ISAIAH 40
[Yeshayah 40 Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB)]
1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your Elohim.
Are we included in the phrase "My people?" This is the only point to settle in order to be justified in appropriating the comfort. We are not Israelites according to the flesh, though a good many misguided people are of that opinion. We are Gentiles by descent and physical constitution. But we may be among the people addressed as "my people" for all that."
Sunday Morning 40/ Seasons 2: 51
The human mind is not bound to its immediate surroundings. If it were so, life would often become unbearable. But consciousness is largely made up of memory and hope, beside that which is present to the senses.
Many people choose their solace by living in the past, comforting themselves with reminiscence and recollection, escaping monotonous or unpleasant reality by absorption in what is gone.
Most are wrapped up in the immediate present and the very limited future which comes within the scope of present undertakings. But such a course does not satisfy the contemplative mind.
"Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die''
is the universal doctrine, but only the shallowest, dullest minds can find merriment satisfying under such circumstances. Such an attitude requires the cruelest, bitterest form of self-deception and willful blindness.
But, in the mercy of God, there is a third alternative for those who feel the need. How is one brought to feel the need? By a recognition of the sadness and perversions of the present dispensation, due to the incapability and inhumanity and physical frailty of man.
Is this brought home to us easily or quickly? Usually not. At first the world is a place of bright promise, of comradeship and love, of gay and thoughtless adventure. This is the impression of inexperience's innocence and buoyancy.
How do we learn differently? What prompts us to turn for comfort and satisfaction elsewhere? Usually it requires the rough hand of misfortune and disillusionment to make us fully appreciative of the vanity of present things.
We are aware, it is true, of the vast preponderance of sorrow over joy in the world, but we feel nobody's troubles as keenly as we do our own. This is in the very nature of things. Our minds can only work on what is being continually presented to them in some form or another. Unless constantly reminded either by circumstances or direct efforts of our own will, we soon forget, and our attention is taken by other things.
This, too, demonstrates why we must constantly supply our minds with material for thought from the Word of God. If we don't, our minds will feed on other and unwholesome things that so easily present themselves to them.
Bro Growcott - BYT 4: 25
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people
Comfort depends upon the state of the mind.
The comfort offered by the Scriptures is not dependent upon immediate fulfillment. It is the assurance of an ultimate reign of peace and good, that is separated from no individual by more than the brief span of a human life-time. Its comfort is not that distress is finished, but that distress is a controlled and necessary ingredient of the final result.
This is the viewpoint that prophet and apostle exhort us to maintain. We must live in patience and godliness, buoyed up by hope. We must center our minds resolutely upon that which is to come and face all present troubles in the confidence of this expectation.
"Sorrow endureth for the night," says the Psalmist-and the night may be long-"but joy cometh in the morning." The course of wisdom is not to ignore or belittle the sorrow, but to balance the whole picture. We shall not be overwhelmed by the one if the other is kept brightly in mind.
Then we can enter into the spirit of these words of Isaiah and reap the comfort intended. We are not to regard the delay with skeptical impatience or lagging faith, but we are to build our lives and hopes upon these things in the quiet and calm confidence that they represent the realities and that in God's good time all will be accomplished.
Bro Growcott - BYT 4: 25
2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem [to the lev Yerushalayim], and cry [Speak ye , and preach] unto her, that her warfare is accomplished [ tzeva'a (time of hard service, warfare) is ended], that her iniquity [ avon] is pardoned [nirtzah (punitively paid for, pardoned)]: for she hath received of Yahweh's hand double [Yad kiflayim (double) in payment] for all her sins [chattot].
"Her warfare IS accomplished and her iniquity IS pardoned." These things have been recorded for over twenty-six hundred years and the end is not yet. Some may be reminded, perhaps a little bitterly, of the statement by Paul to the Romans (4:17) that"God calleth those things which be not as though they were already."
Clearly there could be no more striking example.
