The Two Roads Chart

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Jim Joyce - When I was 16, I decided to leave home and live on the street.  I thought real living was having fun and going after a thrill.  I became a regular user of drugs and alcohol. In my parents' home, God and spiritual things were most important. Just as I decided to leave the house, it occurred to me, “If I leave, I will leave behind the gospel. This will be my final decision to reject God.” It was as real as if I was opening a door and walking into hell. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to be lost. I wanted to be saved...

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John Dennison

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Bryon Meyers

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Printable Activity: 8 page mini coloring book and full-sized pictures to tell the story of Peter preaching the gospel for the first time to Gentiles - Cornelius and his family.

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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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In Matthew 25," TARGET="_blank">Matthew 25, the Lord says to the faithful servants, “Well done!” but in Luke 19," TARGET="_blank">Luke 19, only “Well!” There must be a difference intended. What is it?

The difference is only in the translation, for it is the same word in the Greek in either case—the commendatory adverb, “EU,” “Well !“ Perhaps, “It is well,” would do in both places. This question suggests another which is very interesting, but not so easily answered.

What is the difference between the two parables?

Nothing but the most superficial reading can fail to note that a wide difference exists. In Matthew 25," TARGET="_blank">Matthew 25, there are three servants; in Luke, ten. In Matthew the sums entrusted vary, five talents, two and one; in Luke each servant receives the same, one pound or mina. In Matthew the faithful servants gain proportionately to the talents received, the one who had received five doubles it, and so with the recipient of two. In Luke the sums gained vary from ten to one.

In the two Gospels, the unfaithful servant received different treatment; in Matthew he is cast into “outer darkness,” in other words, he is a lost soul; in Luke all reward is withheld and his pound taken from him and given to him that had gained ten.

There is a fourth and very important difference, which throw light on the interpretation of the parables; in Matthew there are only two classes—the faithful and unfaithful servants; in Luke there is a third and distinct class—the citizens who hated their Lord, and were dealt with in condign judgment at His coming. This indicates, I believe, the true key to the parables. In Matthew, the three servants include profession, in fact all men, as we might say—three divisions of humanity, the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God. They have all received some talent from God, for which they must give account to Him. A man does not escape responsibility by refusing it.

Each man, godly and ungodly alike, will be held responsible for his talents, his faculties of mind, education, privileges, opportunities; and while no one will be saved by these things, there will be a reward for having by grace used them for God. On the other hand, there will be judgment on those “who have not,” corresponding to the rebellious citizens of Luke. In the case of the ten servants, they all start with the same amount—a pound. What exactly this corresponds to is uncertain, perhaps the life which each one has to live and make the most of for God. They will be rewarded in proportion to their faithfulness. The unfaithful one is not consigned to the place of punishment, but he is so far deprived of the opportunity of future service, from which it seems evident that the Lord’s servants are qualifying in this world for their service in the next.

W.H.

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THE SEALING
Is the sealing of the Holy Spirit in this dispensation, a sealing on the forehead, seen outwardly, or is it experienced inwardly?

Does not John Bunyan refer to an outward sealing in the Pilgrim's Progress?

The sign of the old covenant was circumcision, an outward mark in the flesh. It is said in the case of Abraham to have been the “seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had yet being uncircumcised” (Romans 4:9)," TARGET="_blank">Romans 4:9), which was of course exceptional, as infants of eight days old have no righteousness. The Lord seals His people as His own by giving them His Holy Spirit. “In whom having believed ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13" TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 1:13 R.V.; see also Ephesians 4:30;" TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 4:30; and 2 Corinthians 1:22)." TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 1:22). This is not an experience subsequent to conversion, but at conversion; nor is it an outward mark on the flesh, but a spiritual reality, which no doubt will come out in life. John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” is an allegory: that is, a spiritual truth conveyed under the form of a literal story. We should get into no end of difficulties, if we interpreted the figures literally.

Are all sinners, for example, to wade through a literal “Slough of Despond” on their way to the wicket gate? Besides, even Bunyan must be checked by the Word of God, and no less, “experiences” that pious persons claim to have passed through. There is no such thing taught in the Bible, as a Christian “being sealed on the forehead,” and for anyone to claim such a thing is a mistaken pretension, which he should seek grace from God to abandon.

W.H.

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What is the meaning of our Lord’s words, “He that shall endure unto the end the same shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13)" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 24:13)? Why was this promise made? To what time does it apply?

In interpreting words of Scripture it is very important, before attempting any general application, to understand the original intention of the speaker, that is, first to interpret the words in their context. What then is the “end” spoken of here, and what did the Lord mean by being “saved”?

