized lands. He has misinterpreted the Bible, and got us estranged from God and His precious promises, seeking thus to drive us from God and more and more into ways of sin. Thank God for the blessings that are now coming to us. These blessings have come in proportion as we have received the Spirit of God, the holy Spirit, the spirit of Truth, the spirit of a sound mind, as the Apostle calls it.
Stop there just a moment, my dear brother. What special blessings have you had since coming to an understanding of God and a better understanding of the Bible. Can you not recognize in yourself growth in grace and knowledge, and in various fruits of the Spirit? Whatever you had to begin with you have more of it; more meekness, more gentleness, more patience in suffering, more of brotherly kindness and love. All of these are the fruitage of the holy Spirit. The Apostle Peter says, "If these things be in you and abound they make you that [CR464] you shall neither be barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, but so an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." That is it. That is the one spirit into which you are baptized, for we were all baptized by the one Spirit into one Body.
As we have already seen, this baptism into the one spirit began when we responded to God's call; when we gave up our own will to God's will and consecrated to Him our all. That was the beginning of the baptism which the Apostle there speaks of. We are baptized into this one spirit; God is the great Spirit; all things are of God, all of the meekness, all of the gentleness is from Him. The high standard of the Church is from Him. All that you and I can hope to do is to cultivate again that glorious character of Love which was lost when Father Adam sinned, and the image and likeness of God which he possessed in the flesh began to go from him. When he came under condemnation, gradually sin grew in its dominion over him. As the Apostle informs us, by the one man sin entered the world, and its dominion passed upon all men. We have had a reign of sin and death. Now we are coming back to the Heavenly Father. He has made provision whereby we can return to His favor. A door has been opened through the work which Christ accomplished for us. By faith we accept the conditions and present ourselves to the Father through the merit of Jesus. By faith we accept God's assurance that we are no longer aliens and strangers, but children brought nigh by the blood of Christ. By faith we realized that if children we are heirs, heirs of God to the great inheritance which He wishes to give us; the great inheritance of the Millennial Kingdom, with all of the associated blessings. Heirs of God and joint in heirship with Jesus Christ, our Lord, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
So when we were baptized into the one spirit it was the spirit of devotion to God, of coming back to God, instead of being the spirit of rebellion and alienation from God as evinced by Father Adam. It was a turning back again, as accepted in Christ, His Son. "Not my own but saved by Jesus." We give up our own will entirely, saying, "Not my will but Thine be done." This is the spirit we have received from Him. We are to be filled more and more with the holy Spirit, filled with the Spirit of God, with God-likeness. We become thus filled by giving heed to the instruction of God's Word; by giving heed to our Head, as pupils in the school of Christ, learning of Him who is our pattern, our exemplar; by seeking to walk in His footsteps. This baptism is still going on, as we seek to learn and do His will more fully each day, and it will continue unto death. It will take the entire course of our lives, we may say, to complete this baptism into His death. It was as the dear Redeemer neared the hour of His death that He said, "It is finished," and so it will be with you and me. If we are faithful unto death we shall receive a crown of life.
As we go to our homes let us carry this particular thought with us, that we are all immersed by one Spirit into the one body. There are not a number of bodies; there is not a variety of churches (we are not saying that there are not saints in various denominations, but) God has but one church. We were merely mistaken when we thought He had a number of Churches. Nowhere in the Bible is there any other church recognized than this one church, the Body of Christ, of which He is the Head. The Apostle says, "God gave Him to be the Head over the Church which is His Body," and we are members in particular of the body of Christ, which is the Church. So, then, whether saintly, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Lutherans, or Disciples, they are all one in Christ Jesus. That is to say, all saintly ones are one, and all unsaintly ones have neither part nor lot in the matter. The unconsecrated, no matter by what name they are called, are not included. Only those who have been baptized by the one Spirit into Christ have any share in this matter. That does not mean that there is any desire on our part, or on the part of the Almighty, to hinder anybody who is in the right attitude of mind. There is but one way, and "straight is the gate and narrow is the way." Any who wish to be His disciples and walk in His footsteps can have no other way, no other path, no other name is given amongst men whereby we can be saved. If we have entered this way let us rejoice in it; and if we have not, let us seek for it. There is no other way to attain the glorious things God has in reservation for the church.
If we found this way and entered it, we knew in advance that it would be a narrow way. We knew this in advance, because Jesus did not leave us in darkness on the subject. He said that it would be a way in which we would be misunderstood, and men would speak evil of us. If you entered without this knowledge it was because you did not give heed to His Word. He tells us that He considers it a sign of God's favor to us if we are accounted worthy to suffer something for loyalty to the Lord and His Word, His Truth.
So, dearly beloved friends, as we go to our homes let
us carry our hearts and bodies as full of the holy Spirit
as possible. Let us go to the cities and villages from which
we came with the message of God upon our lips. Tell
them of the blessings here enjoyed, and so far as possible
pour out the blessing received yourself. Thus may the
Lord's blessing be shed abroad, far and near, upon His
people. Thus may others be brought near to the Lord, and
our own hearts be refreshed. If you have noticed it, and
I am sure you have, every time you tell the story to others,
not for self or vain glory, but with a desire to do good
and forward His cause, you get a blessing; a warming of
your own heart. This testimony is not merely to go out
through our lips, but by our conduct, by our words; by all
that we do we are to show forth the praises of Him who
hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
I am sure you are feeling more and more that it is a marvelous
light. We should get the thought also, that in proportion
as we are enjoying it more and more, in that proportion
we have increased responsibility, because where
much is given, much will be required. The secret of the
Lord is with them that reverence Him; and He will show
them His covenant. He has been showing us His covenant;
His secret is with us; we have been granted understanding.
As the poet says,
Now I see and hear and know,
More than I hoped for here below;
And every power finds sweet employ
In telling the glad tidings of great joy.
What more can I say than I have said? Seek to be filled with this holy Spirit, and seek to manifest it to others, and remember that is the condition upon which you will grow in grace. And while you are growing in grace inwardly it will influence your outward body. God is not judging us according to the flesh, yet He is expecting to see some evidences in the outward life, in our words and doings. As the Apostle suggests, we are to bring every thought into subjection to the will of Christ. He is looking to see our faithfulness; our loyalty. There is none righteous, no, not one. All come short of the glorious standard. But the Lord is expecting you and me to develop holiness of heart, purity as to our intentions, and loyalty of conduct to the extent of our ability, under all circumstances at any cost. May this holy Spirit of the Lord be in our hearts, and may we be sanctified by it. May all the truth we are receiving have a more sanctifying influence in our lives day by day, is my prayer for you and for myself.
After prayer the Pilgrims all formed a line in front of the platform, and the Lord's people all passed the line and shook hands with each one. There seemed to be a holy awe thrown over the assembly, doubtless occasioned specially by the realization that there might never be another assembly of this kind in the flesh. The tie that binds seemed more tightly drawn than ever before. Tears of joy and hope were seen on many faces. The determination seemed to be deep and general that, by His grace, we would meet in the Great Convention.
[CR465]
HE CARETH FOR YOU
1 PETER 5:7.
WHAT can it mean? Is it aught to Him,
That the nights are long, and the days are dim?
Can He be touched by the griefs I bear,
Which sadden the heart and whiten the hair?
Around His throne are eternal calms,
And strong, glad music of happy psalms,
And bliss unruffled by any strife.
How can He care for my poor life?
And yet I want Him to care for me,
While I live in this world where the sorrows be;
When the lights die down on the path I take;
When strength is feeble, and friends forsake;
When love and music, that once did bless,
Have left me to silence and loneliness;
And life-song changes to sobbing prayers--
Then my heart cries out for a God who cares.
When shadows hang o'er me the whole day long,
And my spirit is bowed with shame and wrong;
When I am not good, and the deeper shade
Of conscious sin makes my heart afraid;
And the busy world has too much to do
To stay in its course to help me through,
And I long for a Savior--can it be
That the God of the universe cares for me?
Oh, wonderful story of deathless love!
Each child is dear to that Heart above;
He fights for me when I cannot fight;
He comforts me in the gloom of night;
He lifts the burden, for He is strong;
He stills the sigh and awakens the song;
The sorrow that bore me down He bears,
And loves and pardons, because He cares.
Let all who are sad take heart again:
We are not alone in our hours of pain;
Our Father stoops from His throne above,
To soothe and quiet us with His love.
He leaves us not when the storm is high,
And we have safety, for He is nigh.
Can that be trouble, which He doth share?
Oh, rest in peace, for the Lord doth care.
[CR466]
INTERNATIONAL
1915
BIBLE STUDENTS
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR467]
Grace Sufficient
I CHOOSE as the basis of some remarks, dear friends, the words of the Lord, "My grace is sufficient for you; my strength is made perfect in weakness." You remember the occasion on which these words were used. Saul of Tarsus had been a persecutor of the church, and yet he tells us that in doing this persecuting work he was very conscientious, verily thinking that he did God service. Because he was a good man, misled by various errors, superstitions and wrong conceptions God favored him, and while on the way to Damascus to persecute the church there, he was smitten to the ground by a light which he tells us shone about him above the brightness of the sun at noon-day. He tells us afterward that this bright light was but a glimpse of the living Lord. It was necessary, according to the Lord's arrangement, that every one of the apostles should be a witness to testify that Jesus not only died for the sins of the world, but that He was risen from the dead. The eleven apostles were all made aware of the fact that He was risen, during the forty days after His resurrection. It was proven to them positively, not only that He was alive from the dead, but that He was no longer human. This He did by manifesting Himself in different forms on different occasions. We read that He APPEARED to them. He did not APPEAR before that, any more than you "appear" to me or I "appear" to you. You cannot disappear, and I cannot disappear. We have no such power. But Jesus in His resurrected condition as a spirit being could appear in one form or another, or in various forms, as we read He did. These different appearances or manifestations were purposely made to prove conclusively that He was no longer dead. You remember on at least one occasion He appeared in the midst of His disciples when the doors were shut. He must have created the body and the clothing. After speaking a few words to them, perhaps not more than five minutes of time, He vanished from their sight, thus proving that He was alive as a spirit being, and able to go and come like the wind, as angels have done in the past. During the thirty-three and one-half years from His birth at Bethlehem to His death on Calvary He did not APPEAR as a man; He was the MAN, Christ Jesus. During the last three and one-half years of His life He was, indeed, a spirit being in embryo, as you and I are. According to the Bible an embryo spirit being is one in whom the spirit life has begun. This life begins in us at the time we make our consecration to the Lord. So Jesus was a new creature from the time of His baptism, and that new creature was developing during the three and one-half years of His ministry. That new creature was perfected, and raised from the dead as will be the case with the church, as the apostle explains, "Sown in weakness; raised in power: Sown in dishonor; raised in glory: Sown an animal body; raised a spiritual body." So Jesus was a spirit being, and the apostles must be witnesses to that fact. Why? Because a dead Saviour could be no Saviour at all. If Jesus had simply died He would not have accomplished anything for us at all. It was necessary not only that He die for man's sins, but that He should rise again for our justification, as the apostle explains. The word justify means to make right. So Jesus died and rose again that He might make satisfaction to divine justice. God does not propose to accept imperfect beings into His kingdom; He does not propose to have a world filled with people who are blemished mentally, morally or physically. He proposes to have a perfect race of men, and He proposes to have the angels and all other creatures perfect. He proposes to make them perfect; there is no reason why they should be imperfect. Man sinned and imperfection came upon the race, but it is God's purpose to justify them, to make them right through our Lord Jesus Christ. This will be accomplished during the Millennial Age by lifting man up from imperfection of mind and body to full perfection of mind and body. Any who will then refuse or neglect to come to that perfection, that righteousness, that justification, will thereby be refusing God's favor. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. God will give them the opportunity to become perfect, and if they refuse to become perfect they cannot have everlasting life. Only perfect beings can have life everlasting.
It is not God's purpose that we at this time should be made right physically or mentally. He justifies us by faith, not actually. He gives us, so to speak, a credit on the books of Heaven. We have some powers of thinking, and observation and expression, but we are imperfect. It is God's arrangement to impute to us enough of the merit of the Lord Jesus to bring us up to the standard. He credits our account. Suppose you owed the grocer ten dollars, and you only had five. Suppose some one hands you five dollars so you can make full payment. That would be much like the restitution which the world will receive by and by. They will have the full payment to make at the end of the thousand years. But it is not so with the church now. Perhaps you have what might be illustrated by the five dollars to pay on the ten dollar account. Instead of giving you the five dollars it is merely imputed, or credited to you. We are justified, therefore, from the time we give our hearts to the Lord and He imputes to us enough of His merit to make our account good from that time on. You have no outward evidence of this, only God says it is so. So before the church could get any blessing from the Lord faith must be exercised. We must believe that Jesus died and ascended up to Heaven to make satisfaction for us. More than that, before God will receive us into His family and give us His Holy Spirit we must believe that He is no longer dead. Hence the forty days spent in fully convincing His apostles that He was no longer dead, but that He was alive as a spirit being, so they might fully comprehend that He ascended into Heaven as a spirit being to present the price to satisfy justice. Believing this they were in the right attitude to receive God's acceptance of them as consecrated sacrificers. They had already consecrated, and now needed faith to bring them up to the blessing point. You remember Jesus told them to tarry at Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. They could not receive the power until they were in the condition of faith, and until then they could not be qualified to speak as God's representatives. As this was important for the other apostles, so also for St. Paul.
God had foreseen that this Jew, Saul of Tarsus, with his wonderful natural talents, his high family standing, his riches, and the title which he possessed as a citizen of the Roman Empire, though misled by error, was a very noble, worthy vessel to be used in his service. So we read that he was a chosen vessel to carry the Lord's name to the Gentiles, as well as to the Jews. So it was necessary for Saul of Tarsus to be able to say that he had seen Jesus. After telling how Jesus died and was raised from the dead, and how he appeared to Peter, and John, and about 500 brethren at one time, St. Paul adds, "Last of all He was seen by me also." You remember this is the apostle who said that he was not one whit behind the chiefest of the twelve, and he needed this evidence of his apostleship. Jesus did not appear to Saul of Tarsus in the same way that he appeared to the other apostles in the upper chamber, with nail prints in His hands and a spear thrust in His side, nor as He appeared to the two on the way to Emmaus. Saul of Tarsus saw the glory of the Lord. I think he just saw a little; simply a glimpse; no more. Just that one glimpse destroyed his sight. Why? Because he got a glimpse of a spirit being, the light of which was above the brightness of the sun. I have never seen one, of course. I am merely speaking of the way the Bible describes it. "Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; which no man hath seen nor can see." That is a description of the Heavenly Father, and is not the Lord Jesus the same? Yes, we are told He is the express image of the Father's person; He is just like the Father. No wonder Saul of Tarsus lost his sight. That was a great lesson, and a great blessing to the church that God gave this manifestation; that Jesus showed Himself in that particular way. It gives us further insight into the character and condition of our Lord. The same effect would be produced upon mankind if they should ever see Jesus as He is. In olden times God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. He did not see God, but he saw a bush. The burning in the bush was not God, it was merely a manifestation of God's presence. This was a peculiar kind of fire which did not consume the bush. The Lord also appeared on other occasions to men, but all of these appearances were not the Lord but merely a manifestation which man could appreciate. By and by the Lord will appear to the world, and every eye shall see Him. Will they? So it is written: "Every eye shall see Him; they also that pierced Him." Will it destroy their eyesight? No. How will they see Him and not have their eyesight destroyed, when seeing Him did destroy the eyesight of Saul of Tarsus? They will not see Him in the same way, but as you and I see Him now. How do we see Him now? The eyes of our understanding are opening wider and wider so that we can see the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of the Lord's character. We [CR468] are seeing Jesus much better than thousands saw Him who merely saw Him in the flesh. We see Him with the eyes of our understanding as a great spirit being, next to the Father, far above angels, principalities and powers, and every name that is named. We are getting glorious visions of our Saviour, dear friends, and they are improving all of the time.
Still we are going to see Him better. How do I know? So it is written. We, the church, shall see Him as He is--not as He was--as He is. How so? "For we shall be like Him." How like Him? We must all be changed that we may be like Him. What kind of a change will it be? The apostle explains that the change will be from the human to the divine nature. He says flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom, so we must be changed. Then our eyes will not be injured by seeing Him, for we will be spirit beings also. It does not injure the sight of the angels to see God. Saul of Tarsus saw a spirit being with his natural eyes.
The apostle says, "last of all He was seen of me also--then he adds these words, as of one born before the time." To most people this is a very blind statement, "as one born before time." What would that mean? It is very simple when we have the Bible view on the question. The Bible thought is that Jesus was begotten of the Holy Spirit at the time of His baptism and for three and one-half years He was in an embryo spirit condition. The spirit embryo was developing in a human body, and was not completed until born in the resurrection. He was the firstborn from the dead, the firstborn of every creature. That was His spirit birth to the divine plane. So you and I are begotten of the spirit, we are developing the spiritual life, and in our resurrection we too will be born to the divine nature, as the Scriptures declare, "He was the firstborn among many brethren," and we are these brethren to be born from the dead as He was born from the dead.
Now come back to the apostle's words, "as one before the time." The right time for Paul to be born of the spirit would be in the resurrection. That will be the time for each of us to be born of the spirit. Then we can all see Him as a spirit being. Saul saw Him 1,800 years ago as a spirit being, therefore it was as one born before the time. He saw Jesus as we will see Him when born, but it was before the change, before the resurrection, therefore it injured his sight. God wished us to learn a lesson through Saul, who by consecration to the Lord and the begetting of God's Holy Spirit became the apostle Paul. He tells us that the time came when he thought perhaps God would be willing to restore his eyesight. It was quite difficult for the apostle to be called "bleareyed Jew" because his eyes were running water continually, and this defective condition was quite a disadvantage to him as a speaker. I presume he may have thought many times, in connection with his public appearances, "if I only had good eyesight how I would hold their attention. It may have been more himself, and not so much for the truth, when he prayed the Lord about his eyes. He was only blind for a short time, but he could not see clearly; he could not write plainly. In one of his epistles, probably the only one he ever wrote himself, he mentions this fact. Usually someone wrote for him, not because he was not a scholar, but because of his defective eyesight. St. Mark usually served as his amanuensis. In this one case he wrote one of the shortest of his epistles himself because he had no one with him to write for him, and at the conclusion of it he says, "you see how large an epistle I have written unto you with mine own hand." It was a great task for him to write with his own hand because of his defective sight. The Greek makes it stronger. It says, "you see with what large characters I have written; you notice these large letters I have written." That was the only way he could write because of his dim sight.
St. Paul asked to be healed. Although he repeated his request three times, the Lord declined to heal him. I have a great deal of sympathy with people who tell me they pray to God for various things. I say to myself, "they have the experience that St. Paul had." They do not understand, perhaps, that God does not propose to give us temporal blessings, and He is not suggesting that we pray for such blessings. Does the Lord suggest that we may pray for the food we want, or the kind of clothing we would like to wear, or the kind of house we would like to live in? If there is any such suggestion in the Bible I have never seen it. On the contrary He says when we pray to the Father we may make mention of our temporalities, and acknowledge that we are dependent upon Him, but we are merely to request, "give us this day our daily bread," or food; we are not to stipulate what kind it shall be, whether oatmeal porridge or bread and butter. We may simply acknowledge our dependence and ask for daily food--nothing more. Are we not to pray for health? There is no suggestion from Jesus that we are to pray for health, or wealth, or influence or power. On the contrary, we are to exercise faith in God, and Jesus assures us, "your Father knoweth what things ye have need of. Be not like the Gentiles who think they shall be heard because of their much asking." They ask, and ask, and ask, and they think because they ask a whole lot their God will hear them. Be not like the Gentiles. Your Father knows that you are His children, you have entered His family, and He has agreed to give you what is best. He knows what is best for us. To tell Him what to give us would indicate that we have no confidence in His knowing what is best for us, because if He knows what is best, and agrees to give what is best we have no right to interfere. In harmony with our covenant with Him it is our part to say, "Father, not my will but thy will be done. When we come into God's family we give up our own wills. The Scriptures say, "if any man will be my disciple let him deny himself." What does that mean? It means giving up his own will. If you have a lot of will of your own, and are expressing it to God by telling Him what you want done, you have not given up your will. It is about time that we learn that our covenant means giving up our will, and accepting God's will instead. Then we are making some progress in the school of Christ; in the way God has invited us to follow as His children.
St. Paul was a new beginner in the school of Christ, and he did not have the epistles of other apostles to study. It was a new matter to him. The Lord decided through him to give a lesson to you and me. We are told that he besought the Lord three times that this thorn in the flesh be removed, and the answer which the Lord finally gave was an unfavorable one. He did not answer the first and second time, except by the fact that he permitted the thorn to remain. St. Paul should have said, "I asked the Lord and He did not take away the thorn, therefore the answer is that I should keep this imperfection." But He did not get that far along. He did not understand well enough, and so asked again. Finally the Lord said to him the words of our text. Not that He would take away the difficulty. He must keep the sore eyes, but the Lord did show how He would answer the proper sentiment of the prayer. He said, "my grace is sufficient for you; I will let you keep the trouble you have, but I will give you grace sufficient." Think of the word "sufficient." It means enough of my grace. My grace is sufficient for you; my strength is made perfect in your weakness. How did the apostle take that? He showed that he was not seeking his own will in his prayer. He doubtless was praying more for the Lord's cause than for personal advantage. I presume the apostle was saying, "how much more efficient I could be as a servant of the Lord if I had good sight." The Lord might say "I appreciate the fact that you are anxious to do my work, but let me do it in my way. I will not take away your sore eyes. I will let you keep this imperfection, and it will remind you of the time when you were an injurious person; when you were a persecutor of the church. Perhaps it will make you more sympathetic. It may be that others will persecute you, and you will then be impressed with the fact that you were an injurious person in the past and I had mercy on you. This will help to keep you more humble, because I am going to give you such opportunities to show forth my praises, and will use you so wonderfully, St. Paul, that unless you had something like this to keep you down you might get proud." The Lord's grace was sufficient. St. Paul's answer was beautiful. "Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." "If your grace is to be that much greater to me, then Lord give me the experiences that you see are best, that I may have more of your grace, more of your blessing." I think this is the way the Lord would have us all do. His grace is sufficient; we do not need any more.
Part of the lesson to you and me as Christians is to learn our absolute dependence on the Lord. Especially active people are apt to forget that God is more interested in the gospel message than you or I. We are merely little helpers, and doubtless often get in God's way by our efforts to help Him. He wishes us to have earnest zeal to serve His cause, but we are not to rush in where angels would fear to tread. We are to realize that it is God's work, and He is supervising His own work. We should say, "Lord, I would be glad to be a humble servant to do something. Show me what I can do in your service. I want to pattern after your way. Some of the most able people in the world have run away and come to a smashup because they had not given up their wills. We read on the pages of history how great errors came into the church of Christ--not the real church, because God is able to overrule it all, but things crept in that were apparently injurious to the cause, because some would-be saints had not submitted their own wills. The first requirement of God when we come into His family is that we submit our wills. That means something, my dear brother. That is the most wonderful thing in the world to give up the [CR469] human will. There is nothing else that I believe means so much to any person as to give up the will. There are some people who find it easy to simply give up their will and become a servant to another. For instance, a wife may give up her will and be obedient to her husband. This may be very desirable if the husband be a wise one, and one with proper consideration for others. This might make a very beautiful home arrangement. But it is not always safe to give up your will to a husband or wife. We must be very sure. My thought would be that I would never give up my human will to any human being, no matter how great or good, because it is all I am. If I gave up my human will entirely it would be to become a slave. I would not dare to do it. Not to some good person? Not to anyone; not for the whole world.
When it comes to the proposition of giving it to God, that is different. God has a right to me. I belong to Him. I am His creature to begin with. What have I that is my own? I belong to Him, therefore I readily give up my will to God. The first thing in becoming His disciples is that we deny ourselves by giving up our own wills. We should sit down and count the cost. Some people undertake to give up their wills, but they do not know what it really means. Jesus says, "better not attempt to be my disciples if afterward you are going to wish you had not become a servant." Ah, my dear brethren, the Lord is not trying to enslave anybody. If so He would say, "go right in; give me everything and think nothing about it." He says, "if you give me your will I want you to do it with full knowledge and intention. Sit down and count the cost before giving me your will." How much will it cost? I cannot do my own will about anything hereafter. That seems terrible. You have been willing to sacrifice other people's wills for your own; you put your own first always? Yes. Now you cannot have your own will. As soon as you come into the family of God, that is changed. Now it is not to be your will, but the will of the Father. You say, that is a big contract; I cannot afford to do it." Sit down and count the cost intelligently. I believe you will reach the conclusion that your own will, while very precious to you, is a very unsatisfactory thing in many respects. In doing your own will in times past you have found out that you made many blunders, didn't you. You thought you would arrange everything so favorably, but you found that you made many mistakes in following your own will. You are not as well equipped mentally as you would like to be. You would like to use your own will, but you have learned not to trust it very much. Every one has learned this lesson, more or less. Our own wills have led us into difficulty. We hear the Lord saying, "my grace is sufficient for you; my strength is made perfect in weakness," and we decide that we can safely trust Him who gave His life for us. We could not trust the best man or woman under any circumstances, but we will trust the one whom the Father has appointed, and in whom He declares He has full confidence. I will trust Him who has proven His worthiness by sacrificing Himself on my behalf. I dare give Him everything, and I have and you have.
We did this, and what a blessing came to us, in the realization of the assurance of our text, "His grace is sufficient for you." Have you not found it so. Have you not found His blessing, His wisdom, His guidance to be the very best things in the world. What do you imagine you would do if you were living for yourself? I would not know how to run myself. We are just learning the value of having the Lord's guidance. He teaches us in a way very different from other slavery. It is really a slavery when you give up your will fully to the Lord, because you have not a right to your own will in a single matter. Not only in respect to what you do, but also in what you wear, where you shall go, what you shall eat, and what you may think. "Why, Brother Russell!" Yes, that is all included. There never was any slavery as complete as that. There are no slaves anywhere in the world who are compelled to think in a certain way. They may think as they like, but they must do in a certain way or be punished. But with you and me everything we do, say or think must be subject to the will of God. Not my own thoughts, not my own way, not my own desires, not my own words, not my own will, but the will of God. The apostle says, "I am a bond slave of the Lord Jesus Christ." Was he sorry, and trying to get rid of the slavery? No. He said, "I delight to be His servant." It is the best position to be in. To be a slave to any other would be bondage, but to be a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ is so good. The more we come into harmony with Him the more blessing we have.
But the Scriptures intimate that after giving up all, and becoming the slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ, He does not hold us to it. You can get your freedom in a minute. But would you want to get free? You can get free in a minute. So we could do as we please? Certainly, the Lord would not restrain you. But if you do your own will, and your will is sinful, you will get the wages of sin. Christ's will represents the perfection of the divine conception of what is best for you and me. We may not always recognize this at the moment, but God assures us that His grace is sufficient, and all things shall work together for good to all them that love Him more than houses, lands, parents, children, or self-will. Those who thus love God's will are getting the blessing each day, and this is increasing as they learn to give up their own will more implicitly. At first, while the will is given up, there is always a tugging at the rope, so to speak. The old nature tries to pull off in an opposite direction, but we come back and remember that it is God's will we wish to do. We are learning the blessedness of being in this, the happiest condition in the world. The will of Christ becomes our own more and more. Our will is given up to do His will, whether pleasant or unpleasant. As thus we give up and come more and more into harmony with God; His will is the delight of our body and mind. "I delight to do thy will, O my God," was the language of the Master. In proportion as you and I, and others of His followers, come near to Him, and followers of His dear Son, in that proportion will we have delight in doing God's will, even if it is contrary to the flesh. Old things have passed away and all things have become new. We have new aspirations, new motives, new ambitions. These come through His promises set before us, and we are being transformed as we consider the good things God has promised, and which we see to be in harmony with His character. We are being transformed, in mind, and this new mind is the new creature that is being raised out of the dead body.
The body is counted dead from the time we make our consecration. "Ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God." It is this new life, this new creature, that is getting better views of God's will, and what is right and wrong. It is getting a higher conception, seeing the glorious things which God has in reservation for those who love Him. Being filled with the Holy Spirit, gradually his spiritual eyes open and enable him to see things on a higher plane, and thus he discerns what God has for such as love Him. As we said yesterday, it is not a holy person that is put into us, but a holy disposition, a holy mind, a holy will, a holy influence of God. In this sense, being filled with the spirit we become more and more spiritual, until, as new creatures, we are thoroughly ripe for the other body. The present body is necessary to us now, but in it we cannot do the things that we would; we cannot do what our hearts desire. We are imperfect in our own estimation. Frequently because we come short we are compelled to make explanations and apologies, sometimes to God and sometimes to fellow men. The will is perfect. Only the body is defective. God has a new body for each one of His children. He is ready to give that new body in the resurrection. When that which is perfect is come, when we are born from the dead, we shall be like our Saviour, see Him as He is, and share His glory. Then we will have a body in harmony with that perfect mind which we are already getting, and which we have to a large degree.
All of that will be reached, as the text says, only by God's grace being sufficient for us in the present time. It is not merely that His grace will enable us to overcome in this or that difficulty, and take things serenely under trying circumstances, but His grace is sufficient all the way along. His grace justifies us, it is by His grace that we will finally have part in the divine nature, and share in the glory, honor and immortality. He will encourage along the way. The only thing you and I have to do with our salvation as new creatures is that we fully accept God's arrangements, and that we become co-workers with God to the extent of our ability. Could you ask for easier terms? No, you could not ask for easier terms. God has fixed it most gloriously for us. How happy we are as we see how the grace of God will finally bring in the fruition of our hopes, and the fulfillment of all His glorious promises. We are not only getting nearer to God, but we are getting nearer to that glorious change that is to make us partakers, as God's sons, of glory, honor and immortality.
[CR470]
Freedom in Christ
DEAR friends, it is a great pleasure I have in meeting some of the Bible Students here this afternoon, realizing, as I do, that you are free, and desiring more and more to be free with that liberty which the Lord mentions when He declares, "If the Son shall make you free ye shall be free indeed."
How wonderful to be free, and yet it seems to me that people are often bewildered by being set free, because all have been so accustomed to being tied up in some way, shape or form. It seems to me I have seen the matter illustrated by a dog. Most of you have seen a dog who was chained up most of the time. Perhaps during certain hours in the evening the chain is removed and he races about the house in appreciation of his freedom. But after racing for a time he comes back and by his manner says, as it were, "chain me up again; I have had all the liberty I want." So with human beings, in some respects. We fight for liberty, yet somehow after we get liberty we hardly know what to do with it. We feel like saying, "Where am I; what is the matter? Has no one any string on me; has no one a chain on me?" I think we have overcome somewhat along that line, and we realize more and more the liberty wherewith Christ makes free. Having been more or less used to sectarian bondage and restraint in various ways, we hardly know just how to use the liberty which comes through Christ. Some are inclined to go to a kind of anarchy, and live lives that would be too free. They think there should be no restraint whatever for a Christian, whereas the Bible lays down very strict restraints. There is no other book gives such restraints as the Bible, yet with liberty. How could Christians have perfect liberty, and yet be more restrained than any other people? Have you ever wondered about that?
