The Creator’s Remedies by GEO. D. BALLOU

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 12, 1915

The Creator’s Remedies

By GEO. D. BALLOU

Mind Cure—No. 7

The Creator’s Remedies

GEO. D. BALLOU

As was stated in a former article, any basis for the permanent relief of mental ailments must be broad enough and stable enough to provide for all past, all present, and all future trouble. The first loss the human race suffered was the loss of confidence in God. This calamity has in its workings become the cause of every ill, both mental and physical, that ever has afflicted or ever will afflict the human race. The Creator has spoken to his offspring through prophets and teachers and apostles, and has sent his only Son properly to represent his character to the world, in order that man’s confidence might be restored in his Heavenly Father. This has ever been the aim of the gospel,—to heal that terrible death stroke inflicted by the enemy.

Let us for a moment consider how important is confidence even in the affairs of this life. Confidence is the basis on which the home is built. Destroy it, and the home disintegrates. Confidence holds the church together. When confidence is gone, everything good and permanent is jeopardized.

The civil community and state rest on the basis of confidence. If every man in a civil community had lost confidence in every other man, there would be a great scattering. The business world rests on confidence. Not a transaction can be arranged without it. Paul says (Heb. 11: 1), “Faith is the substance” (sub, under; stare, to stand)—the thing that stands under. It is the ground or support of all things we hope for. The Greek word for substance, hupostasis, means “the foundation, the underlying strata.”

So in God’s kingdom when confidence was lost, all was lost for man. When confidence is regained, all is won back again. Well-founded confidence lies at the basis of all success, physical, financial, and spiritual.

The apostle Peter assures us that God has left on record certain exceeding great and precious promises that will enable man to become a partaker of the divine nature; that is, have restored in himself once more the image of God. 2 Peter 1: 4. Man may thus have his spiritual nature restored if he will live by the words of confidence, courage, hope, good will, and joyful expectation found in Christ Jesus and his promises. Matt. 4: 4.

When a man makes great promises, we ask at once, Is he able to perform? And if it is demonstrated that he is able, the next question, Will he be true and honest and faithful? follows quickly. Being assured on these points, we trust implicitly.

The works of God on every hand speak of his infinite power, wisdom, and greatness. The man who spends a little time each day studying the power of the Creator as seen in our natural surroundings, will not doubt any of the promises of the Bible. The One who can transform sun energy, air, water, and earth into grains and fruits and vegetables, so that we see new creations taking place all about us daily, and can then transform these food substances into flesh and blood and bones, and into feelings, emotions, and thoughts,—such a God can raise the dead and do anything else he may choose to do. Those who are studying these things will never look with admiring astonishment upon the vagaries, mysticism, and occultism that are now being manifested in various cults that profess to be working with divine healing power.

He who can do the wonderful things we see about us, can also perform infinite things that have not yet entered human minds. God’s infinite power and divine nature are revealed in nature. Rom. 1: 20.

In the Bible is revealed a character

of love and faithfulness with which no ranting infidel or atheist ever finds a word of fault. This character, seen in Jesus of Nazareth, was full of pity and compassion for sinners. It hated sin, and made the greatest sacrifice conceivable to separate man from his sinfulness and restore his confidence in the Creator. This character teaches forgiveness of sin, and mercy and good will toward all God’s creatures. This character is full of hope and joyful expectation concerning the outcome of God’s work in this earth. This character has labored and still is laboring to make friends of its enemies, to bless the undeserving and the unthankful. It is patient and long-suffering. By and by every being in the universe will bow in acknowledgment of the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Phil. 2: 10, 11. Such a character will surely be faithful to keep every promise ever made by the Creator.

Is not the being in whom such power and character are combined, though unseen, to be honored, revered, trusted, and fellowshiped by every intelligence in the universe? The men and women who will study this power and character will find confidence taking the place of doubt; fear fleeing before courage; hope taking the place of despair; good will supplanting hatred, envy, and jealousy; and joyful expectation filling the void made by care, anxiety, and the agony of disappointment. It sweeps away every adverse mental mood, brings healing to soul and body, and secures sweet, sacred fellowship with him who is the Author of all things. Here is the perfect Christian Science of eternal things.

The modern healing cults deny the personality back of this eternal power, and ignore the distinctive features of the divine character. They do not teach love for one’s enemies, nor the forgiveness of sin. Rather they deny the existence of evil and sin, and call these things only undeveloped good.

If the eternal power and the divine character of the Creator were appreciated, there would be no taste for the vapid sleight-of-mind performances that are being foisted on the mystified multitudes. If men and women were studying the mighty things of God’s creation, they would not be attracted toward the artificial mysticisms.

There is life here and hereafter in this water of life which men receive from the divine Word. God has put his character in his Word. This character is translated into the life by those who appreciate the eternal power.

Those who do not appreciate the works of this power will not accept the character, and they will be lost. Ps. 28: 5. Those who receive the character will have all of life that this world can give, and all that the life to come can bestow. 1 Tim. 4: 7, 8. They have become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1: 4), and angel hands have written this divine-human character in heaven’s record. And in the great day when God’s work is finished and the Eden restored, the Creator will rehabilitate these characters in imperishable forms, and men who here are brought to that full state of confidence which Adam at first had, will live on to the unending ages of eternity, as Adam and his posterity would if he had retained his confidence in the Creator. This brief time of sin and wretchedness will be forgotten in the great, unending cycles that follow.

Thus may we see how confidence restored in the Creator through his works and character has in it the full remedy for the damage suffered on account of man’s original loss of confidence. Those who will thus have provision made for all past, all present, and all future trouble, will know fully and eternally what mind cure means. Those who will not be renewed in the spirit of their minds (Eph. 4: 23), and transformed by the renewing of their minds (Rom. 2: 12), must at last suffer the legitimate consequences of the adverse mental moods.

This is the mind cure minus all artificial mysteries. It reveals the sure consequences of mental causes. It shows the true mental remedy, in being connected with and drawing power from the great central dynamo of the universe instead of the dry-cell batteries of earth.

And for those who thus trust him, the Creator will work miracles when it is best. He will suspend or accelerate natural processes, or remove the legitimate consequences of the violations of natural law, when he sees that it will be best for the individual and for the honor of the Lord’s cause in the earth. Let us trust him.