Bible

To Pledge Allegiance

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Did you know that God requires our allegiance and that there is a special sign that shows our allegiance? Why, someone may ask, would there be a sign of loyalty to God? Surely He knows already whether or not we love Him! What kind of a sign is it? Is there a battle going on? Are there different sides to be taken? Is there a need for a sign showing which side a person is on?

Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, displayed the sign of their allegiance by their choice to partake of the forbidden fruit. Perhaps it seemed arbitrary for God to pick a tree and tell them not to eat of it. It certainly did not fit into their logic. But signs of loyalty are, of necessity, arbitrary or they would not be a sign at all. Colors for flags are arbitrarily chosen and a meaning assigned to them.

Many stories have been told of patriots who have risked their lives to keep the flag flying high. The sight of the U.S. flag still bravely flying through the night at Fort McHenry, in spite of the fierce attack upon it, inspired Francis Scott Key to write the “Star Spangled Banner.” The flag could have been hauled down and a white one signifying surrender raised in its place, and the fighting would have stopped. But the courageous soldiers were not willing to give up that flag for the sake of peace. They were willing to give up life itself to remain true to their pledge of allegiance.

A flag is only a piece of cloth. There is very little real monetary value in it. Why would people risk their lives to keep a particular piece of cloth waving in the breeze above their fort? It is because the flag represents something of far more value than just the threads in the cloth. That flag proclaimed boldly to the world what they stood for. To pull it down would have signified a change in their allegiance, and they were not willing to give up their liberty.

Looking for a Sign

There was a young man a few years ago, a runaway, who found himself looking for a sign. He wanted a sign that would show him that someone loved him. He was an independent sort of fellow. He found that as he lived with his loving parents that rebellion was growing in his heart. He didn’t want to put up with the restrictions they placed on him. He didn’t like the way they always seemed to interfere in his affairs. Finally, one night, he decided he had had enough. He walked out.

He did not allow himself to think of the agony he would be leaving behind in the hearts of his parents. He was determined to have a good time. He found a job and life seemed to be going well. He had plenty of friends and no one to interfere.

After a while, however, life in the fast lane began to seem empty. He was unable to suppress thoughts of his parents. They began to seem more and more dear to him. He wondered how they were faring and tried to imagine what they thought about him. He could picture his father’s furrowed brow and almost hear his strong voice. He imagined a disapproving look on his mother’s face. “They will probably never want to see me again,” he thought.

Thoughts of home came more and more frequently until he finally decided to write a letter and see if they cared to see him again or not. Soon after writing the letter the young man boarded a train. The destination was home. He was dreadfully nervous. As he rode, he clenched and unclenched his fists. His jaw worked nervously. His stomach seemed to be tied in a knot. On the train he found himself seated by an elderly gentleman.

The older man noted the nervousness of the young man and finally struck up a conversation with him. Before long he had heard the whole story. The young man ended with, “I don’t know if they’ll ever want me back again after the way I have treated them. I can hardly stand to find out the answer.”

Sign of Love

As the train rounded a bend in the tracks, the young man suddenly stiffened. “Please, sir,” he said. “My home is just around the next bend. It is right by the tracks. I wrote to my folks and told them I would be riding by today, and that if they wanted me back to put something white in the yard. If they did not, I would know that I should just ride on by and never trouble them again. I just cannot bear to look. Please, sir, would you look for me?” The man readily agreed.

Suddenly his excited voice broke into the rhythmical clicking of the tracks. “Look, boy, look!” he nearly yelled.

The boy lifted his head. Tears sprang to his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Every white thing in the house must have been out in that yard. The clothesline, the bushes, the trees were draped with white sheets. Snow could have done little more!

Those two parents would not have let anything stop them from showing their long lost son the sign of allegiance and love he had requested. Never did they question what the neighbors would think. It did not matter if people thought they had lost their minds. What a reunion that must have been!

Those parents had to decide whether or not to utilize their son’s choice of what the sign would be. At any other time, white sheets in the yard would have been of no value, but because he had requested it, it was meaningful. The message the son had sent was essentially, “If you love me, hang out a white sheet.”

Which Team Are You On?

A sign of allegiance is often used in physical education class in school. Each time basketball is played, new teams are chosen. All the students are dressed alike in uniforms and confusion can reign, because it is difficult to tell who is on which team. Without some kind of distinction, teammates might end up playing against themselves.

To solve this problem, “pinnies” are usually provided for all the members of one team to wear. Then it is easy to tell who is a teammate and who is not. The pinnies become a sign telling to which team the player is loyal. These pinnies are arbitrarily chosen. On any other occasion they would be quite meaningless, but on the basketball court, they represent who is on which team. Anyone wanting to be on the team with the pinnies must be willing to wear one.

The Christian life is something like the basketball team mentioned above. It isn’t always easy to tell whose side we are on. The Bible says that Satan and his teammates will disguise themselves so that they look as if they are on God’s side (2 Corinthians 11:13–15). In fact, so deceptive is Satan that many of his followers do not even know they are following him. They think they are on God’s side (Matthew 7:21–23). That is why God has done something like what a physical education teacher does. He has given us a sign by which we might know on which team we are.

The sign of our allegiance to God goes far deeper than a display of emotions, or saying a few words that anyone could repeat, or wearing a lapel pin. God says more than “If you love Me, honk your horn.”

Follow the Blueprint

The story has been told of a man who bought some land and asked his son to manage and develop it into a farm for him while he traveled. He showed his son the blueprint for the layout of the proposed farm.

The son looked over the plans with admiration. The barns would be spacious, well built, and conveniently located. The house would be a comfortable one with a lovely view. The soil looked rich, and it would have its own water supply from a well. As they strolled across the acres together, blueprint in hand, he could almost envision the finished farm nestled there among the hills. What a haven of rest it would be! It was a good plan he decided. It would be a farm with which anyone could be happy and proud. But, knowing of his son’s independent ways, the father stipulated one thing. He would hire his son to build it on condition that he build it exactly as he specified.

Happily the son agreed to take the responsibility for it and to do the best he could. He agreed to follow exactly the blueprint his father had given him.

The father left, and the son immediately set to work to develop the farm. He took hold of the project energetically, and gradually things began to take shape.

As he worked, he often consulted the plans his father had given him. Repeatedly he was impressed by his father’s wisdom in the decisions he had made. Often he remarked about how good they were. He carried them out exactly as his father had specified down to the smallest details.

More Convenient

The day came, however, when the well was to be dug. As he looked at the plans, a puzzled expression appeared on his face. “I wonder,” he mused, “why Father put the well so far from the house? It will be such a long walk to go clear out there by the barn. He must not have realized what a difficulty that will be. Perhaps it’s been a long time since he had to carry the water in himself!” After considering it for some time, he finally decided to change the location of the well. He was certain that his father would be pleased with his decision when he understood why the change had been made.

Finally the farm was finished. Crops were planted and the fields became a lush green. The place looked like a peaceful dream when Father finally returned. The son met him with a proud smile. “See, Father,” he said with a wave of his hand, “it’s done exactly as you said. Is it not beautiful?”

Actions Reveal Motives

Again the two ambled across the acres looking at the farm. At each place the father would stop and express his pleasure at what had been done. Finally, they got to the spot where the well should have been. A puzzled expression passed over the elderly gentleman’s face. “Why, where’s the well?” he questioned. “I thought it would have been right here. Did I make a mistake?”

“Oh, no,” the son replied. “The well is right over there by the house.”

“By the house?” the father asked again. “I thought I planned for it to be out here by the barn.”

“Oh, yes, now I remember,” the son replied. “I noticed that. I thought it would be inconvenient to have it so far from the house, so I had them make just a minor change and dig it over there instead.”

The father looked sorrowfully at his son. “I thought you said you made everything the way I wanted it. You promised me that you would. But now I find that you did not. You did not make anything the way I wanted it. Not one thing.”

“Father!” the younger man nearly exploded. “How can you say that? I did everything the way you wanted except for the well. But I thought this would be better than the other plan. I changed only one thing. How can you say I did not do anything at all the way you wanted it?”

“It is really quite simple, Son,” the father explained. “That well is significant. It tells me that the only reason you built the rest of the farm as I specified is that you liked it that way. You happened to think my plans were good plans on the rest of the farm. But if your ideas disagreed with mine, then you followed your own way. You actually built the whole farm the way you wanted it, not the way I wanted it.”

It was a quiet pair that finished the tour of the farm. The son had little to say. His father’s words had made a deep impression. The well was indeed a sign of whether or not he loved and trusted his father enough to follow his requests even if he did not fully understand or agree with them. He had not set out with the intention of proving his lack of loyalty to his father, but his decision had revealed the hidden motives in his heart. His actions had shown what his motives had been even though the son himself had not understood his own heart.

God also makes it clear to us that our actions display the hidden motives of our hearts, even when we don’t understand them ourselves. Many times the Holy Scriptures remind us that a tree is known by its fruit. A good pear tree, at the right time, will be covered with pears. The pears reveal what kind of tree it is. So the fruits of our lives reveal where our loyalties really are and whether or not we are abiding in Jesus.

An Unusual Sign

The Bible tells the story of a battle in which Israel was involved. After the war a most unusual sign was used to determine who was friend or foe.

The Ammonites had declared war on Israel. They were determined to get control of some land they were accusing Israel of having taken from them. Israel began looking for a leader, and finally decided to make a man named Jephthah captain over their armies.

As Jephthah took control of the situation, he first tried negotiating with the Ammonites. He reminded the king of the history of how the land was actually obtained in the first place. When it was apparent that the Ammonites were going to fight anyway, Jephthah recruited all the help that he could. With a prayer in his heart and making a solemn vow to God, he led his army to battle.

When the war was finished, Jephthah had won a resounding victory. Jephthah was then made a judge over Israel.

A strange thing happened after the war, however. Things were just beginning to settle back to normal when a messenger from the tribe of Ephraim, one of the tribes of Israel, gave Jephthah a terrible message.

“Why did not you call us to help you fight the Ammonites?” they challenged. “Since you did not, we are going to burn your house down on top of you.” This was no idle threat. The men of Ephraim were irate. They had banded together to attack the city of Gilead, where Jephthah lived. It is very likely that they were jealous because they had not been able to enrich themselves with the spoil from the battle with the Ammonites.

Jephthah responded immediately, defending his actions and setting the record straight. He reminded them that he had called them to come and help him fight the Ammonites at a time when he needed them desperately. They had flatly refused to help! “Since you did not come,” he continued, “I had no choice but to take my life in my hands. We had to go and fight the Ammonites with a much smaller army than we needed, but the Lord was with us. What grounds do you have for fighting against me?” he questioned. He probably would have felt justified in attacking the Ephraimites because of their refusal to help in a time of need.

The Ephraimites were unimpressed. They were prepared for war. Jephthah quickly marshaled his men, the Gileadites, to defend themselves against the Ephraimites. Again Jephthah was victorious. The Ephraimites fled for their lives.

When the Ephraimites fled, the Gileadites strategically placed themselves at the river crossings where the Ephraimites would have to cross to get back to their homes. Before allowing any man to cross the river they would ask, “Are you an Ephraimite?”

Naturally, no Ephraimite would want to answer “yes” for fear of losing his life, so even if the answer was “no” the Gileadites had one more question that had to be answered before anyone was allowed to cross the river.

It was a very simple question, but the answer would invariably reveal the true identity of the person being questioned. The man would be asked to repeat the word Shibboleth, a word meaning river. The Ephraimites had a little quirk in their speech that was either a difference in dialect, or a minor speech impediment like a lisp that they had inherited. They could not pronounce the sound sh. Instead of saying Shibboleth, an Ephraimite would always say Sibboleth. By this ingenious but simple test, any Ephraimite crossing the river would be identified. The test worked. The Ephraimites were not allowed to escape.

If you think about the sign that the Gileadites were looking for, it is a very unusual and significant one. The Ephraimites were not destroyed because they said Sibboleth. The problem was not that they had a lisp. The word Sibboleth only revealed who they were. They were destroyed because of who they were. They were destroyed because of what they had done. (See Judges 11; 12.)

True Allegiance to God

A sign of allegiance to God is not something we do in order to win His favor. It is not something to earn salvation. It is something that reveals who we are. It is something that reveals whether or not we have been born again. It reveals whether or not we are willing to follow Him. It is something that reveals whether or not we are abiding in Him, just as fruit reveals whether or not a branch is abiding in the vine. (See John 15.)

What does God look for as the sign of allegiance and love to Him? “I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.” Ezekiel 20:19, 20.

The Sabbath is the one commandment we must accept solely by faith in Jesus’ authority. Keeping it does not save us, but it demonstrates our true allegiance. Today, during the judgment, God is again bringing His people back to full obedience. Though we are not held accountable until we have an opportunity to know the truth (James 4:17), out of love for us God is again teaching us these forgotten principles, that we may not inadvertently become followers of the lawless beast. Will you show your allegiance and love to God?

Reprinted from https://www.StepstoLife.org

(April 1, 2002).

The Consecrated Way, Part VI – Brotherly Kindness

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This month we continue the series on climbing Peter’s ladder of Christian perfection, gaining those attributes that are preparatory for the Lord’s return. 2 Peter 1:3–7 says,

“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that [pertain] unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness . . . .”

Every rung in the ladder is important. The rung of brotherly kindness causes Christians to really stretch to grab hold, because it is not an easy achievement, even though we might think loving our brethren is one of the easier things to do. Most Christians have a tendency to divide their religious operations into two categories—their personal relationship with God and their personal relationship with their fellow man.

Rightfully so, because it is in the two tables of the law that these areas are divided. We like to convince ourselves that we are balanced in these two aspects of our lives. It is indeed God’s desire that we be balanced in these areas, but there is a tendency to become unbalanced. When that happens, there are always consequences.

Self or Others

One of the reasons the gospel has not gone any farther than it has is because the personal witness of the Christian is tied up within himself. There is the cultivation of personal piety, or what we call today having a personal relationship to God, to the neglect of other important factors, such as what we are doing to help those near us have a better, closer relationship with God.

Are we only interested in developing our own relationship, so we can become more holy, more acceptable to God, or are we interested in helping those around us become more God-like?

There has always been a danger of cultivating an inward religion to the neglect of working on behalf of others. Such cultivation is displayed in luxurious sanctuaries and in forgetting the desperate needs of the community at large. It seems there are those who donate large sums of money for projects of beauty and luxury so that their names might forever be associated with the structures, yet, at the same time, a call can go out for funds for mission projects and be met with silence.

Split Congregation

Some time ago, while I was employed as a conference pastor, I attended a workers’ meeting where I had the opportunity to visit with the conference evangelist’s wife. She told me about the church where she grew up, in a large eastern city. She said that the church consisted of a split congregation.

It was not split in the theological sense, like we experience today in Adventism, but there was a split as far as brotherly kindness was concerned. All the well-to-do people sat on one side of the church. On the other side sat all the average and below average people, as far as money was concerned. I sensed a real brotherly kindness object lesson as the story unfolded.

One day, those on the well-to-do side of the church decided that they would dress up the sanctuary a little bit. So, because most of them were on the church board, they voted to put some stained-glass windows in the church—but only on their side. The poor people could look at plain glass, as far as they were concerned, but they wanted stained glass to look at. They felt that it would help their Christian experience, while worshipping in the sanctuary, if they could look at their stained glass and know that they had a part in putting it there.

I have often wondered how those folks felt who could not afford to have the stained-glass windows on their side of the church. Did they feel that they were close to those who sat on the other side? Could they go to them with a spiritual or physical need?

Did they feel they could approach the stained glass members and find a responsive heart, because brotherly kindness was being exercised within the body of the congregation? Did they feel that they could pray with these people and have good fellowship? This was a well-known Adventist church, but brotherly kindness was lost in such a project.

Philadelphia

Brotherly kindness can be found operating at its finest when we are doing things for others who are members of the household of faith. Go to any dictionary and you will find that brotherly means an affectionate feeling for those of the same family.

The Greek word that is used for the word brotherly kindness is philadelphia. Brotherly love actually is the more accurate translation. It is a word that is usually reserved for members of the same family. It is a special bond, which only happens when children are raised with respect and appreciation and love for their brothers and sisters of the same blood. How much closer is that brotherly affection in the family of the household of faith!

Is there a reason why the apostle Peter uses the word philadelphia, brotherly love, brotherly kindness? Incidentally, 11 Peter 1:7 is the only place in the Bible where it is translated as brotherly kindness. It is translated as brotherly love everywhere else. It is the same Greek word for those of the same blood. Are you of the same blood as those who are seated on the opposite side of the church from you? If you are not, you have not yet grabbed hold of this rung of Peter’s ladder.

There are many instances where brothers and sisters have given their lives to save another member of the family. There is a closeness, which nothing can break. There is also the other side—where there is no bond and there is even denial that there is a family tree. Do you know of instances like that? This is especially sad when these people say they are Christians. Jesus knows nothing of this kind of attitude and certainly it is something that was strange to Peter also when he wrote about brotherly kindness, brotherly love.

There is only one way that you can even begin to reach the rung of the ladder of brotherly love, or brotherly kindness, and that is if you have successfully climbed the other rungs of the ladder. You cannot stand on the ground floor and reach up and grab hold of the rung of brotherly kindness. Brotherly kindness follows godliness in Peter’s list.

Continue to Climb

Do you remember the vision that Ellen White had about the group who were traveling to the holy city? Every little way, as the path became more difficult, they would stop and reassess their situation. With each stop they would leave something behind so they could continue to climb. At every change, some members of the company were also left behind; they turned back. (See Testimonies, vol. 2, 594–597.) When we are climbing Peter’s ladder, we see that there is somewhat of a fulfillment of this vision.

