NO RESPECT OF PERSONS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 26, 1902

NO RESPECT OF PERSONS.

GOD is no respecter of persons. He does not ask the origin, the nationality, the educational, social, or financial standing of any soul who seeks audience with Him. It matters not whether the man is of the lower million or the upper four hundred, whether clothed in the trappings of wealth or royalty, or the rags of the beggar. His great heart has welcome for all. His great common blessings of rain and sunshine, light and warmth, come alike to just and unjust. Despite of sin, and wickedness, and perversion of every good thing, God leaves "not Himself without witness."

God's love and character are manifest only through Jesus Christ. "The only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father [possessing the deepest secrets of His mercy and wisdom, and the wealth of His love], He hath declared Him." John 1:18. He declared the Father in His teaching, in His work, in His life of unselfishness, in His death of love. Not alone did He do this while upon the earth the short period of less than thirty-four years; that was but an object-lesson of the eternity of God's love declared through Christ Jesus,—declared in creation, in redemption, in special providence. He was and is the "true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." He was that before the first advent. It was by His Spirit that chaos turned into cosmos in the six days when God made the earth. It was by His Spirit that the remedy of the curse was made effectual to believers. It was by His Spirit that He preached the Gospel through Noah while the long-suffering of God waited that sinners might repent. In all ages, in all places, has He by His Spirit through spoken, written, manifested word, declared God's love, God's glory, God's goodness. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. . . . Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." Ps. 19:1-4. These are God's object-teachers, constant, universal, and age-lasting. Wherever man has dwelt, he has seen the shining orbs of night and the glowing sun by day, witnesses of God's infinite power to create, to keep. The returning spring and fecund summer, bringing from death and mold of decay new forms of life and beauty, are God's constant witnesses to man of His power to save. And His mighty Spirit of life and wisdom is everywhere present to enforce the lesson upon every soul that longs for the better, higher life, that longs to be acquainted with God.

And therefore the apostle tells us that even before the Gospel in its fulness was preached by human lips in the heathen world, they had all heard, and he quotes the fourth verse of the nineteenth psalm in proof: "Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." Rom. 10:18. And again: "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse." Rom. 1:19, 20, R.V.

It is thus in part that Christ lighteth the souls that come into the world in all ages, that souls in all ages may be without excuse. Into every responsible soul has the light been shed. Upon every responsible heart has the Spirit impressed the object-lessons of the Most High. To every life has come a noble purpose, consciously appealing to every noble sentiment and impulse, a reaching out after God, a longing for some friend, counselor, saviour, helper, who would abide true, mighty, helpful even to the end.

Dimly this light may have shone to the dweller in heathen lands. It may have been but a single ray, as it were, piercing the great bank of darkness; but in that one ray was all the potency of the Sun of Righteousness; and he who received it with all his heart, found his mind illuminated, his life flooded, as never before. He was lifted into a new life; and if he continued to "walk in the light,"—"the beautiful light of God,"—if he continually drank of its radiance and power, it saved him from sin and known sinning, and made him acquainted with the Light of the World. He may not have known his Saviour by the name Jesus, nor His title Messiah; but he knew Him, His mercy, His life, His love, His power over sin. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."

But the rejection of the one ray brings darkness; nay, rather, it leaves in darkness the one who rejects it. Other light may come, but he can not see it. He has rejected the very element which would enable him to do it. The selfishness within him which perverts the one ray to darkness will pervert every other ray. He may receive the first ray, the second, the third. For years he may seem to be a son of light; but a clearer, brighter ray dawns, revealing new depths of selfishness, new crucifixions of the flesh necessary, new duties, and burdens, and blessings. But he turns from it, and the light that is in him becomes darkness. A room may be filled with light from one window. For hours it may have been pouring in its warmth and radiance; but the mere closure of the window changes it to total darkness, and precludes the coming of more. We may have known God's Gospel for years, for years may have enjoyed its blessings; but we can only obtain the fulness by continually walking in the light. One ray rejected is darkness and death.

The lesson is, "Walk in the light as He is in the light." Cherish every ray, reject none, till the whole body shall be full of light, and you yourself a means by which the paths of the darkened ones may be irradiated.