To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient?
Parallel Translations
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To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient?
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To whom sware he that they shuld not enter into his rest: but vnto them that beleved not?
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And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but vnto them that obeyed not?
Cross-references (11)
Passages linked to Hebrews 3:18 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Hebrews 4:6 Seeing therefore it remains that some should enter into it, and they to whom the good news was preached before failed to enter in because of disobedience,
- Numbers 14:30 surely you shall not come into the land concerning which I swore that I would make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
- Deuteronomy 1:34-35 Yahweh heard the voice of your words and was angry, and swore, saying, “Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land which I swore to give to your fathers,
- Psalms 106:24-26 Yes, they despised the pleasant land. They didn’t believe his word, but murmured in their tents, and didn’t listen to Yahweh’s voice. Therefore he swore to them that he would overthrow them in the wilderness,
- Numbers 20:12 Yahweh said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you didn’t believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”
- Deuteronomy 1:26-32 Yet you wouldn’t go up, but rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God. You murmured in your tents, and said, “Because Yahweh hated us, he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our heart melt, saying, ‘The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to the sky. Moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there!’ ” Then I said to you, “Don’t be terrified. Don’t be afraid of them. Yahweh your God, who goes before you, he will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you have seen how that Yahweh your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went, until you came to this place.” Yet in this thing you didn’t believe Yahweh your God,
- Numbers 14:11 Yahweh said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? and how long will they not believe in me, for all the signs which I have worked among them?
- Deuteronomy 9:23 When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” you rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God, and you didn’t believe him or listen to his voice.
- Hebrews 3:11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They will not enter into my rest.’ ”
- Hebrews 4:2 For indeed we have had good news preached to us, even as they also did, but the word they heard didn’t profit them, because it wasn’t mixed with faith by those who heard.
- Numbers 14:23 surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 18 And to whom sware he that they should…
18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?
Ver. 18. To them that believe not] Or, that will not be persuaded, uncounsellable persons, that acquiesce not in wholesome advice.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain To prevent these Hebrews falling, the Spirit repeats the…
To prevent these Hebrews falling, the Spirit repeats the direful oath of God to apostates in the wilderness; the form of which was opened, Heb 3:11; compare Num 14:30. The matter sworn was, that they should be so far from possessing, that they should not so much as enter into the land of promise, Canaan, which was God’s property, as the whole earth is; he promised it to them, could only dispossess their enemies, did give it in possession to their seed, and made it a type of heaven, and of his rest there; he swore this in his severe vindictive justice, so as his sentence was irreversible; which oath stands good against all total and final apostates from him, who have thereby forfeited any title to God’s eternal rest.
Them that believed not; those who were unbelieving under all God’s miracles of mercies and judgments, which they saw, and so became obstinately disobedient to God’s commands, and broke his covenant, Heb 8:9; Jer 31:32, and apostatized from him, and so perished in their gainsaying.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain So we see that they could not enter in,....…
So we see that they could not enter in,.... To God's rest, the land of Canaan, for they died by the plague before the Lord, and their carcasses fell in the wilderness, before they came to it, Num 14:37 and the reason was,
because of unbelief; their distrust of God, his power, and his providence; this instance is produced by the apostle, to show the evil nature of unbelief, and the sad effects of it; to deter persons from it, and that they might take heed of encouraging it; and which instance he further improves in the following chapter.
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Next: Hebrews Chapter 4
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 18. To whom sware he] God never acts…
Verse 18. To whom sware he] God never acts by any kind of caprice; whenever he pours out his judgments, there are the most positive reasons to vindicate his conduct.
Those whose carcasses fell in the wilderness were they who had sinned. And those who did not enter into his rest were those who believed not. God is represented here as swearing that they should not enter in, in order to show the determinate nature of his purpose, the reason on which it was founded, and the height of the aggravation which occasioned it.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And to whom sware he - note, Heb 3:11.
And to whom sware he - note, Heb 3:11.
But to them that believed not - That did not confide in God; Deu 1:32. “Yet in this thing ye did not believe the Lord your God.” In consequence of this want of faith, God solemnly sware unto them that they should not enter into the promised land; Deu 1:34-35. “And the Lord heard the voice of your words, and was wroth, and sware, saying, “Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land which I sware to give unto your fathers, save Caleb,” etc. The distinct reason, therefore, assigned by Moses why they did not enter the promised land, was a want of faith, and this accords directly with the design of the apostle here. He is exhorting those whom he addressed to beware of an evil heart of unbelief; Heb 3:12. He says that it was such a heart that excluded the Hebrews from the promised land. The same thing, says he, must exclude you from heaven - the promised home of the believer; and if that firm confidence in God and his promises which he requires is wanting, you will be excluded from the world of eternal rest.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain to them that believed not--rather as Greek, "to them…
to them that believed not--rather as Greek, "to them that disobeyed." Practical unbelief (Deu 1:26).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 18. to them that believed not] Rather, “that disobeyed.”
