In the last issue we commented
on the widespread interest in the gift of tongues. Since writing that article
we have been even further amazed by many persons who are not clear on this
subject. Some sincerely try to show from the Bible that this "tongues-speaking
gibberish" is valid. They refer us to 1 Corinthians 14:14:

 

"For if I pray in an
unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful."
They emphasize several points. First, they say the language is "an unknown
tongue" or unhuman language and explain that to be the reason we do not
understand their mumblings. Secondly, confessing that they do not understand
their own "tongues utterances," they feel that the words, "my
spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful," describe their
experiences of a worshipful spirit with an unintelligible tongue. In hope of
clarifying this verse we searched other translations. The New Translation by
J.N. Darby reads similarly to the Authorized Version:

 

"For if I pray with a
tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful." The Revised
Version and American Standard Version read about the same, differing only in
using in instead of with. The Revised Standard Version also uses
in but changes understanding to mind—thus, "my mind is unfruitful."

 

Before proceeding further with
various translations, we feel it time to explain the meaning of our subject
verse. The apostle Paul is saying simply that if he would pray (or speak or
preach) in a foreign language, a language unknown to the audience, he would be
praying (or speaking) with his spirit,           that is, in conscious
knowledge of his thoughts and words, but the thoughts he is trying to explain
to his listeners would not be understood by them, hence the apostle’s
"understanding is unfruitful." There would be no fruit of blessing in
the hearers if he spoke in a language they could not understand.

 

We are first to admit that this
understanding is not immediately obvious from our common Authorized Version nor
is it much clearer from the above quoted translations. These translations are
all to be commended on this verse for sticking close to the literal Greek words
and their meanings. Many modern translations do not feel bound to such literal
readings and venture to explain and sometimes even interpret in their texts.
When the meaning is accurately conveyed, this is often a help, especially to
people unaccustomed to King James’ English. But when the mind of God is
misunderstood, the consequences can be sorrowful.

 

We have been pleased so far with
our findings in THE NEW TESTAMENT, An Expanded Translation by Kenneth S. Wuest.
For our subject verse (1 Cor. 14:14) he reads,". . . for if I am praying
in a tongue, my spirit … is praying, but my intellect confers no benefits
upon others."

 

The Amplified New Testament also
gives a helpful reading on the same verse:

 

"For if I pray in an
[unknown] tongue, my spirit . . . prays, but my mind is unproductive—bears no
fruit and helps nobody."

 

But when we checked The
Twentieth Century New Testament we were dismayed to read, "If, when
praying, I use the gift of ‘tongues,’ my spirit indeed prays, but my mind is a
blank." Think of that! Are we really expected to believe such nonsense was
ever the case of the apostle or any believer truly led of the Spirit?

 

If matters could be worse, what
did we find in Living Letters but "For if I pray in a language I don’t
understand, my spirit is praying but I don’t know what I’m saying."

 

While The Twentieth Century New
Testament was certainly weird in speaking of using the gift of tongues with a
blank mind, what greater support can be found for the exotic gibberish of the
tongues movement than the above paraphrase. Certainly it must be difficult to
deliver souls wrapped up in the tongues mumbo-jumbo when they read such
translations of God’s holy Word. The pitfall of liberal translations is the
tendency to read into the text of Scripture the current theology of the day.

 

We should seek to grasp the pure
Word of God whereby to understand the truth and thereby test or judge current
thoughts, doctrines, and practices.

 

The subject of modern
translations relates very closely with the problem dealt with in First
Corinthians, chapter 14. The object there in verses 13-19 is to clearly convey
spiritual thoughts expressed in one language into another language which is
understood by the listener. In written Scripture it is the writer and reader
that are involved. In dealing with the souls of men, we are more and more
convinced of the need for good modern translations. But to us, it is a
sorrowful omen that the confusion of tongues is supported or even stimulated by
some confused translations of our day.

