Untitled article by Anna Agee

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 4, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 43.

GOD'S DESCRIPTION OF OUR GENERATION. NO. 2.

By Anna Agee

Of the same time and people to which reference has been made in Isa. 30: 8-11 (margin) and Ezekiel 13 and 22, the Lord speaks through Jeremiah in several parts of that book. Prominent in that prophecy we find that of chapter 6: 9-19:—

“Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel [the professed people of God in the last days, as Israel means the people of God, and remnant, the last part] as a vine. . . . To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised [unrighteous, unbelieving, as the sign of circumcision was “the seal of the righteousness of the faith” which one had, Rom. 4: 11], and they cannot hearken; behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it. . . . For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest everyone dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt [margin, “breach”] of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. . . . Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths [his commandments, Ps. 119: 35], where is the good way [his law], and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken. Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Hear, O earth; behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.”

Here we have portrayed the professed people of God walking in violation of his precepts, yet being lulled into deeper slumber by the cry of “peace and safety,” little dreaming that the Lord means them when he says, “When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, . . . and they shall not escape.” 1 Thess. 5: 3. And they will not hearken, they will not let the voice of God, through his word, awaken them to their soul’s peril. The majority of professed Christians go on to-day, walking contrary to God’s law, if not outwardly, then in thought and motive, for his law reaches even to the hidden things of the heart, and God, who looks upon the heart, not upon the outward acts alone, as man does, sees it all and measures the acts and words by the motives that underlie them, unknown many times by ourselves even, unless we receive enlightenment from the Holy Spirit.

But one command stands before the world as being openly violated by the many,—the Sabbath of the Lord,—thus making the breach in God’s law which he says the priests or ministers have not made or closed up “for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord” which is soon to come upon us. The Lord says:—

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore [for these reasons] the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.” Ex. 20: 8-11.

To-day we find the first day of the week—Sunday—exalted by man to the place which the Lord gave to the seventh. The seventh day—the memorial of God, and appointed by him as such—has been torn from its place, and “a false sabbath stands before the world,” put there by the Catholic Church, and boasted by her as the mark of her power, because “Protestants allow” the change by yielding obedience to it. “To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are.” Rom. 6: 16. Reader, if you receive light upon this subject, and see from God’s holy word, which is to try us in the judgment, that the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath, as he says it is, and yet you go on observing the first day as before, which the Catholic Church commands, at whose feet do you worship—at the feet of the Roman Catholic Church, or at the feet of the lowly Nazarene, the King, Creator, and Lawgiver of the universe—which? Whose servant are you? We may be ever so zealous advocates of the cause of Christianity, make ever so high a profession of religion, and be avowed enemies of the Papal Church, but if we do not obey our Lord and Master, who created us, gives us all we have, even died for our sins, that we might take his robe of righteousness and thereby gain an entrance through the heavenly gates, would we not be among those who “profess that they know God, but in works they deny him, . . . being disobedient”?

To those who depart from evil and walk in all of God’s commandments by the power his Spirit gives, he says:—

“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. 58: 12-14.

Even though we may have to suffer persecution for our loyalty to God, if we have Christ, we have all. He brings to us the fulfillment of every promise, and “in all our afflictions he is afflicted” (Isa. 63: 7-9); we do not have to endure it alone. We have the sure and comforting promise, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him,” as well as the warning, given in love, “If we deny him [in works as well as words], he also will deny us.” 2 Tim 2: 12; Rom. 8: 17, 18.

If we let the mind of Christ dwell in us (Phil. 2: 5), bringing, as a part of that mind, “the faith of Jesus,” by the power that faith brings us, our daily walk will be in the commandments of God. When our Saviour comes, he will find just such a remnant. Rev. 12: 17; 14: 12. Such are joint heirs with our Elder Brother to the kingdom the Father has promised—the kingdom into which there will come no sin, sickness, sorrow, pain, or death, nothing but perfection; where we, if loyal now, shall see and live with God always.

We would give our Saviour great joy, and also show ourselves to be wise indeed, were we, in the face of all that our fellow-men might say or do, to walk in God’s path where the light of his word shines. Thus would we be of that remnant whom the Lord will receive as his jewels when he comes, because they have submitted themselves to him, to let him work in them “to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Phil. 2: 13.

“’Tis only to such, at his coming, He giveth the final reward.”