W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
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minds the mastery of the situation which is indispensably essential to that independence of thought and<br />
utterance which is the concomitant of the glorious spiritual freedom everywhere necessary to the successful<br />
enforcement of the message enunciated qualify <strong>His</strong> disciples for the great and responsible work of launching the<br />
Gospel Church.<br />
For this reason He had to prolong <strong>His</strong> ministry three whole years, meanwhile He was a constant fugitive for <strong>His</strong><br />
life, incessantly flying from <strong>His</strong> enemies, who were thirsting for <strong>His</strong> blood and plotting to kill Him, or from <strong>His</strong><br />
friends who were enthusiastic to crown Him King, in which case the Romans would have killed Him as a rival<br />
of Caesar. When Jesus wanted preachers He chose “unlearned and ignorant men,” (Acts 4:12). They were<br />
stalwart men, though, hardened by the rough and tumble life of Galilean fishermen, accustomed to toil all night<br />
as the better time to catch fish and take chances to snatch up a little sleep on the sand during the day at intervals<br />
of domestic labor, and then be ready for the ensuing night of sleepless toil. He has never changed <strong>His</strong> economy.<br />
He is still calling the illiterate millions to go and tell their lost contemporaries the glad tidings of salvation, rich,<br />
sweet, full and free.<br />
When He wanted a teacher, He put <strong>His</strong> hand on Paul, the greatest scholar in the world and the most competent<br />
exegete of the glorious plan of salvation. Though <strong>His</strong> greatest enemy, He had no trouble to put him just where<br />
He wanted him and use him to reveal the major part of the New Testament, at the same time so ably and lucidly<br />
expounding the deep things of God as to make him a glorious sunburst on the precious, revealed Word, lighting<br />
it up to all coming generations.<br />
This grand army of evangelists, whom God is raising up in every nation under Heaven, has no time to perplex<br />
their minds with scholastic theologies. They want the simple nonsectarian explanation of the Bible so that they<br />
can preach it to others. The theologians have even muddled the very word “preach,” leading the popular mind to<br />
the conclusion that it means to study hard, manufacture a sermon mechanically and roar it out to the people with<br />
certain rhetorical intonations, inflections and nicely rounded cadences. The word enaggells, from en, good, and<br />
oggells, to proclaim, simply means to tell the good news in the plainest and most simple phraseology, so that<br />
people will be sure to understand it, because it is verily to them the message of life and salvation.<br />
In these Commentaries you not only have the truth explained just as you would want to preach it to the people,<br />
but you are constantly fortified against the dangerous errors which undermine the glorious plan of salvation,<br />
actually vitiating and even ignoring the vicarious substitutionary atonement which our Lord made for the<br />
redemption of the whole world, which is to be received and appropriated by simple faith. These pestilential<br />
heresies, which are freighted with Hell's heaviest artillery, are directed against the very vital truth of the Gospel,<br />
I. e., the glorious redemption wrought by the Son of God with <strong>His</strong> own dying agonies and flowing blood,<br />
crimsoning the cruel cross of Calvary, and the great and mighty works of the Holy Ghost in conviction,<br />
regeneration, sanctification and glorification. These heresies are not only boldly proclaimed from pulpits, but are<br />
advocated in great volumes of learned books, actually undermining the stupendous work of the Son and Spirit<br />
and bringing back the paganistic idea of God in nature, in contradistinction to the stupendous revealed truths of<br />
God in grace, the climactic glory of Biblical revelation in all of its transcendent beauties and resplendent<br />
victories, flashing over the inspired pages from the Alpha of Genesis to the Omega of Revelation. This great<br />
double heresy against the Son and Spirit, so ably and extensively propagated by Unitarians in the East and<br />
Campbellites in the West, has infected the American atmosphere with a fatal soul-poison which we find<br />
clandestinely creeping in on all sides, like the vampire at midnight gently fanning his victim with his wings, thus<br />
lulling him into still profounder slumber while he sucks the life blood away. These myriads of lay preachers<br />
must have straight, clear, orthodox teaching in order to qualify them to understand the Word in its simplicity,<br />
beauty, force and victory, at the same time heroically fortifying them against Satan's heresies, which are<br />
sweeping over every land like the withering sirocco over Lybia's burning marl, blighting and blasting every<br />
green herb and blooming flower. These Commentaries are a God-send to the millions who have no facilities of<br />
classical education, and whom nevertheless God is calling and ready to honor their ministry with blood-bought<br />
souls, already caught in Satan's Hell-traps and on the brink of irretrievable woe, lingering and waiting for “the<br />
beautiful feet” swiftly running with the evangelistic message of life eternal and salvation non-forfeitable.