"Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name. "They will be Mine," says the LORD of hosts, "on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him."
"That you may know how you ought to behave yourself as the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." 1 Timothy 3:15
God has been graciously pleased to appoint His watchmen; His teachers; and His lambs; through the infilling of His Mighty Spirit, as the great conservators and expounders of His Truth, here in this present world, and He has set His Truth, as the special medium of unction and sanctification to His body for this calling; as it says in the Word:
he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.-- and
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. --
and also
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
My friends, there is a close and beautiful relation between the Truth and the fellowship -- the body -- our Lord. The body may be compared to the golden lamp which contains the sacred oil, which, in its turn, feeds the flame of its light and holiness. The body, the bride, is to guard with a jealous and vigilant eye the purity of the Truth: our slain and risen Lamb; while this Truth; now seated in the heavenlies, is to beautify and sanctify the ark which preserves its call. Thus there is a close and vital relation, as well as a reciprocal, sanctifying influence, between the body of Christ and the truth of God.
Every individual believer in Jesus is himself a subject, and therefore a witness, of the truth; he has been quickened, called, renewed, and sanctified through the instrumentality of God's revealed truth: "Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth." "For the truth's sake which dwells in us." "You are my witnesses, says the Lord." Here is unfolded one of the most solemn and profound truths touching the character and individual responsibility of a child of God. He is a subject of Truth, he is a repository of that Truth, and he is a witness for this Truth; in fact, my friends, he is the only living witness to the Truth which God has on earth. The world he lives in is a dark, polluted, God-blaspheming, Christ-denying, truth-despising world. The saints who have been called out of it according to His eternal purpose and love, and by His sovereign, distinguishing, and free grace, are the only lights and the only salt in the midst of this moral darkness and corruption. Here and there a light glimmers, irradiating the gloomy sphere in which it moves; here and there a spot of greenery appears, and a blossom unfolds, relieving the arid and barren desolation by which it is surrounded. These are the saints of the Most High, the witnesses of the Divine character, the omnipotent power, and the holy manifestation, of God's blessed truth. Let the lambs of God, then, soberly weigh this fact, that though His written Word and His Holy Spirit are God's witnesses in the world, yet we; God's lambs, His believers, are the only living exemplification of the power of His Truth, and, as such, are earnestly exhorted to be "blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world." Let them be careful to maintain good works, and so walk in all the holiness of the truth they profess; let them see that by no carelessness, by no want of integrity, or by no worldly conformity, should they bring a slur upon the Holy One that we love so much; but let us proclaim His Truth with His grace in our hearts; and His holiness in our lives.
"For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace ; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff ; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze," says the LORD of hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. "But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings ; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall."
"That you may know how you ought to behave yourself as the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." 1 Timothy 3:15
God has been graciously pleased to appoint His watchmen; His teachers; and His lambs; through the infilling of His Mighty Spirit, as the great conservators and expounders of His Truth, here in this present world, and He has set His Truth, as the special medium of unction and sanctification to His body for this calling; as it says in the Word:
he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.-- and
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. --
and also
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
My friends, there is a close and beautiful relation between the Truth and the fellowship -- the body -- our Lord. The body may be compared to the golden lamp which contains the sacred oil, which, in its turn, feeds the flame of its light and holiness. The body, the bride, is to guard with a jealous and vigilant eye the purity of the Truth: our slain and risen Lamb; while this Truth; now seated in the heavenlies, is to beautify and sanctify the ark which preserves its call. Thus there is a close and vital relation, as well as a reciprocal, sanctifying influence, between the body of Christ and the truth of God.
Every individual believer in Jesus is himself a subject, and therefore a witness, of the truth; he has been quickened, called, renewed, and sanctified through the instrumentality of God's revealed truth: "Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth." "For the truth's sake which dwells in us." "You are my witnesses, says the Lord." Here is unfolded one of the most solemn and profound truths touching the character and individual responsibility of a child of God. He is a subject of Truth, he is a repository of that Truth, and he is a witness for this Truth; in fact, my friends, he is the only living witness to the Truth which God has on earth. The world he lives in is a dark, polluted, God-blaspheming, Christ-denying, truth-despising world. The saints who have been called out of it according to His eternal purpose and love, and by His sovereign, distinguishing, and free grace, are the only lights and the only salt in the midst of this moral darkness and corruption. Here and there a light glimmers, irradiating the gloomy sphere in which it moves; here and there a spot of greenery appears, and a blossom unfolds, relieving the arid and barren desolation by which it is surrounded. These are the saints of the Most High, the witnesses of the Divine character, the omnipotent power, and the holy manifestation, of God's blessed truth. Let the lambs of God, then, soberly weigh this fact, that though His written Word and His Holy Spirit are God's witnesses in the world, yet we; God's lambs, His believers, are the only living exemplification of the power of His Truth, and, as such, are earnestly exhorted to be "blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world." Let them be careful to maintain good works, and so walk in all the holiness of the truth they profess; let them see that by no carelessness, by no want of integrity, or by no worldly conformity, should they bring a slur upon the Holy One that we love so much; but let us proclaim His Truth with His grace in our hearts; and His holiness in our lives.
"For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace ; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff ; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze," says the LORD of hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. "But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings ; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall."
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