Responding to New Light ( 2 )
| Remarks at the Bible School, Battle Creek, Michigan - - Monday, February 3, 1890 |
Published in Manuscript 9, 1890 ( MR 900 )
Sermons and Talks ( Volume 1 )
1888 Materials ( 1888 537.1 to 1888 543.4 ) |
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| My brethren, I am laboring most earnestly day and night. My mind is traveling. Things are constantly being revived to my mind that have been revealed in times past, all the way along. I feel such a burden pressing and urging upon me that I cannot keep my tongue silent. Now, we have talked it, and we have urged it, and we have set it before you, and begged and pleaded and prayed and wrestled with all the strength of our being, until we have felt afterward--after the occasion was over -- the whole being was so feeble that my breath might stop and my life end at any time. Still on another occasion I am urged in behalf of the people. Now, why can't you do some of this? Every time our people assemble, they come, and they hear, and they go away as they came. They may have a little light, but they do not act on it. They do not take their position on the Lord's side. You do not see that they have opened up the avenues of the heart where the Spirit of God, with its illuminating power, can come right into the heart and soul, so that they will respond. {1SAT 120.1} |
| If God is working upon me in this direction, why is there not a more decided response from our brethren, and they take hold of the work too? Is it so that the burden may press upon me constantly, and yet my brethren and sisters sit as though it must always be so, and as though they had no special work to do in this matter? Now, brethren, we want to know whether we will take hold of that which is our privilege to lay hold of in Jesus Christ. {1SAT 120.2} |
| I know there have been efforts-- a contrary influence --to throw back the light, the light which God has been forcing in here upon us in regard to the righteousness of Christ; but if God has ever spoken by me, it is the truth, brethren. It is the truth that every soul of you will receive, or your soul will be left in darkness as barren as the hills of Gilboa -- without dew or rain. {1SAT 121.1} |
| The question will come up, How is it? Is it by conditions that we receive salvation? Never by conditions do we come to Christ. And if we come to Christ, then what is the condition? The condition is that by living faith we lay hold wholly and entirely upon the merits of the blood of a crucified and risen Saviour. When we do that, then we work the works of righteousness. But when God is calling the sinner in our world, and inviting him, there is no condition there; he is drawn by the invitation of Christ and it is not, "Now you have got to respond in order to come to God." The sinner comes, and as he comes and views Christ elevated upon that cross of Calvary, which God impresses upon his mind, there is a love beyond anything that is imagined that he has taken hold of. And what then? As he beholds that love, why he says that he is a sinner. Well, then, what is sin? Why at once he has to come here to find out. There is no definition given in our world but that transgression is the transgression of the law; and therefore he finds out what sin is. And there is repentance toward God; and what then?--why, faith toward our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that can speak pardon to the transgressor. {1SAT 121.2} |
| Christ is drawing everyone that is not past the boundary. He is drawing him to Himself today. No matter how great that sinner is, He is drawing him. If the sinner can get his arm fixed upon the cross of Calvary, then there is no conviction of sin. What is he there for? Because the law has been transgressed, and he begins to see that he is a sinner; and Christ died because the law was transgressed. And then he begins to look to the righteousness of Christ as the only thing that can cleanse the sinner from his sins and from his transgressions. {1SAT 121.3} |
| Now, we want to have an intelligent knowledge of this thing. We want to take hold of the righteousness of Jesus Christ by living faith, and know that we have not any. We may work to the very best of our ability, but we cannot make a single virtue in ourselves; it is the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone that can do it. Then, as we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, we have a power and a strength that is imparted unto us, and we will not want to sin; we cannot do it with the righteousness of Christ, and with ourselves in a position where we shall have Christ working with us and by us. We may make mistakes; we may make errors; but we shall hate these sins -- the sins that caused the suffering of the Son of God in our behalf because we were transgressors of the law of God. {1SAT 122.1} |
| Now, I want to say, brethren, there is a door open, and no man can close it to you--no matter whether it is those in the highest position or the lowest position -- they cannot close it. But you can. You can close the door of your heart that the light which God has sent you for the last year-and-a-half --or nearly that-- shall not have its influence and its effect upon your life, nor be brought into your religious experience. This is what God sends His messengers for. {1SAT 122.2} |
| As John went forth to proclaim his message, God have him a work to do. He had to do that work and arouse the attention of the people. He had to cry aloud, lift up his voice like a trumpet in the wilderness, just as spoken in Isaiah: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins" (Isa. 58:1). Well now, Christ had not come yet upon the stage of action as a minister. But after the ministry of Christ commenced, here was John to prepare the way for the ministry of Christ, that the minds of the people might be agitated, that their hard hearts, and principles, and customs, and practices might be all stirred up. He condemned their course, and condemned their practices, calling them a generation of vipers. The Christ comes in with a healing balm, with a message which, with the heart broken up, the seed can fall into prepared soil. {1SAT 122.3} |
| When John's disciples became jealous of Christ, they say, "This man, Christ, is baptizing, and all men go unto him." And they bring it in to stir up jealousy. John tells them, "There cometh one after me who is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose" (See John 3:26; 1:27). Here was the very work to be done. Well, now, do you think that John had no human feelings? Of course he had! But those human feelings should not have a power over him on that occasion. No; when he sees Christ in the crowd, why he says, "Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). He directed the people right to Christ, and two of the disciples immediately followed Him. {1SAT 123.1} |
| God has workmen. They carry the work so far and they can carry it no further, because it is just as natural for the mold of man to be placed upon man as it is to breathe. Now, God calls upon another workman to come right in and advance that work. The one that was working becomes circumscribed. He cannot see that the very line of work that he is working in is not to be pursued to the very close of time. There has to be more light and power infused into the work than we have had. There are workmen to come and carry that work upward and forward. That breaks up the old mold that would be an injury to them, and which would have crippled their experience and advance. But this mold has got to be taken off. The mold of man, the peculiarities of man, are stamped upon it, and it comes to be deified by all those that receive of his labor. Now there comes in another element that takes the old mold off. This work is to be carried upward and forward, and the building is to go up. Thus God has worked with His workmen; He buried the workmen, but the work progresses still. {1SAT 123.2} |
