Editorial

A friend once handed us a card with the following message printed on it. “You’ll go thundering down in history like an extra gallon of water down Niagara Falls.”

We have never known a world that did not contain us and everything we are saying and doing seems so terribly important it is hard for us to imagine a world without us. It is possible to get so wrapped up in our own little circle that the truly important things of life are completely out of perspective.

When we consider that extra gallon of water over the falls, we laugh at its com­plete insignificance and yet most of the people who lived one hundred years ago have had just that much impact upon history.

We can do one of three things. One, we can decide to be just another gallon and fall unnoticed and mingle with the turbulent rapids of the world and end in oblivion. Two, we can decide that we want to make some kind of impression in this present evil world and give all our time and energies in trying to make a name for ourselves in the Who’s who of today. To do this will require relentless dedication, knowing the right people and being in the right place at the right time. When and if we accomplish our goal of becoming somebody, what will we have when we get there. The praise of man? Yes, perhaps, but the world is fickle and the heros of today are forgotten tomorrow. If we should be so fortunate as to make a real mark in history what good will it do us? A few lines of type in the encyclopedia, perhaps a whole page but what else? David commented on this saying “the wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: for he is like the beasts that perish.”

The third alternative is to forget about thundering down in the history of man and devote our energies in getting our name recorded in God’s book of life. This too, requires relentless dedication, it requires knowing the right people (Jesus, Moses, Daniel, Peter, Paul etc.) and it requires being in the right place at the right time. (Sunday school meeting, lectures, and Bible Classes).

We won’t be famous and our neighbors will have little to praise us about, but this won’t concern us if we have our names written in God’s book of remembrance for then we won’t go thundering down in history at all; for we will be immortal saints with an unending future.

How much better it is to have a part in a never ending future than in a dead past. Instead of being an extra gallon of water over Niagara Falls, we will be part of that “pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

It’s as plain as one, two ,three. One is to die as the fool. Two is to achieve worldly honor and then perish. Three is to live and reign forever with Christ. Each day we are telling God by the way we live which of these three alternatives we have chosen.

Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Our Lord was addressing fishermen, so he spoke their language. They knew exactly what he meant, and immediately dropped their nets and followed him.

Fishing is big business today both as a commercial enterprise and as a sport. Fishermen make a detailed study of the habits of the various species of fish. They know which kind of fish like a particular bait, they know the feeding habits of each, the type of lure that will attract salmon, trout, or yellow-tail, and they know what time of day or night each can best be caught. On top of all this knowledge, fisher­men spend millions of dollars for the correct kinds of fishing gear: poles, reels, tackle boxes, boats, and a score of other miscellaneous items deemed necessary to hook the unsuspecting fish. After all this preparation is accomplished, the fisherman then puts himself to untold personal discomfort rising in the middle of the night, traveling long distances, and riding for hours in a little bobbing boat to reach the exact place where the exact fish is supposed to be feeding. All of this effort is done in order to accomplish the desired goal: hook a fish. Now all of this is fine, but Jesus wants us to take this and apply it spiritually when he says to us, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

An avid fisherman is happy to put himself to all this expense and personal dis­comfort in order to accomplish the desired end of landing a big one. As fishermen for Christ, we must also be just as anxious to spend and be spent in order to fish for men who will hear the glorious Gospel message. Can we imagine the consterna­tion that a brother might feel if asked to call on a particular person in a distant city at four o’clock in the morning in order to talk to them about the truth? We can almost hear the excuses that would pour from his lips as to why he couldn’t possibly take the time or lose the sleep or spend the money necessary to be at this man’s home at such an early hour, but change it to a fishing trip and see if the eyes do not light up at the prospect of “going fishing.”

Now this example is not intended to condemn in any way the fine sport of fishing, but only to show that Christ wants us to also be as willing and ready to “fish for men.”

