almost wiped from the earth. Worldly wisdom seemed about to triumph. In
point of numbers its adherents vastly exceeded those in the schools of
the Christians. Was this seeming triumph of evil over good a sign that
evil was stronger than truth?—By no means. Only in the matter of scheming
and deceiving does the devil have the advantage; for God can work only in
a straightforward manner.
The tree of life was still upon the earth, an emblem of the wisdom of
God. Man, however, had turned his back upon it. Eating the fruit of
the tree of knowledge of good and evil brought death, and this the
inhabitants of the earth were about to realize, although their worldly
wisdom taught them the contrary.
[Sidenote: Wrong methods of education cause the withdrawal of God’s
Spirit]
The tree of life was taken to heaven before the flood,[12] thus
symbolizing the departure of true wisdom from the earth. The flood came.
Deep rumblings of thunder shook the very earth. Man and beast fled
terrified from the flashes of lightning. The heavens opened; the rain
fell,—at first in great drops. The earth reeled and cracked open; the
fountains of the great deep were broken up; water came from above, water
from beneath. A cry went up to heaven, as parents clasped their children
in the agony of death; but the Spirit of the Life-giver was withdrawn.
Does this seem cruel? God had pleaded with each generation, with each
individual, saying, “Why will ye, why will ye?” But only a deaf ear was
turned to Him. Man, satisfied with schooling his senses, with depending
upon his own reasoning powers, closed, one by one, every avenue through
which the Spirit of God could work; and nature, responding to the loss,
was broken to her very heart, and wept floods of tears.
One family, and only one, bound heaven and earth together. Upon the bosom
of the waters rocked the ark in safety. God’s Spirit rested there, and
in the midst of greater turmoil than angels had ever witnessed, a peace
which passeth all understanding filled the minds and hearts of that
faithful company.
[Sidenote: Faith the basis of the new education]
The waters subsided; the earth lay a desolate mass. Mountains stood
bleak and barren where once stretched plains of living green. Trees,
magnificent in their towering strength, lay dying as the waters left
the earth. Great masses of rock covered places hitherto inhabited. This
family came forth as strangers in a strange land. The plan of education
must start anew. Each successive step away from God rendered more
difficult man’s access to his throne; it had lengthened, as it were, the
ladder one more round. There was at first this _one_ lesson to be taken
by faith,—that God was true in saying, “In the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die.” It was a lesson of faith versus reason.
Next came _two_ lessons of faith: first, faith opposed by reason; and,
second, the plan of redemption through Christ. Then came the _third_
lesson,—the flood. Would that man could have grasped the first, or,
missing that, he had taken the second, or even losing hold of that, he
could have taken the third by faith, and prevented the flood.
From beginning to end it was a matter of education. Christians to-day
exalt the material to the neglect of the spiritual, as surely as did men
before the flood. Shall we not look for similar results, since similar
principles are at work?
The education of the popular schools advocated nature study; but, leaving
God out, they deified nature, and accounted for the existence of all
things by the same theories which are to-day termed evolution. This is
man’s theory of creation with faith dropped out of the calculation.
“This they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens
were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept
in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment.”[13]
“As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the
Son of man.”[14]
V
THE SCHOOL OF ABRAHAM
[Sidenote: Rapid decline after the flood]
The ease with which men fall into evil habits is illustrated in the
history of the world after the flood. Upon leaving the ark, four families
who had known God, had committed to them the peopling of the earth. But
evil tendencies, the result of years of acquaintance with the iniquity
of the antediluvian world, gained the ascendency, and the sons of Noah,
failing to carry out the principles of true education in their homes, saw
their children drifting away from God.
True, the bow of promise appeared often in the heavens as a reminder of
the awful results of sin, and telling them also of the God-Father who
sought their hearts’ service. But again the logic of the evil one was
accepted, and men said, “We shall not surely die.” As a sign of their
confidence in their own strength they built the tower of Babel. They had
been scattered in the hill country, where nature and natural scenery
tended to elevate their thoughts. They followed the valley, and built
cities in the low plains.
Not more than a single century had elapsed since the flood had destroyed
all things. The change was a rapid one. The successive steps in
degeneration are readily traced. They chose an education of the senses
rather than one of faith; they left the country and congregated in
cities; a monarchy arose. Schools sprang up which perpetuated these
ideas; paganism took the place of the worship of God. The tower was
a monument to the sun; idols filled the niches in the structure. Men
offered their children as sacrifices.
The slaying of infants and children is but carrying out in the extreme
what is always done mentally and spiritually when children are taught
false philosophy. That man might not bring upon himself immediate
destruction, the language was confused, and education in false philosophy
thus rendered more difficult.