| When I sat with the hand of my dying husband in my own, I knew that God was at work. While I sat there on the bed by his side, he in such feverness, it was there, like a clear chain of light presented before me: The workmen are buried, but the work shall go on. I have workmen that shall take hold of this work. Fear not; be not discouraged; it shall go forward. {1SAT 124.1} |
| It was there I understood that I was to take the work and a burden stronger than I had ever borne before. It was there that I promised the Lord that I would stand at my post of duty, and I have tried to do it. I do, as far as possible, the work that God has given me to do, with the understanding that God was to bring an element in this work that we have not had yet. {1SAT 124.2} |
| Our young men look at the older men that stand still as a stick and will not move to accept any new light that is brought in; they will laugh and ridicule what these men say and what they do as of no consequence. Who carries the burden of that laugh, and of that contempt, I ask you? Who carries it? It is the very ones that have interposed themselves between the light that God has given, that it shall not go to the people who should have it. I know what I am talking about. These things have not been revealed to me for the last forty years and I [remain] in ignorance in regard to them. {1SAT 124.3} |
| Now, brethren, I say, clear the King's highway, for your soul's sake. If you have interposed between the people and the light, get out of the way, or God will move you out of the way. I tell you that God calls for men to come up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. They are not to pull back; they are not to put their weight against the chariot so as to pull it back; but they are to push with all the might and energy that God has given them. {1SAT 125.1} |
| Now it is just exactly as in the days of the Jews. When a message came in, why all the power of the leaders was put against it, that it should not have access to the people. Now, brethren, go to God for yourselves, and on your knees plead with God. We cannot bear that men should go away from the very center and heart of the work here with wrong impressions. I cannot bear that they should go away from here with a cloud on their minds. If God sends us light, let it come to us, and let no man close the door, or try to close it. Don't close it yourselves. Open the door of your heart and let the brilliant rays of light shine into your heart and into your mind. I pray you, let the Sun of Righteousness in. {1SAT 125.2} |
| Now, if it is my work, and if God wants me to stand and oppose this matter to the end, I can. But how long before you decide you will receive my testimony? How long before it shall have any weight with you? How long before you will accept the word that has been among us from its very commencement? How long will you reject or turn from the testimony to your own feelings, and your own ideas, and your own impulses? I have stood here and fought every inch of ground that we may have the very message that this people has had, that I might work together with God. I want to know how that God will let His people deny and hedge up the way, that the light He has sent to His people cannot reach them. How long is this thing to be tampered with? How long is the grace of God to come to this people in vain? I plead with you, for Christ's sake, clear the King's highway, and trifle not with the Spirit of God. {1SAT 125.3} |
| We have traveled all through to the different places of the meetings that I might stand side by side with the messengers of God that I knew were His messengers, that I knew had a message for His people. I gave my message with them right in harmony with the very message they were bearing. {1SAT 126.1} |
| What did we see? We saw a power attending the message. In every instance we worked -- and some know how hard we worked. I think it was a whole week, going early and late, at Chicago, in order that we might get these ideas in the minds of the brethren. The devil has been working for a year to obliterate these ideas--the whole of them. And it takes hard work to change their old opinions. They think they have to trust in their own righteousness, and in their own works, and keep looking at themselves, and not appropriating the righteousness of Christ and bringing it into their life, and into their character. We worked there for one week. It was after one week had passed away before there was a break and the power of God, like a tidal wave, rolled over that congregation. I tell you, it was to set men free; it was to point them to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world. {1SAT 126.2} |
| And there at South Lancaster, the mighty movings of the Spirit of God were there. Some are here that were in that meeting. God revealed His glory, and every student in the College was brought to the door there in confession, and the movings of the Spirit of God were there. And thus [it was] from place to place. Everywhere we went we saw the movings of the Spirit of God. {1SAT 127.1} |
| Do you think, like the ten lepers, I shall keep silent, that I shall not raise my voice to sing the righteousness of God and praise Him and glorify Him? I try to present it to you, that you may see the evidence that I saw, but it seems that the words go as into empty air. How long is it to be thus? How long will the people at the heart of the work hold themselves against God? How long will men here sustain them in doing this work? Get out of the way, brethren. Take your hand off the ark of God, and let the Spirit of God come in and work in mighty power. I feel to stand at my post of duty. I may fall here as my husband fell, but I need to do a work for God. I need to do a work for eternity. {1SAT 127.2} |
| What is the testimony that has been given here? Who are the men to come in and give you anything, infusing new light, and bringing you up to a higher standard? If you can show them to me, if you can show me that the work is advancing, we say amen; but we cannot see it. We want to see that God puts His impress upon the work. We want to see men that bear heavenly credentials carry this work in the very last days to its completion. God will give every man here a chance if he will accept it. . . . {1SAT 127.3} |
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Now, brethren, I entreat of you, for Christ's sake, let us be reasonable. Let the Spirit of God have influence upon your hearts. I feel an intense interest for every soul here. Why? Because I look to Calvary, and I see the value of the price that has been paid for the soul; and therefore I do not want that soul to close the door of his heart to God. I entreat of you, brethren and sisters, that you should come near to God, that you should take hold of His power, and that you should not deprive yourselves of the very blessing that God wants you to have. -- Manuscript 9, 1890. (MR 900.9)
White Estate Washington, D. C. {1SAT 127.4} |