THERE is no true life apart from righteousness. With God “is the fountain of life.” He also is essentially righteous. Nay, more, He is the fountain of righteousness; for as our life is from Him, so our righteousness is from Him also. “Their righteousness [the righteousness of His servants] is of Me, saith the Lord.” Isa. 54: 17. “And this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Jer. 23: 6. Now the natural man has a life apart from this as truly as he has character or conduct apart from it. In fact, every living thing has a life, God-given, it is true, but not the life of God. The life of the earth itself follows the perverted laws of its combinations, and manifests itself in its numerous chemical changes, in its convulsive groanings of storm, tempest, and earthquake. Each various kind of mineral has a life that leads to a reproduction of its crystal forms, even tho the mineral be dissolved. When the deposition again takes place, the same crystals are formed. And so life operates according to the law of the creature it vivifies, all the way from the mineral to the carnally-minded man; but in each and all on this earth, it is a life ever tending to death. “For to be carnally-minded is death.” Rom. 8: 6. The carnal man does not have the life of God, because he will not have the righteousness of God. God does not call this mortal life His life. That He preserves us is no proof that He is in us. The man in that condition is “alienated from the life of God;” he has “no hope, and is without God in the world” (Eph. 4: 18; 2: 12), and in that condition is doomed utterly to perish. To say that his life is God’s life, that God dwells in him, is to make God responsible for all evil deeds ever committed. God gives to mortal man a life in which he may “lay hold on eternal life;” but until he does by faith lay hold on eternal life, he has it not. It is a favorite saying with many that God is in everything, even the evil things, because He permits them and controls them. But there are many things in which God is not. When Elijah fled from Jezebel to the mount of God, the Lord told him to go forth and hear what He might say. Obedient, Elijah went forth. Satan anticipated his coming, and sent forth a mighty, destructive whirlwind, which broke in pieces the rocks; “but the Lord was not in the wind.” After the wind Satan sent an earthquake; “but the Lord was not in the earthquake.” After the earthquake came a fire; “but the Lord was not in the fire.” After the fire came “a still small voice.” And God was in the voice, and Elijah was so in harmony with God that he knew it. Neither is God in the works of Satan and evil men to-day. He may restrain them, repress them, if for His glory; but He is not in them. He will have His way in the storm and the earthquake. He will make wrath to praise Him, all that can be so used; and the remainder will He restrain. But the evil is not of Him; He is not in it. God is righteous; and only that which is in harmony with His righteousness can claim His life. He who yields to the will of God, however great his sin, will be given that life to cleanse the soul from all defilement. There is power in His life over sin. It lifts man above sin. It separates him from the world; it crucifies the deeds of the flesh; it makes man a partaker of the divine nature. Jesus died to bring it to man. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”