Signs of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 20. (5/23/1906)

Signs of the Times

May 23, 1906

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · May 23, 1906

THE EVERLASTING AND SURE REFUGE

By Editor

[Abstract of a Sermon Preached by the Editor at Oakland, Cal., Sabbath, April 21, 1906.]

" What then shall one answer the messengers of the nation?—That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall the afflicted of His people take refuge." Isa. 14:32, A. R. V.

FROM the standpoint of pure human reason we must believe that a God infinite in knowledge, wisdom, power, and love, created a perfect universe in which every part of His dominion was a safe place for His creatures. When from His hand came this earth, He pronounced it "very good," and gave it to man as his eternal home, sweet, peaceful, safe.

The Cause of All Trouble.

Where, then, is the trouble?—Sin entered. The highest law of the universe, the law of eternal character, the law of everlasting righteousness, was transgressed, perverted, and in consequence all laws beneath that higher law were also perverted.

When sin entered God's dominion through Lucifer the highest of all God's creatures (Isa. 12:12-14; Eze. 28:11-15), he fell, and all God's universe, bound together by the one Life, felt the perversion, and since that time the universe has suffered. "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Rom. 8:22.

Object-Lessons to the Universe.

When man, the king of this earth, sinned, perverted in himself—the highest of God's creatures in the earth—the law of character eternal, he perverted every law below it. All physical law responded. Accursed became the ground for his sake. Perverted and abnormal growths in the vegetable world sprang forth. The earth and the universe became perverted. Suns exploded into meteors. Comets were formed. God permitted the perversion that men might see the aberrant, destructive power of sin, but He preserves His universe. So God has permitted it in this world that the lesson might be learned, and learned forever, that only in righteousness is continued life of either the spiritual or the physical, and that the physical is dependent on the spiritual. "In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death." Prov. 12:28. A righteous universe could never grow old. The life and love and unselfishness of God and His creatures, all-pervasive, all-powerful, would keep it perennially young.

The Mistake of Science.

Scientists will not recognize the great God of the universe and His creative power. They will not recognize this great fact of sin, and its consequences.

Reason, therefore, they may forever; endeavor to formulate and deduce normal laws for the universe from the aberrant laws of a perverted nature, and they are often bound to go wrong. Would they but recognize God, and the great fact of sin, all problems would be easier.

What Follows Sin.

Sin existing, age ensues. Man grows old and dies. Trees and plants and animals grow old and die. The soil gets old and must be constantly renewed or enriched. The stars seem to grow old as has the moon and the earth. God foretold it: The earth "shall wax old as doth a garment." Like an old man, it groans and heaves and quakes, and loses temper. Therefore the cyclone, the volcanic eruption, the earthquake. And all these will continue to increase in frequency and violence till God's voice shall cry out of Zion, "It is done," and the whole earth shall shake, and the cosmos shall become chaos preparatory to its everlasting recreation. When that awful earthquake shall have come, then will it be fulfilled, "The cities of the nations fell." See Joel 3:16; Rev. 16:17-19.

Character rests on voluntary acquiescence to right law—God's law. That man might learn His law God must permit to follow the consequences of perverted law. Man can not sow cockle and get wheat. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." In the shakings and quakings and tremblings of earth God is teaching man that the earth is waxing old and its dissolution is drawing nigh.

There Is No Sure Refuge

in a sin-cursed earth. It has no sure foundation. What would men and women not have given to have found a refuge which they knew to be safe in San Francisco on that fateful April 18. The very refuges they had builded turned to heaps of débris. The earth itself seemed to be enlisted against them, no longer a resting place, but a huge monster to crush them. From infancy to old age, man finds no sure refuge in any of the material things of this world. Seeking he is ever, but finds it not. It is neither in gold nor silver; many would have given it freely to get out of San Francisco on that awful morning. It is found not in stocks nor bonds nor houses nor lands. Not all the wealth of the world can buy off the grim guest of every household—Death.

"The Grave?" Yes; there is the refuge of oblivion in the grave; but man was born of God to live and not to die. Is there refuge which tunnels the grave and carries us through its deep darkness to the evergreen fields of life beyond?—There is. God knew that the nations and the messengers of the nation would ask it now, even as in Babylon of old.

"What, then, shall one answer the messengers of the nation?" There are worldly cities, but there is no sure refuge there. We can not say flee to Oakland or to Chicago or to New York or to London. The next great convulsion may include one or all of these, and the proudest steel towers which men have builded may be reduced to scrap heaps.

There is a city which can not be moved, the foundation of which is character. "God hath founded Zion."

A Tested Foundation.