 

"God
is not the author of confusion," written or spoken. "Now the Spirit
speaketh expressly [precisely] . . ." (1 Tim. 4:1)

Heart transplant operations have
commanded more widespread personal interest than any other scientific
achievement of modern times. At this writing there lives a man whose heart
belonged to another. This peak in medical accomplishment inspires hope for many
heretofore hopeless victims of heart disease. Yet with heart disease
increasing, an inadequate supply of hearts suitable for transplanting, and with
the body’s rejection phenomena, such operations will probably never become
commonplace.

 

Popular attention, very naturally,
is on the physical aspects of the new heart and its problems. But we feel the
spiritual condition of the human heart (our entire make-up of mind, soul, and
spirit) merits our serious consideration. Spiritual heart disease is also on
the increase. It grows in direct proportion to the population, for it is a
universal malady. All born into the world have this congenital problem.
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John 3:6).

 

God’s Word gives us a solemn
diagnosis of the condition of man’s heart. "The heart is deceitful above
all things, and incurable:who can know it?" (Jer. 17:9 J.N.D.
trans.). Man’s basic problem, "an evil heart of unbelief," is
thoroughly exposed in the Bible. From Genesis, where "every imagination of
the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only evil continually," (6:5) to
Revelation, where God says, "I am He which searcheth the reins [minds] and
hearts," (2:23) the condition of natural man remains the same:"there
is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Rom. 3:12).

 

The Lord Jesus said, "…
Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,
thefts, false witness, blasphemies" (Matt. 15:19). Crime, violence and
other symptoms clearly point out the depravity of the human heart. Are we
willing to admit that this sevenfold stream of incurable evil flows from the
unregenerate or natural heart?

 

There can be no comfort to
anyone who would like to hide his condition from the Lord. The diagnosis is not
a human opinion for "I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins"
(Jer. 17:10). "For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the
outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). What
folly to think we can cover over our sins from God. "Shall not God search
this out? For He knoweth the secrets of the heart" (Ps. 44:21). "Who
can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" (Prov. 20:9).
"Every way of a man is right in his own eyes:but the Lord [weigheth] the
hearts" (Prov. 21:2).

 

For those who reject God’s
diagnosis there is no cure. For those who accept it, there is hope. God, not
only makes clear the condition of the unregenerate heart but also provides the
cure—a work of transformation. This is not reformation or medication, not a
used heart, but a new heart.

 

The Lord through Ezekiel cried
out, "A new heart . . . will I give you," (36:26) and when He was
here on earth pressed that need on Nicodemus:"Ye must be born
[anew]" (John 3:7). It is a divine transplant operation in which the Great
Physician also supplies the new heart. "And I will give them one heart,
and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of
their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh" (Ezek. 11:19).

 

There are no operational hazards
nor fear of the rejection phenomena for those receiving this new heart.
"Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die" (John 11:26)
"Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37).

 

The only risk involved is for
those who refuse or "neglect so great salvation; which at the first began
to be spoken by the Lord." It is more than a risk; it is to seal your doom
if "ye will not come to [Christ], that ye might have life" (John
5:40). Then the feared rejection will come, but it will be by God who says,
"Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil
and his angels" (Matt. 25:41) and again, "Depart from Me, ye that
work iniquity" and "[treasure] up … wrath against the day of wrath
and revelation of the righteous judgment of God" (Rom. 2:5).

 

"It is a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God" in judgment (Heb. 10:31). But
"he that hears My Word, and believes Him that has sent Me, has life
eternal, and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into
life" (John 5:24, J.N.D. trans.).

 

Money cannot buy a new
heart—physically or spiritually. It must come through the death of another!
"When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the
ungodly" (Rom. 5:6). "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that,
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). "Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3).

 

God in mercy and love offers a
new heart "freely by His grace." Our realizing and confessing our
lost and sinful condition and our turning in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ
bring about that marvelous transformation of our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Everyone needs a new heart—and can have one.                     

Heart transplant operations are
the subject of conversations everywhere. Why not tactfully lead your
conversations from the transplanted, borrowed heart of flesh to the deeper
spiritual need of a new heart? Oh, how we need to get the message out in these
last days, with souls perishing all about us. "They that are whole need
not a physician; but they that are sick" (Lk. 5:31). May we boldly praise
the skill and glory of the Great Physician of our souls. Let us be more urgent
with referrals to Christ.