He sets free, primarily, from the condemnation under which we were as members of the fallen race. We were condemned to death, alienated from God, and God's mercy through Christ makes good for our imperfections, and makes it possible for us to return to our Father's house; to His family. We who were, as the Scriptures say, strangers, without God and without hope in the world, were brought nigh by the blood of Christ. Christ paid the price to free us from our sins. Some one asks "Brother Russell, how could He pay that?" I answer, if I were to go into every part of that it would take a long time to tell. I will just state briefly that according to the Bible the whole condemnation upon our race came through Father Adam. He was the one on trial, he was the one offered everlasting life. The test was obedience, or disobedience to God. The reward of obedience was to be everlasting life in the beautiful Eden home with which he was provided at the beginning. Disobedience would mean a cutting off from all of these blessings, including life. The great catastrophe came. He was disobedient and God drove him out of Eden under the condemnation of death. Why should God be so severe with Father Adam? Why should He condemn him to death? I answer, God has only one standard of dealing with the entire universe, and that is this, so to speak: "I am able to make beings that are perfect, and to the perfect I will give the blessings that go with perfection. If they will not have that which is best, that which is perfect, they shall not have anything. I refuse to have imperfect beings in my empire, I refuse to have those who will be unworthy. Only those who will be absolutely perfect and happy may enjoy the blessings which I have to give." When Father Adam was perfect he could have all of that. As soon as he became a sinner he was not worthy of God's favor, therefore God did not temporize the matter and say, "Adam, you are a sinner and I will give you a certain amount of joy and a certain amount of punishment," but God held to His plan and purpose, namely, that no sinner should have life: not life in bliss nor life in partial bliss; nor life in torment; no sinner shall have life at all. "The wages of sin is death--the soul that sinneth, it shall die." God does not change from that. We see that it would be a disadvantage to the world if He did change. God's plan is better than any one could make for us. God condemned the whole world to death, and you and I and the whole race have been born sinners, so the Bible says. Hear the apostle Paul, "By one man's disobedience sin entered the world, and death as a result of sin, and thus death passed upon all men, for all are sinners." That is the secret of it all. Will God never have mercy? Yes, God has mercy. Justice declares that no sinner shall live, yet God has made an arrangement whereby man can be freed from the condition of sinners and brought into harmony with Him; be brought to a condition of perfection where they will be worthy of all the blessings originally provided for men.
During the Gospel Age God has been selecting a church. The church is not brought to perfection in the sense that they are becoming perfect beings. They are merely reckoned perfect in the beginning, they are merely justified by faith and have peace with God, as the apostle says. This is faith justification; it is not the real justification. There is a difference. The word means, to be made righteous. You are not righteous, and I am not righteous, and nobody is righteous. You say, "Brother Russell, we have accepted Christ." I know that, my dear brother. You have come into harmony with Him, and you have what the Bible calls justification by faith. It is not an actual justification. "What do you mean by actual justification?" The word means to be made right. God does not make us over, except in the spirit of our minds, but through the merit of Christ our blemishes and imperfections are covered in His sight and we come into relationship with God; we are justified by faith. This is only a temporary matter. God does not desire you and me to be justified by faith to all eternity. There is a second step of actual justification. When will we be justified actually? When God gives us the new bodies which He has promised. You see we get the new mind now. We have the justified mind through our Lord Jesus Christ, but we still have imperfect bodies. As the apostle says, "We have this treasure (of the new mind, the new character) in earthen vessels," which are imperfect. They are not only earthly, but imperfect. No one knows how imperfect the vessel is as well as ourselves. Each knows the imperfections of his own earthen vessel, and the Lord knows the imperfections of all.
These earthen vessels could never be a part of the Body of Christ. The Lord says, "When I accepted you into my family it was upon certain conditions, to which you agreed. I accepted you, gave you the begetting of the Holy Spirit, and received you as a member in the Body of Christ. Now carry out these conditions. Show me that you meant what you agreed when you entered my family; prove it to me by your faithfulness and I will give you a perfect body." In other words, these imperfect bodies show what the intent of our minds is and if we have been faithful and loyal God is glad to give us the bodies He has promised. So St. Paul, speaking of the resurrection, says, "It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: It is sown an animal body; it is raised a spiritual body." There is a change, my dear brethren. When you and I get spirit bodies, perfect in the image of Christ and the Father, they will be fine. If now you have the new mind, the heart in full harmony with Him, the new body will be God's final payment to you of what He agreed. The apostle shows that when we came into God's family the begetting of the Holy Spirit was an "earnest of our inheritance." An "earnest" means a hand payment. It is as if you made a certain payment on goods to be paid for in full later. All who come into God's family receive the "earnest," or the hand payment. It is as if God said, "I will give you this now, and I will give you the remainder when you prove that you mean what you say." You see we are on probation from the time we accept the Lord and enter His family. There is a daily opportunity for us to prove our loyalty.
The apostle says, "He is faithful that promised." That being true the responsibility rests with us. The Lord will do His part, and we will be just as sure of getting the glory, honor and immortality as anything you can imagine in the whole world, provided you do your part. Thus the Scriptures tell us to make our calling and election sure by so running as to obtain. You see, God nominates and we elect ourselves. He nominates in giving you and me the invitation. He lays down the conditions, and if we comply with these we will be elected. I am the one to elect. God has laid down the lines, and He has made very fair lines.
That is the way the church is justified. They are not justified to the human nature. O no, they are justified, or made perfect, on a heavenly plane. The only call going out during the Gospel Age is a call to joint-heirship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and a change from the human to the spirit nature, yea, to the highest form of spirit nature, the divine. But after the church has been justified, has been made perfect, has been brought into harmony with God, then comes the time for dealing with the world, and they will be justified. The world will not be justified by faith, but by works. You say "Brother Russell, aren't [CR471] you making a mistake?" No, my brother, that is what the Bible says. The world will be justified by works in this way. During that time of Messiah's Kingdom the church will be associated with the great Mediator between God and men, in accomplishing the mediatorial work. That is a part of our commission. During that time the twenty thousand millions of humanity will have the opportunity of being lifted out of their degradation, and to be delivered from their weaknesses and imperfections. When the kingdom work begins they will still have these weaknesses, and they will all need a great deal of instruction respecting God's will; they will all need to be helped. But if we understand properly the kingdom arrangements they will speedily be brought to know about these things pertaining to the kingdom. You say, "Won't you tell us how that will be?" I can tell you how I think it will be, but I cannot say that it will be so. God may have a better plan than I can see, but I can think of one that seems good. I want you to know when I make a guess, a surmise, and differentiate from a positive statement of the Bible. What the Bible says you and I cannot change one iota, but when there is a point not fixed by the Bible I understand that we may do a little guessing. But we want to keep this distinct from a positive statement of Scripture. Our guess is not to be compared with statements of Jesus, or the apostles or prophets. My guess will not interfere with what Jesus says. We are told that when the kingdom is in power, and the judgments of the Lord are abroad in the earth, the people will learn righteousness. It does not tell us how the judgments will be brought to the world. I am going to imagine something. You can come with me and see.
The church consists of two classes, first a priestly class, and secondly a levitical class. You remember this was typified in the arrangement of the Israelites, by which there was a selection of the tribe of Levi for the Lord's work, and then the priests were chosen from among that tribe. The Levites shared with and co-operated in the general work of instructing, and looking after certain features of the work in connection with the Tabernacle, but it was under the supervision of the priests. So we find these two classes, the priests and the Levites, in the church of Christ. St. Peter says, "Ye are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, to show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." Who are these priests? Those who joined with Jesus to share in His sacrifice. The apostle says, "If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him; if we be dead with Him we shall also live with Him." It is a plain statement, you see. Those of the royal priesthood will be sharers in the sufferings of the present time, and in the glory to follow. They will be the first class represented by the Levites. The Scriptures speak of the church of the first-born. That leads our minds back to the time when God called Israel out of Egypt. You remember the last plague that came upon the Egyptians was the slaying of their first-born, both man and beast, while the first-born of Israel were spared because of the sprinkling of the blood of the lamb upon the door-posts. The apostle shows that the first-born of Israel were typical of the first-born class of this time, who are now being passed over in advance of the world, who will later be delivered out of their bondage. The church is being gathered during the Gospel Age, while the ultimate deliverance of the world was typified by bringing Israel out of bondage. First of all the church is to come out during the night. Just now we are living in a time when the people of God are coming out of the darkness of sin; when Satan and his hosts are to be restrained; when his power is to be broken. Before this is fully accomplished the church is to be delivered. During this time the special class of the first-born have been participating in the eating of the lamb, and waiting for the passing over of the church. The passing over will be the resurrection. Then they will have passed over, and these will be leaders of the others. It was so in the type. The tribe of Levi, with the priests at the head, became the leaders of the tribes with respect to the work of God. The priestly class and the antitypical Levites will share in the work of instructing and blessing the world, and the time for that is the Millennial Age. Then the whole world is to be blessed through the church class which God is now delivering. But they are not to be blessed in the same way. Our blessing is a matter of faith until the moment comes for our change. We will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. When that moment of change comes we will enter into all of the blessings which God has in reservation for those who love Him.
The world will be justified by works. How so? During the Millennial Age of grace it will become possible to do perfect works. Then they will be justified. Suppose, instead of being Christians we imagine ourselves to be people of the world living in the Millennial Age. Suppose the kingdom set up, and you and I recognize that we are in God's Kingdom. We would know the proper thing would be to come into relationship with the great King. In proportion we would grow stronger day by day in body and mind, mentally, morally and physically, and thus our justification would progress, for the word means "to be made right." The world will be getting nearer and nearer right all through the Millennial Age. All who wish to be right will become more and more perfect, and those who at the end of that time are not perfect (justified) will not be considered worthy of any further favor. The apostle Peter says they will be destroyed. That is the process of restitution, restoration. That is God's arrangement for the world. God wishes all to become perfect. He has made arrangements for the church to receive her perfection in the resurrection, of which Jesus says, "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. They shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. This will be the justification of the church. The justification of the world will be through works of obedience.
"Now," you say, "Brother Russell, has God no provision for any others?" No, my Brother. Nobody but those who will become perfect will have everlasting life. How sad if God would be satisfied with an unsatisfactory standard, and permit some to go to heaven who were half way bad. That would not be like Heaven. God will have none such. He will make it possible for all to get into the right attitude, and reach perfection. We shall be like Him and see Him as He is. There will not be a wicked one, or an imperfect one who will attain to Heavenly glory. So with the world. Imagine what kind of a world it would be if God would permit some to be mentally, morally or physically crippled. Moral cripples would not do; mental cripples would not do; physical cripples would not do. God will not be satisfied with anything less than perfection. I am glad for everything I see about the Heavenly Father's character. I say "It is just like Him." I try to make my mind like His. I do not like to see cripples now. King David never liked to see cripples, and I think it is the intimation that the antitypical David, the Beloved, will not like to see cripples. They will be helped out of their crippled condition. We are glad that perfection is God's ultimate objective. That is better than anything you and I ever thought of. That is to be a grand time. How will it come to pass? I will make a suggestion:
When the kingdom is established, according to the Scriptures the kingly class will be spiritual, and invisible to man. They cannot be seen by man for the same reason that we cannot now see Jesus, who is a spirit being. They will be in the express image of the Father's person. The Bible states that no man has seen God at any time, and God is a spirit, "Whom no man hath seen nor can see, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto." Then if Jesus is the express image of the Father's person it would be quite improper to expect that the world would see Jesus or the church with eyes of flesh. We do not see angels now. You and I do not see God now. Why not? Because God is on one plane, the spiritual, and we are on another plane, the human. So the Bible shows us in the case of St. Paul. His eyes were opened temporarily that he might see a spirit being. He saw the glorified Jesus. He described the experience, stating that the light was above the brightness of the sun at noon-day. His eyes were permanently injured by one glimpse. Thus we see how the world could not see Jesus or His bride, for they will all have glorious bodies like that. We remember that this appearance to Saul was that he might be a witness of Jesus' resurrection. He had appeared to the other disciples, in different forms, and suddenly vanished out of their sight, all of which proved to them that He was no longer dead, and that He was no longer human, but spiritual, possessing powers which no man could exercise. You remember St. Paul says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of Heaven, therefore we must be changed. Not that He must be changed and become like us, but we must be changed and become like Him, and see Him as He is. Unless you and I are changed from human to spiritual conditions we can never see Him as He is. He will not appear as He was. Jesus said, "A little while and the world seeth me no more," and they will never see Him except in the same sense that we see Him now, with the eyes of our understanding. In this way we can, perhaps, understand His glories better than if we saw Him in the flesh. We think of Him as far above angels, principalities and powers, and every name that is named. The world seeth me no more, but, mark, "YE SHALL SEE ME." How? You shall be changed. Won't the world be changed? No. God did not plan to change all human beings to spiritual. It is only the church that is an exception. They are called to be a new, divine creation.
The Bible shows that God finished His creative work more [CR472] than 6,000 years ago, and the time since then is called His rest. He has committed all things to His Son. The Son has not yet taken up the work of blessing the race, but the selection of the church is now in progress. If He has been working for the world for 1,800 years He has not done much. No, He has not begun to do that work. He is merely finding His saints, and "the Lord knoweth them that are His." He is acting as advocate to these, representing them before the Heavenly Father. They are represented as members of His Body. All this is getting ready for the blessing of the world later. The Father begets us to become a new creation. How? The apostle says, "God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, hath begotten us." He is the Father of Jesus, and our Father. Jesus is our elder brother in one picture, and our bridegroom in another. We are children of the same Father. The Father is not dealing with the world, and Jesus is leaving that work for the present. The world is merely held in restraint more or less, so it may not become too bad, and so that God's great plan may not be interfered with. In due time, as soon as the church, the new creation, has been gathered from the world, Christ and His bride, His associates, will do the work for the world during His thousand year reign. They will bless and uplift, and give each individual an opportunity to regain the perfect human condition that was lost. We remember Jesus' words, "The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost." He did not come to save something that was not lost, but something that WAS lost. You never lost the divine nature? You never lost anything spiritual either. So Jesus does not give you the divine nature, nor does He give the world the spirit nature. What does He do for us? He merely justifies; the Father sanctifies. It is the Father that begets. During the next age Jesus will do the work. Not that the Father will have nothing to do, but the work for man will be in Jesus' hands. Nor will the Father beget the world. Will they not need to be regenerated? Yes; Jesus will be the Father; He will regenerate them. The word "regenerate" means to start a new being. The whole world, having died through Adam, will need to be regenerated; to be made alive. You remember the disciples asked Jesus what they should receive, since they had forsaken all to follow Him. He said "In the regeneration ye which have followed me shall sit upon 12 thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." That will be the time of regenerating. Jesus will be the everlasting Father, as the prophet has said. He will be the everlasting Father in that He will give everlasting life, in contrast with Adam who gave life that was a failure, a dying condition. The Lord Jesus is the second Adam; the church is the second Eve. There was a first Adam, and a first Eve, and they gave to the world failure and death. The second Adam is Jesus, the spirit being; not Jesus in the flesh. The apostle says, "The second Adam is the Lord from Heaven." He is the one that will be the regenerator of the race. He will be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. All who will submit to Him will be lifted from degradation and weakness, back to human perfection. Is not that glorious? Yes. Nobody could imagine anything as good as God has made. If you or I could imagine anything as good it would mean that we had heads as good as God's.
When the church has been glorified with Christ on the spirit plane, the great company class will come in. Glorified? Yes, glorified partially. It just depends on what you call glorified. While the great company is represented as being servants, and occupying a very inferior place as compared with the little flock, yet it will be a very desirable condition, something like that of the angels. There will be no disloyalty among them, because God will not give eternal life to any who are disloyal. The Scriptures show that the little flock will be on the throne, while the great company will be before the throne; the former will be in the temple, parts of it, while the latter will be servants in that temple. In Revelation 7, we read that the great company will come up out of great tribulation and wash their robes white in the blood of the Lamb. They will finally come off conquerors and bear palms of victory, whereas the bride of Christ will gain the crown. We want to make sure that we will gain the crown, because it is entirely possible to us, and the Lord will be pleased with us if we shall gain it. There is no worthiness in ourselves that we should have such glory, nevertheless it is fitting that we should seek to copy our dear Saviour.
The next in order would be the ancient worthies, who will be brought back to an earthly condition. Think of these being perfect men, in contrast to the imperfect men about them. What wonderful characters they will be. I cannot say that they will be any taller than other men. I just assume that their stature will be six feet or somewhere about that. I do not know. The apostle speaks of them in the 11th of Hebrews, saying, "They had this testimony that they pleased God." Good for them. If they pleased Him they will have a better resurrection. Will they not come in sooner than the church? O no. You know in the 38th to the 40th verses of the 11th of Hebrews it is shown that "they without us shall not be made perfect." They cannot be made perfect until we have been made perfect. They will be made perfect. That will be the first great work of Christ in bringing mankind to perfection. If they were faithful unto death they will come forth with perfect human bodies; not with spirit bodies, but perfect men. What for? They will be princes in all the earth, as says the prophet. A prince means a chief one, a ruler. They are to be rulers. Will they not beautifully represent the kingdom? Yes, indeed. Men cannot see God, nor Jesus, nor the church, because they will be spirit beings, but here will be the ancient worthies, the best possible representatives of Christ and the church. Why? Because a perfect man is the image of God in the flesh, and they could not see God Himself. No man has seen Him at any time, but the only begotten of the Father hath revealed Him. As Jesus was a representative of the Father, so the ancient worthies when perfected in the flesh will be absolutely perfect representatives of God, Jesus, and the church. They could not see anything nearer God's likeness than they will see in the ancient worthies. It will be grand, will it not? They will rule the world, as representatives of the Christ. We might suggest that Satan is now a spirit being, and he has certain angels associated with him. Together they are called the princes and rulers of this world, but they exercise their power through human agencies. Sometimes it is through bad people, but sometimes it is through pretty good people. So the church will be the real rulers in authority, but their desires will be executed through their earthly representatives.
Then what? Is not that enough? Let me show you another matter. There will be sixteen hundred millions of the world to deal with. Will they need to have armies and police to keep them in order? Not have armies? No, God has a better way. He has a great company of spiritual policemen, if we wish to speak of them in that way. Spiritual inspectors; not men at all. They will have a supervision in the world. God guarantees that in that whole kingdom nothing shall injure, nothing shall stumble, nothing shall destroy. That will be quite a work to keep sixteen hundred millions straight; to keep them from doing any harm. We would think it would take millions. Let us think for a moment of ourselves as being of the world at that time. Suppose I was about to speak unkindly, or untruly, or slanderously of someone, and suppose the spiritual police would see this. It will be their business to execute the judgments and justice in the kingdom, and one of the arrangements is that nothing shall injure at that time, and here I was about to speak something injurious. My tongue becomes paralyzed. The spiritual policemen have me. I cannot talk: what is the matter? I was about to say something wrong. I could not speak, but I would get a lesson. Everybody would know that I was about to use my tongue injuriously, and it would be a great lesson to others. Great fear would fall upon all. They would say "We used to say anything we wanted to: tell lies or the truth, or whatever we felt like. Some people seemed to prefer lies, even if the truth seemed cheaper." It will not be that way in the kingdom. Each wrong will receive a just recompense of reward, and every one who does right will receive blessing. "When the judgments of the Lord are abroad in the earth the inhabitants thereof will learn righteousness." They will say "Take care." Suppose one was just lifting his hand with the purpose of striking another." His hand drops helpless and he must go about in that condition for a week. People would ask him "What were you going to do?" They would know he had been doing wrong. They do not ask in that way now. You might be paralyzed, and not have done wrong, but in the Millennial Age that will be the rule. God's judgments will be in operation everywhere.
The church will not do this work. I think they will have a higher, grander work, and the great company will do such work. The Bible tells us that God now looks after the church in that way. He says, "In Heaven their angels do always behold (have access to) the face of the Father. I understand this to mean that each son of God has a special angel to care for his interests. "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them." The Lord is using the angels in connection with the church, because there are no other spirits to do this work, but I believe the great company will be used to deal with the world in the way mentioned. They will have had to do with mankind, and will have sympathy for the human race, and they will be under strict regulations of the royal priesthood. All of the kingdom arrangements seem to be in perfect harmony, like a great machine. We sometimes speak of something working like a machine. So all [CR473] of this work will be grandly harmonious and systematic. All of this shows more and more the infinite wisdom of our God.
Let us seek to have more and more of the spirit, the mind, the disposition of our God. We should have the disposition of justice, which is the foundation of God's throne. You remember Jesus said, "Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you." That is a foundation. Nothing less can be accepted. If we come short because of weakness, what then? If you come short and find it out, go and make it right. "But that will be humiliating, Brother Russell." Good for you; you need to be humiliated. All in the kingdom class will be humble. One of the first qualities is meekness, then gentleness, patience, longsuffering, brotherly kindness, and love. These are the fruits of God's Holy Spirit working in us. These are the manifestations of the Holy Spirit within us. As you and I have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us more and more richly, governing and ruling our words, thoughts and actions, we become more and more like God, children of the Father, exemplifying His Spirit, and thus we show forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
[CR473]
Love of the Father and the Son Our Pattern
OF THE Master we are assured that at the conclusion of His earthly ministry He still dearly loved His disciples. We read, "Jesus ...having loved His own, He loved them unto the end." We are to draw a strict line of demarcation between the love of God which the Bible points out as applicable to all mankind, and the love of God which is conferred upon the Church. In the large, broad sense of the word, the Bible assures us that "God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him might not perish, but have everlasting life." However, there was nothing in the fallen man that God could really love, in the sense of fellowshiping him. Really, there was nothing in man to draw out the love of God toward him--everything rather to the contrary. And this was the reason God sentenced man at the first, immediately after his fall, declaring Father Adam not worthy of His continued love and favor, and condemned him to death. --Genesis 3:17-19.
We are not to understand that God changed His mind meantime and concluded that, after all, He did love Adam and wished that He had not condemned him to death. Rather, we are to understand that the love of God which He exercised toward the world is of the sympathetic kind. You and I might have a kind of sympathetic love for a poor dog. If he had injured his paw, we would like to bind up that paw. We would have the sympathetic love. Not that we really loved that dog, but we had sympathy for it. So God's attitude toward the world is an attitude of sympathy. And He would have His people have a kind, generous feeling toward all men, and even toward the brute creation. In harmony with this the Apostle tells us that we are to do good to all men as we have opportunity, but especially unto them who are of the Household of Faith.--Galatians 6:10.
The Lord makes a definite rule. We are not to class the Household of Faith in with the world. We are not to think of giving the world the same affection or love or interest that we give to the Household of Faith. Neither does God.
The love which God has for the world is entirely different from that which the Savior mentions when He says, "The Father Himself loveth you." This seems to me one of the most wonderful texts of the Bible--that our great God could have a love for us--so small, so unworthy of His love or attention! This same sentiment of the Heavenly Father is reflected in the words of our text, "Jesus having loved His own,...He loved them unto the end." No doubt was there. We cannot think that those who were especially His own then, those who had come to Him and become His followers, were the most talented people in Jewry, any more than are His disciples today. Were they especially His own because they were so well educated? Was it because they were so refined? No. Was it because the world appreciated them and would take charge of them, or because they could be raised to responsible positions in the eyes of the world? No.
WHY JESUS LOVES HIS OWN.
Why did Jesus have this special love for them?-- "having loved His own, He loved them unto the end." There is something important here. You and I wish to know whether the Savior loves us. His is not merely a random love. There is a principle involved. He loved them because they were His own, but not in the selfish sense that a man would love his house and his dog and his cat, because he possessed them, because he owned them. Not in that sense did Jesus call His disciples His own. His was an unselfish love. He purposed to do something for them.
What was the reason that Jesus loved and called His disciples His own. I think you are agreed with me as to the reason. He loved them because they had those qualities of heart that would make them lovable from His standpoint. I think that those qualities are ones that you may have and I may have. You and I in thinking along this line, may see and know. I am glad the Bible says that Jesus loved His own. I am glad I am one of His own and therefore can believe that Jesus loves me, not in the merely sympathetic sense that He loves the unbelieving world, but in the special sense made manifest in our text.
The quality that made Jesus love them was, I believe, first of all, their honesty. It seems to me there is no quality more estimable in the sight of God than honesty. Should not everybody be honest? I answer, Yes. Is everybody honest? Evidently not. The honesty which these disciples manifested was that they were ready to confess that they were nothing of themselves. They could not keep the Law of God. They could not think of themselves as anybody. They knew, as all Jews knew, or ought to have known, that God had given them the Law as the standard. They could not keep that Law. They were honest enough to confess it. Their hearts were therefore in the attitude to look for something that God had to give that would be better than the Law Covenant.--Romans 7; 8:1-4.
HYPOCRISY THE GREAT SIN.
Notice the great ones, the holy, the religious ones, of the Jewish nation--the Scribes and Pharisees and Priests. They were claiming that they kept the Law; but they were not keeping the Law, as Jesus pointed out. That meant that they were deceived. They were professing to keep the Law. They made broad their phylacteries. They made long prayers to be seen of men. Jesus was continually reproving them. Doubtless there were many murderers, thieves and vagabonds in Palestine; yet we notice that Jesus passed all their criminality by as insignificant as compared with hypocrisy. The most serious denunciations the Master gave were toward this class. The further you and I can get away from being religious hypocrites the better. If the whole religious community professing Christ could get away from hypocrisy, it would make a great stir in the world. There is a great deal made of certain names, indicating certain religious activities by means of these names, but the names do not match the facts in the case.
The disciples were honest, confessing themselves nobodies and confessing that they were not able to do right, not able to keep God's Law; and because they thus accepted God's Message, speaking peace with God and telling them that they might have forgiveness of sins through Him--because they had this attitude of mind, Jesus received them as His disciples. They were glad to believe the Message He had to give--that He was selecting the Kingdom Class, to be highly exalted to bless mankind. They left all to follow Him. He had taken a similar course. He had forsaken all to do the Father's will. He had given up the glorious condition which [CR474] He had with the Father before the world was. As a human being He had consecrated Himself at the time of His baptism, gladly, willingly, that He might do the will of the Father. Here were some, these dear disciples of His, having noted His purity and having received His Message, who were glad to walk in His steps, that they likewise might do the will of the Father. Jesus declared that each of these was His mother, His sister, His brother. There was the secret of it.
NONE SO PRECIOUS AS THE LORD'S OWN.
Our Lord had received these disciples as being very closely related to Himself. They were the most precious ones in all the world. They were not His natural brothers and natural sisters; but because they had the Spirit of the Father, because they had His own Spirit, they were greatly beloved. Having loved His own, He continued to love them to the end.
At the conclusion of His earthly career, you remember, at the time He was thinking about them, and thinking about leaving them, He prayed to the Father about them. He said, "I pray not for the world." He was about to die for the world; but He did not pray for the world, because the salvation of the world was not yet due, in God's Plan. He prayed for those that had willingly given themselves to be His disciples and to walk in His steps. He prayed that they all might be one--not that they might all be one person; they would always be different persons, but that they might all have one spirit, one mind, one heart, one disposition, that they might all be true disciples, that they might be one with the Father.
This was His prayer for them. He said that His followers should love one another as He had loved them. This is bringing it down to you and to me. It is one thing to realize the love of the Lord Jesus for us, and it is another to realize that the Father Himself loveth us because we have left the world and turned our backs upon sin. You may never be able to conquer all these weaknesses of yours fully, to your dying day. The Lord judges the heart, the will. He knows whether you have turned your back upon sin. He knows whether you have given up your heart entirely to do His will, to walk humbly in the footsteps of Jesus.
"The Father Himself loveth you!" What would you take, my dear brother, for what that text teaches of the Love of God toward us as His children? He has a love for the world. As a God, a Creator, He has the supervision of all His creatures. God has made provision for every creature, even the sparrow. But for all who have come into this loyal attitude of mind, He has love--sympathy, and more, esteem!
"KEEP YOURSELVES IN THE LOVE OF GOD."
If we know that we came into the love of God, then let us remember, as the Apostle John says, that we are to keep ourselves in the love of God. You say, "Are we able to keep ourselves? Did not St. John make a mistake?" No, my dear brother, he made no mistake. We must keep ourselves in the love of God. "We are not able to keep ourselves, are we?" Yes, the keeping is with you. God will never force your will. God is not now seeking those who need to be compelled. By and by, in the next Age, in the Millennium, He will deal with those who need to be forced and compelled. He will deal with these that they may compare the good and its results with the evil and its results. Now the Father seeks such as worship Him in spirit, drawing near to Him, loving Him.
It is not that we first loved Him, but that He first loved us--the love we see reflected in His great Plan for the uplifting of our race. All this tells us of the great God that we have. When we came into His family by surrendering our wills to Him, and He begat us of His Holy Spirit, we came into a precious relationship. There is nothing like it in the Universe. The holy angels indeed are in God's love and favor; they never were out of it. But we who were once sinners, and who are now received back into His family, are begotten of His Spirit to the highest of all natures. How wonderful, my dear brother! I think, and so do you, that God loves us very, very much, or He would never have made such wonderful provision in the riches of His grace and in His loving kindness toward us who are in Christ Jesus. The provisions of God's grace are not only those of the future, and it is not that He will ultimately change and transform us who are now willing to will and to do His good pleasure, but we are actually being transformed today, by this love of the Father.
I believe that daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, as we think upon these things, as we consider, study out and understand the great love of God as expressed in His marvelous Plan, we are getting a wonderful realization of how much "the Father Himself loveth" us. But we cannot understand it fully. But the very fact that any father would do such wonderful things for any child would imply a great deal of love.
God had love for the angels when He made them. He had love for the cherubim and the seraphim when He made them. They always will be grand characters and therefore worthy of God's love. But here is the most wonderful expression of God's love that we by faith can believe in--that God should have such love toward us who are in every way disorganized as a race. The Father looked down and beheld in this race some jewels; and He lifted these jewels up and washed them free from sin through the merit of the Savior; and then, through their consecration, began the work of polishing these jewels and getting them ready for the mounting in effulgent glory in the Resurrection Morning, when He shall set these jewels in the gold of the Divine nature. Surely the Father Himself loveth us!
"WHAT SHALL I RENDER UNTO THE LORD?"
As the Father loves us, and as we have also the word of assurance that the Savior loves us, what now shall we do in return? What shall I render unto the Lord my God for all His benefits toward me? This is as little as we can say. If you were taken in hand by some very rich and influential person, when you were a mere waif upon the world, and if he took you into his home and adopted you into his own family, you would say, "What a benefactor this is!" If you had a grateful heart, you would say, "All my time and influence shall go to this benefactor, to show him how much I appreciate his kindness toward me." As surely as you had a proper heart you would feel that way.
Now, then, what shall we render unto the Lord for all His benefits--His love, His kindness, for the great redemption in which we share with the world, and further for the High Calling which we have received to come out of the world and become joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. Ours is a Heavenly inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away--an inheritance reserved for us who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time. All this is ours. God has fixed it so. There is no mistaking the matter. This is a New Creation. Until this Gospel Age there has been no sharing of His level, so to speak; but we cannot lose our way while we follow our Guide. And in proportion as you and I appreciate what God has done for us, we surely wish to do something for Him.
What can we do? You look at yourself, and I look at myself; and we say truly and honestly, "We are mere bundles of imperfection. We have nothing worthy to offer to the Lord our God." But you did offer and it was accepted. You have given all you had and the Lord has received you; otherwise you would not belong to this class at all. The Father thus loves only those who have made this consecration. They are the only ones that are in the Church whose names are written in Heaven. You had your will to give. You gave your little all. The Father accepted you and begat you of His Spirit; and that is the reason why you are of God's Elect, and that is the reason why you can realize more fully, "The Father Himself loveth you."
What shall we render? The things that you are to render and I am to render are the things we consecrated to God--the very same. That was your little all and my little all. But how shall we render our all? In everything, especially in our wills, we should seek to know the Father's will. Whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we should do all to the glory of God. In other words, my dear brethren, in coming into God's family and making this Covenant with the Lord, we have bound ourselves down. He did not bind us. We bound ourselves down, that we would have no will of our own in any matter, that we would do only His will.
BOND SLAVES OF CHRIST, YET FREE MEN.
We cannot have what we please to wear. We are not even to eat what we please. We are not even to go where we please. We are not even permitted to think what we please. "Well," says one, "I never heard the like of such a bondage!" That is true, my dear brother. We are bond slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. "And shall we never get [CR475] rid of this slavery?" You can stop it any minute. All who are slaves of the Lord Jesus are voluntary slaves. You came in voluntarily; and you can just as quickly renounce it all if you please. Do you wish to do so? Oh, no! It is the most blessed bondage you were ever in! Every time you have found you had to give up your own will you found you had a greater blessing in return, more than compensating. You found all things working together for good, because you were renouncing your own will and walking in the footsteps of Jesus. Precious bondage! You found how many mistakes you made when you tried to do your own will--about your clothing, your food, and everything else. You are glad to have some general direction from One who is so wise. Because of this direction, the Apostle says of this class that they have "the spirit of a sound mind."--2 Timothy 1:7.
