Signs of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 41. (10/20/1914)

Signs of the Times

Oct 20, 1914

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 20, 1914

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC

By Ellen G. White

Buying Wretchedness and Poverty — Creating the Appetite in Children — In Some Instances the Church Shelters It — Will Have to Answer Before God By Mrs. E. G. White

“Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; . . . that saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? . . . Thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.” Jer. 22:13-17.

EVERY DOLLAR A CURSE

This scripture pictures the work of those who manufacture and who sell intoxicating liquor. Their business means robbery. For the money they receive, no equivalent is returned. Every dollar they add to their gains has brought a curse to the spender.

With a liberal hand, God has bestowed His blessings upon men. If His gifts were wisely used, how little the world would know of poverty or distress! It is the wickedness of man that turns His blessings into a curse. It is through the greed of gain and the lust of appetite that the grains and fruits given for our sustenance are converted into poisons that bring misery and ruin.

BUYING WRETCHEDNESS AND POVERTY

Every year millions upon millions of gallons of intoxicating liquors are consumed. Millions upon millions of dollars are spent in buying wretchedness, poverty, disease, degradation, lust, crime, and death. For the sake of gain, the liquor-seller deals out to his victims that which corrupts and destroys mind and body. He entails on the drunkard’s family poverty and wretchedness.

When his victim is dead, the rum-seller’s exactions do not cease. He robs the widow, and brings children to beggary. He does not hesitate to take the very necessaries of life from the destitute family, to pay the drink bill of the husband and father. The cries of the suffering children, the tears of the agonized mother, serve only to exasperate him. What is it to him if these suffering ones starve? What is it to him if they too are driven to degradation and ruin? He grows rich on the pittances of those whom he is leading to perdition.

SOME RESULTS OF HIS WORK

Houses of prostitution, dens of vice, criminal courts, prisons, almshouses, insane asylums, hospitals, all are, to a great degree, filled as a result of the liquor-seller’s work. Like the Babylon of the Apocalypse, he is dealing in “slaves and souls of men.” Behind the liquor-seller stands the mighty destroyer of souls, and every art which earth or hell can devise is employed to draw human beings under his power. In the city and the country, on the railway trains, on the great steamers, in places of business, in the halls of pleasure, in the medical dispensary, even in the church, on the sacred communion table, his traps are set. Nothing is left undone to create and to foster the desire for intoxicants. On almost every corner stands the saloon, with its brilliant lights, its welcome and good cheer, inviting the working man, the wealthy idler, and the unsuspecting youth.

In private lunch rooms and fashionable resorts, ladies are supplied with popular drinks, under some pleasing name, that are really intoxicants. For the sick and the exhausted, there are the widely advertised “bitters,” consisting largely of alcohol.

CREATING THE APPETITE IN CHILDREN

To create the liquor appetite in little children, alcohol is introduced into confectionery. Such confectionery is sold in the shops. And by the gift of these candies, the liquor-seller entices children into his resorts.

Day by day, month by month, year by year, the work goes on. Fathers and husbands and brothers, the stay and hope and pride of the nation, are steadily passing into the liquor-dealer’s haunts, to be sent back wrecked and ruined.

WOMEN AND CHILDREN FORMING THE HABIT

More terrible still, the curse is striking the very heart of the home. More and more, women are forming the liquor habit. In many a household, little children, even in the innocence and helplessness of babyhood, are in daily peril through the neglect, the abuse, the vileness of drunken mothers. Sons and daughters are growing up under the shadow of this terrible evil. What outlook for their future but that they will sink even lower than their parents?

From so-called Christian lands the curse is carried to the regions of idolatry. The poor, ignorant savages are taught the use of liquor. Even among the heathen, men of intelligence recognize and protest against it as a deadly poison; but in vain have they sought to protect their lands from its ravages. By civilized peoples, tobacco, liquor, and opium are forced upon the heathen nations. The ungoverned passions of the savage, stimulated by drink, drag him down to degradation before unknown, and it becomes an almost hopeless undertaking to send missionaries to these lands.

