IS YOUR ELECTION SURE?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 19, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 47.

IS YOUR ELECTION SURE?

In the recent general elections there were, for many hours after the polls closed, many anxious men waiting in nervous suspense the result of the count which was to determine their election or rejection by the people. With tremendous energy and nervous intensity have they been doing missionary work for themselves for weeks, and days, and hours, the intensity increasing as the time diminished, and their friends and parasites with them, till the polls closed on election day. And the night after is one of eager, watchful, anxious, wearying waiting in rooms laden with tobacco smoke and whisky fumes, till the big blanket ballots are dissected, and the results tabulated and counted.

Some candidates learn quickly the result, hardly ever for a moment hoping for success. Such are many of our Prohibition friends, standing simply for a principle and a protest, hoping that sometime men will yield to the principle, and that it will win in politics. Other some merely run as candidates to keep up the party organization, and furnish a place where protesting opinions to the policy of the dominant party may find expression. But other candidates are in close districts, and it is many hours often before the final results are determined, and the men know their fate. Then there are the heart-burnings, and sore disappointments, and the enmities of defeat; or the exultation, the shouting, the triumph, but only for a little time.

What a vast amount of money and energy are expended! How many lives are shortened by the intensity of the strain! Hearts and minds are broken, often forever. How many characters are ruined by yielding to questionable methods, even in politics, under the pleas of “necessity,” “the end justifies the means,” or “the other party does it.” Excellent men who once yield in this way, kept continually in the whirl of the political vortex, seldom recover from the induration of moral fiber, and the erstwhile sensitive consciences are rarely restored to their normal tone. And oftentimes the man whose election is sure in politics, whose triumph is certain, goes down because of it to everlasting moral defeat.

How many of these men, if able, would have given princely sums, if their election could have been made “sure.” They have not worried about their “calling:” it is the election to a little place, for a little time; and wealth and friends, and oftentimes health and honor are sacrificed to secure it, and yet they fail. O the cheapness, the littleness, the unsatisfaction of it all!

What is the lesson? Why is this written?—Simply this, reader: To call your attention, whoever you are, to an election that is full of eternally grand and glorious possibilities. God has called every soul on this earth to an eternal sonship with Him, to an eternal kingdom, to an eternal salvation. “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,” He eagerly implores. Isa. 45:22. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him say, Come. And he that will, let him take the water of life freely.” Rev. 22:17. This is the extent, the universality, of God’s call.

He has chosen us in Christ Jesus “before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him: having in love foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” Eph. 1:4, 5.

This is God’s calling and choosing (election), not because of our worth, but because of the grace of His good pleasure that we may be made holy, be made sons, be made kings and priests of God, and may possess an eternal kingdom.

But there is danger that we shall not obtain that to which we are called, and to which God has chosen

us. It is a fearful thing to contemplate. All souls feel it at some time in their lives; but it is a strange thing that the adversary of God and man so blinds men that many times, nearly at all times, the eternal things are hidden by the temporal, the great things by the little, the valuable by the worthless. The little dollar so often hides the eternal riches of God. A little place here hides the everlasting kingdom. A brief space of time shuts out God’s great eternity with all its infinite possibilities.

But while there is great danger of losing this election by Him, there is also a method, a way of making it eternally sure; but it means co-operation on our part, with diligence. In 2 Peter 1:2-11, are the infallible instructions, which, if kept, are mightily effectual. The apostle tells first of God’s multiplied grace and peace through knowledge of His will in Jesus Christ; of the all things granted that pertain unto life and godliness; of His precious and exceeding great promises, through which we become partakers of the divine nature, and then he exhorts us in our faith to supply virtue, in virtue knowledge, in knowledge self-control, and so on, adding patience, godliness, brotherly love; that these will make us fruitfully abound in the knowledge of Christ, and so for the good of every one; and then closes with the following words:—

“Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence To make your Calling and Election sure: For if ye do these things, Ye shall never stumble [fall, fail]; For thus shall be richly supplied unto you The entrance into the Eternal Kingdom Of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

O reader, would you not have a part in this kingdom? The above are good things to do, aren’t they? and worthy of all diligence, too, aren’t they? Then why not co-operate with God, and diligently do them, and so make your calling and ELECTION TO AN ETERNAL KINGDOM SURE?