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SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS
Our authority for the doctrines we teach is the Bible. Quotations are usually from the King James Version or the American Standard Revised.
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REORGANIZING THE ORIENT
By J. E. Fulton
More Effective Service for the Far East — Healthy and Vigorous Growth
Demands More Rapid Action in Administration
Elder Fulton prepared this article while coming across the Pacific Ocean from Australia to attend the recent general council at Loma Linda, California. What was planned and recommended at the Shanghai meeting was unanimously and enthusiastically adopted at Loma Linda. In an early issue, Elder A. G. Daniells, president of the General Conference, will have an article describing the reorganization of the Asiatic Division, also telling of the reorganization in South America, and what these things mean to our work. EDITOR.
At Shanghai, China, May 1-15, was held a conference of Seventh-day Adventist missionaries; and no doubt this meeting will go down in their denominational history as an epoch-making gathering. About one hundred and thirty missionaries and delegates were present, representing China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and the East Indies. Reports of progress were presented from all parts of the far East, showing that substantial gains had been made, and in some cases membership had doubled during the past year. In the different fields, their respective training schools are doing good work in developing native evangelists and colporteurs; and during the year, a number of evangelists have been ordained to the ministry, thus indicating that confidence is reposed in the native element. The many open doors have, it was felt, thrown a responsibility upon the church, and a call was made for a large number of recruits from the home lands, and a considerable sum of money is to be raised for advance work during the coming year.
A SCHEME OF REORGANIZATION
It is proposed to reorganize the far East and adjacent countries into a division conference, which shall embrace, besides the far East, India and the Australasian Union Conference, all together making nine subdivisions, which are to be again divided into local and provincial missions. This will call for a number of experienced leaders and administrators. While it means more machinery, yet the promoters confidently believe that it means also a mighty forward movement.
The weak element of the organization in the past has been that the leaders in the mission fields have not had full administrative powers, and have been dependent on a mission board which, while always sympathetic, has been too far away to administer a field that has now assumed such large proportions.
The Seventh-day Adventist churches in Australia and New Zealand, as well as those in America, will be asked to send men and means. Already some young men and their wives have gone from Australasia to China and Japan, and it is gratifying10to know that a good report is made of them. The missionary college in New South Wales, where the Australasian section of the denomination are training their missionaries, is full of students this year, many of whom have volunteered for foreign work. Some of these will be selected for the work in the far East.
LITERATURE IN THE VERNACULARS
The books, magazines, papers, and tracts of this denomination are being rapidly translated and printed in the native languages and dialects of the respective fields, and these are proving to be important factors in the missionary work carried on in these countries. Already the Chinese Signs of the Times, published at Shanghai, has the largest circulation of any paper published by the denomination, and it has the largest circulation of any religious paper published in China. Some inexpensive religious books for the Chinese are to be printed soon, and a large staff of native colporteurs put into the field, under trained leaders.
In the Philippines, native colporteurs are having phenomenal success selling our denominational books, some disposing of as much as one hundred dollars worth in a week. It is believed that this kind of missionary effort can be made self-supporting even in China and Korea.
The activities of the denomination are shown by the following facts and figures: In 1863, just a year or two after the denomination was organized, and the first year for which we have statistics, there were only 125 churches in the denomination throughout the world, with 3,500 communicants. In 1913, the last year for which we have statistics, we had 126 organized conferences — more conferences than we had churches in 1863. And in 1913, we had 5,248 evangelistic workers — more than the entire membership in 1863 — while the membership in 1913 was 122,316.
CONTRIBUTIONS
In 1865 the per capita contributions stood at... $ 2.29
In 1875 the per capita contributions stood at... 4.13
In 1885 the per capita contributions stood at... 7.36
In 1895 the per capita contributions stood at... 8.55
In 1905 the per capita contributions stood at... 13.52
In 1914 the per capita contributions stood at... 24.56
This increase, all will agree, is substantial and marked, being doubtless the largest denominational average in the world. But it is not as high as the mission demands are felt to be, and strong efforts will be made to bring the average higher still. God has helped His people thus far, giving them hearts and ability to support His work; and now as the demands increase, He will give, we believe, added ability to meet the emergency.
