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EXPERIENCE

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 10, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 30, No. 26.

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EXPERIENCE

By Elder Joseph Bates

Of Repairers, and Restorers of Paths to Dwell In.

BY ELDER JOSEPH BATES.
TEXT. “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets, since the world began.” Acts. iii, 19–21.
These words are a part of the prophetic discourse spoken by the apostle Peter, soon after the day of Pentecost, to an excited gathering of thousands of people to see a man who was born lame and had been healed: “And all the people saw him walking and praising God: and they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus, whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But ye denied the Holy One, and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. And his name, through faith in his name, hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord,” &c. Chap. iii, 9–19.
Our text refers us to five prominent points of doctrine; two of which cover the whole gospel dispensation, while the other three have their prominence in the end of this age. We will now examine them in the following order: 1. Repentance. 2. Conversion. 3. Restitution. 4. Refreshing. 5. Blotting out of sins.
I. REPENTANCE. Repentance is the first condition of the remission of sins. Without repentance there is no salvation. It is clearly taught in both the Old and New Testaments.
“Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job. xlii, 6. “Therefore say unto the house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, Repent and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.” Eze. xiv, 6; and Heb. xii, 17.
New-Testament testimony: Said John the Baptist, “Repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Matt. iii, 2. Said the Saviour, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of Heaven is at hand: repent ye and believe the gospel.” Mark i, 15.
“There were present at that season, some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering, said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” Luke xiii, 1–5.
The Lord is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Pet. iii, 9. “But now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained,” &c. Acts xvii, 30, 31.
After the resurrection of our divine Lord, he opened the understanding of his disciples, and taught them, saying, “Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Luke xxiv, 46, 47.
By the foregoing testimony we learn that repentance was to be preached unto all men, and those that do not repent will perish in their sins.
What is repentance? Says Paul, “Now I rejoice not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner. . . . for godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of; but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” 2 Cor. vii, 9, 10.
1. What are we commanded to repent of? Answer. Sin. 2. What is sin? The transgression of the law. 3. What law? The law of ten commandments. Exo. xx, 3–17. Says John, “Whosoever committeth sin, transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John iii, 4. Again the apostle Paul says, “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” Rom. iii, 20. “For where no law is, there is no transgression,” or sin. Chap. iv, 15. “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.” Rom. vii, 7. The apostle here quotes the tenth commandment, and thereby shows that he had reference to the moral law of God. Here we learn that every sinner lives in violation of one or more, of the ten commandments, and should repent of his sins, and seek forgiveness of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who died to save his people from their sins.
II. AND BE CONVERTED. Said David, “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Psa. xix, 7. The apostle James shows that conversion is a change from error to truth. “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.” James v, 10, 20.
Again, converts are new creatures. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 2 Cor. v, 17.
By these testimonies we understand that sinners who truly and sincerely confess, forsake, and repent of all their sins, and God for Christ’s sake forgives them, all such have turned from the error of their ways and are truly converted to God, and their names are at that time recorded in the book of life. See Phil. iv, 3. Rev. xiii, 8. To all such the Saviour says, “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.” Rev. iii, 5.
To be converted is the beginning of our Christian experience. To overcome, is salvation and eternal life; the end of all our Christian experience. The requirement to overcome, we understand is addressed to all such as are converted, and their names written in the book of life. Some have supposed if they have once been converted and made just before God, that they should certainly be saved. Such are in a great error; for Solomon has said, “There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good and sinneth not.” Eccl. vii, 20. These sins then must all be overcome during our Christian experience.
How may the anxious, repenting sinner, when forgiven of God, know it, and know that he is converted? First, by losing all his burden of sin, and feeling the love of God shed abroad in his heart. Secondly, by his strong desire to tell God’s dear children how he feels, and what Jesus has done for his soul.
Again, John the beloved disciple who had a long and continued experience in the work of converting sinners to God, shows in two ways how all converts may know. 1. “We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.” 1 John iii, 14. 2. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous.” Chap. v, 2, 3.
III. THE RESTITUTION. “And he shall send Jesus Christ, . . . whom the Heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” Chap. iii, 20, 21.
The holy prophets have spoken God’s unadulterated word; and his “word is truth.” But these truths have been adulterated, misinterpreted, and wrested from their true meaning, by wicked men, by idolatrous and pagan nations, especially Papal Rome, the harlot who has been “drunken with the blood of the saints.” Rev. xvii, 6. “It has cast down the truth to the ground.” Dan. viii, 12. “It has spoken great words against the Most High, and has worn out the saints of the Most High, and thought to change times and laws, and they have been given into his hand until a time, times, and the dividing of time.” Dan. vii, 25. Is not the truth, then, first to be restored? We think it is.
And has not God also spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets in relation to the order of this restoring, and specified the class of his people who will restore back to their proper place his precious truths? We believe he has. Thus he speaks by the mouth of his holy prophet Isaiah: “And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isa. lviii, 12–14.
