Signs of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 11. (3/15/1899)

Signs of the Times

Mar 15, 1899

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 15, 1899

DIVINE HEALING.

By Mrs. S. M. I. Henry

THE sight of the pool of Bethesda, even in a picture, must inspire many sacred imaginings, and to the invalid bring more or less of hope, according to the measure of his faith in a real present, personal Christ. In common thought and speech a distinction which is unwarrantable is made between "divine healing" and the cure of disease. God is accredited with the one, while the physician, or the nostrum, is given the honor for the other. The one is called natural, while the other is supposed to be so supernatural as to be not quite respectable or safe.

But there is no cure that is not healing, and no healing that is not of God. Jesus said, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth," and Paul repeated the same truth when he said, "There is no power but of God;" hence all the power by which disease is abated or cured is of God, and has been from the beginning of its first symptoms until now. This curative power is also always manifested in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, and without Him it has no manifestation. It is revealed in the individual in proportion to the man's reception of and agreement with the life that is itself of God.

Health or disease is a question of more or less life; and, since Christ is the life, it follows that physical conditions depend on a more or less perfect acceptance of, or agreement with, Him. Poor health means a limited Christ—a Christ misunderstood, received unworthily, with scant welcome, or altogether repudiated. To repudiate Christ one does not necessarily call himself an infidel. He may be known as a good Christian, and might most positively assert that he loves the Lord, and is accepting even his sickness from His hand as a 'strange dispensation of Providence.' And it would be rightly characterized as strange—so foreign to God that it could not come from Him.

Christ is more than a name, and to be a Christian is more than a profession. Christ has a character made up of certain principles that are eternal, and to take Him, one must take every principle which He has, just as fast as it is revealed to him. To be a Christian is to accept in one's self that Christ is right and true and good, and to give Him undisputed possession of all that is His own in us. This, of course, includes a perfect acknowledgment of the claim which He makes upon the human body as His dwelling-place, and of His right to co-operation in fitting it up after His own ideal, and of our consent that He shall control all its functions and processes.

He requires that the principle of life shall dominate these functions, that everything which tends to death, which would clog or break down the structure, shall be ruled out of practise; that all the machinery shall be kept in place, and given room in which to operate; and that all the friction (which is simply contradiction) shall be utterly destroyed.

"Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. . . . Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee," are the significant words left upon record in the Bethesda narrative, to indicate that absolute obedience to the Word or law of God is the condition of faith. True, "faith healing" involves first of all faith in Christ, and in the authority of His life in the human body; of His right to rule in and reign over every physical as well as mental and spiritual operation; of His right to determine the food with which the man shall be nourished; what principles shall control his clothing, his breathing, his dwelling, his exercise and labor; and how he shall relate himself to people, and things in general, in the world. It is unquestionably reasonable that the Word of God should be accepted as the rule and guide of all life, because of the conditions upon which life exists.

Sickness is lack of adjustment to, and failure to recognize and obey, the authority and power of life. It is to man what a bruise or break is to a branch of the vine,—it limits its hold on life. The broken branch may draw, by a little sliver of the wood fiber and bark by which it hangs, a small portion of sap—just enough to keep it from actual death, but it is at best unsightly, and can not be tolerated very long. It must wholly abide in the vine, or soon be entirely broken off and thrown into the brush heap.

The root of the vine is the depository of the life current. It does not hold anything which can produce breakage or decay. These all come from outside causes. The power by which we are healed and kept in health is the abiding Spirit. He has no sin, no sickness, no infirmity to give. These have no part in Him, and come from things with which he is in constant controversy, and which he has determined to overcome. The medium by which the Spirit works to overcome evil, in any soul is the Word; and as we deal with the Word, we deal with Him. Reject the Word, and you grieve the Spirit; and to grieve the Holy Spirit is to interrupt the flow of life, to bind a ligature about the body of the member of Christ, which you are. Wind a thread about your finger,

and learn the lesson which it teaches. You are as the finger on the hand of Christ. The unbelief and disobedience by which you grieve the Holy Spirit are as the ligature, and cut into the circulation of life between you and Christ, so that congestion (which is selfishness), and pain, decay, suppuration, must result unless the ligature is removed in time by a cheerful acceptance of the Word and will of God in all things.

