Almighty God Or Almighty Liar!
"Here we recognize a God who operates wholly through natural law, and not in a supernatural manner. Miracles for us are non-existent Jesus for us is a great and good man, not a God. If you seek a new kind of church, you will like ours.'
This is the language in which a Unitarian church in our city recently advertised its services. This is the "new' and "scientific' approach to religion. Yet, it is neither new nor scientific. It is as old as Christianity. It is a heresy hoary with age, a falsehood long since exposed and discredited.
It was Peter himself who warned against these "natural law" fanatics. He said, "In the last days mockers shall come with their mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.' (II Pet. 3:3,4) This is an accurate, pointed description of this "new kind of church' so glibly advertised. For modern Unitarians (Harvard college, incidentally, is the hot-bed for this false philosophy) are precisely the ones who insist that "all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.' They are the ones for whom "miracles are non-existent.'
But the most stupid assertion in the above advertisement is the statement that "Jesus for us is a great and good man, not a God.' That is arrant non-sense. If Jesus is not "a God', he is the most prodigious liar, the most' cunning deceiver, the most diabolical hypocrite the race has produced. Machiavelli and Mephistopheles were naive innocents beside him. For he claimed to be "a God'; he accepted worship due only to God; he persuaded men to leave their families and all earthly possessions to follow him; he encouraged them to die in support of his claim to divinity. And in return for this total consecration to him, with its attendant earthly sacrifices and misery, he promised them a home in heaven with himself and God after they died!
In the face of this our Unitarian sophisticates say he was a "great and good man'. Deliver us from such goodness (?) on the part of any man. How dare any intelligent man apply the term "good' to such a charlatan and imposter? How can such a consummate liar be reckoned either great or good? For when he promised followers a "home in heaven' he was deliberately deceiving them. If he was not "a God', he knew that he could not make good his promise.
No, if Jesus Christ was not almighty God, he was an almighty liar. The Unitarians cannot escape the dilemma. The Unitarians make themselves ridiculous in their assertion. They advertise their church as "the church for thinking people.' Well, just preface that phrase with the word NOT in capital letters, and you have them accurately described. This is obvious in the fact that when people earnestly and seriously think on this "good but not God' epithet as applied to Christ, they will invariably leave the Unitarian church. —F. Y. T.
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Water In Jerusalem
"Pentecost came early in June. June was the very height of the dry season. It was utterly impossible that sufficient water could have been found in the arid, desert-like environs of Jerusalem to permit the immersion of so great a number.'
It was in language such as this that we recently heard a speaker laboring rather desperately to prove, that the three thousand people who obeyed the gospel on the day of Pentecost were sprinkled and not immersed. Paul's language concerning baptism as a "burial' was ignored; as were ignored also (a) the very meaning of the word, "baptize', (b) the repeated descriptions of what happened physically when men were baptized, and (c) the whole symbolic meaning of baptism as it depicts a burial and a resurrection.
No, forsooth! Immersion was contrary to the creed of his church; therefore he must show some Biblical examples of baptism in which immersion was impossible. And Pentecost was the one he chose, basing his whole argument on the supposed insufficiency of water for baptizing so many by immersion.
All students of geography and all travelers who have been there recognize that the water supply of Jerusalem is naturally very poor. Located high on a hill in Judea, the city has no mountain range from which to draw a natural snow-fall run off; it has no great river flowing nearby; it has no lake or other natural reservoir. But through the long and persistent efforts of her inhabitants, Jerusalem completely solved her natural water shortage. By means of aqueducts, cisterns, pools, tanks, artificial lakes and underground tunnels huge quantities of water were brought into the city during the rainy season, and were stored up for use during the hot dry months of summer. It was, in fact, this very thing which made Jerusalem such an ideal spot for immersing three thousand people; for there were innumerable small tanks and reservoirs scattered all over the city. When Titus besieged Jerusalem in 70 A. D. thousands died of starvation, but in not one single record of that tragic siege do we read of any scarcity of water within the city.
At the time Peter preached there were at least five large reservoirs in Jerusalem, any one of which would have been sufficient for the baptizing of the whole company of three thousand. The noted Palestinian archeologist, Dr. Edward Robinson, in his "Biblical Researches," lists the following pools in Jerusalem:
(1). Pool of Siloam, with dimensions 53 by 18 feet ranging up to 20 feet in depth.
(2). Pool of Hezekiah, with dimensions of 24 by 140 feet, and ranging up to 10 feet in depth.
(3). Pool of Bethesda, with dimensions of 360 by 160 feet, and ranging up to 75 feet in depth.
(4). Upper Gihon, with dimensions 592 by 260 feet, and ranging up to 19 feet in depth.
