GOD’S REMEDY by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Mar 20, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 12.

GOD’S REMEDY.

By Editor

The New Theology—“The Parting of the Ways.”

WHEN we wrote “The Parting of the Ways” in our last week’s issue, “Our London Letter,” printed in our Outlook Department, had not come to hand. We commend its careful perusal to our readers. It will give added emphasis to the testimony presented last week as to the condition of religion in America. The simple awful fact is that “higher criticism” has stripped Protestantism of her strength in the three great Protestant strongholds of earth,—Germany, Great Britain, and the United States.

The very fundamentals of Protestantism demanded faith in the Bible as the word of God; faith in the Bible story of man’s fall and utterly helpless, sinful condition; faith in the Bible’s vicarious Redeemer and Saviour, the God-man Christ Jesus, the “Word made flesh,” the resurrected, almighty, divine-human Saviour. All mutable, imperfect, human creeds—and such all are—must be subject to that word. All union with the State must be forever broken. The civil magistrate is to have no authority, no power, no place, in matters of faith. If this be not true, the Reformation was a colossal mistake.

But did not God know of this departure from the faith—from the primitive faith of Pentecost? Truly, He did; and He forewarned His church and gave them the remedy. Listen to the words of Paul to a band of church elders:

“Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after My departing shall GRIEVOUS WOLVES ENTER IN AMONG YOU, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, SPEAKING PERVERSE THINGS, to draw away DISCIPLES AFTER THEM. Therefore watch, and remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

“And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and TO THE WORD OF HIS GRACE, WHICH IS ABLE TO BUILD YOU UP, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.” Acts 20: 28-32.

Listen again to his charge to the Christian ministry:

“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: PREACH THE WORD; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when THEY WILL NOT ENDURE SOUND DOCTRINE; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall TURN AWAY THEIR EARS FROM THE TRUTH, AND SHALL BE TURNED UNTO FABLES.” 2 Tim. 4: 1-4.

Read also what Jesus says in Luke 12: 22-40; 18: 1-8; and His apostle in 2 Peter 2: 1-3; and another in 2 Thess. 2: 1-12, and other passages.

But the warnings uttered were not heeded. The apostasy came. The false philosophies did their work. The virgin church became a harlot, and united with the kings of earth, and as the result came the Dark Ages, strange children, and the earth deluged with blood.

The Reformation brought light and hope and life to the world; but from its principles of life the Reformation churches have departed. They have either wedded themselves to the creeds of men instead of the word of God, or they have utterly perverted Christianity by the false philosophies of the higher critics and infidel science. There the church stands to-day. There the prophet of God saw it nearly three thousand years ago, and thus declared his vision:

“Put ye in the sickle, for the HARVEST IS RIPE: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. MULTITUDES, MULTITUDES IN THE VALLEY OF DECISION; for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.”

He spake truly. Multitudes are in the valley of decision, undecided and deciding. Shall it be a return to Romanism? Shall it be a twice-dead and creed-bound Protestantism? Shall it be drifting without chart or rudder among the philosophic icebergs and rocks and shoals of “science falsely so-called,” “higher criticism,” or oriental mysticism? Or shall it be a return, simple, forthright, absolute, to the word of God?

For this very time God has lifted His ensign and spread athwart the sky His banner. For this very time His trumpet may be heard certain and clear among all the discords of earth. Read and listen to one of its melodies, represented like that Gospel message over the plains of Bethlehem as given by His shining messengers to men:

“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, FEAR GOD, and give GLORY TO HIM; for the hour of HIS JUDGMENT IS COME; and WORSHIP HIM that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” Rev. 14: 6, 7.

It is an old, definite message: it presents the same age-lasting Gospel.

It is a universal message: it goes to all alike, knowing neither creed nor nation. It calls from the fear of man, “higher” critic or ruler tho he be, to the fear of God, the One who gives life and salvation, before whom the nations are but as “a drop in the bucket” and “the small dust of the balance.”

It calls us away from giving glory to man, glory to poor, sinful, dying self, poor, worthless self without God, and demands that we render to God the honor and glory that are His due; the honor and glory of obedience explicit and implicit, to all He requires; the honor and glory that is due from the great Gift of heaven for our salvation; the utter paling and fading of all human creeds and human schemes in the light of that glory.

It is a final message: it brings us to that hour when His judgment is pending; when we shall be judged, not by human creeds or standards or conceptions, but by His holy law; when we shall stand face to face with God alone.

It is a spiritual message, recognizing the need of humanity, some object of worship; but it calls us away from the worship of self or selfish desires to the only object worthy of worship, the Creator of the heaven and the earth. And the highest worship, on the words of Christ, is service. Matt. 4: 10.

The heeding of this message leads in the fourth road, the highway cast up for the ransomed to walk in. Who they are is not noted in the earthly halls of fame; but of them Inspiration declares: “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14: 12.

All that comes between them and that message—great Babylon and her errors and the pomp and power of the beast and his image—are set aside. The world and its standards are chaff; God's word is the wheat, the rock, the refuge.