Watchman Archives

God gave His pattern for marriage in the beginning. Under Moses, God allowed man to deviate from His original intent. Jesus makes it clear that God will no longer tolerate that deviance. Jesus’ Law on divorce and remarriage is different than Moses because it goes back to what God wanted all along.

We are sanctified by the blood of Jesus, His blood dedicated the new covenant, the new covenant is based on the heart, on the mind of man. In the new covenant God remembers our sins against us no more. In the new covenant we are not to exhort one another saying, “Know the Lord,” for all of God’s children are to know Him from the least unto the greatest. And while we are not under the law of Moses we are under the law of liberty, under the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. What does this mean? Hear me! Under the law of Moses a man was kept from sin by statute if kept from it at all; such a thing as liberty was not known, not recognized, not dreamed of. Under the Gospel, under Christ with His law written in the heart, and in the conscience-we have liberty!

I am some 2,000 years departed from that great Day of Pentecost when twelve uneducated men turned the city of Jerusalem upside down by preaching the good news of a resurrected Savior. These twelve men made a promise to a believing people who had heard the truth about Jesus. That promise was the gift of life, eternal life, the gift of the very Holy Spirit of God. It was for them, and it is for you. Accept the gift and receive the promise is our prayer for every reader.

2 Chronicles 34:15 BackgroundAfter the death of Solomon, Israel and Judah were divided into separate kingdoms. Both had periods in which they were in rebellion…

To confine a covenant solely to a relationship is to fall into the same error as the Calvinists who insist we are saved by faith only. We are saved by faith, but not faith only. And while a covenant includes a relationship, there is often more to a covenant that relationship; oftentimes it is law as it was with the Old Covenant and as it is with the New.

The Old Testament long prophesied that there was a day coming when God would establish his kingdom (Mic. 4:1-3; Dan. 2). This new kingdom would have a new law (Jer. 31:31-34). It was this kingdom that Jesus Christ came to establish (Matt. 16:18). Therefore, we affirm that in the sermon on the mount, Jesus is preaching things which concern his kingdom and its law.

Churches of Christ have faithfully taught that we must rightly divide the old from the new and that we are to follow the new and not the Old Covenant. We have correctly taught that the New Covenant is our guide and authority. We learn from the Old Covenant (Rom. 15:4,) but it is not our guide and authority. We have taught this because the Bible clearly teaches it.

The fact that there are many similarities between the two covenants does not prove that we live under the old covenant. (There are many similarities between my right hand and my left, but they are two different hands!) Have we forgotten: “God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds”? (Heb. 1:1,2). If it is not in the New Covenant, we cannot do it and please God.

Paul in Colossians says ‘blotting out the handwriting of ordinances.” “It” was taken out of the way and “it” was nailed to his cross. “It,” the handwriting of ordinances,” “the middle wall of partition,” “the law of commandments,” the “ordinances” were nailed to the cross. This is so plain. This is the reason these one covenant advocates have got to get something besides the law of Moses nailed to the cross. This passage stands in their way. Brethren have well understood it down through the years.

The Testaments of God were given by God to man. God made the rules and presented them to man who had no choice in what the rules would be. Man would be blessed if he followed them and condemned if he didn’t.

Those who are presently disturbing brethren with their concocted, inconsistent, illogical and prejudicial arguments in favor of binding the Old Testament because they wish to find a loophole for unscriptural divorces and remarriages are opening doors which they will never be able to shut. It would be interesting indeed for one who appeals to Deuteronomy 24 for authority for divorce today to debate a Sabbatarian.

What if God never sees fit to regenerate the unregenerate soul? If God never does his work, never regenerates the soul, never grants it repentance and faith, whose fault will it be? Imagine meeting God at the judgment, having characterized him as the God who demanded repentance and faith, but who knew all along that the sinner could not obey, and then, failing to regenerate the poor soul, sends it into everlasting fire for not doing what he knew it could not do without his aid! I tremble for those who have to face the Almighty One having so charged him!

We are not required to accept without question that scripture is from God, but to look at the facts and draw some rational conclusions as to its origin. Only then, after we come to the conclusion that scripture is God’s word, do we follow it faithfully – even when its instructions are contrary to what we would have thought to be right.

God does have a five step plan to for those who are addicted to sin! Each and every sin addict alive today who desires to find relief needs to follow God’s simple five step plan. You’ve got to do the steps!

It seems that brethren in general, and many of those who preach, have either forgotten what the true spirit of Christ is, or they have never known it at all. We ask, does one have “the spirit of Christ” when he rebukes those whom he says do not have it? To those who condemn men for not having “the spirit of Christ,” will you have “the spirit of Christ” after you have read Hardeman’s sermon?

I cannot count how many times I have been asked if I knew of someone who could work in some needy field. Many others have been asked these same questions. There is a great need for men who will go “into all the world.” There is a great need to keep stirring up brethren’s minds on this subject! When you do find someone who will work in a foreign field, either for short or long term, he also becomes a voice to stir brethren up that he knows. Let us each seek to do what we can in our lives to answer this need.

Es cierto que no voy a ganar ningún concurso de popularidad por haber escrito estas cosas, pero eso no fue mi propósito. Yo quisiera que todos meditaran en serio sobre su vida, y consideraran si en verdad han buscado o si han simplemente aceptado el camino más fácil. Si Ud. nunca ha pensado en la Verdad, que comience ahora mismo la búsqueda más importante de su vida. ¡Que no pongamos nuestro destino eterno en las manos falibles de hombres, sino que hagamos el esfuerzo de buscar de primera mano la Verdad que solamente se encuentra en las páginas de la Biblia!

There was much celebration that day in Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant had been in the house of Obed-Edom for three months after a…

Genesis 22:1-19 should be read for what it is, the story of the pinnacle of faith in the life of a great Patriarch who walked with God. God tested Abraham with a supreme test (an actual human sacrifice), and Abraham passed that test. May we all do the same when God commands great things for us to do today. When God speaks to us, let us all act promptly and completely “by faith,” regardless of the great sacrifices to be made.

Jesus promised to build his church (Matt. 16:18). He spoke of the kingdom being “at hand” (Matt. 4:17). It did not begin before Acts 2. Beginning in Acts 2, we read of “the church” and of those who were in the kingdom (Acts 2:47; 5:11; 8:1, 3, 12; Col. 1:13; Rev. 1:9). Are you in it? Have you been born again in obedience to the truth (Jn. 3:3, 5; 1 Cor. 12:13; 1 Pet. 1:22-25)?