p. 7 | Your Hope and Mine

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 5, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 30.

Your Hope and Mine

THE hope of man lies not in social or political reform, or in the so-called saving of society. We are nowhere told in the Scriptures of truth that it is God's plan to save the nations or society. He came to save the individual soul.

The law of God is addressed to the individual. It is "Thou shalt," and "Thou shalt not."

The awful solemnities of the judgment come home to the individual man. "Every one of us shall give account of himself to God."

Faith, saving faith, is an individual exercise. "Whosoever believeth" may have "everlasting life." "If thou believest with all thine heart."

To the individual soul comes the conviction of sin against a holy God. He stands alone before the Judge, condemned, knowing, as the law by the Spirit reveals his sin, that he is worthy of condemnation.

To the condemned individual soul comes the pleading voice of the Saviour of men, "Come unto Me, . . . and I will give you rest." "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: tho your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; tho they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." To the individual soul comes in response to the individual faith, pardon full and free. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."

To the pardoned soul comes life and grace and righteousness. "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," cried one who declared himself to be the chief of sinners; "for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." For "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."

And thus we might go on and on, piling up the mountains of hope to the souls struggling in the deluge of sin.

The saved souls are the salt in the corruptions of society, the lights in the world of darkness, the uplifters of a holy standard in a world constantly receiving favors from God, but which knows Him not. Life connection with God recreates the soul, lifts it out of heredity, above environment, and places it in an atmosphere of heaven, panoplied with the armor and power of God.