DEMONSTRATED FAILURES by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 20, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 34.

DEMONSTRATED FAILURES.

By G.

I. Long Temporal Life.

EXPERIENCE has proved that the things which men naturally most long for are not for their best spiritual good. Men naturally desire length of days, altho the manner of life of most of them would almost belie the desire. Yet the means spent in journeys for health, and for so-called elixirs, and preventives of disease, and various other efforts to ward off the results of intemperate living, are in evidence of a quite general longing for continued existence.

But the history of the antediluvian people prove that the natural heart is not made more spiritual by the mere experience of a long life. Men lived hundreds of years, and in the record left to us of that time there is no mention of the death of a child. And what is the summing up? Here it is in a single sentence, and terrible as it is brief: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Gen. 6: 5.

When the Lord at last decided to cut short the experiment of long individual probation in defiance of His law, He set a bound and gave warning: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” “And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die.”

But Noah, who was found righteous before the Lord, even in that wicked generation, was commissioned to build an ark and to preach the Gospel during the allotted time. And what was the effect upon that race of long-lived veterans in sin? Were their hearts any more susceptible to the Gospel because of their long experience in the world?—No; in all the millions of people there was not a single convert outside of the immediate family of the preacher himself. Then of what use is long life to the man who does not give himself to the service of God? The longer he lives in rebellion against the law of his Creator, the greater his condemnation. The longer he lives in sin, the less susceptible he becomes to the overtures of mercy.

So, after the flood, when the new race began to come upon the stage of action, in the merciful providence of God the life of man began to shorten very rapidly. To-day the average is estimated at about thirty-three years. And a notable fact is, that the large majority of conversions to Christ are of persons under twenty years of age. As individuals grow older in disregard of the long-suffering of God, the more hardened and selfish and worldly they become. “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.” Eccl. 12: 1. G.