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Review and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 17.

Publishers' Page

Review and Herald

Apr 29, 1902

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 29, 1902

Publishers' Page

Conducted by the Department of Circulation of the Review and Herald Publishing Company.

Foreign “Marvel of Nations”

“THE MARVEL OF NATIONS,” in the German and Danish editions, is now nearly completed, and will be ready for shipment by May 1. The Swedish is finished now, and the others will be in a few days.
This ought to be a good book to sell among the people speaking these languages in the United States. These people have identified themselves with this country, and are interested in its prosperity, and in any circumstances that may affect it in the future. The fact that this book is printed in the languages of these people, will impress them favorably, and the message it contains should reach them at once. This book has accomplished great good in the English language, and we hope that it will be the means of bringing thousands of our foreign neighbors to the knowledge of the truth for this time.
While the first part of the book deals largely with the growth and prosperity of this country, the intent of the entire book is to teach the people the facts of the prophecy concerning the future of this nation and the ushering in of the kingdom of God. The style and the general subject matter of the book are such as to attract the attention of the people, and render it easy to sell. All our brethren and sisters of these nationalities in the States should take an active part in the sale of this book, and our American membership should join them in placing it in the homes of the foreign families who reside apart from our foreign members. These new books should be pushed now with all the vigor of all the people in all the churches. They are easy books to sell.
The prospectus sells for 60 cts., post-paid. The foreign books sell for the same prices as the English—$1.25 and $1.50.
Place all orders with your State Tract Society.

A Rare Opportunity

BEGINNING with the third quarter of the present year, July 6, the International Sunday-School Lessons will, for the remainder of the year, be upon the exodus and the history of the children of Israel. Inasmuch as “Patriarchs and Prophets” is one of the best commentaries extant upon the exodus and the experiences of the Israelites, and can be easily shown to contain facts of great value to every Sunday-school superintendent, teacher, and pupil, from this time until July 6 is the golden opportunity to place this book in the homes of the Bible-reading people of this age. Our people must not let this unusually favorable time pass unimproved. While “Patriarchs and Prophets” teaches the message for this time in Old Testament Scriptures, there is not a book in our catalogue that contains more important instruction, and imparts it in a more acceptable manner, to all classes of people. It does not prejudice its reader. If we desire to lead people safely to the truth, there is no better book to put into their homes than “Patriarchs and Prophets.”
This present time is a providential opportunity. If our lay members will study “Patriarchs and Prophets” in connection with the International Sunday-School Lessons, they can easily interest their neighbors who are studying the lessons, and thousands of homes may thus be blessed with the teachings of this truth-filled volume. Many ought to consecrate themselves to the sale of this book until after July. All the State tract societies and all the publishing houses fill orders for this book.
The prices are as follows:— Drab English cloth, emblematic design in jet and gold, marbled edges ................ $2.25 Light-green English cloth, emblematic design in jet and gold, gold edges ............ $2.75 Library style, full sheep, combed marbled edges ..................................... $3.00 Full Turkey morocco, gold side and back, gold edges, extra finish ................... $4.50
Those who sell the book as agents get the usual discount. Write the State Tract Society for agents' prices and terms. Order all books from your State Tract Society.

Historical Notes

On the Tenth Chapter of Genesis, or “The Peopling of the Earth”

THESE notes are the result of the lessons given by A. T. Jones to the students of the Bible and history in Healdsburg College, Cal., in the winter of 1886-87. They form an excellent pamphlet of 96 pages.
The tenth chapter of Genesis is, to many, a mystery and a dead letter. This pamphlet will act as a beacon light, and cause the Bible reader to see in this chapter of Genesis something more than a barren list of almost meaningless names.
We certainly ought to understand the lessons contained in these so-called dry parts of the Word of God.
The pamphlet also contains chapters on The God of the Nations, The Beginnings of Kingdoms, and The Egyptian Empire. Price, only 15 cts.
Order of the Review and Herald Publishing Co.