CIVILIZED MEN HATED BECAUSE OF IT

Through their contact with peoples who should have given them a knowledge of God, the heathen are led into vices which are proving the destruction of whole tribes and races. And in the dark places of the earth, the men of civilized nations are hated because of this.

LIQUOR MEN IN THE CHURCH

The liquor interest is a power in the world. It has on its side the combined strength of money, habit, appetite. Its power is felt even in the church. Men whose money has been made, directly or indirectly, in the liquor traffic, are members of churches, “in good and regular standing.” Many of them give liberally to popular charities. Their contributions help to support the enterprises of the church and to sustain its ministers. They command the consideration shown to the money power. Churches that accept such members are virtually sustaining the liquor traffic.

Too often the minister has not the courage to stand for the right. He does not declare to his people what God has said concerning the work of the liquor-seller. To speak plainly would mean the offending of his congregation, the sacrifice of his popularity, the loss of his salary.

LIQUOR DEALERS' GIFTS NOT ACCEPTABLE

But above the tribunal of the church is the tribunal of God. He who declared to the first murderer, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground,” will not accept for His altar the gifts of the liquor-dealer. His anger is kindled against those who attempt to cover their guilt with a cloak of liberality. Their money is stained with blood. A curse is upon it.

“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the Lord. . . . When ye come to appear before Me, Who hath required this at your hand, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations. . . . When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you: Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: Your hands are full of blood!” Isa. 1:11-15.

The drunkard is capable of better things. He has been entrusted with talents with which to honor God and bless the world; but his fellow men have laid a snare for his soul, and built themselves up by his degradation. They have lived in luxury, while the poor victims whom they have robbed, lived in poverty and wretchedness.

GOD WILL RECKON WITH THE TRAFFIC

But God will require for this at the hand of him who has helped to speed the drunkard on to ruin. He who rules in the heavens has not lost sight of the first cause or the last effect of drunkenness. He who has a care for the sparrow, and clothes the grass of the field, will not pass by those who have been formed in His own image, purchased with His own blood, and pay no heed to their cries. God marks all this wickedness that perpetuates crime and misery.

The world and the church may have approval for the man who has gained wealth by degrading the human soul. They may smile upon him by whom men are led down step by step in the path of shame and degradation. But God notes it all, and renders a just judgment. The liquor-seller may be termed by the world a good business man; but the Lord says, “Woe unto him.” He will be charged with the hopelessness, the misery, the suffering, brought into the world by the liquor traffic. He will have to answer for the want and woe of the mothers and children who have suffered for food and clothing and shelter, and who have buried all hope and joy. He will have to answer for the souls he has sent unprepared into eternity. And those who sustain the liquor-seller in his work are sharers in his guilt. To them God says, “Your hands are full of blood.”

Christian Science and the Bible

By W. C. THOMPSON

Denies God, the Body, and Sin—Many Ways in Which It Shows Itself Out of Harmony with the Bible By W. C. THOMPSON

HISTORY reveals nothing that has played a more important role in subverting the truth and leading the unwary into soul-destroying error than has the supernatural. Miracles have been employed as decoys by the adversary of truth, and cited by his mercenary priests for their authority.

MIRACLES NOT CONCLUSIVE

Miracles are no evidence of divine authority. The doctrine is the only true criterion of moral worth and divine sanction. This truth the words of Christ attest in the following language: "Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity." Matt 7:21-23.

THE DOCTRINE THE TEST

The doctrine is to be the test of the miracle, and not the miracle the evidence for the doctrine. This being the case, it is a waste of time to examine into the multitudinous miracles vouched by the ardent votaries of any cult. If their doctrine is not authoritative, their miracles are proved to be either imposture or worse, the direct work and art of the master deceiver.

In this examination of Christian Science, we inquire not whether disease is really healed by it, but of its doctrine. It professes to be Christian. Do its teachings harmonize with the Bible? If they are opposed, its advocates are guilty of taking the name of Christ for the furtherance of unholy ambitions.

