The World’s Wreckage

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The Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).

Someone may ask, “Does not the world look to you like a wreck?” To which we may reply, “Yes, like the wreck of a bursting seed.” Any of us who have watched the first sprouting of an oak tree from the heart of a decaying acorn will understand this. Before the acorn can bring forth the oak, it must become itself a wreck. No plant ever came from any but a wrecked seed.

Our Lord uses this fact to teach us the meaning of His processes with us.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, 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 whole explanation of the apparent wreckage of the world at large, or of our own personal lives in particular, is here set forth. And, looked at in this light, we can understand how it is that the Lord can be good, and yet can have the existence of sorrow and wrong in the world He has created, and in the lives of the human beings He loves.

Hannah Whitall Smith (1832–1911)
The God of All Comfort

The Role of Animals in Our Development

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A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast (Proverbs 12:10).

[Animals] are doubtless made to play no unimportant part in our discipline here below. Our powers over them are almost unlimited, and they are indisputably our inferiors in every way: these two facts are often adduced as an unanswerable proof that it is right to treat them with any cruelty, provided that by their sufferings we can secure some advantage for ourselves or our race. Were this logic true, it would be somewhat disquieting; for we may reasonably suppose justice to be the same throughout the Universe, and there are beings more powerful than we. But the great Creator Himself, towering so high above us in wisdom and might that the distinction between ourselves and the beasts becomes relatively inappreciable, set us no example of selfish disregard for inferiors when He gave His only-begotten Son for the life of the world.

Now one purpose obviously served by the inferior creation is to supply opportunities by which we may be exercised in this matter … And while these opportunities are useful to everyone, there are many whose conduct under the temptation of power could scarcely be tested at all were it not for the presence of animals. The child with his cat or bird, the boy with his donkey, and the laborer with his dog or horse, should each be learning lessons of justice, kindness and self-restraint.

G.H. Pember (1837–1910)
Author of the classic, Earth’s Earliest Ages
Animals: Their Past and Present

The Lake of Fire

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Interestingly, our word “fire” comes from the Greek word pur. Our words “purify” and “purge” come from this root. We see instances in the Old Testament where fire is indeed used to purify.

So, could it be that the “Lake of Fire” is the presence of God – as when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush – purifying and refining instead of tormenting? One thing we do know: the “Lake of Fire” will fulfill God’s purposes in some way, and we do not read of any of its participants remaining there “forever and ever.”

I could never understand how God, Who is a God of love, could torment forever in fire those who did not accept Jesus Christ as Savior in this short lifetime. I can fully understand the “Lake of Fire” if its purpose is refinement and purification: consistent with the love of God, and with His ultimate goal of saving all creation at the end of the ages.

Bob Evely
God’s Will for All to Be Saved

The Whole Creation – Including Animals

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In the Old Testament the mysteries of redemption were ever veiled in symbolism; but in the New, the salvation of the creature is set before us in plain and unmistakable terms. … A sufficient proof of this may be found in the well-known passage contained in Romans 8:19-24. There Paul declares “the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” … and that then the time will have come for “the creation itself also” to “be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.”

Such will be the end of the groaning and travailing in pain together of the whole creation. And, like ourselves who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, the animal creation is saved by hope; for it was subjected to vanity “in hope.”

— G.H. Pember (1837–1910)
Author of the classic, Earth’s Earliest Ages
Animals: Their Past and Present

Will God Not Do His Very Best?

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Those who believe that God will thus be defeated by many souls, must surely be of those who do not believe He cares enough to do His very best for them. He is their Father; He had power to make them out of Himself, separate from Himself, and capable of being one with Him: surely He will somehow save and keep them! Not the power of sin itself can close all of the channels between creating and created.

George MacDonald (1824–1905)
“Justice”
Unspoken Sermons
(Originally published in three series in 1867, 1885, and 1889 in London by Longmans, Green & Co.)

The Resurrection of All

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For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive (I Corinthians 15:22).

Jesus’ resurrection was the first resurrection. Sometime in the future the resurrection of ALL will occur. Then – as we all remember back on this world and this life, with all of its problems – we will praise God for our new bodies and the new perfect world with a full awareness of His love and His mercy. The CONTRAST will provide us with a backdrop and understanding that will allow us to easily give Him praise forever!