J. E. F.
QUESTION CORNER
By Editor
CONDUCTED BY MILTON C. WILCOX, MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA
NOTE.—This department is for the purpose of helping Bible students. Answers must of necessity be brief, often only suggestive, never exhaustive, never infallible only as they agree with the infallible Word. Such questions only will be answered as seem to the editors to minister to the mission of the paper. Questions of the same import cannot be answered repeatedly in the same volume. Name and address must be given, not for publication, but as evidence of good faith and to insure reply by letter if thought best. It is well always to inclose stamp, not stamped envelope, unless answer is desired by letter alone.
213 — NOT RULES FOR EATING
Please explain Matt. 15:17. It seems very plain on what we should eat or drink. J. P. C.
Our correspondent would receive help upon this if he would but take into consideration this fact,—that all the instruction given in the fifteenth chapter of Matthew, verses 11-20, is not as to what we should eat or drink, but as to what is ceremonially unclean and clean. There was no question between Jesus and the Jews over the matter of diet. The Jews, however, looked upon their divers washings and baths as means of saving them from sin; but what our Lord shows is this,—that none of these things change the nature of man; that the sin is in the heart itself, and whatever ceremonies we pass through, unless the heart is changed, the person is defiled still. We are not saved by what we eat or drink. We are saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in that alone.
214 — ARE THE DEAD CONSCIOUS?
Referring to an article in a recent number of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES under the above title, and taking in connection with that some statements of the Bible, I am confused; for the Bible speaks of the thief dying on the cross as having the promise of Jesus that “to-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” It also declares that Enoch was translated, and Elijah was taken to heaven. How are these statements to be reconciled with the one that “the dead know not anything”? Are we to believe that the thief in Paradise, Enoch translated, and Elijah taken up into heaven, are all unconscious? x.
Our correspondent has evidently confused the popular idea of soul and spirit, with the resurrection. Those who are raised from the dead, or those who are translated to heaven from among the living, are certainly not unconscious. Both Enoch and Elijah were translated to heaven without seeing death, therefore they are not among the unconscious ones. Moses was raised from the dead. He therefore is not unconscious. Jesus our Lord was raised from the dead. He exists in bodily form in heaven just the same as do these others above named.
The question regarding the thief on the cross is another matter. Note the request of the thief in Luke 23:42. It was not, “Lord, remember me when Thou goest to heaven,” but, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” Doubtless the thief had heard Jesus preach, as He did preach, that the kingdom of heaven was like a man taking a journey into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. Jesus takes His kingdom when He returns. (See Matt. 25:31, and many other scriptures.) It was to that time that the thief looked,—when Jesus was coming again, when He would raise the dead at His second coming, as stated in 1 Cor. 15:51-54 and in 1 Thess. 4:16, 17. Then those who had been sleeping in Him through all the centuries of the past would be raised from their unconscious sleeping, and be made immortal. Then would the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour be inhabited by the subjects who had been faithful to Him in their time of probation here.
The thief, believing in Jesus as He was dying upon the cross, asked the Lord to remember him. But did not Jesus say, “This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise”? Let us see. Paradise is where God dwells, in what is called the third heaven. 2 Cor. 12:2, 4; Rev. 2:7; 22:1, 2. We learn, by these scriptures, that in the midst of Paradise is the tree of life; that the tree of life is on either side of the river of life; that the river of life flows from the throne of God. Consequently, to be in Paradise is to be directly in the presence of God. Yet the third day after His death, our Lord tells Mary, “Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father.” John 20:17.
