Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 250, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1914 — Two Views of God [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Two Views of God

By REV. J. H. RALSTON

Scaduy of Conwpondence Moody Bible Institute. Chicago

TEXT—“I have heard of thee by the hearing of - the ear: but now mine eye ■eeth thee. Wherfore I abhor myself, and repent Ih-duSt and ashes." Job 42:6, 6.

The first may be called at far off view of God, but strictly speaking it is not a view at all, and the second may be called a near view of GodGod As a Rumor. With many the knowledge of God is little more than what is known from rumor, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear.”

There is a suggestion abroad that there is such a being as God, and then men make interpretations of God. The heathen, with his conception, makes a god of wood, or stone, or clay; the nature worshiper sees God in the clouds, or the forest, or streams of water; the godless philosopher, while not denying the existence of God, professes almost absolute ignqrance of Hiffi; while the Christian apprehends God as Spirit and as perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ, and worships Him accordingly. With many who claim to be Christians God is little more than a rumor, and there seems to be little desire for more perfected knowledge of Him. Many are groping in the darkness, feeling after God, if haply they may find him, while they might, if they would, get a view of God that is possible to all and realized by millions. Job had an experience and that view of God vanished. The philosophy of his changed view of God is not given us, but the Bible teaches us that he was a man in high social position, wealthy, with a large family and with wide fame, but it was during this period, in all probability, that God was to him little more than a rumor. But all these were swept away and Job sat on the ash-heap, covered with sores, the object of scathing arguments on the part of oriental logicians, the butt of ridicule, and the victim of an ill-tempered wife. It Is ■well known that men and women through the centuples have had prosperity swept from them in order that they might be brought Into right relationvto God —financial loss, the breaking down of health, the bitter opposition of enemies and the treason of friends, have driven men to seek satisfaction ultimately in God. Job’s Eyes Opened. Only a cavalier will charge Job with falsehood when he says that he saw God. This was not, of course, with his natural eyes, but with the eye of the soul. So have men in all ages seen God, some, ho doubt, being granted what they believed to be the physical appearance of God. saw God and endured. Jesus himdnUAsid; “He that hath seen me hath seelTtne father. ” Job does not say whkt it was in God that he saw, but we may well‘believe that it was the holiness of God, which was seen by the prophet Isaiah when he had his vision in the temple. Nor does Job say what ▼lew he had of himself while God was only a rumor, but the probability is what he saw of himself, is what the world saw him to be, a man of distinction, wealthy, and glorying in his large family. But now a change comes. He evidently sees himself as God sees him. He probably had as comprehensive a view of God as it was possible for a man in hiß days to have, but he could not see him in the face of Jesus Christ The need of this day Is a right view of God, the true starting point of all individual and social redemption, and this view of God is not difficult to obtain as the personality of Jesus Christ is the most prominent personality of history, and it is in him that God is seen, for Jesus Christ is the expressed image of his person. This image of God is much better than the image of God in the person of the first Adam. Many, however, quite resolutely decline to look at this image. Job'e View of Himself. While there is no account of Job expressing the change in'his views of God, there 1b a most graphic account of the view that he had of himself—“l abhor myself and repent In dust A and ashes.” His experience at that * point agrees with the experience of Isaiah when he saw the Lord in the temple and said: "I am a man of unclean lipß and dwell among a people of unclean lips.” This was one of the steps in Isaiah’s preparation for the mission upon which God was to send him, and while Job was not being prepared for such a special mission, he was being prepared for a testimony which has come down to the present moment to the glory of God. The road to right relationship to God Is by the way of right views of self, and that can only be obtained by right ▼lews of God. When these right views of self are given there will be honest oonfesslon, this confession being in it••lf humiliating, but the sure road to relief.