(5). Lower Gihon, with dimensions 592 by 260 feet, and ranging up to 18 feet in depth.
In the light of these well-authenticated facts, there is only one of two possible explanations for the statement quoted at the beginning of this article: ignorance, or dishonesty.
We are persuaded that in this case (and probably in most) the cause was ignorance. But ignorance is no excuse for a man trifling with the souls of men! Ignorance does not excuse a man for teaching falsehood. If he is going to say there was not sufficient water to baptize in Jerusalem, let him first know what he is talking about! —F. Y. T.
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Abraham Lincoln On Catholicism
No American statesman has ever seen more clearly than did Abraham Lincoln the menace which the Catholic hierarchy poses to our free American institutions. His language (as quoted by Joseph L. Brandt in his book, America or Rome) fairly burns with indignation against this monstrous evil. According to Brandt's quotation of him, here is what Lincoln said:
"As long as God gives me a heart to feel, a brain to think, or a hand to execute my will, I devote it against that power which has attempted to use the machinery of the courts to destroy the rights and character of an American citizen. But there is a thing which is very certain; it is, that if the American people could learn what I know of the fierce hatred of the generality of the priests of Rome against our institutions, our schools, our most sacred rights, and our so dearly bought liberties, they would drive them away, tomorrow, from among us, or would shoot them as traitors.
"The history of the last thousand years tells us that wherever the church of Rome is not a dagger to pierce the bosom of a free nation, she is a stone to her neck, and a ball to her feet, to paralyze her and prevent her advance in the ways of civilization, science, intelligence, happiness, and liberty
"I do not pretend to be a prophet. But though not a prophet, I see a very dark cloud on our horizon. And that dark cloud is coming from Rome. It is filled with tears of blood. It will rise and increase, till its flanks will be torn by a flash of lightning, followed by a fearful peal of thunder. Then a cyclone such as the world has never seen, will pass over this country, spreading ruin and desolation from north to south. After it is over, there will be long days of peace and prosperity; for popery, with its Jesuits and merciless Inquisition, will have been forever swept away from our country. Neither I nor you, but our children, will see those things.'
Imagine if you can, such language from a Roosevelt or a Truman who have, in clear violation of our national law, supported for several years a regularly appointed and accredited "ambassador' at the Vatican!
—F. Y. T.
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Lincoln's Assassins
Tourists in our nation's capitol are shown the old Ford Theatre where on April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot to death by an actor named John Wilkes Booth. The theatre has been turned into a museum. Guides will, for a fee, point out exactly how the theatre was arranged that fateful night, show the relics that have been preserved (Booth's pistol, the flag in which he caught his spur and tripped as he jumped from Lincoln's box to the stage, the boots Lincoln wore that night, etc.), and explain how the assassin was hunted down and slain. They will also tell how the several people who were in the plot were all finally caught, tried, and most of them executed.
But there are certain facts in the story they do not tell. If they know them, they very carefully conceal these authenticated and documented findings of the men who investigated Lincoln's assassination:
The plot for Lincoln's death was made in the home of Mrs. Surratt, a Roman Catholic. Mrs. Surratt said, "The death of Lincoln is no more than the death of any n____ in the army.'
Mr. Lloyd, who kept the carbine that Booth desired to carry with him, was a Roman Catholic.
Dr. Mudd, who set Booth's leg after he had broken it in his leap to the stage floor, was a Roman Catholic.
Mr. Garrett, in whose barn Booth was finally tracked down and slain, was a Roman Catholic.
John H. Surratt, one of the conspirators who fled the nation when the plot was uncovered, was a Roman Catholic. He sought protection from the Pope, and was granted asylum there even after it was definitely established that he was in on the plot.
John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, was a very devout Roman Catholic. He habitually wore a medal of the Virgin Mary on his breast and had it with him when he died. —F. Y. T.
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"What Is Working Faith?"
Paul testifies, "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.' (Gal. 5:6)
A working faith is a faith that avails to the salvation of the soul, and to the living of the Christian life. It is the only kind of faith that really counts in the Christian system. This truth is clearly emphasized by James, "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he have faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone...For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."
A working faith is a faith that does the commands of God. Jesus said, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 7:21)
Many people have been led to have an unjustified feeling of security in a passive faith that does nothing more than to say, "I believe." Denominational teaching, with its unscriptural "faith only' theory of salvation, has imperiled the souls of millions who have been lulled into complacency by the oft repeated, "to be saved you have only to believe.' It is true that faith saves, but not the kind of faith that is embraced in the lackadaisical "faith only' idea. The faith that works by love is the faith that loves God enough to keep his commandments. "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.' (Rev. 22:14)
—Bonds Stocks. -