What, then, did He mean when He said to the thief, “Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise”? Simply transpose the comma — which is only the work of man, for the original Greek copies are written without any punctuation at all — from after the pronoun “thee,” to after the adverbial phrase “to-day.” The adverbial phrase “to-day” may modify either “say” or “shalt be.” If we make it modify “shalt be,” we bring confusion into the scripture immediately, because Jesus did not go to Paradise on that day, and consequently the promise could not be fulfilled; but if we make it modify “say,” all is perfect harmony. It would read then, “Verily I say unto thee to-day, Thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.”
“Thou shalt” and “shalt thou” have really the same meaning, an emphatic form of declaration. See Rev. 2:17.
There was a wonderful meaning in the fact that Jesus gave the promise that day. His own people had put Him to death. His own disciples had forsaken Him. Yet the man dying by His side upon the cross could look through all the discouragements and darkness, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; and so Jesus said to him, “I say unto thee to-day, when seemingly I can fulfill no promise; to-day, when My own nation has nailed Me to the cross; to-day, when even My disciples are doubting,—to-day do I say to thee, that as thou hast asked Me to remember thee, I will remember thee, and thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.”
All these seemingly contradictory scriptures will be very plain and clear to us if we will but remember that only by resurrection can man live, and those who are raised from the dead are not simply existing in their “immortal souls,” but are there because God has given them the resurrection life.
215 — HOW WE ARE SAVED
A correspondent incloses a tract, and asks us to comment on “question 3.” Here are other questions that cover the same ground, so we need not take time to dwell upon what is asked for in the tract.
Please explain, through the SIGNS, Eph. 2:14, 15, 16; Col. 2:16. O. H. S.
We quote the scriptures from the American Revised Version:
Eph. 2:14, 15, 16: “For He is our peace, who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that He might create in Himself of the two one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.”
Col. 2:16: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day.”
What the apostle is teaching is that our salvation is through Jesus Christ alone. It is not through the Jews, nor is it through the gentiles;11it is in Christ only. He tells the gentiles that before they were converted, they were "separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world." But in Christ Jesus they had been "made nigh"; for Christ is our peace, and has "made both one." That is, He had taken the gentiles, and had taken the Jews, and had made them one with Him, hence one with each other, so that all the wall there had been between them was broken down. Jesus abolished in the flesh "the enmity." He tells us in Rom. 8:7 that the enmity is the carnal mind. Our Lord abolished that in His flesh. There was no carnal mind admitted or dominant in His life. It was not in converted Jews, and it was not in converted gentiles; but when Jew and gentile accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, the carnal mind was taken away, and the mind of Christ took its place. The carnal Jew trusted in the commandments contained in ordinances. He trusted in his own acts, in the offering of sacrifices, in meats and drinks, etc. He was trying to gain heaven by his own works. Those things showed that his heart was carnal. But in Jesus Christ all are united. In Him alone is the salvation, not by works that man has done or can do, but by the righteousness of Christ Jesus. Consequently both Jew and gentile in Christ are reconciled in one body to God through the cross; and the slain enmity is the carnal mind, which separates man from God, and consequently separates man from his fellows.
These same principles will help us to understand Col. 2:14, 16. The great thought of the apostle is not as to whether these ordinances and laws were obligatory or not. The thought is that we are not saved by them, and consequently we should not be judged by man as to whether we perform them or not. The sabbath day of Col. 2:16 is not the sabbath that is enjoined by God in the fourth commandment. That does not come into the question. The man who is saved through Christ Jesus our Lord will keep God's commandments, and His commandments are not grievous. 1 John 5:3.
