THE MYSTERIES OF GOD by M. H.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 14, 1901

THE MYSTERIES OF GOD

By M. H.

M. H., in King’s Messenger

MEAT in due season will always include things new, and old truths applicable to the present time. “Moreover it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4:2); and faithfulness in this respect will sometimes lead to rejection and misunderstanding on the part of those who would otherwise be benefitted. Truths, hid since the foundation of the world, are now being revealed to those who live near to God, and so learn His secrets. There are mysteries of God, and mysteries of evil. There is the mystery of Babylon, and the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and only God through the divine Spirit can unravel the mysteries and make them plain to our understandings. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him,” is sometimes quoted as if God did not intend to reveal His secrets to His children while in the present state of being; but the next verse, which is often overlooked, tells us that “God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” 1 Cor. 2:9, 10.

The Spirit that inspired the Bible to be written for our learning, must also inspire the expounding, the revealing, of all truth. There are truths now due to the household of faith; and God has even now stewards of His mysteries. The Holy Ghost above can prompt and use these instruments to give to His household “meat in due

season,” truths for the present time. God’s bread is always new, fresh, and leavening; for the letter, without the Spirit, killeth, but the Spirit quickeneth, or giveth life.

We ask for the old paths, and look back longingly to apostolic times, while God is asking us to look up, to look ahead to the far greater times before us, and asking us, if we were not so dull of comprehension, to believe and receive the truths for the present time—truths belonging to the great day of the Lord, into which we have entered. We are in the end of the times of the Gentiles, and the beginning of the day of the Lord, the great day of Jehovah’s judgment, when He will gather the nations into the valley of Jehoshaphat (meaning the “judgment of Jehovah”) to plead with them there for His people.

Wars and rumors of wars; all nations armed to the teeth; the hearts of kings and statesmen failing them for fear, while they look for the things that are coming on the earth, are all pregnant signs of the times, not to be overlooked by the wise stewards of the household. “These are the beginning of sorrows,” or travail to bring forth a new order of things. The birth must take place in due time, and the new era be ushered in amid the pangs and sorrows of a dying age.

We have been so ignorant in the past that we verily thought that God would appear on this earth, judge the whole world, and settle everything, even to the burning of the earth; do all the business of settling everything and taking us up into glory, in about twenty-four hours. But God’s day is a period of time, a fixed period, known to himself, and revealed to us by the Spirit.

The day of judgment for the Jews lasted for about forty years, from the time of the crucifixion to the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70, when the temple was destroyed, and the Jewish age closed finally; although the closing period began when the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, because the true sacrifice was now offered, of which the former sacrifices were only typical.

The new age was inaugurated at Pentecost; so we see how, for nearly forty years, the new and the old ran parallel with each other; an overlapping of the new and the old. At that time the Jews were almost exterminated, those that survived being carried away captive into all nations, till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

The destruction of Jerusalem after forty years of judgment, was a true type of what may be expected in the present time. Jerusalem will be the scene of the closing operations of the Spirit; all nations will be gathered against her to battle; and the Lord will fight for His people, as foretold by the prophet. The outward and visible coming of Christ to the earth to set up the throne of His kingdom, will not take place till that time. But He tells us when these things begin to come to pass, we are to look up, and lift up our heads, for our redemption draweth nigh.

What redemption?—The redemption of our bodies; the redemption of the land for which our Redeemer died. There is collective truth relating to peoples and nations. There is also individual truth, which relates to the salvation of the individual man. The most important truth to the individual is that which relates to himself. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” The truth up-to-date for the advanced Christian, is redemption of his body, Rom. 8:23. This has been overlooked till the present day, because the time had not fully come for the last displays of saving grace in the individual.

Now, the Holy Ghost is revealing to us our blessed privilege, that we may believe, even as Enoch, who “by faith” was translated that he should not see death—justified, by faith, sanctified by faith, translated by faith. There is no haphazard with God. To them that look for Him, and to none else, will He appear the second time, change our body of humiliation, and fashion it like His “own glorious body.” If we are to be among the “changed ones,” the Spirit witnesses with our spirit, and we shall have the testimony, even as Simeon, who knew that he would not see death, till he had seen the Lord’s Christ.”