We are called to continue to climb to reach the goal that is before us. We are either to keep climbing, and reach the goal, or we turn back. We cannot stop. It is either up or it is down. But if we turn back or stop climbing, we never reach the goal of character perfection, which alone qualifies us for eternal life. This is the reason why I believe that Mrs. White says there is not one in twenty who are ready to close their probation. If their probation were to close, she says that many would be without salvation just as surely as would be the common sinner. What an awesome thought! (See Christian Service, 41.)

On Which Rung Are We?

The well-to-do Adventists, that I told you about earlier, are really a representation of ourselves to one degree or another. We take people to court that we do not like. We encourage people of different color or culture to worship by themselves, not with us. We have given preference to the rich and to the famous, and if you disagree with us, you are no longer our brother!

Is it possible that God permits us to create the situations in which we find ourselves to see just how we will react to them?

Have we climbed the ladder from faith to virtue? From virtue to knowledge? From knowledge to temperance? From temperance to patience, and from patience to godliness? But now are we grunting and grunting, trying to reach up and grab hold of the rung of brotherly kindness. Let us face it; let us be honest. There are people we do not like, people that we do not care to even be around. This is never appropriate in the grace that is so available to us to strengthen us, to pull us up to and over this rung.

Attitude of Jesus

Have you ever met a person whom you admire, who really has a handle on the character challenge of this rung? They are out there. Have you ever thought about what a tremendous thing it would be if every Seventh-day Adventist could be like those people who are no respecter of persons? That is to say, they love all people, regardless of race, religion, culture, education, economic level, or station in life?

In the Jewish church of Jesus’ day there was no such thing as brotherly kindness. The rich and the famous felt that God was blessing them and that all others were little better than dogs, the dogs being the Gentiles. They certainly could not love them. But those who were a little better than dogs were scorned to despair.

When Jesus came, He tried to tell the people that they must love one another, that they should hold up one another. As a reward for His words, they nailed Him to a cross! If we would take the attitude that Jesus had about brotherly kindness and apply it to the person with whom we are most at odds, what do you suppose would happen to our own experience with the Lord? What would it do for our family and for our church?

Essential Rung

Ellen White says, “we need to take this step, to add this quality to our characters.” My Life Today, 98. Do you know why? What if the person whom you dislike the most made it to heaven with you, and the Lord had built his mansion right next to yours? How would you get along? Would you plant fast-growing trees that grow tall so you would not have to look over into his yard?

Jesus delays His return because of us. We have climbed; we have gotten rid of all offensive sins, but do we have brotherly kindness? Do we have brotherly love? Do we have the right attitude?

Have we placed more than just our hand on the rung? Are we standing on the rung with our feet? Have we really climbed up on to that rung and have now gained the victory of brotherly love and brotherly kindness?

A New Commandment

Some words from The Acts of the Apostles indirectly come to bear on this topic, although not written specifically about brotherly kindness. When Jesus was resurrected and went back to heaven, there was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2 tells us what this did for the church. Ellen White comments on the transition that took place after the descent of the Holy Spirit. “After the descent of the Holy Spirit, when the disciples went forth to proclaim a living Saviour, their one desire was the salvation of souls. They rejoiced in the sweetness of communion with saints.” The Acts of the Apostles, 547.

I do not think for one minute that there was one group on one side who said, “Let us put some stained-glass windows on our side, and let these guys over here just kind of look out through the old window glass.” It says that they rejoiced in the sweetness of communion with saints. “They were tender, thoughtful, self-denying, willing to make any sacrifice for the truth’s sake. In their daily association with one another, they revealed the love that Christ had enjoined upon them. By unselfish words and deeds they strove to kindle this love in other hearts.” Ibid.

You cannot give away what you do not have. “Such a love the believers were ever to cherish. They were to go forward in willing obedience to the new commandment.” Ibid. What was the new commandment? They were to love one another. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another.” John 13:34. It was not really new; it was old! They just had not been practicing it for generations. They hated one another!

Jesus tried to bring something back that had been a part of the plan of redemption for centuries. “So closely were they to be united with Christ that they would be enabled to fulfill all His requirements.” The Acts of the Apostles, 547, 548. If you are collecting statements about what the power of God can do for you in your life, this is one you want to mark!

That means loving one another. “Their lives were to magnify the power of a Saviour who could justify them by His righteousness.” Ibid., 548. The Holy Spirit was poured out upon these people. They sold everything they had; they put the money in a common pot. This one has needs, let us supply that need. Another has this need, let us supply it. They displayed brotherly love, brotherly kindness. (See Acts 2:38–47.)

Walk in Darkness

But a change came. Have you ever wondered why the early rain of the Holy Spirit dried up? Why those miracles did not continue to go forward like they did under the original outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost? What was the change? What began to turn the whole tide from the sweetness of communion that the saints were having with one another?

How did this philadelphia attitude, that was pervading everywhere through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, change? What took place? “The believers began to look for defects in others. Dwelling upon mistakes, giving place to unkind criticism, they lost sight of the Saviour and His love. They became stricter in regard to outward ceremonies, more particular about the theory than the practice of the faith. In their zeal to condemn others, they overlooked their own errors. They lost the brotherly love that Christ had enjoined, and, saddest of all, they were unconscious of their loss.” Ibid. Do any bells go off for you, as far as a time-oriented message for us is concerned?

It is called Laodicea, is it not? The church did not know. “They were unconscious of their loss. They did not realize that happiness and joy were going out of their lives and that, having shut the love of God out of their hearts, they would soon walk in darkness.” Ibid.

Sometimes we have a tendency to think that the greatest fear we can have is the danger of the world. We think that somehow we have to build a fence around ourselves so that the world does not encroach upon us and we lose our way, our salvation. I do not want to minimize our need to stay clear of the world. I think we need to have a great consciousness of the dangers that are out there, but there is a greater danger. “It is not the opposition of the world that most endangers the church of Christ,” Ellen White wrote. “It is the evil cherished in the hearts of believers that works their most grievous disaster and most surely retards the progress of God’s cause. There is no surer way of weakening spirituality than by cherishing envy, suspicion, fault-finding, and evil surmising. On the other hand, the strongest witness that God has sent His Son into the world is the existence of harmony and union among men of varied dispositions who form His church.” Ibid., 549.

Let It Begin With Me

How sad it would be to have climbed the ladder of Peter, struggling to reach for the rung of brotherly kindness, but not quite being able to get our fingers around it, because we cannot stand the people who are around us. Where does brotherly kindness start? It really starts with each one of us. We each have to do everything that we can do to display brotherly kindness, brotherly love.

Do we have to see everything eye to eye? No! Can I respect you if you see things differently than I do? Absolutely! Somehow we must come to grips with our condition as a people and as a movement, or we are going nowhere. Our hair will grow grayer while we wait for the Reaper to come.

He is tarrying a little while, in mercy. He is waiting for us to get our act together, so the enemy cannot say “Behold how these people, standing under the banner of Christ, hate one another.” Ibid., 550.

I want the testimony of the church of which I am a part to be, Behold, look how much they love one another! “Of the special sense in which this love should be manifested by believers, the apostle writes: ‘A new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” Ibid., 548, 549.

Mrs. White goes on to say that when the believers, under the power of the Holy Spirit, sensed, in the fullest way, what Jesus actually did for them in dying on the cross, there was a conversion that took place that cannot be equaled by any other experience in the life. The deep conversion experience is needed to turn the life from self to others. But even when we have that deep conversion experience, there is a tendency after a while for it to wane, and we lose sight of what God has called us to do. In its place the exaction, the formalism and the ceremonies that she talks about begin to creep in and replace the conversion experience. There is a place for all of that, but not to the neglect of brotherly love. When Peter wrote the texts recorded in 11 Peter 1, I fully believe that he was able to see the unraveling that was taking place since the day of Pentecost. How sad it must have been for him.

Reaching the rung of brotherly kindness is preparation for the final rung, charity—love, Godly love, agape love. “That man [or woman] only who has unselfish love for his brother [or sister] has true love for God.” Ibid., 550. Have we done everything possible to climb up to the rung of brotherly kindness and to make it a reality in our lives, so that once our feet are firmly placed on that rung we are ready to reach over into that godly love to which God has called us?

To be concluded . . .

The Preacher Who Did not Believe the Bible

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Today, millions of people who grew up as Christians are discarding their Bibles. The Bible is more common and less read today than at any time since Christian history began. Evolution is taught as a fact of life in school, and the Bible is treated as some old fairy-tale. “Oh,” they admit, “the Bible has some good moral principles in it, but it is not to be taken as true!” Even some preachers have come to believe in evolution! Let us see how one would-be preacher, who did not believe the Bible, came to change his mind.

William Miller was an intellectual and read the great classics of the day. He was also a Deist, which means he believed in a “supreme being” but did not believe that this supreme being had anything to do with planet earth. He believed that at some time, millions of years ago, the earth was created by this supreme being, but after that the earth was left to evolve at will. He did not believe in the Bible, or in Jesus, or in eternal life.

To be polite, Miller attended the local Baptist Church where he was raised. His uncle was the pastor and was a good speaker, but when he was gone the deacons read the sermon. After church, Miller would go home and mimic the way the poor deacons had read the sermon—gestures and all. He knew just how to make it entertaining, and everyone was soon rolling with laughter. But after a while that got boring, so he quit attending church altogether, except when his uncle was preaching.

“We missed you at service last Sunday,” his mother said one day after he had missed as usual.

“You can’t expect me there when Uncle is gone, Mother.”

“Why not my son?”

“It’s the way the deacons read the sermon.”

“They do the best they can, I’m sure,” she replied.

“When Uncle is away, Mother, why don’t they let me read it?”

He did not think they would take him—who did not even believe in the Bible—up on this sarcastic suggestion. But they did! The deacons knew how Miller had made fun of them, and now they were going to make sure that he had his turn to read! Thus Miller unwittingly set a trap for himself. The sermons they assigned him to read were from Alexander Proudfit’s Practical Discourses. Somehow, Sunday after Sunday, as he read the sermons, they began to sober him. Moreover, he was reminded of experiences from the war from which he had just returned.

War of 1812

William Miller had been a captain in the American-British War of 1812. Convinced that love of country rather than love for Christ was mankind’s greatest hope, Miller had volunteered for service in this second war for American independence. Forty-seven others also volunteered, on condition that they serve directly under his command!

The War of 1812 was a desultory, do-nothing affair most of the time. The Battle of Plattsburgh, fought on a shore of Lake Champlain not many miles from Miller’s boyhood home, was a brilliant exception.

During the first two years of the war, Britain had been heavily involved in fighting Napoleon Bonaparte, but after his abdication on April 4, 1814, the British could give full attention to their American encounter.

The British brought some of their best troops, seasoned from years of successful fighting against Napoleon’s army, and sailed them past Quebec on the St. Lawrence River and on into New York and Vermont via the mighty Lake Champlain.

On the morning of September 11, 1814, the British, with 15,000 seasoned soldiers, supported by a well-equipped navy on the lake, met the Americans near the city of Plattsburgh, New York. The Americans numbered only 5,500 recently recruited soldiers, most of whom had never seen a battle. Without navy, numbers, or experience, many of the Americans were certain of defeat but determined to show the American spirit and fight to the last. William Miller was a captain on the American side.

Victory!

The outcome was a total surprise. Listen to the excited report of one of the young, enthusiastic American officers in a letter he transcribed after the battle, dated 2:20 p.m. that very day.

“Sir: It is over, it is done,” the officer writes. “The British fleet has struck to the American flag. Great slaughter on both sides—they are in plain view, where I am now writing. . . . The sight was majestic; it was noble; it was grand. This morning, at 10:00 a.m., the British opened a very heavy and destructive fire upon us, both by water and land. Their . . . rockets flew like hailstones . . . . You have no idea of the battle . . . . You must conceive what we feel, for I cannot describe it.”

The officer reviewed with pride the part that he had played. “I am satisfied that I can fight. I know I am no coward . . . . Three of my men are wounded by a shell which burst within two feet of me.”

“Huzza! Huzza!” he exclaimed in his excitement; and then, as 20 or 30 prisoners were led into the fort, he carefully signed his name: “Yours forever, William Miller.”

At first, William Miller was too excited at the unexpected victory to think about the impossibility of a shell bursting two feet from him without killing or even injuring him! But later, upon reflection, he began to wonder how that could be. Furthermore, if there was no personal God, and everything happened without intervention, how could 5,500 ill-equipped and inexperienced Americans defeat a much larger regiment of seasoned British troops, complete with Naval support!

God’s Intervention?

Back at his home, as he milked his cows and plowed his fields, his mind continued to probe into the mystery of it all. The patriots, by and large, were Christians who believed in God. By the law of cause and effect, he reasoned the victory of Plattsburgh ought to have gone to the British—could God indeed have honored the Patriots’ faith? A modern historian has called Plattsburgh the “decisive action” of the war, and the American commodore in his report to the war officer at the time, gave the glory to God, stating that, “The Almighty has been pleased to grant us a signal victory.” Was it possible, perhaps, that God had taken a personal interest in America?

Thus it was that when William Miller, a man who did not believe in a personal God, was caught in a trap and forced to read the Sunday sermons at his Baptist church, he was sobered. He was moved by the messages that he had once scoffed at, and he was reminded of the “impossibilities” that had happened during the war.

September 11, 1815, rolled around, the one-year anniversary of the victory of Plattsburgh. A public dance was scheduled and a sermon, too, on the night before. The visiting evangelist sent the people home bathed in tears. A revival was on and the dance was off. Next Sunday it was Miller’s turn to read again; this time it was a homily of Proudfit called, The Duty of Parents to Their Children. Overcome by emotion in the middle his message, he could not make it to the end. The Holy Spirit, believed or unbelieved, was touching his heart!

Search for a Saviour

In despair over his sins, Miller imagined how good it would be to throw himself into the arms of a Saviour and trust completely in His grace. He needed a Saviour. The world needed a Saviour. But did such a wonderful being exist?

Back to the Bible he went, and in its covers he found the Saviour whom he sought. “I was constrained to admit that the Scriptures must be a revelation from God,” he wrote later. “They became my delight, and in Jesus I found a friend.”

Immediately he began regular family worship. But his worldly friends taunted him now, as he had often taunted other Christians. “How do you know the Bible is the word of God?” they teased. “What about its contradictions?”

“If the Bible is the word of God,” Miller responded staunchly, “then everything it contains can be understood and all its parts made to harmonize. Give me time, and I will harmonize its apparent contradictions, or I will be a Deist still.”

Laying aside every book except the Bible itself and Crude’s Concordance, he began with the first verse of Genesis 1 and advanced no more quickly than he could handle the problems that arose. Using the margin and the concordance, he let the Bible explain itself. One by one, most of its seemingly insoluble inconsistencies faded away.

Not only did he find a change of life, but also he found that the prophecies of the Bible, one after another, had all been fulfilled to the letter. He became convinced that God indeed can foresee the future and control the events of history, such as He did at Plattsburgh. As he continued to study, he found that, just as God had predicted the past, so He has predicted the future. Some of the prophecies that especially moved William Miller were the prophecies about a coming judgment, in which “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things [done] in [his] body, according to that he hath done, whether [it be] good or bad.” 2 Corinthians 5:10.

Another text that struck home to his conscience was from the book of Revelation: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters” (14:6, 7). He thought that this event must occur “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, . . . And before him shall be gathered all nations . . . .” Matthew 25:31, 32.

As he realized that most people were not ready to face this judgment, nor even knew that such an event was to take place, he became convicted that he must tell others about what he had learned and of how Jesus could save them from their sins and prepare them for this climactic event.

Reluctant Preacher

But though convicted, preaching was something he could not do! Not he! He may be able to read a sermon on Sunday, but to warn the world about a coming judgment was unthinkable. And yet the call persisted. For 13 years Miller brushed the call aside, but during those years he was glued to his Bible. Whole nights he spent in study. But with every passing day the impression that he must share with others what he had learned grew stronger and more insistent. The call became almost unbearable. “I told the Lord,” he later said, “I was diffident and had not the necessary qualifications.”

He tried everything he could do to satisfy his burdened soul—everything, that is, except to preach those truths to others. But nothing could satisfy the persistent inner call to preach. The call kept ringing in his ears: “Go tell it to the world.”

One day, as he was reading his Bible, it was as though he heard a voice saying, “I have appointed you a watchman. Tell it to the world!”

He looked up from the Bible he was reading, deeply troubled by the call of God. Or was it a call of God? He must know beyond a doubt.

He pounded his fist on his desk, stood up, knelt down, and prayed, “No, God. No! Thou knowest that I cannot preach. I cannot preach. But perhaps it is Thy will for me to go,” he argued with himself and with God.

“O Lord, I will enter into a covenant with You. If You will open the way, I mean, if You will send an invitation for me to preach, why, then, O God, I will go.”

He settled into his chair at ease. “Now,” he mused, “I shall have peace, for if I receive an invitation, I know that God will attend me. But it is not likely,” he smiled to himself, “that anyone will ask a 55-year-old farmer like myself to preach on the judgment at the end of time.” William Miller had first felt the call to the ministry at age 42 but had stifled the conviction until now—surely no one would ask him to preach now. But within 30 minutes there was a loud knocking at the door.

“Who can that be, so excited on a Saturday morning?” he asked himself absent-mindedly.

The knock came again. “I had better go and see,” he said to himself.

“Good morning to you, Uncle William,” the boy at the door cried cheerily.

“Nephew Irving!” exclaimed Miller, “and what might you be doing 16 miles from home so early in the morning?”

“Uncle William, I left before breakfast to tell you that our Baptist minister in Dresden is unable to speak at services tomorrow. Father sent me. He wants you to come and talk to us about the things you have been studying in the Bible. Will you come?”

Miller turned on his heel without a word, stormed out through the kitchen door, stumbled into a maple grove that stood nearby, and wrestled with the Lord. He was angry with himself, angry with God, and very much afraid.

Joy of Surrender

For a solid hour he pleaded to be released from his pledge. “O my God, send someone else, I pray!”

