DISCIPLE

     The bleating of sheep on the slopes of Carmel brought a frown to Samuel's brow. The movement of oxen and donkeys in the sultry valley made his stomach turn.  But when his eyes fell upon two men in the distance, walking and talking together like friends, that was the last straw!  As he approached them, he remembered his earlier instructions to Saul:     The Lord sent me to anoint you as king over His people, over Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord.      ......Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and women, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey (I Sam.15:1, 3)     The words had been unmistakably clear and direct.  King Saul was to carry out God's plans.  It was an open-and-shut case of divine extermination without options and without opinions.  The Sovereign of heaven had spoken...and there was to b...

Scripture says that the state of humanity in all its phases is the result of an experimental career upon which the parents of the race embarked without the sanction of God and in violation of His express command. It tells us further that the conception of this experiment did not originate with man, but was prompted by a spiritual being of great wisdom and power, who aimed to be man's leader in spiritual matters and to direct his career. We were not told what were the full results which Satan hoped to accomplish by alienating the human race from God and attaching it to himself, but we do know that he seeks to be worshipped (Luke iv. 6, 7; Rev. xiii. 4). It is, moreover, evident that his plan did not disclose as its object the destruction or injury of the race, but that, on the contrary, he represented himself as solicitous for the well-being of humanity, and for the achievement by it of the best possible results that are attainable apart from God.     Because of ignoran...

by William J. Randolph commenting on Ezekiel 5:5, he writes:      "While placed in this privileged position, Israel became enamored with the ways and the women of the pagan nations to whom she was to be a witness.  Soon Israel's position of privilege became a position of punishment.      "Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations" (Ezekiel 5:8).  "Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by" (vs. 14).      In my very early years, I found myself in a similar situation.  I had a part in a special children's program.  The part assigned to me required a delayed entrance onto the stage.  When I was given my cue and a helping push, I suddenly found myself looking at a sea of adult faces all looking at me....