The following comparisons should enable us to decide whether Christian Science is in agreement with the Bible or not:

The Bible

Affirms the personality of God. "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him." Gen. 1:27.

Affirms the reality of matter. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Gen. 2:7.

Affirms body, soul, and spirit. "I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thess. 5:23.

Affirms the existence of sin. "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Rom. 5:12.

Affirms sickness and death. "And He healed many that were sick of divers diseases." Mark 1:34. "For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God . . . hath abounded unto many." Rom. 5:15.

Christian Science

Denies the personality of God. "God, principle, life, mind."—"Science and Health," page 115.

Denies the reality of matter. "Matter and death are mortal illusions." "All must be mind or else all must be matter."—Id., pages 289, 551.

Denies the body. "All is mind." "God, spirit, being all, nothing is matter."—Id., page 113.

Denies the existence of sin. "In reality there is no evil. Sin exists so long as mortal illusion of mind remains."—Id., page 311.

Denies sickness and death. "Life, God, omnipotent good, deny death, evil, sin, disease."—Id., page 113.

The Bible everywhere speaks of sin and disease as realities. Christ on no occasion tried to disabuse the mind of the reality of pain, disease, and death. He employed no deception in His method of healing disease. The idea that all evidences of the curse of sin are only illusions of mortal mind is entirely foreign to the literature of the Bible.

ABSURD TO DENY IT

Death, sin, and disease are stern and awful realities. To deny them does not dispose of them. Neither are the experiences of those who deny them unlike those of the people who admit their reality. To affirm otherwise is simply to close all the avenues of the senses, and brand as false one's very existence.

In the word of inspiration, it is written, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 1 John 1:8. Those who deceive themselves will also succeed in deceiving others like themselves, but the denial of such self-evident truth will not deceive those who do not wish to be in conflict with God's word and with the evidences of reality.

IRRECONCILABLE CONFLICT

It is evident, from the facts here adduced, that there is irreconcilable conflict between the teaching of the Bible and Christian Science. We have found that the Bible recognizes matter, sin, disease, and death, and that Christian Science denies the reality of all these. In the face of these facts, we can not escape the conclusion that Christian Science is one of the false isms of the last days. It certainly furnishes a most striking fulfilment of the following prophecy: "The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." 2 Tim. 4:3, 4.

That we be not deceived by this false hope is a serious matter. To deny sin, is to deny the need of the Saviour. To deny the Saviour, puts one beyond the pale of salvation; for it is written, "Thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins." Matt. 1:21. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12.

That we may escape the ruin of deception, it is well to heed the admonition of Paul, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." Col. 2:8.

Lawful Sources of Happiness

"CHRISTIANS have many sources of happiness at their command, and they may tell with unerring accuracy what pleasures are lawful and right. They may enjoy such recreations as will not dissipate the mind or debase the soul, such as will not disappoint, and leave a sad after-influence to destroy self-respect or bar the way to usefulness."

God’s Word Hidden in Life

By M. A. H.

THY word have I hid in my life, that I might not sin against Thee. Thus I make it a part of my life, the principal part of it, to keep from sinning. M. A. H.

Has Promised to Come Again

By Allen Moon

Some Definite Promises of the Great Event—False Christs Can Be Detected by the Word—This Earth as Well as Man to Be Redeemed—The New Jerusalem in Preparation—Faithful Soon Will See It

By ALLEN MOON

"I WILL come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:3.

The Son of God entered fully into the plan of the Father to redeem the world that man lost in the fall. It rested with the Son, as His part of the plan of redemption, to identify Himself with the lost race.

“THERE WAS NEVER A TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD WHEN THE ANGER OF NATIONS WAS SO MANIFEST AS AT THE PRESENT DAY.”

