Turn to the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah.
Let us read a portion of that chapter to begin with this evening,
as connecting with the close of the lesson we had last night:
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice
like a trumpet and show my people their transgression and the
house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight
to know my ways as a nation that did righteousness and forsook
not the ordinance of their God.
Just as though they were in harmony with
all the ordinances of the Lord.
They ask of me the ordinances of justice;
they take delight in approaching to God. Wherefore have we fasted,
say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our
soul and thou takest no knowledge? [Here is the answer.] Behold,
in the day of your fast ye find pleasure and exact all your labors.
Behold, ye fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist
of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your
voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen?
The text asks, "Is it...a day for
a man to afflict his soul?" The margin is the better reading:
"Is it... for a man to afflict his soul for a day?"
A man proposes to fast; he goes without vituals, perhaps from
breakfast to supper--and afflicts his soul by thus going hungry
and calls that a fast. He has afflicted his soul for a day.
Is it such a fast that I have chosen?
for a man to afflict his soul for a day? Is it to bow down his
head as a bulrush and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
wilt thou call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord?
Here is the fast that the Lord has appointed:
Is not this the fast that I have chosen?
to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens,
and to let the oppressed go free and that ye break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring
the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the
naked, that thou cover him and that thou hide not thyself from
thine own flesh?
That is the point at which the lesson
closed last night. That is the fast that God has chosen for His
people; that is an acceptable fast unto the Lord. But that fast
never can be observed until those who would observe it have come
to the place where they shall see Jesus Christ allied, as He
is, to every soul on this earth and shall treat him according
to the alliance that Christ has made with him. When we reach
that place--and we reach it in Jesus Christ, for it is there--then
that will be the fast that we will observe right along.
I have a sentence here that I will read.
I found it in a Testimony the other day:
Search heaven and earth and there is no
truth revealed more powerful than that which is manifested in
mercy to the very ones who need your sympathy and aid in breaking
the yoke and setting free the oppressed. Here the truth is lived,
the truth is obeyed, the truth is taught, as it is in Jesus.
So then in manifesting mercy to those
who need sympathy, in manifesting aid in breaking the yoke and
setting free the oppressed--in that the truth is lived, the truth
is obeyed; in that the truth is taught, as it is in Jesus. Assuredly.
Does not that bring us right where Jesus is? Is not that Jesus
Himself? The very thing that we are studying is that Christ has
allied Himself with every soul on the earth. He has linked Himself
with every human being, with every one in sinful flesh, and we
are not to hide ourselves from Him who is our flesh. And when
we who profess the name of Christ shall respect Him in every
man with whom He has allied Himself, there will be just one grand
Christian Help Band wherever Seventh-day Adventists are found.
Then Christian Help work will be going on everywhere and all
the time, for that is Christianity itself.
Now I have not a thing to say against
the organization of Christian Help Bands that have been organized,
but it is too bad that they had to be organized out of so few
Seventh-day Adventists. That is all the trouble. Why should it
be that only a portion of the church should be ready to engage
in Christian Help work or compose a Christian Help Band? What
is our profession in the world? We profess the name of Christ,
which in the nature of things, demands that we respect the investment
that He has made in every human soul and that we minister to
all in need.
On the other hand, the organization of
Christian Help Bands or any other kind of bands to do this thing
from the side of mere duty, urging ourselves on to do it and
pledging ourselves to do it without seeing Jesus Christ in it
and without this connection with Christ and this love for Him
that sees His interests in all human beings and ministers to
Him as He is linked to all men--that will miss it also. Other
kinds of Christian work will go along with that, but this is
the greatest. "Search heaven and earth and there is no truth
revealed more powerful" in Christian work and in teaching
the truth as it is in Jesus. In heaven and earth there is nothing
like it.
Just in this time, when such a fast as
that is needed everywhere and among us especially, how blessed
a thing it is that the Lord brings us right to that point and
reveals the whole subject to us, giving us the Spirit and the
secret that will do the whole of it in Christ's name, for His
sake, with His Spirit, and to every man, because every soul is
the purchase of Christ. Wherever we meet a human being, Christ
has allied Himself with that man. Whoever He is, the Lord is
interested in Him; He has invested all that He has in that man.
This truth draws us to the point where
we shall always be doing everything possible to put forth the
attractions of Christ, the graces of Christ and the goodness
of Christ to men who know Him not but in whom He has invested
all so that they may be drawn to where they, too, will respect
the goodness of Christ and the wondrous investment that He has
made in them.
If you are doing it for the man's sake
or for your own credit, you may be taken in, of course. But if
you do it as unto Christ and because of Christ's interest in
the man, it is literally impossible for you ever to be "taken
in, for Christ ever liveth and doth not forget. "Give to
Him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee
turn not thou away."
