PSALMS 118


6 Yahweh is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?

Sensitiveness with regard to the opinion of others may be so keen as to interfere with even the manifestation of what you are. It is a great slavery. Fight against it. The only cure is to fill the mind with knowledge. This will help you to feel that the opinion of others its a small matter, and that the great thing is how you are in yourself towards God.

TC 02/1898


12 They compassed me about like bees [swarm]; they are quenched as the fire of thorns: for in the name of Yahweh I [The THIRD angel - Rev 14: 9] will destroy them.

The Drunken Harlot priesthood, the Eighth Head of the scarlet-coloured Beast, and the Ten Horns,

"have one mind, and give their power and strength unto the beast"

in aid of the common cause.

The Eighth Head is the Dictator of the confederacy, styled in ch. 20:2, "the Dragon, that old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan". The Harlot Priesthood is the False Prophet of the situation, that works miracles before the Beast, and deceives them that had received the sign of the Beast, and them that worshipped his Image before it was destroyed by the judgments of the Second Angel (ch. 19:20).

When '"christian nations" go to war, the clergy are always there to prophesy success; and to assure the combatants that the God of battles, who gives the victory, is on their side. True to their calling and character they will be the chaplains of the military establishments of the Beast in the field; and praying to their god of battles, and prophesying victory from their "sacred desks" and "altars" over the Israelitish Antichrist!

As usual, they deceive the governments, and all who trust them. By their prophesyings they deceive the worshippers of the Beast, and harden their hearts for the capture and destruction to be inflicted on them by the Third Angel-power.

The Beast and kings of the Goat-nations determine to make war against the King of the Jews, and to meet his forces in the field. It is not likely that they will attribute the recent overthrow of "the Eternal City" to power exerted by his will. They will no doubt consider it accidental, and but another phenomenon to be added to the overthrow of Pompeii and Herculaneum . The terrible catastrophe only inflames their wrath, and causes them to

"make war upon the Lamb".

The Napoleons, the Victor Emmanuels, the Francis Josephs, and the Alexanders, of the day, gather together their armies like swarms of bees, intending to scatter his troops with the whirlwind of their host

"they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me; their rejoicing is as to devour the poor secretly" (Hab. 3:14).

They will think to take him by surprise. But the Eternal Father is on his side; there will therefore be to him no cause of fear.

"what can man do unto me?" v6.

These armies will rush like the rushing of mighty waters, but

"the Lamb shall overcome them" (Apoc. 17:14).

"They shall be quenched as the fire of thorns; for by the name of Yahweh will I destroy them."

By this Name they are "rebuked, and chased as the chaff of the mountains" before the wind, and like thistle-down before the whirlwind - by this Name, "the King of kings and Lord of lords," the ten horns are overcome. They are conquered by the Lamb with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes; because he is the King Almighty; "and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful". Such disaster as this, saith the prophet,

"is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that scatter us" (Isa. 17:12-14).

Eureka 14.7.



22 The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.

God's purpose in Christ is unfolded to us in many ways in the Scriptures. Sometimes it is in plain literal terms and sometimes in language which is highly figurative and calls for much study to apprehend. The divine intention, evidently, is not merely to reveal, but to enforce reflection on what is revealed. Let us gratefully appreciate the arrangement and exercise our minds as God intended.

By way of illustration, how beautiful and impressive is the method employed by the Spirit to describe the position, and the facts concerning it, of the redeemed in their future glory under the figure of "a spiritual house" (1 Pet. 2:5), "a holy temple" (Eph. 2:21), with Christ as the "chief corner stone"!

How wonderfully apposite is this figure of our coming exaltation and spirit relationship to the eternal; of our dependence upon Christ for our salvation; and of the past humiliating experience of our Great Head. It is more than beautiful, it is confirmatory of our faith.

Could David or Isaiah have employed this figure as they did, had they not been divinely inspired? Only a man blind to Israel's hope could so affirm. A thousand years before Christ was born the Psalmist exclaimed:

"The stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner" (Ps. 118:22).

How telling was Christ's reference to this foreshadowing in view of what was happening in the closing days of his precious life:

"Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner" (Matt. 21:42).

And still more telling must it have been for Peter to have emphasized it in the ears of Israel when the death and resurrection were but the events of yesterday (Acts 4:10-12). The use made of this passage by Christ and Peter suggests a still further use to be made of it in time to come.

Will not those of us who are privileged to be the teachers of the coming age be able to say to men, on the strength of Christ being enthroned in Jerusalem and the acknowledged Saviour of men: Did ye never read in the Scriptures,

"Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a sure foundation" (Is. 28:16).

Shall we allow our faith to grow feeble, while the word is able to provoke such upbuilding thought? No.

Bro AT Jannaway

The Christadelphian, Jan 1911


24 This is the day [of a 1000 years] which Yahweh hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Thank God for every new day. Make each one a fresh, thankful, enthusiastic new beginning. Yesterday's follies, failures, fleshlinesses, weaknesses, time-wastings, are all gone with the night: analysed, and self-searchingly and prayerfully -- ever conscious of its own weakness and limitation and need.

