My dear Brethren: Grace and peace through our Beloved Master!
In Vol. E-14, middle of page 5, we are told that “Saul types the crown-lost leaders from early in the third century to Armageddon.” And in E-13:181 it is stated that “Samuel types the Little Flock as a whole, especially in its more prominent members, and more especially in the star-members and their special helpers during the interim.” In 1 Sam. 10:1 it is recorded that “Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon his head.... because the Lord hath anointed thee (Saul) to be captain over His inheritance.” Sober reflection impresses us with the strange procedure – the greater (Samuel) anointing the lesser (Saul) to be leader over God’s faithful Israel, even while the Judge and Prophet Samuel dwelt among them. This situation can only be reconciled by the knowledge that God was here making a type of the Gospel Age, a most impressive type which unmistakably reveals the course events would follow after the Apostles would be no more. In the comments which follow we are offering much from Brother Johnson as set forth In E-13 and E-14.
Typical Saul was a “choice young man, and goodly.... not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people.” (1 Sam. 9:2) In all this he portrayed the admirable qualities of the Gospel-Age crown-lost leaders, many of whom were greater intellects than the star members who had “laid hands upon them.” And at the outset many of them waged valiant warfare victoriously against the antitypical Philistines (sectarians). Also, just as the typical Saul presented a compelling magnetism for Israel, so the antitypes did likewise. Among them were to be found the greatest intellects (“higher than any of the people”), the greatest moralists, zealous for human uplift and social reform, although blinded to the real purpose of the “call” to “take out from among the Gentiles a people for His name,” who would during the Kingdom reign have the power and authority to accomplish to the full what has been impossible of accomplishment during the reign of evil. Also, most of them showed a commendable humility at the outset – just as did the typical Saul (“When thou was little in thine own eyes I made thee king over Israel”); but they also followed his wayward course of power-grasping and disobedience, setting aside the instructions of the Lord as given through antitypical Samuel (the star-members) they ignored the clear exhortation, “to obey is better than sacrifice.”
And the wayward course of these “children of disobedience” (Col. 3:6) always brought them into open conflict with the Star Members that were living at the time – “there was strife between the herdsmen of Abraham’s cattle and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle;” (Gen. 13:7) Thus they obtained the present advantage (“the plain of Jordan .... well watered everywhere”), and became the mouthpieces to nominal spiritual Israel in most instances until the Harvest – although be it noted that in not a single instance did any of those crown-lost leaders become the Pastor and Teacher to the Fully Faithful, this being an office which the Lord alone could bestow. And in the picture presented in Numbers 7 by the offerings of the princes, in not a single instance did any of them offer a “cup” (symbolic of doctrines), the Lord there making clear to those who “have an ear to hear” that those crown-lost leaders (on up to Armageddon) would never occupy the seat of chief favor in His Household of Faith. In fact, every one of the Gospel-Age princes (crown-lost leaders) perverted the truths given them by the fully faithful antitypical Samuel (“asses – Teachings – were lost”).
The foregoing far-reaching truths did not become clear until the Epiphany Messenger made them clear; and this was undoubtedly for a purpose also. Had these truths been understood throughout the Age, the “blinded Samson” would then not have been blind; he would not have “ground wheat in the mill” for the antitypical Philistines. Even in the case of That Servant who was “made ruler over all His goods” the same course of centuries past was trodden once more – he “anointed” crown-losers to carry on the Harvest work in the person of J. F. Rutherford and Company. But those crown-losers walked exactly in the footsteps of their kinsmen – they skillfully refuted the errors of the PBI on the chronology (defeated the Philistines), etc., while perverting the stewardship doctrine of Restitution that had been committed to their trust by the Parousia Messenger. And the Epiphany Messenger did likewise in anointing antitypical Saul, although we must make allowance for him, because he believed only crown-losers would remain after his demise, so he chose the logical person by asking the 1948 Detroit Convention to approve his choice of R. G. Jolly. Some may now be inclined to fault that action; but we should bear in mind that some of his adherents were very insistent that proper provision be made in case of his death (once more the children of Israel crying unto the Lord, “Give us a king”); and R. G. Jolly at that time was certainly “higher than any of the people” who might be selected to carry on after antitypical Samuel’s death. So we ourselves offer no criticism of the Epiphany Messenger in the action taken at Detroit.
