Can no one tell why the stars were made
And hidden in depths of deepest blue?
Why the tiniest creatures that fill our earth
Live but a moment—some die at their birth?
No answer comes from you or me—God knows.
Can no one speak and tell us why
The leaves turn brown and the pine-trees sigh?
Why the flowers wither and fade away,
To come again at some future day?
We can not answer, we can not tell—God knows.
Why those we love the dearest of all,
Must answer at last Death's solemn call
To lay the garments of earth aside,
With all of their vanity, pomp, and pride?
We gaze on the tomb, we silent are—God knows.
Why the lightning's flash stirs the soul of man,
And reminds him here of life's short span;
And the echoing thunder as it dies away,
Speaks to his soul of the judgment-day?
No answer comes; we only hear, and tremble—
for God seems near.
Why the great waves dash on ocean's shore,
Then recede, have vanished, and are seen no more;
But in leaving, scattered a few grains of sand,
To speak of a wise and unseen hand?
You can not answer, neither can I—God knows.
We must patient be, and trust, and wait
Till the One who knows shall unbar the gate
To that home of wisdom where our journey ends.
Then we shall know, both you and I;
For God will answer and tell us why.
Malden, Mass.
XIX. God's People Before the Judgment-Seat
By Prof. Lucas A. Reed
"And He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of Jehovah, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary." Zech. 3: 1.
Out of Babylon to Zion. By Prof. Lucas A. Reed
THE high priest stood as the representative of all God's people. On the Day of Atonement once every year he made atonement for all the sins of the people as well as his own. The high priest therefore represents in his condition the condition of the people of God. In the accusations made against the priest, are summed up all Satan's accusations against the chosen ones. Therefore the charge of Satan is against all Israel. Whatever happens to the priest happens to all the people. And consequently this vision is a picture of God's dealings with all His children.
"Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the angel." Zech. 3: 3.
The dirty dress of the prophet is the familiar symbol of sin; and he wears it just as he wore his priestly garment, to represent the nation. He stands therefore before the judgment-seat bearing not alone his own, but his people's sins.
"And Jehovah said unto Satan, Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? . . . And He answered and spake unto those that stood before Him, saying, Take the filthy garments from off him. And unto him He said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with rich apparel. And I said, Let them set a clean miter upon his head. So they set a clean miter upon his head, and clothed him with garments; and the angel of Jehovah was standing by." Zech. 3: 2, 4, 5.
In the divine answer there are given to the accuser two reasons why God's people shall not be rejected. First, the Lord had chosen Jerusalem. This was the purpose of God; and that great purpose, the fruit of His undeserved mercy, is not to be frustrated by the sins of men. As the prophet Jeremiah gives it: "If heaven above can be measured, . . . then will I also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith Jehovah." Jer. 31: 37.
God Saves Even the Burning Brand
And the second reason given was that Joshua, representing the people of God, was a brand plucked from the burning. That is, he had just been brought unconsumed from the furnace of affliction, the furnace of the Babylonian captivity. God's past mercies are a reason or a motive for continuing His mercy. Having punished, He will now show mercy, even tho perfection of character may not be manifested at once. Man often grows weary over what he has done, and his mercy in time becomes exhausted. He says: "I can not do more, because I have already done so much;" but not so with God. What He has done accumulates as an earnest or covenant of what He yet will do. "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?" Rom. 8: 32. Having done so much, how shall He refrain from doing more? Thus the more God does, the more argument we have that God will do. God never comes to the end of His long-suffering.
Altho Joshua and his people had sinned, and that, too, since the restoration, and Satan had a good argument in pointing to these transgressions, God does not say, "All right, I will put back the half-burned brand into the fire again, since the evil is not burned out of it," but He pities this half-burned fragment, and forgives again, because He has forgiven before.
But this forgiveness does not suffer the sin to continue. Joshua's filthy garments, the sins of the people of God, are taken away, and he is clothed with a change of raiment, even with the glorious garment of the righteousness of Christ. In addition to this they set upon his head the fair miter, and that fair miter makes him the anointed high priest of God. Ex. 29: 6.
The Condition of God's Mercy
"And the angel of Jehovah was standing by. And the angel of Jehovah protested unto Joshua, saying, Thus saith Jehovah of Hosts: If thou wilt walk in My ways, and if thou wilt keep My charge, then thou also shalt judge My house, and shalt also keep My courts, and I will give thee a place of access among these that stand by." Zech. 3: 5-7.
