The World’s Wreckage

 

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The Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).

Someone may ask, “Does not the world look to you like a wreck?” To which we may reply, “Yes, like the wreck of a bursting seed.” Any of us who have watched the first sprouting of an oak tree from the heart of a decaying acorn will understand this. Before the acorn can bring forth the oak, it must become itself a wreck. No plant ever came from any but a wrecked seed.

Our Lord uses this fact to teach us the meaning of His processes with us.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but, if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit (John 12:24).

The whole explanation of the apparent wreckage of the world at large, or of our own personal lives in particular, is here set forth. And, looked at in this light, we can understand how it is that the Lord can be good, and yet can have the existence of sorrow and wrong in the world He has created, and in the lives of the human beings He loves.

Hannah Whitall Smith (1832–1911)
The God of All Comfort

This Is Not My Housekeeping

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 The Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).

If I have a friend whom I know to be a good housekeeper, I do not trouble over the fact that at housecleaning time things in her house may seem to be more or less upset, carpets up, and furniture shrouded in coverings, and even perhaps painting and decorating making some rooms uninhabitable. I say to myself, “My friend is a good housekeeper, and although things look so uncomfortable now, all this upset is only because she means in the end to make it far more comfortable than ever it was before.”

This world is God’s housekeeping; and although things at present look grievously upset, yet, since we know that He is good, and therefore must be a good Housekeeper, we may be perfectly sure that all this present upset is only to bring about in the end a far better state of things than could have been without it.

I dare say we have all felt at times as though we could have done God’s housekeeping better than He does it Himself, but, when we realize that God is good, we can feel this no longer. And it comforts me enormously, when the world seems to me to be going all wrong, just to say to myself, “It is not my housekeeping, but it is the Lord’s; and the Lord is good, therefore His housekeeping must be good too; and it is foolish for me to trouble.”

Hannah Whitall Smith (1832–1911)
The God of All Comfort

Mr. Rogers’ Note

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God, being rich in mercy, because of His vast love with which He loves us (Ephesians 2:4, CV).

After Fred Rogers’ death his wife found a handwritten note in his billfold that read, “I’ve never met anyone I couldn’t love if I heard their story.”

With that profound thought in mind, how can we not know that our amazing Creator loves us all? He knows all of our stories – He wrote our stories!

Is it reasonable to imagine that He doesn’t love us all? He has plans for each of us which includes the resurrection of all, as Paul declares in Acts 24:15,

And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.

— Mike Owens
Author of The Fallacy of Post Mortem Punishment in Light of a Successful Savior 
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The Placer of All

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The Placer of all, the Creator of all, the Operator of all, the Fulfiller of all, is using all to fulfill His plan to be “All in all.” No one is frustrating Him. All is and are serving Him and His plan. Evil is here to serve the good. Justice will be administered. All will learn. All will grow up to be model citizens of a new and permanent creation. No one is getting away with anything. No one will be left out. Death is sleep. Everyone will wake up and be brought to maturity. Daddy has a big stick. He also has a kind heart. Anyone trying to help Him will discover that He doesn’t need any help. He doesn’t need anything. He is the supply of everything. All is going as planned, right on schedule. It always has and always will. What can we do, then? Exactly what He has us doing, nothing more, nothing less. If you’re really looking for something to do, here’s something you might try. Always thank God for everything. After you have failed enough, He will become the thanks and everything else you need, springing from within you, pouring into you from above, making you very content, happy, pleased with all He does. And then it may be time for another storm to solidify that constitution. Eventually the heat, pressure and wisdom will make you into a bright transparent crystalline expression and enjoyer of your Source, Means, and infinite Destiny.

Jeff Bohlender

The Guise of Sinful Humanity

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We have been allowed to appear in the guise of sinful humanity in order that God may be able to use us to display His grace to others (Ephesians 2:7). As He has shown kindness to us, so He will show it to them. For grace is the basis of ultimate salvation (as was pre-determined, even before creation was brought forth); therefore, works have no place in this, and the way is opened for all to become God’s achievement, even as are the saints today (Ephesians 2:10).

John H. Essex (1907-1991)
“The Completing of the All In All”
The Pleroma: Paul’s “Lost” Teaching, Chapter 16, page 85
Bible Student’s Press (2021)

Our Response to Blindness

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The world is filled with blindness: relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers. As impairing as physical blindness can be, this is not the one to which I refer. Instead, I speak of one far worse: spiritual blindness.

Most go through life groping in the darkness. Only those granted the spiritual eyes to see have any divine light. It is not hard to see the effects of such a condition all around us.

The blinded condition is as divinely ordained as is sight, for,

Who appointed a mouth for man, or Who appointed him to be dumb, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I Jehovah? (Exodus 4:11-12).