Mike Owens

The Guise of Sinful Humanity

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We have been allowed to appear in the guise of sinful humanity in order that God may be able to use us to display His grace to others (Ephesians 2:7). As He has shown kindness to us, so He will show it to them. For grace is the basis of ultimate salvation (as was pre-determined, even before creation was brought forth); therefore, works have no place in this, and the way is opened for all to become God’s achievement, even as are the saints today (Ephesians 2:10).

John H. Essex (1907-1991)
“The Completing of the All In All”
The Pleroma: Paul’s “Lost” Teaching, Chapter 16, page 85
Bible Student’s Press (2021)

Our Response to Blindness

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The world is filled with blindness: relatives, friends, neighbors, co-workers. As impairing as physical blindness can be, this is not the one to which I refer. Instead, I speak of one far worse: spiritual blindness.

Most go through life groping in the darkness. Only those granted the spiritual eyes to see have any divine light. It is not hard to see the effects of such a condition all around us.

The blinded condition is as divinely ordained as is sight, for,

Who appointed a mouth for man, or Who appointed him to be dumb, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I Jehovah? (Exodus 4:11-12).

Listen as John’s Gospel (12:37-40) describes the true condition of unbelief:

But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him: that the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke,
“Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
Therefore they could not believe, because that Isaiah said again,
“He has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; lest they should be seeing with their eyes, and should be understanding with their heart, and be converted.”

Those who “believed not” simply “could not believe, because” God had “blinded their eyes,” “lest they should be seeing.”

The reason for their blindness is certain; it is divine.

Without the imposition of divine spiritual blindness, all of those of Jesus’ day would have believed. Israel’s Messiah “had done so many miracles before them,” it took an act of God to prevent them from seeing Who He really was.

There is no need to be frustrated or irritated at the divine work of blindness among our fellow man. Faith will not belittle, make fun of, or mock them. The blind merely play their part in the divine drama.

Be careful that we do not fall into a carnal mindset: being demeaning, condescending, insulting, disrespectful and sarcastic toward those who are blind. All such reactions are childish and irresponsible.

Our response toward blindness is compassion, kindness, tenderheartedness, empathy and graciousness regarding their handicap. It has been thrust upon them, as equally as has been our sight.

For who makes you to be different from another? What do you have that you didn’t receive? Now, if you received it, why are you proud, as if you hadn’t received it? (I Corinthians 4:7).

By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed on me was not in vain (I Corinthians 15:10).

(Check out our video on this title: Our Response to Blindness)

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
Daily Email Goodies

Approachment vs. Appeasement

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In my book The Undoing of Adam and the Approach Present of God I discuss the true nature of sacrifice in Scripture. As with other sacrifices, the death of Christ, was a “gift” (or “present”) – yet in this case the gift was from God, whereby He “drew near” (or “approached”) alienated mankind. This is a very important truth to understand. This is approachment rather than appeasement, reconciliation rather than retribution, grace rather than works.

Nearly 300 times the Concordant Version uses the phrase “approach present.” It was not God Who was alienated from man, but man who was alienated from God. Calvary was God’s “approach present” offered for the purpose of reconciling mankind to Himself.

For in grace, through faith, are you saved, and this is not out of you; it is God’s approach present (Ephesians 2:8 CV).

Yet all is of God, Who conciliates us to Himself through Christ, and is giving us the dispensation of the conciliation, how that God was in Christ, conciliating the world to Himself, not reckoning their offenses to them, and placing in us the word of the conciliation (II Corinthians 5:18-19, CV).

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
Daily Email Goodies

[Note:] Not only is this important truth covered in The Undoing of Adam and the Approach Present of God (click; also see the order form under “Pilkington”), it is also covered in this video teaching at this link: Click

The Concordant Version can be ordered from: Click

New Divine Revelations Given to Paul

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There are some who question the need to “rightly divide” Paul’s Epistles, yet his change in allotments is a reflection of Father’s change in administrations (dispensations) which had to result also in new divine revelations given to Paul to share with Christ’s Body for their spiritual growth and maturity, eventually culminating in the revelation of Christ as Father’s Pleroma (fullness, or completion), and the revelation of the Body of Christ as Christ’s Pleroma for the eventual reconciliation of the Celestial Beings in the entire Universe (Ephesians 3:10).

Mark Peters