To be an expert fisherman we must have the correct equipment. To fish for men we need a well marked Bible, a good concordance, and a mind filled with the things of God. To be an expert fisherman we need to know how to correctly use this equipment. To fish for men we need to know how to use our Bibles, to be able to find the passages we want in order to convince those who have ears to hear. To be an expert fisherman we need to study the habits of the fish we want to catch so that we will know what type of lure will serve best in attracting the fish. To be an expert fisherman for Christ we need to understand the people we are trying to teach. Christ did. He knew what to say to a fisherman, a publican, a Pharisee, or a king. Paul said that he “became all things to all men, that he might by all means save some.”

By becoming a fisherman for Christ we are going for the most wonderful “catch” of all time. Let us each be sure that we are as good a fisherman as it is possible for us to be. Getting up early, staying up late, traveling far over land or sea, we count these things as nothing that we may win Christ. If a fisherman will do these things for a fish, we as Christ’s brethren should certainly be willing to spend and be spent for him. It’s no use saying “We can’t,” for we can do “all things through Christ who strengthens us.” He will give us strength, for he is the one who has said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to be­lieve a fact that one has never heard before.” These words of Robert Lynd are in no area more true than in the field of religion.

It is amazing how many people believe the lie that death isn’t death, not because it is reasonable or because there is scientific evidence to support it because just the reverse is true in both cases, but merely because they have heard it a thousand times.

The principle which is now called brain washing is not new, it has just been given a new name.

Sometime ago we had the opportunity to discuss the Doctrine of the Trinity with a newly ordained minister who stoutly upheld the belief of three Gods in one. It was a fruitless discussion so far as the participants were concerned, but the interesting fact was that later after we had left, the young minister confessed to his father who does not believe in the Trinity that he had not believed in the Trinity either until he had attended Divinity School and he learned there that he had to believe it in order to graduate and now after having heard it so often he was fully convinced of its truth.

Now there are two points we want to make concerning this. First, we want to be on our guard that we are not taken in by lies just because we have heard them over and over again and second, we want to be sure that we ourselves are not guilty of trying to convince others of something that is not true by use of repetition. The truth of God is certainly true but this does not necessarily mean that everything we believe is true. We also can be guilty of holding an opinion that is false and we must not be so stubborn as to refuse to give it up just because we have cherished it for so long. We deplore this in others, let us be sure that we despise it in ourselves as well.

Perhaps an example would help illustrate. We once knew a dear person who had believed for many years that the half tribe of Manasseh was called a half tribe because Joseph’s tribe was divided between Manasseh and Ephraim.

Of course if this were true, then Ephraim would also be a half tribe but we look in vain for any scripture which describes Ephraim this way. Manasseh had half tribes because one half of the tribe took their inheritance on one side of the river Jordan and the other half on the other side, but could this person be convinced of this truth ? Absolutely not, it was a belief that had been held so long that they did not want to be confused with facts because their mind was already made up.

This is the position we want to avoid. We want others to consider the facts when we are trying to persuade them concerning the true Bible teaching con­cerning God or the state of the dead, and we should also be considerate enough to allow them to produce what they believe to be evidence in support of their position. We need never fear the truth. So long as we keep our heads, we can examine their proofs and determine if they are valid. If they are not, perhaps we can “in meekness instruct those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” If their point has merit, let us be honest and acknowledge it.

Many of the troubles we encounter not only in teaching the Truth but also in our dealings with those within the brotherhood and those in other fellowships can be solved if we will honestly examine the evidence and ourselves to be sure that we are not being swayed just because we have heard it a thousand times or have cherished it as a pet belief when all the evidence should convince us that we need to re-evaluate our own position. If it is a fact that we have never heard before but is none the less a fact, let us then do as we would have others do, and accept it for what it is, a fact.

“We should all be concerned about the future because we are going to spend the rest of our lives there,” observed the late Charles F. Kettering.

