Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hebrews 3:18
And to whom swore he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
18. to them that believed not ] Rather, “that disobeyed.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And to whom sware he – note, Heb 3:11.
But to them that believed not – That did not confide in God; Deu 1:32. Yet in this thing ye did not believe the Lord your God. In consequence of this want of faith, God solemnly sware unto them that they should not enter into the promised land; Deu 1:34-35. And the Lord heard the voice of your words, and was wroth, and sware, saying, Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land which I sware to give unto your fathers, save Caleb, etc. The distinct reason, therefore, assigned by Moses why they did not enter the promised land, was a want of faith, and this accords directly with the design of the apostle here. He is exhorting those whom he addressed to beware of an evil heart of unbelief; Heb 3:12. He says that it was such a heart that excluded the Hebrews from the promised land. The same thing, says he, must exclude you from heaven – the promised home of the believer; and if that firm confidence in God and his promises which he requires is wanting, you will be excluded from the world of eternal rest.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 18. To whom sware he] God never acts by any kind of caprice; whenever he pours out his judgments, there are the most positive reasons to vindicate his conduct.
Those whose carcasses fell in the wilderness were they who had sinned. And those who did not enter into his rest were those who believed not. God is represented here as swearing that they should not enter in, in order to show the determinate nature of his purpose, the reason on which it was founded, and the height of the aggravation which occasioned it.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
To prevent these Hebrews falling, the Spirit repeats the direful oath of God to apostates in the wilderness; the form of which was opened, Heb 3:11; compare Num 14:30. The matter sworn was, that they should be so far from possessing, that they should not so much as enter into the land of promise, Canaan, which was Gods property, as the whole earth is; he promised it to them, could only dispossess their enemies, did give it in possession to their seed, and made it a type of heaven, and of his rest there; he swore this in his severe vindictive justice, so as his sentence was irreversible; which oath stands good against all total and final apostates from him, who have thereby forfeited any title to Gods eternal rest.
Them that believed not; those who were unbelieving under all Gods miracles of mercies and judgments, which they saw, and so became obstinately disobedient to Gods commands, and broke his covenant, Heb 8:9; Jer 31:32, and apostatized from him, and so perished in their gainsaying.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
18. to them that believed notratheras Greek, “to them that disobeyed.” Practicalunbelief (De 1:26).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest,…. As in Ps 95:11,
but to them that believed not? the Lord; notwithstanding the signs and wonders he showed among them, they would not be persuaded by Moses and Aaron, by Joshua and Caleb, to be still and quiet, to cease murmuring, and submit to the will of God, and believe in him; they were disobedient, stubborn, and rebellious, and would go up, when they were bid not to go up; for which reason God swore in his wrath that they should not enter into the good land. Unbelief is a source of sin, and cause of judgment, being greatly provoking to God.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
That they should not enter ( ). Negative (cf. in verse 11) and the future middle infinitive in indirect discourse.
To them that were disobedient ( ). Dative masculine plural of the articular first aorist active participle of , active disobedience with which compare in verse Heb 3:12; Heb 3:19.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
To them that believed not [ ] . Rend. to them that disobeyed. ===Heb4
CHAPTER IV
Christian salvation, having been presented as lordship over the world to come, and as deliverance from the fear of death, is now to be presented as participation in the rest of God. The purpose of vers. 1 – 11 is to confirm the hope of that rest, and to warn against forfeiting it. There is a possibility of your forfeiting it. The rest of God was proclaimed to your forefathers, but they did not enter into it because of their unbelief. It has been proclaimed to you. You may fail as did they, and for the same reason.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “And to whom sware he,” (tisin de omosen) “And to whom swore he,” did he pledge with an oath, Num 14:30; Num 14:36-38.
2) “That they should not enter into his rest,” (me eiseleusesthai eis ten katapausin autou) “That they would not enter into his (land of) rest,” the promised land that flowed with milk and honey, Num 26:65; Luk 12:45-48.
