p. 1 | NOT MAN BUT GOD

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 15, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 46.

NOT MAN BUT GOD.

"BUT we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." 2 Cor. 4:7. "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. . . . That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." 1 Cor. 1:25-31.

THROUGHOUT earth's sad history it has been the object of Satan to hold man to outward appearance rather than to inward worth; and to a great extent he has succeeded. Man has been more impressed by what he has seen and heard than by what is. He has worshiped stocks and stones and images of his own manufacture, rather than the great God, who made all things. He has seen his idols shattered many times; he has seen the work which he thought due to their worship melt away, yet he blindly falls again before his senseless god, or god of flesh, and worships as of yore.

AND all this is not because man may not find the true God; for He gives man all he has, reveals Himself in a myriad ways, "that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, tho He be not far from every one of us." Acts 17:27.

WHAT a blessed truth this is; and yet how true it is that the very men which God intrusts with the message hide from the needy sinner, by their own shadow, the glorious light of the Gospel of Christ! Not so with nature. Every year, in seed-time and harvest, nature reveals God, dying as to herself, that men may see God's power and glory in the resurrection and the harvest. But man, poor, weak, mortal, changeful, fickle, inconstant man, exalts himself, and hides God.

God's Word has been the joy and rejoicing of the heart of His people in all past ages. Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Moses and Joshua and Samuel and David and Elijah and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Daniel, and even so to the end of the long list of the heroes of faith, the men of God abased self and exalted the Master. God said it; that was sufficient. They were mortal; yet men honored them. They said, not us, but God. The one exception, once in a lifetime, under sore provocation, was punished by premature death as a public reproof of self-exaltation.

BUT now the "higher criticism" of mortal man has made in the eyes of the people the Word of God of little more account than the mythology of Greece or Rome; and the tradition of a paganized church, fostered by "leaders" in professed Christian thought, have made the commands of God of none effect. And in it all before the eyes of the people God is brought low, and man is exalted as a demi-god.

NOT so with the heroes of faith, the mighty men of power. Paul could boast pure pedigree, unswerving devotion to ritual and nation, membership in the strictest sect, great scholarship, consuming zeal in religion, and outward blamelessness of life; but all these he lays at the feet of Christ, and declares them refuse and loss. He emptied himself, like his divine Master, and God filled him. Mighty eloquence fell from his lips,—truth which has blessed the ages. The incident which the artist has attempted to portray in our illustration, was characteristic of his life. Paul and Barnabas are at Lystra. An impotent (helpless, powerless) man is among the hearers. He believes, and the apostle sees it. Paul speaks, "Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked." Acts 14:10. And the people whose priests had hid God by the human, exalt the men as gods, and bring forth "oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people." Verse 13. Do the apostles receive the homage, and allow themselves to be thus exalted?

Not so. They mourn that the people are so blind. They are in haste to undeceive them. They rend their clothes, and cry:—

"Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein; who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He left not Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." Verses 15-17.

THIS is the message of the true servants of God. Men are nothing, tho other men may count them gods. The prophets were men; the apostles were men. The power, the wisdom, the goodness, are all of God. "But we

have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? Therefore let no man glory in men."

THIS is the message of the everlasting Gospel to the world to-day. "The Voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the Word of our God shall stand forever." Isa. 40:6-8. And here is a kindred message of the everlasting Gospel: "Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come; and worship Him that made heaven, and earth." Rev. 14:6, 7. O, that men could once see and know God! No longer would they exalt man, save in God's way.