Three Feasts Fulfilled – Part 4

Posted on June 27, 2025 by The Editor

Leviticus 23:15-20; Exodus 34:22; Exodus 23:16

And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD. Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the LORD. And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be for a burnt offering unto the LORD, with their meat offering, and their drink offerings, even an offering made by fire, of sweet savour unto the LORD. Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin offering, and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace offerings. And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits for a wave offering before the LORD, with the two lambs: they shall be holy to the LORD for the priest.

And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.

The feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): The feast of Pentecost, called also the feast of harvest and the feast of weeks, Exodus 34:22, was celebrated fifty days after the Passover to commemorate the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, which took place fifty days after, and hence called by the Greeks Pentecost.

THE EDITOR: There is something more regarding Pentecost and these “fifty days.” It connects to the “feast of ingathering,” and the fiftieth year of the Jubilee: “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family,” Leviticus 25:10.

C. H. SPURGEON: What is the connection here?

THE EDITOR: Well, in Ezekiel 4:4-6, the Lord instructed Ezekiel in a symbolic figure of Christ bearing the iniquity of Israel and Judah, saying he must bear it “each day for a year.” In the wilderness, God reversed that ratio in judgment upon the unbelieving Jews, saying they must wander “after the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years,” Numbers 14:29-34. As Hebrew lunar months have 30 days, and like our leap years, lunar calendars occasionally have 13 months, thus 40 years remains an indeterminate number of days. And as those unbelievers perished in the wilderness, so this time period is a symbolic figure of eternity, representing unbelieving sinners bearing their own iniquity forever under God’s judgment, Hebrews 3:17-19. Consider that God is using a similar ratio linking the fifty days of Pentecost, to the fiftieth year of God’s Jubilee. Jubilee is about redemption and liberty in the land, Leviticus 25:8-28; and, “if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed,” John 8:36. Now that is certainly true of Pentecost, when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to indwell believers, freeing them from the “dominion of sin,” Romans 6:14, 2 Corinthians 1:22; though they wrestle with remaining sin, yet through Christ’s atonement and intercession, they are made acceptable to God—see it displayed in the priest waving those two leavened loaves before God, as the firstfruits of the wheat harvest.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): Pentecost really means the “fiftieth day,”—when a new meal offering would be offered to the Lord: “Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves…baken with leaven.” These could not typify our Lord because they had leaven in them: leaven is a type of sin and He was the sinless one. But the loaves do typify those who through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ are presented to God as a new creation, Jew and Gentile, sinners in themselves, but their sins judged in the light of the cross of Christ.

THE EDITOR: Obviously.

H. A. IRONSIDE: So God ordained that this feast should be observed in Israel as the type of the beginning of a new dispensation…Therefore Pentecost was the beginning of a new age, that of the church, the body of Christ.

THE EDITOR: The church as Jesus Christ’s body was indeed formed at Pentecost. But not in your “premillennial dispensational” concept as an “age” beginning on Pentecost and ending in a so-called “Rapture,” when His church is removed from the earth, while God deals with Jews during a tribulation period—which is followed by a millennium with Jesus reigning visibly upon earth. And only then, after all that, does He judge the earth. That whole dispensational theory is a grand complicated error, which began in Ireland at Lady Theodosia Powerscourt’s prophetic conferences in 1828, and was later popularized by the 1917 Scofield Reference Bible.

PHILIP MAURO (1859-1952): It is appropriate here to point out that one of the glaring errors of “dispensational teaching” is the failure to recognize what the New Testament plainly reveals, that names which God gave to the shadowy and typical things of the Old Covenant, belong properly, and eternally, to the corresponding realities of the New Covenant. Thus we are given the proper meanings of “Jew,” Romans 2:28,29; “Israel,” Romans 9:16; Galatians 6:16; “Jerusalem,” Galatians 4:26; “Seed of Abraham,” Galatians 3:29;  “Sion,” 1 Peter 2:6; Hebrews 12:22; Romans 9:33. Likewise it is made known that according to the New Covenant meaning, “the tribes of Jacob,” are those who are Jews inwardly, that is to say, the entire household of faith, James 1:1; Acts 26:7.

THE EDITOR: As opposed to unbelievers, the “tribes of the earth,” whom Jesus said will mourn His coming in power and glory, Matthew 24:30.

AUGUSTINE (354-430): The New is in the Old concealed; The Old is by the New revealed.

THE EDITOR: Yes. And the barley and the wheat are two parts of a single spiritual harvest, combining the Old and New Testament saints together. On Pentecost, Christ united these firstfruits together by His Spirit: the church triumphant in heaven—those spirits of just men made perfect, from Adam to Abraham, the first Hebrew, Genesis 14:13; and all the believing Jews since Abraham’s day and even Gentiles like Job, Elihu, and Naaman, who had looked forward by faith to Christ’s coming atonement—all spiritually united with their brethren on earth—the church militant of Jews and Gentiles, who by faith now trust in Christ’s finished atonement; that “in all things He might have the preeminence,” as the “Head of the Body,” which is composed of everyone washed in His blood, and born of His Spirit—that is the complete “Israel of God,” Galatians 6:16; Hebrews 11:39,40; James 1:18; Colossians 1:12-20. Now as this spiritual marriage union of Christ and His bride cannot be torn asunder, neither can any of His members be separated from Him, since they are kept by the unbreakable three-fold cord of the Trinity, 1 Peter 1:3-5; John 10:30. And this spiritual wheat harvest will not be fully reaped until that “feast of ingathering,” when the angel’s trumpet announces God’s Jubilee year of our final redemption, “at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints,”—that great cloud of witnesses, “when there should be time no longer,” and “the mystery of God should be finished,” Romans 8:22,23; 1 Thessalonians 3:16,17; Hebrews 12:1,2; Revelation 10:4-7.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “Behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.”—to reap the earth, as in Revelation 14:12-20; which is expressive of His power as King of saints, and Judge of the world, to gather all nations before Him; for the sickle is used to gather with, as well as to cut down.

THE EDITOR: So—here are the two options: Believe in Jesus Christ, and rest on Him bearing your iniquity, trusting God’s promise that, by the blood of Christ’s atonement, you have everlasting life; so shall you enter that spiritual land of Canaan, the “land of promise,” to be harvested with His people; or, you can continue to bear your own iniquity until you die in the wilderness of unbelief; and then, you must bear your iniquity in hell forever, “where the worm of a guilty conscience never dies, and the fire of God’s wrath is not quenched,” Mark 9:44.

 

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Three Feasts Fulfilled – Part 3

Posted on June 20, 2025 by The Editor

1 Samuel 8:4-7; 1 Samuel 11:14,15; 1 Samuel 12:13,16-18;

John 18:33,36,37; John 19:13-20; Acts 2:1-5,14,32-36

All the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, and said unto him…make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them—Then said Samuel to the people, Come, and let us go to Gilgal, and renew the kingdom there. And all the people went to Gilgal; and there they made Saul king before the LORD in Gilgal; and there they sacrificed sacrifices of peace offerings before the LORD; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly—Now therefore behold the king whom ye have chosen, and whom ye have desired! and, behold, the LORD hath set a king over you…Now therefore stand and see this great thing, which the LORD will do before your eyes. Is it not wheat harvest to day? I will call unto the LORD, and he shall send thunder and rain; that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great, which ye have done in the sight of the LORD, in asking you a king. So Samuel called unto the LORD; and the LORD sent thunder and rain that day: and all the people greatly feared the LORD and Samuel.

