Editorial by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 18, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 45.

Editorial.

By Editor

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

GOD is the source of all truth, as he is of all good. Christ came to manifest God to the world. "God was in Christ." Therefore Christ says, "I am . . . the truth." The Spirit which should testify of Christ is the "Spirit of truth." Whatever, therefore, is of Christ is of the truth, and whatever is of the truth bears the impress of the Spirit of Christ, which is the Spirit of love.

SATAN, or the devil, is "a liar and the father of it." Error is therefore of Satan. The spirit of error is the spirit of the devil. He who follows error, he who loves it, he who adopts it instead of truth because it seems more expedient, deliberately invites the devil into his heart instead of Christ. He makes Satan the moulding power of his life instead of Christ. He grows to hate truth more and more, and to hate those who are of the truth. It is therefore not immaterial as to what we believe and follow; it is of eternal importance that we know and do the truth.

CHRIST is to us just what our faith or unfaith makes him. He desires, he designs, he died, that he might be to us "wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption;" that he might be Redeemer, Saviour; that we, poor sinners, might by his power be made to "the praise of the glory of his grace." Why not believe, and thus submit ourselves to God's plan? We may reject Christ and make him our condemnation; but why not desire what Christ desires? Why not design what he designs by making God's will ours? Why not be eternally saved by Christ? Reader, why?

WHAT lessons God has given us everywhere in nature! What a picture does the sea present before us! Surge follows surge, billow follows billow, wave follows wave in ever ceaseless motion. Sometimes lashed into tempest, sometimes smooth as polished steel, but ever restless, never still. What a fitting figure of the soul at war with God! It knows no peace. Tossed with the tempest of passion, exhausted by unavailing efforts for repose, or ambitiously engaged in everyday work or pleasure, yet there is no rest. "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest;" and it never can rest. Ever and forever raging, pulsating, throbbing, tossing, but never resting. Even so with the wicked. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." God does not take the peace from them; in the very nature of the case, they can have no peace.

BUT there is another and better lesson which the sea teaches. Its mighty billows bury effectually and forever the hidden treasures of centuries as well as the corruptions of earth's greatest cities. As stately vessels as ever rode the waves have found in the mighty bosom of the deep both shroud and grave; and many indeed are the souls who have gone down to the sea in ships and have never come back. But souls die on the land, and those who sleep in Him, whether in vaulted crypt, cypress-shaded grave, or the cavernous depths of old ocean, will come forth again to life; for "the sea is His, and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land." Yet to the righteous the sea is a grave which bringeth no regrets or heartaches; it is the grave of his sins; for thus saith the Scriptures: "He will turn again; He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."

THE rest of the Christian is in God, who has reconciled the world to himself through Jesus Christ. God has therefore naught against us. He so loved us as to give his Son to die. If we are not at peace with him, it is because we have something within our hearts against him, or his words and ways, which are the same thing. If we surrender that, if we yield all to him, the war is over; we are at peace with God. Trusting in the peace which he has made makes that peace ours, and our confidence in him brings rest, not the rest of the sea, but the rest of the Rock of Ages. The tempest may swirl around us, the waves may beat at our feet, but the foundation stands eternally sure. Christ is our rock of rest, soft and soothing as a pillow of down, but unshakable as the mountain base. His righteousness is ours; we are in harmony with God; our peace is made. "And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." "Take my yoke upon you," says Jesus, "and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."