To speak assuringly of warfare being over when it still had a cruel course of over 2,000 years to run may seem poor and misleading comfort - but is this the truth of the matter? A thoughtful consideration will show that this is but a narrow and unreasonable viewpoint.
Comfort depends upon the state of the mind.
The comfort offered by the Scriptures is not dependent upon immediate fulfillment. It is the assurance of an ultimate reign of peace and good, that is separated from no individual by more than the brief span of a human life-time. Its comfort is not that distress is finished, but that distress is a controlled and necessary ingredient of the final result.
This is the viewpoint that prophet and apostle exhort us to maintain. We must live in patience and godliness, buoyed up by hope. We must center our minds resolutely upon that which is to come and face all present trouble in the confidence of this expectation.
"Sorrow endureth for the night," says the Psalmist (30:5) - and the night may be long - "but joy cometh in the morning." The course of wisdom is not to ignore or belittle the sorrow, but to balance the whole picture. We shall not be overwhelmed by the one if the other is kept rightly in mind.
Thus we can enter into the spirit of these words of Isaiah and reap the comfort intended. We are not to regard the delay with skeptical impatience or lagging faith, but we are to build our lives and hopes upon these things in the quiet and calm confidence that they represent the realities and that in God's good time all will be accomplished. *
...Well, the comfort is for Jerusalem, but it does not follow that it is not for us. The Jerusalem addressed is not the merely architectural Jerusalem, but Jerusalem with her citizens, and not these in the statistical sense at any given moment, but in the sense of including all that belong to her by spiritual relation and ultimate association in the final purpose of God.
These are scattered all up and down the ages, and have not all belonged to the literal Jerusalem. Multitudes of the literal inhabitants of Jerusalem have nothing to do with them—the population of the city at the present hour, for example, or at the crisis of her destruction by Titus.
The complete and perfected Jerusalem, that will come out of the fires of affliction glorified at the coming of Christ, will include in her citizen roll myriads who never saw the literal city in the days of their mortal existence. If we are among the saved, she will include us, and therefore we are entitled to recognise ourselves addressed in words addressed to her. "Comfort to Jerusalem and all her children," is the purpose, as the opening symphony of Isaiah 40., considering it as a musical performance throughout, which it is in the highest sense.
Sunday Morning 40/ Seasons 2: 51
3 The voice of him that crieth [preacheth] in the wilderness [midbar], Prepare ye the way [derech] of Yahweh, make straight in the desert [Aravah] a highway for our Elohim.
We know, on apostolic authority, that this has reference to the work of John the Baptist, who was sent to prepare the way of Christ, as a herald opens the way of majesty. He accompanied the work here figuratively described:
4 Every valley [gey] shall be exalted [ raised up], and every mountain and hill [har and givah]shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain [bikah]:
Mountains and hills in prophetic style, signify empires, and other states of whatever constitution. To make them low is to reduce them to subjection, or to abolish them. This work began with the leveling of the Mosaic Commonwealth, and will not end until the kingdoms of the Gentile's become Yahweh's and his Christ's-Rev. 11:15.
The third coming is indicated by the words,
"And the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed and all flesh (Jew and Gentile) shall see it together."
When this glory is seen of all, it will be the revelation of the Son of Man in his glory, accompanied by the holy angels, to punish the disobedient; and to perform the good things he has promised to Israel and Judah-Jer. 33:14; Mat. 24:31; 2 Thess. 1:7, 8.
When the prophet penned the words before us, he saw the general result-the poles of illustration all in line. The apostleship of the circumcision occupying a stand point after the first coming and the ascension, could see an interval between that and the second; but beyond this, the wisdom given did not enable the Twelve to see that there would be an interval between the second and third.
John living till the Lord came to destroy the Commonwealth of Israel, and, according to tradition, for many years after, could see the second interval, a long intervening period between the second and third.
Paul being the teacher of the Gentiles, wisdom was given to him, having special reference to their time. When he alluded to these in his epistles, "the unlearned and unstable" could not understand him.
Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, July 1859
We know, on apostolic authority, that this has reference to the work of John the Baptist, who was sent to prepare the way of Christ, as a herald opens the way of majesty. He accompanied the work here figuratively described:
...He accomplished this in moral situation-removing obstacles, filling up gaps, and generally making a level way on which the Messiah might make his appearance:
"And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed."
So it was. All who looked on Christ saw the manifested glory of Yahweh-
"the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," said Paul (2 Cor. 4:6). "We have seen his glory," said John, "the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father."-"And all flesh shall see it together."
All flesh has not yet done so. The bulk of mankind, living or dead, have never heard of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Has the prophecy failed then? By no means. There was no statement in the prophecy that all flesh would see the glory of God at the moment of its first and preparatory manifestation in Christ, but that the glory then manifested should ultimately be seen by "all flesh."
The prophecy has been fulfilled so far as the programme has been unfolded. John, as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," proclaimed the impending appearing of Him whose shoe latchet he was not worthy and stoop down and unloose. In due time, the Great One so heralded appeared, and presented himself as the bearer of the divine glory to the thousands of Israel; and in due time the glory so exhibited will be witnessed and rejoiced in by earth's uncounted millions, for
"the whole earth shall be filled with his glory,"
and He who was then in Israel's midst, crucified and raised from the dead, and exalted to the Father's right hand, returns at an appointed time, when every knee shall bow to him, and every tongue confess, to the glory of God the Father.
Sunday morning 181
7 The grass [khatzir] withereth, the flower [ tzitz] fadeth [falleth]: because the spirit [Ruach]of Yahweh bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass [khatzir].
Where is hope?
This is the thoughtful but purely natural view. It sees things only as they appear and leaves out the most important feature. *
Here we are for only a few days, and yet people go on living as if they would live forever. Each man believes that all the rest are mortal, but concerning himself, he has a difficulty in realizing that it is quite so with him. It must be evident that whatever helps to break in upon this illusion is edifying. It is profitable then to dwell on the fact of human evanescence.
It is not moroseness to do this, it is common sense. It is part of ordinary wisdom to recognize that
"life is but as a vapor that appeareth for a very little while and then vanisheth away."
Whatever helps us to do so is good. It is on this principle that Solomon says
"It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting."
We must die, and it is no use averting the face from the fact. Most people are frightened at coffins, skulls, and graveyards. Why should they? These are the facts we cannot get away from. Looking at them will help us to be wise; looking away will not abolish them, but may unfit us for adjusting ourselves to them. This is where pleasure-following is hurtful. It indisposes the mind to deal with facts as they are, and leads to the fostering of illusions.
The things of God have a feeble light to the eye dazed with spectacular displays which please and dazzle: the heart kept in a simmer of frivolous mirth; or the mind engaged on passing human things. People who follow that line of things live as fools, and cannot do otherwise: for wisdom is not innate; and it is not in the power of pleasure to put it in.
Living as fools, the future is always a subject of dread to them, and they die in despair. Shall we mope then, and be dejected, and miserable - thinking only of crape and dust and worms?
There is no cheer like the cheerfulness of a sound mind. Believers of the Truth can say with Paul, with a true force and weight,
"God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind."
Seasons 2.33
8 The grass withereth [khatzir], the flower fadeth [tzitz falleth]: but the word [Devar] of our Elohim shall stand for ever.
The word of our Elohim shall stand for ever.
A copy of Isaiah recently found near the Dead Sea, and universally agreed to be 2000 years old, is to all intents and purposes identical with the book as we have it in the King James version.
The Bible, or Scriptures, of Jesus' day was the same as our present Old Testament, containing exactly the same books: no more or less. Jesus and the apostles spoke of this combined volume as the Holy Scriptures; they spoke of it as an inseparable unit; and they accepted and quoted it without question as wholly divinely inspired, word for word-basing fundamental arguments and doctrines on single words, and even parts of words (as singular or plural) (Jn.10:34; Gal.3:l6).
