Isaiah 58:1, commentary and pictures

God commands a bold, loud, unsparing public exposure of wrongdoing like a clear trumpet blast that is not softened, delayed or silenced by opposition, but given repeatedly in the power of the Holy Spirit. Those to be reproved are His own professed people in the church, not the unbelieving world, who outwardly seek Him daily with prayer, fasting and ordinances while remaining self-deceived, backslidden and trampling His precepts. The wrongs to be shown are hypocritical fasting joined with oppression, strife and violence, selfish neglect of the hungry, poor, homeless and afflicted, and transgression of His law and covenant especially in forsaking the Sabbath. For the present time near the close of probation this means proclaiming the third angel's message with the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus at its center and the Sabbath as the great test. It binds ministers, physicians and every believer to deliver plain, tender, loving warning with self-examination and practical Christlike benevolence, which when heeded brings light, healing, answered prayer and peace, and when rejected leaves souls unwarned and judgment beginning with the church.

Loud Trumpet Manner Commanded

The verse orders a bold, clear, loud, unsparing, trumpet-like public exposure of transgression and sin among God's professed people, and it is not to be held back, softened, or delayed. It is a call to show Sabbath-keepers who make great claims to godliness that religious profession does not excuse selfishness, neglect of the needy, self-righteousness, or rejection of truth. The rest of the chapter defines the evils confronted as outward devotion and fasting joined with selfishness, oppression, strife, and neglect of the hungry and poor, over against true worship that releases the oppressed, shares with the needy, honors the Sabbath, and is followed by light, healing, guidance, and restoration. Its message belongs to the churches in the present time and is to be given repeatedly to large congregations.

The trumpet means giving a certain, distinct, decided, stirring sound that can be heard on high, not a vague, tame, lifeless, muffled, or weakened voice diverted by other interests. It exposes those who seek God daily and delight to know His ways as if doing righteousness and not forsaking His ordinances, while in fact forsaking Him and trusting outward forms, ceremonies, and performances as the priests and Pharisees did without meekness and lowliness. It is distinct from fasting for strife and debate, whose noise men make to be heard on high but which does not give the certain sound. Applied to the present proclamation of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus as the central theme of the third angel's message, it requires presenting the Sabbath plainly as the great test and exposing violation of the law Christ Himself proclaimed from Sinai, without beating about the bush, gradual preparation, or indefinite, voiceless manner, especially at camp meetings.

The warning must be spoken whether hearers listen or refuse to listen, for messengers are responsible to deliver it, not to make men believe, and must not promise peace to transgressors where there is no peace. It is not to cease when it fails to coincide with prevailing opinions, when eyes and ears are closed, or when unsanctified decisions and councils stand in the way, and it must be maintained with the meekness of Christ even when the messenger's mission is unrecognized. When the plain straight testimony comes many treat it with disdain and reject the light, and those who reject warning, refuse reform, and justify themselves are left to follow their own ways and perish. No one is to stand between the people and the message from heaven to bar clearer light from reaching them, for the message will surely reach the people, and if no human voice gave it even the stones would cry out.

Its success comes not by human might nor by power nor by force, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts communicating light amid the perils of the last days, with responsibility measured by light given. It is correction in righteousness that plainly marks out the way of the Lord, rejecting mere profession and zeal in a false faith and requiring practical godliness, Bible religion that does justice and mercy and lifts up the purest principles of the kingdom. It is to come from lips under the moving of the Spirit of God, delivered earnestly and fervently in His power by those who know the life and power of salvation, not in tame, lifeless, or smothered tones. So given, it sets before backslider and sinner his true condition and immense loss in continuing in sin, coming down to the minutiae of life, keeping feeble faith from dying, and pressing believers to shine as lights, in simplicity without glossing to please minds, charm the moment, or exalt self, leaning on God alone and unmoved by scorn, derision, reproach, and censure. It belongs to watchmen on Zion's walls to labor faithfully, warning every person and teaching with wisdom to present everyone perfect in Christ, preaching the word in season and out of season with reproving, rebuking, and exhorting in patience and doctrine rather than only smooth things.