Pilate called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered and said, My kingdom is not of this world…Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?—And he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar…And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come…suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven…And Peter said unto them…This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Gilgal was the place where Saul, the first king of Israel, was proclaimed.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “Oh!” says someone, “that is merely a coincidence.”

THE EDITOR: Why did Samuel ask a rhetorical question, “Is it not wheat harvest today?”

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Samuel, by putting this question, not only would have them observe that it was the time of wheat harvest in general, but on that day in particular, the men were at work in the fields reaping the wheat, and so it was not cloudy, and inclining to rain, but all serene and clear—otherwise they would not have been employed in cutting down the corn; all which made what happened more remarkable.

THE EDITOR: Maybe. But they assembled on that particular day “to renew the kingdom,” and “to make Saul the king of Israel;” an unprecedented national celebration which was widely attended—“all the people went to Gilgal.”

C. H. SPURGEON: Those who read Bibles and who have judgment, say there is something more than chance in such a coalition of circumstances. It could not be mere coincidence.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): “Man’s goings are of LORD,” Proverbs 20:24. Man determines and acts freely in the minute circumstances of the day. Yet the active pervading influence, disposing every step at the right time and place, makes it plain, that his goings are of the LORD.

C. H. SPURGEON: Events of history, whether on a large or small scale, betray an evident design and arrangement. All things work together with singular accuracy and punctuality to accomplish a lofty purpose. It is the fashion, nowadays, to say that these are coincidences. It is a pretty word for boys to play with! Some of us observe God’s Providences, and we are never without a Providence to observe. We see the hand of God in daily life and we are glad to do so, though we are laughed at as poor fools.

THE EDITOR: That same Providential principle holds true regarding details recorded in the Bible. They are not written by whim, but by the Spirit’s inspiration with design and purpose; all of them are given for our learning, and their actual phrasing sometimes provides connective links to horizontal narratives running through the Bible. That’s why it is necessary to be very careful with exact translations of God’s Word; because “every word of God is pure,” Proverbs 30:5; and “the words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times,” Psalm 12:6.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): The wheat harvest began at Pentecost, when they offered the firstfruits.

JOHN GILL: The feast of Pentecost, called “the feast of weeks,” because seven sabbaths or weeks, or fifty days, were to be reckoned from the day in the Passover feast, on which the sheaf of the wave offering was brought, and which was also called the feast of “the firstfruits” of wheat harvest, to distinguish it from the barley harvest, at the time of the Passover, when a sheaf of barley was the wave offering to the Lord; but at this two loaves or cakes of fine wheaten flour were brought as the first fruits of the wheat harvest.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): In the feast of weeks, we have prefigured before us the descent of the Holy Ghost, fifty days after the resurrection.

THE EDITOR: Pentecost is inseparably connected to that earlier Feast of Firstfruits, first observed in Gilgal after Israel’s circumcision; and Pentecost connects not only in Christ’s resurrection power; but particularly, in the Spirit’s regenerative power. At Gilgal, the “kingdom” was “renewed,” which means “made new again,” which connects to Christ’s resurrection at the Feast of Firstfruits, and also to Pentecost, when God also showed Who Israel’s true King really was. But why “fifty” days? Surely that specific number has deep significance.

ADAM CLARKE: The Jews celebrate the Feast of Pentecost fifty days after the Passover: from the departure out of Egypt to the coming to Sinai were forty-five days; for they came out the fifteenth day of the first month, from which day to the first of the third month forty-five days are numbered, Numbers 33:3. On the second day of this third month, Moses went up into the mountain, when three days were given to the people to purify themselves; this gives the fourth day of the third month, or the forty-ninth from the departure out of Egypt, Exodus 19. On the next day, the fiftieth from the celebration of the Passover, the glory of God appeared on the mount; in commemoration of which the Jews celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. This is the opinion of Augustine and of several others.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): I will not refute that high and subtle interpretation of Augustine, that like as the law was given to the people fifty days after Easter, being written in tables of stone by the hand of God, so the Spirit, whose office it is to write the same in our hearts, did fulfill that which was figured in the giving of the law as many days after the resurrection of Christ, who is the true Passover.

THE EDITOR: At Sinai, the law came with thunder and lightning, and “the Lord descended upon it in fire,” Exodus 19:16-18—which spoke of judgment. In Gilgal, after giving them Saul, the king that they wanted, the Lord sent “thunder and rain” at wheat harvest to “renew the kingdom”—it was judgment and grace. But at Jerusalem, on Pentecost, God spoke from Zion, not Sinai, with “a sound of a mighty rushing wind,” and with “cloven tongues of fire which sat upon each of them,” Acts 2:2-4; Hebrews 12:18-24. It was all of grace. The Holy Spirit descended to begin the spiritual wheat harvest, and indwelt believers for the very first time—and 3,000, who had come “out of every nation under heaven,” including “strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,” feared greatly, crying “What shall we do?” Acts 2:5,10,37,38. They were renewed—or born again, their hearts circumcised by the Spirit, and by faith, entered into that spiritual land of promise, the kingdom of God. Therefore God definitely wrote His law in their hearts that day, even in a firstfruit fulfillment of Ezekiel 36:24,26-29—“I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land…A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

ADAM CLARKE: The ark of the covenant was fixed in Gilgal, until it was removed to Shiloh.

THE EDITOR: In Shiloh, the Lord first revealed Himself to Samuel, 1 Samuel 3:1; Shiloh means “peace,” and also prophecies of Jesus Christ as King, Genesis 49:10; Hebrews 7:1-3.

C. H. SPURGEON: Some of these may have been singular coincidences. But I am not so credulous as to suppose that they were brought about by accident.

 

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Three Feasts Fulfilled – Part 2

Posted on June 13, 2025 by The Editor

Joshua 5:6; Deuteronomy 6:10-12; Joshua 5:2,8-12

The LORD sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey.

And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

At that time the LORD said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time…And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole. And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day. And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho. And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and parched corn in the selfsame day. And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Gilgal was the place where the Israelite camp rested the first night of their entering into that land which had been promised to their fathers from the days of Abraham.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Now circumcision was enjoined, partly because they were about to celebrate the Passover, which required circumcision in all that partook of it, Exodus 12:43; and partly because they had now entered into the land of Canaan, which was given them in the covenant of circumcision, Genesis 17:8, wherefore it became them to now observe it, and as typical of spiritual circumcision.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): God would hereby teach them, and us with them, in all great undertakings to begin with God, to make sure of His favour, by offering ourselves to Him a living sacrifice—for that was signified by the blood of circumcision.