Perfect health in body and mind and spirit would be an endorsement by the Spirit of God of the consecration to Christ, and intelligent obedience to principle, of the individual man.

God does not heal a man by any arbitrary exercise of power, but by teaching him how to understand His Word and will, how to work with the Spirit, how to prevent the bruises, breakages, and ligatures such as intercept the flow of life.

Through wrong ways of living, through the inheritance of sin, one may find himself in a condition so desperate that even after he has become enlightened and has accepted what he knows of truth,—has done all that he can do to live right,—he is still so far from health, that death, or long invalidism, seems inevitable. He may have given all unquestionably into the hands of God, but he may be yet like the poor man at the Pool of Bethesda, with no one to help him into the pool, while his own best efforts are apparently thwarted at every turn. But his case is not hopeless, for Jesus is just as truly the healer to-day as then. As then, He works by means,—by the simple, natural, common things that lie all about us, and by the practical faith which we use every moment of our lives.

"Wilt thou be made whole?" He asks, for the wilt to be whole must be in the individual himself.

"Wilt thou be made whole?" Not simply made free from pain and that awful sense of physical discomfort, weakness, and incapacity, but whole, whole, WHOLE, in body, mind, and spirit. You can not be whole, even if your body seems perfectly sound, as long as a sinful thought or purpose lurks in the mind. If the will is still set to do evil, a man can not will to be made whole. If you so will to be made whole that you surrender all of self, all of appetite, all of ambition, and will be only as an instrument in the hands of God, then to you comes the command: "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. . . . Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."

Many injudicious people hinder when they would help the suffering, because they are not informed as to the conditions of healing. They have caught a superficial notion that if any one is sick, and can be worked up into a condition of faith, he must necessarily be healed; and they visit the sick, and urge the "prayer of faith" upon them. Many are led into this snare; and grievous disappointment and much injury to faith and courage are the result.

The "prayer of faith" can not be put on or worked up for the occasion. It is the deep breathing of the Spirit, who not only knows all about the use we will make of strength and health if it is granted, but that "also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which can not be uttered;" and any prayer for healing that is not first prayed within by the abiding Spirit, who knows all that has passed in that soul's secret counsel as well as in heaven concerning it, will be simply of the lips, and can not be answered, for it is no prayer—only a miserable makeshift and pretense. Any prayer that the Spirit breathes within us will be answered. That is the prevailing prayer of the righteous,—the only righteous One, but which, with the righteousness of Christ, may be imputed to us because in our helpless unrighteousness we yet love and believe in Him.

When the Spirit of God in a sick man knows that he will do right provided he is given the knowledge and power so to do, he will by the Word teach him how, and give him the requisite power, and will then begin to breathe the prayer of healing faith all through him. Then "let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."

The motion to send for the elders of the church should always come from the sick one, without suggestion from outside; for no one can know when he is in such condition that the Spirit can breathe within him the healing prayer; and the Spirit should be left to do His work unhindered in every soul. All efforts to help should be such as to lead to the faith of Jesus and to loyalty to His Word. When these abound in any man, the Spirit can be trusted to do the rest.

"Surely He hath borne our sicknesses;" hence we need no longer carry them ourselves. We have in Christ the same right to be free from our infirmities as from the pollution of our sins. MRS. S. M. I. HENRY.

“ASK, AND YE SHALL RECEIVE.”

By Ellen G. White

“ASK, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

God stands back of every promise He has made. He has given us the privilege of coming to Him, and we need not fear of wearying Him. In order to inspire us with assurance and confidence, Christ says: “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?”

God desires us to believe these promises; He desires us to come before him with earnestness and assurance, to tell Him all about our necessities. Christ has given His life to make it possible for the human family to have another trial, to form such characters that the Lord can make them His sons and daughters, members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King. We must not doubt the Word of promise. We have the Word of God, and, like the importunate widow, we are to plead for His blessing, for power to live as the children of God.

