MEN VERSUS THINGS by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 13, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 15.

MEN VERSUS THINGS.

By Editor

A Lesson for Our Times.

An important lesson for our time is found in the following incident in the life of Christ:—

“And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in nowise lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work; in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Luke 13: 10–14.

In this test is drawn the contrast between the teachings of Jesus and the selfishness of humanity, which, in its short-sightedness, exalts things above men. The real test came to that nation, as it comes to all nations, over its regard for humanity, for the individual.

God Loves the Individual.

The one precious object on this sin-cursed earth to the mind and heart of God is man. God loves him with an everlasting love; loves him even in sin; loved and loves him so much that He gave His only-begotten Son to save man from sin and death. Jesus Christ came to save MEN, not in the aggregate, but as individuals; let it never be forgotten. “For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” Luke 9: 56. In this work God is no respecter of persons, for He “hath made of one blood all nations of men.” Acts 17: 26.

The Worth of Man.

The worth of man is shown in the infinite price God paid for him, the life, the eternal sacrifice, of the Son of God. For it was not for a period of thirty-three and a half years that Christ took upon Him humanity, but for eternity, that He “might bring many sons unto glory.” This is God’s estimate of the worth of man perfected in Christ Jesus, a perfection made possible to all; and, therefore, each man, as an individual, was and is of eternal worth in the sight of God. “Forasmuch as ye know ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, . . . from your vain manner of life; but with the precious blood of Christ.” 1 Peter 1: 18, 19.

The Sabbath is and was then God’s holy day; but God gave it in the beginning, and has perpetuated it that it may be a blessing to mankind. “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Jesus Christ ever exalted the man above the thing, however holy the thing, or howsoever holily man regards it. The Jews regarded the Gentile nations as accursed; but Jesus utterly disregarded the corporation or union tradition, and took a long journey away up to Sidon, that He might heal the daughter of a poor Syrophenician woman. What were national traditions or prejudices compared with one poor, suffering soul? These traditions and rules were dearer to the Jews than were the lives of their fellow creatures. To them the thing was more than the man, the human being. Their sabbath law, their property in sheep and oxen, were more to them than the suffering, bowed woman.

Christ’s Reply.

Tremendous in its sifting justice was Christ’s reply: “Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?”

On a similar occasion He asked the same class before He healed an afflicted one: “What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days.” No wonder that when He said these things His adversaries were “ashamed.”

History Repeats Itself.

The same principles are operative to-day. The difference is only this: In the ancient times the society of Pharisees, federated in this thing with the Sadducees, followed, hounded, and persecuted even to the death the Christ of God, because He would not conform to their wrong laws and traditions respecting the right day. Now we have a class of men federated together into various Sabbath unions and societies, demanding that men shall bow to their wrong traditions and laws respecting the wrong day. The principle is the same; the spirit is the same; the methods, spying, trapping, assumptions of divine authority, are largely the same; and the result will be the same,—persecution and death, if within their power, to those who hold individual conscience and duty to God above that of mere traditions of men. The leader in this work has been the National Reform Association.

This movement sets class against class, sets man to hunting, hounding, spying upon, persecuting his brother for the simple reason that he dares to disagree with him; and counts as anarchists and traitors all who may oppose the unholy traditions and unrighteous laws.

And the same principle is working in the trust and in the labor trust—the union. The thing is placed above the man. The trust is above the manufacturer, the merchant, the small dealer who will not enter the trust or who can be of no profit to the trust, and the laborer. Of course the direct object of the trust is not to crush anyone, but to make money; and make money the trust promoters will, howsoever many human beings may be crushed by their automobile juggernaut. The direct object of the labor union is not to deprive any one of his rights; but woe unto him who does not fall in line, or who can not be of use to the organization. The trust, the union, the thing, is above the man. The friends of true liberty are fighting the same battles to-day that Christ fought; and to-day he who teaches the rights of men, the rights of the individual, in religion, in the observance of days, in duty to God, to family, to fellow man, in the disposal of his own time, where and how and to whom and for what he will in all legitimate pursuits, is denounced as “anarchist,” a “scab,” an enemy to the people when he is the truest friend that humanity has on earth.

The spirit of apostasy is in it all. The spirit of the great apostate is in it all. Consciously, or unconsciously, the labor organizations have followed apostasy in religion always in arrogating to themselves the right to direct not only conscience and action in their own membership, but in all others outside; and the result is that the religious forces, united in securing religious legislation, as Sunday laws for instance, are winning the labor element, which has been moving on parallel lines to the same goal—absolute control of all opposing elements. And the union of the two forces will finally take place over the religious question of a civil sabbath, a mark of a tyranny which covers all the week, hence all the time.

Very much more might be said as to this movement; this must suffice for this time. How shall the movement be met?—There is but one true way, the way in which Christ Jesus met it, the teaching and power of the Word of God. Selfishness in organized and unorganized forms will persist in dominant power, despite all legislation to the contrary, as long as unregenerate man holds sway. Jesus Christ must come into the heart and life till the man knows the Golden Rule. Then he will be no longer an oppressor. He will see his fellow man through the blood of Christ, and will count the pound of flesh more than the pound of gold. He will recognize the equal right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And such ones as these Jesus Christ will gather out to reign with Him over an earth made new forever; for only these have demonstrated the right to reign. In Christ Jesus they have conquered and ruled sin and self.