18. to them that believed not] Rather, “that disobeyed.”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (18) That believed not.—Rather, that disobeyed. Every part of…
(18) That believed not.—Rather, that disobeyed. Every part of the solemn sentences of the Psalm is applied to the reader’s conscience, that the effect of the whole warning may be deepened: the nature of the transgression is thus brought out with the strongest emphasis. Those with whom God was angry had provoked God (Heb_3:16), had sinned (Heb_3:17), had been disobedient, had refused to believe His word (Heb_3:19). The action of the Israelites (Numbers 14) involved at once disobedience to God’s command that they should advance to the conquest of the land, and want of faith in the promise which made victory sure.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 18. To whom sware he? etc. It was to…
18. To whom sware he? etc. It was to them who sinned because of their distrust of God. See Num. 14:20.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain When Israel evacuated the brick kilns and mortar yards…
ARGUMENT 2
THE TWO RESTS: REST AND PERFECT REST.
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When Israel evacuated the brick kilns and mortar yards they rested from the toils of slavery and the rod of the taskmaster. When they crossed the Red Sea they escaped forever out of the dominion of Pharaoh. Egypt emblematizes sin; the taskmasters, evil habits; and Pharaoh, the devil. It is said in Deuteronomy, “God led them out that he might lead them in,” i.e., out of Egypt into Canaan. Though the congregations to which Moses preached in Egypt were all “sinners,” the great burden of his preaching was on sanctification. He said very little about the wilderness which they would enter when they crossed the sea, but much about the land flowing with milk and honey, and abounding in corn and wine. The grand incentive and culminating aspiration for which they left Egypt was the land of Canaan. Jesus, in Mat 11:28-30, promises the sinner two rests: first, rest from his burden of guilt; and second, rest for his soul. In Old Testament symbolism the soul is typified by the body. in the emancipation under Moses, Israel rested from slavery and Pharaoh. Still their weary feet and hungry bodies found no rest in the howling wilderness till they crossed the Jordan, where comfortable houses which they had never built, and abundance of old corn which they had not reared, and delicious fruits pendant from trees which they had never planted, saluted them on all sides, and bade them rest from their long and weary wanderings in perfect peace and enjoy all the luxuries heart can wish. Pursuant to this instructive similitude, justification gives us rest from the awful slavery of evil habits and the power of Satan; but it is not the perfect rest for which the heart sighs, while it wanders through the howling wilderness of inbred sin. Old Adam, though conquered and bound, still lives in the deep subterranean jungles of unsanctified affection. He growls and rages like a sore-headed bear, and if we do not constantly watch and pray he will get loose and play sad havoc, again bringing us into bondage. The soul can not enjoy perfect rest so long as it is beleaguered with internal enemies. Entire sanctification crucifies old Adam, puts all of our enemies on the outside, expurgates evil affections from the deep interior of the spiritual organism, and superinduces the perfect rest which we lost in Eden. It is truly, significantly and pre-eminently the soul’s repose, for which the whole world has been roaming, sighing and crying for the last six thousand years. It is a sweet prelibation of the heavenly rest. It is never enjoyed in simple justification, which is the reversal of the condemnatory sentence, and always brings the peace of pardon, but never the peace of purity. Regeneration gives you a new heart, but does not exterminate the hereditary depravity from which all actual sins emanate. The heart of the whole world aches, longs and yearns for this perfect rest, but blinded by Satan they seek it in myriad ways, only to add disappointment, mortification, withered hopes and perished aspirations to the mountains of sin already crushing them into hopeless despair. Millions of blind guides throughout the whole earth raise the hue and cry, “Come this way!” only to plunge you into blacker darkness, eclipsing the last lingering ray of the forlorn hope which has impelled you on, like the ignis fatuus,
“whose delusive ray Lights up unreal worlds and glows but to betray.”