As workers together with God, Christ’s disciples are to represent the character of their Redeemer. Christ says: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto My Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it. . . . And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world can not receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me; because I live, ye shall live also.”

But there are conditions to the fulfilment of these promises. “If ye love Me,” He says, “keep My commandments.” “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” Those who bring their petitions to God, claiming that His promise has been made for them, while they do not comply with the conditions, insult Jehovah. They bring the name of Christ as their authority for the fulfilment of the promise, but they do not those things by which they show their love and faith in Jesus Christ.

Many have forfeited, and are forfeiting, their conditions of acceptance with the Father. We need to closely examine the deed of trust wherewith we approach God. If we are disobedient, we bring to the Lord a note to be cashed, when we have not fulfilled our part of the contract. We complain that our check is not honored, when it is a forged check. We approach God with His promises, and ask Him to fulfil them, when by so doing He would dishonor His name.

The promise is, “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” And John declares: “Hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth His Word, in him verily is the love of God perfected; hereby know we that we are in Him. He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.”

The conditions are plainly stated, and those who read the Word need make no mistake. If we will prove ourselves true and faithful, the Lord will comply with the conditions He has made. Those who are doers of the Word give evidence that they are believers of the Word. They will have strong consolation because of the promises made, and in confidence will lay hold on eternal life.

There is a phase of this subject which is too often lost sight of, but it is of consequence to every soul who would seek the Lord in prayer. Have you been honest with your God? Search carefully; for the Lord says to His church and to every individual, “I know thy works.” Everything is known to God. All is open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do, and He says: “Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from Mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return.”

Spiritual blindness comes upon men when they choose their own way, and venture to transgress the commandments of God. God has given men His ordinances to keep them in harmony with His ways and will, that God may co-operate with man, and man with God, in advancing His kingdom in the world. The Lord has given in trust to man everything which he calls his own, and He claims a certain portion of this for Himself. This is the return that man is to make to his God, to sustain the ministers whom the Lord has appointed to give the message of mercy to a fallen world. The watchmen upon the walls of Zion must be provided for in no haphazard manner. The Lord has intrusted the advancement and up

building of His kingdom to His sentinels, and they must do their appointed work. They must be faithful in their ministry, speaking the words that God has given them. The message is to be borne to the people: “Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. . . . Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed Me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse; for ye have robbed Me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in Mine house; and prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

Through His servant God declares: “Behold, I will send My Messenger, and He shall prepare the way before Me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in; behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. And who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap; and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.”

These preparations must be made by all who expect to receive anything of the Lord. Even those who worship idols make special preparations, and bring their gifts to the altar, before they ask their gods to do for them the things that they desire. And shall those who believe in God, the living God, approach Him with little reverence and in human superiority? Shall they be like the Pharisee, who praised and adored himself, and in his pride and self-sufficiency depreciated those whom he regarded as sinners? The Lord will not hear the prayers of such.

If the Lord were as fitful, as impulsive, as changeable, as human beings are, those who show such fruits of unrighteousness would be consumed in their sins; but the Lord bears long with the perversity of men. He is constantly reproving them through His Word, constantly drawing them, that they may repent and be converted, that He may heal them. Few consider that it is a solemn thing to pray. How few watch unto prayer, and seek to speak and act in harmony with their prayers! The apostle Paul says: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good-pleasure.”

Christ seeks to keep before our minds the course our heavenly Father pursues toward His obedient children, in delaying to answer their prayers. God would not have His people give up in discouragement if their prayers are not at once answered. He wants them to search their own hearts carefully, and with humility of mind. Have they used the talent of speech, given them to offer praise and thanksgiving to God, in hurting or discouraging any of God’s children? Have they used the precious gift of God, the voice, to wound the soul of saint or sinner? If they have done this, let them put things right, let them remove the poisonous sting. These efforts to preserve Christian love and unity are essential to a preparedness to come before God in faith and confidence, to seek Him with all the heart.

