Chapter 10—Belief in a Personal God
It will be found in the day of final settlement that God was ac-
quainted with everyone by name. There is an unseen witness to every
action of the life. “I know thy works,” says He that “walketh in the
midst of the seven golden candlesticks.”
Revelation 2:1
. It is known
what opportunities have been slighted, how untiring have been the
efforts of the Good Shepherd to search out those who were wandering
in crooked ways, and to bring them back to the path of safety and
peace. Again and again God has called after the pleasure lovers; again
and again He has flashed the light of His word across their path, that
they might see their peril, and escape. But on and on they go, jesting
and joking as they travel the broad road, until at length their probation
is ended. God’s ways are just and equal; and when sentence is pro-
nounced against those who are found wanting, every mouth will be
stopped
The mighty power that works through all nature and sustains
all things is not, as some men of science represent, merely an all-
pervading principle, an actuating energy. God is a spirit; yet He is a
personal being, for man was made in His image.
God’s handiwork in nature is not God Himself in nature. The
things of nature are an expression of God’s character; by them we
may understand His love, His power, and His glory; but we are not to
regard nature as God. The artistic skill of human beings produces very
beautiful workmanship, things that delight the eye and these things
give us something of the idea of the designer; but the thing made is not
the man. It is not the work, but the workman, that is counted worthy
of honor. So, while nature is an expression of God’s thought, it is not
nature but the God of nature that is to be exalted.
In the creation of man was manifest the agency of a personal God.
When God had made man in His image, the human form was perfect
in all its arrangements, but it was without life. Then a personal, self-
existing God breathed into that form the breath of life, and man became
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Testimonies for the Church 5:435
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