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

in all the earth has a grand, glorious and important office to fill in the gracious economy, all equally
honorable and remunerative in the sight of God. You can not fill my place, and it is equally true that
I can not fill yours. There is no room for us to envy another, as we all have enough to do in our
appointed sphere, while the angels look down with sympathy and admiration, and God is ready to
say, “Well done,” and place upon our brow a never fading crown if we will only be true. We see here
that our availability as a soldier of Christ is in direct proportion to our faith. As doubt vitiates faith,
we should constantly hold up the glittering two-edged sword, ready to slay every one that comes
skulking around in order that our faith may be made perfect, i.e., free from doubt. Then we should
constantly pray, Lord, increase our faith. When your garden is perfectly clean, it is in good fix to
grow with paradoxical rapidity.
7. “Whether the deaconate, in the deaconate.” In the constitution of the visible church, the deacon
has charge of all the temporal interests, including ministerial support, care of the sanctuary and
everything else, while at the same time he preaches and witnesses for God. Those who “stay by the
stuff” receive just as much as those who go to the war. “Whether he that teacheth, in teaching.” The
church is the school of Christ, where all the members are taught the Word of the Lord. God always
raises up competent teachers for His people, that they may not be ignorant, but proficient in His
blessed Word. At this point you can always see the line between the true and the fallen church, as
you can not teach dead people. The popular churches of the present day have lost every trace of the
didactic peculiarity of God’s church, so eminent and conspicuous in the apostolic age. An old exmissionary
from Bishop Taylor’s work in India told me that the heathen Hindus are better posted in
the Scripture than the Christians in America, because they attend the Bible schools, which are
constantly conducted seven days in the week in heathen lands. What an awful delinquency in the
home church now rapidly heathenizing our own people!
8. “Or he that exhorteth, in exhortation.” “The church was multiplied exceedingly by the
exhortation of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 9:31). Hence we see that the red-hot exhortation rung out by
the rank and file of the membership, baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire, is the very thing in the
divine order, to convict, convert and sanctify the people, thus multiplying the membership of the
church, while teaching them the Word of God is the means of their progressive edification. “He that
giveth, with a single eye,” i.e., having nothing in view but the glory of God in making his
contribution. All this surreptitious carnal policy through stratagem, fandangos and human trickery,
appealing to pride, vanity and lust, so prevalent in the churches, in order to raise money to keep up
their finances, is an abomination in the sight of God, grieving away the Holy Spirit and plunging the
church into apostasy and damnation. It actually scandalizes God in the estimation of the wicked
world, as if He were poor and hard pressed for money, depending on the liberality of the devil’s
people to support His church, which is all an infamous lie. He says, “If I were hungry I would not
tell you, for the cattle upon a thousand hills are mine.” “He that standeth before the people, with
expedition.” A slow leader quickly slows down and ruins anything that he leads. In this way prayer
meetings and Sunday-schools and all sorts of religious services are constantly and everywhere
undergoing torture and homicide. By all means have a live, wide awake, expeditious leader in
everything. Put in a laggard, and he holds all the balance back till he slows the thing to death. “He
that showeth mercy, with laughter.” “For God loves a laughing giver” (1 Corinthians 9:7). If you can
not give to God with a heart so cheerful that you laugh over the privilege of making your