Blessed Are They That Do

THE religion of the Bible consists in believing what God says, and doing what he commands. "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." Eccl. 12:14. "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." "But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Jas. 1:22, 25, 27. To obey God's perfect law, honoring him and doing righteous deeds to our fellow-men, is religion pure and undefiled. The opposite kind of religion, of course, is impure and defiled.

The religion of many consists chiefly in feeling. They do what they feel it duty to do; but they do not always feel it duty to do what God says. They say they know that they are accepted of God; for they feel it so in their very souls. "The Lord saves me, and he saves me now," is a favorite form of expression. They know God answers their prayers, because they feel it so. On the contrary, an apostle has said, "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." 1 John 3:22. Here it is again: Blessed are they that do.

Now feeling is not faith. It is all right when it is founded in faith and obedience to the word of the Lord. When a man has an intelligent faith in what God has revealed, and does what that revelation requires, he has a right to feel and to rejoice in the Lord. What is it which distinguishes the true religion from all false religions? Is it not that the truth of God lies at its foundation? True feeling, then, will always be found in conformity to this truth. Then a person must be intelligent in the truth before he can depend upon his feelings. Do not false religionists feel? Do they not manifest a religious zeal? What but the most ardent feeling of devotion could cause a heathen mother to cast her infant into the river Ganges to be devoured by the monsters of the deep? or to cast herself before the car of Juggernaut to be crushed under its wheels? I think that there is feeling in every kind of religion; and therefore we will be deceived if we trust to feeling, unless we know that our faith and works are in harmony with the truth of God.

The first and most pressing want of the people in these days is instruction in the truth as revealed in God's word. They need a true foundation for their faith; and then they want a faith that will cause them to act—to do what that word requires. Their ears have been turned away from the truth to fables. This is as Paul foretold it would be.

Sensational preaching stirs the religious sentiments or faculties, producing certain emotions or feelings, and this passes for genuine Bible religion, though many of the duties therein revealed are neglected entirely, either from ignorance or unwillingness to obey. I repeat it: Truth is the thing which distinguishes true religion from every false way. The truth is in our Bibles; but in a land of Bibles the great need of the people is to be instructed in the truth. They talk of worshiping God in spirit; but they that worship him must worship him "in spirit and in truth."

The truth is in the word of God. "Thy word is truth." John 17:17. "Thy law is the truth." Ps. 119:142. "All thy commandments are truth." Verse 151. This refers to the moral law, the ten commandments. Every word of them is true; every jot and tittle of this law shall endure till heaven and earth pass. Matt. 5:18. Yet the leading ministers and churches of to-day are treading the fourth commandment of that law under foot. God is now pleading with them, saying, If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isa. 58:13, 14.

On the other hand, God is now sending a fearful message of warning to the nations of the earth, saying, "If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation." At the same time he is calling the attention of all to his patient, enduring, and obedient people, saying, "Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." See Rev. 14:9-12.

Through the influence of apostasy, the Sabbath of the fourth commandment has been disregarded, and another institution has been put in its place, according to the prophecy concerning a wicked power that should "think to change times and laws." Dan. 7:25. This same power is the beast, against the worship and mark of which we are being warned. Rev. 13:1-10. The Roman popedom is the power thus foretold; and the Roman Church today claims that their church changed "the Sabbath into Sunday," or "substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no scriptural authority." See their doctrinal works.

Now the question is, shall we follow the changes and corruptions of the popedom, or shall we keep the commandments of God? Does it make any difference whether we have the light of God's word, and walk in that, or follow the traditions of an apostate church, which claims the power to change the law which God spake with his own voice, and wrote with his own finger, and to "substitute" something else in its place? In a land of Bibles, and in which God's voice is being heard in fulfillment of the last message of warning promised in his word, will it be just as well to walk on in darkness, following the dictates of a fallen church which blasphemously claims to make laws for God, "if the heart is only right"? We have the word of the living and true God; and Jesus says, "Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." Luke 11:28.

Jesus said to the apostate Jewish church, "Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." Mark 7:9. Is not this his voice to the professed Christian Church today?

Let us hear Jesus. "Not every one," says he, "that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." Matt. 7:21. Listen to his voice again, in his last benediction to his people, recorded in the book of Revelation: "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Rev. 22 : 14.