Even as a Deist he had kept his word. As a Christian could he do any less? After anguished tears, he gave in to God at last.

Then what feeling overcame him! Thirteen years of reluctance overcome! The joy of surrender! “Glory to His name!” he exclaimed, as peace and joy flooded his soul.

Immediately after lunch Miller was on his way with his nephew to Dresden, several hours away. So inspiring was his discourse the next morning that the townspeople asked him to stay and preach every night that week. By the end of the week, over a dozen entire families had accepted Jesus as their Saviour.

Over the next several years William Miller spoke to more than a half-million people. As he himself had been converted from Deism, he was able to reach many other Deists and Atheists. It is estimated that over 3,000 Atheists accepted Christ as their Saviour as the result of William Miller preaching on the prophecies of the last days!

Proofs

Prophecy is one of the proofs that the Bible gives that it is inspired. God says: “Remember . . . I [am] God, and [there is] none else; I [am] God, and [there is] none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times [the things] that are not [yet] done . . . .” Isaiah 46:9, 10.

There were several things that led William Miller to accept the Bible as the inspired word of God:

  1. He felt the presence of the Holy Spirit working upon his heart.
  2. He witnessed and recognized the providential acts of God.
  3. He saw that Jesus was the answer to man’s needs.
  4. He found that the prophecies in the Bible were all true, showing that God can foretell the future.

You too can know whether the Bible is inspired or not. The Bible says that “all Scripture [is] given by inspiration of God,” for “prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke [as they were] moved by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21.

Faith is Evidence

The claim of the Bible is that it is the word of the living God, written by human penmen, to the inhabitants of earth. How can we know that this claim of the Bible is true? What is essential for us to believe the Bible? “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” “But without faith, [it is] impossible to please [him:] for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Hebrews 11:3, 6.

Not only the Bible testimony but most of our learning has been received through faith. As children, our parents showed us a ball and said, “This is a ball.” We learned because we had faith in their word. Most of us have not been to Mongolia, but we believe it exists because we have faith in the authorities that told us. Many people reject the Bible because of their belief in evolution, but evolution itself can be believed only on the basis of faith in someone’s interpretation of selected evidence.

Faith is evidence, for it is founded upon evidence. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. God does not bypass the human mind. He says, “Come now, and let us reason together.” Isaiah 1:18. God gives sufficient evidence upon which to honestly base our faith. But faith is founded upon evidence of things that are not seen with natural sight. We cannot see the wind, but we can see the evidences of the wind. (See Romans 8:24, 25.)

The God of the Bible claims to be the only God, the Creator of heaven and earth. As evidence, He says He has foretold current happenings “from ancient times.” He alone knows “the end from the beginning,” and “[the things] that are not [yet] done.” Isaiah 46:10.

Men and women will scoff at the faith of Christians, denying the evidences of creation and of the flood. They will claim that all things continue in a uniform process of evolution that cannot be, and has not been, changed. But while the moral conditions of society are deteriorating, while efforts to reduce international tensions are preoccupying them, and while evolution is replacing belief in creation, the day of the Lord will come and this earth will be cleansed. (See 2 Peter 3:10–13.)

To be preserved from this coming destruction, we must have faith in God and trust Him and believe on His Son. (See Psalm 91:1, 2; John 3:16.) Faith is freely given to us, but we must do our part in developing this gift through study of the word of God. (See Romans 12:3; 10:17.) Only those who have learned from the Father can believe on Jesus Christ. As we ask God to teach us, while studying the Bible and opening our minds to the evidences of His presence, He will teach us; He will give us faith; and we will be drawn to Christ as our Savior. (See John 20:31.) God invites us to “taste and see that the Lord [is] good . . . ,” He says “blessed [is] the man [that] trusteth in him.” Psalm 34:8.

To be understood, the Bible must be studied from a higher standpoint than mere human logic. There must also be the element of conviction from God and an exercise of faith. In His word, God has given abundant evidence upon which to base our faith in Him. We have looked at one evidence—He can foretell the future. The greatest evidence is the abiding presence of Christ within one’s life. God is fair. He says, “Taste and see” for yourself. You do not have to rely on another’s faith. His promise is that you will “find Him, when you search for Him with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Will you give God a chance to demonstrate His goodness in your life?

The Disappointed God

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The Bible talks a lot about the subject of the disappointed God. Let’s look first at Isaiah 14 where we read about The Shining One. When the King James Bible was translated, they were not sure what to call this person in verse 12. The Hebrew name is Helel. This word is only used one time in the Bible, and it means “The Shining One.” Some translators believe that it means “The Morning Star” or “The Daystar.”

The Shining One

There is no question that it has to mean “The Shining One” or “A Shining Star.” Since the King James translators were not sure how to translate it, they just left it. They translated it into Latin and gave it the same translation as you would see in the Latin Bible, the Latin Vulgate. The Latin word for a shining one, light bearer, is Lucifer. Lucifer is a Latin word. It is not Hebrew, Greek, or English.

But notice what verses 12–14 say: “How you are fallen from heaven [the heavens], O Lucifer [Shining One], [the] sun of the morning [or the sun or the dawn]! How you are cut down to the ground, you [the one] who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend [go up] into heaven [the heavens], and I will exalt my throne [go up] above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation [my throne where I will sit will be in the mountain of the set meetings or set feast days where the people congregate] on the farthest side [in the sides of the north]; I will ascend [go up] above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’”

First Disappointment

This was the first time we have recorded when God was disappointed. God had created Lucifer. Lucifer did not create himself. And He made him a shining one, the sun of the dawn, the sun of the morning. He evidently was the most beautiful and gorgeous of all the angels.

The Bible says in Ezekiel 28 that his heart became lifted up because of his beauty. Not only was he made very beautiful, every precious stone was his covering. (See verse 13.) So what would he have looked like when he walked around? Talk about jewelry! This is one of the reasons, by the way, that Christians are cautioned in the Bible about not wearing jewelry, because jewelry proved one of the factors in Lucifer’s downfall.

You are going to get more jewelry than you have ever seen in your life when you go to heaven, but in this world when you have a sinful, fallen nature, it is not to be worn. Why? Well, you are in the same danger as Lucifer—pride, when you do not even know that you have a problem. And what does the Bible say is going to happen to all the proud? They are all going to burn up. (See Malachi 4:1.)

Pride is a lethal disease that has no symptoms. That is, no symptoms that the person themselves can detect. And very often people around them cannot detect it either. A proud person can be a preacher, an elder, a deacon, an evangelist, and a leader in God’s work.

You can read the story of Lucifer’s fall several places in the writings of Ellen White. One place is in the first chapter of Patriarchs and Prophets. She says there that efforts such as only infinite wisdom could devise were made to show Lucifer his error. Not only that, she says that Lucifer was convinced that he was in the wrong.

He was given opportunity to confess his wrong and return. In fact, she says that he almost made the decision to come back. Almost. But do you know what it was that kept him from doing it? Pride. (See page 39.) He had been the most exalted of all the angels in heaven. And for somebody of his exalted status to admit that he had made a mistake was too much.

Mercy and Longsuffering

How is it with you and me? Can we admit when we have made a mistake? If we have trouble with that, we have the same problem that Lucifer had. If he could have admitted that he made a mistake, the whole great controversy could have been averted. God was disappointed because His mercy and longsuffering were misinterpreted.

Friends, that is one of our major problems in the world today. Because God is merciful and longsuffering, because sentence against wickedness is not executed speedily, the heart is fully set to do evil. (See Ecclesiastes 8:11.) So Lucifer misinterpreted God’s mercy and His longsuffering. He thought that if he persisted, he would get his own way. He was warned that he would not.

Helel, Lucifer; The Shining One, The Morning Star, The Sun of the Dawn, was so intelligent that he deceived a third of the angels. (See Testimonies, vol. 5, 291.) He believed that if he persisted he could get the allegiance of the whole universe. God was disappointed because His mercy and His longsuffering were misinterpreted.

How is it in our lives? Are we misinterpreting God’s mercy and His longsuffering? Are we trying to take advantage of it? Are we in our minds thinking, Well, I know that this is wrong but I want to do it, and I am going to do it, and after I do it, I will confess it, and the Lord will forgive me.

Oh, friend, do not do it. Do not try to take advantage of God’s longsuffering and His mercy. I know a number of people that decided to go out in the world at some point and then, when they wanted to come back, they found out that it is not nearly as easy to come back as they thought. That is one of the devil’s deceptions to people—go and do whatever you please; God is merciful; He is longsuffering; He will forgive you.

Second Disappointment

So the name of Helel, Lucifer, The Shining One, was changed. And we find in the book of Job that this Helel, this Lucifer, this Shining One, is referred to by the name he received after he fell. The Hebrew is Hassatan or in English, Satan. Satan is a Hebrew word, but in Hebrew they pronounce it Sahtahn. Sahtahn means adversary. He became the adversary, not only of God, but of anyone who was faithful and true to God. He did the same thing then as he had done with the angels in heaven—he tried to win the battle by deception.

In Genesis 3, you can read the account of how Adam and Eve sinned. It says: “And they heard the sound of the Lord [voice of Jehovah] God walking in the [midst] of the Garden in the [breeze or the] cool of the day. And Adam and his wife [they] hid themselves [the man and his wife] from presence [the face] of the Lord [Jehovah] God among [in the midst of] the trees of the Garden. Then the Lord [Jehovah] God called to Adam [the man] and he said to him, ‘Where are you?’” Verses 8, 9.

You create somebody. You create paradise for them. You give them everything that the heart could desire and give them dominion and rulership over the entire world, and they turn traitor on you and listen to your archenemy. And God said, “Where are you?” That is the voice of a disappointed God. “Where are you?” They are running to hide. “Where are you?” That voice of God has spoken so many times since then, asking the very same question. “Where are you?”

You Will Not Be God

Some people say, Oh, I was just trying to have a good time. What are people after? The devil told Eve, “God knows that in the day [that] you eat of [from] it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God [gods] knowing good and evil.” Verse 5. Were their eyes opened?

Well, yes, their eyes were opened all right, but what a sad opening. And our eyes have been open ever since that time. Every single member of the human race knows good and evil. We know good because God has placed within us a conscience. And when we do evil, our conscience complains. We have a guilty conscience. And the devil told Eve, “You will be like God!”

That is still what the men and women of this world who are not converted want to be. It is a great disappointment to God. The devil lied, but let me tell you the truth. You and I are never going to be God. If you are saved, a billion years from now you will still be a created being that was saved by the blood of Christ. You will not be God.

Let me explain to you what the difference is between a created being and God, because the devil has people confused on this point. The difference is, God can do whatever He pleases.

That is a true statement. The devil knows it; that is how he tempted the angels. The devil said to the angels, “God can do whatever He pleases, and you cannot because you have to obey the law.” Do not ever forget that God can do whatever He pleases, and He is above the law.

In fact, if God were not above the law, then it would not have done any good for Jesus to come and die on the cross. An angel could not become a human being and then die on the cross, because an angel was a created being, created under law. Every created being is created under law. But God is not under the law. Some people think that God is under His own laws. The Bible does not teach that. God is above the law.

But the devil tempted both Adam and Eve and the angels, telling them they could be like God. You can do whatever you please; including breaking the law, if you please. That is what the great controversy has been about ever since the beginning and what it still is about today. The vast majority of the Christian world today believes that they can be like God.

They believe that they can alter God’s law. A Catholic priest said to a friend of mine, “We did not change the law of God; we just adjusted it.” The question is, Does God’s law need to be adjusted? No! If you can adjust something that God has done, then you are equal or above God yourself. You are like God. That is what the devil wanted us to think. That is what he persuaded the angels. That is what he persuaded Adam and Eve. That is the second time recorded that God was disappointed.

Greatest Sacrifice

After that God said to the devil, “I [am going to] will put [hatred] enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed [your descendants] and her Seed [her descendants]; he will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.” Genesis 3:15. He was speaking to the devil, the serpent. The devil is called that ancient serpent in Revelation 12:9 because he spoke through a serpent to deceive our first parents.

This was the first intimation to Adam and Eve that there was going to be a plan of redemption. And the plan of redemption, of course, involved all heaven in the greatest sacrifice. It is a marvelous thing to study how our God has responded to His disappointments. It would have been so much easier for Him to say, We will just let this thing play out. The whole universe will see what sin is like.

Let me tell you, they did not ever want anything to do with sin again. You can read in the first part of The Desire of Ages that after the sin problem had gone on for 4,000 years the earth was so wicked that the angels were waiting and expecting God to wipe out this planet. The devil was hoping that he would be able to carry his rebellion to other planets. (See page 37.)

Third Disappointment

One of the most astonishing things about God to me is how He responds to His disappointments. Do not think, however, that it is always with mercy, because sometimes He responds with judgments. Let us look at a third example of the disappointed God in Genesis 6:3. This was after the marriage institution was perverted by the antediluvians.

“And the Lord [Jehovah] said, ‘My spirit shall [will] not strive [struggle] with man forever, for [because] he is indeed [also is] flesh; yet [but] his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’” Verse 5 says, “Then the Lord [Jehovah] saw that the wickedness [evil] of man was great in the earth, and that every intent [imagination] of the thoughts [and meditations] of his heart was only evil [all day long] continually.”

And then it says in verse 11: “[And] The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” Now these are significant Scriptures, because Jesus said in Matthew 24:37–39, “But as the days of Noah were, so [shall it] also will the coming of the Son of Man be [in the days when the son of man is revealed]. For as in the days [that were] before the flood, they were eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and [they] did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will [shall] the coming of the Son of Man be.”

What was it like before the flood? We just saw four things:

  1. They perverted the marriage institution.
  2. God said, You are not going to do that forever; you are going to have a time of probation, but it is coming to an end.
  3. The evil was great and the thoughts of men’s hearts, their imaginations, were only evil all day long.
  4. The earth was corrupt, and it was filled with violence.

It was so bad that this is the time that God repented Himself that He had made man. That is how disappointed He was. And so God sent Noah.

Fourth Disappointment

I want to come now to a fourth example of when God was disappointed. A third of the angels had proved unfaithful; they had fallen. Adam and Eve had proved unfaithful; they listened to the devil. The whole world except for Noah and his three sons had turned against God before the flood. The whole world appeared to turn against God after the flood. It looked like the devil was winning.

It looked like idolatry had completely overspread the world, but God chose a man who was faithful. His name was Abraham. Actually his name was Abram, but God changed his name later to Abraham, which means the father of the peoples or father of the nations. There are many, many nations today who look directly to Abraham as their father.

But when we talk about Abraham, we are not talking about the children of the flesh, like Ishmael and his descendents; we are talking about the children of the promise, the descendents of Isaac. The devil immediately tried to overcome this people.

Just look at the hatred that developed against Joseph. Look at the experience of the children of Israel, just a few weeks after the ten commandments were given, worshipping a golden calf. Then they murmured and complained through the wilderness.

What was going on? The devil was trying to stir things up to get God’s own people to turn against Him. Read the Book of Judges and you see one time after another that the Lord delivers them and they are faithful for about a generation, 40 years. Then they go back into idolatry again.

In Isaiah 63:9, 10, we read that “in all [of] their affliction He was afflicted, and the Angel of His Presence saved them; and in His love and in His pity [mercy] He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved [they vexed] His Holy Spirit; [and] so He turned Himself against them as [to become their] an enemy.” This is the fourth time that we read about the disappointed God.

Fifth Disappointment

We see the culmination of this in the New Testament. In the Book of Luke we read the account of Jesus at the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on what is called today Palm Sunday, about five days before the crucifixion. “As He drew near, He saw [seeing] the city and [He] wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make [belong to] your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. [Because they will come] For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build [against you] an embankment around you, and will surround you [all about and will shut] close you in on every side and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you a stone upon another [stone], because you did not know the time of your visitation.’ ” Luke 19:41–44.

Does this sound like the cry of a disappointed God? Jesus said to the Jews, “You, Jerusalem, you are the one. You are the one that killed the prophets and stoned those that are sent to you. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you did not want to.”

I read these words for many years just as a historical story, but I found out a few years ago now that these words of Jesus, the disappointed God, is not just about the past. In The Review and Herald, October 8, 1901, Ellen White wrote: “When the Saviour saw in the Jewish people a nation divorced from God, He saw also a professed Christian Church united to the world and the Papacy.” When He saw the church divorced from God and united to the world, He was disappointed.

So we have a fifth example of the disappointed God. He said, I would like to gather you together, I would like to save you all. But in Luke 19, Jesus is looking at the loss of a whole nation, and He is looking forward into the future to the loss of a church that is united with the world and with the papacy.

We cannot change the fact that God is disappointed in a world that has forsaken His law, turned their back on Him, and will not listen to Him. But the real personal question is, Is God disappointed in me?

In Revelation 3:14–22, we see God’s invitation to Laodicea. These are people that think they are all right when they are all wrong. They have left their first love. They are just lukewarm. Oh, friend of mine, how is it in your heart today? Do you love Jesus with all your heart, soul, and mind? Is He Number One in your affections? Or have you lost your first love? Are you lukewarm?

“Leaving the first love is represented as a spiritual fall. Many have fallen thus. In every church in our land, there is needed confession, repentance and reconversion. The disappointment of Christ is beyond description. Unless those who have sinned speedily repent, the deceptions of the last days will overtake them. Some, though they do not realize it, are preparing to be overtaken. God calls for repentance without delay. So long have many trifled with salvation that their spiritual eyesight is dimmed, and they can not discern between light and darkness. Christ is humiliated in His people. The first love is gone, the faith is weak, there is need of a thorough transformation.” Review and Herald, December 15, 1904.

Well Pleased

There was One who caused no disappointment. In John 8:29 we read, “And [the One] He who sent Me is with Me. The Father [He] has not left Me alone, for [because] I always do those things that please him.” God said, when He spoke concerning His Son, both on the Mount of Transfiguration and at His baptism, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:17; 17:5.