The trumpet call is as the trumpet Moses used to make God's commands known throughout the camp, whose clear, repeated sound carried the message to the whole congregation. It therefore calls for extended public proclamation to God's people that sets the Word of the Lord in contrast to the words of man.

People Addressed and Described

“My people” and “the house of Jacob” mean God’s professed people, His church, Sabbath-keepers who make great claims to godliness, not sinners, unbelievers, or merely the wicked world. They still belong to God even though they are not living according to the light they have received, and He sends the message to turn them from sin and save them, whether given publicly or from house to house in the simplicity of truth. The following verse identifies them as those who seek God and appear devoted and greatly interested in His service, yet the rebuke proves their disobedience and trampling of the divine precepts. That forsaken ordinance is the Sabbath, and the call applies in the present time to repair the breach made in God’s law and restore the divine institution.

Those to be reproved outwardly seek God daily, delight to know His ways, ask for the ordinances of justice, take delight in approaching God, pray, fast, afflict the soul, and observe ordinances and ceremonies. They stand as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinance of God, claiming to do righteousness as if they had not forsaken Him, while in reality they have forsaken God. This applied to the Jewish nation as Christ found it, especially the priests and Pharisees who looked to outward forms and ceremonies and their form of worship to commend them, while lacking the spirit of meekness and lowliness. Their fasting is rejected when it accompanies finding pleasure, exacting all labors, exploiting workers, pursuing their own interests, fasting for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness and oppression and violence, with mere bowing of the head as a bulrush and spreading sackcloth and ashes as appearance of humility, which God does not choose or accept to make the voice heard on high. Such good works do not earn salvation, but follow from living faith and Christ dwelling in the heart, changing life and character; the fast God accepts breaks wickedness and burdens and frees the oppressed, and the trumpet voice is a certain sound, the voice God bids be heard on high, not the voice of fasting for strife and debate.

Despite that profession they consider themselves righteous, take pride in religious observances, rely on self-righteousness, and reject truth, with apparent devotion concealing self-righteousness and failure to accept and obey the truth. They can bear the honorable name of God’s people while becoming self-exalted and self-deceived, complacent, backslidden, blind to their sinful condition and to where they are in danger, failing to honor God through the self-denial and self-sacrifice shown by Christ. Religious profession and claims of obedience can conceal distance from God, betrayal of trust, worldly policy, selfishness, covetousness, and character defects, when outward ceremonies and fasting do not prove true piety because the life contradicts them. This blindness helps explain why prayers are not answered, and why conscience must be awakened to identify wrong as wrong, even when people deny their sins or appear reformed without genuine confession and repentance. Their deficiencies and the work they must do are to be plainly revealed for their eternal good, without softening to spare feelings or flattering them, so they may die to self, be born again, repent, confess, be converted, humble themselves, and live out mercy, justice, and judgment, which vindicates God’s warnings, shows He knows the course of the unrepentant, and warns others against following their example.

The verse is God’s answer when His people accuse Him unjustly, setting their side of the question against God’s side by showing them their transgression and sins. They observe outward forms yet bring a charge against Him that He does not see their fasting and afflicting of soul, does not acknowledge their works, does not regard them or answer their prayers, does not give them all their desires, and leaves their services unnoticed, following unbelief and sinful indulgences and then complaining when they are not blessed. He charges them in return with neglecting His work and refusing to follow His way, with not dealing righteously and therefore not deserving all they require at His hands, revealing hearts unsubdued by grace and rebellious against truth joined to high profession of piety with much outward exactness and great inward wickedness. In contrast true fasting and prayer is yielding mind, heart, and will to God, receiving truth which works by love and purifies the soul, honoring Him by obedience to His holy, just, and good law, keeping His commandments, relieving the suffering and afflicted, and living in harmony with His Word so that His righteousness is revealed.

