Encouraging Assurances
By L. A. S.
The Lord’s witnesses need special experiences in order that they may be prepared to meet the demands of the present hour, and the basis of such experiences is found in personal consecration. The results of a right personal relation to God are presented in the following instruction given through the spirit of prophecy: “When you give yourself wholly to the Lord, great changes will be wrought in you. You will have such a love for the truth that wherever you go, you will bear witness to the Lord’s power. He will give you a genuine testimony to bear. He will pour out upon you his grace and power, and you will enter a new and living way. Christ’s righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rearward. Your words and works will be ratified in heaven. As you work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, God will work in you, to will and to do of his good pleasure. Power to overcome will be given you. When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” In order that the eternal Son, who is God, the exact representation of his very being, might be a merciful and faithful high priest to make reconciliation for the sins of the people, he must be made in all things “like unto his brethren.” Does he in any degree cease to be that perfect revelation of the glory of the character of his Father?—No. The revelation which is given of the Son in the first chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews is the basis of our hope, and is the very foundation of the whole experience of Jesus the Saviour from sin. That he might become that revelation of God to humanity, to humanity in sin, therefore because “the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.” It is a simple matter to see it in this way because of his relationship to his Father as the Son. As is expressed in the eighth of Proverbs: “Jehovah possessed me as the beginning of his way.” Just as we have it in Rev. 3:14, “the beginning of the creation of God,” “the faithful and true witness.” Now because of that relationship to God his Father, he was the minister to all things that were created previous to the entrance of sin. All things were upheld by the word of his power before sin came into the world. He was the same revelation of the very character of God before sin came into the world, but now he must be the revelation of that same power, he must be that same forth-shining to us in sin, to us who have fallen, and in order that he might be to us who are fallen that same perfect revelation of the glory of God, as our Saviour, as our priest, to minister for us in sin, “it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren.” The fundamental perversion of truth, which lies at the foundation of many other perversions, is a wrong conception of God and of our relation to God. How shall we be able to come into communion with God? Can we know whether we stand on a solid platform, or whether we are on a shifting platform that may be taken out from under us? Have we a right understanding of the gospel of God as given to us in Christ, or have we some philosophical, speculative interpretation of that gospel, which is simply a human perversion, and which therefore will not have in itself the power to save us in our personal experience from the power of sin? It does not make any difference whether a false god be put forth in the material form as of old, so that one falls down to a god of wood or of stone, merely an object which represents his own ideas of God, or whether that idea be presented in words, whether it be a mere speculative idea; it is none the less a false god, and it will none the less fail us unless we deal with the living God, the true God, and stand on solid ground. Now the revelation which God has made to us through his Son in the setting that he has given to it in the sanctuary and its services, both the typical and the present heavenly service, hedges us in from these perversions, and presents the truth in such a way that we shall be saved from these errors, perhaps even without knowing what they are. The revelation of the truth as it came through the light upon the sanctuary and its services more than half a century ago was in a large degree the means of bringing out this people, and establishing them with a distinct and clear message for this last generation. In this same setting of the truth there will be found the clear light which will guide this same people aright amid the confusion of false teaching which characterizes the closing years of this message. Those who desire the light for this time should look to the open door of the heavenly sanctuary through which the glory of God is shining. When God says, “Go forward,” the way may appear to be full of obstacles, apparently making any advance movement impossible. It is pretty sure, indeed, that obstacles will appear to be in the way, for it is by such appearances that the devil seeks to hinder the work of God. In reality, however, the obstacles are not there; for when God says “Go,” that word removes every obstacle that would prevent it. The forbidding appearances may remain, for it is not essential to God’s purposes that appearances should be taken out of the way. In his service we are not dealing with appearances, but with realities, and the realities are determined by his word. When God gave to Moses at the Red Sea the word to advance, appearances indicated that if the Israelites did this, they would be drowned. But when the host stepped down to the water’s edge, they found that in reality there was dry ground for their feet all the way across. The natural eye shows us the appearances, but the eye of faith shows us the realities. Let us be sure that we are looking with the eye of faith. L. A. S.