Bdtofd Your God

BduU Your Cod

by F. T. Wright

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PATHWAY PUBLISHERS
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 v

Introduction
It is safe to say that three facts are common to us all.
The first is that we have, either consciously or subconsciously, a definite
opinion about the character of God. Even though little direct thought or spe-
cific expression may have been given to the topic, it is true nonetheless.
The second is that our attitude toward God, our treatment of others, and
our receptivity of truth are determined by these opinions.
The third is that all of us were born predispositioned to possess a false
concept of God which in tum has been confirmed and extended by en-
vironmental educational influences. Unless delivered from this and initiated
into a true knowledge of God, it will be impossible to enter into a full and
perfect Christian experience, and the prospects of eternal life will be en-
dangered.
If this seems to be saying too much, consider the proof of these words as
provided in the history of the Jews of Christ's day.
When Christ first appeared working amazing miracles, proclaiming the
kingdom, and proving that He came at exactly the time specified in
Daniel 9, He quickly became a very popular figure. Thousands followed
Him, confident that He would reestablish the lost glory of Israel. The
Jewish leaders studied the movement with increasing apprehension seeing
in it the threat to their prestige and power. His following continued to swell
until the feeding of the five thousand with the loaves and fishes. Then,
when the enthusiasm of the people had reached its height and they were
determined to crown Him king, the tide suddenly turned, the enthusiasm
died away, and the crowds walked with Him no more. From that time
every step led to the cross when those who had so ardently called for His
crowning, screamed for His crucifixion.
What was the factor which caused this astonishing reversal?
The answer is not difficult to find.
They had a very definite but false concept of God's character, shaped
by the educational processes in their environment. This factor was so fixed
and powerful that it influenced them to reject the Saviour because He did
not perform as their concept of God's character led them to expect and
desire of Him. Thus the question of God's character became the most
critical element in the mission of Jesus and the fate of the Jews. Had they
correctly understood this, the history of His work on earth would have been
very different.
Any careful study of the mounting conflict between Christ and the peo-
ple leaves no doubt of the veracity of the above assertions.
A great and significant event in His early ministry was the Sermon
on the Mount. Everyone who attended came anticipating important
vi INTRODUCTION

announcements about the coming kingdom. The Pharisees "looked for-

ward to the day when they should have dominion over the hated Romans,
and possess the riches and splendor of the world's great empire. The poor
peasants and fishermen hoped to hear the assurance that their wretched
hovels, the scanty food, the life of toil, and fear of want were to be
exchanged for mansions of plenty and days of ease. In place of the one
coarse garment which was their covering by day, and their blanket by night,
they hoped that Christ would give them the rich and costly robes of their
conquerors. All hearts thrilled with the proud hope that Israel was soon to
be honored before the nations as the chosen of the Lord, and Jerusalem
exalted as the head of a universal kingdom." The Desire of Ages, 299.
Because the devil had done his work well, the people believed not only
that the Messiah would exalt them in this way but that He would do it by the
use of the sword. They saw Gcx:l as the vengeful, destroying One of the Old
Testament. Their concept of the God of the Old Testament led them to
believe that the God of the New would behave in the same way. But
because their understanding of Gcx:l's character was wrong, their expectations
were to be disappointed.
"Christ disappointed the hope of worldly greatness. In the Sermon on
the Mount He sought to undo the work that had been wrought by false
education, and to give His hearers a right conception of His kingdom and of
His own character." ibid.
The people did not hear what they had come to hear in the sermon on
the mount, but they did not reject the Saviour just then. He did not directly
attack their errors, and they were left with the vague hope that somehow
He would yet assert His power and use it according to their ideas of God's
character.
Their servitude to the Romans had placed that proud people in a des-
perate plight. They needed great help, and they knew it. Their understand-
ing of the prophecies had led them to pin their entire hopes on the Messiah
as the answer to this predicament. If He should fail them, they would have
nowhere else to tum.
Christ had not come to fail them. He knew exactly what their true
needs were, and He had fully purposed to supply those needs. But the
answer did not lie in the use of the weapons of force. It lay in the changing
of their characters into the likeness of His own. But so intent were they on
their long cherished ambitions that there was no room to consider the alter-
native He offered.
The climax came at the feeding of the five thousand. Throughout the
long day, He had thrilled their hearts with the wonder of His teachings. The
sick had been healed and the multitude fed. As the day wore on "... they
said one to another, 'This is of a truth that Prophet that should come into
the world.'
"All day the conviction had strengthened. That crowning act is as-
surance that the long-looked-for Deliverer is among them. The hopes of
 INTRODUCTION vii

the people rise higher and higher. This is He who will make Judea an
earthly paradise, a land flowing with milk and honey. He can satisfy every
desire. He can break the power of the hated Romans. He can deliver Judah
and Jerusalem. He can heal the soldiers who are wounded in battle. He
can supply whole armies with food. He can conquer the nations, and give to
Israel the long-sought dominion.
"In their enthusiasm the people are ready at once to crown Him king.
They see that He makes no effort to attract attention or secure honor to
Himself. In this He is essentially different from the priests and rulers, and
they fear that He will never urge His claim to David's throne. Consulting
together, they agree to take Him by force, and proclaim Him the king of
Israel. The disciples unite with the multitude in declaring the throne of
David the rightful inheritance of their Master. It is the modesty of Christ,
they say, that causes Him to refuse such honor. Let the people exalt their
Deliverer. Let the arrogant priests and rulers be forced to honor Him who
comes clothed with the authority of God." ibid., 377, 378.
They could see that Jesus loved them and that He had all the power
necessary to give them all that they could desire. The only kind of character
they knew and understood was the kind which used the possession of
mighty power to achieve their selfish ambitions. They could not see and
were unwilling to be taught that Christ did not have this kind of character.
He loved the Romans as much as He loved the Jews, neither was it His way
to use force to accomplish any desired objective. Therefore, in harmony with
His character, He would not permit Himself to be made king by them,
nor would He use His mighty powers to advantage one class of those
whom He loved, above another. With an authority which none could
disobey, He dismissed disciples and multitude alike.
The bitter complaint of the apostles against Him then was, "Why did
not He who possessed such power reveal Himself in His true character, and
make their way less painful?" ibid., 380.
The truth was that Christ was living out His character to perfection. It
was because of what He was, that He did what He did. In their failure to
understand His real character, they expected an altogether different line of
behavior. When He did not do what they believed that He should do, they
felt cheated and betrayed.
So it was with the multitude. The next day after closely questioning
Him, they came to see that He would never use His power as they ex-
pected Him to. For this reason they left Him forever. "If He would not
devote His power and influence to obtaining their freedom from the
Romans, they would have nothing to do with Him." ibid., 391.
Thus it was that their misunderstanding of the character of God in
Christ led them to expect from Him a complete deliverance from the
Romans and their exaltation to the heights of material grandeur. He was a
Jew like they were. He was sent as the Messiah to the chosen and favored
viii INTRODUCTION

people. He had the power. Therefore, they reasoned, it was His duty to
use that power to favor them. If He refused to do it, then He was nothing
short of a traitor to His own. They found Him guilty of treason and de-
termined to be revenged. Because they possessed the character which they
believed He had, they did to Him with the power at their command, what
they believed He should have done to the Romans. To accomplish this,
they accused Him before the Romans of seeking to make Himself to be
what they had actually tried to make Him-the king of the world. This was
a totally false accusation which, though it enabled them to wreak
vengeance on Him whom they believed had betrayed them, opened the
floodgates of woe on the nation. Few people, if any, have suffered as the
Jews have since that terrible time. Theirs is a fate which none would care to
share.
If only they had understood the character of God so perfectly revealed
in Christ, or at least been willing to be taught it, they would not have ex-
pected of Him what they did, nor would they have rejected and vengefully
crucified Him. Thus the question of the character of God and Christ was the
most critical element in His mission and in the fate of the Jews.
Contained in their history is a sober warning which none can treat light-
ly. The character of God is still the most critical issue in the mission of
Christ. As were the Jews, so too have all of us been subjected to an er-
roneous education in respect to God's character. But God will not leave us
in this darkness without the opportunity to escape from it. When that light is
presented to us, there is the terrible danger that we will repeat their history
by rejecting the message because it does not conform to our already
established ideas and does not suit our personal ambitions and dreams.
Let none repeat the fearful history of the Jews by rejecting God's truth
on this basis. The outworking of such decisions have implications too terri-
ble, final, and eternal to contemplate. Rather let there be an earnest,
prayerful pleading with the Lord to open the eyes of our spiritual under-
standing to see God as He really is.
May the message of this book be a mighty aid in knowing God, whom
to know is life eternal.

"And this Is life eternal,

that they might know Thee
The only true God,
and Jesus Christ,
Whom Thou hast sent."
John 173.
 Co11te11ts

1. An All Important Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2. Avoid Speculative Theories ............................. 7
3. The Character Of God In Relation To The Great Controversy ..... 13
4. The Character Of God
And The Ending Of The Great Controversy ........... 26
5. Isaiah's Wonderful Prophecy ............................41
6. Approaching The Study Of God ........................ 48
7. The Constitution Of The Government Of God ............... 53
8. A Perfect Law ..................................... 69
9. God's Principles Under Test ............................ 87
10. A Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
11. Contrasting Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
12. Statements And Principles ............................ 106
13. God Does Destroy-But How? ......................... 119
14. The Supreme Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
15. Urged To Destroy .................................. 147
16. Magnifying The Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
17. Go The Second Mile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
18. The Mystery Of Iniquity-Satan's Masterpiece Of Deception ..... 180
19. The Mystery-Unfolding Cross .......................... 192
20. The Way Of The Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
21. God Is Not A Criminal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
22. Rods And Serpents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
23. The Upraised Rod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
24. The Showing Of God's Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
25. The Rood ....................................... 259
26. Great Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
27. Concepts Revised .................................. 281
28. Sodom And Gomorrah .............................. 291
29. An Execution ..................................... 315
30. The Ever-Loving, Saving Father ......................... 328
31. God Goes The Second Mile ........................... 345
3'2. The Consistency Of God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
33. The Wars Of Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
34. An Eye For An Eye ................................. 373
35. Difficult Statements ................................. 378
36. The Seven Last Plagues .............................. 391
37. The Brightness Of His Coming ......................... 396
38. The Final Showdown ................................ 401
39. In Conclusion ..................................... 413
 CHAPTER ONE

An All Important Theme

The study pursued throughout this book is not merely one of great im-
portance. It is of the highest consequence involving issues of eternal life and
death. It is very much the author's burden that this be realized from the outset
and perceived increasingly as the theme is developed.
Jesus said, "And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only
true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent." John 17:3.
The full, forceful significance of this Scripture cannot be grasped by
reading it in isolation. Other inspired statements must be read along with
it so that the meaning becomes powerfully clear. When such comparisons are
extensively and carefully made, it will be seen that the truth expressed in
this verse is an equation. It is saying that life eternal is the knowledge of
God; therefore the knowledge of God is life eternal.
The converse of this, then, is that the lack of a true knowledge of God is
death eternal and, therefore, death eternal is the lack of a true knowledge
of God.
The Amplified Bible renders this verse thus: "And this is eternal life: [it
means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with and
understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him,
Jesus [as the] Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah, Whom You have
sent." John 17:3.
This version presents a clearer rendition of the verse. It states that life
eternal means a knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, so without that
knowledge, we can only know eternal death. This is confirmed by the follow-
ing statements.
'The knowledge of God as revealed in Christ is the knowledge that all who
are saved must have. It is the knowledge that works transformation of
character. This knowledge, received, will re-create the soul in the image of
God. It will impart to the whole being a spiritual power that is divine."
Testimonies, 8:289.
Knowing God is life eternal, and life eternal is knowing God.
This statement does not merely say that all who are saved would be
well advised to have the knowledge of God. They must have it. It is essen-
tial, indispensable. Yet, the statement does more than emphasize the truth
of this. It proceeds to reveal the reasons for its being so. In order to attain to
eternal life, the character must be transformed and recreated into the image
of God, while to the whole being must be imparted a power that is divine.
Knowing that to come into possession of eternal life necessitates the ac-
quisition of these blessings, it becomes the seeker's prime interest to know
by what means it can be received.
2 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The answer is not hidden.

It is "the knowledge of God as revealed in Christ."
Therefore, it is truly spoken that the knowledge of God is life eternal,
and life eternal is the knowledge of God.
The full force of these verses will not be appreciated unless there is a
correct understanding of what the grace and peace of God are. Let each
now be considered in turn.
God's grace is not merely an attitude maintained on His part toward the
undeserving sinner. Rather, it is "the regenerating, enlightening power of
the Holy Spirit .... " The Great Controuersy, 394.
Therefore, the grace of God is God's power working to regenerate and
enlighten the willing and obedient. Defining the grace of God as being the
power of God, sets it apart as the supreme force in the universe. It is the
one element emanating from a creating and re-creating God which lifts the
lost from damnation to glorification, and without which there would be no
hope. Understandably then, the Holy Spirit spoke through the inspired
Peter the desire that such grace should be multiplied to the believers.
Assuredly, those who received such multiplied supplies of grace would be
blessed with eternal life. Observe the media through which it would come to
them. It would be theirs through the knowledge of God.
Likewise, the peace of God is much more than merely a mental persua-
sion on God's part whereby He maintains a kindly or even indulgent at-
titude toward those who believe in Him. A careful comparison of Romans
8:7 and 5:1, considerably expands the concept of what the peace of God
is. The former tells us that the carnal mind is enmity against God, while the
latter confirms that to be justified is to haue peace with God.
Therefore, both enmity against God, and peace with God are states of
being. The presence of the carnal mind does not merely produce enmity,
for it is enmity. By contrast, it is the presence of the very life of God within
the person which is the peace of God. These two cannot coexist. The
former must be removed in order to make room for the latter. Only the
mighty power of God can accomplish such splendid results.
The Holy Spirit through Peter, was concerned that the believers be
filled with this peace for its presence in them was that of eternal life. As with
the grace or power of God, it came to them through the knowledge of God.
How earnestly and lovingly the Lord seeks to impress upon the dull, slow,
human mind that it is through the revelation of the character of God that
eternal life is made available to the needy.
To know what God will do for us is very important. But it will still not
bring to us eternal life unless we understand how we can receive these
blessings. Consequently, the following statement stresses the question and
supplies the answer.
"By sin the image of God in man has been marred and well-nigh
obliterated; it is the work of the gospel to restore that which has been lost;
AN All IMPORTANT TI-IEME 3

and we are to cooperate with the divine agency in this work. And how can
we come into harmony with God, how shall we receive His likeness, unless
we obtain a knowledge of Him? It is this knowledge that Christ came into
the world to reveal unto us." Testimonies 5:743.
Let careful note be taken of the question raised in this statement. "How
can we come into harmony with God, how shall we receive His likeness,
unless we obtain a knowledge of Him?"
No direct answer is provided for none is needed. The question admits
only one answer. Search for an alternative as he might, the reader will find
none; the conviction being thus strengthened that it is impossible to come
into harmony with God and receive His likeness without obtaining a
knowledge of Him.
To come into harmony with God and to receive His likeness is to be
justified, because "being justified by faith, we have peace (or harmony) with
God." Romans 5: 1. To be justified is to have life eternal. But to achieve this is
impossible without a true knowledge of God. He must be known as He is.
The more fully, intimately, and accurately He is known, the richer and
more glorious will be the transformation into His likeness.
"Brethren and sisters, it is by beholding that we become changed. By
dwelling upon the love of God and our Saviour, by contemplating the
perfection of the divine character and claiming the righteousness of Christ
as ours by faith, we are to be transformed into the same image."
Testimonies, 5:744.
This chapter could be greatly extended by gathering and presenting all
the evidences available beyond those already given that emphasize the vital
importance of having a true knowledge of the character of God and Christ,
but what has been given is evidence enough to make this point.
To know God is life eternal. Life eternal is to know God.
From this we must rightly conclude that there is a direct relationship be-
tween the extent of our knowledge of God, and the level, warmth, and
power of our personal Christian experience. The better we know God, the
more vital and effective our experience will be, while the more poorly and
inaccurately we know Him, the feebler our witness will be.
Paul, in Romans 1: 18-32, described the incredible depth of iniquity to
which the unbelieving world had sunk and more. He traced the situation
back to the reason for this condition.
To those people, adequate revelations of God had been provided, as
Paul wrote:
"Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them."
"For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clear-
ly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal
power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." Romans 1:19, 20.
In the face of such a revelation of truth, what did these people do?
4 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God,
neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their
foolish heart was darkened."
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." Verses 21, 22.
For men to glorify God as God, His character must be in them and be
reflected from them. Men think that they glorify God today when they sing
hymns and thank Him for the blessings which they want Him to give them.
But they glorify God as if He were a man like themselves, not as God.
There was a time when original man was blessed with a true knowledge of
the character of God, but he elected not to glorify God according to what
He was. He substituted another view of God, a view according to his own
vain imaginations. That constituted a first downward step toward ultimate
ruin. Inevitably, worse was to follow. "Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools. "
Next, they "changed the glory [character) of the uncorruptible God into
an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts,
and creeping things." Verse 23.
Thus, the true revelation of God's character was replaced by a false
one, whereupon the deterioration in morality became most pronounced.
"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of
their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:
"Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served
the creature more than the Creator, Who is blessed forever. Amen.
"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their
women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
"And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman,
burned in their lust one toward another men with men working that which
is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error
which was meet.
"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God
gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
convenient;
"Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covet-
ousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity;
whisperers,
"Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of
evil things, disobedient to parents,
"Without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection,
implacable, unmerciful:
"Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such
things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in
them that do them." Verses 24-32.
Human beings cannot enter into a worse state of wickedness than that
described here. Let it be remembered that Paul by inspiration declares that
AN All IMPORTANT lliEME 5

all this is the outworking of the rejection of the knowledge of God. That
rejection was the root. The unbelievable wickedness was the sure and
certain fruit.
Thus it will ever be. Exactly to whatever degree a wrong or poor con-
cept of God's character is held, will the level of morality be. What was true
in their experience is true in every age. Effect follows cause with predictable
certainty.
"The meager views which so many have had of the exalted character
and office of Christ have narrowed their religious experience, and have
greatly hindered their progress in the divine life. Personal religion among us
as a people is at a low ebb. There is much form, much machinery, much
tongue religion; but something deeper and more solid must be brought into
our religious experience. With all our facilities, our publishing houses, our
schools, our sanitariums, and many, many other advantages, we ought to
be far in advance of our present position." Testimonies, 5:743.
The narrowed religious experience and seriously retarded progress in
the divine life which was the sad lot of the Advent believers in the nine-
teenth century was directly attributable to "the meager views which so
many" had "of the exalted character and office of Christ." Problems are
only solved by firstly determining the cause and then correcting that.
Therefore, the adherents to the Advent faith of the last century could not
possibly come into a rich and fulfilling religious experience without greatly
enlarged and corrected views of the character and office of Christ.
Such a relating of cause and effect should instantly command the
interested attention of all today who are aware that their experience is far
from what it should be and who long for spiritual enrichment. At present,
apart from those who are miserable, poor, blind, naked, self-satisfied
Laodiceans, happy to believe that their experience is rich when it is poor,
are there any true Christians who are truly satisfied with their character at-
tainment and fellowship with God? While on the one hand there is a deep
thankfulness for what God has done, there is a consciousness that much is
yet to be achieved so that the Christian's continual quest is for that character
excellence which will bring him into communion with God and present his
life as a telling witness for the divine.
How can this be?
It can only be by coming into a much clearer and deeper understand-
ing of the character of God and Christ.
Such a knowledge is not acquired in a moment or by feeble intermittent
efforts. Nor is the work all of a positive nature. It is a matter both of learning
and unlearning.
Not only have the concepts of God's character been meagre, dim, and
uncertain, but in many respects, quite inaccurate. The inaccuracies have
been so serious as to be exactly opposite from what God really is. More
than we realize, the devil has clouded our minds with his false representa-
6 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

tions. Never was he more successful than just before the first coming of
Christ, and again during the Dark Ages. We have not yet fully escaped the
effect of that midnight period. We haue not yet come all the way out of
Babylon.
So serious were the misrepresentations of God's character which
dominated the minds of men, that Jesus had to give a revelation of God
exactly opposite from that which they had. "He presented to men that
which was exactly contrary to the representations of the enemy in regard
to the character of God ... " Fundamentals of Christian Education, 177.
As we again approach the midnight darkness of the last days, the same
misrepresentations of God are held by mankind throughout the world.
Tragically, they are shared to some extent even by God's people.
What is needed, and must be given again for the final time, is a presen-
tation to men which will be "exactly contrary to the representations of the
enemy in regard to the character of God."
Therefore, there is much unlearning to be done as well as learning. This
book is designed to assist in both directions. Old concepts will be
challenged. Many things will be presented about God which will be exactly
opposite from what has been believed in the past. For some there will
possibly be severe struggles. Old concepts will strive for the mastery. In too
many cases they will win, and darkness will settle upon the defeated.
For those who patiently and prayerfully examine the evidences, there
will come such a revelation of God's character as will clear away the fog of
the past, recreate the soul in the image of God, transform the believer into
the likeness of God, and provide the fitness for a place in eternity.
All such will know that to know God is life eternal and life eternal is to
know God.
Therefore, a clear, accurate, and comprehensive knowledge of the
character of God is essential to those who would be saved. Never was this
more needful than at this time when darkness is covering the earth and
gross darkness the people.
Let this great theme of God's character become the chief, and all-
absorbing subject of our attention, our meditation, our conversation, our
witness, for this is life eternal.
 7

CHAPTER TWO

Avoid Speculative Theories

In the study of this subject, there is danger as well as blessing. It is the
same danger present in all searching for heavenly wisdom and understand-
ing. The danger is in seeking a knowledge outside of what God has
revealed.
In this area beyond revelation, all that men, untutored by God, can do
in the absence of any information, is to conjecture, imagine, and speculate.
Men do this. In doing it, they strive to understand the unreuea/ed things of
God by the powers within themselves. Nothing could be more dangerous;
nothing more certain to produce the greatest ignorance about God as He
really is; and, nothing better designed to inflate human pride to the destruc-
tion of any semblance of God's character within themselves.
Therefore, any attempt to explore into the unrevealed areas of divine
knowledge will be strictly avoided in this book. It will be concerned only
with the evidences which God has seen fit to give, and nothing else but
that.
God, in His great love, has set down safe working limits for our study.
"The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things
which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we
may do all the words of this law." Deuteronomy 29:29.
This Scripture clearly divides all knowledge into two parts-the things
which are God's great secrets, and those which He reveals to us.
It is not to be supposed that God is deliberately withholding these things
from either men or angels. Rather, He is revealing them just as fully and
quickly as He is able to do so. Paul testifies to this.
"For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,
"If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given
me to you-ward:
"How that by reuelation He made known unto me the mystery; (as I
wrote afore in few words,
"Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the
mystery of Christ)
"Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it
is now reuea/ed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;
"That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and
partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel:
"Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of
God given unto me by the effectual working of His power.
"Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given,
that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;
8 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

''And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery [secret],
which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created
all things by Jesus Christ:
"To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly
places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,
"According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus
our Lord." Ephesians 3: 11.
Thus, there was a time for both angels and men when certain things
were secrets still. To have attempted to search out those secrets then would
have been dangerous, presumptuous, and speculative.
But not so in Paul's day, for they had then passed from the category of
the secret things to the revealed.
God is infinite. We are finite. Therefore, the time will never come, even
in eternity, when there will be no secret things remaining. There will always
be an infinity beyond our comprehension, despite the fact that "the years of
eternity, as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of
God and of Christ. As knowledge is progressive so will love, reverence, and
happiness increase. The more men learn of God, the greater will be their
admiration of His character." The Great Controversy, 678.
Thus it will be eternally true that, "The secret things belong unto the
Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to
our children for ever." This will be so because of the absolute infinity of
God, and because we, no matter how extensive our knowledge of God
becomes, will still be short of infinite.
Because of the continual transfer of knowledge from the secret list to
the open, that which once belonged to God alone, will come to belong to us
and our children forever.
This is true of eternity. It is also true of this life, although the progress is
slower here than it will be there.
"In every age there is a new development of truth, a message of God to
the people of that generation." Christ's Object Lessons, 127.
"But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and
more unto the perfect day." Proverbs 4: 18.
There have been periods when these secrets are revealed much more
quickly than at other times. This is not due to any capricious decisions on
God's part, but to the delinquency of His people. God is willing and anxious
to fully open to view the saving vistas of eternal truth, but He is frustrated in
this by human blindness and selfishness.
Paul complained to the Hebrew Christians that they were but milk
babies when they should have been capable of taking strong meat. There
was much he desired to teach them but could not in regard to Melchizedek,
"of whom," he said, "we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered,
seeing ye are dull of hearing.
AVOID SPECUIJ\TIVE TiiEORIES 9

"For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one
teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are
become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
"For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteous-
ness: for he is a babe.
"But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who
by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."
Hebrews 5:11-14.
"In eternity we shall learn that which, had we received the enlighten-
ment it was possible to obtain here, would have opened our understanding.
The themes of redemption will employ the hearts and minds and tongues of
the redeemed through the everlasting ages. They will understand the truths
which Christ longed to open to His disciples, but which they did not have
faith to grasp. Forever and forever new views of the perfection and glory of
Christ will appear. Through endless ages will the faithful Householder bring
forth from His treasure things new and old." Christ's Object Lessons, 134.
No one will be content with poverty when great riches are within his
reach, provided he knows it. This statement opens the mighty possibilities
of advancement in divine illumination. It is an encouragement and invita-
tion to enter into the revelations which the Lord delights to give His people,
but it does not incite to attempted penetration into that which the Lord has
not yet been able to open to our knowledge. There are some things which
must remain hidden. Let them be. The concentration of study must be in
those areas where the Lord has released the light. At all costs there must be
the avoidance of any speculative theorizing.
"Those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children
for ever;' but 'the secret things belong unto the Lord our God.' Deuteronomy
29:29. The revelation of Himself that God has given in His word is for our
study. This we may seek to understand. But beyond this we are not to
penetrate. The highest intellect may tax itself until it is wearied out in
conjectures regarding the nature of God; but the effort will be fruitless.
This problem has not been given us to solve. No human mind can com-
prehend God. Let not finite man attempt to interpret Hirn. Let none in-
dulge in speculation regarding His nature. Here silence is eloquence. The
Omniscient One is above discussion.
"Even the angels were not permitted to share the counsels between the
Father and the Son when the plan of salvation was laid. Those human
beings who seek to intrude into the secrets of the Most High show their
ignorance of spiritual and eternal things. Far better might they, while
mercy's voice is still heard, humble themselves in the dust and plead with
God to teach them His ways.
"We are as ignorant of God as little children, but as little children we
may love and obey Hirn. Instead of speculating in regard to His nature or
His prerogatives, let us give heed to the word He has spoken: 'Be still, and
know that I am God.' Psalm 46:10.
10 BEHOLD YOUR GOD
'Canst thou by searching find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?
Deeper than hell; what canst thou know?
The measure thereof is longer than the earth,
And broader than the sea.' Job I U-9.

'Where shall wisdom be found?

And where is the place of understanding?
Man knoweth not the price thereof;
Neither is ii found in the land of the living.
The depth saith, It is not in me:
And the sea saith, It is not with me.
It cannot be gotten for gold,
Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir,
With the precious onyx, or the sapphire.
The gold and the crystal cannot equal it:
And the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of line gold.
No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls:
For the price of wisdom is above rubies.
The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it,
Neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
Whence then cometh wisdom?
And where is the place of understanding? ...
Destruction and death say,
We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.
God understandeth the way thereof,
And He knoweth the place thereof.
'For He looketh to the ends of the earth,
And seeth under the whole heaven ....
When He made a decree for the rain,
And a way for the lightning of the thunder:
Then did He see it, and declare it;
He prepared it, yea, and searched it out.
And unto man He said,
Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;
And to depart from evil is understanding.' Job 2812-28.

"Neither by searching the recesses of the earth nor in vain endeavors to

penetrate the mysteries of God's being is wisdom found. It is found, rather, in
humbly receiving the revelation that He has been pleased to give, and in
conforming the life to His will." Testimonies, 8:279, 280.
"One of the greatest evils that attends the quest for knowledge, the in-
vestigations of science, is the disposition to exalt human reasoning above its
true value and its proper sphere. Many attempt to judge of the Creator and
His works by their own imperfect knowledge of science. They endeavor to
determine the nature and attributes and prerogatives of God, and indulge
in speculative theories concerning the Infinite One. Those who engage in
this line of study are treading upon forbidden ground. Their research will
yield no valuable results and can be pursued only at the peril of the soul.
"Our first parents were led into sin through indulging a desire for
knowledge that God had withheld from them. In seeking to gain this
AVOID SPECUU\TIVE THEORIES 11

knowledge, they lost all that was worth possessing. If Adam and Eve had
never touched the forbidden tree, God would have imparted to them knowl-
edge-knowledge upon which rested no curse of sin, knowledge that would
have brought them everlasting joy. All that they gained by listening to the
tempter was an acquaintance with sin and its results. By their disobe-
dience, humanity was estranged from God and the earth was separated
from heaven.
"The lesson is for us. The field into which Satan led our first parents is
the same to which he is alluring men today. He is flooding the world with
pleasing fables. By every device at his command he tempts men to specu-
late in regard to God. Thus he seeks to prevent them from obtaining
that knowledge of God which is salvation." The Ministry of Healing,
427, 428.
"Man cannot by searching find out God. Let none seek with presump-
tuous hand to lift the veil that conceals His glory. 'Unsearchable are His
judgments, and His ways past finding out.' Romans 11 :33. It is a proof of
His mercy that there is the hiding of His power; for to lift the veil that
conceals the divine presence is death. No mortal mind can penetrate the
secrecy in which the Mighty One dwells and works. Only that which He
sees fit to reveal can we comprehend of Him. Reason must acknowledge
an authority superior to itself. Heart and intellect must bow to the
great 1 AM." ibid., 438.
With such clear warnings as these before us, there can be no excuse for
any indulgence in speculation about the character of God. Let that which is
unrevealed be respected as the secret things which belong only to God. The
sad experience of Adam and Eve, who sought a knowledge of God apart
from the revelation of God, is a lesson to be thoroughly absorbed and
obeyed. Therefore, this book will not in any sense deviate from the strict
lessons and principles contained in these warnings and instructions. It will
be concerned only with that which the Lord has revealed. These are the
things which belong unto us and our children forever.
As surely as we fully receive that which has been revealed, so will the
Lord transfer further secrets into the known. Therefore, this book can never
be complete. It can only deal with what has been revealed at the time of its
writing. Beyond its publication still more light will come through. The
records of that must be the subjects of other books and, no doubt, other
authors.
While, on one hand, there are those who would venture onto the
fragile thinness of the treacherous ice of human speculation, others tend to
the opposite extreme. Because God is so infinite, so distant, so deep and
unsearchable, they take the stand that they should not study His charac-
ter at all.
This is a mistake of equal gravity, completely fulfilling Satan's desire
that they know not God.
12 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"It is Satan's constant study to keep the minds of men occupied with
those things which will prevent them from obtaining the knowledge of
God." Testimonies, 5:740.
We are to keep a careful balance in our relation to this theme. On one
hand, we are to avoid the dangerous extreme of seeking knowledge by
speculation, and on the other, the equally fatal mistake of neglecting the
subject altogether.
The urgent counsels of God's Word, some of which have been
presented in the first chapter and will be further developed in the next,
stress the absolute necessity of coming into a clearer and yet clearer
knowledge of God and Christ.
Ever let it be remembered that there is a direct relationship between
the knowledge of God and our level of righteous or unrighteous living. To
know God is life eternal. To be ignorant of Him is eternal death.
 13

CHAPTER THREE

The Character Of God

In Relation To The
Great Controversy
It is not possible to savingly understand the character of God if the study
of it is isolated from the great controversy between Christ and Satan.
There is very good reason for this. The study of God's character is not merely
a theme related to the great controversy-it is the uery subject of the great
controversy.
The awful struggle commenced at that point where with pride-blinded
eyes, Lucifer could no longer see God as He is, but, seeing a very different
character in Him, committed himself to war against God. Pride had
surfaced before, but the ripening of this into active rebellion did not occur
until he firstly had a misconception of the character of God. Somehow,
Satan recognized the direct connection between the distortion of the truth
about God, and the seeding of rebellion. Therefore, to achieve his objective
of leading the inhabitants of the universe into opposition to God, he worked
at deceiving them into believing God was a liar and destroyer. Every angel
who believed him joined his ranks.
The same policy resulted in the overthrow of man. Millions upon mil-
lions have continued to hold mistaken views of God ever since, directly
resulting in the multiplication of iniquity and immorality and the deepening
and extending of the great controversy.
It was exactly at that point where misunderstanding of God's character
firstly began to form, that the spirit of rebellion formed. Ever since,
wherever those misconceptions have been continued, that rebellion has
raged on. Therefore, only when those misconceptions have been com-
pletely cleared away will the rebellion end and permanent, universal peace
return.
This does not mean that God is seeking a personal vindication of Him-
self. That would be the last thing He would do. He is seeking the vin-
dication of that which will ensure the eternal life and happiness of every
one of His creatures throughout the full immensity of the universe.
God well knows, and almost six thousand years of demonstration
should have proved to us, that Satan's lying representations of God's
character and government have brought only misery and death to the
world. It is from this that God is seeking to save. He knows, and we must
come to know, that this is only possible as His character is revealed for what
it really is. Therefore, it is to save us and not Himself that God seeks the vin-
dication of His own character.
14 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

This can be better appreciated when it is seen that God's law and
government are an exact expression of His character. God does not have
one code of behavior for Himself, while His government of the people is
based on other principles. This is so with earthly rulers, but not with God.
This truth is made clear by comparing the testimonies given of God's
character with those in regard to His government. As these texts are
presented, bear in mind that they are statements of what God is. He is
righteousness. It is a principle that one does what he does because of what
he firstly is. God then, being firstly and only righteousness, does only
righteousness.
"Righteous art Thou, 0 Lord, and upright are Thy judgments.
"Thy testimonies that Thou hast commanded are righteous and very
faithful."
"Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Thy law is the
truth." Psalms 119:137, 138, 142.
"The Lord is righteous. n
"The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works."
Psalms 129:4, 145:17.
These are statements of what God is. They are declarations of His state
of being, and of the very essence of His nature. In Him is the sum of all
righteousness and there is nothing in Him apart from righteousness.
Therefore, nothing but righteousness proceeds from Him. It is for this
reason that Daniel could testify "O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto
Thee." Daniel9:7.
Thus the words of God are righteousness. "I declare things that are
right." Isaiah 45: 19. This being so, all the laws and commandments of God
are also the expression of His righteous character. Because He is the
righteous God that He is, He makes the laws He has made.
"Thy testimonies that Thou hast commanded are righteous and very
faithful."
"Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Thy law is the
truth. n Psalms 119:138, 142.
"Righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne."
"Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne: mercy and
truth shall go before Thy face." Psalms 97:2; 89:14.
Therefore, the "law is a transcript of His [God's) own character."
Christ's Object Lessons, 315.
There came the time when Lucifer could no longer see this. Instead, he
saw the law as one thing and the character of God as something else. It was
at this point that he committed himself to rebellion, and the great contro-
versy began.
How did he come to this point?
Lucifer was the brightest and highest of all the angels. He was the
covering cherub, perfect in all his ways till iniquity was found in him.
Ezekiel 28: 15.
IN REUfflON TO THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 15

The time came when God had to say of him, "Thine heart was lifted up
because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy
brightness:" Ezekiel 28: 17.
Pride in himself developed in Lucifer. We do not know how long he
had existed from the day of his creation until his fall. No revelation of this is
given. However, it is certain that he must have lived a very long time,
possibly millions of years. During that time, he had been constantly
developing in all his talents and skills by the combination of the grace of
God and his own diligent effort.
To some it may come as a strange thought that Lucifer grew in
knowledge, wisdom, and skills during the entire period of his existence. But
it is not to be imagined that God created him as a total being. Rather, he
was created with the potential of limitless development. He was "educated
and disciplined in the heavenly courts." Fundamentals of Christian
Education, 167.
Therefore, he developed according to the laws which govern all God's
creatures whether they be in heaven or on earth. God had made provision
that each and all could grow in every faculty to the highest levels of achieve-
ment. This is accomplished by the exercise of "the grace of God and their
own diligent effort." The Great Controversy, 425. So it was with Lucifer,
and maivellous was the progress made, until he became the brightest of all
the creatures.
These exceeding riches which should have elicited only perpetual
gratitude and loving seivice, instead seived to undo him. The Scriptures
describe this wealth as the abundance of his merchandise by which his
soul was filled with violence.
"By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee
with violence, and thou hast sinned:" Ezekiel 28: 16.
The needless corruption of the covering cherub through the abundance
of his merchandise, has repeatedly destroyed men. In those repetitions is to
be clearly read the deterioration of the first sinner. When a people begin
under the Lord's personal leadership, they are small in number and poor in
material wealth. Their sense of need is proportionately great, generating a
strong sense of total dependency and faith. God's liberal responses evoke
gratitude and praise from them. This enrichment of spiritual and material
wealth relieves them of the pressure of immediate necessity, but it in-
troduces a danger against which a watchful guard must be established. That
peril resides in the imperceptible but certain fading away of the positive
sense of dependence on God. History verifies that most fail this test.
As the sense of dependence upon God wanes, material possessions
come to be looked upon as the basis and guarantee of security. Thus it is an
error to say that men lose faith. Instead they transfer it from the God who
gave the gifts, to the gifts given by God. Increasingly, they become preoc-
cupied with the accumulation of more of these material treasures until they
16 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

are totally absorbed thereby. As they successfully add house to house and
land to land, they develop a strong sense of self-sufficiency. They see
themselves as being the sole arbiter of their fate. They make themselves
god in the place of God, and pride is the most distinguished aspect of
their characters.
Every time a human being descends this path, he is but travelling the
same way the original sinner trod. Thus Lucifer moved from the sincere,
trusting, loving, and grateful child of God to the self-sufficient, proud devil.
His life ceased to be centered on God and revolved instead, around himself.
Thus he, and not God, became the standard by which he judged all things.
Worse still, whereas in the days of his humility, he had been neither in-
terested nor concerned in judging other individuals, now even the Son of
God came under his critical measurement. That would have been serious
enough, had it been possible for him to evaluate Christ, as He was, in con-
trast to himself, as he was, but so inflated had his view of himself become
that he saw himself as being actually superior to the Divine One. Such a
serious misjudgment was possible to that powerfully clear mind only
because he had destroyed the power to think correctly by allowing pride to
separate him from the source of all wisdom, as it is written, "Thou hast cor-
rupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness." Ezekiel 28: 17.
Yet, to this point, no serious question had entered his mind in regard to
God. For one thing, he had been far too preoccupied with admiring his
own beautiful self to have cared much about his Father. He had known
God all his life as being totally just, impartial, and omniscient.
Therefore, he "knew" without question that God was "as aware" as he
was of his "splendid greatness," and that, accordingly, God would
promptly elevate him into a position befitting his shining glory. So, he
glowed with pride in his confident expectation of forthcoming honors.
However, even though sinful pride was already filling Lucifer's life, no
question regarding God's character and government had yet been raised.
That was still to come. Neither had Lucifer entered into active rebellion
against God. The great controversy, as a controuersy, had not yet begun as
an actual confrontation between Satan and God. It had started in the sense
that conditions were developing which would cause its outbreak.
A careful study of Patriarchs and Prophets, 35, 36, makes this point
quite clear. On page 35, the progression of evil in Lucifer's sinful character
development is described thus. "Little by little, Lucifer came to indulge
the desire for self-exaltation ... " until "coveting the glory with which the
infinite Father had invested His Son, this prince of angels aspired to power
that was the prerogative of Christ alone."
Up to this stage there is no description of any contest taking place
between Christ and Satan, nor does the next paragraph bring the story to
this point. It likewise deals with developments leading to the opening of
actual warfare.
IN REU\TION TO THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 17

"Now the perfect harmony of heaven was broken. Lucifer's disposition

to serve himself instead of his Creator, aroused a feeling of apprehension
when observed by those who considered that the glory of God should be
supreme. In heavenly council the angels pleaded with Lucifer. The Son of
God presented before him the greatness, the goodness, and the justice of
the Creator, and the sacred, unchanging nature of His law. God Himself
had established the order of heaven; and in departing from it, Lucifer
would dishonor his Maker, and bring ruin upon himself. But the warning,
given in infinite love and mercy, only aroused a spirit of resistance. Lucifer
allowed his jealousy of Christ to prevail, and became the more deter-
mined."
The efforts of the fellow angels to save Lucifer only aroused a spirit of
resistance, which strengthened to the point where "To dispute the supremacy
of the Son of God, thus impeaching the wisdom and love of the Creator,
had become the purpose of this prince of angels. To this object he was
about to bend the energies of that mastermind, which, next to Christ's,
was first among the hosts of God." ibid., 36.
Now God, foreseeing that which none of His creatures could, stepped
in to give all a clear warning of what would be the outworking of this
rebellion. He did not wait until the battle began, but He did it "before the
great contest should open." As we read, "But He who would have the will
of all His creatures free, left none unguarded to the bewildering sophistry
by which rebellion would seek to justify itself. Before the great contest
should open, all were to have a clear presentation of His will, whose
wisdom and goodness were the spring of all their joy." ibid., 36.
Consequently God convened a great assembly at which He presented
the true position of His Son and the reasons of Christ's occupying His
exalted place in heaven. Lucifer almost yielded, but did not, and then the
great battle began by his "leaving his place in the immediate presence of
the Father," and going "forth to diffuse the spirit of discontent among the
angels." ibid., 37.
This evidence shows that a great deal happened within Lucifer before
he went out to war. The purpose of the line of thought being developed in
this section is to show that it was when he lost the true knowledge of
God's character and replaced it with a false concept, that then, and not
until then, did he enter into warlare against God.
The substitution in Lucifer's mind of the false for the true concept of
God's character came as the result of his incorrect evaluation of God's
behavior. He attributed to God a motive which in reality was nonexistent. It
developed in the following way.
During the time which elapsed between the first presence of pride in
him and the committal to rebellion, Lucifer waited expectantly for God to
elevate him to the position which, in his own mind, he judged as being
rightly his. He could not see nor understand that God had no plans to pro-
18 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

mote him. It was not that God would not. He could not, because Lucifer
could never occupy Christ's place unless he was God as Christ was. He was
not qualified and never would be.
When passing time did not bring Lucifer the fruition of his fond expecta-
tions, a stain of anxiety began to color the brightness of his hopes. He
began an anxious surveillance of God in an endeavor to detect any indica-
tions of preparation on His part for Lucifer's grand elevation. But, study as
he might, he could find nothing to even suggest it.
The longer he searched and waited, the more deeply compounded his
problem became, for, while he correctly concluded that something was
decidedly wrong, he utterly failed to comprehend where the error lay. The
whole of the fault lay with himself. God had not changed but Lucifer had.
He who had been the humble servant of God and his fellow creatures had
become a proud self-server.
The understanding of Lucifer's problem is simplified by its repetition in
the lives of men ever since. To comprehend the development of evil in
Lucifer, it is only necessary to observe the same process in man. Thereby it
will be readily seen that when a person arrives at this point, the last thing he
is inclined to do is recognize that the fault lies in himself. Everybody and
everything else is to blame but never he.
So it was with Lucifer. He summarily rejected as unworthy of con-
sideration any thought which might lead him to recognize that his evalua-
tion of himself and the consequent assumption that he should be exalted to
a position equal with Christ was the error. This left him with only one
possible conclusion. It was that the fault lay wholly and solely with God.
Having arrived at this awful point, a radically new concept of God's
character thrived in Lucifer's mind, intensified by the acute disappointment
stemming from his realization that he would not be given the position which
alone would satisfy his immediate craving for power.
Heretofore, he had correctly understood God to be perfectly just, fair
and impartial. He rightly knew that God assigned positions in direct rela-
tionship to each individual's fitness to fulfil the responsibility. It was in
harmony with those convictions that Lucifer had expected God to exalt
him. Those hopes would have been realized if Lucifer's evaluation of himself
had been correct.
But, when denied the position, he erroneously concluded that God was
with great partiality favoring His Son. Lucifer was incensed. Such a reac-
tion should evoke no surprise. Further, if Lucifer had been correct in his
assessment of the situation, then his response was justified. God declares
that He "is no respecter of persons." Acts 10:34. Yet, to Lucifer's mind,
God was showing great respect to one person. This could only mean that
God was a liar, for He had represented Himself as following out one princi-
ple, while in fact He practised another.
Partiality in itself is serious enough for it is impossible to show favor to
one person except it be at the expense of another. In this situation, Lucifer
IN RELATION TO THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 19

felt keenly that he was being called upon to pay a very large price in order
that Christ might exclusively enjoy the special favors of God.
If God had stated that, while all the other creatures were to be elevated
according to merit, Christ was in a class by Himself, and was consequently
to be delegated a position which none of the others could have, then that
would have been one thing. But to declare that Christ was not specially
favored and then, as it appeared to Lucifer though it was never so in fact,
to be accorded the special position of a favored Son, was indeed to make
God a liar and a deceiver.
If Lucifer's evaluation had been correct, then he had every right to be
incensed and was justified in calling upon God to reform His ways into con-
sistency with His stated principles. This needs to be clearly understood. The
fact that Lucifer was entirely wrong in his conclusions is what removes the
justification from his rebellion.
Lucifer fully believed that he had experienced a great awakening. He
felt that he had thrown off the shackles of a terrible bondage. Strangely
enough, he had not even known he was in such bondage till this point, but
looking back he imagined that he could see wherein it had been true all
along. He became hostile toward God and especially toward Christ for
having, as he supposed, held them in deception for so long a time, and he
determined to assert his rights and have the government of God reformed.
It was by these progressions that, for the first time ever, a misrepresen-
tation of the character of God came into existence. At first it was entirely
and only in Lucifer's mind, but soon it would spread to others.
It was at this point where this false conception of God's character
became the fixed conviction in Lucifer's mind, that he entered into actiue
rebellion against God. The great controversy then began. Having thus
begun in the heart of the first rebel, the mutiny extended to a section of
the angels, and then to men as each in turn came to share the erroneous
concepts of God's character.
This is clearly stated in the following extracts.
"Sin originated in self-seeking. Lucifer, the covering cherub, desired to
be first in heaven. He sought to gain control of heavenly beings, to draw
them away from their Creator, and to win their homage to himself.
Therefore he misrepresented God, attributing to Him the desire for self-
exaltation. With his own evil characteristics he sought to invest the loving
Creator. Thus he deceiued angels. Thus he deceiued men. He led them to
doubt the word of God, and to distrust His goodness. Because God is a
God of justice and terrible majesty, Satan caused them to look upon Him as
severe and unforgiving. Thus he drew men to join him in rebellion against
God, and the night of woe settled down upon the world." The Desire of
Ages, 21, 22.
"By the same misrepresentation of the character of God as he had
practiced in heaven, causing Him to be regarded as severe and tyrannical,
Satan induced man to sin." The Great Controuersy, 500.
20 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"Adam believed the falsehood of Satan, and through his misrepresen-

tation of the character of God, Adam's life was changed and marred. He
disobeyed the commandment of God, and did the very thing the Lord told
him not to do. Through disobedience Adam fell; but had he endured the
test, and been loyal to God, the floodgates of woe would not have been
opened upon our world.
"Through belief in Satan's misrepresentation of God, man's character
and destiny were changed, but if men will believe in the Word of God, they
will be transformed in mind and character, and fitted for eternal life."
Selected Messages 1:345, 346.
By these statements the truth is confirmed that Satan's objective of
enlisting others in rebellion was achieved through the use of a certain very
successful method. That method was to persuade angels and men that
God's character was that of a deceiver, an oppressor, and a liar. This was
the method used, and to whatever extent it was successful, rebellion
followed. A tracing of the fall of man certifies this.
Satan's first recorded words to Eve were, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall
not eat of every tree of the garden?" Genesis 3: 1. With that question Satan
began the development of his purpose, firstly to fill Eve's mind with a false
understanding of the character of God and thereby to lead her into revolt.
This first sentence therefore was a vital one. There had to be injected into it
enough to make it effective as the opening sally of the contact. A.T. Jones
outlines something of what Satan was actually saying in those words.
"But note the expression with which he opens the conversation. It is an
expression which insinuates into her mind a whole world of suspicion. The
common version translates it, 'Yea, hath God said,' etc. The Revised
Version gives it the same. The Jews' English version translates it, 'Hath
God indeed said,' etc. But no translation can give it exactly. It cannot be
exactly expressed in letters so as to form a word that would give it truly.
Yet everybody in the world is familiar with the expression. It is that sneer-
ing grunt (expressed only through the nose) -c-ugh!-which conveys query,
doubt, suspicion, and contempt, all at once. 'C-ugh! hath God said, Ye
shall not eat of every tree of the garden?' And everybody knows that to
this day among men there is nothing equal to this sneering grunt, to create
doubt and suspicion; and no other expression is used so much by man-
kind for that purpose. And this is the origin of it." Ecclesiastical Empires,
590, 591.
Thus Satan's first words to Eve were designed to create suspicion and
doubt of God. It was an idea which not only had never before been
presented to Eve, but which under no circumstances had occurred to her.
She had thought of God as being just, good, righteous, fatherly, and
loving, but now it was strongly suggested to her that He was not what He
had appeared to be.
The idea was startling, though she had nothing in her own experienced
knowledge of God to give it the slightest support. All that she knew of God
IN RELATION TO THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 21

positively denied it. Yet, like so many of her children since that time, she
allowed the suspicion thus suggested to lodge in her thinking even though
there was no visible foundation for it.
That she allowed doubt of God's character to settle in her mind is
evidenced by the way in which she misstated to Satan the words of God to
them. Whereas God had said that if they ate of the tree they would surely
die, Eve reported Him as saying that they were not to eat of it lest they die.
There is a decided difference between the two statements. The first
declares the certainty of death, the second indicates only a possibility of it.
What Eve really stated God as having said, was that they were not to eat of
it in case they died. Thus Satan was immediately successful in having her
turn the truth into a lie.
Now he could and did boldly take the next step, which was to present
the living God in a different character from that which is truly His. Satan
said, "Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be a God [margin],
knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:4, 5.
Satan here presents his arguments as to why God had placed those
restrictions upon them. His assertions were that while God had assured
them that they were to have unlimited development, the real fact was that
God was afraid that they would ascend to an equality with Him. Once this
occurred, then He would have to share with them all the riches He now had
reserved for His own pleasure. This, Satan declared, God wished to pre-
vent at any cost. This involved preventing them from partaking of the tree
of knowledge of good and evil, whereby such exaltation would be im-
mediately effected. Therefore, the devil continued, He was forced to lie to
them in order to protect His own position.
Thus the evil one impugned the motives of God and falsified His
character. This was, is, and ever will be his method. The tragedy is that it
works only too well.
There was no truth in Satan's charges. God had not denied them the
free use of that tree from the motive of self-protection. Neither had He
made any of His laws for this purpose. Those principles of life were a love
gift from God to protect them, not Himself. God needs no protection from
anyone, nor is it His character to restrict anyone else to His own advantage.
From a heart which overflowed with boundless love, He had given
them the whole of the world in which they lived. Nothing had been with-
held. Even the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a gift to them, for
it was a school designed to teach that which would be a perpetual pro-
tection. As they multiplied upon the earth, all that they had would have
to be shared with the increasing population. Unless the lesson of absolute
respect for the property of another was deeply educated into their minds,
contention, strife, confusion, and open war would develop as men sought
to wrest from each other that which they desired.
22 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

That they did not learn the lesson is well known, and the present awful
situation in the world is a clear fulfillment of the prediction that if they par-
took of the tree they would surely die. Every death taking place today is the
direct outworking of the violation of God's counsels to them. They did not
learn the lesson that the presence of the tree was designed to teach, and
thus cast off the very protection which the Lord had desired to give them.
But this was not all. In electing to believe Satan's lie, Adam and Eve
transferred their allegiance from God to Satan. They put another god in the
place of the true God. To do that was also to bring death upon them-
selves-practically instant death. They would certainly have died that very
day had not Christ interposed.
"The instant man accepted the temptations of Satan, and did the very
things God had said he should not do, Christ, the Son of God, stood between
the living and the dead, saying, 'Let the punishment fall on Me. I will
stand in man's place. He shall have another chance.' "The Seventh-day
Adventist Bible Commentary, 1: 1085.
It is most important to understand why the setting of another god in
place of the true God would bring swift and certain death. This will be far
more fully developed later in this study, so reference to it will be brief at this
point. Yet sufficient must be said so that it can be seen that Satan was
misstating the character of God to Adam and Eve in the Garden.
In the beginning the Lord made the heavens and the earth. To every
Christian this truth is well known. But not so fully known is the fact that the
Lord, moment by moment, sustains these worlds in space and keeps them
on their ordered way. He did not set the universe in motion to be left
forever independent of His sustenance and guidance. Not only did He
make it all, but He eternally maintains it all.
This dual activity of God as Creator and Sustainer is revealed clearly in
the written word. "God, Who at sundry times and in divers manners spake
in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
"Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, Whom He hath
appointed heir of all things, by Whom also He made the worlds;
"Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His
person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had
by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on
high;" Hebrews 1: 1-3.
"The hand that sustains the worlds in space, the hand that holds in their
orderly arrangement and tireless activity all things throughout the universe
of God, is the hand that was nailed to the cross for us." Education, 132.
"God is constantly employed in upholding and using as His servants the
things that He has made. He works through the laws of nature, using them
as His instruments. They are not self-acting. Nature in her work testifies of
the intelligent presence and active agency of a Being who moves in all
things according to His will.
IN RELATION TO THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 23

'Forever, 0 Lord,
Thy word is settled in heaven.
Thy faithfulness is unto all generations:
Thou hasl established the earth, and it abideth.
They continue this day according to Thine ordinances:
For all are Thy servants.'
'Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He
In heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places.'
'He commanded, and they were created.
He hath also stablished them for ever and ever:
He Hath made a decree which shall not pass.'
Psalms 119:89-91: 135:6: 1485. 6.

"It is not by inherent power that year by year the earth yields its boun-
ties and continues its march around the sun. The hand of the Infinite One is
perpetually at work guiding this planet. It is God's power continually exer-
cised that keeps the earth in position in its rotation. It is God who causes the
sun to rise in the heavens. He opens the windows of heaven and gives rain.

'He giveth snow like wool:

He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.'

'When He uttereth His voice, there is a multitude of waters

in the heavens,
And He causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the
earth;
He maketh lightnings with rain,
And bringeth forth the wind out of His treasures.'
Psalm 14716; Jeremiah 10:13.

"It is by His power that vegetation is caused to flourish, that every leaf
appears, every flower blooms, every fruit develops." The Ministry of Heal-
ing, 416.
Unquestionably, God is the only being with the power to make the
world in the first case. Likewise, He is the only One Who can sustain it in
its order and system. Therefore, if any one of His Creatures in any part of
the vast universe-except where the presence of a Saviour provides a delay-
ing factor-puts another god in place of the real God, then the power of God
as an upholder of the mighty forces of nature will have been removed from
that place, and as surely, they will become uncontrolled forces of terrible
destruction. In that very day, those who have made the fatal mistake will
die, not because God will strike them down, but because they have placed
themselves where life is impossible.
The only reason that such a cataclysm of destruction has not obliterated
this earth is because of the merciful interposition of Jesus Christ. Therefore,
God's instruction to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden not to partake of
the tree was given to protect them from destruction. In no sense was it
given by God to protect Himself or His own position. There was no trace of
self-interest in the work of God. Rightly understood, the "restriction" placed
upon the first couple was a true revelation of the perfectly righteous
24 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

character of God. It was an act of kindness and mercy. It was the work of a
Saviour, not that of a despot.
But this is not the way in which the devil represented God.
Instead, he craftily insinuated that God had a completely selfish motive
in refusing them permission to touch the tree, that His purpose was to pro-
tect His own position, reserving it to Himself alone, so that He was assured
of being the one who alone enjoyed the high honor of being supreme ruler.
He claimed that the special tree constituted a threat to these divine deter-
minations, for it was possessed of magical powers capable of elevating those
who ate of it into a position of equality with God. He maintained that be-
cause God did not want that to happen, yet living in fear that it would,
He had lyingly told them that to eat of the tree was to bring death upon
themselves.
Thus Satan represented the God of love and selfless devotion to the
good of His creatures, as being a self-seeking despot Who sought only His
own good at the expense of His subjects. He represented the God of truth
as a liar.
Eve believed that misrepresentation of God's character.
When she believed it, then she rebelled against God and threw in her
lot with the arch-rebel. She accepted another god in place of the real One
and would have died that very day but for the fact that Jesus stepped in and
said, "Let the punishment fall on Me. Man shall have another chance."
The study of the appearance of sin in heaven and on this earth
establishes the very close connection between the misrepresentation of the
character of God and the appearance of rebellion. It was when Lucifer in
heaven first formed an incorrect concept of the character of God, that his
rebellion began. When in tum, he was able to convince a section of the
angels of his new views of God, they joined him in his mutiny, while upon
earth Adam and Eve threw in their lot with him when they, too, obtained
these false views of the character of God.
This is the way it began and this is the way in which it has been main-
tained throughout the sorrow-filled ages since that time.
"It is Satan's constant effort to misrepresent the character of God, the
nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy. His
sophistry lessens the obligation of the divine law, and gives men license to
sin. At the same time he causes them to cherish false conceptions of God,
so that they regard Him with fear and hate, rather than with love. The
cruelty inherent in his own character is attributed to the Creator; it is
embodied in systems of religion, and expressed in modes of worship. Thus
the minds of men are blinded, and Satan secures them as his agents to
war against God. By perverted conceptions of the divine attributes, hea-
then nations were led to believe human sacrifices necessary to secure the
favor of Deity; and horrible cruelties have been perpetrated under the
various forms of idolatry." The Great Controversy, 569.
IN RELATION TO THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 25

"Satan's efforts to misrepresent the character of God, to cause men to

cherish a false conception of the Creator, and thus to regard Him with fear
and hate rather than love; his endeavors to set aside the divine law, lead-
ing the people to think themselves free from its requirements; and his
persecution of those who dare to resist his deceptions, have been stead-
fastly pursued in all ages." ibid., Introduction, x.
Therefore, the subject of the character of God is not something apart
from the great controversy. It is right at the very heart of it. It is impossible to
understand the real issues being contested unless the characters of God and
Satan are understood.
Inasmuch as the destiny of every soul hangs upon the position he
occupies in the great controversy, it follows that the better he understands
God's true character then the more successfully will he enter into the battle
against evil and at last find eternal life.
The truth of this must be seen when it is recognized that the particular
weapon the devil uses to lead souls into rebellion against God is the
misrepresentation of His character. The more he is able to convince men of
these deceptions, the more they enter into unrighteousness and rebellion.
This is the witness of the Word of God and of history. In the light of these
facts, what study could be more important than the one here being
pursued?
26

CHAPTER FOUR

The Character Of God

And The Ending
Of The Great Controversy
The evidences presented in the Scriptures confirm the truth that the
great controversy began with the misrepresentation of the character of
God. Furthermore, Satan's extension and continuation of the struggle has
been by the same means. Thus is revealed the cause and the effect-the
cause being the establishment of an erroneous view of God, and the effect,
the proliferation of iniquitous rebellion.
It is a sound principle that once the cause of a problem has been
established, the remedy for it has been discovered. Therefore, as certainly
as the dissemination of false concepts of God's character is the cause for
sinful revolt, then as surely will the presentation of the truth in regard to God
provide the remedy by reversing the result. Thus men are brought back
from sin to righteousness, from mutiny to loyalty.
Therefore, only those who understand these facts possess the knowl-
edge of where the solution is to be found. Naturally, any person who is a
sincere child of God desires above all else to see the termination of the
long dark misery, the end of revolt and alienation from God, and in turn
help others to walk in the same direction.
Thus, while it is the work of Satan and his followers to wrongfully repre-
sent God's character so as to intensify the evil revolt against Him, it is the
work of God and His children to correctly reveal God's righteousness so as to
terminate the insurgence and return the world to the peace and prosperity
of full loyalty to God.
Pre-eminent in this work of divine restoration is Jesus Christ, the Son of
the living God. When He came to the earth, He came, not merely to save
man from the penalty of sin by sacrificing Himself, but to save him by
revealing the character of God in contrast to Satan's propositions. This is
not to say that Christ's death upon the cross is unessential to our salvation.
Full recognition is here given to the eternal truth that without the death of
Christ none of us could be saved.
But emphasis must be given to the fact that Christ's role as the Revealer
of the true character of God was as necessary to ending the great controver-
sy and the salvation of the lost as was that supreme sacrifice on the cross.
Jesus came expressly to show God to angels and men exactly as He is.
He came to do this work at a time when "the earth was dark through
misapprehension of God. That the gloomy shadows might be lightened,
that the world might be brought back to God, Satan's deceptive power was
THE ENDING OF THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 27

to be broken. This could not be done by force. The exercise of force is con-
trary to the principles of God's government; He desires only the service of
love; and love cannot be commanded; it cannot be won by force or authori-
ty. Only by love is love awakened. To know God is to love Him; His
character must be manifested in contrast to the character of Satan. This
work only one Being in all the universe could do. Only He Who knew the
height and depth of the love of God could make it known. Upon the
world's dark night the Sun of Righteousness must rise, 'with healing in His
wings.' Malachi42." The Desire of Ages, 22.
"The Son of God come to this earth to reveal the character of the
Father to men, that they might learn to worship Him in spirit and in truth."
Counsels to Parents Teachers, 28.
It is also written that, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested,
that He might destroy the works of the devil." 1 John 3:8.
Therefore, Jesus came to this earth to reveal the character of God and to
destroy the works of the devil. It is immediately apparent that these are
not two separate works. They are the same work, for the devil's work to
lead men into rebellion, depends firstly on his deceiving them in respect to
the nature of God. Therefore, to reveal God's true nature so that the devil is
no longer able to deceive angels and men is to destroy the devil's works. It
makes it impossible for him to operate.
Even for Christ to accomplish this, was no easy task. Satan's deceptions
had penetrated far more deeply and extensively than most suppose.
Because we have failed to understand how far things had gone, we have
likewise failed to appreciate the enormity of the task imposed upon God
and Christ in their responsibility of delivering the universe from the power
of Satan. Had it simply been a contest of force versus force, it would have
been over in an instant. God is in the possession of infinite power against
which Satan is able to muster but an infinitesimal force in comparison. But
the question to be settled in the great controversy is not whether God is
physically stronger than Satan. It is the question of the real nature of God's
character and government.
It is natural to suppose that the Word of God is the last and final
authority in any dispute. How many times have people wished that the
Lord would speak directly and audibly in a problem situation. It is firmly
believed that that would settle the issue right there and then. But the
witness of the ages reveals that the Word of God alone is not sufficient to
settle these issues great and small. If it was, then there never would have
been a great controversy.
Once there was only the Word of the living God in existence. There
was no question or dispute over that Word. Then there came the time
when that Word was challenged. As this dissension was developing, God
called together the whole of the heavenly host and spelled out in the
clearest terms the constitution of His government, explaining exactly why
the situation was as it was (See Patriarchs and Prophets, 36).
28 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Thus the word of Satan was met by the Word of God. But it did not set-
tle the question, as is proved by the even more determined antagonism of
Satan and all who followed after him, because they neither believed nor
accepted that Word. Therefore, time had to be given in which Satan could
demonstrate the true nature of his claims while God and Christ, on the
other hand, would unfold the real character of their position. It is for this
purpose that the Lord has permitted the great conflict to continue through
all these ages, and until that purpose has been fulfilled, the controversy will
continue.
That is, the struggle will go on, Christ shall not return, sin will not be
ended, and death will reign, until both angels and men see for themselves
the real nature of God's character and government in sharp contrast to that
of Satan. When that point has been reached; when every question of truth
and error is forever settled; then and only then will the end come. Nor will it
tarry beyond that point. In that moment of time when the purpose has
been accomplished, likewise will the termination come.
It is understood by many that the number of the angels whom Satan
deceived was one third of the heavenly host. This is not what the Bible
says. Rather, it states that it was this proportion which followed him.
Carefully note what the Scriptures say. "And his tail drew the third part of
the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth ... " Revelation 12:3.
It was that third part of the stars of heaven, the angels of heaven, that
Satan cast down to the earth. This means that this third followed him right
into the fullness of his rebellion. "Satan in his rebellion took a third part
of the angels. They turned from the Father and from His Son, and united
with the instigator of rebellion." "When Satan became disaffected in heaven,
he did not lay his complaint before God and Christ; but he went among
the angels who thought him perfect and represented that God had done
him injustice in preferring Christ to himself. The result of this misrepresenta-
tion was that through their sympathy with him one third of the angels lost
their innocence, their high estate, and their happy home." Testimonies,
3:115; 5:291.
In these statements no reference is made to the effect, if any, that
Satan's deceptions had upon the rest. These statements do make it clear
that two thirds of the angels remained loyal to God, and it is naturally
assumed that they therefore were not all influenced by the devil's
sophistries. We think this way because we tend to equate loyalty with
absolute absence of any questions. It is true that loyalty is strengthened and
perfected with the dismissal of all doubts and suspicions, but, conversely,
their presence does not necessarily destroy loyalty, though it may weaken
it.
The real truth is that every one of the angels was affected at least in part
by the delusions of the great enemy. Uncertainties about God, His
character, and the principles of His government were generated in them to
THE ENDING OF THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 29

the point where a definite sympathy for Satan's cause was present.
Throughout the long centuries elapsing between the fall of Lucifer and the
cross of Calvary that state of affairs continued. That period absorbed at least
four thousand years of time and its activities, during which, while not
casting aside their loyalty to God to join Satan's forces, they served God
with definite reservations and felt that Satan had something of a case to be
argued.
"To the angels and the unfallen worlds the cry, 'It is finished,' had a
deep significance. It was for them as well as for us that the great work of
redemption had been accomplished. They with us share the fruits of Christ's
victory.
"Not until the death of Christ was the character of Satan clearly
revealed to the angels or to the unfallen worlds. The archapostate had so
clothed himself with deception that even holy beings had not understood
his principles. They had not clearly seen the nature of his rebellion.
"It was a being of wonderful power and glory that had set himself
against God. Of Lucifer the Lord says, 'Thou sealest up the sum, full of
wisdom, and perfect in beauty.' Ezekiel 28: 12. Lucifer had been the cover-
ing cherub. He had stood in the light of God's presence. He had been the
highest of all created beings, foremost in revealing God's purposes to the
universe. After he had sinned, his power to deceive was the more decep-
tive, and the unveiling of his character was the more difficult, because of
the exalted position he had held with the Father.
"God could have destroyed Satan and his sympathizers as easily as one
can cast a pebble to the earth; but He did not do this. Rebellion was not to
be overcome by force. Compelling power is found only under Satan's
government. The Lord's principles are not of this order. His authority rests
upon goodness, mercy, and love; and the presentation of these principles is
the means to be used. God's government is moral, and truth and love are
to be the prevailing power.
"It was God's purpose to place things on an eternal basis of security,
and in the councils of heaven it was decided that time must be given for
Satan to develop the principles which were the foundation of his system of
government. He had claimed that these were superior to God's principles.
Time was given for the working of Satan's principles, that they might be
seen by the heauenly uniuerse." The Desire of Ages, 758, 759.
Consider carefully certain salient points in this quotation.
"Not until the death of Christ was the character of Satan clearly
revealed to the angels or to the unfallen worlds .... They had not clearly
seen the nature of his rebellion."
"... the unveiling of his character was the more difficult, because of the
exalted position he had held with the Father."
"Time was given for the working of Satan's principles, that they might
be seen by the heauenly uniuerse."
30 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Therefore, even the loyal angels and the inhabitants throughout the
whole of the universe were deceived in part by the sophistries of the great
deceiver. They were not sufficiently misled as to abandon their loyalty to
God, but enough to have a definite sympathy with Satan. At the cross that
last link of sympathy between Satan and the heavenly world was broken.
"Could one sin have been found in Christ, had He in one particular
yielded to Satan to escape the terrible torture, the enemy of God and man
would have triumphed. Christ bowed His head and died, but He held fast
His faith and His submission to God. 'And I heard a loud voice saying in
heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our
God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast
down, which accused them before our God day and night.' Reuelation
12:10.
"Satan saw that his disguise was torn away. His administration was laid
open before the unfallen angels and before the heavenly universe. He had
revealed himself as a murderer. By shedding the blood of the Son of God,
he had uprooted himself from the sympathies of the heavenly beings. Hence-
forth his work was restricted. Whatever attitude he might assume, he could
no longer await the angels as they came from the heavenly courts, and
before them accuse Christ's brethren of being clothed with the gar-
ments of blackness and the defilement of sin. The last link of sympathy be-
tween Satan and the heavenly world was broken." ibid., 761.
Think carefully upon the information contained here, especially in the
last sentence. It was the link of sympathy between Satan and the heavenly
world which ceased to exist at the cross of Calvary. It is one thing to have
sympathy for a person, but it is something else to have sympathy between
you and that person.
To have sympathy for the devil and nothing more than that, is to feel a
very real sorrow for him in his inescapable predicament, but at the same
time, giving no countenance to his philosophies, objectives, methods or
behaviors. Every true Christian will feel that sympathy for Satan.
But when sympathy exists between us and the devil, then that is to
allow that he is right at least in a measure. It is to believe, even though
unconsciously, that he has a case, there is success in some of his methods,
and that he ought not to be treated as sternly as he is being dealt with.
It would be impossible to give total allegiance to God while such a sym-
pathy existed between us and Satan, though we might choose to remain
loyal to God nonetheless. So it was with the loyal angels right down to the
cross of Calvary, for it was there, and not before then, that the last link of
sympathy between Satan and the heavenly world was broken.
But, when that last link of sympathy between Satan and the heavenly
world was broken by their seeing the true nature of his lies against God,
they then saw and understood the character of God as it truly was. Christ
had destroyed the works of the devil in them and, for them, the purpose of
 THE FULL REVELATION OF GOD
ENDS THE GREAT CONTROVERSY

Satan Defects Calvary Jacob's Trouble

For over 4,000 years two thirds of Fallen men remain deceived.
the angels and the loyal universe The great controversy contin-
followed God with doubts and res- ues with God working to re-
ervations. veal to man His and Satan's
' \ real character. \ I
One third of the Satan and God revealed Satan and God again
angels follow him just as they are. Angels revealed just as they
in total rebellion. and unfallen worlds fully are. Even evil men are
convinced. fully convinced.

It was the misrepresentation of God's character which

started the great rebellion. Not until this is corrected by
declaration and demonstration will the rebellion be ended.
32 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

the great controversy had been achieved. Therefore, if only angels were in-
volved in the struggle, Satan's end would have come at the cross. But what
had been done for angels had also to be done for men, for while angels saw
the real nature of the character of God and of Satan at the cross, man cer-
tainly did not and still has not.
In fact, it will not be until the time of Jacob's trouble that even the
righteous people of God will lose their last link of sympathy with the devil.
We may not know it today, but even those of us who walk nearest to God
still have a measure of sympathy with Satan and his ways. Not until that
final testing time will this at last be removed from us. "The time of trouble is
the crucible that is to bring out Christ-like characters. It is designed to lead
the people of God to renounce Satan and his temptations. The last conflict
will reveal Satan to them in his true character, that of a cruel tyrant, and it
will do for them what nothing else could do, uproot him entirely from their
affections. For to love and cherish sin, is to love and cherish its author,
that deadly foe of Christ. When they excuse sin and cling to peiversity of
character, they give Satan a place in their affections, and pay him
homage." The Review and Herald, August 12, 1884. Also Our High
Calling, 321.
Because this work has yet to be accomplished for human beings so that
the purpose of the great controversy is fulfilled for them as it was for the
angels, the battle was not terminated at the cross as it is written:
"Yet Satan was not then [at the time of the cross] destroyed. The
angels did not even then understand all that was involved in the great con-
troversy. The principles at stake were to be more fully revealed. And for the
sake of man, Satan's existence must be continued. Man as well as angels
must see the contrast between the Prince of light and the prince of dark-
ness. He must choose whom he will serve." The Desire of Ages, 761.
Therefore, the Saviour took the work of ending the great controversy
one giant step toward its completion when He revealed the character of
God as it is to the angels and thus exposed Satan for what he is. The pro-
gressive development of this is clearly portrayed in Revelation 12. The
original confrontation in heaven with the resulting removal of Satan from
the celestial precincts is described in verses 7-9.
"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against
the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
"And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil,
and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the
earth, and his angels were cast out with him."
Note that it was at this time that Satan was cast out into the earth. The
place from which he was cast out was heaven, but he still had the oppor-
tunity of accosting the angels as they moved to and from heaven and
"before them accuse Christ's brethren of being clothed with the garments of
THE ENDING OF THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 33

blackness and the defilement of sin." The Desire of Ages, 761. But that ac-
tivity was terminated when at the cross he was cast down. Firstly he had
been cast out, and then he was cast down.
"Christ bowed His head and died, but He held fast His faith and His
submission to God. 'And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is
come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power
of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused
them before our God day and night.' Reuelation 12: 10." ibid.
This reference confirms that the devil lost tremendous ground through
the victory accomplished by Christ during His life and by His death. The
angels were set free from his power. His delusions no longer had any claim
upon their thinking. Their loyalty to God became stronger and more in-
tense. For these reasons there was indeed great gladness throughout the
entire universe for the salvation which they had gained through the revela-
tion of God's character as given by Christ.
So it is written: "Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in
them." Reuelation 12: 12. It is to be noted that this call goes forth subse-
quent to the casting down of the old dragon at the cross of Calvary.
But the time for rejoicing in the unfallen universe is no time for joyous
songs upon this earth for very good reason. Firstly, before the cross, the
energies of Satan and his angels had been divided between his attacks on
the angels and on man. But after the cross, he was left to devote all his
power upon the children of men. They now have his undivided attention.
Secondly, his fearful losses sustained at the cross do not discourage but
only madden him into a frenzy of desperate and determined activity, for he
knows that his time is shortened and that he must work with a feverish
madness to stave off the day of his final obliteration. All of that fury is
directed to mankind. Therefore it is written to those who live upon this
earth after the crucifixion, "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the
sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he
knoweth that he hath but a short time." Reue/ation 12: 12.
The crushing defeat suffered by our great adversary at Golgotha was
likewise a resounding victory for the cause of righteousness. Ground was
gained there which shall never again be lost, for the angels and the unfallen
worlds are now eternally free from Satan's deceptive arguments.
But while great gains were made, full recovery had not been achieved.
Another great battle must be fought wherein will be accomplished for man
that which had been accomplished for the unfallen universe. The victory
will be gained exactly as it was gained by Christ, for we are to overcome "as
He overcame." See Reuelation 3:21.
To understand how that last battle is to be fought and won, we have but
to understand how Jesus gained His victory over the devil. Firstly, we must
recognize that the most difficult person to expose is one who is a deceiver
and an accuser. Counter-accusation is totally ineffective. At best, it only
34 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

seives to further confuse the issue, while at the worst it multiplies support
for the initial accuser.
The use of force is likewise counter-productive for it generates sym-
pathy for the one in rebellion through the natural tendency to take up the
cause of the underdog.
There is only one way to reveal evil at its worst and that is for it to be
exposed to righteousness at its best. God is righteousness. His very char-
acter is that. Therefore, the exposure of sin by the revelation of righteous-
ness was the exposure of sin by the revelation of the character of God.
Throughout His lifetime upon this earth, this is precisely what Jesus
revealed every day, all day. To look at Christ was to see the Father. He ex-
emplified what the Father is and all that He is. He demonstrated how the
Father relates Himself to the sin problem, to the sinful, and to those who
are His worst enemies. He spelled it out both in His life and in His teaching.
So perfect and complete was the revelation of the Father as given by
Christ that, to Philip's inquiry, "Lord, shew us the Father," He could reply,
"Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me,
Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou
then, Shew us the Father?" John 14:8, 9. "All that man needs to know or
can know of God has been revealed in the life and character of His Son."
Testimonies 8:286.
Extensive study will be given later to the work of Christ as the Revealer
of God's character. What is being established now is that by that revelation,
Christ was able to signally defeat Satan to the point where the unfallen
universe was completely and eternally delivered from the power of Satan's
deceptions.
Throughout His lifetime, Jesus revealed the character of God and as
He did so, Satan mustered his forces to break that perfect revelation. But
steadily and faithfully Jesus continued on His way so that Satan found it
necessary to draw even more heavily on his armament in his desperate
efforts to break the witness of God in Christ. At last, a still undefeated Christ
came to the cross to give, in that ultimate sacrifice, the revelation of the
righteous character of God at its glorious, undimmed best. Eternity will
never again be able to provide so complete and clear a manifestation of
God as He really is. It is the central and high point of history, past and
future. It is the pinnacle of all divine achievement in the resplendent light of
which all other is dimmed.
Such an unfolding of righteousness at its very best forced the devil to
reveal his own sinful character at its worst. He had no choice. If he had not
attacked Christ, if he had seen that to do so was to expose himself and had
therefore withdrawn from the battle, he would have lost anyway. His only
hope was to bring out everything in his onslaught and hope that he could
break the witness of the Son of God and man. But he failed, and in that
failure he salvaged nothing so far as the unfallen universe was concerned.
THE ENDING OF THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 35

They saw that full manifestation of divine light and satanic darkness
simultaneously, and Satan's cause was lost among them---eternally.
What Christ accomplished upon the Cross never needs to be repeated.
What Satan lost there he will never regain, so now he works desperately to
retain what he still has-the minds of men which were not released from
his power at the cross for the simple reason that they did not see either the
fullness of the glory of God's character or the depths of the satanic nature
there displayed.
Thus, for man the purpose of the great controversy has not yet been
fulfilled. Until it is, the struggle must and will go on, no matter how long that
may take. There must again be exhibited such a complete and full revela-
tion of the righteousness of God, which is the law and character of God,
that Satan will again be forced to display the fullness of his iniquitous
character to the point where even fallen men who have rejected God's truth
will see the difference and reject all allegiance to his satanic majesty.
But Christ is not returning to this earth to repeat the demonstration
already given. He has other plans. This full and final display of the merciful,
gracious, kind, good, and just character of God is to be given through His
people. Christ will reveal through them exactly what He personally re-
vealed while upon the earth.
Only as He is able to do this will the purpose of the controversy be finally
achieved for men as it was for angels. Then the Saviour can and will
return.
The Scriptures are very clear in stating that it will be the children of God
who will give that final revelation of His character. This is a fact which every
Christian must understand if he is to effectively occupy his appointed place
in the concluding events of the long-standing war. Failure to comprehend
this will result in an inadequate and misdirected preparation which will
effectively disqualify such a person from fighting in that last army of the
Lord.
It is because this is so that the following words of warning have been
written: "In order to endure the trial before them, they [the people of God
who will live through the final time of trouble and conflict) must understand
the will of God as revealed in His word; they can honor Him only as they
have a right conception of His character, government, and purposes, and
act in accordance with them." The Great Controuersy, 593.
This counsel does not say that we who live in these last times and face
that final testing and task would merely be in a better position to have a right
concept of God's character, government, and purposes. It does not say
this. If it did then it would be largely an optional matter whether we did or
did not understand these things. Either way we could come through.
The statement warns that we do not have these options. Either we
understand correctly the true nature of God's character, government, and
purposes, and act in accordance with them, or we will not be able to endure
36 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

the trial before us. To fail at this time and under these circumstances means
that eternal life will never be ours. In the light of these considerations, the
importance of having an accurate and thorough knowledge of God's
character, the nature of His government, and the scope of His purposes
cannot be overstressed.
The final movement of people who will provide the Lord with the
means of making that ultimate manifestation of His character is prophetical-
ly described in Revelation 18: 1. "And after these things I saw another angel
come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened
with his glory."
Briefly, it needs to be established here that this is the final message to be
given to the world. Before it, God will have sent many warnings, instruc-
tions, and entreaties, but beyond the dispatch of this there will be no other.
This is plainly attested in the following quotations.
"Revelation 18 points to the time when, as the result of rejecting the
threefold warning of Revelation 14:6-12, the church will have fully reached
the condition foretold by the second angel, and the people of God still in
Babylon will be called upon to separate from her communion. This
message is the last that will ever be given to the world; and it will accomplish
its work." The Great Controversy, 390.
A complete chapter in The Great Controversy, beginning on page 603,
is devoted to describing the giving of this message of Revelation 18: 1-4.
The title of the chapter is "The Final Warning." On page 604 we read,
"These announcements [those of the Revelation 18 angel], uniting with the
third angel's message, constitute the final warning to be given to the in-
habitants of the earth."
The second point to establish is that the angel is a symbol. The angels
themselves do not come to the earth and personally deliver these mes-
sages. This we understand clearly from the way in which the first three
angels' messages were given. The Scriptures declare that they are given by
movements of people on this earth. So it will be with the last message as
foretold in Revelation 18: 1. This message will be given by a movement of
people.
This is further certified by these words from The Great Controversy,
604. "Hence the movement symbolized by the angel coming down from
heaven, lightening the earth with his glory, and crying mightily with a strong
voice, announcing the sins of Babylon."
Next, the question must be raised, "With whose glory will the earth be
lightened?"
It is usual to receive the answer, "It will be the glory of God. ''This is
correct, but it is not what the verse says. It says, " ... another angel came
down from heaven, ... and the earth was lightened with his glory."
It is the glory of the angel which lightens the whole earth. It is true that
this is also and primarily the glory of God for it is from God that this glory is
TI-IE ENDING OF THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 37

acquired. But it has been so truly given to the angel that it has become his
own and can be described as being his glory.
What is the glory of the angel and the glory of God?
As used in Scripture the word "glory," especially in reference to God,
has two meanings. To the human mind it is mostly associated with a
dazzling display of physical splendor, and, without question, such an out-
shining of glory does surround the person and throne of God. Such a glory
as this was witnessed by both Daniel and Isaiah. Daniel described what he
saw in these words, "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the
Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of
His head like the pure wool: His throne was like the fiery flame, and His
wheels as burning fire.
"A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousand
thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand
stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened."
Daniel 7:9, 10.
Here is Isaiah's description of the heavenly glory of the God of heaven.
"In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.
"Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he
covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did
fly.
"And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of
hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.
"And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and
the house was filled with smoke." Isaiah 6:1-4.
But there is a meaning to the word "glory" other than the outshining of
radiant light and pulsing power. When Moses asked the Lord to show him
His glory, the Lord revealed to Moses His character. Here is God's
response to his request. "And He said, I will make all My goodness pass
before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will
be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will
shew mercy." Exodus 33: 19.
At the appointed time the Lord did this, as it is written: "And the Lord
descended in the cloud, and stood before him there, and proclaimed the
name of the Lord.
"And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The
Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness
and truth,
"Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and
sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third
and to the fourth generation." Exodus 34:5-7.
Moses specifically asked God to reveal His glory. The Lord did not
refuse this request. However, in response, He did not show him the out-
38 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

shining radiance of personal and physical splendor, but the wonder of His
great and lovely character. From this we deduce that the glory of God is His
character. The more the Word of God is studied, the more clearly this will
be seen.
When Jesus came to this earth, He left behind all that glory which was
of a physical nature. Physically speaking, He was a very plain and unattrac-
tive person as the prophecy of Isaiah 53:2 describes: "For He shall grow up
before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no
form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that
we should desire Him."
Yet despite the plainness of His outward appearance, He revealed the
glory of God to those with the spiritual vision which would enable them to
see it. "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld
His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and
truth." John 1: 14.
John testifies that he, along with others, saw the glory of the Father in
Jesus Christ as He walked as a man among men. It is certain that the glory
seen day by day was not a radiant outshining of dazzling light. What they
saw was that other and more important glory, the character of God.
In Christ's Object Lessons, 414, the word "glory" is directly equated
with character in this way, "The light of His glory-His character-is to
shine forth in His followers." These references clearly define this other
meaning of the word as being a definition of the character of God. In truth
this is His real glory, the one which He knows is the more important for
men to know and emulate.
We are seeking these definitions of this word so as to better understand
the meaning of Revelation 18: 1. We desire to know the nature of the glory
which shall lighten the whole earth in the last warning message.
Nowhere, in all the prophetic descriptions of the order of last day
events, are we given any picture of God revealing Himself in shining
brightness either personally or through His people on the earth. On the
contrary, God is careful not to work in this way for He is anxious that
people will accept the message of truth because it is the truth and not
because of any spectacular displays. Therefore, it will be the other glory,
the glory of character, which will lighten the earth at this time.
A summary of the message of Revelation 18:1, then, is as follows:
This is the final message to be given to the world;
The angel is the symbol of a movement of people;
The glory of the angel is the glory of the character of God;
It is the angel's glory and therefore the character glory within the people
of the movement which shall lighten the whole earth.
It is of value to take a text in which symbolic language is being used and
substitute for the symbols the things being symbolized. This makes the text
much clearer. By doing this Revelation 18: 1 would read "And after these
THE ENDING OF THE GREAT CONTROVERSY 39

things I saw another movement of people come down from heaven [not in
the physical sense), having great power; and the earth was lightened with
the glory of the characters of those people. " That character is the charac-
ter of God Himself, which has been formed in them through the saving
ministry of Christ in the sanctuary above.
For some, real difficulty is experienced in believing that the character of
God is actually reproduced within the believer, so that it becomes the
believer's character to the point where to look at one is to see the Other.
Yet this is the plain teaching of the Word of God. It is the teaching of
Revelation 18: 1 and is further expressed in these beautiful words: "When
the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He
will come to claim them as His own." Christ's Object Lessons, 69.
A reproduction is the same thing all over again.
A perfect reproduction repeats itself to the point where it is impossible
to tell the difference between it and the original. When Christ was upon this
earth, it was necessary to so reveal God's character as to enable the un-
fallen worlds to see how great a lie Satan's description of God was. That
manifestation of God's character in Christ had to be so complete and
perfect that to see Christ was to see God. If Christ's revelation of God's
character had been defective or incomplete in the least degree, then He
could never have succeeded in delivering the unfallen universe from the
grip of Satan's deceptions.
That should not be so difficult to perceive, for all understand the perfec-
tion of Christ's character. It is much more difficult to believe, as we look at
ourselves with all our defectiveness, that Christ could so reproduce Himself
within a human agent that to see that person is to see the very character
and nature of God.
Yet, this is how it must be, for if it required a faultless manifestation of
God's character to deliver the sinless beings of heaven and the unfallen
worlds and thus achieve the purpose of the great controversy for them, it
will require nothing less than the same faultless and complete manifestation
of God's character to deliver mankind from Satan's deceptive power and
accomplish the purpose of the great controversy for fallen man. Nothing
less than this will bring the finishing of the work, and this is why "Christ is
waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church.
When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people,
then He will come to claim them as His own." Christ's Object Lessons, 69.
So it will be that "The church, being endowed with the righteousness of
Christ, is His depository, in which the wealth of His mercy, His love, His
grace, is to appear in full and final display." Testimonies to Ministers, 18.
Not until it is understood that the finishing of the work can only be ac-
complished by the manifestation of the very character of God as that
character is, to the point where to look upon the true child of God in the last
days is to look upon the character of Christ, will there be a true appreciation
of the importance of this vital subject.
40 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Such an appreciation is essential to stimulate earnest searching into this

great theme-a stimulus which will be enlivened as the wonderful beauty
of God's character opens before our astonished gaze and we find our lives
being changed into the same image from glory to glory.
The closing scenes of the great controversy are right upon us. Soon its
purpose will have been fulfilled for fallen man as it was for the angels and
the unfallen worlds. In that final and finishing work the true understanding
and manifestation of the character of God, as that character is, will play a
role so vital that without it there would be no possibility of the work being
finished. Let every true child of God then place this topic in its correct
perspective of paramount importance in his study and in his own character
development.
 41

CHAPTER FIVE

Isaiah's Wonderful Prophecy

Revelation 18 clearly foretells the time when the glory of God's
character shall be revealed through His people as the final and finishing
message to lost mankind. But the book of Revelation is not a book apart
from the rest of the Bible. Rather, "In the Revelation all the books of the
Bible meet and end." The Acts of the Apostles, 585. Therefore, the message
of Revelation 18, showing a people who reveal the character of God as the
last work on the earth, must also be found in the Old Testament. One such
place is Isaiah 60. The entire chapter is worthy of the closest and most
spiritual study, though here we will be concentrating mostly on the first
three verses.
"Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen
upon thee.
"For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the
people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon
thee.
"And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of
thy rising." Isaiah 60:1-3.
It is true that these verses do have an initial application to the work and
ministry of Christ. Some therefore tend to limit the application to Him, but
when it is understood that the people of the last church on earth have to
reveal the character of God exactly as He did, to accomplish thereby for
fallen man what Christ accomplished for the unfallen, it will be seen that the
texts do have an equal application to God's last movement on earth.
God sent Jesus Christ to reveal His character and set the angels free.
He gave Him the light of truth and the full glory of His character. Then He
said "Arise, shine; for Thy light is come, and the glory [character] of the
Lord is risen upon Thee."
In precisely the same way, God is calling for a people in these last
days. To them He is giving the light of His truth and in them He is building
the perfect reproduction of His character. As He said to Christ, so He will
say to them, "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory [character]
of the Lord is risen upon thee."
There in Christ's Object Lessons, 415, it is written, "To His people He
says, 'Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen
upon thee.' Isaiah 60: 1."
The picture of things prophesied here is one of greatest contrast. On
one side it is the picture of gross darkness and on the other of glorious
illumination. Darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people, but
by contrast and as an answer to it all, the Lord rises upon His people and
then His glory-His character-shall be seen upon them.
42 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

It would be impossible for God's character to be seen upon them if it

was not already there to be seen. Therefore, this verse is repeating what has
already been understood from Revelation 18: 1 and Christ's Object
Lessons, 69. The character or righteousness of God is not something which is
simply credited to the person but is his in fact. It is actually built into the
person in reality. It becomes his own character, so that when others look
upon him they will see the glory of God's character just as if they were look-
ing at the great original. There they will see the same love, justice,
righteousness, peace, goodness, honesty; the same disposition to save and
never to destroy.
In Christ's Object Lessons where comment is made upon Isaiah 60:1,
2, the prophecy of the experience of the five wise virgins is drawn on as a
further illustration of the truth revealed in Isaiah's prophecy.
The parallel is immediately apparent. Both prophecies relate to the
closing events, telling how things will be just before the coming of the Son
of man. The same picture of darkness broken by clear light is presented, for
the virgins are represented as sleeping until the midnight hour, which is the
very darkest hour of the night. Then they arise with their lamps by which
they light the way for the Bridegroom's coming. Without the lighting of the
path, the Bridegroom could not make His way. He is dependent upon that
light to make His arrival possible.
In this book, emphasis has been placed on the concept that the
righteousness of God must be formed within the human agent, as it was
in the character of Christ, and nothing less than this will suffice to finish the
work. Note how that thought is further strengthened in these comments on
the parable of the ten virgins.
"In the parable the wise virgins had oil in their vessels with their lamps.
Their light burned with undimmed flame through the night of watching. It
helped to swell the illumination for the bridegroom's honor. Shining out in
the darkness, it helped to illuminate the way to the home of the bride-
groom, to the marriage feast.
"So the followers of Christ are to shed light into the darkness of the
world. Through the Holy Spirit, God's word is a light as it becomes a
transforming power in the life of the receiver. By implanting in their hearts
the principles of His word, the Holy Spirit develops in men the attributes of
God. The light of His glory-His character-is to shine forth in His fol-
lowers. Thus they are to glorify God, to lighten the path to the Bridegroom's
home, to the city of God, to the marriage supper of the Lamb." Christ's
Object Lessons, 414.
There can be no mistaking the message contained in these lines. Here it is
shown how the Word of God becomes a light capable of dispelling the
darkness around. To be such requires much more than merely understand-
ing the theory of the truth and then preaching it to others. God's Word is
a light as it becomes a transforming power in the life of the receiver. This
ISAIAH'S WONDERFUL PROPHECY 43

speaks of an inner working by the transforming agency of the Holy Spirit.

This is the changing of the person's inward nature so that he in himself
becomes formed into the likeness of God.
This is not a false interpretation of these words, as the next sentence, by
giving further explanation, clearly shows. "By implanting in their hearts the
principles of His Word, the Holy Spirit develops in men the attributes of
God."
The attributes of God are His characteristics, His glory, His dispositions,
His qualities, though not His great dynamic powers. Let no one assume
that the implantation of the life and character of God within the believer
gives him the power to impart life, creative power. God is the Father. We
are the children. Just as parents have the power to reproduce themselves,
while the children they bear do not have this power until they are themselves
adults, so we, as children of God forever, do not have the power to repro-
duce spiritual life or to create. That is the power of the Father-God, Christ,
and the Holy Spirit.
The reproduction is in character, and these attributes which are in God
are formed, in tum, in the believer himself so that he becomes like God in
this sense. Pursuing this thought the pen of inspiration leaves no room for
misunderstanding this important truth. Once the Holy Spirit has implanted
the attributes of God in the person, then has come the time when those
qualities can be seen. That is the message of the next sentence. "The light
of His glory-His character-is to shine forth in His followers." Firstly, it
must be developed within. Then it shines forth.
Compare these three expressions to see how they all speak the same
message in the clearest terms.
" ... I saw another angel [movement of people] come down ... and
the earth was lightened with his [the people's] glory." Revelation 18:1.
" ... the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon
thee." Isaiah 60:2.
"The light of His glory-His character-is to shine forth in His follow-
ers." Christ's Object Lessons, 414.
"When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His
people, then He will come to claim them as His own." ibid., 69.
The thought being developed and emphasized in the last chapter and
this one is that it will be by the manifestation of God's character through the
human instrumentalities in the last phase of the great conflict which will
bring the end. It is strongly stated that the purpose of the great controversy
cannot be fulfilled unless that demonstration of God's character is given.
Any delay in this revelation of God will likewise delay the return of Jesus.
The paragraph under consideration from Christ's Object Lessons, 414,
develops this same concept. Let the development of the argument in this
paragraph be quickly traced through again.
"Through the Holy Spirit, God's word is a light as it becomes a trans-
forming power in the life of the receiver.
44 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"By implanting in their hearts the principles of His Word, the Holy Spirit
develops in men the attributes of God.
"The light of His glory-His character-is to shine forth in His
followers.
"Thus they are to glorify God, to lighten the path to the Bridegroom's
home, to the city of God, to the marriage supper of the Lamb."
Could any teaching be plainer than this? Do you desire to know the
way in which you can glorify God, to lighten the way to the Bridegroom's
home, to the city of God, to the marriage supper of the Lamb?
Then here is the answer.
It is not by becoming acquainted only with the theory of the truth, nor
by attempting to wrap around yourself the cloak of Christ's covering
righteousness, nor by ceremonies or forms, nor loyalty to a code of religion.
It is by none of these things, though some parts of all this may have a place.
It is by hauing the Holy Spirit form the uery character of God, His
attributes, His righteousness within the belieuer. This is the way in which
He will hasten and then bring about the ending of the great controversy
and will prepare the way for the coming of the Bridegroom. By exactly the
same means through which the Saviour accomplished His mission, must
the followers of Christ in the final conflict likewise fulfil their commission.
It was not the possession of mere theory that gave His work and
teaching, power. It was because He was the living embodiment of that
truth.
"What He taught, He lived. 'I have given you an example,' He said to
His disciples; 'that ye should do as I have done.' 'I have kept My father's
commandments.' John 13:15; 15:10. Thus in His life, Christ's words had
perfect illustration and support. And more than this; what He taught, He
was. His words were the expression, not only of His own life experience,
but of His own character. Not only did He teach the truth, but He was the
truth. It was this that gaue His teaching, power." Education, 78, 79.
It will be this which will give our teaching power as well. "It was on the
earth that the love of God was revealed through Christ. It is on the earth
that His children are to reflect this love through blameless lives. Thus
sinners will be led to the cross, to behold the Lamb of God." The Acts of
the Apostles, 334.
True and necessary as these principles have been in past history, they
will be even more so in the coming darkest hour of all. "The coming of the
bridegroom was at midnight-the darkest hour. So the coming of Christ will
take place in the darkest period of this earth's history." Christ's Object
Lessons, 414.
Though it may seem an unnecessary question, it is well worth the time
to ask what the nature of this last-day darkness will be. The answer likely to
come most quickly is that it will be a moral darkness wherein men and
women will practise every iniquity imaginable. Such an answer is correct,
ISAIAH'S WONDERFUL PROPHECY 45

though it will fail to give the full picture of that darkness. That it will be a
time of the worst kind of moral darkness is stated in the next sentence, from
the paragraph above. "The days of Noah and Lot pictured the condition of
the world just before the coming of the Son of man."
But what men do is only the result of what they are. Therefore, this in-
iquity is the outworking of deeper problems. The next sentences in the same
paragraph trace this further back still, toward the source of the trouble.
Here it is revealed that there will be the darkness of Satan's delusions,
heresies and false teachings such as there never has been in the past until
the great apostasy develops into darkness deep as midnight.
"The Scriptures pointing forward to this time declare that Satan will
work with all power and 'with all deceivableness of unrighteousness.' 2
Thessalonians 2:9, 10. His working is plainly revealed by the rapidly in-
creasing darkness, the multitudinous errors, heresies, and delusions of
these last days. Not only is Satan leading the world captive, but his decep-
tions are leavening the professed churches of our Lord Jesus Christ. The
great apostasy will develop into darkness deep as midnight, impenetrable
as sackcloth of hair."
It is because, firstly, there is the proliferation of the multitudinous er-
rors of the devil and their acceptance by the vast majority, that the iniq-
uity will abound. The darkness of deception is the root cause of the dark-
ness of behavior.
Great as that darkness will be, it will not extinguish the light which in-
stead will shine brighter. "To God's people it will be a night of trial, a night
of weeping, a night of persecution for the truth's sake. But out of that night
of darkness God's light will shine." ibid., 414, 415.
But we are not left to think of the nature of the darkness of those false
teachings in merely general terms. Instead, we are told specifically what
they are. It is as the exact nature of those delusions are unfolded, that we
understand the real cause for the moral darkness in the world at the end.
"'Behold,' says the Scripture, 'the darkness shall cover the earth, and
gross darkness the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory
shall be seen upon thee.' Isaiah 60:2.
"It is the darkness of misapprehension of God that is enshrouding the
world. Men are losing their knowledge of His character. It has been
misunderstood and misinterpreted." ibid., 415.
This then is the darkness which shall cover the entire world in the last
days. It is the misunderstanding of God's character. Satan will still be using
the same means in the end that he has used right through past history. He
knows that rebellion against God is begun, developed and sustained by
ignorance of God's character, while the dispelling of that error will return
men to allegiance to God. He knows that the great conflict can never be
terminated until men are set free from erroneous ideas in respect to what
God really is, so he puts forth superhuman efforts to lock man in the gross
darkness of misapprehension of God.
46 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

There is no such thing as the great controversies, only the one great
controversy. The nature of the battle does not change from age to age.
Satan uses the same methods from generation to generation, and God's
answer to it is likewise ever the same. His answer in every age and dispen-
sation is to reveal the truth in regard to His character and His righteousness.
We are now living in the very time when these prophecies of Isaiah 60,
Revelation 18 and the parable of the ten virgins are to be fulfilled. Around
us, darkness does cover the earth and gross darkness the people. The earth is
filled with the most terrible ignorance of the true nature of God's charac-
ter and men are behaving in harrnony with those misconceptions.
As surely as we are living in this time of human history, so surely can
we expect to see the Lord providing His answer to Satan's deceptions.
The time has come for the clearing away of the misconceptions in regard to
God's character so that He might be revealed as He is. The time has come
for the proclamation of a message on the character of God and His
righteousness.
It is not an idle expectation to anticipate this, for ':<\t this time a message
from God is to be proclaimed, a message illuminating in its influence and
saving in its power. His character is to be made known. Into the darkness of
the world is to be shed the light of His glory, the light of His goodness,
mercy, and truth.
"This is the work outlined by the prophet Isaiah in the words, 'O
Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it
up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold,
the Lord God will come with strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him;
behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him.' Isaiah 40:9, 10.
"Those who wait for the Bridegroom's coming are to say to the people,
'Behold your God.' The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy
to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love. The
children of God are to manifest His glory. In their own life and character
they are to reveal what the grace of God has done for them.'' ibid., 415,
416.
Could we but comprehend the magnitude and glory of the promise
here given to us in the inspired Word, our hearts would burst with unlimited
praise to God for His unspeakable provisions when they are most needed.
"At this time," the very time when the darkness of satanic delusion is
overspreading the world, a message from God is to come.
Let us be so grateful that the message does not come from man or from
the devil, but from God Himself. Thereby, it can only be the truth-saving,
illuminating, uplifting, and delivering truth.
Nor is it a message to be argued, debated or contested. It is a message
to be proclaimed, not only by the lips but by the witness of the life itself; a
witness made effective by the forrning of the very character of God within
so that when men look upon the messenger they see the character of God
ISAIAH'S WONDERFUL PROPHECY 47

revealed. Then they come to know God as God is, as they see Him for
themselves, reflected from the transformed hearts of the believers.
This message is the very last ever to be given to mortals. As the last
warning and entreating words are given, they will be words proclaiming the
character of God. "Behold your God," will be the keynote and the entire
orchestration. Thus and only thus, will the work be finished with the ultimate
conquest of Satan and his hordes.
The coming of this message from God is no longer a prophetic expecta-
tion but a present reality. The truth has come bearing the divine credentials.
It has been found to do just what God said it would do. "It is illuminating in
its influence and saving in its power."
This book is the presentation of this light on the character of God. The
unfolding of the great evidences and truths herein has not come to light in a
moment, but has been years in formation. With greater care than with any
other theme, every concept has been carefully checked with the correct
principles of Bible interpretation until a beautiful harmony has developed.
No knowledge of the prediction that such a message would come was
possessed by us when the first light of this truth opened into a fuller
understanding. Otherwise we might well have gone seeking a message of
our own upon the character of God and sought to fulfil the prophecy out of
our own inventions. Rather, first the light on the message came, and then
we discovered that it had come in fulfillment of Bible and Spirit of Prophecy
predictions. How warmed and encouraged we were to find that the very
things we had been taught, the Lord had foretold would be taught.
The message is from God. It is illuminating in its influence and saving in
its power. It is the great light which alone can dispel the darkness with which
the devil is filling the world. It is the one means whereby the work of the
gospel can be finished, men be delivered from Satan's sophistries, and the
purpose of the great controversy be fulfilled so far as man is now con-
cerned.
It is hoped prayerfully that each reader by this time will have gained
some concept of the unutterable importance of this theme to the point
where each will be inspired to search with great earnestness and intensity to
understand and to possess that wonderful character.
48

CHAPTER SIX

Approaching The Study Of God

Character is revealed by the way in which one acts, for the very simple
reason that we do what we do because of what we are. Allowance must be
made for the work of deception which sinful human beings practise, for
some are very adept at making themselves appear to be what they are not.
Nevertheless, the time comes when the masquerade is rent and the real
person is seen for what he is.
With God there is no deception for He is the truth. Therefore, what He
does, when rightly understood, is a true and accurate revelation of what
He is.
The doings of God may be divided into two general parts. Firstly, there
was the revelation of God by what He did during the eternity of the past
when there was no sin problem, and secondly, there is the revelation of His
character by what He did in response to the appearance of sin.
In the natural way of things, it follows that the greater of these two
revelations must be the one forthcoming during the great rebellion, for it is
under the pressure of great testing and difficulty that the otherwise hidden
depths of one's nature and capabilities are revealed. Therefore, the fullest
and clearest revelation of God's character is afforded us because of the
entrance of sin. This being so, there are some who have wickedly charged
God with deliberately introducing sin so that He would be provided with the
theatre in which to display such depths of Himself as would otherwise be
impossible.
The enemy of God and man is the originator of these charges which the
true child of God will treat with the utter disdain they deserve. Albeit, there
are still the two situations in which the behavior of God is the revelation of
His character. The conditions prevailing in these two eras are as different as
they can be, but God remains unchanged through it all. Sin's appearance,
problem, and pressure made far-reaching changes in angels, men, and
nature, but it made absolutely no change in God. He is "the same yester-
day, and to day, and forever." Hebrews 13:8. While this Scripture directly
relates to Jesus Christ, it is equally true of the Father for what can be said
of the One, is equally true of the Other.
God is unchanged and unchangeable. He declares, "I am the Lord, I
change not." Malachi 3:6. He is " ... the Father of lights, with Whom is no
uariableness, neither shadow of tu ming." James 1: 17. He is "the uncorrup-
tible God." Romans 1:23.
These evidences confirm that God did not follow a certain line of
behavior before the entrance of sin and then, when sin appeared, engage
in activities utterly unknown before the uprising of evil. Rather, the
THE STUDY OF GOD 49

emergency of sin brought forth from God only more of the same things He
had always done.
Because there was no occasion to punish, none have any difficulty in
seeing that, before the fall, God never did such a thing. Subsequent to that
sad day, however, an entirely different set of conditions demanded of God
as the responsible Ruler of all, a satisfactory and permanent solution.
Because most men understand only the use of force as such a solution,
they cannot see God doing other than bearing down with terrible punish-
ments on the guilty. This is the only way they know, resulting in their
quickly interpreting all the reported actions of God in the Old Testament as
being of this character. To such, the declaration that God did absolutely
nothing after the fall that He did not do before, with all the implications
thereof, will certainly be a startling statement, hard to accept.
But it has to be true nonetheless. Otherwise we are compelled to accept
the thought that sin did make changes in God, forcing Him, after its ap-
pearance, to do things He had never done before. This cannot be and yet
God remain as the unchangeable, incorruptible God.
Some may counter that this argument breaks down when it is con-
sidered that God did do something different in giving His Son as a sacrifice
for the lost.
But, when Christ's role in the eternity of the past is rightly understood, it
will be seen that God had given His only-begotten Son to the created world
for their blessing long before sin ever entered the universe. The incarna-
tion of Christ into the human family was not something new for Him. It
was a wonderful extension of the role He had eternally occupied and of
the work which He had everlastingly done. From the eternity of the past,
Christ has ever been God's gift to His creatures even unto the death, for
their salvation. Of this, more will be revealed as the study progresses.
As surely as this is true, then so surely has God done nothing new in the
period when sin emerged to establish its pernicious corruption. Therefore,
by studying what God did in the unmarred ages, we will study those revela-
tions of His character which find confirmation in the greater display of those
same things in the vastly more difficult era which has followed.
The study of what God did in the sunny days of universal innocence
and harmony is the investigation of the constitution of the kingdom which
He formed in such wondrous perfection. How God organized that govern-
ment, how He related Himself to His subjects, what He provided for them
and how He ruled them is a very clear and wonderful revelation of His
character. He is a perfect God, has been and will be eternally so, and
therefore the government which He formed is likewise as perfect. It is the
only perfect rulership ever to exist. It is the pattern for all governments to
copy and they can have perfect government only as they form theirs after
the divine similitude.
Before we begin the study of that government, a necessary note of
warning must be given. This is necessary because of the universal human
50 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

tendency to form concepts of God's government after the measure of

human leadership. We are very familiar with the latter, from personal
acquaintanceship. It is all that we really know, and so we tend to think of
God and His kingdom as being the same.
But the Word of God warns of this danger and directs us to approach
this study from a different standpoint. God states very clearly, "For My
thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the
Lord.
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher
than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8, 9.
In His efforts to reveal to men the principles of God's kingdom, Christ
was forever faced with the problem that there was nothing in this earth with
which to compare it. Everything with which man was familiar served to give
a wrong, instead of correct, concept of it. So Christ said: "Whereunto shall
we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare
it?" Mark 4:30.
"The government of the kingdom of Christ is like no earthly gov-
ernment. It is a representation of the characters of those who compose
the kingdom. 'Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God?' Christ
asked, 'or with what comparison shall we liken it?' He could find nothing on
earth that would serve as a perfect comparison. His court is one where holy
love presides, and whose offices and appointments are graced by the exer-
cise of charity. He charges His servants to bring pity and loving-kindness,
His own attributes, into all their office work, and to find their happiness and
satisfaction in reflecting the love and tender compassion of the divine
nature on all with whom they associate." The Review and Herald, March
19, 1908.
" 'Whereunto,' asked Christ, 'shall we liken the kingdom of God? or
with what comparison shall we compare it?' He could not employ the
kingdoms of the world as a similitude. In society He found nothing with
which to compare it. Earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendancy of physical
power; but from Christ's kingdom every carnal weapon, every instrument
of coercion, is banished. This kingdom is to uplift and ennoble humanity.
God's church is the court of holy life, filled with varied gifts, and endowed
with the Holy Spirit. The members are to find their happiness in the hap-
piness of those whom they help and bless." The Acts of the Apostles, 12.
There was always the danger that the apostles might lose sight of the
principles of the kingdom of righteousness. Jesus sought to teach them the
great differences between that kingdom and the kingdom of men, as it is
written:
"Lest the disciples should lose sight of the principles of the gospel,
Christ related to them a parable illustrating the manner in which God deals
with His servants, and the spirit in which He desires them to labor for Him.
" 'The kingdom of heaven,' He said, 'is like unto a man that is an
householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his
THE STUDY OF GOD 51

vineyard.' It was the custom for men seeking employment to wait in the
market places, and thither the employers went to find servants. The man in
the parable is represented as going out at different hours to engage
workmen. Those who are hired at the earliest hours agree to work for a
stated sum; those hired later leave their wages to the discretion of the
householder.
"'So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his
steward, Call the laborers, and give them their hire, beginning from the
last unto the first. And when they came that were hired about the eleventh
hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they sup-
posed that they should have received more; and they likewise received
every man a penny.'
"The householder's dealing with the workers in his vineyard represents
God's dealing with the human family. It is contrary to the customs that
prevail among men. In worldly business, compensation is given according
to the work accomplished. The laborer expects to be paid only that which
he earns. But in the parable, Christ was illustrating the principles of His
kingdom-a kingdom not of this world. He is not controlled by any human
standard. The Lord says, 'My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways My ways .... For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are
My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.'
Isaiah 55:8, 9." Christ's Object Lessons, 396, 397.
Thus, in His Word, the Lord has warned us not to think of the kingdom of
God in terms of earthly kingdoms. It is impossible to learn of the heavenly
from the earthly. It cannot be done. Anyone who attempts to do so either
consciously or unconsciously, will certainly be led into incorrect under-
standings on the nature of God's kingdom.
Few, if any, consciously set out to learn of God's government in this
way. The student does not even question this approach because, through-
out the lifetime, no other than earthly kingdoms have been known. He
comes to the study of the heavenly with definite ideas already established
in his mind of what a kingdom has to be. The Scriptures are read in the
light of these understandings and the result is a view of God, which is
opposite from reality.
Christ's disciples took a long time to overcome this problem. From their
earliest days they had heard their elders talk of the Messianic kingdom. No
question was ever raised as to the constitution of that kingdom. It was taken
for granted that it would be just like the kingdoms round about them, and as
the Old Testament was read, every verse describing that kingdom was
misread in the light of those misconceptions.
When the disciples joined the company of Christ, this misunderstand-
ing of the true nature of the kingdom and therefore of God's character,
proved to be the greatest hindrance to their drawing into full intimacy with
Christ in His divine mission. It caused Christ many unnecessary burdens,
52 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

added sorrow and terrible heartache. Despite His continual effort on their
behalf, they were not delivered from this false position until after the
resurrection.
No lesson from the past should be learned with greater care than the
one from the experience of these men. We are to fear greatly lest we, too,
come to the study of God's kingdom with the same preconceived ideas
and notions in our minds. If we do, then we will certainly emerge with an
erroneous view. This in turn will make it impossible to endure the trial
which is before us, for of that last successful people it is written, "In order to
endure the trial before them, they must understand the will of God as
revealed in His Word; they can honor Him only as they have a right
conception of His character, government, and purposes, and act in accor-
dance with them." The Great Controversy, 593.
Therefore, the very beginning of the study of the constitution of God's
government is conversion to the realization that the kingdom of God is dif-
ferent. It is unique. There is nothing in this world that can be likened to it.
Once this conviction is gained so that the tendency to refer to earthly condi-
tions as a guideline to understanding the heavenly has been destroyed, we
can approach the study with minds fresh and clean to receive the correct
understanding of God's character as revealed in the constitution of His
kingdom.
Earthly kingdoms do have a reference value in the sense that they tell
us what the kingdom of God is not. In other words, wherever we find
ourselves seeing the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of men to be the
same in any respect, we can know that we have strayed from a true
knowledge of God's realm.
So with minds fresh and clear, let the approach to the study of God and
His wonderful works begin. Let us not be among that class who "fail of a
satisfactory understanding of the great problem of evil, from the fact that
tradition and misinterpretation have obscured the teaching of the Bible con-
cerning the character of God, the nature of His govemmen~ and the prin-
ciples of His dealing with sin." The Great Controversy, 492.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