3) “But to them that believed not?” (ei me tois apeithesasin;) “Except (or if not) to those disobeying or being unpersuaded?” Even after God led them and fed them from Egypt, across the Red Sea, through many trials and many hours of compassionate miraculous care, yet they doubted His word, believed not, Deu 1:28-38. O that men might “fear not” but “be strong,” and of good courage” in doing all that they know God Commands them to do, Jos 1:9; Jas 1:22.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(18) That believed not.Rather, that disobeyed. Every part of the solemn sentences of the Psalm is applied to the readers conscience, that the effect of the whole warning may be deepened: the nature of the transgression is thus brought out with the strongest emphasis. Those with whom God was angry had provoked God (Heb. 3:16), had sinned (Heb. 3:17), had been disobedient, had refused to believe His word (Heb. 3:19). The action of the Israelites (Numbers 14) involved at once disobedience to Gods command that they should advance to the conquest of the land, and want of faith in the promise which made victory sure.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘And to whom swore he that they should not enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient?’
For God swore to those who were disobedient that they should not enter into His rest. This refers mainly to the later incident when faced with the obstacles to entering the land their faith failed and they refused to go. They forgot all that had happened in the past. They forgot Who and What God was. They thought only of their own temporary safety. And they thus excluded themselves from the land and from the ‘rest’ that He had promised them, and even determined that they would return to Egypt.
It had been a serious time indeed, and it had had serious consequences. For their behaviour resulted in God’s oath (Num 14:28-35) that they would never themselves enter the land, and their subsequent fate had resulted from God’s oath, an oath made because of the seriousness of their disobedience. And because of that disobedience they were barred from their hope, from the land of rest and promise. Their ‘rest’ was lost through disobedience. They were left stranded in the wilderness. See Numbers 13-14.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Heb 3:18. That believed not? That is, were so obstinate and disobedient as entirely to forfeit all claim to his promise and favour.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Heb 3:18 . ] Dativus incommodi.
] On account of the variation of the subject in the tempus finitum and the infinitive, an inaccuracy instead of , but excusable since the subject of the infinitive was naturally afforded by the context.
] Observe the mastery of style on the part of the author, appearing even in the variation of the negations: , Heb 3:16-18 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
Ver. 18. To them that believe not ] Or, that will not be persuaded, uncounsellable persons, that acquiesce not in wholesome advice.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Heb 3:18 . . “And to whom swore He that they should not enter into His rest, but to them that obeyed not?” The real cause of their exclusion from the rest prepared for them was their disobedience. Cf. especially the scene recorded in Num 14 . where Moses declares that as they were excluded from the land. At the root of their disobedience was unbelief.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
but = if not. Greek. ei me.
believed not = disbelieved or disobeyed. Greek. apeitheo. Compare App-128. Heb 3:1, and Rom 2:8; Rom 10:21.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
to whom: Heb 3:11, Num 14:30, Deu 1:34, Deu 1:35
but: Num 14:11, Num 20:12, Deu 1:26-32, Deu 9:23, Psa 106:24-26
Reciprocal: Num 14:22 – which have Num 14:23 – Surely they shall not see Num 26:65 – They shall Deu 1:32 – General 2Ki 7:20 – General Psa 78:22 – General Psa 95:11 – I sware Psa 106:26 – Therefore Jer 22:5 – I Jer 44:26 – I have sworn Eze 20:15 – I lifted Mat 25:10 – and the Joh 20:25 – Except Heb 4:2 – not being Heb 4:6 – entered Heb 4:11 – lest Heb 11:6 – without Heb 11:31 – believed not
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Heb 3:18. The ones who were to be unable to enter the land of promise are again mentioned under the general description of them that believed not.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Heb 3:18. Believed not, or disbelieved, is the sense rather than disobeyed. The word unbelief, in Heb 3:19, may be used alike of those who have or have not heard the truth; the word, in Heb 3:18, of those only who have heard the Gospel and will not be persuaded to accept. The word in Heb 3:18 means also to disobey as well as to disbelieve, and here the two ideas are combined; they did not obey the command that bade them to believe. Unbelief is as much disobedience as the breaking of any other Divine law. See John 3:46, where both words are used and are translated believe; 1Pe 2:7-8, where both are used, and are translated believe and be disobedient respectively; and Act 14:2; Act 19:9, where the word is the same as in Heb 3:17, rendered disobedient, and is yet translated in both places, in the Authorised Version, unbelief. It is no doubt true, however, that the Israelites were disobedient and rebellious (see Deu 1:26, etc.); but even when they are thus described, their acts of disobedience were generally owing to disbelief of Divine announcements. So it is in this Epistle. The Hebrews were not tempted to disobey what they regarded as a Divine command, but to doubt and disbelieve the divineness of the commands they had been obeying. Their dancer was not so much inconsistency in not obeying what they believed, as the rejection of the Gospel itself.