 

Part II "STEWARDS OF THE
MYSTERIES OF GOD."

 

That the ignorance referred to
in the closing paragraphs of the article in the previous issue is most
lamentable, every intelligent Christian must admit. If God has in our day made
known things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world, it
is surely to our interest and God’s glory to understand and value them. Isaiah
could write the words which the apostle Paul quotes in 1 Cor. 2:9:"Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the
things which God hath prepared for them that love Him" (Isa. 64:4). But
the apostle does not stop there, as do many Christians; he immediately adds,
"But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit:for the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."

 

Clearly, then, there are
precious truths which even as late as in Isaiah’s day were among the secret
things but which have now been added to things which are revealed and which are
for us and for our children. It is to these things he refers when he writes,
"Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards
of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 4:1). The Greek word musterion, here
used, which is simply Anglicized into our word mysteries, refers to secret
things known only to the initiated. It is not that the things in themselves were
mysteries and beyond finite comprehension, or even above the range of ordinary
minds, but that they could never be known at all unless revealed by another. So
we speak of the Eleusinian mysteries:they were teachings not given to the
multitude, but imparted to a select company of initiates. As used in the New
Testament, the mysteries are those truths which in Old Testament days were kept
in silence, but which are now the common property of all believers. They are
not special truths for a special class, but every Christian is privileged to
enter into the knowledge of these mysteries. More than that, no Christian can
properly enter upon the responsibilities flowing from the relationship in which
he stands toward God if he remains in ignorance of these same mysteries. The
word "musterion" is found twenty-seven times in the received text of
the New Testament, viz.. Matt. 13:11; Mark 4:11:Luke 8:10:Rom. 11:25; 16:25;
1 Cor. 2:7; 4:1; 13:2; 14:2; 15:51; Eph. 1:9; 3:3, 4, 9; 5:32; 6:19; Col. 1:26,
27; 2:2; 4:3; 2 Thess. 2:7; 1 Tim. 3:9, 18; Rev. 1:20; 10:7; 17:5, 7. Some
versions add 1 Cor. 2:1, where marturion seems to be a copyist’s error for
musterion. Westcott and Hort, and the Revisers, adopt the latter reading.

 

Christ’s ministers are to be
stewards of the mysteries of God, not merely preachers of what people so often
call "the simple gospel." Out of their treasure they are to bring
forth things new and old if instructed in the mysteries of the kingdom of
heaven. Nor are these things of an abstruse, impractical nature, but intensely
otherwise; they are the very lines of truth which above all others tend to form
the character and guide the ways of the Christian. Hence, if we accept the
preferred reading of 1 Cor. 2:1, it is to these very things that the apostle
referred when he wrote, "1, brethren, when I came to you, came not with
excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you (not the testimony, but)
the mystery of God." And yet he immediately adds, "For I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." But
"Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" will never be truly known, in the
apostle’s sense, if the soul be content to go on in ignorance of the mysteries.

 

Rome, we know, has attempted to foist on the Church a
lot of legendary traditions and sacramental observances as the mysteries, thus
emulating the pagan cults, which had their inner secrets for the special few.
But the Christian mysteries are for every child of God in this dispensation of
grace. Nor are they of an occult and metaphysical nature, appealing only to the
erudite and mystical. They are simple truths of tremendous importance, some of
which, at least, have been utterly ignored by the vast majority of theologians,
ancient and modern, and this to their shame and loss.

 

It has often been remarked that
every teaching which the apostles preface with such an expression as, "I
would not have you ignorant, brethren," will be found to be a line of
truth of which, after nearly twenty centuries of Christianity, the bulk of
professing believers know little or nothing. It will be only necessary to refer
to the passages to see how true the statement is.

 

In Rom. 11:25, 26 Paul writes,
"For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery,
lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened
to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved:as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and
shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." Now, how seldom does one hear any
reference to the fulness of the Gentiles or the salvation of Israel as a nation, in the pulpit instruction of the day? As a result, the Gentiles are wise
in their own conceits, and boasting of the near conversion of the world, and
the transference of Jewish promises to the Church of God.

