Puritan Corner - Unbelief

Unbelief maintains the impossibility of relief in deep distresses.

 by John Flavel  (1627-1691)

 And He marvelled because of their unbelief. 

Mark 6:6

1 CORINTHIANS 13 SERIES - Verse 7

 Commentary of Charles Spurgeon, Adam Clarke & Matthew Henry

 

Beareth all things, 

believeth all things, 

hopeth all things, 

endureth all things.

Vs.7 

 

 

Beareth all things - Παντα στεγει . This word is also variously interpreted: to endure, bear, sustain, cover, conceal, contain. Bishop Pearce contends that it should be translated covereth all things, and produces several plausible reasons for this translation; the most forcible of which is, that the common translation confounds it with endureth all things, in the same verse. 

 

Love conceals every thing that should be concealed; 

betrays no secret;

 

Believeth all things - Παντα πιστευει· Is ever ready to believe the

best of every person, and will credit no evil of any but on the most positive evidence....

 

Hopeth all things - Παντα ελπιζει· When there is no place left for believing good of a person, then love comes in with its hope, where it could not work by its faith; and begins immediately to make allowances and excuses, as far as a good conscience can permit; and farther, anticipates the repentance of the transgressor.

 

Endureth all things - Παντα ὑπομενει· Bears up under all persecutions and mal-treatment from open enemies and professed friends. 

 

 Charity believes and hopes well of others

Christ Contrasted in Hebrews 1 & 2

 "1st chapter of Hebrews the great apostle treats of Christ in His exaltation before He came to the world. 

In the 2nd chapter of the same book he treats of His humiliation in this world.

 

In the 1st chapter he shows a contrast between Christ and the angels, as also he does in the 2nd; 

----but in the 1st chapter he shows Christ higher than the angels, ----while in the 2nd he shows Him lower than the angels. 

 

Hebrews 1:

4 Being made so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. 

While Hebrews 2 says: 

Hebrews 2:

 9 We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels. 

 

---In the 1st chapter He is presented to us as equal with God; 

---in the 2nd He is presented to us as equal with man."

A.T. Jones

These two Peculiarities: Sabbath Restored & Spirit of Prophecy

 “To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to
this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8:20. 

 

The Lord by His prophet gave the foregoing rule as an infallible test for detecting certain systems of error now prevailing. 

In verse 16 we find the following order:—“Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples.” 

 

We cannot imagine that God left so important 

an instrument as His law without a seal, 

and then required man to affix one to it. 

 

--The Lord sealed His own law, 

----but man has removed the seal, 

------and it is now to be restored. 

 

The law must be sealed among His disciples, for it is among them that the seal has been removed. 

And as with the law, so with “the testimony.” 

Violence has been done to both in the professed church of Christ. 

 

The work of restoration is pointed out in the prophecies of the New

Testament. But this is not accomplished without opposition, for thus speaks the prophet:—“And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Rev. 12:17. 

 

An explanation of the last expression is given in Rev. 19:10, which says, “The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.” 

 

Hence in the last days there will arise those who have these peculiarities: 

--they will keep the commandments of God, which have been rejected or dishonored—they will restore the seal to the law, and thus present it to the world a perfect and complete instrument; --and they will have the testimony of Jesus, which is the Spirit of prophecy—they will “bind up the testimony,” which has been torn from its place in the church of Christ."

Joseph Waggoner 

  

Link Below on how Sabbath is the Seal of God's Law

 https://master1844-dc.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-seal-of-god.html

That Name Indicates-----........

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God....

Exodus 20:10

"If the seventh day were not the Sabbath for Christians and for all
men, then the Holy Spirit would not have given it that name. 

But the truth is---that the seventh day is the Sabbath—made so by the unchangeable act of the Creator ----and no other day can ever be the Sabbath."

E.J. Waggoner

Are you Dividing Honors to God with a Rival Power?

"It may seem to some that the mere question of whether we shall

observe one day of the week or another is so small a matter to serve as the only great test of man’s loyalty to God, but as the final preparation for the coming of the Lord. 

