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Men and women are serious today; they are full of anxiety for the future, for the safety of loved ones, and death comes very near to us all. The light-heartedness so prevalent before the last great world war is not with us today, for men and women know what war means, and the terrible consequences which follow in its wake— follow even when peace has been declared. If, therefore, when other hearts are failing for fear, we are found calm, brave, hopeful, because we look be yond the things that are temporal, then men will stand still, and seek to discover the secret of our lives. When our children, neighbors, comrades in the office and factory see that our faith makes us so different from others in the hours of danger, then we shall have a powerful influence over them, and we may have the joy of leading them to put their trust in Him who is our strength and stay. Let us, while residing in the present world, surrounded by its tragedy and misery, live much in the thought of the eternal. May our eyes look right on to that land where: “ Glories upon glories Hath our God prepared For the souls that love Him, One day to be shared." but there it was. God calls us His beloved. He warns us in advance that trials must come; He tells us that they are cause for rejoicing. “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you” (v. 14). The writer walked back to the office with his heart singing, and his burden gone. Had not God declared that this fiery trial proved the Spirit rested upon him? The number of passages in ithe Bible dealing with this aspect of truth is astonishing. “Before I was af flicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. I know, O Lord, that thy judg ments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast af flicted me” (Psa. 119:67, 71, 75). We also know that all things work together for our good (Rom. 8:28). Job said, amid physical anguish, and following the loss of all his loved ones and his earthly goods, “I know that my redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25). Wrote Peter, “Now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifoid temptations” (1 Pet. 1:6). It is “whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth” (Heb. 12:6), and He does it “for our profit, that we might- be partakers of his holiness” (v. 10). Further, suffering may be for our profit in the future. When Job’s trials were over, he had twice what he had before. “The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning” (Job 42:12). It is most inter esting that in the record of the sufferings of this man, we have probably the oldest book of the Bible. Therefore, God’s first written revelation to man was an explanation of why the godly suffer. Attitude toward Affliction Four different attitudes toward affliction are sug gested in Hebrews 12. Some despise the chastening of the Lord, while others faint under His hand (v. 5). There are those who merely endure their trials (v. 7), but we should rather be exercised by them. Although troubles are grievous, afterward they yield “the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (v. 11). When we are so much concerned about our cir cumstances that we prayerfully search the Word con i' Continued on Next Page) A W ay To Escape (Continued from Page 368)
10. ' (1) W ith o u t form , in Ge. 1:2a, and form less, in Isa. 45:18, are' renditions of the Hebrew term tohu. It occurs 20 times in the Old Testament and is'translated, in the English Version, a thing of nought; confusion; nothing; vain(ity); waste; wilderness; without form.” (2) Void, in Ge. 1:2a, is the Hebrew bohu which occurs u? Je. 4:23 as English Version void, and in Isa. 34:11 as English Ver sion em ptiness. These three passages exhaust its Old Testament tisç . The cognate Arabic word means emptiness. (3) Darkness is the Hebrew term chosek. It is not a synonym for sin, as some maintain; nor is it employed in the. Old Testament only as a direct effect of sin. (4) Abyss is the Hebrew term tehom, derived from hum, a verb meaning “ to move, to excite, to confound. 11. Especially Ge. 2:4-6 and Isa. 45:18. 2 Pe. 3:5-7 stresses its general content rather than its detailed perfection. 12. - The work of the six days will be discussed in a following atudy. In that discussion we shall learn that the world of Ge. l:2b-7:24 is the second cosmos of Scripture, just as the world of Ge. 1:1; 2:4-6; 2 Pe. 3:5-7; and Isa. 45:18 is the first cosmos of Scripture. 13. It may be objected, on the grounds of Isa. 45:7, that God does create evil. The Hebrew there reads: ” . . . 'oseh^ shalom ubore’ raV’ that is, “ maker of peace and creator of evil.” - What Is under discussion in the context is physical, not moral evil. The Jews are. in the closing days of their Babylonian captivity. Cyrus, king of Persia and a Zoroastrian religiously—-it is generally as sumed, had just conquered Croesus and his Lydians at Sardis. All Asia Minor would soon be his, after which, in 539 B.C., he would lake Babylon and, in that connection, set the Jews*free. The Jews present plight was the darkness and the evil God had created: their delivery was the light and the peace of which He, not Cyrus, was the Omnipotent Maker. Zoroastrianism had a god of good, Ahuramazda, and, a god of evil Ahriman. It is not necessary to conclude, as some have, that in Isa. 45:6-7, the God of Israel is portrayed, contra the gods of Zoroastrianism, as the one God, hence the God of both good and evil. >■ 14. The work of the second day is not pronounced good. How ever the LXX contains God’s pronouncement of good. Kittel’s text has it in the margin. - 15. Hebrew tobh; it is good in the sense of pleasing. The sense o f tobh in Arabic is pure, clean, delicious; in Syriac and Aramaic it is glad and joyful. 16. Did space permit, each could be elaborated upon as to the sense and meaning of the original words and, hence, their^clearer relationship to the catastrophe that overcame the earth which, in the beginning, God created not empty and vain, but to be inhabited. 17. Bartoli and others, with the darkness of Ge. 1:2a in mind, hold that not only the planet earth became without form and void, but the entire solar system. Whether we think of this ,darkness, or of the abyss, or of the subsequent calling forth of light and making of lightholders (sun and moon), this hypothesis of solar system ruin is unnecessary. ’ 18. A study of this second cosmos will appear as a separate Article. Here it may be said that the second cosmos is the one sot forth in a previous article—The Third Golgotha—as the cosmos that is crucified to the believer, and he to it. Only as the believer knows the Scripture presentation of the first and the second cosmos, including the pre-Noahic and post-Noahic aspects of the second cosmos, can he understand how, by the cross, the second cosmos is crucified to him, and he to it. -19. It is Interesting to observe, in the English Version, that the it w as of the passage is shown in Italics. This is English Version's way of saying that hayetha (it was) does not occur in thé original. Genesis 1:2a demands the presence of hayetha be cause in the idea conveyed by that .brief passage “ the earth became without form and void.” Here Jeremiah, no doubt with Ge. 1:2a in mind, sees earth as it has there become. To describe this picture he is not required, by the Hebrew language,, to employ hayetha. The Greek verb is apollumi. It does not mean perish in the sense of annihilation. For example, the coin and sheep and son lest (apollum i) in the panel-parable of Luke 15 were, each of them, found again. Since they were found again they could not have been apollum ied in the sense of annihilation. The earth of Gen. 1:2a perished, but was not annihilated. In six days work God brought cosmos out of the chaos of this apollumi-perished earth. jin archeological and scientific survey of much that is here presented is set forth in “ The Biblical Story of Creation.” by Professor Giorgia Barloli, Ph.D., D.Sc., D.D., Harper Brothers, New York.— The Author. Living in the Light of the Eternal ( Continued from Page 369) weary and discouraged. Without that vision, our faith, confidence, hope, and courage will be destroyed. But this other-worldness of Paul did not make him selfish or disinterested in the sorrows and sufferings of others. He was a tower of strength to tired and trem bling souls. Though to die for Him would be gain, he desired that he might continue to bless others (Phil. * 1:24-261;' The man whose vision is filled with the eternal will not be blind or indifferent to the needs of others. By his courage, calmness and confidence he will be an inspiration to the fearful and distressed. These, then, are days of glorious opportunities to bear witness to the reality of our Christian faith and hope. The collective work of the Church is sorely handicapped, but opportunities for individual, witnessing are unlimited.
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