But the high priest is not to escape without a warning; and as he stands for all God's people, he being the high priest, their representative, what is said to him is therefore said to all God's chosen to the end of time. We are admonished to walk in God's ways, to keep God's charge, and then He will give us place to walk among "these that stand by," that is, the angels. See verse 5.
"Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee; for they are men that are a sign: for, behold, I will bring forth My Servant the Branch. For, behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; upon one stone are seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith Jehovah of Hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, saith Jehovah of Hosts, shall ye invite every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig-tree." Zech. 3: 8-10.
In this eighth verse is given the reason why God could exchange garments with Joshua the high priest and therefore with all His children. They are men wondered at. Satan thought he had an argument; but God has a way out, and a means by which guilty sinners, wicked men, may be made innocent before Him, clothed with holiness, made like to Christ. It can not be explained by the reasonings of this world; and as the change in character is viewed, such men are wondered at. And the day was coming, so the Lord promised, when His Servant the Branch should appear, and He of all men would indeed be wondered at. He is the stone set before Joshua, the one stone having the seven eyes, or complete ministration of the Spirit, and so the full exercise of the wisdom and power of God.
The Purposes of God
All the work that Joshua was doing was to be interwoven with the purposes of God. The seven eyes represent God's complete knowledge; His oversight of all the earth and of all its doings through the Spirit of God. The seven eyes marked on the stone assure us at once of God's knowledge, and also of the pattern that lies in the mind of the great Director. They were marked on the stone as a mason marks the rock for his cutting. They were graven with the gravings of God. Christ is the corner-stone. He is the pattern. He is the personalization to man of the character of God. He bears the marks of divinity, and He stands in perfect unity in thought and act with God.
The plummet that Zerubbabel held (Zech. 4: 10) in order to true all the buildings of Jerusalem and the temple, had these same seven eyes, the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro throughout the whole earth. That plummet, then, is Christ. He is the law drawn out into life by which all God's temple is to be trued and built. Christ is to be set to your life and mine. He is the standard. God was engraving the gravings. In all His work He sets the pattern; He brings up the whole thing to the grand ideal. As in the building of the sanctuary, it must all be made in accordance with the pattern shown in the mount. So in the days of Zechariah, and so now, as in every age, the Lord's work is in accordance with His plans. It is all shot through with His knowledge. It is all to be made after the similitude of His own divine character; and at last it shall be complete, and in one final stroke He will remove all the iniquity that curses the earth.
The one day in which God removed that iniquity was the day of Golgotha, when in one day atonement was made for the sins of the people. But the full results of that atonement will not be seen until we reach the new earth state. In that day no man shall have an enemy anywhere; there shall be no foreigners, no walls of partition, nothing to separate between man and man; for ye shall "call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig-tree."
Higher Criticism
By Earle Albert Rowell
By Earle Albert Rowell
XIV. The Harvest
FALSE premises lead to false conclusions, and false principles of interpretation result inevitably in a harvest of pernicious theories. And, backed by the solemn authority and heralded by the advanced learning of honored ecclesiastics, the theories of to-day will become the practise of to-morrow.
The law of God is the great “royal law of liberty” by which His government is ruled. It was given from Sinai in impressive and awful majesty. The Christian, in reading the account, is entranced by the grandeur of the scene. Not so the Higher Critics. They regard the whole scene a fable, and the account of it a forgery. “It is the Higher Criticism that sets aside the thunder, lightning, and awful trumpet of Sinai as features that really accompanied the revelation of the Mosaic law. And if any are alarmed at this interpretation of the story, it is surely sufficient to remind them that the moral teaching of the Mosaic law remains untouched when all these picturesque elements have been stripped away. It is quite as wrong to steal and commit adultery altho the rocks of the desert never echoed to a supernatural trumpet, and murder remains a crime altho God never wrote the commandments on tables of stone. Higher Criticism is in fact the ability to distinguish between spiritual ideas and the drapery of legend, myth, and parable in which they are clothed, and which people destitute of imagination have too often mistaken for history.”—Joseph Wood, “The Bible,” page 226.
