Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

from the devil, and thus creating division. The hackneyed clamor, “no division,” just simply means
for the devil to have them all. When we can do like Paul at Berea and Philippi, — get all to receive
our Christ in conversion and sanctification, — then of course there is no division; but if we can not
save all, let us do our best and save some, not letting the devil have all to avoid division, but rescuing
every one we can. A wealthy Methodist congregation in a Southern city, early in the holiness
movement, having erected a very costly church edifice, secured your humble servant to hold the first
protracted meeting in it, having arranged with Sam Jones to immediately precede me with a number
of lectures for the financial relief of the building. Brother Jones finished his work one evening and
I began the next. Before the departure of Brother Jones, the official magnates wait on him,
interviewing him with reference to the coming evangelist. “Brother Jones, tell us what you know
about that man Godbey? Is he not one of those holiness fellows? We are awfully afraid he will split
the church.” Brother Jones responds, “Brethren, if you have any idea he can split it, by all means
have him come, stand by him and help him. Surely, the only hope for this old dead church is to split
a piece off of it and take it to heaven; otherwise the devil will get it all. My great fear is that it is too
far gone already, the devil’s gum-log, and Godbey can’t split it.” “The devil is the god of this world”
(2 Corinthians 4:4), with all of its fallen churches. Precisely as the apostles went about splitting the
fallen Jewish churches; Luther, the Catholic churches; and Wesley, the Episcopal churches, so have
the true preachers of the gospel in all ages been enabled, by the grace of God, to divide savable souls
from the dead, worldly churches, get them saved and take them to heaven. It is only Satan’s deadbeats
that produce no divisions. The only hope of the world consists in plucking people out of the
devil’s black grip, whether in the wicked rabble or the fallen churches, thus producing divisions,
separating them from the devil to God, and taking them to heaven. Though Paul got the whole
Jewish church at Berea, leaving none for the devil to stir up a row, yet he sent them from
Thessalonica to run them away from Berea.
14. Timothy had remained back at Thessalonica; now arriving at Berea, he joins Silas, left by Paul
in the prosecution of the work in Berea.
15. Now the brethren escort Paul in his journey southward all the way to Athens, the great
metropolis of Greece, enjoying Roman freedom and the brightest light of civilization and education,
poetry, oratory, philosophy and the fine arts beneath the skies. How significant that when Paul had
to run for his life, the brethren sedulously hiding and escorting him away to save his head from the
persecutor’s ax, he could leave Timothy and Silas to finish up the work he had begun, though they
preached precisely what he did. This was simply because, while those young preachers testified and
preached the very same doctrines and experience of Paul, they were incompetent to hit hard licks and
stir the devil like Paul. Hence they would run him off and let them stay. I used to carry with me two
or three boy preachers, helpers in the evangelistic work. When the mobs got after me, they never
bothered them.
PAUL AT ATHENS.
16-33. While Timothy and Silas prosecute the work in the upper country, Paul and Luke spend
the time at Athens, the world’s grand emporium of science, literature, philosophy, and idolatry.
While he preaches in the forum all the week and in the synagogue on the Sabbath, his very soul is
stirred within him, in contemplation of the city crammed full of idolatry. The scene of those majestic