AUDIO

[March 19]
I ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears. Acts 20:31
WE SEE in the parting of the beloved apostle with the elders of the church at Ephesus, who had come to bid him farewell before he set sail for Jerusalem, and to receive his parting counsel, another reminder of his faithfulness and a worthy example for our imitation. He said to them, "I know that ye...shall see my face no more. Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men [he was bearing in mind his personal responsibility as a steward of the Lord and the solemn significance of it as indicated by the Prophet Ezekiel 33:7-9]: for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." On the part of Paul there was no compromise of the truth, no mixing of it with human philosophies to make it more palatable to either Jews or Gentiles, or to avoid thus any measure of the otherwise inevitable persecution. The Christian teacher who can truly bear such testimony under such circumstances is indeed a soldier of the cross. Z'93-222 R1558:6 (Hymn 34)