 

Again, writing of the rapture of
the saints at the second advent of our Lord, the same apostle says:"I
would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep,
that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope" (1 Thess. 4:13);
and he proceeds to comfort them with teaching as to the raising of the dead and
simultaneous catching up of the living at the Lord’s return, which, it is not
too much to say, not one Christian in ten knows anything of.

 

Peter writes of the
manifestation of the Lord Jesus and says:"But, beloved, be not ignorant
of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8); and with this he couples solemn
and important truth as to the day of the Lord and the day of God; and probably
not a saint in a hundred knows the difference between the two terms.

 

What have Christians to say to
this? What can thousands say for thus failing to value and appropriate
mysteries of such tremendous importance? Failing to enter into these things,
the Church has lost the sense of her pilgrim character, confusing teaching as
to Israel and the nations with divine instruction regarding the Body of Christ.
The heavenly calling has been lost sight of, and practically given up for an
earthly one.

 

Unquestionably the onus of blame
rests upon the guides who, professing to be Christ’s ministers, are anything
but stewards of the mysteries of God. Stewards of science, of philosophy, of
political economy, of literature, of historic lore, and of religious notions,
many of them undoubtedly are; but it is quite another thing to be dispensers of
the now-revealed secret things which for ages past were hid in God.

 

But all the blame does not rest
upon the leaders of religious thought, as they are called. In his day Jeremiah
could declare, "The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule
by their means; and My people love to have it so":therefore he solemnly
asks, "And what will ye do in the end thereof?" (Jer. 5:31.) The
people love to have it so! This is most significant. Heretical teachers could
not flourish for one day if the people did not wish for their ministry. And
preachers of Old Testament truths, which they offer in place of New Testament
mysteries, would not find it so easy to go on confusing the people of God if
there was real exercise of conscience among those who are content to be styled
"the laity" and who seldom read their Bibles for themselves and
endeavor to rightly divide the word of truth.

 

Do not let me be misunderstood.
I do not for an instant decry the expounding of the Old Testament. Far be the
thought! I believe it is of the utmost importance that the soul be established
in all that is there revealed in order to his going on unto the perfection of
the full Christian revelation. I believe in the importance of the kindergarten
and the primary school, but I do not believe it is a sound principle of
education to keep people going over the alphabet when age and intelligence fit
them for the university, if but properly instructed.

 

The Old Testament is "the
word of the beginning of Christ" (see margin of Heb. 6:1), which the
apostle exhorts us to leave, that we may go on to full growth—that is,
Christianity. It is not that he would have us forget the beginning, any more
than the university student forgets the instruction of the primary school. He
leaves it, but carries with him the knowledge received.

 

In the next issue we purpose
thus to leave the revealed things of the past dispensation, and go on to
contemplate the mysteries of God which He has now made known for our
edification and blessing.

 

The Scofield Reference Bible
claims to give us a summary, an arrangement, a condensing of the mass of Biblical
writings of the previous half century. It thereby became responsible, on the
basis of its own words, to recognize the Spirit’s testimony to assembly truth
during that time. Or, are we to understand that this is one of the
"expository novelties, and merely personal views and
interpretations," which, it is frankly stated, "have been
rejected"? (See "Introduction," paragraph II.)

 

I will now tell you how I regard
this effort, in the light of what God had done in the 19th century.

 

I understand that, when the
"brethren" began bearing their testimony, even the simple Gospel was
very little known; the state of things in Christendom was dead indeed. As the
testimony spread, it came to be recognized that if anyone wished the truth he
must go where it was ministered, which was where "brethren" were
speaking. Further, it was understood that the truth ministered called for
action, and that this action separated souls from the world, from the camp, but
chiefly to Christ. These doctrines were everywhere resisted by leaders of
various sects, so that quite a literature developed, pro and con. The movement,
being of God however, spread in spite of men’s opposition.

