Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 6, 1902
"THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL FLOURISH LIKE THE PALM TREE."
By Ellen G. White
SEE the weary traveler toiling over the hot sand of the desert, with no shelter to protect him from the rays of the tropical sun. His water supply fails, and he has nothing with which to slake his burning thirst. His tongue becomes swollen; he staggers like a drunken man. Visions of home and friends pass before his mind as he believes himself ready to perish. Suddenly he sees in the distance, rising out of the dreary, sandy waste, a palm tree, green and flourishing. Hope quickens his pulses; he presses on, knowing that that which gives vigor and freshness to the palm tree will cool his fevered blood and give him renewed life.
As is the palm tree in the desert—a guide and a consolation to the fainting traveler—so the Christian is to be in the world. He is to guide weary souls, full of unrest, and ready to perish in the desert of sin, to the living water. He is to point his fellow men to Him who gives to all the invitation, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink."
The sky may be as brass, the burning sand may beat about the palm tree's roots, and pile itself about its trunk; yet the tree lives on, fresh and vigorous. Remove the sand, and you discover the secret of its life; its roots strike down deep into the waters hidden in the earth.
Thus it is with the Christian. His life is hid with Christ in God. Jesus is to him a well of water, springing up unto everlasting life. His faith, like the rootlets of the palm-tree, penetrates beneath the things that are seen, drawing life from the fountain of life. And, amid all the corruption of the world, he is true and loyal to God. The sweet influence of Christ's righteousness surrounds him. His influence elevates and blesses.
The humblest and poorest of the disciples of Jesus can be a blessing to others. They may not realize that they are doing any special good, but by their unconscious influence they may start waves of blessings that will widen and deepen, and the blessed results they may never know till the day of final reward. They are not required to weary themselves with anxiety about success. They have only to go forward quietly, doing faithfully the work God's providence assigns, and their life will not be in vain. Their own souls will be growing more and more into the likeness of Christ; they are workers together with God in this life, and are thus fitting for the higher work and the unshadowed joy of the life to come.
As you go through life, you will meet with those whose lot is far from easy. Toil and deprivation, with no hope for better things in the future, make their burden very heavy. And when pain and sickness is added, the burden is almost greater than they can bear. Careworn and oppressed, they know not where to turn for relief. Put your whole heart into the work of helping them. It is not God's purpose that His children shall shut themselves up to themselves. Remember that for them as well as for you, Christ died. Hold out to them a helping hand. This will open the way for you to help them, to win their confidence, to inspire them with hope and courage.
All have trials, griefs hard to bear, temptations hard to resist. Do not tell your troubles to your fellow-mortals, but carry everything to God in prayer. Make it a rule never to utter one word of doubt or discouragement. You can do much to brighten the lives of others and to strengthen their efforts, by words of holy cheer.
There is many a brave soul sorely pressed with temptation, almost ready to faint in the conflict with self and with the powers of evil. Do not discourage such a one in his hard struggle. Cheer him with brave, hopeful words that will urge him on his way. "None of us liveth to himself." By our unconscious influence others may be encouraged and strengthened.
The service rendered in sincerity has great recompense. "Thy Father, which seeth in secret, Himself shall reward thee openly." The faces of men and women who walk and work with God express the peace of heaven. They are surrounded with the atmosphere of heaven. For these souls the kingdom of God has begun. They have Christ's joy, the joy of being a blessing to humanity. They have the honor of being accepted for the Master's use; they are trusted to do His work in His name.
E. G. WHITE.
HOW READEST THOU?
By T. E. Bowen
"O LORD, thou art my God; I will exalt Thee, I will praise Thy name; for Thou hast done wonderful things; Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth." Isa. 25:1. It makes a great difference how texts are read.
By emphasizing the words as above indicated, what a richness there is to this one.
"O Lord, Thou art my God." It certainly is a comfort to know that the mighty God who framed the universe, who still upholds all these shining planets in the boundless expanse of space, can be truthfully called the God of just one individual—my God. Every soul created can thus say my God, and therefore He becomes by this the God of all.
"I will exalt Thee." How many seek to exalt themselves instead. Here comes the confusion. This is the result of sin. I instead of Thee is emphasized in so many ways.
