Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary / Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk

by John Kline

"And ye shall be my people." We get to be his people by true repentance, faith and baptism. He commands us to repent. He commands us to believe on the Son. "He that believeth the Son hath everlasting life." He commands us to be baptized. Obedience from love and faith makes us his people. As Jesus ascended from the waters of the Jordan, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and a voice from heaven said: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This was an expression of the Father's love which he has for every one who, from the heart, will hear his voice.

Wednesday, June 19. It is now delightful weather, and Brother Kline is this day on the Great Cheat mountain, filling two appointments at a place which he calls Marsh's. The Great Cheat mountain lies west of the Alleghany proper, and for many miles ranges nearly parallel with it. A branch of Cheat river drains the valley between the two. The people in this section are mainly employed in rearing cattle and sheep. The lands are well adapted to grazing. But in most localities of this country meetings for preaching and other religious services are rare, and the Gospel is seldom heard. Brother Kline's heart ever leaned toward destitute regions like these. He would say: "I occasionally find one whose sense of sin has so mellowed his heart that, like a ripe apple, he is ready to fall by a gentle touch of gospel truth."

Friday, July 1. Yesterday I had meeting at Josiah Simmon's, and to-day have meeting at the same place. I speak from 1 Peter 1:19. Text.—"Ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ."

I tried to set before these dear people the only hope of salvation. I told them about the Son of God; that he was born of a woman, a pure virgin who conceived him not of man, but of the Holy Spirit of God; that his birth was heralded and announced by an angel from heaven who named him Jesus before he was born, for, said the angel, "He shall save his people from their sins."

When he came to be a man about thirty years of age he was publicly baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan, "and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove upon him: and, lo, a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Jesus lived a life of sinless purity, going about doing good, teaching the people the way of everlasting life; healing the sick; raising the dead to life; giving sight to the blind; hearing to the deaf; cleansing the lepers, and casting devils and evil spirits out of people who were subject to the evil powers by which they were possessed. All these things are related by the four evangelists. Jesus also taught the people many things by parables, in which he set forth his great love for them; what he was able and willing to do to save them from their sins, and what it was necessary for them to do to be saved.

But the Jews would not accept the truth he told them. They were a very proud and self-righteous people, and were not willing to be instructed in things they vainly believed they understood better than Jesus did. He called on them to repent of their sins. They denied their being sinners. He told them he was the Son of God, and that he came down from heaven. They would not believe this: and just because he taught and did things contrary to the way their proud and selfish hearts thought right, they arrested Jesus the Lord of glory, took him before their high priest, gave him a mock trial, and had him crucified. Some may not know just what this means. It means that Jesus was nailed to two pieces of wood one across the other; his hands were nailed to the crosspiece above, and his feet to the high post that was fastened by its lower end in the ground. Thus he hung in agony till he was dead. This was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It was done through the envy, malice and hatred of the Jews. It shows how very wicked they were. Some good men who had not consented to the death of Jesus took his body down from the cross and placed it in a sepulchre or vault cut out of solid rock. This vault had been cut out of the rock some time before and belonged to a man of the name of Joseph. This Joseph assisted in placing the body of Jesus in his new vault or tomb, and then they placed a large stone at the mouth of the tomb, and the body of Jesus was buried. As the pall of that night's darkness gently settled on the grave of the crucified Jesus, the Jews felt relieved that they had now, as they thought, put their enemy out of sight. But on the morning of the third day after this some women came to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus, and, behold! it was not there; but a bright and shining angel of glory was there, who said to those good women: "He is not here; he is risen from the dead." They could hardly believe for joy. Soon, however, they, with many others, saw the risen Lord for themselves, with their own eyes, and never doubted any more.

