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Chosen no: CR-413 ,   from: 1913 Year.

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I AM GLAD to be with you all, and to greet the Minneapolis and St. Paul and nearby friends. I have before my mind this morning the words of Jesus respecting the ten lepers that he met and healed.

"Were there not ten cleansed? but where are nine? Only one hath returned to give glory to God."-- Luke 17:17,18.

Leprosy has long been regarded as incurable, and, therefore, is used as an illustration of sin, which is also incurable. As only the Master's word could heal the lepers, so nothing short of a Divine remedy can cure the leprosy of sin. Lepers in olden times were obliged to separate themselves from others, and whenever approached were required to cry, "Unclean! Unclean!" Cut off thus from association with others, the condition of the poor creatures was far from enviable. So sinners by Divine decree are isolated, separated from the pure, the holy, the righteous. Though all humanity are sinners by heredity, we must not forget that they constitute but a small proportion of God's great family, amongst whom are angels, cherubim, seraphim, etc., who always have fellowship with God and with each other. But while the Scriptures declare of humanity that all are sinners, that none are righteous, no, not one, yet all do not appreciate their condition, nor cry aloud, Unclean! Indeed, there are various degrees of uncleanness; some are more and some less sinful. The two extremes of sin are represented in our Lord's parable of the two men who went up to the Temple to pray, the one a publican, the other a Pharisee. The publican realized his sin and smote his breast, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" The Pharisee, on the contrary, felt himself so superior to the publican that he did not realize himself a sinner at all; he thanked God that he was not a sinner. Jesus declares that, because of his acknowledgment of sin, the publican was more acceptable than the Pharisee. In other words, the Creator wishes that each one of Adam's race should realize his imperfection--that he comes short of the Divine standard of perfection--short of that standard which God would be pleased to bless with everlasting life. While the Bible thus declares that all are sinners, it does not unreasonably say that there is no difference. What it does say is that the slightest degree of sin would mean that we are sinners, and that hence the person with the least taint of sin upon him would need the Savior, the Deliverer--would need to be cleansed. And, in order to realize his need of assistance, he must see his sin and cry unto the Lord, Unclean! Lord, save, or I perish! Here again many of us have made a serious mistake in the study of our Bibles. When reading that the sinner would perish, we forgot the meaning of the word perish, that it signifies to die, to lose life. There is nothing in the word perish that signifies to be tortured to all eternity. "The wages of sin is death," destruction--annihilation, if you please. And if God had not made some provision for man's recovery, there would be no future life for Adam nor for any of his race. Death would indeed have been a hopeless state; just as leprosy, whether in a small or greater degree, signified the presence of a hopeless disease, from which there is no recovery.

JESUS THE GOOD PHYSICIAN.

Jesus is the only physician who can heal this leprosy of sin; nothing that the sinner himself can do would cancel the sentence. God purposely so arranged the matter. The Good Physician heals humanity at a great cost to Himself. As the wage, or penalty, or sin upon Father Adam and his race means death, so whoever would redeem Adam must be prepared to pay his penalty before he could assist the sinner legally, justly. None of Adam's race could serve as a redeemer, because each and all were born in sin and therefore as subject to the penalty as Father Adam himself. Nor could any of them be born without sin, because the life of the race came from its father. Whoever, therefore, would be the savior of man must have a life separate and apart from that of Adam, and must be willing to sacrifice it on Adam's behalf. All of the angels had such a life--separate and apart from Adam's life--and any of them, therefore would have been capable of being man's redeemer if the Heavenly Father had made them the proposition and they had chosen to accept it. But Jehovah God gave the first offer to become man's redeemer to the very highest of all His creatures--His Only Begotten Son, the Logos, of whom we read that He was the Beginning of the creation of God, the First-Born of every creature, the Alpha and

the Omega, the First and the Last.

"FOR THE JOY SET BEFORE HIM."

