The Wife Goes Courting by C.D. Plum
(http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/finland/618/wife.htm)
[Originally published in The Gospel Guardian (Vol. 14, No. 25): October 25, 1962, pp. 389,393].
When the wife goes courting she seldom returns to her first love and lover. The same might also be said of the husband that goes courting. There are exceptions, of course. I do not know of anything that causes so much grief and pain as for those who are married to step out in an unlawful affair. But this is being done in thousand of cases. Homes are being broken up, children scattered, souls ruined, and hell is reaping a large harvest because of this very thing. The injunction of the Holy Spirit, through Paul, "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband," seems to have been largely discarded long ago, with a great many people.
Christ's Wife Steps Out
As terrible as it is for the wife to step out in the physical relationship, it is equally disastrous in the spiritual relationship. Christ's spiritual wife, the church, has occasionally stepped out on him. Such was true with the church at Ephesus. This church was started in AD 55, by Paul. Apollos had, previous to Paul's visit to Ephesus, done work there (Acts 18:24-28). But he knew only the baptism of John the Baptist. John's baptism was not valid after the first Pentecost from Christ's resurrection, in the year AD 33. But Apollos had baptized twelve at Ephesus in AD 55 unto John's baptism (Acts 19:5-7). This was twenty-two years after John's baptism became invalid, so, they were again baptized, but this time in the name of (authority of) the Lord.
I am told by my friends, the Baptists, that John's baptism makes members of the Baptist Church. If this is so, Paul broke up the Baptist Church at Ephesus by re-baptizing every one in the Baptist Church, and when he got through with them they were Christians whom the Lord "added to the church," his church.
Before Courting Began
Before Christ's wife at Ephesus began carrying on an affair with the world and Satan, she was a fine faithful wife. This wife was faithful to Christ, and thrived on strong preaching. Paul preached there three years, preached "all" the counsel of God (Acts 20:26-27). He preached so plain and pointed that Satan knew him, and knew where he stood (Acts 19:13-16). When he got through with a sermon on strong drink the people knew where he stood. He was no compromiser. Paul even debated in the other fellow's meeting house concerning the "kingdom" question (Acts 19:8). And it was under this kind of preaching that Christ's wife remained faithful to him. Her courting didn't start until after soft preaching started.
True, as a result of this straight preaching, persecution arose against the church (Acts 19:38). And some people were even hardened against the truth, and believed not (Acts 19:9). Christ's wife then left this group that was revolting against the truth; and began to meet by herself, for the "wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable" (James 3:17). But the word of God prevailed mightily, and the church grew, and remained pure and true. The courting days had not yet begun.
Courting Began
Paul warned the church that after his departure false teachers would enter in among them and devour the flock. The false teachers came as predicted, and although Paul left Timothy at Ephesus to try to stay the tide of false doctrine, corruption arose from within (1 Timothy 1:3; Acts 20:30-31). Christ's wife having gotten a taste of the loose and freer way of living, liked it, and stop her...who can? Start a good wife in the wrong direction and it is hard to stop her.
The elders failed to keep the pulpit clean by keeping false teachers out. Once in, Timothy's attempt to clean things up profited little or nothing. On and on, down and down, goes the wife of Christ, led astray by false teachers, by soft preaching. This church remained pure under strong preaching but fell under the smooth slippery soothing kind. Oh, brethren, why can't we take warning. The soft, smooth words concerning an easier life has led many a wife astray, both from a physical and spiritual standpoint.
In AD 64, nine years after Christ became the husband of the wife at Ephesus; Paul attempted a restoration try. He was the one responsible for the spiritual ceremony between the church at Ephesus and Christ her husband, and so he wrote this wife a letter. He spoke to the church in an endearing way and called the members the "saints at Ephesus" (Ephesians 1:1). Toward the last of the letter Paul said, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Ephesians 5:14). This church was spiritually dead because she had broken the faith with Christ her husband, guilty of infidelity with false teachers. But as genuine as this plea was, and as earnestly as it was given, this wife continued to walk the scarlet path, to play the part of a spiritual harlot.
Then Jesus wrote a letter to his wife (Revelation 2:1-6). He was not the cause of this spiritual lady going astray, but he was willing that she might be reclaimed. Jesus said to his wife, "I have some what against three, because thou hast left thy first love" (Revelation 2:4). It must be a terrible sensation when a man finds that his wife has deserted her first love, and has forsaken him for another. Personally, I don't know of anything earthly that would come nearer ruining me than infidelity in my home. Brethren, it must be awful. Now just place Christ in your place, if you had a wife that deserted you, knowing how you would feel, what, indeed, about the feeling of Christ? He must have cared or he should not have written to her after she had begun a courtship with another.
Christ warned his wife that if she did not come to "repentance," because she had really "fallen," that he could cut her off, divorce her, by removing her "candlestick" out of its place (Revelation 2:5). Did she come back to Christ and beg forgiveness from him? She did not. She started out from the right path, away from Christ, and kept going. Although she had been married to Christ about forty-one years before Christ wrote this letter, getting to be a reasonably old wife, still she keeps on carrying on with false teachers. Too bad, too bad!
The Christian Church has courted David's music, man's human societies, the Pope's Palm, Easter, and Christmas days, thus leaving Christ for another husband. Like Ephesus, she has been divorced because she has fallen. Will she repent? About as likely as Ephesus. She left; she has been invited to return; what more can we do? To do more is to do more than Jesus did with Ephesus.
Short Exhort - Compiled by David J. Riggs
(http://www.public.usit.net/driggs/)
"...Let us run with patience the race that is set before us..." (Heb. 12:1)
The setting was a cold January morning in a little town in Wisconsin, on the southern shore of Lake Superior. It happened to be the Saturday when they had their annual dog sled derby on the ice. A one-mile course had been staked out by sticking little fir trees in the ice. The whole course was easily visible because of the steep slope of the shore. It was a youngsters' meet and the contenders ranged all the way from large boys with several dogs and big sleds to one little fellow who didn't seem over five with a little sled and one small dog. They took off at the signal and the little fellow with his one dog was quickly outdistanced--he was hardly in the race. All went well with the rest until, about halfway around, the team that was second started to pass the team then in the lead. They came too close and the dogs got in a fight. As each team came up the dogs joined the fight. None seemed to be able to steer clear of it. Soon, from our position about a half-mile away, there was just one big black seething mass of kids and sleds and dogs. None but the little fellow with his one dog managed to stay clear, and was the only one to finish the race. As I reflect on the many vexing problems and the stresses of our times that complicate their solutions, this simple scene from long ago comes vividly to mind, and I draw the obvious moral: No matter how difficult the challenge or how impossible or hopeless the task may seem, if you are reasonably sure of your course, just keep on going! (James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, Tyndale House Publishers, 1988, p. 159).
Let us continue patiently and steadily in our course toward eternal life.
PARTING THOUGHT
To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. --Theodore Roosevelt