The Law and Sin
We see how the Higher Critics, in discarding the accounts of how the law was given, still try to save the law itself; but it is mainly a spectacular or rhetorical pretense on their part, to calm the fears of their readers, and mislead them as to the real issues at stake in their virtual denial of the Bible. In order to break the force of the Ten Commandments, the Critics have now found another decalogue which they exalt as of equal importance with the law of Ex. 20: 1-17. Of Ex. 34: 11-26, Briggs says, “It is now the opinion of many Critics that we have here another decalogue.”—“The Bible, the Church, and the Reason,” page 250. All this notwithstanding the Bible recognizes but one moral law. It is called “the law.” “The law is holy.” Rom. 7: 12. “For I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” Rom. 7: 7. This proves that the Ten Commandments are by way of distinction “the law;” and any effort by the Critics to belittle this law is denying and defying their Lord, for He said, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law.” Matt. 5: 18. While “the Lord . . . will magnify the law, and make it honorable” (Isa. 42: 21), the Higher Critics are industriously engaged in destroying the law, and making it dishonorable.
That this is a matter of greatest importance is evident when we read that “I had not known sin, but by the law.” Rom. 7: 7. Diminish or destroy the sacredness of the law, and the “exceeding” sinfulness of sin (Rom. 7: 13) is equally diminished or as completely destroyed. And then are opened the flood-gates of sin and crime, for the only means by which sin and crime are known is the Ten Commandments.
Paul tells us that “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.” Rom. 5: 19. And not only do we see that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6: 23), but “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Rom. 3: 23. But the Higher Critics make God “a liar” (1 John 5: 10), for they say that “the fall is a giant step in human progress.”—Joseph Wood, “The Bible,” page 113. And this leads logically and inevitably to the conclusion that “SIN IS, AFTER ALL, A QUEST FOR GOD.”—Campbell, minister of London City Temple, “New Theology,” page 151.
Now, when we find ministers of the pure Gospel of Christ standing in the pulpit and actually teaching that when a man steals or commits adultery or murder he is only engaged in a very laudable “quest for God,” need we be surprised if the world and the church reap a terrible harvest in the near future, of sin of every hue, and crime of every magnitude?
Higher Critics Are Paving the Way
for the wholesale repudiation of the Bible not only by the world but by the church. “Why should you be alarmed,” asks a Higher Critic, “at following the light within you rather than the words of a book?”—Joseph Wood, “The Bible,” page 85. In other words, when your impulses point to a sin that the Bible prohibits, follow your impulse even if it results in crime, for that is a “quest for God.” Another minister puts it stronger: “Never mind what the Bible says.”—Campbell, “New Theology,” page 199.
Henceforth crime and criminals may flourish unrebuked; for have they not the sanction and even commendation of the ministers of the popular churches? This is a terrible thing to say; but read again the words of the Higher Critical ministers above quoted, and try if it is possible to torture English into any other meaning.
The Rev. H. P. Nichols, D.D., rector of the Holy Trinity Church of New York, after telling us that the Bible “can not survive, save as an historic monument,” unless it is cut up according to his skeptical formulas, ends with this surprising statement: “Christ Himself will survive, FOR THE NEW TESTAMENT MAY BE SAID TO BE NO LONGER ESSENTIAL TO MAN’S KNOWLEDGE OF HIM.”—“The Temporary and the Permanent in New Testament Revelation,” pages 20, 21. Stopping but a moment to call attention to the absolute impossibility of knowing Christ at all when the only8means by which He is known is discarded, I wish to call attention to the fact that this minister, along with the others quoted, says to “never mind what the Bible says,” but discard it, for it is not needed for a knowledge of sin, for sin is commendable; and is not needed for a knowledge of a Christ, who saves from sin, and came to the world for that express purpose. Since “sin is a quest for God,” and Christ came to save us from sin, then the logic of Higher Criticism leads inevitably to the conclusion that He came to hinder our progress! Since “the fall is a giant step in human progress,” and Christ came to restore us to our former condition, He comes to undo all the progress man has ever made. Now, I submit if this is not the meaning and logic of Higher Criticism, it has no meaning, and there is no such thing as logic.
Decalogue Not Sacred
That such teaching is not isolated and spasmodic, but is wide-spread, and continuously and assiduously taught all over the land, is proved by the two years of investigation of Harold Bolce, reported in the Cosmopolitan: “In hundreds of class rooms it is being taught daily that the Decalogue is no more sacred that a syllabus; . . . that there are no absolute evils; that immorality is simply an act in contravention of society’s accepted standards; . . . that moral precepts are passing shibboleths; that conceptions of right and wrong are as unstable as styles of dress; . . . that the sole effect of prolificacy is to fill tiny graves; that there can be and are holier alliances without the marriage bond than within it.”