THE EDITOR: Circumcision requires the blood of sacrifice. Moses was a type of Christ, whom Zipporah called a “bloody husband, because of the circumcision,” Exodus 4:25,26; Acts 3:22. And the Apostle John connects blood flowing from Christ’s pierced side in His sacrificial death with “water—“and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe,” John 19:34,35. Christ “has washed from our sins in His own blood, cleansing us from all sin,” Revelation 1:5; 1 John 1:7. Remember Jesus promised “living water,” John 4:10, 13,14; John 7:37,38. As Christ’s blood spiritually cleanses us for justification, the baptism with “living water” by His Spirit causes us to believe, regenerating us as new creatures in Him, and begins our cleansing in sanctification. John connects the Spirit, the water, and the blood together here again: Compare 1 John 5:6-8 and Revelation 5:6 with the “water of life” flowing “from the throne of God and the Lamb,” Revelation 22:1.

MATTHEW HENRY: This second circumcision—as it is here called in Joshua 5:2, was typical of the spiritual circumcision with which the Israel of God, when they enter into the gospel rest, are circumcised. It is the learned Bishop John Pearson’s observation that it points to Jesus.

JOHN PEARSON (1613-1686): This circumcision, being performed under the direction of Joshua, Moses’ successor, points to Jesus as the true circumciser, the Author of another circumcision than that of the flesh, commanded by the law, even the circumcision of the heart, Romans 2:29, called the circumcision of Christ, Colossians 2:11.

THE EDITOR: After the Israelites had been circumcised, the Lord said, “This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.” It clearly demonstrates that the anti-type of Old Testament circumcision in the flesh is the spiritual circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit’s regenerative power. It was a shadowy typical fulfilment of Deuteronomy 30:5,6, that God would bring them into the land, where He would also circumcise their hearts.

ADAM CLARKE: In Hebrew, גל  gal signifies to roll; and the doubling of the root, or Gilgal, signifies rolling round and round, or rolling off or away, because, in circumcising the children that had been born in the wilderness, Joshua rolled away, or rolled off completely, the reproach of the people.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): It is perfectly obvious the place was called “rolling off,” because God there rolled off from His people the disgrace which unjustly attached to them.

THE EDITOR: But why does the Lord particularly perpetuate Gilgal’s meaning—“rolled away?”

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): It is the reproach of man that ever he was the servant of sin in any degree: and this reproach we are to be rolling away; and, as the redeemed of the Lord, we are to be “glorifying God with our body and our spirit, which are His.”

THE EDITOR: But this circumcision at Gilgal wasn’t about what we do—it’s about what the Lord has done. The Hebrew root of Gilgal is doubled, because there is a double fulfilment of the type—the true spiritual “circumcision made without hands,” of Colossians 2:11, was still to come, as Christ said, “Wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence,’ Acts 1:4,5. The phrasing of “rolled away” connects to Christ’s resurrection. Notice this detail, found only in Matthew’s Gospel: “Behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it,” Matthew 28:2. It was the aftershock of that earthquake which had opened the graves of “them that slept.” But those saints didn’t actually come out of those graves until after Christ’s resurrection, Matthew 27:53. Remember the concern of the women coming to Christ’s sepulcre? “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?” Mark 16:3. Well, that angel did it for them. Then he “sat upon it.”

JOHN GILL: Thereby showing who it was that rolled it away; that it was done by him, not by the earthquake, nor by any human power.

THE EDITOR: Yes. And it also demonstrated Christ’s complete victory over sin and death. Next, the angel told the women, “Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” Matthew 28:2-5. The stone was rolled away to let Christ’s disciples view the proof of Christ’s resurrection—His grave-clothes lying there, Mark 16:1-6. When John saw them, he believed, John 20:3-8. According to Paul, believing this truth of Christ’s resurrection is absolutely necessary to completely roll away our reproach, Romans 10:9—as Paul later wrote: “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished…But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept…afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming,” 1 Corinthians 15:17,18,20,23.

ADAM CLARKE: Gilgal was the place where the manna ceased.

THE EDITOR: Manna was for the wilderness, in their uncircumcision. But now God had brought them into the land as He had promised. They were circumcised, they had observed the Passover, and the day following, “they ate of the fruit of the land.”

JOHN GILL: The increase of the land—“which they had neither sown nor planted.”

THE EDITOR: Yes, because it was all of grace; so in our spiritual life—when the Spirit regenerates us, we enter into that spiritual land flowing with milk and honey—the sincere milk of God’s Word, and the sweet honey of His grace, the spiritual food of the “land of promise.” And the day after they ate the “old corn” of the land, the manna ceased. But the previous day, before they could eat any “parched corn,” what must happen first?”

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): The feast of Firstfruits was to be observed in the land.

THE EDITOR: Exactly. With that “handful” of “parched corn” from the barley harvest, it clearly signified that Old Testament saints have their portion in Christ’s resurrection, Psalm 73:26; Lamentations 3:24; Job 19:25,26.

 

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Three Feasts Fulfilled – Part 1

Posted on June 6, 2025 by The Editor

Leviticus 23:4-14

These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons. In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD’S passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD. And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the LORD for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It is true that we consider these days, weeks and sacred festivals to have become obsolete by the fulfillment of the great Truths of God which they typified but—it becomes us to study the spiritual meaning of these types.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us,” 1 Corinthians 5:7. The Jewish Passover was a type of Christ; wherefore Moses kept it by faith, in the faith of the Messiah that was to come, Hebrews 11:28; as it was instituted in commemoration of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, so likewise to prefigure Christ, and the redemption of His people by Him.

THE EDITOR: The unleavened bread signified Christ’s sinlessness; thus Jesus could bear our sins upon His own body. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world,” John 6:51. The Passover was instituted while the Israelites were in the bondage of Egyptian slavery, because “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” Romans 5:8. Indeed, the order and timing of these feasts is crucial to understanding their spiritual fulfillments.

JOHN LIGHTFOOT (1602-1675): First, there was the Passover, and the day following was a Sabbatic day, and on the day following the first fruits were offered. So Christ, our Passover, was crucified: the day following His crucifixion was the Sabbath, and the day following that, He, the first fruits of “them that slept,” rose again.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Josephus says that the sheaf brought upon this occasion, or the “handful,” as the margin of our English Bibles has it, consisted not of the stalks of corn as they were cut, but of corn ears dried by the fire, Leviticus 2:14. The harvest here mentioned, signifies the barley harvest, which began about the time of the Passover, Exodus 9:31.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The expression “handful” is most appropriate, since it represented in a lively manner the beginning of the harvest.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): A sheaf or handful of new corn was brought to the priest, who was to heave it up, in token of his presenting it to the God of Heaven, and to wave it to and fro before the Lord.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): The beautiful ordinance of the presentation of the sheaf of firstfruits typify the resurrection of Christ, who, “in the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,” rose triumphant from the tomb, having accomplished the glorious work of redemption, Matthew 28:1. His was a “resurrection from among the dead,” Luke 24:5; and, in it, we have the type of the resurrection of His people.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Saith Paul—He is “become the firstfruits of them that slept,” 1 Corinthians 15:20. As the first sheaf in the field, in the reaping season, soonest ripe, soonest gathered, and first brought in, is but the pledge and earnest of all that is to follow; so Christ the first in resurrection, for it behoved Him “in all things to have the preeminence,” Colossians 1:18—is but as that pure corn of wheat which fell into the ground, which by dying, bringeth forth much fruit. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit,” John 12:24.