The foundation of the city of God is laid in the tried character of Christ Jesus our Lord. The same prophet from which our text is taken declares: "Behold, I lay in Zion a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone of sure foundation. He that believeth shall not be in haste." Isa. 28:16. "For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 1 Cor. 3:11.

What a mighty contrast is this foundation to that which earthly cities furnish. Those who builded, and thought they builded well on good foundation in San Francisco, made all possible haste to flee in the time of calamity; but he that builds in Zion shall not make haste, or as elsewhere quoted, by Inspiration, "shall not be ashamed or confounded." No confusion shall come to him who builds on this foundation.

That we may learn how to build aright we must know how the foundation was laid. Space will not permit us to tell one-tenth of what we would be glad to say. We may learn it, however, from the Scriptures, which are revelations of the trial through which Jesus Christ passed that He might be the corner stone and the place of refuge for all God's children. Listen:

"Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave Him the name which is above every name." Phil. 2:5-9.

The Emptying of Self—Filled with God.

When Christ Jesus was here upon earth He revealed not Himself, He came not to reveal Himself. In all that He said, in all that He did, we have not the revelation of the Son of God, but the revelation of the Father in human flesh; and in order that that revelation of love and power might be perfect He emptied Himself so that God might fill Him, and that God might be revealed to the needy, longing hearts of the children of men. Again and again do we hear such expressions from His lips: "I can of Mine own self do nothing;" "The words that I speak are not Mine, but the Father's which sent Me." He yielded Himself that God might be manifested; He stepped down from His glory with His Father, through every plane of created intelligences, down to death, tried on every plane, of angels and of men, and revealed God's character in every trial. Wherefore God exalted Him. In His human flesh He suffered and was tempted as were we; "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." "Wherefore it behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted." Heb. 2:10, 17, 18.

"Who in the days of His flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and having been heard for His godly fear, tho He was a son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and having been made perfect He became unto all them that obey Him the Author of eternal salvation." Heb. 5:7-9.

One more scripture just before He faced Gethsemane and the cross, found in the twelfth chapter of John: "Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour?" The agony of Gethsemane echoed the same prayer, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." But He came to seek and to save, and so, instead of praying, "Father, save Me from this hour," He said, "But for this cause came I unto this hour," and prayed, "Father, glorify Thy name."

And God glorified His name, in suffering, even to the very limit, meeting every temptation of the enemy, enduring every cross, despising the shame, and conquering that He might lay the sure foundation for everlasting righteousness which could never be moved.

It is character that counts, it is character which endures, and on that everlasting character in Christ Jesus the saved of God must build, and for such characters God will found His everlasting kingdom which will endure forever.

Would We Find the Refuge in Zion?

Then must we build on the sure foundation Stone. There is no other way but God's way. We may question and quibble, we may doubt and reject, but if we are saved at all, and if we find the refuge at all, it must be in Christ Jesus, "Unto whom coming a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood,

to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Because it is contained in Scripture,—

"Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner Stone, elect, precious; And He that believeth on Him shall not be put to shame. For you, therefore, that believe is the preciousness; but for such as disbelieve, The stone which the builders rejected, The same was made the head of the corner; and, A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; for they stumble at the word, being disobedient; whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who in time past were no people, but now are the people of God; who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." 1 Peter 2:4-10.

God's Answer.

Such is God's answer for those who are seeking refuge in this world. Question as we may, doubt as we will, laugh over the solemn warnings of His Word, the mighty shakings are yet to come, when everything that can be moved will be shaken by the voice of God when He shall come into His own, so that the things which can not be moved shall remain; and the things which can not be moved will be those builded into the Zion of God's foundation, in the character of Christ Jesus our Lord. That tunnels the grave with everlasting righteousness, and reaches out into the eternal green meadows of God beyond. He was righteous, therefore death could not hold Him (Acts 2:24); and all those who are built on Him, tho the grave may close over them here, will live with Him to all eternity; and when the last great convulsions of perverted nature shake the cosmos of this world into the chaos of finished sin, those who are builded on the sure foundation, who have found the sure refuge, even tho death is witnessed on every hand, can sing,—

"God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear, tho the earth do change, And tho the mountains be shaken into the heart of the seas; Tho the waters thereof roar and be troubled, Tho the mountains tremble with the swelling thereof. There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, The holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; SHE SHALL NOT BE MOVED; God will help her, at the dawn of the morning. The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved;

Santa Rosa Court House after the Earthquake.

He uttered His voice, the earth melted.) Jehovah of hosts is with us: The God of Jacob is our refuge." Ps. 46:1-7.

To this refuge we invite every longing, troubled soul of earth. This is our message, this is God's message. "What then shall one answer the messengers of the nation?—That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall the afflicted of His people take refuge."

