Truth Magazine

By Cecil Willis

Many special privileges belong to us because we are Christians. No greater opportunity is ours than the opportunity to talk with the Creator of heaven and earth. Men cherish the few times in their fives when they are permitted to talk with great men. But through Christ Jesus, we can have conversation with God as often as we wish. His ear is always open to the supplications of His children.

Christ is our perfect example in all things. He is a most wonderful example in prayer. About fifteen separate prayers of Christ are recorded in [fie New Testament. If the Son of God felt the need of communing with His Father, bow much greater must be the need of those of us who are fallible sons and daughters.

The apostle Paul was one who practiced the habit of prayer. In Romans 1:8 he said “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all.” Paul was thankful for his brethren. Let us try praying one for another. When we are concerned enough to pray about one another we will certainly seek not to do harm either in word or deed to those for whom we are praying. Prayer for one another will bind us together with that blessed tie that ought to bind brethren in the Lord.

Paul commands that we pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5: 1-4). This does not mean that every moment of my life must be spent in prayer. However, it does mean that Christians should talk with God often. No day should be spent in the Lords service without prayer. Most of us pause to thank God for His blessings before each meal, but we should devote other portions of the day to fervent prayer.

James says the “effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (Jas. 5:171. There is power in prayer! By the privilege of prayer I can ask God to perform things that I cannot do by myself. Alone man is very weak, but in prayer man becomes as strong as God Himself. Man does not become God, but he can have the power of God working in his behalf.

Man also becomes stronger as a result of prayer. The lusts of the flesh will be less attractive. Gods power exerted in answer to Prayers will keep us from sin. Pray without ceasing!

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 45, p. 3
September 21, 1972

By Raymond E. Harris

The way some churches work at making the Church of Christ “just another denomination,” we wonder why they dont just change the sign on the building and join hands with the Methodists, Presbyterians or some other like group.

The latest effort to organize and denominationalize the Church came recently from Vancouver, Wash. The liberal church there bills itself as “a concerned congregation” that “is willing to serve as the single coordinating congregation for the whole nation.” They have already presumptuously enlisted the services of various congregations over the country to be “relay stations.”

This latest brain storm has to do with moving church members. They lament the fact that many members move into a new area and do not look up the church. They do not attend worship services and so, dry up spiritually and die.

It cannot be denied that such a problem exists, but, what is their solution? They magnanimously have offered to serve as the one national coordinating church. In other words, they suggest that if a member and his family moved from Plainfield to St. Louis, Mo., we should send this mans name and address to the coordinating church at Vancouver, Wash. They would in turn send the information back to some congregation known as a regional relay station and then the regional relay station congregation would send the mans name and address to the nearest “faithful” congregation and send the man, the address of the nearest “faithful” church.

Hows that for wild man-made church bureaucracy? Instead of local elders helping moving members with such matters, they suggest we become dependent upon two of three other congregations. Whats more, we can see this lame-brain plan would mean doubling the time, the postage and the effort involved.

We cant help but feel that this is just a feeble scheme to propel an obscure church in Washington State into national prominence. But, whatever their motive the plan is unscriptural, sinful, impractical and downright silly!!

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 44, p. 13
September 14, 1972

By Larry Ray Halley

Some men make a career out of cowardice. Nowhere is this profession more pronounced than in politics and religion. John F. Kennedys Profiles in Courage is a monument to bravery of conviction in earthly spaces, while Noah, Jeremiah, and Paul are profiles in courage in heavenly places. But these are the extraordinary, the exceptions. Cowards lie in the dust of ignominious oblivion or in the yellowed pages of ignoble infamy, whereas the heroes of character and courage are forever enshrined and entombed in the bosom, of their countrymen.

Moral timidity is the worst form of cowardice. Fear on the battlefield is forgivable. Fainting and quaking before a physical enemy is understandable, but spiritual fear is without defense or excuse. Issues are knives that may lay bare a mans quivering heart. What a man is can be seen by his reaction to challenges of the precepts and principles he advocates. It matters not how lofty his rhetoric, how scornful his countenance, or how clenched his fist, a man is not a man who will not lay down his life, his fortune and his sacred honor for the cause in which he believes.

Therefore, many men are not men. They forsake the truth, and they forsake integrity. They forsake right, and they forsake the only true might. They forsake themselves who deny the position they believe to be just and pure and good. To refuse to contend and defend ones conscience is to impose self exile. There is neither greater dishonor nor more despicable shame than one who will not “earnestly contend” for the light be sees and the faith he believes.

Christians have no right to be afraid. Numbers and odds are not to be considered in the warfare of Christ. Goliath fell before David, and Midian fled before Gideon, “for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few” (I Sam. 14:6).

Still, we find careening career cowards in Christ. They “stand” for modesty, but they will not name the “mini.” They loathe lasciviousness, but they will not reprove, rebuke, and exhort brethren who allow their children to dance. They are “for” worship in the Lords way on the Lords Day, but they will not cite, indict and convict those who pervert the pattern of sound words. They are for controversy and discussion, but they will bad mouth anyone who engages in debate where points are pressed and truth is preached to triumph in Christ. More and more we need less and less of such men.

