Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

scroll."
sea,"
miah's prophecy was not so much a
foretelling of the future, as an analysis
of conduct and its results in national
life. The prevailing
conduct that he
saw in the morals of the Kings and the
life of the people was what would nat
urally lead to disaster, even as they
did. A few of the kings of Judah chose
the way of the Lord, and they
and the
people were blessed. Often the people
became angry with their prophet, as
though he was their enemy. They should
have known that the Lord's messenger
was their best friend, because he was
revealing to them the natural results of
their own conduct. God is always ready
to bless, if we repent and obey, even
though we forfeit all claim to His mer
cy. Our worst doom is to suffer the re
sults of our own sin.
Jehoiakim Tries to Overrule Jeremiah's
Prophecy
Jeremiah was saying things that were
not pleasant to his listeners, but that
could not be denied. So Jehoiakim put
him in prison. There the Lord told him
to write on a scroll, and just what to
write. So he pronounced the words that
the Lord gave carefully
and Baruch
wrote them down, then carried them to
the Temple and read them to those who
were there. The princes heard of it and
asked for it to be read to them. When
they had heard it, they hid the scroll
and told the King. The king sent Jehudi
to get the scroll, and commanded him
to read it aloud. As each page was read,
the king cut it off with his penknife,
and threw it on the brazier and watched
it writhe like a live thing
And so
on the coals.
with a self-satisfied grin he
watched the last of the sheepskin
shrivel into an ill-smelling coal. "That
finishes Jeremiah's
What a ter
rible mistake! He had destroyed the
parchment, but not God's Word. It soon
appeared on another scroll that was not
destroyed. And every word of it was
fulfilled. It is easy to destroy a book.
The Truth endures forever.
In the dark ages, pagan blasphemers
tried to destroy God's Word by trying
to destroy every book in which it had
been written. They could not succeed
in finding all the books. But if they had
found them all and burned them all,
that would not have destroyed the
Word. Moses broke the tables of stone
on which the Law was written. God
wrote it again. There are men today
who could reproduce from memory the
entire Bible. Many have followed the
example of David and laid it up in their
heart, at least great parts of it. God's
word is truth, and the truth endures
forever.
Jehoiakim was very anxious to estab
lish his own house. But with his son
June 15, 1955
Coniah, (Jeconiah) the house of Jehoia
kim came to an end. He had built his
house by oppression with no purpose to
strengthen Judah except in such ways
as would make it serve to support his
own house in royal splendor. This was
the surest way for his own destruction.
His house became such a spectacle of
failure that nations passing by asked,
"Wherefore hath the Lord done thus to
this great city Then shall they answer,
Because they forsook the covenant of
the Lord their God, and worshiped
other Gods and served them."
Patriotism
A Patriot will seek to do what is
best for his country. There are always
those who look to their own selfish in
terests or desires rather than to their
own good and the good of others. We
are learning slowly that the interest of
our nation is bound up with the interest
of the world. We are also learning slow
ly that a nation cannot prosper unless
freedom to prosper is granted to every
person in the nation.
In verses 2-4 of our lesson the condi
tions for prosperity are detailed. The
program for prosperity is righteousness,
helpfulness, mercy. With these, there is
the promise of national and social se
curity. With the offer of this bright op
portunity, a warning is introduced with
the adversative conjunction, 'but.' There
was, and is, no excuse for failing to heed
this warning. Each generation in every
land has seen this whole program com
pleted in some measure. We are trying
at great labor and expense, and in much
fear, to correct now, the effect of our
national sins that we see clearly now,
and that we could have seen just as
plainly before, if we had not been blind
ed by our own lusts.
The third verse is addressed to offi
cers. There are many duties that belong
first in the family; then neighbors have
a part to play. If these fail in their du
ty, civil government should see that the
work is done. We spend millions from
public taxes to combat foot and mouth
disease along our Mexican border, and
other millions to eradicate the Medi
terranean fly from the citrus groves of
Florida. These dangers are met quickly.
That's business. Caring for the health of
the people, that's charity. Most people
agree that there should be public help
to an indigent, I heard one Christian
say, "Worthy indigent."
A letter recently appearing in the
WITNESS referred to the Townsend
plan. Dr. Townsend offered a plan that
was based on the nature in which God
created man. He comes into the world
helpless and normally he is helpless in
his declining days. The Doctor made the
mistake of announcing his plan in some
striking details. Those who counted
themselves sitting nicely in their own
individual plan made adverse slogans of
the Doctor's phrases, and publicized
them so thoroughly that most people
never went beyond that to investigate
the plan. I speak of this now, to call our
attention to the fact that we are just
now riding on the tide wave of pros
perity. In the 20s, we were as sure that
depression would never come as we are
now. Our reasons for that certainty
were the same as they are now. It came.
I worked on a committee that was try
ing to feed the families of 300 unem
ployed working men, with inadequate
funds, (charities). I hope those condi
tions will not return.
The third verse of our lesson deals
with the care of those in need. The
thirteenth verse deals with justice to
the laborer. God's message through Jere
miah made clear that greed was one of
the great sins that brought unrest,
weakness and captivity.
Human nature and God's law do not
change. We are part of our nation. Our
nation is part of the world. We help one
another in obedience to God's Law, or
we perish.
Psalms
PRAYER MEETING TOPIC
July 6, 1955
TRUE WISDOM
James 3:13-18
M. K. Carson, D.D.
111:1-3, 9, page 276
25:7-12, page 59
34:7-10, page 80
107:31-32, page 268
References: Found in the comments.
Dean Howson observes that "there is
more imagery drawn from mere natural
phenomena in the one short epistle of
James than in all St. Paul's Epistles put
together. How many
such references
can you find "The waves of the
"wind,"
"flower of the
grass," "sun,"
"man with a gold ring" are a few of
these vivid figures of speech. Is it a
sign of true wisdom to be able to find
"tongues in trees, books in the running
brooks, sermons in stones and good in
every thing" How much can we learn
these vacation days from the wonders of
nature. Of course we do not need to
limit this opportunity to the summer
time.
We believe that Paul and James
are in agreement with each other. Their
setting forth of the same truth from op
posite points of view seems to present
a contradiction. But men can see nei
ther our faith nor the new nature com
municated in regeneration, but they can
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