Your ShelfYour Projects

With Our Inquirers

3%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jul 24, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 30.

Read the full edition

With Our Inquirers

By Editor

“If ye will inquire, inquire ye.”
[All questions to this department will be answered which to the editors will seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. The same question can not be answered repeatedly in the same volume. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. It is well always to enclose a stamp for reply.]
2157.—Where the Moral Law Was Written.
Did Moses write a copy of the original law in the “book of the law” which was placed in the “side of the ark,” or did he give it to the people in some other form? If not, how were the people able to write them upon their doorposts and gates as they were commanded to do forty years later? Deut. 11:20. W. M. C.
The Decalogue was written on tables of stone by the finger of God. This is plainly declared. When those tables were broken by Moses, we are told that the Lord wrote the second table of Ten Commandments the same as the first. The Ten Commandments were spoken from heaven, and Moses tells us just what was spoken from heaven in Ex. 20:1-17. The book of Exodus is the book of Moses. It was written by Moses, and therefore the law which was written on the tables of stone was also written in the book. God does not give His laws that they may be hidden from us. They were kept in the ark in order that they might be preserved.
2158.—The Lord’s Supper and Baptism.
Why do we need the literal eating and drinking of the literal supper when we should by faith feast upon Christ alone, or why do we need literal baptism? Would not faith be greater if we should feast upon the word of God and manifest it to the world rather than depend upon those ordinances, and lack the evidences of faith in His word? C. F. H.
Really is this the right form of the question? Would not this be the better way to put the question, Would not our faith be more clear and strong if we should feast upon the word of God and manifest it in our life to the world and show by these ordinances which He has Himself ordained that we have simple faith in His word? Now one reason why those ordinances should be obeyed is because He who knew our frame, who knows all about us in every way, said that we should observe them. That ought to be sufficient. Peter said on one occasion, “Thou shalt never wash my feet;” and He closed the instruction given upon that occasion, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” All these Gospel ordinances ought to be open manifestations of a continual heart work; so God designed them. We have no right to hide behind the subterfuge that we will do these things in heart and in spirit, tho we neglect the outward form, any more than we have to hide behind the mere formality and let our heart run riot as it will. Jesus said, “Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you,” and our great, good Saviour and Friend knew and knows that we need the ordinances which He Himself left in the church.
2159.—The Christian’s Rest by Faith. Heb. 4: 8, 9.
Please explain the Christian’s rest as obtained by faith, revealed in Heb. 4:8, 9. E. C.
More than personal soul rest is presented before us in this scripture. It should be studied from the previous chapter. Note these facts and read the scriptures in the light of these facts:
1. It is God’s design to make His people like Himself, and give them a home fitted to that eternal righteous character.
2. When He called Israel out of Egypt, it was to give them just such a home as this, and to make their days as the days of heaven upon earth. Deut. 11:21.
3. As to what that rest shall be is witnessed in the very record of creation where God made the earth for man and pronounced it very good, the pledge of which was the completion of the work and the rest of the Sabbath. God’s Sabbath rest was a rest of delight and satisfaction at the work achieved for man.
4. Israel did not enter into that rest. They were disobedient, altho Joshua took them into the promised land (The word Jesus is the Greek for Joshua). He did not give them the eternal rest which the Lord made for His people in the very beginning, before sin entered.
5. There remaineth therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
6. That rest begins here when man gives up himself and his own works and rests in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
7. The eternal rest, however, will not be until men have been tested and fall not “after the same example of disobedience.”
Our inquirer truly says that the very churches that sing “Gloria Patri,” “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen,” ought to be giving glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit in the keeping of the Lord’s Sabbath.
2160.—Cruelty to Animals.
Is there any scripture showing how Christians should treat dumb animals? When horses have been worked hard all day should they be driven long distances, and rapidly, at night? INQUIRER.
