FAITH AND WORKS by W. M. Healey

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jul 4, 1878

FAITH AND WORKS.

By W. M. Healey

TEXT: But without faith it is impossible to please Him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Heb. 11:6. "But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead." James 2:20.

From the above we learn that if we would please God, we must believe in him not only as an existing being, but as one who cares for his people, and rewards them that diligently seek him. Thus Paul says, "Who will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life." Rom. 2:6-7. Faith and works are everywhere through the Bible mentioned as the means by which we can please God. "Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect." James 2:21, 22. In Matt. 25:31-46, Christ tells us that when he comes, and sits on the throne of his glory, and separates the people, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats, and sets the sheep on his right hand, then he will say to them on his right hand, "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat." The Lord continues to mention quite a list of good works which they had done, not to him directly but to those that were his. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me." But to those on the left hand he says, "Depart from me, ye cursed," Why depart, is it because they do not believe he is the Lord? He tells them, it is because, they have not done good works. They call him Lord, and seem to expect to be rewarded by him, but they have not sought to obtain that reward by well doing. They have believed in him as one that would reward them, because they acknowledge him as the shepherd. No doubt in their lifetime they had said, "If I only believe in Christ, that is all God requires of me," and perhaps many of them had taken great delight in singing, "Nothing remains for me to do. Nothing either great or small." And when Jesus comes nothing is brought for them but the curse of an offended God.

They have been blinded all their lives, and lost at last. Oh what a terrible condition is theirs! worse than if they had never expected anything, for to their other sufferings is added such a bitter disappointment. Dear reader, stop; examine your faith. Is it of the right kind? There can be but one true faith, but there are many systems of belief. Paul in defining faith says: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Heb. 11:1.

Thus we understand faith is a trust in God's word and promises. Noah had faith and built an ark. He had never seen a flood, but God said there would be one and he believed it. All the world believed it when it was upon the earth, and they were vainly trying to gain some point of safety, but their's was not faith, it was only the recognition of an existing fact. In the second chapter of Daniel, we find recorded a vision in which a great image is seen. The prophet says the golden head symbolized the then existing kingdom of Babylon; the breast and arms of silver, another kingdom; and the sides of brass, the third kingdom that should bear rule over all the earth; and the legs of iron, the fourth kingdom; and this kingdom was to be divided into ten parts, as the image was divided at the feet into ten toes, and he says it shall remain thus divided, till the God of heaven sets up his kingdom. In the time when this vision was given, it would have required faith to believe that the powerful kingdom of Babylon could ever be overthrown. But after a few years the Medes and Persians succeed in its conquest, and they in turn were conquered by Alexander, of Grecian fame. And finally the fourth kingdom, Rome, rules the world, and in the year A. D. 483, it was divided into ten parts, and that division remains in the old world to day. Now it does not require any saving faith to believe this, it only requires a knowledge of the history of the past.

When Media and Persia ruled the world, no faith was needed in God's word to believe that Babylon had passed away, that was something seen, but it would have required faith to believe in the coming of the kingdom of Greece to rule the world, and so on to the present time. We know that all this has taken place except the setting up of God's kingdom. Are we required to believe that God has done as he said he would in the past, and not believe he will do in the future that which he has declared?

No, it is the true faith that believes in the things not seen. We are required to trust God's word and believe he will set up his kingdom as the next universal one. This is the present truth for our time, a faith in what God will do, and is doing, is the kind he requires of his people. "Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them and be established in the present truth." 2 Pet. 1:12.

There are some truths which apply at one time, and do not apply at another, and these truths may be so important that a man's salvation will depend upon receiving them. Other truths may apply at any and all time. There is a living God, man is a sinner and can only be saved through faith, repentance, etc. The above is always true. But not so of all truths. For instance: God gave Noah a special message to the antediluvians. They were warned that a flood was coming, which was true. But suppose that, for one hundred years after the flood, Noah had kept on preaching the same message to the world, it would not have been true, and no one would have been required to believe it, but at the time when it was true it was so important that those who did not accept it were lost.

There are many examples of this kind; just before the first advent of Christ, John the Baptist was raised up to herald the glad tidings to men; that was "the present truth" for that time, but if Noah had taught that Christ was coming in his generation, instead of the flood, it would have been false. Similar examples are seen in the works of Moses, Abraham, Lot, Jonah, and many others. God has always had a present truth for his people which applied to a particular time, and with such truth he has connected special duties. Suppose in Noah's time men had said, "Well, I guess Noah is about right, the world is so wicked that I feel sure God cannot suffer it to continue this way much longer, I am sure Noah has the truth." But if, notwithstanding they feel satisfied the end is near, they make no special preparation for the coming flood, would they not be lost? Certainly they would all have been drowned. What saved Nineveh from the destruction that Jonah proclaimed was at hand? It was not their saying that they thought very likely what he said was so, and then go on doing just as they had done in the past. Oh no; they believed the message and saw that it brought a special work for them, which they made haste to perform, and from the king down to the beast of the field, they put on sackcloth. And the king proclaimed a fast for both man and beast, that they should not eat or drink, but cry mightily unto God. And this was not all; they were required to turn from their evil way. Jonah 3:5-8. And this was what pleased God. "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil, that he said he would do unto them; and he did it not." Verse 10.