Our minds are all imperfect and unsound. When we are guided not by our own wills but by the Lord's will, as expressed to us in His Word, then we come to have the spirit of a sound mind. And much, much blessing has it brought us! I am sure I speak the sentiments of every one here present who is a consecrated child of God.
Gradually we come to love the Lord's way. We grow in grace and in knowledge and in the love of God, so that eventually we come to hate the things we once loved and to love the things we once despised. Thus as the Apostle describes it, We are transformed by the renewing of our minds.--Romans 12:2.
This bondage is freedom in a very important respect (1 Cor. 7:22). We are getting a victory over the bondage of sin; we are more victorious daily over the bondage, of the weaknesses of our flesh. But this bondage to the will of the Lord is bringing us daily blessings; and ultimately it will bring us the First, the Chief Resurrection, of which Jesus says, "Blessed and holy is he who hath part in the First Resurrection;...they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years" (Rev. 20:6). All this will come to you and me, if we are faithful in doing the Lord's will to the extent of our ability. We are to have the glorious standard of the Lord before us, and to live as fully up to that standard as we are able. The Lord Jesus could not do more than all He was able. Being perfect He was able to do perfectly. Being imperfect we cannot do perfectly; and therefore the blood of Jesus cleanseth us, makes us clean, while we seek to walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
HOW WE MAY MINISTER TO THE LORD.
Here we come to another point. The Lord knew that you and I could not do anything for Him. He gave us a suggestion how we might indirectly do for Him. You know to what I refer. He says that we should love one another, and that in loving one another we would be expressing the love which we have for Him. So the Apostle John in speaking of this same matter, from this same standpoint, says that as Christ laid down His life for us, so we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. He does not say that we should lay down our lives for everybody--for the heathen or for the world in general. No, no. We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. That is the way it reads. The Lord knew how to have it written. We are to lay down our lives for the ones whom Jesus loved.
I have found some very dear children of God who seemingly found it much easier to do something for the world than for the Church. That is not the proper sentiment. It is God First, the Lord Jesus next, the brethren next; and after that, all men as we have opportunity; and after that, the brute creation as we have opportunity. Brutes are to be neglected in favor of men, and the world are to be neglected in favor of the Church. If we have His Spirit we will love His own.
When I speak in this way, do not understand me as meaning to countenance a partiality amongst Christians. There is something very broadening in the Bible, and I believe the members of the International Bible Students Association are more and more attaining this love which the Lord Jesus wished us to attain. It is not whether, if they are Presbyterians, we should love them as Presbyterians, or if Methodists, we should love them as Methodists, or if Lutherans, we should love them as Lutherans. The Presbyterians love the Presbyterians; the Methodists love the Methodists; the Lutherans love the Lutherans; the Mormons love the Mormons; the Spiritualists love the Spiritualists; the Masons love the Masons; and the Odd Fellows love the Odd Fellows. But in the Church of Christ there are no such lines of distinction. It is not whether a man is a Mason or not a Mason, a Methodist or not a Methodist; it is whether he is the Lord's child. We are to love those who belong to God. If the Father loves him and the Savior loves him, then we too should love him. If I do not love him there is something wrong in my attitude. I am to love what the Father loves, to love what the Savior loves.
"HE THAT LOVETH GOD, LOVETH HIS BROTHER ALSO."
"Brother Russell, if you love all the brethren, you are going to love some pretty rude characters, you are going to love some very ignorant ones, you are going to love some that are not well esteemed amongst men." I cannot help it. I am going to love all who love God. You remember that the Twelve Apostles, except St. Paul, were all very ordinary men. You remember that when St. Peter and St. John, two of the very brightest of the Twelve, were preaching in the Temple the people perceived they were unlearned and ignorant men. Think of that! The "common people" could see it. Are these the ones Jesus loved? Yes. I suppose they cracked and broke the classic Hebrew at times. This does not mean that we should love more than others those who break the English language into pieces, but we should not allow ignorance to stand between any brother or sister and our love. We should see to it that we love all who are in fellowship with our Lord.
This is the reason they are commended to our love-- because they have His spirit, regardless of whether they are from the highest or the lowest ranks of society. If the Father Himself has accepted them into His family, and the Father loves them, that is reason enough for you and me that we should love them. We ought to love the brethren. How much? It is a very long step the Apostle sets before us--we ought to be willing to lay down our lives for the brethren. Our commission is not to preach to the world, but merely to such as have "an ear to hear" and a desire to find God. In addressing the public we shall be sure in nearly every case to find some who are the Lord's children, and who need assistance in the good way, or some who are feeling after God and desire to become His children. Merely to have a harangue to interest the world is no part of our mission whatever. Our commission is the gathering out of the Church, the Bride of Christ.
Suppose some of those who profess to be consecrated to God are very, very weak indeed every way? Very well, my dear brother, perhaps the Lord sees you are weak and that you get into trouble too. Do you not know that He has many things to overlook in you? We are to be of as little trouble to others as possible, but we are to bear with the infirmities of the weak brethren and not merely to please ourselves. Let me repeat. We are to bear with their weaknesses and infirmities, and not to please ourselves. How much that means! I trust we are learning this. I am merely pointing out what you all know, that the love of God is the fulfilling of the Divine requirement, and that this love is to manifest itself toward those whom He acknowledges as His children and receives into His family. If I see that any man has God's fellowship, I dare not deny my fellowship.
WE MUST FELLOWSHIP WHOM GOD FELLOWSHIPS.
I think of a story told about a New York banker, that might illustrate the point. He was an upright man. This banker had a friend living at a distance, who, wishing to give his son a start in life, gave him a letter of introduction to the banker. He wrote, "If you can introduce my son into the business world, it will be quite a favor to me." This wealthy man of Wall Street had very great confidence in his friend; and he perceived, when he looked at the young man, that he was a noble character. Then he thought about what he could do to get him established in business. Without comment, he said, "Come, let us take a little walk"; and they walked arm in arm down Wall street and Bond street and New street and back again to the office. The young man waited a while in nervous expectancy. Then, noticing that the banker was apparently not expecting to do anything more, he said, "Is there anything you can do to introduce me?" And the banker replied, "It is not necessary. The fact that I had you on my arm and led you down these streets will be a sufficient introduction to the business men of this vicinity." And the young man found it so.
So when God takes hold of a man, and we see him in God's company, we know God is willing to introduce him, and it gives him a standing with you and me. He is one [CR476] of the brethren, because "the Father Himself loveth" him; the Father Himself recognizes him as one of His family. Then you and I should be willing to do anything for him that we are able. It is the Father's will that we should co-operate with Him in assisting the brethren in every way possible. There are various trials and difficulties for these brethren that you and I know about. All the soldiers of the cross have a narrow way, a battle with the world and with the flesh and with the adversary. You and I have battles due to the fallen condition of our own flesh. What sympathy it should give us with all other soldiers in the battle! There are the two Captains. All who are on the Lord's side or who are seeking to walk in the footsteps of Jesus belong to our army. Whether learned or ignorant, black or white, rich or poor, it is our privilege to love our brethren.
HAST THOU LOVE? THEN SHOW IT NOW.
I believe this is as good a thought as we can have as we close this convention. The Master said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the Age" (Mat. 28:20). We are now down at the end of the Age, "Only waiting till the dawning is a little brighter grown," only waiting till we pass beyond the veil, till we are joined to the Savior on the other side the veil. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father." No opportunity after that of helping the brethren! All the brethren will have been helped. They will all have passed then where they will need no help. The time when we can encourage one another, and give a helpful look, or a warm clasp of the hand, and can show our fellowship in the sufferings of the present time, is now.
I hope we are all learning more and more this lesson of love; and I hope our hearts are opening more and more widely, as we come to see the glorious character of our Father and of our Savior, and come to receive of the Master's image, reflected in us more and more. The Apostle says that by looking on Jesus we are changed, we are transformed from glory to glory, in the present life. As we thus go on from one stage of heart development to another, from one step of glory to another, on this side of the veil, we are making the necessary progress, and we will be ready for the great final step, the final stage, when we shall see Him as He is and share His glory.
My dear brethren, do we not believe that all these things are nigh, even at the door? The Master said, "When ye see these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads and rejoice; for your deliverance draweth nigh." Are we rejoicing properly? Are we lifting up our heads and rejoicing to tell the world the sweet old story of the Savior's love and of God's love? Do not tell them too much of the coming trouble. Tell them about the silver lining of the cloud. "Ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that Day should overtake you as a thief."
THE WORLD WAKING UP.
The most wonderful inquiries are coming in that we have ever known. People everywhere are saying, "What do these things mean? These are the things you Bible Students have been talking about for years." They begin to "take knowledge." They may not all give their hearts to the Lord now. The right thought to leave with the inquirer is that he should enter into a covenant with the Lord, before he can have any favors present or future. The point of every discussion and every argument, to one who is not already consecrated, is that the time is limited, and that the only proper course for anybody to take is, as the apostle suggests, to present his body a living sacrifice, his reasonable service.
I feel that we do well to keep this always in mind. You can never get people to understand all about the doctrines. The Lord never meant anybody to understand all these things except the brethren. "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom." They were meant for such--for you, who have come into the family of God. These things are for you to understand. When you find that people are interested, press the point about their getting into the Ark of Safety, getting into the family of God, getting to be members of the Body of Christ, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus.
PARTING WORDS.
As we leave here today, we do so with the thought that we may meet again as a convention, or perhaps we may not meet again. It is not for you or for me to be dictatorial. The Bible indicates that the Gentile Times have ended. Their kings have had their day. They have made a good showing, in many respects. Many of these governments have done wonderfully. Take the government of Germany. It seems to me that the present Emperor of Germany has done wonderful things for his nation, which forty years ago was a very stupid people. Today they have become very bright, very intelligent, very well educated people, amongst the brightest in the whole world. This came partly in connection with their militarism. They were getting lessons in reading and writing and arithmetic while learning military discipline. Much might be said in favor of all these Gentile governments, as well as against them all. Yet when they have done their best, they have done little. Have the nations been able to lift up mankind to full perfection? No. Have the doctors been able to lift up mankind? No. Would the United States ever be able to do so? No. On the contrary, with all the increasing intelligence, we see the cataclysm of dissolution and anarchy coming. But all the trouble will be as nothing in comparison with the blessings that shall come when the Sun of Righteousness is revealed. But the portal of trouble must first be passed. And it will be a very helpful experience to all the world, as they shall be brought down to the place where they will look to the Lord as their Helper. Man's extremity will become God's opportunity.
Then, my brethren, let us be faithful to the light God has given us. Let us live the Truth every day, "showing forth the praises of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light." I hear of many who have received a blessing from the daily reading of the Vow; others through reading the Morning Resolve. I believe we cannot too fully surround ourselves with helpful influences. We need to fortify. We need to get ourselves strengthened by the Divine might in the inner man, that we may be able to resist those things that are contrary to us as New Creatures. Let us then suggest the keeping of these resolves, and thus living near to God.
A good many also have written in about the article that appeared in The Watch Tower lately on Love. A brother wrote, "Since reading that article I have been trying to be more gentle, more kind, more considerate of others, and to practice these things; and I am finding a great blessing as I endeavor to put these principles into practice. I find it easier to be meek and kind and gentle in word and action." I believe the Lord today would have His people do as much polishing up of their characters as possible, so that it may not be necessary for Him to give us, through disciplinary providences in our lives, the polishing we need. If we would polish ourselves, we would not need to be polished by the Lord.
Those who are putting on the graces of the Spirit, are all receiving God's special assistance, and are working together with God (2 Cor. 6:1); for this is God's work. As the Bible says, "Ye are God's workmanship." If He works in us to will and to do, it is to do what He has given us in His Word as His will. His present purpose is the taking out from amongst mankind of a saintly class that are to share the nature of Christ, and share with Him the Kingdom of the future, through which the world will be blessed.
We have in our office stock some Vow cards--bookmarks. Many of you have them, no doubt. The Vow is on one side and a beautiful little poem on the other. Those who have taken this Vow form the most wonderful prayer circle the Church has ever known. Think of it, that approximately 15,000 have sent in their names to that effect. And we have reasons for believing that the number of those who have taken it is double this. However, at least 15,000 are praying daily for one another. You will find them in whatever part of the world you go--whether in China, or Japan, or Korea, or Colombia, or the Isthmus of Panama, or Scandinavia, or Finland, or Russia. Everywhere you will find those who have taken this Vow, and who read it daily, and who remember one another in their prayers. I think that is one of the most wonderful things in the world in all the Church's history. Never before were so many of God's children praying for each other.
A LETTER OF DEEP INTEREST.
I have something to read to you. It is a translation of a letter. It was written in Hungarian, to a Slav brother in the United States, and was forwarded to us. A portion of the letter follows:
"A Hungarian soldier, injured on the battlefield, was [CR477] returned home wounded. He was there met by some of our brethren, and later was led to diligent and earnest study of the Scriptures, and finally made his consecration to the Lord. This he symbolized last January, at the hands of our dear Brother Szabo. A few days later he was obliged to return to the front and to the trench, in Galicia. A cannon shot burned the cap from his head; earth caved in upon him. He was dug out by his comrades, and again sent to the hospital. This brought the dear brother into our midst again, but for a short time only. Presently he had to return to the firing line again.
"This time they came within 800 feet of the Russian line, and they received the command, 'A bayonet charge!' The Hungarian brother was at the end of the left wing. He sought only to protect himself from the enemy, hence endeavored merely to knock the bayonet from the hand of the Russian with whom he was confronted. Just then he observed that the Russian was endeavoring to do likewise; and instead of using his opportunity to pierce his opponent, the Russian let his bayonet fall to the ground; he was weeping. Our brother then looked at his 'enemy' closer--and he recognized a 'Cross and Crown' pin on his coat! The Russian, too, was a brother in the Lord! The Hungarian brother also wore a 'Cross and Crown' emblem--on his cap.
"The two brethren quickly clasped hands and stepped aside. Their joy was overflowing, that our Heavenly Father had permitted them to meet even on the field of the enemy! They could not understand one another's speech, but by signs they conversed, taking out their Bibles--and the Russian had the Scripture Studies in his pocket with a song book, all bound in one volume, and a photo of Brother Russell. The brother then took the bayonet of the Russian brother, and gave him over as a prisoner of war; and he still remains as such in Hungary, while the Hungarian brother has now been sent to the hospital for the third time."
While there are not many rich or noble amongst the Lord's brethren, yet when it comes to telling the Truth, they manage it very well!
In Germany, Great Britain, and all over Europe, our people have been conscious for years that this war was coming on. They have been writing to me and continually inquiring how they should proceed if they were drafted or went into the army. In Volume Six of Scripture Studies, the friends are instructed to avoid taking life. If they were ever drafted into the army they should go. If they could be sent to the Quartermaster's Department to take care of the food, that would be desirable, or into the hospital work. They should endeavor to get such positions. They could not be expected to do service in the way of killing. If they were obliged to go on the firing line, they could shoot over the enemy's head, if they wished.
And that is the way these brethren did; each had this same thought in mind. This letter shows the love of the brethren even on the field of battle, and in the enemy's land, with carnal weapons. It made no difference that one was a Hungarian and the other a Russian!
How different in the nominal churches! In this war Presbyterians and Methodists, Anglicans, Romanists and others, all fight. In Great Britain they have placed a kind of premium upon marriage, saying that those who marry and bring up children, ready for future wars, will be helping along their country--"God's Kingdom." They have a different brand of Christianity from the Bible brand. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the one who is giving this advice, may think he is doing his duty, but there is something confusing his mind.
OUR TIMES IN GOD'S HANDS.
We do not know whether we who are here today shall meet again in the flesh or not. What matters it? We are fully content, either to live or to die--whatever His providence may direct in respect to us. "My times are in Thy hands; my God, I wish them there"--that expresses it beautifully, does it not? We wish to have the Lord's will done in respect to the time of our change, and in respect to all we enjoy together daily--it is all committed to Him. Our wills are entirely dead. His will is to rule in your body and in mine, and in all of us. I hope, dear brethren, that a great blessing has come to the Classes of Oakland, San Francisco, Alameda and surrounding Classes, from this convention. I hope that as they go to their homes with their hearts overflowing with the comfort of the Truth, they will carry blessings on to others; and that, like the widow's cruse of oil, the more they give away, the more they will have left for themselves.
Let us all here who have been enjoying the favors of the Lord go forth filled with the Spirit, filled with love and loyalty and fidelity to the Lord, that we may carry blessings to others. I shall be going on my way shortly, up along the coast, as far as British Columbia, then eastward, and finally back to Brooklyn, and July 4th shall be at the New York City Temple. Let our great Prayer circle draw us each nearer to the other, that thus we may be sanctified with the Truth and "made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light."
[CR477]
FOREGLEAMS OF GLORY
"TIME OF THE END" NOW HERE--A DAY OF WRATH PRECEDES THE REIGN OF BLESSING--MAN'S SELFISHNESS THE CAUSE-- HUMAN PLANS AND THEORIES TO PROVE ABORTIVE--TIME OF TROUBLE NOW BEGUN--NEW ORDER TO BE SET UP ON RUINS OF OLD--CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH GLORIFIED TO BRING IN "DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS." WE are living today in a wonderful period of the world's history. As I looked around throughout this great Exposition and beheld the astonishing exhibitions of skill on every side, as manifested in the exquisite architecture of these beautiful structures, in the beautiful courts, and in all the marvelous productions here assembled from all parts of the world, I said to myself, "How wonderful is the mind of man!" As I viewed the powerful machinery, intricate and complicated in design, and with such vast capabilities, I was forcefully reminded that only a little while ago we had none of these things. Our implements of agriculture were of the plainest and simplest kind, even within our own recollection. We had practically no farm machinery. In every sense of the word we had simplicity itself in all the ways of the home and the family.
Today we have palatial hotels and magnificent residences fitted up with every convenience and luxury, with devices for comfort of which our forefathers never dreamed. Our means of transportation are marvelous. Wondrous skill is manifested in the numberless contrivances which we see on every hand for the blessing and benefit of man. Evidently the time is near when all the world may enjoy such assuagement of hardship, such release from excess of toil, and such blessings and comforts as mankind has never before conceived.
I said to a gentleman, as I passed through some of these beautiful avenues, and reflected concerning King Solomon and his riches and his wonderful accomplishments, "I imagine that if Solomon, with all his wealth, his glory and honor could step into these grounds and into these great buildings, he would be astounded at what we see here--he would be amazed." Yet these things have come upon us so gradually, so stealthily, as it were, that we scarcely realize what progress has been made.
"THE TIME OF THE END."
As the Bible foretold twenty-five hundred years ago, so it is true, that all these things have come in "The Time of the End." (Daniel 12:4) As Bible Students we find that this term, "The Time of the End," applies to a period that began with the year 1799; and so for more than a century we have been living in "The Time of the End." Within this time all these wonders have come to mankind. Marvelous, is it not?
But what about this "Time of the End?" What does it mean? The end of what? Is it the end of the world? We once thought so, and all of the creeds so declare. But that is not the [CR478] thought of the Bible when rightly understood. The Time of the End is the end of this present Age. It is the end of the long reign of Sin and Death. What a glorious prospect! We are now coming into a New Era in which all these evil conditions which have oppressed man for six thousand years are to terminate. Soon the great Sabbath of rest, the Golden Age of blessing long sung by prophet and bard, will be ushered in. Indeed, it has already been ushered in, in some respects.
These blessings, while they are designed to be for all mankind, have in a natural way, because of man's ingrained selfishness, gravitated into the hands of a certain few. This has caused more or less of pride on the one hand, and of jealousy on the other. This is now about to precipitate a fearful conflict. We see already a great conflict of nations along commercial lines, each endeavoring to get the lion's share of the blessings which the Lord has provided in these latter days. They have become jealous and envious of one another as they see the opportunities of wealth and power opening up before them. This awful war now raging across the sea has resulted, costing millions of money and of lives. How shortsighted!
How broad and noble in contrast is the view which the Bible holds out to us; namely, that God has made loving and bountiful provision for His blessings to reach all the families of the earth-- yea, every individual! And the time is now about ripe. How glad this makes our hearts! We whose eyes have been anointed to see are greatly blessed in that we are privileged to be ministers of God, to tell of all His mercies and favors planned for mankind. God has permitted us, as members of the Body of Christ, to be co-workers with Him in the proclamation of His Truth; and when glorified with our Redeemer to share with Him in the great work of bringing blessing to the whole world. It is a blessed thought, an inspiring thought, a comforting thought, one that lifts us far above the present strife and ambitions of the world.
PRESENT BLESSINGS FROM GOD--"IN DUE TIME."
While considering all these blessings which surround us in this, our day, and noting what imperfect man has been able to attain even under present conditions, by the blessing of God, let us not lose sight of the fact that these things did not come by man's ingenuity. Let us take note that men just as brainy, and just as brilliant, have lived in the past. Where is there a man today who can pen such words of wisdom as the proverbs of Solomon? What poet of today can produce the equal of the Psalms of David, the sweet singer of Israel? Let us remember, too, that though Shakespeare lived centuries ago, he remains unsurpassed in his line by any in our times.
Let us assure ourselves that we are not the brainiest people who have ever lived, that it is not because we are of superior brain capacity to those of the past that these things have come. It is because this is God's "due time." He is now letting in the light of the dawning New Dispensation. That God has done all this is the firm belief of careful Bible students. And I believe that you all agree with this sentiment.
Behind this thought is another. As I stood here and looked upon what mankind have done in their imperfect condition, I thought, "What will man do when he is made perfect, in the image of God, under Messiah's Kingdom?" My mind then turned to God Himself, and I said, "If feeble creatures which God has made can accomplish so much, can produce such wonderful things, and even in their fallen estate, who can measure the power of the Almighty God--of Him who is perfect in Wisdom, perfect in Power, perfect in Justice, and perfect in Love? How thankful we are to get this broad, comprehensive view of our God, and to see that He is not only great and powerful, but wise and infinitely loving as well!
GOD'S MARVELOUS WISDOM AND POWER.
So as I pondered over what man has done, and what God has done and planned to do, the words of the Prophet David came to mind: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork." Then I thought, "All that mankind have done or ever will do will be merely copying the infinitely greater skill manifested by our great Creator in His works." As we note the planets revolving in their orbits, we are amazed, not only at the mighty power that can swing these wonderful systems of worlds, but at the wisdom and ability displayed in preserving their perfect order.
But when we consider what God has wrought in connection with humanity we are still more astonished. There will be no piece of machinery in this Exposition, or in any Exposition that will be held throughout eternity, that will be so great a piece of machinery as is the human body. You have one of these machines at your command. I have one. This machine has power to oil itself, to feed itself, to manipulate itself, to will for itself, to think for itself, to direct its own course. If mankind could make such a machine it would be something to be proud of. The best we can do is to feebly copy the works of our Creator and to work in harmony with His laws. When we realize that all of the machinery and inventions of our day are but imperfect copies of what God has done, that man is only using principles which God has employed in the past, to the extent that he is able to understand them, we see the more clearly that man was made an earthly image of the Heavenly Creator.
JUSTICE AND LOVE MOST ESSENTIAL QUALITIES.
Some who are inventors, and others who have talents of one class or another, may be very deficient is such grand characteristics as justice. Some are very deficient in love. We are coming to look upon these qualities as the ones most desirable to cultivate, and we are seeking by God's grace to develop these qualities more and more. As the work of transformation progresses in our hearts and lives, we see more clearly what a great blessing will come to the world when these principles of Divine justice and love will operate everywhere. We look across the water to our neighbors in Europe, and we say to ourselves, "Alas, that they do not have sufficient appreciation of justice to be willing to observe the Golden Rule--to do unto others as they would have others do to them!" Selfishness is behind such a spirit. One declares, "We will have our share of trade!" Another replies, "You shall never get it if we can keep you from it, if we have enough battleships to take the trade from you!"
And so the cruel war goes on, to show which can the more successfully exercise their selfishness to the disadvantage of the other. Let us ask, "Is this copying God's ways?" Let us take the nobler, higher standard of Divine justice, and do to our neighbors as we would wish them to do to us. Let us promote this principle wherever we go. Let us make known the character of God wherever we have an opportunity, by showing forth His justice, His sympathy and His kindness. Let this character be manifested in our own lives. As children of God let us be burning and shining lights, to the glory of our Father in Heaven.
LIGHT NOW BREAKING THROUGH THE DARKNESS.
While realizing God's great Wisdom and Power as manifested in nature, we have been seriously handicapped by false doctrines which grossly misrepresented our Creator and showed Him as a God devoid of justice and of Love. It seems a wonder that we were not all turned aside from Him. None of the human family are totally depraved, yet we have had pictured to us a totally depraved God. We got this misconception of the Heavenly Father from the Dark Ages. Thank God! the New Age now at the threshold is bringing blessings not merely of a temporal kind. It is scattering the ignorance and superstitions of the past, and is bringing in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, which is ultimately to fill the whole earth. We are beginning to see the light. Why? Because we are getting awake.
But to see clearly we must look in the right direction. There are people today who are quite awake, but they are looking toward the West for the sunrise. How long do you suppose it would take to see the sun rise in the West? I mean that we see great college professors, learned men who have given their lives to study, and have knowledge on many subjects, making the mistake of thinking that Evolution is our God; that a microbe started to squirm and has been evoluting up gradually, until the race has reached the station which it occupies today. They do not see an intelligent God in this matter. Their misconception is that Evolution is man's only hope. They say that ultimately there will be "the survival of the fittest."
Think of the present conditions in Europe! The fittest are the ones who are falling in the trenches and on the fields of battle. The unfit--the old, the weak, the crippled and incompetent --are left at home to propagate and rear the families of the future! That is the science of Evolution! That is the beautiful (?) philosophy which hopes that in millions of years from now mankind may have learned how to cook and eat so that they need not die, and that thus they may have everlasting life! Evolutionists believe that this may be true of their posterity somewhere in the dim, distant future. They do not stop to think that at the present rate of increase in population the world would be vastly overcrowded before that time; that the coal and oil fields would be exhausted, and that a limit would be reached in other directions; that things cannot continue as at present for any great length of time.
But the Bible points out that man's extremity will be God's opportunity. After permitting man to have all these blessings of our day, He will allow them to dash themselves to pieces in a great cataclysm of trouble, and make shipwreck of all this boasted twentieth century civilization. But before the complete destruction of mankind, the Kingdom of Messiah, God's dear [CR479] Son, will intervene, and will speak peace to the nations, and there will be a great calm after the terrible storm. Christ will take to Himself His great power and establish His glorious Reign.
GOD'S JEWELS NOW BEING GATHERED.
As I beheld the wonderful Tower of Jewels on these grounds, I remember that, according to Bible testimony, God has for nineteen hundred years been selecting from every nation, people, kindred and tongue the Church of Christ, a class of jewels that God is about to exalt in the eyes of the whole people. He will use these for the blessing of the world, for the enlightening and teaching of the world, and for their uplifting. Thank God for this truth! I trust that by the grace of God many to whom this discourse shall reach may be of these jewels, may be of those who will fully submit themselves to the hand of the great Creator. May He work in us and upon us and through us, to the great blessing of ourselves, as well as a little later to the blessing of all the families of the earth!
What is the work that God is accomplishing in these jewels? He is shaping them, polishing them, preparing them for their future great work. You ask, "How?" The Bible answers "Through testings, through trials, through the opposition of the world, the flesh and the Devil." All these things of the present time, that would naturally work to our disadvantage in many ways, the Lord will overrule to our spiritual development. He has promised that all things shall work together for good to these, the called ones according to His purpose, who are making their calling and election sure. How we rejoice in the precious promise that all of life's experiences permitted by our Father will be caused to thus work to our blessings!
I remind you of the creation of God thus far. First was the Logos, our Lord Jesus in His prehuman condition. He, as the great Agent of Jehovah, created all things. As we read, "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." It was the Power of God, exercised through the glorious Word, the Logos. God's final creation was man. Then sin blighted this fair creation. God for a time allowed it to remain as sin had marred it. But in due time, according to God's prearranged plan, Jesus came into the world to be the Savior of men. He took upon Himself human nature. As a man He gave Himself a Ransom for Adam, and thus for the race who fell in his loins. The price was laid down, even the precious blood of the Son of God.
But before the time for the blessing of the world the Father had a further feature of His great plan--the gathering out of these jewels, the making of a New Creation, different from angels, cherubim or seraphim, or any other creatures God had made. He invited these from the fallen, sinner race, redeemed them by the precious blood of Christ, to become members of this New Creation, and thus to be joint-heirs with Jesus their Lord. God is working in these. Who are they? You are one, if you are a member of the Body of Christ. If you have given yourself wholly to the Lord, under His terms, you are one of the jewels which God is preparing, developing, polishing, and perfecting for future glory.
Then what? When this New Creation is completed, they will be the Channel which God will use for the restoration of all mankind. Because of their own experiences with evil, and because they have learned how to overcome weaknesses and imperfections in themselves, they will be well fitted for encouraging, instructing and uplifting the human family to the perfection which God designs for them, and which Adam originally enjoyed. They will be able to deal sympathetically with the poor world. This blessing will go not only to the living, but to those also who have gone down into the tomb. All these will be awakened. God will not awaken them now, because it would be to their disadvantage. He will keep them in the sleep of death until the Kingdom of Righteousness is thoroughly established. Then they will come forth to learn of God's infinite goodness, and to receive His salvation, whosoever will, at the hands of the New Creation. (Hosea 13:14; Isaiah 25:6-9; 26:19; Rev. 21:1-5.)
ETERNAL AGES OF GLORY AND BLESSING.
Will God's Plan end there? No, dear friends. But God gives us no revelation further. We are merely informed that at the conclusion of Christ's Millennial Kingdom, when all the willing shall have been made perfect, and all the wilfully wicked shall have been destroyed, Christ will turn over the Kingdom to the Father, "that God may be all in all." (1 Cor. 15:28.) But God has given us through the Apostle Paul a glimpse of that infinite future, in the 2nd Chapter of Ephesians. He says, "In the ages to come (through all eternity, we understand) God will show (to angels, to men and to every creature) the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us, through Christ Jesus." That is the jewel class, dear friends. How we will rejoice then! And there are eternal riches of grace for all mankind who will accept them "in the Day of their visitation," now near at hand.
Seeing then, as Bible students, all these manifestations of human power and wisdom and skill about us today, and recognizing our great Creator as the Source of all wisdom and power, these present blessings may become to us finger-posts, directing us to the great work of Jehovah God, to His wondrous grace, and to the glorious outcome just before us of His marvelous Plan of the Ages, as declared in His Holy Word.
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The Drawing Power of God's Love
"Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee"--Psalm 63:3. WE are all coming to see, more and more, that the Bible presents to us a God of loving-kindness, and from that viewpoint we are called upon to render some return to Him. More and more I am impressed with the erroneousness of the creeds. How grossly we have been misled by them into thinking of our Heavenly Father as anything and everything but the kind, loving Father expressed by our text! The Apostle, in harmony with this text says, "The love of Christ constraineth us." God constrains us; draws us to Himself by His love.
It is very probable that the reason so many have been kept away from God is that He has been so seriously misrepresented to us all, and by us all. As I read the words of the Apostle to the effect that the heathen are feeling after God, if haply they might find Him, I say to myself, "Why is it that the heathen have not found the Lord?" Evidently the Apostle expresses the right sentiment here. You and I realize that we are so constituted that the higher organs of our heads call for reverence for Almighty God. It would be the natural thing for all men to feel after God, to desire to have a God, to have a fellowship with Him, to have His favor and blessing, and to have the everlasting life which He has promised. It would be the natural, reasonable thing to expect. But we find the very reverse of all this, not only in so-called Christian lands, but in lands where the Gospel has been more or less neglected. Not only do we find many that are neglecting the Lord and caring little for Him, really disbelieving Him, but we find many who have turned away from Him entirely and are antagonistic. They call themselves agnostics, which signifies "persons who want to know; persons who want proof." There is a difference, you see, between an infidel, which signifies an unbeliever, and an agnostic, which signifies one who desires to know. Some of the leading people today will tell you, if they speak candidly, that they are agnostics. They are feeling after God and trying to find Him. We find some drifting from one denomination to another, and others outside of all so-called orthodox denominations, such as Christian Science, all feeling after, but not having a knowledge of, the Truth.
