St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1904-06-11

in fellowship with
God, and on the other we behold God in
His infinite mercy and love addressing
the one 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 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
who forget God and perish. The people
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
destruction. Forgetters of God, but hot
forgetters of self. Forgetters of God,
but not forgetters of the world and all it's
attractions and distractions. Forget
tiers of God and His claims, but not for
getters of the fleshly desires and appe
titles. Forgetters of God!
NOU 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
as Forgetters of Him would be left out
do not need to go to the drunkard and
tell him that he is Forgotten of God.
He knows it. The consciousness of it
haunts him day and night. I do not
need to go into the slums of the city,
into the gambling dens and places of
iniquity and tell the poor victims there
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. l do not need to 60 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 admit it,
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 God s sight they
are classed with the Forgetters.
THE Psalmist takes pains to describe
as Forgetters of God those whom
perhaps you or would be last to in
clude as such. God is represented as
speaking, and He declares: 'Thou
latest instruction Tor correction, as it is
in the marginal reading), and easiest My
words behind thee. When thou sawest
a thief, thou consentedst with him, and
hast 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 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
God and His law. And yet he is charged
with hating instruction and with casting
Gods words abehind him. This take it
means that he was heady and high
minded, that he had vain self-esteem
which made him unteachable. And the
charge of casting Gods words behind
him would imply that he gave them u
place in his life and put his
own judgments and thoughts before
those Of God. More than likely, intel
lectualism and higher criticism were
barriers that prevented Gods words
having due weight and influence in his
life. i
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