They shall not enter into my rest; see on Heb 4:1.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
ARGUMENT 2
THE TWO RESTS: REST AND PERFECT REST.
When Israel evacuated the brick kilns and mortar yards they rested from the toils of slavery and the rod of the taskmaster. When they crossed the Red Sea they escaped forever out of the dominion of Pharaoh. Egypt emblematizes sin; the taskmasters, evil habits; and Pharaoh, the devil. It is said in Deuteronomy, God led them out that he might lead them in, i.e., out of Egypt into Canaan. Though the congregations to which Moses preached in Egypt were all sinners, the great burden of his preaching was on sanctification. He said very little about the wilderness which they would enter when they crossed the sea, but much about the land flowing with milk and honey, and abounding in corn and wine. The grand incentive and culminating aspiration for which they left Egypt was the land of Canaan. Jesus, in Mat 11:28-30, promises the sinner two rests: first, rest from his burden of guilt; and second, rest for his soul. In Old Testament symbolism the soul is typified by the body. in the emancipation under Moses, Israel rested from slavery and Pharaoh. Still their weary feet and hungry bodies found no rest in the howling wilderness till they crossed the Jordan, where comfortable houses which they had never built, and abundance of old corn which they had not reared, and delicious fruits pendant from trees which they had never planted, saluted them on all sides, and bade them rest from their long and weary wanderings in perfect peace and enjoy all the luxuries heart can wish. Pursuant to this instructive similitude, justification gives us rest from the awful slavery of evil habits and the power of Satan; but it is not the perfect rest for which the heart sighs, while it wanders through the howling wilderness of inbred sin. Old Adam, though conquered and bound, still lives in the deep subterranean jungles of unsanctified affection. He growls and rages like a sore-headed bear, and if we do not constantly watch and pray he will get loose and play sad havoc, again bringing us into bondage. The soul can not enjoy perfect rest so long as it is beleaguered with internal enemies. Entire sanctification crucifies old Adam, puts all of our enemies on the outside, expurgates evil affections from the deep interior of the spiritual organism, and superinduces the perfect rest which we lost in Eden. It is truly, significantly and pre-eminently the souls repose, for which the whole world has been roaming, sighing and crying for the last six thousand years. It is a sweet prelibation of the heavenly rest. It is never enjoyed in simple justification, which is the reversal of the condemnatory sentence, and always brings the peace of pardon, but never the peace of purity. Regeneration gives you a new heart, but does not exterminate the hereditary depravity from which all actual sins emanate. The heart of the whole world aches, longs and yearns for this perfect rest, but blinded by Satan they seek it in myriad ways, only to add disappointment, mortification, withered hopes and perished aspirations to the mountains of sin already crushing them into hopeless despair. Millions of blind guides throughout the whole earth raise the hue and cry, Come this way! only to plunge you into blacker darkness, eclipsing the last lingering ray of the forlorn hope which has impelled you on, like the ignis fatuus,
whose delusive ray Lights up unreal worlds and glows but to betray.
Meanwhile millions of preachers Protestant, papal, pagan and Moslem are vociferously clamoring and indefatigably toiling to acquiesce and tranquilize the discontented multitudes, vainly and mournfully looking to them for the great universal desideratum of fallen humanity, which they are painfully conscious of their utter incompetency ever to impart. Hence the carnal clergy of all ages and nations have done their utmost to satisfy their people without this perfect rest; meanwhile it has been their study and labor night and day to persuade them that there is no such thing. Still the insatiable longing of poor fallen humanity will not down. Like Banquos ghost, it haunts all nations, semper et ubique. This universal discontentment and longing after soul repose is superinduced by the conviction of the Holy Ghost, who most assuredly would never provoke this soul cry if He were not able and willing to satisfy it. The secular clergy in all ages, whether pagan, Moslem, papal or Protestant, have pertinaciously fought the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification, because it takes the people out of their hands and turns them over to God, thus interfering with their ecclesiastical organizations and enterprises, notwithstanding their utter incompetency to satisfy this universal clamor for soul rest. Their great hobby is theological complicity unscrupulously concocted, simply to effect indefinite postponement. They will have you like the boy, forever running to the rainbows end to find the pot of gold, only with weary limb and broken heart to learn at last the same sad lesson over and over, that pursuit and possession are different words.