God was not disappointed. Would you like to be restored through the power of the Holy Spirit so when God looks at you, He can say to the devil and to the fallen angels and to the whole lost, wicked world what He said about Job? He said, Do you see My servant Job over there? He is a perfect man. Job did what was pleasing in God’s sight. (See Job 1:1, 8; 2:3.) Would you like God to be able to say that about you?

Praise the Lord, we serve a God that Who, even when disappointed, is still willing to work miracles in the lives of the people who disappointed Him—if they are willing to turn and repent, if they are willing for His divine power to work in their hearts and lives and change them.

[Bible texts quoted are literal translation.]

No Room

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And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:4–7.

The travel-worn couple arrived at the little town of Bethlehem at the end of a long and difficult journey. The arduous trip had been especially trying for the young woman, for obviously she was about to give birth to a child. Needing a shelter for the night, they made their way to the inn, only to find it filled. All the bedrooms were taken. No rooms were available. No room. The young man pled for a room, even an attic, because of the condition of his wife, but he was gruffly turned aside. No room. No room.

Business was good. Hundreds were on the roads returning to their birthplace to be counted in the Roman census. The jingle of the coins was music to the Innkeeper’s ears. The young couple? Well, too bad, but that’s the way it was. No room. It happens. That’s life. There’s just no room.

As a result, the birth of Jesus, the Incarnation, took place in the lowliest of places. “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” Verse 7. The baby Jesus was tenderly cradled in a manger, among the donkeys and cattle, by His virgin mother. The King of Glory, the Creator of the Universe, the Promised Redeemer, made His entrance in a dirty stable.

How near to fame was the Innkeeper. The Promised Messiah could have been born in his inn! His name would have been honored for all time. But he missed his great moment. Opportunity passed him by for he did not recognize it. He had no room. No room for the Saviour of the world.

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:14, 5.

Still Seeking Lodging

Today, the timeless Saviour is still seeking lodging. He comes to this earth to be born in the lives of men and women, boys and girls. You and I are each an “inn” into which Jesus seeks entrance. He never forces entrance, but patiently knocks at the door of our hearts. Have you opened the door to invite Him in? The “inn” of our heart has many rooms. We must be careful not to exclude Jesus from any of them, saying “No room!” to certain areas of our lives. He must have access to every room.

“The consecration must be entire. God will admit of no reserve, of no divided sacrifice, no idol. All must die to self, and to the world.” Our High Calling, 308.

Our Bedrooms

The Innkeeper said every bedroom was occupied. Let us think of self as the bedrooms in our inn. Selfishness, which manifests itself in a variety of ways, must die. Selfishness—I want; I need; I think; I can’t! I won’t! I have rights! I want it my way—me, me, me! So many bedrooms filled with self. Have you invited Jesus to enter into all your bedrooms, to rule over self?

“The warfare against self is the greatest battle that was ever fought. The yielding of self, surrendering all to the will of God, requires a struggle; but the soul must submit to God before it can be renewed in holiness.” Steps to Christ, 43.

“We must gain the victory over self, crucify the affections and lusts; and then begins the union of the soul with Christ.” Testimonies, vol. 5, 47.

“If one sin is cherished in the soul, or one wrong practice retained in the life, the whole being is contaminated.” The Desire of Ages, 313.

Our Living Rooms

Joseph asked for any room. What about the living room in your home? Is there room for Jesus there? Would He enjoy the television programs you are watching? Or could you let Him read the books or magazines lying around? The living room is generally reserved for special occasions, parties and such, for special guests. Would Jesus be comfortable there, if He were to drop by? Is there room for Jesus at the special occasions in your life? What about in your conversation? How about at Christmas, birthdays, vacations, family visits and outings? Do you invite Him along, or turn Him away as the Innkeeper barred the lowly carpenter and his wife?

“These [pleasures of this life] are not necessarily things sinful in themselves, but something that is made first instead of the kingdom of God. Whatever attracts the mind from God, whatever draws the affections away from Christ, is an enemy to the soul.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 53.

Our Dining Rooms

Then there is the dining room. That’s another place where we might not like to have Jesus. The table is loaded, perhaps overloaded. Are there things there that shouldn’t be? Could Jesus sit down and be pleased with what you serve and the way you eat? Is the Saviour a welcome guest at your table?

“The physical, mental, and moral powers must be kept in the most perfect condition if he would obtain the approval of God. ‘I keep under my body’ the apostle says [1 Corinthians 9:27]. This means literally to beat back its desires and impulses and passions by severe discipline, even as did those competing for an earthly prize.” “Ellen G. White Comments,” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, 1089.

“All habits of indulgence that weaken the physical powers, that becloud the mind, or that benumb the spiritual perceptions, are ‘fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.’ 1 Peter 2:11.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 53.

“Your thoughts, your words, and your actions, as well as your appetites and passions, must be brought into subjection to the will of God.” Testimonies, vol. 3, 538.

Our Kitchens

Surely there must be room in the kitchen. Or are we like Martha of old, too cumbered with serving? We can be so busy doing good things for the Lord, things which seem so necessary, that there is no room for Him in the kitchen. Remember our Lord’s words: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41, 42. How easy it is to become so busy that we have no room for Jesus.

“We must establish an unyielding enmity between our souls and our foe; but we must open our hearts to the power and influence of the Holy Spirit. We want Satan’s darkness to be shut out, and the light of Heaven to flow in. We want to become so sensitive to holy influences, that the lightest whisper of Jesus will move our souls . . . .” The Signs of the Times, March 23, 1888.

Our Attics

Many homes have attics. Attics are cluttered with our castoffs, with things we no longer use. How easy it is to let the attic of our personal life retain the accumulation of the past wrongs, of personal grievances and bygone failures. Too often, instead of cleaning out the attic, the old stuff just gets reshuffled to another corner—too many comfortable, familiar things we want to hang on to. Our attic can become so full that there is no room for the only One who can cleanse the area of all messy disarray.

“The Christian’s life is not a modification or improvement of the old, but a transformation of nature.” The Desire of Ages, 172.

“The old nature, born of blood and the will of the flesh, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. The old ways, the hereditary tendencies, the former habits, must be given up; for grace is not inherited. The new birth consists of having new motives, new tastes, new tendencies. Those who are begotten unto a new life by the Holy Spirit, have become partakers of the divine nature, and in all their habits and practices they will give evidence of their relationship to Christ.” “Ellen G. White Comments,” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, 1101.

“Many are sensible of their great deficiency, and they read, and pray, and resolve, and yet make no progress. They seem to be powerless to resist temptation. The reason is, they do not go deep enough. They do not seek for a thorough conversion of the soul, that the streams which issue from it may be pure, and the deportment may testify that Christ reigns within. All defects of character originate in the heart. Pride, vanity, evil temper, and covetousness proceed from the carnal heart unrenewed by the grace of Christ.” Our High Calling, 336.

“When souls are converted, their salvation is not yet accomplished. They then have the race to run; the arduous struggle is before them to ‘fight the good fight of faith.’ . . . The battle is lifelong, and must be carried forward with determined energy proportionate to the value of the object you are in pursuit of, which is eternal life.” Ibid., 163.

“Each day he must renew his consecration, each day do battle with evil. Old habits, hereditary tendencies to wrong, will strive for the mastery, and against these he is to be ever on guard, striving in Christ’s strength for victory.” The Acts of the Apostles, 477.

Our Basements

And how is your basement? Some people do all their living in the basement. Their thoughts, words, and deeds are always on such a low level that there is no desire, no room, to read their Bible, or to do kind things for other people, to speak a kind word. No room, no place for the King of Glory to speak to them.

“The new birth is a rare experience in this age of the world. This is the reason why there are so many perplexities in the churches. Many, so many, who assume the name of Christ are unsanctified and unholy. They have been baptized, but they are buried alive. Self did not die, and therefore they did not rise to newness of life in Christ.” “Ellen G. White Comments,” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, 1075.

“The lower passions have their seat in the body and work through it. The words ‘flesh’ or ‘fleshly’ or ‘carnal lusts’ embrace the lower, corrupt nature; the flesh of itself cannot act contrary to the will of God. We are commanded to crucify the flesh, with the affections and lusts. How shall we do it? Shall we inflict pain on the body? No; but put to death the temptation to sin. The corrupt thought is to be expelled. Every thought is to be brought into captivity to Jesus Christ. All animal propensities are to be subjected to the higher powers of the soul. The love of God must reign supreme; Christ must occupy an undivided throne.” The Adventist Home, 127, 128.

” ‘To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey’ [Romans 6:16]. If we indulge anger, lust, covetousness, hatred, selfishness or any other sin, we become servants of sin. ‘No man can serve two masters’ [Matthew 6:24]. If we serve sin, we cannot serve Christ. The Christian will feel the promptings of sin, for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit; but the Spirit striveth against the flesh, keeping up a constant warfare. Here is where Christ’s help is needed. Human weakness becomes united to divine strength, and faith exclaims, ‘Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!’ [1 Corinthians 15:57].” Messages to Young People, 114.

“The righteousness of Christ is not a cloak to cover unconfessed and unforsaken sin; it is a principle of life that transforms the character and controls the conduct. Holiness is wholeness for God; it is the entire surrender of heart and life to the indwelling of the principles of heaven.” The Desire of Ages, 555, 556.

“Even your thoughts must be brought into subjection to the will of God and your feelings under the control of reason and religion. . . . If the thoughts are wrong the feelings will be wrong, and the thoughts and feelings combined make up the moral character.” Testimonies, vol. 5, 310.

“The eye is the sensitive conscience, the inner light, of the mind. Upon its correct view of things the spiritual healthfulness of the whole soul and being depends. The ‘eyesalve,’ the word of God, makes the conscience smart under its application; for it convicts of sin. But the smarting is necessary that the healing may follow, and the eye be single to the glory of God.” “Ellen G. White Comments,” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 965.

Suitable Place for Him

Jesus was born in Bethlehem’s stable that night many years ago. The only place available to Him was a lowly manger. The only suitable place should have been Bethlehem’s best inn. But He was denied that.

“It is not necessary for us deliberately to choose the service of the kingdom of darkness in order to come under its dominion. We have only to neglect to ally ourselves with the kingdom of light. If we do not cooperate with the heavenly agencies, Satan will take possession of the heart, and will make it his abiding place . . . . We may leave off many bad habits, for the time we may part company with Satan; but without a vital connection with God, through the surrender of ourselves to Him moment by moment, we shall be overcome. Without a personal acquaintance with Christ, and a continual communion, we are at the mercy of the enemy, and shall do his bidding in the end.” The Desire of Ages, 324.

There is only one suitable place for Jesus today. Give Him the best. Open the “inn” of your heart. He stands at the door and knocks today. (See Revelation 3:20.) Will you let Him in? Don’t drive Him away with the cold words, “No room; not now, I’m too busy; I can’t.”

“Oh, why does not the church of Christ arise, and put on her beautiful garments! Why does she not shine? The great reason of such feeble Christianity is that those who claim to believe the truth have so little knowledge of Christ, and so low an estimate of what He will be to them, and what they may be to Him. We have the most solemn, weighty truths ever committed to mortals.

“Were our words, our thoughts, our actions, more pure and elevated, more in accordance with the holy faith we profess, we should view our responsibilities in a far different light. How solemn, how sacred, they would appear! We would have a deeper sense of our obligations, and should make it our constant aim to perfect holiness in the fear of God. Earthly, temporal things would be subordinate to the heavenly and eternal.” This Day With God, 17.

Our Prayer

“Our heavenly Father, we come to Thee this morning just as we are, needy and wholly dependent upon Thee. Help us to have a clear knowledge of what we must be, and of the characters that we must form, in order that we may be prepared to unite with the heavenly family in the city of our God. We ask Thee that Thou wilt remove the reproach that has come upon Thee through the neglect of those who profess to be Thy people, but who have not walked in Thy counsel. Lord, Help us to understand our individual responsibilities, that our hearts may be worked by the Holy Spirit. We ask Thee that Thou wilt open blind eyes, that they may see; to enlighten the darkened understanding, that all may understand that there must be a reconversion, that hearts must break before God. Give us hearts of repentance, hearts of humiliation. O my Father, how can we proclaim Thy goodness, and Thy mercy, and Thy love, unless we cherish them in our own hearts, and reveal them in our own experiences? Thou knowest how Thou hast presented this matter to Thy servant. Thou knowest what a dishonor it has been to Thee because Thy people have failed to come to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, and to obey Thy commandments.

“Let not Thy wrath come upon Thy people while they are in their sins, unconverted and unsaved. . . . May the sanctification of the Spirit come to them. May there be a purifying of character and a breaking of heart before God. . . .

“Oh, pardon our transgressions, and forgive our sins! Show us where we have come short. Let Thy Holy Spirit descend upon us. . . . We desire to be weighted down with the Holy Spirit. We desire to stand where Thou canst reveal Thyself to us. Take away our hardness of heart, and give us softened hearts. I ask Thee, for Christ’s sake, that Thou wouldst give understanding, that Thou wouldst give spiritual knowledge, that Thou wouldst give sensitive hearts, that all may see that it is high time to open the door of the heart to Jesus. Thou hast said that Thou hast heard the many words of complaint, and faultfinding, and murmuring, brother against brother, and friend against friend. Thou hast heard these words, and they are written in Thy book. They have stood as a block against the wheel of salvation, hindering its advancement. Convert Thy people in this the day of Thy preparation, that the time may not come when they will say, ‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.’

“Thou hast opened these things before me, and Thou alone canst prepare minds and hearts to hear the message that unless those who have left their first love shall return to recognize the work that needs to be done in their individual hearts, Thou wilt come quickly and remove the candlestick out of his place. Open the eyes of Thy people that they may see their deficiencies. We do not want one to be separated from the work. We do not want one to perish. We ask Thee that Thou wilt move upon hearts by the quickening influence of Thy Spirit . . . .

“We must be reconverted, sanctified, and made fit to bear the message of the Lord. Cleanse the vessel, that the message that shall be given shall not taste so strongly of the dish that those to whom it is given shall have no appetite to partake of it. Let Thy melting mercy come upon us. Work in the midst of us with Thy power and with Thy love and with Thy majesty and glory. Put to shame the listlessness of those who have not come up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty [Judges 5:23]. Sweep back the cloud of darkness and unbelief. Let the Holy Spirit come into our hearts and break down every barrier. Thou King of glory, look upon Thy people in these closing scenes of this earth’s history. It seems as if nothing could arouse many of them to realize that they are on the very eve of the day of God, that His judgments are in the land.

“Wilt Thou hear our petition! Wilt Thou answer our petition! Wilt Thou reveal Thyself to us! May we behold Thy glory, and be changed into Thine image. We thirst for the waters of Lebanon, and we hunger for the bread of life. We ask Thee to break our hearts today. We ask Thee to help us to put away our sinful thoughts, our disparagement of one another, and to seek the Lord while He may be found. . . . May the Spirit of God come in; and Thy blessed name shall have all the glory. Amen. [Offered by Ellen White, Tuesday Morning, March 31, 1903.]” General Conference Bulletin, April 2, 1903.

This prayer was offered at a time that Mrs. White would later recount as one of the darkest periods of her life. The Conference brethren had rejected God’s expressed will concerning the organization and government of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. By selecting a man to rule over them, they had formally rejected God as their King. They felt no need, “no room,” in their worldly wisdom to obey God’s entreaty.

Though the pages of the calendar have passed along for almost 100 years, spiritually speaking it seems we are no closer home than were they. But this prayer, so humbly imploring God’s intervening presence, can still be answered. In fact, it will be answered—but not by the majority. Only those who choose God as their King will find the unity that Jesus desired for His disciples in John 17: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, [art] in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: . . . I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one . . . .” Verses 21, 23.

Today, only those who make room for Jesus, serving Him daily, moment by moment, with an undivided heart, will enter into that perfect unity. That hand of entreaty is still extended to you right now—but you do not know for how long. One day, very soon, the ransomed of the Lord will see the glorious city and the mansions He has prepared for those who love Him! Friend, pray that on that day you do not hear the words “No room”!

The Jewish Rejection of Christ

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This article will be a disturbing study to many Seventh-day Adventists because of what it reveals. The subject is the rejection by the Jews of Jesus when He came to this earth as a babe. I want to be sure that we understand its application to the last days.

We are going to study history, but we are not just studying history. We are studying history that prophecy has told us is going to be repeated. I have learned that God’s people are very poor at understanding prophecy when they see it being fulfilled. We are not too bad at understanding prophecy that has been fulfilled in the past, because we can read a history book and compare history with the prophecy. We can go back and forth and see that the history book confirms what a prophet said 2,500 years before.

Such a comparison can be done with the history of the Messiah. We can look at the history and the prophecies and ask why the Jews rejected Jesus. They had been expecting the Messiah to come for over 1,000 years. They were preaching about it every week in the synagogue. They were all expecting it to happen. They were talking about it, they had been studying about it, and every Jewish boy, ever since he could remember, had been told about the wonderful things that were going to happen when the Messiah came. Yet, when He came, they rejected Him.

The Jewish people did not recognize that they were rejecting the Messiah. They said, “The Messiah has not yet come. We are expecting the Messiah to come, and we want the Messiah to come, but that event is in the future; it is not right now.” One of the great dangers of God’s people today is that when prophecy is fulfilled right in front of our eyes, we will not recognize it. We will say, “No, that is not it. It is coming in the future.”

I get telephone calls and letters from people all of the time who agree that the Lord is going to purify the church, but they are talking about the future. Friends, that is a terrible mistake. God is purifying His church right now, in front of us. While they are looking for something to start, it is going to all be over, and they will not even know it. Ellen White indicated that it had started in her day, and that was over 100 years ago. We need to ask the Lord to open our eyes so that we will be able to understand what is happening in the spiritual world right in front of us.