THE EDITOR: But this wasn’t the wheat harvest. The Feast of Firstfruits was at the beginning of the barley harvest, an earlier, coarser grain than wheat. Those are surely significant facts. While Christ is indeed the Firstfruit Himself, this sheaf does not represent Him personally. Jesus is represented here as the high priest waving this sheaf of the firstfruits before God on the day of His own resurrection; but the sheaf itself represents the harvest of “them that slept.” Who were they?

JOHN GILL: Those who were already fallen asleep—respecting chiefly the saints that died before the resurrection of Christ; and if Christ was the firstfruit of them, there is no difficulty of conceiving how He is the firstfruits of those that die since.

THE EDITOR: Exactly. See this detail recorded only in Matthew’s Gospel, about another result of the earthquake which ripped the temple veil open, when Jesus died on the cross—“And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many,” Matthew 27:50-53. Surely these must be Old Testament saints, “who had seen the promises afar off, and embraced them, and died in faith,” Hebrews 11:13. That phrase “many bodies of the saints which slept,” well fits the presentation of a sheaf, or a handful. But notice, by the command of the Lord, this Feast of Firstfruits could not be observed until the Israelites actually entered into the land of Canaan—that “land of promise” which Abraham had dwelt in by faith, Hebrews 11:9. This Feast had not only an appointed time, but an appointed place where it was to be observed.

A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Why is this important?

THE EDITOR: To understand these types rightly, we must understand the type of the land of Canaan correctly. It can never be a type of heaven, because the land was filled with enemies, and there are no enemies in heaven. The land of Canaan is a type of the spiritual “land of promise” wherein believers, saved by grace, dwell by faith as did Abraham; they are in this world, but not of this world, and they have enemies to fight: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Believers, born of His Spirit, “enter into His rest”—they rest on Christ’s finished work, and the promises of God’s Word. “For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief,” as that generation did, who perished in the wilderness, Hebrews 3:17-19; 4:10,11. The barley harvest, speaks of all those who had died in Christ—yea, even from Abel to the believing thief who died on the cross beside Him, Luke 23:42,43. There was no leaven in that “handful,” because it signified the “spirits of just men made perfect,” Hebrews 12:23, who had trusted in the promise of Christ’s full atonement, and were already with Him in heaven.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): The offering of the first-fruits, under the law, sanctified the whole crop.

THE EDITOR: “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect,” Hebrews 11:39-40. Therefore we also have our share in this blessed promise: “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed,” Psalm 37:3.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): As in the firstfruits offered to God, the Jews were assured of God’s blessing on the whole harvest; so by the resurrection of Christ, our resurrection is insured.

 

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The Clouds of Heaven

Posted on May 30, 2025 by The Editor

Acts 1:7-11

And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

EDWARD PAYSON (1783-1827): There are four events in the life of our Saviour, which are peculiarly interesting to all His real disciples. They are His birth, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension to heaven.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): We could not afford to dispense with any one of these four events, nor would it be profitable for us to forget, or to underestimate the value of any one of them. That the Son of God was born of a woman creates in us the intense delight of a brotherhood springing out of a common humanity. That Jesus once suffered to the death for our sins and, thereby, made a full atonement for us, is the rest and life of our spirits. The manger and the cross, together, are Divine seals of love. That the Lord Jesus rose again from the dead is the warrant of our justification and also a delightful assurance of the resurrection of all His people and their eternal life in Him. Has He not said, “Because I live, you shall live also”? The resurrection of Christ is the morningstar of our future glory! Equally delightful is the remembrance of His ascension.

EDWARD PAYSON: It is to this last event that our attention is now called. View it as it appeared to His disciples, and look at it through their eyes. Lifting up His hands, He pronounces upon them a blessing, and while He pronounces it, they see Him rise from the earth, self-moved, self-supported, and begin to ascend. Reclining as on the bosom of the air, He rises higher and higher, with a gentle, gradual motion, His countenance beaming compassion and love, still fixed on His disciples, and His hands extended still scattering blessings on them. Now He mounts to the middle region of the air; now He reaches the clouds, and still they see Him. But there a cloudy vehicle receives Him, conceals Him from their eyes, and rises with Him. “And a cloud received Him out of their sight.”

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): It was thus they surveyed the ascension of their Lord.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): The cloud which received Him while yet He was within sight of the gazers was probably that same bright cloud, the symbol of the Divine Presence, which of old dwelt between the cherubim.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): This, though a true cloud, yet was a more than ordinarily glorious one, suitable to the majesty of Him that used it.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): This cloud received him, it is probable, when He had gone about as far from the earth as the clouds generally are; yet it was not such a spreading cloud as we commonly see, but such as just served to enclose Him. Now He “made the clouds His chariot,” Psalm 104:3.

EDWARD PAYSON: But though their eyes could follow him no farther, we need not stop here. Borrowing the glass of revelation we may see Him still ascending, reaching, and entering the wide, unfolded gates of heaven, sitting down at the right hand of the throne of God, far above all principalities and powers and might and dominion, and every name which is named, not only in this world, but in the world to come; and there receiving the sceptre of universal empire, and exercising all power in heaven and on earth.

C. H. SPURGEON: We have here a picture of our Lord’s glorious ascent. We see Him rising from amidst the little group upon Olivet, and as the cloud receives Him, angels reverently escort Him to the gates of heaven. “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle,” Psalm 24:7,8.

THE EDITOR: Daniel’s prophecy reveals a clear view of Christ’s entrance into heaven: “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed,” Daniel 7:13,14.  And notice here that it is clouds—plural.

HENRY HAMMOND (1605-1660): The “clouds” receiving Him were the angels receiving Him.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): Both the Greeks and Latins frequently use the term cloud, to express a great number of persons or things.

THE EDITOR: Paul also described the Old Testament saints as “a great cloud of witnesses,” who, saved by faith like the New Testament saints, were not complete without us, Hebrews 11:40, 12:1. It was a “cloud” that received Him—singular. Now, united together, those clouds of angels and glorified saints were waiting for Jesus as one great glorious cloud, including even those “many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many,” Matthew 27:52,53.

C. H. SPURGEON: The fifth link in the golden chain is our Lord’s Second and most glorious Advent.

EDWARD PAYSON: “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Still more explicit, if possible, is the language of our Saviour Himself. “The Son of man,” says He, “shall come in His glory, and all the Holy angels with him; then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered all nations,” Matthew 25:31.

C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): He is seen coming “in the clouds of heaven.”

THE EDITOR: The “day of clouds” prophesied in Joel 2:2 and Zephaniah 1:15 are not weather reports. They are great clouds of heavenly witnesses. “And the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee,” Zechariah 14:5. “Ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven,” Jesus said, “then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory,” Matthew 14:62; 24:30. Think of Enoch’s prophecy: “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all,” Jude 1:14,15. See it also pre-figured in Deuteronomy 33:2 and Judges 4:14.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564):  By saints, Jude means the faithful as well as angels; for both will adorn the tribunal of Christ, when He shall descend to judge the world.

