by A.T. Jones
The following article is an
extract from a sermon prepared by A.T. Jones for the Week of Prayer
meetings of 1899. It was published in the Review and Herald of Feb. 21,
1899. We encourage you to read the message in its entirety.
============================
From what I have read, you see that whoever lets any time pass
between the word spoken and the thing done, is an evolutionist. The word
of God to you is, Man, “thy sins are forgiven thee.” Woman, “thy sins
are forgiven thee.” [Elder Corliss: “Didn’t it say, Thy sins shall be
forgiven?”] No, sir. “Thy sins are forgiven thee”–present tense, with
an emphasis. “Thy sins are forgiven.” I thank God this is so, because
the creative energy is in that word “forgiven” to take away all sin and
create the man a new creature. I believe in creation. Do you? Do you
believe in the creative energy that is in the word “forgiven” spoken to
you? Or are you an evolutionist and do you say, I cannot see how that
can be, because I am so bad? I have been trying to do right, but I have
made many failures. I have had many ups and downs and have been down a
good many more times than up. If that is what you say, you are an
evolutionist, for that is evolution.
Many people have been longing and longing for a clean
heart. They say, “I believe in the forgiveness of sin and all that and I
would take it all, if I was sure that I could hold out, but there is so
much evil in my heart and so many things to overcome that I do not have
any confidence.” But there stands the word, “Create in me a clean
heart.” A clean heart comes by creation and by no other means; and that
creation is wrought by the word of God. For He says, “A new heart also
will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you.” Are you a
creationist now or are you an evolutionist? Will you go out of this
house with an evil heart or with a new heart created by the word of God,
which has in it creative energy to produce a new heart? It speaks to
you a new heart. To every one it speaks just that way, and if you allow a
moment to pass between the speaking of the word and the new heart, you
are an evolutionist. When you allow any time to pass between the word
spoken and the fulfillment of that thing in your experience, then you
are an evolutionist.
There are those in this house who have
said, Yes, I want it. I am going to have it. I believe the word will
accomplish it, but they have lengthened out the time until the next
meeting and on and on, passing over years, and so they are just this
much evolutionists. “While so many are hovering about the mystery of
faith and godliness, they could have solved the matter by proclaiming
, “I know that Jesus Christ is my
portion forever.” The power to produce this is in the word of God, and
when this is accepted, the creative energy is there producing the thing
that is spoken. So you can settle the whole matter of the mystery of
faith and godliness by proclaiming that you know that Christ is your
portion forever.
There is a mystery in how God can be manifest
in such sinful flesh as yours. But, mind you, the question is not now
about the mystery; the question is, Is there such a thing as
creation? Is there such a thing as a Creator, who can create in you a
clean heart? Or is the whole thing simply evolution? Just now and among
Seventh-day Adventists, the question from this day until the end of the
world must be, Do you believe in the Creator? And when you believe in
the Creator, how is it that He creates? Of course you say, it is by the
word of God. Very good. Now does He create things for you by His
word? Are you a creationist for the other evolutionists and then an
evolutionist for the other creationists? How is it?
Another
thing. The word says, “Be ye clean.” He said, back yonder, “Let there be
light, and there was light.” He said to the leper, “Be thou clean,” and
“immediately” he was clean. He says now to you, “Be ye clean,” and what
now? Every one of you—what do you say? [Voice: “It is so.”] Then for
your soul’s sake put yourself upon that creative word. Recognize the
creative energy in the word of God which comes to you in the Bible, for
this word of God in the Bible is the same here to you today that it was
when it spoke into space the worlds on high and brought light out of
darkness and cleansing to the leper. That word spoken to you today, if
received, creates you new in Christ Jesus. That word, spoken in the dark
waste and void space of your heart, if received, produces there the
light of God; that word spoken today to you afflicted with the leprosy
of sin, if received, immediately cleanses you. Let it. Let it.
How shall I be clean? By the creative energy of that word, “Be ye
clean.” Therefore it is written, “Now ye are clean through the word
which I have spoken unto you.” John 15:3. Are you? Will you from this
moment be a creationist? Or will you go on being an evolutionist?
See what a blessed thing this is. When you read the word, receive the
word, and think upon the word, what is it to you all the time? O, it is
creation! The creative energy is in you producing the things which the
word speaks, and you are living in the very presence of the power of
creation. Creation is going on in your life. God is creating in you
righteousness, holiness, truth, faithfulness—every good and gracious
thing.
And when this is so, your Sabbath-keeping will amount
to something, because the Sabbath is a memorial of creation—the sign
that He who observes it knows the Creator and is acquainted with the
process of creation. But as certainly as you are an evolutionist, your
Sabbath-keeping is a fraud.
Unless you recognize the word of
God day by day as a creative energy in your life, your Sabbath-keeping
is a fraud, because the Sabbath is a memorial of creation. It is “a sign
between me and you, that [by which] ye may know that I am the Lord your
God,” the Creator of all things.
In the second chapter of
Ephesians, eighth to tenth verses, we read, “For by grace are ye saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of
works lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them.”