Sins the Verse Exposes

The trumpet rebuke exposes false fasting joined with self-pleasing, exacting all labor, exploiting workers, oppression, strife, debate, striking with the fist of wickedness, violence, and mere outward bowing of the head like a bulrush with sackcloth and ashes spread underneath, which is not the fast God chooses and does not make the voice to be heard on high. Outward religious devotion, seeking God, delighting in His ways, asking for ordinances of justice, and afflicting the soul cannot excuse wrongdoing or neglect of duty, for the defect is in the people themselves. The fast God accepts breaks bonds of wickedness, undoes heavy burdens and yokes, and sets the oppressed free, and no one has right to dominate fellow believers or make them fear human power rather than God. Such good works do not earn salvation but follow living faith when Christ dwells in the heart and changes life and character, bringing light, healing, guidance, and restoration.

The same exposure condemns selfishness, covetousness, and neglect of positive duties to the needy, for religious profession by Sabbath-keepers who claim to serve God does not cover heartless treatment of those needing thoughtful care. True worship requires sharing bread with the hungry, bringing the homeless poor into the house, covering the naked, releasing the oppressed, and attending personally to children, youth, widows, the fatherless, the aged, and widows and fatherless within the household of faith. Believers must give up luxuries to make the needy comfortable, search them out rather than wait for them to plead, give personal care, and then help suitable recipients beyond the household of faith, while churches must care for their own orphans and aged themselves instead of sending them away. Proclamation of the message is to be joined with relief of families in distress, so believers are seen as warmhearted, self-denying, self-sacrificing ministers to the needy, especially those suffering and cast out for moral courage in accepting truth, though providing for all the depraved, drunkards, and prostitutes is not the appointed work.

The rebuke also exposes trampling of divine precepts, transgression of God's law, and breaking of His everlasting covenant by a people who outwardly seek Him daily and appear devoted to His service. The forsaken ordinance shown is the Sabbath, despised and trampled, with the breach made in God's law to be repaired by restoring the Sabbath institution and keeping the fourth commandment in daily life so faith becomes visible. This violation belongs not only to the wicked world but to God's professed people and to the professed Christian world, whose forgetting God, choosing other gods, and following corrupt ways bring calamity and turning away. Proclaiming the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus as the central theme gives the trumpet a certain sound instead of a vague one weakened by other interests.

Sin is the transgression of the law, yet gross darkness about what constitutes sin rests on the world, with vice, deception, prevarication, dishonesty, pride, hypocrisy, love of dress, frivolity, amusement, desire for supremacy, and worldly compromise and conformity existing even among those professing godliness. Those reproved still seek God daily as a nation that did righteousness and forsook not the ordinance of God while continuing in sin, with the path of duty obscured and only the slightest resemblance to self-denying, cross-lifting Christians. The present call therefore demands a decided testimony, distinctly defining sin and conversion from sin, calling the convicted sinner to repentance toward God for breaking His law and to faith toward Christ, and summoning the church to arise, repent of backslidings, search the heart, pray unitedly, humble the soul under God's mighty hand, and practice entire consecration and vital godliness.

In specific application the warning confronts pride and display mingled with worship, unconverted workers and institutions serving selfish aims, and worldly principles and ambitious plans that concentrate resources and advantages in one place. It confronts business entanglement and merely commercial lines, ambitious building, misuse of means and wasteful spending, and calls those who have means to supply the needs of the Lord's work and lay up treasure beside the throne. It confronts robbing God in tithes and offerings, requiring confession, repentance, restitution, and faithfulness joined with Sabbath observance, along with seductive sophistry in science, human-made demands, dishonest business, perverted appetite, liquor, wrong diet, flesh meat, intemperance, neglect of fellowship and prayer under heavy burdens, harsh parenting, and dangers to children and youth from deceptive reading.

