p. 5 | God on His Throne by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 14, 1909

God on His Throne

By C. M. S.

THE Scriptures give us warning of the coming of a time when the people would attempt the dethroning of God; when there would be an almost universal teaching against the kingship of Jehovah. The great prevalence of such teachings as the following proves to us that we have reached that time:—

Knowledge has given us a new universe. Knowledge has also given us a new conception of God. He is no longer sitting on a throne. He is in the sunset, in the air, in the mind of men. This new and grander God has been given us as a result of modern knowledge.—Rev. Minot J. Savage.

This is the teaching of the “higher critic,” who boasts of a wisdom and knowledge greater than God has chosen to reveal to man. This “new and grander God” is a creation of the human brain run wild in its own philosophy. It is indeed a new god, and many preachers and many churches are bowing at its feet to-day. But the command of the only true God still stands: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me;” and by our attitude toward that command will we be judged in the last great day, no matter how many “new” gods and “grander” gods we may have fashioned for our own worship.

The idea of “god in everything” is part of the New Thought creed; but that New Thought is as old as heathenism itself. Heathen philosophy put a god in everything that God had made or caused to grow, and then it fell down and worshiped the things in which it enthroned its gods. The New Thought advocate thinks it a grand and beautiful idea to have God in everything; but it is no grander or more beautiful than it was when the idolatry to which it led debased every instinct of love and virtue, and made of their religion a sensual pastime, a veritable workshop of the devil. It is clothed in new language; but in its heart is the sepulcher of souls. It is the avowed product of “knowledge,” but not the knowledge of God. Because “they refused to have God in their knowledge,” God permitted the heathen world to have its own way; and into every excess a reprobate mind could conceive those nations went.

This New Thought has found it displeasing to retain in its mind that conception of God which God himself has given in his Word, and so it has graven, molded, and fashioned this creature of its own devising, as the backsliding Israelites did before Sinai. The Israelites made them a “new god” to lead them back to Egypt. Whither will this “new god,” this “grander god,” lead its worshiping makers?

“He is no longer sitting on his throne,” say the heathen philosophers of the present day. But the psalmist

tells us that we may expect such a movement. He says: “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples meditate a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against Jehovah, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” Ps. 2:1-3. Certainly this predicts a strong attempt to dethrone God and set up a vain imagination of their own in his place. But the Lord declares: “He that sitteth in the heavens [“on his throne”] will laugh; the Lord will have them in derision.” Verse 4. This scripture declares that God “sitteth in the heavens.” In Rev. 21:5 we read: “And he that sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.” In Rev. 3:21 we read: “He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne.”

“He is no longer sitting on a throne,” say the New Thought and the modern theologian. But in making such a statement, they take direct issue with God. Need we ask, Which shall we believe? “Let God be true.” The God of the Bible is grand enough, good enough, and sure enough. In him there is hope; outside of him the blackness of darkness forever. C. M. S.