Study Shelf Videos (2025)

14/06/2025

All in Accord with His Masterful Plan

I, for one, freely confess that, without a knowledge of the consummation, when God will reconcile all and become “All in all,” I could not have confidence in a deity who allowed the world to work itself into such a mess, and who can do little more for most men than to sweep them into destruction, extinction or torment.

But now, how can I distrust God? Mankind is just where He has brought it. The effect of all of the present evil and distress will be salutary. God will get glory out of it, and men will be prepared by it to appreciate the gifts He has in store for them all.

— A.E. Knoch (1874-1965)

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09/06/2025

Thorough Investigation Will Expose Error

I have received many letters containing objections, suggestions and questions, which I shall endeavor to answer in due time

I am always glad to receive such letters, when written in the right spirit, as I do not expect that readers will accept everything that appears in the paper unquestioned, nor would I have them do so, but rather “let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”

Not infrequently great light is brought out by questions or objections; the truth never can be harmed in this way; thorough investigation will expose error, but it will make the truth shine brighter and brighter.

— Arthur P. Adams (1847-1925)
The Spirit of the Word

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08/06/2025

“Nevertheless, Not My Will”

Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not My will, but Yours be done (Luke 22:42).

Often, we don’t know what’s really best. What seems to us like a great heartache and devastating loss, God has in His love and wisdom determined to be to our advantage.

As our Lord Jesus Christ faced the agonizing prospects of Calvary, it caused Him tremendous trepidation. His entire being recoiled at the thoughts of what He was about to face and experience. It produced deep agony in His heart and soul.

And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground (Luke 22:44).

His prayer to Father was for deliverance, that the cup of Calvary would pass from Him; but this would not be Father’s will. Father had a grander plan that included a journey up Golgotha’s shameful hill – and Father always knows best.

All of us who know the result of the story are thankful that God did not allow this cup to pass from our Lord. Indeed, this cup was at the center of Father’s purpose for the ages. We are thankful that our Lord Jesus Christ didn’t resist Father’s will, but rather learned obedience to His all-knowing, all-wise and all-loving destiny.

Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered (Hebrews 5:8).

He humbled Himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the stake (Philippians 2:8).

We, too, as sons of God, are being fashioned into the image of Christ, for this is our divine destiny (Romans 8:29; I Corinthians 15:49; Philippians 3:21; I John 3:2); and we, like Christ, must learn obedience through suffering. This is Father’s path to glory, for us as well as it was for Christ.

— Clyde Pilkington

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06/06/2025

A Divine Apprenticeship in Agape Love

Most newlyweds have not yet learned the true meaning of unselfishness.

The stresses of marriage and the home are designed to produce brokenness, to wean one from self-contentedness, and to produce the graces of sacrificial love and gentleness.

Because so few people understand the nature and purpose of marriage, when unexpected stresses and strains develop they are tempted to feel that they have made a mistake and perhaps have married the wrong person. The next step is to seek a way of escape by one means or another, sometimes through a professional marriage counselor or, more often, the divorce court.

If the marriage counselor is a professional and works for pay, his services, based as they are on Freudian principles, are probably worthless or worse. Except where there is organic difficulty, the root of all conflicts in the home is not mental but spiritual. Psychology and psychiatry are usually totally irreverent. A spiritual problem always has a spiritual cause and requires a spiritual solution. Many counselors, even some who are Christians, have been so influenced by Freud that they are totally unprepared to deal with a spiritual problem in a scriptural way. Many spiritually discerning persons are quite convinced that psychiatry is Satan’s substitute for the biblical remedy for disturbed relations. Many psychiatrists seek to help the person under stress by relieving him of personal responsibility for his difficulty – which only compounds the trouble. The origin of the conflict, except in organic cases, is almost invariably spiritual. The ego is inflated. Love is lacking. This is entirely a spiritual problem. The way out is not through separation or divorce.

Much marriage counseling is oriented toward the here and now. The primary goal is to heal the endangered marriage in the interest of the present happiness of the partners. Until they understand that life and marriage is an apprenticeship for the practice of agape love in preparation for rulership where the law of love is supreme, they are in danger of loss.

All of the efforts by psychologists and psychiatrists to bring about a reorientation and reintegration of personalities in marriage without dealing with the basic spiritual problem are in vain. It is one of the most lamentable tragedies of recent history.

— Paul E. Billheimer
Don’t Waste Your Sorrows, pp. 89-96 (abridged)

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05/06/2025

The Trial of Faith

The Lord Jesus Christ said to Simon Peter:

… Behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not … (Luke 22:31-32).