Listen as John’s Gospel (12:37-40) describes the true condition of unbelief:

But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him: that the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke,
“Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
Therefore they could not believe, because that Isaiah said again,
“He has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; lest they should be seeing with their eyes, and should be understanding with their heart, and be converted.”

Those who “believed not” simply “could not believe, because” God had “blinded their eyes,” “lest they should be seeing.”

The reason for their blindness is certain; it is divine.

Without the imposition of divine spiritual blindness, all of those of Jesus’ day would have believed. Israel’s Messiah “had done so many miracles before them,” it took an act of God to prevent them from seeing Who He really was.

There is no need to be frustrated or irritated at the divine work of blindness among our fellow man. Faith will not belittle, make fun of, or mock them. The blind merely play their part in the divine drama.

Be careful that we do not fall into a carnal mindset: being demeaning, condescending, insulting, disrespectful and sarcastic toward those who are blind. All such reactions are childish and irresponsible.

Our response toward blindness is compassion, kindness, tenderheartedness, empathy and graciousness regarding their handicap. It has been thrust upon them, as equally as has been our sight.

For who makes you to be different from another? What do you have that you didn’t receive? Now, if you received it, why are you proud, as if you hadn’t received it? (I Corinthians 4:7).

By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain (I Corinthians 15:10).

(Check out our video on this title: Our Response to Blindness)

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
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God Alone Is in Charge of Realization

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That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may be giving you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the realization of Him (Ephesians 1:17, CV).

It is not easy hearing anyone, especially those that we love, teach error. It is truly amazing how much ignorance that there is, even among those who teach the Scriptures. But understanding God’s sovereignty and choice, we also know that He has not now decreed that our brothers “see” what we “see.” He alone is in charge of “realization,” and as hard as that is, over time He teaches us to be content being where He has us, and all the while, also content with where He has others. Everything is as it is divinely designed to be. We rest in that.

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
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Dry Times

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A part of our spiritual education at the hands of God has necessarily to be dry times, times when He appears to have withdrawn His presence, times when the Bible ceases to speak to us, prayer is dull, our heart seems cold, fruit seems to be nil; and such times are most healthy for us, as we thoroughly learn one lesson – to relax in the fact that He is believing in Himself for us. Once this lesson is learned, to a large extent, the variations disappear between dry and fresh, dull or bright, hot or cold, fruitful and fruitless, showing that they are largely illusory to a faith that is fixed.

Norman P. Grubb (1895-1993)
God Unlimited
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Containers … and More

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There is really only One Person in the Universe – God Himself. The creation is the means of manifesting Him. We humans are basically containers, created as persons in His image, to contain and manifest Him as The Person. God is the “All,” and we are merely the means of His Self-manifestation.

We are vessels, and activity is not the function of a vessel. Do we see what this means? Not that we have a life to live with God as our helper. Not that we must pray more, give more, love more, witness more. Not basically that we are God’s partners, or fellows, or co-workers, but that God Himself is the “All” in us. He is the One Who prays, gives, loves, witnesses. He lives our life, our common everyday life.

But, having absorbed and accepted that we are containers, we are more. We are united to Him Whom we contain in a way a vessel can never be united to what it contains. We are also Christ’s Body. A body is solely the agent of its head. In head and body, activity of the members comes to the forefront. A body is made for action. A head is useless without a body, so the Body in Ephesians is specifically spoken of as the fullness [plērōma] of the Head – “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all” (1:23). Head and Body are necessary to each other.

Norman P. Grubb (1895-1993)
God Unlimited
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The Full Christ

 

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His allotment among the saints (Ephesians 1:18 CV).

We have Christ – a full Christ – Image of the Invisible God, Splendor of His glory. We need, the church needs, the universe needs ALL that God has made Him to be. And all that Christ is, and has, is here [in Ephesians] for us in faith. We have Christ, and we have the Church – a completed Church, a Body without a missing member, not a single gap in its ranks – all completed in the plērōma of Christ their Savior and Head. A full Christ; a completed church; and an entire creation. Grace has first come down in and through Christ to the church; then through the church into creation; and now it returns in the form of glory through the church to Christ, and through Christ to God.

Theology views creation as God’s speculation which makes an eternal torture-house, or else an eternal tomb, out of a portion of His Universe. It would seem to be the inevitable cost of any gamble. But this verse would rather show that God’s investment in creation will yield Him large returns in destiny when the incense of glory beyond glory ascends from Christ, Creation and the Church in the eon of the eons.

Alan Burns (1884-1929)
Unsearchable Riches, Volume 11 (1920)
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