Signs of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 11. (3/15/1905)

Signs of the Times

Mar 15, 1905

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Mar 15, 1905

KEEPING FAITH

By Llewellyn A. Morrison

BY LLEWELLYN A. MORRISON.

Are you keeping faith with Jesus, Ye who call upon His name? When ye sought Him in the sorrow and the rue, Ye were pleading for a pardon And your spirits were aflame With a purpose to obey Him and be true.

Refrain: Are you keeping faith, beloved? Is the Lord your all in all? Do you love Him for His leading all the way? Are you striving for His glory, And to run where He doth call? Are you living as you promised day by day?

Are you keeping faith with Jesus In your planning and your thought? Are you constant in your fealty—heart and brain? When the siren songs of passion Charm the senses, all unsought, Do you listen to the amorous refrain?

Are you keeping faith with Jesus In your service and your praise? By your doing may He not define your creed? When the one returns to thank Him— While the nine pass on their ways— He remembers and doth glorify the deed.

Are you keeping faith with Jesus? He, for you, has kept the faith; Ye have now the Holy Spirit for your own. Blest assurance, grace and guidance, Hope and victory over death, And you all may reign beside Him on His throne.

Toronto, Canada.

Some Up-To-Date BOOKS

SPECIAL MEETING OF STOCKHOLDERS.

Notice is hereby given of a special meeting of the stockholders of Healdsburg College at the College in Healdsburg, Cal., Monday, March 20, 1905, at 11 A. M.

This important meeting is called to consider and decide upon the plans on which the school shall be operated in the future; also its relation to the proposed Union Conference Training School in California, and intermediate schools in this conference.

Shall we approve this action of the Pacific Union Conference?
What shall we do with our property?
Shall we establish an intermediate school? If so, shall it be operated in our present buildings, or be started in a rural community?

It is very necessary, also, to have some changes made in our by-laws, place of meeting, etc. In order to do this we must have two-thirds of the stock of the corporation represented. We strongly urge a large attendance, for serious problems must be solved.

College Board, M. H. BROWN, President. H. G. LUCAS, Secretary.

Renewing the Signs Subscription

By Mrs. A. D. Aycock

"ENCLOSED is $1.50 for the renewal of the dear old SIGNS. I could not give it up. Am taking all our papers, and thought I would have to give some of them up; but, praise the Lord, I can still take them." MRS. A. D. AYCOCK

SIBERIA AND THE NIHILISTS.

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A STUDY OF THE HUMAN BODY.

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For the Children

The House We Live In

A story of our bodily dwelling, told in a way to attract the attention of children, as well as to very much interest them in the important subject of keeping their bodies in a healthy condition. It is more often the rule than the exception that the grown-up children become quite as interested as the smaller ones.

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A STRONG INFLUENCE FOR EVIL.

THE proverb, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it," expresses a truth which is older than Solomon. In every age and among every people its truth has been attested, or its opposite has been seen. "As the twig is bent the tree's inclined," is another truism.

Because these are facts, the enemy of truth and righteousness has directed his campaign along the same lines. Said a Catholic clergyman, "Give me the child until he is twelve years old, and I care not what his surroundings may be after that." It is generally known that the early teaching of the child, the bent that is given to his thinking machine at that time, will, in a great measure, shape his whole future life.

In view of these facts, how carefully should the parent deal with the little life that is committed to his or her care! How careful should the parent be of the mind food which the child is permitted to assimilate, as well as of the persons with whom the child associates! The whole course of his life is in the balance at that time. He may be given the artificial food which stimulates the skeptical side of the child's nature, or puts an unreal glow over everything of a material or spiritual nature; or he may be given the real food that will help him to come into the estate of a full-blown manhood. How great a responsibility rests upon the teacher in this matter, only the judgment can fully reveal.

A Fomenter of Discord.

One of the most deplorable features of modern times is the frivolous, unreal, and even skeptical conception of life which we meet so frequently, especially on the part of those who have but recently come to the estate of manhood and womanhood—who have but recently graduated from our high schools, academies, and colleges. It is due in large measure to the stimulating, highly-seasoned dishes of fiction with which the curriculum is crowded. From the mythical follies of heathendom to the imaginary life of the novel's hero or heroine, the general trend of influence is the same. The air-castle conception of life which it breeds is carried into the married life, and becomes a fomenter of all kinds of domestic discord. The wife or the husband is not like the pen-creation of the story-book, the character of the husband is found to be very different from that of the god or demi-god of mythology, which had somehow woven itself, perhaps unconsciously, into the ideal of the other party; all dissimilar traits are marked, remarked, and magnified, till separation comes in one way or another. The disillusioned party considers himself or herself imposed upon; they have not found their affinity, and would seek again for the counterpart of that ideal which was conjured up in the mirage of their mind wanderings.

