To be sure, it would have been far better had you prayed for your husband before your marriage, asking God to save his soul before you married him. Then you would have been obeying His will fully; and surely He answers prayer. But having gone contrary to His will in the first place, you can only ask forgiveness, and continue to pray for your husband’s salvation. Our God is the God of forgiving love, as well as the God who hears and answers prayer. Doubtless you have made your own path harder by not obeying fully in the first place; but His grace is sufficient for every need! The Apostle, in this entire chapter, is exhorting Christians to live a life sepa rated from the godless world. Therefore, he says in verses 9 and 10, “ I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idol aters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.” Then he adds in the fol lowing verses, “But . . . if any that is called a brother [i.e., a Christian] be a fornicator . . . put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” This is but another way of saying that, as Christians, living in a sinful world, we must of necessity come in contact with ungodly and immoral men; but it ought not to be so in the church. In the world of business, for example, we must have dealings with the ungod ly. Otherwise, we must needs go out of the world. God does not intend that we should go into monastic seclusion, nor does He always take us home to Heaven as soon as we are saved. We cannot help what the ungodly do. But when it comes to a matter of church- discipline and personal purity, and keep ing company with professing Christians whose lives dishonor the name of Christ, then God says we must put them away from us. How do you harmonize Second Peter 3:9, “ The Lord is . . . not willing that any should perish,” with portions of the ninth chapter of Romans, which seem to indicate that God made some to be wicked, to show forth His power and glory? This question is discussed in connec tion with other passages of Scripture, referred to in this series; but we shall add here a word in the light of this particular question. Romans 9 is very What is meant by the last clause of First Corinthians 5:10?
How were men saved before Christ died for the sins of the world? By faith in the coming Redeemer, even Jesus. The Old Testament is full of definite prophecies of His coming into the world to die for sinners. Through out the entire Old Testament there is the scarlet thread of sacrifice, by which God taught men that they could be saved only by faith in One who was to come. They were saved by putting their faith in the Christ of prophecy; we are saved by trusting in the Christ of history, who fulfilled the prophecies of His coming to die for the sins of the world. It is the blood of Christ alone that cleanses from sin in any age. Here are just a few of the many prophecies of His coming to die for sinners, as set forth in the Old Testa ment: 1. Adam and Eve made fig-leaf aprons to make themselves fit for God’s pres ence—the work of their hands; but God made coats of skins, and clothed them (Gen. 3:21). The innocent animal had to die—a faint type of the innocent Lamb of God who died, that we might be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. 2. Cain brought the fruit of the ground; Abel brought the blood sacri fice—by faith! 3. Gen. 3:15 is the first promise of the coming Redeemer. 4. The passover lamb was a picture of Christ our passover who sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7). 5. Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 are two of the most graphic prophecies of the suffering Messiah. There are dozens of other prophecies, pointing on to the Christ who was to come to die for sinners. Although 1 was saved while still in my teens, yet I married an unbeliever, in spite of the fact that my pastor and Christian friends told me that Second Corinthians 6:14-18 and other passages of Scripture teach that we should not be “unequally yoked together with un believers.” Since my marriage I have consecrated my all to Christ. What would He have me do—leave my hus band, or try to lead him to the Lord by keeping our home unbroken and seek ing to witness before him to the power of Christ in the life? The very definite answer to your ques tion is found in First Corinthians 7:12- 16, which says, in part, “ And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.............For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?”
Dr. Louis T. Talbot
deep and difficult, but a careful study of it will reveal that God does not will that any man should be lost, or de termine any man’s doom to eternal punishment. For example, note verse 22, which is perhaps one of the most difficult in the chapter: “What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?” Who fitted these peo ple for destruction? Not God, surely; nor does the text say so. On the con trary, God’s attitude toward them has been one of longsuffering. These unbe lievers fitted themselves, by rejecting God’s grace, by rejecting the only Sav iour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Should a Christian tithe his income, since we are “not under the law, but under grace” ? Although it is true that we are not under the Mosaic Law, yet it seems to me that the tithe is the least the Chris tian should want to give to the Lord. It was instituted long before Moses was born, and seems to be the scriptural basis for all giving. Abraham gave a tithe 400 years before the law was given. (See Gen. 14:20; cf. Gen. 28:22). On the other hand, there is no in struction given in the New Testament about the tithe. God does say through Paul that we should give upon the first day of the week —regularly; as God hath prospered us (1 Cor. 16:2); first giving our own selves to the Lord (2 Cor. 8 :5 ); cheerfully (2 Cor. 9 :7 ); with joy; and out of a sense of gratitude to God who has given His all for us. Read carefully all of chapters eight and nine of Second Corinthians. To make tithing a binding command in this age of grace, is to return to legalism; but many Christians testify to the fact that, as they have let the tithe be the beginning of their giving, God has prospered them to such an extent that they have had all the more to give. Yet let it be remembered that God does not always prosper His saints accord ingly; some of the most liberal, devoted Christians never have much, in a ma terial way, in this life.
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