1889 Watch Tower - A2Z.org

WE SHOULD SAVE OURSELVES."Save yourselves from this untoward generation." --Acts 2:40.While Orthodoxy and Rome make strong and plain pleadingswith mankind to save themselves from "Hell" and never-endingtorture, the thinking Christian must have been struck with thefact that our Savior never made such plain entreaty. Jesus taughta punishment and trouble now, and in the future, for the wicked,but it was always by parable. The world misunderstood histeachings and continues to, but it was the blessed privilege of hisdisciples to understand. (Luke 8:10.) Those wholly consecratednow, and gladly following the "Lamb whithersoever he goeth,"know that their Master will continue to give them "meat in dueseason," both in "things new and old," as they are "able to bearit."--John 14:26; Matt. 24:45; 13:52.While the apostles followed the Lord's injunction and preachedthe glad tidings of a coming kingdom in which would "dwellrighteousness," they made no plain statement regarding anendless condition of conscious misery. Yet Paul assures us thathe did not shrink from making known the whole counsel (will)of God. (Acts 20:27.) Peter, in the text quoted at the beginningof this article, exhorts, "Be saved from this perverse generation."(Rotherham's translation.) Not one word about being saved froma future, never ending misery, though the time was wondrouslypropitious for such a message, if such a doom awaits thoserefusing to be guided by the call. The Pentecostal blessing hadjust been received, and the Holy Spirit was present with gifts ofpower to aid in promulgating a gospel of fear, if there were needof preaching such a gospel. Peter, under the guidance of theHoly Spirit, simply pleads, "Save yourselves from this untowardgeneration." Will it not be wise for us to go to the Bible and askour Master to free us from all prejudice and tradition, and giveus the "pure milk of the word" in this matter? Many earnestlovers of the Lord, whose greatest desire is to "spend and bespent" in his service, so agonize in the thoughts of the futuretorture of those not now reached by the "Glad Tidings," thatthey cannot "be anxious about nothing," but in nervous dreadspend days and months in distressing labor to "save souls," andfind no rest. Others grow indifferent at the continued andgrowing apathy with which their message is received, andbecome lukewarm. A true understanding of the proclamationentrusted to them would enable all true Christians to more fullyand joyously fulfill their service.Let us try to find in the Scriptures what there was "untoward" or"perverse" about the generation of Peter's day, and see if thesame conditions yet prevail. In Eph. 2:2, Paul says, "Wherein intimes past ye walked according to the course of this world,according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit thatnow worketh in the children of disobedience." Do we not findhere the cause for the "perverse generation" of Peter's time, and