1. Which day of the week is the Sabbath of the law of God?
"Saturday was the day kept and ordered to be kept by God."—Rome's Challenge, page 11.
2. Did not Jesus change it?
"He never once HINTED at a DESIGN to change it."—Ib., page 12.
3. How did the personal friends of Christ regard the seventh-day Sabbath after His death?
"They kept holy the Saturday."—Ib., page 12.
4. How did they regard Sunday?
They "regarded the Sunday as any other day of the week."—Ib., page 12.
5. Is there not some slight INTERFERENCE with the ORIGINAL Sabbath in the New Testament?
"It is IMPOSSIBLE to find in the New Testament the SLIGHTEST INTERFERENCE by the Saviour, or His apostles, with the original Sabbath, but on the contrary, an ENTIRE ACQUIESCENCE in the ORIGINAL ARRANGEMENT."—Ib., page 13.
6. What then was the PRACTISE of Jesus?
"The Redeemer, in NO INSTANCE, during the period of His life, DEVIATED from the faithful observance of the Sabbath (Saturday)."—Ib., page 15.
7. How did He DESIGNATE Himself?
"He designated Himself LORD of the Sabbath."—Ib., page 15.
8. Did not the apostles deviate from the practise of Christ?
"The apostles for the following thirty years (Acts) NEVER DEVIATED from the practise of their divine Master in this particular, as St. Luke assures us. Acts 18: 4."—Ib., page 15.
9. How were Gentile converts instructed?
"They were instructed to keep the Saturday."—Ib., page 15.
10. What do you think of the substitution of Sunday for Saturday?
"Not a shadow of pretext can be found in the Sacred Volume for the Biblical substitution of Sunday for Saturday."—Ib., page 19.
11. Who changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday?
"The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday."—Ib., page 26.
12. What do you think reason and common sense demand?
"Either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday, or Catholicity and the keeping of Sunday. COMPROMISE IS IMPOSSIBLE." —Ib., page 35.
H. A. ST. JOHN.
The Bible on the Battlefield
"Among the dead of one of the battlefields before Richmond was a rebel soldier, who lay unburied several days after the conflict. Already the flesh had been eaten from his fingers by the worms; but underneath the skeleton hand lay an open copy of the Bible, and the fingers pressed upon those precious words of the Twenty-third Psalm, 'Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.'"
Early Love of Scripture
By Daniel Webster
From the time that, at my mother's feet, or on my father's knee, I first learned to lisp verses from the Sacred Writings, they have been my daily study and vigilant contemplation. If there be anything in my style or thoughts to be commended, the credit is due to my kind parents in instilling into my mind an early love of the Scriptures.—Daniel Webster.
Small Beginnings
By Delvin Rees Buckner
By Delvin Rees Buckner
Half hidden in the crevice of a wall,
The writhing cobra lifts her crested hood,
Injects her venom in the Hindu's blood,
And then recoils to watch her victim fall;
The pine, appealing heavenward, so tall
And firmly rooted, which for years has stood
Within the spicy shadows of the wood,
Receives at last the spark that powders all
Her hopes. Effects are often grandly great
Altho the cause seems wonderfully small;
Beneath the limbs of the forbidden tree,
Eve little dreamed the juicy fruit she ate
Would be the fatal origin of all
Earth's centuries of pain and misery.
God’s Ways Seem Dark
"God's ways seem dark; but, soon or late,
They touch the shining hills of day;
The evil can not brook delay,
The good can well afford to wait."
XXVIII. The Son of God
The Answer of the Text
[The answers to the questions are from the American Revised Version. Omitting questions, and disregarding sometimes the capital at the beginning and the period at the close of an answer, the text may be read continuously. In notes and comments both versions are used without designation.]
1. When the devil was cast down, what did the prophet hear?
And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying.
2. What four things did the voice declare had come?
Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ.
3. What else then occurred?
For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night.
Note and Comment
1. A GREAT VOICE.—The message is more important than the messenger; the event is more important than the one who announces it. It is often the case in the Bible that we hear the voice, but are not told who it is that utters it. John the Baptist was one of the greatest of prophets, but he was content to be "the voice crying in the wilderness" God's message. The voice of this text may have been that of the angel Gabriel or of the Eternal Himself; the more important thing for us to know is the great announcement.
