Editorial by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 24, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 25.

Editorial.

By Editor

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable.”—2 Tim. 3:16.

WHEN Jehoshaphat was about to go out to fight against the inhabitants of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, the Lord said to him: “Ye shall not need to fight in this battle; set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” We may learn from this that the warfare of the Christian is not always active engagement. Instead of working through us, God sometimes bids us stand still and watch his workings independent of our agency. At such times it will require more faith to stand still than it will to go forward. Could we but see as God sees we would find in the waiting experience the only true gain. When God says, “Stand still,” obedience brings the greatest victories and the sweetest peace. To go forward at such a time would be retrogression, failure, and defeat.

JESUS CHRIST “emptied himself,” of himself, that God might fill him. Of himself he was righteous, but he did not come to represent self or anything of self to the world; he came to manifest God. God came into that heart which had wholly renounced self and filled it with his Spirit, gave it without measure. Thus it was that God could be manifest and was manifest to the world. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” Jesus said to Philip, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?” And as Jesus emptied himself that God might be seen in him, so we are to have the same mind, empty ourselves, that Christ may fill us, and thus we reveal him to the world. Thus he prayed, “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one;” and then the effect,—“that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.” Would God that all who profess Christ’s name might empty themselves that Christ might fill them. Then, indeed, would Christ be the light of the world, his followers one, and Christianity would be known by its power.

THIS life is made up of opposites—sunshine and cloud, light and darkness, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, favoring breezes and adverse winds of trial and discouragement. And it requires the cloud, the darkness, the sorrow, the pain, and the adverse wind quite as much as the sunshine, the light, the joy, the pleasure, and the favoring breeze, to fit and mould our Christian character. The sturdy oak gains strength through the opposition of wind and storm as well as through the sweet influence of balmy sunshine. The opposition only causes it to strike its roots down deeper and to strengthen the fibers of its framework. Thus with trials in the life of the Christian; they are permitted in mercy to strengthen the character, and to lead the disciple to cling more closely and confidingly to the Rock of Ages.