THE SCRIPTURE APPEAL IS PERSONAL.
By G.
The Scriptures were not given merely to teach history, or philosophy, or science, although they contain all these. They are mainly “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” They are designed “to make you wise unto salvation.” “You” stands for any individual who is willing to profit by the teaching of the Scriptures. But to receive any benefit from the Word of God, the individual must accept it as a personal appeal, as the will of God concerning him personally. He must receive it for the purpose of becoming “thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” The Scriptures record many failures on the part of men who were professed servants of God, and whom God recognized as His servants. But these records were not written as subjects of gossip, or to subject the persons mentioned to the criticism of unbelievers or of pharisaical professors. They are lessons for those who were to come afterward; lessons of warning to show us how to avoid like mistakes. The people of God of one age are too prone to condemn those of former ages who lived under fewer privileges and dimmer light. The tendency is to condemn those of the past, and thus justify ourselves. But the Scriptures teach us, when we read or hear of the faults of others, to examine our own hearts to see if there be anything of the same kind in us. When the Spirit tells of the sad failure of the Israelites, we are not to be content with condemning them, but immediately we are referred to ourselves: “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” When the apostle tells us that Israel failed to enter into rest because of unbelief, the lesson is at once applied: “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.” Then we are told how only we may be benefited by the Gospel. “For unto us was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them; but the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” Men are prone to condemn the antediluvian people for their wickedness, but the Lord tells us that the last generation will be just as they were. Skeptics point to the failures of noted servants of God as evidence of the failure of religion to make men better. They point to the Lord’s chastisements of the race as cruelty on His part. Thus they fail to learn from the Scriptures the lessons designed to be taught. The Lord might in justice cut men off in their sins, but He is “long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.” Why does He do this?—He does it in mercy, to turn the wayward ones to repentance. “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” Men are willingly ignorant of the teaching of the Scriptures, and the facts of history they contain, and thus bring condemnation upon themselves. “There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” They might as well deny the creation altogether, as many of them do, for they refuse to believe other facts equally authentic. “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same Word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” So men who are willingly ignorant of the facts of the past, as recorded in the Scriptures, will consequently be ignorant of the coming judgment until it overtakes them “as a thief in the night.” Men and women, both in and out of the church, are fast departing from the counsel of God as given in the lessons of inspired record, and the only remedy for present day evils is a return to the sacred Word. There never can be a genuine reformation excepting by a return to “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” Probationary time, the day of preparation, is fast passing. Unbelievers will soon learn when it is too late the truth of which they have been willingly ignorant. But the gracious invitation is still held out: “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”