The Constitution
Of The Government Of God
The full title of this chapter is "The Constitution of the Government of
God As It Was Before the Entrance of Sin." Such a study is an essential
introduction to understanding God's government as it was after the en-
trance of rebellion. While such an investigation is proceeding, continually
keep in mind "that tradition and misinterpretation have obscured the
teaching of the Bible concerning the character of God, the nature of His
government, and the principles of His dealing with sin." The Great Con-
trouersy, 492.
Every one of these traditions and misinterpretations of God have been
authored by Satan. This explains why, when Christ came to the earth, the
representation of God which He gaue was totally opposite from that given
by Satan, as it is written, "He presented to men that which was exactly
contrary to the representations of the enemy in regard to the character of
God, ... "Fundamentals of Christian Education, 177.
Therefore, if we find the truth on this question as that truth is written in
the Holy Scriptures, then we will find that which is exactly contrary to what
is generally believed. This means we would enter into a set of wholly
revised and reversed concepts of God's government and character. At the
same time, there would be the continual pressure of traditionally held
theories seeking to drag the mind back to the old ways again-a pressure
which must be consciously resisted in order to arrive at the pure truth.
The whole structure of God's government is perfection. It cannot be im-
proved and. to it, there is not a single alternative. God's way is not the best
way-it is the only way. While other ways have been proposed and have
even existed for a time, they cannot be counted as a way of life for they
shortly die by their own imperfections.
Essential in the structure of divine government is the existence of law.
The necessity is there because of the provision of mighty powers without
which life would be impossible, but which have in them the potential for
destruction. God's law, as we shall better learn, is a love gift from Him to
His creatures, perfectly designed to save them from destruction. That law is
perfect as it is written:
"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of
the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
"The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the command-
ment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
"The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the
Lord are true and righteous altogether.
54 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold:
sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
"Moreover by them is Thy servant warned: and in keeping of them
there is great reward." Psalms 19:7-11.
"Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and
good." Romans 7:12.
That perfect, holy, just, and righteous law is the very foundation of
God's government. "In the earthly temple the ark of the testimony took its
name from the testimony-the Ten Commandments-which was put
within it. These commandments the Lord Himself wrote with His own
hand, and gave to Moses to deposit beneath the mercy-seat, above which
the presence of the glory of God dwelt, between the cherubim. It is
therefore evident that the ark of His testament in the heavenly temple takes
its title also from the fact that therein, beneath the mercy-seat and the
cherubim upon it, there is the original of the testimony of God-the Ten
Commandments-of which that on earth was a copy. And as this holy
law-the Ten Commandments-is but the expression in writing, a tran-
script, of the character of Him Who sits upon the throne, therefore it is
written:-
" 'The Lord reigneth, let the people tremble,
He sitteth upon [above) the cherubim, let the earth be moved.'
'Clouds and darkness are round about Him:
Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of His throne.'
'Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of Thy throne:
Mercy and truth go before Thy face.' Psalms 99: 1; 97:2; 89:14.
Reuised Version." Ecclesiastical Empires, 571, 572, by A.T. Jones.
The law of God being, as it is, the very foundation of His throne, the
nature of that law and the relationship of God to it is a very important
aspect of the study both of the character and government of God. Consider
then what the law is in its sublime perfection. In that consideration we will
find striking differences between the character of the laws of men and those
of God.
In the statement above, A.T. Jones declared that the law of God is "the
expression in writing, a transcript," of the character of God. This truth is not
merely his belief. It is found in the Word of God where it is written:-
"His law is a transcript of His own character, and it is the standard of all
character." Christ's Object Lessons, 315.
"The law of God is as sacred as God Himself. It is a revelation of His
will, a transcript of His character, the expression of divine love and wis-
dom." Patriarchs and Prophets, 52.
"He has given in His holy law a transcript of His character." Tes-
timonies 8:63.
Here is a truth wherein lies something of the greatest importance. A
transcription is the rewriting of the former in a new location. It does not
THE CONSTITIJTION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD 55

matter whether you read the former or the latter, for the message will be
the same. Therefore in reading the holy law as the transcript of God's
character, the character of God itself is being read. Inasmuch as God does
what He does because of what He firstly is, then the law being what God is,
is the guide to His behavior. God will do nothing which is not in His
character. Therefore, He will do nothing that is contrary to the law.
As surely as the understanding of the law will lead to a clearer
understanding of God's character, so, in turn, the better His character is
understood, the greater will be the comprehension of the perfection of that
law. It is impossible to separate one from the other and still remain in the
truth.
Yet there is a most serious tendency to do this. It is so natural and easy to
think of the law as something that God decreed as being His wishes for
our deportment, but which has little or no bearing upon His own conduct.
We tend to think this way because of our familiarity with human law
makers. Professedly, in modern democracies, the same laws made to
control the behavior of the citizenry, are to be obeyed by the rulers who
make them. But ever more frequently of late the cover has been lifted to
reveal that this is not so in fact. It is seen that the leaders are guilty of the
worst kind of crimes-bribery, deceit, theft, murders, and invasion of indi-
vidual privacy. The only mistake with them is not in doing it but in being
found out. Yet even when they are, they do not suffer the penalties im-
posed upon the man in the street for the same crimes.
The more absolute the ruler is, the more open and obvious is this
practice of making laws for the people which are not in any sense for the
monarch.
This is not so in God's government. His law is first of all His very own
character. As such, it is the revelation of the way in which He will act under
all circumstances. Then He simply calls upon us to behave as He does. He is
righteous in all His works. He calls upon us to be and do the same. The
same law is for God as for His people.
Therefore He says to us, "For I am the Lord your God: ye shall
therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy." Leviticus
11 :44.
"But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of
conversation;
"Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." 1 Peter 1:15, 16.
The Revised Standard Version renders this as follows: "But as He who
called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written,
'You shall be holy, for I am holy.' "
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect." Matthew 5:48.
" ... Throughout the Sermon on the Mount He [Christ) describes its
fruits, and now in one sentence He points out its source and its nature: Be
56 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

perfect as God is perfect. The law is but a transcript of the character of God,
Behold in your heavenly Father a perfect manifestation of the principles
which are the foundation of His government.
" ... He tells us to be perfect as He is, in the same manner....
''Jesus said, Be perfect as your Father is perfect. If you are the children
of God you are partakers of His nature, and you cannot but be like Him.
Every child lives by the life of his father. If you are God's children, begotten
by His Spirit, you live by the life of God. In Christ dwells 'all the fullness of
the Godhead bodily' (Colossians 2:9); and the life of Jesus is made
manifest 'in our mortal flesh' (2 Corinthians 4:11). That life in you will
produce the same character and manifest the same works as it did in
Him. Thus you will be in harmony with every precept of His law; for 'the
law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.' Psalm 19:7, margin. Through
love 'the righteousness of the law' will be 'fulfilled in us, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit.' Romans 8:4." Thoughts From the
Mount of Blessing, 77, 78. Emphasis original.
Consider carefully the message of these words and their implications.
The law is the transcript of God's character. He keeps that law not as
something to which He is bound, but because it is the natural expression of
what He is, and therefore it is not possible for Him to behave in any other
way. A character which gives expression to a holy law is a holy character.
God calls upon us to be holy as He is holy so that our behavior will be as
His behavior is. Therefore, we are to receive His life, which is His
character, which is the transcript of the law, so that the law is written on our
hearts. Then that will "produce the same character and manifest the same
works as it did in Him." Thus there is to be no difference in essence or
nature between the character of the Sovereign Father of the universe and
the creatures whom He has created to fill that universe.
The only difference lies in the fact that the same love, mercy, justice,
goodness, power, tenderness, hatred of sin, and so on, which the true
people of God have to a certain degree, God has to infinitude. This is in no
sense of the word bringing God down to us but it is bringing us up to Him.
He is the Father. We are the children. As such He provides us with the
perfect example of how we are to live, asking of us nothing which He does
not firstly do Himself.
As we look as best we are able through the revealed word into the eternity
of the past we have no difficulty in seeing that never in all the time before
sin appeared, did God ever behave out of harmony with His sacred law
and character. It is inconceivable to think of God acting out of harmony
with some of the commandments at least, such as putting another god in
His own place, setting up graven images for Himself to worship and such
like. The areas where dispute in regard to God's behavior does exist is in
respect to the commandments "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not steal,"
and "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD 57

During all the eternity of the past, we know that death never made its
appearance until sin entered and brought death with it. Therefore as cer-
tainly, God never once raised His powerful arm to take the life even of the
minutest organism in His vast realm. Nor did He ever act deceitfully, or
retrieve by force, or steal back that which He had given to any one of His
creatures.
It may be protested that there was no necessity for the Lord to destroy
the life of any creature during that time because none had rebelled against
Him to incur the penalty of death. It was for this reason, it may be argued,
that the Lord never terminated life prior to the fall of angels and then of
men, but, when sin did enter, a situation arose different from any which
had ever existed, and this required the Lord to take decisive action to cut the
sedition short and preserve the entire universe from corruption. After the
fail, it is contended, the state of things, the absence of which before the
festering of rebellion excluded any necessity for capital punishment, left
God with no choice but to kill the insurgents.
Such an argument is not consistent with the truths laid down earlier in
this chapter. Aware as we are of the existence of these contentions about
the character of God and in anticipation of their appearing in the minds of
those especially who have long held to the traditional views of God's
character, we laid out those clear evidences from the Inspired Word.
Those evidences are summed up in these words, "I am the Lord, I
change not," "The same yesterday, today and forever," "with Whom there
is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Link with those words the
truth that the law is the very expression of His character. So if the transcript
of that character says "Thou shalt not kill," then how could we possibly
conceive of God taking life?
Certainly at this point there will run through the reader's mind the many
statements, especially in the Old Testament, where it appears that God did
come down and, by the direct and personal exercise of His mighty power,
destroy, sometimes with great cruelty, many thousands of people. We are
equally aware of these references and later we will invite you to take
another look at these incidents. They will be dealt with after we have
studied the constitution of God's character as it was before the admission of
the great mutiny.
For now we wish to consider the nature of that character in the original
kingdom and some of the implications of what we learn.
The Scriptures make it forever plain that the Lord has never changed.
Therefore, He has done nothing this side of the fall that He did not do
before, or will do in the eternity of bliss to be reinstated in the near future.
Therefore, it is impossible to believe the Scriptural truth that God
changes not and, concurrently, hold the belief that He takes the lives of
the disobedient, unless there is a willingness to be an inconsistent thinker. To
recognize that God never destroyed before there was sin, and to accept the
58 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

idea that He does destroy after its emergence, is to believe that He has
changed. It is to admit that with Him, of Whom it is written that there is no
variableness nor shadow of turning, there has been variation, a complete
turning about. It is to believe that God respected the law in one way before
iniquity arose, and then in a different and opposite way thereafter. It is to
believe that when sin is finally ended, He will return to the original pattern
of behavior.
Just now the reader may feel disposed to discontinue the pursuance of
the arguments here because they are so contrary to what he has formerly
believed. We agree that they are contrary, for they are Christ's teachings
and He came to present "to men that which was exactly contrary to the
representations of the enemy in regard to the character of God ... "
Fundamentals of Christian Education, 177.
If, in the days of Christ, men had retained a correct knowledge of God's
character, then there would have been no need for the witness so contrary
to their understanding which Christ gave of His Father, and if, in the
intervening time, men had retained the picture of God as given by Christ,
there would have been no need for producing this volume as an effort
directed to turning the minds of all back to the divine pattern.
That which has so far been presented is only the barest beginning of the
evidences to be tendered. It is important that all the evidences be con-
sidered before the conclusions herein are rejected.
Consideration must now be given to the way in which God keeps the
law. He does not do it by reining Himself up to a code of behavior which is
foreign to His nature. He obeys it as a natural outworking of that which He
Himself is. It is His pleasure to do righteousness and He has interest in no
other course of action.
This is the only kind of obedience God wishes to receive from His
creatures-that which springs from a personal conviction that His way is the
only way, and from a heart created in the image of God and as a transcript
of His holy law.
"Since the service of love can alone be acceptable to God, the alle-
giance of His creatures must rest upon a conuiction of His justice and
benevolence." The Great Controuersy, 498.
"The law of love being the foundation of the government of God, the
happiness of all created beings depended upon their perfect accord with its
great principles of righteousness. God desires from all His creatures the
service of love, -homage that springs from an intelligent appreciation of
His character. He takes no pleasure in a forced allegiance, and to all He
grants freedom of will, that they may render Him voluntary service." ibid.,
493. Patriarchs and Prophets, 34.
God recognizes that if obedience to His law has to be compelled, then
He would have a form of government which was short of perfection. But
He will have nothing that is anything less than the ideal. He is determined
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD 59

on this for He will be content with the provision only of the ultimate in
happiness and prosperity for all His subjects. Therefore, in God's kingdom,
no force is ever employed to bring about allegiance to Him or to put down
rebellion. We can be certain of this for it is plainly written that it is so.
"God could have destroyed Satan and his sympathizers as easily as one
can cast a pebble to the earth; but He did not do this. Rebellion was not to
be overcome by force. Compelling power is found only under Satan's
government. The Lord's principles are not of this order. His authority rests
upon goodness, mercy, and love; and the presentation of these principles is
the means to be used. God's government is moral, and truth and love are
to be the prevailing power." The Desire of Ages, 759.
"The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's govern-
ment; He desires only the service of love and love cannot be commanded;
it cannot be won by force or authority." ibid., 22.
"Earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendancy of physical power; but from
Christ's kingdom every carnal weapon, every instrument of coercion, is
banished." The Acts of the Apostles, 12.
"In the work of redemption there is no compulsion. No external force is
employed. Under the influence of the Spirit of God, man is left free to
choose whom he will serve. In the change that takes place when the soul
surrenders to Christ, there is the highest sense of freedom." The Desire of
Ages, 466.
"God does not employ compulsory measures; love is the agent which
He uses to expel sin from the heart." The Mount of Blessing, 77.
The message of these statements is very clear. They tell us that '"Com-
pelling power is found only under Satan's government." If compelling
power or force is exclusive to Satan and his government then it is neuer
found under God's government. It is foreign to Him. "The exercise of force is
contrary to the principles of God's government." If there is one thing of
which there is absolute certainty, it is that God does nothing that is contrary
to His principles. Men do over and again, but God neuer. Therefore, it
needs to be fixed in mind that because the exercise of force is contrary to
the principles of God and His government, under no circumstances will He
use force to solve any problem.
Certainly He never did in the eternity of the past before sin entered for
clearly no situation arose to necessitate it. Perfect harmony pervaded the
entire universe and not one being stepped out of line until the betrayal of
God by Lucifer.
Since the fall, men and devils have continually exercised force in their
efforts to solve their problems for this is the way of Satan and men. They
are fully convinced that the circumstances in which they are placed make it
impossible not to use force both for survival and for achieving their ambi-
tions.
The words as quoted above are God's positive assurances to us that He
never resorts to the use of compelling power. What God says, is the truth,
60 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

and His every action is consistent with that truth for, unlike sinful men and
devils, He does not say one thing, then do another. Therefore, confidence
should fill every child of God, that the use of force is never to be found with
God. God affirms it is so. Accordingly, let us simply and implicitly believe it to
be so.
It is a principle of faith that belief in God's words must be maintained in
the face of evidences which declare the contrary is true. Thus in the Old
Testament, God's actions seem to say that He did use compelling power to
achieve His righteous ends, that He did resort to force to put down
rebellion, and that He did make an example of some by crushing them with
terrible punishments that were often fatal.
The choice of belief between the declarations of God and the appear-
ances of what God did in the human arena, is before every person. The
greater proportion choose to believe what they think they see rather than
what God has said. Therefore, the almost universal belief is that God
does use force, that He exterminates whole nations who have utterly re-
jected Him, and that He relies on compelling power to put down rebellion.
But the true child of God will believe what God said despite any
evidences which at least appear to be contrary. God said that He does not
use force or compelling power, so he believes that, even though he cannot
rightly understand what God really did in those Old Testament incidents.
He will simply admit to the challenger of his faith that he does not yet
understand just what God did, nor does he have to necessarily. In the
meantime, he will assure the doubting questioner that he has the plain
utterances of the Word of God, so that he can be assured that, even though
he cannot explain it in detail, God does not do what He appears to do. This
is the way faith works. It is based on the Word of God, not on appearances.
In due time such a faithful one will discover, under God's wise tutelage, just
what God actually did in each varied incident. When he does, he will find
that God did not once act contrary to His principles, but only in perfect
harmony with them.
Thus each person today falls into one or the other of two categories.
Either he is a believer in the Word of God or he builds his belief on the
witness of sight and circumstances. It is simple to know which you are. If
you believe God's declaration that compelling power is found only under
Satan's government, that He never turns to the use of force, and never
crushes to destruction those who do not serve Him, then you are a child of
faith.
Otherwise, if you believe that God did find it necessary to use force to
destroy His opponents, then you are an unbeliever, because you have
allowed the witness of appearances to take precedence over the witness of
God's Word.
Without question, the witness of sight and circumstances is very power-
ful. When the Old Testament stories are read wherein it is reported that
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD 61

God rained fire and brimstone on the Sodomites; that He poured forth the
waters of the flood until they were all drowned; and so on, it is easy and
natural to believe that God was personally resorting to the weapons of
force.
But that pure faith, the faith of Jesus, which clings unswervingly to the
spoken word of God, recognizes that if this is so, then God is truly inconsis-
tent. He has spoken one thing but does another. This is the charge which
Satan laid against God in heaven and which the great controversy is
designed to remove. If the Lord was to act contrary to His stated principles,
then He would quickly and effectively give Satan the very evidences he
needed to prove the point he had sought to make up in heaven. It would
have been much better for the Lord to have admitted inconsistency to
Satan in the first case than to blatantly continue it where it could be openly
seen by all. But, the very nature of the great controversy and the issues
involved in that, demand that if the Lord is to triumph, He must be utterly
consistent with Himself. He cannot say one thing and then do another. To
do so, even for a single instance, would be to lose everything and give the
victory to Satan and his angels.
It has been the false interpretations of God's behavior in the sin prob-
lem, imposed on men's minds by Satan, which have made it appear that
the Lord has been inconsistent. In verity, there has been no inconsistency
whatsoever. God has been impeccably faithful to His word. What is more,
when God's actions are correctly evaluated, it will be confirmed that His
ways are so perfect and infallible that He experiences no need to tum to the
use of force. There has been an aptness to conclude that there is only one
possible interpretation of the Old Testament incidents. What is needed is a
second and more educated investigation into those happenings. This
research, conducted along the lines of correct principles of Scriptural inter-
pretation, will bring the student to conclusions which will dismiss ideas
formed on the basis of what it seemed God did. It will be found that there
are vital differences between what the Lord appeared to have done and
what He really did. This will be undertaken later when time is given to
studying the manifestation of God's character in His dealing with the sin
problem. For the present the study of His government as it was constituted
before sin appeared, must be continued.
We now need to consider a most important aspect of God's relationship
to His subjects. It is a matter closely linked to, and consistent with, the fact
that any use of force is contrary to the principles of God's government and
to the purpose and nature of God's law. Only as all three of these are
studied together will it be possible to understand any one of them.
This vital aspect is the one of freedom, one of the most precious gifts
ever given by God to His subjects. A little thought will show that as surely as
God has no intention of using compelling power to enforce the observance of
His law, then as certainly has He set His creatures absolutely free to serve
62 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Him or not to serve Him. The two are consistent with and inseparable from
each other. As soon as all compelling power is removed from a person,
then so soon is that person given complete freedom to choose not to serve
if that is his wish and desire.
"God never compels the obedience of man. He leaves all free to
choose whom they will serve." Prophets and Kings, 511.
"They [the angels) told Adam and Eve that God would not compel
them to obey-that He had not removed from them the power to go
contrary to His will; that they were moral agents, free to obey or disobey."
The Story of Redemption, 30.
"Our first parents, though created innocent and holy, were not placed
beyond the possibility of wrongdoing. God made them free moral agents,
capable of appreciating the wisdom and benevolence of His character and
the justice of His requirements, and with full liberty to yield or to withhold
obedience." Patriarchs and Prophets, 48.
"The law of love being the foundation of the government of God, the
happiness of all created beings depended upon their perfect accord with its
great principles of righteousness. God desires from all His creatures the ser-
vice of love,-homage that springs from an intelligent appreciation of His
character. He takes no pleasure in a forced allegiance, and to all He grants
freedom of wi/I, that they may render Him voluntary seivice." The Great
Controversy, 493. Patriarchs and Prophets, 34.
This is not to be understood as stating that the Lord gave His creatures
freedom to sin with impunity. There is a doctrine abroad which paints God
as being so sweetly loving, that He will excuse and protect all sin and sin-
ners rather than see anyone perish. That doctrine is not to be confused with
the positions taken here. The sinner wi// die. The heavens and earth will be
destroyed and the entire universe will be rendered clean from the stain of
sin. But it will not be God Who wields the scourge of destruction to effect
this. Rather, He will firstly have warned every created being of the terrible
consequences attendant on choosing to take the path of disobedience.
Then, when they do, He will expend every effort to save them from it, and,
only when they reject His saving effort, will He finally leave them to perish.
Observe the relationship between rendering to God a service of love
based upon an intelligent conviction of God's justice and goodness and the
granting to each of perfect and complete freedom to obey or to disobey as
the individual himself shall choose. This connection is made particularly in
the last statement quoted. Interestingly, the exercise of that freedom in the
wrong direction immediately deprives a person of liberty, for sin is a cruel
taskmaster which forces its subjects into service. It is not God Who deprives
of this freedom. This is the work of sin and Satan.
But on the positive side, only where there is complete freedom of
choice is it possible for an intelligent service of love to be rendered. Just so
soon as any element of compulsion such as the threat of punishment, is in-
THE CONSTITIJTION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD 63

troduced, then to that extent will there be a service motivated by fear.

God's subjects would then obey Him because they were afraid not to.
This, God can never accept. He knows that such a kingdom cannot be
blessed with flawless happiness and fullness of joy. In His kingdom each
and every subject is so intelligent on the perfection of God's ways that his
admiration and love for his Sovereign spring spontaneously, naturally,
and joyously in devoted allegiance. Thus in the kingdom of God, perfectly
and fully established, there is no question of the service rendered being
real or feigned. It can only be genuine. Thus God will have in eternity's
coming perfection, what every earthly monarch through all time has
craved-the total and loving loyalty of every one of His people. Such indeed
would be a blessed kingdom in which perfect love and confidence would
forever reign. Any ruler who had this, could and would walk among his
people without fear. Of him it could not be said, "Uneasy lies the head
which wears the crown."
No kingdom has ever been like this, though some have approached it.
Earthly kingdoms always tend to servitude in one form or another and seek to
hold the loyalty of their citizens with the threat of punishment for disobe-
dience. No crime is considered worse than treason-disloyalty to the state.
But Jesus came to deliver men from all this, testifying of this mission in
these words, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free." "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."
John 8:32, 36.
Jesus Christ does not come to transfer the sinner from one form of bon-
dage to another. God's object in Christ is to restore the kingdom to its
original perfection, the perfection of complete freedom to serve God. Ac-
cordingly, Jesus said that those whom the Son set free would be free
indeed. Here Christ envisaged a total freedom for His children. That is the
nature of God's kingdom, the revelation of His purpose of beneficence and
love toward every creature.
A.T. Jones in Ecclesiastical Empires, 586-588, has set forth these prin-
ciples with the greatest force and clarity.
"It may be further asked: Could not God have prevented it all, by
making Lucifer and all others so that they could not sin? It is right and
perfectly safe to answer, He could not! To have made creatures so that they
could not sin, would have been really to make them so that they could not
choose. To have no power of choice is not only to be not free to think, but
to be unable to think. It is to be not intelligent, but only a mere machine.
Such could not possibly be of any use to themselves or their kind, nor be of
any honor, praise, or glory to Him who made them.
"Freedom of choice is essential to intelligence. Freedom of thought is
essential to freedom of choice. God has made angels and men intelligent.
He has made them free to choose, and has left them perfectly free to
choose. He made them free to think as they choose. God is the author of
64 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

intelligence, of freedom of choice, and of freedom of thought. And He will

forever respect that of which He is the author. He will never invade to a
hair's breadth the freedom of angel or man to choose for himself, nor to
think as he chooses. And God is infinitely more honored in making in-
telligences free to choose such a course, and to think in such a way as to
make themselves devils, than He could possibly be in making them so that
they could not think nor choose, so that they would be not intelligent, but
mere machines.
"It may be yet further queried: As God made angels and men free to sin
if they should choose, did He not then have to provide against this possible
choice before they were made-did He not have to provide for the
possibility of sin, before ever a single creature was made?-Assuredly He
had to make such provision. And He did so. And this provision is an essential
part of that eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord,
which we are now studying.
"Let us go back to the time when there was no created thing; back to
the eternal counsels of the Father and the Son. The existence of God is not a
self-satisfied existence. His love is not self-love. His joy is not fulfilled in
wrapping Himself within Himself, and sitting solitary and self-centered. His
love is satisfied only in flowing out to those who will receive and enjoy it to
the full. His joy is fulfilled only in carrying to an infinite universe full of
blessed intelligences, the very fullness of eternal joy.
"Standing then, in thought, with Him before there was a single in-
telligent creature created, He desires that the universe shall be full of joyful
intelligences enjoying His love to the full. In order to do this they must be
free to choose not to serue Him, to choose not to enjoy His love. They must
be free to choose Him or themselves, life or death. But this involves the
possibility of the entrance of sin, the possibility that some will choose not to
serve Him, will choose the way of sin. Shall He then refuse to create
because, if He does, it must be with the possibility that sin may enter?-This
would be but eternally to remain self-centered and solitary. More than this,
such a shrinking would in itself cause Him to cease to be God. For what is a
god, or what is he worth, who can not do what he desires? who can not
fulfill his own will? Such a god would be worthless.
"Thank the Lord, such is not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He made all intelligences free to choose, and to think as they
choose; and therefore free to sin if they choose. And at the same time, in
His infinite love and eternal righteousness, He purposed to giue Himself a
sacrifice to redeem all who should sin; and give them even a second
freedom to choose Him or themselves, to choose life or death. And those
who the second time would choose death, let them have what they have
chosen. And those who would choose life, -the universe full of them.-
let them enjoy to the full that which they have chosen,--even eternal life, the
fullness of perfect love, and the dear delights of unalloyed joy forever.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD 65

"This is God, the living God, the God of love, the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who is fully able to do whatsoever He will, and yet
/eaue all His creatures free. This is He who from the days of eternity
'worketh ALL THINGS AFTER THE COUNSEL OF His own will.'
Ephesians 1: 11. And this is the mystery of His will, ... which He hath
purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven,
and which are on earth; even in Him.' Ephesians 1:9, 10. This is 'the eternal
purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.' Ephesians 3: 11.
"The choice of self is sin, bondage, and death. The choice of Christ is
righteousness, freedom, and life eternal in the realm and purpose of the
eternal God."
Let careful contemplation be given to the thoughts expressed in this
statement and the implications thereof.
"Freedom of choice is essential to intelligence." The proving ground of
history provides evidence enough of the truth of this. It is the work of the
gospel to set men free, and never was the gospel more gloriously and effec-
tively preached than in the days of Pentecost and thereafter until the
decline in the Christian Church. As the liberating influence of the truth was
robbed of its power, the world was carried down into the Dark Ages.
Freedom of choice was unknown, as the papal hierarchy ruled the world
with an absolute despotism. Such a state of ignorance and corruption
developed that the period was given the designation of the Dark Ages.
There can be no fair argument to the effect that that condition of things
was due to something other than the deprivation of the freedom of the
world. Against any such argument can be marshalled evidence upon
evidence to show that wherever men are despoiled of their liberties they
sink into a state of ignorance and darkness. Conversely, wherever the living
gospel of Jesus Christ sets men free, there is the greatest advance in
knowledge and intellectual development. It was the gospel preached in the
Reformation which set men free. That work had far greater impact in some
areas than in others. There were those cities and countries where the domi-
nant influence was Protestant while others remained bastions of the
papacy. Those areas today where the Reformation influence was the
strongest are the places where the greatest advances have been made in
every form of intellectual development. In fact, the great wave of increased
knowledge came directly upon the heels of the Reformation. A.T. Jones is
wholly correct in his assertion that freedom of choice is essential to
intelligence.
God could never be honored or blessed by filling His kingdom with
unintelligent creatures. His is a kingdom of light-not darkness. Therefore
He made angels and men intelligent. He filled them with light and, in order to
give that light the fullest scope for increase, He gave them, as He had to do
to achieve this, freedom of choice.
66 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Therefore, "God is the author of intelligence, of freedom of choice, and of

freedom of thought." These are God's gifts to His creatures which are in-
separably and eternally associated with His dominion. They cannot be
taken away from Him and His creatures without changing the whole nature
of His character, government, and law. This God will not do, for it would
make perfection imperfect, and would limit to destruction the happiness
and contentment of His creatures.
Therefore, "He will ever respect that of which He is the author. He will
never invade to a hair's breadth the freedom of angel or man to choose for
himself, nor to think as he chooses."
This is eternally true of God. He has given that freedom and never so
much as by a hair's breadth will He ever violate the right of any of His
creatures to choose the course they will pursue. This is the only way God
would, and will, have it, and it is the only way which any enlightened child
of God would have it too. Anything short of, or other than, this is less than
perfection and therefore less than total happiness.
This granting of freedom because it was essential to fullness of develop-
ment and happiness, possesses in itself terrible danger. It is the danger that,
despite the overwhelming evidences that God's way was free from the
slightest stain of imperfection and had provided all with unspeakable joy
and fulfillment, some, or even all, of His subjects would choose to go their
own way, making themselves into demons of horror and destruction. But,
even though God thoroughly understood the possibilities of there being a
period when some or even all of His creatures would undertake a terrible
experimentation with a supposed way of life other than His, He would not
and did not, institute any safeguards involving the element of force. He
would have nothing less for them than perfection wherein lay the unlimited
possibilities of infinite development. That could not be if there was not the
total freedom to serve God or to serve themselves as they themselves
should choose.
What are the implications of these points in the heavenly constitution?
To what extent did this determine how God would react to any of His
subjects turning away from Him and choosing another way?
Put these two principles together again-the principle of no coercive
force being used and the principle of granting absolute freedom to choose.
As surely as these two things are combined in the constitution of God's
kingdom, then just so surely does God place Himself where He cannot
punish those who do what He said they could do, namely, choose another
master if they wished.
This is a most difficult principle for man to understand because it is so
foreign to his way of thinking. In human government there exists only
lawmakers who firstly frame the legislation, then draft punishments for
those who do not obey, and finally appoint enforcement machinery to ad-
minister the sentence. This is all that is known to human experience in the
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD 67

framework of human justice. Because it is so hard to divorce the mind from

this concept, it is difficult to conceive of God placing Himsell where He can-
not personally visit penalties upon the head of the evildoer.
Civil rulers do not grant to anyone, freedom of choice. Their mandate
is "Obey, or suffer at our hands." Those who make the law are the ones
who punish the lawbreaker, but it is not so in God's kingdom. He has
spelled out the law as the expression of His own character, but it is sin
and death which enslave the transgressor.
If it is possible for the dismissal of the human concept from the mind so
that the steps taken by God in putting together His empire can be viewed
dispassionately and objectively, it will be seen that to totally reject the use of
force, and at the same time grant to all freedom of will, is to set up a situa-
tion wherein it would not be possible to administer punishment and death in
order to correct the problem. It does not matter how it may appear that
during the Old Testament period, for example, the Lord did administer
punishments as earthly rulers do, the fact remains that a government con-
stituted on the lines of total rejection of the use of force as a solution,
while at the same time giving freedom of choice to the subjects, simply can-
not punish those who do choose to go another way. God gave them the right
to make that choice and He cannot punish them for making the decision He
Himself gave them the liberty to make.
All that He can do, prior to their making the wrong choice, is to work to
save them from making it by revealing the certain results of choosing the
other course. It is the same work as done by the mother who solemnly
warns her child of the consequences of painful bums which will certainly
follow if the child touches a hot stove.
When His subjects had entered into a course of sin, God did all He
could to save them even then, if they would choose to be saved. He even
went so far as to give His own life in the Person of His Son, so that men
might have a second opportunity to choose life instead of death. Man's first
choice was made from the side of righteousness and freedom which he left
for bondage and death. His second choice is made from the opposite side
from where he decides either to remain in bondage and under sentence of
death, or to come back to the side of purity and eternal life. But the choice
is just as free in the second stage as it was in the first. The one difference is
that in making the second choice, man knows by experience the hurt of sin
and so has first-hand evidence of the truth of God's word.
If for the second time men choose to go the way without God, then He
has no recourse but to leave them to that which they have chosen. Note,
again the way this truth is expressed in the words of A.T. Jones, "He made
all intelligences free to choose, and to think as they choose; and therefore
free to sin if they choose. And at the same time, in His infinite love and
eternal righteousness, He purposed to give Himself a sacrifice to redeem all
who should sin; and give them even a second freedom to choose Him or
68 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

themselves, to choose life or death. And those who the second time would
choose death, let them have what they have chosen. And those who would
choose life,-the universe full of them,-let them enjoy to the full that
which they have chosen,-even eternal life, the fullness of perfect love,
and the dear delights of unalloyed joy forever." Ecclesiastical Empires, 588.
Emphasis original.
Therefore, "God does not stand toward the sinner as the executioner of
the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy
to themselves, to reap that which they have sown." The Great Contro-
uersy, 36.
Before Lucifer arose, the sincerity of God's gift of freedom to every
creature remained untested. In those days when no one chose anything but
faithful service to Him, it was a simple matter for God's methods to work.
No one even thought about the possible implications to the system.
It was when those powerful beings stood up under Lucifer's leadership,
determined to set up a rival dominion, that the first challenge to God's
promise was raised. Satan and his followers have pressed that challenge to
the utmost limits, exploring, probing and searching for some weakness
whereby they might gain a foothold and topple the divine organization.
God had declared that His ways were perfection, not simply for the sunny,
prosperous days, but for any possible circumstances from the best to the
worst. Under this searching inquisition, this endless pressure, would those
principles stand or would they prove to be faulty? That was the question to
be decided in the great controversy. Would it be found that God had to
make modifications and concessions, that He would after all be forced to
acknowledge that He had gone too far in granting such complete freedom,
and that He would have to withdraw it in order to rain punishments on the
wrongdoer?
The darkness in which Satan has made God's actions appear, contends
that God and His ways did not survive the test, that He had to resort to
force to punish those who exercised the freedom He gave them not to serve
Him, and that He was not able to tolerate the exercise of the freedom of
choice which enabled angels and men to establish a competing kingdom.
The devil asserts that he has already won the debate, which claim would be
entirely true, if God had done what Satan charges Him with doing.
All too readily, men in general have subscribed to Satan's lies. This
gives support to his cause. The time has come when a revised understand-
ing of God's actions is imperative.
Such will be offered as this study progresses, but firstly consideration
must be given to another factor-the workings of the law of God. As
already stated, the rejection of force, the granting of perfect freedom of
choice to all, and the nature and purpose of God's law are three things so
closely related that they must be studied in conjunction with each other for
any or all of them to be adequately understood. Study has been given to
the former two, so we must now consider the last.
 69

CHAPTER EIGHT

A Perfect Law
The perfection of God's law stands in marked contrast to the imperfec-
tion of the laws framed by earthly legislators.
The faultiness and inadequacy of men's laws are marked in two ways at
least. Firstly, men are obliged to constantly enact new laws and to modify or
repeal old ones. Things which the law forbids today, it will permit in the
near future. Behavior which is allowed in one country is strictly banned in
another.
Secondly, when kings or congress pass their laws, in order to ensure
that the people will respect the government and obey those laws, they for-
mulate a list of punishments which they then administer.
But these things are not true of God's law. It is so perfect and complete
that there has been no modification or addition needed from the day it was
first expressed. Its principles are so complete and all-embracing that, if
perfectly obeyed, they are the flawless pattern for both divine and human
behavior in either the sinless heavenly environment or the iniquitous situa-
tion on earth.
The life of Christ amply demonstrated the truth of this, for He kept His
Father's commandments in conditions so wicked that it was described as
the time "when the transgressors" had "come to the full," Daniel 8:23; the
time when 'The deception of sin had reached its height. All the agencies for
depraving the souls of men had been put in operation. The Son of God,
looking upon the world, beheld suffering and misery. With pity He saw how
men had become victims of satanic cruelty. He looked with compassion
upon those who were being corrupted, murdered, and lost. They had
chosen a ruler who chained them to his car as captives. Bewildered and
deceived, they were moving on in gloomy procession toward eternal
ruin,-to death in which is no hope of life, toward night to which comes no
morning. Satanic agencies were incorporated with men. The bodies of
human beings, made for the dwelling place of God, had become the habita-
tion of demons. The senses, the nerves, the passions, the organs of men
were worked by supernatural agencies in the indulgence of the vilest lust.
The very stamp of demons was impressed upon the countenances of men.
Human faces reflected the expression of the legions of evil with which they
were possessed. Such was the prospect upon which the world's Redeemer
looked. What a spectacle for Infinite Purity to behold!
"Sin had become a science, and vice was consecrated as a part of
religion. Rebellion had struck its roots deep into the heart, and the hostility of
man was most violent against heaven. It was demonstrated before the
universe that, apart from God, humanity could not be uplifted. A new ele-
70 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

men! of life and power must be imparted by Him Who made the world."
The Desire of Ages, 36, 37.
This was the condition of things when Christ came to this earth. Under
those circumstances He demonstrated that God's law was the only code of
behavior. To do this He kept that law to perfection thus proving that Satan
lied when he declared the law of God was imperfect and needed to be
modified to meet changing circumstances. In this perfect adherence to the
righteous precepts under these conditions, Christ not only proved to fallen
man that the law was not too difficult for him to observe, but that it was the
perfect guide and protection for all those who did keep it.
Consider now, the second factor in the difference between the law of
God and that of man. This difference is that while men have to attach their
own formulated penalties to the law, with God this is not necessary. In His
system, breaking the law itself brings its own terrible fruitage in sorrow, and
finally, destruction.
It is not to be concluded that God deliberately organized it this way.
When it is understood why He formed and gave the law, it will be seen that
this is the only way it could be. Essential to the successful accomplishment
of the great aspirations within His creatures, is the possession of tremen-
dous power. This power was designed for blessing and benefit only, but,
unavoidably, it has in it the potential for destruction. Being the only way to
safeguard against that other and destructive side of power, law became
essential. While power is handled in strict accordance with law, there is no
problem. But let the law be disregarded and every kind of problem arises.
Therefore, God did not formulate a law with a deliberately built-in system of
punishments, but, instead, gave them a perfect protection from self-de-
struction. If they choose to set aside that protection then there is nothing to
prevent the trouble from coming. First God gave the power and then the law
to enable them to safely handle it.
Already it has been shown that compelling power, compulsion, the use
of force, and such have no place in God's work and are never found under
His government but only under Satan's. Likewise it has been seen that
God, because He is interested only in voluntary obedience, gave to every
one of His creatures "full liberty to yield or to withhold obedience."
Patriarchs and Prophets, 48. It would be impossible to give full liberty to
withhold obedience, and then punish a person for exercising the very
freedom given to him. To punish under those conditions is to deny that full
liberty had been given.
There are two ways in which God could have administered
punishments upon those who chose to withhold obedience. The first
method would be to decree what the punishment should be and then to
execute it by His own direct action. This is what the majority believe God
does.
The second method would be to skilfully and deliberately build into the
law, punishments which would automatically fall upon the transgressor. In
A PERFECT U\W 71

modern language this is called booby trapping. The farmer, for instance,
has a patch of delicious melons growing and he knows that, despite the law
forbidding theft, the young lads of the village will come at night for the
feast. So he installs a trip wire attached to a high explosive. He has built into
the law an automatic punishment which will reach out and strike the lawbreaker
apart from the action of the law itself.
This is the course the Lord could have adopted to avoid the necessity of
exercising His own power in any direct act of destruction.
Whether God punishes directly by His own action or indirectly by
building destruction into the law, He would still be denying that He had, in
reality, given His subjects "full liberty to yield or to withhold obedience." He
gave the liberty. Therefore He cannot punish any who exercise what He
has given them.
If God used the first method, it would be a blatant denial of His claim to
have given them full liberty. If He used the second method, then He could
well be charged with having adopted underhand means whereby He could
claim that He had not directly denied their freedom, though in fact, in-
directly He had.
God is not deceitful or underhanded. He is the God of truth. Therefore
it needs to be clearly understood that He did not design a law with built-in
punishments. Every one who is to have a part in the final presentations of
the character of God must come to understand the real character of God's
law. The awful punishments which do fall upon the violators of God's great
principles are what the law was devised to protect man from, not what it
was designed to bring upon him.
What must be understood with great clarity is that the law is in no sense
God's effort to protect His own position and authority. God is so completely
outgoing, so utterly devoid of self-interest, self-justification, or self-protec-
tionism in any form, that He could never have formulated the law to save
Himself. It is not something which He has "thought up" as His wish or plea-
sure whereby the people could be identified as His subjects, doing His will
and obeying His commands. Far from it! That law is a masterpiece of
protection for the people themselves. It is so wonderfully designed that obe-
dience to it ensures absolute immunity from sickness, suffering, sorrow,
fear, suspicion, robbery, violence, and death. On the other hand, viola-
tion of its principles guarantees the introduction of these things in their
worst fonns.
None of these things is God's invention designed for infliction on the
transgressor. "The wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23. It is a sound prin-
ciple, universally practised, that the servant is always paid by the employer
to whom he renders service. If a worker, having given a month of in-
dustrious labor to Mr. Jones, then went to Mr. Brown to receive his wages,
he would be met with an indignant refusal.
"lam not responsible for the wages owed to you by Mr. Jones," he
would emphatically say. "l do not pay the money earned by service on your
72 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

part to another employer. If you work for me then I will pay you but not
otherwise."
This reply is reasonable. It is equally reasonable that the same principles
apply in the spiritual realm. Therein are two masters, God and Satan, or
more correctly, righteousness and sin. Neither of these masters pays the
wages earned in the service of the other.
The wages of sin is death and the gift of righteousness is life.
No one needs convincing that Satan never pays the gifts of God. All
those who live the life of righteousness, know that they cannot look to the
devil to pay even the smallest proportion of these. God alone can pay the
gift of life. Satan has no part in this whatsoever.
If it is so easily seen that the devil never pays God's gifts to the
righteous, then it should be equally clear that the Lord never pays the
wages owed by sin to its subjects. Sin and Satan alone pay those. God does
not traffic in death for He is the purveyor of life. That is His merchandise
and He dispenses no other. He does not pay wages in the currency of
death.
"Sickness, suffering, and death are work of an antagonistic power.
Satan is the destroyer; God is the restorer." The Ministry of Healing, 113.
As the Restorer, "God is working, day by day, hour by hour, moment
by moment, to keep us alive, to build up and restore us." ibid., 112. The
law, then, has not been fonned as an instrument of destruction but of salva-
tion. The unfortunate attitude of hostility toward the law will be swept away
entirely when its true purpose and role are understood. Then with the
Psalmist, the exclamation of praise will go forth, "O how love I Thy law! it is
my meditation all the day." Psalm 119:97.
The Holy Spirit had certainly imparted to the writer of these words a
very different view of the law from that generally possessed by man. He
had come to see that the law was not designed for God's exaltation and
protection but for the protection and blessing of mankind.
This we need also to see. Accordingly our attention will now be directed
to studying God's law as the precious gift of God for man's blessing and
security.
Both the first part dealing with the relationship of man to God and the
second part covering man to man, were designed along the same lines.
Consideration will be given to the first part initially.
Statement number one in the decalogue is this: "Thou shalt have no
other gods before Me." Exodus 20:3.
To the average person this suggests a picture of God concerned about
His receiving the homage, respect, service, and worship which He felt was
due to Him. To them, it is as if He were saying, "I am God and I do not in-
tend that you shall forget that. I will tolerate no other god in My place for I
will share My honor, position, and glory with none. I want, and I demand,
exclusive recognition of My sole authority from each of you. I shall be
A PERFECT LAW 73

watching every one intently, moment by moment, with a vigilance which

never slumbers nor sleeps. If I find any drifting away from Me, any render-
ing of homage or love to another, My anger shall become exceedingly great
and I will come in My fury to punish you without mercy."
This is the view held by this earth's majority. This is how they see God,
because if they were in the same position with the same power, that is how
they would relate themselves to their subjects. But, in fact, a more er-
roneous view of God's intent could not be entertained. God had not
thought of His honor, security, and safety when He formed that com-
mandment. He was entirely preoccupied with His subjects and their needs.
He knew the danger in which they were, and to make them secure from it He
gave them this and the other commands.
Difficult as it may be at first to understand, the truth is that it was not
possible for God to create man without a very definite element of danger
being involved. Yet, once careful consideration is given to the objectives of
love in bringing the earth and its inhabitants into existence, it will be per-
ceived that it was not possible to do this without that threat being in
attendance.
It began with the divine purpose to give to man the precious love-gift of
life. There was no obligation upon God to do it. Humanity should respond
only with the deepest gratitude that God had elected to do this. But to give
life was not sufficient. A home must be provided in which those possessed
of this inimitable gift could enjoy such riches to the fullest. Without a home,
existence would be an eternal drifting through supercold space with nothing
to see or do. This would convert what promised to be everlasting de-
light into perpetual horror.
Therefore, the creation of highly intelligent creatures necessitated the
forming of a home in which they could develop and exercise the splendid
powers given to them, achieving the highest aspirations of their active
minds.
That was a wonderful provision but it was still insufficient. Both the in-
dividuals themselves and the world in which they lived must be equipped
with suitable and sufficient powers to enable them to live their lives to the
fullest potential. The infinitely wise and loving God saw this and without
hesitation installed all those mighty powers in their proper place and
balance. These powers may be grouped into two divisions, those within
man and those outside him in the marvellous world of nature.
The powers in man may be listed as the power of thought, muscular
power, the powers of speech, ambition, planning, reasoning, invention,
love, joy, and so forth. The powers without in the world of nature are the
powers of the sun, moon, gravity, wind, water, centrifugal and inertial
forces, electricity, and many more.
All this, seemingly, would provide the sum of all that could ever be
needed to give every creature the fullness of happiness and joy. After all,
what more could man desire or need?
74 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

But it was still not enough.

It was not enough because power, though provided by God for only
one purpose, the blessing and prosperity of all His creatures, inevitably
possesses the potential of destruction. Enquiry may be made as to why the
Lord did not provide powers that could not be subverted, but careful
thought will show that this is impossible. Any power which is intended to do
only good can also be turned to an evil purpose.
Therefore, God needed to add one more gift to make the work of crea-
tion complete and secure. That gift was the law. It was something very
necessary to man, for without it he had no way of keeping those powers
from becoming destroyers. This can readily be demonstrated by reference
to the first commandment, the study of which, in the light of these prin-
ciples, will prove that the law was not made by God for God but for man.
Any one of the great powers which God has invested in nature for
man's blessing can be chosen to develop this point. Accordingly the sun will
be selected as the example.
Initially, the sun came into existence in response to the spoken creative
word of God. This is the only way it could, for there is no other power in
existence which can create anything, let alone something of the magni-
tude and power of that flaming orb. Satan could not do it, neither can man.
But God's work in respect to the sun and its role did not end with its creation,
for it cannot fulfil its mission unaided. It, like all other powers, is totally
unintelligent, thus possessing no capacity to direct its ways. This must be
done by a power outside of and greater than itself under the guidance of a
suitable intelligence. The only power which can do this is the power which
made it. That is God's power directed by the intelligent mind of God. That
creative power in tum is exercised through His Son, Christ, Who not only
"made the worlds," but is constantly "upholding all things by the word of
His power." Hebrews 1:2, 3.
"God is constantly employed in upholding and using as His servants the
things that He has made. He works through the laws of nature, using them
as His instruments. They are not self-acting. Nature in her work testifies of
the intelligent presence and active agency of a Being Who moves in all
things according to His will." The Ministry of Healing, 416.
"Many teach that matter possesses vital power,-that certain properties
are imparted to matter, and it is then left to act through its own inherent
energy; and that the operations of nature are conducted in harmony with
fixed laws, with which God Himself cannot interfere. This is false science,
and is not sustained by the word of God. Nature is the servant of her
Creator. God does not annul His laws, or work contrary to them; but He is
continually using them as His instruments. Nature testifies of an in-
telligence, a presence, an active energy, that works in and through her
laws. There is in nature the continual working of the Father and the Son.
Christ says, 'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' John 5: 17.
A PERFECT LAW 75

\.
-...,IO, , .
"1!b) aj., _..____

The mighty powers at work In nature or harnessed In machinery were given

for man's benefit and blessing but can only be such If under the control of
an Intelligence obedient to law.
76 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"The Levites, in their hymn recorded by Nehemiah, sung 'Thou, even

Thou, art Lord alone; Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens,
with all their host, the earth, and all things therein, ... and Thou preseruest
them all.' Nehemiah 9:6. As regards this world, God's work of creation is
completed. For 'the works were finished from the foundation of the world.'
Hebrews 4:3. But His energy is still exerted in upholding the objects of His
creation. It is not because the mechanism that has once been set in motion
continues to act by its own inherent energy, that the pulse beats, and breath
follows breath; but every breath, every pulsation of the heart, is an
evidence of the all-pervading care of Him in whom 'we live, and move, and
have our being.' Acts 17:28. It is not because of inherent power that year
by year the earth produces her bounties, and continues her motion around
the sun. The hand of God guides the planets, and keeps them in position in
their orderly march through the heavens. He 'bringeth out their host by
number; He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might, for
that He is strong in power; not one faileth.' Isaiah 40:26. It is through His
power that vegetation flourishes, that the leaves appear and the flowers
bloom. He 'maketh grass to grow upon the mountains,' and by Him the
valleys are made fruitful. All the beasts of the forest seek their meat from
God, Psalms 147:8; 104:20, 21, and every living creature, from the
smallest insect up to man, is daily dependent upon His providential care. In
the beautiful words of the psalmist, 'These wait all upon Thee .... That
Thou givest them they gather; Thou openest Thine hand, they are filled
with good.' Psalms 104:27, 28. His Word controls the elements, He covers
the heavens with clouds, and prepares rain for the earth. 'He giveth snow
like wool; He scattereth the hoar frost like ashes.' 'When He uttereth His
voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens, and He causeth the
vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; He maketh lightnings with
rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of His treasures.' Psalms 147:16;
Jeremiah 10: 13." Patriarchs and Prophets, 114, 115.
These statements teach the active presence of God as the Controller of
all the powers He has installed in the universe for the good of His creatures.
But, why is it necessary for God to do this? Is it because He is determined to
keep personal control over all things? Or is it because it must be so? Why
could God not have set the whole complex machinery in motion and then
left it to run of its own accord from the very beginning? Or why does He not
delegate the work to other hands to leave Himself free from such things?
God does what He is doing because that is the only way it can be done
and certainly not because of any desire on His part to reserve to Himself
any special position. It was not possible for God to leave all these tremen-
dous powers to themselves for it is the very nature of power to be
unintelligent. The sun is a power of gigantic proportions, but it has no
power to think or to direct its ways and even if it did, it would still need
God to keep it supplied with energy.
A PERFECT U\W 77

Think of all the various powers in existence-fire, wind, gravity, the

tides, hydraulics, and so on, and it will be seen that not one of them is an in-
telligence nor could be. Power and force are just that, while intelligence is
designed to control and guide the powers. Even the physical powers in the
human body are not intelligent. They depend upon the intelligence cen-
tered in the brain for control and guidance.
Therefore, the mighty sun must have a controller and guide to keep it
exactly on its course and, at the same time, a source of energy to keep it
forever fuelled and burning at a constant level. Should there be no such
controlling power, then think of the possibilities. The sun could swing a little
too far out and away from the earth with the consequence of such tremen-
dous cooling on this planet that it would freeze solid. On the other hand it
could swing in too close and destruction would come with blazing heat.
Again, it might bum too dimly or too brightly or even explode with the
same destructive results.
Far more than we do, we need to appreciate how dependent we are
upon that sun. If we were to carefully consider the effect of that power
becoming either diminished or increased, then we would be far more
grateful than we are for the Lord's controlling and sustaining hand in the
universe. The same facts and principles apply to all the mighty powers of
heaven and earth.
Having established the truth that the hand of a mighty controller and
energy-supplier is indispensable for the continuation of our lives upon the
earth, we can proceed to the next question. Why does God do this? Why
does He not give it to one of His mighty creatures to look after for Him?
The answer is because He cannot. It required a Creator's power to set it
up in the first case, and it requires the same Creator's power to maintain it.
Only He can do it. God gladly gives His creatures whatever He can, but this
is one thing He cannot give, for there is not one of us, angel or man, who
can keep those mighty powers under perfect control.
Therefore, it is essential that no other god be placed in God's position
as the Controller, Guide, and Sustainer of these mighty powers. To do so
would be to put there a being who would have no hope of keeping those
things under control. They would swiftly break out of their course in a
holocaust of destruction.
To help in understanding this extremely important point let the follow-
ing illustration serve. One of the biggest commercial passenger aircraft is the
Boeing 74 7. In order to control and direct that tremendous power, a man
must have, through long practice and training, highly developed skills. The
law says that on a flight no one must set another person who is unqualified
in the pilot's place. Suppose that during a flight across the Pacific from
Sydney to Honolulu, a passenger who has never flown a plane before goes
onto the flight deck, overpowers the crew, binds them up securely, and
then attempts to fly the machine to a destination of his own choice.
78 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

What is the ineuitable result? That man has no hope of bringing the
plane in successfully. He will not even know how to navigate it across the
uncharted oceans, and he will crash the plane, killing every person on
board. No one should have any difficulty in seeing this, especially if he has
ever had his untrained hands on the controls of even a simple light aircraft
and tried to bring it in to land. A 747 is a complex of unintelligent but gigan-
tic powers which must have a master mind to direct it. Should such a
trained and skilled person be taken from the controls and another untrained
one take his place, then certain disaster is the result.
This is exactly the situation with this earth and the mighty powers atten-
dant upon it. God alone has the power and skill to guide them accurately
and safely on their courses. Should that guiding hand be removed and
another attempt to fill its place, then inevitable desolations would follow.
There would be no way to prevent it. Some may object that God could pre-
vent it. Certainly He has the physical power to do so, but in order for that
power to be exercised to prevent that destruction, it has to be in the very
place from which it has been dismissed. Once another god has been put in
the place of the true God, then God can only save the situation by forcing
Himself back into the place from which He has been sent away, and this
God will neuer do. This would violate the freedom of choice which He
Himself gave to His creatures and which He will never invade even to a
hair's breadth.
But how would it be possible for God to vacate the position of control?
How could this be brought about? Surely, it may be argued, no one could
take God's position away from Him!
It can be done quite simply and very quickly. What is more, it has been
done.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were the rulers and owners of
this world in a kingdom which they held under God and for God. "And
God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creepeth on the earth." Genesis 1:26.
While they retained that dominion, God could and did maintain perfect
control over the sun, the moon, and all the other mighty powers set in their
places for the blessing and benefit of the human family. There was no
problem, and the Edenic pair enjoyed perfect security, comfort, and
prosperity.
But the time came when they passed the kingdom into the devil's hands
and he became "the prince of this world." John 14:30. While Adam and
Eve had held dominion under God, Satan did not. He had put himself in
God's place, and when Adam and Eve turned to give their dominion to
Satan, they placed another god in the place of the true God. They directly
broke the first commandment and thus removed from themselves the pro-
A PERFECT U..W 79

tection the first commandment was designed to give. Another god was in
the place of the real God and this new god could not control the mighty
powers of nature. Sudden and terrible destruction immediately threatened
them.
It may be objected here that the whole argument is disproved by the
fact that the threatened destruction did not fall upon them that day as God
had said it would. This is true, but that does not make God a liar, nor does it
disprove the argument. God's word was fulfilled for they did die that very
day. On the spiritual side of their natures the life of God, the presence of
the Holy Spirit, died out of them, to be replaced by another spirit, that of
the devil.
They would have also died physically that day, had not the Lord inter-
posed to introduce a delaying factor, designed in love, to give them a
limited probationary period in which to reconsider their decision. In un-
quenchable love for the doomed, Christ stepped in to divert the punish-
ment to Himself. He would take upon Himself, not that which God would
administer to the sinner, but that which the sinner had brought upon
himself.
Christ had to move swiftly, for the Lord had warned that "in the day
that" they ate of it they would surely die. Genesis 2:17. Christ had no time
to lose if He would save them. So it is written, "The instant man accepted
the temptations of Satan, and did the very things God had said he should
not do, Christ, the Son of God, stood between the living and the dead, say-
ing, 'Let the punishment fall on Me. I will stand in man's place. He shall
have another chance.' " Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, 1: 1085.
Right there in the Garden of Eden, all nature would have swung wildly
out of its course with increasing ferocity had not Christ stepped in to give
the world a period of probation in which to make a second choice either to
serve God or to continue with another god-the god of death and destruc-
tion. When at last the time of probation is ended with every man, woman,
and child having made their choice for eternity, this is just what will happen.
Christ will step out from His place as Mediator and all nature will collapse in
a cataclysm of destruction. Of this final destruction we shall study much
more later.
Now, let a summary be made of the facts just considered with particular
emphasis being laid on the truth that the suffering and death which certainly
follow the violation of the principles of the law, are not administered by
God directly, nor are even a carefully built-in provision designed to
automatically destroy the lawbreaker. The punishments are the unpre-
ventable outworking of the removal by disobedience of the protections the
laws are designed to give.
Here is that summary.
It would have been most unsatisfactory for the Lord to have made us
without providing the supporting powers necessary to give us comfortable
80 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

living and the opportunity to develop all the gifts within us. The sun is
needed for light and heat, the forces of gravity for our equilibrium, electri-
city to open to us the thousand and one possibilities in communication, elec-
tronics and so on. Should we ponder upon a life without the many gracious
provisions of God for our welfare and pleasure, we would be far more
grateful to the Lord for what He has done.
But, it is impossible for power to exist without its being at the same time
a potential for fearful and even total destruction. That is the very nature of
power and it can be no other way. The greater the power, the greater the
danger. Therefore, as surely as heaven is a place filled with the greatest of
wonderful powers, it is therefore a potentially dangerous place.
God has no fear of introducing such peril for He knows that it is com-
pletely contained if the laws are faithfully obeyed. Under the control of laws
obeyed, power can only be a blessing, but let the laws be disobeyed and it is
nothing but a danger. The destruction which falls is not directed by God's
hands. It is the natural and unpreventable consequence of the violation of
God's law.
These things must be meditated upon until the purposes and character
of God in this are fully understood; until it is seen that God neither inflicts
the punishment by His own hand nor has it as an inbuilt threat which
reaches out to automatically destroy those who get out of line; until it is
seen that the death and suffering is the direct and unpreventable result of
the sin; and that the Lord does only one thing, which is to work to save all
from such disastrous results and guide them forever in those pathways
which will ensure them perfect and complete happiness.
So it is with the violation of the first commandment. What is true of the
results of its violation is true of all the rest. For instance, the second precept
warns against bowing down to worship an image made of material things.
There should be no difficulty in seeing that such an act of worship can only
result in death to the worshipper on the following grounds. Every adoration
of images as practiced by those who break the second commandment is on
the basis of their believing that they can and will obtain all they need for life-
support through the idol.
But they cannot believe that they will receive life through the idol and,
at the same time, receive life from God, for if they truly believed that God
is the only source of life, then they would never have turned aside from
Him to seek it from, and through, an idol. Therefore, the very fact that they
do worship an idol is their declaration that they have no faith that God can
care for them and that they have turned aside from seeking it from God to
find it elsewhere.
What is the only possible outcome of such an action on their part? God
is the only source of life. To turn aside from that life source and seek it
where it does not exist, is to die. God will not kill such a person. Such kill
themselves. There is no fault with God, for He plainly warned them that
A PERFECT LAW 81

they were not to place another god in His place. He is the only life-giver
and life-sustainer.
To illustrate the point again, think of an aviator who has ascended to
altitudes where the oxygen is too rare to support life so he has to plug his
breathing apparatus into the outlet connected with the oxygen supply. He
has received specific instructions as to which is the correct outlet, but he
deliberately chooses to plug into another socket with no connection to the
supply. What is going to happen to this foolish man? He will quickly die for
want of the essential oxygen. He will die because he has failed to observe
the law. His death will be the direct result of that, and not in any sense the
act of God.
In precisely the same manner, the man who bows before an idol to seek
life from this source has pronounced his own death sentence. He cannot
live, for, by his own choice, he cuts himself off from the channel of life.
There is no fault with God. He provided the channel for life and warned
that if man should discard that and seek life through an idol or an image, he
would find none there and death would overtake him.
Accordingly, the second commandment forbidding the worship of
images and idols, is perfectly designed to save God's children from
separating themselves from the source of life to thus bring upon themselves
certain destruction.
To take God's name in vain is to call one's self a Christian or a child of
God, a member of His family thus bearing His name, and yet at the same
time to live out of harmony with the principles of the family. To do this is to
separate from the family and the blessings which can only be obtained while
in the family. Again this is but to bring death upon one's self.
The breaking of the fourth commandment likewise, is removing the
protection God has provided to sustain life. This precept has to do with the
great principle of respect for that which is another's. Its violation opens the
door to every kind of trouble and sorrow. To understand this better let us
turn to the second side of the decalogue and study the control of the
powers which God has invested in man himself.
We will choose the command, "Thou shalt not steal." This is an ex-
cellent place to begin for the commands, "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt
not bear false witness," and "Thou shalt not commit adultery," are but ex-
tensions of this commandment. To kill is to steal the life of another from
him, even though such theft does not give the thief the life thus stolen. The
committal of adultery robs a person of his or her life partner and the bearing
of false witness robs a person of his reputation and credibility.
Now we will see how violation of the command, "Thou shalt not steal,"
opens upon man the floodgates of woe. Consider the perfect society wherein
stealing has never previously been known. The dwellers in this society
have perfect trust in each other and without fear they leave their homes
open at all times. Locks and bars are neither needed nor known.
82 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Then there comes the day when one person steps out of the way and
steals the property of someone else in the village. In the depths of the night
the householder is awakened by the stealthy movements of an intruder,
who, perceiving that his presence has been noted, flees, bearing a family
treasure with him.
When the family realizes the extent of their loss and the way in which it
was taken, they are surprised, numbed, horrified and fearful that if this can
happen once it can happen again. The news swiftly spreads through the
village, and instantly a change comes over the whole place. The peace
and happiness die beneath a cloud of suspicion and fear. No one knows
who has done it so every one is suspect. Steps are soon taken to bar the
openings and lock the doors so that protection may be obtained against a
further visit from the thief.
In this, the innocent suffer with the guilty. A simple illustration from the
travel world of today will serve to show this. There was a time before
anyone thought of hijacking an aircraft. In those days the passengers simply
walked aboard and took their places. It was convenient and pleasant.
But then came the new era and everything changed. The wrongdoers
in this connection are few in number, yet virtually every passenger who
seeks to board an aircraft is now suspect. He must, even though innocent,
undergo a thorough searching both of his hand baggage and his person. He
suffers inconvenience and delay and longs for the return of the days of trust
and good will. He is suffering punishment for the sins of another. But the
punishment is not something which is being meted out by God. It is the
direct result of the crime.
Now let us return to our illustration of the village. Should more and
more people follow the path of the lawbreaker and become thieves, then
the problem will escalate into destructive proportions. Once the law has
been cast aside and its protection removed, it is then only a matter of taking
one step after another. The thief will not stop at taking merely property. He
will take life and murder will worsen the situation. In order to defend
themselves, the other thieves will resort to violence for self-protection. All
this is precisely what has happened to bring the world to its present state of
misery and woe.
As this is being written, Beirut in Lebanon is being tom to pieces with a
murderous civil war, while in Northern Ireland, the Irish are slaying Irish
with cold-blooded determination. What a fearfully unhappy situation in
which to live. How far this is from the perfect plan God formulated for the
well-being and happiness of man. Let it be emphasized that none of this
woe and trouble comes upon man by any act of God, but by the natural
outworking of the law's being broken. God designed and gave the law as a
perfect protection from all this, but man has chosen of his own free will to
cast aside that protection. Before us, we see the result. It is only because the
Lord is still able to exercise some restraint over mankind that man survives
A PERFECT U.W 83

at all. Should the law be totally cast aside and anarchy reign, the extermina-
tion of the race by its own hands would be the swift result.
We will not spend a lot of space considering this important fact for it is
not necessary. It is self-evident that the breaking of the law governing man's
relationship to man brings its own terrible results upon the world. Consider
the situation as it would be today if every man and woman never stole,
never lied, never killed, and in fact, kept all the ten commandments. What
a wonderfully happy and secure place the world would be, not because
God had arbitrarily made it so, but because that is the way keeping the law
would make it. This does not mean that God's presence is unnecessary for
such happiness. It is necessary for it is by His power that the law is kept. He
is the fountain of all life and without Him there is no life.
Consider what the world would be like and how long mankind would
survive if all law was done away with and every person was a thief, a
murderer, an adulterer, a liar, and so on. It is impossible to think of a worse
situation. Every man, so long as he managed to survive, would live in a
state of perpetual terror. There would be no stability and no security.
As this grim, totally undesirable picture develops before the mind,
ponder and see that the terrible conditions would not in any sense be the in-
flictions of God, but the result of removing the protection afforded by law.
Here is the revelation of the cause and effect, and no charge can be laid to
God for any of it.
The final consideration to be made in this study of the outworking of
violated law, is man's relation to himself. The human body is a wonderfully
designed and constructed mechanism. David, as he came to realize this,
praised God in these words. "I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made: marvellous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth
right well." Psalm 139: 14.
With David, we should have a rich appreciation of God's blessings in
giving us a body and mind of such efficiency. Even after almost six thou-
sand years of sin's degradation, there is still mighty and wonderful power
remaining. Such being so, what must it have been like in the beginning
when the electrical energy in Adam's brain was twenty times as great as it is
now?
"God endowed man with so great vital force that he has withstood the
accumulation of disease brought upon the race in consequence of per-
verted habits, and has continued for six thousand years. This fact of itself
is enough to evidence to us the strength and electrical energy that God
gave to man at his creation. It took more than two thousand years of crime
and indulgence of base passions to bring bodily disease upon the race to
any great extent. If Adam, at his creation, had not been endowed with
twenty times as much vital force as men now have, the race, with their
present habits of living in violation of natural law, would have become
extinct." Testimonies, 3:138, 139.
84 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

It is impossible for a body to be made with such power and efficiency

without being a finely balanced piece of complexity requiring obedience to
law to keep it in perfect condition.
The laws which govern the care of this mechanism are referred to
above as being natural laws and they are, but this does not mean that there
is nothing in the moral law to cover this situation. He who abuses his body,
thus lowering its efficiency, is robbing both God and others of the service
which he would render had he the full powers of mind and body. Consider
the enormous loss to the community through absenteeism from work
because of sickness occasioned by careless disregard of the most simple
laws of health.
More than this, the one who does not observe the laws of health and
strength is destroying himself thereby breaking the commandment, "Thou
shalt not kill." Therefore, while the care of the body mechanism is conform-
ity to natural law, the breaking of those laws is also breaking the moral law.
Much study could be devoted to the relation of health and longevity to
obedience to natural and moral law. Such a study would be both interesting
and profitable, but we desire only to make the point that it is not God, but
disobedience to those laws which brings upon the disobedient, whether wit-
tingly or unwittingly so, a sure retribution.
It is convincingly self-evident that the man who, for instance, smokes
tobacco products and drinks alcohol, steadily reduces his physical capaci-
ties and brings upon himself destructive diseases.
So clear is this evidence that even people who have long disregarded
the moral law, recognize the direct connection between prolonged cigarette
smoking and the incidence of lung cancer and early heart failures. More
than ever, men can see that to pursue a certain course of unhealthful living
will certainly bring a harvest of suffering and untimely death.
It is not God who afflicts poor sufferers with these diseases. They are
the unpreventable result of the sin itself. God cannot and will not, in justice,
work a miracle to counteract these evil effects, but because of this He is not
to be named as the One Who has deliberately sent these punishments upon
the people. He has done all that He can to save them from such troubles. In
the first place He gave man the best body mechanism it was possible to
give. Then, recognizing that man could not get the best out of this gift
except by giving it proper care, the Lord gave him laws to protect it from the
effects of wrong living. Also, God gave man the freedom to choose
whether he would cherish and care for the gift, or treat it with disdain and
destroy it.
So whatever suffering should then come upon man is not the respon-
sibility or work of God. It is the direct effect of man's works. He has only
himself to blame. No charge can ever be laid to God's account for this.
Such then is the nature of God's law. It is a marvelously perfect provi-
sion by Him to meet our need, not His. He has not formulated it to assert
A PERFECT LAW 85

His authority or as an instrument whereby He is given the right to punish

those who do not obey Him.
The sinner's breaking of the law is his own act whereby he removes the
divinely provided protection from death and destruction. Not only is it
against God's principles to exercise force to compel or punish people into
obeying Him, but He does not need to, for the removal of sin is guaranteed
by the mere fact that it is, in its own nature, a way of death and destruction.
There is only one life path and that is the one God has mapped out for His
people.
This is true of our relation to God, in our relation to our fellow men, and
in relation to ourselves. When the nature of the law as it really is, is truly
understood, then our obedience to it will be far more willing and successful.
Likewise, when the character and ways of God are genuinely com-
prehended and appreciated, something of the infinite love and kindness of
God the eternal Father, will be perceived, generating sincere praise and
gratitude for His love and wisdom. Then it will be known that God did not
compose that law as the symbol of His authority, imposing it upon us as the
obligation of service to Him, the medium whereby He could exact our
service and homage. It will be realized that the law was made for the
children of God, that perfect obedience to it was the complete saviour from
death and destruction. The truth will be intelligently grasped that when
Adam and Eve cast aside that saviour, then Christ gave Himself to be the
Saviour to bring back the lost and perishing to the safe side of the law.
It will then be recognized that when men cast aside firstly the law and
then Christ as their saviours, they will have exhausted all that heaven has
and can do to save them. Beyond that limit, God can go no further, for that
is the totality of His resources. This leaves Him with no choice but to grant
to each apostate the total separation with its attendant annihilation which
he has chosen. It will then be discerned with wonder and admiration that
the only role filled by God is that of a Saviour so that men perish, not
because He has reached out to destroy them, but because they have
refused His saving efforts.
In summary, then, it is right to say that the law of God is the transcript
of His character. God's righteousness and the righteousness of the law are
identical so that God's behavior is expressed in the precepts of that law.
Therefore, His behavior is not something to which He has reined Himself as
a strict discipline contrary to His nature. It is the natural expression of the
tenets of the decalogue.
Because this is the only kind of obedience in which He is interested, He
made man in His own image "both in outward resemblance and in
character." Patriarchs and Prophets, 45. He writes that same law on our
hearts so that it is also the transcript of our characters and we can and do
obey the law as He obeys it-a natural outworking of our inner natures.
86 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Thus we are able to give the only kind of obedience the Lord can ac-
cept--an obedience that is based upon a personal "conviction of His justice
and benevolence." The Great Controuersy, 498.
Because the Lord can accept only a willing obedience given because of
our love for Him, He will never use force to secure our allegiance, but, in
perfect consistency with these principles, gives to all the "full liberty to yield
or to withhold obedience." Patriarchs and Prophets, 48.
As surely as He gives full liberty to withhold obedience, He can never
punish any one of His creatures for exercising the liberty which He Himself
has given.
This means, then, that the punishments which do come as a result of
turning from God's way are the fruit or result of our own course of action,
not the administration of such things by the hand of God.
This is better understood when it is seen that God's law is designed by
Him to be a protection from the effects of powers which otherwise have
ceased to be under proper control. Sin and sinners will be destroyed, but it
will be the effect of their own course of action, not the outpouring of
destruction by the hand of God.
 87

CHAPTER NINE

God's Principles Under Test

Such was the nature of the constitution of God's government as it was in
heaven before the entrance of sin. It was idealistic and realistic.
It was a system providing for the absolute happiness, security, and fulfill-
ment of the created ones both in heaven and throughout the universe. It
placed at their disposal every needed power in infinite abundance together
with full protection from any risk of those powers turning out of their ap-
pointed place of service to become agencies of destruction.
This system worked to perfection under the conditions which existed
before rebellion began. Every one of God's subjects served Him with un-
divided devotion because each had the inner conviction that God's ways
were the only ways of life. They understood that the law was not a code of
bondage but a wonderful protection conceived for them in the heart of in-
finite love.
Thus, no situation ever arose for which the use of force needed to be
considered. No killing ever took place, no destruction was undertaken.
Nothing arose to mar the perfect happiness of every created being.
It should not be difficult to see that God's principles of government
would and did work perfectly under those conditions. So far, our study has
been of that sinless period.
Now the attention must be focused on the drastically changed condi-
tions which developed after firstly angels and then men, exercised their
God-given liberty to choose not to serve Him. With intense interest the entire
universe looked on to see whether these principles could still operate with-
out modification, addition, or any other changes. Would God find it neces-
sary, after all, to personally execute punishments on those who had rebelled?
Would He be compelled to solve the sin problem by exercising His infinite
physical power to destroy the wrongdoers who had refused every overture
of mercy?
As students and others have viewed history, they have been convinced
that the entrance of sin has imposed on God the necessity to take actions
He was never obliged to take before. They look at the flood, the burning of
Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues upon Egypt, the destruction of the
rebels who worshipped the golden calf, the death of Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram, the liquidation of Sennacherib's army, the stoning of the Sabbath
breaker, the adulterer, and Achan, and many other such instances. They
read the words used to describe God's responses and conclude from this
that God did exercise force to put down rebellion, that He did punish by His
own decision and decree, that He did destroy those who had rejected His
last offers of mercy, and that He does not therefore give all men full liberty to
yield or withhold obedience.
88 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

We recognize that it strongly appears that this is true, but, at the same
time, we know that there is more than one way of understanding what hap-
pened. When the alternative views are considered, it will be seen that God
did not behave as most have thought. It will be discerned that He neither
introduced nor resorted to any measures, subsequent to the fall, which He
did not employ before it.
The point was developed in the last chapter that God designed His law
as a protection to His creatures, not as the means of safeguarding His own
position and authority. Therefore, it was emphasized, punishments were
not the administration of God, but the natural outworking of casting aside
the law's protection through disobedience to it.
Yet, despite the inspired teachings as to the true nature of the law,
there prevails in the world today the concept that the law was made for
God's personal exaltation, His invention to produce and maintain His posi-
tion of undisputed authority. Therefore, it is seen as a device calculated to
exalt One at the expense of the rest.
What is the origin of this teaching? Who was the first to introduce it see-
ing that it has no foundation in Scripture? Can the answer to this question
be found?
The answer is clearly written in the Scriptures wherein it is revealed
when, where, and by whom these things were first taught in this world and
what the result was of accepting those teachings. The origin and the effect
of such teachings will be an infallible guide as to whether they are true or
not.
Those representations of the character and purpose of God's law were
first taught on this earth by Satan in the Garden of Eden. He presented
them to the original couple with the specific purpose of enlisting them in his
rebellion against God and his method was successful. The result is that
there has been opened upon this world the flood tide of every sin and iniquity
which can be named.
A careful study of what took place in the Garden of Eden will reveal the
truth of the above assertions.
God had made the earth, and equipped it with all the powerful life-
support systems as a /oue gift to Adam and Eve. Because He was interested
only in receiving from them a service motivated by love, He did not place
them "beyond the possibility of wrongdoing. God made them free moral
agents, capable of appreciating the wisdom and benevolence of His charac-
ter and the justice of His requirements, and with full liberty to yield or to
withhold obedience." Patriarchs and Prophets, 48.
There is no point in saying that one has full liberty to withhold obe-
dience if there is no opportunity to do so. Therefore, God provided them
not only with the full liberty to withhold obedience but also the means to
do so by placing the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the
Garden. That was the one tree the Lord did not give them. It was His
GOD'S PRINCIPLES UNDER TEST 89

property, not theirs. All He asked of them was to respect it as being His. If
they could always do this, and teach their children the same principles, then
there could never be unhappiness in the world. There could be only perfect
trust and security.
If they could learn perfect respect for another's property, there would
never be any stealing, adultery, or murder. If they could respect the time
belonging to another, there could never be a Sabbath breaker.
This is what the law is all about-respect for that which belongs to
another. On the first table of the law is the area of respect for that which is
God's, and on the second, for that which is man's.
If Adam and Eve could not respect this tree which God had reserved for
the express purpose of teaching them this lesson, then, with the principle of
respect being discarded, there could only be murders, thefts, adulteries,
and all such terrible outworking in the lives of men and women upon this
earth.
They were given the clearest warnings of this in the words, "But of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the
day that thou ea test thereof thou shalt surely die." Genesis 2: 17.
It is just as important to see what the text does not say, as to see what it
says. It does not say that in the day when they ate of it the Lord would
destroy them. It says that they would die. Granted, the text does not spell
out the way they would die, and it could be interpreted to mean that they
would die at God's hands.
But Adam and Eve did not understand it that way and Satan knew this.
He knew that they understood God's words to mean that the destruction
would be the result of their eating of that tree and not the act of God.
Therefore, Satan set to work to destroy their confidence in that interpreta-
tion of God's Word and to substitute it with one of his own.
The certainty that Adam and Eve did understand God's words to mean
that their deaths would come because of their disobedience and not at the
hand of a punishing God, is confirmed by Satan himself. This is deduced in
the following way. Satan came, not to endorse God's truth, but to over-
throw it. Therefore, his interpretation of that Word was a false one designed
to overthrow their faith in the real interpretation. There were only two
possible ways of understanding God's words. They either meant that God
would personally kill them for disobeying Him, or they would die as a con-
sequence of their wrong deeds. It is only necessary to ask which of the two
Satan denied, to perceive which is the truth, and what he supported to
know which is the error.
Throughout that conversation with Eve, Satan worked up to and stres-
sed the idea that there was no danger in eating of the tree. That would not
bring death. He insinuated that there was another reason for God's
stipulations, a reason entirely motivated by self-protectionism and self-
interest. Therefore, he implied, without directly saying it, that if there was
90 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

any death at all it would be God's directly administered act, not the out-
working of broken law.
He was too cunning to confront Eve with this counter-interpretation in
the first moments of their contact. Firstly, he must inject just enough doubt
into her mind to get her thoughts working in the desired direction. So he
asked in an incredulous tone if it was really true that the Lord had denied to
a creature so beautiful, intelligent, and worthy as herself, the right to partake
of the fruit of the tree. To give more power to the suggestion " ... the
serpent continued, in a musical voice, with subtle praise of her surpassing
loveliness; and his words were not displeasing." Patriarchs and Prophets,
54.
In her reply, Eve misquoted God's words, thus showing that doubt had
begun to fonn. Whereas God had said, "Thou shalt surely die," she quoted
Him as saying, "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye
die." Genesis 3:3.
The word "lest," denies the certainty and admits only a possibility. Her
use of it transmitted to the serpent the information that her conviction of the
nature of God's law was weakening.
Thus he was emboldened to make a direct attack on the law and the
character of the One Who had made it. So he said to the woman, "Ye shall
not surely die." Verse 4.
This is the attack on the law. God had said that disobedience to the law
would bring death, but here Satan was saying that the law could be broken
with impunity. He was arguing that there is nothing in the law which affords
a protection from death. Such a claim is opposite from the truth expressed
by God to Adam and Eve wherein He had said that breaking the law would
bring death upon the transgressor. It is the very opposite from the truths ex-
pressed elsewhere in the Word of God and as outlined in the last chapter.
Eve had the choice then of whether she would believe the truth as God told
it, or Satan's proposition. That choice is still ours today. We can either
believe that the law is God's loving provision to enable us to safely enjoy the
wondrous blessings contained in the mighty powers He has given us, or we
can believe Satan's lie that the law itself is no protection from death.
Having made the assault on the law, Satan follows it with an attack on
God's character. In order to sustain his statement that breaking the law
would not bring death, he said that there was another purpose for God's
saying it would. Here are his words. "Ye shall not surely die: For God doth
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be as God, (margin) knowing good and evil." Genesis 3:4, 5.
He offered an altogether different reason for the framing of the law,
from the purpose envisaged by God. He represented God as One Who was
deeply concerned lest any of His creatures should ascend to a position of
equality with Himself, so that the glory, honor, and power which He had
previously enjoyed as His own special privilege, would have to be shared
with others.
GOD'S PRINCIPLES UNDER TEST 91

While God had not told them, and for very good reason, Satan in-
sinuated, there were in that tree certain magical properties which would
project those who partook of it, into a gloriously superior station in the
universe. While God had not revealed this to them, Satan continued, He
certainly knew about it and was desperately afraid that they would partake
of the tree and thus become equal with Himself. In order to be secure from
such a terrible contingency, He had invented the device of putting into
them a fear of eating of the tree.
This was the base from which Satan would later develop the teaching
that it is God Who destroys. There was no need to take this teaching all the
way then, for he could accomplish the objective of the moment without do-
ing so. Having once established in Adam and Eve, the idea that God had
invented the teaching that disobedience to the law would bring death in
order to safeguard His own position, it was one more logical step to believe
that God would destroy. In fact, it is illogical to think otherwise.
lf God was the kind of being who would stoop to inventing a lie in order
to safeguard His own position, and should that lie be discovered and the
people do the very thing He had commanded them not to do, then He
would not quietly acquiesce to sharing His throne with them. He would
naturally resort to other measures to accomplish the same purpose. The
point is that a being of the character Satan represented God to be, would be
unable to do anything else. Deception having failed, He would be driven to
use the only other weapon available-force. He would enter into direct
physical conflict with those who sought to climb into His place, and in the
end, when even that failed, He would have to liquidate them.
In the Garden of Eden, Satan assumed the role of interpreter of God's
words. Adam and Eve accepted that interpretation and partook of the for-
bidden fruit. By this means they sought to make themselves equal with
God. Instead they ushered the human race into the long and fearful history
of suffering and death which has been the portion of sinful man. Through-
out that dark period, God has been working constantly to restore the lost
condition, but through it all, Satan has continued to offer himself as the
interpreter of God's actions and words to men.
The result is that men have come to see God as One Who is constantly
seeking to preserve His position and power by physically going to war with
man and destroying him if he will not yield to God's authority. In this, Satan
has been extremely successful, for the vast majority of mankind, both in and
out of the churches, firmly believe that the destructions which have wasted
this world are the handiwork of a God Who is determined to assert His
authority and preserve His position.
It is from these errors that the truth of God is to deliver us and it is the
purpose of this book to assist in such deliverance. Before us lies the choice
as to which we shall believe-the truth of God which reveals that God's law
is His wonderful provision for the blessing of every one of His children, or
92 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Satan's lie that it is a cunning device to serve the interests of God at the
expense of His creatures.
Thus, from the sure Word of God, comes the revelation of the time and
place where, for the first time upon this earth the idea was advanced that
the law of God was a measure instituted to assure Him of His rights, and
that, therefore, disregard of it would not bring death as a direct consequence.
That time was at the very commencement of human history and the
place was the Garden of Eden.
Likewise, the instigator of these ideas is unmasked.
He is the devil, the enemy of God and man.
Furthermore, the sad outworking of the acceptance of those ideas has
been witnessed with terrible clarity throughout human history. All the mis-
ery, frustrations, suffering, disease, and death, are directly traceable to that
teaching.
What more evidence than this is needed to reject such philosophies en-
tirely and eternally? This is more than enough. Thus, in reality, it is made a
simple matter to decide what the real truth is on the subject. The author of
this book together with those whose support made its production possible,
emphatically reject Satan's arguments. We see God in an altogether dif-
ferent light from that which the devil would have us view Him. That law is
God's love gift to us, wonderfully designed to protect and preserve and to
make available to us the highest opportunities of progress and develop-
ment.
While we are now aware of who authored these rebellious ideas, we
are to understand that this does not explain how God worked these principles
out in every one of the difficult complications introduced by the sin prob-
lem. But a foundation has been laid upon which such comprehensions can
be built. It will now be possible to approach every situation, knowing that
the devil will continue attempting to cloud the mind with the erroneous
view of what God did, exactly as he did in the Garden. There will now be
the blessed tendency to reject such an interpretation and search further
for the real one.
That foundation being laid, the time has come to study God's behav-
ior, as far as it can be understood, during the interlude of sin. May the
Lord assist every reader to prayerfully and patiently wrestle with these
deep problems until the truth is fully clarified in the mind unto righteous-
ness.
 93

CHAPTER TEN

A Summary
So far, study has been mainly given to the constitution of God's govern-
ment as it was formed and operated under conditions where no sin existed.
It was a perfectly idealistic situation which worked faultlessly to the un-
marred happiness of every creature in the universe.
Condensed into summary form, the character of God as revealed in
that constitution is as follows:
The laws of that kingdom are the transcript of God's character. In-
asmuch as God is a Saviour, His laws are also designed to be a protector
and deliverer from the perils contained in the existence of power.
The character of the law and of God being one, the righteousness of
God is purely and entirely a voluntary, spontaneous obedience which is in
no way forced either by Himself or by circumstances.
This is the only kind of obedience He will accept from His creatures--a
service which springs from an intelligent conviction of His goodness, impar-
tial justice, and love. Therefore, He created them to be like Himself both in
outward resemblance and in character so that they would be able to ap-
preciate the wonderful nature of His law and the constitution of His
government.
Because He could accept only this kind of service, God could not in-
troduce any form of compulsion such as the threat of punishment, for this
would stimulate within His children the disposition to obey because they
were afraid not to. No kingdom can be truly happy when the subjects obey
from fear no matter how slight that fear may be.
Therefore, God gave every one of His created beings the full liberty to
either give or withhold obedience, together with the opportunity to do so
either way. In doing so, He demonstrated His perfect justice by clearly
outlining to them the dangers inherent in the mighty powers given for their
blessing and service, the protective qualities in the law, and the sure effects
of disregarding that law. Having done that He left them free to go which-
ever way they should choose.
Under these conditions of government, so different from those prac-
tised by sinful man, there can be no place for the raining of punishments
and destructions upon those who do not see things God's way. That system
was fully operational until certain beings exercised their God-given choice
to go another way. During that time there was certainly no need to punish
or destroy anyone for nobody had ever disobeyed the divine principles.
Death and destruction were completely unknown.
This means that during all that period, the perfect system of govern-
ment never came under any real test or challenge. Therefore, if there were
94 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

any weaknesses in the system, there was nothing to develop them to where
they would be clearly visible.
But with the advent of the rebellion of the covering cherub, Lucifer,
who made himself to be the devil and Satan, such a challenge was raised
against the constitution. Before us, in the Word of God and in the annals of
human history, is the record of the testing of that constitution so far as that
test has gone. The final pressure is yet to be brought upon it in the earth's
closing days.
It is God's affirmation that every principle of His government is eternally
perfect, requires no adjusbnent or modification, and is equally applicable in
situations of sinfulness as well as sinlessness. He presents His law as the
only standard of righteousness for the dwellers in the purity of heaven and
for those who must dwell in the midst of a sin-cursed people.
If God is wholly correct in His assertions-and certainly the publishers
of this book believe that He is-then He cannot introduce any actions to
deal with the sin problem, different from what He did before it appeared.
Therefore, as surely as He gave His creatures full liberty to withhold obe-
dience before they fell, must He still give them the same liberty thereafter.
The granting of that liberty places God where He can neither punish nor
destroy those who exercise it.
Before the fall, motivated by a heart of wondrous love, God made all
things to perfection and gave them freely and fully to His children. Then, to
save them from the awful possibilities involved in power out of control, He
expressed His love further by giving them a law to save them from suffering
and death. Thus, before the fall, God fulfilled the role of a Saviour. If His
claims in regard to His kingdom and its rulership are correct, then after the
fall He must still occupy the role of a Saviour.
Before the fall, the law which among other things lays down the
maxim, "Thou shalt not kill," was the direct expression of His character.
Accordingly it was not in Him to kill. Since the fall, that law still declares,
"Thou shalt not kill," and continues to be the expression of His character.
This being so, it is still not in His nature to kill, and for this reason He still
cannot do it.
It is God's declaration that He changes not, that He is "the same yester-
day, and today, and forever," that He is the "uncorruptible God," that
with Him there "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Malachi
3:6; Hebrews 13:8; Romans 1:23; James 1: 17. Link this great truth with
the principle that what we do is the result of what we are. Before the fall,
God, in faithfully acting out His character, destroyed no one. Therefore, if
after the fall, He did resort to destroying, His character must have changed
in order to make this possible. But God has truthfully declared that He
has not changed.
Pitted against God's testimonies, are the devil's charges. While fully ad-
mitting that before the rebellion, no destroying ever appeared in God's ac-
A SUMMARY 95

tivities, Satan claims that the appearance of the sin problem has imposed
upon God the necessity of dealing with this by liquidating those who will
not serve Him.
Therefore, Satan accuses, the principles of God's government are not
perfect. This is proved, he assures all, because the Lord had to change His
ways to do during the crisis what He had never done before. If Satan could
verify these accusations, that which would make them so serious was the
fact that God, Who bears witness that He knows all things, even the end
from the beginning, had stated that His principles were so perfect that no
matter what circumstances might arise, they would never require changing.
If, on the other hand, the Lord had admitted that His system of government
would only operate successfully with the full cooperation of every subject,
requiring the introduction of death to defectors from it, then Satan would
have had no case to argue. In fact, he would not have been there to argue,
for as a defector he would have been eliminated immediately.
Satan is as desperately anxious to win our allegiance today as he was in
the Garden of Eden. Before us, then, is the task of deciding who is correct
in this great controversy. Some have been taught to almost blindly have
faith in God, but this is not sufficient. Our faith must be intelligent, for it
to be effective. The area in which it must be truly intelligent is in this very field
of the principles of the constitution of God's government. Let the
seriousness of the message of this statement be fully realized by all. "In
order to endure the trial before them, they must understand the will of God
as revealed in His word; they can honor Him only as they have a right
conception of His character, government, and purposes, and act in ac-
cordance with them." The Great Controversy, 593.
The nature of God's constitution as it was formed and operated before
the entrance of iniquity, has been clearly laid out in the Word of God. It is
not difficult to understand what and how it was.
The task before us now is the much more difficult one of searching out
the operation of those principles during the period when it was under the
fearful test imposed by Satan and wicked men. This is the area which this
study now enters. It is a field in which men have already formed their ideas
of the behavior and character of God. Men under the tutelage of Satan, by
his interpretations of the Bible, have gained a very definite picture of God.
Such a picture can only be correct if the devil is correct in his assertions that
God has had to resort to acts of destruction in order to solve the sin
problem.
96

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Contrasting Statements
Unquestionably, God's infinite love was manifested in the aeons before
the sin disaster intruded upon the unblemished happiness of the creatures
throughout the universe, but the manifestation of that love is even more
wonderfully revealed since sin's entry.
Yet, while no one who has any understanding of God's Word would
even consider that He punished or destroyed before the appearance of ini-
quity, the vast majority are strongly convinced that necessity has demanded
such actions from God since the rebellion began.
There are at least two reasons for this thinking. Firstly, the human mind
has long been educated to believe that the only way to overcome rebellion
is by force. Therefore, because man is conscious of no other way than this,
and because he is aware that the Lord does have a problem which must be
solved, man, unless especially enlightened by God's Word under the
tutelage of the Holy Spirit, cannot see that there can be any alternative but
for the Lord to use force. But there is another way. Examinations will be
made later, of incidents in Bible history to show that God's actions can be
viewed in a different light altogether.
A second reason is that the mind has been trained to read Scripture
references according to a certain method of interpretation. When read ac-
cording to that system there are many Scriptures which will be understood
as saying that God punishes, destroys, and liquidates.
Consider the following examples.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
"And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it
grieved Him at His heart.
"And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from
the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing,
and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them."
Genesis 6:5- 7.
"And, behold, I, euen I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to
destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every
thing that is in the earth shall die." Genesis 6: 17.
"Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone
and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
"And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants
of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." Genesis 19:24, 25.
"And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that
God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the over-
CONTRASTING STATEMENTS 97

throw, when He ouerthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt." Genesis
19:29.
"And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goes! to return into Egypt,
see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in
thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go."
Exodus 4:21.
"And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My
wonders in the land of Egypt. ... And He hardened Pharaoh's heart, that
he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said." Exodus 7:3, 13.
"And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every
man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout
the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion,
and every man his neighbor." Exodus 32:27.
"The Lord is regarded as cruel by many in requiring His people to make
war with other nations. They say that it is contrary to His benevolent
character. But He Who made the world, and formed man to dwell upon
the earth, has unlimited control over all the works of His hands, and it is His
right to do as He pleases, and what He pleases with the work of His hands.
Man has no right to say to His Maker, Why doest Thou thus? There is no
injustice in His character. He is the Ruler of the world, and a large portion
of His subjects have rebelled against His authority, and have trampled upon
His law.... He has used His people as instruments of His wrath, to punish
wicked nations, who have vexed them, and seduced them into idolatry."
TheS.D.A Bible Commentary, 1:1117.
"It was to be impressed upon Israel that in the conquest of Canaan they
were not to fight for themselves, but simply as instruments to execute the
will of God; not to seek for riches or self-exaltation, but the glory of
Jehovah their king." Patriarchs and Prophets, 491.
"Like the men before the flood, the Canaanites lived only to blaspheme
heaven and defile the earth. And both love and justice demanded the
prompt execution of these rebels against God, and foes to man." ibid.,
492.
"And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the
going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from
heauen upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which
died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the
sword." Joshua 10:11.
"But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his
armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city." Mat-
thew 22:7.
A careful reading of the whole parable of which this last verse is a
part, and the commentary on it in Christ's Object Lessons, 307-309, will
show that the king is God, the armies were those of the Romans, the
murderers were the Jews, and the city was Jerusalem. The text was ful-
filled in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
98 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Therefore the text is really saying, "And when God heard thereof, He
was wroth: and God sent forth His armies, the Romans, and God
destroyed the Jews, and God burned up Jerusalem."
"And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the
camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from
God out of heaven, and devoured them." Revelation 20:9.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of statements of this nature.
There is no special point in assembling every such quotation here.
However, these are more than sufficientto provide the examples needed to
show that there are many such Scriptures, which when interpreted accord-
ing to the way our minds have been accustomed to interpret them, leave
one with no option but to believe that God does use force to liquidate those
who have rebelled against Him.
There are many folk today who read these texts, interpret them accord-
ing to long-accustomed methods, and are quite satisfied to believe that God
does behave as an executioner to those who refuse to obey His laws.
But in doing so they have to ignore several things. Firstly, there are
quite a number of statements which say the opposite from what these
statements are interpreted to mean. Secondly, there are the great principles
which are embodied in the constitution of God's government. Thirdly,
there are the terrible implications of holding such beliefs about God.
These will be considered in tum as we proceed, but firstly let a list be
made of what some would call counter-statements. In reality they are not
and cannot be counter-statements for there is no such thing as a contradic-
tion in God's Word.
Here are some examples of such statements:
"The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works." "Thy
testimonies [commandments or laws] that Thou hast commanded are
righteous and very faithful." Psalms 145: 17; 119: 138.
The Lord is righteous and the law is righteous. Therefore God is what
the law is. It is the "transcript of His own character," Christ's Object
Lessons, 315, and that law declares "Thou shalt not kill." Exodus 20: 13.
Therefore, if it is not in the law to kill, it is not in the character of God to kill.
So, "God destroys no man. Everyone who is destroyed will have de-
stroyed himself." Christ's Object Lessons, 84.
"God destroys no one." Testimonies 5: 120.
"God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the
sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy to
themselves, to reap that which they have sown. Every ray of light rejected,
every warning despised or unheeded, every passion indulged, every trans-
gression of the law of God, is a seed sown, which yields its unfailing
harvest. The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from
the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the
soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan." The Great
Controversy, 36.
CONTRASTING STATEMENTS 99

"Satan is the destroyer. God cannot bless those who refuse to be

faithful stewards. All He can do is to permit Satan to accomplish his
destroying work. We see calamities of every kind and in every degree coming
upon the earth, and why? The Lord's restraining power is not exercised.
The world has disregarded the word of God. They live as though there
were no God. Like the inhabitants of the Noachic world, they refuse to
have any thought of God. Wickedness prevails to an alarming extent, and
the earth is ripe for the harvest." Testimonies 6:388, 389.
"This earth has almost reached the place where God will permit the
destroyer to work his will upon it." Testimonies 7:141.
"God keeps a reckoning with the nations. Not a sparrow falls to the
ground without His notice. Those who work evil toward their fellow men,
saying, How doth God know? will one day be called upon to meet long
deferred vengeance. In this age a more than common contempt is shown to
God. Men have reached a point in insolence and disobedience which
shows that their cup of iniquity is almost full. Many have well-nigh passed
the boundary of mercy. Soon God will show that He is indeed the living
God. He will say to the angels, 'No longer combat Satan in his efforts to
destroy. Let him work out his malignity upon the children of disobedience;
for the cup of their iniquity is full. They have advanced from one degree of
wickedness to another, adding daily to their lawlessness. I will no longer in-
terfere to prevent the destroyer from doing his work." The Review and
Herald, September 17, 1901.
When Jesus was asked to destroy the Samaritans who had rejected
Him, He replied to His disciples, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are
of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
And they went to another village." Luke 9:55, 56.
"There can be no more conclusive evidence that we possess the spirit of
Satan than the disposition to hurt and destroy those who do not appreci-
ate our work, or who act contrary to our ideas." The Desire of Ages, 487.
"Rebellion was not to be overcome by force. Compelling power is
found only under Satan's government. The Lord's principles are not of this
order. His authority rests upon goodness, mercy and love; and the presen-
tation of these principles is the means to be used. God's government is
moral, and truth and love are to be the prevailing power." ibid., 759.
"The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's govern-
ment; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded;
it cannot be won by force or authority." ibid., 22.
We know that God does nothing that is contrary to the principles of His
government. Therefore, He does not use force.
"Sickness, suffering, and death are work of an antagonistic power.
Satan is the destroyer; God is the restorer." The Ministry of Healing, 113.
Here is a compilation of statements, emphatic and clear, asserting that
God is not an executioner, does not punish, and destroys no one. When
100 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

these and the first set are viewed side by side, there appears no possibility of
their being reconcilable. No attempt has been made to search out and copy
every statement which exists for one side or the other. This is not necessary,
because any further quotations would only say that which is already quoted
in these representative selections.
These apparent contradictions present the Bible student with a prob-
lem. For some, it is "solved" by simply discarding faith in the Word of
God, charging it and its Author with duplicity and inconsistency. Others
simply ignore the words which they are unable to understand or do not
really desire to accept, while they carefully collect the opposite set, building
their faith accordingly.
This was the course adopted by the Pharisees and Jews prior to and at
the first advent. In the Old Testament there were many prophetic state-
ments describing both the first and second coming of Christ. One set
naturally spoke of His coming in obscurity, shame, ignominy, rejection and
to final crucifixion. The other set described a coming in indescribable
power, glory and triumph in which all His enemies would be totally an-
nihilated. To the Jewish mind, especially as it lost the Spirit's illumination, it
was impossible to reconcile these seeming contradictions. Their solution
was to ignore every statement which spoke of humility and obscurity and to
dwell heavily on those which spoke of power and glory. Thus Satan trained
their minds to reject the Saviour when He came. So clever was he, that he
used the Scriptures themselves to accomplish this. Once they had em-
barked on that wrong principle of interpretation, then, the more they
studied their Bibles, the more conditioned they became to reject the
Saviour when He appeared. He came exactly as the Scriptures said He
would, but not as they had read the prophecies. Therefore, because He did
not fulfil the set of prophecies they had gathered, they rejected Him and
thus lost their eternal lives.
The story of their experience contains a lesson of the most solemn
warning. While we understand the differences between the comings of
Christ, we find ourselves confronted with other subjects about which two
different sets of statements are written. The subject of God's character has
one set which states that He does not destroy and another which says He
does. We can do what the Pharisees did by selecting the set which we
prefer to believe, carefully gathering all the quotations supporting that view
and discarding or ignoring the others. Should we do this we will emerge
with a view of the subject as erroneous as that of the Pharisees in regard to
Christ's coming. The consequences for us will be the same as for them-the
loss of eternal life.
The true student of God's Word will not make this mistake. He will
ignore no statements, no matter how they may seem to contradict others.
He will candidly acknowledge that so far as his understanding has now
developed, these statements remain for him a flat contradiction of each
CONTRASTING STATEMENTS 101

other, though by faith, he knows that in God's Word there is no real con-
tradiction. Consequently, he will rest in the conviction that the problem is
only apparent and not real. Confessing the weakness and frailty of the
human mind, he will recognize that the difficulty lies in an inadequate depth
of spiritual perception on his part. Undisturbed by the clamor of voices
around, he will move forward in quiet faith, patiently studying God's Word,
knowing that, under God's tutelage, such revelations of the mysteries will
come to him and will remove all contradictions, providing instead, a per-
fect harmony, where previously only confusion existed.
As the spirit-enlightened student of God's Word thus comes into
possession of a harmonious system of truth, he will find that those who
follow out the alternative system of interpretation, by carefully collecting
only those statements supporting their own preferred view, will charge him
with twisting the Scriptures. They will accuse him of making the Word of
God say what it does not. They will argue emphatically that the Bible says,
"God destroyed them." Then they will ask, "What could be written more
plainly than that?"
One might counter by saying, It also says, "God destroys no man." This
will have no effect. Their minds have been programmed to accept only that
which they have chosen to believe. No impression can be made by quoting
contrary statements. They merely entrench themselves more firmly behind
their list, while in glowing indignation, they level the charge that the plainly
written words of God are being rejected.
Two things must be established at this point. One is that this problem
cannot be solved by simply countering statements with other statements.
Secondly, it cannot be resolved by twisting or changing the statements to
conform to our preferred ideas. In this study great care will be taken not to
do this. Even so, we still expect that the opponents of the position taken in
this publication will level this accusation against us. We will strive to make
our position so clear that such an accusation will in fact be groundless. We
ask each objective, candid, and responsible reader to carefully check to see
if in any way the Word of God is twisted to suit a personal or private view as
these pages unfold. We believe it will be found that the only interpretations
given to the Scriptures will be those found in the Scriptures themselves,
with no private interpretation being offered. At the same time it will be
perceived that all disharmony between the two sets of statements will
disappear.
There has been the careful and frank quoting of the two different and
seemingly contradictory compilations, in order to demonstrate that there is
a problem which needs solving. How can this problem be solved so as to
bring the thoughtful, responsible student to an accurate knowledge of what
the Word of God is teaching? That is the important question which we must
now study.
Our recollections go back to that time when without question we did
believe that God destroys. We understood that after great patience and
 SEEMING CONTRADICTIONS
lead
some to fight each
The Bible aaya ~ The Bible says
God doea
other with the Word
God does
of God. _destroy.

