EJW
E. J. Waggoner
Now I wish you to turn to a few texts of Scripture, put them together and see what you can see in them. In the 14th of Isaiah, we will read the 12th and 13th verses: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven: I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.” Let us seek for the original meaning of this expression,-“the sides of the north.” It means extremity, the limit. So Lucifer said, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit in the uttermost north.” Now take another text,-Psalm 48:1, 2, 3. “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion, in the sides of the north,” or in the uttermost north. Here we have the same expression: “God is known in her palaces for a refuge.” MEDM May 1903, page 120.1
Take another passage in the 75th Psalm 4th to 7th verses. This is very striking. The wicked are admonished not to be so proud: “Lift not up the horn: Lift not up your horn on high; speak not with a stiff neck. For promotion cometh; neither from the east nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge; he putteth down one and setteth up another.” Where does promotion come from?-From the north. That is to say, that wherever the nations are scattered, the people cannot promote a man. All the kings of the earth cannot promote a man to honor. Only God can do that. A man’s value is determined by what he is and what he does,-and a man is and does, just according as he allows God to do in him. Men may place a gold chain about one’s neck, and all the people may fall down and do homage to him because he has power, but that is not promotion. God promotes a man, and he is the only one who can promote. So promotion comes not from the east, from the west, or from the south; but God is judge, and he promotes one, and casts down another, according as he is or is not worthy of promotion. MEDM May 1903, page 120.2
We might multiply texts on this point,-take, for instance, the first chapter of Jeremiah 13th verse: The prophet saw a seething-pot, and the Lord said to him, “What seest thou?” And he said “I see a seething-pot, and the face thereof is toward the north.” Then the Lord said to him, “Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.” I think you will find it clear that God inhabits the north. “He stretcheth out the north over an empty space,” says Job, “and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” Job 26:7. Now that was not put into the Bible to fill up a little space. These two clauses did not come in accidentally,-“He stretcheth out the north over the empty place.” That word “empty,” in Hebrew, is the same thing as found in the first chapter of Genesis the second verse,-“The earth was without form, and void”-it was empty. “He stretcheth out the north over the empty (or void) place (over the formless space) and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” We get from that that the north has something to do with the earth’s being poised in the air and hanging upon nothing. That is not much. “Oh, very well,” they say, we can believe that, because we know enough about what men call magnetism to understand that.” People think because they have given a thing a name they understand it, and know all about it. MEDM May 1903, page 120.3
So I say, men have gone about inventing names to hide God. Just as soon as a person says, “That is magnetism,” or “That is electricity,” they think they know all about those things. Why? Because they have used the name of the thing. But the name does not tell anything. What does the word “electricity” mean? What does that word tell us about that mysterious thing of whose nature men know nothing? They know some of its workings: they have learned some of the methods by which it works, but they don’t know anything about it by the name they give it. They call it “electricity.” The word “electricity” is from the Greek word amber, because it was discovered that amber, if rubbed, would produce the sensation with which all are so familiar. Rub a gutta percha comb and use it, and it will produce the same feeling that one gets by the use an electric battery. If we should say of this characteristic of amber which we call “electricity,” that it is “ambericity,” you would say. That does not mean anything,—and it does not—neither does “electricity” mean anything. What does the word “magnetism” mean? It means that men have discovered a special force working in magnesia, and they call it “magnetism.” But that does not tell us anything about it. After a time they found that same force works in other materials as well as in magnesia. MEDM May 1903, page 121.1
Now men know enough about “magnetism” to know that the earth is, to use a common expression a magnet. They have discovered by observation, that there are certain principles that they can depend upon, and forces that always work in the same way, and can be depended upon, because God can be depended upon. God has one way of working,-and that is the reason we can pray. I was recently asked the question-and it is one that comes up frequently, “Does not law remove the necessity for prayer?” “Oh, no! That is the only reason we can pray; it is because there is a fixed law of God, that we can pray. The reason we can pray is because God IS, and is without ‘variableness or shadow of turning.’” MEDM May 1903, page 121.2
So, as we learn to know God, we find that he works constantly,- without variableness, and we know where to find him and can depend upon him. So men have found that the magnetic needle of the compass always points in the same direction,-and you can’t make it point in any other direction. That is the reason navigators are able to steer their vessels. They know that the earth is charged with the mysterious force, which, for want of any better knowledge of it, they call “magnetism.” As you go nearer the north, the North Star seems higher up in the heavens; and the farther north you go, the higher you can see it. And where is the north then?-It is upward-directly over head. MEDM May 1903, page 121.3
That brings us to another point: In the Hebrew, which is a very picturesque language, the “North” is a word that means “secret,” “hidden.” The “south” is a “desert.” Why is that Hebrew word used, which is translated “north,” and which means “secret,” or “hidden?” Because God dwells there,-in a place which no man can approach unto-he dwells in the secret place. MEDM May 1903, page 121.4
(To be continued.)