It was not within the province of even Jehovah Himself to demand that one holy creature should die to rescue, to redeem, humanity. The matter, therefore, was optional with the Logos; and if He had not chosen to accept the proposition, it doubtless would have been extended to others. But such was the love and loyalty of God's Only Begotten that to know the Father's pleasure in the matter was to cheerfully obey. It was a joy to Him to serve in any manner and to further God's will. No doubt the Son would have done this without any suggestion of a reward, but the Apostle suggests that a great reward was proffered Him. He says, "Who for the joy that was set before Him endured." His joyful obedience began when He exchanged the higher nature for the human. The same joy continued when, as the Man Christ Jesus, He offered up Himself, and faithfully obedient to the Father's will to the very last, saying, "The cup which My Father hath poured for Me, shall I not drink it?" St. Paul further explains that it was the Redeemer's faithfulness and loyalty to the Father, in doing His will to the extent of laying down the human life, that became the basis of His still higher exaltation--above His prehuman condition. The Apostle says, "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth." Thus, as the Apostle explains, He has been exalted and qualified to be made a Prince and a Savior and able to grant forgiveness of sins to as many as will come unto the Father through Him.

WHAT SIN-FORGIVENESS MEANS.

Forgiveness of sin has two aspects: (1) the cancellation of the legal condemnation; and (2) the recovery of the sinner from his loss, his imperfection. Jesus came into the world to accomplish both of these results. By His death He would legally satisfy the Divine Justice, giving His life as instead of Adam's life, which was forfeited by sin. Then, according to the Father's promise, being raised from the death state to a glorious state, with plenitude of power, He would use that power and opportunity for the release, or recovery, of mankind from the mental, moral and physical degradation brought about by sin. Thus we read that Jesus died that God might be just and yet be the Justifier of all those who believe in Jesus--of all who shall become His disciples and follow His leading and direction. Again, we read that He came to seek and to save, to recover, that which was lost.

SINNERS OF TWO CLASSES SAVED.

It was just like our great Heavenly Father to take advantage of the opportunity of human salvation from sin to illustrate different characters amongst men and different degrees of His favor toward these. He foresaw that the great necessity of the world would be the Messianic Kingdom, the powerful Reign of the Redeemer forcefully putting down sin and all unrighteousness, scattering ignorance, darkness, superstition, etc. [CR414] He foresaw that some of the human family would need to have stripes, punishments, corrections in righteousness, in order to teach them the great lesson that all unrighteousness is sin; and that all sin brings degradation, sorrow, pain, death, according to Divine arrangement. Messiah's Kingdom would be necessary to show how obedience to God would, on the contrary, bring a gradual uplifting and recovery out of sin, sorrow, tears and death, eventually back to perfection. But while the great mass of mankind would need the severe lessons of the Millennium, the Reign of Christ, a certain few would be able now to develop an eye of faith and an ear of faith by virtue of their desire to do God's will. These would be doubly precious in God's sight; for "without faith it is impossible to please Him," and those who could exercise faith under adverse conditions would be His peculiar treasure. Therefore God has arranged to gather out this special class in advance, and these He calls His Elect, the Church of the Gospel Age. This call, to which these respond, is not so forceful as will be the call of the future; they must have hearing ears and attentive hearts to hear the voice of God in the present time at all. Additionally, they must be both able and willing to walk by faith, their path lighted only by the Lamp of God's Word. "Thy Word is a lamp to my feet, a lantern to my footsteps." Furthermore, they must walk in a narrow way, a difficult path of separation from the world. Not only must they strive to live separate and apart from sin, but after the pattern of their Redeemer they must present their bodies living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God, through the merit of Jesus' sacrifice. These are scripturally styled the justified by faith, the sanctified, or set apart to the service of God. These, under the typical arrangement of God with Israel of old, were pictured in the tribe of Levi, who were set apart from the remaining tribes to be God's special servants, and ultimately to be the instructors and guides of their brethren of the other tribes. So the elect class in process of selection since the ascension of Jesus since Pentecost--are to be God's special servants by and by in the blessing of the world in general; for they are to be joint-heirs with Jesus, their Redeemer, in all the great work of His Millennial Kingdom, designed, arranged, prepared, for the blessing and uplifting of all humanity, and for the destruction of the wilfully, intelligently, sinful and rebellious.

