What is the Use?

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 30, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 41.

“We have the truth.” Well, what of it? Does it do us any good? If we have more truth than our neighbors, does it make us better men than they are? Of what use is truth, if it does not make us true and faithful? When men claim great knowledge of the truth, the world and the church have a right to look and see whether corresponding fruits are exhibited.

A man whose faith does not cure him of covetousness, of meanness, of worldliness, of jealousy, of falsehood, of slandering, of back-biting, and trickery, may boast of his religion as much as he pleases, but his “glorying is not good.” He may claim to have light, but what avails light if he still walks in darkness? He may profess to have faith, but what avails his faith if it does not work by love and purify his heart and mould his life?

A man’s religion is worth simply its practical value. It is useless for a man to change his religion if his religion does not change him. If his faith does not benefit its owner, it surely will benefit no one else. What we do not feel ourselves, we shall vainly try to make others feel. What we do not practice ourselves we shall not be able to induce others to practice. Sham pathos, make-believe emotion, groans, and whines, and tones, and grimaces, do not convert souls to God, nor turn sinners from the error of their ways. Religion is a reality or it is nothing; yea, less than nothing, and vanity. There is enough of emptiness, hypocrisy, and sham in the world, without the church adding to the amount. Let us be real, or let us be nothing. Let us pray God to set up the standard of his rectitude within our souls, and write his law within our minds. Thus having truth in the inward parts, we shall delight in the law of God after the inward man, and shall show forth the praises of him who hath called us to glory and virtue.—Sel.