But the delusion does not end in the sundering of the marriage ties. It is not aimed at that alone. The very transactions of every-day life, the purpose of life, the object in living, the conception of God, and the work of the Gospel—all are colored, disarranged, metamorphosed, by this lens of unreality through which the young of to-day are taught to look. The mirage is taken for the real, and the real is shrouded in a mist of unreality, designed by Satan to confuse, blind, and destroy.

A Dangerous Food for Children.

One of the chief feeders of this dangerous stream is the fictitious literature which the pupils of our public schools are compelled to read and assimilate. Many thoughtful parents of all shades of religious beliefs, and some who have none, realize the grave danger in this modern method of giving pupils a "literary education." All the sophistry, mythology, and carnal philosophy of the ancients are bundled into the curriculum of our schools, till the minds of the children in this, their most plastic period, are stuffed and clogged with these worse than useless husks, and their fermentation is breeding the bacilli of insanity, suicide, recklessness, domestic discord, skepticism, and the wild theorizing of theosophy and evolution. The tendency is realized and deplored by many who feel their utter helplessness against it, knowing that the purpose of this increasing flood of evil is to turn a beneficial institution away from its legitimate purpose, and put within it the possibilities of incalculable harm. Many schoolteachers and not a few principals feel the danger of the present tendencies, but they feel unequal to the task of checking or altering the course of that dangerous flood. Were a healthy parental influence arrayed against it, these educators would be strengthened and encouraged to grapple with the evil; but the tide is strong, and the opposition unorganized.

One of the most discouraging features of the situation is the fact that there are religious journals, that are supposedly set for the advancement of the cause of God in the earth, but yet are throwing the weight of their influence in favor of this fiction-education, both in the school and in the home.

The child learns rapidly. What a responsibility there is, then, upon the shoulders of the parent and teacher, to see to it that what he learns is that which will help him toward a strong, Christian manhood. We have read of parents who have given their children beer and whisky. What these concoctions of evil are able to do against the physical side of the child's nature, the mythological, fiction-literature can do and does do against the child's moral and spiritual nature. It is a strong, undermining influence, and its powerful sweep and swirl are felt in every part of the world to-day.

THE GOOD TIDINGS.

OUR word "Gospel" comes from two Greek words meaning to announce or tell good news. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a good message of good things. It does not come to men to deprive them of one good thing, but to tell them of good things which they do not have, but which they may have through its acceptance.

THE Gospel does not come to sinful men to tell them they need no salvation. It does not tell them that they have eternal life already, tho they do not know it. It does not declare to the sinner that you have salvation and immortality within yourself; and all that you need to do is to recognize the fact. It is a perverted gospel, not the truth of God, which teaches such things.

THE Gospel of Jesus Christ comes to men just where they are—lost, condemned sinners, sold under sin, a slave in sin's bondage, doomed to certain death. Man feels it all instinctively at times, argue tho he will against it. The Gospel of God does not hide this fact. Nay, more, it distinctly and emphatically affirms it. It tells man that he is hopelessly sick with sin; that he has no power within himself to cure his soul or to break sin's fetters. It holds the mirror of God's law before the sinner, that he may know his true condition, and see how utterly wretched and hopelessly lost he is.

BUT, praise God, the good, true message does not leave him there. The mighty Physician, who has so truly diagnosed his case, is potent to heal. He who has revealed the sin, the condition, can heal it by a word. He who has told us that only death awaits our condition, offers us life. He who has made known to us what we have been so slow to learn, namely, that we are "without strength," freely offers to us the creative energy of God, "the power of an endless life."

O SOUL, in the prison-house of sin, this salvation in Christ Jesus is for you! Give up all the sin, the rebellion against God, and accept the Lord Jesus. Cleansing from iniquity, healing of soul, liberty in Him, power over sin, everlasting life, all are yours—all brought to you in the everlasting Good Tidings, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, why not believe the message, and make the Good Tidings of God glad tidings to you?