We notice that the disciples’ question was, “What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the age?” This word (sunteleia) is much the same as is used in the other occurrences of the chapter for “end” (telos), and seems to include the general winding up of things. It occurs before in Matthew 13:39-40" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 13:39-40 and 49 as “the end of the age.” The Lord in His reply warns against mistaking for the end of the coming storm, its premonitory rumblings—”wars and rumours of wars.” “But the end is not yet,” He says (v. 6), for wars, famines, pestilences and earthquakes are only “the beginning of sorrows” (v. 8).

Before that “end” there must intervene terrible persecutions against the disciples of the Lord (of whom those addressed were the living representatives), and all will not pass through these unscathed: “many shall be offended,” and shall even apostatise from the faith. “And many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many. And because inquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure to the end” (i.e. of this great tribulation)—that is, shall not apostatise—”shall be saved,” in the sense, I believe, of being preserved alive.

Apostasy will not be the means of safety, but standing firm. This sense of physical preservation we find in other places. “God is the Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe,” “Eight souls were saved by water” (i.e. Noah and his family); and in this chapter also at verse 22 we read: “Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved, but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened”—reminding us of Paul’s words on the ship in Acts 27:31" TARGET="_blank">Acts 27:31 “Except these (the sailors) abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.”

We may notice in closing that the scene of these happenings will be Judaea; the temple will be rebuilt, and when a special sign spoken of by Daniel the prophet is seen, let all the disciples “flee into the mountains” (v. 16). It will be “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7)." TARGET="_blank">Jeremiah 30:7). Let them pray that their flight be not on the Sabbath day. Before the end, the Gospel of the Kingdom will be proclaimed everywhere as a witness. No doubt, the words we are considering may be used by extension to-day.

The best proof of reality is continuance in the faith. “Enduring to the end” is the outward and visible effect of the new-birth. It is those who are most truly in Christ who will feel most their need of being kept by the power of God, and consequently their faith will be in exercise. There were false professors in the early churches, who forsook the assembling of themselves with their brethren, and it is to be feared that such exist to-day. Jude speaks of them. They may boast of their correct knowledge of God, but alas their works sometimes seem to give the lie to their profession. The prayer of the true believer will be increasingly and to the end, “Hold Thou me up and I shall be safe!”

W.H.

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THE BREAD

At the Lord’s Supper is the loaf a symbol of the human Body of the Lord, and also a symbol of His mystical Body—the Church?

When thus gathered, are we an expression of that Body on earth? It has been stated by a well-known teacher that “the Church which is Christ’s Body” (Ephesians 1:22-23)" TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 1:22-23) is spiritual, and spiritually discerned, lying altogether beyond the range of the natural senses and is without organisation or expression on earth.”
It has often been remarked that the order of things in 1 Corinthians 10" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 10: differs from that of the following chapter, in that in the ioth the cup precedes the bread, whereas it is the bread which comes first in the i ith chapter, where we have the actual order of the celebration. In the former chapter, it is a question of communion which rests on the blood; in the latter, of remembrance, which views primarily the Person. Certainly in 1 Corinthians 11" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 11: , the loaf represents the literal human Body of the Lord, according to His words: “This is My body, which is given for you.” How else could such words be understood, than as referring to His literal Body, which was crucified for us, and in which He bore our sins, and which the bread represents?

But in 1 Corinthians 10:17," TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 10:17, we read: “For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread,” or as the R.V. margin has it, more clearly and I judge, more correctly: “Seeing that there is one bread, we, who are many are one body.” I do not think it is necessary for us to assert that “we are an expression of the body on earth,” for this may, as it has too often done in the past, savour of pretension, but rather that the one loaf is the expression of the one mystical Body of Christ. I do not think that this is out of harmony with the statement quoted above by the “well-known teacher.” The one loaf does not define the unity of the Body, it affirms it and we say, “Amen”!

W.H.

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Help would be valued on 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10." TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 6:9, 10.

1 Corinthians 6:9," TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 6:9, 10 describes some of the ungodly at Corinth. “Such were some of you,” says Paul, naming various phases of sin which habitually characterised them, some one sin, some another. A believer might fall into a grave sin, a Noah into drunkenness, a David into adultery, a Peter into cursing and swearing; but these were terrible accidents in their lives, not habitual customs. A lamb might fall into the mire, but it could not rest there; a swine if dragged out of the mire would return to it again. The characteristically unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. They must be born again. Such were some of the Corinthians (but not all grossly so), but they were “washed” (i.e., from the defilement), “sanctified” (i.e., from the habit), and “justified (i.e., from the guilt) in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

W.H.

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