p. 6 | O. B. KUHN by O. B. Kuhn

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Feb 9, 1911

O. B. KUHN

By O. B. Kuhn

Discouragement

O. B. KUHN

“If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?” Jer. 12: 5. If we fail and become discouraged in these times, when all things are so favorable to success, what shall we do bring the stormy days of the “time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation”?

The word discouragement is defined as being a state of lost confidence, lack of courage, and depression of spirit in regard to effort or action. If it is experienced in our business life, these definitions express our attitude toward our work and business associates; if in our Christian experience, then they apply to our relation to God, and express our attitude toward his work and workers.

What a pitiable condition for a Christian to be in!—confidence in God lost, courage in battling against evil and for righteousness lacking; Christian endeavor, if attempted at all, but a feeble effort, because of the depressed spirit! Surely such a condition is almost as bad as that of the Christian with nothing to do. In evangelical enterprises, as in all other activities where men are needed, the discouraged are necessarily relegated to the rear.

The Fruit of Unbelief

The Bible defines this condition as being a fruit of unbelief. It was this sin that made necessary the forty years’ wandering of the Israelites, and because of it their carcasses fell in the wilderness. It kept them out of the promised land, and will keep many of them out of the kingdom of God. “So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” “Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.” “Be not faithless, but believing.”

The Great Cause of Unbelief

is ignorance of God’s Word. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”

Many have but an imperfect knowledge and understanding of even the most simple teachings of the Scriptures, and as a result, their faith is ignorant and imperfect; it can not be directed by intelligence. Thus, being defectively armored, they can not stand in the evil day. Paul says: “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.”

All need an intelligent faith, based upon an understanding of the plan of salvation. All may obtain this who are not too indolent to make the required effort. If we would have the mind fortified with saving truths, we must daily study the Bible with interest and perseverance. We should understand the relation that exists between God and his children. We have no independent existence, no resources from which to supply the things necessary to our physical being. “For in him we live, and move, and have our being,” “seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;” for “all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” We are not only his by right of creation and maintenance, but by redemption also; for we have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. We are not our own; we have been bought with a price.

The Expected End

God paid this price that we by believing might have everlasting life and a home with him. But before we are fit to be received into his house, it is necessary to form righteous characters. The trials of life are God’s workmen in this preparation process. He says to us: “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, . . . thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” In every trial and temptation that he permits to come upon us, he sees that “expected end,” and thus it is that “all things are for your sakes,” “and all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” O, that we would once for all define our relation with God by actual acquaintance and experience! Then unbelief would forever flee.

Growth in Grace

“Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness; but grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Jesus said, “I am the . . . truth.” He was “the Word . . . made flesh.” If we would grow in knowledge of him, we must study the Word, and with diligence add to our faith strength, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness,

and love. “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

A knowledge of God and of his Word, if received in the love of the truth, will sanctify our lives, and develop in them the Christian graces necessary for entrance into the kingdom of God. With such a knowledge we shall have a faith that will intelligently control our lives, and direct our efforts in Christian endeavor. Then we shall “lay aside every weight, and the sin [unbelief] that doth so easily beset us,” and run with patience the race that is set before us. Discouragement will no longer harass the soul, worry the mind, and weaken the body; and its mother, unbelief, will not keep us out of the kingdom of heaven.

Takoma Park, D. C.