Saturday, October 19. Love feast at Brother Abraham Hoover's. John 1 is read. Stay all night at Brother David Hartman's. Clear and cold.
Sunday, October 20. Forenoon meeting. Acts 3 was read. I spoke on verse twenty-second: Subject, "The Great Prophet." Meeting again at one o'clock. I speak on Mark 1:27. Text: "And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new doctrine is this?"
The Jews could well ask the question set forth in the text: "What new doctrine is this?" To them the teachings of Christ were all new. Whilst he came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill, nevertheless his fulfillment of them was so spiritual, so essentially holy, so pure in motive, so beneficent in act, that the Jews were entire strangers to it: or probably better, it was strange and new to them. Even Nicodemus, a ruler among the Jews, failed to perceive what Jesus meant when he told him about the nature and necessity of the new birth. Our Lord manifests something of surprise at the ignorance and stupidity of Nicodemus. Such ignorance as Nicodemus exposes in the presence of Christ appears to us as wholly inexcusable, when we look at what had already been taught on the subject of a change of heart, or regeneration, in the law of Moses and the prophets.
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, walked with God three hundred years, and never saw death, for God took him. Did he walk with God in a fleshly mind, or in a spiritual mind? Hear what Jesus and Paul say: "That which is born of the flesh, is flesh," and Paul says: "Therein dwelleth no good thing." "But that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," and therein serve we the Lord acceptably. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and Elijah are to-day in the heavens. Are they there in the flesh? Nay, verily, but in the spirit; in the new nature which God had implanted in them. "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven."
"And what shall I say more? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephtha; of David also, and Samuel," who prayed: "Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me." But the Jews had become carnal, fleshly minded, and, like Nicodemus, were unable to see the spirituality of their own Word. How, then, could they apprehend the grace or see the truth which came by Jesus Christ! Let us, Brethren, search the Scriptures and acquaint ourselves much with the Gospel of our salvation, so that when we read or hear, it may not be to us as it was to the Jews, a new doctrine, but the
"Old, old story,
Of Jesus and his love."
This is nearly the substance of what I said.
Night meeting at Samuel Cave's. I speak from John 1:29. Fine day. We stay all night with Brother Cave. We are now in Wayne County.
Monday, October 21. Start eastward to William Minnick's, and on through Richmond, by Eaton, Preble County, Ohio, to Samuel Showalter's, where we stay all night.