It is difficult to imagine how much harm has been done by the doctrines which misrepresent God's character. There need not have been the many denominations, all calling themselves Christians, though knowing little about God and little of Christ; merely formal professors for the most part, with only a few making a profession of being fully consecrated to the Lord. We would naturally have expected better [CR480] results, after having the Gospel preached so many years. I believe there would have been better results had we not been misled by the teaching of the doctrine of demons. If we had the simple Truth during the Gospel Age I believe the results would have been more like those obtained in the early Church, when thousands of Jews turned to the Lord, and then thousands of Gentiles. And noble Christians they were, not merely formal professors. The Apostle tells us of some who endured a great fight of afflictions; of some who suffered great loss, and of others who became the companions of such as were thus treated. Under Nero, the Roman emperor, and later under Diocletian, many suffered for loyalty to principle. It required a great deal of character to stand up and be willing to suffer for righteousness' sake.
THE TRUE GOD AN UNKNOWN GOD TO MANY.
As a further illustration along this line, I have in mind that when I was in heathen lands a few years ago, some of these heathen people, when I was in India, came to me one morning and said, "Pastor Russell, we are sorry to see that you are leaving us again. We wish you could stay longer. We did not get out last night to hear you, supposing your teaching was something like that of the missionaries who are here. But we hear now that it is very different from what the missionaries have been telling us, and we wish you could stay so we could hear you. We know there is something in Christianity, but we cannot understand how it could be true, as the missionaries have told us, that thousands upon thousands are suffering in eternal torment because they did not know about your God."
Some said, "Our God is better than that; the gods of the heathen are better than your God. They tell us not to take the life of a worm; to be careful where we tread lest we take the life of some little creature. How different from what the missionaries tell us about your God. Can you wonder that we are not Christians?" You see, dear friends, they were feeling after God and wishing to find Him. Of course they could only speak to me through an interpreter, and I in the same way to them. My schedule placed a limit upon me, so that I could not stay with them to tell them about our God, as I would have liked to do.
I think of the Apostle Paul, as he preached to the Athenians on Mars Hill. He recognized that the heathen were feeling after God and trying to find Him. They had many gods on the street corners, vain images erected to many gods, and lest they had overlooked one, they put up an image "to the unknown god." You remember how St. Paul turned the matter and preached to them the true God. He said, "You have one altar erected to 'the unknown god,' and that is the God I wish to tell you about." They were so steeped in deception and error that when they heard of the true God and His Plan, His Truth, they were not ready to receive it. It might have been so if the Truth had been proclaimed during the Gospel Age by the best of teachers; perhaps it would have been rejected; perhaps few would have been willing to receive the Message. However, I would have liked to see it tried out. My experience teaches me that many people would like to know the truth about God. Even children at ten years of age and younger are interested to know about God, and many at the age of twelve or fourteen years have a clear understanding of God's Plan.
How different it might have been if all had known of God's love for the 1900 years since Jesus came into the world! But false doctrines have driven people away from the Lord, and Christian people, under the delusion of these false doctrines, have acted anything but properly; they have shown anything but a proper Christian spirit. They have not known what spirit they were of, as was the case with St. Peter and St. John. You remember the people of one city had refused to sell bread for the Master's use. These disciples said, "Wilt Thou that we call down fire from God out of heaven to destroy these men and their city?" Jesus said, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. The Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." They had a wrong focus on this matter. We also had a wrong focus; we did not understand our Father in Heaven, nor did we understand His Plan. We had a devilish idea, the doctrine of demons. During the Dark Ages, men were burned at the stake, and put through various forms of torture, all in the name of Jesus, in the name of religion. What a serious mistake! Did not this drive the people away from the Lord and the Truth? Did it not do great injury to those who thus taught, as well as to the world? Yes everything was injured by the lack of a knowledge of God.
Now, by the grace of God, the light is shining in more clearly. You and I can appreciate this text, perhaps, in a way not appreciated even by those of the early Church. God's loving kindness. Think of this! God's loving kindness. It is not as some of us were taught in childhood, that God was vengeful, and ready to throw us to the Devil, and that Jesus stepped in and said, "Please do not; I died for these; allow Me to show them mercy!" and that the Father said, "Just for your sake, I will; otherwise I would throw them to eternal torment." How wretched a picture! Where would be the loving-kindness? But when we see that the salvation of mankind was planned by God from before the foundation of the world; that God has a great plan to gather out of the world; a Church, a Bride for His Son, to become Heavenly beings of a high order, of the Divine nature, for the purpose of blessing all of mankind later, then we see His loving-kindness, His tender mercy.
Do not forget, it is not only loving, but also kind; not only kind, but also loving. Now we have come to a time when our conceptions of God are becoming clearer. We are wakening from the sleep of the past; we are getting the eyes of our understanding open a little. We are looking and thinking, and in the right direction. Many are looking, but not in the right direction. All of the great professors in the colleges are looking, and seeing things too, but they are looking in the wrong direction. A gentleman who was a professor in one of the large colleges came into the knowledge of Present Truth recently. He remarked to one of the brethren, "It is not necessary to teach evolution to the young men and women who come to the college. They come with their minds already prepared on that subject, having gained ideas along this line from their school books and elsewhere; they have already been taught that evolution is the way by which man came into the world." He said further, "Nearly all of the professors of the faculty of our college, and all others, are evolutionists; all but two in our college." I think that is a fair average. I am inclined to think that if you could find one professor in a large college who is not an evolutionist, you have done something wonderful. I know of a university in New England, one of the largest in the world, where two of the professors claim not to be evolutionists. These two keep very quiet respecting what they think about the Bible. We are glad they accept the Bible view, but deplore their lack of moral stamina.
One of these professors had written a book which dealt with some Bible teachings from somewhat the same standpoint of view that we take as Bible Students. It was a book on immortality (I have forgotten the title), and in it the professor taught that immortality is not a possession of men, but something to be attained. The pupils were surprised. There it was, and the professor was in that college, teaching. Someone who had seen it in the library called the attention of the others to it. One went to see it, but found it had been taken from the library. He got it by asking for it, but it had to be hunted up. It was soon taken away.
We see that a great many of the thinking people of the world are looking about in the direction of Theosophy, and New Thought (so-called); also Christian Science. But in vain do they seek light there. The degree of light which we enjoy, who keep close to God's Word, is to be highly appreciated. I say to you, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see." Blessed are you, for you are looking in the right direction, in the direction that God has pointed out in His Word. Higher Critics, Evolutionists, and others who lean to their own understandings, are in darkness. Those who are looking carefully to the teaching of the Bible are being drawn closer to God, and these are getting a greater appreciation of God as a personal God. You will notice that all who accept these other theories regard God as a principle without personality. They say that a principle operates everywhere, hence God is everywhere, the same as any principle; for instance, the law of gravitation is a principle. You know what will happen if I let go of this piece of paper; it will drop to the floor. Why? Because there is a law of gravitation by which everything tends to fall to the earth. There is an attraction which the earth has for it. It is a principle, a law of nature. So they say, God is a principle, a great law of nature. Is there any intelligence in this law which allows the paper to fall; is there any sympathy or love in it? Not a bit. Neither is there any hatred. I am glad of that. These people who regard God as a principle have this much of advantage; a principle is not wicked, it is not vindictive; it would not send one to eternal torment.
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"But," you say, "the most intelligent people in the world are going in this direction? Who are we? Are not we who know God the most intelligent?" Yes, and no! Not many great, not many wise, not many rich, not many learned, are called. But we know what God says, and that is what many do not know. We know something of our Heavenly Father, and that is what many know little of. We have a personal God, and that is what many do not have. We have a GOOD personal God, and very few have that. A great number have gone after an impersonal God, a principle, a nothing--an absolute nothing. No personality about it. Then a large number are asleep, not seeing either east or west. By God's grace we, whether ignorant or learned, according to worldly standards, are looking in the right direction--to the east--for the sunrise of God's great Plan, when Messiah shall take His Kingdom to bless all the families of the earth.
Our text is speaking of us, because not many since the days of the early Church have known of God's loving-kindness. It has been lost sight of as the Bible has been lost sight of. Only through the Bible can people know of God's loving-kindness. Our text refers to the early Church, and those in close relationship to God all of the way down, and I believe it refers to the true Church of today. "Because Thy loving-kindness is better than life! Ah, yes, we have learned something of it. Does this have any effect upon us? Yes, it does. This love that has come into our hearts is having a transforming effect upon your heart and mine. Is God's loving-kindness better than life? Should we think more of God's loving-kindness than of eternal life?" No, God's loving-kindness is better than the present life. His loving-kindness has provided for a future life. In view of His loving-kindness which has provided for the future life, we count what remains of the present life as a little, trifling thing, not worthy to be compared with what God has in reservation for us. And so we are very willing and glad to use these lives, to lay them down in God's service, we are pleased to do so.
Are we not compelled to do so? Never! God is not compelling any sacrifice. If anyone makes a sacrifice that God accepts it is because that individual has given it freely. Who do you think would give his life away? Do you think you would be inclined to give your life to a wicked God? You might do this or that to avoid getting into eternal torment, because you were forced, but the thought of our text is, "God's loving-kindness is better than life." We would be willing to lay down our lives to be in harmony with that God, and to enjoy the great provision which His loving-kindness has arranged. Our hope is built upon that loving-kindness. As soon as we saw God's loving character, we gladly surrendered our little all.
How was it with our Lord, Jesus? Did He not, in appreciation of God's loving-kindness, lay down His life? Is it not so with all who walk in His footsteps? Yes, truly, we appreciate God's provision for the future as infinitely better than the present life; and so we are willing to surrender all earthly prospects, counting all things as loss and dross, as St. Paul says, that we may secure the glorious things which God has promised to give to them that love Him.
A JOY TO DO HIS WILL.
The text goes on to say, "Because Thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee." We praise Him with joy in our hearts. It is not a crushing matter to meet God's terms. God does not demand of us that we MUST do this or that. We need not ask, "Must I do this?" or, "Will God require that?" That is not the spirit. It is just the reverse. We will to serve the Lord and to do His will, as Jesus said, "I delight to do Thy will, O My God; Thy Law is written in My heart." We will do His Will with joyful lips; while serving Him we will be praising Him for the opportunity. This was exemplified in Paul and Silas, you remember, when on account of their loyalty to the Truth, they were confined in the jail at Philippi. There in the prison with their backs smarting from the whipping received, and in an uncomfortable position with their hands and feet in the stocks, and with salt water placed upon their wounds to make them smart and sting still worse--in that condition they had such appreciation of God's loving-kindness that their lips burst forth in praise. "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!" was their sentiment. This would surprise other people--to praise God for blessings when our backs are smarting with their wounds! God's loving-kindness makes even stripes borne for Him a blessing. These servants of God were glad to have anything with His favor. Their lips spoke forth joyfully His praise, telling the good tidings to others.
So it is with us, dear brethren. We cannot keep this Message to ourselves. As one of the Prophets says, it is like a fire in the bones; you can't stifle it. Here you have the Message of God, and you are using such wisdom as you have in giving it out; but you must praise God. You must show your appreciation of the glorious things which He has in reservation for the Church, and which He has in reservation for the world of mankind. Because His loving-kindness is better than life, we will praise Him with joyful lips! You remember that Jesus said, "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." If that is eternal life--to know God --then apparently not many have eternal life yet, because not very many know God.
FAITH IN GOD A NECESSITY.
It is not sufficient to know that there is a God, and that He is a personal God and not a principle. As the Scriptures say, "He that cometh to God must believe that He is (a personal God); that is a start. Secondly, we must believe that, "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." You believed and then you sought to know what His will would be concerning you. You found He had made a provision in His love whereby you might come from under the condemnation of sin and death and be admitted to His family. He gave you the begetting of His Spirit, and by and by, if faithful, you will be born on the spirit plane, and have joint heirship with Jesus Christ. Do you believe that? Yes. You are beginning to understand something of the love of God? Yes. You could not have gotten so far along unless you understood the love of God. God accepted us, He put the robe of Christ's righteousness upon us, and He is preparing us for the Heavenly Kingdom. His loving-kindness, O how great! There must have been a saintly class all through the Gospel Age, and they have been telling this Wonderful Story. "I love to tell the Story, it did so much for me." Who wrote this beautiful song? How did he know about the story? I do not know. He was at least looking in the right direction, and had some appreciation of the Wonderful Story of God's love in Christ. Then we have the song, "Wonderful Words of Life," and "His Loving-kindness, O how Great; O how Free!"
TO KNOW GOD ETERNAL LIFE.
We did not have all of the knowledge at first, but we have been gradually growing in knowledge, and as surely as you and I grow in knowledge of the Bible, of God's great Plan, so surely do we grow in knowledge of God, because all of the work of God reflects His character. It is as if I went into your home and watched you about your work; watched to see how you did this, whether you were careless about this, that or the other; watched your words and actions, that I might form some conclusion as to what you are. God wishes us to become acquainted with Him by His Words and His conduct. To understand God, we must understand His purposes. God's purpose is to bless all of the families of the earth. As we get to know Him, we learn to love Him. No one can know a really grand character without loving that person. As we come to know God, we love Him more and more. Jesus said, "This is life eternal, that we might know Thee." We must come to know God. You cannot know God if you stay on the plane of merely trying not to kill anybody, and not to steal. If you stay down there, you cannot know God. As you give your heart to God, and study His Word and Plan, you come to know God, and that is evidence that you are getting in touch with Him. Whoever knows another thoroughly must have been with him; he must have become acquainted with him. God reveals Himself to us by letting us understand the meaning of His Word. Now we are coming to understand His Word, and it is making our lives different; it is transforming them. To know God is life everlasting. No one can know God without getting everlasting life. People who do not know God now do not have everlasting life now.
We see in God's glorious Plan for the future that He will ultimately reveal Himself to the whole world. When? The Bible says, when Messiah's Kingdom shall prevail, and cause the knowledge of the glory of the Lord to fill the whole earth. Then all may come to know Him, and receive everlasting life. Those who refuse, will die the Second Death. You and I, dear friends, have this privilege now of gaining everlasting life. We may come to a knowledge of God and enter into fellowship with Him. As we associate with one another we come to know one another's hearts better; and [CR482] so we come to know God better by communion with Him. As we tell Him daily of our dependence, and especially as we seek to understand His Word, and accept the terms of His salvation in Christ, this gives us a knowledge of God. Thus we are being developed as New Creatures into His glorious character-likeness; we are being made meet for the inheritance of the saints of light. Let us seek to study and to know God. Let us have the spirit of our text, the spirit of sacrifice, and the spirit of realization that God's loving-kindness is better than all the pleasing vanities and privileges of the natural life. To have His favor is better than any earthly things that could possibly be ours.
RETROSPECTION
HE was better to me than all my hopes,
He was better than all my fears;
He made a bridge of my broken works
And a rainbow of my tears.
The billows that guarded my sea-girt path
Carried my Lord on their crest;
When I dwell on the days of my wilderness march
I can lean on His love for the rest.
He emptied my hands of my treasured store,
And His covenant love revealed;
There was not a wound in mine aching heart,
But the balm of His breath hath healed,
Oh, tender and true was the chastening sore,
In wisdom that taught and tried,
Till the soul He sought was trusting in Him
And nothing on earth beside.
He guided my steps where I could not see,
By ways that I had not known,
The crooked was straight and the rough made plain
As I followed the Lord alone.
I praise Him still for the pleasant palms
And the water-springs by the way;
For the glowing pillars of flame by night
And the sheltering cloud by day.
And if to warfare He calls me forth,
He buckles my armor on,
He greets me with smiles and a word of cheer
For battles His Sword hath won;
He wipes my brow, as I droop and faint,
He blesses my hand to toil;
Faithful is He as He washes my feet
From the trace of each earthly soil.
There is light for me on the trackless wild
As the wonders of old I trace,
When the God of the whole earth went before
To search me a resting place.
Hath He changed for me? Nay, He changeth not;
He will bring me by some new way,
Through fire and flood and each crafty foe
As safely as yesterday.
Never a watch in the dreariest halt
But some promise of love endears;
I read from the past that the future shall be
Far better than all my fears,--
Like the golden pot of the wilderness bread,
Laid up with the blossoming rod,
All safe in the ark with the Law of the Lord
In the covenant care of my God.
[CR483]
A LITTLE TALK WITH JESUS
A LITTLE talk with Jesus,--
How it smooths the rugged road!
How it seems to help me onward,
When I faint beneath my load!
When my heart is crushed with sorrow,
And mine eyes with tears are dim,
There is naught can yield me comfort
Like a little talk with Him.
I tell Him I am weary,
And I fain would be at rest;
But I still will wait His bidding,
For His way is always best.
Then His promise ever cheers me
'Mid all the cares of life:--
"I am come, and soon in glory
Will end thy toil and strife."
Ah, that is what I'm wanting,
His lovely face to see--
And I'm not afraid to say it,
I know He's wanting me.
He gave His life a ransom
To make me all His own,
And He'll ne'er forget His promise
To me, His purchased one.
The way is sometimes weary
To yonder nearing clime,
But a little talk with Jesus
Hath helped me many a time.
The more I come to know Him,
And all His grace explore,
It sets me ever longing
To know Him more and more.
[CR484]
INTERNATIONAL
1916
BIBLE STUDENTS
SOUVENIR
CONVENTION
REPORT
[CR485]
Momentous Types of Glories to Come
Natural Israel Especially Typical Of Blessings For Church and World.--Many Significant Old Testament Pictures--Moses As Prophet and Mediator--Christ the Great Antitypical Prophet and Mediator--Law Covenant vs. New Covenant--Israel's First-Borns--Church of First-Borns --Israel's Priesthood--Day of Atonement--Antitypical Priests Now Sacrificing.
Text: "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." (Romans 15:4.) THE Old Testament Scriptures abound in significant types. God selected the one nation of Israel, and made that nation a picture of what He is now doing, and what He purposes to do, through Christ and the Church to the whole world. From one viewpoint the twelve tribes of Natural Israel typified the twelve tribes of Spiritual Israel. (Exodus 19:5,6; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 7:1-8.) In another picture, the Atonement Day, Israel pictured the unsaved world, while their priesthood typified the Gospel Church. In the days following the Atonement Day, Israel represented the world during Christ's Millennial Reign, under the instructions of the glorified Priesthood.
Again, Israel's first-borns, who were passed over by the destroying angel on their last night in Egypt, typified the Church of the First Borns, now being passed over because the blood of Christ has been sprinkled on their hearts, during this night of sin. The first-borns of Israel were afterward represented in the tribe of Levi, set aside for a holy purpose. This tribe represented the Household of Faith of this Gospel Age, from which the Royal Priesthood are chosen. The Christ class, the Royal Priesthood, were typified by Melchizedek, the king-priest of Salem, who lived in the day of Abraham. (Genesis 14:17-20; Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 7:1-17,21.) Melchizedek fitly represented The Christ, Head and Body, in glory; for these unite in themselves the offices of both kings and priests, Jesus being the great Chief King and High Priest.
It is very necessary, however, to keep all these various types and pictures separate and distinct; else confusion will result. The New Testament throws great light upon this subject. The Apostle Paul tells us that the Jewish Law foreshadowed good things to come, and that Israel's priests served as a type of Heavenly things.--Hebrews 8:1-6; 10:1.
THE TWO ISRAELS.
The Scriptures mention two Israels--Israel after the flesh and Israel after the Spirit. (Romans 9:8; Galatians 6:16.) In the typical pictures wherein Natural Israel represents the world during the Millennial Age, we see that all mankind will then be in covenant relationship with God, and will have His blessings as the nation of Israel. When during that age the world shall be restored and become the people of God, they will be a part of Fleshly Israel; for only Israelites are to be saved everlastingly.
This will be a gradual work. At the beginning of the Millennial Age, the blood of the "better sacrifices" will be applied for the world, the New Covenant will be inaugurated with Natural Israel, and gradually the whole world will become attached to Israel as a part of Abraham's earthly seed. (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Isaiah 2:2-4; Micah 4:1-4; Genesis 12:3; 22:16-18.) Spiritual Israel will then be their invisible rulers, as glorified spirit beings, reigning in the Kingdom of Messiah. His Kingdom shall be "the desire of all nations" and unto Him "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess."-- Haggai 2:7; Isaiah 46:23-26.
As Moses was the mediator of the Old Law Covenant of Fleshly Israel, so Christ will be the Mediator of the New Law Covenant, the great Prophet of whom Moses foretold, saying, "A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you from among your brethren like unto me. Him shall ye hear in all things that He shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall not hear that Prophet shall be destroyed from among the people. (Deuteronomy 18:15,18; Acts 3:22,23.) This great Mediator will be able to do for the world what Moses was unable to do for Natural Israel. Moses could not forgive their sins and lift them up to perfection, restitution. But the antitypical Mediator will do this for the world--for "whosoever will."
The Head of this great Prophet and Mediator was raised up from amongst their brethren over eighteen hundred years ago. Since then, God has been raising up the Body of the Mediator. Only consecrated believers in Christ become members of this body, the faithful ones at this time coming in as the feet members of the Body of Christ, for we are down at the end of the Gospel Age, when this great Messiah is about completed. Jesus, the Head of this Messiah, having bought the whole world with His precious blood, has imputed of His merit to His Church in order to unite them to Himself as a part of the great sin-offering for the world; and as soon as the sacrificing work shall have been completed, He will begin His great work for the restoration of mankind to human perfection. In other words, as soon as all those who are to compose the spiritual phase of the Messianic Kingdom shall have passed beyond the veil of death, the Kingdom work will begin.
BLOOD OF BULLS AND GOATS.
The work of that glorious New Dispensation will be to re-write in the hearts of mankind the Law of God, and to bring the world back to the physical, mental, and moral perfection enjoyed by our first parents before their disobedience. Then mankind not only will be able to keep the perfect Divine Law fully, but will delight therein. Our Lord Jesus is the only One who can thus recover mankind from their lost estate. No one else has the ability; for our Lord is Jehovah's Channel for accomplishing this stupendous work. He is the perfect One, the sinless One, who by Divine arrangement laid down His life for Adam and his race.
When Moses was preparing to mediate the Law Covenant, he took the blood of bulls and of goats, and sprinkled first the tables of the Law and afterward all the people of Israel. (Exodus 24:3-8.) Thus the Law Covenant was established, bringing the people into covenant by the great antitypical Moses, Christ, who first satisfies God's Justice, represented in the books of the Law, and then, during the thousand years of His Mediatorial Reign, will sprinkle "all the people," the world, with the blood of the "better sacrifices"-- those of The Christ, Head and Body--thus bringing the world into covenant relationship with God.--Hebrews 9:15-23.
It may be asked, "If the blood of these bulls and goats represent the blood of Christ and His Body members, why were many bulls and goats slain, instead of one?" We answer, As there was a great concourse of Israelites, all of whom had to be sprinkled, the blood of many bulls and goats was required to sprinkle all Israel. But this was only a necessary repetition of the same thing. It represented the sacrifice of the one antitypical Bullock, our Lord Jesus and of the one antitypical Goat, the body of Christ. On the day of Atonement, only the one bullock and the one goat were used to picture the same sacrifices.
BLOOD PRESENTED BY HIGH PRIEST.
We have noted that in the type the tribe of Levi was set apart by God to represent the first-borns of Israel. (Numbers 8:14-19.) From this tribe the priestly class was selected --the family of Aaron. The high priest and the under priests represented the great High Priest and His under priests of this Gospel Age, the "little flock." The remainder of the tribe of Levi represented those Christian believers who fail to make their calling and election sure to the Royal Priesthood, and who are called in the Scriptures "a great multitude" --the Great Company class.--Rev. 7:9-17; Psalm 45:9-14.
The high priest was one who offered the Day of Atonement sacrifice, and who carried the blood into the Most Holy to present it to God, upon the Mercy Seat. He represented the blood of both the bullock, representing our Lord Jesus, and the Lord's Goat, representing the Body members of Christ. (Leviticus 16:14,15; Hebrews 13:11-13.) So after His ascension our Lord Jesus appeared in the antitypical Most Holy--Heaven itself--with His own blood, which He presented for those who would be of His Body. (Hebrews 9:24.) At the close of the Gospel Age, after His Body members have been offered, He will again appear before the antitypical Mercy Seat to present the blood of the Lord's Goat class, which is "for all the people," all mankind. The merit of these latter sacrifices, however, is all His own, being really only another presentation of His own merit, through His Body. All this work is the work of the Gospel Age.
[CR486]
WORK OF THE MEDIATORIAL REIGN.
Amongst their other duties the priests had entire charge of teaching the people. They taught the Israelites especially what was God's will, how to approach God, how to render sacrifices--whatever the people needed to know. Furthermore, they offered both gifts and sacrifices for the people, who brought their gifts and sacrifices to the priests.
This was an illustration of the arrangement in the Age to come. The people will come to The Christ, Head and Body. God will have no direct dealings with the world until the close of the Mediatorial Reign of Christ; for He has committed all judgment unto the son, who will deal with mankind throughout their Judgment Day of a thousand years. (John 5:22-27; Acts 17:31; 2 Peter 3:7,8.) The great Mediator will be the "go-between," representing God to the world, and the world to God.
When the Mediatorial work is completed, and mankind have been fully restored, then the Kingdom will be delivered over to the Father. The Christ will step out from between the world and God, and mankind will be directly in the hands of Jehovah. All who then shall prove worthy under Jehovah's testing shall be granted eternal life. Those who prove unworthy shall die the Second Death, from which there will be no recovery.--1 Corinthians 15:24-28; Revelation 20:7-9.
THE DAY OF ATONEMENT FIRES.
On the Jewish Day of Atonement the bullock and the Lord's goat were used to picture the "better sacrifices" of the Gospel Age--those of The Christ. The bullock was a fitting representation of our Lord Jesus as a man; for He was perfect in mind and body, full of zeal and strength. The young bullocks of sacrifice were prime animals, with much fat. When this fat was offered, it made a great smoke, thus representing our Lord's heart devotion to the Heavenly Father.
The fat of the bullock was burned upon the Brazen Altar in the Court of the Tabernacle, in the sight of all within the Court. This typified the fact that our Lord's loving zeal and sacrifice is seen and appreciated by all within the antitypical Court--justified believers. The burning of its flesh, hide, etc., outside the camp signifies that our Lord's sacrifice is a stench in the nostrils of those outside the Court--the world of unbelievers. The third fire, burning simultaneously on the Golden Altar in the Holy, consumed the incense, from which arose a sweet odor, and represented God's appreciation of our Redeemer's sacrifice--that it was a sweet odor in Jehovah's sight.
In our Lord's case, all these fires were burning at the same time. God saw His sacrifice, the Levites--including the priests--saw it, and the people in the Camp saw it. All these fires ceased at the moment when our Lord's sacrifice was completed at Calvary. The sweet incense had already preceded Jesus into the antitypical Most Holy; for in the type it rested over the Mercy Seat when the high priest entered the Most Holy with the blood. Consequently the Father raised our Lord from the dead on the other side of the veil, as a glorious spirit being. Then, when He ascended on High, He entered into the antitypical Most Holy, where He sprinkled the blood of His sacrifice before the antitypical Mercy Seat, when He "appeared in the presence of God for us-- the Church."
THE TWO GOATS.
There were two goats tied at the door of the Tabernacle; but only one of them was chosen to be the sin-offering for the people. The Lord's Goat was given the same treatment as was the bullock. A goat fittingly represents the Body members of Christ; for the goat is a very lean small animal as compared with a prime young bullock. Our zeal and our love are far less than are those of Jesus. We are weak and imperfect from the Adamic fall; and it is only the merit of our Saviour that gives our sacrifices any value.
It was the high priest that killed both the bullock and the goat in the type. In the antitype it was our Lord Jesus Christ who first offered Himself up, and then the Church. He as the High Priest first killed His human nature, represented by the bullock in the type. Then He kills the human nature of His Church. We merely present ourselves to suffer with Him in order to reign with Him.--Romans 12:1,2; 2 Timothy 2:11,12.
[CR487]
The other goat, while presented for sacrifice, was not killed as a sacrifice, but was sent out into the wilderness to die, bearing the sins of the Israelites, though not as a part of the sin-offering. It typifies a class who present themselves to be sacrificed, but who fail to keep their consecration vow faithfully. Hence they fail to be of the antitypical Lord's Goat class. They will be the great Company. Although they presented themselves for sacrifice, yet they held back, did not fulfil their Covenant of Sacrifice. All their life-time they have been subject to bondage through fear of death--a sacrificial death with our Lord Jesus. They smell the bad odor of the burning goat without the Camp, and they wish to avoid being associated with it. But in avoiding it, they lose the privilege of becoming members of the glorious Body of Christ. They will lose the Kingdom.
Those who are faithfully following their Lord are now sacrificing priests. Our great High Priest is doing the sacrificing, and we are co-operating with Him. We are in harmony with this burning outside the Camp. The New Creature says, "Let the flesh burn." We suffer in this burning, but we do so willingly. We know that it is only if we suffer with our Lord that we shall reign with Him. We find quite a severe warfare with our fallen flesh; for the interests of the New Creatures are in opposition to those of the human nature. Therefore we must bring our bodies under and keep them in subjection to the new mind.
If the old creature wins in this conflict, we shall be no part of the sacrifice of Christ.
THE BLESSED ROYAL PRIESTHOOD.
The work of sacrificing is not yet entirely finished. The last members of the Body of Christ are now laying down their lives. Day by day these faithful ones are asking, "What is the Lord's will concerning me? What is the meaning of this providence?" Their wills are fully given up to the Lord's will. They realize that whatsoever they do they are to do all to the glory of God. In all their daily providences they seek to read His will. They seek to avoid whatever would incapacitate them or hinder them from doing the Lord's work. This is not a slavery to them; on the contrary, it is the most blessed freedom.
These blessed ones are daily fed with the antitypical shew-bread in the Holy. They are enlightened with the light of the antitypical Golden Candlestick. Daily they offer incense at the antitypical Golden Altar. They are children of the light; they are not of the night nor of the darkness. For all their imperfections they have an advocate with the Father. (1 John 2:1-2.) They seek continually to judge themselves and to correct their shortcomings, in order that they may not be judged of the Lord for unfaithfulness. If they find that in any way they have wronged another, they make haste to right the wrong, and then go to the Throne of Grace for forgiveness and cleansing. Then they endeavor to profit by the lesson which they have learned in the School of Christ and to develop still more carefully the character likeness of Christ.
[CR487]
Loving Kindness of our Great God
MISUNDERSTANDING OF GOD'S CHARACTER
LEADS MEN INTO SKEPTICISM.
Love of God Constrains--Many Made Agnostics by Erroneous Teachings--Very Little Gospel Preaching for Many Centuries--Heathen Bewildered by Unreasonable and Conflicting Creeds--Truth now Clear to Earnest Bible Students --Majority of College Professors Know Nothing of the True Teachings of the Bible--Many Truth-Hungry Souls Stumbling into Latter-Day Errors--To Know God Aright is Life Everlasting.
Text: "Because Thy loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee." (Psalm 63:3.) MORE and more are we noticing that the Bible presents to us a God of loving-kindness, and from that viewpoint calls upon us to render some return to Him. More and more are we impressed with the erroneousness of the creeds. How they misled us into thinking of our Heavenly Father as anything but the kind, loving Parent presented in our text. In harmony with this thought of the loving-kindness of our God, the apostle says, "The love of Christ constrains us." (2 Corinthians 5:14.) Since Christ is the "express image of the Father's glorious person," God also constrains us--draws us to Himself by His love.
