Deuteronomy 10:15
Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.
This belongs to the rehearsal given to Israel before entering the land of Canaan, setting forth what God requires and His choice of His people. The Lord had delight in the fathers to love them, and chose their seed after them, even Israel above all peoples, as it was in that day. That choosing of the descendants above all other peoples was a free act of His love, and did not rest on Israel's greatness.
It rests on who the Lord is as owner of heaven and the heaven of heavens and the earth with all in it, as God of gods and Lord of lords, great, mighty and terrible, who regards not persons nor takes reward, who executes judgment for the fatherless and widow and loves the stranger in giving food and raiment. Jesus Christ Himself was Israel's teacher, instructing them definitely what to do. The choice is the ground of what God requires for their own good: to fear Him, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve Him with all the heart and soul, to keep His commandments and statutes, to circumcise the foreskin of the heart, and to be no more stiff-necked.
The richest blessings were in store for them if they kept His commandments, for God's word to His people is not Yea and Nay but Yea and Amen always, and prosperity is hidden with God in Christ and depends on humility and meekness and wholehearted obedience and devotion, not on human ability or importance. The choosing gave Israel the privilege of serving God and receiving every spiritual advantage according to God's promises. The election gave the advantage that to them were committed the oracles of God and made them a repository of truth for the whole world, which would have been their greatest blessing but became their condemnation when they were disobedient, unthankful, and unholy.
The instruction is part of the education to be given to students for their good, which teachers are to voice to them, and it applies the privilege of serving God to people carrying sacred responsibilities: they are to honor God's directions, serve Him with consecrated lives, and treat their duties with care. The same choosing, requirement, and privilege tests how the Christian churches stand today, and Seventh-day Adventists above all people should bear its words in mind now by heeding what God says, acting on His word instead of making too little of it, refusing worldly ambitious display, and refusing to be converted to the ideas of the world and the nominal churches; when God does great things for a person that person must not suppose he is necessary to God or lift himself above his fellow men. Its teaching means so much that it should be grouped with the other special things in Deuteronomy and put in papers and in a small book and circulated everywhere.