Meanwhile millions of preachers — Protestant, papal, pagan and Moslem — are vociferously clamoring and indefatigably toiling to acquiesce and tranquilize the discontented multitudes, vainly and mournfully looking to them for the great universal desideratum of fallen humanity, which they are painfully conscious of their utter incompetency ever to impart. Hence the carnal clergy of all ages and nations have done their utmost to satisfy their people without this perfect rest; meanwhile it has been their study and labor night and day to persuade them that there is no such thing. Still the insatiable longing of poor fallen humanity will not down. Like Banquo’s ghost, it haunts all nations, semper et ubique. This universal discontentment and longing after soul repose is superinduced by the conviction of the Holy Ghost, who most assuredly would never provoke this soul cry if He were not able and willing to satisfy it. The secular clergy in all ages, whether pagan, Moslem, papal or Protestant, have pertinaciously fought the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification, because it takes the people out of their hands and turns them over to God, thus interfering with their ecclesiastical organizations and enterprises, notwithstanding their utter incompetency to satisfy this universal clamor for soul rest. Their great hobby is theological complicity unscrupulously concocted, simply to effect indefinite postponement. They will have you like the boy, forever running to the rainbow’s end to find the pot of gold, only with weary limb and broken heart to learn at last the same sad lesson over and over, that pursuit and possession are different words.
18. In this verse it is stated that God hath sworn that they never can enter into this rest save by faith alone.
19. “We see that they were not able to enter in on account of their unbelief.” This refers to Israel at Kadesh-Barnea where they made the fatal mistake of all their history. Instead of entering Canaan for which they had left Egypt and traveled through the wilderness, having reached the very border, “holy delight,” they turned back again into the howling wilderness. It is not because they did not desire and intend to possess the land, for this was the great enterprise of their lives; but they felt utterly incompetent to conquer those giants, and take the land by conquest. Hence, they retreat away, thinking to wait till they get in better fix for the arduous enterprise of conquering the country. All this was because they were seeking it by their own works, and not by faith in God. As Wesley well says, “So long as you put it off you are evidently seeking it by works.” God had promised to conquer the giants and give them the land. Hence, their fatal mistake was in seeking it by their own efforts.
1... “Lest some one of you may be made manifest to have failed.” The Greek in this passage reveals an actual failure made manifest, not as the English would indicate, only a seeming failure. There is a fearful liability of actual failure arising from our unbelief.
2. This verse affirms a literal similitude between the ancient and modern Church. They had the Gospel preached to them, but fatally blundered through unbelief, forfeiting Canaan, and bleaching their bones on the burning sand. A similar fate awaits us if, after conversion, we turn back from sanctification like Israel at Kadesh-Barnea. They postponed because they sought it by works. This has been the fatal wooden horse which has brought the cruel Greeks into Israel’s camp in all ages.
3. “For we who believe do enter into rest.” This positive and unequivocal statement of the Holy Ghost outweighs all the gradualistic theologies of all ages. It solves the problem without possible defalcation that we enter into this rest by faith alone. Hence, it is now, and all postponement is dangerous heresy. “As I swore in my wrath: they shall not enter into my rest even though their works being from the foundation of the world.”
Mark this wonderful statement of the Holy Ghost, which you do not have in the old English. He it certifies that God has sworn that you never shall enter this soul rest by works, but by faith alone. H furthermore certifies that if you had begun your good works on Creation’s morn and labored on incessantly all these six thousand years, even then you could not enter this perfect rest by works This is a most important passage, which does not appear in King James’ Version. It sweeps forever from the field the last conceivable apology for seeking sanctification by works. In justification you enter into rest, but enemies, i.e., evil tempers, passions and appetites survive in your heart, ever and anon rising up and disturbing your rest, so the soul can not abide in perfect peace. These enemies are the works of Satan which none but Jesus can destroy. 1Jn 3:8. You may spend your whole life in assiduous toil to exterminate the evil of your nature, and you will never succeed. Remember the climacteric affirmation of the Holy Ghost in this verse, confirmed by the oath of God that, if your works for the sanctification of your heart had begun with creation, and you had lived upon the earth laboring assiduously ever since, your sanctification would be no nearer than when you began. I do not wonder that the Holy Spirit gave us this sweeping and unanswerable affirmation, because He foresaw that the mammoth heresy of all ages would be sanctification by works. This world has two kinds of religion in it. God’s religion offers you salvation by the grace of God through faith, and no other way. Man’s religion, manipulated by priestcraft, couples on indefinite human works, thus vitiating the grace of God, grieving the Holy Spirit, running into idolatry, robbing Christ of His glory and plunging into hell.
4. This verse illustrates soul rest by the rest of God from the work of creation on the seventh day. Of course, God’s Sabbath means perfect rest. Sabbath is a Hebrew word which means rest. Before you get sanctified wholly you are much encumbered with toil, physical, mental and spiritual, to bring about the great desideratum, for which the soul is sighing and the heart crying, i.e., perfect rest. Never does it come till you abandon all your enterprises, smash all your air castles, and commit the work unreservedly and eternally to God, who, in the twinkling of an eye, expels out of your heart all disturbing elements, and fills you with perfect rest.
