Building for the Better World by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 30, 1914

Building for the Better World

By C. M. S.

THE man of the world builds for time, but the Christian for eternity. The one grasps that which is near at hand and will perish with the present. The other looks beyond to what the future holds, and chooses that which will endure. Satan holds the present close to our eyes that we may not see what God has for us in the better world,—the enduring substance of an eternal inheritance.

This life is not given to us that we may use it to minister to the lusts of the flesh. It is given to us as an opportunity to demonstrate whether we will be loyal or disloyal; whether we will choose that which God sets before us as the best, or choose that which would work ruin to ourselves and our associates and bring further discord into the universe of God. Faith and hope and trust and loyal obedience,—these show the better choosing; these demonstrate a determination to be aligned on the side of God, and to be in harmony with his purpose. They bring blessings to those who manifest them, and make the manifestants a blessing to those with whom they mingle.

While men and women of the world delve, and toil, and worry, and strive for that which they cannot take with them when the last summons comes, the Christian uses this life as an opportunity for entrance into the grander one in which he can enjoy all that is good, and be free from every interference of unrighteousness. He whose hope of enjoyment is bounded by the cradle and the grave and beset on all sides by the forces of selfishness overreaching one another, has no anchor that can hold when human courage fails and human strength gives out.

We cannot build for this life only and build safely. We cannot turn our attention and our energies upon our own desires if we expect one day to let our eyes rest in pleasure upon “the King in his beauty.” Paul says, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” We cannot stop with this life and be Christians. We cannot make this life our chief consideration and be true children of God, true members of the household of faith. The Christian’s hope takes hold on eternity. The Christian’s work must be a work for eternity.

Speaking of that great hope around which cluster the warnings and prophecies and encouragements of the whole Bible, the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews declares: “Which we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and entering into that which is within the veil.” Heb. 6:19. Christ is within the veil; he holds the anchor. As long as the child of God clings to that anchorage, he cannot drift. There is no power on earth that can sweep him away; there is no power in heaven that will. But apart from that anchorage, there is no power to save man from eternal ruin. Outside Heaven’s purpose for man there is no power that cares to do so. And because that is so, and men are drifting away from that true anchorage, we find an ever-increasing proportion of the human family losing hope, trust, and courage, and launching themselves into eternity with no preparation to meet God.

Year by year the number of self-destructions increases—a sure indication that with each new year an ever-increasing number are losing their anchorage, and their courage and hope. They narrow their vision to the things of this world, and when disappointment comes, they have no anchor.

The causes for this condition are manifold. The increase of skepticism, outside and inside the church, fostered by the destructive criticism of the Bible in the hands of an unconverted ministry, is doing perhaps as much as any other one thing to bring about this sad condition in the world. When a great portion of humanity loses faith in the Word of God, there is nothing but human power left to encourage, or guide, or even restrain. Their interest in even the things of this temporal life seems to loosen and unwind like the strands of a frayed rope. Every tremor of wavering in the pulpits of the land is increased and intensified in the great aggregate audience that listens. One note of doubt in the pulpit can make more skeptics than all the rest of the sermon can make converts. If he whose business it is to proclaim the Word doubts it, he has lost every leverage he might have employed to bring souls to the anxious seat.

The land is filled today with these discords of doubt emanating from the pulpits of spiritual advisers. The hired choir has done its work of disintegration in the church; but the result of even its work is completely lost in the greater maelstrom of ruin created by a doubting pulpit. From every seed of infidelity scattered by such hands there spring up a hundred tares to choke out the aspirations of the soul, to destroy trust in God, and to ruin respect for divine law. With these gone, there is nothing but fear of man to restrain the hand; and more and more frequently is it found that this does not control, or restrain, or even retard.

This world is losing hope because it is coming to have nothing but this life to hope in; because it has seen man’s only sure anchor disparaged; because it has seen the Word of God belittled by those who were paid to expound it.

But this confederacy of ruin should not surprise the child of God. We have been forewarned by that very Word that in the last days scoffers would arise, that seducing spirits and doctrines of devils would be abroad, that genuine faith would be scarce in the earth, and that infidelity and sin would abound on every hand. Men have placed their hopes in the accomplishment of some great purpose, and when the storm of disappointment has come, their bark has dragged anchor, and they have lost their souls. Many indeed have seen their brightest hopes fade and wither and become the plaything of the winds of misfortune, and in that stress of spirit they have carried their case to judgment in their own hands, with no advocate at the bar. Truly the world is losing its hold on God, because it has been building upon the sands of time instead of upon the Rock of eternal ages.

At such a time how the Christian should labor to place before the world the only hope worthy of the name! “Hope thou in God.” The hope of the Christian is real. Building on that hope, we build secure. It spans the gulf between death and the resurrection. It bridges the strait between Paradise lost and Paradise restored. The Golden Gate toward which the Christian looks is the pearl-hinged gate of the city of God. Inside that is life everlasting, the fruition of hope long deferred, the companionship of the Christ who bought us with his blood.

In spite of the fact that the world is losing hope, the true Christian, who has been building for eternity, may now look up and lift up his head, knowing that “our redemption draweth nigh.” When he who is our life shall appear, then will be demonstrated who has builded most wisely, the one who has builded upon the foundation of the Word and greets its Author with rejoicing, or the one who has doubted the Word, builded upon his doubts, and flees to the mountains to hide from the face of him whom he has denied and defied. Let us choose that better foundation that our building may stand when everything earthly shall have been destroyed.

C. M. S.