Agent's Weekly Reports

THIS book is ruled expressly for entering the totals of the canvassers' weekly reports, as they are received from week to week. At the close of each month a total is taken of all the weekly reports received during the month, and forwarded to the union conference general agent. The book is so arranged that the keeping of this important record requires but little time; and when it is kept, it constitutes a perfect history and record of the work of every canvasser who was ever in the employ of any special conference. Each book has full directions printed on the first pages, and also an illustration of entries. It is bound like the Territorial Record, and is put up in books of 200 and 400 pages, and is designated as “small” and “large.” The small book costs $1.85, and the large book costs $2.75. With each book we send samples of the “Canvasser's Daily Record,” and the report blanks specially prepared for use in connection with the present system of reporting.
Order of the Review and Herald Publishing Co.

Territorial Record

THIS book is for keeping a record of the territory canvassed in any conference or district. When the record is faithfully kept, the State agent can see by simply glancing over one page just what portions of each county have been canvassed, by whom, and for what books. This will prove to be of great service to the State agents and tract society secretaries in locating agents in the field, and in keeping an intelligent record of work done in any specified territory.
The book is indexed and paged, so that any county in the state or conference can be turned to in an instant, and all the work ever done and recorded in that county, there stands revealed at a glance on the one double page.
It is substantially bound in black cloth, with leather back. The size of the book is 12¾ x 17 inches; and in order to adapt it to different-sized conferences, it is put up in books of 100, 200, and 300 pages, and is designated as “small,” “medium,” and “large.”
The 100-page book is $2.25; the 200-page book, $3; and the 300-page book, $3.75.
Order of the Review and Herald Publishing Co.

New Blank Books

Financial Church Record

RECOMMENDED for general use in all the churches by the General Conference Committee. This book is for the recording of the various offerings made in the several departments of the church. It is the financial record of the church. It does not take the place of the old church record—the membership record. Its form is so simple that any person in the church who can write and add figures, can keep it correctly. In each book there is given a sample page all filled out as an illustration of how the book is to be kept, and also full printed directions explaining the details in keeping the records. Everything about the book is made very plain.
Special receipt books and report blanks are prepared for these new Financial Church Records, and a limited supply will be sent with each book.
Substantially bound in black cloth, with leather back. Contains 100 pages. Price, $1.
Order of your State Tract Society.

Something for Your Swedish Neighbors

No doubt you have often thought what you could do to place the message for this time before them. Well, here we offer you an excellent opportunity. We have in the Swedish language a book of 128 pages, containing a series of thirty-eight Bible readings, simple and easy, designed as an aid to the personal study of the Scriptures, and adapted to the use of individuals or families, just the thing to place in your Swedish neighbor's hands. These readings are prepared by practical Bible workers and teachers, and they contain the most important subjects that pertain to the spiritual welfare of mankind at the present time. Now the opportunity is yours. Will you make use of it?
This “Helps to Bible Study” in pamphlet form costs only 20 cts. Order immediately before the supply is sold. Review and Herald Publishing Co., Battle Creek, Mich.

The Message of the Flowers

By Editor

Editorial

Awake

THIS is the season of the year when those who listen for it may hear the voice of the Lord in the field and in the forest, saying, “Awake, awake; put on thy strength!” And in response to this call to new life and action, innumerable spires of grass lift up their heads and rejoice. “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth.” And myriads of branches of trees, which have been bared to the pitiless storms of winter, will soon be clothed with the beautiful garments which are woven by the power of the living word.

The Message of the Flowers

THE Lord has written a message for us on every blade of grass, and he wishes us to read it. This is just as much for our learning as the things which were written aforetime. Has he not said unto us, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” Upon every spire of grass, upon every leaf and blossom, is written in living form the gospel of the manifested life, and we are assured by them that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal bodies. As an essential part of this lesson comes the teaching that the beauty in which God delights is not the artificial adornment which human skill can supply, but that beauty which is simply the outward revelation of the inward life. “Our Saviour bade us consider the lilies how they grow, not merely because of their lavish wealth of beautiful adorning, but because of the most important lessons for the spiritual life which they suggest. They are decked with more than the glory of Solomon, because they have more than the wisdom of Solomon to teach us.”