Mark! this company are called repairers of the breach and restorers of paths to dwell in. As before shown, the popes have “thought to change times and laws.” After trying their best to do so, they teach from their catechisms thus: “Who changed the Sabbath into Sunday? Ans. The governors of Rome.” Rome has been governed by popes for more than thirteen hundred years, during which time they have required all their subjects, by a universal law, to keep Sunday for the rest day, instead of God’s Sabbath of the fourth commandment. This is the breach they have made in God’s covenant of ten commandments which those who are called “repairers” are restoring. When the restorers make the Sabbath a delight, then they delight themselves in the Lord, and feed on the heritage of Jacob, in other words, they feed on the sure promises of the inheritance of the saints; “for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
From the testimony adduced, it appears that the Sabbath of the fourth commandment spoken by the mouth of God is the first precious truth for the repairers of the breach to restore. The stated time to commence this important work of restoring was proclaimed to all the world at a definite period of time, as follows:
“And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him: for the hour of his judgment is come; and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” Rev. xiv, 6, 7. When the proclamation of the judgment-hour cry was finished, calling for a reformation in the worship of God, in the fall of 1844, “the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, . . . . . Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. xiv, 9, 12.
Here we say, then, are the repairers of the breach, since the fall of 1844, beginning to restore the Sabbath of the fourth commandment; worshiping Him that made heaven, earth, and sea, as the prophet Isaiah has taught that all flesh will do, when they shall come to worship before God from one Sabbath to another in the earth made new. Isa. lxvi, 22, 23.
“Paths to dwell in.” “Thus saith the Lord, stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” Jer. vi, 16. Said David, “show me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth to all such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.” Psa. xxv, 4, 10. Again, “Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.” Psa. cxix, 35. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Verse 105. “That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.” Prov. ii, 20.
Here in the old paths is found mercy and truth. The word of God is a lamp to the feet and a light to the path of the good and just, that keep the covenant of God, and his testimonies, and make his commandments their delight. As this company of restorers increase and multiply in their onward track, along this pathway, seeking rest for their souls, methinks their joyous songs will be raised in unison with one of old, saying, “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” Prov. iv, 18. God, by the mouth of his holy prophet, describes the beauty and glory of this path, with its over-joyful company of restorers, away down in the perfect day, shouting their everlasting songs of redemption, thus:
“And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” Isa. xxxv, 8–10.
Fathers, mothers, children, and friends, come and enlist under the banner of the third angel, and go with us on this highway, this pathway of the just, down to the perfect day, where sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
IV. TIMES OF REFRESHING. We understand that the times of refreshing means the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit of God upon his people, to qualify them to carry out the loud cry of the third angel’s message, similar to the wonderful refreshing at the day of Pentecost. Acts. ii, 2–4.
Some teach that this miraculous work of God was all accomplished at that time, because Peter then quoted a part of the prophecy of Joel. Chap. ii, 14–21, saying, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,” &c. Now Peter could not understand that the refreshing at the day of Pentecost was the only and last one, because he afterward (in the text) speaks of refreshings on God’s people at the time of blotting out of sins. Joel also shows that a most powerful work of the Spirit of God will come on the servants of God at the time his voice is heard from Heaven (yet future) to deliver his people. Chap. iii, 15–17; ii, 28–32; Dan. xii, 1.
Again, “Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Mal. iv, 5, 6.
Matt. xvii, 1–18, informs us, that while the Saviour was being transfigured on the mount, Moses and Elias were with him. Elias represented the living saints that would have the same spirit for translation at the second coming of Christ as he had; while Moses represented the righteous dead that would be called from their graves.
When the Saviour charged them not to tell the vision to any man, &c., “his disciples asked him saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias has come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.” Verses 10–13.
Luke makes it still plainer, thus: “But the angel said unto him, fear not, Zacharias; for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John . . . . . and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And many of the children of Israel shall turn to the Lord their God, and he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people, prepared for the Lord.” Chap. i, 13, 15, 17.
Here we understand, it is not the person, but the spirit and power of Elias who was filled with the Holy Ghost. This same Spirit will be given to the people of the Lord just before and after the great day of the Lord.
1. Malachi’s third chapter represents a people preparing for the coming of the Lord. In verse 10, he says, “Bring all your tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” This blessing coming from Heaven upon his willing and obedient people will qualify them to carry out the loud cry of the third angel’s message.
2. Then again, at the voice of God, after the message has closed, in the time of trouble, as we have already shown from Joel iii, and Dan. xii, 1; and lastly, at the change of the living saints, 1 Cor. xv, 52, and the resurrection of the just.
Says God, “O my people, I will open your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And I shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live.” Eze. xxxvii, 12, 14.
These we understand are the refreshings from the presence of the Lord.
V. BLOTTING OUT OF SINS. This work we understand will take place between the first and second refreshing, at the close of the loud cry of the third angel’s message and end of the gospel age, where the scapegoat, the Devil, the author of their sins, has them placed upon his head. Said Jesus, “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life,” &c. Rev. iii, 5. Here at the overcoming place, the end of probation, the saint’s names will be retained and their sins blotted out, while those who fail to overcome will have their names blotted from the book of life. Says God, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions, for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Isa. xliii, 25. Again, “I have blotted out as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.” Chap. xliv, 22. Here is the blotting out, at redemption.
Dear friends, let us heed the teaching and admonition of the text, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.” Amen.