AS THE frail boat, storm-lashed by wind and wave,
Shivered and tossed upon its foamy path,
He spake these words, and, lo! a wondrous calm
Fell on the sea, and stilled the tempest’s wrath.
He had been sleeping, and in dire alarm
They had awaked Him. “Carest Thou not,” they
said,
“That we should perish?” But the Master chid
Their lack of faith, that they should be afraid.
And then the wonder grew in those faint hearts,
As to each other with pale lips they say,
“What manner of man is this, who doth command,
And even the winds and sea His voice obey?”
And as the travelers o’er that stormy sea,
Whose shores are strewn with wrecks of human life,
Hopeless of aid in their supremest need,
In dark despair would fain give up the strife,
So to each guilty soul of man that seeks
From sense of sin and fear a glad release,
He who once stilled the mighty tempest says,
“Have thou but faith, and I will give thee peace.”
I AM going to speak to you this morning on the subject of giving. I want you to see this subject wholly on its spiritual side. I am satisfied that unless you do, you will not become a truly bountiful, gracious giver. I know well that some men have the power when gifts are called for of setting out the needs of the occasion in such telling light that the emotions are excited, and the tears begin to flow, and the dollars flow in exact proportion to the tears. I do not decry the power of such men. It is well for us if we can not be worked by the highest motives to be worked by lower motives. This is sometimes the only way of reaching the highest. “First . . . that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.” But I have observed this, that after giving under emotional excitement induced by some thrilling or harrowing tale, there always comes a reaction, a sense of flatness, sometimes even of chagrin, that the judgment should thus be taken unawares. The gift promised in tears is often paid in cold and hard self-accusation. “I was a fool to be so carried away.” True giving is always followed by exhilaration of soul. It is more blessed to give than to receive.
So I do not envy men the power of extracting dollars. It is not in me to so deal with you, my people. I believe there is a more excellent way.
THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT OF GOD.
The pastor ought not to feel that each contribution depends upon the fervor or picturesqueness of his appeal just before the collection. This is a pumping process. The amount gained is in exact proportion to the vigor of the man at the handle. The gift of the church is thus no loving offering to God, but indirectly a reward to the pastor for his skill and ingenuity in playing upon the emotions. The heavenly Father takes no pleasure in such gifts. He loves principled, cheerful giving, spiritual giving. Listen to the rest of the verse from which our lesson is taken, “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give.” Here is principled giving. But the apostle seemed to fear that this principled giving might be cold and hard, the result of some slavish principle, so he adds, “Not grudgingly, or of necessity; for God loveth a cheerful giver.” He will have both, the deep, steadfast principle and the grace and bloom of the gift. A gift, my friends, is a most delicate, ethereal thing. You know that electricity may be diffused in the air as ozone and bathe your whole body in a most grateful and enkindling inspiration; or it may be focused in the deadly bolt of lightning. Have you never received a gift which felled your spirit to the earth? Your sensibilities were scorched and withered. You say within yourself, I know now how a tree feels when it is struck by lightning.
The impression which I wish to leave upon your minds this morning is this: our heavenly Father expects the same delicacy and refinement in our gifts to him as we expect in gifts from our friends.
Consider what a wonderful thing it is that it is possible for us to make him gifts at all. This wonder grows upon me more as my experience deepens; the subtle refinement, the delicacy, the spiritual beauty of the relations in which God holds us to himself. He might have assumed the character of master, calling us servants; all that we could render him then would be the regular tale of daily duties. All that we could expect in return would be our daily wages. He might have assumed the character of king, calling us subjects. Our relations to him then would have been purely political. A certain patriotism toward the government; due respect to the reigning king; a strict payment of taxes; obedience to the laws of the realm—all these relations are outward, coarse, tangible. They can all be numbered and written down in a book. But he has not called us servants, but friends. He has not called himself master or king, but father, brother, lover, companion, friend.
