The Word
The Word of God is only true.
Get the fear of God into our hearts,
and our whole being is thereby constrained in the direction of right.
The hope of well being,
the fear of evil,
the love of excellence,
all come into play with the promises and the threatenings.
The difficulty is to get this fear implanted,
because men habitually stand away from the only agency that can implant it.
The Word is the agency.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
In many respects,
the wisdom of God that is communicated in His Word is hidden.
It is accessible only to those who dig,
and this digging to be serviceable must be a continuous process.
It must not be done in fits and starts.
It must be constant, patient, and reverential,
- a daily feeding on the manna from heaven.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
What a fearful crime for men to despise God.
Those despise God who despise His Word;
and those practically despise His Word (in God's estimation)
who neglect or disobey it.
They do so with impunity now.
No harm seems to come to their negligence.
It would be foolish to be misled by appearances.
It was so with Israel for a time.
It did not seem to matter whether they observed the law of Moses or not.
The sun rose, the rain came, the harvest matured, prosperity reigned
as much as when the first generation of their fathers feared the commandments.
Yes, for a while; but mark the expression of this chapter (Jer. 14):
"He will now remember their sin."
....there are things long past - deeds and transactions which are ancient and forgotten history with the world - to come up again
in divine reckoning and be made the basis of terrible acts of retribution.
And yet men may individually insulate themselves
from the guilt of a generation in which they live.
Hence Peter exhorted those who were reasonable to
"save themselves from that generation."
But men who drift with the stream partake of the guilt of their generation
and may find themselves involved in the whirlpool of judgment that will destroy
the present wicked world when the time of "remembrance" arrives.
This remembrance, however, acts both ways.
God will remember also forgotten deeds of obedience,
for "a book of remembrance"
was written before Him for them that feared Yahweh
and that thought upon His name.
The day of the issue of things will shew the supreme wisdom of such,
and the supreme folly of those who allow themselves
to be cheated into forgetfulness of God and disobedience of his commandments
Brother Robert Roberts
~
All love grows by knowledge where the object is loveable.
God is loveable in Himself, as no other being can be.
It is, therefore, acquaintance only we need.
We get this acquaintance through the Scriptures.
God is not to be learnt elsewhere, in our age, except in so far as
some features of His character are generally reflected in nature.
Learning Him there, in knowledge indulged in -
knowledge renewed and digested day by day -
we gradually and insensibly
acquire that affinity that becomes conscious to us in love;
and by the power of this love, our minds gravitate to Him
in adoration, supplication, praise and gladness.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
The word of the Lord lives and abides forever,
and though men may err in their interpretations,
the declaration of his will standeth firm
that all things here shall be subjected to his dominion, so that
"His will shall be done as it is in heaven."
Brother John Thomas
The Herald 1851
~
Nature is beautiful indeed,
and the study of nature good as far as it goes; but nature will never unfold to man the purpose of her Creator. We must have revelation, and God has graciously given it;
and the beauty of the truth is its perfect harmony with nature in all ways.
C.C. Walker
The Christadelphian
1906
~
The knowledge of God's will is stored in a written form.
It is latent in these Divinely inscribed documents;
how to transfer it from these documents to the tablet of the heart-
this is the problem. It is a vital one.
Upon our solution of it depends our whole future...
We must read ponderingly - read regularly -
read with earnest desire - read with prayer.
And as all wise men,
avoid whatever acts hinder the result of any difficult or delicate process they may be conducting,
the man who aims to have the will of God, as Biblically embodied,
inscribed vitally and enduringly on his mind,
will avoid all books and occupations and habits and friendships and companions,
that tend to erase the Divine writing, or to interfere with the power of the heart to receive it.
~
The Bible
is the truth in a book:
Christ is the truth incarnate;
and a Christadelphian is the truth in his heart lovingly obeyed.
It is nonsense for a man to talk of 'loving the Lord Jesus'
while he receives not his words.
The Lord thanks no man for mere lip-love,
a love that rejoiceth not in the truth,
believeth not all things,
and hopeth not all things.
Mark 4:20
And these are they which are sown on good ground;
such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.
Brother John Thomas
~
It is not possible to persuade people to be wise.
Wisdom is not to position we take:
it is a condition we are in.
But it is possible to persuade people to take a
course that will make them wise:
prayer, and study, and meditation on the Word.
-selected-
~
Speak not lightly of prophecy,
as do the scoffer and the fool.
God bids you look to prophecy as a light shining in a dark place (1 Pet.1:19).
"The Lord will do nothing but He revealeth to his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7)
.....This is a challenge to the world,
and to us.
The world will feel the weight of Divine anger, and so also will we, if we neglect our great salvation.
It is vitally important that we not only preach the warning of prophecy to others,
but apply the lesson to ourselves.