This
is no way
to arrive at Scriptural
truth.
/
/ Cll
rri
J:
0
One part of God's Word must not he - r
0
used to deny another. Study under God's Spirit till all -<
0
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contradictions become perfect harmonies. :ti
Cl
0
0
CONTRASTING STATEMENTS 103

longsuffering, when God had sought to win the sinner, He was finally left
with no recourse but to obliterate from the face of the earth, in an act of
signal destruction, those who refused to repent and come into harmony
with the principles of His government. For many years this idea remained
unchallenged. Meanwhile, our understanding of God's ways was becoming
far more extensive as with careful, conscientious purpose we studied God's
Word. In so doing we arrived finally at that point where other statements
and principles began to unfold. These principles denied the position we
already had in regard to God's character. We could not honestly reject the
new concepts and at the same time could not easily revoke the old. Yet,
there was no solution as to how they could be reconciled.
Faith was a steadying factor in the problem. Faith said that there are no
contradictions in God's Word. Faith said that we must take both of these
statements as they read. Faith said that in due time, the God of heaven
Himself would provide the answers if we trusted Him and continued our
careful, objective study.
In my own personal experience it came about as follows. As far back as
1952, I had never doubted the way in which God dealt with the unrepen-
tant. It was plain to me that He destroyed them in the lake of fire. In that
year however, the Sabbath School lessons in the church of which I was a
member, dealt with the origin of evil. We looked deeply and carefully into
the nature of God's government, the problems which arose in Lucifer's
mind, the issues of his challenge against God's government and the way in
which God would deal with that problem. It was not as clear then as it has
been set out in the previous chapters, but we did gain a beautiful and
wonderful grasp of the constitution of God's government.
We saw how upon this earth, there was to be worked out in absolute
fairness so far as God was concerned, the great struggle between good and
evil. Good was to conquer upon its own merits without the assistance of an
overpowering physical force. I shall never forget the soul-filled rejoicing
with which I grasped these precious principles of truth. I possessed under-
standings of the great controversy the like of which I had never known
before, but which have increased in depth since that day. Today I cannot
recommend too strongly, the necessity of every soul making a deep and de-
tailed study of the issues involved in the great controversy from its origin
to its end.
A few weeks later my new found belief was to receive a serious chal-
lenge. The Sabbath School lessons moved on through the fall of Adam
and Eve, the death of Abel and the proliferation of people upon the earth.
Then we came to the flood.
The implications of the standard view of what God did in the oblitera-
tion of the human race in Noah's day were very serious indeed. I saw that
the commonly accepted view of what God did back there, meant that He
was forced to admit that righteousness was not able to withstand the
104 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

crushing tide of evil, so that God and Christ were obliged to step in, exercis-
ing Their own superior physical power to reverse the tide, erase the entire
company of Satan's followers, and preserve alive only Their own.
I imagined a conversation between the Father and the Son along these
lines. "In the beginning We did undertake to fight this great controversy out
on the basis that righteousness could stand on its own merits. But now it is
clear that sin has reached such proportions that it is on the verge of a world
takeover. At the moment We only have eight subjects remaining, and in a
short time, these too, will have died or passed into Satan's camp thus mak-
ing him the total victor in this struggle. So we must now act by coming to
the rescue of righteousness. Let us step in with our limitless, infinite power,
and obliterate the entire side standing for Satan. We will preserve only our
own people and thus make a complete, fresh start. Thereafter, We will
maintain the use of force in appropriate places to ensure that Satan never
again brings the world to this same crisis point."
This implied that God had to reuise His method of dealing with the sin
problem. It revealed Him as beginning in one way, but finding Himself later
obliged to introduce measures not contemplated in the beginning. This
made God less than infinite, omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. It
meant that He was not really God because God has perfect foreknowledge,
and needs no revisions, compromises, or changes as time goes by.
In this way I found a serious problem on my hands. Nothing could deny
the clarity of the principles underlining God's government or of His way of
dealing with the sin problem. Yet, at the same time, the story of the flood
seemed to show a God who was later forced to introduce an element of
compulsion and destruction. While, on one hand, I could not and would
not deny the truths learned in the origin of evil, on the other, I was unable
to see wherein the popular view of the flood was wrong. So, for the first
time, a real challenge to long-held concepts and views was presented to
me. At first I could not meet that challenge. There were no answers to it.
My attitude was one of faith. I made no attempt to twist or bend either
side of the question to suit the other. I believed implicitly that in the Word of
God there are no contradictions. Those contradictions which appear as
such are there only because of an inadequate understanding on our part. I
likewise believed that God would give light and understanding to those who
humbly and sincerely sought for it. So I studied, prayed, and waited. The
time came when further evidence began to accumulate, and piece by
piece the puzzle came together until· I found a perfect reconciliation be-
tween God's stated attitude to the sin problem and the story of the flood.
I recount this development in my own thinking to indicate the way in
which we all may come to the saving truth of God's Word. There are
problems in understanding and in interpretation. At the same time there are
clearly laid out rules in the Bible as to the way in which the problems can be
solved. If we will learn to follow those Bible explanations of interpretation
we cannot but arrive at the living truth of God.
CONTRASTING STATEMENTS 105

This chapter has been devoted to the recognition that there is a very
real problem to be solved because of the existence of apparent contradic-
tions in the Word of God. As there are statements which plainly say that
God does destroy and others saying that He does not destroy, we strongly
recommend that each reader face the fact that such a problem exists. At the
same time we encourage each believer to realize that there are no real con-
tradictions in God's Word, that the Bible is written for man's understanding,
that these problems are therefore solvable and that simple trusting faith in
God will bring clear understandings in this connection. If we are prepared to
adopt this attitude then we are ready to proceed on to the study of the way
in which the problem may be solved.
106

CHAPTER TWELVE

Statements And Principles

The problem before us is obviously one of interpretation; of determin-
ing just what the words used in Scripture are intended to say. Today,
multiplied versions of what the Scriptures are supposed to say are clear
proof that there are many false interpretations of God's Word, for only one
interpretation can be correct. The false are many, the true is singular.
We depend for our understanding of God's character, on the revelation
of it as given in His Word. That Word represents the effort to reveal in the
limited framework of human language, the height, the depth, the length,
and the breadth of the infinite. As such, it is a masterpiece of simplification,
perlectly designed for the human mind to understand.
But, if we are to arrive at a correct, and, therefore, lifesaving knowl-
edge of God's character, we must firstly understand what the correct
principles of Bible interpretation are. This is obviously important. To begin
studying the Word of God with an incorrect principle of interpretation, is to
end up far removed from the truth. In fact, the more intensely and endur-
ingly the study is pursued, the further removed from truth one will be.
It is a common assertion for one who teaches error to solemnly protest
that he has been studying his subject directly from the Scriptures for many,
many years. "Is that not convincing proof" he asks, "that what I am pre-
senting is the truth?"
To many, a claim of this nature is impressive, but to the true student,
it is no proof at all. His mind probes with the question, "Has the person mak-
ing this claim spent those years studying according to the correct principles
of Bible interpretation or not?" If not, then the true child of God knows that
those thirty years of study have removed that man just that much further
from the truth. It would be better had he not studied at all.
In the early 1960's, a man arose in the United States who began to pro-
claim that the second coming of Christ would take place in October, 1964.
When challenged by Scripture evidences that this would not be so, he pro-
tested with great solemnity and authority that he had studied this matter for
the past thirty years, and, therefore, he knew with certainty that what he
said was the truth and nothing but the truth.
Never learning, the man simply set another date when time proved his
prophecy a delusion. When the second date failed, he set a third and a
fourth. Finally he disappeared into obscurity.
How much wiser he would have been to have gone back and carefully
checked his principles of Bible interpretation and methods of study.
The fact is that few people do approach the study of God's Word with
any real system of interpretation clearly laid out. They search through the
STATEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES 107

Word and form their own opinions of what they think the passages mean.
This is a haphazard and dangerous practice.
In our approach to the subject of God's character, we dare not do this.
We have before us a very real problem in the existence of two sets of
statements which can and have been understood to say quite the opposite
from each other. The only safe way to approach this difficulty is along the
lines of correct Scriptural interpretation.
To use these principles, they must firstly be understood. Our task is to
set them forth and, having done so, adhere to them strictly. Every view set
forth here will be in accordance with these principles of interpretation.
Therefore, any who seek to disprove this book's message must firstly show
wherein the principles of interpretation upon which it is developed are
wrong, or wherein the principles being correct, the conclusions drawn are
not in harmony with those principles. If neither of these can be shown, then
the book's message is correct.
It is from the Bible itself that we obtain the guidelines for its interpreta-
tion. Not only does the Bible give us the message of truth, but it also informs
us how those messages are to be comprehended. Our standing in this
respect is the principle laid down in 2 Peter 1:20. "Knowing this first, that
no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation."
Let the message of this verse be forever impressed upon the mind of
every person approaching the study of God's Word. It provides no room
for private interpretation, because no prophecy of the Scripture is to be of
private interpretation.
Some might tend to limit the application of this verse to those areas of
Scripture presenting foretelling of future events, because this is the most
generally accepted definition of the word "prophecy."
In a limited sense this is what the word "prophecy" means, but in its
fuller and broader sense, "prophecy" applies to any revelations which come
from the prophet. When this is understood, it will be recognized that every
word in the Bible is prophecy. The prophets were not only foretellers. They
were /orthtellers, speaking forth whatever words God gave them, whether
they be counsels, admonitions, revelations of the gospel, or predictions of
the future. Therefore this verse plainly lays down the rule that no
prophecy-no word of the entire Scriptures-is to be of any private
interpretation.
We can now ask the question, "What is private interpretation as distinct
from Scriptural interpretation?" Private interpretation is that which
emanates from the mind of man as his considered opinion of what the
divine revelations are intended to say.
He arrives at these conclusions according to the definitions of words
already formed in his mind. His mind is a dictionary to which he makes
reference whenever he reads a word. When he encounters a word not
already stored in the limited compendium of the mind, he then turns to a
108 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

comprehensive dictionary such as Oxford or Webster. Having obtained the

meaning from there, he applies this word to the Scripture being read and
develops therefrom an understanding of what the Scripture is supposed to
say.
We may well define this method of Bible study as definitions by the dic-
tionary. It is one way of studying the Bible and we may be assured that if
this method is used, then inevitably, certain views will be established.
For instance, when men read in the Scriptures that God sent the flood
upon the earth and that He destroyed men by raining fire and brimstone on
Sodom and Gomorrah, they will without thought or question take the
definitions of the key words, "sent," "destroyed," and "rained," as those
words are already defined in their minds. Such definitions can only give
them the picture of God personally and directly using His mighty power to
lash out and liquidate His enemies.
It cannot be too strongly emphasized that while this method of inter-
pretation is used, no conclusion other than this can be drawn. Inevitably, all
who use this method must believe that God is a grim executioner and that
He is doing things after the fall that He never did before.
The limited, erroneous nature of this method is exposed when it is seen
that it leaves its adherents with inexplicable contradictions. They are left
with no explanation of the other set of statements and the great principles
which undergird God's character. They conveniently ignore those Scrip-
tures, concentrating their study on the ones which support their chosen
view. When confronted with the extracts contradicting their concepts, they
find refuge in two devices. One is to try and warp the difficult declarations
to fit their view. The other is to assert that their view is supported by the
preponderance of evidence (as if the truths of God's Word are determined
by the weight of numbers).
Those who learn and adopt the Scriptural method of interpretation, do
not have this problem. They find that the whole of God's Word becomes
one harmonious pattern of saving truth. They find that they can take those
statements of Scripture, which to others are a contradiction, and see in
them only perfect consistency.
Why then, is the method of defining by the dictionary, words describing
the character and behauior of God, so certain to lead to erroneous views
of Scripture? Surely, it may be argued, the very purpose of the dictionary is
to make clear what words mean? If we do not use the dictionary to define
our terms then to what shall we tum? How will we ever know the meaning
of anything?
These are excellent questions.
Within the dictionary are contained the definitions of words as those
words describe human behauior. This is the key point. In this field, the dic-
tionary is the undisputed authority and is to be heeded. But the dictionary is
compiled by men who do not understand or who are not even concerned
STATEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES 109

with divine behavior. If divine and human behavior were the same, then the
dictionary would serve both, but they are not the same. They are very
different indeed. The Lord has unmistakably warned us of this.
God says, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your
ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your
thoughts." Isaiah 55:8, 9.
God's ways are not our ways. They are different. They are as much
higher than man's ways as the heavens are above the earth. Any one who
would arrive at a correct concept of God's character must engrave this
statement on his mind and continually refer to it as a guideline in his study.
He should program himself to test every assertion, every concept, and
every idea forming in his mind, by the words of this statement. Whenever,
as he reads the words of God, he forms a picture of divine behavior as
being the same as human behavior, then, in the light of this Scripture, he
must know that the concept formed, is erroneous.
While it is correct to conclude that every view of God which holds that
He behaves as man does is incorrect, it is not necessarily right to assume
that any view which attributes to God a different way from man is the truth,
for it is possible to propose procedures common neither to God nor man.
This necessitates having two different sets of definitions for the same
key words. One set is already well known to us, being the dictionary and
everyday usage of the words as they describe human behavior. What needs
to be developed in human understanding is that other definition which
defines the words as they are used by God to describe His own behavior.
Reference is made here to such key words as "destroy," "wrath," "jus-
tice," "judgment," "punish," and such like.
Man destroys. We know that. We also know what man's way of
destruction is. We know how he goes about it and have no difficulty in
defining this word as it applies to human behavior.
The Bible says, "God destroys." Therefore, it is the truth that God does
destroy and no attempt will be made to deny that. But the Bible also says
that God's ways are not men's ways. From this we can only conclude that
God's way of destroying is altogether different from man's way. Between
them, there is no similarity.
Therefore, the conclusion is drawn that when the Word declares that
God does destroy, it is to be understood that this work is done in an
altogether different manner from man's way, while, when it declares that
God does not destroy, the caution is being sounded that God does not do it
according to the human method.
While this is the guideline of study offered to us in Isaiah 55:8, 9, the
full confirmation of this principle will be found in the re-definition of these
key words as they apply to the description of divine behavior as distinct
from the human. This is the key to harmonizing the apparently contradic-
110 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

THE BIBLE
ITS OWN DICTIONARY
Webster and Oxford can define words only as
they apply to human behavior. The Bible uses
and defines them as they apply to God's
behavior.

FOR

.. uUg l'oug,b: a1r.e nol 9ou1r. l'oug,ls •

neil,e1r. a1r.e 9ou1r. wags uUg wa9s. sail' l'e
~01r.d .
.. g'o1r. as l'e 'eallens a1r.e 'ig,e1r. l'an l'e
ea1r.l'. so a1r.e uU9 wa9s 'ig,e1r. l'an 9ou1r.
wa9s. and uU9 l'oug,ls l'an 9ou1r. l'oug,ls ...
9saia' 55:&. 9.
STATEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES 111

tory statements. Therefore, while the dictionary must be retained for de-
tennining the meaning of words used to describe human activity, it is to be
discarded when the knowledge of God's procedures is being sought.
Having detennined that these alternate definitions are not written in the
dictionary, the question arises as to where they can be found. The Bible is
to be used as its own dictionary. Only when we have learned to use it as such
can a correct comprehension of its messages be obtained.
God understood the problems facing the human being and because He
intended His Word to be an understandable message to His people, He
carefully incorporated within the Scriptures, means whereby a clear defini-
tion of the words as He uses them in describing His own behavior can be
found. Thus there is no excuse for anybody not obtaining the Scriptural
definitions. They are there. God has provided them and it is our duty to
search them out and, having found them, to apply them to the study of
God's Word.
The great second Advent Movement was the mightiest spiritual under-
taking this side of Pentecost. It was brought into existence by the revelation
of truth and it was built upon a foundation of truth. That truth was arrived at
by correct principles of Bible interpretation, giving us a tremendous en-
dorsement of the system laid out in the above paragraphs. When the
founding father of the Advent Movement first began the systematic study of
the Bible, he did so, not according to dictionary interpretations of words,
but according to Bible definitions of those words.
We turn now to the account of that man's method of Bible study.
"Miller publicly professed his faith in the religion which he had
despised. But his infidel associates were not slow to bring forward all those
arguments which he himself had often urged against the divine authority of
the Scriptures. He was not then prepared to answer them; but he reasoned
that if the Bible is a revelation from God, it must be consistent with itself;
and that as it was given for man's instruction, it must be adapted to his
understanding. He detennined to study the Scriptures for himself, and
ascertain if every apparent contradiction could not be hannonized.
"Endeavoring to lay aside all preconceived opinions, and dispensing
with commentaries, he compared Scripture with Scripture by the aid of the
marginal references and the concordance. He pursued his study in a
regular and methodical manner; beginning with Genesis, and reading verse
by verse, he proceeded no faster than the meaning of the several passages
so unfolded as to leave him free from all embarrassment. When he found
anything obscure, it was his custom to compare it with every other text
which seemed to have any reference to the matter under consideration.
Every word was pennitted to have its proper bearing upon the subject of
the text, and if his view of it harmonized with every collateral passage, it
ceased to be a difficulty. Thus whenever he met with a passage hard to be
understood, he found an explanation in some other portion of the Scrip-
112 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

tures. As he studied with earnest prayer for divine enlightenment, that

which had before appeared dark to his understanding was made clear. He
experienced the truth of the psalmist's words, The entrance of Thy words
giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.' " The Great
Controversy, 319, 320.
Miller's method of Bible study is strongly endorsed as being the correct
one in two ways. Firstly, while the religious world of his day was using
anything but this method of study, he alone, by using it, under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit, arrived at the great, timely, saving truth of the advent
message. It is safe to say that if Miller had not used these methods of Bible
study, he certainly would never have arrived at the truths he did. The
second endorsement comes from the fact that here in The Great Con-
troversy, the whole system is laid out as a guideline for all who will
follow it.
Let notice now be taken of the main points in this system. Firstly, there is
the mental approach. Miller reasoned that the Bible, being a revelation
from God, must be consistent with itself. The necessity on the student's part
of recognizing that there is no such thing as a contradiction in the Word of
God cannot be overemphasized. When this conviction is firmly estab-
lished, no effort will be made to wrench or twist Scriptures to fit in with
other Scripture. Rather, the student will study with care, patience, and
perseverance until the principles are so well understood that the statements
are brought into perfect harmony with each other.
Secondly, Miller recognized that inasmuch as the Bible is expressly written
for man's instruction, it must be adapted to his understanding. In other
words, he was convinced that the Bible was not beyond the reach of man's
intellectual grasp. It was written for man, therefore it could be understood
by man. Again, when a student has this conviction, he will not dismiss as
impossible to comprehend, those aspects of Scripture which do not fit in
with his initial concepts.
Thirdly, Miller endeavored to lay aside all preconceived opinions, and,
dispensing with commentaries, he compared Scripture with Scripture by
the aid of the marginal references and the Concordance. There can hardly
be a more serious barrier to arriving at saving truth than that provided by
preconceived opinions and ideas. There is no person alive today who is not
to a larger or lesser degree, afflicted with this problem. During the entire
span of our past lives, we have been absorbing concepts, ideas and infor-
mation. We have come to think along certain lines and these thought pro-
cesses have mostly been erroneous so far as our concept of God's kingdom
is concerned.
The outstanding example of this is found in the experience of Christ's
apostles. They were born into a Jewish world wherein the prevailing expecta-
tions for the coming of the Messiah was the advent of an all-conquering
king. As those boys grew, they heard this conversation around them. It was
STATEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES 113

preached to them in church and taught to them in school. The result was
the building up of strong, preconceived notions of Christ's work and
ministry. When the real Saviour appeared, those ideas formed a fearful bar-
rier which for a long time made it impossible for Christ to bring to them the
truth regarding His ministry and mission. Only when He was finally able to
sweep away those preconceived ideas, could He teach them the truth.
So with us today. Every one of us should humbly recognize that we are
not possessed of accurate wisdom, knowledge, concepts, and ideas and
that these erroneous thought patterns are indeed a great problem.
"The stamps of minds are different. All do not understand expressions
and statements alike. Some understand the statements of the Scriptures to
suit their own particular minds and cases. Prepossessions, prejudices, and
passions have a strong influence to darken the understanding and confuse
the mind even in reading the words of Holy Writ." Selected Messages
1:20. 1
"The Scriptures are not to be adapted to meet the prejudice and
jealousy of men. They can be understood only by those who are humbly
seeking for a knowledge of the truth that they may obey it." Christ's Object
Lessons, 112.
Some may feel that earnestness and sincerity compensate for accuracy.
But Jesus plainly said, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free." John 8:32. It is the truth and not error which saves us. For
this reason, God is continually seeking to send us clearer and more ad-
vanced revelations of His truth so we may correspondingly ascend into
greater heights of religious experience. Many a person will fail to enter the
kingdom of heaven because prejudice has barred the door to their receiving
the truth.
Notice carefully the solemn warnings laid out in this next quotation,
which begins with the question, "What shall I do to be saved?" The answer
provided is an unexpected and solemn one.
"Do you ask, What shall I do to be saved? You must lay your precon-
ceived opinions, your hereditary and cultivated ideas, at the door of inves-
tigation. If you search the Scriptures to vindicate your own opinions, you
will never reach the truth. Search in order to learn what the Lord says. If
conviction comes as you search, if you see that your cherished opinions
are not in harmony with the truth, do not misinterpret the truth in order to
suit your own belief, but accept the light given. Open mind and heart that
you may behold wondrous things out of God's Word." Christ's Object
Lessons, 112.
There are a number of answers which could have been given to the
question "What shall I do to be saved?" Elsewhere those answers are given,
but here the point is made that our saluation does depend upon laying aside
preconceived opinions, hereditary and cultivated ideas. William Miller did

'For further material see Selected Messages, 119-22.

114 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

this and, because he did, arrived at sauing truth. If we will do the same,
we likewise will arrive at sauing truth.
Pains are being taken to emphasize this thought because in the field of
knowledge dealing with the character of God, wrong concepts are prolific.
Any emergence into this truth must be from a background of dark error and
misconception. The whole world lies in ignorance of God as He really is,
and we who have lived in that world have been unconsciously influenced
by this atmosphere. There is no subject, then, in which the need to lay aside
preconceived ideas and opinions is more critical than this one.
We come now to a key point in William Miller's approach to Bible
study. As he proceeded from verse to verse, he came inevitably upon a
Scripture which baffled his understanding and which, in tum, appeared to
contradict what he had already learned in other parts of the Word. How did
he solve this problem? Discarding commentaries and dictionaries, he used
the Bible as its own dictionary. "Thus whenever he met with a passage hard
to be understood, he found an explanation in some other portion of the
Scriptures." The Great Controuersy, 320.
He followed "his rule of making Scripture its own interpreter." ibid.,
324. By doing this, he avoided the perilous pitfall of private or human inter-
pretations, which can only lead astray. The one thing which cannot be per-
mitted in the quest for truth as God sees it, is the use of private or human
interpretation of God's revelations. It would be far better not to study the
Bible at all, than to search it with the wrong method. Make the Scriptures
their own dictionary, their own interpreter. Do this under the blessing and
guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the assurance is there of the certainty of
arriving at an accurate, comprehensive, and harmonious knowledge of
saving truth.
This will take time so it is not to be expected that every error will be im-
mediately swept away. While Miller anived at tremendous concepts of saving
truth, he did not live long enough to find deliverance from every precon-
ceived error of the past. This does not deny for an instant the validity of
his method of study. It only underlines the truth that it takes time, even
with correct methods of study, to come to an accurate grasp of divine
revelations. After all, God's truth is the expression of the mind of the In-
finite. Eternity will never exhaust it. Therefore, it is too much to expect that
a person using perfect methods of study would emerge in a few short years
from deep darkness to a correct understanding of the great verities. Ap-
preciation should be felt for the tremendous progress Miller made in break-
ing away from the erroneous teachings of his day.
The sound and solid foundations laid down by William Miller were con-
tinued and developed by later Adventist expositors. To establish this point
we could bring as evidence, the development of such truths as the two
laws, the Sabbath question, and so on. Our choice falls upon the subject of
the final punishment of the wicked. It is common understanding in worldly
STATEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES 115

churches that the fires of final purification will unceasingly burn the
unrepentant wicked who will suffer unending torture and torment within
those unquenchable flames. The advent message denies this concept,
teaching, rather, a short consumption of the lost to render them as though
they had never been.
Jn the early days of Adventism, the truth on this subject had not been
developed. It was not developed by William Miller but by the people who
came after him. As the new idea was advanced, it met with serious objec-
tion and opposition. It is a difficult subject to present because there are
certain Scriptures which make it appear that the wicked do bum forever and
ever. Just as it is possible in the subjects of the two laws, the Sabbath, and
the character of God, to gather two completely different sets of statements,
with one apparently supporting one side, and the other seeming to present
an opposite view, so it is in the question of the final punishment of the
wicked.
It hardly seems necessary to quote the many statements from Scripture
which tell us that the wicked will be as though they had not been, that we
shall tread down their ashes, that they shall bum, leaving neither root nor
branch. We know the Scriptures tell us that the dead know nothing, that
their very thoughts are gone. This is one side of the question, but, on the
other side are statements which clearly say that the wicked will burn
forever. The most noteworthy reference of this nature is in Revelation
20: 10. "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tor-
mented day and night for ever and ever."
As an exercise in the correct principles of Bible study, let this verse be
taken and interpreted according to dictionary definitions of the key words to
show us the wrong way of Bible interpretation.
The important key words in this particular verse are the words "for ever
and ever." In our minds there already exists a clear definition of this word
which is in harmony with the written definition in the published dictionary
reading as follows, "Forever means for a limitless time or endless ages,
everlastingly, eternally, at all times, always, continually, incessantly." If this
dictionary definition of the word "forever" is taken and Revelation 20: 10
understood according to it then the only possible understanding of this
verse would be that the wicked suffer eternally. One could only believe that
there would never come a time when their agonies would end. It is hoped
that no one will miss the point that a certain method of interpretation will
yield its corresponding idea of what the truth is.
Serious doubt of the validity of this method is gendered when it is seen
that it brings this text into sharp contradiction with other Scriptures. Here
are two examples.
"For as ye have drunk upon My holy mountain, so shall all the heathen
drink continually, yea, they shall drink, and they shall swallow down, and
they shall be as though they had not been." Obadiah 16.
116 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the
proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that
cometh shall bum them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them
neither root nor branch." Malachi 4: 1.
It is obviously impossible for the wicked to be as though they had not
been, and to be burned up leaving neither root nor branch, and yet, at the
same time, exist eternally. That is a contradiction, which will exist in our
minds and will continue to exist until the understanding of the messages
of these verses is changed, wherever it needs to be changed. Let it be
strongly emphasized that the Scriptures themselves must not be changed.
It is the understanding of the Scriptures which must be changed until
there is perfect harmony.
This is a very different approach to the problem from that employed by
those who do use dictionary definitions for these words. Their procedure is
to carefully collect all statements supporting their chosen side of the ques-
tion, and as carefully, to ignore those which speak contrary to their ac-
cepted ideas. This is no way to study the Bible, yet it is the most com-
monly accepted method.
The only safety lies in discarding dictionary definitions of words
wherever those words are a problem and to seek for a revised understand-
ing of the meaning of the statements. The only way to discover that other
meaning is by making the Bible and the Bible only, its own dictionary, and
therefore its own interpreter. The Advent people, in determining the
message of the verse, Revelation 20:10, which speaks of the wicked burn-
ing eternally, found it necessary to discover the Bible meaning of those
words. They learned that, in Bible usage, the word has a different meaning
from what it has in everyday usage. We quote now from the book Answers
to Objections by F. D. Nichol, 360, 361.
"We read of 'Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them ... suf-
fering the vengeance of eternal [aionios] fire.' Jude 7. Are those cities, set
ablaze long ago as a divine judgment, still burning? No; their ruins are quite
submerged by the Dead Sea. The Bible itself specifically states that God
turned 'the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes.' 2 Peter 2:6. Now
the fate of these cities is declared to be a warning to all wicked men of the
fate that impends for them. Therefore if the "aionios fire" of that long ago
judgment turned into ashes those upon whom it preyed, and then died
down of itself, we may properly conclude that the "aionios fire" of the last
day will do likewise.
"When we turn to the Old Testament we discover that 'everlasting' and
'for ever' sometimes signify a very limited time. We shall quote texts in
which these two terms are translated from the Hebrew word o/am, because
o/am is the equivalent of the Greek aion.
"The Passover was to be kept 'forever [o/am].' Exodus 12:24. But it ended
with the cross. (See Heb. 9:24-26.) Aaron and his sons were to offer in-
STATEMENTS AND PRINCIPLES 117

cense 'for ever [olam].' (1 Chron. 23:13), and to have an 'everlasting

[o/am] priesthood.' Ex. 40:15. But this priesthood, with its offerings of in-
cense, ended at the cross (See Heb. 7: 11-14). A servant who desired to
stay with his master, was to serve him 'for ever [o/am]' (See Ex. 21: 1-6).
How could a servant serve a master to endless time? Will there be masters
and servants in the world to come? Jonah, describing his watery ex-
perience, said, 'The earth with her bars was about me for ever [o/am].'
Jonah 2:6. Yet this 'for ever' was only 'three days and three nights' long.
Jonah 1: 17. Rather a short 'for ever.' Because Gehazi practiced deceit,
Elisha declared, 'The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee
[Gehazi], and unto thy seed for ever [o/am].' 2 Kings 5:27. Should we con-
clude, therefore, that Gehazi's family would never end, and that thus
leprosy would be perpetuated for all time to come?
"Thus by the acid test of actual usage we discover that in a number of
cases aion, aionios, and a/am have a very limited time value."
Now that you have read the above statement from Nichol, it would be
helpful to answer the following questions.
1. How much reference did F.D. Nichol make to standard dictionaries
when seeking the definition of "everlasting," and "for ever," as those words
are to be used in the Scriptures?
The answer is: No reference at all.
2. What then did he use as his dictionary when seeking the definition
of those words as used in Scripture?
The answer is: The Word of God and that alone.
3. Did he find the words meant the same in Scripture usage as they do
in everyday usage?
The answer is: No! The meanings are very different indeed. That
means that "everlasting" and "forever," have one meaning when used in
our everyday speech but a different meaning when used in the Scriptures.
4. What is the meaning in everyday speech and as found in the dic-
tionary of "everlasting" and "for ever?"
The answer is: These words mean eternally; without ever ceasing at all.
5. What is the meaning when the same words are used in Scripture?
Answer: It signifies time in unbroken duration so long as the nature of
the subject allows. Thus in the case of the wicked, their sinful human nature
does not allow a very long time in the fire before they are reduced to ashes;
but be assured that the fire will go on for ever, that is, in unbroken duration,
until they are consumed. On the other hand the nature of God and of the
redeemed is that they go on forever as long as their immortal natures allow,
and that will be eternally without ever ceasing at all.
It should now be clear that when the words "for ever and ever" are
interpreted according to dictionary definitions, a certain understanding of
that verse will emerge, while if the Bible is used to uncover its usage of the
words, then a very different understanding will result. In other words, ac-
118 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

cording to the system of interpretation used will the resulting conclusions

be. Set the method right and the desired objective of knowing saving truth
will be naturally forthcoming.
A sound test of the true method is that it removes impossible contradic-
tions and replaces them with harmony and cohesion. There will be no need
to ignore statements which otherwise do not fit.
Once the correct method has been found, it is to be applied with unfailing
consistency throughout the entire study of the Bible. One system cannot
be used in one area and a different one used in another. It has been
astonishing to see people having no trouble in believing that the wicked do
not burn forever, and then rejecting the principle that God destroys only by
trying to save. Yet exactly the same methods of interpretation used to arrive
at the former were the only means of arriving at the latter.
This does not mean that every word will have other than a dictionary
definition when used in the Scriptures. Many will have the same meaning,
but there will always be key words which do not. They are readily recog-
nized, for whenever a word, when understood according to its com-
mon everyday usage, creates a serious problem, then it is time to search
out its Scriptural meaning as against its common one.
Throughout this book, with strict consistency, we will adhere to the
Scriptural method of interpretation. When we find ourselves confronted
with two statements or more, which, on the surface, stand in sharp con-
tradiction to each other, we shall follow this procedure.
• Faith shall retain firm hold of the truth that there is no contradic-
tion in the Word of God.
• Every endeavor will be made to lay aside old preconceived ideas
and opinions.
• No reference will be made to the dictionary to solve the problem.
• The Scriptures alone will be consulted for the answer as to what
these words mean when they are used in them.
This line of approach will be continued until every disharmony of thought
disappears and every statement tells the same message.
Therefore, for anyone to deny the message of this book, he will have to
prove firstly that these methods of interpretation are false. If, however, he
should agree that they are true, then he will have to show wherein we have
not adhered to these principles. We confidently challenge anyone to prove
either or both if they can.
We believe that we stand upon solid ground in our approach to the
subject and that what is written herein is a true statement of the character
of God.
 119

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

God Does Destroy-But How?

The principles of interpretation laid out in the previous chapter can now
be applied to the problem of reconciling otherwise contradicting statements.
In this case the concern is over the declarations that God does not destroy
versus those which say He does. These principles properly applied, are
guaranteed to establish a perlect harmony where confusion previously
reigned.
This application is a practical exercise. Commencement can be made
by selecting a Scripture which has frequently been offered as proof that
God steps forth in almighty power and cuts down the rejectors of His
mercy.
"Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone
and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
"And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the in-
habitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." Genesis
19:24, 25.
Ponder now upon those words. Just what picture do they suggest to
you? Ask the question, "What do these words tell me God did?"
The normal understanding is the view that God, after working with
great love and patience to bring these rebels to repentance, finally laid aside
the garments of mercy, took hold of the mighty power of fire, and personally
poured it out on their shelterless heads. The result was such total oblitera-
tion that no trace of those cities can be found today.
Certainly, if we were reading another book in which the actions of a
powerful monarch were being described in the same words, this is how they
would be correctly understood. In the old days of warfare, when the enemy
invested walled cities, the defenders would pour fire on them from above. It
was a purposeful act designed to bum those below. The amount of fire was
minimal compared to God's capabilities, for whereas they could only bum
one or two individuals at a time, God could engulf whole cities. If the same
interpretation is given to God's actions as to man's, then the only possible
picture which could be formed would be of God pouring down fire as did
the defenders on the wall, except that He would do it on a grander scale.
But the Word of God expressly advises that God's ways are entirely dif-
ferent from man's. This difference is not in one point or another but is com-
pletely so in every area. Because of this when Christ came to earth, "He
presented to men that which was exactly contrary to the representations of
the enemy in regard to the character of God, ... " Fundamentals of Christian
Education, 177.
120 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

As will be successfully demonstrated, Satan achieves his misrepresenta-

tion of God's character, by having God's actions viewed as being identical
to man's. The more he can make God appear to be just like men, the better
pleased he is. But Christ works in the opposite direction. The more He can
show that the ways of God and sinful man are different, the more successful
He is in saving them from Satan's deadly lies. His revelations of God were
exactly contrary to those offered by the devil. As a result of Christ's effective
ministry, we can know that God's ways and man's are not merely different
in many, but in all things.
That these vital truths are not generally understood and accepted is
evidenced by the usual interpretation of the verses concerning the fire on
Sodom and Gomorrah, wherein God is considered to have behaved as any
earthly potentate would under the same circumstances.
Therefore, as surely as it is established that God's ways are different
from man's, then so certainly must another explanation to these verses be
sought. This alternative is not found by casting around in the human mind
for other possibilities. The Bible, under the illumination of the Holy Spirit,
must be its own interpreter. When it is learned from there how such words
are to be understood, the correct concept of God will be gained.
Within the Word of God, the same terminology is used consistently
when describing God's actions in the destruction of people and cities. God
does not provide a careful explanation of what He means by these words in
every case. But there are two or three places where He does, and this is suf-
ficient to inform us how every such expression is to be interpreted. Thus the
truth is established in the "mouth of two or three witnesses." Matthew
18:16.
Reference will now be made to three such witnesses to clarify from the
Word itself how such statements are to be understood when used to
describe God's actions. The method used in the Scriptures to make the
meaning clear is to express the same truth in two different places in two dif-
ferent ways. In the first case, what God did will be clearly stated. Then the
Lord Himself will use His own method of expressing or describing what He
did. By putting these two together it will be clearly seen what God means
when He says, "I destroyed them."
Remember that it is not important what we think the Lord meant when
He uses certain expressions. Our task is to be sure of what the Lord meant
when He used those words.
The first reference to be considered is in regard to the death of Saul, the
first king of Israel.
''And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him, and he
was wounded of the archers.
"Then said Saul to his armorbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me
through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me. But his
arrnourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. So Saul took a sword, and
fell upon it.
GOD DOES DESTROY-BUT HOW? 121

"And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise
on the sword, and died.
"So Saul died, and his three sons, and all his house died together."
I Chronicles 10:3-6.
This is a simple, and therefore easily understood, account of Saul's
death. There is a background to this event which is but the climax of that
which went before. After a certain critical point in the king's life, he per-
sistently rejected the appeals of mercy. By this means he took himself
further and further outside the circle of God's protection until it was impos-
sible for the Lord to help him. This was not because the Lord would not,
but only because He could not.
Thus, when he went forth to the final battle, he went without the Lord's
protection and he knew it. It was for this reason Saul sought guidance from
the witch at Endor. Without God's presence, there was nothing to save him
from the dreadful power of the Philistines, with the result that his destruc-
tion was a predetermined thing. As Saul's life is considered, it will be seen
that he took himself away from God, placing himself where there was no
defence from Satan's power, and thus, in fact, destroyed himself.
Nowhere in Saul's entire history is there anything to give us the idea
that God raised His mighty hand and struck him down. The only actions we
see on God's part were to extend every possible effort to save him, and
then, when he would not be saved but only resisted with greater and
greater vigor, the outreach of the Spirit, God had no choice but to
withdraw from him. For God to have maintained a connection with Saul
against his will, would have been to have forced His presence where it was
not desired, and this the Lord cannot and will not do.
Having seen clearly, then, what the Lord did in respect to Saul's
destruction, we are now ready to see how He described what He did.
"So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the
Lord, even against the word of the Lord, which he kept not, and also for
asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire of it;
"And inquired not of the Lord; therefore He slew him, and turned the
kingdom unto David the son of Jesse." 1 Chronicles 10:13, 14.
God exerted all the influence of love and truth to save Saul, and when
he would not be saved, then the Lord went away and left him to what he
wanted-his own way. God did not raise His hand to slay Saul. He killed
himself just in time to save the Philistines from doing it. The Scriptures,
which are the very expression of God's thought, described that in these
words, "Therefore, He (the Lord God of Heaven) slew him."
This is certainly not the way we would use the words, "He slew him," to
describe human behavior. If they were used to describe human behavior,
then we would have known that the slayer would have come to the victim,
not moved away from him; that he would have carried the sword in his own
hand, not been empty handed; and that he would have brought the sword
down upon the head of the guilty person.
122 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

So foreign is this form of expression to what we are accustomed to, that

it is difficult initially, to think in this new terminology. Yet, in order to
truthfully understand God's thought as expressed in His word, the mind
must be re-educated to think this way when reading about God's ways as
distinct from men's ways. There certainly will be no difficulty in seeing that
the way in which God uses words, and the way in which we use them, are
contrary to each other.
The presentation of one witness is never sufficient to establish the truth
of the Bible. A second must be added.
As with Saul, so with the entire nation of Israel. Centuries of loving ap-
peals had been spumed, the prophets had been persecuted, and, in some
cases, martyred. Eventually, the Son of God Himself, came with a personal
message from the Father. But they rejected Him even more emphatically,
underscoring the intensity of their feelings by seeking nothing less than the
most torturous and humiliating death for Him that they could find.
The time came when Christ recognized that they had passed the point
of no return. What did He say and do? He declared that Jerusalem was
beyond hope, and then, instead of launching fiery balls of destruction upon
the city, He quietly left them to their fate. Again, He did not do this because
He wanted to, but because there was nothing else He could do that was
consistent with His character of love. Here are His sad words.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stones!
them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not!
"Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
"For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say,
Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." Matthew 23:37-39.
For the same reasons, and in harmony with the same principles, God
left Israel exactly as He had left Saul. Thus was removed from them the
only effective defence from their many enemies. For centuries the devil had
thirsted for the blood of the entire nation. Knowing that he could not touch
them whilever the protection of God was about them, and knowing that
while they were obedient it would always be there, he labored with terrible
success to lead them into disobedience.
So the time came when the Jews had caused God's protection to be
withdrawn from them, and there was nothing to shield them from disaster.
It came with ferocious savagery upon their unprotected heads. The full
truth of this is clearly expressed in the following record.
"The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves
the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation,
and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but
reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet, 'O
Israel; thou hast destroyed thyself;' 'for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.·
GOD DOES DESTROY-BUT HOW' 123

Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by

the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to con-
ceal his own work. By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the
Jews had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn from them, and
Satan was permitted to rule them according to his will. The horrible
cruelties enacted in the destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of
Satan's vindictive power over those who yield to his control.
"We cannot know how much we owe to Christ for the peace and pro-
tection which we enjoy. It is the restraining power of God that prevents
mankind from passing fully under the control of Satan. The disobedient
and unthankful have great reason for gratitude for God's mercy and long-
suffering in holding in check the cruel, malignant power of the evil one. But
when men pass the limits of divine forbearance, that restraint is removed.
God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence
against transgression; but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy to them-
selves, to reap that which they have sown. Every ray of light rejected, every
warning despised or unheeded, every passion indulged, every trans-
gression of the law of God, is a seed sown, which yields its unfailing
harvest. The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from
the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the
soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan. The destruc-
tion of Jerusalem is a fearful and solemn warning to all who are trifling with
the offers of divine grace, and resisting the pleadings of divine mercy.
Never was there given a more decisive testimony to God's hatred of sin,
and to the certain punishment that will fall upon the guilty." The Great
Controversy, 35, 36.
God's actions in the destruction of Jerusalem are identical to His deal-
ings with King Saul. The only difference in the two accounts is that in the
fall of Jerusalem, we have a much more detailed account of what the Lord
did. It is made transparently clear that they had not fallen by God's hand
but by their own iniquity.
Of particular value is the reference made to the common interpretation
of what was done there. "Their sufferings are often represented as a
punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God." In other
words, this is the way in which most people view God's actions in this
incident:-
"With loving appeals the Lord seeks to woo and to win until the time
comes when His patience is exhausted. Then, having passed judgment
upon them, He personally decides what form of punishment He will send.
Will it be a fearful earthquake, a fire, a volcanic eruption, or pestilence, or
shall He send their enemies among them? In the case of Jerusalem, God
decided that He would send the Romans. Having made this decree, He
called them to the terrible office of being the personal executioners of His
vengeance on the Jews."
124 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

That is the view most people have of the judgments on the Jews in
A.D. 70. This is the interpretation which comes of thinking that God's
behavior is the same as man's, and of defining Bible words according to
dictionary meanings. While these methods are employed, it is impossible to
come to any other conclusion.
When the statement is made, "Their sufferings are often represented as
a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God, ... " there is
no direct evaluation in the sentence itself attesting to its being a correct or
incorrect assessment of God's works. However, there is the inference that it
is not right in that it is rated as being the more commonly held representa-
tion. Knowing that the majority are deluded in this sphere, it is correct to
assess this as an incorrect evaluation. This is confirmed by the next
sentence which directly charges it with being a device of Satanic origin
designed to shift the blame from the devil to God. "It is thus that the great
deceiver seeks to conceal his own work."
So, not only is the above idea the result of wrong principles of Bible in-
terpretation, it is also the very means employed by the devil to conceal the
true nature of his own work, by attributing it to God, while to himself he
credits the work and character of God. Therefore, it is to be rejected for
what it is-a dangerous philosophy of Satan. While his view is entertained,
it is impossible to form correct concepts of God's character.
Further, we are informed that the Lord did not leave of His own choice.
It was the Jews who "had caused the protection of God to be withdrawn
from them," thus permitting Satan to finally work his evil designs upon
them.
Then there is laid down forever the precious truth that "God does not
stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against transgres-
sion; but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy to themselves, to reap that
which they have sown." What befell the Jews was the natural outworking of
their own course of action. It was not something brought upon them by
God. They had sown the seed; now they must gather the certain harvest.
We have before us a revelation of the course God pursued toward the
Israelites which is the same as that with Saul. It is now necessary to find how
God Himself described what He did.
In the death of Israel's first king and the destruction of the nation in
A.D. 70, God consistently followed the same course. In both cases He
worked with infinite love and patience to win them to the ways of
righteousness and safety, but they utterly rejected it, forcing Him to
withdraw and leave them to the fate which lay nearest. For Saul it was the
invasion of the Philistines, for Jerusalem the Roman onslaught.
God described what He did to Saul in words very different from the
ones we would use to describe what He did. God said, "I destroyed him."
We would say, "He destroyed himself."
Because God is consistent, it is to be expected that He would describe
the same action in the fall of Jerusalem in the same language. Therefore, it
GOD DOES DESTROY-BUT HOW? 125

It was the Jews themselves who, by driving away the protecting presence of
God, brought on the destruction of themselves and their city.

must be anticipated that He would say, "I destroyed Jerusalem and killed
those murderers." This is just how He did describe that terrible destruction.
In Matthew 22, there is a parable which, in its initial application, sets out
the two final calls given to the Jewish people and their rejections of those
calls. When the second call is complete and as completely rejected, the
king's reaction is described in these words:
"But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his
armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city."
Matthew 22:7.
This verse is couched in symbolic language. God the Father was the king;
the armies were the Romans under Titus; the murderers were the Jews
who crucified Christ; and the city was Jerusalem. The fulfillment of this
fearful prophecy came in A.D. 70 as verified in Christ's Object Lessons, 309,
where this verse is quoted, followed by the words: "The judgment pronounced
came upon the Jews in the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the
nation."
If we substitute for the symbolic words, the things symbolized, the verse
must read as follows: "But when God heard thereof, God was wroth: and
God sent forth His armies, the Romans, and God destroyed the Jews and
God burned up Jerusalem."
126 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

If these words are interpreted according to normal dictionary definitions

the only possible picture of God would be identical to earthly despots. But,
the inspired word quoted from The Great Controuersy, confirms that an
altogether different understanding is to be obtained from these verses.
Therefore, the position adopted depends directly on the way in which the
words are understood. The choice lies between accepting a meaning
according to human or Scriptural language. The former is acquired by
reference to a standard dictionary, the latter by the Scriptures themselves.
As in the case of King Saul so in this second witness; the same type of
description is explained in an identical way. God is said to destroy the sin-
ner when He accepts the sinner's demands that he be left to himself. The fate
which befalls him is not by either God's election or administration. It is
the inevitable outworking of the transgressor's course.
The two witnesses already given are in perlect harmony. They support
each other and go a long way toward confirming the truth of God's Word.
However, we will not rest with only two.
The third witness will also be drawn from Israel's history. There was the
occasion when the Israelites were travelling through the wilderness and
once again murmured about God and Moses. Unknown to them, they
were travelling through an area infested with deadly serpents and other ter-
rors. Because of God's protecting care, they had passed through this area
unharmed until that time when they drove away His protection through
their own ingratitude and sinfulness. The shield removed, there was
nothing to hold back the invasion of those reptiles with the result that many
of the people died a terrible death.
Here is the description of what happened and of what God did. It needs
but little comment after the two already studied, for, once again it will be
seen that the Lord simply left them to what they wanted. He did not decree
the particular punishment. It was lurking there all the time only awaiting the
opportunity to destroy them. Notice the consistent way in which God
related Himself to the sinner in each case. In all three illustrations given, God
is revealed as One with Whom there is no variableness neither shadow
of turning.
"As the Israelites indulged the spirit of discontent, they were disposed
to find fault even with their blessings. 'And the people spake against God
and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in
the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our
soul loatheth this light bread.'
"Moses faithfully set before the people their great sin. It was God's
power alone that had preserved them in 'that great and terrible wilderness,
wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was
no water.' Every day of their travels they had been kept by a miracle of
divine mercy. In all the way of God's leading, they had found water to
refresh the thirsty, bread from heaven to satisfy their hunger, and peace
GOD DOES DESTROY-BUT HOW 7 127

and safety under the shadowy cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night.
Angels had ministered to them as they climbed the rocky heights or thread-
ed the rugged paths of the wilderness. Notwithstanding the hardships they
had endured, there was not a feeble one in all their ranks. Their feet had
not swollen in their long journeys, neither had their clothes grown old. God
had subdued before them the fierce beasts of prey and the venomous rep-
tiles of the forest and the desert. If with all these tokens of His love the
people still continued to complain, the Lord would withdraw His protection
until they should be led to appreciate His merciful care, and return to Him
with repentance and humiliation.
"Because they had been shielded by divine power, they had not
realized the countless dangers by which they were continually surrounded.
In their ingratitude and unbelief they had anticipated death, and now the
Lord permitted death to come upon them. The poisonous serpents that in-
fested the wilderness were called fiery serpents, on account of the terrible
effects produced by their sting, it causing violent inflammation and speedy
death. As the protecting hand of God was remoued from Israel, great
numbers of the people were attacked by these venomous creatures."
Patriarchs and Prophets, 428, 429,
As in the previous illustrations, a comparison will be made between
what the Lord is described as doing, and His own statement of what He
did. If God is consistent, and we know He is, then He will describe this in
the same way as He spoke of the previous two. Again the consistency of
God stands forth without variableness neither shadow of turning.
"And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the
people; and much people of Israel died." Numbers 21:6.
For those who want still further confirmation of the truths revealed in
this use of the Bible as its own dictionary, referral is made to the experience
of the patriarch Job. Satan demanded the right to destroy him. God
withdrew and left him to the power of the devil with one restriction-that he
could not take his life. Everything that happened to Job was at the hands of
Satan, not God. The picture of God's behavior was the same as previous-
ly shown except for this difference. Whereas in each of the other cases, it
was the sinfulness of the rejecters of His mercy which had driven God and
His protection away, Job was "a perfect and an upright man." Therefore,
God's withdrawal from him was not the result of Job's sinfulness.
On what grounds, then, could the Lord leave Job to suffer at the
devil's hands? This is a good question which finds its answer in the following
principle. Every true child of God has given his life into God's hands to be
sacrificed in His cause if thereby the work will be advanced. This is a
privilege, and the Lord will never deny that privilege to any one of His
children when the hour comes. The hour came for Job and the Lord did
not stand in the way of his offering.
Thus there are two ways in which the Lord will remove from a person
and leave him to the destroyer. One is by man's sinfulness driving off the
128 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Spirit of God and the other is by the individual offering himself as a sacrifice
for the cause of truth, a thing which every child of God does.
When the Lord came down to personally describe what He had done to
Job, He again used the same language as previously noted. "Hast thou
considered My servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a
perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and
still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst Me against him, to
destroy him without cause." Job 2:3.
Once again this is not the way we would use those words according to
everyday usage. Our use of them would convey a meaning quite opposite
from what God intended when He used those Words.
It would be impossible to arrive at the meanings of the words, according
to God's usage of them, without the guidance of the Word of God. Only
from there could such an interpretation be obtained. That is, it is the only
dictionary which does give this definition of these words.
It may take some time to train our minds to carry these double defini-
tions for the same words. Conscious effort must be made until it is just as
natural to think of the new definition as of the old. It must become second
nature to ascribe one meaning to the words when they describe divine con-
duct and another when they deal with the human. Here is a comparison
between the two.
When man destroys, he moves toward the victim with deliberate inten-
tion to kill.
When God destroys, He moves away from the subject with no intention
of killing.
When man destroys, he carries the weapons of death in his hands.
When God destroys, He carries no weapons but lays down control of
the destructive powers.
When man destroys, he guides the sword on to its target.
When God destroys, there is no personal administration of punish-
ment. Whatever comes upon the sinner is the outworking of the forces of
death which he himself has set in motion.
At this point two questions are apt to arise. The first is: After all, what is
the essential difference between the direct act of destroying, or that of
departing to leave the person to die? In both cases it is God's action which
brings about the destruction and therefore, in each case, He is a destroyer.
This would be true if God's withdrawal was His own act, but it is not.
The fact is that He is driven away. Think of the way in which Christ went to
Calvary. He was taken there forcibly. This shows in its clearest terms man's
reaction toward the loving appeals of God. Man drives God away, depriv-
ing Him of any possibility of remaining unless He forces His presence,
which the Lord will never do.
For those who are prepared to believe that God never puts forth His
hands to destroy, yet consider that His act of withdrawing in the full
GOD DOES DESTROY-BUT HOW? 129

knowledge of what that will mean, makes Him a destroyer just the same,
the following illustration is given. This will show the distinct difference be-
tween merely withdrawing and being forced to withdraw. It will show that
even in His withdrawing it is not God who is responsible for the disasters
which follow.
Let us suppose that there is an atomic power plant located in the midst of
a small township of two thousand people. The nature of this power plant
is such that an operator must continually be in the control room to monitor
the controls. Should this post be left unattended for several hours or more,
the nuclear fission will run out of control and blossom into a holocaust of
destruction.
The situation arises where every technician but one is taken away and
the full responsibility rests upon this man. No one else in the whole area has
the training, knowledge, or skill, to operate this volatile equipment.
This creates no special problem, for the man is healthy, very conscien-
tious, and does his work with great faithfulness day and night. He is able to
take sufficient rest between check times to enable him to carry on indefi-
nitely.
But, there enters the area an archenemy of the technician who deter-
mines to run him out of town. To accomplish this, he circulates lying reports
until a hate complex is generated among the villagers. They begin to
persecute the technician in every imaginable way with increasing intensity.
For a very long time he patiently endures the attacks in the hope that they
will subside and with the realization that if he does forsake his post it will be
disastrous for the village.
Finally his patience runs out. "I have had enough of this," he cries. "I
have gone the second and the third mile. These people have shown that
they do not deserve to live. I am leaving."
Whereupon he walks out of the control room and drives far away.
Several hours elapse and he is safe beyond the reach of the explosion when
it occurs. The village and all in it are utterly destroyed.
While it is true that in a certain sense the villagers destroyed themselves,
it is equally true that this technician destroyed them for he left them
knowing that his departure would bring those sure and certain results. This
is the picture which many have of God.
The situation faced by this man is the same as that faced by God. He is
the great "Technician" who is in charge of the power house of nature.
When He lets go of those powers, there is no one else who can control
them and keep them from exploding in a horror of destruction. An enemy
has come in and a hate complex has been generated against God.
Many believe this truth and then see God coming to the end of His pa-
tience, as in our illustration, and voluntarily withdrawing to leave men to
perish in the cataclysm of destruction which inevitably follows.
If this is the true picture of God, then, unquestionably, we would have
to agree that He is, after all, a destroyer.
130 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

But it is not. God is a very different person from this.

Let us retell the story, as it would provide a true picture of God's
character.
Here is the same technician, the same control room, the same situa-
tion, the same village, and the same enemy stirring up trouble.
This time the technician never thinks of leaving. No matter what they
do to him, all he can see is their situation. He knows that if he leaves them,
they will all be dead men so he stays on. His patience is not in question for
he is not thinking of himself at all.
But the persecution becomes more and more intense until the people
begin to demand that he go. He protests that if he does, they will perish and
for their sakes, not his own, he desires to stay. They, in their hateful blind-
ness, being ignorant of their real danger and overconfident of their own
ability to handle the control room anyway, laugh derisively at him and
shout for his departure.
With deepest concern for them he holds on and fulfils his work as
faithfully as ever. Every time he thinks of them, a pang of fear and pain
sweeps through him, and he considers most earnestly how he can win their
love and confidence so that he might preserve them alive. Not one thought
is for himself-every thought is for them and their need.
But every day they become more hateful and violent until they invade
the control room and angrily shout at him to leave. They jostle him out
through the door and down to his car. They put him into it and direct him to
drive away. There is no choice left. Slowly, he drives out of the village and
mounts the first hill beyond. He stops the car, climbs out and looks back
toward the angry knot of people gathered to witness that he is truly gone.
He spreads his hands in one last loving appeal. The instant response is
agitated signals conveying to him their unchanged demand that he go.
What more can he do?
Nothing! Every possible source open to him to save those people is ex-
hausted, and with the heaviest of hearts he turns his car into the distance
and is gone forever. Several hours pass and then the atomic fireball blasts
the village and the villagers out of existence.
No one can say that this man is a destroyer. He acted out the character
of a saviour only. He could not and did not save them because they would
not let him.
This is the true picture of the character of God.
The truth of this is stated in a paragraph from Prophets and Kings, 176.
"Christ will never abandon those for whom He has died. We may leave
Him and be overwhelmed with temptation, but Christ can never turn from
one for whom He has paid the ransom of His own life."
In view of the fact that Christ died for all men, this statement is saying
that it is impossible for Christ to tum away from anyone. Men tum away
from God. God cannot tum away from men. That is impossible.
GOD DOES DESTROY-BUT HOW 7 131

The second question is this: If God does not in fact destroy, then why
does He use this word to describe His actions? Does this not tend to make
the Scriptures confusing?
Again this is an excellent question, in answer to which it must be said
that this is the right word to use in describing God's actions, for there is a
deep and important sense in which it is true that He does destroy.
As the evidences gathered here unfold, it will be seen that God comes
to man in one role only, which is as a Saviour. But the effect of that effort is
not always a saving one. With the majority, the effect is to harden them in
rebellion and to cause them to withdraw themselves from the voice of
loving entreaty. Thus, God destroys by trying to save. The more He exerts His
saving power, the more men are driven by their rejection of it to destruc-
tion. It is in this sense that He destroys.
This principle of truth is spelled out with great clarity in the statement:
"It is not God that blinds the eyes of men or hardens their hearts. He sends
them light to correct their errors, and to lead them in safe paths; it is by the
rejection of this light that the eyes are blinded and the heart hardened.
Often the process is gradual, and almost imperceptible. Light comes to the
soul through God's word, through His servants, or by the direct agency of
His Spirit; but when one ray of light is disregarded, there is a partial
benumbing of the spiritual perceptions, and the second revealing of light is
less clearly discerned. So the darkness increases, until it is night in the soul.
Thus it had been with these Jewish leaders. They were convinced that a
divine power attended Christ, but in order to resist the truth, they attributed
the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. In doing this they deliberately chose
deception; they yielded themselves to Satan, and henceforth they were
controlled by his power." The Desire of Ages, 322, 323.
"It is not God that puts the blinder before the eyes of men or makes
their hearts hard; it is the light which God sends to His people, to correct
their errors, to lead them in safe paths, but which they refuse to accept,-it
is this that blinds their minds and hardens their hearts." Reuiew and Herald,
October 21, 1890.
The outstanding example of this outworking is the history of Pharaoh of
Egypt. The Scriptures say, "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply
My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt." Exodus 7:3.
To harden is to destroy. It is not physical destruction but spiritual. This
spiritual destruction is the prelude to the physical which must inevitably
follow. The Scriptures plainly say that it was God who did it and He did, but
every reference which throws light on what God did, shows that His action
was to send spiritual light, and loving appeals to Pharaoh. These were
designed to soften and save, not to harden him, but that which was sent to
save, destroyed him instead, because he rejected it. Note carefully that it
was not the light, but his rejection of it that hardened and destroyed him.
132 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"Pharaoh saw the mighty working of the Spirit of God; he saw the
miracles which the Lord performed by His servant; but he refused obe-
dience to God's command. The rebellious king had proudly enquired,
'Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? ... (Exodus
5:2).' And as the judgments of God fell more and more heavily upon him,
he persisted in stubborn resistance. By rejecting light from heauen, he
became hard and unimpressible. The providence of God was revealing His
power, and these manifestations, unacknowledged, were the means of
hardening Pharaoh's heart against greater light. Those who exalt their own
ideas above the plainly specified will of God, are saying as did Pharaoh
'Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice?' Every rejection of light
hardens the heart and darkens the understanding; and thus men find it
more and more difficult to distinguish between right and wrong, and they
become bolder in resisting the will of God." S.D.A. Bible Commentary
1:1100.
"Every additional evidence of the power of God that the Egyptian
monarch resisted, canied him on to a stronger and more persistent defiance
of God. Thus the work went on, finite man warring against the expressed
will of an infinite God. This case is a clear illustration of the sin against the
Holy Ghost. 'Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' Gradually
the Lord withdrew His Spirit. Removing His restraining power, He gave the
king into the hands of the worst of all tyrants." The Reuiew and Herald,
July 27, 1897.
'The patience and long-suffering of God, which should soften and sub-
due the soul, has an altogether different influence upon the careless and
sinful. It leads them to cast off restraint, and strengthens them in
resistance." The Reuiew and Herald, August 14, 1900.
The truth laid out in these statements is a very important one. When it is
truly appreciated, there will be no careless attitude toward the revelations
which are brought to us. There will be a conscious fear that a terrible
mistake could be made by rejecting light which, because it touches our flesh
or some preconceived idea and opinion, we desire to reject. There will be
the dread of having the heart hardened and the spiritual sense benumbed.
"Let ministers and people remember that gospel truth ruins if it does not
saue. The soul that refuses to listen to the invitations of mercy from day to
day can soon listen to the most urgent appeals without an emotion stir-
ring his soul." Testimonies 5: 134.
We must clearly understand that the only effort God puts forth, is to
save. That effort can and does produce two opposite effects. In the hearts
and lives of those who accept God's work, it achieves its intended result. It
softens, changes, cleanses, and restores. It is unto life eternal.
But in the lives of those who reject that saving ministry, there is a ter-
rible work of destruction going forward. It is a destroying work which firstly
breaks down every spiritual response within, then hardens the heart in
GOD DOES DESTROY-BUT HOW? 133

rebellion, develops every sinful trait, and compels the Spirit of God to
withdraw His presence and His protection. This leaves the individual to the
choice he has made; to a position where there is no protection whatsoever
from the destructive malice of Satan and sin.
God destroys, but not as man destroys. Every effort on God's part is to
save, but it has an altogether different result in the lives of those who reject
that saving power. Therefore we can know that, in fact, God is a Saviour
and a sauiour only. He destroys by trying to save so that the more His sav-
ing power is manifest in the world and that power is rejected, the more
swiftly and terribly are the rejecters destroyed by the simple outworking of
the forces involved.
This principle will come through with greater clarity and force as the
individual cases of the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues of Egypt,
the crucifixion of Christ, the seven last plagues, and the final judgment are
studied. These will be taken up progressively. For now it is sufficient to
establish the principle that the way in which the Lord destroys is by seeking
to save. Thus His way of destroying is entirely different from man's way.
Once this is clearly comprehended, it will be possible to view all God's
actions in a new and enlightened way. As a result, the whole of the Scrip-
tures will emerge as one great harmonious truth.
134

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Supreme Revelation

There are no contradictions in the Word of God; it must not be inter-
preted according to private or human methods; the Bible is its own dic-
tionary and therefore its own interpreter; God's ways and man's way are
entirely different from each other; and the only way in which God de-
stroys is by trying to save; any destruction eventuating is because of rejec-
tion by man and not the action of God.
This established, the groundwork has been prepared for studying the
various incidents of history in which God has played a part. Reference is
made here to the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the
plagues of Egypt, the execution of those who worshipped the golden calf,
the stoning of the Sabbath breaker, the adulterer, the glutton, and Achan,
the slaughter of the Canaanites, the obliteration of Sennacherib's army, and
many other such events, right through to the concluding one-the final
liquidation in the lake of fire.
The study of these happenings has left the majority with definite ideas
of the character of God. He is viewed as a stern judge Who, ruling His
kingdom like any earthly potentate, has visited deadly punishments upon
those who do not obey Him. These concepts are formed because of the
human tendency to think of God as being like themselves.
That such a mistake should be made is quite understandable, for it is
natural for men to think in terms of the familiar. The only kind of kingdoms,
kings, governments, laws, punishments, and destruction known to men
are in the context of this earth. They are familiar with the connection
between possession of great power and despotism. In their own hearts
they long for power so that they can rule over others rather than be ruled by
them. They know that acquired power can only be maintained by the
suppression or destruction of those who oppose them.
Thus, when they see God in a position of absolute rulership combined
with infinite power, they cannot conceive of His using that in any other way
than they would if they were in the same situation. So natural is this way of
thinking to man, that the standard view of God's conduct in the Old
Testament is accepted without question. Not even a second thought is
given to it. To them, God is simply acting in the accepted and expected way
for a person situated as He is. How often as I have spoken to people about
this, the response has been, "Well, I just never had any occasion toques-
tion whether God does or does not destroy. I have read that He does, and
that is as far as I have gone into it. After all, He is the Creator, He does have
absolute power, and therefore He has the right to destroy us if we do not
please Him. It seems as simple as that to me."
THE SUPREME REVEU\TION 135

But to others, the Old Testament has presented serious problems. They
shudder as they read the stories of Israel's conquests wherein men, women,
beautiful little girls and boys, together with tender infants in arms were
ruthlessly put to the sword. That God should command such atrocities,
projects a frightening rather than attractive picture of Him. It brings but
scant comfort to the soul, and tends to produce a service of fear rather than
love.
In her hospital bed, a woman, sick and despairing, turned to reading
the Bible to find rest and comfort. She naturally began at the beginning and
soon found herself wading through grim accounts of bloody slaughters. The
picture was revolting and disturbing, causing her very shortly to lay the
Book aside forever.
Her reaction is understandable when it is considered that her study was
without an understanding of what God actually did in these situations. Had
she seen God's real character, as it was truly revealed in those instances,
then her love for Him would have been quickened, and her soul would
have been rested with joy and hope. But tragically it was not so.
Evidence will now be presented to show that the Old Testament is not
the place to begin searching out the character of God. The convincing argu-
ment for this is that not even the holy angels were able to understand God's
character as it was revealed in the Old Testament. Not until the advent of
Christ, and especially until the demonstration of infinite love and justice
given on Calvary, were they able to see God as He really is. At the same
time, Satan was revealed in his true light. For the first time, the angels were
truly convinced of the righteousness of God's cause. The Scriptural
evidences for this have already been quoted, but it is appropriate to re-quote
them here.
"Not until the death of Christ was the character of Satan clearly re-
vealed to the angels or to the unfallen worlds. The archapostate had so
clothed himself with deception that even holy beings had not understood
his principles. They had not clearly seen the nature of his rebellion." The
Desire of Ages, 758.
At the cross "Satan saw that his disguise was tom away. His administra-
tion was laid open before the unfallen angels and before the heavenly
universe. He had revealed himself as a murderer. By shedding the blood of
the Son of God, he had uprooted himself from the sympathies of the
heavenly beings. Henceforth his work was restricted. Whatever attitude he
might assume, he could no longer await the angels as they came from the
heavenly courts, and before them accuse Christ's brethren of being clothed
with the garments of blackness and the defilement of sin. The last link of
sympathy between Satan and the heavenly world was broken." ibid., 761.
There is a direct relationship between the misunderstanding of Satan's
character and the falsification of God's. Therefore, to whatever extent the
angels were not able to see the true nature of Satan and his work during the
136 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Old Testament era, then to that extent were they unable to correctly com-
prehend God's principles of character and conduct. If holy angels, mighty
in intellectual and spiritual power and personally participant in God's work-
ings in the Old Testament dispensation, still had clouded views of God,
then it is impossible for human minds to understand God from these
evidences alone.
When the revelations of God as given by Christ at the cross swept away
the haze with which Satan had obscured God's character, they were able to
go back and review the past in a new light. In the glory streaming from
Christ and Calvary, they found the mysteries solved and the dark spots il-
1uminated. Perfect peace filled their souls as they rejoiced in eternal
deliverance from the misconceptions of the past.
What was necessary for them, is even more so for earthbound travellers
seeking the knowledge of God which is life eternal. This search must start
with the finest and fullest existing revelation of Him-the life of Christ and
the marvel of Calvary. Entering the study at this point will quickly impress
on the searcher's mind the necessity of penetrating beyond the commonly
held view of the Old Testament God.
To too many for too long, the Old Testament revelation of God, com-
pared with Christ's unfolding of Him in the New, has provided an
altogether contradictory picture. God is seen as a stem, exacting lawmaker
Who will not permit His will to be thwarted, while Christ is viewed as a
tender, benign, loving forgiver of all sins. To God is ascribed one character
and to Christ another. This destroys the precious truth that Christ and the
Father are one in authority, character, spirit, aims, and works. The belief is
spawned that Christ is the Appeaser of the Father's fury, influencing Him to
act contrary to His real character by showing mercy when it is not in His
heart or nature to do so.
The further men are steeped in the darkness of Satan's misrepresenta-
tions of the Father and the Son, the more exaggerated this appeasement
doctrine becomes. In its worst form it is found among those religionists who
offer human sacrifices to the deities to placate their wrath. Consider how
such a concept of God makes Him to be altogether such an one as
ourselves.
Yet, strange as it may seem, the average professed child of God today is
prepared to believe, on the one hand, that the Father and Son are one in
character, spirit, and power, while, on the other hand, holding to the view
that the Father, as revealed in the Old Testament in particular, and the
Son, as manifested in the New, are two very different characters.
It is grossly inconsistent to hold such a position and only possible if the
two ideas are carefully compartmentalized into separate areas of the brain
so that they are never thought of at the same time. Let them be brought
together, and the honest, thoughtful student will realize that one or the other
has to go. Either Christ and the Father are one, or they are not.
THE SUPREME REVEIJffION 137

Solving this problem is not difficult, for the Scriptures are emphatic that
the Father and Son are one in every particular. Jesus testified to this
repeatedly.
"I and My Father are one." John 10:30.
"If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not.
"But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works: that ye may
know, and believe, that the Father is in Me, and I in Him." John 10:37, 38.
"If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also: and from
henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.
"Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
·~esus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast
thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and
how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
"Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the
words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that
dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.
"Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else
believe Me for the very works' sake." John 14:7-11.
"Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do:
for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." John
5:19.
By these words, Christ, on His Father's behalf, denied that there was
any difference whatsoever between Them in character and work. Both are
joined in the most intimate way, in dedicated purpose to save the perishing.
Christ does not have to appease the Father for He is doing exactly what the
Father has commissioned Him to do.
Division is Satan's objective, but God's great purpose is to bring all
things in heaven and earth into unity as it is written; "Having made known
unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He
hath purposed in Himself:
"That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather
together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are
on earth; even in Him." Ephesians 1:9, 10.
Evidence was presented back in chapter three that the specific method
employed by Satan to drive wedges between God and His creatures was
the false presentation of God's character.
"Sin originated in self-seeking. Lucifer, the covering cherub, desired to
be first in heaven. He sought to gain control of heavenly beings, to draw
them away from their Creator, and to win their homage to himself.
Therefore he misrepresented God, attributing to Him the desire for self-
exaltation. With his own evil characteristics he sought to invest the loving
Creator. Thus he deceived angels. Thus he deceived men. He led them to
doubt the word of God, and to distrust His goodness. Because God is a
138 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

God of justice and terrible majesty, Satan caused them to look upon Him as
severe and unforgiving. Thus he drew men to join him in rebellion against
God, and the night of woe settled down upon the world." The Desire of
Ages, 21, 22.
"By the same misrepresentation of the character of God as he had prac-
tised in heaven, causing Him to be regarded as severe and tyrannical,
Satan induced man to sin." The Great Controuersy, 500.
"Adam believed the falsehood of Satan, and through his misrepresen-
tation of the character of God, Adam's life was changed and marred. He
disobeyed the commandment of God, and did the very thing the Lord told
him not to do. Through disobedience Adam fell; but had he endured the
test, and been loyal to God, the floodgates of woe would not have been
opened upon our world.
"Through belief in Satan's misrepresentation of God, man's character
and destiny were changed, but if men will believe in the Word of God, they
will be transformed in mind and character, and fitted for eternal life."
Selected Messages 1:345, 346.
Satan's method of destroying the unity of the universe can only be
countered by the restoration of the truth about God. That character was
manifested in all God's dealings with both loyal and rebellious individuals
and nations between the fall and the first advent, but men, influenced and
blinded by Satan, were not able to see the verities offered there.
Therefore, an incontrovertible revelation of God's character had to be
supplied to counteract Satan's lies and make clear the real message of the
Old Testament. There was only one being who could give such a
demonstration and that was Christ, "Who being the brightness of His glory,
and the express image of His person, ... " (Hebrews 1:3) was commis-
sioned by God to do so.
"The Saviour was deeply anxious for His disciples to understand for
what purpose His divinity was united to humanity. He came to the world to
display the glory [character) of God, that man might be uplifted by its
restoring power." The Desire of Ages, 664.
"Christ came to the earth to reveal to men the character of His Father,
and His life was filled with deeds of divine tenderness and compassion."
Patriarchs and Prophets, 469.
" ... Jesus, the express image of the Father's person, the effulgence of
His glory; the self-denying Redeemer, throughout His prilgrimage of love
on earth was a living representative of the character of the law of God. In
His life it is made manifest that heaven-born love, Christlike principles,
underlie the laws of eternal rectitude." God's Amazing Grace, 102.
So total is the revelation of God's character as given by Christ that "All
that man needs to know or can know of God has been reuealed in the life
and character of His Son." Testimonies 8:286.
THE SUPREME REVELATION 139

There is not a single reason for doubting the veracity of this statements.
Jesus confirmed the truth of it in His words to Philip, "Have I been so long
time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? he that hath seen
Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?"
John 14:9.
Jesus is the Word of God. This is a most important and significant title
whereby we are informed of Christ's special mission to mankind. It is a
serious mistake to limit Christ's role to that of a sacrifice by which the penal-
ty of sin was paid. He certainly came to pay that ransom and this aspect of
His work must never be minimized or disparaged, but it is just as important
to see the other tasks He came to fulfil. He also came to prove that any
human being who will permit Christ to take away the old nature and then
make him a partaker of the divine nature can, by living faith, keep all the
commandments to perfection.
But, great and essential as those works are, they are not sufficient to
end the great controversy without the third work; that of revealing God's
righteous character to the point where Satan's lies are shown for what
they are.
As a description of this work, the title, "The Word of God," is most ap-
propriate. Falling from the lips of one who is entirely honest and truthful,
words are an exact expression of the thinking and character of the speaker.
Upon this earth, Jesus Christ was the word of God. That is, He did not
speak His own words but those of the Father. He did not do His own deeds
but the deeds of the One Who had sent Him.
These great truths are not to be construed to mean that Christ did not
have a mind or an individuality of His own. "In Christ is life, original, unbor-
rowed, underived." The Desire of Ages, 530. He could certainly have
come to the earth to express His own mind, to do His own works, and to
reveal His own character. But, He came with a commission other than that.
He was sent to reveal the words, thoughts, character, and deeds of the
Father of righteousness. With perfect faithfulness, He fulfilled that commis-
sion, thereby assuring all that God can be seen and understood, simply by
looking to the life and teachings of His Son.
"He was the Word of God-God's thought made audible." The Desire
of Ages, 19. Therefore, He declared of His mission, "Believes! thou not
that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto
you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the
works." John 14: 10.
"Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man,
then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My
Father hath taught Me, I speak those things." John 8:28.
Therefore, great care should be taken to understand this aspect of
Christ's mission. The truth that Jesus was the very expression of the
thought and character of God should hold so firm a place in the mind, that
140 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

no matter what contradictory pictures of God may be presented, the only

acceptable ones are those in harmony with Christ's representations of God.
Already mentioned is the apparent difference between the image of
God as seen through the history of the Old Testament and Christ's revela-
tion of Him. Many are convinced that they are faced with a choice of which
picture of God they will accept, but, if the principle laid down above is
grasped and followed, it will be seen that the contradictory view of God,
as gained from the incorrect understanding of the Old Testament, must be
rejected. This is because it does not agree with the revelation of God as giuen
by Jesus Christ. His presentation of God's character is the clearest, the
most convincing, and the most easily understood.
In other words, those who wish to know what God is like, how He
relates Himself to the sinner and to the righteous, have only to look at God
in the face of Jesus Christ. Any ideas about God which find no reflection in
Christ's life and teachings must be unhesitatingly rejected as error. This can
only mean that belief cannot be retained in both the popular view of God
and Christ's presentation of Him. One or the other has to go. God is utterly
consistent and, therefore, His Word is consistent with itself. It cannot and
certainly does not present a concept in one place and the opposite in
another. This cannot be. Every searcher for truth must be convinced of this
as a provision motivating him to reject any tendency to accept contradictory
views of Scripture, while he searches with earnest perseverance for biblical
solutions which will bring them into perfect harmony.
In the New Testament, Christ gave us the true picture of God. Let that
truth be forever and without question established in the mind. As surely as
the Lord is consistent, then the Old Testament presentation of Him must
coincide with the New. The student must not rest until the two are
harmonized.
In working to achieve that harmony, begin where the truth is clearest.
This means that the starting point must be the life of Christ-not the history
of the Old Testament. For four thousand years, both human and angelic
minds failed to see the revelation of Himself which the Lord had sought to
transmit throughout all His dealings. Having failed to penetrate the devil's
sophistries during that time, He sent Christ to accomplish what had before
been impossible. It was impossible, not because of any shortcoming on
God's part, but because of the blindness and prejudice of men's darkened
minds and the sheer subtlety of Satan. It is much easier to spread a lie than
to establish the truth. Raising a doubt, or insinuating an evil motive is a
simple thing compared to the vindication of a righteous character.
Christ came, then, to settle forever the question of God's character. He
did it by bringing that which had been distant and obscure into the closest
contact with the human race. So intimate is the proximity of that spotless
life, that it is impossible not to see it as it is. There are none to argue that
Christ possessed any other than an impeccable righteousness in which is
 OLD TESTAMENT NEW TESTAMENT

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Every concept about God which ls not supported by Christ's life and teaching, is false.
142 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

embodied all that is most precious and desirable in any being, divine or
human. It would be impossible to give a more convincing argument than
that. What Christ came to accomplish, He was preeminently successful in
doing. The question of what God is in character, is forever settled.
To appreciate the full value of Christ's matchless presentation of God's
character, it is necessary to recognize how all-encompassing it was. Did
Christ come to present a partial view of God? Was it simply a shifting of em-
phasis? Did God, feeling that He had most satisfactorily convinced men in
the Old Testament of the sterner and uncompromising side of His nature,
leave Christ to emphasize the qualities of love, forgiveness, and mercy?
Such a view is adopted by many as a solution to what they feel would
otherwise be a contradiction between the messages of the Old and New
Testaments, but it is not the message of the Scriptures themselves. Therein,
it is asserted that Christ's manifestation of the Father was complete. It leaves
nothing more to be shown. This is not saying that everything about God's
character can be understood in one contact with the Saviour, for it will take
eternity to see all that Christ came to tell. What must be recognized and ac-
cepted as truth is that the revelation of God in the face of Christ is complete.
Therefore it is written: "A// that man needs to know or can know of God has
been revealed in the life and character of His Son." Testimonies 8:286.
This statement is specific, comprehensive, and accurate. It leaves no
space for the supposition that Christ revealed only a certain aspect of God's
character or even the larger part of it. It does not admit to the notion that
Christ's ministry provided a further stage in this revelation with final un-
folding to be given in the future. Rather, it confirms in language so simple
that no doubt is left of its meaning, that Christ came to give a manifestation
of God so complete that there is nothing more which can be shown.
Nothing was overlooked or omitted. There is no inquiry about God which
can be raised except it be answered in the life and teachings of the Saviour.
The work is complete. It has all been unfolded. All that remains is for the
eager, spiritual child of God through earnest study and prayer to come into
possession of this richest of all treasures. Some may counter that eternal life
is the richest of treasures. This is true and in its truth establishes this point,
for the knowledge of God is eternal life. "And this is life eternal, that they
might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast
sent." John 17:3.
Christ Himself declared the totality of His revelation of His Father.
"Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do:
for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." John
5:19.
This Scripture is a key in understanding Christ's ministry as the Word of
the living God. Let the precious truths contained therein be examined with
thorough care.
THE SUPREME REVELATION 143

Christ testified that He did nothing of Himself. Thus He denied that any
act of His during this earthly ministry was original with, or from, Himself.
Unlike men, who feel they must do something that is distinctly themselves,
Christ had come with only one great purpose in mind which was to do the
works and will of His Father. He had not come to glorify Himself, but the
Almighty God Who had sent Him.
Therefore, as certainly as His life, so filled with activity, contained
nothing done of Himself or from Himself, so all that He did was of God and
from God. It was the Father Who was acting out His life and character
through the medium of His beloved Son. Therefore, in Christ's every act,
we see God at work and know thereby exactly what the Father does in rela-
tion to His subjects, be they sinful or righteous.
This is confirmed in Christ's words, "For what things soever He doeth,
these also doeth the Son likewise." John 5:19.
The witness of Christ here is not simply in these terms, "What things He
doeth," but "What things soever He doeth." The addition of this word
means that everything the Father does is included. This is a word which car-
ries the idea of completeness, of infinitude. Therefore Christ is attesting that
everything the Father does, without any exceptions, the Son does likewise.
The student must not fail to observe the insertion of the word, "like-
wise." It adds significant meaning to the Saviour's message. It is impor-
tant that we believe that Christ did upon this earth, everything the Father
did. It is equally essential for us to know that He did it likewise as the Father
did it. Not only did He do all the Father did, but He did it exactly as the
Father did it.
Therefore, the revelation of God as given by Christ was not only com-
plete but it was a facsimile. If the Father Himself had come down in place of
Christ, the picture would have been so identical that it would have been im-
possible to tell them apart.
In a further attempt to argue that the revelation of God by Christ was in-
complete, ii may be claimed that during the earthly interval, Christ did not
have a full knowledge of the works of God. Such an argument is stifled in
the very next verse where Christ claimed complete knowledge of the ways
and works of God.
"For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth Him all things that Himself
doeth: and He will shew Him greater works than these, that ye may
marvel." John 5:20.
What Christ says, we believe, for He is Truth. By His testimony, then,
we know that everything the Father does, the Son did in the same way
precisely, and, inasmuch as there was nothing of His ways which the Father
did not reveal to the Son, that revelation is complete.
What a challenge this is to the old ideas about God. Every idea in which
God is seen as the destroyer of those who refuse His offers of mercy, can be
sustained only if we find Christ doing the same thing. What citadels of error
144 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

must collapse before the onslaught of this impregnable truth! What an en-
tirely new and glorious structure of living verities about the Father must now
arise from the wreckage of those edifices of lies!
Consider the time-honored theories about God. He is viewed as One
Who initially seeks the salvation of His creatures. From His position of
supreme authority, He calls upon men to repent of their sins and obey His
will. He demonstrates patience while men play with His appeals, but the
time comes when that patience is exhausted. Then He arises to perform His
"strange act." With terrifying power, wielded in His own hands, He wipes
the rebellious from the face of the earth, thus demonstrating that He is not a
God to be scorned. He thus asserts His will by the naked use of destructive
force, convincing men that they must obey Him or perish. This is the view of
the white-haired traditionalist.
Is this what God does? Is this a true picture of His patterns of behav-
ior? It is important to know the answer, for if it is not correct, then it is a lying
representation of God designed by the devil to separate us from Him and
to effect our destruction. Certainly, it is the time-honored view of God and
His ways, so that, if this were the determining factor, it would be the
truth. But, the fact that a belief is hoary with the dignity of age and
majority acceptance, does not make it correct.
There is another and altogether reliable means of testing the veracity, or
otherwise, of these concepts. That proof is offered in the life of Christ. He
came to show us exactly how God behaves in any situation. Therefore, if
this long-standing and popular concept of God is correct, it is certain that it
will be supported by Christ's doing the same thing in the same way.
But where can this pattern of behavior be found in His life upon this
earth?
It cannot be found. Search as exhaustively as possible. Investigate
every word and act. Listen to His inspired utterances. See Him dealing with
those who had rejected His last appeals of mercy. Behold Him receiving
abuse and mockery in return for love and mercy and never once can any
suggestion be found of His even entertaining an idea of doing as men have
understood God to do. Not even by a thought did He enter into any work
whereby He would use the mighty power available to Him to destroy the
impenitent.
Men have long seen God as having two faces. One of these is the
forgiving, merciful face which He turns toward man during the period of
pleading for their repentance, while the other is the face of thunder as He
is about to destroy him. Christ exhibited no such duality. Throughout His life
only one role was ever played by Him-that of a Sauiour and a Sauiour
only. Not once do we find Him lifting His hand to destroy anyone. He lived
only to bless, to heal, to restore, and to save.
"How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with
power: Who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of
the devil; for God was with Him." Acts 10:38
SUPREME REVEU\TION 145

"Christ stood at the head of humanity in the garb of humanity. So full of

sympathy and love was His attitude that the poorest was not afraid to come
to Him. He was kind to all, easily approached by the most lowly. He went
from house to house, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, comforting the
mourners, soothing the afflicted, speaking peace to the distressed .... He
came as an expression of the perfect love of God, not to crush, not to judge
and condemn, but to heal every weak, defective character, to save men
and women from Satan's power." Welfare Ministry, 53, 54.
"Constantly He went about doing good. By the good He accom-
plished, by His loving words and kindly deeds, He interpreted the gospel to
men." ibid., 56.
''Just as we trace the pathway of a stream of water by the line of living
green it produces, so Christ could be seen in the deeds of mercy that
marked His pathway at every step. Wherever He went, health sprang up,
and happiness followed wherever He passed. The blind and deaf rejoiced
in His presence. His words to the ignorant opened to them a fountain of
life. He dispensed His blessings abundantly and continuously. They were
the garnered treasures of eternity, given in Christ, the Lord's rich gift to
man." ibid., 57.
"Christ, the outshining of the Father's glory, came to the world as its
light. He come to represent God to men, and of Him it is written that He was
anointed 'with the Holy Ghost and with power,' and 'went about doing
good.' " Christ's Object Lessons, 416, 417.
This statement is very much to the point declaring that Christ came to
this earth to represent God to man and then telling us that in order to do
that, He went about doing good. How tragic that so many have failed to ap-
preciate that Christ is the exact and complete revelation of the Father of
lights. When this truth is seen as it should and must be, then it will be
understood that God is committed to only one work-that of going about
and doing good. He, together with Christ, is the great Healer, Restorer,
Saviour, and Friend of all mankind. It is not His way to destroy them. They
are destroyed only when they take themselves out of His care and beyond
the limits of His circle of protection.
"The life of Christ was filled with words and acts of benevolence, sym-
pathy, and love." Early Writings, 160.
So it was. It was not partly, but overflowingly filled so that there was
space for nothing else but that. The truth of the statements just quoted can
be verified by studying the inspired records of His life. Such a study will fail
to bring to light a single act of destruction or the administration of any
punishment.
Some may raise the objection that Christ cursed and destroyed the bar-
ren fig tree and that He drove the money changers out of the temple on two
occasions by using a whip to do so. Both these events will be studied in the
next chapter. The presentation of Scriptural evidences will show that the
146 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

wasting of the fig tree was not an act of destruction on Christ's part. It will be
shown that He related Himself to it exactly as He does to every sinner, by
permitting His protection and life to be withdrawn from it. Likewise, it will
be shown that it was not by personal, physical force that He was successful
in clearing the temple of the money changers.
These are the only events which could be offered as an exception to
the rule of Christ's ministry. When it is successfully shown that they are not
an exception, then it will be recognized that Christ did only good while
upon this earth. He came as a Saviour only. "For God sent not His Son to
condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved."
John 3:17.
This is the great and thrilling message from the life of Christ. It testifies
that throughout all the ages before He came, men held to a serious mis-
conception of God's character. Christ had come to dispel that error, and
by acting out the ways and works of His Father, declares, "Here is the cor-
rect view of My Father. This is what you are to believe that He is and does."
At this point, some will be thinking that if they accept Christ's life as the
full and complete picture of what God is, then how will they ever under-
stand God's actions in the Old Testament?
Let all such be earnestly encouraged to take hold of Christ's words by
faith. Jesus said that He had come to do the works of His Father. He has
told us that to see Him is to see the Father. Therefore, faith in those words
assures us that the picture of the Father which Christ came to give is the
truth in regard to the Father. Faith then comforts us with the happy thought
that there is a better and more beautiful interpretation of the Old Testament
Scriptures than we have had in the past. Thus we are filled with eager an-
ticipation as we return to the study of events prior to the first advent of
the Word of God.
Later, many of the great happenings of that period will be reexamined. To
the glad surprise of many of our readers, and we would hope all, it will be
seen that God is a Saviour and a Saviour only.
 147

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Urged To Destroy
God provided in Christ's life and teachings the complete and final
means whereby every theory about Him can be tested. By this means,
every inteipretation of God's behavior can be infallibly categorized as true or
false. Thus, for instance, the idea that God destroys those who defy Him,
is classified as erroneous.
If faith can take firrn hold upon the principle that Christ is the perfect
and incontrovertible expression of all that God is, the groundwork has been
thoroughly laid for revising the common inteipretations of the Old Testa-
ment stories. Confidence will be established in the truth that there is an
alternative version of what God actually did in those terrible situations.
To strengthen that confidence and expectation, further consideration
will now be given to the testimony of Jesus. When, upon this earth, He
showed no disposition to reach out in acts of punishment and destruction, it
was not because He was afforded no opportunity or power to do so. He
certainly had the power as was manifested in His miracles of healing, His
command of the wild storrns, and His ability to restrain the demoniacs.
There was no lack of occasion for the administration of punishment and
destruction, for He was continually confronted with those who despised His
offers of salvation, not only refusing to obey Him, but actually working in
open rebellion against Him.
More than this, He was urged to raise His hand and rain fire upon those
who had turned against Him.
"And it came to pass, when the time was come that He should be
received up, He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem,
"And sent messengers before His face: and they went, and entered into
a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for Him.
"And they did not receive Him, because His face was as though He
would go to Jerusalem.
"And when His disciples, James and John saw this, they said, Lord,
wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume
them, even as Elias did?
"But He turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what man-
ner of spirit ye are of.
"For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save
them. And they went to another village." Luke 9:51-56.
The Samaritans could have offered no greater insult to the Son of
God. The offer of hospitality to a stranger is regarded in the east as being an
obligation on all, and to refuse this is to indicate rejection of the worst kind.
If ever, from the human point of view, a sin needed to be punished to teach
a lesson of warning to all others, then this was it.
148 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

·~ames and John, Christ's messengers, were greatly annoyed at the in-
sult shown to their Lord. They were filled with indignation because He had
been so rudely treated by the Samaritans whom He was honoring by His
presence. They had recently been with Him on the mount of transfigura-
tion, and had seen Him glorified by God, and honored by Moses and Eli-
jah. This manifest dishonor on the part of the Samaritans, should not,
they thought, be passed over without marked punishment.
"Coming to Christ, they reported to Him the words of the people, tell-
ing Him that they had even refused to give Him a night's lodging. They
thought that a grievous wrong had been done Him, and seeing Mount
Carmel in the distance, where Elijah had slain the false prophets, they said,
'Wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and con-
sume them, as Elias did?' " The Desire of Ages, 487.
Those men were familiar with Old Testament history and they thought
they understood quite well the way in which God had dealt with similar of-
fences in the past. Therefore, they believed that they were asking Christ to
do just what they were sure God would have done under the cir-
cumstances. Their misunderstanding of His character led them to expect
Christ to endorse their suggestion.
Like millions before and since, those men had a concept of God and
His kingdom which differed in no way from earthly kings and their
kingdoms. For this reason they held to the expectation that Christ would
establish a kingdom by using force and compulsion. So firmly entrenched
was this idea that Christ's efforts to disillusion them proved fruitless. They
came to the last Passover making no provision whatsoever for Christ's re-
jection, a crown of thorns, and a crucifixion.
In order to understand the Samaritan incident, it is important to
recognize that the apostles did have a very wrong concept of God's
character and that their request to Jesus was made in harmony with that er-
roneous idea. They looked upon God as a majestic Being of judgment and
destruction who would miss no opportunity of asserting His authority by
making an example of the impenitent.
They believed that Christ was on the journey to His coronation in
Jerusalem so that if there was ever a time when men should have a signal
lesson of the peril of withholding homage, this was that moment. A few
lives sacrificed now would save many later.
If the disciples had been correct in their assessment of God's character;
if what they thought they understood Him as doing in the Old Testament
had been what He really had done, then, because Christ did only as and
what the Father did, He would have called down fire from heaven there
and then. This would have been a splendid opportunity for Christ to show
forth the character of God as the executioner of those who rebelled against
Him. Christ would have taken full advantage of such a splendid opportuni-
ty to show this aspect of God's policies.
URGED TO DESTROY 149

But Christ would not even consider doing any such thing. Instead, He
rebuked the disciples. "They were surprised to see that Jesus was pained by
their words, and still more surprised as His rebuke fell upon their ears, 'Ye
know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come
to destroy men's lives, but to save them.' And He went to another village."
ibid.
Christ did not use this opportunity to show forth the Father as an execu-
tioner because that is not God's character. But this does not mean that He
missed the chance of revealing the Father. Far from it. This was a golden
opportunity to do so and He made the most of it.
He instructed His followers that the course they proposed sprang from
a spirit foreign both to Him and His Father. Such a spirit and its fruit, not
being found in the divine nature, found its source in Satan's heart. It was his
way, not God's, to destroy those who failed to serve him.
Having denied identification with that spirit, Christ reiterated what He
had come to do. Close attention should be paid to what He said with care
taken not to read into it what He did not say. Explicitly, He declared, "For
the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."
He did not say, "The Son of man is come to save all who will be saved
and then to destroy the remainder."
But this is what the Saviour would have had to say if the accepted view
of God's ways is correct. Furthermore, He would have been obliged to
demonstrate the veracity of His words by destroying every Samaritan
whose rejection of Him was final. But He neither spoke such words nor per-
formed such actions.
Instead with great plainness, He said, "The Son of man is not come to
destroy men's lives ... "
Men set out to achieve with the best of intentions and noble principles,
only to find that they did not realize the complications which would arise.
Too often, they then compromise their principles and modify their plans to
meet the unexpected.
It is not so with God. At the outset, He is fully aware of every difficulty
which will develop. In the fullness of that foreknowledge, He outlines the
course He will pursue. With infallible consistency thereafter, He adheres to
His stated principles. No pressure can be mounted sufficient to cause the
least deviation.
When Christ said that He did not come to destroy men's lives, we can
be assured of the absolute reliability of those words. Therefore, we can
know that He did not destroy when He came. Further, inasmuch as He did
only what the Father did, then we can know that the Father does not come
to destroy us. Christ came only to save. Likewise, the Father comes to us as
a Saviour and a Saviour only.
"It is no part of Christ's mission to compel men to receive Him. It is
Satan, and men actuated by his spirit, that seek to compel the conscience.
150 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Under a pretense of zeal for righteousness, men who are confederate with
evil angels bring suffering upon their fellow men, in order to convert them
to their ideas of religion; but Christ is ever showing mercy, ever seeking to
win by the revealing of His love. He can admit no rival in the soul, nor ac-
cept of partial service; but He desires only voluntary service, the willing sur-
render of the heart under the constraint of love. There can be no more con-
clusive evidence that we possess the spirit of Satan than the disposition to
hurt and destroy those who do not appreciate our work, or who act con-
trary to our ideas." ibid.
The Samaritans did not appreciate Christ's work and they certainly
acted contrary to His ideas. Had He shown the least disposition to hurt or
destroy them, He would have given the strongest evidence that He pos-
sessed the spirit of Satan. It was because He did not possess that spirit
that He did not show any such disposition.
If we project this principle back to the Father's behavior, the same con-
clusions must be maintained. Let the popular concept of God's character be
thus tested.
It is true that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah did not ap-
preciate the works of God and they certainly acted contrary to His ideas.
The longer they lived, the greater the depths of apostasy to which they car-
ried this. In the meantime, they resisted wilfully and stubbornly every
outreach of God to bring them back into appreciation of His works and to
actions harmonizing with His ideas. Consequently, so popular theology
declares, God destroyed them by raining fire upon them. In the light of the
statement quoted above, if this is true, then God provided all with convinc-
ing evidence that He was actuated with the spirit of the devil.
There is no other conclusion which can be drawn but this. The only way
to deny this is to prove the statement quoted to be false, and this cannot be
done for it is the inspired word of God.
When the implications of the popular belief stand thus exposed, it is evi-
dent that there is the need for another better informed and more spiritual
investigation of God's performance in that holocaust. It is certain that God
does not possess the spirit of Satan. Therefore, it is equally certain that He
does not hurt nor destroy those who do not appreciate His work and act
contrary to His ideas.
The stand made by Christ against His apostles in the matter of the
Samaritans, is a valuable revelation of His utter refusal to be involved in any
kind of punitive work of destruction. He made it quite clear that such had no
part with Him and therefore no part with His Father in heaven. The life of
Christ utterly denies the idea that God destroys anyone for any reason.
There are, of course, those two instances mentioned in the previous
chapter which, on the surface, would seem to provide occasions when
Christ did stretch forth His hands to use force and to destroy. They are the
cursing of the fig tree and the expelling of the desecrators from the temple
precincts.
URGED TO DESTROY 151

Let the case of the wasted fig tree be considered first.

This occurred very late in Christ's ministry. A few days before the last
Passover, He had ridden triumphantly into Jerusalem. This was an act of
final appeal to the Jewish leaders, their rejection of which placed them
beyond any further hope of deliverance.
He spent the night in Bethany and the next morning returned to the
temple. "On the way He passed a fig orchard. He was hungry, 'and seeing
a fig tree afar off having leaves, He came, if haply He might find anything
thereon: and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves; for the time
of figs was not yet.'
"It was not the season for ripe figs, except in certain localities; and on
the highlands about Jerusalem it might truly be said, 'The time of figs was
not yet.' But in the orchard to which Jesus came, one tree appeared to be
in advance of all the others. It was already covered with leaves. It is the
nature of the fig tree that before the leaves open, the growing fruit appears.
Therefore this tree in full leaf gave promise of well-developed fruit. But its
appearance was deceptive. Upon searching its branches, from the lowest
bough to the topmost twig, Jesus found 'nothing but leaves.' It was a mass of
pretentious foliage, nothing more.
"Christ uttered against it a withering curse. 'No man eat fruit of thee
hereafter forever,' He said. The next morning, as the Saviour and His
disciples were again on their way to the city, the blasted branches and
drooping leaves attracted their attention. 'Master,' said Peter, 'behold,
the fig tree which Thou cursedst is withered away.' " The Desire of Ages,
581, 582.
''Jesus looked upon the pretentious, fruitless fig tree, and with mourn-
ful reluctance pronounced the words of doom. And under the curse of an
offended God, the fig tree withered away. God help His people to make an
application of this lesson while there is still time." The Review and Herald,
February 25, 1902.
The strong words in these statements are "uttered against it a withering
curse," and "under the curse of an offended God."
Now, pause and ponder what kind of picture these words call before
your mind. Practically anyone will find that this is what they see. The
unabated spirit of rejection and apostasy on the part of the children of Israel
had brought God to the point where He became offended, indignant,
wrathful, infuriated, and judgmental. So He cursed the fig tree whose
pretentious foliage was a symbol of the Jew's hypocrisy. This act of cursing
is seen as a direct sending forth of a stream of death from God to the tree.
In other words, God thus appears as one who specifically decides what the
fate of the tree will be and then administers judgment on the tree.
Having developed this picture, let another one now be projected. This
time let the words be used in describing the actions of the witch-doctor. He
utters against another man a withering curse and under the curse of the of-
152 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

fended witch-doctor, the man withers away and dies. This happens con-
tinually in the dark lands of heathenism. In Australian aboriginal land, the
curse is transmitted by pointing the bone. The victim towards whom the
bone is pointed invariably dies. The witch-doctor has decreed the death of
his victim and now he exercises his power for the direct purpose of transmit-
ting the curse of death to the man.
Except for fine details perhaps, there is no difference between these two
pictures. Some will say that there is a large difference, pointing to the
righteousness of God versus the sinister evilness of the witch-doctor's
character. This is to argue that God's righteousness gives His actions a sanc-
tity which the evil of the witch-doctor cannot give to the same actions.
But a good character produces good deeds. It cannot sanctify evil
deeds. Here is where thousands are deceived by a false philosophy. If this
mist is cleared away, and the actions of the witch-doctor, as such, are com-
pared with those which God is purported to do as in the paragraph above,
then it will be seen that there is no difference.
The Scriptures emphasize that God's ways are different from the ways
of men, and, therefore, particularly of witch-doctors. So we need to take a
deeper look at what Christ really did there at the fig tree, for we cannot be
satisfied with the popular view.
In the Word of God we shall find a very different view of this than is
common to men.
The disciples, even though they expected this of Christ, were surprised.
"Christ's act in cursing the fig tree had astonished the disciples. It seemed to
them unlike His ways and works. Often they had heard Him declare that
He came not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might
be saved. They remembered His words, 'The Son of man is not come to
destroy men's lives, but to save them.' Luke 9:56. His wonderful works had
been done to restore, never to destroy. The disciples had known Him only
as the Restorer, the Healer. This act stood alone. What was its purpose?
they questioned." The Desire of Ages, 582.
They were not then able to see and understand all things. The light on
this was to shine through for them later, but we are blessed with words of in-
spiration beyond that which they had, so we are without excuse if we do
not understand. The truth of what Christ did is spelled out in the following
statement.
"God 'delighteth in mercy.' 'As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no
pleasure in the death of the wicked.' Micah 7: 18; Ezekiel 33: 11. To Him
the work of destruction and denunciation of judgment is a 'strange work.'
Isaiah 28:21. But it is in mercy and love that He lifts the veil from the future,
and reveals to men the results of a course of sin.
"The cursing of the fig tree was an acted parable. That barren tree,
flaunting its pretentious foliage in the very face of Christ, was a symbol of
the Jewish nation. The Saviour desired to make plain to His disciples the
URGED TO DESTROY 153

cause and the certainty of Israel's doom. For this purpose He invested the
tree with moral qualities, and made it the expositor of divine truth. The
Jews stood forth distinct from all other nations, professing allegiance to
God. They had been specially favored by Him, and they laid claim to
righteousness above every other people. But they were corrupted by the
love of the world and the greed of gain. They boasted of their knowledge,
but they were ignorant of the requirements of God, and were full of
hypocrisy. Like the barren tree, they spread their pretentious branches
aloft, luxuriant in appearance, and beautiful to the eye, but they yielded
'nothing but leaves.' The Jewish religion, with its magnificent temple, its
sacred altars, its mitered priests, and impressive ceremonies, was indeed fair
in outward appearance, but humility, love, and benevolence were lacking.
"All the trees in the fig orchard were destitute of fruit; but the leafless
trees raised no expectation, and caused no disappointment. By these trees
the Gentiles were represented. They were as destitute as were the Jews of
godliness; but they had not professed to serve God. They made no boastful
pretensions to goodness. They were blind to the works and ways of God.
With them the time of figs was not yet. They were still waiting for a day
which would bring them light and hope. The Jews, who had received
greater blessings from God, were held accountable for their abuse of these
gifts. The privileges of which they boasted only increased their guilt.
"Jesus had come to the fig tree hungry, to find food. So He had come
to Israel, hungering to find in them the fruits of righteousness. He had
lavished on them His gifts, that they might bear fruit for the blessing of the
world. Every opportunity and privilege had been granted them, and in
return He sought their sympathy and cooperation in His work of grace. He
longed to see in them self-sacrifice and compassion, zeal for God, and a
deep yearning of soul for the salvation of their fellow men. Had they kept
the law of God, they would have done the same unselfish work that Christ
did. But love to God and man was eclipsed by pride and self-sufficiency.
They brought ruin upon themselves by refusing to minister to others. The
treasures of truth which God had committed to them, they did not give to
the world. In the barren tree they might read both their sin and its
punishment. Withered beneath the Saviour's curse, standing forth sere and
blasted, dried up by the roots, the fig tree showed what the Jewish people
would be when the grace of God was removed from them. Refusing to im-
part blessing, they would no longer receive it. 'O Israel,' the Lord says,
'thou hast destroyed thyself.' Hosea 13:9." ibid., 582, 583.
There are several key sentences in this statement which clarify Christ's
actions. "That barren tree ... was a symbol of the Jewish nation. The
Saviour desired to make plain to His disciples the cause and the certainty of
Israel's doom ... In the barren fig tree they might read both their sin and its
punishment ... the fig tree showed what the Jewish people would be when
the grace of God was removed from them."
154 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Thus Christ's act was a prophecy. He was declaring in advance just

what was going to happen to the Jewish nation. In order for the prophecy
to be accurate, Christ had to do to the fig tree exactly what He would later
do to Jerusalem. Prophecy is valueless if it is not accurate.
It is a principle that a prophecy is never fully understood until it has
been fulfilled. Jesus indicated this in these words, "And now I have told you
before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe."
John 14:29.
A careful study of the history of prophetic interpretation clarifies just
what Christ meant when He uttered those words. The more distant the
future prophecy stood, the less it was understood by God's children. For
instance, in the days following the apostolic era, the Christians of that day
understood the rise and fall of the four great empires, expected the partition
of the Roman Empire into ten great divisions, but did not understand the
one thousand, two hundred and sixty days, the image of the beast, or the
battle of Armageddon.
In like manner, while Luther, Knox, and their contemporaries saw that
the little horn was the papacy, they did not understand what was to happen
beyond that. But when the period of papal dominance was about to end,
Bible scholars on both sides of the Atlantic were able to know the very year
in which it would happen and said so just before it did. Immediately the in-
terest turned to Daniel 8: 14, but it was not until after the great disappoint-
ment that an understanding developed of the nature of the image of the
beast. 1
On the basis of the principle that the prophecy is never fully understood
until it is fulfilled, there is an obvious advantage in that we have both the
prophecy and the fulfillment of the parable of the cursed fig tree. The
prophecy was made by Christ just prior to His crucifixion, and the fulfill-
ment took place in the fall of Jerusalem in A.O. 70.
What took place in the fulfillment is very clear. As already noted from
The Great Controversy, 35, 36, God did not personally decree the nature
of the punishment which should and did befall the Israelites. Instead, He
sorrowfully and reluctantly submitted to their insistent demands that He
leave them to their own way, thus exposing them to whatever potential of
destruction was nearest to them. It proved in this case to be the enraged
Romans who, freed of any restriction imposed by God's presence, were
able to wreak their vengeance upon the shelterless Jews.
In order, then, for Christ to reveal in the prophecy what God would do
in its fulfillment, He must do the same in the prophecy. Therefore, Christ
simply withdrew His presence from the tree leaving it exposed to whatever
plague, blight, or other destructive force was waiting to consume it. Some

'These great truths may be studied in detail in The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Vol.
I-IV, by LeRoy Edwin Froorn, published by The Review and Herald Publishing Associa-
tion, Washington D.C. 1950.
URGED TO DESTROY 155

may say that it must have been very convenient for a destructive power to
have been overshadowing that particular tree so that it would serve Christ's
purpose when He withdrew His protective power from it.
Only those who do not appreciate the fact that a thousand unseen
dangers are lurking over us and all of nature every moment of the day,
would adopt such a view. It would not matter from what point or quarter
the Lord was to withdraw His protection. Destruction would come flooding
in, in some form or the other. Were we better aware of this, we would
maintain toward God a spirit of gratitude and dependence far in excess of
that which we now display.
In this particular case the attack came at the roots of the tree for the
Scriptures expressly say "And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw
the fig tree dried up from the roots." Mark 11:20.
Note also that it was not until the next day that the effects of the
withdrawing of the Creator's sustaining and protecting presence were ap-
parent, whereas we would expect that if the Lord struck the tree with His
own direct power, as so many suppose He did, then the tree would have
instantly been blasted as if struck with lightning. But it was not so.
The argument that the fulfillment clarifies the prophecy, does not mean
that the prophecy is wholly obscure. Rather, in the comments from The
Desire of Ages where the prophecy is spelled out in more detail, it is stated
quite clearly that " ... the fig tree showed what the Jewish people would
be when the grace of God was removed from them."
Thus the evidence is clear for those who will dig a little deeper, that
Christ did not strike the tree any more than He struck the Jews in the fall of
Jerusalem when the prophecy was fulfilled. Thus is removed any possible
reference to this event as an example of Christ using force or engaging in
an act of destruction.
Let an examination next be made of the driving out of the money
changers and traffickers in the courtyard of the temple. Once again, the
casual and superficial view of this incident is that Jesus drove these men out
by force, but a careful study reveals another picture altogether.
Here is the Scripture record of it:
"And the Jews' Passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,
"And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves,
and the changers of money sitting:
"And when He had made a scourge of small cords, He drove them all
out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the
changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
"And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make
not My Father's house a house of merchandise.
"And His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of Thine
house hath eaten Me up." John 2:13-17.
156 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The natural human tendency is to interpret the words, "He droue them
out," in the same way as they would be understood if used to describe
human behavior. No greater mistake could be made, for the ways of God
as revealed in Christ's life are so different from men's ways. Christ drove
them out, it is true, but not as man would do it by dependence on physical
power or force. Let there be the continual reminder that "Compelling
power is found only under Satan's government. The Lord's principles are
not of this order." The Desire of Ages, 759.
Therefore, compelling power or the use of physical force to achieve
obedience is never found under God's government. Inasmuch, then, as
Christ was fully under God's government, even to being the perfect expres-
sion of that government, no physical force was ever used by Him to achieve
obedience. So, Christ did not drive those men out as other men would
drive them out. He did not do it by physical force at all.
A little thought would show the infeasibility of His attempting to do it
by physical force. He was only one man pitted against a considerable
number of wily, hardened opponents. How many there were, we are not
exactly told, but they could have numbered a hundred or more. While their
number is not revealed, their characters are. They were men whose souls
were calloused with the sinful traffic of extortion. They feared no man on
earth and would think nothing of resorting to physical violence to preserve
their treasured gains. For Christ to have attempted their expulsion by
physical power would have been a very rash and foolish enterprise.
How did He do it?
Christ stood before them that day in the role of the eternal and righteous
Judge. Those men knew that He was reading the closely guarded secrets
of their lives. They were conscious that His eye was seeing beneath the
pretentious garments of righteousness with which they had sought to
cover the sickness of their sin-diseased souls.
Such the sinner cannot stand. One compelling desire fills him. He flees
in abject terror from the presence of the Righteous One. They did it there in
the temple courts and they will do it again when the Saviour returns in the
clouds of heaven. Finally they will do it when they stand arraigned before
the Judge of the heavens and the earth in the last and final day.
The truth of this is laid out in these words:
"And why did the priests flee from the temple? Why did they not stand
their ground? He Who commanded them to go was a carpenter's son, a
poor Galilean, without earthly rank or power. Why did they not resist Him?
Why did they leave the gain so ill acquired, and flee at the command of
One Whose outward appearance was so humble?
"Christ spoke with the authority of a king, and in His appearance, and
in the tones of His voice, there was that which they had no power to resist.
At the word of command they realized, as they had never realized before,
their true position as hypocrites and robbers. When divinity flashed through
URGED TO DESTROY 157

humanity, not only did they see indignation on Christ's countenance; they
realized the import of His words. They felt as if before the throne of the
eternal Judge, with their sentence passed on them for time and for eter-
nity." The Desire of Ages, 162.
It was the awful power of burning condemnation that drove those men
from the presence of Christ. They could not endure it. No man ever can.
They will always flee in terror from the presence of the Almighty Judge of
the earth. God does not need to raise a single finger of physical power to
drive them away. When the time comes that He must stand before them in
that role, they will do nothing else but flee.
Thus we need have no misgivings of the perfection of the revelation of
God in Christ. Throughout His life Christ made no concessions whatsoever
to the principles of Satan's character. Flawlessly He showed that "God does
not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the sentence against trans-
gression; but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy to themselves, to reap
that which they have sown." The Great Controuersy, 36. He came to
reveal God as a Saviour and a Saviour only and He did it to perfection.
There is not a single instance in Christ's life in which any other character but
this is shown. That life gives the total lie to the long-held view that God does
destroy the finally impenitent. He does not do this but rather leaves them to
their own desires. This means that they stand without protection from the
onslaught of the grim reaper.
If every person in the world could see God in Christ with the under-
standing that Christ gave a full and undimmed revelation of the Father; if
they could know that "All that man needs to know or can know of God has
been reuealed in the life and character of His Son," Testimonies 8:286;
they would reject every concept which sees God as One Who rises up and
destroys those who are disobedient. They would see Him only as a
Saviour, Who, while He cannot condone and support sin, will not destroy
those who cherish it, but will accept their freedom to choose their own way
and perish.
May the Lord open the eyes of every reader to see God as He is to be
seen in the face of Jesus Christ, "the Word of God-God's thought made
audible."
158

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Magnifying The Law

There is a direct and inseparable connection between Christ's role as
the Revelator of the Father's character and as the Magnifier of God's law.
Scriptures have already been quoted which state that Christ came to show
men the Eternal One as He really is. Now is presented this text in regard to
the work of Christ and the law.
"The Lord is well pleased for His righteousness' sake; He will magnify
the law, and make it honorable." Isaiah 42:21.
It would be a serious mistake to think of this as being a separate and dif-
ferent work from that of the unfolding of God's character. "His law is a
transcript of His own character, and it is the standard of all character."
Christ's Object Lessons, 315. Thus is made plain the truth that the
character of God is directly and accurately expressed in His law. To see one
is to see the other. This means that God, Christ, and the law are three iden-
tical entities. Between them there is no difference even though it is difficult
to grasp this. There is the inclination to think of God as a Being of living
power with infinite possibilities of exercising His will. We tend to see the law
as being a much lesser thing, merely the spoken will of the supreme ruler
and certainly not something which is the expression of Himself.
The mind must be re-educated away from such ideas. The law of God
is to find its true level in the thinking of those through whom the Lord will
finish His work. They are to understand that the law of God is as high, as
great, as infinite and wonderful as Himself.
"The law of God is as sacred as God Himself. It is a revelation of His
will, a transcript of His character, the expression of divine love and
wisdom." "The broken law of God demanded the life of the sinner. In all
the universe there was but One Who could, in behalf of man, satisfy its
claims. Since the divine law is as sacred as Himself, only One equal with
God could make atonement for its transgression. None but Christ could
redeem fallen man from the curse of the law and bring him again into har-
mony with Heaven." Patriarchs and Prophets, 52, 63.
"The law of God is as holy as He is holy, as perfect as He is perfect. It
presents to men the righteousness of God." Mount of Blessing, 54.
Therefore, to place God on a level of infinite greatness, while relegating
the law to a lesser plane, is to hold a position of serious error. They must
be thought of as being as holy, as great, as infinite, and as sacred as one
another.
Likewise, the understanding that Jesus came to reveal the Father, is to
comprehend that Christ came to magnify the law. These were not two
separate tasks to be accomplished in tum or even in concert. They were
MAGNIFYING THE LAW 159

one and the same work. The revealing of God's character was the
magnification of the law.
Great stress has been placed upon the truth that the last conflict will be
over the law of God. This has not been overdone. Despite all the emphasis,
there has not yet been conveyed the real significance of the place of the law
in that final struggle. Generally, it is thought that the issue will simply be
proving that the seventh day is the Sabbath, with the corresponding ex-
posure of Sunday as being the day of the man of sin. But the issues will go
vastly deeper than this. It is true that Sabbath versus Sunday will be the
focal point of issue, but not at a merely technical level. Furtherrnore, the
whole of the law will be contested, not just one point of it.
The deepest spiritual implications and ramifications of the law will be
explored, presented, and controverted. Because the law is the very expres-
sion of the righteousness or character of God, the issue will involve the
question of how God keeps that law. Does He kill, destroy, punish, an-
nihilate, and execute? The time will have come for the final settlement of the
great questions of the law and the character of God to be made before the
second advent.
"From the very beginning of the great controversy in heaven, it has
been Satan's purpose to overthrow the law of God. It was to accomplish
this that he entered upon his rebellion against the Creator; and though he
was cast out of heaven, he has continued the same warfare upon the earth.
To deceive men, and thus lead them to transgress God's law, is the object
which he has steadfastly pursued. Whether this be accomplished by casting
aside the law altogether, or by rejecting one of its precepts, the result will be
ultimately the same. He that offends 'in one point,' manifests contempt for
the whole law; his influence and example are on the side of transgression;
he becomes 'guilty of all.'
"In seeking to cast contempt upon the divine statutes, Satan has per-
verted the doctrines of the Bible, and errors have thus become incor-
porated into the faith of thousands who profess to believe the Scriptures.
The last great conflict between truth and error is but the final struggle of the
long-standing controversy concerning the law of God. Upon this battle we
are now entering,-a battle between the laws of men and the precepts of
Jehovah, between the religion of the Bible and the religion of fable and
tradition." The Great Controversy, 582.
If every believer in the Word of God could understand how deep and
extensive this controversy over God's character and law will be, he would
enter into a far more thorough and diligent preparation to take his place in
that final and finishing battle.
But why should there be a controversy over the law of God? Surely the
declarations of Scripture are clear enough! Surely there is need for nothing
more than to prove that the ten commandments mean just what they say!
The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, not the first or any other. Such
160 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

words are clear beyond question. In fact they are so clear that each of the
Sunday keeping churches have admitted that the seventh day is the divinely
designated day of worship.
These are worthy questions. The fact is that the declarations of the law
are clear and plain, yet despite that and the admissions of the churches that
the seventh day is the Sabbath of God, they still observe the counterfeit day
of rest and think they justify themselves in doing so from the Scriptures.
In other words, while they admit that the law says the seventh day is the
Sabbath, they declare that the words mean other than they say. There are
the words and there is their magnification of those words. They live by the
latter, not the former.
Exactly as men have provided a distorted magnification of the Sabbath
commandment for themselves, so they have for the others. Surprising as it
may seem, the simple commandments, "Thou shalt not steal, bear false
witness or kill," have one meaning in the Bible, and another in the
philosophy of man. This erroneous concept has its origin in Satan who has
systematically inculcated these ideas into human minds for the express pur-
pose of undermining faith in the law and of thereby fostering disobedience
to it.
It was to correct this distorted understanding of God's law that Christ
came to magnify the law and to make it honorable. To magnify is to
enlarge so that details previously obscure and difficult, may be seen with
unmistakable clarity for what they are. Hidden details are brought to light
and no possible misapprehension of them remains.
Take a drop of water and gaze at it with the naked eye. There is little
to be seen. Then place it beneath the lens of a high-powered microscope and
wonders are revealed which were not even imagined previously. Any argu-
ment as to what is contained in that particular water droplet is settled by the
magnification provided by the instrument.
So, in the Old Testament, there is found the direct word of God which
says, "Thou shalt not kill, steal, or bear false witness." Of those words there
are two separate and opposed magnifications. There is the one provided by
Satan and generally accepted by man. It is a magnification as misshapen as
that produced by a lens warped out of normal symmetry. No one can
possibly understand the real truth of the law and character of God through
this medium.
Then there is another magnification as provided by Jesus Christ. This
magnification is so powerful that every detail is brought to view leaving no
remaining questions. It brings us to the position where "All that man needs to
know or can know of God has been reuea/ed in the life and character of
His Son." Testimonies 8:286. The magnification has been provided. Christ
is the microscope. But the instrument must be used. Advantage of the pro-
vision must be taken, or we shall be left as much in the darkness of ig-
norance as if it had never been provided.
MAGNIFYING TI-IE U\W 161