But the “anointing” of this member of antitypical Saul resulted precisely in keeping with all the “anointings” of the past. He did valiantly in refuting the issue of the High Calling still open; and his booklet exposing Jehovah’s Witnesses is a capable work – he defeated the Philistines. Yet in those very victories he, too, was going astray with the stewardship doctrine entrusted to him – The Epiphany in its relation to the Epiphany Elect – by declaring no more saints among the Epiphany Elect, and by other drastic and inexcusable perversions. For, just as Samuel continued in Israel after Saul’s anointing, so antitypical Samuel has continued in Israel after he anointed the last member of antitypical Saul – although the surviving members of the Samuel Class do not contain among them a star member. As Brother Johnson has expressed it in E-13:190 (8), “full qualifications for the pertinent leadership were given by antitypical Samuel to antitypical Saul,” so he also did in the case of R. G. Jolly – by letters and personal instruction before his death. In these endeavors he surely had the best interests of all Israel at heart to the day of his death, nor can he be blamed for the deflections that have appeared since 1950, even though it is now crystal clear to us that he gave us an exact blueprint of the actions of the centuries past that occurred in every sect in Christendom by the crown-lost leaders.
In this matter the supposedly enlightened adherents of the LHMM are the more to be blamed, and the words of Samuel to Israel apply with irresistible force to them: “I brought up Israel out of Egypt (from Satan’s evil order of affairs), and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all kingdoms, and of them that oppressed you (the evils of sin, error, selfishness and worldliness); And ye have this day rejected your God, who Himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations.” (1 Sam. 10:18,19) An excellent companion text is to be found in Psa. 77:20 – “Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses (the Lord) and Aaron (the Church).” We have the inspired warning in 1 Pet. 4:17: “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” – the righteous (the fully faithful), the ungodly (the second-deathers), the sinner (the Great Company), each according to that which he has sown. And when we see those we once respected and loved now being “carried about by every wind of doctrine” we need no further testimony that they have left tragic flaws, erosions and rents in their past endeavors to “put on the whole armor of God.” This has affected different ones in various and sundry manner. Some have withdrawn to themselves in spiritual anarchy, making their own decisions, establishing their own arrangements for the study, practice, and spread of the “good word of God,” and flaunting the direct inspired command, “Forsake not the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is” (Heb. 10:25) – a counterpart of Judges 17:6 – “In those days there was no king (star member) of Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
The Executive Trustee of the LHMM has also perverted another feature of the stewardship doctrine pertaining to the Epiphany Elect when he renounced the Epiphany Messenger’s teaching in E-10:672, that new Youthful Worthies would be won even after Armageddon. He now claims that work is all in the past – forsaking the truth that both Star Members taught regarding this Class (“flatly denying our dear Pastor’s thought that those who consecrating and proving faithful in the interval between the close of the General Call in 1881 and the Inauguration of the earthly phase of the Kingdom and finding no crowns available for themselves, will become associated in reward and service with the Ancient Worthies in the Kingdom”—E-4:337); he has substituted his spiritual hybrids (Campers Consecrated), which in turn has forced him to forsake the truth on Tentative Justification. Bear in mind that it was only after he began his perversions that he began to suffer his defeats – just as was true of King Saul. The typical “child of disobedience” went from one mistake to another worse one after he began his decline, culminating finally in his own death and the ignominious defeat of the entire nation of Israel. His experiences should be a solemn warning to all God’s people to “make straight paths for their feet.” Here was a man come from the smallest family in the smallest tribe of Israel (Benjamin), who rose to the highest office in Israel; then because of disobedience (“to obey is better than sacrifice”—l Sam. 15:22) he plummeted to an abject humiliation far below what he had been when he was a simple herdsman caring for his father’s cattle and sheep. It seems he learned just nothing from his mistakes, because “the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.”(1 Sam. 16:14) It has been well stated that experience is a dear teacher, but a fool will learn by no other. But, when a man will not learn even by adverse experiences, he is then impoverished beyond description. Be it remembered that it was the Gospel-Age Saul that built up Great Babylon, which in turn “made all the earth drunken” (Jer. 51:7); so that at this day “the earth is reeling to and fro like a drunkard” (Isa. 24:20) as a direct result of the bunglings of the “children of disobedience.” And, when the “drunkard” finally plunges over the precipice of destruction in Armageddon, then will antitypical Saul perish also (as such, though not necessarily as human beings, or even as New Creatures). This fate will be the direct result of their own sowing.