[Sidenote: Abraham called from Ur]
It was from this influence, as found in the city of Ur of the Chaldees,
that Abraham was called. Although the family of Terah knew the true God,
and His worship was maintained in the home, it was impossible for him to
counteract the influence of the city with its idolatrous practices; so
God called Abraham into the country.
He was obliged to go forth by faith. The removal meant the severing of
every earthly tie. Wealth and ease were exchanged for a wandering life.
How he could make a living Abraham did not know. How he could educate his
children he did not understand. But he went forth Terah, his father, and
Lot, his nephew, went with him. They halted at Haran, a smaller city,
and remained there until the father’s death. Then came the command to go
forward. Out into a new country he went, a pilgrim and a stranger.
“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he
should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; _and he went out, not_
knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as
in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the
heirs with him of the same promise; for he looked for a city which hath
foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” “He staggered not at the
promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith.”[15]
[Sidenote: Called to teach]
It was when the patriarch had journeyed into this strange land, and
knew not whither he was going, that his work as a teacher began. The
commission of Christ to the apostles, “Go ye therefore, and _teach_ all
nations,” was not more emphatic than the command to Abraham. God called
him to teach, and he was to be a teacher of nations. To the disciples it
was said, “All power is given unto Me; ... go ye therefore, and teach
all nations.” A power was to attend their teaching. Power is synonymous
with life; there is no power without life, and a teacher has power in
proportion as he _lives_ what he wishes to teach.
Abraham was to be a teacher of nations, hence he must have power. Power
could come only as the result of a life of faith, and so his whole life
was one continual lesson of faith. Each experience made him a more
powerful teacher.
[Sidenote: God prepares Abraham to teach]
His faith grew by trial, and only as he mounted round by round the
ladder which spanned the gulf twixt heaven and earth, and which had
seemed to lengthen with each succeeding generation. A period of not
less than twenty-five years—years filled with doubt, fear, anxiety—was
necessary to bring him to the place where the name _Abraham_—the father
of nations—could be rightly claimed by him. Another quarter of a century
rolled over his head, years in which he watched the growth of the child
of promise; then the voice of God called him to raise his hand to take
the life of that same son. He who had said that in Isaac should all
nations of the earth be blessed, now demanded the sacrifice of that life
at the father’s hand. But He, the Life-giver in the event of the child’s
birth, was now believed to be the Life-giver should death rob him of his
child, and the father faltered not.
These fifty years, with God and angels as teachers, reveal to us, as
no other period does, the results of true education, and merit careful
attention. If the workings of the Spirit ever wrought changes in the
human heart, those changes came to Abraham. It is not strange that when
God called the first time the voice seemed far away, and but partially
awoke the slumbering soul. As if in a dream, he, his father, his nephew,
and his wife, broke away from earthly ties and from the beautiful
Chaldean plains, where luxury and learning were daily things of life,
and journeyed toward the hill country.
[Sidenote: How God taught faith]
It has been stated before that God teaches by the enunciation of
principles, or universal laws, and the spirit which comes by faith
enlightens the senses that they may grasp the illustrations of these
laws in the physical world. That is heaven’s method of teaching the
angelic throng, and it was the method applied before the fall. With
Abraham the case was at the beginning far from ideal. Here was a pupil
lacking faith. How should he be taught the wisdom of the Eternal? God
leads in a mysterious way. As Christ lived His visible life, because
the eye of faith was blind in Israel, so, in the time of Abraham, God
taught inductively, as He now says the heathen are to be taught. To him
who had no faith, God came visibly at first, and, leading step by step,
developed a faith which before his death enabled Abraham to grasp eternal
principles of truth if God but spoke.
In Ur, God said, “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless
thee, and will make thy name great.” Years passed, age crept on, and
still there was no heir. Could he have mistaken the voice which bade him
turn his face toward Canaan, and promised to him and his descendants all
the land from the “great river, the river Euphrates, ... unto the great
sea toward the going down of the sun”? “And Abraham said, Lord God, what
wilt Thou give me, seeing I go childless? Shall it be that my steward,
Eliezer, shall become my heir? Shall he be the child of promise? Behold,
to me Thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine
heir.”[16]
This was man’s way of working out a promise made by the Maker of the
universe. Have _we_ passed beyond this elementary lesson of faith? Can
_we_ grasp God’s promise of faith, and, with no fear or thought, leave
results with Him who knows?
No, Abraham; think not that heaven is limited by the line which bounds
thy horizon. “This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come
forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.” And, standing under
the starry canopy of heaven, Abraham’s soul grasped the power of the
Creator. He himself to be a father! His face lighted with a holy joy as
he related to Sarai his experience with God.