"NEVER MAN SPAKE LIKE THIS MAN"

THESE were the words of officers sent to arrest Jesus, when they returned to the chief priests and Pharisees who had sent them. This was the official return on the warrant issued for the arrest of the Man whose work and teaching the rulers desired to have stopped. What was there about His words that could have such an influence even upon the officers of the law? They evidently contained strong conviction that Jesus was not a criminal, but, on the contrary, was too holy to be molested on suspicion. There was a power in them that even armed officials could not overcome, altho they were not spoken in special resistance to constituted authority.

Of His words, or teaching, Jesus Himself said: "The word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's which sent Me." John 14: 24. This accounts for the power which His words contained. Again, He said, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." Chapter 6:63. By faith the Roman centurion recognized the power of Christ's word, when he said, "I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." Matt. 8:8.

At Capernaum, when Jesus had cast an unclean spirit out of a man in the synagog, the people said, "What a word is this! for with authority and power He commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out." Luke 4: 36. When He commanded the stormy sea to be still, those who witnessed the effect said, "What manner of Man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him!" When "many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him," on account of what they deemed "a hard saying" that none could receive, He asked His immediate companions, "the twelve," what they would do. Peter answered, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." John 6:68.

The psalmist says, "The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." Ps. 12:6; also, Prov. 30:5. "Thy Word is very pure; therefore Thy servant loveth it." Ps. 119:140. So we are told to think on "whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely," etc. Phil. 4:8. In these days when there is so much complaint about adulterated food, it is a time to look for pure food. So the great Physician tells us that "man shall not live by bread [physical food] alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Matt. 4:4.

No man ever spoke as Jesus spake. In His word is "all wisdom" (Col. 3:16); He spake with power and authority and great influence (Luke 4:32, 36, 37, 41). Nor does His word lose any of its power when spoken in the wisdom of faith by His disciples. See Acts 1:8; 2:37-43; 4:4-14, 32, 33, and many other scriptures. Christ is Himself the Word of God (John 1:1-5, 14), therefore He is "the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:24), which enables Him to speak as "never man spake."

It is in the strength of this power and wisdom that His followers are to carry on His work in the earth (Matt. 28:18-20). So they are again solemnly enjoined by His Spirit to "preach the Word." See 2 Tim. 4:1-4. Thus the Word of Christ, who spoke as never man spake, is to be our infallible guide against false doctrine until He come again to reap the final harvest. G.

LIFE AND LAW.

ONCE more we study the great question of life, and repeat again the same scripture we used in our article on life last week:

"If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you. "So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh; for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Rom. 8:9-13.

We learned in our previous study that the source of all life was one—namely, God the Creator; that God had given this life to the world through His Son; that the God of life is the God of law; that His own perfect plan comprehended only perfect life in harmony with perfect law; that each thing created had a law peculiar to itself, differentiating it from all other creatures, that it maintained existence only as it continued in harmony with the law of its being; and that continuance of God's highest creatures in life depended on their relation to His highest law, the Decalogue, the reflect of His own character.

Nearly all these findings are axiomatic truths. Admitting the truth of the Scriptures, we need but to hear their simple statement to admit their verity.

Each of God's creatures receives life from Him according to the law of its being. If the law is perverted in its being, the life must be perverted also. If the law is perfect, the inflow of the life will be perfect also.

Man, in his normal condition, has a tripartite nature. He is composed of body, soul, and spirit. The body includes the fleshly, material part of man, manifest to our physical feelings. The life of the body is the soul. And every creature that breathes has soulical life. Without this life, the body is dead, and would soon decay. By that soulical life the physical man in and through his physical organs performs all the various functions of the fleshly man. All the senses are operative. The man talks, sees, hears, tastes, smells, feels. The brain thinks. The mind aspires, plans, loves, hates.

The spirit of man is that higher life which connects him with God; which leads him to worship, toil, sacrifice, for others' good, which, by the power of the endless life, harmonizes him with the Master of the universe. Through the normal, spiritual life God holds in subjection the soulical life, the physical man. It is God ruling, working, "to will and to do of His good pleasure" in harmony with the voluntary choice of man.

In the beginning, direct from God, man received the spirit life. That life controlled the whole man. His physical life was perpetuated by the food he ate, the air he breathed, the water he drank. But the spiritual life controlled all according to the will of the Creator. The spiritual life was fed by the word of God, ministered unto by heavenly angels, and received direct from the great Fountain continual supplies.

