The Moral Glories of Our Lord

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A mini coloring book and small posters to help the Sunday school teacher tell the story of Elijah ascending to heaven in a chariot of fire.

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 The Encourager

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 Here's the Difference

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Jane Aubry - I remember one day in the 1970's playing my guitar, looking up to heaven, and saying, “If there is a God, I want to know Him.” When I met Roger, my husband to be, he told me he was “saved”.  I had never heard the word before.  I had thought we could only “hope” to go to heaven. He told me how he was saved and that was the end of talking about it for a time. more...

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 The Old Nature

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What are the crowns that Christ will give to believers for their reward?  At the Judgment Seat of Christ, the Lord will reward believers for what they have done in their life (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)." TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 3:11-15).  From other Bible verses, we can see that the Lord will reward believers with several type of crowns...

1 Corinthians 9:25" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 9:25 - "And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible."

1 Thessalonians 2:19" TARGET="_blank">1 Thessalonians 2:19 - "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing"

1 Timothy 4:8" TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 4:8 - "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."

James 1:12" TARGET="_blank">James 1:12 - "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."

1 Peter 5:4" TARGET="_blank">1 Peter 5:4 - "And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away."

Revelation 2:10" TARGET="_blank">Revelation 2:10 - "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

Revelation 4:4" TARGET="_blank">Revelation 4:4 - "And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold."

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Could you throw any light on the apparent contradictions between the 12th and the 44th verses of Deuteronomy 28:12," TARGET="_blank">Deuteronomy 28:12, 14? We often hear the former quoted in support of the Jews being money-lenders down the course of time. The position in verse is in exactly the opposite order from that of verse 12.

That is so. In verse 12 we read: “Thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow,” and in verse : “He (i.e. the stranger that is within thee) shall lend to thee and thou shalt not lend to him.” The positions are reversed, because the conditions are altered. In verse 12, Moses is enumerating the blessings which will accrue to Israel upon obedience, and though the obedience of the nation was very far from perfect, yet for the sake of the godly, and especially of the Messiah, God did accord them a measure of prosperity, though whether we ever hear of Israel actually lending “to many nations,” I very much doubt. But in verse 44 (beginning back from verse 15) Moses is enumerating the disabilities—the cursings on those who disobey, and these have been terribly realised in the great majority of the people. The idea that all Jews are wealthy is a superficial one. Many have accumulated wealth, it is true, in countries like our own and the United States, where they live and carry on business on equal terms with others. In many lands, however, they are hampered and handicapped, with the result that the mass of Jews at the present day are very far from being able to lend, and are reduced to living on a very low scale, on the debtor rather than on the creditor side, if ever the latter. Verse I2 is, moreover, national; verse , individual. I think when above considerations are weighed, even the appearance of a contradiction disappears.

W.H.

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Ought we to interpret Genesis 1:1" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 1:1 as referring to the original creation of the universe quite distinct from the rest of the chapter, or is it the summary of what follows?

I certainly believe it is the former. If it were the latter, should we not expect the creation of both the heavens and the earth to be enlarged upon in the rest of the chapter, whereas the “heavens” in the sense of v. i are not mentioned again, nor is it the creation of the earth which is brought before us after Genesis 1:2," TARGET="_blank">Genesis 1:2, but the refurbishing of its surface conditions to prepare it as a habitation for man. The verb, “to create,” occurs only twice in the body of the chapter, at the start of animal life and at the start of human life, vv. 21, 27. Does not the fact that the earth alone is described as “without form and void” (tohtI wãbhohü) indicate that something had happened to it, which had not happened to the uni.. verse at large? There is nothing in verse i to suggest that the original creation was not perfect. That the earth was created a scene of desolation, is distinctly negatived in Isaiah 45:18" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 45:18: “He created not the earth a waste” (tohü) (R.V.).