EBENEZER J. THOMAS (1839-1923): As a cloud received the Lord, so we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Him. “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air,” 1 Thessalonians 4:17.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen,” Revelation 1:7. The last clause, “Even so, Amen,” may be thus interpreted, “Yea, Lord, be it so; Come, Lord Jesus, in the clouds of heaven.”

 

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King Solomon’s Advice to Young People

Posted on May 23, 2025 by The Editor

Ecclesiastes 12:1

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): To remember God is every whit as needful as to draw breath, since it is He that gave us being at first, and that still gives us “life and breath,” Acts 17:25. “Let everything therefore that hath breath, praise the Lord,” even so long as it hath breath, Psalm 150:6.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Who of us will doubt the claim, which God makes upon us for constant remembrance? It is the duty bound upon all men—of every age—in every time. The whole of our time is not our own but God’s. And lest there should be only a moment in our life subtracted from His claim—the exhortation directs—“Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long,” Proverbs 23:17; also Psalm 16:8. Yet there is one season of special application, the days of thy youth.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): As an early piety redounds most to the honour of God, so it will bring most honour to ourselves: for those that honour God, God will honour. We find it, therefore, remarked to the praise of Obadiah, that he served the Lord from his youth, 1 Kings 18:12; of Samuel, that he stood, when young, before God in a linen ephod, 1 Samuel 2:18; of Timothy, that from a child he had known the holy scriptures, 1 Timothy 3:15; of John, that he was the youngest and most beloved disciple; and of our blessed Lord Himself, that at twelve years old He went up to the temple, and sat among the doctors, both hearing and asking them questions, Luke 2:46.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): What is implied in “remembering our Creator”?

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): They should remember there is a God, which they are apt to be forgetful of; that this God is a God of great and glorious perfections—omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, holy, just, and true; Who judgeth in the earth, and will judge the world in righteousness, and them also; and that He is in Christ a God gracious, merciful, and pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): Remember likewise, that thou art not indebted to Him only for thy existence, but for thy continued preservation, and for the repeated comforts vouchsafed unto thee daily.

JOHN GILL: And they should remember the end for which they are made, to glorify Him. They should remember to love Him cordially and sincerely; to fear Him with a godly fear; and to worship Him in a spiritual manner.

CHARLES BRIDGES: The remembrance of our Creator is in connexion with every godly exercise. Does a day ever pass in the wilful neglect of the Bible without serious loss ? Do we not suffer seriously in our own souls by giving too little time—too little heart—to secret prayer? Let us be in the act and energy of seeking Him.

HERMANN WITSIUS (1636-1708) Acknowledge His Word, by consulting it—His Providence, by observing it—His Wisdom, by admiring it—His Sovereignty, by acquiescing in it—His Faithfulness, by relying on it—and His Kindness, by being thankful for it.

JOHN GILL: They should remember with reverence and humility, the distance between Him, as Creator, and them as creatures. And that they are made by Him out of the dust of the earth, and must return to it.

THE EDITOR: Thus Solomon sums it up: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil,” Ecclesiastes 12:13,14

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): It is probable that Solomon wrote this when he was old, and could speak feelingly of the infirmities of age, which perhaps grew the faster upon him for the indulgence he had given himself in sensual pleasures. Some old people bear up better than others under the decays of age, but, more or less, the days of old age are, and will be, evil days and of little pleasure.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD: Ask those that are grown old, and they will inform you so.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): The time of old age is evil—burdensome in itself, and far more grievous when it is loaded with the sad remembrance of youthful follies, and with the dreadful prospect of approaching death and judgment; “I have no pleasure in them”—my life is now bitter and burdensome to me—which is frequently the condition of old age.

SUSANNAH WESLEY (1669-1742): Believe me, my dear son, old age is the worst time we can choose to mend either our lives or our fortunes. If the foundations of solid piety are not laid betimes in sound principles and virtuous dispositions; and if we neglect, while strength and vigour last, to lay up something ere the infirmities of old age overtake us—it is an hundred to one odds, that we shall die both poor and wicked.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): How many of your joys, my young friends, will last when old age comes to you? How many of them will survive when your eye is no longer bright, your hand no longer strong, and your foot no longer fleet? How many of them, young woman!—when the light is out of your eye, and the beauty and freshness out of your face and figure—how many of your pleasures will survive?

CHARLES BRIDGES: Separate thyself from sin, ere sin bind thee to hell. Remove sorrow and evil from thee. They are both linked together. Evil brings sorrow both to body and soul.

MATTHEW HENRY: Trouble in body and trouble in mind—the sins of youth are often the smart of age both in respect of sorrow within, Jeremiah 31:19, and suffering without, Job 20:11.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD: The unsatisfactoriness and anxiety of such a state, should be sufficient to deter all thinking persons from deferring the most important business of their life to such a dreadful period. For supposing a man to be sincere in his profession of repentance on a death-bed—which, in most cases, is very much to be doubted—yet, he is often afraid lest his convictions and remorse proceed not from a true sorrow for sin, but a servile fear of punishment. But one, who is a young saint, need fear no such perplexity; he knows that he loves God for His own sake, and is not driven to Him by a dread of impending evil; he does not decline the gratifications of sense, because he can no longer “hear the voice of singing men and singing women;” but willingly takes up his cross, and follows his blessed Master in his youth, and therefore has reason to expect greater confidence of his sincerity towards God—because it gives us a well-grounded assurance of the sincerity of our profession.

JOHN WESLEY: “Remember now.” For now thou art most able to do it; and it will be most acceptable to God, and most comfortable to thyself, as the best evidence of thy sincerity, and the best provision for old age and death.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN: If there is any softening, any touch of conscience in your heart, yield to the impulse. Do not stifle it. Take Christ for your Saviour, take Him now—Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.

 

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Exhortations to Young Men

Posted on May 16, 2025 by The Editor

Peter 2:11—Titus 2:11-13—1 John 3:3; Ecclesiastes 11:9,10

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul—For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ—And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): Some have thought that the Preacher, in these final verses, is adopting an ironical language to the younger part of his audience, by way of deterring them from evil; as if he had said, Pursue the ways of thine own heart, and the desire of thine eyes, and then mark the consequence…But I confess that the scripture doth not strike me in this point of view.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832):  It is in the order of a most gracious God, that the young should rejoice in their youth; but in such a moderate use of all their enjoyments, that they may not be confounded in the day of judgment.

CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): There are in Ecclesiastes many concessions to that effect. “There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God,” Ecclesiastes 2:24; see also Ecclesiastes 3:12,13; 5:18,19. Such passages as these may indeed be easily pressed too far—but “God has given us all things richly to enjoy,” 1 Timothy 6:17; and, provided we do not spend an undue portion of our substance on earthly indulgences, or set our affections upon them, there is nothing which prohibits a reasonable use, and a temperate enjoyment of them. If only we sit loose to them in our hearts, and enjoy God in them, they are perfectly lawful; yea, “they are sanctified to us by the word of God and prayer,” 1 Timothy 4:4,5. But the terms used by Solomon here—“Rejoice, O young man, in they youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes,” cannot well be taken in a good sense.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): How then are they meant to be understood?