The Lesson of Service

BUT all this lavish revelation of life and power is not merely that the earth may be covered with a beautiful carpet, and that the bare branches may be decked in beautiful garments. There is abundant beauty, and it is right to enjoy it all, but the beauty is, after all, merely incidental, although showing at the same time how the highest type of genuine beauty is consistent with the most commonplace service. For the grass and the leaves and the blossoms have a definite service to perform. They are not called into being merely to be beautiful, merely to be looked at. They have a mission to perform in what we call the economy of nature, which is simply the visible working of God's life about us. Each one fills its place and renders its service in harmony with the great plan of the Creator of all, and by this willing and harmonious co-operation the whole scheme of God's providence is wrought out. From mountain, field, and forest there comes with a loud voice the divine lesson, “None of us liveth to himself,” “By love serve one another.” “There is no leaf of the forest, or lowly blade of grass, but has its ministry. Every tree and shrub and leaf pours forth that element of life, without which neither man nor animal could live; and man and animal, in turn, minister to the life of tree and shrub and leaf. The flowers breathe fragrance and unfold their beauty in blessing to the world.” They all teach us the blessed gospel of service.

An Unmistakable Sign

BUT the lesson of service is not the only lesson which this season of awakening teaches us. This annual miracle of the putting forth of the leaves, and the assurance which it is of a change in the seasons, have been used by our Saviour in his teaching as the measure of our certainty concerning the nearness of his coming when certain signs have been fulfilled. “And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.” That this means definitely the coming of the Lord is evident from what is said in Matthew's record. “When ye shall see all these things, know that he is near, even at the doors.” In this generation, therefore, when all these signs mentioned by the Saviour are in the past, every spring season with its budding and blossoming trees is an emphatic reminder that the coming of the Lord is just as surely near as is the coming of the summer. The Lord has given to believers abundant ground for certainty concerning the nearness of the greatest event of the ages,—his second coming to this earth. “Ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.” And the certainty of the nearness of the coming of the Lord should be a cause of rejoicing, as it is the consummation of our redemption. All nature unites in the rejoicing over this blessed redemption. “Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.” And so all nature rejoices in view of the Lord's coming. “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord; for he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth.” Let all those who are “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,” read with renewed interest and expectancy the message of the flowers and the trees, and with an increasing sense of joy and certainty join in the grand awakening of the season, give themselves anew to service, and thus await the glorious springtide of the centuries, “the manifestation of his coming.”