Devil in Control

Ellen White writes, “We want to understand the time in which we live. We do not half understand it. We do not half take it in. My heart trembles in me when I think of what a foe we have to meet, and how poorly we are prepared to meet him. The trials of the children of Israel, and their attitude just before the first coming of Christ, have been presented before me again and again to illustrate the position of the people of God in their experience before the second coming of Christ—how the enemy sought every occasion to take control of the minds of the Jews, and today he is seeking to blind the minds of God’s servants, that they may not be able to discern the precious truth.” Selected Messages, Book 1, 406.

She said that the devil had been trying to take control of the minds of the Jews. Was he very successful? Yes, he was. Then let me ask you another question: Those Jews, of whom the devil was able to take control of their minds, did they know that the devil was in control? No, they did not. And she said, to illustrate the position of the people of God in their experience before the Second Coming, the Lord showed her over and over that the devil would try to do the same thing again.

By What Authority

Why did the Jews reject Jesus? In John 2:13–22 we read about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It is at the Passover time, 28 A.D. Jesus began His ministry as the Messiah by cleansing the temple. Verse 18 reads, “So the Jews answered and said to Him, ‘What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?’ ”

In Matthew we see some of the reasons they were asking for a sign. Let us see if this sounds familiar to anybody. “Now when He came into the temple [this is the time after He had just cleansed the temple the second time, at the close of His ministry], the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted Him as He was teaching, and said, ‘By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?’ ” Matthew 21:23.

To understand the significance of the question they were asking, you have to understand the system with which they were working. These people believed that they were God’s people, God’s church, His children. They had a worldwide representative body that they called the Sanhedrin. It is equivalent to what we call the General Conference today. This was a group of 70 individuals which, they said, had been duly appointed by God. They could prove it by the Scriptures.

“So the Lord said to Moses: ‘Gather to Me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you. Then I will come down and will talk with you there. I will take of the Spirit that [is] upon you and will put [the same] upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear [it] yourself alone.’ ” Numbers 11:16, 17.

The Lord directed Moses to choose 70 of the elders of the people. He said He would put His spirit on these people. Now, obviously the time came when those people died, right? And after they died they selected other elders. And then after they died, they selected other elders, and they kept doing that. In Christ’s day they still had this group of 70. They said:

  • This group of 70, the Sanhedrin, is the group that is duly appointed. God directed us through Moses to have this group of people as the elders of His people.
  • These are the duly appointed leaders of God’s people.
  • These men are representatives from all parts of the field.
  • These men have been ordained since the days of Moses that they should represent the Lord to His people and that they should have divine authority. It is the responsibility of these men to plan for the prosperity and the advancement of God’s work.
  • This is the highest authority God has on earth and this authority must be respected.

Individual Responsibility

In the days of Christ, before you could be a teacher or a preacher and talk to God’s people and be known as an instructor, you needed to have authorization from this group. We have a modern name for it; today we call it credentials.

Jesus and John the Baptist did not have these credentials. You see, in order to get these credentials, you had to go through their school system and neither Jesus nor John the Baptist had done this. That is why, in Matthew 21:23 and in John 2, the question is being asked, Who gave you authority to do this? The Sanhedrin had not given authority, and the people thought that if the Sanhedrin had not given authority, then you were like what we would call an offshoot. So they accused both Jesus and John the Baptist of taking something upon their own individual responsibility.

Have you ever heard that you are not supposed to work on your own individual responsibility? that you are to be appointed and directed by the church? The Jews rejected both John the Baptist and Jesus; because they had not gone through their school system; they had not received the proper theological training, and therefore, they did not have any credentials. They were taking upon their individual responsibility when they should have not done anything except as they were directed through the Sanhedrin. They had a total misconception in those days about who the church was. That is what led to that kind of thinking.

John the Baptist talked very plain and straight to them. “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, ‘Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.’ ” Matthew 3:7.

Harmony With the Law

We know that the Judgment is not based on profession but on character. The Judgment is not based on who your father is or to what organization or group you belong. Oh, no. In the Judgment the question is not going to be, Did you belong to this church organization or that organization? Ellen White says that God is only going to ask one question on the Day of Judgment: Did this person keep My law or not? That is it, because that reveals the character. (See The Signs of the Times, May 19, 1887.)

Abraham’s Children

The Jews did not understand this. They said, “We are God’s people.” How did they know that they were God’s people? Because, they said, “We are Abraham’s children.” They had all been circumcised. They were all Abraham’s children, but notice what John the Baptist had to say about this. He does not call them Abraham’s children. He calls them a brood of poisonous snakes, and in verse 8 he says, “Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance.” In other words, your life, your character has to be in harmony with what you say you are doing. You say you are repenting of your sins, well, your life has to be in harmony with that repentance. “And do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as [our] father.’ ” Matthew 3:9. That is what they were saying: “We are God’s people because Abraham is our father; we are the children of Israel; we are God’s chosen people.” John the Baptist told them that profession was worthless. He told them that unless their lives were in harmony with the Law of God, they were not God’s people. (See The Desire of Ages, 107.)

That was pretty strong, because they had been taught ever since they were little children that they were God’s chosen people because they were Abraham’s children. You know, you tend to believe something if you have been taught it ever since you were a little child, if you learned it from your mother’s knee.

You can see why John the Baptist was not very popular with the leaders. It was not just because he called them a bunch of poisonous snakes; it was because He was attacking something that they had cherished as a belief ever since they could remember. He was attacking one of their most fundamental beliefs—that they were Abraham’s children, God’s people.

John the Baptist said, No, that is not true. Profession is worthless unless your character backs up your profession. Unless your character is in harmony with God’s Law, you are not His people. It was a shock! They knew they were not obeying the Law of God. They knew that there was a prophecy, but they said, “We are God’s people because we are Abraham’s children.” They believed that, when the Messiah came, He would purify the church. He would straighten out the Sanhedrin. So they said, “Even though things are bad, we are just praying, hoping, and waiting. The Messiah is coming, and when the Messiah comes, He will purify the church.” Now let me ask you something. When the Messiah came, did He purify the church?

Church Purified

Whether you believe He purified the church or not depends upon who the church is in your thinking.

You see, if you believe that the church is those people who are Abraham’s children—the Sanhedrin, Caiaphas and company, and all of those in that whole group,—if that is who you believe the church is, then it did not get purified. The question is, Is that really the church?

Did the true church actually get purified? Yes, it did. Who is the church? That is not difficult. The Bible tells us in Colossians 1 who and what the church is. It says that the church is the body of Christ. How many heads does the body have? One! The Bible is very clear about that in Ephesians 1. The church has one head. There are beasts in the Bible that have seven heads, four heads, and all sorts of things, but the church has just one head.

When Jesus was here in the flesh, who was the head of the church? He was! There are many people who believe that Caiaphas was the head of the church when Jesus was here. Who you believe to be the head of the church has all kinds of implications. Because of the Jew’s belief about who and what the church is, they believed that Jesus and John the Baptist were tearing down the church.

Ellen White says, “Though He was the Prince of Peace, His coming must be as the unsheathing of a sword. The kingdom He had come to establish was the opposite of that which the Jews desired. He who was the foundation of the ritual and economy of Israel would be looked upon as its enemy and destroyer. He who had proclaimed the law upon Sinai would be condemned as a transgressor. He who had come to break the power of Satan would be denounced as Beelzebub.” The Desire of Ages, 111.

With all of the miracles that Jesus performed, with all of His preaching and teaching, and with the character that He brought, why was it that He could not turn the Jewish nation around? It was because of their understanding of the Scriptures!

Scriptures “Prove” Error

Do you realize that they used the Scriptures to prove that Jesus was not the Messiah? There were hundreds of Scriptures that they used. We will read only two, so you can get a feel for the way they developed Bible studies to prove to the Jewish people that Jesus was not the Messiah. These Bible studies were very effective.

You need to understand, friends, that there is a right way and a wrong way to use inspired writings. You can prove error from the Bible and from the Spirit of Prophecy. It has happened many times, and it will continue to happen. That is one of the reasons Ellen White counsels us that before we ever study the Bible, we should pray. (See The Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 4, 350.) We should say, Lord, help me to understand truth so that the devil does not work on my mind and wrest the Scripture so that the very Word of truth is taken to teach error.

“He [that is the Messiah] shall have dominion also from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.” Psalm 72:8. The Jews would read that Scripture and ask, “Is this Jesus of Nazareth? Does He reign from sea to sea? Does His dominion go to the ends of the earth?” Everybody would see the answer was No. The Romans were ruling the world then. Jesus was not ruling to the ends of the earth. So, they reasoned, that proves that He is not the Messiah.

Another text they used says, “Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, Who disturbs the sea, And its waves roar (The Lord of hosts [is] His name): ‘If those ordinances depart From before Me, says the Lord, [Then] the seed of Israel shall also cease From being a nation before Me forever.’ Thus says the Lord: ‘If heaven above can be measured, And the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel For all that they have done, says the Lord.’ ” Jeremiah 31:35–37.

They would read this Scripture and say, “This Jesus and John the Baptist are preaching against the Sanhedrin and against the church organization, and if they get their way, they are going to destroy our nation.” That is what Caiaphas said. (See John 11.) They would ask, “Is the sun still up there? Is the moon still up there? Are the stars still up there?” Well, yes. “Then, Israel is still God’s people.”

Character Counts

Now I want you to see how much different their idea was than Jesus’ ideas. Jesus, just like John the Baptist, showed them that it was character that counted. Character is always what has counted in God’s sight.

In John 8:37, 38 is recorded Jesus’ words: “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.” Jesus tells them, My Father and your father are not the same.

They said, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus immediately denied that in verse 39: “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.” In other words, If Abraham were your father, you would manifest the character of Abraham. Jesus denied their allegation. He acknowledged in verse 37 that Abraham was their father according to the flesh, but He denied in verse 39 that Abraham was their father spiritually.

He said, Abraham is not really your father. He proved to them that they were doing something completely contrary to what Abraham would ever do. In verse 41 He said, “You do the deeds of your father.” Your character shows who your spiritual father is. That was too much. They got sarcastic.

All of His life Jesus was accused of being a product of fornication and of being an illegitimate son. The Jews never accepted the fact of the virgin birth, because if they had, they would have had to acknowledge that He was the Messiah. So they said, “We have not been born of fornication. We have one Father, God.” Verse 41. They did have some standards and rules. You could not be born of fornication and be part of the Sanhedrin. Jesus immediately replied, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. . . . Your father is the devil.” Verses 42, 44.

He hit them right between the eyes! My Father is God, but your father is the devil. You say that God is your Father, but it is not true. The devil is your father. How did Jesus know that the devil was their father? “You are of [your] father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and [does not] stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own [resources], for he is a liar and the father of it.” Verse 44. How do you tell who your father is? Your character tells.

Of the Devil

The devil was a liar and a murderer, Jesus says, from the beginning. He told them they were lying and murdering, plotting His murder. That proved that the devil was their father. Or as the same writer says in 1 John 3:8, “He who sins is of the devil.”

Oh, no, we say, we are Christians. That is not what the Bible says. No matter what we profess, if we are living in sin, the Bible says our father, our spiritual father, is the devil. In fact, John is so strong about this in 1 John 3:4–10, that he says, If you really are converted, if you are born again, you will not sin. And if you are sinning, you are of the devil.

So why did the church in Jesus’ day reject Him? Why did they reject the Messiah? Oh, it was because of all these theological theories that they had built up directly from the Old Testament. Even in the face of miracles and everything else, they said, “The miracles have to be from the devil, because He could not be the right one. We can prove it from the Bible.”

The same thing is happening today. People say to me, “We just have to wait. God is going to purify the church someday, and then we will finish the work.” Let me tell you something, God will have the work all finished while these people are waiting for the purifying to happen.

The evidence right now is that God is getting ready to finish His work all over the world. And the most wonderful experience that you and I can have is if we could just be a little part of it.

[Bible texts quoted are literal translation.]

The Important Factor of Love

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“Wilt thou be angry with us forever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.” Psalm 85:5–7.

I have been in the ministry for 30 years, and as far back as I can remember, as we would gather< together in evangelistic meetings or in camp meetings, the theme invariably would have some form of revival and reformation included. Many may remember these things. There is nothing wrong with revival and reformation. It is a good theme, a good direction in which we need to be heading, but the question that I have to ask myself is, Why has it not worked? It seems there are basically two reasons why it has not worked: There has either been a wrong approach or we have had wrong ideas about revival and reformation.

An Approach

There are Adventists all over the world who are wanting to respond to revival and reformation. When I have traveled, invariably I come in contact with people who express their desire for revival and reformation in Adventism. They want it; they long for it; they look for it to happen. There is a great personal need for revival and reformation, but there is also a great need for the church as a whole to experience revival and reformation.

How can you approach revival and reformation if you are a member of a small historic group? First of all, individual seeking for revival and reformation needs to take place. Then, as you have influence within the group with whom you are meeting, it is perfectly appropriate that the suggestion be made that revival and reformation be approached from a church point of view. Is your group out of harmony with other historic groups or other ministries? Approach revival and <=”” that=”” from=””

The Church’s Greatest Need

“A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all of our needs. To seek this should be our first work. There must be earnest effort to obtain the blessing of the Lord, not because God is not willing to bestow His blessing upon us, but because we are unprepared to receive it. Our Heavenly Father is more willing to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him, than are earthly parents to give good gifts to their children. [See Luke 11:13.] But it is our work . . . .”Review and Herald, March 22, 1887. A lot of times there is confusion in the minds of Seventh-day Adventists as to the place of faith and works. How do these two operate? In what sphere are they to operate? Where is the balance between these two?

If you read the Spirit of Prophecy, that aspect of confusion disappears, because Sister White makes it very plain as to where our responsibilities lie and where God’s responsibilities lie. Notice what she says here. It is our work. Do we have something to do? Absolutely! Mrs. White continues, “It is our work, by confession, humiliation, repentance, and earnest prayer, to fulfill the conditions upon which God has promised to grant us his blessing. A revival need be expected only in answer to prayer. While the people are so destitute of God’s Holy Spirit, they cannot appreciate the preaching of the word; but when the Spirit’s power touches their hearts, then the discourses given will not be without effect. Guided by the teachings of God’s word, with the manifestation of his Spirit, in the exercise of sound discretion, those who attend our meetings will gain a precious experience, and returning home will be prepared to exert a healthful influence.” Ibid.

I do not think she is talking about soybeans, here. I think she is talking about something entirely different when she talks about exerting a healthful influence. Is it possible that the opposite has been taking place? What is the opposite of healthfulness? It is sickness, is it not? Has there been a sickly influence exerted as far as revival and reformation is concerned? That is probably the case, otherwise she would not have said that we need to exert a healthful influence after we have been to meetings where the blessings of the Lord have been poured out.

Reformation Must Accompany Revival

“A revival and a reformation must take place, under the ministration of the Holy Spirit. Revival and reformation are two different things. [Notice the distinction that she makes.] Revival signifies a renewal of spiritual life, a quickening of the powers of mind and heart, a resurrection from spiritual death. [Could this be directed to the condition of Laodicea?] Reformation signifies a reorganization, a change in ideas and theories, habits and practices. Reformation will not bring forth the good fruit of righteousness unless it is connected with the revival of the Spirit.” Last Day Events, 189, 190. You can have ideas and theories and habits and practices, but if they are not accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, they are worse than useless. It has to be connected with the revival of the spirit. The quote continues, “Revival and reformation are to do their appointed work, and in doing this work they must blend.” Ibid., 190.

Balance

As I have read the Spirit of Prophecy, I have noticed that it is always balanced. Another word that she uses here is blend. A lot of Seventh-day Adventists are unbalanced. They are not blending as they should, and as a result there is a sickliness that will not allow revival and reformation to come.

Balance, revival and reformation, has to start with each one of us. Mrs. White outlines the formula for us to use so the work of God can take place—”confession, humiliation, repentance, and earnest prayer.” All of the ingredients are there, and it becomes incumbent upon us to take all of those ingredients and put them in their proper increments so that they will work right.

I am not a cook, nor am I a baker, but I do know that in order to bake a cake you have to have certain ingredients in certain amounts in order for the formula to work right. You have to have flour, sugar, and salt . . . I do not know everything that goes into a cake, but I do know that if you leave out one of the ingredients, you will either have a flat cake, a bad tasting cake, or a heavy cake, a cake that you would not want to eat or serve. The question that we have to ask ourselves as Seventh-day Adventists, who are wanting revival and reformation to come, is, Have we left out some of the ingredients along the way? Over all the years that we have wanted to bake a cake of revival and reformation, have we left out some of the ingredients so the cake always flopped? It is kind of like Ephraim—the Bible says that he was a cake that was half-turned, doughy, without taste. (Hosea 7:8.)

Needed Ingredients

So what are the ingredients of revival? Ellen White says that revival needs to first have repentance —individual and corporate—before it can come. (See Patriarchs and Prophets, 590.) Repentance is a turning away from sin; repentance is a sorrow for sin, and repentance is a change of direction. Revival must have repentance. Revival needs to have as its focus the cross of Christ. Revival needs to have, as its theological basis, the Bible, not some philosophy, not some theory that someone comes along with that sounds great but that is only a wind of doctrine that is blowing an ill wind. We need to have a theological basis, not just a philosophy.

Revival needs to have prayer. Revival needs to have humiliation. It needs to have confession of faults one to another and restitution, as far as possible. There are some instances where restitution is not possible. The person whom we have had fault against may no longer be alive, so we have to leave that with God. But if there is the possibility that we can make restitution for wrongs that we have done, we need to do that.