 

So it would be if it was merely a question of days. 

But:

It is a question of loyalty to God’s Word, and therefore of loyalty to God Himself.

It is a question of whether 

men will regard God as supreme, 

and His Word as expressing 

completely His will, 

or whether they will 

divide honors with a rival power.

It is a question of whether men will strictly follow the example of Christ, or whether they will follow “the church” which presumes to know the will of God better than He did. 

 

Remember this also: The same Word that says, 

Exodus 20:10 The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work,...." E.J. Waggoner

Lesson of Solomon's Gold Shields

 "1 Kings 10:

16 And king Solomon made two hundred targets of beaten gold; six hundred shekels of gold went to one target. 

17 And he made three hundred shields of beaten gold; three pound of gold went to one shield; and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon. 

1 Kings 14:

25 And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem; 

26 And he took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all; and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. 

27 And king Rehoboam made in their stead brazen shields, and committed them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king’s house. 

28 And it was so, when the king went into the house of the Lord, that the guard bore them, and brought them back into the guard chamber. 

 

IN THESE passages there is contained the history of a great many people’s experience. 

Rehoboam had suffered the loss of the golden shields which his father had made, but he kept up appearances with brass. Perhaps he persuaded himself that brazen shields were as good as golden ones. 

 

No doubt they did look as well, if they were kept well rubbed up; but never-theless the value was not there.

 

In the same way many people who have had a real experience in the things of God, and who have allowed Satan to rob them of their treasure, have substituted the brass of formal profession for the pure gold of love and faith. It made as good a show, but they themselves were conscious, in spite of them-selves, that the value was not there."

E.J. Waggoner

Creation Moment 2/28/2021 - Genesis 1 as a "Conspiracy Theory"?

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,... Romans 1:22

"Paul Braterman, emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Glasgow, recently claimed online that creationism “meets all the criteria” for a “conspiracy theory.”

 He says creationism offers “a complete parallel universe with its own organisations and rules of evidence.”

.... we should note that calling someone a “conspiracy theorist” is a quick and easy way to avoid having to deal with the intellectual arguments for his position. 

 

He claims creationism is a “deep-seated power struggle” between religious conservatives and liberals, suggesting that creationists don’t really believe what we profess.

 

The entire essay is basically a giant ad hominem attack on creationists. It is instructive that this essay doesn’t attempt to answer creationists with any scientific evidence for evolution. Perhaps that’s because there isn’t any." ICR

1 CORINTHIANS 13 SERIES - Verse 6

 Commentary of Charles Spurgeon, Adam Clarke & Matthew Henry

 

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

Vs.6

 

The matter of its joy and pleasure is here suggested: 

 

 

1. Negatively: It rejoiceth not in iniquity. 

It thinks not evil of any, without very clear proof. It wishes ill to none, much less will it hurt or wrong any, and least of all make this matter of its delight, rejoice in doing harm and mischief. 

Nor will it rejoice at the faults and failings of others, and triumph over them, either out of pride or ill-will, because it will set off its own excellences or gratify its spite.

 

2. Affirmatively: It rejoiceth in the truth, is glad of the success of the gospel and rejoices to see men moulded into an evangelical temper by it, and made good. 

 

Those who are filled with the love of God rejoice in the truth.

Target Audience for Epistle of Hebrews

"The closing verses of the tenth chapter of Hebrews contain the clearest evidence that this epistle was given for the especial benefit of those who are waiting for the second advent of Christ.

Paul exhorts,

Hebrews 10

²³ Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for he is faithful that promised;
²⁴ And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works;
²⁵ Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.

This exhortation is addressed to those who see the day of the Lord approaching. They are exhorted to 

--- hold fast their faith, 

--- and by faithfulness in duty to provoke one another to love and good works." James White

Point in Prophecy of the "Patience"

 "Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. Rev. 14:12

Examining the context we find that this declaration, which is

located in time by the adverb, here, is made after the proclamation is made, “The hour of His Judgment is come,” and just before the Son of man appears on the white cloud to reap the harvest of the earth. 