Concerning which, Peter later wrote in his first epistle:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith … (I Peter 5:8-9).

Peter also puts the faith fight in a value perspective:

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ (I Peter 1:7).

Peter places the faith trials above the value of gold. What a viewpoint! That is the viewpoint of faith. We would surely not grumble, murmur and complain about receiving an abundance of gold. Neither would faith grumble, murmur and complain over the valuable trials of our faith!

— Clyde Pilkington
The Believer’s Warfare

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03/06/2025

Conformable Unto His Death

Being made conformable to His death (Philippians 3:10).

He was Humble:

He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the stake (Philippians 2:8).

He was Silent:

He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth (Isaiah 53:7).

He was Forgiving:

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).

He was Self-Sacrificing:

Christ also loved the ecclesia, and gives Himself up for its sake (Ephesians 5:25).

— Clyde Pilkington

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02/06/2025

No Cause for Hurry

We wish to emphasize the fact that we do not want to dictate on points of doctrine.

We hold no one’s proxy, and claim no dominion over the faith of anyone. … All that we ask is a careful, candid consideration – there is no cause for hurry.

— A.E. Knoch (1874-1965)

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30/05/2025

Faith Is a Gift of God

God Is the Source of Faith in Believer

For unto you it is given … to believe on Him (Philippians 1:29).

For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8-9).

According as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith (Romans 12:3).

God Is Also the Source of the Current Unbelief in Unbelievers

Therefore has He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens (Romans 9:18).

God has given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear (Romans 11:8).

For God has concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all (Romans 11:32).

God Will Also Be the Source of Faith in Everyone One Day

… He has given faith unto all men… (Acts 17:31).

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow … and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).

No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 12:3).

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.

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29/05/2025

The Most Oppressive Tyranny

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)
The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment (June, 1953)

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28/05/2025

Paul Says, “God Is Able”!

Many Christians seem to believe in an incapable God, as strange of a contradiction as that is.

Paul communicated the truth of an Able God!

God Is Able to Do What He Has Promised He Would Do

… What He has promised He is able also to do (Romans 4:21).

God Is Able to Establish You

Now to Him Who is able to establish you according to my gospel … (Romans 16:25).

God Is Able to Make You Stand

… To his own master he stands or falls. Yes, he shall be held up: for God is able to make him stand (Romans 14:4).

God Is Able to Make ALL Grace Abound Toward You

… And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work (II Corinthians 9:8).

God Is Able to Do More than You Ask or Think

Now unto Him Who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us (Ephesians 3:20).

God Is Able to Subdue ALL Things unto Himself

… According to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself (Philippians 3:21).

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.

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27/05/2025

The Heaven of the Heavens

In Genesis 1:6-8, we have a “firmament” which is “called” heaven, but this must not be confused with the heaven of Genesis 1:1.

The present “firmament” is temporary. It spans the ages, but is to pass away as Isaiah 34:4 and II Peter 3:10 make clear.

Solomon evidently knew that there were “heavens” above the present “heaven”:

Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee (I Kings 8:27).

Moses, too, and the Psalmist also knew of this distinction:

Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is (Deuteronomy 10:14).

Praise Him, heavens of the heavens, and the waters that are above the heavens (Psalm 148:4).

This fact is basic to the teaching of the epistle to the Ephesians, for Christ is there said to have “ascended up far above all heavens that He might fill all things” (Ephesians 4:10). The heavenly places where Christ now sits is far above the temporary “firmament” of Genesis 1:6, and the church of the One Body is the only redeemed company whose sphere of blessing takes them up beyond this firmament to the heaven of heavens at the right hand of God.

The recognition of these two “heavens” makes it scripturally true to speak of three spheres of blessing, namely (1) the earth, (2) the heavenly Jerusalem, (3) the heavenly places where Christ now sits.

— Charles H. Welch (1888-1967)
An Alphabetical Analysis, Part 2, pages 31-32

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23/05/2025

Even Our Faults, Our Follies and Our Sins!

Now we are aware that God is working all together for the good of those who are loving God, who are called according to the purpose (Romans 8:28, CV).

We can trust all to the hand of God, all problems and troubles, even the things which have seemed hard and hurtful. Even our faults, our follies and our sins we may trust to the same hand, knowing that, from these, too, some blessing will come to us according to His purpose.

— J.R. Miller (1840-1912)
Intimate Letters on Personal Problems
Miller Book Reprint: The Best of J.R. Miller

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