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19:3

@@@^You remember that those ancient Jews were by Cyrus, king of Persia, released from their captivity as soon as Babylon fell. He made a decree that they should go back to their homeland to rebuild the desolations and the ruins. The king especially decreed that the rebuilding of the temple and the re-establishing of the worship of the God of Heaven should be done faithfully and speedily. A revival of the spiritual part of the nation (the temple and its system of worship) was their chief concern. But according to Ezra 4:24, Cyrus’s decree and also another that was issued a few years later, were both frustrated, and in the second year of the reign of Darius, King of Persia, the work completely ceased, and apparently there was no hope of ever resuming again.

20:3

@@@^For example, Moses understood from childhood up that his lot it was to deliver the children of Israel from Pharaoh’s brickyards. And when he was fully grown up and thoroughly trained in the courts of Pharaoh, and saw himself strong and capable, he quickly undertook to deliver the enslaved Hebrew host: killed one Egyptian, got into an argument with a Hebrew, then deserted everything, and without hope of ever coming back he fled the country in complete defeat. Forty years later, after God endowed him with the Spirit of Prophecy, he returned and triumphantly led the Hebrew captives out of Egypt!

2:2

@@@^M.B., p. 161 — “The will of God is expressed in the precepts of His holy law, and the principles of this law are the principles of heaven.... But in heaven, service is not rendered in the spirit of legality. When Satan rebelled against the law of Jehovah, the thought that there was a law came to the angels almost as an awakening to something unthought of. In their ministry the angels are not as servants, but as sons. There is perfect unity between them and their Creator. Obedience is to them no drudgery. Love for God makes their service a joy. So in every soul wherein Christ, the hope of glory, dwells, His words are reechoed, ‘I delight to do Thy will, O my God; yea, Thy law is within my heart.’

9:3

@@@^So it was that just as soon as the set date in 1844 passed and the peoples’ hopes failed, the Lord encouraged them by giving to Sister White a vision of the ingathering of the first fruits, the 144,000, the first to get to Mount Zion and there to stand with the Lamb (Rev. 14:1), the comfort of Zion and of Jerusalem. So they started out again with a set goal to gather the 144,000 guileless servants of God, those who were to be used for the ingathering of the second fruits, the innumerable multitude out of all nations (Rev. 7:9). But as time went on rather than working with God the Denomination backslid by unbelief in the Spirit of Prophecy (@9Testimonies,@7 Vol. 5, pg. 217) and thus lost sight of the Truth that was yet to be unfolded, and the which is now brought to light.

20:2

@@@^These sad facts stand as high as mountains against your private interpretations, Elders, and as eye-openers to your flocks. If you therefore continue to say that you are not asleep, that your interpretation of the Word is unquestionable, that you have all the Truth to take you through the Pearly Gates, that you have need of nothing more, then there is no hope; you are too far gone.

21:1

@@@^Your bragging about the Denomination’s achievements and of her numerous conversions the world over, if it be true, Truth now challenges you to honestly answer the questions that here ensue: Why are you giving them hope of a home in the Kingdom if you positively know that they cannot be saved? Is not such an ingathering outright deception and the greatest endeavor to infiltrate the church with tares ever heard of? and is it not spiritual whoredom of the worst kind to fill the church of God with devils?

7:3

@@@^As Inspiration unrolls the Scroll it is, of course, but to be expected that it will find us surprisingly ignorant of many things — the very reason that It unrolls. If we, therefore, fail to exchange our ideas for the Lord’s then what hope is there for us ever to become enlightened and fitted for eternity? Our ideas are to fall flat, and the Lord’s prophecies are to stand “high and lifted up.” Our duty is to prove God’s Word correct rather than to hold tenaciously to our preconceptions and misconceptions until God Himself steps in and puts us to shame.

11:3

@@@^“After completing the Lord’s prayer, Jesus added: ‘If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. He who is unforgiving, cuts off the very channel through which alone he can receive mercy from God. We should not think that unless those who have injured us confess the wrong, we are justified in withholding from them our forgiveness. It is their part, no doubt, to humble their hearts by repentance and confession; but we are to have a spirit of compassion toward those who have trespassed against us, whether or not they confess their faults. However sorely they may have wounded us, we are not to cherish our grievances, and sympathize with ourselves over our injuries; but as we hope to be pardoned for our offenses against God, we are to pardon all who have done evil to us.”

15:1

@@@^@0@9Micah 3:12; 4:1, 2 — “Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest:... But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”@7@^As emphatically as all the prophets before him, Micah declares that after the destruction of the Lord’s ancient “mountain,” (the kingdom), comes the reestablishment of it in the last days, and that peoples and nations shall flow unto it because the Law and the Word of the Lord shall go forth @9from Zion and from Jerusalem@7. Shall you now close your ears and eyes against this promise? or do you as servants of God intend to get there with the first fruits? I hope it is the latter. We now come to the prophecy of Nahum:

7:2

@@@^How important then that you should avail yourselves of it. No, you cannot afford to stand dry under the umbrellas of Truth-haters. Get out from under their devilish umbrellas lest you lose out eternally, lest you hopelessly cry out, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” Jer. 8:20.

