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11:3

@@@^@0@9Dan. 2:44, 45 — “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.”@7@^On Daniel’s own word, the stone is symbolical, not of something else, but of the Kingdom, the which in the parable of the wheat and tares Jesus calls “barn,” the place into which He is to put the wheat (saints) after it is separated from the tares (Matt. 13:30). Now mark carefully that according to Daniel’s interpretation the stone depicts the Kingdom, the which God shall set up not after the days of these kings, but in their days, and that the stone Kingdom Itself, not something else, shall break the great image. If our interpretation of the stone contradicts Daniel’s interpretation of it, then we do not only reject Daniel’s inspiration, but even misconstrue the Word of God! We better not. We now come to the prophet Hosea.

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.

2:3

@@@^What shall we now pray for? — I think we should pray to know that God, not man, is at the head of the work; to know that no man of himself can advance or thwart God’s work; that only God Himself can do either; that we need not feel God’s work is dependent upon us; that if we ever remember this, we shall have a closer walk with Him. This, I believe, is what we ought to pray for today.

22:4

@@@^What a wonderful lesson this reading holds for all Christians, and especially for ourselves. And now let us pray that God help us not to judge others; not to look for faults, not to make mountains out of mole hills, and not to criticize; not to set ourselves up as criterions. Let us pray that we may know that God has called us to teach the Truth, not to whip people into It. No, no more than to drive them out of It. God has asked each one to be watchman only of his own deeds. If we do this we will have our hands full; no room for more. The only watchman over His people God has ever placed are His prophets, under His Own supervision.

18:4

@@@^What is the over-all purpose of Nahum’s prophecy? It is to enlighten God’s people of the signs of the times, to make them aware that “the great and dreadful day of the Lord” is at hand, that the purification of the church, the “Judgment in the house of God” (1 Pet. 4:17) is soon to take place, that the wicked shall not much longer be in their midst, that the redemption of the righteous is at hand, that they must not fail to perform their God-given duties. Indeed, Nahum’s prophecy clearly identifies God’s people of today under the Assyrian yoke, and points to their liberation.

30:2

@@@^BRIEFLY TO SUMMARIZE OUR STUDY: We see that the time of purification of the church is at hand; that Zion (the General Conference) and Jerusalem (the local conferences) are called to “awake,” so that the daughter of Zion, the church, might be clothed with the righteousness of Christ; that she is weak; that she has not the righteousness of Christ; that the day of her redemption is now at hand; that she is to be freed from man’s rule and from hypocrisy; that Zion and Jerusalem as they are today, are no less oppressing the laity than were the Assyrian lords oppressing the children of ancient Israel; that God will not leave His people in ignorance; that they shall know it is He speaking, not an enemy as they are made to believe; that the message of the Kingdom of God is a message of comfort; that His faithful servants shall exalt His message (the Voice); that after Zion and Jerusalem awake they shall see “eye to eye,” and only those who have withstood temptation in the strength of the Mighty One will have a part in proclaiming this message in the Loud Cry (“Review and Herald,” Nov. 19, 1908); that then all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God; that God sends His Truth, not through those who are exalted and idolized by men, but through unsuspected servants; that those who do not turn from man shall fall, whereas the followers of Truth and righteousness shall live forever; that it is a sacred duty of all Truth-bearers to proclaim the message to all the brethren, for if they be not awakened @9now@7, they may sleep on forever.

13:2

@@@^We have now learned that Abraham’s two wives and two sons are an allegorical forecast of the Old and New Testament churches; that Ishmael’s arrival prefigured fleshly Israel and that Isaac’s arrival prefigured spiritual Israel, the Christians; that Ishmael persecuting Isaac was a forecast of the Jews persecuting the Christians; that Abraham’s act of disinheriting and sending Hagar and her son away from home, foreshadowed God’s act of putting away and disinheriting fleshly Israel — that only those who are “born again,” born of the Spirit, will inherit the Kingdom; that Isaac, who came into this world only by the power of God, foreshadowed the Christian church, but especially the soon-coming Kingdom church in which there is to be no Ishmaelite — no person brought in by the will of the flesh — no “tares,” no “bad fish,” no “goats” — only saints, only “such as should be saved,” and no one can be “such as should be saved” if he does not believe what the Word says, if he does not take his stand on Truth’s side. Only they that hunger for Truth and righteousness will be filled and become His precious jewels, fit to be a part of this Lord’s Jewel building. “And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.” Mal. 3:17, 18. It is a terrible thing to disbelieve the Word of God, or to be indifferent, indecisive, and inactive.

17:1

@@@^We must clean up our thoughts, our ways, our bodies, our clothes, our homes inside and out. Cleanliness is Godliness; God’s government is law and order, peace and righteousness, joy and contentment. Thus we need to be polished by the Spirit of God, be altogether Christians if we are to “shine,” if we are ever to reflect the Word of God to those who sit in darkness. If you have taken care of all the things the message teaches, then as your supreme duty and Divine privilege, take what Inspiration says: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, for the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” Those who are now sitting down as dark objects, consuming light to themselves, should now embrace the opportunity and welcome the privilege. Today is your opportunity.

23:2

@@@^“The victory is not won without much earnest prayer, without the humbling of self at every step. Our will is not to be forced into cooperation with divine agencies, but it must be voluntarily submitted. Were it possible to force upon you with a hundred-fold greater intensity the influence of the Spirit of God, it would not make you a Christian, a fit subject for heaven.... The will must be placed on the side of God’s will. You are not able, of yourself, to bring your purposes and desires and inclinations into submission to the will of God; but if you are ‘willing to be made willing,’ God will accomplish the work for you.... But many are attracted by the beauty of Christ and the glory of heaven, who yet shrink from the conditions by which alone these can become their own....To renounce their own will, their chosen objects of affection or pursuit, requires a sacrifice at which they hesitate, and falter, and turn back. Many ‘will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.’”