If it is not divinely inspired, word for word, then the arguments based on it by Christ and the apostles are pointless and powerless. Jesus said:
"Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law till ALL be fulfilled" (Matt.5:18).
The jot was the smallest Hebrew letter. Tittles were the little horns that distinguished one similar letter from another. This is how literally Jesus accepted the Old Testament Scriptures as infallibly inspired. He said again-
"ALL things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished" (Luke 18:31).
"This that is written MUST be accomplished" (Lk. 22:37).
And even more positively and sweepingly he said (Jn.10:35)-
"The Scripture cannot be broken...The Scripture CANNOT BE BROKEN."
There is no possibility of doubt as to how Jesus viewed the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God. ... Let us remember he was immortal when he said (Lk. 24:25)-
"O FOOLS and slow of heart to believe ALL that the prophets have spoken!"
Bro Growcott - THY WORD IS TRUTH
The human mind can be engrossed in the meanest and most trivial matters, or it can be devoted to the highest and loftiest considerations of divinity and holiness. The natural tendency of gravity pulls it downward, but the magnetism of the Spirit draws it upward.
As the mind thinks, so it becomes. A man is but the aggregation of his own thoughts. Therefore sons of Adam may be transformed into sons of God by a gradual displacement of the natural by the spiritual.
Every spiritual thought is an ingredient of the new creature-a strengthening of the spirit-a step towards life.
Therefore, says Paul (Phil. 4:8):
"Whatsoever things are true, lovely, gracious and just, THINK on these things."
-and thereby gradually become like them. John continues-
"Every man that hath this hope purifieth himself, even as He is pure" (1 John 3:3).
Bro Growcott - 4.25.
9 O Zion, that bringest good tidings [Mevaseret Tziyon (O Herald, Preacher of Besorah - Good News, Gospel)], get thee up into the high mountain [har gavo'ah]; O Jerusalem [Mevaseret Yerushalayim], that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength [ko'ach]; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold [towns of Yehudah, Hinei ] your Elohim!
10 Behold [Hinei], the Lord Yahweh will come with strong hand [chazak], and His arm [His zero'a (Moshiach, see Isaiah 53:1)]shall rule for him: behold, His reward [hinei, His sachar ] is with Him, and His work [pe'ullah (work, recompense, retribution, penal reward {for His enemies})] before Him.
The chapter breaks into the long, exalted eulogy to the power and greatness and unchangeableness of God... What is its purpose?
To raise and broaden the mortal conception of the meaning and purpose of life. To train the mind into channels that give a balanced, proportioned, spiritual outlook.
The human mind can be engrossed in the meanest and most trivial matters, or it can be devoted to the highest and loftiest considerations of divinity and holiness. The natural tendency of gravity pulls it downward, but the mighty divine magnetism of the Spirit draws it upward.
As the mind thinks, so it becomes. A man is but the aggregation of his own thoughts.
Every spiritual thought is an ingredient of the new creature - a strengthening of the spirit - a step towards life. Therefore, says Paul (Phil. 4:8):
"Whatsoever things are true, lovely, gracious and just, THINK on these things."
-and thereby become gradually like them. *
Bro Growcott - Lift up your eyes on high.
It is government we want, the application of compulsion to enforce that which is right and wise, and to restrain that which is foolish and wrong.
The divine voice that leaves every man at liberty to obey it or not as he likes, is only sufficient to make a selection - a sparse selection - of fit men for divine use afterwards. It is not enough to keep or bring the world into harmony with divine wisdom. The world pays no heed to wisdom and follows the bent of unregulated desire. It therefore requires "coercion."
The outcry against coercion is foolish. It is contrary to the universal habits and necessities of civilised life. It is contrary to the practices of the anti-coercionists themselves. The enforcement of law is coercion disguised, and not quite disguised; and without the enforcement of law, the world would be in chaos in less than 12 months. Violence would have the upper hand everywhere, and the works of even what civilization we have would disappear.