16:1

@@@^The prophet Ezekiel also was given glimpses of this situation: “Thus saith the Lord God; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith: and the Lord hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word. Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The Lord saith it; albeit I have not spoken? Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord God. And Mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of My people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord God.

10:2

@@@^M.B. p. 174 — “The last like the first sentence of the Lord’s prayer, points to our Father as above all power and authority and every name that is named... Amid national strife and ruin, the steps of the disciples would be beset with perils, and often their hearts would be oppressed by fear. They were to see Jerusalem a desolation, the temple swept away, its worship forever ended, and Israel scattered to all lands, like wrecks on a desert shore. Jesus said: ‘Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars.’ ‘Nations shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.’ Yet Christ’s followers were not to fear that their hope was lost, or that God had forsaken the earth. The power and the glory belong unto Him whose great purposes would still move on unthwarted toward their consummation. In the prayer that breathes their daily wants, the disciples of Christ were directed to look above all the power and dominion of evil, into the Lord their God, whose kingdom ruleth over all, and who is their Father and everlasting Friend.”

14:4

@@@^@0@9Nah. 2:5 — “He shall recount his worthies: they shall stumble in their walk; they shall make haste to the wall thereof, and the defence shall be prepared.”@7@^His worthies (his mighty generals) stumble in their walk; that is, they make a mistake as they march on in hope of victory. In view of their disastrous blunder, and in view of the fact that “he that dasheth in pieces” is mentioned no more in Nahum’s book, it is evident that by his stumbling he loses the war. Nevertheless, according to the verses that follow in Nahum’s chapters, the fall of Assyria is certain

14:2

@@@^M.B., p. 183 — “If Christ is in you ‘the hope of glory,’ you will have no disposition to watch others, to expose their errors. Instead of seeking to accuse and condemn, it will be your object to help, to bless, and to save. In dealing with those who are in error, you will heed the injunction, Consider ‘thyself, lest thou also be tempted.’ You will call to mind the many times you have erred, and how hard it was to find the right way when you had once left it. You will not push your brother into greater darkness, but with a heart full of pity will tell him of his danger.

4:2

@@@^Until now, we have been merely trifling with the Lord’s adversaries but now we must get down to business regardless who hears it. His people must now forever turn from man’s sayings, whatever they be, and confine their faith and hope in “Thus saith the Lord,” regardless through whom He says it, or else they lose out. As followers of the Lord, we should hearken to His heart-rending plea for revival and reformation:

8:2

@@@^@0@9Verse 16 — “And there shall be an highway for the remnant of His people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.”@7@^After the first fruits and the Lamb are gone to Mount Sion, there shall be a highway for the second fruits, for those who are still in “Assyria,” the world. In other words, all obstructions shall be removed. Our faith shall not fail us, and our hope shall not be in vain, for God has not forsaken the earth. He Who rules and guides the stars in their unerring path, is able to lead us safely to our own land. Indeed, just as not one of them fails in its course, so not one of God’s promises shall ever fail to materialize. Let no one deceive you in this. Study verse by verse, word for word, read, stop and think, do not hastily pass by this positive, most urgent Truth, for as it was in the days of the flood so shall it be now, says the Lord (Matt. 24:37). The first born (firstfruits) who failed to paint the door post with the sacrificial blood in the first exodus, the type, perished. So any of the firstfruits of today who fails to comply with the demands of the message for today, will as certainly perish at the angel’s slaughter weapons (Ezek. 9:5, 6).

10:5

@@@^“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. 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.

11:1

@@@^@0@9Verse 2 — “O Lord, be gracious unto us; we have waited for Thee: be Thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble.”@7@^This verse shows that while the pronouncement of woe (Isa. 33:1) is being made, at the same time a deep-rooted reformation is taking place among God’s Truth-seeking people. They are praying, not for themselves alone, but for their brethren also. They fully realize that they are approaching the time of trouble, and their hope lies in the fact that they have waited for the Lord. God’s power shall be felt throughout the earth:

2:3

@@@^“The road may be rough, and the ascent steep; there may be pitfalls upon the right hand and upon the left; we may have to endure toil in our journey; when weary, when longing for rest, we may have to toil on; when faint, we may have to fight; when discouraged, we must still hope; but with Christ as our guide, we shall not fail of reaching the desired haven at last....”

21:4

@@@^@0@9Verse 18 — “Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.”@7@^Now when the world needs and longs for peace more than ever before, God, Who only is able to give it is loudly declaring that those who really want peace can have it if they but come to Him. This hope and faith in the promises of God is even now to be our only peace of mind if we really believe.