The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1902-07-11


responsibility in thought or deed to-
wards the future? Never! Nothing
is farther from Gods thoughts or
more contrary to the spirit of Gods
Word. God wants us to plan, but not
apart from Him but with Him. FOR
that We ought to say: If the Lord VIII,
we shall live, and do this, or that"
Here are the teeming millions of the
earth, the multitude of nations. the
busy centers of industry and activity
which stud the earth like the stars of
heaven, weaving the uncertain and
perishable pattern of human plan and
epdeavor, while God looks on and
mourns at the confusion and d1scord
and destruction wrought. AS one
mind in the great silk mill must de-
sign the pattern and direct the forces
which are appointed to work 1t out IN
its perfect beauty, so God in His in
finite wisdom has planned for man and
would help him in working out the
perfect pattern. But man in his
blind willfulness sweats, and groans,
and struggles under the burden of life
and soils and mars the pattern, and
when disappointment and failure
COuG, DllLcInSSS VI DCdI SCbllCS WV
upon the life, if not self-infiicted
death which is the full fruition of the
sorrow of the world.
Lot made plans which led him right
into the heart of the life and activity
of Sodom. He came to be great man
in the city and succeeded in piling up
much of its weaAh about his own fire
side, but, while resting in the satisfac-
ton of his own substance and his own
security, while his daughters, reared
in the atmosphere of prosperity OF
that wicked city, were welded to Sod
omites and to the sin which later
wrought their destruction; while Lot
was seemingly successfully working
out his own plans, the fire of Gods
wrath fell and licked up the city and
it's iniquity, and Lot barely escaped
with his life. And Abraham, away
back there on the hillside, as he gazed
towards the burning city, realized as
never before that to follow God and
plan with Him meant security and
safety and certain success.
"In the days that were before the
flood they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, I'M
til the day that Noe entered into the
ark, and knew not until the flood came
and took them all away" that man
made plans would fall like a house of
cards before the on-moving plans of
God. For 100 years Noah preached on
one text, and while he warned the peo-
pie of the coming flood they made
! their plans, they built their houses,
had their family reunions and gay
weddings, and perhaps when they had
nothing else to occupy their time, they
| went around to see how Noah was get
ting along with his fool ark" as they
called it, and joked him about his old
| fogy notions of Gods wrath and the
| certain punishment of sin, just as to-
day the world is outgrOwing the good,
old-fashioned Gospel of hell-fire and
salvation alone through the blood of
Jesus Christ, and turning to a man
made gospel of the Fatherhood of
! God and the brotherhood of man,
which robs God of His righteousness
| and man of true fellowship. But to-
| day Noah is with the redeemed in
Heaven because He planned with God,
| while those who would not hear His
voice but planned after the devices
of their own hearts suffered the judg-
ment of God and persisted.
| Friend, are you planning apart from
| God? Are you saying: To-day or to-
morrow 1 will go into such city, and
| continue there for a season, and buy
and sell, and get gain?" Aye, that we
might awaken you to a sense of the
uncertainties of life by unrolling be-
! fore you the solemn panorama of the
| record of man which God gives us in
His faithful Word. From Adam to the
| DAYS of Noah, man turning from the
| certainties of God to the uncertain
| ties of life and miserably perishing;
| from the time of the flood until the
| confusion of tongues at the tower of
Babel, man building for himself and
meeting contemplate defeat as he is
| scattered in confusion over the earth; ;
from the time of the founding of the
Jewish nation until the coming of the
! Christ, man in the pride of his own
heart, serving self and making unto
| himself strange gods, and so writing
final failure for the human race across
the heavens. And in all this we find
! set forth the one great fact of the
| uncertainty of man and the uncertain
ty of life And on the other hand, in
! bright and cheerful contrast, we read
the certainty of God, as in final tri-
umph He places over mans failure His
| Christ and His cross and lifts the gaze
of man from earth to Heaven, from the
uncertainty of the things of time to
the certainty of things not seen, eter-
nal in the Heavens.
From the days when the waters of
the mighty food rolled themselves
over the inhabited world, down
through the ages to the present of
Mont Pelee's thunderings, we read this
message to the world: The uncertain
tv of life. AS the world reads the
| story of the perishing of thousands
in a moment of time and prosperous
city with its massive buildings leveled
with one mighty, awful burst of ma
ture. will it not learn the lesson of
| the hour and realize the uncertainty
of life and the certainty of God and
His promises? Heaven and earth
shall pass away, but My words shall
not pass away"
Again there breaks upon the eyes
| of the world sad spectacle. The SOW
ereign of a great nation laborately
plans for a magnificent ceremonial
! browning, and invites the nations OF
| the earth to share in the glories OF
the occasion. For weeks and months
the forces of the empire have been
concentrated to make the event one
Of surprising grandeur. The prepa-