The Proper Setting by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 7, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 48.

The Proper Setting.

By Editor

He who separates the Gospel from its proper setting loses the blessing and life of the Gospel and obtains little more than a form of words. The great power of the Good Tidings of God comes in the setting God has given it. For instance, the mighty saving message in Noah's day was the Gospel set in the warning of a coming flood. The saving message of Moses to Israel was the Gospel in the setting of the call out of Egypt. The saving, justifying message in John's day was to believe in a Christ about to be manifested. A little later the Gospel message took on a new setting of a Saviour crucified and risen. In none of these cases would it do for men to excuse themselves and say, "I will believe as my forefathers believed." God's message had advanced into new duties, and clearer light, but with the same infinite power to save from new delusions. So God's message for this day and this generation is the same "everlasting Gospel" in a setting appropriate to the time. Innumerable dangers threaten to engulf the world; every wind of doctrine is blowing. Spiritualism under various names is spreading like a pall its darkening, soul-destroying doctrines over the earth. Apostasy and infidelity stalk forth in popular garb under learned and pious titles. Calamity in various forms is coming on the earth. The great popular churches, rich, proud, and lifted up, ignoring the truth of God that makes for humility and the power of godliness, have, in following their own way, become Babylon, and in turning from God's healing message, have become Babylon fallen. But in importance, transcending all other events, Christ is coming, and the kingdoms of earth are to pass to their rightful Lord. God's truth, buried in error, is to be restored in its pristine purity. The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus are to be emblazoned on the banner of the hosts of God in contradistinction to the worship of the beast and his image. And this is the true setting of the Gospel message for this time. This is the setting God has given it in Revelation 14. He who ignores the warnings, the dangers, the great central theme, of Christ's coming, misses a mighty part of the Gospel, and will know but a form of truth with little of its power. As long as the churches neglect the Gospel setting, so long will division, strife, weakness, inefficiency, and defeat mark her course. The fulness and power of the Gospel lies in the form that God has given it, in the setting where He has placed it. "What God has joined together, let not man put asunder."