INCREASING LIGHT | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 24, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 21.

INCREASING LIGHT.

THE wise man tells us, "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day."

Herein is set forth a principle manifest in all true growth and progress.

It is true of the individual Christian. His greatest light is not that which shone upon his pathway at his conversion. True, there are many who are forever pointing back to the very hour and day and year, the very occasion and place and people, when, and where, and among whom, and under what circumstances their conversion took place. At every social meeting the experience is repeated with brokenness of heart and tears, coupled with mourning and complaint over the present.

We would in nowise minimize any genuine experience in the mighty power of God. We would take from the heart of none the pleasure of the new birth. In some Christian lives these experiences have been marvelously rich in blessing and revelation and peace.

But, bright as any of these experiences are, God did not design that the very brightest even should be the climax of blessing or revelation or joy. The conversion of the sinner is like the shining of the day star, bright and effulgent in the gray dawn of the morning. God designs that the increasing light shall chase away the darker shadows, dispel the morning mists, shine out even the bright herald of morning, and flood all the earth with waves and deluges of sunshine till the perfect day shall be marked by the ripeness of high noon. God never wishes the Christian to lament for "the days that are gone." He never wishes him to long that to-day were yesterday. God wishes to reveal clearer light to-day than He did yesterday. He would give new light and life to-day. He would feed the soul on the manna fresh from the heavenly table. He wishes to give new joy, new strength, new power, new victories. The child life of the Christian began at conversion. God desires a rapid development through lusty, loyal youth to a strong, sturdy, vigorous manhood, which in moral power and soul illumination never knows decline. If this be not the case, the trouble is with the human, not with God.

The principle of progression is also true of the church as a whole. God designed from the time when He called her out of Egypt that His church should be the light of the world, flashing the bright rays of truth and salvation farther and farther into the great pall of sin and darkness which overshadows mankind till the whole earth should be lightened with His glory.

Abraham had more light than Noah; Moses, more light than Abraham; Elijah and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Daniel, more than Moses. And when Jesus Christ came, those who listened to His marvelous teachings, and witnessed His wonderful life, saw light far exceeding anything the world had yet known. Said Jesus to His disciples: "Verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." And the apostle Paul, referring to this fuller, clearer revelation of the Gospel, declares it to be "according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith." And again, in referring to this very Gospel, we are told that in other ages "it was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit," to the intent and the extent "that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known through the church the manifold wisdom of God."

But it has all been in Jesus Christ from the beginning. And from age to age, as Satan developed new plans and schemes for the destruction of man, God has revealed more and more of His wonderful resources, His all-abounding grace, His unlimited power, His infinite love—to save.

Following the marvelous revelation of God's love at the first advent of Christ, the church turned her back upon the light, and walked in her own shadow into the Dark Ages. But God did not leave her. When man's need was greatest, when the night was darkest, out of the infinite storehouse of God's Word flashed the light of His Gospel. It kindled the lamps of Huss and Wickliffe and Luther and Tindale and other noble souls, and they shone out to the world. True, these lights were still dimmed by the shadows of pagan and papal tradition. These souls at first saw men as trees walking; but their eyes were opened. Oftentimes their moral conduct would not endure the test of greater light, but they were far in advance of the dying, corrupted church to which God sent them as messengers.

Luther had more light than Huss. Zwingle had light Luther did not have. John Wesley, of a later day, had more light than Luther. Baptists had light which other denominations have been slow to admit in theology, tho they have in scholarship. And in some form each of the great denominations holds in theory or have emphasized some great truth not possessed or emphasized by others. Certainly in no one have we the fulness of the Gospel.

Does not this very condition of things show that God has yet new light to give to the world, light which will lead into one fold all hearts in all companies and creeds of men who long for the light and truth as it is in Jesus? Seven centuries before Christ the prophet of God had declared: "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." Isa. 40:3. For seven long centuries that voice was not heard in the desert waste of a backsliding church, till we come to the days of John the Baptist. He fulfilled the prophecy, and the acceptance of his message "justified God." John 1:19-23; Luke 7:29, 30.

And now what mean the messages God has recorded in the prophecies for these days of development? What means the great threefold message of Rev. 14:6-12, which warns against all error and false worship, which leads to all truth by leading to God, which has power to heal all the divisions of Babylon by the balm of the everlasting Gospel, and which will gather out from all nations, tongues, and kindreds a remnant people, little flock tho it may be, of whom it is said, "Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus"? What mean these and hundreds of other scriptures? These scriptures are not of man, but God.

Reader, what mean all these warnings, admonitions, appeals, entreaties, commandments of God's Word for these days? What means the greater light which is to lighten the world with its glory, and call God's people out of Babylon—confusion, discord, division? (See Rev. 18:1-4.) These are not denominational questions, or questions of sect; they are questions vital to the souls of this generation. How are you, O soul, deciding them?