But when we are depending upon meat or drink, feast day or new moon, or some ceremonial sabbath, or any other act that we may do, for salvation, we are robbing Christ of what belongs to Him. All those feast days and ceremonial sabbaths of the Old Testament were shadows, which pointed forward to Christ, and He Himself is the body. He Himself is the Saviour. He is the one to whom we are to hold fast; and if we are truly Christ's, we will want to do, and will do, by His Spirit, just what He Himself did. There will be no question on our part of loyalty to God, no question over the keeping of God's commandments. We will keep them because we love to keep them, because we would rather keep them than transgress them. But when people seek to condemn us, and tell us that we ought to do this thing or that thing after their own imaginings, we will not be condemned by them. Our hope will be in Christ Jesus. Then will we seek to eat and drink and do all to the glory of God. 1 Cor. 10:31.
216 — IS THE BEAST THE POPE?
In an article, "Sunday the True Sabbath of God," is the statement concerning what Adventists teach, "They teach that the 'beast' of the Revelation is the pope of Rome." If this statement is true, my understanding of what you really teach is not correct. So I ask the following question: Does the beast of Revelation 13 or Revelation 17 symbolize the pope? J. B.
No, we do not teach that the beast of Revelation 13 symbolizes the pope. We have stated, over and over again, in the "Question Corner" and elsewhere, that we understand the beast to refer to the great system of church-and-state government from Babylon to the present time. That system exists under different phases, represented by the heads of the beast. The first is that of Babylon, then Medo-Persia, Greece, pagan Rome, papal Rome, apostate Protestantism, and the papacy restored.
There are two essential elements that enter into this beast. The one is civil power; the other, the requirements of religious dogma. The beast cannot refer to the church alone, for the church in and of itself has no power to persecute. It cannot refer to civil government alone, for civil government unconnected with religion has no desire to persecute. There must be a union of the two.
The active head in the application of Revelation 13 is the papacy. Four of the heads had fallen. The papacy existed during the time when the fifth head had its application — during the Dark Ages. In the last of the eighteenth century, that phase of the beast passed away. The Roman Catholic Church exists, but it is not the beast. The pope exists, but he is not the beast. There will come a time, we understand, according to the prophecy, when the kingdoms of the world will reinstate this phase of the beast, when they will place at the very head of religious jurisdiction the papacy, and of course at the head of the papacy is the pope. I am sure that our correspondent can see from this that the pope is not the beast, nor is the Roman Catholic Church the beast. That system, united with the state, forms the beast while that union exists. The beast is the union of that church or any other church with the civil power so as to form a persecuting power.
217 — SUNDAY LAWS AND PROHIBITION
A man said to me: "You say it is wrong for the many to set aside the first day of the week and compel you to abstain from work when you keep the seventh day as the Sabbath. You are right. And I say it is wrong for a lot of psalm-singing hypocrites to vote prohibition. Let every man allow his neighbor to be his own judge of good and evil, and in what he desires to drink or eat, or how he desires to worship." Is this logical? O. H. S.
There are wholly different principles involved in the two questions. First, the question of Sunday or Sabbath laws.
1. Sunday is a religious institution. Sunday laws are demanded because Sunday is a religious institution. Were it not for the religious sentiment behind it, all efforts for Sunday laws would be fruitless.
But religion is a matter of faith and conscience between man and his God alone. It is something with which the state has no right to meddle; and in the very nature of the case, the state must always blunder if it undertakes to meddle with religion. As soon as the state or civil power attempts to control religion — to say how or what or when men shall worship or not worship — it puts itself in the place of God, and becomes intolerant. It discriminates between its own citizens on religious grounds alone, and becomes itself a persecutor of those whom it ought to save from persecution. Therefore it is wrong for the state to establish a religious day and force its observance upon any one, whoever he may be, Sabbath keeper or not. It is wrong for the state to establish any religious institution whatever, or seek to maintain it by civil law.
2. For the state to take such a course makes its courts and magistrates, that might be called to pass sentence, interpreters of God's law, making man a lord over conscience — a thing utterly wrong and indefensible.
3. It wrongly and inconsistently trespasses upon individual liberty. As long as man does not interfere with his fellow men, he has the right to work seven days or six days or five days in the week. That lies between him and God alone. The state has no more right to regulate a man's hours of working than it has his hours of sleeping, the rest of the garments he should wear, or the way in which he should cut his hair.