 

Eventually, a change of tactics
came in. Some portions from letters of J. N. Darby, written in 1874 and 1875
from Boston and New York on what was, I think, his last of several trips to
America, will make clear what this change was. I quote from "Letters"
Vol. 2, page 365, written from Boston, Sept. 27, 1874:

 

"The state of the churches is
scandalous indeed; pious souls groan, but where are instruments to be found to
guide them in the good way? God has raised up a few—several ministers even have
left their systems—but it is a drop of water in the wide sea, and there is a
great effort to keep souls in the various systems while taking advantage of the
light which brethren have and preaching their doctrines. They do not even
conceal it. One of the most active, who has visited Europe, told ministers that
they could not keep up with the brethren unless they read their books, but he
was doing everything he could to prevent souls leaving their various systems
called churches. It is a new wile of the enemy."

 

Page 370, New York, 1874:
"The difficulty is that a diligent effort has been made to disseminate the
truths we have been taught so that people should have them, and not act on
them—remain where they are. Eminent ministers preach the Lord’s coming, the
ruin of the church, liberty of ministry, and avowedly from brethren’s books,
and stay where they are, and there is a general deadening of conscience."

 

Page 371:"After all, they
spoil the truths where they do not act on them."

 

Page 408:New York, Apr. 8,
1875:"Others, who still cling to the professing church with partial
apprehensions of truth and much error, make their boast that it can be had
without leaving the systems around us—nay, sometimes openly urging continuance
in them:but it is felt that brethren have what others have not." From the
above quotations you will see what the change was, to which I referred. Instead
of united opposition to the truths newly proclaimed, many of those truths were
now held and taught by denominational men; but the truths were divorced from
the path and presented so as to prevent souls from taking the position those
truths call for.

 

The consequence of this, if
successful, would simply be the destruction of the corporate testimony produced
by the truths, and so the disappearance of separation truth from the earth;
while various local bodies in the systems of men, plus independent gatherings
here and there, would be identified with certain truths, without the truth that
gathers souls to Christ scripturally.

 

Now in our day, that which had
begun to appear in 1874 has become the accepted point of view in certain sections
of Christendom. "Take all the truth the brethren have, but beware of the
brethren," is the formula that one hears of again and again. Is it
difficult to see that the Scofield Reference Bible fits right into that plan?
To have the truths, but so as not to act on them—"remain where they
are"; this was the idea. Do not the Scofield "helps" promote
exactly that tendency? Do not the Editors exemplify it?

 

The immediate outcome of this
was "a general deadening of conscience." Does the Scofield Reference
Edition promote the deliverance of souls from the systems? Do we find persons
coming to us saying, "I have been studying the helps in the Scofield
Bible; I can no longer remain in sects, or among independents; I must get where
unity of assemblies is maintained, where association with evil is recognized as
defiling, where the discipline of one assembly is binding upon all, where the
rights of Christ and the Spirit in the assembly are owned"? Do we?

 

Instead, we find many who only
recently were in this or that modernistic realm, who have become dissatisfied
with it and now have the Scofield "helps" and the general line of
things that go along with that nowadays (fundamentalism, etc.) who stop there,
refusing to even entertain the considerations which put "brethren"
where they were and which maintain whatever is now according to God. In the
esteem of Mr. Darby, this preaching of the same doctrines as brethren, and yet
holding souls in the systems, was "a new wile of the enemy." And he
was a man who weighed his words.

 

"I value the Scofield Bible
for the excellent things it sets forth," someone may say. Yes, I value
each of those excellent things, too. But I lament that the Scofield Bible
should have claimed to set forth a complete line of truth, and then discriminated
(without notice, too, so far as I can see,) against all that precious line of
assembly truth which is so vital to the present walk of the saints. I love the
truth which it will not give us, as well as that which it gives. It grieves me
to realize that many think they have it all, while that is left out.

 

I am sure that God would not
deprive His people of this line of truth, and also that it is now the very
special time when God has called attention to it. If God, then, would give the
saints assembly truth, and the Scofield Bible, while assuring its readers that
it gives them a complete treatment, omits that and offers substitutes, I leave
it to you to draw your own conclusion.