Present Prophetic Application

The whole chapter is a message for the present time, for the last days, for the day of preparation when human probation is near its end and all are deciding eternal destiny. It is to be closely studied, urgently considered by every church member, every true missionary, every believer in the third angel's message and every keeper of the Sabbath, and to be given repeatedly with decided effort and great power. Its application and time of marked fulfillment are not left in doubt, for it is the Lord's command to His servants for this time and a repetition of what the prophet describes, whose earnestness will stir hearts with no departure from the instruction of the Word. It must be brought prominently before the people to arouse them to the solemnity of the time, waking those asleep and calling for decisive moves for God, and it is to be carried by workers in every line — ministers, physicians, nurses, parents — laboring with constantly enlarging understanding of truth.

To lift up the voice like a trumpet is to do the most solemn work now appointed in the world, proclaiming the true light received upon the third angel's message so as to arouse the churches and give light both to God's own people and to the world. That light makes the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus the central theme, exposing violation of God's law even in the professed Christian world, presenting the Sabbath as the great test, and declaring that the mark of the beast is exactly what has been proclaimed. Not all in regard to it is yet understood until the unrolling of the scroll, yet it is to be placed before God's own people in clearer lines and spread by every effort, including printing the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation in small books with necessary explanations and sending them over the world.

The verse was the commission given to John the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord and make ready a people prepared for Him. As the prophets of old did, he was to summon a degenerate nation to repentance, bearing an unflinching testimony in reproving and denouncing sin and showing transgression and sin with boldness. He fulfilled the trumpet call without human scholarship, taught by God and nature, using no long arguments and no fine-spun theories delivered in first, secondly, and thirdly, but pure native eloquence where every word carried certainty and truth. His sharp call condemned the sinful course and practices of the people to stir hearts and prepare them to receive Christ's healing message, meeting sin with open rebuke among men of humble occupation and men of high degree, declaring truth to kings and nobles whether they would hear or reject it, so that all classes were convicted and cut to the heart with a sense of sin. The same charge binds the Lord's ambassadors now to expose sin and uphold the law of God by precept and example whether men will hear or forbear, never joining with the sins of the people or softening the message because of the standing of transgressors.

The chapter describes the present state of the nation, showing that its people have forsaken and forgotten God, chosen other gods, and followed their own corrupt ways until God has turned from them. The inhabitants of the earth have trampled upon the law of God, broken His everlasting covenant, and despised His Sabbath, and this sinful condition is the reason for its calamity. Those transgressions, including the civil war brought by such apostasy, are what the trumpet call is to expose.

Truth that reproves the errors and sins of the time must be presented and not withheld even when it arouses men to evade or resist it and brings opposition. As Luther was urged and compelled by the Spirit of God to battle the evils of his time, those carrying forward reform now must labor in the same manner, convinced of duty, deliberately accepting the cross, choosing the right because it is right and leaving consequences with God. This duty binds everyone who has received the light of truth as fully as it bound the prophet of Israel, and faithful warning delivers the messenger even if the wicked refuse to turn, while silence leaves their blood required at his hand.

