Tuesday, September 2, 2008

What five things, especially, constituted a call to the Youthful Worthies?

Answer to Bro. Johnson's study question from PT 1922, P.76 given in PT 1921, P. 54--"First let us see whom the men of Ephraim type. It will help us to understand this, if we keep in mind that the first battle of Gideon types the same thing as the first smiting of Jordan, the World's High Priest confessing the sins over Azazel's Goat, and the saints executing the judgement written. (Ps. 149:5-9) These works were completely and properly engaged in by the Very Elect only. Hence to have been called to the antitypical warfare in time to take part in them implies that one was called to the High Calling; 'for this honor have all His saints'; and to have been called to the antitypical warfare, but not in time to have taken part in it implies that one was not called to the High Calling, but to something else. The men of Ephraim, therefore, type certain ones called to take part in the warfare against antitypical Midian after the full number of the Very Elect has been won, and had been given that to do which was an exclusive privilege of the Very Elect. i.e., unto a completion and in the Lord's spirit to smite Jordan the first time, to execute the judgement written, to confess the sins over Azazel's Goat, and to engage in Antitypical Gideon's first battle. Whom then do they type? We answer: Very evidently the Youthful Worthies. How did Antitypical Gideon call them? We answer: (1) by continuing the invitation to consecrate after the fall of 1914; (2) by emphasizing after the Fall of 1914, e.g., in Z'15, 269, pars. 6, 7, the fact that there would be a class, who, called too late for the High Calling, would be privileged to share in reward and honor with the Ancient Worthies, i.e., that there would be a Youthful Worthy class; (3) by arousing them to battle against error; (4) by the teaching during 1916 that the Lord's people would smite Jordan twice; and (5) by encouraging repeatedly during 1916 the Lord's people along the lines of the privilege of smiting Jordan. These five things as well as others were a call to the Youthful Worthies to take part in the warfare against antitypical Midian, to take the waters of antitypical Jordan. As in the type the men of Ephraim were to take the Jordan waters as far as Beth-barah (house of the passage), so in the antitype the Youthful Worthies, who, as we have seen, being a part of Elisha (P'20, pars. 1, 2), were to smite the peoples, Jordan, on subjects on which the smiting had been especially done by the Lord's house (beth) who had had a passage (barah) across Jordan, i.e., they were to smite especially what the members of the Elijah class, those who had crossed Jordan, had previously smitten. In other words, they were to smite Jordan the second time."

Had the Youthful Worthies been a separate and distinct class in 1881, the above type and antitype would not work or make sense.

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