THE GOSPEL by Mrs. S. M. I. Henry

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 23, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 37.

THE GOSPEL.

By Mrs. S. M. I. Henry

THE Gospel is very wonderful. We do not begin to appreciate what it is, and what it means to the human race. It is good news, glad tidings, great joy to all people, the power of God unto salvation even to those who could have no reason to expect anything but distress and disaster; and we are sent to take it out to the whole world. But, as with everything else, we must have it before we can give it away. It is also true that we can give no more than we have; that we can never tell any more than we know; so it is important that we know and have the whole Gospel as it concerns the physical as well as the spiritual man; for nothing less will meet the needs of a perishing world.

The object which Christ had in coming to this world was to actually save people from their sins, and the consequences of them. The annunciating angel said: "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS; for he shall save his people from their sins." Matt. 1:21. And afterward John, who had learned so much about the Gospel, said, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." 1 John 3:8. But it seems questionable if even the church believes this.

A Discovery.

Within the last few weeks I have made a discovery as to how the Bible is received by Christian people at large. It came upon me like a stroke of lightning out of a clear sky; for I had never dreamed of such a thing. I find that many Christian leaders, and am afraid that almost the entire Christian world, instead of taking the Bible as it reads, are trying to "explain" and "spiritualize" it, so that it seems destined, as far as they are concerned, to vanish into thin air, leaving nothing which is of practical value to a lost world. I have all my life taken the Bible as it reads; and as long as I believed and taught the things which were of common belief with those among whom I associated, there was nothing to raise any point which would bring this fact to my notice.

Many have said to me, as I have been teaching the Bible in former years, "How very literal you are!" One minister said to me, "Do I understand that you take the Bible just as it reads?" I said, "Certainly; how else shall I take it?" "Well," he said, "if you take it that way, you will come out at a very queer place sometime;" and I suppose now he thinks I have come out at that queer place in the Sabbath truth. This I believe to be the trouble with the world to-day,—the Word of God has not been believed, is not believed by many who stand as preachers and teachers, hence these words which should mean so much mean but little, and that little a very uncertain quantity.

He Saves Now.

"He shall save his people from their sins." Actually save them. That is, he intends to save them right now—not simply wait until after the alchemy of the resurrection has done its work, or until some strange processes that are altogether beyond our reach and comprehension have happened, before we can be saved, as a "spiritualized Bible" teaches. Christ intends us to believe that he came to save us from our sins now. He intends to save the lost and the degraded to whom we are sent, just now, and make them pure enough and God-reliant enough to be respectable anywhere. It is our privilege to go to them with an experience of our own that will be a great big now to this Gospel, and demonstrate that it is given to save here in the world of sin from everything which can mar our lives, and which can hinder in the work which has been appointed for us.

Christ not only came to save, but he came to furnish the repentance which makes salvation possible. "Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Many who have become conscious of sin, complain more of their inability to repent than almost anything else. "What is repentance?" "How shall I repent truly?" are to them perplexing questions, and any answers we may give will only add to the mystery. They will stumble over our best teaching about repentance; hence God took it upon himself to give it outright, just when it will be of practical use in a "work of grace;" and, as with all his gifts, it can be obtained in no other way; it is a free gift or nothing.

He will give repentance; that is, he will show things as they are, and our true relation to them; and we must accept this revelation as the end of controversy. When he has shown us ourselves, it is a true showing; and beholding ourselves and our sins as they are, will beget in us true penitential grief, if our sensibilities have not been utterly withered.

Repentance as Christ gives it is not a certain state of feeling, but a knowledge of the truth concerning ourselves, as well as of the authority of the God from which that knowledge has come. Anxiety about our feelings will hinder any work of salvation, by diverting us from things of vital moment. Feelings have their place, but not as facts. They are produced and changed constantly by things which we believe to be facts. An item of news distresses us; but in the midst of a great tide of sorrowful feeling the report is contradicted; we are convinced that exactly the reverse is the truth, and, presto, all our feelings change from sorrow to joy, simply because our belief as to the fact is changed. This is the only way that feeling is connected with repentance, or any other of the matters of salvation. If we believe that we are sinners, we must have sorrow; if we believe that Christ is a complete Saviour, we must have gladness.