All that I have said so far is intended as an introduction to my text. My text says: "We were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ." The Lord told his disciples, who were his loving friends, the reason why he suffered the Jews to put him to death. It was, he told them, that all the things written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms concerning him might be fulfilled. He also said to two of them as they journeyed to Emmaus: "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" The blood he shed on the cross was necessary to his glorification. Without it he could not have been glorified. The blood of Christ is called the blood of the covenant. Now what is a covenant? A covenant is a union of one mind and heart with another. It is literally a going together, as a man and woman join heart and hand in the covenant of marriage. When God and man enter into a covenant they unite and become as one. In this union God loves man with unspeakable love, and man loves the Lord his God with all his heart. Love is what unites. Love unites a husband and wife. When this union is perfect, what the one loves the other likewise loves; and when we are in covenant union with our glorified Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, what he loves we love, and what he hates we also hate. As man enters into a covenant with the Lord he enters a state of salvation from sin, death and hell. But all covenants between God and men must be sealed or made with blood: and whereas a covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ redeems and saves man from death and hell, therefore the blood of Christ redeems and saves man because it is the blood of the covenant between him and God.

But let us carry this thought a little further. Jesus said to the Jews, "Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, ye have no life in you." By blood here the Lord does not mean natural blood: he means the blood of the covenant by which we are united with him; the redeeming blood which Peter speaks of in the text. But we must drink it: otherwise we have no life in us. Now how is it possible for any one to drink the blood of Christ? I will tell you. Christ's blood is his life, and he says: "My words are spirit, and they are life." His blood, then, is his Word in its spirit and life. Now when we believe what he tells us with our heart, and do what he commands us because we love him, we are truly drinking his blood. When we forsake our sins by turning unto the Lord from a heart-felt faith in his Word and belief of the truth he tells us, we are drinking his blood; his blood, which is his gospel truth, becomes our life. "And because he lives, we shall live also." "I am the way, the truth, and the life. My word is truth." All this and much more is signified by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus. "Whosoever looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." God's truth is called the law of liberty. Why? Because it tells men how they may become free. It redeems them when they obey it.

Peter calls this change from bondage to liberty a new birth. Notice here in the chapter I read: "Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." We are naturally born unto sin, into the love of things that please our natural sight, our natural appetites and inclinations. Through these we love ourselves and the world to a degree that holds us in bondage, a kind of slavery. This is meant by Paul in these words: "To whomsoever ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness." Peter means about the same by these words: "Of whom a man is overcome, by the same is he brought into bondage." And in the book of Hebrews we read of such "who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Being born again spiritually, into a new state of heart and life, we are set free from our bondage to sin. In this newborn state we love to do the will of God, and love the company of good people, and desire to be in the church with the people of God. The Lord Jesus says: "If the truth shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." It is by and through the truth that men are redeemed. "Verily, verily, he that committeth sin is the servant of sin." These are the Lord's own words.

But the worst state any one can be in is a state of bondage in sin, with no desire, no wish or feeling of any kind, to get out of it. This spirit of indifference stamps the seal of darkness deeper and deeper, until the soul loses all desire for anything better. I am just now reminded of what I read not long since. A family of the name of Slocum, living in the State of Pennsylvania, if I mistake not, many years ago, was visited by Indians for the purpose of plunder. With other things they carried off one of the children of the family, a girl several years old. The family was sorely distressed, and every possible effort was made to rescue the child. But all in vain. Many years after, when the poor little girl's father and mother were both dead, her surviving brother and sister heard of her. They felt satisfied they had been correctly informed, and resolved to go to see her, and if possible try to get her back to live with them once more. They went on horseback, and found her a long way off in what was then an unsettled part of Ohio. I may be mistaken even here, as to the part of the country they found her in. But they did find their sister living among the Indians, and in fact the wife of one of the chiefs. She still remembered some English words. They got her to understand who they were, and they wished her to go back with them to their home. But she would not go. She gave them to understand that she was satisfied to remain with the Indians, destitute and comfortless as they were. The last trace of home feeling had left her heart, and with it had departed every vestige of religious concern and love for social life. Sad and sorrowing did her brother and sister return to their homes; and to the time of their death they never ceased to mourn for their lost sister. I have told you a true story; and if it causes the eye of some tender-hearted mother to grow dim with a tear I say, It is well. God's children are exhorted to be tender-hearted, compassionate one for another, and to weep with the sorrowing.