Beautiful Way 2

Order And Balance

Study given by W. D. Frazee - May 31, 1965

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of

the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as
by the Spirit of the Lord" 2 Corinthians 3:18.
That old nature God is seeking to change. Change, of course, does not necessarily mean
improvement, but all improvement involves change. So if we are going to learn anything in this class, we are
going to have to change our minds. God will change our minds if we will let Him. And it is as we behold that
we are changed. So we are beholding that beautiful life, that beautiful way. Where does beauty come from?
"He hath made every thing beautiful in His time: also He hath
set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that
God maketh from the beginning to the end" Ecclesiastes 3:11.
The Revised Standard Version gives it:
"He has made everything beautiful in its time."
Who makes things beautiful? God does. He is the author of beauty. So we read:
"God is the author of all beauty, and only as we conform to His
ideal shall we approach the standard of true beauty" Ministry of
Healing, page 292.
What does it mean that God is the author? It means He is the maker. That is where beauty started.
Beauty was in the mind of God before it was ever in the lovely rose or the song of the thrush, or a delicious
watermelon. God is the author of all beauty.
Then the closer we get to Him the more beauty we will see, and the more beautiful we will be.
Do you believe that? There are millions of people who are afraid to get anywhere near the Lord for
fear they would lose beauty. That's right. How does it look to you?
There are people who feel that to be 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 while. But
they have resigned themselves in this life to a hard program, and never look like anything worthwhile, never
be anything worthwhile.
All true beauty comes from God. Oh, what a beautiful life He is calling us to.

The question is that if God is the author of all beauty, where do all these thorns and brambles, and all
the ugly things around us come from?
Jesus told a story about a man who sowed good seed in his field, and then what happened? An
enemy came and sowed tares. As the wheat sprung up the wheat and the tares were there together. Jesus said
that the one who sowed the tares was the devil (Matthew 13:28,39).
Now I want to read a most interesting comment on 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, Vol. 6,
page 186.
Satan.

Isn't that interesting? Who makes the beautiful flowers? God. Who makes the thorns and thistles?
Somebody asks, Can Satan create?

No, but he can pervert. He can twist. And I wish you would think about that twisting process, trying
to change and pervert. Think about where it comes from, and it will destroy in your soul all love for these
twisting operations.
Satan cannot create, but he can pervert. It is called degeneration. You say, I don't understand how he
does that. I don't either, but I know it can be done. Luther Burbank made spineless cactus out in California by
experimenting with plants. And if a man can get thorns off cactus I think the devil could find a way to get
them on, don't you? But remember, he never created a single thing. He takes what God makes and twists and
changes it to make it beautiful? No. He may use beauty as a cloak, a bait, but his real purpose is to deform
and twist.
My point is that the beautiful things come from 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 sit
back and grin at you. 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.
When we go out and cut the weeds, and get rid of the thorns and brambles, we are working with God
to destroy the works of the devil. So in our lives.
Beauty is like light. It is made up of various ingredients. In the rainbow we see beautiful light
broken up in beautiful parts. There is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Do you love those colors?
Wouldn't you like to have everything red? Red flowers, red sky, red people, red everything? Oh, no.
Red is beautiful because it isn't everything.
Some people love blue. I do to. But wouldn't it be too bad if everything was blue. I am glad the sky
is blue, but I am glad the trees are not blue. And I am glad you don't look blue. Blue has its place.
Beauty is like that. Beauty has various ingredients, and it takes all of them together to make the full,
beautiful light. So we are going to study the various ingredients that go to make up beauty. And as we study
them, having arrived at a measure, you can take the yardstick and begin to measure the different things in
your life - diet, dress, music, reading, recreation and amusement, association, education, and all the different
things.
There are thousands of practical details. If you have a yardstick you can measure them. It takes only
one yardstick to measure them. So instead of having to remember thousands of different applications, all you