He has caught together all the sweetest, holiest names on earth, father, mother, husband, wife, sister, brother, and woven them into a crown; so that whenever we turn toward God, there we behold supreme human affection in all its pureness, its depths, its manifoldness, its unsearchableness. Will you tabulate and write down in a book the love of a household? Will you tell me what are the wages of a mother’s heart? Will you compute the taxes due a father’s devotion? By what legal skill will you codify the loving thoughts of a brother’s or a sister’s heart? You see, friends, the heavenly Father has stooped down to the earth and caught us up out of the realm of labor and wages, state sovereignty, and taxes, statutes, and obedience. We are no more under law but under grace. I love to carry that word “grace” back to its root meaning, beauty. We are caught up into the realm of God’s beauty.
If I enter the woods as a lumberman or real-estate agent, I deal with the woods on a few simple and definite principles. I compute the acreage or stumpage. I make note of the various kinds of wood. I take in at a glance the size and character of the trees. But if I enter the woods in a spirit of grace and beauty, I am enfolded and penetrated by ten thousand influences that are no more to be numbered and valued than are the gusts of fragrance from hidden banks of flowers, or the mysterious whisperings of ten million leaves. I am in a temple. And the sense of worship, adoration, and blessing that wells up within me can not be uttered in prayer, ritual, or hymn. Silence and the unspeakable joy of tears is the only offering possible.
So when I say that our God has caught us up into the realm of grace and beauty, you will understand that henceforth forever he seeks in us the delicacy and refinement which are the bloom of the Spirit. He hopes to receive from us those unnumbered and unnamed offerings of loving thought and feeling which exhale toward him as the fragrance and beauty of the flower breathe themselves out to the sun. Why think holy names which have been chosen to body forth our relations to the heavenly Father,—prayer, communion, faith, hope, love, confidence, rest, peace?
To abide in these relations is to enter into the eternal blessings of the divine life. It is to be one with God. Now let no one fail of the argument here. These high and holy relations exist between us and the heavenly Father; you may be sure he will always be loyal to these relations. He will not call us children and then straightway treat us as servants. On the other hand, he will not suffer us to call him Father, and then straightway treat him as tho he were a master or a king. No, no, no.
Spiritual relations are eternal and unalterable. They are written in the nature of God and in the nature of the soul. They are the spiritual order and constitution of the universe. We need not look for any suspension or inversion here, any more than in the laws of nature. The one law reigns here, as everywhere, loyalty6to God’s order is health, joy, peace, and beauty to us; disloyalty is pain and breakage and loss and deformity to us. So then when we come to the matter of gifts to God, we may be sure that he will abide by the spiritual law of giving. If your offering bears the bloom of the Spirit upon it, cheerfulness and love, it is accepted joyfully by the Father. If it comes “grudgingly or of necessity,” your offering has fallen from grace. It is no more a gift, but a tax, or a debt. It is rejected, because God is your Father, and not a tax-gatherer or a master. Should he accept such an offering, he himself would fall from grace, and we would fall with him from sonship to slavery.
Take this matter home to ourselves. What do we say of a man who is willing to receive a gift when the giver says: “I have no pleasure in this gift. I consider myself as simply paying a debt, or meeting a necessity.” We say indignantly among ourselves, “How can a man be so base as to accept such a gift?” Why do we not fling the gift back, saying, “Thy gift perish with thee”? And what a detestable spirit is the giver in! He must say within himself, “I want to buy this man’s favor;” or, “I must get even with him;” or, “I must hold him for future use.” Do you not see, friends, that if you carry this transaction up to God, it becomes positively blasphemous? We must remember that when we approach God with our offerings, he reads our thoughts; what we think in his presence, is equivalent to what we say to our fellow-men. For you then to offer to him a forced or grudging gift, and for him to accept it, would be a transaction in heavenly things, and by God himself as the principal person, quite as vulgar and detestable as in our sham giving on earth. Here then we come to the divine standard for weighing or testing our gifts.
In the English banks there is an ingenious contrivance for testing gold coin. Every night the sovereigns are poured into a long tube, from which they descend one by one upon a plate, or very delicate scale, which tells to a feather the weight of a true sovereign. If a coin falls short, it is slid off into a compartment by itself. The coins that can stand the test are likewise slid off on the other side. It is a certain day-of-judgment contrivance, you see. So this heavenly standard deals with our gifts. Our dollars are not counted, but weighed. This spiritual scale is exceedingly sensitive. If only the bloom is worn off, the scale detects it. “God loveth a cheerful giver.” He loves not the gift, but the spirit of the giver. It is the good cheer that is weighed. If there is lack there, the gift by itself is only a sordid lump. The heavenly scale casts it off as mere dross and refuse. By holding us to this spiritual test, God makes our giving a constant means of grace. We must be in a gracious mood to truly give. If we were not held to this high and holy standard, we would make our giving precisely the same as men file in to pay their taxes. I certainly have never been able to discover any very delicate or spiritual graces in that process.
