Our Bible Band

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 6, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 39.

Schedule for the Week Ending October 16

Day	Date	Morning	Evening
Su.	Oct. 10	Isa. 34, 35, 36	Col. 2
Mo.	“ 11	“ 37, 38	“ 3
Tu.	“ 12	“ 39, 40	“ 4
We.	“ 13	“ 41, 42	1 Thess. 1
Th.	“ 14	“ 43, 44	“ 2
Fr.	“ 15	“ 45, 46	“ 3
Sa.	“ 16	“ 47, 48, 49	“ 4

Suggestive Notes

Our Old Testament lessons begin with Isaiah 34 and close with Isaiah 49. These scriptures are wonderfully rich in revelation, in suggestion, in great upspringing spiritual fountains for the devout student. Any notes which might be written upon them would seem tame compared with the scriptures themselves. Chapter 34, it may be remarked, is a declaration of God’s judgments upon Idumea as a type of the world, pointing out the absolute desolation which shall take place under the just judgments of God. Chapter 35 speaks of the restoration.

In chapters 36, 37, 38, and 39, we have a very striking lesson of history during the reign of Hezekiah, when the king of Assyria came up and threatened the land; Hezekiah’s humility; the message of God to him through the prophet; the Lord’s wonderful deliverance from the power of Assyria by His angel, so graphically portrayed in Byron’s poem “The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold.” Then we have the record of Hezekiah’s sickness; of the Lord’s healing; of the great blunder that Hezekiah made when the Lord sent the Babylonians to him for light, and he magnified himself instead of magnifying God. As the result of it his own children went into captivity to Babylon, and Jerusalem was plundered.

Isaiah 40 begins a new departure in a way. The prophecies are more decidedly Messianic. This has led some of the critics to contend that there were two Isaiahs; that the last one was trading on the reputation of the true Isaiah. The criticism is not worthy of consideration. The chapters which follow bear the same stamp as those which have come before. These are chapters of wonderful comfort which God has given to His children; comfort which comes in placing the glory of man in the dust, and exalting God and His truth. The restoration from Babylon through Cyrus is predicted 150 years before he came upon the stage of action; and the deliverance from Babylon is used as a type of the greater deliverance through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our New Testament readings begin with the second chapter of Colossians and close with the fourth chapter of 1 Thessalonians. The second chapter of Colossians is an appeal to walk in the Lord Jesus Christ, taking heed that the philosophy of man shall not pervert the Gospel, and so walking in Him and in the freedom which He gives that the judging of men concerning meats and drinks and holy days shall not turn one aside from the truth which is in Christ Jesus. The soul who dies with Christ, and who is raised to walk in newness of life, should go on in character development, casting off all that is wrong, and putting on the characteristics indicative of a Christian character. The epistle closes with instructions to members of the family, and the mention of certain fellow laborers and persons in whom the apostle is interested.

The city of Salonika, where the deposed Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid, is now in prison, is the modern continuation of ancient Thessalonica, where lived the Thessalonian Christians. In Paul’s time it had a free city government, ruled over by seven politarchs. Acts 17:6, 8. It was then the second commercial city of European Greece, and is now the second city of European Turkey. To the Christians there the apostle Paul sent two letters. The first epistle was written from Corinth, in the year 52 or 53, the first epistle which the apostle wrote to the churches. He commends them for their zeal and faithfulness under the persecutions which they suffered, and constantly appeals to them over the second coming of our Lord and the reward which will be given when Jesus appears. This is especially manifest in the fourth chapter, where the second coming or presence of Christ is described as an event of great glory and power.