Here is the principle: It is to Christ
that we are doing it. And as stated in the previous lesson, though
the man may despise Christ and never believe on Him as long as
the world lasts and may sink into perdition at the last, Christ
in that great day when I stand on His right hand yonder will
not have forgotten it. And in remembrance of it He will then
say: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least
of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
You remember the place where He says:
"Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little
ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily
I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." Matt.
10:42. And this being so, when done only in the name of a disciple,
how much more when it is done always in the name of the Lord
himself! "For God is not unrighteous to forget your work
and labor of love which ye have showed toward His name in that
ye have ministered to the saints and do minister." Heb.
6:10. Do you minister? That is the question.
This is the true fellowship of man, the
true brotherhood of man. A great deal is said nowadays about"the
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man." But it is
just the brotherhood of such men as they approve all the time.
If you belong to our order, then that is the brotherhood of man,
but if you do not, we have nothing to do with you. Even churches
also act the same way: If you belong to our church, then that
is the brotherhood of man, but if you do not belong to our church,
why, we have no particular interest in you, as we have nothing
to do, properly, with caring for those who are outside of our
church. This is our brotherhood of man.
All this is not the brotherhood of man
at all. The true fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man is
the brotherhood of man in Jesus Christ. It is to see Jesus Christ
as He has allied Himself to every man, and as He has invested
all He has in every man. He has broken down the middle wall of
partition. In His flesh, which was our flesh, He has broken down
the middle wall of partition that was between us, for to make
in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace indeed. And
in Him there is neither Greek nor Jew, black nor white, barbarian,
Cythian, bond, nor free; nothing of the kind. All are one in
Christ Jesus, and there is no respect of persons with God.
In Jesus Christ alone is the fatherhood
of God and the brotherhood of man, and in Jesus Christ we find
the brotherhood of man only when we find Christ the Brother of
every man.
It is written, "For which cause He
is not ashamed to call them brethren." Not ashamed to call
who brethren? Every one that is of flesh and blood--Christ is
not ashamed to call him brother. He is not ashamed to go and
take him by the hand, even though his breath does smell of liquor
and say, "Come with me, and let us go a better way."
That is the brotherhood of man.
It has been Satan's work always to get
men to think that God is far away as possible. But it is the
Lord's everlasting effort to get men to find out that He is as
near to every one as possible. So it is written: He is not far
from every one of us.
The great trouble with heathenism was
to think that God was so far away--not only far away but full
of wrath at them all, and only waiting to get a chance to pick
them up and savagely shake them and plunge them into perdition.
So viewing Him, they made offerings to get Him in a good humor
and to keep Him from hurting them. But He was not far from every
one of them all the time. "Not far." That is near--so
near that all they had to do was to "feel after him."
Although they were blind and in the dark too, all they had to
do was to feel after Him and they would "find him."
Acts 17:21-28.
Then the papacy came in, the very incarnation
of that enmity between man and God. This incarnation of evil
entered under the name of Christianity, and it again puts God
and Christ so far away that nobody can come near to them. Everybody
else comes in before God.
Then in addition to all this, He is so
far away that Mary and her mother and her father--and then all
the rest of the Catholic saints clear down to Joan of Arc and
Christopher Columbus pretty soon--all these have to come in between
God and men so as to make such a connection that all can be sure
that they are noticed by Him.
But this is all of Satan's invention.
Christ is not so far away as that. He is not far enough away
to get a single relation in between Him and me or between Him
and you. And this is just where God wants us to view Him--so
near that it is impossible for anything or anybody to get between.
But to how many people has He come so near? He is not far from
every one of us, even the heathen.
The incarnation of that enmity that is
against God and that separates between man and God--the papacy
built up this, and now here is this same thought that we mentioned
a moment ago, the false idea that He is so holy that it would
be entirely unbecoming in Him to come near to us and be possessed
of such a nature as we have--sinful, depraved, fallen human nature.
Therefore Mary must be born immaculate, perfect, sinless, and
higher than the cherubim and seraphim and then Christ must be
so born of her as to take His human nature in absolute sinlessness
from her. But that puts Him farther away from us than the cherubim
and the seraphim are and in a sinless nature.
But if He comes no nearer to us than in
a sinless nature, that is a long way off, because I need somebody
that is nearer to me than that. I need someone to help me who
knows something about sinful nature, for that is the nature that
I have, and such the Lord did take. He became one of us. Thus,
you see, this is present truth in every respect, now that the
papacy is taking possession of the world and the image of it
is going on in the wrong way, forgetting all that God is in Jesus
Christ and all that Christ is in the world--having the form of
godliness without the reality, without the power. In this day
is it not just the thing that is needed in the world, that God
should proclaim the real merits of Jesus Christ once more and
His holiness?
