Unbelief by JACOB HARE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 7, 1872

Unbelief.

By JACOB HARE

UNBELIEF is the same in all ages, the chosen weapon of Satan, being a composition of doubt, suspicion, and distrust. Refusing to be instructed by revelation, arrogant and presumptuous in its very nature, it arrays itself against God, assuming the place of judge with regard to God and his word, and bringing in its train darkness and death.

It was through unbelief that Satan succeeded in beguiling Eve. His fair speeches led her to distrust the word of God and yield to Satan’s influence. After this, she becomes a willing instrument in his hands to seduce the man. The effects of the fall are soon witnessed in Adam’s posterity. The first is an unbeliever, filled with rage and envy toward his brother. And why did he slay his brother? “Because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous.”

His spirit soon filled the antediluvian world. The crying sin of unbelief filled the hearts of the people, “and violence filled the earth.” Gen. 6:13. After a faithful warning, God overthrew them in the deluge, Noah and his family alone escaping.

Also, the cities of the plain were made an example of warning to after generations, God warning them through Lot whose righteous soul was vexed with their filthy conversation. As they were full of darkness and all manner of wickedness, “God rained fire and brimstone upon them,” and they were destroyed.

The Jews also present a fearful history with regard to the sin of unbelief, although God chose them from the rest of the world, and manifested himself to them as he did to no other people. His signal judgments upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians, their miraculous passage through the Red Sea, the overthrow of the Egyptian hosts in the sea, the waters gushing from the rock, the falling of the manna, together with the wonderful manifestations of God’s presence in giving his law on Mt. Sinai, as well as his visible presence in the tabernacle to lead them by a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, together with his signal judgments from time to time upon the rebellious, all proved ineffectual so far as curing them of their unbelief, until the entire host that joined in the song of deliverance at the crossing of the Red Sea died in the wilderness, except Caleb and Joshua, who fully followed the Lord.

Passing the long line of judgments and disasters that befell their children who entered the land of Canaan because of their rebellions and unbelief, we come to the climax of their history in that they rejected the Son of God himself. Although he came in the precise manner that was foretold by the prophets, and did the works predicted of him, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the hungry, casting out devils, and preaching his own gospel; and notwithstanding the benevolence of Christ, his innocence and loveliness, as well as his compassion for his own people, he was a vile thing in their eyes, and nothing short of his blood could satiate the unnatural thirst that burned in their hearts toward him. And although Pilate trembled in view of the unholy deed, and washed his hands before them, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person, see ye to it,” yet they cry out, saying, “His blood be on us and on our children.” See Matt. 27:24, 25.

A few days before, the Saviour had wept over their city, saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how oft would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Matt. 23:37, 38.

But their thirst for blood was not assuaged by the death of Christ. They follow his disciples with the same spirit, till Stephen, a man full of the Holy Ghost, fell a sacrifice for the truth, when God gave them over, as a people, to unbelief and blindness of mind, to work out their destruction with greediness. About forty years after this, their city and temple were destroyed by the Romans, and about three millions of the Jews miserably perished. See Josephus’ Wars of the Jews, book 6, chap. 9.

“And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” Isa. 8:14. We have seen the fate of the first house, the Jews, and how they stumbled over Christ’s first coming. Have not the second house, or Gentile churches, stumbled over his second coming, inasmuch as they reject the Advent doctrine, thrusting out the Advent people from them, as unworthy of their fellowship, as was especially manifested in 1844. And as the Jews, after their fall, had a space granted to fill up the cup of their unbelief, so the fallen churches are now having a space in which to ripen up for the seven last plagues.

And to the student of prophecy, it is evident that the work of apostasy is moving rapidly onward. Spiritualism is stealthily, though surely, throwing its coils around these churches, whilst they, though imperceptibly to themselves, are falling into the snare. Whilst spiritualism discards the word of God as a whole, the churches are doing the same thing by piece-meal.

Roman Catholicism, or the old mother, struck down the fourth commandment many centuries ago; but it was left for the daughters in these last days to demolish the whole ten.

Spiritualism teaches that there is no moral distinction in the acts of men; that it is just as holy to take a man’s life as it is to carry him food when he is hungry, or to clothe him when he is naked; that whatever is, is right; that men and devils are a part of God, and therefore act through his agency; thus making God the author of all acts good or bad. See Nature and Tendency of Modern Spiritualism, chap. 4.

And do not the no-law churches in their teaching virtually advocate the same thing? Take the moral law away, and what have we to define sin? for by the law is the knowledge of sin, Rom. 3:20; also 7:7; and where no law is, there is no transgression, Rom. 4:15. To destroy the vital part, therefore, is to destroy the whole. Thus Satan is effectually working out his design through these bodies.

The doctrine of Christ’s second coming and the lines of prophecy are as carefully avoided as if they were no part of God’s word. The books of Daniel and Revelation are and will forever remain to them sealed, there being no love in their hearts for them. The great moral battle of the last days is therefore fairly joined. Spiritualism, in its present form, came up in 1848, and has scattered its poisonous miasma far and wide. Almost simultaneously with it, came into being the doctrines of Seventh-day Adventists, embracing the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, the prophetic periods and the near coming of Christ. The twenty-four years that have passed, have sufficiently developed the conflict to show the following: That the popular churches who hold to the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul will so far yield to spiritualists and their influence that they will effectually do their work.

So far as the no-law Adventists are concerned, they stand in a very awkward position. They must necessarily renounce the mortality of man and go over to spiritualism or otherwise embrace the law and messages, and stand for the truth. In their present position they are prepared for neither, and it is hardly probable they will go through the battle thus. “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet; for they are the spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” Rev. 16:13. The final consummation of this battle is just before us. The devils that are to come out of the mouths of those three powers are already on their mission preparing for the final conflict. The dark pall of unbelief with regard to God and his word follow in their wake. The dragon or paganism which covers a great portion of the earth is already in Satan’s hands. The beast or Catholicism which has its seat in Europe is also to play an important part. The false prophet or the United States, though named last is perhaps not least in importance. This being the strongest hold for Bible truth, it is selected as the main battle field. It is here the great deception is developed. When this government is taken, the rest of the earth will fall comparatively an easy prey into the hands of Satan.

In view, therefore, of the present condition of the earth and the developments we behold around us, who that is standing in the light can doubt the near approach of the end? The last year has developed more clearly than ever before the last work of the two-horned beast in forming an image to the first beast. The great conflict between the remnant church and the powers of darkness must necessarily grow in magnitude and interest till the close. Unbelief in God and his word is fast filling the minds of men. “Thou shalt not surely die,” was Satan’s first, and it is his last—his alpha and omega.

JACOB HARE.