5. Here we again have God’s oath confirming forever the utter impossibility for us to receive this perfect rest by our own good works, or the intercessions of a thousand clergymen.
6, 7. The Holy Ghost is this moment calling you into His perfect rest, and in these Scriptures importunately pleading and solemnly warning you, lest you reject His call, harden your heart go zigzagging through the howling wilderness of inbred sin and bleach your bones beneath a tropical sky; like old Israel because they turned back from Kadesh-Barnea, despite the positive promises of Jehovah to conquer their enemies and give them the land, and the terrible warnings of castigatory judgments in case of apostasy.
8. “If Joshua had given them rest he would not have spoken concerning another day after these things.” The glorious temporal rest of Canaan into which Joshua led them was not the ultimatum of their hopes and anticipations, but a glorious reminder an adumbration of the heavenly rest to which they aspired.
9. “Therefore a rest is reserved for the people of God.” In all the preceding passages the Greek word for rest is katapausis. In this verse it is sabbatismos, which means sabbatism, or the sabbath, which the soul enjoys in its unutterable and perfect repose in Jesus. Under the law of Moses the Sabbath breaker was punished with death, which is strikingly significant of the iron rule, characteristic of the divine administration in the sanctified experience. Just as every Sabbath breaker was punished with death, so God requires us to inflict death upon every intruder into the soul’s perfect repose. Nothing but sin can ever disturb this perfect rest. God’s method with sin is destruction. Hence He requires the utter extermination of every evil temper and inclination in order that we enter this glorious spiritual Sabbatism. Having entered we are to put on the whole panoply and stand guard, night and day, with glittering sword lifted high, ready on a moment’s warning, which is always faithfully given by the Holy Ghost, to execute summary destruction to every sin, daring to invade this heavenly Sabbatism. Of course this holy Sabbatic soul rest is the heavenly state in prelibation. All of our enemies have been taken out by the great Omnipotent Deliverer. Our Sabbatism is perfect, heavenly and unutterably sweet. So deep, broad, high, delectable and elysian is this rest that it beggars all description.
Amid political and ecclesiastical paroxysms, revolutions, ostracisms and persecutions, it is absolutely imperturbable. Neither poverty, disappointment, denunciation, excommunication, scandal, physical suffering, death nor judgment can disturb this blessed Sabbath of the soul. It will not only abide in this perfect rest, but shout glory amid the awful thunders of the judgment day, the tremendous earthquakes of the resurrection morn, the appalling realities of burning worlds and the precipitate sweep of eternal ages.
10. This verse certifies that the soul rest of the believer is complete as the rest which God enjoyed on the Sabbath following the creation. Of course, everything appertaining to God is perfect. Hence it follows as a legitimate sequence that the soul, in full and complete abandonment of every burden to Jesus, enters into perfect and imperturbable repose. It is pertinent to remember that this is the rest of faith. Therefore the rest can not be perfect unless the faith is perfect. What is perfect faith? It is simply faith utterly free from doubt. The same perfect faith which is the indispensable precursor of this perfect rest must be forever perpetuated in order to the maintenance of the perfect rest.
11. “Therefore let us labor to enter into that rest, lest any one may fall by the same example of unbelief.” Thus the writer holds up before the eyes of the Palestinian Christians the sad example of their ancestors who, through unbelief, turned back at Kadesh-Barnea, lost their inheritance, and found graves in the burning sands, assuring them, as well as the Christians of all ages, that the only available panacea for unbelief, apostasy and death is this perfect rest, which he constantly holds up as the glorious privilege of the Christian. The metaphor in this verse is transcendently forcible. The conception of the writer is that we have become so habituated to, and even enamored of, this toilsome, laborious religion, in which we sweat, sigh and cry, night and day, enduring penances to expiate our guilt, and expurgate our impurity, sanctify ourselves and get ready for heaven, that it becomes the hardest task that we ever did in all our lives just to let go, fold our arms, tilt back, give Jesus the job, leave it forever in His hands, believe without a doubt that He doeth it, and raise the shout of victory. When the rustic, riding along the road, going to mill with a sack with corn in one end and a big rock in the other, was persuaded by the cottager to drop out the rock, lie went on his way rejoicing over the lightness of his load. But on his return, seeing that old smooth rock, which lie had carried twenty years, lying by the roadside, he was moved with compassion for the companion of his toils. Consequently, dismounting, he put his meal in one end of the sack and the old rock in the other, strained it up on his horse again, mounting, went on his way. How extremely difficult to prevail on people to abandon all their burdens to the Good Samaritan! While multiplied thousands, having cast woes, sorrows, troubles and trials on Him, anon take them out of His hands, again piling them on their own shoulders.
