NOTES ON THE INTERNATIONAL LESSON.
By A. T. Jones
REMEMBER now thy Creator. Remember him as Creator. "There are gods many and lords many," but there is but one Creator, and he is the one living and true God. It is by this fact that in his own word he distinguishes himself from all other gods; as in Isa. 40:18-20, 25, 26: "To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved." "To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth." And again in Isaiah, thirty-seventh chapter, the king of Assyria wrote a letter to king Hezekiah, in which he said: "Let not thy God, in whom thou trustest, deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed, as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Telassar?" "And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed unto the Lord, saying, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubim, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline thine ear, O Lord, and hear; open thine eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent to reproach the living God." And in answer to that prayer "the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand." THE fact that he is Creator is the primal reason given why all should worship him; and why he should be worshiped. "Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God; it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves." Psalm 100:2, 3. "Worship him that made heaven and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." Rev. 14:7. "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for [because] thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." Rev. 4:11. "In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind." Job 12:10. "In him we live and move and have our being." Remember therefore thy Creator in the days of thy youth, and all thy days. THE fact that he performed the wonderful works of creation does not stand separated from him and us. He not only made these wonderful works; "He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered." Psalm 111:4. The proper remembrance of him as Creator can only be by remembering the creation. And he has not enjoined upon us the duty to remember him without fully showing us how to do it. He has established an institution, the observance of which will ever keep in the mind the remembrance of the Creator—an institution by which, if properly observed, it is impossible to forget him. That institution is the Sabbath of the Lord. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20:8-11. "AND hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Eze. 20:20. It is by hallowing the Sabbath that it becomes a sign by which we know that he is the Lord. And it is thus a sign that he is the Lord, because "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested." Ex. 31:17. By hallowed observance of the seventh day we remember the "wonderful works" of the creation, and thus remember the Creator. This is God's own appointed way for us to remember him. It is the truth that the hallowed observance of the seventh day, the works of creation, and the remembrance of the Creator are inseparably connected. "What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." AGAIN, the Lord's appointed way of bringing things to remembrance is by memorials. Num. 5:15. Of the passover the Lord said: "And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial." Ex. 12:13, 14. "The censers of these sinners against their own souls, let them make them broad plates for a covering of the altar; and they shall be a sign unto the children of Israel. And they were made broad plates for a covering of the altar; to be a memorial unto the children of Israel." Num. 16:38-40. Therefore when we read in the Bible of the Sabbath as a sign, we may lawfully read it as a memorial; thus Eze. 20:20: "And hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a memorial that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." He desires that we shall ever have him in remembrance; to that purpose he established a memorial; that memorial is the Sabbath, and "the seventh day is the Sabbath." "Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever; and thy memorial, O Lord, throughout all generations." Ps. 135:13. "Remember now thy Creator." "THE preacher sought to find out acceptable words; and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd." The Lord is that one shepherd. Ps. 23:1. "We are the sheep of his pasture." Ps. 100:3. These words are the words of the Lord, and are therefore words of truth. "And further, by these, my son, be admonished; of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh." "LET us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." In all the millions upon millions of books that have been or shall be made, there has not been a single principle of ethics set forth that is not contained in the ten commandments. And although many books are valuable, and worthy of deep study, yet the sum of all that is said in the books, and the most worthy subject of all study, is the law of God. Study it, therefore, ever and always with the prayer of him of old, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." Ps. 119:18. "For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." The law of God being the rule of life, it must be the rule of judgment. "As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law," "in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." Rom. 2:12, 16. They who shall stand in the Judgment are those whose "delight is in the law of the Lord," and who meditate in his law day and night. Ps. 1. Oh, how carefully we must meditate therein, for it is a discerner of the very "thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 4:12), and in that day the Lord "will make manifest the counsels of the heart" (1 Cor. 4:5), "with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." Oh, that we might realize how fearfully searching the Judgment will be! Then, too, we could realize the blessedness of that salvation, and the riches of that precious blood which blots out all our transgression, so that it is remembered no more forever. But realizing, faintly as we do, the awful importance of that event, we may pray with David: "Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer." Ps. 19:12-14.