2. NOW.—For that time, that moment, that "now" the ages had waited. From the time that He who afterward became Jesus of Nazareth left His position in the Godhead as the Creator of the heaven and earth, and for the sake of His fallen creatures risked all to save them, the universe had been in suspense. In the beginning He was one with the Father in supernal glory (John 17:5), "the very image of His [the Father's] substance" (Heb. 1:3); but His position of equality, His claim to eternal Sonship, had been disputed by that being who stood next to Him, the one created being above all others who in himself sealed up the sum of bestowed wisdom and beauty (Eze. 28:12), Lucifer, the son of the morning (Isa. 14:12). He not only disputed the position of the Word of God, but he led others to do the same. A third part of heaven's spirits of light revolted. The universe was divided, broken, diseased, by the entrance of sin. God's power might have been vindicated by utterly crushing the rebellion of Lucifer in the beginning, but such a course would have sown doubt in the minds of beings who were on probation, yet still loyal. It was God's character that was called in question—His justice, His love. If God's creatures could be led to believe that God is not love, that He is unjust, partial, implacable, unmerciful, they would not serve Him, would fall as easy prey to Satan's deceptions. But God is merciful, kind, loving, just. Therefore God bore with Lucifer and his rebellious host. Therefore He gave them opportunity to repent and return. Therefore He pleaded with them as only Deity could plead, to restore them to righteousness and life. How do we know this? — Because it is thus that God pleads now, and He is eternally the same, without "variableness or shadow of turning."
The eternal Word gave Himself. He did not aspire to be equal with God, "did not meditate a usurpation" of the throne of the universe (see Phil. 2:5-7, A.R.V.), but He emptied Himself, gave Himself, then and there, for sinners. He took the form of a servant, becoming an angel among the angels that He might redeem angels; but they would not. And when they rejected the righteousness and life so freely offered, He descended lower still to those duped by Satan — fallen man — stooping even to death, that He might redeem of the fallen all who desired to be redeemed, and vindicate to the universe to all eternity the character of God. That was the work of the Word of God, the eternal Logos, when He became Michael the Archangel, when He became Jesus the Man of Nazareth, when He was anointed the Christ, when He died our Sacrifice on Calvary. Yet during all this time the hosts of evil, with all the baleful, deceptive, cruel devices of sin, were hurled against Him, that God's character might be marred, that the great Vindicator-Redeemer might fall.
But He did not fail. To the very cross of Calvary He pressed forward, ever revealing the Father, and vindicating by His eternal Sacrifice of love the character of God. For that "NOW" the universe had waited. In that "NOW IS COME" the universe triumphed.
3. SALVATION.—It had been assured before in the promise and oath of God, by the "two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie." Heb. 6:17, 18; Gen. 22:16-18. It was eternally confirmed by the life, the death, of our Lord. Other great leaders had promised man salvation in himself, by something that man individually or collectively could do. And all failed, utterly failed, to lift man from his low plane of carnality. Jesus Christ conquered by faith sin in the flesh; and He comes into the heart and life of every soul that believes, with all the assured triumph over sin. When He came into this world, He said, "A body hast Thou [the Father] prepared Me." Heb. 10:5. In that body of flesh, fitted for Christ Jesus through multiplied generations from Abraham to Mary, were all the inherited traits and tendencies and weaknesses of humanity. Think of the sinning ancestors through which His fleshly inheritance came; of the duplicity and self-seeking of Jacob; of the licentiousness of Judah; of the weaknesses and sinfulness in various ways of David and Solomon and Rehoboam and Ahaz and Manasseh. God fitted a body for His only-begotten Son in the flesh, which was peculiarly susceptible to the influence of every sin that has bound humanity through all the ages. He "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." The mighty, glorious, blessed fact of all, is that He met sin and Satan at the very worst advantage, in worse case than any follower of His will be called to meet them, and conquered. "For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." Heb. 2:18. But He can help in all things, can "save them to the uttermost" (Heb. 7:25); therefore He met every temptation that it is possible for man to meet, and prevailed for our salvation. And that salvation, thus purchased, is "the salvation" of eternity.
