Sojourners

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="054fd5a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Tyler - Longview Christadelphian Ecclesia</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tyler Longview Christadelphian Ecclesia"><B>home</B></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Who We Are">Who We Are</A><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Symbol" >   ·   </FONT><A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="News and Events">News and Events</A><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Symbol" >   ·   </FONT><A HREF="id64.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ecclesial Statements">Ecclesial Statements</A><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Symbol" >   ·   </FONT><A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Daily Bible Readings">Daily Bible Readings</A><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Symbol" >   · 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valign="top" height=390 width="100%" BGCOLOR="#FFFFCC" TEXT="#080000"> <bR> <div> <B>Sojourners</B></div> <bR> <div> ...God's will be done in all things.</div> <div> We are but pilgrims and sojourners here as all the fathers were.</div> <div> Christ Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.</div> <div> He had few friends,</div> <div> and was misunderstood by all.</div> <div> My experience has been in accord with this for the last 37 years.</div> <div> It is a consolation, however,</div> <div> that if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him.</div> <div> Love to all.</div> <div> Brother John Thomas</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <bR> <div> These were the last words he wrote before laying his pen down, in a manuscript called</div> <div> "What is flesh"</div> <bR> <div> The transforming energy of divine power will convert</div> <div> spirit that passeth away into spirit that passeth not away.</div> <div> They who may be the subjects of this operation will be exalted to equality with the angels,</div> <div> whose substance doth not waste away...</div> <div> Brother John Thomas</div> <div> last written words of Brother Thomas</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <bR> <div> God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave.</div> <div> The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning-</div> <div> Brother Robert Roberts</div> <div> last written words of Brother Roberts</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <bR> <div> ...Logos is designed as a monthly reminder of these all-important matters,</div> <div> encouraging its readers to "seek those things which are above,</div> <div> where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God;</div> <div> setting their affection on things above,</div> <div> not on the things on the earth (Col. 3:1-2)....</div> <div> Above all else, may this Volume be the last</div> <div> and that these efforts be interrupted and gladly put aside</div> <div> by the presence of the Lord in the earth.</div> <div> With anticipation we look forward to such a termination.</div> <div> Brother H.P. Mansfield</div> <div> words from his last editorial</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <bR> <div> We were all of us Gentiles following not righteousness,</div> <div>  but the passing gratification of an unenlightened mind. </div> <div> In the purpose of God according to election, </div> <div> we have been called to be </div> <div> “vessels of mercy.”</div> <div>  Let us see to it that we use every endeavor to make our calling and election sure.</div> <div> Brother Robert Roberts</div> <div> 1880</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <bR> <div>  Trying</div> <div> to push a wheelbarrow up hill with the wheel chained </div> <div> is about the task attempted by those who try to grow in divine knowledge </div> <div> while making friends with the present world. </div> <div> The Christadelphian</div> <div> 1894</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <bR> <div> We are but pilgrims and sojourners here</div> <div> as all the fathers were. </div> <div> Christ Jesus was a man of sorrow acquainted with grief.</div> <div> He had few friends, and was misunderstood by all.</div> <div> My experience has been in accord with</div> <div> this for the past 37 years.</div> <div> It is a consolation, however, that if we suffer with him,</div> <div> we shall also reign with him.</div> <div> Brother John Thomas</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <bR> <div> I am no man's personal enemy.</div> <div> I have neither time nor inclination to trouble myself about persons, or their affairs. </div> <div> I have enough to do in this department to take care of my own personalia,</div> <div> without interfering in other people's. </div> <div> <I>But </I>when they approach me on the premises of the truth, </div> <div> then they are either my friends or my foes, and I am theirs.</div> <div> I am their friend for the truth's sake, or I am their foe for the truth's sake. </div> <div> I would rather be the friend than the foe of any one upon any ground. </div> <div> This is the bent of my fleshly nature; and if men will not be friendly,</div> <div> I do not feel resentful, but my disposition is is to give them a wide berth or margin,</div> <div> because the world is wide; and if they are disposed to travel north,</div> <div> I will travel due south; or if they would go west, I will go due east; </div> <div> and think of them and theirs no more.</div> <div> This is the natural man.