FIGHTING AGAINST GOD by R. F. Cottrell

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 3, 1887

FIGHTING AGAINST GOD.

By R. F. Cottrell

It is an awful thing to be found fighting against God. And in no way can we more fully manifest our hostility against him, than by opposing the holy, just, and good law which he has given us. But open hostility and contempt of his law involves nothing like the awful responsibility of insidiously opposing it under the profession of friendship. The man who openly violates the law of God, setting it at defiance, throws away his own life; but he can have no influence to ensnare those who are disposed to be obedient. On the contrary, they shudder at his bold iniquity, and shun his example.

But an awful responsibility rests upon the man who, professing to be a friend of God and a teacher of those who would know the way to his kingdom, yet would subvert his law by teaching that it has been abolished or changed. Such men shut the kingdom of heaven against men; they neither go in themselves, nor suffer those who would to enter. Hence the solemn warning of our Saviour against breaking the commandments, and teaching men so. Matt. 5:19.

He was certainly speaking of a law already known, and published in the Hebrew language; and he as certainly teaches the perpetuity of every jot and tittle of that law in all coming time, down to the passing of the heavens and earth, and the coming of the kingdom of Heaven. And he makes the teaching and observance of that same pre-existing law a necessary qualification for entering into that kingdom. Verses 17–20.

Yet men professing to be the servants of Christ, and to be looking for the kingdom promised to the faithful and obedient, can close their eyes to such plain, positive, and unequivocal testimonies of the Son of God, and teach men that God's law has been abolished or changed! And why? Because, that in consequence of the great apostasy, they find themselves observing a law which conflicts with the law of God, and which was invented by Satan to drown men in perdition. And to make void the law of God, and to establish that of the man of sin, behold their numberless turnings and twistings!

If Paul's spirit was stirred within him when he saw the city of Athens wholly given to idolatry, what would be his feelings could he now see the professed Christian world, and witness their multifarious and discordant inventions to abolish, alter, and evade that holy, just, good, and spiritual law which he, the apostle to the Gentiles, declared was not made void, but was established by the faith of the gospel? How would he regard their wresting of his words, in other parts of his writings, to prove that what he said of the law in his epistle to the Romans was false?

Could we bring together, and view at a glance, all the foolish theories that men have invented to justify themselves in the violation of the fourth commandment, it might excite the gravest to a smile. But there is another thought which should cause us to weep. We can but pity those who throw away their lives, and provoke the wrath of God, by these inventions. Could we but see them as angels do, we certainly should weep. If angels rejoice when a sinner repents, how must they feel when they see those that have loved God, thus give themselves up to be led by the devil, and wage an unequal warfare with the King of Heaven.

“Did men but know it in their reckless strife, They’re laboring hard to lose eternal life.”

I would beseech all to consider well whose wrath you dare, before you venture to assail the law of God. And on the other hand, remember the declaration of Jesus, that whosoever shall do and teach these commandments, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of Heaven. And to those who have already entered the field against the law of the Most High, I would say in the language of another,

“Better ’twould be, ye fighters of the law, If your own weakness, verily, ye saw; If ye would hear the teachings of God’s word, And live obedient to all ye heard. Better ’twould be t’obey God’s holy will, And own the Sabbath precept binding still, Before ye make, in all ye do and say, Such wretched work to have it done away.”

If God has a law, be assured that he will judge the world by it; and those who knowingly and willingly transgress it, will surely be condemned. And if the Bible is the word of God, the ten commandments are his law; for they constitute the only code of moral laws recorded in it. R. F. COTTRELL.