Aucust 1, 1901 If we even ask the average nominal Christian to weigh this matter, and tell us if willing to exchange,—putting in the one side of the balance all the good things, hopes, ambitions, family ties, social position, churchianity, petty office and esteem of men, and putting into the other side of the scale Gods’ favor,—he will hesitate and eventually decide that he will do nothing of the kind. The reason with many is that they do not appreciate divine favor. They have heard and believed certain things respecting the Almighty, some of them true and some of them false; and the misrepresentations of God’s character have so neutralized and offset. and made noneffective the truths which they have learned, that they lack confidence in the unseen: with such, worldly interests outweigh appreciation of divine favor ten to one. The iruths they learned were respecting God’s love and his gracious provision for his fallen creatures through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus our Lord; and that he willeth not the death of him that dieth, but would that all should turn unto him and live, in the enjoyment of endless blessing. These truths are found in the sure Word of God; the untruths which they have learned came from a human source, or rather more remotely, from the great Adversary himself, Satan, “the god of this world,” as the Apostle calls him. As he tells us, “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not”—hblinded them to the real character and plan of Jehovah, and deluded them into thinking of him most unkindly, most disreputably we might almost say most blasphemously. He has blinded them into thinking that the Almighty, while declaring that he has all power, has declared also that he will exercise this power beneficially only over a mere handful of earth’s teeming millions—that he will take out this sample to show his power and what he could have done for all if he had wanted to, and exercise his power in hurling the great mass of his creation into eternal torment;—that he made provision to this end before the creation of mankind,—prepared a great and awful place of torture,—prepared the fuel for eternity—and prepared the devils to see that nothing was lacking in the worst form of torture. Is it any wonder that those who have thus received human traditions instead of the Word of God, those who believe such terrible things respecting the Creator and his plans, things which outrank in cruelty the doctrines of the heathen, received from the same Satanic source, should doubt the love of such a God? It 1s no wonder that such find themselves unable to reconcile such human theories with the plain Scriptural declaration that God is love, very pitiful, very merciful, and that his mercy endureth forever; and that he doth not willingly afflict the children of men. The two thoughts are in violent conflict. the one represents God as loving and kind; the other represents him ag a demon of the worst imaginable character: and it is no wonder that those who have in their minds this mixture of human traditions which make void the Word of God, are unable to see God from the right standpoint implied in our text~—unable to see his loving kindness, so great, so good, so beneficent, toward all of his creatures.—unable to reconcile such human theory with the Scriptural declaration, that Jesus Christ by the grace of God tasted death for every man, and that this grace of God in Christ is yet to be testified in due time to every creature, and that thus all are eventually to come to a knowledge of the truth, and thus all eventually to have an opportunity for life everlasting —-1 Tim. 2:4: Is it any wonder that those who entertain so mixed a conception of the Almighty’s character, when they attempt to balance the loving favor of God with earthly good things, find that the scale weighs down toward the earthly things, because, altho they appreciate some features of the divine character, these are practically neutralized by such misrepresentations of the adversary through false theories. Well does the Apostle explain the object of this blindness on the part of Satan. saying, “The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ. who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (2 Cor. 4:4) Ah yes, here it is! The goodness of God, the loving kindness of God, God’s favor, does not shine into the hearts of many, and while it does shine a little into some hearts, thick darkness of error hinders their hearts from receiving the full benefit of the light, and its blessing and joy. Such as are in this position find it impossible to love the Lord with all their heart, with all their mind. with all their being, with all their strength; because from all that they know of him, through this false representation of his character, he is not worthv of much love. The fear of the Lord might operate upon them under such circumstances, and might be balanced against the world and its good things, but ZION’S WATCH TOWER (243-245) his “loving kindness” hag comparatively little weight in their lives. Are we to suppose, then, that there were no saints in the past, because in the past these false 1deas of God held full sway amongst his professed children? Are we to suppose that Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, Calvin, Knox, the Wesleys and others, were not saints, and not joint-inheritors with Christ in the kingdom? No; on the contrary, we presume that these were saints, and that they laid down their lives in the Lord’s service; and we merely mention these prominent names as illustrations, and not by way of saying that they were the only saints of their times, and not disputing either that there were saints before them, all through the dark ages, ag well ag in the primitive church, What we do claim, however, 19 that the mixed theology, which represents God as half love and half devil, never produced the sanctifying effect which we see in the lives of the class we have mentioned. We hold that all those who reached the point of saintship described in our text, and who were able to balance the present life and its earthly good things with the loving favor of God, and to prefer God’s favor rather than life, so that they were willing to sacrifice earthly interests, that they might have the divine favor, both as respects the life which now is, and that which is to come,— these never reached this position through their mixed theology, but attained this grand position only in proportion as they were able to forget or ignore the human and Satanic blasphemies respecting the divine character, and to think of God from the standpoint of pure justice and love. Some of them have told us in their writings how terribly this devilinspired theology weighed upon them; how they found the theory so antagonistic to all their conceptions of divine justice, mercy and love, that the only thing they could do under the circumstances was to shut the eyes of their mmds to the nightmare of hell and devils and torments, and to say to the Lord, O Lord, I cannot understand this, but I accept thee as a very God of love and justice, and I know that when I shall see thee as thou art, and when I shall see all the works of thy great and wonderful plan, then I shall) realize, as I cannot now realize, wherein divine justice and love are compatible with this awful theory of eternal torment for all except the little flock, the elect. Thus by shutting their eyes to the error, and opening their eyes by faith to the real character of God, substantiated by so many declarations of his Word, the class we refer to, through all the darkness of the dark ages, was indeed enabled to love God supremely, so that they counted not their lives dear unto them, that they might have his favor; they were willing to lay down life and earthly advantages and hopes and favors, that they might have the divine favor now and everlastingly. And if God’s people in the past were enabled to triumph in spite of blindness, what shall we say respecting our position today, now that the due time has come for this vail that was spread over all nations to be taken away, so that the true light of the knowledge of God, shining in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord, should shine into our hearts and give us to see through his Word, and freed from human tradition and Satanic misrepresentation, the justice and the loving kindness of our God! How shall we today balance this question of earthly life and its advantages and privileges and hopes and aims with the favor of God? Well, it will be a test to us, as it has been a test all through the ages. Those who are merely glad to find out that there is no eternal torment, and whose hearts are not touched with the “loving kindness” of God, will go on in the world, rejoicing that they have been delivered from a bondage of error, but not returning to give glory to God and to offer themselves in his service. And these, alas! are the majority; like the ten lepers who were cleansed by our Lord, of whom only one returned to give thanks and to become a follower of Jesus, Thus the test goes on today, as ever; for the Lord is now seeking only the kingdom class, only the little flock, and he wishes to have in it only such as love him supremely—only such as, having tasted that the Lord is gracious, desire to and do feast upon his favor, enjoying it, relishing it, appreciating it far beyond any earthly pleasure, any earthly hope, any earthly ambition, any earthly love. This class today and at all times has been the same,—of one spirit with their Head. The Apostle Paul voices their sentiments: speaking on this very subject, and weighing the earthly life with the divine favor, he says: “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ and be found in him. . . . That I may know [2851]
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