p. 4 | A Name to Live by R.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 20, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 32.

“A Name to Live”

By R.

THERE are many things in this wide world that have no life. Gold and silver, the rocks and the sand, have no vital power. We do not, however, hold them in less esteem for that. They are not supposed to be alive. They awaken no expectations, and therefore cause no disappointment, in that they do not have life.

But the Bible speaks of those who have a name to live and are dead. This is an inconsistency; it is in fact a contradiction.

The deaf can not respond to sound, the blind can not see the light; the former do not know any of the beauties of melody and harmony of sound, the latter can not gaze upon the wonders of the sky and the mystic splendors of the earth. But we do not censure them—they are unfortunate.

But if we saw a man deliberately destroying his eyes, or maliciously ruining his hearing, we would then blame him for his deaf or blind condition.

This is exactly what, in the spiritual world, many do. They have a name to live. They are supposed to have spiritual existence, to have spiritual life; but by yielding to sin, they have become dead. They have deliberately destroyed their own spiritual lives.

If a man had a very valuable watch, and we caught him putting sand and dust into the delicate mechanism, we should think something was wrong with his brain. Without any good object or purpose, he is destroying an object of value to himself. Likewise with the one who chooses to lose spiritual power and sensitiveness. He takes into his life that which will hinder and destroy one of the most sensitive things God ever made—the human soul.

Life is known by its response to its environment. The bird responds to its environment of the air, and wings its unwearied flight aloft and afar. The fish responds to its environment of the water, and moves in graceful lines whither it will. Man is endowed with a wider response to a larger environment than any other being in the world; yet many deliberately choose to cut themselves off from one great portion of their environment, the spiritual. They destroy their outlook and their uplook, and hinder any advancement heavenward. Having a name to live—that is, having powers and capacities—they not only refuse to use them and develop them, but take a course that eventually destroys them.

Who has not seen the young man with the fine heart and noble purposes become engrossed in money getting, until he grew to be close, miserly, sordid, and mean? He sacrifices everything, all the higher aspirations and inspirations, that he may get wealth merely to possess it. The noble qualities are given up, death to all the higher portions of his own being is accepted. Having a name to live, he has become by choice dead.

But every human being in the world who turns away from the noble opportunities that are his through his heritage in Christ, as outlined in the Scriptures, is but repeating the experience of the one mentioned. For wealth, or society, or pleasure, or honor, or fame, he chooses a way that seems right to him, rather than the one that will call into action his best powers. And worst of all, some of those who have tasted of that life and gone for a time in that way, turn back. Having a name to live, they choose to die. He who chooses to become maimed, or to be deprived of a portion of his faculties or his existence, is unreasonable. And yet in the spiritual sense many choose to do this very thing. Christ Himself said, “They will not come unto Me, that they might have life;” and another scripture reads, “They that hate me love death.” R.