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19:2

@@@^The time has come for us to get out of our childhood, to be stable men and women — fully grown in the faith. The time has come for us all to take “strong meat,” and to fully realize that the work we are doing would have gone into the “dumps” ere this, if it had to depend on human wisdom.

21:2

@@@^@0@9Verses 13, 14 — “The Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of His people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.”@7@^This scripture emphatically declares that the Lord is pleading while He stands to judge the people, showing that the Judgment of the Living begins after this announcement of it has sounded throughout Laodicea. The charge against the ancient and the princes (leaders and ministers) is that they have eaten up the vineyard, that they have consumed the entire income, and that they have robbed His people to enrich themselves. It is a known fact that not only the tithe (the only lawful allowance for the ministry) but also the offerings (the portion for the poor) and all else are consumed by the ministry, and that they have turned even the Sabbath and the house of worship into institutions of money raising, using all kinds of means and devices in the name of religion by which to make the poor poorer and themselves richer. Not I, but the Lord is the One Who says so. It is no exaggeration, therefore, to say that the house of God is become a house of merchandise, run by thieves, that the dwelling places of the ancients and the princes thereof are used as pack rat nests, and that the Sabbath day has been turned into a market day. “Who can truthfully say, ‘Our gold is tried in the fire; our garments are unspotted by the world’? I saw our Instructor pointing to the garments of so-called righteousness. Stripping them off, He laid bare the defilement beneath. Then He said to me: ‘Can you not see how they have pretentiously covered up their defilement and rottenness of character?’ “How is the faithful city become an harlot?” My Father’s house is made a house of merchandise, a place whence the divine presence and glory have departed! For this cause there is weakness, and strength is lacking.’”—@9Testimonies@7, Vol. 8, pg. 250.

30:5

@@@^Moreover, if you sisters do not dress in harmony with the Lord’s will, in harmony with His advanced Truth, even the world, if it knows anything of your profession, will not think much of you. They are looking for hypocrites anyway, and if you are not faithful to your religion, you will in their eyes appear to be the best of hypocrites.

9:1

@@@^The Lord fed His ancient people with Angel’s food, the kind their work and climate required. He delivered it fresh daily, and it did not cost them one cent. All they had to do was to bring it into their tents and to eat it. But they disliked the manna, and wished they were back in Egypt eating from its flesh pots, “the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick.” In their eyes, Moses was the greatest of sinners, and they blamed him for every trial of their faith. Had God given them something other than manna, they would have been just as dissatisfied with it because an evil spirit was in them. Let us gladly and with thanks eat and drink what the Lord gives us and when He gives it to us.

10:2

@@@^There are thousands today who are doing virtually the same when they say, “Isaiah, chapter 2, Micah, chapter 4, Jeremiah, chapter 31 and Ezekiel, chapters 36 and 37 will never be fulfilled.” It was those who were of age, those who should have known better, that started the ball rolling down hill to destruction. The youth, of course, must have echoed the murmurings of their elders, but the Lord did not hold it against them. And in order to salvage the youth, God had to bury all their murmuring parents except the two faithful, trusting men who protested against the evil report of the other ten spies. Mark you, every adult that left Egypt, except Caleb and Joshua, had to be buried before the youth could cross the Jordan! Why? — Because though God did take them with ease out of Egypt, He could not get Egypt out of them. Are you still wondering why the prophet Elijah must “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers”? (Mal. 4:6.)

11:4

@@@^How true the statement in @9Testimonies@7, Vol. 5, pg. 80: “...In the last solemn work few great men will be engaged. They are self-sufficient, independent of God, and he cannot use them. The Lord has faithful servants, who in the shaking, testing time will be disclosed to view.”

17:2

@@@^@0@9Rev 3:14-18 — “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My Mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 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@^What is wrong with the angel of Laodicea? — He is lukewarm. He is neither cold nor hot. The Lord recommends that he be either cold or hot, — uncomfortable, in search of something better rather than stay lukewarm, well contented with his spiritual attainments, supposedly rich and increased with goods (with Truth). Not knowing that he is spiritually poor, blind and naked, he is warned of it by the All Knowing One and asked to repent. If the Lord’s own warning fails to change his mind, then the only thing left for the Lord to do is to spue him out of His mouth.

5:2

@@@^@0@9Verse 6 — “In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood; and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.”@7@^It matters not what we think, God is to have a strong, faithful people, the very kind here described; and Jerusalem is to be inhabited by holy people, not a sinner among them. Since the antitypical prophet Elijah, who appears just before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, just before the Judgment day for the living, finds the church overrun by the Devil as badly as was the Jewish church in Christ’s day, and as the saints, the first fruits, are to be rescued one by one, He at first sends fishers to fish them out and afterwards hunters to hunt them out (Jer. 16:16). Thus He gathers them one by one (Isa. 27:12, 13). And so it is today — they are fished by this free literature, and are now hunted by men right to their houses, be they in the city, village, or countryside.

