I THOUGHT it might help to emphasize the soul-winning work we have been studying, if we should take a brief view of the things that are just ahead of us, and study a few scriptures which portray the time of trouble.
The first scripture is Haggai 2:6: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land.”
There have been earthquakes which have shaken small sections of the earth. There have been disturbances in the heavens of a certain character from time to time, but here is a time foreshadowed when the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land will all be shaken. At that time a man will want something that is firm to stand on.
In Dan. 12:1 we read: “At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.”
Other kings had been standing up, or reigning. They, with their subjects, had passed away. But here is a time when Michael is to stand up, that “great prince which standeth for the children of thy people;” and there is to be a “time of trouble such as never was” since nations existed. There have been some troublous times back in history; some times of terrible distress among nations. There have been times of trouble and famine so great that mothers devoured their children. But this scripture speaks of a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation. We shall want something then besides a mere theory of the truth. We shall need an indwelling Christ, and we shall need to be rooted and grounded in him and anchored to the rock of scripture. We believe that, do we not? And really the way things look, this time is about here. I do not know how much worse it needs to get, or how much wider the war cloud needs to spread, to fulfil this prediction.
In another scripture God promises “to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” 2 Thess. 1:6-9.
I am glad there is rest for the troubled soul. Even in this time of trouble such as never was, a man can rest. There is comfort in that.
It will be a terrible time. I think we ought to take these texts and study them prayerfully. We read them and pass over them too lightly, I fear. It will be an awful hour when Christ comes with all his angels, to take vengeance on them that know not God.
Here is another scripture found in Jer. 30:5: “Thus saith the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?”
Do you get this picture? All faces turned into paleness. I do not know what imagery or what figure of speech the inspired writer could use to picture distress and sorrow more vividly than it is pictured in these verses. Paleness on all faces! Men, great and mighty, sitting around, and their faces white because of the awful scenes and distress. The color from their cheeks has fled, and they sit pale with terror. There is some terrible thing happening at this time. In my judgment, when we get down there God's true people will all love one another. You will not find a man sitting around in the crowd talking about his brother behind his back.
The next verse says: “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.” Jer. 30:7.
The day is great; none like it! Never since man was created has there been a day like this. And we are the people, brethren, some of us, that are expecting to live until that trying hour. I do not wonder that the prophet said, as he looked down through the ages and saw this time of trouble, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.” These words have a deep significance.
Here is another scripture. 2 Peter 3:10, 11, says: “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?”
“The day of the Lord will come.” My heart is glad that the day of the Lord will come. There is something that is sure about the statements of the Lord; we can build upon them; the foundation is sure. Time has been long drawn out. Prophets have looked down through the ages and prophesied of the end of the world and the coming of Christ. The saints of God in all ages have looked for it. It has apparently been put off. Some of us have perhaps thought the coming of Christ would be in five or ten or twenty years, or a little longer. But it has tarried, and it has seemed as if it never would come. But the Lord said, “The day of the Lord will come.” Brethren, it will come. The promise is sure.
Look up into the heavens and see how sure the heavenly bodies are. Every star appears on time. I was reading some time ago of some astronomers who went to Aiken, N. C., to observe a transit of Venus. They built their foundations and put in their concrete, got everything all ready for their circles and sextants, and made their observations. Then they said, “We will let these things alone, and in the year 2004 whoever is living can come and see the transit again.” Kings and dynasties might pass away, but they knew that there was a certainty with the heavenly bodies upon which they could depend. Things are sure up in heaven.
Notice some of the statements of God, and see how accurately they have been fulfilled. Take the promises made to Abraham in reference to the children of Israel:—
“He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.
“And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
“But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” Gen. 15:13-16.
Abraham went down into the tomb, and in the course of time Israel went down into Egypt. Four long centuries rolled by, and when the time came for them to come out, it looked as if it never could be. A king was on the throne who knew not Joseph, and when Moses spoke to him about Israel's going, Pharaoh said they could not go. But Pharaoh was not dealing with a few weak slaves in Egypt; he was dealing with the people of Jehovah and with the word of God. The Lord said for them to come out, and when it looked as if there was no possible chance for them to do so, the Lord took the matter in hand. Plague after plague was sent, but Pharaoh would not relent. When at last the Lord touched the first-born, the Egyptians said, “We be all dead men.” The Lord would have taken Israel out of Egypt if he had had to slay every Egyptian. The record says that they came out “the self-same day.” They came out when it looked as if there was not the least prospect for them to do so. And, brethren,7although it may grow dark, and may look as if there were no prospect of finishing the work of God in this time, it will be done. The same God who delivered Israel from Pharaoh's army lives today to deliver his people now and to finish his work.