 

This proves that the text applies near to the end of time: near the close of the dispensation. 

 

The faith of Jesus is united with the commandments of God—not substituted for them. 

 

The faith of Jesus is a comprehensive phrase, and must include the whole gospel system in its duties and promises. For there can be no duty nor benefit in the gospel which is not embraced in “the faith of Jesus.” 

 

And therefore “the commandments of God,” in distinction from the faith of Jesus, must refer to God’s moral law, which is the basis of the gospel, and without which the gospel were a nullity. “By the law is the knowledge of sin;” but the gospel is the remedy for sin." Joseph Waggoner

Pondering the aspects of the Hands of the Living God

"Once, sinless man could walk and talk with God and Christ and

angels in Eden. 

 

He was then safe and happy in the hands of the living God. 

But when sin separated him from God he needed a mediator. 

Thank Heaven that the sinner is now in the hands of Christ.

But when mercy’s hour shall be past, and Christ shall no longer plead for him, then he will be in the hands of the living God to receive the righteous retribution of all his unpardoned sins; then, oh! then, it will be fearful to be in the hands of the living God." James White

 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Hebrews 10:31

Creation Moment 2/27/2021 -- Jesuit Influence on Deep Time

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies... 2 Peter 2:1

"There were a number of factors involved in the development of deep-time thinking in France. 

Following René Descartes’ (1596–1650) method of skepticism and doubt, the Biblical account of creation and the Flood were denied a place in science, and fallen human reasoning became the arbiter of scientific knowledge.

However, when Jesuit missionaries brought knowledge of Hinduism and Buddhism from South India and China back to France, this was allowed to feed into discussions about the age of the earth.

 

The Jesuit role

 ....their willingness to accept various aspects of eastern religious

philosophies from India and China into their thinking was disturbing even to many of their fellow Catholics, who saw it as compromising the Catholic faith itself. This was reflected in the so-called Chinese rites and Malabar rites controversies within Catholicism in 17th- and 18th-century France. Jesuit missionaries were blending certain traditional religious practices with Catholic rites, the purpose being to make Catholicism more acceptable in China and South India in order to gain converts.

This accommodationism was criticized by other Catholic orders, and at one point by Rome. The ‘Chinese rites’ practice was also strongly criticized by mathematician and Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal (1623–1662).

The Jesuit Order had worked hard in establishing prestigious schools in the country, some of their students later becoming leading opinion-formers in France. Returning Jesuit missionaries, who brought knowledge of Hinduism and Buddhism with them, often taught in those schools. As a result, Hindu-derived ideas of ‘deep time’ were allowed to gain influence in western science, especially geology.

French thought 

Amongst the most notable French voices against scriptural authority and belief in the Flood in the 18^th century were: Bernard de Fontenelle (1657–1757), Benoît de Maillet (1656–1738), Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694–1778), and Denis Diderot (1713–1784).

 

Bernard de Fontenelle

Fontenelle was trained at the Jesuit Collège de Bourbon, and for decades (1697–1740) he held the prestigious position of Secretary to

the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris. This allowed him to influence the development and direction of geological science in France in a way that undermined belief in the Biblical Flood.

He had earlier written a book (1686) entitled Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds. Effectively a science fiction dialogue, it discussed space travel and the possibility of life on the moon and other planets. Fontenelle envisioned gradual alterations in nature occurring over hundreds of thousands of years, and his book was influential in preparing the French imagination for a different worldview over the subsequent century.

....the respected scientist René Réaumur, in the Academy’s Mémoires (1720), discussed the Falun layers of the Province of Touraine in France, consisting of numerous shells and shell fragments. However, Fontenelle used the occasion to deny evidence of the Flood, and argued instead for geological changes over longer periods of time. He thought the 7 m thickness of shelly layers required successive floods involving a gradually receding ocean over an extended period, and that life on Earth had long preceded mankind. None of these floods, he argued, could be attributed to the Mosaic account.