7:2

@@@^To begin with, he was a first-rate shepherd, he risked his own life for the sheep. You remember that in order to save the lambs he courageously went after the lion and the bear, and killed them with his bare hands. And to save his nation’s independence and God’s great honor, on another occasion, he again risked his life by bravely facing the giant Goliath. Because of David’s faithfulness, God delivered him from the beasts and from the giant, and made him king over His people

12:4

@@@^What the world needs today is not preachers, but teachers who can teach with one hand and use the pick or the shovel with the other hand. Neither is the world in need of men “angling” for Moses’ and for Aaron’s office, but it is in dire need of men who can take orders and successfully carry them through, men who dare face the giant, the lion, and the bear, — men who dare be heroes for God,” “men wondered at,” men with unfailing faith and unlimited patience, believing that God Himself is steering the ship, and that therefore there can be no failure. The world certainly needs men like Noah, Moses, David, Ezra, Nehemiah, and a great number of Job’s.

16:5

@@@^How ironic it is for one to pray the Lord’s prayer while doing something other than working for its fulfillment! It is like a person saying, “Let me have your hand,” while he at the same time brushes it away. Such a prayer is just one form of blasphemy. We should pray that we conform our will with the will of God, be faithful in His work, and be sincerely His alone.

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.

10:1

@@@^The 144,000 descendants of Jacob, whose fathers were assimilated by the Gentile nations and who thus down through the centuries lost their racial identity, are the first fruits, the first to be gathered unto Judah. They are those who stand on “Mount Zion with the Lamb.” Rev. 14:1. The faithful descendants of the Jews who composed the early Christian church, and who also lost their national identity by naming themselves Christians (Acts 11:26), are also to be gathered from everywhere and brought unto Judah.

17:2

@@@^@0@9Hab. 3:12, 13 — “Thou didst march through the land in indignation, Thou didst thresh the heathen in anger. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of Thy people, even for salvation with Thine anointed; Thou woundest the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Selah.”@7@^Can we in faith pray for the same thing Habakkuk prayed? — That the Lord go forth for the salvation of His people, that the vision be fulfilled without delay, and that we run to proclaim the good tidings? If not, then truly we spurn Habakkuk also.

19:1

@@@^@0@9Mal. 3:1-3 — “Behold, I will send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ sope: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.”@7 If, in the face of the plain and unquestionable teachings of all the prophets, we as Seventh-day Adventists fail to give heed to the truth of the Purification of the church (the Kingdom here dealt with), the message of the Judgment for the Living and of the restoration of the kingdom of Judah — the sanctuary for the purified ones, — then certainly others will have to take our places in proclaiming it. Then along with the Jews we will have to bear the guilt of rejecting all the prophets since the world began. Why? — Because unless we actually believe all that they have written, our merely pretending to believe in them means as much to Heaven as the faith of the Jews in the writings of Moses meant to the Lord. What! Preaching the gospel of the Kingdom but denying the Kingdom Itself!

28:2

@@@^@0@9Zech. 8:22 — “Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord.”@7@^It is interesting to envisage the expansion of God’s Truth as outlined in this chapter: First, one individual speaks the Truth to another individual. Then one city communicates It to another city. Finally, one strong nation invites another nation to join the Lord. Thus will the harvest continue until the gospel work is finished, until God’s faithful people stand on the Lord’s right side (in the Kingdom), and the hypocrites with the heathen stand on His left side (in the condemned Gentile world that is ready to perish).

5:3

@@@^Then, too, spiritual “latter rain” must fall as freely and without cost to the recipients as does literal rain. Thus it is that never before has the world witnessed so much absolutely free literature scattered away as this literature is. Millions! So it is that these small comprehensive publications, the bright clouds, laden with present Truth, are now being scattered as leaves of autumn throughout Laodicea to every church member, “to every one grass” in the vineyard of the Lord. The final results? “More than one thousand,” attests Inspiration, “will soon be converted in one day, most of whom will trace their first convictions to the reading of our publications.” — “Review and Herald,” Nov. 10, 1885. Accordingly, along with the world’s dark clouds that now hover over those who are pessimistic about the promises of God, there are these bright clouds that hover over the faithful believing and trusting children of God.

2:5

@@@^We should pray for faith to enable us to know for certain that Christ will never turn away from any of us, and that if we follow Him we shall never fail in our undertakings. We should praise Him for making it possible that though we may, as it were, come upon serpents and scorpions, they cannot hurt us.

5:3

@@@^When the Lord smites the armies of the nations, He also makes the rulers of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood. Thus shall they with the “everlasting gospel” devour all the heathen round about, and thus shall Jerusalem be inhabited safely by God’s faithful people.

15:2

@@@^So it is seen that with the establishment of the Kingdom of Judah commences the sifting of the nations. It must be that we are on the verge of witnessing the fulfillment of these prophecies else the Scroll would not have been unrolled so far as to unseal them at this time — certainly not if the Spirit of Truth alone leads into all Truth, and if the Lord gives “meat in @9due season@7.” In view of this, let us wholeheartedly do God’s bidding and sincerely act out our faith in His never-failing Word.