1964.—When Do They Apply?
By Editor
Dan. 2:34 is yet in the future. Christ's kingdom is not yet set up. We know there are those who say it was set up at the time of Pentecost, but this is mere assumption. He will not take His kingdom of glory until He closes His work as high priest and comes again. "When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory." Matt. 25:31. Rev. 17:16 is yet to be fulfilled, and will come at the time when God's judgments are falling upon the sinful world, when the kingdoms of earth, represented by the ten horns, are undeceived; when they see that all their hopes of earthly power are dashed in pieces, they will turn upon the deceiver and fulfil the prophecy there given. At that time also Rev. 18:8 will be fulfilled,—"Therefore in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judged her." Let Matt. 10:37 explain Luke 14:26, the latter text reading: "If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he can not be My disciple." Matt. 10:37 reads: "He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." "Hate," as used in Luke 14:26, is to be understood in the sense of loving less; in other words, looking at it from a purely selfish standpoint, one is to love Christ with such ardency and devotion that if the Lord called him to break all earthly ties he would do it, and then the world would say that such a man hates his friends instead of loving them. In other words, God's interests should be first; so much so that no other interests should dominate it in any way. The truth is that he who loves God loves his brother also; and the man who truly loves God, whatever the Lord asks him to do and he does it, still loves his relatives and fellow man better than he ever could love them apart from God. The passage reads: "No man seweth a piece of undressed cloth on an old garment; else that which should fill it up taketh from it, the new from the old, and a worse rent is made. And no man putteth new wine into old wine-skins; else the wine will burst the skins, and the wine perisheth, and the skins; but they put new wine into fresh wine-skins." This can be better understood by a knowledge of the terms used. "Undressed cloth" is unfulled cloth, cloth that has not been shrunken. Any one who understands what this means knows that in the shrinking and thickening and fulling of cloth it becomes smaller. Placed on an old garment with its weakened fabric, and the very fulling of the cloth would tear the worn garment and make the hole larger. Bottles anciently were skins of animals, sometimes drawn off whole with the exception of the head and legs; these were tied up and the wine was placed within the skin. If the wine fermented, the skins stretched. New wine was always put in new skins. If it were put in old skins, those which had become hard, the skins would not expand with the wine and would burst, and the wine would be spilled. The teaching of Jesus was like the undressed cloth and the new wine, in that there was life and strength in it. The Pharisees were themselves like the old cloth and the old bottles. They could not receive Jesus' teachings. Their necessity was set forth by our Lord to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again." Just as long as they remained in their then condition, the truth as preached by Christ could do them no good. Their own moral fabric was so weak that to place a patch of truth upon it would only make matters worse. Their souls had become so dry and hardened with formalism that to pour the new wine into them would cause them to break and perish. The new cloth must go upon new cloth, that which would respond to it; the new wine must go into new bottles, those which would expand with it. So the teaching of Christ must find men with minds new-created by giving themselves to God. This does not mean, however, that their cases were hopeless; they could have so fallen upon the Stone that they could have been made new. Read from the first verse from the American Revised Version: "Him that is weak in faith receive ye, yet not for decision of scruples. One man hath faith to eat all things; but he that is weak eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth set at nought him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth; for God hath received him." The whole sum and substance of these verses and of the whole chapter is that we are not each other's judges, that when God's children have accepted of the faith of the Lord Jesus, as set forth in the previous chapters,—in other words, when they have found the righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit that comes by believing in Him,—they are not to sit in judgment upon each other over minor matters. This does not preclude teaching a better way, but it does preclude a condemnation. The real core of the chapter is, "Let us not therefore judge one another any more; but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block in his brother's way, or an occasion of falling." "For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ." The rest of our querist's questions we must leave until another issue. 1968.—Election of Church Elder.
Give a brief outline of the work of electing and qualifying a church elder. We state the simple custom as practised by those who follow simple methods, which is as follows: On such an occasion, an ordained minister should be present. The qualifications of an elder should be presented as set forth in 1 Tim. 3:1-5; Titus 1:5-9. It will not be possible to find any one person having all these qualities in perfection; some of them may be wanting, yet if the wisdom, good judgment, devotion to God, and spirit to know and do God's will is there, there is no reason why a good man meeting with these requirements generally should not be chosen, and chosen by the church. Such a one should be without reproach; he should be an honorable, square man in his business, temperate, sober-minded, orderly, given to hospitality, one able to instruct others; he should not be of a brawling nature, nor one yielding to a hasty temper; he should not be a covetous man; and, if possible to find one, one ruling well his own children. The church having selected such a one unanimously, the minister should call him forward before the people, set before the church and him the solemn duties and responsibilities resting upon each, and then set him apart to that sacred office by prayer and laying on of hands. Rom. 13: 1, 2 reads: "Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers; for there is no power but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, withstandeth the ordinance of God; and they that withstand shall receive to themselves judgment." This department can not discuss this to the extent that it might be profitably considered. We would simply say that the powers here referred to are evidently rulers placed in authority; and those who are in authority are under God's providence, just the same as the Lord in Jer. 25:9 calls Nebuchadnezzar His "servant." As expressed in the fourth chapter of Daniel, "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." But these "powers" are placed in authority, not to take God's place over the conscience, but to rule in things civil. Jesus said, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." The higher powers have to do only with those things which belong to Cæsar. So while the Lord declares in Jeremiah 25 that He has given His servant rule over the world, and the same thing is stated in Daniel 4, yet when Nebuchadnezzar arrogated to himself the power to control conscience and to command God's servants to worship the false deities of his own religion, the Lord justified them in refusing to do it. See Daniel 3. God requires His children to submit themselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake; but when these ordinances conflict with one's duty to God, in the language of the apostle we can say, "We ought to obey God rather than men," and "whether it be right in the sight of God to harken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." See also 1 Peter 2:13-17. Notice also that this passage, very similar to that in Romans, closes with "fear God; honor the king." God must come first; after God, submit unto all ordinances of men for the Lord's sake. 1970.—From What Does the Roman Catholic Church Date Its History?
From the time of Christ. They claim that the church was founded by Peter. Christ set apart Peter in the text, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build My church." Of course, we know, and every one knows who has even a knowledge of the Scriptures and the Catholic Church at the present time, that the church of Rome differs fundamentally, emphatically, and widely from the New Testament church. Still, with her system, if she did not make that claim, she would have no foundation whatever. She was forced to make the claim in order to present any proof for her rightful existence. Is the 144,000 constituted of those who have died in the faith, together with the living? Are they resurrected before the general resurrection? Or is it just those that are alive when Christ comes? To our minds they are those who are alive when Christ comes, with, perhaps, a few others who have been of special prominence and have had special experience in God's sealing work. As to an absolutely definite conclusion, we have none to present. The most important thing, isn't it, is to so serve God that we may safely leave with Him all questions as to the place of His servants hereafter.