Rev. A Linford, before his decease, was recognized as a good, great and interesting Bible teacher in the Assemblies of God Fellowship for many years. He was a well-loved Bible College lecturer and writer that bequeathed a tremendous amount of Biblical material in his generation. What a legacy he has left to be researched and brought forth to refresh our day! We shall be using such on this site: His writings from the book of Proverbs and also his Editorials that he wrote for the Redemption Tidings when he was its editor. I trust you will enjoy and appreciate his inspired teaching.
BUTTERFLY BEAUTY
By the later Rev. A. Linford
My young friends and I visited the local Natural History Museum. There was an exhibition of butterflies. What an array of loveliness! Red Admiral, Camberwell Beauty, Painted Lady, Brown Fritillary, Peacock - it seemed as if nature had exploited the rainbow to extract such varied and striking hues.
“Merely functional!” exclaims the entomologist, “This is their camouflage. In their natural habitat they would merge into their background.” Functional! But this implies purpose, and purpose indicates intelligence, and intelligence assumes reason. “But butterflies don’t have brains!” you say. But some super-intelligence must have masterminded the colours and contours of these beautiful creatures. If not the butterflies themselves, what then? Even if you accept the theory of evolution, you must admit that such contrivance is too far up the evolutionary scale to be ascribed to butterfly mentality.
We can only conclude that behind this functional beauty there is mind, Infinite Mind, God.
But why such exquisite loveliness? Here is something beyond functional utility, here is aesthetic appeal. The Mind responsible for those butterflies’ wings delighted in His work. “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,” wrote Keats. What artist’s brush could imitate those delicate tints, those glistening shades, those living tones! God must love His works to make them so lovely; and He must love us to so fill His world with beauty. God is more than Infinite intelligence, He is Eternal Goodness, Everlasting Love.
Have you ever noticed John’s threefold definition of God? “God is light… God is love… God is life” (1 John 1:5; 4:8, 16; 5:20). These three terms show God as being Awareness, Affection, Activity. As life He creates us, as love He sustains us, as light He directs us: God knows, God cares, God moves.
Butterfly wings! With such beauty before me I find it hard to believe that nature is “an accidental and fortuitous concurrence of atoms”. Darwinian evolution raises in my mind more questions than it answers. Such a theory may account for function, but not for beauty. Even function pre-supposes mind, but beauty proclaims joyful activity, aesthetic delight. I find it much easier to believe that a personal God made all things “for his pleasure” (Rev. 4:11). And it is certainly more assuring to think of a personal superintendence of creation than to regard all things as the offspring of chance and change.
DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL MEN
“To deliver thee from the way of the evil man” – Proverbs 2: 10-15
The world is full of wicked men, “the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). In such an atmosphere how can a just man live? By wisdom: for in its acceptance it imparts knowledge of truth, discretion of action and discernment of evil. Divine wisdom is not only a citadel of defence against the powers of darkness it is also an arsenal of spiritual weapons to wage a successful warfare against sin, enabling us to “fight the good fight of faith”.
Seven things are said about the evil man. First, he treads a deadlv path; his ways are devious, he follows a downward track, a path that leads to hell and destruction. Secondly, he has a poisonous tongue. “He speaks froward things”, literally, he turns things upside down. He makes evil seem good, turns falsehood into plausible doctrine, argues that black is white, subverts the course of truth. Thirdly, he has wavward feet. He desserts the path of virtue and treads a shady path. He loves darkness rather than light because his deeds are evil. Fourthly, he relishes in: wallowing in wickedness like a sow in the mire. He willfully turns his back on God’s ways to pursue a mirage of happiness. Fifthly, he delights in the wicked wavs of others, and encourages them in their defiance of all that is good. Sixthly, his ways are crooked. He is bent. He cannot measure up to the laws of God or of man. He is more than a law-breaker, he is a law-despiser, a rebel, an anarchist, an abomination to God. Seventhly, his wav is perverse. His whole course of life is a deviation from good. From early acts of evil he has developed habits of lust and ambition that now bind him with unbreakable fetters. What a picture of a man who has thrust God out of his life! He is a menace to society, a miscreant, a destroyer of himself, for such a man who cuts himself off from God commits eternal suicide.
But to accept God’s wisdom, that is, His holy rule for our life, is to be armed against the influence of such unholy characters. Nay, more, it is to be a means of counter-acting their impact on society. As salt is both preservative and detergent, so a good man acts with saving grace in the social scene. Ten righteous men would have saved Sodom (Gen 18:32) - godly persons are still the salvation of society.
PRAYER: Make me wise, 0 Lord, to resist evil and promote good today.