United Practical Service Enjoined

Isaiah 58 joins medical missionary work and gospel ministry as two united lines of service by divine appointment, and no one is to divorce them or set one above the other. The chapter lays out the right lines for carrying the third angel's message, in which the ministry is not given an inferior place and the poor and sick are not neglected. It gives wisdom and blessing to those who work as it directs and enlightens all who wish to do God's will, opening abundant opportunity to minister to suffering humanity while bringing the light of truth before a perishing world. That practical work is joined to the third angel's message, not placed above or apart from it, as closely as the hand is joined to the body, so that help for bodily need must never hide the great testing truths or the soul's spiritual needs. What God plainly requires is caring for the sick through practical service under the direction of Jesus, learning and teaching the use of nature's simple remedies, with small sanitariums connected with schools where students learn to treat disease and to act under the Lord's direction.
True religion in the chapter is practical, Christlike benevolence that releases the oppressed, breaks wicked bonds and yokes, lifts heavy burdens, feeds the hungry, shelters the homeless, clothes the naked, and honors the Sabbath, with promised light, healing, guidance, and restoration following faithful practice. Outward devotion, fasting, seeking God, asking for justice, and ceremony are empty and rejected when joined with selfishness, strife, debate, oppression, violence, and neglect of the needy, for the fast God accepts frees the oppressed and undoes burdens. Such good works do not earn salvation but follow from living faith with Christ dwelling in the heart, changing life and character into meekness and lowliness, and no one has any right to dominate fellow believers or make them fear human power rather than God. This benevolent gospel work after Christ's ministry brings life to the churches through generosity, labor, and personal service, and is the calling of God's people everywhere. Churches are to care for their own poor and suffering themselves, including orphans, the aged, and other needy members, rather than sending them away or leaving them to others, giving up luxuries to make them comfortable, and then helping suitable persons beyond the household of faith. Proclaiming the message wherever truth takes hold is to be joined with relief of families in distress, so believers appear as warmhearted, self-denying, self-sacrificing people who cheerfully minister to the needy, especially those suffering and cast out for courage in accepting truth, while providing for all the depraved, drunkards, and prostitutes is not the work given to commandment keepers.
The chapter calls every believer beyond sitting in church listening to preaching into earnest, faithful missionary labor that brings people to see sin and to serve others. Its message is to be carried to all classes and places without selfish limits, by lives shaped by truth and acts that benefit those without its light, creating interest in present truth, lifting up Christ, visiting families, working cities and new fields by preaching and by the press, at camp meetings and from house to house, using every talent however small while time remains. Doing this individual work while abiding in Christ and eating the bread of life, ceasing faultfinding and improving self, gives a healthy growing experience, overcomes selfishness, brings blessing and power, makes the church's light shine clearly, and sends God's righteousness before His workers. It bids every ministering servant proclaim God's encouraging message of mercy in the cities, where men and women are becoming entangled in business relations, acting wildly in erecting buildings whose towers reach high, with minds filled with schemes and ambitious devisings. Work in the home field and neglected cities is as important as any foreign field and a vital present duty to be done earnestly now while opportunity is most favorable, before the situation becomes much more difficult and leaves guilt, divine displeasure, and no answer in the final reckoning. Plain trumpet preaching that shows God's people their duty also authorizes strong appeal to those with means to help the Lord's work and supply the needs of sanitariums, not spending all effort merely in commercial lines but laying up treasure beside the throne, and speaking from this chapter brings the Lord's blessing.
Practical duties, including those to be done when a church is established, must never divert money and workers from proclaiming the third angel's message nor be used to justify expansive institutions and work for degraded classes at the expense of that appointed mission. The chapter portrays care for those convicted and converted through truth who become loyal, keep the commandments, and work with God, and it does not support spending God's funds on work among the slum population when that diverts aid from poor faithful commandment keepers in need. God's people must stay wide awake to prepare the way for Christ's second coming by doing the distinct reproving, sin-revealing work the world will not do, rather than spending means and strength on slum work and medical missionary work the world would largely do itself. That reproving work must never be swallowed up by such enterprises nor separated from the ministry of the word and the health-restoring gospel. Reading the chapter is urged together with self-denial and the use of means to help needy missions and build humble houses of worship.