When I became a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, I worked for an employer with whom I had not been totally honest. I had not thought there was anything wrong with what I did. I thought if it was my due, and if I could pinch something from him and he did not know about it, that was all right. But when I became a Christian, the pastor who gave me Bible studies taught me about restitution. I will never forget the day that I tremblingly drove to my employer’s home. I told him what I had done. I told him I was willing to pay back everything that I had taken that I should not have taken. He looked at me with a smile and said, “I never missed it. I am glad you came and told me, and I am glad that you have found God.” We need to make restitution as far as possible.

One More Ingredient

We can have all of the things outlined above and still not have revival. There is one more ingredient that needs to be in the mix. That is the ingredient of love. Some say if you have all the others, you do not need love, but that is not necessarily true. Sincere Adventists, for several decades now, have felt this ingredient has been absent from the concept of revival. What can we do to change the mix so the cake of revival and reformation will be right?

One of the reasons we have left out the ingredient of love is because we have left out some of the other ingredients, in terms of having a right theological basis, including Ellen White. She says, “If you have the Spirit of Christ you will love every soul for whom Christ died. Not with a love-sick sentimentalism. Not with base affection. Nothing like that. You will love as Christ loved. You will want to carry that burden for souls, oh how carefully, that there shall not be any occasion given to the youth, or to those of mature age, that shall bring in or make occasion of their stumbling or being turned out of the way, or a channel for an impure thought. Create an atmosphere where the soul can be kept open and clean before God our Maker.” Sermons and Talks, vol. 1, 186.

So often we, as Seventh-day Adventists, have read this quotation and have gotten hung up on the negativism of the phrase “love-sick sentimentalism.” We have felt that if somehow we express the love that Christ has, and it comes through this clay channel, that it will manifest itself in a love-sick sentimentalism that we have strong counsel to avoid. As a result, we have set love on the back burner. We do not want to get caught up like other churches that only preach about love, love, love.

We do not want to be associated in that way, because actually the only thing that is important is for us to have a correct theology. A correct theology will cover a multitude of sins, right? So we have focused on, and we have magnified, our teaching as Seventh-day Adventists on correct theology—Saturday is the Sabbath; when you die you are dead; Jesus is in the heavenly sanctuary ministering, and on the list goes. We have all of the correct theology, but revival still has not come.

The Greatest of These

Ellen White has always had the proper balance to this issue. It has been there all along, but somehow we have missed it. She says, “The Lord desires me to call the attention of his people to the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. [Is it important when the Lord directs her to call our attention to something?] Read this chapter every day, and from it obtain comfort and strength. Learn from it the value that God places on sanctified, heaven-born love, and let the lesson that it teaches come home to your hearts. Learn that Christlike love is of heavenly birth, and that without it all other qualifications are worthless.” “Ellen G. White Comments,” Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 6, 1091. She penned those words in 1904. Sixty years she had been involved in ministry, and now, as she draws near the end of her ministry, into the sunset years, she reflects back to the direction that the ministry of Adventism has taken, and the instruction that the Lord gives her is, Tell the people to read this chapter every day.

Chapter of Love

Let us look at 1 Corinthians 13. The King James Version of the Bible uses the word charity for the word love, and I have substituted love wherever the word charity appears, because that is exactly what it means.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become [as] sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have [the gift of ] prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed [the poor], and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long, [and] is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth: but whether [there be] prophecies, they shall fail; whether [there be] tongues, they shall cease; whether [there be] knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these [is] love.”

New Theology

Several years ago the new theology came into its own. There had been seeds planted early on, but under the ministry and teaching of Desmond Ford the new theology sprung into existence. Only a few rejected it. Many accepted it. The reason the new theology came into being, and was so readily accepted by most people, is that it came in a package that had three words written on it: love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Basic elements of revival and reformation! Celebration churches sprang into existence by the multitudes. Why? Because many had not felt love within their former congregations; many attended their churches for years and never really felt Christlike love from those with whom they worshiped.

So when this new concept came into being with the new theology, the people accepted the love, the acceptance, and the forgiveness. They really did not care about the theology. When people arrived at the church on Sabbath morning, they enjoyed being greeted in the parking lot by a deacon and being escorted into church. They enjoyed the accolades and praise they received and the thank you for being there. They liked being acknowledged for who they were; people fell for that head over heels.

The unbalance came with theology problems; a lot of trash doctrine came with it. But the people were not hurting for theology. They had the theology; they did not have the love. Celebration is still growing, because it is meeting the basic needs of human beings.

On the other hand, we have kept the good theology, but we have thrown out the caring and the love that should carry the balance of revival and reformation. We have overreacted and ignored love for the most part, because it is a part of the celebration acceptance, and we do not want celebration cluttering up our pure theology!

I remember early in my ministry the Brimsmead controversy. Robert Brimsmead was a man at odds with the denomination. His theology was bad. He attacked the sanctuary, and I can remember as clear as a bell that, in that critical era of the rejection of Robert Brimsmead and all that he stood for, the word sanctuary was not mentioned from the pulpit nor in the Sabbath School classes. Anyone who would even entertain this idea of the sanctuary certainly would have to be tied up with Robert Brimsmead theology. We did not want to be branded as a Brimsmead, so we just left out that part of our church belief. We certainly did not want to have any little study groups in the afternoon that would deal with the truth of the sanctuary, so we just left it out totally, and we have suffered tremendously for that.

What goes around, comes around, and if something worked well for the devil once, he will use it again. He has done exactly that with the celebration movement. It has come in with its theme of love, acceptance, and forgiveness, and it has taken that which is good and right and bound it up with a bogus philosophy.

As we stop and think about these things, I do not believe that any of us want to continue to repeat history again and again and again. If we do not learn the lessons of the past, we are destined to repeat history again. Somehow, if the awareness does not come to us that the devil would take that which is right and good and attach it to something that is extremely questionable and cause us to be in a position of rejection, we have to surmount that and get beyond it. He has stolen that which is right and good; it does not belong to him, and we cannot afford to repeat history when we are seeking for revival and reformation. We need to examine what is right and good and use it for the Lord.

Fruit of the Spirit

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” Matthew 7:15–20.

If we are going to be fruit inspectors, at what kind of fruits will we be looking? Fruit of the Spirit. Fruit of the Spirit can be classified always as good fruit. Paul has already outlined the corrupt fruit in Galatians 5:17–21, when he says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Verses 22, 23. It is interesting that Paul devotes a whole chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, to the subject of love; then as he lists the fruit of the Spirit, love is listed first. Why? Because it is the greatest. It is number one; it is first in Paul’s mind. It was not always that way, reviewing Paul’s life, but now Paul is converted, and he sees love as the important factor.

Jesus was Love

Why did the Pharisees hate Jesus? It was not because of what He did; it was because of who He was. He was love. He displayed love everywhere He went. Who would heal the people that He healed? Nobody. Nobody wanted to touch the dirty leper; nobody wanted to deal with a harlot; nobody wanted to deal with those who had corrupted themselves, and nobody wanted to deal with the poor, but Jesus did. Why? Because Jesus was love.

Matthew 9:1–13 tells how Jesus related to people. Why did Matthew record the stories found here? It was to reveal attitude. How are we relating to those who really need help? Do we pass by like the Levite and the priest? Or are we the Samaritan who will take the flask of oil and pour it into the wound. I would hope that we will take these examples and so apply them in our own lives that revival and reformation can come for us.

Neat Little Packages

Could it be that one of the reasons revival has not come is that we do not yet have all of the ingredients of revival in one basket? We have had everything wrapped up in neat, tidy, little packages, but we do not have it all together. We think that because we are so well organized and our theology is so straight that that is all in which God is really interested. But God says, I want you to give Me your heart, and I want to be able to love people through you.

Could it be that we have the correct theology, but we do not have the fruit of the Spirit? Ellen White said, “Unless this converting power shall go through our churches, unless the revival of the Spirit of God shall come, all their profession will never make the members of the church Christians.” Manuscript Releases, vol. 1, 366. Revival will not come except through the Spirit. The Spirit is going to work through the fruits!

The Answer

If you are wondering how all of this can change in your life, Jesus has the answer. “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, [then] have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.” 1 John 3:18–23.

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son [to be] the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” 1 John 4:7–11.

The necessary items for revival that are on our ingredients list must begin with the important factor of love. If it does, revival can indeed take place. If not us, then who? If not now, then when? It has to start with us! [All emphasis supplied.]

Mike Baugher is Associate Speaker of Steps to Life Ministry. He may be reached by e-mail at mikebaugher@stepstolife.org

Before Honor is Humility

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Revelation 12 tells us that Satan is very aware of the times in which we live. This has caused him to put forth more effort to deceive as many as possible, even the very elect of God. But Satan is not the only one at work today. God is at work today, also, because He knows, better than any one of us, the time in which we are living. God has a burden for humanity. He is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” that they might be saved. 11 Peter 3:9. The question I would ask you is this, Is God working in your life?

John 15 gives an illustration of Jesus’ relationship with His people—the abiding of the branch in the vine. He tells us there of the experience of either being fruit bearers or of not being fruit bearers. Someday He is going to have to burn those branches that have no fruit, but interestingly enough, those who are bringing forth fruit are going to receive the pruning knife, the close work of God upon their hearts. Is God working on your heart? It is a close work, and it will become so close that it will hurt. But do not draw back, because He that holds the knife loves you. (See Hebrews 12:6.)

Run the Race

Let us look at some thoughts from God’s Word that will lift us up, knowing and believing that God is and that He is all that He says He is. (See Hebrews 11:6.) Paul said, “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they [do it] to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air.” 1 Corinthians 9:24.

Did Paul realize that the Christian life was going to involve some effort, some discipline? Oh, yes, he did. He portrayed the Christian life as a race. Thinking of this takes me back to my high school days when I ran track. I ran in those races to be the first across the finish line. I never finished first, but I did finish second. Is second good enough in this race that Paul is talking about? No, we must be winners in this race, if we are to win the crown.

Essentials for Victory

There are definite attributes essential for victory, whether we are running a physical race in this world or running the race of salvation. One of the most important attributes is given in The Desire of Ages, 437: “It was not enough [essential but not enough] for the disciples of Jesus to be instructed as to the nature of His kingdom. What they needed was a change of heart that would bring them into harmony with its principles.” What principles? The principles of His kingdom. They needed a heart that would be in harmony with the nature of His kingdom.

You and I have been called in these last days to give a warning message to the world, very similar to that given in the days of Noah. We find that message in Revelation 14:6–12. It is a message full of truth, but there is more to truth than the truth! Jesus said to the woman at the well, “For the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” John 4:23. Friends, it matters how we tell the truth and in what spirit we tell it. There must be a balance between the truth and the spirit. For example, it is not enough to know merely that the Sabbath is Saturday in the weekly cycle and that it is God’s day. God wants us to worship on this day in the spirit of the Sabbath.

We often take for granted the knowledge that God has given us of Himself and of heaven through His Word. If I asked you the question, Who does God dwell with in heaven, and you did not know the answer, you would be very curious, would you not? You would want to know, especially if you had begun a race to eventually be in heaven. We have just noted that the truth is not enough; we must have the spirit of the truth.

By the Knife

There are 12 gates to God’s city. Someday we, by His grace, will have the privilege to walk through one of those 12 gates. Have we stopped to think about what is in that city and what kind of people we will have to be to walk through one of those 12 gates? God makes it very clear who will dwell with Him: “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name [is] Holy; I dwell in the high and holy [place], with him also [that is] of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” Isaiah 57:15. Do you know that God is in the business, in regard to salvation, of giving you and me a spirit like that of heaven? That spirit is a spirit of humility or humbleness of mind. But it does not come as a result of just naturally possessing it, because we come into this world totally on the opposite end of that spirit of humility and humbleness. It comes only by the knife, as we allow God’s Word to do His work upon us, to cut out the things that stand between Him and us.

For three and one-half years the disciples were constantly focused on one object. They had a preoccupation with the question of who would be first in Christ’s kingdom. “At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:1–3. The disciples wanted to know who would be the greatest, and if He gave them the answer, then that was the goal they would attempt to achieve, because they had decided to run the race. You will not be able to walk through one of those 12 gates into My Father’s house, Jesus told them, if you do not become as a little child in spirit. What does that involve? It involves change. Some of the changes we make in this world are totally painless. When my wife and I left Texas and moved to Kansas, it was not too much of a pain. We moved our bank account from one bank to another, and that was not too much of a pain. But there are some changes that involve pain, and the change identified in these verses is one of them.

Ellen White comments on this verse: “They did not understand the nature of Christ’s kingdom, and this ignorance was the apparent cause of their contention. But, the real cause lay deeper. By explaining the nature of the kingdom, Christ might for the time have quelled their strife; but this would not have touched the underlying cause. Even after they had received the fullest knowledge [let us not be deceived by a mere knowledge of truth; it will not save us], any question of precedence might have renewed the trouble.” The Desire of Ages, 435. The knife had to go farther in to cut out the obstacle that was in the way, so they would not only be able to perceive the true nature of His kingdom but also to receive the spirit by which they could enter that kingdom.

Most Precious Attribute

God lays out a principle for us in Proverbs 15:33: “The fear of the Lord [is] the instruction of wisdom; and before honour [is] humility.” This is one of the most precious attributes of God, and it becomes more precious as we understand the power and the wisdom that our God has. This humility is the most marvelous attribute in the character of God. Before honor is humility, and before the crown is the cross.

The apostle Paul has told us that the things God has left on record in His Word are for our learning.

“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” Romans 15:4. We can have hope, because God is well able to take a proud heart and humble it, to give to us the very spirit of humility that is in harmony with heaven’s spirit. He can do that.

I am reminded of the statement that Gabriel said to Mary regarding the miracle Child that was to be born. He said, “With God, nothing is impossible.” (Luke 1:37.) Here is a being who stands in the very presence of God; he is right next to the Father today; he knows Him, and he says, “Nothing is impossible with the God Who created us!”

Examples for us

We have the record of Moses. He was not known as a humble man! He was a great general; he was very arrogant, proud, and aware of the abilities that God had given him. But there came a time in his life when God called him, and he fled into the wilderness. He spent 40 years in the wilderness before God called him again. What happened to this man’s proud, arrogant heart in 40 years? The Pen of Inspiration tells us, “Shut in by the bulwarks of the mountains, Moses was alone with God. Moses was shut in with God. The magnificent temples of Egypt no longer impressed his mind with their superstition and falsehood. In the solemn grandeur of the everlasting hills he beheld the majesty of the Most High, and in contrast realized how powerless and insignificant were the gods of Egypt. Everywhere the Creator’s name was written. Moses seemed to stand in His presence and to be over-shadowed by His power. Here his pride and self-sufficiency were swept away.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 248. How was he humbled? As he viewed God and the greatness of God, he took on the spirit of humility.

Another character that is recorded in Scripture had the tremendous privilege of physically walking with Jesus Christ for three and one-half years. His name was John, and he had a brother, James. God tells us that they had a nickname; they were known as “The Sons of Thunder.” (See Mark 3:17.) That does not sound too humble, does it? They were not; they were just like us. But something took place in the life of John that caused him to become humble-minded like his Saviour and Lord. “During the years of his [John’s] close association with Christ, he was often warned and cautioned by the Saviour, and these reproofs he accepted. As the character of the Divine One was manifested to him, John saw his own deficiencies, and was humbled by the revelation. Day by day in contrast with his own violent spirit, he beheld the tenderness and forbearance of Jesus, and heard His lessons of humility and patience. Day by day his heart was drawn out to Christ, until he lost sight of self in love for his Master.” The Acts of the Apostles, 557. Accepting reproof and correction is one of the ways we are to receive humility. Before pride is swept away, before self is laid down, we must see Someone greater that we admire and desire to be like.

Saul of Tarsus was another person who was filled with pride. How was he brought to the point of being humbled in spirit? “As Saul yielded himself fully to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, he saw the mistakes of his life and recognized the far-reaching claims of the law of God. He who had been a proud Pharisee, confident that he was justified by his good works, now bowed before God with the humility and simplicity of a little child, confessing his own unworthiness and pleading the merits of a crucified and risen Saviour.” Ibid., 119. Receiving humility of spirit involves acknowledging our deficiencies and our mistakes.

Effort Required

What the gospel of Jesus Christ did for these men, it can do for us in this day. It can change us; it can help us run the race and win the crown. But as you read about the lives of these men, you will find that their humility did not come without effort. These men were changed, not by a theory, but by a Person. There is a power beyond what you and I can see, and He is very real.

I have decided and determined that I, by the grace of God, am going to walk through one of those 12 gates someday. I am going to be there, and I want you to be there, but there is only one way we are going to be there. “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.” 1 Peter 2:21.

One Spirit; One Truth

Jesus was not merely our substitute. The majority of the Christian world is deceived regarding this, because they believe that a mere acknowledgement and confessing of sin is sufficient in and of itself for salvation. That is not true! Jesus is not only our substitute at Calvary; He is our example in life. He not only paid the penalty for our sins, but He wants to provide us with power to overcome sin. He was tempted in all points, yet without sin. (See Hebrews 4:15.) He is our example. He is the One who changed Moses’ heart; He is the One that changed John’s heart; He is the One who did the work on Paul’s heart. Jesus Christ lives today in the Most Holy Place. He knows you, and He wants to change your heart. He wants to bring your spirit into harmony with His truth, that they will be one spirit and one truth.

Paul gives us counsel in this matter: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” Philippians 2:5, 6. There was a being in heaven one time who thought it was sufficient to grasp God’s power. Ellen White wrote: “While Lucifer counted it a thing to be grasped to be equal with God, Christ, the Exalted One, ‘made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’ Philippians 2:7, 8. Now the cross was just before Him; and His own disciples were so filled with self-seeking—the very principle of Satan’s kingdom—that they could not enter into sympathy with their Lord, or even understand Him as He spoke of His humiliation for them.” The Desire of Ages, 436. To enter into an understanding of the spiritual significance of those truths that God wants us to proclaim to the world, we must have a spirit by which we receive from Him understanding of those truths. Humility, a humbleness of mind, a willingness to be taught, corrected, instructed, and reproved if necessary, is the very means by which God is going to give us the ability to understand His Word and His truth.

