God Lives and Reigns by A. E. PLACE

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Dec 15, 1904

“God Lives and Reigns”

By A. E. PLACE

A. E. PLACE

The statement, “God lives and reigns,” is taken from the article, “A Call to Service,” by Mrs. E. G. White, in the REVIEW of October 20. The entire article has impressed me deeply, not only because of its intrinsic value at any time, but especially at the time and for the purpose for which it was written—the opening keynote of our great missionary campaign. The text also, if taken alone, is a soul-inspiring truth; but as I have viewed it, in the setting given to it by the author, it has been especially appreciated, and it has thrilled my soul with courage, hope, and joy. I quote briefly the immediate connection as follows:—

“God and Christ and the heavenly angels are working with intense activity to hold in check the fierceness of Satan’s wrath, that God’s plans may not be thwarted. God lives and reigns. He is conducting the affairs of the universe. Let his soldiers move forward to victory. . . . As a mighty Conqueror, the Lord will work for them. Let the gospel message ring through our churches, summoning them to universal action.”

This is a most wonderful array of truth for this very time. We behold the many signs of the awful day of God rapidly fulfilling before our eyes. Truly, “the nations are angry.” Men’s hearts are hard and selfish and scheming. Greed and selfish indulgence seem to be in the very atmosphere of this last generation. Battle and war is the talk and action of to-day. The land is being “filled with violence” and bloodshed. Murder and suicide are coming to be the popular crimes. A trivial word or act, and the next moment a mortal combat. Soldiers of opposing armies, wounded on the battle-field, and unable to use gun or sword, clinch in the awful death struggle, and when cold and stiff in death, they are found like bull-dogs, the one with his teeth closed upon the throat of his antagonist, and the other with a finger or thumb in the socket from which the eye had been gouged with his last remnant of physical power and dying animosity.

The whole world is organizing. Capital is against labor, and labor against capital. Trade is pitted against trade, and man against man,—all professedly in the interests of self-protection, but in truth against even their own selfish desires and the hope of the nation.

In our own land, mob is coming to be the lawmaker, and lynching the capital punishment. The great statesmen of the earth are alarmed at what is happening, and at what is liable to happen. Six hundred thousand are to-day on the battle-field in mortal combat. Over seventy thousand already fill soldiers’ graves, or lie unburied where they fell in the recent battles of the far East. The earth fairly trembles beneath the measured tread of armed men, while the sea foams with the mad rush of great naval monsters. All England has within the past few weeks been aroused to the fighting point, and hastily donned her war paint to meet the Russian battle-ships, to avenge the English fishermen in the North Sea. Why the sudden check on the very precipice of war? Some say, “The Hague.” We say, The four angels to whom it was given to hold the winds till God’s servants are sealed. It is because “God lives and reigns.” It is because “he is conducting the affairs of the universe.”

I say that at this time, with the earth filled with satanic agencies, moving forward in their death-dealing and soul-destroying work, these words come to our anxious hearts like the encircling arm of a mighty father, with comfort and encouragement for his trembling child. Above the roar of cannon and the cry of selfish and angry men, in the face of the most trying and discouraging climax of earth’s history, those grand words, “God lives and reigns,” banish fear and discouragement, check the course of the backslider, and thrill the heart of every true child of God with confidence and joy. “He is conducting the affairs of the universe.” Praise his holy name. The angels of his own choosing are holding the winds of strife, and in all nations precious souls are leaving the selfishness of this world to stand with that company which erelong shall be translated into a kingdom of absolute glory and peace.

What more fitting words can be used in closing than those which immediately follow the quotations given above? “Let his soldiers move forward to victory. . . . As a mighty Conqueror, the Lord will work for them.” Brethren, lift up your heads and rejoice; for “God lives and reigns.”