Changing Times

''Repentance toward God " has little place in modern Christianity. It must be all sweet talk, hurting nobody, attracting everybody. It is not agreeable to speak of sin's hateful character to God. It is not nice to declare the judgment of God upon sinners. Time was-and we remember it well-when we heard little else than about sin and judgment, and very little of salvation and of the precious Saviour to deliver. We usually were left face to face with the wrath, to work our way out of it as best we could with the help of God. Mary's word, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him," was sadly true of the pulpit, high and low, in which Christ was but a crutch to help us walk our way to heaven. God heard the cry of multitudes of groaning souls and had mercy on them. A clear, full, free gospel rang throughout the earth:Christ was held up high as a Saviour for sinners, for the ungodly, for the guilty, for those who could do nothing for themselves, Christ in death atoning for sin; in resurrection declaring all repenting and believing souls fully and freely justified; in ascension back to heaven carrying our humanity there, glorifying it and giving the place which now and forever belongs to the justified. What a gospel! What a holy freedom it gives!

But Satan is not dead nor yet shut up in the bottomless pit. If he can no more hide the grace and the love of God revealed in Christ, he may nullify them. He will cry down judgment and the lake of fire as inconsistent with love. He will thus remove from the minds of men that fear which guilt produces and which makes the Saviour an absolute necessity. When once God had said to man, "Ye shall surely die," and the devil said, "Ye shall not die," man disbelieved God and believed the devil. Yet "Ye shall surely die" prevails, as the uninterrupted funeral procession ever since testifies.

So now God says," These shall go away into everlasting punishment," but the devil says, "There is no everlasting punishment," and man disbelieves God still and believes the devil still. Thus is God's love used to destroy the need of His grace. Sin is called a mistake, an error of judgment, a human weakness-anything which will make repentance unnecessary. Such conditions end in lawlessness and abounding crime.

Nor, alas, do they end with the world. They are very liable to affect the people of God too, and not the least those who are most enlightened. The grace of God, well known there-that precious grace which reigns through righteousness-will be made to militate against righteousness itself as if God had, because of His grace, relinquished His righteous character. Repentance and confession of sin one to another are thereby largely annulled; holiness suffers, and the trend is downward.

Thus do times change through the craft of Satan and the pride of man. What need therefore to watch, to pray, and not sleep, if we would pass through those changes unscathed.

Simeon and Levi

In the 49th chapter of Genesis Jacob dying pronounces the blessing which is to rest upon each tribe of his sons at their latter end. He charges Simeon and Levi with confederacy, and with the evil and cruelty which ever follow it, and with which he calls upon his soul to have no part and no association. Then he pronounces their blessing:"I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel."

Does God then bless by division and scattering?

Yes. When men confederate, it is for power to do their own will, in whatever line of things it may be. God divides and scatters them, then, that He may bring them in that place where each alone with Him may learn his sinfulness and repent. It is only as alone with God that conscience works aright.

Then follows the blessing. Simeon is true to his name "Hearing"-he has an ear for God and, as always with him who has an ear to hear, he receives and is made rich. Levi also is true to his name "Joined." When men are subject to God instead of being confederates with each other, God joins them together in a unity which is divine, holy and fruitful. Thus Simeon dwells in Judah, that is, amid the praises* of Israel, and scattered Levi assembles at Jerusalem to minister in the temple of God and to unite all the tribes in praise to His holy name.*Judah means praise.* Blessed end! but an end which is God's doing, not man's.