Your ShelfYour Projects

God's Rich Offer

20%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 14, 1912

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 89, No. 11.

Read the full edition

God's Rich Offer

By C. M. S.

The time is drawing near when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord; when the kingdoms of men, ruled by men and fomenting strife, will be broken as a potter's vessel, and the kingdom of Christ will fill the whole earth. Those kingdoms ground to powder by the stone “cut out of the mountain without hands,” will be scattered as the winds of autumn scatterthe chaff of the summer thrashing-floor. But concerning that time the prophet declares that our Lord “shall stand, and shall feed his flock in the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah his God: and they shall abide.” Micah 5:4.
Strife is running riot in the world to-day; but he who is fed of God will have peace in the very midst of this world's commotion. He will abide, and abide in peace; and not only that, but he “shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty;” and that means to abide forever. He will not be moved; he will not be anxious amid this world's tumults; he will not be fearful of the outcome, because “this man shall be our peace,”.
The inn of Bethlehem had no place for Him in whose hands lay all the blessings of heaven for a lost world. The house was filled with the every-day trafficker and traveler. So with the hearts of the great mass of humanity to-day. Men are struggling, striving, surging, self-seeking, competing, crowding the heart-walls for room; while the Saviour of the world stands without, knocking unheard, pleading unanswered, and loving, through it all, the souls that weave themselves as woof into the warp of this world. And when one does hear, and turns from the turmoil and the strife and the grasping and the soul-starving to the water of life and the house of bread, then Heaven rejoices, and the long waiting and the scorn and the rebuffs and the mockings of the rabble that hounded him to the cross then, and that follow his disciples now,—all are forgotten in the joy that fills the heart of Christ. He is then seeing the fruit of soul-travail, and the seeing brings the satisfying which recompenses all.
O soul outside of Christ, why dwell longer in sin? Why wander longer in the wilderness of sin and doubting? Why walk longer in the way that has no other end, or goal, than death? Why, journey on toward the desert of death, when you might return to the garden of God, with its flowing river of life, its fruit-filled tree of life, its bread of life? Why serve longer the prince of this world on the battle-fields of selfishness, greed, strife, and all manner of evil, when the Prince of Peace has unfurlled his banner, in whose service all is love and joy and peace and all manner of good? The time for choosing is now, to-day. The hosts of evil are swelling to untold proportions, and soon the harvest they have sown they will reap. But out of this sin-sown soil God is bringing forth a remnant for his glory, who shall walk over the ashes of the hosts of Satan, when the dross of sin has been burned out of this world. To that remnant are all the promises of God. They shall live and reign with him forever, even forever and ever. Souls are deciding every hour for either life or death. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” The unbidden Guest of Bethlehem holds out to you the bread of life, and bids you drink of the water of life, and offers to you the joys and blessings of eternal life, where the canker of sin can never come. It is the richest offer that has ever been made to man. Let us accept it, and accept it now. C. M. S.