Look at the history of the Jewish people,—the nation that God made the depositaries of his law, to whom he gave rich blessings, and set apart as his special, chosen people. Looking down through the ages, the Lord said they would become a byword among all people, and would be no more reckoned among the nations. Today they are scattered; they are merchantmen and tradesmen in all lands, and drink out of all rivers from the Ganges to the Mississippi. Scattered all over the world, a byword and an astonishment, they stand as the fulfilment of God's word.
Look at Egypt. The Lord said Egypt would be the basest of nations. Anybody who will go there will see that God told the truth. As I went through the land once and looked at the old tombs and mummies, I thought, “What a difference between Moses, who was down there once, and those old mummies!” I tell you it pays to cleave to God. He fulfils his word.
The Lord said that Babylon would go down; and also Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. All has taken place as the Lord foretold. Now God says, “The day of the Lord will come,” and surely it will come. All the terrible things that his Word predicts, brethren, will come to pass. And they are now at the door; they are right upon us.
We are told further that “the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” Everything here is passing away; decay is written upon all things. We are exhorted in 1 Cor. 7:31, to “use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.” The most enduring things that man can make pass away.
“What family is there that cannot attest it? what parish, what village, what city in the empire, that cannot speak of the ebb and flow and mutation of the things that are about it? Today a home rings with the music of glad voices; tomorrow it is hung with the drapery of sadness. Today a bride is given to her rejoicing husband; tomorrow orphans are desolate, and widows weep. Today a babe is born; tomorrow a gray-haired patriarch, the support and pillar of the house, is carried to his grave. Year after year as we go along we perceive companions, friends, relatives, brethren, weary with the march of life, drop down and disappear. The house that knows us today will soon know us no more; the houses that knew many yesterday know them no more forever. New ties are formed; old ties are dissolved; and the life of the most illustrious noble in the land is but as the vapor that appeared for a little time, gilded for an hour by the golden beams of the setting sun, but, like the vapor that is a symbol of the lowliest life, to be dissolved and to disappear and to attest what all see—‘the fashion of this world passeth away.’”
Your home changes, and so does mine. Your friends change, so do mine. Our brethren pass away. We greet them at this meeting, but perhaps we shall never see some of them again. We little thought, when dear Brother Salisbury, whom we loved, was with us a few days ago, with his pleasant smile, that we should look on his face no more. But that is the way all things are here. These things shall be dissolved. “Dissolved” is a strong word. Crowns, monarchs, and thrones will all disappear. Courts of justice and judges will be no more. All the great implements of war that men are manufacturing, the cannon, the ships, and the ammunition of destruction, will all be dissolved. The cities of the nations shall fall. The day draws on apace. And before they fall, they must hear the message. The time is coming when Boston will go down, New York City will be in ruins; when trains cannot get through the subways; when those great skyscrapers, that lofty sky line, will be leveled to the ground. What a time of distress that will be!
Further, the time is coming when all commerce, all buying and selling, will cease. Did you ever notice how many times the words “no more” are used in Rev. 18:21-24? “A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more at all in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.”
All commerce and business of every kind ended! Brethren, this will be a terrible time. The picture is beyond human imagination. All the nations make a great stir now about the stagnation of business caused by war; there must be an open channel, they say. But the time is coming when there will be no business, no movement of ship, no commerce. All that to which business men have given their lives will be destroyed—and they without hope in God. At that time a man will need God.
In Isa. 2:20, 21 we read: “In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.”
Here they are piling up gold and silver. Men will do anything for money. Why, all the investment they can make with their gold and silver then will be to cast it to the moles and bats, creatures of darkness. They will cast it into the street; they will have no use for it. There will come a time when money will not be worth much. I read that when the “Titanic” was sinking, a man down in his cabin took up a bag of gold he had, threw it on the floor, and picked up a life belt. What did he care for gold when the ship was sinking? Man will care nothing for it when the Lord comes. All he has he will cast to the moles and the bats, and he will hide in the clefts of the rocks. How much better to be hidden under the shadow of the Almighty!
Then did you ever think of what a terrible time it will be during the thousand years? Did you ever think of how this old world will look?