While it seems reasonable that we should be concerned about the future, it appears that few are, at least it is hard to imagine that they are by the way they live. Most people appear to be living like there was no tomorrow. This is true concerning such things as savings, old age, etc. but even more especially true, and to a much larger degree, when it comes to religion.

Everything we know and see tells us that death is in the future for everyone that is born and this agrees with the wise man Solomon who said, “For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing.”

In spite of this, most people seem to take the attitude of “just don’t think about it, and maybe it will go away.” They do this concerning their plans for many temporal things as well as the day of their death.

It is this attitude that keeps many people from being successful in life say the psychologists. Few people have clear cut goals, they really do not know where they are going or why, and yet they hope to get there! It is no wonder that so many people reach their death beds spiritually bankrupt.

It is well nigh impossible to get anywhere if we don’t even know where we want to go. To achieve any worth while goal we need to define in no uncertain terms just what we are striving for and what must be done to accomplish it. It is surprising how few do this about everything in life. Even for temporal goals that moth and rust can corrupt, and where thieves can break through and steal, this is necessary in order to attain success. Let us hope that we have been wise and set our affections on things above rather than things on earth, but the same fundamental steps should be followed if we want to achieve success.

“We are fearfully and wonderfully made,” said the Psalmist and the more we understand about ourselves the more we realize this. God has created us with wonderful capabilities that the average person seldom uses to anywhere near their potentiality.

Just what is our goal? Just what are we doing to achieve it? Since each one of us is headed unalterably towards the grave, surely the wisest goal imaginable is to inherit eternal life at the return of Christ. This is the one goal in life that is really worth seeking. All others are hollow victories which fail to give lasting benefits for all die and “leave their wealth to others.”

Now Paul tells us to seek for this goal by a patient continuance in well doing. This is the way to achieve glory, honour and immortality. What more could our heart desire than Godly glory, honour and immortality? This is ours if we seek for it. How do we do this? First we must want it more than anything else for surely where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. We need to study our Bibles until God’s Kingdom becomes such a real thing in our lives that we can close our eyes and imagine the glory, honor and joy that awaits us. We need to set our course for this goal as the ploughman sets his goal on the landmark at the end of the field and ploughs a straight furrow towards it. As Christ said, if we look back after putting our hand to the plough, we are not fit for the kingdom of God. The reason? We can’t go forward while looking back. We cannot attain a place in the kingdom without making that our goal in life and sacrificing all else to achieve it. Paul administered us to lay aside every weight, to run with patience the race set before us. If we are trying to drag the things of the world along behind us they will distract us to the point that we shall miss the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. This goal can be attained although it cannot be earned. It is the gift of God and He is willing to give it to each one of us if we want it enough to seek it with all our hearts.

It is always a pleasure when we talk to a loved one far away. With the aid of the telephone we can feel very close to those we have not seen for a long time. A call from the right person can fill our hearts with joy. The amount of excitement generated by a telephone call is in direct proportion to the importance of the person calling. We take for granted and may talk in a very off hand way to those who may live nearby and call frequently but if the call is from some distance or from a very important person then our voice quivers with excitement as we talk to them.

Few of us ever have the opportunity to talk to someone considered world famous but when and if the person on the other end of the line turns out to be an important dignitary we become completely oblivious to our surroundings as we concentrate upon what we are saying and hearing as we converse with our esteemed friend.

When we consider how great God is, the very fact that He hears our prayers becomes difficult to comprehend and yet we are assured that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much and that “the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers.”

Truly when we pray to God we are talking to Him. If we would be careful what we said to an important dignitary how much more so when we are talking to the Creator of heaven and earth. Is it any wonder that Solomon tells us, “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.”

What a wonderful thing prayer is ! Although God is in heaven and we upon earth, yet He wants us to talk to Him. “Ye shall call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, saith the Lord, and I will hearken unto you.” “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”

Through prayer we can talk to God at any time of the day or night and be certain that He hears us. This is not so in calling another mortal. There our calls might be limited to business hours or perhaps they are in conference and unable to talk to us, but our Heavenly Father’s ear is always attentive to our cry if we approach Him acceptably.