There is one text which every Christian who has to do with dumb animals ought to keep in mind, “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast; but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” Prov. 12:10. That is a text that will bear a great deal of thought. To regard the life of the beast is to regard its welfare. It is not regarding the life of the beast to deprive it of the necessities of life, to treat it cruelly, to beat it, or, unless actual emergency of human life demands it, drive it unreasonably. Many, many will do this and excuse themselves under the plea that, “I work just as hard as that myself.” They are doing it willingly, however, and not of necessity. God has not given us the dumb brutes for us to abuse in any way, and he who is lacking in the right treatment of his horses and cattle is to that extent lacking in the real true principles of Christianity. The psalmist in his song to God declares, “Thy gentleness hath made me great.” The truly great man is gentle and tender to the feeble and helpless.
2161.—Was Peter a Catholic?
Please tell me if Peter, one of Christ’s disciples, was a Catholic. Does it say anywhere in the Bible that Peter was a Catholic? J. S.
Nowhere in all the Bible does it say that Peter was a Catholic, or a Presbyterian, or a Congregationalist, or a member of any other denomination or sect. He was a disciple and an apostle of Jesus Christ, one of the leading ones among the apostles, one of the very first to confess Jesus as the Christ, as we learn from Matthew 16, in which Jesus said to him that flesh and blood had not revealed to him that great truth but the Father in heaven; and then Jesus tells him that he is Peter, a stone; and “upon this Rock [his confession in Christ Jesus the Rock] I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Not upon Peter was the church built, but upon Christ Jesus. See 1 Cor. 3:11; 1 Peter 2:6-8. Peter is one of the living stones built on Christ, the foundation.
Jesus further tells Peter that He would give unto him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and “whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” The same power was given to all the apostles. John 20:23. The opening of the doors of the kingdom of heaven was fulfilled in the Lord’s first using Peter to preach to the Jews on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), and to the Gentiles (Acts 10). So Peter tells us in Acts 15:7: “Brethren, ye know that a good while ago God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe.” Now the binding or the loosing, the forgiving and the retaining of sin, is by the living word which they preach. This is shown by a parallel passage in Jeremiah in which God gives him His message to bear to Israel and the nations, and declares, “See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” Jer. 1:10. How did he do this?—By declaring God’s word. Jer. 18:5-10. There is no evidence whatsoever in God’s word that Peter was the head of the Roman Catholic Church in the time of the apostles. They have chosen Peter since. The truly wise will choose the Lord Jesus Christ.
2162.—Rag-Time and Sentimental Music.
Are rag-time and sentimental music all right? And is it right to read the popular magazines of the present time? INQUIRER.
It depends on what the music is played for, who plays it, what the magazines are read for. It is conceivable that rag-time music might be better for some soul than the things he is doing. For instance, it would be better for a person to play rag-time music than spend the time in plotting evil against his fellow men, or doing that which is a great deal worse. There are sentiments that are right. Some of the grand hymns and glorious psalms take hold of the sentiment, using the term in the good sense, of man’s nature. But we suppose the questioner meant, Is it right for a Christian? We think the real standard by which to settle it is that given in 1 Cor. 10:31, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Is the playing of rag-time music such as would glorify God? Let the Christian ask himself, and ask it of his own conscience, ask it as in the presence of the living God, ask it just as his conscience would ask it if he stood before the judgment-seat. There are songs of sentiment, which we suppose the questioner means, love songs, that might be right, that appeal to high and holy and tender sentiments, but there are a great many at the present day which are utter nonsense, that arouse no tender chords of the heart, touch no secret springs of sympathy or tenderness toward humanity, but which in themselves are utter foolishness. It seems as tho a Christian with the great, tremendous responsibility before him which these times bring could find something more profitable.
As to the popular magazines, that is another question. If we read them for the sensational love stories or for the other foolish things they contain, it would be better to put the time in reading good books, that are of worth and literature that is of worth, rather than spend the time on many articles which the magazines contain. Sometimes the magazines contain important articles, matters of interest, historically, politically, religiously. Of course such things as that it is proper to read. The only thing which can decide these questions at all is the conscience that is kept in tune with the great law of God and Christ Jesus.
2163.—Music on the Sabbath.
Is it wrong to play classic music and reveries on the Sabbath? E. H.
We suppose it is meant, Is it wrong for Christians to do this? There is music which might be called truly classic that is truly sacred, and would lift the soul heavenward. There are reveries which we could conceive were pure and holy, fitting us for pure worship of God. This is a question which the individual must settle for himself. Music which leads away from Christ and His word is certainly music which the Christian ought to reject.
The other question which is purely personal is not a proper question to be answered in this department.