The Word exhorts us, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” Make confession to the ones you have injured. If others manifest wrong feelings toward you, or have injured you, carry them some token of regard. Tell them that you do not want anything of contention or division to exist between you; for this dishonors God. Then, tho you may not be able to soften the heart of the one who has wronged you, tho your kindness may be repulsed, you have done your duty, and God will bless you. He will give you His peace of mind and His grace. He will increase your trust in Him. Then you can bring your offering to God. Bring soul and voice and being to His altar, to be used to glorify Him, and He will accept the offering.

MRS. E. G. WHITE.

UNDER WHICH KING?

By New York Christian Advocate

A N ancient and devout writer observes that while he found many who could recite the Ten Commandments, he met few who kept them; and among Christian people it seemed to him that the number was not large who could truly say that they kept those two commandments on which Christ said "hang all the law and the prophets." He therefore arranged in order ten other commandments, which he says those who read them may call

THE DEVIL'S TEN COMMANDMENTS.

I. Live to thyself. Mind thine own Things. This is the first and great Commandment, on which all the rest hang, and to which they serve, and is the same as, Be thine own god.

II. Let thy Will be thy Law. Thou art thine own, thy Tongue is thine own, thy Time is thine own, thy Estate is thine own; mayst thou not do what thou wilt with thine own?

III. Make the best of the Time present, and of present Things. Lose not a Certainty for Uncertainties; Who knows what may be hereafter? Eat and drink, for To-morrow thou diest. Be merry while thou mayst, spend while thou hast it, make Hay while the Sun shines.

IV. Stand fast in the Liberties of thy flesh. Come not into Bondage. Be not a Slave to a strict Life, when thou mayst use thine own Liberty.

V. Continue in Sin because Grace hath abounded. Christ died for Sinners; God is merciful; Why shouldst thou then fear to take thy Course?

VI. Do as others do. Go along with the Multitude, fashion thyself to the Times, be not singular; why shouldst thou think thyself wiser than others?

VII. Do no more religion than needs. Be not righteous overmuch. Be not overforward; a little Faith, a little Repentance will serve thy Turn.

VIII. Do not trouble thyself about small Offences. Thoughts are free, Words are but Things of Course. What Man is there that lives and sins not? Why shouldst thou keep such ado about thy Sins, are they not little Ones?

IX. Be not overhasty. If thou must repent, it is Time enough yet; torment not thyself before thy Time. When thou art old, thou wilt have little else to do; be not old whilst thou art young.

X. Trust God with thy Soul rather than Man with Thy Body. Choose Iniquity rather than Affliction and Self-Denial. Venture no farther in Matters of Religion than thou mayst with Safety.

If one were to make a study of all who profess to be Christians and call themselves such, and attempt after these investigations to draw out the principles that control them, which would be the more likely to tabulate, the Ten Commandments promulgated from Sinai, or those which the ancient writer deduced from the conduct of most of those who surrounded him?

If the churches were keeping the commandments of God, could the church and the world be on such easy terms?

When pastor and people have forgotten their baptismal vows; when the vain pomp and glory of the world are sought, and the pride of life and lusts of the flesh are no longer abhorrent in their eyes; when together they are at ease in Zion, they may flatter each other into the belief that they are true disciples of Christ. They may even invent names to disguise to themselves their mutual impiety; their deadness they may call sobriety; their extravagance in surrounding themselves with luxuries they may style liberality; their quietness while their children and neighbors are neglecting God, they may characterise as reserve, or even fancy it to be faith in God that He will surely bring them in; their lack of interest in those of lower station they may describe as dignified self-respect; their covetousness they may regard as a prudent economy; and their irresponsiveness to what would stir emotion, the result of refinement; their objection to zealous efforts to awaken them, they may term opposition to religious frenzy.

Such characters were numerous in Christ's time. While there were a few who kept the commandments of God, the majority were running in the way of Satan's commandments. It was so when Wesley began his mission, and the victims of the great delusion throughout Great Britain and Ireland repelled and persecuted him.

Is it not possible, and even probable, that many of His followers are to-day walking in the way of more than one of the commandments which originate in the author of all evil?