We need to make prayer a very real part of our everyday life. Jesus often spent the night in prayer. If the Son of God needed the strength that communion with his Father gave him, how much more do we need the help and strength that alone comes from prayer.

Our prayers should be the outpouring of our hearts to our loving and merciful Heavenly Father. We want to “draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to us.” We should avoid the pitfalls that James warned about for some in his day asked and received not, because they asked amiss.

A child in trouble will want to call his father for help and feels much better after telling one who cares of his plight. Sometimes the parent can help and some­times not, but all of us as children of God can approach our Father in time of need and know that He is able to help for “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear.” Isaiah 59:1

Napoleon once said, “None but myself did me any harm.” To a much larger degree than most of us are prepared to admit, this is true of us as well.

We are our own worst enemy. We do not like to think this and usually we are ready to blame someone or something for all the things we did or did not do, but when we are alone with our thoughts we have to admit that really “none but myself did me any harm.”

Surely Paul recognized this truth when he declared, “0 wretched man that I am!” To recognize this truth is half the battle in overcoming self. It is only when we try to whitewash our problems that we obscure them so that they are difficult to correct. When we openly admit that we are wretched, then we are in the position to ask for help which is exactly what Paul did. He asked the question, “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?”

The truth is that we are all so wretched that man is completely incapable of ever achieving salvation. With man this is impossible but with God all things are possible and so Paul acknowledged his own weaknesses as we also must, and he cast his burden upon the Lord knowing that He will comfort and sustain in time of need. This is exactly what he did for Paul thanks God saying, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is only when we stop relying upon the arm of flesh and put our faith and trust in the Lord that we begin to make headway against the things of this life.

It is not an easy thing to do. We live in a country and in an age when flesh is glorified. God has allowed man’s knowledge to increase and man has become puffed up by it. Puny man now not only ignores God but he also challenges Him. By this very act man is demonstrating the truth of Napoleon’s words, because man is his own worst enemy and man now by his cleverness would like to exterminate the human race from the face of the earth.

We can’t do much about the age in which we are living except to recognize its dangers and stay clear of its pitfalls. Just because everyone else is losing his head is no reason for us to relinquish ours.

If we do not learn for ourselves how wretched we are, we may find that the words of Jesus which were directed to the Church of Laodicea may apply to us. “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor and blind and naked; I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.”

The danger we face is in not knowing. Those who think that they are rich are not looking to God for help. After all, just look what they think they have! They think they need nothing when in reality they are really nothing and need everything.

There is only one place where we can buy gold tried in the fire. Only God through His Word has the eyesalve that can give us sight. When we stand therefore before the judgment seat of Christ we will have no one else to blame for what we did and what we left undone. “None but myself did me any harm.” None but God can give us gold and white raiment.

Actions speak louder than words” is an old, old saying that most of us have heard since childhood While no one questions its truth, we all continue to say one thing with words and quite another thing with our actions.

We often wonder who we think that we are fooling? Certainly not God, usually our families and friends are on to us, so perhaps it is only ourselves that we are kid­ding.

We may say that the truth is the greatest thing in our lives and that we love the Lord with all our hearts, yet when the time comes to take our place at lecture or a Bible class we are too tired, too busy or too something to go.

Perhaps others have heard us say that we regard television as a wonderful inven­tion but a terrible waste of time and consequently we rarely watch it, yet when someone mentions seeing a particular show, we chime in that we also saw it, and a few minutes later we catch ourselves describing something we saw on another program.

All too often, we have the real reason for doing or not doing something, and this we keep to ourselves while we have a whole string of excuses which we give as the reason we did or did not do it We sometimes chuckle when we see a little child doing this because it is so easy to see through but aren’t we to grow up as Paul said, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

We need to be honest with ourselves We need to realize that our actions are speaking much louder than what we say.