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

By Editor

The Home of the "Signs of the Times."

PUBLISHED WEEKLY

(Entered September 15, 1904, as second-class matter at the Mountain View, Cal., post-office, under act of Congress of March 3, 1879.)

A. O. TAIT, - - - CIRCULATION MANAGER.

OUR EARTHQUAKE SPECIAL.

By Editor

Why? Why?

AS the journal having the largest circulation in the East of any paper published on the Pacific Coast, the publishers of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES believe it duty to issue a special number devoted largely to the great calamity which has befallen the fairest section of the Pacific Coast.

They have endeavored to secure accurate accounts from conservative eye-witnesses, after the excitement is over, and reason bears sway.

From various localities, cities, towns, and villages, typical of many other places, we give the news by pen and camera.

The reader can see to some extent what these cities were and what they are; what they were before the mighty forces of a perverted nature came up out of the earth and seized them in their grasp for a brief one-half minute, and what they are since.

The millions in the East will wish to see and know what the thousands of the West are seeing and feeling, many of them in hopeless despair; many, alas! are beyond the seeing and feeling and knowing, crushed into unrecognizable mass, burned in desolating fires, dying in various forms as result of earthquake and holocaust.

The fearful cataclysm still seems to many a horrible dream from which they wonder if they will ever waken; or waking find it an even more terrible reality, clasping in its appalling agony and crushing tentacles the years of the future.

Many, very many, have no hope in the life or the world beyond this existence and this poor earth; and when the earthquake crushed their building or the fire fiend doomed it, they lost their all.

It is to give these simple, heart-rending, heart-touching, awful facts, which, on every hand, stare one in the face, that this paper is printed by those among the losers.

THE EARTHQUAKE.

Copyright 1906, by Rogers and Stewart, Oakland, Cal.

TUESDAY night, April 17, the people in one of the fairest sections of the Pacific Coast, stretching, roughly speaking, from San Luis Obispo on the south to undefined regions in the mountains, beyond Ukiah on the north, went to bed as usual, expecting to awake to a usual day on the morrow.

The most of them were awakened with an awful shock which brought from many lips, "The world has come to an end!" "The judgment day has come!"

After the first shock was over, at 5:15, where were prosperous business centers, builded of brick or stone, were ruined walls, and piles of brick and mortar, while everywhere broken and falling chimneys and crushed and toppling water tanks met the eye.

All who could get out-of-doors left the houses, clad or half-clad, often in their night garments and barefooted.

It seemed as if an infuriated giant demon had reached up from the interior of the earth, buried his steel talons in the fibers of California's heart, and crushed and tore and shook her into the agonies of death.

Short work did the demon make of it,—only a half-minute or less, and the work of destruction was wrought. Never Titan so wrought before in modern western history of which the books tell. And when the paroxysm of his rage was over, the business portions of the beautiful towns of San Jose, Gilroy, Santa Rosa, Hollister, and others, were wholly or in part in ruins, and San Francisco's entire business portion was doomed.

From east to west some say the convulsion came; others, from north to south. The great temblor's signature on another page will show that the movements were in every conceivable direction, straight impulses, gyratory, circular, twisting, up and down, till exhaustion came and the earth was allowed to rest for awhile.

"Terra firma" we denominate the old earth. Those who experienced the shock of April 18, 1906, will call this planet "firm earth" no longer. They have seen it more restless than the sea, and far less merciful in its abnormal moods.

But the stars still glow in the evening sky, and the sun still shines, and trees still stand, and grass and flowers are still kissed by the sun and dew, and nod in the spring breeze.

God rules still, and is above the storm and the tempest and the earthquake—and from this awful blow will He bring good to those in harmony with Heaven.

The "Queen of the West" Laid Low

The Awful Quake and Holocaust

IT is hard to be believed that the Queen City of the Golden West, which yesterday was reigning in glory, in voluptuousness, in wealth, in pride, is to-day laid low in the dust.

Yesterday, like Babylon of old, she was the glory of cities, and the beauty of California's excellency. Her magnificent public buildings, her gilded palaces, her beautiful and extensive parks with their evergreen foliage, their ever-blooming flowers, vied with the famed gold-covered palaces and hanging gardens of the city of nations of old. And like Babylon's king of old, her merchant and mining and marine princes said, "Is not this great San Francisco, which we have built by the might of our power for the honor of our name?" forgetting God, who ruleth over the kingdoms of men.

