THE KING’S BUSINESS
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not slackness coricerning His promise, but owing to a desire to afford still further opportunity for repentance. (Compare verse 9). Then he says that Paul has already .written of these last things, and our minds immediately run back to the repeated and forcible utterances | of Paul’s pen upon “these things”—the gathering of the Jews, the development of Antichrist and the per sonal coming of the Lord. See Rom. 9 :29; 10; 8, 9; 11: 5; 13:11; 1 Cor. 1:7; 3:13; 1 Thess. 2:16; 3:14; 4:14; 5:1, 2; 2 Thess' 1:6; 2:1; 1 Tim. 4:1; 6:14; Titus 2:13; Heb. 4:9 ; 12:14. Nothing is more prevalent in our days than the wresting or wrenching of the Scriptures from their plain and obvious meaning, in support of unscriptural and un spiritual theories of the “last things”—the coming of Christ and the attendant events associated with it. The Scriptures uniform ly represent the present dispensation as one of preparation for Christ’s Millennial reign; not itself Millennial nor even capable of being merged into the Millennial. We may safely challenge any man to bring ui a single text of Scripture that gives -any such hope. The Bible represents, and with especial clearness in the New Tetament, that the present dispensation is, to its close, to be marked by a mixed condition of evil and good; the tares and wheat grow to gether until the harvest; the good and bad fish are to be gathered in every cast of the Gospel net. Not until God’s angels come forth can the wicked be separated from the good. The tares and wheat will so resemble each other, the good and bad fish be so apparently alike, that only a higher intelligence, guided by omniscience, can discriminate infallibly. The Gospel is to be preached for a witness in all the world. Disciples are to be gathered but of all na tions. But to the end of the dispensation, there will remain those who openly or se cretly reject Jesus Christ and rebel against His- authority. SNARE TO THE CHURCH | Even were the world nominally Christian, it would imply only a new snare to the
sinners pretend to think that the worse they sin the more grace will be magnified and glorified. Now it may be true that the most glorious grace is manifested in par doning and reclaiming the chief of sinners. But it is also true that nothing so hardens any man as deliberately to take advantage of the grace of God. To purposely sin, that grace may abound, is to make oneself grace- proof— -impervious and impenetrable to the influence of grace, the methods of which are always gentle and tender. Such delib erate sin toughens and hardens the moral nature and turns the sensibilities to: steel, so that the tender, the gentle approaches of grace no longer affect the soul. I have known not a few desperate sinners turn to God; but never one who deliberately sinned to take advantage of grace ! The tendency of sinners is to abuse the Gospel. When first introduced to their knowledge, they show unwillingness to be justified by faith; and hence the Epistles, to the Romans and to the Galatians. But yvhen once established among them, they proceed to abuse the doctrine of justifica tion by faith by overlooking or depreciat ing the importance of works as the proof, product and fruit of faith. And so Isaiah’s words become in all ages awfully true: the Lord Christ “shall be for a sanctuary” to some, and at the same time to others “for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense.” The same Messiah is to one man a foundation and cornerstone on which he builds character and hopes for heaven; arid to another a stone over which he falls to be ground to. powder (Matt. 21: 44). THE LAST THINGS It is a very noticeable fact that these things to which Peter refers here, as treated by his beloved brother, Paul, and in con nection with which are some matters hard to be understood (which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrench from their true mean ing) that “these things” are eschatological truths. The matters of which Peter has been writing are the “Last things.” He has just affirmed that God’s long-suffering is
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