IN THE LIGHT OF THE PROMISES.
By Uriah Smith
Scanning the scene of life and its issues in the light of the promises, we are enabled to take a clearer view of the relation in which God stands to his work and his people in the earth. Guided by these, and the prophecies he has given concerning them, we see God more clearly as an ever-present factor, guiding in his work, and watching over the servants whom he has sent forth into his vineyard. We see them as ever present in his mind, in his thoughts and designs, as his far-reaching plans are being worked out according to his eternal purpose. “As touching the resurrection of the dead,” said our Lord, “have ye not read that which was spoken to you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” This was his response to the cavils of the Sadducees, who were asserting, in opposition to the teaching of Christ, that there was no such thing as the resurrection of the dead. This was his assurance to them, based on the testimony of God’s word, that there is to be a resurrection of the dead, and therefore his doctrine was true. When he says, therefore, that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” and applies that to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it is not to be understood as a declaration that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive, but that they will live again, which must be by a resurrection of the dead, and that thus the point he contended for was sustained. His reasoning was that they must live again; for it would be utterly incongruous, and contrary to the honor of God, for him to proclaim himself the God of any who have passed off the stage of this life, if they were never to have any further conscious intelligent existence in this world. Therefore Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will live again; for God had declared, over and over again, that he is their God. The Sadducees had failed to take in the meaning of that saying, and therefore they erred, not knowing the power of God. The words of Scripture must be given their full force; and when thus applied, they will sustain, in all its beauty, every truth that Christ ever revealed to men. And what a striking relation is thus shown to exist between God and those worthy patriarchs of old! God is the God of the living only; yet he is their God. With our limited capacities, it is difficult for us to preserve the conception of a continuity of existence when one’s line of life is subject to a break of a long period of silence and darkness in the tomb. But with God there is no loss of continuity. His people are continually in his thoughts and presence, in his sight and knowledge, by which he comprehends all things. Those worthies are just as much alive now to him from whom no past42nor future is shut away, as they were when Abraham was manifesting that faith which was counted unto him for righteousness, or when Jacob was passing through that divine struggle which changed his name to Israel. Christ assured his disciples, when he gave them that great commission which sent them into all the world, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” This promise covers the whole ground to the end of time. Therefore it covers more than the actual life of each laborer to whom it applied. Christ, by this, takes into his own charge not only the actual personal efforts of his followers, but all that pertains to their work, and results from it. And this does not end with their life. Their influence still lives; and the promise, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” is an assurance that God watches all these lines of influence which each one has set in motion, to direct them in the channels where they will accomplish the greatest good, till the problems of probation are worked out by all the living, and all the work in all the world is done. And when our brethren go forth, at the bidding of the Master, to foreign fields, and fall at their post, who knows how many trains of influence they may have set in motion, or how many seeds of truth they may have sown, destined to spring up in due time, and bear an abundant harvest to appear in the Judgment? The distribution of awards is delayed till the coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the just; for till then how can it be known how much fruit has accumulated to the credit of each one, to be remembered by the Lord when he comes to reward every man “according as his work shall be”? To that time God ever looks forward; and to the same time he points us: “Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.” Special mention is made of those who labor with reference to the coming of the great day, and who give to the household meat in due season, in regard to that time. “Blessed,” says Christ, “is that servant, whom the Lord when he cometh shall find so doing.” And if a servant faithfully does that work while living, if he falls before that great day comes, that teaching is not lost upon the church; its influence will still work in the preparation of others; and the servant will be entitled to the blessing just the same as if he had lived and labored all the time till that day. It is in this way that the benediction pronounced upon those who die in the Lord must be fulfilled: “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.” The results of the work they did while living, often widespread and far reaching, will then come into account. We can call to remembrance the words and deeds, and draw lessons from the example of the loved and honored ones who are taken from us; but all we can do by this is to give to the living the poor aid of our sympathy and respect; but God remembers them to better purpose. This is the way the apostle speaks of the remembrance in which God holds his people: “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which ye have showed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.” Heb. 6:10. We call to mind our fellow workers to honor their memory; but God would esteem himself “unrighteous” not to remember them in the larger and more effectual sense in which he bears them in mind, to reward them as their works have been. But perhaps the most comprehensive of all promises is that found in Dan. 12:3, to the wise, and to them who turn many to righteousness: “And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.” None of these glorious orbs, like which they that labor to turn men to righteousness are to shine forever and ever, fail or grow dim. They shine on and on, as fresh and bright as when, in time’s early morning, they sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. And this, like all the others, is an ever-present promise in the mind of God, containing the portion which he anxiously waits to allot to his faithful servants. So long as this remains unaccomplished, they “live unto him,” engraved upon the palms of his hands, till he can see them in possession of their full reward. At the memorial services held in the Tabernacle, Sabbath, January 6, in honor of our laborers who have fallen during the last year or two in foreign fields, some of the thoughts here mentioned were presented. The object was to bring before the mind, in an extent perhaps not always realized, how fully all God’s works are open to his own mind; how the whole field ever lies as a scene spread out before his view; how his eye is ever upon the servants he sends forth into the great harvest field; how all their toils and labors, the disadvantages under which they work, the opposition they meet, the calamities that befall them, the discouragements they encounter, the burdens they carry on their hearts for the perishing, and the rewards that await them, are spread out like an open volume before God, and are, to his perception, an ever-present, living scene, exciting in his heart the profoundest emotions of love and compassion, causing him to declare that he is the God of the living, not of the dead, and to regard his servants as if they had already reached that goodly estate to which he has pledged himself to bring them. So our views of them, and our feelings concerning them, should be modified accordingly. We should not look upon them as those of whom only a sense of grief and loss is left, but, through the medium of the blessed hope, and the promises of the heavenly reward, as those whom we are soon to meet again. God has so provided consolation for his people that we are not to dwell upon the present separation, but upon the future and endless meeting, after all the toils and trials of the campaign are over, and regard ourselves as linked in memory and interest, not to the dead, but to the living, because they are to live again when we meet together at last with exceeding joy, and, recounting the trials, conflicts, and triumphs of our earthly life, shout the harvest home. At the conclusion of the remarks, the following resolution presented by the classmates of Elder F. W. Brown, the associate laborer with Elder D. A. Robinson, in Calcutta, India, was read:— Whereas, It has pleased our Heavenly Father to call Brother F. W. Brown, our former classmate, from the work which he loved so well, we wish to express our appreciation of his noble Christian life and faithfulness in the cause of the Master. Therefore be it,— Resolved, that we extend to his family, relatives, and co-workers our heartfelt sympathy in their sad bereavement. We shall ever treasure his life among us as a memory rich and beautiful, full of pure words, earnest prayers, and kindly deeds. We recognize in him one who daily walked with Christ in harmony and love. His life and death shall be to us an inspiration to continue steadfast in the work in which he has fallen, to bear the good tidings of salvation from sin and suffering to earth’s needy ones. CLASS OF 1901,
OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL MISSIONARY COLLEGE. Hymn No. 1412, which, with 1032 and 1264, of “Hymns and Tunes” constituted the hymns for the occasion, concluded the services. U. S.