Until the world is "coerced" by the strong hand of Omnipotence, we shall never see that universal deference to righteousness which is promised in the "good tidings to Zion," and which will become the order of the day when
"Yahweh shall send the rod of Messiah's strength out of Zion, and he rules in the midst of his enemies."
There is therefore a very natural sequence in the next declaration of the prophecy:
"Behold Yahweh Elohim will come with strong hand and His arm shall rule for Him: behold, His reward is with Him and His work before Him."
The Spirit of God in the apostles identifies this with the second coming of Christ. Jesus himself says by John:
"Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be" (Rev. 22:12).
It is impossible therefore that we make a mistake in concluding that the event contemplated in Isa. 40:10 is the coming of Christ a second time, in power and great glory, from which it results that that coming is a coming, not only for individual judgment, but for the political coercion of the world
"To him (the overcoming one) will I give the power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. As the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to pieces, even as I received of my Father" (Rev. 2:26).
Seasons 2. 51
10 Behold [Hinei], the Lord Yahweh will come with strong hand [chazak], and His arm [His zero'a (Moshiach, see Isaiah 53:1)]shall rule for him: behold, His reward [hinei, His sachar ] is with Him, and His work [pe'ullah (work, recompense, retribution, penal reward {for His enemies})] before Him.
The Creator in Shepherd-manifestation by the Spirit: this is the glorious idea before us in the parable put forth by the son of David, in the hearing of an undiscerning audience in the Temple. Here are power and kindness in combination. You may have power without kindness, and kindness without power: and either or both without wisdom. But when the Creator of the ends of the earth steps into the arena, we have all in combination.
The wonderful phenomenon presented to view of a kind, strong, wise, unerring, Shepherd-man, in whom the Father dwells. When, in the history of heads and leaders was ever leader like this? Misguided indeed are the men who seek a head or leader among men. There is no master but Christ -- no shepherd but the good Shepherd.
All before him, or after him (claiming the same position) are but thieves and robbers -- seeking their own advantage on the pretext of serving the sheep. This shepherd truly loves the sheep, and is able to save them, and will at last show his power and his kindness in gathering them from the dark mountains into his safe and loving fold, where they will hear his voice and live and rejoice in his presence for evermore.
Nazareth Revisited Ch 28
Yahweh is omnipotent
12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?
The Father's Omnipotence. Verse 12 seems to compass the whole compass of the earth in all its fundamental features of oceans, continents and atmosphere which are all balanced in their several relations, geological, hydrological, isostatic, topographic and so forth.
The question who hath measured and balanced and weighed out all this, implies that it is not chance, but the, design of the Omnipotent Creator for the behoof of man and the creatures upon its surface or in its depths.
That God has a plan and purpose with the earth, and intends to beautify and glorify the earth (Nu.l4.21, Hbk.2.l4).
Bro Richard Lister
14 With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?
Now, as the Scripture saith, the Great Builder of the heavens and the earth is God. "His hand hath laid the foundations of the earth, and His right hand hath spanned the heavens." The Builder of all things either left the elements of the world to a random and accidental aggroupement, or He "ordered them in all things." Where is the man among "philosophers" who will stultify, or idiotize himself by saying that the Creator permitted chance to elaborate the terrestrial system?
The thing is absurd. Chance is defined to be the cause of fortuitous, or accidental events. What is that cause? The fool says in his heart it is not God. Why does he say so? Because he would make the cause of all things a mere physical disposition in matter, destitute of all intellectual and moral attributes, in order that he may get rid of all responsibility to such a Being.
He hates truth, righteousness, and holiness, and therefore he vainly strives to persuade himself that there is no God of a truthful, righteous, and holy character. But no man of any pretentions to sound mind would affirm this. Nothing has been elaborated by chance. The Scriptures declare that everything was measured, meted out, and weighed, and that the Spirit of the Lord executed His work without any to counsel or instruct Him.
