p. 1 | HOW READEST THOU? by T. E. Bowen

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 6, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 32.

HOW READEST THOU?

By T. E. Bowen

"O LORD, thou art my God; I will exalt Thee, I will praise Thy name; for Thou hast done wonderful things; Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth." Isa. 25:1. It makes a great difference how texts are read.

By emphasizing the words as above indicated, what a richness there is to this one.

"O Lord, Thou art my God." It certainly is a comfort to know that the mighty God who framed the universe, who still upholds all these shining planets in the boundless expanse of space, can be truthfully called the God of just one individual—my God. Every soul created can thus say my God, and therefore He becomes by this the God of all.

"I will exalt Thee." How many seek to exalt themselves instead. Here comes the confusion. This is the result of sin. I instead of Thee is emphasized in so many ways.

"I will praise Thy name." Only the humble follower of Christ can do this. The self-centered, self-seeking individual can not from the heart truly praise the name of God. He manages somehow, somewhere, to weave in his own praise, exalt his own ideas, his own doings, and this at once becomes as the fly in the ointment, the little plague spot that spoils all.

God's praise is His appointed means of deliverance from self-praise.

"For Thou hast done wonderful things." One only needs to enumerate the wonderful things God has done, and is continually doing, to beget in his soul humility. As he contemplates the greatness of the Creator, His wonderful acts, His great wisdom, and spotless purity, untarnished by even one thought of selfishness or self-serving, like Job, he is led to exclaim, "I know that Thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee." "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

"Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth." In all the counsels of God, the happiness and best interests of His creatures have been in view. Every thing, every pleasure, that would affect this one desired end, has been eliminated. This is why the law of His love is so jealous and perfect. Everything has been done in truth and uprightness. Nothing is omitted that in truth will work advantage and happiness to His children. How different are the counsels of Satan. His study is to ruin and destroy—done in unfaithfulness and untruth.

God's blessed words to us are so full, so rich, so helpful. As we seek to read Him into every passage, and study to see revealed His loving thoughts of kindness toward, we shall read His Word aright, and find in it the revelation of a personal salvation to the individual soul, which, in few words, means, "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

T. E. BOWEN.