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2279.—Blessing Out of Affliction.
Why do the righteous suffer such seemingly unaccountable affliction? For instance, an earnest Christian woman, a poor widow, has an only son for help, and he is stricken by death.
L. W. C.
Often poor, finite mortals can not see the wisdom of God's course. He always reveals to us enough of His character so that we can trust Him where we can not see. Sometimes sickness and death are the result of sin, transgression, sometimes of the individuals, sometimes of their ancestors, and God in His inscrutable wisdom allows the consequences to follow the act, permits the harvest of the seed-sowing. Sometimes He permits these things, as He did the man to be born blind, in order that the glory of God may be manifest; and the manifestation of that glory is not always in the healing of the affliction, but in the development of character under trying circumstances. He never permits a vacuum to be made in any life but what He is longing to fill it with His own glorious presence. If He takes a husband, He will be more than a husband to the widow. If He takes a father, He will be more than father to the children. If He takes the strong stay and support of a son, His promise is, "Even to hoar hairs will I carry you." Sometimes it is necessary to take away all earthly support and earthly help in order that the soul may learn to trust in God; but if they trust, they shall never be put to shame nor confounded, world without end.
"God's ways seem dark, but soon or late
They touch the shining hills of day;
The evil can not brook delay,
The good can well afford to wait."
Like Jacob, our human hearts cry, "All these things are against me," but sometime those who trust in God shall see as did Jacob that the Lord is ordering all things for our salvation. Let those who are afflicted dwell upon such Psalms as the 37th, 49th, 73d, 107th, 116th. Sometimes God allows precious souls to pass thru affliction in order that they may comfort others with the comfort wherewith they themselves are comforted of God. 2 Cor. 1:3, 4.
2280.—Secret Societies.
Is the Seventh-day Adventist Church opposed to secret societies? If so, why? Is there any Scripture for it?
G. B. H.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church finds no need of secret orders or societies in any way, because Christianity itself meets all the needs that secret societies are organized to meet, and confers all the blessings which secret societies could confer. If the church of the Lord Jesus Christ had lived up to her privilege, there would never have been any reason for secret societies to grow up in her midst. Man has longings for certain kinds of fellowship and certain kinds of assurances; he has not found them in the church and therefore he has tried to supplement this by organizing for protection in man. Out of this has grown of course a great many other things in ornate display, in high-sounding titles and positions, in secrets to the initiated, which if told to the uninitiated would profit them not one particle, as the various revelations of all the secret societies have shown.
The secret societies are based on purely selfish principles of doing good simply for the brotherhood. Christianity is based on truly unselfish principles, the very foundation of which is, "If any man will deny himself;" and therefore its streams of benefit flow out not to strong men and women who are able to become active members of certain societies, but to the feeble and helpless, the old man in his dotage, the young man in his nonage, the cripple and the feeble. Christianity will regard the chastity, and do all in its power to convert to chastity, not only the wives and daughters of its own members, but the wives and daughters of the world.
As to its secrets, Jesus said, "I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagog, and in the temple, . . . and in secret have I said nothing." John 18:20. Again, He told His disciples that what He had said to them in secret, that they should proclaim openly. There are secrets, mysteries, between Christ and His disciples, but they are the mysteries of experience only, open to every soul who will yield himself to the Lord Jesus Christ. So while Seventh-day Adventists wage no open warfare against secret societies, it is invariably true that all who join them with full heart find all that they need in Christianity, and invariably see no further need for lodge relationships. Seventh-day Adventists have seen some reasons why secret societies came in, and therefore have not felt to condemn all who belong to secret societies; but they do believe there is something better. To that better thing they invite souls.
2281.—The Holiness Movement.
What can you say of the holiness movement which is spreading so rapidly over the eastern sections of the country, claiming three works of grace—conversion, sanctification, the infilling of the Holy Spirit? Is sanctification instantaneous or is it a growth? Are the queer actions sometimes manifest in holiness meetings prompted by the Holy Spirit?
A. M. W.
We are not personally acquainted sufficiently with holiness meetings to express anything in regard to them. There may be those who are truly sincere and blessed of God, and doubtless there are the counterfeits. We know that some of their theories in regard to the three works of grace are certainly unscriptural. There are such things, of course, as conversion, sanctification, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit, but that does not mean that one comes to-day, the other some days or weeks or years later, and the other another additional experience later on. They express different attitudes and different things.
