Greetings MOL Family!
As we continue through this series, it is important for us to understand that God is all the while seeking to change us. Now, of course, change does not necessarily mean improvement, but all improvement involves change. So, if we are going to learn anything in these classes, we will have to do what with our minds? [Change our minds.]
God will change our minds, if we will let Him. And, it is as we behold Him that we are changed… By God’s grace, may we behold that beautiful Life, that beautiful Way!
He Hath Made Every Thing Beautiful
Now, our first text tells us where beauty comes from:
He hath made every thing beautiful in his time. – Ecclesiastes 3:11
Where does beauty come from? From God. Now, the word “his” there, we would say today, “in its time.” In fact, the Revised Standard Version reads:
He has made everything beautiful in its time. – Ecclesiastes 3:11, Revised Standard Version
Who makes things beautiful? God does. He is the Author of beauty.
God is the author of all beauty. – Ministry of Healing, pg. 292
What does that mean, He ‘is the author’? Why, He is the Maker, and it is where it started. It is where it originated. Beauty was in the mind of God before it was ever in the lovely rose.
Oh, think of it, then: the closer we get to Him the more beauty we will see, and the more beautiful we will be. Is that right? Do you believe that? Why, my dear friends, there are millions of people that are afraid to get anywhere near the Lord, for fear they would lose beauty. That’s right.
Now, really, how does it look to you? There are people who feel that to really be a true Christian, a strict Seventh-day Adventist, would mean that they could never be pretty. Some people are willing to endure the cross because they hope to get to Heaven after a while. But they have resigned themselves, as far as this life is concerned, to a hard program, and never look like anything, never becoming anything worthwhile.
Why, what a misconception, my dear friends. All true beauty comes from whom? From God. Oh, what a beautiful life He is calling us to. Let’s find out about it. What do you say?
The question, of course, is if God is the author of all beauty, where do all these thorns and brambles, and all the ugly things around us, come from? Well, you remember in Matthew 13, Jesus told a story about a man that sowed good seed in his field, and then what happened? An enemy came and did what? Sowed tares.
By and by, as the seed sprung up, the wheat and the tares were there, where? Together. But Jesus said that the one that sowed the tares was who? The devil. If you want the verses on that, it is Matthew 13:28-39.
Now, here is a most interesting comment on this from Volume 6 of the Testimonies. I was glad to get a hold of this:
The same God who guides the planets works in the fruit orchard and in the vegetable garden. He never made a thorn, a thistle, or a tare. These are Satan’s work, the result of degeneration, introduced by him among the precious things. – Testimonies for the Church, Volume 6, pg. 186
Isn’t that interesting? Who makes the beautiful flowers? God. Who makes the thorns and thistles? satan. Well, somebody says, “Can satan create?” No, he can’t create, but he can pervert. He can twist. And by the way, I wish you would think about that twisting process – twisting, twisting, twisting, trying to change and pervert. Just think about where it comes from, friends, and it will destroy in your souls all love for all these different twisting operations.
satan cannot create, but he can what? Pervert. In fact, it calls it degeneration. You say, “Well, I don’t understand how he does that.” I don’t either, but I know it can be done.
Many years ago, someone by the name of Luther Burbank made spineless cactus out of cactus with spines, by experimenting with plants. And if a mere man can get thorns off the cactus, I think the devil, with all his wisdom, could certainly find a way to get them on, don’t you? But remember, he never made anything. The devil never created a single thing, but he takes what God makes and twists it and changes it to make it what? Beautiful? No. He may use beauty as a cloak, a bait, but his real purpose is to deform, to twist. We will study that more in future lessons.
My point is, dear friends, the beautiful things come from who? God. And the ugly things come from? satan. And even if the devil offers you a queer type of beauty to start with, his goal is to make you ugly in every way, and then sit back and grin at you. Because that is what he enjoys – the degeneration of the work of God.
Oh, what a devil he is. I hate him, don’t you? And I hate his work. And so, when we go out and cut out the weeds, and get rid of the thorns and brambles, we are working with God to destroy the works of the devil. And also, in our lives.
What Does Beauty Consist Of?
Beauty is like light. It is made up of various ingredients. In the rainbow, we see beautiful light broken up into its beautiful parts. There is the red, and the orange, and the yellow, and the green, and the blue, and the violet. Do you love those colors? Wouldn’t you like to have everything red? Red trees, red flowers, red sky, red people, just red everything? Oh, no. Red is beautiful because it isn’t everything.
And blue, some folks just love blue. I do too, the right shade. But wouldn’t it be too bad if everything was blue? I am glad the sky is blue, but I declare, I am glad the trees aren’t blue, aren’t you? And I am glad we don’t look blue. Blue has its place. They are all the different ingredients.
And beauty is like that, friends. Beauty has various ingredients, and it takes all of them together, like the colors of light, to make the full, beautiful light. And so, we are going to study in these lessons some of these various ingredients that go to make up beauty. Would you like to do that? And as we study them, then having seen a yardstick, having arrived at a measure, you can take the yardstick and you can begin to measure these different things in your life – diet, and dress, music, and reading, recreation and amusement, association, education, all the different things.
There are thousands of practical details that if you have the yardstick, you can measure them. It only takes one yardstick, friends, to measure thousands of different dresses or bolts of goods. Am I right? [Yes.] And so, instead of having to remember thousands of different applications, all you need to do is learn the yardstick, just learn the yardstick and you can learn (everyone of you studying these lessons) so that you can decide for yourself, measure for yourself, whether something is beautiful or whether it is ugly.
You say, “Well, everybody knows what is beautiful.” Oh, no, they don’t. There are many ideas of what beauty is, in different cultures… How are you going to decide? Get into an argument about it? No, that won’t help:
God is the author of all beauty. – Ministry of Healing, pg. 292
We read here, and it is only as we conform to His ideal, that we shall approach the standard of true beauty. So, let’s let God decide. What do you say? And let’s study God’s beautiful way, and the various ingredients that enter into it.
Order, The First Law of Beauty
Now, there in Ecclesiastes 3, is the first law of beauty, and that is order. Order is Heaven’s first law of beauty, first law of anything.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. – Ecclesiastes 3:1
There is a time for what? Every purpose. There is a time for everything. Do you believe that? Now, when everything is on time, that is beauty, and so it says in the 11th verse:
He hath made everything beautiful in its time. – Ecclesiastes 3:11, Revised Standard Version
All beautiful the march of days
As seasons come and go
The hand that shaped the rose
Hath wrought the crystal of the snow
Do you like roses? Do you hunt for them in a snowstorm? No, there is a time for roses. Right? Do you enjoy snow? Do you like to see those beautiful snow crystals? Did you ever look at one under a magnifying glass? People tell me that the lace makers of Switzerland get new patterns every winter from those falling flakes, because they have never found two snow crystals alike. Beautiful… those intricate, lace-like, six-sided figures.
Roses are beautiful. Snow is beautiful. Everything that God has made is beautiful, in its time.
Learn to keep in step with God; not sighing for yesterday, nor for tomorrow. Today, God has given us the beautiful things for this day. And it is as we keep in step with Him, that we will see the beauty of life and discern, in each changing providence, something more wonderful than before!
God orders that which His providence sees best; and it is beautiful, in its time! That we all may step fast (by His grace), is our prayer.
Invite a friend and join us next week, as we study more about God’s order – the first law of beauty!
-Continue on to the next study-
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* This study has been adapted from classes taken by Elder W.D. Frazee.