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A Flood of Crime

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 17, 1912

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 89, No. 42.

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A Flood of Crime

By J. S. WASHBURN

Cause and Effect

J. S. WASHBURN
“It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law.” That time has come; that hour has struck. A flood of lawlessness is sweeping the land. Anarchy, murder, and divorce have increased to such a frightful extent that they even the hearts of worldly men are failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth.
One twelfth of the marriages of this country end in divorce. Wives murdered by husbands, husbands murdered by wives, judges murdered in court, suicides, burglaries, lynchings, cold-blooded assassinations, and but few criminals punished,—these things are becoming so common that the prospect for the future is sickening, horrifying. “Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter.”
“We look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.” Read the graphic description of the very days and conditions in which we live, as given in Isaiah 59, and remember that this follows the fifty-eighth chapter, in which the breach in the law of God is spoken of. See verses 12, 13.
A people are seeking to build up the breach in the law of God,—the Sabbath commandment,—and men, even ministers, in order to avoid the eternal, unchanging claims of the Sabbath commandment, seek to sweep away the whole ten commandments. The logical result of the failure to accept the Sabbath reform foretold in Isa. 58:12-14 is the rejection of the whole law of ten commandments. This brings the terrible condition of lawlessness foretold in Isaiah 59. The connection between the two chapters, Isaiah 58 and 59, is logical. It is the connection of cause and effect; compare them.
The fearful condition of lawlessness described in Isaiah 59 is the natural and inevitable result of the teaching that Christ nailed the whole law of ten commandments to the cross. “The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate.” Isa. 24: 5, 6. “Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?” Jer. 7:9, 10. When ministers of the gospel teach that Jesus, the world's example, abolished the ten commandments, of which “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery” are parts, what wonder that murder and adultery increase?
“The passing days are eventful and full of peril. Signs of a most startling character appear in floods, in hurricanes, in tornadoes, in earthquakes, in casualties by sea and land. The judgments of God are falling on the world, that men may be awakened to the fact that Christ will come speedily.”
“Why are these things so? Why is there such a spirit of lawlessness in the social world, and such a medley of strange doctrines in the church? Is it not because among the great mass of professed Christians, the grievous sin of transgressing the law of God is not understood? Even ministers in the pulpit ‘make void’ that law. The result is a general weakening of the bonds of righteousness, a far-reaching tendency to lawlessness, to crime of every sort. Nor can we wonder. When men are not taught that they must obey the law of God, how can they be expected to obey the laws of men?”
This fearful condition of lawlessness is realized by the editors of political papers more fully than by many of the ministers of the gospel. In a leading editorial in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, appeared the following truthful words: “The law is the boundary line between civilization and barbarism. On the one side stand peace, protection, prosperity, and progress; on the other are lined up, always in sullen battle array, murder, arson, and all the other ills that make for individual and community degradation.”
In another number of that journal, under the title “Stop Killing and Stop Lynching, Lest We Ourselves Perish,” appeared the following: “Shall we have mob-rule or law-rule all over the South and all over the United States? . . . We have got finally to answer for this whole miserable business. . . . “We must not permit for any cause a suspension of the forms of the law. We can not excuse one crime, though itis caused by another crime. We can not accept the philosophy of Christ to-day and the promptings of the devil to-morrow. If, when it suits us, we cast aside the rule that comes from heaven, and substitute the law of hell, it will be only a short time until we shall have a hell on earth. . . . If we do not make the law the dominant force, we shall soon be lost in the wreck of our own civilization.”
These are words of terrible truth, worthy of study by the ministers of the gospel who teach that Christ abolished the law. These men are casting aside “the rule that comes from heaven,” and the result appears even to men of the world as a hell on earth.
Sow the teachings of lawlessness, and reap a harvest of fearful crime. A divine and terrible retribution follows closely on the teaching that Christ abolished the ten commandments. Sow lawlessness, and reap murder and anarchy. Sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind.
Memphis, Tenn.