Bro Growcott



27 El is Yahweh, which hath shewed us light: bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.

In patriarchal and Mosaic times, when things instituted possessed a typical significance, altars were designated by divine and highly expressive titles.

In Gen. xxxiii. 18-20, we learn that Jacob erected one at Shalem, and called it AIL-ELOHAI-YISRAAIL -- the Strength of the Mighty Ones of Power's Prince. As Jacob did not consider the work of his own hands was this STRONG ONE; in its being testified that he called the altar by this name, we are instructed that the prophet (and Jacob was a prophet as well as Abraham and Isaac) erected it as a type, or symbol, of Him the Strength or Power, who promised him such great things with his Seed -- the Mighty Ones of Jacob.

Again, Moses built an altar after the battle with Amalek at Rephidim, and named it, Yahweh-nissi; "and he said, Because his hand is against the throne of Yah, there is war for Yahweh with Amalek from generation to generation" (Exod. xvii. 15). Here, the altar's name is He shall be my banner. Who shall be? He who shall be the Deity manifested in flesh, the Mighty One of Jacob. He shall be Israel's Banner against all the Powers that lift the hand against Yah, the throne of Him who shall be; for there shall be war against such till their thrones become the conqueror's.

But, in the building of altars the will of the Deity was that they should be of earth; or if of stone, that the stone should not be hewn. "An altar of earth thou shall make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings ...; in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon (Exod. xx. 24). The permanent altar was made of wood, overlaid with brass; and when cleansed, anointed, and sanctified, it was Most Holy; and whatsoever touched it was holy.

Now, all this was significant of the substance, Christ, who was "the end of the law." The Holy Spirit signified something that he regarded important in his system of wisdom, in commanding an altar to be made of earth, or of unhewn stone; and in forbidding a tool to be lifted upon it. The things commanded were "a parabola for the time then present" -- a riddle, the meaning of which would be found in the realities developed in the Christ. He is declared by Paul to be the christian altar.

"We have an altar," says he in Heb. xii. 10, which in being cleansed by the blood of Jesus is made identical with him. He was the altar of earth, or of unhewn stone; and in his making, or generation, he was begotten, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the Deity." To affirm, that in his generation he was begotten of Joseph, is to "pollute him." In admitting his altarship, and at the same time affirming his paternity to be of Joseph, and not of the Deity, as related in Luke, is to make Joseph the builder of an altar of hewn stone -- a polluted altar, upon which a man's nakedness had been discovered.

Jesus being set forth by the Deity a propitiatory for the remission of sins that are passed through faith in his blood (Rom. iii. 25) exhibits him in relation to the believer of the truth as an Altar -- the real Ail elohai-Yisraail and Yahweh-nissi. The Word made Flesh was at once the victim, the altar, and the priest. The Eternal Spirit-Word was the High Priestly Offerer of His own Flesh, whose character was without spot -- "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners;" "who knew no sin;" yet whose nature was in all points like ours -- "sin's flesh," in which dwells no good thing (Heb. ix. 14; vii. 26; 2 Cor. v. 21; Rom. viii. 3; vii. 18; Heb. ii. 14-17).

The Flesh made by the spirit out of Mary's substance, and rightly claimed therefore in Psalm xvi. 8; Acts ii. 31, as His flesh, is the Spirit's Anointed Altar, cleansed by the blood of that flesh when poured out unto death "on the tree." This flesh was the victim offered -- the sacrifice. Suspended on the tree by the voluntary offering of the Spirit-Word (John x. 18), "sin was condemned in the flesh," when the soul-blood thereof was poured out unto death. The Spirit-Word made his soul thus an offering for sin (Isa. liii. 10); and by it sanctified the Altar-Body on the tree. It was now a thusiasterion -- an Altar Most Holy; and all that touch it are holy; and without touching it none are holy.

This then is the Altar that decorates the Court of the Priests in the temple-system of apocalyptic symbols. It is the mystical Christ-Altar, to the horns of which the sacrifice is bound (Psa. cxviii. 27). The magnitude of this altar is equal to the One Body of which the Lord Jesus is the head; so that all who are "in him" "wait at the altar, and are partakers with the altar," because they "eat of the sacrifice" (1 Cor. ix. 13; x. 17,18): they "eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, which is meat indeed, and drink indeed." 

This eating and drinking is intellectual. What we read, or hear and understand, and believe, we eat, and digest, and assimilate, and grow thereby. "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood," saith Jesus, "dwelleth in me, and I in him" (John vi. 56). Here is a mutual indwelling between Christ and the believer. When the enlightened believer has got into Christ, he dwelleth in him, and feeds upon his flesh and blood -- he is within the Altar, and partaking with it. He has touched the Most Holy, and is therefore holy, or a saint.

Eureka 6.5.2.