Twenty Years and Seventy Years

By Uriah Smith

BEFORE this number of the REVIEW reaches the majority of its readers, the writer of these lines will have passed an important milestone on his life journey. It is the passing of that period which Moses, the man of God, in the ninetieth Psalm, specifies as the ordinary limit of a man's natural life. He says,in verse 10: “The days of our years are three-score years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” Born the 2d day of May, 1832, on the 2d day of May, 1902, we shall have filled out the full measure of the specified period of three-score years and ten; and as we look back over these years, we see many occasions that call for thanksgiving and gratitude to God for his intervening providences and sparing mercies. Even life itself, in these days, this culmination of the world's history, can be attributed alone to God's mercy. The old hymn expresses sentiments dear to every true Adventist heart:—
“I do rejoice that life was given In these last days to me, That, deathless, I may rise to heaven, And my Redeemer see.”
But next to life itself, we prize the privilege of being called to a knowledge of the truth which God is sending forth to the world in these last days, and having the opportunity of acting some humble part therein. Over fifty years have been spent in this relation; but, alas! how far short of the standard have they been! May 1, 1902, completes fifty years of connection with the Review Office. As our mind runs back over these fifty years, how many shortcomings and failures appear all along the way! These might fill many a chapter. But shall we dwell on these things? A stanza of hymn 538 duly mingles regret and hope in this connection:—
“Much of my time has run to waste, And I, perhaps, am near my home; But he forgives my follies past, And gives me strength for days to come.”
The fifty years of service on the REVIEW, has been a great privilege. As our life has been bound up in it, our interest has been centered there. We have rejoiced in its prosperity. We see many shortcomings, defects, and failures to regret, but the hope which it has tried to defend is still bright; and the truth for which it has stood, remains firm and unshaken. All the storms it has encountered have not shaken its firm pillars, or dimmed its glory. “We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:16. While the apostle enjoins “forgetting those things which are behind,” he also counsels “reaching forth unto those things which are before.” Phil. 3:13. There is nothing behind to which look back to, nor to go back to. All our hope is before. “We are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” Heb. 10:38, 39. We are loving the appearing of Christ, and longing for him, that day. 2 Tim. 4:8. All our sympathies are with Christ, in his gracious work for the redemption of a lost world. And we hope to be among the company, when he shall see the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. Isa. 53:11.
U. S.

The Reason for Giving Thanks

“O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever.” At all times and under all circumstances the real reason for giving thanks unto the Lord is the same,—he is good. Goodness is an attribute of God alone. “There is none good but one, that is, God.” To thank him because he is good is to thank him because he is God, and to acknowledge him as God.
“The Lord is good to all,” and therefore all ought to give thanks to him, and to acknowledge him as the only true and living God. It is because he is good that he is good to all. Goodness knows no partiality. Goodness treats all alike, not because they are all equally deserving, but because of the very nature of goodness. That kind of so-called goodness which prompts us to treat some better than others because we regard them as more worthy, is not goodness at all, but mere selfishness. There is no respect of persons with God. He does not confine his goodness to good people. “For a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
It is easy for us to think the Lord is good and to give thanks when all outward circumstances are favorable, and our feelings are in harmony with the statement of the Scripture, but the test comes when outward appearances and the testimony of our own feelings do not harmonize with the testimony of the Bible that the Lord is good. It is then that we find out whether our confidence in the goodness of the Lord rests upon our own feelings and our own estimate of goodness, or whether we believe the Lord’s own statement concerning his own character. When once we have accepted as an eternal truth the assurance of the word that the Lord is good, then we always have a substantial reason for giving thanks, even when all things seems to be against us. It may be just then that the Lord is working out a victory for us whose value is beyond estimate. The loss of outward possessions, and even the endurance of suffering, may be the Lord’s channel for imparting to us a development of character which will enable us to come into closer fellowship with him. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
The Lord invites us to give thanks to him, not because he desires us to speak mere complimentary words to him, but to us because our thanksgiving opens the way upon
world. for him to increase his blessings to us. Praise opens wider the channel of blessing. “Whoso offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifieth me; and prepareth a way that I may show him the salvation of God.” Let us who desire to see the salvation of God begin to praise him, not simply for what he does for us in bestowing those blessings which seem to us to be proof of goodness from our standpoint, but because he is good, and therefore all that he does must be good, “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, . . . for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” “O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good.”
“The sun that keeps his trackless way, And downward pours his golden flood, Night’s sparkling hosts all seem to say, In accents clear, that God is good.
“The merry birds prolong the strain, Their songs with every spring renewed; And balmy air, and falling rain, Each softly whispers, God is good.
“We hear it in the rushing breeze; The hills, that have for ages stood, The echoing sky, and roaring seas, All swell the chorus, God is good.
“Yes; God is good, all nature says, By God’s own hand with speech endued; And we, in louder notes of praise, Will sing for joy that God is good.”

The Way of the Lord

By L. A. S.