4. THE POWER.—The power won through Christ is the power of right, the power of truth, the power of love. It is "dunamis" (dynamite), but it is the dynamite of God. It is not manifest in its mightiest forms in violent and sudden explosions, but in mighty energy of God in the re-creation of souls, in the overcoming of sin in the flesh. This power is resurrection power. "Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden of it." Acts 2:24. Sin can not enchain righteousness. Death can not entomb it forever. "In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death." Prov. 12:28.
His resurrection from the dead demonstrated our Lord to be "the Son of God." Jesus had said He was. God had acknowledged Him from heaven as His beloved Son. Would He stand the test? Would HE be triumphant where others had failed? In bearing the sins of others, had He Himself become tainted with sin? Nay, it was His glory that He overcame sin in its very stronghold, the flesh, and demonstrated by His victory that He was indeed in all the humiliation the Son of God. Therefore the glad tidings is "concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and DECLARED TO BE THE SON OF GOD WITH POWER, according to the Spirit of7holiness, by the resurrection of the dead." Rom. 1:4. It is that power which God wishes to place in the lives of every one of His followers, of which the apostle Paul thus speaks:
The exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. Eph. 1:19-23.
5. THE KINGDOM OF OUR GOD.—Only glimpses have been given us of God's kingdom in all the past. God wished to form a kingdom on earth with Israel, and there were times when it surpassed all other earthly dominion, as under David and Solomon. But only in weak measure at the best was it God's kingdom. Finally, God's people wandered so far, their kings became so apostate, that the people were carried to Babylon, and to Babylon came the rule of Jerusalem. Three times more the kingdom would be overturned,—by Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome,—and then He should come whose right it is, and God would give it Him. Eze. 21:25-27. This refers to our Lord's second coming; but Christ won His right to reign when He conquered Satan in the flesh, when His power of righteousness lifted Him above the power of sin and death. Then all the angels of God worshiped Him. Heb. 1:6. Then when He ascended on high a triumphant Conqueror, as He neared the gates of the heavenly city, His escort of angels burst out with heavenly joy:
Lift up your heads,
O ye gates; and be ye lifted up,
Ye everlasting doors;
And the King of Glory shall come in.
From within the city of God comes response:
Who is this King of Glory?
And again the angel escort sings:
The Lord strong and mighty,
The Lord mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
Even lift them up, ye everlasting doors;
And the King of Glory shall come in.
And once more, that they may hear that new note of triumph, it is asked:
Who is this King of Glory?
And then again the victorious escort replies:
The Lord of Hosts,
He is the King of Glory.
Ps. 24:7-9.
The kingdom of God is won by the power of God in character.
6. AUTHORITY OF HIS CHRIST.—To power succeeds authority. Earthly rulers frequently have authority without power, and so exercise it in an irresponsible way, developing disorder, disloyalty, anarchy, and ruin. Christ our Lord was entitled to the authority by the power of His character. It was after His death upon the cross, after His resurrection from the dead, that He declared:
All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore. Matt. 28:18, 19.
He bestows that power upon us that we may win the kingdom. "Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." Col. 1:13. In this is the climax of the blessings of that "NOW" for which the ages waited. Surely it should be told with a great voice from heaven, and echoed by many glad voices of earth, "Now is come the SALVATION, and the POWER, and the KINGDOM of our GOD, and the AUTHORITY of His CHRIST."
7. THE ACCUSER . . . IS CAST DOWN.—Jesus met him on the mount of temptation; He met him in mortals sinful and diseased; He met him in demon-possessed souls; He met him in ambitious, worldly men; He met him in the Garden of Gethsemane; He met all his hellish hate on the cross of Calvary. He knew the struggle was coming. He went forth assured of victory. As the
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
A Book for all Times
We are often told that the Bible is not a scientific book, and that it bears the stamp of the ages of ignorance in which it was penned. As a matter of fact there is not one book that was ever written that has less of that stamp. It is especially there that we see the mark of the divine hand on the Bible. Other ancient books are unreadable to-day, just because their ideas are saturated with the ill and wrongly informed thought of the time. They are discredited and ludicrous in their faded trappings of a once great authority. The Bible keeps the place from which, one by one, all other books have been degraded.—Better Day.