It is true He is holy; He is altogether
holy. But His holiness is not that kind that makes Him afraid
to be in company with people who are not holy for fear He will
get His holiness spoiled. Anybody who has such a kind of holiness
that they cannot be found in the company--in the name of Jesus
Christ--of people who are fallen and lost and degraded, without
spoiling it would better get rid of it as quickly as possible
and get the right kind, because that kind of holiness is not
worth having. It is already spoiled.
[Question: What about the reputation?
Answer: The Christian has no reputation.
He has character. The Christian asks no questions about reputation.
Character, character is all that the Christian cares for and
that the character of God, revealed in Jesus Christ.]
But there is a great amount of just that
kind of holiness among professed Christians in these days--indeed,
I am not sure that it is all outside of the Seventh-day Adventist
denomination. It is that kind of "holiness" which leads
many to be ready to exclaim if a brother or sister--a sister
especially--should go among the fallen, unfortunate ones and
begin to work for them and sympathize with them and help them
up: "O, well, if you are going with such people as that,
I cannot associate with you any more. Indeed, I am not sure that
I want to belong to the church any more, if you are going to
work for such people and bring them into the church."
The answer to all such expressions as
those is: Very good. If you do not want to belong to the church
with such people as that, you would better get out of the church
as quickly as possible, for very soon the church of Jesus Christ
is going to have just that kind of people in it. "The publicans
and the harlots go into the kingdom before you."
The church of Jesus Christ, in a little
while, is going to be so molded upon the grace of Jesus Christ
and so filled with His holy character that its members will not
be afraid to go, as did He, to the lowest depths to pick up the
fallen. They will have such measure of the holiness of Jesus
Christ that they will not be afraid of becoming defiled by going
in His name down to the lowest.
But that kind of holiness which says:
"Come not near to me, for I am holier than thou"--stand
aloof or you will defile my holy garments--O, that is the holiness
of the devil! Away with it!
God's holiness is pure, that is true;
it is such holiness that sin cannot bear the presence of it.
It is holiness of such transcendent purity and power as to be
a consuming fire to sin. Its consuming power upon sin is because
of its wondrous purity, and therefore because of the wondrous
purity, and the power of that wondrous purity of the holiness
of God in Jesus Christ, He longs to come in contact with those
who are laden with sins, who are permeated through and through
with sins in order that this holiness, finding an entrance, shall
consume the sin and save the soul. That is Christ's holiness.
It is one of the most blessed truths in
the Bible, that our God is a consuming fire because of His holiness.
For then in Jesus Christ we meet Him whose holiness is a consuming
fire to sin, and that is the pledge of our salvation in perfection
from every stain of sin. The brightness, the glory, the all consuming
purity of that holiness will take every vestige of sin and sinfulness
out of the man who will meet God in Jesus Christ.
Thus in His true holiness, Christ could
come and did come to sinful men in sinful flesh, where sinful
men are. Thus in Christ and in Christ alone is found the brotherhood
of man. All indeed are one in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Some have found and all may find in the
Testimonies the statement that Christ has not "like passions"
as we have. The statement is there; every one may find it there,
of course.
Now there will be no difficulty in any
of these studies from beginning to end. If you will stick precisely
to what is said and not go beyond what is said nor put into it
what is not said, whether it be touching Church and State, separation
from the world or this of Christ in our flesh. Stick strictly
to what is said. Do not go to drawing curious conclusions. Some
have drawn the conclusion some time ago--and you can see what
a fearful conclusion it is--that "Christ became ourselves;
He is our flesh. Therefore, I am Christ." They say Christ
forgave sins; I can forgive sins; He wrought miracles; I must
work miracles. That is a fearful argument. There are no two ways
about that.
Christ became ourselves, in our place,
weak as we, and in all points like as we are, in order that he
might be that forever and never that we should be Himself. No.
It is God who is to be manifested always and not ourselves. In
order that this might be, Christ emptied Himself and took ourselves
in order that God Himself might come to us, appear in us, and
be revealed in us and through us in all things. It is always
God and never ourselves. That which ruined us at the start was
the exaltation of ourselves, the setting forth of ourselves and
the putting of ourselves above God. In order that we might get
rid of our wicked selves, Christ emptied His righteous self and
stood in the place of our wicked selves and crucified ourselves,
putting ourselves under foot always, in order that God might
be all in all. How much? All. All in how many? All. It was done
that God might be all that there is in me and all there is in
you and all there is in Christ. Assuredly that is what this was
done for. We are not to exalt ourselves. Christ is to increase.
I am to decrease. He is to live. I am to die. He is to be exalted.
I am to be emptied.
[1895 GC Sermons Contents]