And, true to his kinsmen of the past, the Executive Trustee of the LHMM now follows meticulously in their steps, he also having learned just nothing from the past failures and mistakes of antitypical Saul. It was when he began to pervert the Truth on Tentative Justification that his defeats also began – the abject failure of his $5 correspondence course – the humiliation of those conglomerate conventions about which he was so loud and profuse for a time, but which are not even mentioned anymore – his defeats one after another in his various controversies on the Truth – his Flying Saucer tract, which by now has just about been relegated to the archives of Limbo – his bungling mistakes in the Present Truth, etc. (“Bungling is the usual and natural activity of the Great Company,” says Brother Johnson.) And his defeats will continue becoming more severe, until he drinks the cup of extreme humiliation and the defeat of that part of Israel under his leadership. Of this there shall be more comment “in due time.”
THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD DEPARTED FROM SAUL
In 1 Sam. 16:14 it is recorded that “The Spirit of the Lord Departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.” From this we should not conclude that the Holy spirit departed from the members of antitypical Saul. Had this occurred, they would all have gone into the second death. Rather, they all lost the spirit of understanding (See Matt. 25:3-9 and 25:30 Berean Comment), so that they not only could not see the advancing Truth, but actually lost important parts of the Truth they once possessed. This is especially evident in this Epiphany period, where the leaders of all the groups in Little Babylon have cast aside large segments of the Truth that once sanctified them. Note particularly the confusion in the leader of the LHMM on Tentative Justification, Campers Consecrated, the Saints all gone before the real Time of Trouble has started, his Campers’ names prospectively (?) written in the Book of Life before their book is even opened, etc.
The foregoing conclusion is clearly verified in 1 San. 28:14: “When Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” The antitypical “dreams” we would understand to mean special revelations of advancing Truth from the Lord; the “Urim” meaning the doctrinal teachings of the Bible, which become unclear to those who lose the spirit of understanding (no longer understanding Tentative Justification, Consecration between the Ages while sin still prevails, etc.); the antitypical “prophets” are especially enlightened teachers, such as Brother Russell, Brother Johnson and others, whose teachings no longer motivate them. Especially here do we emphasize the teachings of both these Little Flock teachers on Abandonment to Azazel of all Great Company members, and their clear presentations on those consecrators between the Ages who can no longer enter the High Calling.
AN EVIL SPIRIT TROUBLED HIM
The “evil spirit” that came over Saul is said to have been “from the Lord.” An evil spirit being is not here meant; rather, it means an evil disposition resulting in God withdrawing His special help from them. Thus, God did not directly induce such a spirit; but it came about by allowing the Saul members to follow their own foolish devices – just as we are to understand the meaning of 2 Thes. 2:9-11, “God will send them strong delusion.” God is not the author of confusion, nor is He the disseminator of error. Note Brother Russell’s comments on some features of this text: “Because they received not the love of the Truth – But trifled with it to their injury”; “Strong delusion – That which, from certain standpoints, has the appearance of Truth” (such as Justification outside the righteousness of Christ, etc.) A self-confessed “trifling with the Truth” is to be found in R. G. Jolly’s letter published in the November 15, 1910 Watch Tower, a little of which we now quote:
“I sought to make pictures and draw types from nearly every chapter in the Bible (just as he has attempted to with the half Tribe of Manasseh on the west side of Jordan, etc.—JJH).... Instead of using it to supply my much-needed armor, I was enjoying it more as one would a picture book or ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ .... Finally I came to the point where it became quite difficult for me to distinguish between truth and error.”
(Signed) R. G. Jolly
And the above still seems to be his sad condition!
THE MARK OF CAIN
“Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then I shall be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” (Psa. 19:12,13) It is the usual procedure for one sin to beget other sins – for the offender to go from transgression to transgression – just as it is also true that one error begets other errors and one falsehood other falsehoods. This process is prompted by the necessity to alibi the wrongs or errors already committed; and David’s own experience is an outstanding Scriptural example of this. His moral offense with Bathsheba was a direct violation of the Seventh Commandment, which quickly led to violation of the Sixth Commandment in his murder of Uriah. thus, David could well speak from experience when he composed the 19th Psalm.
And so it has also been where the evil of envy is allowed to spawn and grow. “Joseph’s brethren envied him” (Gen. 37:11; Acts 7:9), which in turn prodded them to “conspire against him to slay him.” (v. 18) It was envy that caused Cain to murder his brother Abel; it was envy that prompted the ‘good’ religious people to crucify the lord of Glory. “Pilate knew that for envy they had delivered Him.” (Matt. 27:18) And after King Saul’s offenses had led Samuel to inform him that the Kingdom of Israel would be taken from him, it was then that the spirit of envy urged him also to attempt the murder of David. And, while he was prevented from actual commission of the crime, he was yet fully guilty; so that in due course he paid for his evil intentions with his own life, just as though he had really murdered the Lord’s anointed.
