ARE WE LIVING UP TO OUR LIGHT AND PRIVILEGE?
By W. S. Sadler
“THAT was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” John 1:9. Christ is represented here as the true light, as the light of life. He is the word of life. Only the true light has life in it. The other has deception and death in it. So it is very important that we should know how to obtain the true light. To make sure that there could be no possible deception to the honest soul, God has arranged that every being who comes into the world shall have in him a sample of “the true light,” so that if he is willing to be led by it, and be lightened and illumined by it, he can come into a more perfect knowledge of the true light. So then, as far as obtaining the ability to discern the true light is concerned, we find something within us which, speaking to us, says, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” I do not need to study about a thousand counterfeit silver dollars if I wish to escape being deceived; the thing for me to do is to study the true dollars. So we have no need to study this movement, that new thing, or this new doctrine, that is springing up here and there. Starch is a food that we chiefly live upon. Two thirds or three fourths of our average daily food is starch. The great dietetic problem is how to cook starch. Most of the other food elements digest about as well without cooking as with. The question may arise, “Did Adam and Eve have a cook-stove?”—No; they did not. When Christ went through the field and ate the corn, also. He ate it in its milky stage. In this stage there is no starch present, but only sugar; but as the grain ripens, the sugar is changed into starch; hence the grain must be cooked before it is suitable for food. God changes the sugar of green grain into starch, for a purpose. In the case of fruit, the seed can propagate its species, but in the grain, we eat all that can produce another generation of the grain. So God has arranged that this sugar in the unripe grain, which is soluble, shall be turned into starch, because starch can be preserved. I have heard it reported that grain has been found with Egyptian mummies, which grew when planted. Nature must convert the starch in the ripe grain back into sugar before the young plant can make use of it. God places in every grain, or kernel, of wheat just enough starch to nourish the little germ of life that He has put there. No scientist can explain it. But when you bury the kernel of wheat, put it beneath the ground, then the little germ of life begins to grow,—begins to eat the starch. Day by day it feeds upon the starch until it can get its head above the ground, and then, when the sunlight strikes it, it can make starch of its own. So God has put into every kernel of grain enough life to enable that grain, when planted, to get up into the sunlight; and then it can turn its face toward the sun, and make starch on its own account. So God has put into every man enough of the true light to enable him to turn his face toward the Sun of Righteousness. Christ is the “true light which lighteth every man,” every soul, “that cometh into the world.” But if you bury your grain of wheat too deep, the little germ uses up all the starch it has, and so it never gets above the surface. Did you ever hear of people getting buried in their business, or of churches being buried in church trials and other difficulties? If you bury yourselves too deep beneath these things, you will not be able to get out into the sunlight, and, like the grain of wheat which was planted too deep, you will die. If we are in the sunlight, we can go, if duty calls, into the very miasmas of sin and iniquity, and right there be able to build character for God. The moment the sun goes down, the plant ceases to make starch, and in the night it actually begins to eat up the starch it has made during the day. So we may have had a great and a grand experience, one that has led our soul out into the sunlight of His love and mercy; and then, by drifting into darkness and inactivity, we may consume all the good we were able to build from our past experience. Every one of us had an experience when the light first came to us that we never have again; and we should not be disappointed because it never comes again. Let us go right on, maintaining our Christian experience day by day. The little plant that is raising a clod of earth a thousand times its own weight, could not stand a great wind-storm; but by and by, when the cornstalk places its roots firmly on every side, the tempest may blow on it, and still it will stand. After the first miracle of our conversion, which may be fittingly compared to the raising of the clod by the young plant, we need to be anchored to truth, so that the winds that blow hither and thither, in this direction and in that direction, will not blow us over. God has made provision for every man to receive light, and has put in him a taste of the true light, so that he can tell whether the light that comes to him is true or not. Let us not be wondering and worrying about every wind of doctrine that blows, but let us sink our shaft down deep into the mine of truth; for we are told that we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free. It is a great blessing to have this little germ of life—a little part of God, as it were—placed in every human being to help him and lead him585into the right way. Every one who follows that light, will be safe. But if you persist in smothering that light; if you persist in burying yourself beneath worldly pleasures, so that the divine life that is in you cannot manifest itself, what is going to save you? Turn to 1 Thess. 5:4, 5: “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.” Every soul has a sample of the true light; thank the Lord, that is true. The promise is sure. He has made provision that we should live in the day. We are born of the light—children of the light. Everything that we are depends upon the light we have received. All our growth, all that we are to-day, is due to the fact that we are children of the day, living in the light, not in the darkness. In the night the plant does not make starch; and when you get into moral darkness and begin to backslide, you cease to develop, to make character; you consume what you already had. While the plant makes starch in the daytime, it consumes it in the night; so character develops more and more in the Christian who walks in the light. He cannot stand still. He must “walk in the light, as He is in the light.” We must keep in the light, for He is always in the light. We must keep our faces turned heavenward continuously, so that we shall always be in the light, always developing character instead of consuming it. Thus we understand that the man who has a talent, if he does not use it, loses what he already has. There is no place where we may with safety stand still and fold our hands, and say, “Now we have the truth.” If we do not get more truth day by day, we shall surely lose the truth we have. Turn to Heb. 2:1: “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.” We ought to give the more earnest heed, day by day, lest the things of which we have come into possession, lest the truth we have known, shall run out, as from a leaking vessel. See marginal reading of Heb. 2:1. A leaking vessel is a deceptive thing. If you put water into a bucket having a hole in it, by and by, when you wish to take a drink from the bucket, you will find that the water has leaked out, drop by drop. Everything depends upon the trial trip we are making now. Then let us keep pace with the daylight of heaven, and keep our branches spread out wide in the light, that we may make character instead of consuming it; that we may be growing in grace instead of wasting the little supply of grace we have.