The object of Bible study is to find out what God says; for it is not alone those who never read the Scriptures, who are ignorant in this respect. Many read the Bible regularly, and still have very little idea of what God actually says to them.
God has more at stake than man has, even as God’s life is worth more than any man’s. Thus, if God should refuse to hear my prayer, and should not forgive my sins, I should be lost, but God would also be lost, and His loss would be greater than mine.
He does not say that He will have mercy on whomever He will have mercy, and that He will withhold it from whomever He will withhold it. No; but it is mercy and compassion. But then, how about the hardening? Why, that comes simply from mercy rejected. When the plagues were on Pharaoh he said, “I have sinned,” and promised to obey the Lord, and let Israel go; but as soon as God took away the plague, his heart was hardened.
In reading the fifth chapter of Hebrews, we always stop with wonder and awe over the picture presented in verses 7-9. The thought of the only-begotten Son of God absolutely in the condition of the weakest man in the flesh, oppressed by temptation, and with no power in Himself to resist, He was constrained to cry out with tears of anguish to Him who alone could save Him from threatening destruction, seems to some irreverent.
“Let us therefore hold fast our confession?” What confession?—“That Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, in our flesh; that “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” He is still “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” Whatever affects us, also affects Him.
Nothing but love can by any possibility win an erring one, and yet professed followers of Christ, who are active and full of zeal in what is called Gospel work, often manifest impatience and even bitterness toward those who through weakness or ignorance wander out of the way.
There is a mistaken notion - preached from many pulpits - that to be under grace means that the Law of God has no claim upon you any longer. This is a lie.
"For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace." Romans 6.14
"Christ was sinless; the law was in his heart. As the Son of God his life was worth more than those of all created beings, whether in Heaven or on earth. He saw the hopeless condition of the world, and came “to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19.10. To do this he took upon himself our nature, Hebrews 2.16, 17."
Even so today, our Laodicean paralysis stems from the same issue faced by Eve at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - will we do the ‘simple thing’ and hold firmly to the Word of our Creator and thus be kept from sinning, or will we fall for the interpretations, explanations and ‘enlightenment's’ from the theologians in the trees?
The Sabbath is the memorial of creation, but redemption is creation. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. The gospel “is the power of God unto salvation,” (Romans 1:16), and the power of God is seen only in the things that he has made. Verse 29. So the power of the gospel is the power that created the worlds.
Therefore, the Sabbath, in commemoration of creation, makes known to man the power of God to save from sin.
In this article, Dr. Munhall makes a sound argument for Sabbath observance, then identifies himself with 2 characters from Pilgrim's Progress.
"It was not by accident that Bunyan made ‘Mr. By-ends’ a relative of ‘Mr. Facing-both-ways’; for when a man acknowledges a certain obligation, and then says that circumstances will not allow him to regard it, he faces both ways, and advertises himself as a man who has ends of his own to serve."
Dr. Munhall’s only “reason” for keeping Sunday. It is this: — “I believe that the apostles kept Sunday, though I don’t know of any reason why they did so. The seventh day of the week is the Sabbath, but it isn’t convenient to keep it.”