4. Sunday laws are unjust to the Jew and the seventh-day Christian. The seventh-day man observes one day in answer to his duty to God, the same as does his Sunday neighbor. In this respect, both are equal before the law. Each one should be protected in his right; but after the seventh-day man has done this, the state demands that he shall be idle another day — give one sixth of his time, sixteen and two thirds per cent of his income, in deference to the religious opinions of his neighbor. The law that thus discriminates is unjust, and should be wiped from every statute book in the land.
5. A Sunday law makes a criminal of a just man, of a good neighbor, of a loyal citizen, and it does this solely on religious grounds. In other words, the man becomes a criminal for following Jesus Christ.
Second, prohibition is not a religious question in any way.
1. Man does not have to sell whisky or to drink it to have a clear conscience. No one feels it to be a God-given duty to sell intoxicants. On the contrary, many men feel condemned constantly in doing it. Many saloon keepers will not employ barkeepers who drink.
2. The prohibition question is a political question. That it needs regulation and control is not only admitted but urged on the part of the liquor men. In many communities, liquor men believe in limiting the number of saloons and increasing the license fee. Many saloon men are thus forced out of business. Liquor men do not complain as long as they do it; but the political power that could thus shut out some could as legitimately shut out all, and that would be prohibition.
3. On a purely economic basis, the state is justified in closing the saloons. If those who sold liquor and those who drank harmed only themselves, they could argue for a continuance of their business; but the business creates and fosters poverty, indigency, disease, crime, and, in consequence, necessitates almshouses, police, jails, asylums, courthouses, and the awful expense consequent thereupon. These come because liquor is sold. They are direct consequences of the liquor traffic.
Now it seems a simple statement of common sense to say that the state has the right to do away with a business that is responsible for the catalogue of evils justly chargeable to the liquor traffic. This is not touching the individual man. He may make and drink his own liquor, but he cannot purvey it to others. The vast mass of drinkers would thank God if they could never get it again.
218 — ANOTHER SABBATH
Please explain Heb. 4:8. What is meant by the "another day"? Does it mean another Sabbath day? W. H. N.
The scripture reads, "For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day."
1. The word "Jesus" ought to be "Joshua." See the margin of any reference Bible, and the revised versions. "Jesus" in the Greek is the same as "Joshua" in the Hebrew.
2. When the Lord led His people out of Egypt into the promised land, He did this that they might have rest — rest not only from Egyptian bondage, but from the bondage of sin; and so God's promise to Moses was, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." Ex. 33:14. Israel passed into the promised land led by Joshua — the one to whom Heb. 4:8 refers. God gave them rest from their enemies, as implied in Deut. 12:10; 25:19; and Joshua 22:4. Yet the Israelites did not get the rest from sin, the holy, spiritual rest, on account of their unbelief. See chapters 3 and 4 of Hebrews.
3. Of that completed rest, the Sabbath was a pledge. God rested on the seventh day from all His works. Heb. 4:4. It was rest from finished creative work. It was rest from slavery, from bondage, from war, from sin, that God wanted to give to His people through Moses and Joshua, but unbelief shut it from them.
4. Then after that opportune time passed, God gave another day, expressed in Ps. 95:7, "To-day if ye will hear His voice." That was the other day, the day that has been appealing to the weary of earth ever since.
5. Now just as long as people are sinning, they have not entered into rest. Just as long as they are trusting in their own works, they have not entered into rest. When they will leave all else, and trust in God's finished work, they will find spiritual rest. Heb. 4:10. And that spiritual rest, held by faith, brings man to the eternal rest and Sabbath keeping of which God's Sabbath is a pledge.
There is absolutely nothing in Hebrews 4 that refers to another Sabbath day. The great plea is for that faith in God which brings peace, rest here, and rest eternal, of which the Sabbath is a pledge.
