4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father:

Paul, by the word of inspiration, here declares the present world to be evil. Most men proceed upon the hypothesis that it is not evil, but –the best of all possible worlds" to use a phrase greatly current among the –wise" of these modern times.

We are all liable to share this impression more or less, because we are all such poor judges of what a good world is, and are all so naturally in sympathy with what is in vogue with flesh and blood-like Peter, –savoring not the things that be of God but those that be of men. But even with all our natural bias in its favour, we are bound to discover that the present world is an evil world that cannot be cured by man - Let our experience be long enough, and we shall infallibly come to the days when we shall say, –I have no pleasure in them."

That is, we shall find out that the flower of life that looks and smells so beautifully in youth is a withering flower, and even in its unwithered state is not the beautiful thing it seems. There is an amount of weakness and pain and ineffectiveness of all kinds and failures and disappointments that are incompatible with a good state. We find that in ourselves we are not so good as we wish to be, nor have we the wisdom and understanding and clearsightedness and memory which are essential to a state of true wellbeing.

Our day is clouded; our plant is blighted; our light is dim; our strength is small; our faculties most limited, while all around us we see the ocean of immeasurable power and wisdom. Neither in ourselves nor our neighbors can we find the satisfaction for which we yearn. Our life is well called the days of our vain life. Only give us long enough, the brightest and strongest at last endorse the verdict of the wisest of men –all vanity and vexation of spirit."

If such is our experience of individual life - if we find our state an evil state individually, what shall we say of the human race collectively? What shall we say of the world as organized socially and politically? Here it is essentially, radically, manifestly and oppressively an evil world and nothing else. The great mass of mankind are lacking the most elementary conditions of wellbeing. Even the supply of the common necessities of life is pared down to the most demoralizing minimum.

What marvel that they lack those higher conditions of mental culture and goodness which are only attainable with needful leisure and guidance. The population is not happy. It is not good. It is not intelligent. It is degraded and unkind to an extent little dreamed of by merely natural philanthropists. It is an ungodly, wicked, brutal, evil world, which can be seen only in its true character when compared with the angels to whom the human world originally belongs, and to whom Christ says the world to come will be assimilated.

The work of Christ is to – deliver us from this present evil world. It is well to accept the fact, once for all, that the world in which we dwell is an evil world, and that we cannot alter it, either individually or collectively. It will save us much futile work and disappointment. It will interpret our own experiences correctly to us, and put us into the right relation to the drift of things. It will keep us from the attitude of bootlessly looking for good that can never come now. It will lead us to accept cordially and heartily the position to which the gospel invites us as –strangers and pilgrims, passing the time of our sojourning here in fear" - fear of being implicated in the universal corruption - fear of coming short of the divine favour.

It will lead us to set that light store on the things which are seen and temporal, which Paul recommends, and which Christ commands. –Take no thought (i.e. anxious care), saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (for after all these things do the Gentiles seek), for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

Bro Roberts - This Present Evil World

8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

The satan in the wilderness trial of the Lord Yahoshua after the type of Job's satan preached another gospel.

He [Messiah] believed not this angel of light and power, and would have none of his favours. He preferred the grace of God with suffering, to the gratification of His flesh with all the pomp and pageantry of this vain and transitory world.

Elpis Israel 1.3.

If I saw an angel descending from heaven, and on conversing with him he told me that it mattered not what I believed, so that I was sincere in my errors, and were immersed into the name of Jesus; and to prove that this was a message direct from Jesus Christ, should convert stones into bread, raise the dead, or hurl Staten Island into the Atlantic, I would not receive it.

Wonders have been performed to establish lies of old time; and they are permitted now to put our faith in God's word to the proof.

Misapplication of Scripture is as fatal as ignorance of it, or unbelief. The Pope's throne was established and is sustained by misapplied Scripture; and from the same source arose the Mormon imposture of the West.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come

10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

At one time,‭ ‬the position of the‭ ‬Christadelphian,‭ ‬and all things connected with it,‭ ‬seemed precarious.‭ ‬This has now passed away:‭ ‬and the prospect is one of increased enlargement and vigour beyond anything previously attained in the various departments of labour to which it stands related.‭ ‬That this should be the case is cause for pure gratitude to God,‭ ‬who has all things in His hands,‭ ‬and who can work them this way or that,‭ ‬as His wisdom sees fit.‭

We have not catered for popularity in the conduct of the‭ ‬Christadelphian—not that we should object to popularity if it could be had on honourable terms,‭ ‬but it cannot be had on honourable terms,‭ ‬if we take harmony with the revealed will of God as the standard of honour.

‭ ‬This standard of honour requires that a man be first of all faithful to what is written in the Scriptures of truth,‭ ‬both in his attitude to God and his attitude to man.‭ ‬This faithfulness will necessarily make him unacceptable to the million,‭ ‬against whom and their ways the Bible has much to say.‭

To prosper,‭ ‬a man must be in favour with the million.‭ ‬It is easy to be so,‭ ‬with moderate ability,‭ ‬if a man has a loose hold on divine obligations.‭ ‬A paper,‭ ‬to get currency with the million,‭ ‬must do and say what will be pleasing to them,‭ ‬and to please them he must needs turn his back upon what is pleasing to God.‭ ‬To serve both is impossible.‭ ‬This was long ago declared by Christ,‭ ‬and by Paul also,‭ ‬who says,

‭ "‬If I yet please men,‭ ‬I should not be the servant of Christ‭"

Papers of all sorts run with the popular current.‭ ‬The‭ ‬Christadelphian never has done so—never will.‭ ‬Popular current is the world-current.‭ ‬It will suspend at once if it cannot live without pandering to this.‭ ‬It will not connive at this popular fallacy,‭ ‬or hide that divine fact for the sake of mitigating the inconvenience arising out of a full submission to apostolic teaching,‭ ‬in faith and practice.‭ ‬It leaves this line of policy to those hundred and-one periodicals on both sides of the Atlantic that are contented to measure their success by the size of their subscription list.