Envy was undoubtedly the motivation of those princes and presidents in Babylon who conspired to have Daniel thrown into the lions’ den. King Darius had promoted this foreigner, this Jew, over all of them; and it was more than they could bear. However, he who digs a pit for another falls oftener therein himself; and so it was with those conspirators against Daniel. When morning came, and King Darius perceived that some sort of miracle had been performed to spare Daniel from the hungry lions, he then commanded that his conspirators, and all their families, be thrown to the lions; and all of them were consumed. “Wrath killeth the foolish man, and envy slayeth the silly one.” (Job 5:2) This picture had its fulfillment with those of our day who conspired to destroy Brother Russell; and it was re-enacted in a smaller way with those who tried to destroy Brother Johnson. On one occasion we asked him why the Society brethren had treated him so shamefully. His answer: IT WAS ENVY, Brother! Here was another despicable act of envy on the part of antitypical Saul right at our own doorstep!
A WORD FROM THAT SERVANT
Brother Russell has offered profuse comment on the typical Saul – his weaknesses, his failures, his abandonment by the Lord, and his final abject failure. Two of these articles are to be found in Reprints 4206-4210, from which we offer very brief summations, although we believe all would do well to read carefully and consider the entire articles:
“Saul’s difficulty and tests may represent some of ours. (1) A selfish spirit... (2) A man-fearing spirit.... (3) Saul’s third difficulty was that he had too slack an appreciation of the Lord’s word; and this is the difficulty which specially besets nearly every one of the Lord’s followers who stray away into error of doctrine or of conduct.... The Scriptures clearly indicate a great trial and testing for the Church in the next few years. (Little did Brother Russell realize just how great that testing would be in 1917—JJH) It will determine with very many what Saul’s testing determined for him, whether or not God’s favor will continue, with its kingdom privileges and opportunities.... They will be answered as was Saul, ‘Obedience is better than sacrifice’; thou art rejected.”
It requires no great powers of discernment to perceive “too slack an appreciation of the Lord’s word” among the multitudes of Christendom. “Behold the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.” (Amos 8:11) But this same situation is becoming increasingly so with many so-called Truth people. “Too slack an appreciation of the Lord’s word” starts at the top; and it is a sage observation that the disciple rarely rises above his Lord. Thus, the leaders in the various groups of Little Babylon who should be zealously stirring up a proper appreciation of the Lord’s word are unable to do so because of their own errors – errors which have become so appalling that it prevents then from giving a good defense of those truths which they still retain. That same situation prevailed in Big Babylon at the beginning of the century; and it provided many a spark for the controversialists of that time – until they realized that the Parousia David (That Servant) had a “Sharp two-edged sword” which they could neither gainsay nor resist. This led eventually to withdrawal from the battle on the part of the errorists – until today it matters very little what one believes so long as he creates no uproar about it.
And that same “lack of appreciation of the Lord’s word” is rapidly infiltrating the sects of Little Babylon. Let us dwell in peace, they say; the arguments are inconsequential anyway. Their appreciation of the Lord’s word is indeed becoming quite slack! Nor do they do very much about feeding the sheep. As Brother Johnson so aptly observed, these crown-lost leaders do much better in their efforts toward the worldlings. Brother Russell and Brother Johnson left us plenty of material to enlighten and fortify us in this Epiphany period when these Crown-lost leaders are so prominently manifested. “Therefore, by their fruits you will discover them.” (Matt. 7:20—Dia.) The crown-lost leaders largely ignore these truths as they seek gain for their own quarters.
As stated above, Saul’s blunders and transgressions became worse with each deflection, although the prophet of God was there to reprove and correct him each tine. His was a vivid example of the admonition, “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” (Prov. 29:1) His first gross deflection is recorded in 1 Sam. 13, where Saul himself offered sacrifice in direct violation of what he knew full well was the Lord’s established arrangement. “Because they (the Great Company) contemned the counsel (arrangements) of the Most High”—Psa. 107:11. Immediately the Fully Faithful servant of the Lord was there to reprove him: “And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly” 1 Sam. 13:13. And because of this he was told, “Thy kingdom shall not continue.... because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee.” And other acts of disobedience soon manifested other flaws in his character, and revealed three outstanding sins common among men. He had been told to destroy utterly the Amalekites and their herds, but his cupidity was stronger than the clear command of the Lord. He did indeed completely destroy the Amalekites (excepting only Agag the King), but the sight of their fat cattle easily overcame Saul, so “Saul and the people spared the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and of the lambs, and all that was good ... but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.” (1 Sam. 15:9)
And once again the Fully Faithful Samuel was there to confront him; and once again Saul made display of the flaws in his character, the sins of hypocrisy and lying: “Blessed be thou of the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” Reproved by Samuel’s stern countenance and sharp questions, Saul then attempted to take refuge in another sin as old as the human race: “The people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God,” repeating this falsehood in verse 21, but finally forced to admit, “I have sinned.” And, Just as “Samuel came no more to see Saul” (v. 35), so the Lord God came no more to see Father Adam, after his impudent accusation following the transgression in Eden: “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me” (Gen. 3:12). As Adam was bold and impudent enough to accuse the Lord Himself for his deflection, so Saul was ready enough to blame “the people” for his sins. All of which is warning enough for him that “hath an ear to hear.”