Knowing and Doing Good
"To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."
The Most Ancient and Blessed Art
By Mary Alice Hare Loper, M. S.
Giving as the Antidote for Selfishness — God Knew What Man Needed When He Planned the Program of Tithes and Offerings — Source of Happiness
By MARY ALICE HARE LOPER, M. S.
DID you ever suffer an attack of mental shivers at divine service, as you unwillingly found yourself in the way of the offering plate? If so, did you hurriedly search out the smallest coin you had with you — just to save your reputation? This is a very practical question, for many of us have so little real spiritual philanthropy that it cannot be seen with the naked eye.
THE MOST ANCIENT AND IMPORTANT ART
The art of giving as taught in Holy Writ, is the most ancient and most important of all the arts, and can be learned only in the school of Christ. He gave cheerfully His great all to save humanity; and He asks each of us to give our little all to save others. Every promise of the Bible is pledged to that soul who complies with this divine request; and surely the greatest sacrifice any one can make is very small as compared with that which was made for him. "It is more blessed to give than to receive." The only real happiness one ever experiences in this world, comes as the result of giving — not simply money, but time and talents as well.
THE ANTIDOTE FOR SELFISHNESS
Humanity became so selfish because of sin, that the only way to save men was through the art of giving; so the tithing system and the system of offerings were instituted, in order to impress upon people their obligations to God and to their fellow men. God claims the tenth of one's income as His, to be used in the support of the gospel ministry. Lev. 27: 30-32; Num. 18: 21; Matt. 23: 23. Besides this, we are to give offerings from the nine tenths. 2 Cor. 9: 7; 1 Cor. 16: 1, 2. But many are guilty of robbing God, as plainly stated in Mal. 3: 8. Many are as selfish with the Lord's money as was a certain miller with his customers' wheat, of whom it was said that he would take all the grist for toll, and then fight the owner for the sacks. The miller had as good right to keep the grist, as we have to keep all the nine tenths; and he had as good right to keep the sacks, as we have to keep the tithes. Only the toll for our labor rightfully belongs to us, and the toll will supply all our needs. This amount God gives to us; the rest belongs to Him.
SO TIRED OF GIVING
"But," says one, "I get so tired of this giving, giving all the time!" Do you ever tire of receiving? "Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth." Deut. 8: 18.
Money is given us preëminently for this one purpose — to be used in the salvation of souls. The giving of offerings is made just as obligatory as the paying of tithes. In no place in the Bible are we exhorted to lay up treasure anywhere but "in heaven." "He that layeth up treasure for himself . . . is not rich toward God." "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
"All that a man hath will he give for his life." How much should he cheerfully give to secure, not only for himself, but for others, the life of happiness that will never end? "All that a man hath" will secure heaven. But men have so little faith in God, and so much faith in this world, that it is difficult to persuade them to invest in that which means a title to an eternal inheritance.
No one is deprived of the blessedness of giving, because of poverty. The poor person is invited to give just the same as the rich — "as God hath prospered him." Many people think they have nothing to give, because they do not recognize the divine claims upon that which they have. They have so many wants — not needs — that they cannot supply them all, and so the interests of the gospel are left out of their reckoning. Our heavenly Father promises to supply all our need. Phil. 4: 19.
But there is a vast difference between our wants and our needs. It is possible to be more interested in the millinery cause than in the missionary cause. It is possible to lay up more treasure in the lodge than in the church. It is easy to become more interested in automobiles and flying machines than in the "chariots of God." And the sad part of it all is, the man who gives nothing to spread the gospel, knows nothing of real happiness in this world, and has no promise of the world to come. The happiest man on this earth is the man who most nearly lives up to the Bible standard of giving. He may have very little of this world's goods; his offerings in dollars and cents may be small; but he knows the inward joy of heart consecration — of giving all — and the blessing which follows.