need to do is learn the yardstick, and every one of you can learn so you can measure for yourself whether
something is beautiful or ugly.
You say everybody knows what is beautiful. Oh, no, they don't. I can show you some pictures of
people over in Africa with a lip that sticks way out like a duck.
You say it is ugly. Well, they think it is beautiful. How are you going to decide? Get into an
argument about it?
No, that won't help. God is the author of all beauty, 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. Let's study God's beautiful way, and the
various ingredients that enter into it.
Order is the first law of beauty. It is the 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 everything. There is a time for every purpose. Do you believe that? Now when
everything is on time that is beauty (verse 11).
Do you like roses? Do you hunt for them in a snowstorm? No. There is a time for roses.
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
snow flakes, because they have never found two snow crystals alike. Those lace like, six-sided figures are
beautiful.
Yes, roses are beautiful, snow is beautiful. Everything that God has made is beautiful - in its time.
I am glad God put watermelons in the summer instead of the winter. Learn to keep in step with God,
not sighing for yesterday nor 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 light, and discern in each changing providence
something more wonderful than before.
This lesson of order is the first great law. You will find that in Counsels on Health, page 101.
"Order is heaven's first law." What is order? Order is everything on time and in its place. If you have
everything on time and in its place you have order. If you don't it is disorder. And the way to be beautiful is to
have order. That means to have everything in its place and on time. That is beautiful. That is the first law.
There may be other things that enter into it, but that is the first thing.
"It is the very essence of all right faith to do the right thing at
the right time" Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 6, page 24.
Take the fourth commandment, the great sign of God's government in heaven and earth. It is based
upon doing the right thing at the right time. When you wake up in the morning you think, What am I going
to do today? The first thing you have to remember is what day it is. If you wake up on Thursday morning or
Friday morning or Saturday morning, is there something different to do each of those three mornings?
Yes. Friday is preparation day. The seventh day is the Sabbath. So it is the essence right faith to do
the right thing at the right time.
Every day, all day long, we are to be looking to God for guidance. If we will do that we will be doing
the right thing at the right time, and that is beautiful.

"If every moment were valued and rightly employed, we should

have time for everything that we need to do for ourselves or for the
world" Ministry of Healing, page 208.
That is one of those exceedingly great and precious promises that seems to big to be true. But God
means just what He says. We will have time for everything that we need to do.
Notice it does not say we will have time for everything we want to do. Oh, no.
A friend of mine visited Florida for the first time. He is a great lover of grapefruit. A friend of his
had a grapefruit grove.
They were out walking in the grove and he saw a nice, big grapefruit drop from a tree. He said to his
host, "Can I have that?"
His host said he could, so he got his knife and got the grapefruit ready, and about the time he got
through eating it another grapefruit dropped.
He said, "Can I have that?"
His host said he could. But pretty soon another grapefruit dropped, and another one. It began to
dawn on him that he could never keep up with those grapefruits. They were dropping faster than he could eat
them.
God has provided in rich abundance books to read, people to get acquainted with, work to do, food to
eat, and all kinds of things to enjoy, but not to get sick on. Order and balance are closely related. They
require a sensible mind that will not try to take in everything and do everything.
Everyday there are issued from the presses of this world two thousand five hundred printed pages of
new scientific facts. So if you knew everything that science could teach you today, tomorrow you would have
to read two thousand five hundred pages just to keep up.
What are you going to do about it?
Oh, that's the trouble. I am always behind.
Were you born late? Is it going to take all your life to catch up? We have just read that if every
moment is valued and rightly employed we would have time for everything we need to do.
That's what the Solomon said. He tried to get hold of everything and it wore him out. That's why at
the end of his life he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes to tell people it is vanity to try to fill up and tank up on
everything until you get surfeited and say, It just isn't worth it.
Winston Churchill died a few weeks ago. His last words were, "I am bored with it all." Solomon
was bored with it all. That is not a beautiful life, is it? That is not the beautiful way. That is the rat race. And
you can be in it with good things as well as bad things.
Let's have sense enough to live the beautiful life and walk the beautiful way by understanding that
God never intended any of us to encompass everything. If He had He would have given us bigger stomachs
and perhaps eyes in the back of our head as well as in front so we could get more in.
No, we will do very well with a moderate amount and let our moderation be know to all men (Philip pians 4:5). Don't try to take in everything and get everything. Let a lot of things go by.
We are told in the Spirit of Prophecy that when we sit down to eat, if our time is limited, instead of
trying to eat faster do what? Eat less and enjoy it. Take it easy. If you only get half a meal that's all right. If
you haven't time for a full meal just enjoy what you have.
So with books. Don't think you have so much reading to do.

