HARVEST GLEANINGS III

FUTURE FAVORS TO ALL MANKIND

The final "chart-talk" of the series conducted by C T Russell in Allegheny Carnegie hall was given yesterday afternoon to a crowded house. Till long past the hour considered by ordinary church-goers as a respectable time to close, the speaker held his hearers by portraying "The Great Consummation" - in other words, the features of the plan of God in closing up the affairs of the "present dispensation," and the ushering in of the "times of refreshing" constituting the future favors to mankind. The speaker evidently felt that he had an important message to deliver, and must make use of the opportunities which his closing special service would afford to press it home to his hearers.

The congregation returns to its regular meeting place next Sunday, where services will be held as usual, at 3 p. m. and 7:30. Pastor Russell will have charge at both services.

The text for yesterday's discourse was from Isa. 28:22 , "Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong, for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts a consummation, even determined upon the whole earth."

PROPHECY OF GREAT EVENTS

These words were suggested as a portion of the great prophecy concerning events which were due to take place in the end of the history of the dispensation of evil, which closes concurrently with the gospel age, during which God has been selecting the church of Christ. On his chart the speaker rehearsed the various periods into which human history has been divided, and dwelt specially upon the call of the church and the different classes which claim a membership in it whether entitled to recognition as such by God or not.

These classes constitute the "nominal church" first, those who are interested in the social attraction of association found among religious people, but who have no interest in the Lord from a personal standpoint of devotion to his service; secondly, a class justified by faith, and having a reckoned standing before God as at peace with him, through the sacrifice of Christ; and, third, the two classes who alone properly represent the real church those who have fully consecrated them selves to the Lord and his cause, one of which classes is seeking daily to fulfill the Lord's will, counting it all joy in tribulation, and rejoicing in the privileges of sacrificing with the Lord; and the other class, although still maintaining their willingness to serve the Lord, which has permitted the cares of this life to interfere with zeal and earnestness.

THOSE WHO WILL GET TO HEAVEN

Only the class of willing sacrificers will be eventually given the kingdom, and become joint-heirs with Christ, with a place in his throne, while the other class constituting the true church is to be given severe trials, and must pass through great tribulation, in order to bring the individuals of it to the proper condition of full submission, after which they are to be accorded the position of service in the kingdom before the throne, serving God in His temple forever the temple being the willing overcomers, as the Apostle Paul declared- "Know ye not that ye are the temple of the living God?"

This Jewish nucleus of the church was "out of every tribe of Israel," but God in filling up the remainder of the definite number required has gone among the Gentiles, "to take out of them a people for His name," "that the fullness of the Gentiles might come in," and in selecting these the thought was expressed that each Gentile is apportioned to some tribe in order to fulfill the arranged apportionment of 12,000 to each making in all a "little flock" of 144,000, to rule the world as the kings and priests of God in the Millennial age, for the blessing of mankind.

Continuing, the speaker pointed out that while the nominal church consisted of various classes it was not the ideal arrangement which God approved and purposed to continue. Only one true, faithful class really was entitled to God's special favor, and all the others are to be subjected to the trials of the time of consummation referred to in the text, the basis of the discourse. God never expressed an invitation to a class to attain merely to a position of justification by faith in the present age. Justification is a means to an end.

Since only those who are perfect in God's sight either on a reckoned basis or actually could make an acceptable offer of sacrifice to him, it was necessary to provide the way to justification, in order that the call to sacrifice might be carried out, by such reckonedly perfect ones, but those who fail to take such a step of consecration are declared in the scriptures to have "received the grace of God in vain," and are misusing their privileges. Similarly it was not a part of God's design that there should be such a class of unjustified ones as are evident in the church today they are hangers-on and are not beneficial to the interests of the true church, and the more relieved from their attachment the church is, the speaker declared it, spiritual conditions would be in proportion much more satisfactory. [HGL93] But God has permitted these conditions to exist for a testing of His true people, and for fear lest in making a separation before the proper time injury would be done to His faithful ones.

SEPARATING WHEAT AND TARES

But God has not been separating these wheat and tare classes, but has been allowing both to "grow together until the harvest," when He would cause a separation and blessing to His own and casting off of those not truly His. To this harvest time the speaker especially referred, and called attention to the associated verses surrounding his basic text. As the plowman was there said to plow for a purpose, the sowing of seed, and the seeding, for the purpose of bringing forth fruitage later on, so God has been carrying on His work, expecting to reap a harvest of faithful sons, after His plowing and sowing had been completed.

The "harvest time," the speaker declared, had come. The time for the separation of nominal Christians from the true was at hand, because God's purpose has a time and a completion. In the Scriptures the mixed condition of the church was described as "Babylon," and at the time when the harvest is due the message of the Lord, through the Scriptures, is applicable to all his people, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

The word "Babylon" was shown to signify "confusion" the state in which the nominal church continues to be, because of its various classes of adherents a condition which the Lord has not interfered with until the time for making the separation shown in his parable of the tares, and this time was represented to be the present.