18. In this verse it is stated that God hath sworn that they never can enter into this rest save by faith alone.
19. We see that they were not able to enter in on account of their unbelief. This refers to Israel at Kadesh-Barnea where they made the fatal mistake of all their history. Instead of entering Canaan for which they had left Egypt and traveled through the wilderness, having reached the very border, holy delight, they turned back again into the howling wilderness. It is not because they did not desire and intend to possess the land, for this was the great enterprise of their lives; but they felt utterly incompetent to conquer those giants, and take the land by conquest. Hence, they retreat away, thinking to wait till they get in better fix for the arduous enterprise of conquering the country. All this was because they were seeking it by their own works, and not by faith in God. As Wesley well says, So long as you put it off you are evidently seeking it by works. God had promised to conquer the giants and give them the land. Hence, their fatal mistake was in seeking it by their own efforts.
1… Lest some one of you may be made manifest to have failed. The Greek in this passage reveals an actual failure made manifest, not as the English would indicate, only a seeming failure. There is a fearful liability of actual failure arising from our unbelief.
2. This verse affirms a literal similitude between the ancient and modern Church. They had the Gospel preached to them, but fatally blundered through unbelief, forfeiting Canaan, and bleaching their bones on the burning sand. A similar fate awaits us if, after conversion, we turn back from sanctification like Israel at Kadesh-Barnea. They postponed because they sought it by works. This has been the fatal wooden horse which has brought the cruel Greeks into Israels camp in all ages.
3. For we who believe do enter into rest. This positive and unequivocal statement of the Holy Ghost outweighs all the gradualistic theologies of all ages. It solves the problem without possible defalcation that we enter into this rest by faith alone. Hence, it is now, and all postponement is dangerous heresy. As I swore in my wrath: they shall not enter into my rest even though their works being from the foundation of the world.
Mark this wonderful statement of the Holy Ghost, which you do not have in the old English. He it certifies that God has sworn that you never shall enter this soul rest by works, but by faith alone. H furthermore certifies that if you had begun your good works on Creations morn and labored on incessantly all these six thousand years, even then you could not enter this perfect rest by works This is a most important passage, which does not appear in King James Version. It sweeps forever from the field the last conceivable apology for seeking sanctification by works. In justification you enter into rest, but enemies, i.e., evil tempers, passions and appetites survive in your heart, ever and anon rising up and disturbing your rest, so the soul can not abide in perfect peace. These enemies are the works of Satan which none but Jesus can destroy. 1Jn 3:8. You may spend your whole life in assiduous toil to exterminate the evil of your nature, and you will never succeed. Remember the climacteric affirmation of the Holy Ghost in this verse, confirmed by the oath of God that, if your works for the sanctification of your heart had begun with creation, and you had lived upon the earth laboring assiduously ever since, your sanctification would be no nearer than when you began. I do not wonder that the Holy Spirit gave us this sweeping and unanswerable affirmation, because He foresaw that the mammoth heresy of all ages would be sanctification by works. This world has two kinds of religion in it. Gods religion offers you salvation by the grace of God through faith, and no other way. Mans religion, manipulated by priestcraft, couples on indefinite human works, thus vitiating the grace of God, grieving the Holy Spirit, running into idolatry, robbing Christ of His glory and plunging into hell.
4. This verse illustrates soul rest by the rest of God from the work of creation on the seventh day. Of course, Gods Sabbath means perfect rest. Sabbath is a Hebrew word which means rest. Before you get sanctified wholly you are much encumbered with toil, physical, mental and spiritual, to bring about the great desideratum, for which the soul is sighing and the heart crying, i.e., perfect rest. Never does it come till you abandon all your enterprises, smash all your air castles, and commit the work unreservedly and eternally to God, who, in the twinkling of an eye, expels out of your heart all disturbing elements, and fills you with perfect rest.
5. Here we again have Gods oath confirming forever the utter impossibility for us to receive this perfect rest by our own good works, or the intercessions of a thousand clergymen.
6, 7. The Holy Ghost is this moment calling you into His perfect rest, and in these Scriptures importunately pleading and solemnly warning you, lest you reject His call, harden your heart go zigzagging through the howling wilderness of inbred sin and bleach your bones beneath a tropical sky; like old Israel because they turned back from Kadesh-Barnea, despite the positive promises of Jehovah to conquer their enemies and give them the land, and the terrible warnings of castigatory judgments in case of apostasy.
