Editorial by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 9, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 48.

Editorial.

By Editor

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

THE man who makes man his strength is trusting in one no stronger than himself, a broken reed at best, whose life is as a vapor or as the dew of the morning. But he who makes God his strength has an unfailing refuge. He who believes a doctrine because God says it, whoever may be the weak instrument through whom the light is sent, will not be affected by the failures and shipwrecks of others. He knows in whom he has believed, and is persuaded that what God has begun he is able also to finish in glory and perfection. There is nothing sure outside of God. He never can fail. And the one who makes the Lord his refuge shall never be confounded or made ashamed.

"Is not this Joseph's son?" It was thus the Nazarites reasoned after they had listened, and even "wondered at the gracious words" which proceeded out of the mouth of Christ. And in thus reasoning they grieved away the Spirit, darkened their own understandings, and rejected the gracious message sent to save them. Instead of looking to the message, they looked to the messenger. By what authority could Joseph's son instruct them? was he not one of them? and had they not known him from his youth? and was it not the height of presumption for him to thus teach them and claim for himself the Messiahship? These were the questions implied by their query. How often to-day do we look at the humble instrument instead of the message he bears. The truth may fall from his lips in burning fire, and conscience may be awakened. Then Satan presents to us the messenger. We hear the oddity of his speech, the peculiar construction of his language; we see the antiqueness of his clothing, and, withal, we remember his humble parentage and humble station. Can God speak through such a man? rings in our ears. "Is this Joseph's son?" Yea, it may be Joseph's son indeed, but there may come to us through his instrumentality a message which will prove the savor of life unto life or the savor of death unto death. Let us take heed how we hear, and how we judge. The messenger may be of clay, but the message may be the words of life from the King of kings and Lord of lords.

NOAH by his life of righteousness "condemned the world." Had no one in the days of the antediluvians lived a righteous life, the wicked inhabitants of that degenerate period might have reasoned with some show of plausibility that it was impossible to do right. But the fact that Noah in the midst of abounding wickedness, and with the same human frailties, lived for God, was an evidence that every other person of that period might have done the same, and with equally gratifying results. Thus by the few gathered out of each period of the earth's history will the justice and mercy of God's grace be upheld in demonstration of the fact that his grace was all sufficient in every age, in every nation, and under every imaginable combination of circumstances.