What the Gospel Means.

Many do not realize that the Gospel means pure living, clean food, cleanliness of the body, and purity of atmosphere. These belong so much to the outward habit that many have almost considered it profanity to try to treat of them as a part of salvation; and yet salvation for multitudes of sinners must begin there. These are among the essentials in city-mission or any other kind of Gospel work. This is where our preaching of the Gospel may have to begin. Our first Gospel teaching may have to be to prepare food with our own hands, and illustrate the methods of correct living, as far as the physical is concerned. We may be compelled to make very practical applications of the word by which they are to be made clean, with scrubbing brush, soap and water, before we can teach the truth concerning the soul and salvation from sin. The sins which belong to unhygienic living, as well as those which may even be as a passport into "society," are just as deadly as those which lay men and women in the gutter. We must believe this with all our hearts before we shall be able to go out with the whole Gospel, and teach its saving truth to those people who need it.

"And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." Acts 13:32-35; 2 Peter 1:4. The power of God as it was in the Lord Jesus Christ, made it impossible for him to see corruption even in his death; and as it saved him from corruption in death, it will surely save those to whom it is sent, from that corruption which is in the world through excessive appetite; for that is what the word "lust" means.

A Deadly Evil.

There is a great evil in the land, deadly as poison—deadly to physical and social life, as well as to the spiritual life; and it lies in the cradle with the little child. The salvation of the soul is limited by the material things which we take into our bodies, especially when they come into and destroy the strength of the little child. Many a child has grown up to find it very hard to accept Christ, very hard to believe that he could be saved at all, simply because he did not eat and drink the right things, and his physical system was so poisoned that he was not able to think the thoughts that would lead toward the truth. Such sinning is just as destructive as stealing, or murder, and yet it is practised in Christian homes. Many would be shocked if we should tell them that they were ruining the souls of their children by the things which they place upon the table. Children in their innocence are being eaten up by the poison of impurity, which is engendered by the "seasoning" which is put into their food; and salvation is made to seem impossible because of the lingering influence of the platter of flesh, the mustard pot, the pepper and vinegar cruets, and many other things of the same family. Against these we must contend with all our might, if we would make the Gospel practical to those who have the care of the coming generation. The great thing that some of us have been crying for is that we may have the material out of which to make a generation of men and women with clean thoughts and pure memories; but we have not yet found it. It is necessary to reform the children, and grow a generation, before we can begin to produce one of whom it would be at all possible to say that they have clean memories, because of the horrible pollutions resulting from the unclean and unhygienic living in the homes into which they were born.

A short time ago I received a request for prayer, for a young woman who had grown up in a "good Christian home" with such a tendency to impurity that it seemed impossible to save her. No one could understand the cause of her conduct, and wondered with amazement that such a thing could come out of such a home. But a glimpse of the regular diet of that family was sufficient for those who could read the language which they spake to make it all perfectly clear, to say nothing of social customs and personal habits. A menu principally of flesh, with all the highly seasoned accompaniments, late hours from early childhood, public display at church entertainments from the time she could lisp a sentence, with the sort of

admiration and flattery that a bright, beautiful child would receive under such conditions, and the extravagances in dress that always follow in the wake of these other abominations, had made it impossible for her to grow up with natural and pure impulses. She is not saved yet, and it is still an open question as to what will be the outcome.

These evils are found in the homes of the "best people," and to them, as well as to the lowest, the Gospel must come with power to convince of sin as it is committed against the law of the physical as well as the social nature. Satan is so entrenched in the flesh and in society that but for the assurance that Christ is with us in these efforts, we might almost despair. But no work is followed by his Spirit with more marvelous results than that which teaches the whole Gospel as it relates to both flesh and spirit, and that by his escape from corruption we are to put on immortality with the divine nature.

MRS. S. M. I. HENRY. Sanitarium, Battle Creek, Mich.