"Remember your leaders who have spoken to you the word of God; and considering the issue of their conversation, imitate their faith." Heb. 13:7 J. N. D.’s Tr.
The passing away of Mr. E. S. Lyman, who died recently at Albuquerque, N. M., brings to mind the scripture here quoted. Born in luxury, a graduate of Yale, with abundant capacity to enjoy society, he forsook all well-nigh forty years ago, to follow the Lord Jesus Christ without hindrance. He had found in Him a most blessed Saviour, and henceforth he must withhold nothing from Him.
Markedly possessed of pastoral gift, he never ceased, from that time to the last three or four days before his death, to exercise it everywhere among the people of God. The Lord has given "evangelists, pastors, and teachers … for the edifying of the body of Christ" (Eph. 4:11, 12); and each gift faithfully discharged must needs experience "the afflictions of the gospel" along the way; but there is none, perhaps, so exposed to trial and sorrow as the pastor. He has chiefly to do with the state of soul of God's people. He must rebuke sometimes, as well as encourage, and persons who need to be rebuked are not always ready to receive it, especially in these days of revolt against all government.
Our beloved departed brother exercised his gift without partiality. He was a man of most tender conscience, and who "feared God above many."
May those who, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, have been benefitted by his ministry lay to heart the passage quoted above, and may our Lord in mercy baptize new soldiers in the place of the dead ones. We especially need pastors. Teachers are comparatively plentiful, but real pastors who love the flock of Christ, who watch over them for Christ's sake, are few. May God's people feel the need of them, and pray for more of them; and may God answer their prayers.
At the remembrance of more or less prolonged and most sweet companionship in ministry with our dear brother in various parts of the land, one's heart cannot but exclaim, "The memory of the just is blessed " (Prov. 10 :7).
"He must increase, but I must decrease". John 3:30.
No one taught of the Spirit can fail to admire and to covet the mind of John expressed in these few words. When such a one as Jesus is before the soul, all envy, all self-seeking, all self-importance, must go. When the soul grasps the fact that here is our God, veiling Himself in humanity, come down from His glory to visit us and deliver us from our woes-self-abasement and the desire to see Him exalted cannot but possess the man. John thus expresses what fills his moral being as Jesus fills his vision.
But where our words are in the sincerity of our heart, they are sure to test us, sooner or later. Every wish, every longing, every prayer, every word, born of faith, is on record on high, and can never perish. So with John. "I must decrease," he had said. He little knew, or thought, then, that this would lead even to a prison, and to lose his head through a wicked woman. So when the test comes, he is almost overcome:" Art Thou He that should come, or do we look for another ?" he asks, under the trial. His very faith is shaken. An answer comes back, however, which may well revive his faith (Matt. 11 :5); and with it a warning which may well arouse his cast-down spirit (ver. 6), enabling him thus to continue peacefully in the path of decrease, while enjoying the more his Master's increase.
If the science of God's ways in creation is great, the science of His ways in Christ is very great.
"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them int the name of the Father, and of the son, and of the Holy Ghost." Matt. 28:19.
Because some of the Lord’s people have learned that baptism is an ordinance connected with the Kingdom of Christ, and not with the church, they therefore betake themselves to belittle it, and to discard its use during the dispensation of the Church, 1:e, from Pentecost to the Rapture. One can only say of such that " a little learning is a dangerous thing; " and were they believers of all Scripture, rather than framers of some pet system, they would have no difficulty in finding that both in principle and practice baptism is an active ordinance as long as there is one human being to be brought under subjection to Christ.
True, blessedly true, the Church is a heavenly body, and the baptism of the Spirit alone constitutes her what she is, so that baptism of water in nowise applies to her as such; but every individual member of the body of Christ is as truly a subject in the kingdom of Christ as he is a member of His body; and for a subject in the kingdom of Christ to set aside baptism is like a subject in any kingdom refusing to submit to the laws of that kingdom. He is a rebel, not a subject.
We have no sympathy with the extreme views which so exalt baptism that they would make even of its form a matter of greater importance than the blessed Name put upon the baptized by it. We only insist that baptism is as much in force now as in the days of our Lord and of His apostles, even if the revelation of the truth concerning the Church has given it a secondary place.
"The Lord [will] reward him according to his works . . . May it not be laid to their charge." 2 Tim. 4:14-16.
What moral lessons are found in the marked differences made in Scripture concerning the conduct of individuals. And if Scripture is already the throne of judgment set up among God's professing people, how solemn are those lessons !
The passage above quoted furnishes one of them:" Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil:the Lord [will] reward him according to his works:of whom be thou ware also; for he hath greatly withstood our words." Here was a man, whether a professing Christian or not, who sought to hinder the truth itself-that by which God reveals what He is, and blesses men. The messenger of that truth had been withstood by him. What is there that grieves and wounds the heart of the messenger of truth like meeting men who seek to hinder and oppose it, in whole or in part ? For the servant of Christ, going forth in the spirit of love, with the divine motives which belong to the truth, what can make him suffer like seeing the way of truth thus assailed ? It is as if one would break the pitcher of water in the hands of him who carries it to the needy! Accordingly, the inspired apostle expresses God's righteous judgment upon Alexander:'' The Lord [will] reward him according to his works."
How different the feeling toward those who, not in self-will, like Alexander, but in the weakness and cowardice which, alas, is so easily found among God's people, flee in the hour of difficulty and danger:"At my first answer, no man stood with me, but all forsook me." This noble champion of the truth of God was now in the lion's den for the truth's sake. Everywhere, at all times, that grand, glorious purpose of God in Christ Jesus filled his vision and guided his feet. He preached the truth; he lived it; he concerned not himself with the consequences. Was he free ? he owed himself to God's elect, and endured all things to reach them. Was he bound, and before kings' courts for judgment ? he turned the court into an audience before which to present the precious treasure committed to him. Blessed, thrice-blessed man! He can pity and pray for his poor, weak brethren who are afraid of the lion:"May it not be laid to their charge," he prays, in the power of the same Spirit by which he had just pronounced judgment upon the coppersmith. If the touches of nature are delicate, how much more those of Scripture!