With hundreds of learned university professors and hundreds of honored divines proclaiming in every nook and corner of the land, to the innocent little boy and girl in the Sunday-school class, to the father and mother in the pew, to the young man and the young woman in the college, that “the fall is a giant step in human progress,” that “sin is only a name for a process or phase of Evolution,” or “sin is a quest after God,” and “never mind what the Bible says,” do as you please, it is impossible to do wrong, for there is no wrong — what can we expect the result to be, I ask, but the harvest of sin and crime and disease and disaster all over this fair land of ours in the near future? The wind has been sown, and we are even now beginning to reap the whirlwind in the terrible increase of murders and sins of every degree, in the multiplication of horrors on every hand.
As a result manhood is debauched, honor is sold in high places, corruption stalks through the land unrebuked save by a few who are looked upon as fanatics, sin sits in pew and pulpit, in cultured homes and in legislative halls, and reigns supreme. Theft, murder, and every hateful crime runs riot among mere children, and the Higher Critics go on preaching that “sin is a quest after God”!
The reader may well ask, What is the significance of all this? what does it portend? Does this saturnalia of crime herald the approach of the millennium?
A Prophetic Last-Day Picture
We find this condition faithfully pictured in 2 Tim. 3: 1-7: 'But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding a form of godliness, but having denied the power thereof: from these also turn away. For of these are they that creep into houses, and take captive silly women laden with sins, led away by divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.'
This condition Christ said would be a sign of His coming. 'As were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days which were before the Flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the Flood came, and took them all away; so shall be the coming of the Son of Man.' Matt. 24: 37-39. Now let us see how it was at the time of the Flood: 'And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.' Gen. 6: 5.
Higher Criticism, then, is but one more of the great evils palmed off on the world by Satan to take the world captive, and deceive not only the world but the church as to the fact that the end of the world and the coming of Christ are near at hand and hasten greatly. Higher Criticism is but Satan in the pulpit, preaching the church-members into carnal security, and telling them that the Bible is but the historic monument of the past and of no more authority than 'the work of Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth.'—Balmforth, 'The Bible,' volume 2, page 264.
Higher Criticism is thus seen to be at once a symptom of rabid skepticism in the churches, a festering malady that afflicts society, a terrible sin that deludes the individual, and an unmistakable sign of the end of the world and the coming of Christ.
Dear reader, there are a people that believe that all phases of sin are 'exceeding sinful' (Rom. 7: 13), and exalt the moral law of God as the transcript of His character, and look to Christ as the Sinless One who is our Pattern and Saviour; and there is a church which repudiates the premises, principles, teachings, and conclusions of Higher Critics, with all their attendant deceptions and delusions; repudiates them absolutely, utterly, and stands unshaken upon the adamant foundation of the whole Bible as the inspired and infallible Word of God. In the next article, 'Higher Criticism and the Church,' we will tell you more about it.
A Heartless Game
By Charles Haddon Spurgeon
WHATEVER we do to please ourselves, and only for the sake of the pleasure, not for an ultimate object, is "play," the "pleasing thing," not the useful thing. The first of all English games is making money. That is an all-absorbing game; and we knock each other down oftener in playing at that than at football, or any other rougher sport; and it is absolutely without purpose; no one who engages heartily in that game ever knows why. Ask a great money-maker what he wants to do with his money—he never knows. He doesn't make it to do anything with it. He gets it only that he may get it. "What will you make of what you have got?" you ask. "Well, I'll get more," he says. Just as at cricket you get more runs. There is no use in the runs; but to get more of them than other people is the game. And there is no use in the money; but to have more of it than other people is the game.
—C. H. Spurgeon.
Our Bible Reading
The Sabbath at the Exodus
1. What command did God give from Sinai regarding the Sabbath?
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: . . . for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex. 20: 8-11.
2. Thirty days before Israel came to Sinai what did the Lord say that He would do with His people?
"Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I MAY PROVE THEM, whether they will walk in MY LAW, or no." Ex. 16: 4.
3. Over what institution of His law were the people tried?
"And Moses said, Eat that to-day; for to-day is a Sabbath unto the Lord: to-day ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it; but on THE SEVENTH DAY, WHICH IS THE SABBATH, in it there shall be none." Verses 25, 26.
4. How did the people regard this prohibition and miracle?
"And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none." Verse 27.
5. What rebuke did the Lord utter because of their action?
"And the Lord said unto Moses, HOW LONG REFUSE YE TO KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS AND MY LAWS? See, for that THE LORD HATH GIVEN YOU THE SABBATH, therefore He giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; . . . let no man go out of his place on the seventh DAY." Verses 28, 29.
6. What was the result of this rebuke?
"So the people RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY." Verse 30.