These Hebrew descriptive words for “without form and void” occur together in only two other places, i.e., Isaiah 34:11" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 34:11: “the line of confusion (tohü) and the stones of emptiness”(bohü) ; and Jeremiah 4:23" TARGET="_blank">Jeremiah 4:23 “I saw the earth and lo, without form and void” (tohü wabhohü), and both describe scenes induced by judgment. We are not called to speculate as to why the earth, created as we believe, so perfectly (Gen 1:1)" TARGET="_blank">Gen 1:1) that “the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:7)," TARGET="_blank">Job 38:7), became so imperfect. We cannot imagine them doing this, if the creation they witnessed was a waste of desolation, covered with waters and pitch darkness. Between verses i and 3 may occur a period of untold millions of years, sufficient for the laying down of the stratified, fossiliferous and cretaceous, rocks, the coal measures, etc.
But is this division of the chapter a mere arbitrary device, or is it justified by the form of the Hebrew employed? I will cite as a reliable witness Dr. E. B. Pusey, for many years Regius professor of Hebrew at Oxford. He discusses the question in the Preface to his “Lectures on Daniel the Prophet,” p.p. xvii.-xxiv. He writes, “Of the forms of speech which could have been chosen, to express past time, that has been chosen, which least connects the date, when the earth was one vast waste, with the time when God created it.” Both were in past time, but there is nothing to connect “those times together.” “Had Moses intended to say that the earth was waste and desolate when God created it, the idiom for this would have been “and the earth without form and void” (without the verb) (page xviii.)—What Moses does write “has no force at all, unless it be used to express what was the condition of the earth in a past time previous to the rest of the narrative, but in no connection in time whatever with what precedes.” Dr. Pusey also points out that the “and” by which verse z is also united to v. i, shows that v. i does not stand as a mere summary of what follows. There are two distinct facts—the primal creation in v. x, and a subsequent condition of the earth “without form and void.”

W.H.

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“THY KINGDOM COME”

Why did our Lord teach His disciples to pray “Thy Kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10)," TARGET="_blank">Matthew 6:10), yet later say to Pilate in John 18:36, “My Kingdom is not of this world”?

How can I reconcile these statements?

It may be said on the face of it that, if we take the expression, “Thy Kingdom come,” by itself, there is nothing to affirm that the Kingdom referred to is of this world. The expression is often used to-day of what would be termed “God’s cause”—”not meat or drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” When we speak of the Kingdom of God coming, why, it may be asked, should we not be referring to the spiritual Kingdom? However, I am not advocating this use of the term, as we ought to take the words in their context. Such a question as this shews how important it is “rightly to divide the word of truth,” and to recognise the dispensational change, which occurred even in the brief space of our Lord’s ministry.

The kingdom that John, and subsequently our Lord and His apostles, proclaimed, was the Kingdom for which the disciples were taught to pray. This Kingdom, as we have shewn more than once lately, was the fifth Kingdom foretold by the prophet Daniel (chap. 2. ). Babylon, Medo-Persja and Greece had lost their power, and for nearly a century Jerusalem had been subject to Rome. The Lord Jesus was born King of the Jews. Born of the seed of David according to the flesh, He was the rightful heir to the Throne. He offered Himself as such. His miraculous works were His credentials, but these were in Matthew 9" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 9 and 12 imputed by His foes to Satan, and His rejection on the day of His entry into Jerusalem became a foregone conclusion.

This in no way set on one side the necessity of atonement, but that is kept in the back-ground till Matthew 16:21" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 16:21: “From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto His disciples how that He must suffer and be killed and be raised again the third day.” The Lord could not reign over an unrepentant people, and only, if repentant, on the ground of atonement. The setting up of the Messianic earthly kingdom was then postponed, so that the Lord’s words to Pilate fit into their place: His Kingdom had then for the time being lost its earthly character. When once more He claims the Kingdom, it will be as the Son of Man, coming in glory, and then it will be established by force. It will be said in that day, “The kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever.” The Millennial Kingdom will be the vestibule of the “Everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

W.H.

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