We have‭ "‬gone in‭" ‬for‭ ‬the truth in its purity and in its entirety.‭ ‬From this we shall not swerve for weak-kneed friend or formidable foe.‭ ‬We have no present aims to fight for and can afford to die in the battle.‭ ‬The multitude is all on the wrong side.‭ ‬It has always been so.‭ ‬It will be on the right side after a few years of the‭ "‬vigorous government‭" ‬of the Kingdom,‭ ‬but not till then.

‭ "‬Havoc‭" ‬must needs come of faithfulness to the truth at present.‭ ‬Not peace but a sword accompanies its belligerence in a world of darkness like this.‭ ‬If the work established by Christ in the first century came to nothing through easy-going,‭ ‬world-pleasing corrupters we ought not to look for a different result to the revived truth of the nineteenth.

‭ ‬If we do,‭ ‬we only expose ourselves to needless surprise and pain.‭ ‬Hold on to the Word with the tenacity of drowning men.‭ ‬This the‭ ‬Christadelphian means to do.‭ ‬For the support of all who are resolved to do the same,‭ ‬it will be thankful.‭ ‬The company of any other kind would only be an embarrassment.

The Christadelphian, Oct 1887

11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

The pulpit orators of this age are either greatly deceived, or, if their eyes be open, most egregiously impose upon the credulity of the public, in pretending to be Christ's ambassadors to the world.

Why, they are the world's allies ; the friends and supporters of the institutions of Satan's kingdom; whose subjects pay them their wages on condition of preaching such doctrine as suits them!

Talk of being ministers and ambassadors of Jesus Christ, how perverted must their own minds be to imagine it; and how spoiled by "philosophy and vain deceit" the people, who can acquiesce in so unfounded a pretension.

"Have they seen Jesus?" Or what special message have they to the world from God, that men cannot read for themselves in the scriptures of truth? If they have any new light from Him, He will attest it as He has always done by a display of power. Men will then be justified in receiving them as plenipotentiaries of the Divine Majesty, provided always that what they speak be in strict accordance with what Paul preached; otherwise not. (Gal 1:8)

"God hath given to us", say the apostles, "the ministry of reconciliation." Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech by us; we pray in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God." These are the men whom He appointed, who sought not to please the public, but to enlighten them; " for", saith one of them, "if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ ".

Elpis Israel 1.5.

If the hope of the gospel be a matter resting not at all on man, but on God, we have to ask both the critical Satan and our diabolical selves, "How can it be too good to be true? How can it fail of accomplishment?" To this there is no answer but one. Even the adversary is compelled to say, "If the thing is of God, doubtless it will be as good as He says."

The adversary, while he says this, has a reservation in his heart. He says, "Is the thing of God?" He is sufficiently answered to say to him, "Search and see." We are of those, this morning, who have searched and seen, and who have come to the only conclusion admissible in the premises: that Paul spoke the truth when he uttered the words we have read from this chapter [Gal 1].

Consequently, brethren and sisters, it is our privilege this morning to draw the fullest comfort that such a conclusion is capable of yielding. To do this, it is necessary to turn upon ourselves, and criticise ourselves, for we are in ourselves the most dangerous foes we have.

Our gloom and fears that paralyse the heart and arm, are far more formidable to the new man begotten within us, than the opposition of ten thousand braggart foes. We have to look these glooms and fears in the face and diagnose them. Whence are they? Are they not the sensations of mortal brain and nerve? Why should they be regarded in estimating facts substantiated to the reason? Is it not the fact that we are impressionable creatures of circumstances?

When the morning breaks and we see the sun emerge on the eastern horizon, we feel that he rises: we know as a matter of mathematical demonstration that he moves not from his place. As we walk the solid earth, we feel that it is fixed while we know that it moves.

We feel that the sky is up and the earth down, while, as a matter of fact, the overhead heavens of noonday are beneath our feet at night, there being neither up nor down except in our sensations - very real to us, no doubt, but not attributes of the universe. Many other matters might be mentioned in which facts and impressions are at variance, and have to be brought into harmony by reason. At night, it seems as if the day would never return, but it comes for all that.

In no matter is impression and fact more inconsistent than in this matter of the day of Christ. The night prevails with such intensity of darkness and cold that it seems as if the day were a dream: but the coming day is a fact for all that. It does not depend upon our feelings. Life as it now is - in its feebleness, its pettiness, its mal-arrangement every way, seems permanent; but a very small exercise of reason suffices to show it is but an appearance. We step backward but a short distance, and where were we and the people we know, and the town we inhabit? Absolutely non-existent.

We step forward a similar distance, and what do we see with mathematical certainty but this, that all these things that exist before our eyes, and exercise our minds in various ways, must cease to exist? We can see this without the aid of the truth at all. Yet the impression of the moment is that these things are very real and abiding. When we can see this much in matters common to all men, does it not become easier to estimate the verities of things pertaining to Christ?

He does not seem to exist; but we know he exists. His coming does not seem as if it would happen; but we know it will happen, as a thing not depending upon appearances. His kingdom does not seem as if it would ever be more than a talk upon earth; but we know the fact is contrary to the appearance. We know it by the application of our reason; and reason, fed by the materials furnished in the Scriptures, can be quite positive in the presence of the most unpromising appearances.

Seasons 1.102.