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The Sabbath School

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 3, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 41.

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The Sabbath School.

LESSON FOR PACIFIC COAST.—NOV. 12.

LESSON COMMENTS.

By an oversight, incident to the hurry of camp-meeting work, the lesson comments in last week's SIGNS are dated November 5. The date should have been October 29. To get straight once more, we have omitted one lesson. We trust none have been misled by the error.
“Three times a year, all the Jews were required to assemble for religious purposes at Jerusalem. Jesus had not attended several of these gatherings because of the enmity of the Jews. When he declared in the synagogue that he was the bread of life, many of those who had followed him apostatized and united with the Pharisees to watch him and spy upon his movements in the hope of finding cause to condemn him to death.
“The sons of Joseph, who passed as brothers of Jesus, were very much affected by this desertion of so many of his disciples, and, as the time approached for the Feast of Tabernacles, they urged Jesus to go up to Jerusalem, and, if he was indeed the Messiah, to present his claims before the rulers, and enforce his rights.
“Jesus replied to them with solemn dignity: ‘My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto this feast; I go not up yet unto this feast, for my time is not yet full come.’ The world loved those who were like itself; but the contrast between Christ and the world was most marked; there could be no harmony between them. His teachings and his reproofs of sin stirred up its hatred against him. The Saviour knew what awaited him at Jerusalem, he knew that the malice of the Jews would soon bring about his death, and it was not his place to hasten that event by prematurely exposing himself to his unscrupulously hatred. He was to patiently await his appointed time.”—Mrs. E. G. White.
“Jesus had been kindly received in the alien district on his former passage through it, northwards, but he was now going towards Jerusalem, instead of leaving it, and this was enough to rouse the bitterness of the Samaritans. As was his custom, he had sent on messengers before him, to secure hospitality for the night, but it was at once refused. John and James—the sons of Thunder—who had perhaps been the messengers, were especially indignant, and showed how little they had profited by the lessons of meekness they had so long been receiving. With the harsh Jewish feeling which regarded every one except a Jew as accursed, and hateful to God, they would fain have called fire down from heaven to consume the unfriendly village. They had likely spoken of Jesus as the Messiah, or, perhaps, his fame as such, may have already crossed the border. But the Samaritans expected from the Messiah that he would restore the temple on Mount Gerizim, and instead of that, Jesus was going up to a feast in Jerusalem. John and James, however, could make no allowance. Elias had once called fire from heaven in his own honor; how much more should men perish who had rejected the Messiah. The teaching of Jesus had not as yet softened the fierce Jewish spirit of the twelve. Fanatical bitterness had struck its root into their deepest nature. How utterly they were still wanting in patience towards the erring, and filled only with the thought of wrath and destruction! They had not yet realized that the kingdom of Jesus is one of faith alone; that it cannot be spread by compulsion and violence, but must spring from humility and love; that it must rest on free and honest conviction, and can grow strong and abiding only when a childlike spirit obeys and advances it.
“Deeply troubled, and no less offended, Jesus turned toward the fierce zealots, and rebuked their foolish and cruel harshness. They had heard him say that he came to serve, not to reign; to suffer for others, not to inflict suffering on any; and he had but lately told them, once and again, how he was about to give himself up to death for the good of the world. But though their ears had heard, and their conscience approved, the intimation, and hence they were ever exposed to fall back into Jewish fanaticism. Rebuking them sternly, he taught them a needed lesson, by merely passing to another village.
“It was hard for the disciples to realize that, to be followers of Jesus, they must surrender themselves unconditionally to the will of God, and devote themselves to the work of the kingdom, without a lingering tie to the world they had left. The circumstances demanded explicit statements of what discipleship thus involved, and hence, when fresh applicants for the honor presented themselves, Jesus was more frank and earnest, if possible, than ever before, in setting the cost before them. A Samaritan had come forward asking leave to follow him; as if to show that all were not like the villagers who had treated him so unkindly. It may be he had very imperfect ideas of what his wish implied, but Jesus did not leave him in doubt. He told him all his own position, and all that awaited his disciples; that he had forsaken house and home for ever, and that the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, had a lot to be envied compared with his.
“The seeming harshness of his replies to two others, perhaps Samaritans, who also asked leave to follow him, is explained by these facts. From the first he had held out no rewards, but predicted only privation and suffering to his disciples, but these were closer at hand than they had been when he called the twelve. To follow him had come to mean, literally, to leave all, and to make one's mind to the worst. He was a mark for the fiercest hatred of those in authority, and his circle could not escape suffering with their Master. The most utter, unqualified devotion, the purest spirit of self-sacrifice, were required. ‘Let the dead; those who will not receive the preaching of the Kingdom, bury their dead,’ said he, to one who wished to bury his father. ‘Surrender yourself utterly to God.’ Another, whose want of the supreme resolution demanded, showed itself in a request to be allowed to bid farewell to his friends, was told that it could not be. ‘The prayers, the tears of your circle at home, might shake your decision to consecrate yourself wholly to the kingdom of God.’”