“As for God, his way is perfect.” “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” 2 Sam. 22:31; Matt. 5:48.
The Creator has no use for imperfections. Common as these are in this world, they are altogether unnatural and unnecessary from the standpoint of him to whose creative power all things owe their existence. From God’s standpoint, which is the only true and right standpoint, it is just as easy to be perfect as to be imperfect, and even easier, because perfection is God’s own way in everything.
It is not, therefore, a strange, unnatural, or unreasonable thing which God requires of us, in the admonition, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
But how are we to be perfect—we who are by nature imperfect, and without either the wisdom or the power to raise ourselves to the high plane of a perfect life? Upon the face of all nature we may read the answer to our query. Nature speaks to us with the voice of God, and the words which nature speaks are the same words which come to us from the lips of him whose life was a perfect revelation of God to men—“Be ye therefore perfect.” All nature speaks to us of God’s perfection. Everywhere upon the face of God’s handiwork thetestimony is written, the way of the Lord is perfect.
Why do we find so much to admire in nature?—It is because we find in nature so much perfection. We cannot suggest any improvement upon nature,—upon the texture, coloring, and fragrance of rose and violet, of lily and hyacinth and carnation, or upon the foliage of tree and bush, or the fresh green of the springing grass, or the inimitable coloring of the sunset. We cannot imitate such workmanship; we are conscious that it is altogether beyond us, that it could not be better than it is; and it is from this consciousness of its perfection that we draw our delight in beholding it. It would be a sad blow to our enjoyment of life were the trees, the grass, the flowers, to transgress the laws of their being, and fail to reflect the glory of the Creator. We realize the necessity that nature should be perfect; while at the same time we live as if imperfection were an inevitable, if not a desirable, state of existence for ourselves.
But there is but one God; the God of nature is our God, and he will have nothing short of perfection in all his works. And so he has admonished us, both in his written Word and in all nature, that we should be perfect; and not only does he admonish us of our duty, but he continually demonstrates before us, in his works, the possibility of its realization. He continually tells us, if we read aright his message through his handiwork, that perfection is a natural state,—a state ordained from the first, and the one that must result from the operation of the laws that are eternal.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard [or, “without these their voice is heard”]; their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. . . . The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Ps. 19: 1-7. The heavenly bodies are governed by the law of the Lord, and they testify that his law is perfect. They are perfect in all their movements; they never fail; they never disappoint the calculations of the astronomer. There is no variation, no flaw, in the performance of their divinely appointed functions. Thus they testify to the perfection of the law of him by whom they were ordained.
The only reason that man is not perfect is that the law of God does not have free course in him, as it has in the things of nature. The law is perfect, and would produce perfection in man, as in the things of nature, if man would let it. But man resists it. He has no power to make himself perfect, but he has power to shut away from himself the perfection of his Creator. He has power to shut God out of his heart, so that the perfect life of God cannot be revealed in his daily walk and conversation, but instead, only the deformed life that springs from self. This, man has the power to do, and this it is his nature to do, until he experiences the transformation of the new birth.
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” They do not resist God; they do not hold back the working of his perfect law in them. This is the secret of their perfection, and this is the message they mutely bear to us, if we will consider it: “Be ye therefore perfect.” Thus they speak to us, and not only in admonition of God’s will, but in promise of that which he is able and ready to perform. L. A. S.