NOTE: It is impossible to read this chapter or these scriptures with any other conclusion than that it was the Lord's design that the people should keep His Sabbath; that it was a known institution and one of His laws before His law was given from Sinai. He said He would "prove" them whether they would keep His law or not; and He proved them by bringing them back to the Sabbath, which they had not known in the days of Egyptian slavery. They were there compelled to work upon that day and consequently could not keep the Sabbath. As soon as they came under the Lord's jurisdiction He brought to them again the Sabbath to test their loyalty to Him. The Sabbath therefore was one of God's laws before the Decalogue was uttered from Sinai.
7. What complaint of Pharaoh's showed that it was the design of the Lord that Moses should bring the people back to Sabbath observance in Egypt?
"And Pharaoh said, Behold, the people of the land now are many, and ye make them REST FROM THEIR BURDENS." Ex. 5: 5.
NOTE: The word from which "rest" comes is the same word from which "Sabbath" comes. In fact, the Hebrew word "Sabbath" means rest. Moses had gone down to poor, enslaved, idolatrous Israel and told them that God had remembered His promise. One of the first things seemingly which they did was to return to the Sabbath—at least some of them. They Sabbatized. Of this Pharaoh complained that Moses made the children of Israel rest from their burdens; consequently he demanded that more work should be laid upon them so that they would get no time in the heavier tasks to keep the Sabbath of the Lord.
8. What miracle did the Lord perform in order that the day of the Sabbath might be emphasized?
"See, for that THE LORD HATH GIVEN YOU THE SABBATH, therefore He GIVETH you on the sixth day the bread of two days." Ex. 16: 29.
9. What further manifestation of His power was shown in the pointing out of the definite day?
"Eat that to-day; for to-day is a SABBATH UNTO THE LORD: to-day YE SHALL NOT FIND IT IN THE FIELD." Verse 25.
10. What further manifestation of God's miraculous power was manifested in connection with this day?
"TO-MORROW is the rest of the HOLY SABBATH unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over LAY UP FOR YOU TO BE KEPT UNTIL THE MORNING. And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it DID NOT STINK, neither was there any worm therein." Verses 23, 24.
11. How was it with the manna which was kept over from other days than the sixth?
"But some of them left of it until the morning, and IT BRED WORMS, AND STANK." Verse 20.
NOTE: It will be observed from this that the Lord pointed out the definite day of the Sabbath in that no manna fell upon that day; a double portion fell on the day before so that food would be provided for the Sabbath; that which was kept over on any other day of the week than the sixth day bred worms and decayed; that which was kept over from the sixth day to the seventh day kept fresh and good. And when people sought manna in the fields on the seventh day the Lord rebuked them for disobedience to His laws. And this great multifold miracle was wrought in order that men might definitely know that but one day was the Sabbath, namely, the seventh day.
12. For how long did this lesson continue?
"And the children of Israel did eat manna FORTY YEARS, until they came to a land inhabited." Verse 35.
THERE are two books covered in this week’s lesson; those of Ezra and Esther. Ezra himself was a priest, and one of the influential leaders with Zerubbabel the governor in leading the children of Israel back from the captivity to the building of the temple at Jerusalem. The time of the center of Ezra’s work was about 456. This is followed by the book of Esther, a wife of Xerxes, the Ahasuerus of the Bible. In God’s providence she came to the throne of Persia and worked salvation for the children of Israel. We can not take time to dwell upon the period covered by either of these books, as it is quite fully presented in the articles now running in the SIGNS under “Out of Babylon to Zion.”
This week’s reading also includes the book of Haggai and part of Zechariah. Both Haggai and Zechariah were prophets of the captivity, and greatly encouraged Zerubbabel and Ezra and others in the building of the temple.
Optimism and Pessimism
By Editor
OPTIMISM is defined as “the doctrine that everything is ordered for the best; a disposition to take a hopeful view of things.”
“Pessimism” as “a temper of mind that looks too much on the dark side of things; a depressing view of life.”
Optimism is from the Latin optimus, “best;” pessimism from pessimus, meaning “worst.”
There may be a true optimism and a true pessimism held by the same person, but the common terminology of the present day does not know them.
To illustrate: Here is a man sick with the typhoid fever. He has been a dissipated man. His constitution has been weakened by the ravages of vice. His blood is corrupt. All the functions of the normal man were perverted before the typhoid fever germs laid hold upon him. Now his temperature is very high and has been for days. His heart action is very weak. He is suffering much pain with great local congestion. We would call that physician a deceiver who in the face of all these untoward symptoms and many others which the practised eye noted, would say that the patient was doing well and was sure to recover. We would not call him a pessimist if he told the family that they should be prepared for the worst.