27:4

@@@^@0@9Verse 8 — “For I the Lord love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in Truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.”@7@^Judgment and justice is God’s motto for all His creatures. The statement, “I hate robbery for burnt offering,” implies that such unbecoming things are now practiced among His people. In this connection, some years ago I heard a certain member of the church say that in some kind of gambling he had won a little money and as his conscience hurt him to keep it, he gave it as an offering to His church! Also, I have heard several say that they work on the Sabbath, but that they turn the Sabbath’s earnings over to the church! These incidents may serve as samples of how foolish, how uneducated in the things of God are the people of God. By bringing such offerings to Him they are making God a gambler and a Sabbath-breaker, and at the same time they imagine that they are doing Him a great favor!

2:2

@@@^“The only hope for us if we would overcome is to unite our will to God’s will, and work in cooperation with Him, hour by hour, and day by day. We can not retain self, and yet enter the kingdom of God. If we ever attain unto holiness, it will be through the renunciation of self, and the reception of the mind of Christ. Pride and self-sufficiency must be crucified. Are we willing to pay the price required of us? Are we willing to have our will brought into perfect conformity to the will of God? Until we are willing, the transforming grace of God can not be manifest upon us.”

8:2

@@@^@0@9Verse 16 — “That he who blesseth himself in the earth shall bless himself in the God of Truth; and he that sweareth in the earth shall swear by the God of Truth; because the former troubles are forgotten, and because they are hid from Mine eyes.”@7@^In this verse it is implied that the Lord is taking this strange action because His unfaithful servants have not been blessing themselves in the God of Truth. Consequently, they must have been blessing themselves in the god of falsehood; that is, they have been teaching, approving, and spreading falsehood while the Lord is endeavoring to bless all His servants with Truth fresh from His throne. To those who embrace His Truth for this time, He will never bring up their past.

20:2

@@@^@0@9Jer. 31:1 — “At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”@7@^The phrase, “at the same time,” takes our thoughts back to Jeremiah 30, verse 24, where it explains that the time is the latter days, our time. Not long hence, therefore, our God will be the God of all the families of Israel, the God of the whole church. Saint and sinner during the Judgment for the Living will no longer be commingled.

25:3

@@@^@0@9Verses 17, 18 — “And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border. I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn Thou me, and I shall be turned; for Thou art the Lord my God.”@7@^Two distinct thoughts are brought to view in this verse: first, that the children of the Kingdom will come again to their own border; and second, that they will have beforehand experienced a great revival and reformation. They will have realized that God’s chastisement was for their own good, and that the Lord is their God. This reformation, along with God’s mercies, is further seen in the following verses.

22:2

@@@^Their growing more and more independent of God will sooner or later bring the end of them too, for looking down the stream of time, down to the kingdoms of today which are depicted by the feet and toes of the great image, the Spirit of Truth wrote: “And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a Kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people, but It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and It shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.” Dan. 2:41-45. Rather than merging into the Kingdom of God, they will have to be destroyed.

29:3

@@@^Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon at last saw these things as God sees them, but the hard way — not before God turned him loose for seven years to eat grass like the oxen. Later when he came to himself, he acknowledged God as the God Who rules both heaven and earth. Let us do better than did the King.

3:4

@@@^Look at the progress the world has made, and look at the stupidity which the Church is cultivating. Yes, I say cultivating, because it seems that rather than be-moaning the fact of not having added or discarded a doctrine, and rather than encouraging the people to be on the watch for God’s visitations, they are making it their business to keep the laity from coming in contact with God’s messengers and His progressive Truth, with “meat in due season,” with God’s messages for today. Anything that does not originate in their own conventions, the laity are told to have nothing to do with it. This they do simply because they themselves do not accept the Truths God sends; and because if any of their congregation came in contact with and accept It, they naturally will have to join Truth wherever Truth is. So it is their chief business to keep the laity in darkness and in fear that someone is to deceive them if they expose themselves to anything that their ministers do not approve.

18:2

@@@^“Who are standing in the counsel of God at this time? Is it those who virtually excuse wrongs among the professed people of God, and who murmur in their hearts, if not openly, against those who would reprove sin? Is it those who take their stand against them, and sympathize with those who commit wrong? No, indeed! Unless they repent, and leave the work of Satan in oppressing those who have the burden of the work, and in holding up the hands of sinners in Zion, they will never receive the mark of God’s sealing approval. They will fall in the general destruction of the wicked, represented by the work of the five men bearing slaughter weapons. Mark this point with care: Those who receive the pure mark of truth, wrought in them by the power of the Holy Ghost, represented by a mark by the man in linen, are those ‘that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done’ in the church. Their love for purity and the honor and glory of God is such, and they have so clear a view of the exceeding sinfulness of sin that they are represented as being in agony, even sighing and crying. Read the ninth chapter of Ezekiel.” Then says the Spirit:

20:4

@@@^“The true people of God,” says Inspiration, “who have the spirit of the work of the Lord, and the salvation of souls at heart, will ever view sin in its real, sinful character. They will always be on the sides of faithful and plain dealing with sins which easily beset the people of God. Especially in the closing work for the church, in the sealing time of the one hundred and forty-four thousand who are to stand without fault before the throne of God, will they feel most deeply the wrongs of God’s professed people. This is forcibly set forth by the prophet’s illustration of the last work under the figure of the men each having a slaughter weapon in his hand.” — “Testimonies,” Vol. 3, pg. 266. On which side do you stand?

6:4

@@@^@0@9Verses 24, 25 — “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”@7@^Yes, God and His law in our minds, which we acquire only by the study of the Word of God are our only hope for victory over the law of sin and the flesh.