Your ShelfYour Projects

ARISE, SHINE

20%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 30, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 38.

Read the full edition

ARISE, SHINE.

By Minard Wood

BY MINARD WOOD.
MANY are wise in their own conceit who in the sight of God are fools. 1 Cor. 3:19: None are truly wise but such as are wise for eternity, and all such, being taught of God, must be truly wise; it will be made to appear in eternity that they were such, although they were counted fools here. They who walk in the way of wisdom in time shall have a glorious reward in eternity. “They shall shine as the brightness of the firmament.” Here they are buried in obscurity, and loaded with reproach and shame; but there, when God shall have rolled away their reproach, they shall shine like an unclouded sky, and that in the same proportion as they have made themselves useful in instructing others. Matt. 5:19. For they that turn many to righteousness, that is, turn the wicked from the error of their ways, from sin (1 John 3:4), to holiness (Heb. 12:14), and help them to fly from that death which is the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23), shall have addition to their glory by sharing in the glory of others. “They shall shine as the stars forever and ever.” Dan. 12:3. Christ is the sun, the fountain of all light, and those who teach others may be considered as stars, or planets, some shining much brighter than others, but all shining in that light they derive from Him who is the Author of light, both of grace and glory.
Figures were originally used, not for ornament, but to explain the sacred truths, and we need them for that same purpose still. We have no way of understanding what is difficult but by the application of what is familiar. No wonder, then, in order that we might have some weak conceptions of the glory of heaven, we read of rivers of pleasures, tree of life, palms of victory, crowns of glory, feastings and mirths, treasures and triumphs, singing and shouting, and a thousand other images which serve to show us a little of the glorious substance which God has laid up for them that fear him. Ps. 31:19. And when the stars shall fall from heaven as the leaves from the trees, and their light shall have gone out, the saints shall shine on forever and ever. Trim your lamp now, my brother, that it may burn well in eternity.
New Bedford, Mass.