The speaker intimated that in the Scriptures there was sufficient evidence to show that, according to the chronology of the Bible and its prophecies concerning time, the Lord's purpose was about to be consummated the great separation is already taking place, and the plagues and punishments of the Lord are being prepared to be poured upon the illegitimate classes in the church. These time features were not considered, for lack of opportunity, but are given considerable space in the speaker's published writings.

With telling force the speaker arraigned "Babylon" in its present sinful condition, out of which the Lord's people are exhorted to come. He asserted that today the real plan of God is hidden, and the professed standards of various denominations in Christendom blaspheme God's character by their representations of his purposes for the race.

A noble man would not be thought guilty of such heinous cruelties as are ascribed in the creeds to their theological God, whose plan has been from before the foundation of the world to send to a condition of everlasting torture the billions of human beings who did not happen to be in the elect "little flock" which has been predetermined upon for salvation. Such a calumny upon the character of God, who in the Scriptures is declared to be full of mercy and long-suffering, wisdom and power to do good to all, in his own time and way!

WHAT HE CALLS BLASPHEMY

He demanded Scriptural authority for such blasphemous utterances concerning God's character, and declared that there was not one, from beginning to end of the Bible, a few "dark sayings" of the Master, and some symbols of the book of Revelation being interpreted in thorough harmony with the plain statements of other Scriptures.

The only text which the speaker ever heard offered as an excuse for the theories of the creeds was, "As the tree falleth, so shall it be." So far from this teaching eternal torture to all who have not heard of and believed upon the name of Jesus Christ their Savior, in the present time, it was shown to prove that as man, by reason of his condemnation unto death goes down into the tomb, he must there remain until the awakening which has been purposed for him in God's due time, according to the promises of His Word.

The fact that eternal torture is not generally held to in the present time (which the speaker was quite willing to admit) would not release the "Babylonians." Though the ministers should admit in private that they had discarded such a theory, and make excuses for its presence in the confessions of faith, so long as they held to such a creed by upholding their denominations they were responsible for every word the creeds presented, and every individual who, knowing God's true plan, still adhered to the section of Babylon in which he found himself, was characterized as dishonest with himself, with his associates and with God. There was no other course to pursue than to follow the divine command, "Come out of her, my people," in order to escape God's plagues.

SOME OF THE PARADOXES

The speaker dealt with the real attitude toward God's word, as contrasted with the creed expressions, on the part of the chief ones of the denominations of the day. While the Scriptures make most prominent the doctrine of the atonement, through the blood of Jesus Christ, as a ransom for the sin of mankind, in the great pulpits there is no disguising the general tendency to denial of the inspiration of the Scriptures and the ignoring of the redemption through Jesus Christ. Instead of accepting the Scriptural account of a fall from perfection, man is declared to be in process of evolution from a low condition to a very high one, and that if any fall took place at all, it was a "fall upward" if God would let man alone for a few more centuries he would attain all he wanted by his own efforts.

In presenting proof that he was fully cognizant of this unfaithful condition of the reputed leaders of the Lord's flock, the speaker mentioned having had some of the prominent ministers of Pittsburgh and Allegheny interviewed upon the subject of their belief in the ransom through Jesus Christ. One of them, in response to such a query, replied negatively, but hastily, retracted his statement, and remarked that "he was not prepared to state, positively, his view on the subject."

CRITICIZED A LOCAL PREACHER

The speaker forcefully criticized the attitude of such a gentleman, presuming to be a servant of the Lord, and uncertain as to his standing upon the most vital doctrine of [HGL94] the scriptures. He denounced as thoroughly unfaithful to the Lord such vacillating men. Another minister, in response to the same question, made no pretense of uncertainty, but laughed at a theory of Jesus Christ having "died to pay it all," and declared that that doctrine had quite "gone to the wall."

The completion of the judgment of Babylon is to mean the bringing in of a great "time of trouble, such as was not since there was a nation," during which the saints, the "little flock," are to be glorified in the kingdom; the "great company," which failed to live up to its consecration vows, will receive its trying experiences and be purified through the trouble, and then changed also to spirit conditions.

The remainder of the world, including the justified who failed to make any use of their reckoned standing as God's sons, according to his arrangement, are to be counted in with the world, to share their severe experiences in the same trouble, and to receive whatever benefit and blessing the Lord may have to give them, with the world in the future, after the trouble has ceased, by the establishment of the kingdom of Christ, the overthrow of all the institutions of the "present evil world," and the binding of Satan, the usurper of power now, and who has been the chief agent in blinding the people in general to God's good purposes.

Chief among the world's inhabitants in the new age, the millennium of favor to come to all mankind, will be a class called "the ancient worthies." These are they who during the ages preceding the gospel age recognized God and exercised faith in His promises, and sought to pleased Him in all their ways. They were such persons as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, David, Samuel, etc. These were not called to the church's high calling, which only began to be promulgated by Christ, as the Apostle Paul declared, in Heb. 11:3. Christ is the head, forerunner, leader of the church, and this being the case no one could have preceded Him in the race. But the faithfulness of the ancient worthies, manifested in extreme trial and difficulty, is not to go unrewarded, because the apostle, in referring to this class in Hebrews 11, declares that though they died "not having received the promise," they are to be blessed after the church's blessing. The promise made to this class was of earthly favors as, for instance, when Abraham was told, "All the land that thou seest, to thee will I give it," although during his lifetime he was not permitted to own so much as a foot of it. (Acts 7:5)

These earthly favors will be granted to the ancient worthies when the kingdom of God is established, and these faithful ones will constitute the beginning of the perfect humanity which is to fill the whole earth in due time; that is, that these faithful ones are to be brought from the tomb fully perfected as human beings, and to be used as God's human agents in bringing order out of chaos, and assisting in administering the laws of the kingdom of God on earth.