MAN'S HOME REDEEMED

Man, by transgression, forfeited the life God had given him, and with it the home in which God designed that he should spend eternity. It is not the purpose of God to redeem man back to life and leave his home in the possession of the usurper. The earth that God had given to the children of men will come to the Son, and through Him to the redeemed children. Micah 4:8.

Christ, the second Adam, becomes the Father of all spiritually, as the first Adam is physically. In a peculiar sense Jesus becomes identified with, and concerned in, all that was man's before the fall. At the first advent of Christ, He was made like His brethren, and He paid the ransom price for the redemption of that which was lost.

NOT A CONTINUED ABSENCE

His return to the Father was not designed as a continued absence from the world that He had undertaken to redeem and restore, but was in order that He might, in the heavenly sanctuary, complete the work of redemption, and then come again to the earth. The Saviour has undertaken for man the removal of the curse, thus restoring the earth to its Edenic glory and beauty, and executing the original plan to bring the earth into harmony with the sinless universe. During the short stay of the Son of God on earth at His first advent, He gathered about Him disciples who loved Him with a love that was more than human. They knew His heavenly origin. When He had companioned with them for about three and a half years, He began gently to break to them the truth which they must know—that He could not remain at that time, but must go away for a season.

“I GO TO PREPARE A PLACE”

This brought sadness to the hearts of the disciples, and they were filled with questioning as to where He would go, and for what purpose. Jesus could say nothing more comforting than what He did say: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14:3.

In view of the certainty of His return after He had prepared for the future of His people, Jesus said: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me.” Verse 1. The Son of God had espoused the cause of His people, even to the extent of the restoration of their lost inheritance, and He speaks of mansions in connection with the preparation of their future home.

While these words of the Saviour were still fresh in the minds of His disciples, Satan, the enemy of the Son, filled his agents among men with wrath and hatred against the heavenly Redeemer, and they laid wicked hands upon Him, and mistreated and slew Him.

A CLOUD RECEIVED HIM FROM SIGHT

But after three days He rose triumphant from the grave. For a time He lingered about the earth, meeting with and comforting His disciples, and the women and others who had companied with Him during His ministry. He met with His disciples for a final interview, and after imparting to them counsel for their future guidance, He led them out of Jerusalem and as far as Bethany.

In answer to a question, He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight.” Acts 1:7-9.

Evidently the cloud that received the Saviour and hid Him from sight was a cloud of angels; for from other portions of the Word, we gather that heaven was emptied of angels on that most glorious occasion.

The compassionate Saviour would still leave a comforting message for His disciples, and to all who should believe through them; so He commissioned two shining angels to return while the disciples were still gazing up into heaven, to say: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” Acts 1:11.

So God's people are not left in doubt as to the manner of Jesus' return. That matter is definitely settled, and they are never

deceived by any of the pretenders who pose for a time for self-glorification. The coming of Christ will be an event crowned with glory and majesty, and will affect the destiny of every living soul on earth.

It became a fixed belief in the minds of early Christians that Christ would return to earth, and frequent mention is made of it by Scripture writers. Paul, in writing to the Hebrews, said He would appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Heb. 9:28. He was the sin-bearer when He came to earth the first time. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. He is the sin-bearer in heaven while He ministers in the heavenly sanctuary for man. When that ministry is finished, Christ will cease to be the sin-bearer, Satan having been adjudged worthy to bear the blame of the sin of the redeemed people. Then will have come the time for Christ's second advent “without sin” to claim His redeemed people.

BEHOLD HIM COMING ON THE CLOUD

John the revelator had a view of the second coming of Christ, and he has given us a word picture of the scene. He says: “And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud One sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle.” Rev. 14:14.

John was familiar with the appearance of Him who came to earth in the form of man, so he wrote, “And upon the cloud One sat like unto the Son of man.” But now He had on His head a golden crown, having been clothed with kingly authority, His work as priest having ended with the close of probation. He had in His hand a sharp sickle with which to reap the harvest of the earth. This is not the harvest of the righteous seed, for the harvest that is reaped is cast into the wine-press of the wrath of God. The sickle, the symbol of a king's wrath against his adversaries, is in His hands.