But "who art thou that judgest another?" It is a question for each to ask himself. Every man should ponder these commandments. If to his conscience and to his God he can truly say that such thoughts are foreign to his nature, that once he was under their domination, "but grace hath set him free," then may he rejoice and press forward.

But if he must acknowledge that he is living unto himself and not unto Christ, he is spiritually dying if not already dead, and should hasten to do his first works over again. For every one who is not living "soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world," is receiving his orders, not from the King of kings and Lord of lords, but from the prince of this world, "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience."

THEN I SHALL BE SATISFIED.

By J. O. Beard

WHEN the self within me is o'erthrown And my Saviour rules my heart alone, When His matchless love, and every grace, Have into His likeness changed my face, Till this sinful world, beholding me, Only Jesus' image there can see— Then I shall be satisfied.

When I'm free from every taint of sin, Purged every stain it had left within, When from the bondage of sin I'm free, Through faith in Him who died for me, When the tempter can entice no more, And the battles of life at last are o'er— Then I shall be satisfied.

When my Saviour comes to ransom me, And I'm robed in immortality, When with the sleeping saints I rise And receive from Him "th' eternal prize," When o'er death my triumph is complete, And my Lord with praises loud I greet— Then I shall be satisfied.

When I stand upon the sea of glass, When through the gates of pearl I pass, When my Father's face in peace I see, When I've plucked the fruit from life's fair tree, And have drunk my fill from life's clear stream, Life's joys no more a passing dream— Then, yes, then, I shall be satisfied.

J. O. BEARD. Bailey, Iowa.

Pitied Enemies and Friends

THERE are some men whose enemies are to be pitied much, and their friends more.—Charles Caleb Colton.

BOND-SERVANTS AND FREEMEN.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Gal. 4:7-31; 5:1.

THE fifth chapter of Galatians contains a great deal of personal matter which is interesting as showing the apostle Paul's zeal and tenderness, but which for the purpose of our study may be summarized in a few words. The thirteenth verse lets us know that he was in great bodily affliction when he first preached the Gospel to the Galatians, and the fifteenth verse seems to indicate that his eyes were specially affected. His deep affliction may have had much to do with the vigor with which he preached the Gospel to them; causing them to see Christ crucified; for he tells us: "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong." 2 Cor. 12:9, 10. We see that the brethren had conceived a deep love for him, because of the blessedness which they experienced through his preaching, and to this he appeals. He assures them that in their departure from the faith they have not injured him at all; he is not troubled over their disaffection towards him, but over their falling away from Christ.

With this introduction we may proceed with the study, beginning with verse 7, the one with which we closed our last week's lesson, and skipping from verse 11 to verse 21.

The Scripture.

"Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. . . . Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond-maid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory; for these are the two covenants: the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that barest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Gal. 4:7-31; 5:1.

Heathen Bondage.—"At that time, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to them which by nature are no gods." Gal. 4:8, R.V. The Galatians had been heathen, worshiping idols, in bondage to horrible and degrading superstitions. Bear in mind that this bondage is the same as that which is spoken of in the preceding chapter,—they were "shut up" under the law. It was the very same bondage in which all unconverted persons are, for in the second and third chapters of Romans we are told that "there is no difference; for all have sinned." The Jews themselves, who did not know the Lord by personal experience, were in the same bondage,—the bondage of sin. "Every one that committeth sin is the bond-servant of sin." John 8:34, R.V. And "he that committeth sin is of the devil." 1 John 3:8. "The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God." 1 Cor. 10:20. But we ourselves once walked "according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2); and we "were aforetime foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another" (Titus 3:3, R.V.). So we also were "in bondage to them which by nature are no gods." The meaner the master, the worse the bondage. What language can depict the horror of being in bondage to corruption itself?