“I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger. For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.” Jer. 4:23-27.
All the cities of the earth have been broken down; ruin and desolation beyond all the power of mind to portray is seen everywhere,—a fearful commentary on the work of sin. Here is the home of the devil and his angels for a thousand years, and all they can do is to wander around here among the dead bodies of the impenitent, lying on the earth unburied. Satan will wander around among them for a thousand years.
Isa. 13:19-21 reads as follows: “Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.”
While this scripture may have had application to ancient Babylon, I believe it has application to present Babylon. All the castles of the rich and the great palaces of pleasure will be full of briars and thorns and owls and satyrs. This will be a great change; it will be an awful time.
When I think of all this, I feel that when God's people leave this earth, I want to go along. That time is just ahead of us. Here is a statement that says the day of God is stealing upon us:—
“I am bidden to say to you that you know not how soon the crisis may come. It is stealing gradually upon us, as a thief. The sun shines in the heavens passing over its usual round, and the heavens still declare the glory of God; men are still pursuing their usual course of eating and drinking, planting and building, marrying and giving in marriage; merchants are still engaged in buying and selling; publications are still issuing one upon another; men are jostling one against another, seeking to get the highest place; pleasure lovers are still attending theaters, horse races, gambling hells, and the highest excitement prevails; yet probation's hour is fast closing, and every case is about to be eternally decided.”—Special Testimony.
It will come “as a thief in the night.” There is danger that it will come as a thief to those who claim to be watching. How is it tonight? Is it not true that now every case is about to be eternally decided? And in view of this, what is your responsibility, and mine? What manner of men ought we to be? We ought to be tremendously in earnest.
Again we read: “There will soon be a sudden change in God's dealings.” What kind of change?—“A sudden change.”
“The world in its perversity is being visited by casualties,—floods, storms, fires, earthquakes, famine, war, and bloodshed.” But God's forbearance will not always continue. The question is asked, “Who is prepared for the sudden change that will take place in God's dealings with sinful men?” Are you prepared?
The present war situation came on very suddenly. One day we heard about the assassination of somebody, and suddenly the most terrible war of earth's history was upon us. It also looks as if a sudden change in God's dealings had come. “Every case is about to be eternally decided.” If we could only understand what that means, it seems to me it would inspire us with energy to do our best during the time that is left.
The twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew brings before us the signs of the coming Christ. Some exhortations to those living near the end are given. In chapter 25 the church is represented by the sleeping virgins. This evidently had an application in 1844, but I think it may have another application.
Where is Christ now? Has he not gone in to the marriage?—Yes, he went in about seventy years ago. In the Eastern marriage custom you will remember the bridegroom would have a number of his friends watch. When he went in to the marriage at the home of the bride, his friends would wait until he came out, and then go to his own home with him. They could not tell what hour he would come, but they must watch. Here they are represented as watching, but some of them went to sleep. Who went to sleep?—Why, not the enemies of the bridegroom, but his friends, his choicest friends waiting for him to come from the wedding. Waiting—but they went to sleep; and when he actually came, some of them were not ready, and were shut out.
Is there not some lesson in this for us? Is there any danger, as we wait for the Bridegroom to come, and he tarries longer perhaps than we thought, that we shall become somewhat sleepy and be lost at last? Some of these days the Bridegroom will surely come, and I greatly fear that some of us will not be ready. O, if ever there was a time when we ought to wake up, it is now! And we who are here should not only be awake, but we should go home and wake up every sleeping soul. If I have any conception of our responsibility, it is that we must return home to the friends of the Bridegroom and say, “Wake up, the Bridegroom is coming.” And we must not only wake up our own people, but every other sleeping soul within our reach must be aroused. I wish God would help us to measure the responsibility of this hour at this time.
I think of the other company,—the lost who are brought to view in verse 46. Speaking of the lost, those who did not do his will, Jesus says, “These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.” “These shall go away.” Who?—The lost. My brethren, look at them. Look at that awful procession. What a dead march that is! A funeral procession marching to eternal perdition! It constitutes the most of the human race. In that company, brethren, I fear we have many loved ones. In that dead march to everlasting punishment, there are many dear ones that we love. There will be some parents of children who are saved. There will be some children of parents who are saved. Some of our own blood relatives are in that march. And, brethren, they are in there today, on the road. I have some blood relatives and some friends I grew up with in boyhood who are in that funeral procession, or will be unless they change. I would that God could somehow give us a vision and a burden, that we might do our best to save all we can. Is it not our work now to reach out to save them before it is too late?