But Sarai bare him no children; and that she might help heaven fulfill
its promise, she forsook the divine law of marriage, and gave to Abraham
her handmaid, Hagar, to be his wife. Would that man could grasp at least
the beginnings of the possibilities of God! Untold suffering was the
out-growth of that one step of unbelief. Not one, not two people, but
generations then unborn, had their destinies marred by this lack of
faith. Hagar, sitting over against her dying child, and weeping because
of the bitterness of her fate, is a constant portrayal of an attempt to
live by sight.[17] Again, the approach of the angel and the rescue of the
child records in burning characters the longing of Him who pities our
blindness, and awards us far above what we can ask or think.
[Sidenote: Birth of Isaac]
Ninety-nine years passed over the patriarch’s head, and still the voice
of heaven’s messenger was greeted with a laugh when the promise was
repeated. Sarah turned within the tent door when the angel guest, whom
they had fed, repeated to Abraham the promise concerning his wife. But
she bare to Abraham a son whom God named Isaac, in whom the nations of
the earth were blessed. Joy untold filled the heart of the mother and
father as they beheld the babe.
This was the joy of sight. Twenty-five years before, the thing was just
as true, and Abraham might lawfully have worked upon the basis of its
truth; but the stubborn human heart requires many lessons. Twenty-five
years after this, the strength of Abraham’s faith was tested at the
altar of sacrifice. Leaving home early one morning, he carried fire,
laid wood upon the young man’s shoulders, and journeyed toward Mount
Moriah. “Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt
offering?” asked the son. “God will provide himself a lamb,” answered the
man who had at last learned to believe God. It is but the simple story
of an ancient patriarch; but the word of God bears record that “Abraham
believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.”
And “if _ye_ be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed and heirs according
to the promise.” Herein lies the value of this lesson to us. We are his
heirs if we link ourselves to the power of the Infinite by that cord of
faith. Only by a life and an education such as his can the kingdom of
Christ be set up within. Such lessons made Abraham a successful teacher.
[Sidenote: Abraham’s school]
Those who wished to worship the true God gathered about the tents of
Abraham, and became pupils in his school. God’s word was the basis of all
instruction, as it is written, “These are the commandments, ... which the
Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land
whither ye go to possess it.”
This WORD was the basis for the study of political science, and Abraham’s
“methods of government” were “carried out in the households over which
they [his students] should preside.” The equality of all men was a lesson
first learned in the home. “Abraham’s affection for his children and
his household led him ... to impart to them a knowledge of the divine
statutes, as the most precious legacy he could transmit to them, and
through them to the world. All were taught that they were under the rule
of the God of heaven. There was to be no oppression on the part of
parents, and no disobedience on the part of children.” His was not a
school where theory alone was taught, but the practical was emphasized.
In studying political science they formed the nucleus of a divine
government; in the study of finances, they actually made the money and
raised the flocks which brought recognition from surrounding nations.
“The unswerving integrity, the benevolence and unselfish courtesy, which
had won the admiration of kings, _were displayed in the home_.”
[Sidenote: This school was the beginning of a nation]
The influence of country life and direct contact with nature, in contrast
with the enervating influence of the city with its idolatrous teaching
and artificial methods, developed a hardy race, a people of faith whom
God could use to lay the foundation for the Israelitish nation. We see,
then, that when God founds a nation, he lays that foundation in a school.
The nation of which Abraham and his followers formed the beginning,
prefigured the earth redeemed, where Christ will reign as King of kings.
The education of the school of Abraham symbolized Christian education.
“If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according
to the promise,” not only of the kingdom, but of the education which
prepares the inhabitants for that kingdom.
As faith was the method employed in teaching in the days of the
patriarch, so in the schools of to-day faith must be the motive for work,
the avenue to the fountain of wisdom. There are to-day those who can not
harmonize their feelings and their ideas of education with the plan which
God has committed to his people. Likewise in the days of Abraham there
was at least one family which withdrew from the influence of the school.
[Sidenote: Lot chose a worldly school]
Lot had felt the effects of the teaching of Abraham, but through the
influence of his wife, “a selfish, irreligious woman,” he left the altar
where they once worshiped together, and moved into the city of Sodom.
“The marriage of Lot, and his choice of Sodom for a home, were the first
links in a chain of events fraught with evil to the world for many
generations.” Had he alone suffered, we would not need to follow the
history; but the choice of a new home threw his children into the schools
of the heathen; pride and love of display were fostered, marriage with
Sodomites was a natural consequence, and their final destruction in the
burning city was the terrible but inevitable result.
“When Lot entered Sodom, he fully intended to keep himself free from
iniquity, and to command his household after him. But he signally failed.
The corrupting influences about him had an effect upon his own faith,
and his children’s connection with the inhabitants of Sodom bound up his
interests in a measure with theirs.”
