A Merited Rebuke by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 9, 1911

A Merited Rebuke

By F. M. W.

We have reached the days in earth’s history of which it was declared, “It is time for thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void thy law.” The Scriptures of truth are not only the object of bitter criticism on the part of open and avowed skeptics, but they are made the sport of men who profess to take them as the basis of their faith and action. It is sad but true that this spirit of subtle infidelity has entered even the Christian ministry. In the pulpit are to be found those who, while they outwardly profess faith in the divine Word, treat it with such indifference or contempt that it is made to appear ridiculous in the eyes of the worldling. Even the immutable law of Jehovah, spoken with his own voice from the blazing peaks of Sinai, written with his own finger on tables of stone, and delivered to his church as the eternal rule of faith, does not escape. We hear much of late regarding the revision of the ten commandments. Men, wise in their own conceit and glorying in their own folly, feel that they can improve upon the laws and precepts of Jehovah.

The latest effort to adapt the ten commandments to modern thought and needs of present-day society is that of a Chicago clergyman who issued recently a revised edition of the commandments, making an application exclusively to men. The new decalogue formed the basis of this clergyman’s Sunday sermon two weeks ago. The first commandment reads, “Thou shalt have no other woman except thy wife;” the sixth, “Thou shalt not smoke ten-cent cigars nor wear silk socks when thy wife wears a last year’s hat.” These are fair samples of the whole. Later, this minister issued another revised code for the benefit of mothers. Speaking of such works as this, the editor of the Washington Post for October 29, delivers the following well-merited and stinging rebuke:—

The New Commandments

A Chicago minister issued last week, to a waiting world, a portion of the new decalogue. Its application being exclusively to men, the guilty shouldered the burden of reprobation with awkward grace, acknowledging their remissness, and hoping that the worst was over. Conscious, however, that there were two tablets of stone given amid the thunders of Sinai, the Rev. W. B. Millard purposes to-day to deliver ten commandments to mothers. They have been made public and are a lot of trash. . . .

At the close of a long period of gradual decadence, the true prophets of Jehovah inveighed against a religious system that made jest of the holy ordinances, and offered maimed cattle in sacrifice to the Lord. If the travesty afforded by the Chicago minister’s revised commandments means anything, it points to a present condition, which, in its moral aspects, bears close relationship to that existing in that earlier day.

The man of the world is not without his own kind of discernment. When he sees the accredited ministers of the gospel trailing in the dirt the oracles committed to their charge, he draws his conclusions; and these, like a two-edged sword, cut both ways, overturning the obligations imposed, and holding up to merited ridicule and scorn those who make a mock of their calling. If the wearer of the cloth can make sport of the “Thou shalt not’s,” wherein lies the sinner’s defection? It becomes to him a play and a game. . . .

With pulpit examples such as these, the unregenerate well may cry, “Physician, heal thyself!” And the rulers of the church might consider whether buffoonery in a preacher should not be prohibited as rigidly as immorality or heresy.

With what regard can we expect the average man of the world to hold the law of Jehovah when it is thus trampled in the dust by men who profess to be set for its defense? There is much lament to-day, from many quarters, over the lessening of moral responsibility among the masses of the people. This age is coming to be noted above all others for terrible outbursts of passion, and crimes that outrage and shock the moral sensibility. These conditions result in a large measure from the fact that the church of God no longer stands as the sentinel of truth. Many whom God has set as watchmen on Zion’s walls have forsaken their posts. They no longer give warning of the approach of evil. They have forgotten their high and holy calling, and have lowered their own standard of faith and living down to the common level. Men are losing the fear of God and regard for sacred things out of their lives. Less moral restraint is felt, and the consequence is that the flood of human passion is rapidly on the increase.

We need to-day, even in our own hearts, to cherish a deeper regard for sacred things. We need to suppress the careless word, the idle jest involving the name of God or some Bible character.

We need a spirit that will tremble at his Word in believing faith, that will appropriate his promises of power, that will cherish closeness of communion with his Spirit. This only will hold us in hours of temptation. Unless we cultivate this relationship to God in our own experience, we shall unconsciously partake of the careless, indifferent spirit of the age. F. M. W.