GOD FOREVER MOVES TOWARDS THE HIGHER

GOD FOREVER MOVES TOWARDS THE HIGHER 

"The latter glory of this House shall be greater than the former" Hag. 2:9

In this chapter there are three messages, all of which were called forth by ATTITUDES of the people which threatened to prevent their ACCOMPLISHMENT of the great work. The first message aroused them and under the leadership of Ze­rubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest, they started well. After about seven weeks came the feast of Tabernacles with its necessary cessation of work. During that period they were beset by the laments and weeping’s  of those who grieved over the poverty of the House they were building, in comparison with the glorious House which had been destroyed. Such mourning tended to dishearten them, and to correct this, the prophet made this great declaration. Here again is a persistent peril. Men are constantly tempted to think meanly of the work they are doing as they compare it with the glories of past achievements. It is an utterly false and unwarranted thing to do. To that House, lacking in some material splendor which had characterized the former one, there was to come the desire of all nations, and so a spiritual glory which the former House never knew. Let us lay the lesson to heart. We may be working better and greater things than we know. It is always futile to judge the value of God-appointed tasks by the appearance of the hour in which they are done. If they are indeed appointed by Him, that is enough for us to know; and more, that is the assurance that they are better than the past, for God is forever moving towards the higher, the grander, the nobler: and will do so, until He has wrought out the final perfection of His will (Eph. 5:27; 1 Thess. 3:13). And this was all part of a plan before the beginning of this earth (2 Tim. 1:9; 2 Thess. 2:13).

TRUE MORAL GOVERNMENT AT LAST

TRUE MORAL GOVERNMENT AT LAST 

"The earth is Jehovah's, and the fullness thereof" Psa. 24:1

That is the fundamental note in the music of this song. Everything which follows must be interpreted by its message. If this Psalm was written—as it most probably was—for the occasion when the ark of God was taken into the city of the great king, and placed in the tent which David had prepared for it, the singer saw in that ceremony the symbol of greater things. These first words assert THE SOVEREIGNTY OF JEHOVAH OVER THE WHOLE EARTH. Everything is His by CREATIVE RIGHT. This truth is quoted by Paul in 1 Cor. 10:26, 28. Then, some moral deflection, some necessity for the exercise of executive power, is recognized by the questions as to who shall ascend into the hill of Jehovah. The answer to the question constituted a revelation of the fact that THE GOVERNMENT OF THE EARTH must be established on a MORAL FOUNDATION. The One Who is described, is set forth wholly in the matter of CHARACTER. Let this be carefully considered. The passage of the description from the use of the singular pronoun to that of the plural, merely sets forth the fact that the generation to be associated with the One must conform to that character and that shall be true of the nation of Israel in the end. The song immediately returns to the contemplation of the One, Who is now designated the King of Glory. His glory is that of those moral excellence’s already described. In these He is "strong and mighty in battle" and He proves that in the great final battle on this earth spoken of in Rev. 20:8. By this strength He passes to the place of power; in this might He overthrows all His foes; and gains, or regains, His true and rightful place of rule over the earth, and the fullness thereof: The HOLINESS OF THE KING is at once the secret of His strength in government, and the principle of His might in redemption being displayed mightily in the end with war being ended with its effects (Rev. 21:4).

SPIRIT AND TRUTH WORSHIP -PERFECT WORSHIP

SPIRIT AND TRUTH WORSHIP - PERFECT WORSHIP 

"Without blemish" Lev. 1:3

Leviticus was the hand-book of the PRIESTS. It contains the laws governing the whole system of WORSHIP. In Exodus we have the record of the words God spoke to Moses from the Mount. They are the fundamental words of MORAL ORDER. In Leviticus we have words God spoke to Moses from the midst of the Tabernacle. They are the words of His ADMINISTRATION of the affairs of His people in HOLINESS and in GRACE. Throughout God is seen as THE GOD OF ALL PERFECTION, making it possible for imperfect man to draw nigh to Himself through SACRIFICE. The sacrifices and offerings were all to be provided by the worshipers, but they were to be the SYMBOLS OF AN OFFERING AND SACRIFICE WHICH THE WORSHIPERS COULD NOT PROVIDE, BUT WHICH WOULD BE PROVIDED BY GOD. Because they were thus to symbolize PERFECTION, they must be, so far as man could make sure of it, PERFECT IN THEMSELVES. That is the significance of this phrase "without blemish." Nothing offered to God must be imperfect. The principle abides, even though we are looking back to the ONE PERFECT OFFERING, rather than onward in expectation of its coming, our only right to offer anything to God, in any form, is created by the one Offering through which we are sanctified. Every offering is a symbol still of the One, therefore only of the best we have, have we any right to offer to Him. He is worthy to receive the most precious, and we do wrong to the perfection of His Sacrifice when we give to Him in kind, or in effort, that which is second-rate or imperfect. Our best is but poor, but that which we do give, must be our best; our worship must be in spirit and truth as He told the Samaritan lady at the well. (John 4:23) “But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him.” (PERFECT WORSHIP)

AGNOSTIC-ATHEIST

AGNOSTIC-ATHEIST 

"Wherefore I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion; for who shall bring him back to see what shall be after him?" Eccles. 3:22