Studies in the Gospel Message

THE subject of the Sabbath-school lesson for May 10, the sixth lesson in the present series, is, Faith Is the Victory.
We do not so much need to learn a new definition of faith as to learn the simplicity of the experience of faith. No really accurate idea of what faith is can be conveyed in words. It is an experience which must be known by experience, but perhaps something can be said which may prove a blessing to souls desiring to learn by experience.
Let us begin with facts and experiences, rather than with mere definitions. Let us try to learn what faith is by what it does. If we can gain the experience of faith, we need not trouble ourselves about a definition of it further than it is defined in our lives.
Here is a word of instruction for us: “Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author [captain or leader] and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” By looking carefully at our translation, it will be seen that in the expression “the author [leader] and perfecter of our faith,” the word “our” is printed in italics, thus indicating that it was supplied by the translators. The real teaching of the text will be quite as clear if this word is omitted. Then the passage reads, “Looking unto Jesus the author [leader] and perfecter of faith.” Jesus is, then, the leader and the perfecter of faith. In Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and Moses, we have examples of faith, and we have learned the secret of their victories when we learn that they “through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,” etc., but in Jesus we have the leader and the perfecter of faith.
All those whose faith is recorded in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews constitute the great cloud of witnesses as to what faith really is, but we are not to look to them for the experience of faith. Their lives show what faith can accomplish in men who are “subject to like passions as we are;” but simply dwelling upon their experiences will not impart the same experience to us. We may have the same kind of an experience which they had, and in the same way that they had it, but they cannot impart it to us, and we cannot get it by simply trying to copy them. Jesus is the leader and perfecter of faith. His life in the flesh was not merely an example of faith, although it was that, but by the gift of himself to the flesh, by the gift of his own life of faith, he by that indwelling life in us becomes the leader and the perfecter of faith in us.
The word here translated “author” is used in only three other places in the New Testament, and a reference to these passages may assist us in a right understanding of the word in this passage. In speaking to the crowd who gathered about after the healing of the lame man, Peter said, “But ye denied the Holy and Righteous One, . . . and killed the Prince [“Author,” margin] of life.” Again, when speaking before the council in defense of this same act of healing, he said, “Him [Jesus] hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour.” And in Heb. 2: 10 we read, “For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” It thus appears that Jesus is the prince, author, or leader, of life, and also of salvation. He is the leader of salvation because he is the leader of life; and because he is the leader of life and salvation, he is the leader and the perfecter of faith. There can therefore be no experience of a living, saving faith apart from the experience of the life of Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.
This is, after all, only another view of the truth which is taught in these words: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” “The seed is the word of God.” “His name is called The Word of God.” “He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.” He who is the Word of God is also the Seed, and his spirit and life are the spirit and life of the words which he spoke (John 6: 63), and the words which he spoke through prophets and apostles constitute “the word offaith, which we preach.” Thus Jesus, “the leader and perfecter of faith,” has made the living word the revealer of that living faith which is the very essence of his own life in the flesh. Thus the act of faith is simply the letting go of all things outward and visible, and a taking hold of all things as found in the Seed of all things, and as set forth in the Word of God. It is the giving up of all things apart from Christ, and the acceptance of all things as found in Christ. This has been expressed in the following acrostic:— Forsaking All I Take Him.
“There is a kind of belief that is wholly distinct from faith. The existence and power of God, the truth of his word, are facts; that even Satan and his hosts cannot at heart deny. The Bible says that ‘the devils also believe, and tremble;’ but this is not faith. Where there is not only a belief in God’s Word, but a submission of the will to him; where the heart is yielded to him, the affections fixed upon him, there is faith,—faith that works by love, and purifies the soul. Through this faith the heart is renewed in the image of God.”—“Steps to Christ,” page 69. “The faith essential for salvation is not mere nominal faith, but an abiding principle, deriving vital power from Christ.”
From the inquiry which our Lord himself made, it is evident that the genuine faith will not abound just before the coming of the Lord. “Howbeit when the Son of man cometh, shall he find the faith on the earth?” From what we have studied, it is clear that the only faith of any value is the faith of Jesus; and just before the coming of the Lord, there is a message to go forth in all the earth which shall separate a people from Babylon, and bring to them an experience which is described by saying, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” That message is the message of being made right by the working of the faith of Jesus, the message of justification by faith. This is the message which will give victory over sin in the daily experience; and by giving victory over sin, it will give victory over death, even that complete victory which will mean translation to God’s people in this generation. “Thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” “This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our Christ made present with all his glorious power by faith, so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, whom shall I fear?”
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