It is very probable that the reason why so many have been kept away from God is that He has been very seriously misrepresented to us all and by us all. When we read the apostle's words to the effect that the heathen are feeling after God, if haply they might find Him (Acts 17:27), we ask ourselves, Why is it that the heathen have not found the Lord? Evidently St. Paul expresses the right sentiment here; for mankind are so constructed that the highest and noblest organs of our brain are those that call for reverence for the Almighty God. Therefore it would be the most natural condition for all men to desire to have a God, to have fellowship with Him, to have His favor and blessing, and to have the everlasting life which He has offered.
But we find the very reverse of this, not only in Christian lands, but in lands where the gospel has been preached to a very limited extent. Not only do we find many who neglect the Lord and care little for Him, but we also find many who have turned away from Him entirely and who are antagonistic to Him. They call themselves agnostics, a term which signifies persons who do not know anything definite about God, persons who demand proof of the existence of things supernatural. There is a difference, however, between an infidel--an unbeliever--and an agnostic. Some of the leading people of our day candidly confess that they are agnostics. They are feeling after God, trying to find Him. Then there are some who drift from one denomination to another; and others, such as Christian Scientists, who are outside of all so-called orthodox denomination--all feeling after the Truth, but not having a knowledge of it.
REPELLED BY FALSE TEACHINGS.
It is difficult to estimate how much harm has been done by the doctrines which misrepresent God's character. [CR488] Erroneous teachings are responsible for the many denominations all calling themselves Christians, though knowing little about God and Christ--for the most part, merely formal professors. Only a few claim to be fully consecrated to the Lord. After all these centuries of preaching, we would naturally expect better results. The trouble is that during all these centuries there has been very little real Gospel preached. If we had been taught the simple truth during the entire Gospel Age, and not the "doctrines of demons," doubtless the results would have been more like those obtained in the early church, when thousands turned to the Lord.--Acts 2:41; 4:4.
Noble Christians they were, not merely formal professors. The apostle tells us of some who endured a great fight of afflictions, who suffered great loss; and of others who became the companions of such as were thus treated. (Hebrews 10:32,33.) Under Nero, the Roman emperor, and later under Diocletian, many Christians suffered for loyalty to God. It required a great deal of character to stand up and be willing to suffer even unto death for righteousness sake. Had this spirit continued, where do you suppose Christianity would be today?
A few years ago, when I was in so-called heathen lands, some of those heathen people came to me one morning just before my departure and said, "Pastor Russell, we are sorry that you are leaving us. We wish that you could stay longer. We did not get out to hear you last night; for we supposed that your teaching was something like that of the missionaries here. But we are told that it is very different; and we would like to hear you. We know that there is something in Christianity; but we cannot understand how it could be true, as the missionaries have told us, that thousands upon thousands are suffering in eternal torment because they did not know about your God." Some said, "The gods of the heathen are better than your God. We are taught not to take the life of even a worm, and to be careful where we tread, lest we kill some little creature. How different from what the missionaries tell us about your God! Can you wonder that we are not Christians?"
You will perceive that these people are feeling after God and wishing to find Him, but they are bewildered by misrepresentations of the God of the Bible. Of course, we could converse only through an interpreter; and as my schedule placed a time limit upon me, I could not remain with them longer to tell them about the loving kindness of our God, as I would have liked to do.
"YE KNOW NOT WHAT SPIRIT YE ARE OF."
When St. Paul was in Athens, he recognized the fact that the heathen were feeling after God and trying to find Him. On the street corners and elsewhere they had vain images erected to represent their multitudinous gods; and lest they should overlook even one, they had erected an altar to "The Unknown God." St. Paul noted the fact and preached to them the true God. But they were so steeped in superstition and error that when they heard of the true God and His plan they were not ready to receive the Gospel.
If the truth had been proclaimed by the best of teachers all down the Gospel Age, the result might have been the same. Perhaps it would have been rejected; perhaps only a few would have been willing to receive the message. But experience teaches that many people would like to know the truth about God. Even children of ten years of age and younger are interested to know about Him; and many at the age of twelve or fourteen years have a clear understanding of His plan.
False doctrines have driven people away from the Lord; and Christian people, under the delusion of these false doctrines, have shown anything but a proper Christian spirit. They have not known what manner of spirit they were of, as was the case with St. James and St. John. You will recall that the people of a certain Samaritan village had refused to sell bread for the Master's use. St. James and St. John asked our Lord, "Wilt Thou that we call down fire from Heaven and consume them?" The Master replied, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. The Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them."-- Luke 9:51-56.
Like those two disciples, Christendom has had a wrong focus. We have not understood our Father in Heaven, nor His plan. We had a devilish idea, engendered by the doctrines of demons. (1 Timothy 4:1.) During the Dark Ages, men were burned at the stake and put through various forms of torture, all in the name of Jesus, in the name of religion. What a terrible mistake! Did not this drive the people away from the Lord and the truth? Did it not do great injury to those who perpetrated such crimes as well as to the world at large? Yes, and it all resulted from the lack of knowledge of God.
But now, by the grace of God, the light is shining clearly upon the Bible. God's people today can appreciate our text, perhaps, in a way not appreciated even by the early church. Because of God's loving-kindness our lips shall praise Him. How far removed is this thought from what many of us were taught in childhood--that God was vengeful, ready to throw us to the devil; but that our Lord Jesus stepped in and said, "Please do not! I died for these people. Allow me to show them mercy!" and that then the Father would say, "For your sake I will; otherwise I would throw them into eternal torment."
What a wretched picture! Where would God's loving-kindness be? But when we see that God arranged a wonderful plan of salvation before the foundation of the world, that He has a great purpose in gathering out of the world a church, a bride for His son, to become heavenly beings of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), for the blessing of all mankind later, then we begin to see His loving-kindness, His tender mercy.
RIGHT AND WRONG VIEWPOINTS.
Now we have come to a time when our conceptions of God are growing clearer. We are awakening from the sleep of the past. We are getting our eyes of understanding open a little. We are looking and thinking, in the right direction. The great professors in our colleges are looking and are seeing things, too; but they are not looking in the right direction, however. A former professor in one of our western colleges came into the knowledge of present truth recently. One day he remarked to one of the brethren: "It is not necessary to teach evolution to the young men and women who come to college. They enter with their minds already prepared on that subject, having gained ideas along this line from their school books and elsewhere. They have already been taught that evolution is the way by which man came into the world. Furthermore, nearly all of the faculty in all of our colleges and universities are evolutionists."
Many of the thinking people of the world are looking about in the direction of Theosophy or New Thought or Christian Science. They are searching for light, not knowing where to go. The degree of light which we enjoy who have come to understand God's plan is to be highly appreciated. "Blessed are your eyes; for they see." You have looked in the right direction--that which God has pointed out--in His word. Higher critics, evolutionists, and others who lean to their own understanding are in darkness. Those who are looking carefully into the teaching of the Bible are being drawn closer to God, and are obtaining a deeper appreciation [CR489] of Him as a personal God.
All who accept these theories of men regard God as a principle without personality. If any who follow these cults still believe in a personal God, it is because they have not as yet gotten the idea of their leaders. The theory is that there is a principle of good which operates everywhere, and that principle is God. Hence they say that God is everywhere and in everything. To them, God is a great law of nature. Is there any intelligence in such a law? Is there any sympathy, any love, there? Not a bit! They worship the principle, instead of the great source of the principle. They adore the law, and not the great author of law.
GOD'S LOVING KINDNESS KNOWN TO FEW.
Our text speaks to those who have learned to know God. Since the days of the early Church not many have known of God's loving-kindness. It has been lost sight of, even as the teachings of the Bible have been. Only through the Bible can any know of God's loving-kindness and tender mercy. The words of this text have been true of all who have been in close relationship with God throughout the Gospel Dispensation. More fully than ever before do the Lord's people realize His love and mercy today. More light is shining upon this class than ever before. Truly we know something of the loving-kindness of our God.
If this realization has come into your heart, it is having a transforming effect upon your heart and your mind; for it is having this effect upon all of God's people. The Psalmist declares that this loving-kindness of our God is better than life--the present life, not the future. It is this loving-kindness which has provided for a future life for us. In view of this fact, we count what remains of the present life as a trifling thing, not worthy to be compared with what God has in reservation for us. As a training school for the life to come, this life is very valuable, but not for its own sake. So we are glad to lay it down in the service of God. We have not been compelled to do so, however. God is not compelling any one to sacrifice. Whoever makes a sacrifice that is acceptable to God must do it of his own free will.
Our hope is built upon the loving-kindness of our God. As soon as we saw His loving character, we gladly surrendered our little all. It was the same with our Lord Jesus. Did he not, in appreciation of God's loving-kindness, lay down his life? And so it has been with all who walk in his footsteps. Thus we appreciate God's provision for the future as far better than the present life, and are willing to surrender all of our earthly prospects, counting them as loss and dross, in order that we may secure the glorious things which God has promised to those who love Him.
WILLING SERVICE, NOT COMPULSION.
Our text goes on to say, "My lips shall praise Thee." We praise God with joy in our hearts. He does not demand our praise; it is not that we MUST do this or that. We should not ask, "Must I do this?" or, "Will God require that?" This is not the right spirit; rather, it is just the reverse. Let us serve the Heavenly Father and do His will as our Lord Jesus did. He said, "I delight to do Thy will, O My God! Thy Law is written in my heart." (Hebrews 10:5-9; Psalm 40:7,8.) We, too, will praise God with joyful lips for the privilege of service and of suffering for His name.
This spirit was exemplified in St. Paul and Silas, when on account of their loyalty to the Truth they were imprisoned at Philippi. There in the prison, with their backs smarting from the stripes which they had received, with their hands and their feet fast in the stocks, and with their bodies in a most uncomfortable position, these two faithful servants of God had so great an appreciation of God's loving-kindness that their lips gave utterance to songs of praise, telling the Good Tidings to others.
So it is with us, dear brethren. We cannot keep God's gracious Message to ourselves. As the Prophet said, it is like a fire in our bones; we cannot stifle it. (Jeremiah 20:9.) We must praise our God. We must declare our appreciation of the glorious things which He has in reservation for the Church and of the blessings which He has in reservation for the whole world of mankind. Because His loving-kindness is better than life, we praise Him with joyful lips.
WONDERFUL STORY OF GOD'S LOVE.
To know God is life eternal, the Master said. (John 17:3.) This being so, not many as yet have eternal life; for only a few know God. It is not sufficient to know that there is a God, nor to realize that He is a living Being, not a Principle. As the Scriptures say, "He that cometh to God must believe that He is (a personal God), and that He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." (Hebrews 11:6.) We first believed; then we sought to know His will concerning us.
Thus doing, we found that He had made a provision in His Love whereby we might come from under the condemnation of sin and death and be admitted into His family. We offered ourselves to Him through Christ, our Redeemer. God accepted us and gave us the begetting of His Holy Spirit. By and by, if we are faithful, we shall be born on the spirit plane and have joint-heirship with Christ Jesus our Lord.
[CR490]
The Purchase of Church & World
Christ's Sacrificial Merit Utilized Thus Far Only for the Church.--God's Orderly Arrangement--Progressive Steps in the Divine Plan--Philosophy of the Ransom--Church First Bought--Purchase-Price Not Yet Applied for the World--Why Jesus Prayed Only for the Church--He Will Pray Later for the World--"Ask of Me, and I Will Give Thee the Heathen"--How the Church Glorify God in Their Bodies.
Text: "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your bodies." (1 Corinthians 6:19,20.) THERE is a very general and natural sentiment amongst men that as individuals we have the right to control ourselves, to have an independence of thought and of will; and this is reasonable and right as respects our relationship to our fellowmen. Every person of character should preserve his independence of mind. Whoever lacks this independence of mind and of will is lacking in a fundamental element of character, and is weak and unstable. But there is One to whom we owe everything, even our very existence. To Him we owe, therefore, our full allegiance. The Bible declares that God's creatures should fully recognize His dominion and control.
Looking back to the case of Father Adam, we see that God created him with a will, with the power of self-control, and gave him also a knowledge of his responsibility to his Creator. But we see that later he was misled by giving heed to another. First of all, Mother Eve was misled by giving heed to the Adversary, Lucifer, who had deflected from loyalty to his Maker. Then she became the temptress to her husband. Thus the Divine Law was violated by the father of our race; and God would no longer recognize the one who was unwilling to render obedience to his Creator and to follow His guidance. As our Lord afterward said: "The Father seeketh such to worship Him as worship Him in spirit and in truth." When Adam ceased to worship God in spirit and in truth, God said to him in substance, "You wish to take your own course; go your way, and see where it will lead you."
This has been largely the course of the world ever since. The seeds of sin and disobedience sown by Adam have developed, and the entire race has been more and more alienated from their Creator as the centuries have rolled away. The Apostle Paul, in discussing this matter, says, "God gave them (mankind) over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not proper." (Romans 1:28.) Thus the Scriptures explain the present condition of the world. God has let go of mankind during these six thousand years.
THE PURCHASE OF SOME FROM DEATH.
But our text tells us of some who have been brought back from this condition of alienation from God, bought back from death. Father Adam had sold the whole race under sin, as the Apostle explains, under the dominion of Satan. (Romans 7:14.) He sold us out in the gratification of his own desires. He involved not only himself, but his entire posterity. If, then, the race was sold under sin and Satan, to whom would the purchase-price be paid, when mankind is bought back? Would it be paid to the Adversary? We answer, No; the Adversary never had any right to the human race. They belonged to their Creator. It was His Justice which was violated and which demanded the price of man's redemption. The race as a whole are not yet purchased. The price for their deliverance has not yet been applied, even though the purchase-price has been furnished in the death of Christ. Mankind are still a race of slaves. The great Adversary has taken advantage of their ignorance and superstition due to the fall and has brought them into bondage to errors, weaknesses and faults.
It is God's purpose, however, that this slavery shall be only a temporary thing. The time has seemed long to man, but in God's sight these six thousand years are as six days. God has a great Work Week of six thousand-year Days. The seventh Day of this great Week is the Sabbath also a thousand years in duration. In this Sabbath Day, it is the Divine purpose to lift the curse resting upon mankind. In this Sabbath Day the world shall rest from their own labors and unavailing efforts to effect their own salvation. They shall rest in Christ's finished work on their behalf. This will be the great Judgment Day, the thousand years of Messiah's glorious Reign for the blessing of all of Adam's race.
But what about those who are already bought, as our text declares? These who are first bought are the Church of Christ. The price for the salvation of the Church is the same price that is necessary for the sins of all mankind. That price is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle John declares, "He (Jesus) is the propitiation for our (the Church's) sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:2.) The word propitiation means satisfaction. Divine Justice is satisfied to release the sinners as soon as the Purchase-price is made available.
HOW ONE MAN PURCHASES A RACE.
The penalty upon Adam because of his sin was death; and as by heredity all his posterity have been born blemished and imperfect, they have shared his penalty. God could have placed our first parents under a different penalty. He could have imposed the penalty of one year's banishment from the Garden of Eden. But He wished to give a lesson that would be important not only to the whole world of mankind, but also to the angels of Heaven. There is never to be any more sin than God is permitting in this world now. When it is over, there will be no more sin thenceforth in the entire Universe. Hence God placed upon man the extreme penalty of His Law. Adam could never rid himself of that penalty unless he were redeemed. It would mean his eternal destruction, as well as that of his race, which fell in him. Jesus came to earth a perfect man, with an unborn race in His loins. This human life He gave as an exact equivalent for Adam and the race yet unborn in his loins at the time of his sin.
But because of an important feature of His great Plan, God purposed that a certain part of Adam's race should be purchased in advance of the remainder. Our text does not speak of the world's purchase, but only that of the Church; for only the purchase of the Church is yet accomplished. This is the Father's arrangement. We are told by the inspired Apostle that when Jesus ascended up on High, "He appeared in the presence of God for us"--The Church.-- Hebrews 9:24.
It was Jehovah's purpose to have a prepared company to be associated with His Son in His great work for the restoration of the world. This class is called the Bride of Christ, the members of His Body. As they were sinners, under the same death penalty as the remainder of the world, it was necessary that the merit of Christ's sacrificial death be first utilized for them. Instead of being justified actually, as will the world during the Age to come, these have perfect righteousness imputed to them instantaneously, when they accept Christ's sacrificial work on their behalf and consecrate themselves wholly to God. Thus they are enabled to become joint-sacrificers with their Lord and Head that they may be sharers in His future Reign.
WHEN CHRIST WILL PRAY FOR THE WORLD.
Jesus has not yet appeared before the Mercy Seat in Heaven for the world. The Bible declares of the world's present condition, "The whole world lieth in the Evil One." (1 John 5:19, R.V.) If they had been purchased, they would not be lying in the Wicked One. In our Lord's last prayer with His disciples before His crucifixion he said, "I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me." (John 17:9.) The very next day after He offered this prayer He died for all the world--"He tasted death for every man." (Hebrews 2:9.) But He knew that the merit of His death would first affect those whom the Father would give Him out of the world. Hence He prayed in harmony with the Father's arrangement. To have prayed differently would have been to pray out of order.
When the Church is glorified with her Lord, then will come the time for Christ to pray for the world. The Bible so declares. The Psalmist David (Psalm 2:7-9), looking forward to that time, quotes the Father as saying to the Lord Jesus, "Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel." The Father will turn over all the nations of the earth to the Lord Jesus, as soon as the Church shall have been fully delivered, [CR491] and the merit of Christ, which had been accounted to them, shall, by their sacrificial death, be freed for application for all the world.
Then the Church, seated with Christ in His Throne (Revelation 3:21), will with Him form the Kingdom. Jesus shall reign "from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." In due time--and that due time is near-- all the kingdoms and governments of earth are to be brought down to the dust, and the peoples made ready for the rule of the Heavenly Government for which God's people have so long been praying: "Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is done in Heaven."
"YE ARE NOT YOUR OWN."
Coming back to our text: We who have been purchased in advance by our Lord Jesus realize that we do not belong to ourselves. We are bought with a price and we are not our own. What does this mean to us? It is like this: Suppose that we had been drowning, or had been about to be burned to death, and suppose some one had rushed up and rescued us at the imminent risk of his own life. We would feel that we could not do enough for the one who has saved us. So the Apostle here seems to be expressing the same thought. The One who bought us not only risked His own life, but sacrificed it on our behalf, that we might be rescued from eternal death. How much more, then, should we gratefully appreciate His work of love for us! He left the glory which He had with the Father that by the grace of God He might taste death for every man; and the merit of His death has now been made available for us who have become His disciples. How our hearts should go out to Him in thankfulness! We say to ourselves, "What can I do to show my appreciation for what my Savior has done for me?"
When we look out over the everlasting future and think of the blessings of eternity, we realize that the way for us to attain these great blessings was opened to us through Jesus' death. So we gladly bring our little offering and give ourselves wholly to Him who died for us. We recognize that we are very small and imperfect; and that He is so great, so mighty--wonderful in perfection and glory. We cannot do what we would because of our weakness and blemishes, but we can show Him our loyalty. And we pray: "Lord, grant to us the opportunity to prove to Thee how much we love Thee, how glad we are to be given a small part in the carrying forward of God's great Plan."
We feel that we have not half enough to give. We are such bundles of imperfections that we really feel ashamed to offer ourselves to the Lord. But we have been bidden to come in the name and merit of Jesus. We can imagine the Father saying to us, "I know that you are very imperfect, but I only desire to see your attitude of heart and mind, your earnest endeavor to do My will."
When I was in India a number of years ago some natives came to the hut where I was lodged and asked for me. The brother who spoke their language came in and told me. Then he said, "Will you go out and see these people?" So I went out to the door and found a father, a mother, and their three children. They could not speak a word of English, but they had brought me some humble gifts. One had a little piece of fruit, another had an egg, and another something else. I did not like to take these things from them; for I knew that many of these people did not have enough to eat. But they had brought the best they had. Therefore I felt that I must not refuse their loving offerings lest I offend or grieve them; so I received the gifts.
I have often thought since then of how this illustrated our gifts to the Lord. Our dear Heavenly Father does not need our little egg or bit of prickly fruit, any more than I needed what these poor people brought, but He encourages us to come to Him with our gifts. He is entirely able to get along without us; we cannot enrich Him; but for our good He is willing to receive our small offerings, and it is a great privilege that we are invited to thus come. Most gladly and thankfully we accept His gracious invitation to give Him our little all. He is preparing us for our great exaltation with Christ. All whom he chooses must be saintly in character. None but saints will be in that glorified company who will compose the Bride of the Lamb. We must each demonstrate our entire faithfulness unto death.
FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS.
We read in the Bible the parable of the Nobleman who went into a far country, to receive a Kingdom and to come again. (Luke 19:21-27.) Jesus is that Nobleman. The far country is Heaven. After His resurrection from the dead He ascended to Heaven to be invested with royal authority to be Ruler of the earth. In the parable, the Nobleman, when leaving His servants, called them to Himself and gave them money, to every one according to his ability, instructing them that they should invest these talents for Him, and should render their account upon His return. So the Master gives to each of His followers opportunities of service commensurate with our abilities for service. As our abilities differ, He gives to some greater opportunities than to others. He makes us the stewards of these His goods, and expects us to use them diligently, and wisely to His glory.
The parable represents that upon the Nobleman's return, He reckoned with His servants. To each of those who had faithfully used what was given him, He said, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." He did not say, "Thou hast done great things," but, "Thou hast been faithful over a few things." He knew that they could not do very much, but they had shown their loyalty, their faithfulness; and that is what the Lord desires to see. He expects us only to do with our might what our hands find to do for Him.
WISDOM AND CAREFULNESS NECESSARY.
If we have an opportunity to present the Message of salvation to a hungry soul, we are to be very careful not to tell him more than he is able to grasp, lest we do him harm rather than good. We are to remember the Master's words to His disciples before they had been begotten of the Holy Spirit. He said, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." (John 16:12.) So with those who are feeling after the Truth. They cannot bear all the Truth at once, just as babes cannot assimilate strong meat. What would be nourishment for an adult would choke an infant. Let us be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, showing forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Christians are obligated by their vows to the Lord to consider carefully what they wear, where they go, what they do, what they eat and drink, and even what they think. The world, noting this care, are likely to feel that the Christian's life is a life of slavery. But they do not understand the matter at all. We delight to do God's will, it gives us great pleasure to know what the Lord would have us wear, and how He would have us conduct ourselves. We love to be thus under our loving Father's supervision and to have His smile of approval.
[CR492]
Church's Humiliation Precedes Great Glory
"Weeping May Endure For a Night, But Joy Cometh in The Morning" When The Church Will Be Known and Honored. ACCORDING to the Bible, our earth is the only province in all God's universe that is in rebellion against the great Creator. We will not recount the history of this rebellion, save to remind you briefly that our Father Adam was created in the image of God, in perfect harmony with his Maker. He was abundantly supplied with suitable food, delightful surroundings, and everything needful to his welfare and happiness. The terms under which he might have life and its accompanying blessings continued everlastingly were clearly stated to him by Jehovah God, and were most reasonable. But the temptation to disobedience came; and in his inexperience Adam succumbed to the Tempter. He became a rebel against his Creator, and brought upon himself the sentence of death--not eternal torment. That sentence was, "Dying, thou shalt die"--NOT "Living, thou shalt live in torment."--Genesis 2:17; 3:19; Ezekiel 18:4; Romans 6:23.
This is the plain statement of the Scriptures, no matter how much we have been taught to the contrary. That rebellion which set in more than six thousand years ago, has continued ever since. During this period God has not interposed to stop this rebellion in the human family. Ever since the fall of man, Death has reigned over all of Adam's posterity. God purposed to permit sin to take its course, for a certain limited period, in order that mankind's experiences with sin should be a great lesson, not only to themselves, but to all God's intelligent creatures throughout eternity.
The angels have been very deeply interested on-lookers regarding what has happened upon this planet, as the Scriptures plainly show. Some of the angels followed man into sin; others remained true to their Creator and His laws. But while the holy angels have not transgressed at any time, yet they have beheld the transgression of mankind, and are noting how it has turned out. They perceive that in its very nature sin brings a sure penalty; that its only possible effect is mental, moral and physical decay; and that misery, pain and sorrow are its inevitable accompaniments, ending in death.
Divine Plan of the Ages.--But our wise Creator does not purpose to permit sin to continue indefinitely. Why should He permit sin to mar His great universe? Before deciding that nothing can be done for humanity, God purposes to give the whole human family an opportunity to return to harmony and fellowship with Him. This opportunity, the Apostle Peter tells us, will be given during the "Times of Restitution." "Times of Refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you: whom the Heavens must retain until the Times of Restitution, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began." --Acts 3:19,21.
There have been no times of refreshing since Father Adam's sin of disobedience; for there the curse began and has continued even until now. St. Peter tells us, however, that in God's great plan, our Lord Jesus Christ is sent to earth, to accomplish the great work provided for in His death over eighteen hundred years ago. For a thousand years He will reign for the purpose of eradicating sin, of helping mankind up out of their fallen condition and bringing back to the image of God all the willing and obedient. That will be the time when Messiah will take to Himself His great power and reign. First of all He will bind Satan, so that the nations will no more be deceived by him.
In His own due time God sent forth His Son to be the King, sent Him into this world, this rebellious province, to tell mankind that the great God who had condemned them has mercy on them and wishes to bless them. Our Lord Jesus came to the most favored nation of His time; but they rejected Him and crucified Him. He who had come into the world as its rightful King, as God's Representative, suffered violence even unto death. Since He represented the Kingdom which God purposed to set up on earth, when He was crucified, violence was done to the Kingdom.
These things have not taken the Lord by surprise. God foreknew it all from the beginning. It was a part of the Divine program to permit His Son to be crucified; and knowing that it was the Father's will, the Son permitted His life to be taken from Him by wicked men. He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. "Wherefore God hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name above every name," next to His own. He who came into the world as its rightful King was crucified. But His death as a man was the gateway to glory, when He was resurrected by the power of the Almighty, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High, there to remain until He should come to earth again to take His rightful authority as earth's Ruler for a thousand years.
Why the Saintly Are Misunderstood.--God foretold the death of our Lord Jesus through the prophets hundreds of years before He came to earth as a man, in order that we might be able to see that all things have worked according to the counsel of the Divine will, and that sin and evil have not been permitted in any wise to frustrate His plans and purposes. And as it was the Father's design to permit the great Head of the Church to suffer violence, even so has it been His design to permit those who have followed the Master in the way of sacrifice to suffer violence. "If they have called the Master of the House Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of His household?" (Matthew 10:25.) In these, as representatives of the Heavenly Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven has suffered violence throughout the Gospel Age.
How comes it that so false and unjust an impression of Jesus and His saints could exist? Why should good appear to be evil to many and the evil appear to be good? We answer, "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not." (2 Corinthians 4:4.) The religious leaders of Jesus' day said He had a devil because He did not join in with the Scribes and Pharisees, because He would not teach the traditions of men, because He would not endorse their theories nor walk in their ways. Had He joined in with them, He would have been popular. They would have praised Him and pointed to Him as one of themselves. But He would not do this because they were wrong. Our Lord stood for God and the Truth; therefore He could not and would not endorse the theories of the religious leaders of His day. He would not teach their doctrines. As a result, the leaders opposed, maligned and persecuted Him. And thus it has been with all who have followed in His steps ever since.
There was a time when Christ's true followers were put to all manner of gross indignities, were tortured on the rack, were roasted at the stake. We may not today suffer in the same manner; for such physical tortures are out of style. Tormenting, burning, crucifying, etc., are no longer practiced. Now the Lord's faithful servants are held up to public opprobrium. This is called "roasting." The former kind of roasting has become unpopular; and so we now have this more modern method.
Many newspapers and preachers seek to dishonor those who follow the Master and have His spirit. What shall we do when thus misrepresented and defamed? Shall we return evil for evil? Oh, no! Our Lord Jesus did not do so. (1 Peter 2:21-23.) Although He had the power to do so, yet He would not use that power. He could have saved Himself from the cross; but if He had done so, He would not have been the Saviour of the world. He knew that His enemies did not realize what they were doing. This was the testimony of the Apostles.--Acts 3:13-17; 1 Corinthians 2:8.
Suffering Precedes Glorification.--Thus it has been all down the Gospel Age. The members of the Kingdom class have suffered violence from those who knew not what they were doing. Had they realized that they were persecuting the true Church of Christ, they would surely have refrained at once. But the Lord's faithful followers are to put up with this ill treatment with good grace, knowing that it is working out for them a great blessing, and that in due time a blessing will come even to our persecutors.
This is God's arrangement for all whom He has called [CR493] to be of the Gospel Church. If the Head of that church, our Lord Jesus Christ, had not suffered, even unto the death of the cross, He would not have received the high reward of exaltation to the right hand of the Majesty on High. The same principle is operating toward all the Kingdom class. If we miss the persecution we shall also miss the blessing, the reward. (Romans 8:17; 2 Timothy 2:11,12.) We cannot change God's plan.
The Scriptures assure us, however, that this matter of suffering violence under present evil conditions will ultimately work out for the good of the saints of God. It is written, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to the called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28.) How reasonable a proposition, that He whom God has purposed shall be the great King to bring the fallen race of man back to harmony with Himself should first learn sympathy for those whom He would uplift and restore! How reasonable, too, that those called to be associate rulers and blessers with Him should learn the same lessons!
The Masterpiece of Deception.--There has been a great mistake made regarding the nature of the Kingdom of God and the time for its domination of earth. We have not properly understood the matter. We have thought that the Kingdom of God was already here, that its rule had already begun. Some have thought that it was set up when our Lord arose from the dead. Others have supposed that it was set up at Pentecost. But long after Pentecost St. John prayed for this Kingdom to come. (Revelation 22:20.) Still others have thought that it must have come with the destruction of Jerusalem. But it did not come then.
Many people believe that the Kingdom of God was established on earth in the year 800 A.D. Then the Roman Catholic Church had become very powerful, and the European kingdoms very weak. Religious leaders said, "We have waited eight hundred years for our Lord to return and set up His Kingdom. He has not come. But the church is growing strong and influential. Surely it must be the will of God that we should set up the Kingdom."
According to this conclusion, the Holy Roman Empire was established about the year 800, with the Bishop of Rome, as the Vicegerent of Christ--His earthly representative. Doubtless the leaders of this movement thought they were following Divine instructions regarding the establishment of the long-promised Kingdom; but the Adversary deceived them. The Bible tells us that he has deceived the whole world. (Revelation 20:1-4.) For centuries this pseudo-kingdom of God made and unmade kings, as appointees of God's Kingdom. For awhile the kings had to walk very humbly and quietly; for if they displeased the Pope, he would depose them and appoint their successor. History records many humiliating experiences which disobedient European sovereigns were compelled to undergo as a result of the Pope's anger at their course.
Counterfeit vs. Real Millennium.--Surely the Kingdom which had such power was not the Kingdom of Heaven which, according to our text, was to suffer violence at the hands of men throughout the Gospel Age! In the light of the Scriptures we cannot believe that the Kingdom of God has been reigning on earth for the past 1,100 years. If it has been in power, we would be greatly disappointed; for the Word of God leads us to expect that Kingdom to accomplish something far greater and more lasting than anything that has been accomplished during these centuries. That Word assures us that when Messiah reigns, He will reign in righteousness and in judgment; that His control will extend over the entire earth, for the uplift and blessing of the whole world, for their deliverance from sin, sorrow and death.--Isaiah 32:1-4; 35:1-10; Psalm 72; etc.
We have seen nothing like these blessed results during the Papal Millennium. For the past 1,100 years the records of history reveal nothing but a reign of corruption and violence, not a reign of righteousness and peace. All evil-doers have not been cut off; neither have the righteous flourished. Speaking through the Prophet David, the Lord says of this present evil time, "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree." "Their eyes stand out with fatness." (Psalms 37:35,36; 73:3-12.) But to the righteous our Lord Jesus says, "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake." Of the same class the Apostle Paul declares, "All that shall live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution."--Matthew 5:11; 2 Timothy 3:12.