Conversion is turning from sin and selfishness and the world to God, and is well expressed in some translations by "turning," "turning again." It is turning around in will and purpose, and giving oneself to God.
Sanctification means setting apart. It has its instantaneous phase and its progressive phases. Its instantaneous phase comes on the part of the believer when he wholly gives himself to God. God accepts that and it becomes a matter of growth in the Christian life, in which that giving himself to God is constantly in exercise, as he meets the tests and trials of life. Another as good definition of sanctification is separated from and separated unto—separated from the world, separated unto God; separated from the world and set apart to God and His service. The Lord denominates all such His saints, and He calls them that when they are all imperfect. See the first of the epistles of Romans, Corinthians, etc. But His children never call themselves that. They never say that we are sanctified, or that we are saints. The highest title which they can consistently take to themselves is that of servant—"Paul a servant," "Peter a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ," literally a "bondslave" of God.
The infilling of the Holy Spirit in the sense of the Scriptures is not a constant experience. Again and again we read that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit on special occasions. It does not mean that they were without the Spirit at other times, but God gives His Spirit and His power as men need it.
You may have access to a pamphlet written some years ago, consisting of ten chapters, by Mrs. E. G. White, on "Bible Sanctification." The office does not have it in stock at the present time, but if you can secure it, it will give you the clearest, fullest idea of the steps and examples of what Bible sanctification truly is. Read the life of Daniel the beloved of God, and of Paul the apostle to the Gentiles.
There are times when the power of the Spirit of God upon people leads them to act in a way that critics might call insanity. They said of Peter and the other disciples that they were drunk. They were hilarious perhaps with joy, and yet hilarity of any sort would not prove this, or that, or the other thing. The only right method of weighing such movements as that is the word of God. Does such work lead to prayer, devotion, earnest study of God's word, and the doing of that word?
2282.—The Everlasting Covenant.
What is God's everlasting covenant? Is it "Obey and live"? If not, what is it?
L. D. W.
God's everlasting covenant is that relationship between the believer and Himself in Jesus Christ, by which the believer is saved. If we understand "Obey and live" aright, it is comprehended in that expression. We would prefer to put it, "Believe and live," for the man who will truly believe will be the man who will truly obey. Originally man stood in the very current and fulness of God's life; he took himself out of that current; faith brings him again into that same current of life. The term obey is sometimes used in the case of believing, or rather yielding to the command to believe, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Obedience would be yielding to that injunction. Obey and believe are used synonymously in John 3:36, A.R.V. It is a great deal better to express it in the other way, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, or faith in God thru Christ. "Without faith it is impossible to please Him." That is a great eternal truth, true before man fell, true during his fallen condition, true throughout all eternity; for that in which we have faith is that which molds and shapes and revives and purifies. The finite then is ever looking to the Infinite, the imperfect to the Perfect, the child to the all-wise Father. Therefore there is constant growth in grace, in knowledge, in fulness, in development. That everlasting covenant is the new covenant, not new because its teachings first existed, but new because confirmed by the death of Christ, later than other covenants were confirmed. The last Sabbath-school quarterly covers the ground of the covenant, and if the term "Obey and live" were understood in the light of the other teachings of the pamphlet there would be no trouble over the expression.
2283.—The Sun and the Day.
How do you explain Gen. 1:3, 4, 14-16? In the first two verses we read that God made light on the first day and in verses 14-16 it is said that the sun and moon were not made until the fourth day. If the sun was not made until the fourth day, how was there light on the first day, and the darkness divided from the light?
C. D.
Our understanding of the first chapter of Genesis is that the sun was made in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. The six days was the making of the earth, or bringing it into condition for the habitation of man. The first step of the six days' work was the bringing in of light and the dividing of the light from darkness. Still the earth was enswathed with thick clouds of vapor. The second day there was a firmament, or, margin, "expansion," in which the waters, held in dense vapor, were divided, some of them lifted as clouds and others deposited upon the earth. And that condition continued until the fourth day. The fourth day the clouds cleared and the light of the sun, as the sun, shone in. God made those lights, but not until the fourth day could they shine upon the earth. We see no reason to believe that the light did not come from them on the first day; on the fourth day, to one who might be on the earth, they were visible; so that the language there describes the visible changes which took place on that day.