Immortality of the Soul
By Arthur L. Manous
A Compilation
WHAT is said to be the nature of the soul? Is it immortal, as some teach? or is it mortal, as others teach? Let the following compilation answer:
1. "The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is as unknown to the entire Bible, as the name."—Olshausen on 1 Cor. 15: 19, 20.
2. "The immortality of the soul appears to follow as an inference from some of Julian's Platonic doctrines."—Milman's "History of Christianity," standard edition, volume 2, page 470.
3. "The doctrine of Aristotle and Peripatetics gives no countenance to the opinion of the soul's immortality, or even of its existence after death."—Watson's "Theological Institutes," pages 34, 35.
4. "The truth is, that God only hath independent immortality, because He only is self-existent, and neither human nor brute souls are of necessity immortal."—Id., page 200.
5. "Pliny declares that 'the soul and body have no more sense after death than before we were born.' Caesar, 'that beyond death there is neither place for care or joy.' Seneca . . . says that death makes us incapable of good or evil."—Id., page 35.
6. The false doctrines about the immortality of the soul are based on the supposition "that consciousness is an essential attribute of the spirit, and that the soul is naturally immortal—the former of which can not be proved, while the latter is contradicted by Scripture, which makes our immortality a gift dependent on the will of the Giver."—Id., page 405.
7. "Even the religious Pausanias speaks of the immortality of the soul as a foreign doctrine introduced by the Chaldeans and the magi, and embraced by some of the Greeks, particularly by Plato." Pliny exposes "the idle notion of the immortality of the soul, as a vision of human pride, and equally absurd, whether under the form of existence in another sphere or under that of transmigration."—Milman's "History of Christianity," standard edition, volume 1, page 48.
In His own good time God will show "who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto."81 Tim. 6: 15, 16.
"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." 1 John 5: 11-13.
Our God would have us be assured of the fact that we do have eternal life in His Son, even tho we do not possess it in ourselves. He does not leave us to grope in darkness on this important matter. We do not have to say, as did the several notable heathen quoted above, that there is no hope beyond the tomb. We know that death does not end all. There is unmistakable reality in the life beyond, through Christ Jesus the Lord.
ARTHUR L. MANOUS.
The Sweet Old Chapters
One of the sweet old chapters,
After a day like this!
The day brought cares and trouble,
The evening brings no kiss,
No rest in the arms I long for—
Rest, and refuge, and home;
But weary and heavy-laden,
Unto God's Book I come.
One of the sweet old chapters,
The loving that blossoms through
The care of the birds and lilies,
Out in the summer's dew!
The evening lies softly round them;
Their faith is simply to be.
O, hushed be the tender lesson!
"My God, let me trust in Thee."
—Unknown.
One of the sweet old chapters
Of Father, and home, and heaven,
Of pardon freely offered,
Of love so freely given!
Thy Maker is thine Husband.
The Lord of the earth is He;
And tho I have wandered from Him,
He says, "Return to Me."
—Lilla Warren.
One of the sweet old chapters!
Cheered is my saddened heart,
Knowing His precious promise,
"I'll ne'er from thee depart."
Another day of sorrow
I'll gladly bear for Thee.
E'en through the deepest anguish,
I know He leadeth me.
—Flora E. Warren.
Two Gates
By Emma Hildreth Adams
By Emma Hildreth Adams
READER, step back a few paces, and study these gates.
One of them stands upon a rugged hilltop. It is a "strait gate." Above its arch gleam the momentous words, "UNTO LIFE." They are words of intense import to mankind; words of meaning unfathomable to human readers. They open a vista without bounds, into the eternal future.
The road leading to the gateway is "narrow," rough, steep in some places. It winds through dense thickets of test and trial; through close tangles of struggle and effort; through gloomy clusters of pain and sorrow; through thick patches of attempts at well-doing, and sad failures; through dark clumps of sudden, thoughtless yielding to evil.
