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Faith in the Future Made Easy

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 15, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 24.

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Faith in the Future Made Easy

By Elihu, Jr.

ELIHU, JR.
Let us compare the transition which our Father promises to make in his faithful children in the morning of the resurrection, with some of the transformations that are taking place daily before our eyes. Of this change Paul says: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” Again, speaking of the change that will take place in “our vile body” at the coming of “the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,” the apostle declares that it “shall be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.”
In nature, as we have often seen, sun-energy is transformed into material substances, including food. This food is again transformed into flesh, blood, and bones, and thought, feeling, and emotion. Further, thought is made dependent entirely on right relations to even so gross a substance as water. Let a human being be deprived of water (moisture) for ten days, and the mind will be totally deranged; or let fever germs get into the blood, and the same thing will occur. Again, let the nerves of the brain be thrown out of harmonious relationship, and the mind will soon be broken up.
As I look upon the body and its intricate mechanism, and consider the mighty and wonderful working of creative power that can thus transform material substances, and even go so far as to generate mind out of, and make it dependent on, material energy, I can not conceive that the future change to a spiritual body is any more wonderful or mysterious than the changes we already see taking place.
None of these changes toward spiritual power and substance would be possible had not spiritual power, in the first acts of creation, been changed into what we call physical laws and material substances.
Who would for one moment believe that the block of coal could be changed into heat, and made to generate life in the egg, unless he had seen it done? Who would believe that oil could be changed into light and warmth, unless so taught by experience? Again, who would believe that the weight and motion of the water in the stream could be changed into electricity, and conveyed for miles, to appear again as power, and be changed into light and heat and motion? Every one of these and of a thousand other processes in nature is utterly beyond our comprehension. So, likewise, is the resurrection of the dead.
Where, then, is there room for unbelief in God’s promises? There would be none if men were studying the works of God in nature, as they are developing on the right hand and on the left. There are, in our every-day lives, phenomena just as mysterious as any of the unseen phenomena of the kingdom of God in its most intricate workings. In the light of these facts, we can appreciate what the psalmist meant when he said: “Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up.” Ps. 28: 5. If men knew God and his almighty power as revealed in his works, they would not seek excuses for not believing all his promises. Nothing would be too wonderful for them to believe.
And if human minds were taught to gratify their innate love of the marvelous by studying the deep things of God, as revealed in his works, there would be neither time nor disposition left to chase after the wild, imaginative literary fiction that is so popular with the mass of mankind to-day, and which, more than anything else, hinders faith, and makes it distasteful.
To know God through his works is to prepare to know him through his Word. To become thus acquainted with him is to be satisfied, rested, refreshed and strengthened, and prepared for life both here and hereafter. His works are to the revelations of his Word what the illustrations in a book are to the printed page, only they are living, moving pictures. If the pictures are attractive, one the sooner learns to love the text.
Let us, then, devoutly study and accept all those things which bring rest and peace, and place us in harmony with our environment, through filial obedience and resignation to the divine will.
Los Angeles, Cal.