It is not enough to read the ten commandments and assume that their
meaning is understood. There is no question as to what the words are, but
there does remain the query of what God meant when He used those
words. Men have their version, learned under Satan's tutelage, to counter
which the Lord has provided His interpretation in the life of Christ. It re-
mains with each individual to decide which of those two he will accept as
the Word of God to him. Sadly enough, the average person does not even
question the version given by Satan. To him it is the logical and only way to
relate to the law.
Let a comparative consideration be given to the magnification of the
law as it exists on one hand in the minds and practices of men and on the
other in the life of Christ, the Word of God.
Man actually injects another word into the Scriptures. He says that the
law really means, "Thou shalt not lie, steal, or kill-unlawfully." Or he will
express it in these words, "Thou shalt commit no murder," a distinction in
meaning being made between the words kill and murder. Webster's Third
New International Dictionary defines "murder" in this way: "To kill (a
human being) unlawfully and with premeditated malice or willfully,
deliberately, and unlawfully."
I once sat in a courtroom in support of a friend who had accidentally
killed a person in a road smash. Because of the circumstances, the state
was charging him with the death. I was particularly struck with the wording of
the indictment in which he was accused of having killed the other person
unlawfully. This made it quite clear that in human minds there is a distinction
between lawful and unlawful killing.
There are three situations at least in which men regard it as being lawful
to kill another human being.
Human laws will leave a man uncondemned and free, if he kills in self-
defense or in defence of others. All he has to do is satisfy the court that the
only way in which he could preserve his own life or the lives of others was to
kill the assailant.
Early in 1976, a man in southern Queensland, Australia, attacked a
small group of people and began to kill them one by one. He had taken the
lives of the first two or three, when a young woman snatched up a gun and
killed the assailant, thus saving her own and the lives of others not yet
slaughtered.
When the case came before the judge, he quickly exonerated the girl
with warm praise for her courage and resourcefulness. She, according to
his judgment, had killed lawfully, and there were none to dispute him.
This is not an isolated case. At any time if the slayer can prove that he
was forced to kill his attacker in order to save his own life, he will be judged
a killer within the bounds of the law and will be set free.
The second situation in which killing is judged to be lawful is when a
person has been tried and found guilty of taking human life. The State then
claims every right to take his life in return. This, they say, is lawful killing.
162 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The third is when an alien army invades the borders. Men regard it as
being perfectly lawful, necessary, and expedient to slaughter as many of the
enemy as necessary to prevent the invasion from being successful.
Men of every nation on earth throughout human history accept these
as working principles. To man's mind, not only are they right, but they are the
only solution to the problems involved in these situations. They firmly
believe they can do it this way and still be keepers of the law. In fact, high
honors are heaped upon those men in war who can destroy the most.
To ensure that men never weaken in these convictions, the whole
educational system, built up under Satan's direction, is geared to sys-
tematically, continually, and persistently reiterate these ideas. Never
in history has Satan been better equipped to do so than in this age. Now
he has at his command not just the verbal story teller, the limit of his facilities
in the beginning, but the stupendous volume of cheap novels, the radio,
the movie theatre and now most present and insistent of all teachers, the
television screen.
As people sit before these media, they think that they are being harm-
lessly entertained, but in actual truth they are being thoroughly educated
in Satan's doctrines. With every appreciative viewing of the usual televi-
sion story, the watcher is more firmly entrenched in erroneous notions of
God's character.
This is made apparent as soon as a candid analysis of the message of
the movie is conducted. Here is the typical plot. It is found with minor varia-
tions in western, detective, police, military, espionage, and other tales. The
message is always that the law must be broken in order to uphold it.
The film introduces the watcher to a segment of society. Maybe it is a
ranch family or a small town as in the western, or a town or farmhouse in
the case of a war story.
Care is taken to show this capsule of humanity as a clean, respectable,
law-abiding group of people. There is love, trust, and cooperation be-
tween them. A little friction may intrude at times, but that is purely incidental
and designed to show that they are not super-humans but everyday folk
just like the viewers. The onlooking audience has no difficulty in identifying
with the people on the screen. A sense of fellowship and brotherhood is
established.
Then the lawbreaker is introduced. In the westerns, he appears as a
dark man, clad in black clothes, riding a black horse, and armed with black
guns. With him is a gang of men who look like their leader. They are hard-
faced, tough, callous, and ruthless, with a total disregard for human life.
Any who stand in their way, great or small, are simply gunned down. They
achieve their ends by lying, stealing, and killing.
As they direct their attacks against the happy segment of society
previously introduced, the audience is apprehensive and indignant, the
more so as the victims are powerless to protect themselves from the
MAGNIFYING TiiE LAW 163

desperadoes. Every instinct and desire of the audience clamors for the
punishment of the outlaws.
Up till this point the universal problem of man has been presented with
truthful accuracy. The people of this world, generally speaking, are, on
the surface, law-abiding people. They are good neighbors, help each other,
and are clean living. They are pictured in the film by the ranch or village as
the case may be.
Just as those people are threatened by a desperado and his gang, so
today, the world lies under the threat of Satan and his followers. Man is en-
tirely unable to rescue himself from the power of the devil and his angels.
Thus Satan has presented the problem of the human family in a truly
accurate form. As a problem requires a solution, one is offered in every film
presentation. In the western it is the arrival of a lone champion on a
beautiful white horse. In contrast to the robber, he is dressed in white
clothes, has a handsome, open face, carries white guns, and is stirred to the
depths as he realizes the plight of the oppressed. Alone and unassisted, at
any sacrifice even to life itself, he pledges to set them free and to relieve the
earth forever from the scourge of the terrorist. For his services he seeks
neither fame nor reward. He does it as a mission, his only motivation being
that of dedicated service.
So far in the story there is the continued portrayal of the truth, for just
as the solution to the film story is found in the advent of a champion of self-
sacrificing spirit and character, so Jesus Christ came in that way to redeem
mankind. Like the hero in the story, His soul was stirred with indignation as
He beheld the predicament of man, and He resolved that He would save
him, no matter what the cost. He would not do it for price nor reward, but
only from the motivation of love and mercy.
It has long been an understood device of selling to have the customer
agreeing with you as you move forward to the clinch. So Satan has the au-
dience agreeing with him as he spells out that which is the truth at first.
Then, when all are moving forward together, he craftily introduces the de-
viant lines of teaching. He is gleeful as he sees millions of people go right
along with his philosophy to the end.
The great white hero with his pearl-handled guns rides forth on his
white charger to deal with the liars, thieves, and murderers. But see how he
does it! In order to outwit the liars, he lies; to catch the thieves, he steals, for
if he suddenly needs a horse, saddle, or rifle, he will simply help himself to
another person's; and to end the murderous reign of the killers, he kills.
When he is finished, the lawbreaking is ended. The law has been up-
held. But, the message of the film story has been that in order to achieve
this, the law had to be broken. Only by lying, stealing, and killing could
lying, stealing, and killing be brought to an end. The law had to be broken
in order to ensure that it was kept. This is Satan's message. He does not say
that the law is wholly bad and should be entirely done away with. He ad-
164 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

SATAN'S CLASS IN SESSION

More than mere entertainment
This is Education

mits that under certain circumstances it is good and should be obeyed. But.
he continues, that law is not perfect for there are situations where it must be
disobeyed in order to solve the problems arising.
Both evil men and their master, the devil, want a law. They want it
composed so that it protects them from other men but not other men from
them. It is impossible to have such a law for every man. But it is possible for
a privileged class to have it at the expense of the masses. Consider the
despotic king of old time. If he coveted the lands. house, wife. slaves, horse,
or even the life of any one of his subjects, he took it, but let any of the sub-
jects take a fish from the king's pool or a brace of quail from his meadows.
and he was punished with anything up to death. The law protected the king
from the people, but it did not protect the people from the king. This is
the way the devil and man want it, but it is impossible to have it that way
and yet provide equal justice and happiness for all.
Such, then, is the message contained in Satan's educational program.
In his classrooms there is no dissent. Study, if you have the opportunity.
the faces and the feelings of the watchers before the flickering screens. As
the villain lies, steals, and murder.;, they are indignant and long to see him
punished. But, when the hero lies, steals, and murder.;, they applaud. They
honor him for what he has done and consider him very smart to use such
weapons in his campaign.
Were you to propose to the viewers after the show is ended that. since
they called for the punishment of the villain for lying. stealing. and killing.
MAGNIFYING THE LAW 165

should not the hero be punished in the same way for his lying, stealing and
killing, the idea would be so novel to them that they might well regard you
as being blighted with a questionable mental condition. Their reaction
would show as ridicule or even hostility. To them the villain was unlawfully
lying, stealing and killing, whereas the hero was doing it lawfully. There-
fore, the villain was a criminal, but the hero was not.
Why do men take such an attitude toward this problem? There is a very
real psychological reason for it. As noted above, every man consciously or
subconsciously longs to be in the position where he is protected by law but
does not have to keep it himself. He identifies himself with the victims in the
film story, and therefore obtains satisfaction from being vicariously in the
situation where he is not bound by the law not to lie, steal, and kill. He is
happy to have the experience where the villain is not protected by law
from him.
The feeling is accentuated by the sense of impotent frustration felt by
the average person as they live under the shadow of the massive govern-
ment machinery which can hit them as hard as it wishes but against which
they have no redress. They feel that the law protects the government from
them but not them from the government. Now they are placed in the world
of make-believe, in a situation where this is reversed, and they make the
most of it. Furthermore, it gives them a sense of security, for they are
assured as to what they would do if they faced such a situation in real life.
Such is Satan's and, in turn, man's magnification of the law which
states, "Thou shalt not kill, lie, or steal." We know that it is of the devil
because of the media through which it is promoted, and because such a
philosophy finds no place in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. We
know that God has no part in the movie business. That is entirely the instru-
ment of Satan who is not about to use his machinery to educate in the ways
of God or to set forth the truth regarding His wonderful character. That is
the last thing Satan would ever begin to do.
Having examined the magnification of the law as set forth by the devil,
the time has come to consider its enlargement as presented by Jesus Christ.
Without doubt or question, we know that whatever that will be, it will be the
truth, for Christ is the very fountain of truth.
Jesus showed that there is no such thing as lawful and unlawful lying,
stealing, and killing. He lived His whole life upon this earth devoted to
ending all such. Yet, in order to accomplish that, He never once lied, stole, or
killed. Never, never, never!
With no danger of losing, anyone can lay out the challenge to all and
sundry to search Christ's life through and through to find, if they can, one
single instance where Jesus ever told a lie, ever stole the property of
another, or took anyone's life. It will be impossible to uncover a single such
instance. Under every circumstance, every possible pressure, threat or
danger, Jesus told only the truth, respected the property of all, and took the
lives of none.
166 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

In doing so He demonstrated forever how we are to keep that law and

how, in turn, the Father and He keep that law. He showed that when God
said in a few simple words, "Thou shalt not lie, steal, or kill," He did not add
provisos and exceptions. No matter what the circumstances, pressures,
dangers, threats, needs, or any other seeming justification for breaking
those commands might be, the words were still "Thou shalt not ... "No
distinction whatever, exists in God's mind between lawful and unlawful kill-
ing. With God there is only unlawful killing.
God has spoken in His Word, saying, "The law of the Lord is per-
fect . .. "Psalm 19:7. It could, of course, be none other than this, seeing
that it is the transcript of the character of the Eternal. He is perfection in the
absolute sense. Therefore, His law is likewise perfect. Such perfection does
not mean that it is the perfect answer for certain situations, but needs to be
modified or even abrogated to suit other situations. On the contrary, it
means that no matter what circumstance, situation, or pressure may arise,
that law is still the one and only code for perfect behavior.
When any person claims that it is lawful to kill when the command-
ments so distinctly say, "Thou shalt not kill," he is in that moment charging
the law, and the God of that law, as being imperfect, less than infinite,
and therefore less than God. It is also to deny the whole witness of Christ's
ministry. It is to declare the truth of God a lie.
The point which the devil is bent on making is that the law must be
broken in order for it to be maintained. The life and teachings of Christ
deny this. So does the message of God in the Old Testament. There is the
story of two people who adopted the policy of breaking the law in order to
ensure that it should be kept. That no man might be mistaken as to God's
attitude about it, there is also appended the way in which God related
Himself to their actions.
It is the story of Jacob and his mother in their quest for the promised
birthright. Before the birth of the two children, God, farseeing with infinite
accuracy the character of each, declared that Jacob should have the birth-
right instead of the elder son, Esau.
"And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two
manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; the one people shall
be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger."
Genesis 25:23.
Rebekah clearly and correctly understood that the last sentence in this
verse was a promise to Jacob that the birthright should be his, not Esau's.
"Rebekah remembered the words of the angel, and she read with clearer
insight than did her husband the character of their sons. She was convinced
that the heritage of divine promise was intended for Jacob. She repeated to
Isaac the angel's words; but the father's affections were centered upon
the elder son, and he was unshaken in his purpose.
MAGNIFYING TiiE LAW 167

"Jacob had learned from his mother of the divine intimation that the
birthright should fall to him, and he was filled with an unspeakable desire
for the privileges which it would confer." Patriarchs and Prophets, 178.
God's selection of Jacob to inherit the birthright was not an arbitrary
one. The directions given by God, were done so on the foreknowledge that
Esau would disqualify himself from the right to its possession. Without
question, Isaac should have accepted the decree made on this basis,
especially when Esau's behavior confirmed the rightness of God's deci-
sion. The law stipulated that should a young man marry among the heathen,
then he automatically forfeited all right to the birthright. This Esau had done
polygamously, to make matters worse. "And Esau was forty years old
when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath
the daughter of Elon the Hittite.
"Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and Rebekah." Genesis
26:34, 35.
Upon Esau's doing this, Isaac, in strict obedience to the law, ought to
have relinquished his paternal preferences for his elder son and prepared to
confer the birthright blessing on Jacob. But he allowed his affections to
overrule his conscience so that he chose his own way in preference to the
clear will of God.
Rebekah exerted all the influence she could to dissuade him from his
fixed determination to confer the birthright blessing on Esau. She pointed
out the disinterest in, and disregard, for the spiritual responsibilities involved
in the birthright which marked Esau's life. She reminded him of the
prophecy made before the boys were born, and of Esau's marriage to the
heathen. She pointed to the contrasting spirit, attitude, and consecrated life
of Jacob, but all her reasonings and pleadings were to no avail.
The only thing she did achieve was a deferment of the day when the
blessing was to be bestowed. But as the infirmities of age advanced on
Isaac, he realized that if he did not pronounce the blessing soon, it would be
too late. He determined on a secret session rather than the joyous family af-
fair which was the usual way. He called Esau and instructed him to take his
weapons and catch his favorite venison. They would have a little feast
together after which the son would receive the prized blessing. It is to be
noted that Esau's interest lay in the material blessing, for the spiritual had no
attraction for him. Rebekah was listening in as the supposedly secret in-
structions were being given, and with a chill in her heart she realized the
implications of what her husband was about to do.
"Rebekah divined his purpose. She was confident that it was contrary
to what God had revealed as His will. Isaac was in danger of incurring the
divine displeasure and of debarring his younger son from the position to
which God had called him. She had in vain tried the effect of reasoning
with Isaac, and she determined to resort to stratagem." Patriarchs and
Prophets, 180.
168 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

With great clarity she saw that Isaac was about to act in direct opposi-
tion to the stipulations of the law, and thereby incur the divine displeasure.
She saw that by so doing, Jacob would be deprived of the blessing which
was rightfully his. Therefore, she reasoned, she must prevent Isaac from
breaking the law, both for his own good and for the good of Jacob.
She had worked hard for years to forestall such an action by appealing
to Isaac. That had proved unsuccessful, so she must now use other means.
To what method did she turn?
In order to save Isaac from being a lawbreaker, she became a law-
breaker herself and induced Jacob to become one with her. They turned
from God's way to man's way. They acted out the same principles or lack of
them, as portrayed by the heroes of the silver screen, the novel, or any
other form of fiction. It was an evil sowing which brought them only a bitter
reaping. It is true that they did achieve their objective to a point. Jacob did
obtain the spiritual blessing, but the material wealth and power fell into
Esau's hands just the same.
"Jacob and Rebekah succeeded in their purpose, but they gained only
trouble and sorrow by their deception. God had declared that Jacob should
receive the birthright, and His word would have been fulfilled in His own
time had they waited in faith for Him to work for them. But like many who
now profess to be children of God, they were unwilling to leave the matter
in His hands. Rebekah bitterly repented the wrong counsel she had given
her son; it was the means of separating him from her, and she never saw his
face again. From the hour when he received the birthright, Jacob was
weighed down with self-condemnation. He had sinned against his father,
his brother, his own soul, and against God. In one short hour he had made
work for a lifelong repentance. This scene was vivid before him in after-
years, when the wicked course of his own sons oppressed his soul." ibid.
Rebekah and Jacob broke the law in order to keep it from being
broken. They were wholly wrong in so doing, as is proved by the sad
punishment they had to bear for their mistake. Let not their mistake and its
consequent troubles be of no value to those of us facing the final confronta-
tion over what the law really means. Let it be that we shall see with great
clarity that the law cannot be upheld by its being broken.
Those words, "Thou shalt not bear false witness, steal, or kill," set forth
the pattern of behavior no matter what the circumstances, pressures, threats,
demands, necessities, advantages, or whatever else it may be. In God's
kingdom and under His principles the end can never, never, never justify
the means. Therefore, in every situation, the law, and not expedience, is
to be consulted and obeyed. When God has a people who will stand by
these principles and be guided in this way, He will have a people whom
He can trust to finish the work and it will then be finished.
 169

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Go The Second Mile

Christ did not confine His revelation of the Father to actions alone. He
was not a silent performer. What He taught from day to day was an
augmenting and confirming witness to the same effect. By His words, He
magnified the law as effectively as He did by His living.
His first great sermon was a clear statement of what the law really
meant, alerting the people to know that that which "was said by them of old
time," was not the version He had come to bring them.
But the people who gathered to hear that wonderful sermon on the
mount recorded in Matthew 5- 7, came with erroneous concepts of the law
and the kingdom of God. They had been raised up to know man's way so
that their expectation of the Messiah's kingdom was quite different from
what it would be in fact. Jesus knew He was confronting preconceived
ideas and opinions to which He could make no concession. He knew what
the people expected and wanted to hear, but He told them only what they
needed to hear.
Knowing from the outset of His discourse that He was about to tell them
differently from what they wished and expected to hear, He was aware that
this would lead them to judge Him as casting aside the law. So, before He
began to explain the law as He had given it and would live it, He warned
that, even though it might appear so to them, He had not come to do away
with the law, but to establish it.
He said to them, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the
prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
"For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
"Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments,
and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of
heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called
great in the kingdom of heaven.
"For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the
kingdom of heaven." Matthew5:17-20.
The scribes and Pharisees regarded themselves as being the greatest ex-
ponents of the law of God in existence. They believed that they taught it
and lived it to perfection. They regarded themselves as being models of
righteous behavior. Their claim was not wholly untrue for their lives were
as fine an example as can be found of living the law according to man's in-
terpretation of how it should be kept. It was to deliver men from their con-
cept of law-keeping and to replace it with the true one, that Christ came to
this earth.
170 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

So, as He progressed through His sermon, repeatedly He swept aside

the law as they understood it to read, and replaced it with the law as God
intended that it should be read and obeyed. The hearers' evaluation of
Christ's presentation and position would depend then on their having a
spiritual perception of what He was saying.
If they were blinded to the reality of the living truth, then they could
only see the law as interpreted and magnified by man. This would lead
them to regard Christ as a lawbreaker, even though He had warned them
that He had come to establish the law.
On the other hand, if they could see what He was really trying to say,
then they would understand that He had come as the one true Magnifier of
the holy law. It would be a whole new field of thought. Time would be
needed to make adjustment, but the beauty of its truth would be thrilling
and vitalizing.
Great profit would be gained by studying every statement made by
Christ in this sermon, but time and space will not be taken to do this here. A
selection will be made of that passage which reveals as well, if not better
than any of the others, the principles of the law as Christ espoused them.
Jesus said, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth:
"But I say unto you .. ."Matthew 5:38, 39.
So Christ segregated the teaching of the past from His own. The old,
He classified as their way, against which He set forth that which was His
way. He made no attempt to compromise with the old teaching or to
apologize for what He offered. It was the truth, and, as such, it had to be
accepted.
To many, Christ adopted a course here which laid Him open to the
charge of denying the law as God in the Old Testament had taught it. It was
not the writings or teachings of the heathen which Christ was disavowing
here but, to all appearances, the word of God through Moses.
"And God spake all these words, saying, ... " Exodus 20: l.
Then follow the ten commandments, after which the people are ter-
rified and plead with Moses to speak with them instead of God.
"And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children
of Israel ... " Many directions follow until these verses are reached: "And if
any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
"Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." Exodus
20:22; 21:23-25.
God spoke these words to Moses with the direction that they be told to,
and obeyed by, the people. The people did obey them, confident that in so
doing they were following the Lord's instructions. Then Jesus came and
denied that that was His way, swept all that aside, and gave the people a
new code of behavior.
GO THE SECOND MILE 171

The appearances certainly point to Christ as being at variance with His

Father on what the law was and how it should be kept. Small wonder then
that the Pharisees who subscribed so vigorously to the old Mosaic law,
should regard Christ as being the worst kind of lawbreaker. They saw Him
as the killer of the law which said, "A life for a life." Therefore, their minds
were entirely satisfied that they were doing the justified thing in putting Him
to death. He was killing the law. The law said a life for a life, so it was His
life for the life of the law He had taken. His crucifixion, in their thinking, was
a lawful killing. They believed that they were obeying the law exactly as it
was written.
Another solution for the problem is to teach dispensationalism. Such a
belief would see one law for the people before the advent of Christ, and
another and more beautiful law for the people thereafter.
Such a resolution of the problem must be rejected because the perfect
law is as unchangeable as the God Who gave it. If the Lord gave one law
for the people in a given age and situation and subsequently changed this
for later generations, then He is no better than changeable man who is
forever modifying his laws to suit changing circumstances. Satan would
then have the argument he needed to win the controversy. He would point
to the changing of the law as clear proof that it was imperfect and needed to
be changed. He left heaven contending this, against God's claim that it was
not so, and he has watched ever since for the slightest modification, con-
cession, or change on the part of God and His law.
There is yet another explanation which reveals the character of God in
wonderful beauty, shows that Christ was not at variance with the Father,
and establishes the truth that God has never changed His law in the slightest.
It, together with its Author, is the "same, yesterday, today and forever."
This explanation will be fully developed when we examine the various
incidents of the Old Testament period. It will be seen that God has only one
way for Himself and His people. But there comes a time when the people
reject His way and tum to their own, yet still desire God to be with them. In
great mercy, He provides directives effecting, if obeyed, the best conditions
possible under man's system. It will be shown when this point is reached,
that God acted out the role of a saviour exclusively, and that Christ's sole
objective was to bring them back from their own way to God's. When this
characteristic of behavior on God's part is seen, the last problems in un-
derstanding His character will disappear.
Having relegated the teaching, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth" to the errors of man's ways, Christ then set forth His amplification of
the law.
"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite
thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
"And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let
him have thy cloak also.
172 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

"Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee
turn not thou away." Matthew 5:39-42.
In the previous chapter, reference was made to fictitious books, plays,
and films. These are among Satan's principal means of promulgating his
magnification of the law. Let it now be asked if the principles laid out by
Christ in the verses quoted above, are portrayed in fiction? Where is man
portrayed as offering the other cheek when he has been smitten violently
on one? What film hero is seen meekly going the second mile, or giving his
coat to the enemy who took his cloak?
These are not the patterns of behavior advertised as ideal through this
media. Rather it is the very opposite. If the villain steals the coat of the hero
or anyone else, he is forced to pay back with compounded interest. The au-
dience is not satisfied unless the desperado is made to suffer more than he
has inflicted upon others.
During the bad man's day of power, he strikes his victims mercilessly.
They endure this because they have no option, but silently pray for the day
when the position of power will be reversed. Then, with a vengeance, they
will make the enemy regret what he did.
How completely opposite this is from the ways and teachings of Christ.
Nothing could be more contrary. To the man of the world, there is no sense
in Christ's words. If the movie houses were to prepare films depicting these
principles, no one would be interested in viewing them. They would be a
financial failure.
The average man rejects the principles in Christ's words because he
sees in that way, the whole world taking advantage of him to the point
where he would be divested of everything he had. To him there is a no
more frightening prospect. Therefore, he has no disposition to surrender
the security provided by his defending and protecting his rights and posses-
sions. He prefers to work at being more powerful than his enemy so that he
can hit back harder than he can be hit. He finds his safety in this doctrine of
deterrence.
There are those who have interpreted Christ's directions to tum the
other cheek after the first has been struck in these terms: Christ did not say
what to do after the second cheek has been struck, so this leaves liberty to
hit back thereafter.
But this is not true. Jesus did spell out what was to be done, and it
certainly was not to retaliate in kind. So that there might be no mistake in
this respect, Christ continued His instruction in these words:
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor,
and hate thine enemy.
"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you,
and persecute you;
GO THE SECOND MILE 173

"That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He

maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and on the unjust.
"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not
even the publicans the same?
"And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do
not even the publicans so?
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect." Matthew 5:43-48.
When Jesus said, "Love your enemies," He placed no time limitation
upon this stipulation. He did not say to love them as long as there was any
hope of saving them, and then hate them to destruction. He simply said,
"Love your enemies." Therefore they are to be loved-forever. The time
must never come when the child of God ceases to love his enemy, bless
him, and do him good. He is to know no other way.
The apostles sat nearest to Christ when He spoke these words, but they
did not understand this message as is evident from the question Peter asked
much later.
"Then came Peter to Him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin
against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
''Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until
seventy times seven." Matthew 18:21, 22.
Seventy times seven is four hundred and ninety times. Did Christ mean
that we are to carefully count till we reach this number and then stop
forgiving? No, so it is therefore not the way these words are to be
understood. Rather, Christ desired to convey the idea that there is no time
when we are to cease forgiving. Anyone who carefully counted each
forgiveness till he had reached the limit certainly would not have forgiven at
all. Nobody with the true spirit of forgiveness and Godlike love would be
concerned with how many times forgiveness had been extended.
"Peter had come to Christ with the question, 'How oft shall my brother
sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?' The rabbis limited the
exercise of forgiveness to three offences. Peter, carrying out, as he
supposed, the teaching of Jesus, thought to extend it to seven, the number
signifying perfection. But Christ taught that we are never to become weary
of forgiving. Not 'Until seven times,' He said, 'but, Until seventy times
seven.' " Christ's Object Lessons, 243.
According to this statement, then, the expression, "Until seventy times
seven" when used by Christ in this instance did not mean a limit of four
hundred and ninety. He meant without limit, endlessly and unchangeably.
It is impossible to strike back at those who strike first, and at the same
time manifest a forgiving spirit. As surely then as forgiveness is to be
forever, the turning of the other cheek is likewise to be forever. Those who
claim that Christ did not extend His instruction beyond what to do after the
second cheek is struck, do not understand God's message in the Scriptures.
174 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

In this discourse, Christ is magnifying the law. He is explaining the way

in which God desired His directives, "Thou shalt not kill, steal, and lie" to
be understood. Consider the difference between man's philosophy and
the teachings of Jesus Christ. Man says that if your enemy strikes you,
strike back-harder. If he kills yours, kill him. If he curses you, curse him
in return; if he does you evil, return evil to him.
But Jesus said to return love for hate, blessing for cursing, and good-
ness for evil. If lies are told about you, do not lie in return; if they steal
your goods, do not seek to steal them back again; if they seek your life, do
not seek theirs. This is to say that the law is to be kept under all cir-
cumstances. There is neither time nor place where the law is to be broken
in order to assure that it is kept. That is man's philosophy, but it is not the
teaching of Christ or the practice of the Christian.
Having laid out these guidelines for human behavior, Christ confirmed
that this was the way in which His Father practised the law. He told His
hearers that by so doing they would "be the children of" their "Father
which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Matthew 5:45.
Jesus identified as the children of God those who obey the law in the
way He declared it should be obeyed. They were such, He affirmed, be-
cause they were doing as the Father did. The evidence of this was all
about them. The Lord sent the sunshine and the rain upon the most
wicked person as well as the righteous, with equal impartiality. Even while
the terrible hand of sin was destroying them, God's blessings continued.
No one, then, could deny that God blessed those who cursed Him, and
did good to those who despitefully treated Him.
A distinguishing mark of God's children is that they do turn the other
cheek, do go the second mile, do love their enemies, and do bless and do
good to those who return them only evil. The individual who returns evil
for evil, does not turn the other cheek, nor goes the second mile, and does
not bless those who despitefully use him, is not a child of God.
This identification of the children of God is powerlully meaningful.
The relationship is spiritual, for it is in this, and not the physical sense,
that we are God's children. It conveys the idea that there must first be the
same character in the Christian as in the Father, before there can be the
corresponding behavior without. Those who are God's children have the
same character as He has. It is a character received by the process of
spiritual regeneration. "By the transforming agency of His grace, the im-
age of God is reproduced in the disciple; he becomes a new creature.
Love takes the place of hatred, and the heart receives the divine simili-
tude. This is what it means to live 'by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God.' This is eating the Bread that comes down from heaven."
The Desire of Ages, 391.
GO THE SECOND MILE 175

As surely as they have the same character, they will have the same
behavior. They will keep the law; exactly as God, the King of
Righteousness, keeps it. ·~esus said, Be perfect as your Father is perfect. If
you are the children of God you are partakers of His nature, and you can-
not but be like Him. Every child lives by the life of his father. If you are
God's children, begotten by His Spirit, you live by the life of God. In Christ
dwells 'all the fullness of the Godhead bodily' (Colossians 2:9); and the life of
Jesus is made manifest 'in our mortal flesh' (2 Corinthians 4: 11 ). That life
in you will produce the same character and manifest the same works as it did
in Him. Thus you will be in harmony with every precept of His law; for
'the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.' Psalm 19:7, margin.
Through love 'the righteousness of the law' will be 'fulfilled in us, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.' Romans 8:4." The Mount of Bless-
ing, 77, 78.
In the sermon on the mount, Christ taught of a Father Who loves His
enemies-forever;
blesses those who curse Him-forever;
does good to those who hate Him-forever;
and prays for those who despitefully use and persecute Him-forever.
The implications of such reaching are so extensive that it is difficult to
believe they are really true. Some would rather believe that they are just a
fine piece of rhetoric with no factual foundation.
But it was Christ, the Truth, Who testified these things of God.
Therefore they are the truth in the strictest sense. God does love His
enemies. When consideration is given to whom God's enemies are, the
truth of this becomes the more outstanding and humbling. Passing by all
God's lesser enemies, terrible as they be, the attention is focused on the
archenemy of all, Satan.
Of all the beings who have ever existed, no one has ever hated God
more fiercely, cursed Him more savagely, done evil to Him more exten-
sively, or persecuted Him more relentlessly than Satan. Could it be possible
that:
God loves Satan even to this very day;
blesses him in return for his cursings;
does good to him who hates Him so much;
and prays for him who so despitefully uses and persecutes Him?
Christ answers that question, testifying that the Father does all this. The
form of His testimony lays out what we are to be and do in order to
reproduce the behavior and character of the Father. In doing so, He makes
no exception of the devil. He does not counsel us to love our enemies
except for Satan. He simply says, "Love your enemies." Therefore,
any one who can be classified as an enemy is to be loved. Satan certainly
comes into this classification for he is the archenemy.
176 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Therefore, if doing this makes us the children of God and thus the
reproduction of Him, then God loves His enemies, including Satan. He
blesses him as far as it is possible for the blessings to reach him, does him
good where He can, and will continue to do so for as long as Satan exists. If
He did not, then Christ bore a false witness of His Father.
To understand the attitude of genuine love which the Father has for His
lost son, a distinction must be made between love together with fellowship,
and love without it.
There were a trio of Christian sisters who worked in a factory among
people of ungodly lives and interests. There developed between them and
their worldly associates a spirit of hatred which they recognized as being
unlike the Saviour. They had learned the power of acceptable confession 1
whereby they asked the Lord to remove their hatred and to replace it with
love, for they knew that God's children love their enemies.
Their faith was rewarded and they found that all the hateful feelings
were gone, but they were troubled because they still did not find a warm
bond of love between them and the worldlings. Their problem was that they
were not differentiating between love with fellowship and love without it.
It was impossible for them to have a warm bond of communion with
people whose interests found no common ground with theirs. They listened
to different music; found their pleasures in the theatre, the dance hall, the
beer parlors, and the race track. Their conversation was on these things;
and the principles which guided their lives were in direct conflict with those of
the Christians. Therefore fellowship was impossible.
Of course, fellowship with love is beautiful and desirable. This is the
ultimate objective, while love without fellowship is painful.
God has no fellowship with the devil. They do not see each other, nor
do they work together. Their interests and objectives are completely op-
posite. God does not support any of the devil's activities, even though he is
the recipient of God's blessings just as the most wicked person receives the
outflow of God's life and love in the seed time and harvest, the rain and
the wind, and the continued protection from total and final disaster. The
devil takes all these blessings and uses them to war against God, but for this
God is not responsible. He gives the blessings for their good, but the perver-
sion of them is the responsibility of those who misuse the gift.
Be assured on the strength of Christ's witness of His Father, that God
loves the devil and will therefore only bless and do him good. This means
that God will never take Satan's life but would reach out to save him if
possible. This is love on an incredible scale. Many reason that God should
destroy Satan. They argue that God's position of custodian of the universe
and His possession of omnipotent power make it His responsibility to cut
Satan down so that he can hurt and injure no more. To argue this way is to

'The subject of acceptable confession is covered in an effective and practical way in the
publication by that name, Acceptable Confession, available from the publishers of this book.
GO THE SECOND MILE 177

fall into the usual pitfall of making God to be just like man, who follows
the practice of destroying the lawbreaker to end his iniquity. This is to break
the law to ensure that it is kept. But this is not God's way. He is perfectly
righteous. His law is perfect and is never to be broken. Therefore, under no
circumstances whatsoever will God lie, steal, or kill. He does not break that
law in order to see that it is kept.
When Jesus bore this beautiful and truthful testimony of His Father, He
knew all that God had done in the Old Testament. He was also familiar with
the view which men took of what God had done. Men saw God pouring
good upon the dwellers in Sodom and Gomorrah for a limited time, after
which He exchanged the blessings for cursing, and the good for evil as He
poured upon them the flood of fire and brimstone. They saw the same pic-
ture in the flood, the plagues of Egypt, the obliteration of the Canaanites,
the death by night of Sennacherib's army, and a thousand other instances.
If the view of those things, as held by men then and now, is correct, then
Christ could never truthfully say what He said of His Father on the mount of
blessing. Therefore, for Christ to say what He said from personal convic-
tion, He must have held a very different view of what the Father did in the
Old Testament from what men held then and since, for man's view of God
and the picture that Christ presented of Him are two altogether conflicting
concepts.
Christ lived and taught the character of God. He presented God as the
perfect law-keeper. Christ neither knew nor presented a God Who had one
law for Himself and another for the people. In the infinite superiority of
God's kingdom over that of all others, the law is kept with model fidelity by
the Omnipotent One and with equal faithfulness by every loyal subject.
It is a situation unknown in earthly or satanic systems of government.
In all such to a lesser or greater extent, there is one law for the rulers and
another for the people. Should any citizen become subject to the govern-
ment's wrath, he will tremble in his impotence to protect himself. Earthly
laws are so framed that they provide protection for the government against
the people but not for the people against the government.
But it is not so in God's kingdom. In the first place, He does not need
any protection from His own creation, for He is omnipotent and un-
touchable. He is in a position of power from which He can obliterate any
opposition by a single word. Therefore, man might well tremble in dread
before such a God if He were indeed altogether such an one as ourselves.
The law therefore was not given by God to protect Himself from man. It
was God's perfect love gift to man to protect him from himself and from the
possibility of perverting the powers given to him for life and blessing, into a
cataclysm of destruction. This aspect of the law has been studied earlier in
chapter eight.
Serving man in these ways, the law is a wonderful thing indeed, but the
greatest wonder of all is that it actually protects man from God. In setting
178 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

out the principles of that law, God has declared what He is and what He will
and will not do. He has stated that He Will never lie, never steal, and never
kill no matter what situation may arise to call for or to justify such things.
The enunciation of the law of God is God's own pledge that we are forever
secure from His doing any such thing no matter how we may treat Him in
return.
When God commits Himself to a pledge of that nature, there is absolute
assurance that He will never vary from it in the slightest degree. We are
familiar with the pledge made by God to man, under the signature of the
rainbow, that the earth would never again perish beneath a flood of waters.
From that day to this, that guarantee has never been violated despite the
increasing defiance of man toward heaven. God's word stands true and
unchangeable.
By the misrepresentation of the testimony of God's word, Satan has
convinced man that, if ever God did make such a pledge, He certainly has
not honored it. Because this persuasion of man to Satan's lies about God is
so extensive and long-standing, it will be very difficult for the average per-
son to accept that God has made and honored such a commitment. The
mind, long trained to see the workings of God in a certain light, will swiftly
object that the great rebellion demanded that God arise to cleanse the
universe of the curse by actively destroying the offenders. To the human
mind, this is the only available solution to the problem. Men do not under-
stand the wisdom and power of God as it will be employed to put down the
great rebellion. They do not see that there is another and infinitely better
way to deal with rebellion than counter-force.
Christ neither shared nor taught such a view. He presented a Father
Who loved His enemies and Who would do them only blessing and
goodness. That view He uncompromisingly presented in the very face of
the other. As a lone voice, He announced the real truth about the Father
even though every other person in the world saw it the other way at the
time of His advent.
The view of God as held, taught, and lived by Christ is the one to be
held. Any contrary view is error formulated for our destruction in Satan's
laboratories.
No ruler in human history is like unto our God. There is no king, gover-
nor, president, dictator, lord, prince, emperor, or any other kind of ruler
who has pledged himself never to lie to, steal from, or kill any one of his
subjects no matter how treasonous, rebellious, slanderous, insurrectionist,
arsonist, murderous, thieving, cruel, activist, reactionary, or criminal that
subject may become. Earthly potentates know only one way to deal with
such elements in society and that is to meet force with force. There is no
turning of the other cheek, no going the second mile, no love for their
enemies, and no blessing of those who do them evil.
GO THE SECOND MILE 179

But what no earthly ruler has ever done or ever will do, God has done.
Truly, His ways are as much higher than our ways as the heavens are above
the earth. When the real nature of God's righteousness is understood and
appreciated, it will call forth from the hearts of those who thus see it, a rap-
ture of praise and adoration otherwise impossible. They will then begin to
understand and testify with the words of the Bible writers:
"Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, 0 Lord; neither are
there any works like unto Thy works.
"All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before
Thee, 0 Lord; and shall glorify Thy name.
"For Thou art great, and doest wondrous things: Thou art God alone."
Psalm 86:8-10.
"Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in
the mountain of His holiness." Psalm 48: 1.
Let it be clearly recognized that while God Himself pledged that He
would never destroy the violators of His principles, He did not, because He
could not, guarantee that sinners would not be destroyed. On the contrary,
He warned that sin is the act of separating from God, so that there remains
no protection from the destructive forces thus set in motion.
May every reader come to see God as Christ knew Him. Then, with the
angels and the inspired writers there will be the pealing forth of praise and
adoration for a god so great as our God. Such understanding and spon-
taneous praise will, in turn, mould the character into the same form until
one great pulse of harmony will beat throughout the entire universe.
180

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Mystery Of Iniquity

Satan's Masterpiece of Deception
The evidences accumulated in this study have now established that
the life of Christ was a perfect mirror of the Father's character and that His
teachings reiterated and confirmed that revelation. Therefore, in respond-
ing to the divinely inspired directive to know the Father, we must look to
the life and teachings of the Saviour. Any view of God not supported by
that witness is false and to be rejected no matter how hoary with venerated
age or universally accepted it may be.
Reference has been made to the works of fiction as presented by the
storyteller, in the novel and on the movie screen, as the specific media
through which Satan has been educating an unwitting world in his
misrepresentations of God's character and law. This is an exceedingly effec-
tive means by which the whole world is converted to Satan's sophistries.
But there is yet another medium through which Satan works with great
effectiveness to achieve the same ends. This is the mystery of iniquity,
otherwise known as Babylon, Babylon the Great, the man of sin, the son of
perdition, and the antichrist. It has appeared in various forms during the
ages. Its earliest champion subsequent to the flood was Nimrod and his
followers, after which came the builders of the tower of Babel, the worship-
pers of Baal, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and the
papacy. It will come to a full manifestation in apostate Protestantism and
finally in Babylon the Great in the very last days.
Here is Satan's masterpiece of deception, the instrument through which
more than any other he promulgates his lies about God.
"It is Satan's constant effort to misrepresent the character of God, the
nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy. His
sophistry lessens the obligation of the divine law, and gives men license to
sin. At the same time he causes them to cherish false conceptions of God,
so that they regard Him with fear and hate, rather than with love. The
cruelty inherent in his own character is attributed to the Creator; it is em-
bodied in systems of religion, and expressed in modes of worship. Thus the
minds of men are blinded, and Satan secures them as his agents to war
against God. By perverted conceptions of the divine attributes, heathen na-
tions were led to believe human sacrifices necessary to secure the favor of
Deity; and horrible cruelties have been perpetrated under the various forms
of idolatry.
"The Roman Catholic Church, uniting the forms of paganism and
Christianity, and, like paganism, misrepresenting the character of God, has
SATAN'S MASTERPIECE 181

resorted to practices no less cruel and revolting." The Great Controversy,

569.
"Rome had misrepresented the character of God, and perverted His re-
quirements ... " ibid., 281.
"The teachings of popes and priests had led men to look upon the
character of God, and even of Christ, as stern, gloomy, and forbidding.
The Saviour was represented as so far devoid of sympathy with man in his
fallen state that the mediation of priests and saints must be invoke."
ibid., 73.
Already it has been shown that the world of fiction is a definite instru-
ment by which the great antagonist portrays the picture of what God is not.
But his masterpiece of deception in this work is Babylon, the mystery of in-
iquity, which predominately finds its manifestation in the Roman Catholic
and Protestant churches of today. It is Satan's counter to the revelation of
what God is through Jesus Christ.
Thus before everyone is the alternative. The representations of God
and His law as given by Babylon can be taken, or the choice can fall on
Christ as the Revelation of God and His ways. It is impossible for both to
represent the same thing, for one is Christ and the other is antichrist.
There is tremendous value in studying the life and teachings of Christ as
the unfolding of what God is. There is also great advantage in looking at
how Babylon presents God as He is not.
It is a mistake to suppose that Babylon used only the weapons of force.
So terrible and extensive was her use of the weapons of compulsion to
persecute into submission those reluctant to obey her, that this is all that is
apt to be seen of her character and activities.
The real truth is that the use of oppressive measures was only the very
last resort used by her, as it is with every false religion. It is only when
every other means has failed that she turns to its use.
"Force is the last resort of every false religion. At first it tries attraction,
as the king of Babylon tried the power of music and outward show. If these
attractions, invented by men inspired by Satan, failed to make men worship
the image, the hungry flames of the furnace were ready to consume them.
So it will be now. The papacy has exercised her power to compel men to
obey her, and she will continue to do so. We need the same spirit that was
manifested by God's servants in the conflict with paganism." Signs of the
Times, May 6, 1897. S.D.A. Bible Commentary 7:976.
There was a time when I did not understand this. I thought only of
Rome as effecting her objectives by coercion. But the study of history
opened a new view showing that firstly the antichrist comes without a
sword. Her first ambassadors are priests and missionaries who, with greatly
affected humility and self-sacrifice, seek to win the populace to their
theology by teaching, pleas, and argument. If this is successful, they are
elated. But if the people will not submit to their religion, then the sword is
 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

•FORCE IS THE LAST RESORT OF

EVERY
FALSE RELIGION."

S.D.A. Bible Commentary 7:976.

Therefore: True Religion Does Not Resort To

The Use Of Force

Therefore: The Use Of Force Is A Mark Of

False Religion

Therefore: The Absence Of The Use Of Force

Is A Mark Of True Religion

Therefore: If God Should Use Force As A Last

Or Any Resort.

THEN

HIS IS A FALSE RELIGION.

"There can be no more conclusive evidence that

we possess the spirit of Satan than the disposi-
tion to hurt and destroy those who do not appreci-
ate our work, or who act contrary to our ideas."

"Compelling power is found ONLY under Satan's

government."

The Desire of Ages, 487, 759.

SATAN'S MASTERPIECE 183

unsheathed. At first the persecutions are relatively mild, but as time goes by
and the desired objective is not achieved, they become increasingly severe
until the death penalty is enforced rigorously.
In the sixth century, Pope Gregory determined to convert Great Britain
to Catholicism. Accordingly, he sent forty-one missionaries in the summer
of 597. They were led by Augustine who settled on Canterbury as the cen-
ter of his activities in Britain. The true Christian religion had preceded him.
It was established among the original Britons but had not yet converted the
Anglo-Saxon invaders from northern Europe and Scandinavia. To convert
these Britons was the immediate objective. For this purpose Augustine con-
vened a general assembly in 601. But "To no purpose did the archbishop
lavish his arguments, prayers, censures, and miracles even; the Britons
were firm." The Reformation in England, Volume 1:38, by Merle
d'Aubigne.
This council having failed, Augustine tried again with the same tactics of
peaceful, persuasive approach, but again he failed. Perceiving that he
would gain nothing by these means, he rose to his feet and said, " 'If you
will not receive brethren who bring you peace, you shall receive enemies
who will bring you war. If you will not unite with us in showing the Saxons
the way of life, you shall receive from them the stroke of death.' Having
thus spoken, the haughty archbishop withdrew, and occupied his last days
in preparing the accomplishment of his ill-omened prophecy. Argument
had failed: now for the sword!" ibid., 39.
What took place there in the early history of Britain, has been repeated
in every place where the papal shoe has rested. To millions it is a familiar
pattern.
Rome appears upon the scene acting peacefully and lovingly. She
blesses those who will receive her blessings, seeking to win them to her
creed. She manifests considerable long-suffering and patience in her work
and her emissaries make great personal sacrifices for the cause.
But eventually she judges that any further endeavor along these
peaceful lines will be fruitless. She then turns to the use of persecution
which increases in severity until those who will not obey under any pressure
are put to death.
In all this she is giving an impression of God, which, tragically, is the
one accepted without question by the majority. To be convinced of this, it is
only necessary to compare the view of God as held by most, with the papal
representations of Him.
Most see God looking down upon the unconverted as Pope Gregory
looked upon the Britons. In His great love for the lost and the dying, they
see God sending His personal ambassador, the Holy Spirit, Who works
through self-sacrificing human agents to woo and to win the erring. They
believe that during this period the Lord withholds His judgments and ad-
ministers blessings as an incentive to the people to follow Him.
184 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

But time goes by and the blessings received are turned into a curse as in
the case of the Sodomites, the Egyptians, and the Israelites. What now
happens, in reality, is that the people move away from God into that area
where they make it impossible for Him to protect them from the threatening
destructions poised above them. But men see in these calamities the hand
of God trying to enforce an allegiance where persuasion has failed. When
even this fails, they see God destroying the wicked from the face of the
earth.
A comparison has been made in the paragraphs above, between the
way of antichrist and the supposed manifestation of the character of God.
We ask now, What difference is there between these two pictures? The
answer is, none. The picture of God as men suppose Him to be and the pic-
ture of Him as presented by the papacy are the same in every respect.
Therefore, as surely as we know that Babylon's representation of the
Deity is a misrepresentation, it must be wholly rejected. A moment's reflec-
tion will show that the representation of God given on the movie screen and
that given by the papacy, are identical. In both cases the law is broken in
order to bring about the keeping of the law. The papacy kills those who will
not obey. By killing, she disobeys God's commands in order to do away
with those whom she judges are disobeying God's commands.
Therefore, she is of the world, and not of God in any sense. Every prin-
ciple of her character and behavior is a denial of the revelations of the
Deity mirrored in the life of Christ and espoused in His teachings. She fulfils
most adequately Satan's objectives in misrepresenting the character of
God.
The existence of Babylon and her teachings versus the presence of
Christ and His, provides for everyone the choice of which representation of
God they will believe. It is impossible to consistently believe both. Babylon
offers a picture of God as One Who loves His enemies, blesses them, does
them good, and forgives them-for a time. Then His face changes and He
arises to do to them the very things He has commanded them not to do. He
firstly treats them cruelly, then finally kills them.
Christ offers a Father Who loves His enemies, blesses them, does them
good, and forgives them-/oreuer. He never rises to do that which He has
instructed His children not to do. He is the God of righteousness.
The choice then is Christ or antichrist, God or the devil, the heavenly
Jerusalem or Rome. There can be no difficulty in knowing which of these is
the one to choose. Yet some will hesitate, uncertain, even confused.
Let such open the history books and examine the outworking of
Rome's doctrines. In doing so care must be taken to see beyond the facade
of piety and brilliance which Catholicism has erected to camouflage the real
picture behind and beneath. Through the pages of God's Word, the Holy
Spirit has shown that He has neither overlooked her real character nor been
deceived by her pretentious outward appearance.
John Huss Sentenced To Death-The Papacy broke God's law in order to do away
with those whom she judged as breaking God's law.
186 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked
with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand
full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.
"And upon her forehead, was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE
GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
"And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with
the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with
great admiration."
"And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all
that were slain upon the earth." Revelation 17:~; 18:24.
In these, both the dazzling outer appearance and the inward corruption
are revealed. Men tend to be impressed with great displays of wealth and
power, all too often measuring the success and merit of a person or
organization by such appearances. But the real value is the inner worth of
character.
The last verse in this extract is worthy of special attention for the charge
is laid by God that the blood of all men who have died is the work of the
man of sin. Satan has sought to lay this blood to God's charge. Men have
been prepared to believe Satan, at least to some extent, for, while it is clear
at least to most that sin and the devil have taken the lives of millions, it is
also believed that God has done His share of killing too. But this verse does
not subscribe to such teaching. Here it is stated that all the blood of all the
dead is attributable to the man of sin. This text then is a strong Bible witness
to the truth that God does not destroy, for, if the man of sin has killed al/
who have been killed, then the Lord has killed none.
So let study be given to the outworking in history of Rome's doctrines.
See what the fruitage of those teachings about God's character have been.
If they have been productive of a great, warm, trusting love for God and
one's fellowmen; if they have brought peace and prosperity to the earth; if
they have lifted oppression and set men free; if they have opened the doors
to the advance of knowledge and skills, then we can know that they are a
truthful presentation of the character of God. It must be so for God is
righteousness and:
"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people."
"He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life,
righteousness, and honor." Proverbs 14:34; 21:21.
"And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of
righteousness quietness and assurance forever." Isaiah 32:17.
If this is the record of Rome's work, then her representation of the
righteousness or character of God is truthful, accurate, and to be followed.
But if the results are the opposite, then it is deceitful, inaccurate, and only
to be shunned.
SATAN'S MASTERPIECE 187

The records of history are clear. Wherever Rome has trodden, she has
left behind her ignorance, immorality, strife, wars, bloodshed, murders,
and finally, hatred and total rejection of God's very existence. The fruitage
of her work has been the exact opposite from that outlined in the verses
above. It has not led to love and loyalty to God, but to fear and hatred of
Him and finally to infidel rejection of His very existence.
"Rome had misrepresented the character of God, and perverted His re-
quirements, and now men rejected both the Bible and its Author. She had
required a blind faith in her dogmas, under the pretended sanction of the
Scriptures. In the reaction, Voltaire and his associates cast aside God's
word altogether, and spread everywhere the poison of infidelity. Rome had
ground down the people under her iron heel; and now the masses, de-
graded and brutalized, in their recoil from her tyranny, cast off all restraint.
Enraged at the glittering cheat to which they had so long paid homage, they
rejected truth and falsehood together; and mistaking license for liberty, the
slaves of vice exulted in their imagined freedom." The Great Controversy,
281, 282.
This paragraph was written as a comment on the French Revolution
with direct reference to the cause of it. It was a reaction, a striking back by
the oppressed against those who had for so long, held them in mental,
physical, and spiritual bondage. No better revelation can be found of the ef-
fect of Rome's character and practice, than this violent reaction. Everything
that developed and transpired in that awful time was the direct fruitage of
Catholic policies.
"It was popery that had begun the work which atheism was completing.
The policy of Rome had wrought out those conditions, social, political, and
religious, that were hurrying France on to ruin. Writers, in referring to the
horrors of the Revolution, say that these excesses are to be charged upon
the throne and the church. In strict justice they are to be charged upon
the church. Popery had poisoned the minds of kings against the Reforma-
tion, as an enemy to the crown, an element of discord that would be fatal to
the peace and harmony of the nation. It was the genius of Rome that by
this means inspired the direst cruelty and the most galling oppression which
proceeded from the throne." The Great Controversy, 276, 277.
But, the revolution would never have been so cruel, bloodthirsty, and
horrible; men would never have gone so far in their total rejection and
hatred of God, if they had seen the papacy as being a representative of no
more than itself. But she presented herself to the world as God's direct
agent and representative, and to millions she was the only picture of God
that they knew. Therefore, they rejected not only the Roman Catholic
Church, but also the God of that church. Because they believed that the
God of heaven was the God represented by that church, they rejected Him
in the most tragic and hateful way.
188 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

That rejection found its most vocal and active expression in the French
Revolution. Never has history afforded before or since so clear and con-
vincing a picture of the inevitable outworking of the policies and practices of
Romanism. The events have long since been enacted and the memories
have faded into the shadows of the past, but they are recorded in all their
grim reality in the chronicles of history. Every student of God's Word who
rightfully desires to understand the outworking of the teaching of God's
character versus the outworking of Satan's misrepresentations of that
character, should study the anguished cry of human outrage in the France
of 1789.
It is not a chronicle of love, confidence, trust, peace, kindness, and
beauty. It is anything but that. "Then came those days when the most bar-
barous of all codes was administered by the most barbarous of all tribunals;
when no man could greet his neighbors or say his prayers ... without
danger of committing a capital crime; when spies lurked in every comer;
when the guillotine was long and hard at work every morning; when the
jails were filled as close as the holds of a slave ship; when the gutters ran
foaming with blood into the Seine .... While the daily wagon-loads of vic-
tims were carried to their doom through the streets of Paris, the proconsuls,
whom the sovereign committee had sent forth to the departments, reveled
in an extravagance of cruelty unknown even in the capital. The knife of the
deadly machine rose and fell too slow for their work of slaughter. Long
rows of captives were mowed down with grape-shot. Holes were made in
the bottom of crowded barges. Lyons was turned into a desert. At Arras
even the cruel mercy of a speedy death was denied to the prisoners. All
down the Loire, from Saumur to the sea, great flocks of crows and kites
feasted on naked corpses, twined together in hideous embraces. No mercy
was shown to sex or age. The number of young lads and of girls of seven-
teen who were murdered by that execrable government, is to be reckoned
by hundreds. Babies tom from the breast were tossed from pike to pike
along the Jacobin ranks." The Great Controuersy, 284.
None of this happened without a cause, which, if correctly and fully
ascertained, provides a lesson of inestimable value. This will be true only if
the whole of the cause is perceived. While it is true that the behavior of the
papacy was the factor which developed these results, that is not enough. It
was her practices, as the misrepresentation of God's character, which were
the root.
Her behavior in isolation from God, would have produced only a reac-
tion against herself. The masses would merely have rejected that church.
But when they were led to believe that she projected a true picture of God,
then their reaction was most violent against both the church and God.
Nothing could have pleased Satan more, for he has worked through
the papacy to achieve these results. With the masses he has been all too
SATAN'S MASTERPIECE 189

successful, yet the very devices he employs to misrepresent God, provide

the spiritually enlightened with the proof that God is not as the world and
the churches view Him. This is accomplished by tracing the results of papal
teaching from its beginning to final culmination. Then will be recognized the
connection between the Babylonian philosophies about God and the sure
outworking of bloodshed, tortures, mistrust, hatred, violence, atheism, im-
morality, and multiplied other horrors. Nobody desires these troubles to
come upon them. Therefore, when it is understood that they result from
those erroneous views of God, then they will likewise reject them, and
there will be a turning toward those revelations of God which will breed
love, joy, peace, gentleness, long-suffering, mercy, patience, and such.
The papal understanding is that God is a being above law. While God
calls upon His people not to kill, lie, or steal, He is not bound by these
things in His relation to them. The papists believe that the law is to protect
God and the pope from the masses, but not the masses from them.
Because the pope believed that he was God upon this earth, he acted out
these principles in his dealing with the people.
The terrible anarchy and atheism of the French Revolution is the direct
result of that teaching.
Who upon this earth would desire to see the peaceful atmosphere of
their society shattered into conditions so awful?
Noone!
Let all such, then, reject the teaching which is the root of this ef-
fect-the teaching that there is one law for God and another for the
people. The great truth that the law is the very transcript of God's character
must be grasped instead.
It is the teaching and practice of Rome that God firstly entreats in mercy
but in the end turns to destructive force to wipe out those who do not obey
Him. Accordingly, she behaved in this way herself, believing and teaching
that she was doing the very will of God and manifesting His character and
ways. In this, she fulfilled the prophecy of Christ when He said, " ... yea,
the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God
service." John 16:2.
But men will not love and serve such a God. As surely as this concept
of God's character is projected, so surely will men reject such a God. The
great reaction of the French Revolution proves that. The message which
burst from the hearts and throats of the populace then was that if this was
God they wanted none of Him at all-forever.
It may be countered that there are millions today who do believe that
God mercifully entreats the people to repentance at first, but uses destruc-
tive force to kill them if they will not repent, and yet, while believing this,
love and serve Him. It is true that for a time this is so. Think of the centuries
during which the people of the Middle Ages continued to serve God as the
Romanists represented Him to be, but it could not and did not go on
190 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

forever. There came a time when the reaction set in and the rejection of
that kind of God was total.
Once again, the earth is moving toward another such absolute rejection
of God. When that time comes, all the horrors of the French Revolution will
be reenacted, but not within the limited confines of national scale. It will be
global. Not then will the rest of the world gaze in awed amazement at the
death struggles of one nation, for they will be in the same death throes
themselves.
In the coming and final conflict, every person on earth will be obliged to
take his stand on one side or the other of the great controversy. The place
where each stands today, the ideas being more deeply forrnulated in each
mind, and the practices followed, are determining where each will stand in
that day, unless his position is revised while the option to do so remains.
Have you carefully, prayerfully, and honestly considered the implica-
tions of your present understanding of God's character? It would be well for
each to do so, for when this is understood, a change may well be seen to be
imperative.
If you believe:
God does not concern Himself with personal law-keeping;
He does as He pleases in the sense that men do as they please;
The law is designed to protect Him from the people but not the
people from Him;
Then you are on the side of the greatest agency of all time through
which Satan has misrepresented the character of God.
If you believe:
God at first seeks to win by loving entreaty and merciful dealings;
But in the end uses force to wipe out those who do not serve Him;
Then your position is no different from that of the Roman Catholic
Church. You will be the devil's delight, for his purposes in you are being
achieved.
On the other hand, if these things have never occurred to you before,
then the decision must be made sooner or later to either cling to these
views or reject them in exchange for something better. If the right choice is
made, then one more step will be taken out of Babylonian darkness.
To believe:
That God loves His enemies-for a time;
Does good to those who do Him evil-for a time;
Blesses those who curse Him-for a time;
And then:
Hates His enemies;
Pours evil on those who do Him evil;
And curses those who curse Him;
Is to hold concepts which are papal and worldly.
SATAN'S MASTERPIECE 191

To retain such notions when the light on God's character is presented,

is to assure continuation in darkness and error. When the last great conflict
comes, there will be the certain standing on the side of the great apostate,
with no hope of being numbered among that throng which will walk the
streets of gold.
Conversely, if it is believed that:
The law is the perfect transcript of God's character;
It pleases Him to do only righteousness-perfect law-keeping;
He has designed the law as a perfect protection not only from
ourselves and our fellow-creatures, but also from Himself;
He loves His enemies of whom the devil is the greatest;
He blesses those who curse Him-forever;
He does good to those who hate Him-forever;
He never uses force as a last or any resort;
And He never administers destruction upon the heads of those who
refuse to obey Him;
Then another mighty step has been taken out of Babylonian darkness;
the truth has been found about the Father and the Son, and a right stand
has been taken in the great conflict.
"To know God is to love Him." The Desire of Ages, 22.
Such a statement can only mean that to know God as God is, is to love
Him. Therefore to know God as God is not, is to hate and reject Him as is
so clearly proved by the French Revolution.
Therefore, to know God as Christ revealed Him both by word and deed
is to love Him, while to know Him as the world and the papacy present Him
both by teaching and practice is to hate and reject Him.
The fruit of the first is faith; and that of the second is infidelity and
atheism.
The ultimate happiness, fulfillment, and achievement is to love God
as He loves us. Satan is determined to frustrate this. His weapon is the
misrepresentation of God's character, in the use of which he is all too suc-
cessful. No one can say that happiness, fulfillment, and achievement
reigned in France in those dreadful days of the revolution. Far from it.
To fill us with supreme joy and happiness, God unmasks Satan's lies
about His righteousness and gives to all a true knowledge of His character.
As this is understood and then experienced, the believer will love God and
his fellow men as he never thought possible. A great bond of unity will
draw together every being in heaven above, with every true believer. Eter-
nal life and joy will be the experience of all with never a shadow to mar the
life of any.
May such glorious prospects be incentive enough to lead each and all to
reject Satan's teachings through the papacy and the world, and to accept
both intellectually and in living, personal experience the truth of God's
righteousness.
192
CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Mystery-Unfolding Cross

"The mystery of the cross explains all other mysteries. In the light that
streams from Calvary, the attributes of God which had filled us with fear
and awe appear beautiful and attractive. Mercy, tenderness, and parental
love are seen to blend with holiness, justice, and power. While we behold
the majesty of His throne, high and lifted up, we see His character in its
gracious manifestations, and comprehend, as never before, the significance
of that endearing title, 'Our Father.' " The Great Controuersy, 642.
The mystery of the cross explains all other mysteries.
What a treasure the cross of Christ is to us! Here is a promise so
precious, so saving, so full, as to overflow the heart with gratitude for what
God has provided in that revelation, and security in the knowledge that in
the cross every puzzling, frustrating mystery is explained.
It is impossible to understand the character of God as it really is until
every mystery about it is taken to the light shining from Golgotha. Not even
the angels could comprehend God's character and be delivered from
Satan's devilish charges against the Omnipotent One, until Jesus cried, "It
is finished." Evidence to this effect has already been presented in chapter
four. There it was shown that "Not until the death of Christ was the
character of Satan clearly revealed to the angels or to the unfallen worlds."
The Desire of Ages, 758.
Therefore, if the angels could not understand all of God's workings in
the Old Testament period until they saw them in the light of the cross, then
we have no possibility of grasping those mysteries in any other way. In the
light of these facts, every Christian should determine that he will draw no
final conclusions on God's character until he has assessed all problems in
Calvary's light.
"In order to be rightly understood and appreciated, every truth in the
Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, must be studied in the light
which streams from the cross of Calvary, and in connection with the won-
drous, central truth of the Saviour's atonement. Those who study the
Redeemer's wonderful sacrifice grow in grace and knowledge." The SD.A.
Bible Commentary 5: 1137.
This is quite a statement. It establishes that there is not a single Bible
truth which can be rightly understood except in the light which streams from
Calvary. No one, then, who studies the mysteries of God's behavior
without reference to the sacrifice of all sacrifices, can come to a correct
understanding of the Scripture truths. This means consequently, that it is
impossible to know God as He is, impossible to rightly understand His
character and the nature of His law, unless all this is studied with con-
tinual reference to the cross of Calvary.
THE MYSTERY-UNFOLDING CROSS 193

In the light of these things, it comes as no surprise to find that those who
insist that God does destroy, reject the cross as having any helpful or signifi-
cant bearing on the question of God's character. In all their arguments they
make no appeal to it and expressly reject any witness from it which counters
their fixed ideas of God's behavior.
Such an attitude is tragic, for there is no mightier revelation of His
character than the cross of Calvary. Before it, all other arguments sink into
insignificance and all errors are exposed for what they are.
"If those who today are teaching the word of God, would uplift the
cross of Christ higher and still higher, their ministry would be far more suc-
cessful. If sinners can be led to give one earnest look at the cross, if they can
obtain a full view of the crucified Saviour, they will realize the depth of
God's compassion and the sinfulness of sin.
"Christ's death proves God's great love for man. It is our pledge of
salvation. To remove the cross from the Christian would be like blotting the
sun from the sky. The cross brings us near to God, reconciling us to Him.
With the relenting compassion of a father's love, Jehovah looks upon the
suffering that His Son endured in order to save the race from eternal death,
and accepts us in the Beloved.
"Without the cross, man could have no union with the Father. On it
depends our every hope. From it shines the light of the Saviour's love; and
when at the foot of the cross the sinner looks up to the One who died to
save him, he may rejoice with fullness of joy; for his sins are pardoned.
Kneeling in faith at the cross, he has reached the highest place to which
man can attain.
"Through the cross we learn that the heavenly Father loves us with a
love that is infinite. Can we wonder that Paul exclaimed, 'God forbid that I
should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ'? It is our privilege
also to glory in the cross, our privilege to give ourselves wholly to Him who
gave Himself for us. Then, with the light that streams from Calvary shining
in our faces, we may go forth to reveal this light to those in darkness." Acts
of the Apostles, 209, 210.
"The sacrifice of Christ as an atonement for sin is the great truth around
which all other truths cluster. In order to be rightly understood and ap-
preciated, every truth in the word of God, from Genesis to Revelation,
must be studied in the light that streams from the cross of Calvary. I present
before you the great, grand monument of mercy and regeneration, salva-
tion and redemption,-the Son of God uplifted on the cross. This is to be
the foundation of every discourse given by our ministers." Gospel Work-
ers, 315.
"When we study the divine character in the light of the cross, we see
mercy, tenderness, and forgiveness blended with equity and justice. We
see in the midst of the throne One bearing in hands and feet and side the
marks of the suffering endured to reconcile man to God. We see a Father,
194 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

infinite, dwelling in light unapproachable, yet receiving us to Himself

through the merits of His Son. The cloud of vengeance that threat-
ened only misery and despair, in the light reflected from the cross reveals the
writing of God: Live, sinners, live! ye penitent, believing souls, live! I have
paid a ransom.
"In the contemplation of Christ, we linger on the shore of a love that is
measureless. We endeavor to tell of this love, and language fails us. We
consider His life on earth, His sacrifice for us, His work in heaven as our ad-
vocate, and the mansions He is preparing for those who love Him; and we
can only exclaim, 0 the height and depth of the love of Christ! 'Herein is
love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be
the propitiation for our sins.' 'Behold, what manner of love the Father hath
bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.'
"In every true disciple, this love, like sacred fire, bums on the altar of
the heart. It was on the earth that the love of God was revealed through
Christ. It is on the earth that His children are to reflect this love through
blameless lives. Thus sinners will be led to the cross, to behold the Lamb of
God." Acts of the Apostles, 333, 334.
"The cross of Calvary challenges, and will finally vanquish every earthly
and hellish power. In the cross all influence centers, and from it all influence
goes forth. It is the great center of attraction; for on it Christ gave up His life
for the human race. This sacrifice was offered for the purpose of restoring
man to his original perfection. Yea, more, it was offered to give him an en-
tire transformation of character, making him more than a conqueror.
"Those who in the strength of Christ overcome the great enemy of God
and man, will occupy a position in the heavenly courts above angels who
have never fallen.
"Christ declares, 'I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto
Me.' If the cross does not find an influence in its favor, it creates an in-
fluence. Through generation succeeding generation, the truth for this time
is revealed as present truth. Christ on the cross was the medium whereby
mercy and truth met together, and righteousness and peace kissed each
other. This is the means that is to move the world." S.D.A. Bible Com-
mentary 6: 1113.
It was an awareness of and appreciation for these great truths which
caused Paul to testify:
"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world."
Galatians 6: 14.
Therefore he said: "For I determined not to know any thing among
you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." 1 Corinthians 2:2.
All these words are wonderful, inspiring, challenging, and uplifting.
They provide the fullest encouragement to proceed into the study of God's
character with the assurance that when that theme is brought into the
light flooding from the cross, every mystery will be solved.
THE MYSTERY-UNFOLDING CROSS 195

THE MYSTERY-UNFOLDING CROSS

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r~r,,1~ r,1i11NpOe ro11 hr <;a~eO~ 111eo~u,1ed.

The particular problem before us concerns the way in which God deals
with the unrepentant sinner. The emergence of sin imposed upon God the
greatest test of character ever. Because it is the truth that the greater the test
the greater the manifestation of the character present, the contemplation of
the way in which God deals with the sinner reveals more of the wonder of
God's character than any other study could.
Previously in these pages, evidence and argument have been
assembled to draw the contrast between the way in which God deals with
the sinner and the way man does it. It has been shown that the Lord does
not bless for a time and then tum with cursings and destructions upon the
unrepentant, even though it is widely supposed that He does. The
evidences so far considered are overwhelmingly convincing. Let these be
studied now in the light of the cross. They will either be confirmed or denied
by that utterly reliable witness of God's character.
The cross is God's personal demonstration of the way in which He will
deal with the finally impenitent. Christ took the sinner's place and God
dealt with Him there exactly as He will deal with every sinner throughout
the annals of time. This is the point which must be clearly seen and
accepted. God did not relate Himself to Christ any differently from what He
does to the sinner. It is exactly the same. It must be, for if God should do
otherwise, then Satan would be very quick to justly charge God with partiality.
Christ wholly took the sinner's place. This was so real, so complete,
196 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

that it was as if He were the sinner. It was thus that God saw Him in
Gethsemane, and on the cross, and it was as a lost and condemned sinner
that God treated Him. It was no make-believe substitution. Had it not been
absolutely real, all would have been lost, for, if Christ's standing in the place
of sinners came short in the least degree, then, to that degree the ransom
was not fully paid.
This vital truth is spelled out with great clarity in these statements. Every
encouragement is given to the student to concentrate his attention on the
wording of these paragraphs so that the message may not be missed.
Become immovably confirmed in the truth that Christ in no way received
any "preferred son" treatment from His Father resulting in His being
punished in a different way from that of the lost and unrepentant sinner.
Look to the cross of Calvary for a clear view of the way God acted there,
and then know exactly how God acts when a sinner has eternally refused
the offer of repentance.
Back in the Garden of Eden, despite the warnings given them from
God, Adam and Eve chose to go the way of transgression. That way incurs
a punishment, the nature of which has already been discussed in chapter
eight. Therein it was learned that God has given man life, a home, and
mighty powers to enable him to live to full happiness and achievement in
that home. But power with its capacity to maintain life on the best of levels
also has the potentiality for doing away with it altogether.
To protect man from the latter eventuality, God gave him the law as a
love gift from heaven. Obedience to it would perpetuate his eternal and
perfect happiness, but disobedience would unleash all those powers in a
destructive role. That destruction would in no way be the working of God's
personal retaliation against the sinner. It would be the inevitable outworking
of his own course of action.
When the first pair sinned, they took another god in place of the real
God, making it impossible for Him to continue as the Sustainer of all the
powers of nature without His forcing His presence where it was not desired.
Therefore, at the very moment in which they turned out of the pathway of
righteousness, there were poised and ready to strike, mighty powers,
which, though provided for their blessing, had been perverted to destroy.
They would have died that very day as God had said, but for one contin-
gency.
"The instant man accepted the temptations of Satan, and did the very
things God had said he should not do, Christ, the Son of God, stood be-
tween the living and the dead, saying, 'Let the punishment fall on Me. I will
stand in man's place. He shall have another chance.' " S.D.A. Bible
Commentary 1:1085.
The substitution of Christ in man's place was complete. Christ bears the
same punishment and stands in the same place to receive it. To determine
the nature of the sentence to fall upon man, study need only be given to the
way Christ died. There are two ways in which it could have happened.
THE MYSTERY-UNFOLDING CROSS 197

One is under the power of an offended God rising to vindicate His

authority. The death would then be the result of God's direct act. If this is
the way the sinner was to die then Christ must die in an identical fashion.
God cannot administer one sentence on the sinner and a different one on
Christ, for, if He did, He would deny the truth that Christ took man's
punishment and stood in man's place.
The other possibility is for God to leave the sinner to the fate which he
has chosen, once he has rejected every possible effort on God's part to save
him. His death would then be the outworking of the broken law. If this is the
way man is to die, then that is the way Christ died.
In short, the question is, does God kill the sinner or is it sin which will
destroy him? Whichever it is, that is what destroyed Christ when the punish-
ment fell upon Him.
The reading of individual statements would certainly give the impres-
sion that it was God who personally administered the punishment on the
sinner according to His judgment of what it should be. Here is a sample of
such a statement.
"There are limits even to the forbearance of God. The boundary of His
long-suffering may be reached, and then He will surely punish. And when
He does take up the case of the presumptuous sinner, He will not cease till
He has made a full end.
"Very few realize the sinfulness of sin; they flatter themselves that God
is too good to punish the offender. But the cases of Miriam, Aaron, David,
and many others show that it is not a safe thing to sin against God in deed,
in word, or even in thought. God is a being of infinite love and compassion,
but He also declares Himself to be 'a consuming fire, even a jealous God.' "
Reuiew and Herald, August 14, 1900.
Because we have been so long accustomed to interpret words such as
these in the same way as we would if they were describing human
behavior, we see in them the description of God as the One Who, with
patience exhausted, arises to personally punish those who have offended
Him. But the witness of the cross does not support this interpretation.
"The death of Christ was to be the convincing, everlasting argument
that the law of God is as unchangeable as His throne. The agonies of the
Garden of Gethsemane, the insult, the mockery, and abuse heaped upon
God's dear Son, the horrors and ignominy of the crucifixion, furnish suffi-
cient and thrilling demonstration that God's justice, when it punishes, does
work thoroughly. The fact that His own Son, the Surety for man, was
not spared is an argument that will stand to all eternity before saint and sin-
ner, before the universe of God, to testify that He will not excuse the trans-
gressor of His law. Every offense against God's law, however minute, is set
down in the reckoning, and when the sword of justice is taken in hand, it
will do the work for impenitent transgressors that was done to the diuine
Sufferer. Justice will strike; for God's hatred of sin is intense and over-
whelming." S.D.A. Bible Commentary 3:1166.
198 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Reference is made in this quotation to the working of God's justice. A

caution again needs to be sounded that God's ways are not our ways and
therefore God's justice and man's justice are not the same. More will be
studied on this later.
This statement recognizes that there is a terrible punishment to fall upon
those who have rejected the protection of righteous law. It also states that
the same work to be done in destroying the impenitent, was done on Christ
when He died. Therefore, His death is a revelation of the work of God in
the death of the wicked. By this means we can understand the Bible mean-
ing of how God punishes the sinner.
Before we do look at the cross to see just what the Father did there, let
a further statement be studied to strengthen the point made in the one just
quoted, namely that the death of Christ was exactly as the death of the sin-
ner will be.
"It is a fearful thing for the unrepentant sinner to fall into the hands of
the living God. This is proved by the history of the destruction of the old
world by a flood, by the record of the fire which fell from heaven and
destroyed the inhabitants of Sodom." S.D.A. Bible Commentary 5: 1103.
This is the first part of what is to be quoted here from this statement.
From what has been read thus far, the impression will be formed that God is
the destroyer. When we hear a human being speak of his enemy in these
words, "If that man should ever fall into my hands ... " we know that he
purposes to use all his powers to personally crush and destroy that man. So
we are apt to think of God in the same terms because of our familiarity with
the earthly meaning of such an expression. But as the statement continues,
it gives us again the guideline of the experience of God and Christ at the
cross to enable us to understand the real meaning of those words.
"But never was this [the fearful thing of falling into the hands of the
living God) proved to so great an extent as in the agony of Christ, the Son
of the infinite God, when He bore the wrath of God for a sinful world." ibid.
He, then, who looks firstly and only at what he thinks he sees taking
place at the flood and at Sodom and Gomorrah, will arrive at an incorrect
view of what it does mean to fall into the hands of the living God. But, if he
looks firstly at the death of Christ and understands from the revelation
there, what it means to fall into the hands of the living God, then he will
have the right view of the character and justice of God.
The revelation of this truth is strengthened as we read further in the
paragraph. "It was in consequence of sin, the transgression of God's law,
that the Garden of Gethsemane has become preeminently the place of suf-
fering to a sinful world. No sorrow, no agony, can measure with that which
was endured by the Son of God.
"Man has not been made a sin-bearer, and he will never know the
horror of the curse of sin which the Saviour bore. No sorrow can bear any
comparison with the sorrow of Him upon whom the wrath of God fell with
THE MYSTERY-UNFOLDING CROSS 199

overwhelming force. Human nature can endure but a limited amount of

test and trial. The finite can only endure the finite measure, and human
nature succumbs; but the nature of Christ had a greater capacity for suffer-
ing; for the human existed in the divine nature, and created a capacity for
suffering to endure that which resulted from the sins of a lost world. The
agony which Christ endured, broadens, deepens, and gives a more
extended conception of the character of sin, and the character of the
retribution which God will bring upon those who continue in sin. The wages
of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ to the
repenting, believing sinner." ibid.
So Christ said, "Let the punishment fall on Me. I will stand in man's
place."
This is what He did. God took Him completely at His word so that:
The sword of justice did to Christ exactly what it would have done to
sinful man and will do when the finally impenitent suffer their
ultimate destruction;
He received the full outpouring of the wrath of God;
He fell into the hands of the living God;
and thus died as man will die if he remains in sin.
This being so, there remains only the need to study how Jesus died on
the cross to understand how God will relate Himself to the sinner; to
understand what the wrath of God is; and of what the punishment of sin
consists.
On the cross of Calvary, Christ died the death of the sinner. It was a
death which met the full demands of God's law. It was God's punishment on
sinners, but it was not at the hand of God that Christ died. The Father did
not slay His Son.
It was sin which slew the Son of God. The Father simply withdrew from
the Son and left Him to perish, because there was nothing else He could do.
Christ stood in the very position of the sinner who wants nothing of God
and demands His withdrawal. With the withdrawal of the sustaining, life-
protecting, life-giving power of God, there was nothing to save Christ from
the awful, destructive power of sin. Its fearful weight crushed the life forces
into extinction.
"But it was not the spear thrust, it was not the pain of the cross, that
caused the death of Jesus. That cry, uttered 'with a loud voice' (Matthew
27:50; Luke 23:46), at the moment of death, the stream of blood and
water that flowed from His side, declared that He died of a broken heart.
His heart was broken by mental anguish. He was slain by the sin of the
world." The Desire of Ages, 772.
There can be no mistaking the way in which Christ died. Accordingly,
there is no difficulty in knowing how man will die at the destructive hands of
sin. At the cross, when the full penalty which Christ undertook to bear in
man's place, was exacted, Christ did not find the Father waiting for Him
200 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

there as an executioner to extinguish every ray of hope and element of life.

It was sin which, in that role, awaited Him.
So men will never find God waiting as their executioner. Satan makes it
appear that He does, but it is not so. The cross of Calvary proves that. Sin
is the destroyer which awaits the condemned sinner. Man places himself
under its obliterating power by his total rejection of God, whom he replaces
with another god who has no power to sustain and protect him.
With Christ, God's withdrawal from Him was in fulfillment of the cove-
nant made between the Father and the Son that the Saviour would stand in
man's place to receive the punishment man had incurred. This was a volun-
tary sacrifice made by both the Father and the Son. For God to accept that
Christ stood in man's place, He must separate Himself from Christ as He
would from the guilty sinner, thus leaving Him fully exposed to the destruc-
tive power of sin.
This is that to which man is left. This is how he perishes. The particular
form in which the executioner awaits him varies according to place and cir-
cumstances. Thus some meet the grim reaper in the person of enraged
enemies; others perish by the inroads of fearful diseases; some are cut
down by nature out of control; while others perish in accidents and
calamities. All these forces only await the opportunity to wreak havoc and
death among the human family. They can only accomplish their missions of
destruction when God is forced to withdraw and leave humans to the fate
they have chosen.
Nothing can deny the truths presented by Christ on the cross. He took
the punishment due to fall on man in the way in which it will eventually fall
on him at the final reckoning. In this is given to us the most accurate picture
of the nature of God's wrath and the punishment of man which could ever
be given.
It may be argued that in the end it will be an all-engulfing fire which will
obliterate mankind and that this punishment did not fall on Christ. It is true
that no literal fire consumed Christ upon the cross, but this creates no
problem. The particular weapon used by sin to punish the sinner will vary
according to the circumstances. Sometimes it is fire, as at Sodom and
Gomorrah and at the end, or it is an earthquake, a tidal wave, a volcanic
eruption, the fearful ravages of a disease, or the onslaught of other men.
The particular means by which the punishment of sin is administered is not
important. The important thing is that it comes by the sinner's casting off the
protecting and sustaining hand of God to release the pent up forces of
destruction upon him.
This is how it was with Christ upon the cross and how it will be with
every sinner who perishes, either in this first life or in the resurrection of
the unjust. The protecting presence of God is withdrawn leaving the sinner
exposed to all the destructive power of an evil conscience within and the
unleashed forces of nature without.
THE MYSTERY-UNFOLDING CROSS 201

Those then, who would truly understand the way in which the punish-
ment of sin will fall, how the justice of God will strike, and how the wrath of
God descends upon the shelterless head of the guilty, must go to the won-
drous sacrifice made upon the hill outside Jerusalem. This is the place to
begin. Thereafter let every truth in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation be
studied in the light which streams from that cross. Only then will the truth be
comprehended.
God does not come to the sinner equipped with the weapons of
destruction to execute His own decrees against the impenitent. This is not
His way. That is the way of Satan and his followers.
God's way was to give man the law in the first instance as a protection
and a saviour from death. Then, when men cast away that saviour, He gave
Himself to save them. When, in tum, they reject this means of salvation,
then there is nothing further the Lord can do. He has no option but to leave
them to perish.
202

CHAPTER TWENlY

The Way Of The Cross

The witness of the cross is not limited to proving that God does not
destroy the rejecters of His mercy. To see nothing more in Calvary's
testimony than this, is to be handicapped with an unbalanced view of its
wonderlul light.
The revelations of God's character and purposes as given at the cross
are infinite in their scope. Therefore, they are inexhaustible. They are so
utterly limitless, that it is impossible to ever come to the place where the
edge or the end of them can be found. In heaven when we will have spent a
hundred million years researching this unfolding of God's character, there
will still be an infinitude beyond. When one attempts to consider how much
knowledge will be accumulated from one hundred million years of concen-
trated study, and yet still leave an infinitude to learn, one is quickly made
aware of how little has yet been learned by humanity, of the love and
character of God.
The less we have learned of this today, the more difficult it will be to
comprehend the truth of it. To some, it may even seem a discouraging
prospect, whereas in fact, it should be a most reassuring one for if we were
ever to come to the place where there was nothing more to learn, achieve,
or accomplish, then the joy of heaven would die. Therefore, it is a comfort
to know that such a point can never be reached by the finite mind. Eternity
will never exhaust the beauty, the power, and the wonder of God's
character and, ever as we learn new delights of wisdom in the unfolding of
that character, the more wonderlul will be the joy and satisfaction which will
pervade every soul.
"Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. God's wonderlul
purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which
'angels desire to look,' and it will be their study throughout endless ages.
Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the cross of Christ
their science and their song." The Desire of Ages, 19, 20.
"All the paternal love which has come down from generation to genera-
tion through the channel of human hearts, all the springs of tenderness
which have opened in the souls of men, are but as a tiny rill to the
boundless ocean when compared with the infinite, exhaustless love of God.
Tongue cannot utter it; pen cannot portray it. You may meditate upon it
every day of your life; you may search the Scriptures diligently in order to
understand it; you may summon every power and capability that God has
given you, in the endeavor to comprehend the love and compassion of the
heavenly Father; and yet there is an infinity beyond. You may study that
love for ages; yet you can never fully comprehend the length and the
THE WAY OF THE CROSS 203

breadth, the depth and the height, of the love of God in giving His Son to
die for the world. Eternity itself can neuer fully reueal it. Yet as we study the
Bible and meditate upon the life of Christ and the plan of redemption, these
great themes will open to our understanding more and more. And it will be
ours to realize the blessing which Paul desired for the Ephesian church
when he prayed 'that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and reue/ation in the knowledge of
Him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know
what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His in-
heritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to
usward who believe.' " Testimonies 5:740.
The focal point of all that glory is the cross of Christ.
The beholding of the glory of that revelation will change us into the
same image from glory to glory as it is written: "But we all, with open face
beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same
image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Corinthians
3:18.
This is the way to become like Christ. It is not by the threat of punish-
ment or the offers of eternal riches that one is motivated to develop a fitness
for heaven. It is by devoting the life to the intensive study of God's wonder-
ful character in response to the drawing power of infinite love, that one is
changed into the very likeness of God. If the full implications of this truth
could be grasped as they should be, there would be such an intensive study of
the sacrifice of Christ as this world has never seen. Paul appreciated this
so that he "determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus
Christ, and Him crucified." 1 Corinthians 2:2.
Paul did not deny that he had preached doctrine, prophecy, or the law.
Research through his epistles proves that he did present those subjects.
But, his declarations on these themes were always and only as they stood in
the light which streams from the cross. He rightly saw that every word of
Scripture was the revelation of Jesus Christ, whose finest manifestation
centers in the cross. So it was, that when he preached doctrine, prophecy
and law, he was still preaching nothing among them, "save Jesus Christ,
and Him crucified."
In this, he set the example for every preacher for all time. The only truly
effective gospel work is that which makes the cross the center of all
discourses. The commission given to Paul is the same as that given to every
child of God. We are not sent to debate, or to deliver dissertations on this
and that Bible subject. We are to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ with its
great central point, the cross. Paul affirmed the truth of this for himself and
us in the words: "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the
gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made
of none effect." 1 Corinthians 1: 17.
204 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

When the Lord arrested Paul's mad course of destruction and set him
forth as a missionary to the Gentiles, He gave him this specific commission
to go preach the gospel of the cross, but in doing so God only reiterated the
great commission. Before He left this earth, Christ gathered His beloved
followers around Him and solemnly outlined their mission to them. "Go ye
into all the world," He instructed them, "and preach the gospel to every
creature." Mark 16: 15.
Paul was in the most exacting sense, faithful to his calling. When the
time drew near for his execution, he said with conviction under the inspira-
tion of the Spirit of Truth,
"For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at
hand.
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith:
"Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the
Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only,
but unto all them also that love His appearing." 2 Timothy 4:6-8.
For the faithful fulfillment of his commission, Paul had to know just what
the preaching of the gospel really was. The master counterfeiter was as
wide awake then as he is today. In this concluding era of human history, he
has his spurious version of the preaching of the cross being vigorously ad-
vocated throughout the religious organizations under his control. So did he
likewise in Paul's time. Enlightened by the ministry of the Spirit, the inspired
apostle was well able to detect the deception, while comprehending the
wisdom and power resident in the true gospel of the genuine cross. Thus he
was competent to present the saving cross as distinct from the false version.
Therefore, when he observed that " ... the preaching of the cross is to
them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of
God," 1 Corinthians 1:18, he expected it to be understood that the cross
about which he was speaking was not the cross as known and held by the
Gentiles, but as presented in the life and death of Christ. The principles em-
bodied in one are the direct and hostile opposite from those incorporated in
the other. Never shall the two come into any kind of harmony or co-
operation. Where one is upheld, the other is despised and rejected. On
God's side it is the symbol of the very spirit of self-denying, self-sacrificing,
self-abnegating love. It is the ultimate declaration that God will never use
the limitless powers at His command to compel any to follow and serve
Him. On Satan's side the cross is the revelation of the spirit of selfishness at
its fully matured worst. It is the declaration that those who will not submit to
the one in power, will be subjected to the cruellest torture and death.
So despised is the true cross by the unbelieving world that to the Gentile
it was foolishness and to the Jew, a stumbling-block. Neither of them saw in
it any beauty, power, or attractiveness.
"For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom.
THE WAY OF THE CROSS 205

"But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and

unto the Greeks foolishness;
"But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the
power of God, and the wisdom of God.
"Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness
of God is stronger than men." 1 Corinthians 1:22-25.
It is not to be supposed that times have changed since Paul's day. There
are many who would argue that they have. The popular churches would
ridicule any suggestion that to them the cross was either foolishness or a
stumblingblock. To support their contention, they would point to the
dominant place it holds in their literature, preaching, and worship, and its
prolific use in the adornment of their religious houses and persons.
They would then enquire if this was not sufficient evidence to prove
that, far from being foolishness to them, the cross was the very heart and
life of their religion. This argument does seem to be conclusive, and it is the
claim of modem evangelical Protestantism that they preach nothing but
Christ and Him crucified.
It is an argument adequate to prove to the superficial thinker, that the
cross is not foolishness to the adherents of modem religions, and that,
therefore, the evaluation of the cross standing in Paul's day was applicable
to his time alone. But the careful, prayerful, thoughtful student of God's
Word will find that there is a deeper and more beautiful understanding to be
gained. From this he will see that there has been no change, that the true
cross of Christ is just as much foolishness today as it ever was in Paul's day.
He will come to see that the modem religionist is not worshipping the cross
of Christ as he thinks he is and professes to be, but another cross altogether.
This means that there are two crosses-the cross of Christ and the
Babylonian cross, usually referred to as the Christian cross. As already
stated, the former is the revelation of God's character, while the latter sym-
bolizes the spirit which actuates the devil and his breed.
The enemy did not institute his cross when he took Christ to the hill of
sacrifice. Neither the Jew nor the Greek beheld it then for the first time.
That evil cross dated back to the setting up of the counterfeit kingdom
shortly after the flood. There was a "mighty hunter before the Lord" whose
name was Nimrod and whose brief mention in Scripture appears in Genesis
10:8-11. The description of him as being before the Lord, is to be
understood in the sense that he placed himself before God, or in the place of
God, for whom he had neither respect nor regard.
His life ended in a violent and untimely death, which his wife,
Semiramis, and others, upheld as a voluntary sacrifice on his part. 1 It was
taught that provided the Babylonians revered this noble offering, they
would be preserved forever. As a fitting reward, Nimrod was given deifica-
tion as the sun god, and the first day of the week was set aside as his day.
1
See The Two Babylons, 61, 62, by Alexander Hislop, published by S.W. Partridge and
Co., 4-6, Soho Square, London W.l. 1957 Edition.
206 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Once the dead hero had been deified, then the secret mysteries of the
Babylonian religion were set up. In due course, the licentious Semiramis
bore an illegitimate son. Semiramis and the upholders of the secret
mysteries, taught that this child was the reincarnation of the dead hero.
Thus Nimrod was represented as being both the father and the son while
the child was also declared to be both her husband and her son. The name
Tammuz was given to the child, the significance being that this had been
Nimrod's name too. But, whereas a son is simply named after his father
without in fact being the father himself, in this case the name was given
because it was believed that the father had actually reappeared. It was not
purported to be a birth in the normal sense. It was regarded as an
incarnation.
It is immediately apparent that in all this, the mystery of God is
remarkably counterfeited. Christ was to come and die a sacrificial death,
the acceptance and recognition of which would restore eternal life. He was,
in His incarnation, both the Father and the Son, while the Son of Mary was,
in a certain sense, also her Husband. Let it be emphasized that we say this is
true in a certain very special sense as the readers should well understand.
This unique role of being both the Father and the Son was the subject of a
difficult and, for them, unanswerable question put to the Pharisees by
Christ.
"While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,
"Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is He? They say unto
Him, the Son of David.
"He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord,
saying,
"The Lord said unto My Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, till I make
Thine enemies Thy footstool.
"If David call Him Lord, how is He his son?
"And no man was able to answer Him a word, neither durst any man
from that day forth ask Him any more questions." Matthew 22:41-46.
The incontrovertible witness of the Scriptures was that the Messiah was
the Lord or spiritual father of King David, yet at the same time, the Word
testified that He would be David's son. It is the mystery of God that the
same being can be both the father and the son, and it is the mystery of in-
iquity to pretend that it is so in a created being apart from the only One Who
could be such.
Tammuz, then, as the supposedly reincarnated one, was exalted to the
place of highest honor in the ancient mysteries and appeared under dif-
ferent names in various religious orders. The whole system was designed by
Satan to assist him to more effectively war against God. While its structure
held the appearance of being a reproduction of the divine mysteries, its
every spirit and principle of operation was so far separated from, so hostile to,
and so dedicated to war against the divine principles that there could be
THE WAY Of THE CROSS 207

no real similarity between them. The deceptive appearance was skilfully

crafted to ensnare to destruction the bodies, minds, and souls of men.
It is characteristic of every system of human devising to erect a visible
symbol as a means of identification. Thus nations have their flags, armies
their uniforms, organizations their badges, special groups their insignias,
and so on. God, too, has His identifying signs, but they are not material
things made of cloth, bronze, silver, or gold. They are spiritual in nature
and cannot be discerned except with the enlightened eye.
Thus the secret mysteries needed a symbol to give them a
distinguishing identification. Such a sign must center in the being who, it
was believed, had come back from the dead, Tammuz. Accordingly, the
first letter of his name, which in its ancient form was in the shape of a cross
thus, t became the insignia of that vast apostate and rebellious religious
system. It was as fully important and sacred in that ancient system as it is in
the papal orders today. Alexander Hislop has made this point very strongly
in the following extract.
"In the Papal system, as is well known, the sign of the cross and the
image of the cross are all in all. No prayer can be said, no worship engaged
in, no step almost can be taken, without the frequent use of the sign of the
cross. The cross is looked upon as the grand charm, as the great refuge in
every season of danger, in every hour of temptation as the infallible pre-
servative from all the powers of darkness. The cross is adored with all the
homage due only to the Most High; and for any one to call it, in the hearing
of a genuine Romanist, by the Scriptural term, 'the accursed tree,' is a mor-
tal offence. To say that such superstitious feeling for the sign of the cross,

Fig43t '1' t
such worship as Rome pays to a wooden or a metal cross, ever grew out of
the saying of Paul, 'God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ'-that is, in the doctrine of Christ crucified-is a mere ab-
surdity, a shallow subterfuge and pretence. The magic virtues attributed to
the so-called sign of the cross, the worship bestowed on it, never came from
such a source. The same sign of the cross that Rome now worships was
used in the Babylonian Mysteries, was applied by Paganism to the same
magic purposes, was honored with the same honors. That which is now
called the Christian cross was originally no Christian emblem at all, but was
the mystic Tau of the Chaldeans and Egyptians-the true original form of
the letter T-the initial of the name of Tammuz-which, in Hebrew,
radically the same as ancient Chaldee, as found on coins, was formed as in
No. 1 of the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 43); and in Etrurian and Coptic,
as in Nos. 2 and 3. That mystic Tau was marked in baptism on the
208 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

foreheads of those initiated in the Mysteries, and was used in every variety
of way as a most sacred symbol. To identify Tammuz with the sun it was
joined sometimes to the circle of the sun, as in No. 4; sometimes it was
inserted in the circle, as in No. 5. Whether the Maltese cross, which the
Hornish bishops append to their names as a symbol of their episcopal digni-
ty, is the letter T, may be doubtful; but there seems no reason to doubt that
that Maltese cross is an express symbol of the sun; for Layard found it as a
sacred symbol in Nineveh in such a connection as led him to identify it with
the sun. The mystic Tau, as the symbol of the great divinity, was called 'the
sign of life;' it was used as an amulet over the heart; it was marked on the
official garments of the priests, as on the official garments of the priests of
Rome; it was borne by kings in their hand, as a token of their dignity or
divinely-conferred authority. The Vestal virgins of Pagan Rome wore it

Fig. 44

suspended from their necklaces, as the nuns do now.