In Love with Bondage.—"Now that ye have come to know God, or rather to be known of God, how turn ye back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again?" Is it not strange that men should be in love with chains? Christ has proclaimed "liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound" (Isa. 61:1), saying to the prisoners, "Go forth," and to them that are in darkness, "Show yourselves" (Isa. 49:9); yet men who have heard these words, and have actually come forth, and have seen the light of "the Sun of Righteousness," and have tasted the sweets of liberty, actually turn round and go back into their prison, submit to be bound with their old chains, even fondling them, and labor away at the hard treadmill of sin. Who has not had something of that experience? It is no fancy picture. It is a fact that men can come to love the most revolting things, even death itself; for Wisdom says, "All they that hate Me love death." Prov. 8:36. In reading the Epistle to the Galatians, we are reading a perfectly human experience. Would that to every reader it might be his own experience to the end of the book. Let us not stop here.

Observing Heathen Customs.—"Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years." This was an evidence of their bondage. "Ah," says some one, "they had gone back to the old Jewish Sabbath; that was the bondage against which Paul would warn us!" How strange it is that men have such an insane hatred of the Sabbath which the Lord Himself gave to the Jews in common with all other people on the earth, that they will seize upon one word that they can turn against it, altho in order to do so they must shut their eyes to all the words that are around it. Anybody who reads the Epistle to the Galatians, and thinks as he reads, must know that the Galatians were not Jews. They had been converted from heathenism. Therefore previous to their conversion they had never had anything to do with any religious custom that was practised by the Jews. They had nothing whatever in common with the Jews. Consequently, when they turned again to the "weak and beggarly elements," to which they were willing again to be in bondage, it is evident that they were going a good deal farther back than to any Jewish practise. They were going back to their old heathen customs. "But were not the men who were perverting them Jews?"—Yes, they were. But remember this one thing, when you seek to turn a man away from Christ to some substitute for Christ, you can not tell where he will end. You can not make him stop just where you want him to. If a converted drunkard loses faith in Christ, he will take up his drinking habits as surely as he lives, even tho the Lord may have taken the appetite away from him. So when these "false brethren"—Jewish opposers of "the truth of the Gospel" as it is in Christ—succeeded in seducing the Galatians from Christ, they could not get them to stop with Jewish ceremonies. No; they inevitably drifted back to their old heathen superstitions.

Forbidden Practises.—Read the tenth verse again, and then turn to Deut. 18:10 and read: "There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of time, or an enchanter, or a witch." Now read what the Lord says to the heathen who would shield themselves from just judgment that is about to come upon them: "Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee." Isa. 47:13. Here we see that the very things to which the Galatians were returning, were forbidden by the Lord when He brought Israel out of Egypt. Now we might as well say that when God forbade these things He was warning the Israelites against keeping the Sabbath as to say that Paul was upbraiding the Galatians for keeping it, or that he had any reference to it whatever. God forbade these things at the very time when He gave the commandment concerning Sabbath-keeping. So far back into their old ways had the Galatians gone that Paul was afraid lest all his labor on them had been in vain.

Desiring to be Under the Law.—"Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?" After what we have already had, there will be no one to come with the objection that to be under the law can not be a very deplorable condition, else the Galatians would not have desired to be under it. Ah, "there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death"! Prov. 14:25. How many there are who love ways that everybody except themselves can see are leading them direct to death; yes, there are many who, with their eyes wide open to the consequences of their course, will persist in it, deliberately choosing "the pleasures of sin for a season," rather than length of days! To be "under the law" of God is to be condemned by it as a sinner chained and doomed to death, yet many millions besides the Galatians have loved the condition, and still love it. Ah, if they would only hear what it says! "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."

"What Saith the Law?"—It saith, "Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman." To what place shall the wicked bond-servant be cast out?—"Into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." "For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall

leave them neither root nor branch." Therefore, "remember ye the law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments." Mal. 4:1, 4. All who are under the law, whether they be called Jews or Gentiles, Christians or Mohammedans, are in bondage to Satan,—in the bondage of transgression and sin,—and are to be cast out. "Every one that committeth sin is the bond-servant of sin. And the bond-servant abideth not in the house forever; the son abideth forever." Thank God, then, for "the adoption of sons."

E. J. WAGGONER.

(Continued next week.)

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