TEACHING

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 11, 1901

The King's Messenger.

“No need that any man teach you.” “Taught of the Lord.” “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” “The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.” He takes of the things of God and makes them known unto us, and thus shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord.

The things of the Spirit of God cannot be taught by the natural man; neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discovered. Only the Spirit can make known the deep things of God. “Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth.” The Holy Spirit is the teacher, and He must be received and given place, and will teach, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

Material teachings will not answer. The teachings of the schools, or the pulpit, or the press, will not do. Mine or thine cannot measure up. We must needs be taught of the Lord. The Comforter has been sent, has come, is here, to be received and to enter in and abide and be made our Wisdom, our Counselor, our Guide, and to teach us all things and bring to our remembrance and show us things to come.

The Holy Spirit is the teacher. The Bible is the text-book, given of God. He wrote it, “given by inspiration”—His revelation. He only can teach it; for He is the only One that can open the book and apply it to our hearts. This book is the book of books, that must be learned by the heart. Other knowledge is received by the intellect. The brain is the seat of temporal knowledge, of worldly wisdom, but the will of God in the Scriptures must be received in the heart; for head reception will not answer. With the heart man believes unto righteousness, and God, the Holy Spirit, indwelling in our hearts, makes known to our hearts the things freely given to us of God.

We must know God to know His word, His will, His way. It will not meet the case to commit to memory the text of the book, even if it be in the original tongues. We must know the Author, and He must make himself known to us, as He does not unto the world. He is the light, He will illuminate the sacred page until it becomes a new book, and it will be a new revelation with new meaning and power. This comes not by study or searching, but by receiving Him, doing His will, and thereby knowing the doctrine.

It is hard and difficult, and, we are taught, dangerous, to put away the teachings which man's wisdom teaches; but we must do this to make room for the wisdom from above. The letter killeth, but the Spirit maketh alive. The Spirit openeth, the letter closeth. The one gives place to the other. The Holy Spirit must have the entire control, so He can make himself known, and unfold the truth as it is in Jesus; for no man can truly say that Jesus is the Lord save by the Holy Ghost.

We receive Him. He becomes our teacher. We look not to man teachers, nor to church doctrines, or dogmas, to religious books or papers, to holiness expounders, nor to evangelistic persuaders. We look unto Him who is the author and finisher of our faith. We keep looking unto Jesus; are dependent upon the Comforter. We become as little children, helpless, and of no strength, or might, or power. We simply surrender our entire will to Him. Our self dies, and He reigns and rules. He delights to make known, to solve to us and in us, the mystery.

He is no respecter of persons. His gospel is not of man; it is not “by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” We must have the Spirit to understand God, and that is the only way He is revealed; and then we follow on to know the Lord. We do not receive this teaching at once. It is like all other knowledge in this respect. It is line upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, precept upon precept; here a little, there a little. It cometh not with observation. It is not a splurge, nor a splash. Fleshly things may be that way, but the things of the Spirit are to make us perfect through suffering; to make us wise unto salvation, and wise to win souls.

This is not speaking with the tongues of men and of angels; for this without charity, love, God, the Holy Spirit, is as sounding brass or tinkling cymbals. This is nothing; this is flesh. All flesh is carnal, and to be carnally minded is death.

We try to teach. We go out to convict and convert. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and we cannot do it. We work, and work, and work the works of the flesh, and think we are laboring for God. We are followers of men; we make them our patterns, and take their ideas and their dogmas as our own, and we look to men, to households, to denominations, and alliances, and gatherings, for their praises and commendations. We try to make people religious, to proselyte, and to demand that everybody shall conform to our way of thinking. We compass

sea and land to do this, and do it to be successful and popular, and to see the work of our hands. We want prosperity, and fear ridicule, and dread adversity. We follow after, and contend for, the traditions of the elders,—the way our fathers went, the teachings of the ministers,—and, resting upon these, our spiritual understanding is clouded, is veiled, and we doubt and walk in darkness,—taught of men, not taught of the Lord.

The Teacher teaches of unseen things. The natural things are evanescent, passing away,—no stability, no security, no satisfaction. All fleshly things are of no real good. We go into church work with all our hearts. We give money, time, and talents; we are full of service and piety and profession.

So did I, so was I. The spiritual I did not know; I thought I did. I was a Methodist of the Methodists, an extreme of the extremes, a Pharisee of the Pharisees; fasted and wept, dressed and tried to look puritanical, attended to all known and many unknown duties. I was righteous overmuch, but it was the righteousness of the flesh, and it did not satisfy, and I was all the time losing what I had, and seeking to regain it. I was at school in and to the flesh. The Enlightener came. I ceased from self, stopped the works of the flesh, began to unlearn what I had learned of man, so I could be taught of the Spirit. At one time I knew it all, I had it all, and had the best there was. All that vanished. I was nothing, knew nothing, but had received Him. I was no good, no use; my righteousness was as filthy rags, my holiness full of holes, my noise and clatter was in my emptiness. I became quiet, still; stopped my self-workings, and simply let Him.

For fourteen years I have been in the Teacher's hands. I have not as yet attained. I am going on to know. Leaving the first principles, I am pressing forward. I may be a dull pupil, but it is not in my scholarship, but in His teaching. I have learned I am nothing; He is all in all. I am His. He has me in training. I leave it all with Him. He will guide me by His counsel. He will keep that which I have committed to Him, and my faith lays hold on Him; for I have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that I may know the things which are freely given me of God, which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

This is hard for the natural man to understand. It seems to him foolishness and fanaticism; and to many Christians it is an occasion of stumbling; but he that is spiritual, led of the Spirit, taught of the Lord, will be able to comprehend the length and breadth, the height and depth, and know the love of God which passeth understanding.