"The Egyptians did the same, and many of the barbarous nations with
whom they had intercourse, as the Egyptian monuments bear witness. In
reference to the adorning of some of these tribes, Wilkinson thus writes:
'The girdle was sometimes highly ornamented; men as well as women
wore earrings; and they frequently had a small cross suspended to a
necklace, or to the collar of their dress. The adoption of this last was not
peculiar to them; it was also appended to, or figured upon, the robes of the
Rot-n-no; and traces of it may be seen in the fancy ornaments of the Rebo,
showing that it was already in use as early as the fifteenth century before the
Christian era.' (Fig. 44.) There is hardly a Pagan tribe where the cross has
not been found." The Two Babylons, 197-199.
Paul's statement that the cross was foolishness to the Greek cannot be
rightly understood except it be known that the cross was as much an in-
tegral and important part of Greek and Roman religion then, as it is of papal
and Protestant religion today. Consequently, if Paul's words had been
reported to a Greek or Roman of that time, they would have ridiculed the
THE WAY OF THE CROSS 209

idea as being utterly false, exactly as a modem religionist would, if it was

suggested that the cross was foolishness to him. They would point to the
dominant role of the cross in their religious rites and ceremonies, to its
multiplied appearances in every church function, and on every person and
building, offering these things as evidence that the cross is anything but
foolishness; and that it is an object receiving the deepest reverence and
continual adoration in their worship.
They would have contended that Paul's assertion, not the cross, was
the foolish thing.
Thus there existed the testimony of God's Word through the inspired
apostle versus the counterclaim by the Greek and Roman. The former
taught that the cross was foolishness to the Greek, while the latter dis-
claimed such a charge. It must be conceded that the Greek would be entire-
ly sincere in what he said, believing that he, and not Paul, spoke the truth.
The real fact is that both the Spirit of God and the Greek spoke the truth
because they were speaking about two different crosses. The cross, as Paul
knew and taught it, was utterly foolish to the Greek, while the cross, as the
Greek knew it, was anything but that. Nothing has changed since that day.
The cross of Christ with all it stands for is still foolishness to the world,
including the modem religionist, while the cross known and understood by
the world is the epitome of human wisdom and ways.
The cross, be it that of Christ or of Babylon, is nothing in itself. It is
merely two pieces of inanimate wood crossed and joined together. But it is
highly symbolic. It is representative of the culture, learning, beliefs, and
ways of the two great opposing powers. When that is comprehended, it will
be seen just how the cross of Christ is foolishness to the Greek, the Roman,
and to everyone, but he who is vitally connected in spirit and principle to
Christ.
Consider, then, the symbolism of the cross as it was known to the
Babylonian, be he Greek, Roman, Jew, Papist, or Protestant. These
powers are all highly religious in nature, but it is not to be supposed that the
principles of their religion differ from their daily practices. Of course, there
are some high pretensions in these faiths which do not find matching
behavior in the life. With that there is no concern here. Rather, the interest is
in the principles of the religion, what it really is, not what it pretends to be.
In short, while the cross as Paul knew, lived, and taught it, was the
revelation of God's character, it was the manifestation of the character of
the man of sin, the son of perdition, as the Babylonians knew, lived, and
taught it. Therefore, while the cross, as a symbol, did not appear till the days
of Tammuz, that which it represents dates back to Lucifer's defection, when
the counter-philosophy was established.
The cross, as the conveyor of God's message to the universe, is the ex-
pression of that spirit which seeks the blessing and salvation of others, no
matter how much the cost may be to one's self. As the symbol of Satan's
 BEHOLD YOUR (

ONE CROSS
TWO MESSAGES

GOD'S SATAN'S
THE LAW OF LIFE THE LAW OF LIFE
IS THE PRINCIPLE IS THE PRINCIPLE
OF OF
SELF-SACRIFICING SELF-SERVING
LOVE LOVE

THIS IS THIS IS
SERVICE TO OTHERS SERVICE TO SELF
IRRESPECTIVE IRRESPECTIVE
OF THE CosT OF THE CosT
TO THE SERVER TO OTHERS

CHRIST' s GARMENT SATAN'S GARMENT

IS IS
DIPPED IN BLOOD DIPPED IN BLOOD
-His OwN- -OF OTHERS-

THE HOLY THE UNHOLY

COVENANT COVENANT
THE WAY OF THE CROSS 211

way, it declares that character which seeks its own benefit, no matter what
the cost to others.
Give careful consideration now to the development of the Babylonian's
character. The man of sin is not original. The first man was righteous. That is
a self-evident truth, for in the beginning the Lord made all things good.
Therefore, the man of sin must be a perverted development of that original
righteous man. Step by step, for this can never be the work of a moment,
the deviation has matured until it is utterly at enmity with the God Who
gave it its original perfect existence.
Its first appearance was in Lucifer, the bright and morning star, but what
happened in him has been repeated in every subsequent departure from
the living God and the cross of Christ.
The way of the living God is self-sacrificing, self-renouncing love. It is
God's infinite wisdom that there should be a circle of love reaching out from
Him to the uttermost limits of the universe and returning to Him to flow out
again in a transcendent glory of joy and praise. No one is to receive merely
for his own gratification and advantage. Each is to be a channel so that
everything received is passed on to those around, for them to administer
the same blessing to still others and they to others yet beyond.
While that beautiful stream flowed in unbroken rhythm, no note of
sadness or jarring discord broke the sweet harmonies of the universal
kingdom. Lucifer, the covering cherub, was as happy as the rest as he
faithfully fulfilled his appointed mission of service.
But the time came when his fidelity to this principle began to waver and
then to break down. He was the brightest and therefore, most privileged, of
all the angels. He held the highest position available to a creature. He had
developed the most brilliant talents, and his arrival at this pinnacle of power
and glory was the result of the gifts showered upon him by his Creator,
combined with his own diligent effort. At first, he felt only gratitude to God
for His wonderful love; his heart daily responding to the life flowing from
God to him. But the passing of time eventually brought him imperceptibly
to the point where he came to be increasingly aware of himself and his
brilliance and less aware of the God Who had given it all to him.
With marvellous perception, the Scriptures discern the cause of
Lucifer's fall from his lofty elevation.
"By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee
with violence, and thou hast sinned." Eiekiel 28: 16.
The nature of the merchandise which dethroned the beautiful one is not
known to us. Earthly merchandise is salable goods from the most common
to the most valuable form. They are eagerly sought by the world, for
possession of them assures freedom from want, and the assurance of
security, comfort, and power.
Whatever form they took in heaven is not important. Merchandise
meant for Lucifer the increase of personal possessions, power, and wealth.
212 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

It had the same effect upon him as it has had upon earth-dwellers through
all time, except for those rare exceptions, the individuals who have so taken
hold of the spirit of self-sacrificing love that they escape that snare.
That effect was to cause Lucifer to gradually transfer his faith from the
Giver of all good things to the gifts provided by the Giver. He began to
realize that if he retained that which came into his possession, then he
would accumulate so much more of these delightful things. Thus the
already wealthy angel would become just that much wealthier.
All this is not so easily seen in Lucifer's life as it is in the lives of men and
women. The procedure has been repeated countless times since Satan
came to Eve at the forbidden tree. It is most noticeable in the history of
movements which have been raised up by God to effectively demonstrate
His character and thus bring about the termination of sin and its attendant
horrors.
Such movements are born out of times of great spiritual apostasy. The
exodus movement from Egypt lifted the people out of the deep darkness of
the long Egyptian night. So it was with the return to the promised land after
the Babylonian captivity. Later the apostolic church emerged from the
darkness of the long Jewish rejection of divine principles as did the reforma-
tion churches from the papal midnight.
Such retumings to God are championed initially by a lone voice pitted
against overwhelming opposition from the ruling elite, aided by the
superstition, fear, and ignorance of the general populace. The Lord's
chosen messenger sees with vivid clarity the human's hopeless inadequacy
to cope with these combined powers of darkness, but he cannot draw back.
He is committed to his mission. Therefore, he is forced to flee to the Mighty
One for strength.
As he pours out his confession of frailty and need and by faith makes a
living connection with the Almighty, the windows of heaven are opened
and light, power, and material aid are directed to him. He hurries these gifts
into the battle, and, as quickly as they are exhausted, he returns to receive
more and still more. As others join him, they, with like consecration, throw
all they have into the battle, looking to God and God alone for their
guidance and support. The sense of need during this period is very great,
resulting in a total absence of self-sufficiency.
As time goes by, great victories are achieved, numbers are added to the
ranks, and the initial struggles are followed by a relatively quieter period.
God continues to deliver His wonderful blessings to them for the purpose of
their using them to reach out still further with the message of power.
But, like the Israelites of Joshua's day, who did not push the battle to
the utmost ends of the land but allowed pockets of rebellion to remain, so
the believers do not follow the directive to go beyond Jerusalem and
Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth. Privation, self-denial, and
sacrifice are not attractive to the human nature which prefers rest from bat-
THE WAY OF THE CROSS 213

tie, ease, pleasure, comfort, and above all, security. The temptation to turn
aside, at least in part, from the heat of the battle is so attractive as to win lit-
tle by little. More and more of God's gifts are appropriated for personal
security and comfort.
As a firm base of material security is formed, the intense sense of need
which previously drew them to God as the Supplier of all good things
diminishes, while the accent is placed more and more on the acquisition of
the material and the visible. Soon, house is being added to house, and land
to land, until the whole mission of the church is lost, the accumulation of
personal wealth becoming the one great objective in life.
Inevitably this will produce changed conditions in the spirit and ex-
perience of those who had once been devoted only to the service of God
and humanity. Their thoughts and interest will be less and less upon God,
and more and more on merchandise. The increase in possessions will breed
a growing feeling of security. The basis of their faith has become money,
houses, land, and other visible life-support systems. Such have lost faith in
God. But it is important to understand that they have not lost faith. Instead
they have transferred it from the great Giver of all things to the gifts given by
the Giver.
Increasing pride and personal satisfaction is taken in their enlarging
prosperity. They view with gratification their industrious labor, their
honest, faithful payment of accounts, and their scrupulous attention to their
various obligations, as proof that they have gained their wealth blamelessly.
They feel entitled to all that they have. They consider themselves blessed of
heaven, possessors of no more than their just rights. This conviction
develops in them the spirit of contention for those rights, so that, if anyone
should threaten to relieve them of the least part of their gains, they will resist
and even counterattack to the limit of their powers.
The human tragedy is that the real nature of what they have done is
hidden from them. That which they regard as being a perfectly legitimate
course is in fact one of fraud and embezzlement, for they have misap-
propriated the goods entrusted to them, to a purpose other than that
designated by the Giver.
This earth is not heaven. It is a wilderness of suffering and despair
created by the entry of sin. A crisis situation exists which the Father and the
heavenly ministers are devoted to ending as soon as possible. But it is im-
possible to accomplish this without the entire cooperation of the human
family. God does not leave those who accept their responsibility to do this
work alone. He has made available every necessary facility. But, none of
this is given to man to make this earth into a paradise for himself while the
vast majority suffer want, disease, afflictions, and degradation. All these
gifts are given for carrying forward the vast program of salvation. Some of it
is needed to house, feed, and clothe the ones who are participant in the
work just as a soldier in the field must be personally sustained. But, beyond
214 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

what is strictly needed for this purpose, the facilities provided by the grace
of God and the diligent industry of the believer are to be returned to the
Lord with interest.
Jesus Christ provided the finest example of this. There was much which
He received from His Father, day by day, but none of it was used for His
own personal gratification. Everything entrusted to Him, He used as a
faithful steward in the pursuance, with single-minded consecration, of the
commission to preach the gospel of the cross.
Tragically, this peerless example is seldom understood and even less
emulated by those who claim to be followers of the meek and lowly One.
Instead of being strictly faithful stewards, they have misappropriated into
other uses that which the Lord gave for specifically designated purposes.
The charge of unfaithfulness will be laid against such. The stream of bless-
ing intended by God to flow through them has stopped with them to
become a Dead Sea.
This is only the early stages of human defection. The Scriptures tell us
that in Lucifer's case, the multitude of his merchandise filled the midst of
him with violence (see Ezekiel 28:16). Therefore the decay is not complete
until it develops into violence. This it will always do.
As man becomes obsessed with the drive to accumulate more and
more material merchandise, he shows less and less consideration and
regard for his fellow men. Should they stand in the way, he will oppress
them. If they can be used to assist him in building his empire, he will not
hesitate to exploit them.
While he retains a superior advantage, he will successfully rise in power
and wealth by this means. Yet continually, there will be a growing resent-
ment on the part of those being used which will eventually break out into
open violence. Throughout earth's history it is possible to find examples of
this as long oppressed races rise against their overlords. Rivers of blood are
shed, great changes are made in the political structure of the world, and the
scepter of power passes from one group to another.
The ruling elite's development of a power structure through the heavy
oppression of the masses had been achieved by the Jewish hierarchy at the
time of Christ's first advent. God had appointed the Jewish nation to carry
the truth of His righteousness to the farthermost parts of the habitable
globe. To them had been given every possible advantage and blessing as
equipment for the speedy and complete execution of their calling. But they
had turned from living by the law of self-renouncing service to others, to
gathering power and glory to themselves. They had fully transferred their
faith from God to the earthly, and, by the time Christ came, exhibited all
the outworking of such a course.
Every principle of operation among them was that of Babylon which
declares that you either serve the powers that be, as they want you to serve
them, or you perish. This is the very heart and substance of Babylonian
THE WAY OF THE CROSS 215

philosophy by which she seeks to justify her mass slaughter of those who
dare refuse to subscribe to her philosophy. That is her religion; and her
cross, dating back to Nimrod and Tammuz, is the symbol of it.
Into that darkness and sorrow Jesus came to shed forth the light of the
opposite principles of self-serving and self-sacrificing love. The Pharisees
and Sadducees found themselves confronted with a threat, the like of
which they had never known before. The peril of losing their authority,
power, wealth, and all else which they had so painstakingly and untiringly
worked to achieve, suddenly became terribly imminent to them.
They had experienced throughout their quest for wealth and power,
the continual danger of someone coming to wrest it from them, but this was
by people devoted to the same principles as themselves. They could
understand the workings of their minds for they were the same as their
own. They knew how to cope with such supplanters and did so to the full
extent of their powers.
But Jesus brought an entirely different method of working. He did not
seek their power and wealth as a primary or any other objective. He came
to implant in the hearts of all men a new principle which in reality is the
oldest principle of all, for it had operated throughout the limitless eternity of
the past. (The Pharisees' principles had not existed till sin appeared.) That
principle is the cross of Christ as distinct from the cross of Tammuz. It is the
guideline for living in which "the love which 'seeketh not her own' has its
source in the heart of God." The Desire of Ages, 20.
Every word spoken by Christ taught these principles. Every act of His
life was a living, practical demonstration of them, while the potency which
flowed from God through Him as a stream of vibrant life, bequeathed upon
those willing to receive its ministry, the same spirit of selfless service.
Because of it, men and women were drawn to Him and longed to be
recipients of His wonderful life. Its drawing power reached out to encircle
even those who had devoted their entire lives to self-aggrandizement. For
the most part, those proud and sensual minds, recognizing the call to an
entire change in their attitudes and procedures, involving the surrender of that
which they cherished as their rights, resisted with increasing vehemence the
Saviour's loving ministry.
The more earnestly Christ worked to save them, the more decidedly
they entrenched themselves in their way and devised every means possible
to prevent Him from reaching the minds of the people. They hoped that
mild measures would intimidate and tum Him from His mission, but as this
did not effect the desired objective, they went on under the command and
leadership of Satan, their master, until they had Him nailed to the cross.
Before Christ began His public ministry the devil met Him on the mount
of temptation. There he propositioned Christ by showing Him the kingdoms
of the world with their glory and power, promising all this to Christ if He
would but worship him.
216 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"Again, the devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and
sheweth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
"And saith unto Him, All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall
down and worship me." Matthew 4:8, 9.
Those kingdoms with their pomp and glory, had been put together by
following the methods of serving self no matter what the cost might be to
others. They could be maintained as such only by continuing those same
procedures. Therefore, when Satan called upon Christ to bow down and
worship him that He might receive the possession of all these earthly
systems as His reward, he was, by implication, beseeching Christ to change
from His principles of kingdom building to those of Satan and sinful man.
He was seeking to have Christ abandon the principle of self-sacrificing
service for that of self-service no matter what the cost might be to others.
Satan well knew that if Christ should abandon those principles in favor of
his, he would forever be the victor in the contest.
When Christ utterly rejected Satan's offering, then the king of demons
was left with no alternative but to live out fully, the spirit which motivated
him. He would have his own way, serve his interests, ambitions, desires,
and aspirations no matter what it might cost others. As day by day Christ
pursued with unwavering fidelity the way of the cross to the cross, the devil
mounted an ever-intensifying campaign against Him in which he strove to
force Him to deviate from His chartered course by making His mission as
costly as possible through personal inconvenience, suffering, pain, humilia-
tion, rejection, deprivation of comfort, security, protection, and merchan-
dise. One of the greatest possible tests which can be imposed on human
nature, is to call upon it to serve others at its own expense.
When that expense calls for the supreme sacrifice, exacted under con-
ditions of extreme torture and fearful mental suffering, then the test has
achieved maximum intensity. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a
man lay down his life for his friends." John 15: 13.
This was the service which Christ came to give, thereby demonstrating
the very heart of the nature of God's character. As that marvellous revela-
tion of God is portrayed before the wondering gaze, it is to be known that
thereby God through Christ has declared that He will serve even the
creatures He has made, no matter what the cost to Himself. God had
declared before sin ever entered, that this was what He would do as the
outworking of His nature. When rebellion arose, then that declaration was
tested to the uttermost. God in Christ demonstrated that God is true, that
He is motivated by the principle of service to others no matter what the cost
to Himself. If Calvary does not prove this, then it proves nothing.
Inasmuch as Satan understood that his principles could become the
established way only by the dethronement of God's way, he worked
relentlessly to make Christ's service as costly as possible, hoping the time
would come when His humanity would protest to the point where He
would proceed no further in paying the price for others.
11-IE WAY OF THE CROSS 217

But no matter how Satan levied upon Him cost and added cost, the
Saviour continued with undeviating consistency toward the moment of
total sacrifice. Not only on Calvary, but at every step towards that pivotal
point in eternity, Jesus lived out the principle of serving with no regard of
the cost to Himself. Therefore, the crucifixion was nothing new to Him. It
was but the ultimate confirmation of what He had been and lived eternally
and would continue to live forevermore.
The revelation of God's character as the One Who serves others irre-
spective of the cost to Himself, was only one side of the picture. On the
other side, Satan's continual exaction of the highest possible cost to the Son
of God was revealing in him that character whereby he would gain his ends,
no matter how high the cost to be paid by others.
Likewise, Calvary was nothing new for Satan. It was the ultimate
manifestation of his character of total selfishness. As we behold his be-
havior there, we are given a glimpse of the nature of his principles and
their ultimate outworking. It is seen that there is no length to which he will
not go, no suffering he will not cause, no price that he will not exact even to
taking the life of the very Being who gave him life and everything he ever
had-the One who had given him only kindness, love, justice, mercy, and
every other goodly thing.
Thus on Calvary's hill, the cross on which the Saviour hung, was, in
reality, two crosses. There was the Roman or Greek cross which antedated
back to the initiation of satanic rebellion. It was the statement, in its most
cogent expression, of Satan's principles of operation. There Satan
demonstrated to every creature in the universe what he would do to them if
they did not pay the price whereby he could have the best for himself.
Every person, system, and organization which has followed his leadership
operates under the same principles to whatever extent they have the power
to enforce their wills.
A graphic illustration of this is found in the behavior of the war lords of
Europe during the second world war. More than one cartoonist illustrated
this with pen and brush, depicting Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini piling
the sacrifice of millions of human lives, hopes, and fortunes into a mountain
high enough to permit them to view and seize the coveted prize of absolute
world dominion. It was inconsequential to them how much others had to
pay, provided they acquired what they desired.
There is nothing foolish to the Greek in this cross. He understands and
accepts its message. That is the only way of life he understands, for to him it
is the secret both of survival and access into the comforts and powers which
the sinful human nature craves.
The greatest contradistinction to this cross and its message is the cross
of which Paul spoke so reverently and enthusiastically. This is the cross as
Christ presented it to the universe both in His daily life and on the cross
itself. This is the supreme testimony that it is God's way to make any
218 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

sacrifice-even of His own life if that should prove necessary-to serve

others to the measure of their helpless need.
From that cross the beautiful and touching submission of Christ to the
demanding cost of our salvation calls every being within the farthermost
outreaches of God's kingdom, to take up his individual cross and follow
where He has led the way. Hear His voice ringing down the ages from that
day when He addressed His counsels to His beloved apostles.
"If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow Me." Matthew 16:24.
This is no plea to take two pieces of wood and secure them in the form
of a cross, or to hammer into shape gold, silver, or other precious metals.
These directives are not fulfilled by wearing a cross on a cord about the
neck, or by fixing it on doors, walls, or any other part of our homes. This is
an invitation to abandon forever the Babylonian, Greek, Roman, and
heathen principle of making the service of self foremost, no matter what the
cost may be to others. It is a challenge to so utterly deny self, that service to
the needs of others will be life's first and greatest mission, no matter how
costly such a work may become.
Rightly understood and lived, it will mean that,
when they smite you on one cheek, you will offer them the other
also;
when they sue you at the law and take your coat, you will let them
have your cloak as well;
when they compel you to go the first mile you will cheerfully go the
second;
you will give to them that ask and will loan to those who would
borrow;
you will love your enemies;.
will bless them that curse you;
do good to them that hate you;
and pray for them which despitefully use and persecute you. See
Matthew 5:38-45.
To the unsanctified mind, the mind of the Greek, this is indeed
foolishness. He can see no sense in it. But he can see much sense in the
sacrifice of another on his behalf. Therefore, if the cross were no more than
Christ giving His all for others, then it would not be foolishness to the Greek
or anyone else. But when it calls on him to follow in the same pathway, to
live as Jesus lived, to serve others, no matter how great the cost to him-
self, then that to the Greek is foolishness indeed. That is to lose all that
would ever make life worth living. He can see himself becoming a slave,
being exploited, used, humiliated, deprived, oppressed, despised, and
finally discarded, and all this for nothing, while those to whom he gave
himself in service, live fatly and comfortably, enjoying the best of living at his
expense. Such a prospect makes this way only foolishness to the Greek.
THE WAY OF THE CROSS 219

There are indeed heights and depths in the cross of Christ as distinct
from the cross of Tammuz, the Babylonians, the Romans, the Greeks, and
the heathen, which eternity itself can never exhaust. When it is truly seen, it
constitutes the finest revelation of God's character available. The Lord of
glory and His righteousness will appear at their wondrous best, while Satan
and his unrighteousness stand forth at their very worst.
The cross does prove that God does not destroy as man does, for
should He do so in order to preserve His kingdom, then He would be serv-
ing Himself and His loyal subjects at terrible cost to others. That is not the
way of the cross of Christ and it is not the way of God's character. It is the
principle of the kingdom of darkness.
But, while it proves this point, the cross is vastly more of a message to
God's people than that, vitally important as that truth is.
Calvary challenges every individual in the universe to find and follow
the way which received its most magnificent, explicit, and comprehensive
exhibition on Golgotha's hill. Look again, deeper and still deeper into its
splendors. When the lessons to be learned at the foot of the cross are truly
comprehended and daily and more deeply refreshed, there will walk this
earth a transformed people through whom at last the finishing of the sin
problem can be accomplished.
To the Greek, it was foolishness;
to the Jew it was a stumblingblock,
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks,
It is Christ,
the power of God,
and the wisdom of God. See 1 Corinthians 1:23, 24.
220

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

God Is Not A Criminal

What has been studied so far of the revelation of God's character as
provided by Christ and the cross, is only the barest beginning of what may
be learned of God through this means. Volumes could be written on
Christ's life as the unfolding of the Father's character, and the temptation to
write at much greater length on this aspect is very strong but must be curbed
when consideration is given to the purpose and limited scope of one
volume.
All that can be learned beyond what has already been presented is a
deepening and expanding of it. There will be no necessity to abandon or
revise the positions already laid down, or the great verities unfolded. There
can be no mistaking the kind of Heavenly Father introduced to us by the
Saviour in every act and word of His ministry. It is the picture of a God filled
with love and compassion, Whose mercy endures forever, Who does not
condemn or destroy but seeks only and ever to save. As a king, He is dif-
ferent from any earthly king. As a judge, there is no other like Him. No
earthly ruler or empire provides us with an illustration of this great and
wonderful God.
But this is not how we have viewed Him in the Old Testament. There
we have seen Him as a stem God Who has maintained His authority by
superiority of power and knowledge. We have seen Him as One Who
spelled out His law as the symbol of His authority and called upon men to
obey it as a test of their loyalty. Thus, even though unwittingly, we have
seen Him as a self-centered God. We have failed entirely to see the provision
of the law as a love gift to save us from destruction. Therefore, we have
failed to see God as One in Whom there is no self-centeredness.
Having seen the nature of the law in this light, it has been natural to
conclude that when the plagues fell upon Egypt, the fire upon the
Sodomites, the flood upon the world in Noah's time, and every other such
incident, God was demonstrating that He was not to be ignored, trifled
with, or disobeyed. We looked upon God as personally upholding His posi-
tion and authority. The utter destruction of the many or the few as the case
may be, we have regarded as a just act on God's part to terrify the re-
mainder into obedience and thus into personal favor with God. Anyone
who stops to think about it will quickly see that, unless he has been con-
verted from it, this is the concept which he has held.
But it is not the view of God which Jesus held.
Nor is it the picture of God which Christ presented.
It was an a/together different God of Whom Jesus came to speak.
What then?
GOD IS NOT A CRIMINAL 221

Are we to hold two differing views of God, one as presented in the Old
Testament and the other as proclaimed by Christ?
God forbids that. He sent His Son with the commission to reveal Him
as He is and thus to sweep away the sad misconceptions developed prior to
the appearance of Christ. Therefore, we cannot hold two conflicting views
of God, justified by categorizing each different view as meet for different
situations. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He never
changes. Sin has not and cannot change Him. It could not change Him
unless it should become part of Him. That it has never done and never will
do. Lucifer, angels, and men never destroyed until sin entered. Sin
changed them. Then, they became destroyers. When the religion of Christ
truly takes hold of a man, he ceases to be a destroyer. It is as simple as that.
God has never sinned, therefore He has never destroyed.
If we cannot hold any other view of God than that presented by Christ,
how are we to understand God's actions in the Old Testament? The majority
will object that the pictures in the Old Testament are so clear that it would
be impossible to uiew God in any other than the traditional light.
This is exactly where the mistake has been made. There is more than
one way of looking at God's actions in the Old Testament. Viewed through
the colored lens of human preconceptions, it seems that there is only one
way-the obvious way. But this is not so. Furthermore, when the implica-
tions of the standard view of God as held in the past are considered, then
God is characterized in the worst possible light. The time has come,
therefore, to reconsider God's ways in the Old Testament. This time His
actions will be studied in the light which streams from the cross of Calvary
and which flowed from the life and lips of Christ.
A beginning might be made almost anywhere in the Old Testament
wherein are recorded numerous incidents where God appeared as an actor
in the human arena. The starting point chosen will be the story of Pharaoh,
king of Egypt.
The story is well known to Bible students. It has been told to us from
our mother's knee.
The mighty Pharaoh, in his day the greatest king in the world, stood de-
fiantly athwart God's purpose to release His people from Egyptian bon-
dage. But when a certain point of time was reached, the Lord called Moses
and sent him with a message to the king. He was commanded to set the
people free with the warning that should he refuse, plague after plague
would descend upon the hapless Egyptians.
The king did refuse. The plagues came until the king's power was broken
and he was obliged to release the captives.
In studying this event, the average person sees God as the Almighty
One Whose power is limitless. Backed by that power and the right to do so
by virtue of His position as Creator and Ruler of the Universe, He rightly
and justly orders Pharaoh to release the Israelites. But Pharaoh is defiant
222 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

and is prepared to resist God's power. This, it is generally accepted, leaves

God with no option but to obtain by force what the king will not surrender
willingly. People generally do not question either God's justice or right in
dealing with the monarch as they see Him doing.
The dreadful outpouring of destruction on Egypt, and the king's steady
resistance of this pressure until the very end, is seen by most as being a con-
test of power between God and the king. They see it as physical power ver-
sus physical power. They do not doubt that God will win, for He has the
greater power, and, in the end, after a protracted struggle, He does.
In viewing this as a contest between two great powers, people see the
plagues as direct instruments wielded in the hand of God against the
hapless Egyptians. They see the flies, the lice, the frogs, the hail, the mur-
rain, the darkness, the boils, etc., as God's direct work. These things were
sent upon the Egyptians, it is believed, because God decided that this was
the way they should be humbled. Then, having decided it, the Lord
specifically gathered these forces and directed them against His enemies.
Nor is this all. Because the Lord desired to really show the nations of
the world that He was not One to be trifled with, He raised up a Pharaoh
who was unusually tough, defiant, powerful, and resilient. Such a king,
because he would fight doggedly to the very end, provided God with the
opportunity to manifest how great He was, whereas a weaker king would
have given in before the Lord had the chance to demonstrate the full range
of His judgmental powers.
The same situation exists in the world of human contest and combat. A
world champion boxer will not enter the ring with a novice or amateur. The
man whom he fights must also be of championship class so that the cham-
pion can demonstrate his skill, strength, and endurance. If his opponent
was so inexperienced and weak as to go down with the first blow, then the
champion would be deprived of the opportunity to display the full extent of
his skill and power.
Let the reader pause here and carefully consider the picture of the
Egyptian episode as presented above. Such a check will certify that this is
the way in which most people view God's behavior there. Furthermore,
when the subject is brought up for further study, the average person will be
surprised that it should, for he feels that the whole matter is settled, and no
other verdict is possible.
That response is an instant revelation that he has simply accepted this
view of God as being correct. To him, that is unquestionably just what the
Scriptures say.
There is no denying that when interpreted in the usually accepted way,
that is what the Scriptures can be understood to say. For instance, consider
such verses as the following:
"And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee a god to
Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.
GOD IS NOT A CRIMINAL 223

"Thou shalt speak all that I command thee: and Aaron thy brother shall
speak unto Pharaoh, that he send the children of Israel out of his land.
"And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply My signs and My
wonders in the land of Egypt.
"But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay My hand upon
Egypt, and bring forth Mine annies, and My people the children of Israel,
out of the land of Egypt by great judgments.
"And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch forth
Mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among
them." Exodus 7:1-5.
"And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in
thee My power; and that My name may be declared throughout all the
earth." Exodus 9:16.
"For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I
raised thee up, that I might shew My power in thee, and that My name
might be declared throughout all the earth." Romans 9: 17.
"The Lord would give the Egyptians an opportunity to see how vain
was the wisdom of their mighty men, how feeble the power of their gods,
when opposed to the commands of Jehovah. He would punish the people
of Egypt for their idolatry, and silence their boasting of the blessings re-
ceived from their senseless deities. God would glorify His own name, that
other nations might hear of His power and tremble at His mighty acts, and
that His people might be led to tum from their idolatry and render Him pure
worship." Patriarchs and Prophets, 263.
"Still the heart of Pharaoh grew harder. And now the Lord sent a
message to him, declaring, 'I will at this time send all My plagues upon thine
heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know
that there is none like Me in all the earth .... And in very deed for this
cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee My power.' Not that God
had given him an existence for this purpose; but His providence had over-
ruled events to place him upon the throne at the very time appointed for
Israel's deliverance. Though this haughty tyrant had by his crimes forfeited
the mercy of God, yet his life had been preserved that through his stubborn-
ness the Lord might manifest His wonders in the land of Egypt. The dispos-
ing of events is of God's providence. He could have placed upon the throne
a more merciful king, who would not have dared to withstand the mighty
manifestations of divine power. But in that case the Lord's purposes would
not have been accomplished. His people were permitted to experience the
grinding cruelty of the Egyptians, that they might not be deceived concern-
ing the debasing influence of idolatry. In His dealing with Pharaoh, the
Lord manifested His hatred of idolatry, and His determination to punish
cruelty and oppression." ibid., 267, 268.
These are the references and statements to which people point as sup-
port for their view that God wielded the powers of force in His own
224 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

almighty hands to compel Pharaoh to release the Israelites. To human

minds trained for so long to think of God as doing things man's way, the
Scriptures provide weighty support to such arguments and views. The
deeper and correct message of these writings totally escapes those whose
interpretations of God's Word are guided by this concept. It is hoped that
what follows will correct such sad misconceptions of our Wonderful Father.
That which should alert every mind to the erroneous nature of such
conclusions, is the extremely bad light into which God is placed by them.
Such teachings, no matter how well meaning the teacher may be, nor how
deeply sincere his professions of love for God, are declaring that the ways
of God and of criminal organizations are identical.
Note the following comparison.
The agents of a large criminal organization come to a certain business
man from whom they wish to obtain regular payments. The services they
offer are "protection."
The businessman courageously refuses to make these "contributions"
whereupon the syndicate resorts to a tried and proven method of obtaining
their objective. They possess powers of force in the form of destructive
weapons. These they now wield, though they do not, at first, go all the
way. They begin by smashing his plate glass store windows and emptying
the displays into the gutter.
This first blow is relatively mild, but as the owner continues to refuse,
they hit him harder and harder until he is literally pounded into submission.
No decent citizen, no Christian, can approve of these tactics. All would
fear to be subjected to them, yet, oddly enough, they accept it as perfectly
right and just in God, for that is exactly how they regard His behavior in
Egypt.
Here is how the Almighty is understood to have solved the Egyptian
problem. God desired the release of His people. He came to Pharaoh and
demanded this, but the courageous king refused to obey. In God's hands
were mighty weapons of destruction, and with these He struck the Egyptian
monarch a deadly blow. He did not unleash all He could have, so as to give
opportunity for compliance with His demands.
When this was not forthcoming, God struck Egypt again and again until
king and people were pounded into submission. Thus the nation did under
compulsion what it would not do any other way.
Anyone who candidly thinks about the standard view of the Egyptian
plagues will recognize that this is a correct analysis of how God is seen as
behaving.
Immediately, it is evident that this places God in the same class as the
crime syndicate. It means that the methods used by the world's leading
criminals to secure their ends are those used by God.
Once this realization comes, the question of how we shall relate to it
arises. There should be a great awakening to the need of obtaining a
reversed and corrected view of God's activities in Egypt.
GOD IS NOT A CRIMINAL 225

But this is seldom so. Marvellous are the powers of the human mind to
rationalize. As a sample of this I cite a conversation held with a highly
educated person who mentioned that God does personally raise His
righteous hand in which are held weapons of destruction to destroy the
disobedient. Specifically, the conversation turned to ancient Egypt.
He agreed that his view of the situation was that God desired and
demanded of Pharaoh the release of His people.
The king refused.
God then struck a first blow to show that He was not speaking idly.
The king was not intimidated.
Therefore, God struck blow after blow until Egypt was pounded into
submission.
That is, God achieved His purpose by the direct use of force when all
else had failed.
My friend immediately saw, with great clarity, that criminal organiza-
tions use the same methods.
They desire and demand.
The person involved refuses.
They strike the first blow to demonstrate that they mean their threats.
The subject continues to resist.
Therefore, they hit him again and again until he is forced to concede.
That is, they achieve by force that which they otherwise could never
gain.
I was most encouraged to see how clearly this man recognized the
nature of his beliefs about God and that he could see that the syndicate
operated in the same way as he understood God did. I naturally expected
him to admit that he had never quite realized this before and that he was
startled to see the real implications of his belief.
Instead, I was given a demonstration of the power of the human mind
to rationalize.
Unhesitatingly he said, "Of course God uses the same methods as
criminals. What makes the difference is God's intention. He does it with a
good intention for the benefit of others. The criminal does it all for self."
"In that case," I replied, "you are saying that the end justifies the means
used'"
He stoutly denied this, though the fact was inescapable that his argu-
ment was exactly that. Here it is in simple terms.
The means used by the criminal were unjustified because the end was
selfish. The same means used by God were justified because the end was
unselfish.
Once this line of reasoning has become established, any crime can be
justified. During the Dark Ages millions of fine people were martyred on the
basis of this rationale.
The end can never justify the means.
226 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Let every true child of God forever reject such a philosophy. There is
no place for it in the ways, character, and government of God's church.
God has never worked like this and never will.
All His ways are ways of righteousness and peace.
Any belief that God and the criminal use the same methods must be
forever denied by the testimony of God Himself, when He said, "For My
thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the
Lord." Isaiah 55:8.
Do we believe God? Shall we hold to a plain, "Thus saith the Lord"?
Assuredly!
Then we must deny the long-held traditional view of God's behavior
in Egypt because it makes God's ways to be the ways of wicked men.
There is no issue in regard to God's intentions versus the intentions of
criminals. With few exceptions, every person would admit that God intends
only good, while the motivation of wicked men is purely selfish and cruel.
There is no question about this, so much so that this book is not even in-
volved with discussing or proving that the intentions of God and man are
different. They are different. This we accept as a fact.
What this book is devoted to proving is that the methods of God and of
men are different. It aims to develop the unshakable conviction that God's
words in Isaiah 55:8, 9, mean exactly what they say. It will demonstrate
that the methods used by God when dealing with those who oppose Him
are not different from man's ways in only some respects: they are totally dif-
ferent. No resemblance between them can be found
God is not a God of force. This is a weapon He never uses.
"God could have destroyed Satan and his sympathizers as easily as one
can cast a pebble to the earth; but He did not do this. Rebellion was not to
be overcome by force. Compelling power is found only under Satan's
government. The Lord's principles are not of this order. His authority rests
upon goodness, mercy, and love; and the presentation of these principles is
the means to be used. God's government is moral, and truth and love are
to be the prevailing power." The Desire of Ages, 759.
"The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's govern-
ment; He desires only the service of love; and love cannot be commanded;
it cannot be won by force or authority." ibid., 22.
"Earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendancy of physical power; but from
Christ's kingdom every carnal weapon, every instrument of coercion, is
banished." Acts of the Apostles, 12.
"In the work of redemption there is no compulsion. No external force is
employed. Under the influence of the Spirit of God, man is left free to
choose whom he will serve. In the change that takes place when the soul
surrenders to Christ, there is the highest sense of freedom." The Desire of
Ages, 466.
GOD IS NOT A CRIMINAL 227

"God does not employ compulsory measures; love is the agent which
He uses to expel sin from the heart." The Mount of Blessing, 77
The message of these statements is clear. The use of compelling power
is found only under Satan's government. Herein lies at least one great
distinction between the way of God and the ways of Satan and men. The
only course they know by which to build their kingdoms and achieve their
ends is by employing force. If God builds His kingdom by using compelling
power, as so many believe, then His and man's ways are the same. But
they are not. Man rules by compulsion. God does not employ this means at
all. Therefore, the standard view of what God did in Egypt is a false one,
needing to be replaced by another.
While it is sound Scriptural truth that God did not use force to obtain
the release of the Israelites, or other objectives at any time in history, it can-
not be concluded that He was neither present nor active in the Egyptian
situation. He certainly was there, working with great intensity and purpose,
but along very different lines from those generally supposed.
An entirely new and correct understanding is now needed of the role
played by God that will harmonize with the following principles:
God must be seen as doing only that which Christ lived and taught.
He must not be seen relating to this problem as sinful man would relate
to it, e.g., by using force to solve it,
Everything done must be in righteousness. As the law is the definition
and limitation of righteousness, and as God's character is the transcript of
the law, then all that God did must be within those principles. As the law
says "Thou shalt not kill," then God did not destroy or kill in the land of
Egypt.
Any teaching or view which sees God as operating other than within
these limits is erroneous, and must be rejected as such. It is not the teaching
of Christ and is therefore of the devil.
The evidences argued here call for a restudy of the Egyptian incident.
The long-closed case must be reopened and a new verdict obtained-one
which will indeed reveal God as He is-
The Lord our righteousness.
228

CHAPTER TWENlY-TWO

Rods And Serpents

This chapter will be devoted to the study of what really happened in
Egypt. Of necessity, it will be a radical departure from the traditionally ac-
cepted concept. But it will be in harmony with the life and teachings of
Christ, the principles of God's character, and God's eternal upholding of
His sacred law.
By sending Moses and Aaron to enact the parable of the rods and the
serpents, God detailed before Pharaoh exactly what was about to transpire.
The Lord would have spelled it out in words, but the monarch's mind was so
darkened by sin that it was necessary to tell it in the clearest possible
way-in pictorial form.
Millions of other darkened minds since, have failed to read correctly the
message God sent to the king that day. It has been almost universally read
as the ultimatum of an all-powerful executioner, who had come to per-
sonally administer His judgments.
But, "God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the
sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy to
themselves, to reap that which they have sown." The Great Contro-
versy, 36.
Correctly read, this was the message delivered to the haughty
monarch. God had ever looked with saving love upon the land of Egypt. It
was not alone for the salvation of Israel that Joseph had been kidnapped to
the southern kingdom. It was that Egypt might also hear the tender voice
of mercy.
Joseph was a type of Christ. Both were betrayed by their brethren, sold
for thirty 1 pieces of silver, had no record of sin written in the Bible against
them, and, finally, were the saviours of their own nation.
"The sin of the Egyptians was that they had refused the light which God
had so graciously sent to them through Joseph." S.D.A. Bible Commen-
tary 1:1098.
Christ did not come to save Israel alone, but the whole world.
Therefore, as a true type of Christ, Joseph's mission was to bring salvation
to the world, not just to his own family.
In the mysterious dreams given by God to the king and in the
marvellous interpretations given by Joseph, the Egyptian ruler recognized
the voice and power of God and obeyed the directions of the King of kings.
That obedience resulted in Egypt not only being saved from starvation,
but also in her becoming the wealthiest nation on the face of the globe.
They prospered beyond imagination.
RODS AND SERPENTS 229

Such prosperity is the natural outworking of obedience to the laws of

God's kingdom. Any study of the church's history will show that whenever
the people of God obeyed Him, they were wonderfully blessed with pros-
perity in health, knowledge, power, and wealth. This is the outworking of
following out the law of self-sacrificing service, the principle of receiving so
that more can be given.
The continuing and despairing tragedy of mankind is the swift forget-
fulness of the principles of righteousness which had elevated them in every
way. Initially, the basis of their security lay in their complete faith in God. It
was a faith so deep and firm that it enabled them to give all they had to
meet the need of the moment, and know that God would provide for
tomorrow.
No better illustration of this faith can be found than the widow of
Sarepta. When Elijah came to her, she had only enough flour and oil to
make a last cake for her son and herself. Beyond that, death was the only
prospect. When the need of God's cause was presented before her-and
how essential to that cause the life of Elijah was-she unhesitatingly gaue all
the food to him, with simple confidence in the promise that her own need
would be supplied.
This kind of faith is the basis of that self-sacrificing love which brings
great prosperity to God's people. But, as material possessions accumulate,
little by little they displace faith in God as the basis of security. It is always so
much easier to believe in money in the bank, a good solid house, and a
prosperous farm or business which you can see, than in a distant God
whom you cannot see.
It is not that faith has been lost. It has simply been transferred from the
God of the gifts to the gifts from God. This is not an instantaneous thing. It
is a slow metamorphosis, so gradual as to be imperceptible except to those
on guard against it. But, in direct proportion to its development, is an
increasing desire to amass wealth to strengthen this material security base,
and the corresponding drying up of the spirit of self-sacrifice.
Increasingly, the gifts of God are devoted to selfish pleasure, until
selfishness becomes the dominating force in the life. The person or move-
ment which began so richly in God's service, comes to deny the principles
of righteousness. He, or it, as the years pass, will go on from this point to
develop into the full stature of the man of sin. Step by step they thereby
remove themselves from the protecting circle of God's love until they stand
fully exposed to Satan's malice. So it was with the Egyptians.
While God was working only for their salvation, Satan masterminded
a plot for their total destruction. He knew he could touch neither them nor
the Israelites while they remained obedient to God.
So he worked with unflagging diligence to tum the eyes of Egypt to
their marvellous, God-given prosperity, diverting their attention from the
God who had blessed them to the blessing received from God. As usual, he
230 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

was successful. Egypt became proud, self-confident, self-serving, and op-

pressive. To the people of God, the Israelites, through whom all the bless-
ings had come, they now became taskmasters.
Thus Satan engineered a situation wherein the Israelites were not able
to serve God fully except at the direct cost of their lives. The daily sacrificial
system ceased, the Sabbath was hardly kept, if at all, and the people
became degraded in sin.
This was just as Satan wanted it for he knew that once he had led Egypt
into the full practice of self-service and therefore of utter rejection of God,
they would move outside the circle of God's mercy and would be in his
destructive power.
As generation after generation of Egyptians descended more deeply into
the mire of abandoned iniquity, Satan saw the day drawing nearer when
there would be none of God's protection left. He exulted in the increasing
depravity of the Israelites, for this meant they had less and less of God's
protection also.
Plotting every move with calculated care, he proposed to involve the
land of Egypt in a destructive cataclysm of such proportions as to exter-
minate every Israelite, thus certifying that the Redeemer would never be
born. If this necessitated obliterating every Egyptian as well, Satan would
not hesitate.
It must be emphasized that, as the day of Egypt's doom approached,
God was not voluntarily withdrawing His protective presence from them.
They were taking themselves outside it. They were making it impossible for
God to remain.
Meanwhile Satan was marshalling destructive forces in an attack ring
around the whole nation. All it needed now was for the Egyptians to make
the final dismissal of God from His position as Protector, for the plagues to
begin.
At this point, a quick review of the original creation and the intrusion of
sin will clarify the situation which had developed.
As an act of infinite, inexpressible love, God purposed to give life to the
human family. The equally infinite wisdom of God saw that life without a
home in which to live would be misery, for no one could enjoy being
perpetually suspended in supercold, utterly dark space.
Thus wisdom and love gave birth to this beautiful planet. But it was not
yet enough. No such home could be fully effective without the necessary
powers of sun, gravity, electricity, and magnetism outside of man, and the
wonderful powers inside man.
These are God's mighty powers which He gave to His beloved children
and they must be distinguished from the powers which are in Him as a
Person.
But there is, by nature, a problem with these powers. While given only
for blessing, they have in them the potential for destruction. To remove that
possibility is to take away the power itself, so that, then, was no solution.
RODS AND SERPENTS 231

To solve the problem, God gave man the love gift of the law. While
they related themselves to, and used those powers according to law, they
lived in perfect safety, but the moment they cast aside the law as their
saviour, those mighty powers God had put into nature were turned into a
terror of destruction.
It would be well if every person on the earth were to know that all
nature, from the instant Adam and Eve rejected the law as their saviour, is
deranged and poised to collapse into all-obliterating devastation.
The reason it has not done so is because "The instant man accepted the
temptations of Satan, and did the very things God had said he should not
do, Christ, the Son of God, stood between the living and the dead, saying,
'Let the punishment fall on Me. I will stand in man's place. He shall have
another chance.'" S.D.A. Bible Commentary 1:1085.
When man rejected the law as his saviour, then God gave Himself to be
the Saviour. Ever since the fall in Eden, Christ by His personal power has
been holding under control that fearsome wrath all around us.
Should sinful, defiant, desperate men during any period of history,
make a total rejection of that Saviour, then they dismiss Christ from His
post, His restraining power is removed, and the flood of death pours upon
the unprotected. God, in it all, has gone the second mile and beyond. It is
sinful man who finally leaves Him with nothing more that He can do.
If everyone upon this earth understood and believed the truth of these
words, with what diligence would they return to God and watch with care
that they remained under His pavilion of protection.
But the Egyptians neither understood nor believed this. They were un-
thankful, self-sufficient, self-centered, self-reliant, and self-serving. They
deemed they had no need of God and were even superior to Him. They
had advanced from one depth of wickedness to even greater, and had
come to the point of making the final dismissal of Christ from their world.
It was now that Moses and Aaron appeared with the rods. This was
God's last love message to the haughty king. It was a futile attempt to
explain to him the principles laid out above. The message was given in the
simplest possible form, pictorially, in an acted parable.
The symbols God used were Moses, the rods, and the serpents.
Moses was the representative and symbol of God. He portrayed before
the monarch, God's role in the coming time of terrible trouble. This is cer-
tified in God's own words. "And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have
made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet."
Exodus 7: 1.
Moses had not become God. By no means could this be true. He was
still Moses, but he portrayed God's role to Pharaoh. He demonstrated
God's behavior and appealed to the rebel to recognize and accept the
petition of love being presented to him.
232 BEHOLD YOUH GUU

The rod in the hand of Aaron who held it on Moses' behalf, was the
symbol of the powers God had given to mankind for his blessing, which,
because of sin, were poised to destroy, but which, because of Christ's inter-
position, still remained in God's hands and under His control. It is directly
referred to as the "rod of power" which had been given him. See Patriarchs
and Prophets, 396.
The importance of distinguishing between the powers which God had
given to man and the powers of God Himself, was mentioned earlier. The
distinction is well illustrated by this parable. Allowing the rod to symbolize
the powers given by God to man, it is not difficult to distinguish between
that and the powers in Aaron. The rod of power could be separated from
him and pass out of his control and direction, but not so the powers within
him. While he lived, they were inseparable from him.
So with God. The mighty powers given to mankind can and have
passed out of His control, but the powers within Himself can never be
separated from Him. This distinction must be clearly seen for the Egyptian
incident to be correctly evaluated.
Finally, there was the serpent into which the rod turned. No one will
have any difficulty in recognizing the serpent as a symbol of the destroyer.
The symbolism established, we return to the story.
"And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the
Lord had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and
before his servants, and it became a serpent.
''Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the
magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.
"For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but
Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.
"And He hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them;
as the Lord had said." Exodus 7:10-13.
As the brothers stood before the king, the rod was held firmly in
Aaron's hand and was under his personal control. While that rod remained
thus, it neuer became a serpent. Only when it passed out of his hands and
control did it change and that instantly so. As long as this situation
remained, it continued to be a serpent, but the moment it returned to his
hand it again became a rod. 1
With what simple and beautiful clarity, the Lord sought to communicate
to Pharaoh the vital truth that at no time whatsoeuer, while the powers of
nature are still in God's hands and under His control, can they be agents of
destruction. Only when out of His hands and control can they be such.
'It is clear from the Scriptures that Aaron held, threw down, and recovered the rod as
they stood before Pharaoh. Again ii was he who stretched forth the rod over the Nile
when it turned to blood, over the land when the frogs appeared, and so on. Hmveve~
Aaron filled the office only of spokesman for Moses, so in reality it was Moses who di
it. Aaron merely went through the motions for him. For this reason, we will refer 10
Moses' rod rather than lo Aaron's in the following pages.
RODS AND SERPENTS 233

This truth is not limited to those days or to that particular situation. The
Lord does not change. Ever since man fell, till today and beyond to the final
annihilation at the end of the thousand years, the truth revealed in the rods
and the serpents is the same. Never while the powers of man and nature,
are in God's hands and control, can they be destroyers. That is impossible.
This is beautifully illustrated in the experience of Elijah at Horeb. He
had fled from Jezebel in fear and discouragement to take refuge in a cave.
"And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the
Nord of the Lord came to him, and He said unto him, What doest thou
1ere, Elijah?
"And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for
he children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine
lltars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword: and I, even I only, am left;
· nd they seek my life, to take it away.
"And He said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord.
1 nd, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the
1 ountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was
>t in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in
e earthquake:
''And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after
>. Fire a still small voice.
"And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his
mtle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And,
'lold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?"
'.ings 19:9-12.
Had God been in the wind, that is, had those forces been in His hands and
ler His control, no storm would have been possible. There would have been
J peace and blessing.
Likewise the earthquake and fire were manifestations of great natural
· es turned into agencies of destruction, but they were not such under
l's control and direction, for He was not in the earthquake or the fire.
He been in the mighty powers unleashed, there would have been an
, }ether different result. Firm ground would have been beneath Elijah
ad of the earth rolling like the sea.
he truth that so long as the powers of nature are in God's hands and
r His control, they can never break into any form of destruction, needs
come forever settled in the minds of every child of God.
1is is the message with which God sought to convict and convert the
'· of the king of Egypt. As Moses and Aaron stood there in his presence,
he rod firmly held in their hands under their direct and complete con-
,,· hey portrayed to the wicked ruler a picture of things as they then
. This picture showed that, despite the many decades during which
had sunk into deeper iniquity, the mighty powers of nature were still
God's control and direction.
232 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The rod in the hand of Aaron who held it on Moses' behalf, was the
symbol of the powers God had given to mankind for his blessing, which,
because of sin, were poised to destroy, but which, because of Christ's inter-
position, still remained in God's hands and under His control. It is directly
referred to as the "rod of power" which had been given him. See Patriarchs
and Prophets, 396.
The importance of distinguishing between the powers which God had
given to man and the powers of God Himself, was mentioned earlier. The
distinction is well illustrated by this parable. Allowing the rod to symbolize
the powers given by God to man, it is not difficult to distinguish between
that and the powers in Aaron. The rod of power could be separated from
him and pass out of his control and direction, but not so the powers within
him. While he lived, they were inseparable from him.
So with God. The mighty powers given to mankind can and have
passed out of His control, but the powers within Himself can never be
separated from Him. This distinction must be clearly seen for the Egyptian
incident to be correctly evaluated.
Finally, there was the serpent into which the rod turned. No one will
have any difficulty in recognizing the serpent as a symbol of the destroyer.
The symbolism established, we return to the story.
"And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the
Lord had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and
before his servants, and it became a serpent.
"Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the
magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.
"For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but
Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.
"And He hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them;
as the Lord had said." Exodus 7:10-13.
As the brothers stood before the king, the rod was held firmly in
Aaron's hand and was under his personal control. While that rod remained
thus, it neuer became a serpent. Only when it passed out of his hands and
control did it change and that instantly so. As long as this situation
remained, it continued to be a serpent, but the moment it returned to his
hand it again became a rod. 1
With what simple and beautiful clarity, the Lord sought to communicate
to Pharaoh the vital truth that at no time whatsoeuer, while the powers of
nature are still in God's hands and under His control, can they be agents of
destruction. Only when out of His hands and control can they be such.
111 is clear from the Scriptures that Aaron held, threw down, and recovered the rod as
they stood before Pharaoh. Again it was he who stretched forth the rod over the Nile
when it turned to blood, over the land when the frogs appeared, and so on However,
Aaron filled the office only of spokesman for Moses, so in reality it was Moses who did
ii. Aaron merely went through the motions for him. For this reason, we will refer to
Moses' rod rather than to Aaron"s in the following pages.
RODS AND SERPENrS 233

This truth is not limited to those days or to that particular situation. The
Lord does not change. Ever since man fell, till today and beyond to the final
annihilation at the end of the thousand years, the truth revealed in the rods
and the serpents is the same. Never while the powers of man and nature,
are in God's hands and control, can they be destroyers. That is impossible.
This is beautifully illustrated in the experience of Elijah at Horeb. He
had fled from Jezebel in fear and discouragement to take refuge in a cave.
''And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the
word of the Lord came to him, and He said unto him, What doest thou
here, Elijah?
"And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for
the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine
altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword: and I, even I only, am left;
and they seek my life, to take it away.
"And He said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord.
And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the
mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was
not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in
the earthquake:
"And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after
the fire a still small voice.
''And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his
mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And,
behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?"
1 Kings 19:9-12.
Had God been in the wind, that is, had those forces been in His hands and
under His control, no storm would have been possible. There would have been
only peace and blessing.
Likewise the earthquake and fire were manifestations of great natural
forces turned into agencies of destruction, but they were not such under
God's control and direction, for He was not in the earthquake or the fire.
Had He been in the mighty powers unleashed, there would have been an
altogether different result. Firm ground would have been beneath Elijah
instead of the earth rolling like the sea.
The truth that so long as the powers of nature are in God's hands and
under His control, they can never break into any form of destruction, needs
to become forever settled in the minds of every child of God.
This is the message with which God sought to convict and convert the
heart of the king of Egypt. As Moses and Aaron stood there in his presence,
with the rod firmly held in their hands under their direct and complete con-
trol, they portrayed to the wicked ruler a picture of things as they then
stood. This picture showed that, despite the many decades during which
Egypt had sunk into deeper iniquity, the mighty powers of nature were still
under God's control and direction.
234 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

RODS AND SERPENTS

The rod never became a serpent un-
til it passed out of Moses' hand and
control.

But the time had come when, unless immediate steps were taken in
repentance and obedience, the powers of nature would pass out of God's
hands and from His direct and complete control. Instantly, they would then
become fearful scourges of destruction, even as the rod released from
Aaron's hand turned into a serpent. What those powers did to Egypt while
out of God's hands and control, were not God's work or responsibility. He
had exhausted every possible means to save them from coming to this point
including warnings of such clarity as could not be misinterpreted.
The king's response revealed the extent to which self-sufficiency had
become his. He simply called in his magicians who threw down their rods.
Satan, through witchcraft, made it appear that they were also turned into
serpents.
"The magicians did not really cause their rods to become serpents; but
by magic, aided by the great deceiver, they were able to produce this ap-
pearance. It was beyond the power of Satan to change the rods to living
serpents. The prince of evil, though possessing all the wisdom and might of
an angel fallen, has not power to create, or to give life; this is the
prerogative of God alone. But all that was in Satan's power to do, he did:
RODS AND SERPENT'S 235

he produced a counterfeit. To human sight the rods were changed to

serpents. Such they were believed to be by Pharaoh and his court. There
was nothing in their appearance to distinguish them from the serpent pro-
duced by Moses. Though the Lord caused the real serpent to swallow up
the spurious ones, yet even this was regarded by Pharaoh, not as a work of
God's power, but as the result of a kind of magic superior to that of his
servants." Patriarchs and Prophets, 264.
This produced a situation where the serpent formed from the rod
separated from the direction and control of God's servants, was faced with
quite a number of what appeared to be real serpents.
Here was Satan's and, likewise, Pharaoh's counter to God's appeals.
Just as God was saying something by producing that one serpent from the
rod, so the apparent turning of many rods into serpents constituted a
counter-message from the powers of darkness. Pharaoh may not have fully
understood what he was saying, but the devil who inspired and motivated
him certainly did. Instead of humbly accepting the warning which the Lord
gave them, they answered by saying that they were not concerned if the
Lord did lay down the control of those mighty powers for they had more
than sufficient forces to contain those plagues. Did not the king have
multiplied serpents? What hope did one have against the many? So, let the
Lord release His control. Pharaoh would not be intimidated into freeing his
profitable slaves.
Thus the monarch displayed a terrible and dangerous ignorance of the
extent and magnitude of the powers which had, to this point, been held
under control by a merciful and loving God. Knowing nothing of the might
of those powers, he was likewise ignorant of the strength of the God Who
held them in check. Therefore, he had no fear, no realization of the awful
danger he was in; no sense of need of God, and no trust in Him.
This is a revelation of self-sufficiency at its very worst. It had been
developing in the king and his kingdom for a very long time until it had
reached this state of maturity. Having rejected any sense of need of God,
the king and his subjects were in effect, and in fact, rejecting all connection
with, and dependence upon Him.
By this means they cut themselves off from God, placing Him in a posi-
tion from where He could no longer hold the powers connected with the
land of Egypt in His hands and under His control. While those forces were
so held, they were only a blessing and benefit to the nation, but, when no
longer in God's charge, they could only tum into ravages of destruction.
Filled with an altogether false and grossly exaggerated view of his own
powers, and a terribly deficient concept of the magnitude of the powers
around him, the king was confident that he could easily handle anything
God might release. The sight of his numerous serpents advancing against
one, reinforced that conviction.
236 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

It was not possible for the king to have a more misleading or dangerous
self-assurance. His puny power could never withstand the onrush of the
mighty forces of nature out of God's hands, direction, and control. Such
ignorant and foolish thinking in the face of this loving appeal from God, could
only serve to separate him entirely from God and to place himself outside
the circle of God's protection.
Even though the king rejected God's call, God did not abandon him to
his errors but continued to seek to save him. To accomplish this the Lord
demonstrated the futility of the king's forces to contain the powers sym-
bolized by the one serpent. Though to all appearances hopelessly out-
numbered, the one serpent busily swallowed the rest. This was a message
saying to the king, if he could only see it, that no matter how great an effort
he might put forth to hold in check and redirect the forces released against
him, he would be unable to do it. He and his people would be consumed
while the mighty powers remained as undiminished as if they had not been
touched at all.
This was the message brought to him through the rods and the serpents.
It was a message of love designed to soften and save.
Had the great ruler perceived both the message and the spirit of infinite
love in which it was given, he would have quickly confessed his spirit of
rebellion, and his utter helplessness to change his heart to one of obedience
to God. Then, he would have pleaded with Moses to show him the way of
salvation so that he could obey God and release the Israelites from slavery.
Instead, the king resisted the loving appeals of the Holy Spirit, Who
was there to bring home God's message with convicting power. By so doing,
he took the final step, whereby he placed himself and his nation outside
the limits of God's protection. Having cast aside God's law as his saviour,
he now cast aside Christ, the Saviour, too.
There was no more God could do. The control of those assembled
forces of destruction passed out of His hands and the plagues began. Yet,
even so, God's love for Egypt and His reluctance to see the people suffer
was so great, that He only released His grip as far as He was compelled to.
He could have taken Himself completely away and left the land to be
swamped with all the plagues at once, but instead He went back only one
step at a time, each move being forced upon Him by Pharaoh's increasing
stubbornness. Each successive withdrawal released from His hands another
powerful element of nature to scourge the Egyptians. The Lord was
enabled to leave them only one step at a time, because the nation was not
as fully hardened against God as Pharaoh.
While Israel was the primary target of Satan's wrath, the plagues did not
consume them for the simple reason that, even though they were far from
fully righteous, there were at least a goodly number among them who loved
and served God the best they could under those circumstances. They had
not cast aside either the law or Christ. Consequently Christ, Who will
RODS AND SERPENTS 237

always remain Protector even of sinful, ungrateful men as long as possible,

was able to shield the house of Israel from the successive pestilences.
In the acted parable of the rods and the serpents, God demonstrated
His role in the coming catastrophes. If the king saw the truth of it, he cer-
tainly neither believed nor heeded it. His scorn and unbelief did not change
the certainty that the mighty forces of sin-deranged nature would punish
him and his people. Nor did his insulting attitude provoke God into taking
those forces into His hands and using them as a personally directed scourge
against the Egyptians.
That which devastated them were those forces out of the hands and
control of God. Furthermore, they were taken from His grasp, not because
He had chosen to release them, but because the Egyptians themselves had
displaced Him from His position as their Protector.
Thus the plagues were not what God did to the Egyptians. They were
altogether what they did to themselves.
So it will ever be.
God never changes. He does not do one thing to the sin-cursed Egyp-
tians and something different to like rejecters of His mercy in another age or
clime. When, at any time or place, nature in a state of implacable and mer-
ciless wrath, savages human life and lands, it is because those powers have
passed out of God's hands and control-never because they are instru-
ments in His hands to destroy.
Therefore, whenever we are witness to the desolating march of plague,
fire, earthquake, tempest, or pestilence across the land and are tempted to
think God is at work, let us remember the message of the rods and the
serpents. Then we will know the real truth of what is happening.

Why Not Before

To believe that God forcibly subdued the Egyptians in order to effect

the release of His people, is to level, by implication, a terrible indictment
against the Lord. It is to charge Him with deliberately and callously leaving
the Jews to suffer for centuries when they could have been released long
before they were.
He who in the possession of omnipotent power, uses it as the means of
executing his will, can do what he wishes when he chooses. If this is God's
way as so many suppose, then every day that the Israelites continued in
servitude, was because He chose not to release them. For centuries, they
were ground down in brutal bondage, all the misery of which would have to
be accounted to God for failing to exert His mighty power at any chosen
time to set them free. God could not be a God of love and at the same time
behave in this fashion.
The truth is, God has committed Himself never to solve problems by
the use of force. Therefore, the timing for the Israelites' release would be
determined, not by God's own personal choice, but by the effects of the
238 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Egyptians' deepening apostasy. This brought about a separation from God

which released destructive powers upon them until they had destroyed
their capacity to hold their slaves. Then, and only then, could the Israelites
go free. When these principles are understood, no problem will be seen in
their being left in servitude for so long.
God will not deviate from His ways for He knows that the use of force is
self-defeating. Had it been His principle to rule by force, then He would
have stamped rebellion out of existence as soon as it manifested itself
initially. There would have been no long period of sin in this world.
But sin must be allowed to run its course until it ultimately destroys itself
and all who cling to it. Then the Lord will be free to make the new heavens
and the new earth with no danger of their defilement.

Christ and the Scourge

The same message which God sought to convey to the stubborn Egyp-
tian ruler, Christ endeavored to impress upon the minds of the traders in
the temple when He cleansed it for the first time. Some study has already
been given to this event in chapter fifteen, but we deferred the analysis now
to be given until Moses' rod had firstly been considered.
The declaration given by Christ when He held the scourge is the exact
counterpart in the New Testament of what Moses did in the Old when he
held the rod in his hands. The symbolism is identical.
As has already been established, the rod Moses held symbolized God's
powers in nature still under His control and direction. As Moses gripped the
rod, so Christ held the scourge, which likewise symbolized God's powers in
nature. Just as Moses' rod could not, and did not, turn into a serpent while
it remained in his hands, so the scourge could not, and did not, strike a single
person while it was in Christ's control.
The story can be as easily misinterpreted as was the Egyptian episode.
Most would argue that, while it is true that Christ did not actually strike the
offenders in the temple, He most certainly threatened to and would have
done so if they had resisted Him. To adopt this view is to regard the
character of Christ as being identical with that of men, while missing the
message which the Saviour desired to convey.
He had come upon them while they were practising serious iniquity.
This could only serve to separate them from the protection of God so that
they would be left exposed to the terribly destructive forces surrounding
them. Christ desired to save them from this, so He portrayed before them
the situation which was developing. He wished them to understand that the
usually mild and beneficent forces of nature were being transformed into
a punishing scourge. That they had not yet been smitten by this whip was
due alone to the fact that Christ still held it under His control and would
continue to do so until the period of their probation ended.
For them, that was still several years away. During the ensuing interval
RODS AND SERPENTS 239

of time, God's presence was progressively withdrawn from the land. Christ
announced His eternal departure from the temple in the sad words, "Your
house is left unto you desolate," Matthew 23:38. This was just before His final
sufferings and death. In A.D. 34, probation closed on the nation as a whole in
accordance with the prophecy of Daniel 9, but the retribution still tarried,
Christ still held the scourge in His hands, until in A.D. 70, He laid it down and
the full fury of enraged nature in the form of the Roman soldiery burst upon
the shelterless, unprotected heads of the Jews.
In the temple Christ had as vividly warned them of their impending
fate as Moses had warned the Egyptians of theirs. But, just as the ancient
oppressors of Israel would pay no heed to God's entreaties, neither would
the Jews. This being their choice, there was nothing further the Lord could
do to save either. The rod became a serpent, and the scourge left the con-
trol of Christ.
When the warning was given to each in tum, it was not too late to re-
pent. This above all else the Lord desired them to do. Therefore, the
demonstrations were given in infinite love and mercy. In no sense of the
word, were they the expression of a spirit of vindictive anger and revenge.
No matter how far they had gone, or how long they had persisted in
rebellion, the Lord was still ready and anxious to save them. That they were
not saved was entirely their own fault.
Some may argue that Christ did overturn the tables and scatter their
money, thereby establishing the fact, as they see it, that He would destroy
their possessions. But, again, He was only giving them an object lesson of
the real truth that all the earthly treasure in which they were putting their
trust would be no support to them in the hour of trouble. Instead, it would
be swept away, even as the coins were scattered in hopeless confusion
across the pavement.
Rightly considered, Jesus Christ did exactly in the temple what He and
His Father had done in the land of Egypt. He came to both with the offer of
forgiveness, protection, and life. He showed each of them the terrible con-
sequences of their continuing in their present course, in the hope that the
realization of their need would prompt them to reach out for God's solution
to it.
In both of these situations, God and Christ were living out the maxim of
their lives, in contrast to that of the devil who is the destroyer. Christ ex-
pressed the truth of this in these words:
"The thief cometh not,
but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy:
I am come that they might have life,
and that they might have It more abundantly." John 10: 10.

His sad complaint Is:

"And ye will not come to Me,
that ye might have life. n John 5:40.
240

CHAPTER 1WEN1Y-THREE

The Upraised Rod

By using the parable of the rod and the serpent, God communicated to
Egypt's proud ruler exactly how He would be acting in the coming devasta-
tions of the land. Thus He assured Pharaoh that the impending plagues
would be neither by His decree nor by His administration. Their advent
would be occasioned by His withdrawal from the scene, not His intrusion
into it.
The message was clearly given, and the scourges followed inevitably
because the warning went unheeded. Before each began, however, God
instructed Moses, as His direct agent and representative, to perform an act
with the same rod. Before the river turned to blood Moses was directed to
strike the water; before the frogs covered the land Moses was to hold the
upraised rod over the waters of Egypt, and so on, through each succeeding
calamity. These actions could easily be interpreted to mean that God did
very differently from what He said He would do, and usually they are inter-
preted that way.
In the initial demonstration, the rod was separated from Moses' hand
and control, indicating that the powers would descend on the hapless
heads of the Egyptians because God no longer had command of them. But
before each plague came, Moses held the rod firmly in his hands and control,
while he touched or indicated with it the place where the trouble would
come. This made it appear that God decided just where each should strike,
what its nature would be, and then personally directed the blow. Here, for
instance, is the inspired description of the coming of the first plague.
"And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth
to let the people go.
"Get thee unto Pharaoh in the morning; lo, he goeth out unto the
water; and thou shalt stand by the river's brink against he come; and the
rod which was turned to a serpent shalt thou take in thine hand.
"And thou shalt say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath sent
me unto thee, saying, Let My people go, that they may serve Me in the
wilderness: and, behold, hitherto thou wouldest not hear.
"Thus saith the Lord, In this thou shalt know that I am the Lord:
behold, I will smite with the rod that is in Mine hand upon the waters which
are in the river, and they shall be turned to blood.
"And the fish that is in the river shall die, and the river shall stink; and
the Egyptians shall loathe to drink of the water of the river.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and
stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon
their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that
TiiE UPRAISED ROD 241

they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the
land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone.
"And Moses and Aaron did so, as the Lord commanded; and he lifted
up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of
Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the
river were turned to blood.
"And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the
Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood
throughout all the land of Egypt.
"And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and
Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the
Lord had said.
"And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his
heart to this also.
"And all the Egyptians digged round about the river for water to drink;
for they could not drink of the water of the river.
"And seven days were fulfilled, after that the Lord had smitten the
river." Exodus 7: 14-25.
There is a sharp contrast between the way the rod is used at this time
and how it was handled in the king's court when it turned into a serpent.
Whereas on the former occasion it was separated from Aaron's hand and
control, here it remained firmly in his grasp, and while under his control
and direction, it descended upon the water. The moment the water was
smitten, it turned into blood.
Without question, God was again communicating a message to Egypt's
leader, otherwise the whole drama would never have been deliberately
enacted in his presence. God determined that he should be eye-witness to
it. The matter is on record in the Scriptures as a message to us as well. God
expects that we shall rightly understand what He was doing there and why.
That message may be interpreted in at least two different ways. There
is the way common to the human mind which is so long accustomed to
viewing God's behavior as being the same as man's.
There is also the interpretation seen by those who have become trained
in correct principles of biblical research, and who measure all things by the
witness of the life and teachings of Christ and the cross.
According to the former, God is seen carefully communicating to
Pharaoh that he has incurred the wrath of an offended God, Who would
therefore smite him with terrible consequences for his rebellion. So that this
vital point would not be missed, the Lord had Moses strike the water which
instantly turned to blood, thereby declaring that as Moses had smitten the
water with a rod in his hands and under his control, so the Lord would
smite Pharaoh with powers both in His hands and under His control.
This is how the average person reads the message of this demonstra-
tion. In doing so, it is felt that he is accepting the only possible explanation.
He is fully convinced that no other interpretation exists.
242 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

But a few moments' consideration will show that a second explanation

must exist and needs to be found. Here are some of the questions which
need to be asked.
Does God announce on one day what He will do and then on the next
do the very opposite? That is, does He on the first day declare that only
when the powers of nature pass out of His control do they become
destroyers, and then on the second proceed to take those powers and use
them as instruments of devastation?
Is that consistency?
Is that the kind of God we serve?
Most certainly not!
When God declares what He will do, He most assuredly does what
and as He said He will do it. Upon that we can rely with unshakable and
unquestioning confidence.
Therefore, when God had Moses smite the water with the rod firmly
held in his hands, He was neither saying nor doing anything different that
day from what He had announced the previous day. Furthermore, He
expects us to understand this. At first it may be difficult, but with earnest
prayer and intense study, the problem will be resolved and perfect harmony
will result.
Firstly, let reference again be made to the earlier discussion on the Bible
being its own interpreter in which it was clearly shown how such expres-
sions as "God sent fiery serpents," "God sent forth His armies, and
destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city," and "God slew
Saul," are to be understood.
By careful comparison of Scripture with Scripture, determined that the
Bible should be its own dictionary and interpreter, it was learned that the
Lord expects us to understand such pronouncements as meaning that He
had been obliged to withdraw His protection and leave the sinner to his
fate. Admittedly, this is the opposite meaning from what it would be if men
were using those words to describe their activities. But, when the Lord
indicates that this is how they are to be understood, then truth can be known
only if His directions are followed unerringly.
The expression, " ... the Lord had smitten the river," is another such
statement and must be understood in the same way, for the Bible is consis-
tent in its use of language. Only confusion would result if certain word
combinations were to be understood to convey one idea in one place and
something different in another.
Unless the reader is thoroughly confirmed in the principle of the Bible
being its own interpreter and has trained his mind accordingly, it is recom-
mended that a thorough restudy of chapter twelve be undertaken at this
point.
In that chapter, careful consideration was given as to how the words of
Matthew 22:7 were to be understood. This verse reads:
TiiE UPRAISED ROD 243

"But when the King [God] heard thereof,

He [God] was wroth:
and He [God] sent forth His armies [the Romans]. and destroyed those
murderers [the Jews]. and burned up their city [Jerusalem]."
The matching with this verse of an inspired explanation of its meaning,
plainly reveals how God expects it to be understood. That explanation is
found in The Great Controuersy, 35, 36.
"By stubborn rejection of divine love and mercy, the Jews had caused
the protection of God to be withdrawn from them, and Satan was permitted
to rule them according to his will. The horrible cruelties enacted in the
destruction of Jerusalem are a demonstration of Satan's vindictive power
over those who yield to his control."
God's own explanation of what He meant by Matthew 22:7, is opposite
from what the human would expect of those words. It is made clear that the
Lord was not present there, but that He had been obliged to depart, leaving
them in the unmerciful hands of Satan and the Romans. In other words,
the rod of power had passed out of God's hands, direction, and control and
had become a serpent of destruction. That is the way the Lord directs us to
understand this Scripture.
Not only does He provide the explanation of this Scripture, but He sup-
plies the key to how all such statements in Holy Writ are to be understood.
If this is how God expresses Himself, then every time He uses such expres-
sions, we can know that they are to be understood in the same way. It can-
not be otherwise, for God is utterly consistent. His use of words does not
convey one idea in one place and something entirely different in another.
Therefore, the identical phraseology found in Exodus 7:25, " ... the
Lord had smitten the river," is to be understood exactly as the Lord has
shown how Matthew 22:7 is to be comprehended. That is, as surely as the
words in Matthew 22:7, the King [God) ... sent forth His armies, and
destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city," mean that the Lord
withdrew from them and left them exposed to the forces waiting to destroy
them, so the words of Exodus 7:25, " ... the Lord had smitten the river,"
tell us that the Lord had released His grip upon the forces around Egypt
and for this reason the Nile turned to blood.
Herein is demonstrated the importance of being established in correct
principles of Bible interpretation. It is vital that the tendency to interpret
these things according to our human senses be resisted, and the mind be
disciplined to read them according to God's directions. In this is complete
safety.
Recently I had this lesson firmly impressed on my mind. I was engaged
in a flight lesson. To simulate instrument conditions a hood was placed over
my head shutting out the view of all but the instrument panel. I was in-
structed to hold a course due north. Soon I had the aircraft established on
this heading. The compass indicated that we were flying straight forward,
244 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Instrument Panel Of A Light Aircraft

The pilot who does not learn to believe his instruments in
preference to his senses will kill himself sooner or later.

while other instruments showed correctly that we were climbing to an

assigned altitude of three thousand feet.
But, in a very compelling way my senses told me that I was turning to
the left while the compass assured me that I was flying straight ahead. Every
instinct called on me to deny the instrument and fly by my feelings. It re-
quired a decided act of will to resist this deadly influence and fly by the
instruments. It is a lesson which has to be thoroughly learned by every pilot.
Many have gone to their deaths because they did not overcome their feel·
ings in favor of the readings on the gauges.
Likewise, it is essential that every Bible student learn that he must
ignore his feelings and instincts, and discipline his mind to accept only the
methods of interpretation which the Lord has revealed as being the correct
ones. It takes a little training to achieve this. but it can be mastered.
When this stand is positively taken. it will be recognized that there is no
contradiction between the actions of Moses and Aaron in casting down the
rod before Pharaoh and in using it to strike the water.
Yet, while God was showing the haughty ruler what He was about to
do when He directed the rod and serpent demonstration, the next day,
when the water was struck, He was saying something further. It was. when
rightly understood, a continued outreach of love calculated even yet to
persuade the king to bow to the truth. cease his resistance to God's appeals
and place himself and his people where the Lord could both protect and
bless them.
TiiE UPRAISED ROD 245

God had already gone further than can reasonably be required, by giving
the warning contained in the rods and serpents. After that warning, the
king had no further excuse, but the Lord is so possessed of yearning love
that He will never stop short of doing all that possibly can be done.
It was important for the ruler's own good that he should understand the
connection between the withdrawal of the presence and protection of God
and the onslaught of the plague which immediately followed. Therefore,
God_sent Moses to use the rod to designate the exact time and place from
whence God would step back.
It was an impressive demonstration. There stood Aaron with the
pointer in his hand. The river flowed on as usual with no indication of
brooding trouble. Aaron brought the rod down to strike the surface of the
waters, by so doing declaring to the king that the time had come and this
was the place from whence the presence of God would be withdrawn.
Horror blanched the defiant face of the royal observer as he saw the waters
tum to the ghastly color of blood. Thus he was deprived of any opportuni-
ty to rationalize and claim that all this was but a happenstance which had no
connection with Moses' predictions and would have happened anyway. It
was love that directed the action, and it was love that the king spumed.
The succeeding plagues all came as did the first one, with God continu-
ing to play His stipulated role. Once the first one is correctly understood, no
problem should be encountered until the last one is reached. Then the
question must arise as to why the last one was so selective. If God's protec-
tion had been removed from every house but those upon whose doors the
blood was sprinkled, why did only the firstborn die? How did the rest
escape?
God said, For 1will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will
smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and
against all the gods of Egypt 1 will execute judgment: I am the Lord."
Exodus 12:12.
There is no problem now with the language of this verse for we have
learned how God intends us to understand these words. The problem of
selectivity remains.
First, let it be established that it was not God, the Saviour, but Satan,
the destroyer, who took those lives.
Three times at least in Patriarchs and Prophets, 278-280, the one who
slew the firstborn is named. Here are the sentences. "All who failed to
heed the Lord's directions, would lose their firstborn by the hand of
the destroyer . ... The sign of blood-the sign of a Saviour's protec-
tion-was on their doors, and the destroyer entered not. ... All the first-
born in the land, 'from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto
the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of
cattle,' had been smitten by the destroyer."
246 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Who is the destroyer?

"Satan is the destroyer. God cannot bless those who refuse to be faith-
ful steward's. All He can do is to permit Satan to accomplish his
destroying work. We see calamities of every kind and in every degree
coming upon the earth, and why? The Lord's restraining power is not exer-
cised. The world has disregarded the word of God. They live as though
there were no God. Like the inhabitants of the Noachic world, they refuse
to have any thought of God. Wickedness prevails to an alarming extent,
and the earth is ripe for the harvest." Testimonies 6:388, 389.
Therefore it was the destroyer, Satan, who slew the firstborn. But why
did he select only one in every family?
Satan had specifically purposed to wipe out every household in Israel.
To do this he had organized some destructive pestilence which would flow
through the whole land. Apparently it was beyond his ability to confine this
silent death to Israel only. In order to make quite certain of their genocide,
he must take the Egyptians too.
That the Israelites were directly threatened is certified by the fact that
they had to provide themselves special protection by sprinkling the blood
upon the door. Thus Satan could not touch Israel at all, even though he
still attempted it despite the blood.
As the midnight hour arrived, the silent death flowed across the horror
stricken land, seeping in through doors and windows, striking in every un-
protected house till the silence of the night was shredded with the mourn-
ers' piercing wails.
The killer found a barrier of protection around all but the firstborn. This
could have been provided only by God. He would also have protected the
firstborn, but for some reason, they were situated where this had become
impossible. What was it, then, that had exposed the eldest child to the
malice of the destroyer while the rest could not be touched by him?
No direct revelations in the Scriptures tell the answer, but there is infor-
mation to strongly indicate what could have caused this to be so. From his
earliest moment, the first child in the family was dedicated to Satan's ser-
vice. Following this dedication, he was continually trained to fill the office
and role of the priesthood in his own family at least. Others of them went
on to fill national positions. Thus, they were joined to Satan and sepa-
rated from God more than any other persons in the land. As such they were
definitely the ones who would be found without God's protection even
when He was still able to extend it to the rest, though marginally so.
Throughout the sad sequence of the plagues, God manifested Himself
only as a God of love, though it is doubtful if, in their blindness, they could
view Him as such. The unheeded entreaties of centuries did not discourage
God's endeavors to incline them to obedience. Sadly, the work designed
in the wisdom of God to tum them to repentance only served to drive them
farther and still farther away.
TiiE UPRAISED ROD 247

Finally, those who had escaped the silent death which deprived them of
their firstborn, plunged with blind and senseless stupidity after the Israelites
as they crossed the Red Sea. Where the Israelites were, the power of God
operated to withhold the tremendous forces of nature, but the rebellion and
defiance of the Egyptians was so total that there was no possibility of their
permitting the Holy Spirit to remain where they were. Thus they forced the
powers of the waters out of the hand and control of God with only one
possible result. Unmeasured tons of water rolled over, destroying them to
the last man.
Pharaoh and his hosts never would learn the lesson of the rods and the
serpents. Their disregard of the message sent to them in love did not
change the lesson itself. Its truth stood, whatever their attitude to it might
have been. They dared to depose God from His position of Saviour and
Protector and the rods turned to devouring serpents of destruction.
The whole experience is a revelation, paid for at terrible cost by those
idolaters, not of what God sent upon the Egyptians but of what they
brought upon themselves, despite God's best efforts to preserve them from
it. No blame can be laid to God Who emerged from the scene as impeccably
perfect as ever:-
A perfect lawkeeper;
Who did not break the law in order to preserve it;
A loving and complete Saviour;
Who was not the destroyer;
Nor the one who executed the impenitent.
He was exactly what Christ later revealed Him to be.
248

CHAPTER 1WEN1Y-FOUR

The Showing Of God's Power

Before leaving the story of the plagues on the Nile valley, another
aspect of the case should be considered. God saw and accepted the oppor-
tunity to salvage from the disaster, a saving blessing, expressed but rarely
understood, in these words:
"And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in
thee My power; and that My name may be declared throughout all the
earth." Exodus9:16.
"Still the heart of Pharaoh grew harder. And now the Lord sent a
message to him, declaring, 'I will at this time send all My plagues upon
thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest
know that there is none like Me in the earth .... And in very deed for this
cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee My power.' Not that God had
given him an existence for this purpose, but His providence had overruled
events to place him upon the throne at the very time appointed for Israel's
deliverance. Though this haughty tyrant had by his crimes forfeited the
mercy of God, yet his life had been preserved that through his stubbornness
the Lord might manifest His wonders in the land of Egypt. The disposing of
events is of God's providence. He could have placed upon the throne a
more merciful king, who would not have dared to withstand the mighty
manifestations of divine power. But in that case the Lord's purposes would
not have been accomplished. His people were pennitted to experience the
grinding cruelty of the Egyptians, that they might not be deceived concern-
ing the debasing influence of idolatry. In His dealing with Pharaoh, the
Lord manifested His hatred of idolatry, and His determination to punish
cruelty and oppression." Patriarchs and Prophets, 267, 268.
"He [Moses) was infonned that the monarch would not yield until God
should visit judgments upon Egypt, and bring out Israel by the signal
manifestation of His power. Before the infliction of each plague, Moses was
to describe its nature and effects, that the king might save himself from it if
he chose. Every punishment rejected would be followed by one more
severe, until his proud heart would be humbled, and he would
acknowledge the Maker of heaven and earth as the true and living God.
The Lord would give the Egyptians an opportunity to see how vain was the
wisdom of their mighty men, how feeble the power of their gods, when
opposed to the commands of Jehovah. He would punish the people of
Egypt for their idolatry, and silence their boasting of the blessings received
from their senseless deities. God would glorify His own name, that other
nations might hear of His power and tremble at His mighty acts, and that
His people might be led to tum from their idolatry and render Him pure
worship." ibid., 263.
THE SHOWING OF GOD'S POWER 249

These Scriptures infonn us that God realized a purpose in His dealing

with that rebellion. It was that Egypt, Israel, and the nations beyond, were
given the opportunity of seeing something of the magnitude of God's
power, the corresponding futility of human resources to either control or
contain what it had required God's power to withhold, and therefore the
utter necessity of human recognition of, and dependence upon, the ann of
the Almighty. Implicit in all was the message that the protection of the all-
powerful One was available only to the obedient.
But essential to the success of the divine plan was the presence upon
the Egyptian throne of an extremely stubborn king. It was by God's
providence that just such a king was there at the very time when the hour
for Israel's deliverance had come. Alternatively, God could have placed
upon the seat of power a more pliable ruler.
Once again, unless these words are read in the light which streams from
the life and teachings of Christ in a spiritual depth exceeding the rather
humanistic superficial study of the past, they will be misunderstood.
Therefore, these questions must be raised and correctly answered.
Why was God so anxious to give a demonstration of His power to the
people of that day?
How was the revelation of power given?
In what way did God place the hardened monarch upon the throne just
at that time?
Why did God wait so long before delivering His people?
There is more than one possible solution to these problems. The
answer which correctly outlines what God did and why, will accurately
reflect both His wisdom and character. Conversely, the incorrect responses
will produce an erroneous view of God's nature and His principles.
If God is obsessed, as earthly rulers generally are, with the demand that
all men give unqualified acknowledgment of His position and authority as
the absolute ruler of the universe, then His motivation in exhibiting His in-
finite power would be to instill respect, thus insuring that He be given the
homage He feels is His due.
Thus His message to all nations would have been, "Take warning people
of the earth. I am making an example of the Egyptians so you will know
how I treat those who do not give Me the respect I deem Mine. Dismiss any
thought of resistance, for My power is such that none can contend with Me.
This Pharaoh of Egypt was the greatest on earth. He was more hardened
and stubborn than all of you. He dared to resist My will. See him now shat-
tered and dead. Now serve Me, or I shall deal with you likewise. Know
that I will brook no insubordination nor even the ignoring of My claims upon
you.
Is this the message which the Lord sought to communicate through His
activities in Egypt? The vast majority are convinced that it is. But in this
situation at least, majority support is no confinnation of truth, especially
when it is considered that so few of the world's population even serve God.
250 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Careful reflection upon the implications of this assessment of God's

behavior in Egypt quickly reveals that it cannot be true. For God to con-
duct His affairs as outlined above, would show Him to be self-centered, self-
exalting, self-loving, and therefore totally unrighteous. God is love to the
infinite degree. It is impossible for Him to be love and at the same time
manifest any trace of self-love, self-protectionism, self-exaltation or self-
centeredness. Therefore, everyone must choose between believing that God
is love or that He asserted His power in Egypt to intimidate the nations into
respectful obedience. Both views cannot be held. The two positions are en-
tirely incompatible and, in fact, hostile to each other.
To maintain the concept that God did act from self-interest in dealing
with Israel's bond-masters, is to think of Him as being exactly like the proud
monarch with whom He dealt. It is to make Him like every Caesar, dictator,
emperor, king, despot, potentate, and, in short, every unconverted man.
The further such depart from righteousness, the more acutely they exhibit
this supreme concern for self, and its attendant preoccupation with
demanding homage and respect from others. On the other hand, the nearer
men approach to God and become like Him in character, the more this
disposition diminishes.
Never was this more forcibly demonstrated than in the life of Jesus
Christ who was, and ever will be, the express image of His Father. Never
was a life more devoid of selfishness, giving no place for even the faintest
suspicion that He had come to establish recognition of His position and
authority for His own sake. Christ, as the revelation of the Father's
character, swept away forever any basis for the notion that God unveiled
His power in Egypt to bring the world to heel.
Therefore, He is not burdened with any concern over His position or of
the giving of recognition and obedience to Him for His own sake. Thought
of Himself and His position never troubles Him.
But He is actually aware of the fearful peril in which every human being
on the earth stands. He knows that in the Garden of Eden, man cast
away the protection of the law and instituted in God's place, one who could
not control the powers surrounding this earth.
He knows that only because of the interposition of His Son are these
perils held in control during the period of probation. He knows Christ can-
not maintain His station as Protector of the people of the earth while their
mounting attitude and spirit of self-sufficiency demand He vacate that role.
Therefore, as a loving Father, He views with deepest distress, the develop-
ing self-centeredness and foolish, self-destructive boldness which is edging
His wayward children nearer and nearer to the abyss. As such a situation
develops, He will do anything within the limitation of law to save them.
God knows the dreadful peril in which everyone lives daily, but men do
not know it. They are unaware that since the fall, they have been living
under a divinely supplied umbrella of protection, that puny man is utterly
TI-IE SHOWING OF GOD'S POWER 251

powerless to save himself, and that the continued provision of the canopy
depends upon their having a sense of humble dependence upon the
Saviour which will enable Him to remain. Men leave God out of their
reckoning, confident instead that all the powers of nature have evolved to
their present high state of efficiency with no danger of collapse. They can-
not see the power of God at work and so remain in ignorance of it and what
it is doing for them.
Therefore, for those who had not the eye of faith and so could not see
God's wondrous power, the revelation could only come by the power being
withdrawn. Then, as storm, tempest, fire, earthquake, or pestilence ravaged
them, they could see by the might of what came, the measure of the power
which had previously held it all back.
Keep in mind the rods and the serpents. Then there will be no danger
of making the age-old mistake of thinking that the onslaught of great
destruction is God at work. The devastating onslaught is not the revelation
of what God is doing with His almighty power, but the making known of
what His hand had previously held in perfect control.
This is not the way God desires His might to become known to humani-
ty, for it exacts tremendous cost to life and land. Therefore, He labors with
all the resources of heaven to prevent such a crisis developing. But He can-
not compel men to obey. They must serve Him from love-intelligently,
or not at all
"The law of love being the foundation of the government of God, the
happiness of all created beings depended upon their perfect accord with its
great principles of righteousness. God desires from all His creatures the ser-
vice of love,-homage that springs from an intelligent appreciation of His
character. He takes no pleasure in a forced allegiance, and to all He grants
freedom of will, that they may render Him voluntary service." The Great
Controversy, 493.
"Since the service of love can alone be acceptable to God, the
allegiance of His creatures must rest upon a conviction of His justice and
benevolence." ibid., 498.
But, despite the utmost devisings of infinite love, humans, such as the
Egyptians, will press on in defiance of love and entreaty to that point where
God's power will be revealed by its withdrawal.
In all His efforts to save the catastrophe from coming, God has been
motivated by consuming love for His endangered children. When, because
of their blind and persistent refusal to receive that ministry of love, they
force Him to remove His hand from the helm, He still continues to work
from the same love. While the loss to life and property will be enormous,
the Lord will work to salvage much from the wreckage.
Firstly, He will endeavor to arouse individuals from the very midst of
the obdurate to an awareness of their need of that power which alone can
withhold the fearful forces of nature and man. Likewise, He will seek to im-
252 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

press upon the thinking of the onlookers near and far, the same saving
truths, to encourage them not to act with rash irresponsibility.
God will never engineer these conditions in order to convey these
lessons, but when they develop in spite of His best efforts to prevent them,
then He will use them to fulfil a valuable service to the needy.
This work is not done in vain. For some, such as the proud despot and
many of his people, it was, but many of the dwellers of the Nile Valley,
recognizing how impotent were their own gods to take over the powers laid
down by the Lord, turned instead to serving the true God. When the
Israelites left Egypt, many of these folk went with them. In the meantime,
when Moses announced the coming of the hail, a goodly number of the
farmers revealed their newly formed convictions by hurrying their live stock
into shelter. If those awesome scourges were what God's power had been
controlling, then what stupendous might was God's! It required this to show
it to them.
"He that feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh
made his servants and his cattle flee into the houses." Exodus 9:20.
These were not the only people helped. It was a lesson to the Israelites
while far away the Canaanites had cause to take a pause in their headlong
rush into total iniquity and its attendant destruction. Their probation was
undoubtedly extended by the events in Egypt. Thus God achieved a saving
purpose through events which He had untiringly worked to prevent.
Naturally, the more intense, prolonged, and total the destruction-the
more emphatic the lesson-the more God's message was underscored.
Such it could not be without the presence on the throne of a Pharaoh who
was especially stubborn and rebellious. The Scriptures under study in this
chapter declare that " ... His providence had overruled events to place him
upon the throne at the very time appointed for Israel's deliverance. Though
this haughty tyrant had by his crimes forfeited the mercy of God, yet his life
had been preserved that through his stubbornness the Lord might manifest
His wonders in the land of Egypt. The disposing of events is of God's pro-
vidence. He could have placed upon the throne a more merciful king, who
would not have dared to withstand the mighty manifestations of divine
power. But in that case the Lord's purposes would not have been ac-
complished." Patriarchs and Prophets, 267, 268.
The same is repeated in Danie/ 4: 17. "This matter is by the decree
of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the Holy Ones: to the in-
tent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of
men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will, and setteth up over it the basest
of men."
These Scriptures likewise call for a careful, thoughtful, and, above all,
prayerful consideration, for they can be seriously misunderstood.
If, for instance, it is to be drawn from these words that God personally
determines who shall occupy positions of leadership over the nations and
THE SHOWING OF GOD'S POWER 253

elects those men irrespective of the wills of the men and their nations, then
serious questions about God's character must assert themselves.
It would mean that in the great democracies when men cast their votes,
they are merely puppets in God's hand to execute His will. Worse still.
some rulers only come to power through rigged elections, lobbying,
threatening, and many other unrighteous methods. Some rise to power
along a path slippery with the blood of their opponents.
It is by these means that men rise to be heads of nations. Does God
work through such measures as these to effect His election of this man or
that? The answer must be a resounding, "No!"
Furthermore, if God purposefully arranged for men like Nero or Hitler
to assume absolute authority, then the reigns of terror and the awful
atrocities must be charged to Goel. He becomes responsible for the torture
of innocent victims, mass executions, and even for heaping difficulties in
the way of His own church.
This is not to argue that the words of this Scripture are false. It is to
argue that what, to minds trained in the human processes of thinking.
would appear to be the correct interpretation, is false. Once again a deeper,
more spiritual and correct understanding must be gained.
Why, then, did God set upon the throne a very tough and hardened
king when He might have put a milder person there?
The answer lies in the way in which God sets up a ruler as distinct from
the ways of men. When men set out to make a king, they firstly deterrnine
on who shall be that man. Then they bring to bear every pressure of force,
bribery, or persuasion at their command to effect their wishes. The greater
the power at their disposal, provided it is skilfully used, the more successful
they are.
God is possessed of infinite power and wisdom. Therefore, if He was to
operate in the human sphere as men do with their lesser power, then only
those of God's specific choice would ever occupy any positions. We would
expect of God the very best choices from what is available; the selection of
wise, strong, merciful, and just rulers. But, the annals of history reveal very
few such men ever rising to the seat of power. Instead, most rulers have
been despotic, unjust, and cruel. If men like Nero, Hitler, and Pharaoh
were specifically chosen by Goel and exalted to rulership, then some serious
questions must be asked in respect to God's character.
The only occasions in history when God has made direct choices of in-
dividuals are when the church has been working in harrnony with Him, or
there is an individual He can use who has been totally submitted to His
ways and will. Examples of these are Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua,
Samuel, the various prophets, John the Baptist, Paul, and many others. It is
noteworthy that every one of these individuals had a character like unto
that of Goel and was very different from the kings of the earth.
254 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The setting up of kings is all according to law, either used or misused. It

is the result of the working out of all the powers God has invested in
mankind, irrespective of whether those powers are rightly or wrongly, justly
or unjustly used. As those powers are of God then in this sense it is God
who sets up and takes down kings.
Examine the rising of all great empires of history. As they are coming
up they are a very hard-working, self-sacrificing people. Before them is a
mighty objective of conquest and acquisition to be achieved. Closely united
and intensely loyal to each other and their leaders, they are strong.
God's laws provide that abstemiousness, self-sacrifice, hard work,
unity, and the mighty stimulus generated by the prospect of great
achievements, will elevate and establish those who obey them. Therefore,
those kings who obeyed these principles were certainly "set up."
As God is the One Who provided these blessings by which kings are set
up, then, in this sense can it be said that He sets up kings and puts them
down. The military campaign by which they ascend to the throne of power
may be totally unjust and cruel, yet it is the outworking of these God-
ordained principles which brings success. It should be noted that it is not the
legitimate use but the misuse of these things.
God gave those powers to man, warned him of the tragic results of their
misuse, but, in love, granted him the perfect freedom to use or misuse
them as he chose.
Not only do God's laws set up kings: they also bring them down. The
conquest achieved, the riches of the world flow into the hands of the con-
querors. A life of ease, luxury, and licentiousness takes the place of in-
dustry, hardship, and self-denial.
By God's laws, the fruit of these is weakness, division, and internal
strife. The weakness is not only physical and moral, it is also mental. Their
wisdom is turned to corruption. Thus comes the period of decline, during
which a neighboring nation is on its way up. At a certain point the balance
tips in favor of the rising power and the once proud lord of the earth is
ground into the dust.
Thus by the outworking of law, the nations rise and fall. As those laws
are of God, and as He forever upholds and maintains them, it is He who in
this way sets up kings and puts them down. It is not a personal election on
God's part. It is the outworking of His will as expressed in that law.
These principles established, it is simple to understand how God placed
upon the Egyptian throne a leader of exceptional stubbornness.
It must be remembered that the fullness of wickedness is developed in a
man when the Spirit of God, through one of God's chosen messengers, has
appealed mightily to him, and he has chosen to reject that loving ministry.
Under such a service of love, there is a powerful drawing toward God
which, if unresisted, will certainly lead into harmony and fellowship with
the heavenly family. To resist this pull requires a decided spiritual effort, just as
THE SHOWING OF GOD'S POWER 255

to hold back from being drawn along by someone who is pulling your arm
requires physical effort. Whether in the spiritual or physical world, such ef-
fort exercises and therefore strengthens the muscles used to resist. The
greater the power resisted and the more energetically, the stronger the
powers of resistance become. That is a reliable law simple to understand.
Thus there is a hardening of the spiritual muscles.
Therefore, in order for Pharaoh to be as tough and hardened as he
was, he must have been subjected to the strong wooing of the Spirit and
persistently resisted it.
Is there evidence to show this?
There is!
Moses spent forty years in the land of Egypt before fleeing to Midian.
He was placed there by God to bring a powerful and saving witness to the
court. He was successor to the throne, yet, faithfully refusing to enter the
priesthood, he stood as a pillar of light for God's truth.
"By the laws of Egypt, all who occupied the throne of the Pharaohs
must become members of the priestly caste; and Moses, as the heir ap-
parent, was to be initiated into the mysteries of the national religion. This
duty was committed to the priests. But while he was an ardent and untiring
student, he could not be induced to participate in the worship of the gods.
He was threatened with the loss of the crown, and warned that he would be
disowned by the princess should he persist in his adherence to the Hebrew
faith. But he was unshaken in his determination to render homage to none
save the one God, the Maker of heaven and earth. He reasoned with
priests and worshipers, showing the folly of their superstitious veneration of
senseless objects. None could refute his arguments or change his purpose,
yet for the time his firmness was tolerated, on account of his high position,
and the favor with which he was regarded by both the king and the people."
Patriarchs and Prophet.s, 245.
"The strength of Moses was his connection with the Source of all
power, the Lord God of hosts. He rises grandly above every earthly induce-
ment, and trusts himself wholly to God. He considered that he was the
Lord's. While he was connected with the official interests of the king of
Egypt, he was constantly studying !he laws of God's government, and thus
his faith grew. That faith was of value to him. It was deeply rooted in the soil
of his earliest teachings, and the culture of his life was to prepare him for the
great work of delivering Israel from bondage. He meditated on these things;
he was constantly listening to his commission from God. After slaying the
Egyptian, he saw that he had not understood God's plan, and he fled from
Egypt and became a shepherd. He was no longer planning to do a great
work, but he became very humble; the mists that were beclouding his mind
were expelled, and he disciplined his mind to seek after God as his refuge."
S.D.A. Bible Commentary 1:1098, 1099.
256 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

When he fell from grace and fled to Midian, he vacated his prospects to
another who was to be the Pharaoh when he returned with the rod of
power in his hands. That other man, as the second in line to the throne,
had inevitably been in close daily contact with Moses and therefore within
the beautiful circle of spiritual influence which surrounded the servant of
God. Through this heavenly radiance, the Lord's designs were to soften
and convert the hearts of the entire Egyptian court including the young man
who would later be the Pharaoh in Moses' place 1• But that which had been
sent to save was resisted and rejected. The spiritual power in Moses must
have been very great, for the resistance to it developed in that other prince
a hardening of his heart to an exceptional degree. No doubt the burning
demon of jealousy intensified the worsening condition in the man.
The placing of Moses in the court was a master-stroke of love on God's
part. Moses was God's direct and personal messenger by which God of-
fered to Egypt complete and saving conversion. Had this taken place,
Moses would have been the leader of Egypt on the death of the existing
ruler. Actually, so great was the wisdom and power from God in Moses,
that he would have been the effective ruler long before the older man's
death.
Placing Moses in Pharaoh's court was not an arbitrary act on God's
part. It was not something which had to happen because He decreed it.
God merely took advantage of the circumstances. He knew Pharaoh's
daughter came down to wash, that she was lonely for a baby and that this
particular babe would touch her heart. So all He had to do was to instruct
Arnram and Jochebed to hide the child in the reeds and nature took care of
the rest.
Tragically, the royal household did not accept God's call of love. The
result was a terrible hardening of heart, the development of a spirit of
rebellion, self-sufficiency, and utter defiance against heaven. Any sub-
sidence of such evils which may have occurred during the forty years of
Moses' absence, would have instantly been fanned into a more fierce inten-
sity when the proud monarch found himself confronted again by the man
whom he must have hated more than any other.
If placing a spirit-filled messenger in the royal court for forty years gave
occasion for the development of a king so hard and stubborn, the failure to
place Moses there would have produced a king of far less determined
defiance.

'See S.D.A Bible Commentary, Volume L493 for historical notes on the sequence of the
Egyptian kings. It is there indicated that Thutmose Ill, 1482-1450 B.C. was the ruler from whom
Moses fled. "After Thutrnose Ill, his son Amenhotep II came lo the throne (1450·1425 B.C.).
He began a reign of calculated frightfulness over his foreign possessions, and lits remarkably
well into the role of the Pharaoh of the Exodus. For some reason, unmentioned in non-
Biblical records, it was not the crown prince but another son of Amenhotep II, Thutmose
IV (1425·1412 B C.J. who followed him on the throne. The disappearance of the crown
prince may have been due to the slaying of all firstborn sons in the tenth plague of Egypt."
TI-IE SHOWING OF GOD'S POWER 2S7

Thus God did place on Egypt's throne an exceedingly wicked king by

putting Moses in the court. He could have had a much softer king by not
putting him there.
The principle of God giving two calls to a people but never a third as set
out in Matthew 22:14 is clearly revealed in the history of that great nation.
In Joseph's day, the word of God was obeyed. God's servant, Joseph,
was accorded a position of power and influence second only to the king, a
position which he certainly used to establish the worship of the true God.
To what extent he was successful we are not told. By the ministry of Joseph
the nation was bidden to the spiritual marriage and to some extent they
responded. Then followed the usual apostasy. This placed them in need of a
call from God which He sent to them as soon as He had the messenger
through whom it could be done. In Moses He found His opportunity. By
life and word, during the years of his presence in the Egyptian court, Moses
conveyed to those in authority the love and justice of God. But the call was
rejected.
There could remain only the second call which was again given through
Moses when he returned with the rod that became a serpent. The call
began when the rod was cast down, and continued to be sounded as
plague after plague fell. But that second call was not heeded. From that day
to this, the nation, as such, has never had another call sent to them, nor will
they ever again.
Not until the second call had come and been refused, did God separate
His people.
The period of servitude spanned several centuries. Why did God wait
so long to free His people?
He had no other choice.
Firstly, He could not do it by force for "compelling power is found only
under Satan's government."
'"Whereunto,' asked Christ, 'shall we liken the kingdom of God? or
with what comparison shall we compare it?' Mark 4:30. He could not
employ the kingdoms of the world as a similitude. In society He found
nothing with which to compare it. Earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendancy
of physical power; but from Christ's kingdom every carnal weapon, every
instrument of coercion, is banished." Acts of the Apostles, 12.
Secondly, He will not voluntarily withdraw His presence to unleash the
deranged forces of nature to break the hold of the oppressor.
All God could do was to take every opportunity to save the Egyptians.
He did this when Moses was born. Hopefully, they would repent, but if not,
then they would come more speedily to that point where they would force
the withdrawal of their canopy of protection.
They themselves would break their own power to hold the people of
Israel, thus leaving God with perfect freedom to take His people out. Note
how God waited till Pharaoh said, "Rise up, and get you forth from among
258 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as ye
have said." Exodus 12:31.
The long servitude of the Israelites and God's refusal to move them out
until Pharaoh released them is clear proof that God does not use force and
therefore, that the commonly understood views of what God did in Egypt
are erroneous.
If God brought Israel out by force, then why did He not do it hundreds
of years before? Anyone who is all-powerful can do what, when, and
where, he wishes.
But, God is bound by the principles of righteousness to act only within
the limitations of law. Therefore, He had to wait until the inevitable out-
working of Egypt's wickedness brought its own harvest of self-destruction
and the consequent release of Israel.
This does not mean that God did nothing at all. He was ever there,
working to save. Even though He did not get the desired response from the
majority, there were those who did find salvation even among the Egyp-
tians, while the rest came more speedily to their ruin.
It is recommended that the student now rereads the Scriptures quoted
at the beginning of this chapter. If the principles outlined in these pages
have been grasped, they will be read in a new light altogether. A picture of
God will be seen which is consistent with the life and teachings of Christ,
thus establishing a perfect harmony between the Old and New Testament
revelations of God.
 259

CHAPTER 1WEN1Y-FIVE

The Flood
In no one place in Scripture does God unfold every aspect of His
character. The evidences are given in various places, it being left to the
student of the Word to bring them all together.
So, in one place we are told that there is no unrighteousness-law-
breaking-with God. "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness
with God? God forbid." Romans 9:14.
In another, "His law is a transcript of His own character .. ."Christ's
Object Lessons, 315.
Yet again, "God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of
the sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejecters of His
mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have sown." The Great
Controversy, 36.
In still other places, God is careful to give examples to show how He
intends us to understand such expressions as "God destroyed them," "God
hardened," "God sent."
The life and all the teachings of Christ perfectly endorse, combine, and
amplify these principles.
In the Egyptian episode, the rods and serpents supply us with God's
statement of how He would conduct His affairs. But a clear scientific ex-
planation is not provided of how the water turned to blood, how each
plague followed, and how the firstborn of the land died. It would be of
considerable help if it were, but such information is not essential to faith.
In the report on the flood, however, it is different. God has given us suf-
ficient evidence in various parts of the Bible to establish the scientific way in
which the flood did come. The study of this great cataclysm will be taken
up from this angle.
When it is seen what caused the flood and how it came, powerful con-
firmation will be given to the truth that God does not execute the sinner nor
destroy the earth. Far from actually sending the flood, God held it back as
long as He could. It finally came because He could no longer prevent it
without forcing His presence where it was no longer desired. There is no
difference between God's behavior during the flood and the decimation of
Egypt.
Conditions before the flood were radically different from what they
have been since. The key to that difference lies in the state of the sun and
moon, the former having been seven times as hot as it now is and the latter
having been equal to our present sun. This meant that eight times today's
heat and light was being beamed upon the earth before the flood.
260 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The Scriptural evidence is found in Isaiah 30:26.

"Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the
light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that
the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of
their wound."
This is both a prophecy of the future and a description of the past. God
is telling what He will do when He will bind up "the breach of His people,"
and will heal "the stroke of their wound." This is restoration, the bringing
back of that which was already there. If this involves increasing the sun to
seven times its present intensity and the moon to equal the present sun,
then this is how it was before "the breach of His people," and the infliction of
"the stroke of their wound."
It will be when the Creator makes a new heavens and earth, that this
restoration will be achieved. At that time, the sun and moon combined will
be transmitting eight times the heat and light now being produced.
Modem man knows the moon as a dead satellite with no light or heat of
its own. It is nothing more than a reflector of the sun's rays. If, in the coming
re-creation of the physical heavens and earth when the sun will be in-
creased seven times, the moon was to continue as a reflector, then it would
give only seven times today's brightness. This would not make it equal with
the present sun which gives off four hundred and sixty-five thousand times
the light reflected by the full moon.
Verification of this difference in intensity is found in this statement.
"The sun is about 465,000 times as bright as the moon, with an observa-
tional error of about 20%. A real variation in brightness of 20% results from
the moon's varying distance from the earth and sun." The Encyclopedia
Brittanica, Vol. 15:780. 1966 Edition.
Therefore, for the moon to increase in brightness four hundred and
sixty-five thousand times, while the sun increases but seven times, it will
have to become a self-luminous body. It will cease to be a reflector and will
upgrade to a little sun. Being only two hundred and fifty thousand miles
from the earth, it would not need to be as large as the sun in order to
transmit as much heat. The intensity of heat and light diminish, not in direct
proportion to its distance from the source, but in proportion to the square of
the distance. The sun is stationed ninety-three million miles from the earth,
a distance almost four hundred times as great as the moon's position. This
makes a very significant difference in the sizes required to generate the
same amount of heat on the earth.
With these two orbs of fire jointly serving the new heavens and new
earth, a vastly changed condition of things will prevail from what they do
now. This would appear so drastic as to cause many to think that the
Scripture predicting this has to be understood only figuratively. The words
are to be understood literally however, as the following statement verifies.
THE FLOOD 261

"All will be a happy, united family, clothed with the garments of praise
and thanksgiving-the robe of Christ's righteousness. All nature in its sur-
passing loveliness will offer to God a constant tribute of praise and adora-
tion. The world will be bathed in the light of heaven. The years will move
on in gladness. The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the
light Of the sun will be seuenfold greater than it is now. Over the scene the
morning stars will sing together, and the sons of God will shout for joy,
while God and Christ will unite in proclaiming, 'There shall be no more sin,
neither shall there be any more death.' ... " My Life Today, 348. See also
Ministry of Healing, 506, and The Reuiew Herald, November 6, 1903.
The reason for querying whether this statement can be literally ac-
cepted, is on the expectation that eight times more heat would be unen-
durable. On an uncomfortably hot summer's day the temperature will
register 120° F., or 48.88° C. This is about as much heat as can be suf-
fered, but let the temperature be increased by a mere fifty percent to
become 180° F., or 73.3° C., and it would be impossible to survive. What
hope then would anyone have if the temperature rose by eight times to
960° F, or 586.56° C? This is above the melting point of lead, 621.32°
F, or 327.4° C., and almost the melting point of aluminium, 1220.4° F., or
660.2° C.
The human body is composed of almost 75% water which boils at
212° F, or 100° C. Long before 960° F, or 586.56° C., is reached,
human beings would have boiled to death in their own juices, and plant life
would likewise have been destroyed. The earth would have become a hell
rather than a home.
While this overheating is what we would expect, a perfect climate
would, in fact, result, being achieved by the development of a state of
equilibrium between the heat from those fiery giants and the suspension in
the atmosphere of a curtain or mantle of water vapor. This protective
covering would absorb all but the heat necessary to produce a perfect
climate on the entire surface of the earth below.
If God were to recreate the sun and the moon to their original inten-
sities, and then leave the eightfold heat to elevate the water into the
atmosphere again, some time would elapse before the transition was com-
pleted. This would be a period of intense discomfiture for the saints. In the
first creation, it was not left to the sun and the moon. God lifted the water
from the earth's surface to the upper levels by His creative fiat. As the
second creation will be an exact duplication of the first, this is how it will
be done again, the only difference being that, whereas the human family did
not exist when it was originally done, this time they will be interested
spectators.
The conditions existing on this planet before God began to form it into
a habitable home, were reproduced during Noah's time. When the ark rode
the stormy seas, the flooding was so complete that no dry land appeared.
The record in Genesis 1, shows that it was the same in the beginning.
262 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters." Genesis 1:1, 2.
Not one square inch of rock, sand, or soil penetrated the unbroken ex-
panse of water. It was not until the third day that the dry land appeared.
"And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together
unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so ....
"And the evening and the morning were the third day." Genesis
1:9, 13.
These verses establish that the entire earth was submerged prior to the
third day. What is of great interest now, are the events of the second day.
Thereon God took a tremendous quantity of water and elevated it above
the surface of the earth where it remained in a state of suspension. Some
concept of the volume of water thus raised is given by the story of its return
to earth to produce Noah's flood.
"And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights." Genesis
7:12.
This was no localized storm. It rained over every square inch of the
earth's surface for forty days and nights in an unbroken downpour, the like of
which has never been repeated.
We do not know how deep the flood was in the early creation days. We
are told that even after the Lord had elevated an enormous amount of
water, that which remained had to be gathered in one place in order, even
then, for the dry land to appear. This would be achieved by reshaping the
earth's surface. Some parts must be heightened, others lowered. The water
would then naturally gravitate to the lower areas thus forming seas.
This meant that a great deal of the land was higher than when the entire
surface was flooded. Yet when, in Noah's day, the waters which had been
placed high above the earth on the second day of creation, returned to the
earth, it was so vast in quantity that it flooded the world again. From these
evidences it is established that an enormous volume of water was lifted into
suspension on that second day.
"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters,
and let it divide the waters from the waters.
"And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and
it was so.
"And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the
morning were the second day." Genesis 1:6-8.
The marginal reading for "firmament" is expanse. In due time God
called it Heaven. Calling it thus did not designate this expanse as being His
central dwelling place, the heaven of heavens. The word, "heaven," has
several applications. There is the heaven where God dwells, the starry
THE FLOOD 263

heavens, and, finally, the atmospheric area around this earth where birds
fly and clouds float. It is this last to which reference is made here.
Thus, in God's creative organization, He left some water upon the
earth, but the remainder, He stationed high above and completely around
the world. In between there was an atmospheric heaven. How high that
mantle was we do not know. No doubt a scientist could calculate it.
God made reference to it in His conversation with Job when He said,
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? ...
"When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a
swaddlingband for it. Job 38:4, 9.
Thus a deep, protective, insulating mantle of water vapor cocooned
the earth, just as cloud partially and periodically does today. The height
and thickness of this was precisely calculated by the Creator to produce the
perfect climate upon earth.
Having positioned the water vapor, the Lord then commissioned the
sun and moon to hold it there, as well as to give light to the earth.
"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to
divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons,
and for days, and years:
"And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light
upon the earth: and it was so.
"And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and
the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also.
"And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth,
"And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light
from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.
"And the evening and the morning were the fourth day." Genesis 1: 14-
19.
The sun and moon were not established in their appointed orbits to give
only light to the earth. The Scripture clearly testifies that they were to
"... give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night,
and to divide the light from the darkness."
The purpose of giving light to the earth is easily understood, but more
study needs to be given to the meaning of the phrase, "to rule over the day
and over the night." "To rule," is to govern, to exercise a controlling in-
fluence of some nature or the other. In the light of Scripture evidences
revealing the physical conditions existing at the time of creation, something
of the nature of this rulership becomes apparent.
The sun and moon shared a responsibility beyond that of lighting the
earth. An enormous amount of water had been elevated above the globe
where it rode in suspension to form a complete mantle. To hold it there re-
quired a considerable supply of heat without which the pull of gravity would
draw it down again. The sun and moon were placed in command of this
 The Sun, the Earth, and the Moon
as they were from Creation to the Flood.
This resulted in a perfect climate on earth from pole to pole.

The Mantle of
water vapor. This The Earth blessed
is the water God with a perfect
placed above the climate.
firmament.

The Moon-a self-

luminous body,
produced heat equal to The Firmament which
our present sun. The Sun was then OJ
divided the waters above seven times as rri
Stationed at all times the earth from the I
opposite from the sun, it bright as it now is. 0
waters on the earth. It ruled the day. 5
ruled the night.
d
c
:JJ
Cl
0
0
THE FLOOD 265

situation. They were to rule over the moisture mantle, wrapped like
swaddling clothes around the planet, preventing it from returning to the
surface again and causing complete flooding. In order to have sufficient
heat energy to accomplish this important task, the moon had to be as hot as
the sun now is and the sun seven times more so.
The arrangement was a masterpiece of balanced technology. The
amount of heat produced from the two suns was calculated to keep just the
correct volume of water vapor at the optimum altitude. The percentage of
heat energy absorbed in this process left sufficient over to filter through,
providing the needed heat to warrn the earth and the dwellers thereon.
But, effective as the water mantle was in absorbing the greater part of
the sun's energy, and thus protecting the world below from its searing blast,
God's purpose for it did not end there. It served to conserve, distribute, and
equalize the warrnth reaching the surface.
The sun's rays do not heat the air as they pass through it. They heat the
earth and the sea. The air coming in contact with these surfaces, absorbs
the energy and is warrned in tum. Thus the atmosphere directly in contact
with land and sea is the warrnest, while the further removed it is by altitude,
the colder it becomes for the simple reason that it has no contact with
sources which will transmit heat to it.
What heat does reach levels above the earth arrives there by the pro-
cess of convection. Hot air rises while cold air sinks. As the air nearest the
earth is warrned it begins to rise through the colder areas above. In so do-
ing, it gives up its heat to the surrounding air, until, by the time it reaches a
certain altitude (depending on its original temperature), it will be totally
deprived of the energy with which it began.
If there is no cloud cover, there is no restriction on the levels to which
the convecting air will ascend, so that the heat gathered by the earth from
the sun will be lost out in space. The earth warrns fairly quickly and also
loses its stored heat quite rapidly. So as the sun sets, the earth and the air
above it, quickly cools, especially if the night is clear. This is why clear, still,
winter nights are cold and crisp while cloudy ones tend to be warmer.
Conversely, cloudy days are cooler, while the clear days are hotter
especially if the weather is at full summer intensity. How often the sweating
outdoor worker welcomes with relief the overclouding of the sun on a
blistering day.
Whereas in these times, the cloud cover is never completely around this
globe, as it was in the original design. This resulted in there never being a
loss of the accumulated warrnth near the earth's surface. There was a
limit to the rise of the convection currents which obliged them to flow up-
wards and then outwards, generating breezes and gentle winds which
evenly distributed the warrnth from pole to pole. Thus there was a relatively
uniforrn climate all over the planet, devoid of sweltering tropical regions
and frozen polar zones. No more perfect conditions could be imagined.
266 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

In effect, the earth was located

within a giant green house, with the
temperature inside being maintained
at the best possible comfort level for
man, animals, and plants. With no
adjacent areas of great temperature
differences there was nothing to
generate storms, low and high
pressure systems or any form of
violent weather. Instead, there was a
climatic pattern of perfect stability and
reliability. Anyone could be a suc-
cessful weather prophet in those
days, with conditions so regular, con-
sistent, and delightful.
There are no detailed eyewitness
accounts of the antediluvian world,
for understandably, any eyewitness
Fossils of which this one Is 11
testimonies other than those saved in sample, have been discovered In
the ark were destroyed with the wit- every pert of the earth including
nesses themselves. Neither does the those which ere now the frozen
Bible provide detailed descriptions. zones. This proves that the living
things which these fossils once
Nevertheless, the Lord has not left us were, flourished where It Is now Im-
without evidences concerning that era possible for them to do so, thus cer-
tifying that the climate In these
as Alfred M. Rehwinkel has observed regions was then very different from
in his book, The Flood. what It now Is.
"Nor is it mere speculation to Thus Is provided today, a record
book of the distribution and kind of
speak of the first world as a 'veritable life and climate that existed before
paradise.' For though there are but the flood.
meager written records concerning
this first world, there is another kind of record which God has preserved for
us in His wisdom. This record is reliable and true and is written in large and
legible letters in the very foundation rocks of our present world. The record
I refer to are the fossil remains that have been found in great abundance in
every part of the globe. These fossils may be called the mummified remains
of an extinct world. Fossils do not lie. Just as the pyramids of Egypt and the
monuments of Greece and Rome are an evidence of the greatness of the
civilization that produced them, so these fossils speak an eloquent language
of the glories of a world which has passed away. These fossils have been
preserved by God for a purpose. They are, as it were, the inscription on a
tombstone erected to that magnificent world and at the same time a warn-
ing to the world which was to follow. The fossils have stimulated the
imagination of men ever since the early Greeks. The early church fathers
were familiar with them. Tertuilian mentions them and gives a fairly correct
interpretation of them. Luther also knew of them and understood their
THE FLOOD 267

meaning. Others since then have had very fantastic ideas about them, but
to us their language is clear. A more detailed discussion of these fossils will
follow in a later chapter. Here I merely wish to refer to them as evidence
and conclusive proof that the physical condition of the world of Noah, the
climate, animals, and plant life, was vastly different from that of our world
today.
"With respect to climate, the fossils show that there was a uniformly
mild climate in high and in low altitudes of both the northern and the
southern hemisphere. That is, there was a perfectly uniform, non-zonal,
mild, and spring-like climate in every part of the globe. This does not
mean that the climate was of necessity the same in all parts of the earth.
There were differences, but not the present extremes. Sir Henry H. Howorth,
a noted geologist and competent interpreter of these fossils, says: 'The
flora and fauna are virtually the only thermometer with which we can test
the climate of any past period. Other evidence is always sophisticated by
the fact that we may be attributing to climate what is due to other causes.
But the biological evidence is unmistakable; cold-blooded reptiles cannot live
in icy water; semitropical plants, or plants whose habitat is the temperate
zone, cannot ripen their seeds and sow themselves under arctic conditions.'
"Or another outstanding authority, Prof. Alfred R. Wallace says: 'There
is but one climate known to the ancient fossil world as revealed by the
plants and animals entombed in the rocks, and the climate was a mantle of
spring-like loveliness which seems to have prevailed continuously over the
whole globe. Just how the world could have thus been warmed all over
may be a matter of conjecture; that it was so warmed effectively and con-
tinuously is a matter of fact. ... '
"Or Prof. George McCready Price writes: 'It would be quite useless to
go through the whole fossiliferous series in order, for there is not a single
system which does not have coral limestone or other evidence of a mild
climate way up north, most systems having such rock in the lands which
skirt the very pole itself. The limestone and coal beds of the Carboniferous
period are the nearest known rocks to the North Pole. They crop out all
around the polar basis; and from the dip of these beds, they must underlie
the polar sea itself. But it is needless to go through the systems one after
another, for they 'uniformly testify that a warm climate has in former times
prevailed over the whole globe.' The New Geology, 652.
"It is difficult for us today even to imagine a world as just described, a
world in which there was neither arctic nor antarctic and no steaming
jungles of the Equator. We know that our present climatic zones and
seasons are the results of the changing relations of the earth to the sun, the
source of the heat that warms our globe. It is, therefore, quite natural to ask
at this point: How could these laws of nature have functioned in that world
so as to produce conditions so different from those prevailing today, and
what caused the change?
268 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"That our earth at one time in its history enjoyed a uniformly mild
climate in all of its parts is a fact which can be demonstrated, as we have
seen, and that a change came suddenly, in fact, very suddenly, and
probably at a time of a universal flood, seems to be established beyond a
doubt from the frozen mammoths found fully preserved in the flesh in the
frozen tundras of northern Siberia, of which we shall hear more later." The
Flood, by Alfred M. Rehwinkel, 6-9.
The witness of the fossils is of great value in the search for information
about the antediluvian world. They verify incontrovertibly that there was a
uniform climate over the entire planet prior to the cataclysm which pro-
duced those fossils. In the frozen north are fossil remains originating from
plant and animal forms which now are found only in the temperate regions
further south. As these plants and animals are unable to grow in any other
than temperate zones, it can only be concluded that those which are now
frozen wastes were then beautiful, verdant, temperate climes.
Perhaps the most amazing finds of all are those of the mighty
mastodons, which were the elephants of that antediluvian period. These
have been discovered deep frozen in the icy wastes of Siberia in perfect
condition. The evidence shows that they were overwhelmed by a most sud-
den catastrophe, for in the mouths of some, unchewed, were yellow butter-
cups likewise perfectly preserved. Such vegetation does not grow in frigid
regions, and its presence in the mouths of these great beasts testifies to two
things. Firstly, the climate in that part of the world which is now frozen
waste, was such as to support the vegetation and provide the animals with a
climate in which they could live, and secondly, it proves that they were
overwhelmed suddenly and disastrously.
The whole of the Arctic seems to be a vast treasure store of fossil re-
mains. Obviously they are better preserved there than elsewhere because of
the extreme cold and because these regions are least disturbed by passing
civilizations. "Starting with the islands in the Arctic Ocean along the coast
north of Siberia, Howorth says that every one of them contains in its strata
abundant animal remains. There is a group of islands off the coast, in the
Arctic Ocean, called New Siberia. Concerning one of these, the Island of
Lachov, a small island about fifty miles square, Howorth said its soil is
'almost composed of fossil bones.' The same is true of another of these
islands called Kotelni, which is over a hundred miles long and fifty miles
wide. Howorth quotes a visitor to this island named Hedenstrom, who said
that so plentifully were elephants buried beneath its surface that, as he
walked along on the island for half a mile, he counted ten elephant tusks
sticking out of the ground. This general condition existed throughout the
whole island. Besides the fossils of elephant, skulls and bones of
rhinoceros, horse, bison, ox, and sheep were observed scattered over and
imbedded in the earth of the island. Concerning still another island in this
group, Howorth quotes Hedenstrom to this effect: 'In one island is a lake
with a high bank, which splits open in the summer when the sun melts the
THE FLOOD 269

ice and discloses heaps of tusks, mammoth bones, bones of rhinoceroses

and buffaloes. In other parts of the island bones and tusks are to be seen
projecting from the ground.' " ibid., 243.
These are the animals which we associate with warm and even hot
climates. We know that they would not have lived in the areas where their
remains are now to be found if the climate was as it is now-frigid.
Therefore at the time when they lived there, which was before the
Noachian flood, the climate was mild and warm.
As clearly as the fossil remains from the flood indicate that there was an
overall climate of temperate levels before the flood, they are not the only
evidences to support this fact. Nor do we wish to tum this into a geological
study to prove in great detail that this is so, interesting and enlightening as
such a study would be.
However, mention can be made of certain other evidences such as the
location of volcanoes. It was not until the flood came and buried the vast
amounts of combustible material necessary to produce volcanic activity that
they began.
"Before the flood there were immense forests. The trees were many
times larger than any trees which we now see. They were of great durabili-
ty. They would know nothing of decay for hundreds of years. At the time
of the flood these forests were tom up or broken down and buried in the
earth. In some places large quantities of these immense trees were thrown
together and covered with stones and earth by the commotions of the
flood. They have since petrified and become coal, which accounts for the
large coal beds which are now found. This coal has produced oil. God
causes large quantities of coal and oil to ignite and bum. Rocks are intensely
heated, limestone is burned, and iron ore melted. Water and fire under
the surface of the earth meet. The action of water upon the limestone adds
fury to the intense heat, and causes earthquakes, volcanoes and fiery
issues." Spiritual Gifts 3:79.
If the cause of earthquakes is the ignition of vast amounts of combusti-
ble material in the form of giant trees buried at the time of the flood, then
we must expect to find volcanoes today where such vast amounts of
vegetation grew before the flood. If, in the days before the flood, the
climate was as it is today, so that the greatest forests are found in the
temperate and tropical areas, then it would be largely in these that we
would find the active and extinct volcanoes of the present world.
On the other hand, if the world had a fairly equal climate over its whole
surface so that these trees grew in profusion on the north and south poles as
well as in between, with equal or nearly equal vigor, then we would expect
to find volcanoes all over the earth.
This is correct. The entire surface of the earth has had its active
volcanoes at one time or the other. The location of each, be it still active,
dormant, or extinct, marks the place where huge forests were buried.
270 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Here is a statement showing the universality of the incidence of

volcanoes on this earth. "Probably there is no part of the earth's surface that
has not, at some time in the past, been the site of volcanic activity. Indeed,
some regions such as the British Isles that we would hardly think of today as
volcanic have formerly experienced violent and long-continued volcanic
activity.... Even icebound Antarctica has its active volcano, Mt. Erebus,
on the edge of McMurdo sound." Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1963 Edition,
Volume 23:243A.
The very fact that there is a volcano in Antarctica, still active after all
these millenniums, is proof that a vast quantity of timber was buried there, in
order to provide fuel for such an intense, long-lasting fire. This enormous
supply of fuel certainly could not have been produced if the climate had
always been the frigid one it now is. Here is the clearest proof that at one
time the area was under the balmy influence of pleasant temperatures con-
ducive to vigorous growth.

