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WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?

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WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?

9 minuten leestijd Arcering uitzetten

(Continued)

It was the sixteenth time the New York Tribune Forum was held in the great metropolis of New York. Each year this daily paper assembles such a gathering where important speakers from America and from other lands express their views about the topics of the day. The subject under discussion this time was whether modern man was a slave or a free man: “Modern man slave or sovereign?”

President Truman wrote to the Forum that we should co-operate to obtain a peaceful, stable world. Europe should be helped that it might be able to help itself.

The Secretary of State said that the time had now arrived to give that help. We had talked much, now we should show with deeds what we intend.

The Secretary of Defense pointed out that the world was not yet ready for a world government. Also, the time was not yet ripe for disarmament. In the world as it was now we should keep a strong army in readiness.

Prof. K. F. Compton agreed with this. Russia has ready an army of ten million men. America has one of about one million.

In this meeting the question was also asked: How could man live in this world as a free man ?

The former ambassador to the Court of St. James pointed to the spiritual things, which should guide us. He spoke about a “service democracy.” We must lead, said he, with faith in the goodness of man. Yet this same man who pointed out such a way as the way through dark and gloomy times, ended his life a few days after giving this speech, still in the prime of his life.

Another speaker also referred to spiritual values. The strength of our nation is not our economic system, but the fact that man is a moral and religious being. We are children of God and as such possess dignity and liberty. We may never become slaves of our environment, but must proceed on the road of liberty.

There was also a speaker from the Roman Catholic Church. He spoke of the new fellowship of the Church formed by Christ — a fellowship which promised its children the grace of an inward liberty through accepting and practicing the moral law. He was of the opinion that the Church was one of the few remaining fortresses of liberty.

Another speaker, Prof. Niebuhr, maintained that we should reckon with the matters as they are today. We should keep our eyes open and not permit the enemy to occupy strategic points before the war. There was also a Jewish rabbi, who said that the Jews loved freedom and were an example of a minority which has a right of existence in the midst of hostile forces.

Many others expressed their opinions, but all speakers were convinced of the peril of the world and of the dark clouds hovering over Europe.

In general the participants turned to man, man in his goodness and inward striving for liberty, as the one who possesses the key for help.

These few things I wrote down to give you an impression of the distance that the world and the great men of the world have departed from God and His testimony. We can notice very clearly that the true knowledge of God and His Word is lacking and that man just wants to live according to the old lie: “You shall be as God.” Man in his folly still believes the lie of Satan. He still will not discontinue building the tower of Babel, though God has struck it down to earth and does so again and again.

How foolish man is and self-deceived, also in his view of religion, which is entirely at variance with what God has revealed in His Word.

Indeed, it is still night. God is no longer recognized and His inviolate justice is obscured. People are blind to the fact that there is but one way to deliverance and salvation, the Unconditional return to God and His Testimony. What we read in Isaiah 8:19, 20, can surely be applied also in our time:

“And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter or [say]: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead ? [On behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead?] To the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word; it is because there is no light in them, [surely there is no morning for them.”]

Quite justly we may speak about a world forgetting God and thus hastening to its destruction. The knowledge of pure truth is found hardly anywhere any more. Smytegeld expressed in one of his sermons that there are towns and villages in which God no longer comes.

Unbelief and superstition are filling the earth and gradually it is becoming more and more manifest that God is giving up the world to itself. The judgment of hardening of heart precedes the judgment of destruction. Men expect salvation and deliverance from the hills and from the mountains; but that there must be an unconditional return to the Lord, with supplication and weeping — of that they no longer have any conception. We are living in a declining world. How necessary it is that we, (as did Baruch) shall receive our lives as a prey from the Lord. With Him we can live: in and through and out or in other words with God we are enabled to enter upon life, go through life, and depart out of life safely or fearing no evil.

As we study God’s Word and give heed to the signs of the times indicated in that Word, we are told that grievous times are at hand.

That Word alone is Truth and that is the safe and dependable compass by which we can sail. That Word teaches us the lordship and sovereignty of God in heaven and on earth. God retains the control of the world in His own hands and the greatest monarchs only execute what God has decreed in His Counsel. He holds the hearts of kings in His hand and inclines them as water courses to all or whatsoever He wills. The’ entire world may despise and forget God, but that notwithstanding He still remains the Director. Even Nebuchadnezzar had to confess that, though it was only with his mind. It was also granted to Manasseh in a dungeon in Babylon to acknowledge that the Lord is God — although in a manner different from that of Nebuchadnezzar; for in the case of Manasseh this confession was wrought through the saving operation of the Spirit of God, unto his own personal welfare and salvation for time and eternity.

Now there are in scattered places still a remnant according to the election of Grace. God still has His Church as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and as a besieged city. God still bears with the world because there are still unfulfilled promises and in scattered places there still remain some under the seal of the eternal electing love of God. God’s counsel is not yet completed and there are still sheep that must be gathered in so that it will become one flock and one Shepherd.

Might it yet be granted that a year of God’s pleasure were proclaimed and may He yet exalt His church to luster and glory in this confused world. The main thing for each one of us personally will be that we are included. Drawn out of this present evil world according to the will of God the Father through Christ Jesus. No matter then how terrifying things may become, that people that is redeemed out of this world has a place with God, and in the intercession of Christ.

Enemies may kill the body but not the soul.

And the hope that that people has shall surely not put them to shame, because the love of God is poured out in their hearts by the Holy Spirit. In the crisis this people by the power of Christ shall sing Psalms in the nights of oppression and suffering. They will be kept unto eternal life. For them will come the dawn of eternal liberation, that shall never be followed again by a night of persecution. Their hope and expectation is in God, the Triune God, Christ has overcome the world.

My poor unconverted fellow-traveler, through time to that eternity that determines all things: learn now to flee to God and to sigh before the judgment comes; for the day passes away as chaff. Do not place your hope in the world, nor in better days to come. The world passes away and the lust thereof. Seek that treasure that never decays. Oh, that God might yet work in our hearts effectually and irresistibly, so that in our very hearts and lives the world might indeed perish not only through water but also through fire. And dear people of God! walk as the wise and not as the unwise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. That we might pass the time of our sojourning here upon earth in fear. Would that for us to live might be Christ, then to die would also be gain. May we through grace be indeed humbled in the dust before God and yet live above the dust, or the things of time and sense, setting our minds on the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God the Father. Finally:

In all your ways, look to the Lord,

Trust in Him and your future is secure.

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WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?

Bekijk de hele uitgave van zondag 1 augustus 1948

The Banner of Truth | 16 Pagina's