It isn’t necessary to tell others that we love the Lord with all our heart, because if we really do, it will be abundantly clear by the way we act and the things we do Conversely we can scream from the housetops how much we love the Lord and it won t convince anyone if our actions show that God is completely crowded out of our lives.

This is the very point that James was making when he said “Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works”.

We need to have a living faith, not a dead faith If there is no works, no action, it is dead Jesus put it another way when he said, By their fruits ye shall know them” The fig tree that Jesus saw covered with leaves but having no fruit was like a man full of words but no action We remember that Jesus condemned that tree and it withered away and died.

Jesus is the husbandman of the vineyard We are the trees Soon he is coming to see what kind of fruit we have What will he find?

Its not enough to be covered with leaves, there must be fruit Its not enough to talk a good fight Paul said he had fought a good fight, and this denotes action Remember, “actions speak louder than words” What are our actions saying?

The United Presbyterian Church made a three year survey on why people stay away from church. Their findings were interesting.

It seems that most people stay away because they do not feel any need to go. Very few of them are atheists, they say that they can feel just as close to God without attending church. A great many say they prefer their own personal religious philos­ophy that fits no particular creed. A great many resent the holier-than-thou attitude they find in churchgoers who, they feel, have reserved heaven for themselves and hell for their neighbors. Some avoid church to save money since so much emphasis seems to be placed upon giving and giving and giving.

It might be well to determine just why we go, and if we find that our attendance at the Memorial Service or the Public Lectures or the mid-week Bible classes leaves something to be desired, then let us also determine what excuse we give others and especially to ourselves as to why we were unable to be where we ought to have been.

Let’s hope that we do not stay away from any Christadelphian function be­cause we do not feel the need to go. If Christ is in our midst when two or three are gathered together in his name, surely we cannot say that we do not feel the need to go. We can feel close to God anywhere and at any time but we are com­manded not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together and almost always when we do not go, that same time is not spent in quietly worshiping Him in private but rather in activities far removed from Him.

Surely we do not miss meeting because of the holier-than-thou attitude of our brothers and sisters, for even if they had this attitude it would not be just cause for our staying away. Even though some of the followers of Christ do not meet his high standards is no excuse for us to stop following him. The twelve apostles were not perfect. How foolish to jeopardize our salvation, using another’s weakness as the excuse for our own wrong doing. At the same time let us be sure that we are not guilty of any holier-than-thou attitude our-self. We remember the scorching rebuke Jesus gave the Pharisees for this, and he dislikes the Pharisaical attitude today just as much as he did 1900 years ago.

For anyone to say that they prefer their own religious philosophy is foolishness and makes as much sense as to say that we prefer to have two and two equal five. Solomon tells us that “there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” There is only one way to worship God and that is the way He has said.

Certainly as members of the Household of Faith we do not avoid the meetings to save money because we of all people should realize that all we have has come from the Lord. As Job said, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Since Paul tells us that the Lord loves a cheerful giver, let us count it not only our duty but a pleasure as well to give generously for the work of the Lord. Just because we do not place the same emphasis upon money that many do is no excuse for us to be stingy with this world’s goods when the Lord’s work needs support. Let us remember that we are not laying up our treasure where moths and rust corrupts and where theives break through and steal.

What else can we use as an excuse for not attending the meetings? We can always say we are tired but Christ and Paul and all the worthies of old demonstrated that we ought not to please ourselves. They gave up their rest and even the time it would take to eat to devote themselves to the work of the Lord until their fol­lowers were concerned for their health and would urge them to take food. Jesus replied, “I have meat to eat that you know not of.” When his disciples failed understand what he meant, Jesus went on to explain “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.” If this is also our meat, to do the will of God then we shall always be present when His word is being preached and studied. No one then will ever hear from our lips the trite excuses used by so many as to why we were not there.