p. 8 | THE PROPHETS OF OLD by N. M. Hall

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 26, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 33.

THE PROPHETS OF OLD.

By N. M. Hall

And yet there is another aspect which must not be overlooked, and that is the deep spiritual nature of the prophets’ mission. They did not demand simply that social conditions be bettered, that the rich cease to oppress the poor, that the laborer be justly treated by his employer, that the wealthy class cease from extravagant luxuries. They did not make the mistake of many modern reformers, and some within the church even, and insist that the whole difficulty lies in the maladjustment of social conditions; they did not expect a millennium based upon legislation.

They looked more profoundly into life, and saw that the difficulty lies in the moral constitution of man, that sin is the root of all evil conditions. So they demanded a personal regeneration. “Away with mock holiness,” they cried. “Away with formal religion.” “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? . . . He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

It was Habakkuk who said, hundreds of years before Paul made the thought his own, “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.” The prophets were evangelists before John preached repentance at the fords of the Jordan; they preached the Gospel before Christ announced it in its fulness to his disciples.—Rev. N. M. Hall, in Christian Work.