Coal and Oil

As the statement above indicates, the burial of trees at the time of the
flood produced coal which in tum produced oil. Just as the distribution of
volcanoes shows where vast forests once grew, so does the location of
modem coal and oil fields. These are not confined only to those areas
where the climate today is such as would produce mighty forests, but are
also to be found in the frigid regions of the earth.
In the past few years tremendous stores of crude oil have been
discovered in the frozen wastes of northern Alaska, from where, despite the
forbidding nature of the terrain and the present climate, men are de-
termined to bring the oil out to the world. Likewise, there is a vast coal field
in Antarctica, where "Coal has been found near Mawson and in many
places in the Beacon group from Coats Land, the Horlick mountains,
Queen Maud range, Beardmore glacier region and northward into Victoria
Land." The Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1963 Edition, Volume 2:4.
All these things tell their own story of what was there in the past, leaving
no doubt that the overall climate of the earth was such as to produce vast
forests which were not restricted to the temperate and tropical zones as we
now know them. There are, of course, many more evidences from the
world of fossils, coal, oil, volcanoes, and so forth which might be studied in
this connection, but we believe that enough has been given here to establish
the fact that there was an equalized climate over the entire face of the globe
before the flood.
Already, evidence has been advanced to show that the moon was then a
heat generator equivalent in power to our present sun. God carefully
designed it to fulfil a specific and important role, which in the Scriptures is
declared as being to rule the night while the sun ruled the day.
THE FLOOD 271

There certainly have been far-reaching changes since Adam's time, for
not only has the moon been extinguished but it no longer occupies the night
sky alone. At times it rides the daylight hours with the sun. Its original ap-
pointment was the night while the sun commanded the day. Each was
faithful to its appointed sphere so that they never appeared at the same
time.
The scientific necessity of this is readily discerned. During the day, the
enormous heat energy from the sun kept the canopy of water vapor in
place, but as the earth turned away, there would be a cooling of this mantle
to the point where flooding rains would mar each night. A lesser light was
required to give just enough heat to prevent the excessive cooling of the
water vapor, and yet allow sufficient to effect some condensation to ir-
rigate the vegetation. The moon, riding the night sky on station opposite
the sun, provided exactly what was needed. Each night there was just suf-
ficient cooling to produce a ground fog which bathed all the plant life with a
gentle dew, meeting the moisture requirements for the day.
" ... for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there
was not a man to till the ground.
"But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face
of the ground." Genesis 2:5, 6.
No more perfect system could have been devised. There were no
pounding, windswept rains deluging one area at the expense of another,
leaching the soil of its life-giving nutrients, and eroding the land into the sea.
There were no severe contrasts of climate, ranging from the blistering
heat of today's tropics to the supercold of the polar regions. Everywhere
there was a pleasant balmy climate and atmosphere which was delightful,
invigorating, and congenial. Neither were there vast oceans as we have
them today. All that water was suspended far above. The earth was almost
entirely elevated land with only pleasant rivers and lakes well distributed by
the perfect design of a marvellous Creator.
Thus the earth had the capacity for supporting billions upon billions of
people without overcrowding and without any want. Some concept of what
its potential population would have been can be gained by considering what
this earth now supports when so much of it is drowned by oceans, and
taken up by deserts, mountain ranges, and frozen regions impossible to in-
habit, while the remainder has a very low fertility compared to the earth as it
emerged direct from the Creator's hand.
Any comparison between things as they then were and are now, im-
mediately shows that very great changes have taken place. The sun has
been reduced to one seventh of its brightness and the moon has gone out.
The great water canopy is no longer suspended as a protective veil and in-
sulating blanket above and around the earth. The moon and the sun no
longer sustain the same relationship to each other.
272 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The climate has changed. Deserts dominate vast areas; huge, restless
oceans occupy the greater part of the globe; great upthrusting mountain
chains divide nations, control the weather, and create useless wastelands
on their lee side; and the northern and southern caps are frozen solid. The
earth is now watered by leaching rain in place of the gentle mist in Adam's
garden.
When and how did all these changes take place? Were they gradual,
occupying centuries or milleniums of time, or were they climactic, happen-
ing in a few days or weeks?
God has not left this as a matter of guesswork. The Scriptures plainly
tell when and how it took place.
Certainly the changes did not take place to any significant degree prior to
the flood. When Noah announced the coming of a deluge by a global
rain storm to last for forty days and nights, the antediluvians scoffed at the
idea. It had never rained during the one thousand, six hundred and fifty-six
years before the flood came.
"In the days of Noah a double curse was resting upon the earth, in con-
sequence of Adam's transgression and of the murder committed by Cain.
Yet this had not greatly changed the face of nature. There were evident
tokens of decay, but the earth was still rich and beautiful in the gifts of God's
providence. The hills were crowned with majestic trees supporting the fruit-
laden branches of the vine. The vast, garden-like plains were clothed with
verdure, and sweet with the fragrance of a thousand flowers. The fruits of
the earth were in great variety, and almost without limit. The trees far sur-
passed in size, beauty, and perfect proportion, any now to be found; their
wood was of fine grain and hard substance, closely resembling stone, and
hardly less enduring. Gold, silver, and precious stones existed in abun-
dance." Patriarchs and Prophets, 90.
Furthermore, the great, scientific minds of that day could prove
mathematically that no rain was possible because of the continued genera-
tion of heat by the sun during the day and the moon by night. They also
boldly declared, as scientists do today, that the sun would continue its
radiation of heat energy for millions of years yet. Like the Pharaoh as yet
unborn, they had lost sight of the essential knowledge that nature is not self-
acting but requires the continued presence, control, and sustenance of God.
"The world before the flood reasoned that for centuries the laws of
nature had been fixed. The recurring seasons had come in their order.
Heretofore rain had never fallen; the earth had been watered by a mist or
dew. The rivers had never yet passed their boundaries, but had borne their
waters safely to the sea. Fixed decrees had kept the waters from overflow-
ing their banks. But these reasoners did not recognize the hand of Him who
had stayed the waters, saying, 'Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.'
Job 38:11.
THE FLOOD 273

"As time passed on, with no apparent change in nature, men whose
hearts had at times trembled with fear, began to be reassured. They
reasoned, as many reason now, that nature is above the God of nature,
and that her laws are so firmly established that God Himself could not
change them. Reasoning that if the message of Noah were correct, nature
would be turned out of her course, they made that message, in the minds of
the world, a delusion,-a grand deception. They manifested their con-
tempt for the warning of God by doing just as they had done before the
warning was given. They continued their festivities and their gluttonous
feasts; they ate and drank, planted and builded, laying their plans in
reference to advantages they hoped to gain in the future; and they went to
greater lengths in wickedness, and in defiant disregard of God's re-
quirements, to testify that they had no fear of the Infinite One. They
asserted that if there were any truth in what Noah had said, the men of
renown,-the wise, the prudent, the great men,-would understand the
matter." ibid., 96, 97.
For the first time ever, rain fell, beginning its torrential and incessant
downpour seven days after the closing of the door. Thus the change came
suddenly. Up to a certain day, it had never rained. With the advent of that
day, it rained, not gently and then increasingly, but in an absolute deluge.
The water literally dropped out of the sky. At the same time, mighty
underground supplies burst forth out of all control.
But this change could not occur unless firstly, changes had taken place
in the sun and moon. There is only one way in which rain can come.
Suspended water vapor must cool down to condensation point. Today
this takes place when rain clouds drifting in from warrner areas either en-
counter a cold air front or are forced to rise to cross a mountain chain. In
each case the saturated air is cooled. The water vapor turns to heavier-
than-air water droplets and rain is the result.
But there were no great mountain barriers in Noah's day, nor was it
possible for travelling saturated air to encounter a cold front, for there
were no polar regions to generate them.
There was only one way for the water vapor in suspension above the
earth to be chilled and that was for the moon and sun to begin to wane in
heat production. This they did. The moon went out altogether and the sun
faded to one seventh of its forrner brightness.
Suddenly, the vast volume of water vapor up there found itself de-
prived of seven-eighths of the heat it had been receiving. Rapidly the heat
energy was exhausted in the work of keeping the vapor suspended. Chill-
ing followed. Then came condensation. Practically all the water that had
been taken from earth to sky by God's direct power on the second day of
creation, was returned through natural causes during those forty days and
nights.
274 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

So great is the power of God that He could speak into position a

volume of water which took forty days and nights to return by its own
power. The result was that for the second time the earth became com-
pletely flooded with water. Not a trace of dry land showed anywhere.
The first appearance of rain in Noah's day is positive proof that it was
then that the extinguishing of the moon and the dimming of the sun took
place. Confirmation of this is provided by both Isaiah and Peter. The
evidence from Isaiah has already been quoted. Here it is again.
"Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the
light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that
the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of
their wound." Isaiah 30:26.
This text supplies the proof that the sun was reduced in brightness and
the moon went out at the time of the flood, for the promise that the sun
and the moon will be restored, will be fulfilled " ... in the day that the Lord
bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their
wound."
A healing is the restoring to an original condition. If, in this healing
work, the sun and moon are to be brought back to what they were, then it
had to be at the making of the breach and the wounding that the sun and
moon suffered their reductions. So it is only necessary to determine when
the breach was made and the stroke administered, to know when the sun
and moon were depleted of their powers.
There is only one point of time when a great stroke was delivered
against mankind which produced a terrible breach on human population
and that was at the flood. It was not when man sinned, for the punishment
did not fall on him at that time due to the instant interposition of Christ.
There is a distinction to be seen between committing the sin, and the
punishment which comes long after, when the calls to repentance have
been persistently rejected.
So great was the stroke and the resulting breach in the human family
that total extermination almost resulted. God has promised to restore that
which was lost but not those who were lost.
There have been many minor strokes made against sections of people,
but none of these compare with the great flood and the damage it caused.
The time is coming though, when that will be restored. The sun will come
back to seven times its brightness and the moon will become as bright as the
sun, thus reestablishing the earth to its pre-flood state.
From the evidences investigated so far, it is confirmed that the dimming
of the sun and the extinguishing of the moon were the direct scientific and
natural causes of the flood. What caused the sun and moon to lose their
powers is a question yet to be determined, but the answer will come as we
proceed. Firstly, some consideration must be given to New Testament
evidences that great changes did take place at the flood.
 275

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Great Changes
In the Old Testament it is Isaiah who provides the information that there
was a great change at the time of the flood. In the New Testament it is
Peter. In fact the latter writer is even more specific in that he names the
flood as the great point of change.
"Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walk-
ing after their own lusts,
"And saying, Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers
fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation.
"For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the
heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the
water:
"Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water,
perished:
"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are
kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition
of ungodly men." 2 Peter 3:3-7.
In these word, Peter divides history into two periods-antediluvian
and post-diluvian. In doing so he uses the expression, "the world that then
was," to indicate the world as it was before the flood and which was
destroyed by the flood. When referring to the world after that catastrophe, he
speaks of "the heavens and the earth, which are now."
He does not speak only of the earth which is now, as being different
from what it was before. He also includes the heavens in the change. The
heavens referred to do not mean the starry heavens, nor the heaven of
heavens where God dwells, for they have never been touched by sin and
thus have never been changed. In actual fact, Peter does not define the
particular heavens to which he is referring, but there is no need for any
ignorance of this on our part. The information contained in the other
Scriptures makes it clear that the heavens which changed at the time of the
flood were those governed by the sun and the moon of this solar system.
Before the flood, the sun was seven times brighter and the moon was as
bright as the sun. The sun ruled the day and the moon the night. There was
a wonderful mantle of protective vapor around the earth and the climate
from pole to pole was of pleasant, even temperatures. It never rained but a
gentle mist rose each morning to water the earth. Storms, tidal waves,
earthquakes, blizzards, hurricanes, and hail storms were completely
unknown. That was the heavens and the earth which then were.
276 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

But how different are the heavens and the earth which now are. The
sun is dimmed to one seventh. The moon has gone out. The mantle of pro-
tection is not there. Wide diversity of climate covers the earth. Fierce
storms, terrible earthquakes, destructive blizzards, pulverizing hailstorms,
and a thousand other scourges blast the earth.
These are the great changes of which the wise men of today are ig-
norant, and wilfully so. It is not that they do not believe in the flood, for
many of them do, but the deluge is seen as if it were no more than the
same disasters which occur today on a lesser scale. They see the heavens and
the earth before the flood as being essentially the same as the heavens and
the earth after the flood. There simply came the time when an abnormally wet
season flooded the entire earth. When the flood ended, as all floods do, the
earth gradually returned to the same situation as before. This is the thinking
of those who do recognize the flood, but fail to acknowledge the real
changes which took place there.
We see from a more thorough and careful study of the Scriptures that
the changes were much more far-reaching than that. It is needful that their
full extent be understood, together with the causes, namely, the dimming
of the sun and the extinguishing of the moon.
When Noah emerged from the ark, God made a special promise and
prophecy to him that there never would be a flood upon the earth again.
That promise is repeated again in Isaiah. "Thy sun shall no more go down;
neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting
light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." Isaiah 60:20.
In what sense are these words to be understood?
Usually we refer to the sun or the moon "going down" when they ap-
pear to sink below the western horizon, but this is an erroneous expression,
for neither the sun nor the moon go down in relation to the earth. They
only appear to. The disappearance of these heavenly bodies behind the
western mountains or plains, is caused by the rotation of the earth on its
axis so that as the earth turns we are the ones who "go down" -not the sun
and moon.
Because of its scientific inaccuracy this understanding of the expression,
"go down," as used in the Scripture under consideration, must be highly
suspect. That it is not the correct interpretation is made evident by certain
facts revealed in the Word of God.
The first creation was perfect and the second will be a reproduction of
it. There can be no differences between the second and the first because
perfection cannot be improved, any modification being an admission that
the first was imperfect and thus required improvement.
In the first creation, there was day and night occasioned by what we
term the "going down" of the sun. If the promise of Isaiah 60:20 provided
that the sun would never set in the western sky, then there would be no day
and night as in the original, perfect creation. In fact, only one side of the
GREAT CHANGES 277

earth would ever see the sun while the other would see only the moon, so it
is easily seen that this is not the meaning of Isaiah 60:20.
Some may point to the reference in Re1Je/ation 22:5, "And there shall
be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the
Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever," and
claim this teaches that there will not even be a sun in the new earth, for it
will not be needed.
However, we are confident that most will recognize that this Scripture is
not describing conditions in the new earth generally but as they will be in the
new Jerusalem. Even then it does not say there will be no sun, but only that
there will be no need of it for there will be the greater light streaming from
the presence of God. So far as the rest of the earth is concerned it will have,
as promised in Isaiah 30:26, a blazing sun and a brilliant moon. The earth
will still rotate on it axis and each evening the sun will appear to "go
down" behind the western horizon as it does today.
Furthermore, why should the Lord make a special promise that the sun
would never go down again behind the western horizon each evening,
when such an event was no trouble or problem? It is a perfectly normal and
desirable occurrence, introducing the blessings of the night. Therefore, if
this is all the Lord was offering in that Scripture, it could hardly be regarded
as a precious promise.
The promise is made in respect to new earth dwellers who will again be
enjoying perfect climatic conditions under the protective and insulating
canopy supported by the sun and the moon as they will then be. They will
know what happened when the sun went down in intensity and the moon
withdrew itself in the days of Noah. To them, the promise that this will not
happen again is a very valuable and precious one, for by this means they are
assured that never again will their beautiful home be flooded to destruction.
The guarantee offered in this Scripture is not merely that it will never
happen, but that it will happen "no more." "Thy sun shall no more go
down ... " If it is to happen no more, then it must have happened already.
The only occasion it could have been, was when the dimming of the sun
and the extinguishing of the moon brought the deluge. Therefore, this
verse along with Isaiah 30:26 and 2 Peter 3:3-7, is directly referring to the
great changes which occurred in both the earth and the heavens when the
sun went down and the moon withdrew itself. Consequently, the world
"that then was," was very different from the "heavens and the earth,
which are now. "
It is the utter failure by modem scientists to understand the full extent of
these changes which has led them into erroneous conclusions in all matters
of dating extending beyond existing historical records. While the earth is, in
fact, not quite six thousand years of age, they date it in the hundreds of
millions of years.
278 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Great excitement was experienced during the nineteen-forties when the

radiocarbon method of dating was developed. Careful testing of the pro-
cedure with materials of known age proved its accuracy. Thereupon, the
dating of materials of otherwise undetermined age was undertaken and, to
the delight of the scientists, the readout agreed with established postulations
of the age of the earth and life upon it. Whereas the Biblical record allows
for only about six thousand years, they confirmed figures running into
millions.
At the time, faithful Bible students were perplexed to some extent by
this, for the evolutionists felt that they had a sure upper-hand in the
everlasting debate on the age of the earth. There seemed a real possibility
that the Bible, after all, could be proved to be in error. Those of us,
however, who understood, even back there, the full extent of the changes
which did take place at the flood, recognized immediately the defect in their
calibrations. The relaying of this information to the perplexed among God's
children quickly set their minds at rest.
"Radiocarbon age dating, developed in the late 194-0's at The Universi-
ty of Chicago, is an example of the application of one of the newest
sciences (atomic energy) to one of the oldest (archaeology). The technique
involves measuring the relative activities of radioactive carbon (C 14 ) in (1)
present-day living organic matter and (2) the sample under investigation,
and multiplying the logarithm of this ratio by the rate at which the activity of
(C 14 ) decays with time. Careful measurements have shown that the activity of
any given preparation of carbon-14 is reduced by exactly one-half during
each interval of 5,568±30 years. This value is called the half life of C 14 •
"Radiocarbon is produced in nature by an indirect process involving the
interaction of cosmic rays from outer space with the nitrogen in the earth's
atmosphere. The competing processes of formation and of decay of C 14
have been going on for so long that the equilibrium has been established,
and the world inventory of C 14 is estimated at about 70 metric tons.
Radiocarbon therefore has been introduced into the biosphere, and all
living matter contains a small quantity of radiocarbon which averages
15.30± 0.1 disintegrations per minute per gram of contained carbon. This
activity remains constant throughout the life of the organic matter because
of the above-mentioned equilibrium processes.
"However, at death the introduction of radiocarbon into the specimen
ceases, while the normal decay of the contained radiocarbon continues ac-
cording to the half life mentioned above. Therefore an archaeological
specimen (for example, a mummy or a tree) which yields 7.65 disintegra-
tions per minute per gram of carbon instead of 15.3 is judged to be
5,568±30 years old. If the material shows only one-fourth of the radiocar-
bon content of living matter, the age of the specimen is 11, 136±60 years,
etc." The Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1963 Edition, Volume 18:904, 905.
GREAT CHANGES 279

In less scientific terms the above may be restated as follows: There is a

continual bombardment of this earth by cosmic rays from outer space.
These, interacting with the nitrogen in the atmosphere cause all living
organisms to absorb radiocarbon 14. This continues until the death of the
living thing, be it plant, animal, or human. Thereafter the radiocarbon 14
breaks down at an accurately known rate. To determine how long since
death took place, the residual radiocarbon in the specimen is measured. If
half the original activity remains then it is known that the age of the subject
is very close to 5,568 years.
As mentioned above, when the procedure was tested using samples
with ages already established through other means, it always checked out
accurately. It was natural to assume, then, that it would be equally reliable in
testing materials for which there was no definite way of determining age.
Coal was an excellent example of this kind of matter.
When samples were tested, there was found to be a complete absence
of any radiocarbon 14. It was natural to conclude that it had been there in
the usual strength in the original living trees, but these had been dead for so
long that complete disintegration of the radioactive material had taken
place. Knowing that this could happen only over an exceedingly long
period of time, they dated the coal as being many hundreds of thousands of
years old.
In doing so they did the very thing God, through Peter, foretold they
would do. They denied that there had ever been a great change in the
heavens and the earth and worked on the assumption that " ... all things
continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." 2 Peter 3:4.
Had they understood that the earth was mantled by that protective
water vapor, they would have known that before the flood, cosmic rays
could never have penetrated into our atmosphere as they do today. Plants
and animals did not absorb any radiocarbon 14 before the flood because
the band of moisture filtered the rays out before they ever reached the
nitrogen in the earth's atmosphere. Therefore, scientists found no radiocar-
bon in the coal-not because it had all disintegrated, but because it was
never there originally. Thus the radiocarbon clock, far from denying the
truth of the Bible, actually serves to confirm it.
Had the heavens and the earth been the same before the flood as they
are now, with no better protection from cosmic ray penetration, then the
trees would have absorbed it as they do today. When buried by the flood,
the breakdown would have proceeded and the measuring instruments to-
day would have shown the coal to be a little less than five thousand years
old. We know how old the coal is without the help of a radiocarbon clock.
We have the Word of God and from its utterly reliable source we know that
the flood occurred about four thousand, four hundred years ago.
If the scientists were to allow for the great changes made in the heavens
and the earth at the flood they would also make allowances for their dating
280 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

techniques and would not propose such astronomical figures for the age of
the earth. It is interesting to note that since the introduction of this system, it
has been discovered that the method is by no means as reliable as first
thought.
Some may question the effectiveness of the moisture mantle in screen-
ing out the cosmic radiation, but the fact is that even the limited presence of
moisture and atmosphere around our earth today, is a protection from this
problem. When supersonic jets traverse the oceans at altitudes which prac-
tically take them out of this earth's atmosphere, it is necessary to keep a
continual watch on solar flares. Should these break out while they are in
flight, they must immediately return to a lower altitude to place atmosphere
between themselves and open space so as to obtain protection from this
radiation.
This clearly shows how completely the protective mantle before the
flood would screen out all these radiations from outer space. Therefore,
any fossils of things living before the flood will always give a zero readout so
far as radioactive carbon content is concerned. This is proof, not that they
are so old that there has been a complete decay of this material, but that it
was never there in the first place in order to break down. Its absence con-
firms the vastly different conditions existing in the heavens and the earth
prior to the deluge.
Thus the Word of God offers us a great deal of information about con-
ditions as they were before the flood, the scientific forces which maintained
those conditions, and the changes in those forces which produced the
flood. This information is of tremendous value in searching out the specific
role the Lord played in that fearful stroke of their wound which made such
an enormous breach upon the people. It does not seem that the same
wealth of scientific information has been offered to us in the Bible, to ex-
plain how the plagues of Egypt fell. At least, such has not been found in the
Scriptures though it might well be there, only waiting to be revealed to
God's children.
On the other hand, the revelation of the scientific causes of the flood, is
a strong confirmation of the truth that God does not execute the sinner, but
that the catastrophes which destroy mankind are the outworking of natural
forces no longer under God's control and supervision. While the Lord has
not supplied the same detailed information about the scientific basis of the
Egyptian plagues, faith is strengthened by the evidences of the flood, to
know that they had a scientific basis too.
Once these have been established, then it is possible to understand just
what God did in these situations.
 281

CHAPTER TWENlY-SEVEN

Concepts Revised
The Biblical evidences gathered so far, confirm the scientific nature of
the flood. The perfect arrangement of balanced heat supply and protective
mantle, producing a mild and equalized climate over the earth, was critically
dependent on the uniform production of heat from the sun and the moon.
When that failed, the flood was inevitable.
The question now remaining is why the sun came to be dimmed and
the moon extinguished. This problem solved, there will remain no dif-
ficulties in connection with God's character as it was manifested in that
catastrophe. If the dimming and the extinguishing of those two bodies was
God's deliberate act, performed at a moment dictated by Him, then God
certainly was an executioner of the sentence against transgression. He did
not leave the rejecters of His mercy to themselves to reap that which they
had sown. He was a destroyer. Undeniably, He departed from His stated
principles and resorted to measures foreign to Him and His kingdom prior
to the entrance of sin.
This is, of course, the view generally adopted, together with its implica-
tions which, unfortunately, are rarely considered. If men did but con-
template the full import of what they believe, they would heartily reject
many errors.
Strengthening the tendency to adopt this position, is the awareness that
God has full power to extinguish the moon and dim the sun, easily and in-
stantly. There is no possibility, need, or intention of denying this. God is
possessed of infinite power. Just as by commanding and it was done, God
placed those blazing orbs in the day and nighttime sky, so He could as
readily put them out again. There is no contention over God's ability to be
the executioner. He possessed all the power necessary and much more
besides. It required Him only to speak and it would be done, to command
and it would be destroyed.
The controversy is over whether He, who was in possession of such
power, would use it in this way. Those who have grasped the principles laid
down in this book, will understand that while God has the power to do it,
He did not, because He is bound by immutable principles of righteousness
not to use His might in that way. All such will praise the excellence of
character which, equipped with infinite might while pressed under the
severest provocation, does not retaliate. That is righteousness at its
beautiful best.
The story of the flood is very significant and important to me, for it was
this recital, which, twenty-six yeais ago in 1952, first exercised my mind on
the problems of understanding God's character. Prior to this I had simply
282 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

accepted the traditional concepts of God's character without question, but

from that time forward they became subject to serious challenge. It hap-
pened as follows:
The Sabbath School lessons of that year took the students back to the
beginning of the great controversy in heaven. 1studied with fascinated in-
terest the rise of sin in Lucifer, his opposition to God, His government and
law, and the divine response to this terrible spirit of rebellion.
From the outset of my study it became increasingly and sharply clear
that the struggle was not a contest instituted to prove who was physically
stronger, for there could be no doubt of God's infinite superiority in this
field. Neither Lucifer nor any other creature challenged this. Furthermore,
had that been the issue then God could have resolved it with one over-
whelming demonstration of His almighty power. It would not have been
necessary to wait for almost two thousand years and then bring the flood to
prove that He was physically stronger than Satan and his hosts.
I came to understand that the contest was over the respective merits of
two opposing and irreconcilable systems of government, the one long
established by God versus that newly espoused by Satan. God declared
that His system was perfect, needed no modifications or improvements,
and guaranteed for those who faithfully respected it, the pennanence of
eternal life, prosperity, and advancement. Satan counterclaimed that the
divine order was not all it pretended to be, a point having been reached
where it had ended its effective reign. Far from being a system designed for
the universal good of all, he charged it was a master plot fonnulated for the
special exaltation of the Father and the Son. Because of this, he insinuated
an oppressive era was about to be introduced which would increase in
severity as eternity dragged on. While he admitted that up till that time con-
ditions could not have been better, he declared that the future would certainly
reveal the defects in the divine system. He agitated that it was im-
perative that every member of the angelic hosts stand up for themselves
before they were so circumscribed by bondage that they would be
powerless to assert their rights.
Satan's attack was upon the principles of God's character and thus of
His government. The question was whether the established ways of God's
government could emerge impeccably from subjection to the most search-
ing test Satan could give it, or whether defects would become evident.
God was confident that it could emerge immaculate and, therefore, had
no hesitation in submitting it to the ultimate test. Let the devil attack and
counterattack! Let him use all the weapons of force and deception' God
knew that His system would come through vindicated and perfect.
So God entered into the great controversy for which this earth and its
people became the testing ground, the arena, the theatre. I recognized back
there the critical importance of understanding what was under test, what
was at stake, and the limitations placed upon God by His own acceptance
CONCEPTS REVISED 283

of this challenge. God did not permit the testing of His system of govern-
ment to preserve His personal honor and word, for God is not self-
centered. He did it for the salvation of the creatures in His universe.
I perceived that a clear distinction must be seen between the principles
of God's government itself, and the personal power resident in God by
which He could enforce the observance of His ways if He chose to use
those methods. When this distinction is seen, it then follows that if God's
principles are under test then they must stand or fall on their own merits.
If the Lord should find it necessary to introduce another factor, such as the
use of omnipotent power, to settle the controversy, then this would depart
from His original committal to leave the principles of righteousness to stand
or fall on their own merits. It would also be an admission that they were
defective and could not stand by virtue of their own intrinsic qualities. It
would give Satan the whole argument, for this action would prove the
adversary correct in his charges.
So I emerged from studying the beginnings of the great controversy
clearly understanding its legal aspects, what it was all designed to prove,
and assured that God had positioned Himself where He could not interpose
His omnipotent personal power to ensure that the victory was His. He had
not assumed this position for the first time just to meet the issue. Eternally,
He had occupied that place, but under the pressure of the test, He re-
affirmed this truth with a much more clearly defined statement of His
eternal principles and purposes.
My only sources in this study were the inspired writings, and I emerged
from them thrilled with these discoveries of truth. I had come to see and
know God as I had never seen Him before, and I was exceedingly happy
with the revelation.
But a few weeks later, the Sabbath School lessons moved on to the
flood. Naturally, up till that time, I had held the universally accepted view
that the wickedness of man had become so great, the Lord was obliged to
step in with His judgmental power and wipe them out as a stem warning of
what all others would likewise receive if they pursued a similar course of
defiance against God.
Now, however, I found this traditionally-held view in sharp conflict with
the principles of God's position in the great controversy. I was unable to
reconcile the newly discovered truths revealing the legal basis of the great
controversy with the view I had always unquestioningly held of God's
behavior at the flood.
On one side I could see clearly that the Father and Son had allowed the
conflict to play itself out upon the stage of this earth. They had declared that
the victory for the cause of righteousness must and would come by the ap-
plication of its own power and rightness-not because of the interposition
of omnipotent power on God's part being used to destroy the non-
conforming.
284 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

But, on the other hand, it was clear that as time passed and men began
to really multiply upon the face of the earth, things were going from bad to
worse for God's cause. Continually, in increasing numbers, the inhabitants
of the earth were joining Satan, while God's accounting finally showed only
eight to His credit. Yet even among them, the loyalty was far from absolute,
as demonstrated by Ham's behavior after the flood.
There are no records in Holy Writ showing just how many inhabitants
the earth then supported. Yet to appreciate the minuteness of the minority
in contrast to the majority, one has to consider the likely population of the
earth at that time. In his book, The Flood, Alfred Rehwinkel estimates that
the population might have been anywhere between two thousand million
and twelve thousand million. Of course, it is impossible to gain an exact
figure. As one reads this author's arguments, one realizes that he is being
very careful in his assessments. He is a responsible researcher, not a sensa-
tion raiser. Therefore, the population could have been well in excess of his
estimates.
Today, the population of this earth is given at three billion, eight hun-
dred and eighty-eight million and seven hundred and eighty-seven thou-
sand, which is approaching four thousand million, or four billion. This is the
figure quoted in the Encyclopedia Brittanica 1976 Year Book, page 566.
This is twice the minimum figure suggested by Rehwinkel and one third of
the maximum figure. These comparisons should give us some idea of the
disparity between the forces gone over to Satan's camp and the very few
who remained loyal to God.
Every appearance, then, suggested that Satan was about to emerge as
the outright winner in the great controversy, that his ways were so superior
to the ways of God that everyone on the earth was for them, but for the
eight. In time these few would either die or join anyway.
As I looked upon the whole problem back there, my thoughts ran along
these lines. It was desperately important to God that the situation not be
allowed to continue to the point where there was no one left on His side, for
essential to the ultimate success of His plan, was the birth of the Redeemer
through the righteous line. Should the righteous line be cut off, then God's
plan must fail.
It must fail, not simply because the intention of God to save the human
family would be frustrated, but because God would be deprived of the
means of removing the cause of the rebellion. That cause, as has been
demonstrably proved earlier in this book, was the misrepresentation of the
character of God, firstly in the mind of Lucifer and later through him to the
other creatures.
The only satisfactory and successful way to solve a problem is to
remove the cause of it. Once the problem of sin, which is rebellion against
the principles of God's government, entered the universe, all the resources
of heaven were devoted to its solution. It is a mistake to limit the solution to
CONCEPTS REVISED 285

the cleansing of sin from those who will be saved, while the rest are simply
left to their annihilation. The problem will not be solved until the cause has
been removed from the mind of every creature who has ever come into ex-
istence, including all those who will, in the end, be eternally lost.
Inasmuch as the cause of all the trouble is the misrepresentation of
God's character, while ever that misconception remains in the minds of
angels and men, the rebellion must continue. Therefore, to end it, that
misconception must be corrected. This cannot be done merely by declara-
tions on God's part or by the use of force. There is only one way to ac-
complish it. The character of God must be manifested by One Who was
equal with God. Only Christ could do the work.
But it was impossible for Him to do it successfully in the perfect environ-
ment of heaven. It could be done there to a certain extent but not wholly.
There is a very valid reason for this. In heaven, Satan had not developed
the fullness of his attack against the character of God. It remained for him to
do that on this earth. This imposed on Christ the necessity of coming right
to the place where Satan was perpetrating the fullness of his lies against God,
and there, side by side with the character of Satan, provide the contrasting
revelation of God's character. Only as men and angels were able to see
both of them side by side, could the revelation of God and Satan be so fully
given that the cause of the struggle could be erased from angelic and
human minds.
For Jesus Christ to come into this position, He must be born into the
human family. He could not and would not force any woman to be His
mother. The one through whom He would enter the earthly arena must be
absolutely willing to perform this office. We can be assured that no one who
was on Satan's side would undertake such a commission. Satan knew
this. Therefore, he realized that one way to secure the victory in the con-
test was to either win every human being over to his side, or to win all he
could and then use them to exterminate the rest.
Satan was terribly afraid that if Christ did appear on the earth, He
would be successful in exposing the lies he had levelled against God, with
the result that he would be rejected with loathing by all the creatures whose
support he so desperately sought. He knew that everything depended on
his successfully preventing such a demonstration from being given.
Therefore he worked with fanatical and unsleeping zeal to win as many of
the human family as possible to his side and to destroy the remainder.
Success in so doing would deprive God of the means whereby Christ could
enter the earthly arena of battle.
Victory for Satan would have been assured at any point of time before
the first advent of Christ, where he could have destroyed the righteous line.
It was vital to his cause that he achieve this, while for God it was equally
vital that the righteous line be preserved. Had God lost every follower to the
devil, He would have been unable to bring His Son into the world, provide
286 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

thereby the necessary character demonstration, unmask the deceptions of

the devil, and thus, by removing the cause of the rebellion, bring it to its end.
Instead His kingdom would remain cursed with an ever widening and
deepening scourge of rebellion.
Never did Satan come so close to absolute success in his determinations
than just prior to the flood. God saw His forces of loyal followers dwindle
down to a mere and doubtful eight while the devil numbered millions as his.
It was all too obvious that but a short time would elapse before death and
apostasy would swing the balance totally in Satan's favor.
With the future of the entire kingdom of God throughout the infinite
reaches of His domains at stake, such a development placed enormous
pressure upon God to step in and take direct and decisive action to save the
situation from total and eternal disaster. If the traditional view of what God
did at the flood is correct, then God succumbed to that pressure.
Back there in 1952, I saw a terrible conflict between the popular con-
cept that God in personal judgment sent the flood upon the earth, and the
truth that God has submitted His principles to stand on their own merits
against the mightiest attacks the devil could make upon them. It was im-
possible for me to question the veracity of the truth that God and Christ had
agreed to this utterly fair and proper contest between their principles and
those the devil wished to introduce.
I realized that if God and Christ had entered into such a plan, and then,
sixteen centuries later, when things had moved to the brink of disaster for
Them, They had organized the flood, They must have gone into confer-
ence and reasoned as follows: "In the beginning We agreed and an-
nounced that We would permit the principles of righteousness to be sub-
jected to the severest tests the devil could place upon them. We went on
record as testifying that those principles are so perfect and complete that
they are immortal and cannot be destroyed. We averred that there was no
need to introduce superpower weapons to force a conclusion favorable to Us.
But things are turning so badly against Us that if We do not step in now with
Our infinite power and curb the onrush of Satan and his people, all will be
loss to Us and gain to him. Therefore the situation now developed de-
mands that We arise and do something. What shall it be?"
Popular theology asserts that the Lord then stepped in with the flood to
thoroughly curb the advancement of Satan's cause. He wiped out Satan's
forces to the last individual and so savaged the earth that it was never the
same again.
If this is what God did, then He made a complete farce of the original
statement of willingness to submit the case to fair contest and of His expres-
sion of confidence that the principles of righteousness could survive such a
test. It would appear that He started out in the hope that they would;
viewed with growing dismay the turning of the tide against Him; held out till
the last possible moment, and then found Himself obliged to resort to the
use of His limitless powers to contain the rebellion within certain limits.
CONCEPTS REVISED 287

I thought of a number of people who, year after year, entered the com-
petition for the best front garden in town. One man of unusual skill took the
prize time after time until he came to think it was his by right. Yet, each
year, he put forth the utmost effort to ensure that none outclassed him. The
time came when, to his consternation, a new face entered the contest and it
became apparent as the months went by, that this newcomer was an excep-
tional gardener whose efforts showed every prospect of taking off the first
prize.
The usual prize winner became convinced that unless something was
done, he certainly would not be the number one man this year and perhaps
never would be again. Desperately, he worked harder on his own plot but
he was never able to outstrip the new man. He saw at last that he could not
win the contest by fair means so he determined to win it otherwise. In the
dead of night, he let loose some animals to rampage through the property
of the other, with the result that the beautiful garden was destroyed. When
the judges came the next day, he received the prize as usual. No one knew,
of course, that he was responsible for the devastation of the real prize-
winning garden and he was most careful not to reveal this for he knew with
what indignation such an action would be viewed.
Furthermore, the revelation to all concerned of what he had done
would have turned the judges against him. Not one of them would have
awarded him the prize. They would have agreed that the man whose
garden had been ravaged was the real prize winner.
Once it is clearly understood that the Lord had agreed to submit the
principles of righteousness to any kind of test and declared that they would
stand on their own merits without the interposition of arbitrary power, it will
likewise be seen that should God at the last moment resort to the use of
destructive power to wipe out the efforts of His competitor, then no one will
believe in Him. He will be literally giving the case away to Satan.
God would give His enemy every just right to charge Him with un-
fairness, duplicity, and deception. Satan would ask how he could ever fairly
demonstrate his claims, when the Lord lets him go until he is on the very
brink of success, and then, because He is the possessor of omnipotent
power, uses that to wipe out all Satan has achieved. Satan could rightfully
complain that he never would have any real chance of proving anything.
God would have no defence against this argument and it would actually
serve to increase the spirit of rebellion in the universe. No fair-minded per-
son would stand on God's side once these issues were clearly understood.
When I came to understand these things, I was thrown into quite a state
of perplexity. Fortunately, my faith in the justice and honor of God's char-
acter and the veracity of the Scriptures was such that I was well prepared
to hold on till the problem was solved. I believed that the Lord would
answer my earnest and honest searching. Frankly I recognized that I was
confronted with two contradictory pictures and with equal strength of
288 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

conviction I knew that there was no such thing as a contradiction in the

Scriptures but only in our understanding of them.
For a number of days little else but this problem weighed upon my
mind. Every opportunity I had was devoted to studying the Bible and to
prayer. I knew that there must be a solution which would fully reconcile
what God did at the flood and the eternal principles to which He was
committed.
I knew that the standard evaluation of God's behavior there could not
be reconciled with the new truths I had learned about His character and
law. Therefore, I became more and more doubtful of the popular view. I
could not accept the idea that God, Who knows all things from the begin-
ning, would commit Himself to a position which would later get completely
out of hand, forcing Him to introduce methods He had originally declared
would never be used. If God did this, He would have to be rated as an im-
practical idealist and we need a God superior to that.
When God committed all the resources of heaven to ending the great
controversy, He knew already the coming numerical imbalance at the
flood. It did not catch Him by surprise and He had made full provision to
meet the emergency. Therefore, when He promised the ultimate triumph
of truth and predicted Christ's coming to the earth as an essential part of the
plan, He was well aware how narrowly the scheme would come short of
failure in Noah's day. Knowing all this in advance, did not perturb Him in
the slightest. He made no provisions for it outside of His eternal principles
of truth. He still committed Himself to fair and open contest.
Yet, while the traditional view of God's conduct at the flood had
become suspect, I found at first, no alternative to take its place. Then sud-
denly, after several days of intense mental preoccupation, the solution
came to my mind. All the things I had learned fell neatly and harmoniously
into place, and the problem was resolved. From that day to this, no argu-
ment raised by anyone has caused me to doubt what I saw that day.
I saw that God had not sent the flood to obliterate Satan's forces. On
the contrary, He had done His very best to keep the flood from coming for
as long as He possibly could. When it finally came, it was not because He
had sent it, but because He could no longer prevent it.
The key to the problem lay in the application of two principles. The first
is that God will never force His presence where it is not desired, and the
second is that every power in nature is directly and continually dependent
on God's creative power to keep it on station fulfilling its appointed task.
Therefore, in the era leading up to the deluge, the sun and the moon,
which were critical factors in the coming of the flood, were dependent on
the presence of God's power to keep them burning at exactly the correct
heat level and stationed at the proper distance from the earth. Let the
Lord's hand be removed from the control and direction of those two orbs of
fire, and the flood had to follow.
CONCEPTS REVISED 289

Under Satan's determined and relentless influence, men increasingly

desired total separation from God. They wanted nothing of His ways or
principles. God, knowing the dreadful consequences of such a course, sent
message after message pleading with them to correct their drift, but they
steadily insisted on His departure. Because He will never force His
presence where it is not desired, He had no choice but to depart. In doing
so, He gave them what they wanted, the control of the heavens and the
earth. The moon, being nearer to the earth, was the first to feel the effect of
God's departure. It went out entirely. The sun, much further away from
men and much larger than the moon, took longer to diminish completely.
Before it could do so, the wicked had perished and suddenly the situation
was reversed. Whereas the majority had been against God, now the
changed situation placed the majority on His side. They were only eight in
number but still the majority.
These, of course, desired the Lord to fill His office and do His work of
sustaining the powers of heaven and earth. Thus the returning Spirit of God
was able to arrest any further decay in the sun and maintain it at the
diminished level. It has remained that way ever since.
With the moon out and the sun at diminished output, there was neither
the heat energy to return the water to its proper place nor the energy to
maintain it there. Nor was it possible for the surviving remnant to live on a
shoreless ocean. The water must be relocated to expose sufficient land to
produce food for man and beast. This was accomplished by the violent
upthrusts of land masses forming the great mountain chains and peaks found
in the Himalayas, Andes, Alps, Rockies, and so on. Additionally, enor-
mous quantities of water were held in cold storage at the poles.
Artists' representations of conditions experienced by the disembarking
voyagers, give the impression that the water gently subsided and Noah and
his family emerged to a scarred but peaceful earth. This has to be far from
true. We have no concept of the titanic convulsions which all but tore this
earth apart. There were no great mountain chains between the creation and
the cataclysm. The earth was beautifully formed with pleasant, undulating
land, low hills, verdant valleys, and slowly moving rivers. Think, then, of the
energy necessary to open up the almost bottomless ocean depths, and
thrust those huge mountain chains into the air as high as twenty-nine
thousand feet.
During the flood, unbelievable quantities of organic material were
buried in the earth which quickly generated heat. This burst through to the
surface in explosions and fiery issues. Volcanoes circled the globe. Most of
them are extinct today, but then they belched forth smoke and fire
incessantly.
Grim indeed was the view confronting the patriarch, his wife, and
children, as they stepped out of their boat. The sky was filled with the pall of
290 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

black smoke, the earth heaved and shook as earthquake tremors succeed-
ed each other. It must have required some centuries before it settled down
again.
But none of these terrible destructions were the work of God. Neither
man nor Satan can justly charge God with the damages done. It was not
His direct act by which the moon was extinguished and the sun dimmed.
He labored unceasingly to save man from stepping so far out of the ways
of righteousness as to compel His retirement from control. If His efforts had
been successful, there never would have been a flood. It came, not because
God sent it, but because He could not stop it. Those who believe that there
are two sides to the character of God-the loving side and "His strange
act" -see the flood coming as a result of God's changing from the former to
the latter. The real truth is that the flood proved inevitable, not because
God changed His tactics, but because He remained undeviatingly the
same. With Him, the use of force has ever been excluded. Therefore, to
have prevented the flood once His final appeals had been rejected would
have required Him to change to forcing His presence where it was em-
phatically not desired. This He could not do, thus leaving nothing to pre-
vent the onset of disaster.
Satan and men had applied the greatest possible pressure upon God to
force Him into changing His ways and introducing the weapons of force
into His arsenal. But they failed. God had foreseen it from the beginning and
simply went composedly on His way as the crisis developed, knowing that
His principles would stand the test. They did.
Therefore, there is absolutely no difference between God's conduct at
the flood and His conduct during the failing of the plagues on Egypt. In
both cases the rod of power slipped out of His grasp and became a serpent of
destruction.
 291

CHAPTER TWENlY-EIGHT

Sodom And Gomorrah

Noah and his family emerged from the ark to tread a shattered earth.
The destruction was beyond description. They needed no convincing that
the flood had come, but they did need a very real assurance that it would
not happen again. This the Lord was able to give them.
"And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
"And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed
after you;
"And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the
cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the
ark, to every beast of the earth.
"And I will establish My covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut
off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a
flood to destroy the earth.
"And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make be-
tween Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual
generations:
"[ do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant
between Me and the earth.
"And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the
bow shall be seen in the cloud:
"And I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and
every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a
flood to destroy all flesh.
"And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may
remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature
of all flesh that is upon the earth.
"And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I
have established between Me and all flesh that is upon the earth." Genesis
9 8-17.
These words assure us that there will never again be a repetition of the
deluge which twice before has covered the earth, firstly, in the opening days
of creation, and secondly, during Noah's time.
The Noachic flood was none of God's doing, it having come in spite of
His efforts. Therefore, His statement that there would never again be a
flood of water, was not an undertaking to restrain Himself, but a prediction
of what the future held. Specifically, the prophecy is limited to a flood
of water. It does not ensure against the deluge of fire by which the earth will
finally be consumed.
292 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

For there to be another flood of water, the conditions necessary to pro-

duce it must exist. Before Noah's time they did, but today they no longer
do, as they did then. The only way total flooding could reoccur would be
for the polar caps to melt, the mountain chains levelled into the ocean
depths and, in general, the land masses reduced to about the same eleva-
tion. All the water which covered the earth in the first days of creation and
which returned to submerge it again, is still here. Therefore, it would cover
the earth if it was evenly distributed over the surface again.
Should the Lord withdraw His sustaining presence from the earth, con-
vulsions of this magnitude are not impossible. It happened before, to produce
the ocean depths and the mountain heights, for neither of these existed be-
tween the creation and the flood.
But we are well informed in God's Word that this is not the direction
things will take when His presence is finally and fully withdrawn from the
earth. Rather, a flood of fire, not water, will engulf the planet.
These floods, firstly of water and lastly of fire, are not disconnected.
The former is the parent of the latter. This relationship should be clearly
understood, and it will be the purpose of the evidences and arguments im-
mediately following, to certify this.
It is not usual to think of water producing fire, for water is the most com-
monly used means of extinguishing a conflagration. However, it is easily
proved that the waters of the flood were the direct cause of destructive fires
which have burst forth from the earth ever since, and are the means
whereby enormous amounts of fuel will be provided to fire that last great
holocaust. More than this, it is desired to show that the flood, though itself
long since over, lives on in the form of offspring. Some roam the earth as
storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones, and tempests, others are confined
to a single location such as volcanoes, and still others break forth in expected
and unexpected spots as earthquakes and tidal waves. All are devoted to
missions of destruction.
The flood marks the time division between original tranquillity and the
aberrations of nature. Of every one of these deviations from God's original
scheme of things, the flood is also the parent. These disturbances may be
divided into two categories: those found in the earth, and the others in the
atmosphere.
The first of these include volcanic eruptions, thermal activities, earth-
quakes and tidal waves. In the latter are storms, tempests, hurricanes,
blizzards, tornadoes, typhoons, floods, and droughts.
Problems arising within the earth were spawned when the flood waters
buried vast forests whose timbers were of majestic and durable quality.
Under the multiplied pressures of earth and rock beneath which they were
entombed, they turned to coal which then produced oil. In some cases the
generated heat ignites these materials which penetrate to the surface, form-
ing volcanoes, thermal activities, and fiery fissures. There are situations
SODOM AND GOMORRAH 293

where the opening earth admits tonnages of water which, contacting the
molten rock, transforms into steam. Great pressures are built up causing
underground explosions, the radiating shock waves of which trigger earth-
quakes. These are also caused by subsidence of the earth as the supporting
material below is consumed. When an earthquake happens at sea, a tidal
wave is launched.
Thus, the flood is truly the parent of all these troubles within the earth
itself.
Weather as it is today, is the product of conditions brought about by the
deluge. The redistribution of land and water masses, the location of moun-
tains and flat lands, and the inequalities of climate, all formed by the flood,
are the determining factors in producing atmospheric problems from their
mildest to their wildest forms. There is not the space nor need in this
volume to make a detailed study of weather, interesting and valuable as
such would be. Those who do undertake such an investigation will be
suitably impressed with the relationship between the weather and the con-
ditions established by the flood.
One example will suffice. In November, 1977, a severe snow storm
ravaged South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin before crossing the
border into Canada. A moisture-laden mass of warm air had flowed north-
ward from the Gulf of Mexico until it met a south bound cold front
originating in the Arctic zone. At the meeting point over the northern states,
the warm, moist air was chilled and immediately precipitated in heavy
snowfalls. Roads were closed, lives were lost, and extensive damage was
done. It was days before life returned to normal.
This was possible only because of the geographical and climatic factors
existing. Had there been another displacement of these elements, the
northern states would never have had that storm. If, for instance the Rocky
Mountains had lain east and west across southern Texas, the advancing
warm air would have been forced upward to chillier elevations causing it to
condense into rain which would have fallen on the coastal plains and run
back to the sea again. There would never have been the confrontation be-
tween warm and cold fronts which produced the storms and losses in the
north. Likewise, if the mountain chains had been lying east and west in
Canada the cold front would never have come through to the south. It
would have detoured off to the east or west.
Consideration of other possibilities would produce interesting results.
Suppose that the Gulf of Mexico was dry land, that the mountain chains all
lay east-west so that a plain stretched between them from the Pacific to the
Atlantic, or that the United States was another shape. The weather pattern
in each case would be very different.
What tremendous changes the flood set up, producing results which
reach down to the end of time. The destruction initiated at the flood but
halted before it had finally consumed all things, will then break forth to
294 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

completion. Those fires by which the earth will be reduced to ashes, will
also be the child of the flood, for the remaining deposits of coal and oil in
the earth will fuel that last conflagration .1
In the meantime, drought and flood, tempest and earthquake, tidal
wave and hurricane, volcano and fire, are that cataclysm's troubled off-
spring which will plague earth dwellers till the end.
Not every area is afflicted with all these scourges. In fact, some parts are
apparently free from them. This explains why some centres of sin pass
unscathed year after year, while others seemingly less iniquitous, are struck
down with shocking suddenness. Those cities located right where one of
these children of the flood resides, need to be far more careful than those in
positions more favored. For years the giant of destruction will remain unseen
or manifest itself only in mild forms, because the restraining power of God
holds it in check while He seeks to woo men from their danger and while
there remains in the city a faithful remnant for whose sake He will con-
tinue His restraint. But, during this time, the unwitting inhabitants continue
to resist His appeals until finally He has no choice but to leave them to their
desires.
The unfettered monster then bursts with unannounced fury upon the
unprotected heads and homes of the abandoned sinners, whose destruc-
tion may be as total in the area where they are, as it was over the whole
earth when the flood came.
Sodom and Gomorrah were a case in point.
The Scriptures report the devastation of those cities and their peoples in
the same way that all the other destructions which fell upon abandoned
sinners are described.
"Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone
and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
"And He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the in-
habitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground." Genesis
19:24, 25.
To millions of Bible readers, these words have pictured God as per-
sonally pouring great sheets of flame from His own hands upon the hapless
victims below. But, those who have come to learn and accept the principles
of God's character as explored in this study and who have learned to use
the Bible as its own dictionary, know that such an interpretation is wholly
incorrect.
Rather, the truly Biblical interpretation of these words is that the Lord
had no option but to withdraw and leave the wicked to the fate they had
chosen. This He had done only when every means and appeal had been
totally exhausted and there was nothing more He could do. Then,
whatever potential of destruction was lurking in the area, was unleashed.
The result was terminal.

'See Spiritual Gifts J 76-89

SODOM AND GOMORRAH 295

There is always great value in assessing

the implications of a certain belief, so study
will now be given to see in what image God is
cast by the belief that He personally poured
that fire down upon the dwellers on the
plains. Only a certain kind of God would do
this.
Death by fire is one of the cruellest and
most-to-be-feared ways to die. On February
1, 1974, a fire, started by an electrical short-
circuit in an air-conditioner, engulfed the
upper fourteen stories of a newly con-
structed twenty-five story bank building,
trapping hundreds of workers as the flames
fed on combustible interior-finish materials.
Due to inadequate escape facilities, at least
two hundred and twenty-seven persons lost
their lives. Those in the higher floors above
the fire level found themselves cut off. As the
fire advanced upwards, many chose to die by
leaping from the upper levels rather than face
the hungry flames.

-·
In the jungles and forests it is the thing
most feared by the animal kingdom. Beasts
and reptiles lose all fear of each other as they
A man leaps to his flee pell-mell from the roaring flames. There
death from a burning is good reason, for death by fire is a horrible
25-story bank building death. Think of yourself as facing the death
in Sao Paulo, Brazil on penalty, the only consolation being that the
February 1, 1975. The choice of how you will die is given to you.
fire took 227 lives. The choices are firing squad, gassing, the
electric chair, beheading, hanging, or being
burned alive. None of these is a pleasant
prospect, but when you sit and think of your
body being roasted while you are still alive, you know that that is the very
last choice you would make. It is not difficult to realize that this is the kind of
death which a judge or king would impose upon a person whose death he
wished to make as painful as possible.
Picture the scene back there when the consuming flames fell upon the
cities of the plain. The Scriptures tell us that "when the morning arose," Lot
and his family were hurried out of the city and, as soon as they were clear,
the destruction fell in flaming torrents. Therefore it was an early morning
conflagration.
296 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The sun is beginning to mount in the heavens. The family is astir.

Breakfast is on the table and the mother is busily bathing and dressing her
young children of whom one is still but a nursling. Suddenly the ordinary
noises coming from the street are exchanged for frantic cries of alarm and
then of terrible agony. The golden glow of the morning is changed to fiery
orange and red. The father and mother glance with fearful apprehension
through the window and see an appalling spectacle outside. Fire is running
like a river down the street engulfing victims in its path who fall writhing and
twisting in searing agony. Their boy rushes into the house screaming while
his clothes and hair burn like a torch. He flings his body into his mother's
recoiling arms scorching her and baby alike.
Within the house, there is protection for only a short time. The flames
are consuming the timbers, licking in through doors and windows and
reaching out for the trapped ones inside. They retreat to an inner room, but
though it gives them a little longer to live, it makes the end more agonizing.
Steadily, the temperature in the room rises while the flames batter at the
walls without, until the room becomes an oven in which they are slowly but
terribly baked alive. The temperature of their clothes rises above ignition
point and bursts into flames. As they tear them off, their flesh comes away
in great sheets and the stench of cooking human tissue chokes the air.
When the flames at last break through the walls they are already dead,
lying naked of clothes and skin in twisted, bloated, horrible postures. The
expressions frozen by death on their faces, express the extreme suffering of
terror and pain through which they departed.
It is not a pleasant scene upon which to dwell. It would have been a far
worse one to behold. Yet it must be visualized as realistically as possible so
that it can be comprehended that no God of mercy, justice, and love,
would ever behave in such a way to personally and deliberately inflict a
death of this nature upon anyone.
The ability to do certain things reveals the disposition within the doer. It
is not possible for any being in the universe, including God, to do
everything. The truth of this statement is confined to the spiritual and
ethical side of the person. Admittedly, God has the physical power by
which He can do anything. But while He has the might, there are some
things His character will never permit Him to do. Just as surely as Satan's
character will not allow him to love, so God's character prevents Him from
hating any other individual, no matter how much that person may have
wronged Him.
Therefore, if God poured the fire and brimstone on Sodom and
Gomorrah, it could only be because it was in Him to do it. It had to be a part
of His character. Therefore, God has within Him a spirit of cruelty by which
He is motivated to select the cruellest possible death for those who have
refused to obey Him. Without that, He could never have treated the
Sodomites as He is accused of having done.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH 297

But that is not God's character. He is not cruel, sadistic, and revengeful.
He would never select the worst conceivable punishment, and then ad-
minister it to those who did not appreciate His ways and acted contrary to His
ideas.
Terrible are the implications of believing that God determined that the
cities of the plain should be consumed by fire and then proceeded to do it. It
is to equate Him with the papacy, whose constant practice was to bum to
death those who refused to submit to her assumed authority. Something of
the seriousness of this is manifested when it is recognized that the papacy is
Satan's masterpiece of misrepresentation of God's character. If we wish to
understand what God is not, then behold the principles and practices of the
papacy. The way God is supposed to have behaved at Sodom and Gomor-
rah is exactly as the papacy would have behaved if she had been in God's
position. Therefore, how God is thought to have behaved is certainly not
the way He conducted His affairs there.
The papacy went forth to convert the people to her religious beliefs and
service. When her first efforts were unsuccessful, she began to exert
pressure upon them until, when it was clear that the subjects of her
ministrations had no mind to ever obey her, she cruelly destroyed them
with fire. In doing this, she represented herself not only as administering the
will of God but of doing it as she and Satan would have it believed God
does it.
The very fact that this is the way of the papacy is certain denial of its be-
ing God's way, for if anyone wishes to know what God is not, let him
behold what the papacy is and what she does. Contrawise, if anyone
wishes to know what God is, let him look at the life of Jesus Christ. Never
will the two witnesses agree.
It is with horror and loathing that we read of the papal practice of burn-
ing victims to death. Yet we have looked with satisfaction upon God's
destroying by fire (as we imagined He did) those who would not obey Him.
But careful thought will lead all to understand that if they do continue to
believe that God personally decreed that the Sodomites should die by fire
and then as personally administered the destruction, then our God is a
cruel, revengeful, and therefore self-centered God. Of such a God the
papacy is a fit symbol.
Evidence that would further help us to deny such teachings is found in
the varying habits of men according to the influence Christianity has had
over them. Those heathen races who have little or no Christian influence
are the ones who will execute their victims with the greatest cruelty. They
will devise means of bringing them to the very doors of death and then
resuscitating them, so that they die over and over again as it were.
But those nations where the mighty influence of Protestantism has
had its effect, dispatch their criminals and traitors in the most painless way possi-
ble. The hangman was required to study how to set the noose so that death
298 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

would be instant from a broken neck rather than from strangulation, while
the headsman was required to sbike only one sure blow fairly on the exposed
neck of the condemned.
The ultimate witness to the character of God is found in those who have
drawn so near to Him as to possess His character. Such a people cannot be
brought to take up any weapon of destruction against anyone, not even
their very worst enemies. They would much rather die themselves than
take the life of another. That is the example of the life of Christ. He would
rather die Himself than require that the life of another be taken. This is the
ultimate outliving of the injunction to tum the other cheek and go the
second mile. A God who counselled this kind of behavior as the reflection of
His own, could never pour fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. He did there
just what He did on every other occasion. He did not "stand toward the sin-
ner as an executioner of the sentence against transgression; but He" left
"the rejecters of His mercy to themselves, to reap that which they have
sown." The Great Controversy, 36.
If the Lord of heaven did not act the part of an executioner and per-
sonally pour fire on those cities, how were they destroyed? Are we left with
no scientific information to reveal the nature of that disaster?
There is a considerable amount of information available if careful search
is made for it, though hampering the search is the relative uncertainty as to
where these cities actually stood.
There are those scholars who have looked for the cities on the north-
ern side of the Dead Sea, but "Other scholars seek these cities underneath
the waters of the southern end of the Dead Sea. Arguments for this view
are more numerous and weighty: (1) The 'vale of Siddim' in which these
cities were located is identified with the 'salt sea' in Genesis 14:3. The
northern two-thirds of the present Dead Sea reaches a depth of one thou-
sand, three hundred and twenty-eight feet, and must have existed as early
as Abraham's time, but the depth of the southern part nowhere exceeds six-
teen feet. Submerged trees show that part of this area was dry in relatively
modem times, and accurate measurements have shown that the level of
the sea has been steadily rising during the last century.
"(2) Asphalt is found at the southern end of the Dead Sea, while the
Vale of Siddim is said to have been 'full of slimepits,' RSV 'bitumen pits'
(Genesis 14: 10). Bitumen, or asphalt, still erupts from the bottom of the
southern part of the Dead Sea and floats to the shore.
"(3) Statements made by classical authors, Diodorus Siculus (ii. 48.
7-9), Strabo (Georgr. xvi. 2. 42-44), Tacitus (Hist. v. 6. 7), and Josephus
(War iv. 8. 4), describe an area south of the Dead Sea (presumably now
covered by its rising water) as scorched by a fiery catastrophe that destroyed
several cities whose burned remains were still visible in their day. Foul gases
are said to emerge from fissures of the ground. Compare Deuteronomy
29:23.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH 299

"(4) Geologists have found

oil and natural gases in the
ground at the southern end of
the Dead Sea, which is at the
same time an area frequently
disturbed by earthquakes,
hence furnished all the condi-
tions for the catastrophe
described in the Bible, if God
used natural means in the
destruction of the cities (see
above). Furthermore, Jebel
Usdum, the 'Mount of Sodom,'
at the southwestern shore of the
Dead Sea, consists of 50 per
cent rock salt. Some have con-
jectured that in an upheaval
Submerged forest in the Dead Sea during the destruction of
near Jebel Usdum, "Mount of
Sodom some of this salt may
Sodom". Somewhere under these
waters lie the ashes of Sodom and
have been dislodged and may
Gomorrah. have buried Lot's wife, piling
over her to form a 'pillar of salt'
(Genesis 19:26). (The place
where the Israelis have a potash extraction plant, on the southwestern
shore, has been named Sodom, but it has no connection with the ancient
Sodom.)
"(5) A number of streams enter the southern part of the Dead Sea from
the east, in a region that is still very fertile, and it is reasonable to believe
that the whole valley now forming the southernmost part of the Dead Sea
was once that exceptionally fertile plain, one fitting the Bible description
which compares the land with the Garden of Eden and the Nile valley
(ch 13: 10).
"(6) Kyle and Albright, in their exploration of the region lying southeast
of the Dead Sea, found no ancient ruins of cities, but discovered an
elaborate place of worship on a hillside with remains dating from before
1800 B.C. This site, Bab edh-Dhra', evidently was a place where the annual
festivals of a large population were held. The cities in which this population
once lived must have been in the area now covered by the waters of the
Dead Sea.
"(7) Zoar, one of the 5 cities of the plain (Genesis 14 2), was at the
southern end of the Dead Sea in the time of Christ." Seuenth-day Aduentist
Bible Dictionary 81028, 1029.
This statement gives excellent reasons for concluding that the site of
those ancient cities was at the southern end of the Dead Sea. But it also
tells some further interesting facts about the area.
300 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"Bitumen, or asphalt, still erupts from the bottom of the southern part
of the Dead Sea and floats to the shore .... Geologists have found oil and
natural gases in the ground at the southern end of the Dead Sea, which is at
the same time an area frequently disturbed by earthquakes."
The Encyclopedia Brittanica 1975 Edition, Macropedia, Volume
14: 165 states: "The Dead Sea was known in ancient times as Lake
Asphaltites (from which is derived the term asphaltum) because of the
semisolid petroleum washed up on its shores from underwater seepages."
"Even today the southern region of the Dead Sea is rich in asphalt. In-
flammable gases still escape from rock crevices in the area. Asphalt rising
to the surface of the southern part of the Dead Sea gave to it the name Lake
Asphaltitis in classical times. Massive lumps of asphalt floating on the sur-
face are often of sufficient size to support several persons. Asphalt, sulphur,
and other combustible materials have been reclaimed and exported from
this region for years." Seuenth-day Aduentist Commentary 1:335.
Asphalt, oil, natural and highly inflammable gases, and earthquakes are
not common to every part of the world, but they are a combination often
found together. Where they are found indicates a spot where enormous
amounts of vegetable material in the form of plants and trees together with
animal and human carcases were buried at the flood. Where such materials
are found there is the formation of coal, oil, gas, and petroleum which may
or may not combust. If it does, then volcanic or thermal activity will result,
usually accompanied by earthquakes and tremors.
"Before the flood there were immense forests. The trees were many
times larger than any trees which we now see. They were of great durabili-
ty. They would know nothing of decay for hundreds of years. At the time of
the flood these forests were tom up or broken down and buried in the
earth. In some places large quantities of these immense trees were thrown
together and covered with stones and earth by the commotions of the
flood. They have since petrified and become coal which accounts for the
large coal beds which are now found. This coal has produced oil. God
causes large quantities of coal and oil to ignite and bum. Rocks are intense-
ly heated, limestone is burned, and iron ore melted. Water and fire under
the surface of the earth meet. The action of water upon the limestone adds
fury to the intense heat, and causes earthquakes, volcanoes and fiery
issues. The action of fire and water upon the ledges of rocks and ore,
causes loud explosions which sound like muffled thunder. These wonderful
exhibitions will be more numerous and terrible just before the coming of
Christ and the end of the world, as signs of its speedy destruction.
"Coal and oil are generally to be found where there are no burning
mountains or fiery issues. When fire and water under the surface of the
earth meet, the fiery issues cannot give sufficient vent to the heated
elements beneath. The earth is convulsed-the ground trembles, heaves,
and rises into swells or waves, and there are heavy sounds like thunder
SODOM AND GOMORRAH 301

underground. The air is heated and suffocating. The earth quickly opens,
and I saw villages, cities and burning mountains carried down together into
the earth." Spiritual Gifts 3:79, 80.
This makes it plain that wherever there is a spot on the earth where
such enormous amounts of vegetation have been buried to petrify into coal
and oil, there is the potential for volcanic eruptions and devastating earth-
quakes. The evidences still existing today show that Sodom and Gomorrah
and their associated villages and towns were located over just such a spot.
They were in danger constantly, for they were living over a powder
keg, a disaster which was only waiting to happen. But the Lord desired
their salvation. He was as loathe to see them perish as He is to see anyone
destroyed. So, He filled His usual role of protector of those wicked cities,
while His Spirit pleaded with them to repent and escape the wrath to come.
But they would not and the time came when finally the protecting Presence
had to be withdrawn, leaving no power to control the seething elements
beneath the ground. Long held back, when released they exploded in one
spectacular and all-consuming fireball of destruction that filled the heavens
above where they stood and the earth where they rested.
It was not something which God sent in the sense that He decreed what
should happen to them and then personally used His power to see that it
happened. Rather it came, not because the Lord brought it, but because He
could not hold it back any longer. There was no one the Sodomites could
blame for their destruction but themselves.
The burning of the cities of the plain is not an event singular to them.
There is a modem counterpart to this in the destruction of St. Pierre, on
May 8, 1902.
"It was on May 8, 1902, that the town of St. Pierre, on the lush West
Indies island of Martinique, abruptly died. At exactly 7:50 A.M. on that
disastrous morning, 4,583-foot Mont Pelee-a long-dormant vol-
cano-blew its top in one of the world's most cataclysmic explosions.
"The French-held island of Martinique shuddered like a stricken giant at
the violent eruption. From the yawning mouth of the volcano, a huge black
cloud of superheated air and gas emerged that rolled down the sloping side
of the mountain like a monstrous tumbleweed. In its path, at the foot of the
mountain, lay the harbor town of St. Pierre. Within seconds the cloud
swept over the city. Street by street, buildings leaped into instant flame and
people were turned into human torches. The hideous black ball-its core
later estimated to have been at least 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit-quickly
reduced St. Pierre to smoldering ashes. Only two people survived the fiery
devastation, and the rest of the populace-more than 30,000--died.
"Elapsed time from the moment of eruption to extinction of the city was
less than two minutes!" Nature at War, 2 131, 132, by Hal Butler.

'Copyright 1976. Published by Henry Regnery Company, 180 North Michigan Avenue,
Chicago, Illinois 60601
302 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The disaster did not come without warning. Mont Pelee dominated the
island's mountain chain, and, though long dormant, showed signs of con-
siderable activity in the few days prior to the fatal outburst. However, the
populace did not think in terms of an explosion but only of an eruption and
considered the town to be at a safe distance of four miles.
Then on the night of May 2, six days before the end, and half an hour
before midnight an awesome explosion shook the entire island, awakened
the inhabitants and drove them in panic into the streets. "Even in the dark
they could see dense black smoke issuing from the crown of Mont Pelee,
smoke that was cut through by jagged streaks of lightning. Suddenly a
second formidable explosion rocked the entire island, followed by several
more. Then the loud detonations stopped and a shower of hot cinders fell
on St. Pierre. When daylight came the people of the city looked at their
town in amazement. It was no longer the bright colorful city it had been. It
was now covered with a ghostly gray ash." ibid., 136.
All during that day and night the volcano exploded at six-hour intervals,
but on the following day everything had quieted down. The wind
changed direction and the ash was blown to the north where it fell on the
cities there.
"But tragedy was building up in the crater known as Etang Sec. Boiling
water had now reached its rim, and suddenly the side of the crater
collapsed and an avalanche of hot water and mud cascaded down the side
of the mountain, joined the Riviere Blanche, and formed a fast-traveling
torrent that swept everything before it. As it sped down the mountain the
great slide gathered earth until it became a moving mountain of hot mud
that rolled over anything and anyone in its path. It raced all the way to the
mouth of the Riviere Blanche, where the Guerin sugarworks lay open and
unprotected. Workers saw it coming and tried to flee, but the wall of mud
rolled over them, killing M. Guerin, the owner, as well as the overseer and
twenty-five employees. Nothing remained of the sugarworks except the
smokestacks, still standing but bent to one side.
"At precisely the same time, in the roadstead of St. Pierre, the sea
withdrew, stranding several anchored ships, then rushed back ferociously
to flood the streets of the city. This was the first violence to hit the coastal
area, and the people acted in curious ways. More refugees from the
mountain-sides poured into St. Pierre, while others already in the city
decided to leave-some by horseback to Fort-de-France and others by
ships that were ready to depart for safer ports. The inflow and outflow left
the population of St. Pierre about the same-some 30,000 frightened
citizens." ibid., 137, 138.
May 6 was a relatively quiet day. At four in the morning of the next day
the volcano began to roar loudly, but by the early morning of the fateful day,
the eighth, the volcano was as quiet as it had been before all the fuss began.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH 303

"The fatal day of May 8 was bright and sunny, with hardly a cloud in
the sky. It was Ascension Day and the people awoke to the ringing of
church bells. Most of the staunchly Catholic populace had risen early to
attend eight o'clock mass.
"The night had passed with the usual internal growling from Mont
Pelee, and the mercurial volcano was now emitting a grayish smoke that
rose in a plume from its crater. Still, it was as quiet as it had been for some
time, and the people hoped that Ascension Day would be an appropriate
time for the Lord to deliver them from the wrath of Mont Pelee.
"Stores and shops were closed for the holiday. Only the churches were
open, and by 7:30 in the morning they were filled with anxious worshipers
thanking the Lord that Mont Pelee's spasmodic eruptions had been no
worse and praying that the mountain would now resume its placid ways."
ibid., 139.
''At 7:50 A.M. the final, ferocious eruption of Mont Pelee took place. At
7:52 A.M. the city of St. Pierre and its 30,000 inhabitants ceased to exist.
"It was a deafening explosion, one of the most devastating volcanic
eruptions of all time. The top of Mont Pelee was literally torn apart, and
from the innards of the earth a great black ball of heated air and gases shot
into the sky. Within seconds the huge ball had blotted out the sky for fifty
miles across. For an instant it clung to the top of the mountain, then rolled
down the sloping sides directly toward St. Pierre. It swept over the city and
out to sea, burning buildings, ships and people in its path.
"There were a few eyewitnesses outside the area covered by the black
ball who survived, a handful on land and a dozen or more on ships at sea.
From these came the most graphic descriptions-in fact, the only descrip-
tions-of the sudden catastrophe.
''An unidentified passenger on the Roraima described the destruction of
St. Pierre this way:
'I saw St. Pierre destroyed [he related]. It was blotted out by one great
flash of fire. Thirty-thousand people were killed at once. Of eighteen
vessels lying in the roads, only one, the British ship Roddam, escaped and
she, I hear, lost more than half on board. It was a dying crew that took her
out.
'Our boat arrived at St. Pierre early Thursday morning. For hours
before we entered the roadstead we could see flames and smoke rising
from Mont Pelee. No one on board had any idea of danger. Captain G.T.
Muggah was on the bridge and all hands got on deck to see the show. The
spectacle was magnificent. As we approached St. Pierre we could distin-
guish the rolling and leaping of the red flames that belched from the
mountain in huge volumes and gushed high in the sky. Enormous clouds of
black smoke hung over the volcano.
'When we anchored at St. Pierre I noticed the cable steamship
Grappler, the Roddam, three or four other steamers and a number of
304 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Italian and Norwegian barks. The flames were then spurting straight up in
the air, now and then waving to one side or the other for a moment, and
again leaping suddenly higher up. There was a constant muffled roar. It
was like the biggest oil refinery in the world burning up on the mountain
top.
There was a tremendous explosion soon after we got in. There was no
warning. The side of the volcano was ripped out and there hurled straight
toward us a solid wall of flame. It sounded like thousands of cannon ....
Before the volcano burst the landings of St. Pierre were crowded with people.
After the explosion not one living being was seen on land.'
"M. Albert, owner and manager of an estate near St. Pierre, witnessed
the eruption from a position on land, and gave a vivid account of his
experience:
'Mont Pelee had given warning of the destruction that was to come [he
said) but we who had looked upon the volcano as harmless did not believe
that it would do more than spout fire and steam, as it had done on other
occasions. It was a little before eight dclock on the morning of May 8 that the
end came. I was in one of the fields of my estate when the ground trembled
under my feet, as if a terrible struggle was going on within the moun-
tain .... As I stood still, Mont Pelee seemed to shudder and a moaning
sound issued from its crater. It was quite dark, the sun being obscured by
ashes and fine volcanic dust. The air was dead about me, so dead that the
floating dust seemingly was not disturbed.
'Then there was a rending, crashing, grinding noise, which I can only
describe as sounding as though every bit of machinery in the world had
suddenly broken down. It was deafening, and the flash of light that accom-
panied it was blinding, more so than any lightning I have ever seen. It was
like a terrible hurricane, and where a fraction of a second before there had
been a perfect calm I felt myself drawn into a vortex and I had to brace
myself firmly. It was like a great express train rushing by, and I was drawn
by its force.
'The mysterious force leveled a row of strong trees, tearing them up by
the roots and leaving a bare space of ground fifteen yards wide and more
than one hundred yards long. Transfixed, I stood not knowing in what
direction to flee. I looked toward Mont Pelee and above its apex formed a
great black cloud which reached high into the air. It literally fell upon the
city of St. Pierre. It moved with a rapidity that made it impossible for
anything to escape it. From the cloud came explosions that sounded as
though all the navies of the world were in titanic combat. Lightning played
in and out in broad forks, the result being that intense darkness was
followed by light that seemed to be magnified in power. That St. Pierre was
doomed I knew, but I was prevented from seeing the destruction by a spur
of the hill that shut off my view of the city.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH 305

'When I recovered possession of my senses I ran to my house and col-

lected the members of my family, all of whom were panic-stricken. I hurried
them to the seashore where we boarded a small steamship to Fort-de-
France. As we drew out to sea in the steamship, Mont Pelee was in the
throes of a terrible convulsion. New craters seemed to be opening all about
the summit and lava was flowing in broad streams in every direction. My
estate was ruined while we were still in sight of it.'
"One incident suffices to demonstrate the swiftness of St. Pierre's com-
plete destruction. The night shift telegrapher at St. Pierre had just transmit-
ted to the operator in Fort-de-France the latest reports on the volcano. The
transmission contained nothing new and mentioned no unusual develop-
ments during the night. When he was finished he clicked the key to
signal the Fort-de-France operator to reply. The telegrapher in the capital
city pressed down his key. The line was dead. No answer came from St.
Pierre because the city had died in that split-second.
"Leon Compere-Leandre, the shoemaker who was sitting on the
doorstep of his home trying to decide whether or not to leave St. Pierre,
had his reverie shattered by Mont Pelee's final eruption. The explosion was
so violent that it shook the entire island, and Leon felt a shuddering spasm
under his feet. He staggered upright and caught a glimpse of the darkening
sky and the menacing black ball rolling down the side of the mountain
toward the doomed city. Trembling with fear, he turned to enter the house,
but a hot wind buffeted him and he felt his body burning as if tongues of
flame already were licking at his flesh. With difficulty he made his way into
the house and staggered to the table. Three men and a ten-year-old girl
were in the tiny house, all of them screaming with pain as the heated air
raged over them.
"Leon moved to a table and hung over it, wondering if the end was
near for him. Then he saw the girl collapse and die in twisting agony, and
the three men fled blindly from the room. For what seemed hours--actually
about a minute-he held tightly to the table. Then, noticing that the
strange hot wind had abated, Leon pushed himself erect and walked into
the bedroom where the little girl's father lay. He found the man dead in his
bed, already burned to a crisp by the heat. Stumbling into the courtyard
he discovered the three men on the ground, their inert bodies charred. The
thought crossed his mind, How can I be alive when the others are all dead?
Screaming, he ran back into the house, threw himself on a bed, and
awaited death.
"But for some strange reason no one since has been able to explain,
death did not come. Instead Leon became aware that the roof of the house
was burning and once more he stumbled outside. He saw now that his legs
and arrns were severely burned and bleeding, but he managed to run six
kilometers to the next town-Fonds-Saint-Denis. Once he looked back. All
of St. Pierre was in flames. A strangled cry escaped him and he staggered
306 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

on. Unknown to him, he was one of only two people who had suivived the
annihilation of St. Pierre.
"Louis Cyparis, the prisoner, awaiting a breakfast that would never be
seived, knew that something more dreadful than a thunderstorm had taken
place when Mont Pelee's final paroxysm laid waste to St. Pierre. The noise
of the explosion penetrated his underground chamber and the ground
beneath his feet vibrated. He rushed to the grate to peer out but staggered
back under an onslaught of heated air. The superheated cloud that had
engulfed the city had stabbed through the open grating and seared Cyparis'
face and body. With a scream of pain he rolled in agony on the dungeon
floor.
"'Help! Save me!' he yelled, hoping to attract the attention of one of
the jailers. But by this time there was no one to hear or to care.
"The fiery intrusion in the cell lasted only minutes, then faded. But it left
Cyparis in agony, tortured by his burned flesh. For three days he lay groan-
ing in the cell, not knowing what had happened or why no one came to his
aid.
"On the third day he heard voices over his head and he yelled at the
top of his lungs for help. This time he was heard. A rescue party searching
the ruins of St. Pierre at once broke open the cell door. When Cyparis was
brought out into the light of day, he was amazed to find that the city of St.
Pierre no longer existed. In the case of Louis Cyparis, as in the incident in-
volving Leon Compere-Leandre, the blast from the volcano had acted
capriciously, leaving him as the only other suivivor of the doomed city.
"Mrs. Thomas Prentis, wife of the American consul, had suffered
misgivings about the peculiar activity of Mont Pelee for weeks. She had
studied the threatening mannerisms of the volcano from her rear windows
daily, and then had made frequent trips to her front balcony to watch the
exodus of people from the city-including their good planter friend, M. Fer-
nand Clere, on the morning of May 8. She yearned secretly to get away
from St. Pierre, but her husband had duties to perform there and was sure
that Mont Pelee would simmer down in time.
" 'There's no danger at present,' he told her several times. 'If real
danger threatens, we will leave.' But Prentis and his wife stayed too
long. When Mont Pelee exploded on Ascension Day, it took less than two
minutes for the fiery air and gases to snuff out their lives. Two charred
bodies were found later in the blackened hulk of their home.
"On the freighter Roraima, Chief Officer Ellery S. Scott turned his
telescope from the city of St. Pierre, where he was watching the colorfully
attired people wending their way to and from church, toward the summit of
Mont Pelee. At that exact moment the volcano exploded, and Scott
witnessed the destruction of St. Pierre in the less than two-minute inteival
that followed. Afterward he was able to provide a detailed account of the
tragedy:
SODOM AND GOMORRA 307

'The whole top of the

mountain seemed blown into
the air [he related]. The sound
that followed was deafening. A
great mass of flames, seemingly
a mile in diameter, with twisting
giant wreaths of smoke, rolled
thousands of feet into the air,
and then overbalanced and
came rolling down the seamed
and cracked sides of the moun-
tain. Foothills were overflowed
by the onrushing mass. It was
not mere flame and smoke. It
was molten lava, giant blocks of
stone and a hail of smaller
stones, with a mass of scalding
mud intermingled.
'For one brief moment I saw the city of St. Pierre before me. Then it
was blotted out by the overwhelming flood. There was no time for the
people to flee. They had not even time to pray.'
"The great black ball of destruction that bounded down the mountain
side and swallowed the city of St. Pierre did not stop there. It rolled out into
the roadstead where seventeen ships lay at anchor. Scott watched helplessly
as the ball billowed out over the water and swept toward his ship. At the
last moment, Scott and a few others sought shelter by leaving the open
deck and retreating into the innards of the vessel. The move saved Scott's
life, but many caught on the deck perished.
"When the ball hit, the Roraima rolled almost on her port beam-ends,
then suddenly went to starboard. The stack, masts and lifeboats were car-
ried away, and dozens of fires broke out. Eventually Scott and other sur-
vivors were removed from the burning ship by a rescue craft and taken to a
hospital in Fort-de-France.
"M. Fernand Clere, the wealthy planter who left St. Pierre just before
the catastrophe, was nearing his plantation with his wife and four children
when Mont Pelee belched forth its lethal black cloud. M. Clere watched in
horror as the cloud tumbled down the mountain slopes toward St. Pierre,
but he maintained a remarkable presence of mind under the circumstances.
'Knowing how people will exaggerate,' he said afterward, 'I timed the cloud
from the moment it started until it ran into the sea, and found that less than
two minutes elapsed.'
"Watch in hand, M. Clere observed that everything in the path of the
rolling cloud burst into flames. He saw his own plantation home leap into
flames and saw the great ball of heat roll over his sister's estate in the valley.
308 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

as it aimed its deadly blow at St. Pierre. Two hours later, when he had left
his family in a safe place, M. Clere went back to the city of St. Pierre. He
found nothing but blackened corpses among the smoldering wreckage of
the town. 'All were dead,' he reported later. 'I knew I could do no good
there, so I hastened back at the first opportunity and sent my family to
Guadeioupe.'
"In the roadstead of St. Pierre, all but one of the seventeen ships at an-
chor sank or perished in the flames after the black cloud passed over them.
Only the British ship Roddam, covered with seething volcanic debris, afire
in a dozen places, and with 28 crewmen and most passengers dead,
managed to escape. She got away because she happened to have steam up
at the time and was ready to sail. Her captain, badly burned, personally
took the wheel and guided the ship to the nearby island of St. Lucia. A port
official, horrified at the battered condition of the ship and the blackened
bodies strewn about the deck, said, 'My God, what happened to you?'
" 'We just came from hell,' the captain said.
"The full extent of St. Pierre's fate was not known until a relief ship set
out from Fort-de-France two days later, when Mont Pelee had once again
quieted down and the burned city had cooled enough to perrnit explora-
tion. Aboard was Vicar-General Parel, along with soldiers, policemen and
priests. When the ship rounded an out-jutting of land and moved into the
roadsteads of the stricken city, those aboard the ship saw the widespread
destruction for the first time. Sixteen ships burned in the harbor, some of
them overturned with only blackened hulls above the ash-covered waters.
The French cruiser Suchet was already on duty, picking up badly injured
seamen.
"The once-proud city of St. Pierre had disappeared; in its place was
smoldering wreckage stretched for two miles along the coast. The Vicar-
General turned his glass on the burning city, looking in vain for survivors.
He laid the glass down, shaking his head.
" 'Not a living soul,' he said.
"Eventually, the Vicar-General and the police, soldiers and priests went
ashore. In a letter written to Monseigneur de Cerrnont, Bishop of Martini-
que, who was in Paris, the Vicar-General described what he saw:
'We disembark [he wrote) provided with disinfectants, on the Place
Bertin, once so full of life and movement. We pick our way through the
wreck. The Place is now nothing but a heap of confused ruins. Here and
there are decaying bodies, horribly disfigured, and showing by the contrac-
tion of the limbs how awful must have been the death agony. Among the
seared branches of a fallen tamarind tree, which proved inadequate to pro-
tect him, we find the body of a poor creature lying on his back, with his
head raised, and his arrns stretched to heaven in a gesture of supplication.
The legs are drawn and twisted, the flesh has been torn away from the
entrails.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH 309

'It was only with difficulty that we could reach the cathedral, it being
impossible to recognize streets. In the interior of the houses, the walls of which
are standing in places, there are still flaming and smoking braziers. Hot
stones, iron, lime, cinders, materials of all sorts, scorched the soles of our
feet. It was imprudent even to touch the charred walls, which crumbled at
the slightest shock.
'One of the square cathedral towers, with its four bells, is still upright;
but it is riddled throughout, and we dare not approach it. The left tower has
been thrown down, together with its great bell. The statue of the Virgin,
belonging to the facade, seemed to me to be intact as it lay among the ruins
of the cathedral. The walls, with the exception of a part of the apse, have
disappeared. We made our way in through the Rue de College and saw
several bodies in the ruins. Here, as elsewhere, most of the victims are
buried under the piled-up masonry.'
"Those aboard the Vice-General's relief ship and others who followed
had the unpleasant task of burning or burying 30,000 bodies that quickly
putrefied in the heat of the sun. They found many of the victims in casual
repose, indicating that the black cloud had snuffed out their lives suddenly
and painlessly. Others, however, were distorted in agony. Most of the vic-
tims caught outside their homes were naked, with their hair burned away
and what had been clothing either tom or seared from their bodies; others,
indoors, were still covered with their charred clothes. Every stone house in
the city had collapsed, and most lay completely in fragments. The entire
city was covered by a ghostly white ash that in some places was several feet
deep.
"Even though the giant ball of volcanic horror had swept the city in less
than two minutes, it had enough time to play capricious tricks along the
way. In many cases solid objects were pulverized, while fragile articles were
left untouched. Silver stored inside a safe had melted and adhered to the
sides of the safe itself. Glass tumblers were fused together by the intense
heat, while nearby crockery was not even cracked. In one place a carafe of
wine was untouched, but the stems of wine glasses nearby were bent.
Although the wall of the military hospital was completely leveled, one section
containing the clock still stood. The hands of the timepiece had stopped
at 7:52, marking the exact moment that St. Pierre had died.
"In all, the volcano's devastation covered an area of about eight square
miles. The focal point, of course, was St. Pierre, where there was complete
destruction and loss of life. Along either side of the tumbling ball of death
was a section where loss of life and damage was reduced. Still farther out-
side this zone was one where no loss of life occurred, no buildings were
damaged, and only vegetation was burned off. On the slopes of the moun-
tain, the rivers that had once flowed with pure water were now either dried
up or choked with slowly flowing mud; one mud slide was later estimated to
be 80 feet deep.
310 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"On May 20, cantankerous Mont Pelee erupted again. This time a
violent explosion rent the air over the mountain at 5: 15 in the afternoon.
The Vicar-General, in Fort-de-France, stood on his balcony and watched
the same amazing scene reenacted-a black ball of heated air and gases
again tumbled down the slopes toward St. Pierre. After the eruption, the
Vicar-General ordered the Suchet to investigate the situation. The report
that came back was simply that the remains of St. Pierre had been ravaged
again but, since there was little left of the town, the second black ball had
failed to increase the damage.
"On a recent visit to Martinique we saw a few remaining walls standing
in what had been St. Pierre. That was all, for the city that was once called
the 'Paris of the West' was never rebuilt. Mont Pelee had not only destroyed
a city of 30,000 people; it had ended a way of life." ibid. 142-152.
We have no eyewitness accounts of the destruction of the ancient cities
as we have here of the modem decimation of St. Pierre, only the terse Bible
statement of what God did there.
Yet the similarities between the two situations are very obvious. Both
were located in an area of intense volcanic and earthquake activity and
both were suddenly overcome by the descent of fire upon them of such
ferocity and intensity that the cities were obliterated, never to be rebuilt, and
the population was exterminated but for very few survivors. In the case of
Sodom, there were only three, Lot and his two daughters. In St. Pierre,
only two in the city and the family who fled just in time, escaped death.
Like Sodom, St. Pierre was a place of abandoned wickedness. Here is
the description of it as given in our source by Hal Butler:
"In 1902, St. Pierre, on the western coast of the island and only four
miles from Mont Pelee, was Martinique's major city. Twelve miles to the
south was Fort-de-France, the capital of the island, but this was a small
village that bore no resemblance to glittering St. Pierre. France was proud
of St. Pierre; indeed, the French often referred to the city as the 'little Paris'
or 'the Paris of the West' because of its sparkling social life.
"Both the city and its people were picturesque. The city stretched for
two miles along the coast and, from an approaching ship, it looked like a
welcome oasis. The houses, fashioned of stone and stucco, were alive with
color. Most of them were painted yellow or bright orange and all had red-
tiled roofs. Two main roads ran parallel to the coast, interlaced by cross
streets that began at the sea and climbed upward toward the mountain
slopes behind the city. With the green mountains as a backdrop, the city
had the appeal of a glistening jewel embedded in a costly setting.
"In addition to being the social capital of the island, St. Pierre was also
the commercial center. One of its major industries was the rum distillery,
and its principal business street, Rue Victor Hugo, was lined with banks,
stores and other commercial establishments. The 'Paris of the West' was
also equipped to cater both to the welfare of the soul and the gratification of
SODOM AND GOMORRAH 311

the flesh, for it boasted a stately Catholic cathedral and several parish
churches, along with a theater where actors from France entertained, cafes,
nightclubs and assorted emporiums designed specifically for uninhibited
revelry.
"The French colonists, whose ancestors had settled on Martinique
generations before, represented the elite of the island. They owned and
supeivised plantations producing tobacco, coffee, cacao and sugarcane.
Most of them had built ostentatious villas in the mountains and spent much
of their time either relaxing at these summer homes or sipping cognac in
St. Pierre's hotels and inns. This wealthy group of Pierrotins-as residents
of St. Pierre were called-numbered about 7,000.
"Most of the city's 23,000 other inhabitants were blacks. The men-
usually bare-chested and dressed in canvas trousers and hats made
of bamboo grass-were typically handsome; the women couched their
natural beauty in colorful robes and turbans and strode the streets with trays
and baskets of salable goods balanced on their heads. The waterfront was a
scene of continuous activity as stevedores loaded and unloaded ships calling
at what was one of the most profitable ports in the Caribbean.
"This was St. Pierre in 1902-a city that had every reason to believe in
its future but a city that had no future at all." ibid., 132-133.
Life in St. Pierre and Sodom followed a similar pattern. Sodom and
Gomorrah were places where study was given to the development of every
means whereby the desires of the flesh could be gratified and, from the
description given here, so was St. Pierre. Thus the very things which
caused the departure of the restraining and protecting Spirit of God in the
ancient situation were also present in this fair city. In both cases, the balmy
climate and abundant wealth tended to stimulate this pursuit for the licen-
tious, until a fever pitch was reached.
It is not to be supposed that Sodom was irreligious, for in those days
worship of the sun god was the devoted spiritual exercise of those peoples.
Wherever this religious influence has been present, it has encouraged licen-
tiousness and immorality of all kinds. The Roman Catholic religion which
dominated the spiritual life of St. Pierre, is the modem counterpart of the
ancient sun-worship3 and has demonstrated that it, likewise, is the spawn-
ing ground for every type of sin and wickedness. The same religious in-
fluences therefore, which brought Sodom and Gomorrah to the pitch of
wickedness equated with total and unrestrained rejection of God, also
brought the inhabitants of St. Pierre to that point.
St. Pierre, then, provides us with a splendid illustration of the death of
Sodom and Gomorrah. God did the same thing in both the ancient and the
modem situation for the same reason. He left the rejecters of His mercy to
themselves to reap that which they had sown and He did that because that

'See The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop, published by S.W. Partridge and Co., 4,
s. & 6, Soho Square, London, W.i.
312 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

was what the people in each case demanded of Him. Because the cities
concerned were sitting over a time-bomb just waiting to go off in the form of
a volcanic eruption, that was the fate which overtook them. In other words,
they died, not because God decreed that this was the way it should be, but
because that was the potential destruction threat under which they lived.
A wide variety of destructions befall the wicked. There are those who,
as in the cases of Sodom, Gomorrah, and St. Pierre, are wiped out by
volcanic eruptions, while others are taken by flood, earthquake, hurricane,
hailstorm, accidents by air, sea, and land, giant conflagrations in forests and
buildings, famine, or by the savage outbursts of human wrath. The only
consistent pattern through it all is that the disaster is according to the poten-
tial of destruction common to the area. This denies the charge that God
personally takes hold of the powers of nature and manipulates them
according to His design to punish sinners. God has the power to create any
kind of destruction at will. He is not bound to the particular peril present in a
given area. Being a God of utter justice and consistency would require Him
to punish the same offences with the same punishments. But this is not so.
The same offences are dealt with by widely varying punishments always
according to the destructive potential of the place where the offenders
reside.
There is as great a disparity in the severity of the judgments as in their
type. Some of the sinful suffer lingering deaths tortured with intense suffer-
ing, while others die quickly and mercifully. This is unequal enough, but
observation shows that those who live lives of great and unrestrained
wickedness usually suffer much less than the relatively innocent. Consider
the situation in wartime. Behind the titanic struggles are the warmongers,
men burning with the lust for power who have no regard for the cost others
must pay in order that they achieve their desires. They are the truly guilty
ones who deserve the greatest punishment of all.
Out on the farmlands, in the villages, up in the mountains, and all
over the land are the simple, honest folk whose lives are largely devoid of
serious vices even though they cannot be called the children of God. When
the battles ravage the land, they are the sufferers. Their sons are killed,
their houses levelled, their businesses ruined, their livestock destroyed,
and their bodies are starved, mutilated, lamed, and finally killed.
Of the two classes, the warmongers are the ones upon whom the
desolations should justly fall, but they grow fat and rich from the merchan-
dise of blood. Justice is truly turned around. If this is the decree and work of
God, then He is a strange God indeed. But we know that He is not that
kind of God. He is absolutely just and strictly impartial. He never excuses
one nor favors another, while dealing harshly with someone else less de-
serving. If God were the one administering the punishments then the pen-
alty would be exacted according to the offence. The very fact that it is
not, is clear proof that these situations are not the result of God's
handiwork.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH 313

The same unequal discrimination is found in the fate of the earth's large
cities. To walk the streets of London in England, Frankfurt in Germany,
Copenhagen in Denmark, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York in the
United States, is to behold sin under direct and wilful cultivation, with study
being given to the art of satisfying the most demanding desires of the flesh.
Many, coming in from country areas to encounter these things for the first
time, have been so appalled at the spectacle that they have felt that God
should and would arise to wipe these cesspools from the face of the earth.
But decade follows decade during which the corruption prospers. Seemingly
it enjoys the patronage and protection of God Himself.
While this is going on, the judgments which one would expect to see fall
on these cities, strike with merciless ferocity on other places where one
would judge the state of iniquity to be mild by comparison.
The examples which might be cited are numerous. Here are two which
are typical. In Guatemala, February 4, 1976, an earthquake which
measured 7.5 on the Richter scale, caused extensive damage and huge loss
of life. It was estimated that the dead numbered twenty-three thousand and
the injured, seventy-five thousand.
On December 25, 1974, a cyclone ripped through the quiet tropical
city of Darwin in North West Australia, in what has been described as the
worst natural disaster ever to strike in Australia. Ninety percent of the city
was levelled and fifty people lost their lives.
If an investigator was sent to find the most iniquitous city on earth,
neither Darwin nor Guatemala would be first on the list. His thoughts would
naturally turn to the cities listed above. Yet those places live on unscathed
year after year while these quieter places are razed to the dust.
Why this disparity?
The answer is quite simple.
Firstly it must be obvious that it is not the work of God, for it is far too
partial and capricious to be His handiwork. If He was the destroyer then He
would certainly visit the large cities filled with vice and sin before He
touched the smaller ones where evil is not nurtured to anywhere near the
same degree. He would administer the punishments with carefully
calculated exactitude so that the guilty would receive their just desserts.
Things would be very different from what they are.
The nature and location of these catastrophes are clear proof that they
are not the work of God. They occur because of the presence, in scattered
areas of the earth, of pockets of potential destruction seeded at the time of
the flood. Those who live in such areas need the protecting care of God
more than do others who live where there is a lesser threat. But, by their
impenitent living they grieve away the shield of omnipotence thereby ex-
posing themselves to the terrible storms or earthquakes, fires, floods,
volcanic eruptions, or whatever else is poised to obliterate them. Therefore,
they suffer the awful consequences of the withdrawal of God's presence, as
others in more favorable places do not.
314 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

This does not infer that there are entirely safe places on earth, for this is
not true. As the withdrawal of God's presence becomes more extensive,
the uncaged powers of nature are reaching out to waste areas previously
untouched. As we draw nearer to the end, this will become universal.
There is no problem in understanding what God did at Sodom,
Gomorrah, and St. Pierre, if care is taken to consider all the implications
and if the principles which govern God's behavior are carefully kept in
mind.
 315

CHAPTER TWENlY-NINE

An Execution
The flood was the first occasion when nature out of God's control broke
with cataclysmic fury on men's and demons' shelterless heads. Powerless to
control such stupendous forces, mankind suffered a breach of such
magnitude as to all but obliterate him. That fearful stroke inflicted a wound
so terrible that it was almost entirely fatal to the human generation. Even
"Satan himself, who was compelled to remain in the midst of the warring
elements, feared for his own existence." Patriarchs and Prophets, 99.
But, while the flood was the first, it was it was certainly not the last. After the
destruction of the tower of Babel by lightning bolt, the next incident of great
note was the incineration of Sodom and Gomorrah.
After this the list lengthens. There were the plagues upon Egypt, the
returning waters of the Red Sea, various pestilences which smote the
Israelites, the invasion of the fiery serpents, the swallowing of Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram in the earthquake, the overthrow of the walls of
Jericho, the great hailstorm in Joshua's day, the expiration of
Sennacherib's army, the death of the children at the claws and jaws of the
bears, the fire which consumed the men who came to take Elijah captive,
and many more.
In our day, one disaster follows another in steady succession until each
fresh one brings no surprise.
To examine each case would be repeating the same arguments already
advanced in respect to the flood, the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the
plagues of Egypt. Once the principle has been established it can then be
applied to all other situations.
Sometimes it is possible to see a scientific explanation of the disaster but
not always. Just what took the lives of Sennacherib's men is not revealed.
The withholding of this information simply provides an exercise in faith,
testing the grip held upon the principles of righteousness revealed in the
Scriptures. Because no revelation is given of how they died, the temptation is
to revert to the idea that God personally executed them.
Such a temptation must be positively rejected. Cling to the simple belief
that God does not execute the sinner but leaves him to himself to reap that
which he has chosen. This is so emphatically revealed in God's Word, that
there is no excuse for losing sight of it.
The consumption of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram presents no problem.
The earth opened up and swallowed them. What neither they, nor the rest
of Israel knew, was that they were encamped over an earthquake which so
far only the sustaining presence of God had held in check. In like manner,
human beings today are unable to predict just where and when these
disasters will strike.
316 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