"I will praise Thy name." Only the humble follower of Christ can do this. The self-centered, self-seeking individual can not from the heart truly praise the name of God. He manages somehow, somewhere, to weave in his own praise, exalt his own ideas, his own doings, and this at once becomes as the fly in the ointment, the little plague spot that spoils all.2
God's praise is His appointed means of deliverance from self-praise.
"For Thou hast done wonderful things." One only needs to enumerate the wonderful things God has done, and is continually doing, to beget in his soul humility. As he contemplates the greatness of the Creator, His wonderful acts, His great wisdom, and spotless purity, untarnished by even one thought of selfishness or self-serving, like Job, he is led to exclaim, "I know that Thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee." "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
"Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth." In all the counsels of God, the happiness and best interests of His creatures have been in view. Every thing, every pleasure, that would affect this one desired end, has been eliminated. This is why the law of His love is so jealous and perfect. Everything has been done in truth and uprightness. Nothing is omitted that in truth will work advantage and happiness to His children. How different are the counsels of Satan. His study is to ruin and destroy—done in unfaithfulness and untruth.
God's blessed words to us are so full, so rich, so helpful. As we seek to read Him into every passage, and study to see revealed His loving thoughts of kindness toward, we shall read His Word aright, and find in it the revelation of a personal salvation to the individual soul, which, in few words, means, "Christ in you, the hope of glory."
T. E. BOWEN.
PICTURES OLDER THAN THE FLOOD.
Witnesses of God.
SOME of the more recent discoveries of the archæologists deserve to be far better known than they seem to be. They can teach us many a needed lesson of faith in the dear old Book, which is the only certain and safe guide, alike concerning the remote past and the impending future of our race. For several decades it has been quite the fashion to poke fun at its earlier chapters as only "nursery yarns;" but of late a strong reaction has set in, as one by one the contemporary witnesses have risen from their dusty beds of the vanished centuries, proclaiming with voices of convincing thunder that these old poet-prophets knew what they were talking about.
It was not alone the Old Testament which had been attacked by the destructive critics of Germany and elsewhere, but Livy and Herodotus as well. But just as the excavations in the Roman Forum have turned into waste paper, Niebuhr's brilliant "demolition" of early Roman history, which had been accepted by scholars for nearly half a century, even so have other witnesses in solid rock risen up in these last days to vindicate the truth of Old Testament history, and teach us lessons of trust in that Hand which traced the times and bounds of nations from creation's morn. Step by step backward has this vindication gone, until those scientific doubters who are yet capable of learning lessons of faith are beginning to realize that even the very first chapters of Genesis may soon turn out to be good science and history after all. The Bible is indeed an anvil that has worn out many a hard hammer.
Of course we Christians have believed its testimony all these years, in spite of the fashionable theories of the evolutionists. It is only those who have been so ready to apologize for the Bible by seeking to show how it "harmonized" with their ideas of science, who are now in danger of having their elaborate reasonings cast aside as so much waste paper. Those who have gone steadily about the work of their Master, fulfilling His last commission as given from triumphant Olivet, and proclaiming all the time that another world, like that of Noah for its wickedness, will, like it, be swept out of existence, tho by fire instead of water, are not now placed in the "fix" of having to revise their ideas of the flood and the antediluvian world. They have never doubted Moses' record all these years.
This reaction in public opinion began a good many years ago. Quite soon after the learned world began worshiping Darwin's theory, the Creator began uncovering some of
His Buried Witnesses.
First, it was the monuments of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia that produced the duplicates, or vouchers, for the various historical books of the latter half of the Old Testament. Then the records of the time of Abraham were honored. And lastly such discoveries as those at Mycenæ and Crete are gradually dinning it into the heads of all reason-loving men that primitive man was not such a low savage after all. The pick and the shovel are fast answering the destructive critics and scientists with arguments unanswerable and of their own favorite kind.
But the geologists are also receiving their answer. It was long a cardinal doctrine of their "science" that the fossils belonged to ages long before man came on the stage of action; that even the "latest" of them, those huge creatures of the olden time, the megatheriums, mammoth, etc., were extinct long before man was created. It was on this, as one of its chief postulates, that this pretentious system of geology was founded and built up, with its ever-narrowing ages of life receding into the mists of an abysmal past. But about 1859 the evidence began to become conclusive that man lived in Western Europe along with some of those long-extinct species of mammals which show an altogether different kind of climate from that which now prevails—a different world entirely.
