FACT and fancy are brought face to face when the everlasting Gospel is confronted by the theories of men. The Gospel is not a theory. It is the grandest living reality in the world to-day. It is not something that man has devised, but something that the Creator of the heavens and the earth has planned and established, and in the consummation of which every man and woman may participate, if they will.
When fishing under Christ's direction the draught is a marvelous one.
FANCY has fashioned many skilful schemes to bring in harmony, but such inventions have only brought in more disunion; for they have no basis of fact upon which to build. Human schemes for the salvation of men are filling the world to-day; but they are like the Dead Sea apples, filled with the ashes of disappointment. They can not save; for they have in them nothing but the perishing human, and the perishing human has no power to grant an enduring salvation.
OUT from these discord-breeding fancies and these human theories which must bring the most bitter disappointments to the souls that trust in them, God, through His “everlasting Gospel,” is to-day calling a people for His glory and their everlasting good. The purpose of that call is to bring man back into harmony with his Maker, and bring back to the universe of God that peace and loyalty and unity and harmony which pervaded it before Satan conspired against the government of God. Incidental to that work, and crowning it, so far as man is concerned, is the transformation from mortality to immortality when Christ shall come to claim the purchase of His blood.
THE wounds which sin had made must be healed; the discords which it had brought in must be dissipated; the grafted shoots of its disloyalty must be plucked away, that only the fruits of implicit loyalty may be seen; the hatred it had engendered must give place to love; and where, through its tutelage, the service of self had swayed the soul to its own undoing, the fountains of love for mankind must be loosed, that the soul may bring life and joy to those around it; and, in so doing, honor and serve our loving Father and Redeemer. That is the purpose of the Gospel, to put away sin, and bring in the reign of everlasting righteousness. When that is accomplished, every seed and fruit of sin will be removed from the once plague-smitten universe.
MAN is not to be merely a spectator of that work—he must be a participant in it, or it is not a success. So Christ has given to every follower of His the command and the commission to bear to every corner of the earth the gracious invitation to return to the circle of our Father’s household. The Gospel has brought in the principle of brotherhood between persons who are not children of the same earthly parents. Sin made enemies of brothers; Christ, through the work of the “everlasting Gospel,” makes brothers of those who had been enemies. Where Satan put hatred, even of brother against brother, Christ has put that feeling of brotherly love which reaches out far beyond the mere circle of the earthly household, and grasps the hand of persons of every nation without regard to color, creed, or caste.
THE first feeling of the natural heart toward a person of another nationality is to set up a wall of repulsion, especially if the outward appearance of that person is unlike that with which we are familiar, and the language which he speaks is different from our own. It is that feeling that prompts the Chinaman at home to denominate all others “foreign devils;” or that prompts the unconverted in America or England or any other country to look down upon or abuse a Chinaman or a foreigner of any other nationality. That feeling is utterly opposed to the Gospel of Christ. That Gospel is set for the eradication of all such feelings from the human heart. That Gospel brings men back into brotherhood with one another, and back to the acknowledgment of the Fatherhood of God. That unites again the disrupted family relations insofar as men are willing to reunite the severed ties—but only that far. The unwilling brother will not—can not—be forced back into harmonious family relation. He remains outside, because he chooses so to do. He is still a member of the family, but still a prodigal, unwilling to return to the forsaken homestead. Persistence in that course disinherits him in the end; but the faithful brother never ceases to watch and pray for his return. If he does return, he becomes more of a brother, only in that he acknowledges the brotherhood and the Father he had disowned, and permits himself to be again a harmonious member of the household. He then brings in loyalty in the place of disloyalty, love and interest in the place of hatred and indifference.
AS SOON as the prodigal comes into full fellowship with the family of God, he begins to realize that he has other brothers and sisters who are astray on the bramble-grown moors of sin, or who, with calloused hearts, are wandering in dangerous ways of their own choosing, which must end at the dark precipice of eternal ruin.2Then he begins to realize something of the burden which others have felt for him, and then he begins to sense something of the feelings which sent the Son of God down to this sin-cursed earth on the search for souls. The true brotherly feeling takes possession of his heart, and he becomes a seeker instead of a wanderer, an advocate for God instead of a recruiting officer for the ranks of the evil one. The heat of the desert will be nothing to him if only he may find the wandering footprints of his brother there. Out of all the inhospitable places of earth God’s army of searchers are seeking out—and are finding—the brothers and the sisters that are straying there, lost beyond all power of their own to find their way again. “Go ye into all the world,” says the Master; because in all the world are those who are in sore need of what the Gospel has to give. So the Gospel is making of men and women once under the power of sin joyous harbingers of better things, evangels of righteousness.
CHRIST took His followers from the various occupations of the world to make them “fishers of men,” and from then till now these faithful fishermen have been gathering souls in the Gospel net. Every true disciple of Christ becomes a searcher for souls, a fisher of men; but always under His supervision. When His immediate followers had toiled long and taken nothing, He directed them to cast their net on the right side of the ship. They did so, and the draught was a marvelous one. Still He is the immediate overseer of the work, and when His commands are obeyed, the harvest of souls is great. When they are spurned, the fisher may toil long and take nothing. But under His direction it is a glorious work. The business is very urgent, the work imperative, the time for rescue short. The Gospel will accomplish its purpose, and out of the turmoil of this earth a people be redeemed to the praise and glory of God forever. It is the privilege of every soul in the earth to triumph in the accomplished purpose of the everlasting Gospel.
