IN our last issue we briefly considered God's dealings with the world, local and general, in past generations. As He met the needs of each age, generation, or nation, by messages of salvation, reasoning by analogy we would expect a God-given message for the ills and needs of this generation. Has He such a message?
Reader, we believe there is such a message, a message foretold in God's Word, a message which bears on its own face the impress of the Divine, if men will but consider and receive it. It has within itself the evidence that it is from God. That message is not confined to one Bible writer or book; it is variously expressed. We refer to simply one statement of its great, positive truth, found in Revelation the 14th chapter and the 6th and 7th verses, as follows:
And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
In this writing we wish to note these things:
1. The time of the message is indicated by the expression, "The hour of His judgment is come." In the teachings of our Lord we are told that the great judgment-day is future—when Christ shall come (Matt. 25:31-34). The apostle Paul preached before Felix of "righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come" (Acts 24:25); and he declared to the Athenians that God had "appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world" (Acts 17:31). By all the New Testament writers the great day of judgment is placed in the future, and in connection with Christ's coming. But this message, we are prophetically told, applies at a time when "the hour of His judgment is come." The judgment is pending when that message is due to the world. The world has been resting in human judgment; it has trusted to the decrees of men, of councils, of conferences, of nations. The great bar of God has been forgotten, the Court of last Assize has found small place in the calculations of men. Human conduct has been molded by imperfect human standards. Surely all will recognize the necessity, the need of a message that brings men back to the standard which God requires.
We spend in this world but a little time, at most. We may spend eternity elsewhere. This world is the preparation day for that longer period. How vastly important it is that the standard of our conduct, infinite in its results, shall be measured not by the standards which men erect, but by the standard which God Himself has given. Therefore the importance of calling men's attention to His judgment, to His holy standard. Surely such a message is demanded at this time.
2. The universality of the message. It is not a local message, as was God's message to Sodom, or to His own people at the time that our Lord first came, or as was Jonah's message to Nineveh. It is a universal message, a world-wide message. It is to go to every nation and kindred and tribe and tongue and people. They all need it. "We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God." "Each one of us shall give account of himself to God." The message must be given to all. And God is giving just such a message as that to the world in these days.
3. It is the Gospel message. It is not a new message; it is the old, ever-repeating message, in a new, living setting, for there can be but one Gospel which is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." It has not lost its power in the lapse of time. As it was when Paul uttered the great truth to the Romans, it is to this generation. The power of God is manifest in creation—the heavens declare His glory; but the power of God is manifested through His Gospel in the re-creation of men, and there can be no greater power.
And this universal message for this time is a great Gospel message—the everlasting Gospel message which has regenerated men through all the ages of the past. The world needs it now, the church needs it now. The religion of Jesus Christ is more than mere form; it does not consist in inducing men to join a church and place their names upon a religious roster and declare that they will live a different life and follow a different form of mere ethics. There is no power in that. It may influence for a while, but it does not touch the fountain of the heart. What is needed is the life of Jesus Christ, by which men are born from above, created in Him, made new men and women.
One of the great charges against the church to-day is—and by this we mean Christianity in general—that her membership is like the rest of the world; that there is no difference as a general thing in conduct, in character; that grafting, dishonesty, and failure to meet needed standards, is as manifest in the church as it is in the world. If this be true—and there are few who will deny it—the message of the everlasting Gospel is needed now.
4. The very burden of that message indicates its need: "Fear God, and give Him glory," and "worship Him." The fear of man possesses men to-day. The whole trend of public life is away from the individuality, the manhood of man. Recognizing more and more his weakness, he is gathering together by federations, by guilds, by bands. The individual is becoming lost in the mass; he is coming to recognize that he is of little worth if he stands, or seems to stand, against the interests of the many, and in this education men are coming to fear men.
They wish to question of men as to their conduct. They take the standards of the mass of men as to their character. Sounding out above all this is God's message: "Fear God." Let His presence be ever before you, let His law be your standard of character, let His Son be the example of your life, set Him always before your face.
The mighty men of all the ages, so far as Christian lands are concerned, are men who have had this vision of God, a vision of God's awful majesty, of His awful holiness of character, of the sure judgment which lies before; and having seen Him, and stood, as it were, an individual before His throne, they have come to fear God, and that fear of God has taken away the fear of men. It has not made man less precious in their sight—it has made him more precious, because he was the purchase of the blood of Christ; but it has made God so overwhelmingly great in their vision that they are no longer afraid of men. It has given them a recognition of man's right, which can come in no other way. In the sight of God they have seen the little difference that exists in men, that they are all creatures in His sight, and no one of them or no combination of them has the right to lord it over his fellows, or to usurp the throne of the Infinite; to Him must all men be responsible. Surely such a message as that is needed for this time.
And with the fear of God goes the worship of God: "Worship Him." Men are worshiping men at the present day. Religious papers teem with the praise of man. They have little to say in the praise of God. Men's theories have swept away the blessedness of the Gospel. Evolution has taken the place of re-creation, in the minds of men. Why should they not worship the men who have taught evolution, and men who in their wonderful wisdom set their hypotheses of science against the verities of the infinite God? Men are worshiped, the works of men's hands are worshiped, men's devices are worshiped. Human creeds are worshiped, and God is forgotten. Surely men need that message, which we have quoted above, to-day: "Worship God." Truest worship is service, and worship is truest service, and the worship of God means the service of God.
5. That message received is a unifying message. It sweeps away all creeds, all human barriers; it brings the individual, soul-naked, before the throne of the infinite God. It gives him, in response to faith, the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus; it holds before him as a standard the norm, the rule, the law of God. It places in his heart and soul the blessed Gospel of Christ to give to humanity. It leaves all human tradition behind, and treads underfoot all human superstition. Surely such a message as that is needed now.
And under this heading, in this series of the Signs of the Times for the next six months, we hope to give to our readers continually additional evidences so plain and so clear that every unprejudiced soul can see it, that God has a message for this time, for this day, and that that message received brings salvation, with all its blessings, to the receiver.