Perhaps it can be made plainer by some homely, tho imperfect, illustration. Imagine a little tree planted in a circle of perfectly-adapted living soil. Around this soil is another circle of soil, perfectly adapted to its purpose, but inferior in quality to the central soil. Into this outer circle the roots of the tree penetrate. Apart from these is a great fountain pulsing out its streams of life in every direction. On the side toward the fountain the outer circle is open, so that the perfect life-current flows direct from the fountain to the plant and to the inner circle of the soil. Through this medium the outer circle also receives vitality and added richness from the currents of life. The inferior soil in the outer circle constantly drinks in from the water flowing about it, and conveys life to the roots of the tree, which transmutes them into limb and leaf and flower and fruit.

Such was the primal man. His physical nature received life from the great Fountain, through the channels of food and air and water. The spiritual nature received eternal life direct from God through the channel of His law, His Word. The higher life controlled and enriched the lower. If man had continued obedient to the law of God, he would have lived forever.

But man sinned. He turned from God to the tempter. He rejected God's word and the higher life for the lower life. By that very act, he closed the channel of the spiritual life from God. He yielded, through a demand upon his appetite, the physical man to Satan, and sin became incarnate, infleshed. The normal law of man's physical life became perverted. Man's will and desires were placed athwart the current of God's life, and all its channels were perverted, and man became a dying soul. All the perverted flesh tended to corruption and decay. Yet, man having shut off the inflow of spiritual life, by the rejection of the word of God, the only channel of life that was left in his condition was the physical man, the flesh. Through that channel God poured His life; the flesh received it and constantly poisoned it by the sin within. Yet, notwithstanding this, existence was prolonged even by the life perverted through the flesh.

Where Fallen Man Stands.

There is where fallen man stands to-day; where he always has stood. He possesses no life save that which he receives from the flesh, that which is nourished through the flesh, that which is perverted by the flesh. He may prolong it and improve it in proportion as he brings his mode of life into harmony with the physical law of his being; but he knows no

higher life, and is separated by the flesh from the life of God; and sooner or later his life becomes extinct. His spiritual nature is dead. His condition is thus expressed by the apostle: “Dead through your trespasses and sins;” “separate from Christ,” “without God in the world;” “alienated from the life of God.” Eph. 2:11, 12; 4:18. They are carnal, without the Spirit. Rom. 8:5-9.

The only power which can break this bondage and bring life to the soul is Jesus Christ. This He does to the soul who is willing, submissive, believing. When the mind of the flesh, which is contrary to God’s law (Rom. 8:7), is yielded, Jesus Christ brings in the mind of the Spirit, the flesh is broken through, and the soul has access once more to the life of God flowing through the channel of His received Word.

The reception of this life is set forth in many scriptures; we quote, however, but two:

“And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life. These things have I written unto you [believers], that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.” 1 John 5:11-13.

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I [the carnal Paul] that live, but Christ liveth in me [by His Spirit]; and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.” Gal. 2:20.

He who does not have that indwelling Spirit by faith “is none of His.” But he who has that Spirit, the soul in whom Christ dwells, albeit the flesh is still the flesh of sin, therefore counted dead, finds the spiritual inflow life. And he finds it life, not because it flowed from the Fountain as perfect life—for that is true of the life of all—but because it is received through the only channel in which it can reach the heart—“righteousness.” “The spirit is life because of righteousness.” Rom. 8:10. “In the way of righteousness is life.” Prov. 12:28.

More than this. When man lives in the flesh, unbelief closes the avenues to the life of God. The only life he knows is the life that filters through a corrupted flesh, perverted by the perverted channels of a perverted law. The law that was ordained unto life, perverted in the flesh, is found to be unto death. Rom. 7:10. The law of righteousness in God has become in the flesh “the law of sin and death.” The spiritual man was dead; reason and will a slave.

But when all was yielded to Christ, He came. The carnal mind was slain. The Spirit of Christ came in, a ruling power, by the choice of the soul, over the flesh and fleshly desires. The mortal body is quickened by a new life power. The functions of the flesh, formerly, servants to sin, become servants of righteousness. Rom. 6:17-22. The Spirit puts to death, in their inception, “the deeds of the body,” and the man lives. Rom. 8:10-13. This life, maintained by faith, issues in glorious immortality at the second coming of Christ.

Reader, have you this life? or, are you living according to the flesh? Is it life? or is it death?

Continue reading: ESSENTIALS