Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 19, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 20.

“Enquire and make search and ask diligently.”

780. Acts 3:19, R.V. “Times of Refreshing.”

“REPENT ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.” The apostle affirms that our sins are to be blotted out in order that there may come seasons of refreshing. The latter follows the former. Are they a matter of individual experience? or do they pertain to the church in general? What is meant by the “seasons of refreshing”? and when do they come? J. N. A.

More than all else, all God’s precepts and promises should be matters of “individual experience.” His blessings will avail us naught if this be not the case. The “blotting out” of sin comes even closer home than in the books of heaven. God would have His law written on the heart; but He will not write it where sin is written. Repent, turn from transgression, and God will blot the sin from the heart’s tablets, and write thereon His law. Or, to change the figure, He will pour out the rain of His Holy Spirit on the erstwhile dry, barren, thorny soil of the heart, and cause fruit to spring up to His glory. Refreshing comes from water, from food. These are provided in the Spirit and Word of God. See Isa. 44:3; Zech. 10:1; Joel 2:22, 23; John 6:51-58, 63; Acts 20:32. This refreshing will be true of His whole church when Christ appears, but it will become true of them by its being true of individuals first. “Seasons of refreshing” always await him who puts away sin, feeds on God’s Word, and drinks in of His Spirit.

781. Isa. 58:13. Honoring God.

PLEASE explain Isa. 58:13: “And shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.” Does this last expression mean that we should not speak our own words in a business way on the Sabbath? or does it mean we should not come together to gossip on the Sabbath and tell what we have done through the week? C. J.

The last part of Isa. 58:13, quoted above, refers not only to the Sabbath, but to all the time. The Christian should be the Lord’s, seven days in the week. Of course conversation about every-day business is not proper Sabbath conversation. But the real thought is that in all our doing, our seeking, our speaking, we should “honor Him.” He who thus does will keep the Sabbath as it should be kept, “holy to the Lord;” for he will seek to know God’s will in God’s Word. He will find the Sabbath all too short for talking and meditating and praying over the things of God; and he will “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” all through the week.