Like Tyre of old she was a "merchant city," aye, the "merchant city" of the West; like Tyre, she dwelt at "the entry of the sea," "the merchant of the people unto many isles," and to her, as to Tyre, came a multitude of all kinds of merchandise and riches. Her bank clearings exceeded that of all the great combined cities of the West, to Salt Lake City and Helena. The value of her buildings erected yearly increased from $6,300,000 in 1900 to $21,900,000 in 1905. Her increase in shipping the last five years was in imports more than $4,900,000; in exports, $23,500,000; in tonnage 972,000.

All the state was dependent upon her. A little town might be as near Stockton or Sacramento as San Francisco, the chances were that it ordered all its flour from San Francisco.

For all large orders local merchants depended on her wholesale houses. It was the great central market, the emporium, the trade center of the West. When the awful blow fell upon our modern Tyre, California north of Tehachipi was for several days paralyzed.

But the city,

"the Pride of the Pacific" is laid low. Mortal pen will never tell the story of the day and the night which followed that awful shock of Wednesday morning. Read the words of one who passed through the fearful agony, Mr. Fred J. Hewitt, quoted by Mr. Hibbard in another column.

Noted Buildings.

The City Hall which cost $6,000,000 is a wreck, and the after heat of the fire of the city, which poured its inferno over the mighty pile, cracked the granite fence next to the sidewalk near no consumable material save green grass, till it peeled like poor plaster from a wall.

The Emporium and Hale's, the great stores of the city, stand as empty walls, wreck and ruin peering out of the eye-holes of windows and doors.

The walls of the Call Building, the Palace Hotel, the Flood Building, the New Chronicle Building, and some others still stand seemingly uninjured, but everything consumable burned on the inside.

But such are few. Gray, smoky desolation marks

A view in San Francisco from Union Square, taken before the fire. The high building on the left with the clock tower is the Chronicle Building. In the center stands the tall Call Building. The high building between hides the Examiner Building shown on the opposite page.

Ten or More Square Miles

in the city part of the Tyre of the West. Acres and acres and acres are completely stripped of everything standing save occasional chimney stacks and iron telegraph poles.

Sometimes a ruined wall, all that is left of a noble pile, faces you like a gaunt, drear relic of an age past and gone. Street-car tracks were twisted, cable slots were open and shut, streets dropped from inches to feet, and rails were bent and twisted as one would bend a copper wire.

The Loss in Dollars?

No one knows. It has been estimated at $100,000,000; at $500,000,000; at $1,000,000,000. Insurance men say $300,000,000, with probable insurance at $175,000,000. It is thought that most of this will be paid.

The Loss of Life?

Nor can any one tell this. Not till God's judgment books their records unfold will we know the number who perished as the result of that awful cataclysm. San Francisco papers persist in placing the list at not over 500. But their own records indicate more. For instance, in the awful holocaust of Telegraph and Russian Hills, which the fire encircled so quickly that all hope of escape was cut off, it is said that more than 150 perished. For instance, 200 bodies were found in the Potrero district south of Channel Street, and were cremated. For instance, forty bodies were taken from a house, 119 Fifth Street, a four-story wood building. Again and again we are told that hundreds and hundreds must have perished in the instant wrecks of big lodging houses, hotels, etc.

The dead must have numbered from 1,000 to 1,500. God alone knows, He only can tell the number.

The Power of the Earthquake

is incredibly awful. Now a fair, great growing city; in twenty-eight seconds it is a wreck! Mighty walls of brick and stone crumble like sand; great steel girders are twisted and broken like straws; streets heave and swell and fall and rise; the half-minute is over; the city is an appalling wreck, hundreds are dead and dying, the greatest earthquake of modern history, measured in gold, is over; and men stare and cry and gaze stunned and broken and helpless before such dynamic forces, the coming and going and power of which none ever measured.

Was It "an Avenging God?"

Rather, was it not the fruit of awful wickedness and the mercy of God which brought the awful catastrophe? Like Babylon and Tyre in their preliminary punishments, was not this modern proud and beautiful Babylon and modern thrifty Tyre meeting the fate that her open, flaunting, God-defying wickedness invited?

A young Baptist man, said that he told his wife that some great judgment would come on San Francisco on account of the awful, open wickedness practised, and they must get out. They did so a few weeks ago; and he remarked when the first shock came that San Francisco was sunken or ruined. Who warned him?

Not Alone for San Francisco.

Not to San Francisco alone comes the warning. It has come many times from godly men,

but they were laughed at. It so came to Babylon unheeded until the hand of fire wrote her doom upon the palace wall, "Weighed, and wanting." Read, fellow pilgrim of earth, Isaiah 13; Jeremiah 51 and 52; and Ezekiel 26 and 27. These are lessons for us, for New York, for Chicago, for every other place forgetting and defying God.

Will the lesson, the fear, awaken only impulse to do better, or the principle to do right?

Continue reading: SAN FRANCISCO