I want to know about joining a church. How can we decide which one? I hope never believed in joining one church. Can you straighten me out? Every real Christian should belong to some local assembly, and it is not diffi cult to decide which one to join. Always associate yourself with the truth wher ever it is found, and not necessarily with a particular denomination. If, for in stance, you are a Baptist, and you find it necessary to move to a city where the truth is being proclaimed in a Pres byterian Church, and that church hap pens to be the only real testimony to the gospel, then associate yourself with the truth. If it is in the Baptist or the Methodist or some other denomination that is standing for the truth, even if you have been brought up in another group, forget it, and line up with the truth. This is the advice I always give my friends when they move to another city. It is the truth that counts. We are called believers, and a believer should associate himself with believers. In Hebrews 13:17 we are told to obey those that have the rule over us. What if our pastors and religious leaders are not scriptural in their teaching? Are we to obey them? Not at all. When the apostle gave that exhortation, he was taking it for granted that the pastors or ecclesiastical leaders were born-again men, seeking the mind of Christ in all things. If your pastor, is not of this classification, then you are under no such obligation. The pastor is exhorted to preach the Word, and if he does not do it, he is not worth listening to, and should not be “obeyed.” When Jesus came from the grave, was that the first resurrection, or is the first resurrection when He comes in the clouds for His own? I have no doubt but that the first res urrection includes, first, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ himself; sec ond, the resurrection of the saved at the rapture; and third, the resurrection of the tribulation saints at the Second Coming of our Lord to the earth. The first resurrection is identical with the resurrection of the just. A U G U S T , 1 9 4 9
Dr. L. T. Talbot
David, and multitudes will go up to Jerusalem at stated times to see the King. Zechariah 14 makes that clear. Whether people on the earth will see the church, I do not know. It will not matter much whether or not they see us, so long as they see Him. Is there any place in the Bible that shows that Jesus ever sang? I think so. In Matthew 26 there is the account of Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper. In verse 30, we read: “ And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.” I would conclude from the reading of the entire chapter that, the Lord Jesus joined with the disciples ui the singing of that hymn. Then again in Hebrews 2:12 it is stated: “ Saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.” That verse is a quotation from Psalm 22, prophetic of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Have you ever thought that when you gather on the Lord’s Day He is there with you in all the worship, for where two or three are gathered in His name, He is in your midst? That would include the singing too. Maybe this will cause you to rise up earlier on Sunday to join in the first congregational song. How can the number of years before Christ that Adam and Eve lived be rec onciled with Egyptian history which is supposed to date back to 5000 B.C. and with Chinese history which dates back even farther. The fact is that both Egyptian and Chinese histories are legendary and one cannot depend upon either. We must re member too that the Bible does not deal too strongly with chronological dates al though that does not mean we cannot accept the billions of years that some scientists have propounded for the age of man. Page Eve
Recently I was at a meeting where they read off the names of some depart ed church members and someone re marked: “ Tonight they look down on us at this meeting from glory.” Are the departed believers able to do this? I guess the person referred to was thinking of Hebrews 12:1 which reads: “ Wherefore seeing we also are com passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight.” If so, this interpretation of the text is wrong, for the cloud of witnesses are the believers in the preceding chapter. There is nothing in the Bible that teaches that our departed loved ones look down over the battlements of Heaven upon us. They may, but the Word is silent as to it. There are many things we would like to know about the dead in Christ that are not revealed. However, there are some things we do know about them: they are with the Lord; they rest from their labors; and they see His face. What does it mean in the book oj Revelation when it refers to “ him that overcometh” ? Are overcomers a special group of believers? Scripture makes clear that overcom ers in the Bible are not a little group within the body of Christ, but the all- inclusive body of real believers, those who have been truly regenerated. If you are a believer, you are an overcom er. First John 5:4, 5, states: “ For what soever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that over cometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” During the millennium will Christ and His resurrected saints be visible to the people dwelling on the earth? We know that Christ will be seen dur ing the millennium, for He will be here upon the earth, occupying the throne' of
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