When those rebels sustained their defiance of God, they compelled

Him to withdraw from where they were, leaving only one possible conse-
quence. The earthquake so long restrained, was unleashed.
Once the understanding has grasped these principles, and faith deter-
mines that they shall never be relinquished, there is no incident when the
rod of power passed out of God's hands and control, that will cause any
serious problem to the true child of God. He will see that it was not God,
but deranged nature which destroyed the unrepentant. There will be times
when it is possible to see how this actually happened, but other situations
will be inexplicable. Faith will know that the same God acted in the same
way, whether it can be seen exactly how nature behaved or not.
But there are other occasions, in some respects different from those
cited above, in which God's actions are most difficult to understand. They
have so perplexed earnest Christians for centuries, that some have been led
to doubt the character of God and even to forsake His service. What God
appears to have done, denies every principle discussed so far in this study.
These incidents are those in which God commanded the Israelites to
take their weapons and slay utterly, men, women, children, infants, and all
livestock. The execution of the defiant ones at the golden calf, the genocide
of the Amalekites, and the extermination of the Canaanites were all ac-
complished in obedience to God's directions. While God Himself did not
carry out the slaughterings, they were administered at His command. Con-
sidering that, in the natural order of things he who orders the execution is
the real executioner, it appears that God did fill the role of a destroyer in
these instances at least.
More than any other, the biblical recital of these events provides those
who cling to the view that God does inflict judgments on those who offend
Him, with the justification for their stand. In any confrontation between
them and those who see the true character of God, it will be observed that
these are the statements to which they cling with great determination. To
them they provide incontrovertible proof.
It cannot be denied that these are difficult to understand, but they are
not beyond human comprehension provided it is taught of God and guided
by the principles which underlie God's character. When these incidents are
correctly understood, it will be found that God has not subverted His codes
to meet an emergency, but has acted with impeccable consistency. Not
even in these situations has He been an executioner or destroyer.
It cannot be overstressed that success in uncovering the real truth of
God's part at the golden calf execution, the genocide of the Amalekites, the
annihilation of the Canaanites and so forth, depends upon there being
complete confidence in God's consistency. There must be the unassailable
conviction that there are no contradictions in the Word of God, that He
does not make a declaration about His character and behavior in one
place, and then proceed to do the opposite in another. Unless the student is
AN EXECUTION 317

possessed of this, he will not arrive at any satisfactory solution to the

problem, but if he does, then solid searching, combined with earnest prayer
and the forsaking of sin, will repay rich dividends of spiritual truth. All
disharmonies will disappear. That which firstly appeared as an unanswer-
able indictment against God's character, will prove to be the strongest
evidence in favor of it. What previously we hoped no one would mention,
turns out instead, to be the best argument for the case.
To clarify the nature of the problem, three statements outlining God's
commitment never to use force will be quoted. These will be immediately
followed by the records of the golden calf incident so it can be plainly seen
that one set of statements appears to be directly contradicted by the other.
"Rebellion was not to be overcome by force. Compelling power is
found only under Satan's government. The Lord's principles are not of this
order. His authority rests upon goodness, mercy, and love; and the presen-
tation of these principles is the means to be used. God's government is
moral, and truth and love are to be the prevailing power." The Desire of
Ages, 759.
"Earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendancy of physical power; but from
Christ's kingdom every carnal weapon, every instrument of coercion, is
banished." The Acts of the Apostles, 12.
"God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the
sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy to
themselves, to reap that which they have sown." The Great Controuersy,
36.
There is no ambiguity in these statements, but they do become a pro-
blem when brought into direct contact with a story such as the slaughter
of the rebels at the golden calf. When these two are brought together it
appears that God states one thing in one place and then proceeds to do the
opposite in another. Compare the record which follows with the state-
ments quoted above.
"And he [Moses] said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put
every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate
throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his
companion, and every man his neighbor.
"And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and
there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.
"For Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves to day to the Lord, even
every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that He may bestow upon
you a blessing this day." Exodus 32:27-29.
"Those who performed this terrible work of judgment were acting by
divine authority, executing the sentence of the King of heaven. Men are to
beware how they, in their human blindness, judge and condemn their
fellowmen; but when God commands them to execute His sentence upon
iniquity, He is to be obeyed. Those who performed this painful act, thus
318 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

manifested their abhorrence of rebellion and idolatry, and consecrated

themselves more fully to the service of the true God. The Lord honored
their faithfulness by bestowing special distinction upon the tribe of Levi.
"The Israelites had been guilty of treason, and that against a King who
had loaded them with benefits, and whose authority they had voluntarily
pledged themselves to obey. That the divine government might be main-
tained justice must be visited upon the traitors. Yet even here God's mercy
was displayed. While He maintained His law, He granted freedom of
choice and opportunity for repentance to all. Only those were cut off who
persisted in rebellion.
"It was necessary that this sin should be punished, as a testimony to
surrounding nations of God's displeasure against idolatry. By executing jus-
tice upon the guilty, Moses, as God's instrument, must leave on record a
solemn and public protest against their crime. As the Israelites should
hereafter condemn the idolatry of the neighboring tribes, their enemies
would throw back upon them the charge that the people who claimed
Jehovah as their God had made a calf and worshiped it in Horeb. Then
though compelled to acknowledge the disgraceful truth, Israel could point
to the terrible fate of the transgressors, as evidence that their sin had not
been sanctioned or excused.
"Love no less than justice demanded that for this sin judgment should
be inflicted. God is the guardian as well as the sovereign of His people. He
cuts off those who are determined upon rebellion, that they may not lead
others to ruin. In sparing the life of Cain, God had demonstrated to the
universe what would be the result of permitting sin to go unpunished. The
influence exerted upon his descendants by his life and teaching led to the
state of corruption that demanded the destruction of the whole world by a
flood. The history of the antediluvians testifies that long life is not a blessing
to the sinner; God's great forbearance did not repress their wickedness. The
longer men lived, the more corrupt they became.
"So with the apostasy at Sinai. Unless punishment had been speedily
visited upon transgression, the same results would again have been seen.
The earth would have become as corrupt as in the days of Noah. Had these
transgressors been spared, evils would have followed, greater than resulted
from sparing the life of Cain. It was the mercy of God that thousands should
suffer, to prevent the necessity of visiting judgments upon millions. In order
to save the many, He must punish the few. Furthermore, as the people had
cast off their allegiance to God, they had forfeited the divine protection,
and, deprived of their defense, the whole nation was exposed to the power
of their enemies. Had not the evil been promptly put away, they would
soon have fallen a prey to their numerous and powerful foes. It was
necessary for the good of Israel, and also as a lesson to all succeeding
generations, that crime should be promptly punished. And it was no less a
mercy to the sinners themselves that they should be cut short in their evil
AN EXECUTION 319

course. Had their life been spared, the same spirit that led them to rebel
against God would have been manifested, in hatred and strife among
themselves, and they would eventually have destroyed one another. It was
in love to the world, in love to Israel, and even to the transgressors, that
crime was punished with swift and terrible severity." Patriarchs and Prophets,
324-326.
People's behavior can only be classified as rebellion. In the case of
those who refused to repent of it, it was persistent and incurable. There is
no possibility of viewing their course in any other light, and there is no point
in attempting to. It must be recognized for what it was-rebellion.
With equal clarity it is to be seen that the insurrection was overcome by
force. The Levites took their swords, and slaughtered the rebels. Thus, by
force alone the rebellion was overcome.
What makes this critically different from the numerous other occasions
when rebellion has been overcome by force is that God ordered this solu-
tion to be applied. The sinners were not left to themselves to reap that
which they had sown. Rather, a direct sentence was formulated against
them and summarily carried into effect.
Thus, at first observation, every step God is reported to have taken,
denies what He laid out as His principles in the first three references
quoted. God declared that it is not His way to overcome rebellion by force,
yet He directed that it be done in just that way. He claims that He leaves the
sinners to themselves to reap what they have sown, but He certainly did not
do that here.
It is simple to see how quite a case can be built up against God by using
this evidence. It is argued by those who believe God does execute, that the
only way to deny this is to make the Bible read as we wish it to be read.
Before this study is over, it will become evident that those who make this
charge are, in fact, the ones who are guilty of doing this.
When rightly understood, Scriptural records will show that at the
golden calf, God did nothing in violation of His stated principles. He will
emerge from this examination as a Saviour only. His character will glow
with a brighter radiance exciting the wonder, admiration, and emulation
of all who will respond to it.
How is it, though, that the vast majority have failed to rightly perceive
the work of God at the base of the mountain? Why has He been viewed as
the maker and executioner of the sentence? Why has no real difference
been made between the behavior of God and any earthly monarch?
It is because one vital factor, being completely overlooked, is never
taken into consideration. When it is, it makes all the difference to
understanding the case. Then the charges levelled against God will be
redirected where they rightly belong.
That factor was Israel's introduction of the sword into their lives. Under-
taking this was an extremely serious and tragic step which placed them on a
320 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

different relationship with their divine Leader. It amounted to the institution

of man's procedures in the place of God's. Because the choice of which was
to be the established and recognized way, rested not with God but with
Israel, Jehovah could not and therefore did not, compel them to discard it.
All He could do was to labor to save them from the worst effects of what
they had elected to do.
Their decision to take up weapons of coercion and destruction was not
made in complete ignorance of God's will. Their Heavenly Father had
faithfully communicated to them that the sword was to find no place among
them whatsoever.
They were named after their revered father Israel, whose history of vic-
tory over his foes was well known to them. God designed that this should
be a witness to them of His ways. The lesson was especially pertinent for
there was a distinct parallel existing between Israel's situation and theirs. As
he was a prisoner of his scheming uncle, Laban, and desired to depart for
the promised land, so they were held in Egyptian bondage and longed to
leave for Canaan's land.
When the patriarch set forth on his journey, he was pursued by Laban
who was detennined to bring his son-in-law back with him. It cost Laban
seven days to overtake Jacob, seven days in which his temper had time to
reach fever heat. When he found Jacob, "He was hot with anger, and bent
on forcing them to return, which he doubted not he could do, since his
band was much the stronger. The fugitives were indeed in great peril."
Patriarchs and Prophets, 193.
Jacob, knowing full well that he would be pursued, made every provi-
sion possible to prevent his being forced to return. But, in all his careful
planning for the security of the ones he loved so dearly, he made no move
to arm his servants with swords and spears. He put his entire trust in God as
his Protector and so effectively did the Lord fill that commission, that not
only did Jacob not go back to Laban's home, but not one of his household
was even so much as scratched.
This peril gone, with the pacified Laban returning to his place, Jacob
pressed on to meet the greater peril of Esau who reportedly was coming to
meet him with six hundred anned men. Esau had only one objective in
mind-to ensure that Jacob could never dispossess him of their father's
wealth. The only way to assure this was to slaughter Jacob and his band.
That would settle the question for all time.
As this deadly peril threatened Jacob, there were at least two different
courses he could have adopted. The common human reaction is to tum to
the power of weapons. Accordingly, Jacob could have chosen to divert
from his course to spend time in anning and training his servants. He did
not do this for he rightly understood that this was not God's way. Instead,
he continued without deviation, his entire confidence resting in the
assurance that God would faithfully fulfil His responsibility of protecting him
AN EXECl.TTION 321

and his entourage. On the night before the encounter he turned aside to
pray, his deep concern arising from the fear that unconfessed sin would
obstruct God's work and leave him exposed to his enemy. There was no
lack of faith in God's power to deliver him. His only fear was that his own
spiritual condition would make that power unavailable. The long hours of
agonized wrestling brought the victory.
God did not force Esau to leave his brother unmolested. Instead He
sent an angel to reveal to him the true character of Jacob, his sufferings, his
spirit, and his intentions. Thus Esau was led to view Jacob in a new light.
He realized that Jacob was not a threat to him and therefore did not need to
be eliminated. His rage was replaced by sympathy, and the outcome again
was that not a single one from Jacob's households received so much as a
scratch.
Here is a point worthy of emphasis. Whenever the children of Israel left
to God the task of protecting them, not one of them lost their lives or suf-
fered injury, but when they took the sword, there was nearly always loss of
life, which in some cases was very heavy.
From Jacob's experience, the Israel of God from then to now has an
everlasting message which should never be forgotten. It is the message
reiterated by the psalmist. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present
help in trouble.
"Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though
the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
"Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the moun-
tains shake with the swelling thereof." Psalm 46:1-3.
"The angel of the Lord encampeth around about them that fear Him,
and delivereth them." Psalm 34:7.
The great controversy is not between us and Satan, but between Christ
and Satan. We do not have the power to overcome the enemy. God alone
can do that and has undertaken to do so. Our task is to leave Him to do
what He has promised. The victory is ours as a gift, which is demonstrated
in the wonderful experience of Jacob. How much more wonderful it was
for him to see the Lord's salvation than to gain a victory by the sword at the
cost of the lives of some of his dearly loved servants and sons.
Through this experience, God provided the Israelites with a perpetual
testimony of the security available to them if they trustingly committed the
keeping of their lives to Him. As a preparation for their departure from
Egypt it was sufficient to assure them that they were to make no provision
for acquiring and using swords. They were to entrust that task to God as
fully as Jacob did, knowing they could expect the same results.
God, knowing that the success of the great venture depended on their
strict adherence to these principles, reiterated the lesson repeatedly during
the exodus and the period leading up to it.
 322 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Moses had been thoroughly trained in the art of war and had proved
himself on the battle field to be a brilliant tactician. "His ability as a military
. leader made him a favorite with the armies of Egypt, and he was generally
regarded as a remarkable character." Patriarchs and Prophets, 245.
Moses, therefore, naturally expected that the Lord would deliver them
by force of arms and saw in his Egyptian education a divinely provided
training for such a campaign. Had God purposed to do it this way, no better
man than Moses could have been found anywhere in history. It is significant
that God made no use of this ability in Moses at any time in his life for not
once did Moses lead the armies of Israel into battle.
"The elders of Israel were taught by angels that the time for their
deliverance was near, and that Moses was the man whom God would
employ to accomplish this work. Angels instructed Moses also that Jehovah
had chosen him to break the bondage of his people. He, supposing that
they were to obtain their freedom by force of arms, expected to lead the
Hebrew host against the armies of Egypt, and having this in view, he
guarded his affections, lest in his attachment to his foster mother or to
Pharaoh he would not be free to do the will of God." ibid.
Thus Moses was dedicated to the divine purpose for himself and Israel
and longed for the fulfillment of the plan. When he saw the Israelite being
oppressed by the Egyptian, he slew the persecutor supposing that thereby
he had initiated the armed struggle which would liberate the slave nation.
But, even though the Israelites were aware of God's appointment of Moses,
there was not a man inspired to rise with him. Instead, he was forced into
precipitous flight to Midian. This unexpected development caused Moses a
great deal of deep heart-searching, providing God with the needed oppor-
tunity to educate into him the realization that it was not by warfare that
Israel was to be delivered.
Forty years later, he returned, clad, not in the shining armor of a mili-
tary leader, but in the simple garb of an eastern shepherd with a staff in his
hands. Before all Israel, God was proclaiming the way by which they
would be taken out of bondage, and by which they were to be preserved
forever from their enemies. It was a reminder to them of the same truth as
revealed in God's dealings with Jacob.
God did not introduce a temporary provision to be followed by
changed procedures once the children of Israel, having gained their
freedom, became competent in the art of warfare. God started the exodus
upon principles which were to be forever preserved and maintained. At no
time did He deviate from His established course of action. During the reign of
sorrow as plague followed plague, the Israelites had no part to play other
than merely standing by and letting the Lord handle everything.
When, just before their final departure, God impressed the Egyptians to
liberally provide the travellers with everything they would ever need on
their journey, He did not put it in the hearts of their former masters to give
AN EXECUTION 323

them weapons of war. It was a people for whom God had made every pro-
vision, who went out of Egypt " ... unarmed, and unaccustomed to
war ... "ibid., 282. If the Lord had intended a change from His fighting
their battles, to their doing this work for themselves, then He certainly
would have made sure that they were equipped for this role. The fact that
He did not impress the Egyptians to ann them is clear proof that He never
intended they should be. As the exodus began, so it was to continue.
Had the Israelites manifested living faith in God, they would have
reasoned as follows: "The Lord knows exactly what we need to bring us to
the promised land. From the vast storehouse of Egypt He has given us
every necessity, but He has not drawn from its arsenals. Therefore this is
the clearest endorsement of the message demonstrated in the experience of
our father, Jacob, that we, like him, are to return to the promised land an
unarmed people. We are to entrust the matter of our protection entirely to
God."
How much happier their subsequent history, if this had been how they
had thought. There would have been no substitution of human, faithless
methods in place of the infallible, divine procedures. God would never
have commanded them to take their swords and slaughter men, women,
and children. In every situation, He would have been their defence and
deliverer.
So they came to the Red Sea where once more the Lord displayed
before them the way in which the power of their enemies would be broken.
There it was shown in the most vivid way, that the rejecters of God's mercy
were simply left to themselves to perish. As the Egyptians' greatest act of
rejection was to seek to destroy the people who were walking closely with
God, the point where the Israelites seemed to be most endangered was, in
fact, the moment closest to deliverance.
When Pharaoh led his anny into the corridor between those standing
walls of water, it was an act of terrible presumption on his part. The only
way in which the Israelites could pass safely over was by remaining within
the circle of God's protection. But the Egyptians had deliberately and de-
fiantly cast off that protection, and therefore the Spirit of the Lord could not
maintain the waters in their position. As the anny advanced, the Spirit of
God had no choice but to retire before it. As that power was withdrawn, the
waters simply rushed back to their original position, overwhelming the
enemies of God and His people.
The Lord was very diligent in the education of His people. He knew
that the day of decision was fast approaching when they must make the
critical choice between continuing in God's order or turning from it to their
own. While He could train them to hold to the right course, He could not
make the decision for them. There is no compulsion with God. He will
never depart from this principle by so much as a hair's breadth. Pharaoh
had exercised that choice to his destruction. No blame for the outcome can
324 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

be charged to God, for He had been more than fair in sending warnings to
the proud ruler.
This right to choose was given to the human family in the persons of
Adam and Eve when they were placed in possession of their inheritance.
The angels imparted the infonnation to them. "They told Adam and Eve
that God would not compel them to obey-that He had not removed from
them power to go contrary to His will; that they were moral agents, free to
obey or disobey." The Story of Redemption, 30.
The entrance of sin did not change this. When man exercised the gift of
choice by turning aside from the principles of righteousness, God still did
not intrude into this area. Men were not deprived of this freedom by
Jehovah, although they lost it to sin and to other men.
God's commitment of freedom of choice to them would be no more
than empty words if there was no opportunity to choose another course.
Accordingly, in order to give full support to His declared principles, the
Lord must be careful not to deprive the people of the means whereby they
could go in another direction if they wished.
So while the Lord had made it absolutely clear that they were not to
carry the sword in their journeying from Egypt, He did not make it im-
possible for them to do so. They had the same freedom to obey or disobey
as did their first parents in Eden. The special opportunity for them to take
the sword was afforded when the annor-clad bodies of the Egyptian sol-
diers were washed up at their feet. "As morning broke, it revealed to the
multitudes of Israel all that remained of their mighty foes,-the mail-clad
bodies cast upon the shore." Patriarchs and Prophets, 287, 288.
Here was the great test for the men of Israel. Temptingly offered them
was a veritable arsenal of weapons-swords, spears, helmets, shields,
and breastplates. They could either rush down and take the spoils,
thus equipping themselves to fight as other nations fought, or they could
tum their backs upon it and leave their protection in the Lord's hands.
The real issue involved God's continuation as the sole Protector of His
chosen versus their taking His work into their own hands. It was the ques-
tion of implicit trust in God versus greater confidence in the power of their
own fighting abilities. It was a critical point in their history for the sad decision
made there, influenced the full span of their future. It was a departure
from strict adherence to the only safe course. It detennined their final failure
and rejection as a people.
There are no direct records confinning that they did rush down and
take the annor from the Egyptians. But all the evidence points strongly in
that direction. Here are the facts. They approached, crossed, and emerged
from the Red Sea without implements of war. Shortly after leaving the Red
Sea, they engaged in warfare against the Amalekites in which they did not
use sticks and stones. As there were no swordsmiths between the Red Sea
and the location of this battle, the only way they could have become
equipped was by salvaging the weaponry washed ashore.
AN EXECUTION 325

What makes the decision taken so significant are the circumstances

under which it was made. God had just spoken to them in the most thrilling
and convincing demonstration of His ability and willingness to cope with
their enemies according to the principles of eternal righteousness. With a
God like that, what need did they have of weapons? To seek military equip-
ment under ordinary circumstances was bad enough, but to lay hands on it
in the light shining from God as it did then, was totally inexcusable and
highly irresponsible.
In taking up the sword at that point, Israel failed tragically. They in-
troduced a new order into the camp, replacing the divine arrangement.
Thus they prevented the nation from giving a true representation of God's
character, and this eventually led to their final dismissal as the channel of
God's communication to the world.
Some would argue that this change was an inevitable development
made necessary and possible as conditions changed. This line of reasoning
views the children of Israel in Egypt as being both untrained and without
equipment so that there was no recourse but for the Lord to fight for them,
just as initially a parent does everything for the infant. But, as they moved
out, the time came when the Lord could progressively tum over to them
the care of their own needs and interests. Accordingly, He kindly caused
the Egyptians to be washed up at their feet so that they were provided with
the armor they needed. From then on, they became His appointed in-
struments in decimating the heathen.
This argument is not illogical but it is nonetheless false. If it were true,
then the subjugation of Canaan, as it did in fact take place, was in the
order of God. That it was not, is proved by direct statements as well as by all
the principles which undergird God's character. "The Lord had never com-
manded them to 'go up and fight.' It was not His purpose that they should
gain the land by warfare, but by strict obedience to His commands."
Patriarchs and Prophets, 392.
It was not God's purpose that they should gain the land by warfare, for
the important reason that that is not His method. The use of force is ex-
clusive to Satan's kingdom. It has no part in God's order. They were to
possess the promised land by strict obedience to His commands, one of
which prohibits killing. The human mind finds great difficulty in under-
standing how a vigorous, warlike nation can be dispossessed without using
force. This was the problem with Israel, even though they had witnessed
the mighty manifestations of God's methods in the plagues of Egypt and the
crossing of the Red Sea.
All this had happened to the dwellers on the Nile because they had
refused God's every effort to save them. The same resistance among the
Canaanites had brought them to the position where destruction was all that
remained to them. But Israel could not see this, nor could they rest in the
Lord's promise that He would give them the land. Therefore, they deter-
mined that they would take it in the only way they understood-by force.
326 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

It is true that they gained the land in this way, but let it not be forgot-
ten that they also lost it in the same manner. Their sad history confirms
the truth of Christ's words to the valiant and belligerent Peter, "Put up again
thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with
the sword." Matthew 26:52.
Jesus did not give these words a limited application in time. He was not
saying, "From this time forward, all who take the sword will thereby
perish." What He stated is an etema/ truth. It is a statement of the fact that
the use of force engenders counter-force. While the individual or the nation
may be strong enough today to occupy the top position, the time soon
comes when another power will be stronger and will seize the opportunity
to destroy those who have previously ascended the pathway of blood.
The veracity of Christ's words as a universal application is adequately
proved by six thousand years of human history. That period reveals that
whenever a nation was built by the use of the sword, that power perished or
will perish by the same means. The same is true of individuals. It may be
argued that men of power rose by the sword and maintained that lead
through their lifetimes to die unconquered rulers of the world. But let it not
be forgotten that they live on in their children to whom they gave the legacy
of conquest they had gained, and, in their children, they perished or will yet
perish by the sword.
God, understanding perfectly that those who live by the sword will
perish by it, knew that for Israel to have it was to ensure their destruction.
God did nof desire such an outcome. Therefore, from this motivation
alone, it is certain that He never gave them the sword. More than this, if He
had done so then He would be responsible for their destruction, for he who
gives to another that which will assuredly effect his death must carry the
blame for that demise.
It follows, then, that it was never in God's purpose that Israel or anyone
else should ever carry the sword. It has no place in His character and cor-
responding methods, and therefore is to find no acceptance in the character
and behavior of His people.
The recognition of this truth is essential in understanding the directives
from God which sent the Israelites forth with the sword to utterly destroy
the peoples who opposed them. The institution of this form of government
was entirely the people's work, the expression of their having more faith in
themselves than in God. It was the establishment of human principles and
procedures in place of the divine.
Therefore, in every instance where the Israelites went to war or ex-
ecuted the wrongdoers among themselves, their actions were not a revela-
tion of the character of God. There has been a universal readiness to con-
clude that they were, on the erroneous assumption that the people were
simply doing as the Lord told them. If they had been a truly obedient
people they would not have had the swords at all and therefore would never
have gone forth with them to slay their enemies.
AN EXECUTION 327

Yet God did give directions to them. There is no denying this, nor any
desire to do so, for the nature of those commands reveals a very wonderful
and beautiful Father in Heaven ever reaching out to save and never to
destroy. The tragic error is that He has been terribly misunderstood to the
point where the actions designed to minimize the evil effects of the slaugh-
tering to which they were committed, have been judged in an altogether
different and wrong light.
The purpose here is to establish that it was in spite of God's best efforts
to the contrary that the sword became an establishment in the encampment
of Israel. The recognition of this truth is essential to understanding the direc-
tives given to Israel, which have been viewed for too Jong as an indication
that He was personally using them as executioners.
If God's will had been respected, they would never have carried the
sword, the Levites would never have executed those who worshipped the
golden calf, nor would there have been the many bloody battles whereby
they gained possession of the land. God would have been left free to do His
work for them according to the eternal principles of righteousness.
The command given by God at various times in connection with these
slayings makes it difficult for the average person to see this. It is argued that
God was personally and directly involved, that He decided the particular
sentence and then ordered its execution.
This certainly appears to be a watertight argument, but it still leaves
those terrible contradictions. God does not give orders contrary to the prin-
ciples of eternal rectitude and righteousness. Therefore, more study is re-
quired to remove those seeming inconsistencies. This may be done with the
sweet consciousness that there are no contradictions in the Word of God
and that God's character is perfectly consistent in all its behavior.
It will be seen, as we proceed, that the commands given by God were
to a people who had already chosen the way they would go and who, if left
completely unguided, would use those weapons in the worst way. God's
commands were designed to minimize the evil effects of what they had
chosen to do. In this, He was acting out the role of a Saviour, who, having
failed to save them from the sword, would save them from its worst effects.
328

CHAPTER THIRTY

The Ever-loving, Saving Father

When the Israelites took the sword, thus rejecting God's way in favor
of their own, the Lord was faced with several possible courses.
Firstly, He could have simply abandoned them to their own devices.
This would have been perfectly just and righteous on His part, though it
would have been justice without mercy. The result would have been the
speedy disappearance of the household of Israel from the face of the earth.
Their enemies were multitudinous, highly skilled, and well equipped in the
business of war. Satan desired nothing so much as the extermination of
Israel, and he would have quickly seized upon the opportunity.
Secondly, God had the physical power to force the Israelites to con-
tinue in His way, but He could not do this from the moral point of view. He
had given them, along with the remainder of humanity, the freedom to
choose. Therefore, under no circumstances, would He attempt to insist on
His way in preference to theirs. It was for them to choose how it would be,
and when they made that choice God could do nothing except respect it,
which He did.
Thirdly, God could have simply ignored the sin, pretended that it did
not exist. To do this would be to condone it and this God cannot do.
These three are obvious alternatives, but there is another possibility
which is normally overlooked. Herein, the Lord recognizes that He has
failed to save them from taking the wrong turning, and that, therefore, the
work calculated to save them from that is now valueless. Because they have
not yet tasted the bitter experience of the consequences of their apostasy,
they are not disposed to come back. But they have not gone beyond the
possibility of restoration. So God, in His infinite love, will not abandon
them and thus cut off their opportunity to rectify their misdemeanors.
If no saving help is provided to draw them back from going into the
worst effects of their choice, then they would not survive long enough to
ever return to God. Therefore, the Lord works to save them from those
evil results both to make their sufferings as mild as possible, and to extend
the time in which they may learn and repent. It is because this aspect of
God's working has not been understood that He has been so seriously
misjudged in the Old Testament.
The following illustration will serve to clarify these alternatives and to
identify the divine choice among them.
Picture a smallish town located in an area where wild animals, such as
bear, deer, mountain sheep, and various big cats abounded. As is to be
expected, the majority of men in the town were keen hunters, never missing
the opportunity to take their guns out and to track down the game.
THE EVER-LOVING, SAVING FATHER 329

But one man was different. He had the love of God in his heart, and
to kill the beautiful dwellers in the forests and mountains was contrary to
his nature. So he was never seen in company with the men trailing off to
seek their adventures in the blood of others. For their part, they were troubled
by this odd man out and never lost an occasion to persuade him, if possible,
to join them. At one time, they even bought him a splendid hunting rifle
for his birthday. With Christian graciousness, he gently declined the gift.
This was naturally resented, causing those men to increase the pressure on
him, but despite this, year after year, there was no change in him. The
only equipment with which he would hunt was a good camera.
This man had a fine son whom he was most anxious to protect from the
influence of the hunters around. He worked untiringly to instill into him
the same love of the wildlife which he possessed, and was gratified to see
that he was having good success in this direction. Thus the father was
working to have the boy do things his way as distinct from the hunters'
way.
The father did not take away the boy's freedom of choice. When he
eventually reached later youth, he became answerable for himself and was
no longer under the direct control and discipline of his father. He received
an invitation to spend some weeks away from home and, eager to see new
country, accepted the kindly offer. This was a clever plot by the huntsmen,
who sent their sons along to invite the boy, once he was away from the
father's direct influence, to go hunting with them. They urged him to try it
just once to see how he liked it. Feeling that no harm would be done by an
on-the-spot personal appraisal of the hunting business, he went along.
His first reaction was unfavorable, but something about the challenge,
thrill, and excitement drew him back, and soon he was an enthusiastic
devotee. He went to the sports store, selected a beautifully engineered
weapon, and in due time returned with it to his dismayed father. He had
exercised his choice, and now the father was confronted with a situation
which required a response. How would he now relate himself to this tum of
events? Clearly the young man had instituted in his life a course contrary to
the ways of his father and of God.
For the father, as for God, the choice lay between several alternatives.
The first option was to disown the son, forbidding his entrance to the
home and requiring he go his own separate way. The justification for this
would have been the certainty that the principles of father and son could
never harmonize.
Another course would have called for the use of force to coerce the
lad's surrender to his father's wishes and ways. This was not the answer for
two reasons. Firstly the youth had achieved the age of independence, so it
would have been impossible for the father to achieve the desired result
anyway. But, secondly, it was not in this father's nature any more than it is
in the character of God, to use force. To them, the only acceptable service
is that which springs from an educated heart of love.
330 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

A third alternative was to quietly ignore the change, pretend that the
rifle had never been brought into the home, and act as if all were well when,
in fact, it was not. Again, this was no way out, for sin cannot be ignored.
Neither love nor justice will permit it. Iniquity demands attention. A
response to it will always be forthcoming whether it be the saving outreach
of love or the vindictive reaction of destructive hate.
Having considered and rejected each of these possibilities, what would
have been left for this godly man to do? What would God do in the same
situation?
Firstly, the older man recognized that his son had placed himself, other
people, domestic livestock, and wild animals, in a position of great danger.
Being an inexperienced and untrained rifleman, he did not understand the
necessity of looking beyond the target to ensure that there were no
buildings, people, or farm animals in the line of fire. He needed to under-
stand how to carry the weapon so that in climbing through fences, for in-
stance, he did not, as so many have done, shoot himself or his friends. He
must be made aware of the awful potential of the ricochet, when a bullet,
glancing from rock or tree, will embed itself in a target far to the right or left
of the original sighting. He must come close enough to the game to
eliminate the possibility of only wounding the animal which would then
drag itself away to suffer a lingering death. These and others things he
could be taught in order to save himself and others from the worst effects
of what he had chosen.
While the father could no longer save the youth from taking the gun, he
could, if permitted, provide the instruction needed to save him from these
serious consequences. Even the wild animals would benefit from this saving
ministry, for, while they could not be saved from death, they could be
delivered from a painful and lingering one.
As the response of God and those who walk with Him will always be
the outreach of saving love, there is only one course among those sug-
gested above that the Lord or this father would follow. God is by nature a
saviour. So too was the father pictured in this illustration. When God is
frustrated from saving people in one area, He will still exercise His saving
power in whatever possibilities remain. Thus, when the boy's father found
that his long pursued objectives of saving the youth from taking up
weapons had failed, he still recognized that there was much he could do
to save the boy from the worst effects of what he had chosen.
So, sadly, but with tender dignity the father drew his son aside and
spoke with him. He expressed disappointment that the younger man had
chosen to go the way he had, but assured him that he would respect his
decision fully. He gently suggested that there were dangers associated with
the use of such a weapon, from which perils he could only be safeguarded
by receiving and obeying a number of specific precautions. The father in-
timated that he was more than willing to carefully instruct the son in these
 Seeming . IY this
•
father is in-
structing the
you th to be a
hunter, whereas,h .
in fac t • e IS
. .
advising the lad,
h has elected
w ~o be a killer
against the
fat h er 's wishes,
how to be
merciful and
safe in the use
of the gun.
332 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

things so that he would be saved from the worst results of what he had
chosen.
The son, relieved that his parent was not launching against him a fiery
denunciation of his ways, no longer braced himself to resist such pressure.
Instead he expressed his willingness to learn. By so doing he exhibited the
strange quirk of human behavior which gives men an unwillingness to
obey God where the higher levels of faith are concerned, but permits them
to follow His counsel at lesser levels. Israel, for instance, was not prepared
to trust God fully by leaving the sword alone, but they accepted and
followed His counsels regarding the restrictions designed to minimize its
evils. In like manner, the son who had abandoned his father's principles
regarding the total rejection of firearms, was prepared to respect his
counsels in the use of them.
The father introduced the training session by emphasizing that nothing
he was about to do or say indicated that he had changed in any way, even
though it could be interpreted that way.
God, who has been placed in the same position by the determination of
His children to take up weapons of destruction, has likewise solemnly
warned that His effort to save them from the worst effects of what they have
chosen does not indicate any change in Him, even though His actions
could and have been interpreted otherwise.
"[ am the Lord, I change not;" ·~esus Christ the same yesterday, and to
day, and for ever;" "with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of
turning." Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8; James 1: 17.
Despite the fact that men know that before sin entered God never
destroyed, and despite these solemn declarations from God that no change
has ever occurred in Him, men still look on His everlasting efforts to save
and interpret them as being the actions of one who has become like man
himself. The father in our story did not have to change his ways in order to
instruct the son how to be a kind killer, neither did God have to change His
ways to save Israel from being cruel users of the sword. Neither of them
took life. They were only bent on saving it, or, if that were no longer possible,
to save it from as much suffering as possible.
Now suppose that one of the villagers, the man who had most ardently
sought to convert the father, had happened to come down the lane as this
session was in progress. From a distance too great to hear all that has been
said, he beheld the father instructing the son in the use of firearms.
What assumptions will this man make? What conclusions will he draw?
He never was possessed of the spirit of the father, and, therefore, could
never understand it. Accordingly, there was no possibility of his correctly
assessing what the father was doing. Instead, he would have interpreted
what he saw as sure proof that the father had changed.
The onlooker would have lost no time in returning to his hunting com-
panions to announce the father's conversion. He would have told them that
THE EVER-LOVING, SAVING FATHER 333

he was now one of them-a gunman. He would have offered as proof to

his incredulous listeners, what he had seen of the father actually instructing
the boy in gun-handling. The evidence he offered was factually true, for this
is exactly what he had seen the father doing, but the conclusions drawn
from those evidences were the opposite from the truth.
Even as that father was misjudged, so God has likewise been.
At the golden calf, God gave direct instructions through Moses for the
Levites to take their swords and execute the unrepentant rebels. Men have
taken these facts and from them have drawn their own conclusions. While
the facts are correct, the conclusions drawn from them are wholly wrong.
They have declared with great satisfaction that God has become one of
them, one like them-a destroyer.
They, could not be more mistaken.
Thankfully, God has not changed. He has not become like men; He is
not a destroyer. Sin has not changed Him, neither have sinful men. When
His character and work are correctly understood, it will be seen that He did
nothing differently at the golden calf than He did when Adam and Eve
elected to go their own way.
When they made that choice, God was faced with the same options
which confronted the father when his son returned with the gun. Firstly, He
could have separated from them and left them to go their own way. How
thankful we can be that He did not do this. Very quickly they would have
perished and we would have been deprived of existence and any oppor-
tunity for salvation.
The use of force was another alternative, but this is unacceptable to God
for the only obedience He will accept is that which comes from a willing
heart. If force was the answer, then Lucifer would never have sinned in the
first case, for God would have compelled him not to.
God could have chosen to ignore the sin, to simply pretend that it did
not exist, but this could not be, for its intrusion into the universe affected too
much. It had to be dealt with. It refused to be ignored.
In His great love and mercy, God does not leave man to himself to reap
the worst consequences of what he has sown. To whatever extent man will
accept it, God provides him with counsels and blessing so that his life is less
severe and painful.
In doing this, God makes Himself suspect of becoming participant in
man's way, of having compromised His principles, and of having changed.
What we are now striving to show from the clear evidences of God's Word,
is that the Lord does not change, compromise, or participate in the least
degree with man in his way. The illustration of the father who refused to
become a hunter, yet instructed his son in the safe use of the gun, should
greatly assist in making this principle clear. God is not a legalist. He is a very
wonderful God, and it takes deep spiritual insight on the Christian's part to
understand His character, to see how He can assist man in this way, and yet
not compromise Himself or His principles in the least.
334 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Even though He is misunderstood in doing these things, to the point

where He is charged with becoming a destroyer, God does not deviate
from principle. It is more important for Him to do the right thing than to be
understood in the doing of it. In the end He will be understood, and when
He is, the loyalty of every one of His true children will be assured forever.
At the same time, those who have chosen a life of rebellion will be con-
vinced of His righteousness and will confess it, even though it is too late for
them to be saved.
From the very beginning, God has worked this way and He will do so
to the last. Firstly, He does all in His power to save His creatures from going
into sin. Then, when they do, He works equally hard to save them from the
worst effects of what they have done. When they finally reject even this
saving effort, there is nothing more He can do to save them, and they are left
to perish.
The golden calf episode is not the easiest place in the biblical record to
see this principle. There are others where it is more clearly revealed.
Therefore it is better that they be studied first. Then a preparation will have
been made for an enlightened reassessment of God's part at the golden
calf.
The outstanding example is God's behavior before and after the
Israelites went into Babylonian captivity.
Never did a nation pursue a more provocative course toward God than
did Israel in those years of apostasy, rebellion, and idolatry between the
reigns of David and Hezekiah. After an excellent beginning in Joshua's
time, there had been the heartbreaking frustrations of Israel's oscillations
from good to bad during the period of the judges, but in David's day the
kingdom had reached its pinnacle of glory. The people were basking in the
manifold blessings of the Lord, and everything was set for the most glorious
reign of righteousness yet to be witnessed in the world. Instead, the people
took the gifts of the Lord, transferred their trust from God to them, and
entered into the worst period of their history up to that point. It had cost
heaven a great deal to bring Israel to this hour of promise and opportunity,
only to see it all thrown away so despitefully, selfishly, and irresponsibly.
Men treated after this fashion will reciprocate with destructive punish-
ments. Such men, devoid of any true understanding of God's character,
expect Him to react in the same manner. From the human point of view,
God would never have been more justified if He had done so when Israel
pursued so heaven-daring and insulting a course as they did during that great
apostasy.
But the Scriptures do not reveal any such disposition developing on
God's part as the fateful years dragged on. Instead, they reveal Him in an
entirely different attitude. He is shown as a compassionate Saviour, un-
mindful of the terrible defiance and ingratitude, seeing instead the dreadful,
self-imposed plight of His people, working to deliver them from the power
THE EVER-LOVING, SAVING FATHER 335

of the Babylonians and the sufferings which would follow their overthrow.
Hear Him speaking through the prophet Jeremiah.
"Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates
to worship the Lord.
"Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and
your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.
"Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The
temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these.
"For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thor-
oughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor;
"If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed
not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:
"Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to
your fathers, for ever and ever." Jeremiah 7:2-7.
As these words were spoken, a mighty nation darkened any bright
hopes of the world's future. Babylon was rising spectacularly in power, and
nation after nation was succumbing. Israel, weakened by years of idol
worship and sin, could not hope to resist the northern tide. If God had
possessed even the slightest traces of the spirit men think He has, His
attitude would have been very different at this time. He would have
declared to Israel, "For centuries I have blessed, protected, and prospered
you, and all I get in return is insult, disobedience, disrespect, and rejection.
The might of Babylon is coming against you in the very near future. They
will savage you and you will deserve all you get and more. I wash My hands
of you and leave you to your fate."
But we do not find such an attitude on God's part. If we did then God's
love must be less than infinite. There would be a limit to it. It would go so far
and then stop, to be replaced by a spirit of revengeful reciprocation. Such is
the changing nature of man's love, but it is never the way of God's infinite
love. Nothing can change that.
Striking evidence of its unchangeable qualities is given in the history of
Israel between the reigns of David and Zedekiah. Seldom, if ever, have a
people who have received so much from God, done more to provoke Him.
They turned their backs on the sanctuary and worshipped the gods of the
heathen. Baal became their lord. They offered their beautiful children as
living sacrifices to Molech. They slaughtered each other, devoted their
bodies to every species of licentiousness and debauchery, and robbed the
poor, the widowed, and the fatherless. They did everything conceivable to
offend and drive the Lord away. Theirs is indeed a sad, terrible, and pro-
vocative record.
But what a contrast is God's behavior. In the face of it all He could
truthfully say, "For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob
are not consumed." Malachi 3:6. His relationship to them was the same at
the end of this trying experience as it had been at the beginning. It is true
336 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

that at the end they were not recipient of His blessings to the same extent as
when their relationship with Him had been so good, but that was not
because the Lord had retaliated by withdrawing those blessings. It was only
because they had shut themselves away from them.
"In the matchless gift of His Son, God has encircled the whole world
with an atmosphere of grace as real as the air which circulates around the
globe. All who choose to breathe this life-giving atmosphere will live and
grow up to the stature of men and women in Christ Jesus.
"As the flower turns to the sun, that the bright beams may aid in perfec-
ting its beauty and symmetry, so should we turn to the Sun of
Righteousness, that heaven's light may shine upon us, that our character
may be developed into the likeness of Christ." Steps to Christ, 68.
In these paragraphs, two illustrations of God's provision for man's
physical needs are referred to-the air and the sun. Irrespective of man's
behavior, these blessings are as abundant on any one day as another.
They flow with unrestricted power to all. If men choose to shut themselves
away from these life-giving agencies, then they will suffer, but the blame
can never be laid on God. So, Israel had no justification for any charge they
might level at God for cutting off the blessings to themselves. They, alone,
were responsible for putting themselves where they could not receive those
benefits.
It was for this reason that the impending invasion of the Babylonians
was possible. The Israelites had placed themselves outside the circle of
God's protection thereby preventing Him from saving them. They were
doing just what Pharaoh had done before them. As that proud ruler had
teetered on the brink of self-destruction, God had sent Moses to plead with
him to repent so that the calamities might be averted and he be saved from
receiving the just punishment for his sins.
When Israel stood under the shadow of Nebuchadnezzar's power, they
likewise were standing on the black edge of the abyss. God had not
changed. For this reason He did for the Israelites what He had done for the
Egyptians. He sent a prophet, Jeremiah, to plead with them and to assure
them that if they would only repent, they could remain in their own land
forever. They would entirely escape the terrible calamities which they fully
deserved, and which were so imminent.
God did not call on them to endure appropriate punishments or a
period of penance before they were reinstated in their land and in His
favor. This is very difficult to accept, for man's philosophy demands that if a
man sins, he pays for it. Therefore, no matter how sincerely a man may
repent, or be changed in nature, human justice requires that he endure an
appropriate punishment for his sin. Only when he has done this can he be
deemed to have "paid his debt to society."
There is a double motivation behind this human disposition. One is the
spirit of rendering evil for evil, the other is the impulse for self-protection
THE EVER-LOVING, SAVING FATHER 337

and security. Accordingly, courts of justice seek to measure an evil to the

man equal to the evil he has committed, thus demonstrating that the
human way is to render evil for evil. This satisfies the requirement for
revenge. At the same time the penalty is administered in such a way that
the public is aware of it, the example being made of the wrongdoer serving
as a warning deterrent to other would-be offenders. By this means the hope is
entertained that security will be guaranteed.
But this is not God's order. He does not mete out evil for evil. He
returns good instead. Though this is the truth, it is exceedingly difficult for
earthlings to grasp. So deeply ingrained is the concept of meeting evil with
evil, that it cannot be understood how God can operate on opposite
principles.
Yet the case under study here verifies that this is His way. To prove
otherwise will necessitate finding Scriptures which record God's demands
that they endure a series of punishments before they can regain His favor.
But such references are not to be found. The only chastisements they
would suffer were those they had brought upon themselves, but from
which God had worked to save them.
If any doubt this beautiful attribute of God, let him study the story of the
prodigal son which is expressly designed to teach this truth. In this parable,
both the sons exhibited the same belief that appropriate punishments must
be endured before there could be a restoration. The erring son asked for it
and the other demanded it. The father, who directly represents God's
behavior, would not hear of it. All he required was true repentance.
When the prodigal returned to his father, he asked only a place as the
least of the servants. This, he felt, would be a humiliation so great as to be a
punishment befitting his case. He was sure he was asking for his just
desserts.
The elder brother was incensed when he heard of the complete restora-
tion of the sinner to the place from which he had gone. He thought of the
prodigal's wasteful expenditure of health, money, time, and the father's
reputation. He did not mind the repentance and the return, but he did ob-
ject to the reinstatement. If the younger brother had been compelled to live in
the servants' quarters and then scrub the floors for a year or two before
being slowly elevated to the place of a son, he would have been satisfied,
but for him to come back, to receive a royal welcome, and to be accorded
the same place as he had left, without being sentenced to an appropriate
punishment, was too much for his human morality to accept.
The father accepted that boy back into the household as if he had never
sinned. Exactly so, God receives the sinner back and accepts him as though
he had never sinned. "If you give yourself to Him, and accept Him as your
Saviour, then, sinful as your life may have been, for His sake you are
accounted righteous. Christ's character stands in place of your character,
and you are accepted before God just as if you had not sinned. " Steps to
Christ, 62.
338 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ

Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8: 1.
When the full beauty of that Scripture opens to the mind, it will be seen
that it, too, is saying that when the sinner repents, the Lord really does treat
him as though he had never sinned at all.
This is the truth expressed through Jeremiah to Israel when the Lord
said that if they would repent, they would stay in their own land forever. In
other words, He would treat them as though they had never sinned. No
clearer view could be given of the unchanging nature of God. His blessings
never cease to flow toward man; His attitude is always the same. When
men turn away from Him, they place themselves out of touch with those
blessings, but the moment they return, then they find themselves back in
the same position they were in when they left.
In the great, original rebellion this truth is revealed with clarity and
force. Lucifer had served God with unfailing devotion for what must have
been a long period of time. Throughout, he received the fullness of God's
blessings and the joy of fellowship. Eventually, he lost his confidence in
God and consequently entered into rebellion against Him. If he had gone
no further it would have been bad enough, but he added greater offence by
enlisting as many as possible in the same spirit of disaffection. A threat was
thus directed against the entire kingdom. When this happens in an earthly
dominion, the monarch speedily deals with the offender, making such an
example of him as to effectively deter others from a like course.
But the ways of men are not God's ways. Therefore, no greater mistake
can be made than to expect God to employ the same measures to deal with
a given situation. Consequently, God did not relate Himself to Lucifer by
making an example of him, by administering disciplinary actions, or by
changing in His relationship toward him in any way. Instead, all the loving
agencies of heaven were put in motion to plead with him not to persist in a
course which could only propel him into deadly ruin. "But the warning,
given in infinite love and mercy, only aroused a spirit of resistance."
Patriarchs and Prophets, 36.
God did not even demote the covering cherub. He did not take this
type of action, no matter how far the bright one departed from Him. The
initial vacating of his position and later of heaven itself, was Lucifer's own
action. It was never the work of God. The confinnation of this can be
obtained by reading through the chapter from which the above statement is
taken.
In a loving effort to save both Lucifer and the angels who were coming
under his influence, "The King of the universe summoned the heavenly
hosts before Him, that in their presence He might set forth the true position
of His Son, and show the relation He sustained to all created beings." ibid.
That was a marvellous sennon on the divine order and organization in
which was revealed the love of God toward every one of His creatures.
THE EVER-LOVING, SAVING FATHER 339

They were brought to see that the position occupied by Christ was one of
great personal sacrifice, made for their good from a heart warmed by in-
finite love and wisdom.
Lucifer came close to sharing the adulation of the other angels but the
strange, fierce conflict raged within him until self and pride obtained the
mastery. It was then that he left his place in the throne room of God. God
did not dismiss him and require his departure. Lucifer took himself away as
it is written, "Leaving his place in the immediate presence of the Father,
Lucifer went forth to diffuse the spirit of discontent among the angels."
ibid. 37.
Now the rebellion had really started, the corruption was solidly setting
in and the endangering of God's kingdom was well under way. This was no
secret to God. He knew the very thoughts in Lucifer's mind, how he was
now totally committed to his course, and that he would go on and on to per-
dition. The time had surely come for positive preventative action such as
the extermination, or, at least, expulsion of the rebel. After all, it is sound
policy to throw out the rotten apple to prevent corruption of the remainder.
But God did not do this. It would have been a denial of the principle that
He had given complete freedom to serve or not to serve Him. Therefore,
He would not take any action requiring force. He would use only the
outreach of saving love to draw His much-loved creature back from
destruction.
"A compassionate Creator, in yearning pity for Lucifer and his
followers, was seeking to draw them back from the abyss of ruin into which
they were about to plunge." ibid., 39. The result of this was that he came
close to the point of yielding and coming back to God. Quite a time had
elapsed and he had done a tremendous amount of damage in God's
kingdom. From the human point of view he deserved a great deal of pun-
ishment, but, "Though he had left his position as covering cherub, yet if he
had been willing to return to God, acknowledging the Creator's wisdom, and
satisfied to fill the place appointed him in God's great plan, he would
have been reinstated in his office." ibid.
In other words, he would have been accepted before God as though he
had neuer sinned. He would have gone back to his place in God's presence
and would have continued there as if he had neuer left it. Lucifer was not
required to suffer any punishments, endure penance, or pass through a
period of probation before being readmitted to his place. He was not even
called upon to accept a lowly position from which he could work his way
back to the top.
Therefore, when Christ revealed His Father in the parable of the return-
ing prodigal, He was not simply telling what the Father would do to the
repentant. He was confirming what He had always done. What Jesus told
of the father's attitude toward the prodigal son is exactly how God related
Himself to Lucifer. The only difference is that the prodigal son was repen-
tant; Lucifer was not.
340 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The Bible requires two or three witnesses to confirm any truth as it is

written, " ... in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be
established." Matthew 18: 16. Here are the three needed witnesses to con-
firm this truth about God's character. The case of Lucifer, the experience of
the Israelites as they faced Babylonian oppression, and the parable of the
prodigal son all confirm that God does not administer punishments to sin-
ners but seeks to save them from the chastisements which they are about to
inflict upon themselves. If they will only repent and return to the circle of
His blessings, then they will be accepted back as if they had never sinned.
But those who do not really believe that God's love is infinite and that
He never changes by so much as a hair's breadth, will argue that there was
a limit to His patience and when that was exhausted with Lucifer, He
turned to active warfare to run him out of heaven. Their proof text is
Revelation 12:7-9.
"And there was war in heaven: Michael and His angels fought against
the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
"And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil,
and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the
earth, and his angels were cast out with him."
To millions, these words have pictured an intense physical struggle be-
tween the forces loyal to heaven and the rebels. It has been seen as a con-
flict involving the use of physical power versus physical power. Great artists
have portrayed Christ at the head of hordes of shining angels standing with
an unsheathed sword before which Lucifer is plunging downwards into the
darkness of empty space.
But this is a superficial and inaccurate view of the nature of that
struggle. It is a view consequent with the practice of seeing God's behavior
as being identical to man's. There was war in heaven, it is true, but not war
as men fight. Satan was cast out, but it was God's way of doing it, not
man's.
"God could have destroyed Satan and his sympathizers as easily as one
can cast a pebble to the earth; but He did not do this. Rebellion was not to
be overcome by force. Compelling power is found only under Satan's
government. The Lord's principles are not of this order. His authority rests
upon goodness, mercy, and love; and the presentation of these principles is
the means to be used. God's government is moral, and truth and love are
to be the prevailing power." The Desire of Ages, 759.
In that struggle, then, God did not use force. This weapon is never
found in His kingdom but only in that of Satan's. Therefore, it was by
another way that Satan was cast out of heaven, never to return. God
fought with none other than the weapons consistent with His kingdom. It is
difficult for sinful man to understand the nature of those weapons for they
are so foreign to his experience and nature.
THE EVER-LOVING, SAVING FATHER 341

The struggle in heaven was a very real one nonetheless. It was war-a
total effort on Satan's part to change the entire structure of heaven's order
and organization. In order to succeed, he needed to convert the angels'
allegiance away from God to himself. At that time the only sword Satan
could use was that of deception, against which God used only the weapon
of truth. The battle raged on over a considerable time span until the point
was reached where the devil had penetrated as far as he could. Each angel
had made his choice with sufficient numbers standing for the truth to enable
God to maintain His position as Protector of the heavenly hosts. With
God's continued presence assured, there was no hope of the proposed new
order being established. The old and proven order would remain. But
Satan's deformation had brought him into such disharmony with those
principles that he found it impossible to remain where they continued to
operate. To him, heaven had become a place that was foreign, unaccep-
table, and unendurable, and he could not leave it quickly enough.
It was the truth of God which drove him out, not the use of any kind of
physical force. The same reason for Satan's leaving heaven is the reason
why the wicked would never be happy if they were to return there. They
would not be able to tolerate the place and would want to leave it as soon as
possible. They would be driven out by their sheer unfitness to remain.
"Could those whose lives have been spent in rebellion against God be
suddenly transported to heaven, and witness the high, the holy state of
perfection that ever exists there,---every soul filled with love, every counte-
nance beaming with joy, enrapturing music in melodious strains rising
in honor of God and the Lamb, and ceaseless streams of light flowing
upon the redeemed from the face of Him who sitteth upon the throne.-
could those whose hearts are filled with hatred of God, of truth and
holiness, mingle with the heavenly throng and join their songs of praise?
Could they endure the glory of God and the Lamb? No, no; years of
probation were granted them, that they might form characters for
heaven; but they have never trained the mind to love purity; they have
never learned the language of heaven, and now it is too late. A life of
rebellion against God has unfitted them for heaven. Its purity, holiness, and
peace would be torture to them; the glory of God would be a consuming
fire. They would long to flee from that holy place. They would welcome
destruction, that they might be hidden from the face of Him who died to
redeem them. The destiny of the wicked is fixed by their own choice. Their
exclusion from heaven is voluntary with themselves, and just and merciful
on the part of God." The Great Controversy, 542, 543.
Confirmation of this is already available. The worldly and ungodly
today find that the society of true Christians engaged in devoted worship of
God is intolerable to them and they desire only to leave such society. They
are happier elsewhere. In like manner, Satan's rejection of the ways and
principles of God in exchange for other pursuits so worked changes in him
342 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

that he could no longer suffer its holy atmosphere. Being there was such
torture to his deranged nature that he had to go and go he did. As
Pharaoh's heart was hardened by his continual resistance of God's efforts to
save him, so Lucifer's whole being was warped by his fighting off God's
loving efforts to draw him and his followers back from the abyss into which
their steps were surely taking them. This is how Satan was driven from
heaven, not by God directly driving him out, but by His efforts to save him.
There is much more which could be written on Satan's expulsion from
Paradise. Many more proofs could be supplied from Scripture to enlarge
the point made here, but for now we will pass on and leave further discus-
sion of this until we come to the falling of the seven last plagues and the
Battle of Armageddon. That final struggle is simply the culmination of the
war which began in heaven and has continued ever since. God and Satan
will still be using the same weapons in the last confrontation as they did at
the first and the outcome will be the same. Therefore, a clear understanding
of what is to happen then will illuminate what took place in the past.
From God's recorded behavior toward Lucifer and apostate Israel and as
further intimated in the parable of the prodigal son, it is obvious that
God's behavior toward man is vastly different from man's behavior
toward his fellowman.
With man there must always be the exacting of a penalty; the enduring of
a punishment no matter how penitent and changed the criminal may
become. Men are not satisfied until the malefactor has "paid his debt to
society."
But if Lucifer had repented of his evil course he would have been
reinstated in his office as if he had never sinned.
Likewise, if Israel had repented and turned away from idol worship and
all the licentiousness and evil which goes with it, they would have been
delivered from the Assyrians and the Babylonians as if they had never
sinned. The certainty of this is contained in the Word of God when He told
them through Jeremiah, already quoted in this chapter, that this is the way
it would be.
That these were not mere words with God is proven by the fact that
when He was given the opportunity to carry them out He surely did so. The
mighty Sennacherib marched victoriously against the whole idol-
worshipping world. The ten tribes of Israel fell before him and he intended
to add Judah as a further prize to his conquests. But there was a king on the
throne who believed God. Hezekiah came to power after a succession of
very wicked and idolatrous rulers. The land had been filled with images and
the sanctuary was in a sorry state.
Over the whole land loomed the dark shadow of Assyrian global con-
quest demanding that instant action be taken to meet the threat. Many a
man would have concentrated on the formation of military preparedness by
gathering, equipping, and training the largest army possible in the shortest
THE EVER-LOVING, SAVING FATHER 343

time. The restoration of the sanctuary and the obliteration of the images
could wait till a later date.
But not this king. Firstly he set to work to cleanse and restore the sanc-
tuary and its services. With his whole heart he turned to the Lord and put
his trust there. He claimed the promise that they would be protected and
saved in their own land and they were. God dismissed the Assyrian threat
with such totality that it never assailed Judah again. Study the story with
care and see how the Lord did not demand that they pay their debt to Him.
He did not require a long period of proving before He would act on their
behalf. As soon as they repented, He stepped back into His rightful place as
their Protector and Saviour and delivered them as if they had never sinned.
Had Zedekiah been a king of Hezekiah's character, then Nebuchadnez-
zar would never have had any hope of overcoming the Israelites. But,
despite the fact that the King of Heaven sent His prophet Jeremiah to him
with the assurance that if he would repent, then the Lord would work for
him as if he had never sinned at all, and despite the fact that the history of
Judah's deliverance from Sennacherib proved this, the king elected to re-
ject God's counsels and go his own way, thus frustrating any hope of God
doing what His loving heart longed to do, namely, to save them from the
cruel oppressor.
What the Lord would have done for Lucifer and Zedekiah, He did do
for good king Hezekiah and for countless others who have believed the
Lord. These experiences are the proof that the portrayal of God rendered
in the parable of the prodigal son is the truth. Satan is desperate in his fear
that men will become acquainted with such a God, for he knows they will
then have confidence to come to Him for deliverance from his machina-
tions. Therefore, he presents God as a being no different from sinful
men-severe, exacting, and determined that the full measure of punish-
ment for sin be borne before mercy can be extended. Then the devil leads
the soul into sin so terrible that the victim knows he can never serve out the
sentence and is thus discouraged from ever seeking God.
Let God's wonderful willingness to forgive and restore Israel in the face
of their sad and desperate apostasy, be to every man and woman an inspir-
ing encouragement to come back to the God of mercy and light.
God says to the sinner, "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy trans-
gressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins." Isaiah 44:22.
"I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
Jeremiah 31:34.
"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts:
and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to
our God, for He will abundantly pardon." Isaiah 55: 7.
"In those days, and in that time, saith, the Lord, the iniquity of Israel
shall be sought for, and there shall be none: and the sins of Judah, and they
shall not be found." Jeremiah 50:20.
344 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"What assurance here, of God's willingness to receive the repenting sin-

ner! Have you, reader, chosen your own way? Have you wandered far
from God? Have you sought to feast upon the fruits of transgression, only
to find them tum to ashes upon your lips? Now that voice which has long
been speaking to your heart but to which you would not listen comes to you
distinct and clear, 'Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest; because it is
polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.' Micah 2: 10.
Return to your Father's house. He invites you, saying, 'Return unto Me; for I
have redeemed thee.' Isaiah 44:22.
"Do not listen to the enemy's suggestion to stay away from Christ until
you have made yourself better; until you are good enough to come to God.
If you wait until then, you will never come. When Satan points to your filthy
garments, repeat the promise of Jesus, 'Him that cometh to Me I will in no
wise cast out.' John 6:37. Tell the enemy that the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses from all sin. Make the prayer of David your own, 'Purge me with
hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."
Psalm 51:7.
"Arise and go to your Father. He will meet you a great way off. If you
take even one step toward Him in repentance, He will hasten to enfold you
in His arms of infinite love. His ear is open to the cry of the contrite soul.
The very first reaching out of the heart after God is known to Him. Never a
prayer is offered, however faltering, never a tear is shed, however secret,
never a sincere desire after God is cherished, however feeble, but the Spirit
of God goes forth to meet it. Even before the prayer is uttered or the yearn-
ing of the heart made known, grace from Christ goes forth to meet the
grace that is working upon the human soul." Christ's Object Lessons, 205,
206.
Those who rejoice in deliverance from the old Satan-inspired concepts
of God will know Him as He is presented in the parable of the prodigal son.
They will have the faith and courage to bring their sins for pardon and
cleansing and to thus stand before Him as if they had never sinned. These
are they in whom true love for God will be found, and from whom a stream
of dedicated service will flow. Such will inhabit the universe throughout
eternity to experience the fullness of eternal joys and pleasures. There is
small wonder then that heaven will be a place of perfect bliss and security.
 345

CHAPTER THIR1Y-ONE

God Goes The Second Mile

We are still seeking Bible evidence to throw sufficient light on the inci-
dent at the golden calf, to enable us to clearly see that God did not violate
one principle of His character there. Because, for so long we have viewed
this in the wrong light, and because we are so prone to interpret God's
ways as being the same as men's, it is necessary to examine a lot of
evidence to entirely clarify the point. When the light of the Word of God
shines with force and clarity on the situation, it will be seen that not only
was God still acting as a Saviour at the golden calf slaughter, but that He
has also been seriously misunderstood in that role. That which was the
revelation of Him as the Saviour, has been interpreted as the manifestation
of Him as a destroyer or executioner.
The truth being developed here is that Israel elected to reject God's way
when they took up the sword. Not only had the Lord not given this weapon
to them, but He had done all in His power short of direct compulsion to
prevent them from taking it up. Despite those loving efforts to save them
from that terrible fate, they had chosen it, and the Lord could only re-
spect that choice. He never makes the choice of how we shall act. He warns
and teaches us, but the choice remains ours. There is no compulsion in
God's relation to His creatures.
Once they had made that choice, then by it they had instituted their
way in place of God's way. It is impossible for both the way of God and of
man to operate within a society at the same time. It can be only one or the
other, never both. So, when they elected to institute their way in place of
God's, then God's methods could not be used in dealing with the rebellion
at Sinai. Therefore, what happened at Mt. Sinai was not after the order of
God. It was the application of the procedures which Israel had instituted by
adding the sword to their way of life. The only part God filled was to apply
some restraint and guidance to their use of it to minimize its evil effects.
What complicates the problem, making it difficult for many to under-
stand God's behavior, is that Israel was still reckoned to be His people.
Therefore, it is reasoned, if God was still their leader and, from that posi-
tion, instructed them to execute the rebellious, then He was responsible for
the slaughter. If this is correct reasoning, then it can only be concluded that
this was the divinely instituted solution to the problem. Rebellion, there-
fore, was to be overcome by force.
Such reasoning will satisfy the superficial thinker to whom serious,
clashing contradictions in the Bible can be rationalized away, but it will not
satisfy the truly spiritual student who knows that there can be no real con-
tradictions therein. He will search with faith-filled, intensive dedication until
the problem is resolved according to Bible principles.
346 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Firstly, the fact that the Israelites were God's people only to whatever
extent He was permitted by them to be their Sovereign, is overlooked. This
is the sad tragedy of human history. Men and movements are prepared to
go just so far with God, but not all the way. So it was with Israel. While in
large areas they retained God as their leader, followed His ways and served
Him fully, there were others where they took His work to themselves. For
instance, they still followed the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night;
faithfully respected the Sabbath; were custodians of His law; and continued
the services of the sanctuary according to the divine blueprint.
But, by taking up the sword, they had deprived the Lord of His position
as their defender and protector from enemies within and without. While it is
true that they expected God to assist them in this work, it does not alter the
fact that they were doing it in His stead and according to their own human
principles. Therefore, their actions as such, were not the revelation of
God's character but of their own. It was the manifestation of the outworking
of such wicked unbelief as led them to have more confidence in their own
power to protect themselves than in God's.
Yet, God did something in this domain where they had taken the work
to themselves. Inasmuch as His every act is a revelation of His character,
God revealed Himself by what He did in directing the Levites to cut down
the rebels. Unfortunately, the majority have seen His actions in a very
different light from reality and consequently have retained an erroneous
concept of His character.
It must be recognized that God is a Saviour. He had worked intensely
to save them from taking the sword in the first place, but when they
despitefully did so, then the best He could do was to give counsels designed
to save them from the worst consequences of their choice. They were not
compelled to obey those counsels, but they were well-advised to do so if
they wished to save themselves from terrible evils. It is interesting to note
the perversity of humanity which will refuse to obey God in some things
and yet implicitly follow His guidance in others. Thus, while Israel did not
have the faith to leave their protection to God, they were prepared to follow
to the letter His directions in dealing with crime in the camp.
It is doubtful if a better illustration of this exists, than can be found in the
relationship of God to the Israelites when they went into captivity. The
evidence presented in the previous chapter shows that right up until Israel
was carried into Babylon, the Lord did His best to save them from it. He
sent messages of warning and entreaty. He assured them that if they would
only repent, then, even at the last moment, they would be delivered as if
they had never sinned and would be kept safely and prosperously in their
own land. He did not show the least trace of vindictiveness or desire to
retaliate. He did not demand that they serve out a sentence of punishment
for their evil deeds.
GOD GOES THE SECOND MILE 347

But they would neither heed nor repent. Because they would not, the
Lord could not save them from that captivity. So they became captives.
Their going into captivity effectively terminated God's efforts to save them
from it. But this did not mean that the Lord ceased to act as a Saviour to
them. Certainly He could no longer act the role of a Saviour to save them
from going into captivity, for that possibility was past. They were now cap-
tives. But He could save them from the worst effects of that which they had
chosen, and this is what He did. He acted exactly as the father did in the
story told in an earlier chapter. When he could not save his son from taking
the gun, he offered him instruction designed to save both the lad and the
creatures he would hunt, from the worst effects of that choice.
The record of God's doing this is beautifully recorded in the Scriptures.
Not only is He revealed there as an unchanging and ever-loving Saviour,
but, by contrast, the devil is shown in his work of destroying. The evil one
had worked incessantly to deliver Israel into captivity and had succeeded.
Then, when he got them there, he worked with equal frenzy to make that
captivity as destructive to their physical and spiritual comfort and welfare as
possible.
Thus we find God and Satan working in exactly opposite roles as in this
statement, we have been informed that they do.
"The Saviour in His miracles revealed the power that is continually at
work in man's behalf, to sustain and to heal him. Through the agencies of
nature, God is working, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, to
keep us alive, to build up and restore us. When any part of the body sus-
tains injury, a healing process is at once begun; nature's agencies are set at
work to restore soundness. But the power working through these agencies
is the power of God. All life-giving power is from Him. When one recovers
from disease, it is God who restores him.
"Sickness, suffering, and death are work of an antagonistic power.
Satan is the destroyer; God is the restorer." The Ministry of Healing, 112,
113.
This truth is clearly portrayed in the inspired record of the way in which
Satan and God related themselves to the people who had been carried cap-
tive into Babylon.
"Zedekiah at the beginning of his reign was trusted fully by the king of
Babylon and had as a tried counselor the prophet Jeremiah. By pursuing
an honorable course toward the Babylonians and by paying heed to the
messages from the Lord through Jeremiah, he could have kept the respect
of many in high authority and have had opportunity to communicate to
them a knowledge of the true God. Thus the captive exiles already in
Babylon would have been placed on vantage ground and granted many
liberties; the name of God would have been honored far and wide; and
those that remained in the land of Judah would have been spared the ter-
rible calamities that finally came upon them.
348 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

"Through Jeremiah, Zedekiah and all Judah, including those taken to

Babylon, were counseled to submit quietly to the temporary rule of their
conquerors. It was especially important that those in captivity should seek
the peace of the land into which they had been carried. This, however, was
contrary to the inclination of the human heart; and Satan, taking advantage
of the circumstances, caused false prophets to arise among the people,
both in Jerusalem and in Babylon, who declared that the yoke of bondage
would soon be broken and the former prestige of the nation restored.
"The heeding of such flattering prophecies would have led to fatal
moves on the part of the king and the exiles, and would have frustrated the
merciful designs of God in their behalf. Lest an insurrection be incited and
great suffering ensue, the Lord commanded Jeremiah to meet the crisis
without delay, by warning the king of Judah of the sure consequence of
rebellion. The captives also were admonished, by written communications,
not to be deluded into believing their deliverance near. 'Let not your
prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you,' he
urged. Jeremiah 29:8. In this connection mention was made of the Lord's
purpose to restore Israel at the close of the seventy years of captivity
foretold by His messengers.
"With what tender compassion did God inform His captive people of
His plans for Israel! He knew that should they be persuaded by false
prophets to look for a speedy deliverance, their position in Babylon would
be made very difficult. Any demonstration or insurrection on their part
would awaken the vigilance and severity of the Chaldean authorities and
would lead to a further restriction of their liberties. Suffering and disaster
would result. He desired them to submit quietly to their fate and make their
servitude as pleasant as possible; and His counsel to them was: 'Build ye
houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of
them; ... and seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be
carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it: for in the peace
thereof shall ye have peace.' Verses 5-7." Prophets and Kings, 440-442.
How clearly and wonderfully God's behavior is revealed in this story,
in contrast to Satan's. By their stubborn rejection of God's efforts to save
them from captivity, the Israelites had brought themselves into subjection to
Babylon. Satan was delighted, for this was just what he desired. But it was
not all he determined to bring upon them. He planned their total subjuga-
tion and extermination so that there would be no possibility of the ap-
pearance of the royal seed, Jesus Christ.
He inspired false prophets to utter predictions which would cause a
spirit of unrest, rebellion, and insurrection to be fostered among the cap-
tives. This could only madden the king of Babylon and particularly so as he
had extended mercies to those under his now enlarged dominion. He
would naturally expect a response of gratitude from those whom he had
treated so well, but when they returned only conspiracy, rebellion, and
GOD GOES THE SECOND MILE 349

strife in exchange for the good things he had afforded them, he was roused
to anger. He was left with no choice-but to deal very harshly with them.
Satan was greatly assisted in his planning by the natural inclination of
the human heart. They wanted their freedom back. Foolishness had taken
the place of wisdom, and rashness the place of discretion. In the end,
despite God's loving efforts to save them from going into still deeper
troubles, the devil did succeed with the result that terrible calamities befell
them at the hands of the Babylonians.
So, while Satan was working to make their captivity as unpleasant and
terrible as possible, the Lord sent Jeremiah with messages to the people
which, if heeded, would make their enforced stay in that foreign land "as
pleasant as possible." He also specifically warned them against taking heed
of the messages from these professed prophets of the Lord. Thus, while
Satan was working to effect the destruction of the deserving, the Lord was
striving to deliver them.
Hardly a more beautiful revelation of God's character can be given than
this. Here was a people who for centuries had done everything possible to
provoke God into bitter retaliation. Between the death of David and the
Babylonian captivity almost four hundred years had passed by. They were
years marked with the very worst in rebellious apostasy. The sanctuary
had been desecrated, the daily taken away, the abomination of desolation
set up, and the altars of Baal had been erected throughout the land. They
had offered cakes to the queen of heaven, the pagan goddess; they had
sacrificed their children in the hideous ceremony where babies were burned
alive; they had resorted to witchcraft, wizards, and all kinds of spiritualism;
they had taken every gift which the Lord had given them and turned it to
abuse and misuse; they had been a depraved, insolent, and rebellious
people who had turned from the God who had called and blessed them, to
make a mockery of His word.
If ever a being was justified in taking vengeance on a people, God was.
If He had risen up in terrible anger and destroyed them all, none would
have blamed Him or been surprised at His doing it. The least we would
expect Him to do would be to withdraw all further help so they would suffer
as much as possible and thereby at last, hopefully learn their lesson.
But for God to have taken this course would have necessitated His
changing from a being of infinite love to one with a spirit of revenge. This is
not the God we serve. "For I am the Lord, I change not," He testifies of
Himself. " ... therefore" He continued, "ye sons of Jacob are not
consumed." Malachi 3:6. One thing must be abundantly clear from this
story and it is that had the Lord changed in the least degree in His attitude
and actions toward those deserving people, then they would most certainly
have been consumed.
But there was no change.
Before they went into captivity, there was the Lord, the Saviour, doing
350 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

all in His power to convince them of the folly of their course and seeking to
draw them back from the pit into which they were sinking.
Then, when despite His wonderful efforts for them, they did descend
into that pit, He did not stop being the Saviour. True, He could no longer
save them from going into the pit, for they had now gone in, but He could
give them counsel that would save them while in that pit from the worst
conditions which could befall them. This He now worked to do.
Thus the revelation of God's works in this story is the revelation of an
unchanging God who, at every step of the way, acted out only one
role-that of the Saviour. The actual nature of the saving work done
differed according to necessity, but the spirit and principle behind it were
unchanging.
Once this view of God is grasped and understood, then the key has
been obtained which will perfectly explain the true nature of the command
to the Levites to go and destroy all those who worshipped at the golden
calf.
However, before the application is fully made to the situation back
there, let this story be developed a little further. Even though the Lord's
behavior toward apostate Israel is sufficient evidence to make the point
that God acts out only the role of a Saviour, yet even more evidence is pro-
vided. This time, though in the same story, it concerns other people outside
the family of Israel. They were the people of Edom, Moab, Tyre, and other
nations.
Of all the people in the ancient world, none had been more committed
to an aggressive and hostile war against God and His cause than these peo-
ple. The Edomites were descendants of Esau, the Moabites of Lot, but
leading encyclopedias such as The Brittanica, are unable to give any origin
to the people of Tyre. However in Ezekiel 28, the wickedness of the king of
Tyre was so great that he was spoken of as being the personification and
direct instrument of the devil, so much so that no distinction is made be-
tween them.
While we may be able to accept the idea that God could retain some
favor toward the Jew, yet we cannot think of any such thing being still
available for the Moabites, Edomites, and the people of Tyre. We would
not expect that God would act towards them as a Saviour too. Yet the Lord
made no distinction between them and the Israelites. When they too were
in great danger because of their willingness to listen to the voice of Satan
and their own wretched human desires, God sent them the same message
He had given to His own people. Through Jeremiah He warned them not
to resist the king of Babylon, for their cause was hopeless, but to be discreet
and co-operative so that they might be saved undue suffering and further
loss.
God did not go so far as to send Jeremiah to those nations, for they had
long since made it clear that neither God nor His servants were welcome
GOD GOES THE SECOND MILE 351

among them. But when ambassadors from those lands visited the king of
Judah to discuss the possibility of combined revolt against Nebuchadnezzar,
they then placed themselves where the Lord could give them a message.
God seized the opportunity to stretch out a hand to save them.
"From the first, Jeremiah had followed a consistent course in counsel-
ing submission to the Babylonians. This counsel was given not only to
Judah, but to many of the surrounding nations. In the earlier portion of
Zedekiah's reign, ambassadors from the rulers of Edom, Moab, Tyre, and
other nations visited the king of Judah to learn whether in his judgment the
time was opportune for a united revolt and whether he would join them in
battling against the king of Babylon. While these ambassadors were
awaiting a response, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, 'Make
thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck, and send them to the
king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites,
and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the
messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah.'
Jeremiah 27:2, 3.
"Jeremiah was commanded to instruct the ambassadors to inform their
rulers that God had given them all into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the
king of Babylon, and that they were to 'serve him, and his son, and his
son's son, until the very time of his land come.' Verse 7.
'The ambassadors were further instructed to declare to their rulers that
if they refused to serve the Babylonian king they should be punished 'with
the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence' till they were con-
sumed. Especially were they to turn from the teaching of false prophets
who might counsel otherwise. 'Hearken not ye to your prophets,' the Lord
declared, 'nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your en-
chanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not
serve the king of Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you
far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish.
But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon,
and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the Lord;
and they shall till it, and dwell therein.' Verses 8-11. The lightest punish-
ment that a merciful God could inflict upon so rebellious a people was
submission to the rule of Babylon, but if they warred against this decree of
servitude they were to feel the full rigor of His chastisement.
"The amazement of the assembled council of nations knew no bounds
when Jeremiah, carrying the yoke of subjection about his neck, made
known to them the will of God.
"Against determined opposition Jeremiah stood firmly for the policy of
submission." Prophets and Kings, 442-444.
Here is the revelation of God the Sauiour at work. This story shows
with great clarity the contrast between Satan's work as the destroyer and
God's work as the restorer. It is a thing of beauty and wonder that the Lord
352 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

would do this for Israel, but an even greater wonder that He would do it for
the people of Tyre, Edom, and Moab.
Here it is shown that the behavior of God and Christ is indeed iden-
tical. Jesus both taught and lived the principle of loving your enemies, go-
ing the second mile and of doing good forever to those who have done evil
to you. God had gone the first mile by doing His very best to save them
from going into captivity. Then, when they did, in spite of His efforts for
them, He went the second mile by giving them guidance on how they could
make their captivity as pleasant and short as possible.
But their rebellious hearts were no more prepared to accept God's sav-
ing efforts when He went the second mile with them than when He was go-
ing the first. Thus they deprived God of any hope of saving them from their
own foolish selves. The disasters which befell them were not from God, but
from the natural reactions of those to whom they should have been subser-
vient. They sowed the seed and they reaped the harvest. All that happened
to them was the inevitable outworking of their own course of action. They
provided the cause and the effect was determined.
The tragedy was that men did not understand God's character. Instead
of seeing in those loving efforts a strong work of salvation springing from a
heart of infinite, unfathomable love, they saw God and Jeremiah as being
in league with the Babylonian king and openly accused them of this.
If reference is made back to the story of the father, the son, and the
huntsmen, it will be remembered that when the neighbor looked over the
fence and saw the father acting out the role of a saviour to his son and all
the wild creatures whom he would hunt, the neighbor completely mis-
understood the father's actions. He saw him as a hunter in spirit, just like the
rest of them were, instead of seeing that he had not changed one whit.
This is just the problem with God in the Old Testament. Men have con-
sistently misunderstood what He really did and see Him as doing something
entirely different. This is why He has come to be looked upon as a God of
terrible destruction.
But He is not. Back there, He behaved toward His people and others
always and only as Christ did in the New Testament. He loved His
enemies, blessed those who cursed and despitefully used Him, and went
the second mile. He was ever and only the Saviour to all. When destruction
came upon them, it was only because they had rejected His efforts to save
them, leaving no alternative. Thus God never determined their punish-
ment, and then personally exercised His power to administer it.
Now that this principle of God's workings has been seen in the ex-
perience of Jeremiah with the last king of Judah and the ambassadors of
the other nations, there should be no further problem in seeing what the
Lord really did back in the days of the golden calf.
In that situation God went the second mile as surely as He did in Israel's
captivity to Babylon. But whereas the children of Israel and the surrounding
GOD GOES TiiE SECOND MILE 353

nations would not accept God's counsel during the second mile, the Isra-
elites at Mount Sinai did. While neither heeded the efforts God expended
during the first mile, the Levites did obey the second mile counsels, while
Zedekiah and his contemporaries would not.
As has already been shown, God's efforts during the first mile back in
Moses' day were directed at saving them from taking the sword. By
upholding the illustrious witness of Jacob's deliverance, God's rebuke to
Moses when he set out to deliver them by the sword, the care not to instruct
the Egyptians to provide them with weapons, and then the marvellous
deliverance at the Red Sea, the Lord told them as plainly as it could ever be
told, that they not only should not take the sword, but that they would
never need it while they walked in His ways.
While He could teach the truth of His way both by declaration and
demonstration, He would not make the choice for them, neither would He
deprive them of the opportunity to make it. Thus it was that on the farther
shore of the Red Sea they saw displayed the armor-clad bodies of the
Egyptians. School was ended for the moment and the examination had
begun. How would they choose? Would the Lord's saving efforts indeed
prove the effective means of keeping them from taking up the sword?
We could well wish that this had been so, but the sad record of history is
that they took up the sword. There is no direct statement to say that they
did it right there on the shores of the Red Sea, but there are statements
which prove that just before then they were still an unarmed people, while
shortly after that we find them locked in physical combat with the
Amalekites, with sword clashing against sword and spear against spear.
The exact point of time is not the most important item in this discussion.
The vital factor is that after all God's efforts to save them from taking the
weapons of destruction, they did choose to take them. When they did that,
they chose to institute man's way in place of God's. This fact is critical in
understanding God's character in this situation.
God did not institute an alternative to His first and best procedure. He
does not operate after this fashion, for His way is so perfect that it re-
quires no provisions for failure. In fact, to supply any secondary system would
be to admit that the first was faulty and therefore needed adjusting.
Neither God nor His principles have ever failed or appeared in any way
defective. The problem lies only in the refusal of some of His creatures to
abide by them. Whenever this happens, they replace His perfect codes
with their destructive ones. Therefore, on every occasion when the sword
was used in Israel, it was man acting in man's way, not the carrying out of an
alternative which God was obliged to accept because His way of perfection
had failed. Man was the destroyer. God had not compromised in the least.
With undeviating consistency, He had continued His eternal role of being
the Saviour.
 But what makes God appear to have changed is the misunderstanding
of His action in going the second mile, the further work of salvation. That
which in actuality was God's continued effort to save, is viewed all too often
as His turning into a destroyer. No greater misconstruction of God's acts
could be imagined.
When Israel took the sword, the Lord was left with three alternative
courses of action. He could simply have said that He would walk with them
no more. They were now on their own and what happened to them was
entirely their own fault. This was the same course open to Him in the
Garden of Eden. There, He could have argued that He had given them
everything, including adequate warnings of the cost of disobedience. Hav-
ing shown their ingratitude, they were undeserving of any further help from
Him so He would have been entirely justified if He had left them to their
fate. This is how He could have chosen to act.
Anyone who cares to reflect on the consequences to the human family
of God's having made that choice, can breathe a deep sigh of relief that He
did not choose that way. Very speedily, the human family would have
passed out of existence. There would have been no salvation for any of us.
Likewise, if the Lord had chosen this when Israel took the sword, how
speedily that nation would have been destroyed. Firstly, they would have
fought with their weapons among themselves. Secondly, they were no
match for the highly trained and experienced Canaanites who, as Satan's
allies, longed for nothing so much as to remove Israel from the face of the
earth. For God to have walked out on the Israelites would have committed
them to certain death.
If the Israelites had elected to completely go their own way, then God
would have had no choice but to leave them to themselves with all the con-
sequences. But in many things they were still prepared to go God's way.
They accepted the Sabbath institution, the sanctuary service, the general
leadership of God, the provision of their daily bread, and even His counsels
on how to best use their swords.
Therefore, in the very nature of His character, God could not leave
them because they had departed from His ways in one thing or even in a
number of things. He would stay with them, as with any man, while there
was still some place where He could bless and heal them. He will never
leave nor forsake us. It is the human who leaves and forsakes God. God
separated from humanity, is only such because humanity has gone away
from Him, never He from them.
The second option was for God to simply ignore the people's sin; to
pretend that it had not happened. But He certainly could not do this. Sin
demands attention. It imposes a situation which cannot be left unattended.
To ignore sin is to condone it, or excuse it, or to admit that there is no
answer to it. It is to suggest that if you pretend it is not there, the wretched
nightmare will simply fade away.
GOD GOES THE SECOND MILE 355

This leaves the third possibility. God would remain with His people to
whatever extent they would have Him in their midst. He would lead, pro-
tect, forgive, bless, and teach them. In those areas where they had chosen
their own way He would offer them counsels which, if received and
obeyed, would save them from the worst effects of what they had chosen.
In the meantime, they might be led to see the error of choosing their own
course of action and return entirely to the Lord's way.
This is what God did in the incident of the golden calf and in all the con-
quests and their attendant slaughters in the land of Canaan. What they did
in all this was their doing not His. They had established their own codes and
God had no choice but to let them have it thus. But He could and did
counsel them on how they could operate in their own way without it being
the worst of that way. This was love. This was returning good for evil. This
is going the second mile.
356

CHAPTER THIRlY-TWO

The Consistency Of God

Having searched out the general principles which underlie God's
behavior at the golden calf incident, the time has come to look at this and
other specific incidents in detail.
One of the great characteristics which sets God apart from all others is
His utter consistency and total reliability. He is ... "The Father of lights,
with Whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1: 17.
With such a God there can be no capriciousness, no acting from the
motivation of self-interest, no disregard of the principles involved in the
law, no seeking to justify certain means because of a desired end result.
In the history of Israel and of mankind in general, there are two dif-
ferent kinds of situations in which sin develops. One is where God alone is
in the position of leadership so that the sole responsibility of dealing with
the problem rests with Him. Should the sinners be unrepentant, then the
Lord simply leaves them to themselves to reap that which they have sown.
They then perish at the hands of whatever calamity is brooding over the
situation, be it fire, earthquake, pestilence, invaders, or plagues. Examples
of these are the flood; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; the
plagues of Egypt; the overwhelming of the Egyptians in the Red Sea; the
death of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; the attack by the serpents in the
wilderness; the death of Sennacherib's anny; the destruction of Jerusalem
in A.O. 70; the coming plagues; and the final destruction of this solar
system. None of these calamities befall the children of men until every
possible avenue of divine mercy has been exhausted and there is nothing
more that men will let God do for them.
Another situation exists when man has replaced God with himself as
the detenniner of his fate, the administrator of his own affairs, and has
established himself as the investigator, judge, and executioner of those who
sin against him. Because God has given the right of choice to His creatures,
because He will never use compulsion, He has no choice other than to let
them have their own way and manage their own institutions. However, He
knows that man, left to himself, is a very foolish and cruel administrator
who will unwisely adopt a course that brings fearful consequences. The
Lord was in a position to see this and to offer counsels, which the Bible
calls, "commands," which, if heeded, would enable man to take actions
that would save him from the worst effects of his chosen course.
Examples of these are the golden calf; the conquest of Canaan; the
wars of David and subsequent kings; the captivity in Babylon; and such
like.
Let an examination now be made of these principles in respect to the
golden calf incident. Israel had broken the law in the worst way; they had
THE CONSISTENCY OF GOD 357

made another god in place of the true God, thus separating themselves
from Him entirely. They had entered into the licentious practices of the
heathen until they had become utterly debauched and depraved.
They could not so wantonly and defiantly break God's law without sow-
ing seeds which, in this case, would bring a very speedy harvest. The
harvest would not be something the Lord imposed upon them. It would be
the simple and natural outworking of the breaking of the law.
Those who, at the base of Sinai, worshipped at the golden calf, laid
themselves open to terrible consequences. At first they joined in a unified
revelry which they thoroughly enjoyed. It gave the wild stimulation,
feverish excitement, and heady intoxication so loved by the human. But
the more intense the involvement, the greater the reaction when the feeling
was replaced by spent physical and emotional powers. Destitute of the
restraining Spirit of God yet desperately in need of Him to quiet and control
jaded nerves and ugly feelings, there was nothing to stop the outbreak of
bitter strife in the camp. It is a characteristic of the heathen that their
revelries are usually succeeded by intense conflicts among themselves.
As strife broke out, the swords would be unsheathed. One or more,
would be killed. Then the relatives of the dead would engage in a vendetta
of revenge. More would be slain, calling for still further retaliation until it
would escalate into a destructive outburst so great as to threaten to wipe out
the entire encampment. Their ever-vigilant enemies would recognize the
opportunity to launch a surprise attack on the confused mass, and the
nation would be decimated. In the meantime, as revenge was sought by this
or that person, family, or faction, they would study the most cruel and pro-
longed ways of executing those unfortunate enough to fall under their
power. The witness of history convincingly declares that the further a peo-
ple move away from God, the more cruel they are in the treatment of their
captives. On the other side, the closer they follow the Lord, the more
humane they are.
Even if they had been spared from destruction by rallying to meet a
common foe, the longer the unrepentant lived, the more deeply steeped in
rebellion they would become. They would thus in tum, spread the same
deadly poison to others so that the outgrowth of the sin at Sinai would have
been terrible indeed. In the following paragraph is outlined something of
the extent of these terrible outworkings.
"So with the apostasy at Sinai. Unless punishment had been speedily
visited upon transgression, the same results would again have been seen.
The earth would have become as corrupt as in the days of Noah. Had these
transgressors been spared, evils would have followed, greater than resulted
from sparing the life of Cain. It was the mercy of God that thousands should
suffer, to prevent the necessity of visiting judgments upon millions. In order
to save the many, He must punish the few. Furthermore, as the people had
cast off their allegiance to God, they had forfeited the divine protection,
and, deprived of their defense, the whole nation was exposed to the power
of their enemies. Had not the evil been promptly put away, they would
soon have fallen a prey to their numerous and powerful foes. It was
necessary for the good of Israel, and also as a lesson to all succeeding
generations, that crime should be promptly punished. And it was no less a
mercy to the sinners themselves that they should be cut short in their evil
course. Had their life been spared, the same spirit that led them to rebel
against God would have been manifested in hatred and strife among
themselves, and they would eventually have destroyed one another. It was
in love to the world, in love to Israel, and even to the transgressors, that
crime was punished with swift and terrible severity." Patriarchs and
Prophets 325, 326.
These, then, are the terrible things which would have come upon the
transgressors themselves, the Israelites as a nation, and the world in
general, if God had done nothing for them. The worst possible results
would have eventuated.
The love of God, that marvellous, infinite, and unchangeable love,
drove Him to tell them how they could save themselves from so terrible a
fate. He could no longer do it for them for they had taken over the work
themselves, but they could save themselves from the worst effects of their
own choice provided they would listen to and follow His counsels.
Whether they followed those counsels or not was as much a matter of
their own choice as when they were faced with the alternative of leaving the
swords with the dead Egyptians or of appropriating them. There, they had
elected to take the wrong course by which they had supplanted God as
their Protector. But, while not prepared to obey Him in this area, they
were not rendered incapable of accepting His guidance in other matters.
They could, if they would, adhere to His directions outlining how they could
minimize the evil they had chosen.
In effect, as they faced the crisis occasioned by the worshipping of the
golden calf, they were confronted with two possibilities. If they did not take
some action, millions would perish. If they followed the Lord's suggestions,
then only a few would die by comparison, and a great deal of tragedy
would be averted. But, if anything was done at all, it had to be by them
because they had deprived God of any opportunity to take appropriate
action Himself.
Great care must be taken not to slide into the trap of supposing that
because force was necessary to put down the rebellion, God compromised
His principles on this occasion and resorted to force by using the righteous
Levites as His direct instruments. God does not change His principles for
anything or anybody. With Him, there is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. "The exercise of force is contrary to the principles of God's
government." The Desire of Ages, 22.
"Compelling power is found only under Satan's government. The
Lord's principles are not of this order." ibid., 759.
lliE CONSISTENCY OF GOD 359

"Earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendancy of physical power, but from

Christ's kingdom every carnal weapon, every instrument of coercion, is
banished." Acts of the Apostles, 12.
Had the Israelites been careful never to take up the sword, while fully
trusting the Lord to take care of their needs, the problem would have been
speedily resolved in accordance with divine methods of working. By their
utter refusal to repent, the rebels would have certified that they wanted no
more of God. He would have respected this decision and left them to
themselves to reap what they had sown. Then, whatever impending disaster
was present, would have taken them as the earthquake took Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, or
the Egyptians in the Red Sea.
But the situation was not such. Israel had taken the sword and thereby
the responsibility of taking care of their own problems of defence against
enemies within and without the camp. It was not possible for them to do
this and for God, simultaneously, to still hold His position as their Protector.
This could not be, for either they did that work or they trusted Him to do
it.
But, because they had not entirely cast off their allegiance and respect
for Him, He was afforded the opportunity of retaining the position of
adviser to them. They did not have the wisdom to understand the results of
one usage of the sword as distinct from another. He did. If they would listen
and obey, He would teach them the differences, so that they could save
themselves and the world from much unnecessary sorrow and loss. It was
for this reason that He counselled them that it was better to destroy the
incurably affected than to leave the cancer to contaminate millions more.
Exactly as the father in the hunting story knew that killings were in-
evitable once his son had taken the gun, so God knew that there was going
to be unpreventable slaughterings. It was no longer a matter of attempting
to prevent the killings. All that could now be done was to work to make
them as merciful and minimal as possible. God worked here just as at the
later time of the Babylonian conquest when He sought to direct Israel into a
course which would enable them to "make their servitude as pleasant as
possible .... " Prophets and Kings, 441. The unvarying consistency of
God is truly remarkable.
It must be stressed that, while the Lord commanded the Levites to kill
the rebels, and much later told Zedekiah, the Ammonites, the Edomites,
the people of Tyre, and the other nations concerned, to submit quietly and
cooperatively to the king of Babylon, He would not compel them to do it.
The Levites chose to obey but the others did not. By so doing, the Levites
saved themselves, the whole of Israel, and the world, from the most terrible
consequences. By refusing to obey, Zedekiah and his contemporaries
brought upon themselves dreadful reprisals.
Before the Levites there was a third course. They could there and then
have repented of ever taking up the weapons of destruction. Had they truly
done this, they would have cast away those swords, bowed before the Lord
and confessed that they had erred. They would have given back to Him the
sole responsibility of caring for them against enemies without and within the
camp.
The Levites did not have sufficient understanding to do this, but they
did know enough to obey the instructions God gave them and thus to avert
the terrible consequences of not doing it. Unfortunately, by the time we
come to the captivity in Babylon, the people were too blind to even follow
the Lord's counsels. They did suffer the terrible wrath of Babylon for their
continued spirit of rebellion and insurrection. There were some who
obeyed, however. Daniel and his companions gave a living demonstration
of the honor and freedom to be enjoyed by those who were obedient to
God's command.
A question must arise here. Why were the people themselves left by
God to destroy the rebels in the camp at the golden calf but not so with
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram? Then, the people were simply called upon to
separate themselves from the rebels and watch them die at the hands of a
terrible natural calamity. Why is there this difference? Israel still carried the
sword, so it would be expected that God would have to call upon them to
slay the rebels.
At every point where a solution is found for the mysteries surrounding
God's actions, more questions appear. This is why each problem needs to
be solved before the next one is faced. Many make the mistake of wanting
every difficulty resolved at once, and when it cannot be, they cast the whole
matter aside, thereby depriving themselves of great and saving light.
So the problem now arises of what appears to be inconsistency in the
ways the insurrectionists were dealt with. Sometimes it was one way and at
other times, another.
Once the principle governing God's actions in dealing with situations
such as the rebellion at Sinai is learned, it would be expected that every
disorder in the camp was resolved in the same way. It would be anticipated
that, until Israel handed back to Him the position of full administrator of all
their affairs, God would direct them to slay the rebels.
This is precisely what did happen on numerous occasions. Notable
examples were the stoning of the man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath,
the adulterer, and Achan who stole the Babylonian garment from Jericho,
and the extermination of the Canaanites.
But it was not always done after this fashion. When Korah and his com-
panions arose in defiance of God, when Miriam and Aaron rebelled, when
the people murmured against Moses and God, the people were not com-
missioned to go out and strike down the offenders. They were taken by an
earthquake, the infliction of leprosy, plagues, and the invasion of fiery
serpents. In none of these punishments did the people have a part. Yet
there had been no change in the situation of government. The people still
THE CONSISTENCY OF GOD 361

carried the sword. So why was it done one way on certain occasions and
differently on others? Is there an underlying principle which decides what it
will be each time?
God is neither capricious nor inconsistent. There was an underlying
principle which determined how each problem should be dealt with.
Within the structure of the camp, two different situations existed. One
concerned the people in general, and the other, the position of Moses,
God's personal appointee.
The people had placed themselves under the protection of the sword.
By doing this they had reconstituted their government accordingly, so that
when any offences threatening that government were committed, they had
to be dealt with by weapons of force wielded by the people. Those threats
could be internal or external. In the case of worshipping the golden calf, it
was internal, but when the Amalekites came against them, it was external.
Because they did not have faith to accept God as their protector, they were
left with self-protection as their only recourse. They became still further
entrenched in this when they chose to have a king like the kings round about
them.
But there was another area in the encampment not under the jurisdic-
tion of the people. This was the office of Moses. No one stood between him
and God. God had appointed him his work so that he was answerable to
the Lord and no one else. Furthermore, Moses had never joined with the
people in taking up the sword. Even though he was the best trained military
man of all, he had so learned the lessons of trust in God while in the
wilderness of Midian that when the opportunity came to take up weapons, he
had chosen not to. Not once do we read of him leading Israel into battle
with a sword in his hand.
Therefore, when Moses himself sinned as he did at the striking of the
rock, the people could not touch him. He was not under their government,
in any sense. Only God could deal with him, and He would do it according
to His righteous procedures and principles.
In like manner, when the people sinned against Moses and against
God, they transgressed in a realm which had not come under their jurisdic-
tion, for the sovereignty of the sword did not reach that far. So whenever
the people sinned in this area, the punishment came by God's departing
from them and leaving them exposed to the surrounding perils.
Consider the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. It was specifically
a challenge to God's appointment of Moses, as was the protest of Miriam
and Aaron and Israel's miserable complaints of which the following is
typical: "And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore
have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no
bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread."
Numbers 21:5. All of these were in the same category. They were outside
the jurisdiction taken over by the people when they took up the sword.
In every such case He worked in the same way. Korah and his supporters
were swallowed up by the earthquake, Miriam was afflicted with leprosy,
and Israel suffered from plagues and the invasion of fiery serpents.
The same principle applies in the case of David. When he committed
adultery and murdered the husband to cover up the sin, he would have
been stoned to death had he been an ordinary citizen. But the people had
made him a king like the kings around him. This placed him above man-
made law, for the kings of those days were exempt from obedience to that
law. Therefore, he was outside the domain in which the people had taken
authority to themselves, so they were not able to punish him for his crimes.
He was thus placed in a position where his sin had separated him from
God's protection. The troubles which overtook him were the direct out-
working of his departure from the paths of rectitude.
Thus, each situation in the camp was met in the way appropriate to it.
When the people sinned within the area taken over by them when they ac-
quired swords, they had to administer the punishment to assure their con-
tinued protection. God's work was limited under these circumstances to
offering them the counsel He was so capable of giving, whereby they would
be delivered from the worst effects of their chosen order.
When they sinned outside this area of jurisdiction, the matter could not
be settled by them, for they had neither right nor power to deal with it. All
God could do was to accept their insistence that He separate from them
and they were thus left exposed to the perils continually threatening them.
God was not prompted to depart from them by a hurt or revengeful spirit. It
was with infinite sorrow and only with the greatest reluctance, when every
saving effort had been rejected, that God accepted the necessity to with-
draw. A careful study of the various incidents confirms that with the ut-
most consistency, God dealt with each situation according to its nature.
How the Israelites perished depended on whether they fell into the hands of
their own established governmental system, or whether they sinned outside
of that and fell under the powers of nature released from God's control and
direction.
The question of God's methods of dealing with such problems as the
worshipping of the golden calf has now been thoroughly explored. It is
thus made evident that, when rightly understood, the Old Testament
records do not reveal a different God from the One portrayed by Christ
during His earthly sojourn. "Hear, 0 Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord."
Deuteronomy 6:4.
He is not divided; He does not show one face in the Old Testament
and another in the New. There is no inconsistency with Him, nor does He at
any time or under any circumstances, resort to force or compulsion to
resolve any difficulty whatsoever. He is the Saviour while Satan is the
destroyer. When men perish, it is only because they have rejected His sav-
THE CONSISTENCY OF GOD 363

ing efforts and have accordingly placed themselves under the devil's do-
minion and power.
Indeed, the Lord our God is one Lord, but tragically, He has been
sadly misunderstood and His actions grossly misinterpreted, both in the
Old Testament days and through the intervening ages.
 CHAPTER THIRlY-THREE

The Wars Of Israel

It would seem unnecessary now to discuss the wars of Israel after the
considerations thus far given to God's methods in situations where men had
taken God's work into their own hands. The truth of God's relationship to
Israel in these things should now be self-evident. However, some may find
it difficult to make the connection, so space will be given to the problem.
The fact that Israel went to war and slaughtered their enemies, oft-times
to the last man, woman, child, sheep, goat, ox, ass, and all other living
things, is not the real problem. That arises when God "commanded" they
do it. When they did, they received His approval, but when they did not,
He reproved them strongly. For instance, when Saul did not utterly destroy
the Amalekites, he received a very severe rebuke from God through the
prophet, Samuel.
Whenever a conscientious objector to military service stands before a
magistrate and declares that he will not kill because of the law of God, the
questions put to him always include references to the wars of Israel. Not
only did Israel provide trouble for themselves by taking up the sword; they
have made trouble for God's children right down to the end of time.
Such problems only exist for those who do not understand God's
character and work. For those who do, the history of ancient Israel in their
fightings provides strong proof for conscientious objection to military
service.
Despite the Lord's clear instructions, supported and illustrated by fre-
quent demonstrations of His way of doing things, the Israelites showed a
persisting disposition to take matters more and more into their own hands,
thereby denying the manifestations of God's character and ways.
It all began when they took the sword after crossing the Red Sea.
Between that time and their arrival at Kadesh-barnea in readiness for the
border crossing, there had not been a great deal of bloodshed. The two
most notable incidents were the battle with the Amalekites, and the slaugh-
ter of the golden calf worshippers.
Yet God had never intended that they should gain the land of promise
through the use of the sword. He told them how it would be done and
assured them that He would do it, not they. Long before they reached the
promised land, it was all spelled out.
"I will send My fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom
thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies tum their backs unto
thee.
"And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite,
the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
THE WARS OF ISRAEL 365

"I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land
become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
"By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be
increased, and inherit the land.
"And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the
Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the in-
habitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before
thee." Exodus 23:27-31.
Thus the Lord emphasized that He would drive out the inhabitants of
the land. Earlier, we have found that such expressions must be understood
differently when describing God's actions from when they describe men's
actions. Therefore, God's driving them out would not have been by His
using compelling power. Rather, as He came to them with His offerings of
love, their resistance to and rejection of these, would place them outside
God's protective circle leaving nothing to save them from the destructive
forces in the hands of the destroyer.
Unfortunately, we do not see the fulfillment of God's promise, so we do
not have the exact picture of what God would have done. This is not
because there was any weakness in the promise, but because the people
did not believe God's word and were not prepared to let Him do what He
had promised. They decided that this was something they could not leave
to God. They must do it themselves.
This spirit really came to the fore when they reached Kadesh-barnea.
God's plan was to fulfil His promise to lead them directly into the land.
Accordingly, as recalled by Moses, God told them to go on in under His
leadership and possess it. Here are Moses' words as he reminded their
children of the event.
"And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that great
and terrible wilderness, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the
Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-
barnea.
"And I said unto you, Ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorites,
which the Lord our God doth give unto us.
"Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and
possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not,
neither be discouraged." Deuteronomy 1: 19-21.
Had they had the spirit of trust in and submission to the Lord of
heaven, they would have responded by following, without doubt or ques-
tion, where the Lord led. The inhabitants of the land would have fearfully
retreated or would have attacked them with a rashness born of desperation.
Such an action would have been one of complete and final defiance against
heaven, whereby their separation from God would have been so total as to
remove all divine protection from them. Speedily they would have perished
as did the Egyptians, Korah and his company, or the Israelites themselves
when a plague broke out among them.
directions. Here is their answer:
"And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said,
We will send men before us,
and they shall search us out the land,
and bring us word again
by what way we must go up,
and into what cities we shall come." Verse 22.
Here indeed was the substitution of man in place of God. Divine leader-
ship was discarded in favor of the human.
How did God react to such a development? Was He offended? Did He
demand His rights, insisting they do it His way?
Not for one moment. If that was the way they chose to go, then all He
could do was respect their choice and bless them as far as remained possible,
in their execution of it.
"Eleven days after leaving Mount Horeb, the Hebrew host encamped at
Kadesh, in the wilderness of Paran, which was not far from the borders of
the promised land. Here it was proposed by the people that spies be sent up
to survey the country. The matter was presented before the Lord by Moses,
and permission was granted, with the direction that one of the rulers of
each tribe should be selected for this purpose. The men were chosen as
had been directed, and Moses bade them go and see the country, what it
was, its situation and natural advantages; and the people that dwelt therein,
whether they were strong or weak, few or many; also to observe the nature
of the soil and its productiveness, and to bring of the fruit of the land."
Patriarchs and Prophets, 387.
Thus it was that "the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
"Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I
give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send
a man, every one a ruler among them.
"And Moses by the commandment of the Lord sent them from the
wilderness of Paran: all those men were heads of the children of Israel."
Numbers 13: 1-3.
If the reference in Numbers was read without considering the other
statements, it would appear that the whole idea was from God. But it was
from the people, contrary to God's plans. Yet it declares that Moses, by
the commandment of the Lord, sent the twelve men. When the word,
"commandment," is used in connection with human behavior, it indicates
an authoritative statement which is given to be obeyed, irrespective of
whether the recipient likes it or not. It becomes clear however, that when
used by the Lord, it is more in the form of instruction or counsel with the
choice of whether they will or will not obey being left with the people.
Thus the people took over their own leadership from God's hands.
This was a further step in the wrong direction. Taking the sword had given them
THE WARS OF ISRAEL 367

their own government in place of God's, but they had still followed that
pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. The time had now come
when their self-confidence and their corresponding lack of faith in God led
them to reject even that leadership. God was not offended. He behaved
with perfect consistency. He had ever given them the liberty to choose
whether they would leave Him to do His work while they did theirs.
If they wanted to send men in before them, they were free to do so. Of
course, the situation could be worsened if poorly-suited men were to go.
Once again, in His love for them, He gave directions which they were
prepared to obey-that responsible men should be elected for the task.
But what a disaster it proved to be. It was a mistake which prevented
that entire generation from entering the wonderland of promise. During the
following forty years everyone who had been above the age of twenty at
the time was to die in the wilderness, except, of course, for Caleb, Joshua,
and members of the unnumbered tribe of Levi.
When they did finally follow the Lord into the land of Canaan, they did
not send twelve spies first. It is true that Joshua sent out two spies, but the
basis of their being sent was completely different from that of the previous
experience. It had to be different for, whereas the people forty years be-
fore had placed their faith in themselves, Joshua had no confidence in
himself. He placed his entire trust in God.
"Joshua was a wise general because God was his guide." "This was
the secret of Joshua's victory. He made God his Guide." S.D.A. Bible
Commentary 2:993.
Whereas the people called for the spies to go forth at Kadesh-bamea,
no such call came from them at Gilgal. This was from Joshua, and it was not
motivated from any distrust in the Lord's leading. It is much more likely that
the Spirit of God directed him to do it for the salvation of Rahab and her
family. It gave her the opportunity to recognize God's power as being
supreme and to demonstrate her faith in that power by hiding the two men
successfully. As a wonderful reward for that faith, she was accorded the
high honor of being a mother in the direct line of the promised Messiah.
In sending those spies into the city, God demonstrated His character of
wonderful, saving love. Inasmuch as Joshua had made the Lord his guide,
then it was God Who had chosen to send the men in. He knew the heart of
that woman and her household. He knew that she would respond to His
call of salvation, but she was imprisoned within the walls of Jericho and by
no means could she go out to the Israelites. Therefore, the Lord sent those
two men to her. She responded to the divinely provided opportunity and
showed where her faith was. Thus she became known to the Israelites so
that, when the city was destroyed, she survived and was rescued.
Thus far we have traced Israel's persistent tendency to replace the
Lord's leadership and management with their own. It is now to be shown
that God, with loving regard for His erring people was trying to bring them
thus giving God His rightful place as Guide, Protector, and Provider for His
people. Then they would not need to fight, to break the law, and to stand
sadly by the graves of those slain in battle.
When Israel crossed the Red Sea, they had behind them evidence after
evidence that they never needed to take up the sword and that God never
planned that they should. But they failed their test completely. As has been
clearly shown from the annals of Bible history, the Lord did not abandon
them, but sought to bring them back to the only safe and correct way.
As they crossed the Jordan and marched on to Jericho, the Lord spoke
to them once more in a mighty demonstration designed to reveal His full
capacity to fulfil His promises to give them the land. It was a hopeful
attempt to so establish their faith in Him, that they would abandon all con-
fidence in self, lay down the sword, and permit God to do His work in His
own way. It was a reiteration of the same lessons which God had sought to
teach their fathers as they left the land of Egypt.
As the waters of the Red Sea were opened to them by the miraculous
power of God, so were the flooded waves of Jordan rolled back to make a
safe path for the people. As the Egyptians had been prevented from
coming near, so, in that crossing, the Canaanites made no approach to
them. Yet, from the military point of view, it would have been an excellent
time to attack. With half of Israel on one side and half on the other, their
forces were divided. The enemy could have speedily reduced their army
portion by portion. But they did not come near them.
Then the Lord commissioned the Israelites to march around that city
once per day till the seventh day, when they were to march around it seven
times. Then the massive walls came crashing down.
It should have been enough. They had the mighty promises of God;
they had the multiplied lessons of the past which are at all times easier to
read and understand than those of the present; they had God's clear in-
structions that the land was not to be taken by warfare; and now, once
more, they had a personal demonstration of God's tremendous power
doing His promised work.
God gave them specific instructions for taking the city. In this He had a
purpose. Desiring to deliver them from their own self-destructive ways, He
organized an exercise in faith designed to develop in them the sense of utter
distrust in human power and planning on one hand and of total committal
to God's leadership and instruction on the other. God had no disposition to
assert His personal leadership of those people, for there is no seeking for
self-exaltation with Him. He knew that for them it was the only successful
way. Any alternative could only result in their loss and eventual destruc-
tion. The confirmation that it would is provided in their subsequent history,
when, by choosing the wrong course, they did suffer the worst conse-
quences.
THE WARS OF ISRAEL 369

"'By faith the walls of Jericho fell down.' The Captain of the Lord's
host communicated only with Joshua; He did not reveal Himself to all the
congregation, and it rested with them to believe or doubt the words of
Joshua, to obey the commands given by him in the name of the Lord, or to
deny his authority. They could not see the host of angels who attended
them under the leadership of the Son of God. They might have reasoned:
'What unmeaning movements are these, and how ridiculous the per-
formance of marching daily around the walls of the city, blowing trumpets
of rams' horns. This can have no effect upon those towering fortifications.'
But the very plan of continuing this ceremony through so long a time prior
to the final overthrow of the walls, afforded opportunity for the develop-
ment of faith among the Israelites. It was to be impressed upon their minds
that their strength was not in the wisdom of man, nor in his might, but only
in the God of their salvation. They were thus to become accustomed to
relying wholly upon their divine Leader.
"God will do great things for those who trust in Him. The reason why
His professed people have no greater strength, is that they trust so much to
their own wisdom, and do not give the Lord an opportunity to reveal His
power in their behalf. He will help His believing children in every emergen-
cy, if they will place their entire confidence in Him, and faithfully obey
Him." Patriarchs and Prophets, 493.
Thus God's whole design in this adventure was to call them back to a
nonbelligerent status. Through this means, "It was to be impressed upon
their minds that their strength was not in the wisdom of man, nor in his
might, but only in the God of their salvation. They were thus to become
accustomed to relying wholly upon their divine leader." ibid.
Indeed, it should have been enough.
Right there and then, they ought to have stripped off their armor, laid
it in a great heap, confessed the sovereignty of God and expressed their
complete trust in Him to give them the land He had promised in the way He
had said He would.
But they did not do it. They rushed into the city and soon their swords
were dripping with the shed blood of men, women, and children. What a
terrible, scarring effect that must have had upon their souls! Such a work
could not lift a man nearer to God. It would tend to brutalize him, to make
him callous of life, and benumbed to the finest, most uplifting attributes of
the divine character. With increasing clarity it must be seen that such actions
on the people's part were never intended by God.
But against every effort and good intention by God, those people did
not see the implications of clinging to the sword which their fathers had
taken up. They could not feel secure without it. They depended upon it to

There are some statements in regard to the overthrow of the walls of Jericho which
make it appear that God was a direct destroyer in this case. We will pass over them in
this chapter but will take them up later when other difficult statements are discussed.
See pages 383-389.
prorecr rnem rrom rne1r enemies. 1ney wou1u cci.1~ 1u1 u1ic::u uw-11 p1vl'C.'-ll'-'ll

with the help of the Lord. Thus they basically made this their own work and
responsibility, while God was simply left as a helper in the situation.
They had taken the sword from their fathers and they would cling to it.
As surely as they did, they came under the inexorable law which declares
that all who take the sword will as surely perish with the sword. Their after-
history gives the clearest vindication to this principle.
It may be argued that it was not taking the sword but their loss of faith in
God which occasioned their destruction as a nation, for whenever they,
with the sword in their hands, put their trust in the Lord, they were vic-
torious. This is true, but what has to be seen is that the act of taking the
sword was the fruit of their loss of faith in God. Only a people who did not
wholly and totally trust God to be their protector, would take the sword.
That first downward step into unbelief must inevitably be followed by
others, especially as the practice of warfare would brutalize the warrior and
make him still less receptive to the call and ways of God.
It was Jesus who declared that they who take the sword will perish with
the sword and those words are true. Israel took the sword and they
perished in the same way. There is not a nation on the face of the earth
which has taken the weapons of force without perishing by them. This is the
record of history. It is a witness which tells existing nations that the same
fate is to be theirs.
The Israelites at Jericho came to a point of decision-a crossroads. The
choice made there would determine how the conquest of Canaan would be
achieved. If they had chosen to divest themselves of the implements of war
and to pledge to obey all God's commandments including the one which
says, "Thou shalt not kill," then the Lord would have been free to give
them the land according to His ways and methods.
But if they should choose to retain the instruments of bloodshed, then
the conquest must be made by them. The choice was entirely theirs. God
could and did put forth great effort and power to persuade them of the right
way, but He could not and did not compel them to follow it.
Tragically, they made the wrong choice-the one which was the fruit
of unbelief. Consequently, they sallied forth to meet their foes with the
sword in their own hands. Palestine was not conquered in harmony with
God's principles but according to man's. Because they still retained His
presence and leadership in some parts of their lives, a measure of His
power remained among them so that they were the victorious armies.
Apart from that, all He could do was to give them instructions for con-
ducting the war mercifully. There was to be no torturing of their victims,
and they were to obliterate those nations as thoroughly as it would have
been done if they had left the whole matter in God's hands.
Thus far in Israel's history we have seen a number of incidents in every
one of which, to a larger or lesser extent, the Israelites chose to go the way
THE WARS OF ISRAEL 371

of unbelief. There was that persistent tendency to cast off God's leadership
and ways, and to substitute their own.
Bad as those choices in the past had been, a worse step was yet to be
taken. It was when the people came to Samuel and asked him to ask God
to give them a king. This king was to judge them like all the nations. The
people insisted on this, saying:
"Nay; but we will have a king over us;
"That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge
us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." 1 Samuel 8:19, 20.
Again the people were making decisions, and again God must relate
Himself to them in their decision-making. With unvarying consistency He
did here what He had done in every other such situation. He gave them full
liberty to make that choice. He made no moves to forcibly stop them. All
He did was to outline in vivid terms what they were bringing upon
themselves, but when, after that revelation of horror, they still stood by
their decision, He gave them what they wanted.
God did not threaten them with personal punishments if they rejected
Him. A careful reading of 1 Samuel 8:6-18, will show that the Lord out-
lined only the results of their taking that course. He told them that the king
would do terrible things until they would wish that they had never taken the
king to rule them.
"And He said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over
you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots,
and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
"And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over
fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to
make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
"And he will take your daughters to be confectioneries, and to be
cooks, and to be bakers.
"And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards,
even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
"And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and
give to his officers, and to his servants." 1 Samuel 8: 11-15.
This is the description of a heavy oppression indeed. The king would
build up a court of great luxury and ease for himself, but it was the people
who would be paying the accounts. Taxation would become increasingly
severe until the people were poverty-stricken by it. All this did come to
pass, but not by the imposition of God. They had brought it on themselves
by their own waywardness.
The decision made there in Samuel's day was a duplication of the step
taken at Kadesh-bamea. It was a direct and specific replacement of the
Lord as their leader, with men. In the first case, it had been a committee of
twelve men, while, in the second, it was with the king. In both cases, it led
to disastrous consequences. In the first, it led to their being unable to enter
wilderness.
In the second case, it was followed by still further departures from God.
Soon, they were not only looking to man as their leader, but, worse still, to
gods of wood and stone, brass, gold, and silver. The futility of such gods
was demonstrated as they became the slaves of their enemies, captives in
the land of Babylon.
But they would never learn. They persisted in their determination to
rule themselves and go their own way until, in the end, they cried out their
total rejection of God and His ways in these words, "We have no king but
Caesar." John 19: 15. This was the final step in that long, long road of
persistent and determined substitution of God's ways with men's. They had
finally stepped outside the circle of God's presence and protection. The
fearful consequences were delayed only for the sake of those who, like
Rahab in Jericho, were still open to hear the voice of entreaty and love.
That accomplished, the destruction of the city, the temple, and the nation,
was no longer preventable.
The history of that unfortunate nation, rightly understood, places God
in His true light. Whereas there has been the tendency in the past to see
Him as being in total control of that nation so that what they did was the
expression of His character and will, it becomes very evident that this was not
so. Rather, they had stubbornly refused to allow Him His full and rightful
place in their community. They had substituted their way in place of His
way so that what they did in the slaughter of the wicked was anything but
the expression of His character and methods.
Once they took these affairs under their own control, God could have
left them to themselves to reap all the bitter consequences. But His infinite
love would not allow it. Instead, it moved Him to do every saving work of
love which was still possible. It is to be deeply regretted that this ministry has
been as misunderstood as the effort of the father to save his boy from
becoming a cruel hunter.
The pure actions of unspeakable love have been seen as the revelations
of a destroyer.
 373

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

An Eye For An Eye

An invaluable key to the problem of Israel's use of the sword according
to God's instruction, is provided in God's directions to Israel to exact only
one eye for an eye, one tooth for a tooth, and one life for a life. This
counsel was given shortly after the proclamation of the law from Mount
Sinai and is recorded in Exodus 21:22-25.
"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart
from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according
as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges
determine.
"And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
"Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."
This was the instruction of God to Israel. It was He Who gave these
directions of how they should deal with these offences. This is verified by
going back to Exodus 20:22, where the sequence of verses containing all
these instructions begins with the words, "And the Lord said unto
Moses ... " Specifically, the Lord who spoke back there was Jesus Christ.
He was the God Who appeared unto Moses and proclaimed the precepts of
the decalogue to them.
"It was Christ who, amid thunder and flame, had proclaimed the law
upon Mount Sinai." The Mount of Blessing, 175.
Therefore, it was Christ who told them to exact an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth.
Yet when He came to this earth, He repudiated these words as any
guideline for the kingdom which He had come to establish. He did this at
His first great sermon to a large convocation of people. They had
assembled on the mountain expecting to hear His pronouncements of the
nature of the kingdom He had come to establish. At the very outset, He
warned them that He had not come to do away with the law. He said,
" ... I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
"For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
"Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments,
and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of
heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called
great in the kingdom of heaven.
"For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the
kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-20.
Having asserted that he had not come to do away with the law, He
then appeared to do just that. In the Old Testament He had said to them,
"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," but now He says:
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth
for a tooth:
"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite
thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
"And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let
him have thy cloak also.
"And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
"Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee
turn not thou away.
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor,
and hate thine enemy.
"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
you, and persecute you;
"That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He
maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and on the unjust.
"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even
the publicans the same?
"And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do
not even the publicans so?
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect." Matthew 5:38-48.
Ever since these instructions had been delivered to Israel from Mt.
Sinai, they had mistakenly regarded them as being exactly what God, in
His heart, had planned for them. Like so many millions since, they had
shown a sad ignorance of what God's righteousness really is. They did not
understand that these instructions were not the expression of His principles,
but merely an improved version of their own chosen course.
God delivered such counsels only to those whose unbelief had caused
them to depart from the pathway of faith, to self-protection, dependent
upon their utilizing the instruments of coercion. It was out of loving con-
sideration for the victims of those in power that He admonished them to
limit the exaction of their ideas of justice to one eye for an eye and one
tooth for a tooth. Well He knew how the spirit of revenge would not leave
them content to impose a punishment equal to the offence committed.
Their disposition would demand many eyes for an eye and many teeth for
one tooth. This would place them at the opposite end of the scale from
God. But in between, there was a situation, which, though it still could not
be God's perfect plan, was considerably better than the one where they
were left to their own devices.
The three positions were as follows:
Firstly, there is God's perfect way. This Jesus lived and taught. It calls
AN EYE FOR AN EYE 375

upon the manifestation of that love which never retaliates, always turns the
other cheek, goes the second mile, loves all enemies, and does good to
those who do evil. The weapons of force have no use under these prin-
ciples. This requires a real and abiding faith in God to successfully operate.
The children of Israel lacked that faith and discarded these ideas as imprac-
ticable and dangerous. They were, in short, foolishness to them. They
would not see how survival was possible under these conditions.
At the other end of the scale is the behavior of those who have no
regard for God and consequently pay no heed to His counsels. They are
ruthless, cruel, and revengeful. They torture their enemies, extracting the
utmost suffering to satisfy their revengeful passions. The death camps of
Germany during the second world war, Auschwitz, Dachau, and Belsen,
were demonstrations of this kind of spirit. Tremendous privation and suffer-
ing was experienced by those who fell into the terrible hands of the Third
Reich. It was impossible for God to save them from this, because the powers
that were then, had no disposition to obey God in anything.
The interrnediate situation operates because of two things. Firstly there
is God's compassion for the oppressed, leading Him to seek to minimize as
far as possible their suffering and loss. Secondly, the people are willing to
obey Him in this thing at least. So throughout the world, those nations and
individuals who do respect God and profess to be His people, accept and
follow these counsels, even though they do not have the faith to trust Him
implicitly as their Judge and Protector.
While Israel maintained some connection with God and was prepared
to obey Him, at least in some things, they did operate the principle of one
eye for an eye and one tooth for a tooth. But when they departed from the
Lord still further, then, to whatever extent they drifted, they also aban-
doned this principle.
Today, Israel has no further regard for these principles. Long ago they
turned their backs on God when they declared they would have no king but
Caesar. Over the past few years they have been involved in a war of sur-
vival against their Arab neighbors. More than once they have been hit by
their enemies and have struck back with ruthless ferocity. Early in
November, 1977, they had been troubled by terrorist incursions from
Lebanon. Arrning their warplanes, they struck with unrestrained fury across
the border, killing soldiers and civilians-men, women, and little children.
There was a world outcry against this savagery. Israel protested that
they had struck only military targets but found it difficult to maintain this
claim in the light of photographs and reports received from the affected
area. They certainly gave back much more than they had received, which is
not the principle of one eye for an eye and one tooth for a tooth.
A cartoonist gave his comment in the Boise, Idaho daily newspaper,
The Statesman, November 16, 1977. The cartoon is reproduced on the
opposite page and tells the story very graphically. This is exactly what the
Lord was seeking to save them and their enemies from when they took up
376 BEHOLD YOUR GOD
AN EYE FOR AN EYE 377

the weapons of destruction. Well would it be for the Lebanese if Israel was
still governed by these principles at least. But how much better for both
Israel and Lebanon if the Israelites were obedient to the principle of love for
your enemies and returning good for evil, which Christ laid down in the
Sermon on the Mount.
Thus there are three ways of relating to the problems around us---of
dealing with those who hurt us and would do us injury.
Firstly there is God's way which does not use force to put down rebel-
lion, has no retaliation, no exacting of retributions, no violence, no use of the
sword and therefore no killing.
There is only the perfect keeping of the law, the return of good for evil,
going the second mile, and the unending effort to save those who are
slipping toward the abyss of ruin. It is all summed up in the unchanging and
unchangeable expression of infinite love. It is the work of the Saviour and
Restorer, never that of the destroyer.
Christ outlined this way in the Sermon on the Mount, and then iden-
tified this alone as being God's pattern of behavior by advising that those
who did likewise would be like His Father who is in heaven.
The third and worst way is man left entirely to himself. In this way the
system is to love those who love you but to hit as hard as you can, those
who first hurt you; to return multiplied evil for evil; to destroy your enemy
as cruelly and as revengefully as possible; and to make sure that he ade-
quately pays for the hurt he has administered to you. The objective is to hit
him much harder than he hit you, to convince him permanently that it
would be suicidal to launch any further assaults against you. Thus each
seeks to guarantee his own security by the rule of fear.
When God was not able to hold them safely in the first, then He worked
to save them from this last and worst. This is why the second or middle
situation exists. What God is really saying in this situation is this. "Very well,
you have made your decision to take the sword and thereby depart from
My ways. I cannot change your decision. You made it and it stands. But I
can save you from the worst effects of that choice if you will accept and
respect the advice I now give you. Do not be wanton and revengeful killers.
Exact only an equal payment for what has been taken from you. Let there
be no more than one eye for one eye, and one tooth for one tooth. Mean-
while, I will ever seek to win you back to the way of faith and obedience,
back to the pathway where there is no killing or revenge but only the
manifestation of My character of love."
If the relationship between these three ways can be clearly discerned,
and if it can be recognized that only the first of them is God's way, then it
will be seen that there is not a single story in the Old Testament to prove
that God destroys. Satan destroys and man destroys but never God. He is
the Saviour Who is only working to restore and to heal. He knows no other
work than that. The whole history of His dealings with ancient Israel, rightly
understood, testifies to this.
378

CHAPTER THIRlY-FIVE

Difficult Statements
The great truths of the Bible are not established by collecting a series of
statements. They are built on solid foundational principles. Once these are
ascertained, the superstructure can be accurately and safely constructed.
When searching out the truth of God's character, the guiding principles
are found in the nature of His government, the purpose of the law, Christ's
revelation of His Father, and the role of the cross as the expression of God's
methods of dealing with the unrepentant sinner. The mighty witnesses of
God contained in these are more than sufficient to certify the loving,
merciful, righteous, and just character of God. They effectively prove that He
does not stand as an executioner toward the rejecters of His mercy.
But, as with every other Bible topic, certain statements seem to utterly
contradict the witnesses mentioned above. These constitute a serious
problem to many who cannot feel at rest with the message until every
statement has been explained. This is an unfortunate attitude to hold, as
living faith does not wait till every problem has been solved before grasping
precious truths.
To my mind, the life and teachings of Christ are the final, comprehen-
sive declaration of what God is and does. His manifestation of the Father is
so bright, so clear, and so total, that for me, nothing more is needed.
Therefore, it is the standard by which every argument about the Father's
character is tested. If the argument presented cannot find support in Jesus
Christ, then no matter how logical it may seem to be, or how convincing it
may appear, I reject it entirely, even though I may have no explanation for
it as yet. My faith grasps the reality of Christ's mission as the outshining of
the Father's countenance. I believe that God sent His Son into the world for
the express purpose of penetrating the mists of error and delusion which
Satan had cast around His character of righteousness. The confirmation of
that faith is expressed in the resolution to accept nothing about God except
that which is in total agreement with the witness of the Father attested to by
His Son.
Therefore, if anyone wishes to successfully convince me that God
destroyed the sinner, offering as evidence the overthrow of Sodom and
Gomorrah, or any other punishments of the Old Testament era, then he
must be able to bring proof that Christ, during His earthly mission, did the
same thing. It is so impossible to do this that those who cling to the
erroneous view that God does execute the sinner, claim that the revelation
of God as given by Christ is only a partial manifestation of the Father which
omits the sterner roles of judge and executioner. Texts and statements
quoted earlier expose this as fallacious thinking, for the manifestation of
DIFFICULT STATEMENTS 379

God as given by Christ was as complete as Christ, the superlative One,

could make it. Nothing was overlooked or omitted.
No stand is taken here that there are two different revelations of God,
the one given in Old Testament times versus that given by Christ. Not a
single contradiction exists in the Word of God. There are no statements,
rightly understood, which contradict the eternal principles of truth. On the
contrary, when comprehended, they move from a position of apparent
denial of the eternal verities, to one of mighty endorsement. Thus the true
Bible student is not afraid of difficult statements. He may have to admit for
the moment, that their true meaning eludes him, but he knows that it will
not be for long, as the teaching Holy Spirit leads each trusting student along
the glorious corridors of unfolding light.
Not every statement that can be presented has as yet been resolved.
There remains one or two for which the correct understanding is still
pending, but the Lord will make them clear in time. The fact that they
cannot be explained just yet is no cause for fear or doubt. There is more
than sufficient evidence in the great principles to establish beyond doubt,
the truth of God's character.
But most have been unraveled, and for the help of those still struggling
with some of them, an examination of the most commonly quoted will be
undertaken. No attempt must be made to twist the statements to fit a
desired conclusion. They must be examined to see exactly what they say,
and, just as importantly, what they do not say. All too often the problem of
interpretation lies in a tendency to assume that a statement infers something
it does not. If this inference can be cleared away, the words will then be left
free to say what they were intended to.