...God, then, had in His own mind a pattern, or design, of all the work that was before Him, before He uttered a word, or His spirit began to move. This design, or archetype, which placed the beginning and the end of all things before Him in one panoramic view, was constructed in harmony with the principles--the eternal principles of His vast, unbounded realm, which coincide with the immutable attributes of His character. The work He was about to execute was for His own pleasure, as saith the Scripture, "Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are, and were created." But, when the work is finished, which, for His own pleasure, God labors to elaborate, what will
it consist in? This inquiry we make as the spectators of the wonders of creation, providence, and redemption. We behold the materials of these departments of Eternal Wisdom, and we ask to what are all things tending? What temple, or edifice, is the Divine Architect raising for His own pleasure and glory?
If we turn our thoughts within us, there is no voice there which unfolds the philosophy of His doings; if we soar into the heavens, or descend into the sea, if we search through the high places of the earth--we find no answer; for "who hath known the mind of the Lord, who hath been His counsellor, or who hath instructed Him?" If we would ascertain what God designs to elaborate out of the past, the present, and the future, we must be content to assume the attitude of listeners, that He may reveal to us from His own lips what He intends to evolve in the consummation of His plans.
Elpis Israel 1.6.
15 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.
We must thoroughly realize the utter insignificance and helplessness of man. Abject lowliness and dependency is the only reasonable and sensible attitude when the true picture is
perceived. God will not for a moment consider any who boldly and obstinately ignore these facts and regard themselves or mankind as of any consequence. The Spirit, through Isaiah,
gives the evaluation of man in the sight of God, "
...The insignificance of man is established by Scripture. "Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie-laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than a breath" (Psa. 62:9).
It is clear that Christ's way and viewpoint of life is not a formula for worldly success. This fact must be accepted at the outset. It is impossible to have both, although tremendous contortions are executed in a vain effort to get around this divinely stated principle.
Bro Growcott - The Fleeting Cross and the Eternal Crown
17 All nations [Kol HaGoyim] before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity [ tohu].
We are nothing: absolutely nothing. Let us get that straight. As soon as we start to think we are anything, or others think we are anything, or tell us we are anything, we are in danger. Man is nothing. God is everything. Be part of God.
Bro Growcott - Search Me O God
Mankind are nothing
They are as grass, so far as value or permanence is concerned: in the sight of God, they are less than nothing.-(Is. 40:17) They are wicked, regardless of His word: disobedient to His law, and God dashes one against the other, making use of the wicked as His sword. In this state of sin, war is a chastisement. The destruction of sinners in the war is dreadful to mere sinners. To those who have learnt to place the sanctity of divine law first, it is natural, as the drowning of millions in the flood or the perdition of the Sodomites in the flames.
When the time arrives, the sword will be put into the hands of this very class, and they will have no more compunction than Samuel in hewing the political Agags to pieces, not that they delight in war, but that they will have a strong nerve for the execution of laws, whose supremacy is necessary to universal wellbeing.
Like a humane, but skilful surgeon, their very humanity will prevent them from wincing at the critical points where sentimental weakness would be fatal to the operation.
The Christadelphian, Sept 1870
In this state of things, we find no difficulty when we consider that mankind are the descendants of the condemned man of Eden, having been suffered to walk in their own way (Acts 14:16); and providentially employed in subduing the earth, and fitting it for a habitation of righteousness in a better day to come.
We can even discover wisdom where orthodox belief presents mystery of the most staggering and bewildering kind. Death among the sinning millions, upon all of whom it has passed with the nature they have inherited from Adam, is a benign dispensation of justice.
Hell as their destiny would be the arrangement of a fiend. And what if the heathen die to rise no more (Isaiah 26:14, Psalm 49:19-20); and infancy passes away as though it had not been (Job 3:16; 10:19), this is but a momentary offence to sympathy, and has none of the anomalies brought with the orthodox view.