You will observe this likewise. By holding steadfastly to the spirit of giving, our gifts are generous in fact, are just as large as we can possibly make them. There is no such thing as separating between the gift and the spirit of the giver. A man can not deceive himself, saying, “I will give little and make up for the meanness of the gift in pious feeling.” There are such givers among men. They bring you some mean, paltry little thing, then palaver over you with such butter and honey of fine words that you are almost persuaded that some very generous thing has been done. But we can not so deal with God. We can not slip a crisp one dollar bill into the foreign or home mission plate, then roll our eyes to heaven, saying, “Also the poor heathen, the dear heathen, Lord, help them.” O, no, friends! I rejoice that when you and I get in here, in this house, our Father’s house, before this altar, we are compelled to leave outside all the masks and devices of market and society. We are penetrated here by the keen and piercing questions: Do you really love your God and Father? Do you in your inmost soul desire to be at one with him, loving what he loves? Do you entertain his purposes? Do you count it your honor and joy to be reckoned a colaborer with him in the redemption of the world? If you find in your heart an honest amen to such questions, then the whole problem of giving is solved. You have first given yourself. All the other gifts are the instructive and joyful utterances of these profound principles and affections.
I need only suggest that what we have said is but an echo of our Saviour’s teaching. Remember the widow and her two mites. Here the Saviour discloses very clearly the day-of-judgment principle by which our gifts are to be tried. He expressly institutes a comparison between large gifts and small gifts. The rich cast in large sums, the widow her two little brass mites, worth about two-thirds of a cent. Here are the large gifts and small gifts in sharp contrast. But Jesus reverses all human standards and calls the small great, the great small. It must be that he presses in back of all outward values and numbers, and places these gifts upon some spiritual scale which is so delicate as to detect the thoughts and feelings of the giver. By that test he announces his decision: “This poor widow hath cast in more than they all; . . . but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.” Ah, yes, there must have been in her heart that deep and loving desire to utter herself to God, her Father! Hers was that pure, spontaneous, fountain-like springing of the heart toward God, which after all is the only lovely and valuable thing in this universe. Can you remember the words of Jesus, “When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth; that thine alms may be in secret”? Let it be in secret and prayerfully unto God, thus making all giving not a transaction between man and man, not between us and a board or corporation, but always a delicate transaction with our heavenly Father. He will always and everywhere insist upon the spiritual qualifications of the gift. If your offering has not the bloom and delicacy of the Spirit, cheerfulness, love, beautifulness, it is not a gift at all. You may call it gold or silver or a check. It is really nothing but a lump of clay, devoid of all beauty and value. It can only symbolize the heavy, lumpish, earthy state of your soul. As I have before said, it is deliverance from just this state which our heavenly Father seeks. Accordingly, he has caught us up to himself in all high and holy and graceful relations. He makes us co-laborers with himself. He puts into our hands his own work. He invites us to join him in self-denials (remember he has given his only-begotten Son) and in labors. And in all this high and blessed life, he insists upon true spiritual oneness with himself. He insists that we are in a kingdom of heaven. The motives which carry us, the hopes and purposes which lead us, the inspirations which lift us and enlarge us, must be precisely the same as reign within his own Spirit and constitute the crown of his eternal beauty and goodness.
Jewish Customs and Traditions.
By F. C. Gilbert
(By an Israelite.)
The Sanctuary and Its Services.—Continued.
The Altar of Burnt Offering.
Having now taken a general survey of the exterior of the tabernacle, let us turn our eyes inwardly, and see what we can there behold. We shall find that the Lord has precious truths for us within the tabernacle, as he had without; for “whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning,” especially for those “upon whom the ends of the world are come.” And the reason the Lord gives us these precious lessons is that we may derive hope and comfort from the Scriptures.