The point I want to emphasize tonight is the responsibility that rests upon you and upon me to awaken to the responsibility of this hour, that we might be what God wants us to be,—laborers together with him, in the salvation of men. Lost people are everywhere. They are all around us. They are in our homes. We meet them on the street, without hope, without God, and somehow I feel that I do not care as I should. The burden does not rest on me as it ought. I seem to take it too easily; but O, there ought to come from God upon us all a great burden for lost people! That is what the church needs today,—a burden to save lost men and women from that dead march that is just ahead of us.
I had an experience once, which is ever with me. It taught me something I have never forgotten,—what a man might do if he had his eyes open. I was riding one time on the Pennsylvania Railroad, from Buffalo to Washington. Just after leaving Buffalo, I noticed a gentleman sitting across the aisle from me. I think he had four children. He was a nice-looking man, somewhat gray, sitting there alone with the children. I looked at him occasionally and wondered where he was going with four children. I thought a man's judgment wasn't very good to start off alone with so many children.
I thought possibly he was not going very far. But he rode along hour after hour, and two of the little girls ran about the aisle and came to my seat, looking as if they would like to get acquainted with me. But I had no time; I was a preacher, and I must read. The father tried to care for the children as best he could. I felt as if I did not want to be bothered with them. I wanted to read. I thought if he didn't know any better than to leave home with so many children, I didn't know that I was under any obligations to help him take care of them.
As we rode on, I got tired of reading, and thought I should like to know where this man was going, so I went to get a drink, and when I came back I stopped and spoke to him. He responded very quickly, so we talked a little. Then I spoke to him about his children, and about his having to care for them all alone, and how much nicer it would be if they had had the mother along. I shall never forget how he looked as he said, “O, the mother is along, but she is riding in the baggage car!” I learned more that minute than I had learned all day in any book. “Traveling in the baggage car!” Then he told me that he was taking her back to bury her, back where, when they were young and in the vigor of life, he had won her for his wife. “Now,” he said, “she is gone, and I am taking her back to bury her in the old family burying ground.” Then the tears began to steal down his cheeks.
I felt like crying too, and thought if I was only at the beginning of the ride, I might help him take care of his children. In a little while the train pulled into Baltimore, and he took the children out as best he could. I got out to see where he went. The pine box was taken out of the baggage car, and he went away. I have never seen him since. But I lost an opportunity to help him. I lost my chance, but I learned my lesson.
Brethren, we elbow people like that every day. We ought to do something to help men. We ought to let the Spirit of the Lord overshadow us, and a burden for souls take possession of us. May the Lord help us to realize the time in which we live, and may he transform us into real missionaries, and send us out through the years to come as the greatest soul-winners on earth, is my prayer.
Forgive
By F. B. Meyer
FORGIVE us if this day we have done or said anything to increase the pain of the world. Pardon the unkind word, the impatient gesture, the hard and selfish deed, the failure to show sympathy and kindly help where we had the opportunity, but missed it; and enable us so to live that we may daily do something to lessen the tide of human sorrow, and add to the sum of human happiness.—F. B. Meyer.
Caleb and Joshua
By R. D. Quinn
In the Wilderness
R. D. QUINN
JOSHUA the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh stand out prominently after the death of Moses as the men whom God mightily used in giving his people possession of the Promised Land. The prime characteristic of these wonderful lives was their entire devotion to God. Repeatedly is it said of them, that they wholly followed the Lord.
Joshua is first mentioned in connection with the fight against Amalek at Rephidim, where it seemed he was chosen to lead the Israelitish hosts to battle, and was the minister, or servant, of Moses.
Caleb first comes into view, and manifests a spirit kindred to that of Joshua, when they returned with the other spies from searching the land; and they were the only two of the twelve who brought back a good report, saying, ‘Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.’
Before going further into the lives and characteristics of these men, let us inquire, What is our object in studying this story? We answer, Every believer must have a similar experience at this time. The story is a prophecy of what every one of us can receive by faith, and their lives must be lived over again in us when the true Israel of God shall come into their possessions.
After the unsuccessful attempt on the part of Caleb and Joshua to counteract the evil report of the faithless spies, and to inspire faith and courage in Israel to go up immediately and possess the land, they were compelled to fall back into the wilderness with the unbelievers, of whom the Lord said at that time, ‘As truly as I live, . . . your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I swore to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness.’ Num. 14: 28-33.