</div> <div> But if they pretend to be the friends of the truth, and they are neither intelligent in, nor faithful to,</div> <div> what I believe to be the truth, and will not consent to be instructed,</div> <div> then I have a duty to perform as one of Christ's Brethren,</div> <div> in obedience to apostolic injunction, and that is,</div> <div> to “contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints,”</div> <div> and in so doing, which is well-doing, </div> <div> “to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men,” </div> <div> that that their mouths being stopped, </div> <div> they may no longer subvert whole houses,</div> <div> and lead captive silly people laden with sins. </div> <div> Brother John Thomas</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <bR> <div> We are all ignorant to start with.</div> <div> We think we know, when we don't.</div> <div> Experience is the only thorough and accurate teacher:</div> <div> and it teaches by a quiet and slow and extensive process of tuition </div> <div> that cannot easily be formulated in words afterwards.</div> <div> It is made up of a thousand mental accretions that can only come with the varied experiences</div> <div>  and reflections of years.</div> <div> Hence the scriptural exaltation of age over youth.</div> <div> Brother Robert Roberts</div> <div> My Days and My Ways</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <div>  </div> <div> We are not to sleep in the sense in which the world is asleep.</div> <div> We are not to share their state of unconsciousness </div> <div> with regard to the great realities of existence,</div> <div> and spend our time in illusory dreams. </div> <div> The world is unconscious of God;</div> <div> it is unconscious of His universal presence and power;</div> <div> it is unconscious of Christ, and God's purpose with Him;</div> <div> it is unconscious of the great plan He is working out,</div> <div> and of the principles which He desires His creatures to recognize.</div> <div> It is dreaming of life, and comfort, and prosperity without God;</div> <div> the phantasm of a disordered brain.</div> <div> With this state of mind, the saint has nothing in common;</div> <div> but if he is not on his guard, he will sink into it.</div> <div> How are we to preserve our consciousness </div> <div> of all the great things that pertain to the "day" ? </div> <div> How shall we avoid sleeping "as do others"? </div> <div> By giving heed to what the Spirit saith; and the Spirit speaketh the word. </div> <div> By this companionship with God we are kept in remembrance of great facts upon the realities of life are founded. </div> <div>  Brother Robert Roberts</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <bR> <div> We belong to the land promised to Abraham and his Seed,</div> <div> and to the Kingdom to be established upon it.</div> <div> The flesh is nothing.</div> <div> According to this we are Gentiles of this or that country.</div> <div> What are their questions and ambitions to us?</div> <div> their "patriotism" is the selfishness and superstition of the flesh,</div> <div> and all resolves itself into the love of goods,</div> <div> chattels and effects,</div> <div> vested interests, and cerebral magnetism.</div> <div> they are zealous for what they feel.</div> <div> there was none of what Satan terms</div> <div> "patriotism"</div> <div> in Jesus and his apostles, who are our example.</div> <div> Brother John Thomas</div> <bR> <div> ~</div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="09601010.png" border=0 width="1" height="1" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> Let us take heed, and show ourselves men of God, whose seed “remaineth in them;” who cannot be moved away from the path of duty or the hope of the gospel by the wildest storms that may come; who stand stoutly, in their particular day and relations, in the position described by Habakkuk: “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines: the labour of the olive shall fail and the fields shall yield no meat: the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”-(3:17) The standing aim of this class is to be approved of God, however much they may incur the opprobrium of men. Men work one way; the children of God another. God's opinion of the ways of men is clearly and abundantly recorded. This record they “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.” They eschew the selfishness rebuked by Haggai, who was commanded by the Spirit to say to the men of Israel, “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and My house lie waste? . . . My house is waste, and ye run every man into his own house.”-(1:4, 9.) There is no stone-and-mortar house of God to attend to; but there is another house-the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth, whose condition is that of wasteness, and to which we are called to attend in priority to our own affairs. If we are of God, we feel not at liberty to do as the men of Israel did, and as the world around does, to look after our own affairs, and see ourselves comfortably established without regard to the desolate state of the house of God. While God is a pilgrim in the earth, His sons are not content to be dwellers in the tents of sin. While Jerusalem and her children are in affliction, they aim not to seek their ease. They have a heart to feel for the down-trodden house of Christ, and on its upbuilding their best exertions are bestowed. They give not to the Lord the refuse and superfluity. </div> <div> Brother Robert Roberts </div> <div> 1874</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>