As we enter the gate of the court, the first thing that meets our eye is the altar of shittim wood, overlaid with brass. (See Ex. 27:1–8.) This altar was used to offer up the whole burnt offerings, the peace offerings, the meat offerings, etc. The top of the altar was a square, and at each of the corners were horns. It was in use the year round, as it was here the offerings were slain. What did the altar signify, and what was associated with it?
When a person committed a sin, whether ignorantly or knowingly, he was to bring an offering, as commanded by the Lord, to the door of the tabernacle, and on the head of this offering he was to confess his sins, and then he was to take the knife, and shed the blood. The offering was then laid upon the altar by the priest, and fire came down from God out of heaven, and accepted the offering. Before the individual could find any peace, he had to bring the animal, and it had to be slain. The man who performed this thus acknowledged himself to be a sinner. The first thing the sinner had to do before he could find peace and joy, was to bring the offering to the altar, and then he would receive the forgiveness of sins. But how was this accomplished?—By the sins of the man being transferred to the animal, and the life of the animal being taken. But the blood represents the life. Gen. 9:4; Deut. 12:23. Whose life? Says one, the life of the man. That is so; for the individual transferred his sins to the head of the beast. But man could not take away his own sin. Then it also represented the life of the spotless Lamb which was to take away the sins of the world. Thus the animals brought to this altar had a double meaning to every soul.
When the life was taken, the blood was poured on the ground all around the altar. The people were warned many times not to eat the blood; they were to pour it out, and to cover it with the dust. Deut. 12:16, 24. Then the offering was placed upon the altar, and God showed his acceptance by the fire which came down from heaven and consumed it.
What holy and sacred truths do these things teach us! We feel as tho we were now standing upon the “holy ground;” for it was he who gave his life freely for us, and was offered on God’s altar as the sacrifice for man. Even Abel realized when he was offering his lamb to the Lord, that it was none other than the “Lamb of God” to be slain, that could take away his sins, and give him peace and pardon. And how this same truth was impressed upon the mind of the prophet Isaiah when he saw him brought as a “lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.” Therefore John could well say, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”—even that Lamb which was foreordained from before the foundation of the world, but slain from the foundation of the world.199While he was offering himself up to God, often the fire of God’s love would be sent to earth, to show he was accepted, and the voice heard, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And he himself said, “I always do those things that please him.” He offered himself to the Lord upon the altar of service, and thus found the peace to his own heart, at the same time pouring out his blood, or the life, for the good of humanity, each step in the way. He used it not for himself; he did not eat the blood; but he poured it out as freely as one would water. “For he hath poured out his soul unto death.” But why have him, the sinless One, go through so much sorrow, suffering, affliction, and pain?—Because he gave himself for our sins, that he might be made sin for us, who knew no sin. And was this simply to make him suffer?—Nay, verily; but through the offering up of his life to God, he made it possible that we can offer up our lives to God. He shed his blood for our sins, that we might be made the righteousness of God through him, that we may be cleansed, and purified, and made acceptable to God.
How true this is to the Christian! Paul tells us we have an altar. Heb. 13:10. But what was the use of the altar?—To offer up sacrifices. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Rom. 12:1. What kind of sacrifices are these?—“Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” What blessed and holy joy there is to the hungry soul who wishes the peace of God and the sweet forgiveness of sins, to come to the altar, and receive the pardon through the “blood of the Lamb which taketh away the sin of the world;” and then, having done this, to offer up himself unto the Lord upon the altar of God’s service, to be a blessing and benefit to humanity—not to appropriate the blood to himself, but to pour it out if need be, and cover it with the dust! O, what a privilege to be a co-worker with Jesus, a child of heaven! But how much of the offering must be given? Ah! is it not true that we sometimes want to keep back part of it, and think we can get along just as well with the Lord? The offering anciently was bound to the horns of the altar, and was not touched till all of it was consumed. Ps. 118:27. It is the whole life that is to be given, in order to be accepted. In order to receive all, we must give up all. “If any man will be my disciple, let him forsake all and follow me.” These are the words of Jesus.