And yet, it is a way of such influence, such uplift, that at every mile the traveler may make headway in moral power, in mental might, in spiritual force. But at every step, effort of a high type is in demand. Before the gate is reached, there is call for the traveler's supreme endeavor, for his utmost steadfastness, for character true, unfeigned, uncounterfeited.
But the gateway gained, success unimaginable awaits him; for it opens into LIFE — life real, life nobler, more potent, more blessed, than we can now conceive. "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." 1 Cor. 2: 9.
Moreover, notwithstanding the disheartening thickets, tangles, and patches, this ascending roadway contains remarkable attractions. Here and there may be plucked the exquisite flowers of patience, gentleness, kindliness, and that royal bloom FAITH, opening out daily more regal, more radiant, as the struggler approaches the gateway. Read Hebrews 11.
Then, too, this narrow, arduous avenue to the hilltop is bountifully lighted by day and by night. From those two short words glowing over the gateway, streams a glory, a splendor, which illuminates even the starting-point, at the busy valley in the distance. Less brilliant at the starting-point, the light deepens, intensifies, as the climber urges his feet toward the realm of peace, of glory, of beatitude, inside the gate.
The Wide Gate
At the other gate one's interest does not wane, but changes, differs immensely. The circumstances vary vastly. The conditions are the reverse. Instead of a cheering, animating ascent from the beginning of the roadway thereto, there is a slope, a descent, an incline, steep at some points, with never an upward trend. The way is broad and alluring, but halts, ceases at a large, open, inviting gateway, closed neither night nor day. "Wide is the gate, and broad is the way," are the words that fell from the lips of the divine Master during that matchless sermon delivered on a mountainside.
Two words, as in the other case, but fearfully suggestive in their import, are inscribed above this gate — "To Destruction." Sufficient light illumines them to publish to the crowding, urging multitude which throngs that way, its certain danger.
Strive to Enter In
Many in that doomed company never heed these startling words. Scores do not even glance at them. Hundreds fail to realize that, when a thing reaches "destruction," that ends its existence. Thousands of uninstructed believers in intrinsic immortality, assured that the term means simply death — the ending only of the present phase of being, and the stepping out upon another and higher plane of existence — rush on to the absolute total extinguishment of life.
When Christ, the mightiest of human word painters, touched the first gate, 1900 years ago, with His brush of fadeless dyes, He left gleaming above it the stimulating, encouraging sentence, "STRIVE to enter in at the strait gate," thus publishing to all the race with which He had allied Himself, the inspiring possibility of entering thereat.
Nor was this needless urgency, nor prodigal use of counsel. While Christ knew that eternal LIFE is the gift of God through faith in the Saviour's great sacrifice of Himself, yet He well understood that winning the imperial prize would cost man's utmost efforts at upright living, at that most remunerative of all work — character building. Therefore He added His reason for the advice — "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
Every day there may be seen many illustrations of the fact that before the vast assembly of mankind, are set forth numerous attractive prizes, true recompenses, worthy compensations, for noble striving, for arduous endeavor in the race of life; and yet, how few, compared with the vast multitude of men and women, make the effort absolutely necessary to attain the regal climax, to reach the acme of the struggle!
This lamentable fact also Christ well understood; and hence with gracious forethought, mercy, and love He gave to every person before whose eyes or into whose ears the momentous words should fall, the ringing advice and warning: "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat."
In this great trial day, when millions of our rushing race seem to take no thought for the final consequence of conduct, these salutary words might well be set up before the doorway of every home, and in all byways and highways for human feet.
But how shall one hold himself in the narrow way, that he may enter the strait gate and find LIFE? The Word of God contains countless directions for securing this supreme result. Notice a few of them.
Prov. 3: 1, 3, 23: "My son, . . . let thine heart keep My commandments: . . . bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart. . . . Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble." Prov. 7: 1-3: "My son, . . . keep My commandments, and LIVE. . . . Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart."
Moses, the "friend of God," in his masterful review, before Israel's great host, of the laws, statutes, and commandments which God delivered to him on Sinai, urged them with intense fervor, to obey these laws, that they might LIVE. "Thou shalt . . . talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way. . . . Thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes."