Time of Laodicea

In the history of this world, we are at the end of time, but where are we in the race for the crown? In Revelation, a sad, sad condition is brought to view. You and I form a part of that period called Laodicea, the church at the end of earth’s history. In Revelation 3:20, Jesus said, in regard to Laodicea, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” These are the people who have been given the special truths with which to warn the world, but there is an obstacle that stands in their way. What is it? “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing . . . .” Revelation 3:17. What spirit is that? That is the spirit of arrogance toward God. They feel satisfied with just having a Bible, if I may illustrate it as that. They feel comfortable—”I have my Bible, and I take it with me to church once a week. I feel comfortable with that.” God tells us that there is going to be, in these days of which we are talking, a form of godliness that denies the power. (See 11 Timothy 3:5.) What are we denying when we deny the power? We are denying the very means by which God wants to give to us a spirit that He will be able to take safely to heaven someday, and that spirit is the spirit of humility. Laodicea has pride standing in the way. Pride, pride of opinion, is the greatest obstacle to humility, and we all come into this world bent in that direction. There is only one Being in the entire universe Who can bend us back straight, and He has done it for many people.

He is willing to help us. Christ wants to give to us a spirit of humility, a spirit of brotherly love one to another, wherein we are not striving against each other but working together. With this spirit of humility, we are not wondering who has the greatest work and who does not, but we are doing the work God has given us to do.

Who Will Give the Loud Cry?

We are living at the last days, and Jesus said He was going to cut the work short. (See Romans 9:28.) Who is God going to use to give the Loud Cry in the last days? Is He going to use us? “Thus the message of the third angel will be proclaimed. As the time comes for it to be given with greatest power, the Lord will work through humble instruments, leading the minds of those who consecrate themselves to His service. The laborers will be qualified rather by the unction of His Spirit than by the training of literary institutions.” The Great Controversy, 606.

I do not want you to misunderstand what I am saying. I am not devaluating truth, but truth involves far more than the mere doctrine. If we are truly His people, we shall carry His message with His spirit. We will be humble instruments, used by Him to give a most marvelous message to the world. “Men of faith and prayer will be constrained to go forth with holy zeal, declaring the words which God gives them. The sins of Babylon will be laid open. The fearful results of enforcing the observances of the church by civil authority, the inroads of spiritualism, the stealthy but rapid progress of the papal power—all will be unmasked [by a humble instrument]. By these solemn warnings the people will be stirred.” Ibid.

We Can Win!

The gates to the city in heaven are going to open someday, all 12 of them. Who will enter? “That which even the greatest and wisest can not earn, the weakest and most humble may receive.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 404. We have the potential, through His grace, to win the race, to enter those gates. We can win! Satan wants to tell us just the opposite, but we can quell his suggestions and his temptations with the Word of God.

Do you feel weak and inferior? We should not be comparing ourselves with one another in the gifts that God has given, but we need to have a spirit where we can appreciate the gifts that God has given others—that is the spirit of humility. Heaven’s golden gates open not to the self-exalted, to the proud in spirit, but the everlasting portals will open wide to the trembling touch of a little child.

Jesus our Example

Jesus is our tremendous example. “It shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:26–28.

I believe one of the most marvelous attributes and characteristics of our God is humility. In my own personal experience I see a God who is so great, so awesome, and so powerful, who is able to do anything, yet He is humble enough to wash my feet. That contrast makes the attribute of humility stand out. If we are not humbled by that contrast, we will never, ever be humbled. This is the King of kings. He is equal with the Father. He took our flesh and came into this world 2,000 years ago to save us from pride and from every other sin that would seek to keep us from Him. He was a servant, yet He was and is a King. To the proud heart and mind, that is a contradiction, but not in heaven. Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit dwell with beings who are of a humble and contrite spirit. I stand amazed at the humility of our Creator!

By His Grace

We are going to win the race, by His grace, if we allow Him to do the cutting work to cut out all obstacles. What is the key obstacle? It is pride; it is striving to be number one; it is striving to be seen of men. Jesus portrayed a character totally opposite from that. “Blessed [are] those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” Luke 12:37. Everyone who walks through those 12 gates is going to be a servant. They will have come to be a servant on this earth, to experience the humility of Christ and serve others instead of themselves.

Hebrews 13:8 says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever—He never changes. When we get to heaven, we are going to find the Being that we have read about, the One whom we became like, and He is going to serve us! The God of heaven is going to gird Himself, and He is going to wait upon each one of the redeemed. I want to be there to say “Thank you” to His face, how about you? We can have courage, because God has made provision, and He has a willingness, far above and beyond what we can understand, to do the needed work in our hearts. He wants to do that, and He is able, but time is running out. We are told in Revelation 22 that there is coming a time when God is going to say, He that is humble, let him be humble still; and He that is proud, let him be proud still. It is over; it is done! (See Revelation 22:11.) Today is the day of salvation. Today, let Him cut away the obstacle; let Him have it; it is not worth losing the race. Be satisfied with what He has given you and with what He has promised to do for you. Let us determine to exchange our pride for His humility, that we may have a place with the humble and contrite ones that will make up His eternal kingdom! What do you say?

Fuel for the Fires of Hell

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Several years ago I heard of a woman who said to a minister after the church service, “Don’t bother praying for me, Pastor. I was born to be fuel for the fires of hell!” The pastor did his best to console her, but she walked away from church that day believing that God had predestined her to be eternally lost, and there was nothing that she or anyone else could do to change her eternal destiny.

If she really believed her conclusion to be correct, why had she come to church that day? Was she hoping to hear something that would convince her otherwise? Was she hoping against hope?

I have talked to individuals who felt that they could not possibly be saved, that God somehow could save others but for them there was no hope. Is the God of heaven so cruel as to cause a person to go through life with a sick feeling in their gut that they are totally helpless to change the course of their life? that there is no assurance of God’s tender love and care for them? Is there something in the Bible that would lead them to believe such a thing?

This is not the God I serve, because it is not the God the Bible portrays. Why then do some have the idea that God has appointed certain ones to eternal life and others to eternal death, regardless of their personal choice?

Problem Texts

Perhaps the answer lies in an age-old error that thousands, through a misinterpretation of God’s Holy Book, have assumed is true. Let’s take a moment to read the Bible verses in question.

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” Romans 8:29, 30.

“Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will . . . In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” Ephesians 1:5, 11.

You have probably determined by now that the problem centers around the word “predestinate.” Predestinate is from the Greek word proorizo, meaning “to determine beforehand.”

Erroneous Conclusions

From the passages just quoted, some have erroneously assumed that God arbitrarily predestined, or chose beforehand, particular individuals to be saved and others to be lost, imposing the benefits of salvation upon some while denying them to others. This kind of thinking engenders a whole host of erroneous conclusions, such as: God forces some to be saved against their will, or God will choose certain ones to be in heaven regardless of how much wickedness they practice while here on this earth.

Could some be lulled to a false security, thinking heaven is their home, only to be rejected in the end? Will some pine away during this life, thinking they will be lost, when at last they find themselves in the bliss of heaven?

Salvation Available to All

The Scriptures demonstrate conclusively the fallacy of the predestined line of reasoning. Let’s take a look at what God’s Word and the Spirit of Prophecy plainly teach upon this subject.

“For this [is] good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:3, 4.

“If you will use God’s appointed means, and diligently search the Scriptures, having a determined purpose to obey the truth, you will know the doctrine whether it be of God; but God will never work a miracle to compel you to see his truth. God, in giving his only begotten Son to die on Calvary’s cross, has made it possible for all men to be saved. Christ died for a ruined world, and through the merit of Christ, God has elected that man should have a second trial, a second probation, a second test as to whether he will keep the commandments of God, or walk in the path of transgression, as did Adam. Through an infinite sacrifice, God has made it possible that men shall practise holiness in this life. Those who would ascertain their election for the future life, may ascertain it by their attitude of obedience to the commandments of God. Strong emotions, strong impulses, or desires, for heaven, when listening to a description of the charms of a future life, will not prove that you are elected to sit down with Jesus Christ upon his throne. If you would know the mystery of godliness, you should follow that which has been revealed. The conditions of eternal life have been plainly stated. Jesus says: ‘If ye love me, keep my commandments. . . . He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. . . . If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.’ [John 14:15, 21, 23, 24.] Here are the conditions upon which every soul may be elected to eternal life. Your obedience to God’s commandments will prove that you are predestinated to a glorious inheritance.” Review and Herald, September 28, 1897.

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9.

“He does not forget or neglect His children; but He permits the wicked to reveal their true character, that none who desire to do His will may be deceived concerning them. Again, the righteous are placed in the furnace of affliction, that they themselves may be purified; that their example may convince others of the reality of faith and godliness; and also that their consistent course may condemn the ungodly and unbelieving.

“God permits the wicked to prosper and to reveal their enmity against Him, that when they shall have filled up the measure of their iniquity all may see His justice and mercy in their utter destruction. The day of His vengeance hastens, when all who have transgressed His law and oppressed His people will meet the just recompense of their deeds; when every act of cruelty or injustice toward God’s faithful ones will be punished as though done to Christ Himself.” The Great Controversy, 48.

Nowhere do the inspired writers state that God has willed that some men should be lost. This is a fiction of human invention.

“And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Revelation 22:17.

“Some men seem afraid to take God at His word as though it would be presumption in them. They pray for the Lord to teach us and yet are afraid to credit the pledged word of God and believe we have been taught of Him. So long as we come to our heavenly Father humbly and with a spirit to be taught, willing and anxious to learn, why should we doubt God’s fulfillment of His own promise? . . . When you have sought to know His will, your part in the operation with God is to believe that you will be led and guided and blessed in the doing of His will.” Sons and Daughters of God, 67.

“Say unto them, [As] I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Ezekiel 33:11.

“God does not desire the destruction of any. [Ezekiel 33:11 quoted.] Throughout the period of probationary time His Spirit is entreating men to accept the gift of life. It is only those who reject His pleading that will be left to perish. God has declared that sin must be destroyed as an evil ruinous to the universe. Those who cling to sin will perish in its destruction.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 123.

“The Lord seeks to save, not to destroy. He delights in the rescue of sinners. . . . By warnings and entreaties He calls the wayward to cease from their evil-doing and to turn to Him and live.” Prophets and Kings, 105.

If God has appointed some to be fuel for the fires of hell, why would He plead for all to repent and live?

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16–18.

“Christ crucified is ever drawing souls to Him. On the other hand, Satan is drawing them away from Christ, that they may not walk in the light of His countenance, that they may not see Christ in His goodness and mercy, His infinite compassion and unsurpassed love. He intercepts himself by presenting the attractions of worldly inducements, that God in Christ may not be discerned. But Christ came that whosoever will believe in Him may be saved. As a flower turns to the sun that its bright rays may aid in perfecting its beauty and symmetry, so should Christ’s followers turn to the Sun of Righteousness, that heaven’s light may shine upon them, perfecting their characters, and giving them a deep and abiding experience in the things of God. It is beyond our power to conceive the blessings that are brought within our reach through Christ, if we will but unite our human effort with divine grace.” Sons and Daughters of God, 26.

We see from these verses and statements that our eternal destiny is not arbitrarily fixed by God, but has something to do with whether or not we believe.

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name.” John 1:12.

“To those who receive Him [Christ] He gives power to become the sons of God, that at last God may receive them as His, to dwell with Him throughout eternity. If during this life they are loyal to God, they will at last ‘see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.’ Revelation 22:4. And what is the happiness of heaven but to see God? What greater joy could come to the sinner saved by the grace of Christ than to look upon the face of God and know Him as Father?” The Ministry of Healing, 421.

No Respecter of Persons

It’s not enough to believe in Jesus; the devil also believes. (See James 2:19.) The decisive factor in each individual case is willingness to receive God’s only-begotten Son as one’s personal Saviour. God does not refuse the benefits of salvation to anyone who sincerely chooses the way of life and is willing to comply with His requirements.

“Then Peter opened [his] mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” Acts 10:34, 35.

“The religion of Christ uplifts the receiver to a higher plane of thought and action, while at the same time it presents the whole human race as alike the objects of the love of God, being purchased by the sacrifice of His Son. At the feet of Jesus, the rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, meet together, with no thought of caste or worldly pre-eminence. All earthly distinctions are forgotten as we look upon Him whom our sins have pierced. The self-denial, the condescension, the infinite compassion of Him who was highly exalted in heaven, puts to shame human pride, self-esteem, and social caste. Pure, undefiled religion manifests its heaven-born principles in bringing into oneness all who are sanctified through the truth. All meet as blood-bought souls, alike dependent upon Him who has redeemed them to God.” Gospel Workers, 330.

“There is no caste with God. He ignores everything of the kind. All souls are of value with Him. . . . The sincere, earnest, contrite soul, however ignorant, is precious in the sight of the Lord. He places His own signet upon men, judging, not by their rank, not by their wealth, not by their intellectual greatness, but by their oneness with Christ. The unlearned, the outcast, the slave, if he has made the most of his opportunities and privileges, if he has cherished the light given him of God, has done all that is required. The world may call him ignorant, but God calls him wise and good, and thus his name stands registered in the books of heaven. God will fit him up to do Him honor, not only in heaven, but on the earth.” Ibid., 332.

Power of Choice

The teaching that distorts Bible predestination to mean that God has arbitrarily foreordained certain persons to be saved and others to be lost results from the neglect of the cardinal Bible truth that God has granted to every man the power to settle his own destiny. God never interferes decisively with the free exercise of man’s power of choice.

“For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn [yourselves], and live ye.” Ezekiel 18:32.

“Some seem to feel that they must be on probation, and must prove to the Lord that they are reformed, before they can claim His blessing. But they may claim the blessing of God even now. They must have His grace, the Spirit of Christ, to help their infirmities, or they cannot resist evil. Jesus loves to have us come to Him just as we are, sinful, helpless, dependent. We may come with all our weakness, our folly, our sinfulness, and fall at His feet in penitence. It is His glory to encircle us in the arms of His love and to bind up our wounds, to cleanse us from all impurity.

“Here is where thousands fail; they do not believe that Jesus pardons them personally, individually. They do not take God at His word. It is the privilege of all who comply with the conditions to know for themselves that pardon is freely extended for every sin. Put away the suspicion that God’s promises are not meant for you. They are for every repentant transgressor. Strength and grace have been provided through Christ to be brought by ministering angels to every believing soul. None are so sinful that they cannot find strength, purity, and righteousness in Jesus, who died for them. He is waiting to strip them of their garments stained and polluted with sin, and to put upon them the white robes of righteousness; He bids them live and not die.” Steps to Christ, 52, 53.

Salvation is offered freely to all, but not all accept the invitation. Salvation is not forced upon man against his will, nor is it denied him contrary to his will. Divine foreknowledge and predestination in no way exclude freedom of choice or render it ineffective, but grant to men the privilege of choosing the way of life eternal. Those who believe in Jesus Christ are justified by their faith in Him, while those who refuse to believe automatically exclude themselves.

Rewards of Salvation

Even before the creation of our world God predestinated those who believe in Jesus to be saved, and those who would not believe should be lost, but He has left it to every man to choose whether to believe or not to believe.

“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Matthew 25:34.

“By and by the gates of heaven will be thrown open to admit God’s children, and from the lips of the King of glory the benediction will fall on their ears like richest music, [Matthew 25:34 quoted].

“Then the redeemed will be welcomed to the home that Jesus is preparing for them. There their companions will not be the vile of earth, liars, idolaters, the impure, and unbelieving; but they will associate with those who have overcome Satan and through divine grace have formed perfect characters. Every sinful tendency, every imperfection, that afflicts them here has been removed by the blood of Christ, and the excellence and brightness of His glory, far exceeding the brightness of the sun, is imparted to them. And the moral beauty, the perfection of His character, shines through them, in worth far exceeding this outward splendor. They are without fault before the great white throne, sharing the dignity and the privileges of the angels.” Steps to Christ, 125, 126.

“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” Ephesians 1:4. “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” 1 Peter 1:20.

“The Lord would save us from the corruptions of the world; for he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Jesus, our precious Saviour, has redeemed us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has clothed us with the garments of salvation, even in his own robe of righteousness. Christians are to be clothed with humility as with a garment, and not to be prominent in the world, seeking for position or popularity. If heaven has sent you to be indeed light bearers amid the moral darkness, you will be content to shine in any place which God may assign to you. The praise of men, the attraction of the world, its pleasures, its amusements, its bribes, will all be powerless to win the true Christian from his allegiance to God. Neither will threatening, persecution, loss of liberty or life, induce him to turn from the commandments of God, to obey the dictates of men. He will fill his appointed place, and let his light so shine before men that they may see his good works, and glorify his Father who is in heaven.” The Signs of the Times, May 2, 1892.

Choose Ye This Day

Dear friend, before you were born, God predestined you to be saved for all eternity by exercising faith in His Son Jesus Christ. The only thing that stands between you and that promise is your personal choice. Won’t you give Him your heart just now?

In Revelation 3:20 Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” What a wonderful promise! Don’t keep Him outside the door thinking you must correct your character defects first; you can’t do it. Invite Him in now, and He will change your desires and strengthen you to do His will.

“Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:1.

“As the sinner, drawn by the power of Christ, approaches the uplifted cross, and prostrates himself before it, there is a new creation. A new heart is given him. He becomes a new creature in Christ Jesus. Holiness finds that it has nothing more to require. God Himself is ‘the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.’ Romans 3:26. And ‘whom He justified, them He also glorified.’ Romans 8:30. Great as is the shame and degradation through sin, even greater will be the honor and exaltation through redeeming love. To human beings striving for conformity to the divine image there is imparted an outlay of heaven’s treasure, an excellency of power, that will place them higher than even the angels who have never fallen.” Christ’s Object Lessons, 163.