You say, Brother Frazee, how am I going to get over all these lessons?
Maybe you won't get over all of them. Maybe they were not all meant for you. Just ask Jesus to help
you get the thing you need, and enjoy that. That is the beautiful life.
There are a great many applications of these principles of order and balance. There are a number of
references that will help you apply these things.
Take for instance Child Guidance, page 110. This is a little chapter on neatness, order, and
regularity, having things in their place and on time. There are some wonderful statements here:
"Remember that in heaven there is no disorder, and that your
home should be a heaven here below.
"If the children have a room which they know is their own, and
if they are taught how to keep it tidy and make it pleasant, they will have
a sense of ownership - they will feel that they have within the home a
home of their own, and will have a satisfaction in keeping it neat and
nice" Adventist Home, page 111.
It tells parents who cannot afford a bureau what to do. It goes on and tells young people how to get
in order in respect to their things and their time. It speaks of some young people who are opposed to order
and discipline, so they don't get up in the morning. They lie in bed late in the morning because they were up
late the night before.
I am so glad all of you are having no difficulty in getting up early in the morning. Here we are with
the singing birds before breakfast enjoying this early morning study. Do you like it? The birds do. Hear them
out there? They like it fine.
I want you to see the picture of the rat race of this world:
"It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread
of sorrows: for so He giveth His beloved sleep" Psalm 127:2.
God gives to the people He loves sleep. I wonder why? Did you ever hear of people taking their
beauty sleep? Well, that is what is waiting for you every night. That is one of the ways to be beautiful.
Let me tell you, a bleary-eyed, weary-hearted person is not beautiful, no matter how much time they
spend at what is called a beauty shop. What a strange name, for what comes out of them?
Sleep is nature's sweet restorer that knits the raveled sleeve of care. The bright-eyed, the smiling face
are to some extent dependent on sleep, and God gives His beloved sleep.
But sleep takes time, and I don't have enough time to sleep.
Don't I? Where was my Lord when my program was planned? He tells me He has given me time to
sleep, and He will give me sleep. Isn't that a wonderful promise? Let's claim it.
But our verse goes right to the practical point. It talks about people who rise up early and sit up late.
It is vain.
Somebody says, I thought it was nice to get up early.
This doesn't say not to get up early. It says it is vain to rise up early and sit up late. And as a result
you eat the bread of sorrow.

That can give people ulcers, high blood pressure, nervous breakdowns, and all sorts of things. And it
is not beautiful. If you are going to get up early you had better get to bed early. Isn't that simple? That is a
part of the beautiful way.
Time for sleep, time for rest, time for work, time for everything we need to do. In order to do that we
will need to look to the Lord for guidance and wisdom.
"The Lord GOD hath given Me the tongue of the learned, that I
should know how to speak a word in season" Isaiah 50:4.
That means at the right time. And if you and I will ask the Lord for wisdom day by day as He wakes
us up, He will help us to be at the right place at the right time with the right word to the right man. That is
the beautiful way.
There are a number of texts on balance. Balance is, of course, having things in a proper proportion.
How many of you girls ever made a cake? What did you put into it?
Somebody says, I made a cake and put just one thing in it.
Did you? I wonder what it was. It wasn't a cake. Every cake you ever made had several ingredients
in it.
Suppose somebody says, I like my cake sweet, so I am going to put all sugar in my cake. Would that
be a cake? Oh, no.
So balance is in proper proportion to ingredients. And that is the way with everything in life.
Suppose I had an ear that was twice as big as the other ear. I might make quite a sensation as I
walked around, but I don't think I would be beautiful. Do you? I don't think there would be anything
handsome about it. There is such a thing as balance.
Having everything exactly the same on one side of the house as on the other side of the house is not
necessarily the only way for things to be balanced. But there is such a thing as balance in dress, diet, work,
and study. Ask God to give you a balanced life, for that is the beautiful life.
And remember about the grapefruit. You will have to let some of them drop without running after
them. The balanced life means that you are going to miss a lot of things, and be happy for it. The balanced
life means that from the great abundance that God puts within your reach, instead of grabbing for all of it, you
will enjoy what God arranges for you to have, and leave the rest with God and other people.
Shall we do that? Oh, let's be happy in God's beautiful way of life.
I want you to learn as a memory gem that one line from the Revised Standard Version on
Ecclesiastes 3:11: "He has made everything beautiful in its time."