p. 69 | THE LESSON OF HISTORY by George E. Price

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 4, 1893

THE LESSON OF HISTORY

By George E. Price

HISTORY. NO. I.

THE LESSON OF HISTORY.

HISTORY is simply the record of what sin has done. It can only be understood in the light of eternity. The only true history is in the great books of heaven, and it is only as we approach the accuracy of that record, and view it from that standpoint, that we can rightly get out of history what there is in it for us.

The history of this world when completed will have illustrated the full nature of sin. Indeed, this world only stands until this is done and until a sufficient number are saved out of it to people the earth when it is made new, so that when time closes its record will everlastingly declare the awful results of the least departure from the law of God. This is why this experiment of sin was permitted to take place, to show what sin is. The time will come when it will all be in the past,—all this horror and cruelty and woe that have followed as the natural result of the first thought of self cherished in the mind of the covering cherub. Eze. 28:14–19; Isa. 14:12–14. And the record of it will then remain to all eternity, as a most eloquent witness that with the maintenance of God’s government is bound up the happiness of all his creatures.

God has always been love. But the difference between selfishness and love could not well have been displayed without this experiment of sin. God has always been the embodiment of mercy. But mercy could never have been manifested, in other words, could never have been shown to the worlds as one of God’s attributes, if nothing had arisen whereby an offender could be treated better than he deserved. This also is a reason why sin has been permitted to take place. But coming down from these general principles there are some points in the details of this history that teach us truths too often lost sight of, but which are of special importance to the world to-day.

The Bible is a manual on the history of sin that God has given to man for his salvation from sin and from its consequences. It contains a history of sin from the first lifting up of the heart in the covering cherub because of his beauty, down through all the ages, “past the rise and fall of kingdoms, past the setting up and overthrow of empires, on into the eternal state,” when all things earthly are made new, and the great originator of sin “never shall be any more.” And not only so, but this revelation of God’s will contains every principle, or the means for the development of every principle, that has found or will find illustration in the history of sin. When its record is complete, it will then be demonstrated by nations and by individuals that one ray of light from the throne of God is sufficient to save from the lowest depths of degradation and woe, and that if men will not be saved, they will stumble upon the dark mountains beneath the full blaze of gospel light, and go down to perdition, when all heaven is reaching forth to save them. This is the great lesson of the ages, the great lesson of history, and, as we said before, if anyone does not find this on every page of its record, he has not got out of it all there is in it for him.

THE VIEW POINT.

There has been a great deal written concerning the philosophy of history, the verdict of history, and the hand of God in history. Much of this has been grand and good, but, because of looking at the subject from a partial standpoint, it has been but the statement of a half truth. The only correct position from which to view it is the throne of God, to look upon it from outside the limits of time. But the same truths will be found in the minute as in the general view, the same in the history of individuals as of nations, and of the world as a whole.

We in this age of the world have a vast advantage in this respect over those of other times, and yet very many, even from the first, have seen the great outlines of this work. Adam was told (and he and some of his children believed it) of the conflict between good and evil, that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head. This is history—the history of this world in a nutshell; it gives promise of the time when sin shall be no more, and when mankind shall be saved by this seed of the woman from sin, its power, and its consequences. To the serious thinkers of the past and present “history is but a panorama of Providence.”

Gibbon, in viewing the fragments of the capitol of Rome, may have acknowledged the intervention of a superior fate. But many have stopped here. Some have gone further and have seen the hand of God at the right time and place bring forth a man to do a certain work. Pitt said, on hearing of the capture of Quebec by Wolfe, “the more a man is versed in the history of nations, the more he sees the hand of an overruling Providence everywhere.” Some have gone further than this again, and have seen that at a certain stage of events God has brought men and circumstances together and has in a great measure regenerated human society. D’Aubigne has grown eloquent on this subject, and has said in the preface to his noted history of the Reformation that “the history of the world must ever be regarded as the open annals of the government of the King of kings.” And again: “This all-powerful hand which is descried through the scattered heaps of the monuments of Romulus, of the sculptured works of Marcus-Aurelius, of the busts of Cicero and of Virgil, of the statues of Cæsar and of Augustus, of the trophies of Trajan, and the horses of Pompey, by a man of admirable genius, but who had not bent the knee before Jesus Christ, shall we not discover this same palm amidst the rubbish of every ruin, and acknowledge it to belong to the arm of our God?”

But how indefinite and unsatisfactory is all this. It is true it was grand then; it is grand now, and is the truth; but we of the closing hours of time, we who give the last message of love and mercy to a perishing world, we can see more than this, and can get more of the principles that are displayed in the history of this world. This great book of man, and his life on earth, and God’s dealings with him, will ever be the subject of our study through all eternity. And it is but fitting that we should now be studying some of these great truths, even though we find but few of them and comprehend them but dimly. And it is doubly fitting that we who gave the warning against the worship of the beast and his image, and who, on this account, should, above all others, be well acquainted with the records of the past, should get from the storehouse of God’s word whatever there is there on this subject that will help us in making the great truths for this time plain and beautiful to the comprehension of the people.

GOD’S WORD OUR BASIS.

The twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh verses of the seventeenth chapter of Acts give us a grand working basis for the development of some of these principles. God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him.” From the beginning there have been the great objects before mentioned that were to be demonstrated here,—“the working out of Satan’s rule in contrast with the government of God; the demonstration to the whole created universe of what God was willing to sacrifice in order to redeem his fallen children; and the gathering out of the nations a people for his name, sufficient in number to people this earth when redeemed and purified from the trace and curse of sin.” And when we can look upon this from the standpoint of eternity, we will see that these results were accomplished in as short a time, and with as little sin and suffering and woe, as possible. This demonstration is to be for the benefit of the created universe, not for a hundred million years, nor for a hundred million times the period of the reign of sin, but to all eternity. And so we say again that the work will be completed as soon as possible consistent with its being done thoroughly and well.

(To be continued.)