DESCENDS WITH A SHOUT

There is still another vision of this scene which brings to view the reunion of Christ with His people at the time of His second coming. This time it is Paul again speaking. He says: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [go before] them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thess. 4:15-18.

ONLY TWO CLASSES

Jesus, on His return, finds only two classes; namely, the righteous and the wicked. For the one class He has a symbol of wrath, and for the other the greeting, “Come, ye blessed, . . . inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” It matters not that some of His children are dead and in their graves, for it is written of Him: “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived [re-lived], that He might be Lord both of the dead and living.” Rom. 14:9. Therefore when He comes, He first calls the dead from their mossy old graves, then with them the living righteous are caught up into the cloud to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall they ever be with the Lord.

A moment's thought in the way of analysis of this passage in 1 Thessalonians 4 reveals the fact that the people of God have a sure refutation of the claim of all false Christs. The Son of God, according to this scripture, does not touch this sin-cursed earth when He comes the second time; but with a great sound of a trumpet He calls His people, both dead and living, up to Himself in the clouds.

So long as time continues, we may know that all would-be Christs who walk about on earth are only false Christs. The Redeemer of mankind comes the second time to take His people from this sin-cursed earth to heavenly mansions until the curse is removed, when He will bring them again to the earth made new, which will be their abode forever.

VISION OF THE NEW EARTH

To John in the Isle of Patmos there was given an advance revelation of the earth as the final dwelling-place of the saints. He says: “I saw a new heaven [atmospheric] and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.”

Jesus had said, “I go to prepare a place for you.” This place could be none other than the New Jerusalem, to which He takes His people at His coming and the resurrection of the dead. When the earth is renewed and ready for its reception at the end of a thousand years, the Son of God, as God, comes to earth with the city and the saints. “And God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.”

THE GLORIOUS CITY

Glorious promise! John saw the city “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” The adornment of the city is the church clothed in white raiment, which is the righteousness of saints. This is the real bride, the Lamb's wife.

In this we have a complete picture of God's plan for the future of this earth and its re-peopling. The time for the opening scenes in this drama is at hand. In Matt. 24:14 we have the words of Jesus spoken to His disciples as He sat upon the Mount of Olives: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” — the end of strife and wickedness and rebellion, and the beginning of the reign of Christ.

The present generation is the first since the Saviour left the earth in which it was possible for the gospel to be preached to all kindreds, tongues, and peoples; but during

the past one hundred years all barriers have been removed, and the doors are open for the gospel to enter. Its entrance has been rapid.

The Son of God made mention of certain signs that would appear to mark this time, such as the darkening of the sun and moon, and the falling of the stars. These predictions were literally fulfilled in the dark day and night of May 19, 1780, and the falling of the stars November 13, 1833.

Other last-day signs in the political and the physical world were especially emphasized by the Saviour, according to the record given in Matthew 24. He says, “For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.” Verse 7. These, with the signs in the social world mentioned by the Saviour, as false prophets, false Christs, and deceivers of the people, have come to pass during the present generation.

THE ANGRY NATIONS A SIGN

If more is required to establish the proximity of the second advent, it is furnished by John the revelator, especially in connection with the sounding of the seven trumpets, which trumpets denote wars and commotions in the political world. Under the sounding of the seventh or last trumpet, it is said: “And the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldst give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear Thy name, small and great; and shouldst destroy them which destroy the earth.” Rev. 11:18.

There was never a time in the history of the world when the anger of nations was so manifest as at the present day. For more than sixty years the nations have been arming for war. This has culminated in the most deadly and wide-spread conflict ever known upon earth. The prophet connects this time with that of the judgment of the dead — the righteous dead — which shortly precedes the coming of the Lord, and the giving of reward to the prophets and saints of all ages. This is to take place at His coming. It is not difficult to read in all this the near approach of the second advent of the Messiah, the Saviour of mankind.

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