Faithful Delivery Is Required

The charge lays its obligation on ministers, on watchmen standing on the walls of Zion, on physicians, and on every believer who has received light, and when elders fail the youth are to take up the work, all being bound to study the Bible, humble the heart before God, seek the Lord while He may be found, pray with diligent importunate pleading, and proclaim the message plainly and boldly in season and out of season. It means warning when warning is needed, rebuking sin and correcting error and wrong not only in the pulpit but by personal labor, laying before lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God the dangers around them and the doom of the impenitent, and faithfully exposing covered wrongs on the right hand and on the left even when the ears of hearers tingle and the truth is unwelcome to natural inclination. The testing truths thus echoed must reach every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, and be carried earnestly into the home field and the neglected cities of America while the time is most favorable, before entanglement in business relations, wild building, and ambitious schemes makes the work far more difficult. This warning is to be given with the Holy Spirit's inspiration, not by human force and presumption, not by unguarded utterance or self-worked zeal running ahead of Christ, but by letting the Holy Spirit use and mold the messenger after the divine Pattern and by following where Christ leads.

It must be obeyed with patience, moderation, self-control, careful speech, humility, Christlike tenderness, meekness, and love, without harshness, thrusting, crowding, or condemning those who do not have the same light. It gives no license to go out of the way to make hard thrusts at Catholics, among whom are many most conscientious Christians who walk in all the light shining upon them and for whom God will work, and those who bear the message must be very cautious not to censure and condemn others who before God are less guilty than themselves. Greater danger and greater condemnation rest on those with great privileges and opportunities who fail to improve physical, mental, and moral powers, who live to please themselves and refuse responsibility, and who through selfish considerations, false reasoning, and false excuses come into a perverse state of mind and heart not to know God's ways and will, than on those in error on doctrinal points who seek to live to do good to others, and far more guilty than the open sinner are such privileged professors living for self.

It requires plain, decided, unsparing dealing with individual and institutional wrongs, naming wrongdoing and deception, refusing to hold peace or stay silent when unsanctified decisions stand in the way of the Lord's work even when the mission is not recognized in councils, and warning whether men will listen or not. This applies to the Laodicean condition, to much accepted at Battle Creek that God does not approve, to institutions turned to selfish aims, to workers not converted, and to the call for sanctified service and setting matters right rather than fasting and prayer alone. It includes the duty to warn a brother who continues in sin, for failure there leaves the watchman's own soul out of right standing with God, and it calls those who claim to believe the truth to separate from persons who justify wrong and spread deceit and to refuse support to those persisting in them, because continuance brings ruin to souls. It likewise refuses deceptive science and human control, giving no sanction even by silence to persistent wrongdoing and deceit.

It means close self-examination that discovers sins to repent, confess, and forsake, coming intelligently before God with earnest desire to follow on to know the Lord, understanding the movings of the Spirit upon the heart and knowing that God is dealing with men and men with God. It means receiving Bible truth enthroned in the heart, practicing practical godliness and Bible religion that does justice and mercy, keeps all the commandments, honors the Sabbath against neglect and irreverence, and ever lifts up the purest principles of the kingdom, so that faithful example gives life and power to the trumpet witness. Studied closely with Malachi 3 and 4, the chapter gives light and reviving healing to those rejoicing in hope of the soon-coming morning, with infinite bliss and boundless joy as the enduring reward of the righteous.

It guards the faith by giving no sanction even by silence to the work of the mystery of iniquity, never ceasing to sound the alarm, teaching churches and youth to make no concession to the man of sin, and maintaining and advocating the truth as it is in Jesus fully avowed and boldly proclaimed rather than hidden, denied, or disguised. It keeps the trumpet clear against false theories, strange doctrines, and undermining of the fundamental truths established by many miraculous evidences, affirming the truth in contradiction to skepticism and fallacies from the enemy, allowing no confederacy with the world and no change in the distinct features prophecy gave the work. In the last days this centers on the enemy's determined effort against the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, which awakens decided interest in that decided test and opens the way for the third angel's message to be proclaimed with power, while wealth, honor, comfort, and homes are held secondary and conflict is met in Christ's spirit and meekness even at risk of property and liberty. The warning therefore joins proclamation of the law with proclamation of the Lord as righteousness and justification, which many professing the third angel's message had lost sight of, and joins the call to arouse a darkened earth with climbing by faith the ladder from earth to heaven seen at Bethel, Christ Himself through whom all blessings come.

