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God has concealed cannot be pried into without His dis pleasure. Deut. 29:29: “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever.” John G. Paton, who labored faithfully for many years in the New Hebrides to tell the pagans of the love of God and the death o f the Saviour for them, tells in his autobiography, that three so-called sacred men, sor cerers, claiming power of life and death, publicly de clared they would kill Paton by sorcery by a certain Sunday. Essential to their black art was to get any piece of fruit or food he had eaten. Paton asked a native to give him three fruits like our plums. Taking a bite out of each, he openly handed them to the sacred men, and challenged them to kill him by sorcery, without arrow, spear, club, or gun. The next Sunday Paton in his usual health entered the village. The natives looked at each other in terror. The three sacred men, when asked, ad mitted they had tried to kill him by sorcery, but had failed. They claimed they failed because Paton was also a sacred man, and that his God, being stronger, had pro tected him from their gods. Their lie cannot for a mo ment hide the fact that our God is sufficient in His power and in His revelation. Our portion o f Scripture speaks, secondly, of
The passage speaks distinctly of, first,
THE SUFFICIENCY OF GOHS REVELAT ION
Though man desires to know many things beyond the realm of the seen, God has provided in His Word a message all man needs to know. God forbids re course to superstitious practices and magical arts. How many millions o f dollars are spent each year in this country for this purpose we all know well enough! Magic in its many forms in the Orient is so powerful that it amounts to a religion of its own. God through Moses (Deut. 18:9-12) indicates and forbids ten such magical abominations: (1) the worship of the god Moloch with its ordeal by fire; (2) divination, various methods of drawing lots; (3) augury, predicting lucky and unlucky days, astrology; (4) an enchanter, prob ably divination or foretelling by serpents; (5) a sor cerer, foretelling by magical potions or drugs; (6) a charmer, a spell-binder, one who ties magic knots; (7) a consulter with familiar spirits, spiritism, use of ven triloquism; (8) a wizard, wise in unlawful wisdom; (9) a necromancer, one who consults the dead; and (10) false prophets, who spoke their own message (verses 20-22), running when not sent. God says through Moses that we need none of this; how sad, then, and soul-injur ing to spend time, labor, and means on such quacks and fakers, and impelled of Satan, consorting with demons. There is no need to go to outside sources, and they are forbidden because of the sufficiency of God’s revela tion. Isaiah said at a later day: “ And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto the wizards, that chirp and that mutter; should not a people seek unto their God? on behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead? To the law and to the testimony! I f they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.” (8:19, 20 ASV.) The dilemma is this: if they do speak according to God’s message, then there was no need to go outside God’s Word in the first place. If they do not, then there is no light in them, and they cannot give to others what they do not have themselves. There is no occasion for seeking unauthorized means of getting supernatural truth. The Bible recognizes no magic as good. The Bible is amply sufficient to convey God’s mind and truth without trafficking in Satan’s realm. What
THE URGENCY OF GOHS REVELAT ION
When Moses warned the Israelites against magical arts, he was not denying that men have need o f some thing outside themselves; that they stand in need of God’s revelation. He points back to their experience at Sinai. The cry o f the people at Sinai had been: “ Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.” This was an admission that they could not bear a full dis closure of God’s Person. They could not abide the full manifestation of God’s glory. They feared they would be overwhelmed by it. They could no more gaze fully into the splendor of God than any man can look intently at the brilliance o f the noonday sun. God took note of the choice and wish of His people at Sinai. There had been thunder, lightning, fire, thick darkness, a trumpet—all
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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