Diplomacy and the mutual interchange of ideas and the exchange of philosophies have its place but only around a pence table. No such peace forum or conference table, however, should exist for the faithful soldiers of King Jesus. God has not called us to haggling, bargaining, or dickering, but to striving, warring, and wrestling. One does not “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers” by consorting with them in areas and avenues of agreement. Sheathing the sword is not the way to true unity or liberty. It is the path of least resistance to bondage and apostasy.

The career coward smiles much and bids God speed to error on every hand and front. His “love everyone” approach is a reproach and serves to make him the worst enemy a man in error could have. His so called love will leave the lost in error, lost in error. The best friend a man in error has is a man who takes the word of the Lord and corrects him with it (Jas. 5:19, 20).

Career cowards remain aloof from real fights and conflicts. They will jab from the third row and throw in thrusts that keep them respectable, but when the issues are on the firing line, these men are on the side line writing general agreement articles of confederation for enemy papers. In Athens, while Paul faced and fought the mockers and scoffers, the career coward brethren were writing historical treatises on idolatrys modes and forms for the Unknown God magazine.

Courage comes through Christ and the word of his power. In that word and by that power we take our stand, “and having done all,” we shall stand. The purity and peace of the church demands a militant offence and an adamant defense. Wavering compromise on the part of cowards will not deter us — let them be warned. The faith and our faith are fixed and anything contrary to sound doctrine will be shot on sight.

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 44, pp. 12-13
September 14, 1972

By Joe Neil Clayton

We read in the New Testament that when Moses was about to make the Tabernacle, he was “warned” by God, who said; “See that you make all things according to the pattern that was showed you in the mount.” (Hebrews 8:5). Either God simply wanted to impress Moses with the importance of obedience, or else he had a larger purpose.

There was an order of worship planned for die Tabernacle, and this design had to fit the floor plan of the House itself, of course. But, God had other designs that demanded care in die building of the Tabernacle. These designs would span the centuries until Christ came to build His church.

As the Holy Spirit “moved” the writers of the New Testament to speak of the church, or of the system of religion that belonged to the age of Christ, they used the pattern of the Tabernacle to emphasize New Testaments truths. One of the larger of these truths is that the church is called the house of God, even as the Tabernacle was called the same. In Ex. 34:26, we learn that the Tabernacle was called the “house of Jehovah thy God.” The Apostle Paul uses the very similar expression “house of God” to refer to the “church of the living God, the pillar and Wound of the truth.” (I Tim. 3:15). Paul develops this truth into a statement packed with descriptive facts about the church, calling it the Temple, “A habitation of God in the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:19-22).

The New Testament writers also found ways (again. by the motivation of the Holy Spirit) to adapt the furnishings of the Tabernacle to New Testament concepts. In this way, the altar of burnt offerings is replaced by the cross, and the animal sacrifices by the body of Christ (Heb 13:10-15). As the altar of incense came to be connected with a time of prayer (Psalms 141:2, Luke 1:9-10), so the prayers of saints in New Testament language are connected with burning incense in a figurative way (Rev. 5:8, 8:3-4). The Laver of water is referred to in connection with cleansing (Heb. 10: 19-22), and the great veil of the Temple is said to be representative of the body of Christ, in the same passage.

The most significant ceremony involving the Tabernacle was the Atonement. Once a year the High Priest made a solemn journey into the room called the Most Holy Place, or the Holy of Holies. Since atonement is emphasized in the Old Testament as the most important of Tabernacle events, it follows that we should expect some New Testament fulfillment of the shad y Old Testament form.

First, we find that the writer of Hebrews demonstrates the significance of the single event with the words, “. . . the Holy Spirit this signifying that the way into the holy place has not yet been made manifest, while the firs tabernacle is yet standing.” (Heb. 9:8). God was not saving that he was letting the High Priest in, bat that he was keeping others out, according to this New Testament writer. Jus what was this place from which God excluded men while the first Tabernacle stood? It was the place which held the “mercy seat of God” (Heb. 9:3-5). However, the writer of Hebrews tells us that the figurative message of the Holy 4 Holies is that it represented Heaven (Heb. 9: 11-12, 24). Now, we see that the way into heaven was not “made manifest,” while the first Tabernacle stood. When the “more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands” appeared Christ as our High Priest of the New Covenant could enter and offer his “eternal” sacrifice. At the death of Christ, the veil of the Temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom (Mat. 27: 51). This meant that the writer of Hebrews could boldly announce that we could “enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.” (Heb. 10: 19-20). The privilege to enter is a “hope both sure and steadfast and entering into that which is within the veil; whither as a forerunner Jesus entered for us, having become a high priest forever . . .” (Heb. 6:19-20).

When Paul says that God intended to “sum up all things in Christ,” we can add this lesson to the great heap of evidence in confirmation of this statement. It began with Moses, carefully following a pattern, so that the Holy Spirit could cause New Testament writers to tie their doctrine closely to that pattern. It all proves that God reigns, and that his revelations to two dispensations of time can be correlated completely. The side benefits come to us as evidence of the inspiration of the Bible, and in the glorification of the person of Christ.

Men should lift their eyes from the Tabernacles made with bands to the grand spiritual Temple of God which invites us to enter and share in the glories now revealed and seen clearly by faith. When men corrupt this beautiful spiritual vision with earthy concepts, they fail to receive the enticing vision of heaven that could serve to give them true hope.

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 44, pp. 10-11
September 14, 1972