Response Promises and Warnings

When heeded, the trumpet warning gains attention, for without awakened attention all effort is useless even if an angel spoke, and it arouses the church to action and prepares the way for the Spirit to come in. It exposes transgressions and character defects rather than flattering, laying bare self-exaltation, self-deception, and failure to honor God by Christlike self-denial, in order to bring to the senses those who bear His honorable name. It convicts the heart and exposes iniquity even in life's minutiae, including pride, hypocrisy, deception, love of dress, frivolity, amusement, desire for supremacy, and backsliding that cloud the mind to eternal things. It leads to earnest searching of heart, claiming the promises by faith, united persevering prayer, deep humiliation of soul under God's mighty hand rather than outward sackcloth, repentance, confession, conversion, and thorough reform. So received and applied to the individual life, it brings meekness and lowliness, wrestling in prayer for strength to make God known in word and action until Christ's likeness is reflected and faith is made visible in righteous character and mercy, justice, and judgment.

Often the plain straight testimony from lips moved by the Spirit is treated with disdain, evaded, resisted, and opposed. Sleepy sentinels demand smooth things and peace and cannot endure to be told of faults, while those who sympathize with and shield the reproved excuse them and opposers step between messenger and people to make the message of no effect. The burden therefore remains not to cease when the message does not coincide with prevailing opinions and when eyes and ears are closed, but to continue exposing the wrong spirit and conduct. This rebuke is divine love, since Christ rebukes those He loves because He died to redeem them, and it is carried out not by human power but by God's Spirit.

Obedience brings the blessings specified for following the right course: light going before, healing, guidance, restoration, and enlarged understanding through practice, with calm unwavering trust in Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Those who take up the duties close at hand and do the acceptable work of releasing the oppressed, sharing with the hungry and poor, and honoring the Sabbath guard against the faults condemned in ancient Israel and receive wisdom and blessing. Working to benefit and bless others overcomes selfishness with moral power, brings prayers heard and answered, creates satisfaction and peace in the soul of more value than gold, and every faithful performance stands registered in heaven with more than earthly reward as a sacred duty of receiving grace to give. The chapter thus gives light to all who wish to do God's will and rejoice in hope of the soon-coming morning, showing His desire to send reviving healing beams with infinite bliss and boundless joy as the enduring reward of the righteous.

Its words will come to many minds when Christ returns in glory with the holy angels, when all are convinced that God has set apart the godly for Himself. Disregarded reproofs leave neglected duties and unwarned souls, for men who resist warnings must recognize harm done to themselves and others, afflict the soul, repent, and humble themselves. The warning must not be softened to spare those in sin but must lay bare inconsistency where profession and outward devotion are contradicted by works and words, giving opportunity to repent and be restored to favor even when painful to give and hear. Unheeded, it leaves souls perishing in sin under coming judgment proclaimed with the call to be ready for Christ's soon return, with judgment beginning with professed believers transgressing the law.

The whole chapter is to be memorized to resist temptation and to prove identity by keeping the commandments and the faith of Jesus, and to be carefully studied together with Malachi 3 and 4 and with Isaiah 45, 49, and 55. Its principles are to be practiced in sanitariums and medical institutions so patients see truth, justice, and mercy lived out with sacred influence and unjust charges rejected. It points out the evil of the diseased soul and its remedy and calls for decided, deep, thorough reformation of repentance among youth and instructors of youth, applied in homes where parents kindly lead children to Christ. It urges resolute laying hold of the acceptable fast of dealing bread to the hungry and bringing the homeless poor into the house by searching them out rather than waiting for them to plead, reaching up by faith to God's saving arm while reaching out in love to relieve the oppressed. That practical obedience is to be sustained by appeals for means, consecrated property, and continued publishing, that the uncompromising message exposing sin may urge putting sin away, living in true piety, and being sanctified through the truth.