No safer policy of life-insurance can man carry, in these stressful days, than the unswerving resolution to live out daily the straight principles of the Word of God. "That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him: for He is thy LIFE, and the length of thy days."
The Barren Tree
By Hart Hall
By Hart Hall
"Why cumbers it the ground?" the master said.
"These fruitless branches might as well be dead.
These many years I come in vain to thee;
Thy days are numbered now, thou barren tree.
In vain the sun and rain, the mellow soil;
In vain the gard'ner's watch-care and his toil.
Thy heavy verdure well the world deceives;
They search for fruit in thee—and find but leaves."
"Just one more year," the gard'ner pleads.
"I'll give it still more labor, all it needs,
If mayhap from these many branches strong
Fruit yet may come to cheer thy waiting long.
The soil shall be enriched, the limbs cut back,
Nor all that care can give it shall it lack;
And then at harvest, if no fruit be found,
The ax shall lay this slothful to the ground."
You wish to know the future of the tree?
The answer may be told in you and me.
The days now granted to us may be few,
But future life eternal if we're true.
Staunch trees of righteousness we may be found,
Or trifling idlers, cumb'rers of the ground.
The leaves, appearance, should but shade and shield
The fruit of love that Christian hearts will yield.
Winning Men to the Saviour
—★—
"MEN are not won to the Saviour by advertising their sins."
Persistency in Prayer
"PERSISTENCY in prayer is one secret of consistency in practise."
"Works of the Law"
THE "works of the law" are all that man can do by law; he can attempt to keep it outwardly; but his heart remains unchanged. "He that doeth righteousness is righteous." Man must be righteous before he can do righteousness. The being is before the doing. But man's "works of the law" (Gal. 2: 16; 3: 2, 10) are only unregenerate man's attempts to keep a spiritual law. He simply keeps an outward form of the truth, as did the Jews (Rom. 2: 20), and is therefore condemned by the law itself.
He therefore that is of "the works of the law" is "under the curse." He is attempting his own salvation. The law demands exact obedience always and all the time, in outward form, in inward motive. Its curse rests upon those who have not met the law's requirements, and all have failed. Rom. 3: 23. But Christ redeems us from the curse. He kept the law. He makes the believer righteous. He puts within that believer His own Spirit. And then the believer, or rather Christ in the believer, keeps the law, and fulfils its righteousness. The keeping of the law by the believer is not the works of the law, but the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the union between the believer and Christ. See Gal. 5: 23; Rom. 7: 4; 8: 4. "The fruit of the Spirit is love," and "this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments."
Blessedness in Service
By John A. Woolley
Do NOT confuse "blessedness" in service with popularity or ease or esthetic uplift. It will often mean the very reverse of these — crucifixion maybe.
"Blessedness" is not the applause of the multitude nor the favor of the great, but character won and fixed by a close walk with God.
No pious diplomat was ever, or will be ever, a blessed man. No pious speculator who "plays" the kingdom of God "on margins" can taste the blessedness of serving God. No Endeavorer who purposely lives a little short of the best he knows, in business, in society, in politics, can even touch the edge of blessed living.
Nothing short of dead, straight truth to the light you have will answer. But with that, your life is hid so deep with Christ in God that poverty, revilings, stones, fagots, thumb-screws, death, are trifles light as air.—John A. Woolley, to Christian Endeavorers.
The Everlasting Gospel
1. What is the Gospel of Christ?
For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. Rom. 1: 16, 17.
NOTE.—Observe closely that the text informs us that the Gospel "is the power of God unto salvation," and that it reveals the righteousness of God. The Gospel is "power," and it is a revealer of "righteousness."
2. How widely will this Gospel be preached?
This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. Matt. 24: 14.
3. What solemn warning does the Gospel carry to all the world in its closing triumphs?
And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. Rev. 14: 6, 7.
NOTE.—The world-wide Gospel proclamation indicated in the foregoing verses gives the warning that "the hour of His judgment is come." It does not proclaim a "judgment to come," as did Paul in his day (Acts 24: 25), but affirms that the judgment is right at hand.
