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3:4

@@@^“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” Isa. 55:7-11.

4:4

@@@^The butter and honey, then, must be symbolic, and what can they symbolize but the Word of God, the source from which Jesus learned to choose the good and to refuse the evil? He has set the example, and Inspiration plainly warns that “butter and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the land.” Isa. 7:22. Obviously, those who do not eat this spiritual butter and honey shall be taken out of the way, shall not be left in the land. “Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.” Isa. 24:6.

5:1

@@@^Yes, even after the sinners are taken out of the land, the righteous in the Lord, those that are left, shall continue to study the inexhaustible Word of God. Plainly, then, for any one to conclude that he already knows the Bible, that there is no more for him to learn, is indeed to blaspheme as the scroll unrolls.

5:4

@@@^“And hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the Truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth His Word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him. He that saith He abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” 1 John 2:3-6.

7:1

@@@^From these verses of Scripture you see that the law of the ten commandments, the eternal law which always was and always shall be, is the law which defines sin, and which judges a man either right or wrong. Now, since all mankind has broken this law, they are all condemned to eternal death, but we thank God that Jesus died in our stead and arose again, making us free from the condemnation of the law. Yes, His death and resurrection make us all free from the death which transgression of the law imposes.

7:3

@@@^Until the Lord takes us back to our own land, though, there to change our hearts and to write on them His law (Ezek. 36: 24-28), until then the struggle in which the apostle Paul found himself — a struggle to obey the law of the Spirit while the law of the flesh is against it — is to be our lot. But we thank God Who gives us power to overcome day by day in the Lord our Saviour.

8:2

@@@^Henceforth, warns John the Baptist, we should not be as the scribes and Pharisees: “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: and think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” Matt. 3:7-9.

8:3

@@@^Here you see that those who wish to be baptized must first prove themselves penitent, worthy. It must be seen that they have renounced their sins, and are living in newness of life. Moreover, they must not think that God needs them, that He cannot do without them, but that they need Him, for if need be He can create people out of stones.

8:4

@@@^To seek baptism as a way of escape from hell, is nothing less than repeating the acts of the Pharisees. Baptism should be sought as a way to become a son of God, to become an eternal, immortal being. Baptism, you see, is a public renouncing of sin, and the certification of baptism; with the gift of the Lord’s righteousness, swings open the gate of the Church.

9:5

@@@^Never since that day have men been thus baptized with the Holy Ghost and fire. Indeed, they could not have been, for never since then has a group of Christians, a church, come into one accord. There is nevertheless a promise of another such baptism after the “former rain, and the latter rain” fall upon God’s people, after His people reach full spiritual maturity.

10:1

@@@^“Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for He hath given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.... And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My Spirit.” Joel 2:23, 28, 29.

11:1

@@@^“I asked the meaning of the shaking I had seen, and was shown that it would be caused by the straight testimony called forth by the counsel of the True Witness to the Laodiceans. This will have its effect upon the heart of the receiver, and will lead him to exalt the standard and pour forth the straight truth. Some will not bear this straight testimony. They will rise up against it, and this is what will cause a shaking among God’s people.” — @9Early Writings@7, pg. 270.

13:3

@@@^“And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.” Matt. 3:16, 17.

14:1

@@@^Here is our example. After water baptism, temptations and victories are to be our lot, too. Jesus, you see, met the Devil with a “Thus saith the Lord,” with what was written. If we cannot interest ourselves in the Bible as much as He was interested in It, if we do not study to know what He would have us to do, how, then, can we face our temptations and come out victorious? Is it any wonder that many after baptism fall out of the way? The very thing that would make them strong in the faith as they see God giving them glorious victory, they shrink from, not knowing that after a storm of rain and wind, there comes sunshine and a calm. Job was tried to the limit, but gained the victory, and afterwards received double for all his losses. Why can not we?

20:1

@@@^@0@9Rev. 3:18 — “I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.”@7@^The gold tried in the fire obviously represents inspired Truth for this time, the only truth that saves, the only kind God would sell. And what can be the white raiment which the True Witness urges them to buy, if not the righteousness of Christ?

21:1

@@@^@0@9Num. 24:17-24 — “I shall see Him, but not now: I shall behold Him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall come He that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city. And when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable, and said, Amalek was the first of the nations; but his latter end shall be that he perish for ever. And he looked on the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said, Strong is thy dwellingplace, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock. Nevertheless the Kenite shall be wasted, until Asshur shall carry thee away captive. And he took up his parable, and said, Alas, who shall live when God doeth this! And ships shall come from the coast of Chittim, and shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber, and he also shall perish for ever.”@7@^Obviously this is a prophecy of Christ having taken “the reins in His own hands.” @9Testimonies to Ministers@7, pg. 300. Such is His Righteousness that we are urged to know. Concretely speaking, knowing the righteousness of Christ is knowing whole-heartedly that in the latter days He is to take the Scepter, that He is to reign; that at the outset He is to smite the “corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth”; that Edom and Seir shall be a possession for His enemies; that Israel shall do valiantly; that He shall have dominion, and so on. According to Scripture, this is our righteousness of Christ if we know it. And he who realizes that the reign of Christ and His kingdom is not something intangible, not something imaginary floating in space, as it were, somewhere across hell, but a real thing, as real as any of the kingdoms today, will immediately inquire, as did the Apostle Paul, “What wilt Thou have me to do Lord?” This we shall again see from the prophecy of Micah—

22:1

@@@^@0@9Mic. 6:6, 7—”Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”@7@^This inquiry by the people in the unfolding of this scripture reveals what they think would be most pleasing to the Lord. They think a gift of some kind from material things is perhaps the most acceptable gift they can offer for the remission of their sins. We with our own eyes actually see this very thing throughout our churches. This same condition obtained in the days of Christ’s first advent: The Jews were very particular about paying tithe even on the minutest item of income, on such as mint, anise, and cummin, but they omitted “the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.” Matt. 23:23. Honest tithing was to their credit, said the Lord, but tithing should never replace judgment, mercy, and faith. This same answer comes to us today through the prophet Micah:

23:2

@@@^Since we are asked to do “justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with [our] God,” it must be that we as a people are not practicing these things, that there is dishonesty, inconsiderateness, and pride. We are glad, though, that we are not hopelessly condemned for our iniquities, but that we are invited to give them up, to forsake them, if we expect to stand on Mount Zion with the Lamb.

25:1

@@@^@0@9Isa. 7:14, 15 — “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.@7@^No one would deny, as mentioned in our last week’s study, that this is a prophecy of Christ’s first advent. And as we have the record that His diet was not of dairy butter and of bee honey, not restricted as was John the Baptist’s, also by the fact that no literal butter and honey has the efficacy of compelling anyone to choose the good and to refuse the evil, it all proves that the “butter and honey” are symbolical of the Word of God, that Christ Himself learned from the Scriptures to choose the good and to refuse the evil.

2:5

@@@^Let us pray that our spiritual perceptions be quickened so that we shall more readily understand God’s dealings in answer to our prayers; that through conflict the spiritual life is strengthened; that we throw not away our confidence when afflictions arise, but that like Paul we rejoice for having been accounted worthy to suffer in patience.