Juny 1, 1916 We believe that with your wide and varied experience, you could give us a few valuable suggestions along this line and we would be glad if you would give us some advice. . Praying the Lord’s rich blessing upon you daily, we remain Yours in his service, Sr. JosepH [Mo.] Cass. In Reply Where a class finds, after trial, that one or more of its elders or deacons possess good business acumen and faithfulness, it Sometimes proves a good plan to make a Business Committee of such and leave much of the business routine to such committee. Care, however, should be observed not to put matters too fully out of the hands of the class, Care also should be observed not to put too much power into the hands of any who evidence a desire to grasp power and to exceed the wishes of the class. In all matters the easiest and smoothest way of obtaining results is advisable; but the authority of the class should be recognized. Any one ignoring the class and its wishes would better be left without any special service as elder, deacon, etc. THE WATCH TOWER (207-212) Deak FRIENDS :— In THe Tower of February 15, I read some quotations from alleged German sermons, extracted from the Methodtst Times,:and supposed to be faithful translations from these sermons. Since reading them I received a package of newspapers from my home, Copenhagen, in one of which is an alleged truthful explanation of those sermons, Pastor Loebel, of Leipzig, does not even exist. Professor Rheinhold Seeby should be Seeberg; he denies absolutely to have said anything of the kind quoted; and, while Philippi’s expressions are not absolutely denied, their authenticity is very doubtful. I enclose the article from the Danish paper Rébenhavn. If you so think, a correction in THe Tower might help remove some of the added bitter feelings against Germans in general. My sympathy is rather on the side of France and England; but 1 desire justice to all. Yours in his service, C. PETERSEN. Vou. XXXVIT BROOKLYN, N. Y., JULY 15, 1916 No. 14 “LEST WE FORGET!” “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.”—Hebrews 12:14. Although the Lord’s people are counseled by the Lord’s at once proceeds to strengthen the web around him. If the Word to be peacemakers, and to pursue peace, nevertheless they are forewarned that they must fight. On the surface these injunctions seem paradoxical. It seems strange that we should be admonished to be peacemakers and then be told that we are to fight. These conflicting statements may be harmonized however. If we are loyal to the Lord and to his eause, our loyalty will bring us into opposition with whatever is contrary to God. It is not that we are to strive with people; but the very fact that we are counseled to be peacemakers implies that there will be opposition. How is it that when one wishes to do right and is doing this to the best of his ability he meets with opposition? It was so with our Master. Although he was perfect, yet he had opposition. We need not be surprised, then, if we who are imperfect should have similar experiences. What did Jesus do to cause people to do evil toward him? He did only good and sought to bless all. His loyalty to the Father, however, made it a necessity for him to rebuke sin and error. This brought upon him the antagonism of those who upheld these sins and errors. The darkness hates the light because it is a constant rebuke to the darkness. Then we not only have the opposition of the spirit of the world, but also the opposition of our own fallen flesh and the virulent opposition of the great adversary and his hosts. What a power this all means! At one time in our lives we did not know what it meant to have the opposition of the world, the flesh and the devil; but we are learning what this means, dear brethren. Our great adversary is a very wily foe, and is on the alert to seize every opportunity to ensnare and entrap us, to put our enemies in antagonism against us, and to stir up all kinds of persecution and opposition. One might think that Satan would be satisfied to have taken the wrong course himself; and that he would ere now have been ready to say, “I have had enough of it.” Why does he not say this? It is because he is so implacable a foe to God and to all that is good. He has so hardened his heart to all that is holy that he cannot be renewed to repentance, to change about and take an opposite course. LET US TAKE WARNING FROM SATAN’S COURSE What a solemn warning this should be to use to resist stoutly and unequivocally the very beginnings of sin, to resist the approach of temptation to be disloyal to God in the slightest degree, by hastening to the throne of grace in every time of danger! The adversary’s designs seem to be especially against the saints of God. He steadfastly opposes all those who desire to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, rather than those who walk according to the course of this world; for the latter are already more or less under his control. He does not seek to run after them or seek to enirap them. All he needs to do is to keep them from the light.—2 Cor. 4:4. Satan does not wish the glorious light of God’s goodness to shine into men’s hearts; for wherever the light of truth goes it brings a transformation. We become changed men and women as soon as the truth shines into our hearts; and this transformation goes on day by day. When Satan sees this, he exerts all his power to blind the one who has gotten out from under his domination, and to weave his web around him again. When the fly begins to struggle to escape, the spider fly escapes the snare, the spider will again entrap him, if possible. But in spite of the foes with which we have to contend, the foes without and within, we are perfectly safe so long as we keep close to the Master. Stronger and greater is he that is on our part than all they that are against us. We have learned something of the character of our heavenly Friend. At first we saw that God was a great Being, deserving of our reverence; but now we are coming to see more and more how just he is, how wise he is, how loving and lovely he is. As we come to thus appreciate his glorious character, it inspires within us a great desire to be like him, and we find that the injunction of Scripture is that we should be like our Father in heaven. Jesus was like him, and we are instructed to become copies of God’s dear Son. “Be ye followers of us,” said the Apostle, “even as we are followers of Christ.” SELF OUR SPECIAL BATTLE-GROUND We are now God’s special representatives in the world, fighting a good fight of faith against sin and evil, especially in ourselves. We are not at all commissioned to clean up the world. The Bible gives us no such instructions. The Lord will use us to do this work by and by, when we reach the kingdom. We cannot now quite get ahead of the evil that we find in our own flesh, and so we need to turn our forces against sin entrenched in our mortal bodies. We nced to exercise great care lest, while we preach to others, we ourselves should become castaways. What a thought that is, that, after having told others about God, his love, his power and his salvation in Christ, we should ourselves become castaways from this glorious salvation! As new creatures we should be very vigilant, should continue to grow, should increase in power to overcome the flesh. Then we shall be safe. Self is to be our special battle-ground. Many of the Lord’s people have a great deal of natural combativeness. This is a good trait if controlled and turned in the right direction. Combativeness is necessary, or we could never overcome. But we need to restrain ourselves that we do not fight the brethren; and we are not to enter into a personal combat with the devil. We are no match for him. But we are to resist him. The Lord will soon take hold of him and bind him up for a thousand years. He will conquer the adversary and will undo all his works. But it will require the entire thousand years to accomplish fully that work. We need not hope to overthrow Satan or his works while we are in the flesh. It is not our mission. What the Lord has given us to do is to conquer ourselves, to control this body which is of the fallen race of Adam, to keep ourselves that that wicked one touch us not.—l John 5:18. We all have natural inclinations toward sin. It is necessary, therefore, that we overcome the inclinations of the flesh, the disposition of the flesh—all these things that war against the spirit. From the moment that we surrender ourselves to the Lord and were begotten of the holy Spirit, we were new creatures. Old things have passed away, and all things have become new. We no longer belong to the old family, the family of Adam; we are an entirely new creation. We have passed from death unto life, from condemnation to death in Adam to a new life in Christ. The continuation of this new life will [5923]
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