 

That this should be done in the
very atmosphere where so many precious truths do receive satisfactory treatment
within the contemplated scope of the effort, makes it the more glaring, once
attention is called to it; at the same time it is the better concealed from one
who does not know that this test ought to be applied. I do not know of any
truths set forth in the Scofield "helps," which are not found in the
writings of those who walked in the path of the Word. We are not therefore
dependent upon this Reference Edition for these truths. And how many passages
are found to yield most precious teachings, once the truth of the assembly is
allowed, which teachings could not possibly find any place in the realm of
confusion with which the producers of the Scofield "helps" were
ecclesiastically identified.

 

"Assembly truth" has
made the Bible a new Book to me, precious as it was before. To think of God’s
people stopping with the mixture involved in the Scofield position, deeply
pains me. We dare not read any more into that which Mr. Scofield says, than the
ecclesiastical position with which he associated himself permits. The same is
true of his colleagues.

 

It may be handy to have all this
material in one volume, etc. But they, the Editors, did not acknowledge
Scriptural assembly order; hence nothing in their notes is intended to apply to
that.

 

(To be continued.)

 

In faithfulness we are to abide
in that which we have learned from the apostles (1 John 2:24). In doing so we
may leave results with God. Numbers, when given of God, and precious as they
are, do not count here. Nor is it a question of success, as commonly
understood, but of standing for the Lord, which may be unto death, as Stephen,
Paul, and others. Stephen was not successful in his ministry (Acts 7), and the
longer Paul labored the more his trials increased (Acts 28:30). The important
thing is, Are we standing, and are we witnessing for God? But how can we do
that if we are not taught of God (Col. 1:9) and do not feel our nothingness (2
Cor. 12)?

 

And what is the position that as
believers we have been brought into now, "the vocation wherewith we have
been called?" Is it not that which was according to God’s purpose and
grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Tim. 2:9)?
Are not those who compose the assembly a heavenly people, united to Christ the
Head in heaven (Heb. 3:1; John 17:16; Col. 2:10)? Have they not been reconciled
to God in one body where they have "access by one Spirit unto the Father
(Col. 1:12-27; Eph. 2:18)? Are they not a called-out fellowship, a divine
organism, "builded together for an habitation of God through the
Spirit" (Eph. 2:22, 1 Cor. 12; 2 Cor. 6:16)? Such a testimony makes
nothing of us here; it does not give us a place in this world, but it connects
us with Christ the Second Man in heaven (1 Cor. 15:57,58) and makes us
strangers and pilgrims on earth (1 Peter 2:11). We know our connection with
Jesus Christ risen from the dead, according to Paul’s gospel (2 Tim. 2:8) and
we do not belong to anything here. Our links are broken with everything earthly
of a religious nature, and we have "boldness to enter into the holiest by
the blood of Jesus" (Heb. 10:19). It is a heavenly testimony now of which
we are to be the representatives.

 

It is a great thing to remember—
what Christians too easily forget — that we are called to the enjoyment of
heavenly things, and we live by the revelation of them. God has not introduced
grace and His Son and Spirit to make us get along easily in this world — it was
not needed — but to bring us to the enjoyment of heavenly things and to live in
them.

 

Christ in us "the hope of
glory" (Col. 1) was an entirely new thing, and not merely the long
promised glory on earth that has yet to be brought in, but the heavenly glory:
glory with Christ above.

 

In a day of closing darkness,

When the outlook is so black,

When the hearts of men are
failing,

And the feet of saints turn
back,

 

Yet amid the gloom and darkness,

Shines one feeble ray of light-

Some, who feel and own the ruin,

Seek by faith to walk aright;

 

Some who fear the Lord of glory,

And who think upon His name;

Some, who often speak together

Of His glory and His shame.

 

God who dwells in heavenly
splendor,

He beholds this feeble few;

He records in His remembrance

All the sorrows they pass
through.

 

He discerns each true affection.

And declares, "They shall
be Mine"

When I gather up "My
Jewels";

These
shall in My presence shine.