"THOUGH YOUR SINS BE SCARLET."

The Lord used crimson and scarlet as indicative of the most flagrant sins, and then declared that His arrangement for the forgiveness of sins through the Redeemer is effective even for the very worst sins. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool." (Isaiah 1:18.) This is an assurance for us. God knows that all of Adam's children were born with the hereditary taint of sin, "prone to sin as are the sparks to fly upward." He is not expecting perfection of any under such conditions; all must have help, and the Savior whom God has prepared is qualified to give help to all. The help given to the special class that is in process of selection during this Gospel Age is in the Scriptures figuratively represented as the Robe of Christ's righteousness, covering each of the sinners, and thus hiding the actual blemishes of his flesh. In other words, the Lord declares of this class that He will judge them, not according to their flesh, but according to the spirit of their minds, the intentions of their hearts and the efforts which they will put forth in resisting sin and doing God's will. This Robe of Righteousness will cover sins of every kind and degree, except willful sins. O blessed thought! O words with Heavenly comfort fraught! The arrangement for the sins of the world, to be carried out in the future, will similarly be ample, though different. The world's sins will not be covered, nor will the world be dealt with merely according to their minds and hearts. The world's salvation is spoken of as being one of works. Each sinner will be encouraged and assisted back to perfection along the lines of good works. Assistance and strength of character will come to them day by day and year by year until, before the Millennium will have ended, all the willing and obedient will have become perfect, mentally, morally and physically. They will have attained the image and likeness of God, lost by Father Adam in Eden; and with this perfection will come their right to human life, forfeited by Adam and redeemed by Jesus. But some one may say, If mankind are to have an opportunity during the Millennial Age, will that not be a second chance? We reply, No. None will have a second chance for everlasting life. By nature we are all sinners, condemned to death. Our chance for life at all is through the Redeemer's sacrifice. He died for all. But only when we accept the fact and come under His direction as His disciples, do we obtain our share? Since Jesus accepts as His disciples during this Age only such as consecrate, or sacrifice, their lives to the doing of God's will, only they get the benefit of the Redeemer's sacrifice during the present life. Those who do not get that benefit now still have it assured them by Jesus' death, according to the Divine promise. Those who do not get their chance of everlasting life now will get it during the Millennium.

SIN A TRANSGRESSION OF LAW.

Human laws are not always the same as the Divine, though properly intended so to be. Thus the Lord informs us that some who are highly esteemed among men, and approved by human standards, are an abomination in the sight of God. Contrariwise, sometimes things disapproved by man are in accord with the Divine Law. God seems to put justice in the very highest place in His estimation of sin, while poor human judgment sometimes gives it a very low place. For instance, some will cry out vigorously and vengefully against immoral dances and petty thievery, who would not hesitate to join in a Trust intended to deprive thousands of fellow-creatures of their share of the blessings of our day. In the eyes of human judgment, these would be esteemed noble examples; while in the sight of Divine Justice, we believe, they would rank as very vicious and criminal.

TEN CLEANSED--BUT ONE THANKFUL.

When ten lepers came to our Lord praying for healing and were granted their request, only one of them returned to thank the Savior; and Jesus called attention to the fact. It well illustrates the difference between the two classes of the saved. The entire ten lepers would well represent the world of mankind in sin. All would be glad to be relieved of the leprosy of sin and to be holy and happy.

But as only one of the ten was so appreciative as to come back and worship the Redeemer and offer Him his services, it represents the fact that only a small proportion of humanity is properly appreciative of the blessings of forgiveness of sins and healing therefrom. The only one who was thankful would well represent the class of sinners who now constitute the true Church, and who, realizing the Divine arrangement for the forgiveness of sins, come thankfully and offer the Lord their little all to be used in His service. The "exceeding great and precious promises" of God's Word are given only to the thankful and consecrated, who have already presented themselves living sacrifices to God. "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom." "God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit," which is granted only to the consecrated. These promises are to strengthen and nerve the consecrated and to enable them to overcome, in fulfilment of their covenant of consecration.

CRS-413-1913r