The seventy-eighth, ninetieth, and the one hundred and sixth psalms especially tell the tale of those sad and dreary years of the wanderings of the children of Israel when an unceasing train of funerals passed out of the camp. Doubtless less their winding course in the desert sands could be traced by the mounds that marked the resting places of that murmuring and unbelieving race, ‘until all the generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host, as the Lord swore unto them. For indeed the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from among the host, until they were consumed.’ ‘For the Lord had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness. And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.’ Deut. 2: 14, 15; Num. 26: 65.
For forty years they had wandered in that great and terrible wilderness, until Caleb and Joshua had seen the death of every man who disbelieved God. Those desert sands were converted into a training ground, to humble and prove the nation to see what was in their hearts. To Caleb and Joshua and the younger generation it doubtless proved to be a school for higher service. But one by one the unbelievers fell out by the way, until the last man was gone.
They did not all fall at one time or at one place. Some dropped out at one point, and some at another. We read in Num. 11: 1 that some of the people complained, and ‘it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.’ In the same chapter we learn that some ‘fell a-lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?’ They gave way to perverted appetite, and in the midst of their gluttonous feast the wrath of God was kindled against them, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague.
The Amalekites and Canaanites slew those who presumptuously tried to go up and take the Promised Land while they were encamped at Kadesh-barnea. Num. 14: 44, 45. Others lost their lives as a result of Sabbath breaking. Num. 15: 32-36. Then Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, ‘with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown: . . . gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.’ The earth opened her mouth and swallowed them, and all the persons who sympathized with that terrible apostasy. Numbers 16.
‘There came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense.’ Num. 16: 35. Again the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron because of the judgments of God visited upon their brethren, and God’s wrath was again kindled against the people, and fourteen thousand seven hundred died from the plague before it was stayed. Num. 16: 49. Again the people murmured against God, ‘and the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.’ Num. 21: 6.
And so the record goes on, until the last great apostasy at the Jordan. The people were now in sight of their possessions. There were the cities, and houses, and lands; the vineyards on the terraced hillsides, and the waving fields of grain in a country that was flowing with milk and honey. Only the Jordan River was now between them and their possessions. But alas, there were many in Israel who were not prepared to go in. They had not reckoned on Balaam’s diabolical scheme to entice them into sin, and many were unprepared to meet his subtle temptations.
Knowing that in all ages temptations appealing to the physical nature have been most effectual in corrupting and degrading mankind, Satan used Balaam to entice Israel to engage in the iniquitous and licentious worship of Baal, and ‘Israel joined himself unto Baalpoor.’ Sins of the most degrading character were soon rampant in the camp, and thousands speedily fell a prey to the wiles of the beautiful Midianitish women. Swift and summary judgment was meted out to the transgressors; those that died of the plague were twenty and four thousand,—doubtless the survivors of that vast host who forty years before had incurred the sentence, ‘They shall surely die in the wilderness.’
Let us for a moment consider these twenty-four thousand men who failed on the very confines of their inheritance. They were in sight of the prize, and doubtless thought they were going over with Caleb and Joshua in a few days to take possession. These men had run the gauntlet, so to speak, for forty years. They had successfully passed through the apostasy of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and remained loyal to God. They were evidently not among the riotous eaters of flesh, and so did not die of the plague. When vast numbers of the people murmured against God, and he sent serpents among them that bit them so that many died, these men were not bitten. They had survived every great crisis through which the nation had passed for forty years, only to fall signally in sight of the Promised Land.
The only basis upon which such a failure can be accounted for is that there was a plague spot somewhere in the character of these men, some pet sin or indulgence over which they had not gained the complete victory; and Satan knew their weak point, and adapted his temptations in a way to deceive and destroy them.
Our only safety is to have nothing in common with Satan. Then we shall be invulnerable to his attacks. Christ said, ‘The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.’ John 14: 30. ‘There was in him nothing that responded to Satan’s sophistry. He did10not consent to sin. Not even by a thought did he yield to temptation. So it may be with us. Christ’s humanity was united with divinity; he was fitted for the conflict by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And he came to make us partakers of the divine nature. So long as we are united to him by faith, sin has no more dominion over us. God reaches for the hand of faith in us to direct it to lay fast hold upon the divinity of Christ, that we may attain to perfection of character.’—‘The Desire of Ages,’ p. 123.