With this chapter the Debater begins to advance evidence of the vanity of all things, from a wider outlook than that of the purely personal. In six chapters (3-8) we find him dealing with relative considerations. First he returned to the MECHANISM OF THE UNIVERSE, already touched upon (1:4-11). He sees a recurrence of opposite circumstances continuously manifest, and concludes that man's wisest course is to adapt himself to these. It is to be observed throughout that this man was by no means an ATHEIST. He believed in God, and in His government of all things. But his conception of man was that he is a being living in the midst of this government without any personal fellowship with the God Who is governing. He thought of man as an ANIMAL ONLY; he is like the beasts—at least this man was not sure that there is any difference. He was an AGNOSTIC. He inquired: "Who knows the spirit of man whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goes downward to the earth?" Therefore his outlook upon life lacked illumination and his conclusion was that there is nothing better than that a man should make the best he could out of the things of the earth that he should rejoice in his own work. This is perfectly natural and inevitable. To attempt to interpret God by circumstances, as they appear to man's partial vision, is to become PESSIMISTIC. It is only when the soul looks out upon circumstances from the standpoint of fellowship with God, and knowledge of Him, that it can be OPTIMISTIC.

NO ESCAPE FROM GOD

NO ESCAPE FROM GOD 

"Therefore thus says Jehovah; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil . . ." Micah 2:3

After a graphic description of the coming judgment (Mic. 1:6-16) the prophet declared the nature of the sin of the nation (Mic. 2:1). It will be noticed that the sin was peculiarly the sin of the RULING CLASSES. The period was one of MATERIAL PROSPERITY, but the power of this was in the hands of the rulers. In view of this power, they planned and plotted in the night, and in the day carried out their plans. Their rule was that of OPPRESSION. The note in this charge which reveals the deepest wrong is that in which the prophet declared that the oppression was not an action of sudden passion, or of swift moral collapse. It was premeditated. Observe the force of the word devise: "Woe to them that devise iniquity." This gives force to the declaration: "Behold against this family do I devise an evil." Men deliberately PLOT AND PLAN IN THE DARKNESS, DEVISE INIQUITY IN THE NIGHT, when their fellow men cannot see, and therefore do not know. But God is not deceived, He knows; and over against the devising of wickedness, is set His devising. They DEVISE INIQUITY AGAINST THEIR FELLOW COUNTRYMEN; but JEHOVAH DEVISES EVIL AGAINST THEM. This is forever so, and the evil which God devises against the devising of iniquity: is always the outworking of that very iniquity in its reaction upon the evil workers. THERE IS NO ESCAPE FROM GOD; and that fact is the reason of confidence, and the secret of peace, in the days bursting of the apparent triumph of evil men.

LIVING WITHOUT PROPER FOCUS

LIVING WITHOUT PROPER FOCUS 

"Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; vanity of vanities, all is vanity" Eccles. 1:2

The subtitle of this book found in our translations, "or the Preacher," we owe to Luther, and it is misleading, the more correct rendering of the Hebrew word “Koheleth” would be "The Debater." This is important, for it immediately reminds us that here we have DISCUSSION, rather than TEACHING. In these words we have the GENERAL PROPOSITION of the Debater. Everything he says from here on to the 8th verse of chapter 11 is in defense of this statement. Then in a paragraph, brief but pregnant (11:9-12), he gives an entirely different view of life, which is a correction of this. Let us, then, at once face this opening declaration. It is an absolutely accurate statement of life when it is lived under certain conditions; but it is not true as a statement of what life must necessarily be. There are thousands of men and women today who cannot, and do not, accept this to be true of life as they find it; it is not vanity, vapor, emptiness, nothingness. To them life in every way is real, rich, full, and glorious. It is best, then, that at the beginning we should understand the viewpoint of the Debater. His DECLARATION is that things in themselves bring no satisfaction to the soul of man. To live on the earth without recognition of the ULTIMATE WISDOM which begins and continues in the FEAR OF JEHOVAH, to deal only with that hemisphere which is "under the sun," is indeed to find things of exceeding wonder and beauty and power; but it is to find NOTHING THAT SATISFIES, AND TO BE LEFT AT LAST WITHOUT ANY REALITY, TO FIND ONLY VANITY, VAPOR, EMPTINESS.

GOD EVENTUALLY GETS FED UP

GOD EVENTUALLY GETS FED UP  

"Thus saith Jehovah; For three transgressions of Damascus, yea, for four" Amos 1:3

Amos was a man of Judah, who was sent by God to prophesy in Israel. In this book we have the notes of his ministry. No prophet, in the technical sense of the word; nor the son of a prophet, that is he had no training in the schools of the prophets, he nevertheless was a veritable prophet of God. His outlook upon the Divine government was of the widest. He saw God judging, NOT JUDAH AND ISRAEL ONLY, but ALL THE NATIONS. The first section of the book contains eight oracles concerning the nations, setting forth this fact. Each one of them is introduced by these words, "For three transgressions . . . yea, for four." The language is obviously figurative, rather than mechanical. The truth thus emphasized with reference to all the nations is that of the Divine patience, and justice. Upon all these nations the wrath of God was to fall, but not until their persistence in wickedness was such as to leave no room for any other method of dealing with them, enough is enough. The "three transgressions" represent FULLNESS OF INIQUITY; but when that becomes "four," then the iniquity has PASSED BEYOND THE BOUNDS OF THE DIVINE PATIENCE. This is always the law of God's dealings with nations. The stroke of His judgment never falls until sin has become so COMPLETE that there is no room for the exercise of mercy. In the Bible we see the good getting better to perfection while the bad get to their worst and then we see the complete exercise of the mission He was sent to this earth. When that is so, His judgments inevitably come, and that in the interest of humanity as a whole. A careful reading of these narratives will show that the national sins against which God proceeds, are always those of wrong done to other nations.