The dead are unconscious of deprivation. They know not anything.-(Eccle. 9:5) Therefore, we need not sorrow on their account. The law of God is that death having passed upon all, life can only be entered by belief and obedience of the faith that is in Christ.-(Heb. 5:9; Acts 20:32; 26:18.) Heathen and children being circumstantially beyond the operation of this law are unredeemed. Consequently, they remain under the dominion of death.
Their salvation, as taught by orthodox religion, upsets the revealed principles that ignorance alienates from the life of God (Eph. 4:18) and that without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6), and that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.-(Rom. 1:16.)
Their damnation, in the sense of consignment to the orthodox hell, would be a frustration of all our endeavours to recognize justice or beauty in the divine arrangement The middle ground afforded by the doctrines of man's mortality evades all difficulty, and establishes harmony between the conclusions of experience and the teachings of the Bible.
Truth always agrees with itself. May it prevail, to the discomfiture of error and the emancipation of the groaning millions.
Editor.
The Christadelphian, March 1871
The masses of barbarous human life as we survey them, say in China, in India, in Africa, in Russia, or even in our own country, may oppress human imagination as a nightmare problem; but what are they in relation to God?
... They come without a right to come; they go without a claim to stay, it is an evil state while they are in it. Manifestly the only question is, what is the meaning of the phenomenon from the Creator's point of view?
This is the question which human wisdom is not asking, will not ask. They look at the matter from the creature point of view; this is the wrong end to lay hold of! Endless stumble must be the result of this method of treating the problem. It cannot be understood from this end. How could it?
....It is evident that the question cannot be debated from the creature end. It must be considered from the Creator's point of view alone, and from this point of view, it is simple. He has formed a purpose which He has revealed, of which the human race is but the raw material, and the purpose is of that character that but a very small proportion of the human race can be finally utilised in harmony with it.
That purpose is to people the earth with an immortal race that will recognise His headship and heartily accord to Him the deference and praise which are reasonable towards Him as the author of all things and in which He delights.
This race He produces, not by direct creation (which would exclude experience of evil), but by a preliminary education of faith and obedience during an evil state, brought on by sin. This process involves the development of character, which contains within it the highest excellence of ultimate result, inasmuch as those who have been faithful and submissive during evil, are by that very experience better qualified to enjoy the blessedness of a perfect state, and to afford to God the satisfaction in His works which He desires.
This being the purpose, we have a key to the present state of things, and to the procedure God has adopted in bringing it about. "All flesh is grass," who can deny it? It is a matter of painful experience. No theory gets rid of this; but here is a view that reconciles us to it. Though subject to evil, the human race is on its way to beautification, yet only in God's way, which will limit the result to those operated upon and chosen at last because fit and faithful.
Seasons 2. 62
21 Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
23 That bringeth the princes to nothing; he maketh the judges of the earth as vanity.
THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD; HIS OVERSIGHT AND GUIDANCE IN THE AFFAIRS OF MEN
That the defence of this plainly-taught doctrine of the scripture should be necessary among the brethren of Christ, seems singular and strange: but so it is. Some deny that God interferes with, or in any way directs, the course of human events, either nationally, socially, or individually; some perhaps acknowledge the interposition in the affairs of nations, but deny it in individual cases. They affirm that all things, since the days of the apostles, have been left to chance and the course of nature, and that the Lord never stoops to notice such trifles as private affairs and transactions among His people; although we are taught in the Word that these small transactions form the life of which we are called to give account in the day of judgment.
The national phase of the subject, being more easily recognized and understood, will occupy our attention first. We wish to trace the Lord's operations in mundane affairs, apart from miraculous manifestations, without outward and visible sign; for, say the objectors, the days of miracles and spiritual gifts have long since passed away. But could we possibly believe, that the opening of the seven seals, the blowing of the seven trumpets, the outpouring of the seven vials upon the nations of the earth-turning their ways upside down, contrary to their own will and devising-could possibly have been effected, without the most scrutinizing supervision and direction on the part of Deity? Undoubtedly not.