Century after century during the Gospel Age, as antitypical Saul was “anointed” by antitypical Samuel, the great majority of the Saul class was goaded by unholy ambition to violate the teachings and arrangements of the Lord as presented through the Samuel class. Thus, they overshadowed the Fully Faithful and produced the “golden cup” which “made all the earth drunken: therefore, the nations are (now in 1967) mad”! And, in exact imitation of their kinsmen of the past, the Epiphany Saul submerged the Fully Faithful, and presented a “cup” of rank intoxication. All of us who were in “the good fight” some forty years ago remember only too vividly the treatment accorded the Epiphany Messenger by J. F.Rutherford Company – how they submerged the Samuel class by “bowing the knee to Baal” in unprincipled power-grasping, as they presented to the general public their “Millions Now Living” mirage, their 1925 fiasco, etc., which failing fully in every detail they then seized upon the old Papal anathema of the Dark Ages: No salvation outside of our organization – the same being their shibboleth even at this day.
And in similar fashion the crown-lost leader of the LHMM mimicked his Epiphany kinsmen that he and his are now the “Fully Faithful,” the “salt,” the “light,” the “good and faithful servant” class, etc.– that those claiming to be the Fully Faithful are second-deathers, the same being the identical verdict circulated by the Society some forty years ago against Brother Johnson and his adherents. So once again we observe antitypical Saul “anointed” by Samuel in crystal clear exhibition of the true picture given “for our admonition and learning” (1 Cor. 10:11) some three thousand years ago. The truth of this type will certainly impress all who have even a smattering of Epiphany Truth!
“Fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what a great thing He hath done for you. But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your kind.” (1 Sam. 12:24) This prophetic warning saw exact fulfillment at the death of Saul and his three sons, as Israel also was “consumed” in defeat by the Philistines. Thus, we close with Brother Johnson’s conclusion In E-13:251 – “Let us learn the lessons chiefly inculcated by Samuel and Saul, i.e., that by God’s grace we stand, as we abide faithful, taught us by antitypical Samuel’s life, and that, despite God’s grace, we fall, as we prove unfaithful, taught us by antitypical Saul’s life.”
Sincerely your brother,
John J. Hoefle, Pilgrim
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ANNOUNCEMENT OF GENERAL INTEREST
Acting upon some suggestions that have come to us, we have produced our July paper No. 145 as a Special Edition No. 7 – to be used this year as an impetus, or supplement, before and during our Special Effort in Antitypical Gideon’s Second Battle. It seems to us a very unusual coincidence that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the church door of Wittenberg on October 31, and that Brother Russell died October 31 – also, Brother Johnson, who was buried on October 27, wrote of himself as the little Martin Luther of this Epiphany period. (See E-10:428) It is noteworthy that these brethren are three Star Members, and two of them “Principal Men” (Micah 5:5).
We believe these tracts will be favorably received by many Protestants. They may be served at Protestant church doors – also from house to house in definite Protestant neighborhoods. We realize that “opportunities of service” will be varied with our brethren – according to their time, strength and means. We welcome the cooperation of our faithful brethren as opportunity permits. The tracts are free, postage prepaid – and we can supply whatever quantity you may desire, our limitation being that you order in keeping with what you anticipate distributing. We serve and honor the Lord as we “bear witness” to the Truths He gave us through His honored Messengers. The Lord bless thee, and keep thee.
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LETTERS OF GENERAL INTEREST
Dear Mr. Hoefle:
It was my pleasure recently to come by your paper Number 145. It is one of the most interesting Bible studies I have ever come across. I would be very much interested in receiving whatever previous papers that would be available, as I believe that they would be very helpful in my own Bible studies. I am associated with -------. as an assistant to ------- and in our church fellowship I am a teacher of an adult class.
The gift enclosed is intended to defray costs Involved for whatever papers may be available, or to be used as you see fit in your ministry. Thanks so much for your kind attention.
Sincerely yours in Christ