All this is in harmony with our text, which declares that during the present life the Kingdom of Heaven, the true Church of Christ, suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. The meek have not yet inherited the earth; they seldom get even a good slice of it. Are the righteous blessed and the wicked punished today? No; just the reverse. Those who are living godly lives in Christ Jesus are misrepresented, persecuted and put out of the synagogues. All manner of evil is spoken against them falsely for Christ's sake. And this is being done in the name of Christ!--John 16:1-4.
Reign of True Kingdom at Hand.--For centuries the true church has suffered violence at the hands of the rulers of this world. Some have done this under one name, some under another; but the persecution has been done under the direction of Satan, whose object it is to destroy the true saints of God. But when the true Kingdom is set up, there will be a great change in this respect.
God's times and seasons are absolutely fixed. No one can hasten them. Everything is in the Father's power. Now we see that God wished the world to have six great Days of a thousand years each, during which to learn certain necessary lessons; and that these six Days were to be followed by a Seventh Day, during which Christ and the Church will occupy the office of Prophet, Priest and King, in order to teach, help and uplift the world, restoring them to all that was lost in Eden and redeemed at Calvary.
The present order of things will not last. Our Lord will set up the Kingdom of God (Daniel 2:44) which will do away with this present order and will bring in the New Order. At that time He will have associated with Him all those who have been loyal to Him and His Cause, and who have proved themselves faithful even unto death. Only such will be His joint-heirs in the Kingdom.
Seeing these things, perceiving the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Scriptures all about us, and knowing from the sure Word of God the outcome of present events, the Lord's faithful people may well wait in patience for their deliverance, may well lift up their heads and rejoice. (Luke 21:28.) Daily we are getting ready for that Kingdom by proving and manifesting that we have a thorough-going loyalty of heart to the coming Kingdom and its principles of righteousness. If we are willing to suffer violence for the Kingdom and its righteous principles, God will know that we are loyal to Him; and He will reward us openly. The deliverance of the suffering saints of God draws near.
THE beam that shines from Zion's hill
Shall lighten every land;
The King who reigns in Salem's tow'rs
Shall all the world command.
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Nations Before God's Judgment Bar
"Weighed in the Balances and Found Wanting," will be the Verdict--Great Judgment Day of the Nations Now Begun--Professedly Christian Kingdoms Showing Their True Character--Responsibility Proportionate To Light And Opportunities Ignored--Vast Majority Christian Only In Name--The People Have Not Been Properly Taught--Empty Forms of Godliness--Selfishness Behind All The Trouble-- True Christians Also Being Judged--Deliverance Of The Faithful Near
Text: "The Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." (Deuteronomy 13:3.) He said in part: WHILE this text is applicable to the Lord's people in a special way, yet as we look out over the world today we can realize that the Lord is surely judging the nations, especially those that have been greatly blessed with His favor. Consider Europe, for instance. How wonderfully Europe has been favored with opportunities for coming to a knowledge of the Lord! Ever since the days of Jesus and the apostles Europe has had Gospel privileges, more or less. Of course we are not to hold the people today responsible for everything in the past. To do so would be unfair. But we are to consider that in a general way the influences of Christianity have spread over the world, especially in Europe. After an era of blessings would follow persecutions, thus developing a loyalty of heart amongst the people; and in those early days seeds were sown that have had good opportunities for being watered and bringing forth good fruit.
Gradually the world has come to esteem itself to be Christian. The nations of Europe are generally styled Christendom. Nevertheless the Bible declares that the world is not Christian, and has not the Spirit of Christ in its activities. The world, therefore, is self-deceived. To the extent that the nations have had light, to that extent they are responsible. The Bible does not show, however, that the world has full responsibility. Only those who have full responsibility, who have taken the step of entire consecration to God through Christ, only those who have been begotten of the Holy Spirit. These have been illuminated and have come into the highest place of opportunities and blessings in the Lord. These have a deep insight into His Word that no others possess. Accordingly these have had an amount of light that brings a life or death responsibility.
THE WORLD'S JUDGMENT HAS BEGUN.
But so far as the world is concerned, we can readily see that in proportion as they have seen they should be required to do. We can feel quite sure that God would expect more of the peoples of Europe than of those of Asia and Africa, who have had little knowledge of Him. So just at this time, when Bible chronology shows that God's lease of power to the Gentile governments has expired, we see exactly what we should expect--that he is permitting these nations to pass judgment upon themselves, so to speak. He is permitting them to show themselves, to manifest their real condition of mind and heart, to demonstrate whether or not they have made proper use of their opportunities and blessings in the way of development in righteousness.
The nations of Christendom have had much to say about the Lord. His name is to be found in all these countries. The nations have held aloft the cross of Christ in an outward way. They have many places for prayer and worship. They have abounded in forms of godliness. They have much wealth and treasure. They have had hosts of priests and preachers of all denominations. With all the advantages and experiences of the past nineteen centuries, we might have expected Europe to be in a much better condition than it is-- that it would have learned much more than it has as to what is the spirit of the Lord and what is not.
The Apostle Paul tells us how we may know the Lord's spirit. It is manifested in gentleness, meekness, patience, godliness, self-control, brotherly-kindness, love. (Galatians 5:22,23.) Wherever we find true Christianity we find these fruits of the Holy Spirit. With the sole exception of Turkey, these peoples of Europe claim to be Christian. Now the Lord would prove these nations, not that He might Himself know their condition, but that they might know. Both the Father and our Lord Jesus well know that the nations are Christian in name only, that the vast majority have not taken the steps necessary to bring them into the family of God. The Bible shows that no one has a right to approach God except in His appointed way--through Christ as the Redeemer and Advocate. And Christ will be the Advocate of only those who come to God in His appointed way.
God has arranged that whoever would come to Him must first accept by faith Christ's finished work on Calvary, and that they surrender themselves fully to God, to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow Me." (Luke 9:23.) The Lord knows that the masses of the people have not done this, that comparatively few have accepted these terms. When people are asked whether they have taken these steps, they admit that they have not. They say, "We have never had it preached to us that we must be begotten of the Holy Spirit before we can become children of God."
LOOSING THE FOUR WINDS.
The people have not been taught how to approach God in the right way. Therefore the vast majority are not His children at all. They have never passed from darkness to light, from condemnation to justification, through faith in Christ Jesus and consecration to God. Consequently they are still in their sins. They seem to have no proper conception as respects their privilege of presenting themselves to God, which is their reasonable service. (Romans 12:1,2.) Judged by what they themselves tell us, not many have taken the Scriptural steps here pointed out. The Bible assures us that only a "little flock" enter the straight gate and walk the narrow way.
God forbid that we should be understood to say that there are no saints in Europe! We believe that in all these nations God has a true people, those who are fully trusting Him and are fully consecrated to Him, those who are desirous of knowing Him and of doing His will even unto death. We are not speaking of these, but of the other class --the mass who are outwardly professing Christians and who compose the great majority.
The Bible speaks of these as having "a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." They are walking contrary to godliness--contrary to what they would if they were true Christians, if they were living up to their professions. (2 Timothy 3:1-5.) Now God is bringing to their knowledge their true condition. In this great "Time of Trouble," in this death struggle of the nations, He will show them that they are not in the right way. He will demonstrate to both men and angels that the Christianity of the masses has been largely an empty form, a meaningless ceremony.
God is now letting loose the winds of strife. He is letting the nations take their own course in order to prove to themselves and to others that they are not what they claim to be, and to humble them into the dust. Thus they will be brought to realize their own helplessness and their dire need of God.--Revelation 7:1-3.
As we look back over the past thousand years, we can see that God has been holding the peoples of earth more or less under restraint, permitting them to go only so far at any time. Otherwise they would have destroyed themselves long ago. The hearts of fallen humanity are so selfish that, had mankind been permitted to go their full length, the race would have been annihilated long before now. But God's due time has come to let loose the winds of strife, with the result that the long-expected storm has burst in fury upon the world. The trouble is spreading from nation to nation; and it looks as if ultimately every nation will become involved --surely every one which formed part of the old Roman Empire. (Daniel 2:44.) Whether the strike will extend beyond the boundaries of the Roman rule we do not know--whether it will involve America.
MINDS OF THE PEOPLE ASTRAY.
These United States have had many advantages over other countries. Our temporal blessings have been multiplied on every hand. Nevertheless, we must confess that there is much of mere outward forms of godliness here, much of [CR495] ceremony, hypocrisy, dishonesty and crime. Great light has been given and largely ignored. Therefore it would seem that sooner or later our land may become involved in turmoil. There is much of Christian profession here, an outward form of godliness devoid of its power. Consequently it seems hardly possible that America will fail to have a full share in the judgment of the nations.
There is much restlessness amongst the people everywhere. Indeed, the whole world is becoming crazed as the angry passions of men are being stirred up against one another. In the countries at war, where the soldiers in the trenches are killing one another by the thousands--sometimes sixty thousand in one day--necessarily a hardening influence goes with this course of action. The soldiers must become more or less benumbed in their sensibilities, as a natural result. As a whole, the world today seems to be telling the Lord, telling His people--who are not of this world --and telling the angels--who are looking on--what their spirit really is and demonstrating that it is not the spirit of the Lord.
It reminds us of the spirit of James and John, the two apostles whom our Lord surnamed "Sons of Thunder," because of their courage and fiery zeal. On one occasion they wished to bring down fire from heaven to destroy the people of a little Samaritan village, because the villagers had refused to sell bread to our Lord and The Twelve. But the Master reproved them, saying "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of;" that is, they had become His disciples, but had not yet realized what is the spirit of a true disciple. It was therefore no wonder that they did things contrary to the Lord's spirit.--Luke 9:51-56.
After the disciples received the begetting of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they would not have even thought of doing such a thing; for then they received the Heavenly illumination and could discern that the spirit of Christ prompted its possessor to help others, not to destroy them. Previous to Pentecost these disciples were zealous Jews, courageous in defense of what they thought right as against wrong. And so it is now in Europe. Many are zealous and are trying to find some good reason for what they are doing.
The leaders tell the people various things. In some cases the people are told that their liberties and the development of their country are held in check by jealous neighbors. On the other hand the people are led to think that militarism is their greatest foe and therefore must be crushed. On both sides of the question at issue the people seem to have hypnotized themselves into thinking that theirs is the righteous cause. But more and more it is being manifested that some great wrong is being promoted, that some great misconception is influencing the people.
SELFISHNESS THE ROOT OF THE TROUBLE.
The true explanation is that the Lord is judging the nations--letting them manifest their real condition. More and more the world is revealing just what is behind all this trouble which is spreading everywhere--SELFISHNESS. Note the case of Greece, for instance. What pressure was brought to bear upon that country to force her to enter the war contrary to her own will! Bribes have been held out to the various kingdoms--offers of certain territories, etc.-- to induce them to take part in the conflict. There is almost an insanity behind it.
None of these nations see what Bible students see. They do not know that the Kingdom of God is just at the door, that the Reign of Righteousness is at hand. Therefore they do not have the degree of responsibility that we have who do see. All know, however, that it is wrong to take life; and yet they are plotting both to take and to surrender life in order to hold a little more territory or to gain some commercial advantage over their rivals. Everywhere selfishness is manifest. It has kept up rivalry between the nations for centuries. It has cost them millions of dollars in the way of preparation for war, and now it is costing them millions more to fight it out--besides the appalling loss of life, etc.
DESOLATION AND DESTRUCTION.
This great war is far from Christian. Each nation is fighting for its own selfish interests. What an impressive lesson it is for the world! How boastful the nations have been! The Lord now says, "Let loose the winds, and let the nations show what they can do!" The nations are manifesting to themselves that they are not Christian, and all the world is taking knowledge of the fact. Everywhere Christian people are wondering what these current events may mean.
We are not able to foretell all that will take place; and so we leave the matter, merely knowing that the Lord has arranged to grant this great opportunity for the world to deceive themselves and to destroy themselves. The people are all more or less deluded. Many noble souls are going down into death under the impression that they are doing a good work for the coming generations.
Poor humanity! Oh, that they knew what we know about God's great Plan of the Ages! That they knew about the coming Kingdom of Messiah, which is just at the doors! But as yet the knowledge is hidden from them. It is just as when our Lord Jesus wept over Israel, saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent to thee! How often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings; and ye would not! Behold, your House is left unto you desolate; and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me until ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of Jehovah."--Luke 13:34,35.
Just so now it is with these professedly Christian nations. Desolation is coming upon them even as it came upon the Jews in the end of their Age. Bible students have expected this state of affairs to develop; for the Bible long ago foretold that it would be thus in our day.
JUDGMENT OF GOD'S PEOPLE.
If then, dear friends, God is now judging those who are only nominally His people, and permitting them to demonstrate that they are not His, will He not judge also His true people? Indeed He has been judging this class for more than eighteen hundred years, in order that they might not come into condemnation with the world. But now, in the end of the Gospel Age, He is especially judging them; for "judgment must begin at the House of God." (1 Peter 4:17; 1 Corinthians 11:31,32.) We may not know all the saints in the countries at war. We do know, however, that there are some very loyal children of God there, and we sympathize deeply with them in their trials. But they are greatly blessed; for they see what we see. Notwithstanding their close contact with the trouble upon Christendom, they are lifting up their heads and rejoicing; for they realize that their redemption draweth nigh.--Luke 21:28.
Yes, God is now judging His people. (Hebrews 10:30.) But let us not wait for Him to judge us personally. Let us see to it that we are proving faithful to Him, faithful to our responsibilities as His children. Let us examine ourselves, and correct whatever we find to be out of alignment with His instructions to us. Let us put some kind of chastisement upon ourselves in order that we shall not need to be corrected by Him, in order that we shall not be condemned with the world.
We have reached the "Time of the End," the close of the Gospel Age and the dawning of the New Dispensation, the time when the judgments of the Lord are designed to accomplish a separating work which is especially appropriate and needful at this period. Let us see to it, then, that we make our calling and election sure.
[CR496]
Jehovah's Way Alone Giveth Life
Mankind to Learn that the Way of the Transgressor is Hard. The World Going the Wrong Way--Most of them Unknowingly--Why they are So Deceived--The Broad Way to Destruction--Present Narrow Way to Life-- Future Highway of Holiness--The Ransomed of the Lord to go up Thereon--Necessity for Vigilance to those now in the Narrow Way. NORFOLK, VA., July 30.--Pastor Russell is here, in attendance upon the I.B.S.A. Convention. Today he delivered a very impressive discourse from the text, "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." (Proverbs 14:12.) The Pastor said in part:
This text is used particularly in respect to the world in general. It is not necessary for us to suppose that mankind are hypocritical and doing the wrong thing knowingly and intentionally; but rather, as the text implies, that the ways of the world are those which they think right. Their course seems to them to be the proper one. Yet they are in the wrong way. How does it come that the wrong way seems right to a people? How is it that they are deceived as to what is the right and proper course for them to take? What is the secret of their being in the wrong way and not being able to discern the right course?
The Scriptures answer these questions. When God created our race representatively in Father Adam, our great ancestor had no doubt about the right way. When he transgressed, he was not deceived into thinking that he was taking the proper course. (1 Timothy 2:14.) He knew that the way which he took would lead to death. Why, then, did he take it? Mother Eve had been disobedient to God, and had therefore come under the Divine condemnation to death; and Father Adam thought that it would be better for him to die with his wife than to live without her. Although he knew that in choosing the wrong way he was disobeying God, yet he did so under the delusion that it was preferable.
But with Adam's children it is different. All of them have been born in sin, shapen in iniquity. (Genesis 3:20, Psalms 51:5.) Our minds and our judgments are imperfect. The Adversary who led astray our first parents is still deceiving and misleading the world, putting darkness for light and light for darkness. In their fallen condition mankind are poorly able to withstand him. The whole world is under the death sentence pronounced upon Adam in Eden. Satan does not wish any of them to see the goodness of God or the light of the blessed Gospel of Christ; for he well knows what the effect would be. There is something so wonderful about our God that whoever sees Him in all His glorious attributes of wisdom, justice, love and power is inspired to walk in the right way. But for the moment, as it were, the great mass of mankind are blinded and deceived-- 2 Corinthians 4:4.
WORLD STILL BLIND--FEW CAN SEE.
As we look out over the world today, we see sixteen hundreds millions of people, nearly all of whom are blind. Very few see the real character of God. Very few understand the right way of the Lord. Their eyes are holden, their minds darkened. We feel great sympathy for them; and naturally the question arises, is there any hope for these people? Then we think of all the efforts put forth by the people of God to show them the goodness, the wisdom and the love of God, in order that the knowledge might change their course, that they might commit their way unto the Lord. But still the masses are not doing this. They are going their own way--the way that seems right to them. "What is the use in spending one's times in other ways?" they ask. "We intend to enjoy ourselves. We wish to make a fortune. Everybody does that way." They measure themselves by themselves instead of taking the Lord's way.
People in general do not wish to do wrong. Often they start out in life with noble intentions. In early childhood, they were very innocent, candid and honest, as a rule. The child grows into an attitude of hypocrisy, deceit and evil-doing because he finds his elders frequently deceiving him and others. All mankind are born under more or less adverse conditions and unfavorable environments; and the majority follow on in the way in which they are born. This is the broad way that leads to destruction, of which our Lord Jesus tells us.--Matthew 7:13,14.
Some of us have, by the grace of God, left this Broad Way, and have entered into the Narrow Way. We have learned something which has changed our course. One of the first lessons which we have learned is that we were not competent to guide ourselves. We came to feel the need of a mightier than human friend to lean upon, a wiser teacher than man to guide us. In our need we cried to the Lord for guidance; and He led us into the Way of life and salvation.
If all the world knew that they were not doing the best that could be done, we believe that the vast majority could be taught. Looking out into the world, we see many people who have noble minds and making noble efforts. They were born on this comparatively high plane. But sooner or later they find out that they are following merely their own wisdom, which is very defective. By the time that such reach maturity of life, they are conscious of an aching void; and they do not know what it means. Many say, "I thought that I was able to shape my course satisfactorily; and I did so. I have attained much thus-and-so, but I am not happy."
How thankful we may be who have learned this needful lesson and have found the good way! "Blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear," said the Master to his class. Others can not comprehend. Are we wiser than the rest of mankind? Only in the sense that we have learned that of ourselves we do not know much of anything. Realizing this, we have been wise enough to commit our ways unto the Lord, to come to Him for guidance, to come into His family on His terms. We are striving to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
FOOLS FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.
The world says that all this is foolishness. "You can not be happy that way," they declare; "let us show you how to get the best out of life." But we reply, "It is a question as to which is right. "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.' We prefer to take the way which the Lord has pointed out to us. We have found that Jesus is the Way, that he is the Door, and that no man can come to the Father except by him. We needed his redemptive work first of all to make satisfaction before the Father for us, and then he became our head."
My dear brethren, we have found that we do not know how to do our own thinking, that we did not know how to guide ourselves and to think right. We did not have sufficient knowledge to form a proper judgment upon a great many subjects. Others may guess for themselves. We will do what the Lord tells us to do through His word. He is guiding His people in the right way. We are being taught of the Lord. We are not boasting of what we know; for we do not know, except as we are taught of Him. Other people think that they know. We know that they do not know.
If others think us fools for getting our instructions from the Bible, we are willing to be called fools for Christ's sake. (1 Corinthians 4:10.) We intend to get what satisfies us-- "the wisdom from Above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy." (James 3:17.) This we get from the Bible. If we receive the Word of God into good and honest hearts, we receive through that Word more of His spirit of meekness, gentleness, patience, brotherly-kindness, love. This is our blessed privilege.
THE THREE WAYS.
Very few who profess to be Christians have carefully studied their Bible or have any clear idea of its teachings. Not many of them know that the Lord tells us that eventually there will be three ways. The third way has not yet been opened, but it will be broad enough for whosoever will to enter upon it. The first way is the Broad Way, which our text declares will end in death. The second is the Narrow Way, the Way of Sacrifice, which our Lord Jesus opened [CR497] up. The third way will not be opened up until the Narrow Way shall have been closed.
For six thousand years mankind have steadily pursued the Broad Way, driven thereon by Sin and Death. Not until this Gospel Age was a way of escape brought to light. Had not God made this provision, eternal death would have been the fate of all the race of Adam. But Divine Love and Mercy came to their rescue. A Redeemer has died for the whole world--our Lord Jesus Christ. He has opened up a new way--a way to life. This new way has first been opened up for the Church class, those now being called out of the world. This is the Narrow Way. Its end has almost been reached. The called out class is nearly completed.
Soon the way of life will be opened up for the world of mankind--the dead as well as the living. This will be the great Highway of Holiness. (Isaiah 35:5-10.) Then whosoever will may walk up this grand Highway to human perfection and life everlasting. If any fail to attain life, the fault will be their own. Every obstruction will be removed from their path--every stone of stumbling, every lion of temptation or of rapacity; and every needful assistance will be granted to encourage them up the good Way, back to all that was lost for the race when Adam fell through disobedience in Eden.
No one had come up out of that Broad Way which leads to destruction until our Lord Jesus came and opened up the Narrow Way to his disciples. Even the Jews were in that Broad Way. Few of them were able to enter the Narrow Way when it was opened up to them. Throughout the entire Gospel Age some have been turning from the Broad Way into the Narrow Way. This is the good Way of the Lord. Are we seeking to walk in this Narrow Way that leadeth unto life? The way that seemeth right to the world will end in death.
GLORIOUS EPOCH NOW AT HAND.
When the great Highway of the Millennial Age shall have been opened up for the world, the way will be made so plain, the Prophet Isaiah explains, that the wayfaring man, though simple and unlearned, shall not err therein. "The redeemed of the Lord shall walk there; and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." "The ransomed of the Lord," are all mankind; for "Jesus Christ by the grace of God tasted death for every man." He "gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." (Hebrews 2:9; 1 Timothy 2:5,6.) to be testified in due time." (Hebrews 2:9; 1 Timothy 2:5,6.) All mankind will have the opportunity to go up on this Way; for Christ and the Church are to open it up for the blessing of all the families of the earth.
Does it not seem that the majority of mankind, when they shall see the vast difference between the way of Jehovah and the way of Satan, will be glad to walk in the good way? But none will be coerced. The way of life and the way of death will be before them. Each must make his own choice. Whoever refuses to go up thereon will go down into the Second Death, or destruction.
Some are now turning from the Broad Way into the Narrow Way, where they are receiving blessings. Others, on the contrary, do not see now. Millions of heathen do not see--even those living in Christendom itself. They must be permitted to follow their own judgment, however. We are not to find fault with them; but we are to rejoice that our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Lord Jesus have in mind the blessing of all the families of the earth, and will not permit any to go down without being informed as to the course they are taking and being given an opportunity of going up on the Highway of Holiness.
To those who now are God's dear children the very thought is precious that at the end of our present Narrow Way we shall enter upon the glorious privilege of uplifting and blessing the peoples of earth, helping them up out of their difficulties, their sorrows and their sins, rewarding them for their good deeds and punishing them for their wrong acts. What a blessing this will mean to us! What an incentive to be faithful unto death! Jehovah's plan is wonderful. There is nothing like it in all the Universe. No one could possibly duplicate God's great arrangement. No one else could ever have thought of anything like it. The Divine Plan manifests our Heavenly Father's Justice, Wisdom, Love and Power. We are coming to see this more and more as we learn to understand His Word, and therein behold the glorious character and purposes of our God.
GREAT WATCHFULNESS NOW NECESSARY.
For those of us who are in the strait and narrow way, there is a special lesson in our text. If at any time we begin to lean to our own understanding, to attempt to guide ourselves, we are in danger. Our wily Adversary is watching our steps, seeking to trip us. Our own flesh would entice us into thinking that we can manage our own affairs. We need to be constantly on the alert; for if we lean to our own understanding we shall surely go astray. The Lord assures us in His Word that we need to be guided by Him; and he gives us lessons to demonstrate to us how dependent we are upon Him. He watches every step of our journey.
"Do all to the glory of God," should be our watchword. In every matter that concerns us we should consider what is to His glory. No Christian should think of buying clothing or of eating or drinking or of going here or there, etc., without considering whether or not our course will be in full harmony with our Covenant of Sacrifice, without asking what is God's will in the matter. For us to do otherwise would be to live after the flesh.
We should shape every act, every word and every thought so as to bring to our God and our own well-being as New Creatures. If we become heady and wish to think of ourselves, outside of the limitations which God has placed in His Word, we are in great danger. We need constantly our Heavenly Shepherd's care. We are to look always for His leading.
THE VOICE OF OUR SHEPHERD.
The Bible uses the shepherds of Palestine as an illustration of the great care which our Heavenly Father and His Heavenly Son exercise over the people of God. There the shepherd goes before his flock, and the sheep follow him, ever listening to his voice. They will never follow the lead of strangers. So the Lord's flock listen to the voice of the Shepherd; and a stranger's voice they will not follow, if they are true sheep.
We hear this voice behind us, the words of Our Lord Jesus and of his apostles. This voice is still guiding the people of God. The world does not now hear that voice; they do not recognize it; they do not think that it is worth heeding. But bye and bye they will begin to hear. They will then have the ability to hear the voice that we now heed. "Thine ears shall hear a voice behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand and when ye to the left." (Isaiah 30:21.) This voice is the Message contained in the Word of God. If we faithfully heed it, we shall never wander into the ways of death.
[CR498]
Fatherhood of God as Shown in Scripture
Portland, Maine, July 23.--Pastor Russell spoke here today before the I.B.S.A. Convention being held in our city this week. His discourse was based upon the opening clause of the Lord's prayer--"Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name." (Matthew 6:9.) A condensed report follows:
The word father and the thought behind it should be very impressive to us all; yet it is sadly true that many who bear this name manifest but little regard for what is right and obligatory in connection with their fatherhood. It is very different, however, with the Heavenly Father, who is the Perfect One, who meets fully all the obligations resting upon Him, and who is a Father in the truest sense. The imperfection and weakness of human fathers only manifest the more by contrast the glorious perfections of the Father in Heaven--His love, His power.
The term father signifies lifegiver, one who bestows life. The Bible declares that the great Jehovah God is the Fountain of life, the One from whom everything proceeds, the One "in whom we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28.) All life emanates from him alone. Without Him nothing could exist. When we have before our minds the thought that God is a great Father, a true Father, we also have the thought which is properly connected therewith-- that He recognizes the responsibility of a Father--a matter which very many of the fallen race of Adam little appreciate, but which Bible students are coming more and more to appreciate.
Every earthly parent has a responsibility in connection with his children. It is his duty to see that they are provided for, as respects clothing, shelter, food for both mind and body, etc. To make such provision is a part of a father's duty; and whoever does not expect so to provide or has no good reason to believe that he will be able to do so has no moral right to bring a child into the world. Thoughtful provision for such child should be made before it is brought into being. This seems to be a just and right principle, and one generally recognized by all intelligent people.
PEOPLE MISLEAD BY FALSE THEOLOGY.
Then surely this principle would apply to the great Father from whom comes every blessing. But this contradicts much of the theology that has been given to us; for when the creeds tell us that God is all-wise, all-loving, kind and good, they spoil it all by stating that notwithstanding His Love, Justice and Wisdom, He is sending the vast majority of our race to endless torture. In other words, the creeds imply that God has made a miserable failure in creating mankind, and that His Plan of Salvation is a farce. We should have known better than this even without a Bible. Could we not have seen that the Plan of the great Father of Mercies, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift, who has all power at His command, could not be such a failure--that in harmony with His glorious character, He could not bring into existence an entire race, knowing that 999 out of 1,000 of them would spend eternity in torture?
The only reasonable explanation for our credulity in this respect is that which the Apostle Paul gives; namely, that the Adversary, the Devil, has greatly misrepresented our just and loving Creator. Satan, the god of this world, has so blinded the minds of many by the delusive theories which he promulgated during the Dark Ages that the majority seem unable to reason intelligently upon the subject of religion. St. Paul declares that "the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils." (1 Timothy 4:1.) This prophecy has been fulfilled. There has been a great falling away from the primitive faith of the Church; and heathenish theories, which were no part of the Scriptures, were introduced to frighten the people and to bring them into submission to ambitious leaders.
We have been deluded into thinking of our great God as a demon, all-powerful and all-wise, but not all-good, who has brought into existence millions of people whom He knew would be compelled to suffer eternal torment. The Adversary has a shrewd way of continuing his deceptions. When the thought is suggested that if God knew that the result of Adam's disobedience would be that the majority of his posterity would suffer eternally, He could not be just to have permitted the propagation of the race, Satan is quick to suggest, "God would have destroyed Adam if He could; but, having made man with an immortal soul, even the Creator cannot destroy mankind now."
From no other source than from the great Adversary of God and man did this idea emanate--that in creating man God gave him something that even the Almighty cannot take from the race. How puerile such a God would be! This prevalent but erroneous thought is directly contradicted by our Lord Jesus Himself, who said, "Fear Him who is ABLE TO DESTROY BOTH SOUL AND BODY in Gehenna" --the Second Death. (Matthew 10:28.) The Almighty God, who knew the end from the beginning, would bring no beings into existence whom He could not destroy when they had proved themselves unworthy of the blessing of life.
NO ETERNAL LIFE IN MISERY.
Furthermore, the Bible declares, "All the wicked will God destroy." (Psalm 145:20.) How simple, how reasonable, the Bible is! We get our confusion of thought by neglecting the word of God and taking instead the traditions and vagaries of men, which have been handed down from the Dark Ages. Bible students, however, are finding wisdom of going directly to the Word of God. The wisdom from Above is what we need, and not the wisdom of this world, which is foolishness with God, and which is becoming more and more foolish to all thinking people. The Heavenly wisdom comes only from the Word of God. (1 Corinthians 3:19-21; James 3:17.)
In taking the text which I have chosen, and in saying that I greatly appreciate the thought there of a loving Heavenly Father, do not misunderstand me to mean what many today mean when they speak along this line. Some very learned people talk about "the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man." Doubtless they mean well enough in referring to God as the Father of the entire human race in their present fallen condition; but they speak contrary to the Bible. The Scriptures exhort us not to lean to our understanding, nor to that of other people, but rather to inquire. "What saith the Lord? Does God's Word say anything about the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man?" (Proverbs 3:5,6; Isaiah 8:20.)
There we find that mankind are the offspring of God, that he is their Creator, the One who gave them being. But the Bible does not say that He is now the Father of the race, in the sense in which many think that He is. These urge the theory of universal salvation of mankind, saying that because God is the Life-giver of the world therefore He will save the entire race. We are not faulting this class; for they are sincere in their thought. Personally, I would greatly prefer to believe in universal salvation than in universal damnation. But the Bible takes neither of these extreme positions.
WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES.
The plain declaration of the Bible is that our first parents, Adam and Eve, received life from God, and its perpetuity was promised them only upon certain clearly specified conditions. They were plainly forewarned that if they met these conditions, they would continue to live; if they failed to be obedient, they would die--cease to live. There was not even a hint given of a life continued eternally in torture, as the penalty of disobedience.--Genesis 2:17; 3:19; Ezekiel 18:4,20; Romans 6:23.
In forewarning our first parents as to the sure result of disobedience, God also intimated that in such a case He would disown them, would no longer be their Father. They became disobedient, and thereby lost all right to life. Thus from God's standpoint, the entire race of Adam is dead-- condemned, not to eternal torment, but to death. The right to life has been taken away. They are under legal condemnation to death.
Thus we see that the human family are not now the children of God. Adam was a son until he forfeited that blessed relationship: but from his day onward no member [CR499] of his race is called a son of God, except our Lord Jesus, while He was in the flesh. He was a Son of God before he came down to earth a man; but his spiritual life was given up in order that he might become a perfect man, to die for Adam and his race, and thus to open up the way whereby the whole world might come back into the relationship of sons of God, might regain what Adam lost for himself and for his family. "Jesus Christ by the grace of God tasted death for every man." (Heb. 2:9.) This does not mean universal salvation, however.
GOD'S PLAN JUST AND REASONABLE.