The study of the Apocalypse alone is sufficient to shew the Lord's wonderful dealings with the peoples of the earth. Job tells us how that Yahweh "maketh the judges fools, and leadeth counsellors away spòiled;" "He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty; "He increaseth the nations and destroyeth them; He enlargeth the nations and straighteneth again."
These passages shew, in unmistakable terms, the utter powerlessness and dependence of earth's great ones, and the mighty communities of peoples over which they rule; how they are regarded but as a drop in a bucket, and "dust of the balance," in the hands of Him who holds the scale of destinies. Isaiah also informs us that "it is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants are as grasshoppers."
It is "He that bringeth the princes to nothing, and maketh the judges of the earth as vanity." "All flesh is grass; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it." This conviction was most forcibly impressed upon the mind of Nebuchadnezzar, when the glory of his reign suffered a blight by the Spirit of God blowing upon it: its beauty turned quickly into ashes, and he was forced to acknowledge that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will."
The boundaries of their habitation also being appointed, and their times determined upon by the Lord, as Paul told the Athenians in his address on Mars' Hill. The various changes which have taken place in the boundaries of the nations having been but the necessary working of God's plan, for the developing of the four great empires that have arisen successively, and their fragmental division into ten kingdoms, in the latter days. The manner or method by which these changes have been wrought, has not been by what men call "miraculous" interpositions; the effects are seen, but the hand is invisible; the work is carried on in silence, like the growth of a tree, or the diffusion of light, or the ebbing and flowing of earth's tidal waters: these, however, being reckoned as merely natural phenomena.
But, natural laws are inactive without a motive power: if the power is withheld, the law ceases to act.
The doctrine of the Lord's directing interposition in the affairs of men, threads the labyrinth of testimonies from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelations. It is the pillar of support, the groundwork upon which the whole is constructed; the filling-up of every interval, the connecting of every link. Nations are composed of individuals, and national results spring from individual efforts.
Sis Eusebia Thomas
The Ambassador of the Coming Age, March 1868
31 But they that wait upon Yahweh shall renew their strength [ko'ach]; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Bring Christ into the economy of human life, and you bring light, hope, joy, friendship with God and man, and an eternal inheritance in reserve. Some say they do not want an eternal inheritance. Some say the present life is quite long enough for them; that immortality would tire them. Such is the grunt of the sow, which knows no higher good than the mire and the wallow. They speak foolishly. They reason from present weakness and incapacity.
Whence comes the sensation of "tire"? From the incapability of an animal nature to keep up the supply of energy which enjoyment consumes. No doubt a body such as we have would tire of living for ever; but it is not the present body that is to live for ever. The present body is to be changed: it is to be made a spiritual body; and the spiritual body is powerful where the animal body is weak. There will be no "tire" or satiety with the spirit body.
Weariness belongs to weakness only, and comes in the ratio of weakness purely. A person in poor health tires sooner than one that is robust. One laid on a sick bed is tired as soon as he begins; one that is well can go on for hours, and enjoy what he is about. A spiritual body is strong, and incapable of fatigue. Therefore, endless days will be endless sweetness and joy; chiefly because heart and nature will be one with God, the inexhaustible fountain of sweetness, glory and joy.
These things are accessible to us in Christ, and in Christ only. Well may we meet at this table in honour of him and in remembrance of him. It is good for us to be here. It is to our profit to call him to memory. If we remember him, he will remember us in the day of his gladness. If we forget him, he cannot forget himself. He is in heaven, and at the appointed time will come, whether we on earth remember him or not. When that day comes, we shall realize how much it has been to our well-being to have been kept in the way of his commandments, and to have waited on the memorial of his name.
Bro Roberts - The Beauty of Christ