8. If Joshua had given them rest he would not have spoken concerning another day after these things. The glorious temporal rest of Canaan into which Joshua led them was not the ultimatum of their hopes and anticipations, but a glorious reminder an adumbration of the heavenly rest to which they aspired.
9. Therefore a rest is reserved for the people of God. In all the preceding passages the Greek word for rest is katapausis. In this verse it is sabbatismos, which means sabbatism, or the sabbath, which the soul enjoys in its unutterable and perfect repose in Jesus. Under the law of Moses the Sabbath breaker was punished with death, which is strikingly significant of the iron rule, characteristic of the divine administration in the sanctified experience. Just as every Sabbath breaker was punished with death, so God requires us to inflict death upon every intruder into the souls perfect repose. Nothing but sin can ever disturb this perfect rest. Gods method with sin is destruction. Hence He requires the utter extermination of every evil temper and inclination in order that we enter this glorious spiritual Sabbatism. Having entered we are to put on the whole panoply and stand guard, night and day, with glittering sword lifted high, ready on a moments warning, which is always faithfully given by the Holy Ghost, to execute summary destruction to every sin, daring to invade this heavenly Sabbatism. Of course this holy Sabbatic soul rest is the heavenly state in prelibation. All of our enemies have been taken out by the great Omnipotent Deliverer. Our Sabbatism is perfect, heavenly and unutterably sweet. So deep, broad, high, delectable and elysian is this rest that it beggars all description.
Amid political and ecclesiastical paroxysms, revolutions, ostracisms and persecutions, it is absolutely imperturbable. Neither poverty, disappointment, denunciation, excommunication, scandal, physical suffering, death nor judgment can disturb this blessed Sabbath of the soul. It will not only abide in this perfect rest, but shout glory amid the awful thunders of the judgment day, the tremendous earthquakes of the resurrection morn, the appalling realities of burning worlds and the precipitate sweep of eternal ages.
10. This verse certifies that the soul rest of the believer is complete as the rest which God enjoyed on the Sabbath following the creation. Of course, everything appertaining to God is perfect. Hence it follows as a legitimate sequence that the soul, in full and complete abandonment of every burden to Jesus, enters into perfect and imperturbable repose. It is pertinent to remember that this is the rest of faith. Therefore the rest can not be perfect unless the faith is perfect. What is perfect faith? It is simply faith utterly free from doubt. The same perfect faith which is the indispensable precursor of this perfect rest must be forever perpetuated in order to the maintenance of the perfect rest.
11. Therefore let us labor to enter into that rest, lest any one may fall by the same example of unbelief. Thus the writer holds up before the eyes of the Palestinian Christians the sad example of their ancestors who, through unbelief, turned back at Kadesh-Barnea, lost their inheritance, and found graves in the burning sands, assuring them, as well as the Christians of all ages, that the only available panacea for unbelief, apostasy and death is this perfect rest, which he constantly holds up as the glorious privilege of the Christian. The metaphor in this verse is transcendently forcible. The conception of the writer is that we have become so habituated to, and even enamored of, this toilsome, laborious religion, in which we sweat, sigh and cry, night and day, enduring penances to expiate our guilt, and expurgate our impurity, sanctify ourselves and get ready for heaven, that it becomes the hardest task that we ever did in all our lives just to let go, fold our arms, tilt back, give Jesus the job, leave it forever in His hands, believe without a doubt that He doeth it, and raise the shout of victory. When the rustic, riding along the road, going to mill with a sack with corn in one end and a big rock in the other, was persuaded by the cottager to drop out the rock, lie went on his way rejoicing over the lightness of his load. But on his return, seeing that old smooth rock, which lie had carried twenty years, lying by the roadside, he was moved with compassion for the companion of his toils. Consequently, dismounting, he put his meal in one end of the sack and the old rock in the other, strained it up on his horse again, mounting, went on his way. How extremely difficult to prevail on people to abandon all their burdens to the Good Samaritan! While multiplied thousands, having cast woes, sorrows, troubles and trials on Him, anon take them out of His hands, again piling them on their own shoulders.