When our Lord Jesus came into the world, he opened up a way whereby those who would believe on him and would sacrifice as he did, becoming his followers, might become sons of God on the spiritual plane, yea, the very highest plane in existence--the Divine plane. These, if faithful unto death, would share the glorious reward which the Father had promised to our Lord Jesus--immortality, life in its highest form. But the religious leaders of his day did not believe on him, did not receive his message; and during his ministry only about five hundred of the people believed. The god of this world--Satan--blinded their eyes.-- 2 Corinthians 4:4.
The people asked, "Have any of the Scribes and Pharisees believed on Him?" When they learned to the contrary, they concluded that there was nothing in the Message. They took the course that many are taking today. The Adversary was behind it all. There were many refined people amongst them. The Sadducees were an aristocratic class. Perhaps some of them were not bad men. The Apostle Peter afterward declared that in ignorance the people crucified the Prince of Life, as did also their rulers.-- Acts 3:13-18.
It may be asked, Why did our Lord not open the way for the whole world to become spiritual sons of God, instead of for only an elect class? We answer, We are sure that God is taking the best way: for the whole plan is of Him. He could have kept the way of salvation closed until the Millennium, and then have done for all alike. But this was not His plan. He purposed first to gather out of the world an elect Church. This is not an arbitrary Plan, however; for He is not selecting any contrary to their own wills. All who are called have the privilege of accepting or rejecting the Call. Whoever prefers to wait until the next Age, and take the opportunity then to be offered to the world, may do so; but the offer then to be made will not be nearly so glorious as that now held out.
There are some who desire to know and to do the will of the Lord, if only they are shown what it is. To this class God purposes to show His plan and to give them His choicest blessings. He gives them the opportunity to join with Jesus in His sacrificial work for humanity, the privilege of suffering with him now that they may reign with him by and by, in the kingdom. Foreknowing that there would be a class of this kind, who would gladly give up the pleasures and the ambitions of the present life for the far grander blessings which He has to bestow, God has given them the privilege. He has sent forth His Message far and wide, to let this class know of their opportunity.
THE CLASS WHICH GOD NOW SEEKS.
For over eighteen hundred years this Call to saintship has gone forth in a quiet way. But comparatively few have responded, and the world has generally set it at naught. People in general do not think it worth while to go to some upper room to attend a little prayer-meeting or to some ordinary hall to hear preaching. They prefer to go to some fine edifice to hear an eloquent oration and charming music. God has permitted His Truth to be thus obscured from the worldly-wise and self-sufficient, and to let it appear as if the Gospel were accomplishing little or nothing. But all along He knew just what He was doing. He was accomplishing just what He had designed. He has always known them that were His.--2 Timothy 2:19; Isaiah 55:8-11.
The class which God is selecting now have sharp ears for the true Gospel Message. When they hear of the Love of God in Christ, they believe it. They listen to God's Word, rather than to human theories and traditions. They become pupils in the School of Christ, followers of the Lord Jesus. The Master did not have a smooth way. His path was rough and thorny. Some, when they learn this fact, stop immediately. Others, however, press onward, even though they know the way to be narrow and rough. They desire to get back to God; for they find satisfaction nowhere else.
These hear that our Lord Jesus will become an Advocate for whoever contracts to follow in his steps, and that the Father will not receive them without this Advocate to make good for their weaknesses and blemishes. They learn that our Lord will become the Advocate of any who will accept his terms--"If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." To deny self means to give up one's own will and take the Master's will instead. Whoever takes this step will find various crosses and difficulties along the way. The contract is not to last for a month or for a year, but for life. Our Lord guarantees that his grace will be sufficient for all who follow him, that his strength is made perfect in weakness. Surely this is sufficient assurance.
There are not many of this class anywhere. But it is only to these that God now becomes the Father.
These are the sons of God, through the begetting of the Holy Spirit. These say with their Master, "I delight to do Thy will, O my God! Thy Law is written in my heart." If in their hearts they should say, "I know that I have to do God's will, and so I will do it." He would say to them, "Go back; for I am seeking only those who love My will, not those who serve merely through fear or compulsion." Those who take a stand with Christ must burn all the bridges behind them when they enter the narrow way. They are to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Only such will constitute the Bride class.
"THE FATHER HIMSELF LOVETH YOU."
It is only after we have received the begetting of the Holy Spirit that we are privileged to say, "Our Father which art in Heaven." The world cannot call God their Father, but through our Redeemer the Church has this privilege. And so the Apostle says, "Now are we the sons of God." (1 John 3:1,2.) But as such, we are not free from the aches and pains incident to the groaning creation. While in the flesh we must suffer, but still we are the sons of God, in the sense that we have the begetting of the Holy Spirit. In the resurrection change, however, we shall really be the children of God.
By nature we were children of Adam, condemned to death in him. But when in our consecration we gave up everything pertaining to the human nature, our Lord received us and made us acceptable to the Father, who then begot us with His Holy Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, "Abba, Father!" This is a blessed position; for our Heavenly Father is in perfection what earthly parents should be. He has made every provision for us. Our Lord Jesus is simply carrying out our Father's plan.
[CR500]
God's Way Vs. Man's Way
Norfolk, Sunday Morning, July 30, 1916.
(This discourse came too late to go in regular order in the report, but will be highly prized nevertheless, not only because of the talk itself, but especially because Brother Russell seemed very weary and tired when he delivered it, and therefore it was like coming out of the very furnace.) MY text for this morning, dear friends, is "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, yet the end thereof is death." (Prov. 14:12.) These words were evidently not spoken to the church, but to the world. We are not to suppose that the world is choosing the way that it is taking with intelligence and with premeditation to take a wrong way, but rather, as the Wise Man here declares, the way the world is taking is a way that seemeth right to them. It is to the Christian that the Word of God reveals the fact that the world is taking the wrong way and explains to us why the world takes that wrong way. The Apostle Paul tells us that the god of this world has received our first parents and deceived the whole race, and that the whole world of mankind therefore is blinded by Satan. He says the god of this world hath blinded the minds of those who do not believe.
This is the most charitable view we can take of the world's condition, and the Scriptural view, the proper view. It gives us a great deal of sympathy with the world, and we believe God has a great deal of sympathy for the world. And you and I have a great deal of sympathy for the world and the condition in which we were before we found the Lord and before we got into the narrow way, before we got to understand the better things. In other words, dear friends, the Bible gives us through the truth and the spirit of the truth what the Bible calls the spirit of a sound mind. We are better able to understand ourselves and all our neighbors and friends and relatives than we ever were before, and day by day as we grow in grace and knowledge, in this intelligence, in this enlightenment from the Lord, it enables us to appreciate the things about us and take a proper view of all life's affairs.
According to the Bible, Father Adam was not born in the blemished, fallen condition in which we are, in which the whole race of today is. He was perfect, in the image, in the likeness of God, a grand man--no bias, no tendency toward sin, no imperfection of judgment, no misunderstanding which should be the right and the proper way. Everything was clear and plain before him. He knew the right from the wrong because he was perfect and in God's image and likeness. He could discern the right from the wrong, not from experience, but from that perfection of His being. And so Father Adam in His likeness was fully competent to know the good from the evil. But we perceive according to the Bible that a certain temptation came over Father Adam, a temptation to take his own way, a temptation to not look to the Lord for guidance, and this temptation came through his very best friend, his wife, Mother Eve having been deceived of the Adversary. We are told that Adam was not deceived. Adam knew that it was wrong to disobey God, and Adam knew that the penalty of the disobedience would be what God had specified,--not eternal torment, but death--"Dying thou shalt die." He knew that. He was not deceived, St. Paul says. Why then did he choose the wrong course? Well, he found that his only suitable companion in life, his wife, bone of his bone, sympathetic in every particular, a perfect woman, had been deceived into sin, and that she therefore was liable to the penalty of death, and Father Adam seems to have concluded that life was not worth anything to him after that and he would just as soon die as not. He had lost the very one in whom he had a very great deal of comfort and consolation and fellowship. "Let me die. I know the penalty is death, but I will take that course, believing that would be preferable to living without my companion." We see the mistake that he made, that he should have had confidence in God. Yet nevertheless we see that he was not deceived. He took the course intelligently. He took the wrong course and thus started himself in what the Bible terms the broad road to destruction. He was 930 years on that broad road going down gradually in weakness of mind and of body until his death, as far as he could go on the broad road--destruction, death. And his children--all of his children were born we see on that plane of destruction, that broad road, born in sin, misshapen in iniquity is the Scriptural proposition, and you and I know of our own share in this imperfection, and all of mankind, sixteen hundred millions living today that are in this broad road that leadeth to destruction, down to death. We were started in this way by our Father Adam. The world did not know of any other way because there was no way opened up, no way of life opened up during the more than four thousand years between the time of Adam and the time of Jesus. There was an opening offered to the Jewish people and to them alone that if they would do the impossible thing then they might escape from that broad road of destruction. But the impossible thing offered to them was the keeping of the law, impossible to them because of their imperfection, because they were imperfectly born human beings. They could not therefore keep God's perfect law, which is the measure of a perfect man's ability. A perfect man could do no more than keep that law, and no imperfect man could do enough to keep that law.
And so the Jews, although they thought they had found a way to life, found it to be, as the Apostle says, a way to death too. And so the first opening up of this good way to life was that which Jesus brought to light. He brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, the Bible says. It was the first time that it had ever been brought to light. People might have hoped for it. Plato had speculated about immortality, but there was no light in any of those suggestions. The one who brought it to light was Jesus, and He brought life and immortality to light through the message that eventually all the families of the earth would be benefitted by the sacrifice He offered, and the message that the church now being called out might be partakers of the divine nature,--glory, honor and immortality. Thus He brought life for the world in general to light, and immortality to light as the reward of those who would be faithful in following Him. And this way that Jesus opened up and that Jesus walked, the first one to walk this way--this way is called the Narrow Way. It is thus distinguished from the broad road. It leads off in a different direction. The broad road was a downward road, an easy road, and it is a way which seemeth right to man. They do what they think is right.
"Well," you say, "how can they say it is right to do those things?" Well, my dear brother, the world reasons that life is to be enjoyed, and that it is their duty to enjoy [CR501] themselves, and because their minds are perverted through sin, therefore some take pleasure in the enjoyment of cheating others, seeing if they can get more, either by a game of cards or business of some kind, seeing if they can take advantage of other men and get more, and it seemeth right to the world. And so you see people boasting of how much more they have got than other people and how quickly they got it, and sometimes boasting of the rather shady means of getting it. Nevertheless it seems right to them. Selfishness has come to seem right, whereas according to the divine standard love and benevolence would be the right.
Then it seemeth right to men to seek pleasure in sensual enjoyments of various kinds. They say, "Why live always doleful and in sorrow? We are going to live to enjoy our lives." So the way they take seemeth right unto them, but they are all conscious of the fact they are dying, and that many of the ways they think are right and ways of pleasure are ways that lead down all the more quickly into sin, to corruption, to death. But now comes in Jesus and this new message of His respecting a different way, a way altogether different from the way of the world. And so those who become the Lord's followers have the message through Jesus, saying, "Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." You have left the worldly path. You are not walking with the world. As my disciples you have entered this straight gate and narrow way. You have turned aside from the world. And the Lord said there would be special blessings upon these who have turned aside, because the way He opened up is a day that leadeth to glory, honor and immortality, to the divine nature, to all the precious things God has to give to those who love Him most and whom He loves most.
And so, dear friends, we are here today as Bible students, as Christians, as those who have left the world, left the broad road, and have taken this narrow way, not seeking or leaning to our own understanding, to be guided by our own wisdom, but seeking, as the Bible suggests, the wisdom which cometh from above, "first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits." This is what we are seeking. This is the course we have taken. And the Master tells us how we entered in and the only way to enter in. "If any man will be my disciple--" This is what we want to do. Disciple means follower; a follower in the footsteps of Jesus was one that walked this narrow way, and you and I want to be His disciples. We want to go where He went, to do as He did, and walk in His footsteps. So He says: "If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself." That is the narrow gate you see--self-denial right in the front. You can't get on the narrow way until you enter through the narrow gate. "Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Yes, not very many have even heard about it. Millions on millions before Jesus' day never heard about this narrow way. Out of the sixteen hundred millions of the world's population of today hundreds of millions have never heard about the narrow way. And right in Norfolk and in Brooklyn and in every part of this most favored land there are millions of people that do not understand about this narrow way. And how have we been so fortunate that we have heard about it? Well, my dear friends, the Bible tells us there has been a special blessing come to us if we have got to the point where we can see and hear. "Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear," said Jesus, and we see, my dear brethren, we understand that a great blessing has come to us through this knowledge of the narrow way. We received a great blessing because we did see and hear and understand about the narrow way, and because our hearts were in that condition that we were satisfied to leave our own way and the way of the world, to leave all else that we might seek to come into harmony with the will of God. Blessed are all such hearts that are hungering or thirsting after righteousness, after the things that are right and true and the things God approves. Oh, blessed are they. If they hear then the knowledge, the hearing, the understanding coming to such means a wonderful blessing. But it would be just as well for the world in general that they do not hear; it would be just as well for the world that they do not see; and therefore God in His kindness has left the world in a measure of blindness and deafness as respects the things of this present time, because to hear and understand and yet to be in a wrong condition of heart and mind would make them more responsible.
Just as Jesus said about some in His day, you remember, who had become His disciples. They had heard His preaching and had certain blessings more than the remainder of mankind. Jesus said, "Woe unto you." "Woe unto you" doesn't mean "eternal torment unto you" nor "roasting unto you." No, my dear brethren, we are learning to read and study our Bible better than we once did. When Jesus said "Woe unto you," it means it is to your disadvantage. "Woe unto you, Bethsaida, and woe unto you, Chorazin, for if the mighty works that have been done in you had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah they would have remained unto this day." You have had the knowledge; you have had the opportunity, and you have a responsibility therefor, and it means more woe unto you, more disadvantage unto you than if you had not had that knowledge. And so with the whole world--we believe that the world is really advantaged in that God is not allowing them to see more than they are in a condition to appreciate and use properly. And so God is still permitting the god of this world to blind the minds and hearts of mankind in general that they should not understand these things until God's due time. In the meantime, during the Gospel Age, during these nineteen centuries nearly since the days of Jesus, this people that the Lord has been gathering out, this little flock, this special class who have the hearing ear, who have the understanding ear and who have an appreciative heart and the responsive heart--or, blessed are your eyes that they see and your ears that they hear, what a wonderful favor you enjoy! But you say, how? Oh, my dear brethren, because it is in this present time the Lord is making up these special jewels, the church class, those who are to be joint heirs with the Lord Jesus in all the glories of His kingdom, and in all the greatness of His high exaltation to the divine nature. These are to be the bride class, joint heirs with Him. "If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him, if we be dead with Him we shall also live with Him."
"But," you say, "what do you mean by suffering and dying? Why not talk more about the narrow way?" Ah, that is it, my dear brethren; the narrow way is the way of suffering, of dying. That is the only way to come into God's special favor at the present time. All those who would now come under the call of the Gospel Age must come by way of the cross, by way of the death of the flesh, must come by way of self-sacrifice. There is no other way, and that is the reason it is called a narrow way. "Well," you say, "why should God make a way so narrow?" Well, my brother, look at the case of Jesus. Why did the Father make His way so narrow? Did He not travel a narrow way? Why did He have such a narrow way? Because it was to be a special test to Him of His loyalty and of His obedience, even unto death, even the death of the cross. "But why make it such a hard way for Jesus?" Well, my dear brother, our Heavenly Father, according to His word intended to make this Son, this Messiah, exceeding great, to exalt Him. He wanted one to be on the divine plane with Himself and He wanted that one should be tested to the very utmost in every particular and prove His loyalty. "Well, but, Brother Russell, if Jesus was part of the Trinity then--" Oh, my brother, not a word in the Bible about Jesus being part of the Trinity or being a part of any trinity at all. That was made up in the Dark Ages and we must leave that out, and leave out the thought about Jesus being His own father and His own son at the same time, all those nonsensical things that have confused our minds. We must take the word of God in its simplicity and what it says.
So Jesus having proven himself obedient to the Father's will even unto death. Him hath the Father highly exalted and given a name above every name, a reward surely for His obedience to the Father's will. And so, my brother, we see why there was such a narrow way in Jesus' case. The Father would show to all the holy angels that this one He had highly exalted far above angels had a real strength of character, and had demonstrated that character, and was therefore-- oh "wherefore also (because of His obedience) God hath highly exalted Him." There is a reason for it all. God does everything according to a reason, and He wishes His people to see the reason for directing the divine course, that He is altogether just as well as loving in all His arrangements. And now the Father wants a bride class for His son on the highest plane of nature, the divine nature, far above angels, and each one to be received unto that divine plane must demonstrate his loyalty unto God and the principles for which God stands, the principles of righteousness. He must demonstrate [CR502] this even unto death. That is it, my brother, and that is why it is such a narrow way, and that is why this is the only way open. God is merely thus far seeking for and finding the elect, the church of the living God, the first borns of His creatures.
And then, my brother, as soon as this little flock shall have been finished, what will its mission be? Oh, the Bible says that the church with the Lord is to constitute the class that will set up the great government of God in the world. And so Jesus said, you remember, "Fear not, little flock,--" the little flock that seeks and finds the narrow way and is faithful in walking in the narrow way after entering the narrow gate of full consecration--"fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." "Give us the kingdom?" Yes, give us the kingdom. "What kingdom?" Oh, my dear brother, I need not tell these Bible students here gathered what kingdom. In speaking to an audience of the world or the nominal church it would be very necessary to expatiate on what kingdom it is, for alas! The great plan of God has been so misrepresented that a great many people have no knowledge as to what the Bible says about the great kingdom of God. I will not take time to discuss this with this audience.
In our program today it is government day, and we are of those who are being, we trust, prepared to be the government of God, the kingdom of God, to establish the rule of righteousness in the world. Six thousand years ago when sin entered the world God gave the world over and let them take their course, merely putting a sentence of death upon them, merely supervising since and seeing that they shall die and not be permitted to go to any extremes that would interfere with the divine program in the end. But all the while God has purposed this matter of the setting up of His kingdom in the hands of Messiah, and Messiah was selected for this very purpose, and the church is being selected to be His associates in this kingdom. All this we see most clearly portrayed in the word of God. And now then this is the government God is to set up, the great fifth universal empire. God allowed the Gentiles to set up various kingdoms and see what they could do in the way of bringing in a reign of righteousness. And indeed, my dear brethren, I think we should not misunderstand the world, for I believe the world has been trying and trying hard to see what they could do in the way of bringing in a good government. As I look back and see what the Bible tells us about Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom and how he tried to rule the world well, I admire Nebuchadnezzar and his endeavor. He made his mistakes, but evidently he was trying to do well. Think of a great king of unlimited power practically and how he took from the captives of other nations, there was Daniel, among others, and because he found him favorable, Daniel was exalted to a high place in that kingdom. How few other kings in the world, in history or in our day, would take any captive, and though he was a foreigner they would find a good spirit in him--how few of them would exalt him to a place of being the chief president in all their empire? And the same thing with the Medes and Persians, the next great universal kingdom. They found Daniel and found him a man of high station, and what did they do? They had the same great dreads and sentiments, and King Darius wanted the noblest man he could find to be the head president in all his empire. Daniel was chosen. He wasn't a Mede either, or a Persian. He was a Jew. But there was nothing in this to hinder him from being taken into the very highest confidence of the king, showing that King Darius was anxious to establish a good and fair and just government. And so all the way down I can see that there was a principle running through these different governments of men. They were not intent upon doing all the harm they could to the people, but apparently intent upon showing how wisely they could run and govern the world, and yet all their rulers and all their governments were imperfect and sinful and unsatisfactory, and God in allowing these governments their day and their way for a time was only allowing them to demonstrate that all it was possible for imperfect men to do was to make an imperfect government that eventually would deteriorate more and more and lead to their own fall.
And now see in the last of these governments, the Roman empire and its present representatives in Europe, God is allowing men the conclusion of this great lesson, that having had all the experience of six thousand years in the past, they are still imperfect, and although we will suppose that these kings, of Germany and of Russia and of Great Britain, and so forth, all these kings are wishing to do for the best interests of their people, yet we see how blind they are and what terrible suffering they are bringing upon the people through their blindness and ignorance, etc. And you and I and all people more and more will be getting to feel that these are all unsatisfactory governments, and every time we find out the best man can do for himself in the way of government, the more we are ready to look unto the Lord and realize as the Bible teaches that only God is able to establish the great righteous government that will be the desire of all people. And that is what God has declared He intends to do. This is the great government of God.
He will not establish this government directly, but He will give to Jesus the great work of governing the world. He already has given him the privilege of being the redeemer of men, and has thus brought, not merely for the recovery of the church from sin and death, but also for the recovery of the whole world of mankind, the settlement of the sins of the whole world. "Jesus Christ by the grace of God tasted death for every man." And every man is to have his privilege out of that death, and so we see, my dear brethren, that God's arrangement is nearing now this grand consummation, when Jesus having selected His church and finally glorified His church in the first resurrection, will then be ready to ask of the Father that which the Father has already promised He will give to him, saying "Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession," as written in the second Psalm. So all the people are to be turned over to Him who bought the whole world with His own precious blood. He will be empowered of God and will be backed by the divine authority in establishing God's government in the world.
"Then," you say, "Brother Russell, how about the narrow and broad roads?" Oh, my brother, it is all going to be changed then. The prince of this world who now has to do with the broad road and blinding those who are going down that broad road to destruction, the Bible tells us he is to be bound for that thousand years that he may deceive the people no more. They will not then make mistakes bye and bye about the way that seemeth right to man. No. They will begin to learn by that time that these ways which seemed right to them are all unsatisfactory, that only the way of God will be the satisfactory way, and the Messiah and His kingdom will make this known to all mankind. "The knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth as the waters cover the great deep." The knowledge of the glory of God, says the prophet. And then what? Then the broad road to destruction will be changed? How so? Because it is a broad road now that leads down to destruction because it is easy. You can run down, can slide down, slip down, any way you want to go down. All the tendencies are downward. Well, what will change it? Oh, Messiah's kingdom will change it. Instead of being a way that leads down, the road will turn and lead up. You can't slip down a road that leads up. The road is going to lead up after that. It is going to be a highway. How do you know? Because the Lord has told us so, you remember, through the Prophet: "A highway shall be there." There. Where? There. Where is there? Oh, there under Messiah's kingdom. Not now under the kingdom of the prince of darkness. There is a broad road leading downward now, but bye and bye that will all be changed. Nobody will be allowed to slip down any more in ignorance and superstition and misunderstanding and thinking that it is a right way he is taking when it is a wrong way, because all the blind eyes shall be opened and all the deaf ears shall be unstopped and the knowledge of God's glory shall fill the whole earth. "And a highway shall be there and the redeemed of the Lord shall go up thereon." Not down. Well, what does that mean? Is that a narrow way? Oh, no, my brother, the narrow way is only for this Gospel Age to test those who will be selected to be the bride class. It is not intended that the world shall go in a narrow way. You couldn't get the whole world to go in that narrow way. No. God doesn't want the world to be put under those tests. That was a special test for those that will be partakers of the divine nature. It is a very necessary test for them. But when they all shall have been perfected and that select company shall be completed, the narrow way will be no longer. They will no longer find it necessary to suffer for righteousness' sake. All through the millennium nobody will have to walk a narrow way and suffer for right doing. Instead of suffering for right doing they will be blessed for right doing. They will be going up [CR503] in restitution and getting more and more God's favor as they seek to do the right things under the guidance of Messiah's kingdom.
And what about those not willing to go up? They will be the ones to get the stripes and that will suffer. Now you know it is different. Whosoever will live godly in this present time will suffer persecution, will suffer for righteousness' sake, but all that will end when this age ends, and when Messiah's kingdom shall be inaugurated all those who do righteousness shall get blessings of body and mind and shall go up on the highway of holiness. And they will want to go up. Mankind will want to do right. The way they take now is one which seemeth right unto them. They are deceived by the Adversary, but bye and bye the Adversary will be bound and he will deceive them no more. The right way will be manifested, the way of righteousness, the Golden Rule of the Lord's kingdom. That will be seen to be the right way, and I believe, my dear brethren, that the great mass of mankind would rather be right than be wrong at this very moment, and that they all really appreciate the Golden Rule, though they think it is an impracticable rule. And it is pretty near impracticable at the present time, but under Messiah's kingdom the Golden Rule will be the most practicable rule that could be and everybody will get a blessing out of it, and everybody that ignores that Golden Rule will get stripes, adversity. He will be in trouble. It will be the evil doer that will have the trouble bye and bye, and all well doers will have the blessing of the Lord that maketh rich, and He will add no sorrow thereto.
So, my dear brethren, this is God's great kingdom and plan, and we are in a certain part of this plan. We are the ones who are privileged to have the opportunity of following in the footsteps of the Master in the narrow way. Oh, what a privilege and favor we have! Nothing like it ever offered to the angels! And I feel sure from what the Apostle writes about the angels desiring to look into these things, I feel sure that the angels who are watching us in the narrow way feel that--"Oh, if we had the privilege that those human beings have! Oh, if we had the opportunity of walking in the narrow way and suffering for right doing and seeking to manifest our loyalty!" But God didn't give it to them. They cannot become members of the bride class. And then as we look back to the past age and see manifested the faithfulness of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Noah, David and Enoch and the Prophets and others who were not prophets in humble walks of life, and see what they endured for righteousness' sake, oh, we say--fine, splendid characters they were; how we admire them! And did they have a chance to enter the narrow way? No. No narrow way open then. They could not get in. But they have this testimony, that they pleased God. Although He hadn't opened up the way and they could not walk in this narrow way and could not be members of the bride class, yet God has some very special reward for them, as the Apostle points out in the last two verses of the 11th chapter of Hebrews, a very special place reserved for them. We are glad for them.
And then we say to ourselves, we who have this privilege now, and we who can look back and see the faithfulness of those in the past, "What manner of persons ought we to be in all manner of holy conversation and godliness" and seeking to please our Heavenly Father? With what choice we should run in this narrow way.
"CONCLUDING REMARKS."
And now, my dear brethren and sisters, we have been here some of us for a week considering these very things, and communing together respecting the narrow way, and respecting the conditions, and respecting what the Lord would be pleased with in us, and I am sure from what I have heard that you have had a splendid time, a soul-refreshing season, and I am glad for it. And now we are about to separate, and we are hoping that these valuable lessons will not be lost, that they are not merely for the moment or days in which they were heard, but that they have taken a deep place in our hearts, and we are more and more determined by the grace of God we will show our Heavenly Father and Savior how much we appreciate the things they have done for us, this privilege of the narrow way and the high calling in Christ Jesus. And more than this, I trust as we go to our homes and meet with others not privileged to be at this convention that our hearts will overflow as we tell of the good things and great joy to others, and tell about these things we have been thinking about, and about our good resolutions, and thus seek to make the cruise of oil run over and over, and thus the Lord's name be glorified in us and in the Lord's people wherever we go.
I trust, my dear brethren, that I am expressing your sentiments in these words when I say that we have been very kindly entertained by the people of this city, giving us something in the way of accommodations, and in this very beautiful theater, very quiet, splendid place to have a convention, comparatively cool too. And I want to express on your behalf what I know to be your sentiments, and that while you are appreciative of this invitation, and while the people of this city may have had more or less of a selfish feeling in connection with the invitation, nevertheless we appreciate that all that comes to us is because we realize that all things are from our Father, and we are desirous of being appreciative of even the agencies He is using in sending blessings to us.
Furthermore, we want to express to the dear ones of the local class of Bible students our appreciation of their kindness and their various endeavors to make this convention a success. And so I am sure I express the sentiment of you all when I say to those of the local class that we do appreciate very highly the things they have done to make our little stay with them, happifying and pleasurable, to make this convention a success, the spiritual success which it has been. May the Lord's blessings be with the local class, and as they have sought to give blessing to others, may the Lord's blessing be with them.
And now, brethren, the final feature of the convention is before us--the love feast. A love feast is accompanied with a loaf of bread which is a picture to us that we are feasting upon something, and so the Lord is spoken of as being the bread which came down from heaven, and the truth is spoken of as being that which assists us in life. And now we have been here feasting together, and we are about to depart, and the proposition is that those who have spoken from the platform will arrange themselves along in front and those who desire to say good-bye will have the privilege of so doing.
GONE HOME
Gone Home! To be forever with the Lord,
White-robed and clothed with Immortality;
Beholding face to face Jehovah God!
Gone Home! All sorrow, pain and anguish left
Behind. 'Tis finished, all the sacrifice,
And faithful unto death he hears, "Well done,
Come, enter thou into the promised joy!"
What message would "our shepherd" send to us?
To all who wait this side the parting vail?
"Be brave, be strong, weep not, have faith in God,
The fields are white to Harvest, go ye forth,
And, even as our Master said, 'Lo I
Am with you always, even to the end,'
So shall my loving presence go with you,
Until ye, too, shall hear His sweet 'Well done.'
So shall there be one shepherd and one flock,
And all rejoice together with the Lord."
Nov. 21, 1916.
GERTRUDE W. SEIBERT.
(This poem was written two hours after notice of Brother Russell's death.)
[CR504]
PASTOR RUSSELL PASSES THROUGH THE
GATES OF GLORY
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1916
PASTOR RUSSELL BEYOND THE VEIL
We were startled early Tuesday morning by being shown a newspaper reporting the death of Pastor Russell the day before. Later we received a telegram from Bro. Sturgeon to arrange for the transfer of the body from one station in Chicago to another. This was enough to prove conclusively that the early newspaper report was correct.
We at once made the necessary arrangements for the transfer of the body and also decided to accompany the remains to New York, and also to be with our dear Bro. Sturgeon on the balance of his sad journey. The strain upon him had been a hard one, and we were glad to be with him.
Having followed Pastor Russell in life, in the sense that we have always recognized him as the chosen leader by our Lord, and in the sense of following him, even as he followed Christ, we were glad to follow him in death through the various funeral services, and finally to the tomb, the last resting place of his mortal remains.
It is our determination, by the Lord's grace, to still follow him in glory, for we realize that he has now attained that for which he was apprehended, having received the glory, honor and immortality of the divine nature, and to which we too may attain, if faithful unto death.
We would be pleased to include the proceedings in this report of the funerals, etc., but as the Dec. 1st issue of the Watch Tower will give all this information in detail, we do not feel it necessary to repeat it here.
However, on Sunday night, Nov. 12th, the Chicago Class held a Memorial Service, at which it was my privilege to speak, and as many have requested a copy of it, I include it in this 1916 Report as the tribute of respect from the Chicago Church to the memory of Pastor Russell.
Synopsis of Remarks of Bro. MacMillan at the New York City Temple,
Sunday Morning, Nov. 5, 1916
DEAR friends, I feel quite sure that I am speaking for the dear ones gathered here when I say that the English language contains no words to express our feelings at the present time. Our minds have been perplexed. We have been happy; we have been sad; We have been solemn; we have been glad. We realize that the dearest friend that we have had on earth has been taken away from us, and our dear Heavenly Father who doeth all things well, took him at the proper time. And still we wonder whether his work has been finished on earth or not. We wonder as to who will carry on the unfinished work; how will it be done; will the Bethel and the Tabernacle continue as in the past?
I am very glad, dear friends, to be able to make a few explanations at this time to perhaps relieve your minds and comfort your hearts. We know that all this work has been directed of the Lord. When the due time came to accomplish a certain work in the end of this age, as our dear Redeemer informed us, a servant would be raised up and would be put over that work. We have no doubt concerning who that servant was and concerning the work that was done under his direction. We have no doubt as to who is acting at the present time as President of these United States, because we know who is presiding over the Union. In the same sense we could have no doubt as to whom the Lord has selected to be His servant to direct His work in this harvest time, for the dear one who did it so wonderfully well has been known to us all and loved dearly by every one of us.