If ever there was a time in the history of the race when men should weigh things calmly in the balances of eternal principles, that time is now. It is a divine admonition of universal application: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life.”
That is the law universally and eternally applicable to every responsible soul. Let it apply.
“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
Whatsoever a woman soweth, that shall she also reap.
Whatsoever a company, or trust, or nation, or government, or church, soweth, that shall it reap. There is no escape from the law.
How foolish it is, then, for a modern “optimist” to tell us that a church which is departing from the law of its life is somehow, someway, somewhere, to come out right and for the best for that church. Take, for instance, the great Protestant churches which were founded on the Bible, the Word of God, as an all-sufficient rule of faith, on Jesus Christ as the only Saviour, on the Holy Spirit as the propagator and conservator of the faith; can we say, when that church by her teachings and decisions repudiates the Bible, denies the Deity and efficacy of her Lord, turns to the state instead of seeking the Spirit’s aid, that it shall be well in the persistence of such a course! Even in the light of all her wealth and education and pretensions and works of charity, can we say in the face of her awful departure from the fundamentals, It is well, it is best!
When we see America, “the land of the free, the home of the brave,” the land of liberty to the oppressed of earth, the star of hope in the night of tyranny and intolerance — when we see America departing from the principles which gave her life, and more and more imbibing the principles which made the Dark Ages what they were, can we say, It is best for America! Can we declare that out of this course will come good? “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man [a nation] soweth, that shall he [it] also reap.”
Jeremiah’s awful inveighings, fearfully solemn warnings, heart-breaking appeals, tearful entreaties, to Judah of old, would be called in the current language to-day “pessimism,” and the youthful prophet a “croaker.” His prediction of the destruction of city and temple by the king of Babylon was not the best for that nation. And the false prophets who predicted the early defeat of the conquering Nebuchadnezzar were considered optimists. Nevertheless every prediction of the unpopular prophet came true, and Jerusalem reaped to the full her harvest of cockle and thistles.
But Jerusalem’s doom was not irrevocable, nor is that of Protestantism, nor is that of America. But to avoid the certain corruption, disintegration, destruction, there must be a change in seed-sowing, a turning from sin to righteousness, from the fountain of fatal disease and deadly malady to the fountain of life and healing in Jesus Christ. There may be a repudiation of sin and transgression, and all-absorbing acceptance of God’s grace in Jesus Christ, which will bring healing and life and peace more abundantly.
For the soul, the church, that does this there may be the greatest optimism. All for him will turn out for the best. The very stars in their courses will fight for him. Persecution will bring him nearer the Master’s side. The loss of all things earthly will invest him with all things heavenly, and the very grave shall be tunneled by the inherent power of immortal righteousness, of indissoluble life. For to the souls that have chosen righteousness is the assurance: “We know that to them that love God, God worketh all things with them for good.” Not by some “fortuitous concourse of atoms” is wrought good, but God actively, purposely, works for His own.
Sin will meet its worst for sin, its best for good,—destruction. Righteousness will meet its worst for evil, but the eternally best for itself,—life and immortality. The evil man does well to be a pessimist in the persistence of evil. The good man only is the true optimist.
The Divine Oneness
GOD was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself,” says the Word of the Spirit in 2 Cor. 5:19. Men are sometimes prone to ascribe one character to God, and another to Christ. God the Father is to them just and exacting, Christ tender and merciful. But the apostle declares that God was in Christ in the great work of reconciliation. Says Jesus to His disciples, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?” John 14:9.
Whatever we see in Christ that is loving, pitiful, tender, compassionate, self-sacrificing, such is the Father. Whatever we have revealed of the justice, the integrity, the absolute perfectness and holiness of God, such is Christ. “I and My Father are one,” says our Lord — one in character, one in purpose, one in thought; and Christ is the manifestation of the Godhead to us. Through Him came the Word; for He is the Word Incarnate, the Way, the Truth, the Life. “For it pleased the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell.” God is one; His Word is one; His people are one, but only in Him.
The Word of God Endures Forever
MAN may ridicule the simple faith of him who trusts in the simple Word of God; but it will nevertheless forever remain true that “all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the Word of the Lord endureth forever.” 1 Peter 1: 24, 25.
Reputation and Character
An over-regard or anxiety for our reputation is a sure sign of a weakness of faith and lack of character. He whose character is well founded need not worry about his reputation. The Lord will care for that.