Most men who live in Bible lands, and claim any faith in God and his word, believe in these special warnings and present truths which God has given in the past, and they seem to think this is sufficient to save them. But it can be easily shown that to simply believe what God has done is not enough. In Noah's time men were lost for not accepting his work and warning. In Moses time they believed Noah's work was of God, but they were lost for not believing in the work which God was doing in their own time, by his servant Moses. See Numbers 16, and read how Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and two hundred and fifty persons, with many of the people, rebelled against God's work at that time and were destroyed. If they had been asked about the flood, and if they believed that God taught Noah to prepare for it, they would likely have answered, "Yes, and the people were very foolish at that time or they would have believed and been saved." Thus they had faith in God's work in the past, but none at all for it in their own time. The same is true of the times of Elijah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and nearly all of the prophets. In Christ's time, they had all come to believe in the work of God performed in Moses' time, also Elijah's work and teaching was accepted as of God, and in fact nearly all of God's teachers of the past were now acknowledged as coming from him. And as they called to mind how these faithful men had labored and suffered for the good of others, and then were rejected and often killed by the very ones they were trying to help, they felt sad because their fathers had been so blind and wicked, and they would gather the bones of these prophets and place them in a tomb, which they had taken great pains to ornament and make beautiful. Read what Christ said of them, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets." Matt. 23:29, 30. Possibly they thought just as they talked, but what do they do? They turn from weeping over the sins of their fathers in rejecting the "present truth" that had been sent to them by God's holy prophets. And now will they take warning, and be careful to accept what God may send them? One would think so, but no, they despise and slay the Son of God himself.

Dear reader, God has always had a test of faith for his people in some special truth, and this truth has always brought its particular duties. What is that truth for our time? It is the proclamation that Christ is coming, and this test of faith is not in merely saying that we think the time is near, as the signs which were to precede it have appeared; but it, like God's testing messages of the past, requires a preparation and repentance on the part of those to whom it is given. It is not enough for us to say, "Yes, the world is in just the condition Christ said it would be in. 'As it was in the days of Noah, so shall the days of the Son of man be.'"

We may know that the evidences of the end are thickening around us, that the events foretold by our Lord and recorded in Matt. 24, have been fulfilled. Jerusalem was destroyed A. D. 70, and after its destruction came the fearful time of tribulation such as never should come again, the persecution by Rome, known as the martyr age, during which time, reaching down into the eighteenth century, over fifty million persons were put to death, a greater number than the entire population of the United States. This persecution had principally ended in 1755, but entirely so in A. D., 1779. Immediately after the tribulation, the sun was to be darkened, the moon refuse to give her light, and the stars fall from heaven, and then Jesus says the end is even at the doors, so near that the generation that should live to see these signs fulfilled should not pass away till all these things be fulfilled, that is his coming and the end of the world, as these were the things they were talking about. The tribulation having ended 1779, the sun was supernaturally darkened May 19, A. D. 1780, and the night following the moon refused to give her light, and all the authorities admit that the true cause of this darkening is not known. See Webster's Dictionary, edition of 1869, in vocabulary of noted names, headed Dark Day. November 13, 1833, occurred the last sign to mark the generation, the falling of the stars. Ask those who saw them.

We may be aware that all these things have taken place, and consequently know that we are in the generation which will witness the second advent of our Lord, and so far acknowledge the truth, but that is not all we should do. Peter in speaking of the second coming of Christ, 2 Pet. 3:1-14, tells us that the brethren at that time are to be found without spot and blameless. When Christ comes it is as king, he is no longer priest and therefore there is no longer forgiveness for sin. The decree has gone forth, He that is filthy let him be filthy still. The church then must be living up to all the moral requirements of God. And these are summed up in his moral law of ten commandments. Is his church to whom he is to come keeping all of these? If they have not all been kept by her in the past, they must be presented in this last testing present truth, that they may be without spot when he comes. And so it is. One of those moral commandments, the fourth, which commands us to keep holy the Sabbath day and tells us the seventh day is that Sabbath, has been trampled under foot; and now with the closing scenes of probation, God presents the duty of its observance to his people. Dear reader, consider this matter. Are you believing in God's present truth and the duties it brings. Let us repent, and accept God's work in our time, and be saved when Jesus comes. W. M. HEALEY.