12. “The word of God is living and powerful, even sharper than any two- edged sword.”... How pertinently this declaration follows the importunate appeal of the Holy Ghost for our complete and eternal abandonment of all labor and burden to God! The Omnipotent Savior wields this wonderful two-edged sword which is none other than the inspired Word of the Infallible God. Long and hard has been the battle between your poor soul and Adam the first. Terribly have you suffered in this devastating war.
Fast are you wearing out, while the trend of conflict is decisively against you. What a glorious privilege to turn over your incorrigible enemy to another. Adam the Second in His heroic majesty is smiling on you, anxious to take the fight off your hands. The moment you turn over to Him the old man of inbred sin, He draws His glittering sword and hews him all to pieces, like Samuel hewed Agag before the Lord. Oh reader, beware of this wonderful two-edged sword, which is none other than the blessed Bible! But do not forget it has two edges, both sharp a lightning. If you receive the salvation edge, it will cut out all your sins. If you reject the salvation edge, you are bound to receive the damnation edge which will cut out all your hopes of heaven. We live in perilous times when men will not endure sound doctrine. It is almost a rare thing now to find a popular church whose members will receive the truth as it is in Jesus. As a rule, if a man preaches the Bible as it is, fearless of men and devils, he will either soon see a general stampede of the members or himself closed out. This, of itself, is a striking, universal and most obvious fulfillment of the latter day prophecies. In this verse the Holy Ghost clearly discriminates between the soul, or mind, and spirit. This is one of the innumerable Scriptures confirmatory of Biblical trichotomy. Man is a trinity, similitudinous to God, and not a dichotomy, as the great majority of preachers teach. The result of substituting dichotomy for trichotomy in the popular pulpits, is to feed the people on mentalities, instead of spiritualities and actually derail the church from the orthodox gospel track into intellectualism. and materialism. Total depravity, which is fundamental in revelation, does not appertain to mind and matter, but only to spirit. In the fall Adam did not forfeit physical life nor mental perspicacity, but only spiritual life. Hence the feasibility of propagating religion and building up churches indefinitely on material and intellectual lines, with no spirituality in them and, of course, no salvation, is nothing but wholesale delusion — Satan’s greased planks on which to slide people into hell.
13. It is the province of this wonderful sword, the living Word, when honestly received amid the illuminations of the Holy Ghost, to literally dissect the entire spiritual organism, interpenetrating the remotest fibers and fasciculi of the deepest recesses and darkest jungles throughout the fallen spiritual organism, unearthing all the hidden things of darkness and revealing to the illuminated spiritual eye everything in his heart disconformatory to the divine image and will, and simultaneously unveiling the wondrous fountain of radical and complete expurgation. Reader, if you ever expect to live in heaven, begin now to bare your bosom to the glittering sword of God’s infallible Word. Satan will compass you with myriad temptations to evade it. If you do, mark it down, you will land in hell. You will hear people on all sides actually “handling the Word of God deceitfully,” blindly manipulated by Satan for the damnation of all who hear them. Remember, your creed will not be mentioned when you stand before the great white throne. You will be judged by the Bible alone. Look out, for your soul is certainly in imminent peril. So it is the current policy of the popular churches to close out, and even ecclesiastically decapitate, the man who refuses to soften God’s hard truth, and to smooth God’s rough truth, and thus “handle the Word of the Lord deceitfully,” but, true to the Holy Ghost, lifts up the two-edged sword, scores deep and hews to the line, regardless of consequences. If you are too cowardly to preach the Word as it is, regardless of creeds, councils, ostracism and decapitation, God will excuse you, but another more worthy will take your crown. Earth and hell are now combined to handicap the preachers. These are perilous times, which try men’s souls. Few have the courage to stem the popular tide, brook official carnality, and ignore the castigations of the hierarchy. Under these terrible gatling guns of earth and hell, preachers are going down in solid platoons. Yet God is not going to want for voices to cry aloud and spare not. If the cultured clergy will not be true, God will excuse them and fill their places ten to one with the rustic laity, uncouth, from the slums and jungles, washed in the blood, and baptized with fire, filled with the perfect love, which makes them like Gideon’s braves, competent to put to flight one thousand to one. The world must have the Gospel, and will have it speedily. The Lord is nigh, and the King’s business requireth haste. The Holy Ghost wants none to bear His message who will not cry aloud and spare not, giving to saint an sinner his portion. As Paul and Wesley both said, it is only by declaring to the people all the counsel of God that we can be clear of the blood of all men.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.