12. The word of God is living and powerful, even sharper than any two- edged sword…. How pertinently this declaration follows the importunate appeal of the Holy Ghost for our complete and eternal abandonment of all labor and burden to God! The Omnipotent Savior wields this wonderful two-edged sword which is none other than the inspired Word of the Infallible God. Long and hard has been the battle between your poor soul and Adam the first. Terribly have you suffered in this devastating war.
Fast are you wearing out, while the trend of conflict is decisively against you. What a glorious privilege to turn over your incorrigible enemy to another. Adam the Second in His heroic majesty is smiling on you, anxious to take the fight off your hands. The moment you turn over to Him the old man of inbred sin, He draws His glittering sword and hews him all to pieces, like Samuel hewed Agag before the Lord. Oh reader, beware of this wonderful two-edged sword, which is none other than the blessed Bible! But do not forget it has two edges, both sharp a lightning. If you receive the salvation edge, it will cut out all your sins. If you reject the salvation edge, you are bound to receive the damnation edge which will cut out all your hopes of heaven. We live in perilous times when men will not endure sound doctrine. It is almost a rare thing now to find a popular church whose members will receive the truth as it is in Jesus. As a rule, if a man preaches the Bible as it is, fearless of men and devils, he will either soon see a general stampede of the members or himself closed out. This, of itself, is a striking, universal and most obvious fulfillment of the latter day prophecies. In this verse the Holy Ghost clearly discriminates between the soul, or mind, and spirit. This is one of the innumerable Scriptures confirmatory of Biblical trichotomy. Man is a trinity, similitudinous to God, and not a dichotomy, as the great majority of preachers teach. The result of substituting dichotomy for trichotomy in the popular pulpits, is to feed the people on mentalities, instead of spiritualities and actually derail the church from the orthodox gospel track into intellectualism. and materialism. Total depravity, which is fundamental in revelation, does not appertain to mind and matter, but only to spirit. In the fall Adam did not forfeit physical life nor mental perspicacity, but only spiritual life. Hence the feasibility of propagating religion and building up churches indefinitely on material and intellectual lines, with no spirituality in them and, of course, no salvation, is nothing but wholesale delusion Satans greased planks on which to slide people into hell.
13. It is the province of this wonderful sword, the living Word, when honestly received amid the illuminations of the Holy Ghost, to literally dissect the entire spiritual organism, interpenetrating the remotest fibers and fasciculi of the deepest recesses and darkest jungles throughout the fallen spiritual organism, unearthing all the hidden things of darkness and revealing to the illuminated spiritual eye everything in his heart disconformatory to the divine image and will, and simultaneously unveiling the wondrous fountain of radical and complete expurgation. Reader, if you ever expect to live in heaven, begin now to bare your bosom to the glittering sword of Gods infallible Word. Satan will compass you with myriad temptations to evade it. If you do, mark it down, you will land in hell. You will hear people on all sides actually handling the Word of God deceitfully, blindly manipulated by Satan for the damnation of all who hear them. Remember, your creed will not be mentioned when you stand before the great white throne. You will be judged by the Bible alone. Look out, for your soul is certainly in imminent peril. So it is the current policy of the popular churches to close out, and even ecclesiastically decapitate, the man who refuses to soften Gods hard truth, and to smooth Gods rough truth, and thus handle the Word of the Lord deceitfully, but, true to the Holy Ghost, lifts up the two-edged sword, scores deep and hews to the line, regardless of consequences. If you are too cowardly to preach the Word as it is, regardless of creeds, councils, ostracism and decapitation, God will excuse you, but another more worthy will take your crown. Earth and hell are now combined to handicap the preachers. These are perilous times, which try mens souls. Few have the courage to stem the popular tide, brook official carnality, and ignore the castigations of the hierarchy. Under these terrible gatling guns of earth and hell, preachers are going down in solid platoons. Yet God is not going to want for voices to cry aloud and spare not. If the cultured clergy will not be true, God will excuse them and fill their places ten to one with the rustic laity, uncouth, from the slums and jungles, washed in the blood, and baptized with fire, filled with the perfect love, which makes them like Gideons braves, competent to put to flight one thousand to one. The world must have the Gospel, and will have it speedily. The Lord is nigh, and the Kings business requireth haste. The Holy Ghost wants none to bear His message who will not cry aloud and spare not, giving to saint an sinner his portion. As Paul and Wesley both said, it is only by declaring to the people all the counsel of God that we can be clear of the blood of all men.