4. Since the Gospel "is the power of God unto salvation," how complete is that salvation?
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Cor. 5: 17.
NOTE.—The margin of the American Standard Revised Version states that "if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation." Then the power manifested in the Gospel is the power of creation. There "is a new creation" every time a sinner is reclaimed by the Gospel.
5. Then whose workmanship is this re-created, Gospel-saved individual?
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Eph. 2: 10.
6. Is there any condemnation resting on the one who has thus been redeemed, re-created, through Christ Jesus the Saviour?
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Rom. 8: 1-4.
NOTE.—In the seventh chapter of Romans Paul tells of the law he had found in his members that when he would do good evil was ever present with him. This law that was in his members is a law that is inherent in the nature of sin; it is the law that holds the drunkard to his cups in spite of all his better desires, in spite of the cries and entreaties of his children, his devoted wife, and his dearest friends. It is the law that is so powerful that it holds every sinner in the position where "the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do." Rom. 7: 19. It takes the mighty, creative power of the infinite Christ through His Gospel of power, to lift us from this hopeless condition. If you are in despair, feeling that you can not break the power of habit in the sins that hold you, turn to the mighty Christ and His Gospel of power.
7. To what lengths can this Gospel of power go in saving sinful men?
Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. Heb. 7: 25.
NOTE.—He saves to the "uttermost;" His Gospel of salvation is a Gospel of infinite power; it is a Gospel of re-creation. The saved individual is a "new creature." His old life of sin is abolished through the "new creation." What a flood of joy fills the soul that is possessed of such a hope!
Evil Speaking
By John Hall
KEEP clear of personalities in conversation. Talk of things, objects, thoughts. The smallest minds occupy themselves with persons. Do not needlessly report ill of others. As far as possible, dwell on the good side of human beings. There are family boards where a constant process of depreciating, assigning motives, and cutting up character goes forward. They are not pleasant places. One who is healthy does not wish to dine at a dissecting table. There is evil enough in man, God knows. But it is not the mission of every young man and woman to detail and report it all. Keep the atmosphere as pure as possible, and fraught with gentleness and charity.—John Hall.
Expert Naval Gunnery
In the Spanish-American War it is estimated that Sampson's fleet that destroyed the Spanish warships under Cervera at the battle of Santiago scored only from three to four per cent of hits with their big guns. But that battle impressed on the American navy the necessity of good marksmanship, for it costs more than $1,000 each time one of those big guns is fired. Hence, during the last dozen years the American Government has been expending large sums on target practise in the navy, until at the present time the proficient naval gunner is able to make ninety-five per cent of hits with his big gun.11
In some of the most recent tests a target about half the size of the ordinary battle-ship was towed at a distance of from six to seven miles from the vessel that was doing the firing. In one minute and forty-six seconds a twelve-inch gun fired four shots and scored four hits; an eight-inch gun made four shots and four hits in fifty-five seconds; a seven-inch gun fired five shots in thirty-five seconds and made five hits; a six-inch gun fired five shots in thirty-three seconds and made five hits; and a three-inch gun fired five shots in thirteen seconds and made five hits. When it is taken into account that the gunner had to calculate on the roll of his ship as well as the roll of his target, together with the speed at which both were going, as well as the velocity of the wind, such results are truly marvelous.
To attain to such accuracy of fire the naval department expends an average of about $10,000 a year on each gunner, this expense being largely for ammunition to use in target practise. And while the big guns are receiving so much attention, the small ones, and particularly the modern rifle for the marines, are just as particularly looked after. For since the air-ship has made its debut the small gun must be relied upon to destroy it before it can get over the war-ship and drop its deadly bomb. Hence the efficiency of the sharp-shooter aboard the war-ship must be kept at the highest point.
There are many persons who think that such skill in perfecting the machinery of death will keep the nations at peace. But after men have attained to such a high standard in the manufacture and operation of war implements, they will have all the greater fever of anxiety to use them in real battle. The prophecies of the Bible predict that the generation that is to witness the second coming of Christ will be remarkable for its great peace talk, while at the same time it will be feverishly preparing for war. Viewed from the standpoint of these prophecies, the actual conditions of this time are most significant indeed.