Reference was made to Psalm 14:16 in this connection: "Instead of thy fathers, they shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth."

The thought thus expressed of two phases of the kingdom of God, one of a spiritual kind, represented in the Christ, head and body, and the other the earthly, represented in those "worthies," was supported by the scriptural statement, "The law shall go forth from Mount Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." This was explained as signifying that the spiritual phase of the kingdom (Zion) would promulgate all the laws for the direction of the affairs of mankind, and would hold supreme authority and rule, in connection with the bringing of the purposed favors to mankind; while the "worthies" would exercise representative authority, as the visible agents of the kingdom promulgating the laws from the earthly capital, Jerusalem.

SPECIAL FAVORS FOR JEWS

At this time the Jews are to be the recipients of special favor also. The speaker laid much stress upon the statements of Romans 11 as showing that while the Jews as a nation had been cast off from the divine favor, after their rejection of Christ, they were to be in that condition only for a definite time fixed in God's purpose. They were cast off in order that the Gentiles might find a place in the elect church, but upon the "full number of the Gentiles coming in," and the church being made complete, favor is to return to the Jews.

So he quoted: "Blindness in part is happened unto Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved" saved from its blinded condition and alienation from God, and placed in a position to attain eternal life under the conditions of the Millennial age.

The speaker dwelt upon the comprehensiveness of the promise that in addition to these classes who are to be blessed under the administration of the Christ, head and body, all mankind is to have a full and complete opportunity for salvation. He called attention to the explicit declaration of the Lord (John 5:28, 29): "All that are in the grave shall hear His voice and come forth" and that contradicts the thought that going into the tomb ends any hope of the condemned world being recalled to be dealt with by the Lord in the future.

The text describes the classes who shall come forth- "they that have done good to a resurrection of life." These the speaker declared were all those who had been pleasing to the Lord in the past. They would include the "ancient worthies," who had faithfully fulfilled the Lord's will; they would include the church itself, as the most highly honored recipients of life from God; and the "great company," although it shall attain its blessings through severe experiences of chastisement. But the class here specified would not include the "tares" or the merely justified ones in the nominal church, because these had not pleased God they had not fulfilled His will in the present time.

REWARDS FOR THE DUTIFUL

Only those who had obeyed the Lord, in compliance with His instructions, when they came in contact with His favors, would be raised "to life" and this signified raised immediately to perfect life conditions, on whichever plane of being, divine, spiritual or human, God purposed to grant them this favor. All the remainder of mankind is included in the concluding expression of the text, "they have done evil."

No matter how moral or upright a person might be naturally, he must acknowledge that he is not perfect; no one is perfect unless he has been approved of God, and no [HGL95] one in the present or past has been approved of God unless he has been justified freely from all things by faith, and has remained in harmony with God and been constantly seeking to do His will. All the world, therefore, except the comparatively small number represented in the exceptions named, are to share in the resurrection of the "evil" ones and this resurrection is described in the common version of our Bible as "of damnation."

The speaker strongly condemned the translation, showing that in five other places in the same chapter the original Greek word is rendered "judgment," and should be so rendered in this text. The word "resurrection" was explained to signify "raising up to life," and the two words together would give the real scope of the work of the Millennial age the raising up of all the obedient of mankind to perfect life, by a process of judgments chastisements, disciplines, instructions and final decision, according to the character developed by all thus dealt with.

THE MILLENNIAL AGE

Acts 3:19-23 was quoted as indicating that the whole period of the Millennial age was to be one of repair restoration, restitution, and that the second presence of Christ and His bride was a necessity, in order to accomplish the work fully. In this passage the Apostle Peter refers to a prophecy by Moses: "A prophet the Lord your God shall raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me." This "prophet" the speaker stated was Christ, because Moses is represented in the Scriptures as a type of Christ.

The raising up of this prophet began with the glorification of Jesus Christ, but the work which the prophet was to do was not begun then, because Jesus was only the head of the prophet. The church, the body of Christ, must complete the raising up, and when it is glorified with the Lord the work of the prophet shall be begun. Moses' statement proceeds: "Him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever He shall say unto you, and the soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people."

The instructions of the world are here comprehended, and the final decision, for everlasting life to the good and obedient, or everlasting death, to the evily-disposed, at the end of the Millennial age, is the thought of the concluding clause of the statement. Then God will have wiped all tears from off all faces, and at that time it will be true, "No more crying, no more sighing, no more dying, for the former things have passed away, and behold, I have made all things new."

Prev   Next