God Hath Spoken

by Harris J. Dark

An illustration which I frequently use is this: Suppose I start to drive to Columbia, Tennessee, tonight. I get out here on the street and say, “Well, I can’t see the way to Columbia. There are many crooks and turns and ditches between here and Columbia. I might have a wreck and kill myself, so I just won’t start.” That would be silly, wouldn’t it? Why, I could see a few yards ahead of me and I would drive on in what light I had. As I moved on the light would move on and if I kept on going, I would likely reach Columbia or any other place to which I started.

That’s the way it is in going to heaven; you can’t see your way from here into the Pearly Gates. If you could, you would be walking by sight and not by faith. “But the just shall live by faith” (Hab. 2:4). You can see the first step, and if you will take it, you will be able to see a little bit further. Take the second and then you can see still further, and if you keep on going, you will reach the goal.

“If a man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17). They that will to do His will shall know. You can see or learn the way as you go along. Remember this, if you know of just one commandment that you have not yet obeyed, you do not deserve to understand another until you are willing to obey the one you do understand. If a man does not love the truth, God will send him strong delusions that he may believe a lie and be damned (2 Thess. 2:8-12). If you know truth and are unwilling to act upon it, you do not deserve to know any further truth. If you keep on despising what truth you do have, then God will take even that away from you. He will send you a strong delusion that you may be deceived, may be deluded and may be damned forever. It is a dangerous thing for one to trample under his foot the word of Almighty God. If you know of even one commandment which you have not obeyed, obey it now.

8. “I live a good, clean life, I treat everybody right. I pay all my debts, I tell the truth, I am loyal and faithful to my family, and I am just as good as a lot of those folk in the church. The church can’t save you anyhow, so I think I am all right.” Now, you know the answer to that, don’t you? It’s found in the tenth chapter of Acts. I always like to suggest that the man who makes that sort of a statement compare himself with Cornelius. He was a just man. He treated everybody right. He feared the Lord. He prayed to God always. He was charitable. He gave much alms to the poor. And he was such a good man he had won the favor of the Jews over whom he was serving as the head of an army of occupation! He had a good reputation, even among them. Yet he was not good enough to go to heaven without obeying the gospel. He was told to send for Peter, who would speak unto him words whereby he should be saved. He was not yet saved.

If you have ever committed just one sin, you cannot go to heaven until that sin is washed away by the blood of Jesus, for sin cannot enter there. Surely there is no one who would say that he had never committed one sin. You don’t have to commit a great big catalogue of sins in order to be lost. Just one unforgiven sin will take you into torment. If you’ve ever done wrong on a single point, then you’ll have to repent of that and obey the gospel in order to go to heaven when you die.

9. “I’m waiting for someone else. I’m afraid my parents or husband or wife would object. This religion is unpopular and would cause me to lose my social standing.” This is really three excuses in one, but in each case the person is being influenced by what someone else thinks, instead of being influenced by what God says. A familiar answer to such excuses is that every tub shall set on its own bottom. You’ll find that in Romans, chapter 14 and verse 12, “So then each one of us must give an account of himself unto the Lord.” It doesn’t use the word “tub,” but it says the same thing. “So then each one of us must give an account of himself unto the Lord.” When you get to the judgment day, neither your father nor your mother, brother nor sister, husband nor wife—nobody else can answer for you. Therefore, no one else should be allowed to live for you. No one should be allowed to make your choices or decisions because they cannot answer for you.

Someone made a remark that one of the nice things about the Catholic Church was that the members allowed the priests to make all the decisions, that they rather expected him to make their choices for them. My answer was that that would be all right if the priest could also answer for you. But the priest cannot answer for you. Therefore, you’d better not let him make your decisions. He might not make a decision that you would want to stand by on the judgment day. Nobody can answer for you, therefore nobody should be allowed to choose your course. In the light of God’s word you must accept that responsibility yourself.

Furthermore, if you want to get your husband, wife, or somebody else to obey the gospel, the way to get them to do it is not to wait for them but go ahead and lead the way. Step out and do it yourself. In West Virginia a lady told me that she would obey the gospel but that she was waiting for her husband. I knew that was not a good excuse and I tried to get her to see it. One evening while we were singing the invitation song I stopped and made this remark, “If I were you, I’d rather go to heaven alone than to go to hell with my husband.” Evidently she knew that I was talking about her, for when we began to sing again she came down the aisle. The next day her husband also came. If she had waited for him, they might both still be on the outside. Now they are two of the most faithful members in the congregation.

A lady at Madison, Tennessee, made the same excuse. She even went so far as to say, “If you’ll just talk to my husband and get him to obey, then I’ll come along with him.” I told her that wasn’t the right attitude. The next Sunday at church she came down the aisle to make the confession and be baptized. When I met her, she stopped and whispered to me, “Brother Dark, I wish you would go back and talk to my husband.” He was just two steps behind her and she didn’t know it. That’s the way to get your husband to come! That’s the way to get your wife to come! If you wait for somebody else, then you’ll be lost.

There was a lady in Chattanooga who didn’t wait for her husband. She went to church. Her husband tried to keep her from going. That’s unusual. Most husbands like for their wives to be good whether they are or not. But this husband didn’t want his wife to go to church. He told her she couldn’t have any money to give to the church. She began to take in sewing to make money for her contributions. That made him angry. He said, “You can’t use that sewing machine, I paid for it.” So she just kept on going without any money to contribute. He saw that he was defeated on that point so, in desperation, he locked up her wardrobe. He said, “I paid for those Sunday dresses and you can’t wear them to church.” She defied him again and borrowed some dresses from the next door neighbor and other ladies in the church and just kept on going anyway. He felt like he had to do something about it, so he went over to the meetinghouse to see if he could find out what could be done. He stood on the outside and listened. It didn’t sound as bad as he thought it would. Before the meeting closed he was baptized. Suppose his wife had been fainthearted and had refused to go ahead without her husband. He now says that he used to be the meanest man in Chattanooga and I’m inclined to agree with him.