W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest
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interpolations which uninspired men have added to the Bible, and which really constitute no part of it whatever.<br />
You who do not read the Greek independently ought to have my translation, so as to see just what is Scripture<br />
and what is not. The dear people have importuned me with all their might to translate the Old Testament, but it<br />
is too late for me to undertake it, neither do I feel any leading in that direction. It is beautiful and true, but we<br />
are not living under the Old Testament dispensation, but the New, therefore the thing for us to do is to learn from<br />
the New Testament all the great vital truths constituting the redemption scheme. This we can do by the help of<br />
God, so that none of us need walk in darkness, nor the dim light of the moon and stars, but amid the glorious<br />
noonday, with which the Sun of Righteousness floods all duly appreciative Bible students who have given up all<br />
of their own wisdom, creeds and sectism, and content themselves to sit meek and lowly at the feet of Jesus,<br />
saying, like little Samuel, “Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth.” Meanwhile the Holy Ghost is freely given to teach<br />
us the deep things of God and the wonderful truths of the Kingdom.<br />
Infidelity in the form of higher criticism is Satan's latest investiture of his old infidelity of ages long ago, forged<br />
in the crucibles of Hell. So many of the higher clergy are getting tilted by this new fangled legerdemain that it is<br />
now incumbent on the rank and file of the holiness people to take the Bible into their own hands, repudiating the<br />
human ipse dixit forever and demanding a positive “Thus saith the Lord” for everything they accept.<br />
You will find this booklet, which tells you what the Bible is and what it does, exceedingly helpful in your<br />
apprehension and comprehension of this invaluable Way-bill from earth to Heaven. The Holy Ghost is the<br />
Guide, but He guides all true pilgrims through the Guidebook which He has given us.<br />
Therefore, we must not fold our arms and content ourselves with easy-chair piety while Satan rocks that armchair<br />
and sings lullabies over us till he can dump us into Hell. If we do not prove ourselves assiduous students in<br />
the school of Christ, always teachable by the blessed Holy Spirit lighting up <strong>His</strong> precious Word and using <strong>His</strong><br />
faithful people to instruct the juveniles and humble catechumens of this blessed Guide-book, we need not be<br />
surprised to find our necks lassoed by Satan's crafty sophistries. In our study of the Bible, we must ask God to<br />
deliver us from our sectisms, creedisms, dogmatisms, and prejudices of every kind; not only giving us a clean<br />
heart under the cleansing blood, in which He will condescend to dwell, but a purified intellect from which all<br />
the debris of superstition and idolatry in all its forms and phases has been expurgated, so that it may be blank<br />
and clean and ready for the inscriptions with which the blessed Author of the precious Word in mercy may write<br />
the cordival, vocalized truths, constantly to serve as beacon lights along the heavenly highway.<br />
(21.) ”GOD'S ECCLESIA” This is the word translated “Church” throughout the Bible. It is a Greek compound<br />
from ek, out, and kaleoo, to call; therefore it means “the called out people,” in all the earth. When Jesus was<br />
speaking of <strong>His</strong> sheep, in John to, He said, “I have other sheep which are not of this fold. It behooveth me to<br />
bring them hither, that there may be one fold and one shepherd.” Of course those sheep were among the<br />
Gentiles. When God put the spirit of prophecy on Ananias, the wicked high priest who was thirsting for the<br />
blood of <strong>His</strong> Son, and he said that “it behooved that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation<br />
should not perish,” he spoke this not of himself but, being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was<br />
about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but that He might gather into one the children of God<br />
who had been dispersed abroad. These children of God are scattered through every nation under Heaven, having<br />
been born from above, regenerated by the Holy Ghost, and consequently become members of God's family,<br />
which is but another name for the Church. You see, then, that God's Ecclesia are scattered over every land<br />
between the cardinal points and it is the work of the Gospel ministers to gather them all into the New Testament<br />
organization in order to their edification by the graces of Christian fellowship and the mutual instruction and<br />
encouragement of each other.<br />
Denominationalism has seriously confused the popular mind in reference to the character and constituency of<br />
God's Church. It has nothing to do with sectarianism in any form whatever, but includes all truly regenerated<br />
people in Heaven and in earth in its membership, and all of the sanctified people in the world constitute the<br />
official board and the ordained ministry. The fires of the Holy Ghost when Jesus baptizes us utterly consume all<br />
human dross which divide God's people, e.g., lodgery, Creeds, dogmatisms and all of the appurtenances of sects<br />
and denominations. Nothing but the wonderful efficacy of the cleansing blood in entire sanctification, and the<br />
refining fires of the Holy Ghost constantly by the blessed indwelling Comforter can effectually fortify God's<br />
Ecclesia against the contaminations of heterogeneous human dogmatisms.