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and sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven: and come and follow me.”
God calls upon his people to turn from
the earthly to the heavenly, to yield up
to him his own. Nothing that they have
THE WATCHMAN
is theirs; they themselves are not their
own; for God’s word declares, “ Ye are
not your own; for ye are bought with a
price; therefore glorify God in your
body, and in your spirit, which are
God’s.”
The Charter of the Nations
Percy T. Magan
I |
HE confusion of the tongues
at Babel brought the gigantic
scheme of an earth-wide
church and empire to a sud-
den end. Henceforth the
one universal nation, with
one lone monarch reigning
over it and ruling from one
great capital city, inculcating one heathen
religion, must remain forever an unful-
filled dream.
By the advent of the languages, and
the consequent birth of the nations, the
great conspiracy to blot the knowledge
of God from the earth was completely
frustrated and overturned. And thus in
the very philosophy of the Holy Scrip-
ture it stands as a fact that the nations
of earth owe their charter of existence
and life to the divine principle that all
men are of right, and should be, free to
worship God according to the dictates of
conscience, untrammeled by any human
law.
It was in a colossal struggle over this
issue that nations were conceived. It
was that men might have the opportunity
to worship God that states were brought
to the birth. It was for this purpose that
commonwealths have been given life.
And therefore if there is one charter re-
sponsibility above another incumbent
upon the nations, it is that they shall keep
open the way for men to seek the Lord.
All of this is evident from the eleventh
chapter of Genesis. It is manifest also
from the dealings of God with the na-
tions of earth all through the Old Testa-
ment times. It is moreover apparent
from the wording of the great prophe-
cies of Daniel and Revelation. It is
succinctly stated by the apostle Paul in
the seventeenth chapter of Acts: “ Then
Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill,
and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive
that in all things ye are too superstitious.
For as I passed by, and beheld your devo-
tions, I found an altar with this inscrip-
tion, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship,
him declare I unto you. God that made
the world and all things therein, seeing
that he is Lord of heaven and earth,
dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
neither is worshiped with men’s hands,
as though he needed anything, seeing he
giveth to all life, and breath, and all
things: and hath made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on all the
face of the earth, and hath determined
the times before appointed, and the
bounds of their habitation; that they
should seek the Lord, if haply they might
feel after him, and find him, though he
be not far from every one of us.” Acts
17:22 - 27.
Irom this it is clear that it is the Most
High who determines the time when a
nation shall arise, and the time when it
shall fall again; for “he hath deter-
mined the times before appointed.” Not
only this, but it is in heaven that the
size, the greatness, of a nation’s domain
is regulated; for he hath determined
“the bounds of their habitation.”
Thus Job testified: * With God is
might and sufficiency : the beguiled and
the beguiler are his. Counselors he
leadeth captive, and judges he maketh
distracted. The authority of kings he
dissolveth, and bindeth their loins with
a cord. Ide leadeth the chief officers of
the state captive: and stout warriors he
overthroweth. He bewildereth the
speech of the trusty statesman. He tak-
eth away the wisdom of the senators.
He poureth contempt upon the nobles,
and unstringeth the girdle of the stout
hearted. He discloseth the recesses of
darkness, and draggeth the death-shade
into daylight. He letteth the nations
grow licentious and destroveth them.
He enlargeth them and giveth them quiet.
He bewildereth the judgment of the lead-
ers of the people of the land, and caus-
eth them to wander in a pathless desert;
they grope about in darkness, even with-
out a glimpse. Yea, he maketh them
to reel like the drunkard.” Job 12:16 -
25, translation of John Mason Good,
London, 1812.
Nor is this regulation of states and na-
tions by the Almighty an arbitrary mat-
ter. ‘The whole is carried on with refer-
ence to one great central principle,—
“that they should seek the Lord, if haply
they might feel after him, and find him.”
Now the Scripture does not specify
that a nation must be Christian in order
to be permitted by heaven to exist. But
it is required that there be on the part
of its people a disposition to “seek ” the
Lord — to “feel” after him. Conse-
quently a nation may be in heathen dark-
ness, and yet be following after to know
the Lord. The men and women who
compose it may never have heard the
name of Christ; and yet in their blind-
ness they may be “feeling” their way
toward better things.
God does not destroy.
Such as these
A splendid illustration of the above
state of affairs occurs in the very chap-
ter under consideration,— the seventeenth
of Acts. Paul was waiting at Athens
for Silas and Timotheus. His spirit
was stirred because he saw the city full
of idols. Mars’ hill was covered with
altars — altars to every god in the Gre-
cian pantheon. Among these was one
erected TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Why was that altar there? — For this
reason: The Greeks had a deity for ev-
erything. Their idea was that a separate
god presided over everything in the uni-
verse, and over every phase of human
existence. They worshiped each of these
with the utmost regularity and deep de-
votion. Heathen as thev were, they were
most strict in their religion such as it
was. And after paying homage to ev-
ery power known te them or imagined
bv them,— lest they should by any means
have neglected any, they bowed down to
the UNKNOWN GOD. From this it
is altogether clear that there were in
Paul's day men in Greece who were
“ feeling after God.” The very words
of Paul demonstrate that he recognized
this, for his language is, Him therefore
whom ve ignorantly worship. Inspira-
tion granted that they were worshiping
God, even although they were doing it
ignorantly.