And what a blessed thought to know that God will accept the offering from all alike; for with him there is no respect of person—no difference between Jew and Gentile, free or bond, male or female. So we read: “Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers; and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name.” “Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you . . . because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the Gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost.” Rom. 15:8, 9, 15, 16.
Reader, have you not yet been to that altar? You can not think how much you have missed; you do not realize what great loss you have sustained. Then delay no longer, but accept the offering made for you, and give your life to God for the service of humanity. “To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.” “And him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out.”
F. C. Gilbert.
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
By B. L. Howe
The Saviour taught us to pray: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
Around the throne of God in heaven are the twenty-four divisions of the multitude of captives that Christ took with him when he ascended up on high. Matt. 27:52, 53; Eph. 4:8; Rev. 4:8. Their song day and night is, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty;” “for thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.” Rev. 5:9, R. V.
Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands take up the refrain, and heaven’s arches ring with, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.”
Who would not join that happy throng, where the will of God is done there in the fulness of joy? Ps. 16:11.
These who ascribe “honor and blessing to their Prince and Captain” (Dan. 10:13; Josh. 5:14) are those “that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word” (Ps. 103:20).
When the word is spoken, they fly very swiftly to do the will of Heaven. Dan. 8:16-9:21; Ps. 147:15.
When Christ came to this world as our Example and Saviour, his work was to “seek and to save that which was lost.” After he had been anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, he came among the people declaring, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” Mark 1:15.
By the mouth of the prophet David, Christ, many years before this, had said, “I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.” Ps. 40:8. When here among men he said: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.” John 4:34. “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” John 5:30. “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” John 6:38. “I do always those things that please him.” John 8:29. Thus we see, in the life of Christ, the will of God done as it is in heaven, and so he could say to the people, “The kingdom of God is at hand;” and again, “The kingdom of God is among you.” Luke 17:21, margin. It comes not with outward show (verse 20, margin), but, as the grain of mustard seed silently becomes a great plant, so the kingdom of God—Christ in you—reigns until every enemy is put down, and the will of God is done by the believer as it is done in heaven.
The King of this kingdom is love. His disposition is to treat all his subjects better than they deserve. Micah 7:18. And he invites even the rebels against his government to come to his “throne of grace” and obtain this same disposition (Heb. 4:16), and then let it reign in us (Rom. 5:21), that the will of our King may be done in us as it is done in him—in heaven.
How much better to come to this throne for wisdom to turn from sin, and for power to bring sinners to repentance, than to present our petitions to the Legislatures of States or nations, to earthly kings or emperors!
Whosoever will, let him come to the throne of grace, and learn that the kingdom of God is indeed like a king that would take account of his servants. Matt. 18:23-35. In the beginning of the reckoning the chief debtor was brought. He had nothing wherewith to pay. Only bondage and torment for himself and family were offered. He prostrated himself before his Lord and plead for mercy, and was not given time to pay, but freely forgiven the whole debt.
When God pronounced the earth and all that was therein “very good,” and crowned it with Eden beauty, and gave it all to Adam to enjoy, and then took his greatest delight in being with man (Prov. 8:31), to show him how to get the most pleasure out of all God had given him, what more could he have done? How could the one who held the dominion incur a greater debt than by giving himself and his beautiful home over to rebellion and destruction? Then when he asked to be forgiven, the Lord not only freely forgave, but arranged to buy all back, pay the price himself, and give it all to man again.
Surely here is love. He loved his own, and in the cross of Calvary we have the pledge, loves to the end—to the uttermost (John 13:1, R. V., margin), and he is able and willing to forgive and to save every son and daughter of Adam who will come unto him (Heb. 7:25); for he will turn none away (John 6:37).
What the Lord of all wants us all to do just now is to come to this throne and obtain this same infinite desire to treat all our fellow-creatures with the same everlasting love that flows like a river from the heart of our King. God wants us to take our hands off from the throats of our fellow-servants, and treat them as Jesus Christ does. 1 John 2:6.
God would have us know that he loved us so much that he invested his life in Christ in each one of us. He did this when we were all rebels. Rom. 5:8.
Now what God wants, and the only thing he wants, is for every man and woman to seek to restore his image in every one for whom and to whom he has given his life. Matt. 20:28; Col. 3:10. B. L. HOWE.