In light of all these promises, how could anyone believe that they have no choice but to be fuel for the fires of hell?

“Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” Joshua 24:15.

[All emphasis supplied.]

Pastor Jack Jones, founder of Gospel Workers Ministry in 1995, pastors the Naples Remnant Church in Naples, Idaho. He may be contacted by e-mail at gospelworkers@starband.net.

Lessons from the Passover

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The word “Easter” appears in the King James Version of the Bible only once (Acts 12:4), and in its use it is a mistranslation. In the original language, the word, pascha, correctly translated, is Passover. The Easter weekend is usually not even the real Passover weekend. In the Hebrew calendar this weekend was the fourteenth of Abib, which was the first month of the year, or somewhere around the end of what we call March or the beginning of April. I would like to study with you some lessons that we could learn from the Passover.

Significance of Feast Days

I am not suggesting that we keep the Passover—celebration of the feast days holds no significance since the crucifixion of Christ. But study of the Sanctuary and of the feast days associated with the Sanctuary will save us from a lot of problems.

The Sanctuary cannot be studied without looking at the feast days that accompanied the work going on in it. The feast days and the Sanctuary were a lesson book to the children of Israel. They were actually a picture of the plan of salvation. From these rituals, the people could see God’s plan to save His people from sin. As we study to make the connection between the lesson and the reality of what God is really doing in the anti-typical Day of Atonement, we will gain understanding that will save us from a lot of false theology, false gospels, and heresies.

These feast days pointed forward to Christ and to what He would accomplish on the cross. Most of them were fulfilled in Christ. The Day of Atonement is being fulfilled right now. The only other feast day that has not yet been fulfilled is the Feast of Tabernacles, but we are told by the Spirit of Prophecy that we should enter into the spirit exhibited during the Feast of Tabernacles. “Well would it be for us to have a feast of tabernacles, a joyous commemoration of the blessings of God to us as a people. As the children of Israel celebrated the deliverance that God wrought for their fathers, and his miraculous preservation of them during their journeyings from Egypt to the promised land, so should the people of God at the present time gratefully call to mind the various ways he has devised to bring them out from the world, out from the darkness of error, into the precious light of truth. We should often bring to remembrance the dependence upon God of those who first led out in this work. We should gratefully regard the old way-marks, and refresh our souls with memories of the loving-kindness of our gracious Benefactor.” Review and Herald, November 17, 1885. Our camp meetings are commemorative of that day! (See The Bible Echo, December 8, 1893.)

Symbolism of the Passover

As we study the feast days, we get a better picture of how God works for His people and how His people are to respond to that work. The Passover was very symbolic of Christ’s crucifixion, and is both commemorative and typical. It not only points back to the typical, the deliverance from bondage and slavery in Egypt, but forward to the greater deliverance of His people from sin at the end of time.

You may remember the story of God’s people in Egypt—of how Moses was sent to deliver them; of Pharaoh’s refusal to release them when Moses came to him with a message from God; of the plagues that God sent to help Pharaoh change his mind. Each plague was progressively worse, until the last one—the death of all the first-born of Egypt. The first-born of every family—from Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the person in the dungeons—was to die in this last plague unless they were under the protection of God. God gave very specific instruction to His people of how they could be protected and delivered.

Exodus 12:1–5 says, “And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month [shall be] unto you the beginning of months: it [shall be] the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth [day] of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of [their] fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take [it] according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take [it] out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.”

Remember, an important feature of this is that the lamb was actually selected on the tenth day of the month. It was set aside from the rest of the herd and kept until the fourteenth day of that month, when it was killed at the ninth hour. On the fourteenth of Abib, this would be about 3:00 in the afternoon. The time equates to the time of the crucifixion, and the lamb represents Christ. Just as the Passover lamb had been for centuries, up until the time of Christ, set aside on the tenth day of Abib and singled out to be killed, so Christ, several days before He was actually crucified, was singled out by the Sanhedrin and marked for death. Just as people would look at that lamb singled out from the rest of the lambs, and say, “That lamb is marked for death,” in their minds the Sanhedrin considered Christ marked for death.

“Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all [men] will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. And one of them, [named] Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put Him to death. Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews; but went thence unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there continued with His disciples.” John 11:47–54.

So we see, just as the Passover lamb was separated and marked for death, Jesus was separated from the rest of the Jews and marked for death. It says He walked no more among them from that point on. It is quite ironic that these people, who were so into keeping the Passover, were about to kill the real Lamb to whom all of those other Passover lamb sacrifices had pointed. They were so into keeping the Passover, it was so important to them, that when they wanted to condemn Him to death they would not go into the judgment hall, because they did not want to defile themselves. They thought that, if they went into the judgment hall, they would not be able to keep the Passover. While they were so careful not to defile themselves, they were killing the real Passover Lamb! (See John 18:28.) They were very particular regarding these details, while doing such an horrific act.

Shadow of Christ

We are told that the Sanctuary, and the feast days and everything connected with them, were a shadow of Christ and of what He was about to do. I always like to picture in my mind the glory of heaven shining on a coming Saviour, casting a shadow, and that shadow is the Sanctuary, and all of the services connected with it. These people were keeping the shadow and killing the One who cast that shadow. What a lesson and a warning for us to be careful that we do not get so caught up in ceremony and form that we lose touch with reality and do not realize what is actually occurring.

Jesus was crucified about the ninth hour, or 3:00, on Friday afternoon, the fourteenth of Abib—exactly right on time. When God gives a prophecy, in His time it comes true, and that is exactly what happened. So much was it on time, that when Jesus cried, “It is finished,” and gave up the ghost, the priest, at the temple, had his hand raised with the knife ready to slay the sacrificial lamb, but the sacrifice never happened. The lamb ran away, and the veil of the temple was rent in half from top to bottom, signifying an end of that shadow. The shadow had been fulfilled by the real event. No longer were there to be any services of that type.

If you have studied the Sanctuary, you know that the thickness of the curtain, which was rent in half from top to bottom, was about the width of a man’s hand. It was a special weave of cloth, approximately four inches thick. That the curtain ripped from top to bottom was no coincidence. (See The Story of Redemption, 226; The Desire of Ages, 774, 775.) The blindness of those who get so caught up in rituals, that they cannot see they are actually fulfilling prophecy, should frighten each one of us. The Jews were very much into prophecy, yet they could not see that they were fulfilling prophecy in a negative way.

Not Rejecting or Accepting

The Passover lamb was entirely roasted. Not a single bone of its body was broken. Exodus 12:46 states: “In one house shall it [the lamb] be eaten . . . neither shall ye break a bone thereof.” John 19:36 says, “For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.”

The lamb had to be slain, but was that the end of the story? No, it was not. Was that all that was necessary to save God’s people from the death angel? No, it was not the end. There is a theology being spread about right now, even invading the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and somewhat among historic churches, which says that Christ died for all men; therefore, since Christ died for all men, the only way that we cannot be saved is to reject that salvation. That sounds pretty good, but . . . We know that Christ died for all men. The problem comes in the part about as long as you do not reject it you are saved. There is more involved than not just rejecting it—it actually has to be accepted. That might sound like minor details and semantics, but it is really a very important issue.

There is a lot of difference between not rejecting something and actually accepting it. For example, perhaps today someone might come up to you and tell you something that they have learned from Scripture or Spirit of Prophecy—something that you have never thought about. They may say, “Did you ever realize this?” Your response might be, “Well, I will have to think about that,” or “I will have to study that out; I have never thought about that before.” You have not rejected the idea, but that does not mean that you have accepted it either. There is a lot of difference between not rejecting and accepting.

Preparation

Exodus 12:7–13 gives us some detail of just what else had to be done besides just killing the lamb. “They shall take of the blood, and strike [it] on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; [and] with bitter [herbs] they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast [with] fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it; [with] your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it [is] the Lord’s passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I [am] the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye [are]: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy [you], when I smite the land of Egypt.”

“It was not enough that the Pascal lamb be slain; its blood must be sprinkled upon the door posts; so the merits of Christ’s blood must be applied to the soul.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 277. That is our present day application.

In verse 22 it says, “And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip [it] in the blood that [is] in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that [is] in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.” The blood had to be applied with a bunch of hyssop; hyssop is a symbol of purification. Psalm 51:7 says, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” David is talking about the hyssop being used in the purification of his heart.

Must eat the Flesh

Let us look at Exodus 12:8 again, “And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; [and] with bitter [herbs] they shall eat it.” The flesh had to be eaten. That was another condition of their salvation and protection. It had to be eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Concerning this, Mrs. White says, “The flesh was to be eaten. It is not enough even that we believe on Christ for the forgiveness of sin; we must by faith be constantly receiving spiritual strength and nourishment from Him through His word. Said Christ, ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life.’ John 6:53, 54. And to explain His meaning He said, ‘The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.’ Verse 63. Jesus accepted His Father’s law, wrought out its principles in His life, manifested its Spirit, and showed its beneficent power in the heart. Says John, ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.’ John 1:14. The followers of Christ must be partakers of His experience. They must receive and assimilate the word of God so that it shall become the motive power of life and action. By the power of Christ they must be changed into His likeness, and reflect the divine attributes. They must eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God, or there is no life in them. The spirit and work of Christ must become the spirit and work of His disciples.

“The lamb was to be eaten with bitter herbs, as pointing back to the bitterness of the bondage in Egypt. So when we feed upon Christ, it should be with contrition of heart, because of our sins. The use of unleavened bread also was significant. It was expressly enjoined in the law of the Passover, and as strictly observed by the Jews in their practice, that no leaven should be found in their houses during the feast. In like manner the leaven of sin must be put away from all who would receive life and nourishment from Christ. So Paul writes to the Corinthian church, ‘Purge out therefore, the old leaven that ye may be a new lump. . . . For even Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.’ 1 Corinthians 5:7, 8.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 277, 278.

Application of Symbols

We can see some very important things in these symbols as they are applied to our lives today. The bitter herbs, intended to remind the children of Israel of the bitter experience of bondage in Egypt, are to remind us of our bitter experience of bondage to sin, self, and Satan. In almost every instance in the Bible, leaven represents sin. All of the leaven was to be purged. In Exodus 12:19, it says that no leaven was to be found in the homes. “Whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off.” That phrase, cut off, is very significant also. In several places, Israel is told, if you do such and such, especially on the Day of Atonement, you will be cut off. To be cut off meant more than just to die a physical death; it meant there was no atonement for you on the Day of Atonement. It was a very serious thing to be cut off, and it was a very strong warning.

The death of the lamb provided the means of salvation, and the application of the blood made the means applicable—useful. It is one thing to be saved from death, but it is quite another thing to have the means of sustaining life. People who are put on respirators have been saved from death, but they certainly do not have the means to sustain life. Eating the flesh and drinking of the blood of the Son of God, which is assimilating His Word, provides this sustaining of life. On the other hand, another way that life is sustained is by abstaining from the leaven, or sin, which we are told will kill us. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23.

Examples of Leaven

Leaven usually represents sin of one kind or another, but it can be very specific. I would like to look at 11 different examples in the Bible of what leaven can be:

Leaven is false doctrine. “Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. . . . Then understood they how that He bade [them] not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” Matthew 16:6, 12.

Leaven represents greed and injustice. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.” Matthew 23:14.

Leaven is false zeal, not according to knowledge. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” Matthew 23:15.

Leaven is a wrong estimate of spiritual things—valuing that that will perish instead of valuing eternal things. “Woe unto you, [ye] blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor! [Ye] fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. [Ye] fools and blind: for whether [is] greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.” Matthew 23:16–22.

Leaven is the omission of judgment, mercy, and faith. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier [matters] of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” Matthew 23:23.

Leaven is hypocrisy. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. [Thou] blind Pharisee, cleanse first that [which is] within the cup and the platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead [men’s] bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” Matthew 23:25–28.

Leaven is intolerance for the straight truth. It is a dislike of truth. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. [Ye] serpents, [ye] generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” Matthew 23:29–33.

Leaven is cruelty to others, especially God’s people. “Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and [some] of them ye shall kill and crucify; and [some] of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute [them] from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” Matthew 23:34–36.

Leaven is skepticism of the truth and lack of knowledge of the Scriptures. “The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked Him, Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. . . . Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” Matthew 22:23, 29.

We are told, in 2 Timothy 2:15, to “study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Through study we will know the Scriptures and protect ourselves from skepticism of truth.

Leaven is represented as flattery, worldliness, and hypocrisy. “And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any [man]: for thou regardest not the person of men. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, [ye] hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose [is] this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s: and unto God the things that are God’s.” Matthew 22:16–21.

11 Leaven is plotting evil against God’s servants. “And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.” Mark 3:6.

Jesus warned all of His disciples against being leavened with these things.

Consider again 1 Corinthians 5:6–8: “Your glorying [is] not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth.” When Paul talks about keeping the feast of the Passover, he is not talking about keeping a feast one day out of the year, as was done for several hundred years. He is talking about keeping it every single day. All of the principles of the Passover should be in our lives each day, not just one day out of the year.

Necessity of Obedience

The lamb had to die; the blood had to be applied; the flesh had to be eaten, and it had to be eaten with bitter herbs and with unleavened bread. We must always remember that in fulfilling these requirements there are conditions. When we have fulfilled them, we have not earned a thing. That is where many Christians get into trouble. This issue of cooperation with God—fulfilling conditions by His grace—is where so many people end up in one ditch or the other. They are either on the side where we do not have to do anything—we do not have to obey God because we are under grace, or they go to the other extreme and become legalists and think that if we obey God we have somehow earned our salvation. There are whole systems of religion built on the premise that somehow we can earn our salvation. To keep this straight in our minds is probably one of the greatest lessons that God’s people must learn. By God’s grace we obey Him, but we do not earn anything. There is no merit in obedience.

In Luke 17:10, Christ said, “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” We do not earn anything; we just do what we are supposed to do in the first place. It is simply showing faith in the great deliverance to be accomplished when we obey God. To leave out any of these steps is to leave oneself without protection.

Mrs. White is very specific about this: “Before obtaining freedom, the bondmen must show their faith in the great deliverance about to be accomplished. The token of blood must be placed upon their houses, and they must separate themselves and their families from the Egyptians, and gather within their own dwellings. Had the Israelites disregarded in any particular the directions given them, had they neglected to separate their children from the Egyptians, had they slain the lamb, but failed to strike the doorpost with blood, or had any gone out of their houses, they would not have been secure. They might have honestly believed that they had done all that was necessary, but their sincerity would not have saved them. All who failed to heed the Lord’s directions would lose their first-born by the hand of the destroyer.

“By obedience the people were to give evidence of their faith. So all who hope to be saved by the merits of the blood of Christ should realize that they themselves have something to do in securing their salvation. While it is Christ only that can redeem us from the penalty of transgression, we are to turn from sin to obedience. Man is to be saved by faith, not by works; yet his faith must be shown by his works. God has given His Son to die as a propitiation for sin. He has manifested the light of truth, the way of life, He has given facilities, ordinances, and privileges; and now man must co-operate with these saving agencies; he must appreciate and use the helps that God has provided—believe and obey all the divine requirements.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 278, 279.

Exodus 12:11, 12 states: “And thus shall ye eat it; [with] your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it [is] the Lord’s passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I [am] the Lord.” “The Israelites obeyed the directions that God had given. Swiftly and secretly they made their preparations for departure.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 279.

Present Day Application

Let us look a little closer at some of the instructions that tell of how the children of Israel were, and of how we are, to eat God’s Word.

They were to eat with their loins girded. In the Bible this usually symbolizes service. Luke 12:35, 36 tells us about that: “Let your loins be girded about, and [your] lights burning; And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.” How does that apply to us today? Are we seeking to serve God and our fellowmen with our loins girded about with truth as we are instructed in Ephesians 6:14? “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness.”

The shoes were to be on their feet. This indicates that they were ready to leave. Are we prepared to walk in the narrow path of obedience today?

They were to eat with their staff in their hand. What was the purpose of the staff? For what did the shepherds use the staff? They used it to lead the sheep and to protect the sheep from predators. It was used as a tool. We are told that, in a special sense, this describes Seventh-day Adventists. “Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and light bearers. To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world. On them is shining wonderful light from the word of God. They have been given a work of the most solemn import—the proclamation of the first, second, and third angels’ messages. There is no other work of so great importance. They are to allow nothing else to absorb their attention.” Testimonies, vol. 9, 19. We are to be, as it were, in this world with staff in hand, to lead and protect the sheep with the Word of truth.

They were to eat in haste. Make haste to know God’s Word and do not be satisfied with what you already know. If we become satisfied with what we already know, if we do not continue to eat God’s Word in haste and to learn, then we become stagnant, and we die. We do not stand still very long—we either go forward or we go backward. To remain in one place is to die.

They were to prepare swiftly and secretly for departure. As I thought about that I asked myself a few questions: Are we preparing to leave this world, or are we settling in for the long stay? How serious are we about going to Heaven? What are we doing to cooperate with God? What are we doing in our homes? What do we read? What do we watch? What do we eat, wear, and think about? Are we seeking to live up to all of the light that has been given us or do we just pick and choose and take the part we like and disregard the part that rubs us wrong? God has told us, through His servant, many things that we are to be doing to prepare to leave this world. This includes the necessity of studying His Word, obeying it, and getting sin out of our lives. All of those things I just asked about—we have been given very specific instruction on what to do and what not to do, if we are really preparing for translation.

Exodus 12:29 says, “And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that [was] in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.” It is almost midnight in this world’s history. There is a war going on between good and evil, and the battle is intensifying. Why not ask God right now to help you in the preparation of your life, before time runs out?

Steve Currey is currently a Bible worker for Steps to Life Ministry. He may be contacted by telephone at 316-788-5559.