It was not the believer in a creation of six literal days who was under the necessity of rejecting these discoveries. They were just what he expected; for the belief in creation's week has ever gone side by side with a belief in the record of the flood. But these discoveries were very naturally disturbing to those who had worked out such a pretty scheme of a creation on the instalment plan "long drawn out," with the "days" of Genesis corresponding to their geological ages, and with man created only after about all these ups and downs of the continents had taken place. But the evidence of the fossils—again their own chosen kind of argument—was far too strong; and none of them now think of denying that "palæolithic man," as they are pleased to term that race, existed when the rhinoceros, lion, and hyena roamed over England and Northwestern Europe, together with the mammoth, which was a kind of elephant so nearly like the present species of India (E. indicus) that many think the two identical.
Countless thousands of these ancient elephants and rhinoceroses are found in the extreme north of Siberia within fifteen degrees of the north pole; and in some cases the carcasses are in a state of such perfect preservation that the flesh is eagerly devoured by the dogs and wolves, showing that the poor brutes were destroyed suddenly in some awful and strange manner utterly contrary to any doctrine of "uniformitarianism." Indeed, many leading geologists, including the late Sir William Dawson, declare without hesitation that these ancient men and huge animals were all probably swept away together at the time of "the last great submergence" of Western Europe.
How Geologically Ancient Is Man?
By George Edward McCready Price
That man lived side by side with many of the fossil animals is now everywhere acknowledged. But the momentous question they have been discussing for a score of years or more, is as to how far back in "geological time" he really did live; that is, whether he really lived in "Pliocene" or perhaps even "Miocene times," as many claim. These are their two divisions of the "Tertiary age" or "epoch," which immediately preceded the "Glacial period." As Dawson naively puts it in his "Meeting-place of Geology and History," it is now certain that man witnessed one great submergence or subsidence of the dry land (the "post-glacial"); while, if he actually lived in the "Pliocene period," he must have witnessed two, and if in "Miocene times," three of these submergences or floods; for, according to their science, each of these divisions ended with the continents more or less under water.
With each of these eras, or ages, carrying us back tens or hundreds of thousands of years into the "dark backward and abysm of time," it is not surprising that to people of plain common sense this whole science of geology seems sadly out of joint with this age of hard scientific facts. It seems to savor too much of the astronomy and chemistry of the Middle Ages, when the sun and all the stars revolved each day about the earth, and the chemists kept hunting for that magic substance which would transmute everything into gold. One such "submergence," or flood, there certainly was; but this is sufficient for all the work, and ought to satisfy the geologists, without making the continents go up and down times without end.
GEO. E. MCCREADY PRICE.
Tracadie, N. B.
(To be continued.)
THE MASTER WORKER.
By Pentecost Herald
WHAT "rough lumber" Christ has to "work up" when He gets us in hand! Do you pray to be smoothed down and made patient? Then welcome the answer, "Tribulation worketh patience." Some one has falsely accused or misjudged you. Did you get sweetness out of it, or did you consider it "entirely uncalled for," and felt so hurt that your head was bowed and your "harp hung on the willow?" If so, you have not found sweetness in the trials. God can so bless your trials for your good that you can say of persons who have been a great cross to you, O what a means of grace they are to me! and thus you can have real sweetness out of every test.
As long as you believe your trials are curses, so long will you fail to find real sweetness in them. Job's sickness and calamities came from the devil and were intended by his satanic majesty as curses, but were transformed by the creative hand of God into mighty blessings. If we are walking in the light of God, no disappointment, no sorrow, no sickness, no misunderstanding can be a curse, for "all things work together for good to them that love God."—Pentecost Herald.
Duty Becomes Habit
By Paxton Hood
It is a beautiful arrangement, in the mental and moral economy of our nature, that that which is performed as a duty may, by frequent repetitions, become a habit; and the habit of stern virtue, so repulsive to others, may hang around one's neck like a wreath of flowers.—Paxton Hood.
THE SECOND ADVENT.
By L. A. Phippeny
The Close of Probation.