THE BLESSING ON THE POOR
"But others do not know what a hard time I have to get along," says one. Do any of us have any harder time to "get along" than had the poor widow anciently who cast two mites into the temple treasury? Jesus said of her, "Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: for all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living."
Many seemingly think there is another part to this story, which reads, "And she began to starve from that very hour, and kept on starving until she died." But evidently such was not her doful experience. She went out of the temple far richer than she went in. She had the full assurance that God would care especially for her, not only because she was a poor widow, but because she had given cheerfully her all to Him. Every promise of the gospel was hers, and it is evident she did not starve to death.
KNEW A POCKETBOOK SECRET
God does not do things that way. That poor widow knew the secret of a consecrated pocketbook — a Spirit-filled owner. She knew the liberal art of giving, for she had taken lessons from the great Master Artist. She well knew that it is not the amount one gives, but the sacrifice which goes with it, that counts in heaven. And although she went out from the temple not only penniless, but miteless, she had set an example of sacrifice for which she received the commendation of the Master, and which has been a blessing to the world from that day to this.
POOR PROSPECTS FOR THE LAZY MAN
Did you ever read in the Bible of a certain lazy man whose heart was so filled with love for perishing souls that he cast all his living into the temple treasury? — No, you never saw a Bible record like that, for no such thing ever happened. I once heard a man say he wished he were a rock, so that he might have nothing to do but rest for a thousand years. There are hopelessly lazy people who are going to have the experience of resting for a thousand years, while the righteous are in heaven. But sad will be their awakening in the resurrection of the wicked.
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." But there are those who would rather sit in the shade and eat cake that other hands had toiled for, than exercise their own frames sufficiently to get up a good perspiration and keep healthy. There is no such thing as a willfully lazy Christian. It is just as much the duty of the lazy individual to overcome his laziness as it is for the quick-tempered individual to overcome his besetting sin. Those who shirk duty in any line, are held accountable for burying their talent in the earth, and for the help they might be to the gospel work.
KNOW NOTHING OF THIS BLESSEDNESS
Many church members know nothing of the blessedness of giving. They consider their own selfish interests first, and then perhaps give a little to God of that which causes them no sacrifice. David says, "Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing." And the Lord says: "Gather My saints together unto Me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice." Here and there are individuals who have dedicated their all to God. It is not difficult to tell who they are. They are always giving, always doing; and they cannot hide the result. The church knows it, and the world knows it.
THE TWO THERMOMETERS ALIKE
One's missionary thermometer and one's spiritual thermometer always indicate the same degree of temperature. When God converts a man, He converts his heart, the seat of affection, and this invariably includes his earthly possessions. He becomes possessed of an intense desire to save souls, and so he plans and works and gives with that blessed end in view. Head conversion is very common. It is much more easily accomplished than heart conversion, for the heart and the pocketbook are inseparable. What affects the one, affects the other. Many who have experienced head conversion have tried the impossible task of giving to God the heart13without the pocketbook, but they have always miserably failed. The heart cannot be Spirit-filled unless the pocketbook is Spirit-emptied — its contents wholly given to God.
The great underlying principle of the gospel is, Give, give, give. And this principle includes man's best good. Only through giving can one keep his affections from becoming centered in this world — only through giving can one lay up treasure in heaven. Only those who in this life make sure of their mansions in the New Jerusalem, will ever see the inside of the eternal city. It is best to secure our abstracts of title now.
Thou Lovest Me
By Worthie Harris Holden
By Worthie Harris Holden
"We love . . . because He first loved us."
THOU lovest me—no other
Could die to purge my soul,
Nor, infinite in mercy,
Declare the sinner whole.
Thou lovest me, alluring
My truant love to Thee.
I would be Thine forever,
And love eternally.
Thou lovest me, ennobling
My will to be like Thine.
May I, Thy love beholding,
Reflect Thy light divine.
O mighty Love, imbuing
My soul with power to live,
Let me, with love o'erflowing,
To others freely give!