The statement is a familiar one, that schools should be established where
an education differing from that of the world can be given, because
parents are unable to counteract the influence of the schools of the
world. The experience of Lot is a forcible reminder of the truth of the
statement. And the injunction to “remember Lot’s wife,” should serve as a
warning to Christians against flocking into the cities to give children
an education. The words of Spalding are true: “Live not in a great city,
for a great city is a mill which grinds all grain into flour. Go there
to get money or to preach repentance, but go not there to make thyself a
nobler man.”
The two systems of education are nowhere more vividly portrayed than in
the experiences of Abraham and Lot. Education in the tents of Abraham,
under the guidance of the Spirit of Jehovah, brought eternal life.
Education in the schools of Sodom brought eternal death. This was not an
unnatural thing. You can not find here any arbitrary work on the part of
God. To partake of the fruit of the tree of life, imparts life. But of
the tree of knowledge of good and evil it has been said, “In the day that
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
The system of education revealed to Abraham, would, if fully carried
out, have placed Israel on a plane of existence above the nations of
the world. It was a spiritual education, reaching the soul by a direct
appeal to faith, and would have placed the people of God as teachers
of nations. Not a few only were intended to teach, but the nation as a
whole was to teach other nations. The second Israel will occupy a similar
position, and they will be brought to that position by means of Christian
education.
VI
EDUCATION IN ISRAEL
“Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many
as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the
seashore innumerable.” As God dealt with the one man, so He dealt with
the nation. As He had led the man from a lowly plane to an exalted
position, so He led the nation until they stood a spectacle to the whole
world. He chose them not because of their great numbers, but, taking the
fewest of men, He wished to show to the world what could be done by the
power of love.
[Sidenote: Israel a peculiar people]
This small people, however, were intended to lead the world, and lead it
in every sense of the word. That they might lead instead of being led,
He made them a peculiar people unto Himself, giving them in the first
place the rite of circumcision, which put a barrier forever between the
believer in the God of Israel and all the nations of the world. This
separation was for a purpose. The fact that they were to be peculiar
in the eyes of the other nations was merely a precautionary step, not a
thing of importance in itself. God had a mission for the nation; and in
order that it might be accomplished, every effort must be bent in that
direction. Oneness of purpose is a divine law; and that Israel might
lead, Israel must occupy a position in advance of all other peoples.
[Sidenote: Planes of existence]
Men live on various planes. There are those so constituted physically as
to be content with the gratification of physical wants and desires. These
can readily be led by men who live on a mental plane; for mind has ever
been recognized as superior to matter, so that without knowing it, the
physically strong yields to his mental superior. Almost unconscious of
his power, the man on the mental plane guides and controls those on the
physical plane; he can not help it. It is a natural law; the one leads,
the other follows. Two individuals, one living in one of these spheres
and the other in the sphere above, will never contend on account of
principle; for the man physically organized finds it natural to follow
the dictates of the other. This is, and always has been, the condition
of society. Nature herself singles out the leaders. They are born, not
made, for leadership. They are the few, it is true; the masses always
prefer to be led.
But it was not as mere mental leaders that God called Israel. There
is above the mental a still higher plane, the ladder to reach which
is scaled by very few. As the numbers decrease while passing from the
physical to the mental plane, so they decrease yet more in passing from
the mental to the _spiritual_ plane.
[Sidenote: How men reach the spiritual plane]
Man reaches this highest plane of existence only by faith. It requires
constant self-denial and continual development. In reality it is living
as seeing Him who is invisible. The physical man depends almost entirely
on knowledge gained through the senses. The mentally developed depends
upon reason. Many combine these two natures, and such individuals are
guided by the sense of reason just in proportion as the two natures are
developed. Knowledge as a result of sense perceptions and finite reason
capture the majority of mankind. The life of faith, the walking with God,
takes in the few.
[Sidenote: Israel should live on the spiritual plane]
Do you see why God chose a small people? He chose them, as a nation,
to be priests or teachers unto Himself. As individuals, and as a
nation, Israel was to stand upon the spiritual plane, attaining and
maintaining the position by a life of faith. Standing there, it would be
in accordance with the natural law for all on the lower planes to yield
obedience. As the mental controls the physical without any friction, so
the spiritual controls all others. Therefore (for this reason) said the
Lord, “I have taught you statutes and judgments.... Keep therefore and do
them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the
nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great
nation _is a wise and understanding people_.”[18]
[Sidenote: Israel as teachers of the world]
Statutes in themselves can not command respect for any people, but God
gave Israel a manner of life which linked them with Himself. Living on a
spiritual plane, all the world looked to them for guidance. As one can
not reach up and help those above him, but must come from above and lift
others to himself, so Israel was pointed to a life which made others
follow in spite of themselves, while at the same time they were following
what they knew to be the truth. This is the exalted position which truth
has ever held.
[Sidenote: Peculiarity depended upon the system of education]