THE Bible teaching on the subject of the sanctuary indicates clearly that an end will be reached in the investigative judgment work in heaven. This conclusion is ordinarily referred to as the close of probation. Probation means proving. Theologically, it is the time allotted mankind in which to develop and prove character. The close of probation is the critical moment when the High Priest above steps forth from the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary to place upon Satan, the antitypical scapegoat, the confessed sins of the righteous.
To some it may appear impossible for a just decree to be issued deciding the eternal status of every individual. Such fail to appreciate the fact that the present days are the last days of this world's history; that the Gospel has been preached to nearly the entire world, and that individuals in all conditions of life the globe over are deciding their own destinies by their daily conduct and attitude toward divine things. No injustice will be done. There need be no fear that God will make a mistake.
The correct understanding of the sanctuary question also establishes an exceedingly important fact,—that only one probation is or ever will be granted mankind in which to develop character. This truth at once sweeps away a long list of theories and doctrines urged upon the world to-day. Evolution, Theosophy, Buddhism, and other systems of everlasting progression with no ultimate ill to anybody are exposed by the searchlight of this revelation. Any system that teaches a second probation for sinners, or that teaches that sinners are to be saved after Christ leaves the heavenly sanctuary, as noted above, must be classed as false doctrine.
For instance, some claim that Christ has already come, and is present in the air above the earth, fulfilling 1 Thess. 4:17; that the resurrection of the righteous dead has taken place, and the living saints are being caught away—translated in some manner not observed or comprehended by the world at large,—raptured secretly. In this manner, it is said, the kingdom of Christ is augmenting, and that this work will continue, with various changes in the program, until the world, or the greater portion of it, is converted. Such teachings are exceedingly pernicious, and serve to allay the fears of sinners, and to license them to continue their evil ways during the present life rather than to turn to ways of righteousness. The result will be their eternal loss when the day of the Lord overtakes them unawares.
False Theories and the Manner of his Second Advent.
The Bible teaching with reference to the manner of Christ's second coming is also a strong and sure safeguard against a host of false theories and doctrines concerning that event. All of these false doctrines are the result of the studied plan of the devil to weaken faith in the testimony of Scripture touching this and other vital truths. For example, it is claimed that the second coming of Christ refers solely to the coming of Christ to the soul at conversion in the Gospel dispensation. Texts similar to the following are referred to: "If a man love me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." John 14:23; also Rev. 3:20. These words are worthy of all acceptation in their real application. But the interpretation as urged is subversive of belief in the literal second coming, a correct understanding of which in these latter days is of weighty import to every one.
Another claim is that the second coming of Christ is His coming to individuals at death. This doctrine arises from erroneous views respecting the condition of the individual, or the soul, after the death of the body. Contrast this with the Scriptural testimony concerning the state of the dead and the resurrection, in the article which follows.
Classed with the foregoing theories is the claim of many so-called religious bodies that the second coming of Christ and the setting up of His kingdom meet fulfilment in their messages to the world. Such are Christian Science, Spiritualism, Mormonism, and others. These urge as evidences of the truth of their claims the presence and manifestation of superhuman powers in the healing of diseases and other supernormal phenomena, claimed by some of them to be from God. To these and like claims apply the words of Christ:—
"Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not. For there shall arise false christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders [signs and miracles are not, therefore, necessarily proof of truth or the presence of divine power]; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore, if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the desert, go not forth; behold, He is in the secret chambers, believe it not." Matt. 24:23-26.
Of false christs and false prophets there have been and are many, and at least two of the specifications predicted by Christ are heard to-day from two of the isms enumerated above. For the reasons for the "nots" in the latter part of the preceding quotation, and as against these various theories, note some of the positive teachings of the Word of God herein adduced concerning the manner and nature of the second coming of Christ.
Immediately preceding the second advent, and following the departure of Christ from the heavenly sanctuary, the earth is to be visited by the severest scourge of divine wrath ever experienced by it. I refer to the seven plagues introduced and described in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of Revelation. These were said to be contained in seven vials "full of the wrath of God," and were given to seven angels who poured them out in succession, evidently upon different portions of the earth. The effect of each plague appeared to extend on after its out-pouring until all were poured out.