You need not expect to get any good
works out of yourself. You have been trying. The evolutionist tries and
is always trying without accomplishing it. Why go about trying to do
good works, when you know you fail? Listen. There will never be any good
thing in you of any kind whatever from now till the world’s end, except
it is created there by the Creator Himself, by His word, which has in
it the creative energy. Do not forget that. Do you want to walk in good
works when you go out of this house? It can be done only by being
created in Jesus Christ unto those good works. Stop trying. Look to the
Creator and receive His creative word. “Let the word of God dwell in you
richly,” then those good works will appear; you will be a
Christian. Then, because you live with the Creator and are in the
presence of the creative energy, you will have that pleasant, quiet
peace and genuine strength and building up that belong to a Christian.
When He tells you that “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in
them,” then recognize the Creator, recognize only the good works that
are created in you, paying no attention whatever to any work that is not
created there, because there is nothing good but what is created by the
Lord.
Now you are created new in Christ Jesus. He says
so. Thank Him that it is so. What! Will you be an evolutionist on that
verse? That is the present tense, “We are his workmanship.” We are
created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Are you? The word is spoken. It
is the creative word. How much time are you going to allow between that
word of God and your being created new? Of the creation in the
beginning, you said that any man who allows even a minute to pass
between the word and the thing is an evolutionist. What are you now as
to this word of God, which creates men in Christ Jesus unto good
works? Are you an evolutionist here? Come, let us all be creationists.
Do you not see that in this way it will not require a long, tedious
wearing process to be made ready to meet the Lord in glory? So many
people are looking at themselves. They know that, in the nature of
things it must take them an exceedingly long time to get fully ready to
meet Him. If it is done by evolution, it will never be done. But when it
is done by creation, it will be both surely and quickly done. That word
I have before referred to is the word everyone here may take to
himself. “While so many are hovering about the mystery of faith and
godliness, they could solve the matter by proclaiming abroad [by telling
it out], ‘Jesus Christ is my portion forever.’”
Do you see
how much we have been evolutionists? shall we quit? Come now, let us be
creationists and be done with it. Let us be Sabbath-keepers truly. Let
us believe the Lord. He speaks forgiveness. He speaks a clean heart. He
speaks holiness; He creates it. Let Him create it in you. Stop being an
evolutionist and let that creative word work for you, let that creative
energy work in you, that which the word pronounces, and before you leave
this house, God can get you ready to meet Him. Indeed, in that very
thing you do meet Him. And when you have thus met Him and do thus meet
Him every day, are you not then ready to meet Him? Do you believe
that? You believe He made the worlds when He spoke, that light came by
His word when He spoke, and that the leper was “immediately” cleansed
when he spoke, but with yourself you think considerable time must elapse
between the time when the word is spoken and the fact is
accomplished. O, why will you be an evolutionist? Creation,
creation—that is the thing.
You and I are to call people to
the supper; we are to say to all people, “Come, for all things are now
ready.” How can I call to a man that all things are now ready, when I
myself am not ready? It is a falsehood to start with. My words will not
reach him. They are but an empty sound. But O, when there is in that
call the creative energy of the word that has made us ready, that has
cleansed us from sin, that has created us unto good works, that holds us
as the sun is held in the course which God has marked out—then when we
go forth and say to the world lying in wickedness, “Come, for all things
are now ready,” they will hear. They will hear in the call the tones of
the voice of the Good Shepherd, and will be cheered to come to Him for
creative energy for themselves, to make them new creatures and prepare
them for the supper to which they have been called.
This is
where we are in this world’s history. God’s mark is being set upon the
people. But remember, He will never set His mark upon one who is not
cleansed from every defilement. God will not set His seal to something
that is not true, that is not good. Would you ask Him to set His seal to
righteousness that is altogether unrighteousness? You would not have
the face to do that. You know that He is too righteous to do such a
thing. Then He must cleanse you so that He can put His seal to His own
work. He cannot put His seal to your work. His seal belongs only to a
document which He Himself has approved. Let Him write His character upon
your heart and then He can set His seal there. He can write His seal of
approval upon your heart, only when His creative word has accomplished
its purpose in your heart.
You can see in what a Presence we
are; you can see in a measure how long it would take half to exhaust
such a subject as this. But, brethren, when we do stop, let us stop in
the presence of creation. Let us be no more evolutionists. Let not a
moment pass between the word of God spoken to you and the accomplishment
of the thing in you. Thus, living in the presence of creation, walking
with the Creator, upheld by creative power, inspired by the creative
energy—why, with a people such as that, God can move the world in a
little while.
If at the beginning you thought this was a queer
subject for such an occasion as today [it was the closing service of
the week of prayer] you can now see that it is a strictly present
truth. There are only the two ways. There is no halfway ground. Every
man and woman in the world is either a creationist or an
evolutionist. Evolution is infidelity; it is death. Creation is
Christianity; it is life. Choose Creation, Christianity, and Life, that
you may live. Let us be creationists only and creationists forever. And
let all the people say, Amen (Review and Herald, 2/21/1899)