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Solomon seems to say, “Do this if you will; do it if you dare; but remember that there is a judgment day coming, and that God will judge you for all these things.” Nobody in his sense supposes that Solomon exhorted young men to walk according to their own heart and according to the sight of their eyes.

CHARLES SIMEON: To “walk in the ways of our own heart, and in the sight of our own eyes,” is equivalent to walking in the ways of criminal self-indulgence. This is the import of these expressions in other passages, Numbers 15:39; Deuteronomy 15:39—and so they must be taken here; as is evident from the awful judgments with which such indulgences are menaced.

SUSANNAH WESLEY (1669-1742): This is still more evident, if we further consider, that religion is nothing else than the doing the will of God, and not our own.

JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Let no man imagine that it ever came into the Preacher’s heart here, to add fuel to the fire of youthful lusts, to excite young people, unruly enough of themselves, to take their full swing in sinful pleasures.

CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Thoughtless young man—Thou hast no idea of cheering thine heart, but in carnal enjoyments. Go on in thy course. Indulge thine appetite. Gratify all thy passions. Throw contempt upon the warnings of conscience, and the authority of the Bible. But count the cost. Think at what a risk—know thou, the day of jollity will not last forever—you may have your pleasure today, but the day of reckoning is at hand.

MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Solomon speaks to young men particularly, because they have both the greatest ability and the strongest inclinations to pursue sensual pleasures, and are most impatient either of restraint or admonition. Young men are often foolish, and inconsiderate, whereby they run into manifold dangers, and therefore they shall do well to hearken to the counsels of those who by their greater wisdom and experience are more capable judges of these matters.

CHARLES BRIDGES: The fact is, that a young man too often has no idea what temptation is. He realizes no need of any special warning. He fancies himself well able to be his own keeper. He has never allowed the thought, that none but God is capable of knowing what he is, if he be left to himself. Let him take his Bible, and learn by it what he has yet to learn—the knowledge of himself. He will then realize something more of a distinct awakening of the infinite peril of staying one moment on Satan’s ground, while conscience is speaking to him—that sin is much more easily resisted at the beginning than in its progress—that his true prosperity begins at the moment, when he engages his heart to God—that pleasure for a moment only there may be in the ways of sin, but happiness can never be.

CHARLES SIMEON: Little do young people think what their views of their present conduct will be, when God shall open their eyes, whether it be in the present or the future life. They now imagine that they have a licence to indulge in sin and to neglect their God. They conceive, that if they only abstain from gross immoralities, they may well be excused. But these are vain delusive imaginations. God views their conduct with other eyes. He admits not those frivolous excuses with which men satisfy their own minds.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Sometimes the sins of youth are in some persons remembered by God, and punished in old age; and if not, they are brought to remembrance through the dispensations of Providence: and the people of God are chastised for them then, and are ready to fear it is in a way of wrath: “For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the inquities of my youth,” Job 13:26.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Time does not wear out the guilt of sin.

CHARLES SIMEON: David deprecates the remembrance of his sins, Psalm 25:7. He specifies, in particular, “the sins of his youth,” which, though committed through levity and thoughtlessness, were displeasing to God, and must entail His judgments on the soul.

ALEXANDER MacLAREN (1826-1910): Why should you rob yourself of years of blessing, and lay up bitter memories of wasted and polluted moments?

CHARLES BRIDGES: Fearful, indeed, must be the peril to the young man persisting in his own way, when to Timothy, a man of God, perhaps young in years, but matured in grace—a warning from Paul was deemed to be needful: “Flee youthful lusts,” 2 Timothy 2:22.

CHARLES SIMEON: O! my young friends, I entreat you to reflect how bitterly you will one day deprecate His remembrance of those sins, which now you pass over as unworthy of any serious consideration.

CHARLES BRIDGES: The judgment to come is no dream, nor “cunningly devised fable”—God will call thee to judgment. For all the sins and vanities of thy youth—all those things which are now so grateful to our senses—for all our time, talents, opportunities, and their use or abuse. Actions forgotten will rise up in their freshness—our past history will be read again—the manifestation of all the secrets of all hearts. Willing or unwilling, we must stand before the great white throne alone in the midst of the countless throng, Revelation 20:11,12.

 

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Susannah Wesley – The Home Schooling Mother of Methodism

Posted on May 9, 2025 by The Editor

Proverbs 31:10,25-30

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): This description of the virtuous woman is designed to show what wives the women should make and what wives the men should choose.

ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): “Many daughters have done virtuously.” This is undoubtedly the speech of the husband, giving testimony to the excellence of his wife: “Her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying, many daughters,” or women, “have done virtuously,” with due propriety as wives and mothers “but thou,”—my incomparable wife—“excellest them all;”—thou hast carried every duty, every virtue, and every qualification and excellency, to a higher perfection, than any of whom we have ever read or heard. Let the reader seriously consider the above particulars, and he will be probably of the same mind.

ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): This is a beautiful description of a virtuous woman.

ADAM CLARKE: But high as the character of this Jewish matron stands in the preceding description, I can say that I have met at least her equal in the mother of John and Charles Wesley. I am constrained to add this testimony, after having traced her from her birth to her death, through all the relations that a woman can bear upon earth. Her Christianity gave to her virtues and excellences a heightening, which the Jewish matron could not possess; besides, Susannah was a woman of great learning and information, and of a depth of mind, and reach of thought seldom to be found among the daughters of Eve, and not often among the sons of Adam.

ABEL STEVENS (1815-1897): She was married to Samuel Wesley about 1689, when nineteen or twenty years of age. She had been thoroughly educated, was acquainted with the Latin, Greek, and French languages.

THE EDITOR: Susannah was educated far beyond the norm for women in the 17th century. She was trained in logic, not often a feminine virtue, and was deeply interested in the religious discussions of her day; her wedding occurred during the “glorious revolution” of 1688-89, when the Catholic King James II was disposed from the English throne, and replaced by the Dutch Protestant William of Orange and his wife Mary, which led to significant changes in the government and constitution, granting Parliament more power, and establishing a constitutional monarchy. Her husband Samuel was a staunch supporter of Protestant liberties, but Susannah supported the ousted king; this led to many quarrels; she refused to say “Amen,” to their daily prayer, which included prayer for the new king’s health; in 1701, an angry Samuel told her, “If we have two kings, we must have two beds;” in frustration, he left Epworth for London, leaving Susanna with their six children. But their separation didn’t last long; they reunited in 1702, after William of Orange died after a fall from his horse, and his sister-in-law Anne became Queen. Let married men and women glean some scriptural lessons from that incident for our own times.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): She was a daughter of Samuel Annesley, well-known to readers of Puritan theology as one of the chief promoters of the Morning Exercises, who was ejected from St. Giles’ Cripplegate in 1662. From him she seems to have inherited the masculine sense and strong decided judgment which distinguished her character.

THE EDITOR: She was certainly no overly-indulgent protective mother.

SUSANNAH WESLEY (1669-1742): As self-will is the root of all sin and misery; whatever cherishes this in children ensures their wretchedness and irreligion; whatever checks and mortifies it, promotes their future happiness and piety. This is still more evident, if we further consider, that religion is nothing else than the doing the will of God, and not our own: that the one grand impediment to our temporal and eternal happiness being this self-will, no indulgence of it can be trivial—so that a parent who studies to subdue it in a child, works together with God in the renewing and saving a soul; the parent who indulges it does the devil’s work.