PROPHECY FULFILLING.
By Chas. P. Whitford
THE special mission and work of Seventh-day Adventists is that of proclaiming the third angel’s message of Rev. 14:9–12. This message declares that “if any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God. . . . Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”
Bible expositors and commentators are agreed that the “beast” symbolizes the Papacy. Then it is the worship of the Papacy, his image and mark, against which the third angel utters so terrific a denunciation of wrath. Notice, it is the wine of God’s wrath, without any mixture of mercy. It must be some heaven-daring sin to thus incur the divine displeasure. There is not to be found elsewhere in all the Bible such a solemn warning. In all the history of the past, there has always been a mixture of mercy with every judgment inflicted by God. But not so here. What this heinous sin is, and how to bring ourselves into harmony with God’s will, that we may enjoy his favor, his blessing, and a refuge from the storm of his200wrath, and at the last a home in his kingdom, is a question of the greatest importance to every person at the present time. It is a fact that important questions, as well as important duties, are generally neglected. During the past year, progress in the work of bringing the Papacy to that place where all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, has been rapid, and in some instances almost surprising.
Turn to Rev. 14:9–12 and read the message. Notice, it warns against worshiping the beast and his image, and the reception of his mark. What is the image? An image is a likeness to that which existed before it. An image to the Papacy then will be a likeness or representation of the Papacy. The Papal Church was clothed with civil power. Will Protestantism ever be clothed with the civil power?—It will if there is to be an image to the Papacy. But does the Bible teach there will be such an image? It warns against worshiping the image, which is equivalent to saying that it will exist; for it is evident we could not render obedience to an unknown institution. But is there direct testimony that there will be an image? In Rev. 13:14 there is this expression, “Saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast.” This certainly indicates that such a thing will be discussed, at all events. It shows farther that it is in a country where the laws are made by the people. It is not a monarchy, where the king’s word is law. It must be in a free government.
In the eleventh verse the prophet beheld a “beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb.” This power came on the stage of action just as the papal beast went into captivity in 1798, as will be seen by the first ten verses of the chapter. No other power except the United States was at that time coming up. Hence, as to the time of its rise, it applies to our own country. The two lamb-like principles of our government are Republicanism and Protestantism; in other words, “A church without a pope, and a State without a king.” The two horns on this beast well represent the fundamental principles upon which our government was founded. For these and many other reasons we believe the two-horned beast of Rev. 13:11 symbolizes the United States of America. Then it is here, in free America, where a saying will go forth, Come, let us make an image to the beast.
And will they succeed? The fifteenth verse declares, “And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” Is not this testimony direct and positive that there will be made an image to the beast in this country? The Bible being the infallible Word of God, it must be so. Notice, the twelfth verse declares that this beast will exercise all the power of the beast which lived before it. It is the United States which succeeds the papal beast, therefore it is equivalent to saying that the United States will exercise all the power which characterized the papal beast. How much power did it possess? Let from fifty to one hundred million martyrs answer. What gave the Papacy such unlimited power? History records but one answer, namely, the church and her doctrines were defended by the civil power of the world. Relentless persecutions, and the destruction of more than fifty millions of God’s people, were the result. And will such bloody scenes be reenacted here in free America?—No, never.
The God of heaven mercifully sends out a warning message to the inhabitants of earth, saying, Do not worship the beast or his image; and then a refuge safe and sure is pointed out, namely, “Here are they which keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” And will such get the victory over the beast and his image? Verse 2 of chapter 15 declares that they will. Where will they stand?—“On the sea of glass, having the harps of God.”
What becomes of those who worship the beast and his image, etc.?—“And there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshiped his image.” Chapter 16:2. And is this all?—No, there follow six more plagues, this being the first. These plagues constitute “the wine of the wrath of God,” threatened by the third angel’s message. It is called in the Bible, “The seven last plagues.” These plagues are to be inflicted upon those who do not heed the warning voice of God, as heard in the third angel’s message. If the Seventh-day Adventists are proclaiming this message, should they not be commended in their work? Have they not truths for the people which if heeded will prove of inestimable value to them, in the time of trouble which is just before us? CHAS. P. WHITFORD.
