p. 6 | THE ROOT OF ANARCHY

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 9, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 41.

THE ROOT OF ANARCHY.

ANARCHY is lawlessness, without a ruler, without law.

The evil of anarchy may be seen in its baleful fruits, of which this nation is at the present moment reaping its full share. The death of the chief magistrate of this nation is one of the fruits of anarchy. The blow struck was not against William McKinley the man, but President McKinley the representative of government. It was the same when President Carnot of France was stabbed in 1897. It was the same when King Humbert of Italy was killed in 1900. All these crimes were manifestations, outcroppings, of anarchy or lawlessness.

The great Ruler of all is God. To the Christian it is the great Jehovah. The constitution of His government is the Decalogue, or the Ten Commandments. This has been acknowledged by nearly every creed of the various divisions into which the professed church is divided.

The root of anarchy lies in the rebellious, turbulent, carnal mind of man. “Because the carnal ‘mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to ‘the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then ‘they that are in the flesh can not please God.” Rom. 8:7, 8. Every sinner, every one who follows his own way, is, as respects God, an anarchist. He may not be an openly active anarchist as respects God; but he is, every day he follows his fleshly desires instead of God, breaking down all respect for God and His law in that most important of all kingdoms, the human heart. Self and its lusts are enthroned instead of God. God is dethroned that self may be enthroned.

The Son of God came in the likeness of sinful flesh to restore the moral image of God in man. He overcame sin in the flesh. He fought man’s losing battle and won. He emptied Himself that God might fill Him with His own righteous, overflowing, ever-triumphant presence. By the power of that presence He overcame; and He desires that every human being shall so empty himself of selfishness and sin that He may come into the heart, cleanse it of sin, and dwell there as King, His law the rule; as expressed by the apostle Paul, “That Christ may ‘dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ‘ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be ‘strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the ‘breadth and length and height and depth, and to ‘know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, ‘that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.’ ‘I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet ‘not I, but Christ liveth in me.” “Christ in you the ‘hope of glory.” This is divine freedom as opposed to anarchy.

This freedom finds its delight in obedience to the everlasting and infinitely broad law of God; for just as truly as Jesus delighted to do God’s will, because God’s law was within His heart (Ps. 40:7, 8), just so truly as He kept His Father’s commandments, and therein abode in His love (John 15:10), just so truly will He keep the same law in every one of His children in whom He dwells, so that they will say, “This is the love of God that we keep His ‘commandments; and His commandments are not ‘grievous.’” 1 John 5:3. This is divine freedom and loyalty; and the opposite of this is the slavery of sin and anarchy.