The Tupelo journal., 1904-05-20

WNHN\ ent to God, uncon-
4 scious of their peril
and ignorant of the
blessing to be found
in fellowship with
God, and on the other we behold God in
His infinite mercy and love addressing
the n who has forgotten Him, plead
ing with him and warning him of his
awful peril, and then pointing him to the
way of salvation. 1t is a marvellous dis
play of the Divine grace that God should
go after those who have spurned and
forgotten Him. And it is a mystery of
mysteries how the undying soul of man
can be Indifferent to it's Creator and God,
how it can forget Him and pay no heed
to the Divine warning of peril and the
offer of salvation. But there are those
of Noah's time. forgot God, and treated
His warnings of judgment and destruc-
ton with Indifference and contempt,
and they persisted. Sodom and Gomor-
rah forgot God and God licked them
with His scourge of fire from the face of
the earth. Nations and individuals
throughout the ages have forgotten God
and persisted miserably, And to-day
there are multitudes of precious souls
that have forgotten God. They have
turned their backs upon Him. they have
thrust their fingers in their ears that
they may not hear His warning mes
sage. and they are facing the world and
Joct,,,t;oo UNoroottnrc 90 Co1 h,,t NOT
forgetters of self. Forgetters of God,
but not forgetters of the world and all it's
attractions and distractions. Forget
ters of Goo and His claims, but not for
getters of the fleshly desires and appe-
tites. Forgetters of God!
YOU may draw your own portrait of
i the Forgotten of God. You probably
would be able to fill in a good many of
the lines and features. You probably
would picture the dissolute or the GRIM
inal. and say there is your Forgotten of
God. And it would be true, sadly true,
but do the law breaker and the moral
outcast represent the sum total of this
God-forgetting class? Shall we say that
when you have pointed out those who
/. are known and read of all men as posi-
lively wicked and bad in their purposes
and habits, you have told all the story?
Mans moral census would be sure to in
clude all those who were Scared and
marred by sin, but it is equally certain
that many, many who are known to God
-. TtA,~o{+o,o @f Ill., would h. YEA 1,f
| do not need to go to the drunkard and
tell him that he is a Forgotten of God.
He knows it. The consciousness of it
haunts him day and night. / do not
need to 90 into the slums of the city,
into the gambling lens and places of
that they have forgotten God. They
know it. and try to drown the troubling
thoughts of their condition by more
madly plunging into the giddy whirl Of
sin. | do not need to go to that way
ward boy or girl, to that man or woman
who is travelling the pathway of sin, and
tell them they are among those who
have forgotten God. They will admitit
and declare they want to forget. Who
are the ~Forgetters of God? Not these
alone, then, who need no badge to dis
tinguish them, but multitudes whom
God sees as Indifferent to Him, as for
getful of His claims upon them. For
getters Of God may be we'll and ~favorably
known to each other, they may stand
high in the estimation of the world, they
may be socially and financially among
the four hundred, but in Gods sight they
are classed with the Forgetters.
e
THE Psalmist takes pains to describe
L as Forgetters of God those whom
perhaps you or l would be last to in
clude as such. God is represented as
speaking, and He declares: Thou
hatest instruction Tor correction, as it is
in the marginal reading), and easiest My
words behind thee. When thou sawest
a thief, thou c~onsentedst with him, and
last been partaker with adulterers.
Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy
tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest and
speakest against thy brother; thou
%slanderest thine own mothers son.
Thou thoughtest that was al
together such a one as myself" AS
we examine carefully and critically this
portrayal we find that the positively
wicked and bad are not mentioned. The
Psalmist did not go fishing around in
cesspools of sin for his specimens, he
did not trot off to the corrupt heather
nations about to find his man who had
forgotten God. He found him right
near at hand, and among those who per-
haps stood highest in the community.
He was the man who recognized the au-
thority of the law; who took a pride
and satisfaction in his moral rectitude
and his clean citizenship; who held his
head high and was ready to preach
moral standards unto others. The
Psalmist speaks of his going SO far as
TO declare Gods statutes and to take
Gods covenant in his mouth. That is
he was not irreligious. He recognized
Cod and His law. And yet he is charged
with hating instruction and with casting
Gods words behind him. This l take it
means that he was heady and high
minded. that he had a vain self-esteem
which made him unteachable. And the
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