THE EDITOR: Regarding John, the future leader of Methodism, she wrote in her diary, “I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child, that Thou hast so mercifully provided, that I may do my endeavour to instill into his mind the principles of Thy true religion and virtue.” In 1851, Isaac Taylor, in Wesley and Methodism, wrote that she was the “mother of Methodism in a religious and moral sense, for her courage, her submissiveness to authority, the high tone of her mind, its independence and its self-control, the warmth of her devotional feelings, and the practical directions given to them were visibly repeated in the character and conduct of her son.”

J. C. RYLE: To the influence of his mother’s early training and example, John Wesley, doubtless, was indebted for many of his peculiar habits of mind and qualifications. A mother of this stamp was just the person to leave deep marks and impressions on the minds of her children.

THE EDITOR: She began teaching each child at age five.

SUSANNAH WESLEY: The way of teaching was this: the day before, the house was set in order, everyone’s work appointed, and a charge given that none should enter the room from nine to twelve, or from two to five, which were our school hours…One day was allowed the child to learn its letters, and each in that time knew all its letters, except Molly and Nancy, who were a day and a half before they knew them perfectly; I thought them very dull, but the reason was because the rest learned so readily—Samuel, the first child I ever taught, learned the alphabet in a few hours, and when he knew the letters, he began with the first Chapter of Genesis.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Reading the life of John Wesley’s mother, I was pleased to notice how she set apart Monday to speak to one of her daughters, Tuesday to speak to another, Wednesday to speak, as she says, “to Jack,” meaning him, and Thursday to speak to Charles—so each had a day—and an hour each day, given to speak to each child about the affairs of the soul. That is the way to win the children for God!

THE EDITOR: In all, Susannah bore 19 children, 9 of whom died in infancy, so she was no stranger to sorrow. In 1727, at age 58, she wrote to twenty-four-year-old John about the many trials in her life.

SUSANNAH WESLEY: It is certainly true that I have had large experience of what the world calls adverse fortune. But I have not made those improvements in piety and virtue, under the discipline of Providence, that I ought to have done; therefore I humbly conceive myself to be unfit for an assistant to another in affliction, since I have so ill performed my own duty…Yet if hereafter you should meet with troubles of various sorts, as it is probable you will in the course of your life, be it of short or long continuance, the best preparation I know of for sufferings is a regular and exact performance of present duty; for this will surely render a man pleasing to God, and put him directly under the protection of His good providence, so that no evil shall befall him, but what he will certainly be the better for it.

 

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God’s Providences in History

Posted on May 2, 2025 by The Editor

Ecclesiastes 3:11; Romans 11:33; Matthew 28:18; Psalm 46:8-10

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

J. H. MERLE d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): In all the movements of nations, there is a living principle which emanates from God. God is present on the vast stage on which the generations of men successively appear…Strange! This interposition of God in human affairs, which even Pagans had recognized, men reared amid the grand ideas of Christianity treat as superstition.

JOHN BROWN (of Haddington, 1722-1787): To read of events, without observing God in them, is to read as atheists.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): The Christian sees God in the events of history. There is a vision possible to the eye of faith that no-one else has.

ALEXANDER CARSON (1776-1844): In reading history, people in general look no farther than the motives, designs, and tendencies of human action. Some are contented with the knowledge of facts, without attempting to discover their source or trace the connection of events.

J. H. MERLE d’AUBIGNÉ: It is too vast for our human minds to trace the Divine purposes in passing events; we can see but in part, and even that little which we do notice is seldom the cause, but merely the effect. We view the great and momentous fruit come to harvest, but see not the seed. We do not discern the connection between the smallest, seemingly insignificant event that may, in God’s infinite wisdom, in the space of two hundred years hence, bring forth a mighty fruit as a consequence. Nor can we know His perfect timings, nor His instruments, nor His methods in advance…Only in looking back upon the vast, and infinitely complex ocean of passing events, and only at those rare times when God is pleased to lift a small corner of the veil, may we glimpse a trace of His hidden hand, governing and guiding the affairs of men.

THE EDITOR: Let’s try to trace out a small historical example. In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to Austrian throne, was in Sarajevo to give a speech, when a bomb was thrown at his car. His driver saw the bomb coming and quickly sped away. After the speech, the Archduke unexpectedly decided to visit those hospitalized from the attack; “the king’s heart is in hand of the Lord; he turneth it whithersoever He will,” Proverbs 21:1. But his driver wasn’t informed, although that little omission wasn’t discovered until he made a wrong turn. As the driver reversed the car, it stalled. Standing on that street was a nineteen-year-old Bosnian Serb who had been involved in the earlier bomb attack. Scarcely believing the second “chance” he had been given, Gavrilo Princip shot the Archduke dead. But nothing happens by chance on this earth.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): “He removeth kings, and setteth up kings,” Daniel 2:21; He is King of kings, and Lord of lords; by Him they reign, and continue on their thrones, as long as He pleases; and then He removes them by death or otherwise, and places others in their stead; and this He does in the ordinary course of Providence.

THE EDITOR: That seemingly insignificant omission set in motion an unstoppable chain of events. When Austro-Hungary, emboldened by Germany, attacked Serbia, Russia sent troops to aid Serbia; then Germany, fearing the French alliance with Russia, invaded neutral Belgium to attack France; lastly, with treaty obligations to Belgium, Great Britain declared war on Germany. And sixteen million people died in the First World War.

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “Come, behold the works of the Lord.” Whenever we read history it should be with this verse sounding in our ears. “What desolations He hath made in the earth.” The destroyers He destroys, the desolators He desolates.

THE EDITOR: To take the Russians out of the war, the Germans smuggled the communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin into Russia, which led to the Russian Revolution, its civil war, and Stalin’s Soviet Union, eventually resulting in 20 million more dead. In 1919, when the Treaty of Versailles ended the First World War, four dynastic empires had collapsed: Austro-Hungary, Germany, Czarist Russia, and Ottoman Turkey; out of that carnage, new European nations were established: Finland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia; and Turkey’s former territories were divided into Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.

JOHN GILL: “He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again,” Job 12:23. And this has since been verified in other large and populous kingdoms brought to destruction, particularly in the four monarchies, Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman, and will be in the antichristian states and nations of the world.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): The rise and fall of worldly empires are events of comparatively small importance in the sight of God.

THE EDITOR: That Treaty of Versailles also caused the German resentment that led to Adolf Hitler and the Second World War, and another 50 million dead. Was not the belt buckle motto worn by German soldiers during two World Wars, a devilish irony? “Gott Mit Uns”—God with us. And what a mocking Satanic irony was contained in that lie over the gate to Auschwitz concentration camp!—“Arbeit macht frei”—work sets you free. But only Jesus Christ can can set souls free. That gate led to the crematorium fires, as man’s attempts to save himself by his own works will always lead to hell fire, Romans 9:31-33; Ephesians 2:8,9. And why number the Jews with tattoos? Wasn’t it to ensure that all of them were destroyed? But in 1948, God used the horror of that holocaust—that human “heart of darkness” married to industrial mass production—to establish Jews back into the land of Canaan as a nation. For God, Who knows the end from the beginning, causes all things to advance His purposes on the earth. “If He cut off, and shut up, or gather together, then who can hinder Him?” Job 11:10.