These scourges visit the earth, it will be observed, after the close of probation. This is indicated from the fact that in them is the "wrath of God" in fullest measure. Before the close of probation, and while Christ ministers in the sanctuary, the Gospel reaches all mankind with its message of love and mercy. When the world rejects the call, there is no possibility for further salvation. Then divine justice metes out retributive punishment upon the unworthy nations of earth. These scourges are not, however, the exact rewards for individual sins, but are the expression of the righteous indignation of a contemned God against sin.
It will only be necessary to read the chapters referred to, to gain a rather vivid idea of the time of terror and suffering that will then prevail. It was during this time that John heard one of the seven angels make the following observation relative to the justice of these plagues: "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy. And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments."
The last plague or judgment visited upon the world is "a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent." In conjunction with this is "a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great . . . . And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found." Associated texts place this terrific convulsion of nature at the moment of Christ's approach to the earth, and the mind is somewhat prepared to appreciate the sublime and awful spectacle that will then be witnessed by earth.
We have now reached the point where can be considered directly the manner of the Lord's coming, and no language can so appropriately speak of this as the language of Scripture. As you read the following simple, plain statements, contrast with them the messages of the false teachers of every ism or creed:—
"For as the lightning cometh out of the East, and shineth even unto the West; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Matt. 24:27, 30.
"Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him." Rev. 1:7.
This is in harmony with the promise: "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." The second is: "While they beheld, He was taken up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight." Acts 1:9, 11.
"The Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him" and "in the glory of His Father." Matt. 25:31; Mark 8:38.
"Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him." Ps. 50:3.
"The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thess. 1:7, 8.
"Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath; for the heavens [the atmospheric heavens] shall vanish away like smoke." Isa. 51:6. "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens will pass away with a great noise." 2 Peter 3:10.
The "day of the Lord" begins when probation closes.
"And the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places." Rev. 6:14.
These are only a few of the many positive expressions of Scripture that tell the thrilling story of that great day.4And yet the claim is heard that the lightning referred to above is the telegraphic news flashing over the wires announcing Christ's arrival somewhere on the earth! How weak and puerile is such interpretation in the presence of the sublime words of Scripture!
What can be plainer or more easy of comprehension than these expressions of Holy Writ? Comment seems almost needless. The great Light of all the universe is to come to this earth; is it like the lightning?! The whole world is to witness with natural eyes the transcendent glory and majesty of Christ when He shall come to earth the second time. Not only is the world to see, but it is to hear, and to feel, and to appreciate the vivid reality of that event. The shining forth of His glory surpasses the burning strength of the sun at noonday; the fire of God devours before Him; while thunders and earthquakes and loud explosions of subterranean gases lend their voices to add terror and destruction, and proclaim the presence of One before whom nature reels and trembles. No, it will not be a quiet nor obscure affair.
Well, that day hastens its approach. And there are some who shall stand; but they will have made their peace with God. Now is the day of salvation.
[This same subject will be continued in the next article under the subdivision "The Resurrection."]
THIS SAME JESUS... SHALL SO COME IN LIKE MANNER AS YE HAVE SEEN HIM GO INTO HEAVEN
WHAT WE ARE AND WHAT WE SHOULD BE.
By Geo. E. Hollister
What We Are.
GOD sees the end from the beginning. He has described the experiences of His people in every age, and He says to us, who are living now, in the time of the judging of the people:—
"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Rev. 3: 15-17.
That is what I am; and tho admitting it as a theory, I have never until lately realized it as a personal experience. When I saw, it came to me with great force.
What We May Be.
This is what the Saviour 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." John 14: 12.
These words are true. Christ has already demonstrated their truthfulness in the experiences of those who believed on Him. Of the church on the day of Pentecost we read:—
"They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized; and the same day there were added to them about three thousand souls." Acts 2: 4, 41.
"And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people. . . . And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women. Insomuch that they brought forth the sick in every street, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them." Acts 5: 12-16.
In the light of these experiences, are we not indeed "miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked?" Now read again:—
The life of Christ has shown what humanity can do by being partaker of the divine nature. All that Christ received from God we too may have. Then ask and receive. With the persevering faith of Jacob, with the unyielding persistence of Elijah, claim for yourself all that God has promised.—"Christ's Object Lessons." p. 149.
Let us do it, and the lukewarm condition will forever pass away. We shall not be cold either; but the Lord's desire concerning us will be realized, for those who are "waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" are to "come behind in no gift." 1 Cor. 1: 7.
