Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1912 — BROOKLYN TABERNACLE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BROOKLYN TABERNACLE

THE GOSPEL ONLY FOR SINNERS. Mark ii, 13-22—March 24. "I came not to call the rxgkieoue, but ataaert.”—Verse n. CHE term “Publican’* in Jesus day was applwd to Jews who, served the Roman Government as tax collectors in Palestine. The name was a reproach because the Jews held to the Abrahamic promise that the whole world should be blessed by them as God’s peculiar people. They held that this meant that they should not only be free from all other governments, but that they should be the masters of the world. The term “sinner” was applied to all Jews who were careless in respect to

the orthodoxy of their day, for the orthodox Jew that time as well as today took pride in his religion and boasted of his holiness. As. for instance, the word “Pharisee” signifies “holy person” one scrupulously carefur in observing the smallest details of the Law.

There was a wide breach between these zealous followers of Hoses’ Law and the mass of-the nation who were Altogether classed as “sinners,” or persons not up to the orthodox standard of carefulness of form, ceremonies, ete. Our Lord's disciples were nearly all gathered from this lower or less orthodox and less educated class of Jews. Because of our Lord's talents the Pharisees would have been glad to have Him as one of their number, provided that He vfould side with them and uphold them in their n)ore or less hypocritical pretentions of perfection and holiness. Bu( Jesus denounced the claims of the Pharisees as hypocritical, and told the common people plainly that there were “nope righteous, no, not one”—that all needed Divine mercy, and that the humble and contrite would be much more acceptable to God than the proud, the self-conceited. “Thy Disciples Fast Not.”

About that time a fasting season was observed by the Pharisees, and also by those who had accepted the teachings of John the Baptist; but Jesus had said nothing to His disciples about fasting. Now the question arise. Why was this? The Savior’s explanation was that while He was with them it should properly be considered a tiine of rejoicing and feasting rather than a time of fasting and sorrow. * They, would have plenty of opportunity to weep and fast after He had gone and while waiting for His return. Fasting should not be considered a matter of obligation or command, but rather a voluntary sacrifice of present

and tempora l good things that the mind and heart might go out the more earnestly after the things not seen as yet but hoped for. Thus for eighteen centuries God's people have been fasting and praying and waiting and longing for the Bridegroom’s return. But in

the time of His presence, their fellowship with Him, their joy in the realization of the completed promise, will wipe away their tears and “give them beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for * ♦ • the spirit of heaviness,”

The Church a New Creation. It was difficult for the Savior’s hearers to get a proper focus upon His teachings. They could understand John the Baptist's preaching of repentance and reformation; but when Jesns declared, “The Law and the Prophets were until John, and since then the Kingdom of Heaven is preached,” this was so radical a proposition as to be difficult for the masses to grasp. What could be higher than the Law and the Prophets? Sympathetically we must concede that it was difficult for the Jews to understand that before the blessing could come to natural Israel, another, spiritual Israel, must be selected. By way of emphasizing this thought, our Lord gave two parabolical illustrations, saying, No man sews a piece of unshrunken cloth upon an old garment, because the shrinking of the new cloth i would pull away the old and increase the difficulty. Likewise, no one would think of putting new wine which had not yet finished its fermentation into old wineskins, whose elasticity had been exhausted, for the old wineskins would be burst by the fermentation of the new wine. So the Gospel teaching Is not a patch upon the Jewish Law. but is a new proposition. And the new wine of the Gospel Dispensation must be put into new wineskins that will be able M stand the stress of the fertnentatioh sure to come. Thus our Lord did not attempt to engraft His teachings upon the Jews, but called out of Judaism a special class, which the Scriptures denote as “New Crehtures in Christ.” .It is to these that the new wine of the Gospel Message is committed, and these are to experience the fermentation incidental to the preparation for the Kingdom—dtodpUaes and testtogg.

Ca ll of Matthew, the Publican.

The Pharisee and the Publican.