H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): There is something exceedingly solemn in considering history from God’s viewpoint.

C. H. SPURGEON: God is glorious in the history of Israel.

THE EDITOR: And God has prophecies yet to fulfill concerning the Jews. “Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: if those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever,” Jeremiah 31:35,36.

HUDSON TAYLOR (1832-1905): He has spoken in His Word. He means just what He says and will do all that He has promised.

J. H. MERLE d’AUBIGNÉ: Who is Jesus Christ, if He be not God in history?

C. H. SPURGEON: The times are safe in our Redeemer’s management.

MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: Christianity has not come into the world to put an end to war, nor to reform the world. It has come to save us from the destruction that is coming to the world. The Bible asserts a judgement—an end of history. God in Christ will judge the whole world in righteousness, sending those who have turned their backs upon Him, and refused His offer of salvation in Christ, to everlasting perdition, and ushering the saints into the glory of a “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness,” 2 Peter 3:13.

 

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The Folded Napkin & Christ’s Grave-clothes

Posted on April 25, 2025 by The Editor

John 20:1-9; John 20:30,31

The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him. Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): They took “the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury,” John 19:40. This is one of those explanatory remarks John sometimes makes in his Gospel, supplying strong internal evidence that he wrote for the Church of Christ in every land, Gentiles as well as Jews, and that he thought it wise to explain Jewish customs.

THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): After anointing the body, they covered it with a shroud or winding-sheet, then wrapped a napkin round its head and face; others say round the forehead only, because the Egyptian mummies are observed to have it so. Last of all, they swathed the shroud round the body, as tightly as possible, with proper bandages made of linen; which are the linen clothes mentioned here.

JAMES STRONG (1822-1894): The word translated “napkin” is of Latin origin—a sudarium, or sweat cloth, for wiping perspiration from the face, or binding the face of a corpse.

THE EDITOR: In ancient Rome, the word originally meant a linen handkerchief; that same Latin word is translated into English as handkerchief in Acts 19:12. The linen winding clothes were like long narrow bandages.

JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): When the Evangelist says that a napkin was wrapped about his head, this refutes the falsehood of the Papists, who pretend that the whole body was sewed up in one linen garment, which they hold out to the populace, calling it “the holy winding-sheet.” I say nothing about their gross ignorance of the Latin language, which led them to suppose that the word napkin, denoting what was used for wiping sweat from the face, such as a handkerchief, signified a covering for the whole body…But this falsehood openly contradicts the evangelical history. To this is added a fabulous miracle, which they have contrived, that the likeness of Christ’s body continued to be visible in the linen cloth. I appeal to you, if such a miracle had been wrought, would nothing have been said about it by the Evangelist, who is so careful to relate events which were not of so great importance?

C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): But do you notice the grave-clothes, all folded neatly and laid in their places, the napkin folded up by itself? Why?

MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The grave-clothes were found in very good order, which serves for an evidence that His body was not stolen away while men slept. Robbers of tombs have been known to take away the clothes and leave the body; but none ever took away the body and left the clothes, especially when it was “fine linen” and new, Mark 15:46. Any one would rather choose to carry a dead body in its clothes than naked. Or, if those that were supposed to have stolen it would have left the grave-clothes behind, yet it cannot be supposed they should find leisure to fold up the linen.

JOHN GILL (1697-1771): It was plainly the effect of thought, care, and composure; and clearly showed, that the body was not taken away in a hurry, or by thieves, since everything lay in such order.

THOMAS COKE: How came the winding-sheet and napkin to be folded up and disposed in so orderly a manner, in the sepulchre?

JOHN GILL: It was done either by our Lord Himself, or by the angels.

JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): The angels who ministered to Him when He rose, undoubtedly folded up the napkin and linen clothes.

WILLIAM KELLY (1821-1906): He had raised Himself. For it was not only that God raised Him; but, “destroy this temple,” He had said, “and in three days I will raise it up,” John 2:20,21. None but one who was God could say this.

THE EDITOR: Only Jesus was in that tomb, when in the power of His resurrection body, He suddenly stood up out of those grave-clothes—passing out of them just as easily as He appeared in the midst of His disciples in a closed room later that same evening, John 20:19. Then Jesus folded that napkin together by itself.

EBENEZER J. THOMAS (1839-1923): This incident has been but poorly appreciated. The real point of the incident is its unusualness. Ordinarily, when a person disrobes he puts his clothes together; the napkin would have been with the other garments—but here it is found wrapped together, and the other linen clothes “lying,”—not folded for neatness as the other interpretation would require. The received explanation deprives the account of the element of wonderment and holy mystery which obviously attaches to it. Why does the Holy Spirit make so much of these otherwise trivial facts?

THE EDITOR: Indeed, those facts must have significant purpose. The phrasing of the text indicates that only the napkin was folded. Long narrow strips of linen winding cloth would never have been folded—they would have been wound up like bandage rolls. Jesus left those other grave-clothes lying just as they were, in the place where His dead body had been laid. But the napkin He folded and set apart to draw our attention to it. Why?

MATTHEW HENRY: The napkin by itself is of use for the mourning survivors to wipe away their tears.

EBENEZER J. THOMAS: But surely there must be some other explanation than this.

THE EDITOR: It was a sudarium—a cloth to wipe away sweat. What does the Bible say about sweat? Remember the curse announced in the Garden of Eden after Adam’s fall? The ground was cursed for Adam’s sake: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou returneth unto the ground,” Genesis 3:17-19. Sweat speaks of a man’s work; see also Ezekiel 44:16-18. The incarnate Christ, the last Adam, was made like unto us, sin excepted, but was “returned unto the ground,” as a man by His burial “in a garden in a new sepulchre,” John 19:41; having “redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us,” Galatians 3:13. But even after three days, His body saw no corruption, and He rose from the dead in power, Acts 2:25-32. Now think of Christ’s bloody sweat in the Garden of Gethsemane, as all our iniquity was laid on Him, and He “was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin,” Luke 22:44, 2 Corinthians 5:21; consider His sweat and thirsty agony on the cross while the consuming fire of God’s wrath descended upon Him—the sacrificial offering for sin. Then, just before Christ died, John heard His last words: “It is finished,” John 19:28-30. Therefore, in His resurrection, Christ had no more need of a sweat cloth to wipe away perspiration from any further work of atonement, Hebrews 9:28; Hebrews 10:10; nor to cover the face of His dead body, for He “dieth no more,” Romans 6:9. That’s why Jesus folded up that napkin and laid it aside.

MATTHEW HENRY: Peter saw and wondered, Luke 24:12—but John saw and believed. A mind disposed to contemplation perhaps may sooner receive the evidence of divine truth than a mind disposed to action. But what was the reason they were so slow of heart to believe? The evangelist tells us—as yet they knew not the Scripture—that is, they did not consider, and apply, and duly improve, what they knew of the Scripture.

 

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