Brother H.P. Mansfield
~
A three thousand years' steady fulfillment
of bible prophecy
is not to be brushed aside with a sneer or
to be got rid of by wrapping our heads in a blanket.
God has revealed His purpose, and is steadily marching on,
whether men understand it or not-
Brother Robert Roberts
~
God has appointed war ;
and no device of man can secure peace.
Politicians may talk about it,
but it is only because they know how uncertain it is,
and how full the air is of inflammable elements.
Festivities and cries of peace are the appropriate and characteristic
- and appointed
preludes to impending destruction.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
The Word is the agency.
Here we learn all that God is;
all that He has done; all that He requires; all that He intends.
A man cannot learn this by instinct. It must be founded on his intelligence. A fear of God apart from knowledge is mere superstition, and superstition is short-lived and unreliable. Constant familiarity with the holy oracles is the only thing that will implant that precious item of mental furnishing expressed by the scriptural phrase,
“The fear of God”.
Acquired in this way, the fear of God will be robust, reasonable, dignified, enduring, and always-available sentiment.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
All truth
that God has condescended to reveal in His word
is worthy of being known,
and when known is calculated to soften the heart and improve the dispositions of men.
Brother John Thomas
Herald 1851
~
The Gospel
is but the means appointed
for the purification for Christ of a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
How lamentable is the spectacle, therefore, of persons holding the Truth,
and yet uninfluenced by it in their conduct.
Beware, lest we hold the Truth in unrighteousness.
Better had we never known it than such be the case.
The fruits of the spirit cannot emanate from carnal-minded, unkind people.
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.
For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
I Jn 3:18-20
Brother Robert Roberts
The Christadelphian 1869
~
The Bible
is the truth in a book:
Christ is the truth incarnate;
and a Christadelphian is the truth in his heart lovingly obeyed.
It is nonsense for a man to talk of 'loving the Lord Jesus'
while he receives not his words.
The Lord thanks no man for mere lip-love,
a love that rejoiceth not in the truth,
believeth not all things,
and hopeth not all things.
Mark 4:20
And these are they which are sown on good ground;
such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.
Brother John Thomas
~
When a man
is deeply and continuously engaged in an atmosphere if Divine thoughts,
he has neither the time nor the inclination to plot mischief and play the fool.
this is the vocation of vacant minds and idle hands,
who know not what it is to enter within the veil.
Brother John Thomas
~
A man (if he would be saved) must throw away his Babylonish garments,
and being cleansed, by the Word of the Kingdom,
have his body washed with pure water (Heb. 10:22) in the name of Jesus,
and so put on the spotless robe.
In brief, he must
"believe the Gospel of the Kingdom and be baptized;"
and thenceforth,
"live soberly, and righteously in this present world."
Brother John Thomas
~
"It is to your interest, while a state of peace continues,
to avail yourselves of the opportunities that are now within your reach,
of getting to know the truth, that you may be saved.
If you neglect the Word in these peaceful times,
the time is coming when you will have no opportunity for enlightenment.
Whether Christ may be here next month, or next year,
or how long it will be, we know not.
THIS WE KNOW,
that a series of events has begun that will bring him here..."
Brother John Thomas
from a lecture given in 1869
~
"Ye are clean", said Jesus to his disciples, "through the word which I have spoken to you."
This word, which is defined to be "the law and the testimony",
is the great instrument of holiness and purification.
It changes men's minds;
loosens their attachment to earthy things;
causes them to place their affection on things above;
creates a new and right spirit within them;
diffuses the love of God abroad in their hearts;
separates them from sinners;
leads them into Christ;
and develops in their lives,
fruit characteristic of that repentance
which needs not to be repented of.
Brother John Thomas
Elpis Israel
~
The truth is the standard, and must alone be allowed to rule.
All doubts ought to be solved in its favor.
This is the principle of action to which study will ultimately lead.
Brother Robert Roberts
1867
~
The Inspired Word
No language can possibly exhaust the praises of this peerless collection of writings;
no amount of reading will ever weary its true pilgrim friends;
no amount of research will ever lay bare all its lengths and breadths of love,
and heights of wisdom;
no amount of literary engineering will ever bring to the surface all its stories of gold.
The lifetime of a Methuselah would be too short to use up the riches of its kindness and long suffering to usward. It is a perfect "garden of God,"
replete with trees of life, and rivers of righteousness,
with pearls of great price, and fruits of the Spirit.
It is an arcana of the choicest precepts that are to be found in creation,
and the most hope-inspired promises,
and obedience-infusing principles that man ever set his heart upon.
It literally thrills with heavens own light and power - from the center to circumference.
It is the very Alpha and Omega of all that is divine.
Brother Frank Shuttleworth