Benoît de Maillet

Another significant influence of the middle of the 18^th century was de Maillet’s edited book Telliamed (a reversal of his name). It was first published posthumously (1748) by the Jesuit priest Abbé Jean Baptiste le Mascrier, although draft copies had been circulating in

Paris for a couple of decades. De Maillet had become a French diplomat, allowing him to travel to the Middle East where he became acquainted with other cultures and beliefs.

Telliamed argued the case for millions of years of change from the perspective of a Hindu sage against a French missionary. Earlier clandestine drafts had argued that the earth was at least two billion years old, correlating roughly with half a day of the Hindu creator god Brahma; the 12-hour day of Brahma is said to last for 4.32 billion years (during which period Brahma is awake), followed by a night of similar length.

 

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) 

The Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire also claimed that deep time was required for geological change. He commented in an anonymous letter to the Academy of Bologna in 1746 that:

Revolutions of thousands of millions of years are infinitely less in the light of the Great Architect of Nature, than to us that of a wheel which compleats [sic] its round in the twinkling of an eye.

Voltaire also argued that fossil fish found on Alpine mountains were in fact food dropped by Christian pilgrims! 

Voltaire even began to argue that the Hindu writings were more ancient and authentic than the Bible. However, again he misrepresented the truth. He praised the Ezour Veda (or Ezourvedam) as a valuable gift to Western nations, saying they were indebted to this eastern religion. But in reality, this was a latter-day forgery; the work of Jesuits, not an ancient text. It was in the form of a dialogue between two supposed Vedic sages, one a monotheist and the other a polytheist who conclude that Hindu polytheism is more or less monotheism in disguise.

Denis Diderot

Diderot was an agitator against the political and religious authorities and, at one time, was imprisoned for sedition. In his Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature (1754), he wrote:

… may not a philosopher, left to his own conjectures, suspect that, from time immemorial, animal life had its own constituent elements, scattered and intermingled with the general body of matter, and that it happened that these constituent elements came together … [and] that millions of years passed between each of these developments … ?

The Jesuit-trained Diderot was well acquainted with Voltaire and gradually lost his faith, becoming a deist, then an atheist. He was tasked with editing a French Encyclopédie, a comprehensive work published from 1751 to 1772 to explain the world from the perspective of naturalism, and aimed at changing the thinking of French society." CMI

1 CORINTHIANS 13 SERIES - Verse 5

  Commentary of Charles Spurgeon, Adam Clarke & Matthew Henry

 

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, 

is not easily provoked, 

thinketh no evil;

Vs.5 

Doth not behave itself unseemly -....love never acts out of its place or character; observes due decorum and good manners; is never rude, bearish, or brutish; and is ever willing to become all things to all men, that it may please them for their good to edification. 

Seeketh not her own - Is not desirous of her own spiritual welfare only, but of her neighbor's also.

Is not easily provoked -  Is not provoked, is not irritated, is not made sour or bitter.

Thinketh no evil - The original implies that he does not invent or devise any evil; or, does not reason on any particular act or word so as to infer evil from it; for this would destroy his love to his brother; it would be ruinous to charity and benevolence.

  

Let gentleness triumph.
Charity will do nothing that misbecomes it.

Prison-house of the Grave

 Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: 

lighten mine eyes,

 lest I sleep the sleep of death; 

Psalm 13:3

"That the grave, whither we all tend, expressed by the Hebrew word “sheol” and the Greek word “hades,” is a place, or condition, in which there is no work, device, wisdom, nor knowledge, Eccl. 9:10. 23. 

 

That the state to which we are reduced by death is 

--one of silence, 

--inactivity, 

--and entire unconsciousness. Ps. 146:4; Eccl. 9:5, 6; Dan. 12:2. 24. 

 

That out of this prison-house of the grave, mankind are to be brought by a bodily resurrection, 

-----the righteous having part in the first resurrection, which takes place at the second coming of Christ; 

-----the wicked in the second resurrection, which takes place in a thousand years thereafter. Rev. 20:4, 6. 25." Uriah Smith