To convince you that he was aware that the end was quite near, I will say that some months ago, after the Newport convention, our dear brother was very ill, but loyal and courageous as always he would not admit it. But his poor weak body would not respond to his determined mind. He had remained in his study for three days. On the fourth day he called me up, and came up out of his study and asked me a very strange question. He said, "Brother, are you as deeply interested in the truth as you were in the past?" I looked in astonishment. He said, "Brother, I am asking you a leading question." He proceeded to talk about the work. He went into the various details of it. He was talking in particular about the smiting of the Jordan, which was so prominent a thought in his mind and so thoroughly possessed his very being. And he outlined the work in a general way and in conclusion asked me if I would like to come to the Bethel and be closely associated with the work there. The matter so overwhelmed me that I felt very timid about the reply. He said, "Go ask the Lord and give me your reply." And in process of time, through striking circumstances, I was led to believe it was the best thing to come to the Bethel.
He told me he was convinced his strength was ebbing away. He was so thoroughly weakened as a result of that spell after the Newport convention. He said, "Nevertheless, I have the work all organized and want it to go on, and I know it will." And a strange thing occurred--at least strange to my mind, when he was leaving on his last trip. We had a conversation the night before concerning various interests of the work. He asked me if I had any suggestions to make to improve the service at the Tabernacle and Bethel. He said he had not given the matter as close attention in the past year as in former years. And now, he says, surely a great work was about to be done. And I suggested what I thought would be a help.
On the morning he left he made a few brief remarks at the table, saying he would be away for a time and if nothing fails would get back to speak in the Temple, Sunday evening, November 5. He arose from the table and dismissed the friends with no further explanation. Immediately I said to him, "Brother Russell, didn't you forget something?" "No, brother, I have that all fixed." He passed me a bundle of letters, copies of letters, written to various brethren who were the heads of the various departments. As I read them over I was amazed at the wisdom that was displayed in the arrangement of the home and office. He invited me to accompany him to the depot in the taxi he rode over in. I told him what I thought about it. He said, "Brother, nobody can do anything without organization. We have one now, and the work should go on better than ever before."
So, dear friends, the one the Lord has placed over the work has gone, but he is still busy and not idle, for the Lord says that the works of those who die in the Lord follow with them. We are to continue the work he so wonderfully carried on. The only change will be this: instead of taking matters to our dear Brother Russell now to straighten out various details as in the past, we will now have to go to the Lord with our sorrows and troubles and perplexities. The arrangements concerning the Watch Tower will be announced [CR505] later. Sufficient matter has been prepared by our dear Brother Russell to keep the Tower running for a number of years. So we see, dear friends, how the Lord foresaw this and made every necessary arrangement. All that remains to be done now is to have the friends continue to co-operate with the arrangements left by our dear brother and that have been overruled by our "Daniel."
I am sure from now on things will be rather strange. But, dear friends, you and I are confronted with a serious proposition. You must accept one of two things: either that it was a mistake--that we cannot accept--or that our beloved Pastor's work on earth has ended and that we as members of the Body of Christ have been borne by him until he was taken up higher and the work remaining to be done must be done by those instructed and helped by our dear brother. That very statement was made by him before he died: "Others will smite the Jordan and others will carry on the work."
Dear friends, I feel sure if there ever was a time to renew our determination it is at this very moment. Our Leader is not taken. Our earthly leader is gone. We will not lay down now. This is no time for that. This is the time for fortitude and courage and determination, to go on and complete the work, because we realize it is the Lord's work, and thus we will respect the wishes and memory of our dearly beloved Pastor.
We should not be surprised as we contemplate the situation now. The Lord tells us through the prophet (Zech. 13:7), "Awake O sword against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts; smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones." You remember our dear Redeemer quoted that (Matt. 26:31), saying, "Ye shall all be offended because of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad." Oh, how perplexed and disheartened and sad the poor disciples were when the Shepherd was smitten! Why were they perplexed, sad and disheartened? Because the Lord said they would be scattered. And now, dear friends, the man that was his fellow (fellow-servant) has been taken away by the Lord. Are we to be scattered? No. Because the hand of Jehovah is to rest over the little ones at this time. There is no doubt, I am sure, in our hearts concerning the glorious consummation of the work so nobly begun and carried on on time.
[CR505]
(Clipping from Pittsburgh Sunday, Nov. 6, 1916)
PASTOR RUSSELL HONORED AT BIER BY FOLLOWERS--Hundreds Attend Service for
Prominent Bible Exponent in Northside Carnegie Hall--Many from other cities.
Followers of C.T. Russell, internationally known as "Pastor" Russell, gathered in the Northside Carnegie hall today, for funeral services of the celebrated Bible student. The assembly in the music hall was one of the greatest demonstrations seen here at the bier of a public character.
The body of the writer and lecturer, whose followers throughout the world are said to number 200,000, lay in state from 11 to 1 o'clock, the arrangements having been carried out by the Pittsburgh branch of the International Bible Students' Association. At 2 o'clock the services began. The hall was packed to capacity.
Representatives of "Pastor" Russell's congregations from all parts of the United States were present at the services. A large number arrived here this morning from New York, forming an escort following the services held yesterday in the New York City Temple.
The body of the founder of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society and its offshoot, the International Bible Students' Association, lay on a flower-banked bier in the hall while hundreds of friends and admirers passed in line. The huge organ was half-concealed by ferns, palms and floral tributes. Many floral remembrances came from towns within a radius of 100 miles from Pittsburgh. With these were [CR506] assembled many of the pieces that were used at the services in New York yesterday.
"Blessed Be the Tie That Binds" opened the services. Charles A. Saunders of the Pittsburgh congregation led in prayer. R.H. Bricker of the Pittsburgh congregation read from the Scriptures, and "Sun of My Soul" followed. Dr. W.E. Spill, assistant pastor of the Pittsburgh congregation, spoke. He was followed by Pastor Monta Sturgeon, pastor of the New York congregation, of the International Bible Students' Association.
SERVICES IMPRESSIVE.
Charles H. Stewart offered prayer, and a closing hymn, "Abide, Sweet Spirit," was sung.
The pallbearers were selected from the elders and deacons of the Pittsburgh congregation. They included R. H. Bricker, Samuel McComb, E. F. Williams, W. H. Moore, Charles A. Saunders and Joseph Clarkson.
Honorary pallbearers were: Dr. W. E. Spill, J. V. Causer, Thomas Good, George Wazenegger, James Hottenbaugh, Charles H. Stewart, Edward Mauer, George A. Bohnet, E. M. Whan, E. W. Kelb and W. E. Coates, all of whom are elders of the Pittsburgh congregation of the International Bible Students' Association.
Following the services the funeral cortege, 60 automobiles and two special street cars, carried the friends of the late pastor to the United Cemeteries, West View.
In the New York delegation were Pastor P. S. L. Johnson, Pastor J. G. Kuehne, Pastor A. Bauerlein, Pastor I. F. Hoskins, Pastor A. E. Pearson, Pastor A. H. Macmillan, Pastor William Hersu of Ontario, Can., and Pastor Sturgeon. Other representatives included E. V. Kuehne, of Detroit, Dr. W. L. Jones, of Chicago and Horace Blinn, of Cincinnati.
Dr. Spill was in charge of arrangements with Pastor Sturgeon, of New York, who was with Pastor Russell when he died last Tuesday on his way from the west. Dr. Spill was assisted by R. H. Bricker and Samuel McComb.
LONG ACTIVE IN RELIGION.
Pastor Russell, a Pittsburgher, came into prominence in 1881 when the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was incorporated. For several years before that time he had become known for his addresses and interpretations of the Scriptures. He removed the headquarters of his organization from here to Brooklyn in 1909, and congregations sprung up all over the country under the stimulus of his lectures and widespread publicity.
In Pittsburgh The International Bible Students' Association was incorporated with Pastor Russell at the head for promulgating Bible study and Bible truth. This association branched out until congregations have been organized all over the country.
Among the tributes to the memory of Pastor Russell was the following from D. Herradora, a Spaniard in the Pittsburgh congregation:
"The International Bible Students' Association from the four quarters of the globe, while missing his Christian fellowship and presence, rejoice nevertheless for his meeting with the Lord. He was exalted as the prophetically and divinely appointed teacher of the truth. He leaves his followers to continue faithfully the Christian gleanings of the harvest work."
[CR507]
Memorial Services, Metropolitan Auditorium,
Chicago, Nov. 12, 1916, in Memory of
Pastor Russell, by Dr. L. W. Jones.
FRIENDS: We have met here this evening to pay a tribute of respect to the memory of a great man; a man who was loyal to God even unto death, who laid down his life in the service of his fellowmen: THE GREATEST MAN THAT HAS WALKED THE FACE OF THIS EARTH SINCE THE DAYS OF THE APOSTLE PAUL.
I refer to none other than the late Pastor Russell, who finished his earthly pilgrimage on Tuesday, October 31, and whose earthly remains were laid to rest in the United Cemeteries at Pittsburgh, Pa., Monday, November 6th.
A strong statement, you are making, says someone, when you say that he was the greatest man that has walked the face of this earth since the days of the Apostle Paul.
Yes, it is a strong statement, but none too strong, and it is borne out by thousands who knew him best.
Pastor Russell had his enemies, as have all great men, and as did our Lord Jesus, the Apostle Paul and all who uncover error and proclaim the Truth. This, too, is born out by the Scripture which says, "If any man will live godly in Christ Jesus, he shall suffer persecution." Nevertheless, we have the further consoling testimony from the Bible, that, "If we suffer with him, we shall reign with him."
Those who read carefully after Pastor Russell and get the benefit of the pure atmosphere into which he leads them, need not be told that the many vile printed and pulpit attacks are wholly false and merely the desperate efforts of opponents whose nefarious schemes to keep the people in ignorance on the truth on all subjects Pastor Russell so fearlessly and thoroughly exposed.
It is for this reason that millions of newspaper readers enjoyed Pastor Russell's pen products and are not being influenced by any of the so-called news reports with scare-headlines, some of which, if even partially true, would have sent Pastor Russell to prison long ago; but the fact is that not a soul on earth has the slightest cause for grievance against Pastor Russell, except that he has been telling the common people truths the clergy wished them not to know.
Already clergymen and some others are predicting that the propaganda in which Pastor Russell was so interested, now that he is dead, would come to naught.
We wish to say right here that the message that Pastor Russell proclaimed was not his message, but the message of the Lord, and it will never die, but as Jehovah God himself says in His word, "My word which proceedeth out of my mouth shall not return unto me void, but accomplish that which I please and prosper in the thing where unto I sent it."
No, the great message of Pastor Russell, that of the imminence of the setting up of Messiah's Kingdom, will not fail, but will go on to a glorious consummation.
Pastor Russell breathed his last at 2:30 P.M., Tuesday afternoon, October 31st, 1916, in the state of Texas in drawing-room "A" of sleeping car "Roseisle," of a Santa Fe train, while enroute on his return trip from Los Angeles, California, to Brooklyn, N.Y., where he was to have preached in the New York Temple Sunday night, November 5th.
This last trip of the Pastor's began about two weeks prior to his death. As usual he had various appointments along the route of travel, in answer to various invitations to speak at Bible Students' gatherings.
After leaving Brooklyn on this last trip, his first meeting was at Lansing, Mich. From there he departed for Springfield, Ill., but on account of a freight train wreck was delayed, and missing that appointment proceeded to Dallas, Texas, where he spoke several times before a convention there in session. From thence he went to Galveston, Texas, speaking in the morning and afternoon, and then to Houston, Texas, where he again spoke that same day for over two hours more.
These two days seemed to be too strenuous for him, for, upon arriving at San Antonio the next day, he was obliged to remain in his bed all day, delegating someone else to fill both his forenoon and afternoon appointments.
When evening came, he felt that he must deliver his address to the public, who were assembled in large numbers in the most beautiful theater in San Antonio.
Pastor Russell evidently realized his weakness, because he requested Brother Sturgeon, his secretary and traveling companion, to remain near and to take up the thread of his talk where he dropped it.
This was found to be necessary three times, and as Pastor Russell was obliged to cease speaking for a time Brother Sturgeon would take up the line of argument, which was upon the theme of "The World on Fire," and carry it along until Pastor Russell could resume.
Thus, during the evening, Pastor Russell spoke four times and Brother Sturgeon three times, seven in all, making indeed a complete lecture.
The large audience remained until the conclusion, realizing that something unusual was taking place.
Such proved to be the case, as it was the last public discourse ever delivered by Pastor Russell.
The next day, sick as he was, they continued their journey, but Pastor Russell remained in his berth in the sleeping car, eating nothing for several days, until they reached California. There he arose from his bed at Los Angeles and was taken in an auto by friends to a hotel, but was unable to serve them until late in the day. That afternoon, Sunday, October 29, he endeavored to stand and speak to them, but was too weak and was obliged to sit while giving to that class the last words of admonition to fall from his lips.
He closed that memorable service by announcing and
reading the first verse of that beautiful hymn:
"Abide, sweet Spirit, heavenly Dove,
With light and comfort from above;
Be thou our guardian, thou our guide
O'er every thought and step preside."
They then began their return trip to Brooklyn, but with the thought of stopping if possible at several cities to fill appointments.
Such privilege, however, was denied him, because he continued to weaken, to which was added considerable suffering, until one o'clock Tuesday, when the great fight was over and he rested quietly for about an hour and a half, breathing his last at 2:30 P.M.
His body was taken to Brooklyn, passing through Kansas City and Chicago, at both places being viewed by many into whose lives he had been the instrument of God's hands to bring great blessings.
On Sunday, November 5th, Memorial Services were held afternoon and evening in the New York Temple, the evening discourse being delivered by Brother J. F. Rutherford, who had been Pastor Russell's legal counsel for several years, and not only his legal counsel, but a loving friend and Christian brother.
Grand indeed was the tribute Brother Rutherford paid to Pastor Russell, and in addition to his own remarks, he read the very sermon which Pastor Russell had penned and which he had intended to preach there in New York Temple that very night.
That night the body was taken to Pittsburgh, and on Monday the 6th further services were held by the Pittsburgh Class of Bible Students, in the Carnegie Music Hall. The body lay there in state from 11 o'clock until 2 during which time thousands of people passed by the bier of the one whose earthly career had begun in that very city, who had grown up in their midst and was known and respected by so many.
Burial took place that afternoon at dusk in a grave on the sloping hillside in the beautiful United Cemeteries.
[CR508]WHY A GREAT MAN?
Some may still wonder why we remarked in the beginning that Pastor Russell was the greatest man that has walked the face of this earth since the days of the Apostle Paul.
I therefore wish to review some features of his life that, in the days to come, when the real truth is known, you, too, will appreciate the fact that a great prophet has been in our midst, despised, indeed, and rejected by some men, especially those who ought to be proclaiming the glorious message of the coming Kingdom of Messiah, but "who instead, preach the doctrines of men instead of the commandments of God."
Let us review his life and work:
Pastor Russell at his death was 64 years of age, having been born in 1852 in the city of Allegheny, Pittsburgh, Pa.
From early infancy his character lines indicated strong determination, which suggests the explanation of his subsequent independent evangelistic work.
Up to the age of fifteen he believed, as gospel truth, all, and only such doctrines as his Presbyterian parents and sectarian ministers had taught him. He asked many questions, but to learn to understand doctrines 50 years ago was very difficult, as the Bible students and various clergymen to whom he appeared discouraged individual Bible research, and the asking of questions on doctrines was then considered equivalent to doubting, and "to doubt was to be damned."
Being unable to answer questions of an infidel friend, concerning hell and eternal torment, or to get satisfactory Bible answers from his minister and other spiritual advisers, he became an admitted skeptic; and, like others, thinking that the Bible taught the doctrines of the creeds, he threw away his Bible when he threw away the creeds.
Next he spent several years in the investigation of Oriental religions, for he was still "feeling after God, if haply he might find him." But all he found was unsatisfactory and left an empty void.
At the age of twenty-one he was possessed with much knowledge and voluminous data on the religions of the world.
In the meantime he had worked himself into a large business in connection with his father, and now the time came for him to decide whether he would devote all his energies to business, or to search further for the true God and serve him.
Dropping all creeds, he came back to the Bible, and with a mind unbiased and unprejudiced he began anew to study it.
The great and all absorbing question which had been perplexing him all his life was that of "hell-fire and eternal torment." This he could never accept, and now the Lord opened his eyes to what the Bible taught on the subject, whereas he had been believing what the creeds taught and which was unsupported by either the Bible or reason.
He found that the Bible teaches that the penalty or wages of sin was not eternal torment, but death, DEATH, that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die," that "the dead know not anything," but are in the sleep of death until awakened in the resurrection morning at the second coming and presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who will then give all full, fair opportunity to attain unto eternal life through the establishment of Messiah's Kingdom.
At once Pastor Russell's heart was filled with love to God and his Son Jesus, and from that time until his death he has been proclaiming by pen and by word of mouth the blessings that are to come from Messiah's Kingdom, and at the same time declaring with might and main--
"If the Bible does teach that Eternal Torture is the fate of all except the Saints, it should be preached, yea, thundered, weekly, daily, hourly. If it does not so teach, the fact should be made known and the foul stain dishonoring God's holy name removed."--Pastor Russell.
WHY PASTOR RUSSELL REMAINED INDEPENDENT.
To gladden the hearts of others was his new ambition, and the question then was, "What should he do, and how should he do it?" Determining, if possible, to reach every truth seeker, whether Catholic, Protestant, Jew or Free-thinker, he found it necessary to stand free from all sectarian bonds and to inaugurate an independent work. His first work was the preparation and free distribution of over [CR509] one million copies of a booklet, "Food for Thinking Christians."
Forty years as a pulpit and private teacher on Bible topics have served to prove that he could best reach and teach the public from an unsectarian standpoint, therefore he remained independent until his death.
INVITATIONS TO LECTURE.
In a remarkably short time, as a result of the publication of the booklet, "Food for Thinking Christians," appeals began to be received from Bible students from far and near, calling upon Mr. Russell to defend his position by either lectures or debates. This he did to a remarkable degree, including a long series of sermons in Pittsburgh, Pa., eventuating in Mr. Russell accepting the pastorate of an "Independent" congregation of six hundred, meeting regularly in Carnegie Hall.
Later he moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., where he had still greater opportunity of spreading the Message of Messiah's Kingdom.
As years passed by, invitations to deliver undenominational Bible Lectures increased. Large halls in the foremost cities of Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Germany and America were tendered, with seats free to the public.
As many as possible of these invitations were accepted by Pastor Russell, thus annually enabling hundreds of thousands of Christians, in and out of all denominations, and skeptics, Jews and Gentiles, believers and unbelievers, to assemble together in a neutral place to hear free of cost the discussion of Bible topics by an "Independent." In harmony with this principle, Pastor Russell accepted no fee for speaking, and accepted no invitation to speak where an admission fee was to be charged, or where a collection was to be taken.
The acceptance of these invitations necessitated the making of extended tours, both in this country and abroad, whereby special train parties of Bible students attended from twenty to thirty Bible Students' Conventions on one tour.
Many of his tours in foreign lands covered months at a time, and in all it is estimated that he traveled over a million miles, and that he spoke at least three or four times as many hours as any person that has lived during the Gospel Dispensation. Such is only a part of the record of that wonderful man.
THE DIVINE PLAN AS SEEN BY PASTOR RUSSELL.
THE HEREAFTER IN A NUT SHELL.
PROFITING BY PAST ERRORS.
"While Catholics are to some extent returning to the Bible and the previous Pope has directed that their people be encouraged in Bible study, Protestants are drifting rapidly into infidelity under the modern designations Higher Criticism and Evolution. Our fathers during the dark ages got away from the Bible by supposing an 'Apostolic Succession.' Gradually the creeds got the Bible's place under the supposition that they agreed. Now having outgrown those creeds in rejecting them many are rejecting the Bible also. This is a mistake! The Bible is the most wonderful book in the world when allowed to interpret itself. It furnishes the only rallying ground for human brotherhood and Christian brotherhood. The world otherwise is facing anarchy. A lost religion will soon mean a lost God, and a lost future hope, and a selfish strive for the present life only.
MAN'S FALL FROM PERFECTION.
"Let us not mourn our errors of the past unduly, but at once, now, get right with God and His Book. Its presentation is logical from Genesis to Revelation. It tells of the perfection of our first parents, of the test of their loyalty, of their failure and its penalty, death--not eternal torture. It tells that all of present imperfection, mental, moral and physical are incidental to the death penalty. Twenty billion have been born dying and soon toppled over into the tomb.
GOD'S MERCY MAN'S ONLY HOPE.
"God's mercy cannot allow sinners to live in happiness to injure themselves and others and to mar creation, nor could it permit sinners to live in torture to blaspheme the Holy Name. But one thing could be done under the plan arranged. Man could be redeemed by a Savior dying, 'The just for the unjust' to square the demands of Justice against the race through one man's disobedience. God purposed this remedy for all the race, 'before the foundation of the world.' 'In due time Christ died for the ungodly'--'He tasted death (not eternal torment) for every man.'
SETTING FREE THE PRISONERS.
"The Bible alone teaches that men die when they seem to die, yet it calls this a 'sleep,' because there is to be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.' The prophets and apostles all 'fell asleep' as well as all others of Adam's race. They are sleeping in a great prison-house unconscious until the prison tomb shall be opened and they shall be called forth. This was shown by many scriptures.
THE DELIVERER--THE RANSOMER.
"It was not sufficient that Jesus came and died for man's sin. Satisfaction of Justice is preliminary to their recovery from the prison and from the hereditary weaknesses which led them to the prison-house, the tomb. Hence the Redeemer is to be also the Restorer and Lifegiver. The time for that deliverance or 'restitution' is still future, but near. It will begin at Jesus' second advent, says St. Peter. Acts 3:19-21.
MESSIAH'S KINGDOM THEORY EXPLODED.
So say some good people, but they err. It was Jesus himself that told of his future reign of a thousand years when his Bride-Church, the 'elect' will be associated with him in his Kingdom and work; and when Satan shall be bound-- Rev. 20:1-5.
"The loss of this hope by our forefathers led up to all the grievous errors from which we are now seeking to escape. Do we not still pray, 'Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth even as it is done in heaven?" The coming Messiah's Kingdom is the key to the world's blessing by restitution --back to human perfection in a world-wide Eden.
"HIGH-CALLING" OF THE "BRIDE."
"While waiting for his 'due time' to come for the blessing of mankind, God is not idle. He made one election during the Jewish Age from amongst that people of a saintly few, for his future work. And during this Christian Age God has been making another election--the Church 'the Bride the Lamb's Wife.'
"These elections do not spell torture to the nonelect masses of mankind, but the reverse--blessing. Through these 'elect' saints God's favors and mercies will be poured upon Adam's race for a thousand years--for their full uplift to all that was lost in Eden and redeemed at Calvary.
"This does not mean that there is to be no punishment for sin. Quite the contrary--every wrong act, word, or thought has its degrading influence and will bring its 'stripes.' It does not mean that some are now in torture. All are 'asleep' in sheol, hades, the tomb, and will be blessed and reasonably dealt with by their Redeemer. Therefore, every good endeavor now will bring proportionate uplift of character and tell on the future favorably--even in those not of the saintly elect class."
Thus Pastor Russell has given us the most wonderful outline of the Divine Plan of Salvation that has ever been put in a few words, showing man's fall into sin, and his recovery therefrom.
In further proof of the greatness of this man, let me recount to you some of
PASTOR RUSSELL'S WORKS
Each Item of Which Represents the Work of One Man of First Class Ability. 1878 Object and Manner of Our Lord's Return..... 50,000 1881 Food for Thinking Christians............... 1,450,000 1881 Tabernacle Shadows......................... 1,500,000 1886 Divine Plan of the Ages.................... 4,817,000 1889 The Time Is at Hand........................ 1,657,000 1891 Thy Kingdom Come........................... 1,578,000 1891 The Great Pyramid.......................... 1,578,000 1897 The Day of Vengeance....................... 464,000 1899 The Atonement.............................. 445,000 1904 The New Creation........................... 423,000 1896 The Hell Pamphlet.......................... 3,000,000 Parousia of Our Lord....................... 300,000 What Say Scriptures About Spiritism........ 500,000 Bible vs. Evolution........................ ......... 1910 Die Stemme (Yiddish)....................... ......... 1914 Scenario, Photo-Drama of Creation.......... .........
When it is remembered that very few works exceed a circulation of thirty thousand copies, some idea of the success of Studies in the Scriptures may be obtained from considering the above mentioned circulation of Pastor Russell's work. Although religious organizations and other religious writers boycotted bookstores which attempted to handle Pastor Russell's [CR510] works, this circulation has been attained in spite of the opposition of religious workers, the press, and the lack of assistance from the book stores.
STILL OTHER WORK.
Was a successful business man at the age of 20.
Prepared and preached sermons which are masterpieces.
Managed the Bethel Home of 125 to 175 workers.
Pastor of the New York Temple, London Tabernacle and Brooklyn Tabernacle.
Carried on a large Bible correspondence--private letters of one thousand a month, and managed a correspondence department handling 400,000 letters annually.
Conducted a Bible question bureau reaching all parts of the world.
President and Manager of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.
President and Manager of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, thirteen branches.
President and Manager of the Peoples' Pulpit Association, New York.
President and Manager of the International Bible Students' Association, London, England.
Editor of Watch Tower, 45,000 (no advertising).
Editor Bible Students' Monthly, 50 million per year, and directed its FREE distribution.
Conducted the greatest newspaper bureau (2,000 papers at one time, with 15,000,000 readers). In all over 4,000 papers published his sermons under contract at various times.
Oversaw translation of books into 19 languages.
Oversaw publication of Bible Students' Monthly, into 35 languages.
Oversaw publication of 700,000 volumes and 60 million papers yearly.
Great lecture tours, spoke twice daily, 5 hours.
Conducted world revival amongst Jews.
Oversaw free Truth library for loaning to the blind.
Managed corps of 70 Bible lecturers.
Managed auxiliary Pilgrim work of 300 men.
Managed Class Extension work of 400 men.
Arranged and directed five to ten general Bible Students' Conventions each year, and forty local conventions, attending each one and lectured at least twice.
Prepared Photo-Drama of Creation and selected all pictures.
Managed preparation of the slides (600).
Wrote the Drama Scenario and published it.
Managed preparing of the Drama in German, Swedish, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Finnish, Polish and Dano-Nor.
Managed presentation of Drama to two million people.
Elected Pastor of 1,200 Bible Classes and gave them personal attention.
Prepared and launched the Eureka Drama.
Traveled one million miles.
Spoke three or four times as many hours as any other man.
Do you thus realize why I feel justified in stating that Pastor Russell, without any exception whatsoever, was the greatest man that has walked this earth since the days of the Apostle Paul?
The beauty of all this is that he realized it was not his work, but the Lord's, and he did it gladly, freely, without money and without price.
The fact is that he at one time possessed a fortune of no small amount, every cent of which has gone into the work which was so dear to his heart.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESULT OF HIS WORK.
The result of all this work has been to dispel from the minds of men and women the mists, darkness and superstitions handed down to us from the "dark ages" as contained in the various conflicting creeds.
Thousands of people have been brought back to the Bible, recognizing it as the only authorized and divinely appointed standard for the guidance of mankind, and his work has taught these thousands to appreciate Jehovah God as their heavenly Father, Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and all believers to be Brethren in a sense never before appreciated.
DARKNESS HATETH THE LIGHT.
Nevertheless, "darkness hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds be made manifest," and, therefore, notwithstanding the magnificent array of noble deeds performed by that God-fearing and loyal man of God, he has been slandered, maligned and vilified because of his good deeds--this treatment has come not from the world, for "they heard him gladly," but from the professed ministers of God who still hold to the errors of the dark ages, eternal torment at the hands of fire-proof demons, immortality of the soul, trinity and the God-man Christ. Rather than square their erroneous doctrines with the Bible they prefer to slander and vilify a fellow Christian.
THE SERVANT NOT GREATER THAN HIS MASTER.
However, this is not strange when we remember that our Lord and Savior said, "The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his Lord....If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household.
"Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid that shall not be known."
This man of God pressed on, "Through honor and dishonor, through evil report and good report: as deceiver, and yet true...giving no offense that the ministry might not be blamed."
As he said, "My life is hid with Christ in God and nothing can by any means stop my work until it shall have accomplished the Divine intention. Until then I am immortal as respects my life. When, from the Divine viewpoint, my work shall have been accomplished, the Adversary, no doubt, will have full power, not only against my reputation, but also against my life.
"When God's time shall come, I am ready to be offered. Only if, in God's providence, I should perish as an evil doer, let not my friends forget that so others have perished, martyrs to their convictions and their faithfulness to the Word of God. Of these was St. Paul, St. Stephen, John the Baptist and our Lord himself."
I have known Pastor Russell and I have loved Pastor Russell for many years; I have traveled with him, slept with him, ate with him, visited at his home and he has visited at my home, and I am glad at this time to bear testimony to his faith in and fidelity to God and his Word, and it is my earnest desire to do with my might what my hands find to do in holding up the banner of love which he unfurled and so faithfully and fearlessly carried until he heard the summons, Well done, it is enough, come up higher, Enter into the joys of thy Lord.
CONCLUSION.
Now in conclusion, we read in the Scriptures: "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for they shall rest from their labors, but their works do follow them."--"Being dead yet speaketh."
We are living in a wonderful day and age, and so Pastor Russell's works will follow him in more senses than one, and we are privileged to have with us, through the instrumentality of the camera and phonograph, a reproduction of both the likeness and action of Pastor Russell, and also his own voice.
We will therefore at this time show you in moving pictures and with the use of the phonograph Pastor Russell delivering his introductory remarks to the great Photo Drama of Creation, which is showing in this Auditorium every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights.
SLIDE SHOWING VOL. I.
1886--1. Vol. I--"The Plan of the Ages." Gives an outline of the great divine plan as revealed in the Bible, relating to man's redemption and restitution. 4,817,000 circulation.
SLIDE SHOWING VOL. II.
1889--2. Vol. 2--"The Time is at Hand." Treats of the time and manner of our Lord's second coming, considering the Bible testimony on this subject. 1,657,000 circulation.
SLIDE SHOWING VOL. III.
1891--3. Vol. 3--"Thy Kingdom Come." Considers those prophecies which mark the events connected with the "Time of the end," the glorification of the church and the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom. 1,578,000 circulation.
[CR511]
SLIDE SHOWING VOL. IV.
1897--4. Vol. 4--"The Battle of Armageddon." Shows that the dissolution of the present order of things is in progress, and that all the panaceas offered are valueless to avert the predicted end. It marks in these events the fulfillment of prophecy, noting especially our Lord's great prophecy in Matt. 24 and Zech. 14:1-9. 464,000 prophecy in Matt. 24 and Zech. 14:1-9. 464,000 circulation.
SLIDE SHOWING VOL. V.
1899--5. Vol. 5--"The At-one-ment between God and Man." Treats that all important subjects, the RANSOM the hub around which all the features of the divine grace revolve. Its topic deserves the most careful and prayerful consideration on the part of all true Christians. 445,000 circulation.
SLIDE SHOWING VOL. VI.
1904--6. Vol. 6--"The New Creation." Deals with the creative week, Gen. ch. 1 and 2, and with the Church, God's week, Gen. ch. 1 and 2, and with the Church, God's "New Creation." It examines the personnel, obligations and hopes of the "called and chosen and faithful," Rev. 17:14. 423,000 circulation.
SLIDE SHOWING ALL SIX VOLS.
4,817,000 Vol. I 1,657,000 Vol. II 1,578,000 Vol. III 464,000 Vol. IV 445,000 Vol. V 423,000 Vol. VI ---------------- 9,384,000 Total circulation
Then followed the moving picture showing Pastor Russell as he introduces the Photo Drama of Creation, accompanied by the phonographic reproduction of his own voice.
The service then closed by a double quartet singing the
following hymn, which was also sung at the grave of Pastor
Russell:
How vain is all beneath the skies!
How transient every earthly bliss!
How slender all the fondest ties
That bind us to a world like this!
The evening cloud, the morning dew,
The withering grass, the fading flower,
Of earthly hopes are emblems true,
The glory of a passing hour.
But though earth's fairest blossoms die,
And all beneath the skies is vain,
There is a brighter Age now nigh,
Beyond the reach of care and pain.
Then let the hope of joys to come
Dispel our cares, and chase our fears;