The Same Powers

What I would rate as the most difficult is the one which reads:
"A single angel destroyed all the firstborn of the Egyptians, and filled
the land with mourning. When David offended against God by numbering
the people, one angel caused that terrible destruction by which his sin was
punished. The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God
commands, will be exercised by evil angels when He permits. There are
forces now ready, and only waiting the divine permission, to spread desola-
tion everywhere." The Great Controversy, 614.
The portion of this statement causing the most difficulty is this, "The
same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands,
will be exercised by evil angels when He permits."
When a person does not have a clear grasp of the principles underlying
God's character, it is easy to see how this statement could leave him with
the conviction that holy angels destroy exactly as do evil angels. It would
appear that the only difference is that holy angels destroy by God's com-
mand, while the evil do it with His permission.
380 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

What happens is that everyone tends to read into this statement more
than it actually says. Here is what the statement does not say:
"The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God com-
mands, will be exercised in the same way by evil angels when He permits."
These four words, "in the same way," are not in the statement, neither
are they inferred there. Furthermore, every principle of God's character for-
bids their being there. Yet, despite multiplied evidences to this effect, this is
exactly what people read into the reference. They make no distinction be-
tween the work of God and of Satan and, therefore, between the character
of each. This is serious.
There is a decided contrast between the role of the good angels and the
evil ones. It is the heaven-appointed work of the righteous angels to hold
back the four winds of strife for as long as possible. They only release them
when God judges that any further remaining on station will impose their
presence where it is not desired. There are many Scriptures which teach
this.
"And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four comers of
the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow
on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree." Reuelation 7:1.
"There is a work yet to be done, and then the angels will be bidden to
let go, that the four winds may blow upon the earth." Testimonies 5: 152.
"We are today under divine forbearance; but how long will the angels
of God continue to hold the winds, that they shall not blow?" Testimonies
6:426.
"Angels are now restraining the winds of strife, that they may not blow
until the world shall be warned of its coming doom; but a storm is gathering,
ready to burst upon the earth; and when God shall bid His angels loose the
winds, there will be such a scene of strife as no pen can picture." Education
179, 180.
"I saw four angels who had a work to do on the earth, and were on
their way to accomplish it. Jesus was clothed with priestly garments. He
gazed in pity on the remnant, then raised His hands, and with a voice of
deep pity cried, 'My blood, Father, My blood, My blood, My blood!' Then
I saw an exceeding bright light come from God, who sat upon the great white
throne, and was shed all about Jesus. Then I saw an angel with a commis-
sion from Jesus, swiftly flying to the four angels who had a work to do on
the earth, and waving something up and down in his hand, and crying with
a loud voice, 'Hold! Hold! Hold! Hold! until the servants of God are sealed
in their foreheads.'
"I asked my accompanying angel the meaning of what I heard, and
what the four angels were about to do. He said to me that it was God that
restrained the powers, and that He gave His angels charge over things on
the earth; that the four angels had power from God to hold the four winds,
and that they were about to let them go; but while their hands were loosen-
ing, and the four winds were about to blow, the merciful eye of Jesus gazed
DIFFICULT STATEMEl'ITS 381

on the remnant that were not sealed, and He raised His hands to the Father
and pleaded with Him that He had spilled His blood for them. Then
another angel was commissioned to fly swiftly to the four angels, and bid
them hold, until the servants of God were sealed with the seal of the living
God in their foreheads." Early Writings, 38.
"God keeps a reckoning with the nations. Not a sparrow falls to the
ground without His notice. Those who work evil toward their fellow men,
saying, How doth God know? will one day be called upon to meet long-
deferred vengeance. In this age a more than common contempt is shown to
God. Men have reached a point in insolence and disobedience which
shows that their cup of iniquity is almost full. Many have well-nigh passed
the boundary of mercy. Soon God will show that He is indeed the living
God. He will say to the angels, 'No longer combat Satan in his efforts to
destroy. Let him work out his malignity upon the children of disobedience;
for the cup of their iniquity is full. They have advanced from one degree of
wickedness to another, adding daily to their lawlessness. 1 will no longer
interfere to prevent the destroyer from doing his work.' " The Review and
Herald, September 17, 1901.
"Satan is the destroyer. God cannot bless those who refuse to be faithful
stewards. All He can do is to permit Satan to accomplish his destroying
work. We see calamities of every kind and in every degree coming upon
the earth, and why? The Lord's restraining power is not exercised. The
world has disregarded the word of God. They live as though there were no
God. Like the inhabitants of the Noachic world, they refuse to have any
thought of God. Wickedness prevails to an alarming extent, and the earth is
ripe for the harvest." Testimonies 6:388, 389.
Every one of these statements confirms that the angels' role is to hold
back those terrible powers which are only awaiting release to destroy the
earth and the heavens. Angels are righteous. They have not instituted their
ways in place of God's. Accordingly, they do only what the Lord would
have them do. As surely as the God of heaven never destroys by direct
action, neither do the angels. Therefore, the way in which they exercise
those powers is by the withdrawal of their restraint upon them. The re-
leased energies pass from an inactive state into one of intense activity and
consequently, of exercise.
This is the way in which the powers are brought into active exercise by
holy angels when God commands, but it is not the way evil angels exercise
them when God permits. Satan and his followers have studied the secrets
of the laboratories of nature and the turbulent forces within man, until they
know just how to activate them into destructive intensities. Thus, while
God's angels are working to hold back these fearful elements, Satan and his
company are working in the opposite direction.
But, whether they are released into active exercise by the holy angels,
or manipulated by evil angels, they are the some powers. This is the prin-
cipal thought that the statement is intended to convey. It does not discuss
the way in which those powers are exercised. When it is recognized that this
is the subject matter of the statement, there will be no problem in under-
standing it.
Far from proving that good angels, at God's command, sally forth and
execute the unrighteous, this statement, by emphasizing that it is the same
power in any case, verifies that they do not. If God undertook the work of
executioner, He would not bother to use anything less than the greatest
powers at His command. These certainly are not those in nature and in
man. They are the almighty forces within Himself, forces so great that He
merely has to speak and whole worlds appear, and, in turn, disappear.
Therefore, if God was the destroyer, it would not be the same powers as
those used by the evil angels, who have nothing of themselves but are
dependent on what God has invested in nature and in man, to do their
work of destruction. God does have almighty omnipotence and is not in
any sense dependent on the relatively puny potentials He has given to this
earth and its inhabitants. If these facts are kept in mind, then the statement
presents no problem.
Doing as He Pleases

Here is another statement which has been a problem to some.

"Moses commanded the men of war to destroy the women and male
children. Balaam had sold the children of Israel for a reward, and he
perished with the people whose favor he had obtained at the sacrifice of
twenty-four thousand of the Israelites. The Lord is regarded as cruel by
many in requiring His people to make war with other nations. They say that
it is contrary to His benevolent character. But He Who made the world, and
formed man to dwell upon the earth, has unlimited control over all the
works of His hands, and it is His right to do as He pleases, and what He
pleases with the work of His hands. Man has no right to say to his Maker,
Why doest Thou thus? There is no injustice in His character. He is the Ruler
of the world, and a large portion of His subjects have rebelled against His
authority, and have trampled upon His law ... He has used His people as
instruments of His wrath, to punish wicked nations, who have vexed them,
and seduced them into idolatry." Spiritual Gifts 4:50, 51.
The main message of this statement is a warning that mankind is in no
position to question the actions of God. If God does it, it is right and just.
This rightness is not just because God is the Creator, but because His
character is righteous and there is no injustice with Him.
What troubles people though, is the part which reads: "But He who
made the world, and formed man to dwell upon the earth, has unlimited
control over all the works of His hands, and it is His right to do as He
pleases, and what He pleases with the work of His hands."
No problem would exist here if it were not for the persistent tendency of
men to think of God as if He, too, were a man. When men have the power
to do as they please and what they please, then their behavior becomes
DIFFICULT STATEMENTS 383

dependent on how they feel on a given day and what they want on that
day. They do all things in reference to their own likes and dislikes and not
according to unvarying principles. This is the behavior pattern with which
we are most familiar and we tend to think of the unknown and unfamiliar in
God as if it were the same. So we see men sinning against God and His
people. Whereupon, we visualize God as being highly incensed and
angered by this so that it becomes His pleasure to exact a revenge against
those who have treated Him so shabbily.
But, unlike man, God is never motivated by feeling. He finds no pleasure
in unrighteousness in any form. Therefore, it does not please Him to kill,
to lie, to steal, to bear false witness, or to break any other of the com-
mandments which are the transcript of His wondrous character. We need
never fear, then, that the Lord will destroy us because He has the right to do
"as He pleases, and what He pleases." On the other hand, if we become
subject to a human being with limitless power to do "what he pleases, and
as he pleases," we can know that, unless we are able to serve that person to
his entire satisfaction all the time, sooner or later, we are doomed.
In other words, the statement must be understood in the light of what it
does please God to do, not in the light of what it would please man to do if
he were in the same position.

Those Walls of Jericho

There are a number of statements in respect to the overthrow of the

walls of Jericho, which, if understood in the way man naturally understands
such words, would mean that God and His angels personally exercised the
power of force to bring down those mighty battlements.
"How easily the armies of heaven brought down the walls that had
seemed so formidable to the spies who brought the false report! The word
of God was the only weapon used. The Mighty One of Israel had said: 'I
have given into thine hand Jericho.' If a single warrior had brought his
strength to bear against the walls, the glory of God would have been
lessened and His will frustrated. But the work was left to the Almighty: and
had the foundation of the battlements been laid in the center of the earth,
and their summits reached the arch of heaven, the result would have been
the same when the Captain of the Lord's host led His legions of angels to
the attack." Testimonies 4:161, 162.
"The city of Jericho was devoted to the most extravagant idolatry. The
inhabitants were very wealthy, but all the riches that God had given them
they counted as the gift of their gods. They had gold and silver in abun-
dance; but, like the people before the Flood, they were corrupt and
blasphemous, and insulted and provoked the God of heaven by their
wicked works. God's judgments were awakened against Jericho. It was a
stronghold. But the Captain of the Lord's host Himself came from heaven
to lead the armies of heaven in an attack upon the city. Angels of God laid
384 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

hold of the massive walls and brought them to the ground." Testimonies
3:264.
"The Lord marshalled His annies about the doomed city; no human
hand was raised against it; the hosts of heaven overthrew its walls, that
God's name alone might have the glory." The Reuiew and Herald, March
15, 1887.
The most significant sentence in these statements is the one which says:
"Angels of God laid hold of the massive walls and brought them to the
ground."
It would seem that these words allow only one interpretation which is
that the angels of God with Christ at their head, took hold of those walls
with their hands and literally threw them to the ground. In doing so they did
more than tear down buttresses of stone. There were people on those high
walls. See Patriarchs and Prophets, 491. It would have been impossible for
there not to have been watchers, following every move the Israelites made.
Such a singular perfonnance as was being carried out by them could not
help but command the attention and excite the curiosity of the people
inside. No doubt the walls were crowded with people. Furthennore, there
were people who actually lived in the wall as did Rahab, who delivered
the spies from her countrymen. See Joshua 2: 15.
It follows that if the angels did in fact throw down those walls, as we tend
to understand those words as saying, then they took the lives of a great
number of people.
If this is so, then we have finally found the long looked for evidence to
prove that God did change because of sin and did become a destroyer of
life. We have the proof that every principle gathered together in this book is
nullified, for God cannot err on a single point. If Jesus, when He came to
this earth, had by so much as a thought made a concession to sin, then the
devil would have triumphed.
God had gone on record to say that He does not deal with the sin
problem by the use of physical force. He does not stand toward the sinner
as the executioner of the sentence against transgression, but He leaves the
rejecters of His mercy to themselves to reap that which they have sown.
Compelling power is found only under Satan's government. God does not
destroy. He destroys no man. From His kingdom, every weapon of coercion is
banished.
If the Lord were to violate those principles in just one situation, it would
be all that was necessary to give Satan the victory in the great controversy.
Therefore, our understanding of the principles which govern God's
character compels us to look more deeply into the problem in an en-
deavor to see in what sense the angels laid hold of the walls and brought
them to the ground.
However, if such a search, for the moment at least, fails to bring to light
exactly what the angels did do, then we do not lose faith in the great prin-
ciples. We simply understand that this is but one of the hooks left to hang
DIFFICULT STATEMENTS 385

our doubts on, if we want to do such. God always leaves some points unex-
plained to see if we will trust Him in the unknown for what we know of Him
already.
The explanation for any difficult Scripture must be found in some other
part of the same Scriptures. In a problem like this, the most likely place to
find such an explanation is in a similar incident. Such is to be found in the
fall of Jerusalem, which, like Jericho, had filled up the cup of iniquity. From
it, the Spirit of God had also departed. Its walls were likewise tom to the
ground with not one stone being left upon another. It is to be expected that
the Lord would describe its destruction in the same language as in Jericho's
fall. Research quickly shows that He does.
"Men will continue to erect expensive buildings, costing millions of
money; special attention will be called to their architectural beauty, and the
firmness and solidity with which they are constructed; but the Lord has in-
structed me that despite the unusual firmness and expensive display, these
buildings will share the fate of the temple in Jerusalem. That magnificent
structure fell. Angels of God were sent to do the work of destruction, so that
one stone was not left one upon another that was not thrown down."
S.D.A. Bible Commentary 5:1098, 1099.
Consider how explicitly it declares that "angels of God were sent to do
the work of destruction, so that not one stone was left upon another that was
not thrown down." Before He was crucified, Jesus solemnly declared that
not one stone of the temple would be left upon another. Now it is declared
that the angels were sent to do this work of destruction, so that the fulfill-
ment of Christ's words was assured. Just as the language used in the fall
of Jericho tends to give the picture of angels personally laying hold of the
stones and throwing them down, so this statement tends to give the same
impression as far as the fall of Jerusalem is concerned.
But a study of history shows that those stones were cast down by
human hands. The Romans, once they had captured the temple, razed it
and much of the city to the ground, making certain that not one stone
was left upon another. Perhaps the greatest authority on Jewish history is
Josephus who was actually present at the fall of Jerusalem. See The
Great Controuersy, 33. His record of the event is as follows.
"Now, as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder,
because there remained none to be the objects of their fury, (for they would
not have spared any, had there remained any other such work to be done,)
Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and tem-
ple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest
eminence; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne, and so much
of the wall as enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in
order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison; as were the towers
also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was,
and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the
rest of the wall, it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that
386 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that
came thither believe it had ever been inhabited. This was the end which
Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city
otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind."
Wars of the Jews, Book VII, Chapter one, paragraph one, by Flavius
Josephus. Translated by William Whiston.
This notable historian's report is confirmed in The Great Controuersy,
35. "Both the city and the temple were razed to their foundations, and the
ground upon which the holy house had stood was 'plowed like a field.'"
Here we have two records of what took place back there. One declares
that the angels did the work of destruction, while the other clearly shows
that it was at Caesar's orders, and by the strength and activity of his soldiers
that the city was razed.
This would be a hopeless contradiction if we had not studied the way in
which the Bible is its own dictionary and the way in which God is said to
destroy. Firstly, it is clear that the angels did not do the work of destruc-
tion as man does it. That is, they did not themselves take those stones and
throw them to the ground. Yet, at the same time, it must be recognized that
they did a work which resulted in those walls being thrown to the ground,
till not one single stone was left upon another. But, they certainly did not
use the soldiers as direct servants at their personal direction and com-
mand, to tear down those mighty bastions.
So what did the angels do? How did they go about a mission of
destruction?
As already shown by a number of earlier quotations, the angels' role is
to hold back the four winds of strife, so that they might not blow on the
earth. Let those winds be released and there is the terrible outbreaking of
human anger and natural power. Those angels hold on to their work
whilever God's protection is called for because of the presence of some who
trust in Him. But when the time comes when that is no longer necessary or
possible, then angels are sent from heaven to instruct the holding angels to
let go. In this way the angels come from heaven on a mission of destruc-
tion. Let it be emphasized once more that while this involves a judgment on
God's part, it is not His arbitrary act. He assesses the situation to be such
that to remain any longer must be to force His presence where it is totally
unwanted, and this He cannot do. The restraining angels feel this pressure
on them to leave, but they await God's command before they do so. These
instructions are conveyed to them by messenger angels, who, because of
this responsibility, are called messengers of destruction, which in fact they
are.
The picture of this holding and releasing by one body of angels upon
receipt of a clearance to do so by other angels, is clearly shown in the Early
Writings statement quoted on pages 380 and 381.
The chronicle of Jerusalem's destruction bears out the facts recited
above. The tearing down of that city into individual stones was the end
DIFFICULT STATEMEITTS 387

result of a series of causes. The Romans did it as the expression of their

white-hot anger and hatred for the Jews. That in tum, was the result of
the behavior of the Jews who had given the Romans so much trouble, had
shown such a spirit of rebellion, and had been so ungrateful for the favors
the Romans desired to show them. That spirit, consequently, was the result
of the Jews' persistent determination to institute their ways in the place of
God's, and of their continual rejection of the appeals of mercy to them.
For the apostasy of the Jew and the fury of the Roman to race away
uncontrolled, the angels of God had to fully and totally withdraw their
restraining power over the evil passions of men. This they did. That ac-
complished, the infuriated Roman soldiery were so totally uncontrolled that
not even their officers, generals, or Titus himself could control or restrain
them. Titus had determined to preserve the temple and had given specific
orders that it should not be burned, but his orders were flouted. Even
though he rushed in among them and demanded obedience, it was as if he
were not even there. Here is part of Josephus' account of the burning of the
temple.
"And now a certain person came running to Titus, and told him of this
fire, as he was resting himself in his tent after the last battle; whereupon he
rose up in great haste, and as he was, ran to the holy house, in order to
have a stop put to the fire; after him followed all his commanders, and after
them followed the several legions, in great astonishment; so there was a
great clamor and tumult raised, as was natural upon the disorderly motion of
so great an army. Then did Caesar, both by calling to the soldiers that
were fighting, with a loud voice, and by giving a signal to them with his right
hand, order them to quench the fire; but they did not hear what he said,
though he spake so loud, having their ears already dinned by a greater
noise another way; nor did they attend to the signal he made with his right
hand neither, as still some of them were distracted with fighting, and others
with passion; but as for the legions that came running thither, neither any
persuasions nor any threatenings could restrain their violence, but each
one's own passion was his commander at this time; and as they were
crowding into the temple together, many of them were trampled on by one
another, while a great number fell among the ruins of the cloisters, which
were still hot and smoking, and were destroyed in the same miserable way
with those whom they had conquered: and when they were come near the
holy house, they made as if they did not so much as hear Caesar's orders to
the contrary; but they encouraged those that were before them to set it on
fire. As for the seditious they were in too great distress already to afford
their assistance, [toward quenching the fire;] they were everywhere slain,
and everywhere beaten; and as for a great part of the people, they were
weak and without arms, and had their throats cut wherever they were
caught. Now, round about the altar lay dead bodies heaped one upon
another; as at the steps going up to it ran a great quantity of their blood,
388 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

whither also the dead bodies that were slain above [on the altar] fell down."
Wars on the Jews, Book VI, Chapter four, paragraph six.
"The blind obstinacy of the Jewish leaders, and the detestable crimes
perpetrated within the besieged city, excited the horror and indignation of
the Romans, and Titus at last decided to take the temple by storm. He
determined, however, that if possible it should be saved from destruction.
But his commands were disregarded. After he had retired to his tent at
night, the Jews, sallying from the temple, attacked the soldiers without. In
the struggle, a firebrand was flung by a soldier through an opening in the
porch, and immediately the cedar-lined chambers about the holy house
were in a blaze. Titus rushed to the place, followed by his generals and
legionaries, and commanded the soldiers to quench the flames. His words
were unheeded. In their fury the soldiers hurled blazing brands into the
chambers adjoining the temple, and then with their swords they slaugh-
tered in great numbers those who had found shelter there. Blood flowed
down the temple steps like water. Thousands upon thousands of Jews
perished. Above the sound of battle, voices were heard shouting,
'lchabod!'-the glory is departed.
"Titus found it impossible to check the rage of the soldiery; he entered
with his officers, and surveyed the interior of the sacred edifice. The splen-
dor filled them with wonder; and as the flames had not yet penetrated to
the holy place, he made a last effort to save it, and springing forth, again
exhorted the soldiers to stay the progress of the conflagration. The cen-
turion Liberalis endeavored to force obedience with his staff of office; but
even respect for the emperor gave way to the furious animosity against the
Jews, to the fierce excitement of battle, and to the insatiable hope of
plunder." The Great Controversy, 33, 34.
When soldiers, who have had instilled into them the strongest discipline
of respect and obedience to the Emperor, are so totally maddened with
rage that they completely ignore orders he has personally given, it is
manifested that human passion is rioting in its most unrestrained form.
Such outrage was possible only if the angels had vacated their positions as
withholders of the winds of strife. They had no further influence over those
men.
They never step down of their own volition, but only on the receipt of
orders from on high. These are brought to them by messenger angels com-
missioned to fly swiftly with the advice that the time has come when men
have chosen to reject God so utterly that He can no longer provide them
with protection. The advent of these messengers at the outposts heralds
the unleashing of destructive forces, thus making them, in a certain sense,
angels on a mission of destruction. The result was the full release of the
Romans' infuriated hostility toward the Jews, which would not be ap-
peased, even when with their own hands they had tom the city apart.
This casts great light on the fall of Jericho, teaching how the same
descriptions are to be understood in the destruction of the Canaanite city.
DIFFICULT STATEMENTS 389

The only difference between the overthrow of Jericho as compared to

Jerusalem, is that while in the latter it was the unleashing of the furies in
men which did the work, at Jericho it was the release of the pent-up forces
of nature. The role of the angels in both instances was the same. They
acted only and entirely in harmony with the principles of God's kingdom.
Christ Himself led the messengers to the walls of Jericho to give the sad
message that that people had forfeited all divine protection, leaving God
with no option but to call away the restraining angels. Then the furies of
nature, hitherto held under control, burst forth to flatten the proud
metropolis. The walls were hurled to the ground. Yet, the word of God
says that the angels did it. Surely, from the way in which Bible interprets
itself, the time has come when it is understood in what sense the angels did
this. They had a part to play, the result of which was that destruction. That
part was to carry the message of doom to the restraining angels. Then the
terror followed.
If careful comparison is made between the language used to describe
the destructions of both Jericho and Jerusalem, all difficulties will disap-
pear. Just what the angels did will be quite clear. Once more it will be con-
firmed that they did not act any differently from the revelation of God's
character as given by Christ when He came to the earth.

The Wrath of God

The wrath of God is referred to frequently in the Scriptures. It is an ex-

pression describing the savage fury of men or nature, or both, in a rampage
of destruction. The seven last plagues are referred to specifically as the
wrath of God which is to be poured upon those who worship the beast and
his image.
There is very real danger that God's wrath will be understood to be
exactly what man's wrath is. Man's wrath is the development within him of
fury, anger, and a desire to retaliate against those who have hurt or offended
him. But God's wrath is different, for the ways of God are not the ways
of men. Isaiah has made that forever sure.
God's wrath is not the expression of His personal feelings, for, while His
wrath is busily destroying man and the world, God is feeling anything but
wrathful. He is pained with sorrow and distress to see His handiwork and
children being committed to so terrible a fate. The wrath of God is an ex-
pression of the very opposite from what He is feeling.
Yet without question it is wrath. See the blasting might of the roaring
hurricane, the thunder of a thousand falling buildings and opening
crevasses as the earthquake strikes, the crackling roar of the blazing inferno,
the shriek of the storm, and the fiendish fury of man at war. This is wrath. It
is the complete picture of anger and fury, and these are the things which the
Bible terms "the wrath of God."
390 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

From the message God gave through Moses' rod, He plainly showed
that when nature is in this state, it has passed out of His control. Therefore,
it is not the expression of God's feelings. Why, then, is it called "the wrath
of God"? It is God's wrath simply because every power which has gone into
the state of wrath through God's directing and controlling power being
withdrawn, is of God. They are the powers of God in a wrathful state,
therefore it could be called the wrath of the powers of God. Instead it is
simply and more briefly called "the wrath of God."
There will be no problem understanding this if it is ever kept in mind
that man's way and the ways of God are very different and, in fact,
opposite from each other. There must be a perpetual guard set up in the
human mind against the tendency to think of God and man as being the
same.

Other Difficult Statements

Some who read this book may be aware of other statements which are
a problem to them. It is reasonably safe to say that the most difficult ones
have been discussed in this chapter. If the reader has thoroughly under-
stood and accepted the principles of interpretation used here, then he
will have little difficulty in understanding other problem verses or state-
ments.
There will come times, as the Bible record is studied, when situations
will confront us for which the Lord has not yet been able to reveal any
specific explanation. Lacking that, it will seem we have no option but to
believe that in this instance at least, the Lord did resort to the use of force.
But true faith knows that the absence of the correct explanation does not
compel us to accept the obvious one, even though it clamors for recogni-
tion. True faith rests in the knowledge that God does nothing out of
character, and that we are to trust Him in the unknown because of what we
have learned of Him in the known. In so many instances we have clear
Scriptural revelations of what God did when confronted with the sin
problem, rebellion, ingratitude, and idolatry. Every such revelation con-
sistently reveals God as a saviour, lovingly seeking to save His created
works. Therefore, to the faith-filled person, absolute assurance is guaran-
teed that in the unknown it is the same.
One thing is certain: no true student of the Word of God will allow his
faith in the great truths to be shattered simply because one or two
statements or incidents cannot immediately be understood in harmony with
what the rest of the Bible teaches. He will not forget that there were many
more such in the past, but time has produced wonderful clarifications of
what initially appeared to be totally inexplicable. He remembers with what
changed views he now sees many things which were dark and confusing
before. So he well knows it will be with these statements which have not
yet been transferred to the category of the clearly explained.
 391

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The Seven Last Plagues

Thus far, study has been given only to events which are in the past. The
attention is now directed to events which are yet future. Their coming is
known through the prophetic revelations, while the nature of them is shown
through the types of the past, of which they are the antitypes.
The greatest destruction yet to eventuate before the second coming of
Christ will result from the outpouring of the seven last plagues. This will be
the drinking by the finally impenitent "of the wine of the wrath of God,
which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation ... "
Revelation 14: 10.
Up till this time the judgments of God have always been mixed with
mercy, so that the wicked were shielded from the full penalty of their guilt.
"All the judgments upon men, prior to the close of probation, have
been mingled with mercy. The pleading blood of Christ has shielded the
sinner from receiving the full measure of his guilt; but in the final judgment,
wrath is poured out unmixed with mercy." The Great Controversy, 629.
The same language used in Scripture to describe the destructions on
men in the past, is employed to portray this terrible future desolation. It is
depicted as being "the wrath of God," administered by destroying angels.
The incineration of Sodom and Gomorrah, the flooding of Noah's world,
the plaguing of the Egyptians, the serpents' invasion into Israel's encamp-
ment, Jericho's, Nineveh's, and Jerusalem's overthrow, and many more
such catastrophes are consistently detailed in the same terms employed to
prophesy the coming seven last plagues.
Harmony of interpretation insists that the Scriptural portrayal of events
yet future must be understood in the same way as the Word of God reveals
that the description of events in the past be understood. The Bible abounds
in explanations of how we are to interpret the declarations describing the
punishment to befall the wicked. By this means we have no excuse for fail-
ing to understand that when God is said to destroy, the result of His efforts
to save have resulted in the withdrawal of the impenitent from Him to the
place where no protection from destruction remains to them. This is the
way it has always been in the past. So it must yet be in the seven last
plagues.
In studying the outpouring of the seven last plagues, it can be correctly
expected, then, that the Scriptures, rightly understood, will show that the
restraining, protecting hand of God is to be removed from the rod of
power, so that, freed from His directions and out of His control, the powers
in men and nature will break loose in unfettered fury. Thus men will reap
the harvest of their own sowing.
392 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

We are greatly assisted in the study of the seven last plagues by two
events in the past. The first is the plagues of Egypt, and the second, the fall of
Jerusalem. Scripture declares that each of these events was a preview of
what is to happen in the final scourges.
"When Christ ceases His intercession in the sanctuary, the unmingled
wrath threatened against those who worship the beast and his image and
receive his mark, will be poured out. The plagues upon Egypt when God
was about to deliver Israel, were similar in character to those more terrible
and extensive judgments which are to fall upon the world just before the
final deliverance of God's people." The Great Controversy, 627, 628.
The similarity between the plagues upon Egypt and the seven last
plagues is in their character. This indicates that the plagues on Egypt will
not be duplicated by the seven last plagues, and a quick check shows that
this is true. In the seven last plagues there will be no frogs, lice, flies, or
specific death of the firstborn, and in Egypt there was no earthquake,
drying up of the River, or scorching of men with great heat.
But while the seven last plagues will not be an exact repetition of the
Egyptian scourges, they will be similar in character. The acquirement of
character is the result of a moulding process, so that if the identical in-
fluences are exerted on like materials, the end product will be the same.
The Egyptian devastations possessed the character they had because of the
situation out of which they were born and by which they were shaped. The
people's continued determination to shut God out of their lives had brought
them to the place where God was compelled to accept their desires and
leave them to reap their harvest of pain and loss. God released His hold on
the rod so that it passed out of His direction and control. Thus the character
of the plagues was that they were natural forces possessed of the fury of
destruction.
The same character will be manifested in the seven last plagues because
they will be the offspring of exactly the same conditions. As the one nation
of Egypt threw off all connection with God, so the people of the whole
world will separate from God, rejecting every principle of righteousness and
association with Him. The last appeals of mercy scorned, God is left with no
option but to leave them alone. Once again, nature out of control will smite
them until none remain.
The second preview of the seven last plagues is given in the destruction
of Jerusalem.
"The Saviour's prophecy concerning the visitation of judgments upon
Jerusalem is to have another fulfillment, of which that terrible desolation
was but a faint shadow. In the fate of the chosen city we may behold the
doom of a world that has rejected God's mercy and trampled upon His
law." The Great Controversy, 36.
Already the fate of Jerusalem has been studied. The Spirit of God, per-
sistently rejected and abused, had at last no choice but to leave the people
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES 393

to themselves. With nothing to restrain the fierce passions of the Jews, they
rebelled so treacherously and seditiously against the Romans that they
stirred up the worst spirit of retaliation in them. This brought the mighty
power of Rome to bear upon the city of Jerusalem. With the continued
resistance of the Jews and the prolonged attack by the Romans, the spirits
of all became so intensified that in the final scenes, the powers in those
people simply ran riot. The resulting slaughter and atrocities were worse than
human language can picture. When the city had been conquered and there
were no more to be slain, the Romans then systematically tore the city
stone from stone till the destruction was virtually absolute.
In that fate the doom of the world is to be read. Exactly what befell
Jerusalem will befall the whole earth. The time is coming when the sins of
men will compel the Spirit of God to totally depart. With nothing to hold in
check the deadly powers in nature and man, the earth will be plunged into
a time of trouble such as never was. The seven last plagues will in no sense
of the word be the manipulation of those powers by the hands of God.
Instead, just as in Egypt and in Jerusalem, God will not even be there.
Everything that happens will be because of His absence, not because of His
presence. Once again the rod will have passed out of Moses' hand.
These direct statements will verify the truth of the above principles and
the conclusions drawn from them.
"When He leaves the sanctuary, darkness covers the inhabitants of the
earth. In that fearful time the righteous must live in the sight of a holy God
without an intercessor. The restraint which has been upon the wicked is
removed, and Satan has entire control of the finally impenitent. God's
long-suffering has ended. The world has rejected His mercy, despised His
love, and trampled upon His law. The wicked have passed the boundary of
their probation; the Spirit of God, persistently resisted, has been at last
withdrawn. Unsheltered by divine grace, they have no protection from the
wicked one. Satan will then plunge the inhabitants of the earth into one
great, final trouble. As the angels of God cease to hold in check the fierce
winds of human passion, all the elements of strife will be let loose. The
whole world will be involved in ruin more terrible than that which came
upon Jerusalem of old." The Great Controversy, 614.
"As Jesus moved out of the most holy place, I heard the tinkling of the
bells upon His garment; and as He left, a cloud of darkness covered the in-
habitants of the earth. There was then no mediator between guilty man and
an offended God. While Jesus had been standing between God and guilty
man, a restraint was upon the people; but when He stepped out from
between man and the Father, the restraint was removed, and Satan had
entire control of the finally impenitent. It was impossible for the plagues to be
poured out while Jesus officiated in the sanctuary; but as His work there is
finished, and His intercession closes, there is nothing to stay the wrath of
God, and it breaks with fury upon the shelterless head of the guilty sinner,
who has slighted salvation and hated reproof." Early Writings, 280.
394 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

This statement verifies the truth that it is the removal of God's restraining
power which releases the powers of men and nature into Satan's hands.
They then burst with destructive fury upon the shelterless heads of the
wicked.
Let the expression, "there is nothing to stay the wrath of God," be
guarded from misunderstanding. Before the principles in regard to God's
character are understood, this would be taken to mean that God was
personally angered and, therefore anxious to smite the offenders, but is
restrained by the intercession of His Son until Jesus finishes His work in the
sanctuary.
If this interpretation is correct, then Christ and His Father are working
against each other. God is longing to destroy man, while Christ is resisting
Him. However, it is impossible to believe this and at the same time hold to
the great and precious truth that Christ and the Father are one; that, far
from working against each other, they are fully united in the task of saving
man.
" ... God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. 2 Cor-
inthians 5: 19.
There could be nothing closer than the unity of the Father and the Son
in the work of salvation. God is not seeking the sinner's destruction while
the Son works to delay the unleashing of the Father's fury. They are work-
ing together to the limit of their resources to bring men back to eternal life,
and only when men utterly reject those saving measures, do they jointly
leave the rebellious to their chosen fate.
When it is truly understood that the wrath of God is not a personal feel-
ing, but the perversion and derangement of the powers in men and nature
into wrathful and destructive forces only awaiting the opportunity to em-
bark on a rampage of devastation, then there will be no problem in under-
standing the unity of the Father and the Son.
"Men have reached a point in insolence and disobedience which shows
that their cup of iniquity is almost full. Many have well-nigh passed the
boundary of mercy. Soon God will show that He is indeed the living God.
He will say to the angels, 'No longer combat Satan in his efforts to destroy.
Let him work out his malignity upon the children of disobedience; for the
cup of their iniquity is full. They have advanced from one degree of
wickedness to another, adding daily to their lawlessness. I will no longer
interfere to prevent the destroyer from doing his work.'
"This time is right upon us. The Spirit of God is being withdrawn from
the earth. When the angel of mercy folds her wings and departs, Satan will
do the evil deeds he has long wished to do. Storm and tempest, war and
bloodshed,-in these things he delights, and thus he gathers in his harvest.
And so completely will men be deceived by him that they will declare that
these calamities are the result of the desecration of the first day of the week.
From the pulpits of the popular churches will be heard the statement that
the world is being punished because Sunday is not honored as it should be.
THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES 395

And it will require no great stretch of imagination for men to believe this.
They are guided by the enemy, and therefore they reach conclusions which
are entirely false." The Review and Herald, September 17, 1901.
"It is God that shields His creatures, and hedges them in from the
power of the destroyer. But the Christian world have shown contempt for
the law of Jehovah; and the Lord will do just what He has declared that He
would, He will withdraw His blessings from the earth, and remove His
protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law, and teaching
and forcing others to do the same. Satan has control of all whom God does
not especially guard. He will favor and prosper some, in order to further
his own designs; and he will bring trouble upon others, and lead men to
believe that it is God Who is afflicting them." The Great Controversy, 589.
"God does not stand toward the sinner as an executioner of the
sentence against transgression; but He leaves the rejecters of His mercy to
themselves, to reap that which they have sown. Every ray of light rejected,
every warning despised or unheeded, every passion indulged, every trans-
gression of the law of God, is a seed sown, which yields its unfailing
harvest. The Spirit of God, persistently resisted, is at last withdrawn from
the sinner, and then there is left no power to control the evil passions of the
soul, and no protection from the malice and enmity of Satan." The Great
Controversy, 36.
Thus the Lord makes it very plain how the seven last plagues will come.
They will certainly not be the direct use by God, of the forces in man and
nature. Instead, God will make a judgment or assessment that the wicked
have fully and universally resolved to depose Him from their hearts, their
affairs, and the world. Their decision being fully confirmed, leaves God no
choice but to let them have all they want. So He leaves them, and Satan
quickly seizes these powers, stirring them to even greater heights of frenzy
and terror.
"I was shown that the judgments of God would not come directly out
from the Lord upon them, but in this way: They place themselves beyond His
protection. He warns, corrects, reproves, and points out the only path of
safety; then if those who have been the objects of His special care will follow
their own course independent of the Spirit of God, after repeated warnings, if
they choose their own way, then He does not commission His angels to pre-
vent Satan's decided attacks upon them.
"It is Satan's power that is at work at sea and on land, bringing calamity
and distress, and sweeping off multitudes to make sure of his prey. And storm
and tempest both by sea and land will be, for Satan has come down in great
wrath. He is at work. He knows his time is short and, i/ he is not restrained, we
shall see more terrible manifestations of his power than we have ever dreamed
of." 14 MR 3 (1883).
The wicked have sown the seed. The harvest is inevitable. But it is not
the work of God. It is the work of men against themselves. They sowed the
seed. They reap the harvest.
396

CHAPTER THIRlY-SEVEN

The Brightness Of His Coming

"And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall con-
sume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of
His coming." 2 Thessa/onians 2:8.
This Scripture has been usually understood to portray the picture of
Christ descending the advent skies, while before Him precede great flowing
sheets of devouring flame which reach out to consume whoever of the im-
penitent have somehow managed to survive the plagues.
Such an interpretation of this Scripture, obvious as it may appear, is out
of hannony with the character of God and Christ. If fire emanating from
Him kills the wicked, then there is a direct, destructive work associated with
His presence and Person. Therefore, He would be an executioner after all.
But He is not, nor ever will be. When He came the first time to this earth, He
testified that He had not come to destroy men's lives but to save them. The
purpose of His advent does not change with His second coming. Once
again, His intention is to deliver His people from an earth which has been
so reduced by the final disasters as to be incapable of supporting life any
longer. Certainly, He would save every individual who has ever been born,
if this were possible, but tragically, so few are prepared to accept His saving
grace. He does nothing to them. He has not come for them. They have
taken themselves out of the circle of His responsibility and their fate is en-
tirely a matter of their own appointment.
There are statements which explain this text and which hannonize with
this principle.
"Then shall they that obey not the gospel be consumed with the spirit of
His mouth, and be destroyed with the brightness of His coming. Like Israel
of old, the wicked destroy themselves; they fall by their iniquity. By a life of
sin, they have placed themselves so out of hannony with God, their natures
have become so debased with evil, that the manifestation of His glory is to
them a consuming fire." The Great Controuersy, 37.
That this statement is a direct explanation of the verse under study is
clear from the fact that firstly the text is quoted, and then comment is made
upon it. Therein, it is affinned that the wicked destroy themselves. It is not
the work of God but their own. They have sown the seed and they must
reap the harvest.
Most significant, is the parallel drawn between the way in which Israel
perished and the destruction in the last days. As the one perished, so will
the other. This is to indicate that the Israelites were likewise destroyed with
the brightness of His coming. This is true, for that is exactly how they did
come to their end. It may be immediately objected that Jesus did not come
THE BRIGHTNESS OF HIS COMING 397

with outshining glory at His first advent. Furthermore, He was far away in
the distant heavens when the Jews met their fate, so there is no visible
evidence of their having been consumed with the brightness of His glory.
Such an interpretation depends on the understanding of what the
brightness of His glory is and how humans are consumed by it. Defining
that expression is the key to solving the problem.
The factor which above all others brought the Jews to their untimely
end, was the manifestation of the brightness of God's character-glory in
Christ. Before Christ came, the Jews were in a serious state of apostasy,
but, even so, were not totally separated from God, for they had not taken
the final steps in rebellion. But, as the light of Christ's glorious character
shone on them, they were driven to desperate lengths of resistance until
they were pushed to the extremes of apostasy. God did not intend that
such be the result of this revelation, but once they determined on rejection
of Him, it became the only possible outworking of that decision. They were
destroyed, and it was by the brightness of His coming.
The sequence then was as follows:
The Jews were in a state of apostasy.
Christ shone on them the brightness of His coming, the glory of His
character.
They rejected this influence and thus separated themselves from
His protection.
The actual destruction was accomplished by the unleashed natural
forces.
In the sacred writings, both of these forces are described. There we can
read of Christ's coming, of the Jews' reaction, and of the separation of the
Spirit of God from them.
Then we can read of the destructive work accomplished by the outrage
of human passion no longer under divine restraint.
In exactly the same way, there is recorded the identical procedure
which leads to the destruction of the wicked in the final overthrow of
mankind.
They will be in a state of deep apostasy.
The brightness of His coming will be revealed to them in the loud cry.
Their rejection of this influence will drive them to separate themselves
from God's protection.
The actual destruction to befall them will be accomplished by the
unleashing of the wild passions within them and by the unrestrained forces
of nature.
Basically then, it is the brightness of His coming which destroys them
but not in the sense that they are struck down by it. That is left to the
unrestrained forces in man and nature, the destruction from which the
brightness of His coming would have saved them if they had related to it
correctly.
398 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Therefore, in studying the final demise of the wicked, both these factors
must be kept in mind. The student must understand just what is ac-
complished by each, ever keeping the distinctions sharp and clear.
The sacred writings do not fail to mention them. When the fall of the
wicked is described in The Great Controuersy, it shows that they are to be
obliterated by the furious outburst of their own fierce passions and by the
outpouring of the seven last plagues. There immediately follows the state-
ment that they will be consumed by the spirit of His mouth and destroyed
by the brightness of His coming. Here is exactly how it appears on page
657.
"In the mad strife of their own fierce passions, and by the awful out-
pouring of God's unmingled wrath, fall the wicked inhabitants of the
earth,-priests, rulers, and people, rich and poor, high and low. 'And the
slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto
the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered,
nor buried.'
"At the coming of Christ the wicked are blotted from the face of the
whole earth, -consumed with the spirit of His mouth, and destroyed by the
brightness of His glory. Christ takes His people to the city of God, and the
earth is emptied of its inhabitants."
Placing these two statements in this order side by side, perfectly ex-
presses the destiny of the unrepentant. The immediate and seemingly ob-
vious means of their destruction will be the terrible onslaught of maddened
man and nature. But the deeper, underlying cause is not to be overlooked.
Prior to the coming of the physical calamities, divine love will have sent the
revelation of Christ's character in the brightness of His soon coming. Their
rejection of those saving provisions will place them where destruction is free
to descend upon them.
Those who do not understand this but believe that the death of the
wicked will be directly and physically accomplished by the flaming fire
emanating from the person of Christ, would need to have the statement
differently written. For them it should appear as follows:
"In the mad strife of their own fierce passions, and by the awful out-
pouring of God's unmingled wrath, fall" the larger proportion of "the
wicked inhabitants of the earth, -priests, rulers, and people, rich and poor,
high and low. 'And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of
the earth even unto the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented,
neither gathered, nor buried.'
"At the coming of Christ" the remainder of "the wicked are blotted
from the face of the whole earth, -consumed with the spirit of His mouth,
and destroyed by the brightness of His glory. Christ takes His people to the
city of God, and the earth is emptied of its inhabitants."
The second version provides for the theory that when Christ appears
there will be such an outshining of flaming power that the wicked who
TliE BRIGf-fTNESS OF HIS COMING 399

manage to survive the seven last plagues and the bloody internecine war-
fare. will be consumed by it. If the statement was written in this way, those
who believe that would have an incontrovertible proof for their belief.
But it is not written that way. Instead. we have the truth stated and then
repeated in different words of just how the wicked will perish. They are
parallel declarations, each saying the same thing in different words. To be
slain by the brightness of His coming is to perish under the seven last
plagues and the fierce battles they will fight.
From this reference it is evident that the death of those upon the earth
at the second advent is not caused by searing fire emanating from Christ.
The actual physical forces which crush out fragile life will be the terrible
scourges and the fighting between them.
Exactly as the Jews who perished by the physical instrument of the
Roman armies were destroyed by the brightness of His coming as already
noted in this chapter, so the plagues will come upon the wicked in the same
way. The brightness of Christ's coming begins to shine long before He
actually appears in the clouds of heaven. As the message of the loud cry goes
forward, the brightness of that coming shines with increasing intensity,
pressing upon the hearers throughout the length and breadth of the earth,
to surrender their ways and accept the perfection of God's righteousness.
Very few will respond to this powerful, drawing love. The balance will
resist it with all the determination they can muster. The more effectively the
truth of God, which shines with the brightness of His coming, is offered to
the people, the more rapidly and deeply will they enter into apostasy if they
do not yield to it. This will separate them from God to the point where He
will be forced to leave them entirely. Then will come upon them the full fury
of the seven last plagues by which they will be destroyed. Thus they are
destroyed by the spirit of His mouth and the brightness of His coming.
The presentation of the gospel is the key factor in finishing the work. If
the advent people had accepted and preached the gospel in its full power,
the work would have been finished a hundred years ago. Much further
back, it would likewise have ended if the apostolic church had lived true to
all the light they had received. The only reason the earth has escaped
destruction so long is because it has not been subjected to the spirit of His
mouth and the brightness of His coming. When it finally is, those things will
either save or destroy it.
A further evidence to support the fact that it is not the pulsing forth of
fire from the Person of Christ which destroys the wicked, is the final con-
frontation around the city of God. There the wicked come quite close to the
presence of Christ Who is just as powerful then as when He returns the
second time. But they are to march against the city in which is the pres-
ence of God and of Christ. They are able to stand there right through the
revelation of the mystery of Christ, and they are able to see all that God
wants them to see, without being consumed with physical fire from the
presence of God and His son.
400 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

As will be shown in the next chapter, even when they are destroyed, it
will not be by fire which emanates from the person of God or Christ.
Therefore, if the fire surrounding Christ does not consume them at the
end of the thousand years, why should it do so at the beginning, unless
Christ personally decided that it should? If He did, then, of course He would
become a direct destroyer, which, for Him is impossible.
This does not mean that a human being can come directly into the
power circle surrounding the person of God and survive without special
protection. When the drunken sons of Aaron-Nadab and Abihu-went
into the sanctuary without the protection of the incense, they then entered
into a circle of power which they could not endure. It is just as if a man
comes into physical contact with a powerful electrical field without special
protective clothing. He dies. Likewise, if a man enters into a fire he will
certainly die.
But it will not be thus with the wicked, either at the second advent or
at the end of the thousand years. They do not come within a power circle
and therefore are not consumed as were Nadab and Abihu.
 401

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The Final Showdown

When Christ returns, the earth will have been for six thousand years the
proving ground for the validity, power, indestructibility, justice, and perfect
righteousness of the principles upon which God's kingdom is built. During
that span of sixty centuries, Satan and his hosts will have mounted every
possible assault in their desperate search for that one weakness or flaw
needed to supply the evidence to prove that God's ways are not perfect, and
need to be reformed. They have worked to provoke God to the point
where He would arise and sweep mankind off the face of the earth. They
have subjected Him to the greatest test which could ever come upon Him at
their hands and devices.
This has been no light test for God. He is a being of infinite power and
love. The witness of human history shows that the more power a person
possesses, the greater the danger of his corruption. A great many have
successfully endured privation and poverty, only to be destroyed by coming
into possession of riches and power. Furthermore, the intense sensitivity of
God's nature and perceptions causes Him to view sin with a hatred and
detestation which no human being could either know or understand.
Throughout the entire period of the great controversy, God has been suf-
fering intense anguish.
"Those who think of the result of hastening or hindering the gospel
think of it in relation to themselves and to the world. Few think of its relation
to God. Few give thought to the suffering that sin has caused our Creator.
All heaven suffered in Christ's agony; but that suffering did not begin or end
with His manifestation in humanity. The cross is a revelation to our dull
senses of the pain that, from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart
of God. Every departure from the right, every deed of cruelty, every failure
of humanity to reach His ideal, brings grief to Him. When there came upon
Israel the calamities that were the sure result of separation from God.-
subjugation by their enemies, cruelty, and death,-it is said that 'His soul was
grieved for the misery of Israel.' 'In all their affliction He was afflicted: ...
and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old.' Judges 10:16;
Isaiah 63:9.
"His Spirit 'maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be
uttered.' As the 'whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together'
(Romans 8:26, 22), the heart of the infinite Father is pained in sympathy.
Our world is a vast lazar house, a scene of misery that we dare not allow
even our thoughts to dwell upon. Did we realize it as it is, the burden would
be too terrible. Yet God feels it all." Education, 263, 264.
"Christ feels the woes of every sufferer. When evil spirits rend a human
402 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

frame, Christ feels the curse. When fever is burning up the life current, He
feels the agony." The Desire of Ages, 823.
'Jesus assures His disciples of God's sympathy for them in their needs
and weaknesses. Not a sigh is breathed, not a pain felt, not a grief pierces
the soul, but the throb vibrates to the Father's heart .... In all our afflictions
He is afflicted." ibid., 356.
The depth of God's continual suffering needs to be better realized and
appreciated. There has been the inclination to think that Jesus came to this
earth, suffered with increasing intensity for thirty-three years, and then
returned to the perfect bliss and painlessness of heaven. This is anything but
the truth. The Father and Son have suffered to a depth of which we have
neither knowledge nor experience.
This personal pain is distasteful to God Who desires the end of all suf-
fering more than we ever could. He has the power to end it in an instant by
simply obliterating it. Yet He does not yield to the pressure of His own feel-
ings and desires. He is prepared to suffer in order to maintain the principles
of His government whereby will be assured eternally the happiness and
security of all the universe. If we could enter into the full extent of God's
sufferings and, at the same time, possess the power He has, then we
would know something of the pressure exerted on Him throughout the
great controversy.
If God, in all that time, had made the slightest move to save Himself
from suffering by removing the cause of His anguish; had He by even so
much as a thought made a concession to the devil's arguments; should He
so much as by a hair's breadth have taken away from man his freedom to
choose and to act as he chose; had He taken the life of one individual in
order to lessen the suffering caused by sin; then Satan would have had the
evidence needed to show that his arguments were valid after all.
But during all those ages of darkness and death, of temptation and suf-
fering, God has never deviated from the stated and perfect principles of His
government and kingdom. He has never violated the freedom given to any
individual, has never taken a person's life, has never destroyed, and He has
never in the smallest particular, broken the law. He has been strictly impar-
tial and just. He has been the Saviour, ever and only working to bless, heal,
and restore. Satan has never gained a point over the Lord in the battle.
From it all, God emerges as untouched by sin, as if it had never entered the
universe. He is immaculate.
For this, every redeemed soul shall be eternally grateful, especially when
he becomes fully conversant with the wonderful certainties of God's be-
havior.
But while God has been immaculately perfect in all His activities, He
has not been seen as such. In the eyes of men, Satan has dressed the pure
and holy God in his own evil garments. Millions and added millions have
gone to their graves with a decidely reversed view of the true nature of
righteousness and the God of righteousness. The great controversy cannot
THE FINAL SHOWDOWN 403

be settled until every one of those minds sees the true nature of our heavenly
Father and confesses His perfect justice and righteousness.
God is not concerned about clearing His name for His own personal
interest. He is not proud. He does not take personal offence. But He does
understand that His character and the principles of righteousness are one
and the same. Therefore, the justification of one assures the establishment
of the other. He further knows that the eternal happiness and security of the
universe depend on the vindication of those principles. Inasmuch as His
everlasting and infinite love for all His children will not permit Him to provide
anything less than the perfect best for them, He is determined not to
permit the ultimate desecration of righteousness. He will establish it
eternally.
Because of this, every person who has ever lived must be assembled for
the final showdown in the great controversy. Every principle upon which
the kingdom of God is built and operates must be revealed in sharply
defined contrast to the principles of Satan's government.
It follows, then, that if it was important for God never to violate the laws
of His government during the six thousand years of active controversy,
then it is of multiplied importance that He strictly adhere to them in the final
showdown around the city after the thousand years have expired.
Some are prepared to believe that during the six millenniums of the
great controversy, God will have withheld His righteous hands from slaying
anyone or destroying anything. But they are not prepared to go so far as to
believe that He will continue this course at the final showdown. Then, they
believe, He will arise to personally exterminate the wilfully unrepentant.
They reason on this basis: During the six thousand years He restrains
Himself to give the wicked opportunity to display before the universe their
utter defiance and ingratitude. When the inhabitants of other systems see
the full perversity of the human race, God will be free to cut them off
without being regarded as cruel or unjust. Moreover, they will have become
so incensed with this despicable behavior that they will expect and even
require God to destroy them. This is the position held by some.
This reasoning, if true, makes God a politician Whose policies are
determined by public opinion. This is to belittle God; to reduce Him to the
level of scheming men who study the temper of their fellow humans, and
then formulate their policies and procedures accordingly.
But God is not like that. He is motivated by righteousness, not by the
feelings of His creatures. Before the great controversy began, throughout
all of its duration and in its final resolution, God has and will act with un-
varying consistency.
The reason for God's willingness to enter into the great controversy
with the devil, was to demonstrate that the principles of His government
were perfect, and that no matter what the pressure upon Him, He would
act only in accordance with them. Accordingly, no matter how wicked men
have been in the past, how extensively their destructive ways have
404 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

desolated the earth, or how violent their insolence against Heaven, God
has not raised a finger to obliterate them. They have perished as the
fruitage of their own evil seed-sowing.
To believe that God has never destroyed during the course of the great
rebellion, but turns to do so in the end, is self-contradicting. It would mean
that God, Who has spent seven thousand years demonstrating that He is
not an executioner of the sentence against transgression, will undo all He
has worked to establish by turning into an executioner for this final judg-
ment. What a tragedy that would be! During the long defection, Satan and
his hordes have worked with relentless determination to provoke God into
raising His righteous hand to destroy the rebels, but He has passed every
test without defect. In the last showdown He is afforded His final opportuni-
ty to confirm that He is not an executioner, that He has given to all the
freedom to choose what they want, and that He will not interfere with that
choice. To make the least concession, then, after so perfectly demonstrating
the contrary over the previous rnilleniums, would nullify all that has been
achieved. It would be as if a man spent a lifetime building a splendid edifice
and then burned it to the ground. It is certain that this is not what God will
do. There is no possibility of His having faithfully resisted every pressure to
provocation for so long, only to give way to it at the last. The final eradica-
tion of the wicked will happen exactly as lesser decimations occurred in
human history. As Jerusalem was overthrown by the Jews themselves, as
Sodom and Gomorrah perished as a harvest of their own seed-sowing, as
the flood came, not because God sent it, but because He could not prevent
it without violating His righteous principles, so the final end will come. It will
not be because God sent it, but because He cannot prevent it without taking
away people's freedom to choose what they want.
These principles are poorly understood by earth-dwellers, most of
whom have gone to their dusty beds with distorted understandings of God's
character. This is not God's fault for He has provided in nature, in His
Word, and in the revelation given by Christ, all that is necessary for
understanding His righteous principles. Therefore, in His great love and
mercy, He will especially raise up every human being so that once more,
they can be shown God's workings and their own rejection of them. This
time, they will have no arguments with which to counter the witness of
God. Every person from Satan down, will acknowledge that God has
been just and that the loss of their own souls is their own doing.
After one thousand years during which there will not be a living soul
upon this earth apart from the devil and his evil angels, the wicked of every
generation will be raised up for this final showdown. They come up resum-
ing "the current of their thoughts just where it ceased. They are actuated by
the same desire to conquer that ruled them when they fell." The Great
Controversy, 664.
Satan is astir at once and marshals the mighty hosts into the most pro-
THE FINAL SHOWDOWN 405

digious, prestigious army ever to tramp the earth. It will be a most im-
pressive sight as they drill and train day after day. How long a time will be
involved in this mammoth preparation we are not told. According to the
principle of freedom which the Lord extends to all, they will be given as
much time as they wish to take. Satan knows this, and while he is anxious
to see the struggle over, at the same time he knows that it will be a titanic
struggle. Therefore, he will direct that the preparations be as thorough as
possible.
They do not intend to advance to the hoped-for conquest of the city
with bare hands. "Skilful artisans construct implements of war." ibid. Just
how sophisticated those weapons will be, we are not told. It is possible that
they will be as highly technical as the scientific men can assemble. The
atomic scientists will be there, remembering all that they learned while still
living on this earth. They will think in terms of conducting nuclear warfare
against the city, so that, if it is at all possible to prepare such tools of destruc-
tion, they certainly will do it. The advancing hordes will carry such
weaponry with them as they move up to the snowy walls.
But no battle ensues. It has been suggested that the battle of Armaged-
don begins before Christ's coming and is completed around the New
Jerusalem. A little careful thought will show that there is no battle in the
end. The struggle between God and His people on one side, and Satan and
his on the other, will all end before Christ comes the second time. At the
end of the thousand years, God will have at His command the revelations
of the principles of righteousness as embodied in His character, which have
been provided firstly by the life and teachings of Christ upon this earth and
secondly by the witness of the translated saints as given during the time of
Jacob's trouble.
This witness will be unfolded before the multitudes who have been
halted in their advance. As scene after scene passes before them, they will
see the great controversy in its true light. They will realize just what God
stands for. They will see the true nature of Satan's rebellion against Him.
They will recognize that His law was provided for them as a life-preserver;
that disregard of the divine precepts did not bring them release from an
arduous bondage, but opened the flood gates of woe upon them. They will
understand at last, that every woe and trouble they have experienced has
been the result of their own course of action. They will know that they have
abused the gift of freedom to their own miserable hurt. See The Great Con-
troversy, 666-668.
They will see things as they have never seen them before and as the
devil was determined that they should never see them. As soon as they do,
all intent to continue the rebellion against God is ended. The point was
made on pages 19 and 20 that when a misrepresentation of God's
character begins, there rebellion against God likewise begins. So when the
character of God is fully revealed for what it is, rebellion against God then
comes to its end.
406 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

This is precisely why there is no war between evil men and God over
the New Jerusalem. In the beginning of the great controversy God did not
have so clear a manifestation of His character as would settle the problem
right there and then. But at the end of the thousand years, He will have
such revelations, which He will use, not only to ensure that there is no war,
but to bring, from the least person to Satan himself, the frank and open
confession that they have held wrong concepts of God, that they have been
responsible for rejecting His salvation and that their doom is deserved.
The picture is so clear. The wicked see things exactly as they are, and
instead of rushing in to attack the city, they fall "prostrate" and "worship the
Prince of life." The Great Controuersy, 669.
Satan also sees it all. His mind travels back over the full span of his life.
He sees again those days when he was the covering cherub. He remembers
the first thoughts of doubt and then the open rebellion. He surveys the long
centuries in between, comparing the loving patience and forgiving power of
the Eternal in contrast to his own mean, destructive spirit.
"Satan sees that his voluntary rebellion has unfitted him for heaven. He
has trained his powers to war against God; the purity, peace, and harmony
of heaven would be to him supreme torture. His accusations against the
mercy and justice of God are now silenced. The reproach which he has
endeavored to cast upon Jehovah rests wholly upon himself. And now
Satan bows down, and confesses the justice of his sentence." ibid., 670.
The great moment has come. There is not a single intelligent being in
the universe whose mind has the slightest question remaining as to the
perfect righteousness of God's character. Even the arch-rebel himself has
bowed down to acknowledge the truth of God's ways and the falsity of
every other system.
'"Who shall not fear Thee, 0 Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou
only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy
judgments are made manifest.' Reuelation 15:4. Every question of truth
and error in the long-standing controversy has now been made plain. The
results of rebellion, the fruits of setting aside the divine statutes, have been
laid open to the view of all created intelligences. The working out of Satan's
rule in contrast with the government of God, has been presented to the
whole universe. Satan's own works have condemned him. God's wisdom,
His justice, and His goodness stand fully vindicated. It is seen that all His
dealings in the great controversy have been conducted with respect to the
eternal good of His people, and the good of all the worlds that He has
created. 'All Thy works shall praise Thee, 0 Lord; and Thy saints shall bless
Thee.' Psalm 145: 10. The history of sin will stand to all eternity as a witness
that with the existence of God's law is bound up the happiness of all the be-
ings He has created. With all the facts of the great controversy in view, the
whole universe, both loyal and rebellious, with one accord declare, 'Just
and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints.' " ibid., 670, 671.
THE FINAL SHOWDOWN 407

Once Satan and his followers have been brought to acknowledge the
justice and righteousness of God, the stage is set for the final act of the
drama-earth's and heaven's actual purification from the stain and
presence of sin.
This will be accomplished by fire. The Scripture says, " ... and fire
came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
"And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be
tormented day and night for ever and ever....
"And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second
death.
"And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into
the lake of fire." Reuelation 20:9, 10, 14, 15.
" 'Every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments
rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire." The indigna-
tion of the Lord is upon all nations, and His fury upon all their armies: He
hath utterly destroyed them, He hath delivered them to the slaughter.'
'Upon the wicked He shall rain quick burning coals, fire and brimstone, and
a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.' Isaiah 9:5; 34:2;
Psalm 11 :6 (margin). Fire comes down from God out of heaven. The earth
is broken up. The weapons concealed in its depths are drawn forth.
Devouring flames burst from every yawning chasm. The very rocks are on
fire. The day has come that shall bum as an oven. The elements melt with
fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein are burned up
[Malachi 4:1; 2 Peter 3:10]. The earth's surface seems one molten
mass,--a vast, seething lake of fire. It is the time of the judgment and perdi-
tion of ungodly men, -'the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of
recompenses for the controversy of Zion.' Isaiah 34:8; Prouerbs 11 :31.
"The wicked receive their recompense in the earth. They 'shall be stub-
ble: and the day that cometh shall bum them up, saith the Lord of hosts.'
Malachi 4: 1. Some are destroyed as in a moment, while others suffer many
days. All are punished 'according to their deeds.' The sins of the righteous
having been transferred to Satan, he is made to suffer not only for his own
rebellion, but for all the sins which he has caused God's people to commit.
His punishment is to be far greater than that of those whom he has de-
ceived. After all have perished who fell by his deceptions, he is still to live
and suffer on. In the cleansing flames the wicked are at last destroyed, root
and branch, -Satan the root, his followers the branches. The full penalty of
the law has been visited; the demands of justice have been met; and
heaven and earth, beholding, declare the righteousness of Jehovah." The
Great Controuersy, 672, 673.
These texts and statements are familiar to Bible students. Invariably
they have given a picture of God personally pouring down fire upon the
wicked and thus bringing about their final end. This is no problem to the
408 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

average person for he considers that God has a perfect right to destroy
those who have rebelled against Him. Furthermore, he knows of no other
way whereby the problem can be solved. The criminal must be executed or
he will go on making trouble forever. Of course this is man's thinking, but it
is neither the thinking nor the way of God.
There is no difference in the language used in Revelation or The Great
Controversy from that used in other parts of the Scriptures, describing the
outpouring of terrible judgments.
"Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone
and fire from the Lord out of heaven." Genesis 19:24.
"And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, multiply My signs and My
wonders in the land of Egypt." Exodus 7:3.
"And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the
people; and much people of Israel died." Numbers 21:6.
"But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from
the Lord troubled him." 1Samuel16:14.
"But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his
armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city."
Matthew 22:7.
We have already considered each of these statements from the Lord. It
has been demonstrated that there must be a different definition of the terms
and expressions used to describe the behavior of men. Trouble is experienced
in understanding these expressions in regard to God's character when no
distinction is made between man's ways and God's ways.
Those previous studies into these verses confirmed the truth that when
God pours out fire, sends serpents, or such like, it is not something
dispensed from His hands as a response to His personal decree. Rather, it
happens only when He is obliged to depart from the scene, thus leaving
matters in the hands of men and devils. Then, being out of His control, the
rod of power descends in merciless power upon the defenseless heads of
the self-willed.
There is no reason to suppose that these verses in Revelation are to be
understood any differently. What those expressions mean throughout the
remainder of the Scriptures they must still mean at the end of them.
Therefore, in the end, God does not decree that the wicked shall die by fire
and then set about executing this decree by personally exercising His
power. God does not decree what punishment shall befall the evildoer. He
foresees what will happen and foretells it, but He neither chooses nor
organizes it to be just that way.
In the light of all the truths learned so far in this study, consider the se-
quence of events in the drama of destruction outside the city. When the
wicked are raised at the close of the millennium, it is only possible for them to
live safely upon the earth by God's holding firm hands on the rod of power.
All the mighty forces of nature are thus held in restraint in order to afford to
THE FINAL SHOWDOWN 409

the lost, the opportunity of seeing the true nature of the great controversy.
Thus, there is no outburst of fire and brimstone during the time that they
make their preparations and advance upon the city.
But when the revelations of the mystery of God have been completed
while simultaneously they have been convincingly shown where they have
rejected the loving appeals of God, the time has come for the final settle-
ment. Every one of these individuals has, during this life, made an ir-
revocable decision rejecting salvation in preference for Satan's kingdom.
God knows that once this point has been reached, the wicked will never
change, no matter what opportunity may be given to them. It is for this
reason that Jesus solemnly intones as He leaves the sanctuary, "He that is
unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and
he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be
holy still." Reue/ation 22: 11.
This is the declaration of Jesus Christ in evaluating the condition of the
wicked. It is not to be supposed that Christ says this because He and the
Father have decided that probation can no longer be continued, and for this
reason those who have not availed themselves of salvation during the
designated time limit, are lost forever. It is because, no matter what revela-
tions might be made to them or opportunities given, their decision is final.
But it is one thing for this to be so and for Christ to say it is so. It is
something else for the believers to see it. How often in this life, have we
looked upon a person who appears to be so sincere and honest, and yet
who makes no evident move toward the message. We feel that if only this
one had been given more opportunity to see it, he or she would have come
to Christ. We find it difficult to accept the idea that when this person goes to
the grave, he should remain unjust forever.
The declaration made by Christ will be vindicated by the demonstration
of its truthfulness at the close of the millennium. Those whom we thought
had gone down to their graves without the necessary chance to see the
light, will then be afforded the most comprehensive, clear, and wonderful
revelation of the truth. It will convince but not convert them. Their rejection
of such light as came to them in this life, will have hardened them beyond
any possibility of change.
Their conviction that God is right after all, will be expressed by their
bowing before Him and saying so, but they do not plead His forgiveness
nor ask to be accepted into His kingdom. All that is foreign and distasteful to
them. They still want to live but on their own terms. Knowing that this
cannot be and that accordingly, they are eternally to be deprived of any life,
they rise from their knees in a frenzy of disappointment and rage and tum
upon him who has robbed them of everything.
In effect, at the climax of the revelation of the gospel to them, God will
ask them to confirm their intentions. Hitherto they have reiterated their
wish to live without God. The time will have come when they must either
410 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

confirm or deny the plan to continue that way. If it was possible for them
to relinquish every desire to be separate from God, then God would save
them even then, for "His mercy endureth forever." Psalm 106: 1.
But no person will be saved at this time, for they will not show any
disposition to change. Christ's declaration will be proven correct. As God
waits for their answer, they will confirm in the most emphatic terms that
they want nothing to do with Him, but choose to be left entirely to their
own way. They want the world and life under their own terms.
What can God do under the circumstances?
He has made it very plain that they have full liberty to choose what they
want. If they prefer to go it alone without Him, then this is what they shall
have. When Israel wanted their king, He gave them one; when they
wanted flesh, He let them have it; and whenever men have wanted this or
that, the Lord has never stood in their way, no matter what dire results
might follow their foolish choosing.
At the end of the millennium He cannot change. So when they choose
to go alone, He will simply say to them, "Then I respect your choice and set
you completely free from My presence and control. All the earth and the
mighty powers surrounding it are now in your hands. The rod of power is
out of My hands and control."
It will be as it was at the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues of
Egypt, and the fall of Jerusalem. God, in each case, accepted their choice
and turned the control over to them. So it will be at the end. The wicked
will be given full possession of the earth and all the powers attendant
upon it, but they will be unable to control the frenzied outburst of human,
satanic, and natural wrath, which has been building in intensity ever since
the first sin was committed.
The first manifestations of this will be when the people tum on Satan
himself. They see in him the cause of all their troubles. The weapons
intended for the city will be directed against him and he will employ every
evasive maneuver conceivable, to avoid them. Then the fires will start.
Exactly how we are not told. One thing is certain. Men never go to war
without generating fire, especially when it is nuclear warfare. Thus, when
they hurl their atomic and cosmic weapons at the devil, they will certainly
start a mighty conflagration.
As in the flood of water when the fountains of the earth were broken up
so that water rushed out from beneath the surface, so the stores of oil and
coal still hidden from men in the bowels of the earth will burst forth in
flaming torrents upon the surface.
"Those majestic trees which God had caused to grow upon the earth,
for the benefit of the inhabitants of the old world, and which they had used
to form into idols, and to corrupt themselves with, God has reserved in the
earth, in the shape of coal and oil to use as agencies in their final destruc-
tion. As He called forth the waters in the earth at the time of the flood, as
THE FINAL SHOWDOWN 411

weapons from His arsenal to accomplish the destruction of the antediluvian

race, so at the end of the one thousand years He will call forth the fires in
the earth as His weapons which He has reserved for the final destruction,
not only of successive generations since the flood, but the antediluvian race
who perished by the flood." Spiritual Gifts 3:87.
In the original flood, water also poured down from above. Likewise it is
to be expected that fire will rain down from the heavens. The great source
of this would be the sun, as from our study of the principles, we know that it
does not come from God personally. When God's presence was withdrawn
from the earth in Noah's day, both the sun and the moon were affected.
Therefore, when God's presence is again withdrawn in the same way at the
close of the millennium, the sun will again be affected. In its final stages
of decay resulting from the effects of sin in this earth, it could well erupt in
great explosions, projecting streams of fire far out into the solar system and
onto this earth. If this is to be so, then fire from above would mingle with the
fire from beneath, exactly as the waters did when this earth was flooded.
The whole earth will be enveloped in a sea of flame on which the Holy City
will ride as did the ark. Within it the ransomed will be safe and secure until
the destruction is completed.
In this final annihilation, the wicked do not all take the same time to
perish. There is a direct relationship between the extent to which they have
sinned and the length of time they suffer.
"[saw that some were quickly destroyed, while others suffered longer.
They were punished according to the deeds done in the body. Some were
many days consuming, and just as long as there was a portion of them
unconsumed, all the sense of suffering remained. Said the angel, 'The worm
of life shall not die; their fire shall not be quenched as long as there is the
least particle for it to prey upon.'
"Satan and his angels suffered long. Satan bore not only the weight and
punishment of his own sins, but also of the sins of the redeemed host,
which had been placed upon him; and he must also suffer for the ruin of
souls which he had caused. Then I saw that Satan and all the wicked host
were consumed, and the justice of God was satisfied; and all the angelic
host, and all the redeemed saints, with a loud voice said, 'Amen!' "Early
Writings, 294, 295.
The question immediately arises as to how the wicked could suffer
exactly according to their desserts unless some intelligence calculates the
measure of their individual punishments and so controls events that they will
be kept alive until the full punishment has been exacted. On the sur-
face, this would seem to be impossible. Therefore it is considered that God,
being the only one with the power to either estimate the deserved chastise-
ment or to control its administration, must surely be the one who executes
the sinners in the end.
412 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Anyone who understands and accepts the principles laid down so far,
will recognize that there must be another answer. Perhaps it has not yet
been revealed. This does not drive us to the conclusion that inasmuch as
the real answer is wanting, we have to accept another. One thing must be
very clear. It is that God does not execute the sinner, now, in the past, or
ever. It is sin which does that.
To understand how sin can do this and selectively punish one more
than another, requires knowledge of laws which as yet are beyond our ken.
One thing we do know however, is that the more sinful a person is, the
more desperately he struggles to live in the face of death. The true child of
God does not fight the Grim Reaper. He knows his time has come and that
his life is safe in the hands of God. But not so with the rebel against God's
laws and government. He resists with all the power of his soul, and is able
to prolong his life beyond its natural span.
No one has been so great a sinner as Satan, and no one will fight the in-
roads of death with greater determination than he. Thus he will prolong his
life far beyond that point where he would have died if he had resigned
himself to his fate. In so doing he will extend his suffering until he has suf-
fered for all the sins he has committed and caused others to commit.
Finally it will be all over and the " ... fire which had consumed the
wicked," will bum "up the rubbish and" purify "the earth." Early Writings,
295.
The deadly experiment will be ended, and it will be demonstrated eter-
nally that through it all, God did not change. When sin entered it changed
angels, men, the animals, and the operations of nature, but it did not
change God. Nothing was introduced into His ways after the coming of sin
which was not there before. He never destroyed before sin entered, never
executed, never punished, and never forced. The entry of sin did not cause
Him to begin doing any of these things in order to solve the problems sin
imposed upon Him.
Satan and evil angels did their utmost to provoke Him to anger and
arise to sweep away the rebellious inhabitants of the earth, but He would
not be provoked, angered, insulted, or hurt. He emerges from the whole
miserable test as immaculate as He entered it. Satan has not been able to
sustain a single point against Him and it is shown that the way of the
cross-the power of self-sacrificing love, which serves, no matter what the
cost to the server-is stronger than all the ways of force combined.
 413

In Conclusion
This book is not the last word on the character of God. No book written
could ever be, either in this life or in the coming immortal era, for the
knowledge of God, which is life eternal, will be unfolding without respite
throughout eternity. God is infinite. There is no edge, no limit, no point
where it can be said that there is no more. God has no beginning and He
has no ending, not only in time but also in space.
The redeemed will spend the coming eternity studying into the wonder-
ful depths, breadths, and heights of the character of the Infinite. The mental,
physical, and spiritual energies and attendant capacities of these people
will far surpass the capabilities of earthbound students by at least twenty to
one. In the original creation, Adam and his wife possessed twenty times the
electrical energy possessed by us today.
"God endowed man with so great vital force that he has withstood the
accumulation of disease brought upon the race in consequence of
perverted habits, and has continued for six thousand years. This fact of
itself is enough to evidence to us the strength and electrical energy that God
gave to man at his creation. It took more than two thousand years of crime
and indulgence of base passions to bring bodily disease upon the race to
any great extent. If Adam, at his creation, had not been endowed with
twenty times as much vital force as men now have, the race, with their
present habits of living in violation of natural law, would have become
extinct." Testimonies 3:138, 139.
In eternity, eager students will possess at least twenty times the vital
energy possessed today and will be under the direct tutelage of Christ. It
would be impossible to conceive of the enormous amount of light gathered
by such in the first million years, for instance, of their celestial sojourn.
That, in turn, will be but the beginning of what will be learned as successive
millions of years roll by devoted to the continued contemplation of God's
character of love. In comparison with that, what a microscopic fragment of
the knowledge of God is contained in this book. It is but cradle roll level at
best. It is nothing more than a start, albeit, a very necessary and vital one.
It is important that this be realized by the hungry seeker after God, for
thereby he will be encouraged to press on, ever reaching for the richer and
more beautiful revelations of God yet to come. He will be impressed to
immerse himself in the contemplation of the life of Jesus Christ, the complete
and perfect revelation of the Infinite One. Every contact with the throbbing,
spiritual vitality of that life, with its marvellous consistency, tenderness, sav-
ing power, and a thousand other blessed qualities, will motivate to even
more intense thirsting to know and experience its elevating power. The
things of this world will wane in interest and value until they have no drawing
influence left.
414 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

The benefit to be gained is not limited to acquiring information. Vital

and basic as this is, it is but the doorway to a character development such as
no other factor can produce. There is no possibility of coming in contact
with God without being dramatically changed in nature. Consciously and
unconsciously, the patterns of behavior, the attitudes, the spirit, the moti-
vation, the work, and every aspect of the life will be purified, ennobled,
sanctified, vitalized, prolonged, and enriched. Contributions of loving, self-
sacrificing service will be rendered which will initiate streams of blessing, the
radiating influence of which will penetrate beyond the confines of this life
into the eternity beyond. Neither men nor angels can reach to a higher
attainment than to know God.
"Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither
let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:
"But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and
knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment,
and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord."
Jeremiah 9:23, 24.
Nebuchadnezzar ruled the world and gloried in the power by which he
did it. Other men have been unbelievably rich, possessing treasures, lands,
and money beyond computation. This is their glory and honor, but all the
power in which a man could ever find his boasted satisfaction, all the
wealth, charging him with glowing pride, that this world could ever give,
can never compare to the riches contained in knowing God. Search for this
treasure. Dig deeply, earnestly, relentlessly, until the golden veins are
opened wide and the greatest riches in the universe become your posses-
sion. Here is true value, which, if possessed, will bring all other treasures in
its train. Those who have it are rich; the remainder are impoverished. This
is a treasure available to all.
But, while on one hand, the searching out of God's character is urged,
on the other a warning must be sounded against certain dangers inherent
in such a quest. There are a number of different ways in which study of the
Scriptures can be undertaken, but only one of them is correct. Unless this
method is understood and carefully adhered to, then the more time that is
spent with the Word of God, the further the student will be from the real
truth. Therefore, it would be better to do no study at all, than to conduct it
along incorrect lines of interpretation.
This book purposes to set the learner on the right track; to clear away
the tragic misconceptions of God which Satan has foisted on the human
family to its hurt; to open to view God as He really is, and thus introduce
the blessings which are awaiting those who dig deeply into the mines of
truth.
It is stressed that this is only an introduction to the subject. Not all has
been written which might have been. During its production, the temptation
to write more had to be continually resisted lest the book become
IN CONCLUSION 415

disproportionately large. Volumes could be written on the role of the cross

as the revelation of our Heavenly Father's character. Still more could and
should be written on the life and teachings of Christ, demonstrating the
perfection of each word and act as the manifestation of the Omnipotent
One. As time goes by, no doubt other volumes will follow this one, taking
up these precious themes.
No attempt has been made to examine every incident in the Bible
where God has been involved in one way or another. There is no necessity
to do so. Once the application of divine principles has been applied to
typical cases, anyone who has thoroughly grasped them will have no dif-
ficulty in solving most problems. There will always be one or two which defy
solution, the simple reason being that God will never remove the oppor-
tunity for doubt, for to do so would take away the right of choice. He
desires our spiritual education to come to the place where we will learn to
trust Him in the unknown on the basis of what we have learned in the
known.
Learn to expect that seeming contradictions will manifest themselves as
the study progresses. The solution of one problem only exposes another.
This is a normal development. Some claim that they have never found a
contradiction in the Bible, but this only admits that they have never really
studied it. No one who has dug deeply, has failed to be confronted with
what appeared to be insoluble problems. But, if aware that this is normal
rather than abnormal, and, if faith has attended his research, he will rest in
the comfort of knowing that there are no real contradictions in God's Word,
but only beautiful harmonies, even if they are not seen as such at the
moment.
Train the mind not to think of God as if He were a man. Glaringly
evident in every false concept of God's character, is the disposition to see
God operating on the same procedures as men. There is no greater stumbling-
block than this in the way of a correct comprehension of God. It must firstly
be recognized as such, after which it will take protracted effort in retraining
the thinking to automatically recognize that God works along lines that are
opposite from man's way of working.
As a gift to every creature, there is nothing which God desires more,
than for them to have the knowledge of His character of righteousness.
When consideration is given to the magnitude of the task of under-
standing the Infinite, discouragement might well possess the soul. But, be
assured that there is nothing God is more anxious to supply than this
knowledge, not only as a store of precious information, but, more impor-
tantly, as a personal experience. He longs that the same character which is
in Him be also in every one of His creatures, for, only then is it possible for
all to enter into the blessed fellowship which makes heaven to be heaven.
Therefore, the blessed assurance is to accompany the spiritual wayfarer
every moment, that the full resources of heaven are devoted to unfolding
these things to the eager mind. With pitying tenderness, God stoops low to
416 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

unveil these mysteries to our dull human senses and is grieved when we
learn so little so slowly. Before those who will press forward with unabated
determination, are possibilities beyond the outreach of our imaginations
and aspirations. Higher and still higher, the Lord will personally elevate the
mind until it is overwhelmed with the revelation of divine things. Sweeter
and sweeter will be the love implanted within the heart, more and more in-
tense the spirit of self-sacrificing service, and more exalted and profound
the response of praise and joy. Earthly things will appear in their true light,
with luster dimmed and attractiveness gone. Sin will no longer masquerade
in garments of light, but will be exposed for what it is-a hideous, decep-
tive, and unwanted perversion of all things good and true. There will be no
more glorying in power and riches but in the possession of the knowledge
of God, the greatest power and riches of all.
When God has a people upon this earth equipped with this, then He
will have the instrumentalities whereby He will move the world. It is for this
reason that the loud cry under the power of the latter rain cannot come until
such qualifications are possessed by a living church. God desires to
dispense to that church the very best gifts heaven can bestow, that its
members, in turn, may render the finest saving service possible to the
desperately needy and perishing millions of earth's population.
God's people have long professed to desire nothing more than the out-
pouring of the latter rain whereby the work can be finished and the way
prepared for Christ's return. To such, then, comes the challenge of the
truth that this can never be accomplished until the knowledge of God's
character firstly fills them and subsequently, lightens the whole earth with its
glory. It is the failure of God's church to know by text and by experience the
truth of His character, which is retarding the finishing of God's work in the
earth today. While His children enjoy the comforts of this life, making little
real effort to penetrate the mysteries of infinite love which have been
revealed and are for them to understand, sin continues to trample the
oppressed on its missions of death and destruction.
Men of God, it is time to arise to the full stature of God's plan, to
measure up to the exacting demands of this climactic hour. God offers the
equipment. It is for each to accept and use it. For six thousand years now,
our loving Heavenly Father has been earnestly entreating His people to
learn of Him that they might embark on their appointed mission and the
earth be delivered from its oppression.
The question before this generation is whether they will respond by
going all the way, or will they, having made a good beginning, fall short as
have all the other movements which have gone before.
It is a question to be faced and answered by each.
If this volume achieves nothing more than to alert enough people to the
realization of these issues and stir them to a profound and total consecra-
tion of every faculty and power to the devoted study and experience of the
character of God, then its writing will have been worthwhile.
 417
Scripture Index
A Scripture Index is an invaluable aid to the careful student ol the Word ol God.
Every Bible passage quoted in this book is listed below, and every Bible passage relened
to-but not quot~ also given, but enclosed within parentheses.

Genesis

l. ................... (261) 20:2 .................... 170, 373 19:9-12 ...................... 233

1:1-2 .......................... 262 21:1-6 .......................(117)
1 :6-8 ........................... 262 21 :22-25 ..................... 373 2 Kings
1:9, 13 ........................ 262 21:23-25 ..................... 170
1:14-19 ....................... 263 23:27-31 ............. 364, 365 5:27 ............................. 117
1:26 .............................. 78 32:27 ............................ 97
2:5-6 ........................... 211 32:27-29 ..................... 317 1 Chronicles
2:17 ....................... -79, 89 33:19 ............................ 37
3:1 ................................ 20 34:5-7 ........................... 37 10:3-6. ······· ......... 120, 121
3:3 ................................ 90 401.. .................... (117) 10:13, 24 ............... 121
3:4 ................................ 90 23: 13 ........................ ( 117)
3:4, 5..................... 21. 90 Leviticus
6:5-7 ............................. 96 Nehemiah
6:17 .............................. 96 11:44 ............................ 55
7:12 ............................ 262 9:6 ................................ 76
9:8-11 ......................... 291 Numbers
108-11 ....................... 205 Job
13:10 ........................ (299) 13:1-3 ......................... 133
14:2 .......................... (299) 21:5 ............................ 361 2:3 .............................. 128
14 3 .......................... (298) 21:6 .................... 127, 408 11:7-9 .......................... 10
1410 ....... ·················(298) 28: 12-28 ...................... 10
19:24 ......................... -408 Deuteronomy 38:4, 9 ....................... 263
19:24, 25 ...................... 96 38:11 ......................... 272
19:26 ....................... -(299) 1: 19-21 ....................... 365
19:29 ...................... 96, 97 1:22 ............................ 366 Psalms
25:23 ...........................166 6:4 .............................. 362
26:34, 35 .....................167 29:23 ........................ (298) 11:6 ........................... 407
29:29 .......................... 7, 9 19:7 .............. 56, 116, 175
Exodus 19:7-11.. ................. 53, 54
Joshua 34:7 ............................ 321
4:21 .............................. 97 46:1-3 ........................ 321
5:2 .............................. 132 2:15 .......................... (384) 46:10 .............................. 9
7:1 .............................. 231 10:11.. .......................... 97 48:1.. .......................... 179
7:1-5 ................... 222-223 51:7 ............................ 344
7:3 ...................... 131, 408 Judges 86:8-10 ....................... 179
7:3, 13 .......................... 97 89:14 ...................... 14, 54
7:10-13 ....................... 232 10:16 ...........................401 97:2 ........................ 14, 54
7:14-25 ............... 240, 241 99:1.. ............................ 54
7:25 ............................ 243 1 Samuel 104:20, 21.. .................. 76
9:16 .................... 223, 248 104:27, 28 .................... 76
9:20 ............................ 252 8:6-18 ...................... ~371) 106:1 .......................... 410
12:12 .......................... 245 8:11-15 ....................... 371 119:89-91.. .................. 23
12:24 .......................... 116 8:19, 20 ...................... 371 119:97 .......................... 72
12:31.. ................ 257, 258 16:14 .......................... 408 119:137, 138, 142 ........ 14
20:1.. .......................... 170 119:138 ........................ 98
20:3 .............................. 72 1 Kings 129:4 ............................ 14
20:13 ............................ 98 135:6 ........................... 23
418 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

139:14... .. .......... 83 28 .......................... (350) 18:16 ......................... 340

145:10 .......................... 406 28:12 ........................... 29 18:21, 22... . .... 173
145:17 ....................... 14, 98 28:15 ........................ (14) 22 .............................. (125)
147:8 .............................. 76 2816 ........ .15, 211, (214) 22:7 ...97, 125, 242, 243, 408
147:16...................... 23, 76 28:17 ..................... 15, 16 22:14 ......................... (257)
148:5, 6 .......................... 23 33:11.. ....................... 152 22:41-46 ...................... 206
23:37-39... ...... .122
Proverbs Daniel 23:38 ........................... 239
26:52 ........................... 326
4:18 .................................. 8 4:17 .......................... 252 27:50 ......................... (199)
11:31 .................... (407) 7:9, 10 ........................ 37
14:34 ............................. 186 814 ........................ (154) Mark
21:21 ............................. 186 8:23 ............................. 69
9 ............................. (239) 4:30 ....................... 50, 257
Isaiah 9:7 ............................... 14 11:20 ............................ 155
16:15 ........................... 204
6:1-4 ............................... 37 Hosea
9:5 ................................ 407 Luke
28:21 .......................... (152) 13:9 ........................... 153
30:26 .......... 260, 274, (277) 9:51-56...... .. ...... 147
32:17 ............................. 186 Obadiah 9:55, 56 ........................ 99
34:2 .............................. 407 9:56 ............................. 152
34:8 ...............................407 16 .............................. 115 23:46. ........ ....... (199)
40:9, 10 .......................... 46
40:26 .............................. 76 Jonah John
40:21.. .......................... 158
44:22 .................... 343, 344 1:17 ........................ (117) 1:14 ............................. 38
45:19 ............................... 14 2:6 ............................. 117 2:13-17 ........................ 155
53:2 ................................ 38 3:17 ............................. 146
55:7 .............................. 343 Micah 5:17 ................................ 74
55:8 .............................. 226 5:19 .............. 137, 142, 143
55:8, 9 ...... 50, 51, 109, 110 2:10 ........................... 344 5:20 ............................. 143
60 ............................. 41, 46 7:18 ........................... 152 5:40 ............................. 239
60:1.. .............................. 41 6:37 ............................. 344
60:1-3 ............................. 41 Malachi 8:28 ............................ 139
60:2 .......................... 43, 45 8:32.............. . ..... 113
60:20 ............... (276). (277) 3:6 ...48,(94),332,335,399 8:32, 36 ....................... 63
63:9 .............................. 401 4: 1.. ................ .116, (407) 10:10 ........................ 239
4:2 ............................... 27 10:30 ............................ 137
Jeremiah 10:37, 38 ..................... 137
Matthew 13:15........ .. ........... 44
7:2-7 ........................... 335 14:7-11.. ......... ·········· 137
9:23, 24 ........................ 414 4:8, 9 ......................... 216 14:8, 9....... .. ....... 34
10:13 ........................ 23, 76 5-7 .......................... (169) 14:9 ............................. 139
27:2, 3 .......................... 351 5:17-20 .............. 168, 373 14:10...... . .. ............. 139
27:7 .............................. 351 5:38, 39 ..................... 170 14:29 .................... ····· 154
27:8-11 ......................... 351 5:38-45 ................... (218) 14:30....... ................. . 78
29:5-7 ........................... 348 5:38-48 ..................... 374 15:10........ .. ....... 44
29:8 .............................. 348 5:39-42 .............. 171, 172 15:13 .......................... 216
31:34 ............................ 343 5:43-48 .............. 172, 173 16:2 ............................ 189
50:20 ............................ 343 5:45 ........................... 174 17:3 .................... vii, 1, 142
5:48 ............................. 55 19:15 .......................... 372
Ezekiel 16:24 ......................... 218
SCRJPTI.JRE SOURCE 419

Acts Ephesians 2 Peter

10:34 ---- -------·--··-- 18 1:9, 10....... - - 65, 137 1:20. ----------·--·····- -· 107
10:38 ... --·-·-·-·-······--····· 144 1:11.. ............................ 65 2:6 ................................ 116
17:28 ········ 76 3:1-11.. ....................... 7, 8 3:3-7 .................. 275, (277)
3:11 .............................. 65 3:4 ................................ 279
Romans 3:10 .............................. 407
1:18-32 ......................... (3) Colossi ans
1:19, 20 ........................... 3 1 John
1:21, 22 ........................... 4 2:9 ......................... 56, 175
1:23 .................... 4, 48, 94 3:8 .................................. 27
1:24-32 ........................... 4 2 Thessalonians
5:1 ................................... 3 2:8 ................................396 Jude
6:23 ............................... 71 2:9, 10............................ 45
7 ................................... 116
7:12.... - -- ······-········ 54
8:1 ............................... 338 2 T1mothy
8:4 ......................... 56, 175 Revelation
8:26, 22 ....................... 401 4:6-8 ............................. 204
9:14 ............................. 259 3:21.. ............................ (33)
Hebrews 7:1.. .............................. 380
9:17 ........... ···-·············· 223
12:3 ................................ 28
1 Corinthians 1:1-3 ............................... 22 12:7-9..................... 32, 340
1:2, 3 ............................... 74 12:10........................ 30, 33
1:17 ............................. 203 1 :3 ................................. 138 12:12 .............................. 33
1:18 ............................. 204 4:3 ................................... 76 14:6-12 ......................... (36)
1:22-25 ............... 204, 205 5:11-14 ............................ 9 14:10............................ 391
1:23, 24 .................... (219) 7:11-14 ...................... (117) 15:4.............................. 406
2:2 ............................... 203 9:24-26 ...................... (116) 17:4-6............................ 186
13:8.......... 48, 57,(94), 171, 18................. (36), (41), (46)
2 Corinthians 221, 332 18:1.. .... 36, 38, 39, (42), 43
3:18 ............................ 203 James 18:1-4........................... (36)
4:11.. .................... 56, 175 18:24............................. 186
5:19 ............................. 394 1:17 .......... 48, 94, 332, 356 20:9 ................................. 98
20:9, 10, 14, 15............. 407
Galatians 1 Peter 20:10 ................ (115), (116)
22:5 ............................... 277
6:14 ............................. 194 1:15, 16 .......................... 55 22:11 ............................. 409
 Reference Source 421

This index enables you to locate every extra-Biblical author or authority and book that is
quoted or referred to in Behold Your God. Books and other publications are included in this
index noted with quotation marks.

Acts of the Apostles 19............. .139 Education

19, 20............ .202
12 ............. 50..59, 226, 257, 20 ................................. 215 78, 79 ....................... 43, 44
317,359 21, 22 ..................... 19, 138 132 .................................. 22
209, 210 ....................... 193 22 .... 27,59,99,191,226,358 179, 180....................... 380
333, 334. . ... .193, 194 36, 37 ....................... 69, 70 263, 264 ....................... 401
334 ....................... 44 162..... .. . ... . . ...... .156, 157
585.. ...................... 41 299 ................................ vi
Encyclopedia Brittanica-
322, 323 ....................... 131
Vol. 2 (1963)
Answers to Objections 356 ............................... 402
377 ......................... 378, vii
4 .................................. 270
360, 361.. ...................... 116 380 ................................. vii
391.. ....................... vii, 174
Encyclopedia Brittanica
The Brittanica 466 ......................... 59, 226
Vol. 18 (1963)
487 ......... 99, 148, 150, 182
........... 350 530.... ............... 139
904, 905 ..................... 278
581, 582 ....................... 151
Butler, Hal 582............... . .... 152
Encyclopedia Brittanica
See: Nature at War 582, 583 ............... 152, 153
Vol. 23 (1963)
664 ............................... 138
Christ's Object Lessons 758 ....................... 135, 192
243A ............................ 270
758, 759 ....................... 29
69 ....................... 39, 42, 43 759 ......... 59, 99, 156, 182,
Encyclopedia Brittanica
84 .................................... 98 226,317,340,358
Vol. 15 (1966)
112 ................................ 113 761.. ..... 29, 30, 32, 33, 135
127.. . ........................ 8 772 ............................. 199
780 .............. ··············· 260
134.... ............................ 9 823 ....................... 401, 402
205, 206 ....................... 344
Encyclopedia Brittanica
243 ................................ 173 Diodorus Siculus
Vol. 14, Macropedia (1975)
307-309 .......................... 97
309 ................................ 125 (ii, 48, 7-9) ............... 298
165 .............................. 300
315 ...... 14, 54, 98, 158, 259
396, 397 ................... 50, 51 Early Writings
Encyclopedia Brittanica
414 .............. 38, 42, 43, 44
Year Book, (1976)
414, 415 .......................... 45 38 ......................... 380, 381
415 ............................ 41, 45 160............................... 145
566 .............................. 284
414, 415 .......................... 46 280 ............................... 393
416, 417 ........................ 145 294, 295 ....................... 411
Froom, Leroy E.
295 ............................... 412
See: The Prophetic Faith of
Counsels to Teachers 380, 381.. ..................... 386
Our Fathers, Vol. IV
28 ................................... 27 Ecclesiastical Empires
The Flood
d'Aubigne, Merle 571, 572 ......................... 54
............................ 266, 284,
See: The Two Babylons 586-588 .................... 63-65
6-9 ....................... 267, 268
588 ........................... 67, 68
243 ....................... 268, 269
Desire of Ages 590, 591.. ....................... 20
422 BEHOLD YOUR GOD

Fundamentals of Christian 589 ............................... 395 37 .......................... 17,339

Education 593 ......................35, 52, 95 39 ................................. 339
603, 604 .......................... 36 48 ....................... 62, 86, 88
167 ................................. 15 614 ................... 379, 393 52 ................................... 54
177 ............... 6, 53, 58, 119 627, 628 ....................... 392 52, 63 ........................... 168
629 ............................... 391 54 ................................... 90
God's Amazing Grace 642 ................................ 192 90 ................................ 272
657 ............................... 398 96, 97............. ········· 273
102 ................................ 138 664 ....................... 404, 405 99 ................................. 315
666- 114, 115...... ........... 76
668 ............................... 405 178. ·············· ........ 166, 167
Gospel Workers 193 669 ............................... 406 180................................ 167
670 ............................... 406 193............. ··········· 320
315 .............................. . 670, 671.. ..................... 406 245 ....................... 255, 322
672, 67 ......................... 407 263 ....................... 223, 248
Hislop, A. 678 ................................... 8 264 ....................... 234, 235
See: The Two Babaylons 267, 268 ....... 223, 248, 252
The Minisby of Healing 278, 280....................... 245
Jones, A. T 282 ......................... ····· 323
See: Ecclesiastical Empires 112 .................................. 72 287, 288 ....................... 324
112, 113 ....................... 347 324-326 ................ 317-319
Josephus, Flavius 113............................ 72, 99 325, 326 ............... 357, 358
See: War of the Jews, Bk VJ 416 ..................... 22, 23, 74 387 ............................... 366
War of the Jews, Bk VII 427, 428 .................... 10, 11 392 ............................... 325
438 ................................. 11 396................. ....... 232
The Great Controversy25 506 ............................... 261 428, 429 ................ 126, 127
385 469......... ....... 138
Introduction, p. x ........... 388 My Ufe Today 491.. ....................... 97, 384
33 ................................. 386 492 ................................. 97
33, 34 ....122..123,.154, 243 348 ............................... 261 493 ............................... 369
35 .....68,.98,.157,.228,.259,
35, 36 ....293, 317, 392, 395 Nature of War (1976) Nichol, Francis D.
36 .... · 396 See: Answers to Objedions
181 131, 132 ....................... 301
37 ................................. 187 132, 133 ............... 310, 311 Price, George McCready
73 .................................. 181 136............................... 302 See: The New Geology
276, 277 ....................... .187 137, 138 ....................... 302
281 ................................ 188 139............................... 303 The Prophetic Faith of Our
281, 282 ................ 111,.112 142-152 ................ 303-310 Fathers, Vol. 1V
284 ............................... .114
319, 320................ 114 The New Geology ----······ ·-- ..................... 154
320 ................................ 36
324 ................................ 2 ..................................... 267 Prophets and Kings
390 ................................. 15
393 ............................52,.53 Our High Calling 176................ ···-······ 130
425 .......................... 62,.251 440-442 ................ 347' 348
492 .................... 58,.86, 251 321 ................................. 32 441........... . .... - ... 359
493 ......................... 19, 138 442-444... ...... ... . ..... 351
498................... 341 Patriarchs and Prophets 511 ................................. 62
500 ..................24,.180, 181
542, 543 ....................... 159 34 ............................. 58, 62 The Refonnation in
569................. 395 35, 36 ............................. 16 England, Vol. 1
582 ....... ····· ...... 35,.52, 95 36 ..................... 17, 27, 338
REFERENCE SOURCE 423

38 ................................. 183 "Seventh-day Adventist "The Statesman"

39.. ........................... 183 Bible Commentary" Vol. 1 November 16, 1977

Rehwinkel, Alfred M. 335 .............................. 300 ............................ 375, 376

See: The flood 493.................... . .... 256
1085 ......... 22, 79, 196, 231 "Steps to Christ"
Review and Herald, 1098 ............................. 228
August 12, 1884 1098, 1099 ................... 255 62 ................................ 337
1100 ............................. 132 68 ................................ 336
.............................. 32
1117 ............................... 97
"The Story of Redemption"
"Review and Herald"
"Seventh-day Adventist
March 15, 1887
Bible Commentary" Vol. 2 30 ........................... 62, 324
............................ 384
993 ............................... 367 Strabe
"Review and Herald"
"Seventh-day Adventist (George. xvi 2, 42-44) .. 298
October 21, 1890
Bible Commentary" Vol. 3
........................... 131 Tacitus
1166 .............................. 197
"Review and Herald" (Hist. v.6, 7) ................. 298
July 27, 1897 "Seventh-day Adventist
············· ....................... .132 Bible Commentary" Vol. 5 "Testimonies" Vol. 3

"Review and Herald" 1103 ...................... 198, 199 115.......... .. . . .. . .. . 28

August 14, 1900 1113 .............................. 194 138, 139 ................. 83, 413
1137 .............................. 192 264 ....................... 383, 384
..................... 132, 197
"Seventh-day Adventist "Testimonies" Vol. 4
"Review and Herald"
Bible Commentary" Vol. 7
September 17, 1901
161, 162 ...................... 383
976 ........................ 181, 182
........... 99, 381, 394, 395
"Testimonies" Vol. 5
"Seventh-day Adventist
"Review and Herald"
Bible Commentary" Vol. 8 120 ................................. 98
February 25, 1902
134 ............................... 132
1028, 1029 ................... 299 152 .............................. 380
............................. 151
291.. .............................. 28
"Signs of the Tunes" 740 ................. 12, 202, 203
"Review and Herald"
May 6, 1897 743 ............................... 3, 5
November 6, 1903
744 ................................... 3
...................................... 181 1098, 1099 ................... 385
...................................... 261
"Spiritual Gifts" Vol. 3 "Testimonies" Vol. 6
"Review and Herald"
March 19, 1908
76-89 ............................ 294 388, 389 ......... 99, 246, 381
79 ................................. 269 426 .............................. 380
................................. 50
79, 80 .................. 300, 301
87 ............................... 411 "Testimonies" Vol. 7
"Selected Messages," Vol. 1
"Spiritual Gifts" Vol. 4 141.. ............................... 99
19-22 ............................ 113
20 .................................. 113
50, 51.. ......................... 382 "Testimonies" Vol. 8
345, 346 ................. 20, 138
424 REFERENCE SOURCE

"Testimonies to Ministers" War of the Jews, Book Vil God's Amazing Grace
Gospel Workers
18 ................................. 39 Chap. 1. Part 1.......... 386 The Great Controversy
The Ministry of Healing
"Thoughts From Welfare Ministry My Life Today
The Mount of Blessing"
Our High Calling
53, 54 ........................ .145
54 ................................. 158 Patriarchs and
56 ............................... 145
77... ............ 59, 227 57 ............................... 145 Prophets
77' 78 ............... 55, 56, 175 Prophets and Kings
175 ........................ 373 White, Ellen G. Selected Messages, \.bl. l
Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 3
"The Two Babylons" See: Acts of the Apostles Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 4
Christ's Object Les- Steps to Christ
61, 62............... .. . . 205 sons The Story of Redemp-
197-199............... 207, 208 tion
Counsels to Teachers
................................. 311
Desire of Ages Testimonies to Ministers
War of the Jews, Book VI Early Writings Thoughts from the
Fundamentals of Mount of Blessings
Chap. 4, Part 6 ..... 387, 388 Christian Education Welfare Ministry