Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 175, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1912 — God Demands Recognition [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

God Demands Recognition

By Rev. J. H. Ralston,

Ssovtay cf Coowamfanct DepaitaMßl Moody BMa

TEXT—Psalm 46:M>—"Be still, and know that lam God.” ( While we rarely find a professed deist nowadays, few men recognize

God as he manifests himself. Yet, while men do not recognize God who has revealed himself, they are constantly manufacturing gods to suit themselves, and these are as numerous as those of Egypt in the days of the Pharaohs. In the text there is the call of. God to give attention to himself—

“Be still, and know that I am God.” God is intensely interested that man should recognize him, not only because man thus greatly bless himself, but x God demands this recognition because he in sensitive to the appreciar tion of those'whom he has created in his own likeness and image. We must maintain this, notwithstanding the specious plea that it would be ignoble in God to demand such recognition. This matter can only be settled by an appeal to authority, and multitudes believe that the Bible is such authority. In ExoduA 34:14, we read: “Thou shalt worship no other God, for the Lord whose name is jealous, is a jealous God.” Joshua called the attention of Israel to the same characteristic in God when he wished Israel to return to God, to the enjoyment of their divine heritage. - In the text God does not ask man to know him; he simply asks that we recognize him as God, and appeals in the Bth and 9th verses of this chapter for the use of the physical senses: "Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolation he has wrought in the earth; he maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth, he breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.” Our attention is also called to what we have heard with our ears, and our fathers have told us what he has done in the time of old. Were not God’s dealings with the Egyptians to prove that he was God? Was not God back of the blessing of Israel by Balaam, while Balaam’s purpose was to curse? Has God not set up one and put down another? Has be not despoiled the devices of the crafty that their hands cannot perform their enterprise, and has he not takep the wise in their own craftiness, and is not the counsel of the froward carried headlong? And what shall be said of the occurrences of modern history? Had God anything to do with the earthquake in San Francisco; the burning of the General Schofield, and the sinking of the Titanic? Of the latter event it is said that in the last moments of that fated vessel’s remaining afloat, all classes of l>eople prayed, and the band played until the very ,end, “Nearer, My God, to Thee." And what was this but recognition of God, and possibly with many, too late? To say that God has nothing to do with these things on the ground of that it would be violence to the reign of law, dishonoring to him as an infinite being, and entirely- relieve man of moral responsibility, is really not worthy of serious consideration. The consciousness of God’s immanence in all such things would be a deterrent from sin on the part of some, and would be an incentive to good on the part of others. How are men to know God? Simply by being still. By searching, men cannot find out God. As David would Me in the fields at night and look up into the starry heavens, it would not be for the purpose of finding out God, but as he gazed he could not help but exclaim: , “When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon And the stars, which thou hastj created, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that' thou visitest him?” As Moses would have Israel to recognize God, he said: “Stand still, and see the salvation of; God.” As Isaiah would have IsraeL see wherein their strength lay, he saidi should sit stilt So the methodof knowing God is to just keep thei eyes and ears open, to stop, look, lic-> ten —God is here, there, everywhere. The result® of this win be a more serious consideration of one’s obligation to God. The life of the Christian will be made richer, and as the dark-; nesß of the hereafter is approached, there will be a preparation to meet! God, with whom, whether he will ori will not, man has much to do. Toi know God, and him whom he has sent,, is everlasting life.